The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks

It was the crisp chill of an early October evening; in the still air the dead leaves came rustling down with a soft sound like whispers, while the crickets chirped a cheery welcome from the waiting earth. Over the treetops a big yellow hunter's moon was rising; its comical face grinning good-naturedly. It looked down on the dark outlines of a large barn standing in the shadow of a tall tree and the grin widened perceptibly. Evidently something was happening on earth.

A dark form stole softly up the long drive leading to the barn and paused before the door. Through the silence there rose the whistling wail of the whippoorwill, repeated three times, and ending abruptly in the squall of a catbird. From within the blackness of the barn came an echo of the whippoorwill's call, followed by a much more cheerful note-the carol of the bluebird. Then a clear voice called from inside, "Who goes there?"

"A friend," came the reply.

"Stand and give the countersign," commanded the voice inside.

"Other Council Fires were here before," responded the newcomer.

"Advance and give the Inner Password," said the invisible sentinel.

The figure passed through the dark entrance and came to a halt just inside, crying, "Kolah Olowan!"

"Mount!" commanded the voice above, and the stranger lost no time in obeying the invitation. Scrambling up the ladder fastened to the wall which did duty as a staircase, she thrust aside the curtain at the top and stepped out into the lighted upper chamber.

Anyone seeing that dark and deserted looking building from the outside would never guess how bright and cheerful was that upper room within. A wood fire roared in a cobblestone fireplace, its gleam lighting up walls hung with leather skins and gay Indian blankets and festooned with sprays of bittersweet. Several more Indian blankets were spread out on the floor in lieu of rugs, while from the rafters were suspended woven baskets and pieces of pottery. Ranged around the sides of the chamber, where the sloping roof met the floor, were four beds, all different, and only one indicating that the dwellers in that secret lodge were civilized persons. The first was a neat cot bed with blankets tucked in smoothly all around, and a dust cover folded up at the foot; the second was an "Indian bed" made of pine branches, dried ferns and sweet grasses, piled several feet high and ingeniously confined by woven reeds and pliant twigs. The scent of the sweet grasses, mingled with the aromatic odor of the pine, filled the room with a dreamy fragrance that seemed like a charm to lure down the Sleep Manitou. The third was a pile of bearskins and the fourth was another kind of Indian bed, made of smooth round willow rods tied together with ropes and laid across two poles fastened into the wall.

No windows were visible, as these had been covered with skins. Except for the camp bed, the wide hearthstone and one other detail it might have been the lodge of some Indian Chief of olden time. That other detail was a green felt pennant stretched across the chimney above the stone shelf of the fireplace, bearing in clean-cut English letters the word WINNEBAGO. Most of our readers have probably guessed the truth before this-the Indian lodge we have been describing is the meeting place of the Winnebago Camp Fire Girls and the solitary visitor who uttered the plaintive cry of the whippoorwill with its grotesque ending in a cat call is none other than our old friend, Sahwah the Sunfish.

"O Nyoda, such larks!" cried Sahwah, skipping across the room and bestowing a hasty embrace on the sentinel guarding the fire, whom the reader has doubtless suspected of being Miss Kent, the Guardian of the Winnebago group.

Nyoda laughingly shook herself free and smoothed out the Ceremonial dress she held in her hand, which had become sadly crumpled during the process of Sahwah's bear hug. "What mischief are you into this time?" she asked fondly, smiling down into Sahwah's dancing eyes.

