“I can wash and dry dishes!” cried Tom eagerly.  “I worked in a restaurant for a week once, and I know how to handle dishes.”

“Then we can give you plenty of work,” said Mrs. Brown, with a laugh.  “For if there is one thing, in camp or at home, that I don’t like it is washing dishes.”

“I’ll do them for you!” cried Tom, “and I’ll be glad of the chance, too!”

“All right then.  You’ll be the head dishwasher of Camp Rest-a-While,” said Mr. Brown, smiling.

And that is how Tom Vine came to stay with the Browns while they lived in the woods near Lake Wanda.

Tom, indeed, knew very little about the country.  As he said, he had never been away from the city pavements, winter or summer, in all his life before.  The first night in camp, when he was sleeping next to Bunker Blue, in a little part of the tent that had been curtained off for them, Tom awakened Bunker, by reaching over and punching him in the ribs.

“Hey, listen to that!” cried Tom.

“To what?” asked Bunker, only half awake.

“Somebody is outside the tent, calling:  ‘Who?  Who?  Who?’” said Tom.  “I didn’t do anything, did you?  What do they holler ‘who’ for?”

Bunker listened.  Surely enough he heard very plainly: 

“Who?  Who?  Too-who?”

“Hear it?” asked Tom.

“Yes, it’s only an owl,” Bunker answered.  “There’s lots of ’em in these woods.”

“What’s an owl?” Tom wanted to know.

“Oh, it’s a bird with big eyes, and it can only see at night.  It comes out to get mice and bugs.  Owls won’t hurt you.  Go on to sleep.”

Tom did not go to sleep at once.  But he was no longer afraid of the owl.

Tom was just going to sleep once more, when he heard another funny noise.  This time he was sure some one said: 

“Katy did!  Katy did!  Katy did!”

Tom sat up in his cot.  He reached over to punch Bunker, to ask him what this was, when all at once, another voice cried: 

“Katy didn’t!  Katy didn’t!  Katy didn’t!”

“Listen to that, now, would you!” exclaimed Tom.  “Bunker!  Bunker Blue!  Wake up!  There’s two people outside, and one says Katy did it, and the other says she didn’t—­who’s right?”

CHAPTER X

OUT IN THE BOAT

Bunker Blue turned sleepily over on his cot.

“What—­what’s that?” he asked of Tom.

“Listen,” Tom answered.  “Don’t you hear that, Bunker?  First someone is hollering about Katy’s doing something, and then somebody else yells that she didn’t do it.  Say, I don’t like it here.”

Bunker Blue laughed aloud.

“What’s the matter out there?” asked Daddy Brown.

“Oh, it’s only Tom,” said the red-haired boy.  “He doesn’t like the song of the katydids.”

“Song!  Is that a song?” asked Tom.

“Some people call it that,” said Mr. Brown, for he knew that a city boy might be just as frightened of sounds in the country as a country boy might of sounds in the city.