Chapter III: Part 3

At first glance I don't suppose you will recognize this sweet little creature, but you ought to, seeing you are his own mother. It's the Pig you drew with your eyes shut in Glady's PIG BOOK last year. Gladys brought the PIG BOOK along with her and the other day we got it out and found your poor little Piggy with the mournful inscription under him, "Where is My Wandering Pig To-night?" He looked so sad and lonesome we knew he was simply pining away for you. His ink has faded perceptibly and he is just a shadow of his former emphatic self. Migwan looked at it and said, "What charade does it make you think of?"

It was just as plain as the nose on your face, and we all shouted at once, "Pork-you-pine!"

We couldn't bear to leave him there to die of grief and longing, so we transferred him tenderly to this letter and are sending him to his mumsey by Special Delivery. We hope he will pick up immediately upon arrival.

We had Lamb's _Dissertation on Roast Pig_ in Literature the other day and were asked to comment upon it, and Agony wrote that she didn't think much of a dissertation on Pig that was written by a Lamb; she thought Bacon could have handled the subject much better!

As ever, your Hinpoha.

P. S. Here is Piggy's tail; we found it in a corner of the page after we had him transferred.

KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS

Dec. 3, 19--.
Dear Winnies:

Hurray! I'm not fired. Why, I wasn't I never will be able to figure out, but it's so. A week after the Picnic the Board sat, but not on me. For a while I lived in hourly expectation of forcible eviction, but nothing happened, and I heard from Justice, who stands high in the favor of Elijah Butts and gets inside information about school matters, that nothing was going to be done about it. If Justice had any further details he wouldn't divulge them.

Justice is a queer chap. Although he talks nonsense incessantly, you can get very little information out of him. And the way he puts up with all kinds of inconveniences without complaint is wonderful to me. He must be accustomed to far different surroundings, and yet from his attitude you'd think his little cabin out beyond the stables was the one place on earth he'd select for an abode. He never even mentioned the fact that the roof leaked badly until I went out there to fetch him and discovered him on top patching it. Then I went inside to see what else could be improved, and the bare, tumble-down-ness of the place struck me forcibly. Light shone through chinks in the walls, the door sill was warped one way and the door another, and there was no sign of the pane that had once been in the window. It was simply a dilapidated cabin, and made no pretence of being anything else. How he could live in it was more than I could see. No light at night but a kerosene lamp, no furniture except what he himself had made from boards, boxes and logs; no carpet on the rough, rotting floor. Why did he choose to live in this cell when he might have taken rooms with any of the school board members over in Spencer?

It was on this occasion that I saw the rough board table under the one window, strewn with pencils, compasses and sheets of paper covered with strange lines and figures.

"What's this?" I asked curiously.

"Nothing, that amounts to anything," replied Justice, with a queer, dry little laugh. "Once I was fool enough to believe that it did amount to something." He swept the papers together and threw them face downward on the table.

"Tell me about it," I said coaxingly, scenting a secret, possibly a clue to his past.

Justice stared out of the open door for a few moments, his shoulders slumped into a discouraged curve, his face moody and resentful. Then suddenly he threw back his head and squared his shoulders. "It's nothing," he said shortly. "Only, once I thought I had a brilliant idea, and tried to patent it. Then I found out I wasn't as smart as I thought I was, that's all."

"What did you invent?" I asked.

"Oh, just an old electrical device--you probably wouldn't understand the workings of it--to be used in connection with wireless apparatus. It was a thing for recording vibrations and by its use a deaf man could receive wireless messages. I worked four years perfecting it and then thought my fortune was made. But nobody would back me on it. They all laughed at the thing. I got so disgusted one day that I threw the thing into the sad sea. Four years' work went up at one splash! That was the end of my career as an inventor."

Poor Justice! I sympathized with him so hard that I hardly knew what to say. I knew what that failure must have meant to his proud, sensitive soul. The first failure is always such a blow. It takes considerable experience in failing to be able to do it gracefully. I could see that he didn't want any voluble sympathy from me and that it was such a sore subject that he'd rather not talk about it. I didn't know what to say. Then my eye fell on the sheets on the table. "What are you inventing now?" I asked, to break the silence that was growing awkward.

"Just working on bits of things," he replied, "to pass the time away. You can't experiment with wireless now, you know."

The confidences Justice had made to me almost drove my errand out of my head. It was rather breathless, this having a new side of him turn up every little while. I returned to my original quest for information.

"I came for expert advice," I remarked.

Justice looked up inquiringly. "Shoot," he said.

"Do you suppose," I inquired in a perplexed tone, "that they'd enjoy it just as much if the costumes have to be imaginary?"

Justice's face suddenly became contorted. "They'd probably enjoy wearing, ah--er imaginary costumes if the weather is warm enough," he replied, carefully avoiding my eye.

"Justice Sherman!" I exploded, laughing in spite of myself. "You know very well what I mean. I mean can we have a Ceremonial Meeting in blue calico and imagine it's Ceremonial costumes?"

