“That poor man has brought his wife and two daughters and three of their friends and another woman up from North Woodstock, boys,” he said. “I can see they are all greenhorns at this sort of work. It’s really up to us to help ’em. They are going to get into overalls now.”
The women and girls went up-stairs to the second story of the log house, and the boys could hear them tittering and giggling, and emitting little cries of “Ah!” and “Oh, my gracious!” and “I can never go down in these!” The man came over to talk to the Scouts. He was in old clothes, he said, which he didn’t mind getting dirty. He was a timid looking man, and seemed grateful that the Scouts were going to help him out.
A few minutes later, a pair of feet--very small feet--appeared, very slowly, on the stairs, and the first girl--the one in pink--came down. Her cheeks were as pink as her dress--or what could be seen of her dress. She had on a pair of long overalls, turned up at the bottom, with her skirts wobbed up somehow inside of them, and the apron buckled up to her neck. She looked very much like a fat boy in his father’s trousers. Peanut laughed--he couldn’t help it.
“I think you are horrid!” she said, darting an angry look at him.
“He--he didn’t mean anything,” Art stammered. “You look all right for--for such rough work.”
“Thank you,” said the girl, and she came over and stood between her father and Art.
All the rest of the feet now began to come down the stairs, and soon five fat boys in their daddies’ trousers, and two women looking like Tweedledum and Tweedledee (it was Peanut who suggested that!) stood in the room, blushing and laughing.
“Now come on, we can’t think of our clothes any more. Let’s get to Lost River,” exclaimed the girl in pink.
She seemed to pick Art as her natural escort, and the pair of them led the way through the door, beside the guide.
“I don’t see any river, though,” said Peanut, to the girl he was with, as they went through the woods behind the cabin.
“Of course you don’t; it’s a lost river,” she said.
“Oh!” said Peanut. “I forgot that. Well, here’s where it was lost, I guess.”
The guide just ahead of them had suddenly disappeared into a hole in the ground, helping Art and the pink girl down after him.