The Camp Fire Girls at School Part 14

CHAPTER XI.

ANOTHER COASTING PARTY.

"This is the terrible Hunger Moon, the lean gray wolf can hardly bay,"

quoted Hinpoha, as she threw out a handful of crumbs for the birds. The ground was covered with ice and snow, and the wintry winds whistled through the bare trees in the yard, ruffling up the feathers of the poor little sparrows huddling on the branches.

Gladys stood beside Hinpoha, watching the hungry little winter citizens flying hastily down to their feast. "What is Mr. Bob barking at?" she asked, pausing to listen.

"I'll go and find out," said Hinpoha. From the porch she could see Mr.

Bob standing under an evergreen tree in the back yard, barking up at it with all his might. Hinpoha came out to see what was the matter. "Hush, Mr. Bob," she commanded, throwing a s...o...b..ll at him. She picked her way through the deep snow to the tree. "Oh, Gladys, come here," she called.

Gladys came out and joined her.

"What is it?" she asked. Huddled up in the low branches of the tree was a great ghostly looking bird, white as the snow under their feet. Its eyes were closed and it was apparently asleep. Hinpoha stretched out her hand and touched its feathers. It woke up with a start and looked at her with great round eyes full of alarm.

"It's an owl!" said Hinpoha in amazement, "a snowy owl! It must have flown across the lake from Canada. They do sometimes when the food is scarce and the cold too intense up there." The owl blinked and closed his eyes again. The glare of the sun on the snow blinded him. He acted stupid and half frozen, and sat crouched close against the trunk of the tree, making no effort to fly away.

"How tame he is!" said Gladys. "He doesn't seem to mind us in the least." Hinpoha tried to stroke him but he jerked away and tumbled to the ground. One wing was apparently broken. Mr. Bob made a leap for the bird as he fell, but Hinpoha seized him by the collar and dragged him into the house. When she returned the owl was making desperate efforts to get up into the tree again by jumping, but without success. Hinpoha caught him easily in spite of his struggles and bore him into the house.

There was an empty cage down in the cellar which had once housed a parrot, and into this the solemn-eyed creature was put.

"That wing will heal again, and then we can let him go," said Hinpoha.

"Hadn't it better be tied down?" suggested Gladys. "He flutters it so much." With infinite pains Hinpoha tied the broken wing down to the bird's side, using strips of gauze bandage for the purpose. The owl made no sound. They fixed a perch in the cage and he stepped decorously up on it and regarded them with an intense, mournful gaze. "Isn't he spooky looking?" said Gladys, shivering and turning away. "He gives me the creeps."

"What will we feed him?" asked Hinpoha.

"Do owls eat crumbs?" asked Gladys.

Hinpoha shook her head. "That isn't enough. I've always read that they catch mice and things like that to eat." She brightened up. "There are several mice in the trap now. I saw them when I brought up the cage."

She sped down cellar and returned with three mice in a trap.

"Ugh," said Gladys in disgust, as Hinpoha pulled them out by the tails.

She put them in the cage with the owl and he pecked at them hungrily.

"What will your aunt say when she sees him?" asked Gladys.

"I don't know," said Hinpoha doubtfully. Aunt Phoebe was away for the afternoon and so had not been in a position to interfere thus far.

"Maybe I had better take the cage home with me," suggested Gladys.

"No," said Hinpoha firmly, "I want him myself. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll put the cage up in the attic and she'll never know I have him.

I can slip up and feed him. It would be better for him up there, anyway.

It's too warm for him downstairs. He's used to a cold climate." So "Snowy," as they had christened him, was established by a window under the eaves on the third floor, where he could look out at the trees for which he would be pining. Aunt Phoebe always took a nap after lunch, and this gave Hinpoha a chance to run up and look at her patient. She fed him on chicken feed and mice when there were any. Never did he show the slightest sign of friendliness or recognition when she hovered over him; but continued to stare sorrowfully at her with an unblinking eye. If he liked his new lodging under the cozy eaves he made no mention of it, and if he pined for his winter palace in the Canadian forest he was equally uncommunicative. Hinpoha longed to poke him in order to make him give some expression of feeling. But at all events, he did not struggle against his captivity, and Hinpoha reflected judicially that after all it was a good thing that he had such a stolid personality, for a calm frame of mind aids the recovery of the patient and he would not be likely to keep his wing from healing by dashing it against the side of the cage. It seemed almost as though he knew his presence in the house was a secret, and was in league with Hinpoha not to betray himself. So Aunt Phoebe lived downstairs in blissful ignorance of the feathered boarder in the attic.

