As Mr. Talmage spoke, Micky Finn recalled the words his pal Skelly had said a short time before: something about becoming a little lady with fine manners but no fun!
“Good gracious, Uncle Ben—aren’t you most done talking to those boys?” called Don Starr from the door of the director’s room.
“Coming right now, Don! Well, Micky, let me know when you want to go and spend Sunday with your sister. I’ll try and get her off in a day or two,” said Mr. Talmage. Then the two street waifs took their departure.
Of course, you know what it is all about, don’t you? You remember what Uncle Ben did in the last Blue Bird book, and how the camps at Happy Hills progressed so that they might be ready to receive Little Citizens as early as the last of May?
If you have forgotten how the Nests and other plans at Aunt Selina’s country place were to be built, I will repeat the description.
The great estate and farm of Happy Hills in the Valley of Delight, had a fine large woodland tract where the Nests were built. A shallow brook ran through the woods, offering all sorts of fun and convenience to the little campers. At one side of the woodland lay a fertile stretch of land that was divided into many squares, one for each child at camp, to be used as farms. In this soil, a Little Citizen might dig and plant and harvest different kinds of vegetables and flowers and have them all for his own. No one could trespass or take away what a child planted on his or her own farm.
The Nests were large enough to hold six bunks and a bed. The bunks, three on either side of the square room, were to be for the six Little Citizens occupying that Nest, and the bed at the end would be for the Mother Bird of that particular Nest. Besides the bunks and bed, there was a locker and a clothes-tree at the head of each bunk. The lockers had lids to be closed and locked to hold personal things belonging to the child who was given that section of the Nest. It could also be used as a seat.
Each Nest was about fifteen feet square, and posts held up a sloping roof to shed the rain. This roof extended about two feet over the outer line of the square room to protect the beds and lockers from the rain when it stormed. Another arrangement to keep the inside of the Nest dry, was a canvas curtain that rolled up on spring-rollers in fair weather, but came down in wet or cold weather, to act as a wall or screen. These curtains buttoned down the sides and at the bottom.
A gallery three feet wide extended about the outside of the Nest. This narrow veranda was railed in safely by a three-foot fence to keep the children from falling off the platform of the Nest which was raised a few feet above the ground.
The Refectory was a large open building equipped with rain-proof curtains also, but on fair days they were rolled up so that it was like a great pavilion. Even the long tables and chairs folded up and could be quickly stacked up at one end of the room if the space was wanted for games or meetings.