Winona of the Camp Fire Part 6

"No indeed," Winnie a.s.sured her. "It was you we wanted for something special."

"Well, I'm here," and Mrs. Bryan dropped an affectionate hand on the pretty brown head beneath her. "What is it, dear?"

"It's about camping out," spoke Winnie and Louise in a breath. "Do you think we can do it?"

Mrs. Bryan laughed.

"'Can we do it?' Why, my dears, that's just what we're for! What would be the fun of belonging to a Camp Fire if we couldn't go camping outdoors?"

"Oh, lovely!" cried Winnie. "Then you'll go, too?"

"I certainly will!" said Mrs. Bryan promptly. "It would have to be when Mr. Bryan was having his vacation, though, because it would never do to leave, not only my own hearth-fire, but my own poor helpless husband, untended. And, of course, it will not be till school is through."

"Oh, oh, it begins to sound almost real!" Winnie cried with a joyous little jounce that shook several pink blossoms from the tree.

"Just wait!" warned Louise from her lower limb. "When we start that twenty-five-mile hike, it will seem quite too real for comfort, take my word for it!"

"Don't you think we could hike to camp?" appealed Winnie.

"You'll have to practise shorter hikes first," was the answer. "If you do that there's no reason why we couldn't all walk the distance. I suppose we'll camp somewhere on the Wampoag River."

"Yes, that's what we thought," said the girls.

"Of course, we'd have to break the journey," Winnie went on.

"Well, yes, I think so," Mrs. Bryan answered. "Oh, here are Helen and Marie now. Oh, Helen! We're up in this tree! No, don't come up-all the seats are full!"

"Then come down!" called Helen. "We have something to show you."

The something proved to be a small and very scared garter-snake, that Helen was carrying in a forked stick.

"Poor little snakelet!" said Louise. "Do let him go home, Helen-I'm sure he's not grown-up yet."

So Helen put down the snake and off he went.

"Did you find your clothes?" Louise asked Marie rather superfluously, for she had on her sailor-suit, rather fresher-looking than it had been before.

"It was all done when we got there," said Marie, "but Edith's dress was harder to do-all those ruffles, you know-so Mary's still ironing it."

"Then we'd better sit here and wait for her," suggested Louise. "And oh, girls, we have a plan."

"A real plan, all hand-made?" mocked Helen. "Do tell us about it."

So then the camping-trip was discussed and votes taken about it. Helen, of course, could go. Marie was sure she would be allowed to.

"Mother says I stay in the house and read too much anyway," she said.

The other girls, drifting up one by one, were all wild over the idea.

Edith, in her freshly-laundered frock, was a little doubtful about the hike, but as she said, if she fainted from exhaustion she could take a train or a carriage or something the rest of the way.

They talked camping till it was time to go back and pack up things for the return trip. So the girls rose up from around the apple-tree, and stowed everything away in the baskets and satchels they had brought, and walked back to the trolley. First, though, they gave old Mary all the provisions they had left; cocoa, six rolls, and a generous half of the chocolate cake.

"That certainly was a life-sized cake!" breathed Winnie as she set it on Mary's kitchen table. "But it won't be as hard to eat as it was to carry, will it?"

"Sure ye needn't worry but what it'll get et," laughed Mary. "Many thanks, an' good luck to yez all."

They piled into the trolley, rather sleepy with the long day in the wind, and, except for Marie and Edith, rather crumpled. Winnie's blouse had a gra.s.s-stain, and Louise's was marked neatly across the back, like a j.a.panese stencil, with a wet brown bough-mark. There were also burrs, more or less, on everybody. But what were burrs?

Everybody heaved a sight of contentment as they settled down in their seats.

"It certainly was a lovely picnic!" they said.

"How beautifully fresh and clean Edith Hillis keeps her dresses!" said Mrs. Merriam to Winnie, as Edith turned to wave good-bye at the Merriam gate, and went down the street with Marie and Helen. "You'd think that pink dress had just been washed and ironed, and yet she's been out in the woods with the rest of you tousled-looking children all day!"

And Winona laughed so that it was at least two minutes before she could explain.

CHAPTER FIVE

"I'd advise you girls to hurry up with those squaw dresses," hinted Tom Merriam darkly, as he fled through the sitting-room on his way back from Scout-practice.

Winnie looked up. She and Helen and Louise were sitting in a row on the window-seat, sewing for dear life on their ceremonial gowns.

"We are hurrying all we can," she smiled. "These have to be done by to-night anyway."

"They are, nearly," chimed in Louise, shaking out her garment and observing its fringes with satisfaction. "What's he talking about, Win?"

"Tommy! Tom! Come back and tell us!" called his sister.

"Can't!" shouted Tom down the stairs. "You'll find out in time-you're going to need 'em, that's all!"

"What on earth do you suppose he means?" wondered Helen, as the last glimpse of Tom's khaki-clad form vanished up the stairs.

Winnie laughed as she finished off a seam.

"I don't believe it meant anything," she said. "Tom's always trying to get up excitements."

"_I_ think it means something!" said Louise, beginning to take out bastings. She was the best seamstress of the three, and consequently was done first. "Here, Helen, let me finish that sleeve for you while you do the other one."

She took up the sleeve, and jumped up and began to dance with the sleeve for a partner.

Something's goin' to happen, honey, Happen, honey, happen mighty soon!

"Oh, thank you!" said Helen gratefully, referring not to the song and dance, but to the aid. She hated sewing, and nothing but the Camp Fire requirements would ever have made her persevere till her gown was done.

Winnie did not mind sewing one way or the other, and by a queer contradiction harum-scarum Louise loved it.