The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Underpup, by I. A. R. Wylie

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Title: The Underpup

Author: I. A. R. Wylie

Release Date: July 20, 2010 [EBook #33212]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNDERPUP ***

Produced by Jan MacGillivray

THE UNDERPUP

By

I. A. R. Wylie

The Penguins were always breaking out with something. Miss Thornton,
who had run Camp Happy Warriors for years and still believed there was
good in everyone, said it was merely their age. The Penguins were
older than the Peewits, who still trailed attenuated clouds of glory;
and were younger than the Pelicans, who were beginning to talk
mysteriously about Life, Beaux, and Parties--things so far removed
from the Peewits that they weren't even interested, but near enough to
the Penguins to exasperate them into having marvelous ideas of their
own.

So the Penguins were wonderfully set up when they first realized that
they had a Social Conscience. They felt that even Priscilla ("Prissy")
Adams, their counselor, who generally thought their ideas dreadful,
would have to admit that a Social Conscience was a good idea.

Clara VanSittart had brought it to camp with her, just as the previous
summer she had brought the first pair of white mice. Clara was a fat,
earnest child with spectacles, who would one day be chairman of a
Women's Club. Her mother, who was several chairmen already, had
discovered the Poor that winter--rather to their consternation--so
that Clara knew that at the very moment when the Penguins were sitting
round their campfire, surrounded by trees and stars and lakes, and
faintly nauseated with toasted marshmallows, there were poor,
half-starved children literally gasping for air in New York City's
crowded, stifling streets. There was even a place called Hell's
Kitchen, it was so hot and awful. Clara knew all the best words like
"underprivileged," and by the time the last marshmallow had been drawn
from its prong the Penguins were in tears.

"But it's no use just crying," little Janet Cooper said. She was
usually so afraid of everyone, including herself, that they all stared
at her. "We ought to _do_ so