E-text prepared by Meredith Minter Dixon <dixonm@pobox.com>
or, The Winnebagos Go Camping
by
Author of "The Camp Fire Girls at School," "The Camp Fire Girlsat Onoway House," "The Camp Fire Girls Go Motoring."
New York : A. L. Burt1916.
Sahwah the Sunfish sat on top of the diving tower squintingthrough Nakwisi's spy-glass at the distant horizon.
"Sister Anne, sister Anne," called Migwan from the rocks below,"do you see any one coming?"
Sahwah lowered her glass and shook her head. "No sign of theBluebird yet," she answered. "If Gladys doesn't come prettysoon I shall die of impatience. Oh, what do you suppose she'llbe like, anyway?"
"Beautiful beyond compare," answered Migwan promptly, "andskilled in every art we ever thought or dreamed of. She is goingto be my affinity, I feel it in my bones."
Sahwah looked rather pensive. "Nobody in her right mind wouldchoose me for an affinity," she said with a sigh, squintingsidewise down her nose and mentally counting the frecklesthereon, "I'm not interesting enough looking."
"Goosie," said Migwan, laughing, "affinities aren't chosen, theyjust happen. You see somebody for the first time and you don'tknow a thing about her, perhaps not even her name, and yetsomething tells you that you two belong together. That's anaffinity."
"But how can you tell in advance that you and Gladys are going tobe affinities?" asked Sahwah. "How do you know that when shesees me waving the sheet from the tower she won't say to herself,'The energetic maiden on yon lofty tower is my one and only love.I can only see one bloomer leg and a hank of hair, but that isenough to recognize my soul mate by. Come to my arms, Finny!'"
Migwan laughed at the picture, and replied mysteriously, "Oh, Ihave a way of telling things beforehand. I can read them in thestars!"
Sahwah sniffed and resumed her watch, holding the sheet inreadiness to wave the instant the little steamer should appeararound Blueberry Island. The minutes passed without a sign ofthe Bluebird, and Sahwah grew tired of looking at nothing. Sheceased staring fixedly at the distant gap between BlueberryIsland and the mainland, and pointed the glass around at theobjects near her; at Migwan washing middies in the lake, her soaptied to the dock to keep it from floating away; at the toothbrushesstrewn over the rocks like bones bleaching in the sun; at the smoothstrip of shining sand; aiming her glass idly now here, now there,her feet swinging in the air eighteen feet above the water, herlong brown hair flying in the wind.
High up on the cliff Hinpoha stood nailing the railing around theCrow's Nest, a tiny tree-house just big enough for two, built inthe branches of a tall pine tree. She finished her pounding andstood looking out over the gleaming lake, dotted with rocky,pine-covered islands, shading her eyes with her hand. Her gazestrayed again and again to the narrow gap between BlueberryIsland and the mainland, and now and then she heaved an impatientsigh. "Oh, please, dear Bluebird," she said aloud, "pleasehurry up!" By and by her eyes rested upon Sahwah, silhouettedagainst the sky on top of the diving tower. Picking up a big drypine cone from the floor of the Crow's Nest, she took careful aimand sent it sailing downward in a swift, curving flight. Theprick