The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks Part 7

"One would think you had never climbed a ladder before," said Hinpoha, watching curiously as Katherine climbed up and down and up again just for the fun of the thing. Katherine draped her feet around a rung to support herself and sat on the top bar.

"I never did," she said simply.

"Never climbed a ladder!" said Hinpoha incredulously. "Why, where did you live?"

"In Arkansas," answered Katherine significantly. "Do you know," she went on, "that until I came east I had never seen a flight of stairs? _I had never seen a flight of stairs!_" she repeated, as Hinpoha and the other girls in the Lodge gasped unbelievingly. "We lived in a one-story house, the floor level with the ground, so you just walked in from the outside without going up steps. The house was in the middle of a big farm, as level and flat as this floor. I rode ten miles to school and that was built just like our house. Oh, of course I knew there were such things as stairs, because I had seen them in pictures, but until I came here I had never seen any."

"But didn't you see any when you went traveling?" asked Hinpoha, still incredulous.

"Never went traveling," returned Katherine. "It took considerable hustling to stay right where we were. One year the locusts ate up everything, down to the clothes on the line, and we couldn't get enough feed to fatten the stock; the next year there were prairie fires that licked the earth as clean as a plate; one year the cattle all died of disease, and so on. It wasn't until this year that we came out ahead enough to send me here to school."

And when the girls heard what a hard time she had had they adored her more than ever because she could be so funny when she had had so little to be funny about.

Another thing that charmed her beyond measure was the color of the autumn leaves. The Winnebagos could hardly pull her past a tree. "There was only one tree in sight on our farm," she would tell them, "and that wasn't green like the trees are in the east; it was just a dusty, greenish gray.

And the leaves didn't turn colors in the fall; they just withered up and dropped off. Oh-h-h, look at that one over there-isn't it just too gorgeous for words?"

When we said that both teachers and pupils regarded Katherine as too good to be true, we should have made one exception. That exception was Miss Snively, the Senior Oratory teacher. Most of the teachers were liked by some scholars and disliked by some, according to disposition or circ.u.mstance; but all pupils agreed heartily that they did not like Miss Snively. She was neither old nor bad looking; in fact, she was rather handsome when you saw her for the first time, but she was so bitingly sarcastic that her cla.s.ses stood in fear and trembling of being singled out for some poisoned shaft. Sarcasm and ridicule are the most deadly weapons to use against boys and girls of the high school age. They are not old enough to know how to come back, and can only nurse the smart and writhe impotently. And of all cla.s.ses to have a sarcastic teacher, Senior Oratory is the worst. It is bad enough to stand up and make a speech with appropriate gestures before a sympathetic teacher who corrects diplomatically and never, never laughs, but to have one who eyes you coldly all the while and then gets up and does it the way you did, only ten times worse-more buckets of tears had been shed over Senior Oratory than all other subjects put together.

When Katherine entered the cla.s.s Miss Snively took immediate exception to her voice. Miss Snively's particular hobby was Woman's Voice. Hers was high and artificially sweet-it fairly oozed syrup-and she did her level best to make her girl pupils imitate it. So when Katherine began reading in her husky nasal drawl, Miss Snively promptly read the piece after her, imitating her voice as best she could, and then looked around the room for the laughter of the pupils which would complete Katherine's mortification. But n.o.body laughed. They all sympathized with Katherine.

They had been in her shoes themselves. The blood mounted to Katherine's temples when she realized that Miss Snively was deliberately making fun of her, and a hurt look came into her eyes. She was sensitive about her voice, even if she did get endless fun out of it. When Miss Snively handed her the book again and bade her in sarcastic tones to read further for the edification of the cla.s.s, Katherine sat silent. To her horror she found there was a lump in her throat and she would most likely break down utterly if she tried to say a word. She did not mean to be stubborn-she was only waiting for control of her voice, for she was too proud to let Miss Snively see how badly she felt. So she sat silent, miserably twisting her handkerchief in her hands.

