"What on earth?" cried Hinpoha in bewilderment.

"It's the Alley Initiation!" exclaimed Sahwah. "I heard someone asking when it was going to be. Mary Sylvester and Jo Severance and several more of the old girls were talking about it while they were in the water today. It seems that the girls who have lived in the Alley before always hold an initiation for the new girls before they let them in on their larks."

"I wonder what they're going to do to us," mused Hinpoha. "That advice to bring your bathing suit sounds suspicious to me."

"Do you suppose they're going to throw us into the river?" asked Agony.

"Nonsense," replied Sahwah. "Half the new girls in the Alley can't swim.

Dr. Grayson wouldn't allow it, anyway. He made a girl come out of the water during swimming hour this morning for trying to duck another girl.

They'll just make us ridiculous, that's all."

"Well, whatever they ask us to do, let's not make a fuss," said Hinpoha.

"Here comes Miss Judy. Put that letter out of sight and act perfectly unconcerned."

Sahwah whipped the envelope into her suitcase and flung herself down on her bed; the others followed her example; and when a moment later Miss Judy stepped into the tent and looked quizzically at the trio she found them apparently wrapped in placid slumber.

Shortly before seven that evening, when the Avenue girls were dancing in the bungalow, Sahwah and Hinpoha and Agony quietly detached themselves from the group and slipped down to the dock to find Katherine and Oh-Pshaw and Jean Lawrence already down there, swinging their feet over the end of the pier and waiting for something to happen. Down the hillside other forms were stealing; Migwan, and Gladys, and Bengal Virden, followed by Tiny Armstrong, until practically all the inhabitants of the Alley were gathered upon the dock. Miss Judy was leaning over the edge of the pier untying the launch.

The neophytes watched intently every move that the old girls made, and were somewhat rea.s.sured when they saw that they had brought their bathing suits, too.

"Are all a.s.sembled?" asked Miss Judy, straightening up and looking over her shoulder inquiringly.

"Not yet," answered Mary Sylvester, taking an inventory of girls present.

"Who isn't here yet?"

"Carmen Chadwick and the Lone Wolf. Oh, they're coming now, so is Miss Amesbury."

Migwan felt a little fl.u.s.tered as Miss Amesbury came smiling into their midst. She didn't in the least mind being initiated, but she did rather hate to have Miss Amesbury see her made ridiculous. She would much rather not have her looking on.

Carmen Chadwick looked quite pale and scared as she joined the group on the dock, and took hold of Katherine's arm as if to seek her protection.

"All ready now?" asked Miss Judy.

"Ay, ay, skipper," replied Tiny Armstrong.

"Man the boat!" commanded Miss Judy.

The girls got into the launch and Miss Judy started the engine. They rode a short distance up the river to the Whaleback, a small island shaped, as its name indicated, like a whale's back. It was quite flat, only slightly elevated above the surface of the water. On one side it had rather a wide beach covered with stones and littered with driftwood; behind this beach rose a dense growth of pines that extended down to the very edge of the water on the other side of the island.

The initiation party disembarked upon the beach. A huge fire was laid ready and Miss Judy lit it, then she requested the new girls to sit down in a place which she designated at one side of it, while the old girls seated themselves in a row opposite. Sahwah took note that the new girls were in the full glare of the firelight, while the old ones sat in the shadow.

Miss Judy opened the ceremonies. Stepping into the light, she addressed the neophytes. "Since the dwellers in the Alley live together in such intimate companionship it is necessary that all be properly introduced to each other, so that we shall never mistake our own. We shall now proceed with the introductions. As soon as a new girl or councilor recognizes herself in the pictures we shall proceed to draw, let her come forward and bow to the ground three times in acknowledgment, uttering the words, 'Behold, it is I! who else _could_ it be?'"

She poked up the fire to a brighter blaze and then sat down beside Tiny Armstrong on the end of a log. As she seated herself Jo Severance rose and came forward demurely. Jo was an accomplished elocutionist, and a born mimic. a.s.suming a timid, shrinking demeanor, and speaking in a high, shrill voice, she piped,

"Mother, may I go out to swim?"

