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The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House; Or, The Magic Garden

by Hildegard G. Frey · English · Gutenberg #36833 · 341,356 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House; Or, The Magic Garden

Author: Hildegard G. Frey


        
Release date: July 24, 2011 [eBook #36833]
                Most recently updated: November 29, 2023

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; OR, THE MAGIC GARDEN ***




Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Roger Frank, Dave Morgan
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net





[Illustration: GLADYS TURNED THE CAR INTO THE FIELD AND STARTED AFTER
THE BULL AT FULL SPEED.]

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                          The Camp Fire Girls
                            At Onoway House

                                   OR

                            The Magic Garden

                          By HILDEGARD G. FREY

                               AUTHOR OF

          “The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods,” “The Camp
                 Fire Girls at School,” “The Camp Fire
                          Girls Go Motoring.”

                           A. L. BURT COMPANY

                          Publishers—New York

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                            Copyright, 1916
                         By A. L. Burt Company

                  THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE

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THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE




CHAPTER I.—ONOWAY HOUSE.


“What a lovely quiet summer we’re going to have, we two,” exclaimed
Migwan to Hinpoha, as they stood looking out of the window of their room
into the garden, filled with rows of young growing things and bordered
by a shallow stony river. Migwan, we remember, had come to spend the
summer on the little farm owned by the Bartletts and earn enough money
to go to college by selling vegetables. The house in the city had been
rented for three months, and her mother, Mrs. Gardiner, and her brother
Tom and sister Betty had come to the country with her. Hinpoha was
temporarily without a home, her aunt being away on her wedding trip with
the Doctor, and she was to stay all summer with Migwan.

“Yes, it will be lovely,” agreed Hinpoha. “I’ve never lived in such a
quiet place before. And I’ve never had you to myself for so long.”
Migwan replied with a hug, in schoolgirl rapture. She felt a little
closer to Hinpoha than she did to the other Winnebagos. As they stood
there looking out of the window together they heard the honk of an
automobile horn and the sound of a car driving into the yard, and ran
out to see who the guests were.

“Gladys Evans!” exclaimed Migwan, spying the new comers. “And Nyoda!
Welcome to our city!”

“Please mum,” said Gladys, making a long face, “could ye take in a poor
lone orphan what’s got no home to her back?”

“What’s up?” asked Migwan, laughing at Gladys’s tone.

“Mother and father started for Seattle to-day,” replied Gladys, “and
from there they are going to Alaska, where they will spend the summer. I
hinted that I was a good traveling companion, but they decided that
three was a crowd on this trip, and as I had done so well for myself
last summer they informed me that it was their intention to put me out
to seek my own fortune once more. So, hearing that there were pleasant
country places along this road, one in particular, I am looking for a
place to board for the summer.”

“Well, of all things!” exclaimed Migwan. “To think that we are to have
you with us this vacation after all, after thinking that you were going
to disport yourself in California! The guest chamber stands ready; ‘will
you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly.”

At this point “Nyoda,” Guardian of the Winnebago Camp Fire group,
formally known as Miss Kent, also advanced with a long face, holding her
handkerchief to her eyes. “Could you take in a poor shipwrecked sailor,”
she sobbed, “one whose ship went right down under her feet and left her
nothing to stand on at all?”

“It might even be arranged,” replied Migwan. “What is your tale of woe,
my ancient mariner?”

“My cherished landlady’s gone to the Exposition,” said Nyoda, with a
fresh burst of grief, “and I can’t live with her and be her boarder this
summer! It’s a cruel world! And me so young and tender!”

“Two flies in the guest chamber,” said Migwan, hospitably. “Thomas, my
good man, carry the boarders’ bags up to their room, for I see they have
brought them right with them.”

“Save the trouble of going back after them,” said Nyoda and Gladys, in
chorus. “We knew you couldn’t refuse to take us in.”

“If ever a maiden had a look on her face which said, ‘Come, come to this
bosom, my own stricken dear,’” continued Nyoda, “it’s yon poet who is
going to seed.”

“Going to seed!” exclaimed Migwan, “and this after I have just opened my
hospitable doors to you!”

“By going to seed, my innocent maid, I only meant to express in a veiled
and delicate way the fact that you were turning into a farmer,” said
Nyoda.

In spite of the fact that Migwan and Hinpoha had just expressed such
great pleasure at the prospect of being alone together for the summer,
they rejoiced in the arrival of Nyoda and Gladys as only two Winnebagos
could at the thought of having two more of their own circle under the
same roof with them, and their hearts beat high with anticipation of the
coming larks.

Supper was a merry meal indeed that night, eaten out on the screened-in
back porch. “We are seven!” exclaimed Nyoda, counting noses at the
table. “The mystic number as well as the poetic one. ‘Seven Little
Sisters;’ ‘The Seven Little Kids;’ ‘the seventh son of a seventh son.’
All mysterious things take place on the seventh of the month, and
something always happens when the clock strikes seven.” As she paused to
take breath the old-fashioned clock in the kitchen slowly struck seven.
The last stroke was still vibrating when there came a ring at the
doorbell. “What did I tell you?” said Nyoda. “Enter the villain.”

The villain proved to be Sahwah. She looked rather astonished to see
Nyoda and Gladys at the table with the family. “Oh, Migwan,” she said,
“could you possibly take me in for the summer? Mother got a telegram
to-day saying that Aunt Mary, that’s her sister in Pennsylvania, had
fallen down-stairs and broken both her shoulder blades. Mother packed up
and went right away to take care of her and the children. She hasn’t any
idea how long she’ll be gone. Father started for a long business trip
out west this week and Jim is camping with the Boy Scouts. If you have
room——” A shout of laughter interrupted her tale.

“Always room for one more,” said Migwan. “You’re the third weary pilgrim
to arrive.”

Sahwah looked at Nyoda and Gladys in astonishment. “You don’t mean that
you’re here for the summer, too?” When she heard that this was the truth
she twinkled with delight. “It’s going to be almost as much fun as going
camping together was last year,” she said, burying her nose in the mug
of milk which Migwan hospitably set before her.

“What do you call this house by the side of the road?” asked Nyoda after
supper, when they were all sitting on the porch. Mrs. Gardiner sat
placidly rocking herself, undisturbed by the unexpected addition of
three members to her family. This whole summer venture was in Migwan’s
hands, and she washed hers of the whole affair. Tom sat on the top step
of the porch, unnaturally quiet, with the air of a boy lost among a
whole crowd of girls. Betty, fascinated by Nyoda, sat at her feet and
watched her as she talked.

“It has no name,” said Migwan, in answer to Nyoda’s question.

“Then we must find one immediately,” said Nyoda. “I refuse to sleep in a
nameless place.”

“Did the place where you used to live have a name?” asked Hinpoha,
banteringly.

“It certainly did ‘have a name,’” replied Nyoda, with a twinkle in her
eye. Gladys caught her eye and laughed. She was more in Nyoda’s
confidence than the rest of the girls.

“What was the name?” asked Betty.

“It was Peacock Plaza,” said Nyoda, “painted on a gold sign over the
door, where all who read could run.”

“That wasn’t what you called it,” said Gladys.

“No, my beloved,” returned Nyoda, “from the character and appearance of
most of the inmates of the Widder Higgins’ establishment, I have been
moved to refer to it as ‘The Rookery.’”

“Now,” said Gladys sternly, when the laughter over this title had
subsided, “tell the ladies the real reason why you had to seek a new
boarding place so abruptly.”

“I told you before,” said Nyoda, “that my venturesome landlady went to
the Exposition and left me out in the cold.”

“That’s not the real reason,” said Gladys, severely. “If you don’t tell
it immediately, I will!”

“I’ll tell it,” said Nyoda submissively, alarmed at this threat. “You
see, it was this way,” she began in a pained, plaintive voice. “This
Gladys woman over here came up to take supper with me last night—only
she smelled the supper cooking in the kitchen and turned up her nose,
whereupon I was moved with compassion to cook supper for her in my
chafing-dish unbeknownst to the landlady, who has been known to frown on
any attempts to compete with her table d’hôte.”

“I never!” murmured Gladys. “She invited me to a chafing-dish supper in
the first place.”

“Well, as I was saying,” continued Nyoda, not heeding this interruption,
“to save her from starvation I dragged out my chafing-dish and made
shrimp wiggle and creamed peas, and we had a dinner fit for a king, if I
do say it as shouldn’t. The crowning glory of the feast was a big onion
which Gladys’s delicate appetite required as a stimulant. All went merry
as a marriage bell until it came to the disposal of that onion after the
feast was over, as there was more than half of it left. We didn’t dare
take it down to the kitchen for fear the Widder would pounce on us for
cooking in our rooms, and even my stout heart quailed at the thought of
sleeping ferninst that fragrant vegetable. Suddenly I had an
inspiration.” Here Nyoda paused dramatically.

“Yes,” broke in Gladys, impatient at her pause, “and she calmly chucked
it out of the second story window into the street!”

“All would still have been mild and melodious,” continued Nyoda, in a
solemn tone which enthralled her hearers, “if it hadn’t been for the
fact that the fates had their fingers crossed at me last night. How
otherwise could it have happened that at the exact moment when the onion
descended the old bachelor missionary should have been prancing up the
walk, coming to call on the Widder Higgins? Who but fate could have
brought it about that that onion should bounce first on his hat, then on
his nose, and then on his manly bosom?”

“And he never waited to see what hit him!” put in Gladys, for whom the
recital was not going fast enough. “He ran as if he thought somebody had
thrown a bomb at him.”

“And the Widder Higgins was standing behind the lace curtain watching
his approach with maidenly reserve,” resumed Nyoda, “and so had a box
seat view of the tragedy, and the last act of the drama was a moving
one, I can assure you.”

“Oh, Nyoda,” cried Hinpoha and Sahwah and Migwan, pointing their fingers
at her, “a nice person you are to be Guardian of the Winnebagos! Fine
example you are setting your youthful flock! You need a guardian worse
than any of us!”

“Do as you like with me,” said Nyoda, covering her face with her hands
in mock shame, whereupon Hinpoha and Migwan and Gladys fell upon her
neck with one accord.

“But we haven’t named this house yet,” said Nyoda, uncovering her face
and smoothing out her black hair.

“I thought of a name while you were telling about the onion,” said
Migwan. “It’s Onoway House.”

“What does that mean?” asked Nyoda.

“It’s a symbolic word, like Wohelo,” said Migwan. “It’s made from the
words, Only One Way. You see there was only one way of getting that
money to go to college and that was by coming here.”

“I think that is a very good name,” said Nyoda. “It is clever as well as
pretty. It sounds like the song, ‘Onaway, awake beloved,’ from
Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.”

“It sounds like the water going over the stones in the river,” said
romantic Hinpoha.

And so Onoway House was named.




CHAPTER II.—NEIGHBORS.


Onoway House stood on the Centerville Road, on a farm of about four
acres. All of the land was not worked, just the part that was laid out
as a garden and a small orchard of peach trees. The rest was open meadow
running down to the river. It had originally been a much larger farm—Old
Deacon Waterhouse’s place—but after his death it had been divided up and
sold in sections. Onoway House was the original home built by the deacon
when he bought the farm as a young man. It was a very old place, large
and rambling, and full of queer corners and passageways, and a big
echoing cobwebby attic, crowded with old furniture and trunks. The house
had been sold with all its furnishings at the Deacon’s death, and the
old things were still in the rooms when the Bartletts bought it
twenty-five years later. This made it unnecessary for the Gardiners,
when they came, to bring any of their own furniture. The Bartletts had
never lived on the place, hiring a caretaker to work the garden, and it
was the sudden departure of this man that had given Migwan her chance.

On either side of Onoway House was a farm of much larger proportions. To
the right there stood a big, homelike looking farmhouse painted white,
with porches and vines and a lawn in front running down to the road; on
the left was a smaller house, painted dark red, with a vegetable bed in
front. The garden at Onoway House had been given a good start and the
strawberries and asparagus and sundry other vegetables were ready to
market when Migwan took possession. The Winnebagos looked on the
gardening as a grand lark and pitched in with a will to help Migwan make
her fortune from the ground.

“Did you ever see anything half so delicate as this little new
pea-vine?” asked Migwan, puttering happily over one of the long beds.

“Or anything half so indelicate as this plantain bush?” asked Nyoda,
busily grubbing weeds. “‘Scarce reared above the parent earth thy tender
form,’” she quoted, “‘and yet with a root three times as long as the
hair of Claire de Lorme!’”

“Burns would relish hearing that line of his applied to weeds,” said
Migwan, laughing. “I wonder what he would have written if he had turned
up a plantain weed with his plough instead of a mountain daisy.”

“He wouldn’t have turned up a plantain weed,” said Nyoda, with a vicious
thrust of the long knife with which she was weeding, “it would have
turned him up.”

Migwan rose from the ground slowly and painfully. “Oh dear,” she sighed,
“I wonder if Burns ever got as stiff in the joints from close contact
with Nature as I am?”

“He certainly must have,” observed Nyoda, straining her muscles to
uproot the weedy homesteader, “haven’t you ever heard the slogan, ‘Omega
Oil for Burns?’”

Migwan laughed as she straightened up and held her aching back. “Earth
gets its price for what earth gives us,” she quoted, with a mixture of
ruefulness and humor.

“Listen to the poetry floating around on the breeze,” cried Sahwah,
passing them as she ran the wheel hoe up and down between the rows of
plants.

  “Come and trip it as you go
  On the light fantastic _hoe_,”

she sang. “Oh, I say,” she called over her shoulder, “do I have to hoe
up the surface of the river around the watercress, too?”

“You certainly do,” said Nyoda gravely, “and while you’re at it just
loosen up the air around that air fern of Mrs. Gardiner’s.” Sahwah made
a grimace and trundled off with her wheel hoe.

“Are you looking for any field hands?” called a cheery voice. The girls
looked up to see a white-haired, pleasant-faced old man of about seventy
years standing in the garden. “My name’s Landsdowne, Farmer Landsdowne,”
he said by way of introduction, with a friendly smile, which included
all the girls at once, “and I’ve come to have a look at the new
caretaker.”

“I’m the one,” said Migwan, stepping forward. “My name is Gardiner, and
I _am_ a gardener just now.”

“And are all these your sisters?” asked Farmer Landsdowne, quizzically.
Migwan laughed and introduced the girls in turn. They all liked Farmer
Landsdowne immediately. He walked up and down among the rows of
vegetables, and gave Migwan quantities of advice about soil cultivation,
insects and diseases and various other things pertaining to gardening,
for which she thanked him heartily. “Come over and see us,” he said
hospitably, as he took his departure, “I live there,” and he pointed to
the friendly looking white house on the right of Onoway House.

“Isn’t he a dear?” said Gladys, when he was gone. “I’m glad he’s our
next door neighbor. What do you suppose the people on the other side are
like?”

“Red isn’t nearly so pretty as white,” said Hinpoha, squinting at the
bare looking house to the left of them. As they looked a man came along
the edge of the land on which the red house stood. When he reached the
fence which separated the two farms he stood still for a few minutes
looking hard at Onoway House; then, seeing that the girls were looking
in his direction he turned and went back to the house.

The strawberries were ready to pick the first week that the girls were
at Onoway House, and Migwan had an idea about marketing them. She gave
each picker two baskets with instructions to put only the largest and
finest in one and the medium-sized and small ones in the other.

“What are you going to take them to town in?” asked Gladys. Although
there was a large barn on the place there were no horses, for Mr.
Mitchell, the last caretaker, had owned his own horse and taken it away
with him when he left.

“I’ll have to hire one from some of the neighbors,” said Migwan. Mr.
Landsdowne, when interviewed, would have been extremely glad to let them
take a horse and wagon, but this was a busy time and one of his teams
was sick so none could be spared. Feeling considerably more shy than she
had when she went to Mr. Landsdowne, Migwan went over to the red house.
As she went around the path to the back door she heard sounds of loud
talking in a man’s voice, which ceased as she came up on the porch. A
red faced man, (he almost matched the house, thought Migwan) came to the
door. “I am your new neighbor, Elsie Gardiner,” said Migwan, “and I
wonder if I could hire a horse and wagon from you three times a week to
take my vegetables to town.”

“So you’ve come to live on the place, have you?” said the man. “How long
are you going to stay?”

“All summer,” replied Migwan. She was not drawn to this man as she was
to Farmer Landsdowne. There was something about him that seemed to repel
her, although she could not have told what it was.

“Yes, I can let you have a horse and wagon,” he said, after a moment.
“When do you want it?”

“In about an hour,” said Migwan.

“I’ll send it over,” said the master of the red house. “My name’s
Smalley, Abner Smalley,” he said, as she took her leave.

In an hour the horse was at the door. It was brought over by a
pleasant-faced, light-haired lad of about seventeen, who introduced
himself as Calvin Smalley.

“You don’t look a bit like your father,” said Migwan.

“That’s not my father,” said Calvin, “that’s my uncle. My father’s dead.
He was Uncle Abner’s brother. I live with Uncle Abner and Aunt Maggie.
But the farm’s really mine,” he said proudly, as though he did not want
anyone to think he was living on charity even though he was an orphan,
“for Grandfather willed it to Father. Uncle Abner’s holding it in trust
for me until I’m of age.”

There was something so frank and manly about him that the girls liked
him at once. But if Calvin Smalley made such a good impression, the
horse which he had brought over for the girls to drive to town was less
fortunate. He was a hoary, moth-eaten looking creature that might easily
have been the first white horse born west of the Mississippi. In looking
at him you would be left with a lingering doubt in your mind as to
whether he had originally been white or had turned white with age. He
tottered so that each step threatened to be his last The wagon to which
he was fastened with a patched and rotten harness had probably been on
the scene some years before he was born. Migwan was much taken aback
when she inspected him. “I wouldn’t dare attempt to drive that beast all
the way to town,” she thought to herself. “He’d never get beyond the
first bend in the road. And if he did make it he’d go so slowly that my
berries would be out of season before I got to my customers.”

“Isn’t he rather—old?” she said, aloud. “I’m afraid he isn’t able to
work much.”

Calvin blushed fiery red and his eyes sought the ground in distress.
“It’s a shame,” he said, fiercely, “to try to hire out such a horse. I
don’t blame you for not wanting it.” Without another word he climbed
into the wagon and urged the feeble horse back to his home pasture.

“Didn’t you feel sorry for that poor boy?” said Migwan. “He felt ashamed
clear down to his shoes at having to bring that old wreck of a horse
over. I should have died if I had been in his place. He’s such a nice
looking boy, too. I suppose his uncle is one of those stingy, grasping
farmers who work everybody to death on the place. Anybody who plants
vegetables in his front yard must be stingy. That horse probably
couldn’t work on the farm any more so he thought he would make some
money out of it by hiring it to us. He must have thought girls didn’t
know a horse when they saw one. I didn’t exactly fall in love with Mr.
Smalley when I went over. He wasn’t a bit friendly like Mr. Landsdowne.”

“I foresee where we will have little to do with our neighbors in the Red
House,” said Sahwah. “I’m sorry, because I like to have lots of people
to visit, and like to have them running in at odd times, the way Mr.
Landsdowne appeared.”

“Let’s not have any hard feelings against Calvin Smalley, though,” said
Migwan. “He isn’t to blame for his uncle’s stinginess. I dare say he
isn’t very happy over there. Let’s have him over as often as we can.”

“Spoken like a true Winnebago,” said Nyoda, approvingly.

“But in the meantime,” said Migwan, in perplexity, “what are we going to
do for a horse and wagon to take our things to town?”

“Why not use our car?” said Gladys. The machine she had come in was
still in the barn at Onoway House. “It’s a good thing I learned to run
the big one—father said I might use it all summer if I would be a good
girl and stay at home when they went out west.”

“Could we get everything in?” asked Migwan.

“I think so,” said Gladys, “if we arrange them carefully.” The berries
and asparagus were loaded into the back of the machine and Gladys and
Migwan drove off.

“What shall we do now, Nyoda?” asked Hinpoha, after the two girls were
gone.

“I know what I’m going to do,” said Nyoda, moving in the direction of
her bedroom. “Now,” she said, as she threw herself on the bed with a
great yawn and stretch, “if anyone asks you what kind of a farmer I am
you may tell them that I’m a retired one!” Nyoda had been up since four
o’clock that morning, and was unused to such early rising. Hinpoha drew
down the shade to shut out the strong sunlight and tiptoed from the
room.

Gladys and Migwan stopped first at a large grocery store to inquire the
prices of strawberries and asparagus. The proprietor offered to buy the
whole load, but they would not sell, as they could get more for them by
peddling them at retail prices. Migwan examined the berries in the
store, and mentally fixed her middle grade berries at the same price
with them, and her finest grade ones at three cents higher.

“I’ve an idea,” said Gladys, “that some of mother’s friends would take
the berries at our own price.” Thus it was that Mrs. Davis, whose
speculations about the financial standing of the Evans family had
resulted in Gladys’s mother giving her such an elaborate party the
winter before, was surprised by a call from Gladys at ten o’clock in the
morning.

“Ah, good morning, my dear,” she said effusively, seating Gladys in the
parlor, “you have come to spend the day, I hope? Caroline is not up
yet—she was out late last night—but I shall make her get up right away.”

“Please don’t call Caroline,” said Gladys, “it’s you I came to see.”

“Oh, yes,” purred Mrs. Davis, “a message from your mother, I see.”

Gladys came to the point directly. “Have you canned your strawberries
yet, Mrs. Davis?”

“No,” replied Mrs. Davis, a little puzzled by the question.

