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CHAPTER THREE – HEARD IN THE “SCENIC FOREST”
After leaving the other girls at the corner of Maple Avenue, May Randall and Eleanor Wilbur walked on alone. May was large for her age, but most enthusiastic over Woodcraft as she was a devotee of gymnastics and all out-door exercises.
“Isn’t that Woodcraft foolishness a perfect scream?” said Eleanor, jeeringly.
May looked at her companion with surprise. “A scream! Why don’t you think it is splendid?”
“Oh, it answers well enough when one has nothing else to do, but you won’t catch me giving my time to making things or helping work just to boost a League that wants free advertising,” retorted Eleanor.
“Why Eleanor Wilbur! You know that isn’t true. Why would the Woodcraft League want advertising? They should worry whether we girls boost or not. The cost of keeping this thing going is far beyond what we pay in. That Manual alone is worth ten times the price we are charged for it. Then too, each Band has the free right to make its own individual laws and work or meet as it likes,” defended May.
“I suppose you are so mesmerised by Zan and Miss Miller, who are crazy about the thing, that you can’t see how silly the ideas of Council, or singing, or obeying laws are! Of course the camping and fun are all right!”
“If that’s the way you feel about it why not resign now before your name is posted on the Totem? You know there is one too many.”
“Why should I resign when I want some fun this Winter? Resign yourself if there is one too many! If I had the money Jane Hubert or Zan Baker have for an allowance, you wouldn’t catch me wasting time with your old Band. I’d go to a matinee every chance I’d get, and have other fun, too. But I never get enough spending-money to buy decent candy, let alone go to a good show!” complained Eleanor.
May made no reply but she looked at her companion, and Eleanor, glancing at her as she concluded, read May’s thoughts.
“I suppose you are such a Pharisee that you couldn’t think of anything so wicked as a theatre or a little supper-party,” ventured Eleanor, with a mean sneer.
“I guess I’ll turn down this street and walk home alone. I prefer it to any such company as you can offer me,” retorted May. And that sentence caused all the after trouble.
“Old hypocrite!” muttered Eleanor to herself, as she went on alone. “She thinks by pandering to the first Woodcrafters she’ll push herself in. But those five girls are too clannish to admit outsiders into their charmed circle, and that sweet pussy-footed Miller is worst of all!”
Hence Eleanor was not in the friendliest of moods when she met May at school the following morning. She pretended not to see her and only when May spoke directly to her, did she reply. May said nothing to the other girls about the conversation that took place between them on that walk home the day before, although Eleanor thought she had.
The names of the six members-to-be were posted on the Totem Pole which was placed at the entrance to the gymnasium where every scholar going in or coming out could read the notice.
At recess-time the Woodcrafters were the centre of attraction and many eager requests from other girls to be allowed to join the Tribe, was the result of the notice on the Totem Pole.
“Just can’t do it, girls! We have one too many as it is. A Band is only allowed ten members and we have eleven proposed, so one has to be dropped,” explained Zan.
“Which one?” asked Martha Wheaton, curiously.
“We won’t know until the time for testing is up. The one that falls short will have to make a graceful exit, I s’pose,” replied Jane.
“It ought to be Eleanor Wilbur, then. She’s going around telling everybody what a farce the whole business is. She acts as if she had a bone to pick with you girls. Did anything happen at the Council to antagonise her?” said Martha.
“Why – no! I thought she was enjoying herself immensely. I’ll go and ask her if she intends to drop out,” said Zan.
“But don’t tell who told you! I don’t want to get in bad with her – you know what a mean tongue she has!” hurriedly cried Martha, wishing she had kept quiet about the entire affair.
“Hey, there, Ella! Wait a minute – I want to see you!” called Zan, running after the girl who was making for the doorway.
“What do you want? I’m going in to study!” snapped Eleanor, fearing Zan meant to find fault with her about May Randall.
“I just heard something about your way of looking at our Woodcraft work, so you’d better make up your mind to-day whether you meant what you said or not. There’re piles of other girls only waiting a chance to grab what you laugh at!” Zan spoke angrily as she stood at the foot of the door-steps looking up at Eleanor.
