"Poor Aunt Phoebe!" she said, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. "She is bound to get all the shocks that flesh is heir to."
As she was walking home through the snow that afternoon some one came up behind her and took her books from her hand. It was d.i.c.k Albright. "Good afternoon, Miss Brewster," he said formally.
"Good afternoon, _Mr_. Albright," said Sahwah in the same tone, her eyes dancing in her head. Then she burst out, "Oh, d.i.c.k, won"t you take us coasting to-morrow night? This is positively the last snow of the season."
"Sure," said d.i.c.k. "Take you to-night if you want to."
Sahwah shook her head. ""Strictly nothing doing," to quote your own elegant phrase," she said. "I"ve a German test on to-morrow morning, and consequently have an engagement with my friend Wilhelm Tell to-night.
I"ve simply got to get above eighty-five in this test or go below pa.s.sing for the month. I got through last month without ever looking at it, but it won"t work again this month."
"How did you do it?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Why," answered Sahwah, "when it came to the test and we were asked to tell the story of the book I simply wrote down, "I can"t tell you that one, but I can tell another just as good," and I did. Old Prof.
Fruhlingslied was so floored by my "blooming cheek" that he pa.s.sed me, but he has had a watchful eye on me ever since." d.i.c.k laughed outright.
"I never saw anything like you," he said, swinging her books around in his hand. The red heart fell out into the snow. d.i.c.k picked it up.
"Who"s your friend?" he said, deliberately reading the name, and immediately filled with jealous pangs. d.i.c.k liked Sahwah better than any girl in school. Her irrepressible, fun--loving nature held him fascinated. Sahwah liked d.i.c.k, too, but no better than she liked most of the boys in the cla.s.s. Sahwah was a poor hand to regard a boy as a "beau." Boys were good things to skate with, or play ball or go rowing with; they came in handy when there were heavy things to lift, and all that; but in none of these things did one seem to have any advantage over the others, so it was immaterial to her which one she had a good time with. The good time was the main thing to her. Sahwah had a fifteen--year--old brother, and she knew what a boy was under his white collar and "boiled" shirt. There was no silly sentimentality in her spicy make-up. She was a royal good companion when there was any fun going on, but it was about as easy to "get soft" with her as with a stone fence post. She was a master hand at ridicule and the boys knew this and respected her accordingly. In spite of all this d.i.c.k"s admiration of her remained steadfast, and he would have attempted to jump over the moon if she had dared him to do it. Hence the valentine signed "Ned Roberts" piqued him. Sahwah had ordered him not to send her one and he had meekly obeyed. It hurt him to think any one else had the right to do it.
"Who"s your friend?" he repeated as he handed her the heart.
"Oh, somebody," said Sahwah, enjoying the opportunity of teasing him.
And that was all he could get out of her, in spite of numerous questions.
"You"ll surely go coasting to-morrow night?" he said as he left her in front of her house.
"I surely will,"" said Sahwah, flashing him a brilliant smile, "I wouldn"t miss it for the world!" If ever a girl had the power to allure and torment a boy that girl was Sahwah.
The house belonging to the Gardiners was now rented, together with the furnished room, and brought in thirty dollars a month, which made housekeeping much smoother sailing for Migwan, but the fact still remained that the money which was to have put her into college the next year was spent, and there was no present prospect of replacing it. Her mother was now home from the hospital and fully on the road to recovery, and Migwan tried to make her happiness over this fact overbalance her disappointment at her own loss. None of her stories or picture plays had been accepted, and of late she had had to give up writing, for with her mother sick most of the housework fell on her shoulders. Although she maintained a bright and cheery exterior, she went about mourning in secret for her lost career, as she called it, and the heart went out of her studying.
She was walking soberly through the hall at school one morning when she heard somebody call out, "Oh, Miss Gardiner, come here a minute." It was Professor Green, standing in the door of his cla.s.s room. "There is something I want to tell you about," he said, smiling down at her when she came up to him. "You like to study History pretty well, don"t you?"
