THE DEBUT OF EENY-MEENY
"The person who invented tan khaki," remarked Katherine, "ought to have
a place in the hall of fame along with the other benefactors of
humanity. It's as strong as sheet iron, so it doesn't tear even on a
barbed wire fence; it doesn't show the mud; grass stains and green paint
are positively ornamental. What more could be desired?"
Katherine and Slim were sitting on the bluff looking idly over the lake.
Around them there was a great silence, for the island was practically
deserted. All the other Winnebagos and Sandwiches had gone over to St.
Pierre in the launch with Mr. Evans and Uncle Teddy to fetch the
Dalrymple Twins. Katherine had been wandering around the island in one
of her absent-minded fits when they were ready to start and did not
appear when called, and Slim had fallen asleep under a tree and they
didn't have the heart to wake him. After they were gone Katherine
stumbled upon Slim in the course of her wandering and dropped an acorn
down the back of his collar. Slim woke up grumbling that he never could
have a moment's peace, but readily accepted Katherine's invitation to
sit on the bluff and throw pine cones at the floating signal which
marked the suck hole. Katherine, with her usual heedlessness, had slid
down part of the grassy embankment, and, as a result, the hem of her
skirt was decorated at uneven intervals with large grass stains. She
eyed the combination of tan and green thus affected with unconcealed
admiration. It was then that she made the remark about the inventor of
tan khaki being a benefactor of humanity.
Slim tactfully agreed that the grass stains added to the artistic effect
of the dress, and added that he thought tan and green were Katherine's
special colors. It had just occurred to Slim that Katherine might be
persuaded to make a pan of fudge while they waited for the others to
return. He leaned back at a comfortable angle and waited for her to
digest the compliment. The lake seemed enchanted today, an iridescent
pool where fairies bathed. The water had a pale, silvery green tinge,
with here and there a great bed of deepest purple encircling a center
of bright blue--those contrasts of color which are the marvel of our
northern lakes.
"Where do those purple places come from?" asked Katherine, with a
rapturous sigh for the sheer loveliness of it. "There isn't a cloud in
the sky to throw a shadow." To Katherine's eyes, accustomed to unending
stretches of prairie, browning under a scorching sun, this blue, cool
lake was like a dream of Eden.
"Maybe the color comes from below," said Slim, yawning as the light on
the water made him sleepy again. "Wouldn't I like to go down underneath
the water and lie there, though," he continued dreamily. "On a bed of
nice soft sand that the fellows couldn't make collapse, and where you
couldn't come along and shove burrs down my neck."
"It was an acorn," corrected Katherine serenely.
"Wouldn't I have a grand sleep, though," continued Slim, not heeding her
interruption. "I'd stay there a week; maybe a month."
"Yes," said Katherine, "and come up all covered with moss and with
binnacles hanging all over you."
Slim suddenly sat upright and shouted. "Binnacles!" he repeated. "That's
good. You mean _barnacles_, don't you? Glory! Wouldn't I look great
with binnacles hanging all over me!" And Slim leaned against the tree at
his back and laughed until he was red in the face.
"Well, take whichever you please," said Katherine with dignity, and
turned her back on his mirth.
Slim saw his dream of fudge fading and realized that he had made a
misstep in laughing so loudly. "Don't get mad," he said pleadingly to
the back of her head, "I won't tell any of the others what you said. But
it was so funny I _had_ to laugh," he said in self-defense.
Katherine kept her head turned the other way and remained deaf to his
apologies. Slim sat back and looked sad. He hadn't meant to offend
Katherine and he wanted her to make fudge. He cudgelled his fat brain
for something to say, which would appease her. "Oh, I say----" he began
when Katherine turned around so suddenly he almost jumped.
"What's that floating out there in the lake?" she said abruptly.
"Where?" asked Slim, sitting up.
"Out there." Katherine pointed her finger.
Slim looked in the direction she pointed. "I don't see anything."
"It seems to have gone under," said Katherine, searching the surface for
the thing she had seen the moment before.
"There it is again," she said excitedly. "It just came up again.
"Slim!" she shrieked, springing to her feet and dragging him up with
her. "It's--it's a person, and it looks like a woman. It's red. A woman
in a red dress. She's drowning. She went down when she disappeared and
now she's come up again. Hurry! The little launch! Come on! Hurry!"
