Between settling the camp and agreeing with one another on details, the “Bobbies” were a busy little band for days after the canvas had been stretched and the ropes pegged down. It seemed so simple to wish for a camp and get it, but now that simplicity assumed complex proportions, and while it was all fascinating to the very point of thrills, yet the details were very exacting.
The tent was just large enough to take in the eight cots and to shelter such equipment as should be protected from the elements; but it now appeared there was so much to be “sheltered” and so many “luxuries” to be provided for, at the suggestion of the girls who had not learned real Scout camping as Corene had done, that the adjuncts in the way of “lean-tos” and annexes being made or proposed to be made by any or all members of the squad, threatened presently to be bigger and more important than the tent itself.
Every girl came daily armed with her Scout books, if for no other purpose than to offset Corene’s objections to “cluttering things up.”
It was first arranged to have a heavy matting put over the sod for flooring, and a rug had been promptly donated, but again the grown-ups had a say, and real flooring was ordered and put on a high foundation, so that there would be less danger of colds from dampness.
If Cleo could be kept from stringing up strips of cretonne “to give color” she might have done something useful; while Julia’s joy in building the stone oven outside, threatened to keep her busy for the entire vacation. Louise ran to “table fixin’s.” She was responsible for a rustic “sideboard” made from the empty barrels and discarded freight boards, curtained effectively with the water-proof burlap, and gaily flaunting a real wood fern in a red nail keg right in the center of the top shelf. Standing off and viewing these artistic achievements took a lot of time, and incidentally left a lot of more important work unfinished.
“Where are we going to put the food?” demanded dainty Julia. “Not out there for the flies, Weasy!”
“No, certainly not,” said Louise. “I don’t have anything to do with the food. That goes with the kitchen work.”
“And whose work is that?” Corene laid down her hammer to ask.
“Whose?” asked the others.
“Everyone’s,” came back Corene. “We must take turns at that, but we must make arrangements for the ‘eats’ right away. Who has been down to the spring?”