Mrs. Gardiner shook her head wearily. "We never could do it," she answered. "Something would surely happen to upset our plans."
But Migwan was not to be waved aside. She had seen a vision of increased income and meant to make it come true. She argued the merits of her idea until Mrs. Gardiner was too tired of the subject to argue back, and agreed that if Miss Kent approved the step she would give her consent.
Nyoda was therefore called into consultation. She looked at the house and saw no reason why the improvements could not be made to advantage.
The house was in a good neighborhood, and furnished rooms were always in demand. She advised the step and gave Mrs. Gardiner the names of several contractors whom she knew to be reliable. Mrs. Gardiner was a little breathless at the speed with which things were moving, but there was no stopping Migwan once she was started. A contractor was engaged and work begun on the house one week from the day Migwan had thought of the plan.
Meanwhile financial matters at home were in bad shape, and Mrs. Gardiner willingly gave over the distribution of the family budget to Migwan. She herself was utterly unable to cope with the problem. And Migwan surprised even herself by the efficient way in which she managed things.
By planning menus with the greatest care and omitting meat from the bill of fare to a great extent she made it possible to live on their slender income until the rent would begin to come in again.
"Whatever have you done with yourself?" asked Gladys at the weekly meeting of the Camp Fire. "Of late you rush home from school as if you were pursued." Migwan only laughed and said she had had uncommonly hard problems to solve these last few weeks. The other girls of course did not know the exact state of the Gardiner finances, and never dreamed that Migwan was having a struggle even to stay in high school. She was such a fine, aristocratic-looking girl, and was so sparkling and witty all the time that it was hard to connect her with poverty and worry.
"Let"s all go to the matinee next Sat.u.r.day afternoon," suggested Gladys.
"The "Blue Bird" is going to be played." The girls agreed eagerly and asked Gladys to get seats for them, all but Migwan, who said nothing.
"Don"t you want to go, Migwan?" they asked.
"Not this time," Migwan answered in a casual tone. "There is something else I have to do Sat.u.r.day afternoon." The girls accepted this explanation readily. It never occurred to them that Migwan could not afford to go.
"What is this mysterious something you are always doing?" asked Gladys teasingly. "Girls, I believe Migwan is writing a book. She has retired from polite society altogether." Migwan smiled blandly at her, but made no answer.
At home that night, however, she felt very low-spirited indeed. She was only human, after all, and wanted dreadfully to go to the matinee with the girls. Gladys would take them all to Schiller"s afterward for a parfait and bring them home in style in her machine. It did not seem fair that she should be cut off from every pleasure that involved the spending of a little money. This was her last year in high school, the year which should be the happiest, but she must resolutely turn her face away from all those little festivities that add such touches of color to the memory fabric of school days. She knew that at the merest hint of her circ.u.mstances to Gladys or Nyoda they would have gladly paid her way everywhere the group went, but Migwan"s pride forbade this. If she could not afford to go to places she would stay at home and n.o.body would be any the wiser. Nevertheless, a few tears would come at the thought of the good time she was missing, and she had no heart to work on her story.
"Cry-baby!" she said to herself fiercely, winking the tears back.
"Crying because you can"t do as you would like all the time! You"re lots better off than poor Hinpoha this very minute, even if she is rich. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" The thought of Hinpoha, who would likewise miss the jolly party, comforted her somewhat, and she dried her tears and fell to writing with a will.
Now Nyoda, although she did not know just how hard pressed the Gardiners were at that time, rather surmised something of the kind, and wondered, after she left the girls, if that were not the reason for Migwan"s not planning to go to the matinee. She remembered Migwan"s saying some time before that she wanted very much to see "The Bluebird" when it came. She knew it would never do to offer to pay Migwan"s way; Migwan was too proud for that. She lay awake a long time over it and finally formulated a plan. The next morning when Migwan came to school she saw a conspicuous notice on the Bulletin Board:
LOST: Handbag containing book of lecture notes and ticket for Sat.u.r.day afternoon"s performance of "The Bluebird." Finder may keep theater ticket if he or she will return notebook to Miss Moore, Room 10.
Migwan read the notice and pa.s.sed on, as did the other pupils. That morning in English cla.s.s Nyoda sent Migwan to an unused lecture room to get an English book she had left there. When Migwan opened the door she stumbled over something on the floor. It was a lady"s handbag. She opened it and found Miss Moore"s notebook and the theater ticket inside.
