‘And near him a mule bell came tinklingMidway on the Paso del Mar.’
‘And near him a mule bell came tinklingMidway on the Paso del Mar.’
I forgot how it begins.”
“Oh, you mean ‘The Fight of the Paso del Mar,’” said Migwan. “The one where the two fight and tumble over into the sea. I wore the page that poem was on completely out of the book reading it so often, and wished and wished I had been there to see it happen.”
“So did I,” said Hinpoha.
“Let’s do it,” said Katherine suddenly. “We have all the props. Here’s the mule, and the rocky shore–that low wedge around the base of the cliff will do beautifully for the Paso del Mar. And ‘gusty and raw is the morning,’ just the way the poem says, and if there isn’t enough fog to ‘tear its skirts on the mountain trees,’ we can pretend this light mist is a real fog. Everything is here, even the bell on the mule. I’ll be Pablo of San Diego and, Hinpoha, you be Bernal.”
“Migwan would make a better Bernal,” said Hinpoha modestly. “No,” said Katherine decidedly, “you’ll make a better splash when you fall into the lake, and anyway, Migwan always wanted to see it done, not do it. Hurry up and get your blanket,179and get it wrapped gloomily around you. Sandhelo and I will start out from the hills behind.”
Hinpoha fetched a blanket and strode across the beach, her fair forehead puckered into what she fondly believed to be a ferocious scowl, while the bathers ranged themselves into an audience. Katherine, between clucks and commands, designed to keep Sandhelo’s feet in the straight and narrow path, i.e., the low-jutting ledge of the cliff just above the water line, raised her cracked voice in a three-part harmony and “sang through the fog and wind.” Sandhelo moved forward willingly enough. Since Katherine had taken him seriously in hand that summer he had learned to carry a rider without the accompaniment of music. If he hadn’t, Katherine would never have been able to make him stir, for he certainly would not have classed her husky, bleating tones as music.
Bernal advanced cautiously onto the Paso del Mar, taking care not to slip on the wet stones, and encountered the blithe Pablo midway on the pass, holding tight to his mule’s bridle strap with one hand and covering up a rent in the waist of his bathing suit with the other.
“Back!” shouted Bernal full fiercely.
And “Back!” shouted Pablo in wrath, and then things happened. Sandhelo, with the sensitiveness of his artistic temperament, thought that all remarks made in his presence were intended to be180personal. So when Hinpoha looked him in the eye and shouted “Back!” and Katherine jerked his bridle and screamed “Back!” he cannot be blamed if he did what any gentleman would have done when commanded by a lady. He backed.
“Whoa!” shouted Katherine, taken unawares and nearly falling off his small saddle area. But Sandhelo considered that his first orders had been pretty definite and he continued to back along the narrow ledge. “Stop!” screamed Katherine, while the audience roared with laughter, “‘We turn not on Paso del Mar!’”
The word “turn” seemed to give Sandhelo a brilliant new idea, and, without warning, he rose on his hind legs, whirled around in a dizzy semi-circle, and started back in the direction whence he had come. Katherine, unable to check his inglorious flight, hung on grimly. He left the narrow ledge and started climbing the hill, leaving the black-hearted Bernal in full possession of the Paso del Mar. At the top of the hill Katherine slid off Sandhelo’s back, the soft grass breaking her fall, and lay there laughing so she could not get up, while Sandhelo raced on to his favorite grazing ground.
“To think it had to turn out that way, when I was dying to see the part where you fall into the lake,” lamented Migwan, when the cast had collected itself on the beach. “It wasn’t at all the real thing.”
181“Some of it was,” said Sahwah. “The beginning was all right.”
“And the mule did go home ‘riderless’ eventually,” said Katherine, rubbing her bumped elbow. “Didn’t he make speed going around that narrow, slippery ledge, though?” she went on. “I expected him to go overboard every minute. But he tore along as easily as if he were running on a velvetine road.”
“On a what?” asked Slim.
“She means a corduroy road, I guess,” said Gladys, and they all shouted with laughter.
“Ho-ho-ho!” chuckled Slim, “that’s pretty good. Velvetine road! Would there be any binnacles on it, do you suppose?” he added teasingly.
“That’s right, everybody insult a poor old woman what ain’t never had a chance to get an eddication!” sobbed Katherine, shedding mock tears into her handkerchief. “What’s the difference? Doesn’t velvetine sound just as good as corduroy? And, anyhow, it’s better style this year than corduroy.”
“Hear the poor, ignorant, old lady talk about style,” jeered Sahwah. “I didn’t think you ever came out of your abstraction long enough to know what was in style.”
“Even in her absentmindedness she seems to have a preference for fine things, though,” said Gladys, beginning to giggle reminiscently. “Do you remember182the time she walked out of Osterland’s with a thirty-dollar hat on her head?”
Katherine rose as if to forcibly silence her, but Sahwah held her back and Gladys proceeded for the edification of the boys. “You see,” said Gladys, “she was in there trying on hats all by herself because the saleswomen were busy with other people. She had put on a mink hat and was roaming around looking for a handglass to see how it looked from the back, when she suddenly got an idea for a story she was to write for that month’s club meeting. She forgot all about having the hat on her head and started for home as fast as she could. Out on the sidewalk she met Nyoda, who admired the hat. Then she came to.”
“Mercy!” said Aunt Clara to Katherine, “weren’t you frightened when you discovered it?”
“Not she,” said Gladys. “She walked right back inside, big as life, hunted around until she found her own hat, and handed the mink one to the saleswoman, who had just sent a store detective out after her. The detective escorted her to the door that time, but it didn’t worry her in the least. She went right back into the store the next day and tried the same hat on again and couldn’t imagine why the saleswoman left another customer and was so attentive to her. The simplicity of some people is perfectly touching.”
“I won’t stay and be made fun of,” said Katherine,183and marched up the hill with an injured air, calling back over her shoulder, “all people who ordered fudge today might as well cancel their orders, because I’m not going to make any, so there!”
“Oh, I say, don’t get mad,” said Slim in alarm, whereat everybody laughed. He was the one for whom Katherine’s words were intended, nobody else having “ordered” any fudge.
“Honest, I forgot I promised not to tell about the binnacles,” said Slim pleadingly.
But Katherine was adamant and would not forgive him. Slim grunted ruefully and exclaimed: “Shucks! I always manage to get in bad with her. Always in bad,” he repeated dolefully.
“We’ll have to re-christen you ‘In-Bad the Sailor!’” said Sahwah.
“Really!” said the Captain, making a grimace of comical surprise at her. “Who would have thought the child was so deucedly clevah, bah Jove!”
