SUMMONED TO THE COUNCIL
"They're saved! They're saved!" shouted fifty voices, their owners
almost wild with delight. With one common impulse they gathered up
Tommy and Harriet and started to carry them into camp. Tommy offered
no resistance. She submitted willingly. With Harriet it was different.
She struggled, freed herself from the detaining arms, and sprang away
from her rejoicing companions, laughing softly.
"I am perfectly able to take care of myself, thank you," she said.
"You certainly do not look it," declared the Chief Guardian. Harriet's
face was pale, her eyes sunken, with dark rings underneath them, but
in other ways she appeared to be her old self. "We shall both be as
well as ever after we have had something warm to eat and drink."
"Tell us, oh, tell us about it," cried several girls in chorus.
"Not a word until after the girls have had something to eat and drink.
They are completely exhausted." Mrs. Livingston gazed wonderingly at
Harriet Burrell, knowing full well that the latter had borne the
greater share of the burden in the battle that she must have had to
fight through the long, dark night.
The cook girls were already making coffee and warming up food left
over from their own breakfast, as being the quickest way to prepare
something for the returned Meadow-Brook Girls. That meal strengthened
and cheered them wonderfully. Tommy began to chatter after having
drunk her first cup of coffee. Their companions sat about in a
semi-circle watching them, scarcely able to restrain their curiosity
as to what had happened during the night. Jane opened the recital by a
question.
"Did you really mean that you wished fish for breakfast, Tommy?" she
asked.
Grace regarded her with a frowning squint.
"I didn't want any fithh for breakfatht. It wath the fithh that wanted
me for their breakfatht."
"And there are sharks off this coast, too!" gasped one of the girls.
"Were you in the water for long?" asked Miss Elting.
"It seemed like a long time, it seemed like hours and hours," admitted
Harriet, accompanying the words with a bright smile that the keen-eyed
Chief Guardian saw was forced.
"For hours!" cried the girls in chorus.
"If you feel able, please tell us about it," urged Hazel.
Mrs. Livingston shook her head.
"Both girls are going to bed immediately. Please fix up two cots for
them in my tent. No, no," she added in answer to Harriet's protests,
"it is my order. You are to turn in and sleep until supper time, if
you wish; by that time we shall have the camp put to rights and you
may talk to your hearts' content."
The Chief Guardian led the two girls to her tent, assisting them to
remove their damp clothing, putting them in warm flannel night gowns
and tucking them in their cots. Harriet insisted that she did not wish
to be "babied," but, the guardian was firm. After tucking them in Mrs.
Livingston sat down on the edge of Tommy's cot and began asking her
questions, all of which Tommy answered volubly, Harriet now and then
offering objections to her companion's praise. In a few moments the
Chief Guardian was in possession of the whole story of the night's
experiences.
"You are the same brave Harriet that we came to know so well at our
camp in the Pocono Woods," said Mrs. Livingston. "There are not many
like you; but we shall speak of your achievements later. Now I will
draw the flap, and I do not wish to see it opened until sundown. I
know that I may depend upon you to obey orders."
Harriet nodded. "There is something I should like to ask. Did you see
anything of a sail boat in the bay this morning?"
"No. Why?"
"I saw one come in last night before the blow. It anchored in the
cove. They had put out their lights before coming in, which made me
wonder."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yes, I know. I wondered if they had been blown ashore?"
"We should have known of it if such had been the case. But I can't
understand what a boat could be doing in here. This is a remote place
where people seldom come. That was why I chose it for our summer
camping place. I will ask the girls if they saw anything of the boat
you mention, but it is doubtful."
"Another thing. Oh, I'm not going to keep you here talking with me all
day."
"No; I want to go to thleep," interjected Grace.
"I saw a cabin down on that long point of land just this side of the
bay. What is it?"
"A fisherman's cabin. It is not occupied, nor has it been in a very
long time."
"Then why can't we Meadow-Brook Girls use it while we are in camp? I
should love to be down by the water, with the sea almost at my feet."
"I should think you would have had enough of the sea, after your
dreadful experience of last night," laughed Mrs. Livingston.
"I am fascinated with the sea. It is wonderful! Do you think we could
have the cabin?"
"I will consult with Miss Elting. If she thinks it wise, I will see
what can be done. Of course, it is a little farther from the camp than
I like. I prefer to have my girls where I can have an eye on them at
all times. But the Meadow-Brook Girls can be depended upon to take
care of themselves, save that they are too venturesome. Yes, I will
see what can be done."
"Oh, thank you ever so much," answered Harriet with glowing eyes.
"Then, if we wish, we may sleep out on the sands when the nights are
warm."
"I shall have to think about that, my dear. Now go to sleep. This
evening I shall have more to say."
Tommy was already asleep. Harriet dropped into a heavy slumber within
a very few moments after the Chief Guardian's departure. She did not
awaken until the sun had dipped into the sea. As she forced herself to
a realization of her surroundings, the merry chatter of voices was
borne to her ears and the savory odor of camp cooking to her nostrils.
In the meantime an active day had been spent by the Camp Girls. There
was much to be done, for the camp was in a confused condition after
the storm of the preceding evening. A day of labor had given a keen
zest to the appetites of the campers; added to this was the
satisfaction of having completed their work. The camp now was in trim
condition. Acting upon the orders of the Chief Guardian, the wood had
been laid for a council fire. The orders had been issued for the girls
to don ceremonial dress and report for a council at eight o'clock that
evening.
