Harper's Young People, September 21, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly

HOW TED AND KITTY CAMPED OUT.

BY EMILY H. LELAND.

Kitty was eight years old, and Ted was seven. They had always lived on a large farm, and knew all about birds and squirrels, and the different kinds of trees, and how to make bonfires and little stone ovens; and they could shoot with bows and arrows, and swim, and climb trees, and split kindlings, and take care of chickens and ducks and turkeys, and do a great many jolly and useful things which city children hardly get even a chance to do. Well, once when they went on a visit with some cousins to an uncle's on the other side of "Big Woodsy," as they called the mountain, they did not get home that night.

The uncle thought they had gone home, and the father and mother thought they had remained overnight at the uncle's. So nothing was done about it until noon next day, when the uncle came jogging over on horseback to look at a cow he thought of buying, and the mother asked him if Ted and Kitty were not making too long a visit.

Then the uncle said, "Good gracious! they are not at our house; they started for home last night, along with the Elderkins, I think."

Then the mother turned very pale, and said, in a faint voice, "They are lost!"

"Oh no," said the uncle, "not a bit of it. The Elderkins coaxed 'em home with them, of course. I'll ride round their way when I go back and start 'em home."

But the pale look wouldn't leave the mother's face, and in a short time who should come but the Elderkins themselves, to spend the afternoon, they said, with Ted and Kitty. Then there was a fright indeed. The father walked down to the gate, and looked anxiously up the long winding mountain road, as if that would do any good, and the mother followed him, calling out,

"Oh, John! John! where are our children?"

The uncle rode off in one direction, and the father quickly saddled a horse and rode in another, to inquire at all the farm-houses if anything had been seen of Ted and Kitty Curtis. And no one had seen them. All the Elderkins had to say was that Ted and Kitty had told them there was a nearer way to reach home than by following the dusty, roundabout road, and they had run off through the woods to find it. The Elderkins chose to follow the road, because they had on their new lawn dresses trimmed with torchon, and "didn't want to get all scrambled up by the briers."

So while the uncle and the father and all the neighbors were hunting up and down the forest, and the mother was staying in the house, with dear, calm grandma and the little twin babies to keep her from going quite crazy, I will tell you what Ted and Kitty were doing in the Big Woodsy.

After they had run on quite a way, the bushes and brambles began to be so thick they were obliged to drop into a walk, and finally to climb and crawl as best they might, for they never found the "nearer way," and the ground was covered with fallen trees and rocks, while the briers caught them sometimes as if they never meant to let go.

By-and-by the pleasant light of sunset began to fade away, and they sat down to rest on a mossy log, and looked at each other very soberly.

"I don't know which way we ought to go," said Kitty.

"No more don't I," said Ted.

"Well, then, we must stay right where we are, 'stead of trying to go on. 'Cause, don't you know, lost people always go round and round and round and never get anywhere, and just wear their shoes out, and get tired and hungry, and nobody ever can find 'em. You ain't afraid, are you, Teddy?"

"No--o!" answered Ted, with scornful emphasis; "course not! Why, it's only just camping out. We've always wanted to camp out, you know. An' it's warm, an' there's but'nuts, an'--an'--maybe we'll find a pattridge nest," and Ted looked around at the deepening shadows, and bravely winked back the two tears that had gathered in his eyes.

"You know there isn't anything in these woods that can hurt us," said Kitty, cheerfully. "Papa said there was no use for those hunters to come here last year, 'cause there's nothing bigger'n woodchucks anywhere round."

"But somebody killed a bear here the summer I was a baby," said Ted.

"Yes, but he was the last--the very last--and it's just as nice and safe here as if we's camping out in our orchard. And let's fix up a house right away. Let's play we've gone West and got some land of our own."

Then the two children went to work. They were scared a little, in spite of their brave talk, but they were soon so interested in their camp-building that they forgot their fear. First they cleared away the sticks and stones beside the log where they were sitting. Then they pulled large pieces of bark from a partly fallen tree, and leaned them against the log, making a shelter large enough for a very small sleeping-room. Over the bark they laid boughs of butternut and maple, with long sticks placed crossways to keep them in place. Then by the time they had gathered a few armfuls of dry leaves to place underneath, it was quite dusk, and too late for any more work.

"Won't we get bugs in our ears?" asked Ted, peeping into the queer little bedroom.

"Well, we'll tie our hankchifs over our ears. And we'll only take off our shoes, 'cause we're just emigrants, you know."

"I--I wish it wasn't quite so dark," said Ted, faintly.

"But the moon will be up right away," said brave Kitty; "and maybe we'll hear owls. We won't mind hearing owls, will we?"

"Course not," said Ted.

In a very short time the shoes were off, the handkerchiefs tied on, and the two tired children cuddled up in their wigwam, with Kitty's apron over their shoulders for a blanket.

"The Lord is here just as much as He's--He's in the Methodist church," said Kitty.

"Course He is," said Ted; and with this comforting thought they were soon asleep.