But the name of In-Bad the Sailor struck the others as being such a good one that they adopted it right away, and Slim had to answer to it half the time for the rest of the summer.
Slim shadowed Katherine so closely and volunteered so gallantly to do all her dinner chores that she relented in the middle of the afternoon and brought out the brown and white “makin’s” that Slim’s sweet tooth so delighted in. The Captain184looked at them and jeered as he went past on his way down to the landing.
“Slim would eat his words any day if he could roll them in a piece of fudge,” he called. Slim only smiled sweetly as he watched the experimental spoonful being dropped into the cup of water. Nothing could ruffle him now.
The Captain walked briskly down the hill and untied the small launch.
“Where are you going?” called Hinpoha from the log where she was sitting all by herself reading.
“Over to St. Pierre, to mail a Special Delivery letter for Uncle Teddy,” replied the Captain.
“Do you need any help getting it over?” asked Hinpoha.
“Why, yes,” said the Captain, laughing, “come along if you want to.” Hinpoha tripped gaily over the beach and seated herself in the launch with him.
“Hadn’t you better wear your sweater?” asked the Captain, looking rather doubtfully at Hinpoha’s low-necked and short-sleeved middy. “There’s a raw wind today and cutting against it will make it worse.”
Hinpoha shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not a bit cold,” she replied carelessly. “I always go like this; even in lots colder weather. I’m so hardened down to it that I never catch cold. Besides, we’re not going to be out after dark, are we? You’re just going straight over to St. Pierre and back?”
185“That’s all,” said the Captain. “Just to mail this letter and buy some alcohol for Uncle Teddy and some peanuts for the chippies. Hadn’t ought to take more than an hour and a half altogether.” He started the engine and off they chugged. They reached St. Pierre in good time, mailed the letter, bought the alcohol and the peanuts and a postcard with a picture of a donkey on it to give to Katherine and some lollypops for Slim and started back.
“What’s happened to the sun?” asked Hinpoha. It had been feeble and watery on the way over, but now it had vanished from the sky, and a fine mist seemed to be falling all over. Hinpoha shivered involuntarily as they started off.
“You really should have brought your sweater along,” said the Captain. “Here, spread this tarpaulin over you, it’ll keep you warm a little.”
Hinpoha declared she wasn’t very cold, but, nevertheless, she availed herself of the protection the tarpaulin afforded and was glad to have it. The mist thickened until it looked like steam, and almost before they knew it they were surrounded on all sides by a dense fog. They could not see a boat length ahead of them.
“Nice pickle,” said the Captain, buttoning his collar around his throat. “How are we ever going to find our way back to Ellen’s Isle in this mess?”
Hinpoha strained her eyes trying to peer through the white curtain. “I don’t know,” she said, “unless186you can guide yourself by the fog horn in the harbor of St. Pierre. Keep it behind us, you know.”
“But the sound seems to come from all around,” said the Captain.
“It will at first, but afterwards you can tell,” said Hinpoha. “Nyoda used to keep making us tell the direction from which sounds came and we can almost always do it. The fog horn is behind us now.”
The Captain kept on in the direction they had been going and ran very slowly. “It’ll take us all evening to get home at this rate,” he said. “If we don’t run past the island,” he added under his breath.
A few minutes later the chugging of the engine ceased and their steady, if slow, progress was arrested. “What’s the matter?” asked Hinpoha.
“I don’t know,” said the Captain in a vexed tone. “It can’t be that we’re out of gasoline–I filled up before we left. The engine’s gone dead.”
He struck match after match in an effort to see what the trouble was, but they only made a feeble glare in the fog and he could not locate the trouble. “What are we going to do now?” he exclaimed in a tone of concern.
“Sit here until the fog lifts, I suppose,” said Hinpoha calmly.
Finally, satisfied that he could do absolutely nothing to fix the trouble until he could see, the Captain settled back to await the lifting of the fog. The chill in the air was getting sharper all the time, and,187although Hinpoha did everything she could to prevent it, her teeth chattered and the Captain could feel her convulsive shivers, even under the tarpaulin.
“Here,” he said, taking off his coat and putting it around her shoulders, “put this on.”
Hinpoha shoved it away resolutely, shaking her head. She could not speak articulately. But the Captain was determined and made her put it on in spite of her protests.
“Y-you’ll t-t-take c-c-c-cold,” she said.
“No, I won’t,” said the Captain, “but you will.” Hinpoha made him take the tarpaulin as she began to warm through in the coat.
“It’s kind of fun,” she said in a natural voice again. “It’s a new experience.”
“Is there anything you girls don’t think is fun?” asked the Captain in an admiring tone. “Most girls would be wringing their hands and declaring they would never go out in a boat again. Aren’t you really afraid?”
“Not the least bit,” said Hinpoha emphatically.
“You’re a good sport,” said the Captain.
“‘Thank you kindly, sir, she said,’” replied Hinpoha. But she was pleased with the compliment, nevertheless, because she knew it was sincere. The Captain never said anything he did not mean.
They sat there drifting back and forth with the current for several hours, and then suddenly there188was a break in the white curtain and two bright eyes looked down at them from above. “It’s the Twins!” cried Hinpoha delightedly. “The Sailors’ Stars. They have come to guide us back. Don’t you remember, they’re always directly in front of us when we come home from St. Pierre in the evening.”
The fog was breaking and drifting away before a fresh breeze which had sprung up and first one star and then another came into view. Soon they could see a bright red light in the distance and knew it was a signal fire, which the folks on Ellen’s Isle had built to guide them. Hinpoha held her little bug light down while the Captain searched for the trouble in the launch engine and he was not long in discovering that it was nothing serious. A few pokes in her vitals and the launch began chugging again.
The whole family was lined up on the beach awaiting their arrival and they were welcomed back as though they had been gone a year. It was nearly nine o’clock. They had been out on the lake more than four hours.
“Stop hugging Hinpoha, Gladys,” bade her mother, “and let her eat something. Those blessed children must be nearly starved.”
This was not quite true, because they had eaten the two quarts of peanuts and the half dozen lollypops originally consigned to the camp, which had saved them from starving very nicely.
The clearing wind, which had dispelled the fog,189came from the north and blew colder and colder as the night wore on. In the morning the Captain woke stiff and chilled and with a very sore throat. “I’m all right,” he protested when Aunt Clara came in to administer remedies, but his voice was a mere croak. Aunt Clara felt of his head and found a high fever. She promptly ordered him to stay in bed and set herself to the task of breaking up the cold. Hinpoha wandered around distracted all day.
