The Camp Fire Girls at Onoway House Part 4

Gladys shook in her shoes and wondered if she dared start the car with all those children hanging on the front of it. She looked around helplessly for someone who would help her out of her difficulty. Just then a policeman turned into the street, attracted by the crowd.

"Cheese it, de cop!" screamed a ragged gamin, who stood on the step of the car, and the women and children began to slink into the doorways.

Gladys waited until he came up, and then explained the whole matter and asked where the nearest hospital was.

"Can't blame you for hitting that brat," said the policeman, "she's the terror of drivers for two blocks." Ophelia stuck out her tongue at him.

Gladys drove her to the hospital where it was discovered that the left arm was broken below the elbow. Painful as the setting may have been there was "never a whang out of her," as the doctor remarked, although she hung on tightly to Gladys's white sleeve with her dirty hand. Her waist was taken off to find the extent of the damage, and Gladys was frightened to see that the other arm was fearfully bruised and scratched, and there was a ring of purple and green blotches around her neck like a collar.

"She must have been thrown down harder than I thought," said Gladys to the nurse.

"Thrown down nothin'," answered Ophelia, "Old Grady did that the other day when I threw a stone through the winder." And she held up the mottled arm where all might see.

"Oh," said Gladys, with a shudder, "cover it up." Putting Ophelia into the machine again she drove back to the scene of the accident and entered the squalid tenement in which the child said she lived.

"Won't Old Grady beat me up though, when she finds I've busted me wing,"

said Ophelia, as they mounted the rickety stairs. Hardly had she spoken when the door at the head of the stairs flew open and a large, red-faced, coa.r.s.e-looking woman strode out and shook her fist over the banisters.

"I'll fix ye fer stayin' out afther I tell ye ter come in, ye little devil," she shouted. "I'll break every bone in yer body. Gimme the money for the papers first."

"Go chase yerself," said Ophelia, standing still on the stairs with a spiteful gleam in her eye, "there ain't no money. I ain't had time ter peddle this afternoon."

"What yer mean, no money?" screamed the woman. "Just wait till I get me hands on yer!"

Gladys shrank back against the wall in terror, then collecting herself she thrust Ophelia behind her and faced the angry woman. "Ophelia has had an accident," she explained. "I ran over her with my machine and broke her arm." The woman brushed past her and grabbed Ophelia by the shoulder. Overcome with fury at the thought that her household drudge would be of no use to her for several weeks, she boxed her ears again and again, calling her every name she could think of. Finally she let go of her with a push that sent Ophelia stumbling down half a dozen stairs.

"Get out o' my sight!" she shrieked. "Do yer think I'm going ter house an' feed a worthless brat that ain't doin' nothin' fer her keep? Get out an' live in the streets yer like ter play in so well!" With a final exclamation she strode back into the room and slammed the door after her. Ophelia picked herself up from the step, shaking her one useful fist at the closed door at the head of the stairs.

Gladys was inexpressibly shocked at this heartless treatment of an injured child. "Come-come home with me," she said faintly. Seated beside her in the big car, Ophelia ran out her tongue and made faces at the jeering children who watched her ride away.

"This is the life!" she exclaimed, as she settled herself comfortably in the cus.h.i.+oned seat. People in the streets turned to stare at the dirty little ragam.u.f.fin riding beside the daintily gowned young girl, shouting saucily at the pa.s.sers-by, or making jeering remarks in a voice audible above the noise of traffic.

The girls were all out in front watching for her as Gladys drove up. It was past supper time and they were wondering what had become of her.

What a chorus of surprised exclamations arose when Ophelia was set down in their midst! Gladys explained the situation briefly and asked Migwan if they could not keep her there awhile. Migwan consented hospitably and went off to find a place for her to sleep, while Gladys proceeded to wash the acc.u.mulated layers of dirt from Ophelia's face and divest her of her spotted rags. She came to the table in a kimono of Gladys's, for there were no clothes in the house that would fit her. She was nine years old, she said, but small and thin for her age, with arms and legs like pipe-stems which fairly made one s.h.i.+ver to look at. She had a little, pinched, sharp featured face, cunning with the knowledge of the world gained from her life on the streets, big grey-green eyes filled with dancing lights, and black hair that tumbled around her face in tangled curls, which Gladys was not able to smooth out in her hasty going over before supper.

