"'Foreign girl' and 'American fashion'?" gasped Ruth. "As—as you sometimes say, Jennie, 'how do you get that way'? Wonota is a better American than we are. Her ancestors did not have to come over in the Mayflower, with Henry Hudson, or with Sir Walter Raleigh."
"Isn't that a fact?" laughed Jennie. "I certainly am forgetting everything I ever learned at school. And, to tell the truth," she added, making a little face at her chum, "I feel better for it. I just crammed at Ardmore and Briarwood."
Helen heard this. She glanced scornfully over Jennie's still too plump figure. "I should say you did," she observed. "You used to create a famine at old Briarwood Hall, I remember. But I would not brag about it, Heavy."
"Crammed my brain, I mean," wailed the plump girl. "Can't you let me forget my avoirdupois at all?"
"It is like the poor," laughed Ruth. "It is always with us, Jennie. We cannot look at you and visualize your skeleton. You are too well upholstered."
This sort of banter did not appeal to the Indian girl. She did not, in fact, hear much of it. All her attention was given to the play on the stage and the brilliant audience. She had traveled considerably with Dakota Joe's show, but she had never seen anything like the audience in this Broadway theatre.
She went back to the Stone domicile in a sort of daze—smiling and happy in her quiet way, but quite speechless. Even Jennie could not "get a rise out of her," as she confessed to Helen and Ruth after they were ready for bed and the plump girl had come in to perch on one of the twin beds her chums occupied for the night.
"But I like this Osage flower," observed Jennie. "And I am just as anxious as I can be to see you make a star actress out of her, Ruthie."
"It will be Mr. Hammond and the director who do that."
"I guess you'll be in it," said Helen promptly. "If it wasn't for your story they would not be able to feature Wonota."