Winona and Florence paddled back to Camp Karonya with the latest bundle
of mending, very, very happy. When they came ashore, they were met by a
committee consisting of Adelaide, Louise, Helen and Marie.
"We've got a plan for your being in the picture," said they very nearly
in unison. "We can decorate the boat with the apparatus in it----"
But Winona waved a lordly hand.
"Boat me no boats," said she. "I'm going to have Billy Lee's canoe to
decorate. We're going out this afternoon, or maybe to-morrow afternoon,
up to Wampoag where the shops are, and we're going to buy out the shops
with decorations. Going to get honorable mention, anyway!"
"Oh, then you'd really rather!" said Helen. "I'm _so_ glad. But it won't
seem natural not to have you on the float, Winnie!"
"Just as natural as not having Marie," said Winona.
"No," said Marie quietly, "not exactly. You're like the spirit of the
whole thing, Win, and I think they ought to have you."
"You can't," said Winona, sitting down on the grass and drawing her
knees up to her chin.
"We could if we canned Nataly," said Louise the rebel, half under her
breath.
"Well, you can't do that," said the other girls in a breath.
The truth was, Nataly Lee was the one dark spot--the one cinder, as you
might say--in the Camp Fire. She did not particularly like doing her
share of the work, she could not be made to take an interested part in
the work for honor beads, and she acted generally as if she was a caller
who was much older and more languid than the others. It was, in short,
very much as Louise had said when she offered to join--she was like a
kitten who refused to be anything but a cat.
"I don't know what Nataly's doing here, anyway," Louise went on. "And
we'd be a lot happier without her. I wish she'd go home and look after
her complexion. She can't do it properly here--anybody can see that!"
"Can't do what?" said a languid voice. It isn't a good thing to discuss
your friends too freely if they're anywhere at all around, because they
are exceedingly likely to overhear or partly hear. And this is just what
happened now. Nataly herself walked out of the strip of woods that
separated the camp from the river, and sat down by them.
"I thought I heard you talking about me," she said.
"We were," said Louise, quite unruffled. "At least I was. I was saying
that you couldn't look after your complexion properly here in the woods,
and that I thought you'd be happier away from our rude young society!"
Nataly did not see in the least that Louise was laughing at her, but
Helen did, and gave Louise a severe pinch. "Guying" was something that
the camp spirit allowed only if the victim knew what was being done to
her. But where Nataly was concerned it was hard to make Louise behave.
"Well, you know," said Nataly, "I am thinking of going home. It makes me
nervous, the idea of Aunt Lydia being near enough to pounce down on me
every minute. She is _so_ energetic. And my nerves are nearly all right
now."
"Then you really think you will go back?" said Winona.
"I really do, as soon as the carnival is over," said Nataly.
"Well, as I said," said Winona hastily, for Louise looked as if she were
going to suggest an earlier departure, "I'm going up to Wampoag this
afternoon to buy things with the boys."
"I have a 'gagement to make baskets with Frances," said Florence, "so I
can't go with you."
"I will if you want me," offered Louise. "I have various things I want
to say to you alone."
"That sounds dark and dreadful!" said Helen good-naturedly. "I think
we'd better not volunteer to go along, Marie!"
"We couldn't, anyway," Marie reminded her. "There's a lot to do on those
war-bonnets yet."
* * * * *
So that afternoon Louise, Winona, Billy and Tom paddled up to the summer
resort in quest of decorations.
"Have you any idea how you're going to trim the canoe?" asked Louise.
"I've thought it all out," said Winona. "I found the idea in an old book
of ballads Marie brought along. It was called 'The Ship o' the Fiend.'"
"Pretty name!" said Louise. "Who's going to be the fiend? Please don't
all speak at once!"
"I'll be the goat," said Billy. "Winnie told me a little about it. The
ballad was about a girl who went off with an old fiance, and he turned
out to be a real live demon."
"Yes," said Winona, "the tall topmast no taller was than he," it says.
"Well, I draw the line at stilts," said Billy sleepily. He was curled
down in the bottom of the boat basking in the sunshine, for Louise had
insisted on taking a paddle. "What do I have to do?"
"The first thing," said Winona, "is to wake up enough to sit up and be
consulted. How much copper wire ..."
The rest was inaudible, for Billy moved closer to Winona, who talked to
him mysteriously under her breath. The others could hear scraps like
"Japanese auctioneer ..." "fifty yards ..." "red paper muslin," and such
illuminating fragments.
"How much money have you got for me to spend, Tommy?" Winona broke off
to inquire.
"Four whole dollars," he said, "earned by splitting wood for a farmer."
"I certainly am obliged," she said, "and I'll pay it back."
"You'll do no such thing!" he said. "I should hope I could give my own
sister a lone four dollars once in awhile!"
"All right, you can," said Winona soothingly. She pulled out the paper
the boys had secured and given her, and began to read it aloud.
"Cash prizes in the canoe class, first, twenty-five dollars, second, ten
dollars, three third prizes, five dollars each. Now you see, if I get a
third prize I'll be a dollar in, and all the glory reflected on Camp
Karonya besides!"