“Would you like to buy some extra fine ones?” continued Gladys.

“Why, yes, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Davis, “who has any for sale?”

“I have,” said Gladys, “right out here in the machine.” Mrs. Davis
bought the whole eight quarts of large berries, paying fifteen cents a
quart straight, and ordered another eight quarts as soon as they should
be ripe. She also took two bunches of asparagus.

“Whatever are you doing, Gladys Evans?” she asked, curiously. “Peddling
berries?”

Gladys laughed at her evident mystification, and tingled with a desire
to keep her guessing. “We decided that I had better work this summer,”
she said, gravely, “so I am peddling berries for a friend of ours who is
a farmer. We will have to go on a farm ourselves, father said, if things
to eat get much dearer, so I am getting the practice. Wouldn’t you like
to be a regular customer, and have me bring you fresh vegetables and
fruit three times a week all through the summer?”

“Why, yes,” stammered Mrs. Davis in a daze, “of course, certainly.”

“All right, then,” said Gladys, “I’ll put you down.” She drove off in
high glee, and Mrs. Davis went into the house with a knowing smile on
her face. So the Evanses were losing money after all, and Gladys was
working this summer instead of traveling. Poor Gladys! She flew
up-stairs to communicate the news to her energetic daughter Caroline who
was just beginning to think about getting up. “I do feel so sorry for
poor Gladys,” she said. “You must be very kind to her whenever you meet
her.”

The rest of the berries and vegetables were disposed of to other friends
of Gladys’s and Migwan’s, all for topnotch prices, and there were at
least half a dozen names in the little note book when they started
homeward, of people who wanted to be supplied regularly. To some of her
friends Gladys told frankly whose fruit she was selling, and enlisted
their sympathies in the enterprise, while to others, like the Davises
and the Joneses, who were thorough snobs, she could not resist
pretending that she was actually working for a farmer to earn money. She
could not remember when she had enjoyed anything so much as the
expressions on the various faces when she made her little speech at the
door and offered her basket of fruit for inspection. “Wait until I tell
dad about it,” she chuckled to Migwan.

When they returned to Onoway House they found that during their absence
the girls, with the help of Mr. Landsdowne, had constructed a raft about
seven feet square, which they were setting afloat on the river. “Oh,
what fun!” cried Migwan when she saw it. “We needed another rapid vessel
to go boating in. There’s only one rowboat and we could never all go out
at once. What shall we call it?”

“Let’s name it the Tortoise,” said Hinpoha, “and call the rowboat the
Hare.”

“Oh, no,” said Sahwah, “let’s call it the Crab, because it travels sort
of sidewise.” Hinpoha held out for her name and Sahwah would not yield
hers.

“Contest of arms!” cried Nyoda. “Decide the question by a test of
physical prowess. Whichever one of you can pole the raft straight across
the river and back again without mishap in the shortest time may have
the privilege of naming it. Is that fair?”

“It is!” cried all the girls. Hinpoha and Sahwah, dressed in their
bathing-suits, prepared for the contest. Hinpoha had the first trial
because she had spoken first. Getting onto the raft and seizing the
stout pole, she pushed off from the shore. It was difficult to keep the
unwieldy craft going toward the opposite bank, because it had a strong
inclination to be carried down-stream with the current. Halfway across
she grounded on a rock and stood marooned. Sahwah watched the moments
tick off on Nyoda’s watch with ill-concealed delight while Hinpoha
pushed and strained on the pole to set the raft free. Finally she leaned
all her weight, which was no small item, on the pole and shoved with her
feet against the raft. It freed itself and glided away under her feet,
leaving her clinging to the pole in the middle of the river, while her
solid footing of a few moments ago swung into the current and floated
off beyond her reach. She looked so comical clinging to the pole, which
was fast losing its upright position under her weight, that the girls
were unable to help her for laughter, and a minute later she plunged
into the river with a mighty splash and swam disgustedly to shore.

“Our new boat will not be called the TORTOISE, it seems,” said Nyoda.
“Cheer up, Hinpoha, you have made yourself more immortal by the picture
you presented hanging over the water than you would have by naming the
raft. As Hinpoha, the Polehanger, you will have your portrait in the
Winnebago Hall of Fame. Now then, Sahwah, show her how it should be
done.”

Sahwah, ever more skilful in watercraft than Hinpoha, poled the raft
neatly across the stream to the opposite shore, paused a moment to see
that the feat was properly registered by the judges, and then started
back. Unlike Hinpoha, who forged blindly ahead, she felt carefully with
her pole to locate the points of the rocks and then avoided them. “Here
I come,” she hailed, when she was nearly back to the starting point, “on
my new raft, the CRAB.” Striking a heroic attitude with arms crossed and
one foot out ahead of the other she stepped to the edge of the raft,
when the floating floor tipped under her weight and she lost her balance
and fell head first into the water. The raft, released from her guiding
hand, went off with the current as it had done before. The look of
stupefaction on her face when she came up out of the water was even
funnier than the sight of Hinpoha marooned on the pole.

“The raft will not be named the CRAB, either, it seems,” said Nyoda.

“I don’t care what it’s called,” said Sahwah, her temper up, “I’m going
to pole that raft across the river.”

“So’m I,” said Hinpoha, her eye gleaming with resolution.

“Let’s do it together,” said Sahwah.

Thanks to Sahwah’s skill with the pole and Hinpoha’s judicious balancing
of the raft at the right places, they made the trip over and back
without mishap.

“Two heads are better than one,” said Sahwah, as they landed, “what
neither of us could do alone we can do in combination.”

“Then why not combine the names?” said Nyoda. “You have each won equal
rights in the contest.”

“Good idea,” said Sahwah. “We couldn’t find a better one than the
Tortoise-Crab.” So the name was painted across the floor of the raft,
this being the only space big enough.

Delighted with their new sport, the girls spent the whole evening on the
river, all five Winnebagos and Betty and Tom on the raft at once,
floating down-stream with the current and being towed up again by the
rowboat. It was bright moonlight, and the air was full of romance. At
one place along the riverbank there stood a high rock, grey on the
moonlit side and black on the other. “It reminds me of the Lorelei
Rock,” said Nyoda.

“Let’s play Lorelei,” said Sahwah.

“What do you mean?” asked Nyoda.

“Why,” answered Sahwah, “let Hinpoha climb up on the rock and comb her
hair and sing, and we come along on the raft and listen to her song and
run into the rock and upset. We want to go swimming before we go to bed
anyhow.”

“I can’t sing,” objected Hinpoha.

“That doesn’t make any difference,” said Sahwah, “sing anyway.”

So Hinpoha mounted the moonlit rock and shook her long, red hair down
over her shoulders, combing it out with her sidecomb and singing “Fairy
Moonlight,” while the raft floated lazily down-stream toward the base of
the cliff, its passengers sitting in attitudes of enraptured listening,
and pointing ecstatically to the figure silhouetted against the moon.
Sahwah adroitly steered the raft toward the rock and it struck with a
great jar. It disobligingly kept its balance, however, and refused to
upset. Sahwah deliberately rolled off the edge, tipping it as she did
so, and the rest went off on all sides, giggling and splashing in the
water. Hinpoha on the rock above wrung her hands in mock horror at the
effect of her song. That instant a figure came running at top speed
along the river bank. “I’ll save you, girls,” he shouted, jumping into
the water with all his clothes on. Catching hold of Migwan, who was
hanging on to the raft, he pulled her out of the water and set her on
the shore. It was Calvin Smalley, their neighbor from the Red House.

“Oh,” gasped Migwan, trying not to laugh at him, “I thank you ever so
much, but we’re not really drowning. We upset the raft on purpose.”

“Upset it on purpose!” said Calvin, in astonishment.

“Yes,” answered Migwan, “we were playing Lorelei, you know.”

Then Calvin noticed for the first time that the victims of the upset
were all dressed in bathing-suits, and that they seemed to be very much
at home in the water. “It looked like a dreadful smashup,” he said, “and
I forgot that the river isn’t very deep here. Do you generally play such
quiet games?”

“Sometimes we play much more quiet ones,” said Sahwah meaningly.

“It was too bad to frighten you so,” said Nyoda. “We’ll have to warn
spectators the next time we do anything. We’ll have to have a flag that
says ‘Stunt coming; look out for the splash!’ and whoever runs may
read.” At this moment Hinpoha jumped from the rock, out into the middle
of the stream, where it was deep, swam under water toward the bank, and
came up suddenly beside Calvin so that he was quite startled.

“Say,” he said, looking around at the group of girls who were doing
various astonishing things, “do you belong to the circus?”

The girls laughed at this inquiry. “Oh, no,” said Migwan, “we are only
Camp Fire Girls.”

“Camp Fire Girls?” said Calvin. “I’ve heard of them, but I never knew
any. Is that why you call each other by such funny names?”

“Yes,” answered Migwan, and she told him their names and their meanings.

“It must be great fun to be a Camp Fire Girl,” said Calvin thoughtfully.

“Come for a ride on the raft with us,” said Migwan, “we are going back
now. We aren’t going to upset again,” she added reassuringly, “and if we
did you couldn’t get any wetter.” Calvin smiled at the pleasantry, but
said he must be going in. He was on his way home when he saw the raft
upset. The Lorelei Rock was just on the other side of the Smalley farm.
He bade them a friendly good-night, promising to come over to Onoway
House soon, and took his way home across the fields.

“What a nice boy he is,” said Migwan. “He wasn’t a bit cross when he
found that the joke was on him, as some would have been.”

Migwan woke up in the night and could not go to sleep again immediately.
As she lay smiling to herself about the fun they had had with the raft
that evening, she heard a sound as of something dropped on the attic
floor above her room, followed by a faint creaking as of someone walking
over bare boards. She clutched Hinpoha’s arm and woke her up. “There’s
someone in the attic,” she whispered. Hinpoha yawned.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said.

“There it is again,” said Migwan, “listen.” Again there came a faint
creak, accompanied by a far-away rustle as of crinkling paper.

“It’s mice,” said Hinpoha, “or maybe rats. They get between the walls
and make noises that way.”

Migwan breathed a sigh of relief and composed herself to slumber again.
“I suppose these dreadfully old houses are just overrun with things of
that kind,” she said. “But for a moment it did give me a scare.”




CHAPTER III.—OPHELIA.


“They’ve come! They’ve come!” shrieked Migwan, running into the
dining-room where the rest of the family were peacefully finishing their
breakfast.

“Who’ve come?” said Nyoda, excitedly, “the Mexicans?”

“The bean weevils,” said Migwan, tragically. “Mr. Landsdowne said to
watch out for them, although they were hardly ever found up north, but
they’re here. He just found a bush with them on.”

“To arms!” cried Sahwah, springing up. “The Flying Column to the rescue!

  “Forward the Bug Brigade,
  Is there a leaf unsprayed?”——

Here she tripped over the carpet and her Amazonian shout came to an
abrupt end.

“Where are the weevils?” she asked, when they had all gathered around
the bean patch.

“On here,” said Migwan, indicating a hill of beans.

“Oh,” said Sahwah, in a disappointed tone.

“Where did you think they were?” asked Migwan.

“From the noise you were making,” said Sahwah, “I expected to find them
drawn up in battle lines, waiting to charge the garden with fixed
bayonets.”

“They’ll do just as much damage as if they had bayonets,” remarked
Farmer Landsdowne.

“Do be cautious in approaching such deadly foes,” said Sahwah in a tone
of mock anxiety, as Migwan came along with the sprayer, “take careful
aim, and don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

“I’ll spray you in a minute if you don’t keep still,” said Migwan.

“What must it feel like to be a weevil,” said Gladys, musingly, “and be
hunted down remorselessly wherever you went?”

“Gladys has gone over to the side of the enemy,” said Sahwah, teasingly.
“There is the subject for your next book, Migwan, ‘Won by a Weevil’, by
the author of ‘Enthralled by a Thrip’! It must have been weevils
Tennyson meant when he wrote ‘The Lotus Eaters.’”

“Battle over?” asked Hinpoha, as Migwan laid down the sprayer. “Then
let’s celebrate the victory. Cheer the bean crop.” To the tune of “We
will, We will Cheer,” they sang,

  “Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil,
  Weevil cheer our bean crop,
  Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil,
  Weevil cheer our bean crop,
  Weevil cheer our bean crop,
  Weevil cheer our bean crop,
  Weevil cheer our bean crop, O!”

“Don’t crow too soon,” said Farmer Landsdowne, picking up his sprayer
preparatory to taking his departure, “there may be twice as many on
to-morrow.”

“I flatly refuse to worry about to-morrow,” said Nyoda, “‘sufficient
unto the day is the weevil thereof!’”

Calvin Smalley, working in the vegetable patch in front of the Red
House, heard that cheer and paused in his work to look over at the other
garden. He was wondering what was so funny about gardening. “I wish,” he
sighed, as he turned back to his endless task, “that those girls were my
sisters!”

Gladys went into town alone when the last of the strawberries were ripe,
for none of the other girls could be spared that day. The squash bugs
had descended on the garden and all hands were required on deck to save
the squash and melon vines from being eaten alive. On the way she passed
Mr. Smalley, driving the identical wreck of a horse he had tried to hire
out to the girls. He had a heavy load of vegetables, and the poor,
broken down creature would hardly move it from the spot. He started
nervously as the machine passed him on the narrow road, and Mr. Smalley
pulled him up sharply and brought the whip down on his back with a heavy
cut. “Ain’t you used to automobiles yet, you stupid brute?” he growled.

Gladys delivered the eight quarts of extra large berries to Mrs. Davis
first. “Wouldn’t you like to stay in town and have lunch with us and go
to the theatre afterward?” Mrs. Davis said in such a patronizing tone
that Gladys quite started, and then laughed inwardly.

“I’m sorry, but I haven’t sold all of my berries yet,” she answered
soberly, “and I have to hurry back and help pick bugs.”

“Pick bugs?” exclaimed Mrs. Davis, in a horrified tone.

“Yes,” said Gladys, with a relish, “nice juicy, striped bugs that crunch
beautifully when you step on them.”

“Oh, oh,” said Mrs. Davis, putting her hands over her ears. “Give my
love to your poor, dear mamma,” she said gushingly, when Gladys was
departing. “Tell her she has my fullest sympathy.” As Gladys’s poor,
dear mamma was, at that moment, seated on the observation platform of a
luxurious railway coach, speeding through the mountains of Washington
while Mrs. Davis was obliged to stay in town for the time being, she was
not really in as much need of Mrs. Davis’s sympathy as that lady fondly
imagined.

Gladys disposed of the remaining berries to other amused or patronizing
friends, and then decided to look up a laundress she knew of and get her
to come out to Onoway House once in a while to do the heavy washing. The
street where the laundress lived was narrow and crowded with children
playing in the middle of the road, and progress was rather slow. One
little girl in particular made Gladys extremely nervous by running
across the street right in front of the machine and daring her to run
over her, shaking her fists at her and making horrible grimaces. She got
across the street once in safety and then started back again. Just then
a small child sprang up from the ground right under the very wheels of
the machine and Gladys turned sharply to one side. The fender struck the
saucy little girl who was daring her to run over her and she rolled
under the car, screaming. Gladys jammed down the emergency brake with a
jerk that almost wrenched the machinery of the automobile asunder. White
as a sheet she jumped out and picked the girl up. In an instant an angry
crowd of women and children had surrounded the machine. “Darn yer!”
cried the child shrilly, shaking a dirty fist in Gladys’s face, while
the other arm hung limp. “I thought yer didn’t dast run into me.”

“Get into the car,” said Gladys, terrified, “and I’ll take you home.”

“I dassent go home,” shrieked the child, “Old Grady’ll lick the tar out
of me if I go home without sellin’ me papers.”

“Then let me take you to the hospital, or somewhere,” said Gladys,
anxious to get away from the threatening crowd.

“What’s the matter?” asked one voice after another, as the tenements
poured their human contents into the street.

“Ophelia’s run over,” explained a powerful Irish woman, with a shawl
over her head, who kept her hand on the handle of the car door. “Lady
speedin’ run her down like a dog.” An angry murmur rose from the crowd.
Gladys shook in her shoes and wondered if she dared start the car with
all those children hanging on the front of it. She looked around
helplessly for someone who would help her out of her difficulty. Just
then a policeman turned into the street, attracted by the crowd.

“Cheese it, de cop!” screamed a ragged gamin, who stood on the step of
the car, and the women and children began to slink into the doorways.
Gladys waited until he came up, and then explained the whole matter and
asked where the nearest hospital was.

“Can’t blame you for hitting that brat,” said the policeman, “she’s the
terror of drivers for two blocks.” Ophelia stuck out her tongue at him.
Gladys drove her to the hospital where it was discovered that the left
arm was broken below the elbow. Painful as the setting may have been
there was “never a whang out of her,” as the doctor remarked, although
she hung on tightly to Gladys’s white sleeve with her dirty hand. Her
waist was taken off to find the extent of the damage, and Gladys was
frightened to see that the other arm was fearfully bruised and
scratched, and there was a ring of purple and green blotches around her
neck like a collar.

“She must have been thrown down harder than I thought,” said Gladys to
the nurse.

“Thrown down nothin’,” answered Ophelia, “Old Grady did that the other
day when I threw a stone through the winder.” And she held up the
mottled arm where all might see.

“Oh,” said Gladys, with a shudder, “cover it up.” Putting Ophelia into
the machine again she drove back to the scene of the accident and
entered the squalid tenement in which the child said she lived.

“Won’t Old Grady beat me up though, when she finds I’ve busted me wing,”
said Ophelia, as they mounted the rickety stairs. Hardly had she spoken
when the door at the head of the stairs flew open and a large,
red-faced, coarse-looking woman strode out and shook her fist over the
banisters.

“I’ll fix ye fer stayin’ out afther I tell ye ter come in, ye little
devil,” she shouted. “I’ll break every bone in yer body. Gimme the money
for the papers first.”

“Go chase yerself,” said Ophelia, standing still on the stairs with a
spiteful gleam in her eye, “there ain’t no money. I ain’t had time ter
peddle this afternoon.”

“What yer mean, no money?” screamed the woman. “Just wait till I get me
hands on yer!”

Gladys shrank back against the wall in terror, then collecting herself
she thrust Ophelia behind her and faced the angry woman. “Ophelia has
had an accident,” she explained. “I ran over her with my machine and
broke her arm.” The woman brushed past her and grabbed Ophelia by the
shoulder. Overcome with fury at the thought that her household drudge
would be of no use to her for several weeks, she boxed her ears again
and again, calling her every name she could think of. Finally she let go
of her with a push that sent Ophelia stumbling down half a dozen stairs.

“Get out o’ my sight!” she shrieked. “Do yer think I’m going ter house
an’ feed a worthless brat that ain’t doin’ nothin’ fer her keep? Get out
an’ live in the streets yer like ter play in so well!” With a final
exclamation she strode back into the room and slammed the door after
her. Ophelia picked herself up from the step, shaking her one useful
fist at the closed door at the head of the stairs.

Gladys was inexpressibly shocked at this heartless treatment of an
injured child. “Come—come home with me,” she said faintly. Seated beside
her in the big car, Ophelia ran out her tongue and made faces at the
jeering children who watched her ride away.

“This is the life!” she exclaimed, as she settled herself comfortably in
the cushioned seat. People in the streets turned to stare at the dirty
little ragamuffin riding beside the daintily gowned young girl, shouting
saucily at the passers-by, or making jeering remarks in a voice audible
above the noise of traffic.

The girls were all out in front watching for her as Gladys drove up. It
was past supper time and they were wondering what had become of her.
What a chorus of surprised exclamations arose when Ophelia was set down
in their midst! Gladys explained the situation briefly and asked Migwan
if they could not keep her there awhile. Migwan consented hospitably and
went off to find a place for her to sleep, while Gladys proceeded to
wash the accumulated layers of dirt from Ophelia’s face and divest her
of her spotted rags. She came to the table in a kimono of Gladys’s, for
there were no clothes in the house that would fit her. She was nine
years old, she said, but small and thin for her age, with arms and legs
like pipe-stems which fairly made one shiver to look at. She had a
little, pinched, sharp featured face, cunning with the knowledge of the
world gained from her life on the streets, big grey-green eyes filled
with dancing lights, and black hair that tumbled around her face in
tangled curls, which Gladys was not able to smooth out in her hasty
going over before supper.

Not in the least shy in her new surroundings, nor complaining of
discomfort from the broken arm, she sat at the table and kept up a
cheerful stream of talk, racy with slang and the idiom of the streets.
Hinpoha was instantly dubbed “Firetop.” “Is it red inside of yer head?”
she asked, after gazing steadfastly at Hinpoha’s hair for several
minutes. To all questions about her father and mother she shrugged her
shoulders. “Ain’t never had any,” she replied. “I was born in the Orphan
Asylum. Old Grady got me there.” Here a spasm of rage distorted her face
at the remembrance of Old Grady’s ministrations, followed by a wicked
chuckle when she thought how that tender guardian’s plan for turning her
out homeless into the street had been frustrated by this lucky stroke of
fate. What her last name was she did not know. “I guess I never had
one,” she said cheerfully. “I’m just Ophelia.” Gladys was much
distressed because she would not drink milk. “No,” she said, shoving it
away, “that’s for the babies. Gimme coffee or nothin’.” Disdaining the
aid of fork or spoon, she conveyed her food to her mouth with her
fingers. “Say,” she said, after staring fixedly at Nyoda in a
disconcerting way she had, “are yer teeth false?”

“Certainly not!” said Nyoda indignantly. “What made you think so?”

