The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht Read online

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  Frances and Jane use their Camp Fire Girl training.]

  The Camp Fire Girls On A Yacht

  BY MARGARET LOVE SANDERSON

  Frontispiece by MAUDE MARTIN EVERS

  The Reilly & Lee Co. Chicago

  Copyright, 1920 by The Reilly & Lee Co.

  Made in U. S. A.

  _The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht_

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I AN INVITATION FOR A CRUISE 7 II SERGEANT MURPHY ASSISTS 14 III THE BOOJUM 27 IV ANCHOR WEIGHED 40 V AT THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS 51 VI BETTY WYNDHAM, ACTRESS 63 VII EXPLORING GLOUCESTER 73 VIII WHAT FRANCES FOUND 84 IX THE AFFAIRS OF BRECK 97 X HURRICANE ISLAND 110 XI DEBATE AND JUST TALK 122 XII BROTHER AND SISTER 132 XIII JACK'S AFTER-SUPPER SPEECH 141 XIV TIM'S FATHER 152 XV TIM'S MOTHER AND DETAILS 163 XVI A MOUTH FOR PIE 174 XVII "BOILED" AT 'SCONSET 181 XVIII THE BEGINNING OF TRAGEDY 188 XIX THE GOOD OF THE ILL-WIND 198

  The Camp Fire Girls On a Yacht

  CHAPTER I

  AN INVITATION FOR A CRUISE

  "Oh! Jack, Ellen, come here this instant!" cried Jane Pellew in soexcited a manner that the mail rider almost fell out of his jumper inhis effort to see what it was that made Miss Jane "take on so." Shewas dancing around the broad old veranda waving one of the letters hehad just handed her.

  "Too hot, Sis, and we are too comfortable," came Jack's lazy voicefrom under the big ash tree that shaded one side of the porch.

  "You have enough energy for all of us, so s'pose you come to us,"Ellen called.

  "You won't be hot for long, but you are going to be very uncomfortablein a minute." With the warning, Jane jumped off the porch and landedin Ellen's lap, then pulled herself up quickly by means of one handentwined in Jack's thick chestnut hair.

  "Shut up and listen!" commanded Jane.

  "Nobody has a chance to do anything else with you around," Jackreminded his sister.

  "Who could do anything else but listen after having a hundred andthirty pounds of buoyant young Kentucky girl hurled on top of you froma distance of some ten feet? I don't believe I shall ever get mybreath again," groaned Ellen.

  "I'll say you manage pretty well without it," Jane laughed. "But, as Iwas saying, listen and you will hear the most wonderful piece of newsthat has happened in the history of mankind," and she started readingfrom the letter she had still managed to keep in her hand:

  "Dearest Jane:"

  "Bet it is from one of the Camp Fire Girls," interrupted her brother.

  "Keep quiet, I have a good mind not to tell you after all. But I amsuch a nice girl I suppose I'll have to. It's from Mabel Wing. Now,let me finish," pleaded Jane.

  "Dearest Jane:

  "As long as Ellen Birch is staying with you, read this to her, as I am so busy I'll never have time to write two letters saying exactly the same thing. I am sending one to Ruth Garnier with the request that she read hers to Frances Bliss, who is staying at her home.

  "And telegraph me whether you will or won't, but please do. I always do things backwards even in letters. What I mean is Daddy is going to give me a cruise on his yacht and I want you and Ellen and Jack to come. We will leave City Island, N. Y., July the first, and go till we get bored, up to the Maine coast and poke around all those little islands that Daddy says grow in the New England waters.

  "Don't bring any clothes, as there never is any place to stow more than the bare essentials. And make Jack bring his banjo and, of course, your bathing suits and Camp Fire clothes.

  "I'll be so disappointed I'll die if you don't.

  Hastily,

  "Mabel."

  "As if you couldn't tell it was 'hastily, Mabel,'" Jack laughed. "ButI have no idea of bringing your bathing suits and Camp Fire regalia."

  "Goose! That is just the Mabel of it. She writes just as she talks,"explained his sister.

  "What fun for all of us! But we must telegraph right away," said thepractical Ellen.

  "Here comes Father now," and Jane pointed to a red-wheeled buggy and abriskly trotting bay horse driven up the shady approach to thePellews' home by the master of the house.

  The three of them ran across to meet Mr. Pellew, a man beloved by hischildren's friends as much as he was respected and loved by his own.

  "Daddy dear, Mabel wants--" began Jane.

  "It will be wonderful!" put in Ellen.

  "Is it all right with you if I go too, Dad?" Jack interrupted bothgirls.

