It was quite true that the Camp was not to break up for some time, owing to the Wampoag people’s appetite for Camp jellies and linens; but so far as Winona was concerned, life under the greenwood tree received a sudden check.

It was a harmless-looking letter enough that the detachment of Blue Birds brought up from the post-office. Winona pounced on it with a cry of joy. “Oh, a letter from mother!” she said. “And we only had one yesterday, Florence!” So she tore it open.

“Dear Little Daughter,” it said, in a rather shakier handwriting than was usual with Mrs. Merriam. “I am sorry to have to tell you, as you are having such a splendid time, that we need you here at home. Yesterday, just after I had mailed my last letter to you, I slipped on the wet cellar stairs, and went down from top to bottom, and the result is a badly wrenched ankle. The doctor says that it is a severe sprain. Clay is a good little soul, but he can’t do very much more than the helping out, and your father has to have his meals and everything. So I shall have to ask my little girl to come home and keep house for me. I will expect you the day after you get this. Your loving mother.”

“Oh!” cried Winona. “Oh, poor mother!”

“What’s the matter!” asked Florence.

“Mother’s sprained her ankle on the cellar stairs,” said Winona, “and I have to go home. You needn’t, Floss.”

“I shall, though,” said Florence—and the younger Miss Merriam was a very determined little person. Her eyes filled with tears. “Frances and Lucy and I had a secret hike all planned,” she said. “Oh, dear, it is so nice in camp! But I won’t let you go home and nurse mother all alone, and you needn’t think it!”

Winona didn’t argue. She gave the letter to her little sister to read, and went off in the woods to be by herself. She climbed up to the platform that two of the girls had built, and sat there. There was no use denying it, she did not want to go home. She was going, of course, and going to nurse her mother just as well as she possibly could, and look after her father with all the powers she had learned in the Camp Fire activities. And she was sorry her mother’s ankle hurt her—very, very sorry. But—oh, dear! There was a beautiful new dance that Edith, who went into Wampoag and got lessons, which she passed promptly on, had been going to teach her. There was a new kind of cooking she had been going to teach a group of Blue Birds. There was a new dive—well, there were any amount of things, that if anyone had asked her about, she would have said she simply couldn’t break off. But she had to. And cooking at home in August was very different from doing it in the woods with a lot of other girls—and everyone she knew well was going to stay here—

Winona sat up and mopped her eyes.

“This isn’t the way to follow the law of the Fire!” she reminded herself. “I can glorify work just as well home as here—better, in fact, for it’s pretty certain there’ll be more work to do!” She laughed a little.

“Coming up, Winona!” called Helen from below.

“Come on!” called back Winona.

“What’s the matter?” inquired Helen when she gained the platform. “You’ve been crying.”

“I’ve got to go home.” Winona gave the news briefly. “Mother’s sprained her ankle.”

“Oh, what a perfect shame!” said Helen.

“I know I’m taking it like a baby,” said Winona with a gulp, “instead of being noble and acting as if I liked going home. And of course I’m going. Only—only I do wish mother had picked out any time but this to sprain a perfectly good ankle!”

“Can’t she get somebody else to come take care of things?” asked Helen. “I don’t know how on earth we’ll get along without you, Win. You never say much, but somehow you’re the centre of things. We’ll miss you awfully!”

Winona blushed at the compliment, and reached down to pat Helen’s hand.

“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?

“RememberwhatItellyou,saystheoldmantohisson—
Begoodandyou’llbehappy—butyouwon’thaveanyfun!”

“Just the same,” said the Guardian, “being what you are, Winona, I’d venture to promise you that in the long run you will get more happiness out of being happy than out of having fun.”

Winona laughed as she kissed her good-bye.

“I’m going to plan ways for glorifying work and being happy all the way down on the train,” she said, “but I haven’t any—well—thoroughly planned—yet!”

It was nearly nightfall when Winona reached home, for she had not started till a late afternoon train. She found her mother established in the living-room, where a door opening on the hall gave her a good view of the kitchen, and Clay in it. She looked well, but tired, and her foot was bandaged and on a pillow.

“You’re sure you didn’t mind coming home, dear?” was the first thing her mother said. “It was a shame you had to!”

Winona had to reassure her mother so fervently about her being willing to come back, and even liking to, that she began to find she really did! It was pleasant there, after all. The garden was full of blooming flowers, and it was a cool, pleasant day.

“What shall I do first, mother?” she asked, as she and Florence sat each with one of their mother’s hands, and tried to tell her all about everything at once.

“The first thing for you to do,” said Mrs. Merriam, “is to get baths and put on cool dresses, both of you, and come down to dinner. Your father and Clay are getting it. You aren’t to do a thing till to-morrow, dear. You must be tired with your trip.”

