Dec. 3, 19--.
Dear Winnies:
Hurray! I'm not fired. Why, I wasn't I never will be able to figure out,
but it's so. A week after the Picnic the Board sat, but not on me. For a
while I lived in hourly expectation of forcible eviction, but nothing
happened, and I heard from Justice, who stands high in the favor of
Elijah Butts and gets inside information about school matters, that
nothing was going to be done about it. If Justice had any further details
he wouldn't divulge them.
Justice is a queer chap. Although he talks nonsense incessantly, you can
get very little information out of him. And the way he puts up with all
kinds of inconveniences without complaint is wonderful to me. He must be
accustomed to far different surroundings, and yet from his attitude you'd
think his little cabin out beyond the stables was the one place on earth
he'd select for an abode. He never even mentioned the fact that the roof
leaked badly until I went out there to fetch him and discovered him on
top patching it. Then I went inside to see what else could be improved,
and the bare, tumble-down-ness of the place struck me forcibly. Light
shone through chinks in the walls, the door sill was warped one way and
the door another, and there was no sign of the pane that had once been in
the window. It was simply a dilapidated cabin, and made no pretence of
being anything else. How he could live in it was more than I could see.
No light at night but a kerosene lamp, no furniture except what he
himself had made from boards, boxes and logs; no carpet on the rough,
rotting floor. Why did he choose to live in this cell when he might have
taken rooms with any of the school board members over in Spencer?
It was on this occasion that I saw the rough board table under the one
window, strewn with pencils, compasses and sheets of paper covered with
strange lines and figures.
"What's this?" I asked curiously.
"Nothing, that amounts to anything," replied Justice, with a queer, dry
little laugh. "Once I was fool enough to believe that it did amount to
something." He swept the papers together and threw them face downward on
the table.
"Tell me about it," I said coaxingly, scenting a secret, possibly a clue
to his past.
Justice stared out of the open door for a few moments, his shoulders
slumped into a discouraged curve, his face moody and resentful. Then
suddenly he threw back his head and squared his shoulders. "It's
nothing," he said shortly. "Only, once I thought I had a brilliant idea,
and tried to patent it. Then I found out I wasn't as smart as I thought I
was, that's all."
"What did you invent?" I asked.
"Oh, just an old electrical device--you probably wouldn't understand the
workings of it--to be used in connection with wireless apparatus. It was
a thing for recording vibrations and by its use a deaf man could receive
wireless messages. I worked four years perfecting it and then thought my
fortune was made. But nobody would back me on it. They all laughed at the
thing. I got so disgusted one day that I threw the thing into the sad
sea. Four years' work went up at one splash! That was the end of my
career as an inventor."
Poor Justice! I sympathized with him so hard that I hardly knew what to
say. I knew what that failure must have meant to his proud, sensitive
soul. The first failure is always such a blow. It takes considerable
experience in failing to be able to do it gracefully. I could see that he
didn't want any voluble sympathy from me and that it was such a sore
subject that he'd rather not talk about it. I didn't know what to say.
Then my eye fell on the sheets on the table. "What are you inventing
now?" I asked, to break the silence that was growing awkward.
"Just working on bits of things," he replied, "to pass the time away. You
can't experiment with wireless now, you know."
The confidences Justice had made to me almost drove my errand out of my
head. It was rather breathless, this having a new side of him turn up
every little while. I returned to my original quest for information.
"I came for expert advice," I remarked.
Justice looked up inquiringly. "Shoot," he said.
"Do you suppose," I inquired in a perplexed tone, "that they'd enjoy it
just as much if the costumes have to be imaginary?"
Justice's face suddenly became contorted. "They'd probably enjoy wearing,
ah--er imaginary costumes if the weather is warm enough," he replied,
carefully avoiding my eye.
"Justice Sherman!" I exploded, laughing in spite of myself. "You know
very well what I mean. I mean can we have a Ceremonial Meeting in blue
calico and imagine it's Ceremonial costumes?"
Justice scratched his head. "It depends upon how much imagination 'we'
have," he remarked. "Now, for instance, I know someone not a hundred
miles from here who can imagine herself in her college room when it's
only make believe, and can do wonderful work in French and mathematics.
She----"
"That's enough from you," I interrupted. "The matter is settled. We'll
have a Ceremonial Meeting. We'll pretend we've gone traveling and have
left our Ceremonial dresses at home. We're a war-time group, anyhow, and
ought to do without things."
There now! The secret is out! Your poor stick of a Katherine is a real
Camp Fire Guardian. I wasn't going to tell you at first, but I'm afraid I
will have to come to you for advice very often. I have organized my girls
into a group and they are entering upon the time of their young lives.
Make the hand sign of fire when you meet us, and greet us with the
countersign, for we be of the same kindred. Magic spell of Wohelo! By its
power even the poor spirited Hard-uppers have become sisters of the
incomparable Winnebagos. Wo-He-Lo for aye! We are the tribe of Wenonah,
the Eldest Daughter, and our tepee is the schoolhouse.
