Winona of the Camp Fire Part 22

"Everybody's crazy over you-of course they would be. I am myself, and I don't like people generally. You have something about you that would make people like you even if you weren't sweet to them. Everything turns out right for you. I don't see what you wanted to join the Camp Fire for-its rules stuck out all over you before you ever joined."

"Oh, _don't_!" said Winona, blus.h.i.+ng. "What rules do you mean? I never kept any rules."

"You know the Law of the Camp Fire: 'Seek beauty; give service; pursue knowledge; be trustworthy; hold on to health; glorify work; be happy.'"

"I don't do all those things," said Winona. "Wish I did! But anybody seeks beauty, and as long as you have to work the only way to get fun out of it is to glorify it. As for the rest, I think they're only rules for getting all there is out of living. I'll tell you, Adelaide,"-Winona sat upright, as if a new thought had struck her-"why don't you see how many of the rules would apply to getting fun out of the things that worry you? When things go wrong at our house mother always says to Florence and Tommy and me, 'Can't you turn it into a game?'"

"Turn shabby furniture and stews and no money into a game?" said Adelaide, as if she thought Winona was crazy.

"Yes!" said Winona undauntedly. "To begin with the stews-well, Adelaide, you don't know one single thing about cooking. There's any amount of things beside stew that you can make out of stewing meat. And don't you remember the cold things we got out of Mrs. Bryan's refrigerator? That was a good supper, wasn't it? If you know how, cooking's fun, or nearly anything."

"If we have more cooking-cla.s.ses I suppose I could learn how to do more things with the meats and vegetables, or maybe market better," said Adelaide. "But that would only help that one thing."

"You can figure out keeping house just like anything else," said Winona.

"All you have to do's to _think_!"

Adelaide laughed. "Do you suppose I could think the furniture new?" she asked. "You ought to see it-horrid old brown rep, and a carpet that's worn into white spots!"

But though she laughed, she looked to Winona for the answer with real eagerness.

"Well, I'll tell you what I'd do," suggested Winona thoughtfully-"I don't suppose you would, you're such a haughty Lady Imogene-I'd make a furnis.h.i.+ng bee of it, and have a party, and invite all the girls to help you do the flat over. Your father and Lonny would help, wouldn't they?"

"Oh, I guess so," she said.

"Well, then, the girls would help you cover the furniture and stain the floor, and even paper, maybe. And if your father or Lonny could paint the wood-work-or would the landlord?"

"No," said Adelaide, "he won't make repairs. It's not in the lease. And where would I get money for the paint and paper and stain and covers?"

"Earn it!" said Winona. "There are lots of ways. That jam you made for the sales-you could get heaps of orders for that, I know. Oh, I should think it would be lovely to do. I tell you, Adelaide, you may think I'm crazy-but everything's fun, if you'll only remember that it _is_ fun!"

"I wonder!" said Adelaide. "But I believe I could make money with jams and preserves if I worked hard at it."

"We've all got to earn some more money soon if we want to stay in the camp longer than three weeks," said Winona, "unless Louise can feed us all on the venison steaks she was talking about last night. If you can make money for the camp you can for yourself!"

Adelaide turned impulsively-they had risen and were going on through the wood-and threw her arms around Winona.

"You certainly are the most comforting girl!" she said. "I don't wonder everybody does what you want them to."

Winona didn't know what to say. It's pleasant to have people say such things to you, but it is embarra.s.sing, too.

"People like you just as much as they do me," said she. "Come on, let's go see if we can find the river we've heard so much about."

They caught hands and ran on through the trees.

The river was not hard to find. Above them it was a broad stream, but just here it wasn't very wide, just a pretty, clear, clean-looking stream, with green banks and some sort of a dock to be seen a little way beyond them. On the dock, when they reached it, was seen to be an elderly native with a pipe, and beside him was moored a rowboat which looked as if it could be rowed. He looked up from his fis.h.i.+ng as the girls appeared.

"Morning," he said sociably, "you little girls going down to the village?"

"Good-morning," said Winona. "No, we hadn't thought of it. We might, though. Is there anything we could get for you if we went?"

"Well," said the old man, jerking in his line with a good-sized fish on it, "ye-es, there is. I want an ad put in the paper. I guess I could trust you with a quarter to do it with."

"I guess you could," said Winona, smiling. "Will this afternoon do? I don't believe we'd have time now to get there and back before dinner-time." She looked at her wrist-watch. "No, we won't," she said.

"It's eleven now."

"Well, this afternoon would do," he said.

So, while the girls looked at the rowboat wishfully, and wondered if they couldn't get enough fish for supper if they had some tackle, the old man adjusted his spectacles, pulled an old envelope out of his pocket, and wrote on it laboriously.

"Do you mind if I read it?" asked Winona, when he was done and had handed it to her.

"Seein's that's what it's for, I dunno's I do," he grunted, grinning pleasantly. Winona and Adelaide took each a corner, and read as follows:

For sale, one rowboat in good condition, with oars. No reasonable offer refused. Apply to John Sloane, R. F. D. 3, village.

They looked at each other, then at the boat. Then both girls exclaimed with one impulse, "Is it this boat?"

"This very rowboat," said Mr. Sloane, eying it with affection. "I don't use it no more. I've got a motor-boat, and them Boy Scouts up the river has got a fine young flock of canoes, so they ain't likely to want to hire it. Anyway, she ain't so young as she was. Good boat, though!"

"And what would you call a reasonable offer?" inquired Winona. "The reason I want to know is that I have just six dollars, and if I could buy a rowboat that way I would."

"Six dollars, hey?" said Mr. Sloane slowly. "That ain't much for a good boat."

"It's all I have to spend on rowboats," said Winona placidly.

"We-el," decided Mr. Sloane, "guess I might's well let you have it!"

And he proceeded to make out a receipt on the spot, on the other half of the envelope he had used for the advertis.e.m.e.nt.

"It certainly pays to advertise!" he remarked, as he turned his attention again to his fis.h.i.+ng-line.

Adelaide and Winona jumped into their boat with delight, and rowed downstream for half a mile. There they were stopped by the beautiful sight of a lot of huckleberry bushes, full of fruit, along the edge of the stream. They both filled their hats, and when these would hold no more they pinned up Winona's skirt in front and filled that-Winona sitting very still thereafter in order not to smash any berries. Then Adelaide rowed back and tied their newly-acquired property to the dock, the use of which was thrown in, and went back to camp with berries enough for dinner. Just before they came within hearing of the others, Adelaide whispered:

"Winona, I'm going to try to-to feel that way about things."

Winona squeezed her hand, but there was no time to say anything more, for a horde of small pirates descended on them and carried away the berries.

After dinner the girls lay on the gra.s.s and made plans, more or less wild, for getting money to prolong their vacation.

"We can't have a cake-sale," said Marie practically, "because the farmers' wives in the village make all their own baked stuff, and the people at the summer-resort are mostly boarders."

"Oh, please don't let's have any more cake-sales, whether they're profitable or not," said Louise pathetically. "I sold eats for those sales till I used to go to sleep at night and dream I was a wedding-cake myself."

"All right, then," soothed Helen, "you shan't ever have such dreadful dreams again, you poor little thing!"

"Well, what shall we do, then?" asked Edith Hillis pulling her yellow curls over her shoulder and examining them as if she had never seen them before.

"When you want money," remarked Mrs. Bryan, "you have to sell something, either your services, or your manufactures, or your talents."