The Associate Hermits. Frank Richard Stockton

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СКАЧАТЬ Camps are like horses—we’ve got to tell them apart, and so we give them names, and that’s Camp Rob.”

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

A CATARACT OF INFORMATION

       Table of Contents

      Peter Sadler would have been glad to have the Archibald party stay at his hotel for a few days, and Mrs. Archibald would have been perfectly satisfied to remain there until they were ready to return to their own house, but her husband and Margery were impatient to be in the woods, and it was therefore decided to start for the camp the next day. Peter Sadler was a man of system, and his arrangements were made promptly and rapidly.

      “You’ve got to have a guide,” said he, “and another man to help him, and I think I’ll give you Phil Matlack. Phil is an old hand at the business, and if you don’t know what you want, he’ll tell you. If you are in Phil’s hands, you needn’t be afraid anything will happen to you. Whatever you want, ask him for it, and ten to one he’ll have it, whether it’s information or fishhooks. I tell you again, you’re lucky to be here early and get the best of everything. Camp Rob with Phil Matlack will stand at a premium in three or four weeks from now.”

      That evening after supper Mr. Archibald lighted a cigar and went out into the grounds in front of the hotel, where he was presently joined by his wife.

      “Where is Margery?” asked he.

      “She is in her room,” replied Mrs. Archibald, “but she called to me that she would be down directly.”

      In about ten minutes down came Margery and floated out upon the lawn. She was dressed in white, with flowers in her hair, and she was more charming, Mr. Archibald said, as she approached, than even the sunset sky.

      “You should not speak in that way of works of nature,” said his wife.

      “Isn’t she a work of nature?” he asked.

      “Not altogether,” was the wise reply. “Why did you dress yourself in that fashion?” she asked Margery. “I did not suppose you would bring such a fine gown, as we started out to go into camp. And even in this hotel a travelling-suit is good enough for any one.”

      “Oh, I tucked this into one of my bags,” replied Margery. “I always like to have something nice to fall back upon. Don’t you want to take a little stroll, Aunt Harriet?”

      Mr. Archibald leaned back in his garden-chair and slowly puffed his cigar, and as he puffed he took his eyes from the sunset sky and watched his wife and Margery.

      A little beyond them, as they walked, sat two elderly ladies on a bench, wearing shawls, and near by stood a girl in a short dress, with no hat on, and a long plait down her back. A little farther on was a tennis-court, and four people, apparently young, were playing tennis. There were two men, and neither of them wore a tennis-suit. One was attired as a bicyclist, and the other wore ordinary summer clothes. The young women were dressed in dark-blue flannel and little round hats, which suggested to Mr. Archibald the deck of a yacht.

      Near the hotel was an elderly gentleman walking up and down by himself, and on the piazza were the rest of the guests he had seen at the table; not very many of them, for it was early in the season.

      Mr. Archibald now turned his eyes again to the sky. It was still beautiful, although its colors were fading, and after a time he looked back towards his wife. She was now talking to the two elderly ladies on the bench, and Margery was engaged in conversation with the girl with the plait down her back.

      “When I finish my cigar,” thought Mr. Archibald, “I will go myself and take a stroll.” And it struck him that he might talk to the old gentleman, who was still walking up and down in front of the hotel. After contemplating the tops of some forest trees against the greenish-yellow of the middle sky, he turned his eyes again towards his wife, and found that the two elderly ladies had made room for her on the bench, that the tennis-game had ceased, and that one of the girls in blue flannel had joined this group and was talking to Margery.

      In a few moments all the ladies on the bench rose, and Mrs. Archibald and one of them walked slowly towards an opening in the woods. The other lady followed with the little girl, and Margery and the young woman in blue walked in the same direction, but not in company with the rest of the party. The two young men, with the other tennis-player between them, walked over from the tennis-court and joined the first group, and they all stopped just as they reached the woods. There they stood and began talking to each other, after which one of the young men and the young woman approached a large tree, and he poked with a stick into what was probably a hole near its roots, and Mr. Archibald supposed that the discussion concerned a snake-hole or a hornets’ nest. Then Margery and the other young woman came up, and they looked at the hole. Now the whole company walked into the woods and disappeared. In about ten minutes Mr. Archibald finished his cigar and was thinking of following his wife and Margery, when the two elderly ladies and Mrs. Archibald came out into the open and walked towards the hotel. Then came the little girl, running very fast as she passed the tree with the hole near its roots. In a few minutes Mrs. Archibald stopped and looked back towards the woods; then she walked a little way in that direction, leaving her companions to go to the hotel. Now the young man in the bicycle suit emerged from the woods, with a girl in dark-blue flannel on each side of him.

      “Upon my word!” exclaimed Mr. Archibald, and rising to his feet, advanced towards his wife; but before he reached her, Margery emerged from the wood road, escorted by the young man in the summer suit.

      “Upon my word,” Mr. Archibald remarked, this time to his wife, “that ward of ours is not given to wasting time.”

      “It seems so, truly,” said she, “and I think her mother was right when she called her a creature of impulse. Let us wait here until they come up. We must all go in; it is getting chilly.”

      In a few minutes Margery and the young man had reached them.

      “Thank you very much,” said this creature of impulse to her escort. “My uncle and aunt will take care of me now. Aunt Harriet and Uncle Archibald, this is Mr. Clyde. He saw a great snake go into a hole over there just before supper-time, and I think we ought all to be very careful how we pass that way.”

      “I don’t think there is very much danger after nightfall,” said Mr. Clyde, who was a pleasant youth with brown hair, “and to-morrow I’ll see if I can kill him. It’s a bad place for a snake to have a hole, just where ladies would be apt to take their walks.”

      “I don’t think the snake will trouble us much,” said Mrs. Archibald, “for we leave to-morrow. Still, it would be a good thing to kill it.”

      After this there were a few remarks made about snakes, and then Mr. Clyde bade them good-evening.

      “How in the world, Margery,” said Mrs. Archibald, “did you get acquainted so quickly with that young man—and who is he?”

      “Oh, it all happened quite naturally,” said she. “As we turned to go out of the woods he was the gentleman nearest to me, and so of course he came with me. Those two girls are sisters, and their name is Dodworth. They introduced Mr. Clyde and the other gentleman, СКАЧАТЬ