Camp Pleasant Read Free Page A

the world. His insensibility to the feeling of others is shocking. His crushing approach to human relations is hideous.”
    “You make him sound like Hitler,” I said.
    “In his own oafish way,” Merv said, “Ed Nolan has reduced Camp Pleasant to a microcosm of the Third Reich.”
    “Why do you stand for it?” I asked. “Why do the kids’ parents stand for it?”
    “To answer the first question,” Merv answered, “Bob and I come here because we like the camp and the country. I worked in this camp years before Nolan came and I’m certainly not going to let him keep mefrom my summer here which I enjoy. As to opposing him, however, this is tantamount to an attempt to bash in the side of a tank with a daisy. Nolan has the support of the parents for the simple reason that they don’t know about him. Kids don’t talk about discipline unless it’s fresh in their minds or done to crushing excess. Ed knows the limits. He always slacks off around visiting day and toward the end of each camping period.”
    “Then he’s not dumb,” I said.
    “Oh no, he has great animal cunning,” Merv conceded, “which is, precisely, what makes him so dangerous.”
    I put down my empty Coke bottle.
    “Looks like I’m in for a grand summer,” I said.
    “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Bob said. “Just stay out of his way and he won’t even notice you.
    I tried to console myself with that.
6.
    In the evenings, the Nolan’s cabin was open house to Camp Pleasant personnel. There was a record player, current magazines, checker, chess and card games and a screened-in porch of wicker chairs where one could sit and gaze at the night-shrouded lake.
    I wanted to go to bed but Bob talked me into a game of chess before sacking out. So, after returning from the grocery store, we started for the Nolan cabin, Merv leaving us with the statement that he had some reading to do.
    “He doesn’t ever go to Ed’s cabin,” Bob said. “There’s a lot of tension between them. Ed hates him, I think. He’s been trying to oust Merv for years but Merv is almost an institution in the camp and the only one who knows the surrounding country well enough to-organize hikes.” Bob shook his head. “Ed keeps looking for some excuse to get rid of Merv. Maybe some day he’ll find one.”
    We walked along the trail past the wooden-floored tent where Sid Goldberg, Barney Wright and the heads of the Junior and Intermediate sections lived. Sid was sitting on the small porch, his legs propped up on the railing. He greeted us and we said hello as we passed.
    “He seems like a nice fella,” Bob said, “even if he is a dirty kike.”
    “Mack been at you too?” I asked.
    “Yowza.” Bob pointed to a little cabin in a patch of trees. “That’s where Jack Stauffer and his wife live,” he said. “Doc Rainey used to live there but he let Jack have it last year after Jack got married. Doc lives in a little tent by the water. He’s a good guy, Doc. He should be head of the camp.”
    The trail turned left now and I saw, at its foot, a moderately sized log cabin with yellow curtains in the windows.
    “There’s Ellen Nolan in the kitchen,” Bob said and I saw her pass before the window.
    “She’s a pretty girl,” I said.
    “You think so?” Bob asked, sounding surprised. “I never thought of her that way. She’s always seemed like, oh, I don’t know. Just Big Ed’s wife, I guess.”
    We reached the house and Bob pulled open a groaning screen door. Ellen Nolan, standing at the sink, looked around.
    “Hi, Ellen,” Bob said and she smiled. “You haven’t met Matt Harper, have you?”
    “No, I haven’t, Bob,” Ellen said.
    We smiled at each other.
    “Ed tells me you’re going to be our music director,” she said.
    “Yes.” I nodded, thinking again how incredible it seemed that she was Ed Nolan’s wife.
    “That’s wonderful,” she said. Her brown eyes met mine as I heard Bob saying that we’d come down for a game of chess.
    Ed Nolan was in