“The soup is excellent,” she snapped, “and much too good for the company.” And she glanced at Freddy and put her handkerchief up again.
Mr. Camphor drew himself up. Although he hired Bannister to be dignified for him, he could be pretty dignified himself when he had to. “Then if you can’t be polite to my guests,” he said, “you had better leave the table.”
She dropped her spoon and looked at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “You are telling me to leave the table!” she exclaimed. “How dare you, Jimson Camphor!” She glared at him, but he returned the look sternly, and in a minute she dropped her eyes. She picked up her soup spoon and said in a quieter voice: “That I should live to see the day when you would insult me like this! This I can never forgive.” Then, as he didn’t say any more, she went on eating. But she didn’t put her handkerchief to her nose again.
After a time Freddy said: “Very good soup, Jimson. Delicious.”
It was really terrible soup, and badly burned into the bargain. Mr. Camphor said shortly: “H’mp, glad you like it.” But Miss Minerva turned and looked for the first time full at Freddy. “The first word of praise for my cooking that I’ve ever heard in this house,” she said; “and it had to come from a pig!” But nobody answered her, and for the rest of the meal she was silent.
Bannister took out the soup plates and brought in an omelet—which was scorched—and, for Mrs. Wiggins, a big bowl of hay, with a side dish of oats. The dessert, an Indian pudding, was also burned, but the sauce was good, and they ate that. Mrs. Wiggins, however, ate her pudding and all of Freddy’s. She smacked her lips rather too loud over it, but Miss Minerva didn’t seem to be offended, and even gave her a vinegary smile.
After lunch, when Miss Minerva had gone back to the kitchen, they sat for a while on the terrace.
“You know, Freddy,” Mr. Camphor said, “this is the first meal I’ve sat through with Aunt Minerva that she hasn’t scolded me from the time she unfolded her napkin to the time she pushed back her chair. I believe maybe you and Mrs. Wiggins have shown me how to get along with her.”
“You mean praising the food?” Freddy asked.
“No, I mean going ahead and doing what I want to in my own house.”
“Well, good land, it wouldn’t hurt you to pay her a little compliment now and then,” said the cow. “If you praised her cooking she might improve it.”
“Maybe. But even if she did, she’d still object to everything I do. Anyway, I couldn’t. If I’d tried to compliment her on that awful soup, the words would have stuck halfway out. How you ever ate that pudding, Mrs. Wiggins …”
“I liked it.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for tastes,” said Mr. Camphor, and Bannister, who was taking a luncheon tray down to Miss Elmira, said: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
“Who wants to eat the terrible stuff?” said Mr. Camphor. “No, you see,” he went on, “I’ve always done what she wanted me to, even the silliest things, just to save trouble. But it didn’t save anything—I got yelled at just the same. Yes, after this I’m going to …”
“Jimson!” came Miss Minerva’s voice from the kitchen window. “Don’t sit out on that damp terrace without your rubbers. Go get them on at once!”
Mr. Camphor got up. “Yes, Aunt Minerva …” He stopped short. Freddy and Mrs. Wiggins were frowning ferociously at him. He sat down again.
“Hurry up, Jimson,” Miss Minerva shouted. “I’m not going to nurse you through another of your colds.”
Mr. Camphor waved a hand airily at her, then turned away and began talking to the animals. Miss Minerva glared for a minute, then slammed the window down hard.
Chapter 4
News travels fast in the forest. By sundown every deer and fox and coon, every squirrel and chipmunk within a radius of twenty miles knew that Mr. C. Jimson Camphor and a friend from the city were camping on Jones’s Bay, quarter of a mile below Lakeside. What they did not know, of course, was that the friend from the city was Freddy. They supposed him to be a Dr. Henry Hopper.
Freddy had realized that his identity must be carefully concealed. He knew that the minute they pulled the canoe up on the shore dozens of curious eyes would be watching every move, and dozens of sharp ears listening to every word. And once the woods animals learned that the famous pig detective was camping beside the lake, it wouldn’t be long before the whole countryside knew it too.