Justice scratched his head. "It depends upon how much imagination 'we' have," he remarked. "Now, for instance, I know someone not a hundred miles from here who can imagine herself in her college room when it's only make believe, and can do wonderful work in French and mathematics. She----"

"That's enough from you," I interrupted. "The matter is settled. We'll have a Ceremonial Meeting. We'll pretend we've gone traveling and have left our Ceremonial dresses at home. We're a war-time group, anyhow, and ought to do without things."

There now! The secret is out! Your poor stick of a Katherine is a real Camp Fire Guardian. I wasn't going to tell you at first, but I'm afraid I will have to come to you for advice very often. I have organized my girls into a group and they are entering upon the time of their young lives. Make the hand sign of fire when you meet us, and greet us with the countersign, for we be of the same kindred. Magic spell of Wohelo! By its power even the poor spirited Hard-uppers have become sisters of the incomparable Winnebagos. Wo-He-Lo for aye! We are the tribe of Wenonah, the Eldest Daughter, and our tepee is the schoolhouse.

Of course, as Camp Fire Groups go, we are a very poor sister. We haven't any costumes, any headbands, any honor beads, or any Camp Fire adornments of any kind. I advanced the money to pay the dues, and that was all I could afford. There are so few ways of making money here and most of the families are so poor that I'm afraid we'll never have much to do with. But the girls are so taken up with the idea of Camp Fire that it's a joy to see them. In all their shiftless, drudging lives it had never once occurred to them that there was any fun to be gotten out of work. It's like opening up a new world to them. Do you know, I've discovered why they never did the homework I used to give to them. It's because they never had any time at home. There were always so many chores to do. Their people begrudged them the time that they had to be in school and wouldn't hear of any additional time being taken for lessons afterward.

As soon as I heard that I changed the lessons around so they could do all their studying in school. Besides that, I looked some of the schoolbooks in the face and decided that they were hopelessly behind the times, Elijah Butts to the contrary. They were the same books that had been used in this section for twenty-five years.

"What is the use," I said aloud to the spider weaving a web across my desk, "of teaching people antiquated geography and cheap, incorrect editions of history when the thing they need most is to learn how to cook and sew and wash and iron so as to make their homes livable? Why should they waste their precious time reading about things that happened a thousand years ago when they might be taking an active part in the stirring history that is being made every day in these times? Blind, stubborn, moth-eaten old fogies!" I exclaimed, shaking my fist in the direction of Spencer, where the Board sat.

Right then and there I scrapped the time-honored curriculum and made out a truly Winnebago one. It kept the fundamentals, but in addition it included cooking, sewing, table setting, bed making, camp cookery, singing of popular songs, folk dancing, hiking and stunts. Yes sir, stunts! I teach them stunts as carefully as I teach them spelling and arithmetic. Can you imagine anyone who has never done a stunt in all their lives?

We rigged up a cook stove inside the schoolhouse--if you'd ever see it! The stovepipe comes down every day at the most critical moment. Besides that we have a stone oven outside. Every single day is a picnic. As all of us have to bring our lunch we turned the noon hour into a cooking lesson, and two different girls act as hostesses each day. The boys bring the wood and do the rough work and are our guests at dinner. They all behave pretty well except Absalom Butts, who is given to practical jokes. But as the rest of the boys side in with me against him, he gets very little applause for his pains and very little help in his mischief. The noon dinners continue to be the chief attraction at the little school at the cross roads. Hardly anybody is ever absent now.

I arranged the new schedule so that while I am teaching the girls the things which are of interest to them alone the boys have something else to do that appeals to them. I give them more advanced arithmetic, and have worked out a system of honor marks for those who do extra problems, with a prize promised at the end of the year. Then I got hold of an old copy of Dan Beard's _New Ideas for Boys_ and have turned them loose on that, letting them make anything they choose, and giving credit marks according to how well they accomplish it.

You see what a job I have ahead of me as a Camp Fire Guardian? In order to teach my girls what they must know to win honors, I have had to turn the whole school system inside out, and then, because I couldn't bear to leave the boys out in the cold while the girls are having such a good time, I have to keep thinking up things for them to do, too. It stretches my ingenuity to the breaking point sometimes to get everything in, and keep all sides even.

One afternoon each week I have the girls give to Red Cross work. Every Saturday I drive all the way over to Thomasville, where the nearest Red Cross headquarters branch is, for gauze to make surgical dressings, returning the finished ones the next week. Here's where dull-witted Clarissa Butts outshines all the brighter girls. She can make those dressings faster and better than any of us and her face is fairly radiant while she is working on them. I have made her inspector over the rest to see that there are no wrinkles and no loose threads, and she nearly bursts with importance. For once in her life she is head of the class.

