“WILLIAM!” SAID HIS AUNT, “DO YOU KNOW THIS—THIS YOUNG PERSON?”“WILLIAM!” SAID HIS AUNT, “DO YOU KNOW THIS—THIS YOUNG PERSON?”
It was only a tall boy in the uniform of the Boy Scouts who was tearing up the steps. But both the old lady and Winona uttered a faint squeal, the old lady because he kissed her, and Winona because she recognized the newcomer. It was Billy Lee, and he was evidently a relative of Winona’s would-be benefactress.
“How are you, auntie, and how’s everything?” he was inquiring genially, with an arm still about her. Winona gazed wildly around, meanwhile, for a hole to crawl into, but there was none. “You see, I’ve come to dinner,” went on Billy cheerfully.
By this time he had swung around, and seen Winona. He took in her whole get-up, earrings, ’kerchief, sagging skirt, checked apron; and, further off, Louise making change energetically in the same regalia. He began to laugh.
“Good for you, Winona!” he said. “Been selling Camp Fire stuff?”
“William!” said his aunt before Winona could answer, “Do you know this—this young person?”
Billy looked embarrassed.
“Oh, say, Winnie, I’m afraid I’ve put my foot in it,” said he. But he went on telling the truth—Billy was unfortunately incapable of doing anything else. At least, it seemed unfortunate to Winona right then. “Why, yes, Aunt Lydia. This is Winona Merriam, who lives next door to us. She’s camping about a mile and a half down the river from us Scouts.”
The old lady turned sharply on Winona.
“Then what makes you masquerade as an Italian peddler?” she asked sharply.
Winona took courage, for though the old lady was cross, she did not seem unforgivingly angry.
“We thought if we dressed up perhaps people would buy things quicker,” she explained. “But we do really need the money very badly, don’t we, Billy?”
“They’re trying to make enough to stay in the woods all August, auntie,” explained Billy. “They’ve all been working like beavers, making things, to do it.”
“I don’t see yet why the bandanna handkerchiefs,” said the old lady tartly. “And you, miss”—to Louise, who had come up—“what did you mean by telling me that you were the eldest of five, and hadn’t slept under a roof for ten days?”
“Because it’s true,” said Louise. “I haven’t—we’re camping. And Iamthe eldest of five, worse luck! I have to spend my whole time at home setting an example. That’s why I go away to be naughty!”
It was impossible to be angry long with Louise Lane, and the old lady did not seem to want to be angry with Winona. So things straightened themselves out, and actually ended in an invitation to stay to dinner!
“But we’ve nothing but our middy blouses, under these awful things,” protested Winona, “and Mrs. Bryan will be worried if we don’t get home till late.”
“That’s all right,” said Billy’s aunt Lydia, whose name was Lawrence. She was Mrs. Lee’s sister. “I’llhave them send a man down from the dock to tell your Guardian where you are.”
“Oh, then thank you!” said Winona radiantly. But Louise still hesitated.
“Well, what is it?” asked the old lady.
Louise hung her shawl-draped head for a moment, then she flung it back and answered frankly.
“I may want to come peddling again, and if they see us in our camp uniform they’ll know who we are!”
“Great Scott!” cried Billy, beginning to laugh, “Youarea queer girl! I say, Aunt Lydia, let her disguise herself some more, if that’s what she wants. Give her some of your clothes, or the chambermaid’s, or somebody’s. Would that be all right, Louise?”
“Why, yes indeed!” said Louise, grinning joyously. “Lead on, Desperate Desmond.”
“I never saw such girls!” said Miss Lawrence. “However, you may as well have your play out. William, get a bellboy to put these goods somewhere. I’ll take these objects of charity to get ready for dinner. Your room’s next suite twelve, the one I have.”
She shepherded the two girls upstairs by the staircase, instead of the elevator, as if she wanted them to be conspicuous.
“Now, remember,” explained she, “you’re two young foreign peddlers that I’m giving a dinner to out of the kindness of my heart. I’m loaning you clothes out of the same thing. So you can go right on peddling if you want to, you with the business instinct—Louise you said your name was? Very well, Louise, you cango on selling your potteries and bead bags after dinner—if you want to. But I want to talk to Winona myself. I don’t know but I still want to adopt her!”
Miss Lawrence left the girls alone when she had shown them to a room, and went to prepare for dinner herself. There was a bathroom next to them, and they made for it—one after another, of course—with gurgles of joy. Winona went first, while Louise was doing her hair, which was so thick and long it took a great deal of time to arrange.
“Isn’t hot water heavenly when you haven’t seen it in a tub for a week and a half?” said Winona, emerging in a borrowed kimono, which she presently passed on to Louise.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve tried,” said Louise, disappearing in her turn into the bathroom. She turned around and poked out her head to say, “Now, remember, we’ve both got to keep on looking as old as we can. We have characters to keep up!”
Winona began to investigate the clothes Miss Lawrence had laid out for them. She did not expect to find anything more exciting than a black silk with a fichu, or something else elderly of that sort. Instead, there lay on the bed two pretty frocks which had certainly been made for girls of their age.
She held them both up against her. They were a little shorter than she usually wore her skirts, both of them, and a little loose. Evidently their owner was of a build somewhere between Winona and Louise. But Louise, when she emerged, was quite pleased atthat, for what was short for Winona was long for her, naturally, and carried out the idea of age that she wished to convey. She chose the more elaborate of the two, a green silk, because the other dress was pink, which doesn’t match red hair. But it did match Winona’s brown hair and blue eyes beautifully, and the wide satin sash was very becoming to her. The girls gave their tennis shoes a liberal dose of whitening, and decided that they would have to do. There were stockings to go with the dresses.
When they were done dressing they gazed at each other in admiration.
“I never had as pretty a dress in my life!” said Winona delightedly, surveying the folds of rose-colored organdy that ruffled about her. She reached up as she spoke to fasten back her curls with the shell barrette that usually held them at the back of her neck.
