A WINTER HIKE
A long cherished wish of the Winnebagos came true that winter, for they
all got snowshoes for Christmas. So did the Sandwiches. They brought them
down to the Open Door Lodge to show to the girls. "See what we've got,"
said the Captain, with a slightly superior air as becomes the owner of a
pair of snowshoes in the presence of a mere girl.
"Wait until you see ours," returned the girls merrily, producing their
"slush walkers," as Katherine had dubbed them.
"You didn't all get them, did you?" asked the Sandwiches, in comical
surprise. It was hard for them to realize that the Winnebagos were as
adept at outdoor sports as they were.
"We surely did," answered Sahwah. "What good would it do us for some to
have them and some not? We always travel together."
The Captain had Hinpoha's in his hand and was examining them critically.
"You girls haven't the right kind of harness on your snowshoes," he said,
with the air of an expert. "Straps like yours, that buckle over the toes
and around the heel are 'tenderfoot' harness. They don't give enough to
your motions and you are likely to freeze your feet. See our bindings.
They are made of lamp wicking and calfskin thongs. By putting your foot
on the shoe so that your toes come just under the bridle and binding it
fast with the wick, making a half-hitch on each side and tying a knot at
the back of your shoe you can make a fastening that will hold tightly as
long as you want it too, but will permit you to free your foot with a
single twist in an emergency."
"Did you learn all that down at Tech?" asked Hinpoha, with just a touch
of sarcasm. It seemed to her that the Captain was trying to show off his
knowledge.
"He won't admit that we know as much as they do about some things," she
was saying to herself. "They couldn't get ahead of us by getting
snowshoes, so now they must claim that theirs are right and ours are
wrong. Ours are more expensive, that's the whole trouble."
"My uncle told me about it," said the Captain earnestly. "He's been up
north and he knows all about snowshoes. Wait a minute, and I'll show you
what I mean." He bound his snowshoes on his feet in the approved fashion,
and then, by stepping on one shoe with the other foot, skilfully wriggled
his toe free without injuring the binding. "You couldn't do that if it
were buckled," he said simply, turning to Nyoda for approval.
"You're right," said Nyoda. "We never thought of that side of it before.
Don't you think, girls, we'd better change ours?" They all agreed, all
except Hinpoha. For some odd reason she still fancied that the Captain
was crowing over her, and she was determined to show him that his opinion
meant nothing to her.
"I like the straps much better," she declared. "And the buckles look so
pretty flashing in the sunlight. Much prettier than your old lamp wicks.
They'll be dirty in no time." And they could not induce her to change the
bindings.
Followed days of learning how to run on snowshoes. It was not so very
difficult, after all, not nearly so hard as the skiing Sahwah had tried
the winter before. There were tumbles, of course, when they struck
unexpected snags, but the snow was soft and no one was hurt. Hinpoha was
glad she didn't change her smart buckle binding for the wicking-thong
affair of the others, because hers looked much nicer, and there was no
occasion for getting out of them suddenly. The first day everybody
returned home full of enthusiasm for the new sport. Sahwah in particular
was so anxious for the morrow to come when she could be at it again, that
she could hardly go to sleep. But when she woke up in the morning she
felt a strange disinclination to get up. Her limbs ached so fiercely that
she could hardly stand. Her muscles were so cramped and sore that she was
ready to shriek with the pain. She limped stiffly into the class room
half an hour late, to see Gladys going in just ahead of her, traveling
with a sidewise motion like a crab, and stumbling as though her feet were
made of wood. Poor Hinpoha never appeared in school at all that day.
"What's the matter with us?" they groaned, dropping into Nyoda's class
room at lunch hour. "We're ruined for life." Nyoda could not conceal a
smile of amusement. "I knew you'd get it," she said, with gentle
raillery. "That's why I advised you not to stay out more than fifteen
minutes the first day. But you were bound to stick to it all afternoon."
"What did you know we'd get?" they asked in tones of concern. "Are we
lamed for life?"
"Hardly as bad as that," laughed Nyoda. "I have good hopes of your
ultimate recovery. You have what the French call 'mal de racquette'--the
snowshoe sickness. You use a different set of muscles when snowshoeing
than you do ordinarily, and these muscles become very stiff and sore. All
you need is a little limbering oil. Little Sisters of the Snow, you are
learning by experience!"
It was fully a week before either the Winnebagos or Sandwiches went
snowshoeing again, although they made excellent excuses. Neither group
would admit to the other that they had become stiff, and would not limp
for worlds when in the sight of the others, although it nearly killed
them to walk naturally. Nevertheless, they understood each other
perfectly.
