"I have told you," replied Katherine quietly.
"Is there really a college out where you live?" asked Nakwisi. "We all thought you were going to college in the East."
"She is," said Hinpoha. "She"s only joking."
Mrs. Evans sat looking at Katherine closely. She had just noticed something. Although Katherine had been the most hilarious one at the table she had not eaten a mouthful. The delicious roast chicken and corn fritters, her favorite dish, lay untouched upon her plate. And the whimsical dancing light had gone out of her eyes.
"My dear," she said, leaning across the table, "what is the matter with you? Has anything happened to change your plans about going to college?"
Katherine looked at her calmly. "It"s all off," she said nonchalantly, raising her water gla.s.s to her dry lips. "Father made a little investment in oil this summer--and now we"re back to where we were the year of the drought. So it"s back to the soil for mine, to the sagebrush and the pump in the dooryard, and maybe teaching in the little one-story schoolhouse in between ch.o.r.es. I knew my dream of college was too sweet to be true."
"Oh, Katherine," cried Hinpoha in dismay, "you _must_ go to college, it would be a terrible pity if you couldn"t."
"Kindly omit flowers," said Katherine brusquely.
"My dear child," said Mr. Evans quickly, "I will gladly advance the sum needed for your education. You may regard it as a loan if you will"--for Katherine"s chin had suddenly squared itself at the beginning of his speech--"but I would consider the pleasure all mine."
"You are very kind," said Katherine huskily, "but I couldn"t do it. You see, my mother"s health has broken down from the years of hard work and this sudden trouble, and dad"s thoroughly discouraged, and they need me on the job to put life into them and keep the farm going."
Gratefully but firmly she refused all their offers of help. She was the calmest one in the group, but the white lines around her mouth and the drooping slant to her shoulders told what a disappointment she had suffered.
"Will you have to go home right away?" asked Gladys in a tragic voice.
"No," said Katherine. "The folks aren"t home yet and won"t be for three weeks. So I can stay here as long as the rest of you do and when you go East I shall go West."
She made her plans calmly and frowned on all demonstrations of sympathy.
Hinpoha found her after supper sitting on the Council Rock watching the sunset, and creeping up behind her slipped her arms around her neck.
"Poor old K!" she whispered caressingly.
Katherine shook herself free from Hinpoha"s embrace. "Don"t act tragic,"
she said crossly. "And don"t cry down the back of my neck. It gives me the fidgets." And rebuffed, Hinpoha crept away.
The same thing happened to the other girls who tried to console her. It was hard to find a way to show their sympathy. She didn"t weep, she didn"t bewail her lot, she didn"t cast a gloom over the company by making a long face. Katherine in trouble seemed suddenly older, stronger, more experienced in life than the others. They felt somehow young and childish before her and stood abashed. Yet their hearts ached for her because they knew that beneath her outward scorn of weakness she was suffering anguish of spirit.
Katherine was still sitting all alone on the rock some time later when a very wide shadow fell across it, and Slim came puffing along and dropped down beside her, his moon face red with exertion and suppressed emotion.
"It"s a measly shame!" he said explosively and with so much vehemence that Katherine almost smiled.
"Say," he said in a confidential tone after a moment of silence, "I have seven hundred dollars that my grandmother left me to pay my tuition at college. I"ll tell you what I"ll do. I"ll lend it to you and I"ll work my way through. Won"t you take it from me, even if you won"t from the others?" His face was so earnest and his offer so sincere that Katherine was touched.
"Bless you, Slim!" she said heartily. "You"re a nice boy. And I"m very sorry I can"t accept your offer."
"Can"t you?" said Slim pleadingly.
"No," said Katherine firmly. "I must go home."
"Well," Slim burst out, "you"re a real sport, that"s what you are!"
Katherine smiled at his compliment, but tingled within with a warm feeling.
"And you"re a "real sport" for offering to give me your money and work your way. Let"s shake on it."
Slim gripped her lean, brown hand in his big paw and gave it such a squeeze that she cried out. "Let go my hand, Slim, you"re hurting me."
Slim dropped her hand abruptly.
"Why did you offer to lend me your money?" she asked curiously. "I never did anything for you."
"Because I like you," said Slim emphatically, "better than any girl I ever knew." And blushing like a peony, he departed hastily from the scene.
Katherine smiled whimsically as she looked after him. "My first "romance,"" she thought. "With a baby elephant! Slim is a dear boy and I hate myself now because I used to make such fun of him." And where the pa.s.sionate laments of the girls had failed to move her, the thought of Slim"s offered sacrifice brought the tears to her eyes. ""Oh, was there ever such a knight in friendship or in war?"" she quoted softly to herself.
