Jack Winters' Campmates — Story, Setting & Ideas

Steve was a pretty husky fellow, a bit slow about making up his mind, but firm as adamant, once he had convictions. He had proved himself a wonder as a backstop in the thrilling baseball contests so lately played with Harmony, the champion team of the county. Indeed, it was due in great part to his terrific batting, and general field work that the Chester nine came out of those contests, under Jack Winters' leadership, with such high honors.

Toby Hopkins was something of a genius in many ways, a nervous sort of a boy, and really deserving of his familiar nickname of "Hoppy" for short. All the same, he was game to the core, and would never acknowledge himself whipped as long as he could draw a decent breath. Toby ardently admired Jack, and believed there never was another such born leader as the fellow who had "placed Chester on the map" of outdoor sports.

Jack Winters had not always lived in this same town of Chester. When his folks came there from an enterprising place, he had been shocked to discover how little genuine interest the boys seemed to take in football, baseball, and all such healthy recreations.

Jack had been accustomed to enjoying everything that had a tendency to arouse a lad's ambition to excel in all healthy exercises calculated to be of benefit to both mind and body. He soon proved to be the much-needed "cake of yeast in a pan of dough," as Toby always declared, for he succeeded in arousing the dormant spirit of sport in the Chester boys, until finally the mill town discovered that it did not pay any community to indulge in a Rip Van Winkle sleep.

And now that the seed had taken root, and Chester was fully awake, some of her most enterprising citizens were promising to take up the subject of a gymnasium and boys' club-house, where the young lads of the town could, under the management of a physical director, have a proper place to spend their spare hours with profit to themselves.

Vacation had not as yet made any serious inroads on their summer season, and for some little time now Jack and his two best chums had been trying to figure out some scheme that would occupy a couple of weeks, and give them the outing they were hungering for.

All sorts of ideas had cropped up, but thus far nothing seemed to have caught their fancy to such an extent that their enthusiasm ran wild. It was just at this interesting stage of the game that Jack had called to the others over the 'phone, to ask them to drop in at his place that evening after supper, and hinting after a boyish fashion that he might have something "real interesting" to discuss with them.

Familiarity with Jack's den caused both the visitors to lose no time in seating themselves in favorite seats. Steve threw himself haphazard upon an old but comfortable lounge, tossing his cap at the same time toward a rack on the wall, and chuckling triumphantly when by sheer luck it stuck on a peg.

Toby curled up in the depths of a huge Morris chair that had been discarded as unworthy of a place in the living-room downstairs, and to which in due season Jack had naturally fallen heir.

"Now, we've strolled over this evening in response to your call, Jack," observed Steve, with one of his wide grins, "and full to the brim with expectancy, as well as supper. Suppose you unload and tell us what you've struck this time?"

"Yes, spin the yarn, please, Jack, because I'm fairly quivering with suspense, you must know," urged Toby, with a vein of entreaty in his voice.

Jack laughed. He knew that while the others were trying to appear cool, inwardly both of them were boiling with curiosity and eagerness.

"Well, the conundrum is solved, I reckon," he went on to say; "that is, if both of you agree with me that this chance is something like a gift dropped from the blue sky. We made up our minds a long time ago that it must be some sort of outing for us this summer, and the only thing that looked dubious was the state of our funds, and they have been drained pretty low, what with buying so many things needed for our sports. Well, that part of it has been settled. A magician bobbed up just when we needed one the worst kind."