While they fold bandages I read to them about what is going on in the war and what the Red Cross is doing everywhere, and we have beautiful times. The worst trouble around here is getting up to date things to read. There isn't a library within fifty miles and the only books we have are the few I can manage to buy and those that Justice Sherman has. Would you mind sending out a magazine once in a while after you have finished reading it?

We had our first ceremonial meeting last night in blue calico instead of ceremonial gowns, but it didn't make a mite of difference. We felt the magic spell of it just the same and promised with all our hearts to seek beauty and give service and all the other things in the Wood Gatherers' Desire. That is the wonderful thing about Camp Fire. It makes you have exactly the same feelings whether you learn it in a mansion or in a shack, in an exclusive girls' school or in a third-rate country schoolhouse. If Nyoda only could have seen us! Of all people to whom I had expected to pass on the Torch, this group of Arkansas Hard-Uppers would have been the very last to occur to me. Was this what she meant, I wonder?

Yours, trying hard to be a Torch Bearer,
Katherine.

HINPOHA TO KATHERINE

Dec. 15, 19--.
Darling Katherine:

There's no use talking, I can never be the same again. My life is wrecked--ruined--blighted; my heart is broken, my faith in Man shattered, but try as I like I can't forget him. His image is graven on my heart, and there it will be until I die. But for all that, I hate him--hate him--hate him! I don't want to be unpatriotic, but I do hope he gets killed in the very first battle he's in. Then at least _she_ won't have him! But a few short weeks ago I was a mere child, playing at life, a schoolgirl, carefree and heedless, with no other thought in the world beside winning the freshman basketball championship and surviving midyear's; to-day I am a woman, old in experience, having eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge and found it bitter as gall. And I must bear it all alone, because if I told the girls here they would laugh at me, and some would be spiteful enough to be glad about it. But I have to tell somebody or explode, and I know you will neither laugh nor tell anybody, being a perfect Tombstone on secrets.

It's really all Agony and Oh-Pshaw's fault anyway, for being born. Not that that actually had anything to do with it, but if they hadn't been born they wouldn't have had any birthday, and if they hadn't had any birthday they wouldn't have given that box party to the LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOS and I never would have met Captain Bannister.

You will readily understand, Katherine, how I burn to serve my country at a time like this. There is nothing I would not do to save her from the clutches of the enemy. It is all very well to say that woman's part in the war is to knit socks and sweaters and fold bandages and conserve the Food Supply, for that is all that the average woman would be capable of doing anyhow, but as for me, I know that my part is to be a much more definite and a far nobler one. Of course, I do all the other things, too, along with the other Winnies and the whole college, for that matter; joined the Patriotic League, go to Red Cross two nights a week and go without sugar and wheat as much as possible. When I wrote and told Nyoda that I hadn't eaten one speck of candy for three months except what was given me and was sending the money I usually spent for it to the Belgians, she said I ought to have the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and that "greater love hath no man than this, that he give up the craving of his stomach for his country." You see, Nyoda understands perfectly what it means to have an awful candy hunger gnawing at your vitals like the vulture at the giant's liver and look the other way when you go past a window full of your favorite bon-bons. But somehow candy doesn't seem so satisfying when you know there are little Belgian and French children suffering from a much worse gnawing than candy hunger, and usually dropping the price of a box of bonbons into the Relief Fund stops the craving almost as much as the bonbons themselves would.

But this is only doing what thousands of other girls all over the country are doing and there isn't any individual glory in it. What I long to do is carry the message that saves the army from destruction, or discover the spy at his nefarious work. If only the chance would come for me to do something like that I could die happy.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw's birthday celebration was quite an event. We had luncheon first at the Golden Dragon, a wonderful new Chinese restaurant that was recently opened, and had chop suey and chow main and other funny things in a little stall lit up with a gorgeous blue and gold lantern. Of course, after that luncheon and the funny toasts we made to the long life and health of Agony and Oh-Pshaw, we felt pretty frolicsome, and by the time we got settled in our seats at the Opera House we were ready to start something. Our seats were in the first row of the balcony, center aisle, and very prominent. I had my knitting along as usual, intending to do a few rows between the acts. I always knit in public places; it sets a good example to other people. Besides, my new knitting bag is too sweet for anything.

I had just got started knitting in the intermission between the first and second acts when the orchestra began to play "Over There," and Agony got an inspiration. "Let's all stand up," she whispered, "and see how many people will bite and stand up, too."

So, stifling our giggles, we sprang promptly to our feet and stood stiffly at attention. In less than a minute more than half of the audience, not knowing why they should stand up for that piece, but blindly following our lead, gathered up their hats, wraps and programs in their arms and dutifully stood up. Then as soon as they were standing we sat down and laughed at the poor dupes, who sat down in a hurry when they saw us, looking terribly foolish. I haven't seen anything so funny in a long time.

"Stop laughing," said Gladys, giving me a poke with her elbow. "You're shaking the seat so I'm getting seasick." But I couldn't stop.

