It was one of those social blunders that Clara had foreseen and that
had better be dealt with at once. Clara said kindly: "I'm so glad
you're fine. But I didn't really want to know, you know."
"Why not?" Pip-Emma asked.
In the perceptible silence a Peewit was heard to titter, and the
outrageous sound startled Clara out of her poise. She said, "Just
because I don't," quite rudely.
And Pip-Emma, remembering Pop and Ma, retorted that it was dumb to ask
questions if you didn't want to know the answers.
It was a short but sharp encounter--Mr. Binns would have described it
as a feint with the left followed by a nice right to the jaw. Clara
VanSittart had a blinking, winded look, and all the Penguins said,
"How d'you do?" as though they couldn't help themselves.
Only little Janet added very timidly, "I hope you'll have a swell
time."
And Pip-Emma said, "Sure," much too much as though she were sure.
But she stayed right by Janet. If you find yourself among a bunch of
strange kids, you gotta get yourself a Gang. You gotta pick out some
poor mutts that don't know how to hold their end up and sock anyone
who jumps on 'em. Then they're your Gang. Pip-Emma knew on sight that
Janet couldn't hold her end up to save her neck, and that sooner or
later she, Pip-Emma, would have to sock the fat girl in the eye.
Clara VanSittart did not know this. She sat next to Emma Binns in the
Pullman, determined, without heat or anger, to explain Social Usages
and Camp Customs. But Pip-Emma did not seem to want to listen. From
her middy pocket she had produced three small sea shells and a tiny
flexible rubber ball, and she was doing things with them on the back
of her suitcase. It was Mr. Binns' favorite method of getting himself
a free drink, and Pip-Emma was no slouch herself. Also if you're
getting a Gang, you don't run after it. You let it come to you. If
kids saw you up to something they didn't understand, they flocked
round like a bunch of hungry sparrows. Gradually the Penguins' excited
chatter died down. They were watching her. They were beginning to
flock. Pip-Emma knew without looking at them. There was a lot Pip-Emma
knew, though she didn't always know she knew it.
"I don't see what you're doing," Clara said fretfully. "What is it? A
game?"
"Sure. I put the ball under one of the shells--like that--and you bet
where it is."
"All right. I bet. It's there."
"But you haven't betted anything."
Clara blushed hotly. As a well-bred Penguin, she found it impossible
to explain that all the Penguins had sacrificed their first week's
pocket money to the maintenance of Emma and their Social Conscience.
"I can't. I--I haven't anything."
"You gotta bead necklace."
"All right. I bet it."
It was incredible. Her eyes had deceived her. Pip-Emma took the
necklace. Other Penguins, shocked at their leader's failure and
convinced of their own right-sightedness, backed their guesses with
small gold rings and other detachable possessions. Janet Cooper, who
hadn't anything else, bet her Penguin Badge, which was like pledging
the family Bible. But, as it happened, Janet won. She was the only
winner. Pip-Emma nodded approval of her.
"You're not such a dumb cluck," she said.
Some Peewits, perched respectfully on the outskirts, burst into
disrespectful squeaks, and the Penguins refused to meet one another's
eyes. At that moment Prissy bore down on them. She was kind but firm.
"What a clever trick, Emma! But it is a trick, isn't it? It wouldn't
be quite fair to bet about it, would it? Besides, Happy Warriors don't
bet."
Pip-Emma handed back her winnings. She was thoughtful and deliberate.
She made no protest. But the Pullman, usually the scene of such happy
tumult, sank into an oppressive silence.
* * * * *
But on the bus ride from the station to the Camp the Penguins began to
preen their damp feathers. They loved the Camp. They were proud of the
big dining room built like a woodman's cabin and the open sleeping
tents circled with military precision round the campfires. They were
proud of themselves. They got up to the bugle on the coldest mornings
and made their beds and fetched water and built fires. They were
strong and brave, as Happy Warriors should be. When Emma Binns saw how
wonderful it all was and what a fine bunch they were, she'd feel
pretty small. And they'd have to be awfully nice to her and not rub
things in.
So they felt better and began to sing. And the twins, Pauline and
Claudine Bennett, bounced joyfully in their seats.
It was Pip-Emma's longest journey. She was getting tired and homesick.
She'd never been homesick before. It was like toothache in the wrong
place. Right now Pop and Ma would be sitting down to Ma's special
steak and onions. Afterward, it being Saturday, they'd go to an early
show at the movies and finish up with a Pineapple Temptation or maybe
a Banana Royal at Hader's drugstore. They'd be feeling pretty mean,
too. They hadn't really wanted her to go. They'd wanted her to have a
swell time and live like the rich kids did, with butlers waiting on
you behind your chair and maybe breakfast brought you on a tray, like
in the movies. Because one day Pip-Emma, who was smart as a whip, was
going places, so she'd better know how things were done before she got
there.
