The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery Or The Christmas Adventure at Carver House Part 14

"We thought you had found the pa.s.sage and were coming to let us out,"

said Sahwah, "but it must have been Hercules, after all!"

"But Hercules was with me all afternoon, helping me overhaul the motor of the car," said Sherry. "I just left him now."

"Then-who-unlocked the-door?" cried the five in a bewildered way.

"Thunder!" suddenly shouted Justice. "It was the same man that made the footprints on the stairs! He got in through that secret pa.s.sage, and what's more, he's down there yet!"

CHAPTER XI A CURE FOR RHEUMATISM

All wrought up over the idea of the strange midnight visitor still lurking down in the pa.s.sage, Nyoda made Sherry and the boys arm themselves and search the tunnel and the cave thoroughly, but they found no sign of anyone hidden down there.

"It must have been a ghost that unlatched the door, after all," said Justice. "Most likely the ghost of the fellow that put the latch on. He's probably detailed to look after all the latches he put on doors!-goes around with the ghost of an oil can and keeps them from squeaking.

Yesterday must have been the date on his monthly tour of inspection. No, it couldn't have been a spook anyhow," he contradicted himself. "There's the can of paint and the footprint on the stairs. Ghosts don't leave footprints. That was real paint. He's a live spook, all right."

"But where is he now?" asked Nyoda nervously. "I'm afraid to open a table drawer, for fear he'll step out. Does he fold up like an accordion, I wonder, or turn into smoke like the Imp in the Bottle? I declare, I'm getting curious to see him. I'm sorry now I made you barricade the door down there beside the ladder; I've half a notion to sit on the stairs all night and see if he won't appear."

"I know an easier way than that," said Justice gravely. "Just grease the stairs and then come when you hear him fall. It'll save you the trouble of sitting up."

"You might recommend that method to the cat, instead of her watching beside the mousehole," replied Nyoda, laughing.

Then she heard a familiar fumbling at the back door. "Here comes Hercules," she said hastily. "Quick, close up the landing. Don't anybody mention finding the secret pa.s.sage to him, or he'll make life miserable for me from now on, worrying for fear his old friend, the devil, will come in and carry us all off. Come, get away from the stairway, and don't act as if anything unusual had happened.

"What is it, Hercules?" she asked, as the old man shuffled into the kitchen. "Is your cold worse?"

"I was jest goin' to ask yer could I have some coffee," said the old man in a plaintive voice. "I got the mizry so bad it's jest tearin' me ter pieces, an' when it gits like dat it don' seem like anything'll help it 'xcept drinkin' hot coffee."

Nyoda smiled at this novel cure for rheumatism, but she replied heartily, "Why, certainly you may have some coffee, Hercules. Just sit down there at the kitchen table and I'll get you a cup. There's some left in the pot; it'll only take a minute to warm it up."

She heated the coffee and motioned Hercules to a seat at the kitchen table, but he took the steaming cup and edged toward the door.

"I'll jest take it out an' drink it gradual," he said. "Never seems ter help de mizry none 'less I drink it gradual an' keep my feet in hot water de while. Tanks, Mist' Sher'dan, I don' need no help. I kin git along by myself."

Hercules shuffled out to the barn with his cup of hot coffee and Nyoda waited until he was out of earshot before she laughed aloud.

"That man certainly is a character!" she exclaimed. "Whoever heard of curing rheumatism by drinking coffee 'gradual' and holding your feet in water? I never know what queer notion he's going to have next. I put a pot of bright red geraniums in his room once to brighten it up and he promptly brought it back, because, 'Jewraniums am powerful unlucky, Mis'

'Lizbeth. I was plantin' jewraniums dat day de goat got killed.' Poor old Hercules, he does miss that goat so! He was simply inconsolable at first, and finally I resigned myself to a life of misery and told him to go and get himself another goat, but he wouldn't do it. Nothing could take the place of that fiendish old animal in his affections. I believe he'll mourn for him all the rest of his life."

"Let's invite him in for Sylvia's birthday party to-morrow night,"

suggested Migwan. "That'll cheer him up and make him forget all about his 'mizry' for a while. Let's find a masquerade costume for him, too, so he can be one of us."

Nyoda smiled brightly at Migwan. "Thoughtful child!" she said fondly.

"Always thinking of someone else's pleasure. Certainly we'll ask Hercules to the party.

"Now, all you menfolk clear out of this kitchen, or we won't get any dinner to-night!"

CHAPTER XII THE SPIRIT OF A PRINCESS

"O Nyoda, it _can't_ be true!"

Sahwah's anguished wail cut across the stricken silence of the room.

The eminent surgeon had just made his examination of Sylvia and p.r.o.nounced the verdict that had sent all their rosy air castles tumbling about their ears: "Nothing can be done. An operation would be useless. It is not a case of a splintered vertebra which could be patched. The nerves which control the limbs are paralyzed. She will never walk again."

The last five words fell upon their ears like the tolling of a sorrowful bell. "She will never walk again." Stunned by the unexpected verdict the Winnebagos stood mutely about Sylvia in anguished sympathy.

