A SELECT SLEEPING PARTY
"Gracious, Katherine, what is the matter with your fingers?" asked Gladys
curiously, as Katherine came into the room with all five fingers on her
right hand tied up.
"Oh," replied Katherine cheerfully, "I burned one, cut one, pounded one
with a hammer and slammed the door on one, and that left only one good
one, so I tied that up, too, for safe-keeping and only take it out when I
want to use it. It's a good thing I don't need my hand to sing carols
with, or I would be out of the running. Are we all here?"
"All but Veronica," answered Nyoda, "and Sahwah--and Sahwah will be here
presently. By the way, where is Veronica?"
"She's over at the theater where her uncle is orchestra director,"
answered Gladys. "She goes over there almost every Saturday afternoon. I
believe she plays sometimes when one of the regular violinists is
absent."
Veronica, it must be confessed, was a great puzzle to the Winnebagos. Try
as they might, they could never get her to enter into their work and fun
with any degree of vim. She always sat aloof, her brooding eyes staring
off into space. Not that they loved her any the less--they were too
genuinely sorry for her--but they never seemed to be able to break down
the barrier between them and her. They constantly stood abashed before
her aristocratic airs. When the friends went together to get ice cream
Veronica had a way of flinging a dollar bill down on the table and
bidding the waitress keep the change that made the others feel cheap
somehow, although they knew it was useless extravagance. When a poor
woman came to the door one day, just as she was going out, and asked if
she had any old clothes to give away she promptly took off her expensive
furs and gave them to her.
The girls were mightily impressed by this act until Nyoda talked it over
with them and made them see that the gift was entirely inappropriate. So
while they admired her to distraction and each one secretly hoped that
Veronica would single her out as a special friend, they had to admit that
as yet they had not made much headway.
"If Sahwah doesn't come in five minutes, we'll have to start without
her," said Hinpoha, walking impatiently to the window. "Carol practice
begins at two and it's half-past one now."
Just then the telephone rang. "It's Sahwah," reported Hinpoha, upon
answering, "and she says she's got a real charity case for us to look
into--some old woman--and she's down at Sahwah's house now and we should
all come down. She says it's the saddest thing she ever heard. What shall
we do, girls, shall we go?"
"Of course," said Katherine promptly.
"What about carol practice?" asked Gladys. "Won't it make us dreadfully
late?"
"We'll just have to be late, then," said Katherine, jabbing her hatpins
in swiftly. "Come on."
Sahwah met them at the door with an unusually solemn countenance. "You're
a load of bricks to come, girls," she said, "but I knew you would. Come
right upstairs. In here," she said, pausing before the door of her room.
"Maybe you'd better go in one at a time. You go first, Hinpoha."
Hinpoha, feeling queer, passed in. The next minute those outside heard a
great shout. "Migwan! My Migwan! When did you come? We thought you
weren't coming for two whole days yet. Sahwah, you wretch, how could you
get us so worked up?"
The others burst in and smothered Migwan in embraces while Katherine
stood looking on curiously, until Gladys remembered her manners. "This is
our Katherine," she said, drawing her forward, "that we have all written
you about. Make a speech, Katherine, to show her how you do it!"
And Katherine obligingly complied and Migwan laughed extravagantly and
was soon sitting on the bed beside her with her arm locked in hers, and
talking to her as if she had known her all her life instead of only five
minutes. That was the effect Katherine had on everybody.
Then they dragged Migwan out to the House of the Open Door and introduced
her to the Sandwiches, who were playing basket ball in their half of the
barn. The Sandwiches began to plan a Christmas barn dance in her honor on
the spot, and nobody thought of carol practice again until it was too
late to go. Migwan had to explain how she got through with her work at
college two days earlier than she had expected and came home to surprise
them. She went to see Sahwah first and Sahwah worked the little stratagem
which brought them all down to her house in such a hurry. Each one
insisted upon Migwan's going home with her to spend the night, but she
could not be enticed away from her own home. "I guess you'd want to stay
at home, too, if you hadn't seen your mother for three months." But she
promised to attend a select sleeping party some night up in the House of
the Open Door, which Sahwah had just "germed."
"There's a loose shingle on the roof and the snow comes in a little,"
said Hinpoha regretfully. "It really ought to be fixed."
"Never mind the shingle," cried the others. "When did the Winnebagos ever
balk at a snowflake or two on their beds?"
The barn dance was a grand success in spite of the fact that Slim fell
down the ladder in his excitement and sprained all the portions of his
anatomy that he needed most for dancing, besides demolishing a frosted
cake in the tumble.
"Too bad you can't dance," said the Captain sympathetically, when Slim's
ankles had been strapped with plaster and he had been comfortably settled
on a pile of bearskins brought down from the bed upstairs. "But you don't
need to waste your time. You can be musician and play the banjo while the
rest of us dance."
"But I can't play the banjo," objected Slim.
"Play anyway," commanded the Captain. "Here, I'll teach you a couple of
tunes that you can play with one finger that we can do most of the dances
to." So Slim learned to play the banjo under pressure and picked
banefully away while the rest whirled about on the floor. Sometimes he
got his tunes or his time so badly mixed that it was impossible to dance
and then the Captain would make him sing and beat time with a hatchet on
the floor. Finally Nyoda took pity on him and took over the banjo,
producing such lively strains and keeping the dancers going at such a mad
pace that they sank down breathless one by one, and a series of loud
thumps from Sandhelo's stall told them that he was also capering to the
music and nearly battering his stall down in the process.
The boys went home reluctantly at eleven o'clock and the girls climbed
the ladder to the joys of the "select sleeping party." This was the first
time any of them had stayed all night in the House of the Open Door.
