CHAPTER V
A STOLEN LOOK AROUND
It was dawn on Lake Hocomo, and the sun that disappeared behind thehills last night after spilling his colorful paint-pots into thesurprised waters, tried to make amends now by softening the deadenedmixture into a haze of amethyst mists.
Gray, purple, rosy, and all so velvety, like the essence of color-lifeitself, the day dawned; welcomed by glad birds from every bush, treeor meadow spot for miles around.
Were the Bobbies up now they might have learned something from theirnamesake. On a soft patch of velvet grass, jeweled with dew-blessedbuttercups, and that tiniest of flowers, the pale blue forget-me-not,the bobolinks fluttered, their song as reckless as the riot of earlyday, as they paddled along on wingtips to the gay rhythm of rippling,reckless aria; for a happy little songster is the bobolink, shootingup and diving down into the wet grasses for his bath of sweetness,then swaying on the slenderest of stems, not unlike the little girlwho stands perched on her springboard in the first joys ofwater-diving.
It was because this rollicking bird sings as he flies that the vote ofthe Scouts resulted in his name being chosen, and on the dawn recordedthe brown-gray streaked little songster left his meadow for a glimpseof that new camp in the woods. Soon he must go South for his ricefeast, for early in summer the birds of his clan descend upon the ricefields and lo----!
The bobolink perched himself on the top of that new flagpole, andperhaps his trilled notes were a co-mingling of praise and goodwishes. But the Bobbies were sleeping in their mothers' cottages anddreaming of the first night in camp.
Dick Porter, the night-watchman on the grounds around Tamarack Hills,rubbed his eyes and heaved the sigh of another task completed. Then hetook a last look at Camp Comalong, for the Scouts had already storedin the tent goods of value, straightened his shoulders to suit thedaytime needs, and sauntered off for his breakfast at the Nipanneck.
Quickly as he turned away from the camp grounds a girl stole down fromthe highest hilltop. Peg, the mysterious, without hat and in simpleskirt and blouse, frightened away the chipmunks and bunnies as sheskipped, light as a fawn, over the path invisible to less familiareyes, then she too stopped in front of that dignified flagpole. Shelooked up and down the length of it and brushed her hand quizzicallyover its smooth surface.
"Humph!" she jerked. "Going to have everything first class, I guess."
Cautiously she stepped up to the rustic "sideboard." This brought fromher lips no caustic comment, but at once claimed her wrapt attention.She touched the burlap curtain and peeked under it. She gingerlyfingered the rustic basket that held a bunch of wild flowers and hidthe glass jar of water, she smiled real approval at the wood's fern inthe rugged nail-keg that offset the center, and a little sigh escapedPeg as she turned to the tent.
The new wood floor was fragrant as the pines, and as it was raised tomake it safe from dampness the two "carpentered" steps with thedoormat at top seemed very inviting indeed.
The girl ventured under the canvas and stood as if spellbound.
"Scouts!" she was thinking. "And I was the only Scout here till theycame with all this."
The cots were still covered with burlap, and the little foot rugs wererolled in a bundle with some of Cleo's precious cretonnes. Peg justtouched all this with her brown fingers, and in a girl's way smiled atthis or frowned at that, as the fancy struck her.
A shrill whistle from the first lake steamer startled Peg as if shehad been detected in her stolen inspection, and poking her head out ofthe tent to make sure the coast was clear, she jumped down the twowhite steps and made for the path, safe and unseen even by the girlsfrom Camp Norm, who were just starting out for their nature hike. Pegquickly lost herself in the elderbrush lane that wound through thewoods leading up to her own bungalow.
A big shaggy collie ran out to meet her. She patted him fondly and he"wagged her" along to the door, where a woman stood waiting. She wasrelated to the girl, that was obvious, for she had the same high tossto her head, and the same snapping black eyes, also the pure whitehair showed the original color must have been black to have changed towhite so early.
"Peggie, dear, where have you been?" asked the woman. Her voice waslow and well-modulated.
"Just down to see the new camp," replied the girl. "Had yourbreakfast?"
"No, I waited for you. I do hope, Peggie," there was a note ofentreaty in her words, "that you are not doing anything--risky."
"Ramrods and toothpicks!" exclaimed the girl. "Anything risky! Why,Carrie, I went down to see the new camp--the Girl Scouts, you know."
"Oh yes. Those little girls who wear the uniform?"
