mething," she said. And dived back into
the shadow like an alarmed young tadpole.

No one had ever accused the Penguins of inertia. They proceeded at
once to do something. And the counselors wished afterward that it had
been white mice again.

* * * * *

Thus it came about that one April morning the following year Pip-Emma
Binns sat at her desk by the classroom window and wrote an English
composition called "Trees." Or rather she was not writing. She was
chewing bits out of a wooden pen-holder and balefully regarding the
back of Vittoria Emanuella Perozzi, the class' champion essayist.
Vittoria used words which Miss Perkins called metaphors and similes
and which Pip-Emma called baloney. If a person looked white, why not
just say so? Why bring in sheets? However, Miss Perkins thought a lot
of that sort of thing, and so, no doubt, would the dames who were
giving a prize of two months' vacation in some swell kids' camp for
the best description of trees.

What did a tree look like? In Pip-Emma's opinion it looked like a
tree. But she knew that wouldn't get her anywhere--certainly not to
Camp Happy Warriors, where Pop and Ma were hell-bent on her going. She
pulled her dark brows together. She wiped an inky hand over her black
hair drawn back into a short defiant pigtail. Then inspiration struck
her, too. Very carefully she wrote two sentences. "I can't describe
trees. I haven't seen any." And signed it Emma Binns.

It was like a metaphor. It wasn't true. It was baloney. But to Mrs.
VanSittart and her committee it was just too heart-rending. No trees.
Poor little Emma Binns! As for Vittoria Emanuella Perozzi, she had
evidently seen so many trees so often and so beautifully that, in the
committee's opinion, there was no urgent need for her to see any more
of them.

* * * * *

The Happy Warriors were gathered with their counselors and under their
respective banners in Grand Central Terminal, and Clara VanSittart
inspected the Penguins like a colonel inspecting a regiment before
battle. She gave last orders. After all, the Social Conscience had
been her idea, and it had to go over with a bang so that even the
Pelicans would be impressed.

"Every Penguin," she said, "must remember to be kind. The poor kid
won't be able to do the things we do, and I guess she'll do a lot we
don't. But you're not to look s'perior or call her down so as to hurt
her feelings. We've got to remember we'd be like her if we didn't
belong to t