CHAPTER V

“THE END OF A PERFECT DAY”

In the afternoon Winnie appeared rosy and smiling under her dripping umbrella. “Well, old weepy wapory wiper,” was her greeting as Joanne rushed to meet her, “how goes it?”

“Fine,” responded Joanne with as sunny a smile as Winnie’s own.

“All over your doldrums? You great big baby, to cry at a little thing like that,” continued Winnie closing her umbrella.

“How do you know I was crying?”

“Couldn’t mistake that teary voice; the drops actually oozed through the telephone and ran along the wires till one fell on my nose.”

“You ridiculous girl! Come in.”

“I will for a few minutes, but I can’t stay long, though I hope to take you back with me.”

“Oh, dear, I’d love to go, but Gradda would never consent. If I couldn’t go to school I couldn’t go pleasuring. You see I left my rubbers up in the country----”

“Careless child.”

“Of course; I know that. Moreover I forgot to tell Gradda, so when this morning came I did remember and there was no time to get others, so here was I miserable.”

“You weren’t a good Scout, you know, to go all to pieces like that just for a mere disappointment. You should have bucked up and have turned your distressfulness into opportunity.”

“Just what I did,” replied Joanne triumphantly. “I learned to hem.”

“Good! so much the more must you come with me. The car will be here in a few minutes. Mother is going to stop for us on her way from down-town. So, you see, my child, you will not get those little tootsie-wootsies wet. Run along and tell your grandmother. I’m sure she won’t be left a leg to stand on in the way of an excuse.”

Joanne responded with a rapturous hug and flew off, returning very soon ready for the trip.

“Did you bring your sewing?” inquired Winnie.

“Why no. You didn’t say to bring it.”

“Didn’t I? I meant to. The Sunflowers are coming over and we are all going to do sewing tests. The more proficient ones will direct the inferiors, and so we’ll get along famously. I shall essay to make my first buttonhole.”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I am a long way off from that, but I mean to get there. I’ll go for my sewing bag. I never had any use for it before.”

Off she went again, returning with the bag which she held up in triumph. “Now, ’fess up, Win. Weren’t you really awfully disappointed when you saw the rain this morning, and weren’t the other girls?”

“_Naturellement, ma chère_, but I can safely say that I believe you were the only tear manufacturer in the lot.”

“What did you do?” inquired Joanne remembering her red eyes and untasted breakfast.

“Oh, I said Bother! in a very large way, then I stamped around the room for a few minutes, threw things about a little, went to the window to be sure it was rain and not Moses out with the hose, then I said, Well, Winifred Merryman, it’s up to you to be cheerful, I suppose. You must track up the puddles in your own back yard and smile, smile, smile. It’s a long rain that has no turning.”

Joanne threw herself into an armchair shouting with laughter. “I do think you are the dearest, craziest girl I ever saw! If it were not for you I suppose I should still be in a state of woe and would probably have to go to bed with a headache, but when you suggested that I should work up some test for the next rally it gave me something to live for, and when I picked up my manual what was the first thing that met my eye but that ‘be cheerful’ law, and naturally--well, naturally, I just was obliged and compelled to bid farewell to every fear and wipe my weeping eyes. Do you know that part of being a Scout never sank in very deep before? I’ve been thinking all along of the tests and how soon I could earn badges and all that sort of thing. I forgot the character part, at least I knew it was important, but it didn’t come home to me with a slam till to-day.”

Winnie nodded. “It’s about the biggest part.”

“Yes, I know. I quite prided myself upon being honorable and loyal and all that, but I sort of sneaked out of giving much thought to the other laws. Now, I’ll have you to know, Miss Merryman, that I mean to wrastle with them all. No more cry baby about me, if you please.”

“That’s the way to talk!” cried Winnie. “Miss Dodge says it often takes more courage to do little things like being cheerful and obeying orders or resisting the temptation to do some little mean thing, than it does to face big dangers, for, when the big dangers come you seem suddenly inspired with courage. One is moral courage; the other physical, and the moral is inside of you where nobody can see its workings.”

“Dear me, I’m learning a lot,” confessed Joanne with a long sigh. “I’ve never thought much about such things, but I see I shall have to if I am to be a good Scout and that is what I want to be.”

“You will be, give you time,” Winnie assured her with a loving pat. Then the car arrived and the two set off in high spirits in spite of the heavily falling rain.

Two or three girls had already arrived with their sewing bags when Joanne and Winnie entered the bright sitting-room of the Merryman home, and others soon followed. The last to enter was Virgie Ambler who carried in her arms a well-bundled up baby about one year old.