"Look out, Hinpoha, there goes your knitting," said Migwan. "Catch it, somebody!"

But it was too late. When we stood up I had laid the sock and the ball of yarn on the broad, low rail in front of us, and now the ball had rolled over the edge and dropped down into the audience below, right into the lap of a young man who was sitting on the end seat. He looked up in great surprise and everybody laughed. They just _roared_! There I stood, leaning over the balcony, hanging on to the sock for dear life and trying to keep it from raveling, and there he stood down below holding onto the ball, and plainly puzzled what to do with it.

"Throw down the sock, silly," whispered Agony, reaching over and pulling my sleeve. "Do you think he's going to throw up the ball?"

I dropped the sock and the man caught it in his other hand and stood there laughing, as he started to wind up the yards and yards of yarn between the ball and the sock. When he had it wound up he brought it upstairs to me. I went out into the corridor to get it. Then for the first time I got a good look at the man. He was dressed in uniform and wore an officer's cap. He was very tall and slim, with black eyes and hair and a small black mustache.

"Here, patriotic little knitting lady," he said, making a deep bow and handing me my knitting. I looked up into his handsome, smiling face, and little needle points began pricking in my spine. His eyes met mine, he smiled, blushed to the roots of his hair and looked away. All in one instant I knew. I had met my fate. This was my Man, my own. I felt faint and light-headed and all I could see was his black eyes shining like stars. His deep, thrilling voice still rang in my ears. With another low bow he turned to leave me.

"Captain Bannister, at your service," he said.

I went back to my seat with my head swimming. "Patriotic little knitting lady," I found myself whispering under my breath. The girls suddenly seemed awfully young and silly as they sat there giggling at me and at each other. My mind was above all such childish things; it was soaring up in the blue realms of true love. I was glad he was tall and thin. I think fat girls should marry thin men, don't you? And he was dark, too, just the right mate for redheaded me. And he was a Captain in the army! How the other girls would envy me! Some of them had friends who were lieutenants and were quite uppish about it, but none that I knew had a Captain.

Then at another thought my heart stood still. Suppose he should be killed? I pictured myself in deep mourning, wearing on my breast the medal he had won for bravery, which with his dying breath he had asked his comrades to send to "my wife!" I couldn't help brushing away a tear then and was quite bewildered when Agony poked me and wanted to know if I wasn't ever going to make a move to go home. The show was over and the people were streaming out. I hadn't seen a bit of the last two acts.

Down in the lobby I saw Him again. He was standing by the door talking to another man in uniform. How he stood out among all other men! He was one out of a thousand. My heart beat to suffocation and I couldn't raise my eyes. In a moment more I must pass him. I tried to look straight ahead, but something I couldn't resist drew my head around and I turned and looked straight into his eyes. He tilted back his head and gave me one long, thrilling glance, raised his hand to his cap, then blushed and looked down. Just then Gladys pulled at my sleeve and dragged me over to some girls we knew and we were swept out with the crowd to the sidewalk.

I scarcely knew where I was going. My feet walked along between Gladys and Migwan, but my soul was in the clouds, listening to strains of heavenly music, while the others squabbled over ice cream flavors and who should stand treat after the show. Ice cream! Ye gods! Who could eat ice cream with their soul seething in love?

From that hour when I had looked into Captain Bannister's eyes and read the truth in them, I was a changed being. I listened in silence to the idle chatter of the girls around me as we walked to and from classes. Their souls were wrapped up in their knitting, in their lessons, in their meals. Agony and Oh-Pshaw were trying to learn a new and difficult back dive and they talked of nothing else night and day. They were constantly at me to come and try it, too, but I sat loftily apart, hugging my delicious secret. As it says in the poem we learned in literature class:

"What were the garden bowers of Thebes to me?"

Like Semele, I scorned the sports of mortals and thought only of my Beloved. I didn't envy her a bit because her Love was Jupiter. What was Jupiter compared to Captain Bannister?

Twice I had seen him since that day in the theater--had spoken to him, in fact. He was stationed in the recruiting office and one day I happened to be walking past with old Professor Remie and he knew him and stopped and talked and introduced me. As if we needed any introduction! We chatted of commonplaces, but all the while our eyes told volumes. However, soul cannot speak to soul in a public recruiting station where curious eyes are looking on.

I had an errand uptown every day after that. Only once did I see him as I passed the recruiting station, however. Then he was throwing out a Socialist who had tried to stop the recruiting and he didn't see me.

But the next day there came a perfectly huge box of chocolates, addressed quaintly to "Miss Bradford, Somewhere in Purgatory." Inside the box was a card which read:

"The strand you dropped with careless art
Has wound itself around my heart."

Underneath was written "Captain Bannister," in a bold, masculine hand.

I buried the chocolates in the depths of my shirtwaist box where no profane eye could see them or profane tooth bite into them. I didn't mean to be selfish, but I just couldn't bear to pass _his_ chocolates around to the crowd and hear Agony's delighted squeal as she dove into them,

"Come on, girls, have one on Hinpoha's latest crush!"

