Winona braced herself a little, and “I’m out, too,” she said gayly. “There’s no use asking me to stay—I don’t like your old float!”
She sprang ashore, and went over and stood by Marie.
The girls protested, and several more volunteered to drop out, but nobody meant it quite as hard as Winona did. So the Indian village went on being erected, and the girls went on practising an Indian dance which should take up the least possible room. Meanwhile Winona rounded up the finished mending and rowed up the river to deliver the latest basket of mended socks and shirts. She had made her sacrifice in all good faith and earnestness, but she felt as if she didn’t want to see them going gayly on without her—at least, not right _now_.
She wasn’t conscious of behaving any way but as she generally did, but she must have, for both Tom and Billy watched her uneasily, as she sat in the boat and talked to them after they had taken the mending, while she waited for the orderly to come with her money.
“What’s the matter, Win?” asked Tom bluntly in a minute. “You’re down and out—I can see that. Who’s been doing anything to you?”
“Then what have _you_ been doing?” asked Billy. They stood over her, both looking so worried that Winona felt like hugging them, or crying, or both.
“It isn’t anything,” she said. “Except—well, I did it myself. Somebody had to stay off the float, because there wasn’t room for everyone, so I elected myself. And—and—oh, I _did_ want to be in that carnival! But”—she straightened bravely, and smiled up into the two indignant faces—“I guess it’s all right, after all. If I could decorate my rowboat it would be all right, but I can’t, because they’re going to need it to carry properties in.”
“It’s a confounded shame,” said Billy Lee, “and after you planned it, and all! You ought to have a float of your own. I’ll tell you, Winona, why don’t you decorate a canoe?”
“Only reason is, I haven’t a canoe,” laughed Winona—they were all three sitting in a row in the grass by this time.
“I have,” said Billy, “and you’re more than welcome to it, and to all the help I can give you on it.”
“And I’ve got some change you’re welcome to for decorations,” added Tom.
“Oh, how perfectly lovely!” said Winona, jumping up with her face aglow. “Indeed I will decorate it, and thank you both, ever and ever so much. I have ever so many lovely ideas for decorations. Billy!”