“They’re so white and even,” said Ophelia. “Nobody ever had such teeth
of their own.”

“Did you bleach yer hair?” she asked next, turning her attention to
Gladys’s pale gold locks. Gladys merely laughed.

Ophelia waxed more loquacious as she filled up on the good things on the
table. “Did yer husband leave yer?” she inquired sociably of Mrs.
Gardiner. Gladys rose hastily and bore Ophelia away to her room, where a
cot had been set up for her.

“Three flies in the spider’s parlor,” said Migwan.

“And one in the ointment, or my prophetic soul has its signals crossed,”
said Nyoda.




CHAPTER IV.—THE MEDICINE LODGE.


Nyoda’s prophetic soul proved to be a true prophet, and there were
trying times to follow the establishment of Ophelia at Onoway House.
That very first night Nyoda woke with a strangling sensation to find
Ophelia sitting on her chest. “I want ter sleep in the bed wid yer,” she
said, in answer to Nyoda’s startled inquiry. “I’m afraid ter sleep
alone.” She had been trying to creep in between Nyoda and Gladys and
lost her balance, which accounted for her position when Nyoda woke up.

“But there’s nothing in the room to hurt you,” Nyoda said, reassuringly.

“It’s them hop-toads,” she wailed, stopping her ears against the pillow,
“they give me th’ pip with their everlastin’ screechin’. They sound
right under the bed.” Gladys woke up in time to hear her and offered to
take the cot herself and let Ophelia sleep with Nyoda.

The next morning Gladys made a hurried trip to town to buy Ophelia some
clothes, while Nyoda washed her hair, much to Ophelia’s disgust. The
curls were so matted that it was impossible to comb them out and there
was nothing left to do but cut them short. When all the foreign coloring
matter had been removed and the hair had begun to dry in the warm wind,
Nyoda stopped beside her in bewildered astonishment. On the top of her
head, just about in the center, there was a circular patch of light hair
about three inches in diameter. All the rest was black. “Ophelia,” said
Nyoda, looking her straight in the eyes, “how did you bleach the top of
your hair?”

“It’s a fib,” said Ophelia, politely, “I never bleached it.”

“Then somebody did,” said Nyoda.

“Didn’t neither,” contradicted Ophelia.

“We’ll see whether they did or not,” said Nyoda, “when the hair grows
out from the roots.”

Dressed in the pretty clothes Gladys bought for her she was not at all a
bad looking child, but her language and her knowledge of evil absolutely
appalled the dwellers at Onoway House. “Did yer old man beat yer up?”
she asked sympathetically of Mrs. Landsdowne, when that gentle lady came
to call. Mrs. Landsdowne had run into the barn door the day before and
had a bruise on her forehead.

Ophelia’s sins in the garden were too numerous to chronicle. When set to
weeding she pulled weeds and plants impartially, working such havoc in a
short time that she was forbidden to touch a single growing thing. Her
ignorance of everything pertaining to the country was only equalled by
her curiosity.

“What would happen to the cow if you didn’t milk her?” she demanded of
Farmer Landsdowne, as she watched him milking one day. “She’d bust, I
suppose,” she went on, answering her own question while Farmer
Landsdowne was scratching his head for a reply. “Say, are yer whiskers
fireproof?” she asked, scrutinizing his white beard with interest.
“Because if they ain’t yer don’t dast smoke that pipe. The Santa Claus
in Lefkovitz’s window told me so. Say, what do you do when they get
dirty?”

Leaving her alone in the barn for a few moments he heard a mighty
squawking and cackling and hastened to investigate. He found the old
setting hen running distractedly around one of the empty horse stalls,
frantically trying to get out, while Ophelia was holding the big rooster
on the nest with her one hand, in spite of the fact that he was flapping
his wings and pecking at her furiously. “He ought to do some of the
settin’,” she remarked, when taken to task for her act, “he ain’t doin’
nothin’ fer a livin’.”

The squash bugs had descended once more, and were making hay of the
squash bed while the sun shone, and the girls worked a whole, long weary
afternoon clearing the vines. As the bugs were picked off they were put
into tin cans to be destroyed. Tired to death and heartily sick of
handling the disagreeable insects the girls quit the job at sundown,
having just about cleared the patch. They gathered in Migwan’s big room
before supper to make some plans for the Winnebago Ceremonial Meeting
which was to be held at Onoway House on the Fourth of July. Ophelia
promptly followed them and demanded admittance. “You can’t come in,”
said Migwan rather crossly, for there were secrets being told which they
did not want her to hear.

Ophelia wandered off in search of amusement. Mr. Bob had fled at her
approach and was hiding under the porch, and Betty had been admitted to
the council of the Winnebagos, for Migwan and Nyoda had decided at the
beginning of the summer that if there was to be any peace with her she
would have to be a party to all their doings, and as she was to be put
into a Camp Fire Group in the fall she was given this opportunity of
learning to qualify for the various honors by watching the intimate
workings of the Winnebago group. Tom was over at the Landsdowne’s and
Mrs. Gardiner was getting supper and invited Ophelia to stay out of the
kitchen when she came down to see if there was any fun to be had there.
Ophelia had been allowed to help once or twice and had broken so many
dishes with her one-handed way of doing things that Mrs. Gardiner lost
all patience and refused to have her around.

Strolling out into the garden in her quest for something to do she came
upon the big tin pail containing all the squash bugs, which Migwan
intended taking over to Farmer Landsdowne for disposal. A mischievous
impulse seized her, and taking off the cover she emptied the bugs back
into the bed, where they crawled eagerly back to their interrupted feast
of tender leaves. When the prank was discovered Migwan sank wearily down
beside the patch she had tried so hard to save from destruction.
“Whatever possessed you?” said Nyoda, seizing Ophelia with the firm
determination of boxing her ears. But Ophelia shrank back with such
evident expectation of a blow that Nyoda loosened her hold.

“Well, ain’t yer goin’ ter punish me?” asked Ophelia, still eyeing her
warily for an unexpected attack, with the attitude of an animal at bay.
To her surprise there were no blows forthcoming, but she was ordered to
pick off all the squash bugs again, and before the job was done she had
plenty of time to regret her rash act. All that beautiful long summer
evening, when the girls were on the front porch playing games and
shouting with laughter, she sat in the squash bed, undoing the mischief
she had done. When bed time came she was told to sleep in the cot by
herself, and Gladys and Nyoda took no notice of her at all, whispering
secrets to each other in bed with never a word to her. The next morning
she was awakened at four o’clock and set to work again, and so missed
the merry breakfast with the family. Gladys had promised to take her to
town in the machine that day, but, of course, this pleasure was
forfeited, as the beetles were not yet all picked off. The family was
all invited over to the Landsdowne’s for supper that night, but by four
o’clock Ophelia realized with a pang of disappointment that she would
not even be through by five. Accustomed as she was to brutal treatment,
this was the worst punishment she had ever experienced, but she realized
that she deserved it and was gamely paying the price without a murmur.
When Migwan came out shortly after four and helped her so that she would
be done in time to go to Farmer Landsdowne’s with the others her
penitence was complete.

Preparations for the big Fourth of July Council meeting were going
forward apace. It was to be a house party, they decided, and the other
three Winnebagos, Nakwisi, Chapa and Medmangi, were to be invited to
spend the night. Sleeping quarters caused some debate, when Sahwah had a
brilliant idea. “Let’s build a tepee,” she said, “and all sleep on the
ground inside of it with our feet toward the center. Then we can hold
the Council Fire in there and dance a war dance around the fire and make
shadows on the sides to scare the natives.” No sooner said than begun.
The front lawn was chosen as the site of the tepee, as that was the only
spot big enough. Dick, Tom and Mr. Landsdowne set the poles in a circle
to make the supporting framework, and the girls made the covering of
heavy sail cloth, which fitted snugly over the poles and had an opening
in the center of the top, and another one lower down for the entrance.
When done it would easily accommodate fifteen or sixteen persons. An
iron kettle was sunk into the ground in the center of the tepee. This
would hold sticks of wood soaked in kerosene, which is the secret of a
quickly lighted council fire, and also the alcohol and salt mixture
which is an indispensable part of all ghost story telling parties. The
grass around the kettle was pulled up, leaving a ring of bare earth,
which would prevent accident from the fire spreading.

The whole thing was completed two days before the Fourth. A big sign,
WINNEBAGO MEDICINE LODGE, was hung over the entrance. Underneath it a
sign in smaller letters proclaimed that at the Fourth Sundown of the
Thunder Moon the big medicine man Face-Toward-the-Mountain would “make
medicine” in the lodge for the benefit of the Winnebago tribe and their
paleface friends. The “paleface friends” referred to were Mrs. Gardiner,
Betty and Tom and Ophelia, Mr. and Mrs. Landsdowne and Calvin Smalley,
who were invited to see the show.

“It’s a shame Aunt Phœbe and the Doctor have to miss it,” said Hinpoha.

It was rumored that a real Indian princess would be present at the
medicine making, i.e., Sahwah in her Indian dress that Mr. Evans had
sent her from Canada, and excitement ran high among the invited guests
as hint after hint trickled out as to the elaborateness of the
ceremonial, which was to eclipse anything yet attempted in that line by
the Winnebagos, which was saying a great deal. Migwan had been seen
doing a great deal of surreptitious writing of late and at bed time the
Winnebagos had taken to congregating in the big, back bedroom and
locking the doors, and soon there would issue forth sounds of much
talking and laughter, so that a really experienced listener would almost
suspect there was a play in process of rehearsal. “Let’s reh—you know,”
said Migwan to Gladys, when the last touches had been put on the tepee,
suddenly cutting her words short and making a hand sign to finish her
sentence.

“Do you mind if I don’t just now,” answered Gladys, “I have such a bad
headache I think I will lie down for a while. It must have been the sun
glaring on the white canvas.”

“I have one too,” said Hinpoha, “it must have been the sun. I’ll come
later when Gladys does,” she said to Migwan, with an aggravatingly
mysterious hand sign.

At supper time Ophelia refused to eat and moped in a manner quite
foreign to her. Her eyes were red and it looked as though she had been
crying. After supper she still sat by herself in a corner of the porch
and made no effort to trap the girls into telling their plans for the
Fourth as she had been doing all day. “Come and play Blind-Man’s-Buff on
the lawn,” called Migwan. Ophelia raised her head and looked at her
listlessly, but made no effort to join in the merry game.

“Don’t you feel well?” asked Nyoda, noting her languid manner. “Child,
what makes your eyes so red?” she said, turning Ophelia’s face toward
the light.

“I don’t know,” said Ophelia, wriggling out of her grasp, and putting
her head down on her knee.

“Come, let me put you to bed,” said Nyoda. “I’m afraid you’re going to
be sick.” In the morning Ophelia’s face was all broken out and Nyoda
groaned when she realized the truth. Ophelia had the measles. All
preparations for the Fourth of July Ceremonial had to be called off, and
the three girls in town telephoned not to come out. The sight of the
tepee and all the plans it suggested called out a wail of despair every
time the girls went out in the yard. On the morning of the Glorious
Fourth Gladys woke to find herself spotted like a leopard.

“That must be the reason why I had such a fearful headache the other
day,” she said, as she took her place with the other sick one, half
amused and wholly disgusted at herself for having fallen a victim.

“I had a headache too,” said Hinpoha, in alarm, “I hope I’m not coming
down with them. I’ve had them once.”

“That doesn’t help much,” said Nyoda, “for I had them three times.”
Hinpoha’s fears were realized, and by night there was a third case
developed. And so, instead of a grand council on the Fourth of July
there was real medicine making at Onoway House. None of the sufferers
were very ill, although they must remain prisoners, and they had such a
jolly time in the “contagious disease ward” that Migwan and Sahwah, who
were finding things rather dull on the outside, wished fervently that
they had taken the measles too.

As soon as the three invalids were pronounced entirely well there was a
celebration held in honor of the occasion in the tepee. At sundown Nyoda
went around beating on a tin pan covered with a cloth in lieu of a
tom-tom, which was always the signal for the tribe to come together.
Tom, as runner, was dispatched to fetch the Landsdownes and Calvin
Smalley. When the tribe came trooping in answer to the call, followed by
the guests, they were marched in solemn file around the lawn and into
the tepee. Inside there was a fire kindled in the center, with a circle
of ponchos and blankets spread around it on the ground. “Bless my soul,
but this is cozy,” said Farmer Landsdowne, dropping down on a poncho and
stretching himself comfortably.

“Now, what shall we do?” asked Nyoda, who was mistress of ceremonies,
“play games or tell stories?”

“Tell stories,” begged Migwan, “we haven’t ‘wound the yarn’ for an age.”

“All right,” agreed Nyoda, “shall we do it the way several of the Indian
tribes do?”

“How do they do it?” asked Migwan.

“Well,” said Nyoda, “there is a tradition among certain tribes that if
anyone refuses to tell a story when he is asked he will grow a tail like
a donkey. Sometimes, however, they do not wait for Nature to perform
this miracle, but fasten a tail themselves onto the one who will not
entertain the crowd when he is bidden, and he must wear it until he
tells a story. Their way of asking one of their number to tell one is to
remark ‘There is a tail to you,’ as a delicate way of expressing the
fate that will be his if he refuses.”

“Oh, what fun!” cried Sahwah.

“And now Gladys,” said Nyoda, “‘there is a tail to you.’”

Gladys placed more wood on the fire, which was burning low, and returned
to her seat on the blanket. “Did I ever tell you,” she began, “about my
Aunt Beatrice? She and my Uncle Lynn were visiting here from the West
with my little cousin Beatrice, who was only six months old. They were
staying in a big hotel downtown. One night they went to a party, leaving
Beatrice in their room at the hotel in the care of her nurse. At the
party there was a fortune teller who amused the guests by reading their
palms. When it came my aunt’s turn the woman said to her, ‘You have had
one child, who is dead.’ Everybody laughed because they knew Aunt
Beatrice had never lost a baby, and little Beatrice was safe and sound
in the hotel that very minute. But it worried my aunt almost to death,
and she couldn’t enjoy herself the rest of the evening.

“Finally she said to my uncle, ‘I can’t stand it any longer, I must go
home,’ so they left the party just as the guests were sitting down to a
midnight supper, and everybody made fun of her for being such a fussy
young mother. When they got downtown they found the hotel in flames and
the streets blocked for a long distance around. Aunt Beatrice finally
broke through the fire lines and ran right past the firemen who tried to
keep her out, into the burning building, and fought her way up-stairs
through the smoke to her room, where she could hear a baby crying. She
was blind from the smoke and could hardly see where she was going, but
she picked up a rug from the floor, wrapped it around the baby and
carried her out in safety. When she got outside they found it was not
little Beatrice at all that she had saved, it was a strange baby. She
had mistaken the room up-stairs in the smoke and carried out someone
else’s child. The building collapsed right after she came out and no one
could go in any more. Beatrice and her nurse were lost in the fire.” A
murmur of horrified sympathy went around the circle in the tepee. “And,”
continued Gladys, “my Aunt Beatrice has never been herself since. She
can’t bear even to see a baby.”

“Is that the reason you wouldn’t let me bring Marian Simpson’s baby over
the day she left it with me to take care of?” asked Hinpoha. “I remember
you said your aunt was visiting you.”

“Yes, that was why,” said Gladys. “And now, Mr. Landsdowne,” she added,
“‘there is a tail to you!’”

Farmer Landsdowne stared thoughtfully into the fire for a moment, and
then a reminiscent smile began to wrinkle the corners of his eyes.
“Would you like to hear a story about the old house?” he asked.

“You mean Onoway House?” asked Migwan.

Mr. Landsdowne nodded. “Only it seems strange to be calling it ‘Onoway
House.’ It has always been known as ‘Waterhouse’s Place,’ because old
Deacon Waterhouse built it. Well, like most old houses, there are
different stories told about it, but whether they are true or not, no
one knows. People are so apt to believe anything they want to believe.
Well, I started out to tell you the story about the gas well. But before
I tell you about the gas well I suppose I ought to tell you about the
Deacon’s son. Mind you, the things I am telling you are only what I have
heard from the folks around here; I never knew Deacon Waterhouse. He was
dead and the house empty before the farm was split up, and it wasn’t
until the part that I now own was offered for sale that I ever came into
this neighborhood. Well, to return to the Deacon’s son. They say that
there never was a finer looking young fellow than Charley Waterhouse. He
was a regular prince among the country boys. But he didn’t care a rap
about farming. All he wanted to do was read; that and take the horse and
buggy and drive to town. The old Deacon was terribly disappointed, of
course, for Charley was his only son, and he couldn’t see that the boy
wasn’t cut out to be a farmer. He railed about his love of books and
wouldn’t give him money for schooling. Charley stood it until he was
eighteen and then he ran away, after forging the Deacon’s name to a
check. The folks around here never saw him again. Mrs. Waterhouse died
of a broken heart, they say. They also say,” he added with a twinkle in
his eye, “that she died before she had her attic cleaned, and that her
ghost comes back at night and sets the old furniture straight up there.”
Migwan and Hinpoha exchanged glances.

“Now about the gas well,” resumed Mr. Landsdowne. “The Deacon was
digging for water on the farm. The old well had dried up during a long,
hot spell and he was bound to go deep enough this time. Down they
went—two, three hundred feet, and still no good water. The ground had
turned into slate and shale. The well digger lit a match down in the
hole when suddenly there was a terrific explosion which caved in the
sides of the well and all the dirt which was piled around the outside
slid in again, completely filling it up. A vein of gas had been struck.
That very day the Deacon received word that his son was in San
Francisco, dying, and wanted to see him. He forgot his anger over
Charley’s disgrace and started west that very night. He never came back.
He stayed in San Francisco a whole year and then died out there. While
he was there he mentioned the gas well to several people, or they say he
did, and that’s how the story got round. But if such a thing did happen,
there was never any trace of it afterward. Personally I do not believe
it ever happened. But superstitious folks around here say they can still
hear the buried well digger striking with his pick against the earth
that covers him.”

“Two ghosts at Onoway House!” said Nyoda, “we are uncommonly well
supplied,” and the girls shivered and drew near together in mock fear.
Thus, with various stories the evening wore away, until Farmer
Landsdowne, looking at his big, old-fashioned silver watch with a start,
remarked that he should have been in bed an hour ago, whereupon the
company broke up. Calvin Smalley went home reluctantly. That evening
spent by the fire in the tepee had been a sort of wonderland to him,
unused as he was to family festivities of any kind.

Nyoda lingered after the rest had gone to see that the fire in the tepee
was properly extinguished. As she watched the glowing embers turn black
one by one she became aware of a figure standing in the doorway. The
moonlight fell directly on it and she could see that it was robed in
flowing white, and instead of a face there was a hideous death’s head.
Horribly startled at first she recovered her composure when she
remembered that she was living in a household which were given to
playing jokes on each other. Flinging up her hands in mock terror, she
recited dramatically,

“Art thou some angel, some devil, or some ghost?” The figure in the
doorway never moved. Nyoda picked up the thick stick with which she had
stirred the fire and rushed upon the ghost as if she intended to beat it
to a pulp. It flung out its arm, covered with the flowing drapery, and
Nyoda dropped her weapon and staggered back against the side of the
tepee, sneezing with terrible violence, her eyes smarting and watering
horribly. When the force of the paroxysm had spent itself and she could
open her eyes again the ghost had vanished. Blind and choking, she made
her way back to the house, intent on finding out who the ghost was, who
had thrown red pepper into her eyes. That it was none of the dwellers at
Onoway House was clear. The girls were already partly undressed, Ophelia
was in bed, and Tom was taking a foot-bath in the kitchen under the
watchful supervision of his mother to see that he got himself clean. A
chorus of indignation rose on every side at the outrage, when Nyoda had
told her tale.

“Could it have been Calvin Smalley?” somebody asked. But this no one
would believe. The boy was too gentle and manly, and too evidently
delighted with his new neighbors to have done such a dastardly deed.
Then who had dressed up as a ghost and thrown red pepper at Nyoda in the
tepee?




CHAPTER V.—SAHWAH MAKES A DISCOVERY.


As there was no one of their acquaintance whom they could suspect of
being the ghost, the trick was laid at the door of some unknown dweller
along the road with a fondness for horseplay. The girls spent the
morning working quietly in the garden, and in the afternoon they went to
the city in Gladys’s automobile, all but Sahwah, who wanted to work on a
waist she was making. Then, after the automobile was out of sight she
discovered that she did not have the right kind of thread and could not
work on it after all. With the prospect of a whole afternoon to herself,
she decided to take a long walk. The Bartlett farm was not very large
and she was soon at its boundary, and over on the Smalley property. In
contrast to their little orchard and garden and meadow, the Smalley farm
stretched out as far as she could see, with great corn and wheat fields,
and acres of timber land. Somewhere on the place Calvin Smalley was
working, and Sahwah made up her mind to find him and ask him over to
Onoway House that night. But the extent of the Smalley farm was
ninety-seven acres, and it was not so easy to find a person on it when
one had no definite knowledge of that person’s whereabouts. Sahwah
walked and walked and walked, up one field and down another, shading her
eyes with her hand to catch sight of the figure she was looking for. But
Calvin was somewhere near the center of the cornfield, stooping near the
ground, and the high stalks waved over his head and concealed him
completely. Sahwah passed by without discovering him and crossed an open
field that was lying fallow. Beyond this was a strip of marsh land which
was practically impassable. Under ordinary circumstances Sahwah would
have turned back, but being badly in want of something better to do she
tried to cross it. She had seen two boards lying in the field, and
securing these she laid them down on the treacherous mud, and by
standing on one and laying the other down in front of her and then
advancing to that one she actually got across in safety.

