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Title: The Torch Bearer
A Camp Fire Girls' Story
Author: I. T. Thurston
Release Date: December 23, 2007 [eBook #23987]
Language: English
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THE TORCH BEARER
* * * * * *
BY I. T. THURSTON
The Torch Bearer
A Camp Fire Girls' Story. Illustrated, 12mo, net $1.00.
The author of "The Bishop's Shadow" and "The Scout Master of Troop 5"
has scored another conspicuous success in this new story of girl life.
She shows conclusively that she knows how to reach the heart of a girl
as well as that of a boy.
The Scout Master of Troop 5
By author of "The Bishop's Shadow." Illustrated, 12mo, cloth,
net $1.00.
"The daily life of the city boys from whom the scouts are recruited
is related, and the succession of experiences afterward coming
delightfully to them--country hikes, camp life, exploring
expeditions, and the finding of real hidden treasure. The depiction
of boy nature is unusually true to life, and there are many
realistic scenes and complications to try out traits of
character."--_N. Y. Sun_.
The Big Brother of Sabin Street
Containing the story of Theodore Bryan (The Bishop's Shadow).
Illustrated, 12mo, cloth, net $1.00.
"This volume is the sequel to the Story of Theodore Bryan, 'The
Bishop's Shadow,' which came into prominence as a classic among
boys' books and was written to supply the urgent demand for a story
continuing the account of Theodore's work among the
boys."--_Western Recorder_.
The Bishop's Shadow
Illustrated, cloth, net $1.00.
"A captivating story of dear Phillips Brooks and a little street
gamin of Boston. The book sets forth the almost matchless character
of the Christlike bishop in most loving and lovely lines."--_The
Interior_.
* * * * * *
THE TORCH BEARER
A Camp Fire Girls' Story
by
I. T. THURSTON
Author of "The Bishop's Shadow," "The Scout Master of Troop 5,"
Etc., Etc.
Illustrated
[Illustration: The Torch Bearer]
New York--Chicago--Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1913, by
Fleming H. Revell Company
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
To
M. N. T.
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Torch Bearer Frontispiece
"At last a tiny puff of smoke arose" 14
"Soon the flames began to blaze and crackle,
filling the air with a spicy fragrance" 20
A group of girls busy over beadwork 34
"We pull long, we pull strong" 78
"Wood had been gathered earlier in the day" 90
A favourite rendezvous at the camp 212
"Just think of the Lookout at this very minute!" 220
CONTENTS
I. The Camp in the Forest 11
II. Introducing the Problem 24
III. The Camp Coward Dares 31
IV. The Poor Thing 44
V. Wind and Weather 65
VI. A Water Cure 77
VII. Honours Won 88
VIII. Elizabeth at Home 98
IX. Jim 119
X. Sadie Page 137
XI. Boys and Old Ladies 147
XII. Nancy Rextrew 155
XIII. A Camp Fire Christmas 168
XIV. Lizette 181
XV. An Open Door for Elizabeth 200
XVI. Camp Fire Girls and the Flag 212
XVII. Sonia 220
XVIII. The Torch Uplifted 233
XIX. Clear Shining After Darkness 243
I
THE CAMP IN THE FOREST
"Wohelo--wohelo--wo-_he_-lo!"
The clear, musical call, rising from the green tangle of the forest that
fringed the bay, seemed to float lingeringly above the treetops and out
over the wide stretch of gleaming water, to a girl in a green canoe, who
listened intently until the last faint echo died away, then began
paddling rapidly towards the wooded slope. The sun, just dropping below
the horizon, flooded the western sky with a blaze of colour that turned
the wide waters into a sea of gold, through which the little craft
glided swiftly, scattering from its slender prow showers of shining
drops.
"I'm going to find out what that means," the girl said under her breath.
"It sounds like an Indian call, but I'm sure those were not Indian
voices."
On and on, steadily, swiftly, swept the green canoe, until, rounding a
wooded point, it slipped suddenly into a beautiful little cove where
there was a floating dock with a small fleet of canoes and rowboats
surrounding it, and steps leading up the slope. The girl smiled as she
stepped lightly out on the dock, and fastened her canoe to one of the
rings.
"A girls' camp it surely is," she said to herself. "I'm going to get a
glimpse of it anyhow."
Running up the steps, she followed a well-trodden path through a pine
grove, and in a few minutes, through the trees, she caught the gleam of
white tents and stopped to reconnoitre. A dozen or more tents were set
irregularly around an open space; also there was a large frame building
with canvas instead of boarding on two sides, and adjoining this a small
frame shack, evidently a kitchen--and girls were everywhere.
"O, I'm hungry for girls!" breathed the one peering through the green
branches. "I wonder if I dare venture----" She broke off abruptly,
staring in surprise at a group approaching her. Then she ran forward
crying out, "Why, Anne Wentworth--to think of finding you here!"
"To think of finding _you_ here, Laura Haven! Where did you drop from?"
cried the other. The two were holding each other's hands and looking
into each other's faces with eyes full of glad surprise.
"I? I didn't drop--I climbed--up the steps from the landing," Laura
laughed. "I was out on the bay in my canoe--we came up yesterday in the
yacht--and I heard that beautiful Indian call, and I just _had_ to find
out where it came from, and what it meant. I suspected a girls' camp,
but of course I never dreamed of finding you here. Do tell me all about
it. It is a camp, isn't it?"
"Yes, we are Camp Fire Girls," Anne Wentworth replied. She glanced
behind her, but the others had disappeared. "They vanished for fear they
might be in the way," she said. "O Laura, I'm so glad you're here, for
this is the night for our Council Fire. You can stay to it, can't
you--I'm sure you would be interested."
"Stay--how long? It's after sunset now."
"O, stay all night with me, and all day to-morrow. You must stay to the
Council Fire to-night, anyhow."
"I'd love to dearly, but father won't know where I am." Laura's voice
was full of regret.
"Why can't you go back and tell him? I'll go with you," Anne suggested.
"Will there be time before your Council Fire?"
"Yes, if we hurry--wait one minute." Anne called to the nearest girl,
gave her a brief message, and turned again to her friend. "Come on,
we've no time to lose, but I know how you can make a canoe fly," she
said, and hand-in-hand the two went scurrying through the grove and down
to the landing. Then while the canoe swept swiftly over the water, Anne
Wentworth answered the eager questions of her friend.
"It's a new organisation--the Camp Fire Girls," she explained. "It is
something like the Boy Scouts only, I think, planned on broader lines
and with higher and finer ideals--at any rate it is better suited for
girls. It aims to help them to be healthy, useful, trustworthy, and
happy. Health--work--love--as shown in service--these are the ideals on
which we try to build. We have three grades. First a girl becomes a Wood
Gatherer; then after passing certain tests, a Fire Maker, then a Torch
Bearer."
"And which are you?" Laura asked.
"I'm a Guardian--that is, I am the head of one of our city Camp Fires.
Mrs. Royall is our Chief Guardian." She went on to explain about the
work and play, the tests and rewards, ending with, "But you'll
understand it all so much better after our Council Fire to-night."
Laura nodded. "What kind of girls is it for--poor girls--working
girls?" she asked.
"It is for any kind of girls--just girls, you know. Of course we can't
admit any bad ones, nothing else matters. Dorothy Groves is one of my
twelve, and I've two dear little High School girls; all the rest are
working girls. They can stay here at the camp only two weeks--some of
them only ten days--the working girls, I mean, and it would make your
heart ache to see how much those ten days mean to them, and how
intensely they enjoy even the commonest pleasures of camping out."
"Who pays for them?" Laura demanded.
"They pay for themselves. It's no charity, and the charges are very low.
They wouldn't come if it were charity."
Laura shook her head half impatiently. "It's so hard to get a chance
really to help the ones who need help most," she said.
"Yes, it surely is," Anne agreed; and then they were alongside the big
white yacht with its shining brass, and Judge Haven was helping them up
the steps.
Fifteen minutes later they were on their way back to the camp, but this
time in a boat rowed by two of the crew. The last golden gleam of the
afterglow was fading slowly in the West as the two girls came again
through the pines into the open space between the tents. Mrs. Royall met
them and made Laura cordially welcome.
"She's just the right one--a real camp mother," Anne said, as she led
her friend over to a group gathered on the grass before one of the
tents. "And these are my own girls," she added, introducing each by
name.
[Illustration: "At last a tiny puff of smoke arose"]
"You've got to take me right in," Laura told them. "I can't help it if
I am an odd number--I'm going to belong to this particular Camp Fire
to-night."
"Of course we'll take you in, and love to. Aren't you Miss Anne's
friend?" said one, as she snuggled down on the grass beside Laura. "It's
so nice you came on our Council Fire night!"
Laura's eyes swept the group. "It must be nice--you all look so happy,"
she answered.
Anne Wentworth excused herself for a few minutes, and Laura settled back
against a tree with a little sigh of content. "I've been abroad for a
year," she said, "and it seems so good to be with girls again--American
girls! Please, won't you forget that I am here and talk just as if I
were not? I want to sit still and enjoy the place and you
and--everything, for a bit, before your Council begins."
With ready courtesy they took her at her word, and chatted of camp plans
and happenings until the talk was interrupted by a clear musical call
that floated softly out of the gathering dusk.
"How beautiful! What is it?" Laura asked as all the girls started up.
"It's the bugle call to the Council," one explained, "and here comes
Miss Anne."
Laura glanced curiously at her friend's dress. It was a long loose
garment of dark brown, fringed at the bottom and the sleeves. A band of
beadwork was fastened over her forehead, and she wore a long necklace of
bright-coloured beads.
"What is it--a robe of state?" Laura inquired.
"Yes, the ceremonial dress," Anne told her, "but you can't see in this
light how pretty it is. Come on, we must join the procession."
"What has become of your girls?" Laura asked. "They were here a moment
ago."
"They have gone to get their necklaces," Anne returned. "My girls are
all Wood Gatherers as yet--we've not been organised long, you know; but
they've been working hard for honours, and for every honour they are
entitled to add a bead to their necklaces."
"Yours then must represent a great many honours."
"Yes," Anne replied. "You see it incites the girls to work for honours
when they see that their Guardians have worked and won them. The red
beads show that the wearer has won health honours by keeping free from
colds, headaches, etc., for a number of months, or by sleeping out of
doors, or doing some sort of athletics--walking, swimming, rowing, and
the like. The blue ones are for nature study, the black and gold for
business, and so on. Each bead has a meaning for the girl--it tells a
story--and the more she wins, the finer her record, of course."
"What a splendid idea! And how the girls will prize their necklaces
by-and-by, and enjoy recalling the stories connected with them!"
"Yes," Anne agreed, "they will hand them down to their daughters as a
new kind of heirloom, but----" with a laugh she added, "that's looking a
long way ahead, isn't it?"
By this time the two were in the midst of a merry procession of girls
from twelve to twenty, perhaps a third of them wearing the ceremonial
dress.
"What a gay company they are!" Laura commented, as the procession
followed a winding path through the woods, a few carrying lanterns. "Is
there anything in the world, Anne, lovelier than a crowd of happy
girls?"
"Nothing," her friend assented in a low tone. "And, Laura, if you could
only see the difference a few days here make in some of the girls who
have had all work and no play--like some of mine! It is so delightful to
see them grow merry and glad day by day. But here we are. This is our
Council Chamber."
"I want as many eyes as a spider so that I can look every way at once,"
Laura cried as the girls arranged themselves in a large circle. "What
are those girls over there doing?"
"They are the Fire Makers. They were Wood Gatherers for over three
months, and have met the requirements for the second class. Some of the
others are to be made Fire Makers to-night. Watch Mary Walsh--the one
rubbing two sticks. She will make fire without matches--or at least she
will try to."
The girl, with one knee on the ground, was rubbing one stick briskly
back and forth in the groove of another. A little group beside her
watched her with eager interest, two of them holding lanterns, and Mrs.
Royall stood near her, watch in hand. The talk and laughter had ceased
as the circle formed, and now in silence, all eyes were centred on the
girl. Faster and faster her hands moved to the accompaniment of a
whining, scraping sound that rose at intervals to a shrill squeak. At
last a tiny puff of smoke arose, and the girl blew carefully until she
had a glowing spark, which she fed with tiny shreds of wood, until
suddenly it blazed up brightly. Then, springing lightly to her feet,
she stood erect, the flaming wood in her outstretched hand distinctly
revealing her happy, triumphant face against the dark background of the
pines.
There was a quick clamour of applause as Mrs. Royall announced, "Thirty
seconds within the time limit, Mary. Well done! Now light the Council
Fire."
The girl stepped forward and touched her flaming brand to the wood that
had been made ready by the other Fire Makers, and soon the flames began
to blaze and crackle, filling the air with a spicy fragrance, and
sending a vivid glow across the circle of intent young faces. Laura
caught her breath as she looked around the circle.
"What a picture!" she whispered. "It is lovely--lovely!"
At a signal from Mrs. Royall the girls now gathered closer about the
fire and began to chant all together,
"'Wohelo--wohelo--wohelo.
Wohelo means love.
We love love, for love is the heart of life.
It is light and joy and sweetness,
Comradeship and all dear kinship.
Love is the joy of service so deep
That self is forgotten.
Wohelo means love.'"
Then louder swelled the chorus,
"'Wohelo for aye,
Wohelo for aye,
Wohelo, wohelo, wohelo for aye.'"
The last note was followed by a moment of utter silence; then one side
of the circle chanted,
"'Wohelo for work!'"
and the opposite side flung back,
"'Wohelo for health!'"
and all together they chorused exultantly,
"'Wohelo, wohelo, wohelo for love!'"
Then in unison, led by Anne Wentworth, the beautiful Fire Ode was
repeated,
"'O Fire!
Long years ago when our fathers fought with great
animals you were their great protection.
When they fought the cold of the cruel winter you
saved them.
When they needed food you changed the flesh of beasts
into savoury meat for them.
During all the ages your mysterious flame has been
a symbol to them for Spirit.
So, to-night, we light our fire in grateful remembrance
of the Great Spirit who gave you to us.'"
In a few clear-cut sentences Mrs. Royall spoke of the Camp Fire
symbolism--of fire as the living, renewing, all-pervading element--"Our
brother the fire, bright and pleasant, and very mighty and strong," as
being the underlying spirit--the heart of this new order of the girls of
America, as the hearth-fire is the heart of the home. She spoke of the
brown chevron with the crossed sticks, the symbol of the Wood Gatherer,
the blue and orange symbol of the Fire Maker, and the complete insignia
combining both of these with the touch of white representing smoke from
the flame, worn by the Torch Bearer, trying to make clear and vivid the
beautiful meaning of it all.
When the roll-call was read, each girl, as she answered to her name,
gave also the number of honours she had earned since the last meeting.
It was then that Laura, watching the absorbed faces, shook her head with
a sigh as her eyes met Anne's; and Anne nodded with quick understanding.
"Yes," she whispered, "there is some rivalry. It isn't all love and
harmony--yet. But we are working that way all the time."
There was a report of the last Council, written in rather limping rhyme,
and then each girl told of some kind or gentle deed she had seen or
heard of since the last meeting--things ranging all the way from hunting
for a lost glove to going for the doctor at midnight when a girl was
taken suddenly ill in camp. Only one had no kindness to tell. And when
she reported "Nothing" it was as if a shadow fell for a moment over all
the young faces turned towards her.
"Who is that? Her voice sounds so unhappy!" Laura said, and her friend
answered, "I'll tell you about her afterwards. Her name is Olga Priest.
There's a new member to be received to-night. Here she comes."
Laura watched the new member as she stepped out of the circle, and
crossed over to the Chief Guardian.
[Illustration: "Soon the flames began to blaze and crackle, filling the
air with a spicy fragrance"]
"What is your desire?" Mrs. Royall asked, and the girl answered,
"I desire to become a Camp Fire Girl and to obey the law of the Camp
Fire, which is to
"Seek beauty,
Give service,
Pursue knowledge,
Hold on to health,
Glorify work,
Be happy.'
This law of the Camp Fire I will strive to follow."
Slowly and impressively, Mrs. Royall explained to her the law, phrase by
phrase, and as she ceased speaking, the candidate repeated her promise
to keep it, and instantly every girl in the circle, placing her right
hand over her heart, chanted slowly,
"'This law of the fire I will strive to follow
With all the strength and endurance of my body,
The power of my will,
The keenness of my mind,
The warmth of my heart,
And the sincerity of my spirit.'"
And again after the last words--like a full stop in music--came the few
seconds of utter silence.
It was broken by the Chief Guardian. "With this sign you become a Wood
Gatherer," and she laid the fingers of her right hand across those of
her left. The candidate made the same sign; then she held out her hand,
and Mrs. Royall slipped on her finger the silver ring, which all Camp
Fire Girls are entitled to wear, and as she did so she said,
"'As fagots are brought from the forest
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Whenever, wherever you find them.
Be strong as the fagots are sturdy;
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;
And--follow the law of the fire.'"
The girl returned to her place in the circle, and at a sign from Anne
Wentworth, four of her girls followed her as she moved forward and stood
before Mrs. Royall. From a paper in her hand she read the names of the
four girls, and declared that they had all met the tests for the second
grade.
The Chief Guardian turned to the four.
"What is your desire?" she asked, and together they repeated,
"'As fuel is brought to the fire
So I purpose to bring
My strength,
My ambition,
My heart's desire,
My joy,
And my sorrow
To the fire
Of humankind.
For I will tend
As my fathers have tended,
And my father's fathers
Since time began,
The fire that is called
The love of man for man,
The love of man for God.'"
As the young earnest voices repeated the beautiful words, Laura Haven's
heart thrilled again with the solemn beauty of it all, and tears crowded
to her eyes in the silence that followed--a silence broken only by the
whispering of the night wind high in the treetops.
Then Mrs. Royall lifted her hand and soft and low the young voices
chanted,
"'Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame,
O Master of the Hidden Fire;
Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me
My soul's desire.
In flame of service bathe my mind,
O Master of the Hidden Fire,
That when I wake clear-eyed may be
My soul's desire.'"
It was over, and the circle broke again into laughing, chattering
groups. Lanterns were lighted, every spark of the Council Fire carefully
extinguished, and then back through the woods the procession wound,
laughing, talking, sometimes breaking into snatches of song, the
lanterns throwing strange wavering patches of light into the dense
darkness of the woods on either side.
II
INTRODUCING THE PROBLEM
"You did enjoy it, didn't you?" Anne said as the two walked back through
the woods-path to camp.
"I loved every bit of it," was the enthusiastic response. "It's so
different from anything else--so fresh and picturesque and full of
interest! I should think girls would be wild to belong."
"They are. Camp Fires are being organised all over the country. The
trouble is that there are not yet enough older girls trained for
Guardians."
"Where can they get the training?"
"In New York there is a regular training class, and there will soon be
others in other cities," Anne returned, and then, with a laugh, "I
believe you've caught the fever already, Laura."
"I have--hard. You know, Anne, all the time we were abroad I was trying
to decide what kind of work I could take up, among girls, and this
appeals to me as nothing else has done. It seems to me there are great
possibilities in it. I'd like to be a Guardian. Do you think I'm fit?"
"Of course you're fit, dear. O Laura, I'm so glad. We can work together
when we go home."
"But, Anne, I want to stay right here in this camp now. Do you suppose
Mrs. Royall will be willing? Of course I'll pay anything she says----"
"She'll be delighted. She needs more helpers, and I can teach you all I
learned before I took charge of my girls. But will your father be
willing?"
"I'm sure he will. He knows you, and everybody in Washington knows and
honours Mrs. Royall. Father is going to Alaska on a business trip and
I've been trying to decide where I would stay while he is gone. This
will solve my problem beautifully."
"Come then--we'll see Mrs. Royall right now and arrange it," Anne
returned, turning back.
Mrs. Royall was more than willing to accede to Laura's proposal. "Stay
at the camp as long as you like," she said, "and if you really want to
be a Guardian, I will send your name to the Board which has the
appointing power."
"She is lovely, isn't she?" Laura said as they left the Chief Guardian.
"I don't wonder you call her the Camp Mother."
Something in the tone reminded Anne that her friend had long been
motherless, and she slipped her arm affectionately around Laura's waist
as she answered, "She is the most motherly woman I ever met. She seems
to have room in her big, warm heart for every girl that wants mothering,
no matter who or what she is." They were back at the camp now, and she
added, "But we must get to bed quickly--there's the curfew," as a bugle
sounded a few clear notes.
"O dear, I've a hundred and one questions to ask you," sighed Laura.
"They'll keep till morning," replied the other. "It's so hard for the
girls to stop chattering after the curfew sounds! We Guardians have to
set them a good example."
The cots in the sleeping tents were placed on wooden platforms raised
three or four inches from the ground, and on clear nights the sides of
the tents were rolled up. Laura, too interested and excited to sleep at
once, lay in her cot looking out across the open space now flooded with
light from the late-risen moon, and thought of the girls sleeping around
her. Herself an only child, she had a great desire--almost a
passion--for girls; girls who were lonely like herself--girls who had to
struggle with ill-health, poverty, and hard work as she did not.
Suddenly she started up in bed, her eyes wide with half-startled
surprise. Reaching over to the adjoining cot, she touched her friend,
whispering, "Anne, Anne, look!" and as Anne opened drowsy eyes, Laura
pointed to the moonlit space.
Anne stared for a moment, then she laughed softly and whispered back,
"It's a ghost dance, Laura. Some of those irrepressible girls couldn't
resist this moonlight. They're doing an Indian folk dance."
"Isn't it weird--in the moonlight and in utter silence!" Laura said
under her breath. "I should think somebody would giggle and spoil the
effect."
"That would be a signal for Mrs. Royall to 'discover' them and send them
back to bed," Anne returned. "So long as they do it in utter silence so
as to disturb no one else, the Guardians wink at it. It is pretty, isn't
it?"
"Lovely!"
Anne turned over and went to sleep again, but Laura watched the slender
graceful figures in their loose white garments till suddenly they melted
into the shadows and were gone. Then she too slept till a shaft of
sunlight, touching her eyelids, awakened her to a new day. She looked
across at her friend, who smiled back at her. "I feel so well and so
happy!" she exclaimed.
"It is sleeping in the open air," Anne replied. "Almost everybody wakes
happy here--except the Problem."
"The Problem?" Laura echoed.
"I mean Olga Priest, the girl you asked about last night. We Guardians
call her the Problem because no one has yet been able to do anything for
her."
"Tell me about her," Laura begged, as, dropping the sides of the tent,
Anne began to dress.
"Wait till we are outside--there are too many sharp young ears about us
here," Anne cautioned. "There'll be time for a walk or a row before
breakfast and we can talk then."
"Good--let's have a walk," Laura said, and made quick work of her
dressing.
"Now tell me about the Problem," she urged, when they were seated on a
rocky point overlooking the blue waters of the bay.
"Poor Olga," Anne said. "I wonder sometimes if she has ever had a really
happy day in the eighteen years of her life. Her mother was a Russian of
good family and well educated. She married an American who made life
bitter for her until he drank himself to death. There were three
children older than Olga--two sons who went to the bad, following their
father's example. The older girl married a worthless fellow and
disappeared, and there was no one left but Olga to support the sick
mother and herself, and Olga was only thirteen then! She supported them,
somehow, but of course she had to leave her mother alone all day, and
one night when she went home she found her gone. She had died all
alone."
"_O!_" cried Laura.
"Yes, it was pitiful. I suppose the child was as nearly heartbroken as
any one could be, for her mother was everything to her. Of course there
were many who would have been glad to help had they known, but Olga's
pride is something terrible, and it seems as if she hates everybody
because her father and her brothers and sister neglected her mother, and
she was left to die alone. I don't believe there is a single person in
the world whom she likes even a little."
"O, the poor thing!" sighed Laura. "Not even Mrs. Royall?"
"No, not even Mrs. Royall, who has been heavenly kind to her."
"Is she in your Camp Fire?"
"No, Ellen Grandis is her Guardian, but Ellen is to be married next
month and will live in New York, so that Camp Fire will have to have a
new Guardian."
"What about the other girls in it?"
"All but three are working girls--salesgirls in stores, I think, most of
them."
"How did Olga happen to join the Camp Fire?"
"I don't know. I've wondered about that myself. She doesn't make friends
with any of the girls, nor join in any of the games; but work--she has a
perfect passion for work, and it seems as if she can do anything. She
has won twice as many honours as any other girl since she came, but she
cares nothing for them--except to win them."
"She must be a strange character, but she interests me," Laura said
thoughtfully. "Anne, maybe I can take Miss Grandis' place when she
leaves."
Anne gave her friend a searching look. "Are you sure you would like it?
Wouldn't you rather have a different class of girls?" she asked.
Laura answered gravely, "I want the girls I can help most--those that
need me most--and from what you say, I should think Olga needed--some
one--as much as any girl could."
"As much perhaps, but hardly more than some of the others. There's that
little Annie Pearson who thinks of nothing but her pretty face and 'good
times,' and Myra Karr who is afraid of her own shadow and always
clinging to the person she happens to be with. The Camp Fire is a
splendid organisation, Laura, and it will do a deal for the girls, but
still almost every one of them is some sort of 'problem' that we have to
study and watch and labour over with heart and head and hands if we hope
really to accomplish any permanent good. But come, we must go back or we
shall be late for breakfast."
"Then let's hurry, for this air has given me a famous appetite," Laura
replied. But she did not find it easy to keep up with her friend's
steady stride.
"You'll have to get in training for tramps if you are going to be a Camp
Fire Girl," Anne taunted gaily.
Laura's eyes brightened as she entered the big dining-room with its
canvas sides rolled high.
"Just in time," Anne said, as she pulled out a chair for Laura and
slipped into the next one herself.
The meal was cheerful, almost hilarious. "Mrs. Royall believes in
laughter. She never checks the girls unless it's really necessary,"
Anne explained under cover of the merry chatter. "She----"
But Laura interrupted her. "O Anne, that must be Olga--the dark still
girl, at the end of the next table, isn't it?"
"Yes, and Myra Karr is next to her. All at that table belong to the Busy
Corner Camp Fire."
After breakfast Laura again paddled off to the yacht with Anne. It did
not require much coaxing to secure her father's permission for her to
spend a month at the camp with Anne Wentworth and Mrs. Royall. He kept
the girls on the yacht for luncheon, and after that they went back to
camp, a couple of sailors following in another boat with Laura's
luggage.
"How still it is--I don't hear a sound," Laura said wonderingly, as she
and her friend approached the camp through the pines.
Anne listened, looking a little perplexed, as they came out into the
camp and found it quite deserted--not a girl anywhere in sight.
"I'll go and find out where everybody is," she said. "I see some one
moving in the kitchen. The cook must be there."
She came back laughing. "They've all gone berrying. That's one of the
charms of this camp--the spontaneous fashion in which things are done.
Probably some one said, 'There are blueberries over yonder--loads of
them,' and somebody else exclaimed, 'Let's go get some,' and
behold"--she waved her hand--"a deserted camp."
III
THE CAMP COWARD DARES
Each girl at the camp was expected to make her own bed and keep her
belongings in order. Each one also served her turn in setting tables,
washing dishes, etc. Beyond this there were no obligatory tasks, but all
the girls were working for honours, and most of them were trying to meet
the requirements for higher rank. Some were making their official
dresses. Girls who were skilful with the needle could secure beautiful
and effective results with silks and beads, and of course every girl
wanted a headband of beadwork and a necklace--all except Olga Priest.
Olga was working on a basket of raffia, making it from a design of her
own, when Ellen Grandis, her Guardian, came to her just after Anne
Wentworth and Laura had left the camp.
"I've come to ask your help, Olga," Miss Grandis began.
The girl dropped the basket in her lap, and waited.
Miss Grandis went on, "It is something that will require much patience
and kindness----"
"Then you'd better ask some one else, Miss Grandis. You know that I do
not pretend to be kind," Olga interrupted, not rudely but with finality.
"But you are very patient and persevering, and--I don't know why, but I
have a feeling that you could do more for this one girl than any one
else here could. She is coming to take the only vacant place in our
Camp Fire. Shall I tell you about her, Olga?"
"If you like." The girl's tone was politely indifferent.
With a little sigh Miss Grandis went on, "Her name is Elizabeth Page.
She is about a year younger than you, and she has had a very hard life."
Olga's lips tightened and a shadow swept across her dark eyes.
Miss Grandis continued, "You have superb health--this girl has perhaps
never been really well for a single day. You have a brain and hands that
enable you to accomplish almost what you will. Poor Elizabeth can do so
few things well that she has no confidence in herself: yet I believe she
might do many things if only she could be made to believe in herself a
little. She needs--O, everything that the Camp Fire can do for a girl.
Olga, won't you help us to help her?"
"How can I?" There was no trace of sympathy in the cold voice, and
suddenly the eager hopefulness faded out of Miss Grandis' face.
"How can you indeed, if you do not care. I am afraid I made a mistake in
coming to you, after all," she said sadly. "I'm sorry, Olga--sorry even
more on your account than on Elizabeth's."
With that she rose and went away, and Olga looked after her thoughtfully
for a moment before she took up her work again.
A little later Myra Karr stood looking down at her with a curious
expression in her wide blue eyes.
"I'm--I'm going to walk to Kent's Corners," she announced, with a little
nervous catch in her voice.
"Well, what of it? You've been there before, haven't you?" Olga
retorted.
"Yes, but this time I'm going all _alone_!"
Olga's only reply was a swift mocking smile.
"I _am_--Olga Priest!" repeated Myra, stamping her foot angrily. "You
all think me a coward--I'll just show you!" and with that she whirled
around and marched off, her chin up and her cheeks flushed.
As she passed a group of girls busy over beadwork, one of them called
out, "What's the matter, Bunny?"
Myra paused and faced them. "I'm going to walk to Kent's Corners
_alone_!" she cried defiantly.
A shout of incredulous laughter greeted that.
"Better give it up before you start, Bunny," said one.
Another, with a mischievous laugh, whisked out her handkerchief and in a
flash had twisted it into a rabbit with flopping ears. "Bunny, bunny,
bunny!" she called, making the rabbit hop across her lap.
Myra's blue eyes filled with angry tears. "You're horrid, Louise
Johnson!" she cried out. "You're _all_ horrid. But I'll show you!" and
with a glance that swept the whole laughing group, she threw back her
head and marched on.
The girls looked after her and then at each other.
"Believe she'll really do it?" one questioned doubtfully.
"Not she. Maybe she'll get as far as the village," replied another.
"She'd never dare pass Slabtown alone--never in the world," a third
declared with decision.
"Poor Myra, I'm sorry for her. It must be awful to be scared at
everything as she is!" This from Mary Hastings, a big blonde who did not
know what fear was.
"Bunny certainly is the scariest girl in this camp," laughed Louise
Johnson carelessly. "She's afraid of her own shadow."
"Then she ought to have more credit than the rest of us when she does do
a brave thing," put in little Bess Carroll in her gentle way.
"We'll give her credit all right _if_ she goes to Kent's Corners,"
retorted Louise.
Just then another girl ran up to the group and announced that a
blueberry picnic had been arranged. Somebody had discovered a pasture
where the bushes were loaded with luscious fruit. They would carry
lunch, and bring back enough for a regular blueberry festival.
"All who want to go, get baskets or pails and come on," the girl ended.
In an instant the others were on their feet, work thrown aside, and five
minutes later there was no one but the cook left in the camp.
[Illustration: A group of girls busy over beadwork]
By that time Myra Karr was tramping steadily on towards Kent's Corners.
Scarcely another girl in the camp would have minded that walk, but never
before had she dared to take it alone; now in spite of her nervous
fears, she felt a little thrill of incredulous pride in herself. So many
times she had planned to do this thing, but always before her courage
had failed. Now, now she was really doing it! And if she went all the
way perhaps--O, perhaps the girls would stop calling her Bunny. How she
hated that name! She hurried on, her heart beating hard, her hands
tight-clenched, her eyes fearfully searching the long sunny road before
her and the woods or fields that bordered it. It was not so bad the
first part of the way--the mile and a half to the little village of East
Bassett. To be sure, she had never before been even that far alone, but
she had been many times with other girls. She passed slowly and
lingeringly through the village. Should she turn back now? Before her
flashed the face of Olga with that little cold mocking smile, and she
saw again Louise Johnson hopping her handkerchief rabbit across her lap.
The incredulous laughter with which the others had greeted her
announcement rang still in her ears. She was walking very very slowly,
but--but no, she wouldn't--she _couldn't_ turn back. She forced her
unwilling feet to go on--to go faster, faster until she was almost
running. She was beyond the village now and another mile and a half
would bring her to Slabtown. _Slabtown!_ She had forgotten Slabtown. The
colour died swiftly out of her face as she remembered it now. Even with
a crowd of girls she had never passed the place without a fearful
shrinking, and now alone--_could_ she pass those ugly cabins swarming
with rough, dirty men and slovenly women and rude, staring children? Her
knees trembled under her even at the thought, and her newborn courage
melted like wax. It was no use. She could not do it. She wavered,
stopped, and turned slowly around. As she did so a grey rabbit with a
white tail scurried across the road before her, his ears flattened
against his head and his eyes bulging with terror. The sight of him
suddenly steadied the girl. She stood still looking after the tiny grey
streak flying across a wide green pasture, and a queer crooked smile
was on her trembling lips.
"A bunny--_another_ bunny," she said under her breath, "and just as
scared as I am--at nothing. I won't be a bunny any longer! I won't be
the camp coward--I won't, won't, _won't_!" she cried aloud, and turning,
went on again swiftly with her head lifted. A bit of colour drifted back
to her white cheeks, and her heart stopped its heavy thumping as she
drew a long deep breath. She would not let herself think of Slabtown.
She counted the trees she passed, named the birds that wheeled and
circled about her, even repeated the multiplication table--anything to
keep Slabtown out of her thoughts; but all the while the black dread of
it was there in the back of her mind. When she caught sight of the
sawmill where the Slabtown men earned their bread, her feet began to
drag again.
"I can't--O, I can't!" she sobbed out, two big tears rolling down her
cheeks. Then across her mind flashed a vision of the little cottontail
streaking madly across the road before her, and again some strange new
power within urged her on. She went on slowly, reluctantly, with
dragging feet, but still she went on. There were no men about the place
at this hour--they were at work--but untidy women sat on their doorsteps
or rocked at the windows, and a horde of ragged barefooted children
catching sight of the girl swarmed out into the road to stare at her.
Some begged for pennies, and getting none, yelled after her and threw
stones till she took to her heels and ran "just like the other bunny!"
she told herself in miserable scorn, when once she was safely past the
settlement. Well, there was no other such place to pass, but--she
shivered as she remembered that she must pass this one again on the way
back.
She went on swiftly now with only occasionally a fearful glance on
either side when the road cut through the woods. Once a farmer going by
offered her a ride; but she shook her head and plodded on. It was
half-past eleven when, with a great throb of relief and joy, she came in
sight of the Corners. A few minutes more and she was in the village
street with its homey-looking white houses and flower gardens. She
longed to stop and rest on one of the vine-shaded porches, but she was
too shy to ask permission. At the store she did stop, and rested a few
minutes in one of the battered wooden chairs on the little porch, but it
was sunny and hot there. Now for the first time she thought of lunch,
but she had not a penny with her; she must go hungry until she got back
to camp. A boy came up the steps munching a red apple, his pockets
bulging with others. The storekeeper's little girl ran out on the porch
with a big molasses cooky just out of the oven, and the warm spicy odour
of it made Myra realise how hungry she was. She looked so longingly at
the cooky that the child, seeming to read her thoughts, crowded it all
hastily into her own mouth. Myra laughed a bit at that, and after a
little rest, set off on her return. She was tired and hungry, but a
strange new joy was throbbing at her heart. She had come all the way to
Kent's Corners alone--they _could not call her a coward now_! That
thought more than balanced her weariness and hunger. She had to walk all
the way back--she had to pass Slabtown again. Yes, but now she was not
afraid--_not afraid_! She drew herself up to her slender height, threw
back her head, and laughed aloud in the joy of her deliverance from the
fear that had held her in bondage all her life. She didn't understand in
the least how it had happened, but she knew that at last she was
free--_free_--like the other girls whom she had envied; and dimly she
began to realise that this was a big thing--something that would make
all her life different. She walked as if she were treading on air. The
loneliness of the woods, of the long stretch of empty road, no longer
filled her with trembling terror.
As for the second time she approached Slabtown, her heart began to beat
a little faster, but the newborn courage did not fail her now. She found
herself whistling a gay tune and laughed. Whistling to keep her courage
up? Was that what she was doing? Never mind--the courage _was_ up. The
women still sat on their doorsteps or stared from their windows, but
this time the children did not swarm around her. They stood by the
roadside and stared, but none called after her or followed her. She did
not realise how great was the difference between the girl who now walked
by with shining eyes and lifted head, and the white-faced trembling
little creature with terror writ large in every line of her face and
figure that had scurried by earlier in the day. But the children
realised it. Instinctively now they knew her unafraid, and they did not
venture to badger her. She even smiled and waved her hand to them as she
went by, and at that a youngster of a dozen years suddenly broke out,
"Three cheers fer the girl--now, fellers!" And with the echo of the
shrill response ringing in her ears, Myra passed on, proud and happy as
never before in her life.
All the rest of the way she went with the new happy consciousness making
music in her heart--the consciousness of victory won. The last mile or
two her feet dragged, but it was from weariness and lack of food. As she
drew near the camp her steps quickened, her head went up again, and her
eyes began to shine; but when she came to the white tents, she stood
looking about in blank amazement. There was not a girl anywhere in
sight; even the cook was missing.
Myra stood for a moment wondering where they had all gone; then she
walked slowly across the camp to a hammock swung behind a clump of
low-growing pines. Dropping into the hammock, she tucked a cushion under
her head and, with a long sigh of delicious content and restfulness her
eyes closed and in two minutes she was sound asleep--so sound asleep
that when, an hour later, the girls came straggling back with pails and
baskets full of big luscious berries, the gay cries and laughter and
chatter of many voices did not arouse her.
The girls trooped over to the kitchen and delivered up their spoil to
the cook.
"Now, Katie," cried one, "you must make us some blueberry flapjacks for
supper--lots and lots of 'em, too!"
"And blueberry gingerbread," added another.
"And pies--fat juicy pies," called a third.
"_And_ rolypoly--blueberry rolypoly!" shouted yet another.
The cook, her arms on her hips, stood laughing into the sun-browned
young faces before her.
"Sure ye're not askin' me to make all them things fer ye _to-night_!"
she protested gaily.
