Chapter 10 A TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT

January closed with its immemorial thaw and February drew near in a mist of speculation as to whether it would come in like a lion or a lamb. But whatever may have been the state of the weather outside when the new month arrived, the Winnebago barometer registered a tempest in a teapot. It was Katherine who was responsible for that particular barometric activity. That is, it was she who attached the fuse to the bomb and set the match to it. All the bomb did was blow up.

The Winnebagos were all over at Katherine's one Friday afternoon after school, painting a buffalo robe that was to hang on the wall in the Open Door Lodge and cover an unsightly board. Veronica was in one of her rare cheerful moods and played gay tunes on her violin while the other girls worked. She was gradually thawing toward the girls, although she was still very conservative in her friendships. She was most friendly toward Gladys and Hinpoha, the two girls who came from the best family. She was not particularly drawn to merry, tomboyish Sahwah, because she was not musical, although they got along. Thus also it was with Medmangi and Nakwisi. But from the first Katherine Adams had seemed to rub her the wrong way. Big, clumsy, awkward Katherine, uncultured and hopelessly plebeian! She always managed to step on Veronica's dainty shoes or sit on her cherished violin or spill cocoa on her dress. And her flyaway appearance constantly jarred on Veronica's artistic nature. And that ridiculous, unmusical voice!

Looking only at these defects, Veronica failed to appreciate the wonderful magnetism of Katherine's personality and the unfailing good nature which made her a boon companion any hour out of the twenty-four whatever the weather might be. Not being American-born, Veronica believed firmly in class distinctions, and to her Katherine was a peasant and thus an inferior.

However, to the others it seemed that the strangeness between them and Veronica was wearing away, and this afternoon they felt closer to her than they ever had before. She even asked, actually asked, to be shown how to make "slumgullion"-she who a few months before had scornfully maintained that cooking was for servants and not for ladies. "She's getting there!" whispered Gladys to Hinpoha, with a delighted squeeze. Spirits ran high and before long everybody felt they must dance or burst.

"It's too bad we haven't Nyoda's old banjo over here," said Sahwah. "Then some of the rest of us could play and Veronica could dance."

"I'll go over and get it," said Katherine obligingly. So she went over to Nyoda's house and got the banjo, and it was on this errand that her feet became entangled in the fuse that led to the bomb. On the doorstep of the house next to Nyoda's, the house where Veronica dwelt, there sat a snowy white poodle, fresh from a bath and rivalling in purity a field of virgin snow. This was Fifi, Veronica's French poodle, who had come to her as a Christmas gift, and whose pedigree was considerably longer than he was. Fifi did not share his young mistress's ideas as to the unfitness of the peasantry for association with the high born, and took a decided fancy to Katherine at first sight. Just how much he was influenced by half a sugar cookie, which she held out to him over the fence, it is impossible to say, but when Katherine turned out of Nyoda's yard and went up the street, Fifi was at her heels and refused to be shooed home.

"Well, come along, then, if you want to," she said good-naturedly. "I suppose you're lonesome with all your folks gone and want some improvin' company, like us. A great hostess I'd be, if I turned down a dog that wanted to come to my At Home Day."

The January thaw was still in progress, although it was the first of February, and the streets were lakes of slush and mud. Katherine did not mind mud in the least and stepped cheerfully into the puddles. Fifi did likewise. By the time they arrived at the house the comparison of the field of virgin snow no longer held good. Even Katherine hesitated about admitting him.

Veronica shrieked when she saw him and did not share his delight at the unexpected meeting. "Oh-oh-oh!" she exclaimed in dismay. "He is to go to the Dog Show tonight. Katie spent all morning washing and combing him. How did he ever get out? She must have left the door open. And then you had to coax him over here, and now look at him!" After a hasty glance the rest decided they would rather not look at him.

"Well," said Katherine, much taken aback, but still mistress of the situation, "I'll just give him a nice bath and carry him home and everything will be all right. Go on dancing, girls, there's the banjo; Fifi and I will entertain ourselves in the basement."

She set the squirming lump of mud into one of the wash tubs and let warm water run over him from a faucet for a few minutes to remove the clods. Then she set to work in earnest. She hesitated for some time about what kind of soap to use and finally decided that dog's hair was the same as camel's hair; camel's hair was wool; and therefore, according to the most familiar problem in the whole geometry, Fifi was all wool and needed Wool Soap. Now the mud through which Fifi and Katherine had come was the yellow clayey kind that sticketh closer than a brother, and Wool Soap was not designed especially to dissolve it. After three scrubbings and rinsings Fifi was still a muddy, yellowish gray, and there was no hope that he would dry into a field of virgin white as a yellow popcorn kernel bursts into snowy blossom.

