“So they are, the very best fun you ever saw,” Lewis had assured him. “They took this thing of waking up and finding themselves poor a great deal better than you and I did waking up and finding ourselves nothing but civilians when we had expected to be major generals, at least.”
The Carter girls had one and all liked Bill, when Lewis took him to call on them the evening of his arrival in Richmond.
“There is something so frank and open in his countenance,” said Helen.
“His mouth!” drawled Nan. “Did you ever see or hear such a laugh?”
“He is a great deal nicer than your old Dr. Wright, who looks as though it would take an operation on his risibles to get a laugh out of him.”
Bill had offered the services of a battered Ford car he had in Charlottesville as pack mule for the camp and it was joyfully accepted. He and Lewis stopped in Charlottesville on their way to Greendale and got the tried old car, making the last leg of their trip in it.
They had decided to sleep in the Englishman’s cabin, as the little log house that went with the property was always called, but Miss Somerville had made them promise to burn sulphur candles before they went in and was deeply grieved because her beloved nephew refused to carry with him a quart bottle of crude carbolic acid that she felt was necessary to ward off germs.
It was late in the afternoon as the faithful Ford chugged its way up the mountain road to the site of the proposed camp. The boys had stopped at the station at Greendale and taken in all the tools they could stow away, determined to begin work at excavating the first thing in the morning.
“Let’s lay out the ground this afternoon,” proposed Lewis.
“There’s nothing to lay out since the four pine trees mark the corners. I, for one, am going to lay out myself and rest and try to decide which one of your cousins is the most beautiful.”