AN ADVENTURE IN PHILANTHROPY
Katherine became officially a member of the Winnebago Camp Fire Group at
the first Ceremonial after the circus, with the Fire Name of Iagoonah,
the Story Maker. The name itself was an accident and the manner of its
bestowing is cherished in the chronicles of the Winnebagos as one of the
group's best jokes. Just about the time Katherine was to be installed as
a Winnebago, word was received that the Chief Guardian of the city was
going to be present at the meeting and would take charge of the
Ceremonial. Katherine had chosen the name, "Prairie Dandelion," because
she came from the plains, and because her hair was so fly-away. During
the supper which preceded the Ceremonial meeting Katherine made such
funny speeches and told such outrageous yarns about her life in the West
that Nyoda said jestingly: "Your name ought to be Iagoo, the Marvellous
Story Teller." And the others began calling her Iagoo in fun. The Chief
Guardian heard them calling her Iagoo and supposed that was the Camp Fire
name she wished to take. So, when she was receiving Katherine into the
ranks, she said: "Your name is Iagoo, isn't it?"
Katherine, sobered and almost voiceless from the solemnity of the
occasion, mumbled half-inarticulately, "Iagoo? Nah!"
And before anyone knew what had happened she had been officially
installed as _Iagoonah_! The joke was so good that the name stuck, and
Katherine was known to the Winnebago Circle as Iagoonah to the end of the
chapter, although they did consent to change the interpretation to Story
Maker instead of Story Teller as being more dignified and not so
suggestive.
Katherine was one of the most enthusiastic Camp Fire Girls that ever
lived, and her inspirations led the girls into more activities and
adventures than they had ever dreamed of before. It was Katherine who
started the Philanthropic Idea. They had been talking about the different
things Camp Fire Girls could do together for the good of the community.
"Girls," said Katherine, standing in her favorite attitude beside the
fireplace, with her toes turned in and her elbow on the shelf, "I don't
believe we're doing all we ought. We're having a royal good time among
ourselves and learning no end of things to our own advantage, but what
are we doing for others? Nothing, that I can see."
"We gave a Thanksgiving basket to Katie, the laundress," said Hinpoha,
"and we collected a barrel of clothes for the Shimky's when their house
burned down, and we gave a benefit performance to pay little Jane
Goldman's expenses in the hospital, and we send toys and scrapbooks to
the Sunshine Nursery every Christmas."
"And I earned three dollars and gave it to the Red Cross," said Sahwah.
"Don't you call that doing something for other people? We haven't meant
to be selfish, I'm sure. By the way, Katherine, your elbow's in the
fudge."
Katherine shoved the dish away absently and returned to her subject.
"Yes," she admitted, "the Winnebagos have done a great deal that way, but
it's all been _giving_ something. We haven't _done_ anything. It's easy
enough to pack a basket and hand it to someone, and collect a lot of old
clothes from people who are anxious to get rid of them anyway, or pay the
bill for somebody else to do something. But I think we ought to do
something ourselves--give up our own time and put our own touch into it."
"What do you mean we should do?" asked Gladys, hunting through the dish
for a piece of fudge that had not been demolished by Katherine's elbow.
"Well, there's the Foreign Settlement," said Katherine. "I'm sure we
could find something to do there. It's a grand and noble thing to show
the foreigners how to live better." And she launched into such an
eloquent plea in behalf of the poor overburdened washerwomen who had to
neglect their babies while they went to work that the girls wiped their
eyes and declared it was a cruel world and things weren't fairly divided,
and surely they must do what they could to lighten the burdens of their
sisters in the Settlement.
"What will we do, and when will we do it?" asked Hinpoha, all on fire to
get the noble work started.
"Tomorrow's Saturday," answered Katherine. "We ought to go out into the
Settlement and see what's to be done. We'll make a survey, sort of, and
then we'll step in and see where we're needed most."
Nyoda, appealed to for advice, told them to go ahead. She liked the idea
of their trying to find out for themselves what needed a helping hand.
