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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Camp Fire Girls at School, by Hildegard
+G. Frey
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Camp Fire Girls at School
+
+Author: Hildegard G. Frey
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2004  [eBook #11718]
+[Date last updated: July 1, 2006]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Hagop Hagopian, and Project
+Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL
+
+or, The Wohelo Weavers
+
+By Hildegard G. Frey
+
+Author of
+
+"The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods",
+"The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House",
+"The Camp Fire Girls Go Motoring."
+
+1916
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+CHRONICLES IN COLOR.
+
+"Speaking of diaries," said Gladys Evans, "what do you think of this for
+one?" She spread out a bead band, about an inch and a half wide and a
+yard or more long, in which she had worked out in colors the main events
+of her summer's camping trip with the Winnebago Camp Fire Girls. The
+girls dropped their hand work and crowded around Gladys to get a better
+look at the band, which told so cleverly the story of their wonderful
+summer.
+
+"Oh, look," cried "Sahwah" Brewster, excitedly pointing out the figures,
+"there's Shadow River and the canoe floating upside down, and Ed Roberts
+serenading Gladys--only it turned out to be Sherry serenading Nyoda--and
+the Hike, and the Fourth of July pageant, and everything!" The
+Winnebagos were loud in their expressions of admiration, and the "Don't
+you remembers" fell thick and fast as they recalled the events depicted
+in the bead band.
+
+It was a crisp evening in October and the Winnebagos were having their
+Work Meeting at the Bradford house, as the guests of Dorothy Bradford,
+or "Hinpoha," as she was known in the Winnebago circle. Here were all
+the girls we left standing on the boat dock at Loon Lake, looking just
+the same as when we saw them last, a trifle less sunburned perhaps, but
+just as full of life and spirit. Scissors, needles and crochet hooks
+flew fast as the seven girls and their Guardian sat around the cheerful
+wood fire in the library. Sahwah was tatting, Gladys and Migwan were
+embroidering, and Miss Kent, familiarly known as "Nyoda," the Guardian
+of the Winnebago group, was "mending her hole-proof hose," as she
+laughingly expressed it. The three more quiet girls in the circle,
+Nakwisi the Star Maiden, Chapa the Chipmunk, and Medmangi the Medicine
+Man Girl, were working out their various symbols in crochet patterns.
+Hinpoha was down on the floor popping corn over the glowing logs and
+turning over a row of apples which had been set before the fireplace to
+warm. The firelight streaming over her red curls made them shine like
+burning embers, until it seemed as if some of the fire had escaped from
+the grate and was playing around her face. Every few minutes she reached
+out her hand and dealt a gentle slap on the nose of "Mr. Bob," a young
+cocker spaniel attached to the house of Bradford, who persistently tried
+to take the apples in his mouth. Nyoda finally came to the rescue and
+diverted his attention by giving him her darning egg to chew. The room
+was filled with the light-hearted chatter of the girls. Sahwah was
+relating with many giggles, how she had gotten into a scrape at school.
+
+"And old Professor Fuzzytop made me bring all my books and sit up at
+that little table beside his desk for a week. Of course I didn't mind
+that a bit, because then I could see what _everybody_ in the room was
+doing instead of just the few around me. The only thing I prayed for was
+that Miss Muggins wouldn't come in and see me, because she has taken a
+sort of fancy to me and makes it easy for me in Latin, but if I ever
+fall from grace she won't pass me. But of all the luck, right in the
+middle of the Fourth Hour when everybody was in the room studying, in
+she walked. I saw her as she opened the door and quick as a wink I
+opened up the big dictionary on the table and buried my nose in it, so
+she'd think I had gone up there of my own accord. She stopped and looked
+at me, then patted me encouragingly on the shoulder and remarked what a
+studious girl I was. I thought everybody in the room would die trying
+not to laugh, but nobody gave me away. She came in during the Fourth
+Hour for several days after that, and every time I flew to the
+sheltering arms of the dictionary, and she always made some approving
+remark out loud. Now she thinks I'm a shark and I have a better stand-in
+than ever with her. She told her Senior session room that there was a
+girl in the Junior room who was so keen after knowledge that no matter
+when she came into the room she always found her consulting the
+dictionary!"
+
+Sahwah's imitation of the elderly and precise Miss Muggins was so close
+that the girls shrieked with laughter. Even Nyoda, who was a "faculty,"
+and should have been the ally of the deluded instructor, was too much
+amused to say a word. "By the way, Sahwah," she said when the laughter
+had died down, "how are you coming on in Latin? The last time I saw you
+your Cicero had a strangle hold on you." Sahwah made a fearful grimace,
+and recited sarcastically:
+
+  "Not showers to larks more pleasing,
+  Not sunshine to the bee,
+  Not sleep to toil more easing,
+  Than Latin prose to me!
+
+  "The flocks shall leave the mountains,
+  The dew shall flee the rose,
+  The nymphs forsake the fountains,
+  Ere I forsake my prose!"
+
+Nyoda laughed and shook her head at Sahwah, and "Migwan," otherwise
+Elsie Gardiner, looked up at the despiser of prose composition in mild
+wonderment. "I don't see how you can make such a fuss about learning
+Latin," she said, "it's the least of my troubles."
+
+"But I'm not such a genius as you," answered Sahwah, "and my head won't
+stand the strain." Her mental limitations did not seem to cause her any
+anxiety, however, for she hummed a merry tune as she drew her tatting
+shuttle in and out.
+
+Migwan leaned back in her chair and looked around the tastefully
+furnished room with quiet enjoyment. This library in the Bradford house
+was a never-ending delight to her. It was finished in dark oak and the
+walls were hung with a rich brown paper. The floor was polished and
+covered with oriental rugs, whose patterns she loved to trace. At one
+end of the room was a big fireplace and on each side of it a cozy seat,
+piled with tapestry covered cushions. Over the fireplace hung two
+slender swords, the property of some departed Bradford. The handsome
+chairs were upholstered in brown leather to match the other furnishings,
+and everything in the room, from the Italian marble Psyche on its
+pedestal in the corner to the softly glowing lamps, gave the impression
+of wealth and culture. Migwan contrasted it with the shabby sitting room
+in her own home and sighed. She was keenly responsive to beautiful
+surroundings and would have been happy to stay forever in this library.
+But beautiful as the furnishings were, they were the least part of the
+attraction. The real drawing card were the books that filled the cases
+on three sides of the room. There were books of every kind; fiction,
+poetry, history, travel, science; and whole sets of books in handsome
+bindings that Migwan fairly revelled in whenever she came to visit.
+Hinpoha herself was not fond of reading anything but fiction, and
+although she had the freedom of all the cases she never looked at
+anything but "story books." Before her parents went to Europe they had
+tried making her keep an average of one book of fiction to one of
+another kind in the hope of instilling into her a love for essays and
+history, but in the absence of her father and mother, history and essays
+were having a long vacation and fiction was working overtime.
+
+"Let's play something," said Sahwah when the apples and popcorn had
+disappeared; "I'm tired of sitting still."
+
+"Can't somebody please think of a new game?" said Hinpoha. "We've played
+everything we know until I'm sick of it."
+
+"I thought of one the other day," said Gladys quietly. "I named it the
+'Camp Fire Game.' You play it like Stage Coach, or Fruit Basket, only
+instead of taking parts of a coach or names of fruits you take articles
+that belong to the Camp Fire, like bead band, ring, moccasin, bracelet,
+fire, honor beads, symbol, fringe, Wohelo, hand sign, bow and drill,
+Mystic Fire, etc. Then somebody tells a story about Camp Fire Girls, and
+every time one of those articles is mentioned every one must get up and
+turn around. But if the words 'Ceremonial Meeting' or 'Council Fire' are
+mentioned, then all must change seats and the story teller tries to get
+a seat in the scramble, and the one who gets left out has to go on with
+the story."
+
+"Good!" cried Nyoda, "let's play it. You tell the story first."
+
+Gladys stood up in the center of the room and began: "Once upon a time
+there were a group of Camp Fire Girls called the Winnebagos, and they
+went to school in the Professors' big tepee on the avenue, where they
+pursued knowledge for all they were worth. So much wisdom did they
+imbibe that it was necessary to wear a head band to keep their heads
+from splitting open. Wherever they went they were immediately recognized
+by their rings and bracelets, and were pointed out as 'those dreadful
+young savages.' The professors and teachers hoped every day that they
+would not come to school, but they never stayed away because they
+received honor beads from their Guardian Mother for not being absent.
+Sometimes it seemed as if the tricks they did in class room could only
+have been accomplished by their having consulted one another, and yet it
+was impossible to catch them whispering in class because they always
+conversed by hand signs. However, this also led to disaster one day when
+one of our well-beloved sisters of the bow and drill tried to make the
+hand sign for 'girl,' and raised her hand above her head. The Big Chief,
+who was conducting the lesson, thought she wanted something, and said
+benevolently: 'What is your desire?' Absent-mindedly she replied, 'It is
+my desire to become a Camp Fire Girl and obey the Law of the Camp Fire,
+which is to seek beauty, give service, pursue knowledge, be trustworthy,
+hold on to health, glorify work, and be happy,' 'Begone,' said the Big
+Chief, 'what do you think this is, a Ceremonial Meeting?'"
+
+At the words "Ceremonial Meeting" all the girls jumped up to change
+places, and in the scramble a vase was knocked off the table and broken.
+Every one sat rooted to the spot with fright, all except Mr. Bob, who
+fled at the sound of the crash as if he had been the guilty one. Hinpoha
+calmly collected the pieces and carried them out. "My mother will be
+extremely grateful to you for this when she comes home," she said. "If
+there was one vase in the house she hated it was this one. My Aunt
+Phoebe brought it from the World's Fair in Chicago and thinks it's the
+chief ornament of our home. Won't mother be glad when she finds it
+broken and she can prove that none of us did it?" The tension relaxed
+and the girls breathed easily again.
+
+"When are your mother and father coming home?" asked Nyoda.
+
+"They sailed last week on the _Francona_," answered Hinpoha.
+
+"Weren't you worried to death to have them in Europe so long with the
+war going on?" asked Migwan.
+
+"No, not much," said Hinpoha, "because they have been in Switzerland all
+the while, which is safe enough, and as they are coming home on a
+neutral vessel they have had no trouble getting passage. They should be
+here in a week." And Hinpoha's eyes shone with a great, glad light, for
+although she had been having the jolliest time imaginable, doing as she
+pleased in the house, which was in the care of easy-going "Aunt Grace,"
+who never cared a bit what Hinpoha did so long as it did not bother her,
+she missed her mother sorely, and could hardly wait until she returned.
+Nyoda saw the transfigured look that came into her eyes when she spoke
+of her mother's home coming, and her own eyes went dim, for her mother
+had died when she was just Hinpoha's age.
+
+After the breaking of the vase the game stopped and the girls sat down
+again in a quiet circle. "Do you know," said Nyoda, "that bead band
+Gladys made has given me an idea? Why can't we keep a personal record in
+bead work? It would be a great deal more interesting and picturesque
+than keeping a diary, and there would be no danger of your little sister
+getting hold of it and reading your secrets out loud to her friends."
+
+"It's a great idea," said Migwan, who had always kept a diary and had
+suffered much from an inquisitive brother and sister.
+
+"Besides," said Sahwah, "think how exciting it would be at Ceremonial
+Meetings, to sit with your life story hanging around your neck, and know
+that your neighbor was just breaking _her_ neck trying to figure out
+what the little pictures meant. Wouldn't old Fuzzytop love to be able to
+read mine, though!" And Sahwah giggled extravagantly as she saw in her
+mind's eye the bead record of some of her activities in the Junior
+session room.
+
+"Now, about all our activities," continued Nyoda, "are covered by the
+seven points of the Camp Fire Law, so that everything we do either
+fulfills or breaks the Law. What do you say if we register our
+commendable doings in colors, but record the event in black every time
+we break the Law?"
+
+The girls thought this would be a fascinating game, and Sahwah remarked
+that she must send to the Outfitting Company for a bunch of black beads
+directly, as she had only a very few left.
+
+"It's a good thing we didn't keep this record last summer," said Gladys
+with a thoughtful look in her eyes, "or mine would have been black from
+one end to the other."
+
+"It wouldn't, either," said Sahwah vehemently. "You did more for us in
+the end than we ever did for you. And my sins were as scarlet as yours,
+every bit."
+
+Since that terrible day in camp Gladys seemed to have been made over,
+and never once reverted to her old selfishness and superciliousness, so
+that she now had the love and esteem of every one of the Winnebagos. All
+mention of her old short-comings was quickly silenced by Sahwah, who now
+adored her, heart and soul. Gladys's entrance into the public school
+after two years at Miss Russell's had caused quite a stir among the
+girls of the neighborhood, who in times past had been wont to consider
+her proud and haughty, but her simple, unaffected manner quickly won for
+her a secure place in the affections of all. Teachers and scholars alike
+loved her.
+
+Sahwah was still counting up her own misdemeanors at camp when the
+Evans's automobile came for Gladys, and reluctantly all the girls
+prepared to go home. It always seemed harder to break away from
+Hinpoha's house than from any of the others'. In spite of the rich
+furnishings it had a cozy, homey atmosphere of being used from one end
+to the other, and no guest, however humble, ever felt awkward or out of
+place there. Thus it usually happens that when people are entirely at
+ease in their own surroundings, they soon make others feel the same way
+too.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+A SUDDEN MISFORTUNE.
+
+As the day drew near for the return of her mother and father Hinpoha
+went all over the house from garret to cellar seeing that everything was
+put to rights. She and the other Winnebagos took a trip into the country
+for bittersweet to decorate the fireplace in the library and in her
+father's study upstairs. With pardonable pride she arranged a little
+exhibition of the Craft work she had done in camp and the sketches she
+had made of the lake and hills. On the table in her mother's room she
+placed a work basket she had made of reed and lined with silk.
+
+"Gracious sakes, child," said her aunt, from her rocking chair by the
+front window of the living-room, "what a fuss you are going to! One
+would think it was your Aunt Phoebe who was coming instead of your
+mother and father. They'll be just as glad to see you if the house isn't
+as neat as a pin from top to bottom." And Aunt Grace resumed her rocking
+and her novel, as unconcerned about the imminent return of the travelers
+as if it were nothing more than the daily visit of the milkman. Nothing
+short of an earthquake would ever shake Aunt Grace out of her settled
+complacency.
+
+Hinpoha went happily on, seeing that every tack and screw was in place,
+and arranging the books in the cases to correspond to her father's
+catalog, for they had become sadly mixed during his absence. She even
+took out a volume of his favorite essays and pored over them diligently
+so that she might discuss them with him and show that she had used some
+of her time to good advantage. She straightened out her bureau drawers
+and mended all her clothes and stockings. When everything was in order
+she viewed the result with a happy feeling at the pleasure it would give
+her mother when she saw it. Hinpoha's most prominent trait in times past
+had not been neatness.
+
+Nyoda, who had been called in to make a final inspection before Hinpoha
+was satisfied, wondered if all the girls were "seeking beauty" as
+earnestly as Hinpoha was. She envied Hinpoha the homecoming of her
+mother from the bottom of her heart. This feeling was particularly
+strong one afternoon as she sat in the school room after the close of
+school, looking over some English papers. It was the anniversary of the
+death of her mother and she sat recalling little incidents of her
+childhood before this best of chums had been taken away. As she sat
+there half dreaming she heard voices in the hall before her door.
+
+"Have you heard the latest?" asked one voice.
+
+"No," said the second voice, "what is it?"
+
+"Why, the _Francona_ has gone down," answered the first voice. "Struck a
+mine in the ocean."
+
+At the word "Francona" Nyoda started up. That was the boat Hinpoha's
+parents were coming on! She hurried out into the hall after the two
+teachers. "What did you say about the _Francona_?" she asked. They
+handed her the "extra" they had been reading and she saw with her own
+eyes the account of the disaster. The list of "saved" was pitifully
+small, and Hinpoha's parents were not among them. Soon she came to the
+notation, "Among the lost are Mr. and Mrs. Adam Bradford, prominent
+Cleveland lawyer and his wife. Mr. Bradford was the son of the late
+Judge Bradford and a well-known man about town." Of what little avail is
+"prominence" when calamity stretches out her cruel hands! "Well known"
+and obscure gave up their lives together and found a grave side by side.
+
+"You look like a ghost, Miss Kent," said one of the teachers. "Any
+friends of yours on board?"
+
+"Dorothy Bradford's mother and father," answered Nyoda, "one of the
+pupils here at school."
+
+Leaving her work unfinished, she hastened to Hinpoha's house. The news
+had just been learned there. Aunt Grace had fainted and was being
+revived with salts. Hinpoha flung herself on Nyoda and clung to her like
+a drowning person. Between neighbors and friends coming to sympathize
+and reporters from the newspapers seeking interviews the house was a
+pandemonium. Nyoda saw that Hinpoha would never quiet down in those
+surroundings and took her away to her own apartment. Of all the friends
+who offered consolation Nyoda was the one to whom Hinpoha turned for
+comfort. Here the brilliant young college woman and the simple girl were
+on a level, for they shared a common experience, and each could
+comprehend the other's sorrow.
+
+Poor Hinpoha! She had need of all the consolation that Nyoda could give
+her in the days that followed. Full of bitterness as her cup was, there
+was to be added yet one more drop--the drop that caused it to run over.
+Aunt Phoebe came to live with her and be the mistress of the Bradford
+house. At some time in the past Judge Bradford and his sister Phoebe had
+been named joint guardians of Hinpoha, but the Judge was now dead and
+Aunt Phoebe was the sole guardian. Aunt Phoebe was a spinster of the
+type usually described in books, tall and spare, with steely blue eyes.
+She was sixty years old, but she might have been a hundred and sixty,
+for all the sympathy she had with youth. She had been disappointed in
+love when she was twenty and had never thought kindly of any man since.
+From her earliest childhood Hinpoha had dreaded the very name of Aunt
+Phoebe. When she came to visit a restraint fell over the whole house.
+The usual lively chatter at the dinner table was hushed, and Aunt Phoebe
+held forth in solemn tones, generally berating some unfortunate person
+who nearly always happened to be a good friend of Mrs. Bradford's.
+Hinpoha would be called up for a minute examination of her clothes and
+manners and would invariably do something which was not right in her
+great aunt's eyes.
+
+She had a vivid recollection of going tobogganing down the long front
+walk one winter day, her jolly mother on the sled with her, steering it
+adroitly around the corner and up the sidewalk for a distance after
+leaving the slope. Such fun they were having that they did not look to
+see if the road was clear, and went bumping into a female figure that
+was coming majestically along the street, knocking her off her feet and
+into a snowdrift. It was Aunt Phoebe, coming to make a formal afternoon
+call. She sat bolt upright in the snow and adjusted her lorgnette to see
+if by any chance her grandniece could be one of those rowdy children.
+When she discovered that it was not only Hinpoha, but her mother as
+well, frolicking so indecorously, she was speechless. Mrs. Bradford
+started to make an abject apology, but the sight of Aunt Phoebe sitting
+in the snowdrift with her lorgnette was too much for her and she went
+off into a peal of laughter, in which Hinpoha joined gleefully. It was
+weeks before Aunt Phoebe could be coaxed to make another visit. And this
+was the woman who was coming to take the place of Hinpoha's beloved
+mother!
+
+Aunt Grace left the day she came. There was not enough room in one house
+for her and Aunt Phoebe. With Aunt Phoebe came "Silky," a wiggling,
+snapping Skye terrier. He gave one glance at genial Mr. Bob, who was
+rolling on his back before the fireplace, and with a growl fastened his
+teeth into his neck. Hinpoha rescued her pet and bore him away to her
+room, where she shed tears of despair while he licked her hand
+sympathetically. Aunt Phoebe's first act was to put Hinpoha into deep
+mourning. Hinpoha objected strenuously, but there was no help, and she
+went to school swathed from head to foot in black. Nyoda was wrathful at
+the sight, for if there was one point she felt strongly about it was
+putting children into mourning. Among the gaily dressed girls Hinpoha
+stood out like some dark spirit from the underworld, casting a gloom
+wherever she went.
+
+"Where is that beautiful vase I brought your mother from the World's
+Fair?" asked Aunt Phoebe one day, suddenly missing it.
+
+"It was accidently broken at our last Camp Fire meeting," answered
+Hinpoha, with a tightening around her heart when she thought of that
+last happy gathering.
+
+"Camp Fire!" said Aunt Phoebe with a snort. "You don't mean to tell me
+that you are mixed up in any such foolishness as that?"
+
+"I certainly am," said Hinpoha energetically, "and it isn't foolishness,
+either. I've learned more since I have been a Camp Fire Girl than I did
+in all the years before."
+
+"Well, you may consider yourself graduated, then," said Aunt Phoebe,
+drily, "for I'll have no such nonsense about me. I can teach you all you
+need to know outside of what you learn in school."
+
+"Camp Fire always had mother's fullest approval," said Hinpoha darkly.
+
+"I dare say," returned her aunt. "But I want you to understand once for
+all that I won't have any girls holding 'meetings' here, to upset the
+house and break valuable ornaments."
+
+"But you don't care if I go to them at other girls' houses, do you?"
+asked Hinpoha, the fear gripping her that she was to be denied the
+consolation of these weekly gatherings with the Winnebagos.
+
+"I don't want you to have anything to do with that Camp Fire business,"
+said Aunt Phoebe in a tone of finality, and Hinpoha left the room, her
+heart swelling with bitterness. She was too wise to argue the point with
+Aunt Phoebe, and resolved to depend on Nyoda to show her the way. She
+dried her tears and went down to the living room and began to play
+softly on the piano. It had been her mother's piano, the wedding gift of
+her father, and it seemed that her mother's spirit hovered over it. It
+was the first time she had touched the keys since that awful Wednesday
+when the world had been turned into chaos; she had had no heart to play,
+but to-day the sound of the music comforted her and her bitter resentment
+against her aunt lost some of its sting. She played on, lost in
+memories, when suddenly the sharp voice of her aunt brought her back to
+earth. "What does this mean?" cried Aunt Phoebe, "playing on the piano
+when your father and mother have just died! I never heard of such a
+thing! Come away immediately and don't open that piano again until our
+period of mourning is over." She closed the piano and locked it, putting
+the key into her bag.
+
+Under Aunt Phoebe's management the house soon lost its look of inviting
+friendliness. The blinds were always kept drawn, so that even on the
+brightest days the rooms had a gloomy appearance. No more cheerful wood
+fires crackled and glowed in the grate. They made ashes on the rugs and
+were extravagant, as the house was heated by steam. The bookcases were
+locked and Hinpoha was forbidden to read fiction, as this was not proper
+when one was in mourning. "You will become acquainted with much pleasant
+literature reading to me while I crochet," she said when Hinpoha rose in
+revolt at this edict. The "pleasant literature" which Aunt Phoebe was
+just then perusing was a History of the Presbyterian Church in eleven
+volumes, which bored Hinpoha so it nearly gagged her.
+
+Besides, Aunt Phoebe constantly found fault with Hinpoha's manner of
+reading. It was either too loud or not loud enough; either too fast or
+too slow, but it was never right. That reading aloud was the last straw
+to Hinpoha. After sitting still a whole afternoon getting her school
+lessons, she longed to move about after supper, but then Aunt Phoebe
+expected her to sit still the entire evening and entertain her with the
+activities of the Early Presbytery. After nearly a week of this deadly
+dullness Hinpoha was ready to fly. And yet Aunt Phoebe was not conscious
+that there was anything wrong in the way she was treating Hinpoha. She
+cared for her in her frozen way. She was merely trying to bring her up
+in the way she herself had been brought up by a maiden aunt, not taking
+into account that this was another day and age. In her time it was
+considered the proper thing to shut down on all lightheartedness after a
+death in the family, and she was adhering steadfastly to the old
+principles. She was yet to learn that she could not force obsolete
+customs upon a girl who had lived for sixteen years in the sunlight of
+modern ideas.
+
+All Hinpoha's troubles were confided to Nyoda, who sympathized with her
+entirely, but bade her be of good cheer and hope for the time when Aunt
+Phoebe would see for herself that the new way was best; and above all to
+win the respect and liking of her aunt the first thing, as more could be
+accomplished in this way than by being antagonistic. "I don't suppose
+you could go for a long walk with me Sunday afternoon?" said Nyoda.
+
+Hinpoha shook her head sadly. "We don't do anything like that on
+Sunday," she answered, with resentment flaming in her eye. "We go to
+church morning and evening and in the afternoon I am supposed to read
+the Bible or a book by a man named Thomas a Kempis." Nyoda turned her
+eyes inward with such a comical expression that Hinpoha forgot her
+troubles for a moment and laughed.
+
+"The Bible and Thomas a Kempis," said Nyoda musingly; "where did I hear
+those two mentioned before? Oh, I have it! Did you ever read this
+anywhere, 'Commit to memory one hundred verses of the Bible or an equal
+amount of sacred literature, such as Thomas a Kempis'?"
+
+Hinpoha hung her head, still smiling. "Why, Nyoda," she said, "there's a
+chance to earn an honor bead that I probably wouldn't have thought of
+otherwise!"
+
+"Right-o," said Nyoda. "'It's an ill wind,' you know. And while you are
+doing so much Bible reading you will undoubtedly come across something
+about 'in the wilderness a cedar,' and will learn that most waste places
+can be turned into blooming gardens if we only know how."
+
+"Thank you," said Hinpoha, "I always feel less forlorn after a talk with
+you." Her face brightened, but immediately fell again. "But what good
+will it do me to work for honors?" she said sadly. "Aunt Phoebe won't
+let me come to the meetings."
+
+"Won't she really?" asked Nyoda in surprise. Hinpoha nodded, near to
+tears. "I must see about that," said Nyoda resolutely. "I think if I
+explain the mission and activities of Camp Fire she will not object to
+your belonging. She probably has a wrong idea of what it means."
+
+Accordingly Nyoda came a-calling on Aunt Phoebe that very night. In
+addition to being very pretty Nyoda had a great deal of dignity, and
+when she put on her formal manner she looked very impressive indeed. She
+did not act as if she had come to see Hinpoha at all, but asked for
+"Miss Bradford," and said she had come to pay her respects to her new
+neighbor. She listened politely to Aunt Phoebe's account of her last
+siege of rheumatism, admired her crochet work, and hoped she liked this
+street as well as her former neighborhood. She said she had often seen
+Miss Bradford's name in the papers in connection with various charitable
+organizations and was very glad to have the honor of meeting the sister
+of the prominent Judge. Aunt Phoebe was pleased and flattered at the
+deference paid her. But when Nyoda announced herself as the leader of
+the club to which Hinpoha belonged and asked permission for her to
+attend the meetings, she refused. She was perfectly polite about it, and
+did not mention her antipathy to Camp Fire, and taking refuge behind her
+favorite excuse, that of being in mourning, stated that she did not wish
+Hinpoha to go out in society.
+
+"But this isn't 'society'," broke in Hinpoha desperately.
+
+"A meeting of a club partakes of a social nature," returned her aunt,
+"and is not to be thought of." And there the matter rested.
+
+So Nyoda had to depart without accomplishing her mission. Hinpoha,
+utterly crushed, followed her to the door, and Nyoda gave her hand a
+reassuring squeeze. "Don't despair, dear," she whispered hopefully; "she
+will come around to it eventually, but it will take time. Be patient.
+And in the meantime read this," and she slipped into her hand a tiny
+copy of "The Desert of Waiting." "Just be true to the Law, and see if
+you cannot find the roses among the thorns and from them distil the
+precious ointment that will open the door of the City of Your Desire
+later on."
+
+Hinpoha thrust the little book into her blouse, and when she was safe in
+her own room read it from cover to cover. When she finished there was a
+song in her heart again and a light in her eyes. Resolutely she turned
+her face to the East and began her long sojourn in the Desert of
+Waiting.
+
+Nyoda pondered the problem for a long while that night, and the next day
+she went to call on Gladys's mother. Mrs. Evans had taken a great liking
+to the popular young teacher of whom Gladys was so fond, and cordially
+invited her to spend as much time as she could at the house with the
+family. It was to her, then, that Nyoda appealed for advice in regard to
+Hinpoha. Mrs. Evans made a slight grimace when the facts were laid
+before her.
+
+"If that isn't just like Phoebe Bradford," she exclaimed indignantly.
+"Trying to shut up that poor girl like a nun to conform to some
+moth-eaten ideas of hers! If the Judge were alive that house wouldn't
+look as if there was a perpetual funeral going on! I certainly will call
+and see if I can do anything to change her mind, although I doubt very
+much if that could be accomplished by human means."
+
+The next day Aunt Phoebe was agreeably surprised to receive a call from
+Mrs. Evans, "All the best people in the neighborhood are making haste to
+call on the sister of Judge Bradford," she reflected complacently. Mrs.
+Evans made herself very agreeable, speaking of many friends they had in
+common, and finally led the conversation around to Hinpoha.
+
+"The child looks very pale," she said. "I presume the death of her
+parents was a terrible shock to her?"
+
+Aunt Phoebe dabbed her eyes with her black-bordered handkerchief. "The
+hand of misfortune has fallen heavily upon this house," she said
+mournfully.
+
+"It has indeed!" thought Mrs. Evans. Aloud she said, "You must not let
+the girl grieve herself sick. Cheerful company is what she needs at this
+time. Make her go out with the Camp Fire Girls as much as possible."
+
+Aunt Phoebe drew herself up rather stiffly. "I do not approve of the
+Camp Fire Girls," she said.
+
+"Not approve of the Camp Fire Girls!" echoed Mrs. Evans in well-feigned
+astonishment; "why, what's wrong with them?"
+
+Just what the great objection was Aunt Phoebe was not prepared to say,
+but she remarked that such nonsense had never been thought of in her
+day. "And, of course," she added, hiding behind her usual argument,
+"while we are in mourning my grandniece will not go out to any
+gatherings."
+
+"Why, I wouldn't think of keeping Gladys home for that reason," said
+Mrs. Evans, seeing the subterfuge. "She went to a Camp Fire meeting the
+day after her grandfather's funeral. It's not like going to a social
+function, you know."
+
+Aunt Phoebe shook her head, but her policy of seclusion for Hinpoha was
+getting shaky. Mrs. Homer Evans was a power in the community, and what
+she did set the fashion in a good many directions. Aunt Phoebe was very
+anxious to keep her as a permanent acquaintance, and if Mrs. Evans gave
+her sanction to this Camp Fire business, she wondered if she had not
+better swallow her prejudice--outwardly at least, for she declared
+inwardly that she had never heard of such foolishness in all her born
+days. When Mrs. Evans went home Aunt Phoebe had actually promised that
+after three months Hinpoha might attend the meetings as before. Those
+three months of mourning, however, were sacred to her, and on no account
+would she have consented to allow a single ray of cheer to enter the
+house during that period.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+SOME TRIALS OF GENIUS.
+
+"The sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles."
+Migwan drew the construction lines as indicated in the book and labored
+valiantly to understand why the Angle A was equal to its alternate, DBA,
+her brow puckered into a studious frown. Geometry was not her long suit,
+her talents running to literature and languages. Outside the October sun
+was shining on the crimson and yellow maples, making the long street a
+scene of dazzling splendor. The carpet of dry leaves on the walk and
+sidewalk tantalized Migwan with their crisp dryness; she longed to be
+out swishing and crackling through them. She sighed and stirred
+impatiently in her chair, wishing heartily that Euclid had died in his
+cradle.
+
+"I can't study with all this noise going on!" she groaned, flinging her
+pencil and compass down in despair. Indeed, it would have taken a much
+more keenly interested person than Migwan to have concentrated on a
+geometry lesson just then. From somewhere upstairs there came an
+ear-splitting din. It sounded like an earthquake in a tin shop, mingled
+with the noise of the sky falling on a glass roof, and accompanied by
+the tramping of an army; a noise such as could only have been produced
+by an extremely large elephant or an extremely small boy amusing himself
+indoors. Migwan rose resolutely and mounted the stairs to the room
+overhead, where her twelve-year-old brother and two of his bosom friends
+were holding forth. "Tom," she said appealingly, "wouldn't you and the
+boys just as soon play outdoors or in somebody else's house? I simply
+can't study with all that noise going on."
+
+"But the others have no punching bag," said Tom in an injured tone, "and
+Jim brought George over especially to-day to practice."
+
+"Can't you take the punching bag over to Jim's?" suggested Migwan
+desperately.
+
+"Sure," said Jim good-naturedly; "that's a good idea." So the boys
+unscrewed the object of attraction and departed with it, their pockets
+bulging with ginger cookies which Migwan gave them as a reward for their
+trouble. Silence fell on the house and Migwan returned to the mastering
+of the sum of the angles. Geometry was the bane of her existence and she
+was only cheered into digging away at it by the thought of the money
+lying in her name in the bank, which she had received for giving the
+clew leading to little Raymond Bartlett's discovery the summer before,
+and which would pay her way to college for one year at least.
+
+The theorem was learned at last so that she could make a recitation on
+it, even if she did not understand it perfectly, and Migwan left it to
+take up a piece of work which gave her as much pleasure as the other did
+pain. This was the writing of a story which she intended to send away to
+a magazine. She wrote it in the back of an old notebook, and when she
+was not working at it she kept it carefully in the bottom of her
+shirtwaist box, where the prying eyes of her younger sister would not
+find it. She had all the golden dreams and aspirations of a young
+authoress writing her first story, and her days were filled with a
+secret delight when she thought of the riches that would soon be hers
+when the story was accepted, as it of course would be. If she had known
+then of the long years of cruel disillusionment that would drag their
+weary length along until her efforts were finally crowned with success
+it is doubtful whether she would have stayed in out of the October
+sunshine so cheerfully and worked with such enthusiasm.
+
+Migwan's family could have used to advantage all the gold which she was
+dreaming of earning. After her father died her mother's income, from
+various sources, amounted to only about seventy-five dollars a month,
+which is not a great amount when there are three children to keep in
+school, and it was a struggle all the way around to make both ends meet.
+Mrs. Gardiner was a poor manager and kept no accounts, and so took no
+notice of the small leaks that drained her purse from month to month.
+She was fond of reading, as Migwan was, and sat up until midnight every
+night burning gas. Then the next morning she would be too tired to get
+up in time to get the children off to school, and they would depart with
+a hasty bite, according to their own fancy, or without any breakfast at
+all, if they were late. She bought ready-made clothes when she could
+have made them herself at half the cost, and generally chose light
+colors which soiled quickly. She never went to the store herself,
+depending on Tom or scatter-brained Betty, her younger daughter, to do
+her marketing, and in consequence paid the highest prices for
+inferior-grade goods.
+
+Thus the seventy-five dollars covered less ground every month as prices
+mounted, and little bills began to be left outstanding. Part of the
+income was from a house which rented for twenty dollars but this last
+month the tenants had abruptly moved, and that much was cut off. Migwan,
+unbusiness-like as she was, began to be worried about the condition of
+their affairs, and worked on her story feverishly, that it might be
+turned into money as soon as possible. She was deep in the intricacies
+of literary construction when her mother entered the room, broom in hand
+and dust cap on head, and sank into a chair.
+
+"Do you suppose you could finish this sweeping?" she asked Migwan. "My
+back aches so I just can't stand up any longer."
+
+"Why can't Betty do it?" asked Migwan a little impatiently, for she
+thought she ought not be disturbed when she was engaged in such an
+important piece of work.
+
+"Betty's off in the neighborhood somewhere," said her mother wearily.
+"Did you ever see her around when there was any work to be done?" Migwan
+was filled with exasperation. That was the way things always went at
+their house. Tom was allowed to upset the place from one end to the
+other without ever having to pick up his things; Betty was never asked
+to do any housework, and her mother left the Saturday dinner dishes
+standing and began to sweep in the afternoon and then was unable to
+finish. Migwan was just about to suggest a search for the errant Betty,
+when she remembered the "Give Service" part of the Camp Fire Law. She
+rose cheerfully and took the broom from her mother's hand.
+
+"Lie down a while, mother," she said, plumping up the pillows on the
+couch. Mrs. Gardiner sank down gratefully and Migwan put away her story
+and went at the sweeping. She soon turned it into a game in which she
+was a good fairy fighting the hosts of the goblin Dust, and must have
+them completely vanquished by four o'clock, or her magic wand, which had
+for the time being taken the shape of a broom, would vanish and leave
+her weaponless. Needless to say, she was in complete possession of the
+field when the clock struck the charmed hour. Being then out of the mood
+to continue her writing, she passed on into the kitchen and attacked the
+Fortress of Dishes, which she razed to the ground completely, leaving
+her banner, in the form of the dish towel, flying over the spot.
+
+"What are you planning for supper?" she asked her mother, looking into
+the sitting room to see how she was feeling.
+
+"Oh, dear, I don't know," said Mrs. Gardiner. "I hadn't given it a
+thought. I don't believe there's anything left from dinner. Run down to
+the store, will you, and get a couple of porterhouse steaks, there's a
+dear. And stop at the baker's as you come by and get us each a cream
+puff for dessert. Betty is so fond of them." Migwan returned to the
+kitchen and got her mother's pocketbook. There was just twenty-five
+cents in it. Migwan realized with a shock that it would not pay for what
+her mother wanted, and her sensitive nature shrank from asking to have
+things charged.
+
+"I won't buy the cream puffs," she decided. "I wonder if there is
+anything in the house I could make into a dessert?" Search revealed
+nothing but a bag of prunes, which had been on the shelf for months, and
+were as dry as a bone. They did not appeal to Migwan in the least, but
+there was nothing else in evidence. "I might make prune whip," she
+thought rather doubtfully. "They're pretty hard, but I can soak them.
+I'll need the oven to make prune whip, so I will bake the potatoes too."
+She hunted around for the potatoes and finally found them in a small
+paper bag. "Buying potatoes two quarts at a time must be rather
+expensive," she reflected. She put the prunes to soak and the potatoes
+in the oven and went down to the store. "How much is porterhouse steak?"
+she asked before she had the butcher cut any off.
+
+"Twenty-eight cents a pound," answered the man behind the counter.
+Migwan gave a little gasp. The money she had would not even buy a pound.
+
+"How much is round steak?" she inquired.
+
+"Twenty-two," came the reply.
