They found the camping ground on the other side in perfect order for their coming.
"Every squad of campers finds all that it needs to pitch camp with immediately, even down to the wood to make the camp fire," explained Miss Roberts.
"See," cried Ethel Blue, "there it is, stacked up for us. Who does it?"
"The last campers. There was a detachment from the Boys' Club here last night."
"They were fine cleaners—for boys," commented Della.
"Boys are good cleaners," asserted Ethel Brown.
"Oh, Roger has Army and Navy ideas about neatness, but ordinary boys aren't so careful."
"On an earlier trip you girls would leave the camp in just the order in which you found it, wood and all. This is the last one, however, so you won't have to chop wood, but everything else must be so arranged that the men who come over to dismantle the camp will find everything in its place."
It was an evening of delight, to all the girls but especially to Ethel Blue, who had heard her father tell of his camping experiences so often that she felt as if she were repeating one of them through the kind influence of some good fairy who had touched her with her wand without her knowledge.
Pitching the tents was not easy but the girls managed it under the direction of one of Miss Roberts's assistants. Their united strength was needed for that, but when it was done they divided the remainder of the tasks. Dorothy was one of the squad that made the fire. Ethel Brown went with the girls who took the camp pails to the nearest farmhouse to draw drinking water from the well. Della and three others went up the road a little farther to a dairy to get the evening's supply of milk. Ethel Blue helped unpack the food supplies that had come over in the launch.