“I’d advise you girls to hurry up with those squaw dresses,” hinted Tom Merriam darkly, as he fled through the sitting-room on his way back from Scout-practice.
Winnie looked up. She and Helen and Louise were sitting in a row on the window-seat, sewing for dear life on their ceremonial gowns.
“We are hurrying all we can,” she smiled. “These have to be done by to-night anyway.”
“They are, nearly,” chimed in Louise, shaking out her garment and observing its fringes with satisfaction. “What’s he talking about, Win?”
“Tommy! Tom! Come back and tell us!” called his sister.
“Can’t!” shouted Tom down the stairs. “You’ll find out in time—you’re going to need ’em, that’s all!”
“What on earth do you suppose he means?” wondered Helen, as the last glimpse of Tom’s khaki-clad form vanished up the stairs.
Winnie laughed as she finished off a seam.
“I don’t believe it meant anything,” she said. “Tom’s always trying to get up excitements.”
“Ithink it means something!” said Louise, beginning to take out bastings. She was the best seamstress of the three, and consequently was done first. “Here, Helen, let me finish that sleeve for you while you do the other one.”
She took up the sleeve, and jumped up and began to dance with the sleeve for a partner.
Something’s goin’ to happen, honey,Happen, honey, happen mighty soon!
“Oh, thank you!” said Helen gratefully, referring not to the song and dance, but to the aid. She hated sewing, and nothing but the Camp Fire requirements would ever have made her persevere till her gown was done. Winnie did not mind sewing one way or the other, and by a queer contradiction harum-scarum Louise loved it.
The girls worked on, and discussed on. Winnie was sure Tom meant nothing, and the others were just as sure that he had some reason for saying what he had.
That night the girls were to hold their first Council Fire. That was why they were hurrying so to finish their dresses.
When it came Winnie’s turn to answer the roll-call, she rose, slim and graceful in her khaki dress, before her turn was reached.
“Opeechee, Guardian of the Fire, may I speak before my turn comes to answer to my name?” she asked.
“Speak,” said Mrs. Bryan.
“Opeechee, I do not want to change my name. May I not be known in the Camp Fire as Winona? The name is one that an Indian gave one of my own people many circles of moons ago, and it is mine by inheritance.”
“Will you tell the Camp Fire about it?” asked Mrs. Bryan.
So Winnie told the Camp Fire the story her mother had told her, of the weary Indian woman her grandmother had helped, and whose papoose had been called “Winona,” “Flashing Ray of Light.”
“Could anything be better than to be a ray of light in dark places?” asked Winona. “I like the meaning of my name, and if the Camp Fire will let me keep it I promise to be a brightness wherever I can, always, that will light the dark places for people who need it.”
“What do you say, Daughters of the Camp Fire?” asked Mrs. Bryan when Winona was done.
“If we all have different Camp Fire names, won’t it seem strange for Winona to have the same name straight through?” objected Marie. “It is a beautiful name with a beautiful meaning, if it weren’t that it is her every-day name.”
“Nobody ever calls me anything but Winnie,” said Winona.
“Why not use the translation?” suggested Helen. “‘Ray of Light’ is pretty. And then Winnie could keep the meaning.”
“You have spoken well!” said Mrs. Bryan. “What do you say to that, Daughters of the Camp Fire?”
“Good!” from all the girls.
“Kolah, Ray of Light!” spoke Mrs. Bryan.
Then she went on with the business of the evening.
“Two of our Camp Fire Girls are to become Wood-gatherers to-night. Will they rise?”
Winona and Marie had qualified, and they stood up.
“Ray of Light,” Mrs. Bryan went on, “will you tell us how you chose your name?”
“‘Flashing Ray of Light’ is the name my fathers gave me,” clearly spoke Winona, “and I have told the Camp Fire the reason of its choosing. But I keep it because I intend to carry out its meaning. I have tried to earn my right to it by being bright, and helping all I could, no matter how dark the days were, nor how much nicer it would have been to be cross. As my symbol I have chosen the firefly, because it lights dark places.”
“Flashing Ray of Light brings brightness to our Camp Fire,” said the Guardian. “We welcome you to your place in our Camp Fire Circle.”
She gave Winona her pretty silver ring with its raying fagots, and repeating the formula which went with it.
When the girls had welcomed her rank and sung her a cheer, Winona sat down, she hoped, for the last time.
“How does it feel?” whispered Louise, who sat next her. “I wish I’d collected my requirements as quickly.”
“It feels partly awfully proud and partly awfully relieved,” Winona whispered back. “And I feel as if I oughtn’t to have picked out such awfully easy honors to take. Anybody could make a shirtwaist and know about their ancestors and trim a hat——”
“No, they couldn’t!” contradicted Louise, whoadmired Winona very much. “You just happen to be cleverer than the rest of us, that’s all.”
“I’mnot!” said Winona as vehemently as it could be said in a whisper. “Marie’s getting her Wood-gatherer’s ring to-night, too.”
Mrs. Bryan’s voice rose again in the same formula.
“Shawondassee, tell us how you chose your name.”
“Shawondassee means ‘South Wind,’” answered Marie’s steady voice. “I chose the name because the South Wind coaxes instead of scolding, and I thought it was a good name to remind me to do the same thing. As my symbol I have chosen the willow shoots, because they come up year after year, no matter how often they are cut down, and I wish to have their perseverance.”
“Perseverance and cheerfulness!” whispered Louise. “Who would have thought Marie needed either of them?”
“You can’t tell much about Marie, because you never can get to her to talk about herself,” answered Winona. “But she certainly is one of the hardest workers in the class at school.”
At this point the girls had to stop talking, to join in the Wood-gatherer’s verses for Marie.
Nearly all Marie’s required honors were Patriotism, for she was the student of the crowd.
“It fairly makes me shiver to think how much that girl knows,” whispered Louise. “My honors are going to be plain home-craft—making pies and chaperoning ice-chests and massaging floors, and so forth.”
“Will your mother let you?” asked Winona; forMrs. Lane kept two maids, having the money to do it, and a big family.
“Let me!” exploded Louise. “She’ll weep tears of joy if there’s any prospect of my getting thinner!”
Just as Louise spoke there fell one of those uncanny silences which have a way of occurring at the worst possible times. Louise’s statement pealed cheerfully through the room, and poor Louise, blushing scarlet, tried to make herself very small—a hard matter.
