by Helen Wells
‘I’m on my way to the Eplers’ now,” said Cherry. She remembered about the waiting cook, and explained to Reed Champion.
“Well, I won’t detain you,” he said. He started to walk back to his own car, then he stopped. “See you around. If you’re ever free for an evening drive—or on your day off—?”
“My hours aren’t definite yet, but it would be nice to see you.” She was surprised, because Reed obviously was no ladies’ man, but pleased too that he had asked her for a date.
Reed shook his head as he climbed back into his car. “I’m so busy that if I make appointments ahead, usually I have to break them at the last minute. Anyway, I’ll look forward to seeing you on Saturday evenings. The boys visit the girl campers for a square dance on Saturdays.” He waved. “Give my regards to the Eplers.”
The Eplers’ house stood at the entrance to a small working farm. Cherry liked the neat, bright look of the place, with its well-tended rows of garden produce, the freshly painted barn, and the rolling green fields beyond. It was nearly noon, and appetizing odors floated from the house.
Cherry tapped at the screen door. No one came; she heard the clatter of dishes, and a radio newscast. She knocked again, several times, but when no one answered, Cherry walked to the back of the house and went to the open kitchen door. Two young men and a young woman were having lunch there and listening to the news.
“Hello?” Cherry said. “Anyone at home to a Blue Water caller?”
To her surprise, the yellow-haired young man jumped from his chair, and went hurriedly out of the room.
The other two people looked anxiously at each other. Then the remaining man nodded, and the young woman rose, turned off the radio, and came to the door.
“Come in, miss. I’m Vernie Epler.” She and her husband wore blue denim work clothes. She gave Cherry a friendly, if strained smile. “Always glad to see Blue Water folks.”
“Please don’t let me disturb you,” Cherry said. “I’m interrupting your lunch. Please go ahead.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Fred Epler. He pulled up a chair for her. Vernie offered her a cup of coffee. “Afraid we don’t know your name,” the young farmer said.
Cherry introduced herself. “I’m new here. I’ve already heard about you, though, from the children.”
The Eplers smiled. “The campers are one of the nicest things in our neighborhood. That Reed Champion—now there’s one fine boy,” Fred said.
Cherry nodded. “This looks like one fine farm, too. Have you been here a long time?” For although she was here on an errand, the Eplers received her as a neighbor, and expected her to be as friendly as they were.
Fred Epler told her that he and Vernie had been here about three years, ever since Fred had inherited the farm from a great-uncle.
“But we feel as if we’d always lived here. Belong to the church, and the Grange, and put this rundown farm in good order, and Vernie won a blue ribbon for her peach preserves at the County Fair.”
Fred Epler spoke with well-earned pride for both of them.
Yes, Cherry thought, they must work hard, from sunup to sundown, on their tidy farm.
Fred and Vernie were so young and devoted, they seemed almost like honeymooners. Cherry wondered about the young man who had left the room so abruptly—she had not heard of any third person at the Eplers’. She noticed that Vernie and then Fred glanced into the other room.
“I hope I didn’t drive away your—ah—” Cherry hesitated. “The other young man.”
“Our friend,” said Vernie. “Not a local boy. Fred’s—A friend of Fred’s. They haven’t seen each other for a long time.” She seemed under some necessity to explain.
“I guess you think it’s funny,” Fred Epler said to Cherry, “the way he bolted, hey? Mac’s tired. He hasn’t had much sleep. I guess that’s why he—well, maybe didn’t think he was fit for company.”
“I’m not company,” Cherry said, “and honestly you don’t owe me any explanations.”
But Fred Epler insisted Mac had to come in and be introduced. He went into the other room. Cherry heard them talking. Then the two young men returned together.
For a moment Cherry had a passing impression that Fred and his friend looked somewhat alike. But she dismissed it. For one thing, their coloring was entirely different—Mac was yellow-haired and he wore a small mustache. He seemed worn, though not much older than Epler. Like Fred and Vernie, he was windburned and sunburned.
“This is Mac Cook, Cherry Ames.” Fred gave the young man a slight push forward. “Tell the young lady you’re a little bit girl-shy.”
