Having no good reply to this, which Dalton resented, he curbed his rising anger at this rude acquaintance and watched him stride in the direction of the road, which wound through the woods some distance away. “Well, your room is far better than your company,” thought Dalton, as he picked up his sticks, making a load of them. He wondered whether this were one of the fishermen or not. He did not have the same speech as that of the other New Englanders whom they had recently met. The man who had brought their goods from the station had been most friendly, answering their questions and volunteering all kinds of interesting information about the country. It was odd that he had not mentioned the people at Steeple Rocks, but it had so happened.
With such thoughts, Dalton went through the woods, whose wonderful pines had so delighted them, and finally joined the girls, arranging his firewood at a convenient distance. Leslie found little things for Dalton to do and supper was hurried up. The table was used for buttering bread and fixing sandwiches; then each with a loaded plate sought a place around the fire, which Dalton heaped with firewood till it blazed as hotly as was safe.
There was some scrambling around when the wind veered and blew the smoke in the wrong direction, but the camp was more or less protected from the direct breeze. Happy and hungry, the campers disposed of a good meal in the midst of considerable fun and joking. Long acquaintance had made Sarita like a member of the family. She and Leslie recounted amusing incidents of their school year just ended, or consulted Dalton about their plans for the camp and the Eyrie. Elizabeth woke to something like her old fire and announced that she intended to go back to “sweet sixteen” and play with the rest of them.
“Oh, Beth, bob your hair, then!” urged Leslie, running her fingers through her own curly brown mop.
“Not much she doesn’t!” Dalton objected. “I can’t imagine Beth without her piles of pretty hair. Who was that beau, Beth, that wrote about your ‘waves of burnished gold’?”
Beth laughed. “I was very mad, then, when you infants discovered that poem.”
“Beth’s hair is just a little too dark to be called ‘golden,’” reflectively said Sarita. “You might braid it and wear it over your shoulders, Indian fashion.”
“It would be in my way, my dear.”
“Bob it, Beth!” again said Leslie. “Dalton is just like the rest of the men about a girl’s hair. Think how fine it will be not to have so much to dry when you go in swimming.”
“Don’t you weaken, Beth,” spoke Dalton, eating his last sandwich. “Think of the ‘artistic Miss Secrest’ without her ‘wonderful hair.’”