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by Margaret Vandercook

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Title: The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill

Author: Margaret Vandercook

Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8662]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on July 30, 2003]
[Date last updated: February 4, 2008]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL ***




Produced by John Pobuda




THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL

By Margaret Vandercook

First of a series



CHAPTER I

THE VOICE


Betty Ashton sighed until the leaves of the book she held in her hand
quivered, then she flung it face downward on the floor.

"Oh dear, I do wish some one would invent something new for girls!" she
exclaimed, although there was no one in the room to hear her.  "It seems
to me that all girls do nowadays is to imitate boys.  We play their
games, read their old books and even do their work, when all the time
girls are really wanting girl things.  I agree with King Solomon: 'The
thing that hath been, it is that which, shall be; and that which is done
is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.'
At least not for girls!"

Then with a laugh at her own pessimism, Betty, like Hamlet, having found
relief in soliloquy, jumped up from her chair and crossing her room
pressed the electric button near the fireplace until the noise of its
ringing reverberated through the big, quiet house.

"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered.  Do the
maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire?  I suppose
I could do it if I tried."

She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the
sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually
doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the
next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the glass of her
closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into her
own garden.

Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a
darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their
white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as
though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.

In spite of her petulance Betty laughed.  She was wearing a blue
dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet
ribbon of the same shade.  Her room was in blue, "Betty's Blue" as her
friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but
has soft shadows in it.

Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen.  She had gray eyes, a
short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an
effect of refinement that was almost disdain.  Her mouth was a little
discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though she
had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for
something.

"The outdoors is as dismal as I am, no wonder we used to be sun
worshipers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting; "but since
Prometheus stole the fire from heaven some ages ago, I really don't see
why I should have to freeze because the sun won't shine."

Frowning and gathering her dressing gown more closely about her with
another impatient gesture, Betty swept out into the hall.

The house was strangely silent for the middle of a week-day afternoon;
not a sound came either from below stairs or above, not the rattle of a
window blind nor the echo of a single pair of footsteps.

At some time has a sudden silence ever fallen upon you with a sense of
foreboding like the hour before a storm or the moment preceding some
unexpected news or change in your life?

Betty hurried toward the back-stairs.  She was leaning over the
banisters and had called once for one of the maids, when she ceased
abruptly, and stood still for several moments with her head tilted back
and her body tense with surprise.

So long as Betty could recall, there had been a vacant room in the rear
of the old Ashton homestead, which had stood for more than a hundred
years at the comer of Elm Street in Woodford, New Hampshire.  She was
stupider than other people about remembering the events of her childhood
and yet she was sure that this room had never been used for any purpose
save as a storehouse for old pieces of furniture, for discarded
pictures, for any odds and ends that found no other resting place about
the great house.  It was curious because the room was a particularly
attractive one, with big windows overlooking the back garden, but then
there was some story or other connected with it (old houses have old
memories) and this must have made it unpopular.  Betty did not know what
the story was and yet she had grown up with a queer, childish dread of
this room and rarely went into it unless she felt compelled.

Now, though she was not a coward, it did give her an uncanny sensation
to hear a low, humming sound proceeding from this supposedly empty room.

Cautiously Betty stole toward its closed door and quietly turned the
knob without making the least noise.  Then she looked in.

What transformation had taken place!  The room was a store place no
longer, for most of the old furniture and all the other rubbish had been
cleared away and what was left was arranged in a comfortable, living
fashion.  An old rug was spread out on the floor, a white iron bed stood
in one corner with an empty bookshelf above it.  There was a vase on a
table holding a branch of blossoming pussy willow, and seated before one
of the big, open windows was a strange girl whom Betty Ashton never
remembered to have seen before in her life.

The girl was sewing, but this was not what kept Betty silent.  She was
also singing a new and strangely beautiful song.

"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."

Unconscious of the intruder and forgetful of everything else the
singer's voice rose clearer and sweeter with the second verse.

"In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, O Master of the Hidden Fire, That
when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul's desire."

Then in silence, as she leaned closer to the window to get a better
light on her sewing, an unexpected ray of sunshine managing at this
moment to break through the clouds fell directly on her bowed head.  Her
hair was not auburn, like Betty's, but bright, undeniable red.

"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you mind
telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you happen to
be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton inquired, coolly,
still keeping her position just outside the opened door.

The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown
embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood
with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously
twisting her big, rather coarse-looking hands.  She was a year older
than Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult
to imagine two persons more unlike.  Betty was slender but perfectly
proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which her
friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished ancestors,
while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet that seemed
too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin.  She too had gray eyes, but
while Betty's brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this girl's
were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her eyes.

In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across the
room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her unexpected
charm and dignity.

"Hasn't your mother told you of my coming? didn't she ask you if you
wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly.  "I am sorry; my name is
Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you.  Your mother has
asked me here to live, to take care of your clothes, to read to you, to
take walks when there is no one else--"

"Oh, you mean you are to be my maid," Betty finished, coming now into
the center of the room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes
suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.

"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to
me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to
whether I wished to be bothered with you."  Betty bit her lips, for she
did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was
unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.

The older girl's face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson.
"No, I am not to be your maid," she returned.  "At least Mrs. Ashton
said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in
any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for
studying.  Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I
hope to graduate. If you don't wish me to stay you will please explain
it to your mother, only--"  Esther tried to speak naturally, but her
voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least
until I can find some other place.  I am too old to go back to the
asylum."

"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed,
showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that
relieved her face of some of its former plainness.

"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don't be frightened," she
explained.  "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever
since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there
was nothing else to do with me.  But you need not feel specially sorry,
because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in
books.  Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been
going to school for years.  Only when your mother came last week and
said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of
wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of
all I wanted to know you.  You will think it strange of me, but I have
been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little
girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been
interested in you."

Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an
exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed.  "Oh, you will be sorry
enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably
think I am dreadfully spoiled.  But do please stay for a while if you
wish, at least until we find how we get on together."

Since Betty's first speech at the door had startled her, Esther had
never for a moment taken her eyes from her face.  Never in all her life,
even when she had seen and learned far more of the ways of the world,
could this girl learn not to speak the truth.  So now she slowly shook
her head. "Your mother did say you were spoiled; it was one reason why
she wished me to come here to live," she replied.  "You see, she said
that you had been too much alone and had too much done for you and that
your brother was so much older that he only helped to spoil you. But,"
Esther was hardly conscious of her listener and seemed only to be
thinking aloud, "I shall not mind if you are spoiled, for how can you
help being when you are so pretty and fortunate and have all the things
that other girls have just to dream of possessing."

It was odd, perhaps, but the new girl's speech was made so simply and
sincerely that Betty Ashton instead of feeling angry or complimented was
instead a little ashamed.  Had fortune been kinder to her than to other
girls, kinder than to the awkward girl in front of her in her plain gray
linen dress?

Betty now backed toward the door which she had so lately opened.  "I am
sorry to have disturbed you, but usually this room isn't occupied and I
was curious to know who could be in here.  I should have knocked.  Some
day you must sing that lovely song to me, again, for I think I would
like very much to know just what my soul's desire is.  The worst of life
is not knowing just what you want."

Esther had followed Betty toward the hall.  "How funny that sounds to
me," she returned shyly, "because I think the hard part of life is not
having what you want.  I know very well.  But can't I do something for
you now? Your mother said you were not well and perhaps would not wish
to see me this afternoon, but I could read to you or--"

Betty's irritability returned.  "Thank you very much," she returned
coldly, "but I can think of nothing in the world that would amuse me at
present.  I simply wish not to freeze, and to save my life I can't get
one of our tiresome maids to answer my bell."

Betty's grand manner had returned, but in spite of her haughtiness the
newcomer persisted.  "Do let me make the fire for you. I am only a wood-
gatherer at present, but pretty soon I shall be a real fire-maker, for I
have already been working for two months."

"A wood-gatherer and fire-maker; what extraordinary things a girl was
forced to become at an orphan asylum!"  Betty's sympathies were
immediately aroused and her cheeks burned with resentment at the sudden
vision of this girl at her side trudging through the woods, her back
bent under heavy burdens.  No wonder her shoulders stooped and her hands
were coarse.  Betty slipped her arm through the stranger's.

"No, I won't trouble you to make my fire, but do come into my room and
let us just talk.  None of my friends have been in to see me this
afternoon, not even the faithless Polly!  They are too busy getting
ready for the end of school to think about poor, ill me."  And Betty
laughed gayly at the untruthfulness of this picture of herself.

Once inside the blue room, without asking permission, Esther knelt
straightway down before the brass andirons and with deft fingers placed
a roll of twisted paper under a lattice-like pile of kindling, arranging
three small pine logs in a triangle above it.  But before setting a
match to the paper she turned toward the other girl hovering about her
like a butterfly.

"I wonder if you would like me to recite the fire-maker's song?" she
asked.  "I haven't the right to say it yet, but it is so lovely that I
would like you to hear it."

Betty stared and laughed.  "Do fire-makers have songs?" she demanded.
"How queer that sounds!  Perhaps the Indians used to have fire songs
long ago when a fire really meant so much.  But I can't imagine a maid's
chanting a song before one's fire in the morning and I don't think I
should like being wakened up by it."

"You would like this one," the other girl persisted.

Little yellow spurts of flame were now creeping forth from between the
sticks, some leaping away into nothingness, others curling and enfolding
them.  The paper in the grate crackled noisily as the cold May wind
swept down the chimney with a defiant roar and both girls silently
watched the newly kindled fire with the fascination that is eternal.

Betty had also dropped down on her knees.  "What is your song?" she
asked curiously an instant later, raising her hands before her face to
let the firelight shine through.

Esther's head was bent so that her face could not be seen, but the
beauty of her speech was reflected in the other girl's changing
expression.

"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."

Purposely Esther's voice dropped with these last words, and she did not
continue until a hand was placed gently on her shoulder and a voice
urged: "Please go on; what is the 'fire of humankind'?"

"For I will tend As my fathers have tended And my fathers' fathers Since
time began, The fire that is called The love of man for man, The love of
man for God."

At the end, Esther glancing around at the girl beside her was surprised
to see a kind of mist over her gray eyes.

But Betty laughed as she got up to her feet and going over to her table
stooped to pick up the book she had thrown on the floor half an hour
before.

"I might have made my own fire if I had known that song," she said,
switching on the electric light under the rose-colored shade.  For the
clouds outside had broken at last, the rain was pouring and the blue
room save for the firelight would have been in darkness.

Betty sat down, putting her feet under her and resting her chin on her
hands.  "I wonder what it feels like to be useful?" she asked, evidently
questioning herself, for afterwards she turned toward her companion.
"You must have learned a great many things by being brought up at an
orphan asylum, how to care for, other people and all that, but I never
would have dreamed that poetry would have played any part in your
education."

Esther had turned and was about to leave the room, but now at Betty's
words, she looked at her strangely.

Her face had reddened again and because of the intensity of her feelings
her big hands were once more pressed nervously together.

"Why, no, I never learned anything at the asylum but work," she answered
slowly, "just dull, hateful, routine work; doing the same things over
again every day in the same way, cooking and washing dishes and
scrubbing.  I suppose I was being useful, but there isn't much fun in
being useful when nobody cares or seems to be helped by what you do.  I
know I am ugly and not clever, but I love beautiful people and,
beautiful things."

Unconsciously her glance traveled from her listener's face to the small
piano in the corner of the room.  "And it never seemed to me that
things, were divided quite fairly in this world, but now that I know
about the Camp Fire Girls I am ever so much happier."

