The next time Billy and Tom and Winona and Louise went off in Billy’s canoe for the day, they did not take Sandy. She happened to be making one of her brief visits home. They took, instead, a shot-gun apiece (that is, the boys did), a book apiece (that was for the girls), a bagful of socks from the Scouts’ mending-basket, and the usual amount of lunch.
“We look like an Italian moving,” Tom observed critically, looking over their joint baggage. “Three fishing-rods, two baskets, two paddles, two guns, two sunbonnets. Whew! Louise, I’ll trade with you.”
“It isn’t much at all,” said Louise indignantly. “I could carry my share, and yours, too, if I had to.”
“You may,” he returned promptly. “Here’s my rifle. It won’t go off unless you hit the trigger by accident.”
“Heap big chief!” said she, not offering to take it. “If I’d remembered how you hated carrying innocent little things like this around with you”—she pointed to the imposing pile of baskets, books and work in the bottom of the canoe—“I’d have telephoned for an expressman.”
“Have you a telephone?” asked Tom. “When did you put it in, and what did you tie it to?”
“No,” said Louise, “but we could have borrowed yours.”
The Scouts had just finished installing a telephonefrom Wampoag to their headquarters. They had done nearly everything themselves in the way of connecting and so forth. They were very proud of it, and the Camp Fire girls were wildly envious, for alltheyhad was a system of baking-powder-box-and-wire telephone, worked out from the American Girl’s Handy Book by two young geniuses. It was all right as far as it went, but naturally it wouldn’t connect them with the telephones at home, or at Wampoag.
“Why, of course you could,” consented Tom. “In fact, you can. Shall I paddle you that way?”
“You needn’t mind,” she smiled. “Do look at Winona!”
Winona had one of Marie’s books, and she was sitting on the bottom reading it, forgetful of the world.
“What does this mean, Billy?” as she looked up suddenly. “Marie has a note here in pencil ‘But Raleigh was not exclusively Elizabethan!’ and two exclamation points after it.”
“I don’t know,” Billy answered frankly. “I don’t see why Marie wants to worry about it.”
“Raleigh was Gothic with Queen Anne chimneys,” interrupted Tom. “If you want information just come to me, little one. Here, Winnie, put down that book. It looks too full of useful information for a nice day like this. Remember, this is a pleasure exertion.”
“All right,” and Winona laid down the book. “Only I do wish I knew as much as Marie does.”
“And yet she never seems to study hard,” remarked Louise, to whom lessons were a painful grind. “Ibelieve she’s like Billy Wiggs of the Cabbage-Patch—she ‘inherited her education from her paw!’”
“She could!” put in Tom mournfully. “Professor Hunter has enough and too much. Just wait till you get under him, Louise!”
“Oh, I can wait. I’m in no hurry at all. He’s awfully nice out of school hours, but——”
“But why talk about school in vacation?” broke in Billy impatiently. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”
The girls were curled on the bottom of the canoe, in the middle, and the boys were paddling at the ends. The morning breeze, cool and fresh, struck their faces, whipping Louise’s red hair about her face in little curls, and blowing Winona’s blue tie straight back over her shoulder in the sunshine.
“This is something like living!” Tom declared, spatting the water with his paddle because he was so happy. “Pass me about three bananas, will you, whoever’s nearest the lunch? I feel hungry.”
“You aren’t,” said Louise swiftly. “You just want those bananas because you know they’re there. Have some poetry instead. I brought a bookful.”
“Poetry!” snorted Tom, as she hoped he would.
“Cæsar! There’s a snipe!” cried Billy, dropping his paddle, reaching for a rifle, and taking hasty aim.
“Never touched it,” mocked Tom as the report died, and the snipe appeared not to have done so at all.
“How do you come to be carrying all these shooting-irons around?” asked Louise suspiciously. “I thought Mr. Gedney was pretty strict about it.”
“Special permission,” explained Tom. “We’ve both always known how to shoot, and old Billy here is supposed to be the most careful thing that ever was.”
“That wasn’t a snipe,” said Billy disgustedly. “That was a mosquito, a nice tame old Jersey mosquito. I always heard they grew to that size, but I never believed it before.”
“Don’t cast any asparagus,” said Louise. “The advertisements say there are no mosquitoes here.”
Billy eyed the now almost gone snipe.
“Well, he may have been a plain fly,” he conceded.... “Let’s go on hunting. Perhaps we’ll find a real snipe next time.”