In February came a three days' snow storm that covered the earth with a
blanket several feet thick, and a slight thaw followed by a zero snap
produced an excellent crust. The Winnebagos were having a solemn
ceremonial meeting in the Open Door Lodge when without warning there was
a sound of scrambling up the ladder and the Captain burst in among them.
"Oh, I say," he shouted, and then stopped suddenly as he became aware
that the girls were engaged in singing some kind of a motion song.
"Excuse me," he stammered in confusion, "I didn't know you were having a
pow-wow. I heard you singing up here and thought you were just having a
good time."
"What news can you be bringing that made you burst in on us in such a
fashion?" said Nyoda sternly, but with a twinkle in her eye. "Speak sir,
the queen commands."
The Captain seemed ready to burst with his message and fired his words
like bullets from an automatic pistol. "My Uncle Theodore's here, you
know, the one I said had been up north, and he knows a dandy place in the
country where there are some log cabins and he wants us all to go down
there on our snowshoes for a winter hike and stay three days over the
Washington's Birthday holiday. Oh, please, can you girls come?"
"But----" began Nyoda.
"Oh, I forgot," went on the Captain, "my aunt's here, too, and she's just
as good on snowshoes as Uncle Theodore is, and she's going along, too,
and will see that you girls don't take cold or anything. Please say
you'll come."
There never was such sport as a winter hike. The preliminaries were
arranged with much reassuring of parents and relatives; buying of
all-wool clothing and blankets; selecting of cooking utensils and what
the boys elegantly referred to as "grub." "Uncle Theodore" was a real
woodsman, who had spent most of his life in lumber camps; bluff, hale and
hearty; a man to whom you would be perfectly willing to entrust your life
after the first meeting. "Aunt Clara" was a little round dumpling of a
woman, who radiated smiles like sunshine, and declared the Winnebagos
were the handiest girls she had ever seen. It was their skilful way of
packing supplies that called forth this praise.
Food and blankets were sent down by automobile a day ahead, so that the
hikers would have to carry nothing but their cameras and notebooks. The
morning of Washington's Birthday found them all assembled on the station
platform, for they were to go by cars to a certain town down state and
from there to strike across the open country on their snowshoes.
"What are you going to do with the torpedo?" shouted the Captain, as Slim
appeared carrying a strange looking package.
Slim smiled mysteriously. "Shoot rabbits," he replied evasively.
"It isn't a torpedo," said quick-witted Sahwah, after one look at the
package. "It's a thermos bottle."
A chorus of derision went up. "Better Baby has to have his bottle!" "Oh,
Slim! Are you afraid you'll starve before we get our dinner?" "What's in
it, Slim, let's see!"
Slim turned fiery red and shot a dark look at Sahwah.
"It's hot chocolate, I know," continued his red-cheeked tormentor. "Slim
has to have a dose every hour or he feels faint." Sahwah had long ago
discovered Slim's pet weakness.
"Where's Katherine?" said somebody suddenly.
"Why, isn't she here?" said Nyoda, counting over the group. "I thought I
saw her here."
"She hasn't come yet," declared Hinpoha and Gladys.
"Oh, I hope she hasn't had an absent-minded fit and forgotten this is
Washington's Birthday," said Sahwah, clasping her hands in distress.
Uncle Teddy pulled out his watch. "It's too late to go and look for her,"
he said, "just five minutes until train time."
Consternation reigned in the group. The Captain gallantly offered to miss
the train and hunt her up, but the others would not hear of it. Hasty
telephoning to her house brought the news that Katherine had left half an
hour ago for the station.
"Then she'll be here," said Nyoda, eyeing the clock nervously. "If she
doesn't make it she'll have to miss it, that's all." There were times
when she would have liked to shake Katherine for her unbusiness-like
ways.
But eight twenty-five came and no Katherine. The long train pulled in and
Uncle Teddy swung them all aboard, and with a great cheering and waving
of snowshoes they were off. Other passengers looked with interest at the
lively group that occupied one whole end of the car, singing, laughing,
shouting nonsense at one another.
"Time for the Better Baby to have his bottle!" said the Bottomless Pitt,
gaining possession of the thermos bottle. He unscrewed the lid and held
it to Slim's lips, making him drink willy-nilly. It was hot chocolate, as
Sahwah had guessed. Slim choked and sputtered and had to be patted on the
back.
"Do behave, children," said Nyoda, as the fun threatened to block the
aisle, "that magazine man can't get through."
The man stood in the midst of the scufflers, patiently trying to cry his
wares above the din.
