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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Winona of the Camp Fire, by Margaret Widdemer
+
+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: Winona of the Camp Fire
+
+Author: Margaret Widdemer
+
+Release Date: August 26, 2011 [EBook #37207]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINONA OF THE CAMP FIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THEY DESCENDED IN A BODY ON ADELAIDE'S TENT _Page 125_]
+
+
+
+
+                             WINONA OF THE
+                               CAMP FIRE
+
+                          By MARGARET WIDDEMER
+
+                               Author of
+                "Winona of Camp Karonya," "Winona's War
+                         Farm," "Winona's Way."
+
+                           A. L. BURT COMPANY
+                          Publishers--New York
+
+        _Published by arrangement with J. B. Lippincott Company_
+
+                          Printed in U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+              COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+WINONA OF THE CAMP FIRE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+
+The room they called the Den in Winnie Merriam's house was dark, except
+for the leaping wood-fire in the big stone fireplace. Around the fire
+sat and lay five girls. They had been toasting marshmallows, but they
+were past the point where you eat the toasted ones with pleasure, or
+even steal the raw ones--which don't taste burnt--to eat
+surreptitiously.
+
+"Helen Bryan, you've been feeding Puppums all your marshmallows for the
+last ten minutes," accused Winnie, sitting up. She had been draping
+herself along a pile of cushions for the last fifteen minutes--thinking,
+evidently, for she had been quiet--a very unusual thing for chattering
+Winnie.
+
+Winnie Merriam was fourteen, but people usually took her for a year
+older, because of her slim height. She had big blue eyes in a face that
+was not regularly pretty, perhaps, but so gay and pink-cheeked and
+quick-smiling that people always _said_ she was pretty--which does quite
+as well.
+
+Her chum, Helen, defiantly fed a last marshmallow to the fat
+near-fox-terrier in the centre of the circle, who didn't particularly
+seem to want it.
+
+"I've got to be polite to my hostess's dog, haven't I?" she retorted.
+"And he asked for them so pathetically!"
+
+"I expect the poor old pup will look more pathetic this time to-morrow,"
+said Winnie. "He'll probably look like Buster Brown's Tige in the last
+pictures--both paws up over his aching head. Then you'll have to come
+back here and hold ice on his fevered brow, won't she, Puppums?"
+
+"Or yours, maybe," suggested Marie Hunter, the quiet brown girl in the
+corner. "What's the matter, Win? You haven't said a word for ages. I've
+been watching you."
+
+"I've been _thinking_!" explained Winnie, nodding her curly brown head
+with dignity.
+
+"For the first time?" suggested Helen. "Don't do it if it hurts, honey."
+
+"No," said Winnie placidly, "I've often been known to do it."
+
+"Well, what were you thinking?" asked Edith Hillis, lifting her yellow
+curls from Marie's lap. Edith was the fluffy member of the crowd, small
+for her age, yellow-haired and blue-eyed and rather too much dressed.
+She was supposed to care more for her complexion than for anything else
+on earth except Marie Hunter, but she was as sweet-tempered as she could
+be, and everybody liked her. "You looked as if you were thinking about
+something awfully interesting."
+
+"Well," said Winnie slowly, "I was thinking about _us_. We know each
+other very, very well, and go together, and have gorgeous times--I was
+thinking that it would be nice if we made ourselves into a club, or some
+sort of a society."
+
+"Oh, say! That's a perfectly gorgeous idea!" exclaimed chubby,
+red-haired Louise Lane, from behind Helen. "I vote we _be_ a club, right
+away!"
+
+"But is five enough?" asked Marie doubtfully. Marie was always the one
+who thought of things. She was a good deal of a bookworm, and did a
+great deal of beautiful embroidery, and never said much. But she was the
+one the girls were apt to ask advice of if they needed it badly. She was
+nearly a year older than Winnie and Edith. Louise wasn't quite fourteen,
+and Helen would be fifteen in two months.
+
+"I think five's plenty," said Louise.
+
+"I don't, exactly," demurred Winnie. "Seems to me there ought to be
+seven or eight anyway, or we'd be like an army all major-generals."
+
+"All right," came from Helen sleepily. "But that can wait. I think the
+thing to make up our minds about first is--what would it do if it was a
+club? I mean clubs have to have some object."
+
+"Why!" exclaimed Winnie blankly, "I never thought of that!"
+
+"Well," still opposed Louise, "I don't see why we have to have an
+object. Just meet, and have a president and secretary and things, and
+enjoy ourselves."
+
+"What about an embroidery club?" suggested Edith. "Marie and I like to
+embroider."
+
+"I _don't_," said Louise flatly.
+
+"Nannie was telling me about a walking-club she belonged to," Helen
+suggested pacifically.
+
+Nannie was Helen's step-mother--not at all like the step-mothers in the
+fairy-tales, but a pretty, gay woman of about twenty-eight, who was
+great friends with her step-daughter and the step-daughter's chums.
+
+"A hiking-club?" asked Winnie. "That would be fun. Why couldn't we
+combine both those things in one?"
+
+"Lovely!" jeered Louise. "I can see myself trotting along up a mountain,
+embroidering as I go!"
+
+"Listen to Louise being sarcastic!" said Helen. "I think the idea of
+combining two or three things is a splendid one."
+
+"What's splendid?" asked a bright voice from the darkness at the other
+end of the room.
+
+"Oh, are you there, Nannie?" called Helen. "We're planning a club--a
+very fine combination club where you do everything."
+
+"It sounds like a Camp Fire," said Nannie. "Your father's downstairs,
+Helen. I ran up to tell you that we're ready to go whenever you are."
+
+"Oh, not yet, please!" begged Winnie. "What is a Camp Fire, Mrs. Bryan?
+Do come sit down by us, and have some marshmallows."
+
+"It corresponds to the Boy Scouts," Mrs. Bryan explained, dropping down
+among the girls, "and it includes doing about everything there is to do.
+It's national, though, and you're affiliated with headquarters."
+
+[Illustration: THEY MADE HER TELL THEM ALL SHE KNEW ABOUT CAMP FIRES]
+
+"Regular dues and meetings?" asked Helen, pricking up her ears. "Oh,
+stay here, Nannie, and tell us all about it!"
+
+They surrounded Mrs. Bryan, and made her tell them all she knew about
+Camp Fires, which was a good deal.
+
+"I like it!" announced Louise when Mrs. Bryan was done. "Me be heap big
+chiefess--wahoo-oo!"
+
+She jumped up as she spoke and waved Helen's best hat above her head for
+a hatchet.
+
+"Oh, my hat!" cried Helen, making a wild dive for it. Puppums thought it
+was all a game for his special benefit, and dived after them--and the
+meeting broke up in disorder. But not before the girls had decided to
+_be_ a Camp Fire, and made Mrs. Bryan promise to act as their Guardian.
+
+Winnie, after the girls had gone, returned alone to the fire, and sat
+down by it, thinking over the things she had been hearing.
+
+"It's going to be heaps of fun," was the first thing she thought, and
+then, "It's going to take lots of time!"
+
+Then she got up and shook herself. "Anyway, I love it!" she decided.
+Then she put the lights out and went to bed.
+
+Helen Bryan was over early next morning.
+
+"Oh, Winnie!" she called up to her friend's window.
+
+"Come on up!" called Winnie back. "I've just had my bath, but I haven't
+finished dressing."
+
+Helen came in by the open back door, spoke to Mrs. Merriam, who was
+getting breakfast, and tore up the stairs to Winnie's room.
+
+"Oh, there's such heaps to tell!" she announced before she was well
+inside the room. "Rings and bands and dresses and ceremonies
+and--everything! Only we will have to take more girls in. You have to
+have at least seven to start with."
+
+Helen stopped for lack of breath, and dropped on the bed. Winnie, who
+was doing her hair before the mirror, turned around.
+
+"It's like the Boy Scouts, only it's girls," she decided thoughtfully.
+"Helen, I don't see why we can't have just as good times as they do.
+Tom's always telling about the glorious times his patrol had last
+summer, camping up near Wampoag. I don't see why we shouldn't go
+camping, too, and have heaps of fun!"
+
+"Why, of course we can!" agreed Helen. "None of your mothers will mind
+if Nannie goes along, and she'll have to if she's Guardian."
+
+"Come on down and have breakfast with us," invited Winnie, straightening
+up from her last shoe-lace. "You haven't told me half the things there
+are to tell."
+
+"Well, I've had breakfast," said Helen, "but----"
+
+"Oh, you can eat some more," insisted Winnie. "We're going to have
+flapjacks and maple syrup."
+
+"Well, all right," said Helen, weakening. Flapjacks and maple syrup did
+sound good. So they went down together to the breakfast table.
+
+Winnie's family, her father and mother and her brother Tom, and
+eight-year-old Florence, had to be told all about it.
+
+"Can't I be a Fire Camp Girl, too?" demanded Florence on the spot.
+
+"I don't know yet," said Helen. "We'll have to find out."
+
+"I will be, whether you find out or not," said Florence, who was a
+determined young person, and something of a tagger.
+
+"Well, thank goodness, to-day's Saturday," and Winnie changed the
+subject cheerfully. "We have all day to find out in, and there's
+scarcely any home-work to do. Have you any, Helen?"
+
+"Only a little history," said Helen, "and I can do that to-night."
+
+"Such heaps of good times coming!" sang Winnie rapturously as she sprang
+up from the table, to get a fresh supply of flapjacks.
+
+"If you have as good a time as the Scouts do you'll have fun, all
+right," said Tom. "But I don't see how you can--just girls!"
+
+Helen laughed, but his sister flew up.
+
+"We can, and better, too," she flashed. "Just you wait and see!"
+
+"Seeing's believing," said Tom mischievously, passing his plate for the
+flapjacks as Winnie brought in the heaping plate that had been keeping
+hot in the oven.
+
+"That's true," said his father gravely, putting a pile of buttered
+quarter-sections on his son's plate. "At least, nobody who hadn't seen
+it would believe you could eat so many flapjacks and not explode!"
+
+Everyone laughed; but Tom calmly went on eating.
+
+"They're awfully good, mother," he said. "I'll tell you, Winnie, if you
+could learn to make as good flapjacks as mother with your Fire Camping,
+as Florence calls it, you'd be doing something worth while."
+
+"Oh, I don't suppose there's anything about flapjacks in it--do you
+think there could be, Helen?" asked Winnie.
+
+Mrs. Merriam laughed a little.
+
+"Well, do you know, my dears," she said, "I have a strange feeling that
+there _is!_"
+
+"I don't see how," doubted Winona. "But maybe, if I get time, Tom, I'll
+learn how to make them. Come on, Helen, let's go back to Nannie and ask
+her all the questions we can think of."
+
+The two girls ran out hand-in-hand.
+
+"Are there flapjacks in it, mother?" asked little Florence.
+
+Mrs. Merriam laughed again as she began to clear the table.
+
+"There are, and a great deal besides, or I'm much mistaken, dear!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+Within the next week Mrs. Bryan had sent for and filled out and returned
+the application blanks, and now the girls were merely waiting for the
+return of the blanks and their charter. Meanwhile, out of school hours,
+Winnie helped her mother about the house.
+
+"I mayn't have time for much housework when I belong to the Camp Fire,"
+she thought, "and I'd better do all I can now."
+
+So she learned a good deal about cooking, and helped regularly with the
+dishes--and with the supper-getting and tidying. Finally--it was almost
+the end of May by then--the charter came, and material for the
+ceremonial dresses, and various other things; and the girls held their
+first Camp Fire. It was at Winnie's house, with its big fireplace, that
+they had it. Mrs. Bryan invited two other girls to join, to make up the
+number; Dorothy Gray and Adelaide Hughes. Dorothy the girls all knew and
+liked--she was everybody's choice for one of the vacant places--but
+nobody knew much about Adelaide, who was a newcomer in town, except that
+she had no mother, and lived with her father and her younger brother and
+little sister in one of the few apartment-houses that were beginning to
+be put up in the little town where the girls all lived. She was a quiet,
+rather sullen girl, and she dressed badly--almost untidily. The girls
+were surprised at her joining, for she seemed to keep away from people
+almost as if she did it on purpose. But Mrs. Bryan wanted her in, and
+the girls would any of them have done anything for Mrs. Bryan. Only they
+confided to each other that they hoped Adelaide wouldn't spoil the fun.
+
+As each girl came, the night of the first meeting, she was taken, not
+into the living-room, but to a little room beside it, and asked to wait
+there for the rest. Edith Hillis was the last to come, and then they
+were summoned into the other room. It was lighted only by the blaze of
+the fire.
+
+Helen explained things to the girls, as her step-mother had explained to
+her.
+
+"When the drum begins to beat we are to come in, Indian file," she
+reminded them, as a soft, measured beat began to be heard in the next
+room.
+
+Putting herself at the head of the line, she led the seven girls into
+the room to the rhythmic beating. They circled around it once, then sat
+down in a ring about the fireplace, and looked at Mrs. Bryan with
+admiration.
+
+She had on a straight brownish gown, with deep fringes at its bottom.
+She sat on the floor by a curious drum, of a sort most of them had never
+even seen pictures of. She was beating it softly, Indian fashion, with
+her closed fist.
+
+"Welcome," she spoke clearly, rising as the girls came to a halt around
+her. "Have you come desiring to make a Camp Fire and tend it?"
+
+"Yes," answered all the girls. It was then that they dropped into their
+places, in a semi-circle around the fire and their Guardian.
+
+Then each of the girls, in turn, rose and repeated her wish to become a
+Camp Fire Girl, and follow the Law of the Fire. When they had all
+finished Mrs. Bryan leaned back in her corner, and talked to them about
+the Law--what each of the seven parts of it meant.
+
+"Why--it covers everything!" said Winnie.
+
+"It certainly does!" seconded Louise. "All I have to do, it seems to me,
+is to go on living, and I'll acquire unnumbered honor beads."
+
+"You may think so," Helen warned her, "but you'll find there's plenty to
+learn about it. I've been studying it out."
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said Louise airily. She caught up the manual as
+she spoke, and ran her eye down the list of honors by the firelight.
+"Wash and iron a shirtwaist--I love to wash things. Make a bed for two
+months--I'd be hung with beads if I had one for every two months I've
+made my bed. Abstain from gum, candy, ice-cream--oh, good gracious!"
+
+"That counts as much as the rest," said Winnie mischievously, "and think
+how good it will be for you!"
+
+"I'll get thin," Louise remarked thoughtfully. "What are you going to
+start with, Winnie?"
+
+"Health-craft, I think." Winona had taken the book in her turn, and was
+looking through the pages. "I've always wanted to learn horseback
+riding, and I think perhaps father'll let me, now it's in a book as
+something you ought to do." Then she remembered what her brother had
+said about the flapjacks, and she shook her head as she passed on the
+book. "No," she corrected herself, "I don't believe that will be the
+first thing I'll do. I think I need home-craft quite as much as I do
+learning to ride."
+
+"What about you, Helen?" asked Louise.
+
+"Why, clay-modelling and brass-work, or things like that," was the
+prompt answer. "I want to take up art-craft when I get older, and I
+might as well begin."
+
+"Can you clay-model in camp?" asked Louise.
+
+"Just as well as you can make a shirtwaist," replied Helen, unruffled.
+
+"I like the hand-crafts, too," said Edith Hillis. "I think I shall
+specialize on fancy-work."
+
+"Always a perfect lady!" teased Louise, who was something of a tomboy,
+and frankly thought it was silly of Edith to refuse to get her hair wet
+in the swimming-pool, and wear veils for her complexion.
+
+The other three girls, Marie Hunter and Dorothy Gray and Adelaide
+Hughes, did not say what honors they were going to work for. Everybody
+was pretty sure that Marie was going to write a play, and Dorothy did
+beautiful needle-work. But as for Adelaide, silent in her place, nobody
+could guess.
+
+"You mustn't any of you forget that there's sewing to do, right now,"
+warned Mrs. Bryan. "And I want all of you to look at my dress, because
+each of you will have to make one like it."
+
+She stood up again, and they all examined the straight khaki dress with
+its leather fringes.
+
+"That won't be especially hard to make," concluded Marie, who did most
+of her own sewing. "There's a pattern, isn't there, Mrs. Bryan?"
+
+"Oh, yes, and I have it. And there's one more thing, girls--two, rather.
+We must each choose a name, and a symbol to go with the name. Then we
+have to name the Camp Fire."
+
+"A name--how do you mean?" asked Winnie.
+
+"I mean that, of course, our Camp Fire has to be called something.
+Beside that, so does each Camp Fire Girl. I like birds and bird-study,
+so I am going to call myself 'Opeechee,' the Robin, and take a pair of
+spread wings for my symbol. It's to put on one's personal belongings
+like a crest--see? as I have it on this pillow-top."
+
+The girls clustered around her to see the symbol, stencilled on the
+pillow-cover on her lap. She told them she was going to burn it on her
+shirtwaist box as well, and showed them where she had woven it into her
+headband, a gorgeous thing of brown and orange-red beads.
+
+"It would go on a paddle-blade, too," said Helen thoughtfully.
+
+"It shall on mine to-morrow," declared Marie. "That is, if I've thought
+of a symbol by then," she added prudently.
+
+"I think this new name idea is perfectly gorgeous!" cried Louise
+enthusiastically. "I've always hated my name--you'd expect a Louise to
+be tall and severe and haughty--and look at _me!_"
+
+She jumped up in the firelight and spread out her plump arms tragically.
+
+"We see you!" nodded Helen calmly, and Louise sat down again.
+
+"You'll be glad you have red hair when you're grown up," consoled Edith.
+"It's supposed to be very beautiful."
+
+"Well, it _isn't_," said Louise energetically, "with people always
+asking after the white horse. I wonder why red-haired girls and white
+horses are supposed to go together?"
+
+But nobody could tell her. They were all clustered about Mrs. Bryan and
+the manual, choosing names, and planning symbols, and you couldn't hear
+yourself think. Winnie and Helen and Mrs. Bryan had planned to finish
+the evening by playing games, but all the girls were so busy talking
+that it was impossible to get a game in edgewise.
+
+Presently Mrs. Merriam and little Florence came in with cocoa and
+sandwiches. And then, at about ten-thirty, the meeting broke up, after
+planning a bacon-bat for the next Saturday.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Winnie Merriam sat, as she loved to sit, by the dying fire. Her mother
+began to clear away the dishes, but Winnie stopped her with:
+
+"Please wait a little while, and talk to me, mother. I haven't had half
+enough sandwiches, and besides, the nicest part of a party is talking it
+over afterwards."
+
+"Very well," said Mrs. Merriam, sitting down across from her daughter
+and helping herself to something to eat. "I didn't get much chance at
+the refreshments either, I was so busy helping you serve them. What was
+it you wanted to say particularly, dear?"
+
+"I wanted to ask you about my name, mother. I wasn't christened
+'Winnie,' was I?"
+
+"Why, no, dear--you know that. You were christened 'Winona,' after your
+grandmother--only somehow, we never called you that."
+
+"It's a real Indian name, isn't it?" asked Winnie.
+
+"It certainly is," her mother assured her. "Why, dear, I've told you the
+story of it many a time."
+
+"Not for a long time now," persuaded her daughter. "I think I've
+forgotten some of it. Didn't a real Indian give it to grandmother?"
+
+"The Indian didn't exactly give it to her, it belonged to the Indian's
+baby."
+
+"Oh, tell me the story!" urged Florence sleepily. "I want to hear, too!"
+
+Mrs. Merriam made room for Florence in her lap, and went on above her
+with the sandwich and the story.
+
+"Your great-grandfather was an Indian missionary, and when he and your
+Great-grandmother Martin went out to live among the Indians, they took
+with them their little baby daughter, so young they had not named her
+yet. Well, one day, while your grandmother was sitting on the steps of
+the log house where they lived with her baby on her lap, a squaw came
+along with _her_ baby. She had it strapped to her back, the way they
+carry them, you know. She was a stranger, not one of the mission
+Indians, and oh, so tired and ragged and dusty!
+
+"Great-grandmother Martin couldn't understand her language, but she
+beckoned her into the house and gave her food for herself and milk for
+the baby. And then, by signs, she asked the baby's name. And the Indian
+woman said 'Winona--papoose Winona--yes.' It seemed she could speak a
+very little English. So then Great-grandmother Martin asked the woman
+what the name meant--for all Indian names have meanings, you know. But
+the woman hadn't enough English words to answer her. So she got up from
+the floor where she had been sitting and took the bright steel
+bread-knife that lay where great-grandmother had been cutting bread for
+her. She held it in a ray of sunlight that crossed the room, and shook
+it so the light flashed and was reflected, bright and quivering, in the
+room.
+
+"'That Winona!' she explained.
+
+"After she was rested she wouldn't stay. She went on her travels,
+wherever she was going,--great-grandmother never saw her again. But she
+didn't forget the name, and as soon as she could she asked the Indian
+interpreter what 'Winona' really meant. He told her that it was the name
+of another tribe for 'ray of light that sparkles,' or 'flashing ray of
+light.'
+
+"So Great-grandmother Martin named her own little girl Winona. The name
+was pretty, and the meaning was prettier still. And she grew up and
+married Grandfather Merriam--and when you came we named you for her."
+
+"Then it really is a sure-enough Indian name," said its owner. "And the
+meaning is lovely. 'A ray of flashing light'--you couldn't ask to be
+anything better than that, could you, mother? I believe if I can I shall
+keep my own name for the Camp Fire. It is prettier than anything I could
+make up or find."
+
+"It certainly is," said her mother.
+
+"Why didn't I have a Nindian name, too?" clamored Florence aggrievedly,
+sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
+
+"Because your other grandmother didn't," said her mother, kissing her.
+"One Indian maiden in a family is enough. What names have the other
+girls chosen, Winnie?"
+
+Winona began to laugh.
+
+"Louise says she is going to call herself 'Ishkoodah'--don't you
+remember, in Hiawatha, 'Ishkoodah, the Comet--Ishkoodah, with fiery
+tresses?' she says she thinks she can make a lovely symbol out of it.
+It's funny, but Louise is always doing funny things. I think she's
+really in earnest about this. And Helen says she's going to call herself
+'Night-Star.' We don't know the Indian for that yet, but we're going to
+hunt it up at the library. She thinks she will specialize on
+astronomy--learn what the constellations are, you know. I'd like to do
+that, too. All I know is the Big Dipper, and that the slanty W set up
+sidewise is Cassiopea's Chair. I learned that from the little Storyland
+of Stars you gave me when I was seven."
+
+"I want to know chairs, too," said Florence drowsily.
+
+"All right, dear, you shall," soothed Winona. Then she went on talking
+to her mother.
+
+"So all the girls said they'd take sky names, and we decided to call our
+camp by the Indian name for the sky, because we want to camp out as much
+as we can."
+
+"I think that is a good idea," said Mrs. Merriam.
+
+"It was mine," said Winona. "But Mrs. Bryan remembered an Indian name
+for it--Karonya. We're Camp Karonya--isn't that pretty? And then Marie
+remembered the Indian name for South-Wind, one of them, Shawondassee,
+and took it. But the rest couldn't think of Indian names, so we waited
+to hunt some."
+
+"Do the names have to be Indian?"
+
+"Oh, no," Winnie answered sleepily, "but it's better."
+
+"Come!" said her mother, setting Florence, who was fast asleep, on her
+feet. "We'd all better go to bed, or we'll be too sleepy to go to church
+to-morrow."
+
+"And the sooner I go to sleep the sooner next Saturday will come, as you
+used to say when I was a little girl," added Winona. "Oh, I can scarcely
+wait to find out what a bacon-bat really is on its native heath--or
+anywhere, for that matter."
+
+"Didn't they tell you what it was?"
+
+"No--Marie is planning it, and she wouldn't say, except that it would be
+heaps of fun, and I was to bring a dozen rolls and some salt and a
+jack-knife. I'll have to borrow Tom's. Good-night, mother dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+
+"Have you got everything, Winnie?" asked Helen anxiously, as they met
+half-way between Winnie's gate and Helen's, about ten o'clock on
+Saturday morning.
+
+"I think so," answered Helen a little uncertainly. "Marie told me to
+bring a pound of bacon--that's all. What are you bringing?"
+
+"Two dozen humble, necessary rolls," said Winnie, "and salt. I had to
+buy a knife, because Tom lost his yesterday. He loses it regularly, once
+a week."
+
+"Pity he picked out to-day," commented Helen as they fell into step. "Do
+you suppose we'll be late?"
+
+"Mercy, no!" said Winnie, "We're more likely to be the first!"
+
+"We won't be"--and Helen laughed--"Louise is always the earliest
+everywhere. She says she's lost more perfectly good time being punctual
+than any other way she knows."
+
+"Well, we'll be ahead of Edith, anyway," Winnie remarked cheerfully. She
+adjusted the two dozen rolls more easily, for that many rolls, when you
+have far to carry them, have a way of feeling lumpy.
+
+"It's a good thing it isn't far to the trolley!" said Helen. "I didn't
+know how nubbly this bacon was going to be."
+
+"So are my rolls! Let's trade," suggested Winnie brilliantly.
+
+"Almost human intelligence!" gibed Helen; so they traded, and each found
+her load much more comfortable than the one she'd had before--which says
+a good deal for the powers of imagination.
+
+"Don't let's sit up on the benches of that trolley-station--they're the
+most uncomfortable things in town!" objected Winnie. "Come on, Helen.
+Let's be real sports, and sit on the grass."
+
+"I do believe we're the first!" was Helen's sole reply, as she eyed the
+little trolley-station worriedly.
+
+"Oh, we _can't_ be," said Winnie confidently, "unless Louise has died or
+gone West. If she's in the land of the living I know she's here. Once I
+asked the crowd over in the afternoon to make fudge, and she got there
+just as I was in the middle of sweeping out the kitchen, at one
+o'clock!"
+
+"You never told me about that!" reminded Helen interestedly. "What did
+you do?"
+
+Winona laughed. "Do! I didn't have to do anything. Louise did the
+doing--she took the broom out of my hands, and sent me flying upstairs
+to dress, and did the sweeping herself! Oh, and there she is!
+Lou-i-ise!"
+
+"Here I am!" Louise answered placidly, rising up in her white blouse
+from the very centre of the field by the station, and looking, with the
+sun shining on her brilliant hair, like a large white blossom with a red
+centre. "I got here long ago. Come on over here on the grass. It's
+horrid on the benches, and I'm making friends with the nicest little
+brown hoptoad."
+
+"Ugh--no!" shuddered Helen, who did not care for hoptoads. "Here's
+Nannie, with Adelaide and Dorothy."
+
+So the girls ran over to meet their Guardian, and the hoptoad was
+averted. Just behind the newcomers arrived Marie and Edith, Marie
+dignified and neat, as usual, in her dark-blue sailor-suit, and Edith in
+a fluffy pink dress that did not look as if it could stand much
+strenuous picnicking.
+
+"Did you bring the rolls, Winnie?" called Marie.
+
+"Certainly I did, and Helen has the bacon."
+
+"And I have the hard-boiled eggs," said Louise gayly, "and here is the
+trolley--it sounds like a French lesson. We mount the trolley that we
+may go to the picnic. Come on, girls."
+
+The girls were bound for a little wood, five miles out, where nearly
+everybody that went on picnics had them. They sat down on a rear seat in
+a giggling row, while Marie went ruthlessly on counting supplies.
+
+"Adelaide, did you bring condensed cream? And who was to bring
+cake--were you, Edith? Dorothy has knives and forks and a kettle."
+
+"Cake?" from Edith blankly. "Why, no, Marie, I brought eggs. I thought
+you said to--I thought we were going to fry them with the bacon."
+
+A howl of laughter went up, in which Edith joined in spite of herself.
+
+"How did you think we'd do it, dear?" Mrs. Bryan asked at last, trying
+to straighten her face.
+
+"That's easy," promised Louise cheerfully. "You just peel the eggs
+carefully, throw away the shell, poke the raw egg on the point of a
+stick, and toast it over the fire till it's all gone."
+
+Edith giggled. "Well, I don't see how you could expect me to get it
+straight over the 'phone, anyway. If I'd known you expected me to bring
+a cake--I don't believe it was me you--ow!"
+
+For a lurch of the car had sent the satchel in which Dorothy had the
+knives and forks smashing against the raw eggs they had been talking
+about; and as Stevenson said of the cow when they asked him the immortal
+question about the cow meeting the locomotive--it was "so much the worse
+for the eggs." They broke promptly, and one fatal corner of the bag that
+held them began to leak on Edith's pretty pink dress.
+
+Dorothy tried to repair damages with her handkerchief, but there was a
+yellow smear on the front breadth, for all they could do. As it proved
+afterwards, it was poor Edith's hoodoo day.
+
+"Poor little eggs!" Louise lamented pensively. "Nobody's wasting any
+sympathy on them--and they're all broken up."
+
+"Oh, what an awful pun!" cried everybody; but Louise went on. She lifted
+the limp bag gingerly, and looked at it as if she was very sorry for it
+indeed.
+
+"Let's serenade the eggs, girls!" she said. "Just follow me!"
+
+And the people in the front seats of the trolley heard a hearty chorus
+of young voices ringing out from the two back seats:
+
+  Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye--
+  Don't cry, little eggs, don't cry;
+    Although you break for our sweet sake
+  While we're marching away upon a picnic--
+  Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye--
+  By and bye, little eggs, by and bye
+    We'll be eating up our lunch, but we won't have
+      you to crunch--
+  Good-bye, little eggs, good-bye!
+
+The girls were in fits of laughter by the time they had done singing
+Louise's doggerel.
+
+"And yet--it really is silly!" said Marie consideringly when they were
+done.
+
+"Don't insult my beautiful, high-brow pome," said Louise cheerfully,
+hopping out of the trolley, for they were at their journey's end. "Who's
+going to fetch water? Don't all speak at once."
+
+"We'll get the water," Edith promised, speaking for herself and Marie.
+"It won't be as hard on my poor clothes as frying bacon."
+
+So the two of them took the kettle and started off.
+
+The place the girls had chosen for their bacon-bat was a little wood at
+the end of the trolley-line, which possessed a spring, and an open,
+sheltered sort of ravine where picnickers were wont to build their
+fires. The girls sauntered along in ones and twos till they reached this
+ravine, set down the things they carried, and scattered to look for
+sticks.
+
+Winnie and Helen, peacefully gathering wood as they went, suddenly heard
+screams, and dropped their wood and ran toward the sound.
+
+"It's--it's near the spring," panted Winona to Helen. "Oh, I do hope
+nobody's fallen in!"
+
+They arrived at the spring just as Adelaide Hughes and Mrs. Bryan
+reached it from another direction.
+
+Now the spring was not an untouched, wildwood affair at all. The
+authorities had done things to it which made its water a great deal
+better for drinking purposes, but much less picturesque--and deeper. Its
+bed had been widened and lined with concrete, and barred across at
+intervals, whether to keep the earth back or the concrete solid nobody
+but the Town Council that had done it knew. And although falling between
+the bars didn't seem very easy even for a slim, small girl, Edith seemed
+to have accomplished it. She was wedged between two of the bars across
+the water, and what was more, she had managed to drag Marie Hunter down
+with her in her fall. Marie only had one foot in the water, and she was
+struggling to get out, though the force of the stream was making it hard
+for her, for the pool was about four feet deep. But Edith, wedged
+between the bars, was devoting her energies exclusively to screaming for
+help. The reason was apparent when the rescuing parties came closer. One
+arm was caught down beside her, so that she could balance herself, but
+not get out. Winona took one look at the situation.
+
+"We'll get Edith out!" she called to Mrs. Bryan. "Can you manage Marie?"
+
+Mrs. Bryan was a slender, delicate-looking woman, but she was stronger
+than Winona realized.
+
+"Certainly!" she encouraged. And Helen and Winona began eagerly trying
+to extricate their friend.
+
+It was impossible to reach Edith and take her free hand to pull her out
+by--the bank each side the sluice, or stream, or whatever you choose to
+call it, was too deep. Winnie thought a minute. Then she took off the
+long, strong blue silk scarf she wore in a big bow at the neck of her
+blouse.
+
+"Can I have yours, too, Helen?" And Helen handed hers over promptly.
+Either alone was long enough, but Winnie wanted the two to twist
+together, for fear one would not bear Edith's weight.
+
+"Can you get around to the other side with your end, Helen?" she said.
+
+Helen scurried around up back of the source. Then she and Winnie, each
+holding an end of the scarf-rope, walked down either side of the stream
+till they were parallel with Edith. They knelt down and lowered the
+scarf till Edith could slip her free arm over it, and pull herself up.
+With its aid as a brace, she managed to free the caught arm, jammed
+against her side. After that it was easy enough, and in a few minutes
+she extricated herself entirely, and half dragged, half pulled herself
+up the steep bank. By the time the girls were done pulling her out she
+and they were pretty well worn out, and they dropped on the grass, Helen
+and Edith on one side and Winnie on the other, and took time to find
+their lost breaths.
+
+Mrs. Bryan and Marie came up to them now--getting Marie out of the water
+had been a fairly easy matter--and made the others get up.
+
+"Edith and Marie must go straight and get off their wet things!" the
+older woman advised. "And Adelaide's feet are wet, too."
+
+"Where had we better go?" asked Marie, calm as ever, though nobody could
+have been much wetter than she was up to her waist.
+
+"Old Mary's is the quickest place," said Mrs. Bryan. "Hurry, now--run,
+or you'll catch cold. Adelaide and I are coming, too."
+
+The whole party--for Winnie and Helen wanted to see the finish--set off
+at a brisk trot for Old Mary's.
+
+Old Mary was an elderly Irishwoman who earned her living mostly by
+taking in washing, but also by selling ginger-ale, cookies and
+sandwiches to such picnics and automobile parties as came her way. Her
+little house was close to the picnic-woods.
+
+"They're sure of a good fire to change their things by, that's one
+comfort," said Winnie to Helen as they ran along in the rear of their
+dripping friends.
+
+"Yes, but----" Helen began to laugh. "What are they going to change to?"
+she inquired. "We didn't any of us bring our trunks--it isn't done on
+picnics!"
+
+"They'll have to go to bed!" was Winnie's solution, and they both began
+to laugh again.
+
+"It's a shame, though, to have them miss all the picnic," said Winnie,
+sobering down.
+
+But when they arrived on the scene they found the victims hadn't the
+least intention of going to bed.
+
+"Sure, I'll iron their bits of clothes dry," said Old Mary, "an' who'll
+be the worse if they borry a few clothes from me ironin' horse till the
+others are dry? The people that own 'em 'd never mind--I've an elegant
+trade in the washin' of clothes, an' there's plenty to fit yez all on
+the horse."
+
+It was not half-past eleven yet, and the girls would not be going home
+for some hours, so there would be plenty of time for the things to dry.
+So Edith and Marie accepted Old Mary's offer on the spot. Among the
+various family washes that she was doing were some things of their own.
+They managed to pick out enough dry clothing for all their needs--all
+but dresses. There were shirtwaists and blouses galore, but it was too
+early for many wash-skirts to be going to the laundress.
+
+However, there was an ample red cotton wrapper, the property of Mary
+herself, which at least covered Marie. But Edith was little, and there
+was nothing which came near fitting her but an expensively trimmed white
+organdy party-dress, which Mary said frankly she did not feel she could
+lend.
+
+"What shall I do?" asked Edith in desperation. "I can't sit here all day
+till my dress dries!"
+
+"I dunno, darlin'. Sure 'tis too bad. Wait a minute, though." She
+hurried out of the room, and presently returned waving something blue.
+"If ye wouldn't mind these overalls, now," she said, "they're just
+washed an' ironed for little James Dempsey to wear. An' the beauty of
+overalls is they fit anybody."
+
+"_Overalls!_" said Edith mournfully.
+
+But overalls were better than a day in bed, and the end of it was, that
+out of Old Mary's hospitable cottage walked a tall Irishwoman with two
+long braids over her trailing red wrapper, and a small Irishman with
+yellow curls over very baggy and much turned-up overalls, instead of
+neat Marie and fluffy Edith. They and Adelaide had put on dry stockings,
+and had many thicknesses of newspaper on their shoes till they could get
+to the fire to dry them.
+
+"Good-mornin'!" said Marie cheerfully to her astonished friends, as she
+sailed majestically up to the freshly-made fire.
+
+"Sure we're the world-renowned vaudeville team, Hunter an' Hillis."
+
+"Just back from doing their justly-famous diving stunt!" added Winnie.
+"Better come near the fire, girls, and try to get your shoes dry."
+
+The fire, which the rest had made during the "diving-stunt," was burning
+beautifully. The girls laid down waterproofs and blankets, and disposed
+themselves comfortably around it, for the fire-makers were tired, and
+the rescuers and rescued were particularly glad to lie down and be warm
+and dry and limp.
+
+"Two long hours to dinner-time!" from Winnie presently in a very sad
+voice. "I don't feel as if I could stand it."
+
+"Nor I!" several voices chimed in.
+
+"Then why do you?" suggested Mrs. Bryan sensibly. "If everybody's hungry
+we might as well have dinner now!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+
+At the mention of dinner everybody became energetic as by magic. Winnie
+split her two dozen rolls neatly down the middle, and set them in rows
+on a newspaper, ready for the broiled bacon. Marie, with her red wrapper
+pinned up out of harm's way, banked the fire, while Edith mixed cocoa
+and condensed milk industriously in the bottom of a gigantic kettle
+which was discovered, too late, to have been intended to boil the water
+in. It occurred to Winnie that Edith in overalls was much more fun than
+Edith in fluffy ruffles that she had to remember to take care of, as she
+watched her flying around with her curls waving in the wind, looking
+like a stage newsboy. Helen, on her knees by the heap of provisions, was
+unwrapping her bacon, and somebody else was peeling all the hard-boiled
+eggs.
+
+"Didn't anybody bring cake?" asked Louise plaintively. "Have we nothing
+but rolls, bacon and eggs?"
+
+"Why, what else do you want?" asked Marie with a dignity rather
+interfered with by the way her scarlet draperies flapped in the breeze.
+"All the bacon-bats I ever heard about they just had rolls and bacon--we
+have a lot of things extra."
+
+"Glad I never attended one of the just-rolls-and-bacon kind," Louise
+rebelliously declared.
+
+Winnie, who liked cake herself, and thought she had seen some, went back
+to the heap of provisions and began to dig at it like a small dog at a
+mole-hill.
+
+"Marie!" she called triumphantly in a minute, "There _is_ cake! And a
+lot of bananas!"
+
+"That's good," Marie serenely remarked. "Bring them along."
+
+Winnie reappeared in a minute, very flushed and triumphant, with a hand
+of bananas under her arm, and a huge chocolate cake, with almost
+undamaged icing, poised carefully before her.
+
+"Oh, I remember!" said absent-minded Dorothy, "I brought that cake. It
+was in the satchel with the knives and forks."
+
+"You certainly saved all our lives," said Louise feelingly, and went on
+whittling toasting-sticks for the bacon. "Here, Winnie, take a stick and
+start in to be useful."
+
+"How do you do it?" Winnie wondered--"cook bacon, I mean? I never did it
+this way before."
+
+"Just string it on the stick any way at all," Marie advised, and speared
+a slice scientifically as she spoke.
+
+"Easy when you know how!" laughed Winnie, sharpening her own stick a
+little more and threading some bacon on it.
+
+In a few minutes everybody had slices of bacon frizzling gayly, and
+getting more or less charred. When they were done enough they were
+popped between the opened rolls, and--eaten, cinders and all. The water,
+though it was boiled in something else than its own proper
+kettle--something remarkably like a dish-pan cunningly slung over the
+fire by a wonderful system of forked sticks--came to a boil without
+accident, and was poured on the cocoa. Each girl had brought her own
+drinking-cup, so there was no difficulty about crockery. It seemed to
+Winnie, balanced on one elbow on her rug, that nothing had ever tasted
+so good as the bacon sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, washed down by all
+the hot cocoa you could drink.
+
+By the time the cake and bananas came the girls felt as if they couldn't
+eat another thing. But they did. It was delightful lying around the fire
+talking and eating and laughing. It was one of those mild days which
+come in May sometimes, bright, with a little breeze. After awhile
+somebody started a Camp Fire song, and one by one they all joined in.
+After that they lay quiet for awhile, talking and being lazy.
+
+When they began to clear away Edith declared that she didn't dare go
+near the spring again. So it was Winona and Louise who took the few
+things there were to wash, the cocoa-kettle and dish-pan and
+drinking-cups and the silver, over to the spring. It was pleasant, lazy
+work, not a bit like home dish-washing. Louise splashed the things up
+and down in the running water, and Winona dried them.
+
+"Isn't it nice?" sighed Winnie. "Oh, I do wish we could camp outdoors
+all this summer, instead of living in hot houses! Don't you always hate
+to sleep indoors when it's hot?"
+
+Louise rolled over on her back and looked at the sky.
+
+"Yes, I think I do," she spoke thoughtfully. "You have to, though. Out
+in California they say everybody has sleeping-porches, and never thinks
+of going inside at night. I wish people had them here."
+
+A brilliant idea came to Winona--which, by the way, she afterward
+carried out. "Our side-porch is almost all screened. I wonder if mother
+wouldn't let me sleep there? I'm going to ask her, anyway."
+
+"I wish I could, too," breathed Louise, "but our side-porch is where
+everybody goes by--that's the worst of living on a corner. I know I
+never could break the milkman and the baker of contributing rolls and
+milk on top of me in the early morning!"
+
+"What a splendid idea! Then you could have 'breakfast in your bed,' like
+Harry Lauder," said Winnie, and both girls stopped to giggle. "But
+honestly," began Winnie again, as she reached out for some long grass
+near her and began to plait it, "don't you think we can all camp out
+this summer?"
+
+"Here?"
+
+"N-no, not here--at least, I don't believe they'd let us, the people who
+own it, I mean. But there must be somewhere that we could go, somewhere
+not too far off to cost a lot to get there."
+
+"I wonder!" said Louise, pulling a thick red pig-tail around in order to
+nibble its end thoughtfully. She had a habit of gnawing at her hair when
+she thought hard. "What about Cribb's Creek?"
+
+"That's too near," Winnie opposed.
+
+"Well, where did the Boy Scouts go last year?"
+
+"Up on Wampoag River, a little way below Wampoag," said Winona. "They
+said it was a cinch, because they could sell all the fish they caught to
+the Wampoag hotel-keepers, and get things they needed, and yet it was
+just as wild as it could be if you went a little way along the river."
+
+Wampoag was a summer resort not far from them.
+
+"Well, how far's that?" asked Louise.
+
+"About ten miles to the boys' camp," answered Winona. "But there would
+be plenty of good camping-ground nearer home, and quite close to that
+little village--what's its name?"
+
+"Green's Corners," supplied Louise.
+
+"I wonder who Green was, and if he really _did_ have corners," Winona
+thoughtfully remarked.
+
+Louise giggled. "He was a square man, I suppose," she said, and Winnie
+gave her a shove. "Oh, don't!" she said. "That's an awful pun."
+
+"I thought it was a very good one. Well, to come back to business, the
+boys didn't go by train. Indeed, I don't think you can, unless you go
+away round. They hiked."
+
+"Well, why shouldn't we, too?" asked Louise.
+
+"Or part of the way, anyway!" added Winnie,
+
+"People would take us for a band of 'I won't works!' We'd look it, too,
+by the time we got to the end of the journey."
+
+"But we needn't do it all at once," said Winnie. "We could break the
+journey overnight. Don't you know, people in England have walking-tours
+that last for days and days? I've read about it. They stop in inns
+overnight and have adventures."
+
+"Well, I'd like the adventures, if they didn't mean falling into ponds
+and getting your clothes wet," said Louise.
+
+Winnie yawned.
+
+"I suppose they think we've tied the cups round our necks and jumped
+in," and she lazily started to get up. "Come on, Louise, let's find Mrs.
+Bryan and ask her about camping. She's sure to know about hikes and
+everything."
+
+Finding Mrs. Bryan proved to be hard, because she was not in the kind of
+a place where you would expect to find a grown-up step-mother. They
+finally discovered her by a flutter of blue skirt that hung down below
+the branches of an old apple-tree. She was sitting comfortably in one of
+its crotches, trying to carve herself a willow whistle.
+
+"Come on up, girls!" she hailed them cheerfully. "There's always room at
+the top!"
+
+"Where are the rest of them?" asked Winnie, beginning to climb. Louise
+followed more slowly, for Winnie was more slender and quicker in her
+movements.
+
+"Scattered all over, I suppose," said Mrs. Bryan. "Edith went back to
+old Mary's to see if her clothes were dry. Did you want them for
+anything special?"
+
+"No indeed," Winnie assured her. "It was you we wanted for something
+special."
+
+"Well, I'm here," and Mrs. Bryan dropped an affectionate hand on the
+pretty brown head beneath her. "What is it, dear?"
+
+"It's about camping out," spoke Winnie and Louise in a breath. "Do you
+think we can do it?"
+
+Mrs. Bryan laughed.
+
+"'Can we do it?' Why, my dears, that's just what we're for! What would
+be the fun of belonging to a Camp Fire if we couldn't go camping
+outdoors?"
+
+"Oh, lovely!" cried Winnie. "Then you'll go, too?"
+
+"I certainly will!" said Mrs. Bryan promptly. "It would have to be when
+Mr. Bryan was having his vacation, though, because it would never do to
+leave, not only my own hearth-fire, but my own poor helpless husband,
+untended. And, of course, it will not be till school is through."
+
+"Oh, oh, it begins to sound almost real!" Winnie cried with a joyous
+little jounce that shook several pink blossoms from the tree.
+
+"Just wait!" warned Louise from her lower limb. "When we start that
+twenty-five-mile hike, it will seem quite too real for comfort, take my
+word for it!"
+
+"Don't you think we could hike to camp?" appealed Winnie.
+
+"You'll have to practise shorter hikes first," was the answer. "If you
+do that there's no reason why we couldn't all walk the distance. I
+suppose we'll camp somewhere on the Wampoag River."
+
+"Yes, that's what we thought," said the girls.
+
+"Of course, we'd have to break the journey," Winnie went on.
+
+"Well, yes, I think so," Mrs. Bryan answered. "Oh, here are Helen and
+Marie now. Oh, Helen! We're up in this tree! No, don't come up--all the
+seats are full!"
+
+"Then come down!" called Helen. "We have something to show you."
+
+The something proved to be a small and very scared garter-snake, that
+Helen was carrying in a forked stick.
+
+"Poor little snakelet!" said Louise. "Do let him go home, Helen--I'm
+sure he's not grown-up yet."
+
+So Helen put down the snake and off he went.
+
+"Did you find your clothes?" Louise asked Marie rather superfluously,
+for she had on her sailor-suit, rather fresher-looking than it had been
+before.
+
+"It was all done when we got there," said Marie, "but Edith's dress was
+harder to do--all those ruffles, you know--so Mary's still ironing it."
+
+"Then we'd better sit here and wait for her," suggested Louise. "And oh,
+girls, we have a plan."
+
+"A real plan, all hand-made?" mocked Helen. "Do tell us about it."
+
+So then the camping-trip was discussed and votes taken about it. Helen,
+of course, could go. Marie was sure she would be allowed to.
+
+"Mother says I stay in the house and read too much anyway," she said.
+
+The other girls, drifting up one by one, were all wild over the idea.
+Edith, in her freshly-laundered frock, was a little doubtful about the
+hike, but as she said, if she fainted from exhaustion she could take a
+train or a carriage or something the rest of the way.
+
+They talked camping till it was time to go back and pack up things for
+the return trip. So the girls rose up from around the apple-tree, and
+stowed everything away in the baskets and satchels they had brought, and
+walked back to the trolley. First, though, they gave old Mary all the
+provisions they had left; cocoa, six rolls, and a generous half of the
+chocolate cake.
+
+"That certainly was a life-sized cake!" breathed Winnie as she set it on
+Mary's kitchen table. "But it won't be as hard to eat as it was to
+carry, will it?"
+
+"Sure ye needn't worry but what it'll get et," laughed Mary. "Many
+thanks, an' good luck to yez all."
+
+They piled into the trolley, rather sleepy with the long day in the
+wind, and, except for Marie and Edith, rather crumpled. Winnie's blouse
+had a grass-stain, and Louise's was marked neatly across the back, like
+a Japanese stencil, with a wet brown bough-mark. There were also burrs,
+more or less, on everybody. But what were burrs?
+
+Everybody heaved a sight of contentment as they settled down in their
+seats.
+
+"It certainly was a lovely picnic!" they said.
+
+"How beautifully fresh and clean Edith Hillis keeps her dresses!" said
+Mrs. Merriam to Winnie, as Edith turned to wave good-bye at the Merriam
+gate, and went down the street with Marie and Helen. "You'd think that
+pink dress had just been washed and ironed, and yet she's been out in
+the woods with the rest of you tousled-looking children all day!"
+
+And Winona laughed so that it was at least two minutes before she could
+explain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+
+"I'd advise you girls to hurry up with those squaw dresses," hinted Tom
+Merriam darkly, as he fled through the sitting-room on his way back from
+Scout-practice.
+
+Winnie looked up. She and Helen and Louise were sitting in a row on the
+window-seat, sewing for dear life on their ceremonial gowns.
+
+"We are hurrying all we can," she smiled. "These have to be done by
+to-night anyway."
+
+"They are, nearly," chimed in Louise, shaking out her garment and
+observing its fringes with satisfaction. "What's he talking about, Win?"
+
+"Tommy! Tom! Come back and tell us!" called his sister.
+
+"Can't!" shouted Tom down the stairs. "You'll find out in time--you're
+going to need 'em, that's all!"
+
+"What on earth do you suppose he means?" wondered Helen, as the last
+glimpse of Tom's khaki-clad form vanished up the stairs.
+
+Winnie laughed as she finished off a seam.
+
+"I don't believe it meant anything," she said. "Tom's always trying to
+get up excitements."
+
+"_I_ think it means something!" said Louise, beginning to take out
+bastings. She was the best seamstress of the three, and consequently was
+done first. "Here, Helen, let me finish that sleeve for you while you do
+the other one."
+
+She took up the sleeve, and jumped up and began to dance with the sleeve
+for a partner.
+
+  Something's goin' to happen, honey,
+  Happen, honey, happen mighty soon!
+
+"Oh, thank you!" said Helen gratefully, referring not to the song and
+dance, but to the aid. She hated sewing, and nothing but the Camp Fire
+requirements would ever have made her persevere till her gown was done.
+Winnie did not mind sewing one way or the other, and by a queer
+contradiction harum-scarum Louise loved it.
+
+The girls worked on, and discussed on. Winnie was sure Tom meant
+nothing, and the others were just as sure that he had some reason for
+saying what he had.
+
+That night the girls were to hold their first Council Fire. That was why
+they were hurrying so to finish their dresses.
+
+When it came Winnie's turn to answer the roll-call, she rose, slim and
+graceful in her khaki dress, before her turn was reached.
+
+"Opeechee, Guardian of the Fire, may I speak before my turn comes to
+answer to my name?" she asked.
+
+"Speak," said Mrs. Bryan.
+
+"Opeechee, I do not want to change my name. May I not be known in the
+Camp Fire as Winona? The name is one that an Indian gave one of my own
+people many circles of moons ago, and it is mine by inheritance."
+
+"Will you tell the Camp Fire about it?" asked Mrs. Bryan.
+
+So Winnie told the Camp Fire the story her mother had told her, of the
+weary Indian woman her grandmother had helped, and whose papoose had
+been called "Winona," "Flashing Ray of Light."
+
+"Could anything be better than to be a ray of light in dark places?"
+asked Winona. "I like the meaning of my name, and if the Camp Fire will
+let me keep it I promise to be a brightness wherever I can, always, that
+will light the dark places for people who need it."
+
+"What do you say, Daughters of the Camp Fire?" asked Mrs. Bryan when
+Winona was done.
+
+"If we all have different Camp Fire names, won't it seem strange for
+Winona to have the same name straight through?" objected Marie. "It is a
+beautiful name with a beautiful meaning, if it weren't that it is her
+every-day name."
+
+"Nobody ever calls me anything but Winnie," said Winona.
+
+"Why not use the translation?" suggested Helen. "'Ray of Light' is
+pretty. And then Winnie could keep the meaning."
+
+"You have spoken well!" said Mrs. Bryan. "What do you say to that,
+Daughters of the Camp Fire?"
+
+"Good!" from all the girls.
+
+"Kolah, Ray of Light!" spoke Mrs. Bryan.
+
+Then she went on with the business of the evening.
+
+"Two of our Camp Fire Girls are to become Wood-gatherers to-night. Will
+they rise?"
+
+Winona and Marie had qualified, and they stood up.
+
+"Ray of Light," Mrs. Bryan went on, "will you tell us how you chose your
+name?"
+
+"'Flashing Ray of Light' is the name my fathers gave me," clearly spoke
+Winona, "and I have told the Camp Fire the reason of its choosing. But I
+keep it because I intend to carry out its meaning. I have tried to earn
+my right to it by being bright, and helping all I could, no matter how
+dark the days were, nor how much nicer it would have been to be cross.
+As my symbol I have chosen the firefly, because it lights dark places."
+
+"Flashing Ray of Light brings brightness to our Camp Fire," said the
+Guardian. "We welcome you to your place in our Camp Fire Circle."
+
+She gave Winona her pretty silver ring with its raying fagots, and
+repeating the formula which went with it.