+
+"Give me twenty-five cents' worth," she said. It did not look
+particularly tender and Migwan thought distressedly how her mother would
+complain when she found round steak instead of porterhouse. "But there
+is no help for it," she said to herself grimly, "beggars cannot be
+choosers." She stopped on the way home to get the recipe for prune whip
+from Sahwah. Sahwah was not at home, but her mother gave Migwan the
+recipe and added many directions as to the proper mixing of the
+ingredients. "Is--is there any way of making tough round steak tender?"
+she asked timidly, just a little ashamed to admit that they had to eat
+round steak.
+
+"There certainly is," answered Mrs. Brewster. "You just pound all the
+flour into it that it will take up. I hardly ever buy porterhouse steaks
+any more since I learned that trick. I am having some to-night. It is
+one of our favorite dishes here. Round steak prepared in this way is
+known in the restaurants as 'Dutch steak,' and commands a high price."
+Considerably cheered by this last intelligence, Migwan sped home and got
+her prune dessert into the oven and then set to work transforming the
+tough steak into a tender morsel.
+
+"What kind of meat is this?" asked her mother when they had taken their
+places at the table.
+
+"Guess," said Migwan.
+
+"It tastes like tenderloin," said her mother.
+
+"Guess again," said Migwan gleefully; "it's round steak."
+
+"The butcher must be buying better meat than usual, then," said Mrs.
+Gardiner. "I never got such round steak as this out here before."
+
+"And you never will, either," said Migwan, swelling with pride, "if you
+leave it to the butcher," and she told how she had treated the steak to
+produce the present result.
+
+"I never heard of that before," said her mother, amazed at this simple
+culinary trick.
+
+Next the prune whip was brought on and pronounced good by every one and
+"bully" by Tom, who ate his in great spoonfuls. "I see I'll have to let
+you get the meals after this," said Mrs. Gardiner to Migwan. "You have a
+knack of putting things together, which I have not."
+
+Migwan was too tired to write any more that night after the dishes were
+done, but she was entirely light-hearted as she wove into her bead band
+the symbols of that day's achievements--a broom and a frying pan. She
+had learned something that afternoon besides how to prepare beefsteak.
+She had waked up to the careless fashion in which the house was being
+run, and her head was full of plans for cutting down expenses. Monday
+afternoon, on her way home from school, Migwan saw a farmer's wagon
+standing in front of the Brewsters' home, and Mrs. Brewster stood at the
+curb, buying her winter supply of potatoes.
+
+"Have you put your potatoes in yet?" she asked as Migwan came along.
+
+Migwan stopped. "I don't believe we ever bought them in large
+quantities," she answered. "How much are they a bushel?"
+
+"Sixty-five cents," said the farmer. Migwan made a quick mental
+calculation. At the rate they had been buying potatoes in two-quart lots
+they had been paying a dollar and seventy-five cents a bushel. Migwan
+came to a sudden decision.
+
+"Are they all good?" she asked Mrs. Brewster.
+
+"They have always been in the past years," answered Sahwah's mother,
+"and I have bought my potatoes from this man for the last six winters."
+
+"How many would it take for a family of four?" asked Migwan.
+
+"About five bushels," answered Mrs. Brewster.
+
+"All right," said Migwan to the man; "bring five bushels over to this
+address." The potatoes were duly deposited in the Gardiner cellar,
+without asking the advice of Mrs. Gardiner, which was the only safe way
+of getting things done, for had she been consulted she would surely have
+wanted to wait a while, and then would have kept putting it off until it
+was too late. It was the same way with flour and sugar. Migwan found
+that her mother had been buying these in small quantities at an
+exorbitant price, and calmly took matters into her own hands, ordering a
+whole barrel of flour, because there was more in a barrel even than in
+four sacks. A certain large store was offering a liberal discount that
+week on fifty pounds of sugar, and Migwan took advantage of this sale
+also.
+
+Then she had a terrified counting up. Those three items, potatoes, flour
+and sugar, had used up every cent of that week's income, leaving nothing
+at all for running expenses. All other supplies would have to be bought
+on credit. Migwan made a careful estimate of the necessary expenses for
+the coming week, and pare down as she might, the sum was nearly fifteen
+dollars. The loss of the rent money was making itself keenly felt.
+"Mother," she said quietly, looking up from her account book, "we can't
+live on fifty-five dollars a month. We must rent the house again
+immediately."
+
+Mrs. Gardiner made a gesture of despair. "The sign has been up nearly a
+month, and if people don't make inquiries I can't help it."
+
+"Have you been in the house since the last people moved out?" asked
+Migwan.
+
+"No," said Mrs. Gardiner; "what good would that do? I haven't the time
+to go all the way over to the East Side to look at that old house.
+People know it's for rent, and if they want it they'll take it without
+my sitting over there waiting for them."
+
+Nevertheless, Migwan made the long trip the very next day after school
+to look at the property. "It's no wonder no one has been making
+inquiries for it," she said when she returned. "The 'For Rent' sign was
+gone and I found it later when I was going back up the street. Some boys
+had used it to make the end piece of a wagon. Then, the plumbing is bad
+and the cellar is flooded, and the water will not run off in the kitchen
+sink. These must have been the repairs the old tenants wanted made when
+you told them you had no money to fix the house, and so they moved. I
+don't blame them at all.
+
+"Then, there is another thing I thought of when I was looking through
+the rooms. You know that big unfinished space over the kitchen? Well, I
+thought, why can't we make a furnished room of that? There is space
+enough to build a large room and a bathroom, for part of it is just
+above the bathroom downstairs. A large furnished room with a private
+bath would bring in ten dollars a month. It is just at the head of the
+back stairs and the side door where the back stairs connect with the
+cellar way could be used as a private entrance, so the tenants of the
+house would not be disturbed in the least. It would cost over a hundred
+dollars to do it, most likely, but we could borrow the money from my
+college fund and the extra rent would soon pay it back." Migwan's eyes
+were shining with ambition.
+
+Mrs. Gardiner shook her head wearily. "We never could do it," she
+answered. "Something would surely happen to upset our plans."
+
+But Migwan was not to be waved aside. She had seen a vision of increased
+income and meant to make it come true. She argued the merits of her idea
+until Mrs. Gardiner was too tired of the subject to argue back, and
+agreed that if Miss Kent approved the step she would give her consent.
+Nyoda was therefore called into consultation. She looked at the house
+and saw no reason why the improvements could not be made to advantage.
+The house was in a good neighborhood, and furnished rooms were always in
+demand. She advised the step and gave Mrs. Gardiner the names of several
+contractors whom she knew to be reliable. Mrs. Gardiner was a little
+breathless at the speed with which things were moving, but there was no
+stopping Migwan once she was started. A contractor was engaged and work
+begun on the house one week from the day Migwan had thought of the plan.
+
+Meanwhile financial matters at home were in bad shape, and Mrs. Gardiner
+willingly gave over the distribution of the family budget to Migwan. She
+herself was utterly unable to cope with the problem. And Migwan
+surprised even herself by the efficient way in which she managed things.
+By planning menus with the greatest care and omitting meat from the bill
+of fare to a great extent she made it possible to live on their slender
+income until the rent would begin to come in again.
+
+
+"Whatever have you done with yourself?" asked Gladys at the weekly
+meeting of the Camp Fire. "Of late you rush home from school as if you
+were pursued." Migwan only laughed and said she had had uncommonly hard
+problems to solve these last few weeks. The other girls of course did
+not know the exact state of the Gardiner finances, and never dreamed
+that Migwan was having a struggle even to stay in high school. She was
+such a fine, aristocratic-looking girl, and was so sparkling and witty
+all the time that it was hard to connect her with poverty and worry.
+
+"Let's all go to the matinee next Saturday afternoon," suggested Gladys.
+"The 'Blue Bird' is going to be played." The girls agreed eagerly and
+asked Gladys to get seats for them, all but Migwan, who said nothing.
+
+"Don't you want to go, Migwan?" they asked.
+
+"Not this time," Migwan answered in a casual tone. "There is something
+else I have to do Saturday afternoon." The girls accepted this
+explanation readily. It never occurred to them that Migwan could not
+afford to go.
+
+"What is this mysterious something you are always doing?" asked Gladys
+teasingly. "Girls, I believe Migwan is writing a book. She has retired
+from polite society altogether." Migwan smiled blandly at her, but made
+no answer.
+
+At home that night, however, she felt very low-spirited indeed. She was
+only human, after all, and wanted dreadfully to go to the matinee with
+the girls. Gladys would take them all to Schiller's afterward for a
+parfait and bring them home in style in her machine. It did not seem
+fair that she should be cut off from every pleasure that involved the
+spending of a little money. This was her last year in high school, the
+year which should be the happiest, but she must resolutely turn her face
+away from all those little festivities that add such touches of color to
+the memory fabric of school days. She knew that at the merest hint of
+her circumstances to Gladys or Nyoda they would have gladly paid her way
+everywhere the group went, but Migwan's pride forbade this. If she could
+not afford to go to places she would stay at home and nobody would be
+any the wiser. Nevertheless, a few tears would come at the thought of
+the good time she was missing, and she had no heart to work on her
+story.
+
+"Cry-baby!" she said to herself fiercely, winking the tears back.
+"Crying because you can't do as you would like all the time! You're lots
+better off than poor Hinpoha this very minute, even if she is rich. You
+ought to be ashamed of yourself!" The thought of Hinpoha, who would
+likewise miss the jolly party, comforted her somewhat, and she dried her
+tears and fell to writing with a will.
+
+Now Nyoda, although she did not know just how hard pressed the Gardiners
+were at that time, rather surmised something of the kind, and wondered,
+after she left the girls, if that were not the reason for Migwan's not
+planning to go to the matinee. She remembered Migwan's saying some time
+before that she wanted very much to see "The Bluebird" when it came. She
+knew it would never do to offer to pay Migwan's way; Migwan was too
+proud for that. She lay awake a long time over it and finally formulated
+a plan. The next morning when Migwan came to school she saw a
+conspicuous notice on the Bulletin Board:
+
+LOST: Handbag containing book of lecture notes and ticket for Saturday
+afternoon's performance of "The Bluebird." Finder may keep theater
+ticket if he or she will return notebook to Miss Moore, Room 10.
+
+Migwan read the notice and passed on, as did the other pupils. That
+morning in English class Nyoda sent Migwan to an unused lecture room to
+get an English book she had left there. When Migwan opened the door she
+stumbled over something on the floor. It was a lady's handbag. She
+opened it and found Miss Moore's notebook and the theater ticket inside.
+Miss Moore was overjoyed at the return of the notebook and insisted on
+her keeping the ticket, which Migwan at first declined to accept. "My
+dear child," said Miss Moore, "if you knew what trouble I had collecting
+those notes you would think, too, that it was worth the price of a
+theater ticket to get them back!" And when Migwan's back was turned she
+winked solemnly at Nyoda. By a curious coincidence that seat was
+directly behind those occupied by the other Winnebagos!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ANOTHER KITCHEN.
+
+The night of the last Camp Fire Meeting Gladys and Nyoda might have been
+seen in close consultation. "The first pleasant Saturday," said Nyoda.
+
+"Remember, it's my treat," said Gladys.
+
+The first week in November was as balmy as May, with every promise of
+fine weather on Saturday. Accordingly, Nyoda gathered all the Winnebagos
+around her desk on Thursday and made an announcement. Sahwah forgot that
+she was in a class room and started to raise a joyful whoop, but Nyoda
+stifled it in time by putting her hand over her mouth. "I can't help
+it!" cried Sahwah; "we're going on a trip up the river! I'm going to
+paddle the _Keewaydin_ once more!"
+
+The plan suggested by Gladys and just announced by Nyoda was this: The
+following Saturday they would charter a launch big enough to hold them
+all, and follow the course of the Cuyahoga River upstream to the dam at
+the falls, where they would land and cook their dinner over an open
+fire. They would tow the _Keewaydin_, Sahwah's birchbark canoe, behind
+the launch, and some time during the day would manage to let every one
+go for a paddle. The Winnebagos thrilled with pleasurable anticipation,
+all but Hinpoha, who crept sadly away, for she could not bear to hear
+about the fun that was being planned when she could not have a part in
+it.
+
+One desire of her heart was being fulfilled, and she was getting thin.
+What a whole summer of rigid dieting had not been able to accomplish was
+brought to pass by a few weeks of mental suffering, and her clothes were
+beginning to hang on her. Her appetite began to fail her, and her aunt,
+noticing this, bought her a big bottle of tonic, which, taken before
+meals, killed any small desire for food she may have had. Then Aunt
+Phoebe decided that the two-mile walk to school was too much for her,
+and had her taken and called for in the machine, much to Hinpoha's
+disgust, for that walk was her chief joy these days. After a week of the
+tonic her soul rebelled against the nauseous dose, and when the first
+bottle was empty and Aunt Phoebe sent her to get it refilled, she
+"refilled" it herself with a mixture of licorice candy and water, which
+produced a black syrup similar in appearance to the original medicine,
+but minus the bad taste and the stigma of "patent medicine," a thing
+which the Winnebagos had promised their Guardian they would not take. As
+this was deceiving her aunt she felt obliged to put a blot on her head
+'scutcheon, in the form of a black record, but she was so inwardly
+amused at it that her appetite improved of its own accord, and Aunt
+Phoebe remarked in a gratified way that she had never known the equal of
+Mullin's Modifier as a tonic.
+
+Migwan finished her story, copied it carefully on foolscap and sent it
+away to a magazine, confident that in a very short time she would behold
+it in print, and the payment she would receive for it would keep her in
+spending money throughout the school year. So with a light and merry
+heart she set out for Gladys's house on Saturday morning, where the
+girls were all to meet for the outing. It was one of those dream-like
+days in late autumn, when the earth, still decked in her brilliant
+garments, seems to lie spellbound in the sunshine, as if there were no
+such thing as the coming of winter.
+
+The girls, clad in blue skirts and white middies and heavy sweaters,
+were whirled down to the dock in the Evans's automobile, with the
+_Keewaydin_ tied upright at the back. The launch was waiting for them,
+at one of the big boat docks, sandwiched in between two immense lake
+steamers. Nothing could have been a greater contrast to their trip up
+the Shadow River the summer before than this excursion. On that other
+trip they had been the only living beings on the horizon, and nature was
+supreme everywhere, but here they were fairly engulfed by the works of
+man. The tiny craft nosed her way among giant steamers, six-hundred-foot
+freighters, coal barges, lighters, fire boats, tugs, scows, and all the
+other kinds of vessels that crowd the river-harbor of a great lake port.
+Viewed from below, the steel structure of the viaduct over the river
+stretched out like the monstrous skeleton of some prehistoric beast.
+Whistles shrieked deafeningly in their ears and trains pounded jarringly
+over railroad bridges. A jack-knife bridge began to descend over their
+very heads. Over where the new bridge was being constructed men stood on
+slender girders high in the air, catching red-hot rivets that were being
+tossed them, while an automatic riveting hammer filled the air with its
+nerve-destroying clamor. Everywhere was bustle and confusion, and noise,
+noise, noise.
+
+And in the midst of this tumult the tiny launch, filled with laughing
+girls, threaded its way up the black river, flying the Winnebago banner,
+while behind it trailed a birchbark canoe, with Sahwah squatting calmly
+in the stern, leaning her back against her paddle. Many times they had
+to bury their noses in their handkerchiefs to shut out the smells that
+assailed them on every side. On they chugged, past the lumber yards with
+their acres of stacked boards, some of which had come from the very
+neighborhood of Camp Winnebago; past the chemical works, pouring out its
+darkly polluted streams into the river. "Ugh," said Gladys with a
+shiver, "to think that that stuff flows on into the lake and we drink
+lake water!"
+
+"It seems like a different world altogether," said Migwan, looking out
+across the miles of factory-covered "flats." She was perfectly
+fascinated by the rolling mills, with their rows of black stacks
+standing out against the sky like organ pipes, and by the long trains of
+oil-tank cars curving through the valley like huge worms, the divisions
+giving the effect of body sections.
+
+While the Winnebagos were gliding along among scenes strange and new,
+Hinpoha was vainly trying to comfort herself for having to stay at home
+by catching in a bottle the bees which were crawling in and out of the
+cosmos blossoms in the garden. Interesting as the bees were, however,
+they could not keep her thoughts from turning to the Winnebagos afloat
+on the river, and it was a very doleful face that bent over the flowers.
+Her dismal reflections were interrupted by the sharp voice of Aunt
+Phoebe calling her to come in. "What is it?" she asked listlessly, as
+she came up on the porch.
+
+"Mrs. Evans is here," said her aunt in the doorway, "and she has asked
+to see you." Hinpoha was very glad to see Mrs. Evans, who rose smilingly
+and took her hands in hers.
+
+"How thin you are getting, child!" she exclaimed, smoothing back the red
+curls. "I don't believe you get out enough. By the way," she said to
+Aunt Phoebe, "may I borrow this girl for to-day? I have considerable
+driving about to do and it is rather tiresome going alone. Gladys has
+gone on an all-day boat ride."
+
+Aunt Phoebe could not very well refuse, for driving about in a machine
+with an older woman was a very proper form of recreation indeed, in her
+estimation.
+
+Hinpoha flew upstairs and deposited her bottle of bees on the table in
+her room for future observation and started off with Mrs. Evans. "We
+will not be back for lunch, and possibly not for supper," said Gladys's
+mother as she bade Aunt Phoebe a gracious good-bye, "but it will not be
+long after that."
+
+"And now for a grand spin," she said, as she started the car and sent it
+crackling through the dry leaves on the pavement.
+
+"Now I see why the Indians named this river 'Cuyahoga,' or 'Crooked,'"
+said Migwan, as they rounded bend after bend in the stream. "It coils
+back on itself like a snake, and I have already counted seven coils
+within the city limits. I didn't believe it when the captain of a
+freighter told me that there was a place in the river which his boat
+couldn't pass because two sharp turns came so near together, but now I
+see how that could easily be possible."
+
+As the launch putt-putt-putt-ed steadily up the river the water
+gradually became less black, and the factories along the shore gave way
+to open stretches of country. By noon they reached the dam and went
+ashore to look for a place to build a fire. They were in a deep gorge,
+its steep sides thickly covered with flaming maples and oaks, and
+brilliant sumachs, stretching on either side as far as they could reach.
+"It's too gorgeous to seem real," said Nyoda, shading her eyes and
+looking down the valley; "where _does_ Mother Nature keep her pot of
+'Diamond Dyes' in the summer time?"
+
+High up along the top of one of the cliffs a narrow road wound along,
+and as Nyoda stood looking into the distance she saw an automobile
+coming along this road. When it was directly above her it stopped and
+two people got out, a woman and a girl. The sunlight fell on a mass of
+red curls on the girl's head. "Hinpoha!" exclaimed Nyoda in amazement.
+From above came floating down a far-echoing yodel--the familiar
+Winnebago call. The girls all looked up in surprise to see Hinpoha
+scrambling down the face of the cliff, and aiding Mrs. Evans to descend.
+
+"Why, _mother_!" called Gladys, running up to meet her.
+
+The surprise at the meeting was mutual. Mrs. Evans, spinning along the
+country roads, had no idea she was hard on the trail of her daughter and
+the other Winnebagos until she came suddenly upon them after they had
+gotten out of the launch. "Can't you stay and spend the day with us, now
+that you're here?" they pleaded.
+
+Hinpoha's longing soul looked out of her eyes, but she answered, "I'm
+afraid not. Aunt Phoebe wouldn't approve."
+
+"Did she say you couldn't?" asked Sahwah.
+
+"No," said Hinpoha, "for I never even asked her if I might go along with
+you in the launch. I knew it would be no use."
+
+"Oh, please stay," tempted some of the girls; "your aunt'll never know
+the difference."
+
+"Oh, I couldn't do that," said Hinpoha in a tone of horror. A little
+approving smile crept around the corners of Nyoda's eyes as she heard
+Hinpoha so resolutely bidding Satan get behind her. Mrs. Evans was
+genuinely sorry they had encountered the girls, because it made it so
+much harder for Hinpoha.
+
+"I wonder," she said musingly, "if I drove on to a house in the road and
+telephoned your aunt that she would let you stay?"
+
+"You might try," said Hinpoha doubtfully. Mrs. Evans thought it was
+worth trying. She found a house with a telephone and got Aunt Phoebe on
+the wire. With the utmost tact she explained how they had met the girls
+accidently, and that she had taken a notion that she would like to spend
+the day with them, but of course she could not do so unless Hinpoha
+would be allowed to stay with her, as she had charge of her for the day.
+What was Aunt Phoebe to do? She was not equal to telling the admired
+Mrs. Evans to forego her pleasure because of Hinpoha, and gave a
+grudging consent to her keeping her niece with her on the condition that
+she would bring her home in the machine and not let her come back in the
+launch with the Winnebagos. Jubilant, they returned to the girls in the
+gorge and told the good news.
+
+"Cheer for Mrs. Evans," cried Sahwah, and the Winnebagos gave it with a
+hearty good will.
+
+Hinpoha, with Sahwah close beside her, began I searching for firewood
+industriously. "It seems just like last summer," she said, chopping
+sticks with Sahwah's hatchet. The two had wandered off a short distance
+from the others, following a tiny footpath. Suddenly they came upon a
+huge rock formation, that looked like an immense fireplace, about forty
+feet wide and twenty or more feet high. Under that great stone arch a
+dozen spits, each big enough to hold a whole ox, might easily have
+swung. Sahwah and Hinpoha looked at it in amazement and then called for
+the other girls to come and see.
+
+"Why, that's the 'Old Maid's Kitchen,'" said Mrs. Evans, when she
+arrived on the scene. "I've been here before. Just why it should be
+called the _Old Maid's_ Kitchen is more than I can tell, for it looks
+like the fireplace belonging to the grand-mother of all giantesses."
+
+"Let's build our fire inside of it," said Nyoda.
+
+"The original 'Old Maid' had a convenience that didn't usually go with
+open fireplaces," said Gladys, "and that is running water," and she held
+her cup under a tiny stream that trickled out between two rocks, cold as
+ice and clear as crystal.
+
+"Wouldn't this be a grand place for a Ceremonial Meeting?" said Migwan,
+as they all stood round the blazing fire roasting "wieners" and bacon.
+The Kitchen had a floor of smooth slabs of rock, and the arch of the
+fireplace formed a roof over their heads, while its wide opening
+afforded them a wonderful view of the gorge.
+
+"Whenever you want to come here again, just say so," said Mrs. Evans,
+"and I'll bring you down in the machine." Mrs. Evans was enjoying
+herself as much as any of the girls. It was the first time she had ever
+cooked wieners and bacon over an open fire on green sticks, and she was
+perfectly delighted with the experience. "If my husband could only see
+me now," she said, laughing like a girl as she dropped her last wiener
+in the dirt and calmly washed it off in the trickling stream. "How good
+this hot cocoa tastes!" she exclaimed, drinking down a whole cupful
+without stopping. "What kind is it?"
+
+"Camp Fire Girl Cocoa," answered the girls.
+
+"What kind is that?" asked Mrs. Evans.
+
+"It is a brand that is put up by a New York firm for the Camp Fire Girls
+to sell," answered Nyoda.
+
+"Why have we never had any of this at our house?" asked Mrs. Evans,
+turning to Gladys.
+
+"You have always insisted that you would use no other kind than Van
+Horn's," replied Gladys, "so I thought there would be no use in
+mentioning it."
+
+"I like this better than Van Horn's," said her mother. "Is there any to
+be had now?"
+
+"There certainly is," answered Nyoda. "We are trying to dispose of a
+hundred-can lot to pay our annual dues."
+
+"Let me have a dozen cans," said Mrs. Evans. "I will serve Camp Fire
+Girl Cocoa to my Civic Club next Wednesday afternoon. I----"
+
+Here a terrific shriek from Migwan brought them all to their feet. She
+had been poking about in the corner of the Kitchen, when something had
+suddenly jumped out at her, unfolded itself like a fan and was whirling
+around her head. "It's a bat!" cried Sahwah, and they all laughed
+heartily at Migwan's fright. The bat wheeled around, blind in the
+daylight, and went bumping against the girls, causing them to run in
+alarm lest it should get entangled in their hair. It finally found its
+way back to the dark corner of the Kitchen and hung itself up neatly the
+way Migwan had found it and the dinner proceeded.
+
+"What kind of a bat was it?" asked Gladys.
+
+"Must have been a _bacon bat_," said Sahwah, dodging the acorn that
+Hinpoha threw at her for making a pun.
+
+"Tell us a new game to play, Nyoda," said Gladys, "or Sahwah will go
+right on making puns."
+
+"Here is one I thought of on the way down," answered Nyoda. "Think of
+all the things that you know are manufactured in Cleveland, or form an
+important part of the shipping industry. Then we'll go around the
+circle, naming them in alphabetical order. Each girl may have ten
+seconds in which to think when her turn comes, and if she misses she is
+out of the game. She may only come in again by supplying a word when
+another has missed, before the next girl in the circle can think of
+one."
+
+"And let the two that hold out the longest have the first ride in the
+canoe," suggested Sahwah.
+
+The game started. Nyoda had the first chance. "Automobiles," she began.
+
+"Bricks," said Gladys.
+
+"Clothing," said Migwan.
+
+"Drugs," said Sahwah.
+
+"Engines," said Hinpoha.
+
+"Flour," said Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Gasoline," said Nakwisi.
+
+"Hardware," said Chapa.
+
+"Iron," said Medmangi.
+
+Nyoda hesitated, fishing for a "J." "One, two, three, four, five, six,"
+began Sahwah.
+
+"Jewelry!" cried Nyoda on the tenth count.
+
+"Knitted goods," continued Gladys.
+
+"Lamps," said Migwan.
+
+"Macaroni," said Sahwah.
+
+"That reminds me," said Mrs. Evans, "I meant to order some macaroni
+to-day and forgot it."
+
+"N," said Hinpoha, "N,--why, Nothing!" The girls laughed at the witty
+application, but she was ruled out nevertheless.
+
+"Nails," said Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Oil," said Nakwisi.
+
+"Paint," said Chapa.
+
+Medmangi sat down. Nyoda began to count. "Quadrupeds!" cried Medmangi
+hastily.
+
+"Explain yourself," said Nyoda.
+
+"Tables and chairs," said Medmangi. The girls shouted in derision, but
+Nyoda ruled the answer in, and the game proceeded.
+
+"Refrigerators," said Nyoda.
+
+"Salt," said Gladys.
+
+"Tents," said Migwan, with a reminiscent sigh.
+
+"Umbrellas," said Sahwah.
+
+Mrs. Evans fell down on "V." "Varnish," said Chapa.
+
+"W" was too much for Medmangi. "Wire," said Nyoda.
+
+"X," said Sahwah, "there is no such thing. Oh, yes, there is, too;
+Xylophones, they're made here."
+
+Gladys and Migwan met their Waterloo on "Y." "Yeast," said Nyoda.
+
+"Z," sent Chapa and Nakwisi to the dummy corner and it came back to
+Sahwah. "Zerolene," she said.
+
+"What's that?" they all cried.
+
+"I don't know," she answered, "but I saw it on one of the big oil tanks
+as we passed."
+
+Sahwah and Nyoda won the right to take the first paddle in the
+_Keewaydin_. They carried the canoe on their heads, portage fashion,
+around the dam, and launched it up above, where the confined waters had
+spread out into a wide pond. "Oh, what a joy to dip a paddle again!"
+sighed Sahwah blissfully, sending the _Keewaydin_ flying through the
+water with long, vigorous strokes. "I'd love to paddle all the way
+home." She had completely forgotten that there was such a thing as
+school and lessons in the world. She was the Daughter of the River, and
+this was a joyous homecoming.
+
+"Time to go back and let the rest have a turn," said Nyoda. Reluctantly
+Sahwah steered the canoe around and returned to the waiting group. Mrs.
+Evans watched with interest as Gladys and Hinpoha pushed out from shore.
+Could this be her once frail daughter, who had despised all strenuous
+sports and hated water above all things, who was swinging her paddle so
+lustily and steering the _Keewaydin_ so skilfully? What was this strange
+Something that the Camp Fire had instilled into her? She caught her
+breath with the beauty of it, as the girls glided along between the
+radiant banks, the two paddles flashing in and out in perfect rhythm.
+They were singing a favorite boating song, and their voices floated back
+on the breeze:
+
+  "Through the mystic haze of the autumn days
+  Like a phantom ghost I glide,
+  Where the big moose sees the crimson trees
+  Mirrored on the silver tide,
+  And the blood red sun when day is done
+  Sinks below the hill,
+  The night hawk swoops, the lily droops,
+  And all the world is still!"
+
+Sahwah lingered on the river after the others had gone in a body to try
+to climb to the top of the rocky fireplace. She was all alone in the
+_Keewaydin_, and sent it darting around like a water spider on the
+surface of the stream. So absorbed was she in the joy of paddling that
+she did not see a sign on a tree beside the river which warned people in
+boats to go no further than that point, neither did she realize the
+significance of the quicker progress which the _Keewaydin_ was making.
+When she did realize that she was getting dangerously near the edge of
+the dam, and attempted to turn back, she discovered to her horror that
+it was impossible to turn back. The _Keewaydin_ was being swept
+helplessly and irresistibly onward. Recent rains had swollen the stream
+and the water was pouring over the dam. Sahwah screamed aloud when she
+saw the peril in which she was. Nyoda and Mrs. Evans and the girls,
+standing up on the rocks, turned and saw her. Help was out of the
+question. Frozen to the spot they saw her rushing along to that descent
+of waters. Gladys moaned and covered her face with her hands. Below the
+falls the great rocks jutted out, jagged and bare. Any boat going over
+would be dashed to pieces.
+
+The _Keewaydin_ shot forward, gaining speed with every second. The roar
+of the falls filled Sahwah's ears. Not ten feet from the brink a rock
+jutted up a little above the surface, just enough to divide the current
+into two streams. When the _Keewaydin_ reached this point it turned
+sharply and was hurled into the current nearest the shore. On the bank
+right at the brink of the falls stood a great willow tree, its long
+branches drooping far out over the water. It was one chance in a million
+and Sahwah saw it. As she passed under the tree she reached up and
+caught hold of a branch, seized it firmly and jumped clear of the canoe,
+which went over the falls almost under her feet. Then, swinging along by
+her arms, she reached the shore and stood in safety. It had all happened
+so quickly the girls could hardly comprehend it. Gladys, who had hidden
+her eyes to shut out the dreadful sight, heard an incredulous shout from
+the girls and looked down to see the _Keewaydin_ landing on the rocks
+below, empty, and Sahwah standing on the bank.
+
+"How did you ever manage to do it?" gasped Hinpoha, when they had
+surrounded her with exclamations of joy and amazement. "You're a heroine
+again."
+
+"You're nothing of the sort," said Nyoda. "It was sheer foolhardiness or
+carelessness that got you into that scrape. A girl who doesn't know
+enough to keep out of the current isn't to be trusted with a canoe, no
+matter what a fine paddler she is. I certainly thought better of you
+than that, Sahwah. I never used to have the slightest anxiety when you
+were on the water, I had such a perfect trust in your common sense, but
+now I can never feel quite sure of you again."
+
+Sahwah hung her head in shame, for she felt the truth of Nyoda's words.
+"I think you can trust me after this," she said humbly. "I have learned
+my lesson." She was not likely to forget the horror of the moment when
+she had heard the water roaring over the dam and thought her time had
+come. Sahwah liked to be thought clever as well as daring, and it was
+certainly far from clever to run blindly into danger as she had done.
+She sank dejectedly down on the bank, feeling disgraced forever in the
+eyes of the Winnebagos.
+
+"Girls," said Mrs. Evans, wishing to take their minds off the fright
+they had received, "do you know that we are not many miles from one of
+the model dairy farms of the world? I could take you over in the car and
+bring you back here in time to go home in the launch."
+
+"Let's do it, Nyoda," begged all the Winnebagos, and into the machine
+they piled. When they were still far in the distance they could see the
+high towers of the barns rising in the air. "We're nearly there," said
+Mrs. Evans; "here is the beginning to the cement fence that runs all the
+way around the four-thousand-acre farm." Mrs. Evans knew some of the
+people in charge of the farm and they had no difficulty gaining
+admittance. That visit to the Carter Farm was a long-remembered one. The
+girls walked through the long stables exclaiming at everything they saw.
+
+"Why, there's an electric fan in each stall!" gasped Migwan, "and the
+windows are screened!"
+
+"Oo, look at the darling calf," gurgled Hinpoha, on her knees before one
+of the stalls, caressing a ten-thousand-dollar baby.
+
+"It doesn't look a bit like its mother," observed Nyoda, comparing it
+with the cow standing beside it.
+
+"That isn't its mother, that's its nurse," said the man who was showing
+them around.
+
+"Its what?" said Nyoda. Then the man explained that the milk from the
+blooded cows was too valuable to be fed to calves, as it commanded a
+high price on the market, and so a herd of common cows were kept to feed
+the aristocratic babies. The lovely little creatures were as tame as
+kittens and allowed the girls to fondle them to their hearts' content.
+Sometimes a pair of polished horns would come poking between a calf and
+the visitors, and a soft-eyed cow would view the proceedings with a
+comically anxious face, and then it was easy to tell which calf was with
+its mother.
+
+In one of the largest stalls they saw the champion Guernsey of the
+world. Her coat was like satin and her horns were polished until they
+shone. She did not seem to be in the least set up on account of her
+great reputation and thrust out her nose in the friendliest manner
+possible to be patted and fussed over. She eyed Gladys, who stood next
+to her, with amiable curiosity, and then suddenly licked her face. Mrs.
+Evans watched Gladys in surprise. Instead of quivering all over with
+disgust as she would have a year ago she simply laughed and patted the
+cow's nose. "What is going to happen?" said Mrs. Evans to herself,
+"Gladys isn't afraid of cows any more!" But the most interesting part
+came when the cows were milked. They were driven into another barn for
+this performance and their heads fastened into sort of metal hoops
+suspended from the ceiling. These turned in either direction and caused
+them no discomfort, but kept them standing in one place. The milking was
+done with vacuum-suction machines run by electricity and took only a
+short time.
+
+When the girls had watched the process as long as they wished they were
+taken to see the prize hogs and chickens, and then went through the hot
+houses. There were rows and rows of glass houses filled with grapes, the
+great bunches hanging down from the roof and threatening to fall with
+their own weight. And one did fall, just as they were going through, and
+came smashing down in the path at their feet. Nakwisi ran to pick it up
+and the guide said she might have it, adding that such a bunch,
+unbruised, sold for twenty-five cents in the city market. "Oh, how
+delicious!" cried Nakwisi,' tasting the grapes and dividing them among
+the girls. Mrs. Evans bought a basketful and let them eat all they
+wanted. In some of the hothouses tangerines were growing, and in some
+persimmons, while others were given over to the raising of roses,
+carnations and rare orchids. It was a trip through fairyland for the
+girls, and they could hardly tear themselves away when the time came.
+
+"There is something else I must show you while we are in the
+neighborhood," said Mrs. Evans, as they passed through Akron. "Does
+anybody know what two historical things are near here?" Nobody knew.
+Mrs. Evans began humming, "John Brown's Body Lies A-mouldering in the
+Grave."
+
+"What has that to do with it?" asked Gladys.
+
+"Everything, with one of them," said Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Did you know that John Brown, owner of the said body, was born in
+Akron, and there is a monument here to his memory?"
+
+"Oh how lovely," cried Migwan, "let us see it." So Mrs. Evans drove them
+over to the monument and they all stood around it and sang "John Brown's
+Body" in his honor.
+
+"Now, what's the other thing?" they asked.
+
+"I believe I know," said Nyoda. "Doesn't the old Portage Trail run
+through here somewhere?"
+
+"That's it," said Mrs. Evans.
+
+Then Nyoda told them about the Portage Path of Indian days, before the
+canal was built, that extended from Lake Erie to the Ohio River. "The
+part that runs through Akron is still called Portage Path," said Mrs.
+Evans, and the girls were eager to see it.
+
+"Why, it's nothing but a paved street!" exclaimed Migwan in
+disappointment, when they had reached the historical spot.
+
+"That's all it is now," answered Mrs. Evans, "but it is built over the
+old Portage Trail, and some of these old trees undoubtedly shaded the
+original path." In the minds of the girls the handsome residences faded
+from sight, and in place of the wide street they saw the narrow path
+trailing off through the forest, with dusky forms stealing along it on
+their long journey southward.
+
+"It's time to strike our own trail now," said Nyoda, breaking the
+silence, and they started back to the river. Every one was anxious to
+make it as pleasant as possible for Hinpoha, and the jests came thick
+and fast as they drove along. "Who is the best Latin scholar here?"
+asked Nyoda.
+
+"I am," said Sahwah, mischievously.
+
+"Then you can undoubtedly tell me what Caesar said on the Fourth of
+July, 45 B.C." said Nyoda.
+
+"I don't seem to recollect," said Sahwah.
+
+"Then read for yourself," said Nyoda, scribbling a few words on a leaf
+from her notebook and handing it to her.
+
+"What's this?" said Sahwah, spelling out the words. On the paper was
+written,
+
+_Quis crudis enim rufus, albus et expiravit._
+
+Sahwah tried to translate. "_Quis,_ who; _crudis_, raw; _enim_--what's
+_enim_?"
+
+"For," answered Migwan.
+
+"And _expiravit_" said Sahwah, "what's that from?"
+
+"_Expiro_" answered Migwan, "_expirare, expiravi, expiratus_. It means
+'blow,' '_Expiravit_' is 'have blown.'"
+
+"_Rufus_ is 'red,'" continued Sahwah, "and is _albus_ 'white'?" Migwan
+nodded, and Sahwah went back to the beginning and began to read: "_Who
+raw for red white and have blown._"
+
+Nyoda shouted. "That last word is _blew_, not _have blown_" she said.
+
+"I have it!" cried Migwan, jumping up. "It's '_Who raw for the red,
+white and blew.' 'Hoorah for the red, white and blue!_'"
+
+"Such wit!" said Sahwah, laughing with the rest.
+
+"Now, I'll make a motto for Sahwah," said Migwan, seizing the pencil.
+Migwan was a Senior and took French, and having a sudden inspiration,
+she wrote, "_Pas de lieu Rhone que nous!_" The girls could not translate
+it and Nyoda puzzled over it for a long time.
+
+"I don't seem to be able to make anything out of it," she said at
+length.
+
+"Don't try to translate it," said Migwan, "just read it out loud," Nyoda
+complied and Sahwah caught it immediately.
+
+"It's '_Paddle your own canoe!_" she cried.
