“THE WINNEBAGO LIBRARY
PASSED ON BY THOSE WHO KNOW AND LOVE GOOD BOOKS TO THOSE WHO WILL SOON KNOW AND LOVE THEM”
How did you do it? Asked a hundred girls to give one book apiece? You don’t mean to say that there are a hundred girls interested in us poor backwoods folks out here in Spencer? I can’t believe it! Oh, we’ll work and work and work, to prove ourselves worthy of it all!
And oh, all those little personal pretties just for me! Hinpoha, where did you find that darling pen-holder with the parrot’s head on the end, and Gladys, who told you that I broke my handglass and was pining for a white ivory one?
And even a lump of sugar for Sandhelo and a bow for Piggy’s tail! I admire the artist who drew that bow.
The last box bore Nyoda’s return address. What do you suppose was in it? Her chafing dish! The very one she used to have in her room, that I used to admire so much. Dear Nyoda! She knew I would rather have that than anything else.
O my dears, there never was such a Christmas! There never will be such a Christmas! Nobody ever had such friends before. If I live to be a thousand years old I’ll never be able to return one-tenth of your kindness.
Yours, swimming in ecstasy,
Katherine.
GLADYS TO KATHERINE
March 25, 19—.
Dearest Katherine:
Listen, my beloved, while I sing you a song of Migwan. She has awakened at last to find herself famous, and the rest of us, by reason of reflected glory, found ourselves looked upon as different from all other animals, and wonderfully popular and run after by five o’clock in the afternoon, like Old Man Kangaroo. And, all precepts upon precepts to the contrary, it wasn’t conscientiously applying herself to her task that turned the trick, but deliberate shirking. After all, though, it was mostly a matter of chance, because if it hadn’t rained so that night last October, Migwan would have gone to the library as she should have, and the world would have lost a priceless contribution to Indian lore.