They paddled along lazily for the next three-quarters of an hour, talking a little now and then. For the most part, though, they went on in silence, except when Louise giggled over “Fables in Slang,” which she had pulled out of her blouse-pocket, or when someone saw what might be game, or especially good scenery. They went, presently, down an arm of the river that was scarcely more than a creek, and stopped there till afternoon for rest and refreshment. It seemed a charming spot, and almost deserted. Only in the distance one red-roofed farmhouse could be seen, adding to the picturesqueness of the landscape.
There were three small sandwiches left, and the girls, with the aid of paper and pencil, had just worked it out that each person present was entitled to three-quarters of a sandwich. They were trying to decide who should get the three quarters that were cut out ofthe three sandwiches—it was more a point of honor than necessity, for nobody much wanted any of them—when there was a subdued howl from Tom, who had been lying on his back in the canoe, gazing up at the sky.
Six stately geese were flying in an arrow-shape across the creek, above the canoe. Both boys fired.
“Oh, what a shame to kill them!” mourned Winona; but Tom said hurriedly again that they had special permission from Mr. Gedney, and sat up to see if he had done anything.
“We each got one!” said Billy in a tense whisper. “They’ve dropped on the farther shore—there by the farmhouse!”
The boys pushed the canoe up close and sprang out. They were dashing excitedly across country after their prey. Suddenly the waiting girls heard wild howls, and the tall, angry form of a wild-eyed man in overalls suddenly appeared from nowhere with a pitchfork.
“Oh, he’s chasing the boys!” exclaimed Winona.
“He certainly is!” seconded Louise, and began to giggle. “Listen to him!”
It was really impossible to do anything else.
“My geese! My prize geese!” shouted the overalled man, adding what he thought of Tom’s and Billy’s intelligence. “My pedigreed geese, you young idiots! I’ll teach you!”
“You ought to have made ’em wear their pedigrees around their necks,” Tom shouted back at the man.
“Oh, can they get away?” cried Louise. “Look!”
And Winona, looking, saw that their way back tothe canoe was cut off by a dog—the traditional farmer’s dog of the comic papers. He was stationed on the bank, eying the canoe and the girls in it in a very threatening way, and most plainly only waiting till the boys came back to bite them.
Winona gave the canoe a determined push which landed it in midstream, and both girls began to paddle back by the way they had come, Winona because she had a plan, Louise because she was following Winona.
“We’ll meet them around this point, on the other side,” she explained to Louise. “I saw a glimpse of water on the other side, and I think the point of land the farm is on is like a peninsula.”
Sure enough, they discovered the criminals crouched romantically behind a clump of trees at the other side of the point of land. They were so well hidden that the girls would never have seen them if Billy had not stealthily waved a red handkerchief which he always carried for wigwagging. The girls paddled up as softly as they could, and the boys crawled out and waded to the canoe, crouching low. Nobody dared say anything till the canoe and its crew was well out and downstream again, far from farmers with dogs and pitchforks and no desire to listen to explanations.
“And we never even got those geese!” mourned Tom.
“Got those geese!” said Louise severely. “You oughtn’t to want to get pedigreed geese that belonged to a farmer—especially a farmer with that kind of a disposition.”
“He hasn’t any business to let tame geese go prowling around the country that way,” growled Billy, “the first day a fellow has leave to go shooting food for the Scouts at home! How were we to know they had a coat-of-arms and a family tree? They ought to have been kept at home, in their ancestral barnyard.”
“And we never even got the confounded things!” lamented Tom again. “And we might just as well have, too, because we’ll have to go up and pay for them, of course, when Mr. Overalls has calmed down enough not to bite us on sight. They may be worth a thousand dollars apiece, for all we know. We were the pedigreed geese, I think!”
“Never mind,” said Louise soothingly, “be glad Father Goose didn’t get you, instead of sorry you didn’t get his pets. They probably would have been tough, anyway.”
“And we can fish,” suggested Winona. “Nobody’s going to jump out of the river and tell us that these are his pedigreed perch.”
“The game-warden may, if the river’s been stocked lately,” said Billy.
“It hasn’t,” asserted Tom. “Don’t you remember? We found out all about that before any of us came up here last year. All these fish are old enough to die. Pass me the bait, please, Winnie.”
“Here you are,” said Winona.