“It was my fault, all my fault,” she wailed. “If I had only had sense enough to take my sweater he wouldn’t have made me take his coat. Is he very sick, Aunt Clara?”
By night the Captain was very much worse. He had developed a bad case of bronchitis and his breath rattled ominously.
Hinpoha, crouching anxiously at the foot of a big tree near the tent, overheard a low-voiced conversation between Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, who were standing in the path. “It would be pretty serious if he were to develop pneumonia out here,” said Uncle Teddy in an anxious tone.
“We’re doing our best,” said Aunt Clara, “but he’s a very sick boy. In the morning you must bring the doctor from St. Pierre.”
They passed on and Hinpoha heard no more. But her heart sank like a lump of lead. The Captain was going to have pneumonia and it was all her fault! If he died she would be a murderer. How190could she ever face Uncle Teddy again? She was afraid to go back with the rest, but sat crouched there under the tree almost beside herself with remorse until Aunt Clara herself found her and made her go to bed.
In the morning Uncle Teddy brought a doctor from St. Pierre who stayed on the job all day and by night announced that there was no danger of pneumonia, although the Captain had had a very narrow escape.
“Nowwhat are you crying for?” demanded Katherine, coming upon Hinpoha all by herself in the woods.
“Be-c-cause I’m s-so g-glad,” said Hinpoha from the depths of a thankful heart.
“You make me tired,” said Katherine, and brushed a tear out of her own eye.
Once the tide was turned the Captain mended fast. A spell of beautiful, warm, dry weather followed the cold week, when the sun shone from morning until night and the pine-scented breezes bore health and strength on their pinions. Hinpoha191outdid herself cooking delicate messes for him and Slim nearly died with envy when he saw the choice dishes being loaded on the invalid’s tray.
“Pretty soft, pretty soft, I call it,” he would say to the Captain, and the Captain would laugh and reply he was willing to change places.
The Captain’s return to the ranks of the “huskies” was celebrated with a program of water sports and a great clam-bake on the beach. Of course, the Winnebagos got up a pageant, which on this occasion was a canoe procession, each canoe representing one of the seven points of the Camp Fire Law. “Seek Beauty” held a fairy creature dressed in white and garlanded with flowers; “Give Service” was the big war canoe, which went on ahead and towed all the others but one; “Pursue Knowledge” held a maiden who scanned the heavens with a telescope; “Be Trustworthy” held up a bag conspicuously labeled CAMP FUNDS; “Hold on to Health” was Katherine holding up a huge paper clock dial, its painted hands pointing to half past three A. M. with the slogan “Early to bed and early to rise make a crew healthy, wealthy and wise.” “Glorify Work” paddled its own canoe, scorning to be towed by “Give Service,” and “Be Happy” came along singing such rollicking songs and shouting so with laughter that they set the audience into a roar.
After the pageant came fancy drills in the war canoe. The crew were in fine practice by this time192and the paddles rose, dipped, cross rested, clicked and water wheeled all as one in obedience to the commands shouted by Uncle Teddy. Just before the war canoe started out on her exhibition trip the Stars and Stripes was nailed to her prow with much ceremony and “floated proudly before” her throughout the manœuvers.
Of course, no water sports could be complete without swimming races and a stunt contest, and Slim drew great applause by floating with his hands behind his head and one leg crossed over the other in his favorite position in the couch hammock.
Then Sahwah’s stunt was announced and she went to Hinpoha, Migwan and Gladys and invited them to take tea with her that afternoon. They accepted with pleasure and withdrew to prink. In the meantime, Sahwah took a plate in her hand and dove under the surface. She swam to a large, flat rock, which was plainly visible through the clear water, set the plate on the rock and weighed it down with a stone. She did this three more times, setting four plates in all. Then she put a pear on each plate under the stone. This finished, she came to the surface and sat on a rock to await the coming of her guests.
When they arrived she greeted them affably and bade them make themselves comfortable beside her. They were chatting merrily when suddenly a black figure rose from the water almost at their feet so193suddenly that Mrs. Evans screamed. The black figure was the Monkey, who had quietly slipped into the water behind a large rock while all attention was focussed on the girls, and swimming under water came up in front of them. The new arrival on the scene turned out to be the waiter who announced that tea was ready. “We will be down immediately, Thomas,” said Sahwah in her best society manner and promptly dove off the rock, the others following suit. They found their plates on the submerged rock, ate the pears under water and came up, amid the prolonged applause and shouting of the audience, who couldn’t see “how they did it without choking.” Of course that stunt was voted the best and the clever divers were crowned with ground pine in lieu of laurel and treated to lollypops.
Sahwah was just recovering the last plate when a sudden gust of wind tore the flag from the prow of the war canoe, riding at anchor a short distance away, and sent it flying through the air. It flew right over her head as she came up, and, reaching out her hand, she caught it. Then she swam back to the dock holding the flag above her head well out of the water so that not a drop stained it. The watchers cheered mightily as she came in waving it.
“‘The old flag never touched the ground,’” she said, holding her head up proudly, “and it’ll never fall into the water while I’m around.”
194“If only all young people had that same spirit of reverence toward their country’s flag!” said Uncle Teddy fervently. “It is becoming a rarer sight all the time to see a young man take off his hat to the Stars and Stripes. We have come to regard it as a sort of decorative rag, and of no more significance than any other decoration. I think it is up to you Camp Fire Girls to foster this spirit of respect for the flag among young folks. I am very glad you did this thing today, Sahwah. It was a fine act.”
Sahwah hung her head as she always did when praised, but the others declared that she grew an inch taller from that minute on.
“By the way, what’s become of the Principal Diversion for this week?” asked Katherine at breakfast one morning the week following the clam-bake in honor of the Captain’s recovery. “Maybe I was asleep in Council Meeting Monday night, but I don’t seem to recollect hearing one announced. Did I miss the announcement?” she asked of Sahwah, who with the Monkey was Chief for that week.
“There wasn’t any announcement made,” said Sahwah, trying to look dignified behind the coffee pot, and so busy filling up the plates of the others that she had scarcely eaten a mouthful herself. “We simply couldn’t think of a thing that had not been done before, and we’re still thinking.”
“We haven’t had a hare and hound chase yet,”195remarked Gladys. It was merely an idle suggestion, but the others pounced upon it immediately.
