"Have you decided on a name?" asked Nyoda. Gladys shook her head. "Well, then," said Nyoda, "I would wait with the symbol until I had chosen a name. And I wouldn"t be in too much of a hurry about it, either. Take time to look about you and make your name express something that you like to do better than anything else, or something that you earnestly aspire to do or be. Then choose your symbol in keeping with your name."
"But suppose there shouldn"t be a symbol in the book that fitted the name I chose?" asked Gladys.
"Then we would be put to the painful necessity of finding a brand new one!" answered Nyoda with a mock tragic air.
Here the others girls flung themselves upon Nyoda and demanded to be told their standing in tent inspection. "Alpha, 97, Omega, 98," she replied.
The Omegas hugged each other with joy at having received a higher mark than the Alphas. "What was wrong with us?" chorused the disappointed Alphas.
"One bed had not been swept under, one pair of shoes were lying down instead of standing up, and the wash bowl contained a spy-gla.s.s," answered Nyoda.
Nakwisi blushed at the mention of the spy-gla.s.s. "I didn"t mean to leave it there, really and truly I didn"t, Nyoda. I was just looking over the lake when Chapa wanted me to help her move her bed and I laid it in the first convenient place and then forgot to remove it."
"No explanations!" called the girls. Nakwisi laughed and subsided.
"Where did we lose our two points, Nyoda?" demanded the Omegas.
"There was a pillow propped against the tent pole and one bed looked decidedly lumpy," said Nyoda.
"I knew you"d go off and leave that pillow there, Sahwah,"
exclaimed Hinpoha.
"I knew your shoes would show if you tried to hide them in the bed!" returned Sahwah.
"Murder will out," said Nyoda, laughing, "I was not going to mention any names!"
CHAPTER III.
INDEPENDENCE DAY.
"Girls!" exclaimed Nyoda one day at the dinner table, "to-morrow is the Fourth of July. Shall we have a celebration?"
Sahwah looked at Hinpoha and slowly lowered one eyelid. "Yes, yes," cried all the girls in chorus, "let"s do!"
"Well, what shall it be?" continued Nyoda, "a flag raising and a bonfire and some canoe races?"
"Oh, a flag raising by all means," said Migwan, "they always have one in the Scout camps. My brother is a Scout and he thinks it"s awful because we don"t have more flag exercises."
"Where will we get the flag?" asked Sahwah.
"It"s here already," answered Nyoda, "in the bottom of my trunk.
I knew that sooner or later we would want it so I brought it along."
"Who will do the raising?" asked Hinpoha.
"Why, Nyoda, of course," said Migwan, "who else?"
"And I move," said Nyoda, "that Migwan write a poem suitable to the occasion and deliver same."
"Yes, yes," cried all the girls, "a poem from Migwan." Migwan demurred at first, but finally promised, just as she always did.
"Wait a minute," said Sahwah suddenly, "where are we going to get the pole to raise the flag on?" All the girls looked blank for a moment.
"We"ll run it up on the diving tower," said Nyoda promptly. "We can find a small dry tree in the woods and strip the branches off and fasten it to the top of the tower and run the flag up on it.
There, that"s settled. Now, what kind of water sports shall we have?"
Sahwah and Hinpoha exchanged glances, and Sahwah wriggled in her chair. "Wouldn"t you like a committee to arrange that?" she asked, trying to make her voice sound natural and disinterested.
"Why, yes, that would be a good idea," said Nyoda, "and I appoint you and Hinpoha as the committee to do the arranging. I am very glad you suggested that, for it leaves me free to go to the village this afternoon. Now, do we need any more committees?"
"There ought to be one on seating arrangements," said Sahwah.
"On what?" asked Nyoda.
"Seating arrangements," repeated Sahwah. "Where to place our guests."
"May I ask who our guests are going to be?" said Nyoda.
"I don"t know yet, myself," said Sahwah calmly. "But we ought to have some. It would be sort of flat to have a celebration just for ourselves. We"ll all have to be in it and there won"t be any audience. How would you feel like giving a show for n.o.body"s benefit? So I thought we"d do it this way.. We"d have a committee on seating arrangements, and they would have to furnish the audience as well as the seats. Isn"t that a good idea?"
"It"s an original one, anyway," said Nyoda, somewhat breathlessly. "However, I think you are quite right. If there is an audience to be had, by all means let us have one. But I give you fair warning, it may not be the easiest thing to pick up an audience in the Maine woods."
"There are other campers around the lake," replied Sahwah, "and there are the people in the village. We could bring them here in the boats."
"They might have plans of their own, though," said Nyoda, "so we mustn"t count too much on having them come to visit us. By the way, Sahwah, whom would you suggest for a seating-arrangements committee?"
"Oh, you would be the best one for that, Nyoda," answered Sahwah.
Nyoda bowed, laughing. "I accept the position of Audience Furnisher," she said, formally. "Now, every man to his task!
Gladys, would you like to come to the village with me this afternoon?"
Sahwah and Hinpoha also went to the village, but they waited until Nyoda was well out of sight, then they paddled across the lake with strong swift strokes that sent the canoe fairly flying through the water.
"I thought Nyoda would want some kind of a celebration," said Sahwah, "so it"s a good thing we have our plans made, although we did want them to be a complete surprise." Instead of getting out at the regular landing they paddled around the village and up the mouth of a small creek, where they beached the canoe and crept stealthily toward the store. After peeking through the window and satisfying themselves that Nyoda was not within Sahwah entered, while Hinpoha kept watch in the doorway. "Did you get everything?" asked Hinpoha, as Sahwah emerged with her arms full of bundles.
Sahwah nodded. "But it took every yard of bunting they had."
They hastened back to camp and preparations for the next day"s celebration were soon under way.
When Nyoda returned at supper time she was immediately surrounded by an eager group clamoring to know who was going to be the audience. Nyoda shook her head sadly. "There ain"t no such animal," she replied tragically. "We stopped everybody we met on the street in the village--we only met five people--and, invited them; we invited the storekeeper and the man who rents the boats; but none of them could come. Then we went around to the houses to see if we could find some women and girls, but with the same result. It seems that some local magnate is giving a barbecue out at his farm to-morrow and the whole town is invited."
"But the other campers," said Sahwah hopefully.
Again Nyoda shook her head. "We took the launch and ran in at every landing for several miles around. There aren"t so many campers up here yet as you might think. A great many of the cottages were closed. The few people we did talk to had their plans already made. Don"t look so disappointed, Sahwah. If we were out in the middle of the desert or shipwrecked on a lonely island there wouldn"t be any possibility of an audience, and yet we would be having a celebration for our own benefit just the same."
"Of course we would," said Migwan stoutly, "and to tell the truth, it would never have occurred to me to ask any one else to our celebration to-morrow. I think it"s lovely to have it just by ourselves."