“Glad you like them!” said Miss Lawrence, appearing on the threshold of the next room. “They belong to my niece Nataly—I suppose you know Nataly if you live next door to her—but she hasn’t had them yet. I brought them to her from my trip abroad. Here, Winona, you haven’t any hair-ribbon.”
“I haven’t been wearing any in camp,” said Winona, standing still, however, while Miss Lawrence unclasped the barrette and supplied its place with a rose-colored satin ribbon tied about her head, fillet-fashion.
“That’s the English fashion,” said Miss Lawrence, “wear your hair loose till you’re sixteen or seventeen,then do it all up at once, instead of pulling it up by degrees, as we do here. It’s very becoming, my dear.”
Winona privately felt that it was a little youthful, but she said nothing, and indeed the effect of the shower of curls falling loose from under the ribbon was exceedingly becoming.
Louise, over by the mirror, continued to put pins into her hair, and Miss Lawrence did not try to super-intendhertoilet at all, though Louise was getting herself up to look as near twenty as she could.
A knock at the door of the sitting-room, where they went when they were dressed, made them all turn.
“Come in,” said Miss Lawrence.
“It’s me, Billy,” said his voice ungrammatically inside. “I say! What stunning clothes!” he added frankly as he took in the splendor of the girls’ attire.
Winona looked at him rather shyly. The small bag he had carried must have been well packed, for Billy had blossomed out in a tuxedo and long trousers.
“Why,” she said, “I didn’t know you for a minute—you look so grown up!”
“I’ve had long trousers for a year now,” explained Billy, “only I’ve always had on my uniform when you’ve seen me before.”
“Of course, that’s it,” admitted Winona. But she continued to stare, for this tall young gentleman looked about eighteen in his correctly cut clothes, and she felt like such a little girl, looking as Miss Lawrence had made her look. What she did not know was that she was looking her very prettiest, like a girl in a playor a picture, with her flushed cheeks and falling curls and rosy draperies. Miss Lawrence, who seemed to have taken a fancy to her, slipped her arm through Winona’s, leaving Louise to follow with Billy.
Louise was not impressed in the least by Billy’s grandeur. It took a good deal to impress Louise Lane, and one suit of evening clothes and a large hotel weren’t likely to do it.
Winona did not look to the right or left as they entered the big dining-room, but she knew Louise had seen something, for she heard a little squeal of delight close behind her. They were scarcely seated when Louise burst out:
“What do you suppose they’ve done, Winnie? I don’t know whether it was you or Billy, Miss Lawrence, but thank you both, anyway. Winona, our things are all set out in that little sun-parlor sort of place where everybody can see them, and there’s a bellboy looking after them. I saw him selling a bead belt!”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” said Billy, looking embarrassed. “The management lets people use that room for displays, don’t they, Aunt Lydia?”
He did not explain that he had tipped the head bellboy liberally to have the things looked after, and it never occurred to either of the girls till long after.
Winona secretly decided that Nataly couldn’t be as trying as the girls thought her, if this was the kind of a brother she had. So she smiled brilliantly at Miss Lawrence and Billy, and felt very happy indeed overthe bright lights and the elaborate dinner and the orchestra and pink dress.
And then something occurred to her. This was Nataly’s dress, a brand-new present-dress, and so was the one Louise had on. And they were getting all the first wear out of them, would Nataly like it?
She looked up, directly, and said what she thought.
“Miss Lawrence, will Nataly mind our wearing her clothes?”
Louise answered before Miss Lawrence had a chance. “You know perfectly well she will, Win. Why, she nearly had a fit when I climbed into a clean middy of hers day before yesterday. And these are uncommonly glad and happy rags we have on.”
“If she doesn’t like it,” explained Miss Lawrence with perfect clearness, “she knows just what she can do. My niece Nataly is a spoiled young person if ever there was one. But don’t worry, my dear”—for Winona was looking distressed at the idea of Nataly’s objection—“I’ll see that she’s perfectly satisfied.”
So Winona did not worry. She talked instead, and told Miss Lawrence everything she wanted to know about Camp Karonya and what they did there.
“It’s a miniature community,” said Miss Lawrence approvingly. “I wish they’d had them when I was a girl. I suppose you’ll have a float at the lake carnival, since you’re such enterprising young persons!”
“Oh, is there going to be a lake carnival?” asked both girls in a breath. Miss Lawrence nodded.
“Why, didn’t you know?” asked Billy. “Thepeople here in Wampoag have them every year. They give prizes for the best decorated float and canoe. I don’t know whether it’s a cash prize this year or a cup.”
“I do hope it’s a cash prize!” breathed Louise fervently, while Winona’s mind began to work at the ways and means for making and decorating a Camp Fire float, and the best way to get it up the lake.
“It would be lovely if we could do it,” she said. “When is it to be?”
Billy pulled a little calendar out of the one small and concealed pocket that his clothes allowed him, and studied it.
“A week from to-morrow,” he said. “You have lots of time.”
“Then I’m sure we can do it,” said Winona. “Marie has a canoe she’ll probably want to enter, and besides that surely we can get up a float among us.”
And then something which Louise—so she said afterwards—had been expecting, happened. One of the women who had bought pottery from them that morning came up, and began to talk to Miss Lawrence, quite as if the girls were out of hearing.
“Good-morning,” she began, taking everything in as she talked. “Aren’t these the little Italian vendors that were around this morning? Why, how transformed they look! Really, the younger one looks quite refined. And what are you doing with them, dear Miss Lawrence?”
Her tone added quite plainly, “And won’t they pocket the spoons?”
Louise, the irrepressible, grinned above her salad. “Kinda lady loana da cloes,” she said glibly; and the waiter, who had heard her discoursing in rapid and fluent English of an unmistakably home-grown kind the moment before, got behind a palm. If he hadn’t he would have disgraced himself in a way no well-trained waiter should. Billy, too, dived into his napkin and seemed to have swallowed something down his Sunday throat. But Miss Lawrence remained quite calm.
