“Well, go ahead and talk,” she said. “It won’t make things any less so.” Then suddenly she burst out, “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know how it feels never to have anything extra. If I go to a party I’m likely to be the worst-dressed girl there. If I go to school and the girls treat I have to say I don’t want any because I can’t pay back. I can’t invite anybody to meals, because I can’t give them extra nice things to eat. And, anyway, the flat’s horrid—even the furniture and the carpets are shabby. Lonny and Frances are good, and help, but everything drags. And I just hate everything.”
“Hate everything!” said Winona soothingly. “Why, of course you don’t—you just think you do!”
“It’s all right for you to talk,” murmured Adelaide miserably. “Everybody’s crazy over you—of course they would be. I am myself, and I don’t like people generally. You have something about you that would make people like you even if you weren’t sweet to them. Everything turns out right for you. I don’t see what you wanted to join the Camp Fire for—its rules stuck out all over you before you ever joined.”
“Oh, don’t!” said Winona, blushing. “What rules do you mean? I never kept any rules.”
“You know the Law of the Camp Fire: ‘Seek beauty; give service; pursue knowledge; be trustworthy; hold on to health; glorify work; be happy.’”
“I don’t do all those things,” said Winona. “Wish I did! But anybody seeks beauty, and as long as you have to work the only way to get fun out of it is to glorify it. As for the rest, I think they’re only rules for getting all there is out of living. I’ll tell you, Adelaide,”—Winona sat upright, as if a new thought had struck her—“why don’t you see how many of the rules would apply to getting fun out of the things that worry you? When things go wrong at our house mother always says to Florence and Tommy and me, ‘Can’t you turn it into a game?’”
“Turn shabby furniture and stews and no money into a game?” said Adelaide, as if she thought Winona was crazy.
“Yes!” said Winona undauntedly. “To begin with the stews—well, Adelaide, you don’t know one single thing about cooking. There’s any amount of things beside stew that you can make out of stewing meat. And don’t you remember the cold things we got out of Mrs. Bryan’s refrigerator? That was a good supper, wasn’t it? If you know how, cooking’s fun, or nearly anything.”
“If we have more cooking-classes I suppose I could learn how to do more things with the meats and vegetables, or maybe market better,” said Adelaide. “But that would only help that one thing.”
“You can figure out keeping house just like anything else,” said Winona. “All you have to do’s to think!”