Miss Moore was overjoyed at the return of the notebook and insisted on her keeping the ticket, which Migwan at first declined to accept. "My dear child," said Miss Moore, "if you knew what trouble I had collecting those notes you would think, too, that it was worth the price of a theater ticket to get them back!" And when Migwan"s back was turned she winked solemnly at Nyoda. By a curious coincidence that seat was directly behind those occupied by the other Winnebagos!
CHAPTER IV.
ANOTHER KITCHEN.
The night of the last Camp Fire Meeting Gladys and Nyoda might have been seen in close consultation. "The first pleasant Sat.u.r.day," said Nyoda.
"Remember, it"s my treat," said Gladys.
The first week in November was as balmy as May, with every promise of fine weather on Sat.u.r.day. Accordingly, Nyoda gathered all the Winnebagos around her desk on Thursday and made an announcement. Sahwah forgot that she was in a cla.s.s room and started to raise a joyful whoop, but Nyoda stifled it in time by putting her hand over her mouth. "I can"t help it!" cried Sahwah; "we"re going on a trip up the river! I"m going to paddle the _Keewaydin_ once more!"
The plan suggested by Gladys and just announced by Nyoda was this: The following Sat.u.r.day they would charter a launch big enough to hold them all, and follow the course of the Cuyahoga River upstream to the dam at the falls, where they would land and cook their dinner over an open fire. They would tow the _Keewaydin_, Sahwah"s birchbark canoe, behind the launch, and some time during the day would manage to let every one go for a paddle. The Winnebagos thrilled with pleasurable antic.i.p.ation, all but Hinpoha, who crept sadly away, for she could not bear to hear about the fun that was being planned when she could not have a part in it.
One desire of her heart was being fulfilled, and she was getting thin.
What a whole summer of rigid dieting had not been able to accomplish was brought to pa.s.s by a few weeks of mental suffering, and her clothes were beginning to hang on her. Her appet.i.te began to fail her, and her aunt, noticing this, bought her a big bottle of tonic, which, taken before meals, killed any small desire for food she may have had. Then Aunt Phoebe decided that the two-mile walk to school was too much for her, and had her taken and called for in the machine, much to Hinpoha"s disgust, for that walk was her chief joy these days. After a week of the tonic her soul rebelled against the nauseous dose, and when the first bottle was empty and Aunt Phoebe sent her to get it refilled, she "refilled" it herself with a mixture of licorice candy and water, which produced a black syrup similar in appearance to the original medicine, but minus the bad taste and the stigma of "patent medicine," a thing which the Winnebagos had promised their Guardian they would not take. As this was deceiving her aunt she felt obliged to put a blot on her head "scutcheon, in the form of a black record, but she was so inwardly amused at it that her appet.i.te improved of its own accord, and Aunt Phoebe remarked in a gratified way that she had never known the equal of Mullin"s Modifier as a tonic.
Migwan finished her story, copied it carefully on foolscap and sent it away to a magazine, confident that in a very short time she would behold it in print, and the payment she would receive for it would keep her in spending money throughout the school year. So with a light and merry heart she set out for Gladys"s house on Sat.u.r.day morning, where the girls were all to meet for the outing. It was one of those dream-like days in late autumn, when the earth, still decked in her brilliant garments, seems to lie spellbound in the sunshine, as if there were no such thing as the coming of winter.
The girls, clad in blue skirts and white middies and heavy sweaters, were whirled down to the dock in the Evans"s automobile, with the _Keewaydin_ tied upright at the back. The launch was waiting for them, at one of the big boat docks, sandwiched in between two immense lake steamers. Nothing could have been a greater contrast to their trip up the Shadow River the summer before than this excursion. On that other trip they had been the only living beings on the horizon, and nature was supreme everywhere, but here they were fairly engulfed by the works of man. The tiny craft nosed her way among giant steamers, six-hundred-foot freighters, coal barges, lighters, fire boats, tugs, scows, and all the other kinds of vessels that crowd the river-harbor of a great lake port.
Viewed from below, the steel structure of the viaduct over the river stretched out like the monstrous skeleton of some prehistoric beast.
Whistles shrieked deafeningly in their ears and trains pounded jarringly over railroad bridges. A jack-knife bridge began to descend over their very heads. Over where the new bridge was being constructed men stood on slender girders high in the air, catching red-hot rivets that were being tossed them, while an automatic riveting hammer filled the air with its nerve-destroying clamor. Everywhere was bustle and confusion, and noise, noise, noise.
And in the midst of this tumult the tiny launch, filled with laughing girls, threaded its way up the black river, flying the Winnebago banner, while behind it trailed a birchbark canoe, with Sahwah squatting calmly in the stern, leaning her back against her paddle. Many times they had to bury their noses in their handkerchiefs to shut out the smells that a.s.sailed them on every side. On they chugged, past the lumber yards with their acres of stacked boards, some of which had come from the very neighborhood of Camp Winnebago; past the chemical works, pouring out its darkly polluted streams into the river. "Ugh," said Gladys with a shiver, "to think that that stuff flows on into the lake and we drink lake water!"
