Winona of the Camp Fire Part 37

"An' twousers?" demanded Sandy hopefully. "Gee, zat's gweat!"

"I'll have to stop her using slang," said Louise. "No, dear, not exactly twousers, but-I could get her some overalls, couldn't I, Win?"

"I suppose so," said Winona.

"Then I will," said Louise.

"You're gweat, too," said Sandy, turning around where she sat on Louise's lap, and throwing both little bare arms around her neck and kissing her. Louise kissed her back warmly.

"Isn't she a dear?" she said. "Winnie, will you please hand me the scissors?"

"No," said Winona, "I won't. It's wicked to spoil pretty hair like that." And she walked out of the tent.

"I'll det 'em," said Sandy, slipping down and bringing them to Louise from the table at the end of the tent.

"Here's a piece of ribbon to tie it with, if you won't cut it off," said Winona, reappearing with a wide length of blue taffeta.

"No, thank you," said Louise, cutting industriously and very neatly. "It would just be in her eyes all the time. I'm going to cut it straight across her eyebrows, like a little boy's."

"I did it to all my dolls once," said Winona. She sat down, though, and watched Louise till she was done.

Louise had washed the little girl's hair when she gave her the second bath, and when it was even and short enough to suit her she finished dressing the child in her white frock, and set her on the gra.s.s outside, to dry in the sunshine. She gave her a picture book to look at to keep her amused. The bobbed locks, thick and curly, fluffed out charmingly in a yellow bush around the sweet little face.

"It's becoming," admitted Winona. "She looks like a cherub, or a choir-boy on a Christmas card. There is the signal for breakfast. You just got her dry in time."

"Breakfast?" said Sandy, brightening.

"Poor little darling!" said Louise, catching and kissing her. "I don't believe she ever had anything to eat before she came here!"

They went to breakfast in state, and Sandy's golden aureole and clean white frock made quite a sensation at the table. They piled things up for her to sit on, and she was put where Mrs. Bryan could reach her, and argue with her easily if she misbehaved. But she acted very well indeed.

Her table-manners were good, considering, she talked without the least shyness, and managed to eat a very large breakfast. Louise beamed with pride over the impression her protegee was making.

When breakfast was over, and Sandy turned loose again to play with Puppums and Florence, to whom she had taken a violent fancy, Louise packed a market-basket with everything a starving family might need.

Then she found her purse, summoned Winona, and they took the rowboat and went forth, Sandy and Puppums in the bottom of it.

They rowed along the west branch, a narrow stream that doubled at right angles from the branch the camps were on. It was lined with pretty summer cottages for a part of the way, then after that, at the very end, came a part that was filled with poor people who had squatted there. But long before they came to the poorest part Sandy desired to land.

"Here we is!" she said cheerfully, at a prosperous-looking dock about a third of the way up.

"Not here, dearie," said Louise. "It's probably some place where the poor child's been fed," she added aside to Winona.

"We may as well get out, though, mayn't we?" suggested Winona. "Maybe they can tell us where she comes from."

They tied the boat and got out, and walked down a deep lane for a while.

Presently they came to a large white house in the middle of a couple of acres of half-yard, half-lawn looking land.

The doors and windows were all wide open, but there was no one to be seen. Sandy walked into the hall with an a.s.sured tread, took a long breath, and called at the top of her lungs, "Vicky! Vick-ee!"

The girls stood at the door and waited, ready to apologize for their charge's rudeness whenever somebody might appear. In about five minutes, during which Sandy continued to shout, they heard a light, slow step along the upper hall. Presently a slim, dark, rather pretty little girl of about eleven scuffed down the stairs. She had on a kimono over her nightgown, though it was quite late in the morning.

"That you, Sand?" she called as she came. "Goodness, you're up early!"

"This is Vicky," Sandy explained to the girls over her shoulder. "Vicky!

I've had two baths!"

Louise stood, for once, speechless. She hung mechanically to the handle of the basketful of provisions, but she was too surprised to move. It was Winona who finally took courage to come forward and explain.

"I'm Winona Merriam," she said, "and this is my friend, Louise Lane. We are over at Camp Karonya, the Camp Fire, you know. We found this little girl yesterday, and we came over to-day to bring her home. Does she-does she belong here?"

"Why, of course she does," said Vicky. "Thank you for bringing her.

She's always trailing off that way, aren't you, Sand? How long you been gone?"

"Is she your sister?" asked Louise, who had her breath by this time.

"M'hm," nodded Vicky. "Why-why, Alexandra Mitch.e.l.l, where's your hair?"

"It got boxed!" exclaimed Sandy gleefully. "Isn't it nice?"

"I'm afraid we'll have to explain about that," said Winona bravely.

"Your little sister strayed into a little fishing-trip four of us were having yesterday, very hungry and rather dirty, and without all her clothes on. And from the way she talked we thought she was-well, we washed her and dressed her, and-I'm sorry-shortened her hair, it was so tangled. I'm ever so sorry. I think it will grow--"

Vicky stared a minute at Alexandra, very proud of herself, neat, clean, dressed and bobbed. Then instead of being angry she sat down on the floor, where she was, and burst into a fit of laughter.

"You thought-you thought-oh, my _goodness!_"

"Yes," said Winona. She sat down, too, and finally went off herself.

"Yes-we _did!_"

"And you brought food for the hungry family--" Vicky's eye fell on the large basket which Louise still held stiffly before her. "Oh, oh, oh!

And Uncle Will's pride, Sandy's hair, that he made a picture of that sold for ever so much money-oh, my goodness _gracious!_"

She and Winona both began to laugh again. Louise didn't. She stood against the wall like a wax statue.

"It certainly is funny," said Vicky at last, mopping her eyes, "but I'm good and glad about Sandy's hair. It was an awful nuisance to take care of, and Uncle Will _would_ keep it that way so he could paint pictures of it. Won't you stay and have some breakfast? We have a cook."

"No, thank you," said Louise hurriedly, "we've had our breakfast."

"What an awful noise, children!" said a voice; and a rather rumpled man appeared. He had an absent look, and also gave an impression of not having been to bed all night. He had a paint-brush in his hand.

Vicky and Sandy sprang for him, hanging to him.

"Oh, Uncle Will, this is two Camp Fire girls," said Sandy. "They cutted my hair when I was lost. Ain't it cute?"

"_Oh!_" said Uncle Will, and looked as aghast as Louise had. "How did this accident happen?"

"It wasn't an accident," said Sandy. "Louise boxed my head, an' gived me two baths!"

Uncle Will-so far as the girls learned that was all the name he had-uttered another faint exclamation. Then he dived back into his room as if he wanted to bear the shock alone.