She baited a line for herself, dropped it in, and everyone else did the same thing. After that nobody said anything for quite a little while, unless an occasional“Confound those geese!” from Tom could count as conversation.
“Got something!” announced Louise at length, jerking in her line.
“What is it?” asked Tom with interest.
“Feels like a perch—or a trout,” said Louise pulling in her line rapidly.
“It doesn’tlooklike one,” said Winona.
“M’m, not exactly,” said her brother. “You ought to be interested in it, though, Win—it’s a catfish.”
“You can eat catfish,” said Louise, quite calmly. “In fact, I believe they’re considered very good eating. I don’t know but I’d rather have them than trout.”
“Especially if you can’t get the trout,” added Tom.
“If you can’t get what you want, you must want what you can get.” So she baited her line again.
“Well, what is it this time?” inquired Tom next time she pulled her line in. The rest had had fair luck.
“Probably another pussy-fish,” said Louise resignedly. But this time it was a real perch, and after that it was a sunfish, and then two more catfish. And presently there was enough for supper, and by the time they got back they knew it would be supper-getting time. Winona was cooking supper that week. So they put the fish in the empty lunch-basket and paddled for home. Louise took Billy’s paddle, and Billy trolled all the way. He didn’t get anything, but he enjoyed himself.
“Who’s that on the dock?” asked Tom as they neared the Camp Karonya landing. “Are they waiting for us?”
“Tom’s afraid the farmer with the ducks has come around the other way,” said Louise. “No, Tommy, my dear, that’s only Mr. Sloane, who is a sort of unofficial uncle to Camp Karonya. We’re supposed to have rented that dock from him, but he comes there and fishes just as much as if we hadn’t.”
“Sort of a fourth sub-mascot?” said Billy. “Yes, I remember—the old man who helped you out about the scows when you were building the float.”
“He’s the one,” said Winona. “He’s fishing.”
“And there’s Puppums, too,” said Louise. “Oh, the dear old doggie! He’s come down to the dock to wait for you, Winnie!”
“So he has,” agreed Winona. “I wonder if he’s been there long.”
Puppums liked canoeing very much, and when he thought Winona ought to have taken him and hadn’t, he would go down to the dock, trailing her by scent, and sit there hours and hours—merely for the sake of looking reproachfully at her when she did get in, it was thought. Winona always hugged him, and apologized, and took him for a row if possible, and he knew it.
When he caught sight of the canoe (like most dogs, he was short-sighted) he began to bark excitedly and run up and down the dock, and jump wildly about. He did everything but swim out to the canoe. Puppums hated water—which gave rise to a theory that there was a little pug in his ancestry.
Mr. Sloane, too, rose as the canoe came near the landing-place. He did not jump up and down, becausehe had not been waiting for the canoeing party. He had evidently taken their return as a signal that it was time he went home himself, for he was collecting his rod and bait-can, and his coat, and the other things he had strewn about the dock. Puppums still careered wildly around and around. As Winona stepped ashore his excitement grew so intense that he ran full tilt into Mr. Sloane, who was bending over picking something up, and nearly knocked him over.
“W-u-ugh!” said Mr. Sloane, and began to hunt frantically about the dock.
And as the boys and girls gained the shore it became painfully evident that the little dog had jarred out the old gentleman’s false teeth.
Mr. Sloane had never made any secret of the fact that he wore “bought teeth”—indeed, he had told Winona and Adelaide, who were his especial favorites, just where he got them and how much they cost, and where others like them could be gotten. But still, when your friend’s teeth are knocked out all at once by your family dog, well, youdofeel a little embarrassment. With one accord the four looked in the other direction, as Mr. Sloane, with a “Drat that pup!” continued to hunt for his teeth. The boys fussed with the canoe, and Winona and Louise began to hunt for a nonexistent something in the box they used for a locker.
But Puppums was going to be polite at all costs. He trotted over, his tail wagging wildly at the prospect of being able to do something for his mistress, picked up the teeth, and carried them proudly to Winona!
“Oh, Puppums—younaughtydog!” she said, trying to take the teeth away from him as unostentatiously as possible.
But Puppums, realizing from her voice that something was wrong, looked up at her depreciatingly, wagged his tail again, suddenly put his tail between his legs and started for the camp!
It was no use to try to ignore things any longer.
“Oh, Mr. Sloane,” Winona cried. “I’m so sorry! He’s a bad dog. I’ll go straight after him and get them.”
