The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 26

"Take it easy," said Sahwah soothingly. "They haven't upset. There isn't a speck of water in the boats. They've simply floated off and left the folks somewhere. What were the Hares doing out in boats, anyway?" she mused. "But if they're along the sh.o.r.e here somewhere we ought to go and look for them. Maybe we missed directions by not keeping to the beach.

That must be it. They probably told us about the boats in a later note that we didn't get."

With an air of relief they finished their dinner and then piled into the boats and started coasting along the sh.o.r.e, looking for the Hares.

"This is getting to be a real hare and hound chase," observed Hinpoha, as they proceeded slowly, looking into every little cove and inlet. Soon they rounded the last point and were spied by the anxious watchers in the lighthouse, who waved their towels and shrieked at the tops of their voices.

The Hounds got the surprise of their lives when they heard that hail and looking up saw the Hares perched up in the lighthouse, "just exactly like crows on a telephone pole," said Sahwah, telling Aunt Clara about it later.

The stranded Hares were taken ash.o.r.e under a running fire of pleasantry about their plight, and were told moral stories about people who tried to play jokes on others and got the worst of it themselves, and Sahwah advised them gravely never to go out in a rowboat that wouldn't stand without hitching, and so on and so forth until the poor Hares did not know which way to turn.

So the members of the chase went homeward, hunters and hunted side by side, laughing at the events of the day and agreeing that the chief charm of nearly all their expeditions lay in the fact that they never turned out the way they had expected them to.

"Good gracious, Slim, you aren't hungry again?" said Sahwah, as Slim, stooping among the leaves, brought up a bunch of bright blue berries and started to put them all into his mouth at once.

"Don't eat those berries!" said Anthony suddenly. "They aren't real blueberries. They make your throat feel as if it were full of red hot needles and it hurts for hours. I ate some one day and I know."

Slim dropped the berries hastily. "Thanks, old man, for telling me," he said warmly.

"Whew! What a chance for a comeback he would have had on Slim!" said the Captain that night as the campers sat around in an informal family council while the twins were out in the launch with Mr. Evans. "The fact that he didn't take it shows that he's a pretty good sort after all. I didn't think he had it in him."

"Do you know," said Katherine seriously, "I believe I know what's been the trouble with Anthony. He was spoiled when he was little and allowed to talk all the time and that made people dislike him. It made him unpopular with his boy friends and he's been unpopular so long that he expects everybody he meets to dislike him. So he starts to patronize and bully his new acquaintances right away because he thinks they won't like him anyway and it's his way of getting even. But I believe that underneath it he's the loneliest boy that ever lived. n.o.body can have a very good time or really enjoy life when they're disliked by everybody.

"Now I think we made a mistake in our treatment of him from the start.

We didn't like him when we first saw him and we let him know it. We froze him out in the beginning. I know how I feel toward people that I think don't like me. They bring out the worst side of me every time. Now Anthony must have a lot of good stuff in him or he couldn't have acted the way he did today. It's up to us to bring it out, and I think the way to do it is to treat him as if we thought there was nothing but a 'best'

side to him. We mustn't act as if we thought he was going to do something mean all the time. Take, for instance, the time we thought somebody had hidden Eeny-Meeny, and you jumped on him as a matter of course."

"We thought he'd be likely to do it," said the Captain, trying to justify himself before Katherine's reproach.

"That's exactly the trouble," said Katherine. "We always thought he'd be 'likely' to do something mean, but we never thought he'd be 'likely' to do something good. Everything that has happened around here has been blamed on Anthony as a matter of course. We've never given him a fair chance. You boys didn't let him in on the secret of those council seats because you were afraid he'd give it away. That was wrong. You should have let him help and never doubted him for a minute. People generally do just what you expect them to do. If we took Anthony seriously and acted as though we could rely on his judgment he'd soon have a judgment we could rely on. I say we've had ahold of the wrong handle of Anthony all the while. We knocked the boasting out of him with a sledgehammer and that was all right in that case; but for the rest of it we've got to show that we respect and trust him, and take my word for it, he won't disappoint us. Don't you think that's what's been the trouble, Uncle Teddy?"

"My dear Katherine," said Uncle Teddy, "the way you put things it would take a blind beetle not to see them. You certainly have put Anthony up in an entirely new light. I've nearly got gray hair wondering why he did not profit by our ill.u.s.trious example here; now you've put the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l. It isn't half as much to sit and look at a parade as it is to ride in the band wagon. But from now on we'll see that Anthony is made part of the show.

"If only everybody had such faith in mankind as you have, what a world this would be!"