Mac Cook did seem shy, or at least ill at ease. He said hello courteously to Cherry, and apologized for walking out. Otherwise he had nothing to say.
Cherry thought he was an extremely amiable-looking person, who looked as if he could be fun, but she wondered why he seemed so tense. The atmosphere in the farm kitchen grew strained.
“Well, I—I came for some extra cream and eggs,” Cherry said to fill the uncomfortable silence.
Just as she started to follow Vernie outdoors, toward the springhouse, Mac Cook barely touched her sleeve.
“Will you do me a favor?” he asked.
“Depends on what the favor is,” she replied.
“It isn’t much,” he said anxiously. She saw signs of fatigue around his eyes. “I—I—well, I’m not feeling very good—and the neighbors around here, if you don’t visit them right away, think you’re being unfriendly. So would you mind,” Mac Cook said all in a rush, “not mentioning to anybody that you’ve seen me here?”
Cherry looked for some guidance toward Fred Epler, but he was lighting a pipe. Vernie was waiting outdoors, half turned away; Cherry could not see her face. They must have heard Mac Cook’s request. If it were wrong, certainly people like the young Eplers would not be party to it.
“All right,” Cherry said, still puzzled. “All right, if you wish.”
His relief was visible.
She purchased the eggs and cream, and drove the short distance back to camp. “It still seems a bit queer,” she thought, “but after all I’m a stranger here. The Eplers know how things are done, and I don’t, so I’ll just be a Roman and ‘do as the Romans do.’”
CHAPTER III
P.E.P. Stands for Purdy
CHERRY BELIEVED SHE WAS ACQUAINTED BY NOW, THE second week of camp, with practically everyone in and around Camp Blue Water. During the commotion of Fourth of July, she had met dozens of campers of all ages. She now had all the counselors sorted out by name, including Ted and Jimmy Sims who taught riding and sailing. These two young men lived at the Main House, along with the camp directors and Dr. and Mrs. Lowell. Cherry had even improved her acquaintance with Sophie, the cook, and her helper and the elderly handyman around the place.
“You haven’t met the horses,” Sue Howard pointed out, on one of her before-breakfast visits to Cherry’s cabin. “I guess you haven’t met Mr. Purdy and his wonderful barn, either.”
“How can you meet a barn?” Cherry teased her.
“This barn is different. It’s stuffed with all kinds of costumes and props and gorgeous draperies. Mr. Purdy lets us borrow them for our camp shows.”
Sue explained that Mr. Purdy was a commercial photographer, who lived in a summer cottage nearby, and these intriguing items were things he would not need for a while, or had no space for, at his studio in New York City. Sue thought he also stored old negatives, out-of-use cameras, bulbs, and such things in his barn.
“Well, why haven’t I met this fascinating character?” Cherry demanded.
“Because he just got here yesterday, from the city,” Sue said. “Ding and Mary Alice and I saw him yesterday, opening his cottage for the summer. I guess it’s Mr. Purdy’s vacation. He said hello to us and invited everybody over to eat apples off his trees. He’s a funny little man. I mean, he’s lots of fun.”
Sue’s report was accurate. Cherry met Mr. Purdy that afternoon, while taking a wildflower-
picking stroll with Lil Baker and the inmates of the Tumble Inn cabin, the Dingdong Belles, and the Mountaineers—all Intermediates. It was fortunate that Cherry had worn a sturdy cotton blouse and skirt and not her white uniform, for all of them were grass-stained and muddy, and bedecked with daisy wreaths on their heads.
“We must be a sight to behold,” Lil remarked to Cherry as they straggled back toward camp.
“Hold it!” a squeaky voice commanded. A little man trotted toward them. “A close-up, please, ladies!”
He was a funny little man, with a beret perched on his nearly bald head, garish sports clothes, and rope-soled sandals on his feet. He seemed to be enchanted with the flower maidens, and nearly fell off a jutting rock trying to snap them at “an interesting angle.”
“Enough, enough!” Lil Baker protested. “How are you, Mr. Purdy? It’s nice to see you again this summer.”
He let his camera swing from its strap around his neck, and scrambled down to them, beaming.