"Covers were laid for nine," as Katherine wrote in the Count Book. Nyoda
had her camp bed, Sahwah had her pile of bearskins, Gladys her Indian Bed
and Nakwisi her willow bed. Migwan was invited to share them all and
chose the bearskins. Katherine had brought a couch hammock, which she
declared surpassed them all in comfort. The rest of the girls played John
Kempo for the privilege of sleeping with Nyoda, and Veronica got it, and
the other two spread their blankets on mattresses on the floor. The
fireplace was filled with glowing hard coals, which would keep all night,
and the Lodge was as warm as toast, so the snowflakes which drifted in
through the hole in the roof were never noticed. Of course they talked
half the night, for there was so much to tell Migwan and so much she had
to tell them it seemed they never would get it all told. But finally the
conversation was punctuated by steadily lengthening yawns, and then
trailed off into silence.
Nyoda was awakened by the touch of a cold hand on her face. "What is it?"
she asked, sitting up.
"It's I--Migwan," said the figure standing beside her. "Do you know where
Sahwah is?"
"Isn't she in bed with you?" asked Nyoda, still in a low tone of voice,
so as not to disturb the other girls.
"No, she isn't," whispered Migwan. "I woke up a minute ago and felt
around for her and she wasn't there. I called and asked where she was and
there was no answer."
Nyoda got up and lit a candle, and looked carefully around the room. All
the other girls were sound asleep in their beds; Sahwah's clothes lay on
a chair, but there was no sign of Sahwah. "She can't be under the bed,"
said Migwan, "because this bed has no 'under.'"
Nyoda went to the top of the ladder and called: "Sahwah, are you down
there?" No answer. All was dark and silent below. When it was evident
that Sahwah was not in the barn, Nyoda roused all the sleepers
unceremoniously.
"What's the matter? What's happened?" they all cried sleepily. There was
a great uproar when Sahwah's disappearance became known. "Where could she
have gone without her clothes?" they all asked.
"Do you think she was dragged from her bed, Nyoda?" asked Hinpoha
anxiously, filled with the wildest fears.
"No, I don't," answered Nyoda promptly, suddenly remembering certain
facts in Sahwah's history. "I think she's walking in her sleep again. She
always does when she gets excited. She's probably gotten out of the barn
and is wandering around somewhere and we must find her and bring her in
without delay. This is altogether too cold a night to be promenading
without a coat on." She had dressed herself fully while she was talking
and the others followed suit with all speed.
The barn door was carefully closed, but the big inside bolt was
unfastened and they knew by that that Sahwah was outside somewhere. The
wind had swept the snow off the drive and there was not a footprint to be
seen. They spent some time looking all around the barn and up on the roof
and then concluded that she must have gone down the drive, because, if
she had gone anywhere else, there would be footprints. The snow in the
road had been so packed down by passing vehicles that a person walking
would leave no trace.
"Where can she be?" exclaimed Nyoda anxiously after a fruitless search of
some ten minutes.
"Do you think she could have climbed a tree?" asked Hinpoha.
"And be roosting on a branch?" asked Katherine, and they all had to laugh
in spite of their concern.
"Well, you never can tell what Sahwah will do next," returned Hinpoha,
"especially in her sleep. You haven't known her as long as we have. Once
in camp she climbed to the top of the diving tower and jumped off. So I
guess climbing a tree wouldn't be impossible for her."
"Hark, girls," said Nyoda, bending her head in a listening attitude.
"Don't you hear music?" The others listened, but could hear nothing.
"When that breath of wind came in this direction I thought I heard it,"
said Nyoda. "There it is, again." This time they all heard it, faint and
far, a soft strain of music, but what kind of music or whence it came
they could not make out.
"It came with the wind," said Nyoda, "so we must walk against the wind
and see if we can find it." Heading into the wind they walked up the
road. They shivered as they walked and the snow crunched under their
feet. The very moonlight seemed cold as it touched them and the stars
glistened like splintered icicles. Verily, it was a cold night to be
sleepwalking. The music began to sound more clearly now, and at a turn in
the road they stopped still in amazement at the sight before their eyes.
There in the road just ahead of them ambled Sandhelo, and by his side
walked Sahwah, dressed in her troubadour costume, the red cloak flying
out in the breeze. She held her mouth organ to her lips, and the drawing
of her breath in and out of it was producing the strains of music which
the girls had followed. As they suspected, she was sound asleep. They
hurried forward to waken Sahwah, and she turned around and faced them.
Her eyes were wide open in the moonlight. A moment she looked at them and
then turned suddenly and swung herself onto Sandhelo's back. At her touch
on his bridle Sandhelo started and then began running down the road as
fast as he could. Sahwah woke up, gave one shriek of fright, and then
mechanically dug her knees into his sides and hung on. Sandhelo did not
have his regular harness on, only his bridle, and she was riding bareback
in this strange adventure. The girls pursued as fast as they could,
shouting at the top of their voices, but of course they were soon left
behind. Far ahead of them in the moonlit road they saw Sandhelo stop
suddenly and slide his rider over his head into a snowdrift and then sit
down on his haunches beside her like a dog. Sahwah had emerged from her
drift and was shaking the snow off when the others came up. "What's the
matter?" she asked in a bewildered tone. "How did I get out here?"
"Home first, explanations afterward," said Nyoda, wrapping her in the
bear rug she had brought with her. And they made Sahwah run every step of
the way back to the Lodge, and swallow quarts of hot lemonade before they
would tell her a single thing.
Migwan insisted on tying Sahwah's foot to the post of Nyoda's bed for the
rest of the night to insure her being there in the morning. They had just
gotten quieted down when the ropes of Katherine's hammock broke and down
she came with a resounding crash.
Morning found them heavy-eyed and full of yawns, but to all inquirers
they stoutly maintained that the select sleeping party had been the best
ever.