The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 1

The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle.

by Hildegard G. Frey.

CHAPTER I

AS USUAL

It was the hottest day of the hottest week of the hottest June ever recorded in the weather man's book of statistics. The parched earth had split open everywhere in gaping cracks that intersected and made patterns in the garden like a crazy quilt. The gray-coated leaves hung motionless from the shriveling twigs, limp and discouraged. Horses lifted their seared feet wearily from the sizzling, yielding asphalt; dogs panted by with their tongues hanging out; pedestrians closed their eyes to shut out the merciless glare from the sidewalks. The streets were almost deserted, like those of a southern city during the noon hours, while a wilted population sought the shelter of house or cellar and prayed for rain.

On the vine-screened veranda of the Bradford home three of the Winnebagos--Hinpoha, Sahwah and Migwan--reclined on wicker couches sipping ice cold lemonade and wearily waving palm-leaf fans. The usually busy tongues were still for once; it was too hot to talk. Br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with life and energy as they generally were, it seemed on this drowsy and oppressive afternoon that they would never be able to move again.

Mr. Bob, Hinpoha's black c.o.c.ker, shared in the prevailing laziness; he lay sprawled on his back with all four feet up in the air, breathing in panting gasps that shook his whole body. A b.u.mble bee, blundering up on the porch, broke the spell. It lit on Mr. Bob's face, whereupon Mr. Bob sprang into the air, quivering with excitement, and knocked Hinpoha's gla.s.s out of her hand. Hinpoha picked up the pieces with one hand and patted Mr. Bob with the other.

"Poor old Bobbles," she said soothingly, "what a shame to make him move so fast! Lucky I had finished the lemonade; there isn't any more in the pitcher and we used the last lemons in the house."

Sahwah, roused from her reverie, sat up and began fanning herself with greater energy. "Of all summers to have to stay in town!" she said disconsolately. "I don't remember having such hot weather, ever."

"Neither does anyone else," said Migwan with a yawn. "So what's the use wasting energy trying to remember anything worse? Didn't the paper say 'the present hot spell has broken all known records for June?'"

"It broke our thermometer, too," said Hinpoha, joining in the conversation. "It went to a hundred and six and then it blew up and fell off the hook."

"And to think that we might all have been out camping now, if Nyoda hadn't gone away," continued Sahwah with a heavy sigh. "This is the first summer for three years we won't be together. I can't get used to the idea at all. Gladys is going to the seash.o.r.e and Katherine is going home to Arkansas in three weeks, and Nyoda is gone forever! I just haven't any appet.i.te for this vacation at all." And she sighed a still heavier sigh.

The three lapsed into silence once more. Vacation had as little savor for the other two as it did for Sahwah. Now that the summer's outing with Nyoda had to be given up the next three months yawned before them like an empty gulf.

"I'm never going to love anybody again the way I did Nyoda," remarked Hinpoha cynically, after a long silence. "It hurts too much to lose them."

"Neither am I," said Migwan and Sahwah together, and then there was silence again.

"I'd like to see something wet once," said Sahwah fretfully, after another long pause. "Everything is so dry it seems to be choking. The gra.s.s is all burned up; the paint is all blistered; the s.h.i.+ngles are all curling up backwards. It makes my eyes hurt to look at things. It would do them a world of good to see something wet for once."

Fate or the fairy G.o.dmother, or whoever the mysterious being is that always pops up at the right moment in the story books, but who is practically an unknown quant.i.ty in real life, proved that she was not a myth after all by suddenly and unceremoniously granting Sahwah's wish.

Round the corner of the house came Katherine, dripping water on all sides like Undine, her skirts clinging limply to her ankles, while little rivulets ran from her head over her nose and dripped from the ends of her lanky locks. Up on the porch she came, all dripping as she was, and sank down on the wicker couch beside Sahwah.

"Why, Katherine _Adams_, what has happened to you?" cried the three all together.

"Nothing much," replied Katherine laconically, tipping the lemonade pitcher over her head and putting out her tongue to catch the last drop.

The drop missed the tongue and landed full in her eye, whence it joined the stream trickling over her nose into her lap. "I just stopped to investigate a garden hose on the way over," she continued. "It was on a lawn close by the sidewalk and the thinnest little stream you ever saw was coming out. I was so thirsty I simply couldn't go by without taking a drink, and I just turned the nozzle the least little bit when it suddenly came out in a perfect deluge and sprinkled me all over. Then, seeing that I was wet anyhow I didn't make any haste to get out from under the cooling flood. There, ladies, you have the whyness of the thusness. I'm thoroughly comfortable now and inclined to think lightly of my troubles. Why don't you follow my example and stand under the hose?"

"Thanks," said Sahwah, edging away from Katherine's dripping proximity, "I'm all right as I am. Besides, no hose could squirt my troubles away."

"It didn't seem to dispel your gloom, either, Katherine," said Migwan, looking closely at Katherine, who, after the first moment of banter, had lapsed into silence and sat staring gloomily into the curtain of vines that covered the end of the porch. "What's the matter?" she asked curiously, brus.h.i.+ng back the damp hair from Katherine's forehead with a gentle hand. It was easy to see how Katherine was idolized by the rest of the Winnebagos. For her to act depressed was unheard of and alarming.

At Migwan's words Sahwah and Hinpoha stared at Katherine in dismay.

"Oh, I'm just low in my mind," said Katherine, with her head still resting on her hands. "Got a letter from the folks at home today, telling me not to come home for the summer, that's all. Father and Mother have been invited to go on an automobile trip through California and there's no room for me. Aunt Anna will be glad to keep me all right, but Cousin Grace will be gone all summer--she left yesterday--and it will be pretty dull for me. Aunt Anna is so deaf----" She finished with an eloquent gesture of the hands.