“Miss Lilian! Are these grown-up young ladies the same children I saw last summer? Hello, twins”—he nodded to the redheaded Smiths—”and I remember Ding and Sue, and—and all of you, naturally.”
The girls giggled. Katy stepped forward as if, being so pretty, she were eager for the photographer to notice her. Mr. Purdy went on chatting with them all impartially.
“Are you going to stage Macbeth this summer, or is it the Follies? Did you receive the snapshots I mailed you last winter?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Purdy, and Uncle Bob used a lot of them in the camp catalogue,” Sue said.
“I can act,” said Katy, but she was drowned out.
“Will you lend us costumes and props again this summer, Mr. Purdy? Will you come to see us?”
The little man said “Yes, yes, yes!” to everything. Lil Baker raised her voice to introduce Cherry.
“A new nurse—well, that is fine,” said Mr. Purdy, shaking hands with her. “So you are new here. Really I am not such an old settler, either. I’ve had my cottage only two years.”
All of them strolled down the road, in the direction of camp, to see his place. It was the nearest of all the neighbors’ houses to Blue Water. Cherry found it smaller and shabbier than she had expected, judging by Mr. Purdy’s rather high-flown manner. It was just a modest two-room cottage, backed by a ramshackle barn and some apple trees.
“Your house needs a coat of paint, Mr. Purdy,” said matter-of-fact Mary Alice.
“Yes, yes, but I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble,” he said airily. “Or the expense.”
“Mr. Purdy,” said Sue, “we have a bet about your first name. None of us know what it is.”
“Now tell me, Sue, do you like your name? … Not very well? … Well, I don’t care much for mine,” the little man said. “It’s Paul. And my middle name—may my dear mother be forgiven—is Ethelbert.”
The girls found that fairly awful. Then Sue exclaimed, “But your three initials spell Pep! That’s fun.”
“Exactly. Very quick of you. And do you know, I use the name Pep as my trade name? That’s what I sign on my photographs. In the city many of my friends call me Pep or Peppy.”
Cherry thought the name suited him. Especially when he stood on tiptoe and vigorously shook an apple tree, so that they could carry refreshments back to camp with them.
The girls were serious when they asked Mr. Purdy for costumes and props, Cherry learned. Sounds floated up to the infirmary from the Playhouse—sounds of home-grown vaudeville acts in rehearsal. Sue confided to her that one skit was called “Fussy Flossie at Blue Water,” and could Cherry guess who was meant?
“I hope that you’re not being unkind to Katy,” Cherry said.
“It’s Katy who’s being unkind to—to—Well, our whole cabin can hardly believe it! She begged to adopt a kitten from that nice Mr. and Mrs. Clemence, who own the Model Farm. A gray kitten with a dear little face. Then Katy brought the poor little thing home and forgot to feed it regularly. Didn’t even bring it fresh water!” Sue said indignantly. “Said that it could catch Miss Leona’s mouse. And it’s only a baby, still wobbly on its paws. All the rest of our cabin is taking care of the kitten. Katy says she forgets. Forgets! It sleeps on my cot now.”
Cherry suggested that Katy’s lack of any sense of responsibility was not her fault—it was the way she had been brought up.
“But Katy will have to learn, or she’ll be in trouble,” Cherry said. “Why, the Midgets do better than that.”
The six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds were busy with a project of raising baby ducklings. A dozen yellow balls of fluff floated at the Midgets’ share of the waterfront and swam tamely in to shore to eat grain out of outstretched palms.
The camp was alive with numerous projects. Indirectly Cherry learned of some of them. Via Sally Trent’s skinned knees, she heard about the older girls’ trip to one of the lake coves, in search of specimens for their plant collection. From three girls’ upset stomachs, the Lowells and Cherry found out about Sophie’s good-natured permission to make fudge the previous afternoon when it rained. A scorched thumb was testimony of what the girls were doing at the woodcraft center, under Jean Wheeler’s supervision. This especially interested Cherry, and she went down the hill to see.