On the other side of the bog she spied a little clump of trees and
headed toward them, for the sun was very hot in the open and the thought
of a rest in the shade was attractive. When she came nearer she saw that
this little copse sheltered a cottage, old and weatherbeaten and
evidently deserted. Weeds grew around it, higher than the steps and the
floor of the porch, and the crumbling chimney, which ran up on the
outside of the house, was covered with a thick growth of Japanese ivy.
“It’s a regular House in the Woods,” said Sahwah to herself, “only there
are no dwarfs. I wonder what it’s like inside,” she went on in her
thoughts. “Maybe we could come here sometime and build a fire—there must
be a fireplace somewhere because there’s a chimney—and have a Ceremonial
Meeting or a picnic. How delightfully private it is!” The trees hid the
house from view until one almost stumbled upon it, and then the marsh
and the broad vacant field stretched between it and the farm, and behind
it was the river, its banks hidden by a thick growth of willows and
alders, so that the cottage was not visible to a person coming along the
river in a boat. There was not a sound to be heard anywhere except the
zig-a-zig of the grasshoppers in the field and the swish of the hidden
water as it flowed over the stones. “A grand place to have a secret
meeting of the Winnebagos,” said Sahwah to herself, “where we wouldn’t
always be interrupted by Ophelia pounding on the door and wanting to
come in. I wonder if it’s open?”

She stepped up on the porch and tried the door. It was locked. She
peered into the window. The room she saw was absolutely empty. She could
not see whether there was a fireplace or not. She was seized with a
desire to enter that cottage. It was deserted and tumble down and
fascinating. Whoever owned it—if anyone did, for she was not sure
whether it stood on the Smalley property or not—had evidently abandoned
it to the elements. There was no harm at all in trying to get in. She
pushed on the window. It apparently was also locked. But she pushed
again and this time she heard a crack. The rotten wood was splitting
away from the rusty catch. She pushed again and the window slid up. She
stepped over the sill into the room.

The window was so thick with dirt that the light seemed dim inside. At
one end of the room there was an open fireplace, long unused, with the
mortar falling out between the bricks. There was another door in the
wall opposite the front door, so evidently there was another room
beyond. This door was also locked, but the key was in the lock and it
turned readily under her hand and the door swung open. Sahwah stood
still in surprise. This room was as full of furniture as the other had
been empty. Around all four walls stood cabinets and bookcases, and
besides these there was a couch, a desk, a table and several chairs. The
table was covered with screws, little wheels and the works of clocks,
and before it sat an old man, busily working with them. He had on a
long, shabby grey dressing-gown and a high silk hat on his head. He did
not look up as she opened the door, but went right on working,
apparently oblivious to her presence. She stared at him in amazement for
a moment, and then, remembering her manners, realized that she had
deliberately walked into a gentleman’s room without knocking.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, in embarrassment, “I didn’t know there
was anyone here.”

The old man looked up and saw her standing in the doorway. “Come in,
come in,” he said, affably, in a deep voice. Sahwah took a step into the
room. The old man went back to his wheels and rods and took no more
notice of her.

“What is that you’re making?” asked Sahwah, curiously.

“It’s a long story,” said the man, taking off his hat, pulling a
handkerchief out of it and putting it back on his head, and then falling
to work again.

“Must be a genius,” thought Sahwah, “that’s what makes him act so
queerly.” She waited a few minutes in silence and then curiosity got the
better of her. “Is it too long to tell?” she asked.

“Eh? What’s that?” asked the man, turning toward her. He took off his
hat, put his handkerchief back in again and then put the hat back on his
head.

“I asked you,” said Sahwah, politely, “if the story of what you are
making is too long to tell.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said the man, and resumed his work without
another word.

“How impolite!” thought Sahwah. “To urge me to stay and then refuse to
answer my questions.” Her eyes strayed around the room at the bookcases
and cabinets. Every cabinet was filled with clocks or parts of clocks.
The books as far as she could see were all about machinery. One was a
book of such astounding width of binding that she leaned over to read
the title. The letters were so faded that they were hardly visible. “L,”
she read, “E, F, E——”

“It’s a machine for saving time,” said the man at the table, so suddenly
that Sahwah jumped.

“How interesting!” she said. “How does it work?”

The man fitted a rod into a wheel and apparently forgot her existence.
She sat silent a few minutes more and then decided she had better go
home. She rose softly to her feet. “It’s something like a clock,” said
the man, without looking up from his work.

“It’s coming after all,” she thought, and sat down again.

After a silence of about five minutes the man spoke again. “It measures
the time just like any clock,” he explained, “only, as the minutes are
ticked off, they are thrown into a little compartment at the side,—this
thing,” he said, holding up a little metal box. He lapsed into silence
again and after an interval resumed where he had left off. “This
compartment,” he said, “holds just an hour, and when it is full a bell
rings and the compartment opens automatically, throwing the block of
time, carefully wrapped to prevent leakage of seconds, out into this
basket.” He took off his hat, brought out his handkerchief, polished a
bit of glass with it, put it carefully back into the crown and replaced
the hat on his head.

It suddenly came over Sahwah that her ingenious host was not quite right
in his mind, so rising abruptly she hastened out of the room. The man
took no notice of her departure. She locked the door carefully after
her, and went out by the window whence she had entered the house,
pulling it shut from the outside. She did not undertake to cross the
marsh again, but made a wide detour around it. When she was once more in
the fallow field she looked back, but the house was invisible among the
trees and bushes which surrounded it. As she sped past the rows of
standing corn on her way home, Abner Smalley, bending low among them,
saw her and straightened up with a suspicious look in his eyes. He
glanced in the direction from which she had come. On one side was the
empty field bordered by the marsh and the woody copse, and on the other
was the path from the river which went in the direction of Onoway House.
He breathed a sigh of relief. The girl had come from the direction of
Onoway House, of course. The next day he put his bull to graze in the
empty field before the copse. Then, in different places along the rail
fence which enclosed this field he put signs reading: BEWARE THE BULL.
HE IS UGLY.

When the girls came back from town Sahwah told her discovery. “Nyoda,”
said Gladys, suddenly, “do you suppose it could have been this man who
threw the pepper at you?”

“Perhaps,” said Nyoda, and all the girls shuddered at the thought.
Before Sahwah’s discovery they had agreed among themselves to say
nothing about the ghost episode to anyone outside the family, so that
the perpetrator of the joke, if he were one of the farmer boys living
near, would not have the satisfaction of knowing that they were wrought
up about it. In the meantime they would send Tom to get acquainted with
all the boys on the road and try to find out something about it from
them.

Calvin Smalley was over that evening and something was said about
Sahwah’s adventure of the afternoon. “Calvin,” said Nyoda, directly,
“who is the old man who lives in that house?”

Calvin looked very much distressed, and frightened too, it must be
admitted. Then he laughed, although to Nyoda his laugh seemed a trifle
forced, and said in his usual straightforward manner, “The man in the
old house among the trees? That is my great uncle Peter, grandfather’s
brother. He was something of an inventer and invented a time clock, but
the patent was stolen by another and he never got the credit for
inventing it. He worried about it until his mind became unbalanced. For
years he has worked around with wheels and things, making strange
contrivances for clocks. He is perfectly harmless and wouldn’t hurt a
fly. He will not live in a house with people and he will not leave the
cottage he lives in even for an hour, he is so afraid something will
happen to his machine while he is away. We don’t like to have people
know that he is there because they would say we ought to send him away,
but Uncle Abner won’t do that because Uncle Peter hates to be with folks
and he might not be allowed to play with his machine in an institution
the way he can here. So as long as he is happy what is the difference?
But you know how country people talk. So would it be asking a great deal
to request you not to say anything about this to anyone, not even the
Landsdownes? If Uncle Abner ever found out you knew he would be very
angry, and would sure think I told you. I don’t see how you ever got in,
anyway; the door is usually kept locked, and to all appearances the
house is empty.” Sahwah looked decidedly uncomfortable as she met the
eyes of several of the girls, but no one mentioned the manner in which
she had gained entrance. Inasmuch as she had pried into this secret she
felt it was no more than right to promise to keep it.

“All right, we won’t say anything,” she said, reassuringly. All the
others gave an equally solemn promise, and were glad that Ophelia had
heard none of the talk about the matter, for she had been over at the
Landsdowne’s since before Sahwah told her adventure. Little pitchers
have wide mouths as well as big ears.

The girls all looked at each other when Calvin asserted that his Uncle
Peter never left the house even for an hour. Clearly then, he had not
been the ghost.

Migwan had bad dreams that night. Just before going to bed she had been
reading a volume of Poe, which is not the most sleep producing
literature known. She dreamed that she was lying awake in her bed,
looking at a big square of moonlight on the floor, when suddenly a black
shadow fell across it, and the figure of a monkey appeared on the
windowsill, stood there a moment and then jumped into the room.
Shuddering with fright she woke up, and could hardly rid herself of the
impression of the dream, it had seemed so real. There was a big square
of moonlight on the floor. “I must have seen it in my sleep,” she
thought, “it’s exactly like the one in my dream.” She lay wondering if
it were possible to see things with your eyes closed, when all of a
sudden her heart began to thump madly. Into the moonlight there was
creeping a black shadow. It remained still for a few seconds, a
grotesque-shaped thing with a long tail, and then something came
hurtling through the window and landed on the floor beside the bed.
Migwan gave a scream that roused the house. Hinpoha, starting up wildly,
jumped from bed and landed squarely on the black specter on the floor.
The form struggled and squirmed and sent forth a long wailing ME-OW-W-W.

“What is the matter?” cried Nyoda and Gladys and Betty and Sahwah,
running to the rescue.

“It’s a cat!” said Migwan, faintly. “I thought it was a monkey!”

“Moral: Don’t read Poe before going to bed,” said Nyoda, while the rest
shouted with laughter at the cause of Migwan’s fright.

“It must have jumped in from the tree,” said Hinpoha. “I see our screen
has fallen out.”

There was little sleep in the house the rest of the night. During the
time when the screen was out of the window the room had filled with
mosquitoes, which soon found their way to the rest of the rooms. “If you
offered me the choice of sleeping in a room with a monkey or a swarm of
mosquitoes, I believe I’d take the monkey,” said Nyoda, slapping
viciously. Altogether it was a heavy-eyed group that came down to
breakfast the next morning.

“What are we going to do to-day?” asked Gladys.

“The usual thing,” said Migwan, “pull weeds. That is, I am. You girls
don’t need to help all the time. I don’t want you to think of my garden
as merely a lot of weeds to be forever pulled. I want you to remember
only the beautiful part of it.”

“We don’t mind pulling weeds,” cried the girls, stoutly, “it’s fun when
we all do it together,” and they fell to work with a will.

“I declare,” said Migwan, “I have become so zealous in the pursuit of
weeds that I mechanically start to pull them along the roadside. I
actually believe that if a weed grew on my grave I’d rise up and
eradicate it. I little thought when I proudly won an honor last summer
for identifying ten different weeds that they’d get to haunting my
dreams the way they do now. Now I know what people mean when they say
‘meaner than pusley.’ It’s the meanest thing I’ve ever dealt with. I cut
off and pull up every trace of it one day and the next day there it is
again, just as flourishing as ever.”

“I don’t call that meanness,” said Nyoda, “that’s just cheerful
persistence. Think what a success we’d all be in life if we got ahead in
the face of obstacles in that way. If I didn’t already have a perfectly
good symbol I’d take pusley for mine. If it were edible I think I’d use
it as an exclusive article of diet for a time and see if I couldn’t
absorb some of its characteristics.”

While she was talking Ophelia came along with a frog on a shovel, which
she proceeded to throw over the fence. “Come back with that frog,” said
Migwan, “I need him in my business. Don’t you know that frogs eat the
insects off the plants and we have that many less to kill?” Ophelia was
standing in the strong sunlight, and Nyoda noticed that the circle of
light hair on her head was still golden clear to the roots, although the
ringlets were visibly growing.

“It must be a freak of Nature,” she concluded, “for it certainly isn’t
bleached.”

Rest at Onoway House was again doomed to be broken that night. Nyoda had
been peacefully sleeping for some time when she woke up at the touch of
something cold upon her face. She started up and the feeling
disappeared. She went to sleep again, thinking she had been dreaming.
Soon the feeling came again, as of something cold lying on her forehead.
She put up her hand and encountered a cold and knobby object. At her
touch the thing—whatever it was—jumped away. She sprang out of bed and
lit the lamp. The sight that met her eyes as she looked around the room
made her pinch herself to see if she were really awake and not in the
midst of some nightmare. All over the floor, chairs, table, beds, bureau
and wash-stand sat frogs; big frogs, little frogs, medium-sized frogs;
all goggling solemnly at her in the lamplight. She stared open mouthed
at the apparition. Could this be another Plague of Frogs, she asked
herself, such as was visited upon Pharaoh? At her horrified exclamation
Gladys woke up, gave one look around the room and dove under the
bedclothes with a wild yell. To her excited eyes it looked as if there
were a million frogs in the room.

“What’s the matter?” asked Ophelia, sitting up in bed and staring around
her sleepily.

“Don’t you see the frogs?” cried Nyoda.

“Sure I see them,” said Ophelia. “Aren’t you glad I got so many?”

“Ophelia!” gasped Nyoda, “did you bring those frogs in here?”

“Betcher I did,” said Ophelia, with pride, “and it took me most all
afternoon to catch the whole sackful, too. What’s wrong?” she asked, as
she saw the expression on Nyoda’s face. “Yer said they’d eat the bugs
and yer made such a fuss about the mosquitoes last night that I brought
the toads to eat them while we slept.” Nyoda dropped limply into a
chair. The inspirations of Ophelia surpassed anything she had ever read
in fiction.

If anybody has ever tried to catch a roomful of frogs that were not
anxious to be caught they can appreciate the chase that went on at
Onoway House that night. The first faint streaks of dawn were appearing
in the sky before the family finally retired once more. Sufficient to
say that Ophelia never set up another mosquito trap made of frogs.




CHAPTER VI.—THE WINNEBAGOS SCENT A PLOT.


“Where are you going, my pretty maid, and why the step ladder?” said
Nyoda to Migwan one morning. “Have your beans grown up so high over
night that you have to climb a ladder to pick them?”

“Come and see!” said Migwan, mysteriously. Nyoda followed her to the
front lawn. Migwan set the ladder up beside a dead tree, from which the
branches had been sawn, leaving a slender trunk about seven feet high.
On top of this Migwan proceeded to nail a flat board.

“Are you going to live on a pillar, like St. Simeon Stylites?” asked
Nyoda, curiously, as Migwan mounted the ladder with a basin of water in
her hand.

“O come, Nyoda,” said Migwan, “don’t you know a bird bathtub when you
see one?”

“A bathtub, is it?” said Nyoda. “Now I breathe easily again. But why so
extremely near the earth?”

Migwan laughed at her chaffing. “You have to put them high up,” she
explained, “or else the cats get the birds when they are bathing. Mr.
Landsdowne told me how to make it.” The other girls wandered out and
inspected the drinking fountain-bathtub. Hinpoha closed one eye and
looked critically at the outfit.

“Doesn’t it strike you as being a little inharmonious?” she asked.
“Black stump, unfinished wood platform, and blue enamel basin.”

“Paint the platform and basin dark green,” said Sahwah, the practical.
“There is some green paint down cellar, I saw it. Let me paint it. I can
do that much for the birds, even if I didn’t think of building them a
drinking fountain.” She sped after the paint and soon transformed the
offending articles so that they blended harmoniously with the
surroundings.

“It’s better now,” said Nyoda, thoughtfully, “but it’s still crude and
unbeautiful. What is wrong?”

“I know,” said Hinpoha, the artistic one. “It’s too bare. It looks like
a hat without any trimming. What it needs is vines around it.”

“The very thing!” exclaimed Migwan. “I’ll plant climbing nasturtiums and
train them to go up the pole and wind around the basin, so it will look
like a fountain.”

“Four heads are better than one,” observed Nyoda, as the seeds were
planted, “when they are all looking in the same direction.”

Just then a young man came up the path from the road. “May I use your
telephone?” he asked, courteously raising his hat. He spoke with a
slight foreign accent.

“Certainly you may,” said Migwan, going with him into the house. She
could not help hearing what he said. He called up a number in town and
when he had his connection, said, “This is Larue talking. We are going
to do it on the Centerville Road. There is a river near.” That was all.
He rang off, thanked Migwan politely and walked off down the road. The
incident was forgotten for a time.

That afternoon Gladys was coming home in the automobile. At the turn in
the road just before you came to Onoway House there was a car stalled.
The driver, a young and pretty woman, was apparently in great perplexity
what to do. “Can I help you?” asked Gladys, stopping her machine.

“I don’t know what’s the matter,” said the young woman, “but I can’t get
the car started. I’m afraid I’ll have to be towed to a garage. Do you
know of anyone around here who has a team of horses?”

Gladys looked at the starting apparatus of the other car, but it was a
different make from hers and she knew nothing about it. “Would you like
to have me tow you to our barn?” she asked. “There is a man up the road
who fixes automobiles for a great many people who drive through here and
I could get him to come over.”

The young woman appeared much relieved. “If you would be so kind it
would be a great favor,” she said, “for I am in haste to-day.”

Gladys towed the car to the barn at Onoway House and phoned for the car
tinker. The young woman, who introduced herself as Miss Mortimer, was a
very pleasant person indeed, and quite won the hearts of the girls. She
was delighted with Onoway House, both with the name and the house
itself, and asked to be shown all over it, from garret to cellar. “How
near that tree is to the window!” she said, as she looked out of the
attic window into the branches of the big Balm of Gilead tree that grew
beside the house, close to Migwan and Hinpoha’s bedroom. It was much
higher than the house and its branches drooped down on the roof. “How do
you ever move about up here with all this furniture?” asked Miss
Mortimer.

“Oh,” answered Migwan, “we never come up here.”

The barn likewise struck the visitor’s fancy, with its big empty lofts,
and she fell absolutely in love with the river. The girls took her for a
ride on the raft, and she amused herself by sounding the depth of the
water with the pole. They could see that she was experienced in handling
boats from the way she steered the raft. The girls were so charmed with
her that they felt a keen regret when the neighborhood tinker announced
that the car was in running shape again.

“I’ve had a lovely time, girls,” said Miss Mortimer, shaking the hand of
each in farewell. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Come and see us again, if you are ever passing this way,” said Migwan,
cordially.

“You may possibly see me again,” said Miss Mortimer, half to herself, as
she got into her machine and drove away.

There was no moon that night and the cloud-covered sky hinted at
approaching rain, but Sahwah wanted to go out on the river on the raft,
so Nyoda and Migwan and Hinpoha and Gladys went with her. It was too
dark to play any kind of games and the girls were too tired and
breathless from the hot day to sing, so they floated down-stream in lazy
silence, watching the shapeless outlines made against the dull sky by
the trees and bushes along the banks. On the other side of Farmer
Landsdowne’s place there was an abandoned farm. The house had stood
empty for many years, its cheerless windows brooding in the sunlight and
glaring in the moonlight. Just as they did with every other vacant
house, the Winnebagos nicknamed this one the Haunted House, and vied
with each other in describing the queer noises they had heard issuing
from it and the ghosts they had seen walking up and down the porch. As
they passed this place, gliding silently along the river, they were
surprised to see an automobile standing beside the house, at the little
side porch, in the shadow of a row of tall trees.

“The ghosts are getting prosperous,” whispered Migwan, “they have bought
an automobile to do their nightly wandering in. Pretty soon we can’t say
that ghosts ‘walk’ any more. Ah, here come the ghosts.”

From the side door of the house came two men, who proceeded to lift
various boxes from under the seats of the car and carry them into the
house. Then they lifted out a small keg, which the girls could not help
noticing they handled with greater care than they had the boxes. The
wind was blowing toward the river, and the girls distinctly heard one
man say to the other, “Be careful now, you know what will happen if we
drop this.”

“I’m being as careful as I can,” answered the second man.

After a few seconds the first one spoke again. “When’s Belle coming?”

“She arrived in town to-day,” said his partner.

When they had gone into the house this time the machine suddenly drove
away, revealing the presence of a third man at the wheel, whom the girls
had not noticed before this. The two men stayed in the house.

“What on earth can be happening there?” said Sahwah.

“It certainly does look suspicious,” said Nyoda.

They waited there in the shadow of the willows for a long time to see
what would happen next, but nothing did. The house stood blank and
silent and apparently as empty as ever. Not a glimmer of light was
visible anywhere. Sahwah and Nyoda were just on the point of getting
into the rowboat, which had been tied on behind the raft, and towing the
other girls back home, when their ears caught the sound of a faint
splashing, like the sound made by the dipping of an oar. They were
completely hidden from sight either up or down the river, for just at
this point a portion of the bank had caved in, and the water filling up
the hole had made a deep indentation in the shore line, and into this
miniature bay the Tortoise-Crab had been steered. The thick willows
along the bank formed a screen between them and the stream above and
below. But they could look between the branches and see what was coming
up stream, from the direction of the lake. It was a rowboat, containing
two persons. The scudding clouds parted at intervals and the moon shone
through, and by its fitful light they could see that one of these
persons was a woman. When the rowboat was almost directly behind the
house it came to a halt, only a few yards from the place where the
Winnebagos lay concealed.

“This is the house,” said the man.