Eleanor half-turned at the entrance door and sneered: “I read part of that poky Manual last night, and I couldn’t find a single thing there that would authorise a Chief to call down a member of the Tribe outside of Woodcraft meetings. I can do or say what I please without your over-bearing dominion of my rights!”
Zan felt like throwing her Latin book at Eleanor’s head, but Jane ran up and whispered: “Forget it! Give her rope enough and she’ll hang herself, all right!”
And as Zan turned away with Jane, Eleanor watched them and thought to herself: “I’d better not say anything that’ll get to that Miller’s ears, or she’ll remove my name from the Totem without as much as saying ‘By your leave!’ But I’ll have it out on that May Randall, all right, for tattling what she should have considered a confidential talk.”
Down in her heart, Eleanor knew she wanted to be a member of Woodcraft, not for the fun alone, but because she saw what it had done for the five girls that Summer. She longed to be a different type of girl from what she generally was, but so all-powerful was her human will that it kept her from doing or saying what she really wished to; and so cowardly was the trait to make strangers believe her charmingly perfect, that she generally found herself in trouble about one friend or another. Even at home, she praised the maid to her face and then denounced her to her mother. Had she dared she might have carried out the same hypocrisy between her mother and father, but Mr. Wilbur was the one being for whom she had any fear or respect, so she never misrepresented things to him.
It was not the real Eleanor that scoffed at Woodcraft and gossiped injuriously about it, but the weak mortal self that was the wretched counterfeit of the real and true Eleanor. The girl had not yet discovered this duality in her nature, but she had felt a growing dissatisfaction with herself and her environment since entering High School, and this unhappy state of mind aggravated her desire to belittle others or their efforts to climb to a higher plane of living.
Had Eleanor stopped to diagnose her feelings and actions she would have realised that the “misunderstandings” (as she termed the quarrels and trouble resulting from her poisoned darts of gossip) could be easily traced to the vindictive and malicious desires she entertained, while the sweet and pure and altogether attractive qualities that had been paramount in her early childhood years were becoming weaker and weaker through lack of expression. So at fourteen, at the character-forming time when a girl needs to be on guard that all undesirable tendencies are carefully eliminated to keep them from taking root for all future years, Eleanor, and those she associated with, were in a constant state of confusion and irritation created by her stubborn and selfish wilfulness.
During the week following the first Council meeting of the new members, the Band bought materials and began work on the forest scenery and wooden upright stands. Elena, Nita, and May Randall were given the roll of white duck to paint, while the other girls measured and sawed and hammered the 2 x 4 timbers to make the uprights necessary to hold the scenic walls of the woodland camp.
All that week Eleanor had been one of the first of the Woodcrafters to be on hand, but the moment the actual carpentry began, she would sigh, and scoff, and belittle the efforts of the others, or wonder why anyone spent good time on such foolish ideas!
Miss Miller had heard rumours of Eleanor’s gossip and she overheard several disturbing criticisms made during the work on the carpentry, but she said nothing at the time.
Of all the people who knew Eleanor well, Miss Miller was about the only one who studied the girl and understood the chemicalisation, so to speak, of the processes going on within the girl’s consciousness. The evil desires were fermenting and souring her nature while the sweetness and purifying elements were gradually being spoiled so that presently, a Judas-natured individual would claim the victory over the true, and the battle would be lost for the side of the divine and eternal self.
It was with a thrill of gratitude then, that the Guide recalled her deep perplexities over the waywardness of Nita, that same Summer on the Farm. How she had studied every phase of the problem and finally won out to the ever-growing betterment of the girl.
“If I can only win the slightest hold on this girl’s innate goodness and learn how to appeal to her higher self, I feel sure I can weed out the ‘tares’ even if it takes a long time. It is well worth the fight for the ‘wheat’ waiting to be garnered,” murmured Miss Miller as she reached the Gymnasium door. Which goes to show what the Guide really thought of Woodcraft and the privileges given her whereby to improve the morals and manners of the girls entrusted to her care.
“Everybody waiting for me to-day?” cheerily called the Guide as she hurried in where the girls were waiting to hold a Saturday afternoon Council.
“Yes, we’re crazy to pass judgment on the scenery. Elena makes such a secret of it that not one of us has seen it since she had it sketched out with charcoal. It’s back there in that huge roll. The boys brought it in the car a few minutes ago,” explained Zan.