The point was, the girls were preparing themselves for overnight hiking trips. The other side of the mountains called to them, and the flowery opposite shore of Long Lake seemed to beckon. Cherry found girls of various ages working seriously with saplings, cut in the forest, fashioning them into lean-to shelters and crude dish racks. She watched Jean Wheeler show one group how to use a fireplace “—sometimes we’ll use the camp shelters and fireplaces along the way—” and showed samples of what kind of woods were best for cooking.
“Cherry, you look wistful.” Jean Wheeler laughed at her.
“If you’d have me, I’d love to come along sometime on an overnight hike,” Cherry said.
“You’re cordially invited, Nurse, provided you can pass tests for outdoor skills. Every girl has to, before she starts out.”
“I’m rusty,” Cherry admitted. ‘“Mind if I hang around and brush up?”
She made it her business to work with Katy, whose delicate fingers were unused to bending a sapling.
“I think this is silly,” Katy said under her breath.
“Silly to know how to take care of yourself? Never mind a scraped finger. You really have a knack with wood, I think,” Cherry encouraged her.
The girl gave Cherry a look of surprise and hope. “I thought you told me in the infirmary the other day that I’m spoiled. You sort of hinted it.”
“No one has to stay spoiled and helpless,” Cherry said cheerfully. She held two pieces of wood in place for Katy to join. “How’s your kitten?”
“Oh, I guess she’s Sue Howard’s kitten now.”
Katy Osborn had much to learn. Cherry hoped she would not insist on learning the hard way. She had an inkling that Katy, defiant or not, was not happy about not fitting in and would like to change.
“It isn’t easy to discover one’s own good and bad points,” Cherry remarked to Katy on the morning a crowd of them drove over to the Model Farm. “Look at me, I know I wouldn’t know what to say to a pig or a calf. Do you think I can learn?”
Katy smiled faintly. “I s’pose it depends on whether the pig and calf cooperate.”
“Good for you,” Cherry thought. “At least you’ve found out that there is such a thing as cooperation.”
The Model Farm was well equipped. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Clemence, who operated it as a hobby with the help of several men, left a place open on the farm schedule every summer for the children to take part. The Clemences always had plenty of time to show a girl—or a boy, on the boys’ days—how to look after the animals or grow a garden. Cherry’s eyes opened wide at the campers’ skill. No one hurried, enjoying the warm sun and the warm, fragrant earth.
Bea’s Beehive, little as they were, took care of a pen of chickens, sc
attering corn, while other little girls carefully gathered the eggs. Sue’s cabin and rival cabins plunged with hoes and rakes into the truck garden, which had a thriving vegetable patch for each group of girls. Cherry pitched in, too, mostly to give Katy a hand and engage her interest.
Aunt Bet had said, “See what you can do with her, Cherry. Lil can’t, and I can’t do much.” Katy was behaving fairly well, so Cherry stole away for a few minutes to see the older girls’ project. The Seniors cultivated a large flower garden, the most striking Cherry had ever seen, with variegated blooms massed in whites, pinks, and blues. The all-blue garden with its delphinium, hydrangea, larkspur, and bachelor buttons was Cherry’s favorite.
“It’s a favorite New England garden,” old Mrs. Clemence told her. “This July sun is helping the flowers so much, isn’t it? But you look puzzled, my dear?”
“I was wondering, Mrs. Clemence,” said Cherry, “whether you could tell me the exact species or horticultural names of the blue flowers. My mother is an enthusiastic gardener, she’d love to know about good, healthy strains.”
“Certainly. We have a little greenhouse. If you want to walk over there, you’ll find shelves of seed envelopes. Those will give you the information you want, I’m sure. They’re for sale, if you care to choose any.”
Cherry thanked Mrs. Clemence and walked over to the greenhouse, which stood by itself. Entering, she took a deep breath of its moist, scented air. Right at the door she found the shelves with the seed envelopes and a seed catalogue. But first, she could not resist having a look down the greenhouse’s long green aisle.
A young man was watering some of the plants. Didn’t she recognize that yellow thatch of hair? Wasn’t that figure, rather short and of wiry build, Mac Cook? Then he turned around and Cherry saw the mustache and his startled face.
“Hello, Mr. Cook,” she said. “I certainly am surprised to see you here.”