"We-ell, not all maybe. We can wait till to-morrow for some of them. But
heaps and heaps of flapjacks, Katie dear, if you love us, and you know
you do," coaxed Louise Johnson.
"Love ye? _Love_ ye, did ye say?" laughed the cook. "Be off wid ye now
an' lave me in pace or ye'll not get a smirch of a flapjack to yer
supper. Shoo!" and she waved them off with her apron.
As the laughing girls turned away from the kitchen, Mary Hastings came
towards them from the other side of the camp.
"What's the matter, Molly? You look as sober as an owl!" cried Louise
who never looked sober.
"It's Myra--she isn't here. Miss Grandis and I have hunted all over the
camp for her," Mary answered. "You know she started for Kent's Corners
before we went berrying."
"So she did," cried another girl, the merriment dying out of her eyes.
"You don't suppose she really went there?"
"Myra Karr--alone--to Kent's Corners? Never in the world," Louise flung
out carelessly. "She's somewhere about. Let's call her." She lifted her
voice and called aloud, "Myra, Myra, My-raa!"
At the call Mrs. Royall came hastily towards them. "Where is Myra?
Didn't she go berrying with us?" she inquired.
"No," Louise explained lightly. "Bunny got her back up this morning and
said she was going alone to Kent's Corners, but of course she didn't.
She's started that stunt half a dozen times and always backed out.
She's just around somewhere."
But Mrs. Royall still looked troubled. "She must be found," she said
with quick decision. "Get the megaphone, Louise, and call her with
that."
Still laughing, Louise obeyed. Her clear voice carried well, and many
keen young ears were strained for the response that did not come. In the
silence that followed a second call, Mrs. Royall spoke to another girl.
"Edith, get your bugle and sound the recall. If that does not bring her,
two of you must hurry over to the farm and harness Billy into the buggy;
and I will drive to Kent's Corners at once."
The girls were no longer laughing. "You don't think anything could have
happened to Myra, Mrs. Royall?" one of them questioned anxiously.
"Almost all of us have walked over there. I went alone and so did Mary."
"I know, but Myra is such a timid little thing. She cannot do what most
of you can."
Edith Rue came running back with her bugle, and in a moment the notes of
the recall floated out on the still summer air. It was a rigid rule of
the camp that the recall should be promptly answered by any girl within
hearing, so when, in the silence that followed, no response was heard,
Mrs. Royall sent the two girls for the horse and buggy.
"Have them here as quickly as possible," she called after them.
Before the messengers were out of sight, however, there was an outcry
behind them.
"Why, there she is! There's Myra now!" and every face turned towards
the small figure coming from the clump of evergreens, her eyes still
half-dazed with sleep.
With an exclamation of relief, Mrs. Royall hurried to meet her.
"Where were you, child? Didn't you hear us calling you?" she asked.
"I--I--no. I heard the recall, and I came--I guess I was asleep,"
stammered Myra bewildered by something tense in the atmosphere, and the
eyes all centred on her.
"Asleep!" echoed Louise Johnson with a chuckle. "What did I tell you,
girls?"
But Mrs. Royall saw that Myra looked pale and tired, and she noticed the
change that came over her face as Louise spoke. A quick wave of colour
swept the pale cheeks and the small head was lifted with an air that was
new and strange--in Myra Karr. Mrs. Royall spoke again, laying her hand
gently on the girl's shoulder.
"Myra, how long have you been asleep? How long have you been back in
camp?"
And Myra answered quietly, but with that new pride in her voice, "It was
quarter of four by the kitchen clock when I came. There was nobody
here--not even Katie----"
"I'd just run out a bit to see if anny of ye was comin'," put in the
cook from the kitchen door where she stood, as much interested as any
one else in what was going on.
"And did you go to Kent's Corners, my dear?" Mrs. Royall questioned
gently.
It was Myra's hour of triumph. She forgot Louise Johnson's mocking
laugh--forgot everything but her beautiful new freedom.
"O, I did--I did, Mrs. Royall!" she cried out. "I was awfully frightened
at first, but coming home I wasn't _one bit afraid_, and, please, you
won't let them call me Bunny any more, will you?"
"No, my child, no. You've won a new name and you shall have it at the
next Council Fire. I'm so glad, Myra!" Mrs. Royall's face was almost as
radiant as the girl's.
It was Louise Johnson who called out, "Three cheers for Myra Karr! She's
a _trump_!"
The cheers were given with a will. Tears filled Myra's eyes, but they
were happy tears, as the girls crowded around her with questions and
exclamations, and Miss Grandis stood with a hand on her shoulder.
"That's what Camp Fire has done for one girl," Mrs. Royall said in a low
tone to Laura Haven. "That child was afraid of the dark, afraid of the
water, afraid to be alone a minute, when she came. It is a great triumph
for her--a great victory."
"Yes," returned Laura thoughtfully, and Anne added,
"You've no idea how lonesome the camp looked when Laura and I came back
and found you all gone. It was so still it seemed almost uncanny. Myra
never would have dared to stay alone here before."
IV
THE POOR THING
A week later Miss Grandis was called home by illness in her family, and
she asked Laura to drive to the station with her.
"I wanted the chance to talk with you," she explained, as they drove
along the quiet country road. "You know I should not have been able to
stay here much longer anyhow, and now I shall not come back, and I want
you to take charge of my girls. Will you?"
"O, I can't yet--I haven't had half enough training," Laura protested.
"I know, but you've put so much into the time you have had in camp, and
I know that Mrs. Royall will be glad to have you in my place. You can
keep on with your training just the same. I want to tell you about the
girls." She told something of the environment of each one--enough to
help Laura to understand their needs. "And there's Elizabeth Page, who
is coming to-morrow," she went on. "I always think of her as the Poor
Thing. O, I do so hope the Camp Fire will do a great deal for her--she's
had so pitifully little in her life thus far. Her mother died when she
was a baby, and she has been just a drudge for her stepmother and the
younger children, and she's not strong enough for such hard work. She's
never had anything for herself. The camp will seem like paradise to her
if she can only get in touch with things--I'm sure it will."
"I'll do my best for her," Laura promised.
"I know you will. And you'll meet her when she comes, to-morrow?"
"Of course," Laura returned.
There was no time to spare when they reached the station, but Miss
Grandis' last word was of Elizabeth and her great need.
Laura was at the station early the next day, and would have recognised
the Poor Thing even if she had not been the only girl leaving the train
at that place. Elizabeth was seventeen, but she might have been taken
for fourteen until one looked into her eyes--they seemed to mirror the
pain and privation of half a century. Laura's heart went out to her in a
wave of pitying tenderness, but the girl drew back as if frightened by
the warm friendliness of her greeting.
All the way back to camp she sat silent, answering a direct question
with a nod or shake of the head, but never speaking; and when, at the
camp, a crowd of girls came to meet the newcomer, she looked wildly
around as if for refuge from all these strangers. Seeing this, Laura,
with a whispered word, sent the girls away, and introduced Elizabeth
only to Mrs. Royall and Anne Wentworth.
"Another scared rabbit?" giggled Louise Johnson.
"Don't call her that, Louise," said Bessie Carroll. "I'm awfully sorry
for the poor thing."
Laura, overhearing the low-spoken words, said to herself, "There it
is--Poor Thing. That name is bound to cling to her, it fits so exactly."
It did fit exactly, and within two days Elizabeth was the Poor Thing to
every girl in the camp. Laura kept the child with her most of the first
day; she was quiet and still as a ghost, did as she was told, and
watched all that went on, but she spoke to no one and never asked a
question. At night she was given a cot next to Olga's. When Laura showed
her her place at bedtime, she pointed to the adjoining tent.
"I sleep right there, Elizabeth," she said, "and if you want anything in
the night, just speak, and I shall hear you. But I hope you will sleep
so soundly that you won't know anything till morning. It's lovely
sleeping out of doors like this!"
Elizabeth said nothing, but she shivered as she cast a fearful glance
into the shadowy spaces beyond the tents, and Laura hastened to add,
"You needn't be a bit afraid. Nothing but birds and squirrels ever come
around here."
Elizabeth went early to bed, and was apparently sound asleep when the
other girls went to their cots. But after all was still and the camp
lights out, she lay trembling, and staring wide-eyed into the darkness.
A thousand strange small sounds beat on her strained ears, and when
suddenly the hoot of an owl rang out from a nearby treetop, Elizabeth
sprang up with a frightened cry and clutched wildly at the girl in the
nearest cot.
Olga's cold voice answered her cry. "It's nothing but an owl, you goose!
Go back to your bed!"
But Elizabeth was on her knees, clinging desperately to Olga's hand.
"O, I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she moaned. "Please _please_ let me stay
here with you. I never was in a p-place like this before."
Olga jerked her hand away from the clinging fingers. "Get back to your
bed!" she ordered under her breath. "Anybody'd think you were a _baby_."
"I don't care _what_ anybody'd think if you'll only let me stay. I--I
must touch s-somebody," wailed the Poor Thing in a choked voice.
"Well, it won't be me you'll touch," retorted Olga. "And if you don't
keep still I'll report you in the morning. You'll have every girl in the
camp awake presently."
"O, I don't care," sobbed Elizabeth under her breath. "I--I want to go
home. I'd rather die than stay here!"
"Well, die if you like, but leave the rest of us to sleep in peace,"
muttered Olga, and turning her face away from the wretched little
creature crouching at her side, she went calmly to sleep.
When she awoke she gave a casual glance at the next cot. It was empty,
but on the floor was a small huddled figure, one hand still clutching
Olga's blanket. Olga started to yank the blanket away, but the look of
suffering in the white face stayed her impatient hand. She touched the
thin shoulder of Elizabeth, and for once her touch was almost gentle.
Elizabeth opened her eyes with a start as Olga whispered, "Get back to
your bed. There's an hour before rising time."
Elizabeth crawled slowly back to her own cot, but she did not sleep
again. Neither did Olga, and she was uncomfortably aware that a pair of
timid blue eyes were on her face until she turned her back on them.
At ten o'clock that morning the girls all trooped down to the water.
Some in full knickerbockers and middy blouses were going to row or
paddle, but most wore bathing suits. With some difficulty Laura
persuaded Elizabeth to put on a bathing suit that Miss Grandis had left
for her, but no urging or coaxing could induce her to go into the water
even to wade, though other girls were swimming and splashing and
frolicking like mermaids. Elizabeth sat on the sand, her eyes following
Olga's dark head as the girl swept through the water like a
fish--swimming, floating, diving--she seemed as much at home in the
water as on land.
"You can do all those things too, Elizabeth, if you will," Laura told
her. "Look at Myra, there--she has always been afraid to try to swim,
but she's learning to-day, and see how she is enjoying it."
Elizabeth drew further into her shell of silence. She cast a fleeting
glance at Myra Karr, nervously trying to obey Mary Hastings' directions
and "act like a frog"--then her eyes searched again for Olga, now far
out in the bay.
When she could not distinguish the dark head, anxiety at last conquered
her timidity, and she turned to Laura:
"O, is she drowned?" she cried under her breath. "Olga--is she?"
Anne Wentworth laughed out at the question. "Why, Elizabeth," she said,
leaning towards her, "Olga's a perfect fish in the water. She's the best
swimmer in camp. Look--there she comes now."
She came swimming on her side, one strong brown arm cutting swiftly and
steadily through the water. When presently she walked up on the beach, a
pale smile glimmered over Elizabeth's face, but it vanished at Olga's
glance as she passed with the scornful fling--"Haven't even wet your
feet--_baby_!"
Elizabeth's face flushed and she drew her bare feet under her.
"Never mind, you'll wet them to-morrow, won't you, Elizabeth?" Laura
said; but the Poor Thing made no reply; she only gulped down a sob as
she looked after the straight young figure in the dripping bathing suit
marching down the beach.
"She notices no one but Olga," Laura said as she walked back to camp
with her friend. "If Olga would only take an interest in _her_!"
"If only she would!" Anne agreed. "But she seems to have no more feeling
than a fish!"
Many of the girls did their best to draw the Poor Thing out of her shell
of scared silence, but they all failed. And Olga would do nothing. Yet
Elizabeth followed Olga like her shadow day after day. Olga's impatient
rebuffs--even her angry commands--only made the Poor Thing hang back a
little.
When things had gone on so for a week, Laura asked Olga to go with her
to the village. She went, but they were no sooner on the road than she
began abruptly, "I know what you want of me, Miss Haven, but it's no
use. I can't be bothered with that Poor Thing--she makes me sick--always
hanging around and wanting to get her hands on me. I can't stand that
sort of thing, and I won't--that's all there is about it. I'll go home
first."
When Laura answered nothing, Olga glanced at her grave face and went on
sulkily, "Nobody ought to expect me to put up with an everlasting
trailer like that girl."
Still Laura was silent until Olga flung out, "You might as well say it.
I know what you are thinking of me."
"I wasn't thinking of you, Olga. I was thinking of Elizabeth. If you saw
her drowning you'd plunge in and save her without a moment's
hesitation."
"Of course I would--but I wouldn't have her hanging on to me like a
leech after I'd saved her."
"I suppose you have not realised that in 'hanging on' to you--as you
express it--she is simply fighting for her life."
"What do you mean, Miss Haven?"
"I mean that Elizabeth is--starving. Not food starvation, but a worse
kind. Olga, this is the first time in her life that she has ever spent a
day away from home--she told me that--or ever had any one try to make
her happy. Is it any wonder that she doesn't know how to _be_ happy or
make friends? It seems strange that, from among so many who would gladly
be her friends here, she should have chosen you who are not willing to
be a friend to any one--strange, and a great pity, it seems. It throws
an immense responsibility upon you."
"I don't want any such responsibility. I don't think any of you ought to
put it on me," Olga flung out sulkily.
"We are not putting it on you," returned Laura gently.
Olga twitched her shoulder with an impatient gesture, and the two walked
some distance before she spoke again. Then it was to say, "What are you
asking me to do, anyhow?"
"_I_ am not asking you to do anything," Laura answered. "It is for you
to ask yourself what you are going to do. I believe it is in your power
to make over that poor girl mind and body--I might almost say, soul too.
She thinks she can do nothing but household drudgery. She is afraid of
everything. When I think of what you could do for her in the next
month--Olga, I wonder that you can let such a wonderful opportunity pass
you by."
They went the rest of the way mostly in silence. When they returned to
the camp, Elizabeth was watching for them, but the glance Olga gave her
was so repellent that she shrank away, and went off alone to the
Lookout. Later Laura tried to interest Elizabeth in the making of a
headband of beadwork, but though she evidently liked to handle the
bright-coloured beads, she would not try to do the work herself.
"I can't. I can't do things like that," she said with gentle
indifference, her eyes wandering off in search of Olga.
The next day, however, Laura came to Anne Wentworth, her eyes shining.
"O Anne, what _do_ you think?" she cried. "Olga had Elizabeth in wading
this morning. Isn't that fine?"
"Fine indeed--for a beginning. It shows what Olga might do with her if
she would."
"Yes, for she was so cross with her! I wondered that Elizabeth did not
go away and leave her. No other girl in camp would let Olga speak to her
as she speaks to that Poor Thing."
"No, the others are not Poor Things, you see--that makes all the
difference. But that Olga should take the trouble to make Elizabeth do
anything is a big step in advance--for Olga."
"There is splendid material in Olga, Anne--I am sure of it," Laura
returned.
There was splendid persistence in her, anyhow. She had undertaken to
overcome Elizabeth's fear of the water, but it was a harder task than
she had imagined. She did make the Poor Thing wade--clinging tightly to
Olga's fingers all the time--but further than that she could not lead
her. Day after day Elizabeth would stand shivering and trembling in
water up to her knees, her cheeks so white and her lips so blue that
Olga dared not compel her to go further. Yet day after day Olga made her
wade in that far at least; not once would she allow her to omit it.
One day she sat for a long time looking gravely at the Poor Thing, who
flushed and paled nervously under that steady silent scrutiny. At last
Olga said abruptly, "What do you like best, Elizabeth?"
"Like--best----" Elizabeth faltered uncertainly.
Olga frowned and repeated her question.
Elizabeth shook her head slowly. "I--I like Molly. And the other
children--a little."
"You mean your brothers and sisters?"
Elizabeth nodded.
"Which is Molly?"
"The littlest one. She's four, and she's real pretty," Elizabeth
declared proudly. "She's prettier than Annie Pearson."
"Yes, but what do you yourself like?" Olga persisted. "What would you
like to have--pretty dresses, ribbons--what?"
"I--I never thought," was the vague reply.
Again Olga's brows met in a frown that made the Poor Thing shrink and
tremble. She brought out her necklace and tossed it into the other
girl's lap.
"Think that's pretty?" she asked.
"O _yes_!" Elizabeth breathed softly. She did not touch the necklace,
but gazed admiringly at the bright-coloured beads as they lay in her
lap.
"You can have one like it if you want," Olga told her.
"O no! Who'd give me one?"
"Nobody. But you can get it for yourself. See here--I got all those blue
beads by learning about the wild flowers that grow right around here,
the weeds and stones and animals and birds. You can get as many in a few
days. I got that green one for making a little bit of a basket,
that--for making my washstand there out of a soap box--that, for
trimming my hat. Every bead on that necklace is there because of some
little thing I did or made--all things that you can do too."
The Poor Thing shook her head. "O _no_," she stammered in her weak
gentle voice, "I can't do anything. I--I ain't like other girls."
"You can be if you want to," Olga flung out at her impatiently.
"Say--what _can_ you do? You can do something."
"No--nothing." The Poor Thing's blue eyes filled slowly with big tears,
and she looked through them beseechingly at the other. Olga drew a long
exasperated breath. She wanted to take hold of the girl's thin shoulders
and shake the limpness out of her once for all.
"What did you do at home?" she demanded with harsh abruptness.
"N--nothing," Elizabeth answered with a miserable gulp.
"You did too! Of course you did something," Olga flamed. "You didn't sit
and stare at Molly and the others all day the way you stare at me, did
you? _What_ did you do, I say?"
Elizabeth gave her a swift scared glance as she stammered, "I didn't do
anything but cook and sweep and wash and iron and take care of the
children--truly I didn't."
Olga's face brightened. "Good heavens--if you aren't the limit!" she
shrugged. Then she sprang up and got pencil and paper. "What can you
cook?" she demanded, and proceeded to put Elizabeth through a rapid-fire
examination on marketing, plain cooking, washing, ironing, sweeping,
bed-making, and care of babies. At last she had found some things that
even the Poor Thing could do. With flying fingers she scribbled down the
girl's answers. Finally she cried excitingly, "_There!_ See what a goose
you were to say you couldn't do anything! Why, there are lots of girls
here who couldn't do half these things. Elizabeth Page, listen. You've
got twelve orange beads like those," she pointed to the
necklace--"already, for a beginning. That's more than I have of that
colour. I don't know anything about taking care of babies, nor half what
you do about cooking and marketing."
Elizabeth stared, her mouth half open, her eyes widened in incredulous
wonder. "But--but," she faltered, "I guess there's some mistake. Just
housework and things like that ain't anything to get beads for--are
they?"
"They are _that_! I tell you Mrs. Royall will give you twelve honours
and twelve yellow beads at the next Council Fire, and if you half try
you can win some blue and brown and red ones too before that, and you've
just _got to do it_. Do you understand?"
The other nodded, her eyes full of dumb misery. Then she began to
whimper, "I--I--can't ever do things like you and the rest do," she
moaned.
"Why not? You can walk, can't you?"
"W--walk?"
"Yes--_walk_! Didn't hurt you to walk to the village yesterday, did it?"
"No--but I couldn't go--alone."
"Who said anything about going alone? You'll walk to Slabtown and back
with me to-morrow."
"O, I'd like that--with you," said the Poor Thing, brightening.
Olga gave an impatient sniff. Sometimes she almost hated
Elizabeth--almost but not quite.
"You'll go with me to-morrow," she declared, "but next day you'll go
with some other girl."
Elizabeth shrank into herself, shaking her head.
Olga eyed her sternly. "Very well--if you won't go with some other girl,
you can't go with me to-morrow," she declared.
But the next day after breakfast the two set off for Slabtown. Halfway
there, Elizabeth suddenly crumpled up and dropped in a limp heap by the
roadside.
"What's the matter?" Olga demanded, standing over her.
Elizabeth lifted tired eyes. "I don't know. You walked so--fast," she
panted.
"Fast!" echoed Olga scornfully; but she sat on a stone wall and waited
until a little colour had crept back into the other girl's thin cheeks,
and went at a slower pace afterwards.
"There! Do that every day for a week and you'll have one of your red
beads," was her comment when they were back at camp. "And now go lie in
that hammock."
When from the kitchen she brought a glass of milk and some crackers, she
found Elizabeth sitting on the ground.
"Why didn't you get into the hammock as I told you?" she demanded, and
the Poor Thing answered vaguely that she "thought maybe they wouldn't
want" her to.
Olga poked the milk at her. "Drink it!" she ordered, "and eat those
crackers," and when Elizabeth had obeyed, added, "Now get into that
hammock and lie there till dinner-time," and meekly Elizabeth did so.
When, later in the day, some of the younger girls started a game of
blindman's buff, Olga seized Elizabeth's hand. "Come," she said, "we're
going to play too."
"O, I can't! I--I never did," cried the Poor Thing, hanging back.
"I never did either, but I'm going to now and so are you. Come!" and
Elizabeth yielded to the imperative command.
The other girls stared in amazement as the two joined them. It was
little Bess Carroll who smiled a welcome as Louise Johnson cried out,
"Wonders will never cease-_-Olga Priest playing a game!_"
She spoke to Mary Hastings, who answered hastily, "Bless her
heart--she's doing it just to get that Poor Thing to play. Let's take
them right in, girls."
The girls were quick to respond. Olga was the next one caught, and when
she was blinded she couldn't help catching Elizabeth, who stood still,
never thinking of getting out of the way. Elizabeth didn't want the
handkerchief tied over her eyes, but she submitted meekly, at a look
from Olga. Half a dozen girls flung themselves in her way, and the one
on whom her limp grasp fell ignored the fact that Elizabeth could not
name her, and gaily held up the handkerchief to be tied over her own
eyes in turn. Nobody caught Olga again. She was as quick as a flash and
as slippery as an eel. Elizabeth's eyes followed her constantly, and a
little glimmer of a smile touched her lips as Olga slipped safely out of
reach of one catcher after another.
When she pulled Elizabeth out of the noisy merry circle, Olga glanced at
the clock in the dining-room and made a swift calculation.
"Three-quarters of an hour--blindman's buff."
"We've got to play at some game every day, Elizabeth," she announced,
with grim determination. She hated games, but Elizabeth must win her red
beads and the red blood for which they stood. She had undertaken to make
something out of this jellyfish of a girl and she did not mean to fail.
That was all there was about it. So every day she led forth the
reluctant Elizabeth and patiently stood over her while she blundered
through a game of basket-ball, hockey, prisoner's base, or whatever the
girls were playing. But Elizabeth made small progress. Always she barely
stumbled through her part, helped in every way by Olga and often by
other girls who helped her for Olga's sake.
It was Mary Hastings who broke out earnestly one day, looking after the
two going down the road, "I say, girls, we're just a lot of selfish pigs
to leave that Poor Thing on Olga's hands all the time. It must be misery
to her to have Elizabeth hanging on to her as she does--a dead weight."
"Right you are! I should think she'd hate the Poor Thing--I should. I
should take her down to the dock some night and drown her," said Louise
Johnson with her inevitable giggle.
"I think Olga deserves all the honours there are for the way she endures
that--jellyfish," said Edith Rue.
"I never saw any one thaw out the way Olga has lately though. She really
deigns to speak amiably now--sometimes," Annie Pearson put in with a
sniff.
"She 'deigns' to do anything under the sun that will help that Poor
Thing to be a bit like other girls," cried Mary. "Olga is splendid,
girls! She makes me ashamed of myself twenty times a day. Do you realise
what it means? She is trying to make that Poor Thing _live_. She just
exists now. O, we must help her--we must--every single one of us!"
"But how, Molly? We're willing enough to help, but we don't know how.
Elizabeth turns her back on every one of us except Olga--you know she
does."
"I know," Mary admitted, "but if we really try we can find ways to
help."
When, compelled by Olga's unyielding determination, the Poor Thing had
taken a three-mile tramp every day for a week, she began to enjoy it,
and did not object when another mile was added. She was always happy
when she was with Olga, but at other times--when they were not
walking--her content was marred by the consciousness that Olga was not
really pleased with her because she could not do so many things that the
others wanted her to do--like beadwork and basketwork, and above all,
swimming. But Olga was pleased with her when she went willingly on these
daily tramps.
The Poor Thing seemed to find something particularly attractive about
the Slabtown settlement, and liked better to go in that direction than
any other. She would often stop and watch the dirty half-naked babies
playing in the bare yards; and as she watched them there would come into
her face a look that Olga could not understand--Olga, who had never had
a baby sister to love and cuddle.
One day when the two approached the little settlement, they saw half a
dozen boys and girls walking along the top of a stone-wall that bordered
the road. A baby girl--not yet three--was begging the others to help her
up, but they refused.
"You can't get up here, Polly John--you're too little!" the boys shouted
at her. But evidently Polly John had a will of her own, for she made
such an outcry that at last her sister exclaimed, "We've got to take her
up--she'll yell till we do," and to the baby she cried, "Now you hush
up, Polly, an' ketch hold o' my hand."
The baby held up her hand and with a jerk she was pulled to the top of
the wall, but by no means did she "hush up." She writhed and twisted and
screamed, but there was a difference now--a note of pain and terror in
the shrill cries.
"What ails her? What's she yellin' for now?" one boy demanded, and
another shouted, "Take her down, Peggy. You get down with her."
"I won't, either!" Peggy retorted angrily, but she was sitting on the
wall now, holding the baby half impatiently, half anxiously.
"Look at her arm. What makes her stick it out like that?" one boy
questioned.
The big sister took hold of the small arm, but at her touch the baby's
cries redoubled, and a woman put her head out of a window and sharply
demanded what they were doing to that child anyhow.
It was then that the Poor Thing suddenly darted across the road and
caught the wailing child from the arms of her astonished sister.
"O, don't touch her arm!" Elizabeth cried. "Don't you see? It's hurting
her dreadfully. You slipped it out of joint when you pulled her up
there."
"I didn't, either! Much you know about it!" the older girl flashed back,
sticking out her tongue. But the fear in her eyes belied her impudence.
"Where's her mother?" Elizabeth demanded.
"She ain't got none," chorused all the children.
Several women now came hurrying out to see what was the matter. One of
them held out her arms to the child, but she hid her face on Elizabeth's
shoulder, and still kept up her frightened wailing.
"How d'ye know her arm's out o' joint?" one of the women demanded when
Peggy had repeated what Elizabeth had said.
"I do know because I pulled my little sister's arm out just that way
once, lifting her over a crossing. O, I _wish_ I knew how to slip it in
again! It wouldn't take a minute if we only knew how. Now we must get
her to a doctor--quick. It is hurting her dreadfully, you know--that's
why she keeps crying so!"
"A doctor! Ain't no doctor nearer'n East Bassett," one woman said.
"East Bassett! Then we must take her there," Elizabeth said to Olga, who
for once stood by silent and helpless.
"We can get her there in twenty minutes--maybe fifteen if we walk fast,"
she said.
"Then"--Elizabeth questioned the women--"can any of you take her there?"
The women exchanged glances. "It's 'most dinner time--my man will be
home," said one. The others all had excuses; no one offered to take the
child to East Bassett. No one really believed in the necessity. What did
this white-faced slip of a girl know about children, anyhow?
"Then I'll take her myself," the Poor Thing declared. "I guess I can
carry her that far."
"An' who'll bring her back?" demanded the child's sister gloomily.
"You must come with me and bring her back," Elizabeth answered with
decision. "Come quick! I tell you it's hurting her awfully. Don't you
see how white she is?"
Peggy looked at the little face all white and drawn with pain, and
surrendered.
"I'll go," she said meekly, and without more words, Elizabeth set off
with the child in her arms. Olga followed in silence, and Peggy trailed
along in the rear, but as she went she turned and shouted back to one
of the boys, "Jimmy, you come along too with the wagon to bring her home
in," and presently a freckled-faced boy, with straw-coloured hair, had
joined the procession. The wagon he drew was a soapbox fitted with a
pair of wheels from a go-cart.
"Let me carry her, Elizabeth--she's too heavy for you," Olga said after
a few minutes; but the child clung to Elizabeth, refusing to be
transferred, and at the pressure of the little yellow head against her
shoulder, Elizabeth smiled.
"I can carry her," she said. "She's not so very heavy. She makes me
think of little Molly."
So Elizabeth carried the child all the way, and held her still when they
reached East Bassett and by rare good luck found the doctor at home. He
was an old man, and over his glasses he looked up with a twinkle of
amusement as the party of five trailed into his office. But the next
instant he demanded abruptly,
"What ails that child?"
"It's her arm--see?" Elizabeth said. "It's out of joint."
"Yes!" The doctor snapped out the word. Then his hands were on the
baby's shoulder, there was a quick skilful twist, a shriek of pain and
terror from the baby, and the bone slipped into place.
"There, that's all right. She's crying now only because she's
frightened," the doctor said, snapping his fingers at the child. "How
did it happen?"
Elizabeth explained.
"Well, I guess you'll know better than to lift a baby by the arm another
time," the doctor said, with a kindly smile into Elizabeth's tired face.
"Is it your sister?"
"No--hers." Elizabeth indicated Peggy, who twisted her bare feet
nervously one over the other as the doctor looked her over. "They live
at Slabtown," Elizabeth added.
"O--at Slabtown. And where do you live?"
"I'm--we," Elizabeth's gesture included Olga, "we are at the camp."
"And how came you mixed up in this business?" The doctor meant to know
all about the affair now. When Elizabeth had told him, he looked at her
curiously. "And so you lugged that heavy child all the way down here?"
he said.
"Olga wanted to carry her, but the baby wouldn't let her--and she was
crying, so----" Elizabeth's voice trailed off into silence.
The doctor smiled at her again. Then suddenly he inquired in a gruff
voice, "Well now, who's going to pay me for this job--you?"
"_O!_" cried Elizabeth, her eyes suddenly very anxious. "I--I never
thought of that. It was hurting her so--and she's so little--I just
thought--thought----" Again she left her sentence unfinished.
"What's her name? Who's her father?" the doctor demanded.
Peggy answered, "Father's Jim Johnson. I guess mebbe he'll pay
you--sometime."
The doctor's face changed. He remembered when Jim Johnson's wife died a
year before--he remembered the three children now.
"There's nothing to pay," he said kindly, "only be careful how you pull
your little sister around by the arms after this. Some children can
stand that sort of handling, but she can't."
"O, thank you!" Elizabeth's eyes full of gratitude were lifted to the
old doctor's face as she spoke. He rose, and looking down at her, laid a
kindly hand on her shoulder.
"That camp's a good place for you. Stay there as long as you can," he
said. "But don't lug a three-year-old a mile and a half again. You are
hardly strong enough yet for that kind of athletics."
They all filed out then, and Elizabeth put little Polly John into the
soapbox wagon, kissed the small face, dirty and tear-stained as it was,
and stood for a moment looking after the three children as they set off
towards Slabtown.
As they went on to the camp, Olga kept glancing at Elizabeth in silent
wonder. Was this really the Poor Thing who could not do anything--who
would barely answer "yes" or "no" when any one spoke to her? Olga
watched her in puzzled silence.
V
WIND AND WEATHER
Olga, sitting under a big oak, was embroidering her ceremonial dress,
and, as usual, Elizabeth sat near, watching her as she worked. Olga did
it as she did most things, with taste and skill, but she listened
indifferently when Laura Haven, stopping beside her, spoke admiringly of
the work.
"I wouldn't waste time over it if I hadn't promised Miss Grandis to
embroider it. She gave us all the stuff, you know," Olga explained.
"It isn't wasting time to make things beautiful," Laura replied. "That
is part of our law, you know, to seek beauty, and wherever possible,
create it." She looked at Elizabeth and added, "You'll be learning
by-and-by to do such work."
There was no response from the Poor Thing, only the usual shrinking
gesture and eyes down-dropped. Acting on a sudden impulse, Laura spoke
again. "Elizabeth, the cook is short of helpers this morning, and I've
volunteered to shell peas. There's a big lot of them to do. I wonder if
you would be willing to help me."
To her surprise Elizabeth rose at once with a nod. "Olga will be glad to
have her away for a little while," Laura was thinking as they went over
to the kitchen.
It certainly was a big lot of peas. Forty girls, living and sleeping in
the open, develop famous appetites, and the "telephone" peas were
delicious. But as the two worked, the great pile of pods grew steadily
smaller, and finally Laura looked at Elizabeth with a laugh. "I've been
trying my best, but I can't keep up with you," she said. "How do you
shell them so fast, Elizabeth?"
A wee ghost of a smile--the first Laura had ever seen there--fluttered
over the girl's face. "I'm used to this kind of work. You have to do it
fast when you're cookin' for eight," she explained simply.
"And you have cooked for eight?" Laura questioned, and added to herself,
"No wonder you look like a ghost of a girl."
Elizabeth nodded. Laura could not induce her to talk, but still she felt
that somehow she had penetrated a little way into the shell of silence
and reserve. As they went back across the camp, she dropped her arm over
Elizabeth's shoulders, and said,
"You're a splendid helper, Elizabeth. May I call on you the next time I
need any one?"
Another silent nod, and then the girl slipped back into her place beside
Olga.
"Then I will--and thank you," Laura returned as she passed on. Olga
glanced after her with something odd and inscrutable in her dark eyes,
and there was a question in the look with which she searched the face of
Elizabeth. But she did not put the question into words.
Afterwards Laura spoke to her friend of the Poor Thing with a new
hopefulness, telling how willingly she had helped with the peas.
"You know I've tried in vain to get her to do other things, but this
time she was so quick to respond! I'm almost afraid to hope, but maybe
I've had an inspiration. I must try the child again though before I can
feel at all sure."
She made her second trial the next day, when she sent Bessie Carroll to
ask Elizabeth to help her with the dishes. "It's my day to work in the
kitchen," Bessie told her, "and Miss Laura thought you might be willing
to help me. Most of the girls, you know, hate the kitchen work. You
don't, do you?"
"I _like_ to help," replied Elizabeth promptly.
"I like Elizabeth!" Bessie confided to Laura that night. "Before, I've
tried to get her into things because she seemed so lonesome and 'out of
it,' don't you know? But I like her now, she was so willing to help me
to-day. I thought she was awfully slow, but she was quick as anybody
with the dishes."
Then Laura felt sure she had found the key. "Elizabeth loves to help,"
she told Anne Wentworth.
"'Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten,'" she
quoted. "Anne, I believe that that spirit is in the Poor Thing--deep
down in the starved little heart of her--while Olga--with Olga it is the
other. She 'glorifies work' because 'through work she is free.' She
works 'to win, to conquer, to be master.' She works 'for the joy of the
working.' That's the difference."
Anne nodded gravely. "I am sure you are right about Olga. It has always
seemed to me that to her 'Wohelo means work' and only that."
"And to Elizabeth it means--or will mean--service and that means,
underneath--love," said Laura, her voice full of deep feeling. "O Anne,
I so _long_ to help that poor child to get some of the beauty and joy
of life into her little neglected soul!"
"If she has love, she has the best thing in life already," Anne
reminded. "The rest will come--in time."
A day or two later Laura found another excuse for asking Elizabeth's
help, and as before, the response was quick, and again Olga's busy
fingers paused as she looked after the two, and quite unconsciously her
dark brows came together in a frown. Elizabeth had gone with scarcely a
glance at her. A week--two weeks earlier, she would have hung back and
refused. Olga shook her head impatiently as she resumed her work, and
wondered why she was dissatisfied with Elizabeth for going so willingly.
Of course she must do what her Guardian asked. Nevertheless----Olga left
it there.
It was an hour before Elizabeth came back, and this time there was in
her face something half shy, half exultant, and she did not say a word
about what Miss Laura had wanted her for. Olga made a mental note of
that, but she was far too proud to make any inquiries.
The next morning after breakfast Elizabeth disappeared again, and this
time too it was fully an hour before she returned, and as before she
came back with a shining something in her eyes--a something that changed
slowly to troubled brooding when Olga did not look at her or speak to
her all the rest of the morning.
When the third day it was the same, Olga faced the situation in stony
silence. She would not ask why Elizabeth went or where, but she silently
resented her going, and Elizabeth, sensitively conscious of her
resentment, after that, slipped away each time with a wistful backward
glance; and when she returned, there was no shining radiance in her
eyes, but only that wistful pleading which Olga coldly ignored. So it
went on day after day. Olga always knew where Elizabeth was except for
that one hour in the morning, which was never mentioned between them.
The other times she was always helping some one--darning stockings for
Louise Johnson--Elizabeth knew how to darn stockings--or helping little
Bessie Carroll hunt for some of her belongings, which she was always
losing, or helping Katie the cook, who declared that nobody in camp
could pare potatoes and apples, or peel tomatoes or pick over berries so
fast as the Poor Thing. There was not a day now that some one did not
call on Elizabeth for something like this, for the girls had found out
that she was always willing. She seemed to take it quite as a matter of
course that she should be at the service of everybody. But Laura noted
the fact that she never asked anybody to help her.
Then came a night when Mrs. Royall detained the girls for a moment after
supper in the dining-room.
"I think we are going to have a heavy storm," she said, "and we must be
prepared for it. Put all your belongings under cover where they will be
secure from wind and rain. I should advise you to sleep in your
gymnasium suits--you will be none too warm in this northeast wind--and
have your rubber blankets and overshoes handy. Guardians will examine
all tent-pins and ropes and see that everything is secure. No tent-sides
up to-night, of course. I shall have a fire here, and lanterns burning
all night; so if anything is needed you can come right here. Now
remember, girls, there is nothing to be afraid of--and Camp Fire Girls,
of course, are never afraid. That is all, but attend to these things at
once, and as it is too chilly to stay out, we will all spend the evening
here."
The girls scattered, and the next half-hour was spent in making
everything ready for stormy weather. Only Louise Johnson, her mouth full
of mint gum, gaily protested that it was all nonsense. It might rain, of
course, but she didn't believe there was going to be any heavy storm--in
August----
"If the rest of you want to bundle up in your gym. suits you can, but
excuse _me_!" she said. "And I can't put all my duds under cover."
