The Carter Girls

CHAPTER XI

THE CAMP

The lunch did not go begging. Even Cousin Lizzie forgot her disgusting surroundings and deigned to partake of Helen’s very good lettuce sandwiches. She even pronounced the coffee from the thermos bottle about the best she had tasted for many a day.

“My cook doesn’t make very good coffee. I don’t know what she does to it. When we go back to Richmond I think I shall get you to show her how you make it, Helen.”

Helen smiled and had not the heart to tell her cousin that her own cook had made the coffee, after all. Of all the young Carters, Miss Somerville was fondest of Helen. She had infinite patience with her foibles and thought her regard for dress and style just as it should be.

“A woman’s appearance is a very important factor and too much thought cannot be given it,” she would say. Miss Somerville had boasted much beauty in her youth and still was a very handsome old lady, with a quantity of silver white hair and the complexion of a débutante. “Gentlemen are more attracted by becoming clothes than anything else,” she declared, “and of course it is nothing but hypocrisy that makes women say they do not wish to attract the opposite sex.” Miss Somerville, having had many opportunities to marry, and having chosen single blessedness of her own free will, always spoke with great authority of the male sex. She always called them gentlemen, however, and the way she said “gentlemen” made you think of dignified persons in long-tailed coats and high stocks who paid their addresses on bended knees.

“Only one more station before we get to Greendale!” exclaimed Douglas. “I feel real rested.”

“That’s cause I’se been so good,” said the angel Bobby. “I ain’t a single time had my head an’ arm chopped off. I tell you, I don’t do shover’s work for the C. & O. for nothin’. My boss don’t ’low me to work for nobody but jest him.”

“You have been as good as gold,” said Douglas, “and now I am going to buy you some candy,” she added, as the train boy came through crying his wares.

“Choclid?”

“Suppose you have marshmallows instead. They are so much less evident on your countenance,” suggested Helen.

“All right! I’d jest as soon ’cause that nice dirty boy in the mountings kin milk me some choclid out’n the cow whenever I gits hungry.”

“What a filthy trip it has been!” said Cousin Lizzie as she shook the cinders from her black taffeta suit.

“Yes, it is grimy,” declared Helen, “and I came off without my Dorine. I had just got a new one. I do hate to arrive anywhere with a shiny nose. Lend me your vanity box, Douglas, please.”

“Vanity box! I never thought about bringing it. It is packed with the other extra, useless things in Cousin Lizzie’s trunk room. It never entered my head that we would want a vanity box at a mountain camp.”

“Well, I don’t intend to have a shiny nose in a mountain camp any more than any other place. I hate to look greasy.”

“Have a marshmallow,” drawled Nan. “They are great beautifiers.”

So Helen powdered her nose with some of Bobby’s candy, much to the amusement of that infant.

Lewis and Bill were waiting for the travelers at the station at Greendale with the ramshackle little car, which they had christened the Mountain Goat because of its hill climbing proclivities. Josh was also there, with the faithful Josephus hitched to an old cart to carry the luggage up to the camp.

The porter from the summer hotel of Greendale was on the platform as the train stopped and he immediately came forward, thinking these stylish passengers were for his hostelry; but the little mountain boy stepped in front of him and said:

“We uns is you allses baggage man,” and he seized their grips and parcels and won their hearts as well with his merry blue eyes and soft voice.

“Oh, you must be the dirty boy what’s got a choclid cow!” exclaimed Bobby. “I’m a dirty boy, too, now I’m come to live in the mountings an’ I’m goin’ to be a baggage man, too, if Dr. Wright will let me off from being a shover up here where th’ ain’t no traffic cops to ’rest you if’n you don’t stick out yo’ arm goin’ round the cornders. I’d most ruther be a baggage man than a shover if’n I can sit in front with you and drive the mule.” All this poured forth in one breath while the young men were greeting the ladies.

“All aboard!” shouted the brakeman and the signal was given for the engineer to start.

“Oh, where are Oscar and Susan?” from a distracted Douglas. “Stop, please stop!”

Oscar was discovered peacefully sleeping and Susan so deep in her beloved dream book that she was oblivious to the passing of time and miles. They were dragged from the colored coach by the amused brakeman and dumped on the platform as the train made its second rumbling start upgrade.

