"That"s just the trouble," said Katherine, drawing up her knees and clasping her bony hands around them. "Everybody thinks I"m a joke, and that"s all. n.o.body ever admired me. People think I"m a cross between a lunatic asylum and a circus. I"m so tired of hearing people say, "What a _funny_ girl that Katherine Adams is! She"s a perfect scream!" They never say "What a nice looking girl," or "What a charming girl," the way they always do about you and Hinpoha. I _do_ wish somebody admired me once without being so desperately amused! Now I want you to tell me exactly what"s the matter with my looks. Something"s wrong, I know." And she looked wistfully through the strands of hair that were falling over her eyes.
Gladys sat up and regarded her fondly. "Dear, fly-away, come-to-pieces Katherine!
"Do you mind if I make a few criticisms?" she asked gently.
"That"s just what I asked you to do," said Katherine a trifle impatiently.
"Isn"t it because you"re sort of--careless about your clothes?" began Gladys. "You"re always coming apart somewhere. There"s generally a string hanging out, or the end of a belt or the loop of a collar. You"re just as likely to have your hat on hind side before as not, and often you"ve had on the skirt of one suit and the jacket of another."
She paused uncertainly and looked anxiously into Katherine"s face to see how she was taking it.
"Go on," said Katherine briefly.
"Your shoes are often run down at the heels," went on Gladys. "I know it"s an awful bother to keep them straight; mine are always running over crooked. I have to have the left one fixed every three weeks. But it"s something that just has to be done if you want to keep looking neat.
"And then your hair, Katherine dear. It"s so wispy; it"s always hanging in your face. Doesn"t it hurt your eyes to look through it?"
Katherine put back the offending lock with an impatient gesture, but in less than a minute it was all down again. "There!" she said. "You see how it is! It just won"t stay up!"
"Maybe it would if you arranged it a little differently," said Gladys.
"Couldn"t you curl it?"
Katherine snorted. "I curl my hair!" she scoffed. "My child, life is too short to waste it on anything like that."
"I don"t know," said Gladys slowly. "I don"t think anything is a waste of time that helps to make a person attractive. You know we Camp Fire Girls are supposed to "seek beauty." That means personal attractiveness as much as anything else."
"I might take the curling iron for my symbol," said Katherine whimsically. "Go on with the recital."
Gladys could not tell either from Katherine"s tone or her expression whether her frank speech had hurt her feelings or not, and she remained silent.
"Go on," continued Katherine. "Isn"t there a way to shorten up arms that are two yards long?"
Gladys could not help smiling at the lean length of arm which Katherine held out before her, stiff as a ramrod. "No, you can"t shorten them,"
she said, "but you can help making them look any longer than necessary.
You generally stand with your shoulders drooped forward, and that pulls your arms down. If you"d stand up straight and throw your shoulders back your arms wouldn"t look nearly so long."
Katherine looked at the arm and shook her head with such an air of dejection that Gladys was overcome and flung her arms around her pa.s.sionately. "I won"t say another word!" she declared. "Oh, I"m a brute! Katherine dear, have I hurt your feelings?"
"Not at all," answered Katherine calmly. "You remember I asked you to tell me what was the matter. I thank you for being so frank. I"ve worried and worried about it, but I couldn"t figure out what the matter was and n.o.body ever took the trouble to tell me."
"Oh, Gladys," she went on, with such an under-current of wistfulness in her tone that Gladys was almost moved to tears, "do you think I"ll ever be really nice looking? That I"ll stop being a joke?"
"Of course you will!" said Gladys emphatically. "Do you know what I heard papa saying to Uncle Teddy one night? He said, "Wouldn"t Katherine be a stunning looking girl if she carried herself better and was well dressed?" Did you hear that? He said "stunning," mind you. Not only "nice looking," but "stunning.""
"Did he really say that?" asked Katherine in amazement. "I didn"t think anybody cared how I looked; men least of all."
"Men notice those things a lot more than you think they do," said Gladys with an air of worldly wisdom. "They talk about them, too, and sometimes they can tell just what"s wrong better than you can yourself.
"I think myself you would be stunning if you only took more care in putting your clothes on. You"re so bright and breezy. And you"d be so stately if you stood straight."
"How shall I go about to acquire this majestic carriage?" asked Katherine in the tone of a humble seeker after wisdom.
"Well," replied Gladys judicially, "you"ve humped over so long that you"ve grown round-shouldered, and it"ll take some time to correct that.
You want to go in for gym with all your might in college, and for dancing, too. That"ll teach you how to carry yourself gracefully better than anything else."
"Thank--you," said Katherine slowly, when Gladys had finished her homily on feminine charms, and returned thoughtfully to her _Romeo and Juliet_.
"Mercy on us!" thought Gladys. "Whatever is going to happen? Katherine has begun to worry about her looks!"
Katherine laid the book down after a while and stared solemnly out over the lake.
"You"re sure you"re not offended at what I said?" asked Gladys, still full of misgiving that she had been too frank.
"Not in the least," answered Katherine. "But say, would you mind writing out what you told me? I"ll never remember it if you don"t. You write it out and I"ll tack it up and check off the items as I dress."
"All right," said Gladys, laughing. "I"ll do that and if it works I"ll get out a book, "How to Be Neat, in one Volume." And now let"s start the fire. I see the bold fishermen are coming in."
Aunt Clara came up triumphantly swinging her string of fish; she had caught five. The Captain had two and several of the others had one apiece.
"How many did you catch, Anthony?" asked Katherine.
"None," replied Anthony, "but I"d have caught more than any of them if I"d had a good rod," and he swished Uncle Teddy"s best rod around disdainfully.
"I don"t doubt it," said Katherine.
Beside the fried fish there was tomato soup for supper. It was Mrs.
Evans" prize recipe and one of the favorite camp dishes. n.o.body could make tomato soup which quite equalled hers, in the opinion of the family on Ellen"s Isle. It didn"t make any difference where she made it, up in the kitchen tent on the gasoline stove or down on the beach, as now, over an open fire.
"Nothing ever tasted so good," sighed Sahwah rapturously, dipping her spoon diligently into the big tin cup in which her soup was served.
"_I_ like more pepper in mine," said Anthony, adding a touch from the pepper pot, which stood on the ground beside him.
The rest made no comments. They were too busy.
"Slim," said Sahwah suspiciously, when her cup was empty, "just how much soup have you eaten?"
"Four cupfuls," replied Slim.
"Mercy!" cried Aunt Clara. "That"s more than a quart. It"s a wonder you didn"t burst! I never saw a boy with such a capacity!"
"Ho, that"s nothing," said Anthony. "I could eat twice as much, just as easy."
"Let"s see you do it!" said Slim suddenly.
Anthony looked rather taken aback.
"Yes," said Uncle Teddy, "let"s see you do it. Make good your boast.
We"re not in the habit of saying things around here that we can"t back up. Twice four cups is eight. You"ve had one; that leaves seven. We challenge you to drink seven cups of soup. You"ve either got to drink them or do anything else Slim tells you to do. Slim, what"s the alternative?"