“I have taken quite a fancy to them,” she said. “They seem like good, industrious girls. I am glad to see you are so interested, too, Mrs. Gardner. The best way to help them—you were going to ask me that, were you not—is to buy their goods. You’ll find them on sale in the little rose-room.”
“Oh—ah, yes indeed!” said Mrs. Gardner, and fled, while the young people regarded Miss Lawrence with admiration.
When the meal was over Miss Lawrence would not hear of their going back to the camp, or going on with their selling. The bellboy or a maid could go on looking after their things, she said, and sent Billy over to see about it. Then they went into one of the little dancing-rooms and showed each other steps for a long time; that is, Billy and Winona did, for Louise said she was tired, and sat thankfully still, listening to the orchestra that played in the dining-room. After that Miss Lawrence carried them all off to a band concert.
It was ten-thirty by the time they had finished, and all had something more to eat—real, grown-up thingsto eat in a most gorgeous café. Miss Lawrence wanted them to stay all night, and Winona was willing, but Louise insisted on going back.
“If we’re here to-morrow morning,” she explained, “every blessed woman that we sold things to will want to know all about us and our past lives, and then the secret will come out. No, thank you, Miss Lawrence,
“I see by the moonlight,’Tis past midnight,Time pig and I were homeAn hour and a half ago!”
“I being the pig, I suppose!” added Winona.
“Well, I won’t keep you against your will,” said Miss Lawrence, getting up from the café table. “So you’d better go back to the hotel. They can be packing up what’s left of your things for you, while you change. But what about rowing across the lake and down the river in the dark? Can you look after them, William?”
“I should think I could!” said Billy. “Besides—I forgot to tell you, girls, or we might have had a grand reunion—Lonny Hughes and Tom are to meet me at the dock at about eleven, with one of the camp canoes. Tom’s Winona’s brother,” he explained to his aunt. “So we’ll take one of the girls in the canoe, and one of us will go in the boat, and get them home safe as anything. For the matter of that, you can’t get hurt on this lake unless the fish should jump up and bite you,” he added as they reached the hotel, and parted to dress.
The girls hurried off their finery, and got hastily into their serge skirts and white blouses.
“I feel like Cinderella!” said Winona as they went down in the elevator again, only to find that, quick as they had been Billy had been quicker, and stood, familiar-looking in his khaki, to take them away. The pottery and linen that was left would all go into one suitcase now, so well had they and the bellboy prospered. Billy gave them, too, the money that had been taken in during the evening. They hurried off, after they had said good-bye to Miss Lawrence, and made her promise to come see them at Camp Karonya and stay a whole day.
At the last moment she pushed a bundle into Winona’s hands.
“Here are your dresses, child,” she said. “You looked so sweet it would be a shame for you and Louise not to keep them. I’ll make it up to Nataly.”
Winona threw her arms around Miss Lawrence’s neck, and kissed her.
“Thank you, dear fairy godmother!” she said.
A more astonished pair of boys than Lonny and Tom it would have been hard to find. It did not take long to explain matters. In a few moments they had Winona in the canoe between Tom and Billy, while Lonny rowed Louise in the boat. The girls held the boat and the canoe together. As they went Louise and Winona told the tale of their day’s work.
When they were done Louise pulled out the money they had made, and began to count it.
“You have some, too, Win,” she said.
“I know,” said Winona, “I have what Billy gave me, that the bellboy made. But I don’t believe it’s a lot.”
“Better count it,” counselled Tom, and Winona did. When she was through she looked up with an awed expression.
“Nearly ten dollars more!” she announced. “Oh, Louise, there must be some mistake! Why, if we both really have made all that, there’s enough for another three weeks’ camping!”
“And orders ahead!” said Louise serenely. “It will take Marie and Adelaide more of their time than they’ll want to spare from fancy diving and telling the birds from the wild-flowers, to make jelly and runners. I tell you, folks, I’m going to be an Italian porch-worker from now on. It pays. Sella da fina crock—getta da bigga price—blowa it in!”
The boys shouted. “Good for you, Louise!” they cried, and a startled bullfrog gave a deep emotional croak at the noise, and jumped into the water.
It was moonlight, so the trip home was pleasanter than any they had had. They sang till they came close to Camp Karonya, where they quieted down for fear of disturbing the sleeping girls. But they need not have worried. Camp Karonya was improving the moonlight night by sitting around a watch-fire, singing and telling stories. They could hear Helen’s voice lifted up in “Old Uncle Ned,” with a mandolin accompanying her that probably belonged to Edith. The boys tied the boat and the canoe, and carried the suitcases and stretcher, so pleasingly empty, ashore. All five walked over to where the fire gleamed, and were in the midst of the girls before anyone had seen them come.
The girls jumped up and surrounded them.
“Where on earth have you been? What on earth have you been doing? Where in the name of common sense did you get that haughty black person who brought us news of you about six?” everybody wanted to know, while Adelaide and Nataly held brief reunions with their brothers, and six girls at once pressed refreshments on Lonny and Tom and Billy.
“We’ve sold most of your arts-and-crafts things,” announced Winona.
“And every stitch of embroidery,” added Louise.
“And we’ve been to a band concert and met a fairy godmother!” chanted Winona in her turn.
“And we have heaps andheapsof money!” finished Louise jubilantly.
Then all the girls cried out, “Oh, tell us about it! Tell us about it!”
So Louise sat down at a discreet distance from the camp-fire, and assisted by Winona’s quieter voice, told the story. When she got to the part where they pretended to be Italian girls Nataly interrupted.
“Oh, that was dreadful!” she said. “Surely you didn’t do that?”
“Didn’t we, though?” grinned Louise cheerfully; “And your very own Aunt Lydia aided and abetted us, and gave us dinner and kind words besides!”