  Mr. Pellew put his hands up to his ears and screamed above the hubbub:"How can I tell whether it will be wonderful for Ellen and all rightfor you or even what Mabel wants if the bunch of you try to rival thebuilders of the tower of Babel?"

  "Ellen," suggested Jack, "you tell him; Jane gets too excited."

  Ellen put one hand over Jane's mouth and told Mr. Pellew of theinteresting trip Mabel and her father had planned for them.

  Squirming away from Ellen, Jane flung her arms around her father'sneck and said, "But we don't like leaving you when we have been homefrom school for only such a short while."

  "It never seems to enter your scatter-brained heads that I mightoppose you in anything," Mr. Pellew smiled at his daughter.

  "You always are keen for us to have a good time," Jack explained.

  "And you went and had such clever good children that they know justexactly what to do and what is good for them and what is bad forthem," added Jane.

  "Of course you can go and I'll be mighty glad for my children to havesuch a wonderful summer. When do you expect to leave and from whatpoint?" inquired Mr. Pellew.

  "First of July, City Island!" came in chorus from the three.

  "Henceforth all my conversation will be nautical. Yo-ho-ho and abottle of two per cent substitute. Jack, do you have to have a horn ora pipe for stage property when you want to execute a briny jig?" andJane began to cavort around in what she considered a truly seafaringmanner.

  "'Shiver my timbers!' and 'Scuttle her amidships!' is my contributionto this, but I am the only person to be allowed to use these choicephrases until some one can think up better ones. Then, of course, I'llbe glad to cash in my old ones for the new ones," was Ellen's generousoffer.

  "Son, you had better order some horses saddled directly after dinnerso you kids can ride over and send the necessary telegrams," said Mr.Pellew to Jack.

  With an "Aye, aye, sir," Jack raced toward the stable.

  "Home is so beautiful in the summer that I can hardly bear to leaveit," sighed Jane.

  She and her father and Ellen were walking over the close-cut grass andshe cast a rather wistful eye around the lovely lawn that stretchedbefore the Pellew house. There were great trees whose spreadingbranches had shaded her grandparents, her own father and the mothershe couldn't remember, but loved because of the sweet pictures herfather had of her. Where the lawn stopped the rolling fields of bluegrass began and Jane could see the old mare, on which she and Jack hadlearned to ride, grazing contentedly. It was a hobby of her father'snever to sell the old horses on the place but to treat them as worthyold pensioners and turn them out on the rich bluegrass pasture landsthat bor
dered his place. Mr. Pellew had a string of race horses famousthroughout Kentucky, and as Jane put it, she and Jack had "fallen fromthe cradle into a saddle." Their father kept a model stable and AuntMin, who took charge of the Pellew home, often complained that theexpense of upkeep for the stable was far greater than that of theirexceedingly well run home.

  "Well, of course, I won't force you to go," teased her father.

  "Why, Jane, I thought you were perfectly wild to go," Ellen said.

  "Oh, that is the way I always behave about leaving home. I am terriblysentimental over it and always indulge in dramatics when I go away.You see, I am bats about all the horses and dogs on the place and Ican't help thinking about Atta Boy, the Denmark colt Dad was lettingme break for my own," Jane explained. "All the work I have put in onhim will come to nothing if he isn't ridden regularly this summer, andDaddy doesn't have time to do it for me and I wouldn't trust anybodyelse with such a peach of a colt."

  "You honor me, daughter." Mr. Pellew made a low mocking bow. "To showmy deep appreciation of the fact that you put my horsemanship on thelevel with your own, I suppose I will have to promise to ride Atta Boyevery other day for you."

  "I love Kentucky too, Jane, and you can't know how much it has meantto me to stay with you. Last summer it was too wonderful with theother girls here but this summer it has been just splendid with youand Jack." Ellen blushed after mentioning Jack, because he had justbeen telling her what a wonderful summer it was for him with hervisiting Jane.

  "Ellen, did you ever hear this little tribute to our state?" Mr.Pellew asked and began:

  "Ever see Kentucky grass Or hear about its blueness? Looks as if the whole derned earth Was bursting out in newness.

  Skies and folks alike all smiles. Gracious! you are lucky If you spend a day in June Down in old Kentucky."

  "And the more days you spend in Kentucky the luckier you are," statedJane. "But goodness, I sound like that girl from Virginia who was atHillside last year."

  Aunt Min came out on the porch and interrupted the eulogy on thecharms of Kentucky by telling them that dinner was ready. But anyoneseeing the great platter of fried chicken on the table before Aunt Minwould have said that the eulogy might well have been continued in thespacious old dining room.