“The very thing!” said Sahwah promptly. “All our Principal Diversions so far have been trips by water; it’s time we did a little scouting on foot. Thanks for the idea. We’ll put it into action immediately. Today is a fine day for tramping. Munson can be leader of the Hares and I’ll take the Hounds. All those sitting above the toast plate at the table will be Hares; all those on this side of it, Hounds. Hares will start right after breakfast and have an hour’s start. Dinner will be carried along and eaten when the Hounds catch up with the Hares. If the Hounds catch the Hares before they reach their destination the Hares will do the cooking and give a show; if they have to wait for the Hounds to come up the Hounds will do the catering, watering and celebrating. The Hares will demonstrate their knowledge of scouting by blazing the trail in the proper manner, both by marking trees and by placing stones in the path.”
The Hares scurried around and were ready to start in a jiffy. These were Munson McKee as leader, with Katherine, the Captain, Gladys, Pitt, Nakwisi and Antha. Sahwah’s band consisted of Hinpoha and Slim, Migwan and Peter Jenkins, Dan Porter and Anthony. The elders had decided not to go on this trip. Mrs. Evans and Aunt Clara were still somewhat tired from their siege of nursing196the Captain and were glad to have a day of quiet, and Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans wanted to work on the boat landing, which was sinking into the water.
Uncle Teddy took the Hares across the lake in the launch and set them down at the edge of the woods. They struck out through the trees, chipping the trail on the trunks with a sharp hatchet, and working their way around the curve of the shore line to St. Pierre. There they rested and bought ice cream and while they were eating it Katherine had one of her periodical inspirations.
“Let’s keep right on going until we get back to camp, and not stop anywhere at all,” she suggested. “Won’t we lead the others a fine chase, though? They’ll be dead by the time they get there.”
“What about us?” asked Gladys. “We’ll be dead ourselves.”
“I suppose we will,” admitted Katherine, who hadn’t thought of this before, “but it will be worth it. Who’ll be game?”
“I know a way to fix it so we won’t be dead,” said Pitt, the crafty. Pitt could always use his head to save his heels, and was a very Ulysses for cunning.
“How?” they all asked.
“Leave a note for the others on that last tree we blazed, telling them to follow the sand beach around to the Point of Pines. There aren’t any trees along197the beach so they won’t think anything about our not blazing a trail. Then we’ll simply rent a boat and cut straight across the lake to the Point of Pines. From there we’ll go on blazing the trail back to the place opposite Ellen’s Isle where we are to signal Uncle Teddy. By cutting across the corner of the lake that way we’ll save three miles that the others will have to walk, and they’ll wonder and wonder how we got so far ahead of them.” The prospect of turning the hare and hound chase into a joke on the Hounds was too funny to pass up, and with giggles and chuckles they pinned the note on the tree back at the edge of the woods where the road ran toward St. Pierre; then they rented two rowboats and piled into them. Some distance to the east of St. Pierre stood the old abandoned lighthouse, and they had to row past it. It stood out in the water, several hundred feet from the shore, on an island so tiny that it did no more than give a foothold for the tower.
“Let’s stop and go into it,” said Katherine. “I’ve never seen a lighthouse close up before. And you ought to get a grand view of the lake and the islands from that little balcony that runs around the top. Maybe we can see the others trailing after us.”
The rest were also anxious to see the old lighthouse and as their short cut across the lake would gain them at least an hour they decided there was plenty of time to go inside. So the boys rowed198alongside and made the boats fast and they all went up.
“It’s horribly dilapidated and messy,” said Gladys, viewing with fastidious distaste a pile of crumbled bricks and mortar which lay at the foot of the stairway, the result of an explosion which had blown a hole in the wall.
“‘If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year,Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, ‘that they could get it clear?’”
“‘If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year,Do you suppose,’ the Walrus said, ‘that they could get it clear?’”
quoted Gladys, waving her hand in the direction of the heap.
“No doubt, but for a job like that I really wouldn’t keer!” answered Katherine. “Come on, you can climb over it.” And suiting the action to the word she took a long step over the pile of bricks and then reached down and pulled Gladys up after her.
It was fun standing up in the top of the lighthouse and looking out over the lake in all directions. The boats in the harbor of St. Pierre looked like cute little toys, and Ellen’s Isle seemed to have shrunk to half its size.
“Come, Munson,” said Katherine, “you get into the lantern and be the beacon. You can see that red hair of yours a mile. Too bad Hinpoha isn’t here, she’s a regular signal light.”
199“Get in yourself,” retorted the Monkey. “Your nose is as red as my hair.”
Far out over the lake they could see the black trail of smoke made by an approaching steamer.
“Here comes theHuronic,” said Gladys.
“Let’s stay out here until she goes past, and wave at the people,” said Katherine.
“We won’t have time, if we want to get to the Point of Pines ahead of the others,” said the Captain. Katherine reluctantly admitted that he was right and they picked their way down the littered stairs again. But there were so many fascinating corners to poke into that another half hour ticked by before they could finally tear themselves away.
“Where are the boats?” asked Katherine, who was the first through the door. Yes, where were they? They were no longer fastened where the Captain had left them. Far out in the lake they saw them, still tied together, bobbing up and down on the baby waves.
The girls uttered a shriek of dismay, all except Katherine, who exclaimed in comical amazement, “What do you know about that?”
“I thought I had them tied fast,” said the Captain ruefully. “What in the name of goodness are we going to do now?”
“Don’t ask me,” said the Monkey, gazing in a fascinated way at the swiftly fleeing boats. There was a strong current among the islands up here which200was sweeping the runaways very fast toward the channel.
“Stranded!” exclaimed the Captain.
“Marooned!” said the Bottomless Pitt.
“Shipwrecked!” said the Monkey.
“Desoited!” cried Katherine, wringing her hands and rolling her eyes. “Left to perish miserably in the middle of the sea! Now, Count Flamingo, you have your revenge!”
“Just the same,” said Gladys when she had finished laughing at Katherine’s absurd heroics, “we’re in a fine pickle. Just how are we going to get out of here?”
“Let’s see,” said Katherine, puckering her brow. “What do people usually do on such occasions? We’ve been in ‘fine pickles’ before, and we’ve always gotten out of them. Isn’t the proper thing to do when you’re locked up in a lonely tower to sing siren-like music until the noble hero hears you and comes to the rescue? Do you suppose my secret lover would ever mistake my sweet voice for anyone else’s, once he heard it wafted in on the breeze?”
“Oh, stop your nonsense, Katherine,” said Gladys. “You make me laugh so I can’t think of a thing to do. Captain, how are we going to attract people’s attention?”
“Run up a distress signal, I suppose,” replied the Captain, “if we have anything to run up.”
201“Well, there’s one thing about it,” declared Katherine flatly, “I refuse to be the distress signal this time. Every time we’ve had to have one in the past my belongings have been sacrificed.”