+
+When the girls had welcomed her rank and sung her a cheer, Winona sat
+down, she hoped, for the last time.
+
+"How does it feel?" whispered Louise, who sat next her. "I wish I'd
+collected my requirements as quickly."
+
+"It feels partly awfully proud and partly awfully relieved," Winona
+whispered back. "And I feel as if I oughtn't to have picked out such
+awfully easy honors to take. Anybody could make a shirtwaist and know
+about their ancestors and trim a hat----"
+
+"No, they couldn't!" contradicted Louise, who admired Winona very much.
+"You just happen to be cleverer than the rest of us, that's all."
+
+"I'm _not!_" said Winona as vehemently as it could be said in a whisper.
+"Marie's getting her Wood-gatherer's ring to-night, too."
+
+Mrs. Bryan's voice rose again in the same formula.
+
+"Shawondassee, tell us how you chose your name."
+
+"Shawondassee means 'South Wind,'" answered Marie's steady voice. "I
+chose the name because the South Wind coaxes instead of scolding, and I
+thought it was a good name to remind me to do the same thing. As my
+symbol I have chosen the willow shoots, because they come up year after
+year, no matter how often they are cut down, and I wish to have their
+perseverance."
+
+"Perseverance and cheerfulness!" whispered Louise. "Who would have
+thought Marie needed either of them?"
+
+"You can't tell much about Marie, because you never can get to her to
+talk about herself," answered Winona. "But she certainly is one of the
+hardest workers in the class at school."
+
+At this point the girls had to stop talking, to join in the
+Wood-gatherer's verses for Marie.
+
+Nearly all Marie's required honors were Patriotism, for she was the
+student of the crowd.
+
+"It fairly makes me shiver to think how much that girl knows," whispered
+Louise. "My honors are going to be plain home-craft--making pies and
+chaperoning ice-chests and massaging floors, and so forth."
+
+"Will your mother let you?" asked Winona; for Mrs. Lane kept two maids,
+having the money to do it, and a big family.
+
+"Let me!" exploded Louise. "She'll weep tears of joy if there's any
+prospect of my getting thinner!"
+
+Just as Louise spoke there fell one of those uncanny silences which have
+a way of occurring at the worst possible times. Louise's statement
+pealed cheerfully through the room, and poor Louise, blushing scarlet,
+tried to make herself very small--a hard matter.
+
+The girls could not help laughing, but Mrs. Bryan had mercy on her
+embarrassment, and went on with the awarding of the honor beads each
+girl had won since the last meeting. Winona's were rather various--a few
+from each class. Helen's were nearly all hand-craft--stencilling and
+clay-modelling. She had brought along a bureau-scarf she had done, to
+show, and a beautiful little bowl she had modelled and painted and
+fired. Louise had only three beads so far, one for identifying birds,
+one for preserving, and one for making her ceremonial dress.
+
+Edith Hillis, to everybody's surprise, was given an honor for
+folk-dancing, and proceeded, when she was asked, to get up and
+demonstrate. This held up the regular course of the meeting for quite a
+little while, because when she showed them the Highland Fling all the
+girls wanted to learn it. So for at least a half-hour they practised it,
+till the floor over Mr. Bryan's head, in his study beneath, must have
+seemed to be coming down.
+
+After they had all tired themselves thoroughly they sang for awhile.
+About midway of the second song Mrs. Bryan evidently remembered
+something, for she gave a start as if she were going to speak. As soon
+as they had finished she raised her hand for silence, and said:
+
+"I have a message for Camp Karonya. It should be delivered at the
+business meeting, I suppose, but--it won't keep till then. The Boy
+Scouts, Camp No. Six, of this town, invite the Camp Fire Girls to a
+dance given by them in the school-house assembly-room next Wednesday
+night."
+
+"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" cried Edith. "Of course we'll go!"
+
+A confused noise of voices broke out, all speaking at once. You could
+catch an occasional word--"blue messaline," "white organdy,"
+"orchestra," "how perfectly dandy!"--but for the most part it was just a
+noise.
+
+Mrs. Bryan waited placidly till it had quieted down.
+
+"What is your pleasure in this matter, Daughters of the Camp Fire?" she
+asked then.
+
+"Oh, we'll go!" cried everybody at once.
+
+"Then you'd better instruct the Secretary to write them to that effect,"
+suggested Mrs. Bryan gravely, for the tumult seemed inclined to break
+out again.
+
+Winona jumped up and put it in the form of a motion that the Secretary
+should reply, and actually induced the girls to second and ratify it.
+
+"I'll write the acceptance right away!" declared Helen with enthusiasm.
+
+She went into the next room, got paper and ink, came back, sat down in
+the middle of a ring of interested suggesters, and wrote a very pleased
+acceptance.
+
+Winona, robbed of her usual confidante, turned to the girl on her other
+side, to talk clothes.
+
+"I'm going to wear my blue organdy, with the Dresden sash and
+hair-ribbons," she said without looking to see to whom she was talking.
+
+"Are you?" said the other girl, hesitating a little.
+
+Winona looked at her, at the sound of her voice. She had thought she was
+speaking to Louise. But Louise was on the other side of the room, and
+the girl next her was Adelaide Hughes, one of the two girls Mrs. Bryan
+had brought into their Camp Fire.
+
+It was two months now since Winona and Adelaide had begun to meet each
+other weekly at the Camp Fire good times and Ceremonials, but when you
+have all the bosom friends you want it is hard to see such a very great
+deal of other people. Winona realized now that she had scarcely
+exchanged two consecutive sentences with Adelaide all the time she had
+known her.
+
+Adelaide was a thin, tired-looking girl of about thirteen, with big blue
+eyes and a sensitive mouth, and hair that had curious yellow and brown
+lights. She did not join very heartily, ever, in the frolics, but she
+seemed to enjoy everything with a sort of shy, watching intensity.
+
+"And what are you going to wear?" Winona asked, more out of friendliness
+than curiosity.
+
+Adelaide colored.
+
+"I--I don't know," she said. "I--a white dress, I think."
+
+"Voile?" asked Winona.
+
+Adelaide shook her head.
+
+"No, lawn--if I come. But maybe I won't be there."
+
+"Why, what a shame!" said Winona with the bright friendliness that was a
+part of her. "Of course you must be there. Helen accepted for all of
+us."
+
+"I know, but--but maybe I can't come," repeated Adelaide.
+
+"Of course you can!" insisted Winona.
+
+Adelaide's eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head.
+
+Winona slipped one arm around her. The two girls were sitting a little
+apart from the rest by now, in a dusky corner.
+
+"There's some reason why you think you can't, some horrid reason," she
+coaxed. "Now, just tell Winona what it is." She spoke as if she were
+petting her own younger sister, though Adelaide was only a year younger
+than she was.
+
+Adelaide's eyes overflowed, and she felt gropingly for her handkerchief,
+to dry her eyes.
+
+"Here's one," whispered Winona, slipping her own into Adelaide's hand.
+"Now, tell me, dear. It isn't very bad, is it? Maybe I could help."
+
+"You _can't!_" said Adelaide fiercely, "and I won't tell you a thing
+unless you promise not to."
+
+"All right," said Winona cheerfully, "I promise."
+
+"I--I haven't any party dress, and father can't afford to get me one,"
+choked Adelaide, "and all I have is an old white lawn I wear afternoons,
+and it's _horrid_. And--and, Winona Merriam, if you offer to loan me a
+dress I'll never speak to you again!"
+
+"I wasn't going to," comforted Winona, stroking poor sobbing Adelaide's
+shoulder, while her own quick, friendly mind cast about for a way out.
+
+For Adelaide must come to the dance, and evidently she wouldn't borrow
+anything from anybody.
+
+"Not borrow--how queer!" said Winona, voicing her thought. "Why, I don't
+know any of the girls I wouldn't borrow from, if I needed to, or they
+from me. Don't you ever borrow anything, Adelaide--except trouble?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Adelaide chokily but proudly. "It's--it's different
+when you _have_ to!"
+
+"I don't see why!" said sunny, friendly-hearted Winona, who always took
+it for granted that she liked people, and of course that they would like
+her! She had never known what it was to be rich, but never either what
+it was to be painfully poor. "Well, let's think of some other way. I
+suppose you haven't time to earn the money for a dress for this party.
+Opeechee was telling us last week that we ought to try to earn so much
+money apiece, and that there were lots of ways for doing it."
+
+"No, there wouldn't be time," answered Adelaide mournfully; but she
+stopped crying and began to look interested.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+The two girls sat and thought hard for a moment; then Winnie suddenly
+thought of something.
+
+"Just a minute, Adelaide!" she whispered, and she went over to the
+corner where Mrs. Bryan and Marie Hunter were discussing business
+together. The rest were still all talking dance excitedly by the
+fireplace.
+
+"Opeechee," she said, "may I ask you something? Would there be any
+reason why the girls couldn't wear their ceremonial dresses to the
+dance?"
+
+Mrs. Bryan thought for a moment.
+
+"There's no actual reason why we shouldn't," she said. "Only the idea is
+that the dresses should be kept for rather intimate and private things."
+
+"But it would be such a good idea if we wore them," insisted Winona
+eagerly. "You see, perhaps--perhaps some of us mightn't be able to
+afford new party dresses, and maybe we mightn't have any old good ones,
+either."
+
+"Why, Winnie, you have that blue----" began Marie, and checked herself
+as she saw a light.
+
+"Some of us mightn't have any new party dresses," repeated Winona
+obstinately, but with an appealing look at Mrs. Bryan. She did so hope
+she would understand! "Anyway, the boys expect us to," she went on
+eagerly. "Tom said this afternoon that we'd better get the dresses
+ready, only we didn't know then what he meant."
+
+Mrs. Bryan looked at Winona's vivid, earnest face, and--understood.
+
+"I think you are quite right, Ray of Light. I'll speak to the girls."
+
+She stood up and struck lightly on the little Indian drum to call the
+girls' attention.
+
+"Girls!" she said, "as the dance that the Scouts have asked us to is an
+affair to which we have been invited as an official body, it seems to me
+that it would be only courteous for us to wear our ceremonial gowns. So
+I am going to ask that you all do it."
+
+There was a murmur of approval all over the room. When you have just
+acquired a beautiful new costume it's human nature to want to wear it
+early and often. There was only a plaintive wail, which Marie
+suppressed, from Edith Hillis:
+
+"Oh, my lovely new green messaline!"
+
+Winona crossed over to the place where Adelaide still sat.
+
+"Well?" she said triumphantly.
+
+"Did you tell Mrs. Bryan anything about me?" Adelaide demanded
+suspiciously.
+
+"No, I didn't," replied Winona rather indignantly. "What do you take me
+for, when I said I wouldn't?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know," apologized Adelaide. "And--thank you, ever so
+much, Winona! You--you don't _know!_"
+
+Winona laughed.
+
+"Why, yes, I do. At least, I've often wanted new clothes when I couldn't
+have them. But mother says if you can't the next best thing is to go on
+wearing what you have, and be so cheerful nobody has time to think what
+you have on!"
+
+"Nobody ever told me that," pondered Adelaide, as if it were an entirely
+new idea to her. "But my mother's dead, you see. And, anyway, it doesn't
+sound as if it could be true. Did you ever try it?"
+
+"Yes," Winona said, and laughed. "I did--it was funny, too. I was
+visiting some cousins of mine. I hadn't expected to stay, and I hadn't
+brought a single party thing, and none of their clothes would fit me.
+They had perfectly lovely dresses. And suddenly we were all invited to a
+party, and I had nothing but a blue linen; and all the rest of them in
+the fluffiest clothes you ever saw!"
+
+"Well," said Adelaide, "didn't it feel _horrid_."
+
+"Yes, it did for awhile," owned Winona. "But everybody was sitting
+around as stiff as stiff--you know, some parties are like that at first.
+And somebody just had to say something. And pretty soon I thought of a
+game that just fitted in, and asked them to play it. After that I was so
+busy thinking up games that I never remembered a thing I had on till we
+got home that night. And I only did then because my cousin Ethel said,
+'Oh, I've torn my dress!' and I said it was queer I hadn't torn mine,
+too--and then I remembered that it was linen and wouldn't tear. We
+certainly had a good time at that party!"
+
+Adelaide looked at Winona's shining eyes and flushed cheeks enviously.
+
+"Yes, you could do that," she said, "and people would be so busy
+watching you that they wouldn't know whether you had a flour-sack on or
+a satin. But I can't, because I keep worrying all the time about what
+people think of me."
+
+"Oh, I should think that _would_ be horrid," Winona sympathized.
+
+"It is," said Adelaide, "only I----"
+
+The rest that Adelaide had been going to say was drowned, because just
+then came the signal for the closing song, and soon the Council Fire was
+over.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What on earth were you talking to Adelaide Hughes so long about?"
+demanded Louise curiously as they walked home, for their ways lay
+together.
+
+"Oh, just things," was Winona's answer. "I think she's awfully shy, and
+a little afraid of the rest of us, Lou."
+
+"And you think we ought to make a special fuss over her?" said Louise
+mournfully. "I knew that was coming. Well, I suppose we will--Helen and
+I always do what you tell us to. I wish I were shy, and people ran
+around saying, 'we really must make an effort to draw poor little timid
+Louise out!'"
+
+Winona burst out laughing--the idea of "poor, little, timid Louise" was
+so irresistibly funny.
+
+"It's going to be a gorgeous dance, though." Louise went on. "Wasn't it
+splendid of the Scouts to think of doing it? And what about my being
+right?"
+
+"You certainly were right," Winona admitted. "Are you sure you don't
+mind going on alone?"
+
+For they had reached the Merriam house.
+
+"Not a bit," said Louise cheerfully. "It's only a block, anyway.
+Good-night, honey."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Oh, it's lovely!" exclaimed Winona next morning when she ran
+downstairs. She flung herself on Tom bodily and hugged him hard as she
+spoke.
+
+"What's lovely?" asked Tom, detaching himself, or trying to. "Go easy,
+Winnie; it was just sheer luck that you didn't break any ribs or my
+collar-bone or something. Affection's all right in its place, but----"
+
+"But its place isn't on you, you mean?" retorted Winona, unwinding
+herself cheerfully from her brother. "Why, I mean the dance, of course."
+
+"Oh, that!" said Tom. "That's nothing! It ought to be pretty good fun,
+though, don't you think so?"
+
+"Oh, I know it will!" cried Winona fervently. "Are the boys going to
+wear their uniforms?"
+
+"Well," said Tom doubtfully, "we don't know. You see, we've hiked in
+'em, and rolled around on the grass in 'em wrestling, and done about
+everything to those poor old uniforms that you can do to clothes, and
+they really aren't fit for civilized society."
+
+"Meaning ours?" said Winona. "Thanks for the compliment! Why don't you
+have them cleaned? I suppose even khaki cleans!"
+
+"I don't know," said her brother, "I'll ask mother. Maybe we can manage
+it. But--oh, say, Winnie, there's something I wanted to speak to you
+about. You know, there are new people moved in next door. They're
+Southerners, here for the mother's health or something. There's a boy
+about my age, and a girl somewhere around yours. I don't know much about
+the girl, but Billy Lee's an awfully decent fellow, and we've got him in
+the Scouts. Now what do you think about taking his sister into your Camp
+Fire? She'd just about fit in as far as age goes, and it would be nice
+and neighborly. We'll have to ask her for the dance anyway, because
+there aren't enough of you Camp Firers yet to go around. The girl must
+need something to do, because Billy seems to worry about her rather.
+Stands to reason it isn't natural for a fellow to fret about his sister
+having a good time unless she needs it pretty badly."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Winona. "When you come to a strange place
+things are bound to be stupid till you get to know people. We've lived
+here always, you know. But I'll go over and see her as soon as I've done
+the breakfast dishes."
+
+Accordingly, when the breakfast dishes were done and the dining-room
+tidied, Winona washed her hands over again very carefully, and put
+cold-cream and talcum powder on them, for she did not like the smell of
+dish-water, especially when she was going calling. Then she made her way
+to the house next door.
+
+All the houses on that block stood in deep yards, which went all around
+them. Winona crossed the path and went up the porch, feeling a little
+shy. She had not asked anyone to join the Camp Fire before. They were to
+take in five new girls at the next monthly meeting, just before they
+went camping, but all of them had let the girls know that they wanted to
+join. Winona was a moving spirit in Camp Karonya, and she knew that
+anyone she vouched for would be welcome. But she did hope the next-door
+girl would fit in with the rest of them.
+
+The door was opened by a colored maid, but before she could say whom she
+was, a dark, handsome boy of about fifteen, in a Scout uniform, came
+running down the stairs.
+
+"You're Winnie Merriam, aren't you?" he asked eagerly. "I'm Billy Lee. I
+asked your brother to send you over to see Nataly."
+
+Winona liked Billy on the spot, he was so friendly and natural and nice,
+and very good-looking besides.
+
+"If his sister's like him she'll be splendid to have in the Camp Fire,"
+she thought, and her spirits went up with such a bound that she was able
+to smile brightly, and say enthusiastically as she held out her hand to
+Billy Lee:
+
+"Yes, indeed, I'm Winona Merriam, and I'm so glad Tom did send me. I
+know your sister and I are going to be friends."
+
+"Well, I do hope so," said Billy as confidentially as if he had known
+her for years. "I'm having a gorgeous time in the Scouts--went on a hike
+yesterday, and we never got back till nine o'clock, and three of the
+fellows got all stung up with a hornet's nest."
+
+This didn't sound much like a fine time to Winona, but she supposed boys
+knew what they liked. She couldn't help laughing, though.
+
+  If that's your idea of a wonderful time
+  Take me home--take me home!
+
+she hummed. She thought she'd sung it under her breath, but it was
+evidently loud enough to be heard, for Billy Lee burst out laughing,
+too.
+
+"Well, I didn't mean that getting stung was a pleasure exactly," said
+he, "but we do have dandy times."
+
+All this time they had been standing in the hall. Suddenly it seemed to
+occur to Billy that Winona had come to see his sister, not him. He
+ushered her hurriedly into the living-room.
+
+"I'll send Nataly down to you," he promised. But in another minute he
+came tearing downstairs again.
+
+"She says, would you mind coming up to her room?" he panted. "She hasn't
+felt so awfully well to-day, and she isn't exactly up."
+
+Winona followed him, consumed with curiosity as to what could ail a
+girl, not to be up on a beautiful spring morning, and what "not exactly
+up" meant. She found out in another minute.
+
+The bed-room where Nataly was had all its windows closed, and there was
+a close scent of toilet-water and sachet-powder and unairedness through
+the whole place.
+
+"Here's Winnie Merriam, that I told you about, sister," said Billy Lee,
+and bolted. He never seemed to walk, only to run.
+
+Nataly Lee rose from the couch where she had been lying, and came toward
+Winona.
+
+"I'm very glad to see you," she greeted Winnie languidly. "I think I
+have seen you--out in your back garden yesterday."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," said Winona. "I was playing tag there with my
+sister Florence and little Bessie Williams."
+
+"Do you still play tag?" asked Nataly, gesturing her visitor to a seat,
+and lifting one weary eyebrow.
+
+"Not as a confirmed habit," said Winona mischievously. "But you can't
+play it well with only two, and the children wanted me to, so--well, I
+just did, that was all. Don't you like tag?" she added. ("I was morally
+certain she'd faint," she confided to Tom afterwards, "but she didn't.")
+
+As a matter of fact, Nataly pulled closer the blue brocaded negligee
+that was obviously covering up a nightgown, and said, "I don't know much
+about games. I like reading better."
+
+"Oh, do you?" exclaimed Winona, interested at once. "I love reading,
+too, but somehow there's so little time for it except when it's bad
+weather. Don't you do anything but read?"
+
+"Not much," replied Nataly languidly. "Sports bore me."
+
+Winona gave an inward gasp of dismay.
+
+"Mercy!" she thought, "what a queer girl!" But outwardly she persevered.
+"Don't you ever dance?"
+
+Nataly opened her heavy hazel eyes with a little more interest.
+
+"Oh, yes, I dance, of course."
+
+"So do I," said Winona. "I love it."
+
+"Do you?" said Nataly. "I shouldn't think so--you seem so--athletic."
+
+"Oh, I'm glad," said Winona innocently, beaming with pleasure. "But I'm
+not, particularly. I can swim, of course, and row and paddle a little,
+and play tennis a little. But I've never played hockey or basket-ball,
+either of them, much. Or baseball."
+
+"Do girls play baseball up here?" demanded Nataly, sitting up and
+letting a paper novel with a thrilling picture on the cover slide to the
+floor.
+
+"They do," averred Winona solemnly, but with sparkling eyes. She was
+tempted to go on shocking her hostess by thrilling stories of invented
+boxing-matches between herself and her little schoolmates, but she
+thought better of it. "But that wasn't really what I came about," she
+went on, looking longingly at the closed window, for the airless room
+was beginning to make her cheeks burn. "Next week the Scouts are giving
+us Camp Fire Girls a dance, you know--and you are coming, aren't you?"
+
+"Yes, I think so," Nataly spoke slowly, lying back on the sofa and
+beginning to finger her paper novel again.
+
+"Well"--it came out with rather a rush--"would you like to join the Camp
+Fire? I think you'd like it."
+
+She went on enthusiastically telling Nataly all about it, till she was
+brought up short by a genuine and unsuppressed yawn on Nataly's part.
+
+"All that work?" said Nataly plaintively. "Oh, I couldn't do any of
+those things--I'd die!"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry," Winona was a little taken aback. The idea of
+considering whether things were too much trouble or not was a new one to
+her. She had always gone on the principle that--why--you _wanted_ to
+plunge into things head-foremost, and do them with all your might--that
+was the way to have fun! So the idea of lying on a sofa and shuddering
+at the idea of work was a great surprise.
+
+"No, I really couldn't join," said Nataly, with the first energy she had
+shown. "But I'm very glad you came to see me."
+
+"Yes, so am I," said Winona politely. "And you will come and see me as
+soon as you can, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," promised Nataly. She threw up her hand and pressed a
+button back of her sofa as she spoke, for Winona was rising to go.
+
+"Emma will show you the way downstairs," she said languidly, "and don't
+you want this? It's very interesting--I've just finished it."
+
+"This" was the paper novel with the melodramatic cover.
+
+"Why, thank you!" said Winona, taking it politely. "It's very kind of
+you. And you will come over?"
+
+"Oh, yes," responded Billy Lee's sister, "I shall be very glad to call."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, how was it?" demanded Tom of his sister that evening.
+
+Winona laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Why, very nice. Only Nataly Lee's about a million years older than I
+am, and she made me feel as if I were seven instead of fourteen. And she
+certainly is the _queerest_ girl! She doesn't seem to want to do
+anything for fear it will be too much trouble!"
+
+"What about joining up with your Daughters of Pocahontas?" inquired Tom.
+
+Winona didn't stop to rebuke him for his flippancy.
+
+"Well, about that," she replied, "she reminded me of one of the haughty
+ladies in the Japanese Schoolboy's housework experiences--don't you
+remember? 'I have not the want to,' she sniffed haughtily with
+considerable frequency! But she's coming to the dance."
+
+"Queer," said Tom. "There's no nonsense about Billy--he's a good
+all-around fellow. Well, you never can tell."
+
+"No," acquiesced Winona philosophically, "you can't, and it's rather a
+good thing, too!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+
+"You certainly are taking it easy, considering there's going to be a
+dance!" declared Tom. "Usually when anything like that is going to
+happen you run around like a hen with its head cut off!"
+
+"No reason why I should, this time," said Winona, laughing. "You Scouts
+are giving the dance, not we. Though perhaps it's because my dress is
+off my mind. You always have to press a frock out and clean your white
+shoes, and be sure your sash is all right, when you're wearing anything
+festive. But thanks to your suggestion about wearing the ceremonial
+dress, you'll see 'ten little Injuns' walking in to-night, headbands,
+moccasins and all--and I have nothing to worry about."
+
+Winona stretched herself out in the Morris-chair and looked provokingly
+comfortable and unoccupied.
+
+"I heard about it," said Tom.
+
+Winona flushed.
+
+"What did you hear?"
+
+"About you and your ceremonial dresses. But I guessed, too."
+
+"Who told you--and what did they tell?" demanded Winona, sitting up and
+looking ruffled.
+
+"Marie--that all the girls mightn't have party clothes," Tom placidly
+replied.
+
+"Marie hadn't any business to!" said Winona.
+
+"Well, I guessed the rest. You see, Lonny Hughes is in the Scouts, too,
+and he--well, he tells me things sometimes. And I know Adelaide felt
+pretty badly for awhile because she couldn't keep up with some of
+you--Edith mostly, I guess. He said he had to fairly bully his sister
+into joining you girls, even after Nannie'd coaxed her. You certainly
+were a good sport, Win! You know, there's just Lonny and Adelaide and a
+younger sister, and the father. They have one of those little flats over
+James's drug-store, in the Williamson Block, and Mr. Hughes doesn't get
+an awful lot of salary. Anyway, the kids keep house, and Adelaide has to
+look after herself all the way round. So she takes this hard, the money
+end, I mean."
+
+"I think she's silly!" said downright Winona.
+
+"Maybe!" said Tom wisely, and went on bestowing loving care on his
+repeating rifle, the joy of his life.
+
+Winona retired into a book, and Tom, looking up a second later, caught
+sight of its cover.
+
+"Great Scott!" he ejaculated, eying it. "Where did you get _that?_"
+
+"Where did she get what?" asked Louise, walking unceremoniously in.
+"Hello, Tom. Oh, Winnie, I want you to show me about this headband. I
+can't get the colors matched right--you know you have to be rather kind
+to beautiful golden hair like mine. It won't stand every color there
+is."
+
+"No rest for the wicked!" said Winona cheerfully, sitting up and
+abandoning her book. "You don't mean you're going to try to get this
+done for to-night?"
+
+"I certainly am," said Louise doggedly.
+
+"All right." And Winona, pulled up a little table between them.
+"Here--this is the way."
+
+The two girls bent over the little loom, their heads close together.
+Tom, meanwhile, finished cleaning his gun, wrapped it carefully in oiled
+red flannel, and looked around for more worlds to conquer.
+
+The first thing his eyes lighted on was the paper novel Winona had
+reluctantly laid down--the one Nataly had loaned her.
+
+"For the love of Mike, where did you get this?"
+
+"Your friend's sister, next door," said Winona mischievously. "Don't you
+like her taste in books?"
+
+"Crazy about it!" said Tom. "'Beautiful Coralie's Doom; or, Answered in
+Jest,'" he read from the vivid cover. "Say Louise, this hero was a
+dream. You ought to hear the amount of things he's called the heroine,
+and this is only the first chapter!"
+
+"Go ahead," urged Louise, while Winona tried vainly to get the book away
+from her brother, "I guess I can bear it!"
+
+"Let's see. Child, sweetheart, angel, cara-mia, little one--I'll have to
+start on the other hand, I've used up all my fingers on this one--loved
+one, petite, schatzchen--wonder what that is? The only thing he's left
+out so far is 'kiddo.' I suppose we'll come to that further on.
+'Lancelot looked down at her through his long, superfluous eyelashes,'"
+Tom went on, reading at the top of his strong young voice. "Those were
+well-trained eyelashes all right. I'll bet he hung by 'em every day to
+get 'em in shape to use so much. I've found six sentences about those
+lashes on one page, and every one the same."
+
+"You wouldn't expect him to have a new set every time, would you?"
+inquired Louise sarcastically.
+
+"It's a wonder he didn't have to. One set must have been pretty well
+worn out by the end of a chapter. 'Ah, you wicked fellow,' Coralie said
+archly," he went on, sitting down on the floor with the book. Winona
+made a dive for it, but she wasn't quick enough. "This wicked part's
+what gets me. There's an average of twenty-five 'wickeds' to every
+chapter, and the poor fellow's never even forgotten to return an
+umbrella!"
+
+"Or a book his sister was reading," suggested Louise.
+
+"And what's a 'saucy meow,' Winona? Coralie did 'em all the time. Can
+you?"
+
+But here Winona threw herself bodily on him, and this time she managed
+to recover her book, which she sat on.
+
+"Well, this literature class is very interesting, but my happy home
+wants me," said Louise, rising and taking up her loom and the headband,
+which was in a fair way to be properly finished now. "Thanks, ever so
+much, Ray of Light. You're the best girl as ever-ever-was. See you
+to-night, Tommy."
+
+"Now, _that's_ some girl," said Tom admiringly. "No nonsense about her.
+Do you want me to take you over, Winnie?"
+
+"That would be awfully nice of you, but we thought we'd 'attend in a
+body,' as the papers say," answered Winona. "Aren't you boys going to?"
+
+"Well, you see, there are extra girls," explained Tom. "There aren't
+enough of you Scoutragettes to go round, so we've asked some other
+girls, and we have to go after them. But we'll get them early, and be
+there to meet you when you get there."
+
+"Well, I don't want to croak." And Winona arose to go into the kitchen,
+for that way lay an honor bead, and it was nearly supper-getting time.
+"But I think the boy who goes after Nataly Lee _won't_ be drawn up to
+meet us, unless we kindly hold back the order of march for him."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder," called Tom after her. "Get something good for
+supper, there's a useful sister!"
+
+But though there was a slight delay in the order of march, it was Louise
+Lane, of all unexpected people, who was responsible for it: her headband
+went wrong after all, she explained when, flushed and panting, she
+appeared in her other one at the meeting-place.
+
+The girls fell into step and marched, two and two, out into the street
+up the short block to the school-house, where most of the public affairs
+in the town were held.
+
+"Oh, isn't it gorgeous?" whispered Winona irrepressibly as they came
+steadily and lightly up the centre of the hall, till they faced the
+Scouts.
+
+These last were drawn up in a military formation, in the order of their
+seniority, with the Scoutmaster at their head. He was a plump, cheerful,
+middle-aged man, the father of three of the Scouts, and vice-principal
+of the High School. But you would never have thought he had seen a
+class-room, he looked so military and colonel-fied, there at the head of
+his line of erect, soldierly-looking boys.
+
+"It's like real receptions!" whispered Helen to Winona, as the orchestra
+blared out "Hail to the Chief!" which was as near to "Welcome to the
+Camp Fire Girls" as the orchestra's resources could come. Then Mrs.
+Bryan and Mr. Gedney gave the order to break ranks, and the orchestra
+slid with surprising ease into a Paul Jones. So did the boys and girls.
+
+"We got here first, you see," whispered Tom to Winona as he crossed her.
+The round went on for quite a little while before the whistle blew for
+the breaking up into twos, so Winona was able to question and answer bit
+by bit as she and her brother met and parted.
+
+"What about the extra girls?" she whispered, for no extra girls were to
+be seen.
+
+"The fellows are going after them now," explained Tom. "This was a
+dance----" Tom had to leave, and finished on the next round, "for the
+Camp Fire. The others didn't come first, naturally."
+
+And sure enough, by the time the first dance was over, the extra boys
+were back, bringing partners with them--girls Camp Karonya knew, and who
+were presently going to form a second Camp Fire--for Camp Karonya's
+membership list was almost full now. The newcomers had evidently been
+asked to wear fancy costume, and the effect of the Indian dresses that
+the Camp Fire Girls wore, and the boys' military clothes, was lighted up
+and made more beautiful by the dash of color made by an occasional gypsy
+or Oriental lady.
+
+The hall had been decorated in a half-military, half-woodland fashion,
+with tents draped against the walls, crossed rifles, green boughs and
+lighted lanterns. It was a warm night, so they had filled the big
+fireplace at the side of the room with boughs. The entrance to the
+kitchen, where the cooking-classes were held in the school every Friday,
+was covered by a tent. Behind that tent, the exciting rumor spread, was
+a real colored caterer who was going to serve refreshments of
+unparalleled splendor at the proper time.
+
+But at about ten o'clock a frenzied rapping was heard from the place
+which was supposed to hold the mysterious caterer. It rose above the
+music. Mr. Gedney hurried to the door to see what had happened. An irate
+negro appeared--the city caterer who had been imported to lend grandeur
+to the scene.
+
+"Mr. Gedney," he said in what he may have thought was a tragic whisper,
+but which echoed through half the hall, "I'se been a-caperin' fo'
+nineteen yeahs, an' ah nevah had anything as shockin' happen to me as
+dis heah befo'."
+
+"Why, what's the matter, Thomas?" Mr. Gedney asked, while the more
+curious of the dancers marked time gently within earshot.
+
+"Dey done stole mah 'freshments!" wailed the darky, forgetting, in his
+emotion, to lower his voice. "Ah had de ice-cream an' de san-wiches an'
+de fruit-punch an' de fancy-cake"--a soft moan went up unconsciously
+over the room as the hungry dancers heard of these vanished
+glories--"an' Ah put dem out on de side poach till Ah wanted dem. Ah
+didn't know Ah was comin' to no thief-town. An dey's _gone!_"
+
+Mr. Gedney rose to the occasion nobly.
+
+"We'll find some of them, Thomas," he said.
+
+By this time nearly everyone in the room had paused about the door. Mr.
+Gedney raised his voice. "Ladies," he said, "if you will excuse your
+partners for half an hour they will go out on the trail of
+our--ah--vanished refection. Scouts, attention! By twos, forward--hike!"
+
+In an instant every Scout, with a hasty excuse to his partner, had
+vanished from the building.
+
+"It's that Bent Street gang," hissed Tom to his sister in passing. "We
+know where they hang out, and where they're likely to have cached the
+eats."
+
+"I only hope there'll be something left by the time the Scouts find the
+food," wailed Louise. "Don't look so happy, Winnie--it's insulting!"
+
+"She's swelling as if she had an idea," suggested Helen, who had come
+over. "What is it, Win?"
+
+"So I have!" said Winona, her eyes sparkling as they always did when
+Great Ideas came her way. She was rather given to them. She ran across
+to Mrs. Bryan and began to talk to her in an excited whisper.
+
+When she had done Mrs. Bryan nodded.
+
+"Splendid!" she said. "Tell the girls yourself, my dear."
+
+So Winona stood swiftly out in the middle of the floor, a slim, gallant
+little figure in her Indian frock and the long strings of scarlet beads
+she had added to it.
+
+"Girls!" she said. "Those refreshments mayn't ever come back. The boys
+won't be back with them right away, anyhow. Let's get together and make
+some more!"
+
+"Good!" called out all the girls at once, and came flocking around Mrs.
+Bryan and Winona for orders. But Mrs. Bryan wouldn't give any.
+
+"You manage it, Ray of Light!" said she as Winona turned to her.
+
+"We want sandwiches and fruit punch and cakes, and--we can't get
+ice-cream this late at night," she remembered.
+
+"We can get oysters," said Helen's competent voice from behind a group
+of girls. "That oyster house down on Front Street is always open till
+twelve."
+
+"Then we can make creamed oysters--good!" said Winona. "Let's
+see--sixteen couples--about fifty sandwiches, if you count three to a
+person. Six loaves of bread, about. Marie, you belong to a big
+family--do you think you have any bread in the house your family could
+part with?"
+
+"Three loaves, anyway," said Marie.
+
+"I'll bring the other three," spoke up Elizabeth Greene, one of the new
+members.
+
+They both threw on their wraps and hurried out. Fortunately, most of the
+girls lived close by.
+
+"We'll send Thomas for the oysters," suggested Mrs. Bryan next. "None of
+you want to go to Front Street this time of night."
+
+She produced her purse from the pocket of her ceremonial dress, and went
+to send Thomas for the oysters.
+
+"Has anybody got anything in their house to fill sandwiches with?"
+Winona went on.
+
+"We have two pounds of dates," offered Edith Hillis, "and some rolls of
+cream cheese."
+
+"And I have the other half of both sketches, peanut butter and
+lettuces," called out Louise, "three heads, and two big glasses."
+
+"All right, go get 'em," said Winona unceremoniously, and two more
+sisters of the Camp Fire hurried on their wraps and fled out into the
+night.
+
+"I have milk and butter, myself," went on Winona.
+
+"Nannie," hinted Helen to Mrs. Bryan, who had returned, "do you remember
+those three big layer cakes you made for the Presbyterian fair? I'll
+make them over again if I can have them now."
+
+"No you won't, my child, because they're my contribution," returned her
+step-mother briskly. "Thank you for reminding me. I'll get them, and
+pineapples and lemons for your contribution to the lemonade."
+
+Dorothy remembered that she had some oranges and bananas, and Adelaide
+finally recalled to the rest that creamed oysters need thickening, and
+went after flour and salt and pepper.
+
+A couple of the other girls had candy at home, beautifully fresh and
+home-made. In fifteen minutes every girl was back laden down, and all of
+them invaded the little school kitchen. Fortunately most of the sixteen
+had taken cooking lessons there, and knew just where to find everything,
+even to their own aprons. So there was no time lost searching for
+matches and knives and bowls, and other such necessaries.
+
+One group of four cut and squeezed and sliced fruit for the
+fruit-punch--or fruit-lemonade, to give it the only name it was really
+entitled to. Another set prepared the sandwiches, which, what with
+pitting and chopping the dates for the date-and-peanut-butter ones, and
+cutting and spreading six big loaves of bread, was quite an undertaking.
+Another group handled the creamed oysters. This last wasn't exactly a
+group, though, because, try as you may, it is impossible for more than
+two people to make one cream gravy, or white sauce. The rest cut cake
+and arranged plates and looked after the serving generally.
+
+Thomas the "caperer" sat in a corner and "shucked oysters," as he called
+it, with his two attendant waiters standing statue-like behind him. It
+made a very impressive, if rather useless group.
+
+Mrs. Bryan lent a helping hand here and there as it was needed, but in
+the main she left the guidance of the affair to Winona's generalship.
+
+"Why, I didn't know how easy it was to have people do things!" Winona
+whispered to the Guardian, when that lady came over to her once to
+advise a little more butter in the gravy.
+
+"You happen to have executive ability, that's all," explained Mrs.
+Bryan.
+
+Winona laughed. "Oh, it doesn't take executive ability when people want
+to help!" she returned gayly.
+
+The boys got back in just forty-five minutes, with rather dirtier
+uniforms than they had taken away. They were panting, also, and had a
+general cheerful air of having had something happen. But with them they
+bore, triumphantly, the untouched freezer, full of beautiful molds of
+ice-cream; also a large pasteboard box full of untouched, but rather
+crumpled-looking, fancy cakes.
+
+The sandwiches, they explained regretfully, were beyond recall, and so
+was the salad. The Bent Street gang had been just about to begin their
+last course when the Scouts descended.
+
+"We had a bully time!" said Billy Lee to Winona, who emerged from the
+kitchen, trying hard to look unoccupied, as did all the rest of the
+girls. "We didn't expect a lark like that in the middle of this. But
+it's hard on you girls to miss half the refreshments!"
+
+"Don't worry," said Winona cheerfully. "We aren't going to miss any of
+the refreshments, and neither are you! What do you think Camp Fire Girls
+are good for?"
+
+"Lots!" said Billy honestly, "but I don't see----"
+
+"That's because you aren't looking," laughed Winona.
+
+She pointed towards the little tent that draped the kitchen door. From
+out that tent issued haughtily Thomas's two negro waiters, each bearing
+a steaming, creamed-oyster-laden tray.
+
+"You'd better sit down," suggested Winona, "Everybody else has."
+
+"Well, this is great!" cried Billy enthusiastically, between bites of
+creamed oysters and sandwiches, and sips of fruit lemonade that was
+really better than that the Bent Street gang had stolen. "You don't mean
+to say you girls did all this right off the bat, while we were hunting
+the hoodlums, do you?"
+
+"Why, of course we did," and Winona dimpled with pleasure. "There were
+such a lot of us that it wasn't hard at all."
+
+"Anyhow, whoever managed it was a mighty clever person," said Billy,
+meditatively eating his last oyster. "Don't you think so?"
+
+This happened to be a rather embarrassing question.
+
+"Why, no!" she said thoughtlessly.
+
+"Then it was you!" said Billy, jumping cleverly to his conclusion.
+
+"We all helped," said Winona, blushing. "Everybody brought something. I
+only thought of it first--that was easy."
+
+"Easy if you know how!" said Billy skeptically.
+
+"Winona knew how," asserted Helen's voice behind them. She began to talk
+to Winona and Billy very earnestly about several things that didn't seem
+to have much to do with life in general. They had to turn half round to
+face her, which was what she wanted, for it prevented Winona from seeing
+that all the members of the Camp Fire were clustered near her place. The
+first she knew of it was Mrs. Bryan's voice saying:
+
+"All together, girls--a cheer for Ray of Light, who saved the
+refreshments!"
+
+The girls' voices rang out in the triple cheer for Winona, who blushed
+harder than ever.
+
+"I didn't do anything but suggest it!" she explained uselessly. Then she
+remembered her manners and sprang up.
+
+"Thank you, Sisters of the Camp Fire--even if I _don't_ deserve it!" she
+said gayly.
+
+Then the band started up and dancing went on.
+
+The evening ended with a riotous Virginia reel (which, by the way, meant
+an honor bead for every girl, because the boys none of them knew much
+about reeling, and had to be shown) and a final ringing cheer for the
+Camp Fire Girls by the Scouts. Then the party broke up. Though broke up
+is hardly the word, for the girls marched out, as they had come, in a
+body, with a military file of Scouts on either side of them. Altogether
+it certainly was the most festive of parties, and everybody thought so
+even next morning, when the mournful things about a party are apt to
+occur to you.
+
+The Scouts insisted, by the way, on replacing the various things that
+had been taken out of various pantries. The girls had intended to pay
+their families scrupulously back, but the Scouts extracted an exact
+account of the commandeered supplies from their sisters and cousins.
+Then they saw to it that everything, from the last loaf of bread to the
+last peanut, was redelivered by four next day. And so ended "the very
+best party," as everybody agreed, "that we ever had."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+
+"It _was_ a nice party!" sighed Winona, for the tenth time, next day.
+
+"It was," admitted Tom. "I enjoyed it myself. Also the eats were good.
+Very clever of us to give a party like that. The question is, if you
+girls had to manage a real meal what would happen?"
+
+"That's exactly what we're going to do," said Winona. "This very
+afternoon, at Mrs. Bryan's!"
+
+"Oh, can't I go?" clamored Florence.
+
+"Well, it's just Helen and Louise and Adelaide Hughes and I," Winona
+hesitated. "It's the maid's day out, and we're going to get the supper
+and clear it away. Four of the others are going to do it a day or so
+later. And we're all going to try to get the same supper at our own
+houses, the next night."
+
+"Then of course I want to go!" said Florence, "so I can get the same
+supper at home the next night."
+
+Still Winona hesitated. It certainly is a nuisance to have a small
+sister who wants to tag, when you are just starting off to have a
+particularly nice time with your most intimate friends. And to add to
+the charm of the situation, just then in rushed Puppums through the back
+door, and seeing Winona with her hat in her hand, promptly sat up and
+began to beg wildly. Winona began to laugh.
+
+"Oh, come on, then, the whole family!" she said.
+
+Florence and Puppums both yelped for joy.
+
+"Shall I send Tom over to bring you back this evening?" asked Winona's
+mother, who was sitting near.
+
+"Oh, no--it isn't far," said Winona, "and it won't be late when I get
+back. Besides, I'll have Florence and the doggie."
+
+"Very well," said her mother. "And don't try to cook things that are too
+gorgeous, my dear, because we haven't as much money as the Bryans, and
+it might turn out to be very expensive."
+
+"I'll remember," said Winona, starting off with her little sister beside
+her, and Puppums careering wildly about them both. But it was one of the
+things that never did worry the Merriams, whether or not they had as
+much money as their neighbors. The three children and the dog, as their
+friends said, "always did seem to be having such a good time!" They were
+handsome and light-hearted--that is, the children were. Puppums was more
+remarkable for brains than beauty, as Tom said; being part pug, part
+bull-terrier and part fox-terrier, with a dash of retriever suspected in
+his remote ancestry. However, as long as he had his own way and plenty
+of bones and enough laps to sit on, neither his looks nor anything else
+worried the Puppums dog. His family had intended to give him a very fine
+name, but as Puppums he started when he was a small, wriggling
+mongrel-baby, and to nothing but Puppums would he ever deign to answer.
+So the family made the best of it. It was a way they had, anyway.
+
+Florence began to career around her sister very much as the dog was
+doing, singing at the top of her voice meanwhile. So, as Winona did not
+have to talk, she began to think. What her mother had said about their
+not having so much money as the Bryans set her to wondering, not about
+herself, but about Adelaide Hughes. She had noticed that Mrs. Bryan
+seemed to want Adelaide to make friends with the other girls, and that
+Adelaide herself was very apt to leave the first advances to them. And
+the reason, she supposed, was that Adelaide felt she was too poor to
+keep up with them, or so Tom had said.
+
+"But I don't ever feel as if I had to keep up with Helen, and she has
+twice as many dresses and twice as much money to spend as I have,"
+meditated Winona. "I wonder if I could ask Adelaide about it without
+hurting her feelings. I will if I get the chance."
+
+About this time Winona and her caravan reached the Bryan house, and
+Florence ran ahead so quickly to ring the bell that Winona had to run,
+too, to be there when the door opened.
+
+"I've brought my family, Mrs. Bryan!" said Winona. "I hadn't any
+choice--they simply would come. It's really your fault for being so
+popular with them."
+
+"Your family's very welcome!" said Mrs. Bryan. "If it's willing to be
+useful. What about it, Florence,--will you run errands for us if we want
+you to?"
+
+"Course I will!" said Florence, flinging herself bodily on Mrs. Bryan
+and hugging her hard. "I want to work!"
+
+"Puppums wants to help, too," said Helen.
+
+"Well, you can't help that way, you little villain," said Louise,
+appearing aproned in the doorway and making a dash for the dog. He had
+his paws on the table, and was most ill-manneredly trying to find out
+what was wrapped up in the paper with the lovely meaty smell. Louise
+rescued the package, and carried it out to the kitchen.
+
+"Is everyone here?" asked Mrs. Bryan. "No, I miss Adelaide."
+
+"She's just coming now," said Helen from the living-room window. "I
+wonder if she's remembered to bring her apron?"
+
+"Oh," cried Winona, "I never brought mine!"
+
+"I'll go get it," said Florence. "You see, you need me already!"
+
+She flew off, with the dog at her heels.
+
+"Truly, I'm sorry, Mrs. Bryan," apologized Winona again, "but she would
+have felt so badly if I hadn't let her come!"
+
+"You ought to sit on her more," suggested Louise, popping her head out
+of the kitchen door again. "I do on mine."
+
+"Well, you have such a lot of brothers and sisters you have to," said
+Winona, for Louise was the oldest of six.
+
+"Bessie wanted to come," said Louise, "but I put my foot down."
+
+"On Bessie?" laughed Winona, as she ran to open the door for Adelaide.
+"I hope you didn't hurt her."
+
+"Did you bring your apron, Adelaide?" called Helen anxiously.
+
+"There! She's asked every one of us that question in turn," said Louise,
+coming out into the living-room for the fourth time in five minutes. "I
+do hope you did!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I did," said Adelaide. "I have it here under my arm."
+
+"And here's Florence back with mine!" said Winona. "Now may we start?"
+
+"It isn't quite time yet," said Mrs. Bryan. "If we plan for supper at
+six, one hour is a great plenty of time for supper-getting, especially
+with all of us at it. It's only four-thirty now, and I want to tell you
+a plan I have. Come here, Florence. It's about you and your friends."
+
+"Oh, a plan about me!" said Florence. "That is nice!"
+
+"You see, girls," went on Mrs. Bryan, "there are always little sisters
+or cousins of Camp Fire Girls, like Florence and Bessie and the rest,
+who want to play, too. They aren't old enough to belong to Camp Fires of
+their own, so the way we do is to make them an annex to ours, under the
+name of Blue Birds--the Blue Bird stands for happiness, you know. And we
+help them, and show them how to have good times, too, and--they don't
+have to tag any more."
+
+"I didn't mean to tag," said Florence, looking a little ashamed. "I just
+wanted to--to come, too!"
+
+"Well, if you will go and find Bessie Lane, and--Adelaide, you have a
+little sister about their ages, haven't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Adelaide. "Frances is nine."
+
+"Well, Florence, get Bessie and Frances if you can find them, and we'll
+discover something for our nest of Blue Birds to do."
+
+"I think it's lovely, being a Blue Bird," said Florence, very much
+impressed by belonging to a society of her own.
+
+"Well, if you're a bird, fly!" said Louise, giving her a little push.
+
+The girls talked for a while longer, then donned their aprons and went
+out into the kitchen, where they stood and waited for further orders.
+
+"There are four of you," said their Guardian. "There's the table to set,
+salad and dressing to make, meat and potatoes to prepare, and dessert.
+Cocoa and cake, too. You're welcome to anything in the ice-box, but the
+game is to get supper without buying anything extra, unless something
+like bread or sugar gives out--some staple."
+
+"That will be more fun," said Winona, who had had some experience lately
+with cooking. "It's much more interesting thinking out ways to make
+things out of other things, than when you cook straight ahead!"
+
+Adelaide stared as if Winona had said a very strange thing. But then
+Adelaide always did look at Winona more or less that way.
+
+"I think the most fun is eating out of paper bags," said Louise. "No
+washee dishee. However, I only think that--I wouldn't dare say it.
+How'll we divide?"
+
+"Decide that yourselves," said Mrs. Bryan.
+
+"Let's see what there is in the ice-box, first," Winona suggested
+prudently, when Mrs. Bryan had left them alone. So they investigated.
+
+"Eight large baked potatoes!" counted Louise. "How on earth did you
+miscalculate so badly as that, Helen, or are they there for our special
+benefit?"
+
+"No, it just happened," said Helen. "Father was going to bring a friend
+home to dinner last night, and neither of them could get here after
+all."
+
+There was also a large piece of cooked beefsteak, a head of lettuce, a
+dish of cooked peas and some beets. There were other things in the
+ice-box as well, but these were what the girls chose. They brought some
+apples up from down cellar, too, and stacked them in a row on the table
+with the other things.
+
+"Now, Nannie said that the game was to use as many leftovers as possible
+and do everything as inexpensively as we could and yet have everything
+taste good and not seem warmed over," said Helen.
+
+"That's something a lot of grown-up women never do," said Louise. "My
+aunt----"
+
+Mrs. Bryan came from the living-room to say. "I'll show you anything you
+don't know about, girls, but you must do the actual work yourselves, or
+you won't know how."
+
+"Yes!" said Louise. "Choose your poison, Ladies and Gentlemen!" She
+pulled her cooking-cap close down over her hair. "I'm going to do the
+potatoes. I think I know how to fix them."
+
+"Cold baked potatoes?" said Helen. "There isn't anything, except
+creaming them."
+
+"They're all right that way," said Louise, "but that isn't what I'm
+going to do."
+
+"Well, I'll take the cake," said Helen. "I saw some sour milk in the
+ice-box, and spice-cake is the cheapest cake I know."
+
+"I'll take the meat," said Winona. "There must be something I can do
+with a beautiful piece of steak like that, even if it is cooked."
+
+Adelaide had not said anything.
+
+"That leaves the salad for you, Adelaide," said Mrs. Bryan cheerfully.
+"Louise, you'd better see about some fruit for supper, for your potatoes
+won't take you long."
+
+Then Mrs. Bryan introduced them to the ways of the gas-range, and went
+back to lie in wait for her Blue Birds.
+
+Helen collected spice and molasses and flour and shortening around her
+corner of the table, and went systematically to work on her spice-cake.
+
+"It looks like gingerbread," said Winona, getting the bread-crumb jar.
+
+"It is, really, only it hasn't much ginger in," explained Helen. "Lots
+of people don't like ginger. What are you going to do with your steak,
+Winnie?"
+
+"Frame it!" advised Louise frivolously. "They say they have a four-pound
+steak under glass at the Metropolitan Museum, as a relic of the days
+when each family had at least one in a lifetime."
+
+"If you want to frame your share of it you may," said Winona. "I'm going
+to eat mine."
+
+"They're supposed to be eaten," put in Helen mildly. "But really,
+Winnie, I think you have rather a hard job. There's not nearly enough
+steak there for eight people. It was only intended for five in the first
+place."
+
+"That's the game, isn't it?" said Winona placidly. "Besides, I'm going
+to send Florence home to supper. It's all right for her to attach
+herself to the party for the afternoon, but I draw the line at her
+inviting herself to a meal--don't you think so, Louise?"
+
+"I'm wid yez," called Louise back from the gas-range, where she was
+doing something with sugar and water. "Bessie goes back, too."
+
+Winona got the chopping-machine, divided a big stalk of celery with
+Adelaide, made another excursion to the shelf over the ice-box for some
+peppers and onions, and began to grind her beefsteak.
+
+"Croquettes?" inquired Louise curiously.
+
+"No, scalloped meat," answered Winona. "The croquettes won't go as far,
+and there'll be the cream gravy extra, and we'll need milk for the
+cocoa. Besides, the deep fat to fry them would be another horrible
+extravagance."
+
+She put in a layer of meat as she spoke, then the ground celery and
+peppers and seasoning, and a generous layer of bread-crumbs.
+
+"But aren't celery and peppers an extravagance, too?" put in Adelaide,
+looking faintly interested. She was the only one of the four girls not
+busy. She had not started on her salad.
+
+"They would be if they weren't in the house," said Winona carelessly,
+"though I don't think they are costly this time of year. But I'm using
+them for their bulk. Mother flavors with celery seed when celery's too
+high."
