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Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923

"A Summer in a Canyon"

'I'll cut the rope to save your
teeth!'
'Green and white plaid!' exclaimed Bell. 'Well! Mrs. Howard did
have her wits about her!'
'Oh, do let me blow the horn!' teased the irrepressible Polly.
'Here are a looking-glass and a towel-rack and a Shaker rocking-
chair,' called Philip; 'guess they're going to stay the rest of the
summer.'
'Yes, of course they wouldn't want a looking-glass if they were only
going to stay a month or two,' laughed Bell.
'Dear Aunt Truth, if you won't let me turn a single decorous little
hand-spring, or blow the horn, or do anything nice, will you let us
use all that new white mosquito-netting? Bell says that it has been
in the storehouse for two years, and it would be just the thing for
decorating Elsie's tent.'
'Why, of course you may have it, Polly, and anything else that you
can find. There! I hear Dicky's voice in the distance; perhaps the
girls are coming.'
Bell and Polly darted through the swarm of tents, and looked up the
narrow path that led to the brook.
Sure enough, Margery and Laura were strolling towards home with
little Anne and Dick dangling behind, after the manner of children.
Margery carried a small string of trout, and Dick the inevitable tin
pail in which he always kept an unfortunate frog or two. The girls
had discovered that he was in the habit of crowding the cover tightly
over the pail and keeping his victims shut up for twenty-four hours,
after which, he said, they were nice and tame--so very tame, as it
transpired, that they generally gave up the ghost in a few hours
after their release.


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