The bringing of these two servants had been a problem to our girls. They were both of them kind and faithful but were strictly urban in their raising, and how the real rough country would affect them remained to be seen. They sniffed scornfully at the small station with its stuffy waiting-rooms, one for coloreds and one, whites, and looked at the great mountains that closed them in with distrust and scorn.

“Uncle Oscar, this place jes’ ain’t no place at all,” grumbled Susan. “Look at that shack over yonder what passes fer a sto’, and this here little po’ white boy settin’ up yonder on the seat with our Bobby! He needn’t think he is goin’ ter ’sociate with the quality. You, Bobby, git down from thar an’ come hol’ my han’!”

“Hol’ your grandmother’s han’! I ain’t no baby. I’m a ’spressman an’ am a gointer hol’ the mule. That was pretty near a joke,” he said, looking confidingly into the eyes of his new friend. “One reason I was so good a-comin’ up here was because we let Susan go in the Jim Crow coach to keep Uncle Oscar comp’ny, ’cause when she is ridin’ anywhere near me she’s all time wantin’ me to hol’ her han.’”

“We thought we’d make two loads of you,” said Lewis, when the greetings were over. “Bill can go ahead with Aunt Lizzie and some of you while the rest of us walk, and when he puts you out at the camp he can come back and meet us half way.”

“Douglas must ride,” declared Helen. “She is so tired.”

“I’m a lot rested now.”

“Yes, sure, you must ride,” said Lewis, a shade of disappointment in his tone as he had been rather counting on having a nice little walk and talk with his favorite cousin.

“Say, Lewis, you run the jitney first. Legs stiff and tired sitting still,” said Bill magnanimously.

So while Lewis was cheated out of a walk with Douglas, he had the satisfaction of having her sit beside him as he drove the rickety car up the winding mountain road. Miss Somerville was packed in the back with Nan and Lucy, but when Lucy found that Helen was to walk, she decided to walk, too. Susan was put in her place, and so her feelings were somewhat mollified.

“Josephus ain’t above totin’ one of the niggers ’long with the trunks,” said Josh, determined to get even for the remarks he had heard Oscar and Susan make in regard to “po’ white trash.” The antagonism that exists between the mountaineer and darkey is hard to overcome.

So Oscar, the proud butler of “nothin’ but fust famblies,” was forced either to walk up the mountain, something he dreaded, or climb up on the seat of the cart by the despised “po’ white trash.” He determined on the latter course and took his seat in dignified silence with the expression of one who says: “My head is bloody but unbowed.”

“The freight came and we have hauled it up and unpacked the best we could. I am afraid it is going to be mighty rough for you girls and for poor Aunt Lizzie, who is certainly a brick for coming, but we have done our best,” said Lewis to Douglas.

“Rough, indeed! Who would expect divans and Turkish rugs at a camp? We are sure to like it and we are so grateful to you and Mr. Tinsley. But look at the view! Oh, Cousin Lizzie, just look at the view!”

“Now see here, Douglas, I said I would come and chaperone Cousin Robert Carter’s granddaughters if no one would make me look at views. Views do not appeal to me.” She couldn’t help looking at the view, though, as there was nothing else to look at.

“I’s jes’ lak you, Miss Lizzie. I don’ think a thing er views. I ain’t never seed one befo’ but I heard tell of ’em. Looks lak a view ain’t nothin’ but jes’ seem’ fur, an’ if’n th’ain’t nothin’ ter see, what’s the use in it?”

Wordsworth’s lines came to Nan and she whispered them to herself as she looked off across the wonderful valley:

She intended to whisper it to herself but as the march of the lines took possession of her, she spoke them out loud without knowing it. On the ninth line she came out strong with, “‘Great God! I’d rather be – ’” Miss Somerville and Susan looked at her in amazement. Her dark eyes were fixed on the despised view with a look of a somnambulist.

“Lawd a mussy! Miss Nan done got a tech er heat!”

“Blow your horn, Lewis. Didn’t you hear Nan?” from Miss Somerville. “She must see something coming.”

Nan went off into such a peal of laughter that Bill Tinsley himself could not have vied with her. She blushingly admitted it was just some poetry she was repeating to herself, which made Miss Somerville agree with Susan that Miss Nan had a “tech er heat.”

“You had better have a dose of that aromatic ammonia and lie down for a while when we get to the top,” suggested Miss Lizzie dryly.

The road stopped at the cabin some distance from the pavilion, so they alighted and Lewis turned the car on a seemingly impossible place and careened down the mountain to pick up the others before they were exhausted with the climb.

