CHAPTER XIHAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE
THE girls had all gone off blackberrying. The report of a spot where they grew “as big as your thumb” inspired an ambition to fill the buckets, to can, to make pies, puddings, flummery, or anything else suggested. So silence reigned in the little camp. The canal boats passed up or down once in a while, the tramp of the mules and the cries of the drivers announcing their coming. The Virginia shores showed misty green under the July skies; the river shone silver bright, or displayed dancing flecks where it dashed over the rocky portions. Just above the rapids it took a twist and was navigable for small boats quite a distance, running either side of two small islands.
From the nearer of these islands a column of smoke curled slowly up, and any one watching would see a canoe presently dart from the shore and come speeding down the river, turning off into a little creek which emptied itself into the stream just above the lock. Somewhat later two boys came down the road and stopped before the lodge, looking it up and down, then they mounted the steps to the rustic porch and knocked at the door. No answer to the knock. Then they called: “Heigho, girls!” No sound except thesplashing of an approaching canal boat as it slipped through the water.
“They can’t all be asleep,” decided one of the boys at last.
“Gone on a hike, probably,” said the other. “Shall we wait?”
“We might take it easy for a few minutes. I say, Hal, this is a dandy place.”
“No better than our island. Give me old Longshanks every time. Of course this has more conveniences and is all right for girls, but the island for mine.”
“View’s better,” protested his companion, Chesney Lacey; “it must be something magnificent from the top of those cliffs.”
“Let’s go up and see. We can leave a message for the girls. If they are off on a hike they may not get back the whole afternoon.”
“Very true. Here goes, then. Got a bit of paper?”
Hal pulled a pad from his pocket and Chet, supplying a pencil, wrote:
“To the Girl Scouts of Sunflower Troop—greeting! You are invited to supper on Longshanks Island to-morrow afternoon. Boats will meet you at five o’clock at the wharf by the mill on Stony Creek.Signed:Hal Fosdick,Chet Lacey.”
“To the Girl Scouts of Sunflower Troop—greeting! You are invited to supper on Longshanks Island to-morrow afternoon. Boats will meet you at five o’clock at the wharf by the mill on Stony Creek.
Signed:Hal Fosdick,Chet Lacey.”
Hal read the note which Chet handed him. “You don’t say it is the troop that invites them,” he criticized.
“No, it makes it more mysterious not to say that. Girls love mysteries; they won’t know whether just you and I are camping up there or whether it is the whole outfit; we’ll just leave ’em in doubt till they get up there.”
Hal nodded approval, and after pinning the note to one of the rough cedar posts of the porch they went off to mount the hill behind the lodge.
Joanne’s sharp eyes were the first to discover the note when the girls returned with berry-stained fingers but with brimming buckets. “Look! look!” she cried. “See what I’ve found.”
Miss Dodge took the note which Joanne handed to her, and, after glancing over the contents, read it aloud.
Immediately she was overwhelmed by questions: “Oh, Miss Dodge, you will let us go, won’t you? Did you know the boys were there? Is it the whole troop of Boy Scouts or just those two? Did you know about their inviting us? When did they come?”
“Stop, stop, girls, and take breath,” said Miss Dodge. “I don’t know any more about it than you do, but perhaps Miss Chesney does; do you, Nan?”
“I knew the boys were looking for a camping place up this way, but that is the extent of my knowledge,” Miss Chesney told her.
“But we may go, mayn’t we?” said Esther pleadingly.
“If we can get all these berries disposed of in time.”
“Oh, we’ll go to it early and get most of them canned. We will have some for supper, and make a pudding for dinner to-morrow, then if anybody decides to make jam it can be started, and finished the next day,” said Claudia.
“How can we let the boys know that we’ll come?” questioned Winnie.
“What’s the matter with signalling?” returned Betty Streeter. “Won’t that be the best way, Miss Dodge?”
“Yes, unless you are all too tired.”
“But we needn’t do it this evening. We can’t all be fussing with the blackberries at the same time; we’ll have to take turns. We could go to-morrow morning to that hill just beyond the mill; they could see us from there.”
“Some one could take Chico and go this evening, if that would be better,” said Joanne.
“Better still,” returned Miss Dodge. “Will you go, Joanne?”
“Oh, Miss Dodge, I’m afraid I’m not up to the mark in signalling. I’d feel so flat if I did it wrong.”
“Then, Claudia, you go.”
Claudia, being an expert with the flags, was only too willing and started off to get Chico at once in order that she might be back by supper time. Joanne stoodwatching her as she ran along. “I surely must get busy with those flags,” she said to herself. “I don’t think I have realized how important they could be. There is really no other way to reach the boys.” And the rest of her spare time that evening she devoted to the practising of signalling.
