CHAPTER XVIIMistakes
Certainly, in the days that followed, Bettina kept her word.
Watching her, as she felt it her duty to do, her Camp Fire guardian could not see the slightest swerving from her promise.
Yet Se-kyal-ets-tewa continued to come now and then to camp, and Mrs. Burton continued to like him, as she had from their first meeting on the train.
After all, she was not so conventional a woman that she should have objected to a friendship between Bettina and the young man, simply because he was an Indian. He was well educated; even more than that, he was a student and would one day be a leader among his own people. And never, except for a single moment the night of the storm, had he apparently failed in entire respect to each member of the Camp Fire club. He was far more courteous, moredignified and more helpful than an American fellow would have been under similar circumstances.
But it was true that Mrs. Burton considered Bettina more anxiously than she did the other girls, for several reasons. In the first place, there was always Betty—Bettina’s mother—to be thought of, who was a far more conventional woman than her celebrated friend Polly Burton would ever learn to be. This had been true in their girlhood, and the different circumstances of their lives had emphasized it. For Betty Graham, as Senator Graham’s wife, living in Washington, was compelled by the conditions of political life, as well as by her own nature and point of view, to conform to the conventions that every capital city requires. And Polly Burton and her husband, although famous members of their profession, naturally passed a wholly different existence. They knew all the actor people with whom they worked—rich and poor, successful and unsuccessful. It was impossible to Polly Burton, as it had been to Polly O’Neill, to like people for their possessions—or even for their attainments—butonly for some characteristic which appealed to her vivid and emotional temperament. So she was always making odd and not always desirable friendships and generously doing for people, some of whom were worth while and some who were not.
So, personally, she would like to have befriended Se-kyal-ets-tewa far more than she was at present doing. But the idea of Bettina’s befriending him was not the same thing. For Mrs. Burton considered that Bettina’s mother would have objected to any possibility of an intimacy between her daughter and any young man not in her own social position. Betty herself had been in love with Anthony Graham before he was a person of the least importance; but grown people have a way of forgetting the facts in their own lives. However, Polly may have been mistaken in her theory of Bettina’s mother’s point of view. In writing, she had never mentioned the young Indian, except in a casual fashion, and never that Bettina appeared more interested in him than any one of the other girls. Indeed, she had not thought this herself until Gerry’s suggestion to her.
After all, was Gerry behind the present situation? Would Mrs. Burton have paid any attention to Tewa’s simple speech or to his frank show of concern, except for Gerry’s past innuendos? So slight a thing can arouse human suspicion in this unstable, all too human, world.
However, as a matter of justice, Mrs. Burton was not aware that Gerry’s speech had any influence upon her.
And, unfortunately, Bettina’s present coldness was not only bestowed upon Tewa but upon the Camp Fire guardian as well. She was angry and hurt over what appeared to her a nonsensical and arbitrary attitude.
But she said nothing to any one of what had taken place—not even to Peggy—and Mrs. Burton said nothing either.
If Bettina had known, however, there was some one else watching her—the last person whom she would ever have dreamed of. This was the Indian girl, Dawapa.
Dawapa was staying with the Camp Fire girls at their Arizona camp. Occasionally she went home to old Nampu’s house, but only to return within a few hours. She was an odd creature—a skilful artist—knowinghow to make beautiful pottery; a weaver of wonderful baskets—a clever worker in brass and silver, but with little other sense. The new Sunrise Camp Fire girls had learned a great deal of hand craft from their Indian guest. However, she was unlike the ordinary Indian girl. Indeed, she had never had many companions among the members of her own race. They were gay and energetic, laughing and chattering among themselves, with jokes and quarrels and interests much like any other race of girls.
But something about Dawapa had kept her apart from them. She was morbidly shy and timid, and yet in a way she had a curious pride about herself, feeling that her fair skin and hair set her above other Indian maidens. Besides, her mother, Nampu, was rich, her pottery having gone all over the world to be placed in museums in far countries, revealing the possibilities in art of the American Indian.
