"Gladys!" exclaimed Migwan. "I thought she was planning a surprise, she and Agony were whispering together this afternoon. Isn't she wonderful, though!" Migwan's voice rang with pride in her beloved friend's accomplishment. "Too bad Miss Amesbury isn't here to see it."
The dancer on the rock dipped and swayed and whirled in a mad measure, finally disappearing into the shadow of a towering cliff, from whence she emerged a few moments later, once more in the canoe with Agony, and changed back from a water nymph into a Camp Keewaydin girl in middy and bloomers.
"It was Agony's idea," she explained simply, in response to the storm of applause that greeted her reappearance among the girls. "She thought of it this afternoon when the word went around that we were going to have supper on the water."
Then Agony came in for her share of the applause also, until the woods echoed to the sound of cheering.
"Too bad Miss Amesbury had to miss it." Thus Agony echoed Migwan's earlier expression of regret as she walked down the Alley arm in arm with Migwan and Hinpoha after the first bugle. "She's been working up there on her balcony all evening, and didn't hear a bit of the singing. We were too far up the river."
"Couldn't we sing a bit for her?" suggested Migwan. "Serenade her, I mean; just a few of us who are used to singing together?"
"Good idea," replied Agony enthusiastically. "Get all the Winnebagos together and let's sing her some of our own songs, the ones we've practicsed so much together at home. You bring your mandolin, Migs, and tell Hinpoha to bring her guitar. Hurry, we'll have to do it fast to get back for lights out."
Miss Amesbury, wearily finishing her evening's work, was suddenly greeted by a burst of song from beneath her balcony; a surpassing deep, rich alto, beautifully blended with a number of clear, pure sopranos, accompanied by mandolin and guitar. It was a song she had not heard in years, one which held a beautiful, tender association for her:
"I would that my love could silently
Flow in a single word—"
A mist came over her eyes as she listened, and the gates of memory swung back on their golden hinges, revealing another scene, when she had listened to that song sung by a voice now long since hushed. She put her hand over her eyes as if in pain, then dropped it slowly into her lap and sat leaning back in her chair listening with hungry ears to the familiar strains. When the last note had echoed itself quite away she leaned over the balcony and called down softly, "Thanks, many thanks, girls. You do not know what a treat you have given me. Who are you? I know one of you must be Agony, I recognize her alto, but who are the rest of you? The Winnebagos? I might have guessed it. You are dear girls to think of me up here by myself and to put yourselves out to give me pleasure. Come and visit me in the daytime, every one of you. There goes the last bugle. Goodnight, girls. Thank you a thousand times!"