Migwan nodded. Next to Latin, history was her favorite study. "Well,"
resumed Professor Green, "here is a chance for you to do something with it. You remember that Professor Parsons who lectured to the school on various historical subjects last winter? You know he is a perfect crank on having boys and girls learn history. He has now offered a prize of $100 to the boy or girl in the graduating cla.s.s of this High School who can pa.s.s the best examination in Ancient, Medieval and Modern History.
You have had all three of those subjects, have you not?"
"Yes," said Migwan, eagerly.
"The examination is to take place the last week in April," continued Professor Green. ""A word to the wise is sufficient." You are one of the best students of history in the cla.s.s."
Migwan went away after thanking him for telling her about it, feeling as if she were treading on air. There was no doubt in her mind about her ability to learn history, as there was about geometry. She had an amazing memory for dates and events and in her imaginative mind the happenings of centuries ago took form and color and stood out as vividly as if she saw them pa.s.sing by in review. Her heart beat violently when she thought that she had as good a chance, if not better than any one else in the cla.s.s, of winning that $100 prize. This would pay her tuition in the local university for the first year. She resolved to throw her fruitless writing to the winds and put all her strength into her history. The world stretched out before her a blooming, sunny meadow, instead of a stagnant fen, and exultantly she sang to herself one of the pageant songs of the Camp Fire Girls:
"Darkness behind us, Peace around us, Joy before us, White Flame forever!"
That morning the announcement of the prize examination was made to the whole cla.s.s, and Abraham Goldstein also resolved that he would win that $100.
The snow lasted over another day and the next night Sahwah and d.i.c.k Albright and a half dozen other girls and boys went coasting. It was bright moonlight and the air was clear and crisp, just cold enough to keep the snow hard and not cold enough to chill them as they sat on the bob. The place where they went coasting was down the long lake drive in the park, an unbroken stretch of over half a mile. Halfway down the slope the land rose up in a "thank--you--marm," and when the bob struck this it shot into the air and came down again in the path with a thrilling leap which never failed to make the girls shriek. Migwan was there in the crowd, and Gladys, and one or two more of the Winnebagos.
d.i.c.k Albright was in his element as he steered the bob down the long white lane, for Sahwah sat right behind him, shouting merry nonsense into his ear. "Now let me steer," she commanded, when they had gone down a couple of times.
"Don"t you do it, d.i.c.k," said one of the other boys, "she"ll never steer us around the bend." d.i.c.k hesitated. There was a sharp turn in the road, right near the bottom of the descent, and as the bob had acquired a high degree of speed by the time it reached this point, it required quick work to make the turn.
"If you don"t let me steer just once I"ll never speak to you again, d.i.c.k Albright," said Sahwah, with flashing eyes. d.i.c.k wavered. The chances were that Sahwah would land them safely at the bottom, and he thought it worth the risk of a possible spill to stay in her good graces.
"All right, go ahead," he said, "I believe you can do it all right. Be careful when you come to the turn, that"s all." Sahwah slid in behind the steering wheel and they started off. The sled traveled faster than it did before, but Sahwah negotiated both the thank--you--marm and the turn with as much skill as d.i.c.k himself could have done it, and danced a triumphant war dance when she had brought the bob safely to a stop.
"There now, smarty," she said to the boy who had mistrusted her powers, "you see that a girl can do it as well as a boy."
"_You_ certainly can," said d.i.c.k, no less pleased than she herself at her success, "and you may steer the bob the rest of the evening if you want to."
Sahwah engineered two or three more trips and then the excitement lost its tang for her as the element of danger was removed, for the turn had no difficulties for her. "Let"s coast down the side of the hill once,"
she suggested.
"No, thanks," said Migwan, eyeing the steep slope that rose beside the drive.
"Oh, come on," pleaded Sahwah; "it"s more fun to go down a steep hill.
You go so much faster. It lands you in a s...o...b..nk at the bottom, but it"s perfectly safe." None of the boys and girls appeared anxious to go.
Sahwah jumped up and down with impatience. "Oh, you slowpokes!" she exclaimed, rather crossly. Then she turned to d.i.c.k Albright. "d.i.c.k," she said, "will you come with me even if the others won"t?"
d.i.c.k shook his head. "It"s dangerous," he answered.
