CHAPTER XII
The Youngsters’ Great Day
“Say, fellows,” said Bert, as he lay stretched out lazily beneath the limbs of a spreading beech, “isn’t this the finest day ever?”
“You bet it is,” said Tom, “the mould was broken when this day was made.”
It was, indeed, one of the perfect days that come sometimes to break the heat of sweltering midsummer. A brisk wind stirred the branches through which the sunlight, flecking lazily the ground beneath, played over the group of boys, who lay in all sorts of abandoned attitudes on a bit of rising ground a little removed from the camp. They had had a splendid morning’s sport. The coolness of the day and the fine condition of the roads and meadows had suggested to them the game of Hare and Hounds. Up hill and down dale they had raced with occasional intervals of rest. When the hares had successfully shaken off their pursuers, still the bewildered hounds had nosed about, so to speak, seeking to pick up the lost trail. Bert and Tom had been the hares and their escape from capture had added to the delight occasioned by the day and the game itself. It was only after the rice that they had carried in their pouches to make a trail had been almost exhausted, that they thought of doubling on their tracks and making for camp.
The hounds had trailed in a little later on, looking a bit discomfited but not disheartened. As Pete Hart, one of the hounds, said “though slightly disfigured they were still in the ring.” And, oh, how that dinner tasted and how impossible it was almost for the famished boys to wait while the fish snatched from the brook that morning were frizzling in the pan and came in tantalizing whiffs to the nostrils of the boys. Something more substantial than whiffs, however, did quickly follow, and now like gorged anacondas full to the brim, they lay stretched out upon the grass and talked over the events of the morning.
“I tell you what, boys,” said Frank, “it sure was the luckiest day in my life when I struck this camp.”
“Well,” said Tom, “I reckon we all say amen to that. Think of being out in these woods on such a day as this with a lot of jolly good fellows and not a thing to do but be happy. When I think of the people in town roasting under the summer heat while we are out here under the trees, you bet I feel sorry for them.”