“Now, never mind,” said Mr. Sloane, kindly if rather indistinctly. He began to laugh. “That dog o’ yours certainly is a rip-snorter!” he said. “Knock a man down an’ carry off his teeth!”
By this time the boys had stopped trying not to laugh, and were howling in unison in the background. And little Frances, Adelaide’s sister, came up with a nice birch-bark box. She handed it to Mr. Sloane, dropped a pretty courtesy, and ran. And so did the others. The only unembarrassed members of the party were Puppums, who wasn’t there, to be Irish, and Mr. Sloane himself.
“Talk about banner days!” sighed Louise. “I was the only one of us that didn’t get into trouble——”
“Louise!” called somebody, from outside the tent where Louise was washing and getting ready for supper. “Did you know that you left the store-shed door open this morning when you came in for supplies, and somebody’s carried off every bit of bacon!”
And in the opulent days which followed the winning of the carnival prizes, and the selling of lovely amounts of Camp Fire goods, Camp Karonya decided that it ought to own a phonograph. The treasury, which was a suitcase under Helen’s bed, had money in it, and the girls badly needed something to dance by. To be sure, the camp boasted a mandolin, two guitars, a mouth-organ and a banjo, to say nothing of Mrs. Bryan’s Iroquois drum. But all these had to be worked by hand, and the orchestra, after performing for several long evenings while their friends practised folk-dances with abandon, struck.
“We want to get a chance at the folk-dances, too,” they remonstrated, very reasonably. Indeed, Louise got up and made a moving speech, alluding to her pressing need of folk-dances, and her slender chance of being able to do them while she played her instrument.
“Here I am,” she said pathetically, “twice as plump as anybody else in camp. I need folk-dances more than anybody here does. And I’ve spent this whole blessed evening plunking a banjo while other people got thin, people that were thin already! It may be good for my moral character, but, girls”—Louise’s voice dropped tragically—“it’sruiningyours!”
They all agreed that something should be done.
Mrs. Bryan was entirely willing to go on pounding her Indian drum indefinitely, but the girls did not thinkit would be good for their moral characters to let her, either. So they held a business meeting on the spot, which happened to be the large level place they used for dancing ground; and decided to buy a phonograph.
“I think we have catalogues of them at home,” said Dorothy Gray. “Shall I write and have them sent on?”
The girls considered that for awhile, but they finally decided not to. Everyone wanted a voice in choosing the phonograph, or at least in deciding on what kind of a phonograph they were to have.
“But we don’t want to pay the full price for it,” said Helen wisely. “What we ought to do is to advertise in thePressin the village. It’s the country paper. Look at the market Win created for kittens——”
But here Winona sprang for her, and they rolled over on the leaves, and the meeting ended in a frolic.
However, they all liked Helen’s idea, and two Blue Birds were sent off to thePresswith an advertisement for a second-hand phonograph or victrola in good condition. Next day two other Blue Birds went after the answers. There were three.
One offered a fine music-box in good condition, which had never been used since the owner’s wife died twenty years ago. He lived on the Northtown Pike (which nobody present had ever heard of), about seventeen miles from the village. The music-box played six tunes and was an heirloom, having belonged to his mother, but the farmer on the Northtown Pike would part with it for twenty-five dollars for he wanted another Holstein cow and this would pay for part of her.
“Horrid old thing!” said Winona when Marie was done reading the answers aloud. “If it’s an heirloom he hasn’t any business parting with it to buy a section of any kind of cow—or even a whole one.”
“Well, Marie, go on to the next,” said Mrs. Bryan. But the next was even more hopeless. What this man had was, from his description, a very cheap phonograph which was almost as old as the farmer’s music-box; but he, too, thought he would like to have twenty-five dollars for it.
“He doubtless wants to buy a section of cow, too,” suggested Mrs. Bryan.
“Maybe they’re buying her together,” said Louise brilliantly; and Marie read the last letter. This was the only one at all promising. The writer, who was a woman with a good handwriting and correct spelling, said that she had a two-year-old victrola in good condition, and that she would gladly sell it for twenty-five dollars, because she was going to be given a new one.
“That sounds better,” said Mrs. Bryan. “I would advise a committee of you to go and look it over.”
“But how badly they all want twenty-five dollars!” groaned Marie. “Do you notice it? They all ask for exactly the same amount.”
“Probably buying the cow on shares,” repeated Louise.