+
+Thus, laughing and joking, they followed the road back to the dam and
+embarked in the launch with all speed, for the sun was already sinking
+beneath the treetops and they had a two-hour ride ahead of them. Mrs.
+Evans took Hinpoha back in the machine and delivered her to her aunt
+safe and sound at eight o'clock, with many expressions of pleasure at
+the fun she had had with the Camp Fire Girls, which were intended as
+seeds to be planted in Aunt Phoebe's mind.
+
+"I think your mother's a perfect dear," said Sahwah to Gladys on the
+trip home. "I used to be frightened to death of her, because she always
+looked so straight-laced and proper, but she isn't like that at all.
+She's a regular Camp Fire Girl!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+A COASTING PARTY.
+
+The memory of that happy day sustained Hinpoha through many of the
+trials that came to her in the days that followed. It seemed that
+everything she did brought down the wrath of her aunt in some way or
+another. For instance, she left a bottle of bees standing on the table
+in her room, and Aunt Phoebe's dog Silky, who had been in the habit of
+going into the room and chewing Hinpoha's painted paddle, knocked the
+bottle over and let the bees out, getting badly stung in the process.
+Then there was a scene with Aunt Phoebe because she had brought the bees
+in. This and a dozen more incidents of a similar nature made Hinpoha
+despair of ever gaining the good will of her aunt. Thus the autumn wore
+away to winter and as yet the Desert of Waiting had borne nothing but
+thorns.
+
+Gladys's progress through school was like the advance of a conquering
+hero. Although she had just entered this fall she was already one of the
+most popular girls in school. She had that fair, delicate prettiness
+which invariably appeals to boys, and an open, unaffected manner which
+endeared her to the girls. Beside her very lovable personality she had a
+background which was almost certain to insure popularity to a girl. She
+was rich and lived in a great house on a fashionable avenue; she had a
+little electric car all her own, and she wore the smartest clothes of
+any girl in school. Her fame as a dancer soon spread and she was in
+constant demand at school entertainments. Nyoda watched her a trifle
+anxiously at first. She was just a little afraid that Gladys's head
+would be turned with all the homage paid her, or that, blinded by her
+present success, she would lose the deeper meanings of life and be
+nothing but a butterfly after all. But she need not have feared.
+Gladys's experience in camp had kindled a fire in her that would never
+be extinguished as long as life guarded the flame. Having changed her
+Camp Fire name from Butterfly to Real Woman, she was anxious to prove
+her right to the name. So she worked diligently to win new honors which
+made her efficient in the home as well as those which helped her to
+shine in society.
+
+Mrs. Evans was returning from an afternoon card party. She was tired and
+her head ached and she felt out of sorts. A remark which she had
+overheard during the afternoon stayed in her mind and made her cross.
+Two ladies on the other side of a large screen near which she was
+sitting were discussing a campaign in which they were interested to
+raise funds for a certain philanthropy. "I am going to ask Mrs. Evans if
+she would not like to subscribe one hundred dollars," said the one lady.
+
+"So much?" asked the other in an uncertain voice, "I don't believe I
+would if I were you."
+
+"Why not?" asked the first lady.
+
+"Haven't you heard," replied the second lady, with the air of imparting
+a delicious secret, "that Mr. Evans is on the verge of financial ruin?"
+
+"No," replied the second in a tone of lively interest, "I haven't. Who
+told you so?"
+
+"A great many people are saying so," continued the first. "Do you know
+that they took their daughter out of the private school she had been
+attending and sent her to public school this year? They must be hard up
+if they can't pay school bills any more."
+
+"It certainly looks like it," said the first lady.
+
+"Possibly I had better not ask Mrs. Evans for any subscription at all.
+It might embarrass her, poor thing." The voices trailed off and Mrs.
+Evans was left feeling decidedly annoyed. She was the kind of woman who
+rarely discussed other people's affairs, and likewise disliked having
+her own discussed by other people. The thought that some folks might
+misconstrue Gladys's entering the public school to mean that her father
+was about to fail in business, first amused, and then irritated her.
+Nothing like that could be farther from correct, but the thought came to
+her that such rumors floating around might have some effect on Mr.
+Evans's standing in the business world. She began to wonder if after all
+it had not been a mistake to take Gladys out of Miss Russell's school in
+the middle of her course.
+
+Thinking cynical thoughts about the gossiping abilities of most people,
+she drove up the long driveway and entered the house. The long hall with
+its wide staircase and large, splendidly furnished rooms opening on
+either side, struck her as being cold and gloomy. The polished chairs
+and tables shone dully in the fast waning light of the December
+afternoon, cheerless and unfriendly looking. The house suddenly seemed
+to her to be less a home than a collection of furniture. For the moment
+she almost hated the wealth which made it necessary to maintain this
+vast and magnificent display. The women she had played cards with that
+afternoon seemed shallow and artificial. Life was decidedly
+uninteresting just then. She went upstairs and took off her wraps and
+came down again, aimlessly. Gladys was nowhere in sight, which made the
+house seem lonelier than ever, for with Gladys around there would have
+been somebody to talk to. At the foot of the stairs she paused. She
+could hear some one singing in a distant part of the house. "Katy's
+happy, anyway," she said with a sigh, "if she feels like singing in that
+hot kitchen," A desire for company led her out to the kitchen. It was
+not Katy, however, who greeted her when she opened the door. It was
+Gladys--Gladys with a big apron on and her sleeves rolled up, just
+taking from the oven a pan of golden brown muffins. The room was filled
+with the delicious odor of freshly baked dough.
+
+Gladys looked up with a smile when she saw her mother in the doorway.
+"How do you like the new cook?" she asked. "Katy went home sick this
+afternoon and I thought I would get supper myself." The kitchen looked
+so cheerful and inviting that Mrs. Evans came in and sat down. Gladys
+began mixing up potatoes for croquettes.
+
+"Can't I do something?" asked her mother.
+
+"Why, yes," said Gladys, bringing out another apron and tying it around
+her waist, "you heat the fat to fry these in." Mrs. Evans and Gladys had
+never had such a good time together. Gladys had planned the entire menu
+and her mother meekly followed her directions as to what to do next. She
+and Gladys frolicked around the kitchen with increasing hilarity as the
+supper progressed. Never before had there existed such a comradeship
+between them.
+
+"Do you think this is seasoned right?" asked Mrs. Evans, holding out a
+spoonful of white sauce for Gladys to taste.
+
+"A little more salt," said Gladys judicially. Mrs. Evans had forgotten
+her irritation of the afternoon. The conversation which had aroused her
+ire before now struck her as humorous.
+
+"If Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Jones could only see me now," she thought with
+an inward chuckle, "doing my own cooking!" The half-formed plan of
+sending Gladys back to Miss Russell's the first of the year faded from
+her mind. Send Gladys away? Why, she was just beginning to enjoy her
+company! Another plan presented itself to her mind. In the Christmas
+vacation Gladys should give a party which would forever dispel any
+doubts about the soundness of their financial standing. Her brain was
+already at work on the details. Gladys should have a dress from Madame
+Charmant's in New York. They would have Waldstein, from the Symphony
+Orchestra, with a half dozen of his best players, furnish the music.
+There would be expensive prizes and favors for the games. Mrs. Davis and
+Mrs. Jones would have a chance to alter their opinions when their
+daughters brought home accounts of the affair. She planned the whole
+thing while she was eating her supper.
+
+After supper Gladys washed the dishes and her mother wiped them, and
+they put them away together. Then Gladys began to get ready to go to
+Camp Fire meeting and Mrs. Evans reluctantly prepared to go out for the
+evening. The nearer ready she was the more disinclined she felt to go.
+"Those Jamieson musicales are always such a bore," she said to herself
+wearily. "They never have good singers--my Gladys could do better than
+any of them--and they are interminable. Father looks tired to death, and
+I know he would rather stay at home. Gladys," she called, looking into
+her daughter's room, "where is your Camp Fire meeting to-night?"
+
+"At the Brewsters'," answered Gladys.
+
+"Do you ever have visitors?" continued her mother.
+
+"Why, yes," answered Gladys, "we often do."
+
+"Do you mind if you have one to-night?" asked Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Certainly not," replied Gladys.
+
+"Well, then, I'm coming along," said her mother.
+
+"Will you?" cried Gladys. "Oh goody!" The Winnebagos were surprised and
+delighted when Mrs. Evans appeared with Gladys. Since that Saturday's
+outing she had held a very warm place in their affections.
+
+"Come in, mother," called Sahwah; "you might as well join the group too,
+we have one guest. This is Mrs. Evans, Gladys's mother," she said, when
+her mother appeared after hastily brushing back her hair and putting on
+a white apron. The two women held out their hands in formal greeting,
+and then changed their minds and fell on each other's necks.
+
+"Why, Molly Richards!" exclaimed Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Why, Helen Adamson!" gasped Mrs. Brewster. The Winnebagos looked on,
+mystified.
+
+"You can't introduce me to your mother," said Mrs. Evans to Sahwah,
+laughing at her look of surprise. "We were good friends when we were
+younger than you. Do you remember the time," she said, turning back to
+Mrs. Brewster, "when you drew a picture of Miss Scully in your history
+and she found it and made you stand up in front of the room and hold it
+up so the whole class could see it?"
+
+"Do you remember the time," returned Mrs. Brewster, "when we ran away
+from school to see the Lilliputian bazaar and your mother was there and
+walked you out by the ear?" Thus the flow of reminiscences went on.
+
+"How little I thought," said Mrs. Evans, "when I first saw Sarah Ann
+going around with Gladys, that she was your daughter!"
+
+"How little I thought," said Mrs. Brewster, "when Gladys began coming
+here, that she was _your_ daughter!"
+
+"How many more of these girls' mothers are our old schoolmates, I
+wonder?" said Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Let's meet them and find out," said Mrs. Brewster. "Here, you girls,"
+she said, "every one of you go home and get your mother." Delightedly
+the girls obeyed, and the mothers came, a little backward, some of them,
+a little shy, pathetically eager, and decidedly breathless. Migwan's
+mother, Mrs. Gardiner, had known Mrs. Brewster in her girlhood, and
+Nakwisi's mother had known Mrs. Evans, and Chapa's and Medmangi's
+mothers had known each other. What a happy reunion that was, and what a
+chorus of "Don't you remembers" rose on every side! Tears mingled with
+the laughter when they spoke of the death of Mrs. Bradford, whom most of
+them had known in their school days.
+
+"Do you remember," said one of the mothers, "how we used to go coasting
+down the reservoir hill? You girls have never seen the old reservoir. It
+was levelled off years ago."
+
+"I'd enjoy going coasting yet," said Mrs. Brewster.
+
+"Let's!" said Mrs. Evans. "The snow is just right."
+
+Girls and mothers hurried into their coats and out into the frosty air.
+The street sloped down sharply, and the middle of the road was filled
+with flying bobsleds, as the young people of the neighborhood took
+advantage of the snowy crust. Sahwah brought out her brother's bob,
+which he was not using this evening, and piled the whole company on
+behind her. She could steer as well as a boy. Down the long street they
+shot, from one patch of light into another as they passed the lamp
+posts. The mothers shrieked with excitement and held on for dear life.
+"Oh," panted Mrs. Brewster when they came to a standstill at the bottom
+of the slope, "is there anything in the world half so exciting and
+delightful as coasting?" Down they went, again and again, laughing all
+the way, and causing many another bobload to look around and wonder who
+the jolly ladies were. Most of the mothers lost their breath in the
+swift rush and had to be helped up the hill to the starting point. Once
+Sahwah turned too short at the bottom of the street and upset the whole
+sledful into a deep pile of snow, from which they emerged looking like
+snowmen. "Oh-h-h," sputtered Mrs. Brewster, "the snow is all going down
+inside of my collar! Sarah Ann, you wretch, you deserve to have your
+face washed for that!" She picked up a great lump of snow and hurled it
+deftly at Sahwah's head. It struck its mark and flew all to pieces, much
+of it going down the back of her neck.
+
+"This coasting is all right," said Mrs. Gardiner, "but, oh, that walk up
+hill!"
+
+Mrs. Evans spied her machine standing in front of the Brewster house,
+and it gave her an idea. "Why not tie the bob to the machine," she said,
+"and go for a regular ride?" This suggestion was hailed with great joy,
+and carried out with alacrity.
+
+"Would you like to drive, mother?" asked Gladys.
+
+"No, indeed!" said her mother. "I'm out sleigh-riding to-night. You get
+in and drive it yourself!" Gladys complied, with Migwan up beside her
+for company, and away they flew up one street and down another and
+through the park. And just as they were going around a curve, Sahwah,
+who sat at the front end of the sled, untied the rope, and away went the
+machine around the corner, and left them stranded in the snow. Gladys
+felt the release of the trailer, but pretended that she knew nothing
+about it, and drove ahead at full speed, and traveling in a circle, came
+up behind the marooned voyagers and surprised them with a hearty laugh.
+This time she towed them back to Sahwah's house, where they drank hot
+cocoa to warm themselves up, and all declared they had never had such
+fun in their lives.
+
+"And to think how near I came to missing this!" said Mrs. Evans, as she
+and Gladys were driving home, and she shivered when she remembered how
+she had almost gone to the musicale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+GLADYS UPHOLDS THE FAMILY CREDIT.
+
+Mrs. Evans confided her plans for a Christmas week party to Gladys the
+day following the snow frolic, and Gladys was delighted with the idea.
+She dearly loved to entertain her friends. The frock was ordered from
+New York and Mrs. Evans and Gladys spent long hours working out the
+details of the affair. Rumors of the party and the dress Gladys was to
+have leaked out to the Winnebagos and from them to the whole class.
+Every one was on tiptoe to find out who would be invited. Mrs. Davis and
+Mrs. Jones, hearing the talk about the coming function, began to wonder
+if they were on the right track after all in regard to the Evans
+fortune. Two weeks before Christmas the invitations came out.
+Twenty-five girls and twenty-five boys, mostly from the high school
+class, were asked. What a flutter of satisfaction there was among those
+who had been invited, and what a disappointment among those who had not
+been, and what consultations about dresses among the favored ones!
+
+This question was an acute one with Migwan. She had not had a new party
+dress for several years, and in the present state of their finances she
+could not get one now. She looked at the old one, faded and spotted, and
+shook her head despairingly. "I foresee where Miss Migwan develops a
+sudden illness on the night of the party," she said with tight lips,
+"unless I hear from my story in time." As if in answer to her thoughts
+the story came back the very next day. There was no letter from the
+editor concerning the merits or faults of the piece, only a printed
+rejection slip, but that stated that only typewritten manuscripts would
+be considered. Migwan's air castle tumbled about her ears. She had no
+typewriter and knew no one who had. Her experience did not include a
+knowledge of public stenographers, and even if she had thought of that
+way out the expense would have prevented her from having her story
+copied. Her dream of fame and wealth was short-lived, and the world was
+stale, flat and unprofitable. The house was not yet rented, as the
+repairs had been delayed again and again. It would be another month at
+least before that would be a paying proposition. Hearing the other girls
+talk about Gladys's party all the time filled her with desperation. She
+began to shun the Winnebagos. The keen zest went out of her studying and
+even her beloved Latin lost its savor.
+
+Nyoda finally noticed it. Migwan failed to recite in English class for
+two days in succession, which was an unheard-of thing. Nyoda thought
+that Migwan had her head so full of the coming party that she was
+neglecting her lessons, and said so, half banteringly, as Migwan
+lingered after class to pick up some papers she had dropped on the
+floor. That was the last straw, and Migwan burst into tears. Nyoda was
+all sympathy in a moment. Now Nyoda happened to have the "seeing eye,"
+with which some people are blessed, and had surmised, from certain
+little signs she had observed, that Migwan had written something or
+other, and sent it away to a magazine. She knew only too well what the
+outcome would be, and her heart ached when she thought of Migwan's
+coming disappointment. Therefore, when Migwan, quickly recovering her
+composure, said calmly, "It's nothing, Nyoda; I simply tried to do
+something and failed," Nyoda asked quietly, "Did your story come back?"
+
+Migwan looked at her in amazement. "How did you know I had written any
+story?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, a little bird told me," replied Nyoda lightly. "Cheer up. All the
+famous authors had their first work rejected. You have achieved the
+first mark of fame." Migwan smiled wanly. Her tragedies always seemed to
+lose their sting in the light of Nyoda's optimism. She told her about
+the necessity for a typewriter. "I could have told you that to begin
+with, if you had asked my humble advice," replied Nyoda. "But if a
+miserable writing machine is all that stands between you and fame and
+fortune, your fortune is already made. The woman whose rooms I am living
+in has one in her possession. It belongs to her son, I believe, but as
+he is at present in China there is no danger of his wanting it for some
+time. She has offered to let me use it on several occasions, and I don't
+doubt but what we can make some arrangement to accommodate you."
+
+The world seemed a pretty good place of habitation after all to Migwan
+that day when she went home from school, in spite of the fact that she
+had no dress to wear to the party. The situation began to appear faintly
+humorous to her. Here was all the interest centered on what Gladys was
+going to wear, when all the time the real, vital question was what _she_
+was going to wear! What a commotion there would be if the other
+Winnebagos knew the truth! Her thoughts began to beat themselves, into
+rhythm as she walked home through the crunching snow:
+
+  "Broke, broke, broke,
+  And such clothes in the windows I see!
+  And I would that my purse could answer
+  The demands that are made on she!
+
+  "O well for the millionaire's wife,
+  Who can pay eighty bones for a shawl,
+  And well for the African maids,
+  Who don't need any clothes at all!
+
+  "And the pennies, they all go
+  To the grocer, and so do the dimes,
+  But, O, for the little crepe meteor dress
+  I saw down in Oppenheim's!
+
+  "Broke, broke, broke,
+  And such styles in the windows I see!
+  What would I not give for the rest of the month
+  For the salary of John D!"
+
+"Would you just as soon run up to the attic and get the blanket sheets
+out of the trunk?" asked her mother when she had finished her dinner. "I
+was cold in bed last night." Migwan went up promptly. She found the
+sheets and laid them out, and was then seized with a desire to rummage
+among the things in the trunk. She pawed over old valentines, bonnets of
+a by-gone day, lace mitts, and all the useless relics that are usually
+found in mother's trunk that had been _her_ mother's. Down at the
+bottom, however, there was a paper package of considerable size. Migwan
+opened it carefully and brought to view a dress made of white brocaded
+satin, yellowed with age. A sudden inspiration struck her, and, laying
+it carefully on top of the blankets, she ran downstairs to her mother.
+"What is this dress?" she asked eagerly.
+
+Mrs. Gardiner's face lighted tenderly when she saw it. "Why, that's my
+wedding dress," she said.
+
+"Oh," said Migwan in a disappointed tone, laying the dress down.
+
+"What did you want with it?" asked her mother.
+
+"Why, I thought if it was just a dress," replied Migwan, "I could make
+it over to wear to Gladys's party, but of course if it is your wedding
+dress you wouldn't care to have it changed."
+
+"I don't see why not," said Mrs. Gardiner. "It's no good as it is. I've
+never had it on since my wedding day. The material in that dress cost
+two dollars a yard and is better than what you get at that price
+nowadays." A sudden recollection illumined her face. "The night of the
+party is my wedding anniversary," she said. "There couldn't be a better
+occasion to wear it!"
+
+"Would you really be willing to have me cut it up?" asked Migwan
+rapturously clasping her hands. That afternoon her head really was so
+full of party plans that she forgot to get her lessons. The dress was
+laid out on the dining room table and examined as to its possibilities.
+"I don't know but what it would be best to dye it some pretty shade of
+green or blue," said Mrs. Gardiner, after thinking the matter over. "It
+is too yellow to use as it is, and there is no time to bleach it
+properly." So it was ripped up and dyed Nile green, a shade which was
+particularly becoming to Migwan. There was enough goods in the train to
+make the entire dress, so there was no need to do any piecing.
+
+Instead of avoiding the subject of the party, Migwan now joined happily
+in the discussions, and asked questions right and left about the best
+style in which to make her dress. She said nothing about the former
+function of that particular piece of goods. "Extravagant Migwan!" said
+Sahwah, "getting a satin dress for the party. My mother made me get silk
+poplin," Gladys's dress had arrived from New York, but she would not
+breathe a word in regard to it and the girls were wild with curiosity.
+Only Hinpoha was allowed to behold its glories, as a consolation for not
+being able to come to the party. Of course Hinpoha had been sworn to
+secrecy regarding it, but that did not keep her from rhapsodizing about
+it on general principles and pitching the girls' curiosity still higher.
+
+Now there was one girl who had been invited to the party who said very
+little about it. This was Emily Meeks, who sat beside Gladys in the
+session room. Emily had also entered the class this fall, but, unlike
+Gladys, her path had not been marked by triumphs. She was timid and
+retiring, and after being three months in the class was little better
+known than she had been at first. The truth was that Emily was an
+orphan, working her way through High School by taking care of the
+children of one of the professors after school hours, and had neither
+money nor time to spend in the company of her classmates. Gladys was
+sorry for her because she always looked so sad and lonely, and, thinking
+to give her one good time at least to treasure up in the memory of her
+school days, invited her to the party. Emily accepted the invitation
+gratefully.
+
+The night of the party came at last. Migwan's dress was finished and
+when she was finally arrayed in it she could compare favorably with the
+wealthiest girl in the crowd. She even wore her mother's high-heeled
+white satin wedding slippers with the little gold buckles, which fitted
+her perfectly. She skipped away happily with a good-bye kiss to her
+mother, who was tired out with her labors.
+
+Gladys had relented at the last minute, and promised the Winnebagos that
+if they would come a half hour early they might help her dress. That was
+because the Winnebagos were closer kin to her than the rest of the
+girls, and it would be a shame to have any one else see the dress first.
+So they all gathered in Gladys's room, where the dress lay on the bed.
+It was of light blue chiffon, exquisitely hand embroidered in
+dainty-colored butterflies. "Oh-h," they gasped, not daring to touch it.
+
+"There goes the bell!" exclaimed Gladys, "and I'm not even dressed. It's
+some of the boys, I hear their voices," she said presently, after
+listening for the sounds from below. "Run down, will you, girls, and
+entertain them until I come?"
+
+The Winnebagos departed to act the part of hostesses for their friend
+and Gladys got hurriedly into her dress. Before she was ready to go down
+she heard a large group of girls arriving, then another delegation of
+boys. The orchestra had begun playing. Gladys's foot tapped the floor in
+time to the music as she fastened up the dress. "Just wait until they
+see me dance the Butterfly Dance," she was thinking, with innocent
+pride. She clasped the butterflies on her shoulders in place and with a
+last survey of herself in the glass she set forth to greet her guests.
+When she reached the head of the stairs the bell rang again and she
+paused to see who it was. From the hall upstairs she could get a view of
+the entire reception room without being seen herself. The last comer was
+Emily Meeks, whom the maid was relieving of her wraps. She was all
+alone, apparently at a loss what to do in company, and--dressed in a
+white skirt and middy blouse! Gladys could see the coldly amused glances
+some of the girls were bestowing on her, and the indifference with which
+she was being treated by the boys. Why did she come dressed in such a
+fashion? Gladys felt a little indignant at her. Then she reflected that
+Emily probably had nothing else to wear, and, besides, it didn't make
+any difference if one was dressed so plainly; there were enough brightly
+dressed girls to make the brilliant scene that she loved.
+
+But at the same time a thought struck her which made her decidedly
+uncomfortable. It was, "How would you like to be the odd one in the
+crowd, and have all the others take notice of you because you didn't
+match your surroundings? To face a battery of eyes that were amused or
+scornful or pitying, according to the disposition of the owner of the
+eyes? To feel lonesome in the midst of a crowd and wish you were miles
+away?" With one foot on the top step Gladys hesitated. In her mind there
+rose a picture--the picture of her first night in camp when she had seen
+a Camp Fire Ceremonial for the first time, when she felt lonesome and
+far away and out of place. Again she saw the figures circling around the
+fire and heard the words of their song:
+
+  "Whose hand above this blaze is lifted
+  Shall be with magic touch engifted
+  To warm the hearts of lonely mortals
+  Who stand without their open portals.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Whoso shall stand
+  By this hearthstone
+  Flame fanned,
+  Shall never stand alone----"
+
+And later the flame had been given into her keeping, and she was
+supposed to possess the magic touch to warm lonely hearts. She glanced
+at herself in the long mirror in the hall, and was struck afresh by the
+beauty of the dress. The shade of blue was just the right one to bring
+out the tint of her eyes and the gold of her hair. From head to foot she
+was a vision of loveliness such as delighted her dainty nature. One
+interpretation of "Seek Beauty" was to always dress as beautifully and
+becomingly as possible. Her mother was impatiently waiting for her to
+come down and show herself. Then she looked over the railing again.
+Emily Meeks had withdrawn from the groups of laughing girls and boys and
+had crept into a corner by herself. The words of the Fire Song echoed
+again in her ears:
+
+  "_Whoso shall stand
+  By this hearthstone
+  Flame fanned,
+  Shall never stand alone!_"
+
+Gladys turned and fled to her room and resolutely began to unclasp the
+fasteners of her butterfly dress. A ripple of astonishment went through
+the rooms downstairs when she descended clad in a white linen skirt and
+a middy blouse. All the girls had heard about the dress from New York
+and were impatient to see it. Frances Jones and Caroline Davis stood
+right at the foot of the stairs waiting for Gladys to come down so they
+would not lose a detail of it, and Mrs. Evans was watching them to see
+what effect the butterfly dress would have on them. When Gladys came
+down dressed in a white skirt and middy she could not believe her eyes.
+She hurried forward and asked in a low voice what was the matter with
+the new dress.
+
+"Nothing, mother," said Gladys sweetly, with such a beautiful smile that
+her mother dropped back in perplexity. Gladys advanced straight to Emily
+Meeks and greeted her first of all, with a friendly cordiality that put
+her at her ease at once. Emily, who had been dismayed when she found
+herself so conspicuous among all the brightly gowned girls, was
+reassured when she saw Gladys similarly clad, and never found out about
+that quick change of costume that had taken place after her coming. The
+other girls of course understood this fine little act of courtesy, and
+shamefacedly began to include Emily in their conversation and
+merrymaking.
+
+So, if Mrs. Evans had counted on Gladys's dress that night to testify to
+the soundness of the Evans fortune she was destined to be disappointed;
+but on the other hand, if inborn courtesy is a sign of high birth and
+breeding, then Gladys had proven herself to be a princess of the royal
+blood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+HARD TIMES FOR POETS.
+
+True to her word, Nyoda brought it about that Migwan might use the
+typewriter which belonged to her landlady, and every evening after her
+lessons were learned she worked diligently to master the keys. In a week
+or so she managed to copy her story and sent it out again. It came back
+as promptly as before, with the same kind of rejection slip. She sent it
+to another magazine and began writing a new one. She worked feverishly,
+and far beyond her strength. The room where the typewriter was was
+directly below Nyoda's sitting room, and hearing the machine still
+rattling after ten o'clock one night she calmly walked in and pulled
+Migwan away from the keys. Migwan protested. "It's past closing time,"
+said Nyoda firmly.
+
+"But I must finish this page," said Migwan.
+
+"You must nothing of the kind," said Nyoda, forcing Migwan into her
+coat. "'Hold on to Health' does not mean work yourself to death.
+Hereafter you stop writing at nine o'clock or I will take the typewriter
+away from you."
+
+"Oh, mayn't I stay until half past nine?" asked Migwan coaxingly.
+
+"No, ma'm," said Nyoda emphatically. "Nine o'clock is the time. That's a
+bargain. As long as you keep your part of it you may use the typewriter,
+but as soon as you step over the line I go back on my part. Now
+remember, 'No checkee, no shirtee.'" And Migwan perforce had to submit.
+
+The stories came back as fast as they were sent out, and Migwan began to
+have new sidelights on the charmed life supposedly led by authors and
+authoresses. The struggle to get along without getting into debt was
+becoming an acute one with the Gardiner family. Tom delivered papers
+during the week and helped out in a grocery store on Saturday, and his
+earnings helped slightly, but not much. Midwinter taxes on two houses
+ate up more than two weeks' income. With almost superhuman ingenuity
+Migwan apportioned their expenses so the money covered them. This she
+had to do practically alone, for her mother was as helpless before a
+column of figures as she would have been in a flood. Meat practically
+disappeared from the table. The big bag of nuts which Tom had gathered
+in the fall and which they had thought of only as a treat to pass around
+in the evening now became a prominent part of the menu. Dried peas and
+beans, boiled and made into soup, made their appearance on the table
+several times a week. Cornbread was another standby. Long years
+afterward Migwan would shudder at the sight of either bean soup or
+cornbread. She nearly wore out the cook book looking for new ways in
+which to serve potatoes, squash, turnips, onions and parsnips.
+
+She soon discovered that most provisions could be bought a few cents
+cheaper in the market than in the stores, so every Saturday afternoon
+she made a trip downtown with a big market basket and bought the week's
+supply of butter, eggs and vegetables. At first the necessity for
+spending carfare cut into her profits, but she got around this in an
+adroit way that promised well for her future ability to handle her
+affairs to the best advantage. She tried a little publicity work to
+swing things around to suit her purpose. She simply exalted the joys of
+marketing until the other Winnebagos were crazy to do the family
+marketing, too. As soon as Gladys caught the fever her object was
+accomplished, for Gladys took all the girls to market in her father's
+big car and brought all their purchases home. So Migwan accomplished her
+own ends and gave the Winnebagos a new opportunity to pursue knowledge
+at the same time.
+
+At Christmas time she had also fallen back on her ingenuity to produce
+the gifts she wished to give. There was no money at all to be spent for
+this purpose. Migwan took a careful stock of the resources of the house.
+The only promising thing she found was a leather skin which Hinpoha had
+given her the summer before for helping her write up the weekly Count in
+Hiawatha meter, which was outside of Hinpoha's range of talents. She
+considered the possibilities of that skin carefully. It must yield seven
+articles--a present for each of the Winnebagos. She decided on book
+covers. She wrote up seven different incidents of the summer camping
+trip in verse and copied them with the typewriter on rough yellow
+drawing paper, thinking to decorate each sheet. But Migwan had little
+artistic ability and soon saw that her decorations were not beautiful
+enough to adorn Christmas gifts. After spoiling several pages she gave
+up in disgust and threw the spoiled pages into the grate. The next
+morning she was cleaning out the grate and found the pieces of paper,
+only partially burned around the edges. She suddenly had an idea. The
+fire had burned a neat and artistic brown border around the writing. Why
+not burn all her sheets around the edges? Accordingly she set to work
+with a candle, and in a short time had her pages decorated in an odd and
+original way which could not fail to appeal to a Camp Fire Girl. Then
+she pasted the irregular pieces of yellow paper on straight pages of
+heavy brown paper, which brought out the burned edges beautifully. On
+the cover of each book she painted the symbol of the girl for whom it
+was intended, and on the inside of the back cover she painted her own.
+The Winnebagos were delighted with the books and took greater pride in
+showing them to their friends than they did their more expensive
+presents.
+
+That piece of ingenuity was bread cast on the water for Migwan. Nyoda
+came to her one day while she was working her head off on the
+typewriter. "Could the authoress be persuaded to desist from her labors
+for a while?" she asked, tiptoeing around the room in a ridiculous
+effort to be quiet, which convulsed Migwan.
+
+"Speak," said Migwan. "Your wish is already granted."
+
+Nyoda sat down. "You remember that cunning little book you made me for
+Christmas?" she asked. Migwan nodded. "Well," continued Nyoda, "I was
+showing it to Professor Green the other night and he was quite carried
+away with it. He has a quantity of notes he took on a hunting trip last
+fall and wants to know if you will make them into a book like that for
+him. There will be quite a bit of work connected with it, as all the
+material will have to be copied on the typewriter and arranged in good
+order, and he is willing to pay two and a half dollars for your
+services. Would you be willing to do it?"
+
+Would she be willing to do it? Would she see two and a half dollars
+lying in the street and not pick it up? The professor's notes were
+speedily secured and she set to work happily to transform them into an
+artistic record book. Her sister Betty grumbled a good deal these days
+because she was asked to do so much of the housework. Before Migwan took
+to typewriting at night Betty had been in the habit of staying out of
+the house until supper was ready, and then getting up from the table and
+going out again immediately, leaving Migwan to get supper and wash the
+dishes. It was easier to do the work herself than to argue with Betty
+about it, and if she appealed to her mother Mrs. Gardiner always said,
+"Just leave the dishes and I'll do them alone," so rather than have her
+mother do them Migwan generally washed and wiped them alone. But now
+that she was working so hard she needed the whole afternoon to get her
+lessons in, and insisted that Betty should help get supper and wipe
+dishes afterwards. For once Mrs. Gardiner took sides with Migwan and
+commanded Betty to do her share of the work. In consequence Betty
+developed a fierce resentment against Migwan's literary efforts, and
+taunted her continually with her failure to make anything of it. Since
+she had been working on Professor Green's book Migwan had done nothing
+at all in the house, and her usual Saturday work fell to Betty.
+
+Mrs. Gardiner was not feeling well of late, and could do no sweeping, so
+Betty found herself with a good day's work ahead of her one Saturday
+morning. Instead of playing that the dirt was a host of evil sprits, as
+Migwan did, which she could vanquish with the aid of her magic broom,
+Betty went at it sullenly and with a firm determination to do as little
+as possible and get through just as quickly as she could. She made up
+her mind that when Migwan went to market in the afternoon she would go
+along with her in the automobile. So by going hastily over the surface
+of things she got through by three o'clock, and when Gladys called for
+Migwan, Betty came running out too, with her coat and hat on, dressed in
+her best dress.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Migwan.
+
+"Along with you," answered Betty.
+
+"I'm afraid we can't take you," said Migwan; "there isn't enough room."
+
+"Oh, I'll squeeze in," said Betty lightly. Now seven girls with market
+baskets in addition to the driver are somewhat of a crowd, and there
+really was no room for Betty in the machine. Besides, Betty was a great
+tease and the girls dreaded to have her with them, so no one said a word
+of encouragement.
+
+"You can't come, and that is all there is to it," said Migwan rather
+crossly. She was in a hurry to be off and get the marketing done. Betty
+stamped her foot, and snatching Migwan's market basket, she ran around
+the corner of the house with it. Migwan ran after her, and forcibly
+recovering the basket, hit Betty over the head with it several times.
+Then she jumped into the automobile and the driver started off, leaving
+Betty standing looking after the rapidly disappearing car and working
+herself into a terrible temper. She ran into the house and slammed the
+door with such a jar that the vases on the mantel rattled and threatened
+to fall down. She threw her hat and coat on the floor and stamped on
+them in a perfect fury. On the sitting room table lay the pages of the
+book which Migwan was making for Professor Green. The edges were already
+burned and they were ready to be pasted on the brown mat. Betty's eyes
+suddenly snapped when she saw them. Here was a fine chance to be
+revenged on Migwan. With an exclamation of triumph she seized the
+leaves, tore them in half and threw them into the grate, standing by
+until they were consumed to ashes, and laughing spitefully the while.
+
+Migwan came in briskly with her basket of provisions. Betty looked up
+slyly from the book she was reading, but said not a word. Migwan went
+into the sitting room and Betty heard her moving around. "Mother,"
+called Migwan up the stairway, "where did you put the pages of my book?
+I left them on the sitting room table."
+
+
+"I didn't touch them," replied her mother; "I haven't been downstairs
+since you went out."
+
+"Betty," said Migwan sternly, "did you hide my work?" Betty laughed
+mockingly, but made no reply. "Make haste and give them back," commanded
+Migwan. "I have no time to waste."
+
+Betty still maintained a provoking silence and Migwan began looking
+through the table drawers for the missing leaves. Betty watched her with
+malicious glee. "You may look a while before you find them," she said
+meaningly; "they're hidden in a nice, safe place."
+
+Migwan stood and faced her, exasperated beyond endurance. "Betty
+Gardiner," she said angrily, "stop this nonsense at once and tell me
+where those pages are!"
+
+"Well, if you're really curious to know," answered Betty, smiling
+wickedly, "I'll tell you. They're _there_" and she pointed to the grate.
+
+"Betty," gasped Migwan, turning white, "you don't mean that you've
+burned them?"
+
+"That's what I do mean," said Betty coolly. "I'll show you if you can
+treat me like a baby."
+
+Migwan stood as if turned to stone. She could hardly believe that those
+fair pages, which represented so many hours of patient work, had been
+swept away in one moment of passion. Blindly she turned, and putting on
+her wraps, walked from the house without a word. It seemed to her that
+Fate had decreed that nothing which she undertook should succeed.
+Discouragement settled down on her like a black pall. With the ability
+to do things which should set her above her fellows, she was being
+relentlessly pursued by some strange fatality which marked every effort
+of hers a failure. She walked aimlessly up street after street without
+any idea where she was going, entirely oblivious to her surroundings.
+Wandering thus, she discovered that she was in the park, and had come
+out on the high bluff of the lake. She stood moodily looking down at the
+vast field of ice that such a short time before had been tossing waves.
+The lake, to all appearances, was frozen solid out as far as the
+one-mile crib. There was a curious stillness in the air, as when the
+clock had stopped, due to the absence of the noise made by the waves
+dashing on the rocks. Nothing had ever appealed so to Migwan as did the
+absolute silence and solitude of that frozen lake. Her bruised young
+spirit was weary of contact with people, and found balm in this icy
+desert where there was so sound of a human voice. As far as the eye
+could see there was not a living being in sight. A skating carnival in
+the other end of the park drew the attention of all who were abroad on
+this Saturday afternoon, and kept them away from the lake front.
+
+
+A desire to be enveloped in this solitude came over Migwan; to get her
+feet off the earth altogether. She half slid and half climbed down the
+cliff and walked out on the ice. Before her the grey horizon line
+stretched vast and unbroken, and she walked out toward it, lost in
+dreaming. Sometimes the floor under her feet was smooth and polished as
+a pane of glass, and sometimes it was rough and covered with hummocks
+where the water had frozen in the wind. In Migwan's fancy this was not
+the lake she was walking on; it was one of the great Swiss glaciers.
+Those grey clouds there, standing out against the black ones, they were
+the mountains, and she was taking her perilous journey through the
+mountain pass. The ice cracked slightly under her feet, but she did not
+notice. She was a Swiss guide, taking a party of tourists across the
+glacier. Underneath this floor of ice were the bodies of those travelers
+who had fallen into the crevices. She was telling the tourists the
+stories of the famous disasters and they were shuddering at her tale.
