3THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON ELLEN’S ISLE

CHAPTER I
AS USUAL

It was the hottest day of the hottest week of the hottest June ever recorded in the weather man’s book of statistics. The parched earth had split open everywhere in gaping cracks that intersected and made patterns in the garden like a crazy quilt. The gray-coated leaves hung motionless from the shriveling twigs, limp and discouraged. Horses lifted their seared feet wearily from the sizzling, yielding asphalt; dogs panted by with their tongues hanging out; pedestrians closed their eyes to shut out the merciless glare from the sidewalks. The streets were almost deserted, like those of a southern city during the noon hours, while a wilted population sought the shelter of house or cellar and prayed for rain.

4On the vine-screened veranda of the Bradford home three of the Winnebagos–Hinpoha, Sahwah and Migwan–reclined on wicker couches sipping ice cold lemonade and wearily waving palm-leaf fans. The usually busy tongues were still for once; it was too hot to talk. Brimming over with life and energy as they generally were, it seemed on this drowsy and oppressive afternoon that they would never be able to move again. Mr. Bob, Hinpoha’s black cocker, shared in the prevailing laziness; he lay sprawled on his back with all four feet up in the air, breathing in panting gasps that shook his whole body. A bumble bee, blundering up on the porch, broke the spell. It lit on Mr. Bob’s face, whereupon Mr. Bob sprang into the air, quivering with excitement, and knocked Hinpoha’s glass out of her hand. Hinpoha picked up the pieces with one hand and patted Mr. Bob with the other.

“Poor old Bobbles,” she said soothingly, “what a shame to make him move so fast! Lucky I had finished the lemonade; there isn’t any more in the pitcher and we used the last lemons in the house.”

Sahwah, roused from her reverie, sat up and began fanning herself with greater energy. “Of all summers to have to stay in town!” she said disconsolately. “I don’t remember having such hot weather, ever.”

“Neither does anyone else,” said Migwan with a yawn. “So what’s the use wasting energy trying to 5 remember anything worse? Didn’t the paper say ‘the present hot spell has broken all known records for June?’”

“It broke our thermometer, too,” said Hinpoha, joining in the conversation. “It went to a hundred and six and then it blew up and fell off the hook.”

“And to think that we might all have been out camping now, if Nyoda hadn’t gone away,” continued Sahwah with a heavy sigh. “This is the first summer for three years we won’t be together. I can’t get used to the idea at all. Gladys is going to the seashore and Katherine is going home to Arkansas in three weeks, and Nyoda is gone forever! I just haven’t any appetite for this vacation at all.” And she sighed a still heavier sigh.

The three lapsed into silence once more. Vacation had as little savor for the other two as it did for Sahwah. Now that the summer’s outing with Nyoda had to be given up the next three months yawned before them like an empty gulf.

“I’m never going to love anybody again the way I did Nyoda,” remarked Hinpoha cynically, after a long silence. “It hurts too much to lose them.”

“Neither am I,” said Migwan and Sahwah together, and then there was silence again.

“I’d like to see something wet once,” said Sahwah fretfully, after another long pause. “Everything is so dry it seems to be choking. The grass is all burned up; the paint is all blistered; the shingles 6 are all curling up backwards. It makes my eyes hurt to look at things. It would do them a world of good to see something wet for once.”

Fate or the fairy godmother, or whoever the mysterious being is that always pops up at the right moment in the story books, but who is practically an unknown quantity in real life, proved that she was not a myth after all by suddenly and unceremoniously granting Sahwah’s wish. Round the corner of the house came Katherine, dripping water on all sides like Undine, her skirts clinging limply to her ankles, while little rivulets ran from her head over her nose and dripped from the ends of her lanky locks. Up on the porch she came, all dripping as she was, and sank down on the wicker couch beside Sahwah.

“Why, Katherine Adams, what has happened to you?” cried the three all together.

“Nothing much,” replied Katherine laconically, tipping the lemonade pitcher over her head and putting out her tongue to catch the last drop. The drop missed the tongue and landed full in her eye, whence it joined the stream trickling over her nose into her lap. “I just stopped to investigate a garden hose on the way over,” she continued. “It was on a lawn close by the sidewalk and the thinnest little stream you ever saw was coming out. I was so thirsty I simply couldn’t go by without taking a drink, and I just turned the nozzle the least little 7 bit when it suddenly came out in a perfect deluge and sprinkled me all over. Then, seeing that I was wet anyhow I didn’t make any haste to get out from under the cooling flood. There, ladies, you have the whyness of the thusness. I’m thoroughly comfortable now and inclined to think lightly of my troubles. Why don’t you follow my example and stand under the hose?”

“Thanks,” said Sahwah, edging away from Katherine’s dripping proximity, “I’m all right as I am. Besides, no hose could squirt my troubles away.”

“It didn’t seem to dispel your gloom, either, Katherine,” said Migwan, looking closely at Katherine, who, after the first moment of banter, had lapsed into silence and sat staring gloomily into the curtain of vines that covered the end of the porch. “What’s the matter?” she asked curiously, brushing back the damp hair from Katherine’s forehead with a gentle hand. It was easy to see how Katherine was idolized by the rest of the Winnebagos. For her to act depressed was unheard of and alarming. At Migwan’s words Sahwah and Hinpoha stared at Katherine in dismay.

“Oh, I’m just low in my mind,” said Katherine, with her head still resting on her hands. “Got a letter from the folks at home today, telling me not to come home for the summer, that’s all. Father and Mother have been invited to go on an automobile trip through California and there’s no room for 8 me. Aunt Anna will be glad to keep me all right, but Cousin Grace will be gone all summer–she left yesterday–and it will be pretty dull for me. Aunt Anna is so deaf—” She finished with an eloquent gesture of the hands.

“You poor thing!” cried Migwan, drawing Katherine close to her in spite of her wet garments. “We’ll all have to combine to make the summer lively for you. You’ll have some fun even if your aunt is deaf and would rather read than talk. Don’t worry.”

Katherine’s head suddenly went down on her knee. “What’s the matter?” cried the three in added dismay.

“It isn’t because I don’t want to stay,” said Katherine in a choking voice, “it’s because I want to go home. It’s hotter out there than a blast furnace, and our one-story brick shack is like an oven, and we haven’t one-tenth of the comforts that people have here, but it’s–home!”

Migwan rolled Katherine over and took her head into her lap. “I know just how you feel,” she said softly. “After you’ve been away from home a whole year nothing looks good to you any more but that. And when you’ve been crossing off the days on your calendar