The Camp Fire Girls at School | Page 2

room would die trying
not to laugh, but nobody gave me away. She came in during the Fourth
Hour for several days after that, and every time I flew to the sheltering
arms of the dictionary, and she always made some approving remark
out loud. Now she thinks I'm a shark and I have a better stand-in than
ever with her. She told her Senior session room that there was a girl in
the Junior room who was so keen after knowledge that no matter when
she came into the room she always found her consulting the

dictionary!"
Sahwah's imitation of the elderly and precise Miss Muggins was so
close that the girls shrieked with laughter. Even Nyoda, who was a
"faculty," and should have been the ally of the deluded instructor, was
too much amused to say a word. "By the way, Sahwah," she said when
the laughter had died down, "how are you coming on in Latin? The last
time I saw you your Cicero had a strangle hold on you." Sahwah made
a fearful grimace, and recited sarcastically:
"Not showers to larks more pleasing, Not sunshine to the bee, Not sleep
to toil more easing, Than Latin prose to me!
"The flocks shall leave the mountains, The dew shall flee the rose, The
nymphs forsake the fountains, Ere I forsake my prose!"
Nyoda laughed and shook her head at Sahwah, and "Migwan,"
otherwise Elsie Gardiner, looked up at the despiser of prose
composition in mild wonderment. "I don't see how you can make such
a fuss about learning Latin," she said, "it's the least of my troubles."
"But I'm not such a genius as you," answered Sahwah, "and my head
won't stand the strain." Her mental limitations did not seem to cause her
any anxiety, however, for she hummed a merry tune as she drew her
tatting shuttle in and out.
Migwan leaned back in her chair and looked around the tastefully
furnished room with quiet enjoyment. This library in the Bradford
house was a never-ending delight to her. It was finished in dark oak and
the walls were hung with a rich brown paper. The floor was polished
and covered with oriental rugs, whose patterns she loved to trace. At
one end of the room was a big fireplace and on each side of it a cozy
seat, piled with tapestry covered cushions. Over the fireplace hung two
slender swords, the property of some departed Bradford. The handsome
chairs were upholstered in brown leather to match the other furnishings,
and everything in the room, from the Italian marble Psyche on its
pedestal in the corner to the softly glowing lamps, gave the impression
of wealth and culture. Migwan contrasted it with the shabby sitting

room in her own home and sighed. She was keenly responsive to
beautiful surroundings and would have been happy to stay forever in
this library. But beautiful as the furnishings were, they were the least
part of the attraction. The real drawing card were the books that filled
the cases on three sides of the room. There were books of every kind;
fiction, poetry, history, travel, science; and whole sets of books in
handsome bindings that Migwan fairly revelled in whenever she came
to visit. Hinpoha herself was not fond of reading anything but fiction,
and although she had the freedom of all the cases she never looked at
anything but "story books." Before her parents went to Europe they had
tried making her keep an average of one book of fiction to one of
another kind in the hope of instilling into her a love for essays and
history, but in the absence of her father and mother, history and essays
were having a long vacation and fiction was working overtime.
"Let's play something," said Sahwah when the apples and popcorn had
disappeared; "I'm tired of sitting still."
"Can't somebody please think of a new game?" said Hinpoha. "We've
played everything we know until I'm sick of it."
"I thought of one the other day," said Gladys quietly. "I named it the
'Camp Fire Game.' You play it like Stage Coach, or Fruit Basket, only
instead of taking parts of a coach or names of fruits you take articles
that belong to the Camp Fire, like bead band, ring, moccasin, bracelet,
fire, honor beads, symbol, fringe, Wohelo, hand sign, bow and drill,
Mystic Fire, etc. Then somebody tells a story about Camp Fire Girls,
and every time one of those articles is mentioned every one must get up
and turn around. But if the words 'Ceremonial Meeting' or 'Council
Fire' are mentioned, then all must change seats and the story teller tries
to get a seat in the scramble, and the one who gets left out has to go on
with the story."