Winona of the Camp Fire Part 46

"Yes," confessed Vicky. "What's that noise?"

"That's the horn," said Winona. "It must mean that it's bedtime. She's playing 'taps.' Mrs. Bryan signals us with it, always."

"I think I'd like to be a Blue Bird," said Vicky. "But I like the other plan better," she added quickly.

"We're going to be here quite a while longer," said Winona, "so you'll have lots of time to think whether you want us and whether your uncle will be willing."

"Oh, that's all right!" said Vicky as the two went back to camp.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was quite true that the Camp was not to break up for some time, owing to the Wampoag people's appet.i.te for Camp jellies and linens; but so far as Winona was concerned, life under the greenwood tree received a sudden check.

It was a harmless-looking letter enough that the detachment of Blue Birds brought up from the post-office. Winona pounced on it with a cry of joy. "Oh, a letter from mother!" she said. "And we only had one yesterday, Florence!" So she tore it open.

"Dear Little Daughter," it said, in a rather shakier handwriting than was usual with Mrs. Merriam. "I am sorry to have to tell you, as you are having such a splendid time, that we need you here at home. Yesterday, just after I had mailed my last letter to you, I slipped on the wet cellar stairs, and went down from top to bottom, and the result is a badly wrenched ankle. The doctor says that it is a severe sprain. Clay is a good little soul, but he can't do very much more than the helping out, and your father has to have his meals and everything. So I shall have to ask my little girl to come home and keep house for me. I will expect you the day after you get this. Your loving mother."

"_Oh!_" cried Winona. "Oh, poor mother!"

"What's the matter!" asked Florence.

"Mother's sprained her ankle on the cellar stairs," said Winona, "and I have to go home. You needn't, Floss."

"I shall, though," said Florence-and the younger Miss Merriam was a very determined little person. Her eyes filled with tears. "Frances and Lucy and I had a secret hike all planned," she said. "Oh, dear, it is so nice in camp! But I won't let you go home and nurse mother all alone, and you needn't think it!"

Winona didn't argue. She gave the letter to her little sister to read, and went off in the woods to be by herself. She climbed up to the platform that two of the girls had built, and sat there. There was no use denying it, she did not want to go home. She was going, of course, and going to nurse her mother just as well as she possibly could, and look after her father with all the powers she had learned in the Camp Fire activities. And she was sorry her mother's ankle hurt her-very, very sorry. But-oh, dear! There was a beautiful new dance that Edith, who went into Wampoag and got lessons, which she pa.s.sed promptly on, had been going to teach her. There was a new kind of cooking she had been going to teach a group of Blue Birds. There was a new dive-well, there were any amount of things, that if anyone had asked her about, she would have said she simply _couldn't_ break off. But she had to. And cooking at home in August was very different from doing it in the woods with a lot of other girls-and everyone she knew well was going to stay here-

Winona sat up and mopped her eyes.

"This isn't the way to follow the law of the Fire!" she reminded herself. "I can glorify work just as well home as here-better, in fact, for it's pretty certain there'll be more work to do!" She laughed a little.

"Coming up, Winona!" called Helen from below.

"Come on!" called back Winona.

"What's the matter?" inquired Helen when she gained the platform.

"You've been crying."

"I've got to go home." Winona gave the news briefly. "Mother's sprained her ankle."

"Oh, what a perfect shame!" said Helen.

"I know I'm taking it like a baby," said Winona with a gulp, "instead of being n.o.ble and acting as if I liked going home. And of course I'm going. Only-only I do wish mother had picked out any time but this to sprain a perfectly good ankle!"

"Can't she get somebody else to come take care of things?" asked Helen.

"I don't know how on earth we'll get along without you, Win. You never say much, but somehow you're the centre of things. We'll miss you awfully!"

Winona blushed at the compliment, and reached down to pat Helen's hand.

"You're a dear, Helen, to think so. But you'll all get along all right.

It's I that will have most of the missing to do. No, there's n.o.body mother could get. Aunt Jenny's off in the White Mountains, getting well from something herself. And all we have at home is Clay-the little colored boy mother got at the Children's Aid. From what Tom said he's a regular Topsy. No, I have to go home. Oh, think of it, Helen! Hot housekeeping all August and half September, with every single girl I know well up here, canoeing and swimming and folk-dancing and all sorts of splendid things! You'll all have beads down to your feet."

This time it was Helen who patted Winona.

Presently Winona mopped her eyes again and threw back her shoulders.

"Come along, Helen; I've had my little weep out. Now I'm going to tell Mrs. Bryan about it, and trot off home looking pleased to death at the prospect."

They swung themselves down from the tree-house, and started back to camp at a slow run. There was a good deal to do. There was everything of Winona's to pack, and Florence's, too, if she was really going, and she insisted that she was.

"I won't be a bit of trouble," she said, "and I'll be a real help.

You'll see!"

So they packed everything, and said good-bye to everybody, and were paddled up the lake to Wampoag, where they were to take the train for home. They had to stop over at the Scouts' camp and break the news to Tom. But Winona invited him fervently to stay where he was. She knew that with the best will in the world to be useful a boy makes more work than he does, and has to be cooked for to quite an extent. Tom said he would be down the next day to see his mother, but he would go back again.

"Good-bye, dears," said Mrs. Bryan, who was seeing them off, when she parted from Florence and Winona at the dock, "I know you'll be happy.

Remember we'll miss you all the time, Ray-of-Light. And I don't know what I'll do without Florence to run errands for me. Come back as soon as your mother can spare you."

"We will," said Winona. "Only it feels like the poetry-don't you remember?

"Remember what I tell you, says the old man to his son- Be good and you'll be happy-but you won't have any fun!"

"Just the same," said the Guardian, "being what you are, Winona, I'd venture to promise you that in the long run you will get more happiness out of being happy than out of having fun."

Winona laughed as she kissed her good-bye.

"I'm going to plan ways for glorifying work and being happy all the way down on the train," she said, "but I haven't any-well-thoroughly planned-yet!"

It was nearly nightfall when Winona reached home, for she had not started till a late afternoon train. She found her mother established in the living-room, where a door opening on the hall gave her a good view of the kitchen, and Clay in it. She looked well, but tired, and her foot was bandaged and on a pillow.

"You're sure you didn't mind coming home, dear?" was the first thing her mother said. "It was a shame you had to!"

Winona had to rea.s.sure her mother so fervently about her being willing to come back, and even liking to, that she began to find she really did!

It was pleasant there, after all. The garden was full of blooming flowers, and it was a cool, pleasant day.

"What shall I do first, mother?" she asked, as she and Florence sat each with one of their mother's hands, and tried to tell her all about everything at once.

"The first thing for you to do," said Mrs. Merriam, "is to get baths and put on cool dresses, both of you, and come down to dinner. Your father and Clay are getting it. You aren't to do a thing till to-morrow, dear.

You must be tired with your trip."

"I don't think anything could tire me!" said Winona blithely. And she and Florence, as each of them in turn took baths in the one thing a camp doesn't possess-a bathtub-felt that it was good to be home and have mother pet you, after all!