“I told you the water was deep enough up this far,” said the woman, in a
tone of satisfaction. Just then the moon shone out for a brief instant,
and the Winnebagos looked at each other in surprise. The woman, or
rather the girl, in the rowboat was Miss Mortimer, who had been their
guest only that day. The next moment she spoke. “We might as well go
back now. There isn’t anything more we can do. I just wanted to prove to
you that it could be towed up the river this far without danger.”

“All right, Belle,” replied the man, and at the sound of his voice
Migwan pricked up her ears. There was something vaguely familiar about
it; something which eluded her at the moment. The rowboat turned in the
river and proceeded rapidly down-stream. The Winnebagos returned home,
full of excitement and wonder.

The barn at Onoway House stood halfway between the house and the river.
As they landed from the raft and were tying it to the post they saw a
man come out of the barn and disappear among the bushes that grew
nearby. It was too dark to see him with any degree of distinctness.
Gladys’s thought leaped immediately to her car, which was left in the
barn. “Somebody’s trying to steal the car!” she cried, and they all
hastened to the barn. The automobile stood undisturbed in its place.
They made a hasty search with lanterns, but as far as they could see,
none of the gardening tools were missing. Satisfied that no damage had
been done, they went into the house.

“Probably a tramp,” said Mrs. Gardiner, when the facts were told her.
“He evidently thought he would sleep in the barn, and then changed his
mind for some reason or other.”

Migwan lay awake a long time trying to place the voice of the man in the
rowboat. Just as she was sinking off to sleep it came to her. The voice
she had heard in the darkness had a slightly foreign accent, and was the
voice of the man who had used the telephone that morning.

Sometime during the night Onoway House was wakened by the sounds of a
terrific thunder storm. The girls flew around shutting windows. After a
few minutes of driving rain against the window panes the sound changed.
It became a sharp clattering. “Hail!” said Sahwah.

“Oh, my young plants!” cried Migwan. “They will be pounded to pieces.”

“Cover them with sheets and blankets!” suggested Nyoda. With their
accustomed swiftness of action the Winnebagos snatched up everything in
the house that was available for the purpose and ran out into the
garden, and spread the covers over the beds in a manner which would keep
the tender young plants from being pounded to pieces by the hailstones.
Migwan herself ran down to the farthest bed, which was somewhat
separated from the others. As she raced to save it from destruction she
suddenly ran squarely into someone who was standing in the garden. She
had only time to see that it was a man, when, with a muffled exclamation
of alarm he disappeared into space. Disappeared is the only word for it.
He did not run, he never reached the cover of the bushes; he simply
vanished off the face of the earth. One moment he was and the next
moment he was not. Much excited, Migwan ran back to the others and told
her story, only to be laughed at and told she was seeing things and had
lurking men on the brain. The thing was so queer and uncanny that she
began to wonder herself if she had been fully awake at the time, and if
she might not possibly have dreamed the whole thing.

The morning dawned fresh and fair after the shower, green and gold with
the sun on the garden, and Migwan’s delight at finding the tender little
plants unharmed, thanks to their timely covering, was inclined to thrust
the mysterious goings-on at the empty house the night before into
secondary place in her mind. But she was not allowed to forget it, for
it was the sole topic of conversation at the breakfast table. Gladys,
with her nose buried in the morning paper, suddenly looked up. “Listen
to this,” she said, and then began to read: “Another dynamite plot
unearthed. Society for the purpose of assassinating men prominent in
affairs and dynamiting large buildings discovered in attempt to blow up
the Court House. An attempt to blow up the new Court House was
frustrated yesterday when George Brown, one of the custodians, saw a man
crouching in the engine room and ordered him out. A search revealed the
fact that dynamite had been placed on the floor and attached to a fuse.
On being arrested the man confessed that he was a member of the famous
Venoti gang, operating in the various large cities. The man is being
held without bail, but the head of the gang, Dante Venoti, is still at
large, and so is his wife, Bella, who aids him in all his activities. No
clue to their whereabouts can be found.”

“Do you suppose,” said Gladys, laying the paper down, “that those men we
saw last night could belong to that gang? You remember how carefully
they carried the keg into the house, as if it contained some explosive.
They couldn’t have any business there or they wouldn’t have come at
night. And they called the woman in the boat ‘Belle,’ or it might have
been ‘Bella.’”

“And that man in the boat was the same one who came here and used the
telephone yesterday morning,” said Migwan. “I couldn’t help noticing his
foreign accent. He said, ‘We are going to do it on the Centerville Road.
There is a river near.’ What are they going to do on the Centerville
Road?”

The garden work was neglected while the girls discussed the matter. “And
the man we saw coming out of the barn when we came home,” said Sahwah,
“he probably had something to do with it, too.”

“And the man I saw in the garden in the middle of the night,” said
Migwan.

“If you _did_ see a man,” said Nyoda, somewhat doubtfully. Migwan did
not insist upon her story. What was the use, when she had no proof, and
the thing had been so uncanny?

They were all moved to real grief over the fact that the delightful Miss
Mortimer should have a hand in such a dark business—in fact, was
undoubtedly the famous Bella Venoti herself. “I can’t believe it,” said
Migwan, “she was so jolly and friendly, and was so charmed with Onoway
House.”

“I wonder why she wanted to go through it from attic to cellar,” said
Sahwah, shrewdly. “Could she have had some purpose? _Migwan!_” she
cried, jumping up suddenly, “don’t you remember that she said, ‘How near
that tree is to the window’? Could she have been thinking that it would
be easy to climb in there? And when she asked how we ever moved about
with all that furniture up there, you said, ‘We never come up here’!
Don’t you see what we’ve done? We’ve given her a chance to look the
house over and find a place where people could hide if they wanted to,
and as much as told her that they would be safe up here because we never
came up.”

Consternation reigned at this speech of Sahwah’s. The girls remembered
the incident only too well. “I’ll never be able to trust anyone again,”
said Migwan, near to tears, for she had conceived a great liking for the
young woman she had known as “Miss Mortimer.”

“Do you remember,” pursued Sahwah, “how she took the pole of the raft
and found out how deep the water was all along, and then afterwards she
said to the man in the boat, ‘I told you it was deep enough.’ Everything
she did at our house was a sort of investigation.”

“But it was only by accident that she got to Onoway House in the first
place,” said Gladys. “All she did was ask me to tell her where she could
get a team of horses to tow her to a garage. She didn’t know I belonged
to Onoway House. It was I who brought her here, and she only stayed
because we asked her to. It doesn’t look as if she had any serious
intentions of investigating the neighborhood. She said she was in a
hurry to go on.” Migwan brightened visibly at this. She clutched eagerly
at any hope that Miss Mortimer might be innocent after all.

“How do you know that that breakdown in the road was accidental?” asked
Nyoda. “And how can you be sure that she didn’t know you came from
Onoway House? She may have been looking for a pretense to come here and
you played right into her hands by offering to tow her into the barn.”
Migwan’s hope flickered and went out.

“And the man in the barn,” said Sahwah, knowingly, “he might have come
to look the automobile over and become familiar with the way the barn
door opened, so he could get into the car and drive away in a hurry if
he wanted to get away.” Taken all in all, there was only one conclusion
the girls could come to, and that was that there was something
suspicious going on in the neighborhood, and it looked very much as if
the Venoti gang were hiding explosives in the empty house and were
planning to bring something else; what it was they could not guess. At
all events, something must be done about it. Nyoda called up the police
in town and told briefly what they had seen and heard, and was told that
plain clothes men would be sent out to watch the empty house. When she
described the man who had called and used the telephone, the police
officer gave an exclamation of satisfaction.

“That description fits Venoti closely,” he said. “He used to have a
mustache, but he could very easily have shaved it off. It’s very
possible that it was he. He’s done that trick before; asked to use
people’s telephones as a means of getting into the house.”

The girls thrilled at the thought of having seen the famous anarchist so
close. “Hadn’t we better tell the Landsdownes about it?” asked Migwan.
“They are in a better position to watch that house from their windows
than we are.”

“You’re right,” said Nyoda. “And we ought to tell the Smalleys, too, so
they will be on their guard and ready to help the police if it is
necessary.”

“I hate to go over there,” said Migwan, “I don’t like Mr. Smalley.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” said Nyoda, firmly. “The fact that he
is fearfully stingy and grasping has no bearing on this case. He has a
right to know it if his property is in danger.” And she proceeded
forthwith to the Red House.

Mr. Smalley was inclined to pooh-pooh the whole affair as the
imagination of a houseful of women. “Saw a man running out of your barn,
did you?” he asked, showing some interest in this part of the tale.
“Well now, come to think of it,” he said, “I saw someone sneaking around
ours too, last night. But I didn’t think much of it. That’s happened
before. It’s usually chicken thieves. I keep a big dog in the barn and
they think twice about breaking in after they hear him bark, and you
haven’t any chickens, that’s why nothing was touched.” It was a very
simple explanation of the presence of the man in the barn, but still it
did not satisfy Nyoda. She could not help connecting it in some way with
the occurrences in the vacant house.

Mr. Landsdowne was very much interested and excited at the story when it
was told to him. “There’s probably a whole lot more to it than we know,”
he said, getting out his rifle and beginning to clean it. “There’s more
going on in this country in the present state of affairs than most
people dream of. You have notified the police? That’s good; I guess
there won’t be many more secret doings in the empty house.”

As Nyoda and Migwan went home from the Landsdownes they passed a
telegraph pole in the road on which a man was working. Silhouetted
against the sky as he was they could see his actions clearly. He was
holding something to his ear which looked like a receiver, and with the
other hand he was writing something down in a little book. Migwan looked
at him curiously; then she started. “Nyoda,” she said, in a whisper,
“that is the same man who used our telephone. That is Dante Venoti
himself.” As if conscious that they were looking at him, the man on the
pole put down the pencil, and drawing his cap, which had a large visor,
down over his face, he bent his head so they could not get another look
at his features. “That’s the man, all right,” said Migwan. “What do you
suppose he is doing?”

“It looks,” said Nyoda, judicially, “as if he were tapping the wires for
messages that are expected to pass at this time. Possibly you did not
notice it, but I began to look at that man as soon as we stepped into
the road from Landsdowne’s, and I saw him look at his watch and then
hastily put the receiver to his ear.”

“Oh, I hope the police from town will come soon,” said Migwan, hopping
nervously up and down in the road.

“Until they do come we had better keep a close watch on what goes on
around here,” said Nyoda. Accordingly the Winnebagos formed themselves
into a complete spy system. Migwan and Gladys and Betty and Tom took
baskets and picked the raspberries that grew along the road as an excuse
for watching the road and the front of the house, while Nyoda and Sahwah
and Hinpoha took the raft and patrolled the river. As the girls in the
road watched, the man climbed down from the pole, walked leisurely past
them, went up the path to the empty house and seated himself calmly on
the front steps, fanning himself with his hat, apparently an innocent
line man taking a rest from the hot sun at the top of his pole.

“He’s afraid to go in with us watching him,” whispered Migwan. Just then
a large automobile whirled by, stirring up clouds of dust, which
temporarily blinded the girls. When they looked again toward the house
the “line man” had vanished from the steps. “He’s gone inside!” said
Migwan, when they saw without a doubt that he was nowhere in sight
outdoors.

Meanwhile the girls on the raft, who had been keeping a sharp lookout
down-stream with a pair of opera glasses, saw something approaching in
the distance which arrested their attention. For a long time they could
not make out what it was—it looked like a shapeless black mass. Then as
they drew nearer they saw what was coming, and an exclamation of
surprise burst from each one. It was a structure like a portable garage
on a raft, towed by a launch. As it drew nearer still they could make
out with the opera glasses that the person at the wheel was a woman, and
that woman was Bella Venoti.

The hasty arrival of an automobile full of armed men who jumped out in
front of the “vacant” house frightened the girls in the road nearly out
of their wits, until they realized that these were the plain clothes men
from town. After sizing up the house from the outside the men went up
the path to the porch. The girls were watching them with a fascinated
gaze, and no one saw the second automobile that was coming up the road
far in the distance. One of the plain clothes men, who seemed to be the
leader of the group, rapped sharply on the door of the house. There was
no answer. He rapped again. This time the door was flung wide open from
the inside. The girls could see that the man in the doorway was Dante
Venoti. The officer of the law stepped forward. “Your little game is up,
Dante Venoti,” he said, quietly, “and you are under arrest.”

Dante Venoti looked at him in open-mouthed astonishment. “Vatevaire do
you mean?” he gasped. “I am under arrest? Has ze law stop ze production?
Chambers, Chambers,” he called over his shoulder, “come here queek. Ze
police has stop’ ze production!”

A tall, lanky, decidedly American looking individual appeared in the
doorway behind him. “What the deuce!” he exclaimed, at the sight of all
the men on the porch. At this moment the second automobile drove up,
followed by a third and a fourth. A large number of men and women
dismounted and ran up the path to the house.

“Caruthers! Simpson! Jimmy!” shouted Venoti, excitedly to the latest
arrivals, “ze police has stop ze production!”

“What do you know about it!” exclaimed someone in the crowd of
newcomers, evidently one of those addressed. “Where’s Belle?”

“She is bringing zeze caboose! Up ze rivaire!” cried the black haired
man, wringing his hands in distress.

The plain clothes men looked over the band of people that stood around
him. There was nothing about them to indicate their desperate character.
Instead of being Italians as they had expected, they seemed to be mostly
Americans. The leader of the policemen suddenly looked hard at Venoti.
“Say,” he said, “you look like a Dago, but you don’t talk like one. Who
are you, anyway?”

“I am Felix Larue,” said the black haired man, “I am ze director of ze
Great Western Film Company, and zeze are all my actors. We have rent zis
house and farm for ze production of ze war play ‘Ze Honor of a Soldier.’
Last night we bring some of ze properties to ze house; zey are very
valuable, and Chambers and Bushbower here zey stay in ze house wiz zem.”

The plain clothes men looked at each other and started to grin. Migwan
and Gladys, who had joined the company on the porch, suddenly felt
unutterably foolish. “But what were you doing on top of the pole?”
faltered Migwan.

Mr. Larue turned his eyes toward her. He recognized her as the girl who
had allowed him to use her telephone the day before, and favored her
with a polite bow. “Me,” he said, “I play ze part of ze spy in ze
piece—ze villain. I tap ze wire and get ze message. I was practice for
ze part zis morning.” He turned beseechingly to the policeman who had
questioned him. “Zen you will not stop ze production?” he asked.

“Heavens, no,” answered the policeman. “We were going to arrest you for
an anarchist, that’s all.”

The company of actors were dissolving into hysterical laughter, in which
the plain clothes men joined sheepishly. Just then a young woman came
around the house from the back, followed at a short distance by Nyoda,
Sahwah and Hinpoha. Seeing the crowd in front she stopped in surprise.
Larue went to the edge of the porch and called to her reassuringly.
“Come on, Belle,” he called, gaily. When she was up on the porch he took
her by the hand and led her forward. “Permit me to introduce my fellow
conspirator,” he said, in a theatrical manner and with a low bow. “Zis
is Belle Mortimer, ze leading lady of ze Great Western Film Company!”




CHAPTER VII.—MOVING PICTURES.


The Winnebagos looked at each other speechlessly. Belle Mortimer, the
famous motion picture actress, whom they had seen on the screen dozens
of times, and for whom Migwan had long entertained a secret and
devouring adoration! Not Bella Venoti at all! “Did you ever?” gasped
Sahwah.

“No, I never,” answered the Winnebagos, in chorus.

Miss Mortimer recognized her hostesses of the day before and greeted
them warmly. “My kind friends from Onoway House,” she called them. The
Winnebagos were embarrassed to death to have to explain how they had
spied on the vacant house and thought the famous Venoti gang was at
work, and were themselves responsible for the presence of the policemen.

“I never _heard_ of anything so funny,” she said, laughing until the
tears came. “I _never_ heard of anything so funny!” The plain clothes
men departed in their automobile, disappointed at not having made the
grand capture they had expected to. “Would you like to stay with us for
the day and watch us work?” asked Miss Mortimer.

“Oh, could we?” breathed Migwan. She was in the seventh heaven at the
thought of being with Belle Mortimer so long. Then followed a day of
delirious delight. To begin with, the Winnebagos were introduced to the
whole company, many of whose names were familiar to them. Felix Larue,
having gotten over the fright he had received when he thought the piece
was going to be suppressed by the police for some unaccountable reason,
was all smiles and amiability, and explained anything the girls wanted
to know about. The piece was a very exciting one, full of thrilling
incidents and danger, and the girls were held spellbound at the physical
feats which some of those actors performed. The house on the raft was
explained as the play progressed. It was filled with soldiers and towed
up the river, to all appearances merely a garage being moved by its
owner. But when a dispatch bearer of the enemy, whose family lived in
the house, stopped to see them while he was carrying an important
message, the soldiers rushed out from the garage, sprang ashore, seized
the man along with the message and carried him away in the launch, which
had been cut away from the raft while the capture was being made. Migwan
thought of the tame little plots she had written the winter before and
was filled with envy at the creator of this stirring play.

It took a whole week to make the film of “The Honor of a Soldier” and in
that time the girls saw a great deal of Miss Mortimer. And one blessed
night she stayed at Onoway House with them, instead of motoring back to
the city with the rest of the company. Just as Migwan was dying of
admiration for her, so she was attracted by this dreamy-eyed girl with
the lofty brow. In a confidential moment Migwan confessed that she had
written several motion picture plays the winter before, all of which had
been rejected. “Do you mind if I see them?” asked Miss Mortimer. Much
embarrassed, Migwan produced the manuscripts, written in the form
outlined in the book she had bought. Miss Mortimer read them over
carefully, while Migwan awaited her verdict with a beating heart.

“Well?” she asked, when Miss Mortimer had finished reading them.

“Who told you to put them in this form?” asked Miss Mortimer.

“I learned it from a book,” answered Migwan. “What do you think of
them?” she asked, impatient for Miss Mortimer’s opinion.

“The idea in one of them is good, very good,” said Miss Mortimer. “This
one called ‘Jerry’s Sister.’ But you have really spoiled it in the
development. It takes a person familiar with the production of a film to
direct the movements of the actors intelligently. If Mr. Larue, for
example, had developed that piece it would be a very good one. Would you
be willing to sell just the idea, if Mr. Larue thinks he can use it?”

Migwan had never thought of this before. “Why, yes,” she said, “I
suppose I would. It’s certainly no good to me as it is.”

“Let me take it to Mr. Larue,” said Miss Mortimer. “I’m sure he will see
the possibilities in it just as I have.” Migwan was in a transport of
delight to think that her idea at least had found favor with Miss
Mortimer. Miss Mortimer was as good as her word and showed the play to
Mr. Larue and he agreed with her that it could be developed into a
side-splitting farce comedy. Migwan was more intoxicated with that first
sale of the labors of her pen than she was at any future successes,
however great. Deeply inspired by this recognition of her talent, she
evolved an exciting plot from the incidents which had just occurred,
namely, the mistaking of the moving picture company for the Venoti gang.
She kept it merely in plot form, not trying to develop it, and Mr. Larue
accepted this one also. After this second success, even though the price
she received for the two plots was not large, the future stretched out
before Migwan like a brilliant rainbow, with a pot of gold under each
end.

Miss Mortimer soon discovered that the Winnebagos were a group of Camp
Fire Girls, and she immediately had an idea. When “The Honor of a
Soldier” was finished Mr. Larue was going to produce a piece which
called for a larger number of people than the company contained, among
them a group of Camp Fire Girls. He intended hiring a number of “supers”
for this play. “Why not hire the Winnebagos?” said Miss Mortimer. And so
it was arranged. Medmangi and Nakwisi and Chapa, the other three
Winnebagos, were notified to join the ranks, and excitement ran high. To
be in a real moving picture! It is true that they had nothing special to
do, just walk through the scene in one place and sit on the ground in a
circle in another, but there was not a single girl who did not hope that
her conduct on that occasion would lead Mr. Larue into hiring her as a
permanent member of the company.

Especially Sahwah. The active, strenuous life of a motion picture
actress attracted her more than anything just now. She longed to be in
the public eye and achieve fame by performing thrilling feats. She saw
herself in a thousand different positions of danger, always the heroine.
Now she was diving for a ring dropped into the water from the hand of a
princess; now she was trapped in a burning building; now she was riding
a wild horse. But always she was the idol of the company, and the idol
of the moving picture audiences, and the envy of all other actresses.
She would receive letters from people all over the country and her
picture would be in the papers and in the magazines, and her name would
be featured on the colored posters in front of the theatres. Managers
would quarrel over her and she would be offered a fabulous salary. All
this Sahwah saw in her mind’s eye as the future which was waiting for
her, for since meeting Miss Mortimer she really meant to be a motion
picture actress when she was through school. She felt in her heart that
she could show people a few things when it came to feats of action. She
simply could not wait for the day when the Winnebagos were to be in the
picture. When the play was produced in the city theatres her friends
would recognize her, and Oh joy!—here her thoughts became too gay to
think.

The play in question was staged, not on the Centerville road, but in one
of the city parks, where there were hills and formal gardens and an
artificial lake, which were necessary settings. The day arrived at last.
News had gone abroad that a motion picture play was to be staged in that
particular park and a curious crowd gathered to watch the proceedings.
Sahwah felt very splendid and important as she stood in the company of
the actors. She knew that the crowd did not know that she was just in
that one play as a filler-in; to them she was really and truly a member
of this wonderful company—a real moving picture actress. Gazing over the
crowd with an air of indifference, she suddenly saw one face that sent
the blood racing to her head. That was Marie Lanning, the girl whom
Sahwah had defeated so utterly in the basketball game the winter before,
and who had tried such underhand means to put her out of the game.
Sahwah felt that her triumph was complete. Marie was just the kind of
girl who would nearly die of envy to see her rival connected with
anything so conspicuous.