The blackberries were all out of the way by afternoon of the next day, all except one kettle of jam which was to be finished up later. A huge blackberry dumpling was had for dinner, many glasses of jelly stood a-row on the window sills, while the girls had scoured the country for jars in which to can their fruit. Mrs. Scraggs had lent them one big preserving kettle, Mrs. Clover another, so they progressed rapidly. Joanne was very proud of her six jars and her five glasses, but, as it is not easy to make blackberry jelly, she had her doubts about the proper consistency of this.
By five o’clock the whole party of girls was gathered upon the bank of Stony Creek. It was a lovely stream overarched by drooping trees, bordered by ferns and bushes whose reflections made a green margin for the rippling water, and fed by many cool springs which ran in little rills down the hills.
It was not long before three boats pushed into the stream. Hal and Chet were in the foremost. Cheers, salutes and shouts of welcome met them as the girls crowded closer to the water.
“How many are there of you?” questioned Hal.
“Fourteen girls, their captain and their lieutenant,” he was told.
“All right. I reckon we’ve plenty of grub. Come along, step in, and we’ll take you to the island of Delight. Six in the first boat. We’re counting on some of you to row. Who wants to?”
“I! I!” the offers came promptly, and presently the boats had left the shady creek and were out upon the broad waters of the Potomac, here a mile wide. It was something of a pull, but soon the girls saw white tents gleaming amidst the green of the island, and beheld the smoke of fires blue against the background of foliage. A dozen boys met them and the fun began.
“You’re company,” said Chet, “and are not to do one thing to help us.”
“Except to help us eat,” put in Pete Lowe. “Did you bring the milk, Chet?”
“Nothing doing except in the direction of a tin cow or so. You don’t mind canned milk in your cocoa, do you, girls?”
Nobody minded, and Chet brought the cans from the boat, handing them over to Pete whose office it was to make the cocoa. Milt Seymour was busy at one fire frying fish, Jimmy Carey was stirring pancakes and watching a second fire, Peter squatted before a third over which a gypsy kettle hung. Other boys skurried around, in and out the mess tent, and finally it was announced that the meal was ready, and a good one it was: fried fish, potatoes baked in theashes, pancakes, cocoa, sliced pineapple and small cakes.
“Who thought of getting this good Hawaiian pineapple?” asked Winnie. “We never once thought of having it, and one can do a lot of things with it. I move we order some from town.”
“Second the motion,” replied Claudia. “Joanne knows a Girl Scout who lives in Hawaii, don’t you, Jo?”
“How interesting,” exclaimed Betty. “Does she write to you, Jo?”
“Yes,” Joanne answered; “I heard from her not long ago. She said the Girl Scouts of Hawaii were asking to have white uniforms instead of the khaki ones, because the white ones are so much cooler.”
“That is true, and I hope they’ll get them. There are days when I feel as if I should expire even in this latitude, and what must it be farther south,” said Winnie.
“Our Southern girls have asked for the white ones, too,” Joanne said. “I read that in a paper not long ago.”
“What’s your Hawaii girl’s name?” asked Pete, softly thrumming on his ukulele. “Tell us something about her. What does she look like?”
“Her name is Lucretia Lee. She is quite pretty with soft brown curly hair and bright blue eyes. Her father has a pineapple plantation; I believe he raises sugar cane, too. I wish you could see Lulu dashingabout in the surf; she swims like a duck. They call her Lulu for short. Her grandfather was a naval officer, and was a great friend of my grandfather’s.”
Pete listened to this description and then sat still fingering his ukulele with his eyes fixed on the Maryland shore. Presently he struck a wailing chord and began to sing:
“In Honolulu-lulu-luluWhere the kindly natives generally behave,Lives a girlie, hair so curly,Eyes as bright as sparkling sunlight on the wave.She’s my pineapple, Hawaiian pineapple,My little Lala, Lila, Lula Lee,She’s the Girl Scout for this Boy Scout,Though she lives so far away across the sea.“There she raises cane, sweet sugar cane,And she’s sweet as all the sugar plums you hoard;She goes riding, sometimes colliding,As she dashes through the breakers on a board.Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.“She weaves garlands, pretty garlands,Which she hangs around her neck, a flowery chain,Lead me there, boys, but beware, boys,Lest your Petey never comes to you again.Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.”
