The Associate Hermits. Frank Richard Stockton
spry enough, and I expect she could eat pine-cones like a squirrel if she was hungry and had nothing else. As for you, madam, you don’t appear as if anything in particular was the matter with you, and I should think you could stand a Number Three camp well enough, and be all the better for a week or two of it.”
“What is a Number Three camp?” asked Margery, before the astonished Mrs. Archibald could speak.
“Well,” said Sadler, “it is a camp with a good deal of comfort in it. Our Number One camps are pretty rough. They are for hunters and scientific people. We give them game enough in season, and some bare places where they can make fires and stretch a bit of canvas. That is all they want, to have a truly good time. That is the best camp of all, I think. Number Two camps are generally for fishermen. They always want a chance for pretty good living when they are out in the woods. They stay in camp in the evenings, and like to sit around and have a good time. Number Threes are the best camps we put families into, so you see, madam, I’m rating you pretty high. There’s always a log-cabin in these camps, with cots and straw mattresses and plenty of traps for cooking. And, more than that, there is a chance for people who don’t tramp or fish to do things, such as walking or boating, according to circumstances. There’s one of our camps has a croquet-ground.”
“Oh, we don’t want that!” cried Margery, “it would simply ruin every illusion that is left to me.”
“Glad to hear that,” said Peter. “If you want to play croquet, stay at the hotel; that’s what I say. Now, then, here are the camps, and there’s plenty of them to choose from. You’ve come in a good time, for the season isn’t fairly begun yet. Next month every camp will be full, with the hotel crowded with people waiting for their turns.”
“What we want,” said Margery, rising and looking over the map, “is the wildest Number Three you have.”
“Oh, ho!” said Peter. “Not so fast, miss; perhaps we’ll wait and see what this lady has to say first. If I’m not mistaken, madam, I think you’re inclined the other way, and I don’t put people into camps that they will be wanting to leave after the first rainy day. Now let me show you what I’ve got. Here is one, four hours’ walk, horses for women, with a rocky stream through the middle of it.”
“That is grand!” cried Margery. “Is it really in the woods?”
“Now let me do the talking,” said Peter. “They are all in the woods; we don’t make camps in pasture-fields. Even the Number Sevens, where the meals are sent to the campers from the hotel, and they have bath-tubs, are in the woods. Now here is another one, about three miles west from the one I just showed you, but the same distance from here. This, you see, is on the shore of a lake, with fishing, boating, and bathing, if you can stand cold water.”
“Glorious!” cried Margery. “That is exactly what we want. A lake will be simply heavenly!”
“Everything seems to suit you, miss,” said Peter, “just as soon as you hear of it. But suppose we consider more of them before you choose. Some two miles north of here, in the thickest of the forest, in a clearing that I made, there is a small camp that strikes the fancy of some people. There is a little stream there and it has fish in it too, and it runs through one corner of the log-cabin, so there are seven or eight feet of the stream inside the house, and on rainy days you can sit there and fish; and some people like to go to sleep with the running water gurgling close to them where they can hear it when they are in bed. Then there’s an owl to this camp. The men heard him there when they were making the clearing, and he’s never left the spot. Some people who were out there said they never felt as much away from the world as they did listening to that little stream gurgling and that owl hooting.”
“I believe,” exclaimed Margery, “that in a place like that I could write poetry!”
“It would give me the rheumatism and the blues,” said Mrs. Archibald, upon which Peter Sadler exclaimed,
“That settles that. Now then, here is another.”
Several other camps were considered, but it was the general conclusion that the one by the lake was the most desirable. It had a good cabin with three rooms, with plenty of open space, near by, for the tents of the guides; there was a boat which belonged to the camp, and in every way it seemed so suitable that Mr. Archibald secured it. He thought the price was rather high, but as it included guides, provisions, fishing-tackle, and in fact everything needed, he considered that although it might cost as much as lodgings in a city hotel, they would get more good out of it.
“Has this camp any name?” asked the enthusiastic Margery, in the course of the conference.
“That’s about your twenty-seventh question, miss,” said Peter, “but it’s one I can answer. Yes, it’s got a name. It’s called Camp Rob.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Margery, in a disappointed tone. “What a name!”
“Yes,” said Peter, “it isn’t much of a name. The first people who went out there named it that, and it stuck to it, and it’s all it’s got. Camps are like horses—we’ve got to tell them apart, and so we give them names, and that’s Camp Rob.”
CHAPTER IV
A CATARACT OF INFORMATION
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