CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Did you dye that old petticoat and underwaist pink?” demanded Winona, sticking her head into Marie’s tent.
“Yes, I did,” said Marie promptly, “and it’s starched, and ironed with the charcoal-iron.”
“And did Adelaide borrow her brother’s bathrobe for Louise?”
“No, she didn’t, but I did—at least, I sent Frances over for it,” said Marie. “It’s here, and safe.”
“And did Louise sew the hood on it?”
“She did,” said Marie resignedly. “Every single property for ‘Gentle Alice Brown’ and the ‘Oysterman’ is in a mound in the dressing-tent. Go look, for goodness’ sake, or you’ll have nervous prostration.”
Winona, property-woman and general manager of the performance, pulled back her head with a sigh of relief, and went to find the girl who had promised to straighten out the fishing-tackle necessary to the Ballad of the Oysterman—for they were to present that classic of Holmes’s in a very few hours.
The performance was to be at eight, and it was a strictly complimentary one. The Scouts were invited, and various special friends from Wampoag, most of them made over dealings in Camp merchandise. A committee had been appointed to see about illuminations, and another to attend to the refreshments. They were amassing honor beads by doing it. Marie’s Blue Birds were busy everywhere. Camp Karonya was dazzlingly clean, and everyone was getting out the one dress-up frock she had brought along, and giving it attention. There was to be an exhibit, also, as the flaring posters Helen had prepared said, of “potteries, embroideries, jellies, hand-carvings, pickles and other objects.” It had been going to be “other objects of art,” but Winona pointed out that jellies and pickles weren’t, no matter what the rest might be. So the poster stopped abruptly at “objects,” and the space was filled up by a life-like portrait of a jelly-glass.
Camp Karonya took a very brief meal of bread and milk and cookies, and the dish-washers hurried through their tasks. For eight o’clock has a way of coming long before you expect it. About seven-thirty the paddles and oars and motor-boats of the audience began to be heard, and the reception committee scurried down to the dock to meet their guests. First came their friends the Scouts from down the river, about thirty strong. After them, in little groups, came the summer people, including Billy’s Aunt Lydia, who never missed a Camp Fire function if she could help it.