+
+She continued to build up her edifice of meat and crumbs and so forth,
+and finally drenched it with cold water and put it in the oven.
+
+"Be careful of my cake when you look at your meat," reminded Helen,
+coming and tucking her spice-cake in beside the meat as she spoke. "How
+are you getting on, Adelaide?"
+
+"Not at all," said Adelaide ashamedly. "I don't believe I know how to
+make salads."
+
+"Come help me set the table, then," invited Helen.
+
+"All right," said Adelaide, getting up slowly from her kitchen chair,
+and flinging her long, untidy braids back over her shoulders.
+
+"No, Helen, please!" said Winona. "Let me show Adelaide. I think we can
+make a perfectly lovely salad in a few minutes."
+
+"All right, Winnie!" said Helen cheerfully, and vanished into the
+dining-room alone.
+
+"I don't see how!" said Adelaide. "I thought you had to have chicken or
+lobster or such things for salad--and I'm sure I'd curdle the dressing."
+
+"Of course you will if you expect to," said Louise, setting her syrup on
+to boil, and beginning to pare and quarter apples and drop them in cold
+water so they wouldn't brown. "Why don't you make boiled dressing?"
+
+"I didn't know about it," said Adelaide.
+
+"Good gracious!" said Louise. "How on earth do you manage at your
+house?"
+
+"Well, there's just father and Lonny and France and I, and mostly father
+brings home things from the delicatessen. And sometimes we roast meat
+and just eat at it till it's gone. I'm not old enough to know much about
+housekeeping, father says. But Lonny cooks sometimes."
+
+Winona and Louise both stared at her.
+
+"I'd go crazy," said Louise frankly. "I should think you'd get so you
+never wanted to eat anything."
+
+"Anyway, you can 'try this on your piano' when you go home," Winona
+threw in hastily, giving Louise a furtive, if thorough, pinch as she
+passed her, for she had seen Adelaide color up. "Boiled dressing's easy.
+You know how to make drawn butter, don't you--white sauce?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Adelaide, rising.
+
+"Well," explained Winona, "when you melt the butter in the pan to mix
+with the flour, you add some mustard, just a pinch, and salt and pepper.
+Then when you've put in the flour, and the milk, and it's just going to
+thicken, you put in the yolk of an egg. When it's cold you thin it with
+vinegar. That isn't hard, is it?"
+
+Adelaide was swiftly following directions as Winona talked.
+
+"Thin the egg with milk, and beat it a little--that's right," said
+Winona. "There--now take it off. The egg only wants to cook a minute.
+Now all you have to do is wait till it cools and add the vinegar,
+and--there's your dressing!"
+
+"Why, it isn't a bit hard!" said Adelaide wonderingly.
+
+"Nor a bit expensive," said Winona. "As for the salad, you can make
+salad out of any kind of vegetable that will cut up."
+
+"Let me see if I can work it out alone," said Adelaide.
+
+She washed the lettuce and set it on the individual salad plates Helen
+found for her. Then she began to combine peas and beets and celery quite
+as if she knew how.
+
+Winona watched her for a minute, then went over to see what Louise was
+doing. While she had been helping Adelaide Louise's syrup had cooked
+enough to have the quartered apples dropped into it, and now it was
+bubbling on the back of the stove. Just as Winona came over Louise took
+off the apples, cooked through, but not to the point of losing their
+shape, and put them outdoors to cool. Then she turned her attention to
+the baked potatoes of yesterday.
+
+She had heated them through, and now she cut off the tops and scooped
+out the inside, and was mixing it with milk and butter and a little
+onion, and beating it till it was creamy.
+
+"They're harder to do than if they were fresh," she said, pounding
+vigorously, "but I guess they'll come out all right, when they've been
+browned a minute."
+
+"They'll be browned just about the time my scalloped meat's done,"
+responded Winona, dropping to her knees before the oven. "Oh, Helen,
+come take out your cake! It's all done--I've tried it with a straw."
+
+"Oh, it isn't burned, is it?" cried Helen, dashing in.
+
+It wasn't. She put it on the shelf over the range, to keep warm, and
+headed a party bound upstairs to tidy up.
+
+"You didn't set places for those little taggers?" called Louise to Helen
+on the way up.
+
+"Not at our table," said Helen.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+
+When the four girls came down and put on the supper they found a
+surprise waiting for them. Beside the large table the little
+sewing-table had been moved in, spread with a white cloth and set; and
+around it, very flushed and important, sat Florence, Bessie Lane,
+Frances Hughes, and Edith Hillis's little sister Lucy. Before Frances,
+who was the oldest, sat a big dish of creamed potatoes, a platter of
+Hamburg steak, and in front of each girl steamed a bowl of tomato soup.
+
+"Well, where----" began everybody. All the small sisters answered at
+once.
+
+"We cooked 'em on the gas-stove in the back parlor!"
+
+"All but the soup," added conscientious little blonde Lucy. "We dumped
+that out of a can."
+
+"Well, we cooked it, too, didn't we?" inquired Frances.
+
+"So that was what was in the package Puppums wanted!" said Winona.
+"Where _is_ Puppums, anyway?" she added as she set down her scalloped
+meat.
+
+"I d'no," said Florence carelessly.
+
+But just at that moment Puppums accounted for himself. He came in from
+the direction of the half-open back door, in his mouth a neatly done up
+package.
+
+"_Oh!_" cried Winona and Florence in one despairing voice, "he's been
+stealing again! Drop it, you little wretch!"
+
+Mrs. Bryan went around to Puppums, who was proudly sitting up on his
+haunches over his spoils.
+
+"It isn't ours," she said, opening the bundle.
+
+"What is it?" asked Winona. "I might as well know the worst."
+
+"Chops," answered Mrs. Bryan briefly. "Two pounds of very nice lamb
+chops, with nothing at all to tell where they belong!"
+
+"Oh, Puppums!" said Winona and Florence together tragically. The rest
+were all laughing but to Puppums's family it was far from a laughing
+matter.
+
+Puppums Merriam was a splendid watch-dog. He was sweet-tempered and
+intelligent and obedient and cheerful, and everything a family dog
+should be. But he had one fault. He would occasionally snoop around back
+porches in search of anything the butcher might have left. The fact that
+he got three good meals a day, and was losing his figure far too fast
+for such a young and sprightly dog did not matter to him at all. Neither
+did he mind the fact that he got a good whipping every time Tom caught
+him at it. Happy indeed was the week wherein the Merriams did not have
+to apologetically return roasts or steaks to furious owners; or--if the
+condition of the prey made it necessary--buy new ones. But this last did
+not happen very often, for Puppums rarely brought home the bills with
+him, and it is hard to trace anonymous meat.
+
+So when he proudly presented his contribution to the feast there was
+nothing to do but to pick up the chops and put them away.
+
+"I can't spoil the fun by whipping him, and he always thinks my
+whippings are fun anyway, and wags his tail!" mourned Winona. "And we'll
+never know whose chops they were!"
+
+"They're Puppums's chops now," said Louise. "Go on, give 'em to him,
+Winnie. If you went out and gathered chops you wouldn't want to be
+scolded."
+
+"Well, I suppose he may as well have them," said Winona still sadly. So,
+although it was very wrong, and as she explained to the dog, it didn't
+create a precedent, soon the collector of chops was happily crunching
+them outside the back door, while the Camp Fire Girls ate made-over meat
+within.
+
+"What about our camping out?" Louise demanded, after the first pangs of
+appetite were over. "What's the use of being us if we can't camp?"
+
+"We _can_ camp," answered their Guardian as she helped Helen to some
+more salad. "This is lovely dressing, Adelaide. I didn't know what good
+cooks all of you were. I have been looking things up, and I don't see
+why we shouldn't go in a short time now, if all of your parents are
+willing and can spare you."
+
+There was a great commotion over at the table where the Blue Birds sat,
+and then hurried whispers--
+
+"You ask, Lucy."
+
+"No, you ask, Frances!"
+
+Finally Florence spoke up.
+
+"Can't the Blue Birds go camping, too?"
+
+"Why, of course they can!" said Mrs. Bryan cordially. "That is, just as
+with the Camp Fire Girls, if their mothers are willing."
+
+"Oh, then I can go, if we take Frances," said Adelaide relievedly.
+"Father and Lonny can get along all right by themselves, but Frances
+couldn't. Oh, I'm so glad!" Which was quite a good deal for reserved
+Adelaide to say.
+
+"So are we glad," said Helen heartily.
+
+"I wonder whether we couldn't go to that place up on the Wampoag River.
+Have you thought of any place, Mrs. Bryan?"
+
+"None but there or thereabouts," she said. "It's the best camping-place
+for a long distance, and only about twelve miles off."
+
+"But won't the boys want to camp there, too?" asked Helen.
+
+"There's plenty of room for everybody," said her step-mother. "I've been
+talking it over with Mr. Gedney, the Scoutmaster, and he says their camp
+will be about two and a half miles from the place I'd thought of our
+going. Wampoag River is very long, you know, and there must be five
+miles of woodland along both sides. So we needn't interfere with each
+other at all."
+
+"Then that's all right," said everybody.
+
+"And oh, let's hike there!" cried Louise. "We can do it in two days as
+easily as anything. Please, dear, nice, kind Guardian, let us hike
+there!"
+
+"I think it would be a very good thing to do," approved Mrs. Bryan. "But
+it isn't for me to settle. You'll have to have a business meeting to
+decide that, and to decide another thing that nobody's thought of."
+
+"Ways and means?" ventured Adelaide, perhaps because they had been in
+her mind, too.
+
+"Exactly," said Mrs. Bryan. "We haven't enough in the treasury to pay
+expenses, even if we only stay a little while. It's for you all to
+decide whether you want to get the money from your parents for the
+provisions, or whether you will earn it."
+
+"Earn it?" asked Winona, "How could we, in such a little while?"
+
+"You'll have to work that out yourselves," replied Mrs. Bryan, as she
+usually did.
+
+"Well, I can't ask dad for _much_ money," Louise frankly confessed.
+"Times are hard, and me poor father needs his gold for the lit-tul ones
+at home!"
+
+"Well, of course it's premature," hesitated Helen, looking up, "because
+the rest aren't here."
+
+"Go on, anyway," said the others eagerly.
+
+"Well, I don't see why we shouldn't have a bread and cake and preserve
+sale," she went on. "I'm treasurer, you know, and I'm sure we have
+enough money on hand for materials. People will buy things to eat when
+they won't buy anything else. I'm sure, too, that we could get Black's
+drug-store to sell in."
+
+"We'd need more than one cake-sale, wouldn't we?" asked Winona.
+
+"We could have two--or even four!" asserted Louise boldly. "We needn't
+go for two weeks yet, anyway. It will only be the last of July then. We
+could have sales Wednesdays and Saturdays."
+
+"And get orders beforehand, and make what people want!" said Louise,
+"Oh, I'd love to do that!"
+
+"Will it cost much?" asked Adelaide.
+
+"The sale?" said Louise.
+
+"No, the trip."
+
+"Not a good deal," said Mrs. Bryan. "We have the land free, of course.
+We shall have to buy tents--let me see, there are twelve in the Camp
+Fire, aren't there? And there will be six or eight Blue Birds. We'll
+need ten tents, and then there'll be the provisions. What they cost will
+depend on how long you decide to stay. If you hike there and back there
+won't be any railroad fare. As for clothes, you'll need blouses and dark
+skirts or bloomers, and tennis shoes--but all that can wait till the
+business meeting. Marie is secretary--she and Edith and Dorothy and Anna
+Morris are going to be here getting luncheon to-morrow. There had better
+be a meeting here to-morrow afternoon. I'll telephone Marie after
+supper."
+
+Eight very happy girls of assorted sizes cleared away the supper and
+washed the dishes and made the kitchen shine. Even Puppums, bulging with
+contraband chops, was more amiable than usual, and slept placidly in all
+the places where he was most in the way.
+
+"I'm going to take my banjo," planned Louise.
+
+"I shall take pounds and pounds of modelling clay," said Helen
+enthusiastically.
+
+"Edith has a mandolin," volunteered Lucy Hillis.
+
+"Everybody that has a musical instrument had better bring it," said Mrs.
+Bryan.
+
+"We'll contribute a very fine dog with a stunning howl!" said Winona
+mischievously.
+
+"That dog isn't a musical instrument, he's a famine-breeder!" said
+Louise; then paused, for Mrs. Bryan went into the dining-room to
+telephone Marie Hunter. Edith Hillis was at Marie's, and both girls were
+as excited over the cake-sale idea as the rest.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next afternoon the whole Camp Fire had a business meeting at Mrs.
+Bryan's. Besides the girls who had originally belonged, five others had
+joined. It was a very pleasant meeting, helped out with afternoon cocoa
+and sandwiches that the lunch-getters had prepared. They discussed ways
+and means till they could scarcely hear themselves think. Never was
+there such an unanimous meeting. For everybody wanted to go camping, and
+to go camping money is needed. So three committees were appointed, one
+to buy materials, another to borrow an eligible drug-store for Saturday,
+and a third to attend to advertising. The girls were to meet Friday, and
+each take home what materials she needed. Saturday morning the materials
+were to be returned to the drug-store in the shape of salable things to
+eat. It even occurred to one genius to allot to each girl a certain
+thing to make.
+
+"It's a good thing to do," she said modestly--it was Dorothy. "Once our
+Sunday-school class gave a sale, and every single girl brought chocolate
+cake."
+
+"I remember that," said Marie. "But it turned out all right."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Dorothy laughing. "We hung a sign in the window,
+'Chocolate cake sale!' and it all went. But it mightn't have!"
+
+So Marie made out a careful list of what each girl was to make.
+
+"I don't see how we'll ever sell all those!" she said, looking worried.
+
+But they did. People always will buy bread and cake and muffins. At the
+end of the first sale, on Saturday, Edith Hillis, who was on duty, put
+seventeen dollars in her hand-bag to take up to Helen.
+
+"There are orders, too," she reported. "We have eight dozen parkerhouse
+rolls and two dozen and a half biscuits promised for different lunches
+and suppers next week, beside jam orders. Here's the list."
+
+"That ought to be five dollars more," counted Helen.
+
+Edith forgot for once to smooth her dress and pat her curls in the
+excitement of success.
+
+"Three more as good and we'll have all the money we need!" she declared.
+
+And, as a matter of fact, the three following sales were better than the
+first. Adelaide developed a real talent for jelly-making, and the orders
+for that alone helped a good deal. At the crowning sale, the next one to
+the last, they made twenty-one dollars, and eighteen and nineteen at the
+other two.
+
+Mrs. Bryan went off to the city to buy tents, and was understood to have
+come back with ten that were marvellous bargains. The Camp Fire darned
+all its stockings, and tidied itself, and was collectively very good at
+home, so as to leave a pleasant last impression.
+
+Mrs. Merriam lamented that she was going to be very, very lonely, for
+Tom was going out camping with the Scouts only a day or so later than
+Winona and Florence were to go with Camp Karonya. As for Puppums, there
+were many arguments about him, for Tom thought he would make a fine
+mascot, and so did Winona and Florence. It was finally settled by the
+fact that another of the Scouts owned a collie and was going to take
+him; and Puppums, while he was a friendly dog in the main, and indeed
+had quite a social circle of his own, bit collies whenever he saw them.
+So there were bound to be fights if Puppums went with Tom, and it was
+decided that the girls should have him.
+
+Nobody thought there were going to be any more members added to the
+Camp. But one afternoon, while Winona was out in her back garden with
+Louise and Helen and a medicine ball, Nataly Lee from next door came
+calling. The three girls were dusty and tousled; Helen's braid was
+half-undone, the ribbon was off Winona's curls, and Louise, who had just
+fallen full-length across the nasturtiums in a vain effort to get the
+ball, had a streak of mould and grass-stain from her shoulder to the hem
+of her skirt. Altogether, they were as badly mussed a trio as you could
+wish to see, when Tom came out the back door toward them.
+
+He said nothing whatever, but he bore high in his hand the very largest
+tray the house afforded, and in its black and banged centre reposed a
+small calling-card which said "Miss Nataly Lee. The Cedars." He made a
+low bow, and held the tray toward his sister.
+
+Winona took off the card, and the three girls looked at it together.
+
+"Where do you suppose she keeps the cedars?" asked Louise in a stage
+whisper. "There aren't any next door."
+
+"Sh-h. That must be her ancestral estate," surmised Helen respectfully.
+"Oh, dear, Winnie, I can't go in this way, to a call that has a card and
+all that!"
+
+"Of course you can," said Winona cheerfully. "I did worse than that when
+I went calling on _her_. I didn't take any card at all. To be frank with
+you, I haven't any. Anyway, she received me with her wrapper on, and
+that's no better than grass-stains."
+
+"Come on--be sports!" urged Tom, waving his tray. "I think she's come to
+say that she's willing to be welcomed in your midst."
+
+"How do you know?" asked all three girls at once.
+
+"I don't know--I only think so, because Billy told me," said Tom.
+
+"We certainly look dreadful!" mourned Helen, but they all brushed each
+other off and straightened each other, and trotted into the house.
+
+Nataly did not look as if she had ever seen a negligee. She had on white
+gloves and a veil, and carried a card-case, and altogether, except that
+her hair was down and her skirt short, she might very well have been
+grown up.
+
+"It's a charming day," she began when she had been introduced to Helen
+and Louise.
+
+"It certainly is," agreed Louise, "and a lot too nice to stay in the
+house. Don't you want to come on out in the back yard with us and play
+ball?"
+
+But Nataly declined. She said she didn't think it would be good for her
+gloves.
+
+Then there was a pause, because nobody could think of anything to say.
+Finally Winona began:
+
+"Tom says you think you might like to join our Camp Fire, after all. Do
+you think you would?"
+
+Nataly looked as if she was about to take a dreadful plunge, but she
+said, "Yes, I believe I would like to. The doctor says I ought to be out
+in the open air, and you are, aren't you?"
+
+"We certainly are!" said Louise. "That's where we were when you came to
+call. Want to come?"
+
+Louise was visibly fretting at having to stay indoors, and finally
+Winona had to lead the way out to the back garden again. And, naturally,
+the first thing to meet their eyes was the big black tray, with Nataly's
+own card fatally conspicuous in the very middle of it. Winona tried to
+steer her around it, but it was no use. Your own name is one thing you
+are sure to see or hear before anything else. Winona, talking sixteen to
+the dozen about everything she could think of, picked up the card
+furtively and put it in her pocket. Unfortunately it wasn't possible to
+pocket the tray.
+
+However, they arranged with Nataly that she go camping with them. She
+could not join till the next monthly ceremonial meeting, but there was
+to be one soon after camp was pitched. So it was settled.
+
+"I wonder who she'll be friends with specially?" said Helen after she
+had gone. "She doesn't seem to fit into us, somehow."
+
+"We'll have to make her fit," said Winona gayly. "To tell you the truth
+Helen, she reminds me of a kitten I knew once. It belonged to three old
+maiden ladies. It didn't know how to be a kitten at all--the poor little
+thing thought it was a cat!"
+
+"Well, perhaps Nataly'll turn out a kitten, but I doubt it, even with
+you helping," said Louise. "Come on, let's finish our game."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+
+As the clock struck eight-thirty Monday morning, on the last week in
+July, one Guardian, one dog, thirteen big girls and seven small ones
+lined up for their long-anticipated hike to Camp Karonya. They planned
+to walk half the distance that day, sleep at a farmhouse about half-way
+to the woods, and finish the next day at their destination. They were
+all in middies, with dark skirts, and the most comfortable slippers
+money could buy--it hurts to hike in tight shoes. They had hats, of
+course, but Edith Hillis, in addition, carried a parasol. Each girl
+carried her own night-things and drinking-cup and luncheon. The
+provisions, and the rest of the baggage, had gone over to the
+camping-place in Mr. Bryan's automobile and Louise Lane's father's
+delivery-wagon.
+
+Early as it was, quite a lot of people were out to see the girls off,
+and even Puppums curvetted proudly as he noticed the attention he was
+getting, for he was a very vain dog. He might well be vain, because
+Louise had attached a large label to his collar which said "Camp Fire
+Dog," and he was not allowed to chew it off.
+
+They walked slowly, and it felt very much like going to a picnic
+guaranteed to last forever. Presently someone started a marching song,
+and everyone joined in. They walked easily on, having a very good time
+as they went; and before they knew it noon had come, and it was time to
+have lunch.
+
+They were near a meadow by this time, a big green meadow with trees at
+its edge, and they all sat down under the trees and unpacked their
+sandwiches and ate. Some of the girls had thermos bottles with them,
+with hot cocoa, but most of them preferred the concentrated lemonade
+Mrs. Bryan had brought along, mixed with water from a nice little brook
+which had been kind enough to flow quite near them.
+
+"If it's all going to be like this, won't it be lovely?" said Winona,
+her eyes shining, as she took a large bite of sandwich, and then fed a
+generous share of the rest to Puppums, who lay quiveringly near her.
+
+"It is nice," said Helen more quietly. "I hope we'll have weather like
+this the whole time ... gracious, what's that?"
+
+"That" was a distant squeal. Winona looked hastily around her to see
+what the Blue Birds were doing. But there were no Blue Birds there. The
+seven little girls were out of sight, but not out of hearing, for it was
+evidently one of them who had made the noise.
+
+Winona and Adelaide jumped up and ran, but Louise and Edith sat placidly
+on.
+
+"They _will_ howl," said Louise. "There's no use always chasing after
+them."
+
+But when Winona and Adelaide arrived at the place the squeals had come
+from they were very glad they had done the "chasing."
+
+Florence, with little Lucy Hillis holding her, was sitting on the ground
+screaming steadily. The other girls were huddled together in a
+frightened group a little way off.
+
+"What is it? What is it, Lucy?" cried Winona, frightened. Florence was
+making such a noise that it was no use asking her. Lucy Hillis, who was
+one of those quiet, old-fashioned little girls who always keep their
+heads, looked up, still holding Florence's wrist.
+
+"Florence's cut herself," she said. "I'm afraid it's a bad cut. I don't
+dare let go of it."
+
+Winona flung herself down by Florence and put her hands above Lucy's
+shaking little ones, which then, and not till then, let go.
+
+"Get me a stick, Lucy, quick--a strong one!" she said.
+
+Lucy was back with the stick before Winona was through speaking. Winona
+pulled off her tie, that useful silk scarf of hers which had helped
+Edith out of the water, and bound it above Florence's cut, twisting it
+tight with the stick. Then she asked Adelaide to tie Florence's wrist
+again, below the cut. She did not want to take any chances, and she did
+not know yet whether it was a vein or an artery that Florence had hurt.
+
+Then she sent Lucy flying for Mrs. Bryan, while she and Adelaide made
+Florence keep still.
+
+"That Lucy child keeps her head," said Adelaide approvingly.
+
+"It wasn't _her_ wrist that got cut!" said Florence indignantly,
+stopping her sobs.
+
+"How did it happen, Florence?" asked her sister. "Tell us--but don't
+stir. Nobody knows what will happen if your wrist starts bleeding
+again."
+
+"Well, we were being Indian chiefs," began Florence, "an'--an' I was out
+on the warpath, going to scalp Molly Green. And I ran, and Molly ran,
+an' I fell over a tree-root and the knife cut my wrist."
+
+"The knife!" said Winona, for nobody had mentioned a knife before.
+"Where did you get a knife?"
+
+Florence hung her head.
+
+"I--I borrowed your penknife out of your knapsack when you laid it on
+the grass to get lunch out of it."
+
+"The knife? I didn't."
+
+"No; the knapsack," said Florence meekly. "An'--an' oh, _dear_ sister,
+I'm so sorry!"
+
+Winona could scarcely help laughing, worried as she was. When Florence
+had been naughty she always became suddenly very affectionate. At other
+times she wasn't, especially.
+
+"I'm sorry, too," she said gravely. "I don't know what Mrs. Bryan will
+say to you, nor mother, when she hears about it."
+
+"Let me see," said Mrs. Bryan behind them. She had hurried over at
+Lucy's summons.
+
+"Oh, is it--is it an artery?" breathed Winona, as Mrs. Bryan bent over
+the wounded arm.
+
+Mrs. Bryan laughed. "Nothing of the sort, you foolish child," she said.
+"It's only a deep cut. It didn't even strike a large vein."
+
+"Oh, I'm _so_ glad!" said Winona, drawing a long breath.
+
+She ran off to get her First Aid kit out of her knapsack, and, coming
+back, presently had Florence bandaged up scientifically, and much
+impressed with the importance of what she had done.
+
+"Will I have to be carried on a stretcher?" the little girl wanted to
+know.
+
+"Not a bit of it," said Mrs. Bryan briskly. "You will have to walk on
+your own two feet, like any other naughty little girl."
+
+"Oh, was I naughty?" said Florence cheerfully. "I forgot that!"
+
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Bryan, "you were very naughty. I think we shall
+have to confine you to camp for two days, when we get there."
+
+"All right," said Florence complacently, "but now please can't I be
+carried on a stretcher? I should think I might!"
+
+"All right, let's," said Louise, who had come up along with the rest of
+the girls, in Mrs. Bryan's wake. "Only remember, Florence Merriam, once
+you get up on that stretcher you have to stay there."
+
+"Of course!" said Florence indignantly.
+
+By this time all the girls were clustered about the interesting invalid,
+and the stretcher idea struck them all as a very fine one. It would help
+them to put the Wood Craft they had been learning into practice. Winona
+picked up her gory penknife, and began to wash it in the brook before
+she started to cut wood with it.
+
+"Oh," said Florence plaintively, "I thought you'd always keep it that
+way, to remember me by!"
+
+"I'll have chance enough to remember you without that," replied Winona
+feelingly, and went off to look for poles with the others. Edith Hillis
+pulled her embroidery out of her knapsack and mounted guard over the
+Blue Birds, who were, however, a rather subdued flock by now.
+
+Meanwhile the rest of the girls picked out four saplings which grew at
+the edge of the wood beyond the meadow, and nicked them at the bottom
+patiently till they fell. The next thing was to tie them together. But
+nobody had anything to do it with, till Mrs. Bryan remembered a bunch of
+leather thongs she carried.
+
+"I always have at least two along for extra shoe-laces, when I'm
+camping," she explained, "and they always come in use for something else
+before the time is over. An old guide up in the Adirondacks told me to
+do that, and it's always a good thing for campers to do."
+
+The thongs bound the saplings into a frame, and Louise secured them to a
+knot that was newly learned, and the pride of her life.
+
+"That can't come out," she said, surveying it with pleasure, for
+learning to do it had earned her a much-valued bead.
+
+For the covering of the stretcher Adelaide produced an old gray shawl
+from her knapsack.
+
+"Father made me bring it," she explained rather shamefacedly.
+
+"Just the thing!" said Mrs. Bryan heartily.
+
+They wrapped it round the frame, and it went around three times, being
+large, so that a couple of pins held it fast. Then they lifted the
+gratified Florence on to it and started off down the road again. They
+had cleared up the fragments of their luncheon first, and buried neatly
+all the scraps and debris, so that there were no excursiony-looking
+boxes and crusts littering their resting-place.
+
+The girls took turns carrying the stretcher, and as there were fourteen
+of them, counting Mrs. Bryan, many hands made light work. As Louise had
+prophesied would happen, after a little while Florence became restless.
+The other Blue Birds were having lovely times frolicking all over the
+road, chasing butterflies and picking flowers and playing with the dog.
+Florence found it rather stupid to sit in solitary grandeur on a
+stretcher, and listen to what Winona and Adelaide, before her, and Marie
+and Edith, behind her, were saying about their own affairs. So at the
+first stop to change bearers she wanted to get down. But Mrs. Bryan was
+firm.
+
+"No, indeed," she said, "the first thing Blue Birds must learn is to
+obey orders and keep promises. You promised to stay up there till
+evening, Florence, and you must do it."
+
+Florence pouted, but she stayed. She really had lost quite a little
+blood in her adventure with her sister's penknife, and, though Mrs.
+Bryan did not tell her so, the walk might have been too much for her.
+She wriggled and yawned, and once sat up straight, till her bearers
+requested her to lie still. But presently she had a companion in misery.
+
+It was nearly the end of the journey, and the farmhouse where the girls
+planned to stay the night was in sight. Winona, strolling on ahead, saw
+a small gray kitten prowling along the side of the road. It was a most
+unhappy kitten; it looked as if it hadn't had a square meal since it
+could remember, and there was an ugly-looking place on its side as if
+something had worried it. It limped a little, too, poor little cat, and
+altogether a more forlorn animal would have been hard to find. But
+Winona pounced on it.
+
+"Oh, you poor little cat!" she cried. "Look, Helen, some horrid dog has
+hurt it."
+
+"Oh, don't pick it up!" said Marie. "It may have something awful."
+
+"Smallpox, maybe?" inquired Winona sarcastically. "Nonsense, Marie, the
+poor little thing's been worried by a dog, and it hasn't had enough to
+eat, that's all. I'm going to adopt it."
+
+And in spite of Marie's protests she picked it up and wrapped it in her
+handkerchief, and carried it back to Florence, who was wriggling on her
+stretcher, and wishing that she hadn't demanded that evidence of
+invalidism.
+
+"Here, Florence," said Winona, "hold this kitty till we get to the
+farmhouse."
+
+"Oh, a kitty! Poor little thing!" cried Florence, adopting the cat on
+the spot, and letting it cuddle down by her, which it was willing enough
+to do, for it seemed to be as tired as it was hungry.
+
+"Are you sure----" began Marie again.
+
+Marie's father was a professor in the high-school, and as a result she
+knew about more kinds of germs than the rest had ever heard of.
+
+"Mother lets us bring in hurt animals, always, and look after them,"
+said Winona. "Germs can't get you if you're careful. We can wash our
+hands in disinfectant as soon as we get to the farmhouse. I have some in
+my first-aid kit."
+
+"And what are you going to do with the cat?" asked Louise, coming up to
+the other side of the stretcher and surveying the much-discussed animal
+without great affection.
+
+"Keep it, if Mrs. Bryan doesn't mind, as it doesn't belong to anyone,"
+said Winona coolly. "It ought to make a good camp mascot."
+
+Louise eyed the kitten again--they were nearly at the farmhouse by this
+time.
+
+"It isn't exactly my idea of a mascot," she said candidly. "What about
+Puppums? I thought he was elected to the position."
+
+"Well, then, the kitty can be the under-mascot," said Winona
+undauntedly. "Anyway, when I get through nursing her she'll be a
+perfectly good cat--see if she isn't!"
+
+"I doubt it!" said Louise and Marie together, as if they had been
+practising a duet.
+
+"Wait!" said Winona as they mounted the steps.
+
+There were plenty of rooms, for the farm people took boarders all
+August; but even so, there were not enough for nearly twenty people.
+However, Mrs. Norris, the farmer's wife, had been prepared beforehand
+for the descent, and she had extra cots made up and ready in all the
+rooms, and unlimited hot water for baths.
+
+Winona did not come in when the others did. She sat down on the porch
+floor, pulled out her first-aid kit for the second time that day, sent
+Florence in for a basin of warm water, and set about doctoring the
+kitten. She sponged off the torn place in its side, and the little hurt
+in one of its hind legs that had made it limp. This last was only a
+scratch, but it had stiffened. She rubbed salve in the hurt places. Then
+she bandaged the cat's leg very successfully. But when it came to tying
+up the side--for the cat would certainly have licked the salve off if
+she could--it wasn't so simple. There wasn't anything to fasten the
+bandage to. Finally she wound it round and round the meek little animal,
+and sewed it up on top. The cat looked as if it had on a large and
+fashionable sash, but it did not object. Then Winona gave it some
+evaporated cream out of a can in her knapsack, watched it while it ate,
+which it did till the belt tightened dangerously, and took it into the
+house with her. Florence took the basin back to the place she had gotten
+it from.
+
+"Does this kitten belong to you?" Winona asked the landlady, who was
+hurrying about a long table in the dining-room, putting dishes full of
+steaming things on the table.
+
+"Bless my soul, no!" she answered, stopping with a pan of baked beans
+poised in mid-air. "Why, I do believe that's the kitten that belonged to
+Medarys, down the road, and they moved away last week. Well, poor little
+thing, the dogs must have got after it. It's a mercy it got away at
+all."
+
+"People who abandon cats that way ought to be left out in a wilderness
+themselves, without anything to eat," said Mrs. Bryan warmly, as she
+came up behind them.
+
+"Ain't it so?" said the landlady. "I'll get somebody to drown the poor
+little thing to-morrow."
+
+"Oh, no! I'll keep it if it's nobody's," Winona said eagerly. "You don't
+mind, do you, Mrs. Bryan?"
+
+"If it hasn't mange," said Mrs. Bryan prudently.
+
+"It hasn't," Winona and Florence assured her together. "It's only hurt."
+
+"Very well," said the Guardian; and the Merriams ran off to wash their
+hands in disinfectant and straighten themselves generally for supper.
+They left the cat in their room.
+
+That certainly was a supper. When you have walked all day in the open
+you feel as if you could eat a house, if nothing tenderer offers itself.
+Even Nataly Lee, who was genuinely tired to death, was hungry. The girls
+stood behind their chairs for a moment, saying one of the Camp Fire
+graces softly in unison. Then they sat down, and ate as if lunch had
+been only a dream.
+
+After supper the hostess showed them her long parlor and invited them to
+make themselves at home. But they were all too sleepy to frolic. Louise,
+who was untirable, did indeed unsling her banjo from across her shoulder
+and try to sing, but she interrupted herself in the middle of "Nellie
+Gray" with a gigantic yawn. The Blue Birds were all asleep in their
+chairs, and had to be marched off to bed half conscious. It was only
+eight, but the elder sisters and cousins who took them up liked the
+looks of the white cots very much, and--well, it seemed so useless to go
+downstairs again, some way. So Winona and Adelaide and Louise and
+Elizabeth, and Marie, who was looking after such Blue Birds as had not
+sisters along, simply went to bed, too, when they had attended to their
+charges. The other girls sat sleepily downstairs for awhile, waiting for
+their friends to come back. And then they, too, came upstairs and went
+to bed--and by eight-thirty there was nothing to be heard of seven Blue
+Birds, thirteen Camp Fire Girls, a dog and a cat, but twenty even
+breathings from as many cots, an occasional snore from the back porch
+where Puppums was tied, and a loud, ecstatic purr from the corner of
+Winona's cot, where the Medary's late kitten was privately spending the
+night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+
+Next morning by eight Camp Karonya was up and eating a large breakfast.
+The girls sang a cheer to Mrs. Norris when they were done, and formed
+for their march again. Most of them had brought enough food for two
+lunches, but Mrs. Norris could not be brought to think so, and insisted
+on piling up provisions enough for a regiment. They compromised, on
+several slices of roast lamb apiece, and enough bread and butter to go
+around and leave some over.
+
+Winona slipped into the little general store near the farmhouse, and
+bargained for some more cans of evaporated milk for her under-mascot,
+the kitten. It was travelling in Florence's knapsack to-day, and
+Florence's things were distributed between Winona and two of the other
+girls. It proved to be a very frisky kitten by nature, now that its
+fears of being hungry and homeless were gone. Winona had to sew its
+bandage on again at noon.
+
+"I don't know how it is," she said perplexedly. "It's certainly a fatter
+kitten, and yet its bandage is too big!"
+
+"Poor thing! Take it off altogether!" advised Helen. "Pussy will get
+well just as soon without it."
+
+So they ripped off the bandage, and the kitten seemed very grateful. Its
+hurt looked like scarcely more than a scratch now.
+
+"If she's going to be a camp mascot she ought to have a name," suggested
+Florence.
+
+Winona laughed. "I'm going to call her Hike," she said. "She was hiking
+when we met her, poor pussy, and so were we."
+
+So Hike the Camp Cat she became. And--to anticipate--when she had been
+living on evaporated cream and other luxuries a few days, she turned
+into a plump and handsome Maltese kitten with charming manners.
+
+The girls arrived at their camping-place at about five that day. The big
+limousine that belonged to Helen's father, and the big electric delivery
+wagon which Louise's father had contributed, stood waiting for them on
+the road nearest the clearing in the woods, where they were to make
+their camp.
+
+"Do you mean to say we're going to eat all that?" asked Edith Hillis
+helplessly, as she caught sight of the piled provisions in the delivery
+wagon.
+
+"Well, we shan't have to eat the tents and cots in the limousine," said
+Winona. "At least, I hope not. But I think we will manage the rest. I
+was on the committee that figured out how much we would want for three
+weeks of camping, and I'm sure there's no more here than we ordered."
+
+"I have the list," said Helen.
+
+"Then check the things off, dear, as the men lift them out," said Mrs.
+Bryan.
+
+So Helen read from her list as the barrels and boxes were carried away,
+and the girls listened in awe, for this is what she read:
+
+  One and a half barrels of flour.
+  Fifteen pounds shortening.
+
+("It's a special kind," explained Helen. "You can use it for cakes, as
+well as frying and other things.")
+
+  Fifteen pounds rice.
+  Fifteen pounds beans.
+  Five pounds baking-powder.
+  Three sides of bacon.
+  Sixty-five pounds of sugar.
+  Ten pounds of cocoa.
+  Case and a half of evaporated milk.
+
+("And the extra cans Winnie bought to support the cat on," interrupted
+Louise. "We can steal those if the worst comes to the worst.")
+
+  Two barrels of potatoes.
+  Six jugs of molasses.
+  One dozen cans each peas and corn.
+  Eight pounds of salt pork.
+
+"All present and accounted for," said Mrs. Bryan, as the men who had
+been loaned with the wagon rolled the barrels and carried the boxes off
+to a little tarred shack near the spring. "We'll have to buy butter and
+eggs and fresh fruit and vegetables as we go along. They'll keep in the
+spring, for it seems to be ice-cold."
+
+"And did just things to eat for us cost all that beautiful eighty
+dollars we made at all the cake-sales?" asked Florence indignantly. She
+had helped make fudge for those sales, and she felt as if they had been
+her personal venture.
+
+"It came to about fifty-five dollars, wholesale," said Helen, looking
+down at the itemized list she held. "We figured out that the other
+thirty dollars would just about keep us in the green things and dairy
+things we had to have. The corn and peas are in case we're weatherbound
+and can't get fresh vegetables."
+
+"And how long did you say we could live on that perfect mountain of
+food?" inquired Nataly Lee's mournful voice from where she was lying on
+the grass with her knapsack under her head.
+
+"Three weeks, no more," said Helen briskly. "If we want to stay we shall
+have to earn more money."
+
+"I think we could," mused Winona thoughtfully.
+
+"But what about the tents?" asked Elizabeth curiously. She was a quiet,
+competent little thing. "I don't see where the money for them comes in."
+
+"That's the most splendid thing of all," smiled Mrs. Bryan, as the men
+began to slide ten dusty-looking tents out of the wagon. "Mr. Gedney,
+the Scoutmaster, called up Mr. Bryan just before I was going shopping
+for tents, and told me about these in case we wanted them. They belonged
+to the National Guard, and the State had condemned them, because they
+were shabbier than some politician or other liked them to be. So the
+Scouts were offered them at a ridiculously low price, if they would only
+take enough. Rather than let such a bargain go by the Scouts took them
+all, though there were more than they needed. And Mr. Gedney says we may
+use these, and needn't pay for them till next winter."
+
+The girls agreed that it certainly was luck, and followed on down to see
+the tents put up--ten little brown tents in a row, with two cots and a
+box-dressing-table in each.
+
+"You'll have to stow your clothes underneath the cots," explained Mrs.
+Bryan. "And I expect each of you to learn how to put up and take down
+her own tent."
+
+"Beads!" exploded Louise.
+
+"Exactly," said Mrs. Bryan.
+
+"We only have extra under-things," said Marie, "and one dress-up frock
+apiece, besides our camp clothes and ceremonial dresses. We don't need
+much room."
+
+By the time the tents had been assigned and the cots made up, supper was
+ready, and Mrs. Bryan summoned them to it by blowing a clear little
+whistle she wore. The girls had expected to turn to and get their own
+supper. So they were very much surprised to find Mrs. Bryan's black maid
+Grace, and Mrs. Hunter's Jenny smiling behind the long trestles in the
+mess-tent, setting steaming dishes up and down the table.
+
+"This is a special treat," explained Mrs. Bryan. "We're all tired
+to-night, and we hadn't time to do any cooking ourselves anyway, so I
+let Grace and Jenny do it. But to-morrow morning camp life begins. We'll
+draw lots for assignment to duties, after supper."
+
+The girls stood up behind their seats for a moment and said grace, then
+sat down, and ate as if they had never seen food before. It was a very
+civilized meal, soup, roasts and dessert, all sent over by the mothers
+in the tonneau of the Bryan car, as the cooks and the provisions had
+been. It tasted good, but everyone looked forward with joy to real camp
+cooking.
+
+"Wait till you see how I can broil venison steak," threatened Louise, as
+she ate a very large helping of despised roast beef from a mere
+unromantic cow.
+
+"Where'll you get the venison? Pick it?" called back Winona from the
+other side of the table.
+
+"No, she's going to grow it!" said Elizabeth.
+
+"Nothing of the kind!" said Louise cheerfully. "All you do is to go out
+with a gun, and stalk till you find a magnificent moose feeding
+peacefully among the underbrush."
+
+"Suppose there isn't any underbrush?" inquired Edith's languid voice
+from the table's other end.
+
+"Then you carry some out with you and scatter it around for the deer to
+eat out of," said Louise undisturbed. "Don't interrupt the lesson on
+natural history, please. You stand, moved by the beauty of the sight,
+for a long time. Then, recalled to yourself by the thought of the seven
+starving little Blue Birds at home, you draw your revolver to your
+shoulder and are about to fire."
+
+"Sure it's a revolver?" asked Winona skeptically.
+
+"Well, your pistol, then--they're all the same thing. Just then the
+moose lifts his head and looks at you mournfully out of his large,
+deer-like eyes. You almost relent. But you nerve yourself and fire--one
+crashing shot between the eyes. Then you throw the moose across your
+shoulders and carry it home--and there's your venison steak."
+
+"It sounds more like a venison mis-steak to me," said Winona. "I suppose
+you're going hunting to-morrow morning, Louise?"
+
+But Louise had just arrived at her dessert.
+
+"I scorn to reply," was all she said as she retired into her ice-cream.
+
+After supper the girls lay about on the grass, while Winona and Marie
+and Mrs. Bryan put slips of paper in a double boiler. The girls drew
+lots to decide which should be camp cooks and camp orderlies for the
+first week: four for the cooking, four for buying provisions and
+policing the camp, and four for the dish-washing and preparing
+vegetables.
+
+"That leaves one girl over," spoke up Adelaide, sitting up under a tree.
+
+Mrs. Bryan shook her head. "No," she said, "it doesn't, because somebody
+has to look after the Blue Birds every week. I'm going to appoint Marie
+Hunter, because she hasn't any small sisters, and it won't be such an
+old story to her to look after little girls. So there are just enough
+people to go around. Rise up and draw lots out of the boiler, girls!"
+
+"I'd rather wash every dish in camp than chaperon the infants!" said
+Louise aside; and drew a slip marked "Dish-Washing" on the spot. "If I
+got all my wishes as quickly as that, how nice it would be!" she sighed,
+and lay down with her arm around little Bessie. Louise had not a passion
+for washing dishes.
+
+Then Adelaide drew a cooking slip. So did Winona and Elizabeth and
+Lilian Brown, one of the girls who had joined later. Anna Morris,
+Dorothy Gray and Edith Hillis drew the other dish-washing slips and
+Helen Bryan, Nataly Lee, Gladys Williams and the other Brown sister,
+Gertrude, were assigned the police and provision duty. At the end of the
+week everybody was to shift to something else.
+
+"It seems to me the camp orderlies have the best of it," said Helen,
+yawning. "What do we do, Nannie?"
+
+"You see that everyone remembers to make up her bed in the morning, you
+sweep out the camp, carry water from the spring. You have to see, too,
+that the camp is kept in fruit and vegetables--in other words, walk to a
+farmhouse about a mile away every other day to buy provisions. We
+mustn't break into our canned goods except in an emergency. You are
+really the people who are responsible for the camp's running smoothly."
+
+"Carry water!" said Nataly with a gasp. "Won't we get our clothes wet?"
+
+"Wear a waterproof, love," said Louise. "I'm going to ask to have Nataly
+assigned to bring me all my water for dishes," she whispered to Winona,
+beside her. "I'm sure it will have an elevating effect on her
+character."
+
+"Oh, don't, Louise!" whispered Winona back. "Suppose you'd spent your
+young life on a sofa, reading 'Beautiful Coralie's Doom,' you wouldn't
+feel able to carry water either!"
+
+"Then I wouldn't go Camp Firing," said Louise conclusively.
+
+Next morning the camp cooks were up at six. Breakfast was to be at
+seven-thirty, but the girls were so afraid of being too late that they
+devised an elaborate system of strings, whereby the earliest awake was
+to jerk her strings, and wake all the others. Winona, Lilian Brown and
+Elizabeth were on the ground by a quarter past six, but, although they
+had all jerked their strings faithfully, no Adelaide appeared. Finally
+they descended in a body on the tent which held Adelaide and her little
+sister Frances.
+
+"Well, would you look at that!" said Winona in an indignant whisper.
+
+The other girls cautiously lifted the tent-flap and stuck in their
+heads.
+
+Frances slept placidly on one cot, her little freckled face half buried
+in the pillow. On the other, quite as fast asleep, lay Adelaide--and
+there was not a string tied to her anywhere!
+
+"Well, if that isn't the _limit_!" said Elizabeth and Lilian in one
+breath, and Elizabeth reached down to the pail of water which the
+orderlies had faithfully set outside each tent door before they went to
+bed. She tilted the cold water on her handkerchief, and dropped it wetly
+on Adelaide's face. It wasn't a wet sponge, but it did nearly as well,
+as an awakener.
+
+"What--where--nonsense, Lonny, _don't_!" said Adelaide, waving her arms,
+and finally sitting up.
+
+"It isn't Lonny; it's us," said Winona coldly, "and why on earth did you
+untie the strings, when all the rest of us had them to get up by?"
+
+Adelaide looked ashamed.
+
+"I couldn't sleep all tied up that way," she confessed. "I felt like a
+spider or a fly or something. So I tied them on the cot. But I thought
+when you pulled them the cot would jar, and wake me!"
+
+"It might have," said Winona, "if you'd tied them on your own cot!"
+
+Adelaide, looking in the direction of Winona's pointing finger, found
+out why she had not wakened. In her sleepiness the night before, she had
+fastened her strings to a large twig that grew out of the ground beside
+her bed!
+
+"I ought to be drowned!" said Adelaide ashamedly. "But if you girls will
+wait till I get bathed and dressed, I'll wash all the dishes to pay for
+this!"
+
+"You won't do any such thing," said the others.
+
+So they sat sociably outside Adelaide's tent till she was dressed and
+joined them. Then they started out valiantly for the cooking-place.
+
+When they reached it a very cheering surprise awaited them, for there
+was Mrs. Bryan seated on a pile of kindling, with a box of matches on
+her lap and a pleasant smile on her face.
+
+"I thought you mightn't know just where to begin," she said, "so I
+thought I'd come help, this first morning. The first thing is the fire.
+Do any of you know how to make a cooking-fire in the open?"
+
+Adelaide didn't, neither did Elizabeth. Winona thought she knew, but
+wasn't sure, and Lilian had once seen it done, but had forgotten how.
+
+"I'd better show you all, then," said their Guardian briskly. "The first
+thing you do is to get together two big green logs that won't burn. Roll
+them together so they form a big V."
+
+"Logs that _won't_ burn! What a queer beginning!" said Winona, whose
+idea of building a fire was heaping a bonfire up with sticks till it
+flamed high.
+
+But they tugged and pushed till they had a couple of newly-felled trees
+at angles to each other, in a hollow place protected from the wind.
+
+"Now, you build your fire inside that V," explained Mrs. Bryan, "and,
+you see, you can put the cocoa-pan up at the beginning of the crotch,
+and the portable oven and the frying-pan down where the division is
+wider."
+
+"Simple as anything," said Winona, "once you know how."
+
+And they scattered to find wood. The sticks lay about in plenty--later
+they were hard to find without going into the woods which encircled the
+camping-place--and Mrs. Bryan showed them how to commence a fire by
+laying small pieces of brushwood criss-cross at the bottom, and piling
+on heavier wood till all was aflame. Presently they had a solid, roaring
+fire. They sat back and let it burn down to coals. By then they had the
+flour-barrel opened, the bacon sliced, and the water ready to put on the
+cocoa. Winona made biscuits, it seemed to her, in mountains, while
+Elizabeth got out the butter and knives and forks, and set the table.
+
+"You can't cut out biscuits enough for twenty people with a cutter,
+child!" advised Mrs. Bryan.
+
+"Just take the butcher-knife, and cut the whole mass of dough into
+squares, after you've laid it on the floured floors of the oven!"
+
+But the bacon had to be sliced, and this took longer; and Adelaide's
+job, looking after the cocoa, proved nerve-racking, because cocoa will
+burn at the slightest chance. But everything came right, and by the time
+the other girls were astir their breakfast was awaiting them, piping
+hot; crispy bacon, hot biscuits and butter, with jam they had made
+themselves, and cocoa.
+
+"Jam's an extra," Mrs. Bryan warned them. "It happened to be left over
+from the sales, so I brought it. You'll have to go to work and make some
+more out of berries you pick."
+
+After breakfast, Marie, the keeper of the Blue Birds' Nest, said that
+she was going to put two Blue Birds to work at each of the camp shifts,
+and leave the odd one to be Mrs. Bryan's personal Bird and attendant.
+Mrs. Bryan was to choose her attendant, who was to run her errands for
+her and help her generally. But she refused to do it.
+
+"I like them all so much," she said, "that I can't pick out a special
+one."
+
+So they counted out for the honor, and the choice for the first week
+fell on little Lucy Hillis. The others, as far as it could be done,
+worked with their own sisters.
+
+After breakfast, while the dish-washing brigade wrestled with the cups,
+plates and spoons that twenty people leave behind them, the cooks held a
+council. They decided that it would be easier if two girls got each meal
+in turn: Winona and Adelaide the dinner, Elizabeth and Lilian the
+supper, and so on. The camp police divided off the same way, and so,
+eventually, did the dish-washers. Helen, who had the Camp funds in her
+charge, talked with the girls who were going to market that day. There
+was twenty-five dollars for three weeks of camp, she explained, and she
+thought that the safest way would be to allow so much a day, which gave
+them about a dollar twenty a day to spend. They thought so, too, and
+presently Nataly and Helen went off in search of the farmhouse which had
+promised to keep them supplied with perishable provisions.
+
+Winona and Adelaide, freed of any further duties till supper-time, went
+off exploring. It was a perfect day, bright and breezy and not too hot.
+Winona half-danced along, singing under her breath. The sun glinted on
+her pretty hair and lighted up her blue eyes. Adelaide looked at her
+wistfully.
+
+"I do wish I were you!" she said abruptly.
+
+Winona looked at her in surprise. "Wish you were me? Why, on earth?" she
+asked. "Isn't it just as nice to be you?"
+
+Adelaide shook her head. "I don't like it much!" she said rebelliously.
+
+"Why not?" asked Winona.
+
+Adelaide shrugged her shoulders.
+
+Winona slipped her arm about her, and pulled her down on a comfortable
+looking log.
+
+"Let's sit down and talk about it," said she cheerfully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+
+Adelaide turned and faced Winona.
+
+"Well, go ahead and talk," she said. "It won't make things any less so."
+Then suddenly she burst out, "You don't know what it's like. You don't
+know how it feels never to have anything extra. If I go to a party I'm
+likely to be the worst-dressed girl there. If I go to school and the
+girls treat I have to say I don't want any because I can't pay back. I
+can't invite anybody to meals, because I can't give them extra nice
+things to eat. And, anyway, the flat's horrid--even the furniture and
+the carpets are shabby. Lonny and Frances are good, and help, but
+everything drags. And I just hate _everything_."
+
+"Hate everything!" said Winona soothingly. "Why, of course you
+don't--you just think you do!"
+
+"It's all right for you to talk," murmured Adelaide miserably.
+"Everybody's crazy over you--of course they would be. I am myself, and I
+don't like people generally. You have something about you that would
+make people like you even if you weren't sweet to them. Everything turns
+out right for you. I don't see what you wanted to join the Camp Fire
+for--its rules stuck out all over you before you ever joined."
+
+"Oh, _don't_!" said Winona, blushing. "What rules do you mean? I never
+kept any rules."
+
+"You know the Law of the Camp Fire: 'Seek beauty; give service; pursue
+knowledge; be trustworthy; hold on to health; glorify work; be happy.'"
+
+"I don't do all those things," said Winona. "Wish I did! But anybody
+seeks beauty, and as long as you have to work the only way to get fun
+out of it is to glorify it. As for the rest, I think they're only rules
+for getting all there is out of living. I'll tell you,
+Adelaide,"--Winona sat upright, as if a new thought had struck her--"why
+don't you see how many of the rules would apply to getting fun out of
+the things that worry you? When things go wrong at our house mother
+always says to Florence and Tommy and me, 'Can't you turn it into a
+game?'"
+
+"Turn shabby furniture and stews and no money into a game?" said
+Adelaide, as if she thought Winona was crazy.