“I vote we make Louise one of the committee to see the two-year-old victrola,” said Winona. “She has business instinct, and the rest of us haven’t such a lot.”
“What’s more to the point, I also have a victrolaat home, or Dad has,” said Louise, “and I know what it ought to be like to be good.”
So it was moved and seconded that Louise, Winona and Helen be appointed a committee of three to investigate the victrola.
As early as they could in the afternoon after they had received their replies they started out. It was a gorgeous day, not too warm for comfort, and they chased each other about the road as if they were kittens, instead of responsible Camp Fire Girls out on a very business-like errand. After they had gone about a mile, which led them nearly to the village, it occurred to some brilliant person that it might be a good plan to ask somebody how to get to the address of the woman with the two-year-old victrola. It was The Willows, Lowlane, near Gray’s Road, and so far as the girls knew that might have been nearly anywhere. So they did ask at the post-office, where they had quite made friends with the old postmaster.
“It’s three miles down the pike,” said he. “Strike off on the left to Gray’s Road—you’ll see a signpost, I guess—and then turn down the first little lane you come to. They call it Lowlane now, the folks that own the house, but it was never anything but Low’s Lane till they came there.”
“The first little lane we come to?” repeated Winona.
The postmaster looked thoughtful. “Now, I don’t want to be too sure,” he said. “The first, or maybe the second. Elmer, do you recollect whether Low’sLane is the first or second turning on the Gray’s Road way?”
“Second,” said Elmer the clerk readily.
“There now!” said the postmaster. “I might a’ told you wrong. I certainly had it fixed in my mind that it was the first.”
“Thank you,” said the girls. “It won’t be hard to find.”
It seemed, indeed, plain enough sailing, and the girls went on. The road was bordered with trees, and there were flowers they wanted to pick, and occasionally rabbits for Puppums to chase. He was not a swift enough runner to ever catch any of the rabbits he ran after, and the rabbits did not seem to mind, so Winona let him go on chasing.
“We’ve gone quite three miles, I know,” said Louise dismally when they had been walking some time. “And there’s no Lowlane—not even any Gray’s Road.” Louise had trained a good deal since she had been in camp, but she still felt long walks more than the other two did, who were slim. “I ‘don’t believe there’s no sich animal’ as Mrs. Martin, or a victrola. There aren’t any victrolas or any lanes, high or low, on earth. Woof—I’m tired!”
She fanned herself with her handkerchief, and the dog tried to jump at it, under the impression that she was playing a game with him.
“It does seem a long way,” said Helen sympathetically, “but there is a Gray’s Road, for I’m sure I see a signpost a little ahead of us.”
“It’s probably one of those automobile directions that says ‘Three miles back to the village—seventeen miles forward to Jonesville. Use Smith’s Lubricating Oil and Robinson Tires!’” and Louise shrugged her shoulders.
Nevertheless, when they came up to the signpost, although it did advise automobiles about several kinds of supplies they ought to have, it also said that this was Gray’s Road. They turned as they had been told, and went down it, in search of their second landmark, Low’s Lane. This, unfortunately, wasn’t in sight. “Let’s ask,” said Winona as they passed a little old house by the side of the road, and steered the others up the path that led to the porch. It was a ramshackle, unpainted packing-box of a place, with an old, old lady, heavily shawled, curled up in a rocker, for inhabitant. Helen was pushed forward to speak to her. “Can you tell us if we are near Low’s Lane?” she asked, politely.
“Hey?” said the old lady. “I’m a little deaf.”
Helen said it over again as loudly as she could.
“Rain?” said the old lady. “No, no—it ain’t goin’ to rain!”
“Low’s Lane!” screamed Helen.
“What?” said the old lady.
“Ask her about the victrola,” suggested Winona. “Sometimes deaf people can hear one word when they can’t another. Perhaps she’d know by that where we wanted to go.”
“We want a place where they’re selling a victrola!” shouted Helen.
This time the old lady seemed to hear.
“Victrola, hey? You go right on a piece till you turn to your left. It’s the first house.”
“Thank you,” yelled Helen.
They were offered, and took, drinks of water, and went on again.
“I think one of you might have asked some of the questions,” said Helen indignantly.
“I’ll ask one now!” defied Louise. “Far be it from me not to do my duty.” She turned and ran back to where the old dame still rocked on her porch.
“Is it a good victrola?” she shouted.
The old lady shook her head.