The girls wondered what important subject was to come up for
consideration, as it was not the evening for the regular weekly
council fire that was always held during the summer encampment. Of all
this Harriet was unaware. When she awakened she found dry clothing
laid out for her to put on. The same had been done for Grace, who was
still sleeping soundly. Harriet shook the little girl awake.
"It is nearly night, dear," she said. "How do you feel?"
Tommy blinked several times before replying. "How do I feel? Not tho
wet ath I did latht night. I thmell thupper!" exclaimed Tommy, sitting
up suddenly.
"I told you it was nearly night. Let's go out and see the girls. How
good they all are to us!"
"I thuppothe they will all be looking at me and following me about ath
though I wath thome thort of curiothity," complained Grace.
"Of course you would not like that. It would embarrass you, wouldn't
it, Tommy?"
"It would embarrath me more if they didn't," answered Tommy honestly,
puckering her face into frowns and squinting up at Harriet so
whimsically that the older girl burst into a peal of merry laughter.
Instantly following the laugh, Jane's head was thrust through the tent
opening. The head was in disorder, for Jane had found no time to
attend to her hair. She had been working, which meant that she had
been accomplishing things, for Jane was a host in herself when it came
to work.
"Excuse the condition of my crowning glory, darlin's, but I couldn't
wait to comb it. I have been sent to tell you that the grease is on
the bacon and the potatoes are popping open in the hot ashes of the
cook fire. We're going to cut off the tops of them, dig out a tunnel
and fill the tunnel with butter. Um, um! Now, what do you think of
that?"
In a twinkling Tommy was out of bed and gleefully hurrying into her
clothes.
"I thought it would interest you, darlin'," chuckled Jane.
"You dress as if you were going to a fire," declared Harriet, with a
good-natured laugh.
"She is," answered Crazy Jane; "the camp fire--the cook fire, I should
say."
Tommy, during this dialogue, had not uttered a word. Finally, having
got into her clothes to her satisfaction, she darted from the tent,
spinning Jane half-way around as she dashed past her, the little girl
twisting her hair into a hard knot as she ran.
"I want a potato with a hole in it," she shouted the moment she came
in sight of the cook fire. Some one snatched a hot tuber from the
ashes and tossed it to her. Tommy caught the potato, but dropped it
instantly and began cooling her fingers. "I want one with a hole in
it," she insisted.
"Bring it here and you shall have it," replied Miss Elting. Instead of
picking up the potato and carrying it, Tommy propelled it along with
the toe of her boot. She did not propose to burn her fingers again.
The guardian gouged out a hole to the bottom, filling the hole with
butter, Tommy's eyes growing larger and larger. Then she began to eat
the potato with great relish, after having seasoned it with salt and
pepper. This was no time for words, nor were any uttered until
nothing but the blackened skin of the potato was left.
"Thave me!" gasped Tommy. "Pleathe, may I have another?"
"Don't you think it would be well to wait for supper?" suggested Miss
Elting. "In your greediness you have forgotten the others."
"I beg your pardon, but I wath tho hungry! If you had been a fithh
thwimming in the ocean all night you, too, would have an appetite. How
would you like to be a fithh, Mith Livingthton?"
"I am quite content to be a mere human being," was the Chief
Guardian's laughing reply. "Were you afraid when you found yourself
out in the ocean all alone?"
"Afraid? I--I gueth I didn't think about that. I wath too buthy trying
to keep from filling up with thalt water. Did you ever drink any of
that water, Mith Livingthton?"
"Hardly."
"Then take the advice of a fithh, and don't."
All hands were called to supper, thus putting an end to the
conversation, which had been heartily enjoyed by Mrs. Livingston.
Tommy always was a source of amusement to her. She appreciated the
active mind and the keen, if sometimes rude, retorts and ready answers
of the little lisping girl.
After supper a short time was spent in visiting among the girls
principally to discuss the marvelous experience of the two
Meadow-Brook Girls; then one by one the girls left to go to their
tents to don their ceremonial dress, and in place of the regulation
serge uniform of the Camp Girls figures clad in the ceremonial dress,
their hair hanging in two braids over their shoulders, and beads
glistening about their necks, began to make their appearance.
Barely had the girls put on their ceremonial costumes before a
moccasined Wau-Wau girl ran at an Indian lope through the camp, crying
out the call for the council fire:
"Gather round the council fire,
The chieftain waits you there,"
chanted the runner, circling the camp after having gone straight
through the center from her own tent. The girls began moving toward a
dark spot in the young forest where the wood for the fire had been
piled, but not yet lighted.
"What are we going to do?" questioned Tommy.
Miss Elting said she could not say; that the Chief Guardian had called
the council. Silent figures took their places, sitting on the ground,
curling their feet underneath them, speaking no words, waiting for the
flame that would open the Wau-Wau council. At last all were seated.
From among the number there stepped forward a dark figure who halted
before the pile of dry wood, then, stooping, began rubbing two sticks
together, while the circle of Camp Girls chanted:
"Flicker, flicker, flicker, flame;
Burn, fire, burn!"
A tiny blaze sprang from the two sticks, then the chant rose higher
and higher, figures rose up, swaying their bodies from side to side in
unison as the blaze grew into a flame and the flame into a roaring
fire, the tongues of which reached almost to the tops of the slender
trees that surrounded the camp of the Wau-Wau Girls.
"I light the light of health for Wau-Wau," announced the firemaker,
turning her back to the flames and facing part of the circle of
expectant faces on which the lights and shadows from the fire were
playing weirdly.
This completed the opening ceremony. The council fire was in order,
the purpose of the meeting would soon be explained, thus relieving the
curiosity of some fifty girls who were burning to know what it was all
about. Not the least curious of these was Tommy Thompson.