April 10, 19--.
Dearest old K:
The Winnebagos have scored again, although it did take us nearly all year
to make this particular basket. I know that if you had been here, you old
miracle worker, you would have found the way before the first month had
passed, but, not having your gift for seeing right through people's
starched shirtwaists and straight into their hearts, we had to wait for
chance to show us the way. And it turned out the way it usually does for
the Winnebagos--we stooped to pick up a common little stone and found a
pearl of great price. Of course, now there are lots of people who would
like to be the setting for that pearl, but she belongs to the Winnebagos
by right of discovery and we mean to keep her for our very own. For,
after all, who but the Winnebagos could have discovered Sally Prindle,
when up to that very week, day, hour and minute she hadn't even
discovered herself? The chances are that she never would have, either,
and what a shame it would have been!
You remember my telling about Sally Prindle long ago, the time we tried
to fix up her room for her and she wouldn't let us? Of course she hurt
our feelings, because we hadn't been trying to patronize her and didn't
deserve to be snubbed, but we got over it in a day or two and saw her
side of it. It probably _was_ annoying to have three separate delegations
take notice of your poverty in one day, and there was no telling how
tactless the first two had been. At the second meeting of the LAST OF THE
WINNEBAGOS, held on and around Oh-Pshaw's bed, we formally decided, with
much speechifying by Agony and Oh-Pshaw, that Sally would be the special
object of our Give Service Pledge. We would make her feel that we didn't
care a rap whether she was poor or not; that it was she herself we cared
about. We would ask her to share all our good times and would drop in to
see her often, as good neighbors should, and would finally bring her
around to the point where she would begin to Seek Beauty for herself, see
that her bare room was too ugly for any good use, and gladly share our
overflow with us. Oh, we planned great things that night!
"Let's go over and call on her right away," suggested Hinpoha, who was
fired with enthusiasm at the plan and couldn't wait to begin the program
of Give Service.
Off we went down the hall, filled with virtuous enthusiasm. Sally was at
home because we could see the light shining through the transom.
"Wait a minute, don't knock," whispered Agony with a giggle. "I know a
lot more Epic way." She pulled a candy kiss from her pocket, scribbled an
absurd note on a piece of paper about weary travelers waiting at the
gate, tied it to the kiss and threw it through the transom.
We heard it strike the floor and heard Sally rise from a creaking chair
and pick it up. Giggling, we waited for her to come and let us in. In a
minute her footsteps came toward the door and with comradely smiles we
stepped forward. The door was opened a very small crack, and out flew the
kiss, much faster than it had gone in. It just missed Hinpoha's nose by a
hair's breadth and fell on the floor with a spiteful thud. Then the door
slammed emphatically. We looked at each other in consternation.
"Whee-e-e-e-e-!" said Agony in a long-drawn whistle.
"Horrid--old--thing!" said Hinpoha, picking up the kiss from the floor
and holding it up for us to see that the note had never been opened.
Feeling both foolish and hurt we trailed back home and sadly gave up the
idea of Giving Service to Sally Prindle.
"Let her alone, she isn't worth worrying about," said Hinpoha, beginning
to be just as cross as she had been enthusiastic before. "She hasn't a
spark of sociability in her."
"There are Hermit Souls----" began Oh-Pshaw, and Agony cut in with
"Twinkle, twinkle, little Sal,
How we'd like to be your pal,
But you hold your nose so high
You don't see us passing by."
That ended Sally Prindle as far as the LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOS were
concerned. But I had an uncomfortable feeling all the time that if Nyoda
had been there she would have managed to become friendly with Sally in
some way, and that we had failed to "warm the heart" of this "lonely
mortal" who "stood without our open portal." Sally haunted me. How any
girl could live and not be friendly with the people she saw every day was
more than I could understand. She just grubbed away at her lessons, paid
no attention to what went on around her, snubbed any girl who tried to
make advances and lived a life of lofty detachment. She was a good
student and invariably recited correctly when called upon, but beyond
that none of the teachers could get a particle of warmth out of her, not
even fascinating Miss Allison, who has all her classes worshipping at her
feet.
