Part 16 (1/2)

It was a heavy blow for the old man, who was counting the days until his son should come to America and go into partners.h.i.+p with him. The world became a dark and sad place for him and he had no ambition to go on living. The only consolation he had was the thought that his son had died a hero and his last act had brought honor to his family. He gripped the Iron Cross tightly and wished pa.s.sionately that Heinrich had lived to wear it. As the lonely, broken-hearted old doctor sat there with his head in his hands trying to realize the misfortune which had crushed him he heard strains of music floating up from the lake.

”Ich Weiss nicht wa.s.s soll es bedeuten Da.s.s ich so traurig bin--”

The sweet girlish voices rang out in fine harmony. The doctor raised his head to listen. ”Bless dere liddle hearts,” he murmured, ”dey are bringing me a serenade to please me.” A tiny ray of pleasure visited his sad heart. ”Tell dem,” he said to his housekeeper, ”dat de old doctor has too much sorrow to speak to dem to-night, but he tanks dem for de song and hopes dey will come again.”

CHAPTER IX

THE WHITE MEN'S LODGES.

”Don't stand so stiffly, Sahwah,” said Gladys. ”Bend your knees a little. Let yourself go in the air the way you were always telling me to let myself go in the water. See, this way.” She took a few graceful dancing steps back and forth in front of Sahwah. Sahwah did her best to imitate her. ”There, that's a little better,” said Gladys, ”but there is lots of room for improvement still. Now, one, two, three, point, step, point, turn, point, step, point, turn, point, slide, slide, slide, close.” Sahwah struggled to follow her directions, poising her free hand in the air as Gladys did. ”You handle your feet fairly well,” said Gladys, ”but you ought to see your face. You look as if you were performing the most disagreeable task, and were in perfect misery over it. Smile when you dance, and incline your head gracefully, and don't act as if it were glued immovably onto your shoulders.” Sahwah dutifully grinned from ear to ear, and Gladys shook her head again. ”No, not like that, it makes you look like a clown. Just smile slightly and naturally; act as if you were enjoying yourself.” Thus the lesson proceeded. Gladys had undertaken the task of teaching Sahwah fancy dancing, and drilled her every morning in the shack. Sahwah was eager to learn and practised the steps until her feet ached with weariness. ”There,” said Gladys, as Sahwah succeeded in memorizing a number of steps, now we'll try it with the music.

Remember, you are impersonating a tree swaying in the wind, and bend from your waist line. That's the right way.

”Now, everybody up for the 'Hesitation,'” she called, when Sahwah, flushed and panting, sat down in a corner to rest. The girls lined up briskly for their lesson. Nearly all of them knew the correct steps of the modern society dances, but few of them danced really well, and it was the little fine touches and graces that Gladys was teaching them--lightness of foot, stateliness of carriage, graceful disposing of arms and hands. Gladys had taken charge of the entire dancing hour now, and it was the most popular cla.s.s in the whole schedule. Nyoda was a little breathless at the way Gladys was developing into a leader. She, who a few weeks before was not able to reach the standards which the Winnebagos had set for themselves, was now calmly leading them on to greater heights!

Now that Gladys had learned to swim, the next thing for her to do was to get used to jumping into deep water. She stood out on the end of the low springboard a long time trying to make up her mind to go off, and finally shrank back, thoroughly disgusted with herself, but unable to bring herself to make the leap. ”Shall I hold your hand the first time?” said Nyoda. Holding tightly to Nyoda's hand, Gladys jumped from the board, and sank down, down through the gla.s.sy, translucent depths, holding her breath and trying to keep her eyes open as she had been bidden. At first all was darkness, then a ma.s.s of bubbles became visible, then light shone through the water and the next moment her head shot out above the surface, and Nyoda pulled her up on the dock. It had all happened so quickly that she had no time to be frightened.

”Why, it's _fun_,” she said in amazement. All the girls laughed at the comical expression on her face.

”Now do it alone,” said Nyoda, ”and this time try to right yourself and begin to swim.” Again Gladys jumped into the depths, and as soon as her head was clear of the water struck out of her own accord and swam around the dock. ”Now come up, and turn over on your back and float,” said Nyoda. Gladys accomplished this also. She could not overcome her astonishment at the feats she was able to perform in the water, now that she had lost her fear of it. She became bolder and bolder with each new trial and finally took every one's breath away by announcing that she was going off the top of the tower. And she did it, too, without a moment's hesitation. There was one trick she had which caused them all great amus.e.m.e.nt. She _would_ hold her nose when she jumped, which Nyoda laughingly explained, was _very_ bad form indeed. It was a sight to see her going off the tower, feet together like a statue, one hand held straight above her head and the other tight over her nose.

