It was great to have the freedom instead of taking the examinations. Their parents congratulated them and expressed pride that they had made high grades, but the girls were surprised at the lack of interest they showed when the subject of camping was definitely put before them.
“Why, I can’t get Father and Mother interested at all,” Jean complained. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them! They haven’t any great objections, as I thought they might have, but I can’t get them to do anything.”
“Same thing at our house,” said Leigh Dudley. “I thought that Mother, at least, would be interested, but she asked if I thought Grace were old enough to take care of us, and where we thought we’d like to camp, and said that she would think about it; but when I asked her if we could pick out the sort of tent we wanted, she said, ‘Well, it wouldn’t do any harm,’ even if we didn’t go!”
“We ought to have begun to talk it up earlier,” Fran declared. “But all is not lost. We’ll just have to keep it before them, in a very nice way, of course. Teasing is N. G. at our house.”
“Also at ours,” said Nan.
“Especially tell them how safe it will be near home and how much better off we are than girls who have to go a long way off from home, pay a big railroad fare and aren’t familiar with the country as we are here, to know about snakes and things.”
“Better not mention snakes!”
“This sounds awful, girls, as if we were in the habit of ‘working’ our folks!” Thus Jean.
“It isn’t ‘working’ them, Jean,” said Fran, “but you do have to use some tact to get the grown-ups interested. And we do want to go, and we think it will be all right. Now if we can only get them to thinking so, too!”
“All right, Fran.”