For Agony has absolutely no understanding of affairs of the heart--everything is a "crush" to her.

The chocolates were fine and I ate a great many of them, thinking of my Captain all the while, and wondering when I would see him again.

"Hinpoha, what on earth is the matter with you?" said Gladys that night. "You didn't eat a bite of supper and you're as pale as a ghost. Have you upset your stomach again?"

I drew myself up haughtily. The idea! To call this delicious turmoil in my bosom an upset stomach! I was glad I looked pale. I am usually as red as a beet. It was more in keeping with the way I felt to be pale.

"I am not myself," I replied loftily, "but it's not my stomach."

"Go to bed, honey," said Gladys, "and I'll bring you a glass of hot water."

I curled up in bed with Captain Bannister's card in my hand under the pillow. I was so happy I felt dizzy. Gladys came back with the hot water and made me drink it in spite of my protests, and, strange to say, I felt much calmer after it.

Needless to say, I couldn't pin my mind down on my lessons. I did such queer things that people began to notice it. For instance, mild old Professor Remie, the chemistry teacher, handed back my paper one day after he had given us a written lesson on the Atomic Theory, and inquired in a puzzled tone if I had meant just what I wrote. I glanced at it and blushed furiously when I realized that I had written down some lines that had been running through my head all day:

"Why do I fearfully cling to thee, Maidenhood?
'Tis but a pearl to be cast in thy waves, O Love!"

Then one day the word went around that He was coming to make a speech in the college chapel. How my heart fluttered! I could hardly sit still in the seat when he came out on the platform. It seemed as if everyone could hear what my heart was saying. Soon that deep voice of his was filling the room, thrilling me with unearthly things. Again and again his eyes sought mine, full of joyous recognition, of love and longing. I smiled reassuringly, trying to telegraph the message, "Be patient, all will be well."

To myself I was singing, "O Captain, my Captain!"

Unknown to himself, I had seen him before he came into chapel. I was stooping down in the shadow of the gymnasium steps, tying my shoestring, when he came along the walk and was met by Dr. Thorn, our President. They stood there and talked a minute and I heard Captain Bannister say that he was going to Washington that afternoon on the five o'clock train and that he was going directly from the college to the station. He carried a small black handbag, which Dr. Thorn offered to relieve him of, but he said no, he didn't want to leave it out of his hand even for a minute, there were valuable papers in it.

When he came out on the platform I noticed that he had the bag with him. He set it down on the table while he talked and never got very far away from it. I looked at that bag with deep interest. What was in it? Something terribly important, I knew. I thrilled with pride that my Captain should have such great things to look after, and longed to be of service to him.

His speech came to an end all too soon for me, who could have gone on listening for a week, and he went out before the rest of us were dismissed. No chance to speak to me or give me one word of farewell for the brief separation; only one long, lingering look between us that left me shaken to the soul. Now I knew what the Poet meant when he spoke of "the troth of glance and glance."

I wandered around by myself after he had gone. I didn't desire to speak to any of the girls or have them speak to me. I just wanted to be by myself. Roaming thus I came to the little rustic summerhouse in the park behind the college buildings, and stopped in to rest a moment. It was a lovely mild day, not a bit like winter, and not too cold to sit in a summerhouse and dream. I didn't sit down, though. For on the bark-covered bench I spied something that brought my heart up into my mouth. It was Captain Bannister's bag. No doubt about it. There was his name on a card tied to the handle. How came it here? They must have shown him around the grounds after his speech and in some way he had put the bag down in here and then gone off and forgotten it. How dreadful he would feel when he found it out!

My mind was made up in a minute. Here was a real chance to "Give Service." If I hurried I could get down to the station and catch him before he got on the train. I made sure from the watchman that he had left the college grounds. I looked at my wrist watch. It was quarter to five. Without a moment's hesitation I picked up the bag and ran out to the street. I caught a car right away and sank down in a seat breathless, but easy in my mind, because the station was only a ten minutes' ride in the car.

Then, of course, something had to happen. A sand wagon was in the cartrack ahead of us and the motorman jingled his bell so furiously that the driver got excited and pulled the lever that dumped the whole load of sand on the car track.

I jumped out of the car and looked wildly up and down the road to see if there was a taxi in sight. There wasn't; nothing but a motor truck from the glue factory. There was something covered with canvas in the back of it, and I knew instinctively that it was a dead horse. Did I hesitate a second? Not I. For the sake of my Captain and my country I would have endured anything. I hailed the driver. "I'll give you a dollar if you'll take me to the station," I panted.

The driver laughed out loud. "This is _some_ depoe hack," he said, "but if _you_ can stand it I guess _I_ can."

With that he gave me a sidewise glance that was meant to be admiring, I suppose, but I froze him with a look and climbed gravely up beside him.

"It is very important that I be there in time for the five o'clock train," I remarked by way of explanation.