“I wouldn’t go so far’s to saythat,” she answered. “Smart, though—awful smart and clever!”
Louise ran back to the others without asking any more questions.
“She says the talking machine isn’t good, but awful smart and clever,” she panted. “Whatdoyou suppose she means?”
“I can’t imagine,” said Helen. “Anyway, we know how to get there.”
The first lane, sure enough, led to a house, but there seemed to be no willows anywhere about it. Still houses often have names that have nothing to do with the facts, so the girls pressed on. The place had a vaguely familiar look to Winona and Louise.
“I’m sure I’ve come here before, by another way,” said Winona.
“I haven’t,” said Helen. “You must have comeby water. I think the river’s somewhere back of us. If you ask me, I think one way’s enough to come.”
They lined up before the door and rang. But the bell, they discovered finally, was badly out of order. A “please knock” sign was blowing about the porch, they discovered still a little later. They knocked vigorously, and the door was finally unfastened by a draggled little girl of about eleven.
“Why—why, how do you do, Vicky!” said Louise in surprise. “Why, of course, Helen, this is Sandy’s house. Only this isn’t the same door, is it, that we came in by last time, Vicky?”
Vicky, who was as tousled as usual, shook her head.
“What’s the matter?” she asked stolidly. “Has Sandy been naughty?”
“No, indeed,” said Louise, “she’s as good as gold. Can’t we come in?” for Vicky didn’t seem to feel specially hospitable—she was holding the door on a crack, and was not her usual sunny self. “Sandy’s around here somewhere—at least she’s not in camp.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and opened it wider. The girls filed in and sat down in the square hall, which was as littered as usual with clothes and paper bags and everything else that places are usually littered with.
“Look at that hole!” whispered Louise, forgetting her politeness as Vicky stood near them, not intending, evidently, to sit down and entertain them if she could help it. “There’s more hole than stocking!”
It was quite true, but unfortunately Vicky had sharp ears.
“They’re my own stockings,” she said crossly, “and I like ’em with holes in.”
“Oh, all right!” said Louise dryly. “Only they aren’t usually worn that way.”
“Can we speak to your uncle?” interposed Helen, for the air was becoming stormy.
“Isn’t home,” announced Vicky. “He had a cross fit and went out walking.”
“Is anybody home?” asked Winona. “We came on business.”
“You can do it with me, whatever it is,” said Vicky, sitting down with the torn-stockinged leg under her.
Helen plunged straight into the business at hand.
“The old lady down the road said that this was the house where they had a victrola——” she started to say—and stopped in dismay over the effect of her words; Vicky flew into a temper and began to cry.
“I want you to go away from here—coming to make fun of me!” she sobbed, stamping her foot at them. Before they could answer she ran out of the room, leaving them staring at each other in surprise.
“Well, what on earth?” Winona slowly ejaculated.
“Goodness only knows,” said Louise. “Anyway, I seem to feel that she doesn’t want to sell it to us.”
“Well, no,” assented Helen, and the three of them thoughtfully and slowly let themselves out at the door they had come in by.
They had gone only a little way back when they heard flying feet behind them.
“Wait a minute,” panted Vicky, catching up tothem. “I guess—perhaps—I’d better explain. I’m sorry I got mad. But—but myname’sVictrola!” She flushed painfully. Evidently it was hard for her to tell. “I thought you were just making fun of me, but I thought about it, and I guess you weren’t. I know the place you want—it’s a little further, up the next lane.”
She started to run back, but Winona caught her hand and held her.
“Why, you poor dear!” she said. “I don’t see why you mind. It’s a very pretty name. But we weren’t trying to make fun of you. We really want to buy a phonograph for the camp.”
“They laugh at me—everybody does,” faltered Vicky. “They were this morning—the boys down by the landing. That’s why I was so cross. They pretend to wind me up, and—and Ihateit!”
“So would I,” comforted Louise. “But you mustn’t mind, Vicky. All my life the boys have called me ‘Carrots,’ and ‘Reddy,’ and things like that. There’s no use caring. Look here, honey, I’ll tell you what to do. See if you haven’t got a middle name you can use, or even one you ought to have had. Ask your uncle if there wasn’t a middle name somebody almost gave you once, and if there was use it.”
“I wonder if I could!” said Vicky, brightening. She reached down and pulled up one of her stockings, as if the prospect of a better name made her want to be tidy.