“I don’t think anything could tire me!” said Winona blithely. And she and Florence, as each of them in turn took baths in the one thing a camp doesn’t possess—a bathtub—felt that it was good to be home and have mother pet you, after all!

“It certainly is good to have you back, children,” said their father, as he sat with a daughter on each side of him after dinner. They had their mother out on the back porch with them. It was nearly as large as the front one, and she could be moved, couch and all, through a front window with very little trouble. “Now I can have an afternoon off from housekeeping. But I’ve done well, haven’t I, Mary?”

“You certainly have,” said Mrs. Merriam, “and it’s been hard for you, too. But now that I have my Camp Fire Girls back nobody’s going to need to do one thing.”

“Not a thing!” said Florence. “We’ve learned ever so many things, mother. We’re going to house-keep better’n you ever did!”

The family shouted. It was so like Florence.

“I don’t think quite that,” said Winona modestly. “But we’re going to have a lovely time running things, anyway!”

So next morning the “lovely time” began.

It seemed queer to waken on a mattress instead of on a pine bed; still stranger to hear the alarm-clock go off. Winona did not like alarm-clocks, and she threw a pillow at it before she stopped to think. But she got up as it told her, for all that, and was downstairs in twenty minutes. She had put on a blue ripplette work-dress, fresh and pretty. It was pleasant to have on a pretty frock instead of the camp uniform.

“There are lots of nice things!” she said to herself sturdily. “I’m going to enjoy myself every minute, if I have to tie a string to my finger to remind me!”

She found Clay, whose acquaintance she had made the night before, already down. The cereal was in the double boiler and the coffee in the percolator, already.

“Hit ain’ much to do fo’ breakfast,” said he encouragingly. “Ah do it maself, mos’ly.” And indeed he proved so expert that all Winona found left her to do was gathering the flowers for the table, and cutting the oranges. Breakfast had more frills than usual, though—Winona had come home prepared for work, and she found some to do. The oranges were loosened back from their skins like grape-fruit, there were finger-bowls with flower-petals floating on top, the cereal dishes had little plates underneath, and even the hot corn-bread, which Winona, by the way, discovered Clay did not know how to make, was stacked in a highly artistic log-cabin pattern. Winona, with a little white apron over her fresh blue dress, sat and poured the coffee importantly. Her father smiled with pleasure, as she sat opposite him, flushed and pretty and dainty.

“Well!” he said. “This is certainly a fine beginning, Winnie! Did you learn all this in the woods?”

Winona colored with pleasure.

“No, I think I knew most of it before I went,” she said. “That is, all but the corn-bread—that was an experiment.”

“And see!” said Florence. “Flowers in the finger-bowls!”

“But you mustn’t work too hard, little daughter,” said her father, as he went into the living-room to bid his wife good-bye before he went to business.

Winona followed him closely with her mother’s tray. Mrs. Merriam was dressed, and Mr. Merriam had helped her downstairs and to her couch. It had been rather fun to arrange the tray with doilies and the daintiest china. She carried it in as her father came out.

“Good-morning, mother!” she said gayly. “Things are going beautifully, and housekeeping’s fun!”

“That’s my brave little girl!” said her mother. “But I must warn you, Ray-of-Light, that you’ll get over-tired if you try to put on too many trimmings. The trouble with housekeeping is, you never get a vacation. It keeps on all day long. Simplify all you can.”

Winona laughed. “I refuse to start on your tray!” said she.

She made her mother as comfortable as she could, then went back to the kitchen.

“Now, Clay,” she said, “Mrs. Merriam’s sent for me to come home to run things. You and I are going to get as much fun out of the work as we can, and do it just as well and as fast as we know how. Aren’t we?”

“Yas’m,” said Clay doubtfully. “But dey ain’ no fun to be got outen washin’ dishes,” he added with conviction.

Winona looked thoughtful.

“No, I suppose there isn’t,” she admitted. “But there ought to be. Up at the Camp we got credit for what we did, if it was done right. I wonder——”

“You mean dem credits what folks buys groceries with?” interrupted Clay.

“No,” said Winona. “But—I’ll tell you, Clay, I have a plan! I’ll put a chart up here on the kitchen wall. Every time you get the dishes washed and put away in half an hour, without breaking them, three times a day for a week, you get credit—for fifteen cents. What do you think of that?”

“Ah like it!” said Clay. “But Ah rather have de two cents a day.”

“All right,” promised Winona rashly. “Now go ahead with the dishes while I put fresh paper on the shelves.”

“Don’t take it too hard, dear,” Mrs. Merriam warned her once more, when Winona ran in, breathless from vigorous bedmaking, to report progress. “What are you going to do now?”