"You ain't running away from school, are you?" inquired the driver genially.

"I am _not_," I replied frigidly, and looked loftily past him for the remainder of the five minutes' ride to the station.

I flung the man the dollar and was out of the truck before he had time to say a word, and raced into the long waiting room of the station. I could have shouted with relief when I saw on the blackboard the notice that the five o'clock train for Washington was forty minutes late. I was in time!

But where was Captain Bannister? Nowhere in sight. I walked up and down the length of the waiting room several times, growing more nervous every minute. Suppose that he had discovered that he had left the bag behind and gone back after it only to find it gone? The thought made my blood run cold. Would he come down to the train at all without the bag? Would he not go back and search for it, alarming the whole college? And all the while I had it safe with me! What should I do? Should I go back and run the risk of missing him, or stay and see if he came? One thing I could do. I could telephone back to the college and find out if he had returned for it.

I had just gotten inside the telephone booth and was ringing up the number when there was a commotion in the upper end of the waiting room and a large party of people entered, men and women and soldiers and young girls, laughing and shrieking and pelting somebody with rice and old shoes. Soon they came past the booth and I caught a glimpse of the bride and groom. The telephone receiver fell out of my hand and my heart stopped beating. For there, in the midst of that crowd, laughing and dodging the showers of rice, and hanging for dear life to the arm of a pretty young girl in a traveling suit, was Captain Bannister, my Captain! I shrank back into the depths of the telephone booth and struggled to swallow the lump in my throat. Bits of talk floated in through the closed door.

"Thought you'd do it up quietly this morning and then sneak out this afternoon without anybody finding it out," I heard a voice shout, as a fresh shower of rice flew through the air.

"Went out and made a speech this afternoon, too, just as unconcerned as if it wasn't his wedding day," said another voice. "Pretty sly, Captain. They ought to put you in the diplomatic service. You'd be an ornament."

I crouched miserably in the telephone booth, trying to collect my scattered thoughts. My Captain was married this morning! How I hated that pretty girl clinging to him and laughing as the showers of rice fell around her!

Then all of a sudden my hand touched the bag on the floor. The papers! In the excitement of his wedding day he had forgotten them! Well, even if he had, I hadn't. I would still serve my country if it did nearly kill me to go out there and face Captain Bannister. I shut my eyes and prayed for strength. It would have been so easy to slip out and throw the bag over the bridge into the river, and get Captain Bannister into a bad predicament. But I did not waver in my duty. Opening the door of the booth softly, I crept out. Resolutely I approached the crowd and walked right up to Captain Bannister.

"Here are the papers, Captain Bannister," I said in a voice I tried to make coldly sarcastic, as is fitting when talking to a man who has let his wedding make him forget his country's business.

Captain Bannister whirled around and faced me with a look of astonishment that changed to annoyance when he saw the bag. He did not offer to take it from my outstretched hand. He could not look into my eyes. He stood there, his face getting redder every minute, while the people stared curiously. At last he pulled himself together and took the bag. "Thank you," he said in a flat voice.

A dozen hands pulled the bag away from him. "Let's see the papers, Banny," called several voices. "Are they the plans of your wedding journey or your new home?"

He made a desperate effort to regain possession of the bag, but they kept it away from him and opened it. Then such a roar of laughter went up as I have never heard. Everybody was laughing but the bride, and she looked like a thundercloud. Soon the things from the bag were being handed around and I saw what they were. They were a girl's ballet dress, very flimsy and very short and very much bespangled; a pair of light blue silk stockings and a pair of high-heeled dancing slippers.

Standing on the edge of the crowd I heard one man explain to another, between snorts of laughter, how Captain Bannister had taken part in a show that the soldiers had given a week before and had worn that ballet dress. His bride-to-be had been at the show, and being a very straight-laced sort of a person had been very much shocked at the men dressed as girls. She didn't know that Captain Bannister had been one of them, and he didn't intend that she should find out. Some of his friends knew this and for a joke they got hold of the handbag in which he had packed his clothes for his wedding journey and hid them away, putting in the ballet dress instead. He found it out on the way out to the college, and conceived the brilliant idea of leaving it there. He figured that a suit like that found in a girls' college would cause no commotion; nothing like what would happen if his bride should find it among his things. But of all things--here the man who was telling all this nearly turned inside out--somebody sees him leave the bag behind and chases after him with it!

I fled without ever looking behind. My heart was broken, my life wrecked, my hopes shattered. My Captain, my Man, whose eyes had told me the secret of his love, was pledged to another! If I hadn't known it beyond any doubt, I wouldn't have believed such perfidy possible. And the "valuable papers" he was carrying around were nothing but a girl's dancing dress! For this I had raced to catch the train, for this I had ridden on a truck with a dead horse! No doubt he had lied to Dr. Thorn about the bag, because he was afraid he would find out what really was in it.