+The ice cracked again under her feet, but her mind, soaring in flights
+of fancy, took no heed.
+
+Her imagination took another turn. Now she was Mrs. Knollys, in the
+famous story, waiting for the body of her husband to be given up by the
+glacier. The long years of waiting passed and she stood at the foot of
+the glacier watching the miracle unfold before her eyes. The glacier was
+making queer cracking noises as it descended, and it sounded as though
+there was water underneath it. She could hear it lapping.
+
+C-R-A-C-K! A sound rang out on the still air that startled Migwan like
+the report of a pistol, followed immediately by another. She came to her
+senses with a rush. With hardly a moment's warning the ice on which she
+was standing broke away from the main mass and began to move. Struck
+motionless by fright, she had not the presence of mind to jump back to
+the larger field. A wave washed in between, separating her by several
+feet from the solid ice. The cake she was on began to heave and fall
+sickeningly. There was another cracking sound and the edge of the solid
+body of ice broke up into dozens of floating cakes, that ground and
+pounded each other as the waves set them in motion. Every drop of blood
+receded from Migwan's heart as she realized what had happened. She
+screamed aloud, once, and then knew the futility of it. Her voice could
+not reach to the shore. Lake and sky and horizon line now mocked her
+with their silence. The cake of ice, lurching and tipping, began
+floating out to sea.
+
+On this wintry afternoon Sahwah left the house in a far different mood
+from that which had carried Migwan blindly over the ground. Her eyes
+were sparkling with the joy of life and her cheeks were glowing in the
+cold. She wore a heavy reefer sweater and a knitted cap. Under her arm
+was her latest plaything--a pair of skis. By her side walked Dick
+Albright, one of the boys in her class, whom she considered especially
+good fun. Dick also had a pair of skis. The two of them were bound for
+the park to practice "making descents" from the hillsides. Sahwah was
+absolutely happy, and chattered like one of the sparrows that were
+flocking on the lawns and streets. Her chief interest in life just now
+was the school basketball team, of which she was a member. Soon, very
+soon, would come the big game with the Carnegie Mechanics, which would
+decide the championship of the city. Sahwah was the star forward for the
+Washington High team, and it was no secret that the winning of that game
+depended upon her to a great extent. Sahwah was the idol of the
+athletically inclined portion of the school. Dick thought there never
+was such a player--for a girl.
+
+Sahwah was full of basketball talk now, and made shrewd comments on the
+good and bad points of both teams, weighing the chances of each with
+great care. "Mechanicals' center is shorter than ours; we have the
+advantage there. One of their forwards is good and the other isn't, and
+one of our guards is weak. On the whole, we're about evenly matched."
+
+"Fine chance Mechanicals'll have with you in the game," said Dick.
+
+"The only thing I'm afraid of," said Sahwah, with a thoughtful pucker,
+"is Marie Lanning; you know, Joe Lanning's cousin. She's to guard me and
+she's a head taller."
+
+"Don't worry, you'll manage all right," said Dick. Sahwah laughed. It
+was pleasant to be looked up to as the hope of the school. "If you only
+don't get sick," said Dick.
+
+"Don't be afraid," answered Sahwah. "I won't get sick. But if I don't
+get my Physics notebook finished by the First of February I'll not be
+eligible for the game, and that's no joke. Fizzy said nobody would get a
+passing grade this month who didn't have that old notebook finished, and
+you know what that means."
+
+"There really isn't any danger of your not getting it in, is there?"
+asked Dick breathlessly.
+
+"Not if I keep at it," answered Sahwah, and Dick breathed easy again. To
+allow yourself to be declared ineligible for a game on account of
+studies when the school was depending on you to win that game would have
+been a crime too awful to contemplate.
+
+The snow on the hills in the park had a hard crust, which made it just
+right for skiing. Sahwah and Dick made one descent after another,
+sometimes tripping over the point of a ski and landing in a sprawling
+heap, but more often sailing down in perfect form with a breathless
+rush. "That last leap of yours was a beauty," said Sahwah admiringly.
+
+"I think I'm learning," said Dick modestly.
+
+"I 'stump' you to go down the big hill on the lake front," said Sahwah,
+her eyes sparkling with mischief.
+
+Dick knew what that particular hill was like, but, boylike, he could not
+refuse a dare given by a girl. "Do you want to see me do it?" he said
+stoutly. "All right, I will."
+
+"Don't," said Sahwah, frightened at what she had driven him to do;
+"you'll break your neck. I didn't really mean to dare you to do it." But
+Dick had made up his mind to go down that cliff hill just to show Sahwah
+that he could, and nothing could turn him aside now.
+
+"Come along," he said; "I can make it." And he started off toward the
+lake front at a brisk pace.
+
+But when he had reached the top of the hill in question he stood still
+and stared out over the lake. "Hello," he said in surprise, "there's
+somebody having trouble out there on the ice." Sahwah came and stood
+beside him, shading her eyes with her hand to see what was happening. At
+that distance she did not recognize Migwan. "The ice is breaking!" cried
+Dick, who was far-sighted and saw the girl on the floating ice cake.
+Like a whirlwind he sped down the hillside, dropped over the edge of the
+cliff like a plummet and shot nearly a hundred feet out over the glassy
+surface of the lake. Without pausing an instant Sahwah was after him.
+She had a dizzy sensation of falling off the earth when she made the
+jump from the hillside, which was a greater distance than she had ever
+dropped before, but it was over so quickly that she had no time to lose
+her breath before she was on solid ground again and taking the long
+slide over the lake. In a short time they reached the edge of the broken
+ice.
+
+"Migwan!" gasped Sahwah when she saw who the girl on the floating cake
+was. They could not get very near her, as the edge of the solid mass was
+continually breaking away, and there was a strip of moving pieces
+between them and her. "Fasten the skis together and make a long pole,"
+said Sahwah, "and then she can take hold of one end of it and we can
+pull her toward us," said Sahwah.
+
+"Good idea," said Dick, and proceeded to lash the long strips together
+with the straps, aided by sundry strings and handkerchiefs.
+
+Then there were several moments of suspense until Migwan came within
+reach of the pole. She simply had to wait until she floated near enough
+to grasp it, which the perverse ice cake seemed to have no intention of
+doing. The right combination of wind and wave came at last, however, and
+drove her in toward the shore. She was still beyond the end of the pole.
+"Jump onto the next cake," called Sahwah. Migwan obeyed in fear and
+trembling. It took still another jump before she could reach the
+lifesaver. She was now separated from the broken mass at the edge of the
+solid ice by about six feet. With Migwan clinging fast to the pole Dick
+began to pull in gently, so as not to pull her off the ice, and the cake
+began to move across this open space until it was close beside the
+nearer mass of broken pieces. Then, supported by the improvised hand
+rail, Migwan leaped from one cake to the next, and so made her way back
+to the solid part. It was an exciting process, for the pieces tipped and
+heaved when she stepped on them, and bobbed up and down, and some turned
+over just as her feet left them.
+
+"Eliza crossing the ice," said Sahwah, giggling nervously.
+
+Migwan sank down exhausted when she felt the solid mass under her feet
+and knew that the danger was over. She was chilled through and through,
+and more than one wave had splashed over the floating ice while she was
+on it and soaked her shoes and stockings. Sahwah took this in at a
+glance. "Get up," she said sharply, "and run. Run all the way home if
+you don't want to get pneumonia. It's your only chance." Taking hold of
+her hands, Dick and Sahwah ran along beside her, making her keep up the
+pace when she pleaded fatigue. More dead than alive she reached home,
+but warm from head to foot. Sahwah rolled her in hot blankets and
+administered hot drinks with a practiced hand. Neither Mrs. Gardiner nor
+Betty were at home. Migwan soon dropped off to sleep, and woke feeling
+entirely well. Thanks to Sahwah's taking her in hand she emerged from
+the experience without even a sign of a cold.
+
+With heroic patience and courage she began again the weary task of
+typing and burning all the pages of Professor Green's book and finished
+it this time without mishap. The money she received for it all went into
+the family purse. Not a cent did she spend on herself.
+
+Not long after this Migwan had a taste of fame. She had a poem printed
+in the paper! It happened in this way. At the Sunbeam Nursery one
+morning Nyoda saw her surrounded by a group of breathlessly listening
+children and joined the circle to hear the story Migwan was telling. She
+had apparently just finished, and the childish voices were calling out
+from all sides, "Tell it again!" Nyoda listened with interest as Migwan,
+with a solemn expression and impressive voice, recited the tragic tale
+of the "Goop Who Wouldn't Wash":
+
+  Gunther Augustus Agricola Gunn,
+  He was a Goop if there ever was one!
+  Slapped his small sister whene'er he could reach her,
+  Muddied the carpet, made mouths at the preacher,
+  Talked back to his mother whenever she chid,
+  Always did otherwise than he was bid;
+  Gunther Augustus Agricola Gunn,
+  Manners he certainly had not a one!
+
+  O bad little Goops, wheresoe'er you may be,
+  Take heed what befell young Agricola G!
+  For Gunther Augustus (unlike you, I hope),
+  Had an inborn aversion to water and soap;
+  He fought when they washed him, he squirmed and he twisted,
+  He shrieked, scratched and wriggled until they desisted;
+  He would not be combed--it was no use to try--
+  O he was a Goop, they could all testify!
+
+  So Gunther went dirty--unwashed and uncombed,
+  With hands black as pitch through the garden he roamed;
+  When suddenly a monstrous black shadow fell o'er him,
+  And the Woman Who Scrubs Dirty Goops stood before him!
+
+  Her waist was a washcloth, her skirt was a towel,
+  She looked down at him with a horrible scowl;
+  One hand was a brush and the other a comb,
+  Her forehead was soap and her pompadour foam!
+  Her foot was a shoebrush, and on it did grow
+  A shiny steel nail file in place of a toe!
+  Gunther Augustus Agricola Gunn,
+  He had a fright if he ever had one!
+
+  In a twinkling she seized him--Oh, how he did shriek!
+  And threw him headforemost right into the creek!
+  Rubbed soap in his eyes (Dirty Goops, O beware!),
+  And in combing the snarls pulled out handfuls of hair!
+  Scrubbed the skin off his nose, brushed his teeth till they bled,
+  Tweaked his ears, rapped his knuckles, and gleefully said,
+  "Gunther Augustus Agricola Gunn,
+  There'll be a difference when I get done!"
+
+  After that young Agricola strove hard to see
+  How very, how heavenly good he could be!
+  Wiped his feet at the door, tipped his hat to the preacher,
+  Caressed his small sister whene'er he could reach her!
+  Stood still while they washed him and combed out his hair,
+  His garments he folded and laid on a chair!
+  Gunter Augustus Agricola Gunn,
+  He was a saint if there ever was one!
+
+"Where did you get that poem?" asked Nyoda.
+
+"I wrote it myself," answered Migwan.
+
+"Good work!" said Nyoda; "will you give me a copy?"
+
+Nyoda showed the poem to Professor Green and Professor Green showed it
+to a friend who was column editor of one of the big dailies, and one
+fine morning the poem appeared in the paper, with Migwan's full name and
+address at the bottom, "Elsie Gardiner, Adams Ave." The Gardiners did
+not happen to take that particular paper and Migwan knew nothing of it
+until she reached school and was congratulated on all sides. Professor
+Green, who had taken a great interest in Migwan since she had worked up
+his hunting notes in such a striking style, and regarded her as his
+special protege, was anxious to have the whole school know what a gifted
+girl she was. He had a conference with the principal, and as a result
+Migwan was asked to read her poem at the rhetorical exercises in the
+auditorium that day. When she finished the applause was deafening, and
+with blushing cheeks and downcast eyes she ran from the stage. There
+were distinguished visitors at school that day, representatives of a
+national organization who had come to address the scholars, and they
+came up to Migwan after she had read her poem to be introduced and offer
+congratulations. Teachers stopped her in the hall to tell her how bright
+she was, and the other pupils regarded her with great respect. Migwan
+was the lion of the hour.
+
+She hurried home on flying feet and danced into the house waving the
+paper. "Oh, mother," she called, as soon as she was inside the door,
+"guess what I've got to show you!" Her mother was not in the kitchen and
+she ran through the house looking for her. "Oh, mother," she called,
+"oh, moth--why, what's the matter?" she asked, stopping in surprise in
+the sitting room door. Mrs. Gardiner lay on the couch, and beside her
+sat the family doctor. Betty stood by looking very much frightened. Mrs.
+Gardiner looked up as Migwan came in. "It's nothing," she said, trying
+to speak lightly; "just a little spell."
+
+"Mother has to go to the hospital," said Betty in a scared voice.
+
+"Just a little operation," said Mrs. Gardiner hastily, as Migwan looked
+ready to drop. "Nothing serious--very."
+
+Migwan's hour of triumph was completely forgotten in the anxiety of the
+next few days. Her mother rallied slowly from the operation, and it
+looked as though she would have to remain in the hospital a long time.
+It was impossible to meet this added expense from their little income,
+and Migwan, setting her teeth bravely, drew the remainder of her college
+money from the bank to pay the hospital and surgeon's bills. Then she
+set to work with redoubled zeal to write something which would sell. So
+far everything she had sent out had come back promptly. For a long time
+certain advertisements in the magazines had been holding her attention.
+They read something like this: "Write Moving Picture Plays. Bring $50 to
+$100 each. We teach you how by an infallible method. Anybody can do it.
+Full particulars sent for a postage stamp." Migwan had seen quite a few
+picture plays, many of them miserably poor, and felt that she could
+write better ones than some, or at least just as good. She wrote to the
+address given in one of the advertisements, asking for "full
+particulars." Back came a letter couched in the most glowing terms,
+which Migwan was not experienced enough to recognize as a multigraphed
+copy, which stated that the writer had noticed in her letter of inquiry
+a literary ability well worth cultivating, and he would feel himself
+highly honored to be allowed to teach her to write moving picture plays,
+a field in which she would speedily gain fame and fortune. He would
+throw open the gates of success for her for the nominal fee of thirty
+dollars, with five dollars extra for "stationery, etc." His regular fee
+was thirty-five dollars, but it was not often that he came across so
+much ability as she had, and he considered the pleasure he would derive
+from the correspondence course worth five dollars to him. Would she not
+send the first payment of five dollars by return mail so that his
+enjoyment might begin as soon as possible?
+
+Migwan read the letter through with a beating heart until she came to
+the price, when her heart sank into her shoes. To pay thirty dollars was
+entirely out of the question. She wrote to several more advertisements
+and received much the same answer from all of them. There was only one
+which she could consider at all. This one offered no correspondence
+course, but advertised a book giving all the details of scenario
+writing, "history of the picture play, form, where to sell your plays,
+etc., all in one comprehensive volume." The price of the book was three
+dollars. Migwan hesitated a long time over this last one, but the subtle
+language of the advertisement drew her back again and again like a
+magnet, and finally overcame her doubts. "It will pay for itself many
+times when I have learned to write plays," she reflected. So she took
+three precious dollars from the housekeeping money and sent for the
+book. She did not ask Nyoda's advice this time; somehow she shrank from
+telling her about it.
+
+In three days the book arrived. The "comprehensive volume" was a
+paper-covered pamphlet containing exactly twenty-nine pages. It could
+not have sold for more than ten or fifteen cents in a book store. The
+first five pages were devoted to a description of the phenomenal sale of
+the first edition of the book, two more enlarged upon the "unfillable
+demand" of the motion picture companies for scenarios, while the
+remainder of the book was given over to the "technique" of scenario
+writing. Migwan read it through eagerly, and did gain an idea of the
+form in which a play should be cast, although the information was meagre
+enough. Three dollars was an outrageous price to pay for the book,
+thought Migwan, but she comforted herself with the thought that by means
+of it she would soon lift the family out of their difficulties. She set
+to work with a cheery heart. Writing picture plays was easier than
+writing stories on account of the skeleton form in which they were cast,
+which made it unnecessary to strive for excellence of literary style.
+She finished the first one in two nights and sent it off with high
+hopes. The company she sent it to was listed in the book as "greatly in
+need of one-reel scenarios, and taking about everything sent to them."
+She was filled with a secret elation and went about the house singing
+like a lark, until Betty, who had been moping like an owl since her
+mother went to the hospital, was quite cheered up. "What are you so
+happy about?" she asked curiously. "You act as if somebody had left you
+a fortune."
+
+"Maybe they have," replied Migwan mysteriously; "wait and see!"
+
+Her joy was short-lived, however, for the play came back even more
+promptly than the stories had. Undaunted, she sent it out again and
+again. The reasons given for rejection would have been amusing if Migwan
+had not felt so disappointed. One said there was insufficient plot; one
+said the plot was too complicated; one said it was too long for a
+one-reel, and the next said it was too short even for a split-reel. Two
+places kept the return postage she had enclosed and sent the manuscript
+back collect. Scenario writing became a rather expensive amusement,
+instead of a bringer of fortune. In spite of all this, she kept on
+writing scenarios, for the fascination of the game had her in its grip,
+and she would never be satisfied until she succeeded. Lessons were
+thrust into the background of her mind by the throng of "scene-plots,"
+"leaders," "bust-scenes," "inserts," "synopses," etc., that flashed
+through her head continually.
+
+To write steadily night after night, after the lessons had been gotten
+out of the way, was a great tax on her young strength. Nyoda was
+inflexible about her stopping typewriting at nine o'clock, but she went
+home and wrote by hand until midnight. Nyoda was over at the house one
+afternoon when Migwan was settling down to get her lessons, and saw her
+take a dose from a phial.
+
+"What are you taking medicine for?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, this is just something to tone me up," replied Migwan.
+
+"What is it?" insisted Nyoda.
+
+"It's strychnine," said Migwan.
+
+"Strychnine!" said Nyoda in a horrified voice. "Who taught you to take
+strychnine as a stimulant?"
+
+"Mabel Collins did," answered Migwan. "She said she always took it when
+she had a dance on for every night in the week and couldn't keep up any
+other way, and it made her feel fine." Mabel Collins belonged to what
+the class called the "fast bunch."
+
+"I'll have a talk with Mabel Collins," said Nyoda with a resolute gleam
+in her eye. "And, remember, no more of this 'tonic' for you. I knew
+girls in college who took strychnine to keep themselves going through
+examinations or other occasions of great physical strain, and they have
+suffered for it ever since. If you are doing so much that you can't
+'keep up' any other way than by taking powerful medicines, it is time
+you 'kept down.' Fresh air and regular sleep are all the tonic you need.
+You stay away from that typewriter for a whole week and go to bed at
+nine o'clock every night. I'm coming down to tuck you in. Now remember!"
+And with this solemn warning Nyoda left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+SAHWAH MAKES A BASKET.
+
+The game between the Washington High School and the Carnegie Mechanics
+Institute, which was to decide the girls' basketball championship of the
+city, was scheduled for the 15th of February. Up until this year
+Washington High had never come within sight of the championship. Then
+this season something had happened to the Varsity team which had made it
+a power to be reckoned with among the schools of the city. That
+something was Sahwah. Thanks to her playing, Washington High had not
+lost a single game so far. Her being put on the team was purely due to
+chance. Sahwah was a Junior and the Varsity team were all Seniors. She
+was a member of the "scrub" or practice team and an ardent devotee of
+the sport. During one of the early games of the season Sahwah was
+sitting on the side lines attentively watching every bit of play.
+
+The game was going against the Washington, due to the fact that their
+forwards were too slow to break through the guarding of the rival team.
+Sahwah saw the weakness and tingled with a desire to get into the game
+and do some speed work. As by a miracle the chance was given her. One of
+the forwards strained her finger slightly and was taken from the game.
+Her substitute, who had been sitting next to Sahwah, had left her seat
+and gone to the other end of the gymnasium. The instructor, who was
+acting as referee, in her excitement mistook Sahwah for the substitute
+and called her out on the floor. Sahwah wondered but obeyed instantly
+and went into the game as forward. Then the spectators began to sit up
+and take notice. Sahwah had not been two minutes on the floor when she
+made a basket right between the arms of the tall guard. The ripple of
+surprise had hardly died away before she had made another. Then the
+baskets followed thick and fast. In five minutes of play she had tied
+the score. The guards could hardly believe their eyes when they saw this
+lithe girl slipping like an eel through their defense and caging the
+ball with a sure hand every time. The game ended with an overwhelming
+victory for the Washingtons and there was a new star forward on the
+horizon. Sahwah was changed from the practice team to the Varsity.
+
+From that time forward Washington High forged steadily ahead in the race
+for the championship and as yet had no defeat on its record. However,
+Washington had a formidable rival in the Carnegie Mechanics Institute,
+which was also undefeated so far. The Mechanicals were slightly older
+girls and were known as a whirlwind team. Sahwah, who foresaw long ago
+that the supreme struggle would be between the Washingtons and the
+Mechanicals, attended the games played by the Mechanicals whenever she
+could and studied their style of playing. "Star players, every one," was
+her deduction, "but weak on team work." Sahwah was not so dazzled by her
+own excellence as a player that she could not recognize greatness in a
+rival, and she readily admitted that one of the girls who guarded for
+the Mechanicals was the best guard she had ever seen. This was Marie
+Lanning, whose cousin Joe was in Sahwah's class at Washington High.
+Sahwah knew instinctively that when the struggle came she would go up
+against this girl. The game would really be between these two.
+Washington's hope lay in Sahwah's ability to make baskets, and the hope
+of the Mechanicals was Marie's ability to keep her from making them. So
+she studied Marie's guarding until she knew the places where she could
+break through.
+
+Marie Lanning also knew that it was Sahwah she would have to deal with.
+But there was a difference in the attitude of the girls toward each
+other. Sahwah regarded Marie as her opponent, but she respected her
+prowess. She had no personal resentment against Marie for being a good
+guard; she looked upon her as an enemy merely because she belonged to a
+rival school. Marie on the other hand actually hated Sahwah. Before
+Sahwah appeared on the scene she had been the greatest player in the
+Athletic Association, the heroine of every game. She was pointed out
+everywhere she went as "Marie Lanning, the basketball player." Now some
+of her glory was dimmed, for another star had risen, Sarah Ann Brewster,
+the whirlwind forward of the Washington High team, was threatening to
+overshadow her. It was a distinctly personal matter with her. Sahwah
+wanted to win that game so her school would have the championship; Marie
+wanted to win it for her own glory. She did not really believe that
+Sahwah was as great as she was made out. It was only because she had
+never run against a great guard that she had been able to roll up the
+score for Washington so many times. Well, she would find out a thing or
+two when she played the Mechanicals, Marie reflected complacently. She
+had never seen Sahwah play, and if any one had suggested that it would
+be a good thing to watch her tactics she would have been very scornful.
+She was confident in her own powers.
+
+Then there came a rather important game of Washington High's on a night
+when Marie was visiting her cousin Joe. He had tickets for the game and
+took her along. Now for the first time she beheld her foe. After
+watching Sahwah's marvelous shots at the basket and the confusion of the
+girl who was guarding her, Marie began to feel uneasy. It now seemed to
+her that Sahwah's powers had been underestimated in the reports instead
+of over-estimated. The game ended just as all the others had done, with
+a great score for Washington High and Sahwah the idol of the hour. Marie
+looked on with a slight sneer when Sahwah, after the game was over,
+frankly congratulated the losing team on their playing, which had been
+pretty good throughout. "Do you know," said Sahwah straightforwardly,
+"that if you had had a little better team work, I don't believe we could
+have beaten you."
+
+"Any day we could have won with you in the game," said one of the
+losers, "the way you can shoot that ball into the basket."
+
+Without being at all puffed up by this compliment, Sahwah proceeded to
+make her point. "My throwing the ball into the basket wasn't what won
+the game," she said simply, "it was the fact that I had it to throw.
+It's all due to the girls who see that I get it. It's team work that
+wins every time and not individual starring." Thus was Sahwah in the
+habit of disclaiming the credit of victory.
+
+Joe brought up Marie Lanning and introduced her. "So this is my deadly
+enemy," said Sahwah pleasantly. Marie acknowledged the introduction
+politely, but while her lips smiled her eyes had a steely glitter.
+Sahwah was surrounded by a crowd of admiring friends at this time and
+there was no chance for further conversation, and she did not become
+aware of Marie's animosity. "We'll meet again," Sahwah said meaningly,
+with a pleasant laugh, as Marie and Joe turned to go. "That is," she
+added with a humorous twinkle, "if I don't go down in my studies and get
+myself debarred from playing."
+
+"Fine chance of your going down," said Joe.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," laughed Sahwah; "it all depends on whether I get my
+Physics notebook in by the First." A shout of laughter greeted this
+remark. The idea of Sahwah's getting herself debarred on account of her
+studies was too funny for words.
+
+"Well," said Joe to Marie when they were outside the building, "that's
+the girl you're going to have to play against. What do you think of
+her?" In his heart Joe thought that his cousin Marie would have no
+trouble holding Sahwah down.
+
+"She's a great deal faster than I thought," said Marie with a thoughtful
+frown.
+
+"But you can beat her, can't you?" asked Joe anxiously. "You've got to.
+I've staked my whole winter's allowance that you would win the
+championship."
+
+"I didn't know that you were in the habit of betting," said Marie a
+little disdainfully.
+
+"I never did before," said Joe, "but some of the fellows were saying
+that nobody could hold out against that Brewster girl and I said I bet
+my cousin could, and so we talked back and forth until I offered to bet
+real money on you."
+
+Marie was flattered at this, as her kind would be. "I can beat her," she
+said, but there was fear in her heart. "Oh, if she would only be
+debarred from the game!" she exclaimed eagerly.
+
+But Sahwah had no intentions of being put out on that score. She applied
+herself assiduously to the making of the notebook that was required as
+the resume of the half year's work. She finished it a whole day ahead of
+time, and then, Sahwah-like, was so pleased with herself that she
+decided to celebrate the event. "Come over to the house to-night," she
+said to various of her girl and boy friends in school that day. "I'm
+entertaining in honor of my Physics notebook!"
+
+When the guests arrived the notebook was enthroned on a gilded easel on
+the parlor table and decorated with a wreath of flowers and a card
+bearing the inscription "Endlich!" The very ridiculousness of the whole
+affair was enough to make every one have a good time. The Winnebagos
+were there, and some of their brothers and cousins, and Dick Albright
+and Joe Lanning and several more boys from the class. Naturally much of
+the conversation turned on the coming game, and Sahwah was solemnly
+assured that she would forfeit their friendship forever if she did not
+win the championship for the school. School spirit ran high and songs
+and yells were practiced until the neighbors groaned. Joe Lanning joined
+in the yells with as much vigor as any. No one knew that he was secretly
+on the side of the Mechanicals.
+
+Sahwah's notebook came in for inspection and much admiration, for she
+was good at Physics and her drawings were to be envied. "I see you have
+a list of all the problems the class has done this year," said Dick
+Albright, looking through the notebook. "Do you mind if I copy them from
+your list? I lost the one Fizzy gave us in class and it'll take me all
+night to pick them out from the ones in the book."
+
+"Certainly, you may," said Sahwah cordially. "Take it along with you and
+bring it to school in the morning. It'll be all right as long as I get
+it in by that time. But don't forget it, whatever you do, unless you
+want to see me put out of the game." Joe Lanning wished fervently that
+Dick would forget to bring it. The party broke up and the boys and girls
+prepared to depart.
+
+"What car do you take, Dick?" asked one of the boys.
+
+"I don't think I'll take any," said Dick. "I'll just run around the
+corner with this lady," he said, indicating Migwan, "and then I'll walk
+the rest of the way."
+
+"Isn't it pretty far?" asked some one else.
+
+"Not the way I go," answered Dick. "I take the short cut through the
+railway tunnel." Joe Lanning's eyes gleamed suddenly.
+
+The good-nights were all said and Sahwah shut the door and set the
+furniture straight before she went to bed. "Didn't your friends stay
+rather late?" asked her mother from upstairs.
+
+"No," said Sahwah, "I don't think so, it's only--why, the clock has
+stopped," she finished after a look at the mantel, "I don't know what
+time it is."
+
+"Get the time from the telephone operator," said her mother, "and set
+the clock."
+
+Sahwah picked up the receiver. There was a strange buzzing noise on the
+wire. "Zig-a-zig, ziz-zig-zig-a-zig, zig-g-g, zig-g-g, zig-g-g-g."
+Puzzled at first, she soon recognized what it was. It was the sound of
+Joe Lanning's wireless. Joe lived directly back of Sahwah on the next
+street, and the aerial of his wireless apparatus was fastened to the
+telephone pole in the Brewsters' yard. Joe was "sending," and the
+vibrations were being picked up by the telephone wires and carried to
+her ear when she had the receiver down. Sahwah understood the wireless
+code the boys used, and, in fact, had both sent and received messages.
+She knew it was Joe's custom to listen for the time every night as it
+was flashed out from the station at Arlington, and then send it to his
+friend Abraham Goldstein, a young Jewish lad in the class, who also had
+a wireless. Then the two would send each other messages and verify them
+the next day. "Oh, what fun," thought Sahwah; "I can get Arlington time
+to-night." She asked the operator to look up a new number for her to
+keep her off the line and then got out paper and pencil to take down the
+message as it went out. As she deciphered it she gasped in astonishment.
+She had expected a message something on this order: "Hello, Abraham--how
+are you?--Arlington says ten bells--How's the weather in your neck of
+the woods?" Instead the words were entirely different. She could not
+believe her eyes as she made them out. "Albright going through railway
+tunnel--hold him up--get notebook away--keep Brewster out of game." Her
+senses reeled as she understood the meaning of the message. That Joe was
+plotting against her when he pretended to be a friend cut her to the
+quick. For a moment her lip quivered; then her nature asserted itself.
+There was a thing to do and she must do it. Dick must be kept from going
+through the tunnel. Turning out the lights downstairs, she crept
+noiselessly out of the house, found her brother's bicycle on the porch
+and pedaled off after Dick. She knew exactly the way he would take. From
+Migwan's house he would go up Adams to Locust Street and from there to
+----th Avenue, and keep on going until he came to the dark tunnel.
+Sahwah nearly burst with indignation when she thought of Joe's cowardly
+conduct. He was calmly getting Abraham to do the dirty work for him, so
+he would never be suspected of having anything to do with it in case
+Dick recognized Abraham. She could see how the thing would work out.
+Abraham lived just the other side of the tunnel. All he would have to do
+would be to stand in the shadow of the tunnel, jump out on Dick as he
+came through, seize the notebook from his hand, and run away before Dick
+knew what had happened. There would be no need of fighting or hurting
+him. But Joe's end would be accomplished and Washington would lose the
+game. The fact that he was a traitor to the school hurt Sahwah ten times
+worse than the injury he was trying to do her. "Even if his cousin _is_
+on the other side, he belongs to Washington," she repeated over and over
+to herself.
+
+Down Locust Street she flew and along deserted ----th Avenue. It was
+bitterly cold riding, but she took no notice. Far ahead of her she could
+see Dick walking briskly toward the fatal tunnel. Pedaling for dear life
+she caught up with him when he was still some distance from it.
+"Whatever is the matter?" he asked, startled, as she flung herself
+breathless from the wheel beside him.
+
+"The notebook," she said. "Joe's trying to get it away from you. He's
+got Abraham Goldstein waiting in the tunnel to snatch it as you go by."
+
+Dick gave vent to a long whistle of astonishment. "Of all the underhand
+tricks!" he exclaimed when the full significance of Joe's act was borne
+in on him. He was stupefied to think that Joe was a traitor to the
+school. "That'll fix his chances of getting into the _Thessalonians_,"
+he said vehemently. "His name is coming up next week to be voted on.
+Just wait until I tell what I know about him!"
+
+Dick retraced his steps and took Sahwah home, where he left the precious
+notebook in her keeping to prevent any possibility of its getting lost
+before she could hand it in, and then took the streetcar and rode home
+the roundabout way, arriving there in safety. Abraham waited out in the
+cold tunnel for several hours and then gave it up and went home, feeling
+decidedly out of temper with Joe Lanning and his intrigues.
+
+The game was held in the Washington High gymnasium. The gallery and all
+available floor space were packed long before the commencement of the
+game. The Carnegie Mechanics came out in a body to witness their team
+win the championship. Joe Lanning was there, entirely composed, though
+inwardly raging at the failure of his trick, which he attributed to
+Dick's changing his mind about walking home, never dreaming that Sahwah
+had intercepted his message and his treachery was known. Although his
+sympathies were with the Mechanicals he stood with the Washingtons and
+yelled their yells as loudly as any. The Mechanicals, as the visiting,
+team, came out on the floor first and had the first practice. They were
+fine looking girls, every one of them, with their dazzling white middies
+and blue ties. They were greeted with a ringing cheer from their
+rooters:
+
+  "_Me_-chan-i,
+  _Me_-chan-i,
+  _Me_-chan-i-can-can,
+  _Me_-chan-i-can-can,
+  Me-chan-i-cals!"
+
+Marie Lanning held up her head and looked self-conscious when she heard
+the familiar yell thundered at the team. It was meant mostly for
+herself, she was sure. She smiled proudly and graciously in the
+direction whence the yell had proceeded. Quiet had hardly fallen on the
+crowd when there was heard the sound of singing from the upper end of
+the gymnasium where the door to the dressing rooms was. The tune was
+"Old Black Joe":
+
+  "We're coming, we're coming,
+  Star players, every one,
+  We're going to win the championship
+  For Washington!"
+
+Washington's rooters caught up the yell and made the roof ring. Sahwah's
+heart swelled when she heard it, not with the feeling that they were
+singing to her, but with pride because she belonged to a team which
+called out this expression of loyalty. Then came individual cheers, with
+her name at the head of the list.
+
+  "One, two, _three_, four,
+  Who are _we_ for?
+  BREWSTER!"
+
+Not even then was Sahwah puffed up.
+
+The Washington High team wore black bloomers and red ties; they were a
+brilliant sight as they marched in with their hands on each other's
+shoulders. The teams took their places; a hush fell on the crowd; the
+referee's whistle sounded; the ball went up. Washington's center knocked
+it toward her basket; Sahwah, darting out from under the basket, caught
+it, sent it flying back to center; center threw it to the other
+Washington forward; Sahwah jumped directly behind Marie Lanning,
+received the ball from the other forward and shot the basket. Time, one
+minute from the sending up of the ball. The Washington team machine was
+working splendidly. A deafening roar greeted the first score. Marie bit
+her lip angrily. She had vowed to keep Washington from scoring. But
+Sahwah had not watched Marie play for nothing. She saw that she put up a
+wonderful guard when confronting her girl, but she was not always quick
+in turning around. Sahwah's plan of action was to keep away from her as
+much as possible and to get hold of the ball when she was behind Marie's
+back and throw for the basket before Marie could turn around. Guarding
+is only effective when you have some one to guard and Marie discovered
+she was really playing a game of tag with Sahwah, who was continually
+running away from her. With the wonderful team work which the Washington
+team had developed and their perfect understanding of each other's
+movements, Sahwah could get widely separated from Marie and be sure to
+receive the ball at just the right moment to throw a basket. Twice she
+made it; three times; four times. Pandemonium reigned. "Guard her,
+Marie!" shrieked the Mechanicals.
+
+The score stood 8 to in favor of Washington at the end of the first five
+minutes. Marie was white with rage. Was this a girl she was trying to
+guard, or was it an eel? She would get her cornered with the ball,
+Sahwah would measure Marie's height with her eye, locate the basket with
+a brief glance, stiffen her muscles for a jump, and then as Marie stood
+ready to beat down the ball, as it rose in the air, Sahwah would
+suddenly relax, twist into some inconceivable position, shoot the ball
+low to center and be a dozen feet away before Marie could get her hands
+down from the air.
+
+  "B-R-E,
+  DOUBLE-U, S,
+  T-E-R,
+  BREWSTER!"
+
+sang the Washington rooters in ecstasy. It was maddening. There was no
+hope of keeping her from scoring. The time came when Sahwah and Marie
+both had their hands on the ball at the same time and it called for a
+toss-up. As the ball rose in the air Marie struck out as if to send it
+flying to center, but instead of that, her hand, clenched, with a heavy
+ring on one finger, struck Sahwah full on the nose. It was purely
+accidental, as every one could see. Sahwah staggered back dizzily,
+seeing stars. Her nose began to bleed furiously. She was taken from the
+game and her substitute put in. A groan went up from the Washington
+students as she was led out, followed by a suppressed cheer from the
+Carnegie Mechanics. Marie met Joe's eye with a triumphant gleam in her
+own.
+
+Sahwah was beside herself at the thing which had happened to her. The
+game and the championship were lost to Washington. The hope of the team
+was gone. The girl who took her place was far inferior, both in skill in
+throwing the ball and in tactics. She could not make a single basket.
+The score rolled up on the Mechanicals' side; now it was tied. Sahwah,
+trying to stanch the blood that flowed in a steady stream, heard the
+roar that followed the tying of the score and ground her teeth in
+misery. The Mechanicals were scoring steadily now. The first half ended
+12 to 8 in their favor. But if Marie had expected to be the heroine of
+the game now that Sahwah was out of it she was disappointed. The girl
+who had taken Sahwah's place required no skilful guarding; she would not
+have made any baskets anyhow, and there was no chance for a brilliant
+display of Marie's powers. Marie stood still on the floor after the
+first half ended, listening to the cheers and expecting her name to be
+shouted above the rest, but nothing like that happened. The yells were
+for the team in general, while the Washingtons, loyal to Sahwah to the
+last, cheered her to the echo.
+
+The noise penetrated to the dressing room where she lay on a mat:
+
+  "Ach du lieber lieber,
+  Ach du lieber lieber,
+  BREWSTER! No, ja, bum bum!
+  Ach du lieber lieber,
+  Ach du lieber lieber,
+  BREWSTER! No, ja!"
+
+Sahwah raised her head. Another cheer rent the air:
+
+  "B-R-E,
+  DOUBLE-U, S,
+  T-E-R,
+  BREWSTER!"
+
+Sahwah sat up.
+
+"BREWSTER! BREWSTER! WE WANT BREWSTER!" thundered the gallery. Sahwah
+sprang to her feet. Like a knight of old, who, expiring on the
+battlefield, heard the voice of his lady love and recovered
+miraculously, Sahwah regained her strength with a rush when she heard
+the voice of her beloved school calling her.
+
+When the teams came out for the second half Sahwah came out with them.
+The gallery rocked with the joy of the Washingtonians. The whistle
+sounded; the ball went up; the machine was in working order again.