So in her way Dawapa was vain, as many shy people are vain without being suspected of it by other people. And she had decided that she wished to be betrothed to theyoung Indian chieftain, Se-kyal-ets-tewa. For it was thus Dawapa thought of him. His American ideas, his college education, did not interest her. She believed that, like all good Indians, he would return to his own people and take up the work of his father—a kiva chief, when his college days were past.
To an American girl this attitude of Dawapa’s may seem a strange one, as she was only between sixteen and seventeen years old. But there was nothing extraordinary in it; the Indian girl marries young, and in the Hopi country it is the girl who proposes marriage. Also the children belong to their mother’s clan.
Before the coming of the corn time Dawapa had begged old Nampu to make her wishes known to Se-kyal-ets-tewa’s people. But Nampu, for all her stupid and squaw-like appearance, was wiser and more acquainted with the ways of the white world than one would have given her credit for.
She had known the Indian boy since his childhood and many an hour he had talked to her of his ambitions, his dreams, whileshe worked swiftly and silently at her pottery. She knew that he had taken all the prizes at the government schools; that his teachers at the schools had insisted he be sent East to college. Old Nampu also knew that Se-kyal-ets-tewa’s desires had become like those of the white youth. He would wish to have at least some part in choosing his own life companion.
Therefore the old Indian woman had put Dawapa off, telling her that she was too young; that the Indian youth must be allowed to finish his education. She had not told her that marriage between them was impossible, because Nampu herself wished that it might take place. The Indian gods would see to it, perhaps, by the mysterious methods which they alone understood. Besides, old Nampu, as we know, was also a medicine woman, and there are love potions which may be made from herbs as well as healing ones.
Then Dawapa came to visit the Sunrise Camp Fire girls and believed she saw that Tewa fancied the white girl, Bettina.
Dawapa did not have the average intelligence of the girls of her own race. Certainlyshe had no appreciation of simple friendliness.
But there was so little upon which to hang her suspicions that Dawapa would probably have let the idea slip from her mind, except that Gerry Williams, who guessed the situation, occasionally teased her concerning it.
It may be that Gerry simply was teasing, since there are persons who have a mischievous spirit without having a malicious one.
But, then, behind everything else that had happened, or was to come, was the fact that Gerry disliked Bettina.
Since their first meeting she had not liked what she called her coldness and pride. Then there was the more recent sting of their open quarrel. Moreover, to Gerry’s nature it was tantalizing to know that Bettina had the very things she most desired, without appreciating them; even though with her prettiness and wit she expected some day to acquire all she wished.
As a matter-of-fact, however, Bettina was not conscious that Gerry actually disliked her; only that they were antagonistic.For her share of their quarrel she had apologized on the following day, being too well bred and really too sweet-tempered not to feel remorse.
July’s golden sun had faded and the blistering dog-days’ sun of August arrived, and with it the time for the Sunrise Camp Fire girls and their guardian to make their pilgrimage to the nearby Indian villages to witness their August ceremonial dances. For then the Indian priests performed great magic that the gods might send down much rain on the corn crops.
Therefore, under the direction of Mr. Jefferson Simpson, the Camp Fire tents were transferred from the neighborhood of Cottonwood Creek to the valley near the base of the three mesas, where the five Hopi villages stand.
The Camp Fire party went a few days in advance of any of the important ceremonies, knowing a great number of tourists would come crowding in as the time of the flute and snake dances drew near.
It was the evening of the second day after their arrival at the new tenting place, and Mrs. Burton and her niece were takinga walk a little after their camp fire supper. The other girls were busy with the work, but Polly had asked that Peggy be spared to her.
They were strolling along hand in hand, like two girls, looking up toward the summit of a mesa several hundred feet in height. To the north and left was the largest of the Hopi villages—the town of Oraibi. Below in the valley were the cornfields of the Indians, now tall and green, although with only small ears of corn showing on the waving stalks. Here, also, were their peach orchards and gardens.
But the woman and girl had come away from these and were walking along a road almost at the bottom of the mesa. It was difficult to see the village in detail from below, as the houses seemed to be colored like the living rock.
