The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks; Or, The House of the Open Door

by Hildegard G. Frey

  CHAPTER V THE ARRIVAL OF KATHERINE

  Preparations were completed and the day for the presentation of thegreatest show on earth had arrived. It was crisply cool, but clear andsunshiny, as the last Saturday in beloved October should be; and not toocold to sit still and witness an out-of-doors performance. Tickets hadsold with such gratifying readiness that a second edition had beennecessary, and the Committee on Seating Arrangements was nearly indespair over providing enough seats.

  "It's no use," declared Bottomless Pitt, "we've done the best we couldand half of them will still have to stand. It'll be a case of 'firstcome, first served.'"

  Sahwah and Hinpoha, their arms filled with bundles of "props," which theyhad spent the morning in collecting, sank wearily down at a table in the"Neapolitan" soda dispensary and ordered their favorite sundaes. "Now,are you perfectly sure we have everything?" asked Hinpoha, betweenspoonfuls.

  "There's the Better Baby's rattle," recounted Sahwah, identifying herparcels by feeling of them, "the Magician's natural hair a foot long, thechina eggs he finds in the lady's handbag, the bareback rider's spangles,and--O Hinpoha!" she cried in dismay, dropping her spoon on the tilefloor with a great clatter, "we forgot the red, white and blue cockadefor Sandhelo. I'll have to go back to Nelson's and get it. Dear me, it'seleven o'clock now and we still have to go out home and dress. And themarshmallows have to be bought yet; that's another thing I promised NyodaI'd see about. Won't you please get them, Hinpoha, while I run up toNelson's? There's a dear. Get them at Raymond's--theirs are the freshest;and then you had better go right on home without waiting for me. It willtake me a little longer, but I'll hurry as fast as I can. And please tellNyoda that I didn't forget the marshmallows this time; I just turned theresponsibility over to you." And Sahwah gathered up her bundles andretraced her steps toward the big up-town store, while Hinpoha took herway to Raymond's. Five pounds of marshmallows make a pretty big box, andHinpoha had several other parcels to carry. She had them all laid out onthe counter with an eye to tying some of them together to facilitatetransportation when a voice suddenly called out: "Dorothy! DorothyBradford!" She turned and saw Miss Parker, one of the teachers atWashington High, at the other end of the counter. "Come and meet mycousin," said Miss Parker, and brought forward a young girl she had withher. "This is Katherine Adams," said Miss Parker. "Katherine, I wouldlike you to meet one of my pupils, Dorothy Bradford."

  Hinpoha acknowledged the introduction cordially, but it was all she coulddo to suppress a smile at Katherine's appearance. She was an extremelytall, lanky girl, narrow chested and stoop shouldered, with scantystraw-colored hair drawn into a tight knot at the back of her neck, andpale, near-sighted eyes peering through glasses. She wore a longdrab-colored coat, cut as severely plain as a man's, and a narrow-brimmedfelt sailor hat. She wore no gloves and her hands were large and bony.Her shoes--Hinpoha looked twice in her astonishment to make sure--yes,there was no mistake, the shoes she had on were not mates! One was acloth-top button and the other a heavy laced walking boot. Miss Parkerfollowed Hinpoha's surprised glance and looked distressed. But Katherinewas not at all disconcerted when she discovered the discrepancy in herfootgear.

  "That's what you get for interrupting me in the middle of my dressing,"she said coolly. "Now, I've forgotten which pair I intended to wear." Shehad an odd, husky voice, that made everything she said sound funny.

  Miss Parker seemed rather anxious that her cousin should make a goodimpression on Hinpoha. Katherine was from Spencer, Arkansas, sheexplained, and had gone as far in school as she could out there and hadnow come east to stay with her cousin and take the last year in highschool. Hinpoha promised to introduce her around to the girls in theclass, with her eyes on the clock all the while and her mind on theperformance she should be helping to prepare that minute instead ofstanding there talking.

  "Won't you come to our circus this afternoon?" she said politely, fishingamong the small "props" in her handbag. "Here's a ticket. It's going tobe in the big field at the corner of May and ----th streets. Come intothe barn if you come and I'll introduce you to some of my friends."