Sally worried me for a while; then she moved out of Purgatory and took a
room with some private family in town and as I hardly ever saw her any
more I forgot her after a time. Life is so _very_ full here, Katherine
dear, that you can't bother much about any one person.
Of course, the big thought that runs through everything this year, all
our work and all our play, is the War and what we can do to help. At the
beginning of the year Brownell pledged herself to raise five thousand
dollars for the Red Cross by various activities; this was outside of the
personal subscription fund. A big Christmas bazaar and several benefit
performances brought the total close to four thousand, but the last
thousand proved to be a sticker. Various committees were called to
discuss ways and means of raising the money, but they never could agree
on anything for the whole college to do together, and finally abandoned
the quest for a bright idea and decided to let everybody raise money in
any way they could think of and put it all together to make up the total.
The Board of Trustees offered a silver loving cup to the individual,
club, sorority, group or clique of any kind that raised the largest
amount inside of a month.
The day that was announced there was a hastily called meeting of the LAST
OF THE WINNEBAGOS.
"We're going to win that loving cup," declared Hinpoha in a tone of
finality. "This is our chance to show what we're made of. Up until now
we've been doing little easy 'Give Services.' At last we're up against
something big. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of
their party. The WINNEBAGOS have never fallen down on anything yet that
they undertook and they're not going to now. We're going to win that
contest. Won't Nyoda be proud of us?"
We cheered until the windows rattled and then Migwan brought us to earth
with a thud. "How are we going to do it?" she asked soberly. We all fell
silent and donned our thinking caps. Minutes passed but nobody sprouted a
bright idea. Suggestion after suggestion was made, only to be turned down
flat.
"We might give a circus," suggested Hinpoha rather doubtfully. "Remember
the circus we gave at home last year?"
"There have been nine circuses of various kinds already this year,"
wet-blanketed Agony. "You couldn't hire anybody to attend another."
"Masquerade as seeresses and give select parlor readings of people's
futures," suggested Oh-Pshaw. "We could charge five dollars for a
reading."
"Been done already," said Migwan. "Anyway, the faculty have forbidden it.
The girls that did it last year scandalized a prominent Trustee's wife by
telling her that her daughter was going to elope with an Italian count
before the month was out. The daughter had married a minister the week
before, only the girls didn't know it, and the Trustee's wife got so
excited she sat down on a two-hundred-dollar Satsuma vase and smashed it
and tried to sue the seeresses for damages. Then, of course, she found
out they were students and the faculty put an end to parlor seeresses."
That's the way it went. Not a plan was suggested but what turned out to
be old stuff or not practicable.
"Oh, for an idea!" groaned Agony, beating her white brow with the palm of
her hand.
"We might go round with a hand organ," suggested Oh-Pshaw in desperation.
"Gladys could be the monkey and pass around a tin cup."
"Thanks, I wouldn't think of aspiring to such an honor," I replied
modestly.
"What we want," said Migwan decidedly, "is a fad--something that will
take the college by storm and separate them from their cash. I remember
last year some of the seniors started the fad of taking impressions of
the palm of your hand on paper smoked with camphor gum and sending them
away to have the lines read by some noted palmist, and they made oceans
of money at twenty-five cents an impression."
We talked possible fads until we were green in the face, but nobody got
an inspiration and we finally adjourned with our heads in a whirl.
The next day I went into a deserted classroom for a book I had left
behind and found Sally Prindle with her head down on one of the desks,
crying. By that time I had forgotten how disagreeable she had been to us
and hastened over to see what was the matter.
"What's the trouble, Sally?" I asked, laying my hand on her shoulder.
Sally started up and tried to wipe the tears away hastily. "Nothing," she
answered in a flat voice.