“Now? Nothing till lunch time. I’m so glad we have dinner at night. It’ll be lots easier to get the hardest meal when it’s cooler, and there’s been a rest between.”

“You dear child!” said her mother, reaching out her hand to Winona where she sat by the sofa. “You’re bound to look on the bright side.”

“I’m bound to glorify work and be happy,” said Winona gayly. “Now, mother, I’d like some money. I’d rather not start with a regular housekeeping allowance till Monday. But right now I want a dish-mop, and a soap-maker, and some new white oil-cloth for the kitchen dresser. Can I have all that?”

“Certainly,” said her mother. “Keep the kitchen as spic and span as you can. The fresher the surroundings, the easier it is to work.”

So after luncheon, which wasn’t much trouble because there was no man to cook for, Winona and Florence went shopping, leaving Clay singing “Ma Honey Man” cheerfully over his dishes. The money their mother had given them bought not only the things Winona went after, but pink and blue chambray for aprons for herself and Florence, and red for Clay.

“The pretty aprons will make it more fun to be in the kitchen—don’t you think so, Florence?” asked Winona.

Florence, naturally, thought so, too, and they bought them and made them up before the day was over. Florence asked of her own accord for definite things to do. And an idea came to Winona—that they start a system of home honor-beads.

“Of course they won’t really count,” she explained to her little sister, “but they’ll always be there to remind us of our work.”

“That will be lovely!” said Florence, “but what will they be like?”

“Wait and see,” said Winona.

That day was all used up making the new long aprons and the mob-caps to match, dainty and Kate-Greenaway looking. But the next morning after the beds were done they went to sit with their mother. She said they could make the beads there with her. Winona ran out into the garden and brought back a handful of flowers that she put in water, and set beside her mother’s couch.

“How do you feel, mother?” she asked.

“It doesn’t hurt badly at all,” said her mother cheerfully.

Winona carried out the tray, and moved about, straightening her mother’s room a little more before she sat down to her work.

“You’re sure we’re not in your way, mother?” she asked.

“Indeed you aren’t!” said her mother. “You don’t know how lonely I’ve been with all my children gone. And do let in all the air and sunshine you can, dear. It may be hot later, so that we’ll have to shut out the light a part of the day.”

“All right,” said Winona, doing it. Then she called to Florence.

“Florence, will you get the oil-paints that we use for stencilling?” she asked. “I can borrow them, mother, can’t I?”

Mrs. Merriam was perfectly willing, and while Florence was getting the tubes of paints, and the brushes, Winona brought out a jar of ordinary kidney-beans from the kitchen. She spread newspapers on the floor and on the table, and when Florence came back with the paint she set to work.

“Just beans!” said Florence scornfully. “You can’t make beads out of them!”

“Can’t I?” said Winona, “Well, if you don’t like them when they’re done, I’ll buy you a string of any kind of colored ones that you want.”

“Thank you,” said Florence, settling down to watch her sister.

The first thing Winona did was to pierce each of the beans lengthwise with a steel knitting-needle, which she heated in the alcohol lamp’s flame. This was the longest part of the work. Next she strung them all on a long piece of cord. Then while Florence held one end of the cord and she the other, Winona dashed each bead in turn with touches of color, one after another—rose, blue, green and violet. She finished them with little flecks of gold paint, and fastened one end to the chandelier, where the beads could swing free and dry soon. The girls got luncheon while the beads were drying.

After luncheon was eaten and cleared away the girls went to work on their beads again. Florence held the string while Winona went over them with shellac.

“I think we’d better put them outdoors this time,” she decided. “The smell of the shellac may worry mother.”

So they swung the beads from the hammock rope.

“Do you think you will want to wear them?” she asked Florence, as she came back and began to clear away the paint-spotted newspapers.

“I should just think I would!” said Florence enthusiastically. “Why, they look just like the ones in the Wampoag stores, only lots prettier.”

“Who told you how to make them, Winnie?” asked her mother. “They are certainly lovely.”

“Nobody,” said Winona. “I saw some like them, and thought I could do it—that’s all.”

“I think you ought to get a real honor-bead for that,” said Florence. “I’m going to put down everything you do that I think might get honors for you.”

“I’ll keep track, too,” said Mrs. Merriam. “That’s a good idea, Florence. Then perhaps Winona’s having to leave the Camp won’t be such a setback. Give me a pencil, dear, and that little black notebook by it.”

They wrote down the making of the beads.

“We must keep watch, you and I, Florence,” Mrs. Merriam said.

Winona looked radiant.

“I’m going to write to Camp now, mother,” she said, “and I’ll ask Mrs. Bryan about counting things like this. It would be lovely if I got on as fast here as there—but I don’t believe it’s possible.”

“Wait and see,” said Mrs. Merriam.