The cabin was in perfect order and so clean that even Miss Lizzie was destined to find it difficult to discover germs. Gwen had rubbed and scrubbed and then beautified to the best of her ability. She had purchased a few yards of coarse scrim at the store and fresh curtains were at the windows. The white iron bed was made up in spotless counterpane and pillows, and on the freshly scrubbed pine floor was a new rag rug of her own weave. The open fireplace was filled with fragrant spruce boughs, and on the high mantel and little deal table she had put cans of honeysuckle and Cherokee roses. She had longed for some vases but had not liked to ask the young men to buy them. She felt that the curtains were all the expense she should plunge them into.

When Gwen had seen the car approaching she had shyly gone behind the cabin. She dreaded in a measure meeting these girls and their cousin. She had become accustomed to the presence of the young gentlemen, but what would the girls think of her? Wouldn’t they think she was odd and funny looking? She was quite aware of the fact that she was very different in appearance from the girls in cities. She had pored over too many illustrated papers not to know how other girls her age dressed and looked. Her scant blue dress was made after a pattern sent to the Mission School by some interested ladies. It was supposed to be the best pattern for children to use where the cloth must be economically cut. So it was and singularly picturesque in its straight lines, but Gwen was but human and now that fashion sheets plainly said wider skirts and flaring, here she was in her narrow little dress! She hated it. Bare legs and feet, too!

Her instinct was to turn and flee around the mountain to the arms of Aunt Mandy, who thought she was the most wonderful little girl in all the world. But there was the kind of fighting blood in her that could not run. The spirit of a grandfather who had been one of the heroes of Balaclava made her hold up her proud little head and go boldly around to the front of the cabin to face the dreadful ladies.

“Oh, you must be Gwen!” exclaimed Douglas, coming forward with both hands to greet the girl. “Mr. Somerville has told us how splendidly you have taken care of them and I know you must have arranged this room for Cousin Lizzie. It is lovely.”

Gwen no longer felt like one of the Light Brigade. This was not the jaws of Death and the mouth of Hell. This sweet young lady didn’t even notice her bare feet, and the scanty skirt made no difference at all. She introduced her to Miss Somerville and to her sister, Nan, who was also graciousness itself. Miss Somerville was a little stiff, reminding Gwen of the old ladies on the hotel piazza who bought the lace and tatting that she and Aunt Mandy made on the long winter evenings when the sun went down behind the mountains so early.

“Yes, the room will do very well.”

It was rather faint praise and took very little time to say when one considered that Gwen had spent days on her task. But Nan and Douglas made up to her for their cousin’s seeming coldness by going into raptures over the cabin.

“Lewis did not tell us he was going to whitewash the room for Cousin Lizzie,” said Nan.

“I whitewashed it myself. The young gentlemen were so occupied with constructing the pavilion that I could not bear to interrupt them.” Nan and Douglas could not help smiling at the little English girl’s stilted language but they hid their amusement. “I prepared the attic room for the negro maid. Would you like to go up and see that?”

“Yes, indeed! Come on, Susan, and see your room. It is to be right up over Cousin Lizzie’s.”

“Well, praise be to my Maker that I ain’t goin’ to have to sleep in the air. My lungs is weak at best an’ no doubt the air would be the death of me.”

Susan’s figure belied her words, as she was an exceedingly buxom girl with a chest expansion that Sandow might have envied her.

The attic was entered by a trap door from the room below and in lieu of stairs there was nothing but a ladder made chicken-steps style: small cross pieces nailed on a board.

The attic room was scrubbed as clean as Miss Lizzie’s. The low ceiling and very small windows certainly suited Susan’s idea of sanitation, as very little air could find its way into the chamber. A rough wooden bed was built against the wall, as is often the way in mountain cabins, more like a low, deep shelf than a bed. Gwen had stuffed a new tick with nice clean straw and Susan bid fair to have pleasant dreams on her fresh bed. A night spent without dreams of some kind was one wasted in the eyes of the colored girl who consulted her dream book constantly.

Josh had railed at Gwen for putting a bunch of black-eyed Susans in the attic room.

“Waitin’ on a nigger! Humph! You uns ain’t called on to lower yo’sef that a way. Niggers is niggers an’ we uns would ruther to bust than fetch an’ carry fer ’em.”