The girls could not help laughing, but Mrs. Bryan had mercy on her embarrassment, and went on with the awarding of the honor beads each girl had won since the last meeting. Winona’s were rather various—a few from each class. Helen’s were nearly all hand-craft—stencilling and clay-modelling. She had brought along a bureau-scarf she had done, to show, and a beautiful little bowl she had modelled and painted and fired. Louise had only three beads so far, one for identifying birds, one for preserving, and one for making her ceremonial dress.
Edith Hillis, to everybody’s surprise, was given an honor for folk-dancing, and proceeded, when she was asked, to get up and demonstrate. This held up the regular course of the meeting for quite a little while, because when she showed them the Highland Fling all the girls wanted to learn it. So for at least a half-hour they practised it, till the floor over Mr. Bryan’s head, in his study beneath, must have seemed to be coming down.
After they had all tired themselves thoroughly theysang for awhile. About midway of the second song Mrs. Bryan evidently remembered something, for she gave a start as if she were going to speak. As soon as they had finished she raised her hand for silence, and said:
“I have a message for Camp Karonya. It should be delivered at the business meeting, I suppose, but—it won’t keep till then. The Boy Scouts, Camp No. Six, of this town, invite the Camp Fire Girls to a dance given by them in the school-house assembly-room next Wednesday night.”
“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” cried Edith. “Of course we’ll go!”
A confused noise of voices broke out, all speaking at once. You could catch an occasional word—“blue messaline,” “white organdy,” “orchestra,” “how perfectly dandy!”—but for the most part it was just a noise.
Mrs. Bryan waited placidly till it had quieted down.
“What is your pleasure in this matter, Daughters of the Camp Fire?” she asked then.
“Oh, we’ll go!” cried everybody at once.
“Then you’d better instruct the Secretary to write them to that effect,” suggested Mrs. Bryan gravely, for the tumult seemed inclined to break out again.
Winona jumped up and put it in the form of a motion that the Secretary should reply, and actually induced the girls to second and ratify it.
“I’ll write the acceptance right away!” declared Helen with enthusiasm.
She went into the next room, got paper and ink, came back, sat down in the middle of a ring of interested suggesters, and wrote a very pleased acceptance.
Winona, robbed of her usual confidante, turned to the girl on her other side, to talk clothes.
“I’m going to wear my blue organdy, with the Dresden sash and hair-ribbons,” she said without looking to see to whom she was talking.
“Are you?” said the other girl, hesitating a little.
Winona looked at her, at the sound of her voice. She had thought she was speaking to Louise. But Louise was on the other side of the room, and the girl next her was Adelaide Hughes, one of the two girls Mrs. Bryan had brought into their Camp Fire.
It was two months now since Winona and Adelaide had begun to meet each other weekly at the Camp Fire good times and Ceremonials, but when you have all the bosom friends you want it is hard to see such a very great deal of other people. Winona realized now that she had scarcely exchanged two consecutive sentences with Adelaide all the time she had known her.
Adelaide was a thin, tired-looking girl of about thirteen, with big blue eyes and a sensitive mouth, and hair that had curious yellow and brown lights. She did not join very heartily, ever, in the frolics, but she seemed to enjoy everything with a sort of shy, watching intensity.
“And what are you going to wear?” Winona asked, more out of friendliness than curiosity.
Adelaide colored.
“I—I don’t know,” she said. “I—a white dress, I think.”
“Voile?” asked Winona.
Adelaide shook her head.
“No, lawn—if I come. But maybe I won’t be there.”
“Why, what a shame!” said Winona with the bright friendliness that was a part of her. “Of course you must be there. Helen accepted for all of us.”
“I know, but—but maybe I can’t come,” repeated Adelaide.
“Of course you can!” insisted Winona.
Adelaide’s eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head.
Winona slipped one arm around her. The two girls were sitting a little apart from the rest by now, in a dusky corner.
“There’s some reason why you think you can’t, some horrid reason,” she coaxed. “Now, just tell Winona what it is.” She spoke as if she were petting her own younger sister, though Adelaide was only a year younger than she was.
Adelaide’s eyes overflowed, and she felt gropingly for her handkerchief, to dry her eyes.
“Here’s one,” whispered Winona, slipping her own into Adelaide’s hand. “Now, tell me, dear. It isn’t very bad, is it? Maybe I could help.”
“Youcan’t!” said Adelaide fiercely, “and I won’t tell you a thing unless you promise not to.”
“All right,” said Winona cheerfully, “I promise.”
“I—I haven’t any party dress, and father can’t afford to get me one,” choked Adelaide, “and all I have is an old white lawn I wear afternoons, and it’shorrid. And—and, Winona Merriam, if you offer to loan me a dress I’ll never speak to you again!”
“I wasn’t going to,” comforted Winona, stroking poor sobbing Adelaide’s shoulder, while her own quick, friendly mind cast about for a way out.
For Adelaide must come to the dance, and evidently she wouldn’t borrow anything from anybody.
“Not borrow—how queer!” said Winona, voicing her thought. “Why, I don’t know any of the girls I wouldn’t borrow from, if I needed to, or they from me. Don’t you ever borrow anything, Adelaide—except trouble?”
“No, I don’t,” said Adelaide chokily but proudly. “It’s—it’s different when youhaveto!”
“I don’t see why!” said sunny, friendly-hearted Winona, who always took it for granted that she liked people, and of course that they would like her! She had never known what it was to be rich, but never either what it was to be painfully poor. “Well, let’s think of some other way. I suppose you haven’t time to earn the money for a dress for this party. Opeechee was telling us last week that we ought to try to earn so much money apiece, and that there were lots of ways for doing it.”
“No, there wouldn’t be time,” answered Adelaide mournfully; but she stopped crying and began to look interested.
The two girls sat and thought hard for a moment; then Winnie suddenly thought of something.
“Just a minute, Adelaide!” she whispered, and she went over to the corner where Mrs. Bryan and Marie Hunter were discussing business together. The rest were still all talking dance excitedly by the fireplace.
“Opeechee,” she said, “may I ask you something? Would there be any reason why the girls couldn’t wear their ceremonial dresses to the dance?”
Mrs. Bryan thought for a moment.
“There’s no actual reason why we shouldn’t,” she said. “Only the idea is that the dresses should be kept for rather intimate and private things.”
“But it would be such a good idea if we wore them,” insisted Winona eagerly. “You see, perhaps—perhaps some of us mightn’t be able to afford new party dresses, and maybe we mightn’t have any old good ones, either.”
“Why, Winnie, you have that blue——” began Marie, and checked herself as she saw a light.
