The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit by Hildegard G. Frey

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"You love the water better than anything else, don't you?" said
Veronica, looking at Sahwah and thinking how much like the brook she was
herself.

"Oh, I do, I do," said Sahwah, taking off her shoes and stockings and
wading into the limpid stream. Soon she was dancing in the water,
frolicking like a nixie, catching the water up in her hands and tossing
it into the air and then darting out from beneath it before it could
fall upon her. Veronica laughed and clapped her hands as she watched
Sahwah, and wished she were an artist that she might paint the picture.

Finally they came to a place where the little stream poured down over a
high rock and ran through a broad gully, widening into a great pond in
the natural basin, which was like a huge bowl scooped out of rock.

"This must be the place they call the Devil's Punch Bowl that Nyoda told
us about," said Sahwah. "See, it looks just like a punch bowl."

"I wonder if it's very deep," said Veronica, peering into the water from
a safe distance away from the edge.

"Shall I dive in and find out?" asked Sahwah.

"Oh, don't, don't," said Veronica, catching hold of her arm.

"Don't worry, you precious old goosie," said Sahwah, laughing. "I didn't
mean _really_. I was only in fun. Did you think I was going in with my
clothes on? It must be deep, though, or the Indian couldn't have jumped
in. That must be the rock up there he jumped from," she said, indicating
a flat, platform-like rock that overhung the gully some forty feet
above their heads. "Don't you remember Nyoda telling about it; how the
soldiers were chasing this Indian and he got out on that rock and dove
down into the Punch Bowl and swam under water and they never thought of
looking down there for him?"

Both looked at the rock jutting out over the water, and shuddered at the
height of the drop. At the far side of the gully the pond became a brook
again and flowed on in a narrow channel the same as before. The woods
were denser on this side of the gully and there was less sunlight
filtering down through the branches. Several times they came upon
clusters of fragile, pale Indian pipes growing out of wet, decayed
stumps.

"Oh, it's nice here," breathed Veronica, revelling in the coolness.

"'This is the forest primeval,'" quoted Sahwah,
"'The murmuring pines and the hemlocks--'"

"Only they aren't murmuring pines and hemlocks," she finished. "They're
mostly oaks and beeches."

"It isn't the primeval forest, either," said Veronica. "There's a tent
over there between the trees."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Sahwah, "and here am I, coming along with my shoes
and stockings in my hand!" She sat down hastily and put on her
foot-gear.

The tent stood quite close to the brook path and when they were nearly
up to it they heard, coming from around the other side of it, a sound of
vigorous splashing, punctuated by protesting squawks. Involuntarily the
two girls stood still and listened. Above the squawking rose a voice.

"'Curse on him,' quote false Sextus, 'will not the villain drown?'" it
declaimed dramatically.

Then in a moment the splashes and squawks increased to an uproar, and
then around the corner of the tent there came a chicken in full flight,
its leathers dripping with water, in spite of which it made amazingly
fast time. After the chicken came a balloon-like figure in a sky-blue
bathrobe, uttering breathless grunts which were evidently intended to be
peremptory commands to the chicken to halt its flight. At the sight of
the two girls standing in the path the bath-robed pursuer fell back in
astonishment.

"'What noble Lucumo comes next to taste our Roman cheer?'" he exclaimed
with a dramatic wave of the hand.

Then he stood transfixed, the gesture frozen in mid-air. "Sahwah!" he
gasped. "Veronica! where in the world----"

The girls started forward with unbelieving eyes. "Slim!" cried Sahwah.
"What are you doing here?"

"Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," replied Slim, holding his voluminous
bathrobe primly around him with one hand to cover the bathing suit
which he wore under it, and shaking hands vigorously with the other.

Then, making a trumpet of his hands, he called loudly, "Captain, oh,
Captain, come here quick!"

There was an upheaval inside the tent and the sound of something
falling, and in a moment a second youth appeared around the corner of
the tent, clad in khaki trousers and a blue and white blazer.

