The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods Part 13

"What of it?" said Gladys, "Let's go anyway. Everybody's asleep.

They'll never know the difference."

Sahwah looked at her with an expression of horror. "It doesn't matter whether any one knows it or not," she said stiffly. "It isn't a custom of the Winnebagos to go boating in rest hour."

"It doesn't seem to be a custom of the Winnebagos to do anything they want to," said Gladys sneeringly. "You girls let Miss Kent lead you around by the nose as if you were six years old! It's a pity if girls as old as we are have to take a nap after dinner like babies. I for one won't stand for it. I don't want to lie down for an hour every afternoon and I'm not going to do it, so there! If you had any spirit you'd rebel, too. But you haven't.

You're just like wax in her hands. If she told you to go bed at four o'clock in the afternoon and stay there, you'd do it! I dare you to slip out and go for a boat ride with me now, I dare you! I dare you!"

Sahwah's hair nearly stood on end with fury at this attack on her beloved Nyoda. "Dare all you like," she said in a choking voice, "I'll not break a camp rule to please you."

"Very well, then, don't," said Gladys, "and see if I care. If you would rather abide by silly old rules than have a good time it's your loss, not mine. I wouldn't be such a baby." She went back to her bed and lay down with the air of a martyr. Every few seconds she would look over at Sahwah and p.r.o.nounce the word "baby" in a taunting tone.

Sahwah closed her eyes resolutely and pretended not to hear her.

She was filled from head to foot with contempt for Gladys.

Sahwah was heedless and hot-tempered and undiplomatic, but in matters where honor was concerned she was true blue. All her admiration for Gladys vanished when she tried to lead her into dishonor. As she lay there thinking over her attempts to win Gladys's friends.h.i.+p she saw clearly how Gladys had been working her all this time, getting her to wait on her hand and foot and in return treating her in a patronizing manner as if she were an inferior being from whom such service was no more than due. Her rage rose at the very thought of Gladys. "Catch me doing anything for her again!" she muttered to herself.

She lay very still with her eyes closed for a long time, feigning sleep. After a while a stealthy rustle from Gladys's bed caught her ear. She opened one eye slightly and then opened both very wide in surprise. Gladys was in the act of drawing a box of candy from under her blankets. Opening it, she proceeded to eat one piece after another. Sahwah was so astonished that she could not repress an exclamation.

Gladys looked in her direction. "Have a piece of candy?" she said mockingly, holding out the box, "or are you afraid to do that too?"

Sahwah disregarded the taunt. "Where did you get that candy?"

she asked sternly.

"I bought it down in the village, Miss Simplicity," answered Gladys.

"Did you know that we weren't to buy candy and eat it between meals, or didn't you?" continued Sahwah.

"Certainly, I knew it was against the rules," said Gladys, "but I don't intend to have any one dictate to me whether or not I shall eat candy. I've eaten candy all my life and it's never hurt me.

If I can't eat it openly I'll eat it on the sly, but I will eat it!"

"Didn't it occur to you that it's dishonest to do things on the sly like that?" said Sahwah in a husky voice. If she had held Gladys in contempt before there was no name for what she thought of her now.

"Who says it's dishonest to break silly rules?" said Gladys, putting another piece into her mouth. "Such rules were made to be broken."

"What would Nyoda say?" asked Sahwah.

"I don't care what she says," said Gladys recklessly.

"I thought you admired her so much," said Sahwah, remembering how Gladys was constantly fawning on Nyoda.

"I do admire her, more than any of you," said Gladys loftily, "but that's no sign she can order me around. Go and tell her if you like, old busybody!"

"Tell her what?" asked Nyoda, appearing in the door of the tent.

"That I buy candy in the village and keep it in my bed to eat during rest hour!" said Gladys brazenly.

Nyoda opened her eyes very wide. "That you do what?" she asked.

Gladys held up the box. Nyoda said nothing, but merely looked at her, and before the expression in her eyes Gladys wilted and was covered with confusion.

"I don't care, I want some candy," she said, looking ready to burst into tears.

"Why didn't you wait until supper time and pa.s.s it around?" asked Nyoda quietly, but there was a note in her voice that robbed Gladys of her air of bravado.

"Because I wanted it now," she said sulkily.

"Gladys," said Nyoda, trying to conceal her disgust at this untrustworthy trait revealed in the character of her charge by the episode, "have you any idea why that candy rule was made?"

Gladys shook her head. "It was made," said Nyoda, "to keep me from dishonor." Gladys looked at her uncomprehendingly. "It is a very responsible thing," continued Nyoda, "to take a group of girls so far away from home. Many of the girls' mothers were unwilling to have them go, and I promised every one of them, on my honor, that no harm should come to their girls that I could in any way prevent and that we should all come back in better health than we went. Now, a change of climate and drinking water is hard on any one, and you girls have enough to do adjusting your systems to the new order of things even with a carefully regulated diet. Eating candy between meals is one good way to produce an upset stomach, and up here we can't take any chances.

It would be inconvenient to take care of a sick person in camp, and besides, think of all the fun you would lose! So when we were discussing the difficulties of camping out for so long we all agreed, willingly and cheerfully, to live on a strict schedule recommended by experienced campers, and to run no risks by eating candy between meals. So you see that the rule, which you probably consider merely a piece of tyranny on my part, is not my rule at all, but was adopted by unanimous consent at a meeting of the group. If I were to allow you to eat candy between meals I would be breaking my promise to your parents, and you know that we Camp Fire Girls have taken a vow to be trustworthy."

