The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle Part 30

The wrecking of a pa.s.senger vessel was a much more serious matter than the destruction of a freighter, where there would only be the crew to bring ash.o.r.e. The _Huronic_ carried two hundred pa.s.sengers and as it was impossible for any boat to get alongside of her to take them off, they all had to be taken ash.o.r.e in the breeches-buoy or the life car.

Other lines were shot out after the first one and other rescue apparatus set up. From the position of her lights it could be seen that the _Huronic_ was listing farther to the leeward all the time. The life savers worked untiringly and the throng of rescued grew apace.

Entirely forgetting their own fatigue from their long tramp against the wind, the Winnebagos and Sandwiches moved among the crowd, lending sweaters, coats and scarfs to shivering women, taking crying children in tow and finding their distracted parents, and doing a hundred and one little services that helped materially to bring a semblance of order out of the wild confusion.

Hinpoha had just restored a curly-haired three-year old to his hysterical mamma when a man came up to her and said, "Will you bring your flashlight over here, please? My wife has dropped her watch."

Hinpoha obligingly turned aside with him and approached a woman kneeling in the sand, searching. "This young lady will help you find it, Elizabeth," said the man.

"That's encouraging," replied the woman in a voice which made Hinpoha give a great start and hastily flash the little circle of light on her face. The next moment she flung herself bodily on top of her with a great shriek.

"Nyoda! Where on earth did you come from? Nyoda! _Nyoda_!"

"Hinpoha!" cried the young woman in the sand, clinging to her in amazement, while the man who had addressed Hinpoha gave vent to a long whistle.

"Why, it's the immortal redhead!" he exclaimed. "I didn't know you in the dark at all."

"It's the first time anybody ever said they didn't know me in the dark,"

said Hinpoha, laughing. "I didn't know you either without that famous mustache. Sahwah!" she called. "Gladys! Come here quick!"

The Winnebagos had often pictured to themselves what their reunion with Nyoda would be like when she made them the faithfully promised visit the following year, but none of them had ever dreamed it would come so soon or be like this. In the feeble light of their pocket flashes they crowded around her, behind a point of the cliff which kept some of the wind away, and all talked at once as they bubbled over with joy at the meeting, and Sherry, against whom they had vowed eternal warfare for stealing their beloved guardian away, came in for his share of handshaking and rapturous greeting.

"Where were you going?" "What were you doing on the _Huronic_?"

"Why didn't you let us know you were so near?" "Did you intend to stop?"

"How does it feel to be shipwrecked?" "Were you scared when they took you off the boat?" asked six voices at once.

Nyoda laughed and threw up her hands in a gesture of protest. "Have mercy!" she pleaded. "Send up your questions in single file." Then she told how Sherry had been instructed to go to Chicago when they were up in Duluth and they had chosen to come down by water, and were having a most delightful trip on the _Huronic_ when it was so rudely ended by the storm. Her tale was somewhat disconnected, for she was constantly being interrupted by outbursts of delight at seeing her again and anxious inquiries as to whether she was cold, all more or less accompanied by caresses.

During one of these pauses, when she was being nearly smothered in a mackinaw by the over-solicitous Hinpoha, a voice was heard nearby, saying, "First we see Jim's signal light go off and we knowed there was a wreck somewhere. We was wondering why he didn't come back to report when all of a sudden up comes a reg'lar giraffe of a girl on board an imitation mule. She was sittin' facin' the stern an' listin' hard to starboard. She tries to make port in front of the station, but the mule he heads into the wind an' she jumps overboard."

The Winnebagos shouted with laughter at this description of Katherine's arrival at the station with the great news. "Sh-h, maybe he'll tell some more," said Sahwah, trying to quiet the others down. But the loquacious surfman had moved out of earshot and they heard no more of his tale.

Another voice was speaking now, a crisp voice that held a note of impatience. "No conveyance available to take me to St. Pierre? How annoying! How far did you say it was? Two miles? In this wind----"

The voice broke off, but the speaker moved forward toward the little group behind the bluff. Just then a searchlight that had been set up on the beach fell upon him. It was Judge Dalrymple.

"Papa!" cried Antha, starting up.

The judge whirled around, startled. "Where did you come from?" he asked.

Antha dragged him over to the rest and then there were more exclamations of astonishment that the judge had also been a victim of the wreck.

The night wore away while all the adventures were being told, and the gray dawn saw the last of the rescued pa.s.sengers finding their friends and relatives in the crowd, while the surfmen gathered up their paraphernalia and piled it into the beach wagon. The wind was abating its force and a weary-eyed procession was setting out in the direction of St. Pierre.

The Winnebagos and Sandwiches were a procession all to themselves, led by the stately judge with a twin hanging on each arm. Behind him came Nyoda and the adoring Winnebagos like Diana surrounded by her maidens, while Katherine stalked in the rear of the parade leading the angel-faced Sandhelo, on whose back she had set a tired youngster.

"What a terrible, wicked wind that was," said Gladys, looking from the wreck of the magnificent _Huronic_ to the uprooted trees lying everywhere along the edge of the woods.

"But it's an ill wind that blows n.o.body any good," said Hinpoha, as she embraced Nyoda for the hundred and nineteenth time.

