BY VOTE OF COUNCIL
"Oh, what a peaceful day!" said Hinpoha, rising from the depths like
Undine and seating herself on a rock to dry her bright hair in the
breeze before she went up the hill. The Winnebagos and Sandwiches had
been in swimming and were lying lazily about in the warm sand. Slim sat
in the shade of Hinpoha's rock and fanned himself. Even a dip in the
cool water made him warm and breathless. Gladys and Migwan were out in a
rowboat, washing middies in the lake.
"It _is_ peaceful," drawled Katherine, tracing designs in the sand
with her forefinger. "One of those days when everything seems in tune
and nothing happens to disturb the quiet. By the way, where's Sahwah?"
"Gone to St. Pierre with Mr. Evans for the mail," answered Hinpoha.
Katherine drew a few more designs in the sand and then rose and
sauntered leisurely up the path. The rest lay still.
"Ouch, my neck's getting sunburned," said Slim about five minutes later,
and picking up Hinpoha's hat he set it on his head and panted across the
beach toward the hill.
The Captain sent a pebble flying after him, and carried the hat from his
head. Slim went on his way without stopping to pick it up.
"Slim is absolutely the laziest mortal on the face of this earth," said
the Captain, strolling down to the water's edge and wading out to wash
the sand off before he, too, started on the upward climb.
"Watch me," he called, as he mounted a solitary rock that just reared
its nose above the surface of the water, "I'm going to make one more
plunge for distance. Will you row out about forty feet," he shouted to
Gladys and Migwan, "and see if I can come out beside the boat?"
Migwan and Gladys obligingly rowed out as he directed and rested their
oars, waiting for him to come. The Captain made a clean leap from the
rock and disappeared beneath the surface of the water.
"I believe he's going clear under the boat and coming out the other
side," said Hinpoha.
The interval was growing long and the Captain had not risen to the
surface yet.
"He's been under almost a minute," said Uncle Teddy, springing up and
watching the water keenly. "Where can he be?"
He sprang into a boat and hurried along the line the Captain had taken,
peering down into the depths. The girls and boys on the beach all
hastened down into the water and swam or waded after him. When he was
half way out to the rowboat where Migwan and Gladys sat waiting, the
Captain's feet suddenly shot out of the water right beside him. Dropping
the oars he caught hold of the feet and pulled the Captain into the
boat.
"What's the matter? What happened?" they all asked as the Captain shook
the water out of his eyes and looked around with a relieved expression.
"Suck hole, I guess," he said. "I had only gone about twenty-five feet
when something caught hold of me and dragged me down, turning me around
all the while. It lifted my feet and pulled me down head first, but I
managed to hold my breath and not swallow water. Then all of a sudden
some other current got ahold of me and shot me up and pretty soon
somebody grabbed my feet and there was Uncle Teddy and the boat right
beside me. It's a suck hole all right, I think."
"Are you sure that was the place, where I pulled you out?" asked Uncle
Teddy.
"Quite sure," replied the Captain. "I came up right beside the boat."
"We'll have to mark the spot in some way," said Uncle Teddy, "so we will
know how to avoid it when we are swimming. Let's see, it's right about
in line with those twin pines on the bank and about thirty feet from the
shore. We'll rig up some sort of a floating buoy there and then give the
place a wide berth. It's a good thing it's out of line with our sandy
beach, so it won't interfere with any water sports we may want to have
there."
"Don't look so scared, I'm not drowned," said the Captain to Hinpoha,
who was as pale as a ghost.
"But you might have been," said Hinpoha in an agitated voice. "I thought
I should die until I saw you coming up. I never was so scared."
The Captain began to think it was worth while to go down in a suck hole
to make Hinpoha feel so much concern about him.
"I'm sorry I scared you," he said, "but it really wasn't so terrible
after all. I wasn't very much frightened." Boylike, he must begin to
boast of his exploit in the presence of his feminine friends.
