"Oh, I"m so glad somebody has thought of clothes," said the matron. "We often get gifts of food, but we need clothes so badly."
"There is no sickness?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as they started on a tour of the camp.
"No; we cannot take sick children here now," said the matron. "We had some early in the season, but this is such a fine place for romping we decided to keep this camp for the healthy children and have another for those who are sick."
By this time numbers of little girls and boys crowded around the visitors. They were quite different from the children of Meadow Brook or Lakeport. Somehow they were smaller, but looked older. Poor children begin to worry so young that they soon look much older than they really are.
Nan and Mildred spoke kindly to the girls, while Freddie and Flossie soon made friends with the little boys. One small boy, smaller than Freddie, with sandy hair and beautiful blue eyes, was particularly happy with Freddie. He looked better than the others, was almost as fat as Freddie, and he had such lovely clear skin, as if somebody loved to wash it.
"Where do you lib?" he lisped to Freddie.
"At Uncle Daniel"s," Freddie answered. "Where do you live?"
"With mamma," replied the little boy. Then he stopped a minute. "Oh, no; I don"t live with mamma now," he corrected himself, ""cause she"s gone to heaven, so I live with Mrs. Manily."
Mrs. Manily was the matron, and numbers of the children called her mamma.
"Can I come over and play with you?" asked the boy. "What"s your name?"
"His name is Freddie and mine is Flossie," said the latter. "What is your name?"
"Mine is Edward Brooks," said the little stranger, "but everybody calls me Sandy. Do you like Sandy better than Edward?"
"No," replied Flossie. "But I suppose that"s a pet name because your hair is that color."
"Is it?" said the boy, tossing his sunny curls around. "Maybe that"s why!"
"Guess it is," said Freddie. "But will Mrs. Man let you come over to our house?"
"Mrs. Manily, you mean," said Sandy. "I"ll just go and ask her."
"Isn"t he cute!" exclaimed Flossie, and the pretty little boy ran in search of Mrs. Manily.
"I"m going to ask mamma if we can bring him home," declared Freddie.
"He could sleep in my bed."
The others of the party were now walking through the big tents.
"This is where we eat," the matron explained, as the dining room was entered. The tent was filled with long narrow tables and had benches at the sides. The tables were covered with oilcloth, and in the center of each was a beautiful bunch of fresh wild flowers--the small pretty kind that grow in the woods.
"You ought to see our poor children eat," remarked the matron. "We have just as much as we can do to serve them, they have such good appet.i.tes from the country air."
"We must send you some fresh vegetables," said Aunt Sarah, "and some fruit for Sunday."
"We would be very grateful," replied Mrs Manily, "for of course we cannot afford much of a variety."
Next to the dining room was the dormitory or sleeping tent.
"We have a little boys" brigade," said the matron, "and every pleasant evening they march around with drums and tin fifes. Then, when it is bedtime, we have a boy blow the "taps" on a tin bugle, just like real soldiers do."
Freddie and Sandy had joined the sightseers now, and Freddie was much interested in the brigade.
"Who is the captain?" he asked of Mrs. Manily.
"Oh, we appoint a new captain each week from the very best boys we have. We only let a very good boy be captain," the matron told him.
In the dormitory were rows and rows of small white cots. They looked very clean and comfortable, and the door of this tent was closed with a big green mosquito netting.
"How old are your babies?" asked Aunt Sarah.
"Sandy is our baby!" replied the matrons patting the little boy fondly, "and he is four years old. We cannot take them any younger without their mothers."
"Freddie is four also," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "What a dear sweet child Sandy is!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Manily, "he has just lost a good mother and his father cannot care for him--that is, he cannot afford to pay his board or hire a housekeeper, so he brought him to the Aid Society. He is the pet of the camp, and you can see he has been well trained."
"No mother and no home!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Dear little fellow!
Think of our Freddie being alone in the world like that!"
Mrs. Bobbsey could hardly keep her tears back. She stooped over and kissed Sandy.
"Do you know my mamma?" he asked, looking straight into the lady"s kind face.
"Mrs. Manily is your mamma, isn"t she?" said Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Yes, she"s my number two mamma, but I mean number one that used to sleep with me."
"Come now, Sandy," laughed Mrs. Manily. "Didn"t you tell me last night I was the best mamma in the whole world?" and she hugged the little fellow to make him happy again.
"So you are," he laughed, forgetting all his loneliness now. "When I get to be a big man I"m goin" to take you out carriage riding."
"Can"t Sandy cone home with us?" asked Freddie. "He can sleep in my bed."
"You are very good," said the matron. "But we cannot let any of our children go visiting without special permission from the Society."
"Well," said Aunt Sarah, "if you get the permission we will be very glad to have Sandy pay us a visit. We have a large place, and would really like to have some good poor child enjoy it. We have company now, but they will leave us soon, and then perhaps we could have a little fresh-air camp of our own."
"The managers have asked us to look for a few private homes that could accommodate some special cases," replied Mrs. Manily, "and I am sure I can arrange it to have Sandy go."
"Oh, let him come now," pleaded Freddie, as Sandy held tight to his hand. "See, we have room in the wagon."
"Well, he might have a ride," consented the matron, and before anyone had a chance to speak again Freddie and Sandy had climbed into the wagon.
Nan and Mildred had been talking to some of the older girls, who were very nice and polite for girls who had no one to teach them at home, and Nan declared that she was coming over to the camp to play with them some whole day.
"We can bring our lunch," said Mildred, "and you can show us all the pleasant play-places you have fixed up in stones over the mountain-side."
One girl, Nellie by name, seemed very smart and bright, and she brought to Mrs. Bobbsey a bunch of ferns and wild flowers she had just gathered while showing Nan and Mildred around.