“Anyhow it’s a pretty name,” said Louise cheerfully. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Yes, you would,” said Vicky, as she turned back. “There down this lane’s the place you can get—it.”
It was Louise’s turn to detain her this time.
“Vicky! Vicky!” she called. “Won’t you and Sandy come down to Camp Karonya and stay overnight, to-morrow night? We’re going to do some stunts—just to celebrate. The Scouts are coming over, and one or two of our pet particular friends.”
“I don’t know the way,” said Vicky.
“Sandy does,” said Louise and Winona together.
“Thank you,” said Vicky sedately. “We’ll come. And—please don’t tell the others my name. I’ll have the real one thought out by that time.”
“Of course we won’t,” they promised.
“Itwasmean to name her that,” Helen declared as they went down the lane.
“Maybe it was before there were machine victrolas, and her mother just thought it was pretty,” suggested Louise. “The other children have fancy names, too; Alexandra and Lance. Remember Vicky told us there was a boy named Lancelot, the day we went up?”
“To return your orphan?” said Winona. “Oh, yes—we all remember. Never mind, Ishkoodah dear, perhaps next time you’ll find a real one.”
“Wouldn’t it be fine if Camp Karonyacouldlook after some little girl—one of the Children’s Aid children, for instance?” said Helen thoughtfully.
“It would take a good deal of money,” spoke practical Louise, “if we didn’t one of us have it in the family.”
“Not such a lot,” said Winona. “Oh, it would be lovely! A nice little orphan with blue eyes and curly hair, and we’d name her ourselves——”
“We’d call her Gramophone!” suggested Louise; and, tired as they were, they all began to laugh. But by this time they were nearly at the house the machine’s namesake had directed them to, and it was the right one.
The owner had a fairly good victrola and six double-faced records, and she finally consented to let it go for twenty dollars. The girls paid down the money on the spot, and constructed a carrier for it out of two pieces of board which the machine’s owner threw in.
There were no adventures whatever connected with this end of the happening. Helen took the front end and Louise the back, and Winona steadied it. Then they set it down, after they had walked awhile, and changed places. It seemed rather a long way home, and they were exceedingly glad when they reached camp—that was all. Their sympathetic comrades attended to their routine duties for them, and all the adventurers had to do was to lie on the grass and tell about their travels—everything, that is, but Victrola’s name and her grief over it.
After supper the whole camp assembled to enjoy the machine, and danced to everything on its disc, even the sextette from Lucia, given as a vocal selection. But Louise did not do any folk-dances that night. She was so tired that she curled up on a soft spot and fed the machine till it was time to go to bed.
“Did you dye that old petticoat and underwaist pink?” demanded Winona, sticking her head into Marie’s tent.
“Yes, I did,” said Marie promptly, “and it’s starched, and ironed with the charcoal-iron.”
“And did Adelaide borrow her brother’s bathrobe for Louise?”
“No, she didn’t, but I did—at least, I sent Frances over for it,” said Marie. “It’s here, and safe.”
“And did Louise sew the hood on it?”
“She did,” said Marie resignedly. “Every single property for ‘Gentle Alice Brown’ and the ‘Oysterman’ is in a mound in the dressing-tent. Go look, for goodness’ sake, or you’ll have nervous prostration.”
Winona, property-woman and general manager of the performance, pulled back her head with a sigh of relief, and went to find the girl who had promised to straighten out the fishing-tackle necessary to the Ballad of the Oysterman—for they were to present that classic of Holmes’s in a very few hours.
The performance was to be at eight, and it was a strictly complimentary one. The Scouts were invited, and various special friends from Wampoag, most of them made over dealings in Camp merchandise. A committee had been appointed to see about illuminations, and another to attend to the refreshments. They were amassing honor beads by doing it. Marie’sBlue Birds were busy everywhere. Camp Karonya was dazzlingly clean, and everyone was getting out the one dress-up frock she had brought along, and giving it attention. There was to be an exhibit, also, as the flaring posters Helen had prepared said, of “potteries, embroideries, jellies, hand-carvings, pickles and other objects.” It had been going to be “other objects of art,” but Winona pointed out that jellies and picklesweren’t, no matter what the rest might be. So the poster stopped abruptly at “objects,” and the space was filled up by a life-like portrait of a jelly-glass.
