“I wonder whether we couldn’t go to that place up on the Wampoag River. Have you thought of any place, Mrs. Bryan?”
“None but there or thereabouts,” she said. “It’s the best camping-place for a long distance, and only about twelve miles off.”
“But won’t the boys want to camp there, too?” asked Helen.
“There’s plenty of room for everybody,” said her step-mother. “I’ve been talking it over with Mr. Gedney, the Scoutmaster, and he says their camp will be about two and a half miles from the place I’d thought of our going. Wampoag River is very long, you know, and there must be five miles of woodland along both sides. So we needn’t interfere with each other at all.”
“Then that’s all right,” said everybody.
“And oh, let’s hike there!” cried Louise. “We can do it in two days as easily as anything. Please, dear, nice, kind Guardian, let us hike there!”
“I think it would be a very good thing to do,” approved Mrs. Bryan. “But it isn’t for me to settle. You’ll have to have a business meeting to decide that, and to decide another thing that nobody’s thought of.”
“Ways and means?” ventured Adelaide, perhaps because they had been in her mind, too.
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Bryan. “We haven’t enough in the treasury to pay expenses, even if we only stay a little while. It’s for you all to decide whether you want to get the money from your parents for the provisions, or whether you will earn it.”
“Earn it?” asked Winona, “How could we, in such a little while?”