TOPSY-TURVY DAY
"Why, where _is_ camp?" asked Sahwah in perplexity, noticing that the
whole place was dark and still. It was half past six, the usual
after-supper frolic hour, when camp was wont to ring to the echo with
fun and merriment of all kinds. Now no sound came from Mateka, nor from
the bungalow, nor from any of the tents, no sound and no movement.
Before their astonished eyes the camp lay like an enchanted city,
changed in their absence from a place of racket and bustle and
resounding laughter, to a silent ghost of its former lively self.
"What's happened?" exclaimed the Winnebagos to each other. "Is everybody
gone on a trip?"
Mystified, they climbed up the hill, and at the top they found Miss Judy
going from tent to tent with her flashlight, as if making the nightly
rounds after lights out.
"O Miss Judy," they called to her, "what's happened?"
"Shh-h-h!" replied Miss Judy, holding up her hand for silence and
coming toward them. "Everybody's in bed," she whispered when she was
near enough for them to hear her."
"In bed!" exclaimed the Winnebagos in astonishment. "At half past six in
the evening? What for?"
"It's Topsy-Turvy Day," replied Miss Judy, laughing at their amazed
faces. "We're turning everything upside down tonight. Hurry and get into
bed. The rising bugle will blow in half an hour."
Giggling with amusement the Winnebagos sped to their tents, unrolled
their ponchos, made up their beds in a hurry, undressed quickly and
popped into bed. Not long afterward they heard the dipping of paddles
and the monotonous "one, two, one two," of the boatswain as the crew of
the Turtle started out for practice. The Turtle's regular practice hour
was the half hour before rising bugle in the morning.
Tired with her long paddle that day Hinpoha fell asleep as soon as she
touched the pillow, and was much startled to hear the loud blast of a
bugle in the midst of a delightful dream. "What's the matter?" she asked
sleepily, sitting up and looking around her in bewilderment. "What are
they blowing the bugle in the middle of the night for?"
"They aren't blowing the bugle in the middle of the night," said Sahwah
with a shriek of laughter at Hinpoha's puzzled face. "This is
Topsy-Turvy Day, don't you remember? We're going to have our regular
day's program at night time. It's ten minutes to seven, and that's the
bugle for morning dip. Are you coming?"
Sahwah was already inside her bathing suit, and Agony had hers half on.
Hinpoha replied with an unintelligible sound, one-eighth grunt and
seven-eights yawn, and rising tipsily from her bed she looked around for
her bathing suit with eyes still half sealed by sleep. Sahwah helped her
into the suit and seizing her hand led her down to the water, where half
the camp, shaking with convulsive merriment at the absurdity of the
thing, were scrupulously taking their "morning dip," with toothbrush
drill and all the other regular morning ablutions.
The rising bugle blew while they were still at it and they sped back to
the tents to get dressed, making three times as much racket about this
process as they ever did in the morning. Most of the tents had no
lights, because ordinarily no one needed a light to undress by and so
the lanterns which had been given out at the beginning of the season
were scattered everywhere about camp as especial need for them had
arisen upon various occasions. But getting dressed in the dark is harder
than getting undressed, and most of the tents were in an uproar.
"I can only find one stocking," wailed Oh-Pshaw, after vainly feeling
around for several minutes. "Where's my flashlight, Katherine?"
"I'm sorry, but I just dropped it into the water jar," replied
Katherine, "and it won't work any more." Katherine herself was
hopelessly involved in her bloomers, having put both feet through the
same leg, and was lying flat on the floor trying to extricate herself.
"Can I go with only one stocking on?" Oh-Pshaw persisted plaintively. "I
haven't another pair here in the tent."
"_I_ can't find my middy," Jean Lawrence was lamenting, paying no heed
to Oh-Pshaw's troubles in regard to hosiery.
Tiny Armstrong, reaching down behind her bed for some missing article of
her costume, gave the bed such a shove that it went flying out of the
tent carrying the rustic railing with it, and they heard it go bumping
down the hillside.
"Strike one!" called Tiny ruefully. "That's what comes of being so
strong. I'll knock the tent down next."
"Will somebody please tell me where my middy is?" Jean cried tragically.
"I can't find it anywhere."
"Will someone tell _me_ where the other leg of my bloomers is?"
exclaimed Katherine. "I've shoved both feet through the same leg three
times, now. There goes the breakfast bugle!"
"Oh, where is my other stocking?"
"Where is my middy?"
"Who's gone south with my shoes?"
The threefold wail floated down on the breeze as footsteps began to run
down the Alley in the direction of the bungalow. A few minutes later the
occupants of Bedlam slid as unobtrusively as possible into the lighted
bungalow; Oh-Pshaw with her bloomers down around her ankles in a Turkish
effect, to hide the fact that she had on only one stocking; Jean with
her sweater buttoned tightly around her, Katherine with her red silk tie
bound around one knee to gather up the fullness of her bloomer leg, for
the elastic band had burst from the strain of accommodating two feet at
once; and Tiny had one white sneaker and one red Pullman slipper on.
Glancing around at the rest they saw many others in the same
plight--middies on hindside before, odd shoes and stockings, sweaters
instead of middies, and various other parodies on the regular camp
uniform--and immediately they ceased to feel conspicuous. Taking their
places around the table the campers proceeded to sing one of the morning
greetings:
"Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear comrades,
Good morning to you!"
