The man shifted his gaze. “I give him to you for five dollar,” he muttered. “I pay so much for him.”
“Not much,” said the Captain. “Nobody sold you a donkey for five dollars and you can’t get that much out of us. Now you either give him to us or we’ll report it to the police.” The man protested loudly, but he was evidently thinking all the while that a donkey that only went when he heard music was not such a good bargain after all, even if he did get it by the simple and inexpensive method of finding it in his dooryard and tying it up. So, after growling some more that they were robbing him, he suffered Sandhelo to be unharnessed from the cart and led away in triumph in the wake of the horn.
“Well, our charitable enterprise didn’t turn out so badly, after all,” said Katherine, when Sandhelo was once more established in his cozy stall in the House of the Open Door. “If it hadn’t been for that fuss about the babies we wouldn’t have been on the street in time to see Sandhelo. And if we hadn’t wanted to help those people there wouldn’t have been any fuss. It does really seem that virtue is its own reward and one good turn deserves another. Let’s do it some more.”
And as usual the others agreed with her.
CHAPTER VIII
A SELECT SLEEPING PARTY
“Gracious, Katherine, what is the matter with your fingers?” asked Gladys curiously, as Katherine came into the room with all five fingers on her right hand tied up.
“Oh,” replied Katherine cheerfully, “I burned one, cut one, pounded one with a hammer and slammed the door on one, and that left only one good one, so I tied that up, too, for safe-keeping and only take it out when I want to use it. It’s a good thing I don’t need my hand to sing carols with, or I would be out of the running. Are we all here?”
“All but Veronica,” answered Nyoda, “and Sahwah—and Sahwah will be here presently. By the way, where is Veronica?”
“She’s over at the theater where her uncle is orchestra director,” answered Gladys. “She goes over there almost every Saturday afternoon. I believe she plays sometimes when one of the regular violinists is absent.”
Veronica, it must be confessed, was a great puzzle to the Winnebagos. Try as they might, they could never get her to enter into their work and fun with any degree of vim. She always sat aloof, her brooding eyes staring off into space. Not that they loved her any the less—they were too genuinely sorry for her—but they never seemed to be able to break down the barrier between them and her. They constantly stood abashed before her aristocratic airs. When the friends went together to get ice cream Veronica had a way of flinging a dollar bill down on the table and bidding the waitress keep the change that made the others feel cheap somehow, although they knew it was useless extravagance. When a poor woman came to the door one day, just as she was going out, and asked if she had any old clothes to give away she promptly took off her expensive furs and gave them to her.