“And did you finish the uprights so we can hang the duck?” asked Miss Miller.
“Everything is back in the corner where we decided to have our forest,” replied Jane.
“Then we can go right to work and place our trees and seats, and some of you can build the log fire-place in the centre for a Council,” said the energetic Guide.
A hubbub of instructions and calls and running to and fro continued after this for some time. Miss Miller tried to superintend the raising of the “huge forest timbers.”
“Say! Won’t one of you girls with nothing to do help me hook up this side of the trees?” called Elena, anxiously, as she found the weight of the duck too heavy to manage alone.
“You’ve got the trees upside-down!” laughed Jane.
“No I haven’t! That’s the way Nita painted this piece,” retorted Elena.
“Why it looks more like an early settler’s log stockade than the beautiful woodland hillside back of the Bluff,” replied surprised Jane, eyeing the painting with her head on one side.
“S-sh! Nita’ll hear you! She is so proud of it! She says it is a much better line of trees than my forest!” whispered Elena, proudly displaying her art work.
Zan came over to assist in hanging the duck and smiled behind the painting as she heard Elena explain the various “scenes” depicted on the great stretch of cotton.
“This is the flat rock where we sat telling bedtime stories; here is the swimming pool, and up there is Fiji’s cave. I tried to get in Bill’s cottage below the Bluff but my paint gave out,” explained Elena, as the three girls lifted and stretched the canvas and hung the hooks over the taut wire.
“But the way you measured and cut the scenery, we’ll have to unhook the cave and Bluff every time we need one side open. You made the other three sides all stockade, you see,” commented Zan.
“That’s so! I never thought of that. We will have to omit one whole side at times, won’t we?” responded Elena,
“Still, I think it will be easier to fold down or hang up a Bluff than to hew through a great row of giant tree-trunks, Zan,” laughed Jane.
Finding Elena too serious over her painting to laugh or enjoy a joke about it, the other two girls called that all was ready for the admiring audience.
As the group stood about the Council circle looking over the woodland scene, some smiled, some sniffed, and some looked delighted at the result. Miss Miller saw the disappointment on Nita’s face and remarked: “We joyfully accept this attempt to paint the cherished mental picture of Wickeecheokee Camp – a scene that defies all words or arts to describe.”
“But Miss Miller, you must admit that this scenery is misleading to new Woodcrafters. We have ranted of stars, and streams, and the breath of balsam pines; but where, oh where, is there any such ‘atmosphere’ to be found in this painting!” Zan cried dramatically, as she posed and threw out both arms towards the canvas.
“Atmosphere! Good gracious, Zan, can you ask for more!” laughed Jane, in response to Zan’s call. “Did you ever smell such an odour of the turpentine that comes from pine?”
The girls all laughed but Nita complained pathetically:
“If you girls knew the job it was to smear all that paint on the old stuff, you wouldn’t poke fun at the trees. Why, the duck soaked up my paint as fast as I put it on, so of course I had to use gallons of turp to make it spread at all. Even then, it dried before I could shade any bark on my trees.”
“You all say I am too matter-of-fact a cook to be an artist, but I bet I could take a handful of the superfluous paint on those trees and knead it into something resembling ‘tall timbers’,” now commented Hilda.
“No one could! Why we had to hang the duck along the wall of our attic and stand on an old library table while we painted the tops of the trees! Just try to make bark or leaves on a tree that has to be painted with a heavy kalsomine brush. Our arms got so lame before we painted an hour that we fairly cried with the ache in the bones,” said Elena, defiantly.
“Yes, and Elena’s attic is so bespattered with raw umber and ivory black that Mrs. Marsh says she will have to stain the entire floor now to make it look decent again,” added Nita.
“Well girls, we are all genuine Woodcrafters, so we hail with thanksgiving this scenery that fills our lungs with the pungent odour of the forest. I, for one, will breathe deeply of this pine product!” laughed Miss Miller, turning the criticism to fun.
“Well, all I can say is that I feel grateful for these great stout logs that will protect us from Winter’s icy winds and the hungry horde of howling wolves – the menace of pioneers in the forest!” added Zan.