"Camp Fire Girls?" Betty queried.  "Do sit down, child, I don't wish you
to leave me, and please don't say horrid things about yourself, for it
isn't polite and you never can tell how things are going to turn out.
But who are the Camp Fire Girls; what are the Camp Fire Girls; are they
Indians or Esquimaux or the fire-maidens in 'The Nibelungen'?  Perhaps,
after all, something new has been invented for girls, and a little while
ago I felt as discouraged as King Solomon and believed there was nothing
new and nothing worth while under the sun."

Betty's eyes were dancing with fun and anticipation, her bored look had
entirely disappeared, but the other girl evidently took her question
seriously.  She had seated herself in a small desk chair and kept her
eyes fixed on the fire.  "It seems very queer to me that you don't know
about the 'Camp Fire Girls'," she answered slowly, "and it may take me a
long time to tell you even the little bit I know, but I think it the
most splendid thing that has ever happened."




CHAPTER II

"METHINKS YOU ARE MY GLASS"


Just across the street from the old Ashton place was another house
equally old and yet wholly unlike it, for instead of being a stately,
well-kept-up mansion with great rooms and broad halls and half an acre
of garden about it, this was a cottage of the earliest New England type.
It was low and rambling, covering a good deal of ground and yet without
any porch and very little yard, because as the village closed about it
and Elm Street became a fashionable quarter the land had been gradually
sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet from the
front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its parlor
windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield.  By immemorial
custom the cottage had always been painted white and green, but for a
good many years it had not been troubled by any paint at all, "but had
lived," as Polly said, "on its past, and like a good many persons in
Woodford had gotten considerably run down by the process."

Now there were no lights at any of the front windows, although it was
eight o'clock in the evening, but as the warm steady glow of a lamp
shone from the rear of the house, it was plainly occupied.

There was no doubt of this in the mind of the girl who stood knocking
noisily at the closed door, saying in an imploring voice:

"Oh, do please hurry, Polly dear, you know it is only me and that I
can't bear to be kept waiting."

At this moment a candle was evidently being borne down the hall, for the
door opened so quickly afterwards that two girls, one on either side the
door, fell into, one another's arms.

"Dear me, it's 'The Princess' and she is no more ill than I am, though
we were told she couldn't possibly be at school to-day on account of her
ill health," the girl on the inside spoke first, recovering her breath.
"I suppose royal persons may lie abed and nurse their dispositions,
while poor ones have to keep on washing dishes.  But come on into the
kitchen, Betty, we are in there to-night and I haven't yet finished my
chores."

She led the way with the candle down the shabby hall until both girls
entered the lighted room.  There, with a little cry of surprise, Betty
ran over and dropped down on her knees by the side of a lounge.

The woman on the lounge was not so large as the girl, although her brown
hair showed a good deal of gray and her face looked tired and worn.  She
had been holding a magazine in her hands, but evidently had not been
reading, for her eyes had turned from the girl, who stood only a few
feet away from her drying some cups and saucers, to the two others who
had just come in, without an instant's delay.

"I am quite all right, dear," she answered the newcomer, "only the
kitchen seemed so warm and cozy after the wet day and I was tired."

Betty was too familiar with the lovely, old-fashioned kitchen of her
dearest friends even to think about it, but to-night she did look about
her for a moment.

The room was the largest in the cottage; the walls were of oak so dark a
brown from age that they were almost black; there were heavy rafters
across the ceiling and swinging from them bunches of dried, sweet-
smelling herbs. The windows had broad sills filled with pots of red
geraniums and ground ivy, and as they were wide open the odor of the
wet, spring earth outside mingled with the aromatic fragrance of the
flowers.

An old stove was set deep into the farthest wall with a Dutch oven at
one side and above it a high, severely plain mantel holding a number of
venerable pots and pans of pewter and copper and two tall, copper
candlesticks.  The candles were lighted, as the room was too large for
the single light of the lamp on the table near the lounge.

Polly O'Neill had gone straight to her sister and putting both hands on
her shoulders had pushed her steadily back inch by inch until she forced
her into a large armchair.

"Mollie Mavourneen, you know I hate washing dishes like an owl does the
day light, but I am not going to let you do my work and to-night you
know the agreeable task of cleaning up belongs to me.  I asked you to
leave things alone when I went to the door and I don't think you play
fair."  Polly seized a cup with such vehemence that it slipped from her
hand and crashed onto the floor, but neither her mother nor Mollie
showed the least sign of surprise and only Betty's eyes widened with
understanding.

Strangers always insisted that there were never twin sisters in the
world so exactly alike as Mollie and Polly O'Neill (not that their names
had ever been intended to rhyme in this absurd fashion, for they had
started quite sensibly, as Mary and Pauline), but to the friends who
knew them both well this idea was absurd.  It was true they were of the
same height and their hair and eyes of the same color, their noses and
mouths of somewhat the same shape, but with these superficial likenesses
the resemblance ended. Anybody should have been able to see that in each
detail Polly was the more intense; her hair was blacker and longer, her
eyes bluer, her cheek bones a little higher with brighter color and her
chin and delicate nose a trifle longer and more pointed.  Of the two
girls, however, Mollie was the prettier because her features were more
regular and her expression more serene; but once under the spell of her
sister, one never thought much of her appearance.

Polly had a temperament and she was having an attack of it to-night; the
room was fairly electric with it.  From some far off Irish ancestor she
must have inherited it, for though her father had been an Irishman and
had spent forty out of the fifty years of his life in Ireland, he had
quite a different disposition and had been as amazed by Polly in her
babyhood as the rest of her family.

Captain O'Neill had resigned from the English army eighteen years before
and crossed the ocean to spend a few years in the neighborhood of the
White Mountains on account of his health; he had no more money than most
Irish gentlemen, but had charming manners, was extremely handsome and
had soon fallen in love and married a girl twenty years younger than
himself.  Mary Poindexter had been the girl most loved in Woodford, one
of its belles and heiresses, but her money had not amounted to much and
soon disappeared after her marriage, until now she had only the cottage
in which she and her daughters lived and the income earned by her work
as private secretary to Mr. Edward Wharton of "The Wharton Granite Co."
Captain O'Neill had lived only until his twin daughters were eight years
old and since then the girls and their mother had kept up their small
home together.

"You are dead tired and Polly is cross as two sticks and poor Mollie
does not know what to do with you.  Would you rather I should go away?
I only came to tell you something wonderful," Betty whispered in Mrs.
O'Neill's ear.

The older woman shook her head.  "No, you have come just at the right
time. I am not very tired, only my daughters chose to think so and
wouldn't let me help with dinner and so, as I am an obedient, well
brought-up mother, I am doing as I am told.  And Polly is not in a bad
humor, at least I hope--"

The girl, who had been picking up the bits of broken china from the
kitchen floor, now straightened up and for the first time Betty
discovered that she must have been crying a short while before.

"Oh, yes, I am anything you may like to call me," Polly announced
indifferently, "and I am not in the least ashamed to have 'The Princess'
know it.  If Betty had to stand all the things I have stood to-day, she
would be in a far worse humor.  She and I are not angels like Mary and
Mollie, so I suppose that is the reason why we love one another part of
the time and hate one another the rest.  I am sure I never pretend not
to being dreadfully envious of 'The Princess'."

Polly came over and sat down cross-legged on the old rug near her mother
and best friend, and though she smiled a little to remove the sting from
her words, something in her expression kept Betty from answering at
once. In the meantime Mollie joined the group, taking her place at the
foot of the lounge.

The three girls were nearly the same age and the closest friends, and
Betty probably spent nearly as much of her waking time, at the cottage
as she did in her own home, for whenever she was lonely or bored, or,
tired perhaps of having too much done for her, she had been used to run
across the street to play or work with her friends from the time they
were children.  Mrs. O'Neill had never seemed very much older than her
daughters and had always been called "Mary" by the three girls.

Now Betty reached over and laid one and lightly on Polly.  "Don't say we
hate no another just because we quarrel now and then and both have bad
tempers.  I never hate Polly, do I Mary?"

But before Mrs. O'Neill could answer, Polly suddenly faced fiercely
about. "I hate you to-night, Betty," she insisted, and then to make her
words entirely unlike her actions, slipped one arm around her friend.
"Oh, you know that I don't really mean I hate you, I only mean that I am
horribly envious and jealous of your having all the money you want and
being able to do things without worry, not just things for yourself, but
things for other people."  And Polly bit her lips and ceased speaking,
both because of the note of warning in her mother's face and because the
brightness had died away from Betty's.

"I wish you would understand, Polly, that just having things does not
necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor
and to have to help like you and Mollie do.  This afternoon I was
feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one
came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber
there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too
homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful that
it sounds almost like a fairy tale.  I talked of it to father at dinner
and then rushed over to tell you, as I thought you might be interested,
but perhaps I had better wait--"

From the foot of the lounge Mollie O'Neill now interrupted.  Utterly
unlike either her sister or friend in her disposition, her influence
often held them together.

"We do want to hear what you have to tell us, Betty, most dreadfully.
Just because we happen to be specially worried about something to-night
is no reason why Polly should be so mysterious.  I vote we tell you what
our trouble is and then you tell us your secret."

Polly got up from the floor.  She was always curiously intense, not
deliberately, but perhaps as a part of her inheritance.  Now she made a
little bow to Betty.  "I am sorry I was rude to you, Princess," she said
gently, "but tell you the reason for my special tirade against poverty
to-night, I will not and Mollie shall not tell either."

Without replying Betty turned to pick up her blue cloak which had
dropped from her shoulders as she knelt by the lounge.  It had a cap
attached with a blue silk lining and this she slipped over her head.

"It isn't worth while for me to talk of my plan to-night, then," she
returned, "for if Polly won't be interested, you and, I could never make
a go of it by ourselves, Mollie.  Good-night; I promised not to stay
very long."  Passing by the lounge Mrs. O'Neill reached out, slipping
her hand in Betty's and drew her to a place beside her.  Usually a girl
with the three other girls there was now and then a note in Mrs.
O'Neill's voice which they seldom failed to recognize.

"Mollie is right, as Betty is almost one of our family, it is only fair
to tell her what has put Polly in her present mood.  The truth is, dear,
the doctor thinks I am not very well and am needing a rest, so I am
being made to lie down every evening after my work, by my daughters, and
I am sure when warm weather comes I shall be all right again."

"You won't," Polly interrupted, "and if that is all you mean to tell
Betty, why I shall certainly tell her everything now you have started."

Polly went on quickly, with two bright spots of color in her cheeks:
"Resting in the evenings is not going to help mother; Dr. Hawkes says
she needs months and months of rest and unless she has it she will soon
be having a nervous breakdown or something else; that working for nearly
eight years in an office supporting herself and two daughters is enough
to tire any woman out.  Then to-day a wonderful invitation came from my
father's relatives, who have never paid the least attention to us
before, asking mother to spend the summer with them in Ireland, and--"

Betty's hands were clapped eagerly together as she concluded, "So you
are going to accept and Polly's blue at the thought of being separated
from you, but really I can't see any reason why I should not have been
told of this."

Instead of replying, Polly frowned and Mrs. O'Neill shook her head, so
the explanation fell to Mollie.  "No, mother is not going to accept;
that is what the trouble is and that is why Polly and I sometimes feel
cross with you, Betty, because rich people never seem to be able to
understand about poor ones.  You do what you like without thinking of
the money, and we can't do anything we like without thinking of it.
Mother feels she can't afford to go."

Looking almost as depressed as her two friends, Betty now turned her
back deliberately on both girls to whisper in the older woman's ear.

"Oh, Mary, won't you, can't you; you know how happy it would make us."
But she knew her answer even before it was given and also understood
that Polly's pride would never have agreed to let her mother accept any
favor through her.  Indeed, never in all the long years of their
friendship had Betty ever dared do half the things she longed to do for
her two friends, and indeed Mrs. Ashton often said that Betty accepted
far more than she was able to return, since she spent so much of her
time in Mrs. O'Neill's home.