“In Honolulu-lulu-luluWhere the kindly natives generally behave,Lives a girlie, hair so curly,Eyes as bright as sparkling sunlight on the wave.She’s my pineapple, Hawaiian pineapple,My little Lala, Lila, Lula Lee,She’s the Girl Scout for this Boy Scout,Though she lives so far away across the sea.“There she raises cane, sweet sugar cane,And she’s sweet as all the sugar plums you hoard;She goes riding, sometimes colliding,As she dashes through the breakers on a board.Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.“She weaves garlands, pretty garlands,Which she hangs around her neck, a flowery chain,Lead me there, boys, but beware, boys,Lest your Petey never comes to you again.Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.”
“In Honolulu-lulu-luluWhere the kindly natives generally behave,Lives a girlie, hair so curly,Eyes as bright as sparkling sunlight on the wave.She’s my pineapple, Hawaiian pineapple,My little Lala, Lila, Lula Lee,She’s the Girl Scout for this Boy Scout,Though she lives so far away across the sea.
“In Honolulu-lulu-lulu
Where the kindly natives generally behave,
Lives a girlie, hair so curly,
Eyes as bright as sparkling sunlight on the wave.
She’s my pineapple, Hawaiian pineapple,
My little Lala, Lila, Lula Lee,
She’s the Girl Scout for this Boy Scout,
Though she lives so far away across the sea.
“There she raises cane, sweet sugar cane,And she’s sweet as all the sugar plums you hoard;She goes riding, sometimes colliding,As she dashes through the breakers on a board.Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.
“There she raises cane, sweet sugar cane,
And she’s sweet as all the sugar plums you hoard;
She goes riding, sometimes colliding,
As she dashes through the breakers on a board.
Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.
“She weaves garlands, pretty garlands,Which she hangs around her neck, a flowery chain,Lead me there, boys, but beware, boys,Lest your Petey never comes to you again.Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.”
“She weaves garlands, pretty garlands,
Which she hangs around her neck, a flowery chain,
Lead me there, boys, but beware, boys,
Lest your Petey never comes to you again.
Chorus: She’s my pineapple, etc.”
The other boys had stopped twanging their various musical instruments, leaving Pete sole performer. As he ended his ditty with a sweeping flourish of thestrings there came an enthusiastic clapping of hands. “Oh, Pete, that was wonderful!” cried the girls.
Hal went up and pounded his friend on the back. “Pete, you old top,” he said, “I didn’t think you had it in you. Where have you kept your talent all this while?”
“It required ‘the time, the place and the loved ones all together,’ to bring it out,” responded Pete. “This is a combination one doesn’t get more than once in a lifetime. Such an opportunity may not occur again.”
“Do you think you could remember the words?” Joanne asked him. “I would love to write them down to show to my grandfather.”
“Oh, gee!” exclaimed Pete suddenly overcome with confusion, “I couldn’t remember them; I just made them up as I went along.”
“That’s all right, all right,” spoke up Chet; “all the same they are going down to posterity in written form, for I took them down in short-hand. I’ve had an exhibition of Pete’s powers before and knew what to expect. I’ll write them out in proper shape and give them to you, Jo.”
“Oh, I say——” began Pete in protest.
“Nothing doing, old chap,” Chet interrupted. “I made up my mind last time that our troubadour’s lay should not sink into oblivion, so I was prepared.”
“Good for you, Chet,” spoke up one of the other boys. “We want that song for our own use. All original compositions are exclusively the property ofthis establishment, Pete, so if you don’t want us to have them you must hie you to your attic and coax the Muse in solitude.”
“Oh, but, fellows, I don’t make a practice of doing this sort of thing,” explained Pete with an air of having been caught in something unbecoming to his dignity. “It just comes into my head like this and I out with it.”
“No apologies necessary,” said Hal. “Do it some more, and receive the thanks of the committee on entertainment.”
The matter was dropped, but from this time out Pete received the nickname of Troub, short for troubadour, and his song became a favorite with his troop as well as with the Sunflower girls.
The supper party at last broke up, and the girls went home when the afterglow still reddened the water and a rising moon glittered above the tree-tops. The boys saw them safely to the lodge, and went off singing: “She’s my pineapple.”
Of course there must be a like party for the boys when the girls displayed their powers as cooks, and quite outdid themselves. On this occasion Pablo was asked to be one of the party. Then the boys clamored for Chico, who was brought down and put through his paces, Pablo showing some marvellous feats of horsemanship which brought him great applause and made more than one boy envious.
There were other frolics, too, when girls and boyswent picnicking, farther down the river. There was a corn roast by moonlight in a big field when the first corn was ready to be eaten. There was a straw ride to a country church festival five miles away. Besides these were many excursions on the river which was a never-failing attraction. Meantime Claude Lafayette was provided with an ample outfit, Mariquita’s brothers and Pablo became close friends, while the girls baked and kept house, washed, ironed, sewed and studied, played much, and worked no more than was good for them.