  Miss Parker and her caricature of a cousin finally departed, and Hinpohahastily gathered up her bundles. Something about the package ofmarshmallows struck her as unfamiliar, and she examined it inconsternation. It certainly was not her package, though like it in shape.Somebody had taken hers by mistake. She looked around the store and wasjust in time to see her box being carried out the front door under thearm of a woman. Hinpoha gathered her packages into her arms hit and missand rushed after her. But impeded as she was she got stuck in therevolving door and was delayed a full minute before she escaped to thesidewalk. She was just in time to see the object of her pursuit board acar at the corner. Before Hinpoha could reach the corner the car hadstarted. Hinpoha stamped her foot with vexation, mostly directed towardMiss Parker and her freak cousin for taking her attention away from herbelongings. Then she considered. The car the woman had boarded must makea loop and come out a block below and it would be possible to catch itthere. Hinpoha puffed along the sidewalk at a great rate, worming her waythrough the Saturday noon crowds and colliding with people right andleft. She reached the corner just as the car did and made a mad dash overthe pavement, dodging in among wagons and automobiles at dire peril oflife and limb. She scrambled aboard and landed sprawling on the backplatform, while her bundles scattered over the floor in every direction.Breathless and embarrassed, she gathered them up and entered the car justin time to see the lady carrying her box of marshmallows get out of thefront door. Hinpoha made a wild dash for the rear exit, but the door wasclosed and the car already in motion. She rang the bell frantically, atthe same time following the woman with her eyes to see in which directionshe went. The car finally released her two blocks up street, and thenbegan the mad chase back again. Poor Hinpoha was never built for speed;her breath gave out and she developed an agonizing pain in her side. Herbundles weighed her down and her hat flopped into her eyes. Chuggingalong thus she ran smartly into someone and again her packages coveredthe sidewalk.

  "Oh, excuse me!" she gasped, struggling to get her hat back on her head."I couldn't see where I was going. _Why, Captain_----" For it was noneother than he with whom she had collided.

  "Pretty well loaded down, aren't you?" said the Captain, stooping to pickup the litter on the sidewalk.

  "Never mind them," said Hinpoha hastily, "go after _her_."

  "Go after _her_?" repeated the Captain in a tone of bewilderment.

  Hinpoha pointed speechlessly up the street and then with a mighty effortregained a speck of her breath and panted "Lady--blue coat--plushcollar--our marshmallows--left this--Raymond's--go get them," and,shoving the stranger's package into his hands, she indicated with wavingarms that he was to pursue the lady in question and regain the club'sproperty. The Captain started off obediently, though her explanation wasnot yet clear in his mind, but the truth flashed over him when hepresently overtook a lady that fitted the description just turning intothe door of Raymond's store with a large package under her arm, and hesoon made his errand known and recovered the marshmallows. She was justin the act of returning them to Raymond's, having discovered her mistake.

  Hinpoha was out in front when the Captain emerged from the store, and shesurrendered her bundles to him gratefully, saying with a breathless sigh,"Boys _are_ useful to have around once in a while, after all."

  "Only once in a while?" asked the Captain.

  "Well, maybe twice in a while, then," said Hinpoha graciously.

  Hinpoha arrived on the scene of action so late that there was no time topress her for explanations; she was summarily hustled out of her streetclothes and into her orchestra costume. The audience was arriving incrowds and the Sandwiches, who were detailed as ticket takers, had muchto do to keep legions of small boys from climbing the fence and seeingthe show without the formality of buying a ticket.

  The Grand Parade, "including every si
ngle member of the entire show," wasscheduled to start promptly at two. The parade was necessarily held insections, as all hands were needed for each section. The clock in aneighboring steeple had not finished chiming the hour when there was anunearthly blare of trumpets and crashing of drums, and the band issuedfrom the entrance of the Open Door Lodge. Nyoda led the band and made astunning drum major in a fur hat a foot high, made out of a muff. Themembers of the band were dressed as Spanish troubadours in costumes ofblinding scarlet, with their instruments hung around their neck byribbons. They marched around the ring at a lively pace, playing the musicof a popular football song, which made the audience cheer wildly, for itwas largely composed of students from the two great rival schools,Washington High and Carnegie Mechanic. In the wake of the troubadoursstumbled an enormously fat clown in a suit half red and half white,blowing up a rubber bladder, which emitted a plaintive squawk. Loudapplause greeted every move the clown made and when he accidentallystumbled into a hole and measured his length on the ground the small boysshrieked in ecstasy.