“For pity’s sake, Virgie, where did you get that?” cried Winnie as Virgie deposited her burden on the lounge.

“Borrowed it, at least not exactly, and it’s a him not an it. You see Mrs. Clary, who lives back of us, had to go out on an important errand and was at her wit’s ends to know what to do with Master Guy, sweet name, Guy, so I offered to take care of him. I thought it would be fun to bring him here and we could all take turns in looking after him. It would enliven the party, you perceive, and give us all a chance of putting in some good Scout work. He is a friendly young person and not given to howling more than the law allows.”

The girls all made a rush to divest Master Guy of his bundlings up, and questions came thick and fast with exclamations and compliments thrown in. “Isn’t he a darling? How old is he? Can he walk? Can he talk? What a dear little head! What lovely long lashes! Um! Um! wouldn’t I love to have such a complexion! Come to me, ducky darling. No, I’m going to take him first,” and so on.

The youngster appeared to be quite undisturbed by all this fuss, but scanned each face in turn and finally put out his arms to Winnie, who snatched him up and hugged him, dancing him up and down in her strong young arms till he gurgled with delight.

“You mustn’t hold him all the time; you will spoil him,” cautioned Virgie.

“Then what shall I do with him? Put him on the floor?” questioned Winnie.

“Oh, he might take cold,” Claudia spoke up.

“I’ll get a quilt or something,” said Winnie, dumping the baby upon Claudia’s lap and rushing off up-stairs. Presently she reappeared with a comfortable which she spread out on the floor. “There!” she exclaimed, “he will be all right. Put him down, Claudia.”

But no sooner was young master deposited than he set up a howl which rent the skies, and began hitching himself toward Virgie who perforce must pick him up in order to pacify him. “Now what’s to be done?” she said looking around. “We shall spoil him if we hold him all the time and if we don’t he yells like fury.”

“Maybe he’s hungry,” suggested Winnie.

“No,” Virgie shook her head, “he mustn’t be fed out of hours, and even if he consents to stay on the floor he will hitch himself all over the place; that’s his way of getting around. At home he has one of those pens that his mother can put him in.”

“Well, why not build him a pen out of chairs?” was Joanne’s suggestion which was immediately adopted, and inside of this barricade the baby was placed, only to repeat his loud protests.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Virgie, “I’d no idea babies were so much trouble. Much satisfaction we shall have trying to sew if he keeps that up. I’m sure I don’t know what to do.”

“Put him down again and let us take turns in trying to amuse him,” Joanne made a second suggestion.

“Fine!” cried Virgie. “Of course we couldn’t expect the poor little tacker to be content without toys or some sort of entertainment. Get in, Joanne, and try your powers. We’ll take half hour shifts and see how it works, then no one will get exhausted, although,” she added, “perhaps I’d better take him home and work out the problem by myself without drawing you all into it.”

“Oh, no, no,” cried the rest, “let this be team work. Don’t think of such a thing, Virgie.”

So over the barrier Joanne climbed and in a few minutes gurgles of delight showed how successful she was in making baby Guy forget his woes, then each girl took her turn and at last their charge was in such a good humor that when some one proposed that he should be supplied with some things to play with, he was so well satisfied with a string of spools, a tin pan and a spoon, that he was left to his own devices.

“I don’t think that performance of his on the tin pan is particularly edifying,” remarked Claudia.

“Then let’s call it an accompaniment,” said Winnie; “we’ll all sing. No doubt he will like the added noise.”

“Excellent scheme,” returned Claudia. “What shall we sing, girls?”

“Oh, do let’s sing a lullaby,” said Betty Streeter, “‘Sweet and Low,’ for instance, then maybe he’ll go to sleep.”

They all laughed, but some one started up the song. However, this only encouraged the baby to beat harder upon his pan, so very soon laughter stopped this song, for, said Winnie, the accompaniment was anything but sweet and low.

The shadows were falling and pretty soon one girl and another gathered up her sewing and prepared to leave. Winnie displayed a fairly good buttonhole, Joanne viewed the last half of her hem with more satisfaction than she did the first, and decided that after all sewing was less of a bugbear than she had supposed, so she made up her mind to attempt a more ambitious piece of work which she could use as a test for her grade of Second Class Scout.

It had stopped raining, but Winnie insisted upon lending her a pair of rubbers, for Joanne declared she wanted to walk home since she had not taken outdoor exercise that day. Virgie bore away the baby who was persuaded to show off enough to shake a chubby hand in farewell, and the day which had begun so unpromisingly, ended in a gorgeous sunset.

