"And you mean to say," demanded Katherine, "that those boys never intended to burn up Eeny-Meeny?"
"Perish the thought," said Sahwah, enjoying herself in the extreme.
"They"re as innocent as day old lambs."
"Then so is Anthony," said Hinpoha.
"That"s right," said the Captain. Then, turning to Anthony, he made a frank apology for accusing him of hiding Eeny-Meeny.
And all the Winnebagos were filled with remorse when they thought how they had blamed Antha for that same disappearance.
Katherine lay back overcome and fanned herself with a bunch of leaves.
"Well, I"ll--be--jiggered!" she exclaimed feelingly. "All that trouble to bring me out of a fit of the blues!"
"Boys," she went on in her best oratorical manner, "you certainly did give us a surprise party tonight, much more of a one than you planned.
We came prepared to rescue Eeny-Meeny from a fiery death--witness the water buckets concealed behind every bush on the hillside--and we find some perfectly gorgeous council seats that you have been toiling to make in secret while we suspected you of plotting base deeds. Instead of seeking to destroy Eeny-Meeny you plan to honor her. Girls, let"s make fruit punch and drink to the health of the Sandwiches, and a long life to the council seats, and to Eeny-Meeny on her pedestal."
"And don"t forget the Dark of the Moon Society," added Sahwah, and once more the woods resounded with laughter.
CHAPTER X
TWO MARINERS AND SOME MIST
"There"s one thing about those girls that always takes my breath away,"
said Mr. Evans, "and that is their ability to get up a show on a moment"s notice. The most common circ.u.mstance seems to be charged with dramatic possibilities for them. And nothing seems too ambitious for them to attempt." Having delivered this speech, Mr. Evans leaned back against the cliff and watched with amused eyes the performance of the "latest."
Mrs. Evans and Uncle Teddy and Aunt Clara, who were sitting with him, agreed that "our girls," aided and abetted by "our boys," were equal to anything.
The dramatic representation then in progress was another inspiration of Katherine"s, which had come to her when Sandhelo, getting lonesome in his high pasture ground, had followed the others to the beach, walking down a steep side of the cliff by a path so narrow and perilous that it was never used by the campers. But Sandhelo, being a trick mule, accomplished the feat without difficulty. The bathers watched his descent in fascinated silence. They feared to shout at him and so make him miss his step.
"Doesn"t it remind you of that piece in the Fourth Reader about the mule?" said Hinpoha. "The one that goes:
"And near him a mule bell came tinkling Midway on the Paso del Mar."
I forgot how it begins."
"Oh, you mean "The Fight of the Paso del Mar,"" said Migwan. "The one where the two fight and tumble over into the sea. I wore the page that poem was on completely out of the book reading it so often, and wished and wished I had been there to see it happen."
"So did I," said Hinpoha.
"Let"s do it," said Katherine suddenly. "We have all the props. Here"s the mule, and the rocky sh.o.r.e--that low wedge around the base of the cliff will do beautifully for the Paso del Mar. And "gusty and raw is the morning," just the way the poem says, and if there isn"t enough fog to "tear its skirts on the mountain trees," we can pretend this light mist is a real fog. Everything is here, even the bell on the mule. I"ll be Pablo of San Diego and, Hinpoha, you be Bernal."
"Migwan would make a better Bernal," said Hinpoha modestly. "No," said Katherine decidedly, "you"ll make a better splash when you fall into the lake, and anyway, Migwan always wanted to see it done, not do it. Hurry up and get your blanket, and get it wrapped gloomily around you.
Sandhelo and I will start out from the hills behind."
Hinpoha fetched a blanket and strode across the beach, her fair forehead puckered into what she fondly believed to be a ferocious scowl, while the bathers ranged themselves into an audience. Katherine, between clucks and commands, designed to keep Sandhelo"s feet in the straight and narrow path, i.e., the low-jutting ledge of the cliff just above the water line, raised her cracked voice in a three-part harmony and "sang through the fog and wind." Sandhelo moved forward willingly enough.
Since Katherine had taken him seriously in hand that summer he had learned to carry a rider without the accompaniment of music. If he hadn"t, Katherine would never have been able to make him stir, for he certainly would not have cla.s.sed her husky, bleating tones as music.
Bernal advanced cautiously onto the Paso del Mar, taking care not to slip on the wet stones, and encountered the blithe Pablo midway on the pa.s.s, holding tight to his mule"s bridle strap with one hand and covering up a rent in the waist of his bathing suit with the other.