“Aunt Lydia!” exclaimed Nataly.
“She’s over at one of the Wampoag hotels, Nataly,” explained her brother. “You knew she was going to be there, didn’t you?”
“How could I when I haven’t heard from her?” asked Nataly.
“Oh, that’s so!” said Billy penitently. “I ought to have brought you down her last letter, but it was addressed to me, and I forgot to pass it on.”
The fact was, as Winona learned later, Miss Lawrence had very strong likes and dislikes, and much preferred her nephew to her niece.
Louise turned round to Nataly.
“You made some things to sell, didn’t you?” she asked, “And yet you think it was shocking of us to sell them! I don’t think that’s fair.”
“Well, I don’t care. I don’t think it’s nice or lady-like to peddle things from door to door,” said Nataly stubbornly.
“Maybe it wasn’t,” said Louise cheerfully, “but it was certainly heaps of fun!”
“Oh, wedidhave fun!” said Winona. “And we have orders for more of Marie’s stencilled runners, and Adelaide’s jelly.”
“Did nobody love my pots?” asked Helen sadly.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” consoled Winona, “only you were so industrious, and made so many, that we have some left. The Blue Birds’ baskets went off very well, too.”
“How much did you make?” asked Mrs. Bryan. “I’m wild to know.”
Louise pulled her bandanna handkerchief out of her deepest pocket, and Winona produced hers from the bottom of her blouse. They handed them over to the Guardian.
“Mine’s only what the bellboy took in while we were at dinner and out in the evening,” Winona explained. “Louise took care of all the rest.”
Mrs. Bryan counted it silently, while the girls waited breathlessly for the result.
“Fifty-three dollars and forty-six cents!” announced Mrs. Bryan at last. “You blessed angels, with what we’ll get for the mending, that means over three weeks more of camp!”
“By the way,” suggested Tom here, “can’t you give us what’s done of the mending, please, Mrs. Bryan? It’s time we got back to camp.”
She sent Florence and another Blue Bird to get it, and they ran off, swinging their lanterns.
“We’ll send down the bill by some of your sisters, with the rest of the work, by day after to-morrow at the furthest,” she promised, as the girls stood up to bid the three Scouts good-bye.
They watched the canoe paddle off into the darkness, then settled down to hear the rest of the adventure.
“But there’s something else we haven’t told you!” said Winona, when the whole story had been told and talked over for a long while. “There’s going to be a lake carnival.”
“Oh, what fun! Let’s go!” said Adelaide, speaking more brightly than Winona had ever known herto. “We could hike as far as this side of the lake by land, couldn’t we, Opeechee?”
“Certainly we could—if we had to,” said Mrs. Bryan, who was watching Winona. “Wait till Winona finishes. She looks as if she had a plan.”
“I was thinking,” said Winona, “that it would be very nice if we could decorate a float. The boys said they were sure the Scouts would loan us enough rowboats to build the float over, if we needed it. And we could have tents——”
“Of course we could!” said everybody enthusiastically, and all began to plan at once.
Finally Mrs. Bryan rose, and suggested that it was twelve o’clock, and that all but the breakfast-getters had better sleep till eight next morning. So they put out the fire, and went to bed.
About two o’clock a slim figure in a red kimono stole down the avenue of tents with a lantern. About two-thirds of the way there met her another, plumper figure, in a blue kimono, also with a lantern.
“Winona!” said the blue kimono.
“Why, Louise!” said the red one.
Then they both began to giggle in a subdued way.
“What on earth are you prowling round for, at this time of night?” asked Winona.
“What are you?” returned Louise.
Winona beckoned her friend over to a seat on a fallen log.
“I—well, I’ve been worrying over our dressing up that way, and fooling people, to sell things,” sheconfessed. “I suppose you’ll think I’m a horrid little prig, but—Louise, I think we ought to go back and tell those hotellers that we were just plain Camp Fire Girls, not Italian or Dalmatian or anything like that.”
“I thought a Dalmatian was a dog,” suggested Louise.
“Maybe it is,” said Winona sadly.
Louise sat closer to Winona.
“Winnie,” she said, “that’s just what I climbed out of bed about myself. I was coming to look for you when I met you. I’ve been worrying about it, too. It was a lark, but I think it’s up to us to gambol over there, clothed and in our right minds—and own up.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” said Winona. “We’ll tell Mrs. Bryan in the morning.”
“All right,” said Louise, and she began to giggle.
“And then, while they’re thinking how noble it is of us to confess, we’ll sell ’em more things—real Camp Fire Girls’ hand-crafts!”
“Louise,” said Winona with admiring conviction, “you certainlyarethe limit.”
They both laughed, and felt better. Then they went back to bed and went to sleep.
Next morning they rowed duly up the lake, and made a conscientious round of the hotels and cottages where they had sold their things the day before. But the way of the transgressor refused to be hard. They could wake very little excitement on the subject of their transformation in the minds of their patrons—who, it is to be feared, either regarded it all as a good joke, ordid not worry about it at all. Indeed, most of the people Louise could find to explain to were more wronged because she had no goods with her, than by anything else. So she took a number of orders.
“It’s no use, Lou,” said Winona, as they met at noon by the hotel where Miss Lawrence stayed, “I can’t get a soul to care whether I’m a Canadian or a Hottentot. The only thing they’ll say is, ‘We’d like some more of the baskets,’ or ‘those runners,’ or whatever they didn’t get yesterday.”
“Same here,” said Louise. “But I landed some fine fat orders, and if you’re as clever as I think you are, you did, too.”
“Yes, I did,” said Winona. “And, anyway,” she added, brightening, “when we’ve done this hotel our consciences will be clear.”
“I only hope we don’t meet that horrid Mrs. Gardner,” said Louise.
So they marched up the steps, and tried to pick out the women they had sold to the day before, to explain to them. But Winona had scarcely begun, “You see, we really weren’t Italians at all,” when the people she was talking to began to laugh. Winona, bewildered and a little cross, looked around to see what they were laughing at. She saw Miss Lawrence behind her, laughing, too.
