"Say," he said, looking around at the group of girls who were doing various astonishing things, "do you belong to the circus?"
The girls laughed at this inquiry. "Oh, no," said Migwan, "we are only Camp Fire Girls."
"Camp Fire Girls?" said Calvin. "I"ve heard of them, but I never knew any. Is that why you call each other by such funny names?"
"Yes," answered Migwan, and she told him their names and their meanings.
"It must be great fun to be a Camp Fire Girl," said Calvin thoughtfully.
"Come for a ride on the raft with us," said Migwan, "we are going back now. We aren"t going to upset again," she added rea.s.suringly, "and if we did you couldn"t get any wetter." Calvin smiled at the pleasantry, but said he must be going in. He was on his way home when he saw the raft upset. The Lorelei Rock was just on the other side of the Smalley farm.
He bade them a friendly good-night, promising to come over to Onoway House soon, and took his way home across the fields.
"What a nice boy he is," said Migwan. "He wasn"t a bit cross when he found that the joke was on him, as some would have been."
Migwan woke up in the night and could not go to sleep again immediately.
As she lay smiling to herself about the fun they had had with the raft that evening, she heard a sound as of something dropped on the attic floor above her room, followed by a faint creaking as of someone walking over bare boards. She clutched Hinpoha"s arm and woke her up. "There"s someone in the attic," she whispered. Hinpoha yawned.
"I don"t hear anything," she said.
"There it is again," said Migwan, "listen." Again there came a faint creak, accompanied by a far-away rustle as of crinkling paper.
"It"s mice," said Hinpoha, "or maybe rats. They get between the walls and make noises that way."
Migwan breathed a sigh of relief and composed herself to slumber again.
"I suppose these dreadfully old houses are just overrun with things of that kind," she said. "But for a moment it did give me a scare."
CHAPTER III.-OPHELIA.
"They"ve come! They"ve come!" shrieked Migwan, running into the dining-room where the rest of the family were peacefully finishing their breakfast.
"Who"ve come?" said Nyoda, excitedly, "the Mexicans?"
"The bean weevils," said Migwan, tragically. "Mr. Landsdowne said to watch out for them, although they were hardly ever found up north, but they"re here. He just found a bush with them on."
"To arms!" cried Sahwah, springing up. "The Flying Column to the rescue!
"Forward the Bug Brigade, Is there a leaf unsprayed?"--
Here she tripped over the carpet and her Amazonian shout came to an abrupt end.
"Where are the weevils?" she asked, when they had all gathered around the bean patch.
"On here," said Migwan, indicating a hill of beans.
"Oh," said Sahwah, in a disappointed tone.
"Where did you think they were?" asked Migwan.
"From the noise you were making," said Sahwah, "I expected to find them drawn up in battle lines, waiting to charge the garden with fixed bayonets."
"They"ll do just as much damage as if they had bayonets," remarked Farmer Landsdowne.
"Do be cautious in approaching such deadly foes," said Sahwah in a tone of mock anxiety, as Migwan came along with the sprayer, "take careful aim, and don"t fire until you see the whites of their eyes."
"I"ll spray you in a minute if you don"t keep still," said Migwan.
"What must it feel like to be a weevil," said Gladys, musingly, "and be hunted down remorselessly wherever you went?"
"Gladys has gone over to the side of the enemy," said Sahwah, teasingly.
"There is the subject for your next book, Migwan, "Won by a Weevil", by the author of "Enthralled by a Thrip"! It must have been weevils Tennyson meant when he wrote "The Lotus Eaters.""
"Battle over?" asked Hinpoha, as Migwan laid down the sprayer. "Then let"s celebrate the victory. Cheer the bean crop." To the tune of "We will, We will Cheer," they sang,
"Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil, Weevil cheer our bean crop, Weevil, weevil, weevil, weevil, Weevil cheer our bean crop, Weevil cheer our bean crop, Weevil cheer our bean crop, Weevil cheer our bean crop, O!"
"Don"t crow too soon," said Farmer Landsdowne, picking up his sprayer preparatory to taking his departure, "there may be twice as many on to-morrow."
"I flatly refuse to worry about to-morrow," said Nyoda, ""sufficient unto the day is the weevil thereof!""
Calvin Smalley, working in the vegetable patch in front of the Red House, heard that cheer and paused in his work to look over at the other garden. He was wondering what was so funny about gardening. "I wish," he sighed, as he turned back to his endless task, "that those girls were my sisters!"
Gladys went into town alone when the last of the strawberries were ripe, for none of the other girls could be spared that day. The squash bugs had descended on the garden and all hands were required on deck to save the squash and melon vines from being eaten alive. On the way she pa.s.sed Mr. Smalley, driving the identical wreck of a horse he had tried to hire out to the girls. He had a heavy load of vegetables, and the poor, broken down creature would hardly move it from the spot. He started nervously as the machine pa.s.sed him on the narrow road, and Mr. Smalley pulled him up sharply and brought the whip down on his back with a heavy cut. "Ain"t you used to automobiles yet, you stupid brute?" he growled.
Gladys delivered the eight quarts of extra large berries to Mrs. Davis first. "Wouldn"t you like to stay in town and have lunch with us and go to the theatre afterward?" Mrs. Davis said in such a patronizing tone that Gladys quite started, and then laughed inwardly.
"I"m sorry, but I haven"t sold all of my berries yet," she answered soberly, "and I have to hurry back and help pick bugs."
"Pick bugs?" exclaimed Mrs. Davis, in a horrified tone.
"Yes," said Gladys, with a relish, "nice juicy, striped bugs that crunch beautifully when you step on them."
"Oh, oh," said Mrs. Davis, putting her hands over her ears. "Give my love to your poor, dear mamma," she said gushingly, when Gladys was departing. "Tell her she has my fullest sympathy." As Gladys"s poor, dear mamma was, at that moment, seated on the observation platform of a luxurious railway coach, speeding through the mountains of Washington while Mrs. Davis was obliged to stay in town for the time being, she was not really in as much need of Mrs. Davis"s sympathy as that lady fondly imagined.
Gladys disposed of the remaining berries to other amused or patronizing friends, and then decided to look up a laundress she knew of and get her to come out to Onoway House once in a while to do the heavy washing. The street where the laundress lived was narrow and crowded with children playing in the middle of the road, and progress was rather slow. One little girl in particular made Gladys extremely nervous by running across the street right in front of the machine and daring her to run over her, shaking her fists at her and making horrible grimaces. She got across the street once in safety and then started back again. Just then a small child sprang up from the ground right under the very wheels of the machine and Gladys turned sharply to one side. The fender struck the saucy little girl who was daring her to run over her and she rolled under the car, screaming. Gladys jammed down the emergency brake with a jerk that almost wrenched the machinery of the automobile asunder. White as a sheet she jumped out and picked the girl up. In an instant an angry crowd of women and children had surrounded the machine. "Darn yer!"
cried the child shrilly, shaking a dirty fist in Gladys"s face, while the other arm hung limp. "I thought yer didn"t dast run into me."
"Get into the car," said Gladys, terrified, "and I"ll take you home."
"I da.s.sent go home," shrieked the child, "Old Grady"ll lick the tar out of me if I go home without sellin" me papers."
"Then let me take you to the hospital, or somewhere," said Gladys, anxious to get away from the threatening crowd.
"What"s the matter?" asked one voice after another, as the tenements poured their human contents into the street.
"Ophelia"s run over," explained a powerful Irish woman, with a shawl over her head, who kept her hand on the handle of the car door. "Lady speedin" run her down like a dog." An angry murmur rose from the crowd.