The Gang would be out now in force. Pip-Emma's heart contracted. Maybe
they were missing her. Maybe, though, if she sent them post cards
showing the swell way she was living, they'd be kinda sunk. She'd tell
'em she had a Gang of her own already and that they were swell kids.
They weren't, of course. She looked them over gloomily. Sissies. Just
to look at their nails was enough. As to her Gang, it consisted for
the moment of one pale small kid who jumped if you spoke to her.
The station bus swung round a curve.
"There!" the Penguins shrieked together. And they all looked at Emma.
"There!" they said.
Pip-Emma looked.
"It's our Camp," Janet explained in her thin high voice. "There's the
lake. And that's our dining hall. And there, among the trees, is the
Penguin Circle, where we sleep."
Emma said nothing. It was as though, at the wave of a wicked wand,
Roxy's and all its ushers had been bewitched into ruins and rags. And
it was more than Emma, at that moment, could bear. Her sharp, sallow
little face puckered. To the Penguins' consternation, she burst into a
storm of tears.
Before supper Clara VanSittart summoned the Penguins to a hasty
powwow. They drew Prissy into it, the situation being beyond them.
"P'raps it was the trees upset her," Janet hazarded. "You know, she's
never seen any."
The twins shook their heads. "It wasn't the trees. When we showed her
our tent, she said her uncle slept in a place like that."
"What's her uncle?" the Penguins demanded indignantly.
"He's a W.P.A. worker," the twins said in unison, "and he's helping
build a post office somewhere. She said there weren't any houses, so
they had to live in tents."
Clara VanSittart drew a shocked breath. The truth was obvious. To Emma
Binns their Camp was just a camp. When she heard that she'd have to
make her bed, light fires, and wash dishes, she'd write home. She'd
tell her people--probably dreadful people--that that was how the
VanSittarts lived.
Clara took a firm lead. She proposed at once that Emma Binns should
not make beds. When the time came, she was to be led away to some
remote spot while the Penguins made hers and did her share of the
chores. Clara explained that bed making was the sort of thing that
poor Emma probably had to do at home. It wasn't a treat. And maybe she
was underfed. She didn't look very strong. It was their duty,
belonging as they did to the Privileged Classes, to make Sacrifices.
It was a simple supper, nourishing but Spartan. When Pip-Emma, seated
at the Penguin table, thought of the Pineapple Temptation Ma might be
eating at that very moment, her gloom deepened. But she wasn't going
to cry again. Not if she had to bite her tongue out. She'd never cried
like that before in her life.
The Penguins suddenly burst into song:
"We are the happy Penguins--
We play without a care;
We don't worry who wins the game,
So long as we play fair!"
At that moment every Penguin was stricken by the same thought. The
memory of their unpaid gambling debts rose in their midst like a
reproachful specter. Their song wavered and sank to silence.
From her point of vantage at the Pelican table Miss Thornton viewed
them anxiously. "The Penguins seem depressed," she said. "Is anything
the matter?"
"I guess it's their Social Conscience," Prissy Adams said grimly,
"getting the better of them."
After taps Clara VanSittart laid a packet on Emma's cot. She had no
business to be talking at all. And it was almost another speech.
"We feel," she concluded, "that Prissy didn't understand."
In tense silence Emma undid the parcel. It contained her legitimate
winnings. She didn't want their darned old beads, but she wrapped the
things up again and slipped them under her pillow. "O.K.," she said.
The Penguins crept into their beds. They had made a noble gesture.
They had cleared their consciences. But for some reason or other they
slept badly.
* * * * *
The Penguins followed each other on the springboard in rapid
succession. They performed every dive they knew and some they didn't,
with an almost desperate fervor. And after each feat they turned
anxious faces to the small figure in the cheap black bathing suit
perched on the landing stage, its face between its fists, like a
Gothic imp peering down malevolently on the world from a cathedral
buttress. But in fact Pip-Emma wasn't even looking at them. She was
worrying about Pop and Ma and the Gang.
Prissy Adams climbed out of the water and stood beside her. "Don't you
want to go in, too, Emma?" she said. "Don't you want to learn to
swim?"
"Nope," Pip-Emma said. "It's cold, and I'm scared."
"Of course you're not," Prissy said. "Happy Warriors are never
scared," she said with a brightness that she hoped wouldn't become a
habit.
"I ain't a Happy Warrior," Emma said. "And I'm scared."
"But supposing someone were drowning, wouldn't you want to be able to
save them?"
"We don't drown down our way," Pip-Emma retorted bleakly. "We ain't
got no water."
It was almost as pathetic as the absence of trees. And, as a
statement, much more accurate. Except on hot summer nights when
good-natured street cleaners turned their hoses on the ecstatically
squealing Gang, there was no water. Pip-Emma, remembering those
glorious occasions, hunched herself dismally, and the defeated Prissy
strode on her way. At the same moment Janet bobbed up from among the
woodpiles.
"Gee, that was swell of you, Emma!"