“They’re all right in Winter but how about the longed for shade in Summer when the fierce rays of the sun beat upon our unprotected heads? We have no branches overhead,” remarked May, whimsically.
“Now you’ve all joshed Nita and me quite enough – let’s proceed with the Council,” said Elena, looking beseechingly toward Miss Miller.
So the meeting was opened and during the singing of the Prayer of Invocation, the Guide focussed her camera and took a snap-shot of the girls standing in the “Scenic Woodland Council.”
After the Tally of the last meeting had been read and other business disposed of, Miss Miller said:
“Is there any particular work you girls plan to do this coming week?”
“O Chief!” said Nita, jumping to salute Zan. “We really must plan some new dances for this Fall, especially if we are going to celebrate a big Hallow E’en Council and invite our friends.”
“As this is the last week of September, we haven’t any too much time, either,” added Jane.
“Well, let’s commission Nita to dig up some new and entertaining folk songs that can be acted out in a dance,” suggested Zan, looking to the Guide for approval of the idea.
“Elena, make a note in your Tally that Nita will find us some new dancing songs before next Council,” replied Miss Miller.
“O Chief!” now spake Hilda. “When we broke camp for the Summer we were all quite keen to wincoups for needle-craft, carpentry, and other work. Besides, we want to secure degrees for some of the big stunts like Mrs. Remington’s Tribe have won.”
“Oh, that reminds me! Elizabeth Remington said she would gladly help us to learn how to start the pottery and carpentry work. Then too, she said her mother thought we ought to plan to have a Little Lodge attached to our Tribe, as many Big Lodges have,” cried Zan, eagerly.
“It is very good of Elizabeth to offer her time to help you girls; as for the Little Lodge, I would not think of it till your two Bands are filled and the Tribe is chartered and well under way,” replied the Guide.
“O Chief! Can’t we start the pottery work first ’cause Zan knows a lot about designing since she started that class-work in school,” suggested Hilda.
“I was not aware that Zan had graduated from the School of Design so soon. Did you really finish in two lessons, Zan?” teased the Guide.
“Oh, you know what Hilda means – she thinks that now I can find out about real designing we all can profit by it,” explained Zan.
“Instead of pottery which is a step beyond carpentry, I would suggest that the Band make some objects in wood according to the Manual rules for winningcoups,” advised Miss Miller.
“Why can’t you old members wait a little while and give us new members time to win the flower, star, and tree coups such as you earned at Camp this Summer?” asked Frances Mason.
“We can all begin together on carpentry and at times when we are not together, or you new members are not in on some of the things we do, you can catch up on those easy winners,” said Zan.
So the entry was made in the Tally Book directly after the note reading: “Nita will find new folk songs for a dance before next Council.”
It read: “Begin some object in carpentry using own designs and material, suitable to claim a coupwith all provisions met.”
“Now that that is off our minds let’s have Miss Miller tell us an Indian myth or story. We haven’t heard one since that last week on the farm,” petitioned Jane.
“And I happen to know that she received a package of books from the Smithsonian Institution at Washington,” added Zan.
“How! How!” chorused the other girls, so the Guide felt called upon to contribute her share to the Council meeting.
“I really had planned something so different from this, that I must have a moment in which to think,” murmured the Guide.
“Oh dear me! That’s always the way with us! We are so impatient to make Miss Miller work for her honourable position, that we generally manage to ‘cut off our noses to spite our faces,’“ sighed Elena so plaintively that the others laughed.’”
“My original idea will not spoil by delay, so I will tell the story now which is really much easier than the work I planned,” rejoined Miss Miller.
“Well, at least tell us what your plan was and let us judge of its merits,” declared Zan, coaxingly.
“I never satisfy idle curiosity if I recognise it, but I will tell you a story of what happened to some Eskimo Indian children who indulged in this undesirable inclination to their undoing.
CHAPTER FOUR – THE ESKIMO INDIAN LEGEND
“This myth is told by the Sea Lion-town People from Alaska and is called, ‘A Tale of a Red Feather,’” began Miss Miller.
“A group of children were playing ball with a woody excrescence which they had found in the bole of a tree. It had been rubbed down and polished until it was smooth and shiny as could be.