"Buy a maggyzine," he chanted. "All the latest maggyzines!"
"Good ones for the ladies,
Bad ones for the gents;
All the latest maggyzines
For fifteen cents!"
Amused, they stopped talking to listen to his ridiculous singsong.
"Buy a maggyzine, lady?" he said, holding one out to Nyoda. On the last
sentence his voice cracked in three directions and leaped up the scale a
full octave, so the word "lady" was uttered in a high falsetto squeak.
"Katherine!" exclaimed Nyoda, seizing the magazine seller by the arm in
amazement.
"At yer service, mum," replied that worthy, with a low bow.
Then, amid the hubbub that ensued she calmly proceeded to remove the
fuzzy little black mustache that had adorned her upper lip, took off the
fur cap that had covered her hair and threw back the long ulster that
covered her from neck to heels, and stood smiling wickedly at them.
"Katherine, you awful, awful, wonderful, wonderful girl, how did you
manage to do it?" gasped Gladys, breathless with astonishment.
"And when did you get on the train?" cried Hinpoha in the same breath.
"You didn't get on with us."
"I got into the wrong street car this morning," replied Katherine,
producing her glasses from her sweater pocket and polishing them on the
end of her muffler, "and got carried east instead of west. When I found
it out there wasn't time to come back to the Union Station, so I went on
out to the Lakeside Station and go on the train there. I had planned to
be waiting for you on the step when we got into the Union, but on the way
out I met a magazine seller and had an inspiration. I bribed him to let
me take his cap and books and coat for ten minutes. The mustache I had
with me. I thought it might be useful in case I should be called up to
perform a 'stunt' at Lonesome Creek. The rest you already know, as they
say in the novels." She tossed the borrowed plumage into an empty seat
and settled herself beside Slim.
"By the way," she said quizzically, looking at the boys, "what was it I
heard you declaring a while ago, that no girl could masquerade as a boy
and really fool a boy?"
"Pooh, you didn't really fool us," said Slim.
"Oh, no, I didn't," jeered Katherine.
"Well, we'd have found you out before long," said the Captain.
"Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn't," said Katherine. "The only thing
I noticed you doing was looking with envy at my little mustache."
The Captain blushed furiously and the rest shouted with laughter.
"Anyway, Nyoda knew me first," she continued, "and that shows that girls
are smarter than boys. I can just see us being fooled by one of you
dressed as a girl."
"I bet I could do it," said the Captain.
"Maybe _you_ could, Cicero," said Hinpoha sweetly. Relations between her
and the Captain were somewhat strained these days, but how it began or
what it was all about, no one could tell.
The Captain turned angrily at the taunting use of his name. He knew it
was meant to imply that he was "Cissy" enough to pass off for a girl. "So
you think I'm a Cissy, do you?" he said hotly. If Hinpoha had been a boy
there would have been a scuffle right there, but as it was he was
helpless.
"Tell them how you trailed the fox up in Ontario, father," interrupted
Aunt Clara hastily, and Uncle Teddy began a thrilling tale of adventure
in the backwoods that held them spellbound until they reached their
station.
"Now for the long white trail!" cried Uncle Teddy cheerily, when all
snowshoes were adjusted to their owners' satisfaction. "Nine o'clock and
all's well! Catertown and dinner at twelve o'clock, ten miles due south
as the crow flies! Here, Captain, you be the first pathfinder. Here is a
map of the way we are to take. You may be leader until you get us off the
track, and then we'll let one of the girls try her hand. Forward, march!"
Whole new worlds lie before the hiker on snowshoes. All the ugliness in
Nature is concealed by the soft white mantle of snow, like a scratched
and stained old table covered with a spotless cloth, and everything is
glistening and wonderful and beautiful. The snowshoes are seven league
boots in very truth. On them you go right over stumps and fences and
hummocks and stones and little hollows. You do not need to keep to the
road or to the beaten track. Dame Frost, like Sir Walter Raleigh, has
spread her mantle over the unpleasant places and over it you may pass in
safety.
"Where are we now?" asked the Bottomless Pitt.
"Casey's Woods," replied the Captain, referring to his map.
"Oh," cried Sahwah, "don't you remember how we wanted to come here to a
picnic once in the summer, but we couldn't go into the woods at all,
because the mosquitoes were just terrible? Why didn't we ever think of
holding a picnic in the winter? There are no ants to crawl into your
shoes and no spiders to get into your cocoa."
"And no poison ivy," said Gladys. "Why, winter is the very best time to
hold a picnic!"