Righteous anger drowned my heartbroken tears. With head high I wandered down to the swimming pool in the gym and prepared to go in.

"Oh, Hinpoha, come and watch me do the new back dive," called Agony. She mounted the diving platform and went off badly, striking the water with the flat of her back and making a splash like a house falling into the water. She righted herself and swam around lazily.

"Hinpoha," she said suddenly, popping her head out of the water like a devil fish, "what did you ever do with them all? I expected to get at least one."

"What did I do with what?" I asked in bewilderment.

"Chocolates, sweet cherub," said Agony, kicking the water into foam with her feet. "I sent you five pounds."

"_You_ sent them?" I echoed blankly.

"Yes, dearest child, I sent them, and it took the last of my birthday check. Who did you think sent them?" And with a malicious grin she sank down under the surface of the water.

So it had been Agony who had sent the chocolates, and not Captain Bannister! I might have known---- Oh, what a fool I had been!

"What did you do with them all?" came Agony's teasing voice from the other end of the pool, where she had risen to take the air.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" I said mysteriously.

Agony looked at me gravely for a minute. "Didn't I hear Gladys putting you to bed that night and going off for hot water?" she murmured dreamily. "Seems to me I have a faint, far off recollection." She made little snorting noises, plainly in imitation of a pig, and sank below the surface again.

I was filled with a blind fury at Agony. I wanted to jump on her and choke her. I had been standing on the diving board and on the spur of the moment I went off backwards. I had only one thought in my mind; to reach Agony and duck her as she deserved. There was a great shout as I went off, followed by a round of applause.

"What is it?" I asked, coming up and blinking stupidly at the knot of watchers gathered around the pool.

"The Hawaiian dive!" they cried. "You did it perfectly. Do it again."

Agony came up out of the pool and watched enviously. For four weeks she had been practising that dive and hadn't mastered it yet. I hadn't ever hoped to learn it. And here I had done it the very first time! They made me do it again and again, and clapped until the ceiling echoed as I got the somersault in every time. It was glorious. I forgave Agony for fooling me about the Captain; I even forgave the Captain for the time being. _He_ could go off and get married if he wanted to; _I_ could do the Hawaiian back dive!

"How did you ever do it?" asked Agony enviously, as we dressed together, "somersault and all? Do you really think there's any chance of my ever doing it?"

"Sure, you'll do it some day," I replied out of the fullness of my wisdom,--"if you get mad enough."

Your broken-hearted,
Hinpoha.

KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS

Dec. 28, 19--.
Dearest and Best of Winnies:

Oh, you angels without wings, how am I ever going to thank you? How on earth did you manage to do it all? Such a Christmas present!

When I saw that array of boxes in the express office at Spencer all addressed to me I said to the agent, "There's some mistake. Those can't possibly be all mine."

"You're the only Katherine Adams in these parts, aren't you?" said the agent, eyeing that imposing pile with unconcealed curiosity.

I admitted that I was, as far as I knew.

"Then they're yours," said the agent, and mine they proved to be.

Altogether there was a wagonload.

"What on earth?" said father and Justice when I drove up to the house. "Have you gone into the trucking business?"

"Christmas presents, Father!" I shouted. "All Christmas presents. I've got the whole of Santa Claus's load. Quick, bring me a hammer and an ax and a jimmy!"

Oh, girls, when I saw what was in those first three boxes I just sat down on the floor and wept for joy. Only the Winnebagos could have thought of sending me the House of the Open Door. There were the Indian beds and Hinpoha's bearskin and all the Navajo blankets and the pottery, just as I had seen it last in the Open Door Lodge, big as life and twice as natural. And the note from Sahwah that came along with them was a piece of Sahwah herself.

"The things are lonesome," she wrote, "and pining for someone to love
them and use them. I am sending them to your new Camp Fire because I
know your girls will love them as they deserve to be loved. The ghosts
of all the good times we had in the House of the Open Door are hovering
around the things, so anyone that gets them can't help falling under
the old spell and learning how to squeeze the most fun out of every
minute.

"The gymnasium apparatus is the Sandwiches' Christmas present. It was
Slim's and the Captain's idea to send it out to you for your girls and
boys to use.

"The House of the Open Door is being turned into Red Cross work rooms
for Camp Fire Girls and we need every inch of space for the work
tables. Even our beloved Lodge is Giving Service."

Gladys Evans, your father is an _angel_! He doesn't need to wait until he gets to heaven for his halo, it's visible a mile off, this minute! To think of sending me a graphophone and a hundred records! I simply can't tell you what that is going to mean to my school. I won't be able to _drive_ the boys and girls away now!

And your mother! That lantern machine and the slides showing the Red Cross work and all the other splendid things is worth its weight in gold.

Oh, my dears! _Where_ did you ever find time to make those twelve ceremonial dresses?

"FROM THE LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOS TO THE FIRST OF THE WENONAHS. LET BIG
SISTER WINNIE SEE THAT LITTLE SISSY WEENIE IS PROPERLY CLOTHED."

