Part 3 (1/2)

”Have you decided on a name?” asked Nyoda. Gladys shook her head. ”Well, then,” said Nyoda, ”I would wait with the symbol until I had chosen a name. And I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry about it, either. Take time to look about you and make your name express something that you like to do better than anything else, or something that you earnestly aspire to do or be. Then choose your symbol in keeping with your name.”

”But suppose there shouldn't be a symbol in the book that fitted the name I chose?” asked Gladys.

”Then we would be put to the painful necessity of finding a brand new one!” answered Nyoda with a mock tragic air.

Here the others girls flung themselves upon Nyoda and demanded to be told their standing in tent inspection. ”Alpha, 97, Omega, 98,” she replied.

The Omegas hugged each other with joy at having received a higher mark than the Alphas. ”What was wrong with us?” chorused the disappointed Alphas.

”One bed had not been swept under, one pair of shoes were lying down instead of standing up, and the wash bowl contained a spy-gla.s.s,” answered Nyoda.

Nakwisi blushed at the mention of the spy-gla.s.s. ”I didn't mean to leave it there, really and truly I didn't, Nyoda. I was just looking over the lake when Chapa wanted me to help her move her bed and I laid it in the first convenient place and then forgot to remove it.”

”No explanations!” called the girls. Nakwisi laughed and subsided.

”Where did we lose our two points, Nyoda?” demanded the Omegas.

”There was a pillow propped against the tent pole and one bed looked decidedly lumpy,” said Nyoda.

”I knew you'd go off and leave that pillow there, Sahwah,”

exclaimed Hinpoha.

”I knew your shoes would show if you tried to hide them in the bed!” returned Sahwah.

”Murder will out,” said Nyoda, laughing, ”I was not going to mention any names!”

CHAPTER III.

INDEPENDENCE DAY.

”Girls!” exclaimed Nyoda one day at the dinner table, ”to-morrow is the Fourth of July. Shall we have a celebration?”

Sahwah looked at Hinpoha and slowly lowered one eyelid. ”Yes, yes,” cried all the girls in chorus, ”let's do!”

”Well, what shall it be?” continued Nyoda, ”a flag raising and a bonfire and some canoe races?”

”Oh, a flag raising by all means,” said Migwan, ”they always have one in the Scout camps. My brother is a Scout and he thinks it's awful because we don't have more flag exercises.”

”Where will we get the flag?” asked Sahwah.

”It's here already,” answered Nyoda, ”in the bottom of my trunk.

I knew that sooner or later we would want it so I brought it along.”

”Who will do the raising?” asked Hinpoha.

”Why, Nyoda, of course,” said Migwan, ”who else?”

”And I move,” said Nyoda, ”that Migwan write a poem suitable to the occasion and deliver same.”