"Uh--ha: the girls who wear a perpetual smile and several dollars'worth of necktie," replied Peg, a bit sarcastically.
"I am sure they look very neat and tidy, and I hope you are going tomake friends with them," ventured Aunt Carrie, vindictively.
"Now, please don't start pestering me with that sort of thing,"protested the girl. "You know I don't want to make friends with anygirls."
"You are so foolish, dear, and I fear sometimes you are going toextremes with----"
"Now, Carrie! Don't be cross, please. Just let me have my way for thisone little summer and the time will be up. Then, if you want me to,I'll curl my hair if I have to sleep on the rolling-pin with the endswound round it." She laughed gaily at this prospect.
"Come in to breakfast. Shag has had his and we have such lovelyberries. Come along, girlie," directed the aunt, and she wound an armover the shoulder that pressed up to her affectionately.
Shag, the big collie, took up his post at the door. The bungalow wasunique in type, if bungalows are ever alike, and the pine trees thatsheltered and brushed its roof with a sibilant swish, hummed now apretty tuneless whisper. The place was hidden against a rocky ledgeand not until one stood squarely in front of the unpainted log cabinwas the building really visible, in its nest of trees and brush.
Some few years before a man with his little daughter and his sistercame up to the hills. He stayed at the Tippiturn House while he builtthis bungalow. Then he took his daughter Peggie and his sisterCaroline to the house in the hills, where he lived apart from all thenatives and cottagers. This was Horace Ramsdell, Peggie's father, butfew people had cause to remember the name, for the owner lived alooffrom others and made few friends even in the village.
With all this he was a very pleasant man, fond of animals, kind toyoungsters and generous in payment for any service. He died suddenlythe year before the Scouts found their way into Tamarack Hills, wherethey crossed the path of Peg, the now fifteen-year-old daughter.
She followed her father's footsteps in living alone, and in the matterof shunning companions, but she could not avoid making friends, asPete the boatman had already assured the Girl Scouts.
Her queer ways, defiance of dress codes, and above all her fondnessfor horseback riding, naturally stirred up criticism, but Peg was asoblivious of this as she was of the taunts so often flung at her byschool girls, whose companionship she seemed to ignore.
"Fly-away Peg," they called her, and the way she "flew to school" onher blue roan might easily have merited the caption. But to MortonSchool from Tamarack Hills was a long distance, mostly covered bywoodlands, and when others came in autos or by wagon, why shouldn'tPeg come on horseback?
She should and she did, with a smile for the Fly-away Peg, and somefruit, winter and summer, for the old janitor who took care of herhorse during the school session.
There was something incongruous in her attitude. She was so lively androllicking with anyone who would not follow up the familiarity, butjust as soon as one would threaten to call at her bungalow, or wouldask her to call at theirs, Peg seemed to take fright and would scurryoff like some woodland thing jealous of its hiding place.
No tradesman ever got past the door of her cabin; not even good oldDoctor Rowan was brought inside when once he called to pay aprofessional visit on Aunt Carrie.
On that occasion the lady, being ill, w
as very comfortably propped inthe big steamer-chair on the porch, Peg declaring she felt better outin the air, and that she preferred sleeping out there when the weatherwas mild enough.
So Peg of Tamarack Hills was a queer girl in many ways, and themystery surrounding her home life always served to excite thecuriosity of strangers, but had not, as yet, been explained.
Perhaps a half-hour after she entered the bungalow for breakfast sheappeared again in the familiar roughrider's outfit, adjusting theleather-fringed skirt over her breeches as she stood in the doorway.
"I'll take Shag if that will make you feel any better, Aunt Carrie,"said the girl, pulling her hat firmly on the cropped head. "Also, I'llride slowly enough to talk to him, and I'll surely be back by noon.Now promise you are not going to worry."
"I can't promise, my dear; but I'll try not to. You are growing upnow, Peggie, and summer folks are so critical, you know."
"Toothpicks for summer folks!" retorted the girl scornfully. "We don'towe them anything, Carrie, and if that's all you have got to worryabout----"
"I wish it were, dear," sighed the woman, but the girl was hurrying tothe log-built barn where "Whirlwind," her blue roan, impatientlyawaited her coming.
Then she was off "like a piece of scenery," as Pete put it. But PeggieRamsdell had no thought of the picturesque effect she created, nor didshe care for less friendly criticism that followed in her dust-blownpath.