She lay motionless on the sofa, a white-faced, pitiful little ghost of a princess; her glad animation gone, her radiance extinguished, her song stricken upon her lips.

"O why did you tell me?" she wailed. "Why did you tell me I could be cured, when I never can? Why didn't you leave me as I was? I was happy then, because I had never hoped to get well. But since you told me I've been planning so--" Her voice broke off and she lay back in silent misery.

"Now I can never be a Camp Fire Girl!" she cried a moment later, her grief breaking out afresh. "I can never go camping! I can never help Aunt Aggie!" All the joyful bubbles her fancy had blown in the last two days burst one by one before her eyes, each stabbing her with a fresh pang.

"I'll never be any use in the world; I wish I were dead!" she cried wildly, her rising grief culminating in an outburst of black despair.

"Oh, yes, you can too be a Camp Fire Girl," said Nyoda soothingly. "You can do lots of things the other girls can do-and some they can't. There isn't any part of the Law you can't fulfill. You can Seek Beauty, and Give Service, and Pursue Knowledge, and Be Trustworthy, and Hold on to Health, and Glorify Work, and Be Happy! Campfire isn't just a matter of hikes and meetings. It's a spirit that lives inside of you and makes life one long series of Joyous Ventures. You can kindle the Torch in your invalid's chair as well as you could out in the big, busy world, and pa.s.s it on to others."

"How can I?" asked Sylvia wonderingly.

"In many ways," answered Nyoda, "but chiefly by being happy yourself.

Even if you never did anything else but be happy, you would be doing a useful piece of work in the world. Just sing as gayly as you used to, and everyone who hears you will be brighter and happier for your song. If you cannot do great deeds yourself, you may inspire others to do them. What does it matter who does things, as long as they are done? If you have encouraged someone else to do something big and fine, all on account of your happy spirit, it is just as well as if you had done the thing yourself. Did you ever hear the line,

'All service ranks the same with G.o.d,'?

"Sylvia, dear, you have the power to make people glad with your song.

That is the way you will pa.s.s on the Torch. You already have your symbol; you chose it when you began to hero-worship Sylvia Warrington, and loved her because she was like a lark singing in the desert at dawning. That is the symbol you have taken for yourself-the lark that sings in the desert.

Little Lark-that-sings-in-the-Desert, you will kindle the Torch with your song! Instead of being a Guide Torchbearer, or a Torchbearer in Craftsmanship, you will become a Torchbearer in Happiness!"

With these words of hope and encouragement Nyoda left her sorrowful little princess to the quiet rest which she needed after the fatiguing examination by the surgeon. Going into Hinpoha's room she found her lying face downward on the bed in an agony of remorse, her red curls tumbled about her shoulders.

"I told her, I told her," she cried out to Nyoda with burning self-condemnation. "I couldn't keep my mouth shut till the proper time; I had to go and tell her two days ahead. If I'd only waited till we were sure she would never have had her heart set on it so. Oh, I'll never forgive myself." She beat on the pillow with her clenched fist and writhed under the lash of her self scorn. For once she was not in tears; her misery was far deeper than that. "I didn't mean to tell her that day, Nyoda, I knew you'd asked us to keep it a secret, but it just slipped out before I thought."

"Hinpoha, dear," said Nyoda, sitting down on the bed beside her and speaking seriously, "will it always be like this with you? Will everything slip out 'before you thought'? Will you never learn to think before you speak? Will you be forever like a sieve? Must we always hesitate to speak a private matter out in front of you, because we know it will be all over the town an hour later? Are you going to be the only one of the Winnebagos who can't keep a secret?"

Hinpoha's heart came near to breaking. Those were the severest words Nyoda had ever spoken to her. Yet Nyoda did not say them severely. Her tone was gentle, and her hand stroked the dishevelled red curls as she spoke; but what she said pierced Hinpoha's heart like a knife. A vision of herself came up as she must seem to others-a rattle brained creature who couldn't keep anything to herself if her life depended upon it. How the others must despise her! Now she despised herself! Above all, how Nyoda must despise her-Nyoda, who always said the right thing at the right time, and whose tongue never got her into trouble! Nyoda might have nothing more to do with such a tattle tale! In her anguish she groaned aloud.

"Don't you see," went on Nyoda earnestly, "what suffering you bring upon yourself as well as upon other people by just not thinking? You could escape all that if you acquired a little discretion."

"Oh, I'll never tell anything again!" Hinpoha cried vehemently. "I'll keep my lips tight shut, I'll sew them shut. I won't be like a sieve. You can tell all the secrets in front of me you like, they'll be safe. Oh, don't say you'll never tell me any more secrets!" she said pleadingly.

"Just try me and see!"

"Certainly I'll keep on telling you secrets," said Nyoda, "because I believe they really will be safe after this." She saw the depth of woe into which Hinpoha had been plunged and knew that the bitter experience had taught her a lesson in discretion she would not soon forget. Poor impulsive, short-sighted Hinpoha! How her tongue was forever tripping her up, and what agonies of remorse she suffered afterward!