"What's the matter?" he asked in alarm. Then he saw the girls and threw
up his hands in amazement. "For the love of Mike!" he exclaimed
elegantly.

"Captain!" cried Sahwah.

Rapturous greetings followed.

"Of all things," said Sahwah, "to run across you two in the woods like
this! What on earth are you doing here? We thought you were doing some
summer work at your college."

"We are," replied the Captain, looking from one to the other of the
girls with a face beaming with delight at the unexpected meeting. "We're
making a survey of different parts of the state--it's part of our
course--and incidentally we're compiling certain statistics for the
government."

"Oh!" said the two girls respectfully.

"But what, if I might make so bold as to ask," said the Captain, "are
_you_ two doing here in the wet, wild woods, all by your wild lone?"

Sahwah explained and extended a cordial invitation for the two boys to
come to Carver House whenever they had time.

"Is Hinpoha there?" asked Slim and the Captain simultaneously.

"She certainly is," replied Sahwah.

Slim squinted critically down his nose at his tub-like form. "Do you
think I've gotten any thinner?" he asked anxiously.

Sahwah scrutinized, him closely for signs of reduction and decided he
_might_ possibly be half a pound thinner than when she saw him last.
Slim sighed and looked pensive and Sahwah had hard work to keep her face
straight.

"But what on earth was all that racket as we came up?" she asked, unable
to restrain her curiosity on that point any longer. "What were you
chasing the chicken for?"

Slim's eye roved regretfully back toward the trees among which the
chicken had vanished, and the Captain answered for him.

"You see," he exclaimed, "today is Slim's birthday and we were going to
celebrate by having a chicken dinner. So Slim went out to buy a chicken
and came back with a live one. Then he didn't have the heart to chop its
head off, and was trying to drown it in a barrel of water when you came
up. By the way, Slim, where is it now?"

Slim pointed to the bushes with an expression of chagrin on his fat
face. "It's gone," he said with a sigh of regret. "A dollar and
eighty-seven cents' worth of chicken stew running loose on the
landscape."

"But it wasn't the nerve I lacked to chop its head off," he added,
looking reproachfully at the Captain. "It was the hatchet. You see," he
explained, "we didn't exactly come prepared to catch our meals on the
hoof, so to speak, and all I had to chop his head off with was the
can-opener on my pocket knife, and that wouldn't work, so I _had_ to
drown him."

"Oh, you funny boys!" said Sahwah, laughing uncontrollably.

"I think you might have helped me hold him down," said Slim to the
Captain in an injured tone.

"I couldn't," replied the Captain gravely. "The butter got overcome with
the heat and I was reviving it with a fan."

"Oh, you babes in the woods, you!" said Sahwah, with another burst of
laughter. "You must be having the time of your lives."

"We are," replied the Captain. "Won't you stay to dinner? There isn't
anything to eat but a can of tomato soup, but you're welcome to that."

"Oh, we hadn't better," replied Sahwah, "they will be wondering at home
what has become of us, and besides, it would make too much trouble for
you."

"Too much trouble!" snorted the Captain. "That's just like a girl. As
if a girl ever cared how much trouble she made for a fellow! Come on and
stay, we want you. We're lonesome."

Thus pressed, the girls accepted the invitation, and pretty soon they
were all sitting in a circle under the trees with cups and spoons in
their hands, and the Captain was singing at the top of his voice:

"Glorious, glorious,
One can of soup for the four of us,
Praises be, there are no more of us,
For the four of us can drink it all alone!"

Lunch over, they exchanged gossip under the trees for a merry half hour,
then the girls took their departure and sped homeward to carry the news
to Carver House.

CHAPTER X

THE OPENING CAREER OF MANY EYES

"Good morning, Winnebago friends,
With your faces as bright as mine,
Good morning, Winnebago friends,
You're surely looking fine,
Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,
If the pancakes don't get you the syrup must
Good morning, Winnebago friends,
With your faces as bright as,
Your faces as bright as, Your faces as bright as mine!"

