Part 42 (1/2)
Surely she had rosin on her feet! No, she didn't, for the next moment she too was clawing the air. She swayed for a minute like a reed in the wind, and then went down, not into the water, but on the pole where she gazed with a bewildered stare in her near-sighted eyes at the jeering little prize that had proved so elusive.
The first number of the land sports was a contest in the air, the performers walking on stilts while balancing potatoes on their heads. A tilting joust also took place, and helped to prove that the time the girls had spent in making and walking on the stilts had not been wasted.
The Up Against It Race, turned out to be an obstacle race, one of the obstacles being twelve eggs to be picked up from the ground and placed in a basket. The second obstacle was hailed with deafening shouts, for it was no other than Miss Camphelia sitting on the race-track contentedly sucking a lollipop. She was speedily seized by the contestant and arrayed in a coat and hat, while gazing with wondering eyes at this new red-faced mother. The girl who made the best time as an egg-picker and baby-dresser proved to be an Oriole, and was duly applauded for her speed and deftness.
In the Light that Failed contest the fair racers made a twenty-yard dash carrying lighted candles and pails of water, one in each hand, at the same time. All lights flickered out to be sure, but the one that lasted the longest won the contest for its holder.
A fifty-yard dash won by Edith now followed, while one of the Bob Whites broke the tape at a twenty-five yard dash. In a Ring the Bell compet.i.tion the girls were divided into teams, the team having the greatest number of girls who threw a bean bag through a barrel-hoop with a bell hung in its center without touching the bell were the jubilant ones.
Lillie and Edith now gave an exhibition of wigwagging, using the Myers code, in which nearly all the girls were proficient. Lillie, to her delight, showed the most proficiency, although Edith had generally been considered the greatest expert in this science. An Indian-club drill, and a nail-driving contest not only showed the scouts what their sisters could accomplish in the way of strength, and manual labor, but brought the sports for the day to a close.
By this time pangs of hunger began to a.s.sail the jolly campers, and Nita, with a strenuous toot of her horn, made known that a Grub Contest-a hike for supper packages hidden in the woods, among the rocks on the sh.o.r.e, or around the tents-would now take place. With much laughter and jesting the girls lined up opposite the boys, and at three blasts of the bugle they were off, flying in all directions, each one bent on searching some one particular locality that he or she had in mind. The fortunate ones were soon shouting hilariously; in fact even the slow ones were keener than usual in this supper hike, and soon bagged their game and cheered l.u.s.tily as they returned to camp.
Every one now gathered around the dining-room table-appropriately decorated for the occasion-and was soon dulling appet.i.te with the choice bits found in the packages that had been done up by the Pioneers but hidden by Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Van Vorst.
As they frolicked over the supper it was voted that every one present contribute to the moment's pleasure by telling a story, singing a song, asking a conundrum, and so on. A ball was pa.s.sed to Helen who immediately told a funny story, and ended by tossing the ball to Nathalie, the rule being that the reciter was to throw the ball to any one he or she chose, which resulted in its being thrown to the more timid or lazy ones, thus causing surprise and laughter.
Nathalie made a rhyme impromptu, then tossed the ball to one of the boys, and so it kept going the rounds, not only bracing the timid or nervous ones, but revealing latent talent that had never been suspected.
Teddy Hart, who had played the knight to the announcer of the day, Miss Anita, spied her laughing at his antics when he was called to the front and mischievously tossed the ball to her. The smile died on the girl's face and she gasped with a start of terror, but in a moment, with a defiant toss of her head, she started in and recited some funny verses so comically that she received an ovation of cheers and claps.
When Nathalie perceived this unexpected turn in the festivity, her heart went pit-a-pat in sympathy with Nita's unexpected ordeal, but when she saw the upward toss of her head and the flash in her eyes, she knew the girl would prove game. Indeed, she had been proving game for the last ten days or more, for Helen's plan of helping her to know the girls had succeeded so well that Nita had lost much of her supersensitiveness in regard to her deformity, by being made to forget it and by the kindliness and deference shown her by both girls and boys.