“Some of us mightn’t have any new party dresses,” repeated Winona obstinately, but with an appealing look at Mrs. Bryan. She did so hope she would understand! “Anyway, the boys expect us to,” she went on eagerly. “Tom said this afternoon that we’d better get the dresses ready, only we didn’t know then what he meant.”
Mrs. Bryan looked at Winona’s vivid, earnest face, and—understood.
“I think you are quite right, Ray of Light. I’ll speak to the girls.”
She stood up and struck lightly on the little Indian drum to call the girls’ attention.
“Girls!” she said, “as the dance that the Scouts have asked us to is an affair to which we have been invited as an official body, it seems to me that it would be only courteous for us to wear our ceremonial gowns. So I am going to ask that you all do it.”
There was a murmur of approval all over the room. When you have just acquired a beautiful new costume it’s human nature to want to wear it early and often. There was only a plaintive wail, which Marie suppressed, from Edith Hillis:
“Oh, my lovely new green messaline!”
Winona crossed over to the place where Adelaide still sat.
“Well?” she said triumphantly.
“Did you tell Mrs. Bryan anything about me?” Adelaide demanded suspiciously.
“No, I didn’t,” replied Winona rather indignantly. “What do you take me for, when I said I wouldn’t?”
“Well, I didn’t know,” apologized Adelaide. “And—thank you, ever so much, Winona! You—you don’tknow!”
Winona laughed.
“Why, yes, I do. At least, I’ve often wanted new clothes when I couldn’t have them. But mother saysif you can’t the next best thing is to go on wearing what you have, and be so cheerful nobody has time to think what you have on!”
“Nobody ever told me that,” pondered Adelaide, as if it were an entirely new idea to her. “But my mother’s dead, you see. And, anyway, it doesn’t sound as if it could be true. Did you ever try it?”
“Yes,” Winona said, and laughed. “I did—it was funny, too. I was visiting some cousins of mine. I hadn’t expected to stay, and I hadn’t brought a single party thing, and none of their clothes would fit me. They had perfectly lovely dresses. And suddenly we were all invited to a party, and I had nothing but a blue linen; and all the rest of them in the fluffiest clothes you ever saw!”
“Well,” said Adelaide, “didn’t it feelhorrid.”
“Yes, it did for awhile,” owned Winona. “But everybody was sitting around as stiff as stiff—you know, some parties are like that at first. And somebody just had to say something. And pretty soon I thought of a game that just fitted in, and asked them to play it. After that I was so busy thinking up games that I never remembered a thing I had on till we got home that night. And I only did then because my cousin Ethel said, ‘Oh, I’ve torn my dress!’ and I said it was queer I hadn’t torn mine, too—and then I remembered that it was linen and wouldn’t tear. We certainly had a good time at that party!”
Adelaide looked at Winona’s shining eyes and flushed cheeks enviously.
“Yes, you could do that,” she said, “and people would be so busy watching you that they wouldn’t know whether you had a flour-sack on or a satin. But I can’t, because I keep worrying all the time about what people think of me.”
“Oh, I should think thatwouldbe horrid,” Winona sympathized.
“It is,” said Adelaide, “only I——”
The rest that Adelaide had been going to say was drowned, because just then came the signal for the closing song, and soon the Council Fire was over.
“What on earth were you talking to Adelaide Hughes so long about?” demanded Louise curiously as they walked home, for their ways lay together.
“Oh, just things,” was Winona’s answer. “I think she’s awfully shy, and a little afraid of the rest of us, Lou.”
“And you think we ought to make a special fuss over her?” said Louise mournfully. “I knew that was coming. Well, I suppose we will—Helen and I always do what you tell us to. I wish I were shy, and people ran around saying, ‘we really must make an effort to draw poor little timid Louise out!’”
Winona burst out laughing—the idea of “poor, little, timid Louise” was so irresistibly funny.
“It’s going to be a gorgeous dance, though.” Louise went on. “Wasn’t it splendid of the Scouts to think of doing it? And what about my being right?”
“You certainly were right,” Winona admitted. “Are you sure you don’t mind going on alone?”
For they had reached the Merriam house.
“Not a bit,” said Louise cheerfully. “It’s only a block, anyway. Good-night, honey.”
“Oh, it’s lovely!” exclaimed Winona next morning when she ran downstairs. She flung herself on Tom bodily and hugged him hard as she spoke.
“What’s lovely?” asked Tom, detaching himself, or trying to. “Go easy, Winnie; it was just sheer luck that you didn’t break any ribs or my collar-bone or something. Affection’s all right in its place, but——”
“But its place isn’t on you, you mean?” retorted Winona, unwinding herself cheerfully from her brother. “Why, I mean the dance, of course.”
“Oh, that!” said Tom. “That’s nothing! It ought to be pretty good fun, though, don’t you think so?”
“Oh, I know it will!” cried Winona fervently. “Are the boys going to wear their uniforms?”
“Well,” said Tom doubtfully, “we don’t know. You see, we’ve hiked in ’em, and rolled around on the grass in ’em wrestling, and done about everything to those poor old uniforms that you can do to clothes, and they really aren’t fit for civilized society.”
“Meaning ours?” said Winona. “Thanks for the compliment! Why don’t you have them cleaned? I suppose even khaki cleans!”
“I don’t know,” said her brother, “I’ll ask mother. Maybe we can manage it. But—oh, say, Winnie, there’s something I wanted to speak to you about. You know, there are new people moved in next door. They’re Southerners, here for the mother’s health or something. There’s a boy about my age, and a girl somewhere around yours. I don’t know much about the girl, but Billy Lee’s an awfully decent fellow, and we’ve got him in the Scouts. Now what do you think about taking his sister into your Camp Fire? She’d just about fit in as far as age goes, and it would be nice and neighborly. We’ll have to ask her for the dance anyway, because there aren’t enough of you Camp Firers yet to go around. The girl must need something to do, because Billy seems to worry about her rather. Stands to reason it isn’t natural for a fellow to fret about his sister having a good time unless she needs it pretty badly.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Winona. “When you come to a strange place things are bound to be stupid till you get to know people. We’ve lived here always, you know. But I’ll go over and see her as soon as I’ve done the breakfast dishes.”
Accordingly, when the breakfast dishes were done and the dining-room tidied, Winona washed her hands over again very carefully, and put cold-cream and talcum powder on them, for she did not like the smell of dish-water, especially when she was going calling. Then she made her way to the house next door.
All the houses on that block stood in deep yards,which went all around them. Winona crossed the path and went up the porch, feeling a little shy. She had not asked anyone to join the Camp Fire before. They were to take in five new girls at the next monthly meeting, just before they went camping, but all of them had let the girls know that they wanted to join. Winona was a moving spirit in Camp Karonya, and she knew that anyone she vouched for would be welcome. But she did hope the next-door girl would fit in with the rest of them.