"You are awfully foolish, Mary," Betty argued, "because if you should
really get ill--"

"That is just what I have been saying, Betty dear, for the past two
hours," Polly protested, forgetting the difference between herself and
her friend and edging close enough to the lounge to lay her head in, the
other girl's lap.  "And the worst of it is, Mr. Wharton says mother can
have the holiday, he will pay her salary while she is away, and she only
won't go because she says she can't leave Mollie and me alone and can't
afford to pay any one to look after us.  It is so foolish, when we are
old enough to be taking care of her!  I suppose she wouldn't be afraid
to leave Mollie, it is just me!  Sometimes it does not seem quite fair
to be born a twin, because see how things are put into Mollie divided,
all the good got and all the bad into me; so I suppose mother thinks I
would set the house on fire or run away and go on the stage as I
sometimes threaten, so soon as her back was turned.  Oh, Mavourneen
darling of the world, the very name of Lake Killarney, where our cousins
live, would make you well."

But again Polly stopped talking because Betty had seized her by both
shoulders, giving her a decided shake.  "Say it again to me quickly.  Is
it just because Mary does not know what to do with you and Mollie that
she won't go away?"

And both sisters nodded silently.

With a cry of what sounded like delight, Betty rose hurriedly to her
feet, letting the blue cloak slip away from her for the second time.

Then dancing across the kitchen she seized the two tall candlesticks
from the mantelpiece and setting them down in the center of the floor
afterwards added the third, with which Polly had lighted their way
through the hall. Above them she made a mystic sign by flattening the
fingers of her right hand against those of her left, while slowly she
revolved about them chanting: "Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo, in you lies the
answer to all our difficulties," to the entire amazement of her small
audience.




CHAPTER III

"WORK, HEALTH AND LOVE"


"Much learning hath made her mad," sighed Polly mournfully, Betty being
a notoriously poor student.

Mollie was staring thoughtfully at their visitor.  "That is an Indian
folk dance; perhaps Betty is pretending to be Pocahontas," she
suggested, with such an evident attempt to explain away her friend's
eccentricities that Betty stopped in her dance to laugh, and Polly and
Mrs. O'Neill followed suit.

"I am not mad and I am not playing at being Pocahontas, but as usual
Mollie is nearer right than her sister Polly because there is a good
deal about the Indians in what I want to tell you." Betty sat down
before the three shining candles and taking a little stick from the pile
of wood near by she pointed it at her third candle.  "You are to guess
what my strange word, 'Wohelo' means.  No, it is not an Indian, word,
although it sounds like it. Mary, you begin by taking the last syllable
first.  What is the greatest thing in the world?"

Mrs. O'Neill, some minutes before, had risen half way up from her lounge
and was leaning her head on her arm, while she watched Betty's curious
proceedings.  "The greatest thing in the world?" she repeated softly.
"Far wiser persons than I found the answer to that question many years
ago.  The greatest thing in the world is love."

Betty nodded.  "Now, Polly, you may have the next guess, though you are
sure to say the wrong thing.  What is the next greatest thing to love?"

Polly shrugged her thin shoulders, her face still moody in spite of her
recently awakened interest.  "Oh, I told you the answer to that question
when you first came into this room, Betty Ashton, though none of you
chose to believe me.  It is plain as a pipe-stem to me that wealth is
the next best thing to love and sometimes it is better when you happen
to love the wrong thing--or person."

"It rhymes with wealth but begins with the letter 'h'," the questioner
returned hastily, too much in earnest to waste further time in argument.
"Now, Mollie, you have the third turn, remember you are to decide what
the first syllable stands for, 'Wo'."

For a few seconds the third girl hesitated, her cheeks flushing
uncomfortably.  Not so quick or clever with her tongue as Polly and
Betty she was far more gifted with her fingers.  "I am sure I don't know
what you mean," she replied.  "'Wo' is the beginning of the word
'woman', but you can't mean woman.  I know you and Polly think books of
plays and novels the greatest things in the world, but I don't and
besides I can't find the right word for them.  You know what I really
like best is just cooking and cleaning up and putting flowers on the
table, stupid household things that can't have anything to do with your
wonderful word."  And Mollie looked so apologetic for her own domestic
tastes that her mother took both her hands and held them tight.

"For goodness' sake, Mollie dear, even in these days of the advanced
female it is still something to be proud of, to have real womanly
tastes.  Because some women go out into the world is no reason why they
should lose their womanly instincts.  What we are all working for, both
men and women, is really just the making of a home, a big or a little
one.  I don't know myself what word Betty is searching for, but I do
believe these very things that you like best come very close to my own
guess.  For if love is the greatest thing in the world, the making of a
home to shelter it is most important.  I have an idea that love would
come to a tragic end if, when it returned home to dinner, Polly should
meet it in the character of Ophelia, with wild flowers in her hair,
offering it rosemary and rue for dinner instead of meat and vegetables."

Again the audience laughed because of Polly's well-known devotion to the
drama and because if she were left alone to look after the cooking, her
mother and Mollie often returned to find her poring over her recitations
with the dinner burning on the stove.

"If mother is going to preach a sermon with me for a text, Betty's
candles will sputter and die out before ever she explains her word,"
Polly suggested.

"Oh, the word is 'work'; Mollie wasn't so far wrong, though work may
mean different things to different people.  Wohelo means 'Work, Health
and Love'," Betty explained quickly, still keeping her eyes on the
candle flames.

But Polly rising from her place slipped over and took Betty by both
shoulders.

"Elizabeth Ashton, more commonly known as 'The Princess,' Bettina or
Betty, will you kindly explain yourself?  No doubt those are three
estimable things you are recommending to us, but please tell me how
Work, Health and Love are going to solve our present difficulties and
help mother get the rest she needs.  It seems to me she has given us too
much of the first and last of your watchword already and has too little
of the middle thing left in consequence."

Betty's long lashes swept her cheeks in a tantalizing fashion and her
color deepened as, clasping her hands over her knees, she began slowly
swaying back and forth, her eyes fastened on Polly.

"I am dreadfully long in coming to my point," she confessed, "but it is
such fun to keep you guessing and I do so want you to be interested.
You see, I suppose you know about the Camp Fire Girls, everybody seems
to have heard except me, but now 'That light which has been given to me,
I desire to pass undimmed to others.'  Will you, won't you, will you,
won't you be a Camp Fire Girl?"  Her manner, which had been a queer
combination of fun and seriousness, now at last appeared entirely grave.
"Mollie and Polly," she continued quietly, "You know how often we have
talked lately of being dissatisfied, of feeling that here we are growing
older and older every day and yet not learning half the things we ought
to learn nor having half the fun we ought to have.  Of course we read
novels all the time, because it is the only way for nice girls to learn
about romance or adventure, but we would like really to live the things
we think about just the same as boys do.  They don't dream and scold
about the things they want to do; they go ahead and do them, teaching
one another by working things out together. They belong to things and
don't just have to have things belong to them' to make them happy like
girls do."

"Hear, hear!" cried Polly, not exactly seeing what Betty was driving at
and desiring to tease her into greater confusion.

But as Mrs. O'Neill shook her head encouragingly, Betty would not deign
to consider her tormentor.

"Oh, it is foolish for me to try to explain all the Camp Fire idea
means," she added simply.  "I couldn't if I tried, for Esther Clark, the
strange girl who has been living at the asylum and has just come to our
house, only told me what she knew this afternoon.  But I want to find
out by living the Camp Fire idea, I want to see what we could get out of
forming a Camp Fire Club, the first one here in Woodford.  Just take
Polly and Mollie and me, for example, Mary dear," she continued
coaxingly.  "I am longing to know the things Mollie does about cooking
and housekeeping and all the rest and I can't learn at home.  Think what
it means to go messing about in our kitchen with, cook and half a dozen
servants laughing at you!  Then Mollie really would like to know what
Polly and I find so fascinating in books and in prowling about together
in the woods and Polly--well, I don't know that she wishes to learn
anything from Mollie or me or anybody else who joins our club, but if
she doesn't, that is just what she ought to learn."

Polly held up both hands.  "For goodness sake, Betty, stop talking, I
will join your Camp Fire Club and be made an example of at any time,
also I will use my noble influence to persuade any girls you wish to
join.  All the same I don't see what your wretched club has to do with
helping us solve our problem about mother, and that is all I care about
at present."

"Has to do,--why everything," Betty repeated slowly.  But before she was
able to finish her sentence there was a sudden loud ringing of the front
door bell and the three girls jumped to their feet.  In another moment
Polly had disappeared into the hall, returning with her expression
changed again to its original look of gloom.

"It's that granite man, mother, Mr. Wharton, with his entire family, son
and daughter.  I wonder why they can't leave you alone after business
hours?  I had to ask them in the parlor, since we can't entertain any
one in the kitchen except 'The Princess,' but we simply can't join you
until we hear what she has to say."

Polly sighed as her mother rose without replying and left the room, and
Betty did he her best to hide her smiles, for everybody in Woodford
believed that Mrs. O'Neill's employer had more than a friendly interest
in her, and though Polly constantly railed at their poverty and Mr.
Wharton was the richest man in the village, the very sound of his name
used often to irritate her.

The candles had at last burned down to their sockets and softly Betty
blew out the last flickering flames.  With a nod of understanding Mollie
turned down the lighted lamp and after a fashion of many years the three
girls drew three little old fashioned rockers in a semicircle up before
the kitchen fire.

"My plan is to form our Camp Fire Club of just the right girls and to
have just the right guardian and then to spend our whole summer camping
in the woods," Betty explained quickly at last.  "You see I don't want
to go to Europe with mother and father this summer one bit, I am dead
tired of hotels and sights.  So at dinner to-night I talked over the
Camp Fire plan with father and though mother wasn't enthusiastic I could
see father didn't think it in the least a bad idea, so I am sure he will
give us the camping outfit if I beg very hard and we can all share
expenses afterwards.  Can't you understand that if Mary lets you spend
your summer in camp she can go away and rest and think no more about you
and we can have such a wonderful time."

In the half darkness Polly danced a shadow dance and then flung her arms
about her friend.  "Oh, Princess, I might have known you were as clever
as 'Sentimental Tommy' and would surely 'find a wa'.  I am sure mother
will think it a beautiful plan for us.  Just to live among the trees and
the stars and hear the birds sing, and tell stories about our own camp
fire and to sing."

"Yes, and to do our own cooking and cleaning and wood gathering and a
thousand other practical things," laughed Betty, to stop Polly's
rhapsodizing.  "But the truly important part of our scheme is to find
congenial girls for our club and the right guardian."

"There are four of us already," Mollie suggested.

Betty appeared surprised.  "Just you and Polly and me; what fourth girl
do you mean?"

As Mollie did not answer at once, a low whistle came from between
Polly's closed lips.  "Do you mean, Princess, that you do not intend to
invite the girl who told you about the Camp Fire Club, Esther Clark?  I
know her by sight at school."

Betty frowned.  "Certainly I had not meant to include her; she does not
belong to our set.  I don't mean to be rude, but she has been raised in
an orphan asylum and nobody knows who she is.  I suppose she comes of
some very common family."

"Common families sometimes produce very uncommon characters," Polly
returned dryly.  "And s-n-o-b spells snob, but not Betty, I hope.  I
wish you wouldn't think so much about 'family', Princess; I do believe
we ought to judge people by what they are themselves and not by what
their ancestors have been."

