Winona of the Camp Fire Part 31

By the second day the platform was done, and proved to balance very well on the water, even with all the girls on it. Next Marie and her helpers went to making tents, for their own soldier tents were too unromantically shaped to be any good on a float. They wanted real Indian wigwams, or as near to them as they could get.

Marie bought unbleached muslin, and they dyed it the correct dark brown.

They made three wigwams of this, the story-book-picture kind, with the crossed poles tied at the top, for a foundation. In each tent a squaw was to sit-or rather, at its door, for the tepees, in order to fit on the limited s.p.a.ce of the float, had to be made rather small, and would have been a tight fit for even the smallest squaw. Some of the girls were to dress as chiefs, and were working hard on war-bonnets and leggings. Even Puppums was to grace the occasion, guarding a pappoose-little Lilian Maynard, the smallest Blue Bird. There was some idea of including Hike the Camp Cat, now a cheerful and opulent-looking kitten, but it was thought better of, because he yowled so when they rehea.r.s.ed him.

When the tents and costumes were done, the brushwood heaps stacked, the floor covered with twigs and moss, the girls tried grouping themselves as they were to appear on the final night. And it proved that there was not room on the platform for three tents and nineteen girls, even if seven _were_ small.

Marie stepped off and looked it over.

"There are just two girls too many," she said. "Three, if I were on board. I'll eliminate Marie Hunter to begin with. I'm going to decorate my own canoe. You'd better draw lots for the other two to stay out."

Everyone on the float looked at everyone else. n.o.body wanted to drop out, but n.o.body felt like being selfish.

"I'll drop out!" said the whole of Camp Karonya in chorus, after a minute's dead silence.

"I'll go in your canoe, Marie-have you forgotten?" asked Edith. "The plans you made included me."

"So they did," said Marie in a relieved voice. "Well, perhaps the rest could crowd a little closer."

"I'm afraid not, and be sure that n.o.body'd tip into the water," vetoed Mrs. Bryan. "I'm the one to stay ash.o.r.e, girls. I'll gaze at you with fond proprietorship while you get first prize."

But there rose up a storm of objections to that. "No you won't, either!

There won't any of us be in it if you aren't, Opeechee!" till she had to give up giving up.

Winona braced herself a little, and "I'm out, too," she said gayly.

"There's no use asking me to stay-I don't like your old float!"

She sprang ash.o.r.e, and went over and stood by Marie.

The girls protested, and several more volunteered to drop out, but n.o.body meant it quite as hard as Winona did. So the Indian village went on being erected, and the girls went on practising an Indian dance which should take up the least possible room. Meanwhile Winona rounded up the finished mending and rowed up the river to deliver the latest basket of mended socks and shirts. She had made her sacrifice in all good faith and earnestness, but she felt as if she didn't want to see them going gayly on without her-at least, not right _now_.

She wasn't conscious of behaving any way but as she generally did, but she must have, for both Tom and Billy watched her uneasily, as she sat in the boat and talked to them after they had taken the mending, while she waited for the orderly to come with her money.

"What's the matter, Win?" asked Tom bluntly in a minute. "You're down and out-I can see that. Who's been doing anything to you?"

Winona shook her head. "n.o.body."

"Then what have _you_ been doing?" asked Billy. They stood over her, both looking so worried that Winona felt like hugging them, or crying, or both.

"It isn't anything," she said. "Except-well, I did it myself. Somebody had to stay off the float, because there wasn't room for everyone, so I elected myself. And-and-oh, I _did_ want to be in that carnival!

But"-she straightened bravely, and smiled up into the two indignant faces-"I guess it's all right, after all. If I could decorate my rowboat it would be all right, but I can't, because they're going to need it to carry properties in."

"It's a confounded shame," said Billy Lee, "and after you planned it, and all! You ought to have a float of your own. I'll tell you, Winona, why don't you decorate a canoe?"

"Only reason is, I haven't a canoe," laughed Winona-they were all three sitting in a row in the gra.s.s by this time.

"I have," said Billy, "and you're more than welcome to it, and to all the help I can give you on it."

"And I've got some change you're welcome to for decorations," added Tom.

"Oh, how perfectly lovely!" said Winona, jumping up with her face aglow.

"Indeed I will decorate it, and thank you both, ever and ever so much. I have ever so many lovely ideas for decorations. Billy!"

She stopped short.

"Well?" said Billy.

"Would you mind being in the canoe with me?"

"Sure, I'd love to," said Billy heartily, whether he really meant it or not.

"Oh, thank you _so_ much!" cried Winona again.

"That's the way to take it!" said Tom. "We'll get you up a canoe, between us, that'll make your old Camp Fire float look like a bad quarter and a plugged nickel-see if we don't!"

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Winona and Florence paddled back to Camp Karonya with the latest bundle of mending, very, very happy. When they came ash.o.r.e, they were met by a committee consisting of Adelaide, Louise, Helen and Marie.

"We've got a plan for your being in the picture," said they very nearly in unison. "We can decorate the boat with the apparatus in it--"

But Winona waved a lordly hand.

"Boat me no boats," said she. "I'm going to have Billy Lee's canoe to decorate. We're going out this afternoon, or maybe to-morrow afternoon, up to Wampoag where the shops are, and we're going to buy out the shops with decorations. Going to get honorable mention, anyway!"

"Oh, then you'd really rather!" said Helen. "I'm _so_ glad. But it won't seem natural not to have you on the float, Winnie!"

"Just as natural as not having Marie," said Winona.

"No," said Marie quietly, "not exactly. You're like the spirit of the whole thing, Win, and I think they ought to have you."

"You can't," said Winona, sitting down on the gra.s.s and drawing her knees up to her chin.

"We could if we canned Nataly," said Louise the rebel, half under her breath.

"Well, you can't do that," said the other girls in a breath.

The truth was, Nataly Lee was the one dark spot-the one cinder, as you might say-in the Camp Fire. She did not particularly like doing her share of the work, she could not be made to take an interested part in the work for honor beads, and she acted generally as if she was a caller who was much older and more languid than the others. It was, in short, very much as Louise had said when she offered to join-she was like a kitten who refused to be anything but a cat.

"I don't know what Nataly's doing here, anyway," Louise went on. "And we'd be a lot happier without her. I wish she'd go home and look after her complexion. She can't do it properly here-anybody can see that!"

"Can't do what?" said a languid voice. It isn't a good thing to discuss your friends too freely if they're anywhere at all around, because they are exceedingly likely to overhear or partly hear. And this is just what happened now. Nataly herself walked out of the strip of woods that separated the camp from the river, and sat down by them.

"I thought I heard you talking about me," she said.

"We were," said Louise, quite unruffled. "At least I was. I was saying that you couldn't look after your complexion properly here in the woods, and that I thought you'd be happier away from our rude young society!"