“Be quiet, girls,” she called. “One tent has gone over, but nobody’s hurt. Mary Hastings, slip on your coat and rubbers, and come and help us—quick!”
“I’m coming,” called Mary instantly, and directly she was out in the storm. Where the next tent had been, nothing but the wooden flooring, the iron cots, and four wooden boxes remained, and over these the rain was pouring in heavy, blinding sheets. Mrs. Royall, as wet as if she had just come out of the bay, was holding up a lantern, by the light of which Mary caught a fleeting glimpse of four figures in dripping raincoats scudding towards the dining-room, while two others followed them with arms full of wet bedding.
Mrs. Royall told Mary to gather up the bedding from a third cot and carry that to the dining-room, “And you take the rest of it,” she added to another girl, who had followed Mary. “And stay in the dining-room—both of you. Don’t come out again. Miss Anne will tell you what to do there.”
She held the lantern high until the girls reached the dining-room, then she hurried to another tent, from which came a hubbub of frightened cries. Pushing aside the canvas curtain she stepped inside the tent, and holding up her lantern, looked about her. The cries and excited exclamations ceased at the sight of her, though one girl could not control her nervous sobbing.
“What is the matter here? Your tent hasn’t blown over. What are you crying about, Rose?” Mrs. Royall demanded.
Rose Anderson, an excitable little creature of fifteen, lifted a face white as chalk. “O,” she sobbed, “something came in—right up on my bed. It was big and—and furry—and wet! O Mrs. Royall, I never was so scared in my life!” She ended with a burst of hysterical sobbing.
Mrs. Royall cast a swift searching glance around the tent, then—wet and cold and worried as she was, her face crinkled into sudden laughter.
“Look, Rose—over there on that box. That must be the wet, furry big intruder that scared you so!”
Four pairs of round frightened eyes followed her pointing finger; and on the box they saw a half-grown rabbit, with eyes bulging like marbles as the little creature crouched there in deadly terror. One glance, and three of the girls broke into shrieks of nervous laughter in which, after a moment, Rose joined. And having begun to laugh the girls kept on, until those in the other tents began to wonder if somebody had gone crazy. Mrs. Royall finally had to speak sternly to put an end to the hysterical chorus.
“There, there, girls, that will do—now be quiet! Listen, the thunder is fainter now, and the lightning less sharp. I think the wind is going down too. Are any of you wet?”