Sahwah went into a gale of giggles before she could explain. "You know Gladys was going to drive all of us girls down in the Glow-worm to-night," she said, controlling her laughter with an effort, "and she telephoned Hinpoha while I was there to dinner that she was over at Mrs. Varden's, the dressmaker's, having a fit, and the Glow-worm was standing out in front of the house, so we should gather up the other girls and get into the car and wait for her to come out, to save her the time of going around after the girls, for her fit threatened to be a lengthy one. So Hinpoha started out after Medmangi and Nakwisi and I went back home after these apples, which I'd forgotten to take along to Hinpoha's. When I got to the corner of the street along came Gladys in the Glow-worm and said she had an errand to do for her mother in a hurry and we had better come straight out here without her and she would come later. I hurried over to Mrs. Varden's house to tell the girls, but when I got nearly there I saw a black car standing out in front and Hinpoha and Nakwisi and Medmangi sitting in it as cool as cucumbers, thinking they were in the Glow-worm. I recognized the car as belonging to that horribly bashful son of Mrs. Varden's, and I couldn't resist the temptation to let the girls sit in it until he came out. So I stole back up the street, keeping in the shadow of the trees so the girls wouldn't see me, and came out here. Oh, won't there be a situation though, when 'Dolly' Varden comes out and finds his nice bachelor car full of bold, bad girls!"

The picture was too much for Sahwah, and she rolled on the bed shrieking with laughter, in which Nyoda joined heartily. "I wonder how long it will be before they come," said Sahwah, rising from the bed and wiping her eyes. "What shall we do to pass away the time?"

"If I were you," advised Nyoda, "I would spend it searching a nice safe retreat to which you can fly when they come and find out you didn't tell them."

Hardly had she spoken the words when there floated up from below the familiar cry of the whippoorwill, followed successively by the long, eerie laugh of the loon, the blithe whistle of the quail and the song of the robin. "There they are!" exclaimed Sahwah in mock terror. "Where shall I hide? Oh, I have it, I'll get inside of that pile of bearskins and listen while they tell their tale of woe to you and then I'll hop out and laugh at them." Quick as a flash she jumped into the bearskin bed and pulled the skins over her so that she was entirely concealed.

With a great deal of chattering and giggling the three arrivals were mounting the ladder. "Keep on going, Hinpoha!" exclaimed Nakwisi, "you're stepping on my hand."

"Keep on going yourself," retorted Hinpoha, "you haven't a pie in your hand." Just at that moment her foot slipped and she clutched wildly at the ladder for support.

"There goes the pie!" shrieked someone, as it described a circle in the air and landed with a thud. Hinpoha wrung her hands in grief, for her mouth was already watering for that crisp pastry.

Medmangi walked over to view the remains. "It isn't hurt a mite," she said calmly, picking it up and dusting it off. "Fortunately it landed right side up in the tin."

"O Nyoda," cried Hinpoha, beaming once more now that the feast of pie was assured, "we had the most fun getting here! Gladys told us the Glow-worm was standing out in front of the Varden's house and we should get in and wait for her, and we saw a car and got in. Pretty soon out came young Mr. Varden, got into the front seat without looking to the right or left and drove off. We thought of course he was driving Gladys' car away and we all three shrieked at him at once. He pretty nearly dropped dead when he heard us, and stopped the car so suddenly we all flew out of the seat. But he was perfectly grand about it when we found out our mistake. He told us Gladys had gone home fifteen minutes before, but he would be perfectly delighted to drive us where we wanted to go. And so he brought us out," she finished with a dramatic flourish, and sat down heavily on top of the bearskin bed where Sahwah lay hidden. Immediately there was an upheaval and a grotesque animal sprang from the bed, an animal which had the skin of a bear and two red stockinged legs which capered wildly about while their owner shrieked piercingly, "She sat on my breathing apparatus and I won't be able to talk for a week!"

"You are talking, you goose," said Hinpoha, calmly seating herself again after poking the bed to see if it were further inhabited.

"You missed it, Sahwah, by going home," she continued. "Too bad you weren't along to share the fun."

Sahwah's expression was funny to behold when she learned how the joke had turned out, for it was not on the girls after all, but on herself, for she had walked all the way to the lodge by herself. She looked rather silly as she caught Nyoda's eye, but while Nyoda twinkled mischievously at her Sahwah knew that she would never give her away. But of course when Gladys arrived a few minutes later and heard the story, Sahwah's part in it came out and she had to stand the gibes of the others because her joke had turned round on herself, until Nyoda called the beginning of the Ceremonial and peace was restored.

