Winona of the Camp Fire Part 53

"I think I see you!" said Tom. "No, Winnie, united we stand, divided we fall. I help pay for Henry-see you later-just remembered how late it is."

He bolted upstairs, leaving Winona, Louise and Billy on the porch staring at each other.

"What's struck Tom?" asked Billy. "First time I ever knew him to be in a hurry."

"Why, I don't know," said Louise. "I thought you two generally hunted together."

"Not to-night," said Billy. He vaulted the railing casually, and walked out into the middle of the lawn, where he could see Tom's lighted window. "He's up there with all the lights on, walking the floor as if he had something on his conscience, trying to tie all his neckties, one after another," reported Billy. "There-there goes the third one. He's going to try a red one now."

"I know what it is," said Winona, seeing a light. "I've just remembered.

He's going to call on a girl. He's been going to for all week, and just got braced up to it. He's been wearing me out all day, asking me for things to talk to her about. I suppose he's trying to decide on the necktie that matches his socks best."

"But, great Scott, he's been to see girls before!" protested Billy.

"I've been along when he's been seeing girls, and fellows, and even old gentlemen, and he never took it so hard."

"It's a very particular, grown-up call," explained Winona, "with a card-case and a cane, and everything like that."

"What's the cane for?" asked Billy, who had come back to his seat on the porch. "Girl collecting them?"

"I think it must be for moral support," put in Louise.

"I didn't know he had one," said Billy. "Where did he get it?"

"Christmas present last year," explained Winona briefly. "Billy, don't you wish we were all back at Wampoag, having a moonlight swim?"

"I certainly do," said Billy. "Not but that your porch is nice, too," he added with the politeness he never seemed to forget.

Before they could lament camp life any further, Tom rushed down the stairs.

"Winnie! Winnie! Where's my blue scarf?" he called from inside the front door.

"On Louise," Winona called back promptly. "Don't you remember, you asked her if she didn't want to wear it with her sailor-suit?"

"Can I have it, Lou?" he asked, coming out. "I wouldn't ask you, but it just matches my hatband."

"Certainly you can have it," said Louise, with chilly politeness, unfastening it and handing it to him.

"Good-evening, Mr. Merriam," said Billy, grinning, and rising in order to make a very low bow. "I never thought you were this far on the way to being a perfect lady, old boy-Mr. Merriam, I mean."

"Going to call on an awfully correct girl," said Tom off-handedly. "I say, Lou, can I have that blue cla.s.s-pin of yours?"

"Certainly," said Louise again, still more coldly, detaching it and holding it out. "Anything else you think you'd like?"

"Not that I can think of," said Tom, taking the cla.s.s-pin. "That's a good old Lou," he ended, adding insult to injury. Then he sat down and pulled out his mother's celluloid memorandum tablets. He laid them on his knee and looked at them earnestly, as he adjusted the tie and the cla.s.s-pin.

"Did you think of any more things for me to say after I landed the California Exposition on her?" he asked his sister.

Winona looked over at Billy to see if he saw the funny side of it. There was no use looking at Louise, for in her present sulky frame of mind she would not have seen anything funny in a whole joke-book.

"How would the next election do?" she suggested gravely.

"M-m-all right," said Tom, entering it. "That won't last forever, though, because all you can ever do is guess which man will get it. I think you might help a fellow out, Lou. You're generally so clever."

"Ask her how she likes her hats trimmed," said Louise scornfully, without turning around to him.

"Oh, no," said Tom, "that's too silly a question." But he put it down just the same. "Let's see. That ought to carry me on till nearly nine.... Caesar! It's time I went! Don't mind if I go off and leave you, do you Bill?"

"Not a bit!" said Billy calmly. "I'm all right. But"-Billy's eyes twinkled-"don't you really think you ought to wear your tuxedo, old fellow? Much more correct, you know. I saw it in a Hints to Best Dressers' column awhile ago. It said that no true gentleman was without evening clothes in the evening."

Tom looked uneasy, but he was firm.

"I won't get into that thing for anything less than a dance or a hand-made clerical dinner," he said, thoughtlessly jamming his hat down over one ear the way he usually wore it, then putting it straight with a jerk. "Great Scott! I must hurry!"

"My ears and whiskers! The d.u.c.h.ess! Won't I catch it if I'm late!"

quoted Louise scornfully from Alice in Wonderland, as Tom dived down the steps.

"What on earth's got into Tom!" asked Billy. "The idea of doing that because you like it!"

"I don't know," said Winona. "It is queer, isn't it?"

"Going off acting like he was all grown up!" mused Billy, still lost in wonder at such a waste of a perfectly good evening.

"I do wish you wouldn't always say 'like' for 'as if,' Billy,"

interrupted Louise sharply. "I hate it."

"We always say it that way down home," said Billy.

"That's no reason for your doing it here! Being born in China doesn't make it good manners for you to eat with chopsticks," said Louise, walking into the house and slamming the screen-door behind her.

"Can't Ah help yo' find yo' tempah, Louise?" Billy called teasingly after her, with a purposely exaggerated Southern accent. There was no answer.

"You'd be cross, too, if you were Louise," Winona defended her friend.

"One of the things she stayed down from camp over to-night for was that she and Tom were going off to kodak some cloud effects for a magazine prize. And she was going to try to get some photographs that would count in Camp Fire work, too. And Tom's walked off, forgetting all about it."

"Why didn't you remind him?" asked Billy sensibly.

"Louise wouldn't let me. She said she'd go straight back if I did."

"Well, she needn't have taken it out on me," said Billy plaintively. "I didn't break any engagements. I suppose she has a red-haired temper."

Meanwhile Louise, after she banged the screen-door, had gone straight through the house to the back. Mrs. Merriam was in the living-room, which prevented her crying there. She was very much hurt at Tom's forgetfulness. They had been chums for a long time, and this particular expedition after cloud effects had been something they had planned long before the Scouts' camp broke up. And now Tom had gone gayly off, forgetting all about it. It really was horrid.

Crying on a bed is hot work in summer, so she decided to go out back and do it. She sat on the porch, put her arms on the back of a chair and began to cry.

But circ.u.mstances seemed to be against her. Puppums, who had been asleep under a chair, got up, yawned, sauntered across the porch, and sat down by her. Then he proceeded to whine for her to turn around, make a lap, and take him up into it.