The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks Part 17

"He feedeth upon the lilies, just the lilies, the row part--" repeated Katherine dutifully.

"No, no; it's all wrong," said Gladys impatiently. "Begin again."

"My beloved is mine--"

"Katherine! Oh-h-h-h Katherine! Are you up there?" the voice of Slim suddenly called from below.

The girls all started guiltily and fell into confusion. "Sh! Hide the Bible, quick!" cried Hinpoha in a sibilant whisper, darting forward and s.n.a.t.c.hing it from Katherine's hand and concealing it under the bear rug.

"What are you girls doing up there?" came from below.

"Oh, nothing," floated down the illuminating reply from above.

If Nyoda had not been so completely engrossed in her private affairs just at this time she would have noticed the subtle undercurrent which seemed to have caught hold of the toes of the entire feminine half of the senior cla.s.s at Washington High. It was not the Winnebagos only. In fact, they had caught it from the others. Every cla.s.s has its epidemic, be it tonsillitis, friendship link bracelets or Knox hats. This year it was fortune telling. Where the mystic rite described above originated n.o.body could exactly tell, but in less than a week every girl in the cla.s.s had been initiated into the secret, and was busy discovering what her future initials were to be. The performance was always carried on behind locked doors or in places otherwise secure from adult eyes, and was often interrupted right at the most exciting point by approaching footsteps, but questions as to how the innocent maids had been improving the shining hour invariably brought out the reply, "Oh, we weren't doing _anything_-much." Missing keys and books of family worship led to embarra.s.sing questions once in a while, but somehow the situation was always bridged over and parents and teachers never really did find out what the fascinating something was that drew their young friends off into groups by themselves from which they emerged to day dream instead of getting their lessons and to make mysterious references to certain initials.

The book and key oracle reigned supreme for several weeks and then gave place to the horoscope. For ten cents in stamps a certain seer dwelling in a remote town in Oregon offered to "cast" the princ.i.p.al events, past, present and future, in the lives of all young lady correspondents. It was not long before intimate heads were bent over sc.r.a.ps of paper comparing horoscopes. Hinpoha's was acknowledged by all to be the gem of the collection.

"You have a brilliant future before you," it read. "You will have a romantic love affair and will marry your first lover. He is a great scholar who will afterwards become president. You will meet him when you are very young." Then followed a dozen lines more of brilliant prophecy.

The special friends of Hinpoha, who had been allowed to peep at her fortune, Gladys, Sahwah, Katherine, Nakwisi and Medmangi, and one or two others, who had fore-gathered ostensibly to rehea.r.s.e a school song, sat back and regarded their fortunate friend with awe. None of their fortunes had contained anything so dazzling.

"You're going to be the President's wife!" murmured Sahwah. "You won't forget us, will you?"

"Never!" declared Hinpoha magnanimously, stealing a sly glance into the mirror.

"I hope you won't be ashamed of me when I'm married and come calling at the White House," said Katherine, rather dolefully. "All I drew was a farmer."

"I only got an automobile manufacturer," echoed Gladys.

"That's what comes of having red hair," said Sahwah enviously. "Her fortune said he would be drawn to her by her beautiful tresses."

When Hinpoha was preparing for bed that night she stood fully an hour before the mirror and regarded her shining curls. Up until now she had never paid much attention to them except when the boys called her redhead and pretended to light matches on her head, and then she wished with all her heart, like the little girl in the song, that she had been "born a blonde." Now for the first time her hair appeared beautiful to her. She arranged the curls this way and that, piling them on her head and letting them fall over her white shoulders. And all night she dreamed of standing up in a carriage and bowing graciously to cheering mult.i.tudes and clasping in her arms the forms of her girlhood friends who were among the crowd.

The horoscopes had their day and gave way to something still more exciting, something so secret that at first it could not be mentioned in words, but was only alluded to by mysterious references.

"Marjorie King went," said Gladys to Hinpoha, "and she won't tell a thing she found out, but she says it was the grandest thing."