With a quick movement Betty half overturned her chair.  "Good-night,"
she said, "we can talk things over to-morrow.  I promised not to be too
late to-night.  It isn't that I really mind having Esther in our club,
only we don't know her very well and it seems most important that we
should all be congenial."

But Betty could not move toward the door because her skirts were held
fast. "If you go now I shall cry my eyes out all night," Polly protested
in a tone that was almost convincing.  "It was horrid of me, darling, to
tell you the truth and me Irish and believin' in the blarney stone," she
apologized in her Pollyesque fashion.  "Please never, never tell me the
truth about myself and have anybody in your club you like.  Only if you
expect to have twelve girls who exactly agree you will have to leave
both you and me out to start with."

Betty laughed, only half appeased, but Mollie was speaking quietly and
because she talked less frequently than the other two girls they usually
paused to listen to her.

"I think the more unlike we girls are the more fun we will have and the
more we will help one another," she suggested.  "But, Betty, do you know
who has started this Camp Fire idea in Woodford and who knows just what
we ought to do?"

Betty groaned.  "Who else could it be, my dear, but my arch-enemy, the
person I like least and who likes me even less in all this village.  Ah,
is anything ever perfect in this life?  Martha McMurtry, the science
teacher at the high school, who will certainly cause me to remain in the
sophomore class another year unless I learn something more than what H2O
means, is the only woman Esther could suggest."

The sisters laughed, since Betty's battles with this teacher had kept
things lively.

"You poor dear, we can't have her for our guardian," Polly insisted
sympathetically.  "Can you imagine such a prim, scientific old maid ever
understanding anything of the beauty and romance of life in the woods?
I would like Titania, Queen of the Fairies, to be our only chaperon."

Before the other girls could dispute the absurdity of Polly's final
suggestion, the kitchen door opened and Mrs. O'Neill returned looking
unusually cross.  "Why didn't you join me, you wicked children?" she
said reproachfully.  "Mr. Wharton came to ask me, since I was not going
away, to look after his little girl this summer.  He has to leave on
some business trip and as Frank is to camp in the woods, there was
nothing for the poor man to do with Sylvia.  I hope you won't mind very
much, for I have promised to take care of her."

"Sylvia!" The three voices made a dismal chorus.

"That stupid, ill-mannered child!  I am sorry, dear, but you are not
going to look after anything or anybody this summer but yourself.  You
see you are sailing for Ireland in a few weeks and we are going to live
in the woods and be taken care of by our old mother earth and our
father, the sun," Polly replied dramatically.

"You are talking nonsense, Polly; please don't be tiresome any more
to-night," Mrs. O'Neill urged, lying down on the sofa again, as though
she were too weary to be up another minute.  "I can't discuss the matter
with you, but Mr. Wharton has been too kind for me to refuse him this
request."

Betty found her blue cloak again and softly slipped over to kiss the
older woman good-night.  "Don't worry, what Polly told you is true, but
Sylvia shall be looked after just the same."

She slipped away, Polly following to watch her safely across the street
as she always did.  Outdoors the girls stood silent for a moment looking
up at the beauty of the night.  The stars were shining and the warmth
the day had failed to bring to the earth had been followed by some
unseen messenger of the night.

"You are going to include that hateful child in your Camp Fire Club
after what I said to you, Betty?" Polly whispered.  "Oh, if only her
name wasn't Sylvia and she didn't have a snub nose and wear goggles I
could forgive her.  But think how absurd the combination is!  Anyhow you
are a dear, and it must be because I am Irish that I am always in the
wrong."




CHAPTER IV

"MEG"


Thump, thump, thump came the sound of a heavy object rolling slowly step
by step down a long stairway and then after an interval of ten seconds a
prolonged, ear-piercing roar.

Immediately a girl darted out of a room on the second floor of a pretty
brick house, colliding with a young man several years older, who came
forth at the same time from his own room across the hall.

"Great Scott, Meg, what are you doing only half-dressed at this hour of
the day?" he demanded with brotherly contempt.

"We will discuss my costume or lack of it later," she returned, holding
her short flannel dressing sacque together and laughing over her
shoulder where one long blond plait hung neatly braided, the rest of her
hair falling loose.  "Methinks that was Horace Virgil Everett trying to
break up the furniture somewhere!  Was there ever such an infant born
into this suffering world?  I simply never turn my back without his
getting into fresh trouble."

While she was talking she was also running downstairs, followed in a
more leisurely manner by her brother.  Both of them glanced into the
empty library and untidy dining-room as they passed and finally arrived
in a dark passageway at the end of the back stairs.

A small object lay on the floor with its arms and legs outspread,
showing not the slightest inclination to pick itself up, and on Meg's
bending over it the wails broke out afresh.

"Oh, do shut up, 'Bumps'," Jack Everett said good-naturedly.  "You
haven't killed yourself and you're much too big for Meg to carry."

But the small boy clung desperately to his sister, his fat arms about
her neck and his legs about her waist until with difficulty she was able
to get him upstairs and into her own room.

He was probably about three feet high and almost as broad, between three
and four years old, with brown hair that would stand up in a pompadour
simply because it was too stiff to lie down, a perfectly insignificant
nose, a Cupid's bow of a mouth and two large grave blue eyes, as
innocent of mischief as any lamb's.

At the present moment, however, his eyes were simply raining tears, as
though they had their source in a cloudburst, and over one of them a
bump appeared as large as an egg.  Indeed, Horace Virgil, named for his
Professor father's favorite Latin poets, had been rechristened 'Bumps'
by his older brother and was more commonly known by that title.

Meg kept glancing at the clock as she dampened her small brother's
forehead with witch hazel.  "I am afraid I can't go," she said in a
disappointed tone, "and I am dreadfully sorry because I promised.  But
if I leave Horace with the servants now he will howl himself ill.  I
don't suppose you were going to stay in for a few hours.  Oh, of course
not!" she concluded, seeing that her older brother was wearing his khaki
service uniform and held a big, broad-brimmed hat in his hand.  "Heigh-
ho, don't I wish I were a boy," she sighed whimsically, turning at last
toward her mirror, decorated with college flags, and beginning to braid
the second half of her hair.

John Everett, frowned and fidgeted.  "I am sorry, Meg," he replied after
a moment.  "I would stay at home, only there is a meeting of my brigade
and when a fellow belongs to a thing why he owes it some of his time.  I
don't see why you have to stay at home so much.  Of course it is a good
deal for a girl to have to look after, a house and father and the kid
and me, but you have two maids and if you only were a better manager.
Why you don't seem even to take time to dress like other girls, you are
always kind of flying apart with a button off your waist or the braid
torn on your skirt, and I do love a spick and span girl.  Why don't you
look like Betty Ashton, she's always up to the limit?"

Margaret Everett coiled her yellow plaits about her head, keeping her
back turned to hide the trembling of her lips until she was able to
answer cheerfully.  "Why yes, I should like to look like 'The Princess'
and wear clothes like she does, but in the first place I am not so good
looking as Betty, I haven't a maid to see after my clothes and fifty
dollars a month to dress on--and I haven't a mother."

Jack Everett flushed.  He was a splendid looking fellow, big and brown,
with light hair of almost the same coppery tones as his sister's, and
although but eighteen was nearly six feet tall.  It was his last year at
the Male High School of which his father was President, and already he
had passed with high honors his entrance examinations for Dartmouth
College.

"Oh, I say, Meg, don't pile it on," he protested.  "You are handsome
enough all right, and it was only on your own account that I was wishing
you could run things better."

Meg had evidently given up the idea of her engagement by this time, for
she had seated herself in a big chair with her small brother on her lap
and was rocking him slowly back and forth, his head resting on her
shoulder.

"You are right, Jack, I am not offended," she answered.  "I know I am a
poor manager, but somehow I don't just take to housekeeping and
mothering naturally.  Men always think girls know such things by
instinct.  They don't understand that we have to learn them just as boys
learn bookkeeping or office work and I have never had any one to teach
me."

"The late Miss Everett," a new voice called unexpectedly, apparently
coming from about midway up the front steps.  "Meg, may I come on
upstairs, the front door was half open and I knew full well that you
would never keep your promise to me unless I came and got you."

Meg put down her small burden hastily and John unconsciously stiffened
his broad shoulders until his appearance was more than ever military.

"Come on up, Betty dear, I am sorry I am such a sight, but the baby has
just gotten hurt and I have to give up the club meeting," Meg called
back.

The next instant Betty Ashton appeared at the open bedroom door, wearing
a light woolen motor coat, a blue hat with a red-brown wing in it
fitting close over her hair which was tucked up out of sight in a very
grown-up fashion.  She had a great deal of color and her eyes were
bright with desire.

"Oh, you can't disappoint me, Meg; I shall never forgive you," she
protested, and then came to a sudden stop seeing that John Everett was
also in her friend's room.  But as he bowed low to her it was impossible
for him to have observed her slight blush.

"Do take Meg with you by force, Miss Ashton," he urged.  (It was always
quite thrilling to Betty at fifteen to be called "Miss Ashton," and no
other boy of her acquaintance seemed to realize that one could grow out
of being addressed as "Betty".)  "She spoils the small boy and all the
rest of us far too much.  'Bumps' has just taken another tumble."  Jack
Everett then backed out of the room in soldierly fashion and at the
instant of his disappearance Betty tucked her arms about the small
Horace, critically surveying his injured eye.

"Do hurry and get dressed, Meg, that's a dear.  You know we simply can't
get on without you this afternoon.  I will button you up in a jiffy and
we can take this bumptious little person along with us.  He will
probably escape and fall down somewhere while we are having our meeting,
but we can both keep our eyes on him."

"He would be too much trouble," Meg demurred, but already she was
surveying her only clean shirt waists, a blue and a white one, to see
which was in the better state of repair.  The blue was faded but whole,
so she slipped into it, letting Betty button it up the back, and then
with her brother's words still rankling in her mind carefully adjusted
her skirt at, the belt. "You are awfully good to let me come this
afternoon, Betty, because I told you it would be just impossible for me
to spend the summer with you girls as it would be for me to take a trip
to the moon.  John is going camping and father is to have a summer
lecture course in Boston and--"

"Oh yes, and you are to stay at home and take care of this house and
baby! I don't think it is fair, or that your father or brother in the
least realize what you do for them.  But see here, dear, if what I
thinks is true, as my old nurse used to say, and you come to be a Camp
Fire girl this summer, why you will learn an awful lot about keeping
house and being first aid to broken babies and everything you need to
know.  Never mind, don't let's argue about the question now, just come
along, for the motor is waiting at the gate.  Nearly all the girls I
have asked must be at home by this time, but I have to collect two more
people, Martha McMurtry--you know how I love her--and yet she carries
the information in her brain of the right way to organize a Camp Fire
club.  Also there is Eleanor Meade; being a genius, you know Eleanor
can't be expected to remember anything, should a wave of inspiration
happen to flow over her."




CHAPTER V

THEIR FIRST MEETING


The drawing-room at the Ashton homestead ran the whole length of one
side of the house and on this particular May afternoon was so filled
with sunshine and light that even the old portraits on the walls
appeared to change their severe Puritanical expressions and to look
down, from out their heavy gold frames, with something almost
approaching friendliness, on the strange girl now alone in the room,
although nothing in her appearance or manner suggested the birth and
breeding partly responsible for their New England pride.

The girl was also humbly engaged in placing fresh flowers on the tables
and mantel and in rearranging the chairs and ornaments in the room to
their best advantage.  Finally, after a lingering glance out the front
window, she picked up her last vase of flowers, a single branch of apple
blossoms in a tall, green jar, and, crossing over to the grand piano so
placed it that the sunlight shone full upon it.  Then she stood for a
moment looking thoughtfully at the open keyboard, which had a small
sheet of music spread before it.  Esther Clark next sat down at the
piano and lightly ran her fingers over the keys so that it could
scarcely have been possible for any one farther away than the adjoining
hall to have heard her playing.  The refrain was simple and repeated
itself, yet had dramatic force and lingered in one's memory, the musical
call of the watchword for the Camp Fire Girls.