One name has been dropped from the Count Book of the Winnebagos since last we heard the roll called, and to another there is no reply, although it is always called. Early in the fall Chapa the Chipmunk moved to a distant city, and so for the first time the close circle of the Winnebagos was broken. Then shortly afterward Migwan went away to college and her departure caused a fresh bereavement. Though Migwan had been of such a very quiet nature, her influence had been widely felt, and the girls missed her more and more as the days went on. Hinpoha, especially, was almost inconsolable, for she and Migwan had always stood a little closer together than the rest of the girls. This was the first Ceremonial Meeting without the two and it seemed very strange indeed to omit Chapa's name from the roll, and when Migwan's name was called and was followed by silence, Hinpoha sniffed audibly and wiped her eyes.

"Sister, this is a very solemn occasion," said Sahwah the irrepressible, in such a forced tone of sorrow that it was impossible not to laugh at her.

"That's right," said Nyoda. "It won't do for us to pull long faces. We have vowed to 'be happy' you know. Think how much worse off Chapa is alone in a strange city. Come, be cheerful and tell what kind deeds you have seen done today. You begin, Sahwah."

Sahwah took hold of her toes with her hands and tilted back and forth on the floor as she spoke. "Sally Jones did me a great service yesterday in composition class. You know Sally Jones-the one they call the Blunderbuss. Well, you know what a pig I am when it comes to writing composition. I never wrote one yet that I didn't get a blot on. Last week when I handed mine in Miss Snively said that if there was a blot on my paper this week she would mark me zero for the month. So yesterday when we had to write one in class I took the utmost care and got it all done spotlessly and was just signing my name when Anna Green behind me tried to pick a thread off my collar and laid her fishy cold hand against my neck. I jumped and wriggled and the result was a beautiful blot on my composition. There wasn't time to copy it over because it was almost the end of the hour, so I resigned myself to a nice fat cipher on my report card this month. Then Miss Snively sent Sally around to collect the papers and when she came to my desk she leaned across it in such an awkward way that she upset my inkwell all over my composition and my one small blot was completely hidden by the deluge. Miss Snively graciously requested me to do it over in rest hour, which I did, and handed it in in perfect shape. Upsetting that inkwell was the kindest thing anybody ever did for me."

There was a moment of laughter at Sahwah's tale of kindness and then quiet fell on the group again. "Tell us a story, Nyoda," begged Hinpoha, breaking the silence, "we're getting low in our minds again."

"Yes, do," begged the others.

Nyoda sat silent a moment staring thoughtfully into the fire. Her hands were clasped around her knees and the light shone on the diamond ring which now encircled the fourth finger of her left hand-the only thing which made the girls realize that their amazing adventures of the first week in September had been a reality and not a dream.

"In a village in eastern Hungary," began Nyoda, "there lived a girl about your age. Her father was a very wealthy man, and lived on a great estate. Veronica-that was the girl's name-was the only child, and had everything that her heart desired. The thing she loved to do the best was ride horse-back and she had a beautiful horse for her very own. She showed great talent on the violin and had the best masters. Veronica grew to be seventeen as happy as a girl could be, with an indulgent father and a beautiful, sweet mother. Then a dreadful thing happened. War was declared in the country and the village where they lived was taken by the enemy. Her father was killed, their home was burned and her mother died. Veronica, with the rest of the people in the village, ran away toward the mountains when the village burned. But Veronica became separated from her friends and fell, and could not get up again, for her leg was broken. She lay there a long time, and gave herself up for lost, when she heard a whinny beside her and there was her pet horse, who had been following her all the way. She managed to swing herself up on his back and he galloped away to the safety of the mountains. They found their way across the border into another country where some kind people took care of the orphan girl. The faithful horse fell after he had brought her to safety and hurt himself so badly that he had to be shot. The people who took care of Veronica sent her across the ocean to her aunt and uncle. So, sad and lonesome, she came to this country to be an American."

