"What are you doing?"
"We"re going to have a show. Want to come up?"
"Well, maybe, later," answered the Captain. "Won"t you come down a minute? We"ve got something to show you." And again Gladys thought she heard a smothered giggle from below stairs.
The girls trooped down the ladder, Sahwah running out with her face blackened and her hair in tiny pigtails, to see what the excitement was about. All seven of the Sandwiches stood there with sparkling eyes and prenaturally solemn faces. On the floor stood a good-sized box.
"What"s in the box?" asked Sahwah.
"Oh, nothing," answered the Captain, trying to speak indifferently.
"There is too, something," said Sahwah, looking critically at the express tags fastened to it. "Oh, I know what is is," she cried, suddenly jumping up and clapping her hands in glee. "Your uncle in Boston has sent you the electric motor he promised you!"
The Captain tried to look indifferent and failed utterly. His lips would twitch into a smile in spite of all he could do.
"Do open it and let us see it," said Hinpoha, and all the girls crowded closely around.
"You may have the honor, Miss Brewster," said the Captain, bowing formally to Sahwah. The nails had been drawn and all Sahwah had to do was lift off the cover of the box, which she did with a great flourish. The next moment the girls sprang back in dismay and scattered wildly. The box was full of live mice, which jumped out and ran in all directions.
Screaming at the tops of their voices the girls fled toward the ladder and crowded up as fast as they could go. Sahwah jumped for the swinging rings, which hung from the ceiling of the barn, and dangled safely in mid-air, making horrible faces at the Captain, at which he laughed uproariously. Sahwah and the Captain were always playing tricks on each other and this time she had to admit that he had scored heavily. So the Captain jeered and Sahwah vowed vengeance and the other Sandwiches stood around and laughed until their sides ached, for Sahwah, with blackened face and Topsy braids, hanging in the rings and sputtering, was the funniest sight imaginable.
"Joke"s over now, boys," said the Captain, when the mice had run around the barn for several minutes. "We"ve had enough of a good thing. Let"s catch them and put them back into the box."
The girls above sat around the ladder opening and watched the proceedings.
"Wherever did you get so many mice, boys?" asked Mrs. Evans.
"We found them," said the Captain, "all boxed up, just like this, They were right out in the middle of that field over there. We were on the way over here and saw the box and looked in. When we saw what it was we thought we could play a joke on the girls. So we brought them along.
Looks as though someone had fixed them that way for a joke. Probably were going to send them by express. They were in an express box, although it was not nailed shut."
The girls began to look at one another significantly. The same thought came into all their minds at once. Were not these the mice that were to attend the Junior party?
"The joke is on the Seniors, after all," said Hinpoha.
"What do you mean?" asked the boys. "The joke is on the Seniors?"
"Shall we tell them?" asked Hinpoha.
"I don"t see any harm now," said Gladys. "The scheme has collapsed like a p.r.i.c.ked balloon."
And they told the Sandwiches what they knew about the plot of the Senior boys to interrupt the Junior party.
"Wasn"t such a bad idea to try to play a joke on you girls after all, was it?" said the Captain. "Because if we hadn"t done it we wouldn"t have nipped their little scheme in the bud. We"ll play lots more jokes on them, won"t we, Slim? Don"t you girls think you ought to invite us up to supper to celebrate?"
"Not until the last mouse is back in the box," said Gladys firmly.
The boys worked hard to catch them again and the girls sat above and cheered their efforts, and in the middle of it in came Katherine and her companion, swathed in green veils. There was such an uproar in the barn that Cora never noticed that Katherine locked the door and put the key in her pocket. Cora gave a great start at the sight of the mice, which was not all from fright, and the girls could not help enjoying the situation.
What must be her thoughts by this time? But Cora, obeying the natural impulse of women at the sight of mice, fled up the ladder with Katherine.
If she thought it odd that the barn was full of girls and boys when she had gained the impression that it was empty and dark, she made no sign, but stood still with her veil over her face. With all those horrible creatures running around the floor downstairs she made no move to escape.
"Won"t you take off your things?" asked Katherine, beginning gently to break the news to Cora that she was to stay for the evening. Without demur Cora unfastened her coat and slid it off and then took off her hat and veil. The girls stood as if turned to stone. The person who stood before them was not Cora Burton. It was Miss Snively. _It was Miss Snively!_
She looked around her with a sneering smile and a snapping light in her eyes. "You may think it was a master stroke on your part to lure me here and lock me in so I could not join the conspirators and thus find out who they were," she said with biting emphasis. "But you shall pay dearly for this, my young friends. I know who you all are-you needn"t try to hide behinds the others, Gladys Evans-and the information I shall be able to give Mr. Jackson tonight is what he has been trying to find out for a long time. Katherine Adams, you are the ringleader of this affair, as we might have expected. I know all about the plan to put the mice into the dance hall, and while the boys downstairs who are getting them ready are not the ones I should have expected to be doing it, it is just like you to get strange boys to do it for you, hoping to get away unsuspected. But it didn"t work, I am happy to say. You are very clever, Miss Adams, but not clever enough. I overheard you asking Cora Burton to meet you on the corner this evening. I took the liberty of being there first. I thought I had deceived you perfectly, not knowing that you were bringing me right into the mouse"s nest, so to speak."