The Winnebagos, happy and hungry, gathered around the breakfast table in
answer to the summons which Hinpoha had just sent echoing through the
house. With the advent of the Winnebagos at Carver House, Nyoda's
melodiously chiming Japanese dinner gong had been discarded in favor of
a hoarse-throated fish horn, which bore some similarity to the sound of
a bugle and was therefore to be preferred because it had more of a
military flavor.

"Where's Sahwah?" asked Nyoda, noticing that her place was vacant

Nobody knew.

Hinpoha blew a second blast of the horn up the stairway, making a noise
that would have waked the Seven Sleepers with ease, but there was no
answer.

"Sahwah must be out taking a morning walk," announced Hinpoha, when her
horn blast had failed to rout out the absentee, "she's forever
exercising herself in the early morning hours--as if we didn't get
enough exercise doing military drill! It's no wonder she's like a
beanpole. I would be, too, if I was forever trotting the way she is.
Here she comes now, tearing up the walk like a racehorse!"

"She probably heard your horn on the other side of the woods," said
Nyoda, laughing, "and got here before it stopped blowing."

Sahwah came in quite out of breath and evidently tremendously
enthusiastic about something.

"Nyoda," she burst out as soon as she was inside the door, "how fast
would a Primitive Woman go up and how many pounds would she pull?"

"What?" asked Nyoda, looking up inquiringly from the cup of cocoa she
was handing to Gladys. The rest of the Winnebagos looked at Sahwah in
open-mouthed astonishment.

"How fast would a Primitive Woman go up and how many pounds would she
pull?" repeated Nyoda. "What is it, a riddle?"

"No, a kite," replied Sahwah impatiently. "I mean a kite built like Many
Eyes, our Primitive Woman symbol; would she fly high and pull a heavy
tail?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," replied Nyoda. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I've entered the kite-flying contest that the Boy Scouts of
this town are having, and I thought of building my kite in the Primitive
Woman shape."

"_You've_ entered a kite-flying contest that the Boy Scouts are having!"
exclaimed Hinpoha in surprise. "How on earth did you happen to do that?"

"It's open to outsiders," replied Sahwah. "I saw a Scout nailing a
bulletin on a tree in the square down town challenging all the boys in
town to a kite-flying contest on Commons Field next Saturday afternoon."

"All the _boys_ in town!" replied Hinpoha. "Since when are you a boy?"

"Well," replied Sahwah, "I read the sign and I remembered how I used to
love to fly kites with my brother and I thought what fun it would be to
go into the contest. So I ran after the Scout who had nailed up the
bulletin and asked him if we Winnebagos couldn't enter the contest, and
he was awfully nice about it when he heard we were Camp Fire Girls. He
said of course we couldn't build a decent kite, no girl could, but if we
wanted to go into the contest and get beaten the Scouts wouldn't care.
So I wrote our name in the space under the announcement that was left
for the entries, and we're going to be in the contest! On the way home I
thought of building the kite in the shape of Primitive Woman, which
would be original and symbolic. Do you think she'd fly high, Nyoda?" she
asked anxiously.

"I can't say," replied Nyoda. "I'll have to confess that I know nothing
whatever about the art of flying kites. My childhood was sadly
neglected, I'm afraid, but that's one thing I never did. All you can do
is make one and try."

Sahwah set to work right after breakfast with sticks of wood and brown
wrapping paper and by afternoon her kite was ready for its trial flight.
All the Winnebagos went out to help fly it. The trial was a success.
Primitive Woman soared high at a good rate of speed and pulled a
five-pound tail. Jubilant, Sahwah stripped the common wrapping paper
from the frame and with fine brown paper which Nyoda gave her began to
construct a Primitive Woman which was a work of art. Hinpoha painted the
features on the triangle-shaped head, and under her clever brush Many
Eyes was soon looking out on the world with a serene and confident
smile. The Winnebagos were enchanted with the result and all
enthusiastic about the contest now.