"All right, Johnny, you'll have nobody but yourself to blame if you find
your things soaked, or blown into the bay before morning," Mary Hastings
told her. "I'm going to obey orders," and she hurried over to her own
tent.
The evening began merrily in the big dining-room. The canvas sides had
been securely fastened down, and a splendid wood fire blazed in the wide
fireplace. Tables were piled at one side of the room, and the girls
played games, and danced to the music of two violins. At bedtime Mrs.
Royall served hot chocolate and wafers, and then the girls went to their
tents. By that time the sky was covered with a murk of black clouds, and
a penetrating wind was blowing up the bay and whistling through the
grove. Extra blankets had been put over the cots and rubber blankets
over all, and the girls were quite willing to pull their flannel gym.
suits over their night clothes, and found them none too warm. Even
Louise Johnson followed the example of the others. "Gee!" she exclaimed
as she tucked the extra blanket closely around her shoulders, "camping
out isn't all it's cracked up to be--not in this weather. Isn't that
thunder?"
It was thunder, and some of the more timid girls heard it with quaking
hearts. But it was distant, low growling thunder, and after a little it
died away. The girls, under their wool coverings, were warm and
comfortable, and their laughter and chatter ceased as they dropped off
to sleep.
It seemed as if the storm spirits had maliciously waited that their
onset might be the more effective, for when all was quiet, and everybody
in camp asleep, the muttering of the thunder grew louder, lightning
began to zigzag across the black cloud masses, and the whistling of the
wind deepened to a steady ominous growl. Tent ropes creaked under the
strain of the heavy blasts; trees writhed and twisted, and the rain came
in gusts, swift, spiteful, and icy cold. In the dining-room Mrs. Royall
awoke from a light doze and piled fresh logs on the fire. Anne and
Laura, whom she had kept with her in case their help might be needed,
peered anxiously out of the windows.
"Can't see a thing but black night except when the flashes come," Anne
said, "but this uproar is bound to awaken the girls."
"And some of them are sure to be frightened," added Mrs. Royall.
"It is enough to frighten them--all this tumult," Laura said. "I wish we
could get them all in here."
"I'd have kept them all here and made a big field bed on the floor if I
had thought we were going to have such a storm as this," Mrs. Royall
said anxiously. "If it doesn't lessen soon, I shall take a lantern and
go the round of the tents to see if all is right."
As she spoke there came a loud rattling peal of thunder, followed
immediately by a blinding flash of lightning that zigzagged across the
sky, making the dense darkness yet blacker by contrast.
It was then that Mary Hastings, sitting up in bed, caught a glimpse, in
the glare of the lightning, of Annie Pearson's white terrified face in
the next cot.
"O Mary, I'm sc--scared to d--death!" Annie whimpered, her teeth
chattering with cold and terror.
"We are all right if only our tent doesn't blow over," returned Mary,
and her steady voice quieted Annie for the moment. "If it does, we must
make a dive for the dining-room. Got your raincoats and rubbers handy,
girls?"
"I'm putting mine on," Olga's voice was as cool and undisturbed as
Mary's. She turned towards the next cot and added, "Elizabeth, you've no
raincoat. Wrap yourself in your rubber blanket if the tent goes."
"Ye--es," returned Elizabeth, with a little frightened gasp.
Under the bedclothes Annie Pearson was sobbing and moaning, "O, I wish I
was home! I wish I was home!"
Mary Hastings spoke sternly. "Annie Pearson, if you don't stop that
whimpering I'll shake you!"
Annie subsided into sniffling silence. Outside there was a lull, and
after a moment, Mary added hopefully, "There, I guess the worst is over,
and we're all right."
While the words were yet on her lips, the storm leaped up like a giant
refreshed. Rain came down in a deluge, beating through tent-canvas and
spraying, with fine mist, the faces of the girls. Another vivid glare of
lightning was followed by a long, loud rattling peal ending in a
terrific crash that seemed fairly to rend the heavens, while the wind
shook the tents as if giant hands were trying to wrest them from their
fastenings. Then from all over the camp arose frightened shrieks and
wails and cries, but Annie Pearson now was too terrified to utter a
word. The next moment there was a loud, ripping tearing sound, and as
fresh cries broke out, Mrs. Royall's voice, clear and steady, rose above
the tumult.
"Be quiet, girls," she called. "One tent has gone over, but nobody's
hurt. Mary Hastings, slip on your coat and rubbers, and come and help
us--quick!"
"I'm coming," called Mary instantly, and directly she was out in the
storm. Where the next tent had been, nothing but the wooden flooring,
the iron cots, and four wooden boxes remained, and over these the rain
was pouring in heavy, blinding sheets. Mrs. Royall, as wet as if she had
just come out of the bay, was holding up a lantern, by the light of
which Mary caught a fleeting glimpse of four figures in dripping
raincoats scudding towards the dining-room, while two others followed
them with arms full of wet bedding.
Mrs. Royall told Mary to gather up the bedding from a third cot and
carry that to the dining-room, "And you take the rest of it," she added
to another girl, who had followed Mary. "And stay in the
dining-room--both of you. Don't come out again. Miss Anne will tell you
what to do there."
She held the lantern high until the girls reached the dining-room, then
she hurried to another tent, from which came a hubbub of frightened
cries. Pushing aside the canvas curtain she stepped inside the tent, and
holding up her lantern, looked about her. The cries and excited
exclamations ceased at the sight of her, though one girl could not
control her nervous sobbing.
"What is the matter here? Your tent hasn't blown over. What are you
crying about, Rose?" Mrs. Royall demanded.
Rose Anderson, an excitable little creature of fifteen, lifted a face
white as chalk. "O," she sobbed, "something came in--right up on my bed.
It was big and--and furry--and _wet_! O Mrs. Royall, I never was so
scared in my life!" She ended with a burst of hysterical sobbing.
Mrs. Royall cast a swift searching glance around the tent, then--wet and
cold and worried as she was, her face crinkled into sudden laughter.
"Look, Rose--over there on that box. That must be the wet, furry _big_
intruder that scared you so!"
Four pairs of round frightened eyes followed her pointing finger; and on
the box they saw a half-grown rabbit, with eyes bulging like marbles as
the little creature crouched there in deadly terror. One glance, and
three of the girls broke into shrieks of nervous laughter in which,
after a moment, Rose joined. And having begun to laugh the girls kept
on, until those in the other tents began to wonder if somebody had gone
crazy. Mrs. Royall finally had to speak sternly to put an end to the
hysterical chorus.
"There, there, girls, that will do--now be quiet! Listen, the thunder is
fainter now, and the lightning less sharp. I think the wind is going
down too. Are any of you wet?"
"Only--only Rose, where the _big_ furry thing----" began one, and at
that a fresh peal of laughter rang out. But Mrs. Royall's grave face
silenced it quickly.
"Listen, girls," she repeated, "you are keeping me here when I am needed
to look after others. I cannot go until you are quiet. I'll take this
half-drowned rabbit"--she reached over and picked up the trembling
little creature--"with me; and now I think you can go to sleep. I am
sure the worst of the storm is over."
"We will be quiet, Mrs. Royall," Edith Rue promised, her lips twitching
again as she looked at the shivering rabbit.
"And I hope now _you_ can get some rest," another added, and then Mrs.
Royall dropped the curtain and went out again into the rain, which was
still falling heavily. All the other tents had withstood the gale, and
when Mrs. Royall had looked into each one, answered the eager questions
of the girls, and assured them that no one was hurt and the worst of the
storm was over, she hurried back to the dining-room. There she found
that Anne and Laura had warmed and dried the girls, who had been turned
out of their tent, given them hot milk, and made up dry beds for them on
the floor.
"They are warm as toast," Anne assured her.
"And now you and I will get back to bed, Elizabeth," Mary Hastings said,
again slipping on her raincoat, while Laura quietly threw her own over
the other girl's shoulders.
"Wait a minute," Mrs. Royall ordered, and brought them two sandbags hot
from the kitchen oven. "You must not go to sleep with cold feet. And
thank you both for your help," she added. "I'll hold the lantern here at
the door so you can see your way." But Laura quietly took the lantern
from her, and held it till Mary called, "All right!"
"Is that you, Mary?" Olga's quiet voice questioned, as the girls entered
the tent.
"Yes--Elizabeth and I. The excitement is all over and the storm will be
soon. Let's all get to sleep as fast as we can."
"Elizabeth!" Olga repeated to herself. She had not known that Elizabeth
had left her cot. "Why did you go?" she asked in a low tone, as
Elizabeth crept under the blankets.
"Why--to help," the Poor Thing answered, squeezing the hand that touched
hers in the darkness.
The storm surely was lessening now. The lightning came at longer
intervals and the thunder lagged farther and farther behind it. The rain
still fell, but not so heavily, and the roar of the wind had died down
to a sullen growl. In ten minutes the other three girls were sound
asleep, but Olga lay long awake, her eyes searching the darkness, as her
thoughts searched her own soul, finding there some things that greatly
astonished her.
VI
A WATER CURE
There were some pale cheeks and heavy eyes the next morning, but no one
had taken cold from the exposure of the night, and most of the girls
were as fresh and full of life as ever. The camp, however, was strewn
with leaves and broken branches, and one tree was uprooted. Mrs.
Royall's face was grave as she thought of what might have been, had that
tree fallen across any of the tents. It was a heavy responsibility that
she carried with these forty girls under her charge, and never had she
felt it more deeply than now.
The baby bunny was evidently somebody's stray pet, for it submitted to
handling as if used to it, showed no desire to get away, and contentedly
nibbled the lettuce leaves and carrots which the girls begged of Katie.
"He fairly _purrs_ when I scratch his head," Louise Johnson declared
gaily. "Girls, we must keep him for the camp mascot."
"Looks as if we should have to keep him unless a claimant appears," Mary
Hastings said. "I've almost stepped on him twice already. I don't
believe we could drive him away with a club."
"Nobody wants to drive him away," retorted Louise, lifting him by his
long ears, "unless maybe Rose," she added, with a teasing glance over
her shoulder. "You know Rose doesn't care for _big_ furry things."
"Well, I guess," protested Rose, "if he had flopped into your face all
dripping wet, in the dark, as he did into mine last night, you wouldn't
have stopped to measure him before you yelled, any more than I did. He
_felt_ as big as--a wildcat, so there!" and Rose turned away with
flushed cheeks, followed by shouts of teasing laughter.
"It's--too bad. I'd have been scared too," said a low voice, and Rose,
turning, stared in amazement at the Poor Thing--the _Poor Thing_--for
almost the first time since she came to camp, volunteering a remark.
"Why--why, you Po--_Elizabeth_!" Rose stammered, and then suddenly she
slipped her arm around Elizabeth's waist and drew her off to the hammock
behind the pines. "Come," she said, "I want to tell you about it. The
girls are all laughing at me--especially Louise Johnson--but it wasn't
any laughing matter to me last night. I was scared stiff--truly I was!"
She poured the story of her experiences into the other girl's ears. The
fact that Elizabeth said nothing made no difference to Rose. She felt
the silent sympathy and was comforted. When she had talked herself out,
Elizabeth slipped away and sought Olga, but Olga was nowhere to be
found--not in the camp nor on the beach, but one of the boats was
missing, and at last a girl told Elizabeth that she had seen Olga go off
alone in it. That meant an age of anxious watching and waiting for the
Poor Thing. She never could get over her horror of the treacherous blue
water. To her it was a great restless monster forever reaching out after
some living thing to clutch and drag down into its cruel bosom. It was
agony to her to see Olga swim and dive; hardly less agony to see her go
off in a boat or canoe. Always Elizabeth was sure that _this_ time she
would not come back.
[Illustration:
We pull long, we pull strong, A dip now--a foaming prow
We pull keen and true; Through waters so blue
We sing to the king of the great black rocks
Through waters we glide like a long-tailed fox]
She had put on her bathing suit, for Olga still made her wade every
morning, and she wandered forlornly along the beach, and finally
ventured a little way into the water. It was horrible to do even that
alone, but she had promised, and she must do it even if Olga was not
there to know. A troop of girls in bathing suits came racing down to the
beach, Anne and Laura following them.
"What--who is that standing out in the water all alone?" demanded Anne
Wentworth, who was a little near-sighted.
Annie Pearson broke into a peal of laughter. "It's that Poor Thing," she
cried. "Did you ever see such a forlorn figure!"
"Looks like a sick penguin," laughed Louise Johnson.
"Why in the world is she standing there all alone?" cried Laura, and
hurried on ahead, calling, "Elizabeth--Elizabeth, come here. I want
you."
Elizabeth, standing in water up to her ankles, hesitated for a moment,
swept the wide stretch of blue with a wistful searching glance, and then
obeyed the summons.
"Why were you standing there, dear?" Laura questioned gently, leading
her away from the laughing curious girls.
Elizabeth lifted earnest eyes to the kind face bending towards her.
"I promised Olga I'd wade every day--so I had to." Then she broke out,
"O Miss Laura, do you think she'll come back? She went all alone, and
she isn't anywhere in sight."
Laura drew the shivering little figure close to her side. "Why, of
course she'll come back, Elizabeth. Why shouldn't she? She's been out so
scores of times, just as I have. What makes you worry so, child?"
Elizabeth drew a long shuddering breath. "I can't help it," she sighed.
"The water always makes me _so_ afraid, Miss Laura!"
She lifted such a white miserable face that Laura saw it was really
true--she was in the grip of a deadly terror. She drew the trembling
girl down beside her on the warm sand. "Let's sit here a little while,"
she said, and for a few minutes they sat in silence, while further up
the beach girls were wading and swimming and splashing each other, their
shouts of laughter making a merry din. Some were diving from the pier,
and one stood on a high springboard. Suddenly this one flung out her
arms and sprang off, her slim body seeming to float between sky and
water, as she swept downward in a graceful curving line.
Laura caught her breath nervously as her eyes followed the slender
figure that looked so very small outstretched between sky and water, and
Elizabeth covered her eyes with a little moan.
"O, I wish she wouldn't do that--I do wish she wouldn't!" she said under
her breath.
Laura spoke cheerfully. "She is all right. See, Elizabeth, how fast she
is swimming now."
But Elizabeth shook her head and would not look. Laura put her arm
across the narrow shrinking shoulders and after a moment spoke again,
slowly. "Elizabeth, you love Olga, don't you?"
Elizabeth looked up quickly. She did not answer--or need to.
"Yes, I know you do," Laura went on, answering the look. "But do you
love her enough to do something very hard--for her?"
"Yes, Miss Laura. Tell me what. She won't ever let me do anything for
her."
"It will be very, very hard for you," Laura warned her.
The girl looked at her silently, and waited.
"Elizabeth, I don't think you could do anything else that would please
her so much as to conquer your fear of the water _for her sake_. Can you
do such a hard thing as that--for Olga?"
A look of positive agony swept over Elizabeth's face. "_Any_thing but
just that," she moaned. "O Miss Laura, you don't know--you _can't_ know
how I hate it--that deep black water!"
"But can't you--even for Olga?" Laura questioned very gently.
Elizabeth shook her head and two big tears rolled down her cheeks. "I
would if I could. I'd do anything, anything else for her; but that--I
_can't_!" she moaned.
Laura put her hand under the trembling chin, and lifting the girl's face
looked deep into the blue eyes swimming with tears.
"Elizabeth," she said slowly, a world of love and sympathy in her voice,
"Elizabeth, you _can_!"
In that long deep look the dread and horror and misery died slowly out
of Elizabeth's eyes, and a faint incredulous hope began to grow in
them. It was as if she literally drew courage and determination from the
eyes looking into hers, and who can tell what subtle spirit message
really passed from the strong soul into the weaker one?
"I never, never could," Elizabeth faltered; but Laura caught the note of
wavering hope in the low-spoken words.
"Elizabeth, you can. I _know_ you can," she repeated.
"How?" questioned Elizabeth, and Laura smiled and drew her closer.
"You are afraid of the water," she said, "and your fear is like a cord
that binds your will just as your arms might be bound to your sides with
a scarf. But you can break the cord, and when you do, you will not be
afraid of the water any more. Myra Karr was afraid just as you
are--afraid of almost everything, but one wonderful day she conquered
her fear. Ask her and she will tell you about it, and how much happier
she has been ever since, as you will be when you have broken your cords.
And just think how it will please Olga!"
There was a little silence; then suddenly Elizabeth leaned forward,
eagerly pointing off over the water. "Is it--is she coming?" she
whispered.
"Yes, she is coming. Now just think how you have suffered worrying over
her this morning, and all for nothing."
Elizabeth drew a long happy breath. "I don't care now she's coming," she
said, and it was as if she sang the words.
Laura went on, "Have you noticed, Elizabeth, how different Olga is from
the other girls? She never laughs and frolics. She never really enjoys
any of the games. She cares for nothing but work. She hasn't a single
friend in the camp--she won't have one. I don't think she is happy, do
you?"
Elizabeth considered that in silence. She had known these things, but
she had never thought of them before.
"It's so," she admitted finally, her eyes on the approaching boat.
"Elizabeth, I think you are the only one who can really help Olga."
"I?" Elizabeth lifted wondering eyes. Then she added hastily, "You
mean--going in the water?" She shuddered at the thought.
"Yes, dear, if you will let Olga help you to get rid of your fear of the
water, it will mean more to her even than to you. Olga needs you, child,
more than you need her, for you have many friends now in the camp, and
she has only you."
"I like her the best of all," Elizabeth declared loyally.
"Yes, but you must prove it to her before you can really help her,"
Laura replied. "See, she is almost in now, and I won't keep you any
longer."
Olga secured her boat to a ring and ran lightly up the steps. In a few
minutes she came back in her bathing suit. As she ran down the beach,
she swept a swift searching glance over the few girls sitting or lying
on the sand; then her eyes rested on a little shrinking figure standing
like a small blue post, knee deep in the water. It was Elizabeth, her
cheeks colourless, her eyes fixed beseechingly, imploringly, on Olga's
face. In a flash Olga was beside her, crying out sharply,
"What made you come in alone?"
"I p-promised you----" Elizabeth replied, her teeth chattering.
"Well, you've done it," said Olga. "Cut out now and get dressed."
But Elizabeth stood still and shook her head. "No," though her lips
trembled, her voice was determined, "no, Olga, I'm going up to my--my
neck to-day," and she held out her hands.
"You are not--you're coming out!" Olga declared. "You're in a blue funk
this minute."
"I--know it," gasped Elizabeth, "but I'm going in--_alone_--if you won't
go with me. Quick, Olga, quick!" she implored.
Some instinct stilled the remonstrance on Olga's lips. She grasped
Elizabeth by her shoulders and walking backward herself, drew the other
girl steadily on until the water rose to her neck. Elizabeth gasped, and
deadly fear looked out of her straining eyes, but she made no sound. The
next instant Olga had turned and was pulling her swiftly back to the
beach.
"There! You see it didn't hurt you," she said brusquely, but never
before had she looked at Elizabeth as she looked at her then. "Now run
to the bathhouse and rub yourself hard before you dress," she ordered.
But Elizabeth had turned again towards the water, and Olga followed,
amazed and protesting.
"Go back," cried Elizabeth over her shoulder, "go back. I'm going in
alone this time."
And alone she went until once more the water surged and rippled about
her neck. Only an instant--then she swayed and her eyes closed; but
before she could lose her footing Olga's hands were on her shoulders and
pushing her swiftly back to the beach. This time, however, she did not
stop there, but swept the small figure over to the bathhouse. There she
gave Elizabeth a brisk rubdown that set the blood dancing in her veins.
"Now get into your clothes in a hurry!" she commanded.
"I'm--n-not c-cold, Olga," Elizabeth protested with a pallid smile,
"truly I'm not. I'm just n-nervous, I guess."
"You're just a _brick_, Elizabeth Page!" cried Olga, and she slammed the
door and vanished, leaving Elizabeth glowing with delight.
Each day after that Elizabeth insisted on venturing a little more. Olga
could guess what it cost her--her blue lips and the terror in her eyes
told that--but day after day she fought her battle over and would not be
worsted. She learned to float, to tread water, and then, very, very
slowly, she learned to swim a little. Laura, looking on, rejoiced over
both the girls. Everybody was interested in this marvellous achievement
of the Poor Thing--they spoke of her less often by that name now--but
only Laura realised how much it meant to Olga too. The day that
Elizabeth succeeded in swimming a few yards, Olga for the first time
took her out on the water at sunset; she had never been willing to go
before. Even now she stepped into the boat shrinkingly, the colour
coming and going in her cheeks, but when she was seated, and the boat
floating gently on the rose-tinted water, the tense lines faded slowly
from her face, and at last she even smiled a little.
"Well," said Olga, "are you still scared?"
"A little--but not much. If I wasn't any afraid it would be lovely--like
rocking in a big, big beautiful cradle," she ended dreamily.
A swift glance assured Olga that they had drifted away from the other
boats--there was no one within hearing. She leaned forward and looked
straight into the eyes of the other girl. "Now I want to know what made
you get over your fear of the water," she said.
"Maybe I've not got over it--quite," Elizabeth parried.
"What made you? Tell me!" Olga's tone was peremptory.
"You," said Elizabeth.
"I? But I didn't--I couldn't. I'd done my best, but I couldn't drag you
into water above your knees--you know I couldn't. Somebody else did it,"
Olga declared, a spark flickering in her eyes.
"Miss Laura talked to me that day you were off so long in the boat,"
Elizabeth admitted. "She told me I could get over being afraid. I didn't
think I _could_ before--truly, Olga. I honestly thought I'd die if ever
the water came up to my neck. I don't know how she did it--Miss
Laura--but she made me see that I could get over being so awfully
afraid--and I did."
"You said _I_ did it," there was reproach as well as jealousy now in
Olga's voice, "and it was Miss Laura."
"O no, it was you really," Elizabeth cried hastily, "because I did it
for you. I never could have--never in this world!--only Miss Laura said
it would please you. I did it for you, Olga."
"Hm," was Olga's only response, but now there was in her eyes something
that the Poor Thing had never seen there before--a warm human
friendliness that made Elizabeth radiantly happy.
"There comes the war canoe," Olga cried a moment later.
"How fast it comes--and how pretty the singing sounds!" Elizabeth
returned.
They watched the big canoe as it flashed by, the many paddles rising and
falling as one, while a dozen young voices sang gaily,
"'We pull long, we pull strong,
We pull keen and true.
We sing to the king of the great black rocks,
Through waters we glide like a long-tailed fox.'"
"Next year," said Olga, "I'm going to teach you to paddle, Elizabeth."
VII
HONOURS WON
The camp was to break up in a few days, and the Guardians had planned to
make the last Council Fire as picturesque and effective as
possible--something for the girls to hold as a beautiful memory through
the months to come. It fell on a lovely evening, a cool breeze blowing
from the water, and a young moon adding a golden gleam to the silvery
shining of the stars. Most of the girls had finished their ceremonial
dresses and all were to be worn to-night.
"I'm ridiculously excited, Anne," Laura said, as she looked down at her
woods-brown robe with its fringes and embroideries. "I don't feel a bit
as if I were prosaic Laura Haven. I'm really one of the nut-brown Indian
maids that roamed these woods in ages past."
"If any of those nut-brown maids were as pretty as you are to-night,
they must have had all the braves at their feet," returned Anne, with an
admiring glance at her friend. "What splendid thick braids you have,
Laura!"
"I'm acquainted with the braids," Laura answered, flinging them
carelessly over her shoulders, "but this beautiful bead headband I've
never worn before. Is it on right?"
"All right," Anne replied. "The Busy Corner girls will be proud of
their Guardian to-night."
Laura scarcely heard, her thoughts were so full of her girls--the girls
she had already learned to love. She turned eagerly as the bugle notes
of the Council call rang out in silvery sweetness. "O, come. Don't let
them start without us," she urged.
"No danger--they will want their Guardians to lead the procession."
In a moment Mrs. Royall appeared, and quickly the girls fell into line
behind her. First, the four Guardians; then two Torch Bearers, each
holding aloft in her right hand a lighted lantern. Flaming torches would
have been more picturesque, but also more dangerous in the woods, and
all risk of fire must be avoided. After the Torch Bearers came the Fire
Makers, and last of all the Wood Gatherers, with Katie the cook wearing
a gorgeous robe that some of the girls had embroidered for her. Katie's
unfailing good nature had made her a general favourite in camp.
As the procession wound through the irregular woods-path Laura gave a
little cry of delight.
"O, do look back, Anne--it is so pretty," she said. "If it wasn't that I
want to be a part of it, I'd run ahead so I could see it all better."
Mrs. Royall began to sing and the girls instantly caught up the strain,
and in and out among the trees the procession wound to the music of the
young voices, the lanterns throwing flashes of light on either side,
while the shadows seemed to slip out of the woods and follow "like a
procession of black-robed nuns," Laura said to herself.
The Council chamber was a high open space, surrounded on every side but
one by tall pines. The open side faced the bay, and across the water
glimmered a tiny golden pathway from the moon in the western sky, where
a golden glow from the sunset yet lingered.
The girls formed the semicircle, with the Guardians in the open space.
Wood had been gathered earlier in the day, and now the Wood Gatherers,
each taking a stick, laid it where the fire was to be. As the last stick
was brought, the Fire Makers moved forward and swiftly and skilfully set
the wood ready for lighting. On this occasion, to save time, the rubbing
sticks were dispensed with, and Mrs. Royall signed to Laura to light the
fire with a match.
The usual order of exercises followed, the songs and chants echoing with
a solemn sweetness among the tall pines in whose tops the night wind
played a soft accompaniment.
To-night the interest of the girls centred in the awarding of honours.
All of the Busy Corner girls had won more or less, and as Laura read
each name and announced the honours, the girl came forward and received
her beads from the Chief Guardian. Mrs. Royall had a smile and a
pleasant word for each one; but when Myra Karr stood before her, she
laid her hand very kindly on the girl's shoulder and turned to the
listening circle.
"Camp Fire Girls," she said, "here is one who is to receive special
honour at our hands to-night, for she has won a great victory. You all
know how fearful and timid she was, for you yourselves called
her--Bunny. Now she has fought and conquered her great dragon--Fear--and
you have dropped that name, and she must never again be called by it."
[Illustration: "Wood had been gathered earlier in the day"]
With a pencil, on a bit of birch back, she wrote the name and dropped
the bark into the heart of the glowing fire. "It is gone forever," she
said, her hand again on Myra's shoulder. "Now what shall be the new Camp
Fire name of our comrade?"
Several names were suggested, and finally Watéwin, the Indian word for
one who conquers, was chosen. Myra stood with radiant eyes looking about
the circle until Mrs. Royall said, "Myra, we give you to-night your new
name. You are Watéwin, for you have conquered fear," and the girl walked
back to her place, joy shining in her eyes.
Then Mrs. Royall spoke again, her glance sweeping the circle of intent
faces. "There is another who has conquered the dragon--Fear--and who
deserves high honour--Elizabeth Page."
Elizabeth, absorbed in watching Myra's radiant face, had absolutely
forgotten herself, and did not even notice when her own name was spoken.
Olga had to tell her and give her a little push forward before she
realised that Mrs. Royall was waiting for her. For a second she drew
back; then, catching her breath, she went gravely forward. The voice and
eyes of the Chief Guardian were very tender as she looked down into the
shy blue eyes lifted to hers.
"You too, Elizabeth," she said, "have fought and conquered, not once,
but many times, and to you also we give to-night a new name." She did
not repeat the old one, but writing it on a bit of bark as she had
written Myra's, she told the girl to drop it into the fire. Elizabeth
obeyed--she had never known what the girls had christened her and now
she did not care. Breathlessly she listened as Mrs. Royall went on,
"Camp Fire Girls, what shall be her new name?"
It was Laura who answered after a little silence, "Adawána, the brave
and faithful."
"Adawána, the brave and faithful," Mrs. Royall repeated. "Is that right?
Is it the right name for Elizabeth, Camp Fire Girls?"
"Yes, yes, _yes_!" came the response from two score eager voices.
"You are Adawána, the brave and faithful," said Mrs. Royall, looking
down again into the blue eyes, full now of wonder and shy joy.
"Now listen to the honours that Adawána has won."
As Laura read the long list a murmur of surprise ran round the circle.
The girls had known that Elizabeth would have some honours, for they all
knew how Olga had compelled her to do things, but no one had imagined
that there would be anything like this long list--least of all had
Elizabeth herself imagined it. Perplexity and dismay were in her eyes as
she listened, and as Laura finished the reading, Elizabeth whispered
quickly,
"O Miss Laura, there's some mistake. I couldn't have all those--not half
so many!"
"It's all right, dear," Laura assured her, and in a louder tone she
added, "There is no mistake. The record has been carefully kept and
verified; but you see Elizabeth was not working for honours, and had no
idea how many she had won."
Elizabeth looked fairly dazed as Mrs. Royall threw over her head the
necklace with its red and blue and orange beads. Turning, she hurried
back to her place next Olga.
"It was all you--you did it. You ought to have the honours instead of
me," she whispered, half crying.
"It's all right. Don't be a _baby_!" Olga flung at her savagely, to
forestall the tears.
Then somebody nudged her and whispered, "Olga Priest, don't you hear
Mrs. Royall calling you?"
Wondering, Olga obeyed the summons. She had reported no honours won, and
had no idea why she was called. Laura, standing beside Mrs. Royall,
smiled happily at the girl as she stopped, and stood, her dark brows
drawn together in a frown of perplexity.
"Olga," Mrs. Royall said, "it has been a great joy to us to bestow upon
Adawána the symbols which represent the honours she has won. We are sure
that she will wear them worthily, and that her life will be better and
happier because of that for which they stand. We recognise the fact,
however, that but for you she could not have won these honours. You have
worked harder than she has to secure them for her; therefore to you
belongs the greater honour----"
"No! _No!_" cried Olga under her breath, but with a smile Mrs. Royall
went on, "We know that to you the symbols of honours won--beads and
ornaments--have little value--but we have for you something that we hope
you will value because we all have a share in it, every one in the camp;
and we ask you to wear this because you have shown us what one Camp Fire
Girl can do for another. The work is all Elizabeth's. The rest of us
only gave the beads, and your Guardian taught Elizabeth how to use
them."
She held out a headband, beautiful in design and colouring. Olga stared
at it, at first too utterly amazed for any words. Finally she stammered,
"Why, I--I--didn't know--Elizabeth----" and then to her own utter
consternation came a rush of tears. _Tears!_ And she had lived dry-eyed
through four years of lonely misery. Choked, blinded, and unable to
speak even a word of thanks, she took the headband and turned hastily
away, and as she went the watching circle chanted very low,
"'Wohelo means love.
Love is the joy of service so deep that self is
forgotten--that self is forgotten.'"
With shining eyes--yet half afraid--Elizabeth waited as Olga came back
to her. She knew Olga's scorn for honours and ornaments. Would she be
scornful now--or would she be glad? Elizabeth felt that she never, never
could endure it if Olga were scornful or angry now--if this, her great
secret, her long, hard labour of love--should be only a great
disappointment after all.
But it was not. She knew that it was not as soon as Olga was near enough
to see the look in her eyes. She knew then that it was all right; and
the poor little hungry heart of her sang for joy when Olga placed the
band over her forehead and bent her proud head for Elizabeth to fasten
it in place. Elizabeth did it with fingers trembling with happy
excitement. The coldness that had so often chilled her was all gone now
from the dark eyes. Olga understood. Elizabeth had no more voice than a
duckling, but she felt just then as if she could sing like a song
sparrow from sheer happiness. It was such a wonderful thing to be happy!
Elizabeth had never before known the joy of it.
But Mrs. Royall was speaking again. "Wohelo means work and health and
love," she said, "you all know that--the three best things in all this
beautiful world. Which of the three is best of all?"
Softly Anne Wentworth sang,
"'Wohelo means love,"
and instantly the girls took up the refrain,
"'Wohelo means love,
Wohelo means love.
Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.
Wohelo means love.'"
Laura's eyes, watching the young, earnest faces, filled with quick tears
as the refrain was repeated softly and lingeringly, again and yet again.
Mrs. Royall stood motionless until the last low note died into silence.
Then she went on:
"Work is splendid for mind and body. Some of you have worked for honours
and that is well. Some have worked for the love of the work--that is
better. Some have worked--or fought--for conquest over weakness, and
that is better yet. But two of our number have worked and conquered, not
for honour, not for love of labour, not even for self-conquest--but for
unselfish love of another. That is the highest form of service, dear
Camp Fire Girls--the service that is done in forgetfulness of self.
That is the thought I leave with you to-night."
She stepped back, and instantly each girl placed her right hand over her
heart and all together repeated slowly,
"'This Law of the Fire
I will strive to follow
With all the strength
And endurance of my body,
The power of my will,
The keenness of my mind,
The warmth of my heart,
And the sincerity of my spirit.'"
The fire had died down to glowing coals. At a sign from the Chief
Guardian two of the Fire Makers extinguished the embers, pouring water
over them till not a spark remained. The lanterns were relighted, the
procession formed again, and the girls marched back, singing as they
went.
"O dear, I can't bear to think that we shall not have another Council
Fire like this for months--even if we come here next summer," Mary
Hastings said when they were back in camp.
"And wasn't this the very dearest one!" cried Bessie Carroll. "With
Myra's honours and Elizabeth's, and Olga's headband--_wasn't_ she
surprised, though!"
"First time I ever saw Olga Priest dumfounded," laughed Louise. "But,
say, girls--that Poor Thing is a duck after all--she is really."
Bessie's plump hand covered Louise's lips. "Hush, hush!" she cried in a
tone of real distress, for she loved Elizabeth. "That name is burnt up."
"So it is--beg everybody's pardon," yawned Louise. "But Elizabeth
couldn't hear way over there with Olga and Miss Laura. I say, girls,"
she added with her usual giggle, "I feel as if I'd been wound up to
concert pitch and I've got to let down somehow. Get out your fiddle,
Rose, and play us a jig. I've got to get some of this seriousness out of
my system before I go to bed."
Rose ran for her violin, and two minutes later the girls were dancing
gaily in the moonlight.
"I wish they hadn't," Laura whispered to Anne. "I wanted to keep the
impression of that lovely soft chanting for the last."
"You can't do it--not with Louise Johnson around," returned Anne. "But
never mind, Laura, they won't forget this meeting, even if they do have
to 'react' a bit. I'm sure that even Louise will keep the memory of this
last Council tucked away in some corner of her harum-scarum mind."
VIII
ELIZABETH AT HOME
In a tiny hall bedroom in one of the small brick houses that cover many
blocks in certain sections of Washington, Elizabeth Page was standing a
week later, trying to screw up her courage to a deed of daring; and
because it was for herself it seemed almost impossible for her to do it.
With her white face, her anxious eyes, and trembling hands, she seemed
again the Poor Thing who had shrunk from every one those first days at
the camp--every one but Olga.
Three times Elizabeth started to go downstairs and three times her
courage failed and she drew back. So long as she waited there was a
chance--a very faint one, but still a chance--that the thing she so
desired might come true. But the minutes were slipping away, and
finally, setting her lips desperately, she fairly ran down the stairs.
Her stepmother glanced up with a frown as the girl stood before her.
"Well, what now?" she demanded, in the sharp, fretful tone of one whose
nerves are all a-jangle.
"I've done everything--all the supper work, and fixed everything in the
kitchen ready for morning," Elizabeth said, her words tumbling over each
other in her excitement, "and O, please may I go this evening--to Miss
Laura's? It's the Camp Fire meeting, and one of the girls is going to
stop here for me, and--and O, I'll do _anything_ if only I may go!"
The frown on the woman's face deepened as Elizabeth stumbled on, and her
answer was swift and sharp.
"You are not going one step out of this house to-night--you can make up
your mind to that--not one step. I knew when I let you go off to that
camp that it would be just this way. Girls like you are never satisfied.
You want the earth. Here you've had a month--a whole month--off in the
country while I stood in that hot kitchen and did your work for you, and
now you are teasing to go stringing off again. You are _not going_."
"But," pleaded Elizabeth desperately, "I've worked so hard to-day--every
minute since five o'clock--and I washed and ironed Sadie's white dress
before supper. If there was any work I had to do it would be different.
And--and even servant girls have an afternoon and evening off every
week, and I never do. And I'm only asking now to go out one evening in a
month--just _one_!"
"There it is again!" Mrs. Page flung out. "Not this one evening, but an
evening every month; and if I agreed to that, next thing you'd be
wanting to go every week. I tell you--_no_. Now let that end it."
The tears welled up in Elizabeth's eyes as she turned slowly away; and
the sight of those tears awakened a tumult in another quarter.
Four-year-old Molly had been rocking her Teddy Bear to sleep when
Elizabeth came downstairs, and had listened, wide-eyed and wondering, to
all that passed. But tears in Elizabeth's eyes were too much. The Teddy
Bear tumbled unheeded to the floor as Molly rushed across to Elizabeth
and, clinging to her skirts, turned a small flushed face to her mother.
"Naughty, naughty mamma--make 'Lizbet' _ky_!" she cried out, stamping
her small foot angrily. "Molly love 'Lizbet' _hard_!"
Elizabeth caught up the child and turned to go, but a sharp command
stopped her. "Put that child down. I won't have you setting her against
her own mother!"
Elizabeth unclasped the little clinging arms and put the child down, but
Molly still clutched her dress, sobbing now and hiding her face from her
mother. The tinkle of the doorbell cut the tense silence that followed
Mrs. Page's last command. Sadie, an older girl, ran to open it, flashing
a triumphant glance at Elizabeth as she passed her.
As Sadie flung open the door, Elizabeth saw Olga on the step, and Olga's
quick eyes took in the scene--the frowning woman, Elizabeth's wet eyes
and drooping mouth, and little Molly clinging to her skirts as she
looked over her shoulder to see who had come. Sadie stared pertly at
Olga and waited for her to speak.
"I've come for Elizabeth. I'm Olga----"
"Elizabeth can't go. Mother won't let her," interrupted Sadie with
ill-concealed satisfaction in her narrow eyes.
Elizabeth started towards the door. "O Olga, please tell Miss Laura----"
she was beginning when Sadie unceremoniously slammed the door and
marched back with a victorious air to her mother's side.
Olga was left staring at the outside of the door, and if a look could
have demolished it and annihilated Miss Sadie, both these things might
have happened then and there. But the door stood firm, and there was no
reason to think that anything untoward had happened to Sadie; so after a
moment Olga turned, flew down the steps, and hurrying over to the
car-line, hailed the first car that appeared. Fifteen minutes later she
was ringing the bell at the door of Judge Haven's big stone house on
Wyoming Avenue. The servants in that house never turned away any girl
asking for Miss Laura, so this one was promptly shown into the library.
