CHAPTER VII AN ADVENTURE IN PHILANTHROPY
Katherine became officially a member of the Winnebago Camp Fire Group atthe first Ceremonial after the circus, with the Fire Name of Iagoonah,the Story Maker. The name itself was an accident and the manner of itsbestowing is cherished in the chronicles of the Winnebagos as one of thegroup's best jokes. Just about the time Katherine was to be installed asa Winnebago, word was received that the Chief Guardian of the city wasgoing to be present at the meeting and would take charge of theCeremonial. Katherine had chosen the name, "Prairie Dandelion," becauseshe came from the plains, and because her hair was so fly-away. Duringthe supper which preceded the Ceremonial meeting Katherine made suchfunny speeches and told such outrageous yarns about her life in the Westthat Nyoda said jestingly: "Your name ought to be Iagoo, the MarvellousStory Teller." And the others began calling her Iagoo in fun. The ChiefGuardian heard them calling her Iagoo and supposed that was the Camp Firename she wished to take. So, when she was receiving Katherine into theranks, she said: "Your name is Iagoo, isn't it?"
Katherine, sobered and almost voiceless from the solemnity of theoccasion, mumbled half-inarticulately, "Iagoo? Nah!"
And before anyone knew what had happened she had been officiallyinstalled as _Iagoonah_! The joke was so good that the name stuck, andKatherine was known to the Winnebago Circle as Iagoonah to the end of thechapter, although they did consent to change the interpretation to StoryMaker instead of Story Teller as being more dignified and not sosuggestive.
Katherine was one of the most enthusiastic Camp Fire Girls that everlived, and her inspirations led the girls into more activities andadventures than they had ever dreamed of before. It was Katherine whostarted the Philanthropic Idea. They had been talking about the differentthings Camp Fire Girls could do together for the good of the community.
"Girls," said Katherine, standing in her favorite attitude beside thefireplace, with her toes turned in and her elbow on the shelf, "I don'tbelieve we're doing all we ought. We're having a royal good time amongourselves and learning no end of things to our own advantage, but whatare we doing for others? Nothing, that I can see."
"We gave a Thanksgiving basket to Katie, the laundress," said Hinpoha,"and we collected a barrel of clothes for the Shimky's when their houseburned down, and we gave a benefit performance to pay little JaneGoldman's expenses in the hospital, and we send toys and scrapbooks tothe Sunshine Nursery every Christmas."
"And I earned three dollars and gave it to the Red Cross," said Sahwah."Don't you call that doing something for other people? We haven't meantto be selfish, I'm sure. By the way, Katherine, your elbow's in thefudge."
Katherine shoved the dish away absently and returned to her subject."Yes," she admitted, "the Winnebagos have done a great deal that way, butit's all been _giving_ something. We haven't _done_ anything. It's easyenough to pack a basket and hand it to someone, and collect a lot of oldclothes from people who are anxious to get rid of them anyway, or pay thebill for somebody else to do something. But I think we ought to dosomething ourselves--give up our own time and put our own touch into it."
"What do you mean we should do?" asked Gladys, hunting through the dishfor a piece of fudge that had not been demolished by Katherine's elbow.
"Well, there's the Foreign Settlement," said Katherine. "I'm sure wecould find something to do there. It's a grand and noble thing to showthe foreigners how to live better." And she launched into such aneloquent plea in behalf of the poor overburdened washerwomen who had toneglect their babies while they went to work that the girls wiped theireyes and declared it was a cruel world and things weren't fairly divided,and surely they must do what they could to lighten the burdens of theirsisters in the Settlement.
"What will we do, and when will we do it?" asked Hinpoha, all on fire toget the noble work started.
"Tomorrow's Saturday," answered Katherine. "We ought to go out into theSettlement and see what's to be done. We'll make a survey, sort of, andthen we'll step in and see where we're needed most."
