PLANS FOR THE SOUTHWEST TRIP

“Verny, haven’t you heard from Gilly since he wrote us that he was planning the trip to Arizona and New Mexico?” asked Juliet Lee, one of the girl scouts of Dandelion Troop.

“Only the telegram from Mr. Gilroy, which came yesterday, telling us that he had mailed a letter of particulars the day before. I did not expect to receive it from Denver in twenty-four hours’ time, you know,” was Mrs. Vernon’s smiling reply.

“No; but it ought to arrive to-night or to-morrow morning,” said Julie, meditatively.

“I hope we start right off, Verny. It would be dreadful if we had to lose a week of our summer’s vacation,” declared Elizabeth Lee, who was always known as “Betty” by her family and friends.

“Well, at least, we have our things all ready to pack the moment we find out when to start and where to meet Gilly,” remarked Joan Allison, one of the group of scouts that had spent the preceding summer, with Mr. Gilroy as their host, in the Rocky Mountains.

A mournful wail from Ruth Bentley, another girl in that group of mountain scouts, prevented Mrs. Vernon from speaking. “I’d so much rather go with you all and have the wonderful times you will have this summer, than have to accompany father and mother to Europe! If only Dad could see that I might be educated better on this scout tour than in Paris, he might change his mind. But he refuses to see!

Julie laughingly added: “Remember the biblical words, Ruth? ‘Eyes have they and they see not.’”

“Well, that’s Dad!” exclaimed Ruth.

“I am so thankful that I am able to go with you this summer that I am just keeping quiet and marking time. I feel as if I must wake up and find it all a dream, should I express my joy as fervently as I want to,” was Hester Wynant’s humorous declaration.

“We’re all glad with you, Hesty. While we were ‘doing the Rockies’ last summer, we often said how nice it would be to have had you there,” added Anne Bailey. “This year you might say as much of me.”

There were other girls in that scout meeting held at Mrs. Vernon’s home this first day of the summer vacation of the Elmertown school; but these girls, because they could not be with their chums on the southwestern tour, seemed too disconsolate to make any remarks about the proposed interesting trip.

It is taken for granted that the reader has heard of these girl scouts who, each summer after the closing of school, endeavor to visit a famous range of mountains, and thus became distinguished as the Mountain Scouts.

The first summer of their scoutdom they camped upon a ridge of the Blue Mountains in New Jersey. Here they acquired the knowledge, and tested their ability, to join the National Organization of Girl Scouts; later when they had two Patrols, according to rules, they were enrolled and became known as the Girl Scouts of Dandelion Troop.

It was during their first camping season that they went to Blue Beard’s cave, one of the local points of interest, and discovered a man who had been injured by two escaped convicts, who, after robbing him, managed to get away. The poor man was unconscious and would have died in that dark and seldom-visited cave on the top of the mountain had it not been for the timely assistance given him by the scouts and their Captain.

Back in the mountain camp Mr. Gilroy, the convalescing guest of Dandelion Patrol, explained how he came to visit Blue Beard’s cave that day. Thus the girls learned that he was a great admirer of scout work and had been a patron of the Boys’ Scout Organization. The junior scouts who had rescued him now decided to enlist his interests in the Girls’ Scout Organization, as well.

Mr. Gilroy continued his visit at the Dandelion Camp for a few days after he felt completely restored to normal strength, and, during this visit, became deeply interested in Mrs. Vernon’s plans and propositions for her girls. Because of the first aid rendered him in his hour of extremity, Mr. Gilroy insisted upon having the Scout Patrol visit his Adirondack Estate the following summer. To this unexpected proposition the girls gladly agreed, providing their parents and Mrs. Vernon would consent and advance the necessary money to defray the costs of the trip.

Hence the second summer of the Dandelion Troop of Girl Scouts was spent on the shores of First Lake, one of the Fulton Chain of lakes. There was a boys’ camp a mile away, and Mr. Gilroy divided his time and interest between the two camps. The girls won such favor, however, that their host invited them to accompany him the following summer on a camping trip through the Rocky Mountains.

Mrs. Vernon, who had founded Dandelion Troop, was the Captain of the scouts; Juliet Lee was their Leader; and Joan Allison was the Corporal. Since that first enrollment, when there were but four girls, namely: Julie and Betty Lee; Joan Allison, and Ruth Bentley, there were now two flourishing Patrols. In Patrol Number One were the first four girls, and Hester Wynant, Amy Ward, Edith and Judith Blake and Anne Bailey. Patrol Number Two was larger, but the members were younger. It was Patrol Number One that had spent the second summer in the Adirondacks.