"There is too something," I said determinedly, and sat down on the desk
in front of her.
She looked at me sort of defiantly for a minute and then she broke down
altogether. Between sobs she told me that she wasn't going to be able to
come back to college next year because she hadn't won the big Andrews
prize in mathematics she had counted confidently on winning, and she had
worked so hard for it that she had neglected her other work, and the
first thing she knew she had a condition in Latin. Besides, she was sick
and couldn't do the hard work she had been doing outside to pay her
board.
I never saw anyone so broken up over anything. I wouldn't have expected
her to care whether she came back to college or not; I couldn't see what
fun she had ever gotten out of it, but I suppose in her own queer way she
must have enjoyed it. I tried to comfort her by telling her that the way
would probably be found somehow if she took it up with the right people,
but Sally wasn't the kind of girl that took comfort easily. Life was
terribly serious to her. She felt disgraced because she hadn't won the
prize and was sure nobody would want to lend her money to finish her
course. I left her at last with my heart aching because of the uneven way
things are distributed in this world.
Our room was a mess when I got back. Our floor was entertaining the floor
below that night and Hinpoha was in the show. She was standing in the
middle of the room draping my dresser scarf around her shoulders for a
fichu, while Agony was piling her hair high on her head for her and
Oh-Pshaw was pinning on a train made of bath towels.
"Have you a blue velvet band?" Hinpoha demanded thickly, as I entered,
through the pins she was holding in her mouth.
"No, I haven't," I replied, retiring to a corner to escape the sweeping
strokes of the hair brush in Agony's hand.
"Why haven't you?" lamented Hinpoha. "I just _have_ to have one."
"What for?" I asked.
"To put around my neck, of course," explained Hinpoha impatiently. "It's
absolutely necessary to finish off this costume. Go out and scrape one up
somewhere, Gladys, there's a dear."
I obediently made the rounds, but nowhere did I find the desired blue
band. Not even a ribbon of the right shade was forthcoming.
"Paint one on," suggested Agony, with an inspiration born of despair.
"Then you'll surely have it the right shade."
"The paint box is in the bottom dresser drawer," said Hinpoha, warming to
the plan at once. "Hurry up, Agony."
"Oh, I'll not have time to do it," said Agony, moving toward the door.
"I've got just fifteen minutes left to sew the ruffle back on the bottom
of my white dress to wear in chapel to-morrow when we sing for the
bishop, and it's really more important for the country's cause that I
have a white dress to wear to-morrow than that you have a blue band
around your neck to-night. My green and purple plaid silk would look
chaste and retiring among the spotless white of the choir, now, wouldn't
it?" And swinging her hairbrush she went out. Oh-Pshaw had already
disappeared.
"Here, Gladys," said Hinpoha, holding out the box to me, "mix the
turquoise with a little ultramarine."
"I'm awfully sorry, 'Poha, but I can't stop," said I. "I've an interview
with Miss Allison in five minutes. Get somebody else, dear."
"Everybody's rushed to death," grumbled Hinpoha.
I went off to keep my appointment and Hinpoha took up her watch for a
passer-by whom she could bully into painting a blue band on her neck.
Being part of the surprise for the guests she couldn't very well go out
and risk being seen; she just had to stay in the room and wait for
someone from our floor to come along. For a long while nobody came, and
then, when she was about ready to give up, she did hear footsteps coming
down the corridor. It was dark by that time and she couldn't see who it
was, but she pounced out like a cat on a mouse and dragged the girl into
her room.
"Paint a blue band on my neck, quick!" she commanded, thrusting out the
paint box and switching on the light.
Then she saw who it was. It was Sally Prindle. Hinpoha was a little taken
aback, but she had about exhausted her patience waiting for someone to
come by and help her.
"Will you, please?" she pleaded, holding out the paints enticingly.
"What is it?" asked Sally dully, looking at Hinpoha in that crazy costume
as if she thought she was not in her right mind.