She could not go with them to the Settlement on Saturday morning, but it
was all right for them to go by themselves in daylight.
So, full of a generous desire to help somebody else, the Winnebagos
followed Katherine's lead toward the Settlement the next day. The
Settlement, as it was called, embraced some three or four square miles of
land adjacent to several large factories. In it dwelt some few thousand
Slovaks, Poles and Bohemians, packed like sardines in narrow quarters.
The Settlement had its own churches, stores, schools, theaters, dance
halls and amusement gardens, and looked more like an old world city than
a section of a great American Metropolis, with its queer houses and signs
in every language but English. The girls wandered up and down the narrow
dirty streets, filled with chickens and children, and tried to decide
what they should do first. They met the village baker, carrying a
washbasket full of enormous round loaves of rye bread without a sign of a
wrapping. He was going from house to house, delivering the loaves, and if
no one came to the door he laid the loaf on the doorstep and went on.
Before one house, which had a small front yard, between twenty and
twenty-five men were lounging on the steps, on the two benches and
against the fence. "What do you suppose all those men are doing in front
of that house?" whispered Hinpoha curiously.
Just then a woman came from the house carrying in her hand a huge iron
frying-pan full of pancakes. She passed it around and each man took a
pancake in his hand and ate it where he stood.
"They're having their dinner!" exclaimed Gladys. "It's just a little past
noon. That's one way of disposing of the dishwashing problem. I'll store
up that idea for use the next time it's my turn to cook supper at a
meeting. What a large family that woman has, though. I wonder if they are
all her husbands?"
"Gracious no," said Katherine. "These people aren't poly--poly--you know
what I mean, even if they are foreigners. Those men are boarders. Every
family has some. Let's go into that big house over there and ask if there
are any babies the mothers would like to leave with us while they go
washing."
They picked their way across the muddy road toward a large building which
opened right on to the sidewalk. The hall door stood open and they went
in. There were more than a dozen doors leading from the hall on the first
floor. "Gracious, what a number of people live here!" said Gladys,
putting her arm through Katherine's.
While they stood there, trying to make up their minds at which door to
knock, one was opened and a barefooted woman came out, carrying a pan of
dishwater, which she threw out on the sidewalk. At the same time another
door opened and out came another woman, who stopped short when she saw
the first one, and began to talk in a harsh foreign tongue. The second
woman replied angrily and the girls could see that they were quarreling.
Before long they were shaking fists in front of each other's noses and
shouting at the tops of their voices. Doors everywhere flew open and the
hall was soon filled with excited women who took sides with one or the
other and shook fists at each other while the girls huddled under the
stairway, expecting to be set upon and beaten. The quarrel was waxing
more violent, when the girls spied a door at the end of a hallway which
had been opened to let in some of the shouting women. As quickly and as
quietly as they could they darted down this passageway and out of the
door which brought them into the back yard of the place. Terrified, they
fled up the street and stood on the corner, discouraged and irresolute.
Hinpoha was for going home right away. But Katherine talked her out of
it.
"Let's go up to the Neighborhood Mission on the hill and ask them for
something to do," suggested Katherine, when the rest inquired what they
should do next. So they turned their footsteps toward the white building
at the end of the street.
"If you really want to do something," said the mission worker to whom
they explained their errand, "come down here next Saturday morning and
help take care of the children that are left with us. Two of the nurses
will be away and we will be short-handed."
The Winnebagos were charmed with the idea. "Oh, may we each take one home
for the day?" begged Katherine, "if we promise to bring them back all
right?"
Permission was granted for the next Saturday and Katherine was jubilant
over the good beginning of their work. "I thought it best that we each
take one home and take care of it by ourselves," she explained. "We'll
have such fun telling experiences and comparing notes afterward."
Promptly at nine o'clock the next Saturday morning the four Winnebagos,
Katherine, Gladys, Hinpoha and Sahwah, presented themselves at the
Neighborhood Mission and drove away ten minutes later in Gladys'
automobile, each with a youngster in tow.
