Winona of the Camp Fire Part 39

"I have an idea!" exclaimed Winona, sitting up.

"Is it an author?" asked Louise.

"Yes!" said Winona, "it is!"

"Well?" from everybody.

"Samantha Allen!" cried Winona eagerly. "My plan's this. Have somebody dress like Samantha-you know the pictures-and tell all about herself to begin with. Then we could make a big, wooden frame-we have those boards left from the float-and Samantha could turn over the leaves of the alb.u.m, and describe the characters in her books one by one, as they were shown in the frame. We could call it 'Samantha's Picter-Alb.u.m,' or something like that."

"I saw an entertainment that was something of that sort once," said Adelaide. "But it was just a frame with old-fas.h.i.+oned pictures, like daguerrotypes. There wasn't any Samantha, or any talking. I should think this would be lots better. But would it last a whole evening, and make the Wampoag people think they'd had their money's worth?"

"I think so," said Louise. "And anyway, if it wasn't so very long we could amuse the visitors by showing them over the camp, and telling them all about our customs and habits. Maybe we could do a folk-dance for them afterwards."

"Oh, yes, of course we could!" said Edith, whose specialty it was. "We could give them an Indian dance as easy as anything, and that Russian one I learned before I came. I can teach it to eight of us."

"I know how to dance the minuet," suggested Helen. "How many had it in that Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday thing Miss Green's cla.s.s had last year?"

Five had, it seemed. As a minuet only needs ten performers it was very simple to polish that up. And all of them knew Indian dances already. So a committee was appointed to get up the costumes. The Indian dresses were there already. For the Russian dance Edith thought head-dresses of paper muslin would do and ap.r.o.ns of colored scrim, over white skirts and turned-under, slipped-under-the-skirt middy blouses. For the minuet-well, there was cheese-cloth in red and yellow that Marie had had on her canoe; everyone could powder her hair and contrive a 'kerchief. The pannier draperies could be pinned into place, and broad bodices of Winona's black paper muslin from the canoe-tr.i.m.m.i.n.g could be cut and pinned into place with very little trouble. Helen and Edith and Adelaide were told off to see about the costuming; Edith, as she had to train the others in dancing, had nothing but supervision to do. Helen and Adelaide did what little actual work was needed.

"The main thing this entertainment needs seems to be pins," said Helen the third day after they had decided to have it. It was a Thursday, and they planned the affair for the next Monday night. "We're nearly out of them."

So eight papers of pins were bought, not to speak of a good deal of white paper muslin. The girls were a.s.signed their different characters in the Alb.u.m, and each left to her own cleverness in getting up the costume. About midway in the preparations it suddenly dawned on the girls, who had gotten all the Samantha books from the Wampoag library, and had their families send them on the ones they owned, that boys were needed.

So a committee consisting of all the sisters was sent up the lake to borrow Boy Scouts. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, for boys seem to dislike "dressing up" as much as girls like it; but Mr. Gedney was Camp Karonya's friend, and they went back with all the boys they needed promised them-if they would look after the costumes and not expect the Scouts to rehea.r.s.e.

Louise was appointed a Committee of Tickets, with Elizabeth to help her.

Louise was a born ticket-seller. She loved it. She and Elizabeth put in most of their waking hours exchanging bits of ecru cardboard with small red things on them (meant for Camp Fires) for thirty-five cents. And they did very well. They got permission of all the drug-stores and many other stores, to put up posters, which were camp-made, also, of course.

So by the time the fateful night arrived quite a goodly crowd was ferried over to Camp Karonya by the Scouts' canoes.

At eight precisely the audience, accommodated on long planks which reached from box to box, saw a curtain pulled away from between two trees. Nothing was to be seen in its place but a plump red alb.u.m standing out against a background which represented every sheet in the camp. They had used Marie's red cheese-cloth after all, instead of Winona's black paper muslin. As for the framework, that was a work of art for which several of the girls were responsible. It had taken all the manual training they knew, and a little bit more-they had had to call Tom Merriam, whose hobby was carpentry, before they got it all right-but the general effect was gorgeous. The audience was given a fair amount of time to appreciate the beauty of the alb.u.m, which was about eight feet high. Then Marie stepped out. She had been elected to the very responsible part of Samantha because her memory was good, rather than because she looked it. But she had done excellently with what means she had. Two small pillows for a foundation, a pink wrapper with large black spots, sent on from home, an elderly bonnet borrowed from a friendly farmer's wife, a substantial gingham ap.r.o.n, spectacles, a Paisley shawl, and a large palm-leaf fan, completed a get-up that would have disguised Marie Hunter effectually from her own best friend.

When she thought she had waited long enough to give the audience a chance to appreciate her she curtsied, and reaching over, pulled at the alb.u.m cover with the crock of a green-handled umbrella. The inside page of the alb.u.m was imitated by a frame with white muslin tightly stretched over it, and an oval hole in the middle for the picture. In the hole just now was a meek, chin-whiskered face surrounded by a high collar-Mr. Gedney, normally. Samantha pointed to this proudly.

"Brethren and sisteren," began Samantha, after she had introduced herself, "this here is my lawful, though sometimes wayward, pardner Josiah Allen. I was married to him in a brand-new green silk gown, made pollynay, and Mother Jones's parlor, come twenty year ago. Our mutual affection has been a beakin ever since, though I can't deny it has sputtered some once in awhile, and burned purty low, tryin' times like house-cleanin' an' wash-days."

She went on with the famous tale of "How the Bamberses borrowed Josiah,"

cutting it short when she heard the tiny bell behind the scene tinkle, as a signal that another picture was ready. Then she jerked the cover to with her umbrella-handle, and operated it again. This time the inside leaf had been fastened back with the lid, for this was a full-sized picture. The audience, by this time, was laughing at nearly everything she said, for Marie was a capital mimic, and she had picked out and strung together all the funniest things she could find in the Samantha Allen books.