Not in the least shy in her new surroundings, nor complaining of discomfort from the broken arm, she sat at the table and kept up a cheerful stream of talk, racy with slang and the idiom of the streets.

Hinpoha was instantly dubbed "Firetop." "Is it red inside of yer head?"

she asked, after gazing steadfastly at Hinpoha's hair for several minutes. To all questions about her father and mother she shrugged her shoulders. "Ain't never had any," she replied. "I was born in the Orphan Asylum. Old Grady got me there." Here a spasm of rage distorted her face at the remembrance of Old Grady's ministrations, followed by a wicked chuckle when she thought how that tender guardian's plan for turning her out homeless into the street had been frustrated by this lucky stroke of fate. What her last name was she did not know. "I guess I never had one," she said cheerfully. "I'm just Ophelia." Gladys was much distressed because she would not drink milk. "No," she said, shoving it away, "that's for the babies. Gimme coffee or nothin'." Disdaining the aid of fork or spoon, she conveyed her food to her mouth with her fingers. "Say," she said, after staring fixedly at Nyoda in a disconcerting way she had, "are yer teeth false?"

"Certainly not!" said Nyoda indignantly. "What made you think so?"

"They're so white and even," said Ophelia. "n.o.body ever had such teeth of their own."

"Did you bleach yer hair?" she asked next, turning her attention to Gladys's pale gold locks. Gladys merely laughed.

Ophelia waxed more loquacious as she filled up on the good things on the table. "Did yer husband leave yer?" she inquired sociably of Mrs.

Gardiner. Gladys rose hastily and bore Ophelia away to her room, where a cot had been set up for her.

"Three flies in the spider's parlor," said Migwan.

"And one in the ointment, or my prophetic soul has its signals crossed,"

said Nyoda.

CHAPTER IV.-THE MEDICINE LODGE.

Nyoda's prophetic soul proved to be a true prophet, and there were trying times to follow the establishment of Ophelia at Onoway House.

That very first night Nyoda woke with a strangling sensation to find Ophelia sitting on her chest. "I want ter sleep in the bed wid yer," she said, in answer to Nyoda's startled inquiry. "I'm afraid ter sleep alone." She had been trying to creep in between Nyoda and Gladys and lost her balance, which accounted for her position when Nyoda woke up.

"But there's nothing in the room to hurt you," Nyoda said, rea.s.suringly.

"It's them hop-toads," she wailed, stopping her ears against the pillow, "they give me th' pip with their everlastin' screechin'. They sound right under the bed." Gladys woke up in time to hear her and offered to take the cot herself and let Ophelia sleep with Nyoda.

The next morning Gladys made a hurried trip to town to buy Ophelia some clothes, while Nyoda washed her hair, much to Ophelia's disgust. The curls were so matted that it was impossible to comb them out and there was nothing left to do but cut them short. When all the foreign coloring matter had been removed and the hair had begun to dry in the warm wind, Nyoda stopped beside her in bewildered astonishment. On the top of her head, just about in the center, there was a circular patch of light hair about three inches in diameter. All the rest was black. "Ophelia," said Nyoda, looking her straight in the eyes, "how did you bleach the top of your hair?"

"It's a fib," said Ophelia, politely, "I never bleached it."

"Then somebody did," said Nyoda.

"Didn't neither," contradicted Ophelia.

"We'll see whether they did or not," said Nyoda, "when the hair grows out from the roots."

Dressed in the pretty clothes Gladys bought for her she was not at all a bad looking child, but her language and her knowledge of evil absolutely appalled the dwellers at Onoway House. "Did yer old man beat yer up?"

she asked sympathetically of Mrs. Landsdowne, when that gentle lady came to call. Mrs. Landsdowne had run into the barn door the day before and had a bruise on her forehead.

Ophelia's sins in the garden were too numerous to chronicle. When set to weeding she pulled weeds and plants impartially, working such havoc in a short time that she was forbidden to touch a single growing thing. Her ignorance of everything pertaining to the country was only equalled by her curiosity.

"What would happen to the cow if you didn't milk her?" she demanded of Farmer Landsdowne, as she watched him milking one day. "She'd bust, I suppose," she went on, answering her own question while Farmer Landsdowne was scratching his head for a reply. "Say, are yer whiskers fireproof?" she asked, scrutinizing his white beard with interest.