She paused for breath and looked around her with an expression of relish at the consternation visible on the faces before her. For Katherine was staring at her with startled, unbelieving eyes; Gladys was clutching her mother"s arm in a frightened manner; Hinpoha had sunk weakly down on the bearskin bed, and Sahwah stood with her mouth open and the perspiration running down her face in black streaks, and the others were dumb with astonishment. The boys, not knowing just what was going on, but guessing that something was the matter, stood by the ladder opening, silently taking in the scene. The girls looked helplessly into each other"s eyes.
Somebody must speak and explain. They all looked at Katherine.
"But we aren"t mixed up in the House Party at all, Miss Snively," she said earnestly. "We heard about it, and I found out that Cora Burton was going to be in it and I tried to make her stay home and she refused, so we girls decided we would take action to take her out of it by luring her up here and keeping her until the thing was over. That"s why I asked Cora to meet me on the corner, and I really thought you were Cora all the while. You imitated her squeaky voice to perfection."
As Katherine was telling her perfectly truthful story she had a dreadful feeling that it didn"t sound plausible at all. Under Miss Snively"s cold eye nothing seemed real.
"Likely story!" said Miss Snively sneeringly. "And how does it happen that if you wanted to bring Cora out of temptation you should take her to the place where the mice were being boxed up ready to be taken to the party?" All the girls looked so disconcerted. Those dreadful mice did complicate matters so! They would have given anything if Nyoda had been there then.
The Captain was beginning to take in the situation. He came forward frankly. "It"s our fault about the mice," he said, looking Miss Snively straight in the eye. "We found them in a field near here all boxed up and thought it would be a good joke on the girls to bring them over here and let them out. We don"t know anything about your squabbles at Washington High, except what little the girls here have told us; we"re all from Carnegie Mechanic. And we know the girls didn"t have a hand in it, because they were giving a show here to-night."
His story was backed up by all the other boys, and then Mrs. Evans got in a word and declared that Katherine was telling the whole truth about Cora, and Miss Snively was forced, however ungraciously, to admit that she had been mistaken in her suspicions.
"If she"d been a man I"d have made her eat her words," declared Slim wrathfully, after Miss Snively had departed from the scene.
Mrs. Evans and Gladys, with perfect courtesy, offered to drive her home in their car, and for the present oil was poured on the troubled waters.
Katherine sat hunched gloomily before the fire and held-forth to the Winnebagos. "I don"t know whether the joke"s on her or on us," she said pessimistically; "but one thing I"m sure of, and that is, that never, never, as long as I live, will I ever again try to save a girl from herself."
And the Winnebagos wearily agreed with her.
CHAPTER VII AN ADVENTURE IN PHILANTHROPY
Katherine became officially a member of the Winnebago Camp Fire Group at the first Ceremonial after the circus, with the Fire Name of Iagoonah, the Story Maker. The name itself was an accident and the manner of its bestowing is cherished in the chronicles of the Winnebagos as one of the group"s best jokes. Just about the time Katherine was to be installed as a Winnebago, word was received that the Chief Guardian of the city was going to be present at the meeting and would take charge of the Ceremonial. Katherine had chosen the name, "Prairie Dandelion," because she came from the plains, and because her hair was so fly-away. During the supper which preceded the Ceremonial meeting Katherine made such funny speeches and told such outrageous yarns about her life in the West that Nyoda said jestingly: "Your name ought to be Iagoo, the Marvellous Story Teller." And the others began calling her Iagoo in fun. The Chief Guardian heard them calling her Iagoo and supposed that was the Camp Fire name she wished to take. So, when she was receiving Katherine into the ranks, she said: "Your name is Iagoo, isn"t it?"
Katherine, sobered and almost voiceless from the solemnity of the occasion, mumbled half-inarticulately, "Iagoo? Nah!"
And before anyone knew what had happened she had been officially installed as _Iagoonah_! The joke was so good that the name stuck, and Katherine was known to the Winnebago Circle as Iagoonah to the end of the chapter, although they did consent to change the interpretation to Story Maker instead of Story Teller as being more dignified and not so suggestive.
Katherine was one of the most enthusiastic Camp Fire Girls that ever lived, and her inspirations led the girls into more activities and adventures than they had ever dreamed of before. It was Katherine who started the Philanthropic Idea. They had been talking about the different things Camp Fire Girls could do together for the good of the community.
"Girls," said Katherine, standing in her favorite att.i.tude beside the fireplace, with her toes turned in and her elbow on the shelf, "I don"t believe we"re doing all we ought. We"re having a royal good time among ourselves and learning no end of things to our own advantage, but what are we doing for others? Nothing, that I can see."
"We gave a Thanksgiving basket to Katie, the laundress," said Hinpoha, "and we collected a barrel of clothes for the Shimky"s when their house burned down, and we gave a benefit performance to pay little Jane Goldman"s expenses in the hospital, and we send toys and sc.r.a.pbooks to the Sunshine Nursery every Christmas."
"And I earned three dollars and gave it to the Red Cross," said Sahwah.
"Don"t you call that doing something for other people? We haven"t meant to be selfish, I"m sure. By the way, Katherine, your elbow"s in the fudge."
Katherine shoved the dish away absently and returned to her subject.
"Yes," she admitted, "the Winnebagos have done a great deal that way, but it"s all been _giving_ something. We haven"t _done_ anything. It"s easy enough to pack a basket and hand it to someone, and collect a lot of old clothes from people who are anxious to get rid of them anyway, or pay the bill for somebody else to do something. But I think we ought to do something ourselves-give up our own time and put our own touch into it."
"What do you mean we should do?" asked Gladys, hunting through the dish for a piece of fudge that had not been demolished by Katherine"s elbow.