Only that morning Betty had asked Esther to try to teach this call to
her friends when they came together at her home that afternoon to form
their club, and though Esther was painfully shy she felt obliged to do
her best. Some few of Betty's friends were known to her through their
acquaintance at school, but into not one of their homes had she ever
been invited socially.

The door of the drawing-room farthest from the piano opened quietly.

"Betty," a young man's voice inquired reproachfully, "aren't you even
glad enough to see me to say hello?  When before did I ever know you so
devoted to practicing that you wouldn't stop for any excuse, and yet
here I have come all the way home from Portsmouth on your account!"

Richard Ashton ceased talking abruptly, for instead of the pretty figure
of his sister, Betty, he now beheld rising from the piano stool a tall
girl with bright red hair, looking as though she had been frightened
speechless.

"Great Caesar's ghost, what a homely girl!" was his first thought, but
not a change in his expression revealed what was in the young man's mind
as he stretched forth his hand.

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," he said quickly, "but I am Richard
Ashton, Betty's brother."

Of course he expected that the strange girl would then answer him, at
least tell him who she was or give some explanation of her presence, but
instead Esther stood silently looking down at the floor and twisting her
hands together in a wholly unnecessary state of embarrassment.

Richard Ashton was of medium height, slenderly built, but with broad
shoulders, and at this time of life twenty-three years old.  His hair
and eyes were light brown; he bore no resemblance to Betty and had a
curiously serious expression for so young and fortunate a fellow.
Although not handsome, Dick had a look of purpose and distinction and
always had unconsciously served as the ideal for Betty's girl friends.
He was a Princeton graduate, but was now studying medicine in Portsmouth
and expected later to continue his studies in Germany.  Perhaps it was
his own seriousness and settled purpose that had made him assist in
spoiling his small sister almost from her babyhood, yet lately seeing
Betty's restlessness and discontent he had begun to wonder if he and his
father and mother had been as kind to her as they had meant to be.
Betty was growing up and it might be she too needed to have something
asked of her, that she too wished to give as well as to receive.

"I am not your sister's friend (the girl near the piano had finally made
up her mind to speak), I am only a kind of companion, to help her with
her studying or to do whatever she desires."

Dick Ashton laughed, his face immediately losing its look of gravity.
"Well, that is no particular reason why you should not be her friend as
well, is it?  At least I hope Betty won't make the task too hard for
you, but as to doing all the things she desires, I am afraid that will
keep you pretty busy.  I believe I remember now, my mother did write me
about asking you to come here to stay; you have lived before--"  The
young man hesitated.  But Esther had now come nearer and really she
seemed almost too plain even to serve his pretty sister, Betty, the
contrast might be too hard for the homely girl.

"You were playing something when I came in, won't you go on," Dick
continued hastily, fearing that the strange girl, with her pale eyes
fixed on his, might be able to read his inmost thoughts and not desiring
to hurt her feelings.  However she had started, edging toward the door.
"I would much rather not; your sister is to have some friends here this
afternoon and wishes me to teach them a few lines of music.  I hope your
mother won't mind my touching this splendid piano."

"What on earth is the girl afraid of?  I have no desire to eat her,"
Richard thought to himself, continuing to observe Esther's frightened
expression and nervous manner, but only answering good-naturedly:
"Certainly she won't mind.  Please use the piano whenever you like, for
Betty hates practicing and I don't care much for a man musician,
especially a poor one, though I love music."

Just for a moment the newcomer's timidity vanished and her smile of
pleasure, showing her big, strong mouth with its white teeth, relieved
her face of its entire plainness.  "I should love it more than anything
in the world; would you mind asking your mother if I may?  I am afraid
to ask her."

"But not afraid of asking me?" Richard laughed; he had made his
suggestion without any special thought, but the girl might as well be
allowed to bang at their piano if she liked.  Should she get it out of
order why it could soon be straightened out again.  And then kindness to
persons less fortunate than himself was second nature with Richard
Ashton.

"Here is the mater coming, I will ask her at once," he returned, and
then seeing Esther's unspoken look of entreaty, as he went forward to
open the door for his mother, he silently agreed to postpone his
request.

Mrs. Ashton was a tall, blonde, handsomely dressed woman, who rarely
showed affection for anyone save her husband and children and whose
leisure time was largely devoted to playing bridge.  Neither Betty nor
her son looked like her.  Richard resembled his father, while Betty must
have inherited her appearance from some more remote ancestor.  In one
comer of the parlor hung an oil painting of one of Mr. Ashton's great-
aunts, a young English girl in a white muslin dress and picture hat,
whom Betty always insisted she resembled.

Mrs. Ashton was frowning anxiously.

"Hasn't Betty returned, Dick?" she inquired.  "It is an hour since
luncheon and her friends may arrive at any moment.  The child was not at
all well yesterday and, I do wonder if her science teacher can be
keeping her in, Miss McMurtry is so inconsiderate.  I really don't know
what to do about Betty this summer, she is so opposed to going to Europe
with us again and wants to form a club or a camp, something perfectly
extraordinary, so as to spend her summer in the woods.  She almost
talked your father into the idea last evening, but I do hope, dear
Richard, that you will oppose her.  You have such influence with Betty."

Dick and his mother were standing together by the window now on the
lookout, for the truant.  "Don't be such a weakling, mother," the young
man replied teasingly.  "If you really wish Betty to go to Europe with
you and father say so and let that settle the matter, but I am not so
sure this new scheme of hers is a bad one.  Betty sent me a night
telegram at bedtime last night (telephoned it, I suppose, when you
thought she was in bed) asking me to come home for the day and help her
get her own way.  Living out of doors all summer, mother, and learning
to look after herself and to rub up against other girls may be the best
thing in the world for Betty.  I am afraid she has been growing up to be
more ornamental than useful."

"There is no reason why Betty should be anything but ornamental," Mrs.
Ashton argued, although plainly thinking over her son's words.

Dick Ashton shook his head.  "No, mother, the modern world has no place
in it but for useful people nowadays.  And somehow it seems to me that
even more is going to be asked of women than has been asked of men.
They have got to do their own housekeeping and some of the world's too,
pretty soon."

Before the young fellow finished speaking he and his mother were both
smiling and waving their hands toward Mollie and Polly O'Neill, who were
at this moment crossing the street with several other girl friends.
Before they entered the house, however, Betty's automobile, driven by
herself, dashed into sight, containing five other passengers: Margaret
Everett and her small brother; Miss McMurtry, the science teacher at the
high school; a tall girl with a clever face and a far-away expression in
her near-sighted blue eyes; and a fifth girl, an entire stranger both to
Mrs. Ashton and Dick and until a short while before an equal stranger to
Betty.

Almost before the car stopped Betty was out of her seat and ushering her
visitors into their big, sweet-smelling drawing-room.  There Esther
stood close against the wall, trying her best to shrink out of sight
even while she reproached herself for her unnecessary awkwardness and
fear.  Suppose she had had no home and no social training like the
greater number of these other girls, yet did she not mean to follow
forever the law of the Camp Fire and would it not teach her in time to
gain the knowledge necessary to happiness?




CHAPTER VI

THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE


"Esther, won't you repeat the Law of the Camp Fire for the girls?" Miss
McMurtry asked, fifteen minutes later, when Betty's guests were seated
in a close circle about the drawing-room, their faces eager with
curiosity.

Esther alone sat at some distance from the others, so that Betty was
compelled to draw her forward toward the center of their group.  How she
longed to refuse to recite, for instead of a dozen pairs of eyes
fastened upon her she felt there must be at least a hundred!  Yet
catching an expression of amused sympathy on Dick Ashton's face somehow
she felt encouraged to go on.

"Esther and I have been studying the plan of the Camp Fire organization
for the past two months and it is really very simple," Miss McMurtry
continued. "One must just follow certain general rules and then add
whatever seems appropriate to give one's special camp originality and
character.  I had been hoping to form a club in the village this summer,
but of course if we can carry out Betty's idea and spend our summer
together in the woods, why we will learn in a few months what it might
have taken us years to find out in weekly meetings in town."  The young
woman stopped, turning toward Esther, and the girl then felt obliged to
speak.  Esther's voice was low, but had that rare quality given to but a
few voices of being heard at even a great distance without being raised.

"Seek beauty. Give service. Pursue knowledge. Be trustworthy. Hold on to
health. Glorify work. Be happy."

With each line, feeling the sympathy of her small audience increase,
Esther gained courage until at last she was able to finish her verse
with fervor and conviction.

After her conclusion most of the faces near her were unusually
thoughtful until Polly O'Neill, seated next Mrs. Ashton, gave a
characteristic laugh followed by a sigh.

"My dear children, if we ever learn to live up to that law of the Camp
Fire, then shall we be angels and not girls!" she exclaimed.

And she might have added more had not an imploring frown from Betty
silenced her.  Of course some of the girls would understand that Polly
rarely meant what she said, but there we're other members of the little
company with whom Betty wished to take no risks.  Besides, Polly's laugh
could sometimes dampen even her own enthusiasm!  And had she not placed
her friend next her mother in order that she might interest Mrs. Ashton
in their plan, for Polly was a great favorite with the older woman and
never afraid of using her pretty blarney stone with her.

However, except for a laugh no one seemed in the least influenced by
Polly's skepticism.

"We can at least try to live up to the law," Mollie replied quietly,
answering from her chair a few feet away.

In a few moments, however, Betty no longer feared the effect of her
friend's attitude.  Perhaps to some of the girls the idea of a summer
camp seemed too beautiful to be possible, yet plainly the ideals of the
Camp Fire organization, as Miss McMurtry explained them more fully, had
fired their imaginations, filling them with new hopes and enthusiasm.

Meg had been listening to what had been said with glowing cheeks,
meaning to become a Camp Fire girl even though it was entirely
impossible for her to join the summer camp.  She was holding her small
brother tight in her arms, trying to distract his attention with objects
to be seen out the front window, and so entirely oblivious of the fact
that the hastily adjusted hairpins had been slipping out of her hair,
until one yellow braid now dangled over her pink ear.

Mollie O'Neill's cheeks were also flushed, but she sat perfectly still,
keeping her hands clasped tight together in a fashion she had when
desiring a thing greatly and not feeling sure she would receive it.

Eleanor Meade had even forgiven Betty for dragging her away from her
unfinished painting of the May, sky (a painting which Meg and Betty had
assured her resembled soap suds), so enthralled had she become with the
summer plan.  If her parents could be persuaded to allow her to stay in
camp with the girls during the summer, why then surely she need not be
bothered with having to take exercise and help with the housework, as
her mother insisted, she could simply give up all her time to her
drawing and painting.  You see Eleanor, like a good many other girls,
did not at once grasp the meaning of the Camp Fire idea.

Apparently only one person in Mrs. Ashton's drawing-room up to this time
seemed to have gotten nothing at all out of Miss McMurtry's explanations
and the girls' discussion of a Camp Fire club.  But then how could she,
for Sylvia Wharton apparently had not listened and certainly had never
taken her eyes from Polly's face?  She appeared a stupid child, short
and stout and, although fourteen, hardly seemed more than twelve.  Her
clothes were expensive but always inappropriate, indeed they were far
too handsome for such a plain little girl.  However, they were in accord
with her father's taste, and although Mr. Wharton was now a wealthy man,
he had begun life as a stone-cutter and could hardly be expected to know
much about the proper way to dress a small, motherless daughter.

