The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods Part 10

"I see," cried Gladys, breaking into Nyoda's explanation, "she wouldn't buy me."

Nyoda felt weak inside and tingled with a desire to shake Sahwah, but she never changed countenance. "I don't believe that ever occurred to her," she said loyally. "You are so quick to jump at conclusions, Gladys. Just because you couldn't understand what they were doing you thought it must be something unpleasant about you. Your outburst at that time frightened Sahwah so she probably thought she had done something dreadful. Now Sahwah feels badly and so do all the girls. You don't want her to go on feeling that way, do you?"

Gladys said nothing. Nyoda slipped her arm around her and smiled down at her. "You know that the girls are not trying to make it unpleasant for you, don't you, now?"

Gladys smiled faintly. It was impossible to withstand Nyoda's pretty pleading. Nyoda, watching her face, saw that she had gained her point. "And you'll like Sahwah and let her like you, won't you?" she said, hugging Gladys to her.

Sahwah was nowhere to be found when Nyoda returned to camp.

Neither did she appear when the supper bugle blew. Hinpoha drooped visibly without her side partner, but Nyoda refused her permission to go out and look for Sahwah. When it began to grow dark Nyoda took her lantern and went into the woods by herself.

She soon found Sahwah crouching on the ground at the foot of a tree, her face buried in her hands. "Sahwah, dear, look up,"

said Nyoda gently, setting her lantern on the ground and seating herself beside Sahwah. Sahwah uncovered one eye. "Oh, Nyoda,"

she exclaimed tragically, "what will I do? I never dare show my face in camp again. What ever possessed me this afternoon, and what must you think of me?"

Nyoda could not help smiling at the depth of Sahwah's self-abas.e.m.e.nt. "Cheer up, sister," she said kindly, "it's not as bad as all that. You were thoughtless, that was all, for I will not believe that you were slighting Gladys intentionally."

"That's it," cried Sahwah eagerly. "I never stopped to think what I was doing, and I never dreamed that she would catch on."

Nyoda nodded sympathetically. "I know just how it is," she said.

"We never mean to do unkind things, and yet we do them right along, without thinking. The only remedy is to get a habit of thinking before we do anything."

"Not thinking is my besetting sin," said Sahwah, dolefully.

"Yes," said Nyoda frankly, "I believe it is. You do so many things impulsively that you never would have done on second thought. Take the time, for instance, that you jumped off the tower into the canoe and upset it. That was a very dangerous thing to do. You might have landed on top of one of those girls and hurt her badly, or been hurt yourself. Even granting that you were so sure of yourself that you could do it successfully, you set a bad example. Some of the other girls might be tempted to try it sometime with disastrous results."

"I never thought of it in that way," said Sahwah seriously. "I'm awfully sorry I hurt Gladys's feelings, and I'll apologize to her this very night."

"I don't believe an apology would help matters any," said Nyoda slowly. "There are some things you can't make right with an apology any more than you could mend Migwan's dislocated knee by saying you were sorry it got fallen on. It takes special treatment."

"What shall I do then?" asked Sahwah.

"Be especially nice to Gladys from now on. Offer to help her learn to swim, and go out with her in the sponson until she may go out in a canoe. Let her see by your actions that you want to be her friend, and then she won't suspect you of saying unkind things about her. Put yourself in her place. She feels just as strange among you strong, self-reliant, outdoor-loving girls as you would among her friends. You know a great deal that she does not, and she undoubtedly knows a great deal that you do not. She has been abroad several times, and spent a whole year in school in France, while her father was there on business. She paints china beautifully, sings well and does fancy dancing. In fact, she dances so well that various people have tried to persuade her father to allow her to take it up as a profession."

This last statement did not make such an impression on Sahwah as Nyoda expected it would, for Gladys had boasted of her dancing to the girls ever since she had come to camp, and had made fun of the simple folk dances the girls did among themselves. Sahwah, however, was still deeply ashamed of her performance of the afternoon and eager to atone for it and regain her standing in Nyoda's eyes, so she made up her mind that Gladys was a superior being whose superiority would be unveiled by constant effort on her part, and promised to devote her entire time to teaching her the delights of camping.

Then hand in hand she and Nyoda returned to the tents.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RAIN BIRD SHAKES HIS WINGS.

True to her promise, Sahwah began the very next morning "cultivating" Gladys. "Have you any middies you want washed?" she asked, as she dumped her own into the kettle over the fire.

"Every one I own is soiled," replied Gladys.

"Bring them along, then," said Sahwah, "and we'll do them together." Gladys brought her middies and Sahwah popped them into the boiling soapsuds, stirring them around with a stick.

When they had boiled a few minutes she fished them out into a pail and carried them down to the lake for rinsing, Gladys walked along, but she did not offer to help carry the pail. Sahwah rinsed the soapy pieces in the clear water and was spreading them out on the rocks in the sun when she noticed that the _Bluebird_, which had been making its morning stop at Wharton's Landing, was headed their way instead of pa.s.sing out through the gap. "Who can be coming to see us?" she said to Gladys. "The boat wouldn't stop unless it had a pa.s.senger, for our supplies came yesterday."