And they made up a hiking song to the tune of "Marching Through Georgia,"
and sang it until the woods echoed:
"Hurrah, hurrah, said the possum to the 'coon,
Hurrah, hurrah, what makes you come so soon?
We started in the morning, and we'll get there before noon,
As we go hiking on our snowshoes!"
"Doesn't Aunt Clara look just like a Teddy Bear in that brown fur coat?"
whispered Gladys to Sahwah. Aunt Clara was nearly as broad as she was
long, and, wrapped in furs as she was, seemed rounder yet.
"Halt!" cried Uncle Teddy, as the company came out on the edge of a deep
ravine. "Oh, I say, Captain, what's this? It doesn't seem to me I
included this in my order."
Much confused, the Captain spread his road map on a log and set the
compass on it, trying to find out where he had gone wrong. "Shucks," he
said disgustedly, after a moment's study. "We should have gone at right
angles to that hundred-foot pine tree instead of in a line with it.
Everybody back up--I mean, right about face. Shucks!" And he handed the
map and the compass to Sahwah with as good grace as he could and took the
end of the line, as became an officer who had been reduced to the ranks.
Sahwah led them back to the pine tree and in the right direction from it,
as indicated on the map, and they soon came to the bridge which spanned
the gorge a mile below the spot where the Captain had reached it. Detour
and all they reached Catertown at twelve o'clock, where their ravenous
appetites worked fearful havoc with the good dinner set before them.
Uncle Teddy insisted upon having Slim's thermos bottle filled with milk,
to guard against his getting faint on the way, although Slim blushed and
protested. Ten more miles to make in the afternoon. But to these
practised hikers the distance before and behind them seemed nothing
wonderful and they declared the going was so good on snowshoes that they
could keep on forever. Sahwah followed the map accurately, and brought
them out at the right crossroads at the end of five miles, where she
relinquished her office as pathfinder to Bottomless Pitt, who was next in
line. It had been decided en route that five miles should be the length
of any leader's service.
"Honorable discharge," said Uncle Teddy, patting Sahwah on the head.
"I'll wager there aren't many girls who could have done that."
"All of us could," answered Sahwah, eager to sing the praises of the
group as a whole.
The Captain said nothing. He felt that he had disgraced the Sandwiches by
letting a girl get ahead of him. It did not help him any to note that
Hinpoha was looking at him and evidently thinking the same thing. The
Captain was very sore at heart. He liked and admired Hinpoha more than
any of the other Winnebagos, and they had always been the best of friends
until suddenly, for some reason which he could not explain, she had
turned against him. And she had done the one thing to him that he could
never forgive. She had called him "Cicero." All was over between them.
Winter hikes weren't such a lot of fun after all, he told himself.
"Hi, look at the rabbit," shouted Pitt, pointing out an inquisitive bunny
that sat upon his haunches under a tree, "to see the parade go by."
"Don't hurt him, don't hurt him," cried Sahwah, dancing up and down and
trying to focus her camera on him.
"Who's hurting him?" said the Captain. "We haven't anything to hurt him
with, unless Slim steps on him." Sahwah clicked her camera and at the
click Br'er Bunny vanished into space.
"Let's see what kind of tracks he made," said Sahwah, and they all
willingly detoured a trifle to examine the footprints in the snow.
"There are some others beside his," said Bottomless Pitt. "What kind of
an animal is that, Uncle Teddy?"
Uncle Teddy examined the tracks and nodded his head with a satisfied air.
"You boys ought to know those tracks," he said provokingly. "What kind of
scouts are you, anyway? Here, Captain, quit your scowling like a
thundercloud and tell us what animal has been taking a walk. I certainly
have taught you enough about woodcraft to know that."
The Captain looked at the tracks closely. "I think it's a 'coon," he said
finally.
"Think so!" scoffed Uncle Teddy. "Don't you know so? Pitt, what do you
say?"
"Looks like a 'coon to me," answered Pitt.
"And what do you say, Redbird?" asked Uncle Teddy, pulling Sahwah's hair.
"There's where you boys have us beaten," said Sahwah frankly. "We never
have had a chance to learn animal tracks."
"I'm sure it's a 'coon," said the Captain, his spirits rising with the
chance to crow over the girls.
"All right, if you're sure of it, we'll follow the trail awhile and see
where he is," said Uncle Teddy. "But you always want to be sure of what
you see, after you've learned it once. A good woodsman always fixes a
thing in his mind so he'll know it the next time he sees it."
"I'm sure it's a 'coon," repeated the Captain. "May we follow the trail
awhile?" Eagerly they trotted along beside the footprints in the snow,
impatient to have a sight of the animal. This was a new sport to the
Winnebagos and they were greatly excited about it. The Captain had
forgotten his low spirits and was in the lead now.