"Many Eyes, you're holding the honor of the Camp Fire Girls in your
hands," said Sahwah solemnly. "You've got to fly faster than any kite a
mere Boy Scout can invent. You've got to win!" And it seemed to the
girls, surrounding Many Eyes as she stood up against the wall to dry,
that her smile widened in a promise of victory.

"Let's make a magic over her," suggested Hinpoha, "and then she _can't_
lose," Hinpoha was always having rings wished on her fingers, and
running around her chair to change her luck, and building rain jinxes
before starting out on excursions.

"Let's find a four-leaf clover and fasten it on her," said Migwan.
"Where'll we find one?"

"Out in the woods there's a place where there are some," replied Sahwah.

"We might take our supper out in the woods," suggested Nyoda. "Aren't we
going to have a Ceremonial Meeting tonight to take Agony and Oh-Pshaw
into the Winnebagos? We could have our Council Fire out in the woods
after supper."

"Let's take Many Eyes along and make her our official mascot," suggested
Sahwah. "We can install her with ceremonies, like we did Eeny-Meeny."

This bit of nonsense was seized upon by the Winnebagos as a grand
inspiration. When Agony and Oh-Pshaw arrived at Carver House with their
Ceremonial dresses in neat packages under their arms and their lists of
honors in their hands they found the Winnebagos forming a procession out
by the back gate. Sahwah headed the parade, holding up above her head a
huge kite made in the form of the symbolic Primitive Woman, with a long
tail which the rest of the Winnebagos carried like pages carrying a
queen's court train.

"What on earth!" began Agony.

"Get on the end of the line and help carry her tail!" commanded Sahwah.

"What's the idea?" demanded Agony suspiciously. "Are we getting
initiated?"

"No," explained Sahwah. "This is Many Eyes, our entry in the Boy Scout's
kite-flying contest. We're conveying her in state to the Council Rock.
We're going to make her our official mascot and then she'll be sure to
win the contest."

"And we're going to find a four-leaf clover and put it on her and render
her impassable," said Hinpoha. Hinpoha was trying to think of
"unsurpassable," and "impassable" was the nearest she came to it.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw joined themselves on to the procession with alacrity.

"We passed the Boy Scouts' bulletin board on the way over," said Agony,
"and we saw that the Winnebagos were entered in the contest."

"Were there any more entries?" asked Sahwah eagerly.

"Several," replied Agony. "Scout Troops Number One, Two and Three were
entered."

"Now," said Hinpoha, who seemed to be mistress of ceremonies, "we're
going to make a magic so that Many Eyes will win, and first we are going
to do the Indian Silence. We're going to march to the woods in single
file, carrying Many Eyes, and nobody must speak a word, or the charm
will be broken. Nobody must speak until we've found the four leaf
clover."

"How perfectly epic!" exclaimed Agony, falling in with the spirit of the
occasion.

"Is everybody ready?" asked Hinpoha. "Come on, then. Start!"

The procession moved off like a snake past the barn and down the hill,
Many Eyes smiling serenely ahead of her. The silence continued deep and
sepulchral all the way down the hill and quite to the edge of the woods,
and then Nyoda suddenly exclaimed, "The supper basket! Who has it?"

Nobody had it!

The Winnebagos looked sheepishly at one another and then Migwan and
Gladys offered to go back and get it.

"We'll sit right here, and wait for you," said Hinpoha, "and none of us
will speak a word until you come."