Fortunately Mr. Camphor had a lot of old camping clothes packed away in mothballs, and from these Freddy picked out a lumberman’s flannel shirt in big black and red checks, a pair of blue work pants, some red and white striped woolen socks, and some high-laced boots, which though too large for his trotters, worked fairly well when he stuffed an extra pair of socks into them before putting them on. He had decided not to wear false whiskers, as they were sure to be troublesome when walking through brush. But in order to conceal his face as much as possible, he selected an old-fashioned coonskin cap that had belonged to Mr. Camphor’s grandfather, who had been a well-known trapper. It was pretty hot, but it came well down over his eyes and had a tail that hung down behind. In this outfit, Freddy was just such a small perspiring camper as you might meet on any Adirondack trail. Even the strong smell of mothballs was right in character.
Among the camping things was a small leather case, like a doctor’s case, containing a first aid kit and a few simple remedies, which Mr. Camphor said his aunt had made him buy to take on his first camping trip. On the side was the manufacturer’s name: Henry Hopper & Co. He scraped off the “& Co.” and lettered “M.D.” in its place with ink. “I don’t know why I never thought of disguising myself as a doctor before,” said Freddy. “With a doctor’s case in my hand I could get in anywhere.”
Along the north shore of the lake, the woods came right down to the water, but on the east side of Jones’s Bay was Stony Point, and beside the point a short stretch of sandy beach. At the edge of this Mr. Camphor pitched the tent. He picked out a level spot, cleared off the brush with his hatchet and pounded down one or two hummocks to make it smooth, then unrolled and spread out the tent, pegged down the eight corners, and going inside, set up the center pole. The whole thing took less than ten minutes.
In another half hour they had unpacked the canoe, set up the table and chairs in front of the tent, and when Mr. Camphor had built a little fireplace of two rows of flat stones, set about four inches apart, he filled a pail with water for the tea, and began mixing batter for flapjacks.
“Hadn’t I better start the fire?” said Freddy.
“You’ve never camped before, have you?” said Mr. Camphor. “Well … go ahead if you want to.”
So Freddy gathered a few handfuls of twigs and lit them between the stones. They were dry and flared up nicely. They flared up so nicely that in two minutes they were almost gone and Freddy had to forage for more. This happened several times, and each time Freddy had to go farther and take longer to get another supply. And the last time the fire went out before he could get back.
“Oh, dear,” he said, “I guess I ought to have collected plenty of wood first, hadn’t I?”
“Can you use a hatchet?” said Mr. Camphor. “There are some black birch saplings back of the tent. Cut three or four of the small ones and drag them around here. They’ll burn green. Get plenty of twigs and sticks going, and then put your birch on. It’ll burn down to coals, and we need coals to cook the flapjacks.” He put down the bowl of batter and opened a package of bacon. “There’s no point in camping if you’re going to be uncomfortable,” he said. “And the secret of being comfortable is never doing anything until you are prepared. Never put up your tent until you’ve made the ground level. Never light your fire till you have gathered all the fuel you’ll need.” He got out the plates and knives and forks and began to set the table.
Freddy’s second fire was more successful. He made it too large, as most beginners do. A tiny flame will heat a pail of water in a few minutes, and a few handfuls
of coals will fry all the flapjacks a man and a pig can eat. They had butter and maple syrup on their flapjacks, and took turns cooking them. Mr. Camphor showed Freddy how to flip them. He was an expert. When a flapjack was done on one side, he would give the frying pan a flip, and the flapjack would go up and make three complete turns in the air before landing back squarely in the pan, uncooked side down. Freddy’s first one flew up into a tree and stayed there; his second was a success, though a sloppy one, for it hit the edge of the pan and half of it went into the fire. After that he did better. It was so much fun flipping them that he ate sixteen.
Freddy’s first one flew up into a tree.
After the sixteenth Freddy groaned and stretched out lazily in his chair. “Ho! Wheel” he said. “This is the life!”
“Ho, whee yourself,” said Mr. Camphor. “If you’re through, you can wash the dishes.”