"Please be careful after this," begged Hinpoha. "Those suck holes are
dreadful things. Why, once my cousin----"
But the incident she intended to relate was never told, for just then a
cascade of earth shot by the group on the beach like an express train,
carrying with it something that looked like a pinwheel of waving hands
and feet, all of which grew out of the head of a donkey. The cascade
landed in the water with a mighty splash and from it emerged the forms
of Slim, Katherine and Sandhelo, all looking decidedly astonished and
not quite sure yet what had happened. A fresh hollow at the top of the
hill and a ploughed-up trail of sand all the way down told the story.
The earth had given way up there just as it had with the moose in the
woods, and the three had tobogganed down the steep hillside into the
lake.
"I was sitting up there under that tree, just as politely," explained
Katherine, her cracked voice shattered utterly by the tumble, "feeding
Sandhelo long blades of grass, when Slim came up the path, puffing the
way he always does when he climbs the hill, and sat down beside me to
get his breath before going on to his tent. Pretty soon a spider ran
across his neck and he jumped up and sat down again hard and that time
when he sat down he broke through to China and we all went with him."
"And down there came rockabye baby and all," sang Migwan, amid the
general laughter.
"Such a peaceful day," said Hinpoha.
Nobody was hurt by the fall, as the sand was soft and the last landing
had been in the water, and, as they had all been so frightened at the
Captain's adventure a moment before, they became hysterical in their
laughter over this last ridiculous accident.
"That soft sand track down the hillside looks as if it would make a fine
toboggan," remarked the Captain. "Believe I'll try coasting down into
the lake."
And, suiting the action to the word, he climbed the hill and slid down
the sandy cut, landing with a fine splash. The others immediately
swarmed up the hill to try the new sport, which was as good as the
chute-the-chutes at the big amusement park at home.
That was the sight which greeted Sahwah when she came back with Mr.
Evans from St. Pierre, bringing the mail. She was sitting out on the
very peak of the launch's bow, her feet almost dragging the water,
waving the packet of home letters over her head. At the sight of her
there was a general scattering in the direction of the tents, for the
sliders suddenly remembered that it was dinner time and the mail would
be distributed at the table.
That night was Council Meeting on the big rock on the bluff. It was the
end of Uncle Teddy's and Aunt Clara's Chiefhood, and the reins of
government were to fall into the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Evans. After much
beating of the tom-tom, Uncle Teddy presented Mr. Evans with a pine
branch and Aunt Clara gave Mrs. Evans one, to hang over the door of
their tents as a symbol of Chiefhood, "because pine was the _chief_
thing to be found on Ellen's Isle." Mr. and Mrs. Evans accepted the
branches gravely, and took their places at the end of the rock reserved
for the Chiefs.
Then Mr. Evans announced that there was something special to be brought
before the Council. He held a letter in his hand and the giggles and
whispers came to an abrupt end, and all eyes were turned inquiringly
toward him.
"It is the power and the pleasure of this Council," he began in a
businesslike tone, "to decide all questions regarding the life here at
camp. Something has come up now which will require a frank expression
of opinion from each one in order to reach a decision. I have here,"
indicating the sheet in his hand, "a letter from our recent acquaintance,
Judge Dalrymple. The judge thanks us profusely for our entertainment of
him and his children, and does us the honor to say that he never saw a
group of people living together in such perfect harmony, or getting so
much pleasure out of life. Then he makes a proposal. He has, among his
goods and chattels, a pair of twins, which, as we have reason to
suspect, are rather a handful for him to manage. He finds that business
calls him back to the city for the entire summer, and as his wife has
gone to a sanitarium to recover from nervous prostration, he is at a
loss to know what to do with the aforesaid twins. He wants to keep them
outdoors all summer, because neither are as strong as they should be.
He has a fancy that Ellen's Isle is a good atmosphere in which to make
spindly plants grow into hardy ones, and, in short, he asks us, nay,
begs and beseeches us, if we will take the twins off his hands for the
summer. What does the Council say to acquiring a good pair of twins at
a reasonable price?"
From all sides there rose a storm of protest. "We wouldn't have those
twins up here for anything," said Gladys emphatically. "We had just as
much as we could stand of them in two days. Have you forgotten what a
cry-baby Antha was?"
