Winona of the Camp Fire Part 30

They watched the canoe paddle off into the darkness, then settled down to hear the rest of the adventure.

"But there's something else we haven't told you!" said Winona, when the whole story had been told and talked over for a long while. "There's going to be a lake carnival."

"Oh, what fun! Let's go!" said Adelaide, speaking more brightly than Winona had ever known her to. "We could hike as far as this side of the lake by land, couldn't we, Opeechee?"

"Certainly we could-if we had to," said Mrs. Bryan, who was watching Winona. "Wait till Winona finishes. She looks as if she had a plan."

"I was thinking," said Winona, "that it would be very nice if we could decorate a float. The boys said they were sure the Scouts would loan us enough rowboats to build the float over, if we needed it. And we could have tents--"

"Of course we could!" said everybody enthusiastically, and all began to plan at once.

Finally Mrs. Bryan rose, and suggested that it was twelve o'clock, and that all but the breakfast-getters had better sleep till eight next morning. So they put out the fire, and went to bed.

About two o'clock a slim figure in a red kimono stole down the avenue of tents with a lantern. About two-thirds of the way there met her another, plumper figure, in a blue kimono, also with a lantern.

"Winona!" said the blue kimono.

"Why, Louise!" said the red one.

Then they both began to giggle in a subdued way.

"What on earth are you prowling round for, at this time of night?" asked Winona.

"What are you?" returned Louise.

Winona beckoned her friend over to a seat on a fallen log.

"I-well, I've been worrying over our dressing up that way, and fooling people, to sell things," she confessed. "I suppose you'll think I'm a horrid little prig, but-Louise, I think we ought to go back and tell those hotellers that we were just plain Camp Fire Girls, not Italian or Dalmatian or anything like that."

"I thought a Dalmatian was a dog," suggested Louise.

"Maybe it is," said Winona sadly.

Louise sat closer to Winona.

"Winnie," she said, "that's just what I climbed out of bed about myself.

I was coming to look for you when I met you. I've been worrying about it, too. It was a lark, but I think it's up to us to gambol over there, clothed and in our right minds-and own up."

"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Winona. "We'll tell Mrs. Bryan in the morning."

"All right," said Louise, and she began to giggle.

"And then, while they're thinking how n.o.ble it is of us to confess, we'll sell 'em more things-real Camp Fire Girls' hand-crafts!"

"Louise," said Winona with admiring conviction, "you certainly _are_ the limit."

They both laughed, and felt better. Then they went back to bed and went to sleep.

Next morning they rowed duly up the lake, and made a conscientious round of the hotels and cottages where they had sold their things the day before. But the way of the transgressor refused to be hard. They could wake very little excitement on the subject of their transformation in the minds of their patrons-who, it is to be feared, either regarded it all as a good joke, or did not worry about it at all. Indeed, most of the people Louise could find to explain to were more wronged because she had no goods with her, than by anything else. So she took a number of orders.

"It's no use, Lou," said Winona, as they met at noon by the hotel where Miss Lawrence stayed, "I can't get a soul to care whether I'm a Canadian or a Hottentot. The only thing they'll say is, 'We'd like some more of the baskets,' or 'those runners,' or whatever they didn't get yesterday."

"Same here," said Louise. "But I landed some fine fat orders, and if you're as clever as I think you are, you did, too."

"Yes, I did," said Winona. "And, anyway," she added, brightening, "when we've done this hotel our consciences will be clear."

"I only hope we don't meet that horrid Mrs. Gardner," said Louise.

So they marched up the steps, and tried to pick out the women they had sold to the day before, to explain to them. But Winona had scarcely begun, "You see, we really weren't Italians at all," when the people she was talking to began to laugh. Winona, bewildered and a little cross, looked around to see what they were laughing at. She saw Miss Lawrence behind her, laughing, too.

"It's no use explaining, my dear," said that lady. "I did it myself.

Everybody knows that you and Louise Lane disposed of your goods under false pretenses by tying up your heads in red handkerchiefs and letting your customers draw their own conclusions. I don't know but some of us want our money back! Never mind, children, it was very clever of you!"

she added, seeing that Winona was not sure whether she was in earnest.

And the girls found themselves being questioned and laughed at and made much of by a group of women, who wanted to know all about the Camp Fire, and the things the girls made, and the ways they earned money, and what they did with it, till Winona and Louise were fairly tired with answering questions.

They invited everybody to come out to the camp, and set a day. They took some more orders, and then they carried Miss Lawrence off across the lake and down the river, to see Camp Karonya. When she arrived they handed her over to Nataly, as was polite, and she and Mrs. Bryan showed her over the camp.

She investigated everything with the same brisk, fairy G.o.dmother expression that she had had when she took Winona and Louise under her wing, stayed to luncheon, and then expressed a desire to be taken down to the Scouts' camp, to see Billy. So two of the Blue Birds rowed her there.

After they had seen Miss Lawrence off, the girls became busy a little way down the river. Winona got there a little late and found that much had happened while she and Louise had gone off that morning. At first the idea of making the float had been to found it on the rowboats the Boy Scouts were willing to lend. But when a deputation, headed by Mr.

Gedney, paddled down, bringing the boats in question, it became painfully clear that four canoes would not support enough planks to hold twenty life-size girls. Neither would rowboats. At least, Mrs. Bryan and Mr. Gedney agreed that they wouldn't-most of the girls and all the boys were willing to take a chance.

When this turn of affairs arrived everyone felt very sad, and for a while it had looked as if Camp Karonya wasn't going to have a float in the lake carnival.

But just then along came that resourceful old gentleman, Mr. Sloane, with fis.h.i.+ng-rod and a can of bait.

"Well, what's all the trouble?" he inquired genially of everyone in general. So they told him. Mr. Sloane did not hesitate a moment.

"I got a friend that owns some good, water-tight scows," said he most unexpectedly. "They ain't doin' n.o.body any good, and I guess he'd loan 'em to you, or, if wust come to wust, he'd let you have the use of 'em for maybe seventy-five cents apiece. Two scows are all you'd need to put the plankin' across."

He gave them directions as to where to go after the scows' owner, and ambled on in search of a quieter fis.h.i.+ng-place. An emba.s.sy was sent after the scows immediately, and returned with them in triumph. They proved perfectly seaworthy, and quite equal to supporting all they would have to. So when Winona arrived on the scene after luncheon the girls had reached the stage of nailing the planks across.

They had bargained for the scows at seventy-five cents each, as Mr.

Sloane had said they would be able to, and promised to give them a coat of paint before they returned them. The boards, bought of the village carpenter, were more expensive. However, the girls thought they could venture to pay for them out of the treasury, on the strength of the orders ahead that they had taken. Marie and Edith were supervising things.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Winona asked Marie, who was frowning thoughtfully over a hastily-drawn plan.

"Not unless you can help us with this design," Marie answered. "See here. The idea is to make a miniature Indian village. How would you group the tents so as to take up the least room and show best?"

"Why do you try to draw it?" asked Winona. "Why not do as generals do, make little paper tents and move them around till you get a tableau of the effect you want?"

The idea was new to Marie, but she liked it, and the three girls fell to constructing little paper cones, and arranging them on a square s.p.a.ce that represented the float.

Presently one of the girls who was nailing dropped out with a pounded thumb, and Winona took up her hammer and went to work. She discovered that the driving of a nail straight, and making boards lie side by side evenly, is more of an art than people know.

They worked on the float most of that afternoon, except for a few of the girls who were told off to do the Scout mending, and they sat down near the carpenters and sewed sociably to the sound of the pounding. They worked till six, and went to bed unusually early.