The door was opened by a colored maid, but before she could say whom she was, a dark, handsome boy of about fifteen, in a Scout uniform, came running down the stairs.
“You’re Winnie Merriam, aren’t you?” he asked eagerly. “I’m Billy Lee. I asked your brother to send you over to see Nataly.”
Winona liked Billy on the spot, he was so friendly and natural and nice, and very good-looking besides.
“If his sister’s like him she’ll be splendid to have in the Camp Fire,” she thought, and her spirits went up with such a bound that she was able to smile brightly, and say enthusiastically as she held out her hand to Billy Lee:
“Yes, indeed, I’m Winona Merriam, and I’m so glad Tom did send me. I know your sister and I are going to be friends.”
“Well, I do hope so,” said Billy as confidentially as if he had known her for years. “I’m having a gorgeous time in the Scouts—went on a hike yesterday,and we never got back till nine o’clock, and three of the fellows got all stung up with a hornet’s nest.”
This didn’t sound much like a fine time to Winona, but she supposed boys knew what they liked. She couldn’t help laughing, though.
If that’s your idea of a wonderful timeTake me home—take me home!
she hummed. She thought she’d sung it under her breath, but it was evidently loud enough to be heard, for Billy Lee burst out laughing, too.
“Well, I didn’t mean that getting stung was a pleasure exactly,” said he, “but we do have dandy times.”
All this time they had been standing in the hall. Suddenly it seemed to occur to Billy that Winona had come to see his sister, not him. He ushered her hurriedly into the living-room.
“I’ll send Nataly down to you,” he promised. But in another minute he came tearing downstairs again.
“She says, would you mind coming up to her room?” he panted. “She hasn’t felt so awfully well to-day, and she isn’t exactly up.”
Winona followed him, consumed with curiosity as to what could ail a girl, not to be up on a beautiful spring morning, and what “not exactly up” meant. She found out in another minute.
The bed-room where Nataly was had all its windows closed, and there was a close scent of toilet-water and sachet-powder and unairedness through the whole place.
“Here’s Winnie Merriam, that I told you about, sister,” said Billy Lee, and bolted. He never seemed to walk, only to run.
Nataly Lee rose from the couch where she had been lying, and came toward Winona.
“I’m very glad to see you,” she greeted Winnie languidly. “I think I have seen you—out in your back garden yesterday.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Winona. “I was playing tag there with my sister Florence and little Bessie Williams.”
“Do you still play tag?” asked Nataly, gesturing her visitor to a seat, and lifting one weary eyebrow.
“Not as a confirmed habit,” said Winona mischievously. “But you can’t play it well with only two, and the children wanted me to, so—well, I just did, that was all. Don’t you like tag?” she added. (“I was morally certain she’d faint,” she confided to Tom afterwards, “but she didn’t.”)
As a matter of fact, Nataly pulled closer the blue brocaded negligee that was obviously covering up a nightgown, and said, “I don’t know much about games. I like reading better.”
“Oh, do you?” exclaimed Winona, interested at once. “I love reading, too, but somehow there’s so little time for it except when it’s bad weather. Don’t you do anything but read?”
“Not much,” replied Nataly languidly. “Sports bore me.”
Winona gave an inward gasp of dismay.
“Mercy!” she thought, “what a queer girl!” But outwardly she persevered. “Don’t you ever dance?”
Nataly opened her heavy hazel eyes with a little more interest.
“Oh, yes, I dance, of course.”
“So do I,” said Winona. “I love it.”
“Do you?” said Nataly. “I shouldn’t think so—you seem so—athletic.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” said Winona innocently, beaming with pleasure. “But I’m not, particularly. I can swim, of course, and row and paddle a little, and play tennis a little. But I’ve never played hockey or basket-ball, either of them, much. Or baseball.”
“Do girls play baseball up here?” demanded Nataly, sitting up and letting a paper novel with a thrilling picture on the cover slide to the floor.
“They do,” averred Winona solemnly, but with sparkling eyes. She was tempted to go on shocking her hostess by thrilling stories of invented boxing-matches between herself and her little schoolmates, but she thought better of it. “But that wasn’t really what I came about,” she went on, looking longingly at the closed window, for the airless room was beginning to make her cheeks burn. “Next week the Scouts are giving us Camp Fire Girls a dance, you know—and you are coming, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I think so,” Nataly spoke slowly, lying back on the sofa and beginning to finger her paper novel again.
“Well”—it came out with rather a rush—“wouldyou like to join the Camp Fire? I think you’d like it.”
She went on enthusiastically telling Nataly all about it, till she was brought up short by a genuine and unsuppressed yawn on Nataly’s part.
“All that work?” said Nataly plaintively. “Oh, I couldn’t do any of those things—I’d die!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Winona was a little taken aback. The idea of considering whether things were too much trouble or not was a new one to her. She had always gone on the principle that—why—youwantedto plunge into things head-foremost, and do them with all your might—that was the way to have fun! So the idea of lying on a sofa and shuddering at the idea of work was a great surprise.
“No, I really couldn’t join,” said Nataly, with the first energy she had shown. “But I’m very glad you came to see me.”
“Yes, so am I,” said Winona politely. “And you will come and see me as soon as you can, won’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” promised Nataly. She threw up her hand and pressed a button back of her sofa as she spoke, for Winona was rising to go.
“Emma will show you the way downstairs,” she said languidly, “and don’t you want this? It’s very interesting—I’ve just finished it.”
“This” was the paper novel with the melodramatic cover.
“Why, thank you!” said Winona, taking it politely. “It’s very kind of you. And you will come over?”
“Oh, yes,” responded Billy Lee’s sister, “I shall be very glad to call.”
“Well, how was it?” demanded Tom of his sister that evening.
Winona laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
“Why, very nice. Only Nataly Lee’s about a million years older than I am, and she made me feel as if I were seven instead of fourteen. And she certainly is thequeerestgirl! She doesn’t seem to want to do anything for fear it will be too much trouble!”
“What about joining up with your Daughters of Pocahontas?” inquired Tom.
Winona didn’t stop to rebuke him for his flippancy.
“Well, about that,” she replied, “she reminded me of one of the haughty ladies in the Japanese Schoolboy’s housework experiences—don’t you remember? ‘I have not the want to,’ she sniffed haughtily with considerable frequency! But she’s coming to the dance.”