+Washington was jubilant; Carnegie Mechanics was equally confident now
+that it was in the lead. Sahwah played like a whirlwind. She shot the
+ball into the basket right through Marie's hands. Once! Twice! The score
+was again tied. "12 to 12," shouted the scorekeeper through her
+megaphone. Like the roar of the waves of the sea rose the yell of the
+Washingtonians:
+
+  "Who tied the score when the score was rolling?
+  Who tied the score when the score was rolling?
+  Brewster, yes?
+  Well, I guess!
+  _She_ tied the score when the score was rolling!"
+
+Then Sahwah's luck turned and she could make no more baskets. She began
+to feel weak again and fumbled the ball more than once. Marie laughed
+sneeringly when Sahwah failed to score on a foul. The game was drawing
+to a close. "Two more minutes to play!" called the referee. The ball was
+under the Mechanicals' basket. The Washington guards got possession of
+it and passed it forward to Sahwah, who threw for the basket and missed.
+The ball came down right in the hands of Marie. The Mechanicals were
+excellently placed to pass it by several stages down to their basket.
+Instead of throwing it to center, however, she tried to make a
+grandstand play and threw it the entire length of the gymnasium to the
+waiting forward. It fell short and there was a wild scramble to secure
+it. Washington got it. "One minute to play!" called the referee. A score
+must be made now by one side or the other or the game would end in a
+tie. The Washington guard located Sahwah. The Mechanicals closed in
+around her so that she could not get away by herself. Marie towered over
+her triumphantly. At last had come the chance to use her famous method
+of guarding. The crowd in the gallery leaned forward, tense and silent.
+The Mechanicals' forwards ran back under their basket to be in position
+to throw the ball in when Marie should send it down to them. The
+Washington guard threw the ball toward the massed group in the center of
+the floor. As a tiger leaps to its prey, Sahwah, with a mighty spring,
+jumped high in the air and caught the ball over the heads of the
+blocking guards. Before the Mechanicals had recovered from their
+surprise she sent it whirling toward the distant basket. It rolled
+around the rim, hesitated for one breathless instant and then dropped
+neatly through the netting. It was a record throw from the field.
+
+"Time's up," called the referee.
+
+"Score, 14 to 12 in favor of Washington High," shouted the scorekeeper.
+
+The pent-up emotions of the Washington rooters found vent in a prolonged
+cheer; then the crowd surged across the floor and surrounded Sahwah, and
+she was borne in triumph from the gymnasium.
+
+Joe Lanning and his cousin Marie, avoiding the merry throng, left the
+building with long faces and never a word to say.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+THE THESSALONIAN PLAY.
+
+It was the custom each year for the Thessalonians, the Boys' Literary
+Society of Washington High School, to give a play in the school
+auditorium. This year the play was to be a translation of Briand's
+four-act drama, "Marie Latour." After a careful consideration of the
+talents of their various girl friends, Gladys was asked to play the
+leading role and Sahwah was also given a part in the cast. It was the
+play where the unfortunate Marie Latour, pursued by enemies, hides her
+child in a hollow statue of Joan of Arc. In order to produce the piece a
+large statue of the Maid of Orleans was made to order. It was
+constructed of some inexpensive composition and painted to look like
+bronze. In the one scene a halo appears around the head of the Maid
+while she is sheltering the child. This effect was produced by a circle
+of tiny lights worked by a storage battery inside the statue. For the
+sake of convenience in installing the electric apparatus and the wiring,
+one half of the skirt--it was the statue representing Joan in woman's
+clothes, not the one in armor--was made in the form of a door, which
+opened on hinges. The base of the statue was of wood. It was not
+finished until the day before the play and was used for the first time
+at the dress rehearsal, when it was left standing on the stage.
+
+Joe Lanning was in rather a dark mood these days. In the first place, he
+had lost his winter's allowance of pocket money by staking it on the
+Washington-Carnegie Mechanics game. After this he was treated coolly by
+a large number of his classmates, and, not knowing that the story of his
+treachery was being privately circulated around the school, he could not
+guess the reason. The keenest desire of his life was to be made a member
+of the Thessalonian Literary Society, and if he had kept his record
+unsmirched he would have been taken in at the February election. He
+confidently expected to be elected, and was already planning in his mind
+the things he would do and say at the meetings, and what girls he would
+take to the Thessalonian dances. He received a rude shock when the
+election came and went and he was not taken in. He knew from reliable
+sources that his name was coming up to be voted on, and it was not very
+flattering to realize that he had been blackballed. From an eager
+interest in all Thessalonian doings his feeling changed to bitter
+resentment against the society. Just now the Thessalonian play was the
+topic of the hour, and the very mention of it almost made him ill. If he
+had been elected he would have been an usher at the play with the other
+new members and worn the club colors in his buttonhole to be admired by
+the girls and envied by the other fellows. But now there was none of
+that charmed fellowship for him. He nourished his feeling of bitterness
+and hatred until his scheming mind began to grope for some way of
+spoiling the success of the play. As usual, he turned to his friend,
+Abraham Goldstein, who was about the only one who had not shown any
+coolness. Together they watched their chance. The play progressed toward
+perfection, the dress rehearsal had been held, the day of the "First
+Night" had arrived. The stage was set and the statue of the Maid of
+Orleans was in place. Joe, poking around the back of the stage, saw the
+statue and received his evil inspiration.
+
+Just about the time the play was given there was being held in the
+school an exhibition of water-color paintings. A famous and very
+valuable collection had been loaned by a friend of the school for the
+benefit of the students of drawing. The paintings were on display in one
+of the girls' club rooms on the fourth floor of the building. Hinpoha
+took great pleasure in examining them and spent a long time over them
+every day after school was closed. On the day of the play she went up as
+usual to the club room for an hour before going home. Reluctantly she
+tore herself away when she realized that the afternoon was passing. As
+she returned to the cloakroom where her wraps were she was surprised to
+find Emily Meeks there. Emily started guiltily when Hinpoha entered and
+made a desperate effort to finish wrapping up something she had in her
+hand. But her nervousness got into her fingers and made them tremble so
+that the object she held fell to the floor. As it fell the wrapper came
+open and Hinpoha could see what it was. It was one of the water colors
+of the exhibition collection, one of the smallest and most exquisite
+ones. Hinpoha gasped with astonishment when she caught Emily in the act
+of stealing it. Emily Meeks was the last person in the world Hinpoha
+would ever have accused of stealing anything.
+
+Emily turned white and red by turns and leaned against the wall
+trembling. "Yes, I stole it," she said in a kind of desperation.
+
+Something in her voice took the scorn out of Hinpoha's face. She looked
+at her curiously. "Why did you try to steal, Emily?" she asked gently.
+
+Emily burst into tears and sank to her knees. "You wouldn't understand,"
+she sobbed.
+
+"Maybe I would," said Hinpoha softly, "try it and see."
+
+Haltingly Emily told her tale. In a moment's folly she had promised to
+buy a set of books from an agent and had signed a paper pledging herself
+to pay for it within three months. The price was five dollars. At the
+time she thought she could save enough out of her meager wages to pay
+it, but found that she could not. The time was up several months ago and
+the agent was threatening her with a lawsuit if she did not pay up this
+month. Fearing that the people with whom she lived would be angry if
+they heard of the affair and would turn her out of her home into the
+streets--for to her a lawsuit was something vague and terrible and she
+thought she would have to go to jail when it was found she could not
+pay--she grew desperate, and being alone in the room with the paintings
+for an instant she had seized the opportunity and carried one out under
+her middy blouse. She intended to sell it and pay for the books.
+
+Hinpoha's eyes filled with tears at Emily's distress. She was very
+tender hearted and was easily touched by other people's troubles. "If I
+lent you five dollars to pay for the books, would you take it?" she
+asked.
+
+Emily started up like a condemned prisoner who is pardoned on the way to
+execution. "I'll pay it back," she cried, "if I have to go out scrubbing
+to earn the money. And you won't say anything about the picture," she
+said, clasping her hands beseechingly, "if I put it back where I got
+it?"
+
+"No," said Hinpoha, with all the conviction of her loyal young nature,
+"I give you my word of honor that I will never say anything about it."
+
+"Oh, you're an angel straight from heaven," exclaimed Emily.
+
+"First time I've heard of a red-headed angel," laughed Hinpoha.
+
+Emily stooped to pick up the painting and restore it to its place, when
+she caught her breath in dismay. She had dropped a tear on the picture
+and made a light spot on the dark brown trunk of a tree. It was
+conspicuously noticeable, and would be sure to call forth the strictest
+inquiry. Emily covered her face with her hands. "It's my punishment,"
+she groaned, "for trying to steal. Now I've ruined the honor of the
+school. We promised to send those pictures back unharmed if Mr. White
+would let us have them." Her dismay was intense.
+
+Hinpoha examined the spot carefully. "Do you know," she said, "I believe
+I could fill in that place with dark color so it would never be noticed?
+The bark of the tree has a rough appearance and the slight unevenness
+around the edges of the spot will never be noticed. Don't worry, all
+will yet be well." If Hinpoha would have let her, Emily would have gone
+down on her knees to her. "Come, we must make haste," said Hinpoha. "You
+go right home and I will take the picture into our club room and fix it
+up and then slip upstairs with it and nobody will ever be any the wiser.
+It's a good thing there's nobody up there now."
+
+Emily took her departure, vowing undying gratitude to Hinpoha, and
+Hinpoha took her paints from her desk and went into her own club room,
+which was on the third floor, and with infinite pains matched the shade
+of the tree trunk and repaired the damage. Her efforts were crowned with
+better success even than she had hoped for, and with thankfulness in her
+heart at the talent which could thus be turned to account to help a
+friend out of trouble, she surveyed the little painting, looking just as
+it did when loaned to the school. She carried it carefully upstairs, but
+at the door of the exhibition room she paused in dismay. A whole group
+of teachers and their friends were looking at the paintings and it was
+impossible to put the one back without being noticed. Irresolutely she
+turned away and retraced her steps to the third floor, intending to wait
+in her club room until the coast was clear. But alas! In coming out
+Hinpoha had left the door open. The club rooms were generally kept
+locked. While she was going upstairs a number of students coming out
+from late practice in the gymnasium spied the open door and went in to
+look around. It was impossible for Hinpoha to go in there with that
+picture in her hand. The only thing to do if she did not wish to get
+into trouble, was to get rid of it immediately. Delay was getting
+dangerous. She was standing near the back entrance of the stage when she
+was looking for a place to hide the picture. Beside the stage entrance
+there was a little room containing all the lighting switches for the
+stage, various battery boxes and other electrical equipment, together
+with a motley collection of stage properties. Quick as a flash Hinpoha
+opened the door of this room, darted in and hid the picture in a roll of
+cheesecloth. When she came out one of the teachers was standing directly
+before the door, pointing out to a friend the construction of the stage.
+
+"Have we a new electrician?" he inquired genially, as he saw her coming
+out of the electric room. Hinpoha laughed at his pleasantry, but she was
+flushed and uncomfortable from the excitement of the last moment.
+Hinpoha was a poor dissembler. She went upstairs until the art room was
+empty of visitors and then returned swiftly to the electric room for the
+picture. She slipped it under her middy blouse, where it was safe from
+detection, and sped upstairs with it. As she crossed the hall to the
+stairs she met the same teacher the second time. "Well, you must be an
+electrician," he said; "that's twice you've rushed out of there in such
+a businesslike manner," Hinpoha laughed, but flushed painfully. It
+seemed to her that his eyes could look right through her middy and see
+the picture underneath. This time the coast was clear in the room where
+the pictures were and she deposited the adventurous water color safely.
+She heaved a great sigh of relief when she realized that the danger was
+over and she had nothing more to conceal. She trudged home through the
+snow light-heartedly, with a warm feeling that she had been the means of
+saving a friend from disgrace.
+
+Sahwah, who was in the play and had a right to go up on the stage, which
+was all ready set for the first scene, ran in to see how things looked
+late in the afternoon. The school was practically empty. All the rest of
+the cast had gone home to get some sleep to fit them for the ordeal of
+the coming performance, and the teachers who had been looking at the
+paintings had also left. The rest of the building was in darkness, as
+twilight had already fallen. One set of lights was burning on the stage.
+Sahwah had no special business on the stage, she was simply curious to
+see what it looked like. Sahwah never stopped to analyze her motives for
+doing things. She paused to admire the statue of Joan of Arc, standing
+in all the majesty of its nine-foot height. This was the first chance
+she had had to examine it leisurely. In the rehearsal the night before
+she had merely seen it in a general way as she whisked off and on the
+stage in her part.
+
+The construction of the thing fascinated her, and she opened the door in
+the skirt to satisfy her curiosity about the inner workings of the
+miraculous halo. She saw how the thing was done and then became
+interested in the inside of the statue itself. There was plenty of room
+in it to conceal a person. Just for the fun of the thing Sahwah got
+inside and drew the door shut after her, trying to imagine herself a
+fugitive hiding in there. There were no openings in the skirt part, but
+up above the waist line there were various holes to admit air. "It's no
+fun hiding in a statue if you can't see what's going on outside,"
+thought Sahwah, and so she stood up straight, as in this position her
+eyes would come on a level with one of the holes. She could see out
+without being seen herself, just as if she were looking through the face
+piece of a suit of armor. The fun she got out of this sport, however,
+soon changed to dismay when she tried to get down again. It had taken
+some squeezing to get her head into the upper space, and now she found
+that she was wedged securely in. She could not move her head one
+particle. What was worse, a quantity of cotton wool, which had been put
+inside the upper part of the body for some reason or other, was
+dislodged by her squeezing in and pressed against her mouth, forming an
+effective silencer. Thus, while she could see out over the stage, she
+could not call out for help. Her hands were pinioned down at her sides,
+and by standing up she had brought her knees into a narrow place so that
+they were wedged together and she could not attract attention by
+kicking. Here was a pretty state of affairs. The benign Maid of Orleans
+had Sahwah in as merciless a grip as that with which the famous Iron
+Maiden of medieval times crushed out the lives of its victims.
+
+Sahwah knew that her failure to come from school would call out a
+search, but who would ever look for her in the statue on the stage? Her
+only hope was to wait until the play was in progress and the door was
+opened to conceal the child. Then another thought startled her into a
+perspiration. She was in the opening scene of the play. If she was not
+there, the play could not commence. They would spend the evening
+searching for her and the statue would not be opened. What would they do
+about the play? The house was sold out and the people would come to see
+the performance and there would be none. All on account of her stupidity
+in wedging herself inside of the statue. Sahwah called herself severe
+names as she languished in her prison. Fortunately there were enough
+holes in the thing to supply plenty of ventilation, otherwise it might
+have gone hard with her. The cramped position became exceedingly
+tiresome. She tried, by forcing her weight against the one side or the
+other, to throw the statue over, thinking that it would attract
+attention in this way and some one would be likely to open it, but the
+heavy wooden base to which it was fastened held it secure. Sahwah was
+caught like a rat in a trap. The minutes passed like hours. Sounds died
+away in the building, as the last of the lingerers on the downstairs
+floor took themselves off through the front entrance. She could hear the
+slam of the heavy door and then a shout as one boy hailed another in
+greeting. Then silence over everything.
+
+A quarter, or maybe a half, hour dragged by on leaden feet. Suddenly,
+without noise or warning, two figures appeared on the stage, coming on
+through the back entrance. Sahwah's heart beat joyfully. Here was some
+one to look over the scenery again and if she could only attract their
+attention they would liberate her. She made a desperate effort and
+wrenched her mouth open to call, only to get it full of fuzzy cotton
+wool that nearly choked her. There was no hope then, but that they would
+open the door of the statue and find her accidentally. She could hear
+the sound of talking in low voices. The boys were on the other side of
+the statue, where she could not see them.
+
+"Let it down easy," she heard one of them say.
+
+"Better get around on the other side," said a second voice.
+
+The boy thus spoken to moved around until he was directly before the
+opening in front of Sahwah's eyes. With a start she recognized Joe
+Lanning. What business had Joe Lanning on the stage at this time? He was
+not in the play and he did not belong to the Thessalonian Society. There
+was only one explanation--Joe was up to some mischief again. She had not
+the slightest doubt that the other voice belonged to Abraham Goldstein,
+and thus indeed it proved, for a moment later he moved around so as to
+come into range of her vision. The two withdrew a few paces and looked
+at the statue, holding a hasty colloquy in inaudible tones, and then
+Joe, mounting a chair, laid hold of the Maid just above the waist line,
+while Abraham seized the wooden base. Sahwah felt her head going down
+and her feet going up. The boys were carrying the statue off the stage
+and out through the back entrance, over the little bridge at the back of
+the stage and into the hall. It was the queerest ride Sahwah had ever
+taken.
+
+The boys paused before the elevator, which seemed to be standing ready
+with the door open. "Will she go in?" asked Abraham.
+
+"I'm afraid not," answered Joe. "Well have to carry her downstairs."
+Sahwah shuddered. Would she go down head first or feet first? They
+carried her head first and she was dizzy with the rush of blood to her
+head before the two long flights were accomplished. At the foot of the
+last flight they laid the statue down. The hall was in total darkness.
+
+"What are you doing?" asked the voice of Joe. Abraham was apparently
+producing something from somewhere. In a minute Joe was laughing. "Good
+stunt," he said approvingly. "Where did you get them?"
+
+"Swiped them out of Room 22, where all the stuff for the play is." Joe
+flashed a small pocket electric light and by its glimmer Sahwah could
+see him adjusting a false beard--the one that was to be worn by the
+villain in the play. Abraham was apparently disguising himself in a
+similar fashion. This accomplished they picked up the statue again and
+carried it down the half flight of stairs to the back entrance of the
+school. For some mysterious reason this door was open. Just outside
+stood an automobile truck. At the back of the school lay the wide
+athletic field, extending for several acres. The nearest street was all
+of four blocks away. In the darkness it was impossible to see across
+this stretch of space and distinguish the actions of the two
+conspirators in the event people should be passing along this street.
+Even if the truck itself were seen that would cause no comment, for
+deliveries were constantly being made at the rear entrance of the
+school.
+
+The statue was lifted into the truck, covered with a piece of canvas,
+and Joe and Abraham sprang to the driver's seat and started the machine.
+Sahwah very nearly suffocated under that canvas. Fortunately the ride
+was a short one. In about seven or eight minutes she felt the bump as
+they turned into a driveway, and then the truck came to a stop. The boys
+jumped down from the seat, opened a door which slid back with a scraping
+noise like a barn door and then lifted the statue from the truck and
+carried it into a building. From the light of their pocket flashes
+Sahwah could make out that she was in a barn, which was evidently
+unused. It was entirely empty. Setting the statue in a corner, the boys
+went out, closing the door after them. Sahwah was left in total
+darkness, and in a ten times worse position than she had been in before.
+On the stage at school there was some hope of the statue's being opened
+eventually, but here she could remain for weeks before being discovered.
+Sahwah began to wonder just how long she could hold out before she
+starved. She was hungry already.
+
+She closed her eyes with weariness from her strained position, and it is
+possible that she dozed off for a few moments. In fact, that was what
+she did do. She dreamed that she was at the circus and all the wild
+animals had broken loose and were running about the audience. She could
+hear the roar of the lions and the screeching of the tigers. She woke up
+with a start and thought for a moment that her dream was true. The barn
+was full of wild animals which were roaring and chasing each other
+around. Then her senses cleared and she recognized the heavy bark of a
+large dog and the startled mi-ou of a cat. The dog was chasing the cat
+around the barn. She felt the slight thud as the cat leaped up and found
+refuge on top of the statue. She could hear it spitting at the dog and
+knew that its back was arched in an attitude of defiance. The dog barked
+furiously down below. Then, overcome by rage, he made a wild jump for
+the cat and lunged his heavy body against the side of the statue. It
+toppled over against the corner. For an instant Sahwah thought she was
+going to be killed. But the corner of the barn saved the statue from
+falling over altogether. It simply leaned back at a slight angle. But
+there was something different in her position now. At first she did not
+know what it was. Before this her feet were standing squarely on the
+wooden base of the statue, but now they were slipping around and seemed
+to be dangling. Then she realized what had happened. The shock of the
+dog's onslaught had knocked the statue clear off the base, and had also
+contrived to loosen her knees a little. To her joy she found that she
+could move her feet--could walk. For all the statue was immense, it was
+light, and wedged into it as she was she balanced the upper part of it
+perfectly. She moved out from the corner.
+
+The dog was still barking furiously and circling around the barn after
+the cat. Then the cat found a paneless window by which she had entered
+and disappeared into the night. The dog, who had also entered by that
+window when chasing the cat, had been helped on the outside by a box
+which stood under the sill, but there was no such aid on the inside and
+he did not attempt to make the jump from the floor, but stood barking
+until the place shook. Just then a voice was heard on the outside.
+"Lion, Lion," it called, "where are you?" Lion barked in answer. "Come
+out of that barn," commanded the voice of a small boy. Lion answered
+again in the only way he knew how. "Wait a minute, Lion, I'm coming,"
+said the small boy. Sahwah heard some one fumbling at the door and then
+it was drawn open. The light from a street lamp streamed in. It fell
+directly on the statue as Sahwah took another step forward. The boy saw
+the apparition and fled in terror, followed by the dog, leaving the door
+wide open. Sahwah hastened to the door. Here she encountered a
+difficulty. The statue was nine feet high and the door was only about
+eight. Naturally the statue could not bend. It had been carried in in a
+horizontal position. Sahwah reflected a moment. Her powers of
+observation were remarkably good and she could sense things that went on
+around her without having to see them. She had noticed that when the
+boys carried the statue into the barn they had had to climb up into the
+doorway. The inclined entrance approach had undoubtedly rotted away. She
+figured that this step up had been a foot at least. Her ingenious mind
+told her that by standing close to the edge of the doorway and jumping
+down she would come clear of the doorway. She put this theory to trial
+immediately. The scheme worked. She landed on her feet on the
+snow-covered ground, with the top of the statue free in the air.
+
+As fast as she could she made her way up the driveway. Her hands were
+still pinioned at her sides. As she passed the house in front of the
+barn she could see by the street light that it was empty. A grand scheme
+it would have been indeed, if it had worked, hiding the statue in the
+unused barn where it would not have been discovered for weeks, or
+possibly months. Of course, Sahwah readily admitted, Joe did not know
+that she was in the statue; his object had merely been to spoil the
+play. And a very effective method he had taken, too, for the play
+without the statue of Joan of Arc would have been nothing.
+
+Sahwah stood still on the street and tried to get her bearings. She was
+in an unfamiliar neighborhood. She walked up the street. Coming toward
+her was a man. Sahwah breathed a sigh of relief. Without a doubt he
+would see the trouble she was in and free her. Now Sahwah did not know
+it, but in the scramble with the dog the button had been pushed which
+worked the halo. The neighborhood she was in was largely inhabited by
+foreigners, and the man coming toward her was a Hungarian who had not
+been long in this country. Taking his way homeward with never a thought
+in his mind but his dinner, he suddenly looked up to see the gigantic
+figure of a woman bearing down on him, brandishing a gleaming sword and
+with a dim halo playing around her head. For an instant he stood rooted
+to the spot, and then with a wild yell he ran across the street, darted
+between two houses and disappeared over the back fence. Then began a
+series of encounters which threw Sahwah into hysterics twenty years
+later when she happened to remember them. Intent only on her own
+liberation she was at the time unconscious of the terrifying figure she
+presented, and hastened along at the top of her speed. Everywhere the
+people fled before her in the extremity of terror. On all sides she
+could hear shrieks of "War!" "War!" "It is a sign of war!"
+
+In one street through which she passed lived a simple Slovak priest. He
+was sorely torn over the sad conflict raging in Europe and was undecided
+whether he should preach a sermon advocating peace at all costs or
+preparation for fighting. He debated the question back and forth in his
+mind, and, unable to come to any decision in the narrow confines of his
+little house, walked up and down on the cold porch seeking for light in
+the matter. "Oh, for a sign from heaven," he sighed, "such as came to
+the saints of old to solve their troublesome questions!" Scarcely had
+the wish passed through his mind when a vision appeared. Down the dark
+street came rushing the heroic image of Joan of Arc, with sword
+uplifted, her head shining with the refulgence of the halo. At his gate
+she paused and stood a long time looking at him. Sahwah thought that he
+would come down and help her out. Instead he fell on his knees on the
+porch and bowed his head, crying out something in a foreign tongue.
+Seeing that expectation of help from that quarter was useless, Sahwah
+ran on and turned a nearby corner. When the priest lifted his head again
+the vision was gone. "It is to be war, then," he muttered. "I have a
+divine command to bid my people take up arms in battle." This was the
+origin of the military demonstration which took place in the Slovak
+settlement the following Sunday, which ended in such serious rioting.
+
+Sahwah, running onward, suddenly found herself in the very middle of the
+road where two carlines crossed each other. This was a very congested
+corner and a policeman was stationed there to direct the traffic. This
+policeman, however, on this cold February day, found Mike McCarty's
+saloon on the corner a much pleasanter place than the middle of the
+road, and paid one visit after another, while the traffic directed
+itself. This last time he had stayed inside much longer than he had
+intended to, having become involved in an argument with the proprietor
+of the place, and coming to himself with a guilty start he hurried out
+to resume his duties. On the sidewalk he stood as if paralyzed. In the
+middle of the road, in his place, stood an enormously tall woman,
+directing the traffic with a gleaming sword. "Mother av Hiven," he
+muttered superstitiously, "it's one of the saints come down to look
+after the job I jumped, and waiting to strike me dead when I come back."
+He turned on his heel and fled up the street without once looking over
+his shoulder.
+
+And thus Sahwah went from place to place, vainly looking for some one
+who would pull her out of the statue, and leaving everywhere she went a
+trail of superstitious terror, such as had never been known in the
+annals of the city. For a week the papers were full of the mysterious
+appearance of the armed woman, which was taken as a presumptive augury
+of war. Many affirmed that she had stopped them on the street and
+commanded them in tones of thunder to take up arms to save the country
+from destruction, and promising to lead them to victory when the time
+for battle came. Many of the foreigners believed to their dying day that
+they had seen a vision from heaven. Sahwah at last got her bearings and
+found that she was not a great distance from the school, so she took her
+way thither where she might encounter some one who was connected with
+the play and knew of the existence of the statue, a secret which was
+being closely guarded from the public, that the effect might be greater.
+
+She nearly wept with joy when she saw Dick Albright just about to enter
+the building. Although he was startled almost out of a year's growth at
+the sight of the statue, which he supposed to be standing on the stage
+in the building, running up the front steps after him, he did not
+disappear into space as had all of the others she had met. After the
+first fright he suspected some practical joke and stood still to see
+what would happen next. Sahwah knew that the only thing visible of her
+was her feet and that she could not explain matters with her voice, so,
+coming close to Dick, she stretched out her foot as far as possible. Now
+Sahwah, with her riotous love of color, had bright red buttons on her
+black shoes, the only set like them in the school. Dick recognized the
+buttons and knew that it was Sahwah in the statue. He still thought she
+was playing a joke, and laughed uproariously. Sahwah grew desperate. She
+must make him understand that she wanted him to pull her out. The broad
+stone terrace before the door was covered with a light fall of snow.
+With the point of her toe she traced in the snow the words
+
+"PULL ME OUT."
+
+Dick now took in the situation. He opened the door of the statue and
+with some difficulty succeeded in extricating Sahwah from her precarious
+position. Together they carried the much-traveled Maid into the building
+and up the stairs and set her in place on the stage. She had just been
+missed by the arriving players and the place was in an uproar. Sahwah
+told what had happened that afternoon and the adventures she had had in
+getting back to the school, while her listeners exclaimed incredulously.
+There was no longer time to go home for supper so Sahwah ran off to the
+green room to begin making up for her part in the play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+WHO CUT THE WIRE?
+
+The house was packed on this the first night of the Thessalonian play.
+It was already long past time for the performance to begin. The
+orchestra finished the overture and waited a few minutes; then began
+another selection. They played this through, and there was still no
+indication of the curtain going up. They played a third piece. The house
+became restless and began to clap for the appearance of the performers.
+No sign from the stage. Behind the curtain there was pandemonium. When
+everything was about ready to begin it was discovered that none of the
+stage lights would work. Neither the foot lights nor the big cluster up
+over the center of the stage nor any of the side lights could be turned
+on. A hasty examination of the wiring led to the discovery that the
+wires which supplied the current had been cut in the room where the
+switchboard was. The plaster had been broken into in order to reach
+them. This was the reason that the play was not beginning. The President
+of the Thessalonians came out in front and explained to the audience
+that something had gone wrong with the lights, which would cause a delay
+in the rising of the curtain, but the trouble was being fixed and he
+begged the indulgence of the house for a few minutes. The orchestra
+filled in the time by playing lively marches, while the boys behind the
+scenes worked feverishly to mend the severed wires, and the curtain went
+up a whole hour after scheduled time.
+
+The first act went off famously. Gladys was a born actress and sustained
+the difficult role of _Marie Latour_ well. The part where she defies her
+tyrannical father brought down the house. Sahwah came in for her share
+of applause too. Seeing her composed manner and hearing her calm voice,
+no one in the audience could ever have guessed the strenuous experience
+she had just been through. In the second scene Marie, driven from her
+home, wanders around in the streets with her child, until, faint from
+hunger, she sinks to the ground. The scene is laid before the wall of
+her father's large estate and she falls at his very gates. Gladys made
+the scene very realistic, and the audience sat tense and sympathetic.
+"_Food, food_," moaned Marie Latour, "_only a crust to keep the life in
+me and my child!"_ She lay weakly in the road, unable to rise. "_Food,
+food_," she moaned again. At this moment there suddenly descended, as
+from the very heavens, a ham sandwich on the end of a string. It dangled
+within an inch of her nose. Gladys was petrified. The audience sat up in
+surprise, and a ripple of laughter ran through the house. It was such an
+unexpected anticlimax. That some one was playing a practical joke Gladys
+did not for a moment doubt, and she was furious at this ridiculous
+interruption of her big scene. In the play Marie loses consciousness and
+is found by a peasant, and it is on this occurrence that the rest of the
+play hinges. The sudden appearance of the ham sandwich in response to
+her cry for food was fatal to the pathos of the scene. The rest of the
+cast, standing in the wings, saw what had happened and were at their
+wits' end. But Gladys was equal to the occasion.
+
+Moving her head wearily and passing her hand over her eyes she murmured
+faintly but audibly, "Cruel, cruel mirage to taunt me thus! Vanish, thou
+image of a fevered brain, thou absurd memory! Come not to mock me!" The
+actors in the wings, taking their cue from her speech, found the string
+to which the sandwich was tied and jerked it. The sandwich vanished from
+the sight of the audience. The scene was saved. The spectators simply
+passed it over as a more or less clumsy attempt to portray a vision of a
+disordered brain. The string on the sandwich had been passed over
+certain rigging above the stage that moved the scenery, and on through a
+little ventilator that came out on the fourth floor, from which point
+the manipulator had been able to listen to the speeches on the stage and
+time the drop of the sandwich. By the time the Thessalonian boys had
+traced the string to its end the perpetrator of the joke was nowhere to
+be found. He had fled as soon as the thing had been lowered. The scene
+ended without further calamity.
+
+In the third scene--the one in the peasant's hut--there is a cat on the
+stage. The presence of this cat was the signal for further trouble. In
+one of the tense passages, where Marie Latour is pleading with the son
+of the peasant to flee for his life before the agents of her father come
+and capture them both, and the cat lies asleep on the hearth, there was
+a sudden uproar, and a dog bounded through the entrance of the stage.
+The cat rushed around in terror and finally ran up the curtain. The
+lovers parted hastily and tried to capture the dog, but eluding their
+pursuit he jumped over the footlights into the orchestra, landing with a
+crash on the keys of the piano, and then out into the audience. Nyoda
+and three or four of the Winnebagos, sitting together near the front on
+the first floor of the auditorium, recognized the dog with a good deal
+of surprise. It was Mr. Bob, Hinpoha's black cocker spaniel. How he had
+gotten in was a mystery, for Hinpoha herself was not there. Nyoda called
+to him sharply and he came to her wagging his tail, and allowed himself
+to be put out with the best nature in the world. But the scene had been
+spoiled.
+
+During the rest of the evening Nyoda, as well as a number of the other
+teachers, sat with brows knitted, going over the various things that had
+happened to interrupt that play. As yet they did not know about the
+attempt to steal the statue, which Sahwah had accidentally nipped in the
+bud. But the following week, when the play was all over, and the various
+occurrences had been made known, there was a day of reckoning at
+Washington High School. Joe Lanning and Abraham Goldstein were called up
+before the principal and confronted with Sahwah, who told, to their
+infinite amazement, every move they had made in carrying off the statue.
+At first they denied everything as a made-up story gotten up to spite
+them, but when Sahwah led the way to the barn where she had been
+confined and triumphantly produced the base of the statue, they saw that
+further denial was useless and admitted their guilt. They also confessed
+to being the authors of the sandwich joke and the ones who had brought
+in the dog. Both were expelled from school.
+
+But the thing which the principal and teachers considered the bigger
+crime--the cutting of the wires at the back of the stage--was still a
+mystery. Joe's and Abraham's complicity in the statue affair furnished
+them with a complete alibi in regard to the other. It was proven, beyond
+a doubt, that they had not been in the building in the early part of the
+afternoon nor after they had carried off the statue, until after the
+wires had been cut. Then who had cut the wires? That was the question
+that agitated the school. It was too big a piece of vandalism to let
+slip. The principal, Mr. Jackson, was determined to run down the
+offender. Joe and Abraham denied all knowledge of the affair and there
+was no clue. The whole school was up in arms about the matter.
+
+Then things took a rather unexpected turn. In one of the teachers'
+meetings where the matter was being discussed, one of the teachers, Mr.
+Wardwell, suddenly got to his feet. He had just recollected something.
+"I remember," he said, "seeing Dorothy Bradford coming out of the
+electric room late on the afternoon of the play. She came out twice,
+once about three o'clock and once about four. Each time she seemed
+embarrassed about meeting me and turned scarlet." There was a murmur of
+surprise among the teachers. Nyoda sat up very straight.
+
+The next day Hinpoha was summoned to the office. Unsuspectingly she
+went. She had been summoned before, always on matters of more or less
+congenial business. She found Mr. Jackson, Mr. Wardwell and Nyoda
+together in the private office.
+
+"Miss Bradford," began Mr. Jackson, without preliminary, "Mr. Wardwell
+tells me he saw you coming out of the electric room on the afternoon of
+the play. In view of what happened that night, the presence of anybody
+in that room looks suspicious. Will you kindly state what you did in
+there?"
+
+Nyoda listened with an untroubled heart, sure of an innocent and
+convincing reason why Hinpoha had been in that room. Hinpoha, taken
+completely by surprise, was speechless. To Nyoda's astonishment and
+dismay, she turned fiery red. Hinpoha always blushed at the slightest
+provocation. In the stress of the moment she could not think of a single
+worth-while excuse for having gone into the electric room. Telling the
+real reason was of course out of the question because she had promised
+to shield Emily Meeks.
+
+"I left something in there," she stammered, "and went back after it."
+
+"You carried nothing in your hands either time when you came out," said
+Mr. Wardwell.
+
+Hinpoha was struck dumb. She was a poor hand at deception and was
+totally unable to "bluff" anything through. "I didn't say I carried
+anything out," she said in an agitated voice. "I went in after something
+and it--wasn't there."
+
+"What was it?" asked Mr. Jackson.
+
+"I can't tell you," said Hinpoha.
+
+"How did you happen to leave anything in the electric room?" persisted
+Mr. Jackson. "What were you doing in there in the first place?"
+
+"I went in to see if I had left something there," said poor Hinpoha,
+floundering desperately in the attempt to tell a plausible tale and yet
+not lie deliberately. Then, realizing that she was contradicting herself
+and getting more involved all the time, she gave it up in despair and
+sat silent and miserable. Nyoda's expression of amazement and concern
+was an added torture.
+
+"You admit, then, that you were in the electric room twice on Thursday
+afternoon, doing something which you cannot explain?" said Mr. Jackson,
+slowly. Hinpoha nodded, mutely. She never for an instant wavered in her
+loyalty to Emily.
+
+"There is another thing," continued Mr. Jackson, "that seems to point to
+the fact that you were in league with those who wished to spoil the
+play. It was your dog that was let out on the stage in pursuit of the
+cat."
+
+"I know it was," said Hinpoha, feeling that she was being drawn
+helplessly into a net from which there was no escape. "But that wasn't
+my fault. I haven't the slightest idea how he got there. It was pure
+chance that he was coaxed into the building."
+
+"That may all be," said Mr. Jackson, with frowning wrinkles around the
+corners of his eyes, "but it looks suspicious."
+
+"You certainly don't think I cut those wires, do you?" said Hinpoha
+incredulously.
+
+Mr. Jackson looked wise. "You were not at the play yourself, were you?"
+he asked.
+
+"No," answered Hinpoha.
+
+"Why weren't you?" pursued Mr. Jackson. "Have you anything against the
+Thessalonian Society?"
+
+"No, not at all," said Hinpoha with a catch in her voice. "I am not
+going to anything this winter." She looked down at her black dress
+expressively, not trusting her voice to speak.
+
+"Further," continued Mr. Jackson, "you were seen in the company of Joe
+Lanning the day before these things happened." Now, Hinpoha had walked
+home from school with Joe that Wednesday. She had done it merely because
+she was too courteous to snub him flatly when he had caught up with her
+on the street. She despised him just as the rest of the class did and
+avoided him whenever she could, but when brought face to face with him
+she had not the hardihood to refuse his company. That this innocent act
+should be misconstrued into meaning that she was mixed up in his doings
+seemed monstrous. Yet Mr. Jackson apparently believed this to be the
+truth. Things seemed to be closing around her. To Mr. Jackson her guilt
+was perfectly clear. She was a friend of Joe Lanning's; she had lent him
+her dog to work mischief on the stage; she admitted being in the
+electric room and refused to tell what she had been doing there.
+
+"Well," he said crisply, "somebody cut those wires Thursday Afternoon,
+and only one person was seen going in and out of the electric room
+during that time, and that person is yourself. You admit that you were
+in there doing something which will not bear explanation. It looks
+pretty suspicious, doesn't it?"
+
+"I didn't do it," Hinpoha declared stoutly.
+
+In her distress she did not dare meet Nyoda's eyes. What was Nyoda
+thinking of her, anyhow?