+
+"Yes!" said Winona undauntedly. "To begin with the stews--well,
+Adelaide, you don't know one single thing about cooking. There's any
+amount of things beside stew that you can make out of stewing meat. And
+don't you remember the cold things we got out of Mrs. Bryan's
+refrigerator? That was a good supper, wasn't it? If you know how,
+cooking's fun, or nearly anything."
+
+"If we have more cooking-classes I suppose I could learn how to do more
+things with the meats and vegetables, or maybe market better," said
+Adelaide. "But that would only help that one thing."
+
+"You can figure out keeping house just like anything else," said Winona.
+"All you have to do's to _think_!"
+
+Adelaide laughed. "Do you suppose I could think the furniture new?" she
+asked. "You ought to see it--horrid old brown rep, and a carpet that's
+worn into white spots!"
+
+But though she laughed, she looked to Winona for the answer with real
+eagerness.
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'd do," suggested Winona thoughtfully--"I
+don't suppose you would, you're such a haughty Lady Imogene--I'd make a
+furnishing bee of it, and have a party, and invite all the girls to help
+you do the flat over. Your father and Lonny would help, wouldn't they?"
+
+"Oh, I guess so," she said.
+
+"Well, then, the girls would help you cover the furniture and stain the
+floor, and even paper, maybe. And if your father or Lonny could paint
+the wood-work--or would the landlord?"
+
+"No," said Adelaide, "he won't make repairs. It's not in the lease. And
+where would I get money for the paint and paper and stain and covers?"
+
+"Earn it!" said Winona. "There are lots of ways. That jam you made for
+the sales--you could get heaps of orders for that, I know. Oh, I should
+think it would be lovely to do. I tell you, Adelaide, you may think I'm
+crazy--but everything's fun, if you'll only remember that it _is_ fun!"
+
+"I wonder!" said Adelaide. "But I believe I could make money with jams
+and preserves if I worked hard at it."
+
+"We've all got to earn some more money soon if we want to stay in the
+camp longer than three weeks," said Winona, "unless Louise can feed us
+all on the venison steaks she was talking about last night. If you can
+make money for the camp you can for yourself!"
+
+Adelaide turned impulsively--they had risen and were going on through
+the wood--and threw her arms around Winona.
+
+"You certainly are the most comforting girl!" she said. "I don't wonder
+everybody does what you want them to."
+
+Winona didn't know what to say. It's pleasant to have people say such
+things to you, but it is embarrassing, too.
+
+"People like you just as much as they do me," said she. "Come on, let's
+go see if we can find the river we've heard so much about."
+
+They caught hands and ran on through the trees.
+
+The river was not hard to find. Above them it was a broad stream, but
+just here it wasn't very wide, just a pretty, clear, clean-looking
+stream, with green banks and some sort of a dock to be seen a little way
+beyond them. On the dock, when they reached it, was seen to be an
+elderly native with a pipe, and beside him was moored a rowboat which
+looked as if it could be rowed. He looked up from his fishing as the
+girls appeared.
+
+"Morning," he said sociably, "you little girls going down to the
+village?"
+
+"Good-morning," said Winona. "No, we hadn't thought of it. We might,
+though. Is there anything we could get for you if we went?"
+
+"Well," said the old man, jerking in his line with a good-sized fish on
+it, "ye-es, there is. I want an ad put in the paper. I guess I could
+trust you with a quarter to do it with."
+
+"I guess you could," said Winona, smiling. "Will this afternoon do? I
+don't believe we'd have time now to get there and back before
+dinner-time." She looked at her wrist-watch. "No, we won't," she said.
+"It's eleven now."
+
+"Well, this afternoon would do," he said.
+
+So, while the girls looked at the rowboat wishfully, and wondered if
+they couldn't get enough fish for supper if they had some tackle, the
+old man adjusted his spectacles, pulled an old envelope out of his
+pocket, and wrote on it laboriously.
+
+"Do you mind if I read it?" asked Winona, when he was done and had
+handed it to her.
+
+"Seein's that's what it's for, I dunno's I do," he grunted, grinning
+pleasantly. Winona and Adelaide took each a corner, and read as follows:
+
+  For sale, one rowboat in good condition, with oars. No reasonable
+  offer refused. Apply to John Sloane, R. F. D. 3, village.
+
+They looked at each other, then at the boat. Then both girls exclaimed
+with one impulse, "Is it this boat?"
+
+"This very rowboat," said Mr. Sloane, eying it with affection. "I don't
+use it no more. I've got a motor-boat, and them Boy Scouts up the river
+has got a fine young flock of canoes, so they ain't likely to want to
+hire it. Anyway, she ain't so young as she was. Good boat, though!"
+
+"And what would you call a reasonable offer?" inquired Winona. "The
+reason I want to know is that I have just six dollars, and if I could
+buy a rowboat that way I would."
+
+"Six dollars, hey?" said Mr. Sloane slowly. "That ain't much for a good
+boat."
+
+"It's all I have to spend on rowboats," said Winona placidly.
+
+"We-el," decided Mr. Sloane, "guess I might's well let you have it!"
+
+And he proceeded to make out a receipt on the spot, on the other half of
+the envelope he had used for the advertisement.
+
+"It certainly pays to advertise!" he remarked, as he turned his
+attention again to his fishing-line.
+
+Adelaide and Winona jumped into their boat with delight, and rowed
+downstream for half a mile. There they were stopped by the beautiful
+sight of a lot of huckleberry bushes, full of fruit, along the edge of
+the stream. They both filled their hats, and when these would hold no
+more they pinned up Winona's skirt in front and filled that--Winona
+sitting very still thereafter in order not to smash any berries. Then
+Adelaide rowed back and tied their newly-acquired property to the dock,
+the use of which was thrown in, and went back to camp with berries
+enough for dinner. Just before they came within hearing of the others,
+Adelaide whispered:
+
+"Winona, I'm going to try to--to feel that way about things."
+
+Winona squeezed her hand, but there was no time to say anything more,
+for a horde of small pirates descended on them and carried away the
+berries.
+
+After dinner the girls lay on the grass and made plans, more or less
+wild, for getting money to prolong their vacation.
+
+"We can't have a cake-sale," said Marie practically, "because the
+farmers' wives in the village make all their own baked stuff, and the
+people at the summer-resort are mostly boarders."
+
+"Oh, please don't let's have any more cake-sales, whether they're
+profitable or not," said Louise pathetically. "I sold eats for those
+sales till I used to go to sleep at night and dream I was a wedding-cake
+myself."
+
+"All right, then," soothed Helen, "you shan't ever have such dreadful
+dreams again, you poor little thing!"
+
+"Well, what shall we do, then?" asked Edith Hillis pulling her yellow
+curls over her shoulder and examining them as if she had never seen them
+before.
+
+"When you want money," remarked Mrs. Bryan, "you have to sell something,
+either your services, or your manufactures, or your talents."
+
+"In other words," said Winona, "work for people, or make things to sell
+them, or have an entertainment."
+
+"Precisely," said the Guardian.
+
+"Then let's start at the beginning," offered Winona, "and everybody try
+to think what she can do best in the way of work, and whether anybody'd
+want them to!"
+
+"One thing," reminded Marie, "we can't live by taking in each other's
+washing, so to speak. We'll have to scheme to get some of their
+hard-earned butter-and-egg money away from the farmers' wives, or else
+prey on the summer-resorters."
+
+"We expect to give it right back to them for butter and eggs," said
+Adelaide. "Whatever we do we might as well take it out in trade!"
+
+After that nobody seemed to have any more ideas. Everyone sat silently
+and thought very hard; till Louise jumped up with a yelp of impatience
+that woke Puppums from his after-dinner nap, and made even Hike the Camp
+Cat open one green eye.
+
+"Don't let's waste this gorgeous day thinking!" she said. "My head isn't
+used to it, and it hurts. Come on, anybody that wants to--I'm going to
+walk down to the village to buy something, I don't care what. Who'll
+come?"
+
+Winona, Helen and Nataly dropped into step beside Louise, and the four
+marched off singing "In the Land of the Sky-Blue Water," which they were
+trying to learn.
+
+"That song really sounds better to Opeechee's ceremonial drum than
+anything else," remarked Louise.
+
+"Real Indian music always sounds better if you pound something while you
+sing it, even if it's only a dish-pan," said Winona.
+
+"Please don't mention dish-pans," begged Louise, "they're a tender
+point. I just parted from mine half an hour ago."
+
+"All right," said Winona good-humoredly, "I have something else
+interesting to tell you. I bought a rowboat to-day."
+
+"Oh, good!" cried Helen. "Marie's canoe and mine will be up in a day or
+so, but a canoe wiggles so when you try to fish from it. Now we can all
+go fishing. Elizabeth brought tackle, but we thought we couldn't do much
+good, fishing from the bank."
+
+"And the Blue Birds can go out in it till they learn more about canoes,
+too," said Winona. "I'm going exploring myself in it as soon as I can.
+What are you really going to the village for, Louise--or don't you
+know?"
+
+"Benzine for my burnt-wood outfit," said Louise. "I had some thinks, and
+that was one. Little Louise is going to make some nice burnt-leather
+things for the neighborhood. Pillows and table-covers, and heaps of
+things for the farmers' wives to buy. Lessons in the art if they want
+them. I brought my outfit, and some skins, and colors."
+
+"I thought I'd model some vases and pots and bowls, and fire them," said
+Helen. "They might sell, too. Have you thought of anything, Winona?"
+
+"Not a blessed thing, for myself," said Winona. "You know, I'm not
+particularly clever about doing things like that, except making baskets,
+and Florence does those better than I do. But I have thought of one
+thing--how to sell our wares after they are made."
+
+"That's quite a useful thing to know," said Louise. "About the most
+useful thing there is, in fact. Well, how?"
+
+"We'll have to peddle them," said Winona calmly. "The farmers' wives
+won't come out here to buy unless we advertise a lot, and we can't
+afford that. The thing for us to do is to get some sort of a thing to
+carry the goods in, and make it look awfully arts-an-craftsy, and pull
+it round and sell things at the houses."
+
+"A soap-box on wheels is what I _think_ you're hinting at," said Louise,
+"but I hope not."
+
+"Are you really in earnest?" asked Nataly, who had taken no share in the
+talk so far.
+
+"Why not?" asked Winona. "It's no worse than taking a horse and cart
+down through the Italian quarter and selling rummage things to the women
+there; and that's what the Ladies' Aid at our church did last winter."
+
+"It's different," insisted Nataly, and nothing could shake her in her
+ideas. So Louise poked Winona, as a hint not to argue any more. But when
+Nataly went into the little general store to buy some picture post-cards
+Louise whispered to the other girls, "I have a glorious improvement on
+your soap-box plan, Winnie. If you girls will help me put it through
+I'll tell you all about it."
+
+"I'd like to hear about it first," said Helen doubtfully; for Louise's
+plans were always original, but not always safe and sane. Before Louise
+could answer Nataly was back again, and Louise began to tell her the
+story of the reduced English gentlewoman who had to sell shrimps for a
+living, by calling them up and down the streets. "And she was such a
+perfect lady," finished Louise, "that whenever she called out 'Shrimps
+for sale!' she'd add under her breath, 'I hope to goodness nobody hears
+me!'"
+
+"And did they?" Nataly asked innocently, while Winona tried to keep her
+face straight.
+
+"No, they didn't," said Louise sadly, "so she never sold any shrimps at
+all. And so she died of starvation."
+
+But Nataly, instead of grasping the moral, said only, "Well, why didn't
+she eat the shrimps, then?"
+
+At which Louise grunted disgustedly and went in to buy herself the
+benzine.
+
+After that day there was always a feeling in the village near Camp
+Sunrise that every Camp Fire Girl's first object in life was cat-rescue.
+And it was Winona who was responsible. To begin with, the day the girls
+arrived at camp she had been seen by all the interested villagers,
+walking near the head of the dusty procession, leading a small,
+sash-bandaged gray kitten by a string. Hike had meowed for air and
+exercise just as the village had been neared, and Winona had taken that
+means of giving it to him, without risking his running off. The
+villagers might have let that, by itself, pass. But when it was coupled
+with Winona's performance of this afternoon--well, you can judge for
+yourself.
+
+It was after the girls had bought everything they came for, and were on
+their way to camp. Out of a gate, across their road, bounded two small
+boys, each of whom held a wriggling black kitten.
+
+"Won't you hurt the kitty if you hold it by just one leg?" inquired
+Winona of the nearest boy.
+
+"It don't matter if we do hurt 'em--they ain't any good anyhow," he
+explained. "We're going to drown 'em in a minute."
+
+"Oh, _no_!" protested Winona.
+
+"Well, will you take 'em?" asked the other boy. "Mother says she can't
+keep any more cats."
+
+Winona took the victims on the spot, and put them into the continuous
+pocket all around the bottom of her Balkan blouse. The small boys went
+back into their yard, where they were heard announcing, "Mother! A girl
+took the kitties!" And Winona stood still with a kitten at each hip.
+
+"You'd better give them back," said Nataly, who was afraid of cats.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't!" said Winona. "It's so nice to be alive, even if you're
+a cat--and there isn't really any Cat-Heaven, you know."
+
+"Well, advertise them for sale, then," said Louise impatiently. "Good
+home and kind treatment wanted for two black kittens--salary no object."
+
+She wasn't in earnest, but Winona was.
+
+"I will!" she said. "Not for sale, but to give away. Will one of you
+take this notice to the paper, while I take the kittens to camp for the
+night?"
+
+"I'll take the kittens home!" volunteered Helen, Louise and Nataly with
+a touching oneness of feeling.
+
+Winona grinned. "Why, you very obliging people!" she said. "Please put
+them in a box with netting, then, so they can't get away. I'll go and
+advertise. I'm perfectly sure such good kittens as these will have lots
+of applications!"
+
+Louise and Helen, each with a kitten, accompanied by Nataly, kittenless,
+went slowly campward in eloquent silence, while Winona sped back to the
+office of the village paper. So the next day an advertisement appeared
+in the _Press:_
+
+  Wanted, to find homes for two black kittens, nice purrers, good
+  mousers. Can be separated. Apply Box 2, _Press_ office, or at Camp
+  Karonya, in person.
+
+"I don't care if they do laugh," said Winona when she got back, to find
+Camp Karonya howling at her in rows. "If they laugh they're more apt to
+remember, and come get the kittens. I'll put them out of the way, poor
+little things, if nobody answers in a day or two."
+
+But--whether it was that cats who were "nice purrers" were a novelty,
+whether it is true that there's a place for everything in this world if
+we could only get in touch with it--the very next day there were five
+applicants for those two black kittens. Indeed, Winona had great
+difficulty in holding onto Hike the Camp Cat, who had grown by now into
+a very presentable, if fat, Maltese kitten. People seemed to think that
+it was Winona's duty to distribute cats as long as cats held out.
+
+The only drawback was that for the rest of the time it was there the
+village with one accord used Camp Karonya as a clearing-house for its
+cats!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+A couple of days later Winona took Florence and Puppums, and went
+exploring in the rowboat. Louise and Helen were very busy making a
+tree-house, but they promised to see that Hike the Camp Cat was looked
+after and no belated advertisement answerer got him.
+
+The Merriams rowed about a mile along the river, in the direction away
+from the village, without finding anything more interesting than a
+muskrat, who disappeared when Puppums barked at him. But just a while
+after this thrilling incident they rounded a bend, and there in a red
+canoe, placidly catching fish, sat Tom!
+
+His back and that of the boy with him were turned to them, but there was
+no mistaking him, nor Billy Lee. Neither of them saw the rowboat till it
+was quite close, and Florence and Puppums howled together in greeting.
+
+"Hello, kid! H'lo, Winnie--you've frightened the fish!" was his
+brotherly greeting: while Billy, not being a relation, took off his hat
+and said politely that he was glad to see them, and how was the camp?
+
+"Oh, never mind the fish!" said Winona, when she had answered Billy with
+equal politeness. "You can fish any day, but you haven't seen your
+family since last week. How do you come to be up here so soon?"
+
+"Captain Gedney worked it somehow--I don't know how," said Tom. "Anyhow,
+we're here. Good fishing, too. See?" He held up a string of fair-sized
+fish in proof.
+
+"Where's your camp?" asked Florence, while Puppums almost had hysterics
+and had to be handed into the canoe so that he could love Tom properly.
+"Can I come see it?"
+
+"Sure you can," said Tom. "No charge for the view. It's those tents
+right over there."
+
+"You know I don't mean that," said Florence, pouting. "I mean I want to
+get out and go over."
+
+"Oh, wait a day or so, can't you, Floss?" implored Tom, who plainly
+didn't want to be detached from his fishing. "Wait and come over with
+the rest of the bunch, and we'll give you a grand welcome, fifes and
+drums and things. I tell you, though, girls, why can't you all come use
+our swimming pool? We've just finished damming off a little branch
+stream into a dandy pond--paved it and all. Started it last year. But
+you'd have to give us warning, so we wouldn't be in it."
+
+"Why, how lovely!" exclaimed Winona. "I know Mrs. Bryan will let us, and
+all of us brought our bathing-suits."
+
+"Good enough!" said Tom.
+
+"How was mother--was everything all right at home when you left?" asked
+his sister.
+
+"Oh, fine and dandy. But what do you think, Winnie, that Children's Aid
+child has come. Mother says she's glad it happened while we were out of
+the way, so she'd have a better opportunity to get him running smoothly
+without our help."
+
+"Him!" said Winona. "Do you mean they sent a boy, not a girl?"
+
+Tom laughed. "They certainly did--a darky about twelve, as black as your
+hat, and a regular Topsy."
+
+"Good gracious!" said Winona, laughing.
+
+Mrs. Merriam had written to the Children's Aid Society a little while
+before for a girl of about fourteen--black preferred--who could help
+with the dishes out of school hours. She had heard nothing about it, and
+the family had completely forgotten it till now.
+
+"When did he get there?" asked Winona.
+
+"The day before I came away," said Tom. "It was wash-day, and that
+colored washerwoman mother has opened the door. First we knew she came
+back and said: 'There's a white woman and a young colored gemman to see
+Mrs. Merriam.' So mother went out, and came back in a minute with the
+agent, an awfully nice sort of a girl, and the smallest, solemnest,
+black boy you ever saw. Mother didn't want him at first, but the
+agent-girl swore he had all the virtues, and needed a good home and
+moral training. Then she walked off and left him sitting on a chair,
+staring straight ahead. I tell you, it got sort of embarrassing after
+awhile. So I asked him his name."
+
+"What is it?" asked Winona.
+
+"He said, 'Ah was christen' Thomas!'" returned Tom, grinning. "So mother
+told him that I'd been christened Thomas, too, and asked him for his
+last name. And he said, 'Ma las' name's Clay--but hit ain' ma callin'
+name. Ma callin' name's Thomas. But yo'-all kin call me Mistah Clay if
+yo' want to!'"
+
+"Did mother want to?" asked Winona.
+
+"She nearly exploded," said Tom, "but I think they came to some sort of
+a compromise. I don't think he'll leave her time to miss us, for a week
+or so anyway!"
+
+"Well, I'm glad of that," said Winona. "Tommy, did you ever know of
+anything I could do?"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" asked Tom, while Billy Lee, who had been
+silently fishing all this time, looked interested.
+
+"I mean something I could do that would earn money," she explained. "We
+want to stay in camp longer than we have money for, so we must earn it."
+
+"The thing you always were best at was darning my stockings," said Tom
+cheerfully, and grinned.
+
+"Oh, dear, I just knew you'd say that!" said Winona. "I can't go round
+selling darns!"
+
+Billy Lee lifted up his head from a tangle in his fishing-line as he
+answered, "I don't see why you couldn't. I mean--why couldn't you do
+mending for the Scouts? If you'd be willing to, I know we'd be glad.
+There's an awful lot of holes in my clothes."
+
+"And nobody to do them?" asked Winona, delighted.
+
+"Not a soul," answered both boys at once.
+
+"Oh, how perfectly splendid!" said Winona. "Mr. Gedney will know how
+much I ought to charge for them, won't he?"
+
+"Yes, or Mrs. Bryan had better tell you," said Tom.
+
+"Oh, can I have them now?" asked Winona.
+
+"Oh, bother!" said Tom. "Won't to-morrow do?"
+
+"I'll get 'em," said Billy Lee, and made a flying leap out of the canoe
+to shore.
+
+He was gone a few minutes, and came back with a clothes-basket full of
+garments of various kinds: also with the Scoutmaster, Captain Gedney.
+
+"Good-morning, girls!" said the Scoutmaster. "This is fine! Billy tells
+me we're going to get our mending done!"
+
+"Oh, is it really all right?" quivered Winona.
+
+"Yes, indeed, it's more than all right," answered Mr. Gedney
+enthusiastically. "I was thinking of taking a trip to the village to see
+if we could find somebody we could put at it, but this is better. Now
+you get your Guardian to put a price on the work, either by the piece or
+by the hour. I can promise you spot-cash, and a great deal of gratitude
+into the bargain."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+So the end of it was that Florence and Winona rowed happily back down
+the river with what looked extremely like two weeks' wash in their boat;
+also with the joyful certainty that Winona, at least, was going to be
+able to earn her share of the expenses for the extra weeks of camping.
+
+The boys promised to paddle down in a couple of days and get the mended
+clothes, and--most important--the bill for them. Billy Lee wanted to see
+his sister, anyway, he said.
+
+When Florence and Winona got back nearly every girl in camp was seated
+out in the open air, in a big circle, and nearly all of them were
+talking at once, planning the ceremonial meeting for that night. There
+was to be a ceremonial fire, a very high and beautiful one with a
+central pole--this last an innovation which Louise was introducing. And
+Winona and Marie Hunter were going to be made Fire Makers, Louise and
+several of the others were going to be Wood-gatherers, and Nataly Lee
+was going to join.
+
+When Winona joined the circle she found that a good deal of the
+excitement was being caused by the Book of the Count. Marie and Helen,
+with paints and pen and brushes, were making the record of the days they
+had spent in camp a very lively affair.
+
+Winona sat down and looked on at what Marie was doing, and read on the
+page they had open:
+
+  On the second day, Winona,
+  Ray-of-Light, the Cat-Collector
+  Made her way unto the village,
+  To buy post-cards at the village.
+  With her went the cheerful Comet,
+  Ishkoodah with flaming tresses;
+  With her went the Star of Evening,
+  Helen, gentle Star of Evening,
+  And Nokoma, flower-giver--
+  Nataly the flower-giver.
+  Seeking post-cards, thus they wandered,
+  But alas, the Cat-Collector
+  Much preferred to bring home kittens,
+  And to advertise those kittens.
+  All next day the ad-replyers
+  Tracked our camp with questing footsteps,
+  Asked of us--"Where are those kittens?
+  Give us several dozen kittens!"
+  For, alas, those cats had vanished,
+  Gone with the first two replyers
+  To the ad Winona paid for.
+
+  Still about our Camp come wailing
+  Folk who seek the cats they heard of,
+  Seeking several dozen kittens;
+  Still the Ray-of-Light, Winona,
+  Cannot give them any kittens,
+  Cannot stop their wronged insistence
+  On those kittens, on those kittens--
+
+"Oh, good gracious!" asked Winona, beginning to laugh before she read
+any further. "Who _did_ make all that up?"
+
+"I did," said Marie proudly, "but we all helped."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that any more people have come catting to-day?"
+demanded Winona.
+
+"Only seven," said Helen. "Winnie, you'll never hear the last of this."
+
+"Well, Mrs. Bryan, I've found some work to do that will earn money,"
+said Winona, hastily changing the subject. "Florence and I went up to
+the Scouts' camp, and Mr. Gedney gave us the boys' mending to do. He
+said you were to put a price on it for us."
+
+"Twenty to twenty-five cents an hour," supplied Mrs. Bryan promptly.
+"You'd better have some of the other girls help you, too, dear, for
+there's enough work there to take up a good deal of your time for three
+or four days, and you don't come camping to turn yourself into a
+sewing-girl, even for the good of the camp."
+
+"Very well," said Winona. "Who hasn't picked out any special work to do
+yet?"
+
+"Nataly Lee," said someone.
+
+"Neither have I," said Elizabeth. "I'll help, too."
+
+A half-dozen of them went off to a sunny spot, produced a large
+alarm-clock to time themselves by, and put in two hours of work
+immediately. That is, all but Nataly. She got tired at the end of one
+hour, and went off, she said, to lie down. The others got the mending
+almost done, for many hands make light work. Then they piled up the
+basket again, and went back to camp. It was Winona's turn to get supper
+that night.
+
+"There ought to be about four dollars' worth of work in that basket,"
+said Helen thoughtfully when they all met at supper.
+
+"It's probably more than we'll have next time," said Winona. "But
+anyway, it's a steady income. Let's hope they'll be kind, and wear big,
+awful holes in everything they have."
+
+"They will, unless they've had a change of heart since last week," said
+Louise.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+After supper was cleared away the girls set about collecting wood in the
+open space on the top of the little hill, for their ceremonial-fire. It
+was the most happy and successful meeting they had had, and also, as
+Louise expressed it, the most beadful. It ended in a ghost-dance around
+the fire. After it was through the girls lay still and told stories,
+which gradually became more ghostly than the dance. It was very pleasant
+till bedtime came. Then even the bravest of them made dashes for their
+tents; and Mrs. Bryan, making her rounds after the camp was asleep,
+found five lighted candles keeping ghosts out of five tents in a row!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+
+There were bathing and boating and tree-climbing in the days that
+followed and there were hikes and folk-dances and various
+entertainments, by themselves, and occasionally with the Scouts for
+audience. The girls canoed all up and down the river, and borrowed the
+Scout swimming-pool with rapture, and learned all sorts of swimming and
+diving stunts. And everybody got brown and husky and cheerful. But in
+between the good times the girls worked on steadily, each at her
+appointed task, and in about ten days there was a promising collection
+of material to be sold, for the virtuous purpose of giving Camp Karonya
+some more weeks of life in the Wampoag woods.
+
+Helen gave up modelling her beloved statuettes, and went soberly to work
+at bowls and vases, and other such things that people would be likely to
+find useful. She decorated them with motives she drew herself, and took
+them up to Wampoag, the summer-resort, where there was a kiln, and had
+them fired. Louise made burnt-leather pillows, which filled her hair
+with such a fearful smell that for awhile she washed it every day, till
+it occurred to her to wear a bathing-cap to work in. She also burned
+mats and table-covers and napkin-rings to the limit of her purchasing
+power; and when that failed she took to carving things out of wood she
+picked up. The Blue Birds wove raffia baskets and table-mats, and Marie
+and Edith crocheted bags and collars. Adelaide devoted herself to
+canning. The rest helped her sometimes, but more of the time she took
+pride in putting up the fruit all by herself.
+
+There were embroidered tea-cloths and runners, and there was hammered
+brass-work. The honor-counts rolled up like snowballs, for the girls
+made nearly everything a girl is capable of making or decorating. There
+was almost enough made to stop.
+
+But still Camp Karonya held nightly discussions, having made these
+various things, as to how to sell them. The plan most of them wanted to
+adopt was that of going from house to house with them. Having a fair
+meant hiring a room or store, or running the risk of having nobody come
+to buy--for the camp was two miles from the nearest point of
+civilization. The only alternative seemed putting them into some of the
+resort shops to be sold on commission, and there was a large risk there
+that the shops might not do properly by them. There was another
+alternative, sending them home to be sold, but that seemed inglorious,
+somehow.
+
+One night, after everything had been argued over until everybody had
+finished from sheer inability to think of anything more to say, and
+begun to discuss constellations instead, Winona, lying on her back, felt
+a pull at her sleeve. She rolled over, to see Louise stealthily working
+herself down the hill, out of the moonlight. Winona rolled as stealthily
+after her.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, when they were at the bottom of the hill, where
+they couldn't be seen.
+
+"Come hither, Little One, and I will tell you!" responded Louise, like
+Kipling's Crocodile. She led the way to the dock, where they sat down in
+the moored rowboat, and Louise began to hold forth.
+
+"We've got more than enough things to sell, and none of those plans are
+a bit of good. What we want to do is to take all that stuff up to
+Wampoag, in this old boat of yours, and peddle them at the big hotels."
+
+"I think so, too," agreed Winona, "but the girls haven't gotten
+unanimous yet. You know Nataly Lee's going to fight to the last ditch
+against selling things that way. I don't know whether she thinks it's
+too hard work or too undignified, but you can see she isn't going to
+stand for it one little bit."
+
+"Oh, that girl makes me tired!" said Louise. "I'm not going to wait for
+their old unanimity. I tell you, Win, I have a plan!"
+
+"Well, go ahead!" Winona encouraged.
+
+"To-morrow morning," said Louise. "You and I will slide off early, like
+the Third Little Pig, and pack the boat with all the junk we have ready.
+It's all in the boxes in the store-place. Then we'll row to Wampoag, and
+just sell things all day!"
+
+"How'll we get them away without anybody seeing us?" objected Winona,
+who liked the plan very much. "It would be gorgeous if we could manage
+it."
+
+"We'll have to go now and sneak the stuff into the boat before bedtime,"
+said Louise. "We can pile them on that amateur stretcher we used to
+carry Florence. I think nobody ever took it apart."
+
+"Hurrah! Come on, then!" said Winona, and the two girls slid off into
+the shadows.
+
+It was not such very hard work. They filled their two suitcases, and put
+what wouldn't go in the suitcases on the stretcher; and had everything
+in the boat and covered up with a waterproof blanket before their
+absence had been noticed. Then they stole back into the circle as
+innocently as kittens, in time to sing "Mammy Moon" at the tops of their
+voices with the rest.
+
+They were both on the policing shift that week, so it was easy for them
+to arrange to get their share of camp-work over early. By half-past
+eight in the morning they were rowing gayly down the river in the
+direction of Wampoag. Florence wanted to come, but they had to repress
+her. She might have been in their way.
+
+When they were around the bend, safely out of sight of the camp, Winnie
+stopped rowing.
+
+"I had an idea, too!" she said. "Reach under the seat, Louise."
+
+Louise pulled out, first, the luncheon she herself had poked under a
+little while before; next, a good-sized bundle that appeared to be
+clothes.
+
+"What's this for?" she asked.
+
+"For us," said Winona.
+
+Louise opened it, and eyed its contents puzzledly. There were a
+dressing-sack made of bandanna handkerchiefs, partly ripped up, two old
+skirts, an old shawl and a checked gingham apron.
+
+"They're to dress up in," explained Winona. "We'll be poor little
+emigrant girls that want to sella da nice-a goods, lady! The women who
+go around selling things out of suitcases always have a foreign look. So
+I fished these out of the box of stuff we had for theatricals. I knew
+just where it was, because we got some things out of it for 'Everygirl'
+last week."
+
+"Oh, gorgeous!" cried Louise, finishing the ripping-up of the
+dressing-sack into its original red handkerchiefs. She dug through the
+pile again and picked out the shortest skirt, for she hadn't her full
+growth yet. "Who gets the little checked shawl?" she asked.
+
+"You do, if you want it," answered Winona. "I'll take the apron."
+
+They both turned in the collars of their middy blouses, and rolled the
+cuffs under. Skirts over them, a bandanna apiece round their necks, and
+the checked shawl over Louise's head and a handkerchief on Winona's--and
+they were very convincing emigrants.
+
+"Our shoes are rather too good," said Winona discontentedly, "but you
+mustn't ask too much in this world. Pin your hair up, Louise. It's too
+red for an Italian, or even a Syrian."
+
+She managed to secure her own on top under her 'kerchief as she spoke.
+They were both so brown that they looked like natives of somewhere else,
+and the dresses were very natural. The long skirts and fastened-up hair
+made them both look eighteen or twenty--for Winona was as tall as she
+would ever be, five feet six, and Louise, though shorter, was plump.
+
+"We can buy long earrings at the ten-cent store on our way up," said
+Louise. "I always did want to."
+
+"All right," said Winona.
+
+"And, for goodness sake, Win, see if you can't get up some sort of an
+accent. Italian would be the easiest, I guess."
+
+"Yes, kinda lady! Sella da fina things--real handa-made!" responded
+Winona, her white teeth flashing.
+
+Then they came to the Boy Scouts' camp, and they had to row very softly,
+and keep as far away from the bank as they could. But luck was still
+with them, and none of the Scouts happened to be fishing that morning.
+
+"If we'd remembered we might have brought back the mending," said
+Louise, with a half-concealed desire to go tell the Scouts about her
+prospective lark.
+
+"Better not go in there!" said Winona. She had a brother in the camp,
+and she didn't care to risk being stopped in mid-career of what promised
+to be a very fine time. So they rowed down the river till they reached
+Wampoag, and tied their boat to the dock.
+
+They took out the stretcher, put a suitcase on either end of it and
+piled the things that were too big for the suitcases in the middle. Then
+they each took an end and started bravely forth.
+
+"Where da gooda hotel for sella da goods?" asked Louise, with a broad
+and friendly grin, of the interested dock-keeper.
+
+"Any at all," he answered. "Just go straight down this road till you see
+a hotel. They're all together."
+
+"Thank you, mister," Louise answered, and they trotted on.
+
+The sight of two young Italian girls carrying a stretcher full of goods
+proved to be a little more of a sensation than the girls had bargained
+for. They felt as if they had never been so much stared at in their
+lives, and they were both grateful when they reached the shelter of the
+first hotel porch.
+
+It was a big hotel that they had come upon, and its wide porches were
+full of women, young and old, rocking, and talking and embroidering, and
+willing enough to look at the things the girls had. The arrangement was
+that Winona should take care of the smaller things, the painted and
+embroidered linens and so forth in the suitcases, while Louise attended
+to the pottery and larger art-craft things, and a row of Adelaide's
+jellies. She didn't expect to sell the jelly to people who already had
+three meals a day, but she was agreeably surprised. Evidently they liked
+to have things to eat in their rooms.
+
+The stretcher and suitcases were set on the porch and Louise, with an
+ingratiating grin under her shawl, went from woman to woman, holding up
+her wares.
+
+"Look at da fine pot--native wares--very cheapa?" she asked. "You not
+have to buy. We lika show. Buy da fine pot cheapa? You nice lady--you
+take real Indian pillow--real pine pillow!"
+
+"I believe I will," said an energetic-looking old lady with white hair
+and a black silk dress. "How much is that pillow, my dear? And aren't
+you pretty young to be out selling things this way? You don't look more
+than seventeen."
+
+Louise swelled with pride at being taken for as old as that, but she
+managed to answer, "One dollar for pillow--very cheap--real hand work!"
+and to the last question, "I lika sella da goods--four little poor ones
+younger as me home. I _very_ old!"
+
+At which the elderly lady bought the pillow on the spot. Louise put the
+dollar in the pocket of her skirt, and went back to the stretcher after
+a big vase of Helen's, which was the pride of her heart, and for which
+she meant to ask at least one-fifty.
+
+"Real pottery pot, lady!" she explained to the nearest woman to her.
+"Real hand-made--see? Real hand-painted--only two dollar!"
+
+Louise had spent a summer at a hotel herself, the year before, and she
+knew all the tricks and manners of the porch-peddlers. She let the woman
+who wanted the vase beat her down to one-sixty, and pocketed the extra
+dime that she hadn't thought she'd get with a sense of duty well done.
+She frisked up and down the porch having a glorious time, while Winona,
+with her open suitcase, sat still by the top step. She did not need to
+move, for the women were as interested in her wares as they always are
+in table-linens. She sold a stencilled crash luncheon set of Marie's,
+five pieces, for five dollars, while Louise was haggling over the price
+for Helen's vase. Several of the bead bags and necklaces woven on the
+little looms went, too. The girls left that porch with nearly twelve
+dollars worth of goods sold.
+
+The next hotel did not do so well by them, for the people there only
+bought a few handkerchiefs and bead chains. Still it was better than
+nothing. They had covered six hotels by one o'clock and made twenty-five
+dollars. The needle-work, much to the girls' surprise, went more quickly
+than anything else.
+
+"It must be the wistful sweetness of your expression, or else they think
+I look too well-fed to be sorry for, Win," said Louise as they munched
+their sandwiches on the dock. The dock-keeper had given them permission.
+"You just sit still and look pleasant, and the sales get made. I have to
+chase all over creation, and tease and joke and cheapen, to get them to
+buy mine."
+
+"I'm afraid to talk much, for fear my accent will break through,"
+explained Winona. "It's the goods, I think. They all seem crazy over
+those stencilled things. I could sell a lot more if I had them."
+
+"Haven't you any more?" asked Louise between bites.
+
+"Only one, and I promised that to your kinda lady that you sold the pine
+pillow to, and told you were the oldest of five. But I'm taking orders,"
+finished Winona with a grin.
+
+"Do you suppose Marie will stand for going on with it?"
+
+"For what--this bandanna party? She needn't--I'll deliver them myself,"
+stated Winona calmly.
+
+"What about the carved frames Elizabeth made?" asked Louise, as they
+rose and took up the burden of life in the shape of their much lightened
+stretcher.
+
+"Pretty well, but nothing like the way Florence's and Frances's little
+sweet-grass baskets went."
+
+"If we sell enough to run the camp another two weeks, I don't see why
+the girls shouldn't keep any money over that they earn," said Winona
+thoughtfully. "The proprietor of that little boarding-house we went to
+last but one says she wants more jelly. _That's_ all gone, thank
+goodness--oo, but it was heavy!"
+
+"The little baskets at a quarter apiece are going off fast, too," said
+Louise. "Hotel Abercrombie-by-the-Water. Don't forget your dialect,
+angel-child."
+
+"E pluribus unum! Panama manyana! Nux vomica!" answered Winona
+enthusiastically as they ascended the steps. "Buya da beada necklace,
+lady?"
+
+"Good!" said Louise under her breath, and herself tackled dialect again.
+"Buya da pot for poor woman, lady? Got thirteen children to keep--no
+money!"
+
+"Thirteen children--really?" asked the woman in horror.
+
+"Thirteen--all girls!" answered Louise mournfully, while Winona bent
+very low over her suitcase, and tried not to laugh. "Unlucky number,
+huh?"
+
+"Very, for her!" said the woman. "Well, I really must buy something to
+help her."
+
+Winona was going to stop her, for she thought it wasn't fair; although
+Louise evidently took it as a lovely joke. But as the woman did not feel
+that her duty to the thirteen went beyond buying one fifteen-cent
+sweet-grass napkin-ring--and she only wanted to give ten cents for
+it--Winona did not intervene. She only whispered, "Don't, Louise!" next
+time she passed her. And Louise, though she laughed, said no more about
+the thirteen poor little Camp Fire Girls starving at home. Then towards
+evening it was Winona who got into trouble.
+
+They had sold about forty-five dollars' worth of stuff in the course of
+the day, and were back at the first hotel, the one they had started
+from, to deliver the stencilled set Winona had promised to Louise's
+white-haired lady. Winona, who felt very tired after her long day of
+tramping and selling, was sitting on the top of the hotel porch in the
+shade of a pillar, her hands crossed on her lap. Her pretty face was
+pale with the long, tiring day, and her eyelids drooped. She was
+figuring out that, what with the Scouts' mending and this day's work,
+and the orders they had taken, the camp could go on three weeks more.
+And she felt a touch on her shoulder.
+
+"My dear," said the brisk voice of the lady who had bought the
+stencilled set, "you seem tired."
+
+"Why, not so very," said Winona, coming out of her thinking-fit hastily,
+and forgetting her accent on the way.
+
+"And don't you find this a hard life for so young a girl?" went on the
+lady. "Wouldn't you rather do something else?"
+
+Winona smiled and shook her head. "I like it," she said.
+
+The old lady sat down by her and took her hand. Louise, meanwhile, out
+of hearing, was trying to sell a very lopsided basket to an elderly
+gentleman.
+
+"My child," she said, "I can't help feeling that you're too intelligent
+and too refined-looking for a life like this. I am sure you are not an
+Italian. Is there nothing I could do to help you?"
+
+Winona felt very uncomfortable. She hadn't bargained for having people
+take a personal interest in her.
+
+"Really there isn't anything," she answered truthfully. "I have a very
+good time. I can't tell you all about it, but indeed, I have a very
+pleasant life."
+
+But the old lady was not to be daunted.
+
+"My dear child, there is something very attractive about you," she said.
+"I believe with the proper education you would become an unusually
+charming young girl. You are young enough still to be trained. Is that
+girl with you your sister?"
+
+"Oh, no," said Winona, wondering what next.
+
+"I thought as much," said the old lady. "You don't look like sisters.
+You're naturally of a better class than she is. Now, supposing that
+someone who could do a good deal for you took you and had you educated,
+do you think you would be a good girl and do them credit?"
+
+Winona did not know in the least what to say. It looked as if the old
+lady intended to adopt her before she could escape.
+
+"It would be awfully nice," she said, uncomfortably, "and very kind.
+But--indeed, I couldn't!"
+
+The old lady had begun to speak again, when a clatter of hasty feet on
+the steps behind them made her and Winona both turn around and look.
+
+[Illustration: "WILLIAM!" SAID HIS AUNT, "DO YOU KNOW THIS--THIS YOUNG
+PERSON?"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+
+It was only a tall boy in the uniform of the Boy Scouts who was tearing
+up the steps. But both the old lady and Winona uttered a faint squeal,
+the old lady because he kissed her, and Winona because she recognized
+the newcomer. It was Billy Lee, and he was evidently a relative of
+Winona's would-be benefactress.
+
+"How are you, auntie, and how's everything?" he was inquiring genially,
+with an arm still about her. Winona gazed wildly around, meanwhile, for
+a hole to crawl into, but there was none. "You see, I've come to
+dinner," went on Billy cheerfully.
+
+By this time he had swung around, and seen Winona. He took in her whole
+get-up, earrings, 'kerchief, sagging skirt, checked apron; and, further
+off, Louise making change energetically in the same regalia. He began to
+laugh.
+
+"Good for you, Winona!" he said. "Been selling Camp Fire stuff?"
+
+"William!" said his aunt before Winona could answer, "Do you know
+this--this young person?"
+
+Billy looked embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, say, Winnie, I'm afraid I've put my foot in it," said he. But he
+went on telling the truth--Billy was unfortunately incapable of doing
+anything else. At least, it seemed unfortunate to Winona right then.
+"Why, yes, Aunt Lydia. This is Winona Merriam, who lives next door to
+us. She's camping about a mile and a half down the river from us
+Scouts."
+
+The old lady turned sharply on Winona.
+
+"Then what makes you masquerade as an Italian peddler?" she asked
+sharply.
+
+Winona took courage, for though the old lady was cross, she did not seem
+unforgivingly angry.
+
+"We thought if we dressed up perhaps people would buy things quicker,"
+she explained. "But we do really need the money very badly, don't we,
+Billy?"
+
+"They're trying to make enough to stay in the woods all August, auntie,"
+explained Billy. "They've all been working like beavers, making things,
+to do it."
+
+"I don't see yet why the bandanna handkerchiefs," said the old lady
+tartly. "And you, miss"--to Louise, who had come up--"what did you mean
+by telling me that you were the eldest of five, and hadn't slept under a
+roof for ten days?"
+
+"Because it's true," said Louise. "I haven't--we're camping. And I _am_
+the eldest of five, worse luck! I have to spend my whole time at home
+setting an example. That's why I go away to be naughty!"
+
+It was impossible to be angry long with Louise Lane, and the old lady
+did not seem to want to be angry with Winona. So things straightened
+themselves out, and actually ended in an invitation to stay to dinner!
+
+"But we've nothing but our middy blouses, under these awful things,"
+protested Winona, "and Mrs. Bryan will be worried if we don't get home
+till late."
+
+"That's all right," said Billy's aunt Lydia, whose name was Lawrence.
+She was Mrs. Lee's sister. "I'll have them send a man down from the dock
+to tell your Guardian where you are."
+
+"Oh, then thank you!" said Winona radiantly. But Louise still hesitated.
+
+"Well, what is it?" asked the old lady.
+
+Louise hung her shawl-draped head for a moment, then she flung it back
+and answered frankly.
+
+"I may want to come peddling again, and if they see us in our camp
+uniform they'll know who we are!"
+
+"Great Scott!" cried Billy, beginning to laugh, "You _are_ a queer girl!
+I say, Aunt Lydia, let her disguise herself some more, if that's what
+she wants. Give her some of your clothes, or the chambermaid's, or
+somebody's. Would that be all right, Louise?"
+
+"Why, yes indeed!" said Louise, grinning joyously. "Lead on, Desperate
+Desmond."
+
+"I never saw such girls!" said Miss Lawrence. "However, you may as well
+have your play out. William, get a bellboy to put these goods somewhere.
+I'll take these objects of charity to get ready for dinner. Your room's
+next suite twelve, the one I have."
+
+She shepherded the two girls upstairs by the staircase, instead of the
+elevator, as if she wanted them to be conspicuous.
+
+"Now, remember," explained she, "you're two young foreign peddlers that
+I'm giving a dinner to out of the kindness of my heart. I'm loaning you
+clothes out of the same thing. So you can go right on peddling if you
+want to, you with the business instinct--Louise you said your name was?
+Very well, Louise, you can go on selling your potteries and bead bags
+after dinner--if you want to. But I want to talk to Winona myself. I
+don't know but I still want to adopt her!"
+
+Miss Lawrence left the girls alone when she had shown them to a room,
+and went to prepare for dinner herself. There was a bathroom next to
+them, and they made for it--one after another, of course--with gurgles
+of joy. Winona went first, while Louise was doing her hair, which was so
+thick and long it took a great deal of time to arrange.
+
+"Isn't hot water heavenly when you haven't seen it in a tub for a week
+and a half?" said Winona, emerging in a borrowed kimono, which she
+presently passed on to Louise.
+
+"I'll tell you when I've tried," said Louise, disappearing in her turn
+into the bathroom. She turned around and poked out her head to say,
+"Now, remember, we've both got to keep on looking as old as we can. We
+have characters to keep up!"
+
+Winona began to investigate the clothes Miss Lawrence had laid out for
+them. She did not expect to find anything more exciting than a black
+silk with a fichu, or something else elderly of that sort. Instead,
+there lay on the bed two pretty frocks which had certainly been made for
+girls of their age.
+
+She held them both up against her. They were a little shorter than she
+usually wore her skirts, both of them, and a little loose. Evidently
+their owner was of a build somewhere between Winona and Louise. But
+Louise, when she emerged, was quite pleased at that, for what was short
+for Winona was long for her, naturally, and carried out the idea of age
+that she wished to convey. She chose the more elaborate of the two, a
+green silk, because the other dress was pink, which doesn't match red
+hair. But it did match Winona's brown hair and blue eyes beautifully,
+and the wide satin sash was very becoming to her. The girls gave their
+tennis shoes a liberal dose of whitening, and decided that they would
+have to do. There were stockings to go with the dresses.
+
+When they were done dressing they gazed at each other in admiration.
+
+"I never had as pretty a dress in my life!" said Winona delightedly,
+surveying the folds of rose-colored organdy that ruffled about her. She
+reached up as she spoke to fasten back her curls with the shell barrette
+that usually held them at the back of her neck.
+
+"Glad you like them!" said Miss Lawrence, appearing on the threshold of
+the next room. "They belong to my niece Nataly--I suppose you know
+Nataly if you live next door to her--but she hasn't had them yet. I
+brought them to her from my trip abroad. Here, Winona, you haven't any
+hair-ribbon."
+
+"I haven't been wearing any in camp," said Winona, standing still,
+however, while Miss Lawrence unclasped the barrette and supplied its
+place with a rose-colored satin ribbon tied about her head,
+fillet-fashion.
+
+"That's the English fashion," said Miss Lawrence, "wear your hair loose
+till you're sixteen or seventeen, then do it all up at once, instead of
+pulling it up by degrees, as we do here. It's very becoming, my dear."
+
+Winona privately felt that it was a little youthful, but she said
+nothing, and indeed the effect of the shower of curls falling loose from
+under the ribbon was exceedingly becoming.
+
+Louise, over by the mirror, continued to put pins into her hair, and
+Miss Lawrence did not try to super-intend _her_ toilet at all, though
+Louise was getting herself up to look as near twenty as she could.
+
+A knock at the door of the sitting-room, where they went when they were
+dressed, made them all turn.
+
+"Come in," said Miss Lawrence.
+
+"It's me, Billy," said his voice ungrammatically inside. "I say! What
+stunning clothes!" he added frankly as he took in the splendor of the
+girls' attire.
+
+Winona looked at him rather shyly. The small bag he had carried must
+have been well packed, for Billy had blossomed out in a tuxedo and long
+trousers.
+
+"Why," she said, "I didn't know you for a minute--you look so grown up!"
+
+"I've had long trousers for a year now," explained Billy, "only I've
+always had on my uniform when you've seen me before."
+
+"Of course, that's it," admitted Winona. But she continued to stare, for
+this tall young gentleman looked about eighteen in his correctly cut
+clothes, and she felt like such a little girl, looking as Miss Lawrence
+had made her look. What she did not know was that she was looking her
+very prettiest, like a girl in a play or a picture, with her flushed
+cheeks and falling curls and rosy draperies. Miss Lawrence, who seemed
+to have taken a fancy to her, slipped her arm through Winona's, leaving
+Louise to follow with Billy.
+
+Louise was not impressed in the least by Billy's grandeur. It took a
+good deal to impress Louise Lane, and one suit of evening clothes and a
+large hotel weren't likely to do it.
+
+Winona did not look to the right or left as they entered the big
+dining-room, but she knew Louise had seen something, for she heard a
+little squeal of delight close behind her. They were scarcely seated
+when Louise burst out:
+
+"What do you suppose they've done, Winnie? I don't know whether it was
+you or Billy, Miss Lawrence, but thank you both, anyway. Winona, our
+things are all set out in that little sun-parlor sort of place where
+everybody can see them, and there's a bellboy looking after them. I saw
+him selling a bead belt!"
+
+"It wasn't any trouble," said Billy, looking embarrassed. "The
+management lets people use that room for displays, don't they, Aunt
+Lydia?"
+
+He did not explain that he had tipped the head bellboy liberally to have
+the things looked after, and it never occurred to either of the girls
+till long after.
+
+Winona secretly decided that Nataly couldn't be as trying as the girls
+thought her, if this was the kind of a brother she had. So she smiled
+brilliantly at Miss Lawrence and Billy, and felt very happy indeed over
+the bright lights and the elaborate dinner and the orchestra and pink
+dress.
+
+And then something occurred to her. This was Nataly's dress, a brand-new
+present-dress, and so was the one Louise had on. And they were getting
+all the first wear out of them, would Nataly like it?
+
+She looked up, directly, and said what she thought.
+
+"Miss Lawrence, will Nataly mind our wearing her clothes?"
+
+Louise answered before Miss Lawrence had a chance. "You know perfectly
+well she will, Win. Why, she nearly had a fit when I climbed into a
+clean middy of hers day before yesterday. And these are uncommonly glad
+and happy rags we have on."
+
+"If she doesn't like it," explained Miss Lawrence with perfect
+clearness, "she knows just what she can do. My niece Nataly is a spoiled
+young person if ever there was one. But don't worry, my dear"--for
+Winona was looking distressed at the idea of Nataly's objection--"I'll
+see that she's perfectly satisfied."
+
+So Winona did not worry. She talked instead, and told Miss Lawrence
+everything she wanted to know about Camp Karonya and what they did
+there.
+
+"It's a miniature community," said Miss Lawrence approvingly. "I wish
+they'd had them when I was a girl. I suppose you'll have a float at the
+lake carnival, since you're such enterprising young persons!"
+
+"Oh, is there going to be a lake carnival?" asked both girls in a
+breath. Miss Lawrence nodded.
+
+"Why, didn't you know?" asked Billy. "The people here in Wampoag have
+them every year. They give prizes for the best decorated float and
+canoe. I don't know whether it's a cash prize this year or a cup."
+
+"I do hope it's a cash prize!" breathed Louise fervently, while Winona's
+mind began to work at the ways and means for making and decorating a
+Camp Fire float, and the best way to get it up the lake.
+
+"It would be lovely if we could do it," she said. "When is it to be?"
+
+Billy pulled a little calendar out of the one small and concealed pocket
+that his clothes allowed him, and studied it.
+
+"A week from to-morrow," he said. "You have lots of time."
+
+"Then I'm sure we can do it," said Winona. "Marie has a canoe she'll
+probably want to enter, and besides that surely we can get up a float
+among us."
+
+And then something which Louise--so she said afterwards--had been
+expecting, happened. One of the women who had bought pottery from them
+that morning came up, and began to talk to Miss Lawrence, quite as if
+the girls were out of hearing.
+
+"Good-morning," she began, taking everything in as she talked. "Aren't
+these the little Italian vendors that were around this morning? Why, how
+transformed they look! Really, the younger one looks quite refined. And
+what are you doing with them, dear Miss Lawrence?"
+
+Her tone added quite plainly, "And won't they pocket the spoons?"
+
+Louise, the irrepressible, grinned above her salad. "Kinda lady loana da
+cloes," she said glibly; and the waiter, who had heard her discoursing
+in rapid and fluent English of an unmistakably home-grown kind the
+moment before, got behind a palm. If he hadn't he would have disgraced
+himself in a way no well-trained waiter should. Billy, too, dived into
+his napkin and seemed to have swallowed something down his Sunday
+throat. But Miss Lawrence remained quite calm.