"Go back to your session room," said Miss Snively sharply, who boasted of her summary measures with her scholars. So Katherine left the room in disgrace. From that time on there was a marked antagonism between those two. Miss Snively lost no chance to make Katherine ridiculous in cla.s.s, and, while Katherine had too much respect for teachers to openly defy her, she "took off" her affected manners to delighted audiences outside of cla.s.s, and Miss Snively knew it and was powerless to stop it. But, outside of her skirmishes with Miss Snively, Katherine's progress through school was a triumphal march.

In every school, and Washington High was no exception, there will be found various elements-some good and some bad. Color rushes, which had given an annual vent to the mysterious feeling of hostility which always exists between junior and senior cla.s.ses, had been abolished. But the feeling still existed, and manifested itself in various skirmishes. The year before, when the juniors gave their annual dance, the seniors carried away the refreshments. On the night of the senior dance the lights refused to work, and, of course, the juniors were at the bottom of the mystery. The princ.i.p.al, thinking rightly that pranks of this kind reflected little credit on his school, wrathfully declared that if any of the seniors attempted to spoil the juniors' party this year there would be trouble. But there were certain lawless spirits in the senior cla.s.s who still thought pranks of that nature funny, and it was not long before plans were hatching as merrily as before. It was all very vague, what was going to be done and who was going to do it, but it was in the air, and everybody who was up on school affairs knew there was a storm brewing.

The first definite news came to the Winnebagos through Katherine. "I've been asked to a select party," she announced one night up in the Open Door Lodge, spreading her bony hands out before the blazing log on the hearth. "It's something like the Boston Tea Party," she went on.

"Must be going to be quite an affair," said Gladys, who was stirring fudge over the fire. "May we inquire where?"

"Oh, girls," said Katherine, with a serious face, "do you know what's in the wind? The Seniors are to put a lot of live mice through the windows in the middle of the Junior dance."

"The Seniors?" exclaimed Hinpoha and Gladys in one breath. "What Seniors?"

"Oh, Charlie Hughes and Eddie Myers and that bunch. You know the half dozen that go around together and call themselves the Clan? Well, those.

They were mixed up in the business last year." Although Katherine was a newcomer in the school she was already well versed in its history.

"How did you find it out?" asked Hinpoha.

"Cora Burton told me." Cora was one of Katherine's devoted admirers and tried hard to be chummy with her, although Katherine did not care for her in the least. "Cora's a particular friend of Charlie Hughes, and she and some other girls are going along to see the fun. But she couldn't keep it secret and told me today and asked if I wanted to go along."

"Oh, Katherine, you're not going?" said Sahwah anxiously.

The disgusted expression on Katherine's face was answer enough.

"Hadn't we better tell some of the teachers?" asked Gladys, pausing in her stirring. "I wish Nyoda were here." Miss Kent had been called out of town on account of the death of an aunt and would be away until after the party.

"We ought to, I think," said Hinpoha.

Katherine stood up beside the fireplace, and resting one elbow on the shelf humped her shoulders in her favorite att.i.tude and began to speak.

"Girls," she said, "this Junior-Senior business is going to be an awful mess, and the result will be that somebody will be expelled or not permitted to graduate. Students are going to take sides in the affair and there will be no end of hard feelings. I for one don't care to play the role of informer. So far we Winnebagos have kept entirely out of anything of this kind and wish we could get along without having any connection with this."

"But the teachers would never tell who told them," said Hinpoha.

"The teachers wouldn't," answered Katherine, "but Cora Burton would. And then maybe someone would say that I had been in the thing to start with and then grew afraid and told on the others. You know how those stories grow. Stay out of it altogether, say I, and avoid publicity."

"But don't you think it's our duty to try and stop such horrid pranks?"

asked Hinpoha doubtfully.

"I certainly do," said Katherine, "and if we were the only ones who suspected anything it would be different. But all the teachers know that something is going to happen and they will be on the lookout. And the Juniors know it also, and they will be on their guard. I doubt very much if those mice ever get into the room, even if we keep silent."

And the Winnebagos, remembering Hinpoha's sad experience the year before, decided that it was perhaps better after all to keep out of the affair altogether.