"It seems like a different world altogether," said Migwan, looking out across the miles of factory-covered "flats." She was perfectly fascinated by the rolling mills, with their rows of black stacks standing out against the sky like organ pipes, and by the long trains of oil-tank cars curving through the valley like huge worms, the divisions giving the effect of body sections.
While the Winnebagos were gliding along among scenes strange and new, Hinpoha was vainly trying to comfort herself for having to stay at home by catching in a bottle the bees which were crawling in and out of the cosmos blossoms in the garden. Interesting as the bees were, however, they could not keep her thoughts from turning to the Winnebagos afloat on the river, and it was a very doleful face that bent over the flowers.
Her dismal reflections were interrupted by the sharp voice of Aunt Phoebe calling her to come in. "What is it?" she asked listlessly, as she came up on the porch.
"Mrs. Evans is here," said her aunt in the doorway, "and she has asked to see you." Hinpoha was very glad to see Mrs. Evans, who rose smilingly and took her hands in hers.
"How thin you are getting, child!" she exclaimed, smoothing back the red curls. "I don"t believe you get out enough. By the way," she said to Aunt Phoebe, "may I borrow this girl for to-day? I have considerable driving about to do and it is rather tiresome going alone. Gladys has gone on an all-day boat ride."
Aunt Phoebe could not very well refuse, for driving about in a machine with an older woman was a very proper form of recreation indeed, in her estimation.
Hinpoha flew upstairs and deposited her bottle of bees on the table in her room for future observation and started off with Mrs. Evans. "We will not be back for lunch, and possibly not for supper," said Gladys"s mother as she bade Aunt Phoebe a gracious good-bye, "but it will not be long after that."
"And now for a grand spin," she said, as she started the car and sent it crackling through the dry leaves on the pavement.
"Now I see why the Indians named this river "Cuyahoga," or "Crooked,""
said Migwan, as they rounded bend after bend in the stream. "It coils back on itself like a snake, and I have already counted seven coils within the city limits. I didn"t believe it when the captain of a freighter told me that there was a place in the river which his boat couldn"t pa.s.s because two sharp turns came so near together, but now I see how that could easily be possible."
As the launch putt-putt-putt-ed steadily up the river the water gradually became less black, and the factories along the sh.o.r.e gave way to open stretches of country. By noon they reached the dam and went ash.o.r.e to look for a place to build a fire. They were in a deep gorge, its steep sides thickly covered with flaming maples and oaks, and brilliant sumachs, stretching on either side as far as they could reach.
"It"s too gorgeous to seem real," said Nyoda, shading her eyes and looking down the valley; "where _does_ Mother Nature keep her pot of "Diamond Dyes" in the summer time?"
High up along the top of one of the cliffs a narrow road wound along, and as Nyoda stood looking into the distance she saw an automobile coming along this road. When it was directly above her it stopped and two people got out, a woman and a girl. The sunlight fell on a ma.s.s of red curls on the girl"s head. "Hinpoha!" exclaimed Nyoda in amazement.
From above came floating down a far-echoing yodel--the familiar Winnebago call. The girls all looked up in surprise to see Hinpoha scrambling down the face of the cliff, and aiding Mrs. Evans to descend.
"Why, _mother_!" called Gladys, running up to meet her.
The surprise at the meeting was mutual. Mrs. Evans, spinning along the country roads, had no idea she was hard on the trail of her daughter and the other Winnebagos until she came suddenly upon them after they had gotten out of the launch. "Can"t you stay and spend the day with us, now that you"re here?" they pleaded.
Hinpoha"s longing soul looked out of her eyes, but she answered, "I"m afraid not. Aunt Phoebe wouldn"t approve."
"Did she say you couldn"t?" asked Sahwah.
"No," said Hinpoha, "for I never even asked her if I might go along with you in the launch. I knew it would be no use."
"Oh, please stay," tempted some of the girls; "your aunt"ll never know the difference."
"Oh, I couldn"t do that," said Hinpoha in a tone of horror. A little approving smile crept around the corners of Nyoda"s eyes as she heard Hinpoha so resolutely bidding Satan get behind her. Mrs. Evans was genuinely sorry they had encountered the girls, because it made it so much harder for Hinpoha.
"I wonder," she said musingly, "if I drove on to a house in the road and telephoned your aunt that she would let you stay?"