"You"re afraid," said Sahwah tauntingly.
"I"m not," said d.i.c.k hotly.
"You are too," said Sahwah. "All right if you"re afraid, but I know some one who wouldn"t be." Now Sahwah had no one definite in mind when she said this last, it was simply an effort to make d.i.c.k feel small, but d.i.c.k immediately took it as a reference to the unknown Ned Roberts who had sent her the valentine, and his jealousy got the better of his discretion.
"All right," he said, firmly determined to measure up to this pattern of dauntlessness, "come on if you want to. I"ll go with you." The two climbed up the steep hill, dragging the bob after them. When Sahwah was sitting behind the steering wheel, poised at the top and ready to make the swift descent, she shuddered at the sight of the sharp incline. It looked so much worse from the top than from the bottom. She would have drawn back and given it up, but Sahwah had a stubborn pride that shrank from saying she was afraid to do anything she had undertaken.
"Shove off!" she commanded, gritting her chattering teeth together. The bob shot downward like a cannon ball. In spite of her terror Sahwah enjoyed the sensation. She held firmly on to the steering wheel and made for the great bank of snow which had been thrown up by the men cleaning the foot walks. At that moment an automobile turned into the lake drive, and its blinding lights shone full into Sahwah"s eyes. Dazzled, she turned her head away, at the same time jerking the steering wheel to the right. The bob swerved sharply to one side and crashed into a tree. The force of the impact threw d.i.c.k clear of the sled and he rolled head over heels down the hill, landing in the snow at the bottom badly shaken, but otherwise unhurt. Sahwah lay motionless in the snow beside the wreck of the bob.
CHAPTER XII.
DR. HOFFMAN.
The girls and boys crowded around her with frightened faces. "Is she killed?" they asked each other in terrified tones.
"It"s all my fault," said d.i.c.k Albright, nearly beside himself; "I should have known better than to let her go. She didn"t think of the danger, but I did, and I should have prevented her. Was there ever such a fool as I?"
Gladys and Migwan were kneeling beside Sahwah and opening her coat. "She is not dead," said Gladys, feeling her pulse. "We must get her home. She is possibly only stunned." Sahwah moved slightly and groaned, but she did not open her eyes. A pa.s.sing automobile was hailed and she was carried to it as carefully as possible and taken home.
"A slight concussion of the brain," said the hastily summoned doctor, after he had made his examination, "and a fractured hip. The hip can be fixed all right, but the concussion may be worse than it looks. That is an ugly contusion on her head." The next few days were anxious ones in the Brewster home. Sahwah gave no sign of returning consciousness, and her fever rose steadily. Mrs. Brewster felt her hair turning gray with the suspense, and the Winnebagos could neither eat nor sleep. Poor d.i.c.k was frantic, yet he dared not show himself at the house for fear every one would point an accusing finger at him as the one responsible for the misfortune.
But Sahwah, true to her usual habit of always doing the unexpected thing, progressed along just the opposite lines from those prophesied by the physician. After a few days her fever abated and the danger from the concussion was over. Sahwah"s head had demonstrated itself to be of a superior solidness of construction. But the hip, which at first had not given them a moment"s uneasiness, steadfastly refused to mend. Dr.
Benson looked puzzled; then grave. The splintered end of that hip bone began to be a nightmare to him. He called in another doctor for consultation. The new doctor set it in a different way, nearly killing Sahwah with the pain, although she struggled valiantly to be brave and bear it in silence. Nyoda never forgot that tortured smile with which Sahwah greeted her when she came in after the process was over. A week or two pa.s.sed and the bones still made no effort to knit. Another consulting physician was called in; a prominent surgeon. He ordered Sahwah removed to the hospital, where he made half a dozen X-ray pictures of her hip. The joint was so badly inflamed and swollen that it was impossible to tell just where the trouble lay. Sahwah fumed and fretted with impatience at having to stay in bed so long. Surgeon after surgeon examined the fracture and shook their heads.