Nyoda, appealed to for advice, told them to go ahead. She liked the ideaof their trying to find out for themselves what needed a helping hand.She could not go with them to the Settlement on Saturday morning, but itwas all right for them to go by themselves in daylight.
So, full of a generous desire to help somebody else, the Winnebagosfollowed Katherine's lead toward the Settlement the next day. TheSettlement, as it was called, embraced some three or four square miles ofland adjacent to several large factories. In it dwelt some few thousandSlovaks, Poles and Bohemians, packed like sardines in narrow quarters.The Settlement had its own churches, stores, schools, theaters, dancehalls and amusement gardens, and looked more like an old world city thana section of a great American Metropolis, with its queer houses and signsin every language but English. The girls wandered up and down the narrowdirty streets, filled with chickens and children, and tried to decidewhat they should do first. They met the village baker, carrying awashbasket full of enormous round loaves of rye bread without a sign of awrapping. He was going from house to house, delivering the loaves, and ifno one came to the door he laid the loaf on the doorstep and went on.
Before one house, which had a small front yard, between twenty andtwenty-five men were lounging on the steps, on the two benches andagainst the fence. "What do you suppose all those men are doing in frontof that house?" whispered Hinpoha curiously.
Just then a woman came from the house carrying in her hand a huge ironfrying-pan full of pancakes. She passed it around and each man took apancake in his hand and ate it where he stood.
"They're having their dinner!" exclaimed Gladys. "It's just a little pastnoon. That's one way of disposing of the dishwashing problem. I'll storeup that idea for use the next time it's my turn to cook supper at ameeting. What a large family that woman has, though. I wonder if they areall her husbands?"
"Gracious no," said Katherine. "These people aren't poly--poly--you knowwhat I mean, even if they are foreigners. Those men are boarders. Everyfamily has some. Let's go into that big house over there and ask if thereare any babies the mothers would like to leave with us while they gowashing."
They picked their way across the muddy road toward a large building whichopened right on to the sidewalk. The hall door stood open and they wentin. There were more than a dozen doors leading from the hall on the firstfloor. "Gracious, what a number of people live here!" said Gladys,putting her arm through Katherine's.
While they stood there, trying to make up their minds at which door toknock, one was opened and a barefooted woman came out, carrying a pan ofdishwater, which she threw out on the sidewalk. At the same time anotherdoor opened and out came another woman, who stopped short when she sawthe first one, and began to talk in a harsh foreign tongue. The secondwoman replied angrily and the girls could see that they were quarreling.Before long they were shaking fists in front of each other's noses andshouting at the tops of their voices. Doors everywhere flew open and thehall was soon filled with excited women who took sides with one or theother and shook fists at each other while the girls huddled under thestairway, expecting to be set upon and beaten. The quarrel was waxingmore violent, when the girls spied a door at the end of a hallway whichhad been opened to let in some of the shouting women. As quickly and asquietly as they could they darted down this passageway and out of thedoor which brought them into the back yard of the place. Terrified, theyfled up the street and stood on the corner, discouraged and irresolute.Hinpoha was for going home right away. But Katherine talked her out ofit.
"Let's go up to the Neighborhood Mission on the hill and ask them forsomething to do," suggested Katherine, when the rest inquired what theyshould do next. So they turned their footsteps toward the white buildingat the end of the street.
"If you really want to do something," said the mission worker to whomthey explained their errand, "come down here next Saturday morning andhelp take care of the children that are left
with us. Two of the nurseswill be away and we will be short-handed."
The Winnebagos were charmed with the idea. "Oh, may we each take one homefor the day?" begged Katherine, "if we promise to bring them back allright?"
Permission was granted for the next Saturday and Katherine was jubilantover the good beginning of their work. "I thought it best that we eachtake one home and take care of it by ourselves," she explained. "We'llhave such fun telling experiences and comparing notes afterward."
Promptly at nine o'clock the next Saturday morning the four Winnebagos,Katherine, Gladys, Hinpoha and Sahwah, presented themselves at theNeighborhood Mission and drove away ten minutes later in Gladys'automobile, each with a youngster in tow.