Several times in the past half hour Polly had almost yielded to the
inclination to implore Sylvia to take her eyes off her, for the little
girl did not look sensitive and her eyes were so large and
expressionless they made one uncomfortable, but then Polly forbore,
until, as her own interest in their meeting proceeded, she forgot all
about her inquisitor.

It must have been about five o'clock when Betty at last arose and
holding a curiously wrought silver ring, a bracelet and a pin in her
hand, started to walk slowly about among the circle of her guests.

"If you wish to join our Camp Fire club this afternoon," she invited
coaxingly, "you are simply to repeat the lines Esther has just recited
for us.  Then Miss McMurtry says you may each receive a woodgatherers'
ring. Afterwards, when we have acquired sufficient honors in the seven
crafts, 'Health Craft, Home Craft, Nature Lore, Camp Craft, Business and
Patriotism'," (Betty repeated the list slowly as though not quite
certain of herself), "why then we may attain next to the rank of Fire-
Makers and wear their bracelets.  The highest honor of all, which I for
one shall probably never attain, is to become a Torch Bearer and receive
the Torch Bearer's pin.  It is all right for me to give the girls the
rings, isn't it, Miss McMurtry, after they have repeated the law to
you?" Betty asked, "since you have been appointed official guardian by
the headquarters in New York?  Later on I suppose the girls will tell us
when they will wish to come into camp."

Miss McMurtry laughed.  Never until this afternoon had she had any
liking for Betty Ashton.  They were such utterly different types of
woman and girl!  Yet, now Betty's habit of expecting to have her own
way, which her teacher so disliked, was assuredly making their Camp Fire
plans go ahead with a rush.

"Yes, I am a properly appointed guardian," Miss McMurtry answered
slowly, "and Esther and I have been studying the Camp Fire program until
she is almost ready to become a Fire-Maker, but I wonder if, you girls
wish me to be your guardian in camp this summer?  Perhaps I am not
suited to it!"  She turned to look at Betty, but failing to catch her
eye, looked toward Polly. For the same reason both girls kept their
heads bowed, until Betty was finally able to reply with as much
enthusiasm as she could muster:

"Oh, of course we wish you, and we shall try to give as little trouble
as possible."  Really in her present enthusiasm Betty believed that she
and her science teacher would be able to put away all past differences
and live in perfect accord under the influence of their new ideals.

Miss McMurtry now turned again to Esther; there were special reasons for
her unusual interest in this girl, although even Esther herself was
unaware of them.

"You are wearing your bead chains, aren't you?" the new guardian asked,
slipping two narrow strips of leather, one strung with orange and the
other with bright red beads, from about Esther's throat.  "You see each
one of these beads represents some honor a girl has attained in the Camp
Fire," she explained, "so the girl who finally arrives at the rank of
Torch Bearer, really an assistant to the guardian, may own seven
different chains of bead, one color for each of the seven crafts."

"My honors so far have been won in health and home craft because of what
I was taught at the orphan asylum," Esther added frankly and then
blushed uncomfortably, for several of Betty's friends were staring at
her curiously.  What had inspired Mrs. Ashton and Betty, supposed to be
the most exclusive persons in Woodford, to introduce this unknown girl
into their home as though she were a member of their family?

Moreover, Betty must have suffered another change of heart for she was
now engaged in almost forcing a Wood-Gatherer's ring upon the stranger
whom she had lately brought home in the automobile with her.

Mrs. Ashton lifted her lorgnettes to gaze at the visitor.  "Tell me,
Polly dear," she whispered, "who is that girl with whom Betty is now
talking? She is not one of her school friends and yet I feel I have seen
her somewhere before, though I am not able to place her."

Polly smiled, shaking her head.  "You have seen her, I know I have many
times, although she is not a friend or even an acquaintance of mine.
But I don't know what has happened to 'The Princess', so I would rather
you would put your question to her after we go away."

Mrs. Ashton kept hold of Polly's hand.  Two maids had just come into the
drawing-room at this moment and were passing plates of cake and cups of
hot chocolate about among the guests.  The greater number of the girls
were crowding around Miss McMurtry and Betty, so only Dick Ashton
happened to notice that no one, not even a maid, had come near Esther.
Securing chocolate and cake for her himself, he sat down next her,
talking but asking no questions, since he feared to embarrass her as he
had earlier in the afternoon.

"Do you think, Polly, that this is really a good plan of Betty's?" Mrs.
Ashton inquired thoughtfully.  "She has seemed so restless and
dissatisfied lately.  Of course I don't understand all this Camp Fire
idea seems to mean to her, I suppose I would have to be a girl again to
understand thoroughly, but there may be possibilities in it.  Even a
conventional society woman longs sometimes to get away from her
monotonous life, and surely you will find romance and adventure awaiting
you in the woods.  I have decided I shall not stand in Betty's way, I
shall go away this summer and leave you girls to work things out
together, then when I return I may be able to discover what miracles
have been wrought in you."

"Oh, you will find us entirely reformed," Polly answered carelessly, not
realizing that she of all the girls in the room would be the one to bear
the ordeal of fire, the symbol that cleanses and purifies.

But both the girl and woman suddenly became silent, for Dick Ashton had
persuaded Esther Clark to the piano and now the entire group of guests
closed in about her.

Once again she was singing the morning and evening hymn of the Camp Fire
Girls' "My Soul's Desire."

Mrs. Ashton sat listening intently with an odd expression of something
almost like relief crossing her face.  "Polly dear," she whispered
unexpectedly at the close of Esther's song, "perhaps life does even
things up more justly than we know, for this strange girl, Esther Clark,
has a truly remarkable voice."




CHAPTER VII

WHITE CLOUDS


"White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, Light mists, whose soft
embraces keep The sunshine on the bills asleep."

The sun was just rising above the crests of a group of the White
Mountains called long ago by the indians "Waumbek" because of their
snowy foreheads. But this morning, instead of shining like crystal, the
snow at their summits was opal tinted rose, yellow and violet from the
early rays of the June sun.

Sunrise Hill, standing in the foreground, seemed to catch an even
stronger reflection from the sky, for the colors drained down its sides
until they emptied into a small, wooded lake at its base.

On either side this hill the sloping lands were a soft green and the
meadows beyond golden with the new summer grain, but only fifty yards
away a grove of pine trees made a deep mass of shade, and with the birds
in their branches singing their daily matins, suggested an old cathedral
choir.

The singers were evidently indifferent to intruders, for, close by, four
white tents were pitched in a square as though a caravan had halted on
its travels.  But the caravaneers must have been in the place for some
days and showed no intention of moving on, for their arrangements had
been made with the idea of permanent comfort.

Around each tent a narrow trench several inches deep had been dug to
prevent flooding in case of rain, farther off two large bins held all
rubbish until such time as it could be conveniently burned.  The camp
ground was also beautifully clean, not a scrap of paper nor a tin can
could be seen anywhere, and even the grass itself had been swept with a
novel, but at the same time, a very old-fashioned broom, for a stake
tightly bound with a few sprigs of birch rested against one of the
tents, plainly--from the evidences about it--the kitchen tent.  At a
safe distance a camp fire was smoldering, a fire built according to the
best scout methods.  Two stout stakes driven slantwise in the ground
with three logs cut the same length, one on top the other, resting
against these stakes.  On either side this elevation two logs lay on the
ground like fire logs, with a third crossing them in front, and inside
this enclosure a bed of ashes still glowed, carefully covered over for
the night.  On the lake two birch bark canoes were moored to willow
stakes, and hanging on a line stretching from a tree to a pole a number
of girls' bathing suits flapped and danced in the air, but no human
being was yet in sight.

Suddenly there came a ripple of music from one of the pine trees, "Whee-
you, whee-you," a small bird with a spotted breast and a cream-buff coat
sang to itself and then began a whistling, ringing monotone that for a
moment silenced the other bird chorus.

A girl in a dark red dressing gown quietly opened a tent flap.

"There, the morning has come at last, for that is the voice of
'Oopehanka', the thrush.  So after a week in the woods I really am
beginning to recognize some of the birds and the Indian names for them."
She clapped her hands softly together.

"Oh, Princess, do wake up and let us have a swim before any one else
wakens," she whispered imploringly.

Then disappearing inside her tent, she knelt by a bed of hemlock
branches covered with soft blue blankets.  "Princess," she whispered
again.

A sleepy voice answered.  "Polly child, please go back to bed, it must
be the middle of the night and I ache all over from carrying water and
digging trenches.  Who could have supposed camping would be such a lot
of work!"

"Or such a lot of joy!" Polly laughed.  "Ah, Betty, I thought you were
yearning to be useful; think of the honor beads you mean to earn!  But
come now and be useful to me; do let us have a swim together."

Betty was never proof against her friend's pleading.  "All right," she
agreed, searching about near her bed for her sandals while Polly wrapped
a light woolen gown about her, "I don't know whether Miss McMurtry will
like our going off by ourselves, but I don't remember her having said we
should not, though Camp Fire life does mean doing things together."

The two girls had been talking in the lowest possible tones and were now
tiptoeing softly out of their tent, when another voice from another bed
interrupted them.

"Betty and Polly, you are sneaks!" Mollie O'Neill exclaimed indignantly.
"Just because I can't swim as well as you do and Esther can't swim at
all, you are going off without us.  You are fine Camp Fire girls; please
bring our bathing suits here, too."

Both girls nodded and laughed in rather an abashed fashion.  But at a
safe distance away Betty turned to Polly.  "Won't you confess, please,
that it is rather a nuisance having Esther Clark in the tent with us?  I
don't see why Martha McMurtry insisted upon it when we might have had
Meg or most anybody else."

Polly looked unusually grave.  "You don't care for Esther, do you?" she
questioned.  "It is curious, because though you haven't been
particularly nice to her, she is devoted to you and I believe would do
anything in the world for you."

Ten minutes later the four girls in their Camp Fire bathing suits were
in the waters of the lake near their camp, Polly and Betty swimming with
long even strokes toward its center, Mollie hovering near the shore,
while Esther stood shivering in a foot of water trying vainly to warm
herself by splashing and throwing handfuls of water on her chest and
face.

Half a mile out Betty turned over on her side.  "Say the Law of the Camp
Fire to yourself, Polly.  I have just said it and I am going back toward
shore.  I suppose if one makes a vow to 'give service' it is little
enough to show another girl how to swim.  If Esther didn't look so big
and wasn't so horribly shy, I am sure I should like her better, but here
goes!"

It wasn't easy work teaching Esther to swim, for she was so much larger
than Betty and had such an absurd fashion of keeping both feet down and
splashing the water into her own and her teacher's face.  Polly laughed
softly to herself as she swam slowly forward to offer her assistance.
She was wondering if a single week in camp had really begun to reform
her spoiled Betty and if it had, had any change also been wrought in
her?  She was to find out in a very few minutes.

One Camp Fire law, that there was no escaping, was that the girls were
not to spend but fifteen minutes in bathing.  Really it hardly seemed
like half that time before the four girls were once again on land
getting into their bathing gowns which had been left hanging on a willow
tree nearby.  They were to dress later on in their tent, so they were
hardly on shore more than a few moments, but even in that short space of
time a noise a few yards away startled them.  The four girls turned
indignantly.  In the entire week of their stay in camp they had not been
disturbed by a single intruder.  Sunrise Hill, with its tall pines--the
emblem of the Camp Fire--its wooded lake for fishing, bathing and
canoeing, and its utter seclusion, had seemed, after several weeks of
careful search in the neighborhood about Woodford, the ideal place for
the girls' summer camp. So far not even a friend, man or woman, had been
allowed to visit them, because the camp was to be in running order
before they received any outside criticism.

