Helen looked with interest at the girl who had seemed to know all about Chautauqua as her new acquaintances reported her conversation. She saw a girl about the age of the Ethels but not so tall and lacking in their appearance of vigor. Otherwise she was not unlike them, for she had curly brown hair and her nose was just the least bit "puggy," to use Roger's descriptive word. Her eyes, however, were unlike either Ethels', for they were gray. She had easy manners with a pretty touch of shyness that seemed to Helen quite remarkable since she had travelled all over the United States.
"I wouldn't miss the Girls' Club for anything," she was saying. "I learned how to make lots of things there last summer, and at Christmas time I sold enough to pay my club fee this year, and more too."
Helen looked at her with renewed interest. Here was a girl two years younger than she and she was earning money to pay for her pleasures this summer. It gave her something to think about.
"You and I must join the Young Women's Vacation Club," said Margaret to Helen. "They say they are going to have picnics and plays and great fun. It's a new club."
"I certainly shall. What kinds of things did you learn to make?" Helen asked Dorothy.
"I put almost all my time on baskets. Mother said she thought it was better to learn how to do one thing very well than to do a lot of things just middling well; so I learned how to make ten different kinds of baskets and trays."
"All different shapes?"
"Different materials, too; wicker and splints and rushes and some pretty grasses that I found across the lake one afternoon when Mother and I went over to Maple Springs on the steamer."
"I know they were beauties," said Helen heartily.
"They were," confirmed Margaret. "I saw some of them. I thought the prettiest of all was that small tray made of pine needles."