All this time no accidents of any account had befallen. A slight burn, a cut finger, a blistered heel about covered the list. But one day when Joanne and Winnie were on their way to the lock to telephone for some supplies, they heard a sudden commotion in the house where dwelt their young protégé, Claude Lafayette. Screams, wails, a babble of excited talk issued from the open doorway. Both girls started on a run toward the house. “Hurry,” cried Winnie over her shoulder, “something is wrong.”
Joanne kept close at Winnie’s heels and they entered the house without ceremony to find Mrs. Scraggs in the kitchen, her baby on her lap and the other children crowded around her crying.
“What’s the matter?” asked Winnie sharply as she came in.
“Oh, my baby! My baby! He’s drowned! He’s drowned!” wailed Mrs. Scraggs.
“Give him to me,” said Winnie peremptorily, and without waiting took the child in her arms and held him with head and face down. “Jo,” she said, “go telephone for the doctor. Tell him to come as quick as he can. Tell him what has happened.”
Joanne ran out and sent the message, then back she hurried to hear Winnie say: “I believe he is alive, Mrs. Scraggs; I hope so. We shall want hot water and blankets. Jo, you know what to do, just see to getting what we need. There! There! he is breathing. How long was he in the water, Mrs. Scraggs?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know. I was hanging out the clothes and left him on a chair. He must have pitched forward into the tub. It was full of water. I had left it on the floor. I thought one of the other children would watch him, but maybe they didn’t see him fall.”
Joanne, finding that she must take things into her own hands, had stirred up the fire, set the kettle to boil, and was rummaging around for blankets while Winnie stripped the wet clothes from the baby and was wrapping him up in such dry things as were at hand. Mrs. Scraggs had completely lost her head and could do nothing but wring her hands and cry.
By the time Joanne appeared with the blankets she was able to find, the doctor’s automobile was at the door. He had covered the three miles in an incredibly short space of time. “What’s this? What’s this?” he said as he bustled in. “A child drowned?”
“Almost,” replied Winnie, “but I think he’s coming out all right.”
“He was drowned,” said Mrs. Scraggs wiping her eyes. “He would have been an angel by this time if it hadn’t been for the young lady. She brought him to life again, doctor.”
The doctor looked sharply at Winnie and then at Joanne who was folding the warm blankets around the limp little figure. Then the flicker of a smile came into the man’s face. “Oh, Girl Scouts,” he said, “I see. Tell me what happened and what you have done about it.”
“He fell into a tub of water while his mother was out of the room,” Winnie told him. “We happened to get here just in time. I used the Schafer system and was able to bring him around.”
The doctor nodded approvingly. “You did exactly right. He must be kept warm and perfectly quiet. A good long nap will be the best thing. I’ll stay a while to see that his breathing becomes perfectly normal. He’d better be watched for some hours.”
“I’ll stay and watch him,” Joanne volunteered.
“So will I,” said Winnie. “Perhaps one of us should go and report to Miss Dodge, so she will know why we are detained. Perhaps you’d better go, Jo, while I stay here and get the doctor’s instructions.”
Joanne acquiesced, and started off on her errand, returning with Miss Dodge herself and bearing several hot water bottles.
“That’s the thing,” exclaimed the doctor when Joanne produced the bottles. “This your captain? Well, Captain, you are to be congratulated. But for the prompt action of one of your girls Mrs. Scraggs would have lost her baby. I think he is all right, but I’ll come in again to-morrow to see how he is getting along.” So saying he drove off, and Claude Lafayette was left to his two nurses.
Miss Dodge laid her two hands on Winnie’s shoulders and looked down into her glowing face. “I am proud of my girls,” she said, “and just now especially so of this one. It is a great privilege to be given the chance to save a life, Winnie, girl.”
“I was so afraid I couldn’t do it,” returned Winnie earnestly. “I had never tried on a real subject before, but I had the system down fine for I knew how important it would be in case of emergency.”
By reason of seeing the doctor’s car go flying by, the people in the little settlement by the lock got wind of the accident, and presently came in groups of two or three till quite a crowd had gathered and Mrs. Scraggs was kept busy answering questions. However, she was not averse to being the center of interest, and made the most of her harrowing tale. Of course every one wanted to see the baby, but here Miss Dodge rose to the occasion. Joanne met two or three curious women on their way up-stairs to the room where the baby lay. Back flew Joanne.