“Tewa says his town of Oraibi was on this very spot, in 1540, when Coronado discovered the province of Tusayan,” Peggy remarked. She was in a reflective mood, since neither she nor her aunt had been talking for the past five minutes, so intent were they both on the strangeness of theirsurroundings. “Odd, isn’t it, Tante, that the civilization out here is really older than one finds in many places in Europe, only we know so little of it. You’ll take me to Europe some day, won’t you?”
Polly nodded. “Take you any place in the world you wish to go, Peggy mine, if I am free and you think you love me enough to endure my society. Sometimes I am afraid, however, I am not a very successful Camp Fire guardian. What do you girls honestly think of me?”
Polly looked directly at her niece and her lips twitched, a little with amusement and a little with concern.
One knew that, to a straightforward question, Peggy Webster was unable to return anything but a truthful answer. She flushed slightly.
“They think you are awfully charming, dearest.”
Polly laughed. “To be charming, Peggy, is hardly a valuable characteristic of a Camp Fire guardian, or even of a Camp Fire girl, since there are a number of things I can think of as more important. Go ahead; be honest, dear. I have beenthinking if our Camp Fire club is to go on for a time longer, as I wish it to do, I ought to know what we are accomplishing together.”
“Oh, well, Tante, you are terribly inspiring; the girls all think that and say they never felt so happy or so alive as they have since they came out here with you, and they never have learned so many things. But——”
“But what, Peggy, please?” Polly asked more seriously than she had yet spoken.
“But,” continued Peggy a little desperately, as if she felt herself pushed to the wall, “some of us don’t—at least, I don’t think you understand all of the girls equally well. Sometimes you seem to have favorites. Oh, I don’t mean that you are not extremely kind to us all alike, and I don’t want you to feel that any one is ungrateful.”
“Has some one complained of me to you, Peggy?” Mrs. Burton asked quickly.
Peggy shook her head. “Goodness no, dear, and it isn’t fair for you to be asking me questions if you are going to get wrong impressions from me. Mother always told me that you did not like being criticised.”
“Ridiculous! Think of Mollie Webster daring to tell her daughter a thing like that when she has been criticising me all her life and I have never dared resent anything she has ever said. I suppose because the things were mostly true,” Mrs. Burton ended, with her cheeks as crimson as a girl’s. “But you are right, Peggy; perhaps we had best not talk personalities. I am sorry I am not ‘understandy.’ It is perhaps the most valuable trait a Camp Fire guardian can have. Anyhow, I’ll be glad when the next few days are over. I confess I feel nervous over looking after all of you girls through these strange Indian ceremonies. They sound terrifying to me—the weird costumes and noises—and I’ve positive nightmares over the snake dance.”
“Oh, you have too much imagination, Tante, and you take us too seriously. After all, we are not babies and you are not responsible if things do go a little wrong with us. I sometimes think I ought to look after you more,” Peggy answered seriously. “But you know we have a friend at court. Tewa’s father is a kiva chief in Oraibi and Tewa will be sure to tryto take care of us. He promised Bettina and me to show us over his father’s house one day. May we go? I’d like to see a real Indian house.”
Mrs. Burton shook her head. “We will be tired out with things Indian in the next week,” she answered, evading the question. “But I am glad that Terry Benton and Ralph Marshall and perhaps some of their friends are to watch the ceremonies with us. I feel a good deal more comfortable, being in their society than in an Indian’s on their festival days. I have no doubt Tewa’s veneering of civilization will pass from him completely.”
Peggy laughed and threw back her head so that her dark eyes, clear and frank as a sweet boy’s, rested on the summit of the old cliffs above them.
“Oh, I don’t believe the Indian is as bad as he is painted,” she said jokingly. “Really, there are ideas and symbols in their religion which seem to me very beautiful when one understands them. And Tewa is a very fine fellow, I think, regardless of his nationality. But come on, let’s go back, dear. How cool the nights do grow outhere, even after the hot August days. Don’t those gray Indian houses, with the ladders leading to their second floors, look like ruins of romantic old stone battlements?”