"I thought you'd see it my way after you'd considered all sides," said Katherine, reaching out her long fingers and taking three pieces of fudge off the plate where it was cooling, "but that isn't what I wanted to talk about tonight. It's Cora Burton that bothers me. She isn't a bad sort of girl, and I can't see why she should want to get mixed up in that sort of thing, especially when there's bound to be trouble later. If she were to be seen with those boys Friday night it would go hard with her. I suppose she thinks she's right in the swim being connected with a prank, because she isn't very popular otherwise. The other girls that are in it aren't ladylike and it's not much use getting after them, but Cora's different, somehow. I wish something could be done about it." And she crunched a piece of fudge between her teeth with violence.

"We might get up a show that night and each one bring a friend, and you could invite Cora," suggested Sahwah. "Counter attraction, you know."

The suggestion was voted a good one and promptly acted upon. But Cora declined Katherine's cordial invitation. "What's to be done now?" asked Katherine of the hastily called meeting of the Winnebagos. "Our counter attraction didn't work."

"Girls," said Gladys solemnly, "I believe it's our duty to keep Cora away from that business somehow. If we were smart enough we'd find a way. I don't believe we ought to let the matter drop and say if she wants to get into trouble let her do it, it's none of our affair. It _is_ our affair, because we're pledged to Give Service, and it would be doing Cora a great service to keep her out of this. If she's weak and we're strong we must hold her out of water. You remember what Dr. Harper said at the lecture about saving people from themselves. Well, I think we ought to save Cora from herself."

The phrase, "Save Cora from herself," sounded very fine to the ears of the Winnebagos, and they decided that Cora must be saved from herself at all costs. But how?

"I think I can manage it," said Katherine, who had been buried deep in thought all the while the last discussion was going on. "It'll be quite an undertaking, but the end justifies the means."

"Tell us," begged the girls.

"Why, it's this," said Katherine. "I shall tell Cora that I've changed my mind and want to go with her Friday night and will meet her on the corner of her street at eight o'clock. When I've met her I'll tell her that I left my purse up here and ask her to come along till I get it. You know she doesn't live very far from here. Once up here we'll keep her safely all evening. Oh, I know that holding people against their will isn't one of the rules of polite society, but in her case I think we're justified.

She'll thank us for it before very long. And we'll try to make it pleasant for her. We'll give the show just as we intended and have a spread and her captivity won't seem long."

As there seemed no other way out of the difficulty, Katherine's plan was accepted.

"It's working fine," she confided to the Winnebagos the next day. "Cora was tickled to pieces because I wanted to go with her. She agreed to meet me on the corner, as I suggested, and we're both going to wear green veils so we won't be recognized so easily. Hoop la!" and she did a double shuffle with her toes turned in down the aisle of the empty cla.s.s room where the girls had gathered.

On Friday night the Winnebagos met early in the House of the Open Door.

Mrs. Evans, Gladys' mother, was acting as leader tonight in the absence of Nyoda. She had been let into the secret about Cora and under the circ.u.mstances thought that their action was right. Cora lived with an old uncle, who was stone deaf and didn't care a rap what she did, so there was no use talking to her folks about it. Several girl friends of the Winnebagos were present, all having raptures over the decorations of the Lodge, and watching with interest the waving curtain in the corner, behind which Sahwah was making herself up as a Topsy for their entertainment later on. Gladys was making sandwiches in another corner and lamenting because the bread knife was broken half off, and was accusing Sahwah of prying bricks apart with it, when stealthy footsteps sounded on the walk below, together with the noise of the door being pushed back quietly. Gladys heard it and started nervously. She was beginning to feel rather embarra.s.sed at the thought of meeting Cora Burton, and wondered just how it would come out, anyway. She wished it were safely over.

Katherine and her prisoner seemed a long time in reaching the foot of the ladder. Did Cora suspect something, perhaps, and was refusing to mount?

Gladys strained her ears to listen and thought she heard a smothered giggle from below, but she could not be sure. The next minute the lights flashed below and the patent signal knock of the Sandwiches sounded on the wall.

"Here come the boys!" cried Hinpoha, hastening to answer the signal with a series of mystic thumps on the wall with the poker.

Then the Captain's voice sounded at the foot of the ladder. "How many of you are up there?"

"Five," answered Hinpoha, "and three guests."

"Is Miss Kent there?"

"No."