Winona of the Camp Fire Part 25

With her went the cheerful Comet, Ishkoodah with flaming tresses; With her went the Star of Evening, Helen, gentle Star of Evening, And Nokoma, flower-giver- Nataly the flower-giver.

Seeking post-cards, thus they wandered, But alas, the Cat-Collector Much preferred to bring home kittens, And to advertise those kittens.

All next day the ad-replyers Tracked our camp with questing footsteps, Asked of us-"Where are those kittens?

Give us several dozen kittens!"

For, alas, those cats had vanished, Gone with the first two replyers To the ad Winona paid for.

Still about our Camp come wailing Folk who seek the cats they heard of, Seeking several dozen kittens; Still the Ray-of-Light, Winona, Cannot give them any kittens, Cannot stop their wronged insistence On those kittens, on those kittens-

"Oh, good gracious!" asked Winona, beginning to laugh before she read any further. "Who _did_ make all that up?"

"I did," said Marie proudly, "but we all helped."

"Do you mean to tell me that any more people have come catting to-day?"

demanded Winona.

"Only seven," said Helen. "Winnie, you'll never hear the last of this."

"Well, Mrs. Bryan, I've found some work to do that will earn money,"

said Winona, hastily changing the subject. "Florence and I went up to the Scouts' camp, and Mr. Gedney gave us the boys' mending to do. He said you were to put a price on it for us."

"Twenty to twenty-five cents an hour," supplied Mrs. Bryan promptly.

"You'd better have some of the other girls help you, too, dear, for there's enough work there to take up a good deal of your time for three or four days, and you don't come camping to turn yourself into a sewing-girl, even for the good of the camp."

"Very well," said Winona. "Who hasn't picked out any special work to do yet?"

"Nataly Lee," said someone.

"Neither have I," said Elizabeth. "I'll help, too."

A half-dozen of them went off to a sunny spot, produced a large alarm-clock to time themselves by, and put in two hours of work immediately. That is, all but Nataly. She got tired at the end of one hour, and went off, she said, to lie down. The others got the mending almost done, for many hands make light work. Then they piled up the basket again, and went back to camp. It was Winona's turn to get supper that night.

"There ought to be about four dollars' worth of work in that basket,"

said Helen thoughtfully when they all met at supper.

"It's probably more than we'll have next time," said Winona. "But anyway, it's a steady income. Let's hope they'll be kind, and wear big, awful holes in everything they have."

"They will, unless they've had a change of heart since last week," said Louise.

After supper was cleared away the girls set about collecting wood in the open s.p.a.ce on the top of the little hill, for their ceremonial-fire. It was the most happy and successful meeting they had had, and also, as Louise expressed it, the most beadful. It ended in a ghost-dance around the fire. After it was through the girls lay still and told stories, which gradually became more ghostly than the dance. It was very pleasant till bedtime came. Then even the bravest of them made dashes for their tents; and Mrs. Bryan, making her rounds after the camp was asleep, found five lighted candles keeping ghosts out of five tents in a row!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

There were bathing and boating and tree-climbing in the days that followed and there were hikes and folk-dances and various entertainments, by themselves, and occasionally with the Scouts for audience. The girls canoed all up and down the river, and borrowed the Scout swimming-pool with rapture, and learned all sorts of swimming and diving stunts. And everybody got brown and husky and cheerful. But in between the good times the girls worked on steadily, each at her appointed task, and in about ten days there was a promising collection of material to be sold, for the virtuous purpose of giving Camp Karonya some more weeks of life in the Wampoag woods.

Helen gave up modelling her beloved statuettes, and went soberly to work at bowls and vases, and other such things that people would be likely to find useful. She decorated them with motives she drew herself, and took them up to Wampoag, the summer-resort, where there was a kiln, and had them fired. Louise made burnt-leather pillows, which filled her hair with such a fearful smell that for awhile she washed it every day, till it occurred to her to wear a bathing-cap to work in. She also burned mats and table-covers and napkin-rings to the limit of her purchasing power; and when that failed she took to carving things out of wood she picked up. The Blue Birds wove raffia baskets and table-mats, and Marie and Edith crocheted bags and collars. Adelaide devoted herself to canning. The rest helped her sometimes, but more of the time she took pride in putting up the fruit all by herself.

