VERONICA
At four o'clock one afternoon some few days later Hinpoha and Sahwah,
breathless from hurrying, ran up the steps of the house where Nyoda lived
and rang the bell. The other Winnebagos were already assembled when they
entered, and Nyoda was not there.
"Where's Nyoda?" demanded Sahwah.
"Sh, she's gone over to get--_her_," answered Gladys, smoothing out the
folds of her pretty new pleated dress with one hand and tucking in a
stray lock with the other.
"What did you say 'sh' for?" demanded Sahwah curiously. "There's no one
sleeping, is there?"
"I don't know why I said it," answered Gladys, rumpling up the hair she
had just tidied, "I'm so excited about meeting Veronica that I don't know
what I'm doing. I just can't sit still." And she jumped up from her chair
and began to pace nervously up and down the room.
"Doesn't it remind you of the time we stood on the dock at Loon Lake and
waited for Gladys to make her first appearance?" said Hinpoha to Sahwah.
"Don't you remember how we wondered what she would be like and you and
Migwah nearly fought over whose affinity she was going to be?"
"Did you really, girls?" said Gladys, pausing in her walk. "And was I as
nice as you hoped I'd be?"
Footsteps on the porch saved Hinpoha from having to reply and Gladys
hurried to her chair and seated herself properly. A moment later Nyoda
entered the room with a young girl beside her whom she led into the
center of the group.
"Girls," she said, with one hand on the stranger's shoulder, "this is our
new member, Veronica Lehar."
All eyes centered on the newcomer. She was a small, slender girl with
short curly black hair, olive complexion, bright red lips and a straight,
finely modeled nose. She wore a dark red velvet dress which suited her
complexion wonderfully, and fell in soft folds about her lithe form. She
was as straight as an arrow and as graceful as a deer. From the crown of
her finely poised head to her little fur-topped boots she was an
aristocrat. The simple Winnebagos were abashed before her. Never had they
met such a high-born little lady. There was an air about her which they
could never acquire if they lived a hundred years. They felt like
peasants in the presence of a queen. But they forgot her aristocratic air
when they looked into her eyes. Large and dark and velvety as a pansy,
but so sad it almost broke your heart to look into them. All the sympathy
which the girls had worked up for her since hearing her story came back
in a rush and they surrounded her with cordial greetings and expressions
of welcome. Veronica held her violin, which she had brought over with
her, under one arm while she shook hands politely with all the girls. She
answered all their pretty speeches in a friendly manner, but she never
once smiled, and her eyes had a look as if her thoughts were not there in
the room at all, but back in the far country across the ocean. Although
she had an accent she spoke a beautiful English, in fact, she used far
better language than the majority of American schoolgirls, and more than
once the girls felt embarrassed when they had forgotten themselves so far
as to utter a slang phrase.
Conversation soon languished, for Veronica did not seem inclined to talk,
so Nyoda started the girls singing camp songs to amuse her, and led the
talk around to the Winnebagos' doings which she was now to take part in.
Of course the new lodge was the main topic of conversation with the
Winnebagos and they waxed so enthusiastic over its splendors that
Veronica exclaimed with some show of warmth, "Oh, I must see it soon!"
Then she added, "Tell me what I must do to become a Camp Fire Girl like
yourselves."
"You must have a symbolic name," answered Gladys eagerly, anxious to be
the one to explain things to Veronica, "and a Ceremonial dress, and learn
the songs, and know the Camp Fire Girls' Desire, and the Winnebago
passwords and oh, lots of delightful things."
"What are they, the Winnebago passwords, and what are they for?" asked
Veronica.
"Well," answered Gladys, "you know what a password is, don't you? Well,
we have passwords to admit us into the Lodge on Ceremonial night. But
before I tell you about the passwords I must tell you about the signal
calls, for they come first in order. You see, the general signal of the
Winnebagos is the call of the whippoorwill, like this"--and she
illustrated her words with a clear call. "You repeat that three times and
at the end of it you must give your own individual bird call. We all have
different ones. Mine is the robin, like this. Nyoda's is the bluebird;
Hinpoha's the loon; Medmangi's is the owl; Nakwisi's the meadowlark and
Sahwah's the catbird."
"Whatever made you take such a hideous screech for your call, Sahwah?"
interrupted Hinpoha. "There are lots of nicer bird calls than that of the
catbird."
