“If we decide on such a plan, we could prepare to leave home the week following the closing of school. I think it will take us at least that long to get everything ready, you know.”
“Oh, how wonderful!” breathed Betty, joyfully.
“Our dreams come true!” sighed Joan and Julie.
But Ruth, as usual, could not accept any proposition, no matter how pleasant, without argument. So she said: “How do we know this campsite is where we might wish to spend a summer?”
“Mrs. Lee and I spent a summer there when we were girls, and your own mother cried because she had to go with her parents to the farm in the Catskills, instead of camping with her schoolmates. Perhaps your mother will describe the beauties of this place to you, so you will feel sure it is desirable enough for you,” said Mrs. Vernon, calmly, but with a faint suggestion of sarcasm in her tone.
Ruth had the grace to keep silence after that, and Mrs. Vernon said: “I’m not going to say more about the idea, but you shall judge for yourselves when I take you there in the auto on Saturday.”
“Dear me. I feel so excited that I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep all week!” exclaimed Julie, jumping up and dancing around.
“I feel as if there were wheels whirring around inside of me,” added Joan.
The others laughed, and Mrs. Vernon admitted: “That is the way I felt when it was agreed that I might join my friends for camp-life that summer.”
“It will be so lovely to camp in the same place that mother dear did when she was a little girl,” said Betty, her voice trembling slightly as she thought of the one now absent from sight, but not in spirit.