“Queer,” said Tom. “There’s no nonsense about Billy—he’s a good all-around fellow. Well, you never can tell.”
“No,” acquiesced Winona philosophically, “you can’t, and it’s rather a good thing, too!”
“You certainly are taking it easy, considering there’s going to be a dance!” declared Tom. “Usually when anything like that is going to happen you run around like a hen with its head cut off!”
“No reason why I should, this time,” said Winona, laughing. “You Scouts are giving the dance, not we. Though perhaps it’s because my dress is off my mind. You always have to press a frock out and clean your white shoes, and be sure your sash is all right, when you’re wearing anything festive. But thanks to your suggestion about wearing the ceremonial dress, you’ll see ‘ten little Injuns’ walking in to-night, headbands, moccasins and all—and I have nothing to worry about.”
Winona stretched herself out in the Morris-chair and looked provokingly comfortable and unoccupied.
“I heard about it,” said Tom.
Winona flushed.
“What did you hear?”
“About you and your ceremonial dresses. But I guessed, too.”
“Who told you—and what did they tell?” demanded Winona, sitting up and looking ruffled.
“Marie—that all the girls mightn’t have party clothes,” Tom placidly replied.
“Marie hadn’t any business to!” said Winona.
“Well, I guessed the rest. You see, Lonny Hughes is in the Scouts, too, and he—well, he tells me thingssometimes. And I know Adelaide felt pretty badly for awhile because she couldn’t keep up with some of you—Edith mostly, I guess. He said he had to fairly bully his sister into joining you girls, even after Nannie’d coaxed her. You certainly were a good sport, Win! You know, there’s just Lonny and Adelaide and a younger sister, and the father. They have one of those little flats over James’s drug-store, in the Williamson Block, and Mr. Hughes doesn’t get an awful lot of salary. Anyway, the kids keep house, and Adelaide has to look after herself all the way round. So she takes this hard, the money end, I mean.”
“I think she’s silly!” said downright Winona.
“Maybe!” said Tom wisely, and went on bestowing loving care on his repeating rifle, the joy of his life.
Winona retired into a book, and Tom, looking up a second later, caught sight of its cover.
“Great Scott!” he ejaculated, eying it. “Where did you getthat?”
“Where did she get what?” asked Louise, walking unceremoniously in. “Hello, Tom. Oh, Winnie, I want you to show me about this headband. I can’t get the colors matched right—you know you have to be rather kind to beautiful golden hair like mine. It won’t stand every color there is.”
“No rest for the wicked!” said Winona cheerfully, sitting up and abandoning her book. “You don’t mean you’re going to try to get this done for to-night?”
“I certainly am,” said Louise doggedly.
“All right.” And Winona, pulled up a little table between them. “Here—this is the way.”
The two girls bent over the little loom, their heads close together. Tom, meanwhile, finished cleaning his gun, wrapped it carefully in oiled red flannel, and looked around for more worlds to conquer.
The first thing his eyes lighted on was the paper novel Winona had reluctantly laid down—the one Nataly had loaned her.
“For the love of Mike, where did you get this?”
“Your friend’s sister, next door,” said Winona mischievously. “Don’t you like her taste in books?”
“Crazy about it!” said Tom. “‘Beautiful Coralie’s Doom; or, Answered in Jest,’” he read from the vivid cover. “Say Louise, this hero was a dream. You ought to hear the amount of things he’s called the heroine, and this is only the first chapter!”
“Go ahead,” urged Louise, while Winona tried vainly to get the book away from her brother, “I guess I can bear it!”
“Let’s see. Child, sweetheart, angel, cara-mia, little one—I’ll have to start on the other hand, I’ve used up all my fingers on this one—loved one, petite, schatzchen—wonder what that is? The only thing he’s left out so far is ‘kiddo.’ I suppose we’ll come to that further on. ‘Lancelot looked down at her through his long, superfluous eyelashes,’” Tom went on, reading at the top of his strong young voice. “Those were well-trained eyelashes all right. I’ll bet he hung by ’em every day to get ’em in shape to use so much.I’ve found six sentences about those lashes on one page, and every one the same.”
“You wouldn’t expect him to have a new set every time, would you?” inquired Louise sarcastically.
“It’s a wonder he didn’t have to. One set must have been pretty well worn out by the end of a chapter. ‘Ah, you wicked fellow,’ Coralie said archly,” he went on, sitting down on the floor with the book. Winona made a dive for it, but she wasn’t quick enough. “This wicked part’s what gets me. There’s an average of twenty-five ‘wickeds’ to every chapter, and the poor fellow’s never even forgotten to return an umbrella!”
“Or a book his sister was reading,” suggested Louise.
“And what’s a ‘saucy meow,’ Winona? Coralie did ’em all the time. Can you?”
But here Winona threw herself bodily on him, and this time she managed to recover her book, which she sat on.
“Well, this literature class is very interesting, but my happy home wants me,” said Louise, rising and taking up her loom and the headband, which was in a fair way to be properly finished now. “Thanks, ever so much, Ray of Light. You’re the best girl as ever-ever-was. See you to-night, Tommy.”
“Now,that’ssome girl,” said Tom admiringly. “No nonsense about her. Do you want me to take you over, Winnie?”
“That would be awfully nice of you, but we thoughtwe’d ‘attend in a body,’ as the papers say,” answered Winona. “Aren’t you boys going to?”
“Well, you see, there are extra girls,” explained Tom. “There aren’t enough of you Scoutragettes to go round, so we’ve asked some other girls, and we have to go after them. But we’ll get them early, and be there to meet you when you get there.”
“Well, I don’t want to croak.” And Winona arose to go into the kitchen, for that way lay an honor bead, and it was nearly supper-getting time. “But I think the boy who goes after Nataly Leewon’tbe drawn up to meet us, unless we kindly hold back the order of march for him.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” called Tom after her. “Get something good for supper, there’s a useful sister!”
But though there was a slight delay in the order of march, it was Louise Lane, of all unexpected people, who was responsible for it: her headband went wrong after all, she explained when, flushed and panting, she appeared in her other one at the meeting-place.
The girls fell into step and marched, two and two, out into the street up the short block to the school-house, where most of the public affairs in the town were held.
“Oh, isn’t it gorgeous?” whispered Winona irrepressibly as they came steadily and lightly up the centre of the hall, till they faced the Scouts.
These last were drawn up in a military formation, in the order of their seniority, with the Scoutmaster at their head. He was a plump, cheerful, middle-agedman, the father of three of the Scouts, and vice-principal of the High School. But you would never have thought he had seen a class-room, he looked so military and colonel-fied, there at the head of his line of erect, soldierly-looking boys.