Laura rose to meet her with a cordial greeting, but Olga neither heard
nor heeded.
"She can't come. Elizabeth can't come!" she cried out. "They wouldn't
even let me speak to her, though she was right there in the hall--nor
let her give me a message for you. Her sister slammed the door in my
face. Miss Laura, I'd like to _kill_ that girl and her mother!"
"Hush, hush, my dear!" Laura said gently. "Sit down and tell me quietly
just what happened."
Olga flung herself into a chair and told her story, but she could not
tell it quietly. She told it with eyes flashing under frowning brows and
her words were full of bitterness.
"Elizabeth's just a slave to them--worse than a servant!" she stormed.
"She never goes anywhere--_never_! They wouldn't have let her go to the
camp if she hadn't been sick and the doctor said she'd die if she didn't
have a rest and change, and so Miss Grandis got her off. O Miss Laura,
can't you do something about it? Elizabeth _wanted_ so to come--she was
crying. I know how she was counting on it before we left the camp."
Laura shook her head sorrowfully. "I don't know what I can do. You see
she is not yet of age, and her father has a right--a legal right, I
mean--to keep her at home."
"But it isn't her father, it's that woman--his wife," Olga declared.
"She won't even let Elizabeth call her mother--not that I should think
she'd want to--but when I asked Elizabeth why she called her Mrs. Page
she said her stepmother told her when she first came there that she
didn't want a great girl that didn't belong to her calling her mother."
"Elizabeth is seventeen?" Laura questioned.
Olga nodded. "She won't be eighteen till next April. _I_ wouldn't stay
there till I was eighteen. I'd clear out. She could earn her own living
and not work half as hard somewhere else, and go out when she liked,
too." She was silent for a moment, then half aloud she added, "I'll find
a way to fix that woman yet!"
"Olga," Laura looked straight into the sombre angry eyes, "you must not
interfere in this matter. Two wrongs will never make a right. If there
is anything that can be done for Elizabeth, be sure that I will do it.
And if not--it is only seven months to April."
"Seven months!" echoed Olga passionately. "Miss Laura, how would you
live through seven months without ever getting out _any_where?"
Laura shook her head. "We will hope that Elizabeth will not have to do
that," she said gently. "But I hear some of the girls. Come."
In the wide hall were half a dozen girls who had just arrived, and Laura
led the way to a large room on the third floor. At the door of this
room, the girls broke into cries and exclamations of pleasure.
"It's like a bit of the camp," Mary Hastings cried, and Rose Anderson
exclaimed,
"It's just the sweetest room I ever saw!" and she sniffed delightedly
the spicy fragrance of the pines and balsam firs that stood in great
green tubs about the walls. On the floor was a grass rug of green and
wood-colour, and against the walls stood several long low settees of
brown rattan, backs and seats cushioned in cretonne of soft greens and
cream-colour, and a few chairs of like pattern were scattered about.
Curtains of cream-coloured cheesecloth, with a stencilled design of pine
cones in shaded browns, draped the windows, and in the wide fireplace a
fire was laid ready for lighting. The low mantelpiece above it held only
three brass candlesticks with bayberry candles, and above it,
beautifully lettered in sepia, were the words,
"'Whoso shall stand by this hearthstone,
Flame-fanned,
Shall never, never stand alone:
Whose house is dark and bare and cold,
Whose house is cold,
This is his own.'"
And below this
"'Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.'"
Bessie Carroll drew a long breath as she looked about, and said
earnestly, "Miss Laura, I never, never saw any place so dear! I didn't
think there could be such a pretty room."
Laura bent and kissed the earnest little face. "I am glad you like it so
much, dear," she said. "I like it too. You remember the very first
words of our Camp Fire law--'Seek beauty'? I thought of that when I was
furnishing this. It is our Camp Fire room, girls, and I hope we shall
have many happy times together here."
"I guess they couldn't help being happy times in a room like this--and
with you," returned Bessie with her shy smile, which remark was promptly
approved by the other girls--except Olga, who said nothing.
"You look as glum as that old barn owl at the camp, Olga," Louise
Johnson told her under cover of the gay clamour of talk that followed.
"For heaven's sake, do cheer up a bit. That face of yours is enough to
curdle the milk of human kindness."
Olga's only response was a black scowl and a savage glance, at which
Louise retreated with a shrug of her shoulders and an exasperating wink
and giggle.
Within half an hour all the girls were there except Elizabeth. Olga,
glooming in a corner, thought of Elizabeth crawling off alone to her
room to cry. Torture would not have wrung tears from Olga's great black
eyes, and she would have seen them unmoved in the eyes of any other
girl; but Elizabeth--that was another thing. She glanced scornfully at
the others laughing and chattering around Miss Laura, and vowed that she
would never come to another of the meetings unless Elizabeth could come
too. If Miss Laura, after all her talk, couldn't do something to help
Elizabeth----But Miss Laura was standing before her now with a box of
matches in her hand.
"I want you to light our fire to-night, Olga," she said gently.
Ungraciously enough, Olga touched a match to the splinters of resinous
pine on the hearth, and as the fire flashed into brightness, Miss
Laura, turning out the electric lights, said, "I love the fire, but I
love the candles almost as much; so at our meetings here, we will have
both." The girls were standing now in a circle broken only by the fire.
Miss Laura set the three candlesticks with the bayberry candles on the
floor in the centre of the circle and motioned the girls to sit down.
Lightly they dropped to the floor, and Laura, touching a splinter to the
fire, handed it to Frances Chapin, a grave studious High School girl who
had not been at the camp. Rising on one knee, Frances repeated slowly,
"'I light the light of Work, for Wohelo means work,'" and lighting the
candle, she added,
"'Wohelo means work.
We glorify work, because through work we are free.
We work to win, to conquer, to be masters. We work
for the joy of the working and because we are free.
Wohelo means work.'"
As Frances stepped back into the circle, Laura beckoned to Mary
Hastings, the strongest, healthiest girl of them all, who, coming
forward, chanted slowly in her deep rich voice,
"'I light the light of Health, for Wohelo means health!'"
Lighting the candle, she went on,
"'Wohelo means health.
We hold on to health, because through health we serve
and are happy.
In caring for the health and beauty of our persons we
are caring for the very shrine of the Great Spirit.
Wohelo means health.'"
As Mary went back to her place Laura laid her hand on the shoulder of
Bessie Carroll, who was next her. With a glance of pleased surprise
Bessie took the third taper and in her low gentle voice repeated,
"'I light the light of Love, for Wohelo means love.'"
The room was very still as she lighted the third candle, saying,
"'Wohelo means love.
We love love, for love is life, and light and joy and
sweetness.
And love is comradeship and motherhood, and fatherhood and all
dear kinship.
Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.
Wohelo means love.'"
As she spoke the last words a strain of music, so low that it was barely
audible, breathed through the room, then deepened into one clear note,
and instantly the wohelo cheer rose in a joyful chorus.
After the roll-call and reports of the last meeting there was no more
ceremony. Miss Laura had set the three candles back on the mantelpiece,
where they burned steadily, sending out a faint spicy odor that mingled
with the pleasant fragrance of the firs. The fire snapped and sang and
blazed merrily, and Laura dropped down on the floor in front of it,
gathering the girls closer about her.
"To-night," she began, "I want to hear about your good times--the 'fun'
that every girl wants and needs. Tell me, what do you enjoy most?"
"Moving pictures," shouted Eva Bicknell, a little bundle-wrapper of
fifteen.
"Dances," cried another girl.
"O yes, dances," echoed pretty Annie Pearson, her eyes shining.
"I like the roller skating at the Arcade," another declared.
"The gym and swimming pool and tennis." That was Mary Hastings.
"Hear her, will ye?" Eva Bicknell muttered. "Great chance _we_ have for
tennis and gym.!"
"You could have them at the Y.W.C.A. That's where I go for them when you
go to your dances and picture shows," retorted Mary.
"But the picture shows is great fun, 'specially when the boys take ye
in," the other flung back.
There was a laugh at that, and the little bundle-wrapper added, "an'
finish up with a promenade on the avenue in the 'lectric lights."
Laura's heart sank at these frank expressions of opinion. What had she
to offer that would offset picture shows, dances and "the boys" for such
girls as these? But now one of the High School girls was speaking. "We
have most of our good times at the school. There is always something
going on--lunches or concerts or socials or dances--and once a year we
get up a play. Some girl in the class generally writes the play. It's
great fun."
Laura brightened at that. Here were three at least who cared for
something besides picture shows. For half an hour longer she let the
talk run on, and that half-hour gave her sidelights on many of the
girls. Except Olga--she had not opened her lips during the discussion.
When there came a little pause, Laura spoke in a carefully careless way.
"I told you, girls, that this is our Camp Fire room and I want you to
feel that it belongs to you--every one of you owns a share in it. We
shall have the Council meetings here every Saturday, but this room is
not to be shut up all the other evenings. We may have no moving
pictures, but you can come here and dance if you wish, or play games, or
sing--I'm going to have a piano here soon--or if you like you can bring
your sewing--your Christmas presents to make. What I want you to
understand is that this room is yours, to be used for your pleasure. You
haven't seen all yet."
Rising, she touched a button, and as the room was flooded with light,
threw open a door. The girls, crowding after her, broke into cries of
delight and admiration; for here was a white-tiled kitchen complete in
all its appointments, even to a small white-enamelled gas range and a
tiny refrigerator. On brass hooks hung blue and white saucepans and
kettles and spoons, and a triangular corner closet with leaded doors
revealed blue and white china and glass.
"All for the Camp Fire Girls," Laura said, "and it means fudge, and
popcorn, and toasted marshmallows and bacon-bats and anything else you
like. You can come here yourselves every Wednesday evening, and if you
wish, you can bring a friend with you to share your good times."
"Boy or girl friend?" Lena Barton's shrewd eyes twinkled as she asked
the question, with a saucy tilt to her little freckled nose.
"Either," returned Laura instantly, though until that moment she had
thought only of girls.
"Gee, but you're some Guardian, Miss Laura!" Lena replied.
As the girls reluctantly tore themselves away from the fascinating
kitchen, two maids entered with trays of sandwiches and nutcakes, olives
and candy.
"It is the first time I have had the pleasure of having you all here in
my own home," Miss Laura said, "so we must break bread together."
"Gee! This beats the picture shows," Lena Barton declared. "Three cheers
for our Guardian--give 'em with claps!" and both cheers and clapping
were given in generous measure.
When finally there was a movement to depart, Laura gathered the girls
once more about her before the fire. "I hope," she began, "you have all
enjoyed this evening as much as I have----"
"We have! We _have_!" half a dozen voices broke in, and Lena Barton
shrilled enthusiastically, "_More_!"
Laura smiled at them; then she glanced up at the words above the
mantelpiece. "The _joy of service_," she said. "That, to me, is the
heart--the very essence--of the Camp Fire idea. And while I am planning
good times and many of them for ourselves in these coming months, I wish
that together we might do some of this loving service for some one
beside ourselves. Think it over--think hard--and at our next Council
meeting, if you are willing, we will consider what we can do, and for
whom."
"You mean mish'nary work?" questioned Eva Bicknell doubtfully.
"No--at least not what you probably mean by missionary work," Laura
answered.
"Christmas trees for alley folks, and that sort of thing?" ventured
another.
"I mean, something for somebody else," Laura explained. "It may be an
old man or woman, a child or--or anything," she ended hastily,
intercepting an exchange of glances between Lena and Eva. "I just want
you to think over it and have an idea to suggest at our next meeting."
"Huh! Thought the'd be nickels wanted fer somethin'," Eva Bicknell
grumbled as she linked her bony little arm through Lena's when they were
outside in the starlight.
"Come now--you shut up!" retorted Lena. "Miss Laura's given us a dandy
time to-night, an' I ain't goin' back on her the minute I'm out of her
house. An' I didn't think it of you, Eva Bicknell."
"Who's goin' back on her?" Eva's hot temper took fire at once. "Shut up
yourself, Lena Barton!" she flared. "I ain't goin' back on Miss Laura
any more than you are. Mebbe you're so flush that you can drop pennies
an' nickels 'round promiscuous, but me--well, I ain't--that's all," and
she marched on in sulky silence.
On the next Wednesday evening, some of the girls came to the Camp Fire
room, and played games, which some enjoyed and others yawned over, and
made fudge which all seemed to enjoy. On the next Wednesday they sang
for a while, Laura accompanying them on the piano, and Rose Anderson
played for them on her violin. After that they sat on the floor before
the fire and talked; but Laura was a little doubtful about these
evenings. She feared that these quiet pleasures would not hold some of
the girls against the alluring delights of dances and moving pictures
and boys.
Meantime she did not forget Elizabeth, and on the first opportunity she
went to see Mrs. Page. Sadie opened the door, and was present at the
interview. She was evidently very conscious of the fact that her braids
were now wound about her head and adorned with a stiff white bow that
stuck out several inches on either side.
Mrs. Page received her visitor coldly, understanding that she came to
intercede for Elizabeth. She said that Elizabeth's father did not want
his daughter to go out evenings; that she had a good home and must be
contented to stay in it "as my own children do," she ended with a glance
at Sadie, who sat on the edge of a chair with much the aspect of a
terrier watching a rat-hole. When Miss Laura asked if she might see
Elizabeth, Sadie tossed her head and coughed behind her handkerchief, as
her mother answered that Elizabeth was busy and could not leave her
work.
"But wouldn't she do her work all the better if she had a little change
now and then, and the companionship of other girls?" Laura urged gently.
"She has the companionship of her sister--she must be satisfied with
that," was the uncompromising reply.
With a sigh, Laura rose to leave, but as she glanced at Sadie's
triumphant face, she had an inspiration. The child was certainly
unattractive, but perhaps all the more for that reason she ought to have
a chance--a chance which might possibly mean a chance for Elizabeth too.
She smiled at the girl and Laura's smile was winning enough to disarm a
worse child than Sadie.
"If you do not think it best for Elizabeth to attend our Council
meetings regularly, perhaps you would be willing to let her come this
next Saturday and bring her sister. After the business is over, we are
going to have a fudge party. I have a little upstairs kitchen just for
the girls to use whenever they like. I think your daughter might enjoy
it--if she cared to come--with Elizabeth."
Marvellous was the effect of those few words on Sadie. Seeing a refusal
on her mother's lips, she burst out eagerly, "O mother, I want to go--I
_want_ to go! You _must_ let me."
Taken entirely by surprise, Mrs. Page hesitated--and was lost. What
Sadie wanted, her mother wanted for her, and she saw that Sadie's heart
was set on accepting this invitation. "I suppose they might go, just for
this once," she yielded reluctantly.
Laura allowed no time for reconsideration. "I shall expect both of them
then, on Saturday," she said and turned to go. She longed to look back
towards the kitchen where she felt sure that Elizabeth must have been
wistfully listening, but Mrs. Page and Sadie following her to the door,
gave her no chance for even a backward glance.
"Good-bye," Sadie called after her as she went down the steps, and the
child's small foxy face was alight with anticipation.
Slamming the door after the caller, Sadie flew to the kitchen.
"There now, Elizabeth," she cried, "I'm going to her house next Saturday
and you're going--you can just thank me for that too. Mother wouldn't
have let you go if it hadn't been for me."
Elizabeth's face brightened, but there was a little shadow on it too. Of
course it was better to go with Sadie than not to go at all--O, much
better--but still----
When Saturday came Sadie was in a whirl of excitement. She even
offered--an unheard-of concession--to wipe the supper dishes so that
Elizabeth might get through her work the sooner, and she plastered a
huge white bow across the back of her head, and pulled down the skirt of
her dress to make it as long as possible. Sadie would gladly have thrown
away three years of her life so that she might be sixteen, and really
grown up that very night.
Olga was waiting at the corner for them, Miss Laura having told her that
Elizabeth was to go. Her scathing glance would have had a subduing
effect on most girls, but not on Sadie! Sadie did most of the talking as
the three walked on together, but the other two did not care. It was
enough for Elizabeth to be with Olga again, and as for Olga, she was
half frightened and half glad to find a little glow of happiness deep
down in her heart. She was afraid to let herself be even a little happy.
When the three entered the Camp Fire room Laura met them with an
exclamation of pleasure. "We've missed you so at the Councils,
Elizabeth," she said, "but it's good to have you here to-night, isn't
it, Olga? And Miss Sadie is very welcome too."
Sadie smiled and executed her best bow, then drew herself up to look as
tall as "Miss" Sadie should be; but the rest of the evening her eyes and
ears were so busy that for once her tongue was silent. She vowed to
herself that she would give her mother no peace until she--Sadie--was a
really truly Camp Fire Girl like these.
When in the last hour they were all gathered on the floor before the
fire, Mary Hastings asked, "Miss Laura, have you decided yet what our
special work is to be--the 'service for somebody else'?" she added with
a glance at the words over the mantelpiece.
"That is for you girls to decide," Laura returned. "Have you any
suggestion, Mary?"
"I've been wondering if we couldn't help support some little
child--maybe a sick child in a hospital, or an orphan."
"Gracious! That would take a pile of money," objected Louise Johnson,
"and I'm always dead broke a week after payday."
"There are fifteen of us--it wouldn't be so much, divided up," Mary
returned.
"Sixteen, Mary--you aren't going to leave me out, are you?" Miss Laura
said.
"I think it would be lovely," cried Bessie Carroll, "if we could find a
dear little girl baby and adopt her--make her a Camp Fire baby."
"Huh!" sniffed Lena Barton. "If you had half a dozen kids at home I
reckon you wouldn't be wanting to adopt any more."
"Right you are!" added Eva Bicknell, who was the oldest of eight.
"We might 'adopt' an old lady in some Home, and visit her and do things
for her," suggested Frances Chapin. "There are some lonely ones in the
Old Ladies' Home where I go sometimes."
But the idea of a pretty baby appealed more to the majority of the
girls.
"O, I'd rather take a baby. We could make cute little dresses for her,"
Rose Anderson put in, "all lacey, you know."
"Say--where's the money comin' from for the lacey dresses and things
you're talkin' about?" demanded Lena Barton abruptly.
There was an instant of silence. Then Mary threw back a counter
question. "How much did you spend for moving pictures and candy last
week, Lena Barton?"
"I d'know--mebbe a quarter, mebbe two. What of it?" Lena retorted, her
red head lifted defiantly.
"Well now--couldn't you give up two picture shows a week, for the Camp
Fire baby?" Mary demanded. "If sixteen of us give ten cents a week we
shall have a dollar sixty. That would be more than six dollars a month."
"Gracious! Money talks!" put in Louise. "Think of this crowd dropping
over six dollars a month for picture shows and such. No wonder they're
two in a block on the avenue."
"You see," Laura said, "we could easily provide for some little child,
at least in part. Girls, I'd like to tell you about one I saw at the
Children's Hospital yesterday. Would you care to hear about him?"
"Yes, yes, do tell us," the girls begged.
"He is no blue-eyed baby, but a very plain ordinary-looking little chap,
nine years old, whose mother died a few weeks ago, leaving him entirely
alone in the world. Think of it, girls, a nine-year-old boy without any
one to care for him! He's lame too--but he is the bravest little soul!
The nurse told me that they thought it was because he was so
homesick--or rather I suppose mother-sick--that he is not getting on as
well as he should."
"O, the poor little fellow!" Frances Chapin said softly, thinking of her
nine-year-old brother.
"Tell us more about him, Miss Laura," Rose Anderson begged. "Did you
talk with him?"
"Yes, I stayed with him for half an hour, and I promised to see him
again to-morrow. He wanted a book--about soldiers. I wonder if any of
you would care to go with me. You might possibly find your blue-eyed
baby there; and anyhow, the children there love to have
visitors--especially young ones."
Two of the High School girls spoke together. "I'd like to go."
"And I too," added Alice Reynolds, the third.
"I guess I'd like to, maybe--if there isn't anything catching there." It
was pretty little Annie Pearson who said that.
"I'd love to go, but I can't," Elizabeth whispered to Olga, who frowned
at her and demanded,
"What do you want to go for?"
"I'd so love to do something for that little fellow," Elizabeth
answered. "I've been lonesome too--always--till now."
"Humph!" grunted Olga, the hardness melting out of her black eyes as she
looked into Elizabeth's wistful blue ones.
It was finally agreed that the three High School girls, Frances Chapin,
Elsie Harding, and Alice Reynolds, with Mary Hastings, Annie Pearson,
and Rose, should go with Miss Laura to the hospital.
"I c'n see kids enough at home any time," Lena Barton declared airily.
"I'd rather walk down the avenue on Sunday than go to any hospital."
"I guess I'll be excused too," said Louise Johnson. "Hospital visiting
isn't exactly in my line. I've a hunch that I'd be out of place amongst
a lot of sick kiddies. But I'll agree to be satisfied with any
blue-eyed baby girl you and Miss Laura pick out for our Camp Fire Kid.
Say, girlies"--she looked around the group--"I move we make those seven
our choosing committee--Miss Laura, chairman, of course."
"But, Johnny," one girl objected, "maybe they won't find any girl to fit
our pattern over at the hospital."
"It is not at all likely that we shall," Laura hastened to add, "and if
we did, it would probably be one with parents or relatives to care for
it after it leaves the hospital."
"Blue-eyed angel babies, with dimples, don't come in every package. I
s'pose you'd want one with dimples too?" Eva Bicknell scoffed.
"O, of course, dimples. Might as well have all the ear-marks of a beauty
to begin with, anyhow," giggled Louise. "She'll probably develop into a
homely little freckle-faced imp by the time she's six, anyhow."
"There's worse things in the world than freckles," snapped Lena Barton,
whose perky little nose was well spattered with them.
"So there are, Lena--so there are," Louise teased. "Yours will probably
fade out by the time you're forty."
A cuckoo clock called the hour, and the girls reluctantly agreed that it
was time to go. But first Laura, her arms around as many as she could
gather into them, with a few gentle tender words brought their thoughts
back to the deep meaning of the thing they were planning to do--trying
to make them realize their opportunity for service, and the far-reaching
results that must follow if a little life should come under their care
and influence.
For once Louise was silent and thoughtful as she went away, and even
Lena Barton was more subdued than usual until, at last, with a shrug of
her shoulders, she flung out the vague remark,
"After all, what's the use?" and thereupon rebounded to her usual gay
slangy self.
But Elizabeth went home with Miss Laura's words echoing in her heart. "I
don't suppose I can do much for our Camp Fire baby," she told herself,
"but there's Molly. Maybe I can do more for her and--and for Sadie and
the boys--perhaps."
IX
JIM
In the first ward of the Children's Hospital the next afternoon, No. 20
lay very still--strangely still for a nine-year-old boy--watching the
door. He had watched it all day, although he knew that visitors' hours
were from two to four, and none would be admitted earlier. No. 18 in the
next cot asked him a question once, but No. 20 only shook his head
wearily. Some of the children had books and games, but they soon tired
of them, and lay idly staring about the long, sunny room, or looking out
at the sky and the trees, or watching the door. Sometimes mothers or
fathers came through that door, and if you hadn't any of your own, at
any rate you could look at those that came to see other fellows, and
sometimes these mothers had a word or a smile for others as well as
their own boys. No. 20, however, didn't want any other fellow's mother
to smile down at him--no indeed, that was the last thing in the world he
wanted--yet. He wished sometimes, just for a moment, that there weren't
any mothers to come, since the _one_ could never come to him again. But
they did come and smile at him, and pat his head--these mothers of the
other boys--came drawn by the hungry longing in his eyes--and he set his
teeth and clinched his hands under the bedclothes, and when they went
away gulped down the great lump that always jumped into his throat, all
in a minute--but he never cried. One day when a kind-hearted nurse asked
him about his mother, he bore her questioning as long as he could, and
then he struck at her fiercely and slipped right down under the
bedclothes where nobody could see him; but he didn't cry, though he
shook and shook for a long time after she went away.
But--Miss Laura--she was different. She didn't kiss him, nor pat him,
nor ask fool questions. She just talked to him--well, the right way. And
she'd promised to come again to-day. Maybe she'd forget though; people
did forget things they'd promised--only somehow, she didn't look like
the forgetting kind. And she was awful pretty--most the prettiest lady
he had ever seen. But hospital hours were so dreadfully long! Seemed
like a hundred hours since breakfast. Ah! He lifted his head and looked
eagerly towards the door--somebody was coming in. O, only some other
fellow's mother. He dropped down again, choking back an impatient groan
that had almost slipped out. When the next mother came in he turned his
back on the door, but soon he was watching it again. A half-hour dragged
wearily by; then a crowd of girls fluttered through the doorway. No. 20
gazed at them listlessly until one behind slipped past the others; then
his eyes widened and his lips twitched as if they had almost a mind to
smile, for here was the pretty lady coming straight to him.
"Jim" she said, shaking hands with him just as if he had been a man,
"I've brought some of my girls to see you to-day. I hope you are glad to
see us all, but you needn't say you are if you are not."
Jim didn't say--and Rose Anderson laughed softly. Jim flashed a glance
at her, but he saw at once that it wasn't a mean laugh--just a girly
giggle, and he manfully ignored it.
"I have to speak to Charley Smith over there," Miss Laura went on, "but
I'll be back in a few minutes."
As she crossed to the other cot, Frances Chapin slipped into the chair
by Jim's--there was only one chair between each two cots. "I think you
are about nine, aren't you, Jim?" she asked.
"Goin' on ten," Jim corrected stoutly.
"I've a brother going on ten," she said.
Jim looked at her with quick interest. "Tell about him," he ordered.
"What's his name?"
"David Chapin. He's in the sixth grade----"
"So'm I--I mean I was 'fore I came here," Jim interrupted. "What else?"
"--and he's--he's going to be a Boy Scout as soon as he's twelve."
Jim's plain little face brightened into keen interest. "That's bully!"
he cried. "I'm going to be a Scout soon's I'm big enough--if I can." The
wistful longing in the last words brought a mist into Frances's eyes,
but Jim did not see it. He was looking at the other girls. "Any of the
rest of you got brothers?" he demanded.
"I have one, but he's a big fellow, twice as old as you are," Alice
Reynolds said.
"And I've six," Mary Hastings told him. "Two of them are Scouts."
"Fine!" exulted Jim. "Say--tell me what they do, all about it," he
pleaded, and sitting down on the edge of his cot, Mary told him
everything she could think of about the scouting.
When Miss Laura came back Jim's face was radiant. "She's been telling me
about her brothers--they're Boy Scouts," he cried eagerly, pointing a
stubby finger at Mary. "I wish," he looked pleadingly into Mary's eyes,
"I do wish they'd come and see me; but I guess boys don't come to
hospitals 'thout they have to," he ended with a sigh.
"I'll get them to come if I can," Mary promised, "but----"
"I know," Jim nodded, "I guess they won't have time. There's so many
things for boys to do outdoors!"
"Jim," said Miss Laura, "there are so many things for you to do outdoors
too. You must get well as fast as you can to be at them."
Jim's lips took on a most unchildlike set, and his eyes searched her
face with a look she could not understand. "I--I d'know----" he said
vaguely.
He could not put into words his fear and dread of the time when he must
go out into some Home where he would be only one of a hundred boys and
all alone in a big lonesome world. That was the black dread that weighed
on Jim's heart night and day. He had seen that long procession of girls
and boys from the Orphan Asylum going back from church on Sundays, the
girls all in white dresses, the boys in blue denim suits, all just alike
except for size. He had peeped through knotholes in the high fence that
surrounded the Asylum yard too, and had seen the boys playing there on
weekdays; and some not playing, but standing off by themselves looking
so awful lonesome. Jim had always pitied those lonesome-looking ones.
More than once he had poked a stick of chewing-gum through a knothole to
one of them--a little chap with frightened blue eyes. Jim felt that he'd
almost rather die than go to the Asylum; and he'd heard the nurse tell
Charley Smith's mother that he'd have to go there when he got well. That
was why Jim was in no hurry to get well.
The girls all shook hands with him before they went off to search the
other wards for their blue-eyed baby. Miss Laura did not go with the
girls; she stayed with Jim, and somehow, before long, he was telling her
all about the Asylum boys and how he dreaded to get well and go there to
live till he was fourteen. And, unconsciously, as he told it all, his
stubby little fingers crept into Miss Laura's hand that closed over them
with a warm pressure very comforting to Jim.
And then--then a wonderful thing happened, for Miss Laura put her head
down close to his and whispered, "Jim, you shall never go to the Asylum,
I promise you that. If you will try very hard to get well, I'll find a
home for you somewhere, and I'll take care of you until you can take
care of yourself."
Jim caught his breath and his eyes seemed looking through hers deep into
her heart, to see if this incredible thing could be true. What little
colour there was in his face faded slowly out of it and his lips
quivered as he whispered, "You--you ain't--jest foolin'? You mean it,
honest Injun?"
"Yes, Jim--honest."
He struggled to a sitting posture. "Cross your heart!" he ordered
breathlessly.
She made the sign that children make. "Cross my heart, Jim. You are my
boy now," she said.
With a long, happy breath Jim fell back on his pillow. His eyes began to
shine, and a spot of red burned in each thin cheek. "O gee!" he cried
exultantly, and again, "O _gee_! I'll get well in a hurry now, Miss
Laura." Then eagerly, "Where'll I live?"
"I don't know yet. I'll find a place," she promised.
He nodded, happily content just then to leave that in her hands.
"An' I'll grow big soon," he crowed, "and I can earn a lot of money when
I'm well, carryin' papers an'--an' other ways. An' you'll let me be a
Boy Scout soon's I'm big enough, an' a soldier when I get over being
lame?"
Laura nodded, and again Jim drew a long rapturous breath. When Laura
went away his eyes followed her, and as from the door she looked back at
him, he waved his hand to her and then settled down on his pillow to
dream happy waking dreams. He was somebody's boy once more.
Laura found the girls waiting for her in the reception room.
"Did you find your blue-eyed baby?" she asked.
"We found one----" Alice Reynolds began, and Rose broke in,
"But, O Miss Laura, her mother was with her and she wouldn't hear of
giving her up. I don't wonder--such a darling as she is!"
"You can try at the Orphan Asylum," Miss Laura said, the words sending
her thoughts back in a flash to Jim.
"Miss Laura, I wish we could have Jim. I think he's a dear!" Mary
Hastings said as they left the hospital.
"Jim's pre-empted. He's my boy now," Laura answered quickly.
"O Miss Laura, I wanted him too for our Camp Fire child," Frances said.
"Are you really going to adopt him--have him live with you?"
"I don't know, Frances, about the living. When I found that he was
fairly dying of loneliness and dread of the Orphan Asylum, I just had to
do something; so I told him he should be my boy and I would take care of
him. I know my father won't mind the expense, but he may object to
having the boy live with us. Of course, if he does I shall find a good
home for him elsewhere."
"But, Miss Laura, why can't we all 'adopt' him?" Frances pleaded. "I'd
so much rather have him than any baby. And there are always people ready
to adopt pretty blue-eyed baby girls, but they don't want just
boys--like Jim."
"That's true," Alice Reynolds agreed. "My mother is a director at the
Orphan Asylum, and she says nine out of ten who go there for a child to
adopt, want a pretty baby girl."
"But you can find some other boy for the Camp Fire," Miss Laura
returned.
"Not another Jim. Please share him with us, anyhow, Miss Laura," Alice
urged.
"I don't want to be selfish about it," Laura replied, "but somehow Jim
has crept into my heart and I thought I would take him for my own
special Camp Fire 'service.' And perhaps the other girls won't be
willing to give up their pretty baby."
"I--I'd hate to, though I like Jim too," Rose admitted.
"You couldn't make pretty lacey dresses for Jim," Laura reminded her
with a little laugh. "Rose is hankering for a live doll to dress, girls,
so you'd better wait and see what the others say about it."
"When can Jim leave the hospital?" Alice inquired.
"To judge from his face when I left him, he will get well quickly, now,"
Miss Laura answered.
And he did. The next time she went to see him, he welcomed her with a
beaming smile. "I'm getting well," he exulted. "She says I can sit up
to-morrow," he nodded towards the nurse.
"He is certainly getting better," the nurse agreed. "He has seemed like
another boy since Sunday. How did you work such magic, Miss Haven?"
Laura looked at Jim and his eyes met hers steadily. "Hasn't he told
you?" she asked the nurse.
"He has told me nothing."
Laura smiled at him as she explained, "Jim is my boy now--we agreed on
that, Sunday. When he leaves the hospital he is coming to me."
"Jim, I congratulate you. You are a lucky boy," said the nurse, who knew
all about Judge Haven and his daughter.
"I think I too am to be congratulated," said Laura quickly, and the
nurse nodded.
"Yes, Jim is a good boy," she answered. Then she went away and left the
two together. This time Jim did not talk very much. It was enough for
him to have his pretty lady where he could look at her, and be sure it
was not all a dream.
Not many days later, after a telephone conference with the nurse, Laura
went to the hospital again. She found the boy lying there with a look of
patient endurance in his eyes, but they widened with half-incredulous
joy when she told him that she had come to take him away.
"Not--not _now_!" he cried out, with a little break in his voice.
"Yes, now--just as you are. We are going to wrap you in a blanket and
put you into a carriage, and before you have time to get tired we shall
be home."
"Home!" echoed Jim, his eyes shining.
"What makes you look so sober?" Miss Laura asked him as they drove away.
"You aren't sorry to leave the hospital?"
"Sorry?" Jim gave a shaky little laugh, then suddenly was grave again.
"Yes, I'm sorry, but it's for all the other fellows that nobody's coming
for," he explained.
"I wish I could have taken them all home with us," Laura answered
quickly. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Jim. If you'll get well very
fast, maybe you and I can give a little Christmas party in your ward, to
those other boys who have to stay there."
"Hang up stockin's an'--an' a tree an' all?" Jim questioned
breathlessly.
"Yes. Wouldn't you like that?"
"_Gee!_" was Jim's rapturous comment. "You bet I'll get well fast--if I
can," the afterthought in a lower tone.
The room Laura had prepared for the boy had been a nursery, and had a
frieze, representing in gay colours the old Mother Goose stories. Jim
was put on a cot beside the open fire, where he lay very still, but it
was not the dull hopeless stillness of the hospital. Now he was resting,
and his eyes travelled happily along the wall as he picked out the old
familiar characters.
"Makes me feel like a little kid--seeing all those," he said, pointing
at them.
The thin white face and small figure under the bedclothes looked like a
very "little kid" still, Laura thought. The gray eyes swept over the
large sunny room and then back to Miss Laura's face, and suddenly Jim's
lips trembled.
"I--I--I think you're _bully_!" he broke out, and instantly turned his
face to the wall and was still again. Laura slipped quietly out of the
room. When she returned a few minutes later, she brought a supper tray.
"You and I are going to have supper here to-night, Jim," she announced
cheerfully, "because my father is away, and I should be lonesome all
alone downstairs and you might be lonesome up here. You must have a
famous appetite, you know, if you are to get well and strong for that
Christmas party at the hospital."
"I'm hungry, all right," Jim declared, his eyes lingering on the
tempting food so daintily served; but after all he did not eat very
much.
After supper he lay quietly watching the leaping flames for a long time.
Suddenly he broke the silence with a question.
"I'll be back there then?"
"Back where, Jim? I don't understand," Miss Laura said.
"At the hospital--when we have that Christmas party."
"Oh. Why, yes, of course, you and I will both be there."
"Yes, but I mean--I mean----" Jim's eyes were very anxious, "will I be
back there to stay, or where will I be stayin'?"
Laura's hand dropped softly over one of his and held it in a warm clasp.
"No, Jim, you won't go back there to stay--ever--not if you do your best
to get well, as of course you are going to. I told you I would find a
good home for you and I will, but there's plenty of time to think of
that before your two weeks here are over."
"You're the--the best ever, Miss Laura," Jim said. "I--I didn't s'pose,"
he stumbled on, trying to put his feeling into words, "ladies like you
ever--cared about boys that get left out of things--like I have."
Laura longed to put her arms about him and hold him close, but there was
something about the sturdy little fellow that warned her, so, waiting a
moment to steady her voice, she answered, "O yes, there are many that
care and do all they can; but you see there are so very many little
fellows that--get left out, Jim."
Jim nodded, his face very sober. "I wonder why," he said, voicing the
world-old query.
When she had settled him for the night, she stood looking down at the
dark head on the pillow. "Shall I put the light out, or leave it?" she
asked.
"Just as you like, Miss Laura," he said, but she thought there was a
little anxiety in his eyes.
"It makes no difference to me, of course. I want it whichever way you
like best. I know you are not afraid of the dark."
A moment's silence, then in a very small voice, "Yes--I am--Miss Laura."
"_Afraid!_" Miss Laura caught herself up quickly.
"Yes'm," said Jim in a still smaller voice, his eyes hidden now.
"O--then I'll leave the light, of course." But there was just a shade of
disappointment in Miss Laura's voice and Jim caught it. "Good-night,
dear," she added, with a light touch on the straight brown hair.
"G'night," came in a muffled voice from the pillow.
Laura turned away, but before she reached the stairs the boy called her.
She went back at once.
"What is it, Jim? Do you want anything?"
"Yes'm, the light. I guess--you better put it out."
"Not if you are afraid in the dark, Jim."
"Yes, Miss Laura, that's why."
"But I don't understand. Can't you tell me?" she urged gently.
Jim gulped down a troublesome something in his throat before he said in
a whisper, "Put your head down close, Miss Laura."
She turned out the light and as she dropped down beside the bed, a small
arm slipped around her neck and a husky little voice whispered in her
ear, "It's 'cause I'm 'fraid inside that I mustn't have the light left."
Another gulp. "Mother--she said you wasn't a coward just 'cause you was
'fraid inside, but only when you let the 'fraid get out into the things
you _do_. She said lots of brave men were 'fraid inside sometimes.
An'--an' she said I mustn't ever be a coward nor tell lies, an' I
promised--cross my heart--I wouldn't. So that's why, Miss Laura."
Again Laura longed to hug the little fellow and kiss him as his mother
would have done, but she said only,
"Yes, Jim, I quite understand now, and I know you will never be a
coward. Here's the bell, you know. You can press the button if you want
anything, and the maid sleeps in the next room. She'll be up in a few
minutes."
"Yes'm." A little drowsiness was creeping into Jim's voice already.
"Good-night, dear."
"Good-night," Jim murmured and Laura went away, but she left the door
open into the lighted hall, and when she slipped back a little later the
boy was asleep.