Camp Karonya took a very brief meal of bread and milk and cookies, and the dish-washers hurried through their tasks. For eight o’clock has a way of coming long before you expect it. About seven-thirty the paddles and oars and motor-boats of the audience began to be heard, and the reception committee scurried down to the dock to meet their guests. First came their friends the Scouts from down the river, about thirty strong. After them, in little groups, came the summer people, including Billy’s Aunt Lydia, who never missed a Camp Fire function if she could help it.
The audience was seated, as usual, on planks laid from box to box and nailed. They did not have to sit there long. After a great deal of giggling and rustling behind the big green curtain that had been made of sacks, pieced together and dyed, Winona came out to announce the beginning of the entertainment.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she commenced, “to-night we are going to have, beside several musical selections,some moving pictures with explanatory recitations—someverymoving pictures. After the opening song we will have the first one, ‘Gentle Alice Brown.’”
The audience applauded, and then the girls sang a Camp Fire song in chorus. After that Louise and Edith played a conscientious mandolin-banjo duet. Then Marie, who was the reader of the evening, came out with a copy of Gilbert’s Bab Ballads and very slowly began to read “Gentle Alice Brown.”
At the first line the curtain was pulled back, revealing Winona alone against a sheet background. She was in an 1860 costume made from an old, full petticoat and tight underwaist, dyed pink, and helped out with small puffed sleeves and a sash. Her curls were bound with a wreath of artificial roses from the ten-cent store, slightly over one ear. She sat on a chair with her head on her hand, and she was looking mournfully over the chair-back. Marie began,
It was a robber’s daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing,But it isn’t of her parents that I’m going for to sing.
As Marie went on, across the stage galloped ferociously Helen, who had been given the role of Robber Brown because she was one of the tallest of the girls. A red flannel shirt of Tom Merriam’s, topped by a fishing hat and black mustachio, were most convincing. Her short kilt, which gave her rather the look of a Greek than an Italian bandit, was met by a pair of fishing-boots, and she wore three carving-knives and acartridge belt. She strode ferociously across the stage, looking neither to right nor left.
Edith Hillis, trotting meekly behind her as Mrs. Brown, wore a baggy old long skirt, a bandanna tied around her waist, one around her neck and another on her head. She only had one carving-knife. But the lovely Alice did not deign to look at her parents. She gazed sadly out over the audience, while Marie went on to tell how—
As Alice was sitting at her window-sill one dayA beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way,A sorter at the Custom-house, it was his daily road—(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes walk from her abode).
At this point the hero crossed the stage dashingly, with a cane under his arm. It was Adelaide, in a plaid cap, a waxed mustache, and a very precise duster which reached her heels. A pipe (she said afterwards it had a dreadful taste) stuck from one corner of her mouth.
Gentle Alice sighed deeply, and so did her lover, who became aware of her presence with a tragic start. He halted, waved to her, sighed with his hand on his heart, and looked altogether very lovelorn. Gentle Alice did not notice him at first, but she gradually seemed to yield, and finally languished softly at him—and winked. So did he. Then he kissed his hands at her and went off reluctantly to work, while Alice wiped away her tears with a large bandanna such as her parents had worn. (They were the historic bandannas which had served Winona and Louise so well on their peddling trip.)
The ballad went on to relate how presently Alice’s conscience bothered her. So she asked the Brown’s family confessor about it,
The priest by whom their little crimes were carefully assessed.
Here Louise appeared, in the brown bathrobe, with its hood pulled up over her head, and sandals on. Alice threw herself at his feet, and waved her hands in grief.
“Oh, father,” Gentle Alice said, “’Twould grieve you, would it not,To find that I have been a most disreputable lot?”
Louise assumed a benign expression and listened while Alice confessed her sins. Marie stopped, while Winona herself spoke:
I assisted dear mamma in cutting up a little lad,I helped papa to steal a little kiddy from its dad—I planned a little burglary and forged a little checkAnd slew a little baby for the coral on its neck!
But Father Brown seemed inclined to be forgiving, and with a few remarks, ended,
We mustn’t be too hard upon these little girlish tricks—Let’s see—five crimes at half a crown—exactly twelve and six.
Alice thanked him in a few grateful couplets, and pulled out another bandanna with money tied up in it from which she paid him. The ballad went on to relate how Alice tremblingly confessed her last sin, about the beautiful gentleman, who passed every day:
I blush to say, I’ve winked at him—and he has winked at me!
This shocked Father Paul for, as he explained,
If you should marry anyone respectable at all,Why, you’d reform, and then what would become of Father Paul?