“Don’t get worried, injured one,” said Gladys soothingly. “We can wave the two towels I brought along.”
“Just the thing!” said Katherine. “We can wave them when the steamer goes by and they’ll send a lifeboat for us. How romantic! She’s just coming into the channel now. Everybody get ready to call.”
The bigHuronic, the magnificent white steamer that stopped at St. Pierre once a week on her way down to Chicago, swung into sight around a long point of land.
“Now wave!” commanded Katherine, when theHuronicwas almost opposite them, and the towels fluttered frantically over the edge of the little balcony. Dozens of handkerchiefs were waved in answer from the deck of the big liner. “They think we’re just waving at them for fun,” said Katherine, when nothing took place that looked like an effort at rescue.
Making trumpets of their hands they all shrieked in unison, “Help!” But the wind was toward them and carried the sound back. The statelyHuronicproceeded serenely on her way without a pause.
“They aren’t going to stop!” said Gladys.
202“Oh, let them go on then,” said Katherine crossly. Then she added, “I suppose it was kind of foolish to expect a big boat like that to stop and pick up a bunch of folks that didn’t know any better than to climb into an old lighthouse and let their boats float away.”
“Isn’t she a beauty, though?” said Gladys, looking after the ship in admiration. The sun shining on the broad, white side of theHuronicas she turned toward St. Pierre made her look like a gleaming, white bird.
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” said Katherine optimistically. “Even if the fairHuronicdid spurn us we can no doubt get the attention of a fishing boat. Some of them are always going round. Cheer up, Antha, and don’t look so scared. Remember, you’re with me, and I bear a charmed life!”
And joking over their situation, but, nevertheless, keeping a sharp lookout for anything on the horizon, they settled down to pass the time.
Meanwhile, the Hounds had reached the woods before St. Pierre, found the directions on the tree and turned off toward the beach to follow the shore to the Point of Pines. But after plodding through the thick, soft sand for a while they decided that that mode of traveling was altogether too fatiguing, and went back into the woods where they found a path which ran in the general line of the shore and203which was much easier traveling. But even at that they were pretty well tired when they reached the Point of Pines where they supposed the others would be waiting for them. But there was no glimpse of the Hares at the Point of Pines.
“Where do you suppose they are?” asked Hinpoha, mystified.
“Hiding, I suppose,” said Sahwah wearily, sitting down in the soft grass. “Let’s let them stay hidden until we get rested up. It’s up to us to get dinner I suppose, but I’m just too tired to begin.”
“But you will pretty soon, won’t you?” asked Slim anxiously.
“You aren’t hungry already, are you, Slim?” asked Hinpoha teasingly.
“Already!” said Slim, looking at his watch. “Do you folks know what time it is? It’s half past two!”
“Mercy!” said Sahwah. “It’s taken us ages to get here. Maybe the beach would have been shorter, anyway.”
“Let’s call for the Hares,” said Hinpoha. “It’ll take too much time to try to find them. And I’m too tired to go hunting through the woods.”
So they called, “Come out, we give up.” Their voices echoed against the opposite shore, but there was no other answer. They called again with the same result.
“They’re not here!” said Hinpoha with a prophetic feeling. “Where are we, anyway? Is this204the Point of Pines? I believe we’ve come to the wrong place! We should have stuck to the shore after all and not gone off into that path through the woods that turned and twisted so many times. Are you sure this is the Point of Pines?”
“I don’t know whether I’m sure or not,” said Sahwah in perplexity. “I certainly thought it was all the time. I may be mistaken.”
“I think you are,” said Hinpoha. “There isn’t a sign of the Hares here. How will we find them?”
“I think the best thing to do,” said Sahwah calmly, displaying her great talent for leadership in this emergency, “is to stay where we are and let them find us. If we start hunting around for each other in these woods we’ll never get together. We’ll just stay here and build two signal fires. You know that two columns of smoke is the sign for ‘I’m lost.’ Well, we’ll just put up the ‘lost’ signal and if they’re hunting for us they’ll see that and come straight over here.”
The others agreed that this was the most sensible thing to do under the circumstances. There was plenty of driftwood, and two good fires were soon going, and the green branches piled on top of them sent up the most gratifying signal smokes.
“Now let’s get our dinner,” said Hinpoha, when that was accomplished, “without waiting any longer.”
205The seven marooned sailors looked and looked in all directions without seeing a single thing to wave at.
“It’s too bad,” said Katherine. “Here’s a fine opportunity for some likely young fisherman to make a hero of himself rescuing a band of shipwrecked lady fairs and winning their undying gratitude. Maybe we’d take up a collection and buy him an Ingersoll as a reward. But nobody seems to be around anywhere to jump at the chance. It’s a wasted opportunity.”
“There seems to be a boat around the other side of that point of land,” said Gladys, shading her eyes with her hand. “See those two columns of smoke going up?”
“It must be standing still,” said the Captain. “The smoke is going up in the same place all the while.”
“It’s two boats,” said Katherine, “or does a boat have two smokestacks?”
“That’s not boat smoke,” said the Captain with a knowing air. “That’s from fires on the shore. They must be on that farther point, just beyond the one we’re looking against.”
“Isn’t that the Point of Pines?” asked Gladys.
“It is!” said Katherine. “And I’ll bet you a cooky it’s the Hounds who have built those fires. They’ve been walking all this while and have reached the Point.”
206“What would they want with two fires, though?” asked Gladys. “And such thick smoke! They can’t possibly be cooking anything over them.”
“I know!” cried the Captain. “They’re signal fires. You know Uncle Teddy showed us how to make them. Two smokes mean ‘We’re lost.’ They don’t know what to make of it because they didn’t find us there and are signalling for us.”
“How perfectly rich!” said Katherine, laughing until her hair tumbled down. “Here we are, cooped up in a lighthouse trying to signal someone to come and get us away, and there they are, wanting us to come and help them. It’s the funniest thing you ever saw!”
And the Hares watched the two smokes ascending into the blue sky and laughed helplessly.
Meanwhile, there was a panic on the Point of Pines. In the middle of the peaceful dinner party two rowboats tied together came floating in toward the shore. The boys waded out and brought them up on the beach.
“Look,” cried Hinpoha, picking up something that lay in the bottom of one of them. It was a battered tan khaki hat with the frayed cord hanging down over one side and a picture of a Kewpie drawn on the big button in front. There was no mistaking it. It was Katherine’s hat.
Migwan screamed. “They’re drowned! They’ve207gone out in boats and upset! That’s why they’re not here. Oh, what will we do?”