At eight that night there was a lively experience meeting in the House ofthe Open Door. "Oh, girls, you never saw such a dirty baby as the one Ihad," cried Gladys, with a little shiver of disgust at the remembrance.
"It couldn't have been any worse than the one I had," broke in Hinpoha.
"But I gave him a bath," said Gladys, with a satisfied air, "and put allnew clothes on him, and he was as sweet as a rose when I took him home."
"Mine beat them all," said Katherine, when she was able to get in a wordedgewise. "He had a little fur tail of some kind tied around his neck ona string. I suppose it was meant for a 'pacifier,' for he was sucking itall the while."
"Why, mine had one of those on, too," said Gladys.
"So did mine," said Hinpoha.
"There must have been a million germs on it," continued Katherine. "Itook it off and burned it up."
"So did I," said Gladys.
"So did I," echoed Hinpoha.
After all things were talked over the Winnebagos decided that they haddone pretty good work that day in cleaning up the dirty babies andunanimously voted to take them again the next Saturday.
When they arrived at the Neighborhood Mission the next Saturday morningthey were met on the walk by half a dozen excited women withhandkerchiefs on their heads, who formed a circle around them, shoutingin a foreign tongue and making fierce gestures.
"What is the matter? What are they saying?" gasped Hinpoha in terror toKatherine, struggling to pull away from the hand that was clutching hercoat lapel.
"I don't know," answered Katherine, completely at sea and vainly tryingto understand the gibberish that was being uttered by the brown-skinnedwoman dancing up and down before her.
A startled group of workers ran from the Mission to see what the troublewas, and, forcing themselves through the circle, drew the frightenedgirls inside the fence of the Mission. Then from the group of womenoutside there arose a voice in broken English, demanding angrily: "Whereis the charm that hung on the neck of my Stefan? The charm to keep awaythe fever and the sore eyes? I give you my boy to watch, you steal awaythe charm. Give it back! Give it back!" Here the angry shouting andgesticulating began again and threatening hands were waved over thefence.
"What does she mean?" asked Hinpoha. "What charm?"
"We didn't steal any charms," said Katherine indignantly. "We didn't takea thing off the babies except some dirty old rabbits' tails that werefull of germs. We burned them up, and a good thing it was, too."
Here the angry shouts of the women gave way to wails of despair. "Theyburned the rabbits' tails!" groaned one woman, who could talk English,lifting her hands heavenward, "the rabbits' tails that the Wonder Womantied about their necks on Easter Sunday! Now Stefan will get the feverand the sore eyes and the teeth will not come through!" And she beat herbreast in despair. Then her anger blazed forth again and she fell toberating the girls in her own language, and the other women fell in withher until there was a perfect hubbub. The workers at the Mission hustledthe girls inside the building and the women finally departed, shakingfists at the Mission and raging at all the dwellers.
"It was nothing but a dirty old rabbit's tail," declared Hinpohatearfully, as the shaken Winnebagos hastened homeward. "I hateforeigners! I guess we'll never try to do anything for them again."
"Oh, yes, we will," answered Katherine optimistically; "we'll learn notto make mistakes in time."
"Look at that donkey over there," said Sahwah. "Doesn't he remind you ofSandhelo?"
"Poor old Sandhelo," mourned Hinpoha. "I wonder what became of him? Wecertainly had fun with him, even if he never would go unless he heardmusic."
"Seems to be characteristic of the donkey tribe not to want to go,"observed Katherine. "That one over there is balking, too. Doesn't thefellow that's trying to drive him look like a pirate, though? I wouldn'tgo for him either, if I were a donkey."
"O look!" cried Sahwah in amazement, and they all stopped still.
A small boy was coming down the street blowing lustily on a wheezy horn,and as soon as the donkey heard it he wheeled around, facing the music,pricked up his ears, uttered a squeal of rapture and rose up on his hindlegs, almost upsetting the queer little cart to which he was harnessed.