"I say, the fellow that spies him first ought to be pathfinder for the
rest of the way," he said.
"What does a 'coon look like?" panted Sahwah, trying to keep up with him.
"He has a short, thick, striped tail," said the Captain, "and a---- Oh,
goodness gracious! Oh, Methuselah's great grandmother!" For just then the
wind began to blow strongly from the direction in which they were going,
carrying with it an unmistakable odor. With one accord they took to their
heels.
"O Uncle Teddy," said the Captain, furious at himself, "you knew what it
was all the while! Why didn't you tell us?"
"Well," said Uncle Teddy dryly, "you were so blooming sure it was a 'coon
that I couldn't contradict you very well without being impolite. 'There's
nothing like being dead sure,' I says to myself. And I knew you would
never be satisfied until you had found out for yourself."
The Captain, permanently abashed, retired to the rear of the line and
ventured no more opinions about anything they saw, and took not the
slightest interest when Hinpoha discovered a rare little moosewood maple
and identified it by its beautiful green bark.
"Last lap!" shouted Pitt, consulting the map for the hundred and fortieth
time. "Turn east by the twin oaks and approach the camp from the rear!
Company, forward march!"
"There are the cabins now," cried the Monkey, throwing his cap into the
air. "Maybe I won't sit down and hold my feet up, though!"
"Maybe you won't jump around and get some firewood, though!" remarked
Uncle Teddy. "End of the hike, messmates," he shouted, executing a droll
dance on his snowshoes and waving his long arms like windmills. "All
together, now, three cheers and a tiger for the end of the hike!" And
they gave them with a will.
The place where they were to spend that night and the next was an
abandoned sugar camp. It had once been a fine grove of trees, but so many
had been killed by the boring worms that it was no longer profitable. Two
cabins remained standing and were used on and off by hunters during the
season.
"Oh-h-h, ours is a real log cabin," cried Sahwah, dancing around in
ecstasy when quarters had been assigned. "It's lots nicer than the old
board shack the boys are going to have. I'll feel just like Abraham
Lincoln to-night, only so much more elegant, because Abraham Lincoln had
to split his own rails, and we can sit at ease and let the boys tote our
wood for us."
"But--where are the beds?" cried Hinpoha, in perplexity, as they went
inside.
"Why, _those_," said Aunt Clara, pointing to some bin-like things ranged
in a double tier along one wall. "Those are our bunks."
"Bunks!" echoed the girls in rather a dismayed tone. "We didn't think
we'd have to sleep in bunks. We expected camp beds, at least."
"They're quite comfortable," said Aunt Clara reassuringly, "when they're
filled with clean straw. Our blankets are in that big box and we'd better
get our beds made the first thing, so we can roll into them as soon as we
get tired." She bustled around, smoothing out the straw in the bunks with
a practised hand and showing the girls how to fold their blankets to the
best advantage. "Be sure you have just as much under you as over you,"
she advised them again and again. "Camping in winter is a very different
proposition from sleeping out in summer."
Now that the girls had gotten used to the idea of the bunks, they began
to think it was a jolly good lark to sleep in them. "If bunks it must be,
bunks it is," said Katherine, in a lugubrious tone that sent them all
into gales of laughter, "but I never thought I'd live to see the day!"
"Me for the upper berth," said Sahwah, standing on a table to accomplish
the spreading of her blankets. It was not long before they were all
singing:
"Oh, we're bunking tonight on the side of the wall,
Give us a ladder, please,
We've slept in many beds, both hard and soft,
But never in bunks like these!"
"Bunking tonight,
Bunking tonight,
Bunking on the side of the wall!"
And they raised such a din with the chorus that the boys came streaming
over to see what the fun was about and to inquire casually if supper
wasn't nearly ready.
"Goodness, no," answered Nyoda; "we've just got our beds made. Go
overpower Slim, if you are hungry, and take his bottle away from him. By
the way, which cabin is to be honored by the smell of the cooking?"
"The log cabin is the largest," said Uncle Teddy, "and it has both the
fireplace and the little stove. The other is just a sleeping cabin. I
guess the honor is yours. All aboard for the dining car! Where's that
canned soup? Bring in the wood, boys, and make a cooking fire in the
stove. You know what a cooking fire is, I suppose. Everybody get to work.
Too many cooks can't spoil this broth."
They flew around, getting in each other's way dreadfully, but under Uncle
Teddy's and Aunt Clara's able management they did contrive to accomplish
the things they were trying to do, and in less than no time the supper
was steaming on the table.