“It’s no use explaining, my dear,” said that lady. “I did it myself. Everybody knows that you and Louise Lane disposed of your goods under false pretenses by tying up your heads in red handkerchiefs andletting your customers draw their own conclusions. I don’t know but some of us want our money back! Never mind, children, it was very clever of you!” she added, seeing that Winona was not sure whether she was in earnest.
And the girls found themselves being questioned and laughed at and made much of by a group of women, who wanted to know all about the Camp Fire, and the things the girls made, and the ways they earned money, and what they did with it, till Winona and Louise were fairly tired with answering questions.
They invited everybody to come out to the camp, and set a day. They took some more orders, and then they carried Miss Lawrence off across the lake and down the river, to see Camp Karonya. When she arrived they handed her over to Nataly, as was polite, and she and Mrs. Bryan showed her over the camp.
She investigated everything with the same brisk, fairy godmother expression that she had had when she took Winona and Louise under her wing, stayed to luncheon, and then expressed a desire to be taken down to the Scouts’ camp, to see Billy. So two of the Blue Birds rowed her there.
After they had seen Miss Lawrence off, the girls became busy a little way down the river. Winona got there a little late and found that much had happened while she and Louise had gone off that morning. At first the idea of making the float had been to found it on the rowboats the Boy Scouts were willing to lend. But when a deputation, headed by Mr. Gedney, paddleddown, bringing the boats in question, it became painfully clear that four canoes would not support enough planks to hold twenty life-size girls. Neither would rowboats. At least, Mrs. Bryan and Mr. Gedney agreed that they wouldn’t—most of the girls and all the boys were willing to take a chance.
When this turn of affairs arrived everyone felt very sad, and for a while it had looked as if Camp Karonya wasn’t going to have a float in the lake carnival.
But just then along came that resourceful old gentleman, Mr. Sloane, with fishing-rod and a can of bait.
“Well, what’s all the trouble?” he inquired genially of everyone in general. So they told him. Mr. Sloane did not hesitate a moment.
“I got a friend that owns some good, water-tight scows,” said he most unexpectedly. “They ain’t doin’ nobody any good, and I guess he’d loan ’em to you, or, if wust come to wust, he’d let you have the use of ’em for maybe seventy-five cents apiece. Two scows are all you’d need to put the plankin’ across.”
He gave them directions as to where to go after the scows’ owner, and ambled on in search of a quieter fishing-place. An embassy was sent after the scows immediately, and returned with them in triumph. They proved perfectly seaworthy, and quite equal to supporting all they would have to. So when Winona arrived on the scene after luncheon the girls had reached the stage of nailing the planks across.
They had bargained for the scows at seventy-five cents each, as Mr. Sloane had said they would be ableto, and promised to give them a coat of paint before they returned them. The boards, bought of the village carpenter, were more expensive. However, the girls thought they could venture to pay for them out of the treasury, on the strength of the orders ahead that they had taken. Marie and Edith were supervising things.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Winona asked Marie, who was frowning thoughtfully over a hastily-drawn plan.
“Not unless you can help us with this design,” Marie answered. “See here. The idea is to make a miniature Indian village. How would you group the tents so as to take up the least room and show best?”
“Why do you try to draw it?” asked Winona. “Why not do as generals do, make little paper tents and move them around till you get a tableau of the effect you want?”
The idea was new to Marie, but she liked it, and the three girls fell to constructing little paper cones, and arranging them on a square space that represented the float.
Presently one of the girls who was nailing dropped out with a pounded thumb, and Winona took up her hammer and went to work. She discovered that the driving of a nail straight, and making boards lie side by side evenly, is more of an art than people know.
They worked on the float most of that afternoon, except for a few of the girls who were told off to do the Scout mending, and they sat down near the carpenters and sewed sociably to the sound of the pounding.They worked till six, and went to bed unusually early.
By the second day the platform was done, and proved to balance very well on the water, even with all the girls on it. Next Marie and her helpers went to making tents, for their own soldier tents were too unromantically shaped to be any good on a float. They wanted real Indian wigwams, or as near to them as they could get.
Marie bought unbleached muslin, and they dyed it the correct dark brown. They made three wigwams of this, the story-book-picture kind, with the crossed poles tied at the top, for a foundation. In each tent a squaw was to sit—or rather, at its door, for the tepees, in order to fit on the limited space of the float, had to be made rather small, and would have been a tight fit for even the smallest squaw. Some of the girls were to dress as chiefs, and were working hard on war-bonnets and leggings. Even Puppums was to grace the occasion, guarding a pappoose—little Lilian Maynard, the smallest Blue Bird. There was some idea of including Hike the Camp Cat, now a cheerful and opulent-looking kitten, but it was thought better of, because he yowled so when they rehearsed him.
When the tents and costumes were done, the brushwood heaps stacked, the floor covered with twigs and moss, the girls tried grouping themselves as they were to appear on the final night. And it proved that there was not room on the platform for three tents and nineteen girls, even if sevenweresmall.
Marie stepped off and looked it over.
“There are just two girls too many,” she said. “Three, if I were on board. I’ll eliminate Marie Hunter to begin with. I’m going to decorate my own canoe. You’d better draw lots for the other two to stay out.”
Everyone on the float looked at everyone else. Nobody wanted to drop out, but nobody felt like being selfish.
“I’ll drop out!” said the whole of Camp Karonya in chorus, after a minute’s dead silence.
“I’ll go in your canoe, Marie—have you forgotten?” asked Edith. “The plans you made included me.”
“So they did,” said Marie in a relieved voice. “Well, perhaps the rest could crowd a little closer.”
“I’m afraid not, and be sure that nobody’d tip into the water,” vetoed Mrs. Bryan. “I’m the one to stay ashore, girls. I’ll gaze at you with fond proprietorship while you get first prize.”