+
+"I have taken quite a fancy to them," she said. "They seem like good,
+industrious girls. I am glad to see you are so interested, too, Mrs.
+Gardner. The best way to help them--you were going to ask me that, were
+you not--is to buy their goods. You'll find them on sale in the little
+rose-room."
+
+"Oh--ah, yes indeed!" said Mrs. Gardner, and fled, while the young
+people regarded Miss Lawrence with admiration.
+
+When the meal was over Miss Lawrence would not hear of their going back
+to the camp, or going on with their selling. The bellboy or a maid could
+go on looking after their things, she said, and sent Billy over to see
+about it. Then they went into one of the little dancing-rooms and showed
+each other steps for a long time; that is, Billy and Winona did, for
+Louise said she was tired, and sat thankfully still, listening to the
+orchestra that played in the dining-room. After that Miss Lawrence
+carried them all off to a band concert.
+
+It was ten-thirty by the time they had finished, and all had something
+more to eat--real, grown-up things to eat in a most gorgeous cafe. Miss
+Lawrence wanted them to stay all night, and Winona was willing, but
+Louise insisted on going back.
+
+"If we're here to-morrow morning," she explained, "every blessed woman
+that we sold things to will want to know all about us and our past
+lives, and then the secret will come out. No, thank you, Miss Lawrence,
+
+  "I see by the moonlight,
+  'Tis past midnight,
+  Time pig and I were home
+  An hour and a half ago!"
+
+"I being the pig, I suppose!" added Winona.
+
+"Well, I won't keep you against your will," said Miss Lawrence, getting
+up from the cafe table. "So you'd better go back to the hotel. They can
+be packing up what's left of your things for you, while you change. But
+what about rowing across the lake and down the river in the dark? Can
+you look after them, William?"
+
+"I should think I could!" said Billy. "Besides--I forgot to tell you,
+girls, or we might have had a grand reunion--Lonny Hughes and Tom are to
+meet me at the dock at about eleven, with one of the camp canoes. Tom's
+Winona's brother," he explained to his aunt. "So we'll take one of the
+girls in the canoe, and one of us will go in the boat, and get them home
+safe as anything. For the matter of that, you can't get hurt on this
+lake unless the fish should jump up and bite you," he added as they
+reached the hotel, and parted to dress.
+
+The girls hurried off their finery, and got hastily into their serge
+skirts and white blouses.
+
+"I feel like Cinderella!" said Winona as they went down in the elevator
+again, only to find that, quick as they had been Billy had been quicker,
+and stood, familiar-looking in his khaki, to take them away. The pottery
+and linen that was left would all go into one suitcase now, so well had
+they and the bellboy prospered. Billy gave them, too, the money that had
+been taken in during the evening. They hurried off, after they had said
+good-bye to Miss Lawrence, and made her promise to come see them at Camp
+Karonya and stay a whole day.
+
+At the last moment she pushed a bundle into Winona's hands.
+
+"Here are your dresses, child," she said. "You looked so sweet it would
+be a shame for you and Louise not to keep them. I'll make it up to
+Nataly."
+
+Winona threw her arms around Miss Lawrence's neck, and kissed her.
+
+"Thank you, dear fairy godmother!" she said.
+
+A more astonished pair of boys than Lonny and Tom it would have been
+hard to find. It did not take long to explain matters. In a few moments
+they had Winona in the canoe between Tom and Billy, while Lonny rowed
+Louise in the boat. The girls held the boat and the canoe together. As
+they went Louise and Winona told the tale of their day's work.
+
+When they were done Louise pulled out the money they had made, and began
+to count it.
+
+"You have some, too, Win," she said.
+
+"I know," said Winona, "I have what Billy gave me, that the bellboy
+made. But I don't believe it's a lot."
+
+"Better count it," counselled Tom, and Winona did. When she was through
+she looked up with an awed expression.
+
+"Nearly ten dollars more!" she announced. "Oh, Louise, there must be
+some mistake! Why, if we both really have made all that, there's enough
+for another three weeks' camping!"
+
+"And orders ahead!" said Louise serenely. "It will take Marie and
+Adelaide more of their time than they'll want to spare from fancy diving
+and telling the birds from the wild-flowers, to make jelly and runners.
+I tell you, folks, I'm going to be an Italian porch-worker from now on.
+It pays. Sella da fina crock--getta da bigga price--blowa it in!"
+
+The boys shouted. "Good for you, Louise!" they cried, and a startled
+bullfrog gave a deep emotional croak at the noise, and jumped into the
+water.
+
+It was moonlight, so the trip home was pleasanter than any they had had.
+They sang till they came close to Camp Karonya, where they quieted down
+for fear of disturbing the sleeping girls. But they need not have
+worried. Camp Karonya was improving the moonlight night by sitting
+around a watch-fire, singing and telling stories. They could hear
+Helen's voice lifted up in "Old Uncle Ned," with a mandolin accompanying
+her that probably belonged to Edith. The boys tied the boat and the
+canoe, and carried the suitcases and stretcher, so pleasingly empty,
+ashore. All five walked over to where the fire gleamed, and were in the
+midst of the girls before anyone had seen them come.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+The girls jumped up and surrounded them.
+
+"Where on earth have you been? What on earth have you been doing? Where
+in the name of common sense did you get that haughty black person who
+brought us news of you about six?" everybody wanted to know, while
+Adelaide and Nataly held brief reunions with their brothers, and six
+girls at once pressed refreshments on Lonny and Tom and Billy.
+
+"We've sold most of your arts-and-crafts things," announced Winona.
+
+"And every stitch of embroidery," added Louise.
+
+"And we've been to a band concert and met a fairy godmother!" chanted
+Winona in her turn.
+
+"And we have heaps and _heaps_ of money!" finished Louise jubilantly.
+
+Then all the girls cried out, "Oh, tell us about it! Tell us about it!"
+
+So Louise sat down at a discreet distance from the camp-fire, and
+assisted by Winona's quieter voice, told the story. When she got to the
+part where they pretended to be Italian girls Nataly interrupted.
+
+"Oh, that was dreadful!" she said. "Surely you didn't do that?"
+
+"Didn't we, though?" grinned Louise cheerfully; "And your very own Aunt
+Lydia aided and abetted us, and gave us dinner and kind words besides!"
+
+"Aunt Lydia!" exclaimed Nataly.
+
+"She's over at one of the Wampoag hotels, Nataly," explained her
+brother. "You knew she was going to be there, didn't you?"
+
+"How could I when I haven't heard from her?" asked Nataly.
+
+"Oh, that's so!" said Billy penitently. "I ought to have brought you
+down her last letter, but it was addressed to me, and I forgot to pass
+it on."
+
+The fact was, as Winona learned later, Miss Lawrence had very strong
+likes and dislikes, and much preferred her nephew to her niece.
+
+Louise turned round to Nataly.
+
+"You made some things to sell, didn't you?" she asked, "And yet you
+think it was shocking of us to sell them! I don't think that's fair."
+
+"Well, I don't care. I don't think it's nice or lady-like to peddle
+things from door to door," said Nataly stubbornly.
+
+"Maybe it wasn't," said Louise cheerfully, "but it was certainly heaps
+of fun!"
+
+"Oh, we _did_ have fun!" said Winona. "And we have orders for more of
+Marie's stencilled runners, and Adelaide's jelly."
+
+"Did nobody love my pots?" asked Helen sadly.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed," consoled Winona, "only you were so industrious, and
+made so many, that we have some left. The Blue Birds' baskets went off
+very well, too."
+
+"How much did you make?" asked Mrs. Bryan. "I'm wild to know."
+
+Louise pulled her bandanna handkerchief out of her deepest pocket, and
+Winona produced hers from the bottom of her blouse. They handed them
+over to the Guardian.
+
+"Mine's only what the bellboy took in while we were at dinner and out in
+the evening," Winona explained. "Louise took care of all the rest."
+
+Mrs. Bryan counted it silently, while the girls waited breathlessly for
+the result.
+
+"Fifty-three dollars and forty-six cents!" announced Mrs. Bryan at last.
+"You blessed angels, with what we'll get for the mending, that means
+over three weeks more of camp!"
+
+"By the way," suggested Tom here, "can't you give us what's done of the
+mending, please, Mrs. Bryan? It's time we got back to camp."
+
+She sent Florence and another Blue Bird to get it, and they ran off,
+swinging their lanterns.
+
+"We'll send down the bill by some of your sisters, with the rest of the
+work, by day after to-morrow at the furthest," she promised, as the
+girls stood up to bid the three Scouts good-bye.
+
+They watched the canoe paddle off into the darkness, then settled down
+to hear the rest of the adventure.
+
+"But there's something else we haven't told you!" said Winona, when the
+whole story had been told and talked over for a long while. "There's
+going to be a lake carnival."
+
+"Oh, what fun! Let's go!" said Adelaide, speaking more brightly than
+Winona had ever known her to. "We could hike as far as this side of the
+lake by land, couldn't we, Opeechee?"
+
+"Certainly we could--if we had to," said Mrs. Bryan, who was watching
+Winona. "Wait till Winona finishes. She looks as if she had a plan."
+
+"I was thinking," said Winona, "that it would be very nice if we could
+decorate a float. The boys said they were sure the Scouts would loan us
+enough rowboats to build the float over, if we needed it. And we could
+have tents----"
+
+"Of course we could!" said everybody enthusiastically, and all began to
+plan at once.
+
+Finally Mrs. Bryan rose, and suggested that it was twelve o'clock, and
+that all but the breakfast-getters had better sleep till eight next
+morning. So they put out the fire, and went to bed.
+
+About two o'clock a slim figure in a red kimono stole down the avenue of
+tents with a lantern. About two-thirds of the way there met her another,
+plumper figure, in a blue kimono, also with a lantern.
+
+"Winona!" said the blue kimono.
+
+"Why, Louise!" said the red one.
+
+Then they both began to giggle in a subdued way.
+
+"What on earth are you prowling round for, at this time of night?" asked
+Winona.
+
+"What are you?" returned Louise.
+
+Winona beckoned her friend over to a seat on a fallen log.
+
+"I--well, I've been worrying over our dressing up that way, and fooling
+people, to sell things," she confessed. "I suppose you'll think I'm a
+horrid little prig, but--Louise, I think we ought to go back and tell
+those hotellers that we were just plain Camp Fire Girls, not Italian or
+Dalmatian or anything like that."
+
+"I thought a Dalmatian was a dog," suggested Louise.
+
+"Maybe it is," said Winona sadly.
+
+Louise sat closer to Winona.
+
+"Winnie," she said, "that's just what I climbed out of bed about myself.
+I was coming to look for you when I met you. I've been worrying about
+it, too. It was a lark, but I think it's up to us to gambol over there,
+clothed and in our right minds--and own up."
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Winona. "We'll tell Mrs. Bryan in the morning."
+
+"All right," said Louise, and she began to giggle.
+
+"And then, while they're thinking how noble it is of us to confess,
+we'll sell 'em more things--real Camp Fire Girls' hand-crafts!"
+
+"Louise," said Winona with admiring conviction, "you certainly _are_ the
+limit."
+
+They both laughed, and felt better. Then they went back to bed and went
+to sleep.
+
+Next morning they rowed duly up the lake, and made a conscientious round
+of the hotels and cottages where they had sold their things the day
+before. But the way of the transgressor refused to be hard. They could
+wake very little excitement on the subject of their transformation in
+the minds of their patrons--who, it is to be feared, either regarded it
+all as a good joke, or did not worry about it at all. Indeed, most of
+the people Louise could find to explain to were more wronged because she
+had no goods with her, than by anything else. So she took a number of
+orders.
+
+"It's no use, Lou," said Winona, as they met at noon by the hotel where
+Miss Lawrence stayed, "I can't get a soul to care whether I'm a Canadian
+or a Hottentot. The only thing they'll say is, 'We'd like some more of
+the baskets,' or 'those runners,' or whatever they didn't get
+yesterday."
+
+"Same here," said Louise. "But I landed some fine fat orders, and if
+you're as clever as I think you are, you did, too."
+
+"Yes, I did," said Winona. "And, anyway," she added, brightening, "when
+we've done this hotel our consciences will be clear."
+
+"I only hope we don't meet that horrid Mrs. Gardner," said Louise.
+
+So they marched up the steps, and tried to pick out the women they had
+sold to the day before, to explain to them. But Winona had scarcely
+begun, "You see, we really weren't Italians at all," when the people she
+was talking to began to laugh. Winona, bewildered and a little cross,
+looked around to see what they were laughing at. She saw Miss Lawrence
+behind her, laughing, too.
+
+"It's no use explaining, my dear," said that lady. "I did it myself.
+Everybody knows that you and Louise Lane disposed of your goods under
+false pretenses by tying up your heads in red handkerchiefs and letting
+your customers draw their own conclusions. I don't know but some of us
+want our money back! Never mind, children, it was very clever of you!"
+she added, seeing that Winona was not sure whether she was in earnest.
+
+And the girls found themselves being questioned and laughed at and made
+much of by a group of women, who wanted to know all about the Camp Fire,
+and the things the girls made, and the ways they earned money, and what
+they did with it, till Winona and Louise were fairly tired with
+answering questions.
+
+They invited everybody to come out to the camp, and set a day. They took
+some more orders, and then they carried Miss Lawrence off across the
+lake and down the river, to see Camp Karonya. When she arrived they
+handed her over to Nataly, as was polite, and she and Mrs. Bryan showed
+her over the camp.
+
+She investigated everything with the same brisk, fairy godmother
+expression that she had had when she took Winona and Louise under her
+wing, stayed to luncheon, and then expressed a desire to be taken down
+to the Scouts' camp, to see Billy. So two of the Blue Birds rowed her
+there.
+
+After they had seen Miss Lawrence off, the girls became busy a little
+way down the river. Winona got there a little late and found that much
+had happened while she and Louise had gone off that morning. At first
+the idea of making the float had been to found it on the rowboats the
+Boy Scouts were willing to lend. But when a deputation, headed by Mr.
+Gedney, paddled down, bringing the boats in question, it became
+painfully clear that four canoes would not support enough planks to hold
+twenty life-size girls. Neither would rowboats. At least, Mrs. Bryan and
+Mr. Gedney agreed that they wouldn't--most of the girls and all the boys
+were willing to take a chance.
+
+When this turn of affairs arrived everyone felt very sad, and for a
+while it had looked as if Camp Karonya wasn't going to have a float in
+the lake carnival.
+
+But just then along came that resourceful old gentleman, Mr. Sloane,
+with fishing-rod and a can of bait.
+
+"Well, what's all the trouble?" he inquired genially of everyone in
+general. So they told him. Mr. Sloane did not hesitate a moment.
+
+"I got a friend that owns some good, water-tight scows," said he most
+unexpectedly. "They ain't doin' nobody any good, and I guess he'd loan
+'em to you, or, if wust come to wust, he'd let you have the use of 'em
+for maybe seventy-five cents apiece. Two scows are all you'd need to put
+the plankin' across."
+
+He gave them directions as to where to go after the scows' owner, and
+ambled on in search of a quieter fishing-place. An embassy was sent
+after the scows immediately, and returned with them in triumph. They
+proved perfectly seaworthy, and quite equal to supporting all they would
+have to. So when Winona arrived on the scene after luncheon the girls
+had reached the stage of nailing the planks across.
+
+They had bargained for the scows at seventy-five cents each, as Mr.
+Sloane had said they would be able to, and promised to give them a coat
+of paint before they returned them. The boards, bought of the village
+carpenter, were more expensive. However, the girls thought they could
+venture to pay for them out of the treasury, on the strength of the
+orders ahead that they had taken. Marie and Edith were supervising
+things.
+
+"Is there anything I can do to help?" Winona asked Marie, who was
+frowning thoughtfully over a hastily-drawn plan.
+
+"Not unless you can help us with this design," Marie answered. "See
+here. The idea is to make a miniature Indian village. How would you
+group the tents so as to take up the least room and show best?"
+
+"Why do you try to draw it?" asked Winona. "Why not do as generals do,
+make little paper tents and move them around till you get a tableau of
+the effect you want?"
+
+The idea was new to Marie, but she liked it, and the three girls fell to
+constructing little paper cones, and arranging them on a square space
+that represented the float.
+
+Presently one of the girls who was nailing dropped out with a pounded
+thumb, and Winona took up her hammer and went to work. She discovered
+that the driving of a nail straight, and making boards lie side by side
+evenly, is more of an art than people know.
+
+They worked on the float most of that afternoon, except for a few of the
+girls who were told off to do the Scout mending, and they sat down near
+the carpenters and sewed sociably to the sound of the pounding. They
+worked till six, and went to bed unusually early.
+
+By the second day the platform was done, and proved to balance very well
+on the water, even with all the girls on it. Next Marie and her helpers
+went to making tents, for their own soldier tents were too
+unromantically shaped to be any good on a float. They wanted real Indian
+wigwams, or as near to them as they could get.
+
+Marie bought unbleached muslin, and they dyed it the correct dark brown.
+They made three wigwams of this, the story-book-picture kind, with the
+crossed poles tied at the top, for a foundation. In each tent a squaw
+was to sit--or rather, at its door, for the tepees, in order to fit on
+the limited space of the float, had to be made rather small, and would
+have been a tight fit for even the smallest squaw. Some of the girls
+were to dress as chiefs, and were working hard on war-bonnets and
+leggings. Even Puppums was to grace the occasion, guarding a
+pappoose--little Lilian Maynard, the smallest Blue Bird. There was some
+idea of including Hike the Camp Cat, now a cheerful and opulent-looking
+kitten, but it was thought better of, because he yowled so when they
+rehearsed him.
+
+When the tents and costumes were done, the brushwood heaps stacked, the
+floor covered with twigs and moss, the girls tried grouping themselves
+as they were to appear on the final night. And it proved that there was
+not room on the platform for three tents and nineteen girls, even if
+seven _were_ small.
+
+Marie stepped off and looked it over.
+
+"There are just two girls too many," she said. "Three, if I were on
+board. I'll eliminate Marie Hunter to begin with. I'm going to decorate
+my own canoe. You'd better draw lots for the other two to stay out."
+
+Everyone on the float looked at everyone else. Nobody wanted to drop
+out, but nobody felt like being selfish.
+
+"I'll drop out!" said the whole of Camp Karonya in chorus, after a
+minute's dead silence.
+
+"I'll go in your canoe, Marie--have you forgotten?" asked Edith. "The
+plans you made included me."
+
+"So they did," said Marie in a relieved voice. "Well, perhaps the rest
+could crowd a little closer."
+
+"I'm afraid not, and be sure that nobody'd tip into the water," vetoed
+Mrs. Bryan. "I'm the one to stay ashore, girls. I'll gaze at you with
+fond proprietorship while you get first prize."
+
+But there rose up a storm of objections to that. "No you won't, either!
+There won't any of us be in it if you aren't, Opeechee!" till she had to
+give up giving up.
+
+Winona braced herself a little, and "I'm out, too," she said gayly.
+"There's no use asking me to stay--I don't like your old float!"
+
+She sprang ashore, and went over and stood by Marie.
+
+The girls protested, and several more volunteered to drop out, but
+nobody meant it quite as hard as Winona did. So the Indian village went
+on being erected, and the girls went on practising an Indian dance which
+should take up the least possible room. Meanwhile Winona rounded up the
+finished mending and rowed up the river to deliver the latest basket of
+mended socks and shirts. She had made her sacrifice in all good faith
+and earnestness, but she felt as if she didn't want to see them going
+gayly on without her--at least, not right _now_.
+
+She wasn't conscious of behaving any way but as she generally did, but
+she must have, for both Tom and Billy watched her uneasily, as she sat
+in the boat and talked to them after they had taken the mending, while
+she waited for the orderly to come with her money.
+
+"What's the matter, Win?" asked Tom bluntly in a minute. "You're down
+and out--I can see that. Who's been doing anything to you?"
+
+Winona shook her head. "Nobody."
+
+"Then what have _you_ been doing?" asked Billy. They stood over her,
+both looking so worried that Winona felt like hugging them, or crying,
+or both.
+
+"It isn't anything," she said. "Except--well, I did it myself. Somebody
+had to stay off the float, because there wasn't room for everyone, so I
+elected myself. And--and--oh, I _did_ want to be in that carnival!
+But"--she straightened bravely, and smiled up into the two indignant
+faces--"I guess it's all right, after all. If I could decorate my
+rowboat it would be all right, but I can't, because they're going to
+need it to carry properties in."
+
+"It's a confounded shame," said Billy Lee, "and after you planned it,
+and all! You ought to have a float of your own. I'll tell you, Winona,
+why don't you decorate a canoe?"
+
+"Only reason is, I haven't a canoe," laughed Winona--they were all three
+sitting in a row in the grass by this time.
+
+"I have," said Billy, "and you're more than welcome to it, and to all
+the help I can give you on it."
+
+"And I've got some change you're welcome to for decorations," added Tom.
+
+"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" said Winona, jumping up with her face aglow.
+"Indeed I will decorate it, and thank you both, ever and ever so much. I
+have ever so many lovely ideas for decorations. Billy!"
+
+She stopped short.
+
+"Well?" said Billy.
+
+"Would you mind being in the canoe with me?"
+
+"Sure, I'd love to," said Billy heartily, whether he really meant it or
+not.
+
+"Oh, thank you _so_ much!" cried Winona again.
+
+"That's the way to take it!" said Tom. "We'll get you up a canoe,
+between us, that'll make your old Camp Fire float look like a bad
+quarter and a plugged nickel--see if we don't!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+Winona and Florence paddled back to Camp Karonya with the latest bundle
+of mending, very, very happy. When they came ashore, they were met by a
+committee consisting of Adelaide, Louise, Helen and Marie.
+
+"We've got a plan for your being in the picture," said they very nearly
+in unison. "We can decorate the boat with the apparatus in it----"
+
+But Winona waved a lordly hand.
+
+"Boat me no boats," said she. "I'm going to have Billy Lee's canoe to
+decorate. We're going out this afternoon, or maybe to-morrow afternoon,
+up to Wampoag where the shops are, and we're going to buy out the shops
+with decorations. Going to get honorable mention, anyway!"
+
+"Oh, then you'd really rather!" said Helen. "I'm _so_ glad. But it won't
+seem natural not to have you on the float, Winnie!"
+
+"Just as natural as not having Marie," said Winona.
+
+"No," said Marie quietly, "not exactly. You're like the spirit of the
+whole thing, Win, and I think they ought to have you."
+
+"You can't," said Winona, sitting down on the grass and drawing her
+knees up to her chin.
+
+"We could if we canned Nataly," said Louise the rebel, half under her
+breath.
+
+"Well, you can't do that," said the other girls in a breath.
+
+The truth was, Nataly Lee was the one dark spot--the one cinder, as you
+might say--in the Camp Fire. She did not particularly like doing her
+share of the work, she could not be made to take an interested part in
+the work for honor beads, and she acted generally as if she was a caller
+who was much older and more languid than the others. It was, in short,
+very much as Louise had said when she offered to join--she was like a
+kitten who refused to be anything but a cat.
+
+"I don't know what Nataly's doing here, anyway," Louise went on. "And
+we'd be a lot happier without her. I wish she'd go home and look after
+her complexion. She can't do it properly here--anybody can see that!"
+
+"Can't do what?" said a languid voice. It isn't a good thing to discuss
+your friends too freely if they're anywhere at all around, because they
+are exceedingly likely to overhear or partly hear. And this is just what
+happened now. Nataly herself walked out of the strip of woods that
+separated the camp from the river, and sat down by them.
+
+"I thought I heard you talking about me," she said.
+
+"We were," said Louise, quite unruffled. "At least I was. I was saying
+that you couldn't look after your complexion properly here in the woods,
+and that I thought you'd be happier away from our rude young society!"
+
+Nataly did not see in the least that Louise was laughing at her, but
+Helen did, and gave Louise a severe pinch. "Guying" was something that
+the camp spirit allowed only if the victim knew what was being done to
+her. But where Nataly was concerned it was hard to make Louise behave.
+
+"Well, you know," said Nataly, "I am thinking of going home. It makes me
+nervous, the idea of Aunt Lydia being near enough to pounce down on me
+every minute. She is _so_ energetic. And my nerves are nearly all right
+now."
+
+"Then you really think you will go back?" said Winona.
+
+"I really do, as soon as the carnival is over," said Nataly.
+
+"Well, as I said," said Winona hastily, for Louise looked as if she were
+going to suggest an earlier departure, "I'm going up to Wampoag this
+afternoon to buy things with the boys."
+
+"I have a 'gagement to make baskets with Frances," said Florence, "so I
+can't go with you."
+
+"I will if you want me," offered Louise. "I have various things I want
+to say to you alone."
+
+"That sounds dark and dreadful!" said Helen good-naturedly. "I think
+we'd better not volunteer to go along, Marie!"
+
+"We couldn't, anyway," Marie reminded her. "There's a lot to do on those
+war-bonnets yet."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+So that afternoon Louise, Winona, Billy and Tom paddled up to the summer
+resort in quest of decorations.
+
+"Have you any idea how you're going to trim the canoe?" asked Louise.
+
+"I've thought it all out," said Winona. "I found the idea in an old book
+of ballads Marie brought along. It was called 'The Ship o' the Fiend.'"
+
+"Pretty name!" said Louise. "Who's going to be the fiend? Please don't
+all speak at once!"
+
+"I'll be the goat," said Billy. "Winnie told me a little about it. The
+ballad was about a girl who went off with an old fiance, and he turned
+out to be a real live demon."
+
+"Yes," said Winona, "the tall topmast no taller was than he," it says.
+
+"Well, I draw the line at stilts," said Billy sleepily. He was curled
+down in the bottom of the boat basking in the sunshine, for Louise had
+insisted on taking a paddle. "What do I have to do?"
+
+"The first thing," said Winona, "is to wake up enough to sit up and be
+consulted. How much copper wire ..."
+
+The rest was inaudible, for Billy moved closer to Winona, who talked to
+him mysteriously under her breath. The others could hear scraps like
+"Japanese auctioneer ..." "fifty yards ..." "red paper muslin," and such
+illuminating fragments.
+
+"How much money have you got for me to spend, Tommy?" Winona broke off
+to inquire.
+
+"Four whole dollars," he said, "earned by splitting wood for a farmer."
+
+"I certainly am obliged," she said, "and I'll pay it back."
+
+"You'll do no such thing!" he said. "I should hope I could give my own
+sister a lone four dollars once in awhile!"
+
+"All right, you can," said Winona soothingly. She pulled out the paper
+the boys had secured and given her, and began to read it aloud.
+
+"Cash prizes in the canoe class, first, twenty-five dollars, second, ten
+dollars, three third prizes, five dollars each. Now you see, if I get a
+third prize I'll be a dollar in, and all the glory reflected on Camp
+Karonya besides!"
+
+They took a street-car when they got to Wampoag, because the shopping
+district was a long ways off, and it was a hot day anyway. Tom and
+Louise watched the other two with curiosity, as they went from store to
+store, buying things that it seemed impossible could fit into each
+other; copper wire, red tinsel by the box, paper muslin in what seemed
+unlimited quantities, though it was really only a little over a dollar's
+worth. Then Winona went into one Japanese store alone, and came out with
+a bagful of paper lanterns and a knobby bundle which she refused to undo
+or show. They hunted all over three streets for Greek fire, before it
+occurred to Billy to go back to the hardware store where they had bought
+their copper wire. He came out with three boxes of it, labelled "Blue,"
+"Green" and "White," and seemed rather sad because they had no lavender
+or gray fire in stock.
+
+"'They bought a pig and some ring-bo-ree, and no end of Stilton
+cheese!'" chanted Louise softly. "How on earth are you going to connect
+all that crazy stuff?"
+
+"You'll know, all in good time, my dear," said Winona sedately. "We can
+go home now. The worst is over."
+
+"We deserve a soda, at least, for all this," said Billy.
+
+"Marble-dust," said Tom solemnly. "Some day, Bill, if you keep on
+drinking sodas, you'll turn into a statue, and your sorrowing relatives
+will have to put you up in the hall for an ornament."
+
+"Glad I'm as lovely as all that comes to!" said Billy with a grin. "They
+couldn't do it to you, old fellow--you aren't pretty enough!"
+
+"He is pretty, too," said Louise stoutly. "Somebody told me only
+yesterday that they thought Tom was so poetic-looking, and had a
+striking head."
+
+Billy laughed out loud, and Tom wriggled.
+
+"I take it all back, Louise," he said. "He _is_ beautiful."
+
+Tom gave a sort of mournful growl.
+
+"Oh, cut it out, Billy!" he said. "If you really want that soda, here's
+a drug-store."
+
+"A striking head," mused his sister, cocking her own head on one side,
+to look at Tom from this new point of view. "I really think you have."
+
+"If ever I meet the fellow who said that, he'll find out I have a
+striking fist," muttered Thomas darkly, walking into the drug-store
+ahead of the rest, and sitting down at a table in the back. "Four walnut
+sundaes, please. No, I don't want 'em all myself. The others are coming
+in the door now."
+
+For the next few days Winona, at a point half-way between her camp and
+the Scout's camp, worked steadily over the paper lanterns she had
+bought. She covered them all with white paper, and cut out holes in the
+paper after the fashion of eyes, nose and mouth, until, if you were not
+too critical, they looked like big oval skulls. If you _were_ critical,
+they might remind you, it is true, of jack-o'-lanterns, but nobody was
+unkind enough to say so but Tom. There were forty of them altogether,
+and when they were all covered, and brought down to camp out of the
+danger of being rained on, and festooned about Winona's tent, the effect
+was truly awful. Tom, who had been watching his sister's performance
+with interest, came over one day with five little paper-mache lanterns
+which he presented to her, two in the shape of black cats, and three
+like owls.
+
+"I don't know yet what you're going to do," he said, "but if Bill's
+going to wear horns and hoofs, and those things over the cot are meant
+for skulls, I should think these would come in handy."
+
+"They're just exactly what I wanted!" said Winona with rapture, hanging
+them with the rest. "Now I've nothing to do but my dress."
+
+She showed him several yards of black paper muslin and a sheet of gilt
+paper. "It doesn't look promising, I know," she said, "but it will be
+quite nice, I think, when it's done."
+
+And it really was. Helen helped her to fit it, and they made it with the
+dull side out, close-fitting, and covered with the stars and crescents
+of the traditional witch-dress. She was done with it, even to the
+pointed hat and black half-mask, in very good time.
+
+"Now," she said to the boys, standing over Billy's canoe where it had
+been pulled up in the grass, "now comes the tug of war. Tom, you said
+you would help me."
+
+"I did," said he. "What shall I do?"
+
+"Then please nail these poles to the end of the canoe. They're about six
+feet high, aren't they?"
+
+"Yes. Do you want them sticking straight up into the air?"
+
+"Straight up, please," she said.
+
+"Billy's flying around in the town like a hen with its head cut off,"
+said Tom as he proceeded to do what his sister asked, "trying to buy
+something he won't tell about. And I found Louise and Helen up at Camp
+Karonya, winding tinsel into balls like fury. Strikes me you ought to
+share that five you won't get with the whole crowd of us."
+
+"So I will when I get it," said Winona serenely. "Now will you please
+brace those end-poles thoroughly, and nail cross-pieces on them about a
+foot from the top?"
+
+"It's easy to tell people how to do things," said Tom; but he was clever
+at carpentering, and had it done in a very short time.
+
+Then Winona took the copper wire she had bought, and strung it from end
+to end of the cross-pieces, till the effect was something like that of a
+half-done cat's cradle. Then she stood off and looked at her work,
+walking round and round it, as a kitten looks at a mirror.
+
+"That wire ought to bear about twenty pounds, don't you think?" she
+asked.
+
+"I don't see why not," said Tom, sitting down on the grass to watch her.
+
+"Now I'll begin, then," she said. "Thank you for making the foundation."
+
+She took up the copper wire again, and strung more lines of it from end
+to end of the canoe, and one around the gunwale. She laced still more up
+and down in irregular points, up and down the side-wires, till the
+effect was that of an irregularly pointed fence, or crown, as high as
+the end pieces in some parts, and low enough, at the ends, to show the
+people seated in it.
+
+"Looks like a cross-section of Alps," said Tom critically. "Are you
+going to be the Blue Alsatian Mountains?"
+
+"There are two classes of people who should never see a thing
+half-done," answered his sister, standing off again to get the effect.
+
+"Thank you," said Tom.
+
+"Doesn't it look like anything else at all?" she asked, abandoning her
+superior attitude, and throwing herself on his mercy.
+
+"Well, something like a fever-chart," said he.
+
+Winona said no more--there didn't seem to be any use. She picked up her
+ball of red tinsel, and began to wind it around and within, and across,
+every point of the "fever-chart," till there was a solid network. It was
+not a bad imitation of a springing fire.
+
+"Now do you see?" she said. "That's a big, red blaze coming out of the
+canoe, and when we've lighted the Greek fire inside it ought to look
+real enough to burn you."
+
+"Not bad," admitted Tom. "But I don't see its connection with a black
+bonnet and forty jack-o'-lanterns."
+
+"You will by-and-bye," said his sister, going on with her work. It went
+very smoothly after that, except that Puppums _would_ jump inside, and
+then looked at her in a wronged way because the canoe did not float off.
+After the tinsel was on nothing remained to do but to wrap the
+end-pieces with black muslin, so they would not show at night, and to
+cover the canoe with the same material. The lanterns did not need to be
+hung till the last moment.
+
+The night of the carnival Camp Karonya, very much excited, sailed down
+the river in all the glory of its fleet, about six. The Indian village
+was a great success as far as looks went. Whether it would be as
+handsome a float as the ones it would have to compete with nobody could
+tell yet. As a canoe takes less time to engineer than a float, and also
+as the boys hadn't come yet, Winona stayed behind a little while. At
+about seven Tom and Billy came up the river in another of the Scouts'
+canoes. Winona, in her witch costume, with her lanterns, was waiting for
+them by the decorated canoe.
+
+Billy was most gorgeous. He had hired a red Mephisto costume, evidently
+from a real costumer--horns, hoofs and all. His full grandeur didn't
+show till he sprang out on the grass, because he had modestly shrouded
+himself in a raincoat, and his mask was in its pocket. But he snapped
+the mask on, tossed the coat off, and struck an attitude, before he
+helped Tom to lay the canoe in the water.
+
+"You certainly are grand and gorgeous, Billy," said Winona. "All you
+need is a spotlight running round after you to look just like the man in
+the opera."
+
+"I feel like a freak," admitted Billy. "Got everything, Winona? We'd
+better be starting."
+
+Winona veiled her own splendors with an evening wrap of Mrs. Bryan's
+which had, fortunately, been brought along, and stepped in. Tom trailed
+behind.
+
+"I believe I'm frightened," said Winona. "What about you, Billy?"
+
+"There's nothing to be afraid of," he said. "We can't very well upset,
+tied to a string of other craft, and maybe we'll get a fourth prize--if
+they only have four entries in the canoe class."
+
+"We'll get one anyway!" declared Winona proudly, throwing her head back
+and forgetting to be nervous.
+
+They were early at the dock. The Camp float was moored quite a little
+way from the place where they had to be, but they could see each other,
+and called across. After that Winona did not feel so lonely. The boys
+helped her to light and tie on the lanterns, all so realistically like
+skulls, and when she saw how very ghostly they looked she felt that she
+hadn't lived in vain.
+
+"Have you the skeleton, Billy?" she demanded anxiously of Mephisto, who
+was wrestling with a bundle in the back canoe.
+
+"Here it is," he said, finally producing it. "I had rather a time
+getting old Hiraoka to rent it, but an auctioneer will do anything for
+enough yen."
+
+As he spoke he unwrapped a neat, papier-mache skeleton of nearly
+life-size, which was of Japanese origin, and which, as he said, he had
+rented from the Japanese store of Mr. Tashima Hiraoka for this night
+only.
+
+"Billy!" said Winona remorsefully, "how much did you pay for Mr. Bones?"
+
+"No time to worry about that now," said Billy. "Where do you want him
+put?"
+
+Winona saw that he was right, and put off insisting on paying for the
+skeleton till time should be less precious than now. They swung it above
+the tinsel flames, on wire loops prepared for it, so that it turned
+gently, as if roasting. Tom looked on in respectful admiration.
+
+"Here's the last thing," said Billy, producing the mysterious bundle
+that had excited Louise so the day they were shopping for decorations.
+
+"Those are Billy's idea," said Winona, pulling the objects out as she
+spoke. "They just put the finishing touch on, don't they, Tom?"
+
+"I should say they did!" said Tom appreciatively. They were twenty small
+red demons rather like Billy, and the same number of tiny skeletons, all
+with waggle-some hands and feet.
+
+"Blessed forever be Japanese stores!" said Winona. "Just hang them
+around carelessly, boys, as if they were hovering over the fire, you
+know. Billy, do you think you can make the demons look pleased and the
+skeletons unhappy?"
+
+"You never know what you can do till you try," said Billy with his usual
+poise. He pulled some wire out of the back canoe, which, like the
+Mother's Bag in the Swiss Family Robinson, seemed to have everything in
+the world in it. The boys set to work with such a will that the last
+demon was wriggling naturally as life, and there was ten minutes yet to
+spare, when they were done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+
+Billy helped Winona in, felt for the matches, and got in himself. Tom
+pushed them off from shore. It was all done with the solemnity of a
+funeral procession. Winona looked at the boys' excited faces, and
+laughed.
+
+"We're not being rowed off to execution," she explained, though she felt
+a little excited herself. "I'm perfectly calm--O-oh! Gracious! What's
+that?"
+
+"That" was a long, unearthly wail which seemed to come from the inside
+of the canoe itself. It increased and quavered and howled and died down
+again.
+
+"Oh, that's us," said Billy placidly. "Tom and I borrowed Boots Morris's
+father's Gabriel horn and fastened it into the canoe this afternoon.
+Forgot to tell you. Don't you like it?"
+
+"Lovely!" gasped Winona. "Only--only it was a little sudden, the first
+time. I thought Mr. Bones was expressing his feelings."
+
+"It adds to the effect all right," said Billy proudly.
+
+"It certainly does!" said Winona. "Yes, we have a tow-rope, marshal. Tie
+us on, please."
+
+"Well, you do look like you came from somewhere else!" said the
+marshal--he was the dock owner by day--as he fastened the "Ship o' the
+Fiend" into line. "I don't want anything more like D. T.'s than you be!"
+
+"That's what I call a delicate compliment," said Billy, lifting his mask
+so he could grin with freedom.
+
+"M' yes, I suppose so," said Winona doubtfully. "Are we going to start
+soon, marshal?"
+
+"In about ten minutes," said the marshal, seeming to be still entranced
+with the canoe and its decorations. "They burnt one o' my
+great-grandmothers, a couple o' hundred years ago, for doin' not much
+worse'n you be," he added.
+
+"We ought to get something, then," said Winona, thinking more of a
+possible prize than of the marshal's family history.
+
+"You sure ought!" he said darkly, handing them a number and passing on
+to the next boat.
+
+The ten minutes seemed very long and tedious, but between eating some
+sandwiches which Winona had thoughtfully provided, exchanging
+compliments with the neighboring boats, and getting their Greek fire
+ready to set off, they passed somehow. The whistle blew, and the long
+trail of boats, canoes, and floats started on its slow and winding way.
+The float was tied far off, at the beginning of the procession, where
+they could not see it. Marie's canoe was just in sight, but not near
+enough to talk to--a big silver cobweb spotted with lantern-flies, and
+Marie and Edith dressed as the Spider and the Fly, at either end of it.
+
+Finally the whistle blew. Billy tucked a final piece of sandwich beneath
+his mask, and resigned himself to tending the Greek fire for the rest of
+the evening. As for Winona, finding nothing particular to do, she pulled
+a book out from under a cushion and began to read.
+
+"Winona, would you kindly lay away that piece of literatuah and wo'k the
+Gabriel ho'n?" asked Billy in the softest and Kentuckiest of voices.
+Winona had observed that when Billy's Southern accent reasserted itself
+he was generally in deadly earnest. She meekly put the book away and
+began to press the bulb of the horn at regular intervals.
+
+"Oh, I do wish we could see us, and be us, too!" she said in one of the
+intervals.
+
+"M'm! Don't I?" said Billy. "I don't know, though. Maybe we'd be
+disappointed."
+
+"I know we wouldn't," said Winona confidently, and pressed the horn
+again, which put a stop to conversation.
+
+Meanwhile Tom, on the grandstand, was seeing them, and being very proud
+of his relationship to the "Ship o' the Fiend." The black-covered canoe,
+with its belt of shivering fire and its weird occupants, showed up
+gloriously. The irregularly hung lanterns looked more like skulls than
+Winona had dared to hope in her wildest moments. All the little demons
+and skeletons danced realistically on their invisible wires in the air,
+and, crown of all, the nearly-life-size skeleton swung above, with the
+witch and the demon watching him from either end, as he roasted above
+the Greek fire. An occasional shriek from the Gabriel horn gave the
+final touch. The whole thing was like a vision out of a Poe story, or
+some German goblin-legend. The people took to clapping as they went by.
+
+"I believe they're clapping for us!" said Winona awedly, as a burst of
+it came to their ears over the water.
+
+"Sure they are," said Billy. "Shows their good sense, too. It's a mighty
+good looking canoe we have."
+
+"Can we photograph you, please?" said a polite voice before Winona could
+answer--and lo, the reporter's boat!
+
+"This _is_ glory!" said Winona, snapping down her mask, and being
+frankly delighted. "Just think, Billy, we may be in the paper!"
+
+The reporter asked questions and fussed with his flashlight apparatus,
+and finally took two exposures. They kept very still while the
+flashlight was exploding, and answered the reporters in full.
+
+"The designer of your decorations certainly was very clever, and had a
+vivid imagination," ended the smallest reporter as the press-boat went
+on its way.
+
+Winona sat up straight, and looked very proud.
+
+"At last I'm appreciated!" she said. "Don't you wish you had a vivid
+imagination, too, Billy?"
+
+"If you straighten up much more," said Billy, leaning over to light
+fresh Greek fire, "you will certainly hit the decorations, and something
+will bust."
+
+"I don't care!" and Winona laughed excitedly. "It's my first chance at
+being famous, and you can't think how nice it is! Listen to that!"
+
+The applause along the banks was certainly continuous enough to make
+someone older and staider than Winona happy. The canoes were making the
+circuit of the upper part of the lake now. In the centre was the royal
+float, where the king and queen of the carnival sat.
+
+When the procession had gone down one side of the lake and up the other
+it would make a circle about this royal float, and the prizes would be
+awarded.
+
+They were almost through with this, only a little way from the royal
+float, when a small green canoe full of sightseers whirled against them,
+sent by some sudden twist of wind or water. And--neither Winona nor
+Billy could ever understand how it happened--the shock of the blow, or
+perhaps some mischievous person in the other boat, parted the ropes that
+held Winona's canoe lightly to the canoes before and behind it, and sent
+them far to one side of the lake, out of the radius of the lights. The
+wind, naturally, took this particular time to blow hard. The decorations
+made the canoe top-heavy and hard to guide, and they dared not paddle
+fast for fear of upsetting. They could see from their outer darkness the
+canoes they had been between being hastily tied together.
+
+Winona paddled frantically. "Do you think we can get back in time to be
+judged?" she panted.
+
+"We'll try," said Billy, working his paddle more slowly, but with
+greater effect than Winona's.
+
+"No--oh, Billy, Billy! There goes the signal--they've given the launch
+prize, and they are to give the float and rowboat prizes right
+afterwards, and then the canoes! There goes the gun again. Oh, _dear!_"
+
+Winona had really been working harder than she should have over her
+canoe decorations, and helping with the float besides, as well as doing
+her routine camp-work. She had been "all keyed up" by the evening's
+excitement, and her hopes of a prize, and this sudden downfall of her
+hopes was too much for her self-control. Billy saw two large tears roll
+down her cheeks from under her mask.
+
+"Poor Winnie! It certainly is a shame!" he said.
+
+"I suppose that horrid little gunboat canoe named 'Flossie' will get our
+prize," mourned Winona, casting fortitude to the wind--which must have
+carried it quite a way, for it was blowing more and more strongly. "I
+know we'd have had one of the fourth prizes, too!"
+
+"You have the glory, anyway," he said. "Everybody applauded us more than
+they did anything else except that big Queen Elizabeth float."
+
+"But I wanted the money, and I wanted to have the Camp Fire have a
+prize! There, Billy, I won't be a coward any more. I'm tired, I think,
+or I wouldn't have acted like this kind of an idiot," she said bravely,
+pushing up her mask to dry her eyes, and trying to smile.
+
+"You've worn yourself out over this decoration business, that's what the
+matter is," said Billy. "Do you mind telling me what you want the money
+for?"
+
+"No, certainly not. I wanted to get a pair of silk stockings apiece for
+Adelaide and me. I know she wants a pair dreadfully, because she never
+had them, and if I got a pair like them for myself she'd be more apt to
+take them--and--well, I wanted a pair, too!"
+
+Billy registered an inward vow that his Aunt Lydia should manage it just
+as soon as it was humanly possible. He knew that she would do more than
+that for Winona, for whom she had conceived a strong liking.
+
+"Poor kid, she's all worked up about it," he murmured, forgetting his
+own disappointment, for he, too, had hoped that his canoe would get a
+prize.
+
+But help was in sight. About five minutes later (though Winona and Billy
+always swore it was a full half hour) they felt a violent rocking, and
+heard the insistent wuff-wuff-wuff of a steam launch.
+
+"Here, catch a-hold and tie yourself on," said the welcome voice of the
+marshal out of the darkness, without the least waste of words or time.
+
+As soon as Billy's excited fingers could do it they were fastened to the
+end of the marshal's official launch, and bobbing off towards the royal
+float at a tremendous rate of speed.
+
+"How did you come to come hunt for us?" Winona called to the marshal as
+they went.
+
+"You were knocked out o' line an' got blowed away, didn't you?" answered
+the marshal.
+
+"Then we're going to be judged--we're going to be judged!" she rejoiced.
+"Oh, do you think we may get a prize yet?"
+
+"Shouldn't wonder but you got something," said the laconic marshal.
+"Here we be."
+
+He bent over and unfastened them.
+
+"You're late, you see," he said, "and you'll just have to paddle out an'
+get your sentence alone."
+
+Winona's heart beat frantically, but she straightened up in the canoe,
+and she and Billy, standing up at front and back (it was risky work with
+the top-heavy decorations, but they never thought of that till
+afterwards), paddled out into the open space before the royal float. All
+the other entries had been judged. Over in the place where the
+prize-winners were Winona had time to see that the Camp Fire float and
+Marie's canoe were herded with the others. So even if she got nothing
+the glory of Camp Karonya was safe. It was trying to wait there alone,
+with everyone staring, but it did not last long. The red-and-gold herald
+came forward very soon.
+
+"First prize, canoe class!" he said--and Winona almost lost her balance.
+"Awarded to Miss Winona Merriam of Camp Karonya, and Mr. William Lee, of
+Boy Scouts' Patrol Number Six, for their entry 'The Ship of the Fiend.'
+Twenty-five dollars."
+
+The clapping burst out again. When it was done Winona and Billy started
+to paddle back to the prize-winners' enclosure, but a gesture of the
+herald stopped them. They paused, a little puzzled.
+
+"Do they want us to say thank you?" wondered Winona.
+
+Before Billy could turn the canoe the left-hand red-and-gold herald
+walked forth.
+
+"Silver loving cup for greatest originality of conception also goes to
+Miss Merriam and Mr. Lee," read the herald.
+
+They were clapped again--they could see Tom, on the grandstand, standing
+up and waving his hat--and then at last the marshal beckoned them to
+cross to the sparkling ring of other craft in the background. The
+winning launches, floats, rowboats and canoes were to act as a guard of
+honor to escort the royal float back to the grandstand, where the court
+carriages for the king and queen of the carnival waited.
+
+They went to this place at last, and paused by their friends, the Camp
+Fire float and Marie's canoe.
+
+"We got a fourth prize!" called Marie gayly as Winona stopped by her.
+"Oh, Winona, you darling! You always were a mascot!"
+
+"Marie always was an angel," thought Winona to herself. Edith was not so
+selfless.
+
+"Congratulations, Win," she said bravely, holding out a tinsel-wrapped
+wrist across the canoes. "I'm glad you got it--but I wish we could have
+had something better. I think we deserved it."
+
+"You certainly did," said Winona warmly. "But it doesn't much matter,
+you know, Edith. The main thing people will notice is that Camp Karonya
+landed three prizes. And think of that loving-cup sitting up, with 'Won
+by Camp Karonya,' on it!"
+
+"Aren't you going to have your name put on it?" asked Edith.
+
+"Certainly not!" said Winona. "It's a Camp trophy. I shall put my name
+on the back of the check for twenty-five dollars. That is pleasure
+enough."
+
+"I think we've 'done noble,' all of us," said Marie. The canoes were
+paddling off by now, but the going was slow, and they could still talk.
+
+"What did the float get?" asked Winona. "You know we were blown off in
+the dark, and lost track of events till the marshal came after us."
+
+"Second," answered both girls together.
+
+"You were the belle of the ball," added Marie.
+
+"Well, I don't think we did so badly," declared Edith. "A first, second
+and a fourth prize all to one camp. I hope nobody thinks we got more
+than our share."
+
+"We didn't," said Winona. "Oh, I'm so happy!"
+
+"I'm rather pleased myself," said Billy's quiet voice from the other end
+of the canoe.
+
+But it was not until the royal float had been escorted home, and
+everything was broken up, and Tom and Billy were paddling Winona back to
+camp, that he said what he really thought.
+
+"I'm mighty glad you got that first prize," he said. "You deserved it if
+anybody ever did, for being such a little sport about dropping out of
+the float. I'd blow a lot of that money in right away if I were you, to
+congratulate myself."
+
+"After I've paid back what I owe certain people," said Winona, "I shall
+divide with the Camp treasury. Even then I'll have a lot more than I
+ever thought of getting."
+
+"Anyway, you were a real sport, and you deserved everything that was
+coming to you," repeated Billy, in which Tom agreed with him. And when
+your brother approves of you and says so you can generally be sure that
+you have done something remarkably right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+
+Next day was the "cold gray dawn of the morning after." Not that it was
+particularly cold or gray, but there was all the unnailing of the float
+to do, and the dismantling of the two decorated canoes. The girls wound
+the tinsel off carefully for use on future Christmas trees, and packed
+away in a box what other decorations were not perishable, for you never
+know when you're going to need things. Otherwise they sat around and
+gloated softly over Camp Karonya's exceeding brilliancy in carrying off
+prizes in large quantities.
+
+Mrs. Bryan would not let Winona divide her money with the Camp, because
+they had enough already to see them through the rest of the time they
+were to spend there; and then, too, the second prize that the float had
+won was fifteen dollars.
+
+Nothing else memorable happened that day, except that Nataly Lee left
+for home. She was thinner and in better condition than she had been when
+she came, but she frankly didn't like the life. To her, carrying water,
+instead of being a lark, was a nuisance. She had no particular pride in
+working for beads, and it was thought she was hungry for paper novels.
+It worried her, too, that she was getting burned brown. So she went back
+to her mother. The girls saw her off, and sang her a cheer, and were as
+good as they could be. But it is not to be denied that Camp Karonya felt
+a little relief at her going.
+
+After that nothing happened but regular camp work for three days. And
+then Louise proceeded to distinguish herself. It was to be expected.
+
+Tom and Billy had taken Winona and Louise off for a day's fishing in the
+canoe. As usual, Winona and Louise provided the lunch, the boys the
+fishing-tackle and the canoe, and the fish were to be divided at the end
+of the day. They had fished most of the lazy, sunny morning, and it was
+noon. They climbed out of the canoe by a spring, washed their hands, and
+set out the lunch; the canoe was too fishy to be used as a dining-hall.
+
+"Do you think that four of us can possibly eat all that?" inquired
+Billy, eying the piles of sandwiches, the veal loaf, the whole cake and
+the can of pears which graced the paper napkins on the grass.
+
+"Well," explained Winona, "the truth is, Louise and I rather doubled up
+on this lunch. We were both afraid there wouldn't be enough, and each
+went separately and brought half a chocolate cake. You see it's cut down
+the middle. I merely joined the twin halves for the sake of looks. But
+do you think that's too many sandwiches for four people with real
+appetites?"
+
+"I don't," said Tom decidedly. "I'll attend to anything that's left
+over. A very nice amount of lunch--just right. Watch me!"
+
+But they did not watch him because they were otherwise engaged. None of
+them had small appetites, and they all did good work. Just the same when
+they were through there were a generous piece of cake, a fat slice of
+veal loaf, and seven sandwiches left.
+
+"I told you so," said Billy. "Here, Tommy, it is up to you. Have these
+seven nice sandwiches."
+
+"Can't be done," said Tom regretfully. "I've had that many. I had three
+pieces of cake, too."
+
+"Doesn't matter!" said Billy. "A gentleman's word of honor----"
+
+He prepared to jump on Tom and hold him, while Louise held a sandwich
+ready to insert.
+
+"Ow!" said Tom. "Help! This is cruelty to animals. Pry him off, Winnie!"
+
+"Oh, let up, please!" said Winona. "You know, he might explode, and
+mother'd feel badly."