Many Eyes was propped against a tree while her escort sat around on the
ground holding their handkerchiefs in front of their mouths to keep from
talking. Migwan and Gladys presently came panting up and the procession
resumed its way into the woods. It was harder walking here and the
tail-bearers often stumbled against each other or accidentally kicked
each other's shins, and when that happened they had to compress their
lips tightly to keep back the exclamations of surprise or pain that
involuntarily sought expression. The procession wound up beside the
stream which Sahwah had discovered in the woods on the other side of the
hill, at a smooth, grassy spot where the clover grew in abundance. Here
they set Many Eyes down on the ground and began hunting diligently for
the symbol of good luck. It was a good thing that the four leaf clover
was found soon--and by Sahwah, too, which was taken as a further omen of
good luck--or the strain of the silence might have been fatal to a few
of the searchers. Agony was ready to burst long before the time limit
was up.

Then, when the charm of the silence had gotten in its good work, and the
little green quatrefoil had been fastened into the outstretched right
hand of Many Eyes, Hinpoha selected several soft, flat stones from the
stream and carved them with further good luck omens--the swastika, the
horseshoe, and all the other signs she could think of that were supposed
to bring good luck. These were to be a part of the kite's tail. A little
later they all clasped hands and wished for success on the evening star.
Then, to her great delight, Hinpoha caught a glimpse of the slender new
moon over her left shoulder, and registered her wish on that. Meanwhile
the others noticed a big black spider letting himself down from the
tree above, directly in front of Many Eyes--another omen of good
fortune. Never had the signs been so auspicious for any undertaking.

Nyoda carried Many Eyes with her when she took her place on the Council
Rock. The Council Fire was to be held on the great flat rock that
overhung the Devil's Punch Bowl; an impressive place indeed to hold a
Camp Fire Ceremonial, up there right under the stars, it seemed, with
the wind fiddling through the branches all around them and the water
whispering to itself below. The rock was about twenty feet wide and as
flat as a table.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw and Veronica, who were the lowest in rank of the
Winnebagos, had gathered the wood for the fire and laid the fagots in
place in the center of the rock, with the bow and drill and tinder
beside it and the supply of firewood nearby.

Nyoda smiled whimsically at Many Eyes, standing against the
perpendicular back ledge of the Council Rock, and with her heart full of
love for the girls who could get so much fun out of a kite, wished
success to their cause with all her soul. Then she stood up in the
center of the rock and sent forth the clear call, the summons for the
tribe of Wohelo to come to the Council Fire.

The call rang far out over the water and came echoing back from the
surrounding hills, and before the echoes had died away it was answered
from the depths of the wood, and then shadowy figures came stealing
forward from between the tall trees, a silent file that came winding
down to the Council Rock in a stately procession. The circle closed
around Nyoda and she stooped to kindle the fire. As the bow flashed
quickly back and forth and the drill whirled in its center, a low,
musical chant rose from the circle:

"Keep rolling, keep rolling,
Keep the fire sticks
Briskly rolling, rolling,
Grinding the wood dust,
Smoke arises!
Smoke arises!
Ah, the smoke, sweetly scented,
It will rise, it will rise, it will rise!"

The chant swelled out in volume to a dramatic climax as a puff of smoke
burst forth beneath the point of the whirling drill. Nyoda adroitly
caught the spark in a bed of tinder and raised it to her lips, blowing
gently to fan it into flame, while the chant was resumed:

"Dusky forest now darker grown,
Broods in silence o'er its own,
Till the wee spark to a flame has blown,
And living fire leaps up to greet
The song of Wohelo."

The "wee spark" turned into a tiny point of flame and the tinder burst
out into a merry blaze. Nyoda dropped it into the pile of fagots and the
ceremonial fire was kindled, while the Winnebagos sprang to their feet,
ready to sing, "Burn, fire, burn."

When that had been sung the Winnebagos still remained on their feet.
There was a moment of silence and then they sang a hearty cheer:

"Oh, we cheer, oh, we cheer for Wohelo,
For our comrades and friends so true,
And our loyalty ever shall linger,
Oh, Nakwisi, we sing to you!
Oh, Chapa, we sing to you!
Oh, Medmangi, we sing to you!"