There were embroidered tea-cloths and runners, and there was hammered bra.s.s-work. The honor-counts rolled up like s...o...b..a.l.l.s, for the girls made nearly everything a girl is capable of making or decorating. There was almost enough made to stop.

But still Camp Karonya held nightly discussions, having made these various things, as to how to sell them. The plan most of them wanted to adopt was that of going from house to house with them. Having a fair meant hiring a room or store, or running the risk of having n.o.body come to buy-for the camp was two miles from the nearest point of civilization. The only alternative seemed putting them into some of the resort shops to be sold on commission, and there was a large risk there that the shops might not do properly by them. There was another alternative, sending them home to be sold, but that seemed inglorious, somehow.

One night, after everything had been argued over until everybody had finished from sheer inability to think of anything more to say, and begun to discuss constellations instead, Winona, lying on her back, felt a pull at her sleeve. She rolled over, to see Louise stealthily working herself down the hill, out of the moonlight. Winona rolled as stealthily after her.

"What is it?" she asked, when they were at the bottom of the hill, where they couldn't be seen.

"Come hither, Little One, and I will tell you!" responded Louise, like Kipling's Crocodile. She led the way to the dock, where they sat down in the moored rowboat, and Louise began to hold forth.

"We've got more than enough things to sell, and none of those plans are a bit of good. What we want to do is to take all that stuff up to Wampoag, in this old boat of yours, and peddle them at the big hotels."

"I think so, too," agreed Winona, "but the girls haven't gotten unanimous yet. You know Nataly Lee's going to fight to the last ditch against selling things that way. I don't know whether she thinks it's too hard work or too undignified, but you can see she isn't going to stand for it one little bit."

"Oh, that girl makes me tired!" said Louise. "I'm not going to wait for their old unanimity. I tell you, Win, I have a plan!"

"Well, go ahead!" Winona encouraged.

"To-morrow morning," said Louise. "You and I will slide off early, like the Third Little Pig, and pack the boat with all the junk we have ready.

It's all in the boxes in the store-place. Then we'll row to Wampoag, and just sell things all day!"

"How'll we get them away without anybody seeing us?" objected Winona, who liked the plan very much. "It would be gorgeous if we could manage it."

"We'll have to go now and sneak the stuff into the boat before bedtime,"

said Louise. "We can pile them on that amateur stretcher we used to carry Florence. I think n.o.body ever took it apart."

"Hurrah! Come on, then!" said Winona, and the two girls slid off into the shadows.

It was not such very hard work. They filled their two suitcases, and put what wouldn't go in the suitcases on the stretcher; and had everything in the boat and covered up with a waterproof blanket before their absence had been noticed. Then they stole back into the circle as innocently as kittens, in time to sing "Mammy Moon" at the tops of their voices with the rest.

They were both on the policing s.h.i.+ft that week, so it was easy for them to arrange to get their share of camp-work over early. By half-past eight in the morning they were rowing gayly down the river in the direction of Wampoag. Florence wanted to come, but they had to repress her. She might have been in their way.

When they were around the bend, safely out of sight of the camp, Winnie stopped rowing.

"I had an idea, too!" she said. "Reach under the seat, Louise."

Louise pulled out, first, the luncheon she herself had poked under a little while before; next, a good-sized bundle that appeared to be clothes.

"What's this for?" she asked.

"For us," said Winona.

Louise opened it, and eyed its contents puzzledly. There were a dressing-sack made of bandanna handkerchiefs, partly ripped up, two old skirts, an old shawl and a checked gingham ap.r.o.n.

"They're to dress up in," explained Winona. "We'll be poor little emigrant girls that want to sella da nice-a goods, lady! The women who go around selling things out of suitcases always have a foreign look. So I fished these out of the box of stuff we had for theatricals. I knew just where it was, because we got some things out of it for 'Everygirl'

last week."

"Oh, gorgeous!" cried Louise, finis.h.i.+ng the ripping-up of the dressing-sack into its original red handkerchiefs. She dug through the pile again and picked out the shortest skirt, for she hadn't her full growth yet. "Who gets the little checked shawl?" she asked.