Joanne walked home with Claudia Price who lived in her neighborhood. “Why weren’t you at school this morning?” inquired Claudia.

Joanne explained, adding, “I didn’t dream when I got up this morning that I should have really a busy, happy day. A few months ago I would be in bed with a headache after such a disappointment.”

Claudia laughed. “Is that your way of doing usually? What spared you this time?”

“The Girl Scouts,” replied Joanne gravely, “at least it was Winnie who set me on the right road. She called me a cry baby, which I was, and said I’d better work at some of my tests, a thing I hadn’t thought of doing, and when I looked into my handbook I came face to face with the law which says a Girl Scout must be cheerful, so there you are. Win was so funny, too, that I realized how silly I was to take a disappointment so to heart. Of course it was a disappointment.”

“It certainly was to all of us, but by this time our fun would be partly over, and now we have all of it still to look forward to.”

“So we have; I never thought of that, but there are lots of things I haven’t thought of. You see I have lived with grown-ups mostly and I am afraid I get to thinking about myself too much. It has never occurred to me till lately that I should think of what is best for other people. My grandmother humored me because I was delicate, and if my governess tried to make me do things I didn’t want to do I had only to cry and work myself into a headache and my grandmother would give in at once. I am just beginning to see what a mean, nasty way it was to act.”

“Well, there is one thing,” said Claudia cheerfully, “if you think it was a mean, nasty way,--I agree with you that it was,--you won’t want to keep it up, will you?”

“No-o,” returned Joanne a little doubtfully, “but I don’t suppose I will turn into a lion of courage at once.”

“But I suppose the attacks will become less and less severe,” responded Claudia with a little laugh. “If you just take a dose of Girl Scout law when you find them coming on they will soon cease to be chronic. If you find the condition persists, just call up Miss Dodge; she will give you a prescription.”

Joanne laughed. “You’d think with a doctor grandfather I wouldn’t need one. He isn’t quite as indulgent as Gradda, and really can be quite severe at times, though I can usually coax him into doing what I want.”

Claudia shook her head. “Bad child; that’s taking a mean advantage, and you mustn’t do it.”

“Oh, dear, no, I suppose I mustn’t. It seems to me that being a Girl Scout means a lot more than just getting badges.”

“Of course it does. It means character building.”

“And health building. I seem a long way off from being even a Second Class Scout.”

“Don’t you believe it. It is a question of will. Make up your mind and then go to it. Why, my child, if you did but know it you are on the high road already.”

“Why, Claudia, after this morning?”

“Don’t say ‘after this morning,’ say after to-day. Honestly now, would you have looked at things last evening at this time as you are doing this evening? All things being equal, if the trip to your cousin’s were planned for to-morrow instead of to-day would you dissolve into a weepy mess of tears when you found we couldn’t go?”

“Well, no, I hope not. I’d try mighty hard to chirk up outside no matter how I felt inside.”

“There! What did I tell you? I think you’ve made a big jump from babyhood into--what shall we say?--Girl Scouthood? Allow me as patrol leader as well as sister Scout to say that you need not be discouraged; we’ll have you a Golden Eaglet yet if all goes well.”

“Oh, Claudia!”

“Sure thing. Chirk up; you’ll get there. I turn off here. Good-bye, and don’t forget my parting words.”

Joanne waved a farewell and went on with high hopes. “What darlings they are; even Claudia, that I was half afraid of and was sure I shouldn’t ever be real friends with, is a perfect love. It’s been a wonderful day. I believe, after all, that I am glad our trip to the country is ahead of us instead of being half over.”

She went into the house humming: “The End of a Perfect Day,” and found her grandmother looking for her.

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Selden, “I thought it was high time you were here. You didn’t walk home without your rubbers, did you?”

“No, Gradda, Winnie lent me a pair of hers. Claudia and I saw the sunset from the bridge; it was gorgeous and the cathedral loomed up so grandly as we looked up Rock Creek. We went out of our way so as to see it all. I like Claudia.”

“Did you have a good time, and have you had any return of your headache?”

“We had a great old time with a baby, and I have forgotten that I ever thought of having a headache. I don’t mean to have any more.”

“Oh, my dear, don’t say that. I am afraid you will not outgrow them at once.”

“Well, I don’t mean to cry myself into them; that’s what I mean. I should want to go back to bibs and feeding spoons if I did. I’m getting to be a perfect Pollyanna, Gradda.” She gave her grandmother a hug and kiss, then went up-stairs continuing her song of “The End of a Perfect Day.”