Here Nyoda paused for breath, and Hinpoha burst out quickly, "Oh, how I wish this had happened in our time and that poor lonely girl had come to this city and we had met her and made her happy. Wouldn't we be kind to her, though, if we had a chance?"

Nyoda proceeded quietly. "All this has happened in your time, and this lonesome girl has come to our city, and you are going to have a chance to be kind to her often."

"Nyoda!" shrieked all the girls at once. "You mean she lives in our city, and you actually know her?" "Where does she live?" "When will we see her?" "What is her whole name?" "How old did you say she was?"

"Have mercy!" exclaimed Nyoda, putting her hands over her ears. "I can only answer ten questions at once. Veronica's uncle is Mr. Lehar, the conductor of the Temple Theatre orchestra. I live next door to them, you know, and am well acquainted with Mrs. Lehar. She told me about Veronica some time ago and last week she went to New York to get her. I immediately asked her to allow her niece to join the Winnebago group, if you girls were willing to take her, that she might not be lonely here. Will you take her in, girls?"

"We certainly will!" cried Gladys and Hinpoha in a breath, and Sahwah sprang to her feet exclaiming vehemently, "Well, I guess so!"

"When is she coming?" they wanted to know next.

"I'll bring her to the next meeting," promised Nyoda, "and I want you girls to-"

What it was she wanted them to do they never found out, for just at that minute there was a terrific thump on the floor below followed by the hurried clatter of heavy footsteps, then the scraping of feet on the ladder, a great waving and billowing of the curtain at the top and then it was wrenched aside, and into the Council Chamber there burst the fattest boy they had ever seen. His great cheeks hung down over his collar; his eyes were nearly buried. His face was purple from violent exertion and he sat limply against the bearskin bed, panting heavily. The girls stared open-mouthed at the intruder. Before they had recovered sufficiently from their astonishment to utter a single word, the barn below was filled with the noise of many footsteps and the shouting of many voices, and the next minute the sacred Council Chamber of the Winnebagos was filled to overflowing with boys.

At the sight of the lighted chamber and the girls in Indian costumes the intruders stopped and stared in speechless surprise. Then with one accord seven hats were snatched from as many heads and seven voices exclaimed as one, "Beg pardon, we didn't know anyone was here."

It was so funny to hear them all saying the same thing at once that the Winnebagos could not help laughing aloud. The confusion of the boys was so painful that the girls actually felt sorry for them.

"There are only seven of you," said Sahwah, as usual breaking the silence first. "I thought at first there were hundreds."

Here one of the boys found his voice to speak. He was a tall boy with curly brown hair and nice eyes, and his face was suffused with blushes of embarrassment. "Sorry to disturb you girls," he said soberly, but with a twinkle in his eye. "We were chasing him"-and he pointed to the fat boy still puffing away for dear life on the floor-"and we couldn't see any light from the outside and we didn't know anybody was up here and when Slim ran in we just followed him. We'll go right away again, and let you go on with your meeting."

Nyoda looked from one face to the other-nice refined boys they were, she decided, and it would do no hurt to show them courtesy. "You needn't be in such a great hurry to go," she said cordially. "You may at least stay until you have recovered your breath." And she looked quizzically at the fat boy leaning against the bearskins who did not seem ever to be going to breathe again.

He tried to show his appreciation of her hospitality by getting up and making a bow, which threw him into such an advanced stage of breathlessness that he sank down again directly and had to be fanned. This caused another general laugh and the boys and girls rubbed elbows so closely trying to revive him that all feeling of embarrassment vanished and it suddenly seemed as if they were old friends, in spite of the fact that none of them knew the others' names. Nyoda came to herself with a start.

"Excuse us, boys," she said, "for not introducing ourselves. I am Miss Kent, Guardian of the Winnebago Camp Fire Girls, and these are the Winnebagos," and she named them in order. "We were having a rather doleful time when you arrived. You broke up the spell of gloom and we are deeply grateful."