I'll bet anything your friend Agony wrote that. I have a feeling that she and I are kindred spirits.

Won't my girls revel in those beads and looms, though?

BOOKS! Four whole cases of them! What on earth have you done now?

"THE WINNEBAGO LIBRARY
PASSED ON BY THOSE WHO KNOW AND LOVE GOOD BOOKS TO THOSE WHO WILL
SOON KNOW AND LOVE THEM"

How did you do it? Asked a hundred girls to give one book apiece? You don't mean to say that there are a hundred girls interested in us poor backwoods folks out here in Spencer? I can't believe it! Oh, we'll work and work and _work_, to prove ourselves worthy of it all!

And oh, all those little personal pretties just for me! Hinpoha, _where_ did you find that darling pen-holder with the parrot's head on the end, and Gladys, who told you that I broke my handglass and was pining for a white ivory one?

And even a lump of sugar for Sandhelo and a bow for Piggy's tail! I admire the artist who drew that bow.

The last box bore Nyoda's return address. What do you suppose was in it? Her chafing dish! The very one she used to have in her room, that I used to admire so much. Dear Nyoda! She knew I would rather have that than anything else.

O my dears, there never _was_ such a Christmas! There never _will_ be such a Christmas! Nobody ever had such friends before. If I live to be a thousand years old I'll never be able to return one-tenth of your kindness.

Yours, swimming in ecstasy,
Katherine.

GLADYS TO KATHERINE

March 25, 19--.
Dearest Katherine:

Listen, my beloved, while I sing you a song of Migwan. She has awakened at last to find herself famous, and the rest of us, by reason of reflected glory, found ourselves looked upon as different from all other animals, and wonderfully popular and run after by five o'clock in the afternoon, like Old Man Kangaroo. And, all precepts upon precepts to the contrary, it wasn't conscientiously applying herself to her task that turned the trick, but deliberate shirking. After all, though, it was mostly a matter of chance, because if it hadn't rained so that night last October, Migwan would have gone to the library as she should have, and the world would have lost a priceless contribution to Indian lore.

It happened thusly. One of Migwan's cronies in the sophomore class has a weak throat and a condition in Indian History. On the night I have mentioned she trickled tearfully into Migwan's room and confided that she simply had to have an Indian legend to read in class the following day or be marked zero. She had had all the week in which to look one up in the library, but, according to immemorial custom, she had left it for the last night. Now it was raining pitchforks and she didn't dare go out, because she got a terrible attack of quinsy every time there was an east wind. Migwan, like the angel she is, promptly offered to go over and hunt one up for her.

"What kind of an Indian legend?" she inquired.

"Oh, any kind," replied Harriet carelessly, "so long as it's _Indian_. We're studying the Soul of the Savage as revealed by legend, or something like that. Slip it under my door when you come back with it. I'm going to bed and coddle my throat. Be sure you don't get one that's too long," she called back over her shoulder, "remember there are twenty in the class to help reveal the Savage Soul."

Harriet ambled placidly back to her room and Migwan began hunting through her closet for her raincoat and rubbers. She didn't find them, because she had lent them to somebody the week before and couldn't remember whom she lent them to. She looked out of the window at the torrents coming down and decided that her little rocking chair by the lamp held out more attraction than a trip to the library. But she didn't have the heart to disappoint Harriet by not getting her an Indian legend to read in class the next day, so she sat down and manufactured one, which is as easy as rolling off a log for Migwan. Harriet would never know the difference, and neither would the teacher, off hand, and a made-up legend would save the day for Harriet as well as a genuine one. The chances were she wouldn't be called upon to read it anyway. You never are, you know, when you've broken your neck to be ready. Migwan slipped it under Harriet's door and then forgot all about it.

Several weeks later, when the _Monthly Morterboard_ came out, there was Migwan's Indian legend, big as life. It had obviously been used to fill up space and was not credited to the literary talent of the college; but to Joseph Latoka, or "Standing Pine," the Penobscot Indian who had collected the legends of his tribe into a book, which was in the college library and which was our authority on things Indian. Migwan laughed to herself over it, but never gave away the fact that she had written it. She discovered in a roundabout way that the Literary Editor of the _Morterboard_ had been in despair over lack of material when the October number was due, and told her tale of woe to Miss Percival, one of the teachers, and asked her if she had any essays fit to print. Miss Percival replied that she hadn't had a decent essay this semester, but a girl in one of her classes had brought in a rather remarkable Indian legend several days before, which might serve to cast into the breach. The _Morterboard_ editor promptly hunted up Harriet and demanded the legend. Harriet still had it among her goods and chattels, and gave it to her readily, saying that it was one of Joseph Latoka's _Legends of the Penobscot Indians_, which she honestly believed to be the fact. The _Morterboard_ editor took her word for it and used the legend to fill up the chinks in the October issue.

* * * * * *