"Katherine! I do believe it _is_ Sandhelo," cried Sahwah, excitedlygripping Katherine's arm.
The man sprang from the cart and seizing the donkey by the bit broughthim down to earth with a rough pull that almost jerked his head off,shouting abuse at him in a foreign tongue. The little boy, frightened atthe uproar, ran away, taking his music with him. The man got into thecart again and tried to drive away. The donkey refused to move. The manbegan to beat him unmercifully.
"Oh, girls, we must do something to stop him!" cried Hinpoha, hopping upand down in distress.
"Here, you, stop that!" shouted Katherine, running forward and waving hermuff at him threateningly. "I'll have the law on you!" The man either didnot understand, or did not care, for he paid not the slightest heed toher words. "Stop it, stop it, I say!" she commanded, stamping her footangrily and wildly wishing she were a man, that she might beat this bullyeven as he was beating the poor little beast.
The man looked at her and grinned derisively. "Who says so?" he growled.
"I say so!" said a voice behind Katherine, and she turned to see theCaptain standing beside her. "You stop beating that donkey or I'll punchyour head." He put his fingers to his lips and uttered a long shrillwhistle which the girls recognized as the call of the Sandwiches, and thenext minute the other boys came running up the side street, BottomlessPitt, Monkey, Dan, Peter and Harry, with Slim trailing along in the rear,puffing violently in his efforts to keep up with the rest. Theysurrounded the cart threateningly and the man sulkily left off beatingthe donkey.
Sahwah went forward and stroked the little animal's head and then sheuttered a triumphant cry.
"It _is_ Sandhelo!" she exclaimed. "Here's part of his red, white andblue cockade still sticking in his hair."
"That's our donkey," cried all the girls and boys, pressing close around."Where did you get him?"
"He is not," declared the man angrily. "I raise him myself since he wasyoung."
"That is not true," said Sahwah shrewdly. "If you had had him very longyou would know how to make him go. It seems to me that this is the firsttime you've ever tried to drive him."
"He is mine, he is mine," declared the man. "I know how to make him go.He always go for me."
"Then make him go," said Sahwah coolly.
The man tried to urge the donkey forward, but in vain.
"Now, _we'll_ show you how to make him go," said Sahwah. "Where's thatboy with the horn?" She ran up the street a distance and found the boyseated on a doorstep and bribed him with a few pennies to let her takethe horn. Then, walking along ahead of Sandhelo she played a half dozenlively notes, such as had sent him flying round the circus ring. Nosooner had she started than he started at a great rate. When she stoppedhe stopped.
"It's Sandhelo without mistake," they all cried, and the last doubtvanished when he came up alongside of Sahwah and laid his head on hershoulder the way he always had done.
"He belongs to us," said the Captain, looking the man in the eye, "andyou'll have to give him up."
The man shifted his gaze. "I gi
ve him to you for five dollar," hemuttered. "I pay so much for him."
"Not much," said the Captain. "Nobody sold you a donkey for five dollarsand you can't get that much out of us. Now you either give him to us orwe'll report it to the police." The man protested loudly, but he wasevidently thinking all the while that a donkey that only went when heheard music was not such a good bargain after all, even if he did get itby the simple and inexpensive method of finding it in his dooryard andtying it up. So, after growling some more that they were robbing him, hesuffered Sandhelo to be unharnessed from the cart and led away in triumphin the wake of the horn.
"Well, our charitable enterprise didn't turn out so badly, after all,"said Katherine, when Sandhelo was once more established in his cozy stallin the House of the Open Door. "If it hadn't been for that fuss about thebabies we wouldn't have been on the street in time to see Sandhelo. Andif we hadn't wanted to help those people there wouldn't have been anyfuss. It does really seem that virtue is its own reward and one good turndeserves another. Let's do it some more."
And as usual the others agreed with her.
The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks; Or, The House of the Open Door Page 7