But there rose up a storm of objections to that. “No you won’t, either! There won’t any of us be in it if you aren’t, Opeechee!” till she had to give up giving up.
Winona braced herself a little, and “I’m out, too,” she said gayly. “There’s no use asking me to stay—I don’t like your old float!”
She sprang ashore, and went over and stood by Marie.
The girls protested, and several more volunteered to drop out, but nobody meant it quite as hard as Winona did. So the Indian village went on being erected, andthe girls went on practising an Indian dance which should take up the least possible room. Meanwhile Winona rounded up the finished mending and rowed up the river to deliver the latest basket of mended socks and shirts. She had made her sacrifice in all good faith and earnestness, but she felt as if she didn’t want to see them going gayly on without her—at least, not rightnow.
She wasn’t conscious of behaving any way but as she generally did, but she must have, for both Tom and Billy watched her uneasily, as she sat in the boat and talked to them after they had taken the mending, while she waited for the orderly to come with her money.
“What’s the matter, Win?” asked Tom bluntly in a minute. “You’re down and out—I can see that. Who’s been doing anything to you?”
Winona shook her head. “Nobody.”
“Then what haveyoubeen doing?” asked Billy. They stood over her, both looking so worried that Winona felt like hugging them, or crying, or both.
“It isn’t anything,” she said. “Except—well, I did it myself. Somebody had to stay off the float, because there wasn’t room for everyone, so I elected myself. And—and—oh, Ididwant to be in that carnival! But”—she straightened bravely, and smiled up into the two indignant faces—“I guess it’s all right, after all. If I could decorate my rowboat it would be all right, but I can’t, because they’re going to need it to carry properties in.”
“It’s a confounded shame,” said Billy Lee, “and after you planned it, and all! You ought to have a float of your own. I’ll tell you, Winona, why don’t you decorate a canoe?”
“Only reason is, I haven’t a canoe,” laughed Winona—they were all three sitting in a row in the grass by this time.
“I have,” said Billy, “and you’re more than welcome to it, and to all the help I can give you on it.”
“And I’ve got some change you’re welcome to for decorations,” added Tom.
“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” said Winona, jumping up with her face aglow. “Indeed I will decorate it, and thank you both, ever and ever so much. I have ever so many lovely ideas for decorations. Billy!”
She stopped short.
“Well?” said Billy.
“Would you mind being in the canoe with me?”
“Sure, I’d love to,” said Billy heartily, whether he really meant it or not.
“Oh, thank yousomuch!” cried Winona again.
“That’s the way to take it!” said Tom. “We’ll get you up a canoe, between us, that’ll make your old Camp Fire float look like a bad quarter and a plugged nickel—see if we don’t!”
Winona and Florence paddled back to Camp Karonya with the latest bundle of mending, very, very happy. When they came ashore, they were met by a committee consisting of Adelaide, Louise, Helen and Marie.
“We’ve got a plan for your being in the picture,” said they very nearly in unison. “We can decorate the boat with the apparatus in it——”
But Winona waved a lordly hand.
“Boat me no boats,” said she. “I’m going to have Billy Lee’s canoe to decorate. We’re going out this afternoon, or maybe to-morrow afternoon, up to Wampoag where the shops are, and we’re going to buy out the shops with decorations. Going to get honorable mention, anyway!”
“Oh, then you’d really rather!” said Helen. “I’msoglad. But it won’t seem natural not to have you on the float, Winnie!”
“Just as natural as not having Marie,” said Winona.
“No,” said Marie quietly, “not exactly. You’re like the spirit of the whole thing, Win, and I think they ought to have you.”
“You can’t,” said Winona, sitting down on the grass and drawing her knees up to her chin.
“We could if we canned Nataly,” said Louise the rebel, half under her breath.
“Well, you can’t do that,” said the other girls in a breath.
The truth was, Nataly Lee was the one dark spot—the one cinder, as you might say—in the Camp Fire. She did not particularly like doing her share of the work, she could not be made to take an interested part in the work for honor beads, and she acted generally as if she was a caller who was much older and more languid than the others. It was, in short, very much as Louise had said when she offered to join—she was like a kitten who refused to be anything but a cat.
“I don’t know what Nataly’s doing here, anyway,” Louise went on. “And we’d be a lot happier without her. I wish she’d go home and look after her complexion. She can’t do it properly here—anybody can see that!”
“Can’t do what?” said a languid voice. It isn’t a good thing to discuss your friends too freely if they’re anywhere at all around, because they are exceedingly likely to overhear or partly hear. And this is just what happened now. Nataly herself walked out of the strip of woods that separated the camp from the river, and sat down by them.
“I thought I heard you talking about me,” she said.
“We were,” said Louise, quite unruffled. “At least I was. I was saying that you couldn’t look after your complexion properly here in the woods, and that I thought you’d be happier away from our rude young society!”
Nataly did not see in the least that Louise was laughing at her, but Helen did, and gave Louise a severepinch. “Guying” was something that the camp spirit allowed only if the victim knew what was being done to her. But where Nataly was concerned it was hard to make Louise behave.
“Well, you know,” said Nataly, “I am thinking of going home. It makes me nervous, the idea of Aunt Lydia being near enough to pounce down on me every minute. She issoenergetic. And my nerves are nearly all right now.”
“Then you really think you will go back?” said Winona.
“I really do, as soon as the carnival is over,” said Nataly.
“Well, as I said,” said Winona hastily, for Louise looked as if she were going to suggest an earlier departure, “I’m going up to Wampoag this afternoon to buy things with the boys.”
“I have a ’gagement to make baskets with Frances,” said Florence, “so I can’t go with you.”
“I will if you want me,” offered Louise. “I have various things I want to say to you alone.”
“That sounds dark and dreadful!” said Helen good-naturedly. “I think we’d better not volunteer to go along, Marie!”