Hinpoha explained the urgent and immediate need of a blue band of a
certain shade on her neck.
"But I never painted anything before," objected Sally.
"You'll never learn any younger," said Hinpoha, jubilant that Sally
hadn't walked out with her nose in the air. "Here, take the brush, I'll
show you what to mix; see, this and this and this."
Under Hinpoha's direction Sally painted the blue band and then regarded
her handiwork with critical eyes.
"Thanks, that's fine," said Hinpoha, holding out her hand for the paints.
"It needs something more," said Sally slowly, squinting at Hinpoha's
neck. "Do you mind if I use any more paint?"
"Go as far as you like," said Hinpoha, surprised into flippancy, "let
your conscience be your guide!"
Sally made swift dabs at the little color squares, her face all puckered
up in a deep frown of concentration.
"Now, how do you like it?" she asked anxiously, after a few minutes,
leading Hinpoha to the mirror.
Hinpoha says she screamed right out when she looked, she was so surprised
and delighted. For on the front of the band Sally had painted the most
wonderful ornament. It was an enormous ruby, set in a gold frame, the
design of which simply took your breath away. How she ever did it with
the colors in Hinpoha's box is beyond us.
"Oh, wonderful!" raved Hinpoha, hugging Sally in her extravagant way. "I
can't wait until the girls see it. Won't I make a sensation, though! Come
to the party, won't you please, Sally? We'd love to have you."
Sally shook her head and prepared to depart. "I have to go," she said
with a return to her old brusque manner. "I have another engagement."
But Hinpoha saw the wistful look that came into her face and she knew
that Sally's "other engagement" was waiting on table in the boarding
house where she lived.
Hinpoha's painted jewelry created a sensation all right. Cries of
admiration rose on every side, and the fact that the stony-faced Sally
Prindle had done it only added to the sensation. Who would ever have
suspected that the most inartistic-looking girl in the whole college had
such a talent up her sleeve?
Two days later there was another excited meeting of the LAST OF THE
WINNEBAGOS.
"Our fortune's made!" shrieked Agony joyfully, dancing around the room
and waving a Japanese umbrella over her head.
"Why? How?" we all cried.
"The fad! The fad!" shouted Agony.
"What fad?" I asked. "Do stop capering, Agony, and put down that umbrella
before you break the lamp shade. We've smashed three already this year."
"Don't you see," continued Agony, breathless, dropping down on the bed
and fanning herself with the handle of the umbrella. "Hinpoha's started a
fad with that painted jewelry--blessings on that fool notion of hers of
painting a band on her neck, anyway! Half a dozen girls came to classes
this morning with bands painted on their necks and ornaments in front
that they'd gotten Sally to paint for them. In another day the whole
college will be after her to paint ornaments on their necks. Don't you
see what I mean? We've got to join forces with Sally, set up in business
for the Benefit of the Red Cross--and the cup is ours. Whoop-la! Oh,
girls, don't you _see_!"
We saw, all right. Inside of two minutes Sally was voted a member of the
LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOS and in a few hours business was in full swing.
Sally, of course, was the star of the cast, but the rest of us worked
just as hard as press agents. We placarded the whole college with posters
announcing that Mme. Sallie Prindle, the distinguished painter of
jewelry, would create, for the benefit of the Red Cross, any combination
of precious stones desired by the paintee--charges twenty-five cents and
up. Students were urged to show their patriotism by appearing in
classroom adorned with one of the masterpieces of the above-mentioned
Prindle.
It was a success from the word go. The fad spread like wildfire, and
Sally spent all her waking hours that were not actually taken up with
recitations painting jewelry on fair necks and arms. Lessons were almost
forgotten in the fascinating business of admiring designs and comparing
effects, and many were the wails because the wonderful things had to be
washed off all too soon. We had offered our room as studio because
Sally's was too far away from the center of things, and most of the time
it was so crowded with eager customers that we couldn't get in ourselves.