"Because if they ain't yer don't dast smoke that pipe. The Santa Claus in Lefkovitz's window told me so. Say, what do you do when they get dirty?"

Leaving her alone in the barn for a few moments he heard a mighty squawking and cackling and hastened to investigate. He found the old setting hen running distractedly around one of the empty horse stalls, frantically trying to get out, while Ophelia was holding the big rooster on the nest with her one hand, in spite of the fact that he was flapping his wings and pecking at her furiously. "He ought to do some of the settin'," she remarked, when taken to task for her act, "he ain't doin'

nothin' fer a livin'."

The squash bugs had descended once more, and were making hay of the squash bed while the sun shone, and the girls worked a whole, long weary afternoon clearing the vines. As the bugs were picked off they were put into tin cans to be destroyed. Tired to death and heartily sick of handling the disagreeable insects the girls quit the job at sundown, having just about cleared the patch. They gathered in Migwan's big room before supper to make some plans for the Winnebago Ceremonial Meeting which was to be held at Onoway House on the Fourth of July. Ophelia promptly followed them and demanded admittance. "You can't come in,"

said Migwan rather crossly, for there were secrets being told which they did not want her to hear.

Ophelia wandered off in search of amus.e.m.e.nt. Mr. Bob had fled at her approach and was hiding under the porch, and Betty had been admitted to the council of the Winnebagos, for Migwan and Nyoda had decided at the beginning of the summer that if there was to be any peace with her she would have to be a party to all their doings, and as she was to be put into a Camp Fire Group in the fall she was given this opportunity of learning to qualify for the various honors by watching the intimate workings of the Winnebago group. Tom was over at the Landsdowne's and Mrs. Gardiner was getting supper and invited Ophelia to stay out of the kitchen when she came down to see if there was any fun to be had there.

Ophelia had been allowed to help once or twice and had broken so many dishes with her one-handed way of doing things that Mrs. Gardiner lost all patience and refused to have her around.

Strolling out into the garden in her quest for something to do she came upon the big tin pail containing all the squash bugs, which Migwan intended taking over to Farmer Landsdowne for disposal. A mischievous impulse seized her, and taking off the cover she emptied the bugs back into the bed, where they crawled eagerly back to their interrupted feast of tender leaves. When the prank was discovered Migwan sank wearily down beside the patch she had tried so hard to save from destruction.

"Whatever possessed you?" said Nyoda, seizing Ophelia with the firm determination of boxing her ears. But Ophelia shrank back with such evident expectation of a blow that Nyoda loosened her hold.

"Well, ain't yer goin' ter punish me?" asked Ophelia, still eyeing her warily for an unexpected attack, with the att.i.tude of an animal at bay.

To her surprise there were no blows forthcoming, but she was ordered to pick off all the squash bugs again, and before the job was done she had plenty of time to regret her rash act. All that beautiful long summer evening, when the girls were on the front porch playing games and shouting with laughter, she sat in the squash bed, undoing the mischief she had done. When bed time came she was told to sleep in the cot by herself, and Gladys and Nyoda took no notice of her at all, whispering secrets to each other in bed with never a word to her. The next morning she was awakened at four o'clock and set to work again, and so missed the merry breakfast with the family. Gladys had promised to take her to town in the machine that day, but, of course, this pleasure was forfeited, as the beetles were not yet all picked off. The family was all invited over to the Landsdowne's for supper that night, but by four o'clock Ophelia realized with a pang of disappointment that she would not even be through by five. Accustomed as she was to brutal treatment, this was the worst punishment she had ever experienced, but she realized that she deserved it and was gamely paying the price without a murmur.

When Migwan came out shortly after four and helped her so that she would be done in time to go to Farmer Landsdowne's with the others her penitence was complete.

Preparations for the big Fourth of July Council meeting were going forward apace. It was to be a house party, they decided, and the other three Winnebagos, Nakwisi, Chapa and Medmangi, were to be invited to spend the night. Sleeping quarters caused some debate, when Sahwah had a brilliant idea. "Let's build a tepee," she said, "and all sleep on the ground inside of it with our feet toward the center. Then we can hold the Council Fire in there and dance a war dance around the fire and make shadows on the sides to scare the natives." No sooner said than begun.