“As they knocked the ball back and forth, shouting with glee if one of their band happened to miss it, a small red feather floated down from the clouds and blew gently to and fro just over their heads. As it was wafted about in the eddying breeze, it attracted the attention of the youngsters who watched it with eager curiosity.
“It never came nearer the earth than just above the heads of the children and as they speculated concerning it, one of the boys declared it must be a magic feather. Another said it might be a prince bewitched by an evil spell-binder, and still another said it was from a Red Eagle that soared from the Happy Hunting Grounds.
“The latter idea seemed to take hold of the children and they cried ‘We want it if it fell from the Happy Hunting Grounds.’
“So most of them jumped up trying to catch it as it floated over their heads. The tallest boy, making a high leap, seized it, but instead of bringing it down to the ground with him, his hand stuck fast as if by some unseen power. He struggled but could not release himself and gradually he was drawn up from the earth.
“He screamed, and his brother seeing the awful magic working, caught hold of his hand to stay him. But he, too, was stuck fast to his brother’s hand and was lifted up against his will.
“Then another boy caught hold on to the second lad’s feet and he, too, was drawn up unwillingly. Soon, all the children, then the parents who sought to save their little ones, next the townspeople, and lastly the dogs and cats and donkeys, and every living creature in the town – all but the niece of the Town Chief were drawn up.
“This girl remained sleeping upon a couch behind a screen and was quite unaware of what was happening to her kinsmen and townspeople and the creatures that had lived in the town.
“The victims of Red Feather were carried up, up, up, to a great cloud that hung waiting to receive them. There they were kept until the waters in the cloud washed them all to bones and then bleached the bones white. But that comes later.
“The niece, strangely enough, was awakened by the great stillness. She listened and then sprang out of bed wondering what kept everyone so silent. No shouting of children, no braying of donkeys, no fighting of cats and dogs, no bargaining of townspeople!
“She peered from behind the screen and found no moving or living being, so she quickly dressed and ran out to call, but no answer came. She ran through the houses and found them vacant, and left as if they had been abandoned in a great hurry. The canoes were still tied to their posts or lying upon the beach, so it was quite evident that her people had not gone by the water-way. The great mountains back of the village offered no temptation to the villagers and the maiden knew they had not disappeared that way.
“She went home to think over this strange thing and as she thought, she feared some evil worker had succeeded in making magic against her people. Reaching this conclusion, the maiden ran out and stood near the spot where her cousins first saw the feather. She, too, saw a tiny red feather dance about her head but she was too troubled to account for her friends to give the temptation another thought.
“Having no curiosity or desire to possess the red feather gave her the power to see it as it was. As the feather still fluttered about, the girl was able to witness the whole sight of her people and every living creature of the village excepting herself, drawn up to the black cloud and left dangling there.
“Then she ran back to her tepee and wept. She wept gallons of salty tears before she became reconciled to her fate. But the tears relieved her sorrow and she went forth to seek for a memento of her brothers and sister. Where the children had been playing ball she found a shaving her brother had whittled from the wood from which he was making a spear just before he was caught up. She next found a feather from the arrow her cousin had been making. Then she found a chip of red cedar bark her brother had held, and a wild crab-apple blossom her little sister had plucked. Lastly, the maiden saw the footprints in the mud, of another brother as he had stood catching at the heels of his cousin. All these relics she gathered up carefully and placed them in a blanket.
“The blanket was securely bound by the four corners and the gallons of salty tears poured over it. Then the girl blew her nose violently to call magic, and poured the remainder of her tears over the covering that held the treasures.
“This last rite performed, the maiden carried the blanket to her couch behind the screen and sat down to wait. After many days she opened the blanket again and there she found a babe. It had a small shaving stuck to its forehead. She took the babe out and tied the blanket corners together again. Then she mothered the babe till it grew strong and as fine as her brother had been before it.
“After a time, she opened the blanket again and lo! there she found another fine child, but a bit of cedar bark was stuck to its forehead. The boy was also mothered and grew to be a fine lad.
“The third time the girl opened the blanket she found a boy with a feather stuck to his forehead. The fourth child had a clod of mud on the sole of each foot, and so on, the children came until nine fine lads had been mothered and reared, and then came a little girl who carried a crab-apple blossom in her hand.
“The ten children were carefully reared and taught many wise things that all Indians should know. They had plenty of food and clothing as every house in the town was there to take from.