  The band made a stately and melodious exit in the House of the Open Doorand once inside broke ranks in haste to prepare for the second section ofthe parade--the procession of the animals. This was a much morecomplicated matter than the band had been, but it had been so wellrehearsed that the crowd, who were being amused by the antics of theclown, had not time to grow impatient before they were ready. Shrieks ofdelight went up at the appearance of the five ferocious animals fromNowhere--The Camelk, The Crabbit, The Alligatortoise, The Kangaroosterand The Salmonkey, and they had to go around the ring five times beforebeing allowed to retire. The parade being such an unqualified success, itis needless to say that the circus proper went even better. The actorshad all worked themselves up into the right mood for it.

  The magician gave more entertainment than he had counted on, for themice, which he had concealed in his pocket ready to produce from underthe folded handkerchief, bit him before their turn in the show came, andthe beholders were startled to see the magician suddenly spring into theair, uttering a wild yell and, thrusting his hand into his hip pocket,throw the cause of the disturbance half-way across the ring. The FattestMan on Earth, who was Slim, with the addition of several pillows fore andaft, mounted the small stage and laboriously sat on a toothpick, breakingdown the stage in the process; and the Inja Rubber Man did such amazingcontortions that the audience began to hold their breath for fear hewould never come untangled again.

  When it happened to be her turn to go out in one of the numbers Hinpohalooked the audience over to see if Katherine Adams had come in responseto her invitation, but she did not see her. But, while looking forKatherine, her eye was caught by a strange figure, the like of which shehad never seen before. She was a woman, old and bent, and dressed in suchold-fashioned clothes that she looked like a caricature out of a funnypage. She had on a tight green basque, which flared out below the waistin a ripple and a very full red skirt, held out in a ridiculous curve bythat atrocity of bygone days known as a "bustle." She was climbingstiffly up and down among the spectators trying to sell papers which shewas crying in a shrill voice. As she went up and down among the benchesshe held up her skirt in her hand, disclosing purple stockings andenormous flapping slippers. Wherever she went she was followed by aripple of laughter; the audience seemed to be getting as much fun out ofher as they were out of the show. Hinpoha told Nyoda about it when shewas in the barn again and Nyoda asked all the players not to do anythingto drive her away, as she was no doubt trying to make an honest living byselling papers wherever there was a crowd, and she was adding anunexpected touch to the circus to amuse the audience.

  The bareback rider proved a real sensation. Up to that time the numbershad merely been in the nature of stunts--clever and original and highlydiverting, and yet something which any group of young people couldproduce. But here was something different. Veronica was so dark that inher costume she looked like a real gypsy, and as she was not yet wellknown she was not recognized. She came in riding a beautiful black horsethat belonged to Mr. Evans, and, after galloping around the ring severaltimes and making him rear up on his hind legs until the audience thoughtshe must slide off, she set him to leaping obstacles, keeping her seatall the while with amazing ease. There was a touch of realism in her act,too, which made the audience tingle for a while. In their eagerness tosee the horse and the daring rider the children down in the front row hadpressed forward until they were fairly under the ropes. Without warning alittle girl lost her balance and fell out into the ring, rolling rightinto the path of the galloping horse. An exclamation of horror went upfrom the crowd, and many covered their eyes with their hands. The others,gazing as if fascinated, saw the horse in obedience to a quick commandleap into the air with all four feet and come down several feet beyondthe little form on the ground. Shouts rose up from every side and cheersfor the skilful horsewoman who had been able to avert a tragedy when itwas too late to turn aside. But Veronica sat unmoved, a graceful statueon the beautiful horse, looking out over the audience with brooding eyesthat saw them not.

  Of course the _piece de resistance_ of the whole show was the trick mule,Sandhelo. He had been the most widely advertised feature and had been themeans of selling the most tickets. The small boys came lured by thepromise of a free ride after the show and could hardly wait for that timeto come. His appearance in the ring was hailed with tumultuous applause.Led by the clown, who played the mouth organ constantly to assure hiscontinuous locomotion, he did his tricks over and over again, lying downas if dead when Slim played "John Brown's Body," and springing to hisfeet with a lively bray when he played "Yankee Doodle"; and sitting up onthe table and waving his fore feet at the audience while he tossed a lumpof sugar on his nose.

  Then the clown tried to ride him and fell off, first on one side and thenthe other, and after several vain attempts offered a quarter to anyone inthe audience who would come out and ride him around the ring. As theplayers along knew that Sandhelo would only go to music, they anticipatedno little fun from this business. Sandhelo was perfectly safe to ride--hewas as gentle as a kitten--but his refusal to stir when commanded madehim appear a very balky mule indeed, and there was no response to Slim'sinvitation for somebody to come out and ride him. Even the small boys,who were eager to ride him, preferred to wait until the show was overbefore making the trial.

