WINONA’S DECISION
When Virginia returned to Vine Haven, she found the girls in the library
for the mid-morning free half hour. As soon as Mrs. Martin had closed
the door of her study, they flocked about their favorite begging her to
tell them just what happened. Betsy taking their president by the arm
led her into the long attractive room where the walls were lined with
books, pictures and small statues.
“We were sure you’d be coming back about now,” Sally said as she skipped
along by the side of her beloved one, “and so we have been poking the
fire to keep it bright.”
Betsy teased. “Sally hasn’t much faith in those furs that she loaned
you. She has been so afraid that you would come home frozen, it being so
cold today.”
“I wasn’t cold,” Virg turned a grateful glance at the doll-like girl who
was always hovering near her, “but I know someone who was.”
“My goodness me, it couldn’t have been Mrs. Martin,” Betsy declared.
“She was almost hidden in that adorable long fur coat of hers. It must
have cost a million dollars, unless her grandfather was a seal diver.”
“They don’t dive to catch seals,” Megsy said, correctingly. “You’re
thinking of pearls.”
Sally giggled. “I’d hate to wear a string of pearls instead of a fur boa
on a day like this.”
“But enlighten us; who was cold in your party?” Barbara brought the
subject back to its point of digression.
“Micky was, and that set me to thinking of our plan. You know we said,
since we are so grateful to him for having come out in that bitterly
cold storm the other night to rescue us, that we would chip together and
buy him something. Well, I believe the thing he needs most is a warm
winter overcoat.”
“Hurray for you, Virg! That’s a spiffy idea! I’m for it! Lessee! I have
at least fifty cents left after buying chocolate-chews and sweet
pickles.” This, of course, from twinkling-eyed Betsy.
“I’m the moneyed person in this party,” Babs said with pretended pride,
“for dad sent me ten dollars extra on my month’s allowance, and it just
came today. That shall go toward the new coat.”
“We’ll all chip in, but do let’s talk fast, for, in three minutes and
two seconds our free period will be over.” Margaret indeed was talking
so rapidly that her words sounded jumbled. “We’re wild to know what
happened over at the old Burgess place.”
“But I couldn’t possibly tell it all to you in three minutes, for the
two seconds are already gone, but this much I can say. Eleanor Burgess
is coming, not as a guest but as a teaching pupil, so there will not be
anything to keep secret after all.”
“Hurray! That’s jolly fine! I hope there’s a mystery about her that I
can solve.” These comments were laughingly called back over the
shoulders of the three departing girls for right on time the gong had
pealed in the main corridor bidding them to return to their classes.
Virginia walked slowly upstairs to the room which she shared with
Winona. She was thinking of the Manuscript Magazine. Eleanor had told
her that she would rather write than eat Charlotte Russe and that that
was saying a good deal as she adored that particular kind of dessert,
but had always been too poor to have it except on very rare occasions
such as birthdays or Christmas. “I’m just sure we’ll all love her, and
how I do hope one of her stories will do for this month’s magazine.”
Virginia opened the door to the corner room and then stopped and stared
within.
What she saw aroused her curiosity.
“Winona, where are you going? Why are you packing? You haven’t had bad
news from home, have you?” This last because of an open letter on the
table which lay as though it had been hastily dropped as soon as it had
been read.
The tall, graceful Indian girl stood up and turned to smile with her
usual calm expression undisturbed.
“It’s strange, isn’t it,” she said, “how very much can happen in a very
little time? Just after you left this morning a telegram came from my
brother, Strong Heart, which had been sent from Red Riverton. In it he
told me that there was an epidemic in our village and that he was in
town trying to find a physician who would be willing to go so far out on
the desert and remain until all danger was over. ‘Do not come yet. Night
letter will follow,’ that telegram stated. Of course I began at once to
pack, believing that I might want to start West at any moment, but when
the night letter came, my sister, Glad Song wrote that help had been
obtained and that I need not come. I will read what she has written:
‘Winona, several of our little ones passed from our village before we
could obtain help. We no longer believe in our old medicine man and
there is no one in our midst who knows about first aid measures. I have
been wishing that you might learn something of these things before you
return to us.’”
The Indian girl looked up, her dark eyes glowing with a new resolve.
“You remember White Lily, that day just after the Christmas holidays
when I told you that I felt that there must be some real mission in life
for each of us?”
Virginia nodded: “Yes, I remember.”
“And you agreed. I recall that you said if we each held the finding of
that mission as a definite goal, we would be led to it, and now,” the
dark face was radiant, “this is what I may do for my father’s people. I
shall go away to another school, White Lily, where I can learn the ways
of preventing epidemics.”
How tall and straight, like an arrow, the Indian girl stood, and, in her
eyes there was that far-away expression as though she were seeing a
vision. Virginia thought of Joan d’Arc. That same expression was often
pictured in the eyes of young women who were inspired with a high
purpose and in whose hearts there was a noble resolve.
“Where shall you go, Winona?” This was no time for sentimental regrets
that the friends were to be parted, their plans changed.
“I do not know. I shall speak with Mrs. Martin. She will know best how
to advise me. I will go to her now.”
When Winona was gone, Virginia removed her wraps and sat before the
fireplace, thinking. It was but a half hour before lunch and there was
not time to attend any of the morning classes.
“Dear, wonderful Winona,” the girl from the West was thinking, “she has
found her life work and she will accomplish it, whatever the obstacles
may be that will arise in her path.” Then with a little sigh, Virginia
thought of her own future. What did it hold for her? What worthwhile
thing was she to do? Of course she would return to her beloved desert,
but who was there that she could really benefit with what she had
learned, as Winona would benefit her father’s remnant of a tribe? In a
flash there came to the girl a picture in the fire. For three long years
the little school house near the sand hills, which she and Winona had
attended when they were younger, had been deserted. The storms had blown
the sand high over the door-sill and the drifts, on the side toward
which the wind most frequently blew were even up to the windows. Such a
sad, forlorn little place it was!
And it could not be reopened. A teacher could not be hired by the State
because there were only six pupils to attend it. The three little Mahoys
and another three little scraggly unkempt children belonging to a dry
rancher over in Wild Hog Canon. Six children who were to grow up without
the rudiments of knowledge because the Board of Education would not hire
a teacher for that little desert school unless there were eight pupils.
Though she did not know it, the same light was burning deep in the eyes
of Virginia that she had noted a few moments before in the dark orbs of
her friend. “I, even I, am responsible for those six forlorn little
babies,” she was thinking. “They are my mission. Surely the State will
permit a self-appointed teacher, whom they will not have to pay, to at
least use the little schoolhouse that is nearly hidden in sand drifts.
“Brother Peyton, Uncle Tex, Rusty Pete and the rest will gladly have a
shoveling roundup and clear away the sand from the windows and doors. It
will be a cheerful little room, flooded with sunlight and filled with
color and hope and happiness.”
Virginia’s thoughts were interrupted by the return of Winona. “Strange
things are happening,” was her immediate remark. “Mrs. Martin had a
folder this morning from a hospital training school, and in it Mrs.
Martin is asked to send the name of any girl who might wish to take the
three months practical nursing course.
“I said that I would gladly take it, and, that there might be no delay,
Mrs. Martin called up the hospital on long distance and she was asked to
send me at once as one applicant for the term just beginning had been
unable to take the work at present.”
Virginia gladly assisted her friend to pack and that very afternoon the
Indian girl left the school before the other pupils even knew what was
happening.