Part 13 (2/2)
”She didn't come out with us tonight,” replied Miss Judy, tipping the milk can far over to pour out the last drop. ”She wanted to do some writing, she said.”
Migwan sighed quietly and gave herself over to being agreeable to her canoe mates, but the occasion had lost its savor for her.
Supper finished, the canoes began to drift westward toward the setting sun, following the broad streak of light that lay like a magic highway upon the water, while guitars and mandolins began to tinkle, and from all around clear girlish voices, blended together in exquisite harmony, took up song after song.
”Oh, I could float along like this and sing forever!” breathed Hinpoha, picking out soft chords on her guitar, and looking dreamily at the evening star glowing like a jewelled lamp in the western sky.
”So could I,” replied Migwan, leaning back in the canoe with her hands clasped behind her head, and letting the light breeze ruffle the soft tendrils of hair around her temples. ”It is going to be full moon tonight,” she added. ”See, there it is, rising above the treetops. How big and bright it is! Can it be possible that it is only a ma.s.s of dead chalk and not a ball of burnished silver? Gladys will enjoy that moon, she always loves it so when it is so big and round and bright. By the way, where _is_ Gladys? I saw her in a canoe not long ago, but I don't see her anywhere now.”
”I don't know where she is,” replied Hinpoha, glancing idly around at the various craft and then letting her eyes rest upon the moon again.
The little fleet had rounded an island and turned back upstream, now traveling in the silver moon-path, now gliding through velvety black shadows, and was approaching a long, low ledge of rock that jutted out into the water just beyond the big bend in the river. A sudden exclamation of ”Ah-h!” drew everybody's attention to the rock, and there a wondrous spectacle presented itself--a white robed figure dancing in the moonlight as lighty as a bit of seafoam, her filmy draperies fluttering in the wind, her long yellow hair twined with lillies.
”Who is it?” several voices cried in wonder, and the paddlers stopped spellbound with their paddles poised in air.
”Gladys!” exclaimed Migwan. ”I thought she was planning a surprise, she and Agony were whispering together this afternoon. Isn't she wonderful, though!” Migwan's voice rang with pride in her beloved friend's accomplishment. ”Too bad Miss Amesbury isn't here to see it.”
The dancer on the rock dipped and swayed and whirled in a mad measure, finally disappearing into the shadow of a towering cliff, from whence she emerged a few moments later, once more in the canoe with Agony, and changed back from a water nymph into a Camp Keewaydin girl in middy and bloomers.
”It was Agony's idea,” she explained simply, in response to the storm of applause that greeted her reappearance among the girls. ”She thought of it this afternoon when the word went around that we were going to have supper on the water.”
Then Agony came in for her share of the applause also, until the woods echoed to the sound of cheering.
”Too bad Miss Amesbury had to miss it.” Thus Agony echoed Migwan's earlier expression of regret as she walked down the Alley arm in arm with Migwan and Hinpoha after the first bugle. ”She's been working up there on her balcony all evening, and didn't hear a bit of the singing.
We were too far up the river.”
”Couldn't we sing a bit for her?” suggested Migwan. ”Serenade her, I mean; just a few of us who are used to singing together?”
”Good idea,” replied Agony enthusiastically. ”Get all the Winnebagos together and let's sing her some of our own songs, the ones we've practicsed so much together at home. You bring your mandolin, Migs, and tell Hinpoha to bring her guitar. Hurry, we'll have to do it fast to get back for lights out.”
Miss Amesbury, wearily finis.h.i.+ng her evening's work, was suddenly greeted by a burst of song from beneath her balcony; a surpa.s.sing deep, rich alto, beautifully blended with a number of clear, pure sopranos, accompanied by mandolin and guitar. It was a song she had not heard in years, one which held a beautiful, tender a.s.sociation for her:
”I would that my love could silently Flow in a single word--”
A mist came over her eyes as she listened, and the gates of memory swung back on their golden hinges, revealing another scene, when she had listened to that song sung by a voice now long since hushed. She put her hand over her eyes as if in pain, then dropped it slowly into her lap and sat leaning back in her chair listening with hungry ears to the familiar strains. When the last note had echoed itself quite away she leaned over the balcony and called down softly, ”Thanks, many thanks, girls. You do not know what a treat you have given me. Who are you? I know one of you must be Agony, I recognize her alto, but who are the rest of you? The Winnebagos? I might have guessed it. You are dear girls to think of me up here by myself and to put yourselves out to give me pleasure. Come and visit me in the daytime, every one of you. There goes the last bugle. Goodnight, girls. Thank you a thousand times!”
The Winnebagos scurried off toward the Alley, in high spirits at the success of their little plan. Migwan actually trembled with joy. At last she had been invited up on Miss Amesbury's fascinating little balcony.
True, the invitation had been a general one to all the Winnebagos, but nevertheless, it was a beginning.
”Miss Amesbury must have been very tired tonight,” she confided to Hinpoha. ”Her voice actually shook when she thanked us for singing.”
”I noticed it, too,” replied Hinpoha, beginning to pull her middy off over her head as she walked along.
When Agony reached the door of Gitchee-Gummee she remembered that she had left her camp hat lying in the path below Mateka, where they had stood to serenade Miss Amesbury, and fearing that the wind, which was increasing in velocity, might blow it into the river before morning, she hastened back to rescue it. She moved quietly, for it was after lights out and she did not wish to disturb the camp. Miss Amesbury's lamp was extinguished and her balcony was shrouded in darkness by the shadow of the tall pine which grew against it.
”She must be very tired,” thought Agony, remembering Migwan's words, ”and is already in bed.”
Agony felt carefully over the shadowy ground for her hat, found it and started back up the path. But the beauty of the moonlight on the river tempted her to loiter and dream along the bluff before returning to her tent. Enchanted by the magic scene beneath her, she stood still and gazed for many minutes at the gleaming river of water which seemed to her like pure molten silver.
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