"You poor thing!" cried Migwan, drawing Katherine close to her in spite of her wet garments. "We'll all have to combine to make the summer lively for you. You'll have some fun even if your aunt is deaf and would rather read than talk. Don't worry."

Katherine's head suddenly went down on her knee. "What's the matter?"

cried the three in added dismay.

"It isn't because I don't want to stay," said Katherine in a choking voice, "it's because I want to go home. It's hotter out there than a blast furnace, and our one-story brick shack is like an oven, and we haven't one-tenth of the comforts that people have here, but it's--home!"

Migwan rolled Katherine over and took her head into her lap. "I know just how you feel," she said softly. "After you've been away from home a whole year nothing looks good to you any more but that. And when you've been crossing off the days on your calendar and been cheered up every night when you realized that you were that much nearer home it must be an awful b.u.mp to find out that you're not to go after all. But cheer up, it won't be so bad after all, once you get used to the idea. Think what a good time your folks are having, and then start out and hunt up some adventures of your own."

Thus she comforted the doleful Katherine and the others pressed around to express their sympathy and none of them heard the automobile stop in front of the house. They all started violently when Gladys burst into their midst, and regardless of the prostrating temperature, danced a jig on the porch floor.

"Oh, girls," she cried, waving a palm-leaf fan over her head like a triumphal banner, "listen! Papa has bought Lake Huron and we're all going camping!"

And without noticing the tears in Katherine's eyes, she pulled her out of Migwan's lap and danced around with her.

"Your papa has done _what_?" cried Migwan, her voice shrill with amazement. "Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Evans." For Gladys's mother, proceeding more leisurely up the walk than her impetuous daughter, was just coming up the steps. "What's this about Mr. Evans buying Lake Huron?"

"Oh, nothing so startling as that," said Mrs. Evans, laughing in great amus.e.m.e.nt. "We haven't started out to own the world yet. But without any effort on his part, Mr. Evans has become the owner of a small island somewhere in Lake Huron. Some time ago he lent a large amount of money to a company owning the island to establish a bottling works for mineral water, which flowed from a spring on the island. But after the money had been spent to get the business under way the spring was discovered to be much smaller than had at first been supposed; in fact, not large enough to be profitable at all. The company went bankrupt, and the island, which had been put up as security for the loan, became the property of Mr. Evans. Owning an island so far away was so much like having a castle in Spain that none of us thought much about it until just now, when Mr.

Evans has suffered a severe nervous breakdown and the doctor has ordered him to get away from his work and from the city altogether and spend the summer living close to nature. This made our trip to the seash.o.r.e, with its hotels and its throngs of people, out of the question, and then we thought of the desert island up in Lake Huron. But when we talked it over we decided that it would be pretty lonesome up there with just the three of us, and Gladys suggested that we round up all the girls who would otherwise stay in town all summer and take them up with us. Do you suppose any of you could go?" Mrs. Evans looked rather wistfully from one to the other.

"Will we go?" shouted Sahwah, likewise forgetting the heat and capering madly about the porch, "I should say we will! We were just resigning ourselves to the dullest summer that ever happened."

"I would love to go," said Migwan a little less vehemently, but none the less sincerely, "and I don't think my folks will have the slightest objection. Mother was really worried about my having to stay here during the hot weather. She's afraid I've studied too hard."

"And I am sure I can go," said Hinpoha. "The Doctor and Aunt Phoebe are going East to a lot of conventions, and while I could go along, I suppose, rather than stay at home, I'd lots rather go with you."

"How about you, Katherine?" asked Mrs. Evans.

Katherine was holding her head up again and her eyes were sparkling with animation. "You blessed people!" she exclaimed in extravagant accents.

"You came to the rescue just in the nick of time. If I had had to languish here all summer there wouldn't have been enough left of me to go to college in the fall. Think what a misfortune you have averted from that inst.i.tution! An hour ago I was wallowing in the slough of despond; now I am skittering on the heights once more. Hurrah for the spring that broke the company that owned the island that sheltered the camp that Jack hasn't built yet but will very soon!" And she danced up and down until the heat overcame her and she sank on the couch weak and exhausted, but still feebly hurrahing.

Gladys turned to Migwan in perplexity. "I thought Katherine was going home for the summer," she said.

Then Migwan explained and Gladys expressed unbounded delight at the turn of fate, which permitted Katherine to go camping with them. It really would not have been complete without her.

Plans for the summer trip were made as fast as tongues could move.

Nothing would do but they must go out in the heat and risk the danger of sunstroke to see Veronica and Nakwisi and Medmangi, and tell them the glorious news. Katherine, utterly forgetting her bedraggled condition, rose enthusiastically to go with them.

"Oh, mercy," said Migwan, shoving her back on the couch, "you can't go out on the street looking like that."

Katherine sighed and accepted the inevitable. "That's right," she said plaintively, "turn your back on me if you like. There never was any sympathy for the poor victim of science."

"Victim of science?" muttered Gladys, noticing Katherine's plight for the first time.

"Yes," said Katherine. "In the interests of science I tried to find out if troubles could be drowned with a garden hose. Now when I've found out once for all that they can't, and handed the report of my investigations on a silver platter to these lazy creatures and saved them the trouble of finding out for themselves, they won't be seen on the street with me.

It surely is a cruel world!" And she settled herself comfortably on the couch and devoured the last two cookies on the plate.

Nakwisi jumped with joy when they told her; she, too, had been sighing for some place to go. Veronica and Medmangi, however, had their summer plans already made.

"My, won't the Sandwiches envy us," said Sahwah that night, as they all met at Gladys's house to talk over their plans more fully.

"I wonder----" began Mrs. Evans.