When the other Camp Fire Girls learned about "Miss Laura's boy" they
were all interested in him, and begged that he might come to the next
Council meeting. Jim was sitting up most of the day now, and his
wheelchair was rolled into the room after all the girls had come. He was
dressed and sat up very straight, but though he was much better, his
face was still very thin and white.
"All but one of my girls are here to-night, Jim," Miss Laura told him.
"I'm going to introduce you to them and see how many of the names you
can remember."
"Why isn't that other one here?" he demanded.
"She couldn't come this time," Laura said with a glance at Olga, sitting
grave and silent a little apart from the others.
The girls gathered about the wheelchair and Jim held out his hand to
each one as Laura mentioned her name. His gray eyes searched each face,
but he said nothing until Lena Barton flung him a careless nod and would
have passed on, but he caught her hand and laughed up into the freckled
face with the bunch of red frizzes puffed out on each side in the
"latest moment" fashion.
"Hello, Carrots," he called in the tone of jovial good-fellowship, "I
like you, 'cause you look like a fellow I used to sit with in school.
His name was Barton too--Jo Barton. O, I say," leaning forward eagerly,
"mebbe he's your brother?"
"You're right, kiddie--he's one of the bunch," Lena answered, her face
softening as she looked down into the eager gray eyes.
"Gee! Jo's sister!" Jim repeated. "I wish Jo was here too. I s'pose," he
glanced at Miss Laura, "you couldn't squeeze in just one more boy?"
Laura shook her head. "Not into these meetings. But you can invite
Lena's brother to come and see you, if you like."
"O bully!" Jim cried out and turned again to Lena. "You tell him, won't
you?"
"I will, sure," she promised, and Jim reluctantly released her hand.
The girls begged that he might stay, and though Jim's tongue was silent
his eyes pleaded too, so Miss Laura conceded, "Just for a while then, if
you'll be very quiet so as not to get too tired," and with a contented
smile Jim leaned back against his cushions and looked and listened. When
the girls chanted the Fire Ode his eyes widened with pleasure and he
listened with keen interest to the recital of "gentle deeds." Even Olga
gave one this time. Jim's eyes studied her grave face, his own almost as
grave, and when later she passed his chair, he caught her dress and said
very low, "Put down your head. I want to ask you something."
Olga impatiently jerked her dress from his grasp, but something in his
eyes held her against her will, and under cover of a burst of laughter
from another group, she leaned over the wheelchair and ungraciously
enough asked what he wanted. Jim's eyes, very earnest and serious now,
were looking straight into hers.
"I know what makes you keep away from the others and look
so--so--dif'rent. You're lonesome like I was at the hospital. Is it your
mother, too?"
Olga's face went dead white and for an instant her eyes flamed so
fiercely that the boy shrank away with a little gasp of fear. But the
next moment she was looking at him with eyes full of tears--a long
silent look--then, without a word, she was gone.
The first time that Jim came downstairs to dinner he was very shy and
spoke only in answer to a question. But his awe of Judge Haven and the
servants soon wore off, and his questions and comments began to interest
the judge. When one evening after dinner Laura was called to the
telephone, the judge laid aside his paper and called the boy to him. Jim
promptly limped across the room and stood at the judge's knee, his gray
eyes looking steadily into the keen blue ones above him.
"Are you having a good time here?" the judge began.
"O, splendid!"
"And you are almost well, aren't you?"
"Almost well," Jim assented, a little shadow of anxiety creeping into
the gray eyes.
"Let me see--how many days have you been here?"
Jim answered instantly, "Nine. I've got five more," this last very
soberly.
"Five more?" the judge questioned.
Jim nodded gravely. "Miss Laura said I could stay here two weeks, you
know."
"Oh! And then what--back to the hospital?"
"O no!" Jim was very positive about that. "No, I don't know where I'll
be after the five days. I--I kind o' wish I did. It would be--settleder,
you know. But," his face brightening, "but of course, it will be a nice
place, because Miss Laura said she'd find me a good home somewhere, and
she don't ever forget her promises. And besides, I'm going to be her boy
just the same when I go away from here--she promised that too."
The judge nodded, his eyes studying the small earnest face.
"Miss Laura must find that good home right away," he said. "Of course
you want to know where you are going."
"I hope she'll be the kind that likes boys," Jim said after a thoughtful
pause. "Do you think she will?"
"Who?"
"The woman in that good home. They don't all, you know. Some of 'em
think boys are dreadful noisy and bothering, and some think they eat too
much. I eat a lot sometimes----" he ended with an anxious frown.
The judge found it necessary just then to put his hand over his eyes. He
muttered something about the light hurting them, and then Laura came in
and told Jim it was bedtime. He said good-night, holding out his small
stubby hand. The judge's big one grasped it and held it a moment.
"We had a nice talk, didn't we?" Jim said, and with the smile that made
his homely little face radiant for a moment, he added, "It sure is nice
to talk with a _man_," and he went off wondering what the judge was
laughing about.
He was not laughing when Laura came downstairs again after tucking up
the boy in bed. She so hated to turn out the light and leave him in the
dark, but she always did it. Now she told her father what Jim had said
about that the first night.
The judge made no comment, but after a moment he remarked, "The boy is
rather worried about the home you are to find for him. It ought to be
settled. Have you any place in view?"
"No. To tell the truth, father, I can't bear to have him go away. Would
you mind if I keep him here a while longer? You are so much away, and he
is company for me, and very little trouble. I shall miss him dreadfully
when he goes."
"Of course I don't mind," her father said. "Only, Laura, is it fair to
keep him here--fair to him, I mean? The longer he stays the harder it
will be for him to go to a strange place."
"I suppose you are right," Laura admitted with a sigh, "and I must find
the home for him at once."
"But be sure it is a good place, and with a woman who will 'mother'
him," the judge added. "Poor little chap--only nine and lame, and alone
in the world. It's hard lines."
"It would seem so," his daughter admitted, "and yet, Jim is such a brave
honest little fellow, and he has such a gift for making friends, that
perhaps he is not so badly handicapped, after all. I shall miss him
dreadfully when he leaves us."
X
SADIE PAGE
But the finding of a satisfactory home for the boy proved to be no easy
task. At the end of the two weeks Laura was still carrying on the quest.
When she told Jim that he was to stay with her another week the look in
his eyes brought the tears into hers. For the first time she dared to
put her arms about him and hold him close, and Jim stayed there, his
head on her shoulder, trying his best to swallow the lump in his throat.
When he lifted his head he said in a shaky voice, "G--gee! But I'm
glad!"
"Not a bit gladder than I am, Jim," Laura said, "and now we must have a
bit of a celebration to-night. Father is dining out, so we'll have
supper up in the nursery and we'll invite somebody. Who shall it be?"
She thought he would say Jo Barton, but instead he said, "Olga."
"Olga?" she repeated doubtfully. "I'm not at all sure that she will
come, but I'll ask her. I'll write a note now and send it to the place
where she works."
Jim gave a little happy skip. He ignored his lameness so absolutely that
often Laura too almost forgot it. "I guess she'll come," he said in the
singing voice he used when he was especially pleased.
Olga was just starting for home when the note reached her. She scowled
as she read.
"Dear Olga: Jim wants you to come to supper with us--just with
him and me--to-night at 6:30. I shall be very glad if you will,
for, aside from the pleasure of having you with us, I want to
talk over with you something that concerns Elizabeth. Please
don't fail us.
"Yours faithfully,
"Laura E. Haven."
Olga read the note twice, her eyes lingering on the words "something
that concerns Elizabeth." But for those words she would have refused the
invitation, but she had not seen Elizabeth for some time, and did not
know whether she was sick or well. She did not want to go to supper with
Miss Laura and Jim. Jim was well enough--her face softened a little as
she thought of him, but she did not want to see him to-night. If there
was something to be done for Elizabeth, however----Reluctantly she
turned towards Wyoming Avenue.
Jim was watching for her at the window and ran to open the door before
the servant could get there.
"I knew you'd come!" he crowed, flashing a smile up into her sombre
face. "I told Miss Laura you would."
"What made you so sure, Jim?" she asked curiously.
"O 'cause. I knew you would. I wanted you _hard_, and when you want
things hard they come--sometimes," Jim said, the triumph dropping out of
his voice with the last word.
Jim did most of the talking during supper, Laura throwing in a word now
and then, and leaving Olga to speak or be silent, as she chose. She
wondered what it was in Olga that attracted the boy, for he seemed
quite at ease with her, taking it for granted that she liked to be there
and was interested in what interested him; and although Olga was so
silent and grave, there was a friendly light in her eyes when she looked
at Jim, and she did not push him away when he leaned on her knee and
once even against her shoulder, as the three of them gathered about the
fire after supper. But when he had gone to bed, Olga began at once.
"Miss Laura, what about Elizabeth?"
"You told me," Miss Laura returned, "that you thought Sadie had
something to do with her absence from the Council meetings."
Olga's face hardened. "I'm sure of it. She's a hateful little cat--that
Sadie. I'm sure she is determined that Elizabeth shall not come here
unless she comes too."
"I wonder why the child is so eager to come," Miss Laura said
thoughtfully.
"Oh!" Olga flung out impatiently. "She's bewitched over the Camp Fire
dresses, and headbands, and all the other toggery, and she likes to be
with older girls. She's just set her heart on being a Camp Fire Girl and
she's determined that if she can't be, Elizabeth shan't be
either--that's all there is about it."
"Then perhaps we'd better admit her."
Olga stared in amazement and wrath. "Into _our_ Camp Fire?"
Miss Laura nodded.
"But we don't want her, a hateful little snake in the grass like that!"
the girl flung out angrily. "If you knew the way she treats
Elizabeth--like the dirt under her feet!"
"I know. Her face shows what she is," Laura admitted.
"Well--do you want a girl like that in your Camp Fire?"
"Yes," Laura's voice was very low and gentle, "yes, I want any kind of
girl--that the Camp Fire can help."
"The other girls won't want her," Olga declared.
"They want Elizabeth, and you think they cannot have her without having
Sadie."
Olga sat staring into the fire, her black brows meeting in a moody
scowl.
"Olga, what is the Camp Fire for?" Laura asked presently.
"For? Why----" Olga paused, a new thought dawning in her dark eyes.
Laura answered as if she had spoken it. "Yes, the Camp Fire is to help
any girl in any way possible. Not only to help weak girls to grow
strong, and timid girls to grow brave, and helpless girls to become
useful, and lonely girls to find friends and social opportunities--it is
for all these things, but for more--much more besides. It is to show
selfish, narrow-minded girls--like that poor little Sadie--the beauty of
unselfishness and generosity and thoughtful kindness to others. Don't
you see that we have no right to refuse to give Sadie her chance just
because she doesn't know any better than to be disagreeable?"
Again Olga was silent, and the clock had ticked away full ten minutes
before Laura spoke again. "You want Elizabeth to come to our meetings?"
"It's the only pleasure she has in the world--coming to them," Olga
returned.
"I know, and I want her to come just as much as you do," Miss Laura
said, "but I think you are the only one who can bring it about."
"How can I?"
"There is a way--I think--but it will be a very unpleasant one for you.
It will call for a large patience, and perseverance, and determination."
Olga, searching Miss Laura's face, cried out, "You mean--_Sadie_!"
"Yes, I mean Sadie. Olga, do you care enough for Elizabeth to do this
very hard thing for her? You did so much for her at the Camp! It was you
who put hope and courage and will-power into her and helped her to find
health. But she still needs you, and she needs what the Camp Fire can
give her. She cannot have either, it seems, unless we take Sadie too,
and Sadie needs what the Camp Fire can give quite as much--in a
different way--as Elizabeth did or does. Olga, are you willing for
Elizabeth's sake to do your utmost for Sadie--so that the other girls
will take her in? They wouldn't do it as she is now, you know."
Olga pondered over that and Laura left her to her own thoughts. This
thing meant much to the lives of three girls--this one of the three must
not be hurried. But she studied the dark face, reading there some of the
conflicting thoughts passing through the girl's mind. After a long time
Olga threw back her head and spoke.
"I shall _hate_ it, but I'll do it."
Laura shook her head doubtfully. "Sadie is keen--sharp. If you hate her
she will know it, and you'll make no headway with her."
"I know." Olga gave a rueful little laugh. "She's sharp as
needles--that's the one good thing about her. I shall have to start
with that and not pretend--anything. It wouldn't be any use. I shall
tell her plainly that I'll help her get into our Camp Fire on condition
that she treats Elizabeth as she ought and gets her out to our meetings.
I'll make a square bargain with her. Maybe she won't agree, but I think
she will, and if she agrees, I think she'll do her part."
Laura drew a long breath of relief. "I am so glad, Olga--glad for
Elizabeth and for Sadie both," and in her heart she added, "and for you
too, Olga--O, for you too!"
So the very next evening Olga stood again at the door which Sadie had
slammed in her face, and as before it was Sadie who answered her ring.
"You can't see Elizabeth," she began with a flirt, but Olga said
quietly,
"I came to see you this time."
"I don't believe it," Sadie flung back at her.
"I want to talk with you," Olga persisted. "Can you walk a little way
with me?"
Sadie's small black eyes seemed to bore like gimlets into the eyes of
the other girl, but curiosity got the better of suspicion after a minute
and saying, "Well, wait till I get my things, then," she left Olga on
the steps till she returned with her coat and hat on.
"Now, what is it?" she demanded as the two walked down the street.
"Do you want to be a Camp Fire Girl?" Olga began.
"What if I do?" Sadie returned suspiciously.
"You can be if you like."
"In your Camp Fire--the Busy Corner one?"
"Yes."
"How can I? You said I couldn't before."
"There wasn't any vacancy then, but one of our girls has gone to
Baltimore, so there is a chance for some one in her place."
Sadie's breath came quickly, and the suspicion and sharpness had dropped
out of her voice as she asked eagerly, "Will Miss Laura let me
join--truly?"
"Yes----"
"Yes--what?" Sadie demanded, the sharpness again in evidence.
Olga faced her steadily. "Sadie, I'm going to put it to you straight,
for if you join, you've got to understand exactly how it is."
"I know," Sadie broke out angrily, "you're just letting me in so's to
get 'Lizabeth. You can't fool me, Olga Priest."
"I know it, and I'm not trying to," Olga answered quietly. "Now listen
to me, Sadie. _I_ wouldn't have let you join only, as you say, to get
Elizabeth. But Miss Laura wants you for yourself too."
"'D she say so?" Sadie demanded eagerly.
"Yes, she said so." Again Olga looked straight into the sharp little
suspicious face of the younger girl. "Sadie, you're no fool. I wonder if
you've grit enough to listen to some very plain facts--things that you
won't like to hear. Because you've got to understand and do your part,
or else you'll get no pleasure of our Camp Fire if you do join. Are you
game, Sadie Page?"
The eyes of the two met in a long look and neither wavered. Finally
Sadie said sulkily, "Yes, I'm game. Of course, it's something hateful,
but--go ahead. I'm listening."
"No, it isn't hateful--at least, I don't mean it so," and actually Olga
was astonished to find now that she no longer hated this girl. "I'm just
trying to do the best I can for you. Of course, if you come in,
Elizabeth, too, must come to all the meetings; but I'll help you, Sadie,
just as I helped her, to win honours, and I'll teach you to do the craft
work, and to meet the Fire Maker's tests later. I'll do everything I can
for you, Sadie."
"Will you show me how to make the Camp Fire dress and the bead headbands
and all that?" Sadie demanded breathlessly.
"Yes--all that."
"O, goody!" Sadie gave a little gleeful skip. "I know I can learn--I
_know_ I can--better'n 'Lizabeth."
Then, seeing Olga's frown, Sadie added hastily, "But 'Lizabeth can learn
to do some of them, I guess, too."
"Elizabeth can learn if she has half a chance," Olga said. "She works so
hard at home that she is too tired to learn other things quickly."
Sadie shot an angry glance at the other girl's face, but she managed
with an effort to hold back the sharp words she plainly longed to fling
out. She was silent a moment, then she asked, "You said 'things that I
wouldn't like.' What are they?"
"Sadie--did you know that you can be extremely disagreeable without half
trying?" Olga asked very quietly.
"I d'know what you mean." Sadie's face darkened, and her voice was sulky
and defiant.
"I wonder if you really don't," Olga said, looking at her thoughtfully.
"But it's true, Sadie. You have hateful little ways of speaking and
doing things. They're only habits--you can break yourself of them, and
quick and bright as you are, you'll find that the girls--our Camp Fire
Girls--will like you and take you right in as soon as you do drop those
ugly nagging ways. You know, Sadie, you can't ever be really happy
yourself until you try to make other people happy----"
Suddenly realising what she was saying, Olga stopped short. Sadie's eyes
saw the change in her face, and Sadie's sharp voice demanded instantly,
"What's the matter?"
Olga answered with a frankness that surprised herself, no less than the
younger girl, "Sadie, it just came to me that you and I are in the same
box. I've not been trying to make others happy any more than you
have----"
"No," Sadie broke in, "I was going to tell you that soon as I got a
chance."
Olga's lips twisted in a wry smile as she went on, "--so you see you and
I both have something to do in ourselves. Maybe we can help each other?
What do you say? Shall we watch and help each other? I'll remind you
when you snap and snarl, and you----"
"I'll remind you when you sulk and glower," Sadie retorted in impish
glee. "Maybe we _can_ work it that way."
"All right, it's a bargain then?" Olga held out her hand and Sadie's
thin nervous fingers clasped it promptly. The child's cheeks were
flushed and her small black eyes were shining.
"I can learn fast if I want to," she boasted. "I'm going to make me a
silver bracelet like Miss Laura's and a pin; and I'll have lovely
embroidery on my Camp Fire dress. I _love_ pretty things like
those--don't you?"
Olga shook her head. "No, I don't care for them," she returned; but as
she spoke there flashed into her mind some words Mrs. Royall had spoken
at one of the Council meetings--"Seek beauty in everything--appreciate
it, create it, for yourself and for others." Sadie was seeking beauty,
even though for her it meant as yet merely personal adornment, and
she--Olga--deep down in her heart had been cherishing a scorn for all
such beauty. She put the thought aside for future consideration as she
said, "Then, Sadie, you and Elizabeth will be at Miss Laura's next
Saturday?"
"I rather guess we _will_!" Sadie answered emphatically.
"You don't have to ask your mother about it?"
Sadie gave a scornful little flirt. "Mother! She always does what I
want. We'll be there." And then, with a burst of generosity, she added,
"You can see Elizabeth, for a minute, if you want to--now."
But again Olga shook her head. "Tell her I'll stop for her and you
Saturday," she said. "Good-bye, Sadie."
"Good-bye," Sadie echoed, turning towards her own door; but the next
minute she was clutching eagerly at Olga's sleeve. "Say--tell Miss Laura
to be sure and have my silver ring ready for me as soon's I join," she
cried. "You won't forget, Olga?"
"I won't forget," Olga assured her.
XI
BOYS AND OLD LADIES
The change into a home atmosphere and the loving care with which he was
surrounded, worked wonders in Jim, and when the judge decided that he
should remain where he was, and not be sent to any other home, the boy
grew stronger by the hour. Then Laura had her hands full to keep him
happily occupied; for after a while, in spite of auto rides and visits
to the Zoo--in spite of books and games and picture puzzles--sometimes
she thought he seemed not quite happy, and she puzzled over the problem,
wondering what she had left undone. When one day she found him watching
some boys playing in a vacant lot, the wistful longing in his eyes was a
revelation to her.
"Of course, it is boys he is longing for--boys and out-of-door fun. I
ought to have known," she said to herself, and at once she called Elsie
Harding on the telephone.
"Will you ask your brother Jack if he will come here Saturday morning
and see Jim? Tell him it is a chance for his 'one kindness,' a kindness
that will mean a great deal to my boy."
"I'll tell him," Elsie promised. "I know he'll be glad to go if he can."
Laura said nothing to Jim, but when Jack Harding appeared, she took him
upstairs at once. Jim was standing at the window, watching two boys and
a puppy in a neighbouring yard. He glanced listlessly over his shoulder
as the door opened, but at sight of a boy in Scout uniform, he hurried
across to him, crying out,
"My! But it's good to see a boy!" Then he glanced at Laura, the colour
flaming in his face. Would she mind? But she was smiling at him, and
looking almost as happy as he felt.
"This is Jack Harding, Elsie's brother," she said, "and, Jack, this is
my boy Jim. I hope he can persuade you to stay to lunch with him." Then
she shut the door and left the two together.
When she went back at noon, she found the boys deep in the mysteries of
knots. Jim looked up, his homely little face full of pride.
"Jack is learning me to tie all the different knots," he cried, "and
he's going to learn me ['teach,' corrected Jack softly]--yes, teach me
everything I'll have to know before I can be a Scout. Jack's a second
class Scout--see his badge? We've had a bully time, haven't we, Jack?"
Suddenly his head went down and his heels flew into the air as he turned
a somersault. Coming right end upwards again, he looked at Laura with a
doubtful grin. "I--I didn't mean to do that," he stammered. "It--just
did itself--like----"
Jack's quick laugh rang out then. "I know. You had to get it out of your
system, didn't you?" he said with full understanding.
That was a red-letter day to Jim. He kept his visitor until the last
possible moment, and stood at the window looking after him till the
straight little figure in khaki swung around a corner and was gone.
Then with a long happy breath he turned to Laura and said, half
apologetically, half appealingly, "You see a fellow gets kind o' hungry
for boys, sometimes. You don't mind, do you, Miss Laura?"
"No, indeed, Jim. I get hungry for girls the same way--it's all right,"
she assured him. But she made up her mind that Jim should not get _so_
hungry for boys again--she would see to that.
After a moment he asked thoughtfully, "Why can't boys be Scouts till
they're twelve, Miss Laura?"
"I think because younger boys could not go on the long tramps."
"Oh!" Jim thought that over and finally admitted, "Yes, I guess that's
it." A little later he asked anxiously, "Do you s'pose they'd let a
fellow join when he's twelve even if he is just a _little_ lame?"
"O, I hope so, Jim," Laura answered quickly.
"But you ain't sure. Jack wasn't sure, but he guessed they would." Jim
pondered a while in silence, then he broke out again, "Seems to me the
only way is for me to get this leg cured. I can't be shut out of things
always just 'cause of that, can I now, Miss Laura?"
"Nothing can shut you out of the best things, Jim."
The boy looked up at her, tipping his round head till he reminded her of
an uncommonly wise sparrow. "I don't _quite_ know what you mean," he
said in a doubtful tone.
"You like stories of men who have done splendid brave things, don't
you?" Laura asked.
Jim nodded, his eyes searching her face.
"But some of the bravest men have never been able to fight or do the
things you love to hear about."
"How did they be brave then?" Jim demanded.
"They were brave because they endured very, very hard things and never
whimpered."
"What's whimpered?"
"To whimper is to cry or complain--or be sorry for yourself."
Jim studied over that; then coming close to Laura, he looked straight
into her eyes. "You mean that I mustn't talk about that?" He touched his
lame leg.
"It would be better not, if you can help it," she said very gently.
"I got to help it then, 'cause, of course, I've got to be brave. And
mebbe if I get strong as--as anything, they'll let me join the Scouts
when I'm twelve even--even if I ain't quite such a good walker as the
rest of 'em. Don't you think they _might_, Miss Laura?"
"Yes, Jim, I think they might," she agreed hastily. Who could say "No"
to such pleading eyes?
Jim had been teasing to go to school, and when at the next Camp Fire
meeting, Lena Barton told him that Jo had been sent to an outdoor
school, Jim wanted to go there too.
"Take him to the doctor and see what he thinks about it," the judge
advised, and to Jim's delight the doctor said that it was just the place
for him.
"Let him sleep out of doors too for a year," the doctor added. "It will
do him a world of good."
So the next day Miss Laura went with him to the school, Jim limping
gaily along at her side, and chuckling to himself as he thought how
"s'prised" Jo would be to see him there.
Jo undoubtedly was surprised. He was a thin little chap, freckled and
red-haired like his sister, and he welcomed his old comrade with a wide
friendly grin.
Jim thought it a very queer-looking school, with teacher and pupils all
wearing warm coats, mittens, and hoods or caps, and all with their feet
hidden in big woolen bags. There was no fire, of course, and all the
windows were wide open.
"But what a happy-looking crowd it is!" Laura said, and the teacher
answered,
"They are the happiest children I ever taught, and they learn so easily!
They get on much faster than most of the children in other schools of
the same grade. We give them luncheon here--plain nourishing things
which the doctor orders--and," she lowered her voice, "that means a deal
to some who come from poor homes where there is not too much to eat."
"We shall gladly pay for Jim," Laura said quickly, "enough for him and
some of the others too."
So Jim's outdoor life began. There was a covered porch adjoining the
old nursery, and the judge had the end boarded up to protect the boy's
cot from snow or rain; and there, in a warm sleeping-bag, with a wool
cap over his ears, and a little fox terrier cuddled down beside him for
company, Jim slept through all the winter weather.
He and the judge were great chums now. It would be hard to say which
most enjoyed the half-hour they spent together before Laura carried the
boy off to bed. And as for Laura--she often wondered how she had ever
gotten on without Jim. He filled the big house with life, and she didn't
at all mind the noise and disorder that he brought into it. He whistled
now from morning till night, and his pockets were perfect catch-alls.
Sometimes they were stuck together with chewing-gum or molasses candy,
and sometimes they were soaked with wet sponges, and his hands--she
counted one Saturday, thirteen times that she sent him to wash them
between getting up and bedtime.
The girls always wanted Jim at their Camp Fire meetings, for a part of
the time at least. As "Miss Laura's boy" they felt that in a way he
belonged to them too, and Jim was very proud and happy to make one of
the company.
"I'm going to be a Camp Fire boy until I'm big enough to be a Scout, if
you'll all let me," he told the girls one night, and they all gave him
the most cordial of welcomes.
He was sitting between Olga and Elizabeth, when the girls were talking
about some of the babies they had found.
"We never find one that is just right," Rose Parsons complained. "Or if
the baby is what we would like, there is always some one that wants to
keep it."
"I'm glad of it," Lena Barton flung out. "It was silly of us to think of
taking a baby, anyhow. We better just help out somewhere--maybe with
some older kid." Her red-brown eyes flashed a glance at Jim.
It was then that Frances Chapin broke in earnestly, "O girls, I do so
wish you'd take one of the old ladies at the Home! They need our help
quite as much as the babies--more, I sometimes think, for they are so
old and tired, and they've such a little time to--to have things done
for them. The babies have chances, but the chances of these old ladies
are almost over. There's one--Mrs. Barlow--I'm sure you couldn't help
loving her--she is so gentle and patient and uncomplaining, although she
cannot see to sew or read, and cannot go out alone. She has her board
and room at the Home of course, but clothes are not provided, and she
hasn't any money at all. Just think of never having a dollar to buy
anything with! And the money we could give would buy so many of the
things she needs, and it would make her so happy to have us run in and
see her now and then. There are so many of us that no one would have to
go often, and she loves girls. She had two of her own once, but they
both died in one year, and her husband was killed in an accident. She
did fine sewing and embroidery as long as she could see; then an old
friend got her into the Home. I took this picture of her to show you."
She handed the picture to Laura, who passed it on with the comment, "It
is a sweet face."
The girls all agreed that it was a sweet face, and Mary Hastings,
stirred by Frances' earnest pleading, moved that what money they could
spare should be given to Frances for Mrs. Barlow, but Frances interposed
quickly, "She needs the money, but she needs people almost more. She is
so happy when Elsie or I go in to see her even just for a minute! I
shall be delighted if we take her for our Camp Fire 'service,' but
please, girls, _if_ we do, give her a little of your_selves_--not just
your money alone," she pleaded.
"How would I know what to say to an old woman?" Lena Barton grumbled. "I
shouldn't have an idea how to talk to her."
"You wouldn't need to have--she has ideas of her own a-plenty. Girls,
if you'll only once go and see her, you won't need to be coaxed to go
again, I'm sure," Frances urged.
"I'm in favour of having Frances' old lady for our 'Camp Fire baby,'"
laughed Louise Johnson. "I second Mary's motion."
But Lena Barton's high-pitched voice cut in, "Before we vote on that I'd
like to say a word. I've no doubt that Mrs. Barlow is an angel minus the
wings, but before we decide to adopt her I'd like to see some of the
other old ladies. I've wanted for a long time to get into one of those
Homes with a big H. How about it, Frances--would they let me in or are
working girls ruled out?"
"O no, any one can go there," Frances replied, but her face and her
voice betrayed her disappointment. When Louise spoke, Frances had
thought her cause was won.
"All right--I'll go then to-morrow, and maybe I'll find some old lady
I'll like better than your white-haired angel," Lena flung out, her
red-brown eyes gleaming with sly malice and mischief.
Quite unconsciously, and certainly without intention, the three High
School girls held themselves a little apart from Lena and her "crowd,"
and Lena was quite sharp enough to detect and resent this. She chuckled
as she watched Frances' clouded face.
"O never mind, Frances," Elsie Harding whispered under cover of a brisk
discussion on old ladies, that Lena's words had started, "Lena's just
talking for effect. She won't take the trouble to go to the Home."
XII
NANCY REXTREW
But that was where Elsie was mistaken. Lena did go the very next
afternoon, and dragged the reluctant Eva with her. The girls, proposing
to join the Sunday promenade on the Avenue later, were in their Sunday
best when they presented themselves at the big, old-fashioned frame
house on Capitol Hill.
"Who you goin' to ask for?" Eva questioned as Lena, lifting the old
brass knocker, dropped it sharply.
"The Barlow angel, I s'pose. We don't know the name of anybody else
here," Lena returned with a grin.
The maid who answered their summons told them to go right upstairs. They
would find Mrs. Barlow in Room 10 on the second floor. So they went up,
Lena's eyes, as always, keen and alert, Eva scowling, and wishing
herself "out of it."
"Here's No. 6--it must be that second door beyond," Lena said in a low
tone; but low as it was, somebody heard, for the next door--No. 8--flew
open instantly, and a woman stepped briskly out and faced the girls.
"Come right in--come right in," she said with an imperative gesture.
"My! But I'm glad to see ye!"
So compelling was her action that, with a laugh, Lena yielded and Eva
followed her as a matter of course.
The woman closed the door quickly, and pulled forward three chairs,
planting herself in the third.
"My land, but it's good to see ye sittin' there," she began. "What's yer
names? Mine's Nancy Rextrew."
Lena gave their names, and the woman repeated them lingeringly, as if
the syllables were sweet on her tongue. Then she tipped her head, pursed
her lips, and gave a little cackling laugh.
"I s'pose ye was bound fer her room--Mis' Barlow's, eh?" she questioned.
"Yes," Lena admitted, "but----"
"I don't care nothin' about it if you was!" Nancy Rextrew broke in
hastily, her little black eyes snapping and her wrinkled face all alive
with eager excitement. "I don't care a mite if you was. Mis' Barlow has
somebody a-comin' to see her nigh about every day, an' I've stood it
jest as long as I can. Yesterday when the Chapin girl an' the Harding
girl stayed along of her half the afternoon I made up my mind that the
next girl that came through this corridor was a-comin' in here--be she
who she might. I was right sure some girl or other'd come on a pretty
Sunday like this, to read the Bible or suthin' to her, an' I says to
myself, 'I'll kidnap the next one--I don't care if it's the daughter of
the president in the White House.' An' I've done it, an' I'm _glad_!"
she added triumphantly, her eyes meeting Lena's with a flash that drew
an answering flash from the girl's.
"Well, now that you've kidnapped us, what next?" Lena demanded with a
laugh.
"I do' know an' I don't care what next," the woman flung out with a
gleeful reckless gesture. "Of course I can't keep ye if ye _want_ to go
in there," with a nod towards No. 10, "but you don't somehow look like
the pious sort. Be ye?"
Lena shook her head. "I guess I'm your sort," she said. She had never
before met an old woman at all like this one, and her heart went out to
her. In spite of wrinkles and gray hairs, the spirit of youth nodded to
her from Nancy Rextrew's little black eyes, and something in Lena
answered as if in spite of herself.
Nancy hitched her chair closer, and with her elbows on her knees, rested
her shrivelled chin on her old hands, wrinkled and swollen at the
joints. "Now tell me," she commanded, "all about yourself. You ain't no
High School girl, I'm thinkin'."
"You're right--I never got above the seventh grade--I had to go to work
when I was thirteen. Eva and I both work in Wood and Lanson's."
"What d'ye do there?" Nancy snapped out the question, fairly hugging
herself in her delight.
"I'm a wrapper in the hosiery department. Eva's in the hardware."
"I know--I know," Nancy breathed fast as one who must accomplish much in
little time, "I've been all over that store. My! But I'd like to see ye
both there--'specially _you_!" Her crooked finger pointed at Lena. "I
bet you're a good one. You could make a cow buy stockings if you took a
notion to."
Lena broke into a shout of laughter at the vision of a cow coming in to
be fitted with stockings. "I'm afraid," she gurgled, "that we'd have to
make 'em to order--for a cow!" and all three joined in the laughter.
But Nancy could not spare time for much merriment. She poured out eager
questions and listened to the answers of the girls with an interest that
drew forth ever more details. At last, with a furtive sidelong glance at
the clock, she said, "I s'pose now if I should go there to the store
you'd be too busy to speak to me--or mebbe you wouldn't want to be seen
talkin' to an old thing like me, an' I wouldn't blame ye, neither."
"Stuff!" retorted Lena promptly. "You come to my place next time you're
down town and I'll show you. We wouldn't be shoddy enough to turn down a
friend, would we, Eva?"
"I guess no," Eva agreed, but without enthusiasm.
"A friend!" As Nancy repeated the word a curious quiver swept over her
old lined face. "You don't have to call me a friend," she said. "Old
women like me don't expect to be called _friend_--didn't ye know that?"
"I said friend, and I meant what I said," repeated Lena stoutly, and the
old woman swallowed once or twice before she spoke again.
"You've told me about your work, now tell me the rest of it--the fun
part," she begged.
"O that!" said Lena. "The fun is moving pictures and roller skating and
dances and the Avenue parade--with the boys along sometimes."
"I bet ye there's boys along where you be!" Nancy flashed an admiring
glance at the girl. "I always did admire bright hair like yours, an' a
pinch o' freckles is more takin' than a dimple--if you ask me."
Had Nancy been the shrewdest of mortals she could have said nothing
that would have pleased Lena more. She had been called "Carrots" and
"Redhead" all her life, and from the bottom of her soul she loathed her
fiery locks and her freckles, though never yet had she acknowledged this
to any living creature--and here was one who _liked_ freckles and red
hair! Lena could have hugged the little old woman beaming at her with
such honest admiration. A wave of hot colour swept up to her forehead.
But Nancy's thoughts had taken another turn.
"Movin' pictures. That's the new kind of show, ain't it? I've heard
about 'em, but I've never seen any."
"You can go for a nickel," said Eva.
"A nickel?" echoed Nancy, flashing a swift glance at her. "But nickels
don't grow on gooseberry bushes, an' if they did, there ain't any
gooseberry bushes around here," she retorted.
"Say----" Lena was leaning forward, her eyes full of interest, "we'll
take you to see the movies any time you'll go, won't we, Eva?"
"Er--yes, I guess so," Eva conceded reluctantly; but Nancy paid no
attention now to Eva. Her eyes, widened with incredulous joy, were fixed
on Lena's vivid face.
"Do you mean it? You ain't foolin'?" she faltered.
"Fooling? Well, I guess you don't know me. When I invite a friend
anywhere I mean it. When can you go?"
"When? Now--_this minute_!" Nancy cried, starting eagerly to her feet.
Then recollecting herself, she sat down again with a shamefaced little
laugh. "For the land's sake, if I wasn't forgettin' all about it's bein'
Sunday!" she cried under her breath.
"I guess you wouldn't want to go Sunday," Lena said. "But how about
to-morrow evening?"
Old Nancy drew a long breath. "I s'pose mebbe I _can_ live through the
time till then," she returned. Then with a quick, questioning
glance--"But s'posing some of your friends should be there? I guess
mebbe--you wouldn't care for 'em to see you with an old woman like me in
such a place."
"Don't you fret yourself about that," Lena replied. "You just meet us at
the corner of Tenth and the Avenue. I'll be there at half-past seven, if
I can. Anyhow, you wait there till I come."
When the girls went away Nancy Rextrew walked with them down to the
front door and stood there watching as long as she could see them, her
sharp old face full of pride and joy and hope that had long been
strangers there.
"O my Lord!" she said under her breath as she went back to her room--and
again "O my Lord!"
"That old woman's going to have the time of her life to-morrow night,"
Lena said, as the two girls walked towards the Avenue.
"I don't suppose she's got a decent thing to wear," Eva grumbled.
Lena turned on her like a flash. "I don't care if she's got nothing but
a _nightgown_ to wear, she shall have a good time for once if I can make
her!" she stormed. "Talk about your Mrs. Barlow!" And Eva subsided into
cowed silence.
At quarter of eight the next evening, the two girls saw Nancy Rextrew
standing on the corner of Tenth Street and the Avenue, peering anxiously
first one way and then the other.
"Oh!" groaned Eva. "Lena Barton, look at the shawl she's got on. I bet
it's a hundred years old--and that bonnet!"
"If it's a hundred years old it's an antique and worth good money!"
retorted Lena. "Hurry up!"
But Eva hung back. "I'd be ashamed forever if any of the boys should see
me with her," she half whimpered.
Lena stopped short and stamped her foot, heedless of interested
passers-by. "Then go back!" she cried. "And you needn't hang around me
any more. Go _back_, I say!" Without another glance at Eva she hurried
on, and Eva sulkily followed.
Rapturous relief swept the anxiety from old Nancy's little triangle of a
face as she caught sight of the two girls.
"'Fraid you've been waitin' an age," Lena greeted her breezily. "I
couldn't get off as early as I meant to. Come on now--we won't lose any
more time," and slipping her arm under Nancy's, she swept her,
breathless and beaming, towards the brilliantly-lighted show-place.
"Two," she slapped a dime down before the ticket-taker, quite ignoring
Eva, who silently laid a nickel beside the dime.
The place was one of the best of its kind, well ventilated and spaced
and, though the lights were turned down, it was by no means dark within.
Lena guided the old woman into a seat and sat down beside her, and Eva,
after a quick searching glance that revealed none of her acquaintances
present, took the next seat.