There were but five girls of Patrol Number One who went to the Rockies for the third season. They were: Julie and Betty Lee, Joan Allison, Ruth Bentley and Anne Bailey. Hester Wynant could not go because she had been needed at home. Mrs. Blake had refused to hear of having her two girls go and, perhaps, risk their being lost or killed in the wild and woolly west. Amy Ward’s mother listened to Mrs. Blake; hence Amy Ward had remained home.

Now, this fourth summer for mountaineering, the plan of visiting Arizona and New Mexico appealed so strongly to every girl in Dandelion Troop that mothers had heard nothing, morning, noon, and night, for weeks, but glowing accounts of this trip. A very important factor brought to bear in their arguments for this southwestern trip being that not one of those girls who had gone to the Rockies had been lost or injured as Mrs. Blake had foretold. Instead of disaster and troubles, the scouts had returned to Elmertown looking the picture of health and happiness.

Mrs. Blake, however, held up both hands in horror when a trip to New Mexico and Arizona was suggested; and, through her vehement objections, she influenced her friend, Mrs. Ward, to keep Amy home this time as aforetime. Thus, three bitterly rebellious girls sat with their fellow-scouts that day in Mrs. Vernon’s home, and cried over the fate of having such unreasoning mothers.

“Our list has dwindled to four girls; one less than we had on the Rocky Mountain trip. Ruth has to accompany her parents to Europe, but I wish she could have this rare treat, instead of Paris,” sighed Mrs. Vernon. “As for Judith and Edith and Amy—well! I dare not say what is in my heart, but I wish I was their mother, that’s all!”

“How we wish you were, Verny!” exclaimed all three girls.

“If my sister would postpone her wedding day till October, I, too, could go with you,” remarked Anne Bailey. “But Eleanor says the last week of July is the only time Henry can take a vacation; so the wedding has to be then. I’d a heap rather be scouting out west with you girls than be a bridesmaid at a wedding. If I ever become engaged to marry, I won’t be so selfish as to insist upon keeping my younger sister home from a glorious summer-tour for nothing more than a poky ceremony that takes only five minutes! Just think of me losing all your fun this summer and moping, instead, about a house that is turned topsy-turvy for a prospective bride.”

“We will miss you awfully, Anne,” said Julie, teasingly, “because we won’t know what to do with the left-overs from the camp meals.” Anne was a healthy, hearty eater, and during the summer in the Rockies had made the most of every opportunity to eat.

“Perhaps you will command your younger sister as Eleanor now commands you, Anne, when you are Eleanor’s age and have a beau,” remarked Mrs. Vernon, smilingly.

“Verny! I want you to wake me up sharply if you find me, at the age of twenty, hypnotized with any young man that happens to cast an eye upon my fair face,” laughed Anne. “A girl, now-days, ought to remain single till she is twenty-five or -six. Then she knows her own mind, and won’t hanker for a divorce the moment she learns she will have to cook and sew for a man she thought was to be her permanent supply for candy, flowers, and theater-parties.”

The scouts laughed merrily; Anne’s views were well known to them, because she took every opportunity to speak her mind on the subject of sweethearts. “Without any prospects other than love!” was her usual conclusion.

“Well, scouts, as I was saying long before all these digressions, the applicants for this trip are Julie and Betty Lee, Joan Allison, and Hester Wynant. If you can bring about a change of heart in your parents before we actually leave here, there will be no difficulty in tucking you in at the last moment of the last day,” suggested Mrs. Vernon. “Even should a mother relent later, you can wire us and come on to the nearest railroad stop, where we can pick you up for the tag end of the tour.”

“Verny, that might answer in my case!” exclaimed Anne Bailey. “If Eleanor is safely married, I can rush away the last of July and join you for the month of August. I may not get the whole loaf, but a slice of bread will be better than none, you know.”

“Besides, mother may relent when she sees the postal cards of all the beautiful places you visit,” added Amy Ward, eagerly. “Once you are away from the Grand Canyon that Mrs. Blake is forever harping about, my parents may consent to let me go with Anne, in August.”

“That would be great, Amy!” exclaimed Joan, gladly.