"Yes, my darling daughter, Put on your nice new bathing suit, But don't go near the water!"

"Don't you think it's unladylike to have your muscles all hard and developed?"

Oh-Pshaw buried her face in her handkerchief with a convulsive giggle.

The voice, the intonation, the expression, were Carmen Chadwick to a T.

But how did the Alleys know about her att.i.tude toward bathing? She had not told anyone. Then she recalled that the Lone Wolf had walked behind them on the pier that morning when Carmen had been talking to her. Had the Lone Wolf also heard them talking about her? Agony wondered in a sudden rush of embarra.s.sment.

There was no mistaking the first "portrait." All eyes were focused upon Carmen, and blushing and shrinking she went forward to make the required acknowledgment.

"Beh-hold, it is I; w-who else could it be?" she faltered, and it sounded so irresistibly funny that the listeners went into spasms of mirth.

Carmen crept back to her place and hid her face in Katherine's lap while Jo Severance pa.s.sed on to the next "portrait." Climbing up an enormous tree stump, she flung out her arms and began to shriek wildly, waving back an imaginary group of girls. Then she proclaimed in important tones: "It had broad, alternating rings of black and red, the distinguishing marks of the coral snake, one of the seventeen poisonous reptiles out of the one hundred and eleven species of snakes found in the United States. It reared up and menaced me with its great, wicked--"

The remainder of her speech was lost in the great roar of laughter that went up from old and new girls alike.

Miss Peckham turned fiery red, and looked angrily from Jo Severance to Miss Judy, but there was no help for it; she had to go forward and claim the portrait.

"Behold, it is I; who else _could_ it be?" she snapped, and the mirth broke out louder than before. The "who else _could_ it be?" was so like Miss Peckham.

One by one the other candidates were shown their portraits, that is, as many as had displayed any conspicuous peculiarities.

"O Pom-pom! O dear Pom-pom, O _darling_ Pom-pom!" gushed Jo, rolling her eyes in ecstasy, and Bengal Virden, laughing sheepishly, went forward.

Miss Amesbury watched the performance with tears of merriment rolling down her cheeks. "I never saw anything so funny!" she exclaimed to Mary Sylvester. "That phrase, 'who else _could_ it be' is a perfect gem."

Agony was somewhat disappointed that her portrait was not painted; it would have drawn her into more notice. So far she was only "among those present" at camp. None of the old girls had paid any attention to her.

After all the portraits had been painted the rest of the girls were called upon to do individual stunts. Some sang, some made speeches, some danced, and the worse the performance the greater the applause from the initiators. One slender, dark-eyed girl with short hair whistled, with two fingers in her mouth. At the first note Migwan and Gladys started and clasped each other's hands. The mystery of the fairy piping they had heard in the woods that first afternoon was solved. The same clear, sweet notes came thrilling out between her fingers, alluring as the pipes of Pan. The whistler was a girl named Noel Carrington; she was one of the younger girls whom n.o.body had noticed particularly before. Her whistling brought wild applause which was perfectly sincere; her performance delighted the audience beyond measure. She was called back again and again until at last, quite out of breath, she begged for mercy, when she was allowed to retire on the condition that she would whistle some more as soon as she got her breath back.

Noel's performance closed the stunts. When she had sat down Miss Judy rose and said that she guessed the Alley dwellers were pretty well acquainted with each other, and would now go for a swim in the moonlight. Soon all but Carmen Chadwick were splashing in the silvery water, playing hide and seek with the moonbeams on the ripples and feeling a thrill and a magic in the river which was never there in the daylight. After a glorious frolic they came out to stand around the fire and eat marshmallows until it was time to go back to camp.

"Initiation wasn't so terrible after all," Carmen confided to Katherine in the launch.

"Heaps of fun," replied Katherine, laughing reminiscently.

"Isn't Miss Peckham a prune?" whispered Sybil's voice behind Katherine.

"I'm glad she's not my councilor."

"She's mine, worse luck," answered Bengal Virden's voice dolefully.

"Too bad," whispered Sybil feelingly.

The launch came up alongside the dock just as the first bugle was blowing, and the Alley, old girls arm in arm with the new, went straight up to bed.

CHAPTER V