She dragged Slim down the path so fast it was a miracle they both didn't
go head over heels, untied the launch from the landing and sent it
flying across the lake in the direction of the drowning woman. Katherine
could run the launch as well as Uncle Teddy himself. Slim, panting and
speechless, hung over the side trying to keep his eye on the red spot in
the shimmery green water.
"She's got one arm thrown up for help," he cried above the thumping of
the engine. Slim was so softhearted he could not bear to see a creature
in distress, and the sight of that arm thrown up in a wild gesture
filled him with a quivering horror. He could not bear to look at it and
turned his eyes away.
Fairly leaping through the water, the launch came on the scene and
Katherine stopped the engine. "Don't give up, we're coming," she shouted
at a distance of fifteen feet.
Slim stood up and prepared to drag the woman over the side. Then he and
Katherine began to stare hard. Then they looked at each other. Then they
quietly folded up in the bottom of the launch and went into spasms of
mirth.
"It's--it's----" began Slim, and then choked, while tears of laughter
ran down his face.
"It's--it's----" began Katherine, and choked, likewise.
"It's a wooden lady!" they both shrieked together, with a final
successful effort at breath.
"Oh, oh, doesn't she look real?" giggled Katherine. "With her arm
sticking up like that!"
Slim remembered how that arm had nearly given him heart failure a minute
ago and shook anew.
"She's an Indian lady," said Katherine, leaning over the side to inspect
the floating damsel.
"She's a cigar store Indian," said Slim.
"But she certainly did look real," said Katherine, "bobbing around out
here and going under the way she did. Look at her one foot sticking up,
too. She certainly had me fooled."
"We ought to rescue her, anyway," said Slim gallantly. "It isn't right
to let a lady drown under your eyes if she is only a wooden cigar store
Indian."
In a moment they had her on board and were speeding back to Ellen's
Isle. She lay out stiffly in the boat, her painted eyes open in a fixed
stare. They carried her up the path and set her against a tree.
"She must be having a chill after being drowned," said Slim. "We ought
to build a fire and set her beside it." Slim's mind was still on its
first idea. It was only a step from fire to fudge.
Katherine took up the ridiculous play with alacrity. "You build the fire
while I get the blankets," she ordered.
A few minutes later Mrs. Evans, who had been spending the afternoon on
her bed with a sick headache, opened her eyes to see Katherine standing
beside her with an excited, anxious face. "What is it?" she asked
quickly.
"Oh, Mrs. Evans," said Katherine in an agitated voice, "we just saw a
woman drowning in the lake and we brought her in in the launch and we've
got blankets and a fire, and, oh! will you please come quickly?"
Mrs. Evans sprang to her feet and followed Katherine out of the tent at
top speed. Sure enough, in the "kitchen" there was a big fire built, and
beside it on the ground lay a figure rolled in blankets.
"I'll get some brandy," said Mrs. Evans, turning and running into the
tent. She reappeared in a minute with a bottle from the First Aid chest
and a spoon.
"Here, hold up her head," she commanded Katherine.
Katherine lifted up one end of the still figure and turned back the
blanket.
Mrs. Evans, stooping with the spoonful of brandy in her hand, recoiled
with a little scream and sat down heavily, spilling the brandy all over
herself. Then Katherine introduced the rescued lady and Mrs. Evans
laughed till she cried and declared that her headache had been
completely scared out of her. She stood the figure upright and called
the others to witness the lifelike attitude.
"With her hand stretched out like that, she looks just as though she was
counting 'Eeny, meeny, miny, mo,'" she said.
"That's just what she does!" exclaimed Katherine. "I've been wondering
all the while what that gesture reminded me of. Wouldn't it be great fun
to name her Eeny-Meeny?"
The name seemed so admirably suited to the droll figure that they began
calling her that forthwith.
"After such a strenuous experience I think Eeny-Meeny ought to be put to
bed," remarked Slim artfully. He was trying to get the decks cleared for
action with pan and spoon.
"Of course," replied Katherine. "How thoughtless of me not to offer to
do it sooner! Come on, poor dear, and have a nice nap. You carry her
feet, Slim, and I'll carry her head. Put her in on Hinpoha's bed for a
gentle surprise party. Here, hold her head while I slip the pillow
underneath."
Then she covered Eeny-Meeny carefully with the blanket so that only her
outline showed and returned to the fire, which Slim was rapidly reducing
to the proportions of a "kettle boiler."