+
+Billy took one knee off, and Tom wriggled more vigorously. Louise
+relented, and the two girls were trying to pull Billy off Tom. They had
+almost succeeded, when a little rustle behind them made Winona, whose
+senses were the most alert, let go and turn. The others followed her
+eyes. They sat up and looked, and Tom jumped to his feet and began to
+dust himself off.
+
+The newcomer, who was a most forlorn and bedraggled little girl, spoke
+very welcome words.
+
+"Me's very hundry!" she said pathetically.
+
+"You poor little thing!" said Louise. "Come here, dear; there's lots for
+you to eat." The little girl made straight for her. Louise got out a
+fresh paper napkin, and piled sandwiches, loaf, cake and all on it.
+
+"Wait a minute," said Billy. "Is all that good for so little a
+girl--hadn't you better give her one at a time?"
+
+Louise held the veal loaf poised in air on her fork. "Will your mother
+let you eat this?" she asked.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHILD BEGAN TO EAT EVERYTHING AT ONCE]
+
+The bedraggled small child sat down on the grass, as if the words were
+an invitation. She was a pretty, dirty child of perhaps five, dressed
+only in a soiled and ragged underwaist and petticoat, and with a mane of
+very long and heavy hair, all tangles and elf-locks. Her hair was yellow
+and her eyes big and blue, and she would have been pretty had she been
+cared-for looking.
+
+"Ain't got any mother," she said, "just Vicky. She lets me."
+
+"Poor little thing!" said Louise again, and handed her the veal loaf.
+The child began to eat everything at once, with an eagerness which made
+it certain she had told the truth, at least, about being hungry.
+
+"What's your name, kiddie? You'll tell me, won't you?" asked Billy, when
+she seemed to have taken the edge off her appetite. He bent down to her
+with a sympathetic expression which he possessed at times, and which--or
+something about him--won the hearts of most small children he had
+dealings with.
+
+"Sandy," she said through large mouthfuls.
+
+"Sandy what?" inquired Louise.
+
+"Sandy Mitchell. Gimme more cake?"
+
+As she had had two large slices, it was thought best not to give her any
+more.
+
+"Mercy, no!" said Winona, as Louise was cutting it, in spite of
+prudence. "Not another bit. We don't want her to die on our hands. You'd
+better come over here by the spring, dear, and let me wash your hands."
+
+Sandy got up immediately, with the placid remark, "It might-a given me a
+pain, anyway," and allowed her hands to be washed, and dried on a fresh
+paper napkin.
+
+"Poor little cowed thing!" exclaimed Louise at this instant obedience.
+"Sandy, dear, won't your people be worried about you?"
+
+"Nope," said Sandy.
+
+"And where do you live?"
+
+"Way, way off," she said. "We just comed. I'll show you to-morrow."
+
+"Poor little dear thing!" said Louise. "How pretty she is! Winnie, I've
+a good mind to adopt her."
+
+"Having only five at home," murmured Tom.
+
+"From the way she talks her people wouldn't care," said Louise. "Maybe
+Camp Karonya could take care of her. We will till we go back, anyway."
+
+"She must belong to one of those poor families along the west branch,"
+said Tom. "Three miles away, and we can't possibly get there by
+canoeing, because we'd have to paddle back seven miles before we could
+paddle over the three. Who's going to walk three miles and a half by the
+thermometer to take the lady home? Don't all speak at once."
+
+"Do you live up there?" Louise asked her. "And does your father drink?"
+
+"Yep," said Sandy. "Favver? Course he dwinks. Evvybody dwinks."
+
+"Think of being brought up to think things like that," said Louise.
+
+"Don't you think," suggested Winona, "that we'd better take her back to
+camp? I don't know the way to the place Tom talks about, and maybe it
+would be best for Mrs. Bryan to take her anyway, if they do drink."
+
+"Good idea," said everybody. Sandy herself seemed pleased, and attached
+herself to them as readily as a stray puppy would have done. They
+cleared up leisurely, then got back into the canoe, taking the child in,
+too. It was rather a close fit, though it was an eighteen-foot canoe,
+but they managed it. She was no more trouble than Puppums would have
+been--Puppums, fortunately, had been left with Florence. They had a good
+day with the fishing, and trailed into Camp Karonya at six with fish for
+breakfast; and Sandy.
+
+"Good luck!" were Tom's parting words. "We'll come to-morrow and help
+you take her back, if you like."
+
+"You needn't bother," said his sister. "We'll take the faithful
+rowboat."
+
+"We aren't going to take her back!" insisted Louise. "I'm going to adopt
+her. Sandy, wouldn't you like to live with me? _I'd_ dress you in nice
+clothes and give you a dolly."
+
+"An' five cents?" demanded Sandy, "An' things to eat?"
+
+"Oh, the poor baby!" said Louise. "She's had to think about money and
+food and grown-up things like the poor little children you read about in
+the pamphlets. Yes, indeed, you shall, Sandy."
+
+"She looks well-fed," said Tom. "Well, good luck. Don't get a reputation
+for collecting them--you mayn't be able to dispose of orphans as easily
+as you can kittens."
+
+They parted, and Louise carried Sandy into camp. They arrived as supper
+was about ready. The Blue Birds carried the fish off to the ice-box (it
+was literally a box, a very ingenious arrangement of sawdust and wood
+which had meant a bead for Elizabeth) and the rest clustered about
+Louise's treasure-trove.
+
+"Better find out if she really needs adopting," advised Marie as they
+sat around the long table, and Sandy exercised an appetite as large as
+her noon one.
+
+"With a drunken father, and no mother, and looking like that?" fired up
+Louise. "I'm going to wash her after supper."
+
+There seemed no connection between washing her and adopting her, but
+there evidently was to Louise.
+
+"Want me to help?" offered Winona. "It ought to be more fun than washing
+Puppums."
+
+"I hope she won't howl and try to climb over the side of the tub, the
+way he does," said Louise. "Yes, thank you, I'd love to be helped."
+
+A warm bath in a foot-tub, following directly on a large meal of corn
+fritters, baked potatoes and huckle-berries, ought nearly to have killed
+Sandy, but it didn't.
+
+"I never dreamed you meant to do more than wash her face and hands,"
+protested Marie, who, as the guardian of the Blue Birds, had ideas about
+such things. But it was too late. Anyway, there was no visible effect.
+Sandy awakened next morning, well, happy, and still hungry. They had
+given her Nataly's bunk with Mrs. Bryan. Helen bunked with Elizabeth,
+because Nataly said the girls tossed, and Mrs. Bryan didn't.
+
+While Sandy slept Louise and Winona were busy. Louise woke Winona at
+five, and they heated water, filled the charcoal-iron, and washed and
+ironed and mended Sandy's underclothes. While Louise darned Sandy's
+socks, Winona ironed the garments dry. Then they foraged about the
+store-shed, which was a warm place at that time of year even in the
+early morning, and found a white dress of Florence's which Winona
+thought she had remembered bringing.
+
+When found it proved much too large for Sandy, but Louise was still
+enthusiastic, and took it up with such good will that two of the tucks
+she put in had to be ripped out again when they came to dress Sandy in
+it. They polished the small strapped shoes the child had taken off,
+sewed the button of each on more firmly, and decided that they looked
+almost new.
+
+Then Winona went back to awaken her own little sister. When she returned
+to Louise's tent she found her friend had finished giving Sandy another
+bath. She was just dressing her.
+
+"I don't believe this poor little thing knows what a thorough bath is,"
+she greeted Winona over the child's head.
+
+"Yes, I do, too," said Sandy. "But I had one last night, an' you've been
+an' given me anuvver now!"
+
+"I think I'll box her hair, too," went on Louise. "It is getting rather
+common now, but she has so much, and it's so untidy, that it would
+really be the best thing even if I didn't keep her."
+
+"I wouldn't do her hair till you're sure we're going to keep her,"
+objected Winona. "Her people mightn't like it."
+
+"A dissipated father and a poor little overworked elder sister--Vicky is
+your sister, isn't she, Sandy?--and a home where they don't even wash or
+feed her? Poor people haven't time to take care of hair like this.
+Anyway, they haven't done it, for it was tangled awfully," she finished
+conclusively.
+
+"But it's so pretty!" protested Winona. "Just look at it, nearly to her
+waist, and thick and curly, and such a lovely gold color!"
+
+"So much the worse for her health," said Louise as promptly as
+Red-Riding-Hood's wolf. "Sandy, wouldn't you like your hair cut nice and
+short, so it wouldn't get tangled any more?"
+
+"An' twousers?" demanded Sandy hopefully. "Gee, zat's gweat!"
+
+"I'll have to stop her using slang," said Louise. "No, dear, not exactly
+twousers, but--I could get her some overalls, couldn't I, Win?"
+
+"I suppose so," said Winona.
+
+"Then I will," said Louise.
+
+"You're gweat, too," said Sandy, turning around where she sat on
+Louise's lap, and throwing both little bare arms around her neck and
+kissing her. Louise kissed her back warmly.
+
+"Isn't she a dear?" she said. "Winnie, will you please hand me the
+scissors?"
+
+"No," said Winona, "I won't. It's wicked to spoil pretty hair like
+that." And she walked out of the tent.
+
+"I'll det 'em," said Sandy, slipping down and bringing them to Louise
+from the table at the end of the tent.
+
+"Here's a piece of ribbon to tie it with, if you won't cut it off," said
+Winona, reappearing with a wide length of blue taffeta.
+
+"No, thank you," said Louise, cutting industriously and very neatly. "It
+would just be in her eyes all the time. I'm going to cut it straight
+across her eyebrows, like a little boy's."
+
+"I did it to all my dolls once," said Winona. She sat down, though, and
+watched Louise till she was done.
+
+Louise had washed the little girl's hair when she gave her the second
+bath, and when it was even and short enough to suit her she finished
+dressing the child in her white frock, and set her on the grass outside,
+to dry in the sunshine. She gave her a picture book to look at to keep
+her amused. The bobbed locks, thick and curly, fluffed out charmingly in
+a yellow bush around the sweet little face.
+
+"It's becoming," admitted Winona. "She looks like a cherub, or a
+choir-boy on a Christmas card. There is the signal for breakfast. You
+just got her dry in time."
+
+"Breakfast?" said Sandy, brightening.
+
+"Poor little darling!" said Louise, catching and kissing her. "I don't
+believe she ever had anything to eat before she came here!"
+
+They went to breakfast in state, and Sandy's golden aureole and clean
+white frock made quite a sensation at the table. They piled things up
+for her to sit on, and she was put where Mrs. Bryan could reach her, and
+argue with her easily if she misbehaved. But she acted very well indeed.
+Her table-manners were good, considering, she talked without the least
+shyness, and managed to eat a very large breakfast. Louise beamed with
+pride over the impression her protegee was making.
+
+When breakfast was over, and Sandy turned loose again to play with
+Puppums and Florence, to whom she had taken a violent fancy, Louise
+packed a market-basket with everything a starving family might need.
+Then she found her purse, summoned Winona, and they took the rowboat and
+went forth, Sandy and Puppums in the bottom of it.
+
+They rowed along the west branch, a narrow stream that doubled at right
+angles from the branch the camps were on. It was lined with pretty
+summer cottages for a part of the way, then after that, at the very end,
+came a part that was filled with poor people who had squatted there. But
+long before they came to the poorest part Sandy desired to land.
+
+"Here we is!" she said cheerfully, at a prosperous-looking dock about a
+third of the way up.
+
+"Not here, dearie," said Louise. "It's probably some place where the
+poor child's been fed," she added aside to Winona.
+
+"We may as well get out, though, mayn't we?" suggested Winona. "Maybe
+they can tell us where she comes from."
+
+They tied the boat and got out, and walked down a deep lane for a while.
+Presently they came to a large white house in the middle of a couple of
+acres of half-yard, half-lawn looking land.
+
+The doors and windows were all wide open, but there was no one to be
+seen. Sandy walked into the hall with an assured tread, took a long
+breath, and called at the top of her lungs, "Vicky! Vick-ee!"
+
+The girls stood at the door and waited, ready to apologize for their
+charge's rudeness whenever somebody might appear. In about five minutes,
+during which Sandy continued to shout, they heard a light, slow step
+along the upper hall. Presently a slim, dark, rather pretty little girl
+of about eleven scuffed down the stairs. She had on a kimono over her
+nightgown, though it was quite late in the morning.
+
+"That you, Sand?" she called as she came. "Goodness, you're up early!"
+
+"This is Vicky," Sandy explained to the girls over her shoulder. "Vicky!
+I've had two baths!"
+
+Louise stood, for once, speechless. She hung mechanically to the handle
+of the basketful of provisions, but she was too surprised to move. It
+was Winona who finally took courage to come forward and explain.
+
+"I'm Winona Merriam," she said, "and this is my friend, Louise Lane. We
+are over at Camp Karonya, the Camp Fire, you know. We found this little
+girl yesterday, and we came over to-day to bring her home. Does
+she--does she belong here?"
+
+"Why, of course she does," said Vicky. "Thank you for bringing her.
+She's always trailing off that way, aren't you, Sand? How long you been
+gone?"
+
+"Is she your sister?" asked Louise, who had her breath by this time.
+
+"M'hm," nodded Vicky. "Why--why, Alexandra Mitchell, where's your hair?"
+
+"It got boxed!" exclaimed Sandy gleefully. "Isn't it nice?"
+
+"I'm afraid we'll have to explain about that," said Winona bravely.
+"Your little sister strayed into a little fishing-trip four of us were
+having yesterday, very hungry and rather dirty, and without all her
+clothes on. And from the way she talked we thought she was--well, we
+washed her and dressed her, and--I'm sorry--shortened her hair, it was
+so tangled. I'm ever so sorry. I think it will grow----"
+
+Vicky stared a minute at Alexandra, very proud of herself, neat, clean,
+dressed and bobbed. Then instead of being angry she sat down on the
+floor, where she was, and burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+"You thought--you thought--oh, my _goodness!_"
+
+"Yes," said Winona. She sat down, too, and finally went off herself.
+"Yes--we _did!_"
+
+"And you brought food for the hungry family----" Vicky's eye fell on the
+large basket which Louise still held stiffly before her. "Oh, oh, oh!
+And Uncle Will's pride, Sandy's hair, that he made a picture of that
+sold for ever so much money--oh, my goodness _gracious!_"
+
+She and Winona both began to laugh again. Louise didn't. She stood
+against the wall like a wax statue.
+
+"It certainly is funny," said Vicky at last, mopping her eyes, "but I'm
+good and glad about Sandy's hair. It was an awful nuisance to take care
+of, and Uncle Will _would_ keep it that way so he could paint pictures
+of it. Won't you stay and have some breakfast? We have a cook."
+
+"No, thank you," said Louise hurriedly, "we've had our breakfast."
+
+"What an awful noise, children!" said a voice; and a rather rumpled man
+appeared. He had an absent look, and also gave an impression of not
+having been to bed all night. He had a paint-brush in his hand.
+
+Vicky and Sandy sprang for him, hanging to him.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Will, this is two Camp Fire girls," said Sandy. "They cutted
+my hair when I was lost. Ain't it cute?"
+
+"_Oh!_" said Uncle Will, and looked as aghast as Louise had. "How did
+this accident happen?"
+
+"It wasn't an accident," said Sandy. "Louise boxed my head, an' gived me
+two baths!"
+
+Uncle Will--so far as the girls learned that was all the name he
+had--uttered another faint exclamation. Then he dived back into his room
+as if he wanted to bear the shock alone.
+
+"I'm so sorry!" said Winona, who found she had all the talking to do.
+"I'm afraid your uncle doesn't like it!"
+
+"Oh, he's only got an artistic temp'rament," said Vicky, as if it were a
+disease uncles could not help. "I think Sandy's goin' to, too. Do stay
+to breakfast. We'll have things out o' your basket if you will."
+
+"No, thank you," said Winona. "I think Louise is in a hurry to go home.
+Come over and see us. It isn't far if you have a boat."
+
+"We'll get somebody to bring us," said Vicky. "I'd come now if I was
+dressed."
+
+"It wouldn't be a bad plan if you dressed a little earlier," said Winona
+frankly. "Are there just you two?"
+
+"Nope," said Vicky, "there's Lancy, too. He's eight. Uncle Will tries to
+bring us up, but he don't know how so very well."
+
+"Well, when you come down to camp we can tell you a lot of things if
+you'd like us to," said Winona.
+
+"Maybe," said Vicky indifferently. "But it's all right this way. You can
+try telling us, though."
+
+"Well, good-bye," said Louise--it was all she had contributed to the
+conversation, but she seemed to contribute it gladly.
+
+So they went, still carrying the basket.
+
+"Wait!" called Sandy's voice behind them when they had gone a little
+way. "I'm goin' back wiv you! You said you'd 'dopted me!"
+
+"But we didn't know your uncle wasn't poor then," said Louise. "We can't
+take you away from him."
+
+"You 'dopted me," said Sandy doggedly, "an' I'm goin' wiv you--so
+there!" And she thrust her wet little hand into Louise's and trotted
+along beside them. "Louise--wasn't there cake in the basket?"
+
+"You have cake at home, dear," said Louise. But she looked as if she
+felt a little better. After all, even if an orphan didn't need adopting,
+it was a pleasure to find that she liked it.
+
+"Like you best," insisted Sandy. "Goin' to stay wiv you. They don't
+care!"
+
+"Oh, let's let her, just for to-day, anyhow!" said Winona. "I don't
+believe anybody'll mind."
+
+"All right," said Louise rather as if she wanted to. They got into the
+boat again, and rowed to camp.
+
+"Sandy," asked Louise, "what did you mean by saying your father drank?
+You haven't any father."
+
+"Well, I did have," said Sandy. "And of sourse he did dwink when there
+was a him. Evvybody does. Little flowers do. My governess said so."
+
+"Your _governess!_" said Louise. "Is your uncle rich enough for you to
+have a governess--and you go trailing round in your underwaist and
+petticoat!"
+
+"When he draws pictures an' sells 'em he is. When he don't he don't.
+Gimme some cake?"
+
+Sandy was evidently quite calm about her way of living.
+
+"She mayn't need adopting, but she certainly needs reforming," said
+Louise vigorously.
+
+They were paddling past the Scouts' camp by now. Louise was quite
+willing to go past softly, but Sandy yelled, for she saw Billy.
+
+"Hello, girls!" he called. "Back already? Got all the papers signed?"
+
+"No, I haven't," said Louise. "And, Billy, if you ask me any more
+questions, I'll jump over and drown!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+
+The Camp Fire might all grin broadly whenever it spoke of Louise's
+adoption--even more broadly than it had at Winona's cat-collection: but
+the adoptee herself was quite serious about it. Adopted she was by the
+Camp Fire in general and Louise in particular, and adopted she meant to
+stay. She went home once in awhile--there was nobody to worry about her,
+it seemed, when she stayed away--but as a rule she considered herself a
+Camp Fire Girl. She was too young to be a Blue Bird, but that didn't
+make any difference. Finally she was given the official position of
+third sub-mascot, ranking after Puppums and Hike the Camp Cat.
+Unofficially, she got better training than she appeared to have had for
+some time, for she knew that to stay in Camp she had to obey rules.
+Vicky never did come over. Once in awhile they would return Sandy to her
+home, just for politeness, but it didn't seem to be specially required
+of them.
+
+"We ought to have a grand entertainment," declared Marie one day, "and
+invite all the summer people who bought our things."
+
+"Yes," Louise approved, "and then, perhaps, if we made them happy,
+they'd buy some more."
+
+"Well, I was thinking of charging for the entertainment," demurred
+Marie.
+
+"But wouldn't it be piling things up just a wee bit too much?" asked
+Louise.
+
+"Perhaps," admitted Marie.
+
+"What were you thinking of having?" asked Winona.
+
+It was at the end of a weekly Council Fire, and the girls were lying
+about, as usual, on the hill.
+
+"I was wondering"--from Marie a little doubtfully--"if we could have
+some tableaux from Maeterlinck, with readings. I could do the readings."
+
+"What's Maeterlinck?" asked Louise cheerfully. "Something good to eat?"
+
+"No, you goose!" instructed Marie. "He wrote the 'Blue Bird,' and--oh, a
+lot of plays."
+
+"Nice ones?" asked Louise. "Lots of people running around doing exciting
+things?"
+
+"No," admitted Marie. "Nothing much happens. But it's very elevating."
+
+"I don't feel as if I wanted to be elevated, somehow," said Louise
+firmly, "and I'm sure those summer people don't; they come here to relax
+and enjoy themselves, and when they want something really high-brow they
+go to the movies and see bears and lions eating each other. They can do
+that right in the place itself."
+
+"I don't believe they'd come to a Maeterlinck show, either, Marie," so
+said Mrs. Bryan. "We can take him up to read this winter, if the girls
+want to know more about him. But he isn't exactly the author for a
+summer entertainment--especially if we want to make money."
+
+"We do," said Marie who had a strictly practical side to her.
+
+"Does it have to be an author?" Helen wanted to know.
+
+"It seems to," said Louise.
+
+"I have an idea!" exclaimed Winona, sitting up.
+
+"Is it an author?" asked Louise.
+
+"Yes!" said Winona, "it is!"
+
+"Well?" from everybody.
+
+"Samantha Allen!" cried Winona eagerly. "My plan's this. Have somebody
+dress like Samantha--you know the pictures--and tell all about herself
+to begin with. Then we could make a big, wooden frame--we have those
+boards left from the float--and Samantha could turn over the leaves of
+the album, and describe the characters in her books one by one, as they
+were shown in the frame. We could call it 'Samantha's Picter-Album,' or
+something like that."
+
+"I saw an entertainment that was something of that sort once," said
+Adelaide. "But it was just a frame with old-fashioned pictures, like
+daguerrotypes. There wasn't any Samantha, or any talking. I should think
+this would be lots better. But would it last a whole evening, and make
+the Wampoag people think they'd had their money's worth?"
+
+"I think so," said Louise. "And anyway, if it wasn't so very long we
+could amuse the visitors by showing them over the camp, and telling them
+all about our customs and habits. Maybe we could do a folk-dance for
+them afterwards."
+
+"Oh, yes, of course we could!" said Edith, whose specialty it was. "We
+could give them an Indian dance as easy as anything, and that Russian
+one I learned before I came. I can teach it to eight of us."
+
+"I know how to dance the minuet," suggested Helen. "How many had it in
+that Washington's Birthday thing Miss Green's class had last year?"
+
+Five had, it seemed. As a minuet only needs ten performers it was very
+simple to polish that up. And all of them knew Indian dances already. So
+a committee was appointed to get up the costumes. The Indian dresses
+were there already. For the Russian dance Edith thought head-dresses of
+paper muslin would do and aprons of colored scrim, over white skirts and
+turned-under, slipped-under-the-skirt middy blouses. For the
+minuet--well, there was cheese-cloth in red and yellow that Marie had
+had on her canoe; everyone could powder her hair and contrive a
+'kerchief. The pannier draperies could be pinned into place, and broad
+bodices of Winona's black paper muslin from the canoe-trimming could be
+cut and pinned into place with very little trouble. Helen and Edith and
+Adelaide were told off to see about the costuming; Edith, as she had to
+train the others in dancing, had nothing but supervision to do. Helen
+and Adelaide did what little actual work was needed.
+
+"The main thing this entertainment needs seems to be pins," said Helen
+the third day after they had decided to have it. It was a Thursday, and
+they planned the affair for the next Monday night. "We're nearly out of
+them."
+
+So eight papers of pins were bought, not to speak of a good deal of
+white paper muslin. The girls were assigned their different characters
+in the Album, and each left to her own cleverness in getting up the
+costume. About midway in the preparations it suddenly dawned on the
+girls, who had gotten all the Samantha books from the Wampoag library,
+and had their families send them on the ones they owned, that boys were
+needed.
+
+So a committee consisting of all the sisters was sent up the lake to
+borrow Boy Scouts. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, for boys
+seem to dislike "dressing up" as much as girls like it; but Mr. Gedney
+was Camp Karonya's friend, and they went back with all the boys they
+needed promised them--if they would look after the costumes and not
+expect the Scouts to rehearse.
+
+Louise was appointed a Committee of Tickets, with Elizabeth to help her.
+Louise was a born ticket-seller. She loved it. She and Elizabeth put in
+most of their waking hours exchanging bits of ecru cardboard with small
+red things on them (meant for Camp Fires) for thirty-five cents. And
+they did very well. They got permission of all the drug-stores and many
+other stores, to put up posters, which were camp-made, also, of course.
+So by the time the fateful night arrived quite a goodly crowd was
+ferried over to Camp Karonya by the Scouts' canoes.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+At eight precisely the audience, accommodated on long planks which
+reached from box to box, saw a curtain pulled away from between two
+trees. Nothing was to be seen in its place but a plump red album
+standing out against a background which represented every sheet in the
+camp. They had used Marie's red cheese-cloth after all, instead of
+Winona's black paper muslin. As for the framework, that was a work of
+art for which several of the girls were responsible. It had taken all
+the manual training they knew, and a little bit more--they had had to
+call Tom Merriam, whose hobby was carpentry, before they got it all
+right--but the general effect was gorgeous. The audience was given a
+fair amount of time to appreciate the beauty of the album, which was
+about eight feet high. Then Marie stepped out. She had been elected to
+the very responsible part of Samantha because her memory was good,
+rather than because she looked it. But she had done excellently with
+what means she had. Two small pillows for a foundation, a pink wrapper
+with large black spots, sent on from home, an elderly bonnet borrowed
+from a friendly farmer's wife, a substantial gingham apron, spectacles,
+a Paisley shawl, and a large palm-leaf fan, completed a get-up that
+would have disguised Marie Hunter effectually from her own best friend.
+
+When she thought she had waited long enough to give the audience a
+chance to appreciate her she curtsied, and reaching over, pulled at the
+album cover with the crock of a green-handled umbrella. The inside page
+of the album was imitated by a frame with white muslin tightly stretched
+over it, and an oval hole in the middle for the picture. In the hole
+just now was a meek, chin-whiskered face surrounded by a high
+collar--Mr. Gedney, normally. Samantha pointed to this proudly.
+
+"Brethren and sisteren," began Samantha, after she had introduced
+herself, "this here is my lawful, though sometimes wayward, pardner
+Josiah Allen. I was married to him in a brand-new green silk gown, made
+pollynay, and Mother Jones's parlor, come twenty year ago. Our mutual
+affection has been a beakin ever since, though I can't deny it has
+sputtered some once in awhile, and burned purty low, tryin' times like
+house-cleanin' an' wash-days."
+
+She went on with the famous tale of "How the Bamberses borrowed Josiah,"
+cutting it short when she heard the tiny bell behind the scene tinkle,
+as a signal that another picture was ready. Then she jerked the cover to
+with her umbrella-handle, and operated it again. This time the inside
+leaf had been fastened back with the lid, for this was a full-sized
+picture. The audience, by this time, was laughing at nearly everything
+she said, for Marie was a capital mimic, and she had picked out and
+strung together all the funniest things she could find in the Samantha
+Allen books.
+
+"This here," announced Samantha, "is my step-children, Thomas Jefferson
+and Tirzah Ann. They ain't bad children, if I do say it as shouldn't,
+and I have brung 'em up like they wuz my own."
+
+Winona was Tirzah. She sat stiffly in a high-backed chair (the back was
+pasteboard, covered with black muslin, cut in a Chippendale sort of way)
+and she wore a full, flowered gown, with her hair looped over her ears
+and fastened in the back to a "chignon" with two fat curls hanging from
+it. They had put Tom with her, with a view to mutual support. He, too,
+had a preposterous collar (collars may be made by the dozen if you have
+scissors and patience, and the Camp Fire Girls had both) and a flowered
+vest. His baggy clothes and a tall hat at his feet completed a picture
+that was so much like the ones you do see in old albums that the
+audience began to clap before Marie was through her introduction.
+
+"Woof!" said Tom when he got out of the frame. "Never again for me!" He
+turned to grin at Billy, who had still to go on. Billy was supposed to
+be 'Submit Tewksbury's beau, a dashin' city feller,' and he was trying
+to get an appropriate amount of dash into his mustaches.
+
+"Every time I go up against Camp Karonya," responded Billy sadly, "I
+have to do something that needs a lot of stiffening. I had to work two
+hours over that fiend tail of mine, and these whiskers are just as bad."
+
+"It'll be worse when you have real ones," remarked Louise consolingly.
+She was acting as putter-on-of-finishing-touches. There was a
+dressing-tent apiece for the girls and boys, and Billy was on the
+outside of his, trying to arrange the mustache to his liking by means of
+a small mirror pinned to the canvas.
+
+"At least I won't have to worry about their sticking on," was his reply.
+
+"There," said Louise, "they'll do now."
+
+"Billy and Adelaide wanted!" called Edith.
+
+Adelaide, on account of a mournful expression that still appeared at
+times, had been selected for "Submit Tewksbury," who had a broken heart
+and was good to one relative after another for thirty years or more. She
+had been told to look as sad as she possibly could, and she was posed
+with a medicine bottle and spoon, with which she had just--so Samantha
+explained--been nursing her relatives. Billy, behind her, looked very
+cheerful and debonair with his jaunty mustache and a very gaudy shirt
+which--so he said afterwards--he had bought especially for the occasion,
+for thirty-nine cents marked down from fifty. It had a large, spotty
+pattern on it, and it looked _very_ festive.
+
+The tableaux went smoothly on. Marie remembered all her lines, the
+audience appeared to enjoy it all very much, when suddenly in the midst
+of a speech she remembered something, and halted, secretly referring to
+the list of pictures which was pinned inside her palm-leaf fan. Widder
+Doodle, Submit Tewksbury, Elder Minkley, Maggie Snow--yes, they were
+four past Betsy Bobbet, the crowning glory of the evening, and no Betsy
+Bobbet had there been! Marie pulled herself together and thought a
+minute, talking on meanwhile.
+
+"Brethren and sisteren," she said, "I hope you'll excuse me for a
+minute. My wind's a gittin' low, and my new congress gaiters pinch me
+some. I'm goin' to ask you to wait a bit, till I fetch me a drink of
+water."
+
+The audience laughed, and clapped, as it had been doing most of the
+evening, and Samantha scuttled distractedly behind the scenes, where she
+clutched the nearest person to her. It happened to be Mrs. Bryan, who
+was making up one of the boys under a light.
+
+"Where's Betsy Bobbet--I mean Lilian Green?" she asked hurriedly. "It's
+way past her turn, and she's never been in at all."
+
+"Oh, my dear, didn't anyone tell you?" said Mrs. Bryan.
+
+"They couldn't," said Marie. "I've been out front all this time."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," said Mrs. Bryan. "Can't you do without her? She
+slipped and tore her costume so badly that it wasn't fit to appear in.
+She could pose, of course, but the tears would show."
+
+"I went right down over a tent-pole," explained Lilian, appearing to
+speak for herself. She was indeed badly torn, not to speak of the fact
+that she was limping a little. Her bonnet and veil--a green
+mosquito-netting veil--were wrecked--and she had managed to muddy
+herself thoroughly, too.
+
+"You certainly made a thorough job of it!" exclaimed Marie. "But oh,
+Mrs. Bryan, what shall I do? I've been talking about her all the
+evening--leading up to her. She's the keystone of the whole
+performance."
+
+"It would be a case of Hamlet with Hamlet left out without her, then,
+would it?" queried Mrs. Bryan. "My dear, I don't know what to say. If
+Lilian were damaged somebody else could supply her place, but we haven't
+any understudy for Lilian's clothes!"
+
+"There's only one thing to do," offered Winona, coming over from a group
+of girls. "Have her go on anyway, Marie, and make up something to
+explain why she looks so funny. Explain why she's so torn and
+crumpled--make a joke of it, so they'll think it was all on purpose."
+
+"Winnie, you're the pride of my life!" vowed Marie. "I'll have to do
+just that. It will be hard," she added doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, no, it won't," and Winona laughed reassuringly, "you're the
+cleverest one of us, and if you can't make up some reason why Betsy
+Bobbet looks mussed, nobody can. Now go on out and do it."
+
+She gave her a little push.
+
+"Ray-of-Light, you're a dear!" Marie said affectionately as she turned
+and went out. "Put Lilian in the frame just as she is, please," she
+said. "I think I can manage it."
+
+Lilian laughed a little at the idea of displaying herself to two hundred
+summer people looking as if she had come out of a subway accident, but
+she got into position like the good-natured girl she was, and Marie
+heard the little bell and began to make her impromptu explanation.
+
+"My friend, Betsy Bobbet, she's a considerable kind of a curis person,"
+she said. "She's sorter sentimental, an' sometimes she's too impulsive.
+Now, just before she had this daguerrotype took that I'm goin' to show
+you, she was writin' a pome to the Muse. This is how it went:
+
+  "Muse of Poetry
+  I would do much for thee
+  And I am full of tears
+  Because I have been writin' so many years
+  And still unappreciated I be--
+
+"Betsy can write pomes like that any time," explained Marie, and the
+audience giggled. "But I always tell Betsy," Marie went on, "that
+walkin' cross-lots ain't any place to compose poetry to Muses. Well, she
+was walkin' 'cross-lots in a brown study an' a red-striped morey waist,
+speakin' this out loud as she went. An' she got to gesturin' before she
+thought. An' Farmer Peedick, him that married Jane Ann Allen, had jest
+let his best bull out in the field. An' whether it was the red morey
+waist or the pome Betsy never did know, but she thinks it was the pome.
+She says she thinks the bull, not bein' used to fust-class poetry, was
+excited. So he just up an' ran after her. Well, she stopped recitin',
+an' ran, too. She jest got over the barb-wire fence in time. But I tell
+you, Betsy Bobbet is a wonderful woman! When she was safe she fixed that
+bull with her eye (it was a poet's eye, she says to me), an' recited the
+remainder of that ode to him. An', ladies an' gentlemen, you mayn't
+believe it, but that bull was cowed! Yes, sir. He looked at her, Betsy
+says to me, as if he was sayin' 'I can't stand that!' an' he ran. Yes,
+sir, he just ran!"
+
+She pulled aside the frame, and there smirked Betsy, very stiff and
+proper, with her bonnet and veil still a wreck and her red morey waist
+very much askew, and with a jagged rent down the front of her skirt. But
+her corkscrew curls twisted gracefully down either side of her face, her
+eyes were rolled up, and her mitted hand clutched a roll of paper. The
+audience howled.
+
+Marie closed the cover, bowed, and went on to the end of the pictures.
+
+The dances--the Indian dance, the minuet and the Russian dance--were
+beautiful and everyone applauded them, though they liked the Indian
+dance best. When they had finished some of the guests, to Louise's great
+delight, demanded Camp Fire work, and bought it, too. After that the
+girls distributed coffee and sandwiches free, and then the Scouts took
+the audience, in relays, up the river to Wampoag.
+
+Before they went somebody said to Marie:
+
+"My dear, you were splendid. I'm going to give that entertainment for
+our church this winter, and write to you for help. But the most
+convincing and amusing picture of the lot was 'Betsy Bobbet.' Do tell me
+how you ever managed to make the thing so life-like?"
+
+But Marie merely looked modest.
+
+"We did the best we could," she said. "It was quite simple, after all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+
+The next time Billy and Tom and Winona and Louise went off in Billy's
+canoe for the day, they did not take Sandy. She happened to be making
+one of her brief visits home. They took, instead, a shot-gun apiece
+(that is, the boys did), a book apiece (that was for the girls), a
+bagful of socks from the Scouts' mending-basket, and the usual amount of
+lunch.
+
+"We look like an Italian moving," Tom observed critically, looking over
+their joint baggage. "Three fishing-rods, two baskets, two paddles, two
+guns, two sunbonnets. Whew! Louise, I'll trade with you."
+
+"It isn't much at all," said Louise indignantly. "I could carry my
+share, and yours, too, if I had to."
+
+"You may," he returned promptly. "Here's my rifle. It won't go off
+unless you hit the trigger by accident."
+
+"Heap big chief!" said she, not offering to take it. "If I'd remembered
+how you hated carrying innocent little things like this around with
+you"--she pointed to the imposing pile of baskets, books and work in the
+bottom of the canoe--"I'd have telephoned for an expressman."
+
+"Have you a telephone?" asked Tom. "When did you put it in, and what did
+you tie it to?"
+
+"No," said Louise, "but we could have borrowed yours."
+
+The Scouts had just finished installing a telephone from Wampoag to
+their headquarters. They had done nearly everything themselves in the
+way of connecting and so forth. They were very proud of it, and the Camp
+Fire girls were wildly envious, for all _they_ had was a system of
+baking-powder-box-and-wire telephone, worked out from the American
+Girl's Handy Book by two young geniuses. It was all right as far as it
+went, but naturally it wouldn't connect them with the telephones at
+home, or at Wampoag.
+
+"Why, of course you could," consented Tom. "In fact, you can. Shall I
+paddle you that way?"
+
+"You needn't mind," she smiled. "Do look at Winona!"
+
+Winona had one of Marie's books, and she was sitting on the bottom
+reading it, forgetful of the world.
+
+"What does this mean, Billy?" as she looked up suddenly. "Marie has a
+note here in pencil 'But Raleigh was not exclusively Elizabethan!' and
+two exclamation points after it."
+
+"I don't know," Billy answered frankly. "I don't see why Marie wants to
+worry about it."
+
+"Raleigh was Gothic with Queen Anne chimneys," interrupted Tom. "If you
+want information just come to me, little one. Here, Winnie, put down
+that book. It looks too full of useful information for a nice day like
+this. Remember, this is a pleasure exertion."
+
+"All right," and Winona laid down the book. "Only I do wish I knew as
+much as Marie does."
+
+"And yet she never seems to study hard," remarked Louise, to whom
+lessons were a painful grind. "I believe she's like Billy Wiggs of the
+Cabbage-Patch--she 'inherited her education from her paw!'"
+
+"She could!" put in Tom mournfully. "Professor Hunter has enough and too
+much. Just wait till you get under him, Louise!"
+
+"Oh, I can wait. I'm in no hurry at all. He's awfully nice out of school
+hours, but----"
+
+"But why talk about school in vacation?" broke in Billy impatiently.
+"Isn't it a lovely day?"
+
+The girls were curled on the bottom of the canoe, in the middle, and the
+boys were paddling at the ends. The morning breeze, cool and fresh,
+struck their faces, whipping Louise's red hair about her face in little
+curls, and blowing Winona's blue tie straight back over her shoulder in
+the sunshine.
+
+"This is something like living!" Tom declared, spatting the water with
+his paddle because he was so happy. "Pass me about three bananas, will
+you, whoever's nearest the lunch? I feel hungry."
+
+"You aren't," said Louise swiftly. "You just want those bananas because
+you know they're there. Have some poetry instead. I brought a bookful."
+
+"Poetry!" snorted Tom, as she hoped he would.
+
+"Caesar! There's a snipe!" cried Billy, dropping his paddle, reaching for
+a rifle, and taking hasty aim.
+
+"Never touched it," mocked Tom as the report died, and the snipe
+appeared not to have done so at all.
+
+"How do you come to be carrying all these shooting-irons around?" asked
+Louise suspiciously. "I thought Mr. Gedney was pretty strict about it."
+
+"Special permission," explained Tom. "We've both always known how to
+shoot, and old Billy here is supposed to be the most careful thing that
+ever was."
+
+"That wasn't a snipe," said Billy disgustedly. "That was a mosquito, a
+nice tame old Jersey mosquito. I always heard they grew to that size,
+but I never believed it before."
+
+"Don't cast any asparagus," said Louise. "The advertisements say there
+are no mosquitoes here."
+
+Billy eyed the now almost gone snipe.
+
+"Well, he may have been a plain fly," he conceded.... "Let's go on
+hunting. Perhaps we'll find a real snipe next time."
+
+They paddled along lazily for the next three-quarters of an hour,
+talking a little now and then. For the most part, though, they went on
+in silence, except when Louise giggled over "Fables in Slang," which she
+had pulled out of her blouse-pocket, or when someone saw what might be
+game, or especially good scenery. They went, presently, down an arm of
+the river that was scarcely more than a creek, and stopped there till
+afternoon for rest and refreshment. It seemed a charming spot, and
+almost deserted. Only in the distance one red-roofed farmhouse could be
+seen, adding to the picturesqueness of the landscape.
+
+There were three small sandwiches left, and the girls, with the aid of
+paper and pencil, had just worked it out that each person present was
+entitled to three-quarters of a sandwich. They were trying to decide who
+should get the three quarters that were cut out of the three
+sandwiches--it was more a point of honor than necessity, for nobody much
+wanted any of them--when there was a subdued howl from Tom, who had been
+lying on his back in the canoe, gazing up at the sky.
+
+Six stately geese were flying in an arrow-shape across the creek, above
+the canoe. Both boys fired.
+
+"Oh, what a shame to kill them!" mourned Winona; but Tom said hurriedly
+again that they had special permission from Mr. Gedney, and sat up to
+see if he had done anything.
+
+"We each got one!" said Billy in a tense whisper. "They've dropped on
+the farther shore--there by the farmhouse!"
+
+The boys pushed the canoe up close and sprang out. They were dashing
+excitedly across country after their prey. Suddenly the waiting girls
+heard wild howls, and the tall, angry form of a wild-eyed man in
+overalls suddenly appeared from nowhere with a pitchfork.
+
+"Oh, he's chasing the boys!" exclaimed Winona.
+
+"He certainly is!" seconded Louise, and began to giggle. "Listen to
+him!"
+
+It was really impossible to do anything else.
+
+"My geese! My prize geese!" shouted the overalled man, adding what he
+thought of Tom's and Billy's intelligence. "My pedigreed geese, you
+young idiots! I'll teach you!"
+
+"You ought to have made 'em wear their pedigrees around their necks,"
+Tom shouted back at the man.
+
+"Oh, can they get away?" cried Louise. "Look!"
+
+And Winona, looking, saw that their way back to the canoe was cut off by
+a dog--the traditional farmer's dog of the comic papers. He was
+stationed on the bank, eying the canoe and the girls in it in a very
+threatening way, and most plainly only waiting till the boys came back
+to bite them.
+
+Winona gave the canoe a determined push which landed it in midstream,
+and both girls began to paddle back by the way they had come, Winona
+because she had a plan, Louise because she was following Winona.
+
+"We'll meet them around this point, on the other side," she explained to
+Louise. "I saw a glimpse of water on the other side, and I think the
+point of land the farm is on is like a peninsula."
+
+Sure enough, they discovered the criminals crouched romantically behind
+a clump of trees at the other side of the point of land. They were so
+well hidden that the girls would never have seen them if Billy had not
+stealthily waved a red handkerchief which he always carried for
+wigwagging. The girls paddled up as softly as they could, and the boys
+crawled out and waded to the canoe, crouching low. Nobody dared say
+anything till the canoe and its crew was well out and downstream again,
+far from farmers with dogs and pitchforks and no desire to listen to
+explanations.
+
+"And we never even got those geese!" mourned Tom.
+
+"Got those geese!" said Louise severely. "You oughtn't to want to get
+pedigreed geese that belonged to a farmer--especially a farmer with that
+kind of a disposition."
+
+"He hasn't any business to let tame geese go prowling around the country
+that way," growled Billy, "the first day a fellow has leave to go
+shooting food for the Scouts at home! How were we to know they had a
+coat-of-arms and a family tree? They ought to have been kept at home, in
+their ancestral barnyard."
+
+"And we never even got the confounded things!" lamented Tom again. "And
+we might just as well have, too, because we'll have to go up and pay for
+them, of course, when Mr. Overalls has calmed down enough not to bite us
+on sight. They may be worth a thousand dollars apiece, for all we know.
+We were the pedigreed geese, I think!"
+
+"Never mind," said Louise soothingly, "be glad Father Goose didn't get
+you, instead of sorry you didn't get his pets. They probably would have
+been tough, anyway."
+
+"And we can fish," suggested Winona. "Nobody's going to jump out of the
+river and tell us that these are his pedigreed perch."
+
+"The game-warden may, if the river's been stocked lately," said Billy.
+
+"It hasn't," asserted Tom. "Don't you remember? We found out all about
+that before any of us came up here last year. All these fish are old
+enough to die. Pass me the bait, please, Winnie."
+
+"Here you are," said Winona.
+
+She baited a line for herself, dropped it in, and everyone else did the
+same thing. After that nobody said anything for quite a little while,
+unless an occasional "Confound those geese!" from Tom could count as
+conversation.
+
+"Got something!" announced Louise at length, jerking in her line.
+
+"What is it?" asked Tom with interest.
+
+"Feels like a perch--or a trout," said Louise pulling in her line
+rapidly.
+
+"It doesn't _look_ like one," said Winona.
+
+"M'm, not exactly," said her brother. "You ought to be interested in it,
+though, Win--it's a catfish."
+
+"You can eat catfish," said Louise, quite calmly. "In fact, I believe
+they're considered very good eating. I don't know but I'd rather have
+them than trout."
+
+"Especially if you can't get the trout," added Tom.
+
+"If you can't get what you want, you must want what you can get." So she
+baited her line again.
+
+"Well, what is it this time?" inquired Tom next time she pulled her line
+in. The rest had had fair luck.
+
+"Probably another pussy-fish," said Louise resignedly. But this time it
+was a real perch, and after that it was a sunfish, and then two more
+catfish. And presently there was enough for supper, and by the time they
+got back they knew it would be supper-getting time. Winona was cooking
+supper that week. So they put the fish in the empty lunch-basket and
+paddled for home. Louise took Billy's paddle, and Billy trolled all the
+way. He didn't get anything, but he enjoyed himself.
+
+"Who's that on the dock?" asked Tom as they neared the Camp Karonya
+landing. "Are they waiting for us?"
+
+"Tom's afraid the farmer with the ducks has come around the other way,"
+said Louise. "No, Tommy, my dear, that's only Mr. Sloane, who is a sort
+of unofficial uncle to Camp Karonya. We're supposed to have rented that
+dock from him, but he comes there and fishes just as much as if we
+hadn't."
+
+"Sort of a fourth sub-mascot?" said Billy. "Yes, I remember--the old man
+who helped you out about the scows when you were building the float."
+
+"He's the one," said Winona. "He's fishing."
+
+"And there's Puppums, too," said Louise. "Oh, the dear old doggie! He's
+come down to the dock to wait for you, Winnie!"
+
+"So he has," agreed Winona. "I wonder if he's been there long."
+
+Puppums liked canoeing very much, and when he thought Winona ought to
+have taken him and hadn't, he would go down to the dock, trailing her by
+scent, and sit there hours and hours--merely for the sake of looking
+reproachfully at her when she did get in, it was thought. Winona always
+hugged him, and apologized, and took him for a row if possible, and he
+knew it.
+
+When he caught sight of the canoe (like most dogs, he was short-sighted)
+he began to bark excitedly and run up and down the dock, and jump wildly
+about. He did everything but swim out to the canoe. Puppums hated
+water--which gave rise to a theory that there was a little pug in his
+ancestry.
+
+Mr. Sloane, too, rose as the canoe came near the landing-place. He did
+not jump up and down, because he had not been waiting for the canoeing
+party. He had evidently taken their return as a signal that it was time
+he went home himself, for he was collecting his rod and bait-can, and
+his coat, and the other things he had strewn about the dock. Puppums
+still careered wildly around and around. As Winona stepped ashore his
+excitement grew so intense that he ran full tilt into Mr. Sloane, who
+was bending over picking something up, and nearly knocked him over.
+
+"W-u-ugh!" said Mr. Sloane, and began to hunt frantically about the
+dock.
+
+And as the boys and girls gained the shore it became painfully evident
+that the little dog had jarred out the old gentleman's false teeth.
+
+Mr. Sloane had never made any secret of the fact that he wore "bought
+teeth"--indeed, he had told Winona and Adelaide, who were his especial
+favorites, just where he got them and how much they cost, and where
+others like them could be gotten. But still, when your friend's teeth
+are knocked out all at once by your family dog, well, you _do_ feel a
+little embarrassment. With one accord the four looked in the other
+direction, as Mr. Sloane, with a "Drat that pup!" continued to hunt for
+his teeth. The boys fussed with the canoe, and Winona and Louise began
+to hunt for a nonexistent something in the box they used for a locker.
+
+But Puppums was going to be polite at all costs. He trotted over, his
+tail wagging wildly at the prospect of being able to do something for
+his mistress, picked up the teeth, and carried them proudly to Winona!
+
+"Oh, Puppums--you _naughty_ dog!" she said, trying to take the teeth
+away from him as unostentatiously as possible.
+
+But Puppums, realizing from her voice that something was wrong, looked
+up at her depreciatingly, wagged his tail again, suddenly put his tail
+between his legs and started for the camp!
+
+It was no use to try to ignore things any longer.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Sloane," Winona cried. "I'm so sorry! He's a bad dog. I'll go
+straight after him and get them."
+
+"Now, never mind," said Mr. Sloane, kindly if rather indistinctly. He
+began to laugh. "That dog o' yours certainly is a rip-snorter!" he said.
+"Knock a man down an' carry off his teeth!"
+
+By this time the boys had stopped trying not to laugh, and were howling
+in unison in the background. And little Frances, Adelaide's sister, came
+up with a nice birch-bark box. She handed it to Mr. Sloane, dropped a
+pretty courtesy, and ran. And so did the others. The only unembarrassed
+members of the party were Puppums, who wasn't there, to be Irish, and
+Mr. Sloane himself.
+
+"Talk about banner days!" sighed Louise. "I was the only one of us that
+didn't get into trouble----"
+
+"Louise!" called somebody, from outside the tent where Louise was
+washing and getting ready for supper. "Did you know that you left the
+store-shed door open this morning when you came in for supplies, and
+somebody's carried off every bit of bacon!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+
+And in the opulent days which followed the winning of the carnival
+prizes, and the selling of lovely amounts of Camp Fire goods, Camp
+Karonya decided that it ought to own a phonograph. The treasury, which
+was a suitcase under Helen's bed, had money in it, and the girls badly
+needed something to dance by. To be sure, the camp boasted a mandolin,
+two guitars, a mouth-organ and a banjo, to say nothing of Mrs. Bryan's
+Iroquois drum. But all these had to be worked by hand, and the
+orchestra, after performing for several long evenings while their
+friends practised folk-dances with abandon, struck.
+
+"We want to get a chance at the folk-dances, too," they remonstrated,
+very reasonably. Indeed, Louise got up and made a moving speech,
+alluding to her pressing need of folk-dances, and her slender chance of
+being able to do them while she played her instrument.
+
+"Here I am," she said pathetically, "twice as plump as anybody else in
+camp. I need folk-dances more than anybody here does. And I've spent
+this whole blessed evening plunking a banjo while other people got thin,
+people that were thin already! It may be good for my moral character,
+but, girls"--Louise's voice dropped tragically--"it's _ruining_ yours!"
+
+They all agreed that something should be done.
+
+Mrs. Bryan was entirely willing to go on pounding her Indian drum
+indefinitely, but the girls did not think it would be good for their
+moral characters to let her, either. So they held a business meeting on
+the spot, which happened to be the large level place they used for
+dancing ground; and decided to buy a phonograph.
+
+"I think we have catalogues of them at home," said Dorothy Gray. "Shall
+I write and have them sent on?"
+
+The girls considered that for awhile, but they finally decided not to.
+Everyone wanted a voice in choosing the phonograph, or at least in
+deciding on what kind of a phonograph they were to have.
+
+"But we don't want to pay the full price for it," said Helen wisely.
+"What we ought to do is to advertise in the _Press_ in the village. It's
+the country paper. Look at the market Win created for kittens----"
+
+But here Winona sprang for her, and they rolled over on the leaves, and
+the meeting ended in a frolic.
+
+However, they all liked Helen's idea, and two Blue Birds were sent off
+to the _Press_ with an advertisement for a second-hand phonograph or
+victrola in good condition. Next day two other Blue Birds went after the
+answers. There were three.
+
+One offered a fine music-box in good condition, which had never been
+used since the owner's wife died twenty years ago. He lived on the
+Northtown Pike (which nobody present had ever heard of), about seventeen
+miles from the village. The music-box played six tunes and was an
+heirloom, having belonged to his mother, but the farmer on the Northtown
+Pike would part with it for twenty-five dollars for he wanted another
+Holstein cow and this would pay for part of her.
+
+"Horrid old thing!" said Winona when Marie was done reading the answers
+aloud. "If it's an heirloom he hasn't any business parting with it to
+buy a section of any kind of cow--or even a whole one."
+
+"Well, Marie, go on to the next," said Mrs. Bryan. But the next was even
+more hopeless. What this man had was, from his description, a very cheap
+phonograph which was almost as old as the farmer's music-box; but he,
+too, thought he would like to have twenty-five dollars for it.
+
+"He doubtless wants to buy a section of cow, too," suggested Mrs. Bryan.
+
+"Maybe they're buying her together," said Louise brilliantly; and Marie
+read the last letter. This was the only one at all promising. The
+writer, who was a woman with a good handwriting and correct spelling,
+said that she had a two-year-old victrola in good condition, and that
+she would gladly sell it for twenty-five dollars, because she was going
+to be given a new one.
+
+"That sounds better," said Mrs. Bryan. "I would advise a committee of
+you to go and look it over."
+
+"But how badly they all want twenty-five dollars!" groaned Marie. "Do
+you notice it? They all ask for exactly the same amount."
+
+"Probably buying the cow on shares," repeated Louise.