Prices rose as business increased, and the candy box we were using for a
bank showed signs of collapsing.
The next week the juniors gave a dance and they all ordered dog collars
for the occasion. Everybody else had to stand aside. Prices for these
were to be one dollar and up, according to how elaborate they were. How
Sally ever got them all on without fainting in her tracks will always be
a mystery. She did a lot of them the night before and then the girls
wound their necks with gauze bandages to keep them clean. Miss Allison,
who dropped in during the performance, folded up on the bed and laughed
until she was weak.
"I never saw anything to equal it, never," she declared. "There's never
been such a fad in the history of the college." Then she sat up and
demanded a dog collar herself.
"Why on earth didn't you tell us you could paint jewelry, Sally Prindle?"
she asked, as she watched those swift fingers doing their wonderful work.
"Of all things, wasting your time specializing in mathematical figures,
when all the time you had designs like these in your head!"
"I never knew I could do it," said Sally in a funny, bewildered fashion
that set the girls all a-laughing. "I never had a paint brush in my hand
before. _She_,"--pointing to Hinpoha--"put the things into my hands and
ordered me to paint, and I painted. It came to me all of a sudden."
Did we get the loving cup? I should say we did! By the end of the month
we had raised five hundred and some odd dollars, more than half of the
total, and by far the largest amount raised by any group. We were all
wrecks by the time it was over, because we had to take turns waiting on
table down at Sally's boarding house to hold her job for her while she
worked up in our room; besides getting the paint off the girls' necks
again. That wasn't always an easy job because sometimes she had to use
things beside water colors to get certain effects.
But it was well worth our while, for the LAST OF THE WINNEBAGOS have
achieved undying fame. Migwan started it with her fake Indian legend and
the rest of us surely carried it to a grand finish. The best of the whole
business, though, was getting Sally.
Do you know why she was so queer and stand-offish to people all this
while? She told us in a burst of confidence that night after we had been
given the loving cup. O Katherine, it would almost break your heart. It
seems she has a brother who forged a note last year and was sent to
prison. She considered that money a debt of honor which she must pay
back, and so she came away to college, planning to work her way through
and become a teacher of mathematics, which was her strong subject. But
she had taken her brother's disgrace so to heart that she thought the
people in college would consider her an outcast if they found it out,
and, rather than go through the misery of having people drop her after
they had been friendly with her she made up her mind to make no friends
at all, and then she didn't need to worry about their finding it out and
cutting her. It broke her all up to turn down our offers of friendship
last fall and she left Purgatory because she couldn't bear to see us
after that.
Think of it, Katherine, what she must have suffered, and nobody to tell
it to! And everybody calling her a prune! We all cried over her and
assured her a million times we didn't care a rap what her brother had
done; we loved her and were proud to have her for a friend. She was a
different girl after that. All the stiffness came out of her like magic
and she looked like a person who has been let out of prison after being
shut up for years. Her great dread all the time had been that somebody
would find out about her brother; now that we actually knew it and it
didn't make a bit of difference, the big load was off her spirits. From
being the most unpopular girl in the class she suddenly became one of the
most popular.
All her money troubles faded too, because she got work making designs for
a big Art Craft jewelry shop that paid her enough so she didn't have to
borrow any more money.
The nicest part of it all, though, was what Agony did. The night that
Sally Prindle told us about her brother Agony wrote to her father, who, I
imagine, must be a very influential man, and asked if he could get
Sally's brother pardoned. Just how Agony's father went about it we will
never know, but not long afterward Sally got a letter from her brother
saying that he had been pardoned on the condition that he would enlist in
the army, which he had done.
Think what that meant to Sally! Instead of being afraid anyone would find
out she had a brother she could now speak of him as proudly as the other
girls did who had brothers in the army; could take her place with the
proudest of them.
Oh, Katherine, if we could only see right through people and know just
why they do things the way they do, what a wonderful world this would be!
Lovingly yours,
Gladys.