"This here," announced Samantha, "is my step-children, Thomas Jefferson and Tirzah Ann. They ain't bad children, if I do say it as shouldn't, and I have brung 'em up like they wuz my own."

Winona was Tirzah. She sat stiffly in a high-backed chair (the back was pasteboard, covered with black muslin, cut in a Chippendale sort of way) and she wore a full, flowered gown, with her hair looped over her ears and fastened in the back to a "chignon" with two fat curls hanging from it. They had put Tom with her, with a view to mutual support. He, too, had a preposterous collar (collars may be made by the dozen if you have scissors and patience, and the Camp Fire Girls had both) and a flowered vest. His baggy clothes and a tall hat at his feet completed a picture that was so much like the ones you do see in old alb.u.ms that the audience began to clap before Marie was through her introduction.

"Woof!" said Tom when he got out of the frame. "Never again for me!" He turned to grin at Billy, who had still to go on. Billy was supposed to be 'Submit Tewksbury's beau, a das.h.i.+n' city feller,' and he was trying to get an appropriate amount of dash into his mustaches.

"Every time I go up against Camp Karonya," responded Billy sadly, "I have to do something that needs a lot of stiffening. I had to work two hours over that fiend tail of mine, and these whiskers are just as bad."

"It'll be worse when you have real ones," remarked Louise consolingly.

She was acting as putter-on-of-finis.h.i.+ng-touches. There was a dressing-tent apiece for the girls and boys, and Billy was on the outside of his, trying to arrange the mustache to his liking by means of a small mirror pinned to the canvas.

"At least I won't have to worry about their sticking on," was his reply.

"There," said Louise, "they'll do now."

"Billy and Adelaide wanted!" called Edith.

Adelaide, on account of a mournful expression that still appeared at times, had been selected for "Submit Tewksbury," who had a broken heart and was good to one relative after another for thirty years or more. She had been told to look as sad as she possibly could, and she was posed with a medicine bottle and spoon, with which she had just-so Samantha explained-been nursing her relatives. Billy, behind her, looked very cheerful and debonair with his jaunty mustache and a very gaudy s.h.i.+rt which-so he said afterwards-he had bought especially for the occasion, for thirty-nine cents marked down from fifty. It had a large, spotty pattern on it, and it looked _very_ festive.

The tableaux went smoothly on. Marie remembered all her lines, the audience appeared to enjoy it all very much, when suddenly in the midst of a speech she remembered something, and halted, secretly referring to the list of pictures which was pinned inside her palm-leaf fan. Widder Doodle, Submit Tewksbury, Elder Minkley, Maggie Snow-yes, they were four past Betsy Bobbet, the crowning glory of the evening, and no Betsy Bobbet had there been! Marie pulled herself together and thought a minute, talking on meanwhile.

"Brethren and sisteren," she said, "I hope you'll excuse me for a minute. My wind's a gittin' low, and my new congress gaiters pinch me some. I'm goin' to ask you to wait a bit, till I fetch me a drink of water."

The audience laughed, and clapped, as it had been doing most of the evening, and Samantha scuttled distractedly behind the scenes, where she clutched the nearest person to her. It happened to be Mrs. Bryan, who was making up one of the boys under a light.

"Where's Betsy Bobbet-I mean Lilian Green?" she asked hurriedly. "It's way past her turn, and she's never been in at all."

"Oh, my dear, didn't anyone tell you?" said Mrs. Bryan.

"They couldn't," said Marie. "I've been out front all this time."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Mrs. Bryan. "Can't you do without her? She slipped and tore her costume so badly that it wasn't fit to appear in.

She could pose, of course, but the tears would show."

"I went right down over a tent-pole," explained Lilian, appearing to speak for herself. She was indeed badly torn, not to speak of the fact that she was limping a little. Her bonnet and veil-a green mosquito-netting veil-were wrecked-and she had managed to muddy herself thoroughly, too.

"You certainly made a thorough job of it!" exclaimed Marie. "But oh, Mrs. Bryan, what shall I do? I've been talking about her all the evening-leading up to her. She's the keystone of the whole performance."

"It would be a case of Hamlet with Hamlet left out without her, then, would it?" queried Mrs. Bryan. "My dear, I don't know what to say. If Lilian were damaged somebody else could supply her place, but we haven't any understudy for Lilian's clothes!"

"There's only one thing to do," offered Winona, coming over from a group of girls. "Have her go on anyway, Marie, and make up something to explain why she looks so funny. Explain why she's so torn and crumpled-make a joke of it, so they'll think it was all on purpose."

"Winnie, you're the pride of my life!" vowed Marie. "I'll have to do just that. It will be hard," she added doubtfully.

"Oh, no, it won't," and Winona laughed rea.s.suringly, "you're the cleverest one of us, and if you can't make up some reason why Betsy Bobbet looks mussed, n.o.body can. Now go on out and do it."

She gave her a little push.

"Ray-of-Light, you're a dear!" Marie said affectionately as she turned and went out. "Put Lilian in the frame just as she is, please," she said. "I think I can manage it."

Lilian laughed a little at the idea of displaying herself to two hundred summer people looking as if she had come out of a subway accident, but she got into position like the good-natured girl she was, and Marie heard the little bell and began to make her impromptu explanation.

"My friend, Betsy Bobbet, she's a considerable kind of a curis person,"

she said. "She's sorter sentimental, an' sometimes she's too impulsive.

Now, just before she had this daguerrotype took that I'm goin' to show you, she was writin' a pome to the Muse. This is how it went:

"Muse of Poetry I would do much for thee And I am full of tears Because I have been writin' so many years And still unappreciated I be-