A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT
January closed with its immemorial thaw and February drew near in a mist
of speculation as to whether it would come in like a lion or a lamb. But
whatever may have been the state of the weather outside when the new
month arrived, the Winnebago barometer registered a tempest in a teapot.
It was Katherine who was responsible for that particular barometric
activity. That is, it was she who attached the fuse to the bomb and set
the match to it. All the bomb did was blow up.
The Winnebagos were all over at Katherine's one Friday afternoon after
school, painting a buffalo robe that was to hang on the wall in the Open
Door Lodge and cover an unsightly board. Veronica was in one of her rare
cheerful moods and played gay tunes on her violin while the other girls
worked. She was gradually thawing toward the girls, although she was
still very conservative in her friendships. She was most friendly toward
Gladys and Hinpoha, the two girls who came from the best family. She was
not particularly drawn to merry, tomboyish Sahwah, because she was not
musical, although they got along. Thus also it was with Medmangi and
Nakwisi. But from the first Katherine Adams had seemed to rub her the
wrong way. Big, clumsy, awkward Katherine, uncultured and hopelessly
plebeian! She always managed to step on Veronica's dainty shoes or sit on
her cherished violin or spill cocoa on her dress. And her flyaway
appearance constantly jarred on Veronica's artistic nature. And that
ridiculous, unmusical voice!
Looking only at these defects, Veronica failed to appreciate the
wonderful magnetism of Katherine's personality and the unfailing good
nature which made her a boon companion any hour out of the twenty-four
whatever the weather might be. Not being American-born, Veronica believed
firmly in class distinctions, and to her Katherine was a peasant and thus
an inferior.
However, to the others it seemed that the strangeness between them and
Veronica was wearing away, and this afternoon they felt closer to her
than they ever had before. She even asked, actually _asked_, to be shown
how to make "slumgullion"--she who a few months before had scornfully
maintained that cooking was for servants and not for ladies. "She's
getting there!" whispered Gladys to Hinpoha, with a delighted squeeze.
Spirits ran high and before long everybody felt they must dance or burst.
"It's too bad we haven't Nyoda's old banjo over here," said Sahwah. "Then
some of the rest of us could play and Veronica could dance."
"I'll go over and get it," said Katherine obligingly. So she went over to
Nyoda's house and got the banjo, and it was on this errand that her feet
became entangled in the fuse that led to the bomb. On the doorstep of the
house next to Nyoda's, the house where Veronica dwelt, there sat a snowy
white poodle, fresh from a bath and rivalling in purity a field of virgin
snow. This was Fifi, Veronica's French poodle, who had come to her as a
Christmas gift, and whose pedigree was considerably longer than he was.
Fifi did not share his young mistress's ideas as to the unfitness of the
peasantry for association with the high born, and took a decided fancy to
Katherine at first sight. Just how much he was influenced by half a sugar
cookie, which she held out to him over the fence, it is impossible to
say, but when Katherine turned out of Nyoda's yard and went up the
street, Fifi was at her heels and refused to be shooed home.
"Well, come along, then, if you want to," she said good-naturedly. "I
suppose you're lonesome with all your folks gone and want some improvin'
company, like us. A great hostess I'd be, if I turned down a dog that
wanted to come to my At Home Day."
The January thaw was still in progress, although it was the first of
February, and the streets were lakes of slush and mud. Katherine did not
mind mud in the least and stepped cheerfully into the puddles. Fifi did
likewise. By the time they arrived at the house the comparison of the
field of virgin snow no longer held good. Even Katherine hesitated about
admitting him.
Veronica shrieked when she saw him and did not share his delight at the
unexpected meeting. "Oh-oh-oh!" she exclaimed in dismay. "He is to go to
the Dog Show tonight. Katie spent all morning washing and combing him.
How did he ever get out? She must have left the door open. And then you
had to coax him over here, and now look at him!" After a hasty glance the
rest decided they would rather not look at him.
"Well," said Katherine, much taken aback, but still mistress of the
situation, "I'll just give him a nice bath and carry him home and
everything will be all right. Go on dancing, girls, there's the banjo;
Fifi and I will entertain ourselves in the basement."
She set the squirming lump of mud into one of the wash tubs and let warm
water run over him from a faucet for a few minutes to remove the clods.
Then she set to work in earnest. She hesitated for some time about what
kind of soap to use and finally decided that dog's hair was the same as
camel's hair; camel's hair was wool; and therefore, according to the most
familiar problem in the whole geometry, Fifi was all wool and needed Wool
Soap. Now the mud through which Fifi and Katherine had come was the
yellow clayey kind that sticketh closer than a brother, and Wool Soap was
not designed especially to dissolve it. After three scrubbings and
rinsings Fifi was still a muddy, yellowish gray, and there was no hope
that he would dry into a field of virgin white as a yellow popcorn kernel
bursts into snowy blossom.
Katherine was discouraged. Then she suddenly remembered something.