Now a young fellow of perhaps sixteen stood only a short distance off
from the lake with an expression of superior amusement on his face.  He
was a country boy, for he wore no hat and his hair was burnt to a light
straw color at the ends, his skin was almost bronze.

"Please go away," Polly demanded haughtily.  She had gathered her
bathing gown about her as though it were a Roman matron's robe and was
feeling that her presence must be impressive although her hair was
extremely wet and drops of water were trickling down her face.

However, the intruder paid not the least attention to her request,
except to laugh as though her indignation gave him special pleasure.  He
was carrying a large tin pail on one arm and a basket on the other and
of course his behavior was hardly that of a gentleman.

Anger for the moment kept Polly speechless, but a chorus of protests
arose from Betty, Mollie and Esther.  "We are camping here and we would
rather not have visitors, so would you mind going back the way you have
come?" Betty requested in her most Princess-like fashion.

"Not until I have seen the sights," the newcomer answered.  He did not
really look impertinent, only mischievous, and his eyes were as blue as
Polly's.

"You don't suppose that I have walked a mile before breakfast and
carried these heavy things except to find out what on the face of the
earth you crazy girls are doing here, trying to pretend you are scouts
or Indian squaws.  Of all the foolishness!"

Perhaps even this short acquaintance with Polly O'Neill has suggested
that she had, what is for some reason or other called an Irish temper,
though temper does not belong wholly to Irish people.  Polly herself did
not know when this temper would take possession of her nor where it
would lead her. At present the young man continued to walk slowly on
toward the white tents, whistling to show his complete indifference,
while the four girls could see that their friends were now stirring
about in camp evidently getting ready to start breakfast.

Without reflecting Polly stooped.  There on the ground before her lay a
sharp rock, ground and polished by the waters of the lake, and like a
shot from a bow she flung this stone whistling through the air at the
intruder.

Whether she thought her stone would strike the young man or what
particular effect her childish bad manners would have if it should,
Polly herself did not know.  However, she was startled and flushed hotly
when, with an exclamation of pain, the boy put down his pail, placing
one hand quickly to his head.

The four girls had started for their camp, but now Mollie, first
flashing a look of surprise and scorn at her usually beloved sister, ran
on ahead of the others.  "I am so sorry," she said in a gentle, reserved
manner peculiar to her, "you were rude not to go away when we asked you,
but it is far worse for one of us to have been so childish as to strike
you.  I am dreadfully ashamed."

The young man smiled, not very cheerfully it must be admitted, but at
least not looking so angry as he had the right to.  "Did you throw the
stone?" he inquired.  "I never would have believed a girl could throw
straight if I hadn't felt the blow, so perhaps you are learning one or
two things by living like boys.  Never mind, I can see you are not the
guilty one."

"We are not trying to live in the least like boys, only like sensible
girls," Mollie started in to reply quietly, but the last part of her
sentence trailed off into a faint whisper, for the young man had just
taken his hand down from his head and his fingers were covered with
blood, a few drops were even trickling down the back of his neck inside
his soft flannel shirt.

The other three girls had now come close enough to see the blood also,
and except for Betty, Pony would everlastingly have disgraced herself.
There are many persons in the world whom the sight of blood fills with a
strange shrinking and terror that is almost like faintness, and Polly
was one of them.  Now she wanted to run away, she even turned to fly,
when her friend caught hold of her.  "Don't be utterly stupid, Polly,
you have done a foolish trick and you've got to face the music, for if
you don't, you know Mollie is apt to take the blame upon herself."

Polly's knees were shaking and her thin expressive face so pale that she
looked quite unlike herself.  However, she managed to save a part of her
dignity by saying with an attempt at a smile, as she stopped alongside
Mollie and the young fellow, "I am sorry, I cannot tell a lie, I did it
with my little hatchet, so please feel all the anger against me.  I do
hope I haven't hurt you very much."

The young man now stared at Polly and then at Mollie and afterwards back
again from one to the other.  He started to whistle but stopped himself
in time.  "Gee, but you are alike--with a difference," he returned,
neither accepting nor refusing to accept Polly's half-hearted apology.

Hardly knowing why, except that the back of his neck was apparently
covered with perspiration when there was no heat to explain it, the boy
again put up his hand to his head.  This time it was impossible to
ignore the amount of blood that covered his hand nor the horrified faces
of his small audience.

"I expect I can't go up to your camp, after all, when I am in such a
fix, so you've come kind of close to getting your own way.  I guess you,
usually do!" he said, frowning up at Polly.  "I wonder if it is too much
to ask you girls to carry these things up to your tents; the pail has
your morning's milk and is pretty heavy; the basket is only filled with
strawberries.  My father is the farmer who owns the land about here and
I thought it would be a lark to find out what you campers were trying to
do.  Didn't mean anything serious but I guess you'll have to come for
your own supplies after this as there ain't no one but me to bring 'em."
He spoke rather churlishly, but then he did have cause.

"Hadn't you better wash your cut at the lake or come on up to the tent
and let us do something there for you," Betty proposed, not knowing
exactly what they should do in the present situation and yet feeling
that something ought to be done.  "I am afraid walking home in the sun
with your head in that condition may make you ill."

The young man shook his head and then winced.  "It ain't anything," he
replied, beginning to back away, but at the same moment Mollie O'Neill
took firm hold on his sleeve.  "Come down to the water," she demanded
quietly, "you are cut pretty badly, but I think I can stop the bleeding.
I suppose the other girls will laugh at me, but ever since I have been
in camp I have been carrying some gauze bandage about in my pocket and
finding out what to do in case of accidents.  I won't hurt you."

The young fellow had intended utterly to decline Mollie's kindly offer,
but now her suggestion of not hurting amused him, besides he was
sensible enough to know she was right.  It was embarrassing, however, to
have three other girls looking on during the operation, so whatever
anguish Mollie caused him he felt prepared to endure in silence.

In a very business-like fashion the young girl drew her roll of
surgeon's lint from an inside pocket of her bathing gown and a small
pair of scissors.  Then she made her patient sit down on the ground by
the water's edge while she carefully examined his cut.

"I ought to help, Mollie," her sister suggested faintly, but Mollie
shook her head and the young man appeared grateful.  "I don't mind blood
and you do, Polly," she returned, "besides if anybody is to help I would
rather have Esther.  I am afraid, if you don't mind, I have got to cut
your hair away, it is already so matted with blood."

To almost any suggestion the patient would have agreed, since he had but
one desire now, and that to get away from the strange girls about whom
he had been so curious an hour before.

Mollie cheerfully snipped away several locks of his hair covering a
space about as large as a dollar.  The cut she discovered was deeper
than she had expected and, as it was still bleeding profusely, she next
called Esther for advice.  Very carefully then the two girls washed out
the cut with clean water and then Mollie, finding a flat stone, made a
pad by wrapping it a number of times with gauze.  This she placed over
the wound, binding the young man's head, Esther assisting in making the
bandage as tight as he could  endure.

All this time Polly, with Betty's hand firmly clutching hers, had stood
quietly looking on at the scene.  She was feeling penitent and ashamed,
and yet her Irish sense of humor made her a little bit amused as well.
Mollie was so entirely unconscious, but she did seem to be intensely
enjoying her first opportunity to prove herself a worthy Camp Fire Girl.

Perhaps the young man vaguely felt Polly's amusement, although he did
not look at her and certainly did not give her the satisfaction of
knowing whether or not she had been forgiven.  But he managed to thank
Mollie and Esther more politely for what they had done for him, than his
boorish manners earlier in the morning suggested, and even insisted on
going on up to the camp with them in order to carry the heavy pail.

Several others of the Camp Fire girls, were by this time engaged in
getting break fast and although they could hardly help showing surprise
at the unexpected appearance of a wounded hero no questions were then
asked.

Miss McMurtry did not seem annoyed at seeing the young man, indeed it
turned out that she and several of the girls had walked over to Mr.
Webster's farm the day before to ask as a special favor that milk be
sent their camp each day.  If she felt any displeasure, Betty and Polly
were sure it was directed toward them, for the first week of Camp Fire
life had not been altogether smooth and there were still adjustments to
be made between some of the girls and their guardian.




CHAPTER VIII

OTHER GIRLS


Besides the four girls who have just returned from the lake there were
six others in the camp at Sunrise Hill, their guardian, Miss McMurtry
and one small imp or angel, according to one's way of looking at things.
For Margaret Everett had joined the summer campers and, in order to
accomplish it, had brought her small brother, Horace Virgil Everett,
along with her. You see, the girls felt they simply must have Meg, so
after a great deal of discussion it was decided that Horace Virgil would
be an excellent person to practice mother craft upon and would certainly
bring into service whatever first aid information might be required.

Meg was so gay, so sweet tempered and so utterly inconsequential.  If
things were going well in camp, if the sun was shining and everybody was
feeling amiable then she was entirely happy, but if things were going
wrong, then it was that Meg counted, for she kept her temper through
almost any kind of stress.  She did not have so many moods as Polly, she
was not so quiet and reserved as Mollie, nor did she expect the world to
move according to her desires, as Betty Ashton did.  Meg's faults were
that she was not a good manager and did try to do too many things at
once and so did none of them well, but she had not had an easy time
since her mother died two years ago.  Although her father and older
brother adored her, they were selfish in unconscious masculine ways,
President Everett in devoting too much time to his school and John to
his studies and amusements. Unfortunately neither of them realized that
Meg might now and then grow weary of having a small brother, capable of
originating new kind of mischief at least once an hour, everlastingly
tagging after her.  But Meg's cares (if she ever called them by that
name) had for the present been entirely lifted from her, for she had ten
other people now to help, her take care of "Bumps," whom the girls had
rechristened "Hai-yi" or "Little Brother," and if Meg had been asked to
vote upon the happiest week of her life since her mother's death she
would instantly have voted her first week in camp with her own club of
Camp Fire Girls.

Then there was Sylvia Wharton!  Did Sylvia really enjoy the change in
her life from staying cooped up in a great house, looked after by
servants and alone a great part of the time when her father was away?
Her brother Frank, who was several years older, seldom paid the least
attention to her. If the little girl did enjoy the woods and the
companionship of the other girls and all the opportunities that the camp
fire life offered her, so far she showed not the slightest sign.  Her
one pleasure must have been her chance to haunt Polly O'Neill, for
although she did not seem particularly happy when she was with Polly,
certainly she never left her side unless she were compelled to do her
share of the camp work and only then when Polly insisted upon it.
Already Miss McMurtry felt that Sylvia might become difficult, but then
the child had had no training, and besides Miss McMurtry shared the
belief of almost all other persons that Sylvia was simply stupid.
Curiously enough Eleanor Meade now appeared to have been invited into
the first Woodford Camp Fire circle under a false impression. You see,
the girls at the high school where Eleanor was also a student considered
her a genius, and it is agreeable for a community to have one genius in
its midst.  Eleanor did have talent for drawing, and besides she had a
number of characteristics which many persons associate with genius. She
was entirely careless of her other responsibilities, and, if she
happened to wish to paint, considered it entirely unreasonable that
anything or anybody should interfere with her desire.  She was often in
the habit of forgetting engagements and at times there was a faraway
expression in her eyes, which may have come from having neglected to
wear her glasses, but which her friends believed due to the thrall of
some wonderful creative idea which might be presented to the world some
day in the form of a great picture.  And Eleanor, being but human and
seventeen, had done her best to foster this belief.  She would not dress
in modern fashions like the other girls; her parents had little money,
but Eleanor's mother was a clever needlewoman and her eldest daughter
always appeared in gowns made after exactly the same pattern and of some
soft clinging material, whether cashmere or cheesecloth, they were
always short waisted with a folded girdle and deep hem and cut low in
the neck.  Then Eleanor's hair, which was heavy and straight and a kind
of ashen brown, was always worn parted in the middle and fixed in a
great loose knot at the back of her neck. Eleanor was not pretty like
Betty and Meg and Mollie and, at times, Polly O'Neill, but she would
have scorned to have been thought pretty--interesting was the adjective
she preferred.