The tall boy spoke again, this time smiling broadly. "We're the ones who ought to apologize for not introducing ourselves," he said in a pleasant voice, "since we have caused so much disturbance. We're the Sandwich Club," he continued, including all the boys in a sweeping gesture of his hand. "We go to Carnegie Mechanic. That's Slim over there," he said, pointing to the fat one, while all the girls laughed. "His real name's Lewis Carlton, but it's so long since anyone has called him that that he's forgotten what it is himself. We chase him all over the country to reduce him, but sometimes he gives us the slip and hides and it takes us so long to find him that in the meantime he gains more than he lost while we were chasing him."

The girls fairly shouted at this and Slim doubled up a cushion-like fist and declared in a choking voice that if the fellows didn't leave him in peace he'd sit down on them some day and that would be the end of them. The tall boy who was doing the introducing smiled sweetly at Slim and went on with the introductions.

"This one," he said, indicating an extremely thin, hungry-looking, gaunt-featured lad with sombre brown eyes and a grave mouth, "is Bill Pitt. 'Bottomless Pitt,' we call him, because it's impossible to fill him up. You girls have heard of the Sheep Eaters?" he asked suddenly, looking from one to the other.

"Yes," chorused the Winnebagos, not wishing to appear ignorant, but not sure whether the Sheep Eaters were beasts of prey or persons overfond of mutton.

"Well," continued the spokesman, pointing to the "Bottomless Pitt," "he's a Pie Eater, he is. He eats 'em whole."

Hinpoha's glance strayed nervously to the shelf where the apple pie stood awaiting the end of the Ceremonial Meeting. The tall boy's eyes followed here and his teeth showed in a wide smile, as he seemed to read her thoughts. Hinpoha blushed fiery red and dropped her eyes. But he looked away again immediately and did not increase her embarrassment.

"This," he said, drawing forward a spidery little fellow with red hair and freckles all over his face, "is Munson K. McKee, called for short, Monkey, and those," indicating the other three, "are Dan Porter, Peter Jenkins and Harry Raymond. We seven boys have always gone together, so we decided to form a club, and we all like sandwiches so well that we named ourselves the Sandwich Club. There, now you know all about us."

"But you haven't told us your name," said the Winnebagos, who were beginning to like the spokesman very much, and were anxiously waiting to hear him introduce himself.

"Haven't I?" he asked. "That's right, I haven't. My name," he said solemnly, but with that suggestion of a twinkle in his eye again, "is Cicero St. John-and the fellows don't call me Cissy for short." Here the corners of his mouth twitched as at some humorous memory.

"You bet they don't call him Cissy!" put in the Bottomless Pitt.

Hinpoha's eyes met Gladys' in comical dismay. How could anyone in their right senses name a boy-an American boy-Cicero! The St. John part sounded very fine, but that awful Cicero!

"How do you keep them from calling you-Cissy?" ventured Sahwah.

"He licked the tar out of them!" spoke up the Monkey. "And he dumped one fellow overboard out in the lake when he tried it. Everybody calls him 'Cap' now, because he's captain of the football team."

"Indeed," murmured the Winnebagos, looking at Cicero St. John with fresh interest and great respect, for all the world loves a football player.

And then the boys wanted to know all about the Winnebagos, and thought their symbolic names and "queer duds" even funnier than the girls had considered theirs. But they all voiced their unqualified approval of the Camp Fire Girls when they heard that the Ceremonial Meeting was to be topped off with a feast of apple pie, doughnuts and cider, and did not need to be asked more than once to stay, and share the feast.

"Say, this is a peach of a meeting place," said the Captain with his mouth full. "How did you happen to get it, and whoever thought of putting a fireplace upstairs in a barn?"

"We got it as the result of a sort of wager," explained Hinpoha. "Gladys' father promised that if we could go on an automobile trip all by ourselves without once telegraphing to him for aid he would build us a Lodge to hold our meetings in, and we did and so he did."

"'So they did, and he did, and the bears did,'" quoted Nyoda teasingly.