The picture began; progressed; the time came for the march of the Camp
Fire Girls down the steep hill. Sahwah stood straight as a soldier; the
supreme moment had come. Now Mr. Larue would see that she stood out from
all the other girls in ability to act; that moment was to be the making
of her fortune. She glanced covertly at Marie Lanning. Marie had
recognized her and was staring at her with unbelieving, jealous eyes.
The march began. Sahwah held herself straighter still, if that were
possible, and began the descent. It was hard going because it was so
steep, but she did not let that spoil her upright carriage. She was just
in the middle of the line, which was being led by Nyoda, and could see
that the girls in front of her were getting out of step and breaking the
unity of the line in their efforts to preserve their balance. Not so
Sahwah. She saw Mr. Larue watching her and she knew he was comparing her
with the rest. Her fancy broke loose again and she had a premonition of
her future triumphs. The sight of the camera turned full on her gave her
a sense of elation beyond words. It almost intoxicated her. Halfway down
the hill Sahwah, with her head full of day-dreams, stepped on a loose
stone which turned under her foot, throwing her violently forward. She
fell against Hinpoha, who was in front of her. Hinpoha, utterly
unprepared for this impetus from the rear, lost her balance completely
and crashed into Gladys. Gladys was thrown against Nyoda, and the whole
four of them went down the hill head over heels for all the world like a
row of dominoes.

Down at the bottom of the hill stood the hero and heroine of the piece,
namely, Miss Mortimer and Chambers, the leading man, and as the
landslide descended it engulfed them and the next moment there was a
heap of players on the ground in a tangled mass. It took some minutes to
extricate them, so mixed up were they. Mr. Larue hastened to the spot
with an exclamation of very excusable impatience. Several dozen feet of
perfectly good film had been spoiled and valuable time wasted. The
players got to their feet again unhurt, and the watching crowd shouted
with laughter. Sahwah was ready to die of chagrin and mortification. She
had spoiled any chances she had ever had of making a favorable
impression on Mr. Larue; but this was the least part of it. There in the
crowd was Marie Lanning laughing herself sick at this fiasco of Sahwah’s
playing. Good-natured Mr. Chambers was trying to soothe the
embarrassment of the Winnebagos and make them laugh by declaring he had
lost his breath when he was knocked over and when he got it back he
found it wasn’t his, but Sahwah refused to be comforted. She had
disgraced herself in the public eye. Breaking away from the group she
ran through the crowd with averted face, in spite of calls to come back,
and kept on running until she had reached the edge of the park and the
street car line. Boarding a car, she went back to Onoway House, wishing
miserably that she had never been born, or had died the winter before in
the coasting accident. Her ambition to be a motion picture actress died
a violent death right then and there. So the march of the Camp Fire
Girls had to be done over again without Sahwah, and was consummated this
time without accident.

When Sahwah reached Onoway House she wished with all her heart that she
hadn’t come back there. She had done it mechanically, not knowing where
else to go. At the time her only thought had been to get away from the
crowd and from Mr. Larue; now she hated to face the Winnebagos. She was
glad that no one was at home, for Mrs. Gardiner had taken Betty and Tom
and Ophelia to see the play acted. As she went around the back of the
house she came face to face with Mr. Smalley, who was just going up on
the back porch. He seemed just as surprised to see her as she was to see
him, so Sahwah thought, but he was friendly enough and asked if the
Gardiners were at home. When Sahwah said no, he said, “Then possibly
they wouldn’t mind if you gave me what I wanted. I came over to see if
they would lend me their wheel hoe, as mine is broken and will have to
be sent away to be fixed, and I have a big job of hoeing that ought to
be done to-day.” Sahwah knew that Migwan would not refuse to do a
neighborly kindness like that as long as they were not using the tool
themselves, and willingly lent it to him.

She was still in great distress of mind over the ridiculous incident of
the morning and did not want to see the other girls when they came home.
So taking a pillow and a book, she wandered down the river path to a
quiet shady spot among the willows and spent the afternoon in solitude.
When the other girls returned home Sahwah was nowhere to be found. This
did not greatly surprise them, however, for they were used to her
impetuous nature and knew she was hiding somewhere. Hinpoha and Gladys
were up-stairs removing the dust of the road from their faces and hands
when they heard a stealthy footstep overhead. “She’s hiding in the
attic!” said Hinpoha.

“She’ll melt up there,” said Gladys, “it must be like an oven. Let’s
coax her down and don’t any of us say a word about the play. She must
feel terrible about it.”

So it was agreed among the girls that no mention of Sahwah’s mishap
should be made, and Hinpoha went to the foot of the attic stairs and
called up: “Come on down, Sahwah, we’re all going out on the river.”
There was no answer. Hinpoha called again: “Please come, Sahwah, we need
you to steer the raft.” Still no answer. Hinpoha went up softly. She
thought she could persuade Sahwah to come down if none of the others
were around. But when she reached the top of the stairs there was no
sign of Sahwah anywhere. The place was stifling, and Hinpoha gasped for
breath. Sahwah must be hiding among the old furniture. Hinpoha moved
things about, raising clouds of dust that nearly choked her, and calling
to Sahwah. No answer came, and she did not find Sahwah hidden among any
of the things. Gladys came up to see what was going on, followed by
Migwan.

“She doesn’t seem to be up here after all,” said Hinpoha, pausing to
take breath. “It’s funny; I certainly thought I heard someone up here.”

“Don’t you remember the time I thought I heard someone up here in the
night and you said it was the noise made by rats or mice?” asked Migwan.
“It was probably that same thing again.”

“It must have been,” said Hinpoha.

“Maybe it was the ghost of that Mrs. Waterhouse, who died before she had
her attic cleaned, and comes back to move the furniture,” said Gladys.
In spite of its being daylight an unearthly thrill went through the
veins of the girls. The whole thing was so mysterious and uncanny.

Migwan was looking around the attic. “Who broke that window?” she asked,
suddenly. The side window, the one near the Balm of Gilead tree, was
shattered and lay in pieces on the floor.

“It wasn’t broken the day we brought Miss Mortimer up,” said Gladys. “It
must have happened since then.”

“There must have been someone up here to-day,” said Migwan. “Do you
suppose—” here she stopped.

“Suppose what?” asked Hinpoha.

“Do you suppose,” continued Migwan, “that Sahwah was up here and broke
it accidentally and is afraid to show herself on account of it?”

“Maybe,” said Hinpoha, “but Sahwah’s not the one to try to cover up
anything like that. She’d offer to pay for the damage and it wouldn’t
worry her five minutes.”

“It may have been broken the night of the storm,” said Nyoda, who had
arrived on the scene. “If I remember rightly, we opened it when Miss
Mortimer was up here, and as it is only held up by a nail and a rope
hanging down from the ceiling, it could easily have been torn loose in
such a wind as that and slammed down against the casement and broken. We
were so excited trying to cover up the plants that we did not hear the
crash, if indeed, we could have heard it in that thunder at all.”

This seemed such a plausible explanation that the girls accepted it
without question and dismissed the matter from their minds. Descending
from the hot attic they went out on the river on the raft. As it drew
near supper time they feared that Sahwah would stay away and miss her
supper, and they knew that she would have to show herself sometime, so
they determined to have it over with so Sahwah could eat her supper in
peace. On the path along the river they found her handkerchief and knew
that she was somewhere near the water. They called and called, but she
did not answer. “I know what will bring her from her hiding-place,” said
Nyoda. She unfolded her plan and the girls agreed. They poled the raft
back to the landing-place and got on shore. Then they set Ophelia on the
raft all alone and sent it down-stream, telling her to scream at the top
of her voice as if she were frightened. Ophelia obeyed and set up such a
series of ear-splitting shrieks as she floated down the river that it
was hard to believe that she was not in mortal terror. The scheme worked
admirably. Sahwah heard the screams and peered through the bushes to see
what was happening. She saw Ophelia alone on the raft and no one else in
sight, and thought, of course, that she was afraid and ran out to
reassure her. She took hold of the tow line and pulled the raft back to
the landing-place.

“Whatever made you so scared?” she asked, as Ophelia stepped on terra
firma.

“Pooh, I wasn’t scared at all,” said Ophelia, grandly. “They told me to
scream so you’d come out.” So Sahwah knew the trick that had been
practised on her, but instead of being pleased to think that the girls
wanted her with them so badly she was more irritated than before. There
was no further use of hiding; she had to go into the house now and eat
her supper with the rest. The meal was not such a trial for her as she
had anticipated, because no one mentioned the subject of moving
pictures, or acted as if anything had happened at all. After supper
Nyoda brought out a magazine showing pictures of the Rocky Mountains and
the girls gave this their strict attention. Nyoda read aloud the
descriptions that went with the pictures. In one place she read: “The
barren aspect of the hillside is due to a landslide which swept
everything before it.”

At this Migwan’s thoughts went back to the scene on the hillside that
day, when the human landslide was in progress. Now Migwan, in spite of
her serious appearance, had a sense of humor which at times got the
upper hand of her altogether. The memory of those figures rolling down
the hill was too much for her and she dissolved abruptly into hysterical
laughter. She vainly tried to control it and buried her face in her
handkerchief, but it was no use. The harder she tried to stop laughing
the harder she laughed. “Oh,” she gasped, “I never saw anything so funny
as when you rolled against Miss Mortimer and Mr. Chambers and knocked
them off their feet.”

After Migwan’s hysterical outburst the rest could not restrain their
laughter either, and Sahwah became the butt of all the humorous remarks
that had been accumulating in the minds of the rest. If it had been
anyone else but Migwan who had started them off, Sahwah would possibly
have forgiven that one, but since selling her two plots to Mr. Larue
Migwan had been holding her head pretty high. That Migwan had succeeded
in her end of the motion picture business when she had failed in hers
galled Sahwah to death and she fancied that Migwan was trying to “rub it
in.”

“I hope everything I do will cause you as much pleasure,” she said
stiffly. “I suppose nothing could make you happier than to see me do
something ridiculous every day.” Sahwah had slipped off her balance
wheel altogether.

Migwan sobered up when she heard Sahwah’s injured tone. She never
dreamed Sahwah had taken the occurrence so much to heart. It was not her
usual way. “Please don’t be angry, Sahwah,” she said, contritely. “I
just couldn’t help laughing. You know how light headed I am.”

But Sahwah would have none of her apology. “I’ll leave you folks to have
as much fun over it as you please,” she said coldly, rising and going
up-stairs.

Migwan was near to tears and would have gone after her, but Nyoda
restrained her. “Let her alone,” she advised, “and she’ll come out of it
all the sooner.”

Sahwah was herself again in the morning as far as the others were
concerned, but she still treated Migwan somewhat coldly and it was
evident that she had not forgiven her.




CHAPTER VIII.—A CANNING EPISODE.


Three times every week Migwan had been making the trip to town with a
machine-load of vegetables, which was disposed of to an ever growing
list of customers. Thanks to the early start the garden had been given
by Mr. Mitchell, and the constant care it received at the hands of
Migwan and her willing helpers, Migwan always managed to bring out her
produce a day or so in advance of most of the other growers in the
neighborhood and so could command a better price at first than she could
have if she had arrived on the scene at flood tide. After every trip
there was a neat little sum to put in the old cocoa can which Migwan
used as a bank until there was enough accumulated to make a real bank
deposit. The asparagus had passed beyond its vegetable days and had
grown up in tall feathery shoots that made a pretty sight as they stood
in a long row against the fence. The new strawberry plants had taken
root and were growing vigorously; the cucumbers were thriving like fat
babies. The squashes and melons were running a race, as Sahwah said, to
see which could hold up the most fruit on their vines; the corn-stalks
stood straight and tall, holding in their arms their firstborn, silky
tassel-capped children, like proud young fathers.

But it was the tomato bed in which Migwan’s dearest hopes were bound up.
The frames sagged with exhaustion at the task of holding up the weight
of crimsoning globes that hung on the vines. Migwan tended this bed as a
mother broods over a favorite child, fingering over the leaves for
loathsome tomato worms, spraying the plants to keep away diseases, and
cultivating the ground around the roots. All suckers were ruthlessly
snipped off as soon as they grew, so that the entire strength of the
plants could go into the ripening of tomatoes. For it was on that tomato
bed that Migwan’s fortune depended. While the proceeds from the
remainder of the garden were gratifying, they were not great enough to
make up the sum which Migwan needed to go to college, as the vegetables
were not raised in large enough quantities. Migwan carefully estimated
the amount she would realize from the sale of the tomatoes and found
that it would not be large enough, and decided she could make more out
of them by canning them. At Nyoda’s advice the Winnebagos formed
themselves into a Canning Club, which would give them the right to use
the 4H label, which stood for Head, Hand, Health and Heart, and was
recognized by dealers in various places. According to the methods of the
Canning Club they canned the tomatoes in tin cans, with tops neatly
soldered on. After an interview with various hotels and restaurants in
the city Nyoda succeeded in establishing a market for Migwan’s goods,
and the canning went on in earnest. The whole family were pressed into
service, and for days they did nothing but peel from morning until
night.

“I’m getting to be such an expert peeler,” said Hinpoha, “that I
automatically reach out in my sleep and start to peel Migwan.”

Nyoda made up a gay little song about the peeling. To the tune of
“Comrades, comrades, ever since we were boys,” she sang, “Peeling,
peeling, ever since 6 A.M.”

Several places had asked for homemade ketchup and Migwan prepared to
supply the demand. Never did a prize housekeeper, making ketchup for a
county fair, take such pains as Migwan did with hers. She took care to
use only the best spices and the best vinegar; she put in a few peach
leaves from the tree to give it a finer flavor; she stood beside the big
iron preserving kettle and stirred the mixture all the while it was
boiling to be sure that it would not settle and burn. Everyone in the
house had to taste it to be sure it found favor with a number of
critical palates. “Wouldn’t you like to put a few bay leaves into it?”
asked her mother. “There are some in the glass jar in the pantry. They
are all crumbled and broken up fine, but they are still good.” Migwan
put a spoonful of the broken leaves into the ketchup; then she put
another.

“Oh, I never was so tired,” she sighed, when at last it had boiled long
enough and she shoved it back.

“Let’s all go out on the river,” proposed Nyoda, “and forget our toil
for awhile.” Sahwah was the last out of the kitchen, having stopped to
drink a glass of water, and while she was drinking her eye roved over
the table and caught sight of half a dozen cloves that had spilled out
of a box. Gathering them up in her hand she dropped them into the
ketchup. Just then Migwan came back for something and the two went out
together.

“And now for the bottling,” said Migwan, when the supper dishes were put
away, and she set several dozen shining glass bottles on the table.
After she had been dipping up the ketchup for awhile she paused in her
work to sit down for a few moments and count up her expected profits.
“Let’s see,” she said, “forty bottles at fifteen cents a bottle is six
dollars. That isn’t so bad for one day’s work. But I hope I don’t have
many days of such work,” she added. “My back is about broken with
stirring.” About thirty of the bottles were filled and sealed when she
took this little breathing spell.

“Let me have a taste,” said Hinpoha, eyeing the brown mixture longingly.

“Help yourself,” said Migwan. Hinpoha took a spoonful. Her face drew up
into the most frightful puckers. Running to the sink she took a hasty
drink of water. “What’s the matter?” said Migwan, viewing her in alarm.
“Did you choke on it?”

“Taste it!” cried Hinpoha. “It’s as bitter as gall.”

Migwan took a taste of the ketchup and looked fit to drop. “Whatever is
the matter with it?” she gasped. One after another the girls tasted it
and voiced their mystification. “It couldn’t have spoiled in that short
time,” said Migwan.

Then she suddenly remembered having seen Sahwah drop something into the
kettle as it stood on the back of the stove. Could it be possible that
Sahwah was seeking revenge for having been made fun of? “Sahwah,” she
gasped, unbelievingly, “did you put anything into the ketchup that made
it bitter?”

“I did not,” said Sahwah, the indignant color flaming into her face. She
had already forgotten the incident of the cloves. She saw Nyoda and the
other girls look at her in surprise at Migwan’s words. Her temper rose
to the boiling point. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, fiercely.
“You think I did something to the ketchup to get even with Migwan, but I
didn’t, so there. I don’t know any more about it than you do.”

“I take it all back,” said Migwan, alarmed at the tempest she had set
astir, and bursting into tears buried her head on her arms on the
kitchen table. All that work gone for nothing!

Sahwah ran from the room in a fearful passion. Nyoda tried to comfort
Migwan. “It’s a lucky thing we found it before the stuff was sold,” she
said, “or your trade would have been ruined.” She and the other girls
threw the ketchup out and washed the bottles.

“Whatever could have happened to it?” said Gladys, wonderingly.

Migwan lifted her face. “I want to tell you something, Nyoda,” she said.
“I suppose you wonder why I asked Sahwah if she had put anything in.
Well, when I went back into the kitchen after my hat when we were going
out on the river, Sahwah was there, and she was dropping something into
the kettle.”

“You don’t mean it?” said Nyoda, incredulously. Nyoda understood
Sahwah’s blind impulses of passion, and she could not help noticing for
the last few days that Sahwah was still nursing her wrath at Migwan for
laughing at her, and she wondered if she could have lost control of
herself for an instant and spoiled the ketchup.

Meanwhile Sahwah, up-stairs, had cooled down almost as rapidly as she
had flared up, and began to think that she had been a little hasty in
her outburst. She, therefore, descended the back stairs with the idea of
making peace with the family and helping to wash the bottles. But
halfway down the stairs she happened to hear Migwan’s remark and Nyoda’s
answer, and the long silence which followed it. Immediately her fury
mounted again to think that they suspected her of doing such an
underhand trick. “They don’t trust me!” she cried, over and over again
to herself. “They don’t believe what I said; they think I did it and
told a lie about it.” All night she tossed and nursed her sense of
injury and by morning her mind was made up. She would leave this place
where everyone was against her, and where even Nyoda mistrusted her.
That was the most unkind cut of all.

When she did not appear at the breakfast table the rest began to wonder.
Betty reported that Sahwah had not been in bed when she woke up, which
was late, and she thought she had risen and dressed and gone down-stairs
without disturbing her. There was no sign of her in the garden or on the
river. Both the rowboat and the raft were at the landing-place. There
was an uncomfortable restraint at the breakfast table. Each one was
thinking of something and did not want the others to see it. That thing
was that Sahwah had a guilty conscience and was afraid to face the
girls. Migwan’s eyes filled with tears when she thought how her dear
friend had injured her. A blow delivered by the hand of a friend is so
much worse than one from an enemy. The table was always set the night
before and the plates turned down.

“What’s this sticking out under Sahwah’s plate?” asked Gladys. It was a
note which she opened and read and then sat down heavily in her chair.
The rest crowded around to see. This was what they read: “As long as you
don’t trust me and think I do underhand things you will probably be glad
to get rid of me altogether. Don’t look for me, for I will never come
back. You may give my place in the Winnebagos to someone else.” It was
signed “Sarah Ann Brewster,” and not the familiar “Sahwah.”

“Sahwah’s run away!” gasped Migwan in distress, and the girls all ran up
to her room. Her clothes were gone from their hooks and her suit-case
was gone from under the bed. The girls faced each other in
consternation.

“Do you think she had anything to do with the ketchup, after all?” asked
Gladys, thoughtfully. “It was so unlike her to do anything of that
kind.”

“Then why did she run away?” asked Migwan, perplexed.

The morning passed miserably. They missed Sahwah at every turn. Several
times the girls forgot themselves and sang out “O Sahwah!” Nyoda did not
doubt for a moment that Sahwah had gone to her own home, but she thought
it best not to go after her immediately. Sahwah’s hot temper must cool
before she would come to herself. Nyoda was puzzled at her conduct. If
she had nothing to be ashamed of why had she run away? That was the
question which kept coming up in her mind. Nothing went right in the
house or the garden that day. Everyone was out of sorts. Migwan
absent-mindedly pulled up a whole row of choice plants instead of weeds;
Gladys ran the automobile into a tree and bent up the fender; Hinpoha
slammed the door on her finger nail; Nyoda burnt her hand. Ophelia was
just dressed for the afternoon in a clean, starched white dress when she
fell into the river and had to be dressed over again from head to foot.
The whole household was too cross for words. The departure of Sahwah was
the first rupture that had ever occurred in the closely linked ranks of
the Winnebagos and they were all broken up over it.

When Mrs. Gardiner was cooking beef for supper she told Migwan to get
her some bay leaf to flavor it with. Migwan brought out the glass jar of
crushed leaves. “That’s not the bay leaf,” said her mother, and went to
look for it herself. “Here it is,” she said, bringing another glass jar
down from a higher shelf.

“Then what’s this?” asked Migwan, indicating the first jar.

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “It was in the
pantry when we came.”

“But this was what I put into the ketchup,” said Migwan. Hastily
unscrewing the top she shook out some of the contents and tasted them.
Her mouth contracted into a fearful pucker. Never in her life had she
tasted anything so bitter.

“I did it myself,” she said, in a dazed tone. “I spoiled the ketchup
myself.” At her shout the girls came together in the kitchen to hear the
story of the mistaken ingredient.

“What can that be?” they all asked. Nobody knew. It was some dried herb
that had been left by the former mistress of the house, and a powerful
one. The girls looked at each other blankly.

“And I accused Sahwah of doing it,” said Migwan, remorsefully. “No
wonder she flared up and left us, I don’t blame her a bit. I wouldn’t
thank anyone for accusing me wrongfully of anything like that.”