"And what a snob Anthony was?" said the Captain. "'I guess you didn't
get much of a war canoe, did you?' 'I guess your papa can't be very
rich, is he?'" The Captain mimicked Anthony's patronizing tone to
perfection and recalled the scene vividly to the others.
"Our whole summer up here would be ruined," continued Gladys. "Why can't
we let well enough alone? This isn't a reform camp for spoiled children.
We came up here to rest and play; not to wear ourselves out with people
of that kind."
Everywhere her sentiments were echoed. Mr. Evans gave no sign of his
secret wish that the Council would take the twins. The others did not
know the details of the failure of the spring water company, nor the
judge's connection with it.
"Then the Council decides that we shall turn down the judge's
proposition?" asked Mr. Evans. "Let each one register his or her vote,
for or against. If you want them to come, say yes, if not, no. Gladys."
"No."
"Slim."
"No."
"Migwan."
"No."
"Dan."
"No."
"Sahwah."
"Nosiree!"
"Peter."
"No."
"Katherine."
"May I say something?" asked Katherine, instead of replying directly yes
or no.
"Certainly," said Mr. Evans, leaning forward a little.
Katherine rose and stood in her favorite attitude, with her toes turned
in and her shoulders drooped forward. "When the twins were here," she
began, "I disliked them as much as the rest of you, and when the Council
was asked to decide whether or not they should come I decided to vote
no. But I just happened to think what Nyoda said to us at our last
Winnebago Council Meeting up in the House of the Open Door, the night
she went away forever. She gave the Winnebago fire into our keeping, and
said that from it we must light new fires, and that we must begin in
earnest to 'pass on the light that has been given us.' She said we
should gain an influence over younger girls and show them how to have a
good time as we had learned so well ourselves. Now I think the time has
come. I think that Antha has been dropped at our door as a special
opportunity, and I think that we should take it.
"If you folks decide that Antha and her brother may come I will appoint
myself her special 'big sister,' and will devote my time to her
improvement. So instead of voting 'no,' I wish to vote 'yes.'"
"Your point is well taken, Miss Orator," said Mr. Evans with unexplained
warmth. "You would make a famous criminal lawyer. You have a line of
argument which admits of very little defense. Does anyone else speak for
Antha? If three speak for her she may come, like Mowgli in the 'Jungle
Book.'"
"I speak for her," said the quiet Nakwisi unexpectedly. Nakwisi admired
Katherine intensely, and desired to follow her lead in all things.
"Two have spoken for her," said Mr. Evans judiciously. "Will there be
another?"
"I will speak for her," said Hinpoha decidedly. Katherine's words had
brought back the scene in the House of the Open Door vividly, and again
she heard Nyoda's gentle voice urging them to "pass on the light."
Completely melted, she also promised to be a big sister to Antha. Then
Gladys and Sahwah and Migwan all spoke up and wanted to know if they
could not take back their "no," because they had reconsidered the matter
and now agreed with Katherine.
"Does anyone speak for the boy, Anthony?" continued Mr. Evans.
"I do," said the Captain promptly, who was anxious to find favor in
Hinpoha's eyes.
Then there was a pause. None of the boys liked Anthony, and they could
not honestly say they wanted him. They had no memory of a beloved
guardian to influence them. But after a moment Slim spoke up. He
generally followed whither the girls led.
"I'll be a big sister, or a grandfather or a Dutch uncle to the kid if I
have the right to punch his head when he gets too fresh," he said
naively, and the solemn meeting was stirred by a ripple of laughter.
Then the Bottomless Pitt fell into line and said he felt the same about
it as Slim did, and that settled the question. Of course, after that
there was nothing for the Monkey and Peter and Dan to do but fall into
line.
Then after their decision had been made entirely by themselves, Mr.
Evans rose and told them in a few words why he had been anxious to
accommodate the judge, and how glad he was that they were honestly
willing to do it. They all blushed under his praise, but all knew down
in their hearts that if it hadn't been for Katherine they never would
have done it.
"How soon will they be here?" asked Gladys.
"They are awaiting our answer in St. Pierre," said her father. "And if
we are favorably disposed we are to go over with the launch tomorrow and
fetch them back."
"The die is cast," said Uncle Teddy gravely. "Now for the fireworks!"