It was not a pa.s.senger, however, that was left on the Winnebago dock, but a wooden box from the express company. The girls crowded around to get a look at it. It was addressed to the "Winnebago Camp Fire Girls, Camp Winnebago, Loon Lake, Maine."

Sahwah ran and got a hammer and soon had the box open.

"What is it?" cried the girls.

"It's a sail!" exclaimed Sahwah, looking at it closely, "the kind you put on canoes."

Attached to the lid of the box was a card which read:

"To the Winnebagos, to save them the trouble of harnessing themselves to their canoe to make it go. In remembrance of a delightful day spent in their camp.

"EMERSON BENTLEY, FRANK D. WHEELER."

"O joy!" exclaimed Sahwah, clapping her hands. "Maybe we won't have some fun now! Just wait until I get it adjusted." She spent most of the day hoisting that sail on one of the canoes, but finally had it finished, and went darting around on the lake like a white-winged bird, taking the other girls out with her in turn. "It's too bad you can't go out in a canoe," she said to Gladys with real regret, "I should love to have you go sailing with me." There was no help for it, however, and Gladys had to stay on sh.o.r.e.

"Won't you let me help you?" she asked Gladys at the next swimming period. "I'll hold you up if you'll try to float." But Gladys would not let any one touch her in the water except Nyoda.

When Nyoda was directing the other girls Gladys stood out on the beach. "How am I going to help Gladys learn to swim if she won't let me?" thought Sahwah in despair.

"Don't go too far out on the lake," Nyoda warned Sahwah that afternoon, her eye on a bank of clouds that was rolling up in the west.

"I know there's a storm coming, and I'll be careful," promised Sahwah, mindful of her new resolution to think before she acted, "but the wind is so strong now it's great fun to be out sailing.

I'll stay near sh.o.r.e."

The storm that had been threatening broke loose about supper time, and the girls ran to fasten down their tents. "Whew!" said Sahwah, struggling with a tent flap, "listen to the wind." The great pines were roaring deafeningly, and the lake, lashed into fury, was das.h.i.+ng high against the cliff. "Where are you going?"

said Nyoda imperatively, as Hinpoha started down the path to the lake in her bathing suit. "To bring in the flag," answered Hinpoha. "It'll be torn to pieces in that gale." It was all she could do to stand upright on the dock. The rain was coming down in slanting sheets that closed round her like a fog. She untied the ropes that held the flag and tried to lower it. But it would not come. Something was wrong with the pulley. The flag was flapping in the wind and straining at the ropes like a spirited horse.

"No help for it," said Hinpoha to herself, "I'll have to go up on top." The tower swayed in the wind as she mounted the ladder, and the rain dashed in her face, blinding her. Great crashes of thunder sounded in her ears, and the lightning flashed all around her. Up on top it was worse yet. The wind whipped her long hair out and threatened to hurl her from the little platform, so she did not dare let go of the railing with one hand while she released the pulley with the other. "Glory," she whispered as she cautiously descended the ladder, "but the Thunder Bird has it in for us!"

She sped up the path with the precious flag held against her bosom, and found the girls gathered in the shack. Nyoda was kindling a fire in the big open fireplace, and the girls were seated in a circle before it. Then Nyoda, raising her voice above the patter of the raindrops on the roof, read aloud while the girls did Craft work by the light of lanterns. The evening wore away pleasantly, but the rain continued. At bed time they wrapped their ponchos around them and ran for the tents. The hollows between the rocks were veritable rivers, and in the inky darkness more than one girl stepped squarely into the flood.

"I'm soaked to the skin," panted Sahwah, running into the tent and quickly closing the flap behind her, "and I stepped into a puddle up to my knees."

"So am I," said Hinpoha, who was divesting herself of her clothes in the middle of the tent. "Did you ever see such a downpour?"

"Cheer up," said Migwan, who had gone to bed early in the evening with a headache and stayed in during the storm, "the tent doesn't leak, anyway. We'll be perfectly dry in here."

"It'll be all right if the tent doesn't blow over," said Sahwah.

"Whew! Listen to that!" The girls held their breath as a particularly fierce blast hurled itself against the canvas sides of their shelter. Gladys, terror-stricken, sat on the bed and trembled. Sahwah hastened to rea.s.sure her. "It probably won't blow down," she said cheerfully; "these tents are made pretty strong, and the ropes on this one are all new, but there is always the possibility. Do you mind if I take your laundry bag down? It is pinned to the side of the tent and will lead the water through."

The girls slept very little that night, although the tent withstood the storm and remained standing. The rain still fell with unabated vigor at dawn. At about six o'clock Nyoda put her head into the tent and called Sahwah. Sahwah was alert instantly.

Nyoda had on her bathing suit and cap. "What is it?" asked Sahwah.

"One of the canoes has broken away, and is floating off," Nyoda said in a low tone, so as not to disturb Gladys and Migwan, who were still sleeping. Hinpoha sat up and listened. "I am going after it in the launch," continued Nyoda, "and will need help.

Put on your bathing suit and come."

"Let me come, too," begged Hinpoha.

"All right," said Nyoda, and the three crept out of the tent and down the path to the lake. The water had risen at least a foot, and the floor of the dock was flooded. About half a mile out in the lake they saw the runaway canoe, now standing on end, now floating bottom up.