"Maybe I won't do anything to that soup and that creamed fish!" sighed
Slim, his face beaming at the sight of the banquet spread before him.
"Maybe it won't do anything to him!" said Katherine in an aside to
Sahwah. "I got a whole teaspoonful of Hinpoha's old talcum powder in the
cream sauce before I discovered it wasn't flour, and then it was too late
to take it out again."
"Never mind," Sahwah giggled back, "it's so hot you can't taste it, and
it won't last long enough to get cold. Your secret is safe in our
stomachs!"
The paper plates made a grand glare in the fireplace after supper was
over and in its light Katherine and Slim gave a Punch and Judy show until
Slim showed symptoms of bursting from want of breath, whereupon the play
came to an end and it was discovered that Bottomless Pitt had fallen
asleep in a corner.
"Hide his shoes!" suggested the Monkey, and promptly took them off and
tied them by strings to a tack in the ceiling.
"Let's enchant him altogether," said the gifted Katherine, and fastened
the little mustache to his lip. Then they stuck his head full of paper
curls and powdered his face with flour. The effect when he woke up was
all they had hoped for. They had set a small wall mirror on the floor
beside him, so he got the full benefit of his altered appearance on his
first glance around. Uttering a startled yell, he sprang to his feet,
looking wildly around. Brought to himself by the laughter on all sides,
he shook his fist fiercely at Slim and the Captain, declaring that he
would make the fellow who did that eat soap. As Katherine was the
"fellow" in question this only increased the merriment at his expense.
Slim leaned against the wall so helpless from laughter that he didn't
even resist when Pitt climbed on his shoulders to haul down his shoes,
but went on chuckling violently until he sagged to one side and down came
both boys in a heap, shoes, tack and all.
"I wish you boys would go home," said Katherine primly. "You're
altogether too rough for us little girls to play with. I think it's
horrid and nasty to play tricks on people when they're asleep." From her
gently shocked and disapproving expression you never would have guessed
that she was the one who had started it all.
"Come on home, fellows, we're invited out," said Uncle Teddy, with a
pretended injured air. "It's time we little gentlemen were in the hay--I
mean the straw. Come on, Pitt, never mind looking for the tack; Mother
will find it when she gets up in her stocking feet to see if she locked
the door!" With which shot he retired in haste through the doorway and
over to the other cabin, and just in time, for Aunt Clara sent a snowball
flying after him that fell short by a bare inch.
Then she closed and barred the door, fixed the fire with hardwood which
would last the rest of the night, plastered adhesive strips over the
various blisters which the Winnebago feet had acquired on the long march,
and tucked them all in warmly with a motherly pat and a goodnight kiss.
After a twenty-mile walk in the open air a hard plank would be a
comfortable resting place, and the straw filled and blanket padded bunks
were far from the hard plank class. For the first time in the history of
Winnebago sleeping parties there was strictly "nothing doing" after they
were tucked in. Most of them fell asleep during the process of tucking.
Thus it was that when the first thump came at the door nobody stirred. A
second thump followed like a blow from a battering ram. Aunt Clara sat
up.
"Who's there?" she called. No answer save a series of blows and thumps
that threatened to break the door down. The rest were awake by this time,
trembling in their beds.
"Theodore, is that you?" shrieked Aunt Clara above the noise. "What do
you want?" Again came a shower of blows, as if somebody were trying to
force their way in with an axe. This time the bars gave way and the door
swung inward. There was a loud bellowing, roaring sound, which seemed to
their startled ears like a deep-throated whistle, and into the cabin
there walked a cow. The girls shrieked and disappeared under the
bed-clothes, for to their excited fancy she looked like a wild animal.
"Shoo, get out!" shouted Aunt Clara, throwing her slipper with neat aim
into the cow's face. Bossy looked reproachfully at her and walked farther
into the cabin, standing close beside the row of bunks.
Katherine raised her head from the blanket to see what was going on and
looked right into the open mouth of the creature as it stood over her.
"Murder! It's going to eat me up!" she shrieked, diving under the covers
with a prolonged howl.
By this time Aunt Clara had found the whistle with which she always
summoned her husband when she needed him and blew a long, shrill blast. A
few minutes later Uncle Teddy appeared at the door, with a string of
startled boys running out of their cabin behind him, and at a word of
command from him, accompanied by several emphatic pokes and proddings,
Mrs. Bossy meekly turned and walked out through the doorway, which was
considerably the worse for her entrance. She had probably strayed from
the nearest farmhouse and was suffering from the intense cold. Attracted
by the light streaming from the little window of the cabin she had come
to find shelter, and when nobody answered her first gentle knocks with
her horns, she had taken matters into her own hands and become
housebreaker. She was stabled in a lean-to shelter for the rest of the
night and made comfortable with straw and a blanket.