  "Don't all come at once," appealed Slim in derision. "One at a time,please. Who'll ride the famous trick mule, Sandhelo, around the ring andwin the handsome prize of twenty-five cents, a whole quarter of adollar?" Still no volunteers. Sandhelo yawned and looked bored to death.Slim stretched out his hands to the audience imploringly.

  Suddenly there was a commotion at one end of the seats and down from thetop of the picnic tables, where the raised seats were, there climbed thelittle old woman who had gone around selling papers. "I'll ride him fortwenty-five cents," she cackled in her high shrill voice. And she hobbledacross the ring to where Sandhelo stood. The players were ready to hugthemselves with joy. Here was a real circus-y touch they had not countedon.

  "Aren't you afraid she'll get hurt?" whispered Hinpoha to Nyoda.

  "No danger," returned Nyoda. "Sandhelo won't go a step without the mouthorgan."

  The little old woman, her back bent almost double, shuffled over andgrasped Sandhelo, not by the bridle, but by the cockade on his head. Thenshe suddenly straightened up and a gasp of astonishment went around thecircle. She was taller than the tallest of them. Without assistance fromanyone she climbed on Sandhelo's back and sat with her face toward histail. The audience, suspecting that it was a "put-up job," and this wasanother stunt, roared its appreciation, but the players looked at eachother in utter bewilderment. Who was this strange character?

  Sandhelo was a very small donkey, standing no higher than a Shetlandpony, and when the old lady was seated on his back her feet dragged onthe ground. Calmly crossing them underneath his body, she gave his tail asmart jerk, accompanied by the shrill command, "Giddap!" Sandhel
o,mortified to death at the undignified position of his rider, had but oneidea in his mind--to escape from the gibing crowd and hide his head inhis stable. Around the ring he flew as fast as his tiny legs would carryhim, the old woman sticking to him like a burr, her bonnet strings flyingin the wind, her big slippers flapping against his sides, and her shrillvoice urging him on to greater speed. The act brought down the house anda whole row of folding camp chairs collapsed under the strain of theapplause.

  Beside himself with rage and shame, Sandhelo bolted into the barn andcarried his strange rider into the midst of the company of players.Sliding off his back, she looked around the ring of curious faces beforeher with little twinkling gray eyes. Then she held out her handsuggestively. "Where's the quarter I git fer ridin' the mule?" she asked.Something in her voice awakened a memory in Hinpoha's mind. In atwinkling she was carried back to the incident at Raymond's that noonwhen Miss Parker stopped to present her cousin from the west. Surelythere never were two such voices! At the same time Hinpoha noticed thatthe old woman's gray hair was sliding back on her head, and a long wispof yellowish hair was hanging out underneath. She stared at the curiousfigure in growing wonder, and the woman stared back at her with a knowinggrin that became wider every moment. Then with a quick movement the oldwoman snatched off a gray wig, mopped a damp handkerchief over her face,produced a pair of glasses from some pocket in the wide skirt, and stoodbefore them the same awkward, ungainly creature that Hinpoha had met thatnoon. It was Katherine Adams, Miss Parker's cousin.

  Such a babel there was when Hinpoha recognized the strange comedian andpresented her to the others! The waiting audience was completelyforgotten as they listened fascinated while Katherine explained how shehad come "by special invitation" to the circus and had decided thatpeople who had "pep" enough to get up a circus were worth knowing, andthe best way to get acquainted with the players was to be in the showherself. So she had joined the company without the formality of beingasked.

  "You're appointed assistant clown for the remainder of the circus," saidNyoda.

  "And you're invited to the spread upstairs afterwards," said Hinpoha.

  "It's time for the Chair-iot Race," said the Captain warningly, and theplayers returned to their duties with a guilty start. The new comedianproved such a diversion and put the regular clown up to so many tricksthat he would never have thought of by himself, that the audience refusedto go home when the big show was over, and called for encore afterencore.

  "Let's get her to sell cocoa," suggested Gladys; "they'll buy from herwhen they wouldn't from us."