+
+"And so," continued Mr. Jackson, not heeding her denial, "until you can
+give a satisfactory explanation of your presence in the electric room
+last Thursday I must consider that you had something to do with the
+cutting of those wires. I have been asked by the Board of Education to
+look into the matter thoroughly and to punish the culprit with expulsion
+from school. As all evidence points to you as the guilty person, I shall
+be obliged, under the circumstances, to expel you."
+
+Hinpoha sat as if turned to stone. The wild beating of her heart almost
+suffocated her. Expelled from school! But even with that terrible
+sentence ringing in her ears it never entered her head to betray Emily.
+If this was to be the price of loyalty, then she would pay the price.
+There was no other way. She had not been clever enough to explain her
+presence in the electric room to the satisfaction of Mr. Jackson and yet
+breathe no word of the real situation, and this was the result. Her head
+whirled from the sudden calamity which had overwhelmed her; her thoughts
+were chaos. She hardly heard when Mr. Jackson said curtly, "You may go."
+As one in a dream she walked out of the office. Nyoda came out with her.
+
+"Of all things," said Mr. Wardwell to Mr. Jackson, when they were left
+alone, "to think that a girl should have done that thing."
+
+"It seems strange, too," mused Mr. Jackson, "that she should have been
+able to do it. You would hardly look for a girl to be cutting electric
+wires, would you? It takes some skill to do that. Where did she learn
+how to do it?"
+
+"Those Camp Fire Girls," said Mr. Wardwell emphatically, "know
+everything. I don't know where they learn it, but they do."
+
+Nyoda led Hinpoha into one of the empty club rooms and sat down beside
+her. "Now, my dear," she said quietly, "will you please tell me the
+whole story? It is absurd of course to accuse you of cutting those
+wires, but what were you doing in that room? All you have to do is give
+a satisfactory explanation and the accusation will be withdrawn."
+Nyoda's voice was friendly and sympathetic and it was a sore temptation
+to Hinpoha to tell her the whole thing just as it happened. But she had
+promised Emily not to tell a living soul, and a promise was a promise
+with Hinpoha.
+
+"Nyoda," she said steadily, "I _was_ in that electric room twice on
+Thursday afternoon. I carried something in and I carried it out again.
+But I can't tell you what it was."
+
+"Not even to save yourself from being expelled?" asked Nyoda curiously.
+
+"Not even to save myself from being expelled," said Hinpoha steadfastly.
+
+And Nyoda, baffled, gave it up. But of one thing she was sure. Whatever
+silly thing Hinpoha had done that she was ashamed to confess, she had
+never in the world cut those wires. It was simply impossible for her to
+have done such a thing. Entirely convinced on this point, Nyoda went
+back to Mr. Jackson, and told him her belief, begging him not to put his
+threat of expulsion into execution. But Mr. Jackson was obdurate. There
+was something under the surface of which Nyoda knew nothing. All the
+year there had been a certain lawless element in the school which was
+continually breaking out in open defiance of law and order. Mr. Jackson
+had been totally unable to cope with the situation. He had been severely
+criticised for not having succeeded in stamping out this disorder, and
+was accused of not being able to control his scholars. The events
+connected with the giving of the play had been widely published--it was
+impossible to keep them a secret--and Mr. Jackson had been taken to task
+by those above him in the educational department for not being able to
+find out who had cut the wires. Smarting under this censure, he had
+determined to fix the blame at an early date at all costs, and when the
+opportunity came of fastening a suspicion onto Hinpoha he had seized it
+eagerly, and intended to publish far and wide that he had found the
+guilty one. Therefore he met Nyoda's appeal with stony indifference.
+
+"I shall consider her guilty until she has proven her innocence," he
+maintained obstinately, "and you will find that I am right. That is
+nothing but a made-up story about going in there for something she had
+left. You noticed how she contradicted herself half a dozen times in as
+many minutes. She is the guilty one, all right," and in sore distress
+Nyoda left him.
+
+The axe fell and Hinpoha was expelled from school. If lightning had
+fallen on a clear day and cleft the roof open, the pupils could not have
+been more dumbfounded. Hinpoha was the very last one any one would have
+suspected of cutting wires. In fact, many were openly incredulous. But
+Mr. Jackson took care to make all the damaging facts public, and
+Hinpoha's fair name was dragged in the mud. Emily Meeks was one who
+stood loyal to Hinpoha. She was ignorant that it was to shield her
+Hinpoha had refused to tell what she was doing in the electric room, as
+she had gone home before Hinpoha had retouched the picture, but she
+refused to believe that her angel, as she always thought of Hinpoha,
+could be guilty of any wrong doing.
+
+As for Hinpoha herself, life was not worth living. The scene with Aunt
+Phoebe, when she heard of her disgrace, was too painful to record here.
+Suffice to say that Hinpoha was regarded as a criminal of the worst type
+and was never allowed to forget for one instant that she had disgraced
+the name of Bradford forever. It was awful not to be going to school and
+getting lessons. Those days at home were nightmares that she remembered
+to the end of her life with a shudder. The only ray of comfort she had
+was the fact that Nyoda and the Winnebagos stood by her stanchly. "I can
+bear it," she said to Nyoda forlornly, "knowing that you believe in me,
+but if you ever went back on me I couldn't live." Nyoda urged her no
+more to tell her secret, for she suspected that it concerned some one
+else whom Hinpoha would not expose, and trusted to time to solve the
+mystery and remove the stain from Hinpoha's name.
+
+The excitement over, school settled down into its old rut. Joe Lanning's
+father sent him away to military school and Abraham's father began to
+use his influence to have him reinstated. Mr. Goldstein put forth such a
+touching plea about Abraham's having been led astray by Joe Lanning and
+being no more than a tool in his hands, and Abraham promised so
+faithfully that he would never deviate from the path of virtue again,
+now that his evil genius was removed, if they would only let him come
+back and graduate, that he was given the chance. Nothing new came up
+about the cutting of the wires except that the end of a knife blade was
+found on the floor under the place where the hole had been made in the
+wall. There were no marks of identification on it and nothing was done
+about it.
+
+One day, Dick Albright, in the Physics room on the third floor of the
+building, stood by the window and looked across at a friend of his who
+was standing at the window of the Chemistry room. The two rooms faced
+each other across an open space in the back of the building, which was
+designed to let more light into certain rooms. This space was only open
+at the third and fourth floors. The second floor was roofed over with a
+skylight at this point. It was after school hours and Dick was alone in
+the room. So, apparently, was his friend. Dick raised the window and
+called across the space to the other boy, who raised his window and
+answered him. From talking back and forth they passed to throwing a ball
+of twine to each other. Once Dick failed to catch it, and falling short
+of the window, it rolled down upon the roof of the second story.
+
+Dick promptly climbed out of the window, and sliding down the
+waterspout, reached the roof and went in pursuit of the ball. One of the
+windows opening from the third story onto this open space was that in
+the electric room, and it was under this window that the ball came to a
+standstill. As Dick stooped to pick it up he found a knife lying beside
+it. He brought it along with him and climbed back into his room. Then he
+pulled it out and looked at it. It was an ordinary pocket knife with a
+horn handle. On one side of the handle there was a plate bearing the
+name F. Boyd. "Frank Boyd's knife," said Dick to himself. "He must have
+dropped it out of the window." Idly he opened the blade. It was broken
+off about half an inch from the point. Dick began to turn things over in
+his mind. A piece of a knife blade had been found in the electric room.
+A knife with a broken blade had been found on the roof under the window
+of the electric room. That knife belonged to Frank Boyd. The inference
+was very simple. Frank had climbed in the window of the electric room
+from the roof of the second story and cut the wires, and then climbed
+out again, and so was not seen coming out of the room into the hall. In
+climbing out he had dropped the knife without noticing it. He had
+already left a piece of the blade inside. Frank Boyd was one of the
+lawless spirits who had caused much of the trouble all through the year.
+He had also been blackballed at the last election of the Thessalonian
+Society. It was very easy to believe that he would try to do something
+to spite the Thessalonians.
+
+Dick hastened down to Mr. Jackson's office with the knife and asked him
+to fit the broken piece to the shortened blade. It fitted perfectly.
+Beyond a doubt it was Frank Boyd and not Hinpoha who had cut the wires
+in the electric room. The next morning Frank was confronted with the
+evidence of the knife and confessed his guilt. He had been in league
+with Joe Lanning, and cutting the wires had been his part of the job. He
+had done it in the early part of the evening while the actors were
+making up for their parts, getting in and out of the window, just as
+Dick had figured out. No one had detected him in the act and the lucky
+incident of Hinpoha's having been seen coming out of the electric room
+turned all suspicion away from him. Justice in his case was tardy but
+certain, and Frank Boyd was expelled, and Hinpoha was reinstated. Mr.
+Jackson, in his elation over having caught the real culprit and
+effectually breaking up the "Rowdy Ring," was gracious enough to make a
+public apology to Hinpoha. So the blot was wiped off her scutcheon, and
+Emily's secret was still intact, for no one ever asked again what
+Hinpoha had been doing in the electric room on the afternoon of the
+Thessalonian play.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+ANOTHER COASTING PARTY.
+
+"This is the terrible Hunger Moon, the lean gray wolf can hardly bay,"
+quoted Hinpoha, as she threw out a handful of crumbs for the birds. The
+ground was covered with ice and snow, and the wintry winds whistled
+through the bare trees in the yard, ruffling up the feathers of the poor
+little sparrows huddling on the branches.
+
+Gladys stood beside Hinpoha, watching the hungry little winter citizens
+flying hastily down to their feast. "What is Mr. Bob barking at?" she
+asked, pausing to listen.
+
+"I'll go and find out," said Hinpoha. From the porch she could see Mr.
+Bob standing under an evergreen tree in the back yard, barking up at it
+with all his might. Hinpoha came out to see what was the matter. "Hush,
+Mr. Bob," she commanded, throwing a snowball at him. She picked her way
+through the deep snow to the tree. "Oh, Gladys, come here," she called.
+Gladys came out and joined her.
+
+"What is it?" she asked. Huddled up in the low branches of the tree was
+a great ghostly looking bird, white as the snow under their feet. Its
+eyes were closed and it was apparently asleep. Hinpoha stretched out her
+hand and touched its feathers. It woke up with a start and looked at her
+with great round eyes full of alarm.
+
+"It's an owl!" said Hinpoha in amazement, "a snowy owl! It must have
+flown across the lake from Canada. They do sometimes when the food is
+scarce and the cold too intense up there." The owl blinked and closed
+his eyes again. The glare of the sun on the snow blinded him. He acted
+stupid and half frozen, and sat crouched close against the trunk of the
+tree, making no effort to fly away.
+
+"How tame he is!" said Gladys. "He doesn't seem to mind us in the
+least." Hinpoha tried to stroke him but he jerked away and tumbled to
+the ground. One wing was apparently broken. Mr. Bob made a leap for the
+bird as he fell, but Hinpoha seized him by the collar and dragged him
+into the house. When she returned the owl was making desperate efforts
+to get up into the tree again by jumping, but without success. Hinpoha
+caught him easily in spite of his struggles and bore him into the house.
+There was an empty cage down in the cellar which had once housed a
+parrot, and into this the solemn-eyed creature was put.
+
+"That wing will heal again, and then we can let him go," said Hinpoha.
+
+"Hadn't it better be tied down?" suggested Gladys. "He flutters it so
+much." With infinite pains Hinpoha tied the broken wing down to the
+bird's side, using strips of gauze bandage for the purpose. The owl made
+no sound. They fixed a perch in the cage and he stepped decorously up on
+it and regarded them with an intense, mournful gaze. "Isn't he spooky
+looking?" said Gladys, shivering and turning away. "He gives me the
+creeps."
+
+"What will we feed him?" asked Hinpoha.
+
+"Do owls eat crumbs?" asked Gladys.
+
+Hinpoha shook her head. "That isn't enough. I've always read that they
+catch mice and things like that to eat." She brightened up. "There are
+several mice in the trap now. I saw them when I brought up the cage."
+She sped down cellar and returned with three mice in a trap.
+
+"Ugh," said Gladys in disgust, as Hinpoha pulled them out by the tails.
+She put them in the cage with the owl and he pecked at them hungrily.
+"What will your aunt say when she sees him?" asked Gladys.
+
+"I don't know," said Hinpoha doubtfully. Aunt Phoebe was away for the
+afternoon and so had not been in a position to interfere thus far.
+
+"Maybe I had better take the cage home with me," suggested Gladys.
+
+"No," said Hinpoha firmly, "I want him myself. I'll tell you what I'll
+do. I'll put the cage up in the attic and she'll never know I have him.
+I can slip up and feed him. It would be better for him up there, anyway.
+It's too warm for him downstairs. He's used to a cold climate." So
+"Snowy," as they had christened him, was established by a window under
+the eaves on the third floor, where he could look out at the trees for
+which he would be pining. Aunt Phoebe always took a nap after lunch, and
+this gave Hinpoha a chance to run up and look at her patient. She fed
+him on chicken feed and mice when there were any. Never did he show the
+slightest sign of friendliness or recognition when she hovered over him;
+but continued to stare sorrowfully at her with an unblinking eye. If he
+liked his new lodging under the cozy eaves he made no mention of it, and
+if he pined for his winter palace in the Canadian forest he was equally
+uncommunicative. Hinpoha longed to poke him in order to make him give
+some expression of feeling. But at all events, he did not struggle
+against his captivity, and Hinpoha reflected judicially that after all
+it was a good thing that he had such a stolid personality, for a calm
+frame of mind aids the recovery of the patient and he would not be
+likely to keep his wing from healing by dashing it against the side of
+the cage. It seemed almost as though he knew his presence in the house
+was a secret, and was in league with Hinpoha not to betray himself. So
+Aunt Phoebe lived downstairs in blissful ignorance of the feathered
+boarder in the attic.
+
+She was suffering from a cold that week and was more than usually
+exacting. She finally took to her bed in an air-tight room with a
+mustard plaster and an electric heating pad, expressing her intention of
+staying there until her cold was cured. "But you ought to have some
+fresh air," protested Hinpoha, "you'll smother in there with all that
+heat."
+
+"You leave that window shut," said Aunt Phoebe crossly. "All this
+foolishness about open windows makes me tired. It's a pity if a young
+girl has to tell her elders what's best for them. Now bring the History
+of the Presbyterian Church, and read that seventh chapter over again; my
+mind was preoccupied last night and I did not hear it distinctly." This
+was Aunt Phoebe's excuse for having fallen asleep during the reading. So
+poor Hinpoha had to sit in that stifling room and read until she thought
+she would faint. Aunt Phoebe fell asleep presently, however, to her
+great relief, and she stole out softly, leaving the door open behind her
+so that some air could get in from the hall.
+
+Aunt Phoebe woke up in the middle of the night feeling decidedly
+uncomfortable. She was nearly baked with the heat that was being applied
+on all sides. She turned off the heating pad and threw back one of the
+covers, and as she grew more comfortable sleep began to hover near. She
+was just sinking off into a doze when she suddenly started up in terror.
+There was a presence in the room--something white was moving silently
+toward the bed. Aunt Phoebe was terribly superstitious and believed in
+ghosts as firmly as she believed in the gospel. She always expected to
+see a sheeted figure standing in the hall some night, its hand
+outstretched in solemn warning. But this ghost was more terrifying than
+any she had ever imagined. It was not in the form of a being at
+all--just a formless Thing that moved with strange jerks and starts,
+sometimes rising at least a foot in the air. The hair stood up straight
+on Aunt Phoebe's head, and her lips became so dry they cracked. Then her
+heart almost stopped beating altogether. The ghost rose in the air and
+stood on her bed, where it continued its uncanny movements. Aunt Phoebe
+folded her hands and began to pray. The ghost sailed upward once more
+and stood on the foot board of her bed. Aunt Phoebe prayed harder.
+"Hoot!" said the ghost. Aunt Phoebe moaned. "Hoot!" said the ghost. Aunt
+Phoebe tried to scream, but her throat was paralyzed. "Hoot!" said the
+ghost. Aunt Phoebe found her voice. "WOW-OW-OW-OW!" she screeched in
+tones that could have been heard a block.
+
+Hinpoha jumped clear out of bed in one leap and reached Aunt Phoebe's
+room in one more. Visions of burglars and fire were in her mind. Hastily
+she turned on the light. Aunt Phoebe was sitting up in bed still
+screaming at the top of her lungs, and on the footboard of the bed sat
+Snowy, blinking in the sudden light. Hinpoha stood frozen to the spot.
+How had the bird gotten out? "Snowy!" she stammered. The owl looked at
+her with his old solemn stare, and then slowly he winked one eye. "Stop
+screaming, Aunt Phoebe," said Hinpoha; "it's nothing but an owl."
+
+"_An owl_!" exclaimed Aunt Phoebe faintly. "How could an owl get in here
+with all the doors and windows shut?"
+
+"But I left your door open when I went out," said Hinpoha, "and Snowy
+must have gotten out of his cage and come down the attic stairs."
+
+"Must have gotten out of his cage!" echoed Aunt Phoebe. "Do you mean to
+tell me that you have an owl in a cage somewhere in this house?" There
+was no use denying the fact any more, as Snowy had given himself away so
+completely, and Hinpoha told about finding the snowy owl in the yard and
+putting it up in the cage. "What next!" gasped Aunt Phoebe. "I suppose I
+shall wake up some morning and find a boa constrictor in my bed."
+
+"I'm sorry he frightened you so," said Hinpoha contritely, "but I'll see
+that he doesn't get out again. I may keep him until his wing heals,
+mayn't I?" she asked pleadingly.
+
+"I suppose there's no getting around you," sighed Aunt Phoebe, sinking
+back on her pillow. "If it wasn't a bird you'd be having something else.
+Only keep him out of my sight!" Hinpoha caught the owl and carried him
+out with many flutters and pecks. The cage door stood open and the wires
+were bent out, showing where his powerful bill had pecked until he
+gained his freedom. Hinpoha fastened him in again and he stepped
+decorously up on his perch and sat there in such a dignified attitude
+that it was hard to believe him capable of breaking jail and entering a
+lady's bedroom.
+
+Aunt Phoebe spent the next day in bed, recovering from her fright. This
+was the night of the Camp Fire meeting which Hinpoha had been given
+permission to attend. She had been in such a fever of anticipation all
+week that Aunt Phoebe was surprised when she came into her room after
+supper and sat down with the History of the Presbyterian Church. "Well,
+aren't you going to that precious meeting of yours?" she asked sharply.
+
+"I think," said Hinpoha slowly, "that I had better stay at home with
+you."
+
+"I won't die without you," said Aunt Phoebe drily. "I can ring for Mary
+if I want anything."
+
+A mighty struggle was going on inside of Hinpoha. First she saw in her
+mind's eye her beloved Winnebagos, having a meeting at Nyoda's house,
+the place where she best loved to go to meetings, waiting to welcome her
+back into their midst with open arms; and then she saw this cross old
+woman, her aunt, sick and lonesome, left alone in the house with a maid
+who despised her. With the cup of enjoyment raised to her lips she set
+it down again. "I think I would _rather_ stay with you, Aunt Phoebe,"
+she said simply. And in the Desert of Waiting there blossomed a fragrant
+rose!
+
+The deferred celebration for Hinpoha's return into the Winnebago fold
+was held the following week. With the joy of the returned pilgrim she
+took her place in the Council Circle, and once more joined in singing,
+"Burn, Fire, Burn," and "Mystic Fire," and this time when Nyoda called
+the roll and pronounced the name "Hinpoha," she was answered by a joyous
+"Kolah" instead of the sorrowful silence which had followed that name
+for so many weeks.
+
+February froze, thawed, snowed and sleeted itself off the calendar, and
+March set in like a roaring lion, with a worse snowstorm than even the
+Snow Moon had produced. Venturesome treebuds, who loved the warm sun
+like Aunt Phoebe loved her heating pad, and who had crept out of their
+dark blankets one balmy day in February to be nearer the genial heat
+giver, shivered until their sap froze in their veins, and a drab-colored
+phoebe bird, who had nested under the eaves of the Bradford porch the
+year before, coming back to his summer residence according to the date
+marked on his calendar, huddled disconsolately beside the old nest,
+feeling sure that he would contract bronchitis before the wife of his
+bosom arrived to join him.
+
+Hinpoha listened to his disgruntled "pewit phoebe, pewit phoebe," and
+made haste to throw him some crumbs. It seemed like a delicious joke to
+her that he should be calling so plaintively for his phoebe, not knowing
+that there was a Phoebe on the premises all the while. And one day the
+little mate came and both birds forgot the snow and cold in the joy of
+their reunion. Phoebes consider it extremely indecorous to travel in
+mixed company, (just like Aunt Phoebe, thought Hinpoha humorously,) so
+the females linger behind for several days after the males start north
+and join them in the seclusion of their own homes. Hinpoha's heart sang
+in sympathy with the joy of the reunited lovers.
+
+Sahwah had come over to get her lessons with Hinpoha, and as she turned
+the leaves of her "Cicero" a little red heart dropped out on the floor.
+Hinpoha stooped to pick it up. "What's this?" she asked with interest.
+Sahwah blushed.
+
+"Ned Roberts--you remember Ned Roberts up at camp--sent it to me for a
+valentine." Hinpoha went back in her thoughts to the dance at the
+Mountain Lake Camp the summer before, where she had had such a royal
+good time. How far removed that time seemed now!
+
+"I wonder if Sherry ever writes to Nyoda," she said musingly.
+
+"I don't believe he does," said Sahwah, "for Nyoda has never said
+anything." If they could have seen Nyoda at that very moment, reading a
+certain letter and thrusting it into her bureau drawer with a pile of
+others bearing the same post-mark, they would really have had something
+to gossip about.
+
+"Did you ever see such a snowfall in March?" said Hinpoha, looking out
+the window at the white landscape.
+
+"It must be perfectly grand coasting," said Sahwah, ever with an eye for
+sport. "Dick Albright promised he would take us out on his new bob the
+next time there was snow, and this is the next time, and will probably
+be the last time. Do you suppose you could come along?"
+
+"I doubt it," said Hinpoha. "Aunt Phoebe thinks coasting is too rough.
+Did I ever tell you the time mother and I coasted down the walk and ran
+into Aunt Phoebe?" Sahwah laughed heartily over the story.
+
+"Poor Aunt Phoebe!" she said, wiping the tears of laughter from her
+eyes. "She is bound to get all the shocks that flesh is heir to."
+
+As she was walking home through the snow that afternoon some one came up
+behind her and took her books from her hand. It was Dick Albright. "Good
+afternoon, Miss Brewster," he said formally.
+
+"Good afternoon, _Mr_. Albright," said Sahwah in the same tone, her eyes
+dancing in her head. Then she burst out, "Oh, Dick, won't you take us
+coasting to-morrow night? This is positively the last snow of the
+season."
+
+"Sure," said Dick. "Take you to-night if you want to."
+
+Sahwah shook her head. "'Strictly nothing doing,' to quote your own
+elegant phrase," she said. "I've a German test on to-morrow morning, and
+consequently have an engagement with my friend Wilhelm Tell to-night.
+I've simply got to get above eighty-five in this test or go below
+passing for the month. I got through last month without ever looking at
+it, but it won't work again this month."
+
+"How did you do it?" asked Dick.
+
+"Why," answered Sahwah, "when it came to the test and we were asked to
+tell the story of the book I simply wrote down, 'I can't tell you that
+one, but I can tell another just as good,' and I did. Old Prof.
+Fruehlingslied was so floored by my 'blooming cheek' that he passed me,
+but he has had a watchful eye on me ever since." Dick laughed outright.
+
+"I never saw anything like you," he said, swinging her books around in
+his hand. The red heart fell out into the snow. Dick picked it up.
+"Who's your friend?" he said, deliberately reading the name, and
+immediately filled with jealous pangs. Dick liked Sahwah better than any
+girl in school. Her irrepressible, fun--loving nature held him
+fascinated. Sahwah liked Dick, too, but no better than she liked most of
+the boys in the class. Sahwah was a poor hand to regard a boy as a
+"beau." Boys were good things to skate with, or play ball or go rowing
+with; they came in handy when there were heavy things to lift, and all
+that; but in none of these things did one seem to have any advantage
+over the others, so it was immaterial to her which one she had a good
+time with. The good time was the main thing to her. Sahwah had a
+fifteen--year--old brother, and she knew what a boy was under his white
+collar and "boiled" shirt. There was no silly sentimentality in her
+spicy make-up. She was a royal good companion when there was any fun
+going on, but it was about as easy to "get soft" with her as with a
+stone fence post. She was a master hand at ridicule and the boys knew
+this and respected her accordingly. In spite of all this Dick's
+admiration of her remained steadfast, and he would have attempted to
+jump over the moon if she had dared him to do it. Hence the valentine
+signed "Ned Roberts" piqued him. Sahwah had ordered him not to send her
+one and he had meekly obeyed. It hurt him to think any one else had the
+right to do it.
+
+"Who's your friend?" he repeated as he handed her the heart.
+
+"Oh, somebody," said Sahwah, enjoying the opportunity of teasing him.
+And that was all he could get out of her, in spite of numerous
+questions.
+
+"You'll surely go coasting to-morrow night?" he said as he left her in
+front of her house.
+
+"I surely will,"' said Sahwah, flashing him a brilliant smile, "I
+wouldn't miss it for the world!" If ever a girl had the power to allure
+and torment a boy that girl was Sahwah.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The house belonging to the Gardiners was now rented, together with the
+furnished room, and brought in thirty dollars a month, which made
+housekeeping much smoother sailing for Migwan, but the fact still
+remained that the money which was to have put her into college the next
+year was spent, and there was no present prospect of replacing it. Her
+mother was now home from the hospital and fully on the road to recovery,
+and Migwan tried to make her happiness over this fact overbalance her
+disappointment at her own loss. None of her stories or picture plays had
+been accepted, and of late she had had to give up writing, for with her
+mother sick most of the housework fell on her shoulders. Although she
+maintained a bright and cheery exterior, she went about mourning in
+secret for her lost career, as she called it, and the heart went out of
+her studying.
+
+She was walking soberly through the hall at school one morning when she
+heard somebody call out, "Oh, Miss Gardiner, come here a minute." It was
+Professor Green, standing in the door of his class room. "There is
+something I want to tell you about," he said, smiling down at her when
+she came up to him. "You like to study History pretty well, don't you?"
+Migwan nodded. Next to Latin, history was her favorite study. "Well,"
+resumed Professor Green, "here is a chance for you to do something with
+it. You remember that Professor Parsons who lectured to the school on
+various historical subjects last winter? You know he is a perfect crank
+on having boys and girls learn history. He has now offered a prize of
+$100 to the boy or girl in the graduating class of this High School who
+can pass the best examination in Ancient, Medieval and Modern History.
+You have had all three of those subjects, have you not?"
+
+"Yes," said Migwan, eagerly.
+
+"The examination is to take place the last week in April," continued
+Professor Green. "'A word to the wise is sufficient.' You are one of the
+best students of history in the class."
+
+Migwan went away after thanking him for telling her about it, feeling as
+if she were treading on air. There was no doubt in her mind about her
+ability to learn history, as there was about geometry. She had an
+amazing memory for dates and events and in her imaginative mind the
+happenings of centuries ago took form and color and stood out as vividly
+as if she saw them passing by in review. Her heart beat violently when
+she thought that she had as good a chance, if not better than any one
+else in the class, of winning that $100 prize. This would pay her
+tuition in the local university for the first year. She resolved to
+throw her fruitless writing to the winds and put all her strength into
+her history. The world stretched out before her a blooming, sunny
+meadow, instead of a stagnant fen, and exultantly she sang to herself
+one of the pageant songs of the Camp Fire Girls:
+
+  "Darkness behind us,
+  Peace around us,
+  Joy before us,
+  White Flame forever!"
+
+That morning the announcement of the prize examination was made to the
+whole class, and Abraham Goldstein also resolved that he would win that
+$100.
+
+The snow lasted over another day and the next night Sahwah and Dick
+Albright and a half dozen other girls and boys went coasting. It was
+bright moonlight and the air was clear and crisp, just cold enough to
+keep the snow hard and not cold enough to chill them as they sat on the
+bob. The place where they went coasting was down the long lake drive in
+the park, an unbroken stretch of over half a mile. Halfway down the
+slope the land rose up in a "thank--you--marm," and when the bob struck
+this it shot into the air and came down again in the path with a
+thrilling leap which never failed to make the girls shriek. Migwan was
+there in the crowd, and Gladys, and one or two more of the Winnebagos.
+Dick Albright was in his element as he steered the bob down the long
+white lane, for Sahwah sat right behind him, shouting merry nonsense
+into his ear. "Now let me steer," she commanded, when they had gone down
+a couple of times.
+
+"Don't you do it, Dick," said one of the other boys, "she'll never steer
+us around the bend." Dick hesitated. There was a sharp turn in the road,
+right near the bottom of the descent, and as the bob had acquired a high
+degree of speed by the time it reached this point, it required quick
+work to make the turn.
+
+"If you don't let me steer just once I'll never speak to you again, Dick
+Albright," said Sahwah, with flashing eyes. Dick wavered. The chances
+were that Sahwah would land them safely at the bottom, and he thought it
+worth the risk of a possible spill to stay in her good graces.
+
+"All right, go ahead," he said, "I believe you can do it all right. Be
+careful when you come to the turn, that's all." Sahwah slid in behind
+the steering wheel and they started off. The sled traveled faster than
+it did before, but Sahwah negotiated both the thank--you--marm and the
+turn with as much skill as Dick himself could have done it, and danced a
+triumphant war dance when she had brought the bob safely to a stop.
+
+"There now, smarty," she said to the boy who had mistrusted her powers,
+"you see that a girl can do it as well as a boy."
+
+"_You_ certainly can," said Dick, no less pleased than she herself at
+her success, "and you may steer the bob the rest of the evening if you
+want to."
+
+Sahwah engineered two or three more trips and then the excitement lost
+its tang for her as the element of danger was removed, for the turn had
+no difficulties for her. "Let's coast down the side of the hill once,"
+she suggested.
+
+"No, thanks," said Migwan, eyeing the steep slope that rose beside the
+drive.
+
+"Oh, come on," pleaded Sahwah; "it's more fun to go down a steep hill.
+You go so much faster. It lands you in a snowbank at the bottom, but
+it's perfectly safe." None of the boys and girls appeared anxious to go.
+Sahwah jumped up and down with impatience. "Oh, you slowpokes!" she
+exclaimed, rather crossly. Then she turned to Dick Albright. "Dick," she
+said, "will you come with me even if the others won't?"
+
+Dick shook his head. "It's dangerous," he answered.
+
+"You're afraid," said Sahwah tauntingly.
+
+"I'm not," said Dick hotly.
+
+"You are too," said Sahwah. "All right if you're afraid, but I know some
+one who wouldn't be." Now Sahwah had no one definite in mind when she
+said this last, it was simply an effort to make Dick feel small, but
+Dick immediately took it as a reference to the unknown Ned Roberts who
+had sent her the valentine, and his jealousy got the better of his
+discretion.
+
+"All right," he said, firmly determined to measure up to this pattern of
+dauntlessness, "come on if you want to. I'll go with you." The two
+climbed up the steep hill, dragging the bob after them. When Sahwah was
+sitting behind the steering wheel, poised at the top and ready to make
+the swift descent, she shuddered at the sight of the sharp incline. It
+looked so much worse from the top than from the bottom. She would have
+drawn back and given it up, but Sahwah had a stubborn pride that shrank
+from saying she was afraid to do anything she had undertaken.
+
+"Shove off!" she commanded, gritting her chattering teeth together. The
+bob shot downward like a cannon ball. In spite of her terror Sahwah
+enjoyed the sensation. She held firmly on to the steering wheel and made
+for the great bank of snow which had been thrown up by the men cleaning
+the foot walks. At that moment an automobile turned into the lake drive,
+and its blinding lights shone full into Sahwah's eyes. Dazzled, she
+turned her head away, at the same time jerking the steering wheel to the
+right. The bob swerved sharply to one side and crashed into a tree. The
+force of the impact threw Dick clear of the sled and he rolled head over
+heels down the hill, landing in the snow at the bottom badly shaken, but
+otherwise unhurt. Sahwah lay motionless in the snow beside the wreck of
+the bob.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+DR. HOFFMAN.
+
+The girls and boys crowded around her with frightened faces. "Is she
+killed?" they asked each other in terrified tones.
+
+"It's all my fault," said Dick Albright, nearly beside himself; "I
+should have known better than to let her go. She didn't think of the
+danger, but I did, and I should have prevented her. Was there ever such
+a fool as I?"
+
+Gladys and Migwan were kneeling beside Sahwah and opening her coat. "She
+is not dead," said Gladys, feeling her pulse. "We must get her home. She
+is possibly only stunned." Sahwah moved slightly and groaned, but she
+did not open her eyes. A passing automobile was hailed and she was
+carried to it as carefully as possible and taken home.
+
+"A slight concussion of the brain," said the hastily summoned doctor,
+after he had made his examination, "and a fractured hip. The hip can be
+fixed all right, but the concussion may be worse than it looks. That is
+an ugly contusion on her head." The next few days were anxious ones in
+the Brewster home. Sahwah gave no sign of returning consciousness, and
+her fever rose steadily. Mrs. Brewster felt her hair turning gray with
+the suspense, and the Winnebagos could neither eat nor sleep. Poor Dick
+was frantic, yet he dared not show himself at the house for fear every
+one would point an accusing finger at him as the one responsible for the
+misfortune.
+
+But Sahwah, true to her usual habit of always doing the unexpected
+thing, progressed along just the opposite lines from those prophesied by
+the physician. After a few days her fever abated and the danger from the
+concussion was over. Sahwah's head had demonstrated itself to be of a
+superior solidness of construction. But the hip, which at first had not
+given them a moment's uneasiness, steadfastly refused to mend. Dr.
+Benson looked puzzled; then grave. The splintered end of that hip bone
+began to be a nightmare to him. He called in another doctor for
+consultation. The new doctor set it in a different way, nearly killing
+Sahwah with the pain, although she struggled valiantly to be brave and
+bear it in silence. Nyoda never forgot that tortured smile with which
+Sahwah greeted her when she came in after the process was over. A week
+or two passed and the bones still made no effort to knit. Another
+consulting physician was called in; a prominent surgeon. He ordered
+Sahwah removed to the hospital, where he made half a dozen X-ray
+pictures of her hip. The joint was so badly inflamed and swollen that it
+was impossible to tell just where the trouble lay. Sahwah fumed and
+fretted with impatience at having to stay in bed so long. Surgeon after
+surgeon examined the fracture and shook their heads.
+
+At last a long consultation was held, at the close of which Mr. and Mrs.
+Brewster were called into the council of physicians. "We have
+discovered," said Dr. Lord, a man high up in the profession who was
+considered the final authority, "that the ball joint of your daughter's
+hip has been fractured in such a way that it can never heal. There is
+one inevitable result of this condition, and that is tuberculosis of the
+bone. If not arrested this will in time communicate itself to the bones
+of the upper part of the body and terminate fatally. There is only one
+way to prevent this outcome and that is amputation of the limb before
+the disease gets a hold on the system."
+
+"You mean, cut her leg off?" asked Mrs. Brewster faintly.
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Lord shortly. He was a man of few words.
+
+Sahwah was stunned when she heard the verdict of the surgeons. She knew
+little about disease and it seemed wildly impossible to her that this
+limb of hers which had been so strong and supple a month ago would
+become an agent of death if not amputated. She was in an agony of mind.
+Never to swim again! Never to run and jump and slide and skate and
+dance! Always to go about on crutches! Before the prospect of being
+crippled for life her active nature shrank in unutterable horror. Death
+seemed preferable to her. She buried her face in the pillow in such
+anguish that the watchers by the bedside could not stand by and see it.
+After a day of acute mental suffering her old-time courage began to rear
+its head and she made up her mind that if this terrible thing had to be
+done she might as well go through with it as bravely as possible. She
+resigned herself to her fate and urged her parents to give their consent
+to the operation. Poor Mrs. Brewster was nearly out of her mind with
+worry over the affair.
+
+"When will you do it?" asked Sahwah, struggling to keep her voice
+steady.
+
+"In about a week," said Dr. Lord, "when you get a little stronger."
+
+Nyoda went home heartsick from the hospital that day. Sahwah had asked
+her to write to Dr. Hoffman, her old friend in camp, and tell him the
+news. With a shaking hand she wrote the letter. "Poor old Dr. Hoffman,"
+she said to herself, "how badly he will feel when he hears that Sahwah
+is hurt and he can do nothing to help her."
+
+Sahwah had never dreamed how many friends she had until this misfortune
+overcame her. Boys and girls, as well as old people and little children,
+horrified at the calamity, came by the dozen to offer cheer and comfort.
+Her room was filled to overflowing with flowers. Even "old Fuzzytop,"
+whom Sahwah had tormented nearly to death, came to offer his sympathy
+and present a potted tulip. Stiff and precise Miss Muggins came to say
+how she missed her from the Latin class. Aunt Phoebe forgave all the
+jokes she had made at her expense and sent over a crocheted dressing
+jacket made of fleecy wool.
+
+"Don't feel so badly, Nyoda dear," she said one day as Nyoda sat beside
+her in the depths of despair. The usual jolly teacher had now no cheery
+word to offer. The prospect of the gay dancing Sahwah on crutches for
+the remainder of her life was an appalling tragedy. "I can act out 'The
+Little Tin Soldier' quite realistically--then," went on Sahwah, her mind
+already at work to find the humor of the situation. But Nyoda sat
+staring miserably at the flowers on the dresser.
+
+"Telegram for Miss Brewster," said the nurse, appearing in the doorway.
+
+"A telegram for me?" asked Sahwah curiously, stretching out her hand for
+the envelope. She tore it open eagerly and read, "Don't operate until I
+come. Dr. Hoffman." "He's coming!" cried Sahwah. "Dr. Hoffman is coming!
+He said if I ever broke a bone again he would come and set it! Poor
+Doctor, how disappointed he'll be when he finds he can't 'set it'!"
+
+Dr. Hoffman arrived the next day.
