“Then it really is a sure-enough Indian name,” said its owner. “And the meaning is lovely. ‘A ray of flashing light’—you couldn’t ask to be anything better than that, could you, mother? I believe if I can I shall keep my own name for the Camp Fire. It is prettier than anything I could make up or find.”
“It certainly is,” said her mother.
“Why didn’t I have a Nindian name, too?” clamored Florence aggrievedly, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Because your other grandmother didn’t,” said her mother, kissing her. “One Indian maiden in a family is enough. What names have the other girls chosen, Winnie?”
Winona began to laugh.
“Louise says she is going to call herself ‘Ishkoodah’—don’t you remember, in Hiawatha, ‘Ishkoodah, the Comet—Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses?’ she says she thinks she can make a lovely symbol out of it. It’s funny, but Louise is always doing funny things. I think she’s really in earnest about this. And Helen says she’s going to call herself ‘Night-Star.’ We don’t know the Indian for that yet, but we’re going to hunt it up at the library. She thinks she will specialize on astronomy—learn what the constellations are, you know. I’d like to do that, too. All I know is the Big Dipper, and that the slanty W set up sidewise is Cassiopea’s Chair. I learned that from the little Storyland of Stars you gave me when I was seven.”
“I want to know chairs, too,” said Florence drowsily.
“All right, dear, you shall,” soothed Winona. Then she went on talking to her mother.
“So all the girls said they’d take sky names, and we decided to call our camp by the Indian name for the sky, because we want to camp out as much as we can.”
“I think that is a good idea,” said Mrs. Merriam.