For the hour that followed Nancy Rextrew was in Fairyland. With
breathless interest, her eyes glued to the pictures, her mouth half
open, she followed the quick-moving figures through scenes pathetic or
ludicrous with an absorbed attention that would not miss the smallest
detail. When that popular idol--the Imp--was performing her antics, the
old woman's quick cackling laugh made Eva drop her head that her big hat
might hide her face. When the "Drunkard's Family" were passing through
their harrowing experiences, tears rolled unheeded down old Nancy's
wrinkled cheeks as she sat with her knobby fingers tight clasped.
When, at last, Lena whispered in her ear, "I guess we'll go now," Nancy
exclaimed,
"Oh! Is it over? I thought it had just begun. But it was
beautiful--beautiful! I'll never----"
A loud sharp explosion cut through her sentence and instantly the whole
place was in an uproar. Suffocating fumes filled the room with smoke as
the lights went out. Then somebody screamed, "Fire! _Fire_!" and
pandemonium reigned. Women shrieked, children wailed, and men and boys
fought savagely to get to the doors. Lena was swept on by the first mad
rush of the crowd, crazy with fear, but catching at a seat, she tried to
slip into it and climb back to Nancy and Eva. Before she could reach
them, she saw Eva thrown down in the aisle by a big woman frantic with
terror, who tried to walk over her prostrate body, but a pair of bony
hands grabbed the woman's hair and yanked her back, holding her, it
seemed, by sheer force of will, for the few precious seconds that gave
Lena a chance to pull Eva up and out of the aisle.
"You fools!" The old woman's voice, shrill and cracked, but steady and
unafraid, cut through the babel of shrieks and cries, "You fools, there
ain't no fire! If you'll stop yellin' an' pushin' and go quiet you'll
all get out in a minute. It's jest a step to the doors."
She was only a little old woman--a figure of fun, if they could have
seen her clearly, with her old bonnet tilted rakishly over one ear and
her shawl trailing behind her--but through the smoke, in that tumult of
fear and dread, the dauntless spirit of her loomed large, and dominated
the lesser souls craven with terror.
A draught of air thinned the smoke for a moment, and as those in front
rushed out, the pressure in the main aisle lessened. Climbing over the
back of a seat, Lena caught the old woman's arm.
"Come," she shouted in her ear, "we can get through to the side aisle
now--that's almost clear. Come, Eva, buck up--buck up, I say, or we'll
never get out of this!" for Eva, terrified, bruised, and half fainting,
was now hanging limp and nerveless to Lena's arm.
"Don't you worry 'bout me. Go ahead an' I'll follow," Nancy Rextrew
said, and grabbing Eva's other arm, the two half pushed and half carried
her between them. Once outside, her blind terror suddenly left her, and
she declared herself all right.
"Well, then, let's get out of this," and Lena's sharp elbows forced a
passage through the crowd that was increasing every minute, as the
rumour of fire spread. She turned to old Nancy. "We'll get you on a
car--My goodness, Eva, catch hold of her _quick_! We must get her into
the drug store there on the corner," she ended as she saw the old
woman's face.
They got her into the drug store somehow, and then for the first time in
her life Nancy Rextrew fainted; and great was her mortification when she
came to herself and realised what had happened.
"My soul and body!" she muttered. "I always did despise women that
didn't know no better than to faint, an' now I'm one of 'em. Gi' me my
Injy shawl an' let me get away. Yes, I be well enough to go home, too!"
She struggled to her feet, and snatching her bonnet from Eva, crammed it
on her head anyhow, fumbling with the strings while she swayed dizzily.
"Here, let me tie them," Eva said gently. "You sit down so I can reach."
She tied the strings very slowly, pulled the old bonnet straight and
drew the India shawl over the thin shoulders, taking as much time as she
could, to give the old woman a chance to pull herself together.
"I'll take her home," Lena said.
"No, you won't--that's my job!" Eva spoke with unusual decision, and
Lena promptly yielded.
"Well--I guess you're right. I guess if it hadn't been for her----"
"Yes," said Eva, and her look made further words unnecessary.
The three walked out to the car a few minutes later. The fire in the
picture theatre had been quickly put out, and already the crowd in the
street was melting away. Nancy looked up and down the wide avenue
brilliant with its many electric lights; then as she saw the car coming
she turned to Lena, her pale face crinkling into sudden laughter.
"I don't care--it was worth it!" she declared. "I've lived more to-night
than I have in twenty years before. I loved every minute of it--the
pictures an' the fire an' everything. But see here--" she leaned down
and whispered in the girl's ear,--"don't you let any feller put his arm
round you like the man did round that girl that set in front of
us--don't you do it!"
"I guess _not_!" retorted the girl sharply. "I ain't that kind."
"That's right, that's right! An'--an' do come an' see me again some
time--do, dearie!" the old woman added over her shoulder as the
conductor pulled her up the high step of the car.
Eva followed her. "I'm going to see she gets home all right," she said,
and Lena waved her hand as the car passed on.
"An' to think her sharp old eyes saw that!" Lena thought with a chuckle
as she turned away. "An' me all the time thinkin' she didn't see
anything but the pictures. Well, you never can tell. But she's a duck,
an' it's her gets my nickels--angel or no angel. And to think how she
kidnapped us--the old dear," and Lena went on laughing to herself.
At the next Camp Fire meeting, Lena, with a mischievous spark in her
eyes, called out to Frances Chapin, "Say, Frances, Eva and I took one of
your old ladies to the picture show the other night."
Frances looked distinctly disapproving. "I think you might have made a
better use of your money," she returned.
"I don't, then!" retorted Lena, and thereupon she told the story of
Nancy's Sunday kidnapping, and of what had happened at the picture show.
Her graphic wording held the girls breathless with interest.
"Well!" commented Louise Johnson, "I'd like to see that old lady of
yours, Lena."
"She's worth seeing." This from Eva.
A week later Louise announced that she had seen Lena's old lady. "Saw
her at the Home yesterday. I like her. She sure is a peach."
"Isn't she just?" Lena responded, her face lighting up. "And did you see
Frances' angel-all-but-the-wings old lady too?"
"Yes, and she's a peach also, but a different variety," Louise answered
with a laugh. "I gave your Miss Rextrew some mint gum and she popped it
into her mouth as handily as if she'd chewed gum all her life."
Lena nodded. "She wanted to try it. She wants to try everything that is
going. She's a live wire, that's what she is--good old Nancy!"
"We went the rounds--Annie Pearson and I," Louise continued. "Saw all
the old ladies except one that doesn't want any visitors. Most of 'em
do, though; and say, girlies--" Louise's sweeping glance included all in
the room--"I reckon it won't hurt any of us to run up there once a month
or so when it means such a lot to those old shut-ins to have us."
There was a swift exchange of amazed glances at this, _from Louise
Johnson_, and then a murmur of assent from several voices, before Mary
Hastings in her business-like way suggested, "Why not each of us set a
date for going? Then we won't forget--or maybe all go on the same day."
"All right, Molly--you make out the list an' we'll all sign it," Lena
said, "and, say--make it a nickel fine for any girl that forgets her
date or fails to keep it. Does that go, girls?"
"Unless for some good and sufficient reason that she will give at our
next meeting," Laura amended.
Then began a new era for the old ladies at the Home. Always on Saturday
and Sunday afternoons and often on other evenings, light footsteps and
young voices were heard in the corridors and rooms of the old mansion.
Not only gentle Mrs. Barlow and eager old Nancy Rextrew, but all the
women who had drifted into this backwater of life found their dull days
wonderfully brightened by contact with these young lives. Nancy Rextrew
looked years younger than on that Sunday when she had turned kidnapper.
Naturally she was still the prime favourite with Lena and Eva, and
gloried in that fact. But there were girls "enough to go around" in more
senses than one, and most of them were faithful to their agreement, and
seldom allowed anything to keep them from the Home on the date assigned
to them.
XIII
A CAMP FIRE CHRISTMAS
For over a year Olga had been working in the evening classes of the Arts
and Crafts school, and she was now doing excellent work in silver. Her
designs were so bold and original and her execution so good, that she
received from patrons of the school many orders for Christmas gifts--so
many that she gave up her other work in order to devote all her time to
this. She had now two rooms, a small bedroom and a larger room which
served as kitchen, living-room, and workroom. None of the girls had ever
been invited to these rooms, nor even Miss Laura. Elizabeth, Olga would
have welcomed there; but it was quite useless to ask her before Sadie
joined the Camp Fire. Then Olga saw her opportunity, but it was an
opportunity hampered by a very unpleasant condition, and the condition
was Sadie. Could she admit Sadie even for the sake of having Elizabeth?
Olga pondered long over that while she was teaching the girl to work
with the beads and the raffia. Sadie was an apt pupil. Those bony little
fingers of hers were deft and quick. Within a month she had made her
Camp Fire dress and her headband, and was eagerly at work over the
requirements for a Fire Maker. But, as Mary Hastings said to Rose
Anderson one day,
"She's sharp as nails--that Sadie! I believe she can learn anything she
sets her mind on; but she's such a selfish little pig! I can't endure
her."
"I wish I had her memory," Rose answered. "How she did reel off the Fire
Ode and the Fire Maker's desire the other night! I haven't learned that
Ode yet so that I can say it without stumbling."
"O, Sadie can reel it off without a mistake, but she's as blind to the
meaning of it as this sidewalk. There's no _heart_ to Sadie Page. She
can thank Elizabeth that we ever voted her in."
"Elizabeth--and Olga," Rose amended.
"O, Olga--well, that was for Elizabeth too. Olga did it just for
her--got Sadie in, I mean."
"She's--different--lately, don't you think, Molly?"
"Who--Olga?"
Rose nodded.
"Yes, she's getting more human. She's opened her heart to Elizabeth and
she can't quite shut it against the rest of us--not quite--though she
opens it only the tiniest crack."
"But I think it's lovely the way she is to Sadie. You know she must hate
that kind of a girl as much as we do, or more--and yet she endures and
helps her in every way just to give Elizabeth her chance. Miss Laura
says Olga is doing lovely silver work. I'd like to see some of it, but I
don't dare ask her to let me."
"You'd better not," laughed Mary, "unless you are ready to be snubbed.
Nobody but Elizabeth will ever be privileged to that extent."
"And Sadie."
"Well, possibly, but not if Olga can help it."
Yet it was Sadie and not Elizabeth who was the first of the Camp Fire
Girls to be admitted to Olga's rooms. Sadie was wild to take up the
silver work. She wanted to make herself a complete set--bracelet, ring,
pin, and hatpin, after a design she had seen. Again and again she
brought the matter up, for, once she got an idea in her head, she clung
to it with the tenacity of a limpet to a rock.
"I think you _might_ teach me!" she cried out impatiently one day,
meeting Olga in the street. "You said you'd teach me all you know--you
did, Olga Priest--and now you won't."
"I've taught you basket work and beadwork and embroidery, and the knots,
and the Red-Cross things, and I'm helping you to win your honours," Olga
reminded her.
"O, I know--but I want to make the silver set just awfully. I can do
it--I know I can--and you promised, Olga Priest, you _promised_!" Sadie
repeated, half crying in her eager impatience.
"Well," Olga said with a reluctance she did not try to conceal, "if you
hold me to that promise----"
"I do then!" Sadie declared, her black eyes watching Olga's lips as if
she would snatch the words from them before they were spoken.
"Then I suppose I must," Olga went on slowly. "But listen, Sadie. You
don't seem to realise what you are asking of me. I've been nearly two
years learning this work, and I paid for my lessons--a good big price,
too--yet you expect me to teach you for nothing."
"Well, you know I've no money to pay for lessons," Sadie retorted
sulkily.
"I know--but you see you don't _have_ to learn the silver work. There
are plenty of other things for you to learn in handcraft."
Sadie's narrow sharp face flushed and she stamped her foot angrily. "But
I don't _want_ the other things, and I _do_ want this. I--I've just got
to have that silver set, Olga Priest."
Olga set her lips firmly. She must draw the line somewhere, for there
seemed no limit to Sadie's demands. Then a thought occurred to her and
she said slowly, "I don't feel, Sadie, that you have any right to ask
this of me. It is different from the other things. The silver work is my
trade--the way I earn my living. But I will teach you to make your set
on one condition."
"It's something about Elizabeth, I know," Sadie flung out with an angry
flirt.
"No, not this time. Sadie, have you ever given any one a Christmas
present?"
"No, of course not. I don't have any money to buy 'em."
"Well, this is my condition. I'll teach you to make the silver set for
yourself if you will first make something for----"
"Elizabeth!" broke in Sadie. "I said so."
"No, not for Elizabeth--for your mother."
Sadie stood staring, her mouth open, her eyes full of amazement.
"What you want me to do that for?" she demanded.
"No matter why. Will you do it?"
Sadie wriggled her shoulders and scowled. "I want to make my set
first--then I will."
But Olga shook her head. "No," she replied firmly, "for your mother
first, or else I'll not teach you at all."
"But I'll have to wait so long then for mine." Sadie was half crying
now.
"That's my offer--you can take it or leave it," Olga said. "I must go on
now. Think it over and tell me Saturday what you decide."
"O--if I must, I must, I s'pose," Sadie yielded ungraciously. "How long
will it take me to make mother's?"
"Depends on how quickly you learn."
"O, I'll learn quick enough!" Sadie tossed her head as one conscious of
her powers. "When can I begin?"
"Monday. Can you come right after school?"
"Uh, huh," and with a brief good-bye Sadie was gone.
Olga had no easy task with her over the making of her mother's gift. It
was to be a brass stamp box, and her only thought was to get it out of
the way so that she could begin on her own jewelry; but Olga was firm.
"If you don't make a good job of this your lessons will end right here,"
she declared, and Sadie had learned that when Olga spoke in that tone,
she must be obeyed. She gloomed and pouted, but seeing no other way to
get what she wanted she set to work in earnest. And as the work grew
under her hands, her interest in it grew. When, finally, the box was
done, it was really a creditable bit of work for the first attempt of a
girl barely fourteen, and Sadie was inordinately proud of it.
It was December now and Christmas was the absorbing interest of the
Camp Fire Girls. They were to have a tree in the Camp Fire room, but
Laura told them to make their gifts very simple and inexpensive.
"We must not spoil the Great Day by giving what we cannot afford," she
said. "The loving thought is the heart of Christmas giving--not the
money value. I'll get our tree, but you can help me string popcorn and
cranberries to trim it, and put up the greenery."
"Me too--O Miss Laura, can't I help too?" Jim cried anxiously.
"Why, of course. We couldn't get along without you, Jim," half a dozen
voices assured him before Laura could answer.
"I wish our old ladies could come to our tree," Elsie Harding said to
Alice Reynolds.
"They couldn't. Most of them can't go out evenings, you know. But we
might put gifts for them on the tree they have at the Home."
"Or have them hang up stockings," suggested Louise Johnson. "Just
imagine forty long black stockings strung around those parlour walls.
Wouldn't it be a sight?" she giggled.
"Nancy Rextrew wouldn't have her stocking hung on any parlour wall. It
would be in her own room or nowhere," put in Lena.
"Why not get some of those red Christmas stockings from the five cent
store, and fill one for each old lady?" Mary Hastings proposed. "We
could go late, after they'd all gone to their rooms, and hang the
stockings, full, on their doorknobs."
"Or get the superintendent to hang them early in the morning," was
Laura's suggestion.
"Yes, we can get the stockings and the 'fillings,'" Mary Hastings went
on, "and have all sent to the superintendent's room. Then we can go
there and fill them. It won't take long if we all go."
"And not have any tree for them?" Myra asked in a disappointed tone.
"O, they always have a tree with candles and trimmings--the Board ladies
furnish that," Frances explained.
The girls lingered late that night talking over Christmas plans. The air
was heavy with secrets, there were whispered conferences in corners, and
somebody was always drawing Laura aside to ask advice or help. Only
Elizabeth had no part in these mysterious whisperings. She had blossomed
into happy friendliness with all the girls now that she came regularly
to the meetings, but the old sad silence crept over her again in these
December days. It was Olga who guessed her trouble and went with it to
Sadie, drawing her away from a group of girls who were busy over crochet
work.
"Look at Elizabeth," she began.
Sadie stared at her sister sitting apart from the others, listlessly
gazing into the fire. "Well, what of her? What's eating her?" Sadie
demanded in her most aggravating manner.
Olga frowned. Sadie's slang was a trial to her.
"Elizabeth says she is not coming to the Christmas tree here."
"Well, she don't have to, if she don't want to," Sadie retorted, but she
cast an uneasy glance at the silent figure by the fire.
"She does want to, Sadie Page--you know she does."
"Well, then--what's the answer?" demanded Sadie.
"Would _you_ come if you couldn't give a single thing to any one?" Olga
asked quietly.
"Why don't she make things then--same's I do?" Sadie's tone was sullen
now.
"You know why. Your mother gives you a little money----"
"Mighty little," Sadie interrupted. "I'm going to work when I'm sixteen.
Then I'll have my own money to spend."
"And Elizabeth is nearly eighteen and can't work for herself because she
spends all her time working for the rest of you at home," said Olga.
A startled look flashed into the sharp black eyes. Sadie had actually
never before thought of that.
Olga went on, "I guess you'd miss Elizabeth at home if she should go
away to work, but she ought to do it as soon as she is eighteen. And if
she should, you'd have to do some of the kitchen work, wouldn't you? And
maybe then you wouldn't have a chance to go away and earn money for
yourself."
"Is she going to do that--go off to work when she's eighteen?" Sadie
demanded, plainly disturbed at the suggestion.
"Everybody would say she had a right to. Most girls would have gone long
ago--you know it, Sadie. You'd better make things easier for her at home
if you want to keep her there."
"How?" Sadie's voice was despondent now. "Father gets so little
pay--we're pinched all the time."
"Yet _you_ have good clothes and money for your silver work----"
"Well, I have to just tease it out of mother. You don't know how I have
to tease."
Olga could imagine. "Well," she said, "the girls all guess how it is
about Elizabeth, and, if you come to the tree and she doesn't, I shan't
envy you, that's all. You are smart enough to think up some way to help
Elizabeth out."
"I d'know how!" grumbled Sadie. "I think you're real mean, Olga
Priest--always saying things to spoil my fun, so there!" and she whirled
around and went back to the other girls.
"All the same," said Olga to herself, "I've set her to thinking."
The next afternoon Sadie burst tumultuously into Olga's room crying out,
"I've thought what Elizabeth can do! She can make some cakes--she made
some for us last Christmas--awful nice ones, with nuts an' citron an'
raisins in 'em. She can put white icing over 'em an' little blobs of red
sugar for holly berries, you know, with citron leaves. I thought that up
myself, about the icing. Won't they be dandy?"
"Fine! Good for you, Sadie!"
Sadie accepted the approval as her due, and went on breathlessly, "I
thought it all out in school to-day. An' say, Olga--I can make baskets
of green and white crêpe paper to hold three or four of the cakes, an'
stick a bit of holly in each basket. Then they can be from me an'
'Lizabeth both--how's that?"
"Couldn't be better," Olga declared.
"Uh huh, you see little Sadie has a head on her all right!" Sadie
exulted. But Olga could overlook her conceit since, for once, she had
taken thought for Elizabeth too.
Laura wondered if, amid all the bustle and excitement of Christmas
planning and doing, Jim would forget about the Christmas for the
Children's Hospital, but he did not forget; and when she told him that
she was depending upon him to tell her what the boys there would like,
Jim had no trouble at all in deciding. So one Saturday Miss Laura took
him down town early before the stores were crowded and they had a
delightful time selecting books and toys.
"My-ee!" Jim cried, as they were speeding up Connecticut Avenue, the car
piled with packages, "won't this be a splendid Christmas! Ours first at
home, and the hospital Christmas and the Camp Fire one and the old
ladies' one--it'll be four Christmases all in one year, won't it, Miss
Laura?" he exulted.
"Besides a tree and a gift for each one in your outdoor school," Laura
added.
Jim stared at her wide-eyed. "O, who's going to give them?" he cried.
"You?"
"You and I and the judge, Jim. That is our thank-offering for all that
the school is doing for you--and for Jo."
Jim moved close and hid his face for a long moment on Laura's shoulder.
She knew that he was afraid he might cry, but this time they would have
been tears of pure joy. He explained presently, when he was sure that
his eyes were all right.
"That will be the best Christmas of all, 'cause some of the out-doorers
wouldn't have a teeny bit of Christmas at home. Jo wouldn't. He says
they never hang up stockings or anything like that at his house. He said
he didn't care, but I know he did."
That evening Miss Laura asked, "How would you like to put something on
our tree for Jo?"
"The Camp Fire tree--and have him come?" Jim cried eagerly.
"Of course."
It took three somersaults to get that out of Jim's system. When he came
up, flushed and joyful, Laura said, "I'm going to tell you a Christmas
secret, Jim. I am going to have each Camp Fire Girl invite her mother,
or any one else she likes, to come to our tree. We can't have presents
for them all, of course, but there will be ice cream and cake enough for
everybody."
"O, Miss _Laura_!" Jim cried. "It's going to be the best Christmas that
ever was in this world!"
And Jim was not the only one who thought so before the Great Day was
over. The tree at the outdoor school, the day before, was a splendid
surprise to every one there except the teacher and Jim, and all the
little "out-doorers," as Jim called them, went home with their hands
full. At the hospital the celebration was very quiet, but in spite of
pain and weariness, the boys in the first ward enjoyed their gifts as
much as Jim had hoped they would. And the Christmas stocking, full and
running over, that each old lady at the Home found hanging to her
doorknob, made those old children as happy as the young ones.
Jim's stocking could not hold half his treasures, and words failed him
utterly before he had opened the last package. But the Camp Fire
celebration was the great success. The tree was a blaze of light and
colour, and the gifts which the girls had made for each other were many
and varied. Some of the beadwork and basket work was really beautiful,
and there were pretty bits of crochet and some knitted slippers--all the
work of the girls themselves. Miss Laura had begged them to give her no
gift, and hers to each of them was only a little water-colour sketch
with "Love is the joy of service," beautifully lettered, beneath it.
Sadie's baskets of crêpe paper were really very pretty, and these filled
with Elizabeth's holly cakes were one of the "successes" of the evening.
They were praised so highly that Elizabeth was quite, quite happy and
Sadie "almost too proud to live," as she confided to Olga in an excited
whisper.
But the best of all was the pleasure of the guests of the evening--Jack
Harding and Jo Barton and David Chapin, who all came as Jim's
guests--Louise Johnson's brother, a big awkward boy of sixteen--Eva
Bicknell's mother, with her bent shoulders and rough hands, and other
mothers more or less like her. The four boys helped when the cake and
ice cream were served, and Jim whispered to Jo that he could have just
as many helpings as he wanted--Miss Laura said so--and Jo wanted
several. It was by no means a quiet occasion--there was plenty of noise
and laughter, and fun, and Laura was in the heart of it all. They closed
the evening with ten minutes of Christmas carols in which everybody
joined, and then while the girls were getting on their wraps, the
mothers crowded about Laura, and the things some of them said filled her
heart with a great joy, for they told her how much the Camp Fire was
doing for their girls--making them kinder and more helpful at home,
keeping them off the streets, teaching them so many useful and pretty
sorts of work.
"My girl is so much happier, and more contented than she used to be,"
one said.
"Mine, too," another added. "I can't be glad enough for the Camp Fire.
Johnny's a Scout an' that's a mighty good thing, too, but for girls
there's nothing like the Camp Fire."
"Eva used to hate housework, but now she does it thinkin' about the
beads she's getting, and she don't hardly ever fret over it," Mrs.
Bicknell confided.
"These things you are saying are the very best Christmas gift I could
possibly have," Laura told them, with shining eyes.
And the girls themselves, as they bade her good-night said words that
added yet more to the full cup of her Christmas joy.
"O, it pays, father--this work with my girls," she said, when all had
gone, and they two sat together before the fire. "It has been such a
beautiful, beautiful Christmas!"
XIV
LIZETTE
The last night of December brought a heavy storm of sleety rain, with a
bitter north wind. Laura, reading beside the fire, heard the doorbell
ring, and presently Olga Priest appeared. The biting wind had whipped a
fresh colour into her cheeks, and her eyes were clear and shining under
her heavy brows.
"You aren't afraid of bad weather, Olga," Laura said as she greeted the
girl.
"All weather is the same to me," Olga returned indifferently, but as she
sat down Laura cried out,
"Why, child, your feet are soaking wet! Surely you did not come without
rubbers in such a storm!"
"I forgot them. It's no matter," Olga said, drawing her wet feet under
her skirts.
"I'll be back in a moment," Laura replied, and left the room, returning
with dry stockings and slippers.
"Take off those wet things and heat your feet thoroughly--then put these
on," she ordered in a tone that admitted of no refusal.
With a frown, Olga obeyed. "But it's nonsense--I never mind wet feet,"
she grumbled.
"You ought to mind them. Your health is a gift. You have no right to
throw it away--no _right_, Olga. It is yours--only to _use_--like
everything else you have."
Olga paused, one slipper in her hand, pondering that.
"Don't you see, Olga," Laura urged gently, "we are only stewards.
Everything we have--health, time, money, intellect--all are ours only to
use the little while we are in this world, and not to use for ourselves
alone."
"It makes life harder if you believe that," Olga flung back defiantly.
"I want my things for myself."
"O no, it makes life easier, and O, so big and beautiful!" Laura leaned
forward, speaking earnestly. "When we really accept this idea of
service, then 'self is forgotten.' We give as freely as we have
received." Olga shook her head with a gesture that put all that aside.
"You said Saturday that you wanted my help----" she began.
"Yes, I do want your help. I'll tell you how presently. Sadie Page is
doing very well in the craft work, isn't she?"
"Yes. She can copy anything--designing is her weak point--but she is
doing very well."
"She is improving in other ways."
"There's room for improvement still," Olga retorted in her grimmest
voice. Then her conscience forced her to add, "But she is more
endurable. She treats Elizabeth some better than she did."
"Yes, Elizabeth seems so happy now."
Laura went on thoughtfully, "You are a Fire Maker. Olga, I want you for
a Torch Bearer."
Olga stared in blank amazement, then her face darkened. "But I don't
want to be a Torch Bearer," she cried. "A Torch Bearer is a leader. I
don't want to be a leader."
"But I need your help, and some of the girls need you. You can be a
splendid leader, if you will. Have you any right to refuse?"
"I don't see why not."
"If in our Camp Fire there are girls whom you might hold back from what
will harm them, or whom you could help to higher and happier living,
don't you owe it to them to do this?"
"Why? They do nothing for me. I don't ask them to do anything for me."
"But that is pure selfishness. That attitude is unworthy of you, Olga."
The girl stirred restlessly. "I don't want to be responsible for other
girls," she impatiently cried out.
"Have you any choice--you or I? We have promised to keep the law."
"What law?"
"The law of love and service--have you forgotten?" Miss Laura repeated
softly, "'I purpose to bring my strength, my ambition, my heart's
desire, my joy, and my sorrow, to the fire of humankind. The fire that
is called the love of man for man--the love of man for God.'"
Then for many minutes in the room there was silence broken only by the
crackling of the fire, and the voices of the storm without. Olga sat
motionless, the old sombre shadow brooding in her eyes. At last she
stirred impatiently, and spoke.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Have you noticed Lizette Stone lately?" Miss Laura asked.
"No. I never notice her."
"Poor girl, I'm afraid most of you feel that way about her," Laura said,
with infinite pity in her voice. "She never looks happy, but lately
there is something in her face that troubles me. She looks as if she had
lost hope and courage, and were simply drifting. I've tried to win her
confidence, but she will not talk with me about herself. I thought--at
least, I hoped--that you might be able to find out what is the trouble."
"Why I, rather than any other girl?"
"I don't know why I feel so sure that you might succeed, but I do feel
so, Olga. She may be in great trouble. If you could find out what it is,
I might be able to help her. Will you try, Olga?"
The girl shook her head. "I can't promise, Miss Laura. I'll think about
it," was all she would concede.
"She works in Silverstein's," Laura added, "and I think she has no
relatives in the city."
The talk drifted then to other matters, and when Olga glanced at the
clock, Miss Laura touched a bell, and in a few minutes a maid brought up
a cup of hot clam bouillon. "You must take it, Olga, before you go out
again in this storm," Laura said, and reluctantly the girl obeyed.
When she went away, Laura went to the door with her. The car stood
there, and before she fairly realised that it was waiting for her Olga
was inside, and the chauffeur was tucking the fur rug around her. As,
leaning back against the cushions, shielded from wet and cold, she was
borne swiftly through the storm, something hard and cold and bitter in
the girl's heart was suddenly swept away in a strong tide of feeling
quite new to her, and strangely mingled of sweet and bitter. It was
Miss Laura she was thinking of--Miss Laura who had furnished the
beautiful Camp Fire room for the girls and made them all so warmly
welcome there--who so plainly carried them all in her heart and made
their joys and sorrows, their cares and troubles, her own--as she was
making Lizette Stone's now. How good she had been to Elizabeth, how
patient and gentle with that provoking Sadie, and with careless slangy
Lena Barton and Eva! And to her--Olga thought of the dry stockings and
slippers, the hot broth, and now--the car ordered out on such a night
just for her. The girl's throat swelled, her eyes burned, and the last
vestige of bitterness was washed out of her heart in a rain of hot
tears.
"If she can do so much for all of us I _can't_ be mean enough to shirk
any longer. I'll see Lizette to-morrow," she vowed, as the car stopped at
her door. She stood for a moment on the steps looking after it before
she went in. It had been only "common humanity" to send the girl home in
the car on that stormy night, so Miss Laura would have said. She did not
guess what it would mean to Olga and through her to other girls--many
others--before all was done.
Silverstein's was a large department store on Seventh Street. Lizette
Stone, listlessly putting away goods the next day, stopped in surprise
at sight of Olga Priest coming towards her.
"Almost closing time, isn't it?" Olga said, and added, as Lizette nodded
silently, "I want to speak to you--I'll wait outside."
In five minutes Lizette joined her. "Do you walk home?" Olga asked.
"Yes, it isn't far--Ninth Street near T."
"We're neighbours then. I live on Eleventh."
"I know. Saw you going in there once," Lizette replied.
There was little talk between them as they walked. Lizette was
waiting--Olga wondering what she should say to this girl.
"Well, here's where I hang out." In Lizette's voice there was a reckless
and bitter tone.
"O--here!" Olga's quick glance took in the ugly house-front with its
soiled "Kensington" curtains--its door ajar showing worn oilcloth in the
hall.
"Cheerful place--eh?" Lizette said. "Want to see the inside, or is the
outside enough?"
"I want you to come home to supper with me--will you?" Olga said, half
against her will.
"Do you mean it?" Lizette's hard blue eyes searched her face. "Take it
back in a hurry if you don't, for I'd accept an invitation from--anybody
to-night, rather than spend the evening here."
"Of course, I mean it. Please come." Olga laid a compelling hand on the
other girl's arm and they went on down the street.
"Now you are to rest while I get supper," Olga said as she threw open
her own door. "Here--give me your things." She took Lizette's hat and
coat. "Now you lie down in there until I call you."
Without a word Lizette obeyed.
Olga creamed some chipped beef, toasted bread, and made tea, adding a
few cakes that she had bought on the way home. When all was ready, she
stood a moment, frowning at the table. The cloth was fresh and clean,
but the dishes were cheap and ugly. She had never cared before. Now,
for this other girl, she wanted some touch of beauty. But Lizette found
nothing lacking.
"Everything tastes so good," she said. "You sure do know how to cook,
Olga."
"Just a few simple things. I never care much what I eat."
"You'd care if you had to eat at Miss Rankin's table," Lizette declared.
With a question now and then, Olga drew her on to tell of her life at
Miss Rankin's, and her work at the store. After a little she talked
freely, glad to pour the tale of her troubles into a sympathetic ear.
"I _hate_ it all--that boarding-house, where nothing and nobody is
really clean, and the store where only the pretty girls or the extra
smart ones ever get on. The pretty girls always have chances, but
me--I'm homely as sin, and I know it; and I'm not smart, and I know
that, too. I shall get my walking ticket the first dull spell, and
then----"
"Then, what, Lizette?"
"The Lord knows. It's a hard world for girls, Olga."
"You've no relatives?"
"Only some cousins. They're all as poor as poverty too, and they don't
care a pin for me."
"Is there any kind of work you would really like if you could do it?"
"What's the use of talking--I can't do it."
"But tell me," Olga urged.
"You'll think I'm a fool."
"No, I will not," Olga promised.
"It seems ridiculous----" Lizette hesitated, the colour rising in her
sallow cheeks, "but I'd just _love_ to make beautiful white
things--lingerie, you know, like what I sell at the store. It would be
next best to having them to wear myself. I don't care so much about the
outside things--gowns and hats--but I think it would be just heavenly to
have all the underneath things white and lacey, and lovely--don't you
think so?"
"I never thought of it. You see I don't care about clothes," Olga
returned. "Can you sew, Lizette?"
Lizette hesitated, then, with a look half shamefaced and half proud, she
drew from her bag a bit of linen.
"It was a damaged handkerchief. I got it for five cents, at a sale," she
explained. "It will make a jabot."
"And you did this?" Olga asked.
Lizette nodded. "I know it isn't good work, but if I had time I could
learn----"
"Yes, you could--if you had the time and a few lessons. Are your eyes
strong?"
The other nodded again. "Strong as they are ugly," she flung out.
"Leave this with me for a day or two, will you, Lizette?"
"Uh-huh," Lizette returned indifferently. "Give it to you, if you'll
take it."
"Oh no--it's too pretty. Lizette, you hate it so at Miss Rankin's--why
don't you rent a room and get your own meals as I do?"
"Couldn't. I'm so dead tired most nights that I'd rather go hungry than
get my own supper. Some girls don't seem to mind being on their feet
from eight to six, but I can't stand it. Sometimes I get so tired it
seems as if I'd rather _die_ than drag through another day of it! And
besides--I don't much like the other boarders at Rankin's, but they're
better than nobody. To go back at night to an empty room and sit there
till bedtime with not a soul to speak to--O, I couldn't stand it. I'd
get in a blue funk and end it all some night. I'm tempted to, as it is,
sometimes." She added, with a miserable laugh that was half a sob,
"Nobody'd care," and Olga heard her own voice saying earnestly,
"I'd care, Lizette. You must never, _never_ think a thing like that
again!"
Lizette searched the other's face with eyes in which sharp suspicion
gradually changed into half incredulous joy. "Well," she said slowly,
"if one living soul cares even a little bit what happens to me, I'll try
to pull through somehow. The Camp Fire's the only thing that has made
life endurable to me this past year, and I haven't enjoyed that so
awfully much, for nobody there seems to really care--I just hang on to
the edges."
"Miss Laura cares."
"O, in a way, because I belong to her Camp Fire--that's all," returned
Lizette moodily.
"No, she cares--really," Olga persisted, but Lizette answered only by an
incredulous lift of her thin, sandy brows.
"I must go now," she said, rising, and with her hands on Olga's
shoulders she added, "You don't know what this evening here has meant to
me. I--was about at the end of my rope."
"I'm glad you came," Olga spoke heartily, "and you are coming again
Thursday. Maybe I'll have something then to tell you, but if I don't,
anyhow, we'll have supper together and a talk after it."
To that Lizette answered nothing, but the look in her eyes sent a little
thrill of happiness through Olga's heart.
Olga carried the bit of linen to Laura the next evening, and told her
what she had learned of Lizette's hard life.
"Poor child!" Miss Laura said. "I imagined something like this. We must
find other work for her. Perhaps I can get her into Miss Bayly's Art
Store. She would not have to be on her feet so much there, and would
have a chance to learn embroidery if she really has any aptitude for it.
I know Miss Bayly very well, and I think I can arrange it to have
Lizette work there for six months. That would be long enough to give her
a chance."
"Would she get any pay?" Olga asked.
"Of course--the same she gets now," Laura returned, but Olga was sure
that the pay would not come out of Miss Bayly's purse.
Laura went on thoughtfully, "The other matter is not so easily arranged.
Even if we get her a better boarding place, she might be just as lonely
as at Miss Rankin's. Evidently she does not make friends easily."
"No, she is plain and unattractive and so painfully conscious of it that
she thinks nobody can want to be her friend, so she draws into herself
and--and pushes everybody away," Olga was speaking her thought
aloud--one of her thoughts--the other that had been in her heart since
her talk with Lizette, she refused to consider. But it insisted upon
being considered when she went away. It was with her in her own room
where Lizette's hopeless words seemed to echo and re-echo. Finally, in
desperation she faced it.
"I _can't_ have her come here!" she cried aloud. "It would mean that I'd
never be sure of an hour alone. She'd be forever running in and out and
I'd feel I must be forever bracing her up--pumping hope and courage into
her. It's too much to ask of me. I'm alone in the world as she is, but
I'm not whining. I stand on my own feet and other people can stand on
theirs. I can't have that girl here and I won't--and that ends it!" But
it didn't end it. Lizette's hopeless eyes, Lizette's reckless voice,
would not be banished from her memory, and when Thursday evening the
girl herself came, Olga knew that she must yield--there was no other
way.
Lizette paused on the threshold. "You can still back out," she said,
longing and pride mingling in her eyes. "I can get back to Rankin's in
time for my share of liver and prunes."
Olga drew her in and shut the door. "Your days at Miss Rankin's are
numbered," she said, "that is if you will come here. There's a little
room across the hall you can have if you want it."
Lizette dropped into a chair, the colour slowly ebbing from her sallow
cheeks. "Don't fool with me, Olga," she cried, "I'm--not up to it."
"I'm not fooling."
"But--I don't understand." The girl's lips were quivering.
Olga went on, "And your days at Silverstein's are numbered too. I showed
your embroidery to Miss Laura, and she has found you a place at Bayly's
Art Store. You can go there as soon as you can leave Silverstein's," she
ended. To her utter dismay Lizette dropped her head on the table and
began to cry. Olga sat looking at her in silence. She did not know what
to do. But presently Lizette lifted her blurred and tear-stained face
and smiled through her tears.
"You must excuse me this once," she cried. "I'm not tear-y as a general
thing, but--but, I hadn't dared to hope--for anything--and it bowled me
over. I'll promise not to do so again; but O, Olga Priest, I'll never,
_never_ forget what you've done, as long as I live!"
"It's not I, it's Miss Laura. I couldn't have got you the place."
"I know, and I'm grateful to Miss Laura, but that isn't half as much as
your letting me come here. I--I won't be a bother, truly I won't. But O,
it will be so heavenly good to be in reach of somebody who _cares_ even
a little bit. You shall not be sorry, Olga--I promise you that."
