“I can’t help it, it simply won’t roll!” exclaimed Katherine in despair. “I’ve tugged and tugged until my fingernails are all broken, and it just naturally won’t turn over!” And Katherine sat down with a discouraged thud and fanned herself with a hair-brush.
“Well, we’ll ‘just naturally’ have to stop and see what’s the matter with it,” said Nyoda soothingly. The Winnebagos were having a contest in poncho rolling to be in practice for the coming summer’s camping trips. The aim of each one just now was to accomplish this in two minutes. Two minutes to spread out a poncho, two blankets and enough clothes for an overnight trip, roll it up into a neat stove-pipe, bend it into a tidy horseshoe and fasten the ends together with a rope tied in square knots.
The record was held by Medmangi, quiet, neat Medmangi, who, while the others were working like mad, had serenely completed her task in a minute and three-quarters.
“She’s a regular phenomenay, that woman,” said Sahwah, who had thought she was doing wonders when she straightened up at the end of two minutes exactly. “She must have four hands, or else she packed with her feet. But what else could you expect of a girl who’s going to be a doctor?”
Poor Katherine, alas, made no time at all that could be recorded in Nyoda’s book. It was only her second attempt at poncho rolling, but it is doubtful whether it would have been any different if it had been her hundred and second. She simply was not built for order and speediness. At the end of ten minutes she still sat beside her pile of belongings, the poncho askew, the blankets askew on it and hanging over the edge, the extra middy bundled up into a wrinkled lump and the small articles sliding off on all sides. She had begun to roll it from the wrong end, and after one or two turns it absolutely refused to go any farther, in spite of forceful attempts.
“Here, spread your things out properly, and then it will go,” said Nyoda patiently, picking up the blankets. Out rolled the object which had obstructed the wheels of progress—an umbrella, which had been tucked under the blankets lengthwise of the roll. “No wonder it wouldn’t roll!” exclaimed Nyoda, laughing aloud. “Did you expect the umbrella to bend round and round like a hose? Whatever would you want an umbrella for, anyway?”
“For rain,” answered Katherine with touching simplicity. Nyoda and the other Winnebagos doubled up in silent mirth. Katherine’s inspirations invariably left them without power of comment.
“Katherine, you’re positively hopeless,” sighed Gladys affectionately. “The only safe way is to divide your things up among the other ponchos; yours would never arrive at a journey’s end, anyhow.”
“Oh, if I had only been born neat instead of handsome!” said Katherine plaintively, and then joined heartily in the irresistible laughter that followed.
“Hush, girls!” said Nyoda. “There’s somebody down at the door. Don’t you hear somebody rapping?”