“It’s like real receptions!” whispered Helen to Winona, as the orchestra blared out “Hail to the Chief!” which was as near to “Welcome to the Camp Fire Girls” as the orchestra’s resources could come. Then Mrs. Bryan and Mr. Gedney gave the order to break ranks, and the orchestra slid with surprising ease into a Paul Jones. So did the boys and girls.
“We got here first, you see,” whispered Tom to Winona as he crossed her. The round went on for quite a little while before the whistle blew for the breaking up into twos, so Winona was able to question and answer bit by bit as she and her brother met and parted.
“What about the extra girls?” she whispered, for no extra girls were to be seen.
“The fellows are going after them now,” explained Tom. “This was a dance——” Tom had to leave, and finished on the next round, “for the Camp Fire. The others didn’t come first, naturally.”
And sure enough, by the time the first dance was over, the extra boys were back, bringing partners with them—girls Camp Karonya knew, and who were presently going to form a second Camp Fire—for Camp Karonya’s membership list was almost full now. The newcomers had evidently been asked to wear fancy costume, and the effect of the Indian dresses that the CampFire Girls wore, and the boys’ military clothes, was lighted up and made more beautiful by the dash of color made by an occasional gypsy or Oriental lady.
The hall had been decorated in a half-military, half-woodland fashion, with tents draped against the walls, crossed rifles, green boughs and lighted lanterns. It was a warm night, so they had filled the big fireplace at the side of the room with boughs. The entrance to the kitchen, where the cooking-classes were held in the school every Friday, was covered by a tent. Behind that tent, the exciting rumor spread, was a real colored caterer who was going to serve refreshments of unparalleled splendor at the proper time.
But at about ten o’clock a frenzied rapping was heard from the place which was supposed to hold the mysterious caterer. It rose above the music. Mr. Gedney hurried to the door to see what had happened. An irate negro appeared—the city caterer who had been imported to lend grandeur to the scene.
“Mr. Gedney,” he said in what he may have thought was a tragic whisper, but which echoed through half the hall, “I’se been a-caperin’ fo’ nineteen yeahs, an’ ah nevah had anything as shockin’ happen to me as dis heah befo’.”
“Why, what’s the matter, Thomas?” Mr. Gedney asked, while the more curious of the dancers marked time gently within earshot.
“Dey done stole mah ’freshments!” wailed the darky, forgetting, in his emotion, to lower his voice. “Ah had de ice-cream an’ de san-wiches an’ de fruit-punchan’ de fancy-cake”—a soft moan went up unconsciously over the room as the hungry dancers heard of these vanished glories—“an’ Ah put dem out on de side poach till Ah wanted dem. Ah didn’t know Ah was comin’ to no thief-town. An dey’sgone!”
Mr. Gedney rose to the occasion nobly.
“We’ll find some of them, Thomas,” he said.
By this time nearly everyone in the room had paused about the door. Mr. Gedney raised his voice. “Ladies,” he said, “if you will excuse your partners for half an hour they will go out on the trail of our—ah—vanished refection. Scouts, attention! By twos, forward—hike!”
In an instant every Scout, with a hasty excuse to his partner, had vanished from the building.
“It’s that Bent Street gang,” hissed Tom to his sister in passing. “We know where they hang out, and where they’re likely to have cached the eats.”
“I only hope there’ll be something left by the time the Scouts find the food,” wailed Louise. “Don’t look so happy, Winnie—it’s insulting!”
“She’s swelling as if she had an idea,” suggested Helen, who had come over. “What is it, Win?”
“So I have!” said Winona, her eyes sparkling as they always did when Great Ideas came her way. She was rather given to them. She ran across to Mrs. Bryan and began to talk to her in an excited whisper.
When she had done Mrs. Bryan nodded.
“Splendid!” she said. “Tell the girls yourself, my dear.”
So Winona stood swiftly out in the middle of the floor, a slim, gallant little figure in her Indian frock and the long strings of scarlet beads she had added to it.
“Girls!” she said. “Those refreshments mayn’t ever come back. The boys won’t be back with them right away, anyhow. Let’s get together and make some more!”
“Good!” called out all the girls at once, and came flocking around Mrs. Bryan and Winona for orders. But Mrs. Bryan wouldn’t give any.
“You manage it, Ray of Light!” said she as Winona turned to her.
“We want sandwiches and fruit punch and cakes, and—we can’t get ice-cream this late at night,” she remembered.
“We can get oysters,” said Helen’s competent voice from behind a group of girls. “That oyster house down on Front Street is always open till twelve.”
“Then we can make creamed oysters—good!” said Winona. “Let’s see—sixteen couples—about fifty sandwiches, if you count three to a person. Six loaves of bread, about. Marie, you belong to a big family—do you think you have any bread in the house your family could part with?”
“Three loaves, anyway,” said Marie.
“I’ll bring the other three,” spoke up Elizabeth Greene, one of the new members.
They both threw on their wraps and hurried out. Fortunately, most of the girls lived close by.
“We’ll send Thomas for the oysters,” suggestedMrs. Bryan next. “None of you want to go to Front Street this time of night.”
She produced her purse from the pocket of her ceremonial dress, and went to send Thomas for the oysters.
“Has anybody got anything in their house to fill sandwiches with?” Winona went on.
“We have two pounds of dates,” offered Edith Hillis, “and some rolls of cream cheese.”
“And I have the other half of both sketches, peanut butter and lettuces,” called out Louise, “three heads, and two big glasses.”
“All right, go get ’em,” said Winona unceremoniously, and two more sisters of the Camp Fire hurried on their wraps and fled out into the night.
“I have milk and butter, myself,” went on Winona.
“Nannie,” hinted Helen to Mrs. Bryan, who had returned, “do you remember those three big layer cakes you made for the Presbyterian fair? I’ll make them over again if I can have them now.”
“No you won’t, my child, because they’re my contribution,” returned her step-mother briskly. “Thank you for reminding me. I’ll get them, and pineapples and lemons for your contribution to the lemonade.”
Dorothy remembered that she had some oranges and bananas, and Adelaide finally recalled to the rest that creamed oysters need thickening, and went after flour and salt and pepper.
A couple of the other girls had candy at home, beautifully fresh and home-made. In fifteen minutes every girl was back laden down, and all of them invadedthe little school kitchen. Fortunately most of the sixteen had taken cooking lessons there, and knew just where to find everything, even to their own aprons. So there was no time lost searching for matches and knives and bowls, and other such necessaries.