"Back!" shouted Bernal full fiercely.
And "Back!" shouted Pablo in wrath, and then things happened. Sandhelo, with the sensitiveness of his artistic temperament, thought that all remarks made in his presence were intended to be personal. So when Hinpoha looked him in the eye and shouted "Back!" and Katherine jerked his bridle and screamed "Back!" he cannot be blamed if he did what any gentleman would have done when commanded by a lady. He backed.
"Whoa!" shouted Katherine, taken unawares and nearly falling off his small saddle area. But Sandhelo considered that his first orders had been pretty definite and he continued to back along the narrow ledge.
"Stop!" screamed Katherine, while the audience roared with laughter, ""We turn not on Paso del Mar!""
The word "turn" seemed to give Sandhelo a brilliant new idea, and, without warning, he rose on his hind legs, whirled around in a dizzy semi-circle, and started back in the direction whence he had come.
Katherine, unable to check his inglorious flight, hung on grimly. He left the narrow ledge and started climbing the hill, leaving the black-hearted Bernal in full possession of the Paso del Mar. At the top of the hill Katherine slid off Sandhelo"s back, the soft gra.s.s breaking her fall, and lay there laughing so she could not get up, while Sandhelo raced on to his favorite grazing ground.
"To think it had to turn out that way, when I was dying to see the part where you fall into the lake," lamented Migwan, when the cast had collected itself on the beach. "It wasn"t at all the real thing."
"Some of it was," said Sahwah. "The beginning was all right."
"And the mule did go home "riderless" eventually," said Katherine, rubbing her b.u.mped elbow. "Didn"t he make speed going around that narrow, slippery ledge, though?" she went on. "I expected him to go overboard every minute. But he tore along as easily as if he were running on a velvetine road."
"On a what?" asked Slim.
"She means a corduroy road, I guess," said Gladys, and they all shouted with laughter.
"Ho-ho-ho!" chuckled Slim, "that"s pretty good. Velvetine road! Would there be any binnacles on it, do you suppose?" he added teasingly.
"That"s right, everybody insult a poor old woman what ain"t never had a chance to get an eddication!" sobbed Katherine, shedding mock tears into her handkerchief. "What"s the difference? Doesn"t velvetine sound just as good as corduroy? And, anyhow, it"s better style this year than corduroy."
"Hear the poor, ignorant, old lady talk about style," jeered Sahwah. "I didn"t think you ever came out of your abstraction long enough to know what was in style."
"Even in her absentmindedness she seems to have a preference for fine things, though," said Gladys, beginning to giggle reminiscently. "Do you remember the time she walked out of Osterland"s with a thirty-dollar hat on her head?"
Katherine rose as if to forcibly silence her, but Sahwah held her back and Gladys proceeded for the edification of the boys. "You see," said Gladys, "she was in there trying on hats all by herself because the saleswomen were busy with other people. She had put on a mink hat and was roaming around looking for a handgla.s.s to see how it looked from the back, when she suddenly got an idea for a story she was to write for that month"s club meeting. She forgot all about having the hat on her head and started for home as fast as she could. Out on the sidewalk she met Nyoda, who admired the hat. Then she came to."
"Mercy!" said Aunt Clara to Katherine, "weren"t you frightened when you discovered it?"
"Not she," said Gladys. "She walked right back inside, big as life, hunted around until she found her own hat, and handed the mink one to the saleswoman, who had just sent a store detective out after her. The detective escorted her to the door that time, but it didn"t worry her in the least. She went right back into the store the next day and tried the same hat on again and couldn"t imagine why the saleswoman left another customer and was so attentive to her. The simplicity of some people is perfectly touching."
"I won"t stay and be made fun of," said Katherine, and marched up the hill with an injured air, calling back over her shoulder, "all people who ordered fudge today might as well cancel their orders, because I"m not going to make any, so there!"
"Oh, I say, don"t get mad," said Slim in alarm, whereat everybody laughed. He was the one for whom Katherine"s words were intended, n.o.body else having "ordered" any fudge.
"Honest, I forgot I promised not to tell about the binnacles," said Slim pleadingly.
But Katherine was adamant and would not forgive him. Slim grunted ruefully and exclaimed: "Shucks! I always manage to get in bad with her.
Always in bad," he repeated dolefully.
"We"ll have to re-christen you "In-Bad the Sailor!"" said Sahwah.