“I was just lying here, and thinking how nice it will look when it is all done,” said Jamie.
Mamma shook her head. “But that will not dig ground, nor make the flowers grow, little boy. No good deed was ever done by only lying still and thinking about it.”
CAMP TRIO.
A. DE G. H.
Hurrah! Hurrah! only two days more to vacation, and then!——
If the crowning whistle, and energetic bang with which the strapped books came down, were any indication of what was coming after the “then!” it must be something unusual. And so it was—for Ned, Tom and Con, who were the greatest of chums, as well as the noisiest, merriest boys in Curryville Academy—were to go into camp for the next two weeks, by way of spending part of their vacation. They could hardly wait for school to close, and over the pages of Greenleaf danced, those last two days, unknown quantities of fishing tackle, tents, and the regular regalia of a camping out-fit. They talked of it by day and dreamed of it by night.
At last the great day dawned—dawned upon three of the most grotesque-looking specimens of boyhood, arrayed in the oldest and worst fitting clothes they could find; for, as they said, in the most expressive boy language—“We are in for a rattlin’ good time, and don’t want to be togged out.” They and their effects were taken by wagon over to the Lake Shore, about four miles distant, to establish their camp under the shadow of old Rumble Sides, a lofty crag or boulder.
Boys, I wish you could have seen them that night, in their little woodland home; really, it was quite attractive. They worked like beavers all day—cutting away the brush, driving stakes to tie down the little white tent, digging a trench all around in case of rain, and building a fire-place of stone, with a tall, forked stick on which to hang the kettle. A long board, under the shady trees, served as table.