"Did you have a good night's sleep?" was a question that made the
rounds of the table, with many droll replies, as the cereal was being
passed. Hilarity increased during the meal, as the absurdity of eating
cereal and fruit and toast at eight o'clock in the evening overcame the
girls one after the other, and the room rang with witty songs made up on
the spur of the moment.
At "Morning Sing" which followed breakfast, they solemnly sang "When
Morning Gilds the Skies," "Awake, my soul, and with the sun," "Kathleen
Mavourneen, the grey dawn is breaking," and other morning songs; the
program for the day was read, and Dr. Grayson gave a fatherly lecture on
the harmfulness of staying up after dark. Getting the tents ready for
tent inspection without lights was a proceeding which defies
description. Tiny Armstrong was still on the hillside searching for her
runaway bed when the Lone Wolf reached Bedlam in her tour of inspection,
and was given a large and black zero in consequence. She finally gave up
the search and wandered into Mateka, where, with lanterns hanging above
the long tables, Craft Hour was in full swing, the girls busily working
at clay modeling, wood-blocking and paddle decorating, while the moon,
round-eyed with astonishment, peeped through the doorway at the singular
sight. Still more astonished, the same moon looked down on the tennis
court an hour later, where a lively folk dance was going on to the
music of a graphaphone; couples spinning around in wild figures,
stepping on each other's feet and every now and then dropping down at
the outer edge of the court and shrieking with laughter, while the dance
continued faster and more furiously than before, till the sound of the
bugle sent the dancers flying swiftly to their tents to wriggle into
clammy, wet bathing suits that seemed in the dark to be an altogether
different shape from what they were in the daylight.
Standing on top of the diving tower when Tiny's cry of "All in!" rang
out, Sahwah leaped down into the darkness and had a queer, thrilling
moment in mid air when she wondered if she would ever strike the water,
or would go on indefinitely falling through the blackness. Laughing,
shouting, splashing, the campers sported in the water until all of a
sudden a red canoe shot into their midst and the director of Camp
Altamont, accompanied by two assistants, came in an advanced stage of
breathlessness to find out what the matter was. They heard the noise and
the splashing of water and thought some accident had occurred.
"No accident, thanks, only Camp Keewaydin stealing a march on old Father
Time and turning night into day," Dr. Grayson called from the dock, and
amid shouts of laughter from all around the messengers paddled back to
their camp to assure the wakened and excited boys that nothing had
happened, and that it was only another wild inspiration of the people
at Camp Keewaydin.
At midnight, when the bugle blew for dinner, everyone was as hungry as
at noon, and the kettle of cocoa and the trays of sandwiches were
emptied in a jiffy.
"Now what?" asked Dr. Grayson, looking around the table with twinkling
eyes, when the last crumb and the last drop of cocoa had disappeared.
"Rest hour," replied Mrs. Grayson emphatically. "Rest hour to last until
morning. Blow the bugle, Judy."
"Wasn't this the wildest evening we ever put in?" said Katherine,
fishing her hairbrush out of the water pail. "Where's Tiny?" she asked,
becoming aware that their Councilor was not in the tent,
"Down on the hill looking for her bed." replied Oh-Pshaw.
"Goodness, let's go down and help her," said Katherine, and Oh-Pshaw and
Jean streamed after her down the path. They stumbled over the bed before
they came to Tiny. It had turned over sidewise and fallen into a tiny
ravine, and as she had gone straight down the hill searching for it she
had missed it. Katherine stepped into the ravine, dragging the two
others with her, and at the bottom they landed on top of the bed.
Getting an iron cot up a steep hill is not the easiest thing in the
world, and when they had it up at the top of the hill they all sat down
on it and panted awhile before they could make it up. Then they
discovered that the pillow was missing and Katherine obligingly went
down the hill again to find it.
"I shan't get up again for a week," she sighed wearily as she stretched
between the sheets.
"Neither will I," echoed Tiny.
Jean and Oh-Pshaw did not echo. They were already asleep.
Katherine had just sunk into a deep slumber when she started at the
touch of a cold hand laid against her face. "What is it?" she cried out
sharply.
A face was bending over her, a pale little face framed in a lace boudoir
cap. Katherine recognized Carmen Chadwick. "What's the matter?" she
asked.
"My Councy's awful sick, and none of the other girls will wake up and I
don't know what to do," said Carmen in a scared voice.
"What's the matter with her?" asked Katherine.
"She ate too many blueberries, I guess; she's got an awful pain in her
stomach, and chills."
Katherine hugged her warm pillow. "Take the hot water bottle out of the
washstand," she directed, without moving. "There--it's on the top shelf.
There's hot water in the tank in the kitchen. And have you some Jamaica
ginger? No? Take ours--it's the only bottle on the top shelf. Now you'll
be all right."
Katherine sank back into slumber. A few minutes more and she was
awakened again by the same cold hand on her face.
"What is it now?"
"The Jamaica ginger," asked Carmen's thin voice in a bewildered tone,
"what shall I do with it? Shall I put it in the hot water bottle?"
Katherine's feet suddenly struck the floor together, and with an
explosive exclamation under her breath she sped over to Avernus and took
matters in hand herself. She had tucked Carmen into her own bed in
Bedlam, and she spent the remainder of the night over in Avernus, taking
care of the Lone Wolf, snatching a few moments' sleep in Carmen's bed
now and then when her patient felt easier. It was broad daylight before
she finally settled into uninterrupted slumber.