The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit | Page 8

generals straight, and there were only two
sets of them--think of having to remember all the American and
English and French and Italian and Russian ones, to say nothing of the
German! Why, it will be such a chore to study history that the pupils
won't have time to study anything else! People always look at little
babies and say how fortunate they are; when they grow up the war will
be over and everything lovely again, but I always think, 'Poor things,
wait until they have to study history!' How lucky we are to be living
through it instead of having to learn it out of books!"
All the while Sahwah was talking, Hinpoha had been watching with
undisguised interest a man who sat in the seat directly across the aisle
from them, who, with an artist's sketching pad on his knee, was
drawing caricatures with a thick black pencil. Hinpoha, clever artist
that she was herself, took a lively interest in anyone else who could
draw, and from the glimpses she could get of the sketches being made
across the aisle, she recognized the peculiar genius of the artist. She
attracted the attention of the other three, and they too watched in
wonder and with ever-growing interest. The artist finally looked up,
saw the four eager pairs of eyes fastened on him, and nodding in a
friendly way, handed his sketch-book across the aisle.
"Would you like to see them?" he asked genially, his eye lingering on
Hinpoha's glory-crowned head with artistic appreciation.
He himself looked like the typical artist one sees in pictures. His hair
was long and wavy and his blond beard was trimmed in Van Dyke
fashion. Hinpoha nearly burst with admiration of him, and when he
became aware of her existence and offered to show his sketches she
was in a flutter of joy.
"Oh, may we?" she exclaimed delightedly, taking the book from his
hand.
"Oh, lookee!" she squealed in rapture to the other girls. "Did you ever
see anything so quaint?"

The others looked and also exclaimed in wonder and delight. There
were pictures of trains running along on legs instead of wheels, of
houses and barns whose windows and doors were cunningly arranged
to form features, of buildings that sailed through the air with wings like
birds'; of drawbridges with one end sticking up in the air while an
enormously fat man sat on the other end; of ships walking along on
stilts that reached clear to the bottom of the ocean!
"Oh, aren't they the most fascinating things you ever saw?" cried
Sahwah, enraptured.
Utterly absorbed, she did not see the lieutenant of aviation gather up his
things to leave the train at one of the way stations; was not aware that
he paused on his way out and looked at her for a long, irresolute minute
and then went hastily on.
The last page in the book of sketches had not been reached when the
train came to a stop right out in the hills, between stations.
"What's the matter?" everybody was soon asking.
Heads were popped out of windows and there was a general rush for
the platforms, as the sounds outside indicated excitement of some kind.
"Two freight trains collided on the bridge and broke it down," was the
word that passed from mouth to mouth. "The train will be delayed for
hours."
Dismayed at the long wait in store for them, the Winnebagos sat down
in their seats again, prepared to make the best of it, when the
judicial-looking gentleman who had been sitting in front of them came
up and said, "Pardon me, but I couldn't help overhearing you girls
talking about going to Oakwood. I am going to Oakwood myself--I live
there--and I know how we can get there without waiting hours and
hours for this train to go on. We are only about twenty miles from
Oakwood now and right near an interurban car line. We can go in on
the electric car and not lose much time. I will be glad to assist you in
any way possible. My name is Wing, Mr. Ira B. Wing."

"Not Agony and Oh-Pshaw's father!" exclaimed Hinpoha. "I knew they
lived in Oakwood, but----"
"The same," interrupted Mr. Wing, smiling broadly. "Are you
acquainted with my girls?"
"Are we?" returned Hinpoha. "Ask them who roomed next to them this
last year at Brownell! Do we know the Heavenly Twins! Isn't it
perfectly wonderful that you should turn out to be their father! We were
having a discussion a while ago as to whether you were a lawyer or a
professor, and Sahwah--excuse me, this is Miss Brewster, Mr. Wing,
another one of the Winnebagos, that the Twins don't
know--yet--Sahwah insisted that you were a lawyer and I insisted