She was suffering from a cold that week and was more than usually exacting. She finally took to her bed in an air-tight room with a mustard plaster and an electric heating pad, expressing her intention of staying there until her cold was cured. "But you ought to have some fresh air," protested Hinpoha, "you'll smother in there with all that heat."

"You leave that window shut," said Aunt Phoebe crossly. "All this foolishness about open windows makes me tired. It's a pity if a young girl has to tell her elders what's best for them. Now bring the History of the Presbyterian Church, and read that seventh chapter over again; my mind was preoccupied last night and I did not hear it distinctly." This was Aunt Phoebe's excuse for having fallen asleep during the reading. So poor Hinpoha had to sit in that stifling room and read until she thought she would faint. Aunt Phoebe fell asleep presently, however, to her great relief, and she stole out softly, leaving the door open behind her so that some air could get in from the hall.

Aunt Phoebe woke up in the middle of the night feeling decidedly uncomfortable. She was nearly baked with the heat that was being applied on all sides. She turned off the heating pad and threw back one of the covers, and as she grew more comfortable sleep began to hover near. She was just sinking off into a doze when she suddenly started up in terror.

There was a presence in the room--something white was moving silently toward the bed. Aunt Phoebe was terribly superst.i.tious and believed in ghosts as firmly as she believed in the gospel. She always expected to see a sheeted figure standing in the hall some night, its hand outstretched in solemn warning. But this ghost was more terrifying than any she had ever imagined. It was not in the form of a being at all--just a formless Thing that moved with strange jerks and starts, sometimes rising at least a foot in the air. The hair stood up straight on Aunt Phoebe's head, and her lips became so dry they cracked. Then her heart almost stopped beating altogether. The ghost rose in the air and stood on her bed, where it continued its uncanny movements. Aunt Phoebe folded her hands and began to pray. The ghost sailed upward once more and stood on the foot board of her bed. Aunt Phoebe prayed harder.

"Hoot!" said the ghost. Aunt Phoebe moaned. "Hoot!" said the ghost. Aunt Phoebe tried to scream, but her throat was paralyzed. "Hoot!" said the ghost. Aunt Phoebe found her voice. "WOW-OW-OW-OW!" she screeched in tones that could have been heard a block.

Hinpoha jumped clear out of bed in one leap and reached Aunt Phoebe's room in one more. Visions of burglars and fire were in her mind. Hastily she turned on the light. Aunt Phoebe was sitting up in bed still screaming at the top of her lungs, and on the footboard of the bed sat Snowy, blinking in the sudden light. Hinpoha stood frozen to the spot.

How had the bird gotten out? "Snowy!" she stammered. The owl looked at her with his old solemn stare, and then slowly he winked one eye. "Stop screaming, Aunt Phoebe," said Hinpoha; "it's nothing but an owl."

"_An owl_!" exclaimed Aunt Phoebe faintly. "How could an owl get in here with all the doors and windows shut?"

"But I left your door open when I went out," said Hinpoha, "and Snowy must have gotten out of his cage and come down the attic stairs."

"Must have gotten out of his cage!" echoed Aunt Phoebe. "Do you mean to tell me that you have an owl in a cage somewhere in this house?" There was no use denying the fact any more, as Snowy had given himself away so completely, and Hinpoha told about finding the snowy owl in the yard and putting it up in the cage. "What next!" gasped Aunt Phoebe. "I suppose I shall wake up some morning and find a boa constrictor in my bed."

"I'm sorry he frightened you so," said Hinpoha contritely, "but I'll see that he doesn't get out again. I may keep him until his wing heals, mayn't I?" she asked pleadingly.

"I suppose there's no getting around you," sighed Aunt Phoebe, sinking back on her pillow. "If it wasn't a bird you'd be having something else.