"I'm not sorry. I'm glad," Olga said. "Come now and see the room."
It was a small room--the one across the hall--and rather shabby, with
its matting soiled and torn, its cheap iron bedstead and painted
washstand and chairs. Lizette however was quite content with it.
"It's lots better than the one I have at Rankin's," she declared.
But the next day Laura came and saw the room, and then sent word to all
the girls except Lizette to come on Wednesday evening to the Camp Fire
room and bring their thimbles. And when they came she had some soft
curtain material to be hemmed, and some cream linen to be hemstitched.
Many fingers made light work, and all was finished that evening, and an
appointment made with two of the High School girls for the next Monday
afternoon. Then two hours of steady work transformed the bare little
room. There was fresh white matting on the floor with a new rag rug
before the white enamelled bedstead with its clean new mattress, a
chiffonier and washstand of oak, with two chairs, and a tiny round table
that could be folded to save room. The soft cream curtains that the
girls had hemmed shaded the window, and the linen covers were on the
chiffonier and washstand.
"Doesn't it look fresh and pretty!" Alice Reynolds cried, as she looked
around, when all was done.
"I'm sure she'll like it," Elsie Harding added.
"Like it?" Olga spoke from the doorway. "You can't begin to know what it
will mean to her. You'd have to see her room at Rankin's to understand.
But that isn't all. Lizette will believe now that _somebody cares_."
"O!" Elsie's eyes filled with tears. "Did she think that--that nobody
cared?"
"She said she was 'most at the end of her rope' the first time she came
to see me."
"She shall never again feel that nobody cares," Laura said softly.
"Indeed, no!" echoed Alice, and added, "I'm going to bring down a few
books to put on that table."
"I'll make a hanging shelf to hold them. That will be better than having
them on the table," Elsie said.
"And I'll bring some growing plants for the window-sill," Laura
promised.
"O, I hope she'll just _love_ this room," Elsie cried, when reluctantly
they turned away.
"She will--you needn't be afraid," Olga assured her.
But Olga was the only one privileged to see Lizette when she had her
first glimpse of the room. She stopped short inside the door and looked
around her, missing no single detail. Then she turned to Olga a face
stirred with emotion too deep for words. When she did speak it was in a
whisper. "For _me_? Olga, who did it?"
"Miss Laura, Elsie, and Alice--and we all helped on the curtains and
covers."
"I just can't believe it. I--I must be dreaming. Don't let me wake up
till I enjoy it a little first," she pleaded. After a moment she added,
"And this all came through the Camp Fire, and my place at Miss Bayly's
too. Olga Priest, I'm a Camp Fire Girl heart and soul and body from now
on. I've been only the shell of one before, but now--now, I've got to
pass this on somehow. I must do things for other girls that have no one
and nothing--as they've done this for me."
And through Olga's mind floated like a glad refrain, "'Love is the joy of
service so deep that self is forgotten.'"
Olga was glad--glad with all her heart--for Lizette, and yet that first
evening she sat in her own room dreading to hear the tap on her door
which she expected every moment. At nine o'clock, however, it had not
come, and then she went across and did the knocking herself.
"Come in, come in," Lizette cried, as she opened her door.
"I've been expecting you over all the evening," Olga said, "and when you
didn't come I was afraid you were sick--or something."
Lizette looked at her with a queer little smile. "I know. You sat there
thinking that you'd never have any peace now with me so near; but you
needn't worry. I'm not going to haunt you. I've got a home corner here
all my own, and I know that you are there just across the hall, and
that's enough. It's going to _be_ enough."
"But I don't want you to feel that way," Olga protested. "I want you to
come."
"You _want_ to want me, you mean. O, I'm sharp enough, Olga, if I'm not
smart. I know--and I don't mean that you shall ever be sorry that you
brought me here. If I get way down in the doleful dumps some night I'll
knock at your door--perhaps. Anyhow, you're _there_, and that means a
lot to me."
Almost every evening after that Olga heard light footsteps and voices in
the hall, and taps on Lizette's door. Elsie and Alice were determined
she should no longer feel that "nobody cared," so they were her first
callers, but others followed. Lizette welcomed them all with shining
eyes, and once she cried earnestly, "I just _love_ every one of you
girls now! And I wish I could do something for you as lovely as what you
have done for me."
"And that's Lizette Stone!" Lena said to Eva after they left. "Who
would ever have thought she'd say a thing like that?"
For more than a week Olga, alone in her room, listened to the merry
voices across the hall. Then one night, she put aside her work, and went
across again.
"I've found out that I'm lonesome," she said as Lizette opened the door.
"May I come in?"
"Well, I _guess_!" and Lizette drew her in and motioned to the bed. "You
shall have a reserved seat there with Bessie and Myra," she cried, "and
we're gladder than glad to have you."
For a moment sheer surprise held the others silent till Olga exclaimed,
"Don't let me be a wet blanket. If you do I shall run straight back."
The tongues were loosened then and though Olga said little, the girls
felt the difference in her attitude. She lingered a moment after the
others left, to say, "Lizette, you mustn't stay away any more. I really
want you to come to my room."
Lizette's sharp eyes studied her face before she answered, "Yes, I see
you do now, and I'll come. I'll love to."
Back in her own room Olga turned up the gas and stood for some minutes
looking about. Clean it was, and in immaculate order, but bare, with no
touch of beauty anywhere. The contrast with the simple beauty of
Lizette's room made her see her own in a new light. The words of the
Wood Gatherer's "Desire" came into her mind--"Seek beauty." She had not
done that. "Give service." She had given it, grudgingly at first to
Elizabeth, grudgingly all this time to Sadie, grudgingly to Lizette, and
not at all to any one else. Only one part of her promise had she kept
faithfully--to "Glorify work." She had done that, after a fashion. She
drew in her breath sharply. "Lizette is a long way ahead of me. She is
trying to be an all-around Camp Fire Girl. If I'm going to keep up with
her, I must get busy," she said to herself. "Before I can be Miss
Laura's Torch Bearer I've a lot to make up. Here I've been calling Sadie
Page a selfish little beast and all the time I've been as bad as she in
a different way. Well--we'll see."
She went shopping the next morning. Her purchases did not cost much, but
they transformed the bare room. Cheesecloth curtains at the windows, a
green crex rug on the dull stained floor, two red geraniums, and on the
mantelpiece three brass candlesticks holding red candles. These and a
few pretty dishes were all, but she was amazed at the difference they
made. At six o'clock she set her door ajar, and when Lizette came,
called her in.
"You are to have supper with me to-night," she said.
"But I've had my supper. I----" Lizette began--then stopped short with a
little cry, "O, how pretty! Why, your room is lovely now, Olga."
"You see the influence of example," replied Olga. "Yours is so pretty
that I couldn't stand the bareness of mine any longer."
"I'm glad." Lizette spoke earnestly. "Isn't it splendid--the way the
Camp Fire ideas grow and spread? They are making me over, Olga."
Olga nodded. "Take off your things. I'll have supper ready in two
minutes. Did you get yours at the Cafeteria?"
"Yes, I'm getting all my meals there--ten cents apiece."
"Ten cents. I know you don't get enough--for that, Lizette Stone."
Lizette laughed. "It's all I can afford," she said "out of six dollars a
week. When I earn more----"
"You can't cook for yourself as I do--you haven't room. Lizette, why
can't we co-operate?"
"What do you mean?" breathlessly Lizette questioned.
"I mean, take our meals together and share the expense. It won't cost
you more than thirty cents a day, and you'll have enough then."
"But I can't cook--I don't know how," Lizette objected.
"I'll teach you. And you've got to learn before you can be a Fire Maker,
you know."
"Yes--I know," said Lizette slowly, "and I'd like it, but you--Olga,
you'd get sick of it. You're used to being alone. You wouldn't want any
one around every day--you know you wouldn't."
"It would be better for me than eating alone, and better for you than
the Cafeteria. Come, Lizette, say 'yes.'"
"Yes, then," Lizette answered. "At least--I'll try it for a month, if
you'll promise to tell me frankly at the end of the month if you'd
rather not keep on."
"Agreed," said Olga.
"My! But it will be good to have a change from the Cafeteria!" Lizette
admitted.
And now, having opened her heart to the sunshine of love, Olga began to
find many pleasant things springing up there. She no longer held Miss
Laura and the girls at arm's length. They were all friends, even Lena
Barton and Eva Bicknell, whom until now she had regarded with scornful
indifference, and Sadie Page, whom she had barely tolerated for
Elizabeth's sake--even these she counted now as friends; and Laura,
noting the growing comradeship--seeing week by week the strengthening of
the bond between the girls, said to herself, joyfully,
"It was in Olga's heart that the fire of love burst into flame, and it
has leaped from heart to heart until now I believe in all my girls it is
burning--'The love of man to man--the love of man to God.'"
XV
AN OPEN DOOR FOR ELIZABETH
Sadie Page burst tumultuously into Olga's room one afternoon and hardly
waited to get inside the door before she cried out, "I've thought of
something Elizabeth can do--something splendid."
"Well," said Olga drily, "if it is something splendid for Elizabeth,
I'll excuse you for coming in without knocking."
"All right, please excuse me, I forgot," Sadie responded with unusual
good nature, "I was in such a hurry to tell you. It's a way Elizabeth
can earn money at home----Now, Olga Priest, I think you're real mean to
look so!" she ended with a scowl.
"Look how?" Olga laughed.
"You know. As if--as if I was just thinking of keeping Elizabeth at
home."
"But weren't you?"
"No, I _wasn't_!" Sadie retorted. "At any rate--I was thinking of
Elizabeth too. I was, honest, Olga."
"Well, tell me," said Olga.
"Why, you know those Christmas cakes she made?"
"Yes."
"Well, she can make them and other kinds to sell in one of the big
groceries. I saw some homemade cakes in Council's to-day that didn't
look half as nice as Elizabeth's and they charged a lot for them."
Olga nodded thoughtfully. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd hit upon a good
plan, Sadie. But if she does that, you'll have to help her with the work
at home, for she has all she can do now."
Sadie scowled. She hated housework. "Guess I have plenty to do myself,"
she grumbled, "with school and my silver work and all."
"But your silver work is just for yourself," Olga reminded her, "and
Elizabeth has no time to do anything for herself."
"Well, anyhow, if she makes lots of cakes she'll have money for
herself."
"And she's got to have money for herself," Olga said decidedly. "I've
been thinking about that." Sadie wriggled uneasily. She had been
thinking about it too, and that Elizabeth would be eighteen soon, and
free to go out and earn her own living, if she chose.
"Well, I must go and tell her," she said and left abruptly.
Elizabeth listened in silence to Sadie's eager plans, but the colour
came and went in her face and her blue eyes were full of longing.
"O, if I could only do it--if I only _could_!" she breathed. "But I--I
couldn't go around to the stores and ask them to sell for me. I never
could do that!"
"Well, you don't have to. I'd do that for you. I wouldn't mind it,"
Sadie declared. "You just make up some of those spicy Christmas cakes
and some others, a few, you know, just for samples, and I'll take 'em
out for you. I know they'll sell."
"I--I'm not so sure," Elizabeth faltered.
Sadie's brows met in a black frown. "You're a regular 'fraid-cat,
'Lizabeth Page!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot. "How do you ever
expect to do _any_thing if you're scared to try! To-morrow's Sat'-day.
Can't you get up early an' make some?"
It was settled that she should. There was little sleep for Elizabeth
that night, so eager and excited was she, and very early in the morning
she crept down to the kitchen and set to work. Before her usual rising
time, Sadie ran downstairs, buttoning her dress as she went.
"Have you made 'em?" she demanded, her black eyes snapping.
"Yes," Elizabeth glanced at the clock, "I'm just going to take them
out." She opened the oven door, then she gasped and her face whitened as
she drew out the pans.
"My _goodness_!" cried Sadie. "Elizabeth Page--what ails 'em?"
"O--_O_!" wailed Elizabeth, "I must have left out the baking powder--and
I never did before in all my life!"
"_Well!_" Sadie exploded. "If this is the way you're going to----" Then
the misery in Elizabeth's face was too much for her. She stopped short,
biting her tongue to keep back the bitter words.
Elizabeth crouched beside the oven, her tears dropping on the cakes.
"O, come now--no need to cry all over 'em--they're flat enough without
any extra wetting," Sadie exclaimed after a moment's silence. "You just
fling them out an' make some more after breakfast. I bet you'll never
leave out the baking powder again."
"I never, never _could_ again," sobbed Elizabeth.
"O, forget it, an' come on in to breakfast," Sadie said with more
sympathy in her heart than in her words.
"I don't want any--I couldn't eat a mouthful. You take in the coffee,
Sadie--everything else is on the table."
"Well, you just make more cakes then. They'll be all right--the next
ones--I know they will," and coffee-pot in hand, Sadie whisked into the
dining-room.
And the next cakes were all right. Sadie gloated over them as Elizabeth
spread the icing, and added the fancy touches with pink sugar and
citron.
When she had gone away with the cakes Elizabeth cooked and cleaned,
washed dishes, and swept, but all the time her thoughts followed Sadie.
She dared not let herself hope, and yet the time seemed endless. But at
last the front door slammed, there were flying feet in the hall, and
Sadie burst into the kitchen, flushed and triumphant.
"O--O Sadie--did you--will they----?" Elizabeth stumbled over the words,
her breath catching in her throat.
Sadie tossed her basket on the table and bounced into the nearest chair.
"Did I, and will they?" she taunted gaily. "Well, I guess I _did_ and
they _will_, Elizabeth Page!"
"O, do tell me, Sadie--quick!" Elizabeth begged, and she listened with
absorbed attention to the story of Sadie's experiences, and could hardly
believe that Mr. Burchell had really agreed to sell for her.
"I bet Miss Laura had been talking to him," Sadie ended, "for he asked
me if I knew her and then said right away he'd take your cakes every
Wednesday and Saturday. _Now_ what you got to say?"
"N-n-nothing," cried Elizabeth, "only--if I can really, _really_ sell
them, I'll be most too happy to live!"
All that day Elizabeth went around with a song in her heart. The first
consignment of cakes sold promptly, and then orders began to come in. It
meant extra work for her, but if only she could keep on selling she
would not mind that. And as the weeks slipped away, every Saturday she
added to the little store of bills in her bureau drawer. Even when she
had paid for her materials and Mr. Burchell's commission, and for a girl
who helped her with the Saturday work, there was so much left that she
counted it and recounted it with almost incredulous joy. All this her
very own--she who never before had had even one dollar of her own! O, it
was a lovely world after all, Elizabeth told herself joyfully.
But after a while she noticed a change in Sadie. She was still
interested in the cake-making, but now it seemed a cold critical
interest, lacking the warm sympathy and delight in it which she had
shown at first. Elizabeth longed to ask what was wrong but she had not
the courage, so she only questioned with her eyes. Maybe by-and-by Sadie
would tell her. If not--with a long sigh Elizabeth would leave it there,
wistfully hoping. So April came and Elizabeth was eighteen years old,
though still she looked two years younger. She did not suppose that any
one but herself would remember her birthday--no one ever had through all
the years. Sadie's glance seemed sharper and colder than usual that
morning, and Elizabeth sorrowfully wondered why. The postman came just
as Sadie was starting for school. He handed her an envelope addressed to
Elizabeth, and she carried it to the kitchen.
"For _me?_" Elizabeth cried, hastily taking her hands from the
dish-water. She drew from the envelope a birthday card in water-colour
with Laura's initials in one corner.
"O, isn't it lovely!" she cried. "I never had a
birthday--anything--before. Isn't it beautiful, Sadie?"
"Uh-huh," was all Sadie's response, but her lack of enthusiasm could not
spoil Elizabeth's pleasure in the gift. Somebody remembered--Miss Laura
remembered and made that just for her, and joy sang in her heart all
day. And in the evening Olga came bringing a little silver pin.
Elizabeth looked at it with incredulous delight.
"For _me_!" she said again. "O Olga, did you really make this for me?"
Olga laughed. "Why not?"
"I--I can't find anything to say--I want to say so much," Elizabeth
cried, her lips quivering.
Olga leaned over and kissed her. "I just enjoyed making it--for you,"
she said.
She was almost startled at the radiance in Elizabeth's eyes then. "It
has been the loveliest day of all my life!" she whispered. "I----"
They were in Elizabeth's little room, and now hurried footsteps sounded
on the stairs, and Sadie pushed open the door.
"That yours?" she demanded, her sharp eyes on the pin.
Elizabeth held it towards her with a happy smile. "Olga made it for me.
Isn't it lovely?"
Sadie did not answer, but plumped herself down on the narrow cot. When
Olga had gone, Sadie still sat there, her black eyes cold and
unfriendly. "Don't see why you lugged Olga up here," she began.
"She asked me to."
"Humph!" Sadie grunted.
"Sadie," Elizabeth said, gently, "what is the matter? Have I done
anything you don't like?"
"I didn't say so."
"No, but you've been different to me lately, and I don't know why. You
were so nice a few weeks ago--you don't know how glad it made me. I
hoped we were going to be real sisters, but now," she drew a long
sorrowful breath, "it is as it used to be."
Sadie, swinging one foot, gnawed at a fingernail. Finally, "I helped you
start the cake-making," she reminded.
"I know--I never forget it," Elizabeth said warmly.
"You've made a lot of money----"
"It seems a lot to me--forty-seven dollars--just think of it! I haven't
spent any except for materials."
"And you'll make more."
"Yes, but Mr. Burchell says cakes don't sell after it gets hot. He won't
want any after May."
"That's four or five weeks longer. You'll have enough to get you heaps
of fine clothes," Sadie flung out enviously, with one of her
needle-sharp glances.
"O--clothes!" returned Elizabeth slightingly. "I suppose I must have a
few--shoes, and a plain hat and a blue serge skirt, and some
blouses--they won't cost much."
"Then what _are_ you going to do with all that money?" Sadie blurted
out the question impatiently.
Elizabeth smiled into the frowning face--a beautiful happy smile--as she
answered gently, "I'll tell you, Sadie. I've been longing to tell you
only--only you've held me off so lately. I'm going to send two girls to
Camp Nepahwin for three weeks in August. I'm one of the girls and--you
are the other."
For once in her life Sadie Page was genuinely astonished and genuinely
ashamed. For a long moment she sat quite still, the colour slowly
mounting in her face until it flamed. Then, all the sharpness gone from
her voice, she stammered, "I--I--Elizabeth, I never _thought_ of such a
thing as you paying for me. I--think you're real good!" and she was
gone.
Elizabeth looked after her with a smile, all the shadows gone from her
blue eyes.
One hot evening a week later, Elizabeth and Sadie met Lizette at Olga's
door. She silently led the way to her own room.
"Olga's sick," she said, dropping wearily down on the bed.
"What's the matter?" Sadie demanded before Elizabeth could speak.
"It's a fever. The doctor can't tell yet whether it's typhoid or
malarial, but she's very sick. The doctor has sent a nurse to take care
of her."
"I wish I could help take care of her," Elizabeth said earnestly.
"Well, you can't!" Sadie snapped out. "And, anyhow, she doesn't need you
if she has a nurse."
"But the nurse must sleep sometimes--I could help then. O Lizette, ask
Olga to let me," Elizabeth pleaded.
"She won't." Lizette shook her head. "Much as ever she'll let me do
anything. I get the meals for the nurse--Olga takes only milk. The nurse
says she can do with only four hours' sleep, and I can see to Olga that
little time."
"No," Elizabeth said decidedly, "no, Lizette, you have your work at the
shop and the cooking. You mustn't do more than that. I can come after
supper--at eight o'clock--and stay till twelve----"
"You couldn't go home all alone at midnight--you know you couldn't,"
Sadie interrupted.
"I needn't to. I could sleep in a chair till morning."
"As to that, you could sleep on the nurse's cot, I guess," Lizette
admitted. "Well, if Olga will let you--I'll ask her."
But as she started up Elizabeth gently pushed her back. "No, don't ask
her. I'll just come to-morrow night, anyway."
"Let it go so, then," Lizette answered. "Maybe it will be best, for I'm
pretty well tired out myself with the heat, and worrying over Olga, and
all. I knew she was overworking but I couldn't help it."
On the way home Elizabeth was silent until Sadie broke out gloomily, "I
s'pose if she don't get better you won't go to the camp, 'Lizabeth."
"O, _no_, I couldn't go away and leave her sick--of course, I couldn't."
"Huh!" growled Sadie. "You don't think about _me_, only just about Olga,
and she isn't your sister."
At another time Elizabeth would have smiled at this belated claim of
relationship, but now she said only, "Olga has been so good to me,
Sadie--I never can forget it--and now when I have a chance to do a
little for her, I'm so _glad_ to do it! I couldn't enjoy the camp if I
left her here sick, but it won't make any difference to you. You can go
just the same."
Sadie's face cleared at that. "We-ell," she agreed, "I might just as
well go. I couldn't do anything much for Olga if I stayed; and maybe,
anyhow, she'll get well before the tenth. I'm most sure she will."
"O, I hope so," Elizabeth sighed, but she was not thinking of the camp.
Anxious weeks followed, for Olga was very sick. Day after day the fever
held her in restless misery, and when at last it yielded to the
treatment, it left her weak and worn--the shadow of her former self.
Then one morning Miss Laura came, and carried her and the nurse off to
the yacht, and there followed quiet, restful, beautiful days for
Olga--such days as she had never dreamed of. Judge Haven and Jim, and Jo
Barton were on the yacht, but she saw little of any one except Miss
Laura and the nurse, and day by day strength came back to her body as
the joy of life flooded her soul.
One night sitting on deck in the moonlight, she said suddenly, "Miss
Laura, I'm glad of this sickness."
"Why?"
"Because I've learned a big lesson. I've learned why Camp Fire Girls
must 'Hold on to health.' I didn't know before, else I would not have
been so careless--so wicked. I see now that it was all my own fault. I
should not have been sick if I had taken care of myself--if I had held
on to my health as you tried so hard to make me do."
"Yes, dear, you had to have a hard lesson because you had always had
such splendid health that you didn't know what it would mean to lose
it."
"Yes," Olga agreed, "I didn't believe that I could get sick--I was so
strong. And down in my heart I really half believed that people need not
be sick--that it was mostly imagination. I shall not be so uncharitable
after this."
"Girls need not be sick many times when they are," Laura said, "if they
would be more careful and reasonable."
"I know. I won't go with wet feet any more," Olga promised, "and I won't
work fourteen hours a day and go without eating, as I've been doing this
summer. You see, Miss Laura, when I got the order for all that silver
work, I knew that if I could fill it satisfactorily, it would mean many
other orders. And I did--I finished the last piece the day I was taken
sick. But now the money I got for it will go to the doctor and the
nurse, and I've lost all this time and other work. And that isn't all.
My sickness made it harder for Lizette and Elizabeth. I can't forgive
myself for that. They were so good to me, and so were all the Camp Fire
Girls! Every single one of them came to see me, some of them many times,
and they brought so many things, and all wanted to stay and help--O,
they are the dearest girls!"
Laura's eyes searched the eyes of the other in the moonlight.
"Olga, are you happy?" she asked softly.
Olga caught her breath and for a moment was silent. When she spoke there
was wonder and a great joy in her voice. "O, I am--I am!" she said.
"And--and I believe I have been for a long time, but I never realised
it till this minute. I didn't _want_ to be happy--I didn't mean to
be--after mother died. I shut my heart tight and wouldn't see anything
pleasant or happy in all my world. It was so when I went to the camp
last year. I went just to please Miss Grandis because she had gotten me
into the Arts and Crafts work, and though I wanted to refuse, I
couldn't, when she asked me to go. But I'm so glad now that I went--so
_glad_! Just think if I had not gone, and had never known you and
Elizabeth, and Lizette, and the others! Miss Laura, I can't ever be half
glad enough for all that the Camp Fire has done for me."
"You will pay it all back--to others, Olga," Laura said gently, her eyes
shining. "When I made you my Torch Bearer, you did not realise the
importance of holding on to health, nor the duty as well as privilege of
being happy. Now you do."
"O, I do--I _do_!" the girl cried earnestly.
"So now my Torch Bearer is ready to lead others."
"I'll be glad to do it now. I want to 'pass on' all that you and the
girls have done for me. It will take a lifetime to do it, though.
And--I'm not half good enough for a Torch Bearer, Miss Laura."
"If you thought you were good enough I shouldn't want you to be one,"
Laura answered.
XVI
CAMP FIRE GIRLS AND THE FLAG
Miss Laura's girls had been at the camp a few days when Sadie Page one
morning raced breathlessly up to a group of them, crying out, "There's a
big white yacht coming--I saw it from the Lookout. Do you s'pose it's
Judge Haven's?"
"Won't it be splendid if it is--if it's bringing Miss Laura and Olga!"
Frances Chapin cried. "Could you see the name, Sadie?"
"No, it was too far off."
"Let's borrow Miss Anne's glass," cried two or three voices, and Frances
ran off in search of Anne Wentworth. When she returned with the glass,
they all rushed over to the Lookout. The yacht was just dropping anchor
as they turned the glass upon it and Frances cried out,
"O, it is--it is! I can read the name easily. Here, look!" she
surrendered the glass to Elsie.
"It _is_ the Sea Gull," Elsie confirmed her, "and they are lowering a
boat already."
"O, tell us if Miss Laura gets into it, and Olga," cried Lizette.
"Two men--sailors, I suppose, two girls, and two boys," Elsie announced.
"Then it's Miss Laura and Olga and Jim and Jo Barton," Frances cried
joyfully.
[Illustration: A favorite rendezvous at the camp]
"Let's hurry down to the landing to meet them," Mary Hastings proposed,
and instantly the whole group turned and raced back to camp to leave the
glass, with the joyous announcement, "Miss Laura's coming, and Olga.
We're going to the landing to meet them." And waiting for no response
they sped through the pines to the landing-steps, Elsie snatching up a
flag as she passed her own tent.
"Let's all go," one of the other girls cried, but Miss Anne said,
"No, let Miss Laura's girls have the first greeting--they all love her
so! But we might go to the Lookout and wave her a welcome from there."
"What shall we wave?" some one asked, and another cried, "O, towels,
handkerchiefs--anything. But _hurry_!" and they did, reaching the
Lookout breathless and laughing, to see the yacht resting like a great
bird on the blue water, and the small boat already nearing the point.
"Get your breath, girls, then--the wohelo cheer," said Miss Anne.
Two score young voices followed her lead, and as they chanted, the white
banners fluttered in the breeze. Instantly there came a response from
the boat in fluttering handkerchiefs and waving caps, while the girls
below on the landing echoed back the wohelo greeting.
But when the boat rounded the point the voices of those on the landing
wavered into silence. They were too glad to sing as they saw Laura and
Olga coming back to them--they could only wait in silence. Lizette's
lips were quivering nervously and Elizabeth's blue eyes were full of
happy tears. Even Sadie for once was silent, but she waved her
handkerchief frantically to the two boys who were gaily swinging their
caps. When the boat reached the landing, however, and the girls crowded
about Laura and Olga, tongues were loosened, and everybody talked.
"How well Olga looks!" Mary cried.
"Doesn't she? I'm so proud of her for gaining so fast!" Laura laughed.
"I couldn't help gaining with all she has done for me," Olga said with a
grateful glance.
"And you've come to stay? Do say you have, Miss Laura," the girls
begged.
"Of course, we're going to stay--we've been homesick for the camp,"
Laura answered.
"That's splendid. We've missed you so!" they cried.
"The camp's fine. I'm having the time of my life!" Sadie declared, and
added, "Elizabeth, you haven't said one word."
"She doesn't need to," Olga put in quickly, her hand on Elizabeth's
shoulder.
They were climbing the steps now, and at the camp they were greeted with
another song of welcome from the Guardians and the rest of the girls,
and then Laura put Olga into the most comfortable hammock to rest and,
leaving Elizabeth beside her, carried the others off for a talk.
That night the supper was a festival. The girls had gathered masses of
purple asters with which they had filled every available dish to
decorate the tables, the mantelpiece, and even the tents where the
newcomers were to sleep. Miss Anne had brought to camp a big box of tiny
tapers, and these stuck in yellow apples made a glow of light along the
tables.
Nobody appreciated all this more than Jim. With his hands in his
pockets he stood looking about admiringly, and finally expressed his
opinion thus: "Gee, but it's pretty! Camp Fire Girls beat the Scouts
some ways, if they ain't so patriotic."
Instantly there was an outburst of reproach and denial from Miss Laura's
girls.
"O, come, Jim, that's not fair!"
"We're _just_ as patriotic as the Scouts!"
"Boy Scouts can't hold a candle to Camp Fire Girls _any_ way!"
"We'll put you out if you go back on Camp Fire Girls, Jim."
Jim, flushed and a little bewildered at the storm he had raised,
instinctively sidled towards Laura, while Jo, close behind him,
chuckled, "Started a hornets' nest that time, ol' feller."
Laura, her arm about the boy's shoulders, quickly interposed. "We'll let
Jim explain another time. I know he thinks Camp Fire Girls are the
nicest girls there are, don't you, Jim?"
"Sure!" Jim assented hastily, and peace was restored--for the time.
But the girls did not forget nor allow Jim to. The next night after
supper they swooped down on him.
"Now tell us, Jim," Lena Barton began, "why you think Boy Scoots are
more patriotic than we are."
"'Tisn't Boy _Scoots_--you know it isn't," Jim countered, flushing.
"O, excuse me." Lena bowed politely. "I only had one letter wrong, and,
anyhow, they do scoot, don't they? Well, Boy Scouts then, if you like
that better."
"They love the flag better'n you do--_lots_ better!" Jim declared with
conviction.
"Prove it! Prove it!" cried half a dozen voices.
"Er--er----" Jim choked and stammered, searching desperately for words.
"You've got an awful nice Camp Fire room at Miss Laura's, but you
haven't even a little teeny flag in it, and Scouts _always_ have a flag
in their rooms--don't they, Jo?" he ended in triumph.
"You bet they do!" Jo stoutly supported his friend.
"Ho! That doesn't prove anything. Besides, we'll _have_ a flag when we
go back," Lena asserted promptly.
"Well, anyhow, girls an' women can't fight for the flag, so of course,
they _can't_ be so patriotic," Jim declared.
"Can't, eh? How about the women that go to nurse the wounded men?" said
Mary.
"And the women that send their husbands and sons to fight?" added Elsie.
"And how about----" began another girl, but Laura's hand falling lightly
on her lips, cut short the question, and then Laura dropped down on the
grass pulling Jim down beside her. Holding his hand in both hers, and
softly patting it, she said, "Sit down, girls, and we'll talk this
matter over. Jim's hardly big enough or old enough to face you all at
once. But, honestly, don't you think there is some truth in what he
says? As Camp Fire Girls, do we think as much about patriotism as the
Scouts do? Elsie, you have a Scout brother, what do you think about it?"
Elsie laughed but flushed a little too as she answered, "I hate to admit
it, but I don't think we do."
"Time we did then. We can't have any Boy Scouts getting ahead of us,"
Lena declared emphatically.
Jim, gathering courage from Miss Laura's championship, looked up with a
mischievous smile. "Bet you can't tell about the stars and stripes in
the flag," he said.
"Can you? How many can?" Miss Laura looked about the group. "Elsie,
Frances--and Mary--I see you can, and nobody else is sure. How does it
happen?" There was a twinkle now in her eyes. "Is there any special
reason for you three being better posted than the others?"
The three girls exchanged smiling glances, and Elsie admitted
reluctantly, "I think there is--a Boy Scout reason--isn't there, Mary?"
and as Mary Hastings nodded, Elsie went on, "You know my brother Jack is
the most loyal of Scouts, and before he was old enough to be one, he had
learned all the things that a boy has to know to join--and to describe
the flag is one of those things. He discovered one day that I didn't
know how many stars there are on it and how they are arranged, and he
was so dreadfully distressed and mortified at my ignorance that I had to
take a flag lesson from him on the spot--and it was a thorough one."
"Uh huh!" Jim triumphed under his breath, but the girls heard and there
was a shout of laughter. Over the boy's head Laura's laughing eyes swept
the group.
"Jim," she said, "will you ask Miss Anne to lend us her flag for a few
minutes?"
"Won't ours do? Jo'n' I've got one," Jim cried instantly, and as Miss
Laura nodded, he scampered off.
"I think Jim has won, girls," she said, and then the laughter dying out
of her eyes, added gravely, "Really I quite agree with him. I think
we--I mean our own Camp Fire--have not given as much thought to
patriotism as we ought. There have been so many things for us to talk
about and work for! But we'll learn the flag to-day, and when we go
home, it may be well for us to arrange a sort of 'course' in patriotism
for the coming year. Of all girls in America, those who live in
Washington ought to be the most interested in their own country. We will
all be more patriotic--better Americans--a year from now."
Jim came running back with a small silk flag. He held it up proudly for
the inspection of the girls, and it was safe to say that they would all
remember that brief object lesson. It was Lena whose eyes lingered
longest on the boy's eager face as he looked at the flag.
"He does--he really _loves_ it," she said wonderingly to Elsie standing
beside her. "He's right. We girls don't care for it that way--honest we
don't."
"Maybe not just for the flag," Elsie admitted, "but we care just as much
as boys do for our country. Don't you think we do, Miss Laura?"
"I'm not sure, Elsie. You see many boys look forward to a soldier's
life, and most of them feel that they may some time have to fight for
their flag--their country--and so perhaps they think more about it than
girls do. And patriotism is made prominent among the Scouts."
"They always salute the flag wherever they see it," Mary said.
"Must keep 'em busy in Washington," Lena observed.
"It does. Jim is forever saluting it when he is out with me," Laura
replied, "but he never seems to tire of it, and I like to see him do
it."
"The girls salute it in the schools--you know we have Flag Day every
year," Frances added.
"Yes, and it is a good thing. There is no danger of any of us caring too
much for our country or the flag that represents it. When I catch sight
of our flag in a foreign land I always want to kiss it."
"Can't we have one in our Camp Fire room when we go back?" Lena asked.
"We surely will. I'm really quite ashamed of myself for not having one
long ago. We owe something--do we not?--to a going-to-be Boy Scout for
reminding us?" Laura said.
They admitted that they did. "But, anyhow," Frances Chapin added, "even
if they do think more about the _flag_, I won't admit that Scouts love
their country any more than we Camp Fire Girls do. We are _quite_ as
patriotic as any Boy Scouts."
"And that's right!" Lena flung out as the group separated.
XVII
SONIA
"O dear, I did hope it wouldn't be awfully hot when we got back, but it
is," Lizette Stone sighed on the day they returned from camp. "Just
think of the breeze on the Lookout this very minute!"
Olga glanced over her shoulder with a smile as she threw open her door.
"Let's pretend it's cool here too," she said. "I'm so thankful to be
well and strong again that I'm determined to be satisfied with things as
they are. The camp was lovely and Miss Laura and the girls were dear,
but this is home, and my work is waiting for me, and I'm _able to do
it_. And you have your lovely work too, Lizette, and your home corner
across the hall."
Lizette looked at her half wondering, half envious, as she slowly pulled
out her hatpins. "I never knew a fever to change a girl as that one
changed you, Olga Priest," she said.
"Is the change for the better?"
"Yes, it is, but----"
"But what?" Olga questioned, half laughing, yet a little curious too.
[Illustration: "Just think of the Lookout this very minute!"]
"Well--all is, I can't keep up with you," Lizette dropped unconsciously
into one of her country phrasings. "I can't help getting into the
doleful dumps sometimes, and I can't--I just _can't_ be happy and
contented with the mercury at ninety-three. I guess it's easier for some
folks to stand the heat than it is for others."
"I think it is," Olga admitted. "Give me your hat. Now take that fan and
sit there by the window till I come back. I'm not so tired as you are,
and I must get something for our supper."
While she was gone Lizette sat thinking of the Camp with its shady woods
and blue water and wishing herself back there. She had had three weeks
there, but a hateful little imp was whispering in her ear that some of
the girls were staying four or five weeks, and it wasn't fair--it wasn't
_fair_! Of course it was better to earn her living doing embroidery than
in Goldstein's store, but still, some girls didn't have to earn their
living at all, and----
The door opened and Olga came breezily in, her hands full of bundles. "I
really ought to have taken a basket," she said. "There's the nicest
little home bakery opened just around the corner--I got bread there."
"I'm not a bit hungry," Lizette said listlessly, then started up, crying
out, "Well, I am ashamed of myself! I meant to have the table set when
you came back, and I forgot all about it."
"Never mind--I'll have it ready in a minute. Sit still, Lizette."
But Lizette insisted upon helping, and her face brightened as Olga set
forth fresh bread, nut cakes, ice cold milk, and a dish of sliced
peaches.
"Weren't you mistaken?" Olga asked with a laugh. "Aren't you a little
bit hungry?"
"Yes, I am. How good that bread looks--and the peaches."
"After all it is rather nice to be back here at our own little table,
isn't it?" Olga asked as they lingered over the meal.
Lizette looked at her curiously. "Olga Priest, what makes you so happy
to-night?" she demanded. "I never saw you so before."
"Maybe not quite so happy, but wasn't I happy all the time at camp?
Wasn't I, Lizette?"
"Yes--yes, you were, only I didn't notice it so much there with all the
girls, and something always going on. You never were so here before.
Sometimes you wouldn't smile for days at a time."
"I know. I hadn't realised then that I could be happy if I'd let myself
be--and that I had no right not to."
"No _right_ not to," Lizette echoed with a puzzled frown. "I don't see
_that_. I should think anybody might have the privilege of being blue if
she likes."
"No." Olga shook her head with decision. "No, not when she has health,
and work that she likes, and friends. A girl has no right to be unhappy
under those conditions--and I've found it out at last. I'm going to keep
my Camp Fire promises now as I never have done."
After a little silence she went on, "I've such beautiful plans for our
Camp Fire this year! One of them is to learn all we can about our
country. We can't have Jim," laughter flashed into her eyes as she
thought of him, "thinking us less patriotic than his beloved Scouts. And
we can see and learn so much right here in Washington! I'm ashamed to
think how little I know about this beautiful city where I've lived all
my life. I mean to 'know my Washington' thoroughly before I'm a year
older."
Lizette did not seem much interested in patriotism, but she laughed over
the remembrance of the indignation of the girls at Jim's remark about
their lack of it. "He did look so plucky, facing us all that day, didn't
he!" she said. "And he was scared too at the rumpus he had raised; but
all the same he didn't back down."
