“Want me to help?” offered Winona. “It ought to be more fun than washing Puppums.”
“I hope she won’t howl and try to climb over the side of the tub, the way he does,” said Louise. “Yes, thank you, I’d love to be helped.”
A warm bath in a foot-tub, following directly on a large meal of corn fritters, baked potatoes and huckle-berries, ought nearly to have killed Sandy, but it didn’t.
“I never dreamed you meant to do more than wash her face and hands,” protested Marie, who, as the guardian of the Blue Birds, had ideas about such things. But it was too late. Anyway, there was no visible effect. Sandy awakened next morning, well, happy, and still hungry. They had given her Nataly’s bunk with Mrs. Bryan. Helen bunked with Elizabeth, because Nataly said the girls tossed, and Mrs. Bryan didn’t.
While Sandy slept Louise and Winona were busy. Louise woke Winona at five, and they heated water, filled the charcoal-iron, and washed and ironed and mended Sandy’s underclothes. While Louise darned Sandy’s socks, Winona ironed the garments dry. Then they foraged about the store-shed, which was a warm place at that time of year even in the early morning, and found a white dress of Florence’s which Winona thought she had remembered bringing.
When found it proved much too large for Sandy, but Louise was still enthusiastic, and took it up with such good will that two of the tucks she put in had to be ripped out again when they came to dress Sandy in it. They polished the small strapped shoes the child had taken off, sewed the button of each on more firmly, and decided that they looked almost new.
Then Winona went back to awaken her own little sister. When she returned to Louise’s tent she found her friend had finished giving Sandy another bath. She was just dressing her.
“I don’t believe this poor little thing knows what a thorough bath is,” she greeted Winona over the child’s head.
“Yes, I do, too,” said Sandy. “But I had one last night, an’ you’ve been an’ given me anuvver now!”
“I think I’ll box her hair, too,” went on Louise. “It is getting rather common now, but she has so much, and it’s so untidy, that it would really be the best thing even if I didn’t keep her.”