Hinpoha laughed and went on. "He owned this empty barn out here in the field and he turned it over to us. But we just had to have a fireplace or it wouldn't have been a regular Camp Fire Lodge, so he built this splendid chimney. We have named the Lodge 'The House of the Open Door,' or the 'Open Door Lodge,' to signify hospitality. Mr. Evans wanted to build a fine stairway, too, but we wouldn't have it. It's lots more fun to climb the ladder."

"Why don't you use the ground floor?" asked Slim, who could never see the sense of exerting one's self needlessly.

"It's much cosier up here," replied Hinpoha. "We have these adorable peaks and gables to hang things on. Besides, we wanted to leave the big floor downstairs clear for dancing."

"Dancing? Do you dance?" cried the boys, pricking up their ears.

"We surely do," replied the girls. "Would you like to come down and try?"

Down the ladder they went in a hurry, Slim being pushed from above and pulled from below, and landing on the floor in his usual breathless state. A few lanterns were hung around the walls and the big door opened wide to let in the bright rays of the full moon and the place was nearly as light as day. Nyoda played her banjo and the twelve pairs of feet shuffled merrily to the lively strains. As there were only five girls, Slim and Peter Jenkins were left without partners and consoled themselves by dancing together. Peter came just to Slim's shoulder and weighed ninety-five pounds against Slim's two hundred and thirty, and the result was so ludicrous that the rest could hardly dance for laughing. It was like a monkey dancing with an elephant. Slim took mincing little steps and looked down at his partner with a simpering, languishing expression, while Peter strained heroically to encircle his fair one's waist with his arm. Rocking back and forth in exaggerated rhythm, Slim tripped over a board and fell with a great crash, pinning his gallant partner under him. The rest flew to the rescue and propped Peter up against the wall, fanning him vigorously.

"He'll recover," pronounced the Captain, after a thorough going over of his bones, "but he'll never be the same again."

"All is over between us," said Slim, wringing his hands in mock despair. "Miss Kent, won't you dance with me?"

"It's time we were going home," said Nyoda calmly. "Come, girls."

"Go home!" echoed the Captain. "I thought you lived here."

"But how about all the beds upstairs?" asked the Captain.

"Oh," explained Nyoda, "we all constructed different kinds of beds to win honors, and left them there in case we might want to stay some time."

"It's a pretty fine clubhouse, I'll say," remarked the Bottomless Pitt in a tone of envy. "I wish we Sandwiches had one like it. We have no place to call our own."

Hinpoha's thoughts leaped to the Fire Song, the words of which hung beside the fireplace up above:

"Whose house is bare and dark and cold,

Whose house is cold,

This is his own."

She spoke impulsively. "Oh, Nyoda, couldn't we let them use the ground floor to hold their meeting in?"

A cheer burst from the seven boys' lips. "Hooray! May we, Miss Kent?"

Nyoda was silent and looked at the boys with a troubled expression, and her glance as it rested on Hinpoha held a reproof. There was an awkward silence. Then the Captain spoke up.

"I understand what you mean, Miss Kent," he said simply and straightforwardly. "You don't know anything about us and of course you wouldn't want to share your club house with us on such short acquaintance. We wouldn't think much of you if you did. It was all right of course for you to ask us to stay and dance with the girls this one evening when you were here with us, but that doesn't mean that you're willing to adopt us. But we like you girls first rate, and want to know you better if you will let us. You can go to any of the teachers at Carnegie Mechanic and find out all you want to know about us. Pitt's father is Math teacher there and my father is Dr. Cicero St. John. It was simply great of you to offer to let us come here and hold our meetings, and if you'll still keep the offer open after you have investigated us to your satisfaction we'll be mighty grateful and will promise not to bother you upstairs."

The boy's face was so open and manly that it was impossible not to believe in him then and there. Nyoda smiled into his earnest face. "All right, Captain," she said, "we'll agree to put you on probation, and if you stand the test we'll consider the matter of sharing the Open Door Lodge."

The Captain smiled back at her and held out his hand. "You're a peach and I like you," he said emphatically, and the two were sworn friends from that moment on.