"The small one," replied Antha.
"Good Lord," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Uncle Teddy. "That was the one with the loose board in the bottom! Why didn"t I take it away from the others? What a narrow sc.r.a.pe you had! It was a mighty good thing for you that that rock was right there."
"And she stood there all day!"
"Why didn"t you swim to sh.o.r.e?" asked Uncle Teddy. "You can keep up pretty well, and you would have struck shallow water pretty soon."
"Because I had the camera," said Antha, beginning to sob from exhaustion, "and I had--to--keep--it--dry!"
"You blessed lamb!" said Aunt Clara, and then choked and was unable to say any more.
"There!" exclaimed Katherine exultantly, when they were back home and Antha had been put to bed and fussed over. "Didn"t I tell you she"d develop a backbone if the right occasion presented itself? The only thing she needed to bring it out was responsibility. Responsibility!
That"s the last thing anybody would have thought of putting on her.
She"s been babied and petted all her life and told what a poor, feeble creature she was until she believed it. People expected her to be a cry-baby and so she was one. We made the same mistake here. We"ve never asked her to do an equal share of the work, or made her responsible for a single thing. We were always afraid she couldn"t do it. Now you see Aunt Clara made her responsible for that camera and took it for granted that she"d keep it dry and, of course, she did. I guess everybody would be a hero if somebody only expected them to."
CHAPTER XIII
OUT OF THE STORM
"Is there enough blue to make a Dutchman a pair of breeches?" asked Gladys, anxiously scanning the heavens. "If there is, it will clear up before noon."
"Well, there"s enough to patch a pair, anyway," said Katherine, pointing to a minute sc.r.a.p of blue showing through a jagged rent in a gray cloud.
"A patched pair is just as good as a new one," said Gladys with easy philosophy. "It"s all right for us to go for a hike today, isn"t it, Uncle Teddy?"
"Most any day is good for a hike, if you really want to go," answered Uncle Teddy cheerfully. "Don"t I hear you girls singing:
""We always think the weather"s fine in sunshine or in snow?""
"Oh, goody! I"m glad you think so," said Gladys.
"Mother always wants us to stay at home if it looks the least bit like rain and when we do it usually clears up after it"s too late to start.
We"ve all set our hearts on cutting those balsam branches today."
Uncle Teddy sniffed the air again and remarked that there was little rain in it, so with light hearts the expedition started out. Uncle Teddy took them across to the mainland. On this occasion there was an extra pa.s.senger in the launch. This was Sandhelo, with his feet carefully tied to prevent his exercising them unduly. He was to accompany the expedition and carry the balsam branches back to the sh.o.r.e. The lake was quite rough and more than once the water splashed inside the boat.
"Poor Sandhelo," said Hinpoha sympathetically. "Do you suppose he"ll get seasick? He looks so pale."
"How does a donkey look when he"s pale?" jeered Sahwah. "If you mean that white stuff on his nose, he stuck it into a pan of flour this morning. Anyway, I never heard of a donkey getting seasick."
"That doesn"t prove that they can"t," retorted Hinpoha.
But Sandhelo seemed none the worse for his journey when they set him ash.o.r.e and trotted briskly along with the expedition. The balsam firs were deep in the woods and it took some time to find them. The wind seemed much stronger over here than it had been on Ellen"s Isle--or else it had stiffened after they left. It roared through the treetops in a perfectly fascinating way and every little while they would stop and listen to it, laughing as the leafy skirt of some staid old birch matron went flying over her head.
"It seems like a million hungry lions roaring," said Hinpoha.
"Or the bad spirits of the air practising their football yells," said Sahwah.
"There goes my hat! Catch it, somebody!" cried Katherine.
The hat did some amazing loop-the-looping and settled on a high branch, whence it was retrieved by the Monkey with some little difficulty.
Gathering the balsam boughs was not such an idyllic process as they had expected. In the first place, they were blowing around at such a rate that it was hard to catch hold of them, and then when one was grasped firmly the others lashed out so furiously that they were driven back again and again. Furthermore, those which they did succeed in getting off were picked up by the gale and hurled broad-cast.
"It"s too windy to do anything today," said Hinpoha crossly, retiring to the shelter of a wide trunk and holding her hands to her smarting face.
Several stinging blows from a branch set with needles had dampened her enthusiasm for balsam pillows.
Some of the others stuck it out until they had as much as they wanted, and after an hour or more of strenuous labor Sandhelo was finally laden with his fragrant burden and the expedition started back.
Then they began to have their first real experience with wind. Going into the woods it had been been at their backs and they thought it great fun to be shoved along and to lean back against it like a supporting hand, but going against it was an entirely different matter. It was all they could do to stand on their feet and at times they simply could not move an inch forward. The roaring in the treetops seemed full of menace, and branches began to fall around them. Not far away a whole tree went down with a sounding crash.
"We"re all going to be killed!" cried Gladys hysterically, as they huddled together at the sound of the falling tree. A wild blast that rang like the scream of an enraged beast came like an answer to her words, and a sapling maple snapped off like a toothpick. Sandhelo snorted with fear and began to kick out.
"We must get out of these woods as fast as we can," said the Captain, to whom the others had all turned for advice.
"You don"t see any of us lingering to admire the scenery, do you?" asked Katherine drily.
Terrified almost out of their senses and expecting every minute to have a tree fall on them, they made their way toward the sh.o.r.e and came out spent and exhausted and too breathless to talk. But glad as they were to get out of the woods in safety, they were filled with dismay when they looked at the lake. To their excited eyes the waves, black as the sky above them, seemed mountain high.
"They"ll never come for us in the launch in _that_," said Katherine after a few moments" silent gazing, voicing the fears of the others.
"We should never have started out on a day like this," said Hinpoha.
"Why did you insist so on our coming, Gladys?"
"Well," Gladys defended herself, "Katherine said there was enough blue to patch the Dutchman"s breeches and----"
"But it was you who said that was enough to start out on," retorted Katherine. "And you wanted the balsam boughs the worst, so it"s your fault."
"Don"t let"s quarrel about who"s fault it was," said the Captain. "None of us were obliged to come; we came because we wanted to. It"s everybody"s fault, and what is everybody"s is n.o.body"s. We"re here now and we"ll have to make the best of it."
"Maybe it will calm down before very long," said Gladys hopefully.
"Not much chance," said the Captain, "with the wind rising every minute."
There seemed nothing else to do but wait, so they crouched behind rocks to find shelter from the gale and tried to be patient. Every little while a dash of spray would find someone out and then there would be a shriek and a scramble for another rock higher up on the sh.o.r.e. Thus the afternoon wore away. It had been practically twilight since noon.
"What are you doing, Captain, admiring the view?" asked Slim, when the Captain had been looking out over the tossing lake for fully five minutes.
"Quite some view," said the Captain, who was deeply impressed by the ferocity of wind and wave, "but I was doing something besides admiring it. I was thinking that it won"t do us much good to sit here any longer.
The lake is getting rougher all the time and there is no hope of Uncle Teddy"s being able to come for us tonight. I think the best thing to do would be to try to walk to St. Pierre, where we can find shelter."
"Would we be able to make it?" asked Hinpoha doubtfully, measuring the distance that lay between them and the little cl.u.s.ter of toy houses that shone ghostly white against the black sky. "It must be miles."
"Not quite three," replied the Captain. "We can make it. The wind will be coming from the side, so we won"t be walking squarely against it."