Gladys flushed and hung her head, although Nyoda had made no reference to her breaking of trust. Nyoda continued: "You, of all the girls here, have need to be the most careful. You are the least robust of them all, and enter into our sports with the least vigor. Your racket stroke is weak and your paddle stroke is weak, and exertion which does not affect the other girls at all leaves you exhausted. That is a condition of which you should be ashamed, inasmuch as you have no definite ailment.

'Hold on to Health' is only another form of 'Be trustworthy,' for it means taking good care of the body which has been given into our keeping. I know you never thought about it in just that way and broke the rule because you saw no reason for it, not because you have no sense of honor.

"And now about this candy you have on hand. I will ask you to put it in the kitchen where it will keep dry and pa.s.s it around to the girls at meal time as long as it lasts. After that I must request you not to buy any more, even to eat with meals. We have home-made candy three times a week and that is sufficient."

Nyoda withdrew from the tent, leaving Gladys feeling very small.

Hinpoha and Migwan had waked in time to hear the last of Nyoda's speech and saw the candy, and while they were too polite to make any remarks their att.i.tude plainly showed their disapproval, and this state of things galled Gladys more than Nyoda's chiding.

Sahwah, with a fine sense of charity, had left the tent when Nyoda appeared. Her generous nature forbade her to crow over a fallen foe.

A nature walk was on the program for the afternoon, but Gladys feigned a headache and remained at home. "Somehow I don't feel like going on a nature walk, either," said Sahwah, when they were ready to start. This was so unusual from Sahwah, who was generally enthusiastic about everything that was proposed, that Nyoda looked at her in some anxiety.

"Don't you feel well, dear?" she asked.

"Yes, I feel perfectly well," said Sahwah. "That's the trouble.

I feel too well to go on a nature walk."

"Feel too well to go on a nature walk!" repeated Nyoda. "What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know," said Sahwah. "I feel so full of--of something that I'd like to wrestle with an elephant!"

Nyoda understood the feeling. She had watched Sahwah's growing irritation all day long and knew that in her case the only relief would be strenuous activity. "Then perhaps it would be better for you to stay at home," she said lightly. "You might do some damage to us peaceful citizens. By the way, have you ever swum as far as Blueberry Island? It's a mile, I think. That ought to work off some of your superfluous energy. You have special permission to go in this afternoon. When you get there wait until I come for you in the launch. We can keep our eye on you from the road while you are swimming." Sahwah jumped for joy and ran to get into her bathing suit.

The cool water closed around her limbs like the caress of a loving hand and her irritation vanished like magic. Water was Sahwah's element, and as she propelled herself gracefully across the sparkling lake, feeling the absolute mastery of her muscles, changing regularly from left to right in her side stroke, she might have been taken for a mermaid by some Neckan of the deep.

She reached Blueberry Island in good time and, climbing up on the rocky sh.o.r.e, sat down in the sun to dry.

Meanwhile Gladys was not having anywhere near such a glorious time. She tossed on her bed for a long time, feeling more sorry for herself every minute. She still thought Nyoda's explanation of the candy rule a weak excuse for an act of tyranny, and was furious at the thought of having been caught in an undignified position. The tears, which she had managed to hold back in front of Nyoda, came now, and she cried herself into a genuine headache. But it was all self-pity; there was no real sorrow for her fault. She considered herself the most abused girl in the world; deserted by her parents, disliked by girls whom she considered beneath her, and deprived of her rights by a young woman who had no real authority over her.

"I bet the other girls eat candy between meals too," she said to herself viciously, "only they're too clever to get found out. I wouldn't have been found out either, if it hadn't been for that snippy little Sahwah making a fuss!" She worked herself into a perfect fury, and blamed Sahwah for all of her troubles. "I'd give a whole lot to get even with her," she said to herself, and immediately began looking around the tent for something of Sahwah's which she could damage. The only thing in evidence was her tennis racket, and Gladys took it out and deliberately put a stone through it. Then, frightened at what she had done, and thoroughly homesick and miserable, she sat down and began a letter to her father, begging him to send for her immediately.

"Dear Papa," she wrote, "if you only knew what a dreadful place this is you would not leave me here another day. The girls are very rude and horrid and low cla.s.s; they are continually fighting and playing rough jokes on each other, and especially on me. I don't like Miss Kent as well as you said I would. She makes me go in bathing until I'm all tired out and cold and tries to make me swim when it's impossible for me to learn. She takes me out beyond my depth and ducks me under when I don't make my hands go right. She treats me as if I were a baby and won't trust me out of her sight. It seems they have a rule here about not eating candy between meals and I didn't know it and I bought some and ate it and she called me a sneak before all the girls and made me throw the candy into the lake. I am very miserable and sick most of the time as we don't get enough to eat, and what we do get isn't good. I'm always cold at night and they often let it rain right in on our beds. If you don't send for me right away I may get sick and die before very long.

"Your miserable daughter,

"GLADYS

"P.S.: Aunt Sally is going to Atlantic City in August; may I go with her?"

She gave the letter to the captain of the steamer when he stopped to bring the supplies and then sat down on the dock and stared moodily out over the lake. She was lonesome; and in spite of the fact that she had stayed home of her own accord she resented the fact that the girls had gone off and left her. The canoes lay side by side on the beach and Gladys was seized with a fancy to get into one and go gliding out over the smooth surface of the lake.

She was not allowed in a canoe because she had not taken the swimming test, but she considered this another piece of tyranny on Nyoda's part. She could paddle pretty well, as Sahwah had taught her to handle the sponson, and she saw no reason at all why she couldn't enjoy a quiet canoe ride up and down the beach while no one was around to interfere.