“We’ll have to go after her this very evening,” said Gladys, “and bring
her back.”

“If she’ll come,” said Hinpoha, knowing Sahwah’s proud spirit.

“Oh, I’m quite willing to grovel in the dust at her feet,” said Migwan.

Gladys drove them all into town with her and they sped to the Brewster
house. It was all dark and silent. Sahwah was evidently not there. They
tried the neighbors. They all denied that she had been near the house.
They finally came to this conclusion themselves, for in the light of the
street lamp just in front of the house they could see that the porch was
covered with a month’s accumulation of yellow dust which bore no
footmarks but their own.

Here was a new problem. They had come expecting to offer profuse
apologies to Sahwah and carry her back with them to Onoway House
rejoicing, and it was a shock to find her gone. The thought of letting
her go on believing that they mistrusted her was intolerable, but how
were they going to clear matters up? Sahwah had no relatives in town,
and, of course, they did not know all her friends, so it would be hard
to find her. That is, if she had ever reached town at all. Something
might have happened to her on the way—Nyoda and Gladys sought each
other’s eyes and each thought of what had happened to them on the way to
Bates Villa.

With heavy hearts they rode back to Onoway House. The days went by
cheerlessly. A week passed since Sahwah had run away, but no word came
from her. Nyoda interviewed the conductors on the interurban car line to
find out if Sahwah had taken the car into the city. No one remembered a
girl of that description on the day mentioned. Sahwah had only one hat—a
conspicuous red one—and she would not fail to attract attention.
Thoroughly alarmed, Nyoda decided on a course of action. She called up
the various newspapers in town and asked them to print a notice to the
effect that Sahwah had disappeared. If Sahwah were in town she would see
it and knowing that they were worried about her would let them know
where she was. The notice came out in the papers, and a day or two
passed, but there was no word from Sahwah. Nyoda and Gladys made a
hurried trip to town to put the police on the track. Just before they
got to the city limits they had a blowout and were delayed some time
before they could go on. As they waited in the road another machine came
along and the driver stopped and offered assistance. Nyoda recognized a
friend of hers in the machine, a Miss Barnes, teacher in a local
gymnasium.

“Hello, Miss Kent,” she called, cheerfully, “I haven’t seen you for an
age. Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“Where have you been keeping yourself?” returned Nyoda.

“I, Oh, I’m working this summer,” replied Miss Barnes. “I’m just in town
on business. I’m helping to conduct a girls’ summer camp on the lake
shore. I thought possibly you would bring your Camp Fire group out there
this summer. One of your girls is out there now.”

“Which one?” asked Nyoda, thinking of Chapa and Nakwisi, whom she had
heard talking about going.

“One by the name of Brewster,” said Miss Barnes, “a regular mermaid in
the water. She has the girls out there standing open-mouthed at her
swimming and diving. Why, what’s the matter?” she asked, as Nyoda gave a
sigh of relief that seemed to come from her boots.

“Nothing,” replied Nyoda, “only we’ve been scouring the town for that
very girl.”

“You have?” asked Miss Barnes, with interest. “Would you like to come
out and visit her?”

“Could I?” asked Nyoda.

“Certainly,” said Miss Barnes, “come right out with me now. I’m going
back.”

And so Sahwah’s mysterious disappearance was cleared up. When the
Winnebagos, lined up in the road, saw the automobile approaching, and
that Sahwah was in it, they welcomed her back into their midst with a
rousing Winnebago cheer that warmed her to the heart. All the clouds had
been rolled away by Nyoda’s explanations and this was a triumphant
homecoming. A regular feast was spread for her, and as she ate she
related her adventures since leaving the house early that other morning.
Without forming any plan of where she was going she had walked up the
road in the opposite direction of the car line and then a farmer had
come along on a wagon and given her a lift. He had taken her all the way
to the other car line, three miles below Onoway House. She had come into
the city by this route. She did not want to go home for fear they would
come after her, so she went to the Young Women’s Christian Association.
As she sat in the rest room wondering what she should do next she heard
two girls talking about registering for camp. This seemed to her a
timely suggestion, and she followed them to the registration desk and
registered for two weeks. She went out that same day. When she arrived
there she did such feats in the water that they asked her if she would
not stay all summer and help teach the girls to swim. She said she
would, and so saw a very easy way out of her difficulty. The reason they
had not heard from her when they put the notice in the papers was
because they did not get the city papers in camp.

Sahwah surveyed the faces around the table with a beaming countenance.
After all, she could only be entirely happy with the Winnebagos. Migwan
and she were once more on the best of terms.

“But tell us,” said Hinpoha, now that this was safe ground to tread
upon, “what it was you put into the ketchup.”

“Oh,” said Sahwah, who now remembered all about it, “those were a couple
of cloves that were lying on the table.”

And so the last bit of mystery was cleared up.




CHAPTER IX.—OPHELIA DANCES THE SUN DANCE.


Among the other books at Onoway House there was a Manual of the
Woodcraft Indians which belonged to Sahwah, and which she was very fond
of quoting and reading to the other girls when they were inclined to
hang back at some of the expeditions she proposed. One night she read
aloud the chapter about “dancing the sun dance,” that is, becoming
sunburned from head to foot without blistering. On a day not long after
this Ophelia might have been seen standing beside the river clad only in
a thin, white slip. Stepping from the bank, she immersed herself in the
water, then stood in the sun, holding out her arms and turning up her
face to its glare. When the blazing August sunlight began to feel
uncomfortably warm on her body she plunged into the cooling flood and
then came up to stand on the bank again. She did this straight through
for two hours, and then began to investigate the result. Her arms were a
beautiful brilliant red, and the length of leg that extended out from
the slip was the same shade. She felt wonderfully pleased, and dipped in
the water again and again to cool off and then returned to the burning
process. When the dinner bell rang she returned to the house, eager to
show her achievement. But she did not feel so enthusiastic now as when
she first beheld her scarlet appearance. Something was wrong. It seemed
as if she were on fire from head to foot. She looked at her arms. They
were no longer such a pretty red; they had swelled up in large, white
blisters. So had her legs. She could hardly see out of her eyes.

“Ophelia!” gasped the girls, when she came into the house. “What has
happened? Have you been scalded?”

“I’ve been doing your old Sun Dance,” said Ophelia, painfully.

Never in all their lives had they seen such a case of sunburn. Every
inch of her body was covered with blisters as big as a hand. The sun had
burned right through the flimsy garment she wore. There was a pattern
around her neck where the embroidery had left its trace. She screamed
every time they tried to touch her. Nyoda worked quickly and deftly and
the luckless sun dancer was wrapped from head to foot in soft linen
bandages until she looked like a mummy.

Sahwah sought Nyoda in tribulation. “Was it my fault,” she asked, “for
reading her that book? She never would have thought of it if I hadn’t
given her the idea.”

“No,” answered Nyoda, “it wasn’t your fault. It said emphatically in the
book that the coat of tan should be acquired gradually. You couldn’t
foresee that she would stand in the sun that way. So don’t worry about
it any longer.”

“Still, I feel in a measure responsible,” said Sahwah, “and I ought to
be the one to take care of her. Let me sleep in the room with her
to-night and get up if she wants anything.” Sahwah’s desire to help was
so sincere that she insisted upon being allowed to do it, and took upon
herself all the care of the sunburned Ophelia, which was no small job,
for the pain from the blisters made her frightfully cross.

Nyoda was surprised to see Sahwah keeping at it with such persistent
good nature and apparent success, for as a rule she was not a good one
to take care of the sick; she was in too much of a hurry. She would
generally spill the water when she was trying to give a drink to her
patient, or fall over the rug, or drop dishes; and the effect she
produced was irritating rather than soothing. But in this case she
seemed to be making a desperate effort to do things correctly so she
would be allowed to continue, and fetched and carried all the afternoon
in obedience to Ophelia’s whims. She read her stories to while away the
painful hours and when supper time came made her a wonderful egg salad
in the form of a water lily, and cut sandwiches into odd shapes to
beguile her into eating them. When evening came and Ophelia was restless
and could not go to sleep she sang to her in her clear, high voice,
songs of camp and firelight. One by one the Winnebagos drifted in and
joined their voices to hers in a beautifully blended chorus.

“Gee, that’s what it must be like in heaven,” sighed the child of the
streets, as she listened to them. The Winnebagos smiled tenderly and
sang on until she dropped off to sleep.

Sahwah slept with one eye open listening for a call from Ophelia. She
heard her stirring restlessly in the night and went over and sat beside
her. “Can’t you sleep?” she asked.

“No,” complained Ophelia. “Say, will you tell me that story again?”

Sahwah began, “Once upon a time there was a little girl and she had a
fairy godmother——”

“What’s a fairy godmother?” interrupted Ophelia.

“Oh,” said Sahwah, “it’s somebody who looks after you especially and is
very good to you and grants all your wishes, and always comes when
you’re in trouble——”

“Who’s my fairy godmother?” demanded Ophelia.

“I don’t know,” said Sahwah.

“I bet I haven’t got any!” said Ophelia, suspiciously. “I didn’t have a
father and mother like the rest of the kids and I bet I haven’t got any
fairy godmother either.”

“Oh, yes, you have,” said Sahwah to soothe her, “you have one only you
haven’t seen her yet. Wait and she’ll appear.” But Ophelia lay with her
face to the wall and said no more. “Would you like me to bring you a
drink?” asked Sahwah, a few minutes later. Ophelia replied with a nod
and Sahwah went down to the kitchen. There was no drinking water in
sight and Sahwah hesitated about going out to the well at that time of
the night. Then she remembered that a pail of well water had been taken
down cellar that evening to keep cool. Taking a light she descended the
cellar stairs. When she was nearly to the bottom she heard a subdued
crash, like a basket of something being thrown over, followed by a
series of small bumping sounds. She stood stock still, afraid to move
off the step.

Then, summoning her voice, she cried, “Who is down there?” No answer
came from the darkness below. After that first crash there was not
another sound. Sahwah was not naturally timid, and her one explanation
for all night noises in a house was rats. Besides, she had started after
water for Ophelia, and she meant to get it. She went down stairs and
looked all around with her light. She soon found the thing which had
made the noise. It was a basket of potatoes which had fallen over and as
the potatoes rolled out on the cement floor they had made those odd
little after noises which had puzzled her. Satisfied that nobody was in
the house she took her pail of water and went up-stairs, glad that she
had not roused the house and brought out a laugh against herself.

She gave Ophelia the drink, and being feverish she drank it eagerly and
murmured gratefully, “I guess you’re my fairy godmother.” As Sahwah
turned to go to bed Ophelia thrust out a bandaged hand and caught hold
of her gown. “Stay with me,” she said, and Sahwah sat down again beside
the bed until Ophelia fell asleep. Sahwah felt pleased and elated at
being chosen by Ophelia as the one she wanted near her. It was not often
that a child singled Sahwah out from the group as an object of
affection; they usually went to Gladys or Hinpoha. So she responded
quickly to the advances made by Ophelia and thenceforth made a special
pet of her, taking her part on all occasions.

Soon after Ophelia’s experience with sunburn a rainy spell set in which
lasted a week. Every day they were greeted by grey skies and a steady
downpour, fine for the parched garden, but hard on amusements. They
played card games until they were weary of the sight of a card; they
played every other game they knew until it palled on them, and on the
fifth day of rain they surrounded Nyoda and clamored for something new
to do. Nyoda scratched her head thoughtfully and asked if they would
like to play Thieves’ Market.

“Play what?” asked Gladys.

“Thieves’ Market,” said Nyoda. “You know in Mexico there is an
institution known as the Thieves’ Market, where stolen goods are sold to
the public. We will not discuss the moral aspect of the business, but I
thought we could make a game out of it. Let’s each get a hold of some
possession of each one of the others’ without being seen and put a price
on it. The price will not be a money value, of course, but a stunt. The
owner of the article will have first chance at the stunt and if she
fails the thing will go to whoever can buy it. If anyone fails to get a
possession from each one of the rest to add to the collection she can’t
play, and if she is seen by the owner while ‘stealing’ it she will have
to put it back. We’ll hold the Thieves’ Market to-night after supper in
the parlor and I’ll be storekeeper.”

The Winnebagos, always on the lookout for something novel and
entertaining, seized on the idea with rapture. The rain was forgotten
that afternoon as they scurried around the house trying to seize upon
articles belonging to the others, and at the same time trying valiantly
to guard their own possessions. It was not hard to get Sahwah’s things,
for she had a habit of leaving them lying all over the house. Her red
hat had fallen a victim the first thing; likewise her shoes and tennis
racket. It was harder to get anything away from Nyoda, for she seemed to
be Argus eyed; but providentially she was called to the telephone, and
while she was talking they made their raid.

When opened, the Thieves’ Market presented such a conglomeration of
articles that at first the girls could only stand and wonder how those
things had ever been taken away from them without their knowing it, for
many of them were possessions which were usually hidden from sight while
the owners fondly believed that their existence was unknown. Migwan gave
a cry of dismay when she beheld her “Autobiography,” which she was
carefully keeping a secret from the rest, out in full view on the table.
“How did you ever find it?” she gasped. “It was folded up in my
clothes.”

But Migwan’s embarrassment was nothing compared to Nyoda’s when she
caught sight of a certain photograph. She blushed scarlet while the
girls teased her unmercifully. It was a picture of Sherry, the serenader
of the camp the summer before. Until they found the photograph the girls
did not know that Nyoda was corresponding with him. And the prices on
the various things were the funniest of all. The girls had come down
that evening dressed in their middies and bloomers for they had a
suspicion that there would be some acrobatic stunts taking place, and it
was well that they did. To redeem her hat Sahwah had to stand on her
head and to get her bedroom slippers Gladys had to jump through a hoop
from a chair. Hinpoha had to wrestle with Nyoda for the possession of
her paint box, and the price of Betty’s shoes was to throw them over her
shoulder into a basket. At the first throw she knocked a vase off the
table, but luckily it did not break, and she was warned that another
accident would result in her going shoeless. Migwan tremblingly
approached the Autobiography to find out the price. It was “Read one
chapter aloud.” “I won’t do it,” said Migwan, flatly.

“Next customer,” cried Nyoda, pounding with her hammer. “For the simple
price of reading aloud one chapter I will sell this complete
autobiography of a pious life, profusely illustrated by the author.”
Sahwah hastened up to “buy” the book, but Migwan headed her off in a
hurry and read the first chapter with as good grace as she could, amid
the cheers and applause of the other customers. Sahwah made a grimace
when she had to polish the shoes of everyone present to get her shoe
brush back.

Thus the various articles in the Thieves’ Market were disposed of amid
much laughter and merry-making, until there remained but one article, a
cold chisel. Nyoda went through the usual formula, offering it for sale,
but no one came to claim it. She redoubled her pleas, but with the same
result. “For the third and last time I offer this great bargain in a
cold chisel for the simple price of jumping over three chairs in
succession,” she said, with a flourish. Nobody appeared to be anxious to
redeem their property. “Whose is it?” she asked, mystified.

It apparently belonged to no one. “It’s yours, Gladys,” said Sahwah, “I
stole it from you.”

“Mine?” asked Gladys, in surprise. “I don’t own any chisel. Where did
you get it from?”

“Out of the automobile,” answered Sahwah.

“But it doesn’t belong there,” said Gladys. “There’s no chisel among the
tools. You’re joking, you found it somewhere else.”

“No, really,” said Sahwah, “I found it in the car this afternoon.”

“Mother,” called Migwan, “were there any tools left in the barn by Mr.
Mitchell?”

“Nothing but the garden tools,” answered her mother. Tom also denied any
knowledge of the chisel.

“Girls,” said Nyoda, seriously, “there is something going on here that I
do not understand. First Migwan thought she heard footsteps in the
attic; then a ghost appeared to me in the tepee; one night we saw a man
running out of the barn, and later on that night Migwan claims to have
run into a man in the garden. Soon afterward Hinpoha was sure she heard
footsteps in the attic, and when we went up we found the window broken.
Just a few nights ago a basket of potatoes was mysteriously knocked over
in the cellar in the middle of the night, and now we find a chisel in
the automobile which does not belong to us. It looks for all the world
as if somebody were trying to break into this house, in fact, has broken
in on a number of occasions.”

Migwan shrieked and covered up her ears. “A mystery!” said Sahwah,
theatrically. “How thrilling!” The interest in the Thieves’ Market died
out before this new and alarming idea.

“It may be only a remarkable series of co-incidences,” said Nyoda,
seeing the fright of the girls, “but it certainly looks suspicious. That
window may possibly have been broken by the wind during the storm, and
the footsteps may have been rats or Mrs. Waterhouse’s ghost, and the
ghost in the tepee may have been a practical joker, but baskets of
potatoes do not fall over of their own accord in the middle of the night
and cold chisels don’t grow in automobiles. There’s something wrong and
we ought to find out what it is.”

“Oh, I’ll never go up-stairs alone again,” shuddered Migwan. “Sahwah,
how did you ever dare go down cellar in the dark after you heard that
noise?” And she shivered violently at the very thought.

“Tom, can you handle a gun?” asked Nyoda.

“Yes,” answered Tom.

“I’m going to buy a little automatic pistol to-morrow,” said Nyoda, “and
teach everyone of you girls how to shoot it.”

“I wonder if we hadn’t better try to get Calvin Smalley to sleep in the
house,” said Migwan.

“I can take care of you,” said Tom, proudly. Nothing else was talked of
for the remainder of the evening and when bed time came there was a
general reluctance to become separated from the rest of the household.
But, although they listened for footsteps in the attic they heard
nothing, and the night passed away peacefully.

The next night the ghost became active again. Whether it was the same
one or a different one they did not find out, however, for they did not
see it this time, only heard it. Just about bed time it was, a strange,
weird moaning sound that filled the house and echoed through the big
halls. Whether it proceeded from the basement or the attic they were
unable to make out; it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
Migwan clung close to her mother and trembled. The sound rang out again,
more weird than before. It was bloodcurdling. Nyoda opened the window
and fired several shots into the air. The moaning sound stopped abruptly
and was heard no more that night, but sleep was out of the question. The
girls were too excited and fearful. The next day Mrs. Gardiner advised
everybody to hide their valuables away. The peaceful life at Onoway
House was broken up. The household lived in momentary expectation of
something happening. “And this is the quiet of the country,” sighed
Migwan, “where I was to grow fat and strong. I’m worn to a frazzle
worrying about this mystery.”

“So’m I,” said Gladys.

“And I’m getting thin,” said Hinpoha, which brought out a general laugh.

“Not so you could notice it,” said Sahwah. Whereupon Hinpoha tried to
smother her with a pillow and the two rolled over on the bed,
struggling.

As if worrying about a burglar were not enough, Sahwah and Gladys had
another exciting experience one day that week. If we were to stretch a
point and trace things back to their beginnings it was the fault of the
Winnebagos themselves, for if they hadn’t gone horseback riding that
day—— Well, Farmer Landsdowne came over in the morning and said he had a
pair of horses which were not working and if they wanted to go horseback
riding now was their chance. The girls were delighted with the idea and
flew to don bloomers. None of them had ever ridden before and excitement
ran high. Naturally there were no saddles, for Farmer Landsdowne’s
horses were not ridden as a general rule, and the girls had to ride
bareback.

“It feels like trying to straddle a table,” said Migwan, marveling at
the width of the horse she was on. “My legs aren’t half long enough.”
She clung desperately to his mane as he began to trot and she began to
slide all over him. “He’s so slippery I can’t stick on,” she gasped. The
horse stopped abruptly as she jerked on the reins and she slid off as if
he had been greased, and landed in the soft grass beside the road.

“Here, let me try,” said Sahwah, impatient for her turn. “He isn’t
either slippery,” she said, when she got on, “he’s bony, horribly bony.
He’s just like knives.” She jolted up and down a few times on his hip
bones and an idea jolted into her head. Getting off she ran into the
house and came out again with a sofa pillow, which she proceeded to tie
on his back. Then she rode in comparative comfort, amid the laughter of
the girls.

Calvin Smalley, who happened to be working out in front and saw her ride
past, doubled up with laughter over his vegetable bed. “What next?” he
chuckled. “What next?” He was still thinking about this and laughing
over it when he went through the empty field which Sahwah had crossed
the time she had discovered the house among the trees, and where Abner
Smalley now pastured his bull. So absorbed was he in the memory of that
ridiculous pillow tied on the horse that he was not careful in putting
up the bars behind him when he left the field, and later in the
afternoon the bull wandered over in that direction and came through into
the next field. He found the river road and followed it and began to
graze in one of the unploughed fields belonging to Onoway House.

Sahwah, wearing her big, red hat, was bending low over the ground,
digging up some ferns which grew there, when all of a sudden she heard a
loud snort and looked up to see the bull charging down upon her. She
looked wildly around for a place of safety. Nothing was nearer than the
far-off hedge that surrounded the cultivated garden patch. Not a tree,
not a fence, in sight. Quick as light she bounded off toward the hedge,
although she knew it would be impossible for her to reach it before the
bull would be upon her.

Gladys, coming along the road in the automobile, heard a shriek and
looked up to see Sahwah tearing across the open field with the bull hard
after her. Without a moment’s hesitation Gladys turned the car into the
field and started after the bull at full speed. She let the car out
every notch and it whizzed dizzily over the hard turf. She sounded the
horn again and again with the hope of attracting the attention of the
bull, but he did not pause. Like lightning she bore down upon him,
passed to one side and slowed down for a second beside Sahwah, who
jumped on the running-board and was borne away to safety.

