“Hurray for you, Virg! That’s a spiffy idea! I’m for it! Lessee! I have at least fifty cents left after buying chocolate-chews and sweet pickles.” This, of course, from twinkling-eyed Betsy.
“I’m the moneyed person in this party,” Babs said with pretended pride, “for dad sent me ten dollars extra on my month’s allowance, and it just came today. That shall go toward the new coat.”
“We’ll all chip in, but do let’s talk fast, for, in three minutes and two seconds our free period will be over.” Margaret indeed was talking so rapidly that her words sounded jumbled. “We’re wild to know what happened over at the old Burgess place.”
“But I couldn’t possibly tell it all to you in three minutes, for the two seconds are already gone, but this much I can say. Eleanor Burgess is coming, not as a guest but as a teaching pupil, so there will not be anything to keep secret after all.”
“Hurray! That’s jolly fine! I hope there’s a mystery about her that I can solve.” These comments were laughingly called back over the shoulders of the three departing girls for right on time the gong had pealed in the main corridor bidding them to return to their classes.
Virginia walked slowly upstairs to the room which she shared with Winona. She was thinking of the Manuscript Magazine. Eleanor had told her that she would rather write than eat Charlotte Russe and that that was saying a good deal as she adored that particular kind of dessert, but had always been too poor to have it except on very rare occasions such as birthdays or Christmas. “I’m just sure we’ll all love her, and how I do hope one of her stories will do for this month’s magazine.” Virginia opened the door to the corner room and then stopped and stared within.
What she saw aroused her curiosity.
“Winona, where are you going? Why are you packing? You haven’t had bad news from home, have you?” This last because of an open letter on the table which lay as though it had been hastily dropped as soon as it had been read.
The tall, graceful Indian girl stood up and turned to smile with her usual calm expression undisturbed.
“It’s strange, isn’t it,” she said, “how very much can happen in a very little time? Just after you left this morning a telegram came from my brother, Strong Heart, which had been sent from Red Riverton. In it he told me that there was an epidemic in our village and that he was in town trying to find a physician who would be willing to go so far out on the desert and remain until all danger was over. ‘Do not come yet. Night letter will follow,’ that telegram stated. Of course I began at once to pack, believing that I might want to start West at any moment, but when the night letter came, my sister, Glad Song wrote that help had been obtained and that I need not come. I will read what she has written: ‘Winona, several of our little ones passed from our village before we could obtain help. We no longer believe in our old medicine man and there is no one in our midst who knows about first aid measures. I have been wishing that you might learn something of these things before you return to us.’”