"No, Jim wouldn't back down if he thought he was right no matter how
scared he might be inside."
"Well," Lizette yawned, "I'm so sleepy I can hardly hold my eyes open.
Let's wash the dishes and then I'm going straight to bed."
She came in to breakfast the next morning in a different mood.
"Didn't we have a glorious rain in the night!" she cried gaily. "And it
left a lovely cool breeze behind it. Last night I felt like a wet rag,
but this morning I'm a different creature. It _is_ good to be 'home'
again, Olga, and I don't mind going back to the shop."
"That's good!" Olga's eyes were shining as they had shone the night
before.
The two set off together after breakfast, and wished each other good
luck as they parted at the door of Miss Bayly's shop. Lizette came back
at night jubilant. "I got my good luck, Olga," she cried. "I'm to have
eight a week now. Isn't that fine?"
"Indeed it is--congratulations, Lizette. And I had my good luck
too--better than I dared hope for--two splendid orders. Now we can both
settle down to work and get a nice start before the next Camp Fire
meeting. I'm going to try to keep half a day a week free for our
'learning Washington' trips."
"Personally conducted?" Lizette laughed.
"Personally conducted. Your company is solicited, Miss Stone, whenever
your other engagements will permit."
Over the tea-table they talked of work and Camp Fire plans, and then
Lizette went off to her own "corner" and Olga took up a book. She had
been reading for an hour when her quick ears caught the sound of
hesitating steps outside her door--steps that seemed to linger
uncertainly. Thinking that some stranger might have wandered in from the
street, she rose and quietly slipped her bolt. As she did so there came
a knock at the door. She stood still, listening intently. No one ever
came to her door except the landlady or the Camp Fire Girls, and none of
them would knock in this hesitating fashion. She was not in the least
timid, and when the knock was repeated she opened the door. She found
herself facing a woman, young, in a soiled and wrinkled dress and shabby
hat, and carrying a baby in her arms.
"Olga--it is Olga?" the woman exclaimed half doubtfully.
Olga did not answer. She stood staring into the woman's face and
suddenly her own whitened and her eyes widened with dismay.
"You?" she said under her breath. "_You!_"
"Yes, I--Sonia. Aren't you going to let me in?"
For an instant Olga hesitated, then she stood aside, but in that moment
all the happy hopefulness seemed to melt out of her heart. It was as if
a black shadow of disaster had entered the quiet room at the heels of
the draggled woman and her child.
"This is a warm welcome, I must say, to your own sister," Sonia said in
a querulous tone, as she dropped into the easiest chair and laid the
child across her knees. It made no sound, but lay as it was placed, its
eyes half closed and its tiny face pinched and colourless.
"I--I can't realise that it is really--you," Olga said. "Where did you
come from, and how did you find me?"
"I came from--many places. As to finding you--that was easy. You are not
so far from the old neighbourhood where I left you."
"Yes--you left me," Olga echoed slowly, her face dark with the old
sombre gloom. "You left me, a child of thirteen, with no money, and
mother--dying!"
"I suppose it was rather hard on you, but you were always a plucky one,
and I knew well enough you would pull through somehow. As to mother, of
course I didn't know--she'd been ailing so long," Sonia defended
herself, "and Dick wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. I _had_ to go with
him."
Olga was silent, but in her heart a fierce battle was raging. She knew
her sister--knew her selfish disregard of the rights or wishes of
others, and she realised that much might depend on what was said now.
"Well?" Sonia questioned, breaking the silence abruptly.
Olga drew a long weary breath. "I--I can't think, Sonia," she said.
"You have taken me so by surprise. I don't know what to say."
"I suppose you're not going to turn us into the street to-night--the
baby and me?"
"Of course not," Olga answered, and added, "Is the baby sick?"
Sonia's eyes rested for a moment on the small pallid face, but there was
no softening in them when she looked up again. "She's never been well.
The first one died--the boy. This one cried day and night for weeks
after she came. Dick couldn't stand it, and no wonder. That's the reason
he cleared out--one reason."
"His own child!" cried Olga indignantly, and as she looked at the
pitiful white face her heart warmed towards the little creature, She
held out her hands. "Let me take her."
Sonia promptly transferred the baby to her sister's arms, and rising,
crossed to the small sleeping-room.
"You're pretty well fixed here, with two rooms," she remarked.
"It's hardly more than one--the bedroom is so small."
"What do you do for a living?" Sonia demanded.
Olga told her.
"Hm. Any money in it?"
"I make a living, but I had a long sickness last summer and it took all
I had and more to pay the bills."
"O well," replied Sonia carelessly, "you'll earn more. You look well
enough now." She stretched her arms and yawned. "I'm dead tired. How
about sleeping? That single bed won't hold the three of us."
"You can sleep there--I'll sleep on the floor to-night. There's no
other way," Olga answered.
"All right then. I'll get to bed in a hurry," and taking the child from
her sister, Sonia undressed it as carelessly as if it had been a doll.
The baby half opened its heavy eyes and whimpered a little, but did not
really awaken.
When Sonia and the child were in bed, Olga went across to Lizette's
room. Lizette's welcoming smile vanished at sight of the stern set face,
and she drew Olga quickly in and shut the door.
"O, what is it? What has happened, Olga?" she cried anxiously.
"My sister has come with her baby. I don't know how long she will stay."
Olga spoke in a dull lifeless voice. "I came to tell you, so that you
could get your breakfast somewhere else. You wouldn't enjoy having it
with me--now."
"O Olga, I'm so sorry--so _sorry_!" Lizette cried, her hands on her
friend's shoulders, her voice full of warm sympathy.
"I know, Lizette," Olga answered, a quivering smile stirring for an
instant the old hard line of her set lips. Then she turned away,
forgetting to say good-night. When the door closed behind her, Lizette's
eyes were full of tears.
"O, it's a shame--a shame!" she said aloud. "To think how happy she was
only last night, and now--now she looks as she did a year ago before
Elizabeth went to the camp. O, I wonder why that sister had to come
back!"
Lizette lay awake long that night, her heart full of sympathy for her
friend, and Olga, lying on her hard bed on the floor, did not sleep at
all. She went out early to the market, and coming back, prepared
breakfast, but when she called her sister, Sonia answered drowsily:
"I'm too tired to get up, Olga. Bring me some coffee and toast here,
will you?"
Olga carried her a tray, and Sonia ate and drank and then turned over
and went to sleep again, and Olga, having washed the dishes, went off to
the school. All day she worked steadily, forcing back the thoughts that
crowded continually into her mind; but when she turned homewards the
dark thoughts swooped down upon her like a flock of ravens, blotting out
all her happy hopes and joyous plans, for she knew--only too well she
knew--what she had to expect if Sonia remained.
"Well, you've come at last!" was her sister's greeting. "I hope you've
brought something nice for supper. I'm nearly starved. And you didn't
leave half enough milk for the baby."
"I left plenty for your dinner," Olga answered, "and I thought you could
get more milk for the baby if you wanted it."
"Get more! How could I get it without money? And you didn't leave me a
penny," Sonia complained.
Olga brought out a bottle of malted milk. "That will do for to-night,
won't it?" she said, trying to speak cheerfully.
"I don't know anything about this stuff." Sonia was reading the label
with a scowl. "You'll have to fix it; and do hurry, for she's been
fretting for an hour."
Without a word, Olga prepared the food and handed it to her sister;
then she set about getting supper; but when it was ready she felt
suddenly too tired to eat. Sonia ate heartily, however, remarking with a
glance at Olga's empty plate, "I suppose you got a good dinner down
town."
"I haven't eaten a mouthful since breakfast," Olga told her wearily.
"O well," Sonia returned, "some folks don't need much food, but I do. If
I don't have three solid meals a day I'm not fit for anything." Then
looking at the baby lying on a pillow in a chair beside her, she added,
"Really she seems to like that malted stuff. You'd better bring back
another bottle to-morrow. There isn't much left in this one."
"Isn't that my dress you have on?" Olga asked suddenly.
"Yes, I had to have something fresh--mine was so mussed and dirty,"
Sonia replied lightly. "Lucky for me we're about the same size."
"But not lucky for me," was Olga's thought.
For a week things went on so--Sonia occasionally offering to wash the
dishes, but leaving her sister to do everything else. Then one night
Olga found her best suit in a heap on the closet floor. Picking it up
she spoke sharply. "Sonia, have you been wearing this suit of mine?"
"Well, what if I have? You needn't look so savage about it!" Sonia
retorted. "I have to have something decent to wear on the street, don't
I?"
"Not if you have nothing decent of your own," Olga flashed back. "Sonia,
you have no _right_ to wear my things so--without asking!"
With a provoking smile Sonia responded, "I knew better than to ask. I
knew you'd make a fuss about it. If you don't want me to wear your
clothes why don't you give me money to buy something decent for myself?
Then I wouldn't need to borrow."
Olga's thoughts were in such an angry whirl that for a moment she dared
not trust herself to speak. She shook out the suit and hung it up, then
she went slowly across the room and sat down facing her sister.
"Sonia," she began, "we can't go on in this way--I cannot endure it. Now
let us have a plain understanding. You came here of your own choice--not
on my invitation. What are your plans? Do you mean to stay on here
indefinitely?"
"Why, of course. Where else should I stay?"
"Then," said Olga decidedly, "you must help pay our expenses. You are
well and strong. Why should you expect me to support you?"
"Why? Because you have a trade and I have not, for one reason. And
besides, there's the baby--I can't leave her to go out to work." There
was a note of triumph in Sonia's voice.
"You could get work to do at home--sewing, embroidery, knitting--or
something."
"'Or something!'" There was fretful impatience now in Sonia's tone. "I
hate sewing--any kind of sewing. You know I always did."
"Then what will you do?"
Sonia sat looking down in sulky silence at the baby.
Olga went on, "If there is no work you can do at home, you must find
something outside. You can go into a store as you did before you were
married."
"And I guess," Sonia broke out angrily, "if you'd ever stood behind a
counter from eight in the morning to six at night, you'd know how nice
_that_ is! You earn enough. I think it's real mean and stingy of you to
grudge a share of it to this poor sick baby--and me. I do so!"
"I don't grudge anything to the baby, Sonia, though I do think it is
your business to provide for her, not mine. But I say again it is not
right for me to have to support you, and I am not willing to do it. It
is best to speak plainly once for all."
"Well, I should say you _were_ speaking plainly," Sonia flung out with
an unpleasant smile. She rocked with a quick motion, her brows drawn
into a frown. "How can I go into a store, even if I could get a place? I
couldn't take the baby with me," she muttered.
"I could bring my work home--most of it--and you could leave the baby
with me."
"Ah ha! I knew it. I knew you could do your work here if you wanted to,"
Sonia triumphed, pointing to the bench in the corner. "You just don't
want to stay here with me." Olga made no denial and her sister went on
in a complaining tone, "Anyhow I'd like to know how I'm going to get a
place anywhere when I've no decent clothes. You know it makes all the
difference how one is dressed."
"That is true," Olga admitted, "but, Sonia, I cannot buy you a suit. I
haven't the money."
"You could borrow it."
Olga's face flushed. "I've never borrowed a cent in my life or bought
_any_thing on credit, except--mother's coffin," she said passionately.
"And I did night work till I paid for that. I cannot run in debt. I
_will_ not!"
Sonia shrugged her shoulders. "Well then, if you want me to get a
place, you'll just have to let me wear that suit of yours that you are
so choice of."
Olga was silent. It was true that Sonia's chance of securing employment
would be small if she sought it in the shabby clothes which she had. But
Olga needed that suit. The money which would have bought a new one had
paid her doctor's bill. Still--the important thing was to get Sonia to
work. "I suppose," she said slowly, "I shall have to let you wear it,
but, Sonia, you _must_ realise how it is, and do your best to find a
place soon. Will you do that?"
"Why, of course," returned Sonia with the light laugh that always
irritated her sister. "You don't suppose I like being dependent on you,
do you?"
"I don't think you'd mind, if I would give you money whenever you want
it."
Again Sonia laughed. "But that's not imaginable, you know," she answered
airily. "It's like drawing eyeteeth to get a dollar out of you. You're a
perfect miser, Olga Priest."
Olga let that pass. "I had intended to keep my suit in Lizette's closet
after this, but I will leave it here if you will promise to begin
to-morrow to look for work. Will you promise?"
"You certainly are the limit!" Sonia cried impatiently. "I believe you
grudge me every mouthful I eat, and the baby her milk too--poor little
soul!" She caught up the baby and kissed it.
"Will you promise, Sonia?" Olga repeated.
Sonia dropped the baby on her lap again. "Of _course_ I promise. I told
you so before. Now for pity's sake give me a little peace!" she
exclaimed.
XVIII
THE TORCH UPLIFTED
So the next day Olga brought home her work, and Sonia, wearing not only
her sister's best suit but her hat, shoes, and gloves as well, set off
down town. She departed with a distinctly holiday air, tossing from the
doorway a kiss to the baby and a good-bye to Olga. But Olga cherished
small hope of her success. She felt no confidence in her sister's
sincerity, and did not believe that she really wanted to find work.
For once the baby was awake--usually she seemed half asleep, lying where
she was put, and only stirring occasionally with weak whimpering cries.
But this morning the blue eyes were open, and Olga stopped beside the
chair in which the baby was lying and looked down at the small face, so
pathetically grave and quiet.
"You poor little mortal," she said, "I wonder what life holds for
you--if you live. I almost hope you won't, for it doesn't seem as if
there's much chance for you."
The solemn blue eyes stared up at her as if the baby too were wondering
what chance there was for her. Olga laid her face for a moment against
one little white cheek; then pulling out her bench she set to work.
At twelve o'clock Sonia came back. "O dear!" she exclaimed with a swift
glance around the room, "I hoped you'd have dinner ready, Olga. I'm
tired to death."
Without a word Olga put aside her work and went to the gas stove. Sonia
pulled off her shoes--Olga's shoes--and took off Olga's hat, and rocked
until the meal was ready.
"What luck did you have?" Olga inquired when they were at the table.
"Not a bit. I tell you, Olga, you're a mighty lucky girl to have that
work to do." She nodded towards the bench.
Olga ignored that. "Where did you try?" she asked.
"Well, I tried at Woodward & Lothrop's." Sonia's tone was distinctly
sulky. "They hadn't any vacancy--or anyhow they said so."
"They always have a long waiting-list, I know. Did you leave your name?"
"No, I didn't. What was the use with scores ahead of me?"
"And where else did you try?"
"I didn't try _any_where else!" Sonia said with a defiant lift of her
chin. "You needn't think, Olga, that you can drive me like a slave just
because I am staying with you. I'm going to take my time about this
business, and don't you forget it!"
Olga waited until she could speak quietly; then she said, "Sonia, there
is one thing you've got to understand. I _must_ have peace. I cannot do
my work if there is to be discord and friction all the time between you
and me."
"It's your own fault," Sonia retorted. "I'm peaceful enough if I'm let
alone. I let you alone."
"But, Sonia, don't you see that we can't go on this way?" Olga pleaded.
"Don't you feel that you ought to pay half our expenses if you stay with
me?"
"No, I don't. Why should I pay half?" Sonia demanded. "Your rent is no
higher because I am here."
"No, but I have to sleep on the floor, and it is not very restful as you
would find if you tried it once."
"Well, why don't you buy a cot then? You could get one for two dollars."
"I need the two dollars for other things," Olga answered wearily. "Do
you mean, Sonia, that you are not going to look for a place anywhere
else?"
"O, I'll look--but I won't be hurried about it," Sonia declared moodily.
"Well," Olga spoke with deliberation, "if that is your attitude, there
is but one thing for me to do, and that is to go away from here."
"Olga! You couldn't be that _mean_!" Sonia sat up straight and stared
with startled eyes at the grave face opposite her.
"Think, Sonia," said Olga in a low voice, though her heart was beating
furiously, "how it would seem to you if I should refuse to work and
expect you to support me."
"That's different," Sonia muttered sullenly.
"How is it different?"
"Because you've got your work--I haven't any."
"But you might have if you would."
"Much you know about it! Did you ever try to find a place in a store?"
"When I was thirteen and you left mother and me"--Olga's voice was very
low now, but it thrilled with bitter memories--"I walked the streets for
three long days hunting for work, and I found it at last in a laundry
where I stood from seven in the morning till six at night, with only
fifteen minutes at noon. And I stayed there while mother lived, going
back to her to care for her through those long dreadful nights of
misery. That is what I know about hard work, Sonia!"
It was Sonia's turn now to be silent. There was something in Olga's
white face and blazing eyes that stilled even her flippant tongue. For a
moment her thoughts drifted back, and perhaps for the first time she
fully realised what her going then had meant to the little sister upon
whose shoulders she had left the heavy burden. But she banished these
unpleasant memories with a shrug. "O well, all that's past and gone--no
use in raking it up again," she declared.
"No, no use," Olga admitted. "But, Sonia, I want you to realise that I
mean just what I say. You have come here of your own accord. If you stay
you must share our expenses. If you will not, I surely shall go away,
and leave you to pay all yourself."
Seeing that her sister was determined, Sonia suddenly melted into weak
tears. "You are so hard, Olga!" she sobbed. "I don't believe you have
any heart at all."
"Maybe not," was the grim response. "I've thought sometimes it was
broken--or frozen--five years ago."
"You keep harking back to that!" Sonia moaned. "I'm not the first girl
that has gone away with the man she loved. You have no sympathy--you
make no allowances. And I didn't realise how sick mother was. If I
had----"
"If you had," Olga interrupted, "you would have done exactly the same.
But let that pass. Are you going to give me the promise that I ask?"
"What do you want me to promise?" Sonia evaded.
"I want you to promise that you will go out every week day and look for
work--that you will keep trying until you do find it. Will you?"
"It seems I can't help myself." Sonia's voice was still sulky.
"Will you? I must have your promise," Olga insisted, and finally Sonia
flung out an angry,
"Yes!"
Thereafter Olga worked at home and her sister went out morning or
afternoon--sometimes both; but she found no position.
"They all want younger girls--chits of sixteen or seventeen," she
complained, "or else those who have had large experience. They won't
give me a chance."
Olga crowded down her doubts. Perhaps it was all true--perhaps Sonia
really had honestly tried, but the doubts would return, for she felt
that her sister was quite content to let things remain as they were as
long as Olga made no further protest. But others were not content with
things as they were. Elizabeth was not, nor Lizette. Laura met Lizette
on the street one day and learned all that the girl could tell her of
Olga's trouble.
"She's so changed!" Lizette said, her eyes filling. "When we came home
she was so happy, and so full of plans for Camp Fire work, and now--now
she takes no interest in it at all. She won't talk about it, or hardly
listen when I talk."
"I must see her," Laura said. "I'll take you home now," and when they
reached the house, Lizette ran eagerly up the stairs to give Miss
Laura's message.
"I've come to invite you to another tea party--with Jim and me," Laura
said when Olga appeared. "You will come--to-morrow night?"
"Thank you, but I can't," the girl answered gravely.
"Why can't you, Olga? I want you very much," Laura urged.
"My sister is with me now. I cannot leave her."
"But just this once--please, Olga."
Laura's eyes--warm, loving, compelling--looked into Olga's, dark,
sombre, and miserable; and suddenly with a little gasping sob the girl
yielded because she knew if she stood there another minute she would
break down.
"I'll--come," she promised, and without another word turned and hurried
back into the house.
Laura was half afraid that she would not keep her promise, but at six
o'clock she appeared. Jim fell upon her with a gleeful welcome, and she
tried to answer gaily, but the effort with which she did it was evident,
and earlier than usual Laura took the boy off to bed.
"Something is troubling Olga," she whispered as she tucked him in, "and
I'm going to try to find a way to help her."
"You will," he said confidently. "You're the best ever for helping
folks," and he pulled her face down to give one of his rare kisses.
Laura, going back to the other room, drew the girl down beside her.
"Now, child," she said, her voice full of tenderest persuasion, "let us
talk over your problems and find the way out."
For a moment the old proud reserve held the girl, but it melted under
the tender sympathy in the eyes looking into hers. She drew a long
breath. "It seems somehow wrong to talk about it even to you," she said.
"Sonia is my sister."
"I know, dear, but sisters are not always--sisters," Laura replied, "and
you are very much alone in the world. I am more truly your sister--am I
not, Olga--your elder sister who loves you and wants to help?"
"O yes, yes!" the girl cried. "But I've felt I must not tell _any_
one--even you--and I've crowded it all down in my heart until----"
"Until you are worn out with the strain of it all," Laura said as Olga
paused. "Now tell me the whole just as if I were your sister in very
fact."
And Olga told it all, from Sonia's unexpected arrival that September
night to the present--of the failure of her efforts to get her sister to
do some kind of work, and of Sonia's constant demands for money and
clothes.
"Do you think she has really tried to get a place in a store, Olga?"
"I don't know. She says she has, but I can't feel that she really wants
to do anything, or that she will ever find a place as long as I let her
stay on with me. Of course I could support her, though it would not be
easy, for she is hard on clothes. She doesn't take care of them and she
wears them out much faster than I do. She has almost worn out my best
shoes already, and my gloves, as well as my hat and suit, and she uses
my handkerchiefs and--and everything, just as if they were her own. I
can't earn enough to clothe her and keep myself decent." She glanced
down at the old serge skirt she wore. "Miss Laura, tell me--what shall I
do? Would it be right for me to leave her? The continual fret and worry
of it all are wearing me out."
"I know it, dear--that is why I felt you must come and talk it all over
with me."
Olga went on, "It isn't only a matter of money--and clothes, but I have
_nothing_ left. If I go out evenings--even across to Lizette's room--she
wants to go too, or else she goes off somewhere as soon as I am out of
sight, and leaves the baby shut up all alone. That's why I can't go
anywhere--not even to the Camp Fire meetings. And, O Miss Laura, I was
so happy when I came back from camp--I had so many lovely plans for Camp
Fire work! I did mean to be a good Torch Bearer--I _did_!"
"I know you did."
"And now it's all spoilt. I can't do a single bit of Camp Fire work,"
she ended sadly.
"Olga," Laura's arm was around the girl's shoulders, her voice very low
and tender, "you say that now you cannot do a single bit of Camp Fire
work?"
Olga looked up in surprise. "How can I--when I can't be with the girls
at all, nor attend the meetings?"
"Do you know what I think is the best Camp Fire service the girls have
done? It is the work in their own homes. Mrs. Bicknell says that Eva is
getting to be a real comfort to her. She helps with the housework and
the younger children as she never used to do, and her influence is
making the younger ones so much easier to manage."
"But, Miss Laura, I don't see how that is _Camp Fire_ work," Olga said.
"Don't you?" Very softly Laura repeated, "'Love is the _joy of service_
so deep that self is forgotten.' And isn't the home the place above all
others where Camp Fire Girls should render service?"
"I--never--thought of it--that way," Olga said very slowly.
"But isn't it so?" Laura persisted. "Think now."
"Yes--of course it is so. Miss Laura, it will--it _will_ make it easier
to think of it as Camp Fire service, for I did so hate to be out of it
all--all the Camp Fire work, I mean. I'll try to think of it that way
after this. And--and I guess there isn't any way out. I suppose I ought
not to long so for a way out, if I am going to be a faithful Torch
Bearer." She made a brave attempt to smile.
"There is a way out--I am sure of it, but we may not find it just at
once. Meantime you have a great opportunity, Olga. Don't you see? It is
easy to be happy as you were in August at the camp, when you were
growing stronger every day, and had just begun to realise what Camp Fire
might mean to you in your service for and with the girls, and their love
for you. Once you had opened your heart, you could not help being happy.
But now it is different. Now you must be happy not because of, but in
spite of, circumstances. And so if you keep the law of the Camp Fire to
give service--a service that it is very hard for you to give--and to be
happy in spite of the trying things in your life--don't you see how much
more your happiness will mean--how much deeper and stronger and finer
it will be?"
"Yes, I see."
"And the girls will see too, Olga. You know how quick they are. You
could not deceive them if you tried--Lena, Sadie, Louise Johnson--they
will all be watching you--weighing you; and if they see that, in spite
of the hard things, you are really and truly happy--that you have really
found the 'joy in service so deep that _self is forgotten_'--don't you
see how much stronger your influence over them will be--how immensely
stronger?"
Slowly, thoughtfully, Olga nodded, her eyes on the glowing embers in the
fireplace.
"So all these things that are making your life now so hard, are your
great opportunity, dear," the low voice went on. "If in spite of all,
you can hold high the torch of love and happiness, every girl in our
Camp Fire will gladly follow her Torch Bearer."
Olga looked up, and now her eyes were shining. "_You_ are the real Torch
Bearer, Miss Laura!" she cried. "You have shown me the light to-night
when I didn't think there was any."
"I've shown you how to keep your torch burning--that is all. Now you
must hold it high to light the way for others; for you know, dear, there
are others in our Camp Fire who are stumbling in dark and stony
pathways, and we--you and I--must help them too, to find the lighted
way."
"O, I'll try, Miss Laura, I will," Olga promised, and in her voice now
there was determination as well as humility.
XIX
CLEAR SHINING AFTER DARKNESS
Sonia was an adept in thinking up remarks that carried a taunt or a
sting, and she had one ready to greet her sister that night on her
return; but as she looked up, she saw in Olga's face something that held
back the provoking words trembling on her tongue. Instead she said, half
enviously, "You look as if you'd had a fine time. What you been doing?"
"Nothing but having a firelight talk with Miss Laura. That always does
me good."
"Hm!" returned Sonia. She wondered what kind of a talk it could have
been to drive away the sullen gloom that had darkened her sister's face
for days, and bring that strange shining look into her eyes. Sonia
shrugged her shoulders. At least, Olga wouldn't hound her about finding
work--not while she had that look in her eyes--and, with a mind at ease,
Sonia went off to bed.
She went out the next morning, but came back in the middle of the
afternoon in a gay mood. "I didn't find any place," she announced, "but
I had a good dinner for once. I met--an old friend."
Something in her voice and her heightened colour awakened an indefinite
suspicion in Olga's mind. "Who was it? Any one I know?" she asked.
Sonia made no reply. She had gone into the bedroom to put away her hat
and jacket. When she came back she spoke of something else, but all that
evening there was a curious air of repressed excitement about her.
"Oh, I forgot--the postman gave me a letter for you. It's in my bag,"
she exclaimed later, and bringing it from the other room, tossed it
carelessly into her sister's lap.
Olga read it and handed it back. "It concerns you. O, I do hope you'll
get the place," she said.
The note was from Miss Laura to say that the manager of one of the large
department stores had promised to employ Sonia if she applied at once.
"Isn't that fine!" Olga cried.
"O--perhaps," Sonia returned with a chilling lack of enthusiasm.
"O Sonia, don't act so about it," Olga pleaded. "You know you must get
something to do. You will go to-morrow and see the manager, won't
you--after Miss Laura has taken so much trouble for you?"
"For _me_!" There was a sneer in Sonia's voice. "Much she cares for me.
She did it for you--you know she did. You needn't pretend anything
else."
"I don't pretend--anything," Olga said, the brightness dying out of her
face.
In the morning she watched her sister with intense anxiety, but she
dared not urge her further, and Sonia seemed possessed by some imp of
perversity to do everything in her power to prolong Olga's suspense. She
stayed in bed till the last minute, dawdled over her breakfast, insisted
upon giving the baby her bath--a task which she usually left to her
sister--and when at last she was ready to go out it was nearly noon.
"You'll have to give me money to get something to eat down town, Olga,"
she said then. "It will be noon by the time I get to that store, and I
can't talk business on an empty stomach. I'd be sure to make a bad
impression if I did. Half a dollar will do."
With a sigh Olga handed her the money. Sonia took it with a mocking
little laugh, and was gone at last.
"O, I wonder--I _wonder_ if she will really try to get the place," Olga
said to herself as the door closed. She set to work then, but her
restless anxiety affected her nerves and the work did not go well. The
baby too fretted and required more attention than usual. As the day wore
on Olga began to worry about the baby--her small face was so pinched,
and the blue shadows under her eyes were more noticeable than usual; so
it was with an exclamation of relief that, opening the door in response
to a knock in the late afternoon, she saw the nurse who had taken care
of her in the summer.
"O, I'm so glad it's you, Miss Kennan!" she cried. "Do come in and tell
me what ails this baby."
"A _baby_! Whose is it?" the nurse asked; but as she looked at the
child, she forgot her question. "The poor little soul!" she exclaimed.
Then with a quick sharp glance at the girl, "What have you been giving
it?"
"Giving it?" Olga echoed. "Why, nothing except her food."
"What kind of food--milk?"
"Milk, and this." Olga brought a bottle of the malted food.
"That's all right. Let me see some of the milk," the nurse ordered.
She looked at the milk, smelt it, tasted it. "That seems all right too,"
she declared. "And you've put nothing--no medicine of any sort--in her
food?"
"Why, of course not."
"Do you prepare her food always?"
"Not always. Her mother--my sister--fixes it some times."
"Ah!" said the nurse.
"What do you mean, Miss Kennan? What is the matter with the baby?"
"She's been doped," answered the nurse shortly. "Soothing syrup or
something probably, to keep her quiet. Sleeps a lot, doesn't she?"
"Yes. She never seems really awake. O Miss Kennan, I never knew----"
"I see. Well, you'll have to know now. Find out what has been given her,
and fix all her food after this, yourself. Can you?"
"I don't know. I'll try to."
"If you don't, she won't need food much longer," said the nurse.
"O, how can any one be so wicked!" cried Olga.
"It isn't wickedness--it's ignorance mostly--laziness sometimes, when a
mother doesn't want to be troubled with the care of a baby. Probably
this one had an overdose this morning."
Olga stood silently thinking. Yes, Sonia had given the baby her bottle
that morning, and always gave it to her at night. She went into the
bedroom and searched the closet and the bed. Sonia usually made the bed.
Under the pillow Olga found a bottle which she handed without a word,
to the nurse. Miss Kennan nodded.
"That's it," she said briefly.
Opening the window Olga flung the bottle passionately into the street.
"Can't you do anything to--to counteract it?" she questioned, her face
as white as the child's.
"I'll bring you something," the nurse said, "and now you must stop
worrying. You can't take proper care of this baby if you are in a white
heat--she'll feel the mental atmosphere. I wish I could take her home
with me to-night."
"You can. I wish you would. I'd feel safer about her," said Olga.
"And her mother?" the nurse questioned with a searching look.
"I won't tell her where you live. You can bring the baby back in the
morning if she's better--if not, keep her till she is. I'll pay
you--when I can."
"This isn't a pay-case," the nurse said in her crisp way, "it's a case
of life-saving. Then I'll take her away now, before--anybody--comes to
interfere."
An hour later Sonia came home. In her absorption over the baby, Olga had
quite forgotten about Laura's note, and she asked no questions. That
puzzled Sonia.
"What's happened?" she demanded abruptly. "You look as if you'd seen a
ghost."
"I feel as if I had," Olga answered gravely.
"What do you mean, Olga?"
"The baby is sick."
"The baby?" Sonia cast a swift glance about, then hurried to the
bedroom. "Where is she? What have you done with her?" she cried.
"Sonia, a nurse came here this afternoon, and she said some one had
been poisoning the baby with soothing syrup."
"Poisoning her!" Sonia echoed under her breath.
"She had had an overdose," said Olga. "O Sonia, how _could_ you give her
that dangerous stuff?"
"How'd I know it was dangerous? An old nurse told me it was harmless,"
Sonia defended herself, but the colour had faded out of her face and her
eyes were full of terror.
Olga told her what the nurse had said. "I asked her to take the baby
home with her to-night. I knew that she would take better care of her
than we could," she ended.
Sonia was too frightened to object. "I didn't know. Of course I wouldn't
have given her the stuff if I had known," she said again and again, and
finally to turn her thoughts to something else, Olga asked about the
place.
"Yes, they took me. I am to begin Monday," Sonia answered briefly.
Neither of them slept much that night, and immediately after breakfast
Olga hurried over to Miss Kennan's. The nurse met her with a smile.
"She's better--she'll pull through--and she's a darling of a baby,
Olga," she said. "But you'll have to watch her closely for a while. That
deadly stuff has weakened her so!"
"O, I will, I will!" Olga promised. A great love for the little creature
filled her heart, as she stooped to kiss her.
For a month after this, things went better. Sonia was at the store from
eight to six, and Olga in her quiet rooms, worked steadily except when
the baby claimed her attention. The baby wanted more and more attention
as the days went by. She no longer lay limp and half unconscious, but
awoke from sleep, laughing and crowing, to stretch and roll and kick
like any healthy baby. She took many precious moments of Olga's time,
but Olga did not grudge them. In that one day of fear and dread, the
baby had established herself once for all in the girl's heart. If things
could only go on as they were--if Sonia would earn her own clothes even,
and be content to stay on and leave the baby to her care, Olga felt that
she could be quite happy. But she had her misgivings in regard to Sonia.
There was about her at times an air of mystery and of suppressed
excitement that puzzled her sister. She spent many evenings out--with
friends, she said, but she never told who the friends were. Still Olga
was happy. Her work, her baby (she thought of it always now as hers),
and the Camp Fire friends--these filled her days, and she put aside
resolutely her misgivings in regard to her sister, worked doubly hard to
pay the extra bills, and endured without complaint the discomfort of her
crowded rooms where Sonia claimed and kept the most and best of
everything. There was a cheery old lady in the room below--an old lady
who dearly loved to get hold of a baby, and with her Olga left her
little niece on Camp Fire nights, and when she went to market or to the
school. The girls began to drop in again evenings, now that Sonia was so
seldom there, and Olga welcomed them with shining eyes. The baby soon
had all the girls at her feet. They called her "The Camp Fire Baby" and
would have adopted her forthwith, but Olga would not agree to that.
"You can play with her and love her as much as you like, but she's my
very own," she told them.
But with her delight in the child was always mingled a haunting fear
that Sonia would some day snatch her up and disappear with her as
suddenly as she had come.
It was in December that the blow fell. Sonia had not come back to
supper, and Olga left the baby with old Mrs. Morris, and set off with
Lizette for the Camp Fire meeting. It was a delightful meeting, and Olga
enjoyed every minute of it, and the walk home with Elizabeth afterwards,
while Sadie followed with Lizette.
"Come down soon and see my baby--and me," she said, as Elizabeth and
Sadie turned off at their own corner, and she went on with Lizette.
Before she could knock at Mrs. Morris's door, it was opened by the old
lady. "I've been watching for you----" she began, and instantly Olga
read the truth in her troubled face.
"My--baby----" she gasped.
"She's gone, dearie--her mother took her away," the old lady said, her
arms about the girl. "I tried to make her wait till you came, but she
wouldn't."
"Gone--for good, you mean?" It was Lizette who questioned.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Morris, "she said so. She said you'd find a note
upstairs. Here's your key. I'm so sorry for you, child--O, so sorry!"
Olga made no reply--she could not find words then. She went slowly up
the stairs, Lizette following. Lighting the gas, she flashed a swift
glance about the room. The note lay on her workbench. She snatched it up
and read:
"I'm going with Dick--he came back a month ago. He says he's
turned over a new leaf, and he's got a job in New York. I've
always wanted to live in New York. Good-bye, Olga--be good to
yourself. Baby sends bye-bye to auntie.
"Sonia."
She handed the note to Lizette, who read it with a scowl. "Well, of all
the----" she began, but a glance from Olga stopped her. "Isn't there
_any_thing I can do?" she begged, her eyes full of tears.
"Nothing, thank you. I'll--I'll brace up as--as soon as I can, Lizette.
Good-night," Olga said gently, and Lizette went away, her honest heart
aching with sympathy for her friend, and Olga was alone in the place
that seemed so appallingly empty because a little child had gone out of
it.
But the next morning when Lizette came in Olga met her with a smile.
"I'm all right," she said. "I miss my baby every minute, but, Lizette, I
mean to be happy in spite of it, and I know you'll help me. Breakfast is
ready--you won't leave me to eat it alone?" Her brave smile brought a
lump into Lizette's throat.
So they dropped back into their old pleasant companionship, and the
girls came more often than before evenings, and Olga threw herself
whole-heartedly into Camp Fire work, seeking opportunities for service.
And the days slipped away and it was Christmas Eve again. Olga had spent
the evening in the Camp Fire room helping to put up greens and trim the
tree. She had a smile and a helping hand for every one, and Laura,
watching her, said to herself, "She is holding her torch high--the dear
child."
But it had not been easy--holding the torch high. On the way home the
reaction came, and Olga was silent. In the merry crowd, however, only
Elizabeth and Lizette noticed her silence, for Laura had sent them all
home in the car, and the swift flight through the snowy streets was
exciting and exhilarating. The others called gay greetings and farewells
as they rolled away, leaving Olga and Lizette on the steps in the
moonlight.
At Lizette's door Olga said good-night and went across to her own room.
Closing the door behind her she dropped into a chair by the window, and
suddenly she realised that she was very tired and O, so lonely! She
longed for the pressure of a little head on her arm--for tiny fingers
curling about hers--she wanted her baby.
"O, why couldn't I keep her? Sonia doesn't care for her--she doesn't!
And I do. I want my baby!" she cried into the night.
But again after a little she caught back her courage. "I'm
ashamed--ashamed!" she said aloud. "I'm not playing fair. I've got to be
happy if I can't have my baby, and I will. But, O, if I were only sure
that she is cared for!"
At that moment there came a low rap on her door. Going to it, she
called, "Who is it? Who is there?" but she did not open the door.
There was no reply, only the sound of soft retreating footsteps.
"Somebody going by," she said, turning away, but as she did so she
thought she heard a little whimpering cry outside. Instantly she flung
the door open, and there in a basket lay her baby.
"It--it _can't_ be!" Olga cried out, incredulous. Then she caught up the
baby and hugged her till the little thing whimpered again, half afraid.
"O, it is--it _is_!" Olga cried. "You blessed darling--if I could only
keep you forever!" Still holding the child close, she snatched up the
basket, shut the door, and lit the gas. In the basket she found a note
from her sister.
"I'm sending back the baby [it read]; I only took her to scare
you--just to pay you off for nagging me so about work. You can
have her now for keeps. Dick doesn't care for children and they
are an awful bother, and you've spoiled this one anyhow, fussing
so over her. I reckon you and I aren't exactly congenial, and I
shan't trouble you any more unless Dick goes back on me again,
and I don't think he will.
"Sonia."
Through the still night air came the sound of bells--Christmas bells
ringing in the Great Day. To Olga they seemed to call softly:
"'Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.'"
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