“Take it easy,” said Sahwah soothingly. “They haven’t upset. There isn’t a speck of water in the boats. They’ve simply floated off and left the folks somewhere. What were the Hares doing out in boats, anyway?” she mused. “But if they’re along the shore here somewhere we ought to go and look for them. Maybe we missed directions by not keeping to the beach. That must be it. They probably told us about the boats in a later note that we didn’t get.”
With an air of relief they finished their dinner and then piled into the boats and started coasting along the shore, looking for the Hares.
“This is getting to be a real hare and hound chase,” observed Hinpoha, as they proceeded slowly, looking into every little cove and inlet. Soon they rounded the last point and were spied by the anxious watchers in the lighthouse, who waved their towels and shrieked at the tops of their voices.
The Hounds got the surprise of their lives when they heard that hail and looking up saw the Hares perched up in the lighthouse, “just exactly like crows on a telephone pole,” said Sahwah, telling Aunt Clara about it later.
The stranded Hares were taken ashore under a running fire of pleasantry about their plight, and were told moral stories about people who tried to208play jokes on others and got the worst of it themselves, and Sahwah advised them gravely never to go out in a rowboat that wouldn’t stand without hitching, and so on and so forth until the poor Hares did not know which way to turn.
So the members of the chase went homeward, hunters and hunted side by side, laughing at the events of the day and agreeing that the chief charm of nearly all their expeditions lay in the fact that they never turned out the way they had expected them to.
“Good gracious, Slim, you aren’t hungry again?” said Sahwah, as Slim, stooping among the leaves, brought up a bunch of bright blue berries and started to put them all into his mouth at once.
“Don’t eat those berries!” said Anthony suddenly. “They aren’t real blueberries. They make your throat feel as if it were full of red hot needles and it hurts for hours. I ate some one day and I know.”
Slim dropped the berries hastily. “Thanks, old man, for telling me,” he said warmly.
“Whew! What a chance for a comeback he would have had on Slim!” said the Captain that night as the campers sat around in an informal family council while the twins were out in the launch with Mr. Evans. “The fact that he didn’t take it shows that he’s a pretty good sort after all. I didn’t think he had it in him.”
209“Do you know,” said Katherine seriously, “I believe I know what’s been the trouble with Anthony. He was spoiled when he was little and allowed to talk all the time and that made people dislike him. It made him unpopular with his boy friends and he’s been unpopular so long that he expects everybody he meets to dislike him. So he starts to patronize and bully his new acquaintances right away because he thinks they won’t like him anyway and it’s his way of getting even. But I believe that underneath it he’s the loneliest boy that ever lived. Nobody can have a very good time or really enjoy life when they’re disliked by everybody.
“Now I think we made a mistake in our treatment of him from the start. We didn’t like him when we first saw him and we let him know it. We froze him out in the beginning. I know how I feel toward people that I think don’t like me. They bring out the worst side of me every time. Now Anthony must have a lot of good stuff in him or he couldn’t have acted the way he did today. It’s up to us to bring it out, and I think the way to do it is to treat him as if we thought there was nothing but a ‘best’ side to him. We mustn’t act as if we thought he was going to do something mean all the time. Take, for instance, the time we thought somebody had hidden Eeny-Meeny, and you jumped on him as a matter of course.”
“We thought he’d be likely to do it,” said the Captain,210trying to justify himself before Katherine’s reproach.
“That’s exactly the trouble,” said Katherine. “We always thought he’d be ‘likely’ to do something mean, but we never thought he’d be ‘likely’ to do something good. Everything that has happened around here has been blamed on Anthony as a matter of course. We’ve never given him a fair chance. You boys didn’t let him in on the secret of those council seats because you were afraid he’d give it away. That was wrong. You should have let him help and never doubted him for a minute. People generally do just what you expect them to do. If we took Anthony seriously and acted as though we could rely on his judgment he’d soon have a judgment we could rely on. I say we’ve had ahold of the wrong handle of Anthony all the while. We knocked the boasting out of him with a sledgehammer and that was all right in that case; but for the rest of it we’ve got to show that we respect and trust him, and take my word for it, he won’t disappoint us. Don’t you think that’s what’s been the trouble, Uncle Teddy?”
“My dear Katherine,” said Uncle Teddy, “the way you put things it would take a blind beetle not to see them. You certainly have put Anthony up in an entirely new light. I’ve nearly got gray hair wondering why he did not profit by our illustrious example here; now you’ve put the whole thing in a211nutshell. It isn’t half as much to sit and look at a parade as it is to ride in the band wagon. But from now on we’ll see that Anthony is made part of the show.
“If only everybody had such faith in mankind as you have, what a world this would be!”
“Katherine, are you low in your mind again?” Gladys peered suspiciously over the edge of the cliff to where Katherine was sitting in her favorite fly-on-the-wall position midway between earth and sky, her head leaned thoughtfully back against the stone wall behind her.
“No’m,” answered Katherine meekly, and grinned reassuringly through the wisp of hair that hung down over her face. She put the lock carefully back into place with a critical hand and continued: “I was just exercising my young brain thinking.”
Gladys heaved a sigh of relief and prepared to join Katherine on the ledge. “I’msoglad it isn’t the indigoes this time,” she said, swinging her feet over the edge and scraping her shoulder blades along the rock until they found a certain groove which212fitted them like a glove, “because I don’t think Sahwah could think up another conspiracy like the Dark of the Moon Society to bring you out of it. But why were you looking so solemn?”
“I was merely wondering about Antha,” replied Katherine. “Now we’ve got Anthony where we understand him; but Antha is still the spiritless cry baby she was when she came. She hasn’t a particle of backbone. I’m getting discouraged about her.” She pulled a patch of moss from the rock beside her and tore it moodily into shreds.
“Are you quite, quite sure you’re not low in your mind?” asked Gladys.
Katherine sat up with a jerk, sending a loosened particle of stone bounding and clattering down the face of the cliff. “Of course not!” she said energetically. “I was just wondering, that’s all. I haven’t lost faith in Antha and I don’t doubt but what she’ll brace up before the summer is over. If we only knew a recipe for developing grit!”
“Stop worrying about that child and let’s go out in a canoe,” said Gladys, catching hold of Katherine’s hand and pulling her up.
Katherine rose and smoothed out her skirts–a new action for her. “Do I look any neater?” she inquired.
“Quite a bit,” replied Gladys, looking her over with a critical eye.
“I hope I do,” said Katherine with a sigh. “I’ve213spent most of the week sewing on buttons. But my hair is absolutely hopeless,” and she shook the fringe back out of her eyes viciously.