Only keep him out of my sight!" Hinpoha caught the owl and carried him out with many flutters and pecks. The cage door stood open and the wires were bent out, showing where his powerful bill had pecked until he gained his freedom. Hinpoha fastened him in again and he stepped decorously up on his perch and sat there in such a dignified att.i.tude that it was hard to believe him capable of breaking jail and entering a lady's bedroom.

Aunt Phoebe spent the next day in bed, recovering from her fright. This was the night of the Camp Fire meeting which Hinpoha had been given permission to attend. She had been in such a fever of antic.i.p.ation all week that Aunt Phoebe was surprised when she came into her room after supper and sat down with the History of the Presbyterian Church. "Well, aren't you going to that precious meeting of yours?" she asked sharply.

"I think," said Hinpoha slowly, "that I had better stay at home with you."

"I won't die without you," said Aunt Phoebe drily. "I can ring for Mary if I want anything."

A mighty struggle was going on inside of Hinpoha. First she saw in her mind's eye her beloved Winnebagos, having a meeting at Nyoda's house, the place where she best loved to go to meetings, waiting to welcome her back into their midst with open arms; and then she saw this cross old woman, her aunt, sick and lonesome, left alone in the house with a maid who despised her. With the cup of enjoyment raised to her lips she set it down again. "I think I would _rather_ stay with you, Aunt Phoebe,"

she said simply. And in the Desert of Waiting there blossomed a fragrant rose!

The deferred celebration for Hinpoha's return into the Winnebago fold was held the following week. With the joy of the returned pilgrim she took her place in the Council Circle, and once more joined in singing, "Burn, Fire, Burn," and "Mystic Fire," and this time when Nyoda called the roll and p.r.o.nounced the name "Hinpoha," she was answered by a joyous "Kolah" instead of the sorrowful silence which had followed that name for so many weeks.

February froze, thawed, snowed and sleeted itself off the calendar, and March set in like a roaring lion, with a worse snowstorm than even the Snow Moon had produced. Venturesome treebuds, who loved the warm sun like Aunt Phoebe loved her heating pad, and who had crept out of their dark blankets one balmy day in February to be nearer the genial heat giver, shivered until their sap froze in their veins, and a drab-colored phoebe bird, who had nested under the eaves of the Bradford porch the year before, coming back to his summer residence according to the date marked on his calendar, huddled disconsolately beside the old nest, feeling sure that he would contract bronchitis before the wife of his bosom arrived to join him.

Hinpoha listened to his disgruntled "pewit phoebe, pewit phoebe," and made haste to throw him some crumbs. It seemed like a delicious joke to her that he should be calling so plaintively for his phoebe, not knowing that there was a Phoebe on the premises all the while. And one day the little mate came and both birds forgot the snow and cold in the joy of their reunion. Phoebes consider it extremely indecorous to travel in mixed company, (just like Aunt Phoebe, thought Hinpoha humorously,) so the females linger behind for several days after the males start north and join them in the seclusion of their own homes. Hinpoha's heart sang in sympathy with the joy of the reunited lovers.

Sahwah had come over to get her lessons with Hinpoha, and as she turned the leaves of her "Cicero" a little red heart dropped out on the floor.

Hinpoha stooped to pick it up. "What's this?" she asked with interest.

Sahwah blushed.

"Ned Roberts--you remember Ned Roberts up at camp--sent it to me for a valentine." Hinpoha went back in her thoughts to the dance at the Mountain Lake Camp the summer before, where she had had such a royal good time. How far removed that time seemed now!

"I wonder if Sherry ever writes to Nyoda," she said musingly.

"I don't believe he does," said Sahwah, "for Nyoda has never said anything." If they could have seen Nyoda at that very moment, reading a certain letter and thrusting it into her bureau drawer with a pile of others bearing the same post-mark, they would really have had something to gossip about.

"Did you ever see such a snowfall in March?" said Hinpoha, looking out the window at the white landscape.

"It must be perfectly grand coasting," said Sahwah, ever with an eye for sport. "d.i.c.k Albright promised he would take us out on his new bob the next time there was snow, and this is the next time, and will probably be the last time. Do you suppose you could come along?"

"I doubt it," said Hinpoha. "Aunt Phoebe thinks coasting is too rough.

Did I ever tell you the time mother and I coasted down the walk and ran into Aunt Phoebe?" Sahwah laughed heartily over the story.