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Read Ebook: The Girl Scouts' Canoe Trip by Lavell Edith
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Ebook has 1603 lines and 55919 words, and 33 pages
I AMATEUR CANOEISTS 3
II HAROLD'S PLAN 17
V THE BY-STREAM 42
VI THE ACCIDENT 53
X THE FORD TO THE RESCUE 98
XX GRIFFITH'S CHOICE 193
THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP
BY EDITH LAVELL
THE GIRL SCOUTS SERIES
A Series of Stories for Girl Scouts
The Girl Scouts at Miss Allen's School The Girl Scouts at Camp The Girl Scouts' Good Turn The Girl Scouts' Canoe Trip The Girl Scouts' Rivals
THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP
THE GIRL SCOUTS' CANOE TRIP
AMATEUR CANOEISTS
At a peaceful spot along the Silver Creek, where the water was so still that it seemed to belong rather to a lake than to a stream, five new canoes lay upturned on the shore. Their long, graceful curves, their shining new paint and varnish, their picturesque beauty and obvious excellence of workmanship proclaimed them the best to be had.
Although it was July, the weather was not hot; in this secluded wooded nook where the great shade trees cut off the direct rays of the sun, the atmosphere was almost cool. An old boatman, in charge of a rustic boathouse at the water's edge, stood beside the stream, lost in memories of his own youth and the delightful canoe trips he had taken. Suddenly the laughter of two girls broke in abruptly upon his reveries; a moment later Marjorie Wilkinson and Ruth Henry appeared from among the trees.
"Hello, Michael!" cried Ruth. "How are you?"
But not waiting for any reply, the girls rushed forward to view at closer range their new treasures. With the eye of an experienced canoeist, Marjorie took in every detail.
"Beat yours all to pieces, don't they, Marj?" remarked Ruth.
"Don't you wish you knew who bought them?"
"You bet I do! Somebody rich, I guess!"
"I hope you gals is all good swimmers," interrupted Michael, advancing slowly to the edge of the shore. "Purty ticklish business--canoeing is!"
"Not in flat bottom canoes!" protested Marjorie. "Why, I've had mine for nearly a year now, and never upset once!"
"But you never tried to navigate a stream like the Silver!" said the old man, reaching for his pipe and tobacco pouch. "There's one place in this here stream I'd be willing to bet a silver dollar somebody upsets!"
"Oh, where is it?" cried Ruth, delighted that all of the water was not to be so monotonous as it seemed to be in the locality of the boathouse. Already she had visions of the rest of the girls upsetting; and after steering her own canoe safely through, she saw herself effecting thrilling rescues. There were even medals in life-saving, she had read in the handbook; it certainly would be worth while to possess one, especially if it were the only one of its kind in Pansy troop.
But the old man smoked silently, refusing to explain his remark.
"And are there any wild animals along the stream?" pursued Ruth.
"Hardly!" replied Michael, turning about and going back to his broken chair beside the boathouse. "Maybe a fox or a deer. But nuthin' real dangerous."
Ruth and Marjorie both seemed a trifle disappointed until the latter thought suddenly of snakes, and a shudder passed through her.
"Any snakes?" she asked.
"Oh, mostly black snakes and water snakes. Do you mind 'em?"
"I loathe them!" exclaimed Ruth. "All girls do. But isn't there anything really dangerous along this creek?" she continued. "Besides that one swift place in the water, I mean."
"Jest one thing, and that only scares some folks. It's a quare woman, what lives all alone in a farm-house by herself."
"Oh, and is she really crazy--stark mad?"
"Some says she's jest sort o' idiotic; wouldn't hurt nobody--but never was all there. They say she had a husband once, but he's dead now."
The old man shook his head doubtfully, to betray the fact that he did not know whether the report were true or not. Marjorie, who had become tired of this conversation, begged to borrow a paddle to try a canoe, but upon refusal--"according to me orders," Michael said--she strolled off in the direction from which she had come, to look for the others. But Ruth continued the topic which was to her highly interesting.
"What kind of house does the woman live in, and what does she look like?"
The old boatman described an ordinary farmhouse, on the edge of the creek, some distance down stream. "You'll know it," he added; "it's opposite to an old mill--the only big mill you'll see on the trip."
"But would she really hurt any of us girls?" asked Ruth.
"No--hardly! Probably only scare you a bit."
Before she could put any more questions they heard a shout in the distance, and Marjorie was greeting the rest of the party. Ethel Todd and Frances Wright, the two oldest girls of the crowd, walked ahead. These girls were seniors now at Miss Allen's, and as they approached they seemed unconsciously to embody the dignity a member of that class is always expected to display. Marjorie remembered when they had been sophomores--at the time when she had entered the boarding school. It was true that their dresses were no longer now, and their hair was still bobbed; but there was something grown-up about their manner of walking. No one would mistake them for boarding school sophomores.
Miss Phillips, their beloved captain, looking more like a girl than ever in her white linen dress, was walking with Doris Sands and Frieda Hammer. The latter was the troop's ward, who was to serve as cook on the canoe trip. And last of all came Lily Andrews, Alice Endicott, and Florence Evans.
Marjorie greeted the girls pleasantly and hugged Lily and Frieda. Over three weeks had passed since they had seen each other, and three weeks is a long time for a girl to be separated from her chums.
They all exclaimed admiringly at the graceful green canoes beside the quiet water, and ran forward eagerly to examine them.
"May we get in right away, Captain?" asked Lily, impatient of delay. She had paddled Marjorie's canoe so often that she knew she could handle one of these.
"No," replied Miss Phillips, noticing the little twinkle in old Michael's eyes at the question. "We are going very slowly."
"Who was it, Captain?" pleaded Ruth. "Please tell us!"
"No; I dare not. But I will tell you one thing: after the trip is over, the canoes are to be the property of the members of Pansy troop!"
"When we graduate, can we take them with us?" demanded Ruth.
"No; they are to belong to the active members of the troop. But you have two years yet, Ruth. You're only a Junior.
"Now--to get back to the subject in question. Suppose we all sit down here. The ground's dry enough, isn't it, Michael?"
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