However, as we
didn't wish to bore you with six duplicate letters, we invented a
plan for keeping off each other's ground, and appointed Geoff a
committee of one to settle our line of march. It is to be a
collective letter, made up of individual notes; and these are Geoff's
sealed orders, which must be obeyed, on pain of dismissal from the
camp:
No. 1 (Polly) is to amuse!
No. 2 (Phil) ... inform!
No. 3 (Geoff) ... edify!!
No. 4 (Madge) ... gossip.
No. 5 (Bell) ... versify.
No. 6 (Jack) ... illustrate
So, my dear, if you get any 'information' or happen to be 'edified'
by what I write, don't mention it for worlds! (I just screamed my
fears about this matter to Jack, and he says 'I needn't fret.' I
shall certainly slap that boy before the summer is over.)
I could just tell you a lovely story about Dicky's getting lost in
the woods the day before yesterday, and our terrible fright about
him, and how we all joined in the boy-hunt, until Geoff and Bell
found him at the Lone Stump; but I suppose the chronicle belongs to
Phil's province, so I desist. But what can I say? Suppose I tell
you that Uncle Doc and the boys have been shooting innocent, TAME
sheep, skinning and cutting them up on the way home, and making us
believe for two days that we were eating venison; and we never should
have discovered the imposition had not Dicky dragged home four sheep-
skins from the upper pool, and told us that he saw the boys 'PEELING
THEM OFF A VENISON.
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