+
+"I vote we make Louise one of the committee to see the two-year-old
+victrola," said Winona. "She has business instinct, and the rest of us
+haven't such a lot."
+
+"What's more to the point, I also have a victrola at home, or Dad has,"
+said Louise, "and I know what it ought to be like to be good."
+
+So it was moved and seconded that Louise, Winona and Helen be appointed
+a committee of three to investigate the victrola.
+
+As early as they could in the afternoon after they had received their
+replies they started out. It was a gorgeous day, not too warm for
+comfort, and they chased each other about the road as if they were
+kittens, instead of responsible Camp Fire Girls out on a very
+business-like errand. After they had gone about a mile, which led them
+nearly to the village, it occurred to some brilliant person that it
+might be a good plan to ask somebody how to get to the address of the
+woman with the two-year-old victrola. It was The Willows, Lowlane, near
+Gray's Road, and so far as the girls knew that might have been nearly
+anywhere. So they did ask at the post-office, where they had quite made
+friends with the old postmaster.
+
+"It's three miles down the pike," said he. "Strike off on the left to
+Gray's Road--you'll see a signpost, I guess--and then turn down the
+first little lane you come to. They call it Lowlane now, the folks that
+own the house, but it was never anything but Low's Lane till they came
+there."
+
+"The first little lane we come to?" repeated Winona.
+
+The postmaster looked thoughtful. "Now, I don't want to be too sure," he
+said. "The first, or maybe the second. Elmer, do you recollect whether
+Low's Lane is the first or second turning on the Gray's Road way?"
+
+"Second," said Elmer the clerk readily.
+
+"There now!" said the postmaster. "I might a' told you wrong. I
+certainly had it fixed in my mind that it was the first."
+
+"Thank you," said the girls. "It won't be hard to find."
+
+It seemed, indeed, plain enough sailing, and the girls went on. The road
+was bordered with trees, and there were flowers they wanted to pick, and
+occasionally rabbits for Puppums to chase. He was not a swift enough
+runner to ever catch any of the rabbits he ran after, and the rabbits
+did not seem to mind, so Winona let him go on chasing.
+
+"We've gone quite three miles, I know," said Louise dismally when they
+had been walking some time. "And there's no Lowlane--not even any Gray's
+Road." Louise had trained a good deal since she had been in camp, but
+she still felt long walks more than the other two did, who were slim. "I
+'don't believe there's no sich animal' as Mrs. Martin, or a victrola.
+There aren't any victrolas or any lanes, high or low, on earth.
+Woof--I'm tired!"
+
+She fanned herself with her handkerchief, and the dog tried to jump at
+it, under the impression that she was playing a game with him.
+
+"It does seem a long way," said Helen sympathetically, "but there is a
+Gray's Road, for I'm sure I see a signpost a little ahead of us."
+
+"It's probably one of those automobile directions that says 'Three miles
+back to the village--seventeen miles forward to Jonesville. Use Smith's
+Lubricating Oil and Robinson Tires!'" and Louise shrugged her shoulders.
+
+Nevertheless, when they came up to the signpost, although it did advise
+automobiles about several kinds of supplies they ought to have, it also
+said that this was Gray's Road. They turned as they had been told, and
+went down it, in search of their second landmark, Low's Lane. This,
+unfortunately, wasn't in sight. "Let's ask," said Winona as they passed
+a little old house by the side of the road, and steered the others up
+the path that led to the porch. It was a ramshackle, unpainted
+packing-box of a place, with an old, old lady, heavily shawled, curled
+up in a rocker, for inhabitant. Helen was pushed forward to speak to
+her. "Can you tell us if we are near Low's Lane?" she asked, politely.
+
+"Hey?" said the old lady. "I'm a little deaf."
+
+Helen said it over again as loudly as she could.
+
+"Rain?" said the old lady. "No, no--it ain't goin' to rain!"
+
+"Low's Lane!" screamed Helen.
+
+"What?" said the old lady.
+
+"Ask her about the victrola," suggested Winona. "Sometimes deaf people
+can hear one word when they can't another. Perhaps she'd know by that
+where we wanted to go."
+
+"We want a place where they're selling a victrola!" shouted Helen.
+
+This time the old lady seemed to hear.
+
+"Victrola, hey? You go right on a piece till you turn to your left. It's
+the first house."
+
+"Thank you," yelled Helen.
+
+They were offered, and took, drinks of water, and went on again.
+
+"I think one of you might have asked some of the questions," said Helen
+indignantly.
+
+"I'll ask one now!" defied Louise. "Far be it from me not to do my
+duty." She turned and ran back to where the old dame still rocked on her
+porch.
+
+"Is it a good victrola?" she shouted.
+
+The old lady shook her head.
+
+"I wouldn't go so far's to say _that_," she answered. "Smart,
+though--awful smart and clever!"
+
+Louise ran back to the others without asking any more questions.
+
+"She says the talking machine isn't good, but awful smart and clever,"
+she panted. "What _do_ you suppose she means?"
+
+"I can't imagine," said Helen. "Anyway, we know how to get there."
+
+The first lane, sure enough, led to a house, but there seemed to be no
+willows anywhere about it. Still houses often have names that have
+nothing to do with the facts, so the girls pressed on. The place had a
+vaguely familiar look to Winona and Louise.
+
+"I'm sure I've come here before, by another way," said Winona.
+
+"I haven't," said Helen. "You must have come by water. I think the
+river's somewhere back of us. If you ask me, I think one way's enough to
+come."
+
+They lined up before the door and rang. But the bell, they discovered
+finally, was badly out of order. A "please knock" sign was blowing about
+the porch, they discovered still a little later. They knocked
+vigorously, and the door was finally unfastened by a draggled little
+girl of about eleven.
+
+"Why--why, how do you do, Vicky!" said Louise in surprise. "Why, of
+course, Helen, this is Sandy's house. Only this isn't the same door, is
+it, that we came in by last time, Vicky?"
+
+Vicky, who was as tousled as usual, shook her head.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked stolidly. "Has Sandy been naughty?"
+
+"No, indeed," said Louise, "she's as good as gold. Can't we come in?"
+for Vicky didn't seem to feel specially hospitable--she was holding the
+door on a crack, and was not her usual sunny self. "Sandy's around here
+somewhere--at least she's not in camp."
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, and opened it wider. The girls filed in and sat
+down in the square hall, which was as littered as usual with clothes and
+paper bags and everything else that places are usually littered with.
+
+"Look at that hole!" whispered Louise, forgetting her politeness as
+Vicky stood near them, not intending, evidently, to sit down and
+entertain them if she could help it. "There's more hole than stocking!"
+
+It was quite true, but unfortunately Vicky had sharp ears.
+
+"They're my own stockings," she said crossly, "and I like 'em with holes
+in."
+
+"Oh, all right!" said Louise dryly. "Only they aren't usually worn that
+way."
+
+"Can we speak to your uncle?" interposed Helen, for the air was becoming
+stormy.
+
+"Isn't home," announced Vicky. "He had a cross fit and went out
+walking."
+
+"Is anybody home?" asked Winona. "We came on business."
+
+"You can do it with me, whatever it is," said Vicky, sitting down with
+the torn-stockinged leg under her.
+
+Helen plunged straight into the business at hand.
+
+"The old lady down the road said that this was the house where they had
+a victrola----" she started to say--and stopped in dismay over the
+effect of her words; Vicky flew into a temper and began to cry.
+
+"I want you to go away from here--coming to make fun of me!" she sobbed,
+stamping her foot at them. Before they could answer she ran out of the
+room, leaving them staring at each other in surprise.
+
+"Well, what on earth?" Winona slowly ejaculated.
+
+"Goodness only knows," said Louise. "Anyway, I seem to feel that she
+doesn't want to sell it to us."
+
+"Well, no," assented Helen, and the three of them thoughtfully and
+slowly let themselves out at the door they had come in by.
+
+They had gone only a little way back when they heard flying feet behind
+them.
+
+"Wait a minute," panted Vicky, catching up to them. "I
+guess--perhaps--I'd better explain. I'm sorry I got mad. But--but my
+_name's_ Victrola!" She flushed painfully. Evidently it was hard for her
+to tell. "I thought you were just making fun of me, but I thought about
+it, and I guess you weren't. I know the place you want--it's a little
+further, up the next lane."
+
+She started to run back, but Winona caught her hand and held her.
+
+"Why, you poor dear!" she said. "I don't see why you mind. It's a very
+pretty name. But we weren't trying to make fun of you. We really want to
+buy a phonograph for the camp."
+
+"They laugh at me--everybody does," faltered Vicky. "They were this
+morning--the boys down by the landing. That's why I was so cross. They
+pretend to wind me up, and--and I _hate_ it!"
+
+"So would I," comforted Louise. "But you mustn't mind, Vicky. All my
+life the boys have called me 'Carrots,' and 'Reddy,' and things like
+that. There's no use caring. Look here, honey, I'll tell you what to do.
+See if you haven't got a middle name you can use, or even one you ought
+to have had. Ask your uncle if there wasn't a middle name somebody
+almost gave you once, and if there was use it."
+
+"I wonder if I could!" said Vicky, brightening. She reached down and
+pulled up one of her stockings, as if the prospect of a better name made
+her want to be tidy.
+
+"Anyhow it's a pretty name," said Louise cheerfully. "I wouldn't worry
+about it."
+
+"Yes, you would," said Vicky, as she turned back. "There down this
+lane's the place you can get--it."
+
+It was Louise's turn to detain her this time.
+
+"Vicky! Vicky!" she called. "Won't you and Sandy come down to Camp
+Karonya and stay overnight, to-morrow night? We're going to do some
+stunts--just to celebrate. The Scouts are coming over, and one or two of
+our pet particular friends."
+
+"I don't know the way," said Vicky.
+
+"Sandy does," said Louise and Winona together.
+
+"Thank you," said Vicky sedately. "We'll come. And--please don't tell
+the others my name. I'll have the real one thought out by that time."
+
+"Of course we won't," they promised.
+
+"It _was_ mean to name her that," Helen declared as they went down the
+lane.
+
+"Maybe it was before there were machine victrolas, and her mother just
+thought it was pretty," suggested Louise. "The other children have fancy
+names, too; Alexandra and Lance. Remember Vicky told us there was a boy
+named Lancelot, the day we went up?"
+
+"To return your orphan?" said Winona. "Oh, yes--we all remember. Never
+mind, Ishkoodah dear, perhaps next time you'll find a real one."
+
+"Wouldn't it be fine if Camp Karonya _could_ look after some little
+girl--one of the Children's Aid children, for instance?" said Helen
+thoughtfully.
+
+"It would take a good deal of money," spoke practical Louise, "if we
+didn't one of us have it in the family."
+
+"Not such a lot," said Winona. "Oh, it would be lovely! A nice little
+orphan with blue eyes and curly hair, and we'd name her ourselves----"
+
+"We'd call her Gramophone!" suggested Louise; and, tired as they were,
+they all began to laugh. But by this time they were nearly at the house
+the machine's namesake had directed them to, and it was the right one.
+
+The owner had a fairly good victrola and six double-faced records, and
+she finally consented to let it go for twenty dollars. The girls paid
+down the money on the spot, and constructed a carrier for it out of two
+pieces of board which the machine's owner threw in.
+
+There were no adventures whatever connected with this end of the
+happening. Helen took the front end and Louise the back, and Winona
+steadied it. Then they set it down, after they had walked awhile, and
+changed places. It seemed rather a long way home, and they were
+exceedingly glad when they reached camp--that was all. Their sympathetic
+comrades attended to their routine duties for them, and all the
+adventurers had to do was to lie on the grass and tell about their
+travels--everything, that is, but Victrola's name and her grief over it.
+
+After supper the whole camp assembled to enjoy the machine, and danced
+to everything on its disc, even the sextette from Lucia, given as a
+vocal selection. But Louise did not do any folk-dances that night. She
+was so tired that she curled up on a soft spot and fed the machine till
+it was time to go to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+
+"Did you dye that old petticoat and underwaist pink?" demanded Winona,
+sticking her head into Marie's tent.
+
+"Yes, I did," said Marie promptly, "and it's starched, and ironed with
+the charcoal-iron."
+
+"And did Adelaide borrow her brother's bathrobe for Louise?"
+
+"No, she didn't, but I did--at least, I sent Frances over for it," said
+Marie. "It's here, and safe."
+
+"And did Louise sew the hood on it?"
+
+"She did," said Marie resignedly. "Every single property for 'Gentle
+Alice Brown' and the 'Oysterman' is in a mound in the dressing-tent. Go
+look, for goodness' sake, or you'll have nervous prostration."
+
+Winona, property-woman and general manager of the performance, pulled
+back her head with a sigh of relief, and went to find the girl who had
+promised to straighten out the fishing-tackle necessary to the Ballad of
+the Oysterman--for they were to present that classic of Holmes's in a
+very few hours.
+
+The performance was to be at eight, and it was a strictly complimentary
+one. The Scouts were invited, and various special friends from Wampoag,
+most of them made over dealings in Camp merchandise. A committee had
+been appointed to see about illuminations, and another to attend to the
+refreshments. They were amassing honor beads by doing it. Marie's Blue
+Birds were busy everywhere. Camp Karonya was dazzlingly clean, and
+everyone was getting out the one dress-up frock she had brought along,
+and giving it attention. There was to be an exhibit, also, as the
+flaring posters Helen had prepared said, of "potteries, embroideries,
+jellies, hand-carvings, pickles and other objects." It had been going to
+be "other objects of art," but Winona pointed out that jellies and
+pickles _weren't_, no matter what the rest might be. So the poster
+stopped abruptly at "objects," and the space was filled up by a
+life-like portrait of a jelly-glass.
+
+Camp Karonya took a very brief meal of bread and milk and cookies, and
+the dish-washers hurried through their tasks. For eight o'clock has a
+way of coming long before you expect it. About seven-thirty the paddles
+and oars and motor-boats of the audience began to be heard, and the
+reception committee scurried down to the dock to meet their guests.
+First came their friends the Scouts from down the river, about thirty
+strong. After them, in little groups, came the summer people, including
+Billy's Aunt Lydia, who never missed a Camp Fire function if she could
+help it.
+
+The audience was seated, as usual, on planks laid from box to box and
+nailed. They did not have to sit there long. After a great deal of
+giggling and rustling behind the big green curtain that had been made of
+sacks, pieced together and dyed, Winona came out to announce the
+beginning of the entertainment.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," she commenced, "to-night we are going to have,
+beside several musical selections, some moving pictures with explanatory
+recitations--some _very_ moving pictures. After the opening song we will
+have the first one, 'Gentle Alice Brown.'"
+
+The audience applauded, and then the girls sang a Camp Fire song in
+chorus. After that Louise and Edith played a conscientious
+mandolin-banjo duet. Then Marie, who was the reader of the evening, came
+out with a copy of Gilbert's Bab Ballads and very slowly began to read
+"Gentle Alice Brown."
+
+At the first line the curtain was pulled back, revealing Winona alone
+against a sheet background. She was in an 1860 costume made from an old,
+full petticoat and tight underwaist, dyed pink, and helped out with
+small puffed sleeves and a sash. Her curls were bound with a wreath of
+artificial roses from the ten-cent store, slightly over one ear. She sat
+on a chair with her head on her hand, and she was looking mournfully
+over the chair-back. Marie began,
+
+  It was a robber's daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,
+  Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
+  Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing,
+  But it isn't of her parents that I'm going for to sing.
+
+As Marie went on, across the stage galloped ferociously Helen, who had
+been given the role of Robber Brown because she was one of the tallest
+of the girls. A red flannel shirt of Tom Merriam's, topped by a fishing
+hat and black mustachio, were most convincing. Her short kilt, which
+gave her rather the look of a Greek than an Italian bandit, was met by a
+pair of fishing-boots, and she wore three carving-knives and a cartridge
+belt. She strode ferociously across the stage, looking neither to right
+nor left.
+
+Edith Hillis, trotting meekly behind her as Mrs. Brown, wore a baggy old
+long skirt, a bandanna tied around her waist, one around her neck and
+another on her head. She only had one carving-knife. But the lovely
+Alice did not deign to look at her parents. She gazed sadly out over the
+audience, while Marie went on to tell how--
+
+  As Alice was sitting at her window-sill one day
+  A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way,
+  A sorter at the Custom-house, it was his daily road--
+  (The Custom-house was fifteen minutes walk from her abode).
+
+At this point the hero crossed the stage dashingly, with a cane under
+his arm. It was Adelaide, in a plaid cap, a waxed mustache, and a very
+precise duster which reached her heels. A pipe (she said afterwards it
+had a dreadful taste) stuck from one corner of her mouth.
+
+Gentle Alice sighed deeply, and so did her lover, who became aware of
+her presence with a tragic start. He halted, waved to her, sighed with
+his hand on his heart, and looked altogether very lovelorn. Gentle Alice
+did not notice him at first, but she gradually seemed to yield, and
+finally languished softly at him--and winked. So did he. Then he kissed
+his hands at her and went off reluctantly to work, while Alice wiped
+away her tears with a large bandanna such as her parents had worn. (They
+were the historic bandannas which had served Winona and Louise so well
+on their peddling trip.)
+
+The ballad went on to relate how presently Alice's conscience bothered
+her. So she asked the Brown's family confessor about it,
+
+  The priest by whom their little crimes were carefully assessed.
+
+Here Louise appeared, in the brown bathrobe, with its hood pulled up
+over her head, and sandals on. Alice threw herself at his feet, and
+waved her hands in grief.
+
+  "Oh, father," Gentle Alice said, "'Twould grieve you, would it not,
+  To find that I have been a most disreputable lot?"
+
+Louise assumed a benign expression and listened while Alice confessed
+her sins. Marie stopped, while Winona herself spoke:
+
+  I assisted dear mamma in cutting up a little lad,
+  I helped papa to steal a little kiddy from its dad--
+  I planned a little burglary and forged a little check
+  And slew a little baby for the coral on its neck!
+
+But Father Brown seemed inclined to be forgiving, and with a few
+remarks, ended,
+
+  We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks--
+  Let's see--five crimes at half a crown--exactly twelve and six.
+
+Alice thanked him in a few grateful couplets, and pulled out another
+bandanna with money tied up in it from which she paid him. The ballad
+went on to relate how Alice tremblingly confessed her last sin, about
+the beautiful gentleman, who passed every day:
+
+  I blush to say, I've winked at him--and he has winked at me!
+
+This shocked Father Paul for, as he explained,
+
+  If you should marry anyone respectable at all,
+  Why, you'd reform, and then what would become of Father Paul?
+
+So he pulled up his cowl, the ballad went on to state--and Louise went
+on to act--and trotted off to tell the news to Robber Brown.
+
+They came on together, while the Father repeated the news, and stood
+consulting in the corner, while Alice, from her actions, seemed to be
+thinking still of the sorter.
+
+Robber Brown took it quite calmly. He decided to be quite kind to Alice
+about it--merely to
+
+  Nab that gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
+  And get his wife to chop him into little bits.
+
+He argued that Alice, after that, would not love him any more. So, while
+Father Paul exited, Robber Brown lay stealthily in wait, assisted by his
+wife. Presently along came the gay young sorter again, waving his hand
+jauntily to Alice. Robber Brown sprang out, crossed directly in front of
+the sorter, who appeared not to see him at all, and proceeded to track
+him up and down the stage two or three times, with Mrs. Brown trailing
+in the rear. After the three had gone up and down twice (Alice, also,
+oblivious to her parents' presence, and throwing kisses to the sorter)
+Robber Brown finally "took a life-preserver" in the shape of a
+stout-looking stick, and pretended to fell the gay young sorter.
+Immediately Mrs. Brown bounded up with a piece of chalk, and proceeded
+to mark him off in pieces for dissection, for, as Robber Brown remarked:
+
+  I have studied human nature and I know a thing or two--
+  Though a girl may fondly love a living chap, as many do,
+  Yet a feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
+  When she looks upon her lover chopped particularly small!
+
+Indeed, this terrifying sight as far as it went, seemed to have the
+desired effect on Alice. To be sure, she fell in a dead faint, and
+Father Paul had to catch her, while Mr. and Mrs. Brown, and two more
+bandits (in bandannas) carried off the late sorter; but immediately
+afterward a young bandit, very much like Robber Brown except that he was
+smaller, came in and was patted with obvious admiration by Mr. and Mrs.
+Brown, who led him up to Alice. She recovered slowly, sat up, and
+presently accepted his attentions with pleasure. Father Paul gave them
+his blessing, while Marie said:
+
+  And gentle little Alice grew more settled in her mind,
+  She never more was guilty of a weakness of that kind,
+  Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her little hand
+  On a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!
+
+After that the curtain was drawn again, while the girls dressed for
+Holmes's "It Was a Gay Young Oysterman." This, while it was good, was
+not the hit with the audience that "Gentle Alice Brown" had been. When
+it was finished, and the oysterman and his bride were seen "keeping a
+shop for mermaids down below," the girls took down the curtain, and
+while more music was played the performers hurried into their pretty
+dresses. Then they came out, and strolled about the camp with the
+audience.
+
+"Where are Vicky and Sandy?" Winona remembered to ask Helen, as they met
+after the curtain was down. "Did they come?"
+
+"I think so," said Helen, rubbing hard at her cork mustache. "Adelaide,
+did you see Sandy anywhere?"
+
+Adelaide, who was just braiding her hair, turned.
+
+"Yes, I did," she said. "She's here somewhere, with another little girl.
+I saw them not long ago."
+
+Winona went in search of them, for when you ask a guest to an
+entertainment it's only polite to hunt her up. It was not hard to find
+the sisters. They were sitting with Louise, eating home-made ice-cream.
+
+Winona sat down by them.
+
+"I'm awfully glad you came, Vicky."
+
+"So'm I, too," said Vicky. She seemed rather shy here in the camp, but
+she looked happy. "I'm having a nice time."
+
+"I'm glad," said Winona. "Did you like the moving pictures?"
+
+"Yes," said Vicky, "they were awfully funny. And--oh, Winona, I've
+picked out a name."
+
+"What is it?" asked Winona.
+
+"Janet. Of course people can call me Vicky still, if they want to, but
+my real name will be Janet. I asked uncle, the way you said, and he said
+I did have a middle name, Janet, after my grandmother."
+
+"Oh, that's splendid!" said Winona. "I'm named after my grandmother,
+too."
+
+"That makes us a sort of relation, doesn't it?" asked Vicky.
+
+"Why, I hope it does," was the hearty reply.
+
+"And there's something I wanted to ask you about," said Vicky--now
+Janet--shyly. "Alone, I mean."
+
+"Come over here with me, and we'll walk up and down and talk about it,"
+invited Winona.
+
+Vicky took her hand, and they strolled off down one of the wood-paths.
+
+"I'd rather not ask Louise," explained Vicky, "because--well, she laughs
+so about everything. She might laugh at me. And that other girl is sort
+of grown-up talking. But--well, it's--I'd like to be like the rest of
+the people--other little girls, you know--and it's dreadfully hard when
+you haven't any father or mother, and your uncle's an artist with a
+temp'rament. Sometimes he gets us governesses, and they say we're queer,
+and sometimes we just do as we please. But--well, there isn't anybody to
+show us things."
+
+She looked at Winona wistfully, as if she thought she could show her how
+to be just like other children all at once.
+
+"Why do people always come to me to show them how?" wondered Winona to
+herself. "I don't know any more about how to do things than the other
+girls."
+
+She did not realize that it was her sunniness and sympathy--her
+Ray-of-Lightness, as Louise called it--together with a certain
+straightforward common sense, that made girls who wanted help come to
+her. They could be sure that she would not laugh at them, or tell anyone
+else what they had said, and they were sure of advice that had
+brightness and sense.
+
+"What sort of things do you want me to tell you?" asked Winona. "I'd
+love to help you, but some of the others know lots more about things
+than I do."
+
+"It's you I want to ask," said Vicky decidedly. "It's my clothes, to
+begin with. Are they right?"
+
+Winona stopped and looked Vicky over. They were out in the open by now,
+and it was bright moonlight, so she could see plainly what the little
+girl had on. It was a blue taffeta, very stiff and rustling, trimmed
+with plaid taffeta and black buttons. By its looks it had been bought
+ready-made, for it had a sort of gaudy smartness. It was of good
+material, but somehow, it was cheap-looking. Also by its looks,
+bread-and-butter had been eaten on or near it.
+
+"You mean your dress?"
+
+"Yes," said Vicky. "It isn't right, is it? But I don't know what to do
+about it. I bought it myself."
+
+"You mean your uncle gives you the money, and you go and buy your own
+things?" asked Winona.
+
+"Oh, yes," said Vicky. "But the ones the governesses used to get weren't
+much better. There was one governess who always picked out bright green.
+I hate green, anyway. And sometimes the cook used to. She would yet if
+I'd let her. But I won't. I don't think it's any of her business."
+
+"Well----" Winona hesitated.
+
+"Well, what had I better do?" demanded Vicky.
+
+"I don't know!" said Winona frankly. "But I do know that that silk dress
+is wrong. Why don't you get summer dresses, chambrays and ginghams and
+organdies?"
+
+"I don't know," said Vicky. "I never thought about it. Silk is better,
+isn't it?"
+
+"I don't think so," said Winona. "It doesn't wash. You see this dress
+isn't very clean."
+
+"No," acknowledged Vicky. "Does being clean count such a lot?"
+
+"Goodness!" Words failed Winona. "I tell you," she said finally. "Why
+don't you come over here and join the Blue Birds, Vicky? Marie could
+tell you a lot of things and it would be the quickest way to learn a lot
+about being like other people, if that is what you want."
+
+"I'd like to," said Vicky, "but I sort of keep house."
+
+"I have an idea, then," said Winona. Now, when Winona had ideas her
+friends usually waited to hear what she had to say. "Why couldn't some
+of the girls come up and stay with you, after Camp is over? It will be
+quite awhile even then before school opens. We could help you--show you
+how to do things."
+
+"Oh, I'd like that," said Vicky. Then she stopped, doubtfully. "That is,
+if I could pick out the ones."
+
+"Of course, you'd invite your own guests," Winona assured her. "And we'd
+pay what we cost your uncle extra.... But what about him? It's his
+house, and he mightn't like it."
+
+"Oh, he'd never care," said Vicky. "He never knows much about what goes
+on, anyway! And I know he'd like to have me learn how to be a well-bred
+little gentlewoman, because he talks about it sometimes. And anyway he's
+going off somewhere where he can't take us some time soon."
+
+"Then I don't see why we can't manage it!" said Winona enthusiastically.
+"But I can tell you now about the clothes. You want to buy dresses that
+will wash. And you don't ever want to play in silk dresses, or even
+organdies or batistes--tree-climbing, and things like that, I mean."
+
+"I might get some middies, like you wear," said Vicky thoughtfully. "And
+I suppose, long's I'm going to reform, I might as well get Sand to keep
+her dresses on. She goes chasing out in her underwaist and petticoat
+sometimes."
+
+"Oh, that was why she hadn't any on when Louise found her!" said Winona,
+seeing a light.
+
+"Yes," confessed Vicky. "What's that noise?"
+
+"That's the horn," said Winona. "It must mean that it's bedtime. She's
+playing 'taps.' Mrs. Bryan signals us with it, always."
+
+"I think I'd like to be a Blue Bird," said Vicky. "But I like the other
+plan better," she added quickly.
+
+"We're going to be here quite a while longer," said Winona, "so you'll
+have lots of time to think whether you want us and whether your uncle
+will be willing."
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said Vicky as the two went back to camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+
+It was quite true that the Camp was not to break up for some time, owing
+to the Wampoag people's appetite for Camp jellies and linens; but so far
+as Winona was concerned, life under the greenwood tree received a sudden
+check.
+
+It was a harmless-looking letter enough that the detachment of Blue
+Birds brought up from the post-office. Winona pounced on it with a cry
+of joy. "Oh, a letter from mother!" she said. "And we only had one
+yesterday, Florence!" So she tore it open.
+
+"Dear Little Daughter," it said, in a rather shakier handwriting than
+was usual with Mrs. Merriam. "I am sorry to have to tell you, as you are
+having such a splendid time, that we need you here at home. Yesterday,
+just after I had mailed my last letter to you, I slipped on the wet
+cellar stairs, and went down from top to bottom, and the result is a
+badly wrenched ankle. The doctor says that it is a severe sprain. Clay
+is a good little soul, but he can't do very much more than the helping
+out, and your father has to have his meals and everything. So I shall
+have to ask my little girl to come home and keep house for me. I will
+expect you the day after you get this. Your loving mother."
+
+"_Oh!_" cried Winona. "Oh, poor mother!"
+
+"What's the matter!" asked Florence.
+
+"Mother's sprained her ankle on the cellar stairs," said Winona, "and I
+have to go home. You needn't, Floss."
+
+"I shall, though," said Florence--and the younger Miss Merriam was a
+very determined little person. Her eyes filled with tears. "Frances and
+Lucy and I had a secret hike all planned," she said. "Oh, dear, it is so
+nice in camp! But I won't let you go home and nurse mother all alone,
+and you needn't think it!"
+
+Winona didn't argue. She gave the letter to her little sister to read,
+and went off in the woods to be by herself. She climbed up to the
+platform that two of the girls had built, and sat there. There was no
+use denying it, she did not want to go home. She was going, of course,
+and going to nurse her mother just as well as she possibly could, and
+look after her father with all the powers she had learned in the Camp
+Fire activities. And she was sorry her mother's ankle hurt her--very,
+very sorry. But--oh, dear! There was a beautiful new dance that Edith,
+who went into Wampoag and got lessons, which she passed promptly on, had
+been going to teach her. There was a new kind of cooking she had been
+going to teach a group of Blue Birds. There was a new dive--well, there
+were any amount of things, that if anyone had asked her about, she would
+have said she simply _couldn't_ break off. But she had to. And cooking
+at home in August was very different from doing it in the woods with a
+lot of other girls--and everyone she knew well was going to stay here--
+
+Winona sat up and mopped her eyes.
+
+"This isn't the way to follow the law of the Fire!" she reminded
+herself. "I can glorify work just as well home as here--better, in fact,
+for it's pretty certain there'll be more work to do!" She laughed a
+little.
+
+"Coming up, Winona!" called Helen from below.
+
+"Come on!" called back Winona.
+
+"What's the matter?" inquired Helen when she gained the platform.
+"You've been crying."
+
+"I've got to go home." Winona gave the news briefly. "Mother's sprained
+her ankle."
+
+"Oh, what a perfect shame!" said Helen.
+
+"I know I'm taking it like a baby," said Winona with a gulp, "instead of
+being noble and acting as if I liked going home. And of course I'm
+going. Only--only I do wish mother had picked out any time but this to
+sprain a perfectly good ankle!"
+
+"Can't she get somebody else to come take care of things?" asked Helen.
+"I don't know how on earth we'll get along without you, Win. You never
+say much, but somehow you're the centre of things. We'll miss you
+awfully!"
+
+Winona blushed at the compliment, and reached down to pat Helen's hand.
+
+"You're a dear, Helen, to think so. But you'll all get along all right.
+It's I that will have most of the missing to do. No, there's nobody
+mother could get. Aunt Jenny's off in the White Mountains, getting well
+from something herself. And all we have at home is Clay--the little
+colored boy mother got at the Children's Aid. From what Tom said he's a
+regular Topsy. No, I have to go home. Oh, think of it, Helen! Hot
+housekeeping all August and half September, with every single girl I
+know well up here, canoeing and swimming and folk-dancing and all sorts
+of splendid things! You'll all have beads down to your feet."
+
+This time it was Helen who patted Winona.
+
+Presently Winona mopped her eyes again and threw back her shoulders.
+
+"Come along, Helen; I've had my little weep out. Now I'm going to tell
+Mrs. Bryan about it, and trot off home looking pleased to death at the
+prospect."
+
+They swung themselves down from the tree-house, and started back to camp
+at a slow run. There was a good deal to do. There was everything of
+Winona's to pack, and Florence's, too, if she was really going, and she
+insisted that she was.
+
+"I won't be a bit of trouble," she said, "and I'll be a real help.
+You'll see!"
+
+So they packed everything, and said good-bye to everybody, and were
+paddled up the lake to Wampoag, where they were to take the train for
+home. They had to stop over at the Scouts' camp and break the news to
+Tom. But Winona invited him fervently to stay where he was. She knew
+that with the best will in the world to be useful a boy makes more work
+than he does, and has to be cooked for to quite an extent. Tom said he
+would be down the next day to see his mother, but he would go back
+again.
+
+"Good-bye, dears," said Mrs. Bryan, who was seeing them off, when she
+parted from Florence and Winona at the dock, "I know you'll be happy.
+Remember we'll miss you all the time, Ray-of-Light. And I don't know
+what I'll do without Florence to run errands for me. Come back as soon
+as your mother can spare you."
+
+"We will," said Winona. "Only it feels like the poetry--don't you
+remember?
+
+  "Remember what I tell you, says the old man to his son--
+  Be good and you'll be happy--but you won't have any fun!"
+
+"Just the same," said the Guardian, "being what you are, Winona, I'd
+venture to promise you that in the long run you will get more happiness
+out of being happy than out of having fun."
+
+Winona laughed as she kissed her good-bye.
+
+"I'm going to plan ways for glorifying work and being happy all the way
+down on the train," she said, "but I haven't any--well--thoroughly
+planned--yet!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was nearly nightfall when Winona reached home, for she had not
+started till a late afternoon train. She found her mother established in
+the living-room, where a door opening on the hall gave her a good view
+of the kitchen, and Clay in it. She looked well, but tired, and her foot
+was bandaged and on a pillow.
+
+"You're sure you didn't mind coming home, dear?" was the first thing her
+mother said. "It was a shame you had to!"
+
+Winona had to reassure her mother so fervently about her being willing
+to come back, and even liking to, that she began to find she really did!
+It was pleasant there, after all. The garden was full of blooming
+flowers, and it was a cool, pleasant day.
+
+"What shall I do first, mother?" she asked, as she and Florence sat each
+with one of their mother's hands, and tried to tell her all about
+everything at once.
+
+"The first thing for you to do," said Mrs. Merriam, "is to get baths and
+put on cool dresses, both of you, and come down to dinner. Your father
+and Clay are getting it. You aren't to do a thing till to-morrow, dear.
+You must be tired with your trip."
+
+"I don't think anything could tire me!" said Winona blithely. And she
+and Florence, as each of them in turn took baths in the one thing a camp
+doesn't possess--a bathtub--felt that it was good to be home and have
+mother pet you, after all!
+
+"It certainly is good to have you back, children," said their father, as
+he sat with a daughter on each side of him after dinner. They had their
+mother out on the back porch with them. It was nearly as large as the
+front one, and she could be moved, couch and all, through a front window
+with very little trouble. "Now I can have an afternoon off from
+housekeeping. But I've done well, haven't I, Mary?"
+
+"You certainly have," said Mrs. Merriam, "and it's been hard for you,
+too. But now that I have my Camp Fire Girls back nobody's going to need
+to do one thing."
+
+"Not a thing!" said Florence. "We've learned ever so many things,
+mother. We're going to house-keep better'n you ever did!"
+
+The family shouted. It was so like Florence.
+
+"I don't think quite that," said Winona modestly. "But we're going to
+have a lovely time running things, anyway!"
+
+So next morning the "lovely time" began.
+
+It seemed queer to waken on a mattress instead of on a pine bed; still
+stranger to hear the alarm-clock go off. Winona did not like
+alarm-clocks, and she threw a pillow at it before she stopped to think.
+But she got up as it told her, for all that, and was downstairs in
+twenty minutes. She had put on a blue ripplette work-dress, fresh and
+pretty. It was pleasant to have on a pretty frock instead of the camp
+uniform.
+
+"There are lots of nice things!" she said to herself sturdily. "I'm
+going to enjoy myself every minute, if I have to tie a string to my
+finger to remind me!"
+
+She found Clay, whose acquaintance she had made the night before,
+already down. The cereal was in the double boiler and the coffee in the
+percolator, already.
+
+"Hit ain' much to do fo' breakfast," said he encouragingly. "Ah do it
+maself, mos'ly." And indeed he proved so expert that all Winona found
+left her to do was gathering the flowers for the table, and cutting the
+oranges. Breakfast had more frills than usual, though--Winona had come
+home prepared for work, and she found some to do. The oranges were
+loosened back from their skins like grape-fruit, there were finger-bowls
+with flower-petals floating on top, the cereal dishes had little plates
+underneath, and even the hot corn-bread, which Winona, by the way,
+discovered Clay did not know how to make, was stacked in a highly
+artistic log-cabin pattern. Winona, with a little white apron over her
+fresh blue dress, sat and poured the coffee importantly. Her father
+smiled with pleasure, as she sat opposite him, flushed and pretty and
+dainty.
+
+"Well!" he said. "This is certainly a fine beginning, Winnie! Did you
+learn all this in the woods?"
+
+Winona colored with pleasure.
+
+"No, I think I knew most of it before I went," she said. "That is, all
+but the corn-bread--that was an experiment."
+
+"And see!" said Florence. "Flowers in the finger-bowls!"
+
+"But you mustn't work too hard, little daughter," said her father, as he
+went into the living-room to bid his wife good-bye before he went to
+business.
+
+Winona followed him closely with her mother's tray. Mrs. Merriam was
+dressed, and Mr. Merriam had helped her downstairs and to her couch. It
+had been rather fun to arrange the tray with doilies and the daintiest
+china. She carried it in as her father came out.
+
+"Good-morning, mother!" she said gayly. "Things are going beautifully,
+and housekeeping's fun!"
+
+"That's my brave little girl!" said her mother. "But I must warn you,
+Ray-of-Light, that you'll get over-tired if you try to put on too many
+trimmings. The trouble with housekeeping is, you never get a vacation.
+It keeps on all day long. Simplify all you can."
+
+Winona laughed. "I refuse to start on your tray!" said she.
+
+She made her mother as comfortable as she could, then went back to the
+kitchen.
+
+"Now, Clay," she said, "Mrs. Merriam's sent for me to come home to run
+things. You and I are going to get as much fun out of the work as we
+can, and do it just as well and as fast as we know how. Aren't we?"
+
+"Yas'm," said Clay doubtfully. "But dey ain' no fun to be got outen
+washin' dishes," he added with conviction.
+
+Winona looked thoughtful.
+
+"No, I suppose there isn't," she admitted. "But there ought to be. Up at
+the Camp we got credit for what we did, if it was done right. I
+wonder----"
+
+"You mean dem credits what folks buys groceries with?" interrupted Clay.
+
+"No," said Winona. "But--I'll tell you, Clay, I have a plan! I'll put a
+chart up here on the kitchen wall. Every time you get the dishes washed
+and put away in half an hour, without breaking them, three times a day
+for a week, you get credit--for fifteen cents. What do you think of
+that?"
+
+"Ah like it!" said Clay. "But Ah rather have de two cents a day."
+
+"All right," promised Winona rashly. "Now go ahead with the dishes while
+I put fresh paper on the shelves."
+
+"Don't take it too hard, dear," Mrs. Merriam warned her once more, when
+Winona ran in, breathless from vigorous bedmaking, to report progress.
+"What are you going to do now?"
+
+"Now? Nothing till lunch time. I'm so glad we have dinner at night.
+It'll be lots easier to get the hardest meal when it's cooler, and
+there's been a rest between."
+
+"You dear child!" said her mother, reaching out her hand to Winona where
+she sat by the sofa. "You're bound to look on the bright side."
+
+"I'm bound to glorify work and be happy," said Winona gayly. "Now,
+mother, I'd like some money. I'd rather not start with a regular
+housekeeping allowance till Monday. But right now I want a dish-mop, and
+a soap-maker, and some new white oil-cloth for the kitchen dresser. Can
+I have all that?"
+
+"Certainly," said her mother. "Keep the kitchen as spic and span as you
+can. The fresher the surroundings, the easier it is to work."
+
+So after luncheon, which wasn't much trouble because there was no man to
+cook for, Winona and Florence went shopping, leaving Clay singing "Ma
+Honey Man" cheerfully over his dishes. The money their mother had given
+them bought not only the things Winona went after, but pink and blue
+chambray for aprons for herself and Florence, and red for Clay.
+
+"The pretty aprons will make it more fun to be in the kitchen--don't you
+think so, Florence?" asked Winona.
+
+Florence, naturally, thought so, too, and they bought them and made them
+up before the day was over. Florence asked of her own accord for
+definite things to do. And an idea came to Winona--that they start a
+system of home honor-beads.
+
+"Of course they won't really count," she explained to her little sister,
+"but they'll always be there to remind us of our work."
+
+"That will be lovely!" said Florence, "but what will they be like?"
+
+"Wait and see," said Winona.
+
+That day was all used up making the new long aprons and the mob-caps to
+match, dainty and Kate-Greenaway looking. But the next morning after the
+beds were done they went to sit with their mother. She said they could
+make the beads there with her. Winona ran out into the garden and
+brought back a handful of flowers that she put in water, and set beside
+her mother's couch.
+
+"How do you feel, mother?" she asked.
+
+"It doesn't hurt badly at all," said her mother cheerfully.
+
+Winona carried out the tray, and moved about, straightening her mother's
+room a little more before she sat down to her work.
+
+"You're sure we're not in your way, mother?" she asked.
+
+"Indeed you aren't!" said her mother. "You don't know how lonely I've
+been with all my children gone. And do let in all the air and sunshine
+you can, dear. It may be hot later, so that we'll have to shut out the
+light a part of the day."
+
+"All right," said Winona, doing it. Then she called to Florence.
+
+"Florence, will you get the oil-paints that we use for stencilling?" she
+asked. "I can borrow them, mother, can't I?"
+
+Mrs. Merriam was perfectly willing, and while Florence was getting the
+tubes of paints, and the brushes, Winona brought out a jar of ordinary
+kidney-beans from the kitchen. She spread newspapers on the floor and on
+the table, and when Florence came back with the paint she set to work.
+
+"Just beans!" said Florence scornfully. "You can't make beads out of
+_them!_"
+
+"Can't I?" said Winona, "Well, if you don't like them when they're done,
+I'll buy you a string of any kind of colored ones that you want."
+
+"Thank you," said Florence, settling down to watch her sister.
+
+The first thing Winona did was to pierce each of the beans lengthwise
+with a steel knitting-needle, which she heated in the alcohol lamp's
+flame. This was the longest part of the work. Next she strung them all
+on a long piece of cord. Then while Florence held one end of the cord
+and she the other, Winona dashed each bead in turn with touches of
+color, one after another--rose, blue, green and violet. She finished
+them with little flecks of gold paint, and fastened one end to the
+chandelier, where the beads could swing free and dry soon. The girls got
+luncheon while the beads were drying.
+
+After luncheon was eaten and cleared away the girls went to work on
+their beads again. Florence held the string while Winona went over them
+with shellac.
+
+"I think we'd better put them outdoors this time," she decided. "The
+smell of the shellac may worry mother."
+
+So they swung the beads from the hammock rope.
+
+"Do you think you will want to wear them?" she asked Florence, as she
+came back and began to clear away the paint-spotted newspapers.
+
+"I should just think I would!" said Florence enthusiastically. "Why,
+they look just like the ones in the Wampoag stores, only lots prettier."
+
+"Who told you how to make them, Winnie?" asked her mother. "They are
+certainly lovely."
+
+"Nobody," said Winona. "I saw some like them, and thought I could do
+it--that's all."
+
+"I think you ought to get a real honor-bead for that," said Florence.
+"I'm going to put down everything you do that I think might get honors
+for you."
+
+"I'll keep track, too," said Mrs. Merriam. "That's a good idea,
+Florence. Then perhaps Winona's having to leave the Camp won't be such a
+setback. Give me a pencil, dear, and that little black notebook by it."
+
+They wrote down the making of the beads.
+
+"We must keep watch, you and I, Florence," Mrs. Merriam said.
+
+Winona looked radiant.
+
+"I'm going to write to Camp now, mother," she said, "and I'll ask Mrs.
+Bryan about counting things like this. It would be lovely if I got on as
+fast here as there--but I don't believe it's possible."
+
+"Wait and see," said Mrs. Merriam.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+
+Of course, things didn't always go smoothly, even with Winona's young
+energy and good-will hard at work. "Accidents will happen in the best
+regulated families" was a proverb whose meaning Winona learned
+thoroughly before she was through. There was, for instance, a tragic
+Saturday when she made ice-cream with most of the ice in the ice-box,
+and forgot to telephone for more. A sizzlingly hot Sunday dawned, with
+no ice to be had. So the Sunday chicken and lettuce were badly spoiled,
+not to mention various tempers. Winona, tired, hot, and with a
+consciousness of guilt, spent most of Sunday afternoon in the kitchen
+trying crossly to invent a Sunday night supper which did not need milk,
+eggs or salad. The day ended with a found-at-the-last-minute meal of
+potted tongue and canned peaches, and a general forgiveness all round,
+but it was a long time after that before Winona forgot it; indeed, she
+was known to get out of bed to take final peeps at the ice-chest and
+make sure it was filled.
+
+Nevertheless, and in spite of all the mishaps that are bound to worry
+housekeepers, a light heart, a strong body and the fixed intention to
+make the best of things carried Winona triumphantly past her worries.
+Presently she found that things were settling into a regular routine,
+and that housekeeping was more interesting than hard. Best of all, she
+found she had a great deal of time to herself.
+
+Then Tom came home. The Scouts had had to break up earlier than they
+expected, for two or three reasons. One was that Mr. Gedney had to get
+back to his business, another was that several of the boys worked, and
+had to get back, too. So Tom descended on his family, and Billy appeared
+next door. And things began to happen.
+
+Tom tried faithfully not to be any trouble, and succeeded pretty well.
+And Mrs. Merriam's ankle got better, slowly, as bad sprains do.
+Presently she was well enough to be taken in a wheel chair to see her
+friends. She usually went to spend the day.
+
+One day everything seemed particularly calm and serene. Tom had wheeled
+the mother to the other end of town, early in the morning, and she was
+going to be taken for a long automobile ride by one of her friends. Tom
+had taken a pocketful of sandwiches, and gone off for a fishing-trip. So
+Winona built a mound of more sandwiches for herself and Florence, and
+prepared to take a day off.
+
+She was curled up on the front porch in a hammock, reading, when the
+first thing occurred.
+
+"Does Miss Winona Merriam live here?" inquired a familiar voice; and
+Winona, looking up, saw Louise, dusty and beaming.
+
+"Oh, Louise, you angel! How lovely it is to see you!" she said, jumping
+up and hugging her friend.
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" said Louise, hugging back. "I came down on the train,
+and I'm here to spend the day, if you want me."
+
+"Want you! I should think I did!" said Winona. "Come in and get cool."
+
+"I'm not hot," said Louise, "but I _would_ like a drink of water."
+
+They were in the kitchen, fussing about pleasurably together, when they
+heard steps clattering up the porch.
+
+"It's the ice-man," said Winona. "I must pay him."
+
+She ran upstairs, and Louise went on helping herself to sandwiches. She
+had eaten three, and was considering whether she really wanted anything
+more till lunch-time, when a large, fishy hand dropped over her shoulder
+and took a handful of ham-and-lettuce ones.
+
+"Tom Merriam! There won't be enough for lunch if we both eat them! I
+thought you'd gone off fishing for the day."
+
+"So did I," said Tom leisurely, "but I found I hadn't. Where did you
+blow in from?"
+
+"Camp," she said. "Winona's upstairs hunting for change. She thought you
+walked like the ice-man."
+
+"Poor Win! She has that ice-man on her mind," said Tom. "Nay, nay,
+little one. For far other reason am I here."
+
+He struck an attitude, with the sandwich he hadn't finished waving over
+his head.
+
+"Got hungry?" asked Louise prosaically.
+
+"Not at all," said Tom. "It was this way. As I was purchasing bait, I
+met my father."
+
+"Well--did he send you home?"
+
+"Not exactly. Only--there's a convention in town. A ministers'
+convention. And father's met two long-lost college chums, which--or
+who--are coming here to dinner to-night. One has a wife. Better tell
+Winona, and have Clay put on some extra plates. And--I forgot--here's a
+fish I caught before I used up my bait and met father. Have him boiled
+or something for dinner with some of that stuff like mayonnaise dressing
+with green things in."
+
+"Your father?" asked Louise frivolously.
+
+"No, the fish!"
+
+Tom rushed upstairs to change his clothes, while Louise thoughtfully ate
+another sandwich and called Winona.
+
+Winona came running down the back stairs.
+
+"Did you keep him?" she said. "I couldn't find where I'd put the
+change."
+
+"It wasn't the ice-man," said Louise, "it was Tom."
+
+"Tom?" asked Winona. "But he was gone for the day."
+
+"Anyway, he's back. And--Winona Merriam, we'll have to make more
+sandwiches for supper, or dinner or whatever it is. Two ministers and
+one wife are coming here to dinner to-night."
+
+Winona sprang to her feet and snapped her book shut.
+
+"_Sandwiches!_" she said scornfully. "Don't you know you have to _feed_
+convention people? Mother would die, and the Ladies' Aid faint in a
+body, if we gave them sandwiches for dinner. No. They have to have a
+course dinner!"
+
+"Where are you going to get it?" asked Louise meekly.
+
+"Here!" said Winona. "I found one in a magazine the other day. Let's see
+what we can do with it."
+
+Louise looked at Winona with respect. "Do you often rise to occasions
+this way?" she asked.
+
+"This is the almost human intelligence that I have sometimes," said
+Winona.
+
+"Sure it's intelligence?" asked Louise doubtfully.
+
+Winona led the way upstairs toward her scrapbook without deigning to
+reply. Both girls bent eagerly over the course dinner she had pasted in
+on the last page.
+
+"Shellfish, soup, fish, salad, roast, entrees, vegetables, dessert,
+black coffee, cheese, nuts and raisins," she read. "These, in the order
+named, constitute a simple dinner."
+
+"I'd like to know who brought up the woman who wrote that," commented
+Louise. "The Emperor of Russia, I should think."
+
+"Anyway, I am going to try to have it," said Winona. "We can have
+oysters to begin with, because Tom always has some around for bait."
+
+"That kind mayn't be good to eat," objected Louise.
+
+"Never mind. Perhaps these people won't know the difference, just think
+they're a brand-new kind."
+
+"You don't open them till the very last thing, and then you serve them
+with ice on their heads to keep them cool, and lemon slices. I know that
+much," said Louise, following Winona downstairs again.
+
+"Then we won't open them till the very last thing, and forget all about
+them till Tom comes downstairs again," said Winona with decision.
+"Soup--let's see. Oh, I know! Mother had me make some bouillon this
+morning, for old Mrs. Johnson down in Hallam's Alley. We'll serve that
+in the bouillon cups, and make Mrs. Johnson some more to-morrow, or take
+her chewing-tobacco instead. She'd much rather have it, she says."
+
+"All right. And Tom brought some fish in," supplied Louise.
+
+They went out to inspect the fish, and found that there would be plenty,
+if it was carefully distributed.
+
+"Doesn't everything dovetail beautifully?" said Winona thankfully.
+"What's next?"
+
+"Salad," said Louise, consulting the scrapbook. "Haven't you any lettuce
+in the garden?"
+
+"Of course we have!" said Winona. "All there is to do is to pick it."
+
+"Well--the roast?"
+
+But here there was a deadlock.
+
+"There isn't a thing in the house to roast," said Winona, "and this time
+of year you have to telephone early to get things." She moved to the
+telephone, and pulled herself back in dismay. "This is Wednesday!" she
+said. "And all the shops are closed Wednesday afternoon!"
+
+"It isn't afternoon, yet," said Louise.
+
+"Look at the clock," said Winona.
+
+And it was afternoon--one o'clock.
+
+"Perhaps that's a stray butcher," said Louise, as they heard a long,
+loud knock at the kitchen door.
+
+But it was only Billy Lee, who explained that he had tried every door
+but this in vain. He had a note to Winona from his sister. He perched
+himself on the stationary tubs while she read it, on the chance that she
+might want to write an answer.
+
+"Come over and stay with me this afternoon," it said. "I have a
+headache."
+
+"Oh, I can't, Billy!" explained Winona, looking up from the note. "We
+have dinner to get for two ministers and their wife, and--Billy, you
+have a great deal of steady common sense. I heard father say so. What
+would you do if there wasn't any meat, or any time to get any, or any
+place to get it?"
+
+Billy tucked his foot under him, and looked serious, mechanically taking
+a sandwich as he thought. The girls were eating them, too, for it had
+been silently agreed that that would be all the lunch they would bother
+with.
+
+"Why not try Puppums?" he suggested. "If they're missionaries they're
+used to roast dog. Every missionary has to learn to like it in the last
+year of his course."
+
+"Yes, or we might roast Clay," said Louise scornfully. "Why don't you
+suggest that? He isn't any use, goodness knows, and they may have been
+missionaries to the cannibals!" She glanced at the small darky, who was
+sitting on the cellar door in happy idleness, singing fragments of
+popular songs to himself.
+
+"You ought to make him useful," said Billy. "Here, Clay, get up and help
+your young ladies."
+
+"Ah _is_ helpin' 'em," said Clay with dignity; nevertheless he rose and
+came in for further orders.
+
+"Down home," continued Billy, "we always kill a chicken when we expect a
+minister."
+
+"But we haven't so much as a papier-mache Easter chick," objected
+Louise.
+
+"The people next door but one have," said Winona excitedly, starting up.