“What—now?” said Freddy.
“No good camper ever leaves dirty dishes around,” said Mr. Camphor, and handed him the frying pan.
Freddy went into the tent and rummaged in the pack. “Where’s the dishpan?” he called.
Mr. Camphor called him back. “There’s your dishpan, my boy,” he said, pointing to the lake. “A bunch of grass for a dishrag, and a handful of sand for soap, and you’ll be surprised how clean you can scour things.”
After everything was washed and put away, Mr. Camphor got out the telescope and set it up on a tripod and peered through it across the lake. “Let’s see what’s going on at home,” he said. “Ha, there’s Bannister coming down to wheel Aunt Elmira into the house. Want to look?”
Freddy put his eye to the glass. The distant shore seemed to leap up to within a few yards. There was Miss Elmira sitting in her chair, so close that he could have seen the expression on her face if there had been any. Which of course there wasn’t. Bannister stood in front of her; as Freddy watched, he went around behind the chair and started to wheel it towards the house. “Goodness!” said Freddy. For the butler had bent down and made a hideous face at the old lady’s back.
“What is it?” said Mr. Camphor, and as Freddy moved aside and let him look: “Gracious me!” he said. “I didn’t know Bannister felt as strongly about her as that!” And after a minute: “Why, he’s remarkably talented! Ha, I wonder if I could do that one. How’s this, Freddy?” He turned towards the pig and wrinkled up his nose and sort of pulled all his other features close up around it.
“Not bad,” said Freddy. “But look.” He rolled his eyes up, stretched his mouth wide, and then twisted his snout to one side.
“Heavens!” said Mr. Camphor. “Stop it, Freddy; that’s too awful! Why, you don’t even look human. Ha, well; of course you don’t anyway, but I mean, couldn’t you injure your face doing that?”
“We used to play a game,” Freddy said; “sit around and make faces, and the most horrible one got a prize.”
“You must show me your prizes some time,” Mr. Camphor said. “I’ll bet you’ve got a roomful.” He glanced at the sun which was just touching the western hills. “Let’s build up the fire; it will be chilly when the sun sets. We’ll drag some of those dead branches down. Don’t bother to chop them up; we’ll put the butts in the fire and move them up as they burn. Oh, not that piece, Freddy; it’s hemlock; snaps and throws sparks all over the place.”
“Pssst!” Freddy whispered, for he had heard the rustle of some small animal in the underbrush. “Not so loud with the name; remember who I am.”
“Sorry,” muttered Mr. Camphor. He sat down on a log and poked at the fire with a stick. “Well, Dr. Hopper,” he said in a. loud voice, “you were going to tell me some of your experiences in the wilds of Africa, were you not?”
“So I was, Mr. Camphor, sir; so I was,” said Freddy pompously. “Well, sir, as you know, my purpose in going to Africa was to study the methods of the native witch doctors in curing disease. These methods are rather different from the regular American medical practice, and include putting on false faces, dancing around the patient, and banging on drums and yelling. All this looks pretty silly to doctors who just give pills and look at your tongue. But the odd thing is that the patients often get well.
“Successful as this treatment is, only a few American doctors use it. You can see why. If you, sir, came down with the flu, and your doctor, instead of taking your temperature and looking very solemn, were to dress up in a leopard skin and a clown mask and dance around your bed screeching and shaking a rattle, you might be sort of irritated.”
It was getting dark. Freddy glanced around. Here and there in the underbrush sparks glowed steadily in pairs—the eyes of small animals reflecting the firelight. It was the audience that always surrounds a campfire at night.
“However,” Freddy went on, “from medical treatment I was led into the study of magic, which the witch doctors go in for a lot.”
“Ha, magic!” said Mr. Camphor. “I have a friend who is a magician—Freddy. You may have heard of him.”
“I have attended his performances,” Freddy replied. “A remarkably clever pig. However, as I was saying, I studied magic. I studied under M’glumpas, the most celebrated witch doctor in Africa. I became expert in the weaving of spells and the manufacture of wishing caps—you know, you put them on and then wish for whatever you want.”