“Well, then, girls, say we leave the matter open,” said Mrs. Vernon. “Any scout who can secure the consent of her parents to allow her to join us out west during this summer that we plan to spend there, will be told exactly how to reach us. For this purpose I propose Joan, the scribe, to keep those back home fully informed of our plans and proposed stopping places each coming week. In this way you can keep tabs on our movements, and can reach us by telegraph any time we might be in a town where there is telegraph communication.” As the speaker concluded this encouraging amendment to the stern parents’ verdict, the maid knocked at the door of the large living-room.

“Come in, Mary,” called Mrs. Vernon, glancing at the half-opened door.

“Shure, ma’am, it’s onny the letter ye’es was a-lookin’ fer awl ov yistiddy. Here it be’es.” So saying, Mary handed a thick letter to her mistress.

“Oh, girls!” exclaimed the scout Captain, “it’s from Mr. Gilroy.”

Exclamations and sounds of delight came from every one present and, immediately, Mrs. Vernon was surrounded by eager girls. No time was lost in tearing open the envelope and in removing the typewritten instructions.

As the Captain unfolded the paper, she said: “How nice it is to have had this arrive while you were still present. Now we shall read the news together.”

Realizing that every scout was impatient with eagerness to hear the contents of the momentous letter, Mrs. Vernon began to read without further delay.

“My dear pals of the Rockies:

I suppose you received my telegram which was sent to prepare you for the coming of this volume. Now that I have completed it, I am sending it to you without reading it again to see that every punctuation mark is in place, and that the i’s are dotted, or the t’s crossed, knowing, as I do, that my brilliant readers will not find fault with my style no matter what errors mark its literary value. After these few words of preface, dear readers, I must unburden my soul of the weight that is oppressing it.

The weight, at present, consists of the etcetera of preparing a group of lively scouts for a desert life in New Mexico and Arizona. Such preparation includes, item: a stock of rain and dew that must last us throughout the season spent on the hot sands and in the sun-baked atmosphere of the Bad Land; also, item: tents inside which you will have to crawl to keep your eyes from star-blind; item: the Japanese parasols for day use, which must intervene between you and the dense shade thrown by the giant cactus plants which grow in jungled luxuriance on the southwestern deserts.

Thus far, I have not been able to secure the special brand of ice which is guaranteed not to melt in July and August; but I have hopes of finding enough of this necessity near Gallinas Canyon to last us for our trip of desert touring. Now, Captain, and Leader, and Corporal, dears, please read the foregoing to the timid parents in Elmertown and assure them that such dangers as I have mentioned are positively the only ones to be found in the wilderness of this isolated corner of the universe. Perhaps my description may influence one or more of the mothers to make concessions to their daughters’ own wishes to come west and try out the desert. Then, verily, would the “desert blossom as a rose,” with a bouquet of lovely blossoms as I know Dandelions to be.

But I must cease my floral flatteries and confine myself to the merely practical part of this letter. As a foreword to such material information, let me tell you, girls, that our old friend Tally has agreed to guide us throughout the entire trip; Omney signed up with an English party of tourists who are doing Colorado and Wyoming, hence he is now breaking his heart because he had not known of our summer plans in time to have shared Tally’s joys. I’m sorry for him, but glad to have Tally.

You scouts know quite well what sort of outfit to carry on this tour of the southwest; because it will be the same as that which you brought last summer for the camping in the Rockies. There will be just as cold nights, and the peaks just as high as those we had last summer. Because we speak of a desert in Arizona, one must not think that it will be the broiling heat of the Sahara, though I will say that our western deserts can produce a pretty good imitation of the Far East patented and copyrighted article. Therefore, and whereas, I will add, a change to summer apparel might be pleasant if you happen to stray to the middle of one of these sand-spots at noon-day. Use your judgment about mosquito-netting dresses, but use my judgment about flannel underwear, woolen golf-stockings and pure wool knickers and shirt-waists.

We shall not take a French laundress on this trip, neither will we establish a hair-dressing and manicuring parlor de luxe at every halt, so leave your beauty implements at home and resign yourself to trust Nature for the genuine article this season.

Now, having given you an itemized list of what you will not need for this outing, I will proceed to give you directions of how to find me one week from Monday—the Monday I am mailing this letter, and not next Monday week, or two weeks before last Monday.

