“Oh, oh! This is the funniest thing I ever heard!” said she. “Why, my dear Kate, don’t you know that half the sport of camping is trying to do without modern equipment? Every camper tries to use wood-material only for home, furniture and outfit. What would the founders of the girls’ scouts say if they heard we cooked our camp meals on a kitchen range in the woods!”
“Do you really mean that you do not want it?” asked Mrs. Ormsby.
“Of course not! We have a fine fireplace and oven, so the stove and stove-pipe may as well go back on the truck.”
“Maybe you will scorn the walnut bed I brought as a great surprise? I heard there was a spring and mattress, so I had the bed brought from the loft and moved here on the truck with the other things. But it is so massive and heavy, no one could carry the head and foot boards up the hill. We thought Hepsy could do that,” explained Mrs. Ormsby, dubiously to be sure, after the reception her other gift had received.
Mrs. Vernon now laughed as heartily as the scouts had done just before this. “Oh! That awful bedstead that always took an acre lot to hold it! Where could we put it up? Our huts will never hold one section of it.”
“I have a brilliant idea, Mrs. Vernon,” now said Mr. Gilroy. “Suppose we put up the bed down there in some secluded nook and then with the spring and mattress I can have a wonderful suite of my own for a few nights.”
“There! I knew that bed would prove useful!” declared Mrs. Ormsby, sending a look of thanks to Mr. Gilroy.
“Maybe Mr. Gilroy would like the stove, too, to dry out the dampness from the ground where he camps,” suggested Julie.
Every one laughed excepting Betty; she took the idea as literal, and said: “That might be a good plan for us—to use it in front of the fireplace. You see, we can’t burn wood there ’cause it smokes so, but the stove-pipe can be run right up the flues so all the smoke from the stove will manage to get up where it ought to go.”
Another shout of laughter greeted this original proposition, and Mrs. Vernon finally gasped: “If the stove goes in the hut, we will have to stay out!”