+
+"Vell, vell, Missis Sahvah," he said anxiously as he saw her lying so
+ominously still on the bed, "you haf not been trying to push somevon
+across de top of Lake Erie, haf you?" Sahwah smiled faintly. A ray of
+sunlight seemed to have entered the room with the doctor, also a gust of
+wind. He had thrown his hat right into a bouquet of flowers and his hair
+stood on end and his tie was askew with the haste he had made in getting
+to the hospital from the train. "Now about this hip, yes?" he said in a
+businesslike tone. Without any ceremony he brushed the nurse aside and
+unwrapped the bandages. "Ach so," he said, feeling of the joint with a
+practised hand, "you did a good job, Missis Sahvah. You make out of your
+bone a splinter. But vot is dis I hear about operating?" he suddenly
+exclaimed. "De very idea! Don't you let dem amputate your leg off! Such
+fool doctors! It's a vonder dey did not cut your head off to cure de
+bump!" His voice rose to a regular roar. Dr. Lord, coming in at that
+moment, stopped in astonishment at the sight of this strange doctor
+standing over his patient. "For vy did you want to amputate her leg
+off?" shouted Dr. Hoffman at him, dancing up and down in front of him
+and shaking his finger under his nose. "It is no more diseased dan yours
+is. And you call yourself a surgeon doctor! Bah! You go out and play in
+de sunshine and let me take care of dis hip."
+
+"Who the dickens are you?" asked Dr. Lord, looking at him as though he
+thought he were an escaped lunatic.
+
+"Dis is who I am," replied Dr. Hoffman, handing him a card. "I vas in
+eighteen-ninety-five by de _Staatsklinick_ in Berlin." Dr. Lord fell
+back respectfully.
+
+"I know someting about dot Missis Sahvah's bones," went on Dr. Hoffman,
+"and I know dey vill knit if you gif dem a chance. If all goes vell she
+vill valk again in t'ree months."
+
+"I'd like to see you do it," said Dr. Lord.
+
+"Patience, my friend," said Dr. Hoffman, "first ve make a little plaster
+cast." When Mrs. Brewster came in the afternoon she found a strange
+doctor in command and Dr. Lord and the nurses obeying his orders as if
+hypnotized. When she went home that night, hope had come to life again
+in her heart, where it had been dead for more than a week. Dr. Hoffman
+spent the afternoon having X-ray photographs of the joint made, and sat
+up all night trying to figure out how those bones could be set so they
+would knit and still not leave the joint stiff. By morning he had the
+solution.
+
+The next day--the day the limb was to have been amputated--an operation
+of a very different nature took place. Dr. Hoffman, looking more like a
+pastry cook in his operating clothes than anything else, bustled around
+the operating room keeping the nurses and assisting physicians on the
+jump.
+
+"Who's the Dutchman that's doing the bossing?" asked a pert young
+interne of one of the doctors.
+
+"Shut up," answered the doctor addressed, "that's Hoffman, of the
+_Staatsklinick_ in Berlin, and the Royal College of Vienna. He was
+Professor of Anatomy in the _Staatsklinick_ '95-'96, don't you
+remember?" he said, turning to one of the other doctors. "He's a wizard
+at bonesetting. He performed that operation on Count Esterhazy's
+youngest son that kept him from being a cripple." The younger doctor
+looked at Dr. Hoffman with a sudden respect. The case in question was a
+famous one in surgical annals.
+
+Dr. Lord, angry as he was at Dr. Hoffman's arraignment of him before the
+nurses and visitors, was yet a big enough man to realize that he had a
+chance to learn something from this sarcastic intruder who had so
+unceremoniously taken his case out of his hands, and swallowing his
+wrath, asked permission to witness the operation. "Ach, yes, to be
+sure," said Dr. Hoffman, with his old geniality. "You must not mind that
+I vas so cross yesterday," he went on, "it vas because I vas so
+impatient ven I hear you vanted to amputate dot girl's leg off. But I
+forget," he said magnanimously, "you do not know how to set de badly
+splintered bones so dey vill knit, as I do. Bring all de doctors in you
+vant to, and all de nurses too. Ve vill haf a _Klinick_."
+
+Thus it was that the large operating room of the hospital was crowded to
+the very edge of the "sterile field" with eager medical men, glad of the
+chance to watch Dr. Hoffman at work. "Who is that young girl in here?"
+asked Dr. Lord impatiently, as the anaesthetic was about to be
+administered.
+
+"Some friend of the patient," explained the head nurse. "Hoffman let her
+in himself." The young girl in question was Medmangi. Dr. Hoffman knew
+all about her ambition to become a doctor and allowed her to come into
+the operating room. So she began her career by witnessing one of the
+most inspired operations of a widely famed surgeon.
+
+When Sahwah came out of the ether she felt as if she were held in a
+vise. "What's the matter?" she asked dreamily. "I feel so stiff and
+queer."
+
+"It's the cast they put you in," answered her mother.
+
+Sahwah moved her arms carefully to see if they were in working order
+yet. Lightly she touched the hard substance that surrounded her hip
+bone. "They didn't cut it off, did they?" she asked in sudden terror.
+She could not tell by the feeling whether she had two legs or one.
+
+Dr. Hoffman, coming in in time to hear the question, snorted violently.
+"Don't talk such nonsense, Missis Sahvah," he said, waving his hands
+emphatically. "Dot limb is still vere it belongs, and vill be as good as
+ever ven de cast comes off."
+
+The watchers around the bed that day wore very different expressions
+from what they had worn all week. Just since yesterday despair had given
+way to hope and hope to assurance. Her mother and father and Nyoda
+hovered over the bed with radiant faces, and the Winnebagos, after
+seeing Sahwah's favorable condition with their own eyes, retired to
+Gladys's barn to celebrate. The rules of the hospital forbade the amount
+of noise they felt they must make. Dick Albright smiled his first smile
+that day since the night of the accident.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+THE HONOR OF THE WINNEBAGOS.
+
+  "For High Style use the Preterite,
+  For Common use the Past,
+  In compound verbal tenses
+  Put the Participle last.
+  The Perfect Tense with 'Avoir'
+  With the Subject must agree
+  (Or does this rule apply to the
+  Auxiliary 'to be'?)."
+
+Migwan, in high spirits, resolved the rules in her French grammar into
+poetry as she learned them. Regular lessons were gotten out of the way
+as quickly as possible these days to give more time to the study of
+history. And to Migwan studying history meant not merely the memorizing
+of a number of facts attached to dates which might or might not stay in
+her mind at the crucial time; it was the bringing to life of bygone
+races and people, and putting herself in their places, and living along
+with them the events described on the pages. Taking it in this way,
+Migwan had a very clear and vivid picture of the things she was
+learning, and her answers to questions showed such a thorough knowledge
+of her subject that she was regarded as a "grind" at history, while the
+truth was that she did less "grinding" than the rest of the class, who
+merely memorized figures and facts without calling in the aid of the
+imagination. So Migwan learned her new history and reviewed her old, and
+was as happy as the day was long.
+
+As the time approached for the examination she felt more sure of herself
+every day. The long hours of patient study were about to be rewarded,
+and she would bring honor to the Winnebagos by winning the Parsons
+prize. That little point about bringing honor to the Winnebagos was
+keenly felt by Migwan. Ever since Sahwah had covered herself with
+undying glory in the game with the Carnegie Mechanics, Migwan felt a
+longing to distinguish herself in some way also. Sahwah's fame was
+widespread, and when any of the Winnebagos happened to mention that they
+belonged to that particular group, some one was sure to say, "The
+Winnebago Camp Fire? Oh, yes, it was one of your number who won the
+basketball championship for the school by making a record jump for the
+ball, wasn't it?" The whole group lived in the reflected glory of Sahwah
+the Sunfish. Now, thought Migwan resolutely, they would have something
+else to be proud about. In the future people would say, "The Winnebagos?
+Oh, yes, it was one of your girls who carried off the Parsons prize in
+history!"
+
+Migwan thrilled with the joy of it, and plunged more deeply into the
+pages before her. She was a different girl nowadays from the pale,
+anxious-faced one who had sat up night after night during the winter,
+desperately trying to add something to the scanty income by the labor of
+pen and typewriter. Now she was always happy and sparkling, and
+performed her household tasks with such a will that her languid mother,
+lying and watching her, was likewise filled with an ambition to be up
+and doing. She was never cross with Betty these days, no matter how many
+fits of temper that young lady indulged in. Professor Green often
+stopped her in the hall to ask her how she was getting along in her
+preparation, and offered to lend her reference books which would help
+her in her study. Everybody seemed to be anxious for her to win the
+prize, and willing to give her all the help possible.
+
+Migwan did not make the mistake of studying until late the night before
+the examination. She went to bed at nine o'clock, so as to be in fit
+condition. When she closed her books after the final study she knew all
+that was to be learned from them. The examination was held in the senior
+session room after the close of school. Five pupils participated. One
+was Abraham Goldstein, another was George Curtis, who liked Migwan very
+well and hated Abraham cordially; the other two were girls. They all sat
+in one row of seats; Migwan first, then George, then Abraham, and behind
+him the two girls. The lists of questions were given out. "I hardly need
+to say," said the teacher in attendance, "that the honor system will be
+in force during this examination."
+
+Migwan made an effort to still the wild beating of her heart and read
+the questions through. They all appeared easy to her, as she had had
+such a thorough preparation. George Curtis groaned to himself as he
+looked them over, for there were two which he saw at a glance he would
+be unable to answer. Abraham read his and looked thoughtful. Migwan
+wrote rapidly with a sure and inspired pen until she came to the last
+question. There she halted in dismay. The question was in the Ancient
+History group and read, in part, "Who was the invader of Israel before
+Sennacherib?" For the life of her she could not think of the name of the
+Assyrian invader. Last night the whole thing had been as clear as
+crystal in her mind. She thought until the perspiration stood out on her
+forehead; she tried every method of suggestion that she knew, but all in
+vain; the name still eluded her. While she was trying so desperately to
+recall the name, George Curtis in the seat behind was watching her. By
+chance he had caught a glimpse of her paper, and saw the figure 10
+followed by an empty space, so he knew that it was the tenth question
+she was having trouble with. This happened to be one he knew and he had
+just written it out in a bold, black hand. He was out of the race for
+the prize, for there were two whole questions left out on his sheet. By
+certain signs of distress from the two girls behind him he knew that
+they, too, were out, and it now lay between Migwan and Abraham. Abraham
+was not very well liked by the boys since the affair of the statue.
+George despised him utterly, and he could not bear to think of his
+winning that prize.
+
+He watched his chance. It came at last. The teacher dropped her pencil
+behind her desk, and in the instant when she was picking it up he
+reached out and pulled Migwan's hair sharply. When she turned around in
+surprise he framed with his lips the name "Sargon." She understood it
+perfectly. Then came a mental struggle which matched Sahwah's terrific
+physical one that day in camp. On one side college stood with its doors
+wide open to welcome her; she heard the plaudits of her friends who
+expected and wanted her to win the prize; she saw the joy in her
+mother's face when she heard the news; she heard the heartfelt
+congratulations of Nyoda and the Winnebagos who would share in her
+glory. On the other hand she heard just five ugly words echoing in her
+ears. "_You didn't win it honestly!"_ She tried to stifle the voice of
+science. "I knew it perfectly all the time," she said to herself, "and
+it only slipped my mind for an instant." "But you forgot," said the
+voice, "and if he hadn't told you you wouldn't have known."
+
+Miserably she argued the question back and forth. It she didn't win the
+prize Abraham would, and he could well afford to go to college without
+the money. "He'd cheat if he had the chance," she told herself. "That
+doesn't help you any," pricked the accuser. "You talk about the honor of
+the Winnebagos. If you use that information you would be dishonoring the
+Winnebagos! You're a cheat, you're a cheat," it said tauntingly, and a
+little sparrow on the window sill outside took up the mocking refrain,
+"Cheat! Cheat!" Stung as though some one had pointed an accusing finger
+at her, Migwan flung down her pen in despair and resolutely blotted her
+paper. She handed in her examination with the last half of the last
+question unanswered, and fled from the room with unseeing eyes. And in
+the instant when George was trying to tell Migwan the answer, Abraham,
+who had also forgotten the name of Sargon, glanced over toward George's
+paper and saw it written out in his easily readable hand. Without a
+qualm he wrote it down on his own paper with a triumphant flourish.
+
+There was great surprise throughout the school a few days later when the
+grades of the examination were made public: Elsie Gardiner, 95; Abraham
+Goldstein, 98, winner of the Parsons cash prize of $100.
+
+Migwan felt like a wanderer on the face of the earth after losing that
+history prize. She shrank from meeting the friends who had so
+confidently expected her to win it, and her own thoughts were too
+painful to be left alone with. If Hinpoha had been wandering in the
+Desert of Waiting for the past few months, Migwan was sunk deep in the
+Slough of Despond. She was at the age when death seemed preferable to
+defeat, and she wished miserably that she would fall ill of some mortal
+disease, and never have to face the world again with failure written on
+her forehead. "Oh, why," she wailed in anguish of spirit, as has many an
+older and wiser person when confronted with this same unanswerable
+question, "why was I given this glimpse of Paradise only to have the
+gate slammed in my face?" That spectre of the winter before, the belief
+that success would never be hers, gripped her again with its icy hand.
+And was it any wonder? Twice now the means to enter college had been
+within her reach, and twice it had been swept away in a single day. But
+while Migwan was thus learning by hard experience that there is many a
+slip twixt the cup and the lip, she was also to learn from that same
+schoolmistress the truth of the old saying, "Three times and out." In
+the meantime, however, the skies were as gray as the wings of the
+Thunderbird, and life was like a jangling discord struck on a piano long
+out of tune.
+
+But even if we _would_ rather be dead than alive, as long as we _are_
+alive there remain certain duties which have to be performed regardless
+of the state of our emotional barometers, and Migwan discovered with a
+start one day that there were at least a dozen letters in her top bureau
+drawer waiting to be answered. "It's a shame," she said to herself, as
+she looked them over. "I haven't written to the Bartletts since last
+November." The Bartletts were the parents of the little boy who was
+traced by the aid of her timely snapshot. She opened Mrs. Bartlett's
+letter and glanced over it to put herself in the mood for answering it.
+She laughed sardonically as she read. Mrs. Bartlett, confident that
+Migwan was going to use the reward money to go to college, discussed the
+merits of different courses, and advised Migwan, above all things, with
+her talent for writing, to put the emphasis on literature and history.
+Migwan took a certain grim delight in telling Mrs. Bartlett what had
+happened to her ambition to go to college. She had a Homeric sense of
+humor that could see the point when the gods were playing pranks on
+helpless mortals. She told the story simply and frankly, without any
+"literary style," such as was usually present in her letters to a high
+degree; neither did she bewail her lot and seek sympathy, for Migwan was
+no craven.
+
+Then, having told Mrs. Bartlett that she had made up her mind to give up
+thoughts of college for several years at least, as her duty to her
+mother came before her ambition, and had sealed and sent away the
+letter, it suddenly came over her that the writing she had done all
+winter and which she now considered a waste of time, had done something
+for her after all; it had taught her the use of the typewriter, a
+knowledge which she could turn to account during the summertime, and by
+working in an office somewhere, she could possibly earn enough money to
+enter college in the fall after all. And up went Migwan's spirits again,
+like a jack-in-the-box, and went soaring among the clouds like the
+swallows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+AN AUTOMOBILE AND A DRIVER.
+
+Along in the last week of May, Nyoda, on a shopping tour downtown,
+dropped into a restaurant for a bit of lunch. As she was sitting down to
+the table, another young woman came and sat down opposite her. The two
+glanced at each other.
+
+"Why, Elizabeth Kent!" exclaimed the latest arrival.
+
+"Why, Norma Williamson!" exclaimed Nyoda, recognizing an old college
+friend.
+
+"Not Norma Williamson any more," said the friend, blushing as she drew
+off her glove and displayed the rings on her fourth finger; "Norma
+Bates."
+
+"What are you doing to pass the time away?" asked the pretty little
+matron when she had exhausted her own experiences of the last few years.
+Nyoda told her about her teaching and the guardianship of the
+Winnebagos. "Camp Fire Girls?" said Mrs. Bates. "How delightful! I think
+that is one of the best things that ever happened to girls. If I were
+not so frightfully busy I would take a group too--I may yet. But I wish
+you would bring your girls out to visit us. We're living on the Lake
+Shore for the summer. Camp Fire Girls would certainly know how to have a
+good time at our place. We have a launch and a sailboat and horses to
+ride and a tennis court. Can't you come out next Saturday?" Nyoda
+thought perhaps they could. "I'll tell you what to do," said Mrs. Bates,
+warming to the scheme. "Come out Friday after school and stay until
+Sunday night. That will give the girls more chance to do things. We have
+plenty of room."
+
+"The same hospitable Norma Williamson as of old," said Nyoda, smiling at
+her. "Don't you remember how we girls used to flock to your room in
+college, and when it was apparently as fall as it could get you would
+always make room for one more?"
+
+"I love to have people visit me," said Mrs. Bates simply.
+
+"By the way," said Nyoda, as she rose to depart, "how do you get to
+Bates Villa?"
+
+"Take the Interurban car," replied Mrs. Bates, "and get off at Stop
+_42_. The Limited leaves the Interurban Station at four o'clock; that
+would be a good car to come on."
+
+"All right," said Nyoda, extending her hand in farewell; "we'll be
+there."
+
+The news of the invitation to spend a week-end in the country was
+received with a shout by the Winnebagos. Their only regret was that
+Sahwah would be unable to go. "Never mind, Sahwah," comforted Nyoda,
+"Mrs. Bates wants us to come out again when the water is warm enough to
+go in bathing and by that time your hip will be all right."
+
+On Friday, after school was out, Nyoda and Gladys left the building
+together. "You are coming home with me, as we planned, until it is time
+to take the car?" asked Nyoda.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll have to go home first, after all," said Gladys. "I came
+away in such a hurry this morning that I forgot my sweater and my tennis
+shoes and I really must have them. You come home with me."
+
+But on arriving at the Evans house they found nobody home. Gladys rang
+and waited and rang again, but there was no answer. Gladys frowned with
+vexation. "I simply must have that sweater and those shoes," she said.
+"There's no use in waiting until some one comes home; it'll be too late.
+Mother has gone for the day and father is out of town, and if Katy has
+been given a day off she won't be at home until evening. We'll have to
+break into the house, that's all there is to it."
+
+Feeling like burglars, they tried all the windows on the first floor and
+the basement. Everything was locked tightly. Gladys began to feel
+desperate. "Do you suppose I had better break the pantry window," she
+asked, "or possibly one of the cellar ones? I'll pay for it out of my
+allowance. I think the pantry window would be the best, because the door
+at the head of the cellar stairs is likely to be locked and we might not
+be able to get upstairs if we did get into the cellar."
+
+Nyoda was inspecting the upper windows of the house. "There is one open
+a little," she said; "the one over the side entrance." Gladys abandoned
+her idea of breaking the pantry window and bent her energies to reaching
+the open one. With the aid of Nyoda she climbed up the post of the
+little side porch, swung herself over the edge of the roof and raised
+the window.
+
+"Stop where you are!" called a commanding voice. Gladys and Nyoda both
+started guiltily. A man was running across the lawn from the next
+estate. "Stop or I'll call the police," he said, coming upon the drive.
+
+He looked much disconcerted when Nyoda and Gladys both burst into a
+ringing peal of laughter. "Oh, it's too funny for anything," said
+Gladys, wiping her eyes, "to be caught breaking into your own house.
+You're a good man, whoever you are, for keeping an eye on the house,"
+she said to the puzzled-looking arrester, "but the joke is on you this
+time. This is my father's house. I'm Gladys Evans. Give him one of my
+cards out of my purse, Nyoda, so he'll believe it."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the man, convinced that Gladys had a right to
+enter the Evans's house by the second-story window if she chose. "I'm
+the new gardener next door and I didn't know you, and it always looks
+suspicious to see such goings-on."
+
+"You did perfectly right," said Gladys, as he went back to his work.
+
+Laughing extravagantly over their being taken for housebreakers, Gladys
+climbed into the window and went downstairs. Opening the front door a
+crack, she gave a low whistle which she fondly believed to be a
+burglar-like signal. Nyoda answered with a similar whistle. "Is that
+you, Diamond Dick?" she asked in a thrilling whisper.
+
+"Who stands without?" asked Gladys.
+
+"It is I, Dark-lantern Pete," hissed Nyoda.
+
+"Give the countersign," commanded Gladys.
+
+"Six buckets of blood!" replied Nyoda in a curdling voice.
+
+Gladys admitted her into the house and they both sat down on the stairs
+and shrieked with laughter. "Oh, I can hardly wait until we get down to
+the car, so we can tell the other girls," said Gladys. "Caught in the
+act! My fair name is ruined. Now for some dinner."
+
+"I'm hungry for a pickle," she said as they foraged in the pantry for
+something to eat. "Wait a minute until I go down cellar and get some."
+As she opened the door of the cool cellar she started back in surprise.
+On the floor lay Katy, the maid, unconscious. An overturned chair beside
+her and a shattered light globe told how she had tried to screw a new
+bulb into the fixture in the ceiling and had tipped over with the chair,
+striking her head on the cement floor. "Nyoda, come down here," called
+Gladys. Nyoda hastened down. Together they laid the unconscious girl on
+a pile of carpet and tried to revive her. After a few minutes' work
+Nyoda went upstairs and called the ambulance to take Katy to the
+hospital. When she had been examined by a surgeon and pronounced badly
+stunned but not seriously injured, Gladys and Nyoda breathed a sigh of
+relief and left her in the care of the hospital.
+
+"We've had enough excitement to-day to last a month," said Gladys, as
+they hastened tack to the house the second time to get the sweater and
+shoes. "I'm all tired out."
+
+"So am I," said Nyoda.
+
+"We have just time enough to make that four o'clock car, and none to
+spare," said Gladys, as they rode toward town in the street-car. As if
+everything were conspiring against them to-day, a heavy truck, loaded
+with boxes, got caught in the car-track right in front of them and
+blocked traffic for ten minutes. Gladys and Nyoda looked tragically at
+each other at this delay. Nyoda held up her watch significantly. It was
+ten minutes to four. Just then Gladys spied a man she knew in an
+automobile, slowly passing the car. She called to him through the open
+window. "Will you take us in if we get off the car?" she asked. "We're
+trying to make the four o'clock Limited."
+
+"Certainly," agreed the obliging friend. The transfer of seats was soon
+made. "How much time have you?" asked the friend as he shoved in the
+spark.
+
+"Ten minutes," replied Gladys.
+
+"We'll make it," said the friend, dodging between the vehicles that were
+standing around the disabled truck, helping to pull it from the
+car-tracks. Getting into a clear road, he opened the throttle and they
+proceeded like the wind for about six blocks. Then, for no apparent
+reason, the car slowed down, and with a whining whir of machinery came
+to a dead stop. "I'm afraid I can't make good my promise to catch that
+car," said the friend in a vexed tone, after vainly trying to start the
+car for several minutes. "I'll have to be towed to a garage," Nyoda and
+Gladys jumped out, hailed a passing street-car and reached the station
+just five minutes too late. The Limited had already pulled out.
+
+"Five girls with red ties?" repeated the crossing policeman when they
+made inquiries to find out if the other girls had gone and left them.
+"They all got on the Limited." There was no doubt about their having
+gone, then.
+
+"You know, you said if any were late they'd get left," said Gladys.
+"Whoever was here for the car was to go and not wait. Won't they laugh,
+though, at you being the late one?"
+
+"There won't be another Limited for two hours," said Nyoda impatiently,
+"and the local takes twice as long to get there. I'll telephone Mrs.
+Bates that we missed this car but will come out on the next Limited."
+
+"Missed the car?" said Mrs. Bates, when they had her on the wire.
+"That's too bad. But you won't have to wait for the other Limited. Our
+driver is in town to-day with the automobile and he can bring you out.
+He's in Morrison's now ordering some supplies, and the car is at the
+corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street. Just get into the car and
+it'll be all right. John always calls me up before he starts for home
+and I'll tell him about you. It's a blue car, rather bright, with a cane
+streamer."
+
+Much cheered by the thought of an automobile ride through the country
+instead of a two-hour wait and the prospect of being packed like
+sardines into the crowded interurban car, Nyoda and Gladys moved down to
+the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street and found the car just as
+Mrs. Bates had said. With a sigh of comfort they settled down on the
+cushions. "Our struggles are over," said Nyoda, leaning back luxuriously
+and counting over the various things that had happened to them since
+leaving school at noon. In a few moments the driver appeared, touched
+his hat respectfully to the two girls in the tonneau, and got into the
+front seat without any comment. He had his orders from Mrs. Bates.
+
+"It's just like Norma Williamson to have a blue car with blue cushions,"
+said Nyoda, as they sped through the streets toward the city limits.
+"She was always so fond of blue in college. And this cane streamer is
+just the finishing touch. She always liked things trimmed up gaily. It's
+a pleasant thing for the Winnebagos that I met her that day. She'll be a
+regular fairy godmother to us." Talking happily about the fun they would
+have on this week-end party, they rode along the pleasant country roads,
+bordered with flowering apple trees, and drank in the sweet-scented air
+with unbounded delight. "Could anything be lovelier than the country in
+May?" sighed Nyoda.
+
+"Wouldn't it be a joke," said Gladys, "if we were to get there ahead of
+the others, after missing the car? Wouldn't they stare, though, to find
+us waiting for them? We must be nearly there now." The automobile left
+the main road and turned down toward the lake. "That must be the place,"
+continued Gladys, as a white house came into view far in the distance.
+
+"I don't see any of the girls waiting for us," said Nyoda. "I declare, I
+believe we're here first. Oh, what a joke!" The estate through which
+they were driving was a very large one, much of it covered with great
+trees. The house was painted white, and perched directly on the edge of
+the cliff. The automobile halted before the porch and Nyoda and Gladys
+got out. A woman, evidently a servant, came to the screen door and held
+it open, motioning them to come in. Neither Mrs. Bates nor any of the
+girls were in evidence. The servant said nothing.
+
+"I believe they're all hiding on us!" said Nyoda, getting a sudden light
+on this apparently neglectful reception. "I know Norma's tricks of old.
+If we could only think of some way to turn the laugh on them!" The
+servant who had admitted them led the way to an inner room and opened a
+door, stepping aside to let them go first. Then she followed and closed
+the door after them. They found that they were in an elevator. The woman
+pushed a button and they began to rise. "Of all things, an elevator in a
+country house!" said Gladys. They rose to a height which must have
+equalled the third story of the house, although they passed no open
+floor. They came to a halt before an opening covered with an iron
+grating. To the girls it looked like the ordinary elevator entrance. At
+a touch from the woman the grating moved aside and they stepped out into
+the room. The elevator descended noiselessly and Nyoda and Gladys were
+alone.
+
+"It's a tower room!" said Gladys. The chamber they were in was square,
+about fifteen by fifteen, furnished as a bedroom. Through a door which
+opened at one side they could see a luxurious tiled bath. The walls and
+ceiling of the chamber were tinted a deep violet, and the covers on the
+bed, dresser, table and the upholstery of the chairs were of the same
+shade. The lamp globes hanging from the ceiling were deep purple.
+
+"What an extraordinary color to decorate a room in," said Nyoda. "I
+wonder if this is where we are going to sleep. Where can Mrs. Bates be,
+I wonder?" she said, getting rather impatient for the joke to be sprung.
+
+Just at this time Gladys made a discovery. There was only one window in
+the room, curtained with heavy cretonne, purple, to match the rest of
+the hangings. Drawing the curtain aside to look out at the landscape,
+she suddenly stood still, frozen to the spot. At her exclamation Nyoda
+turned around and also stood as if turned to stone. _The window was
+barred_! "What does it mean?" asked Gladys in a horrified voice. The two
+hastened back to the elevator entrance and looked for the button to
+summon the elevator. There was none. They called down the shaft
+repeatedly, but there was no answer. As they stood listening for sounds
+from below they heard the automobile which had brought them start up and
+drive away from the house. After that there was not another sound of any
+kind. An unnamable terror seized them both. Each read the other's fear
+in her eyes. Rushing to the window, they looked out. There was nothing
+to be seen but the lake stretching out before them, calm and smiling in
+the May sunshine. The boom of the waves sounded directly beneath them,
+and they knew that the tower was on the extreme edge of the bluff.
+
+"This is not Norma Bates's house," said Nyoda in a frightened voice.
+"She said that they were a hundred feet back from the lake."
+
+"Whose house is it, then?" asked Gladys.
+
+"I can't imagine," said Nyoda. "It's all a mistake somewhere."
+
+"But that was the Bates's automobile, all right, that we got into," said
+Gladys.
+
+"Yes," said Nyoda reflectively; "bright blue with a cane streamer,
+standing at the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street. _But was it
+the right one?"_ she asked suddenly, putting her hands to her head.
+"That driver never said a word, just got in and drove off. What on earth
+are we into?"
+
+Gladys's face suddenly went as white as chalk. "Nyoda!" she gasped,
+clutching the other girl's arm.
+
+"What is it?" asked Nyoda.
+
+"You read every day in the papers of girls disappearing," said Gladys
+faintly, "never to be heard of again. Have we--have we--disappeared?"
+
+"I don't know," said Nyoda, with thoughts whirling. She turned away from
+the window, toward the elevator. Not a sound of any kind had been heard,
+and yet when she turned around there was the elevator up again with the
+same woman in it who had brought them up. Instead of opening the door,
+however, she pressed something and a little slide opened at about the
+height of her head. Through this she passed a supper tray, which she set
+on a shelf on the wall at the side of the elevator. Gladys and Nyoda
+hastened toward her.
+
+"What is the meaning of this?" asked Nyoda. The woman made no answer.
+"In whose house are we?" demanded Nyoda. Still no reply. "Answer me,"
+said Nyoda sharply. The woman pointed to her ears and shook her head,
+then pointed to her lips and shook her head. "She's deaf and dumb!"
+exclaimed Nyoda. The woman pressed a button and the elevator sank from
+sight.
+
+Nyoda and Gladys faced each other in consternation. The mystery was
+becoming deeper. Beyond a doubt they were not in Mrs. Bates's house;
+beyond a doubt they were the victims of some mistake; but how was the
+mistake to be cleared up if they could not make themselves understood?
+They looked the room over thoroughly for some clew to the mystery. They
+found none. There was no door leading from the room except the one
+opening into the bath. There was no door leading out from the bath, to
+any other room; neither was there any window. The little room was
+lighted by electricity. As in the other room, everything here was
+violet-colored. The tiled walls, the floor, the calcimined ceiling, the
+light globe, the enameled medicine chest, the outside of the bathtub,
+and even a little three-legged stool, were all the same shade. The
+wonder of the girls increased momentarily.
+
+"Can this be real," asked Nyoda, looking around her in a daze, "or are
+we in the middle of some nightmare? Pinch me to see if I'm awake."
+
+"We're awake, all right," said Gladys.
+
+"Then have we dropped back into one of the novels of Dumas? Can this be
+the year 1915? Imprisoned in a lonely tower, with no window except one
+over the lake, and that window barred. How did we get here, anyway?" she
+asked wearily, her head spinning with the effort to make head or tail
+out of their position. "Let's see, just how was it? We missed the
+Limited, telephoned Mrs. Bates, and she told us that her automobile was
+at the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street--a bright blue
+automobile with a cane streamer--and we should get in and the driver
+would come and take us out to Bates Villa. We went down to the corner,
+found the automobile, got in, and the driver came and drove off and we
+landed here." Her temples throbbed as she tried to recall anything out
+of the way in the business. But no light came. The whole thing was
+mysterious, inexplicable, grotesque.
+
+"Hadn't we better eat something?" suggested Gladys gently. "It evidently
+isn't their intention to starve us, whatever they are keeping us here
+for."
+
+"You are right," said Nyoda, and she lifted the tray down from the
+shelf. The dishes and silver were of good quality, but the knives were
+so dull that it was impossible to cut anything with them. After vainly
+trying to make an impression on a piece of meat, Gladys threw her knife
+aside impatiently.
+
+"They certainly never made those knives to cut with," she said.
+
+At her remark Nyoda raised her head suddenly. She thought she saw a ray
+of light on the situation. "Gladys," she said, "do you know what kind of
+people they give dull knives to? It's insane people! This room was
+undoubtedly designed for some one afflicted in that way. That is why the
+window is barred, and there is no door, and why the room is done in
+lavender. Lavender has a soothing and depressing effect on people's
+nerves and would probably keep an insane person from becoming violent.
+We got here through some awful mistake."
+
+Gladys shuddered violently. "How horrible!" she said. "I suppose that
+woman actually considers us insane. How long do you suppose they will
+keep us here?"
+
+"Only until they find out their mistake," answered Nyoda, "which I hope
+will be soon. I shall write a note and give it to the woman when she
+comes up again."
+
+Both their spirits revived when they arrived at this theory, and they
+returned to their supper with good appetites. "I wish I could cut this
+meat," sighed Gladys. Then she brightened. "I have my Wohelo knife in my
+handbag," she said, rising and going over to the bed where her coat lay.
+She stopped in disappointment when she opened the bag. The knife was not
+there. "I remember now," she said; "I took it out just before we left
+home and must have forgotten to put it back in again, we left in such a
+hurry."
+
+"What will the girls think, anyway, when we fail to arrive at the
+Bates's?" said Nyoda.
+
+"They'll probably telephone to town," said Gladys, "and mother will know
+I didn't get there and she will be frantic." She lost all her appetite
+with a rush when this thought came to her.
+
+They waited impatiently for the return of the woman with the tray. Nyoda
+wrote a note and had it ready for her. It read:
+
+"There has been some mistake. We are not the persons you intended to
+keep here."
+
+But the woman did not come. Darkness fell outside the window and they
+lighted the lights in the room, but still there was no movement of the
+elevator. They spent the evening pacing up and down the room, discussing
+the mysterious situation in which they found themselves, until from
+sheer weariness they lay down on the bed. They did not undress and they
+left the lights burning, intending to watch for the return of the woman.
+They set the tray on the floor at some distance from the elevator.
+
+"Can it be possible," said Gladys, "that it was only this afternoon that
+we broke into our house? It seems years ago." Nyoda lay staring at the
+elevator shaft, awaiting the return of the cage.
+
+"This purple glare over everything hurts my eyes," she said. She closed
+them a minute to get relief. When she opened them again there was a
+broad streak of light coming in through the window. The lights were out
+in the room and the tray had disappeared from the floor. Gladys lay
+sound asleep, her head pillowed on her arm. Nyoda started up and was on
+the point of rousing Gladys. "No, I'll let her sleep," she thought;
+"it's a good thing she can."
+
+She went to the window and looked out through the bars at the sun rising
+over the water. There was the same old lake with which she had been
+familiar all her life, with the cliffs jutting out in points, one always
+a little farther out than the other, to form the great curve of the
+shore line. She must have passed this place dozens of times while riding
+in the lake boats. Here was a scene she had admired many times from the
+open shore, and now she was looking at it from behind bars, a prisoner.
+It was too grotesque to be true. She turned pensively toward the bed and
+noticed with a start that a tray containing breakfast for two stood on
+the shelf beside the elevator. And yet she had not heard a sound! Gladys
+was still asleep on the bed. As Nyoda stood looking down at her she woke
+up and stared around the room uncomprehendingly. She could not place
+herself at first. Then at the sight of the violet room the events of
+yesterday came back to her.
+
+They ate breakfast with what appetite they could and then sat down close
+beside the elevator shaft to be sure and see the deaf-mute when she
+came, for it seemed impossible to detect her visit when they had their
+backs turned. While they waited they examined the iron grating for the
+door opening, but found none. There was apparently no break in the
+scroll-work anywhere, no hinge, no slide arrangement. "Did we come into
+the room through there, or did we only imagine it?" asked Nyoda,
+completely baffled. "Surely we didn't come through that little grating
+that opens on top, did we? I declare, I'm getting so bewildered that if
+any one told us we did come in that way I wouldn't dispute them."
+
+Almost while she was speaking the elevator cage shot rapidly and
+noiselessly into view and the deaf-mute opened the slide to take the
+tray. Instead of giving it to her, however, they gave her the note
+first. She took it and read it and then looked at the two girls in
+silence. "Maybe she would write something if you gave her a pencil,"
+suggested Gladys.
+
+Nyoda handed the woman a pencil through the iron scroll-work. She wrote
+something on the bottom of the paper and handed it back to Nyoda. Nyoda
+took the piece of paper and read:
+
+"_There is no mistake about your being here._"
+
+As she stood in open-mouthed astonishment the elevator sank from view.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+THE ESCAPE.
+
+"No mistake about our being here!" gasped Nyoda. Her knees failed her
+and she sank weakly to the floor. "What can that mean? Are we kidnapped?
+Do you suppose we are being held for ransom?"
+
+"It's too horrible," said Gladys, passing her hand over her eyes. "Such
+things happen in novels, but not in real life."
+
+"And yet," said Nyoda musingly, "if you read the newspapers, you see
+that stranger things happen in reality than in fiction."
+
+"If we're being held for ransom," said Gladys, "then mother and father
+will find out where I am." She was more troubled about the worry her
+disappearance would cause her parents than about any evil which might
+befall herself.
+
+They rushed to the window to see if any boat was passing which they
+could signal. Not a sign of anything. Whoever had constructed this tower
+had considered a great many things. Built in the middle of an extensive
+estate and hidden on three sides by tall trees, it was not visible from
+the road at all. The barred window in the tower could only be seen from
+the lake side, so that if some one should wander through the grounds the
+appearance of the house itself would excite no suspicion. At some
+distance on each side of the tower a long rocky pier extended far out
+into the water. It was not a landing pier, for the rocks were piled
+unevenly on each other. These rocks changed the current of the water and
+made boating in the vicinity dangerous, so that launches and sailboats
+gave the place a wide berth. Then, on the outside of the barred window,
+clearing it by about two feet, there was an ornamental wooden trellis on
+which vines grew, which effectually screened the barred window from
+detection on the lake side.
+
+All these excellent points of construction were borne in on the girls as
+they circled the room again and again looking for some way of escape.
+Discouraged and heartsick, they finally sat down on the bed and faced
+each other When the woman brought their dinner they made a further
+attempt to get from her the meaning of their being held there, but in
+vain. To all their written questions she simply wrote,
+
+"I can tell you nothing."
+
+The afternoon dragged slowly by, the girls getting more dejected all the
+time.
+
+"I believe this violet color is affecting me already," said Nyoda. "I
+never felt so depressed and melancholy."
+
+"It's the same way with me," said Gladys.
+
+"If there was only one bright spot to relieve the monotony," said Nyoda,
+"it wouldn't be so bad."