“Let me do it for you some day,” said Gladys, “and I’ll see what can be done with those loose ends.”
“All right,” said Katherine wearily, and they went down the path together.
“We won’t have time to go out in a canoe,” said Gladys when they reached the beach. “Here comes the launch back from St. Pierre with the mail.”
“I wonder if there’s a letter for me,” said Katherine rather wistfully. “I haven’t had a word from father and mother for three weeks.” And she hopefully joined the throng that stood with outstretched hands around the pack of letters Uncle Teddy was holding out of reach above his head.
“Oh, I say,” he begged, “can’t you wait a minute until I show you my newest treasure? If I give you your letters first you’ll all sneak off into corners and read them and then you never will look at it.”
“What is it?” cried an eager chorus, for it must be something splendid that would delay the distribution of the mail.
Uncle Teddy opened a carefully packed box and drew forth an exceedingly fine camera, which he exhibited with all the pride of a boy. “I’ve had my heart set on this little machine for years,” he said happily, “but I’ve never had the two hundred dollars214to spend for it. But now a wealthy gentleman whom I guided on a canoe trip last May and whom I was able to render some slight service when he was taken ill in the woods, has made me a present of it. Did you ever hear of such generosity?”
He did not mention the fact that the “slight service” had consisted of carrying the sick man on his back for fifteen miles through the woods.
The boys and girls looked at the camera with awe and were half afraid to touch it. A thing that had cost two hundred dollars was not to be handled lightly.
“It has a speed of one thousandth of a second,” announced Uncle Teddy, displaying all the fine points of his treasure like an auctioneer. “Won’t I get some great pictures of you folks diving, though!” And he stood looking at the thing in his hands as if he did not quite believe it was real. Then he came to himself with a start and tossed the pack of letters to Katherine to distribute, remarking that his good fortune had quite robbed him of his manners.
Katherine handed out the letters in short order, for she saw one addressed to her, and when they had all been given out she climbed back to her seat on the ledge to enjoy the news from home in peace and quiet.
Supper was an unusually hilarious meal. Uncle Teddy was so happy that he nearly burst trying to215be witty and agreeable and his mood was so contagious that before long everybody else was as bad as he.
“Make a speech, Katherine,” somebody called, and Katherine obligingly climbed up on a chair and made such a screamingly funny oration on “What Is Home without a Camera?” that over half the company choked and there were not enough unchoked ones left to pat them all on the back.
“Katherine,” said Mr. Evans feelingly, “if you don’t turn out to be a second Cicero I’m no prophet. Your eloquence would melt a concrete dam. See, it’s melted the butter already. You are the joy of life to me. How I would like to go with you on your triumphal way through college! By the way, what college did you say you were going to?”
“Sagebrush University, Spencer, Arkansas,” replied Katherine drily.
“Ha-ha-ha! That’s a good one!” laughed Slim, choking again.
“Please stop joking and tell us,” begged Hinpoha.
“I have told you,” replied Katherine quietly.
“Is there really a college out where you live?” asked Nakwisi. “We all thought you were going to college in the East.”
“She is,” said Hinpoha. “She’s only joking.”
Mrs. Evans sat looking at Katherine closely. She had just noticed something. Although Katherine had been the most hilarious one at the table she had216not eaten a mouthful. The delicious roast chicken and corn fritters, her favorite dish, lay untouched upon her plate. And the whimsical dancing light had gone out of her eyes.
“My dear,” she said, leaning across the table, “what is the matter with you? Has anything happened to change your plans about going to college?”
Katherine looked at her calmly. “It’s all off,” she said nonchalantly, raising her water glass to her dry lips. “Father made a little investment in oil this summer–and now we’re back to where we were the year of the drought. So it’s back to the soil for mine, to the sagebrush and the pump in the dooryard, and maybe teaching in the little one-story schoolhouse in between chores. I knew my dream of college was too sweet to be true.”
“Oh, Katherine,” cried Hinpoha in dismay, “youmustgo to college, it would be a terrible pity if you couldn’t.”
“Kindly omit flowers,” said Katherine brusquely.
“My dear child,” said Mr. Evans quickly, “I will gladly advance the sum needed for your education. You may regard it as a loan if you will”–for Katherine’s chin had suddenly squared itself at the beginning of his speech–“but I would consider the pleasure all mine.”
“You are very kind,” said Katherine huskily, “but I couldn’t do it. You see, my mother’s health217has broken down from the years of hard work and this sudden trouble, and dad’s thoroughly discouraged, and they need me on the job to put life into them and keep the farm going.”
Gratefully but firmly she refused all their offers of help. She was the calmest one in the group, but the white lines around her mouth and the drooping slant to her shoulders told what a disappointment she had suffered.
“Will you have to go home right away?” asked Gladys in a tragic voice.
“No,” said Katherine. “The folks aren’t home yet and won’t be for three weeks. So I can stay here as long as the rest of you do and when you go East I shall go West.”
She made her plans calmly and frowned on all demonstrations of sympathy. Hinpoha found her after supper sitting on the Council Rock watching the sunset, and creeping up behind her slipped her arms around her neck. “Poor old K!” she whispered caressingly.
Katherine shook herself free from Hinpoha’s embrace. “Don’t act tragic,” she said crossly. “And don’t cry down the back of my neck. It gives me the fidgets.” And rebuffed, Hinpoha crept away.
The same thing happened to the other girls who tried to console her. It was hard to find a way to show their sympathy. She didn’t weep, she didn’t bewail her lot, she didn’t cast a gloom over the company218by making a long face. Katherine in trouble seemed suddenly older, stronger, more experienced in life than the others. They felt somehow young and childish before her and stood abashed. Yet their hearts ached for her because they knew that beneath her outward scorn of weakness she was suffering anguish of spirit.
Katherine was still sitting all alone on the rock some time later when a very wide shadow fell across it, and Slim came puffing along and dropped down beside her, his moon face red with exertion and suppressed emotion.
“It’s a measly shame!” he said explosively and with so much vehemence that Katherine almost smiled.
“Say,” he said in a confidential tone after a moment of silence, “I have seven hundred dollars that my grandmother left me to pay my tuition at college. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll lend it to you and I’ll work my way through. Won’t you take it from me, even if you won’t from the others?” His face was so earnest and his offer so sincere that Katherine was touched.
“Bless you, Slim!” she said heartily. “You’re a nice boy. And I’m very sorry I can’t accept your offer.”
“Can’t you?” said Slim pleadingly.
“No,” said Katherine firmly. “I must go home.”
219“Well,” Slim burst out, “you’re a real sport, that’s what you are!”