They took a street-car when they got to Wampoag, because the shopping
district was a long ways off, and it was a hot day anyway. Tom and
Louise watched the other two with curiosity, as they went from store to
store, buying things that it seemed impossible could fit into each
other; copper wire, red tinsel by the box, paper muslin in what seemed
unlimited quantities, though it was really only a little over a dollar's
worth. Then Winona went into one Japanese store alone, and came out with
a bagful of paper lanterns and a knobby bundle which she refused to undo
or show. They hunted all over three streets for Greek fire, before it
occurred to Billy to go back to the hardware store where they had bought
their copper wire. He came out with three boxes of it, labelled "Blue,"
"Green" and "White," and seemed rather sad because they had no lavender
or gray fire in stock.
"'They bought a pig and some ring-bo-ree, and no end of Stilton
cheese!'" chanted Louise softly. "How on earth are you going to connect
all that crazy stuff?"
"You'll know, all in good time, my dear," said Winona sedately. "We can
go home now. The worst is over."
"We deserve a soda, at least, for all this," said Billy.
"Marble-dust," said Tom solemnly. "Some day, Bill, if you keep on
drinking sodas, you'll turn into a statue, and your sorrowing relatives
will have to put you up in the hall for an ornament."
"Glad I'm as lovely as all that comes to!" said Billy with a grin. "They
couldn't do it to you, old fellow--you aren't pretty enough!"
"He is pretty, too," said Louise stoutly. "Somebody told me only
yesterday that they thought Tom was so poetic-looking, and had a
striking head."
Billy laughed out loud, and Tom wriggled.
"I take it all back, Louise," he said. "He _is_ beautiful."
Tom gave a sort of mournful growl.
"Oh, cut it out, Billy!" he said. "If you really want that soda, here's
a drug-store."
"A striking head," mused his sister, cocking her own head on one side,
to look at Tom from this new point of view. "I really think you have."
"If ever I meet the fellow who said that, he'll find out I have a
striking fist," muttered Thomas darkly, walking into the drug-store
ahead of the rest, and sitting down at a table in the back. "Four walnut
sundaes, please. No, I don't want 'em all myself. The others are coming
in the door now."
For the next few days Winona, at a point half-way between her camp and
the Scout's camp, worked steadily over the paper lanterns she had
bought. She covered them all with white paper, and cut out holes in the
paper after the fashion of eyes, nose and mouth, until, if you were not
too critical, they looked like big oval skulls. If you _were_ critical,
they might remind you, it is true, of jack-o'-lanterns, but nobody was
unkind enough to say so but Tom. There were forty of them altogether,
and when they were all covered, and brought down to camp out of the
danger of being rained on, and festooned about Winona's tent, the effect
was truly awful. Tom, who had been watching his sister's performance
with interest, came over one day with five little paper-mache lanterns
which he presented to her, two in the shape of black cats, and three
like owls.
"I don't know yet what you're going to do," he said, "but if Bill's
going to wear horns and hoofs, and those things over the cot are meant
for skulls, I should think these would come in handy."
"They're just exactly what I wanted!" said Winona with rapture, hanging
them with the rest. "Now I've nothing to do but my dress."
She showed him several yards of black paper muslin and a sheet of gilt
paper. "It doesn't look promising, I know," she said, "but it will be
quite nice, I think, when it's done."
And it really was. Helen helped her to fit it, and they made it with the
dull side out, close-fitting, and covered with the stars and crescents
of the traditional witch-dress. She was done with it, even to the
pointed hat and black half-mask, in very good time.
"Now," she said to the boys, standing over Billy's canoe where it had
been pulled up in the grass, "now comes the tug of war. Tom, you said
you would help me."
"I did," said he. "What shall I do?"
"Then please nail these poles to the end of the canoe. They're about six
feet high, aren't they?"
"Yes. Do you want them sticking straight up into the air?"
"Straight up, please," she said.
"Billy's flying around in the town like a hen with its head cut off,"
said Tom as he proceeded to do what his sister asked, "trying to buy
something he won't tell about. And I found Louise and Helen up at Camp
Karonya, winding tinsel into balls like fury. Strikes me you ought to
share that five you won't get with the whole crowd of us."
"So I will when I get it," said Winona serenely. "Now will you please
brace those end-poles thoroughly, and nail cross-pieces on them about a
foot from the top?"
"It's easy to tell people how to do things," said Tom; but he was clever
at carpentering, and had it done in a very short time.
Then Winona took the copper wire she had bought, and strung it from end
to end of the cross-pieces, till the effect was something like that of a
half-done cat's cradle. Then she stood off and looked at her work,
walking round and round it, as a kitten looks at a mirror.
"That wire ought to bear about twenty pounds, don't you think?" she
asked.
"I don't see why not," said Tom, sitting down on the grass to watch her.
"Now I'll begin, then," she said. "Thank you for making the foundation."
