Part 1 (2/2)
She was very much like Agony herself, with intensely black hair, snow white forehead and richly red lips, though a little slighter in build and somewhat taller. A frank friendliness beamed from her clear dark eyes and her smile was warm and sincere. Agony felt drawn to her and jealous of her at the same time. _The most popular girl in camp_. That was the t.i.tle Agony coveted with all her soul. To be prominent; to be popular, was Agony's chief aim in life; and to be pointed out in a crowd as _the_ most popular girl seemed the one thing in the world most desirable to her. She, too, would be prominent and popular, she resolved; she, too, would be pointed out in the crowd.
The sarcastic voice again broke in upon her reverie. ”Have you seen the hippopotamus over there in the bow? I should think a girl would be ashamed to get that stout.”
Agony glanced apprehensively at Hinpoha, who was staring straight out over the water, but whose crimson face betrayed only too plainly that she had heard the remark. The rest of the Winnebagos had undoubtedly heard it also, as well as a number of others rubbing elbows with them, for a sudden embarra.s.sed silence fell over that corner of the boat and a dozen pairs of eyes glanced from Hinpoha to the speaker, who, not one whit abashed, continued to stare scornfully at the object of her ridicule.
”Of all the bad manners!” said Agony to Sahwah in an indignant undertone, which, with the characteristic penetrating quality of Agony's voice, carried perfectly to the ears of the girl behind her. A light, satirical laugh was the reply. Agony turned to bestow a withering glance upon this rude creature, and met a pair of greenish tan eyes bent upon her with an expression of cool mockery. In the instant that their eyes met there sprang up between them one of those sudden antagonisms that are characteristic of very positive natures; the two hated each other cordially at first sight, before they had ever spoken a word to each other. Like fencers' swords their glances crossed and fell apart, and each girl turned her back pointedly upon the other. Broken threads of conversation were picked up by the group around them, shouts of laughter came from the group surrounding Pom-pom, who was reciting a funny poem, and the tense moment pa.s.sed.
The other Winnebagos forgot the incident and gave themselves over to enjoyment of the beautiful scene which was unrolling before their eyes as the _Carribou_ bore them further and further into the wilds; great dark stretches of woodland brooding in silence on the hillsides; an occasional glimpse of a far distant mountain peak wreathed in mist, and near by many a merry little stream romping down a hillside into the mother arms of the Onawanda. Gradually the sh.o.r.es had drawn close together until the travelers could look into the cool depths of the forests past which they were gliding, and could hear the calling of the wild birds in their leafy sanctuary.
Just past a long stretch of woods which Hinpoha thought might be enchanted, because the trees stood so stiffly straight, the _Carribou_ rounded a bend, and there flashed into sight an irregular row of white tents scattered among the pines on a rise of ground some hundred or more feet back from the river.
”There's camp,” Sahwah tried to say to Hinpoha, but her voice was drowned in the shriek of ecstasy which rose from the old campers.
Handkerchiefs waved wildly; paddles smote the deck with deafening thumps; cheer after cheer rolled up, accompanied by the loud tooting of the _Carribou's_ whistle. Captain MacLaren always joined in the racket of arrival as heartily as the girls themselves, taking delight in seeing how much noise he could coax from the throat of his steam siren.
Amid the racket the little vessel nosed her way up alongside a wooden dock, and before she was fairly fast the younger members of last year's delegation had leapt over the rail and were scurrying up the path. The older ones followed more sedately, having stopped to pick up their luggage, and to greet the camp directors who stood on the dock with welcoming hands outstretched. Last of all came the new girls, looking about them inquiringly, and already beginning to fall in love with the place.
CHAPTER II
GETTING SETTLED
Along the bluff overlooking the river, and half buried in the pine trees, stretched a long, low, rustic building, the pillars of whose wide piazza were made of tree trunks with the bark left on. A huge chimney built of cobblestones almost covered the one end. The great pines hovered over it protectingly; their branches caressing its roof as they waved gently to and fro in the light breeze. On the peak of one of its gables a little song sparrow, head tilted back and body a-tremble, trilled forth an ecstasy of song.
”Isn't it be-yoo-tiful?” sighed Hinpoha, her artistic soul delighting in the lovely scene before her. ”I wonder what that house is for?”
”I don't know,” replied Sahwah, equally enchanted. ”There's another house behind it, farther up on the hill.”
This second house was much larger than the bungalow overhanging the water's edge; it, too, was built in rustic fas.h.i.+on, with tree-trunks for porch posts; it was long and rambling, and had an additional story at the back, where the hill sloped away.
It was into this latter house that the crowd of girls was pouring, and the Winnebagos, following the others, found themselves in a large dining room, open on three sides to the veranda, and screened all around the open s.p.a.ce. On the fourth side was an enormous fireplace built of stones like those they had seen in the chimney of the other house. Over its wide stone shelf were the words CAMP KEEWAYDIN traced in small, glistening blue pebbles in a cement panel. Although the day was hot, a small fire of paper and pine knots blazed on the hearth, crackling a cheery welcome to the newcomers as they entered. In the center of the room two long tables and a smaller one were set for dinner, and from the regions below came the appetizing odor of meat cooking, accompanied by the portentous clatter of an egg beater.
There was apparently an attic loft above the dining-room, for next to the chimney a square opening showed in the raftered ceiling, with a ladder leading up through it, fastened against the wall below. Up this ladder a dozen or more of the younger girls scrambled as soon as they entered the room; laughing, shrieking, tumbling over each other in their haste; and after a moment of thumping and bouncing about, down they all came dancing, clad in middies and bloomers, and raced, whooping like Indians, down the path which led to the tents.
”Are we supposed to get into our bloomers right away?” Oh-Pshaw whispered to Agony. ”Ours are in the trunk, and it hasn't been brought up yet.”
”I don't believe we are,” Agony returned, watching Mary Sylvester, who stood talking to Pom-pom in the doorway of the Camp Director's office.
”None of the older girls are doing it; just the youngsters.”
Just then Mrs. Grayson, the Camp Director's wife, came out of the office and announced that dinner would be served immediately, after which the tent a.s.signments would be made. The Winnebagos found themselves seated in a row down the side of one of the long tables, being served by a jolly-looking, muscular-armed councilor, who turned out to be the Camp Director's daughter, and who had her section of the table feeling at home in no time.
”Seven of you from one city!” she remarked to the Winnebagos, when she had called the roll of ”native heaths,” as she put it. ”That's one of the largest delegations we have here. You all look like star campers, too,” she added, sizing them up shrewdly. ”Seven stars!” she repeated, evidently pleased with her simile. ”We'll have to call you the Pleiades.
We already have the Nine Muses from New York, the Twelve Apostles from Boston, the Heavenly Twins from Chicago and the Three Graces from Minneapolis, beside the Lone Wolf from Labrador, the Kangaroo from Australia, and the Elephant's Child from India.”
”Oh, how delicious!” cried Sahwah delightedly. ”Do you really mean that there are girls here from Australia and India?” Sahwah set down her water gla.s.s and gazed incredulously at Miss Judith. Miss Judith nodded over the pudding she was dis.h.i.+ng up.
”The Kangaroo and the Lone Wolf are councilors,” she replied, ”but the Elephant's Child is a girl, the daughter of a missionary to India. She goes to boarding school here in America in the winter time, and always spends her summers at our camp. That is she, sitting at the end of the other table, next to mother.”
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