"Don't you think," said Slim, as she came up, "that Eeny-Meeny would
like some fudge when she wakes up? There's nothing like fudge to restore
you after you've been drowned."
Katherine agreed with this idea also and soon had the ingredients
bubbling in the kettle, while Slim glowed with satisfaction toward the
world at large.
"Here come the folks!" cried Katherine half an hour later, when the
fudge was cool and most of it inside of Slim. "We must run down and tell
them the great news."
The boys and girls swarmed noisily out of the launch onto the beach,
calling back and forth to one another. Slim and Katherine came hurriedly
down the path with their fingers on their lips. "Sh-h!" said Katherine.
"Don't make so much noise. Hello, Antha; hello, Anthony." She greeted
them hurriedly and with a preoccupied air.
"What's up?" asked Gladys. "Is mother's headache much worse?"
"Sh-h!" said Katherine again.
"There's a lady here who's very sick," continued Katherine in a low,
grave voice. "She was getting drowned in the lake and Slim and I brought
her in in the launch and revived her, and now she's in our tent asleep."
A murmur of excitement rose up from the crowd, which Katherine stilled
with uplifted hand.
"Oh, the poor thing!" said Gladys in a whisper. "How dreadful it must
be! Will she be all right now, do you think?"
"She's out of danger," replied Katherine, "but she hasn't spoken yet. We
worked for more than an hour over her."
"Oh, why did I have to miss it?" wailed Sahwah. "After all the drill
we've had reviving drowned persons, to think that when a real chance
came you should be the only ones on hand!"
"May we see her?" asked Gladys.
"You may take a peep at her if you will be very quiet," replied
Katherine in the tones of a trained nurse.
With unnatural quiet they ascended the path to the tents, each resolved
not to do anything to make a disturbance. The twins were carried along
with them unceremoniously.
"Which tent is she in?" asked Gladys.
"Ours," replied Katherine. "I laid her on Hinpoha's bed, because I think
it's the softest, and, anyhow, it's the only one that doesn't sag in the
middle. You don't mind, do you, Hinpoha?"
"I mind?" asked Hinpoha reproachfully. "I'm only too glad to let her
have it, the poor thing."
"Are you perfectly sure we won't disturb her by going in?" asked Gladys
again, at the door of the tent. The flaps were down all around.
"I think the girls had better go in first," said Katherine. "The boys
can wait awhile."
The boys fell back at this, and the girls passed into the tent as
Katherine held the flap back. They were on tiptoe with excitement, and
not a little embarrassed as they saw the long figure on the bed
completely wrapped in blankets. A moment later the boys outside,
standing around uncertainly, had their nerves shattered by a sudden loud
scream of laughter which grew in volume until the tent shook. Then the
girls came out, clinging to each other weakly, and doubled up on the
ground.
"It's--it's----" giggled Hinpoha.
Sahwah clapped her hand over her mouth. "Let them look for themselves,"
she said. The boys made a rush for the tent.
In another minute there was a second great roar of laughter, and out
came the Sandwiches, dragging Eeny-Meeny with them. Katherine told over
and over again the story of the thrilling rescue of Eeny-Meeny and how
she had received her name.
"What a peach of a mascot she'll make," said the Captain, when
Eeny-Meeny's charms had all been inspected. "Sandhelo's too
temperamental for the position."
"It's too bad we didn't have her for the Argonautic Expedition," said
Migwan. "Wouldn't she have looked great fastened on the front of the war
canoe for a figurehead? Why, we could set her up on that high bluff like
Liberty lighting the world--you could nail a torch to that outstretched
hand beautifully."
"And we can put her in a canoe filled with flowers and send her over the
falls in the St. Pierre River like the Legend of Niagara," said Hinpoha.
"Or float her down that little woods on the opposite shore like Elaine,"
said Gladys.
"Elaine didn't go floating along with one arm stuck out like that,"
objected Sahwah.
"Well, we could cover her with a robe of white samite," said Hinpoha,
"and she wouldn't look so much as if she were kicking."
"But, anyway, we can have more fun than a picnic with her," said
Katherine.
After supper, with much ceremony and speechifying, Eeny-Meeny was raised
up on a flat rock for a platform, with her back to a slender pine, where
she stood facing the Council Rock, with one foot forward to preserve her
balance and her right arm extended toward the councilors, looking for
all the world as if she were separating the sheep from the goats, and
counting "Eeny, meeny, miny, mo!"