“How did you do it, Gilda? Where did you get the costume?” cried the girls surrounding her in admiration. “I never saw anything so perfect as that nose!”
“Ze Pilgrimette did it!” lisped the Brownie, hopping on one leg and pointing elfishly at Nancy. “She found ze long beard growing on ze trees. She made my nose, so crooked and pink, wiz ze purple veins, out of a strange—what you call?—a leaf.”
“It is a pitcher-plant leaf,” explained Nancy. “I found one day that it would make the most perfect nose. And I was just crazy to wear it myself. But of course I had to represent the Pilgrims. And Gilda makes such a nice little round Brownie, doesn’t she?”
“Columbia couldn’t get along without her fairy-folk too,” said Tante, smiling at the queer group. “I am glad they came with the other emigrants. Now let’s have a Virginia reel in the moonlight.”
So, like the Owl and the Pussy Cat—
“Hand in hand on the edge of the strand,
They danced by the light of the moon,”
Tante and Uncle Remus leading off. It was a very pretty sight, with the bright moon making strange long shadows under the trees. But if any of the Harbor folk had happened to stray in this direction, without being warned, they would certainly have thought the people of Camp Round Robin had lost their minds!
After the Virginia reel, Tante led the band in a grand march about the place, and so back to Round Robin for refreshments. Every party in Tante’s camp always ended with refreshments. When they entered the bungalow they were surprised to find that it was not empty. By the fire sat a figure, tending it and brushing up the ashes. He was indistinct at first. But gradually they made out it was a man in a tall hat and swallow-tailed coat.
“Why, it’s Uncle Sam!” cried several voices. “Good for Uncle Sam!”