“You’re a dear, Helen, to think so. But you’ll all get along all right. It’s I that will have most of the missing to do. No, there’s nobody mother could get. Aunt Jenny’s off in the White Mountains, getting well from something herself. And all we have at home is Clay—the little colored boy mother got at the Children’s Aid. From what Tom said he’s a regular Topsy. No, I have to go home. Oh, think of it, Helen! Hot housekeeping all August and half September, with every single girl I know well up here, canoeing and swimming and folk-dancing and all sorts of splendid things! You’ll all have beads down to your feet.”
This time it was Helen who patted Winona.
Presently Winona mopped her eyes again and threw back her shoulders.
“Come along, Helen; I’ve had my little weep out. Now I’m going to tell Mrs. Bryan about it, and trot off home looking pleased to death at the prospect.”
They swung themselves down from the tree-house, and started back to camp at a slow run. There was a good deal to do. There was everything of Winona’s to pack, and Florence’s, too, if she was really going, and she insisted that she was.
“I won’t be a bit of trouble,” she said, “and I’ll be a real help. You’ll see!”
So they packed everything, and said good-bye to everybody, and were paddled up the lake to Wampoag, where they were to take the train for home. They had to stop over at the Scouts’ camp and break the news to Tom. But Winona invited him fervently to stay where he was. She knew that with the best will in the world to be useful a boy makes more work than he does, and has to be cooked for to quite an extent. Tom said he would be down the next day to see his mother, but he would go back again.
“Good-bye, dears,” said Mrs. Bryan, who was seeing them off, when she parted from Florence and Winona at the dock, “I know you’ll be happy. Remember we’ll miss you all the time, Ray-of-Light. And I don’t know what I’ll do without Florence to run errands for me. Come back as soon as your mother can spare you.”
“We will,” said Winona. “Only it feels like the poetry—don’t you remember?
“Remember what I tell you, says the old man to his son—
Be good and you’ll be happy—but you won’t have any fun!”