“I suppose there’s no getting around you,” sighed Aunt Phoebe, sinking back on her pillow.  “If it wasn’t a bird you’d be having something else.  Only keep him out of my sight!” Hinpoha caught the owl and carried him out with many flutters and pecks.  The cage door stood open and the wires were bent out, showing where his powerful bill had pecked until he gained his freedom.  Hinpoha fastened him in again and he stepped decorously up on his perch and sat there in such a dignified attitude that it was hard to believe him capable of breaking jail and entering a lady’s bedroom.

Aunt Phoebe spent the next day in bed, recovering from her fright.  This was the night of the Camp Fire meeting which Hinpoha had been given permission to attend.  She had been in such a fever of anticipation all week that Aunt Phoebe was surprised when she came into her room after supper and sat down with the History of the Presbyterian Church.  “Well, aren’t you going to that precious meeting of yours?” she asked sharply.

“I think,” said Hinpoha slowly, “that I had better stay at home with you.”

“I won’t die without you,” said Aunt Phoebe drily.  “I can ring for Mary if I want anything.”

A mighty struggle was going on inside of Hinpoha.  First she saw in her mind’s eye her beloved Winnebagos, having a meeting at Nyoda’s house, the place where she best loved to go to meetings, waiting to welcome her back into their midst with open arms; and then she saw this cross old woman, her aunt, sick and lonesome, left alone in the house with a maid who despised her.  With the cup of enjoyment raised to her lips she set it down again.  “I think I would rather stay with you, Aunt Phoebe,” she said simply.  And in the Desert of Waiting there blossomed a fragrant rose!

The deferred celebration for Hinpoha’s return into the Winnebago fold was held the following week.  With the joy of the returned pilgrim she took her place in the Council Circle, and once more joined in singing, “Burn, Fire, Burn,” and “Mystic Fire,” and this time when Nyoda called the roll and pronounced the name “Hinpoha,” she was answered by a joyous “Kolah” instead of the sorrowful silence which had followed that name for so many weeks.

February froze, thawed, snowed and sleeted itself off the calendar, and March set in like a roaring lion, with a worse snowstorm than even the Snow Moon had produced.  Venturesome treebuds, who loved the warm sun like Aunt Phoebe loved her heating pad, and who had crept out of their dark blankets one balmy day in February to be nearer the genial heat giver, shivered until their sap froze in their veins, and a drab-colored phoebe bird, who had nested under the eaves of the Bradford porch the year before, coming back to his summer residence according to the date marked on his calendar, huddled disconsolately beside the old nest, feeling sure that he would contract bronchitis before the wife of his bosom arrived to join him.