The Penguins were always breaking out with something. Miss Thornton,
who had run Camp Happy Warriors for years and still believed there was
good in everyone, said it was merely their age. The Penguins were
older than the Peewits, who still trailed attenuated clouds of glory;
and were younger than the Pelicans, who were beginning to talk
mysteriously about Life, Beaux, and Parties--things so far removed
from the Peewits that they weren't even interested, but near enough to
the Penguins to exasperate them into having marvelous ideas of their
own.
So the Penguins were wonderfully set up when they first realized that
they had a Social Conscience. They felt that even Priscilla ("Prissy")
Adams, their counselor, who generally thought their ideas dreadful,
would have to admit that a Social Conscience was a good idea.
Clara VanSittart had brought it to camp with her, just as the previous
summer she had brought the first pair of white mice. Clara was a fat,
earnest child with spectacles, who would one day be chairman of a
Women's Club. Her mother, who was several chairmen already, had
discovered the Poor that winter--rather to their consternation--so
that Clara knew that at the very moment when the Penguins were sitting
round their campfire, surrounded by trees and stars and lakes, and
faintly nauseated with toasted marshmallows, there were poor,
half-starved children literally gasping for air in New York City's
crowded, stifling streets. There was even a place called Hell's
Kitchen, it was so hot and awful. Clara knew all the best words like
"underprivileged," and by the time the last marshmallow had been drawn
from its prong the Penguins were in tears.
"But it's no use just crying," little Janet Cooper said. She was
usually so afraid of everyone, including herself, that they all stared
at her. "We ought to _do_ something," she said. And dived back into
the shadow like an alarmed young tadpole.
No one had ever accused the Penguins of inertia. They proceeded at
once to do something. And the counselors wished afterward that it had
been white mice again.
* * * * *
Thus it came about that one April morning the following year Pip-Emma
Binns sat at her desk by the classroom window and wrote an English
composition called "Trees." Or rather she was not writing. She was
chewing bits out of a wooden pen-holder and balefully regarding the
back of Vittoria Emanuella Perozzi, the class' champion essayist.
Vittoria used words which Miss Perkins called metaphors and similes
and which Pip-Emma called baloney. If a person looked white, why not
just say so? Why bring in sheets? However, Miss Perkins thought a lot
of that sort of thing, and so, no doubt, would the dames who were
giving a prize of two months' vacation in some swell kids' camp for
the best description of trees.
What did a tree look like? In Pip-Emma's opinion it looked like a
tree. But she knew that wouldn't get her anywhere--certainly not to
Camp Happy Warriors, where Pop and Ma were hell-bent on her going. She
pulled her dark brows together. She wiped an inky hand over her black
hair drawn back into a short defiant pigtail. Then inspiration struck
her, too. Very carefully she wrote two sentences. "I can't describe
trees. I haven't seen any." And signed it Emma Binns.
It was like a metaphor. It wasn't true. It was baloney. But to Mrs.
VanSittart and her committee it was just too heart-rending. No trees.
Poor little Emma Binns! As for Vittoria Emanuella Perozzi, she had
evidently seen so many trees so often and so beautifully that, in the
committee's opinion, there was no urgent need for her to see any more
of them.
* * * * *
The Happy Warriors were gathered with their counselors and under their
respective banners in Grand Central Terminal, and Clara VanSittart
inspected the Penguins like a colonel inspecting a regiment before
battle. She gave last orders. After all, the Social Conscience had
been her idea, and it had to go over with a bang so that even the
Pelicans would be impressed.
"Every Penguin," she said, "must remember to be kind. The poor kid
won't be able to do the things we do, and I guess she'll do a lot we
don't. But you're not to look s'perior or call her down so as to hurt
her feelings. We've got to remember we'd be like her if we didn't
belong to the Privileged Classes." It was a prepared speech and had
more than a suggestion of Mrs. VanSittart's firm handling of
committees. "And don't laugh at her mother," Clara concluded. "She's
sure to be pretty awful."
As it happened, Mrs. Binns, who went out as daily help, had no time to
go running round after a lot of queer-sounding birds. She'd given
Pip-Emma's new middy costume a final admonitory twitch. "And mind you
behave like a lady," she'd said, swallowing her tears, "or I'll sock
you."
Mr. Binns, who might have been heavyweight champion of the world if he
hadn't busted his hand early in life on the skull of a certain Black
Bruiser, drove Emma to the station in the cab of his truck. "Keep yer
chin covered, Pip," he said, grinning, "and don't pull your punches."
Pip-Emma, staggering through the unfamiliar immensities of Grand
Central under the weight of her suitcase, felt sickish. She hated
leaving Pop and Ma. She loathed being a Penguin. She'd seen a penguin
once at the zoo, and she'd seen no sense in it. She despised her
costume. It would take weeks to live down the jeers and cheers which
had greeted and pursued it to the end of 45th Street on Eighth. She
hated leaving the Gang. It was her Gang. She ruled it with despotic
efficiency. In fact, when she and Clara VanSittart, introduced by a
worried Prissy Adams, shook hands, two born chairmen unconsciously
locked horns.