One group of four cut and squeezed and sliced fruit for the fruit-punch—or fruit-lemonade, to give it the only name it was really entitled to. Another set prepared the sandwiches, which, what with pitting and chopping the dates for the date-and-peanut-butter ones, and cutting and spreading six big loaves of bread, was quite an undertaking. Another group handled the creamed oysters. This last wasn’t exactly a group, though, because, try as you may, it is impossible for more than two people to make one cream gravy, or white sauce. The rest cut cake and arranged plates and looked after the serving generally.
Thomas the “caperer” sat in a corner and “shucked oysters,” as he called it, with his two attendant waiters standing statue-like behind him. It made a very impressive, if rather useless group.
Mrs. Bryan lent a helping hand here and there as it was needed, but in the main she left the guidance of the affair to Winona’s generalship.
“Why, I didn’t know how easy it was to have people do things!” Winona whispered to the Guardian, when that lady came over to her once to advise a little more butter in the gravy.
“You happen to have executive ability, that’s all,” explained Mrs. Bryan.
Winona laughed. “Oh, it doesn’t take executive ability when people want to help!” she returned gayly.
The boys got back in just forty-five minutes, with rather dirtier uniforms than they had taken away. They were panting, also, and had a general cheerful air of having had something happen. But with them they bore, triumphantly, the untouched freezer, full of beautiful molds of ice-cream; also a large pasteboard box full of untouched, but rather crumpled-looking, fancy cakes.
The sandwiches, they explained regretfully, were beyond recall, and so was the salad. The Bent Street gang had been just about to begin their last course when the Scouts descended.
“We had a bully time!” said Billy Lee to Winona, who emerged from the kitchen, trying hard to look unoccupied, as did all the rest of the girls. “We didn’t expect a lark like that in the middle of this. But it’s hard on you girls to miss half the refreshments!”
“Don’t worry,” said Winona cheerfully. “We aren’t going to miss any of the refreshments, and neither are you! What do you think Camp Fire Girls are good for?”
“Lots!” said Billy honestly, “but I don’t see——”
“That’s because you aren’t looking,” laughed Winona.
She pointed towards the little tent that draped the kitchen door. From out that tent issued haughtily Thomas’s two negro waiters, each bearing a steaming, creamed-oyster-laden tray.
“You’d better sit down,” suggested Winona, “Everybody else has.”
“Well, this is great!” cried Billy enthusiastically, between bites of creamed oysters and sandwiches, and sips of fruit lemonade that was really better than that the Bent Street gang had stolen. “You don’t mean to say you girls did all this right off the bat, while we were hunting the hoodlums, do you?”
“Why, of course we did,” and Winona dimpled with pleasure. “There were such a lot of us that it wasn’t hard at all.”
“Anyhow, whoever managed it was a mighty clever person,” said Billy, meditatively eating his last oyster. “Don’t you think so?”
This happened to be a rather embarrassing question.
“Why, no!” she said thoughtlessly.
“Then it was you!” said Billy, jumping cleverly to his conclusion.
“We all helped,” said Winona, blushing. “Everybody brought something. I only thought of it first—that was easy.”
“Easy if you know how!” said Billy skeptically.
“Winona knew how,” asserted Helen’s voice behind them. She began to talk to Winona and Billy very earnestly about several things that didn’t seem to have much to do with life in general. They had to turn half round to face her, which was what she wanted, for it prevented Winona from seeing that all the members of the Camp Fire were clustered near her place. The first she knew of it was Mrs. Bryan’s voice saying:
“All together, girls—a cheer for Ray of Light, who saved the refreshments!”
The girls’ voices rang out in the triple cheer for Winona, who blushed harder than ever.
“I didn’t do anything but suggest it!” she explained uselessly. Then she remembered her manners and sprang up.
“Thank you, Sisters of the Camp Fire—even if Idon’tdeserve it!” she said gayly.
Then the band started up and dancing went on.
The evening ended with a riotous Virginia reel (which, by the way, meant an honor bead for every girl, because the boys none of them knew much about reeling, and had to be shown) and a final ringing cheer for the Camp Fire Girls by the Scouts. Then the party broke up. Though broke up is hardly the word, for the girls marched out, as they had come, in a body, with a military file of Scouts on either side of them. Altogether it certainly was the most festive of parties, and everybody thought so even next morning, when the mournful things about a party are apt to occur to you.
The Scouts insisted, by the way, on replacing the various things that had been taken out of various pantries. The girls had intended to pay their families scrupulously back, but the Scouts extracted an exact account of the commandeered supplies from their sisters and cousins. Then they saw to it that everything, from the last loaf of bread to the last peanut, was redelivered by four next day. And so ended “the very best party,” as everybody agreed, “that we ever had.”
“Itwasa nice party!” sighed Winona, for the tenth time, next day.
“It was,” admitted Tom. “I enjoyed it myself. Also the eats were good. Very clever of us to give a party like that. The question is, if you girls had to manage a real meal what would happen?”
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” said Winona. “This very afternoon, at Mrs. Bryan’s!”
“Oh, can’t I go?” clamored Florence.
“Well, it’s just Helen and Louise and Adelaide Hughes and I,” Winona hesitated. “It’s the maid’s day out, and we’re going to get the supper and clear it away. Four of the others are going to do it a day or so later. And we’re all going to try to get the same supper at our own houses, the next night.”
“Then of course I want to go!” said Florence, “so I can get the same supper at home the next night.”
Still Winona hesitated. It certainly is a nuisance to have a small sister who wants to tag, when you are just starting off to have a particularly nice time with your most intimate friends. And to add to the charm of the situation, just then in rushed Puppums through the back door, and seeing Winona with her hat in her hand, promptly sat up and began to beg wildly. Winona began to laugh.
“Oh, come on, then, the whole family!” she said.
Florence and Puppums both yelped for joy.
“Shall I send Tom over to bring you back this evening?” asked Winona’s mother, who was sitting near.
“Oh, no—it isn’t far,” said Winona, “and it won’t be late when I get back. Besides, I’ll have Florence and the doggie.”
“Very well,” said her mother. “And don’t try to cook things that are too gorgeous, my dear, because we haven’t as much money as the Bryans, and it might turn out to be very expensive.”