She took up the copper wire again, and strung more lines of it from end
to end of the canoe, and one around the gunwale. She laced still more up
and down in irregular points, up and down the side-wires, till the
effect was that of an irregularly pointed fence, or crown, as high as
the end pieces in some parts, and low enough, at the ends, to show the
people seated in it.
"Looks like a cross-section of Alps," said Tom critically. "Are you
going to be the Blue Alsatian Mountains?"
"There are two classes of people who should never see a thing
half-done," answered his sister, standing off again to get the effect.
"Thank you," said Tom.
"Doesn't it look like anything else at all?" she asked, abandoning her
superior attitude, and throwing herself on his mercy.
"Well, something like a fever-chart," said he.
Winona said no more--there didn't seem to be any use. She picked up her
ball of red tinsel, and began to wind it around and within, and across,
every point of the "fever-chart," till there was a solid network. It was
not a bad imitation of a springing fire.
"Now do you see?" she said. "That's a big, red blaze coming out of the
canoe, and when we've lighted the Greek fire inside it ought to look
real enough to burn you."
"Not bad," admitted Tom. "But I don't see its connection with a black
bonnet and forty jack-o'-lanterns."
"You will by-and-bye," said his sister, going on with her work. It went
very smoothly after that, except that Puppums _would_ jump inside, and
then looked at her in a wronged way because the canoe did not float off.
After the tinsel was on nothing remained to do but to wrap the
end-pieces with black muslin, so they would not show at night, and to
cover the canoe with the same material. The lanterns did not need to be
hung till the last moment.
The night of the carnival Camp Karonya, very much excited, sailed down
the river in all the glory of its fleet, about six. The Indian village
was a great success as far as looks went. Whether it would be as
handsome a float as the ones it would have to compete with nobody could
tell yet. As a canoe takes less time to engineer than a float, and also
as the boys hadn't come yet, Winona stayed behind a little while. At
about seven Tom and Billy came up the river in another of the Scouts'
canoes. Winona, in her witch costume, with her lanterns, was waiting for
them by the decorated canoe.
Billy was most gorgeous. He had hired a red Mephisto costume, evidently
from a real costumer--horns, hoofs and all. His full grandeur didn't
show till he sprang out on the grass, because he had modestly shrouded
himself in a raincoat, and his mask was in its pocket. But he snapped
the mask on, tossed the coat off, and struck an attitude, before he
helped Tom to lay the canoe in the water.
"You certainly are grand and gorgeous, Billy," said Winona. "All you
need is a spotlight running round after you to look just like the man in
the opera."
"I feel like a freak," admitted Billy. "Got everything, Winona? We'd
better be starting."
Winona veiled her own splendors with an evening wrap of Mrs. Bryan's
which had, fortunately, been brought along, and stepped in. Tom trailed
behind.
"I believe I'm frightened," said Winona. "What about you, Billy?"
"There's nothing to be afraid of," he said. "We can't very well upset,
tied to a string of other craft, and maybe we'll get a fourth prize--if
they only have four entries in the canoe class."
"We'll get one anyway!" declared Winona proudly, throwing her head back
and forgetting to be nervous.
They were early at the dock. The Camp float was moored quite a little
way from the place where they had to be, but they could see each other,
and called across. After that Winona did not feel so lonely. The boys
helped her to light and tie on the lanterns, all so realistically like
skulls, and when she saw how very ghostly they looked she felt that she
hadn't lived in vain.
"Have you the skeleton, Billy?" she demanded anxiously of Mephisto, who
was wrestling with a bundle in the back canoe.
"Here it is," he said, finally producing it. "I had rather a time
getting old Hiraoka to rent it, but an auctioneer will do anything for
enough yen."
As he spoke he unwrapped a neat, papier-mache skeleton of nearly
life-size, which was of Japanese origin, and which, as he said, he had
rented from the Japanese store of Mr. Tashima Hiraoka for this night
only.
"Billy!" said Winona remorsefully, "how much did you pay for Mr. Bones?"
"No time to worry about that now," said Billy. "Where do you want him
put?"
Winona saw that he was right, and put off insisting on paying for the
skeleton till time should be less precious than now. They swung it above
the tinsel flames, on wire loops prepared for it, so that it turned
gently, as if roasting. Tom looked on in respectful admiration.
"Here's the last thing," said Billy, producing the mysterious bundle
that had excited Louise so the day they were shopping for decorations.
"Those are Billy's idea," said Winona, pulling the objects out as she
spoke. "They just put the finishing touch on, don't they, Tom?"
"I should say they did!" said Tom appreciatively. They were twenty small
red demons rather like Billy, and the same number of tiny skeletons, all
with waggle-some hands and feet.
"Blessed forever be Japanese stores!" said Winona. "Just hang them
around carelessly, boys, as if they were hovering over the fire, you
know. Billy, do you think you can make the demons look pleased and the
skeletons unhappy?"
"You never know what you can do till you try," said Billy with his usual
poise. He pulled some wire out of the back canoe, which, like the
Mother's Bag in the Swiss Family Robinson, seemed to have everything in
the world in it. The boys set to work with such a will that the last
demon was wriggling naturally as life, and there was ten minutes yet to
spare, when they were done.