"I don't believe it's worth fifty cents," said Sahwah skeptically.

"Anyhow, I haven't that much to spend."

"You don't ever dare tell anybody, they say, not a soul," reported Gladys later. "If you do, the nice things won't happen and the bad ones surely will."

"She's the Seventh Daughter of a Seventh Daughter," observed Hinpoha in an awe-stricken tone. "Did you ever hear of anything so wonderful?"

"Are _you_?" asked Sahwah anxiously, of Hinpoha.

This last question was entirely unrelated to the preceding statement concerning the Seventh Daughter of a Seventh Daughter. It was part of the cryptic jargon employed in the discussion of a momentous question.

"I don't know," answered Hinpoha uncertainly. "Would you?"

"Oh, do," begged Gladys, "and then if you find out something nice we'll go in after you. Oh, I forgot, you can't tell us anything."

"Would your mother mind if you did?" asked Hinpoha, hesitating on the brink.

"She really wouldn't mind, but she'd think it awfully silly," answered Gladys, "so I don't believe I'll tell her."

"You might find out the whole name," said Sahwah, looking at Hinpoha.

"And just when it's going to happen," finished Gladys.

Hinpoha suddenly made up her mind. "I believe I will," she said, looking at Sahwah.

Where Hinpoha's thoughts were the next day in school n.o.body knew, but they were certainly not on her lessons. She failed signally in every cla.s.s.

"And what were the initials of the great poet, Longfellow?" cooed Miss Snively, in her honeydrip voice.

The word "initials" penetrated Hinpoha's wandering mind. "D. K.," she murmured dreamily.

"Indeed?" purred Miss Snively. "Can it be that I have been misinformed?"

But today sarcasm was lost on Hinpoha.

After school was out a select group, half of which seemed to be hanging back and being coaxed on by the other half, walked ten blocks to an unfamiliar car line and transferred to a cross-town line. There was a much more direct route to their destination, but that laid them open to the risk of meeting friends and relatives who might casually inquire whither they were bound. Just wherein lay the crime in what they were doing, no one could have told, nor why it should be kept such a dark secret, but singly and collectively they would have died rather than reveal the nature of the latest epidemic.

By devious ways they reached the end of their journey and stood irresolute on the sidewalk before a house which bore a plate on the door announcing that that same roof sheltered the object of their desire.

"Shall we all go in together?" whispered Gladys. There was no need of whispering, for no one was within earshot, but with one accord they lowered their voices. They went up the steps and held another consultation. "You ring the bell," said Gladys.

"No, you ring it," said Hinpoha. Thus encouraged, Hinpoha pushed the b.u.t.ton, the door swung inward and they pa.s.sed through. An hour later they stood on the corner again, waiting for the car to take them home.

"Did she say anything about-about--" inquired Gladys.

Hinpoha clapped her hand over her mouth and made inarticulate sounds beneath it, but her eyes were sparkling, as they never sparkled before.

"Excuse me," gasped Gladys; "I forgot you mustn't tell."

"Can't you give us a hint?" begged Sahwah, who had gone along for moral support.

Hinpoha shook her head and retained her finger on her lips to stop any leaks.

"Well, it couldn't have been any nicer than mine," said Gladys, with an air of satisfaction. "Mine was just splendid. Maybe yours wasn't-favorable?" she added, stricken with a sudden doubt as to the superiority of Hinpoha's future.

"It was, too!" declared Hinpoha. "If you took all the nice things out of ten fortunes it wouldn't be as nice as mine!"

Gladys looked unconvinced. "Well, we'll wait a year or two until they begin to come true, and then we'll see which had the nicer," she remarked.

Hinpoha laughed outright. "I don't have to wait a year or two before mine comes true," she announced triumphantly. "It's coming true in the very near future. I'm going to meet a light-haired young man and he's going to admire my hair and fall in love with me, so there! Is yours any nicer than that?"

"Oh, you told," cried Sahwah. "Now it won't come true."