At eight that night there was a lively experience meeting in the House of
the Open Door. "Oh, girls, you never saw such a dirty baby as the one I
had," cried Gladys, with a little shiver of disgust at the remembrance.
"It couldn't have been any worse than the one I had," broke in Hinpoha.
"But I gave him a bath," said Gladys, with a satisfied air, "and put all
new clothes on him, and he was as sweet as a rose when I took him home."
"Mine beat them all," said Katherine, when she was able to get in a word
edgewise. "He had a little fur tail of some kind tied around his neck on
a string. I suppose it was meant for a 'pacifier,' for he was sucking it
all the while."
"Why, mine had one of those on, too," said Gladys.
"So did mine," said Hinpoha.
"There must have been a million germs on it," continued Katherine. "I
took it off and burned it up."
"So did I," said Gladys.
"So did I," echoed Hinpoha.
After all things were talked over the Winnebagos decided that they had
done pretty good work that day in cleaning up the dirty babies and
unanimously voted to take them again the next Saturday.
When they arrived at the Neighborhood Mission the next Saturday morning
they were met on the walk by half a dozen excited women with
handkerchiefs on their heads, who formed a circle around them, shouting
in a foreign tongue and making fierce gestures.
"What is the matter? What are they saying?" gasped Hinpoha in terror to
Katherine, struggling to pull away from the hand that was clutching her
coat lapel.
"I don't know," answered Katherine, completely at sea and vainly trying
to understand the gibberish that was being uttered by the brown-skinned
woman dancing up and down before her.
A startled group of workers ran from the Mission to see what the trouble
was, and, forcing themselves through the circle, drew the frightened
girls inside the fence of the Mission. Then from the group of women
outside there arose a voice in broken English, demanding angrily: "Where
is the charm that hung on the neck of my Stefan? The charm to keep away
the fever and the sore eyes? I give you my boy to watch, you steal away
the charm. Give it back! Give it back!" Here the angry shouting and
gesticulating began again and threatening hands were waved over the
fence.
"What does she mean?" asked Hinpoha. "What charm?"
"We didn't steal any charms," said Katherine indignantly. "We didn't take
a thing off the babies except some dirty old rabbits' tails that were
full of germs. We burned them up, and a good thing it was, too."
Here the angry shouts of the women gave way to wails of despair. "They
burned the rabbits' tails!" groaned one woman, who could talk English,
lifting her hands heavenward, "the rabbits' tails that the Wonder Woman
tied about their necks on Easter Sunday! Now Stefan will get the fever
and the sore eyes and the teeth will not come through!" And she beat her
breast in despair. Then her anger blazed forth again and she fell to
berating the girls in her own language, and the other women fell in with
her until there was a perfect hubbub. The workers at the Mission hustled
the girls inside the building and the women finally departed, shaking
fists at the Mission and raging at all the dwellers.
"It was nothing but a dirty old rabbit's tail," declared Hinpoha
tearfully, as the shaken Winnebagos hastened homeward. "I hate
foreigners! I guess we'll never try to do anything for them again."
"Oh, yes, we will," answered Katherine optimistically; "we'll learn not
to make mistakes in time."
"Look at that donkey over there," said Sahwah. "Doesn't he remind you of
Sandhelo?"
"Poor old Sandhelo," mourned Hinpoha. "I wonder what became of him? We
certainly had fun with him, even if he never would go unless he heard
music."
"Seems to be characteristic of the donkey tribe not to want to go,"
observed Katherine. "That one over there is balking, too. Doesn't the
fellow that's trying to drive him look like a pirate, though? I wouldn't
go for him either, if I were a donkey."
"O look!" cried Sahwah in amazement, and they all stopped still.
A small boy was coming down the street blowing lustily on a wheezy horn,
and as soon as the donkey heard it he wheeled around, facing the music,
pricked up his ears, uttered a squeal of rapture and rose up on his hind
legs, almost upsetting the queer little cart to which he was harnessed.