CHAPTER XIV

THE TRAIL OF THE SEVEN CEDARS

"There's no use talking, we Winnebagos simply weren't meant to be separated," said Nyoda, smiling around at the circle of happy faces. "It seems that the very elements are in league to throw us into each other's paths."

They were all back on Ellen's Isle. By noon of the day following the storm they were able to cross the end of the lake in a launch from St.

Pierre and relieve the hearts of the anxious watchers on the island.

Nyoda and Sherry were easily persuaded to stop and spend a few days on Ellen's Isle now that their trip was interrupted, and the judge, having finished the business which brought him to St. Pierre, took occasion to run over and stay awhile with the twins.

Nyoda was dragged from one end of the island to the other and shown its wonders, from the innocent little spring which was the cause of their being there to the much enduring Eeny-Meeny on her pedestal. Over the adventures of the latter she laughed until the tears ran down her cheeks.

"Those are such typically _Winnebago_ stunts," she declared. "Who except one of us would have seen the tremendous possibilities in a wooden Indian, and who but a Winnebago could have thought up such a thing as the Dark of the Moon Society?"

The every-member-a-chief idea interested her mightily, and she was anxious to hear how it had worked out. "Fine," said Sahwah, "but I guess Uncle Teddy was really the Big Chief after all, even if he did make us think we were doing everything by ourselves. The other Chiefs generally asked his advice about things--I know I did. But we did think out more things for ourselves this way than we would have if we thought he was looking out for everything."

"And it was pretty exciting, sometimes, and full of surprises," said Gladys. "Remember the morning Katherine got us up at half past three for crew practice? That never would have happened if Uncle Teddy had blown the rising horn all summer."

"Come and see the war canoe," said Sahwah, tugging at Nyoda to get her started in a new direction. "We named it after you. See the name painted on the bows?"

"What did I ever do that I should have a war canoe named after me?"

asked Nyoda, overcome by the honor.

Somebody called Katherine away then, and Nyoda said to the others, "You were telling me about Katherine's having such a tremendous fit of the blues some time ago. Tell me, is she having one now? She seems changed somehow since last June. Isn't she feeling well?"

And then they told her how Katherine's plans to go to college had been shipwrecked and that she was going back to her home on the farm when the summer was over. Nyoda listened sympathetically, and as soon as she could she sought out Katherine and led her away for a walk with her alone. In the long, intimate talk which followed she made her see that this disappointment was an opportunity and not a calamity; an opportunity to develop strength of character which would enable her to surmount whatever difficulties would lie in her path through life. She testified to her that the lives of most great people showed they had become great, not because of the opportunities which were strewn in their paths, but because of the obstacles they had overcome.

Katherine nodded dumbly. "But, how am I going to 'pa.s.s on the light that has been given to me,' if I am to be away from people?" she said sadly after a moment.

"By doing the duty that lies nearest you," replied Nyoda, pressing her shoulder with a gentle hand. "You can be just as much of a Torch Bearer at home as anywhere. I know the prospect seems empty, even with the knowledge that you are doing your duty. By all the tokens, your place in life seems to be out in the busy world, rubbing elbows with people on all sides. Your great dream of social settlement work seemed one which was destined to be fulfilled with singular success. But, my dear, remember this, no success in life is worth as much as a happy home and a loving father and mother, and in taking over the task of home-making you have undertaken the greatest and n.o.blest piece of work that any woman can do. If you succeed in making home happy your life will not be wasted and your torch will shine undimmed."

"I hadn't thought about it in that way before," said Katherine slowly.

"You see, I had spent my whole life waiting for the day when I could get away from home and get out among educated people. My one dream as long as I can remember has been college in the East, and I spent every minute studying. I never cared how the house looked or how anything went on the farm. I just lived in my books, and in day dreams of the future. That's what makes it so hard to go back now. Oh, I was going back all right, I never thought for a moment of not going, but I don't believe I was planning to be very happy about it. Now I see the meaning of the Camp Fire Girls' law, 'Be happy.' It doesn't mean be happy when everything is coming your way, but in spite of everything when things are going wrong.

Just so when we learned to say, 'For I will bring ... my joy and sorrow to the fire.' There is more than one way to make a fire. If you haven't a joyful match handy to scratch and make an instant blaze, you can start one with the slow rubbing sticks of sorrow. But either one will kindle the torch that you can pa.s.s on to others. I see it now!"

"You certainly have put it in a nutsh.e.l.l!" said Nyoda.

"So now I'm going home," continued Katherine, "and tackle the housekeeping the way I used to go at my lessons. I'm going to make that old shack that was always a blot on the landscape such a marvel of beauty that it won't know itself. I'm going to begin right there to seek beauty and give service and pursue knowledge and be trustworthy and glorify work, and above all, I'm going to Be Happy. Thank you so much, Nyoda, for telling me the things you did. You've straightened everything out for me, the way you always do."

"Spoken like a true Winnebago!" said Nyoda, gripping her hand. "I knew you wouldn't show the white feather. Now I must go. Don't you hear Sherry calling me? Never get married, my dear, if you wish to be mistress of your own time!"

After that confidential talk with Nyoda Katherine's soul was once more serene and the old spring was back in her step and the characteristic air of enthusiasm about everything she did. Once more the future seemed full of possibilities.

That night Nyoda gathered the Winnebagos together for a confidential council meeting. "Well, Torch Bearer," she asked, "how goes the torch bearing?"