“We couldn’t, anyway,” Marie reminded her. “There’s a lot to do on those war-bonnets yet.”
So that afternoon Louise, Winona, Billy and Tom paddled up to the summer resort in quest of decorations.
“Have you any idea how you’re going to trim the canoe?” asked Louise.
“I’ve thought it all out,” said Winona. “I found the idea in an old book of ballads Marie brought along. It was called ‘The Ship o’ the Fiend.’”
“Pretty name!” said Louise. “Who’s going to be the fiend? Please don’t all speak at once!”
“I’ll be the goat,” said Billy. “Winnie told me a little about it. The ballad was about a girl who went off with an old fiance, and he turned out to be a real live demon.”
“Yes,” said Winona, “the tall topmast no taller was than he,” it says.
“Well, I draw the line at stilts,” said Billy sleepily. He was curled down in the bottom of the boat basking in the sunshine, for Louise had insisted on taking a paddle. “What do I have to do?”
“The first thing,” said Winona, “is to wake up enough to sit up and be consulted. How much copper wire ...”
The rest was inaudible, for Billy moved closer to Winona, who talked to him mysteriously under her breath. The others could hear scraps like “Japanese auctioneer ...” “fifty yards ...” “red paper muslin,” and such illuminating fragments.
“How much money have you got for me to spend, Tommy?” Winona broke off to inquire.
“Four whole dollars,” he said, “earned by splitting wood for a farmer.”
“I certainly am obliged,” she said, “and I’ll pay it back.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” he said. “I should hope I could give my own sister a lone four dollars once in awhile!”
“All right, you can,” said Winona soothingly. She pulled out the paper the boys had secured and given her, and began to read it aloud.
“Cash prizes in the canoe class, first, twenty-five dollars, second, ten dollars, three third prizes, five dollars each. Now you see, if I get a third prize I’ll be a dollar in, and all the glory reflected on Camp Karonya besides!”
They took a street-car when they got to Wampoag, because the shopping district was a long ways off, and it was a hot day anyway. Tom and Louise watched the other two with curiosity, as they went from store to store, buying things that it seemed impossible could fit into each other; copper wire, red tinsel by the box, paper muslin in what seemed unlimited quantities, though it was really only a little over a dollar’s worth. Then Winona went into one Japanese store alone, and came out with a bagful of paper lanterns and a knobby bundle which she refused to undo or show. They hunted all over three streets for Greek fire, before it occurred to Billy to go back to the hardware store where they had bought their copper wire. He came out with three boxes of it, labelled “Blue,” “Green” and “White,” and seemed rather sad because they had no lavender or gray fire in stock.
“‘They bought a pig and some ring-bo-ree, and no end of Stilton cheese!’” chanted Louise softly. “How on earth are you going to connect all that crazy stuff?”
“You’ll know, all in good time, my dear,” said Winona sedately. “We can go home now. The worst is over.”
“We deserve a soda, at least, for all this,” said Billy.
“Marble-dust,” said Tom solemnly. “Some day, Bill, if you keep on drinking sodas, you’ll turn into a statue, and your sorrowing relatives will have to put you up in the hall for an ornament.”
“Glad I’m as lovely as all that comes to!” said Billy with a grin. “They couldn’t do it to you, old fellow—you aren’t pretty enough!”
“He is pretty, too,” said Louise stoutly. “Somebody told me only yesterday that they thought Tom was so poetic-looking, and had a striking head.”
Billy laughed out loud, and Tom wriggled.
“I take it all back, Louise,” he said. “Heisbeautiful.”
Tom gave a sort of mournful growl.
“Oh, cut it out, Billy!” he said. “If you really want that soda, here’s a drug-store.”
“A striking head,” mused his sister, cocking her own head on one side, to look at Tom from this new point of view. “I really think you have.”
“If ever I meet the fellow who said that, he’ll find out I have a striking fist,” muttered Thomas darkly,walking into the drug-store ahead of the rest, and sitting down at a table in the back. “Four walnut sundaes, please. No, I don’t want ’em all myself. The others are coming in the door now.”
For the next few days Winona, at a point half-way between her camp and the Scout’s camp, worked steadily over the paper lanterns she had bought. She covered them all with white paper, and cut out holes in the paper after the fashion of eyes, nose and mouth, until, if you were not too critical, they looked like big oval skulls. If youwerecritical, they might remind you, it is true, of jack-o’-lanterns, but nobody was unkind enough to say so but Tom. There were forty of them altogether, and when they were all covered, and brought down to camp out of the danger of being rained on, and festooned about Winona’s tent, the effect was truly awful. Tom, who had been watching his sister’s performance with interest, came over one day with five little paper-mache lanterns which he presented to her, two in the shape of black cats, and three like owls.
“I don’t know yet what you’re going to do,” he said, “but if Bill’s going to wear horns and hoofs, and those things over the cot are meant for skulls, I should think these would come in handy.”
“They’re just exactly what I wanted!” said Winona with rapture, hanging them with the rest. “Now I’ve nothing to do but my dress.”
She showed him several yards of black paper muslin and a sheet of gilt paper. “It doesn’t look promising,I know,” she said, “but it will be quite nice, I think, when it’s done.”
And it really was. Helen helped her to fit it, and they made it with the dull side out, close-fitting, and covered with the stars and crescents of the traditional witch-dress. She was done with it, even to the pointed hat and black half-mask, in very good time.
“Now,” she said to the boys, standing over Billy’s canoe where it had been pulled up in the grass, “now comes the tug of war. Tom, you said you would help me.”
“I did,” said he. “What shall I do?”
“Then please nail these poles to the end of the canoe. They’re about six feet high, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Do you want them sticking straight up into the air?”
“Straight up, please,” she said.
“Billy’s flying around in the town like a hen with its head cut off,” said Tom as he proceeded to do what his sister asked, “trying to buy something he won’t tell about. And I found Louise and Helen up at Camp Karonya, winding tinsel into balls like fury. Strikes me you ought to share that five you won’t get with the whole crowd of us.”
