

Transcribed from the 1914 Gay and Hancock, Ltd. edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org

                          [Picture: Book cover]





                           A Summer in a Cañon


                         A CALIFORNIA STORY: _By_
                           KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                          GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD.
                12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
                                  LONDON
                                   1914

                          _All rights reserved_

                                * * * * *

                          _Popular Edition_ 1914
                             _Reprinted_ 1914

                                * * * * *




CONTENTS

                              CHAPTER I
                                                                  PAGE
PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE                                            1
                              CHAPTER II
THE JOURNEY                                                         32
                             CHAPTER III
LIFE IN THE CAÑON—THE HEIR APPARENT LOSES                           53
HIMSELF
                              CHAPTER IV
RHYME AND REASON                                                    99
                              CHAPTER V
THE FOREST OF ARDEN—GOOD NEWS                                      133
                              CHAPTER VI
QUEEN ELSIE VISITS THE COURT                                       164
                             CHAPTER VII
POLLY’S BIRTHDAY: FIRST HALF IN WHICH SHE                          188
REJOICES AT THE MERE FACT OF HER EXISTENCE
                             CHAPTER VIII
POLLY’S BIRTHDAY: SECOND HALF                                      203
                              CHAPTER IX
ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE                                                232
                              CHAPTER X
MORE CAMP-FIRE STORIES                                             249
                              CHAPTER XI
BREAKING CAMP                                                      268




            SCENE: _A Camping Ground in the Cañon Las Flores_.

                           PEOPLE IN THE TENTS.

DR. PAUL WINSHIP        _Mine Host_.
MRS. TRUTH WINSHIP      _The Guardian Angel_.
DICKY WINSHIP           _A Small Scamp of Six Years_.
BELL WINSHIP            _The Camp Poetess_.
POLLY OLIVER            _A Sweet but Saucy Lass_.
MARGERY NOBLE           _A Nut-Brown Mayde_.
PHILIP NOBLE            _The Useful Member_.
GEOFFREY STRONG         _A Harvard Boy_.
JACK HOWARD             _Prince of Mischief_.
HOP YET                 _A Heathen Chinee_.
PANCHO GUTIERREZ        _A Mexican man-of-all-work_.




CHAPTER I
PREPARATION AND DEPARTURE


                   ‘One to make ready, and two to prepare.’

IT was nine o’clock one sunny California morning, and Geoffrey Strong
stood under the live-oak trees in Las Flores Cañon, with a pot of black
paint in one hand and a huge brush in the other.  He could have handled
these implements to better purpose and with better grace had not his arms
been firmly held by three laughing girls, who pulled not wisely, but too
well.  He was further incommoded by the presence of a small urchin who
lay on the dusty ground beneath his feet, fastening an upward clutch on
the legs of his trousers.

There were three large canvas tents directly in front of them, yet no one
of these seemed to be the object of dissension, but rather a redwood
board, some three feet in length, which was nailed on a tree near by.

‘Camp Frolic!  Please let us name it Camp Frolic!’ cried Bell Winship,
with a persuasive twitch of her cousin’s sleeve.

‘No, no; not Camp Frolic,’ pleaded Polly Oliver.  ‘Pray, pray let us have
Camp Ha-Ha; my heart is set upon it.’

‘As you are Strong, be merciful,’ quoted Margery Noble, coaxingly; ‘take
my advice and call it Harmony Camp.’

At this juncture, a lovely woman, whose sweet face and smile made you
love her at once, came up the hill from the brookside.  ‘What, what!
still quarrelling, children?’ she asked, laughingly.  ‘Let me be
peacemaker.  I’ve just asked the Doctor for a name, and he suggests Camp
Chaparral.  What do you say?’

Bell released one coat-tail.  ‘That isn’t wholly bad,’ she said,
critically, while the other girls clapped their hands with approval; for
anything that Aunt Truth suggested was sure to be quite right.

‘Wait a minute, good people,’ cried Jack Howard, flinging his
fishing-tackle under a tree and sauntering toward the scene of action.
‘Suppose we have a referee, a wise and noble judge.  Call Hop Yet, and
let him decide this all-important subject.’

His name being sung and shouted in various keys by the assembled company,
Hop Yet appeared at the door of the brush kitchen, a broad grin on his
countenance, a plucked fowl