“Do you live up there?” Louise asked her. “And does your father drink?”
“Yep,” said Sandy. “Favver? Course he dwinks. Evvybody dwinks.”
“Think of being brought up to think things like that,” said Louise.
“Don’t you think,” suggested Winona, “that we’d better take her back to camp? I don’t know the way to the place Tom talks about, and maybe it would be best for Mrs. Bryan to take her anyway, if they do drink.”
“Good idea,” said everybody. Sandy herself seemed pleased, and attached herself to them as readily as a stray puppy would have done. They cleared up leisurely, then got back into the canoe, taking the child in, too. It was rather a close fit, though it was an eighteen-foot canoe, but they managed it. She was no more trouble than Puppums would have been—Puppums, fortunately, had been left with Florence. They had a good day with the fishing, and trailed into Camp Karonya at six with fish for breakfast; and Sandy.
“Good luck!” were Tom’s parting words. “We’ll come to-morrow and help you take her back, if you like.”
“You needn’t bother,” said his sister. “We’ll take the faithful rowboat.”
“We aren’t going to take her back!” insisted Louise. “I’m going to adopt her. Sandy, wouldn’t you like to live with me? _I’d_ dress you in nice clothes and give you a dolly.”
“An’ five cents?” demanded Sandy, “An’ things to eat?”
“Oh, the poor baby!” said Louise. “She’s had to think about money and food and grown-up things like the poor little children you read about in the pamphlets. Yes, indeed, you shall, Sandy.”
“She looks well-fed,” said Tom. “Well, good luck. Don’t get a reputation for collecting them—you mayn’t be able to dispose of orphans as easily as you can kittens.”
They parted, and Louise carried Sandy into camp. They arrived as supper was about ready. The Blue Birds carried the fish off to the ice-box (it was literally a box, a very ingenious arrangement of sawdust and wood which had meant a bead for Elizabeth) and the rest clustered about Louise’s treasure-trove.
“Better find out if she really needs adopting,” advised Marie as they sat around the long table, and Sandy exercised an appetite as large as her noon one.
“With a drunken father, and no mother, and looking like that?” fired up Louise. “I’m going to wash her after supper.”