The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-10-08
The Disturbing
Element

Pensee, az Sne put ASIDE ner green SILK
parasol and proceeded to hunt down
half dozen hatpins lost in the maze
OF tiny green buds on the gray hat
I'm through camping!"
Her audience sat up and gasped in
wonder. The girl in the gray pongee
was the champion camper of the neigh
borhood.
I've camped for the last time!
she said. emphatically, after allowing
proper time to elapse. for the sake
of impressiveness Its grown worse
and worse every year, but this year 1t
was positively unbearable.
When we first started camping"
explained the girl in the gray pongee.
we made an ironclad rule that we
would lead the simple life. We would
live in our gym clothes. eat our meals
in go-as-you-please fashion and pass
the evenings in whatever garb pleased
us most; in fact. be perfectly natural
for the whole two blessed weeks.
1T was such relief to know that
YOU could luxuriate for those two
weeks in boomers and blouses or in
wet bathing suits. without having to
YOU. used to count on 1t all winter
when | went around strapped into
dresses that would have burst II I
had had another eighth Of an inch of
circumference!
Then last year some Of the girls
Informed us that a crowd of young
men were going to camp near US. and
we'd have to entertain them once in
while. Some of us baked. not so
much at the entertaining once in a
while as at the fact that there were
going to be men in the neighborhood
1t meant that we'd have to think about
our looks and that spoiled the camp
ing!
We'll. we had to endure the inflic-
ton. The men were there and when
they weren't invited they came any
way and sang silly songs under our
windows.
The girls they knew thought 1t was
so romantic. The rest OF us, however.
were simply disguised and we told
the girls so, too. But do you suppose
it did any good? They just smiled
sweetly and went and covered their
faces with cold cream and powder be-
fore going sailing for fear they'd get
sunburned!
THE rest of us made up our minds
that we'd not be-shall I say bullied !?
into dressing up every evening, even
If those who had callers did devote
their mornings to ironing and washing
to make themselves lovely. We deter
mined to go on dressing as we had
dressed before and merely to shun the
men.
Mercy! We'd go for stroll down by
the bay and there we'd meet one of
our girls all in white with a man!
We'd dart behind trees until they'd
passed and then we'd go back along
the path thinking that we'd get into
a dark corner of the porch and have a
good time talking. But the darkest
corners were always filled with
couples and of course we couldn't sit
in the light in our boomers! 1t was
simply case Of dress up or go to bed
SO we finally chose the former, for it
was too hot to swelter in bed. and the
men came awfully early!
This year, when we went out, the
girls all promised faithfully that they
wouldn't invite single man. We We're
going to have real old fashioned
camp, and, oh! how | was looking for
ward to i'll
well the very first evening who
should happen to pass by in an auto
mobile but Jack Strone! One of the
girls called out to him-and Just
know she had been expecting him. We
all had to run in and dress in skirts.
while he sat in his car and waited for
us.
.'He took some of us for ride. and
before he left he asked If he couldn't
bring out the whole party of fellows
who were doing summer engineering
near by! We had to say yes. after he'd
given us a ride.
THAT ended all the fun. There were
apouph Young men to 20 around and