"Katherine! I do believe it _is_ Sandhelo," cried Sahwah, excitedly
gripping Katherine's arm.
The man sprang from the cart and seizing the donkey by the bit brought
him down to earth with a rough pull that almost jerked his head off,
shouting abuse at him in a foreign tongue. The little boy, frightened at
the uproar, ran away, taking his music with him. The man got into the
cart again and tried to drive away. The donkey refused to move. The man
began to beat him unmercifully.
"Oh, girls, we must do something to stop him!" cried Hinpoha, hopping up
and down in distress.
"Here, you, stop that!" shouted Katherine, running forward and waving her
muff at him threateningly. "I'll have the law on you!" The man either did
not understand, or did not care, for he paid not the slightest heed to
her words. "Stop it, stop it, I say!" she commanded, stamping her foot
angrily and wildly wishing she were a man, that she might beat this bully
even as he was beating the poor little beast.
The man looked at her and grinned derisively. "Who says so?" he growled.
"I say so!" said a voice behind Katherine, and she turned to see the
Captain standing beside her. "You stop beating that donkey or I'll punch
your head." He put his fingers to his lips and uttered a long shrill
whistle which the girls recognized as the call of the Sandwiches, and the
next minute the other boys came running up the side street, Bottomless
Pitt, Monkey, Dan, Peter and Harry, with Slim trailing along in the rear,
puffing violently in his efforts to keep up with the rest. They
surrounded the cart threateningly and the man sulkily left off beating
the donkey.
Sahwah went forward and stroked the little animal's head and then she
uttered a triumphant cry.
"It _is_ Sandhelo!" she exclaimed. "Here's part of his red, white and
blue cockade still sticking in his hair."
"That's our donkey," cried all the girls and boys, pressing close around.
"Where did you get him?"
"He is not," declared the man angrily. "I raise him myself since he was
young."
"That is not true," said Sahwah shrewdly. "If you had had him very long
you would know how to make him go. It seems to me that this is the first
time you've ever tried to drive him."
"He is mine, he is mine," declared the man. "I know how to make him go.
He always go for me."
"Then make him go," said Sahwah coolly.
The man tried to urge the donkey forward, but in vain.
"Now, _we'll_ show you how to make him go," said Sahwah. "Where's that
boy with the horn?" She ran up the street a distance and found the boy
seated on a doorstep and bribed him with a few pennies to let her take
the horn. Then, walking along ahead of Sandhelo she played a half dozen
lively notes, such as had sent him flying round the circus ring. No
sooner had she started than he started at a great rate. When she stopped
he stopped.
"It's Sandhelo without mistake," they all cried, and the last doubt
vanished when he came up alongside of Sahwah and laid his head on her
shoulder the way he always had done.
"He belongs to us," said the Captain, looking the man in the eye, "and
you'll have to give him up."
The man shifted his gaze. "I give him to you for five dollar," he
muttered. "I pay so much for him."
"Not much," said the Captain. "Nobody sold you a donkey for five dollars
and you can't get that much out of us. Now you either give him to us or
we'll report it to the police." The man protested loudly, but he was
evidently thinking all the while that a donkey that only went when he
heard music was not such a good bargain after all, even if he did get it
by the simple and inexpensive method of finding it in his dooryard and
tying it up. So, after growling some more that they were robbing him, he
suffered Sandhelo to be unharnessed from the cart and led away in triumph
in the wake of the horn.
"Well, our charitable enterprise didn't turn out so badly, after all,"
said Katherine, when Sandhelo was once more established in his cozy stall
in the House of the Open Door. "If it hadn't been for that fuss about the
babies we wouldn't have been on the street in time to see Sandhelo. And
if we hadn't wanted to help those people there wouldn't have been any
fuss. It does really seem that virtue is its own reward and one good turn
deserves another. Let's do it some more."
And as usual the others agreed with her.