Of course, as Camp Fire Groups go, we are a very poor sister. We haven't
any costumes, any headbands, any honor beads, or any Camp Fire adornments
of any kind. I advanced the money to pay the dues, and that was all I
could afford. There are so few ways of making money here and most of the
families are so poor that I'm afraid we'll never have much to do with.
But the girls are so taken up with the idea of Camp Fire that it's a joy
to see them. In all their shiftless, drudging lives it had never once
occurred to them that there was any fun to be gotten out of work. It's
like opening up a new world to them. Do you know, I've discovered why
they never did the homework I used to give to them. It's because they
never had any time at home. There were always so many chores to do. Their
people begrudged them the time that they had to be in school and wouldn't
hear of any additional time being taken for lessons afterward.
As soon as I heard that I changed the lessons around so they could do all
their studying in school. Besides that, I looked some of the schoolbooks
in the face and decided that they were hopelessly behind the times,
Elijah Butts to the contrary. They were the same books that had been used
in this section for twenty-five years.
"What is the use," I said aloud to the spider weaving a web across my
desk, "of teaching people antiquated geography and cheap, incorrect
editions of history when the thing they need most is to learn how to cook
and sew and wash and iron so as to make their homes livable? Why should
they waste their precious time reading about things that happened a
thousand years ago when they might be taking an active part in the
stirring history that is being made every day in these times? Blind,
stubborn, moth-eaten old fogies!" I exclaimed, shaking my fist in the
direction of Spencer, where the Board sat.
Right then and there I scrapped the time-honored curriculum and made out
a truly Winnebago one. It kept the fundamentals, but in addition it
included cooking, sewing, table setting, bed making, camp cookery,
singing of popular songs, folk dancing, hiking and stunts. Yes sir,
stunts! I teach them stunts as carefully as I teach them spelling and
arithmetic. Can you imagine anyone who has never done a stunt in all
their lives?
We rigged up a cook stove inside the schoolhouse--if you'd ever see it!
The stovepipe comes down every day at the most critical moment. Besides
that we have a stone oven outside. Every single day is a picnic. As all
of us have to bring our lunch we turned the noon hour into a cooking
lesson, and two different girls act as hostesses each day. The boys bring
the wood and do the rough work and are our guests at dinner. They all
behave pretty well except Absalom Butts, who is given to practical jokes.
But as the rest of the boys side in with me against him, he gets very
little applause for his pains and very little help in his mischief. The
noon dinners continue to be the chief attraction at the little school at
the cross roads. Hardly anybody is ever absent now.
I arranged the new schedule so that while I am teaching the girls the
things which are of interest to them alone the boys have something else
to do that appeals to them. I give them more advanced arithmetic, and
have worked out a system of honor marks for those who do extra problems,
with a prize promised at the end of the year. Then I got hold of an old
copy of Dan Beard's _New Ideas for Boys_ and have turned them loose on
that, letting them make anything they choose, and giving credit marks
according to how well they accomplish it.
You see what a job I have ahead of me as a Camp Fire Guardian? In order
to teach my girls what they must know to win honors, I have had to turn
the whole school system inside out, and then, because I couldn't bear to
leave the boys out in the cold while the girls are having such a good
time, I have to keep thinking up things for them to do, too. It stretches
my ingenuity to the breaking point sometimes to get everything in, and
keep all sides even.
One afternoon each week I have the girls give to Red Cross work. Every
Saturday I drive all the way over to Thomasville, where the nearest Red
Cross headquarters branch is, for gauze to make surgical dressings,
returning the finished ones the next week. Here's where dull-witted
Clarissa Butts outshines all the brighter girls. She can make those
dressings faster and better than any of us and her face is fairly radiant
while she is working on them. I have made her inspector over the rest to
see that there are no wrinkles and no loose threads, and she nearly
bursts with importance. For once in her life she is head of the class.
While they fold bandages I read to them about what is going on in the war
and what the Red Cross is doing everywhere, and we have beautiful times.
The worst trouble around here is getting up to date things to read. There
isn't a library within fifty miles and the only books we have are the few
I can manage to buy and those that Justice Sherman has. Would you mind
sending out a magazine once in a while after you have finished reading
it?
We had our first ceremonial meeting last night in blue calico instead of
ceremonial gowns, but it didn't make a mite of difference. We felt the
magic spell of it just the same and promised with all our hearts to seek
beauty and give service and all the other things in the Wood Gatherers'
Desire. That is the wonderful thing about Camp Fire. It makes you have
exactly the same feelings whether you learn it in a mansion or in a
shack, in an exclusive girls' school or in a third-rate country
schoolhouse. If Nyoda only could have seen us! Of all people to whom I
had expected to pass on the Torch, this group of Arkansas Hard-Uppers
would have been the very last to occur to me. Was this what she meant, I
wonder?
Yours, trying hard to be a Torch Bearer,
Katherine.