Sahwah's arm had fully healed by this time and the splints were taken off. The old doctor tried hard to be cheerful when she came to him the last time, but his heart had gone out of his work. He told Sahwah about his son and showed her the Iron Cross. Led on by her sympathetic manner, he talked a long time about Heinrich, told her little incidents of his school days, and dwelt with pride on the record he had made in the cla.s.s room, in the gymnasium, in the Klinik. When he spoke of the brave deed which had won him the Iron Cross his voice sank into a reverent whisper and his stooped figure straightened up into the bearing of a soldier. It was no light thing to be the father of a hero! Then he added, ”But I forget, Missis Sahwah, you haf also done a brave deed and brought honor to your family. You should also haf de Iron Cross!”

Sahwah smiled at the idea of being decorated for ”pus.h.i.+ng a lady by de neck across de top of de lake” as the doctor had expressed it. She and the doctor had become great friends while he was taking care of her arm. He had taken a great fancy to her from the start. Sahwah had no German blood in her; she was straight Puritan descent and knew only the few words of the German language she had acquired in school, and p.r.o.nounced them badly.

She reminded him of nothing in the Fatherland, and he was unlike any one she had ever a.s.sociated with, and yet between these two there had sprung up the warmest kind of friends.h.i.+p. He opened up his cabinet and let her handle the instruments, a thing it would have been worth his housekeeper's life to have tried; he pulled out old pipes and pieces of pewter and told her their stories; he showed her pictures of his wife and little Heinrich. And Sahwah in turn took his breath away recounting the escapades of the Winnebagos. She made him promise to come over to camp to see her new canoe launched. Promptly at the time appointed he came, in his own launch, with a big straw hat shading his face and his surgical case in his hand, ”in case von of de ladies should break her a bone.”

Sahwah had named her new canoe the ”_Keewaydin_,” or ”_Northwest Wind_,” and the launching proceeded ceremoniously. The seven girls carried it down to the water's edge, its sides decorated with balsam boughs, saluted it by raising it three times above their heads at arm's length, and then held it while Migwan recited a poem in honor of the launching:

”Out o'er the s.h.i.+ning lake, Glide thou, my bark canoe, Out toward the purple hills, Lovely _Keewaydin_! Swift as the seabird's wing, Light as the ocean's foam, Speed o'er the dancing wave, Lovely _Keewaydin_!”

The canoe was lowered to the water's edge and Sahwah and Gladys got in and paddled out from sh.o.r.e, followed by the cheers of the girls.

When the _Keewaydin_ had returned from her maiden voyage Hinpoha and Migwan were ready with a stunt to amuse the audience. They dramatized that cla.s.sic argument between the man and his wife as to whether the crime was committed with a knife or a scissors.

Migwan, as the husband, stoutly maintained that it was a knife, and Hinpoha, as his spouse, fiercely declared it was a scissors.

Arguing hotly, they went out in a canoe, and soon came to blows about the point in question. The man threw his wife overboard, and hit her with a paddle every time she poked her head up. She kept coming up and saying, ”Scissors!” while he insisted, ”Knife!” As the story goes, the wife finally drowns, and the last minute her fingers come up making a scissors motion.

Migwan, however, after Hinpoha went overboard, hit out so energetically with her paddle that the canoe went over and the climax was lost in the splash.

The girls did everything they could think of to cheer up the doctor and made a great feast in his honor. Sahwah baked her feathery biscuits; Migwan stirred up a pan of delicious fudge; Hinpoha made her famous slumgullion; Nyoda broiled fish, while the rest of the girls gathered blueberries in the woods. The cooking must have tasted good to the doctor, for he pa.s.sed his plate three times for slumgullion and ate so many biscuits he lost count. Hinpoha, too, throwing her vow of abstinence to the winds, ate until she groaned, and while she was clearing away the dishes finished up all that was left of the fudge and the blueberries. The doctor took his leave in the afternoon, declaring he had never eaten anything so good as Sahwah's biscuits. ”She can make,” he said impressively, ”better biscuits dan my grandmama, and she made de best biscuits in Hamburg!”

Strange to say, the girls were not very hungry at supper time, and ate nothing but wafers and lemonade.

”Where are you going with your blankets?” said Nyoda, stopping in surprise as she met Migwan coming out of her tent with all her bedding in her arms.

”I'm going to sleep in the tree-house,” answered Migwan.

”Sleep in the tree-house?” echoed Nyoda, ”isn't there room enough in the tent?”

”Oh, there's room enough,” said Migwan, ”that isn't the reason.

I just want to do it for the experience. I was lying awake the other night, listening to the wind singing through the treetops, and I thought of all the little birds sleeping up in the trees, and decided I would try it and see what it was like.”

”Her poet's soul spurns the common earth, and she seeks the treetops to be nearer the sky,” said Nyoda banteringly. ”If I may intrude such a material question among your ethereal desires,” she continued, ”how are you going to get your blankets up there?”