“Well, this is a pretty good place,” suggested Dr. Wright, who had found a pleasant companion in Miss Hill although he had made some endeavor at first to walk beside Helen. But that young lady swished her cold-gravy corduroy skirt by him and refused to be walked beside. Helen was looking particularly charming on that day, although she could but confess to herself that she was a little tired. Making sandwiches for such a lot of persons was no joke, and she had been at it for hours before they started on the hike. She had had plenty of helpers, but sandwiches were her particular stunt and she had had a finger in every one.
Dr. Wright’s last glimpse of Helen as she had sat in the coach of the moving train, telling a truly true made-up story to Bobby, had remained a very pleasant picture in his mind. He had decided that there was a lot of sweetness in the girl and certainly a great deal of cleverness and charm—if she would only not feel that her thorny side was the one always to be presented to him. When he had handed her the aromatic ammonia for Douglas and she had thanked him so sweetly, he had felt that surely the hatchet was buried between them and now they were to be friends. He had been thinking of her a good deal during the past week and had quite looked forward to the possibility of becoming better acquainted with her.
Helen had really meant to be nice, but on the young doctor’s arrival a spirit of perverseness had seized her and she had her thorns all ready to prick him whenever he approached her, hoping for some share of the sweetness she could lavish on others: on Bobby, for instance. That youngster always declared Helen was his favorite sister, and there was never a time when Bobby was too dirty or too naughty for Helen to think he was not the sweetest and most kissable thing in the world. As Bobby’s conversation when he was with his ’ployer was taken up a great deal with Helen, and vice versa, those two young persons perforce heard much of one another. Helen was grateful to Dr. Wright for his kindness to Bobby and at the same time was a little jealous of Bobby’s affection and admiration for him.
“It isn’t like me,” she would argue to herself, “but somehow this man seems always to be putting me in the wrong, and now he even has Bobby loving him more than he does me, and as for the girls—they make me tired!”
That very morning when they were dressing for the hike and she was putting on her cold-gravy corduroy skirt, grey pongee shirtwaist and grey stockings and canvas shoes—all thought out with care even to the soft grey summer felt hat and the one touch of color: a bright red tie knotted under the soft rolling collar—she had been irritated almost to a point of tears because Nan, who was all ready, came running back into the tent to put on some khaki leggins because Dr. Wright said it would be wise to wear them, as a place like the Devil’s Gorge was sure to be snaky. Douglas and Lucy had done the same thing and had wanted her to.
“Indeed I won’t! How did he happen to be the boss of this camp? His power of attorney does not extend to me, I’ll have him know! Besides, do you think I am going to ruin the whole effect of my grey costume with those old mustard colored leggins? Not on your life!”
“Helen is very tired; that’s what makes her so unreasonable,” Nan had whispered to Douglas as they left the tent to Helen and her costume. “She has worked so hard all morning on the sandwiches. When I finished the deviled eggs, I wanted her to let me help, but she wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I know. I was so busy in the tents, making up cots and straightening up things, that I had to leave it all to you and Helen, but I thought Gwen and Susan were there to help.”
“So they were, but Susan has a slap dash way of making sandwiches that does not appeal to Helen, and while Gwen is very capable, she cannot take the initiative in anything unless she has been taught it at school. The next time we make sandwiches she will do it much better. She was so anxious to make them just right that she was slower than Brer Tarripin.”