+"It's against the law to keep chickens within the city limits, but they
+do it. But they're away for the day."
+
+"They're always getting into your garden and tempting poor old Puppums
+to chase them," said Billy sympathetically.
+
+Winona, acting on his suggestion, went to the door and looked out.
+
+"Yes," she said. "There's one there now. There nearly always is."
+
+Louise lifted one eyebrow. "Well?" said she.
+
+"Very well," said Winona. "Come on, ladies and gentlemen. We are going
+to catch a next-door-but-one chicken, and pay the Janeways for him
+to-morrow."
+
+"When Puppums caught one last week," said Florence, appearing suddenly,
+evidently in full possession of the conversation, "you tied it round his
+neck!"
+
+She went down under the tubs to extract the wronged animal and
+sympathize with him on the injustice of life. But only Puppums heard
+her, for Billy and Winona, hindered by Clay, were careering wildly about
+after a vociferous, very agile fowl. It was finally captured with a
+crab-net, and led away to execution by Clay. It appeared that he, also,
+had had experience in chicken-killing for clergymen. He had often done
+it, he said, very artistically.
+
+As he and the rooster passed on their way to the scaffold, Winona ran
+into the kitchen, and out again with a scream.
+
+"It's Henry!" she said wildly. "It's Henry! We've caught the Janeways's
+pet rooster! Clay! Clay!"
+
+"Yas'm!" said Clay, appearing with Henry's head in one hand and his body
+in the other. "Dis heah roosteh she certn'ly is good an' daid! I c'n fix
+'em!"
+
+"And they loved him so!" said Winona tragically. "They were telling
+mother only yesterday how intellectual he was. 'Not clever, merely,'
+Mrs. Janeway said, 'but really intellectual, my dear Mrs. Merriam!'"
+
+Billy clutched the tubs in order to laugh better, and Louise sat down
+just where she was, on the floor.
+
+"What's the matter?" called Tom, running downstairs very clean and tidy.
+
+"Winona's murdered the Janeways's intellectual rooster!" explained
+Billy; and lay back on the tubs again.
+
+Tom, too, began to howl.
+
+"What--Henry?" he said, when he could speak. "Oh, Winnie, you _have_
+done it! They've had him in the family since their grandfather's time
+anyway. Well, you'd better make the best of it, and have Clay take out
+his interior decorations. Maybe we can eat him if you boil him long
+enough. I could have robbed the Martins's tank of their tame goldfish if
+I'd known you wanted a dinner of household pets." He sat down on the
+tubs by Billy and went off again.
+
+"I suggested Puppums in the first place!" gurgled Billy.
+
+"Never mind, Win," said Louise, going over to Winona, who stood
+mournfully by the window, "I'll attend to Henry. We'll boil him first
+and then bake him, and he'll be quite good. I'll make the stuffing for
+him, too. I know how quite well."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Louise!" and Winona brightened up.
+
+"Oh," teased Billy, "then the remorse isn't because he's Henry, but
+because he's tough?"
+
+"It's both," said Winona, "but there's no use being uselessly remorseful
+when you have work to do. I can feel ever so badly about it when I go to
+bed to-night. I often do. The fish is all right, anyway, and I'm going
+to make some sauce hollandaise for it out of the cookbook. Really all
+you need to know how to cook is a cookbook and intelligence."
+
+"I see the cookbook, but where----" began Tom.
+
+"Billy Lee," said Winona firmly, "if you came to see Tom, won't you
+please take him out on the front porch and see him?"
+
+"I didn't!" said Billy coolly. "I came to bring Nataly's note, and I'm
+staying to see you invent a ten-course dinner, if you'll let me. Let me
+stay to dinner, Henry and all, and I'll make your fish-sauce. All you
+need is a cookbook and intelligence----"
+
+"Two clergymen," counted Winona, "one wife, father, Louise, Tom,
+me--Florence is going out to supper, she said this morning. You'll just
+make eight, Billy. Come and welcome, only please leave the fish-sauce
+alone."
+
+But Billy had already tied himself into a big pink apron, and was mixing
+butter and flour in a saucepan with every sign of knowing what he was
+about.
+
+There was a brief, tense silence while the chicken, some white potatoes
+and onions, were put on to boil, sweet potatoes laid in the oven to be
+baked, and Clay sent into the garden for lettuce and radishes. They did
+not light any of the gas-stove burners except the one under the late
+Henry, because the afternoon was yet long. They went out on the porch
+and talked for a couple of hours. There was a general feeling that they
+mustn't get too far away from the dinner.
+
+About four Winona remembered to say to Tom, "Have you any bait-clams or
+oysters? We need them for our first course."
+
+"Bait!" said Tom. "Considering we've stolen the meat from the neighbors,
+and robbed the poor of the soup, and I caught the fish, we can afford to
+buy a few blue-points. I'll go down and get them. Is there anything else
+you'd like while I'm down town?"
+
+"Is it too late to order ice-cream?"
+
+"I'm afraid so," he said. "The ice-cream places won't be open till
+five-thirty, and then only for an hour, you know."
+
+"The dairies are," Winona remembered. "Please buy some cream on your way
+back, and we'll find a receipt and make it. There are nuts and raisins
+in the house. Crackers--cheese.... I think we'll have enough for
+dinner."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder!" said her brother thoughtfully, as he walked away
+to get his wheel.
+
+The others went back to the kitchen, and Billy went on with his sauce
+hollandaise--that is, he took it out of the bowl of water where it had
+been cooling, and put it in the ice-chest.
+
+"Why, it's good!" said Winona, rather impolitely, having sampled it on
+its way.
+
+"Of course it's good!" said Billy serenely. "Didn't I ever tell you
+about our old cook down south, and how I adored her? I used to tag round
+after her all the time when I was small--never would stay with my
+nurse--and I learned a lot of things. And seeing I'm going to be invited
+to this banquet, looks like I'd better make the ice-cream for you."
+
+"Oh, can you?"
+
+"Watch me!" said Billy for all answer.
+
+As a matter of fact, when Tom got back with the blue-points and the
+cream, he and Billy went to work together, and they compounded a
+pineapple ice-cream that was fit for the gods. Louise, meanwhile,
+stuffed the parboiled fowl and put him in to roast. The boys captured
+Clay, who had gone back to his cellar door and his songs, and set him to
+crushing ice. Winona sat down on the tubs where Billy had been, and gave
+herself up to deep thought. The entree had not yet been solved.
+
+"Pancake batter?" she said aloud at last, in a mildly conversational
+tone.
+
+"I'm sure of it," said Billy, poking his head in from the back porch.
+
+"If I take that pancake batter I got ready for to-morrow morning,
+sweeten it, and put butter and eggs and peaches in it, I don't see why
+it wouldn't be peach fritters. Anyway I can try ... then you drop them
+in the lard...."
+
+She thought it over a little longer silently. Then she jumped down, and
+went into the cellar for the batter and the peaches, and brought them
+out on the back porch, near the ice-box, to experiment with. Tom had
+gone back to the pantry to see if there was cake enough, but Billy was
+still packing ice and salt around the ice-cream.
+
+"Dear me!" said Winona, setting down her load on a low shelf. "I hate to
+see you doing all this. You're company, you know, and here we're letting
+you get a lot of the dinner. It worries me!"
+
+"Don't let it," counselled Billy, tossing a lock of hair out of his eyes
+and going on with the packing. "I'm having a good time. To tell you the
+truth, I always have a good time over here. I rather feel as if I
+belonged to the family--and that's a nice feel to have. You're a good
+little chum, Winnie.... If you don't let me pack all the freezers and
+things I want to I'll just have to go back to merely being let in once
+in awhile, like company."
+
+"I feel as if you belonged to the family, too, Billy," said Winona
+sincerely, "and if your packing freezers is any sign you do, go right
+on, please."
+
+"I am," Billy assured her with his usual placidity.
+
+"The lard's hot, Win! Come see if they'll frit!" called Louise from
+within; and Winona dashed off with her batter. But it was nice to have
+Billy feel that way about things. He was certainly the nicest boy she
+knew....
+
+They began together, she and Louise, to drop the yellow batter into the
+fat, while Clay and the boys turned the freezer by turns. Louise and
+Winona had become so excited about their dinner by this time that a mere
+fritter-sauce was nothing. They made one, it seemed to them afterwards,
+looking back, without knowing how they did it, and it was very good at
+that.
+
+"Oysters, soup, fish, salad," muttered Winona for the twentieth time. "I
+believe everything's ready but the cream, and that must be almost
+finished. Boys!" she called out through the back door, "will you please
+go and deck yourselves for the feast? Wear your tuxedos, please. We're
+going to keep up the Merriam reputation for hospitality, or die in the
+attempt!"
+
+"All right--just wait till we pack it," Tom called back.
+
+But she saw that they had separated in quest of their evening clothes
+before she left. Tom had just acquired his first set, and wasn't
+particularly fond of them. But he put them on meekly, just the same.
+
+"We'd better dress, too," said Louise. "I'll run over home and slip some
+things in a suitcase, and be right back again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+
+Louise was as good as her word. She was back in a very few minutes, and
+in Winona's room again. She found her friend standing in the middle of
+the floor, her dress exactly what it had been when she left.
+
+"Better hurry," warned Louise. "We haven't overmuch time."
+
+"Hurry!" said Winona despairingly. "How can I? Do you know what I've
+done? I've hung away every single thin dress I own in the wardrobe,
+instead of putting them in the wash. I knew there was something I'd
+forgotten, and I couldn't think what it was."
+
+"Oh, how dreadful!" said Louise. "You'll have to put on something
+gorgeous, to match the boys' clothes."
+
+"What can I do?" asked Winona sadly, and swung open the doors of her
+wardrobe. There, crumpled, forlorn, dejected, hung a line of dresses
+each hopelessly past wearing in its present state.
+
+"Isn't that a nice trick for a Camp Fire Girl?" inquired Winona
+scornfully. "It's the kind of thing you'd lecture a Blue Bird kindly but
+firmly for doing, and make her see what a wreck she was going to make of
+her whole life if she kept on."
+
+"Never mind," said Louise soothingly. "You've had so many other things
+to do, it's no wonder you couldn't remember that. Haven't you anything
+but wash dresses? Where's your yellow silk voile?"
+
+"I _did_ remember that!" said Winona with a reluctant grin. "I sent it
+to the cleaner's day before yesterday. It won't be done till Saturday."
+
+"What about your flowered dimity? Is all the freshness out of that? You
+don't wear it often."
+
+"I sent for it from camp, for one of the girls to use in the Samantha
+tableaux, and the girl still has it, I suppose. She never gave it back.
+I forgot to ask for it, in the hurry of getting home. There's no use
+trying to think. I've thought and thought, and everything else is too
+hot to wear, or soiled. There's nothing for it but a shirtwaist and
+skirt."
+
+"Anything of mine would be up to your knees, and baggy," said Louise
+thoughtfully. "Wait a minute, Win, till I think."
+
+"I'll do my hair while you're at it," said Winona.
+
+"Why couldn't you borrow something of your mother's?" was Louise's next
+thought.
+
+"Mother wears long dresses," said Winona. "If she didn't I could--I'm
+nearly her build."
+
+"Couldn't you pin them up?"
+
+"I declare, I believe I'll try," exclaimed Winona daringly. She ran out
+of the room, while Louise went on with her own dressing, and came back
+in a minute with a fresh, silk-lined black organdy over her arm.
+
+"This is all there is for it," she said. "Mother would be willing, I
+know, if she were here. She always wants me to wear her things."
+
+"It's lovely," said Louise admiringly, as Winona's pink cheeks and blue
+eyes appeared above the soft black, "but I'm afraid we'll hurt it if we
+put pins in it."
+
+"I won't pin it up, then," said Winona. "The guests will never know the
+difference. I don't suppose father has mentioned my age."
+
+"You'll look awfully old!"
+
+"I don't care! Have you any black hair-ribbons you could let me have,
+Louise? I see where I never get the honor bead for not borrowing, by the
+way!"
+
+"You won't lose it on account of my ribbons," said Louise, "because I
+haven't any. But I don't believe hair-ribbons and your gown would match.
+Did you know you had a train?"
+
+"No!" said Winona joyfully. She loved "dressing up," and this was
+beginning to look very much like it. "I'll do my hair up on top of my
+head, and nobody'll think I'm younger than twenty!"
+
+"Good!" said Louise, and helped. They wound the goldy-brown mass up on
+the very top, and completed the effect by hunting out a pair of plain
+glass eye-glasses, which Tom had brought from the ten-cent store once
+long ago.
+
+"You look twenty-five anyway!" exclaimed Louise, and Winona fitted the
+glasses on her nose and assumed a severe expression to match. "Put your
+hair back off your forehead--that way.... That's splendid!"
+
+"I do look old!" said Winona, with a pleased expression. She trained up
+and down the room and looked at herself in the glass. "I'll go down
+now."
+
+"I'll be there in a minute," said Louise. "Don't wait for me."
+
+When Winona sailed down in her disguise to put the finishing touches to
+the table she found that Tom was already dressed, and was standing
+meekly at the head of the board. And also he had found time to decorate
+it.
+
+"How do you like it?" he asked in a tone even meeker than his attitude.
+
+Winona looked, pulled off her glasses in order to see better, looked
+again--and dropped down in a hopeless heap in the opposite chair. She
+did not say anything--the situation was beyond words.
+
+"Don't you like it?" said Tom again sweetly.
+
+"Like it!" said Winona, beginning to giggle.
+
+Four half-barrel hoops had been wreathed in smilax, and arched across
+the table at regular intervals, one at each end and one between each two
+places. In the middle of the table, completely hiding the olives, lay a
+half-opened gridiron, also wound with smilax. It was all very neatly
+done, for Tom was very neat-handed; but the general effect was rather
+startling.
+
+"It--why, it looks like somebody's grave!" said Winona protestingly.
+
+Her tone was so stern that Puppums rose from beneath the table and tried
+nervously to hide under the sideboard, revealing as he went a decoration
+of smilax round his neck, continued in a garland down his spine,
+fastened at the tail. He did not seem to like it.
+
+"That's what it is!" said Tom complacently, as Winona pounced on the
+abject dog and unwreathed him. "Here's the magazine I got it from. You
+said to. All there was in this month's copy was a page of neat and
+inexpensive grave decorations. I copied the handsomest one in the bunch,
+'William R. Hicks; complete cost of decoration three dollars and twenty
+cents.' That thing in the middle's a Gates Ajar, or the nearest I could
+get to it. It got a prize, too."
+
+"Do you suppose I want William R. Hicks's grave, or anybody's grave, on
+the table when we're having a special hand-made dinner that I've spent
+most of the afternoon on?" demanded his sister, laughing in spite of her
+objections.
+
+"What's the row?" asked Billy cheerfully, appearing in the door with an
+armful of roses and ferns.
+
+"I followed Win's directions about the table, and she doesn't seem to
+like it," said Tom in a voice that was intended to sound injured.
+
+"What's the gridiron for? A gentle reminder of the Cannibal Isles? We
+don't really know yet that they're missionaries!" said Billy.
+
+"Sorry you don't know a Gates Ajar when you see it," said Tom, grinning.
+
+"I do," said Billy decidedly. "That isn't one. Here are your roses,
+Winnie. You look like somebody's step-mother in all that train and
+glasses. Where did you get them?"
+
+"Winona!" called Louise, tearing downstairs, "I've just remembered that
+Clay has been calling the fritters 'crullers' ever since we made them.
+He'll send them in with the ice-cream if he isn't told not to."
+
+She fled to the kitchen.
+
+"Step-mother.... M'm," said Tom with a light of mischief in his eye; and
+followed Louise.
+
+"_Look_ at the table!" Winona implored Billy.
+
+Billy looked, took in the whole effect, and, as Winona had done, sat
+down to laugh in comfort.
+
+"It's not so bad, after all," he said comfortingly when he was through.
+"Let's take the bones out of these green wicket-things, and lay the
+vines straight across the table. They'll get into the eats, likely, but
+we can't stop for that. Can't you do anything with that gridiron ajar? I
+should think the stuff on it would look all right around a low bowl of
+roses."
+
+"Maybe it would," said Winona with renewed courage, and set to work
+stripping it while Billy took the supports from the smilax arches, and
+laid it flat, with an occasional rose at intervals. They found a low,
+wide bowl that, filled with roses, and wound with smilax, made an
+excellent centerpiece.
+
+Winona stepped back to view the general effect with a sigh of
+satisfaction.
+
+"Billy! I'll remember this afternoon of you to the longest day I live!"
+she said.
+
+"Billy! We want you!" called Louise from the kitchen in a smothered
+voice. Winona would have gone, too, for she was sure she heard giggles,
+but just at this moment Clay came in, and his inability to understand
+why he shouldn't add a wide red cheese-cloth sash to his white apron
+drove everything else out of her head. By the time she had argued him
+out of it the others were back, suspiciously grave.
+
+"Not here yet!" sighed Louise. "I feel as if I couldn't wait to have
+them taste my stuffing! Let's go into the living-room and sing, or go
+out back and play tag, or something."
+
+"Dar dey is!" shouted Clay, running to the window.
+
+The rest rushed, too, and looked over his woolly head.
+
+"A big one and a little one and a middle-sized wife, like the Three
+Bears," commented Winona. "They're coming in by the front way. Oh----"
+
+That was because the fritter-sauce boiled over just as the guests were
+ushered in. Both the girls forgot their manners, and ran to the kitchen
+to rescue it. So only Tom and Billy were in the living-room to be
+introduced.
+
+"My wife and daughter will be here presently," said Mr. Merriam, who had
+evidently forgotten that Mrs. Merriam was expected to stay away till
+about nine. "Tom, will you run up and tell your mother and Winona that
+our friends are here?"
+
+But even as he spoke Winona, a little breathless, but trained,
+psyche-knotted and eye-glassed, appeared in the doorway with Louise
+behind her. She came in with an air of dignity which her mother could
+not have bettered, and greeted her guests regally, in her excitement
+forgetting to wait for an introduction.
+
+Not so Tom.
+
+"My step-mother, and my sister," he whispered in the ear of Mr. Driggs,
+the tall minister, who promptly addressed Winona as "Mrs. Merriam."
+Winona thought he said "Miss," and went on talking excitedly about
+everything she could think of. Her father was deep in conversation with
+Mr. Donne, the other guest, who was a classmate of his. Tom's murmured
+"Mother isn't home yet--Winona's managing things----" scarcely stopped
+the flood of reminiscences.
+
+"I never heard that your father had a second wife," remarked Mrs. Driggs
+to Louise, who had selected her to talk to.
+
+"It's quite recent," said Louise sadly; and Mrs. Driggs did not ask any
+more questions.
+
+Before things got more complicated Clay announced dinner in an awestruck
+voice, and fled instead of holding aside the portieres for the guests,
+as he had been instructed. He had a good deal on his mind, for he could
+not read very well yet, so they had had to sketch each particular thing
+with a pencil, and pin the series of pictures against the wall in their
+order as they were to come. The pictures of the oysters and the sweet
+potatoes were very much alike, and, as Clay confided to Winona
+afterward, they worried him considerably.
+
+Winona seated her guests with the same dignity which had been hers ever
+since the train had; and led the conversation in the ways it should go,
+nobly assisted by Billy. It appeared Billy could talk like a grown-up
+person of forty when he wanted to--which wasn't often, for Billy was a
+rather silent person ordinarily. Tom and Louise were never, either of
+them, troubled by shyness, and except that they seemed to laugh a little
+more than the facts warranted they were just as usual.
+
+Every course, from old Mrs. Johnson's stolen bouillon to the black
+coffee, came on in its proper place and was eaten with enthusiasm. As
+the third course came on without mishap, Winona began to relax, and by
+the end of the dinner was quite at ease. Mr. Donne, beside her, was
+liking his dinner so much that for quite awhile Winona did not have to
+do any talking. When he did talk it was about Ladies' Aid Societies. Now
+Mrs. Merriam was the President of the Ladies' Aid of her church, not to
+speak of various things that she held minor offices in, and she was
+quite an authority. Mr. Donne had been told this, and he thought he was
+talking to Winona about something she was an authority on. Winona was
+rather bewildered, for she had never attended a Ladies' Aid meeting in
+her life, and like the inventor of the Purple Cow, till she was grown up
+"never hoped to see one." Nevertheless she struck out valiantly, and was
+getting on fairly well when Mrs. Driggs's voice struck across the
+general tide of talk.
+
+"Mrs. Merriam," she said, "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I never can eat
+fish without a sprinkle of nutmeg. Could you have a little grated on
+this delicious bit for me?"
+
+"Why, yes!" said Winona cordially. "Clay----!"
+
+"Hit ain' none, Miss Winnie," interrupted the small servant in a
+distressed whisper.
+
+"Then go borrow one at Mrs. Lee's, and hurry!" whispered Winona.
+"Anything, so you only get it and have it for Mrs. Driggs's fish."
+
+Clay looked black for a moment. Then a comprehensive grin dawned on his
+face. He trotted out with Mrs. Driggs's fish, and brought it back again
+a few moments later, liberally nutmegged and very much to the lady's
+taste. She ate it all and was happy.
+
+"You seem to have no difficulty in keeping discipline in your family and
+among your step-children, Mrs. Merriam," said Mr. Donne, almost directly
+after the nutmeg episode. "You must seem more like a sister than a
+mother to these tall young people."
+
+Winona was struck dumb with astonishment for a moment. She looked across
+at Tom, who looked back at her imploringly. She could see what had
+happened out in the kitchen, that time that the three others had been
+there alone and giggling. But this was no time to have a scene. She
+braced herself and settled her glasses more firmly, after one
+reproachful look at the three culprits, whose faces were tense with
+apprehension.
+
+"Yes," she replied quietly, talking, as Tom afterwards said, like a
+seraph, "They do seem like that. They are charming children, really."
+
+Mr. Donne went on talking about it. Winona went on replying with serene
+dignity. Even when he praised the cook she took it serenely, and when
+the Ladies' Aid came in sight again she called to mind a visit from the
+secretary at which she had been present, and quite overwhelmed Mr. Donne
+with particulars.
+
+Mrs. Driggs had been a little quiet and hard to talk to at the beginning
+of the meal, but Billy--Billy the quiet, Billy the shy among his own
+kind--proved to have the art of talking to grown people down to a fine
+point. He not only kept his end up, but he steered nobly away from risky
+questions of relationship, and other such perilous topics.
+
+"It certainly gives you confidence to be a married woman!" thought
+Winona, as she excused herself and went to see about unpacking the
+ice-cream. Clay's performance so far had been perfect, but she did not
+trust anybody but herself to get the cream successfully out of the
+freezer, without getting salt into it.
+
+"Where did you find that nutmeg, Clay?" she asked curiously, as they
+arranged the cakes and ice-cream, and put melted chocolate in a pitcher.
+
+"Law, Miss Winnie," said Clay, his smile nearly coiling itself around
+his ears, "I done tole you hit wasn't none. I des took dis yere ole
+wooden button-hook what hangs on a nail here, an' grate a li'l bit of it
+off. De minister's wife she never know de diffunce."
+
+Winona caught her breath, but this was no time to be overcome. The
+dessert had to be served. They were all laughing at something Louise was
+saying, when she came back. "I wonder if they would look so happy if I
+told them about the nutmeg!" she couldn't help thinking, but it did not
+seem a very good thing to tell anyone, just then--although it was too
+good to keep always. The Camp Fire heard about it afterward.
+
+Coffee, cheese, nuts and raisins, all appeared and disappeared, and then
+Winona led her sated guests out on the porch. She felt triumphantly
+virtuous. The dinner had been good straight through, the talk had gone
+smoothly, and the company seemed very happy and pleased. She sat down by
+Mrs. Driggs and went on talking. She was going on prosperously when Mr.
+Donne's voice, from the other end of the porch, stopped Mrs. Driggs's
+account of her last maid.
+
+"How long did you say you had been married, Mrs. Merriam?" he inquired.
+
+"Married?" echoed Winona desperately, trying to think of a way out.
+
+She was spared giving her answer. There was a sound of footsteps and
+wheels within the house, and Mrs. Merriam's wheel-chair, propelled by
+Florence, appeared in the doorway.
+
+"I got back sooner than I thought I should, Frances," said the real Mrs.
+Merriam's cheerful voice. "Florence came over and told me that our
+friends were here, so I had her wheel me back as soon as I'd had my
+supper. We didn't get home from the ride till a little while ago, and I
+couldn't get here for the meal."
+
+Winona did not wait to hear more. There was a long open window at her
+back. One spring--and all that remained to tell the tale of "young Mrs.
+Merriam" was an overturned porch-chair and the distant sound of a
+tearing garment. Up in her room, pulling down her hair and slipping on
+her fresh middy-blouse and white skirt, Winona heard the laughter, and
+knew the others were being forgiven, and the whole tale told.
+
+"Anyway!" she said to herself as she took off her glasses, shook down
+her hair, washed her hot face and prepared to walk downstairs and meet
+the family. "Anyway, that couldn't have been a better dinner if I'd been
+married sixteen times!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+
+"This paying for deceased poultry," said Tom, "is getting monotonous.
+First there were those pedigreed geese up on the river, and now Henry. I
+know Henry never cost as much as the Janeways say he did."
+
+"I think we're paying for all it cost to send him to prep school and
+college," suggested Louise, who was staying over a day. "You forget that
+Henry was intellectual."
+
+"He was tough," agreed Tom, "if that's any sign! So was paying for him."
+
+"Oh, Tommy dear!" said Winona penitently. "Henry was really my fault. I
+oughtn't to let you join in with me. I can pay for Henry very well
+alone."
+
+"I think I see you!" said Tom. "No, Winnie, united we stand, divided we
+fall. I help pay for Henry--see you later--just remembered how late it
+is."
+
+He bolted upstairs, leaving Winona, Louise and Billy on the porch
+staring at each other.
+
+"What's struck Tom?" asked Billy. "First time I ever knew him to be in a
+hurry."
+
+"Why, I don't know," said Louise. "I thought you two generally hunted
+together."
+
+"Not to-night," said Billy. He vaulted the railing casually, and walked
+out into the middle of the lawn, where he could see Tom's lighted
+window. "He's up there with all the lights on, walking the floor as if
+he had something on his conscience, trying to tie all his neckties, one
+after another," reported Billy. "There--there goes the third one. He's
+going to try a red one now."
+
+"I know what it is," said Winona, seeing a light. "I've just remembered.
+He's going to call on a girl. He's been going to for all week, and just
+got braced up to it. He's been wearing me out all day, asking me for
+things to talk to her about. I suppose he's trying to decide on the
+necktie that matches his socks best."
+
+"But, great Scott, he's been to see girls before!" protested Billy.
+"I've been along when he's been seeing girls, and fellows, and even old
+gentlemen, and he never took it so hard."
+
+"It's a very particular, grown-up call," explained Winona, "with a
+card-case and a cane, and everything like that."
+
+"What's the cane for?" asked Billy, who had come back to his seat on the
+porch. "Girl collecting them?"
+
+"I think it must be for moral support," put in Louise.
+
+"I didn't know he had one," said Billy. "Where did he get it?"
+
+"Christmas present last year," explained Winona briefly. "Billy, don't
+you wish we were all back at Wampoag, having a moonlight swim?"
+
+"I certainly do," said Billy. "Not but that your porch is nice, too," he
+added with the politeness he never seemed to forget.
+
+Before they could lament camp life any further, Tom rushed down the
+stairs.
+
+"Winnie! Winnie! Where's my blue scarf?" he called from inside the front
+door.
+
+"On Louise," Winona called back promptly. "Don't you remember, you asked
+her if she didn't want to wear it with her sailor-suit?"
+
+"Can I have it, Lou?" he asked, coming out. "I wouldn't ask you, but it
+just matches my hatband."
+
+"Certainly you can have it," said Louise, with chilly politeness,
+unfastening it and handing it to him.
+
+"Good-evening, Mr. Merriam," said Billy, grinning, and rising in order
+to make a very low bow. "I never thought you were this far on the way to
+being a perfect lady, old boy--Mr. Merriam, I mean."
+
+"Going to call on an awfully correct girl," said Tom off-handedly. "I
+say, Lou, can I have that blue class-pin of yours?"
+
+"Certainly," said Louise again, still more coldly, detaching it and
+holding it out. "Anything else you think you'd like?"
+
+"Not that I can think of," said Tom, taking the class-pin. "That's a
+good old Lou," he ended, adding insult to injury. Then he sat down and
+pulled out his mother's celluloid memorandum tablets. He laid them on
+his knee and looked at them earnestly, as he adjusted the tie and the
+class-pin.
+
+"Did you think of any more things for me to say after I landed the
+California Exposition on her?" he asked his sister.
+
+Winona looked over at Billy to see if he saw the funny side of it. There
+was no use looking at Louise, for in her present sulky frame of mind she
+would not have seen anything funny in a whole joke-book.
+
+"How would the next election do?" she suggested gravely.
+
+"M-m--all right," said Tom, entering it. "That won't last forever,
+though, because all you can ever do is guess which man will get it. I
+think you might help a fellow out, Lou. You're generally so clever."
+
+"Ask her how she likes her hats trimmed," said Louise scornfully,
+without turning around to him.
+
+"Oh, no," said Tom, "that's too silly a question." But he put it down
+just the same. "Let's see. That ought to carry me on till nearly
+nine.... Caesar! It's time I went! Don't mind if I go off and leave you,
+do you Bill?"
+
+"Not a bit!" said Billy calmly. "I'm all right. But"--Billy's eyes
+twinkled--"don't you really think you ought to wear your tuxedo, old
+fellow? Much more correct, you know. I saw it in a Hints to Best
+Dressers' column awhile ago. It said that no true gentleman was without
+evening clothes in the evening."
+
+Tom looked uneasy, but he was firm.
+
+"I won't get into that thing for anything less than a dance or a
+hand-made clerical dinner," he said, thoughtlessly jamming his hat down
+over one ear the way he usually wore it, then putting it straight with a
+jerk. "Great Scott! I must hurry!"
+
+"My ears and whiskers! The Duchess! Won't I catch it if I'm late!"
+quoted Louise scornfully from Alice in Wonderland, as Tom dived down the
+steps.
+
+"What on earth's got into Tom!" asked Billy. "The idea of doing that
+because you like it!"
+
+"I don't know," said Winona. "It is queer, isn't it?"
+
+"Going off acting like he was all grown up!" mused Billy, still lost in
+wonder at such a waste of a perfectly good evening.
+
+"I do wish you wouldn't always say 'like' for 'as if,' Billy,"
+interrupted Louise sharply. "I hate it."
+
+"We always say it that way down home," said Billy.
+
+"That's no reason for your doing it here! Being born in China doesn't
+make it good manners for you to eat with chopsticks," said Louise,
+walking into the house and slamming the screen-door behind her.
+
+"Can't Ah help yo' find yo' tempah, Louise?" Billy called teasingly
+after her, with a purposely exaggerated Southern accent. There was no
+answer.
+
+"You'd be cross, too, if you were Louise," Winona defended her friend.
+"One of the things she stayed down from camp over to-night for was that
+she and Tom were going off to kodak some cloud effects for a magazine
+prize. And she was going to try to get some photographs that would count
+in Camp Fire work, too. And Tom's walked off, forgetting all about it."
+
+"Why didn't you remind him?" asked Billy sensibly.
+
+"Louise wouldn't let me. She said she'd go straight back if I did."
+
+"Well, she needn't have taken it out on me," said Billy plaintively. "I
+didn't break any engagements. I suppose she has a red-haired temper."
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Louise, after she banged the screen-door, had gone straight
+through the house to the back. Mrs. Merriam was in the living-room,
+which prevented her crying there. She was very much hurt at Tom's
+forgetfulness. They had been chums for a long time, and this particular
+expedition after cloud effects had been something they had planned long
+before the Scouts' camp broke up. And now Tom had gone gayly off,
+forgetting all about it. It really was horrid.
+
+Crying on a bed is hot work in summer, so she decided to go out back and
+do it. She sat on the porch, put her arms on the back of a chair and
+began to cry.
+
+But circumstances seemed to be against her. Puppums, who had been asleep
+under a chair, got up, yawned, sauntered across the porch, and sat down
+by her. Then he proceeded to whine for her to turn around, make a lap,
+and take him up into it.
+
+"Oh, do stop!" said Louise indignantly, when the whining had gone on
+steadily for some minutes. But if you took any notice of Puppums he
+merely argued that a little more work would get him what he wanted, and
+went on begging. In the present instance he answered Louise by lifting
+his nose further up in the air, and howling, as if he wished to assure
+her that he felt for her.
+
+"You mean old dog!" said Louise, jumping up. "I'll settle you!" Puppums
+was very much pleased. He had an optimistic disposition, and he thought
+it was a game. He ran around and around the porch, finally, when he
+began to see that Louise was in earnest, hiding under the ice-chest,
+where he knew nobody could follow him. Louise stopped short, and eyed
+the ice-box. It occurred to her that she was thirsty.
+
+"This is what you might call being guided," said she, and opening the
+lid, looked in. She found a bag of lemons, a bunch of bananas, and she
+thought she remembered where Winona kept the bottled cherries and the
+cookies. She went into the kitchen and began work, and in a very little
+while was on her way back to the front porch with a tray, designed to
+show her remorse for being cross, piled with cookies and fruit lemonade.
+Mrs. Merriam, to whom she offered the first glass, pronounced it very
+good indeed, and sent her on her way. Puppums danced wildly about her,
+with the idea that she was clearing a table, and he might get bones.
+
+Winona and Billy were still talking as placidly as if Tom had not been
+wrestling with a formal call, and Louise with a bad temper, for the last
+twenty minutes.
+
+"Cookies--oh, and fruit lemonade! Louise, you dear!" cried Winona, while
+Billy took the tray and put it on a table.
+
+"Won't you have some, Billy? I know you like it, and--and I _do_ like
+your Southern accent," she added in a rush.
+
+"Thank you, Louise," said Billy. "I like your accent, too--and your
+fruit lemonade--very much."
+
+They both laughed. "Let's bury the hatchet," he added. "Louise, these
+certainly are fine cookies."
+
+The three were still sitting comfortably over their refreshments, even
+Puppums crunching cakes contentedly in a corner, when Tom hurried up the
+steps and banged himself down in a chair. His hat was jammed to one side
+in the old unceremonious fashion, his gloves had vanished, and even his
+cane was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Have some," said Billy tactfully before Tom could say anything. They
+pushed the cakes toward him, and poured him some lemonade in Winona's
+glass, and after he seemed less gloomy they got him to talk.
+
+"Tell us all about it," said Winona soothingly.
+
+"Nothing to tell!" said Tom in something rather like a growl.
+
+"Have another cooky, and tell us all about it," repeated his sister in a
+persuasive voice. And after awhile, when he had had some more cookies
+and another glass of lemonade, he told them, gradually.
+
+"Well, I sent in my card, of course," he began. "Asked for Miss Davis."
+
+"Of course!" said Winona; for her brother's usual custom was to call up
+from the sidewalk, "I'm coming over to-night," and then to walk
+unceremoniously in whenever he thought of it, that evening.
+
+"I did that all right, thank goodness!" said Tom. "The maid kept me
+waiting about a year, with a copy of Snowbound, and a Gems from
+Shakespeare, and a pug-dog made out of plaster, to amuse me. The Davises
+never seem to sit around in their rooms and on their porches like other
+people. Just as I got to the point of thinking I'd better go back home
+_Mrs._ Davis walked in. I was so surprised at seeing her, instead of
+Elsie, that I couldn't think of a blessed thing to say--so I fished up
+this!"
+
+He jerked the tablets out of his pocket and threw them to Winona.
+
+"Keep 'em away from me," he said. "I never want to see the blessed
+things again. First thing I found was 'Civil War.' I'd picked out that
+for a start anyway--thought it would be nice and general, and we had it
+in History last term, so I knew a lot about it. You'd have thought that
+would have lasted awhile, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Seeing that the real thing lasted four years or so, I think it might
+have," answered Billy.
+
+"Not a bit of it!" said Tom mournfully. "Mrs. Davis turned out to have
+had a grand-uncle or something in it, and she said it was a painful
+subject. I don't think she ever had a grand-uncle. I believe she didn't
+know anything about it, and just invented the old fellow to get out of
+talking about it!"
+
+"Mercy, what suspicions!" said Winona, laughing. "You certainly have
+nearly ruined your lovely disposition. Never mind, Tommy, I sympathize
+with you. What did you tackle next?"
+
+"Tariff-reform, I think," said Tom.
+
+"What is tariff-reform?" asked Winona. "I never could understand it
+exactly."
+
+"Don't ask me to say it all over again!" begged Tom. "I was getting
+anxious by that time for fear I wouldn't have subjects enough left to
+use on Elsie. You know she isn't much of a talker. But I had to say
+something, and Mrs. Davis didn't, and I couldn't think of anything but
+this foolish book. Mrs. Davis didn't seem to care much about
+tariff-reform, either, so I gave that up and looked at the list again,
+and chose 'Weather.' She did warm up a little at that. But the best
+weather won't last forever, and you could just hear the silence bump
+every little while.
+
+"Then I got desperate, and used up Politics and Canoeing and the
+California Fair, and all the rest. Folks, I finished off every last
+thing I was going to talk to Elsie about, before she ever appeared!
+Except about trimming hats--that seemed such a foolish thing to ask a
+woman that old about."
+
+"They discussed Measles and Mice, and Music, and everything else that
+began with an M," quoted Louise from her favorite Alice in Wonderland.
+
+"Don't mind her," said Billy as soberly as he could. "Just go on. Did
+Elsie Davis ever come down at all?"
+
+"Yes," said Tom, "she did. Just as I finished my last subject, if you
+please! She seemed to be dressed for a party, but she said she wasn't.
+She sat down at the other end of the room, and tried to see if she
+couldn't keep as still as her mother. Mrs. Davis stayed right there,
+too, and smiled like an alligator--and there was I without an idea in my
+head or on the memorandum!"
+
+"Didn't they even show you the photograph album?" inquired Louise,
+forgetting to be offended.
+
+"They wouldn't talk, I tell you!"
+
+"Well, what _did_ you do?" asked Louise.
+
+Tom grinned a little, shamefacedly.
+
+"Well--I simply yanked out that old tablet, and began at Civil War
+again. I said 'As I was just saying to your mother!' and I gave her
+every subject over!"
+
+His hearers howled, and after a minute Tom himself joined in. "Did it
+work better this time?" asked Winona at last, wiping her eyes.
+
+"Not a work," said Tom cheerfully, reaching for the last cooky. "That
+is, all but the hat one. That was clever of you, Lou. She got almost
+human over that, and began to talk about how many engagements she
+had--had to break half of them. And I said 'I don't believe in breaking
+dates,' and suddenly I remembered the one with you to take the
+pictures--and I left then and there, like a streak of lightning. I left
+my cane--I don't care--she can have it to remember me by. Louise, I owe
+you an apology the size of the house. Why didn't you remind me about
+those snapshots?"
+
+"It's not too late," said Louise amiably. "The moon's just about right,
+now."
+
+Tom went into the house after the cameras, sending his hat flying up to
+the hat-tree, followed by his gloves.
+
+"Let's go, too," said Billy.
+
+"All right," said Winona. She leaned back, and laughed, as they waited
+for the others to come out.
+
+"I don't believe Tom will try any more formal calls till he's eighteen,
+anyway," she remarked.
+
+"It seems a pity, though," said Billy, getting up. "He wasted a
+perfectly good cane!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+
+Louise went back to camp next day, and Winona went on with her work at
+home. Louise had left all sorts of presents and messages from the girls,
+and taken a great many from Winona away with her. Louise's visit cheered
+Winona up very much. There was only one hard thing about it--the news
+Louise had brought that the girls had extended the time of their stay
+again. The plan now was to stay in Camp Karonya till the fourteenth of
+September. School opened on the fifteenth. It seemed a long time to wait
+to see her friends again--for the doctor was certain that her mother
+would not be able to bear her weight on the injured ankle for a month to
+come.
+
+Meanwhile Winona wrote to the girls, and her mother and Florence kept
+track, in what Winona considered a very wild way, of the things she did
+that should entitle her to honors. The honor-list and a sheet of blanks
+lived under her mother's pillow, Winona was sure. If it gave her mother
+pleasure she was glad to have her do it; but it occurred to Winona the
+day after Louise left that it mightn't be a bad scheme to collect a few
+honors herself, things that she was sure would count. Also she wanted
+some fun, and she had found that the acquiring of honors usually led to
+it. So Winona proceeded to "start something."
+
+To begin with, next door lived Nataly Lee. Winona went over there the
+very afternoon of the day Louise left, and spent the most persuasive
+three hours of her life, explaining to Nataly that they, as the only two
+Camp Fire Girls in town, ought to start some good times for other
+people, who, not being Camp Fire Girls, probably didn't know how. And
+before she went back to get supper she had persuaded Nataly she was
+right.
+
+Next day she and Nataly, cheerful and enthusiastic, made a canvass of
+the girls in their classes who were staying home. Winona had rather gone
+on the principle that nearly everyone was off somewhere else, but she
+found it wasn't so at all. There were six girls beside herself and
+Nataly who were ready and willing to join a Porch Club that was to meet
+once a week, and have a picnic one week and a party the next.
+
+Winona and Tom and Billy, with Nataly, even, helping once in a while,
+spent some time in furnishing the Merriam porch with chairs and hammocks
+and screens and lanterns. Then the boys went forth and invited their own
+friends with a lavish hand. The first porch party was a grand success,
+although there were about three boys to one girl. But that righted
+itself next time, which was three days later, for the Porch Club made an
+unanimous and prompt decision that it wanted to meet twice a week. And
+more girls wanted to join. So, although they were not like her own old
+comrades, Winona found that she was making friends whom she would never
+have had at all, if it had not been that she was cut off from her own
+set of girls, still having good times at Camp Karonya. As for Nataly,
+she was a marvellously different person. The work of management, of
+social entertaining, proved to be exactly what she could do best. And
+having to teach things to others (for the Porch Club added an afternoon
+session, devoted to hand-craft work and reading aloud), made her find
+that she could do things very well here that she hadn't liked doing in
+camp at all! As for Winona, she let Nataly run things as much as she
+wanted to. She herself was just what she had always been, Ray of Light,
+holding the girls and boys together by her brightness and her fondness
+for them. She was the centre of things, after all. Not that she realized
+it, particularly; she only thought how queer it was that there were so
+many nice, friendly people in the world, willing to do nice things and
+have nice times if you only suggested it. And there are, too.
+
+"And, Helen and Louise dear," Winona wrote to her own two best friends
+back at Camp Karonya. "Some of the girls in our classes that we scarcely
+knew, and thought were quiet and stupid, are as nice and bright and
+funny as ever they can be, and ever so Camp Firey! I believe we can
+organize another Camp Fire this fall. And I have my housework arranged
+so that I have two hours in the morning, and most of my afternoon and
+evening, to do what I please with. So I have a gorgeous time working for
+honors. It's a scheme I shan't tell you about till it's all worked out
+and over with, but I think it's going to work all right. Florence
+suggested it, bless her heart. Love to the whole Camp Fire, and ask them
+to take a hike for me!"
+
+Winona's supplementary plan for honor-winning had been suggested to her
+this way:
+
+One day she was on the back porch, mending, and Florence had four bosom
+friends out in the back garden, making a most fearful racket. Mrs.
+Merriam had a headache, and Winona knew that in a little while the
+headache would be worse, or that she would have to go and send
+Florence's friends home, which meant hurting that independent young
+person's feelings.
+
+"Florence," called Winona, "wouldn't you and the other girls like me to
+come down to the end of the garden and tell you fairy-stories?"
+
+The little girls seemed to very much want to. So Winona took her mending
+and her rocker, and they sat down in the shelter of a big tree. Winona
+told them stories till it was time for her to go in and see about
+supper. By then her mother's headache was over. But after supper
+Florence came up to Winona, and said, "The girls want to ask something.
+They want to know if you won't tell them stories other times, too!"
+
+"Why, what a lovely idea!" said Winona. "Of course I will!"
+
+So to the Porch Club and the housekeeping Winona added two hours every
+other day, telling stories to Florence and her small friends. She felt
+rather shy over it at first, but gradually it began to be more and more
+easy. When the fairy-tales ran low she went to the library and hunted
+out the Robin Hood and Arthur legends, and even history stories once in
+awhile. And one day when she was rummaging the card catalogue for more
+stories about King Arthur she found out that the Malory book was only a
+very little of what there was to be told. Everything seemed to lead
+somewhere else. So the story-hours kept to King Arthur, except for one
+fairy afternoon a week, for the rest of the month, and Winona learned a
+good deal about him that she would never have found out by herself.
+
+After one or two meetings, sewing as she talked, she began to show the
+children a little about darning, too. They brought stockings after that,
+and kept quieter, she found, when they were working as well as she. The
+most surprising thing of all to her was that she had time enough for
+everything. The story-hours took care of all the household mending that
+her mother did not do; the Porch Club, which met at different houses in
+rotation, was no trouble at all, merely a good-times affair. The
+housekeeping was running smoothly, and Winona got time for
+letter-writing and walks with the boys, and even practice on the piano.
+There were lots of places where she and Nataly and Tom and Billy could
+go trolley riding on hot evenings, and there were always boys and girls
+running in and out, asking her to go places and do things. Winona
+discovered, as others have before her, that you can have a very good
+time by staying home in the summer.
+
+One night, toward the last of August, her mother asked her a question.
+
+"How would you like to go back to camp to celebrate your birthday,
+dear?" she asked.
+
+Now Winona's birthday, her fifteenth, was on the eleventh of September,
+just two days before the girls were coming back.
+
+"I would, very much," she said, "but do you think you will be able to
+spare me?"
+
+"I am quite sure of it," said her mother. "Indeed, I might be able to
+take charge of the house again by next week, if my ankle improves as it
+is doing now."
+
+"Oh, no," said Winona, "I won't take the risk. Besides, I couldn't leave
+the story-hour children, and the Porch Club has to have some things
+planned for it that I think I'd better help with. But if I can go up
+there over my birthday it will be lovely."
+
+"You'll have to get somebody else to tell the stories while you're gone,
+then," said Florence. "I don't want my story-hour broken up!"
+
+"By all means, don't break up Florence's private story-hour!" said Tom.
+"Why don't you do the story-telling yourself, Floss?"
+
+But, "That's true, Florence," said Winona. "I think I can find one of
+the girls in the Porch Club who will do it. You see, mother dear, I'll
+need to get all the loose ends up out of the way if I go back even for
+three days!"
+
+But all the loose ends tied themselves up neatly. Ellen Marks, one of
+the nicest of the Porch Club girls, promised to tell the stories for the
+two days Winona would miss. Nataly could look after things elsewhere,
+and by the eleventh Mrs. Merriam was nearly as well as ever. So the
+morning of that day saw Winona on her way back to Camp Karonya, with joy
+in her heart, and her ceremonial costume over her arm, in a special bag.
+
+The whole crowd of girls rushed out to meet her, and sang a cheer from
+the time her motor-boat was in sight till she landed. They surrounded
+her, and carried her into camp, where supper was nearly ready.
+
+It seemed very good to be back. The pine needles smelled as woodsily as
+ever, and the long wooden table looked very homelike, with its brown,
+chattering girls surrounding it, all trying to tell her everything at
+once. As soon as supper was over Helen and Louise swept her off to her
+old tent.
+
+"Hurry," said Helen. "Get into your ceremonial costume, honey. Heap big
+Council Fire to-night."
+
+"Council Fire?" said Winona in surprise. "Why, is it the night for it?"
+
+"This is an extra-special," explained Helen hastily. "Here, Win, let me
+help you."
+
+She began to unfasten Winona's travelling suit.
+
+"You have a lot more beads than you had," Winona observed a little
+wistfully, as Helen took her own gown down from the wall and began to
+put it on.
+
+Helen laughed as she slung the long string of colored honor-beads around
+her neck.
+
+"Maybe you'll catch up," she remarked carelessly. "You'll doubtless get
+an honor or so to-night."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Winona. "I ought to get a bead or two for home-craft,
+and I did some story-hour work, too."
+
+"As if that was all you did!" said Helen indignantly; and stopped
+herself short.
+
+"Hurry up, girls!" said Louise, sticking her bead-banded head into the
+tent. "Time to begin. Hear the drum!"
+
+"Oh, the nice old drum!" cried Winona happily, as she heard its
+well-remembered monotonous sound in the distance. The three girls linked
+arms, and hurried to the council hill.
+
+"Oh, but it's good to be back!" said Winona for the third or fourth
+time, as she sank into her place in the circle around the first place.
+She listened dreamily as the ceremony of fire-lighting and all the rest
+went forward. Things had been happening, it appeared. The reports were
+given one by one. Winona listened on, and Hike the Camp Cat trotted
+noiselessly over the ground and curled himself into Winona's lap. Even
+he remembered her. She stroked him and listened.
+
+Helen, they told, had managed to coax an old farmer down the road, the
+identical one they didn't buy the music-box of, to stop setting traps
+that hurt rabbits. Louise had, after many hoppings about in solitude,
+actually managed to master five folk-dances. Adelaide and little Frances
+had made an emergency dash down the river to get the doctor, when one of
+the other little girls had fallen from a tree and broken her wrist.
+There were other things as thrilling.
+
+"And all I did was stay home!" thought Winona as the tales went on, and
+the beads were awarded. Then she sat up and began to listen more
+closely, for Mrs. Bryan, Opeechee herself, was rising to give this
+report, and that was something sure to be special and worth while. When
+Opeechee related what a girl had done it was an honor worth having.
+
+"You have all done well, and deserved the honors you have been awarded
+on this, our final Council in the open," began the Guardian. "Here,
+together in the woods, it has been easy to follow the law of the fire.
+We have found it so, I know.
+
+"But now I want to tell you about a watcher of the Camp Fire who has
+been following the law without any of the helps we have. She gave up the
+camp and its good times, and went back to assume the duties of a
+woman--the tending of the real Fire of home. She had charge of the
+household. She kept a family of four beside herself, including an
+invalid mother, comfortable, well taken care of and happy, for one
+month. She made a pleasure out of her duties, and showed others how.
+Besides this, she collected girls who had not much social life and gave
+it to them. She led them for a month, three times a week. She told
+children stories and taught them sewing every other day for a month. And
+through it all she was happy, and made light for others wherever she
+went. She has carried the Torch of happiness and health and work and
+love, and passed it on undimmed to others. Winona, the Flashing Ray of
+Light, is just fifteen to-night. That is the earliest age at which
+anyone can be made a Torch-bearer--but I think she deserves the rank,
+Sisters of the Camp Fire. What do you say?"
+
+Before the girls could answer Winona was on her feet with the kitten in
+her arms, scarlet and protesting.
+
+"But I didn't do all those wonderful things, Opeechee!" she cried. "I
+just did what there was to do. I like to plan things and have people
+have good times. I just wanted to get as good a time out of it all as I
+could. And I don't believe I have enough honor beads to be a
+Torch-bearer."
+
+Mrs. Bryan paid her protest very little attention.
+
+"What do you say, Sisters of the Camp Fire?"
+
+The girls burst out into cheering.
+
+"Winona, Flashing Ray of Light, is to take the rank of Torch-bearer
+to-day," repeated Mrs. Bryan inexorably. "Rise, Winona."
+
+And as Winona stood up again (she had sat down hastily after her first
+objection) Mrs. Bryan repeated the honors she had won, and that her
+mother and Florence had kept track of so faithfully. She had expected
+the honor for story-telling, but the one for marketing--and the one for
+folk-songs--and--why, that Alice Brown pantomime had meant an honor
+bead! So had bringing in and arranging her mother's invalid-tray, and
+the Porch Club and the story-hour had given her a double right to the
+Torch-bearer rank, which requires leadership of a group. Then, of
+course, the wood-craft honors she had won before she went home--she had
+known about those. But to think that everything, even that hilarious
+ten-course dinner she and Louise had planned, had been good for a bead!
+Winona had far more than the fifteen required honors for the highest
+rank of the Camp Fire.
+
+"Repeat the Torch-bearer's Desire, Winona," said Mrs. Bryan, and Winona,
+half in a dream, said,
+
+  The light which has been given me
+  I desire to pass undimmed to others.
+
+Mrs. Bryan stepped forward, and threw a string of beads over her head.
+She had not been in Camp till now, and so the beads had not come one by
+one as they generally did. She fastened the pin on Winona's breast, and
+stepped back, while the girls sang a tempestuous cheer.
+
+Winona sat down on the grass, still bewildered.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, how does it feel to be a Torch-bearer--the only one in Camp?"
+asked Helen late that night, as the girls were undressing together.
+
+"Wonderful--only I don't believe it, yet!" said Winona. "Think of all
+those honors that I never even dreamed I was getting--and to think I was
+having such fun getting them, too! It seems as if I ought to have worked
+so hard it was uncomfortable, somehow, to deserve them."
+
+"It was dreadfully hard to keep the surprise a secret, sometimes," said
+Helen. "When your letters were a wee little bit lonesome, sometimes, we
+had hard work keeping Louise from telling. Oh, Winona, all the girls are
+so glad!"
+
+"I'm glad, too," said Winona soberly. "And oh, Helen, I _am_ going to
+keep on carrying the torch, too--as high as ever I can!"
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Winona of the Camp Fire, by Margaret Widdemer
+
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