"Isn't it funny how all the suffering critters come to our hospitable
door for shelter?" said Katherine at the breakfast table. "Just like
Sandhelo. He came of his own accord, also."
"They must know that we keep the Fire Law," answered Hinpoha. "'Whose
house is bare and dark and cold, whose house is cold, this is his own'!"
"Isn't it strange that she came to our door, and not to the boys'," said
Gladys. "They had a light shining, too, but her footprints show that she
came past their door to stop at ours."
"That's because she was a lady," replied Uncle Teddy, helping himself to
his fifth slice of fried bacon, "and no lady would come bustling into a
gentleman's apartment like that. Hurry up and get your chores done, you
housekeepers and wood-gatherers, and let's go out and make a snow man."
"Let's make a totem-pole," suggested Katherine, when they were all out
playing in the snow. "It's lots more epic than making a snow man."
"You mean a 'snowtem pole,'" observed Uncle Teddy.
So they set to work and made a marvellous totem-pole, higher than the
cabin, with figures carved into its sides such as were never on land or
sea. Then Uncle Teddy and the boys, who had done less carving on their
sections and consequently were finished first, set up a barber pole on
the other side of the doorway, containing the stripes with a crimson of
their own concocting, which was a secret, but which involved several
trips to the kitchen and the food supply box. All this time the Captain
had never spoken one word to Hinpoha. Whenever he would have relented
under the spell of the jolly larks they were having, something whispered
to him, "She called me Cicero! I won't stand that from anyone!"
"Who's ripe for a trifling sprint of five miles this afternoon?" asked
Uncle Teddy at the dinner table, taking three scones at once from the
plate.
"I! I! I!" cried a chorus of voices, and a dozen hands waved frantically
above the table.
"Have you any special place in mind?" asked Aunt Clara, pretending not to
see Uncle Teddy stealing yet another buttered scone from her plate.
"Well," said Uncle Teddy, "I happen to know that there's a real sugar
camp in action somewhere about here, and I think five miles covers it,
there and back. It might not be the worst idea in the world to look in
and see how they are getting on. I dare say most of these folks here have
never seen maple syrup outside of a can."
A sigh of delight ran around the table. "Hurry up, everybody, and put
everything you have left into your mouths, so I can collect the plates,"
said Sahwah, impatient to start at once.
But when the time came to start Hinpoha had developed such a dizzy
headache that going along was out of the question. "It's nothing
serious," she stoutly maintained, in reply to anxious inquiries. "Too
much noise, that's all. We might call it 'Mal de racket'!" She would not
hear of any of them staying at home with her, however, although Aunt
Clara and Nyoda both insisted. "Go on, all of you," she begged, pressing
her hand to her throbbing temples. "It would make it so much worse if I
thought I had kept you away from the fun. All I want is to lie down
quietly. I'll be perfectly all right here. If I feel better soon I'll
follow your tracks and either catch up with you or meet you there and
come back home with you. Please go." And so insistent was she that they
went without her.
"Be sure you lock the door carefully," called Aunt Clara.
"And be sure you put out a sign, NO COWS ADMITTED," said Sahwah. And
laughing they set out, leaving her tucked in her bunk. With the cessation
of the noise that had almost lifted the roof of the cabin during the
dinner hour, the headache gradually disappeared, and in an hour Hinpoha
was herself again. Swiftly buckling on her snowshoes she ran out into the
stinging air, which seemed like a cool hand laid on her forehead.
She found the trail of the others easily, for the crust was slightly
dented in by every step. The way led through a thick strip of woods.
Hinpoha noticed that there were many tracks of animals here and wished
with all her heart that she knew what they were. "It would be such a
grand thing to say to the folks at home, 'I followed the trail of a
'coon,' and be sure it was a 'coon," she said to herself, and then
laughed aloud at the ridiculous mistake of the Captain. Then she stood
still in delight, for just before her a dark, furry body was slipping
along over the snow. "I believe that really is one," she said to herself
joyfully. "I can't catch him, of course, but maybe he'll run up a
tree--people always talk about 'coons being treed--and then I can see
what he looks like." And she sped after the little animal, who took alarm
at her first step and disappeared between the trunks of the trees.
Hinpoha looked for him for a while and then realized it was a hopeless
search and with a sigh turned to resume her own way through the woods.
