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Page 7
"Oh, Lieutenant Lindsley would be lots of fun. She knows
everything in hill and dale, and is not afraid of snakes or cows.
But do you think we should notify the other girls? It is rather
hard to get in touch with them in time," Grace ranted on.
By this time Margaret and Madaline had joined the group, and now
all the scouts in seventh and eighth grammar grades were
discussing plans for the precipitous hike. There were Mable Blake,
also a tenderfoot, Adaline Allen and Mildred Clark, second grades,
and the McKay twins, first class scouts. All of these willingly
agreed to make the foot trip out to the Falls.
The afternoon school session received scant attention from the
prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in
the prospects of a spring afternoon in the woods.
So interested were Grace and Madaline they exchanged preparatory
notes in the five minute rest period, although that time was set
aside for real relaxation, and no one was supposed to use eyes or
fingers during the short rest.
When school was finally dismissed the girls arranged to pass the
homes of most of the group, as many of them lived on the same
Oakley Avenue, and thus notify parents of their scout plans for
the hike, and when Lieutenant Lindsley was eventually picked up
from the practicing department of the Normal School, the ranks
were filled, and the hike moved off towards the River Road.
It was a glorious afternoon, in late April. The peach blossoms
were just breaking into pink puff balls, and the pear trees were
burdened with a crop of spring "snow," fragrant in their whitest
of dainty blossoms.
But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the
joyous, happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more
noisy town streets, into the highways and byways of the long green
stretch of country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on
its border.
"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't
care just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am
called up to take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in
daylight, so beware! I may do something very desperate and rash
this afternoon."
"Spare us," pleaded Madaline. "I have seen some of our courage
worked out in the woods before. Remember the time you nearly set
fire to the river? Well, don't, please, go try anything like that
today."
"No, it must be something for which I should receive a badge of
courage, if I were in the first class. I want to blush with
fitting modesty when Captain Clark invests me with the next
degree, and I shall only blush when reminded of my noble deed this
afternoon."
"Since you are not particular about what deed shall be the noble
one, won't you just give me a hand, and help me save this heel of
mine from a blistering shoe? The shoe was all right in school, but
just now it has picked up a snag, somehow, and between the shoe
and the snag, my life is not worth living."
"Poor Madie," soothed her chum. "Let us sit right down here and
diagnose the case. I'm first rate at diagnosing anything but why
my bureau can't stay fixed. It has chronic upsettedness, and all
my operations are of no avail. There go the girls down into the
hazel nut gully. Let's sit on this lovely mossy couch, and look
after the heel. Doesn't moss grow beautifully smooth under the
cedars? I wonder how it ever gets so velvety?"
At the twined and natural woven seat, wrought from the uncovered
roots of a great hemlock, the girls caressed and patted the velvet
moss that formed a veritable carpet--no--it was softer than
carpet, a silken velvet throw, over a natural cedar divan. Even
the suffering heel was forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in
green, with the darker green canopy of cedars, and the music of a
running river at the foot of the sloping hill. Here the scent of
watercress vied with the hemlock and cedar, for its place as
nature's perfume, and only such mingling of wild ferns, trailing
arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could produce the aroma
of incense that just then permeated the woody glen.
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