CHAPTER XII

ANTHA'S RESPONSIBILITY

"Katherine, are you low in your mind again?" Gladys peered suspiciously over the edge of the cliff to where Katherine was sitting in her favorite fly-on-the-wall position midway between earth and sky, her head leaned thoughtfully back against the stone wall behind her.

"No'm," answered Katherine meekly, and grinned rea.s.suringly through the wisp of hair that hung down over her face. She put the lock carefully back into place with a critical hand and continued: "I was just exercising my young brain thinking."

Gladys heaved a sigh of relief and prepared to join Katherine on the ledge. "I'm _so_ glad it isn't the indigoes this time," she said, swinging her feet over the edge and sc.r.a.ping her shoulder blades along the rock until they found a certain groove which fitted them like a glove, "because I don't think Sahwah could think up another conspiracy like the Dark of the Moon Society to bring you out of it. But why were you looking so solemn?"

"I was merely wondering about Antha," replied Katherine. "Now we've got Anthony where we understand him; but Antha is still the spiritless cry baby she was when she came. She hasn't a particle of backbone. I'm getting discouraged about her." She pulled a patch of moss from the rock beside her and tore it moodily into shreds.

"Are you quite, quite sure you're not low in your mind?" asked Gladys.

Katherine sat up with a jerk, sending a loosened particle of stone bounding and clattering down the face of the cliff. "Of course not!" she said energetically. "I was just wondering, that's all. I haven't lost faith in Antha and I don't doubt but what she'll brace up before the summer is over. If we only knew a recipe for developing grit!"

"Stop worrying about that child and let's go out in a canoe," said Gladys, catching hold of Katherine's hand and pulling her up.

Katherine rose and smoothed out her skirts--a new action for her. "Do I look any neater?" she inquired.

"Quite a bit," replied Gladys, looking her over with a critical eye.

"I hope I do," said Katherine with a sigh. "I've spent most of the week sewing on b.u.t.tons. But my hair is absolutely hopeless," and she shook the fringe back out of her eyes viciously.

"Let me do it for you some day," said Gladys, "and I'll see what can be done with those loose ends."

"All right," said Katherine wearily, and they went down the path together.

"We won't have time to go out in a canoe," said Gladys when they reached the beach. "Here comes the launch back from St. Pierre with the mail."

"I wonder if there's a letter for me," said Katherine rather wistfully.

"I haven't had a word from father and mother for three weeks." And she hopefully joined the throng that stood with outstretched hands around the pack of letters Uncle Teddy was holding out of reach above his head.

"Oh, I say," he begged, "can't you wait a minute until I show you my newest treasure? If I give you your letters first you'll all sneak off into corners and read them and then you never will look at it."

"What is it?" cried an eager chorus, for it must be something splendid that would delay the distribution of the mail.

Uncle Teddy opened a carefully packed box and drew forth an exceedingly fine camera, which he exhibited with all the pride of a boy. "I've had my heart set on this little machine for years," he said happily, "but I've never had the two hundred dollars to spend for it. But now a wealthy gentleman whom I guided on a canoe trip last May and whom I was able to render some slight service when he was taken ill in the woods, has made me a present of it. Did you ever hear of such generosity?"

He did not mention the fact that the "slight service" had consisted of carrying the sick man on his back for fifteen miles through the woods.

The boys and girls looked at the camera with awe and were half afraid to touch it. A thing that had cost two hundred dollars was not to be handled lightly.

"It has a speed of one thousandth of a second," announced Uncle Teddy, displaying all the fine points of his treasure like an auctioneer.

"Won't I get some great pictures of you folks diving, though!" And he stood looking at the thing in his hands as if he did not quite believe it was real. Then he came to himself with a start and tossed the pack of letters to Katherine to distribute, remarking that his good fortune had quite robbed him of his manners.

Katherine handed out the letters in short order, for she saw one addressed to her, and when they had all been given out she climbed back to her seat on the ledge to enjoy the news from home in peace and quiet.

Supper was an unusually hilarious meal. Uncle Teddy was so happy that he nearly burst trying to be witty and agreeable and his mood was so contagious that before long everybody else was as bad as he.

"Make a speech, Katherine," somebody called, and Katherine obligingly climbed up on a chair and made such a screamingly funny oration on "What Is Home without a Camera?" that over half the company choked and there were not enough unchoked ones left to pat them all on the back.

"Katherine," said Mr. Evans feelingly, "if you don't turn out to be a second Cicero I'm no prophet. Your eloquence would melt a concrete dam.

See, it's melted the b.u.t.ter already. You are the joy of life to me. How I would like to go with you on your triumphal way through college! By the way, what college did you say you were going to?"

"Sagebrush University, Spencer, Arkansas," replied Katherine drily.

"Ha-ha-ha! That's a good one!" laughed Slim, choking again.

"Please stop joking and tell us," begged Hinpoha.