The intimacy that had come from tenting with the different Pioneers had not only shown her the need of correcting many of her own faults, but had revealed the good points of her a.s.sociates. Many of the girls she had secretly vowed to Nathalie she would never care for, she had accepted as the best of friends.
From being deemed an aristocrat of whom the girls stood slightly in awe, thinking her proud and exclusive, she had proved to be most democratic, entirely devoid of the many airs and graces they feared. In fact she had become, as Nathalie said, a favorite with every one, and had nearly as many adorers as Miss Camphelia, who at that moment was having a most beautiful time eating bread and milk in the lap of Ellen, gurgling and winking with baby joy at the gay colors and lights that held her eye.
Supper over, the campers hurried to the cheer fire circle where a tall, uncouth-looking object covered with sheets towered specter-like in the center. Helen, mounting a small platform, announced that the campers had gathered to celebrate the burning of Miss Dummy, who represented the evil spirits that had run riot during their stay at camp.
An Oriole girl now came to the fore as chairman of the spirit committee, as it was called, and made known that a thorough investigation had brought to light many evil spirits that had dominated certain members of the camp at intervals, not only hindering the development of character, but causing discomfort and a few heartaches among their mates.
The evil spirits of grouchiness, s.h.i.+ftlessness, dishonesty, and selfishness, in a sense, had been tamed by the Pioneers' laws and the flames from their cheer fire so that they had not caused much havoc, but there were a few evil ones not so familiar, perhaps, that had persisted in doing their evil work. The princ.i.p.al ones, she claimed, were forgetting each one's own particular failing in the fun of ridiculing the faults and eccentricities of her mates, the disloyalty to one's self by not trying to do one's best, a habit of giggling when there was nothing to giggle at, a desire to s.h.i.+rk responsibility by letting the other one do work that was distasteful, and the weakness of letting one's nerves get the better of one on certain occasions instead of getting the better of the nerves.
Of course this caused much laughter, although each girl recognized her own particular fault, and then and there secretly swore that she would subdue it or die in the attempt.
Helen now asked if there was any reason why the evil spirits just mentioned should not be disposed of for good and all. Receiving a shout that evidently meant a big ”No!” she pulled a string, the ghostlike garments fell to the ground, and Miss Dummy stood revealed, an effigy arrayed in an old suit belonging to one of the Pioneers, even to the staff and knapsack, surmounting a pile of dried twigs and brush.
”Miss Dummy,” solemnly continued Helen, with as straight a face as she could muster as she confronted the ludicrous-looking evil one, who, with hat awry, huge red nose, and goggle-eyes, stared at her with a leer, ”I consign to thee those evil spirits that have caused sorrow and heartaches among the members of Camp Laff-a-Lot, to be burned until thou art ashes, and then to be buried at the bottom of the lake to lie there forever!”
As she ended there was a sudden scurry forward as each Pioneer made one of a circle kneeling around Miss Dummy, and in an instant's time had struck her match and applied it to one of the twigs which served as a pedestal for the evil one. As the firewood had been well oiled it caught quickly from the blue sputterings of so many matches, and yellow flames were soon shooting savagely upward to glow like strings of scarlet among the twigs and briers, causing them to snap and crackle hilariously. In a moment darting tongues were licking Miss Dummy's red cheeks with fiery greed and floated upward to circle about in wreaths of white and black smoke.
[Ill.u.s.tration: She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water.]
Some of the unduly imaginative girls turned away, declaring that the effigy looked like some one of the girls in that suit in the reddened glare of the flames. But the rest joined hands with the scouts and leaped merrily about the blazing pyre, executing weird and strange gyrations, which they termed a fire dance, as a last farewell to their enemy, who finally, done to the death, tumbled to the ground a fiery ma.s.s of scarlet embers. A pail of water soon quenched the last of the spirits, when the ashes were gathered into a big pail and carried in a procession to the sh.o.r.es of the lake.
Here Helen, holding the pail carefully in her hand, stepped into a row-boat and was conveyed to the middle of the lake. By the light of the moon just peeping above the horizon she dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water, and to the singing of a comic dirge, composed by one of the Orioles, was rowed silently back to sh.o.r.e.
CHAPTER XXV-GOOD-BY TO EAGLE LAKE