"Clothes always come out yellow if you wash them in just soap," she said
triumphantly to herself. "It's the bluing that makes them white. Fifi
needs bluing!"
But a thorough search of the laundry room failed to reveal any bluing.
"Shucks!" exclaimed Katherine in vexation. "We're out of it. I heard Aunt
Anna mention it this morning. And the stores are closed this afternoon.
What will I do? I don't dare produce Fifi unless he's all white and
nice." Then it was that Katherine's mighty genius set to work. A less
resourceful person would have been at a standstill when confronted with
such a difficulty; a genius makes a way when there is none. In one
respect Katherine was an equal of the gods--what she wished and did not
have she created. She wished bluing; she must have it; so she calmly set
about making it. Katherine took chemistry and knew that iodine, applied
to starch, will turn it blue. There was iodine in the house and there was
starch. The pucker vanished from her brow. A far-sighted person would
have foreseen other results from the mixture beside the chemical action
of the iodine on the starch. But Katherine was not a far-sighted person.
She was a genius. It is said that geniuses, entirely absorbed in one
idea, often forget the most commonplace fact altogether. Thus it was that
Katherine, filled with the idea that starch turns blue when mixed with
iodine, forgot the original purpose for which starch was invented. And
Katherine had used flat-iron starch, the kind that gets stiff without
boiling. It turned blue--a beautiful bright purple blue--and she immersed
Fifi again and again. Katherine had to admit that he looked dreadfully
blue when he emerged from the final dip, but serene in the belief that he
would dry pure white like the clothes did, she rolled him up in a piece
of carpet and set him in a wash basket beside the furnace to dry. Then
she went upstairs and joined the dancers, announcing with a sigh of
relief that Fifi was clean once more and could come up as soon as he was
dry.
Having been told that Fifi was clean, they naturally looked for a white
dog, and it was not their fault that they did not recognize the creature
that slunk into their midst in the middle of the revels. As an Animal
from Nowhere he would have taken the prize over the head of the famous
Salmonkey. His hair was pasted flat to his sides in long, stringy waves,
giving him a queer, corrugated effect. His head was a dirty, yellowish
white, for, in keeping his eyes out of the blue bath, Katherine had held
his whole head out; and the rest of him was a bright purplish blue. With
his excited red tongue hanging out in front he looked like a dilapidated
remnant of the American flag. The girls shrieked and fled before him.
Katherine sank weakly down on the couch and viewed him in consternation.
"Whatever did you do to him?" wailed Veronica, when informed that this
was actually Fifi and not some freak animal from the Zoo.
"I wanted to blue him to make him nice and silvery white," explained
Katherine ruefully, "and there wasn't any bluing, so I made some with
iodine and starch. I thought he would come out all nice and fluffy, but
instead of that he got--all--stiff!"
The Winnebagos burst out into a wild peal of laughter that made the
windows rattle. They were simply helpless, and laughed until they sank
limply on each other's shoulders. The simplicity of Katherine's
inspirations was nothing short of sublime.
Gaining a measure of control over themselves, they became aware that
Veronica was standing before them with eyes flashing lightning, in such a
passion as they had never seen any girl display. Holding her translated
pet in her arms, she stamped her foot and almost hissed at Katherine:
"Don't you ever come near me again, you--you great big kangaroo from out
of the west!
"And the rest of you are just as bad," she cried, blazing at them
collectively. "You think it's funny. I wish I had never met you, and from
this day I am no more a Camp Fire Girl! I am through with you!" And
before they could collect their wits to reply she had rushed out of the
house like a whirlwind.
Completely sobered by the result of her act, Katherine called herself one
name after another and proposed the most extravagant things in the nature
of penance. She and Nyoda talked it over a long time, and Nyoda made her
see how a habit of doing things without thinking of the consequences led
to more trouble than deliberately planned evil did, and she promised
faithfully that this was the last rash act she would ever perform.
"Now that Veronica has had time to think it over and see the funny side,
and realize that Fifi is not hurt, I think you may go over and present
your sincere apologies and make your peace with Veronica," said Nyoda.
And Katherine, humble as the dust, set forth.
But Veronica would have none of her peace offerings. She received her
apology coldly, and declared she would never come back into the ranks of
the Winnebagos. Then did Katherine go to Nyoda and offer to resign from
the group if that would bring Veronica back. "She has a better right to
be in it than I," she said. "She was in it first."
But Nyoda would not consent to that at all. "The whole thing isn't worth
such heroic measures," she declared. "I'll talk to Veronica myself."
And she did, with no better results than Katherine. Veronica would not be
appeased, even now that Fifi was white once more, and had suffered no
evil effects from his bluing. Veronica declared that Katherine was low
class, and not fit for her to associate with. And she wouldn't forgive
the others for laughing. So Nyoda had to go back and report her failure
to the other girls. And sadly they realized that their hope of making
Veronica into a Winnebago had evaporated.