"Oh, Katherine, here's to you,
Our hearts will e'er be true,
We will never find your equal
Though we search the whole world through!"

They were singing to the absent Winnebagos who would always be present
in spirit wherever the Winnebagos were gathered together.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw were touched and felt a lump rising in their throats;
it was so beautiful, this bond of affection between the Winnebagos. They
were completely carried away by the dramatic atmosphere of a Winnebago
Council Fire. They had never taken part in such an elaborate one. Both
of them, by spasmodic efforts, had attained the rank of Fire Maker in
the group to which they had formerly belonged, whose Guardian had meant
well enough, but had neither the time nor the talent to become a
successful Camp Fire leader. The group had never accomplished much, and
had finally drifted apart, as many groups do, for lack of a powerful
welding influence.

Agony and Oh-Pshaw, having been instrumental in starting the group, had
"run" it to their hearts' content; that is, Agony ran it, for her
dominating personality completely overshadowed her sister along with the
rest of the members. Agony "ran" the Guardian, too, who admired her
immensely, thought everything she did a symptom of genius, stood not a
little in awe of her family connections, and let her have full sway in
everything. Agony was fond of the Guardian, too, but naturally was not
profoundly influenced by association with her.

But there was an altogether different atmosphere in the Winnebago group,
as Agony soon discovered. No one girl had any more to say than the
others, all worked together in perfect harmony, and all worshipped the
same sun, Nyoda. She was a great lode star that drew them together, and
kept them circling contentedly in their little orbits; she was their
oracle, their all-wise counsellor, their loving elder sister. Around her
the Winnebagos clustered, as the populace did about Peter, anxious to
have his shadow fall upon them. The Twins had also fallen under her
spell and after their first meeting had become her adoring slaves. "Run"
Nyoda? The thought never entered Agony's mind.

In her own group Agony had achieved her honors easily, for the Guardian
had not been too insistent about having things done well, and some of
her honors were really only half earned. So she had become a Fire Maker
without any strenuous efforts. Now her great ambition was to be a Torch
Bearer. All the year at school she had looked with envy on the little
round silver pins that Hinpoha and Migwan and Gladys wore and noticed
how people who understood the meaning of that little pin always
exclaimed admiringly, "Oh, you're a Torch Bearer!" Agony could not bear
to have anyone get ahead of her, she must be a Torch Bearer, too. She
could hurry up and get enough honor beads by the next Council meeting to
be eligible.

After the ceremony of the installation was over and she and Oh-Pshaw
were really Winnebagos, she spoke of the desire which lay near to her
heart. It was in the little intimate talk time which always took place
during the Ceremonial Meeting, when the flames began to burn down to
embers, just before it was time to sing, "Now Our Camp Fire Fadeth."

"Nyoda," she said confidently, "I'm ready to become a Torch Bearer at
the next meeting."

Nyoda looked at her with serious, thoughtful eyes. In the Winnebago
group, it had not been customary for the girls to announce that they
were worthy to be called Torch Bearer. Nyoda had herself conferred that
honor upon them when she considered them worthy. No one had ever voiced
her belief that she was ready, although Nyoda knew how each one had
coveted the title. She was able to read Agony clearly, and knew that the
keynote of her life was ambition. She was pretty certain that Agony
wanted to be a Torch Bearer because it was the highest rank to which a
Camp Fire Girl could aspire, and she wanted to be on the top. As yet she
had seen no evidence of a humble desire to lose herself so deeply in the
joy of service for others that self was forgotten. Agony was a born
leader, there was no doubt about that, but Nyoda knew that she was not
yet ruler over her own spirit. To the Winnebagos it seemed that Agony
was already a Torch Bearer beyond compare, but Nyoda's inner voice of
wisdom whispered, "Not yet." Agony must win that title in humility and
self-forgetfulness before she could glory in it.

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