Katherine was discouraged. Then she suddenly remembered something. "Clothes always come out yellow if you wash them in just soap," she said triumphantly to herself. "It's the bluing that makes them white. Fifi needs bluing!"

But a thorough search of the laundry room failed to reveal any bluing. "Shucks!" exclaimed Katherine in vexation. "We're out of it. I heard Aunt Anna mention it this morning. And the stores are closed this afternoon. What will I do? I don't dare produce Fifi unless he's all white and nice." Then it was that Katherine's mighty genius set to work. A less resourceful person would have been at a standstill when confronted with such a difficulty; a genius makes a way when there is none. In one respect Katherine was an equal of the gods-what she wished and did not have she created. She wished bluing; she must have it; so she calmly set about making it. Katherine took chemistry and knew that iodine, applied to starch, will turn it blue. There was iodine in the house and there was starch. The pucker vanished from her brow. A far-sighted person would have foreseen other results from the mixture beside the chemical action of the iodine on the starch. But Katherine was not a far-sighted person. She was a genius. It is said that geniuses, entirely absorbed in one idea, often forget the most commonplace fact altogether. Thus it was that Katherine, filled with the idea that starch turns blue when mixed with iodine, forgot the original purpose for which starch was invented. And Katherine had used flat-iron starch, the kind that gets stiff without boiling. It turned blue-a beautiful bright purple blue-and she immersed Fifi again and again. Katherine had to admit that he looked dreadfully blue when he emerged from the final dip, but serene in the belief that he would dry pure white like the clothes did, she rolled him up in a piece of carpet and set him in a wash basket beside the furnace to dry. Then she went upstairs and joined the dancers, announcing with a sigh of relief that Fifi was clean once more and could come up as soon as he was dry.

Having been told that Fifi was clean, they naturally looked for a white dog, and it was not their fault that they did not recognize the creature that slunk into their midst in the middle of the revels. As an Animal from Nowhere he would have taken the prize over the head of the famous Salmonkey. His hair was pasted flat to his sides in long, stringy waves, giving him a queer, corrugated effect. His head was a dirty, yellowish white, for, in keeping his eyes out of the blue bath, Katherine had held his whole head out; and the rest of him was a bright purplish blue. With his excited red tongue hanging out in front he looked like a dilapidated remnant of the American flag. The girls shrieked and fled before him. Katherine sank weakly down on the couch and viewed him in consternation.

"Whatever did you do to him?" wailed Veronica, when informed that this was actually Fifi and not some freak animal from the Zoo.

"I wanted to blue him to make him nice and silvery white," explained Katherine ruefully, "and there wasn't any bluing, so I made some with iodine and starch. I thought he would come out all nice and fluffy, but instead of that he got-all-stiff!"

The Winnebagos burst out into a wild peal of laughter that made the windows rattle. They were simply helpless, and laughed until they sank limply on each other's shoulders. The simplicity of Katherine's inspirations was nothing short of sublime.

Gaining a measure of control over themselves, they became aware that Veronica was standing before them with eyes flashing lightning, in such a passion as they had never seen any girl display. Holding her translated pet in her arms, she stamped her foot and almost hissed at Katherine: "Don't you ever come near me again, you-you great big kangaroo from out of the west!

"And the rest of you are just as bad," she cried, blazing at them collectively. "You think it's funny. I wish I had never met you, and from this day I am no more a Camp Fire Girl! I am through with you!" And before they could collect their wits to reply she had rushed out of the house like a whirlwind.

Completely sobered by the result of her act, Katherine called herself one name after another and proposed the most extravagant things in the nature of penance. She and Nyoda talked it over a long time, and Nyoda made her see how a habit of doing things without thinking of the consequences led to more trouble than deliberately planned evil did, and she promised faithfully that this was the last rash act she would ever perform.

"Now that Veronica has had time to think it over and see the funny side, and realize that Fifi is not hurt, I think you may go over and present your sincere apologies and make your peace with Veronica," said Nyoda. And Katherine, humble as the dust, set forth.

But Veronica would have none of her peace offerings. She received her apology coldly, and declared she would never come back into the ranks of the Winnebagos. Then did Katherine go to Nyoda and offer to resign from the group if that would bring Veronica back. "She has a better right to be in it than I," she said. "She was in it first."

But Nyoda would not consent to that at all. "The whole thing isn't worth such heroic measures," she declared. "I'll talk to Veronica myself."

And she did, with no better results than Katherine. Veronica would not be appeased, even now that Fifi was white once more, and had suffered no evil effects from his bluing. Veronica declared that Katherine was low class, and not fit for her to associate with. And she wouldn't forgive the others for laughing. So Nyoda had to go back and report her failure to the other girls. And sadly they realized that their hope of making Veronica into a Winnebago had evaporated.