“Because they’re snippy and call us ‘candy kids,’” replied Cleo. “It seems to me they look more like candy themselves, with their taffy hair and peppermint-striped bathing-suits.”
Grace silently agreed, and soon all the paddlers bent their interest and energy on making a perfect landing.
At the director’s signal they stopped paddling some little distance out, then steered past the flock of motor boats into the side of the dock, where as pretty a landing was made as the big Pedagogue ever had to her credit.
Miss Mackin and Corene sprang ashore first, and held the boat while the others quickly and alertly followed.
Again they were the center of an admiring throng, and again the Bobbies felt suffused with a pardonable pride. They were really the first group of Girl Scouts to be seen about the lake, and it was not surprising that they should attract some attention.
Some provisions for the next day were purchased, as the Point was the center of supplies for the colonists, then, after a half hour spent in recreation about the pier, the party embarked again and paddled back toward the camp landing.
The evening “had ripened” as Louise expressed it, and a calm mellowness seemed to settle over everything about the water and its shores.
“Let us try a song,” suggested Miss Mackin. “Who can lead?”
“Weasy!” came the chorus; and presently the newest version of popular songs, adjusted to the Girl Scout needs, with clever words that just fitted the tunes, were “tried” and rather successfully executed. The clear, true voice of Weasy carried along the more uncertain tones of Grace and Cleo, like chips of sound on the crest of a song wave, and once started the “sing” went merrily on until the home dock was finally reached.
A sigh of satisfaction ended the chorus. The Pedagogue was docked and stored for the night, although the interested Benny and his clan crawled under the big canoe “just for sport,” the Bobbies said good-night and turned back to the hills for their first night under the stars.