I know a Proverb—I can hear you laugh, but I really do read the Bible—that says, “The better the day the better the deed,” so I want to start you off on your summer trip on the best day in the week—Sunday. If you take the train from Elmertown early Sunday morning you can get the Chicago Limited which leaves Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon. I figure you will save time and money by going to Philly instead of to Trenton, the latter being almost as far east from your town as the former is west, but west is your destination, hence—well, I need not explain to girl scouts.

This Limited will stop at Philadelphia, if Julie will stand on the track and flag it energetically, after the manner she signaled from the bluff that time when she was wrecked in the rapids. I’m sure you will find seats on the ocean-side of the train to Chicago, if you use one of those sweet scout smiles at the gruff old conductor on the train. Tell him you are personal friends of mine if you want to get thrown off the rear platform of the train at the next water-tank. He knows me well, hence he has vowed to use the gilded rule on me and mine, and treat all my friends as he would treat me.

If you can manage to stick to the Limited till she pulls into Chi., I’ll meet you at the station and get even with your conductor for bringing you safely to your destination.

If you get those knobs of rock, which the Pullman Company designate as feather pillows, and learn that you cannot rest your tender heads upon them, use your suit-cases instead; you’ll find them much softer and more apt to give you pleasant dreams. I’ve used my metal box which I carry for mineral specie and I prefer it to those pillows.

Now, my girls, having written you this valuable advice I feel as if I had earned my night’s sleep. There is one more item you may wish to know—every one asks this question, hence I expect you will: “by which route do we enter the enchanted land of the great southwest?” But I must tell you that I have not yet decided. The agent who keeps such decisions hidden in my subconscious mind expects to let me know in a day or two.

A friend to whom I confided my trouble in selecting a good educational route for this trip told me to have you scouts swim to the Enchanted CaÑon. He tells me the Colorado River is unusually wet this season, and will afford you a diversion you never yet experienced. I prefer to ride there on the Santa FÉ railroad, though I believe the swim will be much cheaper.

I am inclosing a short itinerary for the Captain to follow, and she will tell you when and where you are to launch this summer’s campaign. Now, if that is all you wish to know, I had best say good-by to you and to Denver for the present, and hie me to Chicago where I will await you on the platform of the station next Monday noon. I have a date with the oculist in the Loop at Chi. to fit me with goggles that give the wearer the faculty of seeing twenty times the focal power of one pair of human eyes, as I will need that many eyes if I have to keep them on you girls this summer.

Consider yourselves paternally kissed upon the brows, my dear girls, because such kisses, via paper, are guaranteed to be strictly hygienic and sanitary. Hence, after this form of affection, I bid you adieu till we meet

The scouts had laughed merrily at this letter, but once it was ended they looked surprised.

“Didn’t he say a word about outfits and routes?” asked Julie, frowning.

“Maybe it is written down on this slip of paper,” said Mrs. Vernon, opening the folded sheet and glancing over it “Yes, he has all the meat of the question on this single sheet,” added she.

After reading it, the Captain said: “Oh, I am so glad!”

“What? What did he say?” chorused the scouts, eagerly.

“Why, he heard from your Unk Verny and he says that he expects to meet us in Kansas City as we go through on the Santa FÉ. But Gilly will meet us in Chicago next Monday—to-day is Tuesday. Tally, our guide, will meet us at La Junta. Isn’t that splendid?”

Those scouts who had known Tally, the Indian guide, expressed their delight at the news, and then Mrs. Vernon went on to say: “The main items on this list seems to be repeated every other line. Gilly wishes to impress upon our minds that we must travel light. He also says that he has shopped for all the accessories we might need for the summer, and we are to bring the least possible change of clothing. If we need more at any time it will be easy enough to buy.”

“Next Monday?” exclaimed Anne Bailey. “Then there isn’t a chance for us stay-at-home scouts to convince our parents that they ought to let us go with you.”

“And it isn’t going to give us much time to pack either,” added Julie, dancing a fandango around the room.

“We must send the girls at home a postcard every day,” said Betty. “Then they can use them to make their mothers relent.”

“As long as we are not expected to write. I’ll second that suggestion,” added Joan.

“Well, scouts, I have a motion to put, also,” remarked Mrs. Vernon, “and that is, suppose we adjourn this official meeting and convene at an informal one in the dining-room?”

To this motion every one present cried “aye, aye!” for they knew from past experiences that such informal meetings in the dining-room meant but one thing: ice-cream and great slices of home-made layer-cake. Um-m-m-m!