“And do you get your wish?”
“Sometimes. And sometimes not. All depending.”
“On what?”
“Oh, on general conditions. This and that.”
“Very clear,” said Mr. Camphor. “From your description I feel that I could almost make one myself. But continue.”
“Later,” said Freddy, “I learned to work transformations. Take a man, for instance, and change him into a—well, into a pig. That’s where I got into trouble. I was practicing one day, and I changed old M’glimpy into a tree …”
“Thought his name was M’glumpas,” said Mr. Camphor.
“M’glimpy was his first name. Full name: M’glimpy M’glumpas. Anyhow, there he was, a hundred-foot bongo tree, and I had forgotten how to change him back again. And of course he couldn’t tell me; he could just rustle. Boy, how he rustled! He was pretty mad. I left Africa in a hurry. Good thing I hadn’t changed him into an elephant or a crocodile, wasn’t it?”
“What’s that?” Mr. Camphor exclaimed. He jumped up and listened. “It sounded like a shot.”
Freddy had heard it too, but only faintly, because the coonskin cap was so tight over his ears. “Must be a long way off,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” Mr. Camphor said. “Sounds don’t travel very far in the woods. It came from the direction of Lakeside. Let’s go down and look; there’s a trail along the shore.”
Chapter 5
Freddy and Mr. Camphor stumbled along the trail by the light of their candle lantern, and pretty soon through the trees they saw a faint yellow glow. Then they came out in a clearing, and beyond them was the dark bulk of the hotel, with a light in one of the downstairs windows. Something moved on the porch, and a woman’s voice said: “Stop right where you are!”
“It’s me, Mrs. Filmore,” said Mr. Camphor. “We’re camping down by the point, and we thought we heard a shot.”
“You did. Come in and I’ll tell you about it.”
They went up on the porch and followed her through the darkened lounge into a small office, lit by a kerosene lamp. She was a tall nice-looking woman with a worried expression on her face and a pistol in her hand. She put the pistol in a desk drawer, but she kept the worried expression on, and said: “I’m glad to see somebody human, though—” she smiled—“you do smell dreadfully of mothballs. There are things going on here … well, I’ve never been much of a believer in ghosts, but it’s got so now, with the rapping and groaning and footsteps in empty rooms and wild Indians peering in through windows that nobody can get a wink of sleep all night.”
“Let me present my friend, Dr. Hopper,” said Mr. Camphor. “He’s rather an authority on ghosts; perhaps
he can help you.”
“Too late for that,” said Mrs. Filmore. “I’ve given up. I’m leaving tonight.” She pointed to several suitcases which stood by the door.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mr. Camphor said.
“I’m going to drive to Centerboro, going to stay with my cousin, Mrs. Lafayette Bingle for a while. Until I can find a job.”
“I know Mrs. Bingle,” said Freddy, forgetting for a moment that he was Dr. Hopper. “Please remember me to her. I—I attended her professionally.”
This was quite true, but it had been as a detective in a matter of lost spectacles, not as a doctor.
“If your going is a question of money,” Mr. Camphor began.
She shook her head. “You’re very kind. It’s true of course, I have no more money to pay workmen. But even if I felt that I could accept a loan, I doubt if all the money in the world could get this place in shape to open. As soon as one thing is fixed another breaks down. And my help has all left. No, I shall have to sell for what I can get. There!” she said, as there came a series of loud knocks from somewhere upstairs. “How long do you think a waitress or a handy man would stay with that kind of thing going on? And if the help stayed, how would my guests like it? No,” she said as Mr. Camphor reached for his lantern, “there’s no use going to look; there won’t be anybody there.”
“Well, ma’am,” said Freddy, “don’t you think somebody real is behind all this? I mean, some enemy? Who could come up every night and put on a ghost show?”
“How would they come?” she asked. “How could they get here—in a car, a motor boat-without my hearing them?” She looked at him curiously, her eyes disapproving of the coon-skin cap, which of course he had had to keep on to avoid being recognized as a pig.
Freddy Goes Camping Page 3