“So I will when I get it,” said Winona serenely. “Now will you please brace those end-poles thoroughly, and nail cross-pieces on them about a foot from the top?”
“It’s easy to tell people how to do things,” saidTom; but he was clever at carpentering, and had it done in a very short time.
Then Winona took the copper wire she had bought, and strung it from end to end of the cross-pieces, till the effect was something like that of a half-done cat’s cradle. Then she stood off and looked at her work, walking round and round it, as a kitten looks at a mirror.
“That wire ought to bear about twenty pounds, don’t you think?” she asked.
“I don’t see why not,” said Tom, sitting down on the grass to watch her.
“Now I’ll begin, then,” she said. “Thank you for making the foundation.”
She took up the copper wire again, and strung more lines of it from end to end of the canoe, and one around the gunwale. She laced still more up and down in irregular points, up and down the side-wires, till the effect was that of an irregularly pointed fence, or crown, as high as the end pieces in some parts, and low enough, at the ends, to show the people seated in it.
“Looks like a cross-section of Alps,” said Tom critically. “Are you going to be the Blue Alsatian Mountains?”
“There are two classes of people who should never see a thing half-done,” answered his sister, standing off again to get the effect.
“Thank you,” said Tom.
“Doesn’t it look like anything else at all?” sheasked, abandoning her superior attitude, and throwing herself on his mercy.
“Well, something like a fever-chart,” said he.
Winona said no more—there didn’t seem to be any use. She picked up her ball of red tinsel, and began to wind it around and within, and across, every point of the “fever-chart,” till there was a solid network. It was not a bad imitation of a springing fire.
“Now do you see?” she said. “That’s a big, red blaze coming out of the canoe, and when we’ve lighted the Greek fire inside it ought to look real enough to burn you.”
“Not bad,” admitted Tom. “But I don’t see its connection with a black bonnet and forty jack-o’-lanterns.”
“You will by-and-bye,” said his sister, going on with her work. It went very smoothly after that, except that Puppumswouldjump inside, and then looked at her in a wronged way because the canoe did not float off. After the tinsel was on nothing remained to do but to wrap the end-pieces with black muslin, so they would not show at night, and to cover the canoe with the same material. The lanterns did not need to be hung till the last moment.
The night of the carnival Camp Karonya, very much excited, sailed down the river in all the glory of its fleet, about six. The Indian village was a great success as far as looks went. Whether it would be as handsome a float as the ones it would have to compete with nobodycould tell yet. As a canoe takes less time to engineer than a float, and also as the boys hadn’t come yet, Winona stayed behind a little while. At about seven Tom and Billy came up the river in another of the Scouts’ canoes. Winona, in her witch costume, with her lanterns, was waiting for them by the decorated canoe.
Billy was most gorgeous. He had hired a red Mephisto costume, evidently from a real costumer—horns, hoofs and all. His full grandeur didn’t show till he sprang out on the grass, because he had modestly shrouded himself in a raincoat, and his mask was in its pocket. But he snapped the mask on, tossed the coat off, and struck an attitude, before he helped Tom to lay the canoe in the water.
“You certainly are grand and gorgeous, Billy,” said Winona. “All you need is a spotlight running round after you to look just like the man in the opera.”
“I feel like a freak,” admitted Billy. “Got everything, Winona? We’d better be starting.”
Winona veiled her own splendors with an evening wrap of Mrs. Bryan’s which had, fortunately, been brought along, and stepped in. Tom trailed behind.
“I believe I’m frightened,” said Winona. “What about you, Billy?”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said. “We can’t very well upset, tied to a string of other craft, and maybe we’ll get a fourth prize—if they only have four entries in the canoe class.”
“We’ll get one anyway!” declared Winonaproudly, throwing her head back and forgetting to be nervous.
They were early at the dock. The Camp float was moored quite a little way from the place where they had to be, but they could see each other, and called across. After that Winona did not feel so lonely. The boys helped her to light and tie on the lanterns, all so realistically like skulls, and when she saw how very ghostly they looked she felt that she hadn’t lived in vain.
“Have you the skeleton, Billy?” she demanded anxiously of Mephisto, who was wrestling with a bundle in the back canoe.
“Here it is,” he said, finally producing it. “I had rather a time getting old Hiraoka to rent it, but an auctioneer will do anything for enough yen.”
As he spoke he unwrapped a neat, papier-mache skeleton of nearly life-size, which was of Japanese origin, and which, as he said, he had rented from the Japanese store of Mr. Tashima Hiraoka for this night only.
“Billy!” said Winona remorsefully, “how much did you pay for Mr. Bones?”
“No time to worry about that now,” said Billy. “Where do you want him put?”
Winona saw that he was right, and put off insisting on paying for the skeleton till time should be less precious than now. They swung it above the tinsel flames, on wire loops prepared for it, so that it turnedgently, as if roasting. Tom looked on in respectful admiration.
“Here’s the last thing,” said Billy, producing the mysterious bundle that had excited Louise so the day they were shopping for decorations.
“Those are Billy’s idea,” said Winona, pulling the objects out as she spoke. “They just put the finishing touch on, don’t they, Tom?”
“I should say they did!” said Tom appreciatively. They were twenty small red demons rather like Billy, and the same number of tiny skeletons, all with waggle-some hands and feet.
“Blessed forever be Japanese stores!” said Winona. “Just hang them around carelessly, boys, as if they were hovering over the fire, you know. Billy, do you think you can make the demons look pleased and the skeletons unhappy?”
“You never know what you can do till you try,” said Billy with his usual poise. He pulled some wire out of the back canoe, which, like the Mother’s Bag in the Swiss Family Robinson, seemed to have everything in the world in it. The boys set to work with such a will that the last demon was wriggling naturally as life, and there was ten minutes yet to spare, when they were done.