“Neither am I,” said Migwan and Sahwah together, and then there was silence again.
“I’d like to see something wet once,” said Sahwah fretfully, after another long pause. “Everything is so dry it seems to be choking. The grass is all burned up; the paint is all blistered; the shingles 6 are all curling up backwards. It makes my eyes hurt to look at things. It would do them a world of good to see something wet for once.”
Fate or the fairy godmother, or whoever the mysterious being is that always pops up at the right moment in the story books, but who is practically an unknown quantity in real life, proved that she was not a myth after all by suddenly and unceremoniously granting Sahwah’s wish. Round the corner of the house came Katherine, dripping water on all sides like Undine, her skirts clinging limply to her ankles, while little rivulets ran from her head over her nose and dripped from the ends of her lanky locks. Up on the porch she came, all dripping as she was, and sank down on the wicker couch beside Sahwah.
“Why, Katherine Adams, what has happened to you?” cried the three all together.
“Nothing much,” replied Katherine laconically, tipping the lemonade pitcher over her head and putting out her tongue to catch the last drop. The drop missed the tongue and landed full in her eye, whence it joined the stream trickling over her nose into her lap. “I just stopped to investigate a garden hose on the way over,” she continued. “It was on a lawn close by the sidewalk and the thinnest little stream you ever saw was coming out. I was so thirsty I simply couldn’t go by without taking a drink, and I just turned the nozzle the least little 7 bit when it suddenly came out in a perfect deluge and sprinkled me all over. Then, seeing that I was wet anyhow I didn’t make any haste to get out from under the cooling flood. There, ladies, you have the whyness of the thusness. I’m thoroughly comfortable now and inclined to think lightly of my troubles. Why don’t you follow my example and stand under the hose?”
“Thanks,” said Sahwah, edging away from Katherine’s dripping proximity, “I’m all right as I am. Besides, no hose could squirt my troubles away.”
“It didn’t seem to dispel your gloom, either, Katherine,” said Migwan, looking closely at Katherine, who, after the first moment of banter, had lapsed into silence and sat staring gloomily into the curtain of vines that covered the end of the porch. “What’s the matter?” she asked curiously, brushing back the damp hair from Katherine’s forehead with a gentle hand. It was easy to see how Katherine was idolized by the rest of the Winnebagos. For her to act depressed was unheard of and alarming. At Migwan’s words Sahwah and Hinpoha stared at Katherine in dismay.
“Oh, I’m just low in my mind,” said Katherine, with her head still resting on her hands. “Got a letter from the folks at home today, telling me not to come home for the summer, that’s all. Father and Mother have been invited to go on an automobile trip through California and there’s no room for 8 me. Aunt Anna will be glad to keep me all right, but Cousin Grace will be gone all summer–she left yesterday–and it will be pretty dull for me. Aunt Anna is so deaf—” She finished with an eloquent gesture of the hands.
“You poor thing!” cried Migwan, drawing Katherine close to her in spite of her wet garments. “We’ll all have to combine to make the summer lively for you. You’ll have some fun even if your aunt is deaf and would rather read than talk. Don’t worry.”
Katherine’s head suddenly went down on her knee. “What’s the matter?” cried the three in added dismay.