+
+"How about our middy ties?" asked Gladys. "They're bright red and ought
+to inspire courage." She took the ties from her little satchel and
+spread them out over a chair.
+
+"That's better," said Nyoda. "I feel more cheerful already." After
+staring intently at the flaming square of silk for a while her mental
+activity began to revive and she commenced to turn over in her mind
+plans for their escape. Acting on this latest impulse, she wrote a
+letter addressed to a friend of hers and sealed and stamped it. When the
+deaf-mute brought their supper she drew a diamond ring from her finger,
+laid it beside the letter and wrote on a piece of paper,
+
+"The ring is yours if you will mail this letter."
+
+The woman shook her head. Nyoda drew off another ring, a handsome ruby
+surrounded by seed pearls and tiny diamonds. The woman gazed steadfastly
+at it, and Nyoda thought she saw a longing look in her eyes. She turned
+the ring so the stone sparkled in the light. The woman's lips parted and
+her hand crept toward the letter. Nyoda turned the ring in the light
+once more. By the look in the woman's face she knew that she had gained
+her point. In another moment she would accept the bribe. Just then the
+throbbing sound of a motor was heard on the drive. The woman started
+violently, jerked her hand back and sent the elevator down in haste.
+With a gesture of despair Nyoda threw the letter down on the dresser.
+
+"Do you suppose she really is deaf?" asked Gladys. "She seemed to hear
+that sound."
+
+"Maybe she heard it," said Nyoda, "and then again she may have felt the
+vibrations. Who do you suppose has come?"
+
+They spent the evening in a thrill of expectation, but were undisturbed.
+Without lighting the lights they stood looking at the stars through the
+openings in the trellis. At last Nyoda turned from the window and
+snapped on the switch. As she did so she noticed that the elevator cage
+had been up and was just going down. As it sank out of sight she saw
+that the occupant was a man. Soon afterward they heard the throb of the
+motor again and then the sound of a car driving away.
+
+"Where did you put the red ties?" asked Gladys the next morning.
+
+"I didn't take them," said Nyoda. The ties had disappeared from the
+chair overnight.
+
+From sheer nervousness Nyoda began twisting up her felt outing hat in
+her hands. As she did so she came upon something hard in the inside of
+the crown. Investigating she drew out her Wohelo knife. "I had forgotten
+I had it in there," she said. "I put that pocket in my hat just for fun
+and slipped the knife in to see if it would go in."
+
+Why is it that a knife in one's hand inspires a desire to cut something?
+Nyoda immediately began examining the room for a possible means of
+escape with the aid of the knife. Opening the window, she inspected the
+setting of the bars closely. They were set only into the wooden window
+sill. "Gladys," she whispered excitedly, "I believe we can cut the wood
+away from these bars and push them out."
+
+"And what then?" asked Gladys.
+
+"Jump," said Nyoda. "Jump into the lake and swim away."
+
+Not daring to make any attempt in the daytime for fear of the
+mysteriously silent visits of the deaf-mute, who never came at any
+regular time, they waited until after dark, and then Gladys sat close
+beside the elevator shaft, watching for the slightest indication of the
+approaching car. Nyoda meanwhile hacked away at the window casing,
+cutting and splitting it away from the bars. She worked feverishly for
+several hours and succeeded in freeing the ends of three of the bars,
+which would be enough to let them through. Just then Gladys gave a
+warning hiss. The elevator cord was moving. Nyoda drew the shade down
+over the window and closed the purple curtains over it, and both girls
+jumped into bed and pulled the covers over them. They had undressed so
+as to avert suspicion. The next moment the elevator door opened
+silently, but whether it moved up or down or side wise they could not
+make out, and the deaf-mute stepped into the room. Guided by a
+flash-light, she picked up Gladys's red petticoat from the chair and
+departed as silently as she had come. As soon as the elevator had sunk
+out of sight the girls were back at work again. Throwing all her weight
+against the bars, Nyoda bent them out and upward, the wood that held
+them at the top splintering with the strain. Then, leaning out, she
+began to cut away the trellis, which was in the way. It was built out
+from the sill and had no supports on the ground, and the vines which
+were on it came around the corner of the house.
+
+Looking down, she could see that they were indeed right above the lake,
+without a foot of ground at the bottom of the tower. No other part of
+the house was visible from this angle. The waves roared and dashed on
+the cliff below, and a strong wind was blowing from the west. "It looks
+as if a storm were coming," said Nyoda in a low tone. The night was
+wearing away fast and the girls knew that it was safer to escape under
+cover of darkness. About three o'clock in the morning the storm broke, a
+terrific thunder shower. The tower swayed in the wind and at each crash
+they held their breath, thinking that the house had been struck. The
+spray from the waves as they were flung against the rocks often came in
+through the open window. Both girls looked down into the boiling sea
+beneath them and drew back with a shudder. "Wait until the storm is
+over," said Gladys.
+
+"It may be daylight then," said Nyoda. Howling like an imprisoned giant,
+the wind hurled itself against the side of the tower. "There's one thing
+about it," said Nyoda, "we never can swim in those waves with skirts on.
+I'm going to have a bathing suit." Taking the blankets from the bed, she
+made them into straight narrow sacks, cutting various holes in them so
+as to leave the arms and limbs free.
+
+When the storm had abated somewhat they prepared for the plunge. The
+first faint streaks of dawn were showing in the east. Gladys crept out
+on the sill and then shrank back. The surface of the water seemed miles
+below her. "I can't do it, Nyoda," she panted.
+
+"Yes, you can," said Nyoda, patting her on the shoulder. "You aren't
+going to lose your nerve at this stage of the game, are you? 'Screw your
+courage to the sticking point,' We have our fate in our own hands now.
+'Who hesitates is lost.'"
+
+"But the water is so far away," shuddered Gladys.
+
+"What of that?" said Nyoda. "It's perfectly safe to jump. The water is
+very deep along the shore here. Think, just one leap and then we're out
+of this!"
+
+Gladys still hung back. "You go first," she pleaded.
+
+Nyoda made a motion to go and then stopped. "No," she said firmly, "I'd
+rather you went first. You might be afraid to follow me afterward. Brace
+up; remember you're a Winnebago!"
+
+This had its effect and without allowing herself to stop to think Gladys
+tossed her bundle of clothes out of the window and, closing her eyes,
+dropped from the sill. There was a wild moment of suspense as she sank
+downward through the gloom, and then she struck the water and it rolled
+over her head. It was icy cold and for a minute she felt numb. Then the
+waves parted over her head and she felt the wind blowing against her
+face. A great splash beside her terrified her for an instant, and then
+she remembered that it was Nyoda jumping in after her. In a moment a
+head came up nearby and Nyoda inquired calmly how she enjoyed the
+bathing. "It's g-r-r-e-a-t," said Gladys with chattering teeth.
+
+"Now for a little pleasure swim," said Nyoda, striking out. While they
+were swimming away the storm broke the second time; the thunder sounded
+in their ears like cannon and the vivid lightning flashes lit up the
+shore for miles around. By its light they could see that they were
+nearing one of the long stone piers. Climbing up on this, they rested
+until they had their breath back again, although it was a rather
+exciting rest, for the waves were going high over the pier and
+threatened to wash them off every moment. The shore line along here was
+peculiarly rugged and forbidding. Instead of a beach, high cliffs rose
+perpendicularly out of deep water and afforded nowhere a landing place.
+The girls swam slowly and easily, fearing to spend their strength before
+they could reach shallow water, often turning over to float and gain a
+few moments' rest in this way. The waves were very rough and tossed them
+about a great deal, but the wind was west and they were swimming toward
+the east, and as the natural current of the lake was eastward toward
+Niagara, their progress was helped rather than retarded by the force of
+the water.
+
+The storm abated and the sun began to rise over the lake, gilding the
+crest of the waves. Still no sign of a beach. "I can't go much further,"
+said Gladys faintly. Both girls were nearly spent when Nyoda spied a
+strip of yellow in the distance which put new strength into them.
+Putting forth their last efforts, they headed toward it. Trembling with
+weakness and breathless from being buffeted about so much, they gained
+the narrow beach and with a great sigh of relief rolled out onto the
+sand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+A SCHEME AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
+
+We will now have to take our readers away from the Winnebagos and their
+affairs for a few moments and admit them into the private office of Mr.
+Rumford Thurston. Mr. Thurston, dealer in stocks and bonds and promoter
+of investments, was closeted with his business associate and intimate
+friend, Mr. Nathan Scovill. An earnest discussion was in progress, the
+theme of which was apparently drawn from a paper which was spread out on
+the desk between them.
+
+"I tell you, it's the chance of a lifetime," said Mr. Scovill. "We can
+clean up a cool half million on it before the public wakes up, and when
+they do we can take a trip to Hawaii or Manila for our health until the
+business is forgotten. You put in ten thousand now and you'll be on easy
+street for the rest of your life."
+
+"But I tell you, I haven't the ten thousand to put in," answered Mr.
+Thurston crossly. "I haven't one thousand. That last deal finished me."
+
+"Borrow some," said Mr. Scovill impatiently.
+
+"Can't get any more credit," said Mr. Thurston gloomily. "The office
+furniture is attached already."
+
+Mr. Scovill scowled. Then he went carefully over the ground again,
+dwelling on the ease of making money without working for it by the
+simple method of swindling the public, and enlarging on the joys of life
+as a rich man. "Think, man," he said in conclusion, "think what you're
+missing!"
+
+Mr. Thurston leaned his head on his hands and thought of what he was
+missing, and he also thought of something else. A peculiar calculating
+expression appeared in his eyes and around the corners of his mouth.
+"There is some money to be had," he said slowly, "if I can get hold of
+it."
+
+"Where?" asked Mr. Scovill eagerly. "If it's to be had you may rest
+assured we'll get hold of it by hook or crook."
+
+"You remember John Rogers?" asked Mr. Thurston. Mr. Scovill nodded.
+"When he died he left his daughters a fortune in stocks," continued Mr.
+Thurston.
+
+"Yes?" inquired Mr. Scovill encouragingly.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Thurston, with a glitter in his eye, "I was appointed
+guardian of those two girls."
+
+Mr. Scovill whistled. "Meaning to say------" he began.
+
+"That I have the managing of their property until they come of age,"
+finished Mr. Thurston.
+
+"Our fortune's made," said Mr. Scovill, shaking him by the hand.
+
+"The only thing is," said Mr. Thurston, scratching his head
+reflectively, "that the oldest girl comes of age in June, and there
+might be an awkward inquiry just at the wrong time. We can't afford to
+have any investigations begun inside of the next six months if we expect
+to carry through the other scheme. Any breath of scandal would wreck our
+prospects."
+
+Mr. Scovill's face fell. He saw only too clearly the truth of the
+other's words. But where Mr. Thurston came to a halt in front of a dead
+wall, Scovill's scheming mind saw the loophole. "But just suppose," he
+said slowly, "that there shouldn't be any investigation when the oldest
+girl comes of age? Suppose she should never put in a claim for her
+property?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Thurston.
+
+"Something like this," said Mr. Scovill. "If she were to be kept shut up
+somewhere for a year or so until you have had time to make your fortune,
+it would be too late to hurt you with a disclosure after that. Where
+nobody asks questions there is no need of answering."
+
+Thurston saw the point, but he didn't see how it was going to be done.
+It was Scovill who thought out the whole scheme. He had a large piece of
+land far outside the city limits on the lake front. There was an
+unoccupied house on the property. Here the girl could be kept locked up
+on the pretext that she was insane, with a certain woman he knew as
+keeper, a deaf-mute. He shared a secret with her and could use this
+knowledge to force her to serve him. The whole thing was very simple.
+
+"But how are we going to keep the one locked up away from the other?"
+asked Mr. Thurston. "Her sister would have the whole country searching
+for her."
+
+"Then take them both," said Mr. Scovill promptly. "That'll make matters
+simpler yet. You say they have no relatives and are now away in school?
+Nothing could be easier. We'll build a room they can't get out of once
+they're in, and when it's finished you invite them to your house for a
+visit. They'll think they're coming to see you, but it's out there to
+that house they'll go and they'll not come back in a hurry. In the
+meantime you get hold of those stocks and bonds, sell them and put the
+money in this venture and come out a rich man. When you're ready to
+clear out of the country you can let the girls out, and they won't be
+any worse off than when they went in--except that they won't have a
+cent."
+
+Bit by bit the plan was perfected. Mr. Thurston took a sudden interest
+in his orphan wards to the extent of writing to the school where they
+were attending and asking when it closed for the summer. When he was
+informed that school closed the last week in May, he invited the two
+girls, Genevieve and Antoinette Rogers, to spend the first weeks of
+their vacation at his home. He had not seen either of them since they
+were little children. They graciously accepted the invitation.
+
+But on the day they were to arrive, Mr. Thurston found that some private
+business of his very urgently required his presence in another city, and
+left Mr. Scovill to see to the landing of the birds in the trap. Mr.
+Scovill met the unsuspecting girls at the train, explaining with many
+expressions of regret the enforced absence of their guardian, took them
+to dinner in a fine hotel and showed them the sights of the town with
+all the cordiality of a sincere friend of their host, who was doing his
+best to make up for his not being there. He won their hearts completely.
+They were simple girls who had been brought up in a strict church
+school, and the sights and sounds of the large city were all wonderful
+to them.
+
+Now, thanks to Mr. Scovill's activities, the trap was all set. The tower
+was built with its room at the top without any door and its barred
+window, and the deaf-mute was installed on the place and given
+instructions to act as guard to two girls who were mentally unbalanced.
+Furnishing the room in violet was the last touch of his cunning brain,
+because he knew the depressing effect it would have on the inmates. He
+gave strict orders to the keeper to remove any sign of a bright color,
+as this might cause them to become violent.
+
+Mr. Scovill had left directions for his automobile to be at a certain
+place at half-past four to convey them to the house in the country. Now,
+for reasons of his own, Mr. Scovill did not wish to be the last one seen
+in the company of the two girls in case his plans should go wrong and
+some one would start an inquiry for them. Therefore, he gave his driver
+private instructions to drive like the wind with two girls who should be
+placed in the car, and under no condition to let them out of the car.
+
+Accordingly, when they were all a little weary of sight-seeing he
+steered them gently toward the corner of ----th Avenue and L---- Street,
+where the car was to wait for them. Half a block off he saw that it was
+in place. So, pulling out his watch and suddenly remembering that he had
+an important engagement for that very minute, he courteously took his
+leave and pointed out the car they were to get into, telling them that
+it was Mr. Thurston's and would take them to his home. "You can't miss
+it, girls," he said, pointing with his finger. "It's that bright blue
+one with the basket-work streamer." Antoinette and Genevieve thanked him
+kindly for showing them such a good time and entered the car he had
+indicated. Mr. Scovill withdrew into a doorway and watched them. In a
+few moments the driver appeared, saw the two girls in the machine,
+touched his hat to them, and taking his place behind the wheel, drove
+rapidly off in the opposite direction. Mr. Scovill rubbed his hands
+together as he watched the car disappear. It was a way he had when his
+plans were turning out nicely. Forty-five minutes later his driver
+called up from the country house to say that he had brought the girls
+out in safety. Mr. Scovill smiled blandly. So far everything had played
+into his hands. When Mr. Thurston returned the following day he
+announced the fact to him that the birds were safe in the trap. Then he
+left town for a protracted stay. Mr. Thurston made one trip out to the
+house to behold the thing for himself. Riding up in the elevator, he saw
+the girls standing by the barred window of their prison. When they lit
+the light he descended in haste so as not to be seen by them. Then he
+also left town for a while.
+
+The Winnebagos, who were all in time for the Limited except Nyoda and
+Gladys, boarded the car without them and amused themselves during the
+ride by thinking up ways to tease the tardy ones when they should arrive
+on the next car. Pretty Mrs. Bates met them at the car stop with the
+news that Nyoda and Gladys were coming out in the automobile, and when
+they thought it was time for them to arrive they all lined up in the
+road where the drive turned off, and were ready to sing a funny song
+which Migwan had made up about not getting there on time. The blue car
+came in sight and the girls ranged themselves straight across the road
+so it could not pass until the entire song had been sung. With mouths
+open ready to sing they stopped in astonishment. The two girls in the
+tonneau were strangers. They smiled bashfully at the row of maidens with
+the bright red ties.
+
+Mrs. Bates stepped forward. "Whom have you brought us, John?" she asked.
+
+"Why, you said there'd be two girls in the car when I came out,"
+answered the driver; "and there were."
+
+"Oh, is there any mistake?" asked one of the strange girls. "Our names
+are Genevieve and Antoinette Rogers. We've come up from Seaville to
+visit our guardian, Mr. Thurston. He couldn't meet us and another
+gentleman pointed out his automobile and said the driver would take us
+out to Mr. Thurston's country place, and we got in, and he brought us
+here."
+
+"This is Bates Villa," said Mrs. Bates. "You undoubtedly got into our
+car by mistake."
+
+"I'm sorry this is not the right place," said Antoinette in a tone of
+frank regret. "I was so glad when I saw all you girls and thought you
+were to be our friends."
+
+"You will be very welcome guests until your guardian comes for you,"
+said Mrs. Bates in her gracious way.
+
+The Winnebagos were much amused to think that Gladys and Nyoda had
+missed their chance to ride out in the automobile, and added another
+verse to the song to be sung when they should arrive on the next
+Limited. Mrs. Bates found Mr. Thurston's name in the telephone book and
+called his residence, but could get no answer. Now, Mr. Scovill had
+introduced himself to Genevieve and Antoinette as "Mr. Adams." They did
+not know his initials and attempts to get him on the wire were futile.
+
+The girls all went down to the car-track when it was time for the next
+Limited. A regular fusilade of jests and jibes were prepared for Nyoda
+and Gladys. The Limited appeared and thundered by without stopping. "Not
+on this one?" said the girls. "What on earth could have happened?"
+
+"Here comes another car," said Hinpoha; "they're running a
+double-header. Nyoda and Gladys must be on this one." The second car
+whizzed by with a deafening clatter and a cloud of dust.
+
+"Maybe they're not coming," said one of the girls, and disappointment
+was visible on every face. This jolly party would not be complete
+without their beloved Guardian and Gladys. Mrs. Bates telephoned to the
+Evans's house in town, but there was nobody home. She tried the house
+where Nyoda lived, but got no satisfaction, for the landlady merely said
+that Miss Kent had not been home since leaving for school in the
+morning. The evening passed off as merrily as possible and the girls
+rose the next morning feeling sure that Nyoda and Gladys would be out on
+the first car. But the day passed with no sign of them. They telephoned
+to the Evans's again and this time they got Mrs. Evans.
+
+"Gladys hasn't arrived there?" she asked in a frightened voice. "She
+wasn't at home last night. Where can she be?" Wonder gave way to anxiety
+on all sides and there was no more thought of fun.
+
+"They must be out at Mr. Thurston's, of course," suggested Antoinette
+Rogers. Renewed efforts were made to get into communication with Mr.
+Thurston, but in vain. No answer came from the number which was opposite
+his name in the telephone book. Genevieve and Antoinette were highly
+embarrassed at being obliged to stay with strangers, and were not a
+little mystified over the non-appearance of their guardian.
+
+The days passed in frightful suspense for the parents and friends of the
+missing girls. The aid of the police was called in, but they could find
+no clue. Early on the morning of the fourth day Mrs. Evans was called to
+the phone and was overjoyed to hear Gladys's voice on the wire. She and
+Nyoda were at a house on the lake shore and would be home soon. There
+was a happy home-coming that morning. Nyoda and Gladys told the almost
+unbelievable tale of their imprisonment and escape from the tower. After
+lying exhausted on the beach for a time, they had walked until they came
+to a house where they were warmed and lent dry clothes, for they had
+lost their bundles in the waves.
+
+"And that's what would have become of us," said Antoinette Rogers with a
+shudder, when Nyoda and Gladys had finished their story, "if we had not
+made a mistake and gotten into the wrong automobile."
+
+The police were informed of the matter and as soon as Mr. Thurston
+returned to his place of business he was arrested and charged with the
+conspiracy to abduct and forcibly detain his two wards. At first he
+denied any knowledge of the affair, but the proof was overwhelming.
+Nyoda accompanied a delegation of police and witnesses in a motor boat
+to the foot of the tower and showed them the bent-out bars and the very
+place where they had jumped into the water, and later they raided the
+house from the land side. The deaf mute was nowhere to be found. She had
+fled when she discovered that her charges had escaped and was never
+heard of again. They ascended in the elevator but were unable to find
+the contrivance which opened the door into the room, so cunningly was it
+devised, and had to be content with looking through the grill-work into
+the lavender room.
+
+The Rogers girls, who were taken away from the guardianship of Mr.
+Thurston, went to stay with friends in Cincinnati. Mr. Thurston was left
+to pay the penalty of his villainy alone, for Mr. Scovill had made good
+his escape before the plot was disclosed.
+
+Thus Nyoda and Gladys all unknowingly were the cause of a great crime
+being averted, and were regarded as heroines forevermore by the
+Winnebagos and their friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+JOY BEFORE US.
+
+Aunt Phoebe and Hinpoha, armed with sharp meat knives, were cutting up
+suet in the kitchen. Hinpoha, as usual, under her aunt's eye, did
+nothing but make mistakes. "How awkward you are," said Aunt Phoebe
+impatiently. "You don't know how to do a thing properly. I wish that
+Camp Fire business of yours would teach you something worth while. Here,
+let me show you how to cut that suet." She took the knife from Hinpoha's
+hand and proceeded to demonstrate. The suet was hard, which was the
+reason Hinpoha had had no success in cutting it, and the knife in Aunt
+Phoebe's hand slipped and plunged into her wrist. The blood spurted high
+in the air. Aunt Phoebe screamed, "I'm bleeding to death!"
+
+Hinpoha did not scream. She took a handkerchief and calmly made a
+tourniquet above the gash, twisting it tight with a lead pencil. Then
+she telephoned for Dr. Josephy, Aunt Phoebe's physician. He was out.
+Frantically she tried doctor after doctor, but not a single one was to
+be had at once. Dr. Hoffman she knew was at the hospital. One of the
+doctors she had telephoned was said to be making a call on the street
+where she lived, and she ran down there but he had already left. Running
+back toward the house, she collided sharply with a man on the street. It
+was Dr. Hoffman, who was obligingly coming up to deliver a message from
+Sahwah. "Come quickly," she cried, catching hold of his hand and
+starting to run, "Aunt Phoebe will bleed to death!"
+
+Dr. Hoffman hurried to the spot and tied up the severed artery. "Who put
+on de tourniquet?" he asked.
+
+"I did," replied Hinpoha.
+
+"Good vork, good vork," said Dr. Hoffman approvingly, "if it had not ben
+for dat it vould haf been too late ven I came."
+
+"Where did you learn to do that?" asked Aunt Phoebe.
+
+"Camp Fire First Aid class," replied Hinpoha.
+
+"Humph!" said Aunt Phoebe.
+
+But she did some thinking nevertheless, and was fully aware that it was
+Hinpoha's prompt action which had saved her from bleeding to death. Her
+arm was tied up for some days afterward and she was unable to use it.
+Hinpoha waited on her with angelic patience. "I've changed my mind about
+this Camp Fire business," said Aunt Phoebe abruptly one day. "There's
+more sense to it than I thought. If you want to have meetings here I
+have no objection."
+
+Hinpoha nearly swooned, but managed to say gratefully, "Thank you, Aunt
+Phoebe."
+
+Hinpoha began to wonder, as she was thus thrown into closer contact with
+her aunt, whether Aunt Phoebe's austere tastes came from her having such
+a narrow nature, or because she had never known anything different. She
+could not help noticing that there were woefully few friends who came to
+see her during her indisposition. The daily visit of the doctor was
+about the only break in the monotony. From a fierce dislike Hinpoha's
+feelings changed to pity. "I wonder if Aunt Phoebe isn't ever lonesome,"
+she thought. "I don't see how she can help being." A line of her fire
+song was ringing in her ears:
+
+  "Whose hand above this blaze is lifted
+  Shall be with magic touch engifted
+  To warm the hearts of lonely mortals----"
+
+"I wonder if I couldn't bring something else into her life," thought
+Hinpoha. "At least, I'm going to try. Aunt Phoebe's never read anything
+but religious books all her life. I'd like to read her a corking good
+story once." Timidly she essayed it. "Wouldn't you like to have me read
+you something else before we begin the next volume?" she asked, when the
+third volume conveniently came to an end.
+
+"Do as you like," said Aunt Phoebe, who was profoundly bored. Hinpoha
+accordingly brought out "The Count of Monte Cristo" which she had been
+reading when the ban went on fiction, and it was not long before Aunt
+Phoebe was as excited over the mystery as she was. Romance, long dead in
+her heart, began to show signs of coming to life.
+
+Hinpoha, looking for a certain little shawl to put around Aunt Phoebe's
+shoulders one afternoon, opened up the big cedar chest that stood in her
+room. She had never seen inside of it before. The shawl was not there,
+but there were quantities of table and bed linens, all elaborately
+embroidered, and whole sets of undergarments, trimmed with the
+wonderfully fine crochet work at which Aunt Phoebe was a master hand.
+"What can all these things be?" wondered Hinpoha. "Aunt Phoebe certainly
+never uses them." A little further down she came upon a filmy white
+dress and a veil fastened onto a wreath. Then she knew. This was her
+aunt's wedding outfit--the garments she had fashioned in her girlhood in
+preparation for the marriage which was destined never to take place. A
+week before the wedding the bridegroom-to-be had run away with another
+girl. The pathos of Aunt Phoebe's blighted romance struck Hinpoha
+"amidships" as Sahwah would have expressed it, and she wept over the
+linens in the cedar chest. Poor Aunt Phoebe! No wonder she was sour and
+crabbed. Hinpoha forgave her all her crossness and tartness of manner,
+and thought of her only with pity. Her romantic nature thrilled at the
+thought of the blighted love affair and her aunt became a sort of
+heroine in her eyes. She yearned to comfort her and make her happy.
+
+Downstairs Aunt Phoebe sat with a letter in her hand. It was from Aunt
+Grace, Hinpoha's mother's sister, out in California. Aunt Grace had no
+children and was lonely, and was asking if Hinpoha could come and live
+with her. Aunt Phoebe pondered. Of late there had been growing on her a
+conviction that she was not a suitable person to bring up a young girl.
+She certainly had not succeeded in making her grandniece love her. Aunt
+Phoebe really was lonely and she did care for Hinpoha, but she did not
+know how to make her care for her. Her experiment had been a failure.
+Well, she would send Hinpoha out to California with her Aunt Grace, whom
+Hinpoha adored, and she would live on by herself. The prospect suddenly
+seemed rather dismal and she confessed that Hinpoha had been a great
+deal of company for her, but she would not stand in the way of her
+happiness. Her mind was made up. She pictured the joy with which Hinpoha
+would receive the news and it brought her another pang.
+
+At the supper table she told Hinpoha that after school was out she was
+to go West and live with Aunt Grace, and then sat cynically watching the
+unbelieving delight which flashed into her face at this announcement.
+But after the first flush of rapture Hinpoha reconsidered. In her mind's
+eye she saw Aunt Phoebe living on alone, unloving and unloved, to a
+lonesome old age. Again she saw the cedar chest with its pathetic
+wedding garments. Again the words of the fire song came into her mind.
+
+"Do I have to go to Aunt Grace's?" she asked.
+
+"Not unless you want to," said her aunt, wondering.
+
+"Then I think I'd rather stay with you," said Hinpoha.
+
+"Do you really mean it?" asked Aunt Phoebe incredulously. The ice was
+melting in her heart and something was beginning to sing. Hinpoha
+slipped out of her chair, and, going around behind Aunt Phoebe, put her
+arms around her neck. The gate of Aunt Phoebe's heart swung wide open.
+Reaching out her arms, she drew Hinpoha down into her lap. "My dear
+little girl," she said, "my dear little girl!"
+
+And the _Desert of Waiting_ suddenly blossomed with a thousand roses,
+and Hinpoha saw lying fair before her in the sunlight the _City of her
+Heart's Desire._
+
+Migwan was once more "in the dumps." The heavy strain under which she
+had been working all winter, coupled with the constant worry and
+disappointment, produced the inevitable result, and she broke down. She
+was chosen a Commencement speaker, and the added work of writing a
+graduating essay was the last straw. She might be able to attend the
+graduating exercises of her class, said the doctor, but she was not to
+go to school any more, and of course there was to be no speech prepared.
+He would not hear of her working in an office during the summer, so her
+last hope of going to college in the fall went glimmering. But really
+this last disappointment did not affect her as strongly as the others
+had done. She was getting used to having everything she touched crumble
+to dust, and besides, she felt too tired to care which way things went
+any more.
+
+Thus the month of May brought widely different experiences to the
+various girls, and went on its way, giving them into the keeping of the
+Rose Moon. On one of the rarest of rare days that ever a poet dreamed of
+as belonging to June, the Winnebagos found themselves skimming over the
+country roads on a Saturday afternoon's frolic. There were three
+automobile loads altogether, for all the mothers were along, besides
+Aunt Phoebe and Dr. Hoffman. It was a double occasion for celebration,
+for besides being the Rose Moon Ceremonial Meeting, it was the day when
+Sahwah was to lay aside her crutches permanently. The cast had been
+removed several weeks before and the splintered joint was found to be as
+good as ever. And Migwan, although she did not know it yet, had more
+cause to celebrate than all the rest put together. Taken all in all, it
+would have been hard to find a merrier crowd than that which sped over
+the smooth yellow road on this perfect summer day, and many a bird,
+balancing himself on a blossoming twig, ceased his ecstatic outpouring
+of melody to listen to the blithe chorus of these earth birds, as they
+sang, "Hey Ho for Merry June," and "Let the Hills and Dales Resound,"
+each machineful trying its best to outdo the others.
+
+And when they came to a sunny hill thickly starred with snowy,
+golden-hearted daisies they stopped the automobiles and picked great
+armfuls of the blossoms, and Aunt Phoebe and Dr. Hoffman wandered off by
+themselves to the other side of the hill in search of larger and finer
+ones.
+
+Migwan's mother, sitting on the hillside with the warm sweet breeze
+blowing in her face, felt the joy of health and strength returning with
+a rush. "Oh," she sighed blissfully to Mrs. Evans, who sat beside her,
+"I haven't had such a good time since we all went coasting that night. I
+declare I'm impatient for winter to return, so we can do it again."
+
+"Who says we have to wait for winter before we can go coasting," said
+Hinpoha, who had overheard the remark. "You just watch this child."
+Climbing to the top of the hill she beat a path down the slope, and then
+sat calmly down with her feet stretched out before her and slid down as
+swiftly as if the hill had been covered with ice. She had no sooner
+accomplished the feat than all the Winnebagos were at the top of the
+hill, eager to try it. They came down all in a row, each with her hand
+on the shoulder of the girl ahead of her, so that it looked like a real
+toboggan. Then Mrs. Evans tried it, pulling with her stout Mrs.
+Brewster, who puffed like an engine and got stuck half way down and had
+to be pushed the rest of the way. Then Dr. Hoffman and Aunt Phoebe
+returned from their ramble and the mothers hastily collected their
+dignity and their hairpins, breathless but bubbling over with the fun of
+it. Whoever has not slid down a grassy hillside in June has certainly
+missed a joy out of his life.
+
+They had frolicked so long in the daisy field that there was no time to
+go on to the place where they had intended to cook their supper, and
+they had to stay right there. Aunt Phoebe had her first taste of camp
+cookery on this occasion and was delighted beyond words with the
+experience, as was Doctor Hoffman. "Sometime you and I vill go camping
+and you vill make someting like dis, mein Liebchen?" he said to Aunt
+Phoebe, indicating the slumgullion. The group sat petrified at the term
+he had used in addressing her, and Aunt Phoebe blushed fiery red. Dr.
+Hoffman saw that the cat was out of the bag. Laughing sheepishly, he
+spoke. "Dis lady," he said, laying his hand on Aunt Phoebe's, "has
+promised to be mein vife."
+
+Hinpoha dropped her plate in her surprise. "Aunt Phoebe!" she cried,
+incredulously, throwing her arms around her. Then her face fell. "You
+are going away and leave me?" she asked anxiously.
+
+"No, dear," answered Aunt Phoebe, "the Doctor is going to make his home
+here and we will keep you with us always." And Hinpoha, though still
+dazed by the news she had just heard, breathed easy again.
+
+When the last bit of slumgullion was eaten and Doctor Hoffman had
+scraped out the kettle, the Winnebagos retired to the other side of the
+hill to don their ceremonial costumes, and the rest of the company found
+comfortable seats on the ground from which to watch the coming
+performance. As Migwan was wriggling into her gown a letter fell to the
+ground. The mail man had handed it to her just as she was starting off
+with the crowd, and she had thrust it into her blouse to read later.
+Being dressed a few minutes ahead of the rest, she tore open the
+envelope while she was waiting for them. If the other girls had been
+watching her as she read it they would have seen her clasp her hands
+together suddenly and draw in her breath sharply. Just then Nyoda's
+clear Wohelo call sounded, and she went with the rest into the circle
+around the fire.
+
+The Doctor noted with a thrill of artistic pleasure how each girl, as
+she came over the crest of the hill, stood silhouetted against the red
+line of the sun for an instant. A ripple of tender amusement went among
+the watchers as Althea was borne in, clad in her little ceremonial dress
+and headband.
+
+As this was the big Council Meeting of the year it was more elaborately
+staged than the ordinary ceremonial meeting. Instead of a large fire
+being kindled in the center of the circle the first thing, four fires
+were laid, one in the center and three small ones around it in the form
+of a triangle. The girls were divided into three groups to represent
+Work, Health and Love. Each group in turn tried to light the big fire in
+the center, but in vain; it went out every time. Sorrowfully the groups
+returned to their own small woodpiles, which they did not think it worth
+while to light. Suddenly a little, bent old woman appeared from
+somewhere and stood beside the Work group, shivering with cold. "The
+stranger is cold," said one of the Work Maidens, "we must light our fire
+for her sake, even if it is not worth while for ourselves." The fire was
+lighted and the little old woman stretched out her hands to the cheerful
+blaze until she was warmed through. Then with a blessing on the Work
+Maidens she went her way.
+
+Faint with hunger, she stopped beside the Health maidens and begged a
+bite of food. "We must light our fire and cook something for this hungry
+stranger," said one of the Health Maidens, "even if it is not worth
+lighting for ourselves." So they lit their fire and solemnly broiled a
+wiener which the little old lady devoured eagerly, and passed on,
+likewise giving them her blessing.
+
+When she came to the Love group it was quite dark, and she begged a
+light from them that she might find her way up the mountain. So they lit
+their fire and handed her a torch, upon which she straightened up and
+threw off her poor cloak and revealed herself as a young and beautiful
+maiden, the good fairy who inhabited those parts. Holding her torch
+aloft, she began to dance in and out among the three fires as lightly as
+a wandering night breeze. Suddenly she stooped to the Health fire and
+picked up a burning brand; then darting to the Work fire, she picked up
+a burning brand; then running to the great pile of firewood in the
+center of the circle, she flung all three down together. The mingled
+Fires of Work, Health and Love kindled the Fire of Wohelo, which each
+one separately had failed to light, and as the flames mounted in the big
+fire the little fires were scattered and stamped out, and the girls
+sprang to their feet singing, "Burn, Fire, Burn." A round of applause
+followed this masterly presentation, and Nyoda, who had worked it out,
+was called on to make a speech. A fine little bit of by-play not planned
+for by Nyoda was staged when Sahwah dramatically cast her crutches into
+the Fire of Health.
+
+Now this meeting was the time when the bead-band diaries were to be
+finished, and the most interesting looking one was to be interpreted if
+the girl was willing to do so. What tales were worked out in the bands
+belonging to Migwan, Hinpoha, Sahwah, Gladys and Nyoda! Nyoda hesitated
+a long time trying to decide which looked the most interesting,
+Hinpoha's or Migwan's, and finally decided on Migwan's. Nothing loth,
+Migwan told the story of her hard time during the winter, and the girls
+in the circle and the visitors alike were stirred by the account of the
+party dress and the family budget and the returned manuscripts and the
+vanishing college fund.
+
+"There is one incident not yet recorded," she said, as she came to the
+end of the figures on the band, "and I really think this ought to be
+told with the rest." From the beaded pocket of her ceremonial gown she
+drew the letter which she had read while the girls were dressing. It was
+from Mrs. Bartlett, the mother of little Raymond, and read as follows:
+
+"To say I was touched to the heart by your story of where the college
+money went, is putting it mildly. If any one ever put up a brave fight
+against circumstances, you have. I showed the letter to my husband and
+he was as much affected as I. And, curiously enough, a letter which we
+had received earlier in the day, and which had caused us much vexation,
+contained news of a certain state of affairs which is going to give us a
+chance to help you out of your difficulty.
+
+"We own a small farm just outside of Cleveland, and for years this has
+been worked for us by a man and his wife. Just this week this man is
+leaving our employ to take up some other line of work, leaving the farm
+without a caretaker at a critical time when the spring vegetables are
+all up and need attention. Now, our proposition is this: believing that
+as a Camp Fire Girl you know a great deal about growing things, we are
+going to ask you to take charge of the place for the summer, and will
+gladly allow you whatever profit you may make from the sale of
+vegetables and small fruits if you will see that the peach crop is
+brought through in good shape and keep the trees from being destroyed by
+bugs. We will attend to the marketing of the peaches ourselves when the
+time comes. Good luck to you if you want to undertake the job.
+
+"Your loving friend,
+
+"MABEL E. BARTLETT."
+
+"P.S. We have no objection if you wish to use the house for a Camp Fire
+Club House during the summer."
+
+A rousing cheer burst from the group around the fire when they heard
+this solution of Migwan's problem.
+
+By this time the full moon was climbing over the top of the hill and
+waking up the sleeping daisies, and the little company rose reluctantly
+and wandered back to the automobiles that stood by the roadside. Looking
+back at the peaceful hillside they had just left, it seemed that the
+nodding daisies and the murmuring brook and the rustling grasses all
+echoed the song the girls had sung around the fire just before the
+Council came to a close:
+
+  "Darkness behind us,
+  Peace around us,
+  Joy before us,
+  Light, O Light!"
+
+THE END
+
+The next volume in this series is entitled, "THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT
+ONOWAY HOUSE; OR, THE MAGIC GARDEN."
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL***
+
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