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.