Katherine put her trouble resolutely in the background and refused to discuss it, and activities went on just as before on Ellen"s Isle.
"Captain, will you go for the mail this afternoon?" asked Uncle Teddy one day not long after the event of the new camera. "Mr. Evans and I want to spend the day over on the mainland trying to get some bird pictures. One of you boys can run us over to the Point of Pines in the launch and get us again when you come home with the mail. We don"t want to be bothered looking after a boat."
"All right, sir," said the Captain.
Aunt Clara and the girls departed to put up a lunch basket for the men while Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans gathered up the various impedimenta they wanted to take along. The boys took them over to the Point of Pines and then started off on a long ride in the launch, taking all the girls with them except Antha, who had a headache. Not long after they had gone Aunt Clara came out of Uncle Teddy"s tent, which she had seized the opportunity to straighten up, and declared that her husband would forget his head if it weren"t fastened on. She was carrying in her hand the new camera.
"If that isn"t just like him!" she scolded. "He wouldn"t let me carry it down to the boat for him and then he goes off and forgets it himself. He must have thought he had it when he carried down that case of film plates. Won"t he be in a fine stew when he finds out he"s left it behind and has no boat to come back in? And I"ve got all the stuff ready to start making that new Indian pudding, and if I take the time to row over to the Point of Pines I won"t get it done for dinner and the boys and girls will be so disappointed! And poor Mrs. Evans has just fallen asleep after being up all night with a jumping tooth; I can"t ask her to go." Then her eye fell on Antha, swinging in the hammock. "I don"t suppose I could send Antha over with it," she said to herself, remembering how Antha always clung to the others, and had never been out in a boat by herself. "I might as well make up my mind to give up the Indian pudding and go over myself." But the materials were all out and some half prepared and it seemed such a shame not to be able to finish it. "Gracious!" she thought to herself, looking in Antha"s direction again, "that girl ought to be able to take that camera over there. The lake is as smooth as gla.s.s. I just won"t take the time."
"Antha," she said, approaching her with the camera, and speaking in the same matter-of-fact tone she used toward the older girls, "will you row across the lake and give this to Uncle Teddy?"
Antha shrank back and looked uncertain, but Aunt Clara went on quickly, "He"ll be wild when he finds he"s forgotten it. Be careful that you don"t get it wet going over." And she handed her the expensive instrument with an air of perfect confidence in her ability to take care of it.
"May I stay over there with Uncle Teddy and watch them take pictures?"
asked Antha, for whom the time was beginning to lag now that the others were not on the island.
"Yes, certainly," said Aunt Clara. "I gave them plenty of lunch for three."
She started Antha out in the rowboat and then went back to her task of concocting a new and delightful Indian pudding. When the boys and girls came home to dinner she was glad she had stayed and made it, for their delight and appreciation amply repaid her for the trouble.
At four o"clock the Captain went for the mail and came home with Uncle Teddy and Mr. Evans. Uncle Teddy wore an expression of deepest disgust.
"Of all the boneheaded things I ever did," he exclaimed as he stepped out on the dock, "today"s job was the worst. Here I went off and left the camera behind, and not having any boat couldn"t come back, so we just had to sit there all day and wait to be called for."
"But," gasped Aunt Clara, "I sent Antha after you with it just as soon as I found you had forgotten it. Didn"t she bring it to you?"
"No," said Uncle Teddy. "We never saw a sign of her."
"Something must have happened to her!" cried Aunt Clara, starting up in dismay. "She went over before dinner. The lake was so smooth I thought it was perfectly safe. What could have happened?"
"Get into the launch, quick," said Uncle Teddy "and we"ll go and look."
Aunt Clara and Katherine and several more jumped in and they went off in feverish haste. Aunt Clara was almost prostrated at the thought that harm might have come to Antha from that errand. Around one of the numerous points which ran out into the water before you came to the Point of Pines they saw her, standing on a rock just underneath the surface, the water washing around her ankles. She was several hundred feet from the sh.o.r.e and the rowboat was nowhere to be seen. Her whole figure was tense from trying to cling to the slippery rock, and in her arms she was tightly clutching the camera. She fairly tumbled into the launch as it ran alongside her.
"What happened?" they all asked.
"The bottom came out of the boat," said Antha, "and it filled up with water and I got out on that rock and the boat sank."
"Which boat did you take?" asked Uncle Teddy.