“This hum-drum, uneventful life,” said Sahwah, as she sat on the porch
half an hour afterward and tried to catch her breath, while the rest
fanned her with palm leaf fans, “is getting a little too much for me!”




CHAPTER X.—A BIRTHDAY PARTY


After Nyoda had fired the shots out of the window, nothing was heard or
seen of the ghost and the footsteps in the attic ceased. “It’s just as I
thought,” said Nyoda, “someone has been trying to frighten us with a
possible view of robbing the house at some time, thinking that a
houseful of women would be terror-stricken at the ghostly noises, but
when he found we had a gun and could shoot he thought better of the
plan.” Gradually the girls lost their fright, and the odd corners of
Onoway House regained their old charm. They were far too busy with the
canning to think of much else, for the tomatoes were ripening in such
large quantities that it was all they could do to dispose of them. The
4H brand found favor and the market gradually increased, and every week
Migwan had a goodly sum to deposit in the bank after the cost of the tin
cans had been deducted.

“I have to laugh when I think of that honor in the book,” said Migwan,
“can at least three cans of fruit,” and she pointed to the cans stacked
on the back porch ready to be packed into the automobile and taken to
town. “Why, hello, Calvin,” she said, as Calvin Smalley appeared at the
back door. “Come in.” Calvin came in and sat down. “What’s the matter?”
asked Migwan, for his face had a frightened and distressed look.

“Uncle Abner has turned me out!” said Calvin.

“Turned you out!” echoed the girls. “Why?”

“He showed me a will last night,” said Calvin, “a later one than that
which was found when my grandfather died, which left the farm to him
instead of to my father. He just found it last night when he was
rummaging among grandfather’s old papers. According to that I have been
living on his charity all these years instead of on my own property as I
supposed and now he says he can’t afford to keep me any longer. He
wanted me to sign a paper saying that I would work for him without pay
until I was thirty years old to make up for what I have had all these
years, and when I wouldn’t do it he told me to get out.”

“How can any man be so mean and stingy!” said Migwan, indignantly.

“And what do you intend to do now?” asked Mrs. Gardiner.

“I don’t know,” said Calvin, looking utterly downcast and discouraged.
“I had expected to go through school and then to agricultural college
and be a scientific farmer, but that’s out of the question now. I
haven’t a cent in the world. I could hire out to some of the farmers
around here, I suppose, but you know what that means—they wouldn’t pay
me much because I’m a boy, but they would get a man’s work out of me and
it’s precious little time I’d have for school. I’ve always saved Uncle
Abner the cost of one hired man in return for what he gave me, so I
don’t feel under any obligations to him. I think I’ll give up farming
for a while and go to the city and work. The trouble is I have no
friends there and it might be hard for me to get into a good place.” His
honest eyes were clouded over with perplexity and trouble.

“My father could probably get you a job in the city,” said Gladys, “if
you can wait until he gets back. He’s out west now.”

“I tell you what to do,” said kind-hearted Mrs. Gardiner to Calvin, “you
stay here with us until Mr. Evans comes back. You can help the girls in
the garden, and we were wishing not long ago that we had another man in
the house.”

“You are very kind,” said Calvin, gratefully, “but I don’t want to put
you to any trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” Mrs. Gardiner assured him, “you can sleep with
Tom.” The girls all expressed pleasure at the prospect of having Calvin
stay at Onoway House and under the spell of their kindly hospitality his
drooping spirits revived. He shook the dust of his uncle’s house from
his feet, feeling no longer an outcast, since he had suddenly found such
kind friends on the other side of the hedge.

Calvin lived in a perpetual state of wonder at the girls at Onoway
House. They made a frolic out of everything they did and were
continually thinking up new and amazing games to play. Calvin had never
done anything at home all his life but work, and work was a serious
business to him. He never knew before that work was fun. The long, weary
hours of peeling were enlivened with songs made up on the spur of the
moment. Sahwah would look up from the pan over which she was bending,
and sing to the tune of “The Pope”:

  “Our Migwan leads a jolly life, jolly life,
  She peels tomatoes with her knife, with her knife,
  And puts the pieces in the can,
  And leaves the peelings in the pan, (Oh, tra la la).”

And then they would all start to sing at once,

  “The tomatoes went in one by one,
  (There’s one more bushel to peel),
  Hinpoha she did cut her thumb,
  (There’s one more bushel to peel).”

  “The tomatoes went in two by two,
  And Gladys and Sahwah fell into the stew.
  The tomatoes went in three by three,
  And Migwan got drowned a-trying to see.”

etc., etc., thus they made merry over the work until it was done.

“Do you know,” said Migwan, looking up from her peeling, “that it’s
Gladys’s birthday next Friday? We ought to have a celebration.”

“How about a picnic?” asked Nyoda. “We haven’t had a real one yet. Have
the rest of the Winnebagos come out from town and all of us sleep in the
tepee as we had planned on the Fourth of July. Then we’ll get a horse
and wagon and drive along the roads until we come to a place beside the
river where we want to stop and cook our dinner and just spend the day
like gypsies.” The girls entered into the plan with enthusiasm, both for
the sake of celebrating Gladys’s birthday and cheering up Calvin, who
had been rather quiet and pensive of late. It was a great disappointment
to him to have to give up his plans for going to college, and his
uncle’s unfriendly treatment of him had cut him to the heart.

Medmangi and Chapa and Nakwisi arrived the day before the picnic and the
house echoed with the sound of voices and laughter, as the Winnebagos
bubbled over with joy at being all together. The morning of the picnic
was as fine as they could wish, and it was not long before they were
bumping over the road in one of Farmer Landsdowne’s wagons, behind the
very two horses which the girls had ridden the week before. It was a
wagon full. Sahwah sat up in front and drove like a veritable daughter
of Jehu, with Farmer Landsdowne up beside her to come to the rescue in
case the horses should run away, which was not at all likely, as it took
constant persuasion to keep them going even at an easy jog trot. Mrs.
Landsdowne, who, with her husband, had been invited to the picnic, sat
beside Mrs. Gardiner, in the back of the wagon, while Calvin Smalley
stayed next to Migwan, as he usually did. She was so quiet and gentle
and kind that he felt more at ease with her than with the rest of the
Winnebagos, who were such jokers. Ophelia, who was beginning to be
inseparable from Sahwah, squeezed herself in between her and Mr.
Landsdowne, and refused to move. Sahwah, of course, took her part and
let her stay, although she was a bit crowded for space. Hinpoha and
Gladys sat at the back of the wagon dangling their feet over the end,
where they could watch the yellow road unwinding like a ribbon beneath
them, while Nyoda sat between Betty and Tom to keep the peace.

“Where are we going?” asked Mrs. Gardiner, as they swung along the road.

“Oh,” replied Sahwah, “somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere. It’s
lots more romantic to start out without any idea where you’re going and
stop wherever it suits you than to start out for a certain place and
think you have to go there even if you pass nicer places on the road.
Maybe, like Mrs. Wiggs, we’ll end up at a first-class fire.”

“We undoubtedly will,” said Nyoda, “if we expect to cook any dinner. Do
my eyes deceive me?” she continued, “or is this a fishing-rod under the
straw? It is, it is,” she cried, drawing it out. “Now I know what has
been the matter with me for the past few months, this feeling of sadness
and longing that was not akin to rheumatism. I have been pining,
languishing, wasting away with a desire to go fishing. My early life ran
quiet beside a babbling brook, and there I sat and fished trout and
fried them over an outdoor fire. This spirit will never know repose
until it has gone fishing once more.”

“Take the rod and welcome, it’s mine,” said Calvin, glad that something
of his should give pleasure to one of his cherished friends.

In a shady grove of sycamores beside the river they dismounted from the
wagon and scattered in search of firewood, for the fire must be started
the first thing, as there were potatoes to roast. Nyoda took the
fishing-rod and started for the river. “We’ll never get anything to eat
if we wait until you catch enough fish for dinner,” said Sahwah.

“Who said I was going to catch enough for dinner?” said Nyoda. “I
wouldn’t be cruel enough to keep you waiting all that time. But I do
want to catch just one for old times’ sake.” She strolled down to the
water’s edge and after a few minutes Mr. Landsdowne joined her. He liked
Nyoda and enjoyed a talk with her.

“Are you going to play all alone at the picnic?” he asked, as he dropped
down beside her.

“Alone, but with _unbaited_ zeal,” she quoted, digging around in the
ground with her stick. “Come and help me find a worm.”

“I’m afraid the Early Bird got them all,” she said plaintively, after a
few moment’s fruitless search. By dint of much digging they finally
unearthed one and baited the hook. Nyoda cast her line and then settled
down to a spell of silent waiting. “I don’t believe there’s a fish in
this old river,” she said impatiently, after fifteen minutes of angling
which brought no results. “Not here, anyway. Let’s go down beyond the
bend where the river widens out into that broad pool. The water is
deeper and quieter there.” They moved on to the new location and Nyoda
tried her luck again. This time success crowned her efforts and she
landed a small fish almost immediately. “What did I tell you?” she
exclaimed, triumphantly. “There’s luck in changing places. Now for
another one.” In a few moments she felt a tug at the line. “It must be a
whale,” she cried, enthusiastically, “it pulls so hard.”

“It may be caught on a snag,” said Farmer Landsdowne. “Here, let me get
it loose for you, I’m afraid you’ll break that rod,” he said, as the
pole bent ominously in her hands.

“Spare the rod and spoil the fish,” said Nyoda.

“What are you doing on my property?” said a harsh voice behind them,
“don’t you see that sign?”

Nyoda and Farmer Landsdowne sprang to their feet in surprise and faced
an irate farmer in blue shirt sleeves. Sure enough, on a tree not very
far from them there was a sign reading,

  NO FISHING IN THIS POND.

“We didn’t see the sign,” said Nyoda, stammering in her embarrassment,
and crimson to the roots of her hair.

“We really didn’t,” confirmed Farmer Landsdowne.

“Well, ye see it now, don’t ye?” pursued the proprietor of the
fish-pond. “Kindly move along.”

“We have one fish,” said Nyoda, feeling unutterably foolish, “but we’ll
pay you for that. I must have one to take back to the picnic or I don’t
dare show my face.”

“Ye say ye caught a fish?” shouted the farmer, excitedly. “Holy
mackerel! That was the only one in the pond—I put it in there this
morning—and I’ve rented the fishing of it to a young feller from
Cleveland at twenty-five cents an hour.”

“But it didn’t take me an hour to catch him,” said Nyoda. “It only took
five minutes. That’ll be about two cents.” But the farmer held out for
his twenty-five cents and Nyoda paid it, laughing to herself at the way
the “feller from Cleveland” had been cheated out of his sport.

“Don’t ever tell the girls about this,” pleaded Nyoda, as they moved
shamefacedly away. “I’m supposed to be a pattern of conduct, and I’m
always scolding the girls because they don’t use their eyes enough.
They’ll never get over laughing at me if they find it out.” Farmer
Landsdowne promised solemnly that he would not divulge the secret.

“Did you catch anything?” called Sahwah, as Nyoda returned to the group
under the trees.

“We certainly did,” replied Nyoda, with a sidelong glance at Farmer
Landsdowne.

“Listen to this part of father’s last letter,” said Gladys, as they sat
around on the grass eating their dinner. “Juneau, Alaska.

“We recently saw a group of Camp Fire girls holding a Ceremonial Meeting
on a mountain near Juneau. It fairly made us homesick; it reminded us so
much of the group we used to see in our house. We went up and spoke to
them and they send you this three-petaled flower as a greeting.”

“To think we have friends all over the country, just because we know the
meaning of the word Wohelo!” said Migwan in an awed tone, as the
Winnebagos crowded around Gladys to see the flower which had come from
far off Alaska, a silent All Hail from kindred spirits.

Just at this point Ophelia, who was coming a long way with the
coffee-pot in her hand, tripped over a root and sprawled on her face on
the ground, showering everybody near her with coffee. “We have your
title now,” said Nyoda, “it’s Ophelia-Face-in-the-Mud. You’re always
falling that way.”

“And I know what your name is,” replied Ophelia.

“What is it?” asked Nyoda, guilelessly.

“It’s Nyoda-Chased-by-a-Farmer,” said Ophelia.

Nyoda started and looked guilty. “How did you know that?” she asked,
giving herself away completely.

“Followed you,” said Ophelia. “I saw you fishin’ where the sign said to
keep out and the man in the blue shirt sleeves chased you out.”

“Tell us about it,” demanded all the girls, and Nyoda had to tell the
whole story that she wanted to keep a secret.

  “Fishy, fishy in the brook,
  But the fishers ‘got the hook,’”

chanted Sahwah, teasingly. Nyoda and Farmer Landsdowne looked sheepish
at the jokes that were thrown at them thick and fast, but they stood it
good-naturedly.

“A truce!” cried Gladys, coming to the rescue of Nyoda. “Let’s play
charades.”

“Good!” said Migwan. “You be leader of one side and let Nyoda take the
other. Whichever side gives up first will have to get supper for the
rest.”

Gladys chose Sahwah, Mrs. Gardiner, Betty, Ophelia, Tom and Calvin.
Nyoda chose Mr. and Mrs. Landsdowne, Hinpoha, Migwan, Chapa, Medmangi
and Nakwisi. Gladys’s side went out first and came in without her.

“Word of three syllables, first syllable,” said Sahwah, who acted as
spokesman. The whole company sat down in a row, striking the most
doleful attitude and groaning as if in pain, and shedding tears into
their handkerchiefs.

“Most woeful looking crowd I ever saw,” remarked Mr. Landsdowne.

“Woe!” shouted Nyoda, triumphantly, and the guess was correct.

The weepers continued their weeping in the second syllable, and then
Gladys appeared, felt of all their pulses and gave each a dose out of a
bottle, whereupon they all straightened up, lost their symptoms of
distress, and capered for joy.

“Cure,” said Migwan. The players shook their heads.

“Heal,” shouted Hinpoha, and Gladys acknowledged it.

In the last syllable Gladys went around and demanded payment for her
services, but in each case was met with a promise to pay at some future
time.

“Owe,” said Chapa, which was pronounced right. “O heal woe, what’s
that?” she asked.

“You’re twisted,” said Nyoda, “it’s ‘Wohelo.’ That really was too easy.
Let’s not divide them into syllables after this,” she suggested, “it’s
no contest of wits that way. Let’s act out the word all at once.” The
alteration was accepted with enthusiasm.

Hinpoha came out alone for her side. “Word of two syllables,” she said.
Taking a blanket she spread it over a bushy weed and tucked the corners
under until it looked not unlike a large stone. Then she retired from
the scene. Soon Nyoda came along and paused in front of the blanket,
which looked like an inviting seat.

“What a lovely rock to rest on!” she exclaimed, and seated herself upon
it. Of course, it flattened down under her weight and she was borne down
to the ground.

A moment of silence followed this performance as the guessers racked
their brains for the meaning. “Is it ‘Landsdowne?’” asked Gladys.

“It might be, but it isn’t,” said Nyoda, laughing.

“I know,” said Sahwah, starting up, “it’s ‘shamrock.’”

“You are sharper than I thought,” said Nyoda, rising from her seat.
“Nobody down yet. Now, fire your broadside at us. No word under three
syllables. Anything less would be unworthy of our giant intellects.”

“Third round!” cried Calvin.

Sahwah walked down to the water’s edge, holding in her hand a large key.
Leaning over, she moved the key as if it were walking in the water. This
proved a puzzler, and cries of ‘Milwaukee,’ ‘Nebrasky,’ and ‘turnkey’
were all met with a triumphant shake of the head.

“It looks as if we would have to give up,” said Hinpoha.

Just then Nyoda sprang up with a shout. “Why didn’t I think of it
before?” she cried. “It’s ‘Keewaydin,’ key-wade-in. What else could you
expect from Sahwah?”

“That’s it,” said Sahwah. “You must be a mind reader.”

“Here’s where we finish you off,” said Nyoda, as her side came out
again. “We’ve taken a word of four syllables this time.” The whole team
advanced in single file, Indian fashion, keeping closely in step. Round
and round they marched, back and forth, never slackening their speed,
until one by one they tumbled to the ground from sheer exhaustion and
stiffened out lifelessly. The guessers looked at each other, puzzled.

“Do it again,” said Sahwah. The strenuous march was repeated, and the
marchers succumbed as before. Still no light came to the onlookers.
Sahwah whispered something to Gladys.

“Would you just as soon do it again?” asked Gladys. Again the file wound
round the trees and tumbled to the turf. Nyoda made a triumphant grimace
as no guess was forthcoming. Sahwah’s eyes began to sparkle.

“Would you please do it once more?” she pleaded.

“Have mercy on the performers,” groaned Nyoda, but they went through it
again, and this time they were too spent to rise from the ground when
the acting was done. “Do you give up?” called Nyoda.

“No,” answered Gladys.

“You have five seconds to produce the answer, then,” said Nyoda.

“It’s diapason,” said Gladys, “die-a-pacin.”

“Really!” said Nyoda, falling back in astonishment.

“We knew it all the while!” cried Sahwah and Gladys. “We just kept you
doing it over and over again because we liked to see you work.”

The laugh was on Nyoda and her team all the way around. “We do this to
each other!” called Sahwah, using the Indian form of taunt when one has
played a successful trick on another.

“Tie the villains to a tree, and let them perish of mosquito bites,”
Nyoda commanded in an awful tone. “I’ll get even with you for that, Miss
Sahwah,” she said, darkly, as the other side trooped off to cook up a
new poser.

“Hadn’t you better stop playing now?” inquired Mrs. Gardiner. “You know
we wanted to get home before dark.”

“Oh, let’s do one more,” pleaded Migwan. If they had only stopped
playing when Mrs. Gardiner suggested it and gone home early they might
have been in time to prevent the thing which occurred, but they were
bent on seeing one side or the other go down, and Gladys’s side prepared
another charade.

“We’ve played up to your own game,” said Gladys, who was introducing the
new charade, “and have increased the number to five syllables.” The
actors were Mrs. Gardiner, Betty and Tom Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner was
scolding the children and emphasized her remarks by a sharp pinch on
Tom’s arm. Betty, seeing the maternal hand also extended in her
direction, promptly climbed a tree and sat in safety, while her mother
shook her finger at her and cried warningly, “I’ll attend to you after
awhile.”

“What on earth?” said Nyoda, scratching her head in perplexity. But
scratch as she might, no answer came, and the rest of her team had
nothing to offer either. After holding out for fully fifteen minutes
they were compelled to give it up.

“It’s ‘manipulator,’” cried the winning side, in chorus.
“‘Ma-nip-you-later!’” And they stood around to condole while Nyoda’s
side prepared supper. Then it was that Calvin, basely deserting the team
he had helped so far, went over to the side of the enemy and helped
Migwan fetch wood for the fire. Both sides stopped often to jeer at each
other, so it took them twice as long to get the meal ready as it would
have ordinarily. They loitered and sang along the way home, letting the
horses take their time, and it was quite late when they reached Onoway
House.

The first thing that greeted them was the sight of Mr. Bob, the cocker
spaniel, rolling on the front lawn in great distress, and giving every
sign of being poisoned. They hastily administered an antidote and, after
a time of suspense were confident that the effect of the poison had been
counteracted. So far they had only been in the kitchen, but when the
excitement about the dog was over they moved toward the sitting-room to
rest awhile and drink lemonade before going to bed. When the light was
lit they all stopped in astonishment. In the sitting-room there was an
old-fashioned combination desk and bookcase, the bookcase part set on
top of the desk and reaching nearly to the ceiling. It belonged to the
house, and the desk was closed and locked. Now, however, it stood open,
and all the drawers were pulled out, while the top of the desk and the
floor before it were strewn with papers in great disorder.

“Burglars!” cried Migwan. “The house has been robbed!” They immediately
looked through the house to see what had been taken. Up-stairs in the
room occupied by the two boys there was a desk similar to the one in the
sitting-room. This had also been broken open and the drawers searched
through, although the disorder of papers was not so great as it was
down-stairs. Half afraid of what they should find, the whole family went
from room to room, but nothing else seemed to have been disturbed, and
as far as they could see nothing had been stolen. The silver in the
sideboard drawer was untouched, but then, this was only plate, and worn
at that. But in full view on the dining-room table lay Sahwah’s
Firemaker Bracelet, which she had laid there a few moments before
starting for the picnic, and then, with her customary forgetfulness,
neglected to pick up again. This was solid silver and worth stealing.
Further than that, she had also forgotten to wear her watch, and it was
still safe in her top bureau drawer. It was a riddle, and as they talked
it over they could only come to one conclusion, and that was that the
burglar had thought there were large sums of money hidden in the two
desks and had passed over the small articles in the hope of getting a
bigger harvest, or else was leaving those other things to the last. He
ransacked the up-stairs desk, having broken the lock, and then went
through the one down-stairs. While looking through the papers in the
sitting-room he had evidently been frightened away by something, for
there was one drawer that had not been disturbed. This also accounted
for the fact that nothing else had been taken. What had frightened him
was probably the barking of the dog, who, although he was on the
outside, had become aware of the presence of someone in the house. He
had fed the dog poison, probably poisoned meat, for they had found a
small piece of meat on the porch. Evidently the poison had begun to act
before Mr. Bob had it all eaten, and he left that piece. But before the
dog was dead the burglar had heard the family returning along the road,
singing, and made his escape. The whole thing must have happened not
long before, for the dog had not had the poison long enough to take
deadly effect. It was then that they regretted having lingered so long
over the game of charades and delayed their homecoming.

“If we had only been ha

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