finicky about your foolish comforts. Learn to rough it,—it'll be good for you. You're as white as a sheet, and you ought to be all brown and red and freckled and look like a real live girl instead of a wax doll. I'm going to coax Dad to go camping next year. It's loads of fun. Maybe if Bob Rose gets up there before you leave they'd ask me up for a couple of days."
"Or they might ask you after I've left," said Dolly; "you boys could have a lot of fun even if we girls weren't there."
"You bet we could! Girls are not a necessity to a fellow's pleasure if he has fishing and boating and swimming and such things to do."
"Well, I can't swim and I hate to fish,—but I do like boating. What kind of boats will they have, Bob?"
"Oh, motor boats and canoes and rowboats and sail boats and every old kind. Don't get drowned, Dolly, and don't break any more of your bones, but I guess there's nothing much else that can happen to you, if you behave yourself. But don't try to do everything Dotty suggests. She's a hummer, that girl, and I'll bet you in camp she'll run wild. You'll have to hold her back a little."
Dolly's parents gave her practically the same advice. But they felt little fear of Dolly's likelihood of rushing into madcap adventures even if Dotty urged it. For Dolly was slow of movement and slower still in making up her mind; while Dotty was quick as a flash in thought and action.
Mrs. Fayre sighed a little as she selected Dolly's wardrobe. She dearly loved to array her pretty daughter in muslins and organdies with dainty laces and ribbons; but camp life called for stout frocks of tweed or gingham, heavy walking boots and no fripperies.
"I shall put in one or two pretty dresses," Mrs. Fayre said, "in case you are invited to a party or any such affair. And the rest of your summer things I will have ready for you, when you come back and join us at the seashore."
And so the first of August, Mr. and Mrs. Rose and their two daughters with Dolly as the guest started for the Crosstrees Camp.
It was a sad parting between Dolly and her mother and at the last Dolly declared flatly she would not go, and throwing herself in her mother's arms burst into tears.
"Rubbish!" cried Rob, who was dancing about in his efforts to get Dolly started. "I'm ashamed of you, Towhead! Brace up now, and have a nerve. One final wrench and off you go!"
The boy literally tore Dolly from Mrs. Fayre's arms and boosted her in to the Roses' motor car which was waiting to take them to the station.
"All aboard! Go ahead!" Bob called out, waving his hand to the chauffeur and the car started off at a brisk rate.
"You know you needn't go, Dolly, even yet, if you don't want to," and Mrs. Rose smiled kindly at the little girl, as they flew down the avenue.
"I do want to go, Mrs. Rose, and I am ashamed of myself for acting so bad, but I will brace up now. It was just saying good-bye to Mother that somehow sort of seemed to shake my heart."
Dolly smiled through her tears and determinedly began to chatter gaily.
"That's the ticket!" said Mr. Rose, smiling approval at her. "That's the brave little girl. Now when you get to Crosstrees you'll be so delighted and interested, that you won't think of home and Mother for two weeks, except to write a postcard now and then."
"You won't hardly have time for that!" cried Dotty, "there's so much to do from morning till night, and that makes you so tired that you sleep from night till morning. Oh, Dollyrinda, we will have the most gorgeousest times ever!"
"It's beautiful to have Dolly with us," said Genie, her big black eyes dancing with anticipation; "we can show her all our fav'rite places, and all the islands and woodses and everything! But two weeks is an awful short time."
"We'll make it longer next year," said Mr. Rose. "If our two wounded soldiers hadn't been wounded, we would have started a month ago."
"Why do you call it Crosstrees camp?" asked Dolly.
"You'll see when you get there," and Mr. Rose smiled at his little visitor.
Sure enough when they arrived, Dolly discovered the meaning of the strange name. The gateway was formed by two trees which had started to grow parallel, but in some way had been bent toward one another until their trunks crossed about ten feet above ground. The trees had gone on growing this way, and formed an "N," covered with branches and foliage. The party had landed from their train at a small station near one end of a long lake. They had traversed this lake in a swift motor boat, for their camp was at the other end. It was nearly dark when they reached their own pier and all clambered out and climbed a flight of narrow wet steps.
"Hang on to the railing, Doll," said Dotty; "the steps are slippery, a little."
Passing under the crosstrees, to which Mr. Rose drew Dolly's attention as the name of the camp, they came to a sort of bungalow or long, low house.
"Is this the camp?" said Dolly, in surprise. "I thought it was tents. You said so, Dot."
"There are tents, too. Only on stormy nights we sleep inside. Come on in, Doll. Isn't it fine?"
Dolly Fayre looked around at the bare boarded rooms, the scant furniture and rough walls of the cabin, for it was little more than that.
She was cold and rather hungry, but underneath these discomforts was a far more troublesome one which she tried not to think about, but which she felt sure was going to develop into an acute case of homesickness.
"Run up to your rooms, girlies, and take off your things," said Mrs. Rose, cheerily. "We'll eat inside to-night, and Maria will make us some of her good flap-jacks for supper."
Maria was an old coloured servant and the only one who accompanied the Rose family to camp. Other help that might be needed they procured from some of the natives who were glad to do odd jobs for the summer people.
Dolly followed Dotty and Genie upstairs where there was a long row of tiny bedrooms opening onto a narrow hall. These bedrooms had ceilings which slanted right down to the floor, so one could not stand upright after advancing a few feet into the room.
"Aren't they funny rooms?" said Dotty, laughing with glee at Dolly's blank-looking countenance. "But you'll get used to them soon. Of course you have to bend double, except just here by the door, but that's nothing. This one is yours, Dolly, and mine is right next and then Genie's. Mother and Father have a room downstairs. But we won't sleep here, we'll sleep in the open tent to-night, it's plenty warm enough. Oh, it's such fun!"
Dolly didn't know what sleeping in an open tent meant, but she smiled in response and soon the three girls went downstairs together.
Mr. and Mrs. Rose were bustling around, happily engaged in unpacking and arranging books and pictures and various trifles to make the big living-room more homelike.
"Looks a little bare now," said Mr. Rose, as he placed his smoking set in position near his own particular easy chair, "but in a day or two we'll have it looking like a little Paradise on earth. Just you wait, Miss Dolly, till you see this desert blossom like a rose,—like a whole Rose family, in fact!"
"These things help a lot," and Mrs. Rose deftly arranged half a dozen sofa pillows on a big inviting-looking couch.
"And to-morrow we'll put up a swing, and the hammocks, won't you, Daddy?" said Genie.
