The Camp Fire Girls at School | Page 9

on a glass roof, and accompanied by
the tramping of an army; a noise such as could only have been
produced by an extremely large elephant or an extremely small boy
amusing himself indoors. Migwan rose resolutely and mounted the
stairs to the room overhead, where her twelve-year-old brother and two

of his bosom friends were holding forth. "Tom," she said appealingly,
"wouldn't you and the boys just as soon play outdoors or in somebody
else's house? I simply can't study with all that noise going on."
"But the others have no punching bag," said Tom in an injured tone,
"and Jim brought George over especially to-day to practice."
"Can't you take the punching bag over to Jim's?" suggested Migwan
desperately.
"Sure," said Jim good-naturedly; "that's a good idea." So the boys
unscrewed the object of attraction and departed with it, their pockets
bulging with ginger cookies which Migwan gave them as a reward for
their trouble. Silence fell on the house and Migwan returned to the
mastering of the sum of the angles. Geometry was the bane of her
existence and she was only cheered into digging away at it by the
thought of the money lying in her name in the bank, which she had
received for giving the clew leading to little Raymond Bartlett's
discovery the summer before, and which would pay her way to college
for one year at least.
The theorem was learned at last so that she could make a recitation on
it, even if she did not understand it perfectly, and Migwan left it to take
up a piece of work which gave her as much pleasure as the other did
pain. This was the writing of a story which she intended to send away
to a magazine. She wrote it in the back of an old notebook, and when
she was not working at it she kept it carefully in the bottom of her
shirtwaist box, where the prying eyes of her younger sister would not
find it. She had all the golden dreams and aspirations of a young
authoress writing her first story, and her days were filled with a secret
delight when she thought of the riches that would soon be hers when
the story was accepted, as it of course would be. If she had known then
of the long years of cruel disillusionment that would drag their weary
length along until her efforts were finally crowned with success it is
doubtful whether she would have stayed in out of the October sunshine
so cheerfully and worked with such enthusiasm.
Migwan's family could have used to advantage all the gold which she

was dreaming of earning. After her father died her mother's income,
from various sources, amounted to only about seventy-five dollars a
month, which is not a great amount when there are three children to
keep in school, and it was a struggle all the way around to make both
ends meet. Mrs. Gardiner was a poor manager and kept no accounts,
and so took no notice of the small leaks that drained her purse from
month to month. She was fond of reading, as Migwan was, and sat up
until midnight every night burning gas. Then the next morning she
would be too tired to get up in time to get the children off to school,
and they would depart with a hasty bite, according to their own fancy,
or without any breakfast at all, if they were late. She bought
ready-made clothes when she could have made them herself at half the
cost, and generally chose light colors which soiled quickly. She never
went to the store herself, depending on Tom or scatter-brained Betty,
her younger daughter, to do her marketing, and in consequence paid the
highest prices for inferior-grade goods.
Thus the seventy-five dollars covered less ground every month as
prices mounted, and little bills began to be left outstanding. Part of the
income was from a house which rented for twenty dollars but this last
month the tenants had abruptly moved, and that much was cut off.
Migwan, unbusiness-like as she was, began to be worried about the
condition of their affairs, and worked on her story feverishly, that it
might be turned into money as soon as possible. She was deep in the
intricacies of literary construction when her mother entered the room,
broom in hand and dust cap on head, and sank into a chair.
"Do you suppose you could finish this sweeping?" she asked Migwan.
"My back aches so I just can't stand up any longer."
"Why can't Betty do it?" asked Migwan a little impatiently, for she
thought she ought not be disturbed when she was engaged in such an
important piece of work.
"Betty's off in the neighborhood somewhere," said her