“I’ll remember,” said Winona, starting off with her little sister beside her, and Puppums careering wildly about them both. But it was one of the things that never did worry the Merriams, whether or not they had as much money as their neighbors. The three children and the dog, as their friends said, “always did seem to be having such a good time!” They were handsome and light-hearted—that is, the children were. Puppums was more remarkable for brains than beauty, as Tom said; being part pug, part bull-terrier and part fox-terrier, with a dash of retriever suspected in his remote ancestry. However, as long as he had his own way and plenty of bones and enough laps to sit on, neither his looks nor anything else worried the Puppums dog. His family had intended to give him a very fine name, but as Puppums he started when he was a small, wriggling mongrel-baby, and to nothing but Puppums would he everdeign to answer. So the family made the best of it. It was a way they had, anyway.
Florence began to career around her sister very much as the dog was doing, singing at the top of her voice meanwhile. So, as Winona did not have to talk, she began to think. What her mother had said about their not having so much money as the Bryans set her to wondering, not about herself, but about Adelaide Hughes. She had noticed that Mrs. Bryan seemed to want Adelaide to make friends with the other girls, and that Adelaide herself was very apt to leave the first advances to them. And the reason, she supposed, was that Adelaide felt she was too poor to keep up with them, or so Tom had said.
“But I don’t ever feel as if I had to keep up with Helen, and she has twice as many dresses and twice as much money to spend as I have,” meditated Winona. “I wonder if I could ask Adelaide about it without hurting her feelings. I will if I get the chance.”
About this time Winona and her caravan reached the Bryan house, and Florence ran ahead so quickly to ring the bell that Winona had to run, too, to be there when the door opened.
“I’ve brought my family, Mrs. Bryan!” said Winona. “I hadn’t any choice—they simply would come. It’s really your fault for being so popular with them.”
“Your family’s very welcome!” said Mrs. Bryan.“If it’s willing to be useful. What about it, Florence,—will you run errands for us if we want you to?”
“Course I will!” said Florence, flinging herself bodily on Mrs. Bryan and hugging her hard. “I want to work!”
“Puppums wants to help, too,” said Helen.
“Well, you can’t help that way, you little villain,” said Louise, appearing aproned in the doorway and making a dash for the dog. He had his paws on the table, and was most ill-manneredly trying to find out what was wrapped up in the paper with the lovely meaty smell. Louise rescued the package, and carried it out to the kitchen.
“Is everyone here?” asked Mrs. Bryan. “No, I miss Adelaide.”
“She’s just coming now,” said Helen from the living-room window. “I wonder if she’s remembered to bring her apron?”
“Oh,” cried Winona, “I never brought mine!”
“I’ll go get it,” said Florence. “You see, you need me already!”
She flew off, with the dog at her heels.
“Truly, I’m sorry, Mrs. Bryan,” apologized Winona again, “but she would have felt so badly if I hadn’t let her come!”
“You ought to sit on her more,” suggested Louise, popping her head out of the kitchen door again. “I do on mine.”
“Well, you have such a lot of brothers and sistersyou have to,” said Winona, for Louise was the oldest of six.
“Bessie wanted to come,” said Louise, “but I put my foot down.”
“On Bessie?” laughed Winona, as she ran to open the door for Adelaide. “I hope you didn’t hurt her.”
“Did you bring your apron, Adelaide?” called Helen anxiously.
“There! She’s asked every one of us that question in turn,” said Louise, coming out into the living-room for the fourth time in five minutes. “I do hope you did!”
“Oh, yes, I did,” said Adelaide. “I have it here under my arm.”
“And here’s Florence back with mine!” said Winona. “Now may we start?”
“It isn’t quite time yet,” said Mrs. Bryan. “If we plan for supper at six, one hour is a great plenty of time for supper-getting, especially with all of us at it. It’s only four-thirty now, and I want to tell you a plan I have. Come here, Florence. It’s about you and your friends.”
“Oh, a plan about me!” said Florence. “That is nice!”
“You see, girls,” went on Mrs. Bryan, “there are always little sisters or cousins of Camp Fire Girls, like Florence and Bessie and the rest, who want to play, too. They aren’t old enough to belong to Camp Fires of their own, so the way we do is to make them an annex to ours, under the name of Blue Birds—the BlueBird stands for happiness, you know. And we help them, and show them how to have good times, too, and—they don’t have to tag any more.”
“I didn’t mean to tag,” said Florence, looking a little ashamed. “I just wanted to—to come, too!”
“Well, if you will go and find Bessie Lane, and—Adelaide, you have a little sister about their ages, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Adelaide. “Frances is nine.”
“Well, Florence, get Bessie and Frances if you can find them, and we’ll discover something for our nest of Blue Birds to do.”
“I think it’s lovely, being a Blue Bird,” said Florence, very much impressed by belonging to a society of her own.
“Well, if you’re a bird, fly!” said Louise, giving her a little push.
The girls talked for a while longer, then donned their aprons and went out into the kitchen, where they stood and waited for further orders.
“There are four of you,” said their Guardian. “There’s the table to set, salad and dressing to make, meat and potatoes to prepare, and dessert. Cocoa and cake, too. You’re welcome to anything in the ice-box, but the game is to get supper without buying anything extra, unless something like bread or sugar gives out—some staple.”
“That will be more fun,” said Winona, who had had some experience lately with cooking. “It’s much more interesting thinking out ways to make things outof other things, than when you cook straight ahead!”
Adelaide stared as if Winona had said a very strange thing. But then Adelaide always did look at Winona more or less that way.
“I think the most fun is eating out of paper bags,” said Louise. “No washee dishee. However, I only think that—I wouldn’t dare say it. How’ll we divide?”
“Decide that yourselves,” said Mrs. Bryan.
“Let’s see what there is in the ice-box, first,” Winona suggested prudently, when Mrs. Bryan had left them alone. So they investigated.
“Eight large baked potatoes!” counted Louise. “How on earth did you miscalculate so badly as that, Helen, or are they there for our special benefit?”
“No, it just happened,” said Helen. “Father was going to bring a friend home to dinner last night, and neither of them could get here after all.”
There was also a large piece of cooked beefsteak, a head of lettuce, a dish of cooked peas and some beets. There were other things in the ice-box as well, but these were what the girls chose. They brought some apples up from down cellar, too, and stacked them in a row on the table with the other things.
“Now, Nannie said that the game was to use as many leftovers as possible and do everything as inexpensively as we could and yet have everything taste good and not seem warmed over,” said Helen.
“That’s something a lot of grown-up women never do,” said Louise. “My aunt——”
Mrs. Bryan came from the living-room to say. “I’ll show you anything you don’t know about, girls, but you must do the actual work yourselves, or you won’t know how.”
“Yes!” said Louise. “Choose your poison, Ladies and Gentlemen!” She pulled her cooking-cap close down over her hair. “I’m going to do the potatoes. I think I know how to fix them.”