“Miss Dodge, Miss Dodge,” she said in an excitedwhisper. “Everybody is piling up-stairs to see the baby. They mustn’t come in, must they? The doctor said he must be kept perfectly quiet.”
Miss Dodge moved quietly and softly to the door which she closed after her and met the visitors at the head of the stairs. “Dear people,” she said, “you want that little baby to get well, don’t you? Then, please won’t you wait till he is better before you see him? The doctor said he must be kept very, very quiet, and we don’t even allow any of his family in the room with him, just two of us to keep watch.”
“Are you the nurse?” asked the foremost woman.
“For the present, yes,” replied Miss Dodge.
The woman turned. “I reckon we’d better go back,” she said to her companions. “She’s the nurse, and she ain’t goin’ to leave us in. I know what these nurses are.”
So down-stairs they trooped and Miss Dodge returned to her post, a little smile upon her face. “Girls,” she said in a low voice, “it seems that I am to act the part of buffer. Suppose one of you sits outside to keep watch for intruders and the other goes down to see what she can do for Mrs. Scraggs. The poor woman hasn’t a minute for anything with such shoals of curious people flocking here.”
“Oh, but I think she rather enjoys it,” said Winnie.
“I don’t doubt that, but it doesn’t give a minute for her regular work. You take a chair and sit outside, Winnie, and let Joanne go down. You can let meknow if any one starts to come up and I will shoo them down again.”
Winnie took up her station by a window in the little entry while Joanne went down-stairs to investigate. The front room was occupied by people still gloating over the details of Mrs. Scraggs’s tale which lost nothing by frequent repetition. Out in the yard the five older Scraggs children were gathered, likewise holding forth upon the subject of the baby’s accident.
Joanne went into the kitchen which was in a sorry mess. She stood and looked around with a sigh. There sat the tubs still filled with water. The fire was out. A pile of soiled dishes stood in the sink. “The first thing to do is to build the fire and heat some water,” Joanne decided. “While the water is heating I will empty those tubs and get them out of the way.” This she did, ladling the water from the tubs into a bucket and emptying it outside. Then she washed up the dishes, brushed up the kitchen, and finding the clothes on the line had thoroughly dried, she brought them in.
She was just piling them up on a table when Mrs. Scraggs came in. “Lawsy! Lawsy!” she exclaimed, “just look what you done. I been so pestered with company I ain’t been sure whether I stood on my head or my heels. Folks has got so much curiosity there ain’t doin’ nothin’ with ’em. I don’t know what I’d done if it hadn’t been for you alls. You ain’t been an’ washed up them dishes? I don’t know what to say about that,an’ look how nice you’ve redded up. Well, as I said before, I don’t know what I’d ’a’ done but for you. I wouldn’t have had no baby; that’s one thing sure. You reckon Miss Dodge’ll let me see him now? She as much as said I’d better keep out and I done it.” Mrs. Scraggs was so excited that she rattled on indefinitely, and kept up running remarks all the way up-stairs.
Claude Lafayette, having had a good nap, was fast recovering, so Miss Dodge and the two girls decided that they might take their leave, especially as Mr. Scraggs had just come in from work and could share responsibilities. So off the three went, followed by oft repeated blessings and thanks.
At the lodge Winnie was made the heroine of the hour, causing Joanne to be rather envious, not that she would have robbed Winnie of her honors, but because she, herself, was used to being first. This may have been one reason why she determined to study First Aid more carefully, although the chief factor in her resolution was her memory of the little limp form of the baby they had all learned to love, and who now was restored to them through Winnie’s efforts. Joanne, however, came in for some of the glory, for had she not been chief assistant?
“It certainly was a practical lesson for me,” she told the other girls, “and if necessity called I think I could do as Win did.”
“It is devoutly to be hoped that necessity will notcall,” said Claudia. “We have been spared accidents, so far.”
However, what came near to being a similar accident did occur a few days later when Miriam Overton, who was the heavyweight of the party, was sitting on the little bridge which spanned the stream caused by the overflow of the water supply. Miriam was trying to read and to fish at the same time, and hitched her chair too close to the edge so that over she went into the stream. It was not deep enough to be dangerous, but oh, the mud! Poor Miriam was caked with it to her waist.
“I could have stood it better,” she said plaintively, “if Win hadn’t made that awful pun about its being ‘over ton’ that went into the water.”
“Did Win say that?” asked Betty Streeter. “Then she ought to be ducked herself. Attaboy!” And poor Winnie was made miserable for the rest of the day when the other girls chased her around the place threatening to douse her in the canal. She escaped finally by means of counter threats and, as Claudia expressed it, “the incident was closed.”