“One day, the eldest lad inquired: ‘Mother, why lies yonder village so empty?’
“And she replied: ‘My child, it is your uncle’s town that lies empty because of idle curiosity. And this is what happened to everyone living in the village.’
“Then she told the children the story as I have told it to you, even the punishment that comes with curiosity and the payment demanded from any who deem they can do what others cannot.
“And the boy asked: ‘Where is the ball, mother?’
“She replied sadly: ‘Ah, my son, I may not show you the hidden place of that ball for it contains magic that brings evil to anyone touching it. Better leaveskîtq! a’-ig. ādAñ in the tree where it grows.’
“But the boys were overcome with curiosity to see and try this magic they were warned against. So, secretly they found the right bole of the tree where an excrescence grew and it was cut out. They worked it smooth and round until it was polished enough to play ball with.
“The little sister had not been told of her brothers’ mischief or she would have dissuaded them – or at least, she would have warned the mother that the boys had disobeyed her wishes.
“They tossed the ball gleefully back and forth and soon a tiny red feather floated over their heads but little sister warned them not to touch it as it was the same evil magic that had drawn all their kin away from earth.
“But the oldest lad scoffed at her fears and clutched at the feather. Instantly, he was turned to mucus, right before their eyes! And this mucus was waved violently back and forth till it was stretched out into a long thread. As it was pulled up to the black cloud overhead, one end of the mucus still stuck fast to the ground and the red feather tugged and tugged to tear it loose.
“The second brother caught hold of the mucus and was turned to a shaving. But this was whirled around and around until it spun dizzily and one end of the shaving reached the cloud but the other still whirled on the ground.
“The third boy ran up and caught hold of it and was instantly turned into a strip of cedar bark. After being rolled and pulled the bark began to stretch and finally one end was up in the clouds and the other still remained upon the earth.
“When the boy with the mud soles caught hold of the red cedar chip, he was turned to mud. As this was spun out, some of it was carried up to the cloud while some of it still clung to the earth but a fine thread of mud stretched between the two mud-lumps.
“But the next boy caught the wild crab-apple blossom from his sister’s hand and stamped upon the mud from his brother’s sole that lay upon the ground. As he stamped he called to his sister: ‘I am strong! Hurry – make medicine to save us.’
“And the sister cried: ‘Be a man! Be strong and I will save you!’
“But he was turned to a crab-apple tree right before her eyes. He was being dragged up to the cloud but the red feather had great difficulty to tear it away from the earth, as the roots had quickly grown down into the ground. One strong root still held in the earth and red feather was tugging hard to loosen it from its hold when little sister ran up and jumped upon this root. She then climbed up the long-drawn-out crab-apple tree, all the while making strong medicine and slashing out with a long sharp sword.
“The red feather flew madly about and when, at a mighty slash of the sword, the evil magic fell to earth, its power was gone forever!
“Then immediately after it came the nine brothers who were not hurt for red feather had lost its magic to hurt any more.
“And on top of the children came down the whitened bones of the villagers, and last of all crashed down the remains of the dogs and cats and donkeys that had lived in the village in the long-ago.
“The wild crab-apple tree had not had its root pulled from the ground before red feather was slashed down to earth, so little sister slid down that root and reached the place where all the brothers, and villagers, and creatures lay in a heap together.
“She spat medicine upon her brothers and they each took a natural form again, and were over-joyed at seeing themselves at home. Then she spat medicine upon the bones of her kins-people and they all returned to life. Next the villagers were brought back and then the dogs, because they are man’s best friends; then the donkeys, for they help carry the burdens of man; and lastly the cats for they kill vermin but are in themselves no other good to man.
“So the people and every creature thanked little sister for the strong medicine she had made to bring them all safe back home. Then she told them that they need never have been dead or kept up in that cloud had they known themselves and their power over all evil magic.
“And from that day, the people taught their children first, above every other knowledge, ‘Know Thyself,’ then the next thing the children were taught was, ‘Know that evil has no power or magic for one who Knows Himself!’”
As Miss Miller concluded the story the Woodcrafters cried “How! How!”
“What a strange story – it sounds almost like an allegory with a deep meaning,” said Jane.