Then she stopped in dismay. The broad trail she had been following so
easily had vanished from the earth! The only marks on the white ground
were those of her own snowshoes. "Of course," she said, coming to herself
with a shake, "I got off the trail when I followed that 'coon. I'll
follow my own tracks back." But her own tracks led her round and round in
a circle, in and out among the tree trunks, and did not end up in what
she sought. It took her some minutes to realize that she was actually
lost in the woods. Then, of course, the first thing she did was to go
into a panic, and run wildly back and forth. "Come, this will never do,"
she told herself severely, standing still. "I must stop and think before
I do anything else. Let me see, what was it Migwan did the time she was
lost up in the Maine woods? She sat down on the ground and wrote poetry,
and waited until we came and found her! I can't write poetry, that's out
of the question, and I can't sit on the ground, either, it's too cold.
I'll have to stand up and wait." But that proved a dreary amusement. It
was getting bitterly cold, and a strong wind whistled through the bare
branches till it made her flesh creep. To make things worse, an early
twilight was setting in and the light was rapidly fading. To keep from
taking cold she walked up and down bravely among the trees, growing more
terrified every minute. She tried to sing, to call, to shout, to make her
voice carry across the snow, but it was lost in the moaning of the wind.
Her feet grew numb with the cold and she stamped them vigorously to start
up the blood. The crust broke through, and down she went through several
feet of snow to her waist. She braced herself with her hands and tried to
draw her feet out, but they went through also and she floundered with her
face in the icy snowflakes. Then with a growing sense of horror she
realized what had happened. The ends of her snowshoes had become firmly
wedged under the roots of a tree, and she was unable to pull them out.
And her feet, tightly bound to the snowshoes by the pretty straps and
buckles, were trapped. She struggled furiously, and only sank deeper in
the snow.
As the "syrup party," as they called themselves, were just ready to cool
off the bit of boiled sap that had been given them to taste, the Captain
suddenly sprang to his feet and smote his forehead. "Daggers and dirks!"
he exclaimed, "I left my sweater hanging right in front of the fire when
we came away--you remember it got all wet in the snowball fight this
morning--and I bet it's scorched to cinders by this time. Do you folks
mind if I go back to the cabin in a hurry? I got that sweater for
Christmas and I hate to lose it so soon. I'm all right, uncle, I can find
the way, even if it is getting dark. Don't hurry yourselves. Give my
share of the syrup to Slim. He's getting thin." And adjusting his
snowshoes with a skilled "jiffy twist," he was off down the trail.
Now the Captain, although he had been mistaken about the tracks the day
before, was nevertheless an observant lad, and when he came to the place
where Hinpoha had left the trail, he noticed the marks going off in
another direction and stood still and looked at them. He knew that they
most likely belonged to Hinpoha, and he knew also that she had not
arrived at the sugar camp and he had not met her on the trail coming
home, so, putting two and two together, he decided that she must be in
the woods somewhere. A mean little instinct whispered to him to go on his
way and let her be wherever she was, and get a good fright until the rest
found her; then his better nature rose to the top and he decided to hunt
her up and show her the trail to meet the others.
"Glory, she certainly did mess up the trail some," he said to himself, as
he followed the marks which wandered up and down and doubled back on
themselves and crisscrossed everywhere. It was slow going, for the
darkness was hiding the footprints and he had to bend down to the ground
to see them clearly. He almost stepped on her at last when he did find
her. She was numb from the cold and very nearly asleep and he thought she
was dead. The imprisoned snowshoes held her down and he could not pull
her out of the snow at first. Finally he suspected what had happened and
dug down in and loosened the buckles. It took a good deal of working
after she was freed to get life back into the numb feet and ankles, but
it was accomplished at last and Hinpoha was ready to walk home.
Then a moment of embarrassment fell between them. Hinpoha flushed and
looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry I called you Cicero," she said, with a
sneeze between every word. "You aren't a Cissy at all. You're a hero!"
And then for no reason at all, except that the afternoon's strenuous
adventure had unstrung her nerves, she burst into tears.
"Here," said the Captain, entirely light-hearted again, and holding up
the little bucket he had carried away from the sugar camp, "cry into the
pail. Evaporate the water. Save the salt. It's worth money."
And Hinpoha giggled foolishly and dried her tears and raced back to the
cabin as fast as she could go, to stave off pneumonia on her arrival with
hot blankets and steaming drinks.
"He _is_ a hero," she murmured dreamily to Gladys, who hovered around her
like an anxious grandmother, after the others were satisfied that she was
all right, and had set to work getting supper; "he never once said, 'I
told you so'!"