Katherine smiled at his compliment, but tingled within with a warm feeling.
“And you’re a ‘real sport’ for offering to give me your money and work your way. Let’s shake on it.”
Slim gripped her lean, brown hand in his big paw and gave it such a squeeze that she cried out. “Let go my hand, Slim, you’re hurting me.” Slim dropped her hand abruptly.
“Why did you offer to lend me your money?” she asked curiously. “I never did anything for you.”
“Because I like you,” said Slim emphatically, “better than any girl I ever knew.” And blushing like a peony, he departed hastily from the scene.
Katherine smiled whimsically as she looked after him. “My first ‘romance,’” she thought. “With a baby elephant! Slim is a dear boy and I hate myself now because I used to make such fun of him.” And where the passionate laments of the girls had failed to move her, the thought of Slim’s offered sacrifice brought the tears to her eyes. “‘Oh, was there ever such a knight in friendship or in war?’” she quoted softly to herself.
Katherine put her trouble resolutely in the background and refused to discuss it, and activities went on just as before on Ellen’s Isle. “Captain, will you go for the mail this afternoon?” asked Uncle220Teddy one day not long after the event of the new camera. “Mr. Evans and I want to spend the day over on the mainland trying to get some bird pictures. One of you boys can run us over to the Point of Pines in the launch and get us again when you come home with the mail. We don’t want to be bothered looking after a boat.”
“All right, sir,” said the Captain.
Aunt Clara and the girls departed to put up a lunch basket for the men while Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans gathered up the various impedimenta they wanted to take along. The boys took them over to the Point of Pines and then started off on a long ride in the launch, taking all the girls with them except Antha, who had a headache. Not long after they had gone Aunt Clara came out of Uncle Teddy’s tent, which she had seized the opportunity to straighten up, and declared that her husband would forget his head if it weren’t fastened on. She was carrying in her hand the new camera.
“If that isn’t just like him!” she scolded. “He wouldn’t let me carry it down to the boat for him and then he goes off and forgets it himself. He must have thought he had it when he carried down that case of film plates. Won’t he be in a fine stew when he finds out he’s left it behind and has no boat to come back in? And I’ve got all the stuff ready to start making that new Indian pudding, and if I take the time to row over to the Point of Pines221I won’t get it done for dinner and the boys and girls will be so disappointed! And poor Mrs. Evans has just fallen asleep after being up all night with a jumping tooth; I can’t ask her to go.” Then her eye fell on Antha, swinging in the hammock. “I don’t suppose I could send Antha over with it,” she said to herself, remembering how Antha always clung to the others, and had never been out in a boat by herself. “I might as well make up my mind to give up the Indian pudding and go over myself.” But the materials were all out and some half prepared and it seemed such a shame not to be able to finish it. “Gracious!” she thought to herself, looking in Antha’s direction again, “that girl ought to be able to take that camera over there. The lake is as smooth as glass. I just won’t take the time.”
“Antha,” she said, approaching her with the camera, and speaking in the same matter-of-fact tone she used toward the older girls, “will you row across the lake and give this to Uncle Teddy?”
Antha shrank back and looked uncertain, but Aunt Clara went on quickly, “He’ll be wild when he finds he’s forgotten it. Be careful that you don’t get it wet going over.” And she handed her the expensive instrument with an air of perfect confidence in her ability to take care of it.
“May I stay over there with Uncle Teddy and watch them take pictures?” asked Antha, for whom222the time was beginning to lag now that the others were not on the island.
“Yes, certainly,” said Aunt Clara. “I gave them plenty of lunch for three.”
She started Antha out in the rowboat and then went back to her task of concocting a new and delightful Indian pudding. When the boys and girls came home to dinner she was glad she had stayed and made it, for their delight and appreciation amply repaid her for the trouble.
At four o’clock the Captain went for the mail and came home with Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans. Uncle Teddy wore an expression of deepest disgust. “Of all the boneheaded things I ever did,” he exclaimed as he stepped out on the dock, “today’s job was the worst. Here I went off and left the camera behind, and not having any boat couldn’t come back, so we just had to sit there all day and wait to be called for.”
“But,” gasped Aunt Clara, “I sent Antha after you with it just as soon as I found you had forgotten it. Didn’t she bring it to you?”
“No,” said Uncle Teddy. “We never saw a sign of her.”
“Something must have happened to her!” cried Aunt Clara, starting up in dismay. “She went over before dinner. The lake was so smooth I thought it was perfectly safe. What could have happened?”
“Get into the launch, quick,” said Uncle Teddy223“and we’ll go and look.” Aunt Clara and Katherine and several more jumped in and they went off in feverish haste. Aunt Clara was almost prostrated at the thought that harm might have come to Antha from that errand. Around one of the numerous points which ran out into the water before you came to the Point of Pines they saw her, standing on a rock just underneath the surface, the water washing around her ankles. She was several hundred feet from the shore and the rowboat was nowhere to be seen. Her whole figure was tense from trying to cling to the slippery rock, and in her arms she was tightly clutching the camera. She fairly tumbled into the launch as it ran alongside her.
“What happened?” they all asked.
“The bottom came out of the boat,” said Antha, “and it filled up with water and I got out on that rock and the boat sank.”
“Which boat did you take?” asked Uncle Teddy.
“The small one,” replied Antha.
“Good Lord,” ejaculated Uncle Teddy. “That was the one with the loose board in the bottom! Why didn’t I take it away from the others? What a narrow scrape you had! It was a mighty good thing for you that that rock was right there.”
“And she stood there all day!”
“Why didn’t you swim to shore?” asked Uncle Teddy. “You can keep up pretty well, and you would have struck shallow water pretty soon.”
224“Because I had the camera,” said Antha, beginning to sob from exhaustion, “and I had–to–keep–it–dry!”
“You blessed lamb!” said Aunt Clara, and then choked and was unable to say any more.
“There!” exclaimed Katherine exultantly, when they were back home and Antha had been put to bed and fussed over. “Didn’t I tell you she’d develop a backbone if the right occasion presented itself? The only thing she needed to bring it out was responsibility. Responsibility! That’s the last thing anybody would have thought of putting on her. She’s been babied and petted all her life and told what a poor, feeble creature she was until she believed it. People expected her to be a cry-baby and so she was one. We made the same mistake here. We’ve never asked her to do an equal share of the work, or made her responsible for a single thing. We were always afraid she couldn’t do it. Now you see Aunt Clara made her responsible for that camera and took it for granted that she’d keep it dry and, of course, she did. I guess everybody would be a hero if somebody only expected them to.”