"I don't care, I wanted the catbird," returned Sahwah. "It suits my
individuality, as my dear friend, Miss Snively, would say. I am the 'cat
that walks by himself and all places are alike to me!'"
"Be a catbird as much as you like," said Gladys pacifically, "as long as
you don't eat us poor bird-birds. But to go back to the passwords. You
see, Nyoda is Guardian of the Fire, and she always goes up to the Lodge
room first on Ceremonial night. If any of us get there ahead of her we
have to stay out until she comes. Then we announce our coming by giving
the call of the whippoorwill and she knows one of the Winnebagos is
below; and she knows which one it is by the individual bird call. So she
calls out 'Who goes there?' and we answer 'A friend.' When she says,
'Stand and give the countersign,' we have to say, 'Other Council Fires
were here before.'"
"What does that mean, 'Other Council Fires were here before?'" asked
Veronica.
The girls looked at one another. "What does it mean?" asked Gladys.
"I don't know," said Sahwah.
"I don't know," said Hinpoha.
"You insisted on our having it, Sahwah," said Gladys. "Why did you choose
it if you didn't know what it meant?"
"Oh," explained Sahwah lightly, "I saw it written over the door of one of
the historical buildings at the Exposition, and it sounded as if it might
mean something grand, so I chose it. You girls were all delighted with
it, so that's proof it's a good catch-word."
"It is a good countersign," said Nyoda, "although I confess I can't tell
wherein the charm lies."
"Well, to proceed," said Gladys, "after you have given the countersign
you will be asked to give the Inner Pass Word, and then you must say
'Kolah Olowan.' That means 'Song Friend.' You know we pride ourselves on
being a singing group, that is, we have a great many songs that we sing
together, and I think our dearest friends are those we sing with. So we
Winnebagos call each other 'Song Friends,' or friends bound together by
the power of our familiar songs. That's why we chose bird notes for our
personal symbols. The birds are the original Song Friends. What bird are
you going to choose for your own, Veronica?"
Veronica's sad eyes stared thoughtfully into the fire for a moment. Then
they filled with a smouldering light. "I shall be the gull that flies
over the sea," she said in a low voice, "because some day I am going to
fly over the sea to my dear home."
"We were all nearly ready to cry when she said that," wrote Gladys to
Migwan, "only Nyoda popped up then and asked Hinpoha and Sahwah to sing
'The Owl and the Pussycat,' and they climbed on the sofa for the
beautiful pea-green boat--you know what a beautiful pea-green it is--and
for a small guitar Nyoda gave Sahwah a little pasteboard fiddle that
produced three notes when you turned a crank, and the whole thing was so
ridiculous that we laughed until our sides ached."
After the Owl and the Pussycat had sung themselves over the back of the
sofa and down on the floor with a thump Nyoda made tea in her new
electric teapot and passed platefuls of thin sandwiches, and Sahwah upset
her cup into her lap demonstrating how perfectly she could balance it on
her knee and had to stand before the fire to dry her skirt.
"You brought your violin along; won't you play for us?" asked Nyoda of
Veronica when the excitement over Sahwah's mishap had subsided.
In graceful compliance with Nyoda's request, and without waiting to be
urged, Veronica took her violin from its case, settled it under her chin
with a movement that was a caress, and drew the bow across the strings.
With the first note teacups and sandwiches were forgotten and the girls
sat in a spellbound circle, while Sahwah stopped mopping her skirt with
her handkerchief and the wet spot dried and scorched unheeded. Such a
witching melody as rose from the strings--now light as a fairy dancing on
a bubble, now hurrying like the brook over its pebbles, now sighing like
the wind in a rose tree, now slow and stately like the curtseying of a
grande dame in the movements of a court dance. When it came to an end the
girls sat breathless, too dazed to applaud.
"Play some more!" begged Gladys in a whisper. It seemed like a
desecration to talk.
Veronica played on, now fast, now slow, now sad and now gay, and finally
whirled into a wild gypsy dance that set the blood tingling in her
hearers' veins as the swift measures followed on each other's heels,
until they could see in their mind's eye the leaping figures of the
dancers in their bright costumes. Faster, faster, flashed the bow on the
magic strings and Veronica's whole soul was in her eyes as she played the
familiar strains of her homeland. Her lips parted in a flashing smile and
one foot tapped the carpet in time to the music.
Suddenly a string snapped with a discordant crash. Veronica came to
herself with a start. The light left her eyes and she stood staring into
the fire with a sad, bitter expression.