Part 2 (1/2)

”Let's give them to her right away,” said Hinpoha, beginning to gather things up in her arms. Hinpoha is just like a whirlwind when she gets enthusiastic about anything.

”But how shall we give them to her?” I asked. ”We don't know her, and she might feel offended if she thought we had noticed how bare her room was and pitied her. How shall we manage it, Migwan?”

”Don't act as if you pitied her at all,” replied Migwan. ”Simply knock at her door and tell her you've got your room all furnished and there are some things left over and you're going up and down the corridor trying to find out if anybody has room to take care of them for you until the end of the year. Of course she has room to take them, so it will be very simple.”

”Oh, Migwan, what would we do without you?” cried Hinpoha, and nearly dropped the Rookwood bowl trying to hug her with her arms full. ”You always know the right thing to do and say.”

Agony and Oh-Pshaw stopped into their room on the way up and came out with a leather pillow and an ivory clock to add to the collection. Their room wasn't too full, but they wanted to do something for Sally, too. We had to knock on Sally's door twice before she opened it and we were beginning to be afraid she wasn't at home. When she did come to the door she didn't ask us in; but just stood looking at us and our armful of things as if to ask what we wanted. She was a tall, stoop-shouldered girl with spectacles and a wrinkle running up and down on her forehead between her eyes. The room was just as bare as Agony had described; it looked like a cell.

”We're making a tour of Purgatory trying to dispose of our surplus furniture,” I said, trying to be offhand, ”Have you any room to spare?”

”No, I haven't,” answered Sally with a snap. ”You're the third bunch to-day that's tried to decorate my room for me. When I want any donations I'll ask for them.” And she shut the door right in our faces.

We backed away in such a hurry that Agony dropped the clock and it went rolling and b.u.mping down the stairway.

”Of all things!” said Agony. ”I wish poor people wouldn't be so disagreeable about it. I'm sure I'd be tickled to death to use anybody's surplus to make up what I lacked. Well, we've tried to 'Give Service'

anyway, and if it didn't work it wasn't our fault. I think there ought to be a law about 'Taking Service' as well as Giving. Now let's hurry up and go for our hike before the sun goes down.”

We went out and had the most glorious tramp over the hills and found a tiny little village that looks the same as it must have a hundred years ago, and then we came back and had hot chocolate in a darling little shop that was just jammed with students. Agony and Oh-Pshaw know just quant.i.ties of girls, and introduced us to dozens, and we went back to Purgatory too happy to think.

”I told you so,” said Migwan, as she came into the room with us for a minute to get a book.

”What did you tell us?” asked Hinpoha.

”I meant about us three trying to have meetings just by ourselves and trying to do exactly what we did when we were Winnebagos. It won't work.

You'll keep on making new friends all the time that you'll love just as much as the old ones. Don't forget the old Winnebagos, but don't mourn because the old days have come to an end. There's more fun coming to you than you've ever had before in your lives, so be on the lookout for it every minute. 'Remember!'”

Oh, Katherine, we just love college, and the only fly in the ointment is that you aren't here!

Your loving Gladys.

P. S. Medmangi writes that she has pa.s.sed her exams and entered the Medical School. Sahwah is going to Business College and having the time of her life with shorthand. P.P.S. Hinpoha is dying of curiosity to hear more about the sick man. Please answer by return mail.

KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS

Nov. 1, 19--.

Dearest Winnies:

Well, Justice Sherman may be a sheep herder and a son of the pasture, but I hae me doots. I know a hawk from a handsaw if I was born and bred in the backwoods. I know it isn't polite to doubt people's word, and he seemed to be telling an absolutely straight story when he told how he beat his way across from Texas, but for all that there's some mystery about him. His manners betrayed him the first time he ever sat down to the table with us. Even though he limped badly and was still awfully wobbly, he stood behind my mother's chair and shoved it in for her and then hobbled over and did the same for me.

You can see it, can't you? The table set in the kitchen--for our humble cot does not boast of a dining room--father and Jim Wiggin collarless and in their s.h.i.+rtsleeves, and the stranded sheep herder waiting upon mother and me as if we were queens. For no reason at all I suddenly became abashed. I felt my face flaming to the roots of my hair, and absentmindedly began to eat my soup with a fork, whereat Jim Wiggin set up a great thundering haw! haw! Jim had been a sheep herder before he came to take care of father's horses, and it struck me forcibly just then that there was a wide difference between him and the stranger within our gates.

I said something to father about it that night when we were out in the stable together giving Sandhelo his nightly dole. Father rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, a sign that a thing is of no concern to him.

”Don't you get to worryin' about the stranger's affairs,” he advised mildly. ”If he's got something he doesn't want to tell, you ain't got no business tryin' to find it out. Tend to your own affairs, I say, and leave others' alone. There ain't n.o.body goin' to be pestered with embarra.s.sing questions while they're under my roof.”

So I promised not to ask any questions. Just about the time the stranger's foot was well enough to walk on, Jim Wiggin stepped on a rusty nail and laid himself up. Justice Sherman was a G.o.dsend just then because men were so hard to get, and father hired him to help with the horses until Jim was about again. Father begged me again at this time not to ask him anything about his past.