  So Katherine, who up until a few hours ago had never heard of theWinnebagos and Sandwiches, did more for them in the way of dispensingcups of cocoa at five cents a cup than they were able to do forthemselves. She made such inimitably droll speeches in her efforts toadvertise her wares that the audience crowded around her just to hear hertalk, and bought and bought until the huge kettles were empty and thepaper box till was full. The small boys crowded around the Ringmaster,demanding their ride on the trick mule, and, tearing himself away fromthe fascinating orator, he betook himself to the barn, followed by thewhole string of would-be riders. But when he arrived there the stall wasempty and Sandhelo was nowhere to be found. Loud chorus of disappointmentfrom the small boys. The Captain turned their interest in Sandhelo toaccount by enlisting them in the search for him, but it was vain. Nowherecould they find a trace of him. His shame at the indignity heaped uponhim that afternoon had been too great. Finding his stall left open in theexcitement he had escaped and wandered off while the attention ofeveryone was riveted on the antics of the new comedian, and hid his headamong new scenes and faces. The small boys finally gave up and went home,partly consoled by the assurance that if Sandhelo ever turned up againthe promised ride would still be theirs, and the players, ratherexhausted, but exulting over the success of the performance, gathered inthe Winnebago room of the Open Door Lodge for the jollification spread.

  Katherine Adams was the lioness of the evening. Begged for a speech, sheobligingly mounted the table and held a discourse that left her hearerslimp with merriment. What she said was sidesplitting enough, but hergestures, her expression and her voice were beyond description. She spokein a lazy southern drawl, mixed up with a nasal twang, and the peculiarlyveiled, husky quality of her voice gave it a sound the like of which wasnever heard before. She still wore the big flapping slippers and had muchado to keep them on when she climbed on the table with the mincing air ofa young miss making an elocution lesson. She planted her feet carefully,heels together and toes apart, taking several minutes in the operation,and then surveyed them with a silly smirk of satisfaction that wasconvulsing. When her discourse became a little heated the feet suddenlyflew around and toed in until both heels and toes were in a straightline. At the ripple of laughter which this called forth she looked downat her feet with a sad, pained expression and carefully set them rightagain. A few moments later she again waxed eloquent and again the feetturned, seemingly of themselves, and this time her toes pointed outwarduntil toes and heels were all one straight line. The shrieks of delightmade her look down again, with that same puzzled, pained expression, andagain she set them right in an affected manner.

  When the speech was over the boys and girls begged her to do it again,and kept her speechifying until she declared she had no voice left towhisper. "You know I have to be very careful of my voice," she said in atone of confiding simplicity. "It's so sweet that I'm afraid of crackingit all the time."

  Katherine was too good to be true. "Just like a character out of a book,"the delighted Winnebagos whispered to one another. Before the evening wasover they had unanimously decided to urge--not merely invite, mind you,but urge--her to become a Winnebago. Katherine was delighted with theidea and accepted the invitation with another convulsing speech. Itseemed incredible to the girls that they had met her just that afternoon.It seemed as if they had known her always. She fitted into their grouplike a thumb on a hand. She was plied with slumgullion and every otherdelicacy, and her health was drunk in numerous cups of cocoa. Thecontinual flow of banter which the Winnebagos usually kept up amongthemselves was hushed, and everyone was willing to put the soft pedal onher own speech if only Katherine would talk some more. She toldfascinating things about her life on a big stock farm out in Arkansas.

  "Are there any Indians around there?" asked Veronica, whose ideas of theAmerican Far West were rather hazy and romantic.

  "Indians!" said Katherine. "I should say there were! They're somethingterrible. Why, you don't dare hang your clothes on the line, because theIndians will shoot them full of arrows! And then," she continued, as shesaw Veronica's eyes becoming saucerlike, "there are all kind of wildanimals out there, too. We can't keep milk standing around in the pantrybecause the wildcats come in and drink it up, and the bears shed theirhair all over the carpet! Why, one day I came in from the yard and therewas a rattlesnake curled up on the piano stool!"

  The Winnebagos and the Sandwiches doubled up with merriment at her awful"yarns," but Veronica believed every word of it.

  "O Katherine, you awful thing, I'm in love with you," cried Hinpoha, inrather mixed metaphor, and drew her down on the bearskin bed beside her."Goodness, Veronica, don't look so excited. All the Indians there are inthis country now are on reservations, and they're entirely peaceable. Youmustn't believe a word she says."

  The jollification supper ended in a hilarious Virginia Reel, which hardlyanyone could dance for laughing at Katherine's big slippers, as sheshuffled up and down the line.

  "What a day this has been," sighed Hinpoha to Gladys, with whom she wasspending the night, as she sank down on the bed with all her clothes on."We've made enough money to equip the Sandwiches' gym be-yoo-tifully;we've made Veronica famous as a horsewoman; we've lost our trick mule andgained a new member for the Winnebagos. In the classic words of ourgallant Captain, I think that's 'going some.'"