However, since Eleanor's appearance in camp for almost a week she had
forgotten to be a genius.  For one thing the girls were all wearing the
regulation Camp Fire uniform, a loose blouse and dark blue serge skirt,
and so she could not dress the part.  Then, although the Camp Fire
official log book had been given her to illustrate she had not even
started to paint the totem of the Sunrise Camp on its brown leather
cover, although Sunrise Hill stood, always before her in its changing
beauty.  The girls had taken its name for their camp with the thought
that the hill might symbolize their own efforts to look upward always to
the highest and most beautiful things.

But Eleanor should hardly be blamed for not having done much painting so
far, there, had been such a lot of other work to do, in helping to put
things in order in camp, and besides she had developed the most
surprising talent for making an Irish stew, that was the envy and
delight of all the other girls.  Eleanor said it was because she had a
soul above science and used her imagination in her stew, but whatever
the reason, since the first day when the cooking of dinner fell to her,
this stew had been one of the greatest successes in camp and Eleanor
received her first honor bead for her genius in cooking instead of in
art.

Besides these seven girls already described, there was an eighth girl in
the Sunrise camp, the stranger whom Betty had brought home with her on
the day their club had first been discussed--the girl whose face was so
familiar to Mrs. Ashton but whose name was unknown.  There had been a
question as to whether or not this particular girl could come to summer
camp, not because the other girls were unwilling to have her, but because
she worked in a milliner's shop in Woodford and had to go back and forth
to be at work every day.  Quite by accident on the eventful afternoon
Betty had stooped by this shop in her journey to Meg's to ask about her
new spring hat, and being so full of her plan had poured it into Edith
Norton's ear, while the little milliner was trying on her hat.
Naturally Edith thought it a wonderful plan, so Betty, with one of her
sudden impulses, immediately insisted that the young milliner come home
with her to become a member of their new Camp Fire club.  This seemed at
the time a perfectly impossible dream to Edith, who was a poor girl with
her own living to make, but then she did not understand Betty's ability
to make things happen.  Every obstacle had been smoothed away, Edith was
now riding Betty's bicycle back and forth from camp to town every day
and, already the headaches, which had first wakened Betty's sympathy,
because of the pallor of her face and the dark circles under her eyes,
had begun to grow better from the daily fresh air and exercise.  Of the
Camp Fire Girls Edith was the oldest; she was about eighteen and had
blonde hair and delicate features, with brown eyes. She might have been
pretty, but that she needed to grow stronger in body and character, and
already the girls and their guardian had discovered that Edith was too
fond of tea and coffee and sweets and modern novels for her own health
or happiness.  The trouble was that her home was too filled with small
brothers and sisters and a father and mother too poor to make them
comfortable, so that the eldest daughter had been forced to find her own
pleasures.

The last two members of the Sunrise Hill camp were unknown to the other
girls until a few days before.  They were two sisters, daughters of a
favorite doctor, cousin of Miss McMurtry's, who had been pupils in a
fashionable boarding school in Philadelphia.  They were not alike,
either in appearance or character, for the older one of them thought too
much about clothes and wealth and position, and so immediately fell to
admiring and imitating Betty, while the other was an impossible tomboy,
more like a feminine Puck, the very incarnation of mischief, whose one
idea of happiness seemed to lie in playing pranks.

Juliet Field, the older girl, had light brown hair and eyes, was rather
pretty and had a plump girlish figure, round fat cheeks with a good deal
of color and a piquant, turned-up nose, while Beatrice, whom everybody
called "Bee," wore her curly dark hair cut short, had a melancholy brown
face entirely unlike her character and was as slender and small and
quick in her movements as a tiny wren.

The two sisters and Sylvia Wharton slept in the tent with Miss McMurtry,
while the third tent sheltered Eleanor, Edith, Meg and, of course,
"little brother".

When Miss McMurtry had wakened to discover that four of the Camp Fire
girls had gone in swimming without the others, she had not been pleased,
more because she felt that Betty and Polly were too much inclined to be
leaders among the girls and to disregard her advice.  They had not yet
openly disobeyed her, so of course she had been unable to say anything
to them, but now she made up her mind to hang in each tent the rules for
each day's camp routine so that there could be no more uncertainty.
Miss McMurtry had merely been waiting to decide what rules were wisest
before making her schedule.

As soon as their first masculine visitor departed Eleanor, Meg and
Juliet announced breakfast.  At a comfortable distance from the kitchen
fire a large white cloth had been spread on the grass and in the center
stood the great basket of fresh strawberries just brought over by the
young man to whom Polly had given such an uncomfortable reception.  A
big coffee pot and two jugs of milk stood at opposite ends of the cloth
besides toast and a dozen boiled eggs in a chafing dish, while from the
nearby fire came the most delicious food odor in the world: bacon fried
before open coals. Nevertheless the girls did not sit down to breakfast
at once although they were dreadfully hungry.  Already they had
established certain Camp Fire customs, and one was their morning habit
of reciting some verse of thanksgiving in unison before beginning the
real living of their day.  The hymn, which first introduced Betty to
Esther was always sung at the close of each day, but this morning verse
had always to be original and one girl at a time was allowed to make the
selection.  To-day it had fallen to Polly's lot and she had taught it to
the other girls over their camp fire the night before.

So now the ten girls with their guardian in the center stood in a
semicircle facing Sunrise Hill.  The sun had fully risen and the earth,
as the Indians used to say, had "become white."  Led by Polly they
slowly recited this ancient chant:

"Shine on our gardens and fields, Shine on our working and weaving;
Shine on the whole race of man, Believing and unbelieving; Shine on us
now through the night, Shine on us now in Thy might, The flame of our
holy love And the song of our worship receiving."

And when they had finished, Polly O'Neill, with a note of reverence in
her voice that gave it an unconscious dramatic quality she would have
vainly tried to have at any other time, added: "We Camp Fire girls
worship not the fire but Him of whom in ages past it was the chosen
symbol because it was the purest of all created things."

And then without further ceremony there was a sudden rush for breakfast.




CHAPTER IX

THE GUARDIAN


Miss Martha McMurtry was an odd guardian for a Camp Fire club which owed
its existence to Betty Ashton's enthusiasm, for two more different
persons cannot well be imagined.  Of course the girls in the club were
of many kinds and characters and it would have been almost impossible
for any guardian to have been congenial with all of them, but it was
unfortunate that the head of the Sunrise Camp and the two girls who were
its leading spirits had at the beginning of the summer so little in
common.  For there was no question but that Betty and Polly were
leaders, one week in camp had been more than sufficient to prove this.

Betty's influence was of course easy to understand, for she was
uncommonly pretty and wealthy, and though spoiled and wayward, given to
sudden generous impulses and affections which made her friends willing
to overlook her faults.  With Polly, O'Neill the case was different, she
had no money and was not particularly good looking, it was simply that
the intensity of her emotions would always, whether as a woman or child,
make her a force for good or evil.  When Polly was happy persons about
her found it almost impossible not to share in her mood, she had such a
delicious sense of humor and was so full of clever jokes and delicate,
unconscious flatterings.  Then when an ugly mood descended upon her,
and, as Polly in Irish fashion used to say, "a witch rode on her
shoulders," it was almost equally impossible to ignore her foolishly
tragic points of view.  There is an old name for Ireland, Innis Fodhla,
which means the Island of Destiny, and though Polly had been born in a
little New England village, nevertheless, in her blood there was a
strain of those inheritances which have made the Irish nation so unlike
all others.

While Betty and Polly were friends there was apt to be peace among all
the girls in camp, but if they should disagree?  Ah well, they had never
really had any serious differences of opinion in their lives which
Mollie, after the passing of a day or two, had not been able to smooth
over.  And they both had every intention of making themselves as
agreeable as possible to their guardian.

Of course from the beginning of things it had been perfectly apparent
that Betty would never voluntarily have chosen Miss McMurtry for their
camp guardian, but finding that her science teacher was the only woman
in Woodford who knew about the Camp Fire movement and was able to spend
the summer with them, she had accepted the situation with as good a
grace as possible.

Miss Martha McMurtry was not an attractive woman when she first came
into the Sunrise Camp.  Names have an odd fashion of describing the
persons who own them and Miss McMurtry's exactly described her.  Have
you not a mental picture of a tall, learned young woman, with straight
black hair, which she wore pulled back very tight, forming an
unattractive knot at the back of her head?  Of course she also wore
glasses, having spent all her life inside of books until her pupils were
convinced that she knew everything in the world.  She did know a great
deal and because of her knowledge was a splendid Camp Fire guardian, but
there were a few things about human nature which her girls were to teach
her in exchange for her science.  Her information covered a number of
fields, for while she taught botany and chemistry at the Girls' High
School, she had also taken a two years' course in domestic science
before beginning her teaching.  Miss McMurtry was only twenty-six, had
no family and lived all alone in a small house in Woodford. However, she
appeared much older, and one of the questions her pupils were never able
to answer was whether she had ever had a man call on her in her life.
About her early history there was very little known, as she did not care
to talk about herself and no one asked about her past.

About five o'clock on the next afternoon Miss McMurtry and Esther Clark
were seated not far from a small fire which they had lately built near
their pine grove.  The day was not cold, but New Hampshire is seldom
very warm in June and, besides, no one in camp ever tried to resist the
opportunity for having a fire when most of their pleasure in being in
camp centered around it.

Back and forth from the pine grove to his friends Hai-ya, Little
Brother, traveled.  He was cheerfully engaged in bringing pine cones to
Miss McMurtry, and piling them into a small mound, later to be thrown on
the fire.  On the ground between the woman and girl were some odd pieces
of khaki galatea, bits of leather fringe, shells and beads, and Esther
was busily sewing.  Miss McMurtry was writing: several times she had
torn up what she had written, throwing the waste paper into the fire,
but finally she handed a sheet to Esther in a hesitating way.

"See what you think of this, Esther?" she asked.  "You see the Camp
Guardians are advised to follow certain rules and regulations in camp
life and I have been trying to decide what would best suit us.  Please
tell me what you think?"

Esther looked the paper over thoughtfully, and then began reading it
aloud.

6:30 A.M. Arise, wash, either bathing in lake or tent, then air bedding
thoroughly.  Hoist American flag, salute it.  Three girls prepare
breakfast.

7:30 A.M.  Recite in unison morning verse, eat breakfast, make up own
bed and clean tent, also do whatever share of work is apportioned for
the day.

10 to 12 A.M.  Devote to practice in one of the seven Camp Fire crafts
for obtaining honors.

12 to 1 P.M.  Three girls prepare dinner.

1 to 2 P.M.  Dinner served.

2 to 3 P.M.  Rest.

3 to 5:30 P.M.  Recreation.

5:30 to 6:30 P.M.  Three girls prepare tea.

6:30 to 7 P.M.  Tea served.

7:00 to 8:30 P.M.  Camp Fire, stories, songs, confidences, etc.

8:30 P.M. Milk and crackers, bed.

9 P.M.  Lights out.

Ester read the schedule over the second time and then nodded her head
approvingly.  "It's splendid and I am sure the girls will think it can't
be improved upon," she answered, adding the latter part of her speech as
she handed the paper back, for Miss McMurtry was looking troubled and
Ester half guessed the cause.

Miss McMurtry said nothing, however, only picking up a piece of Ester's
sewing.

"What is this you're making, Ester?" she inquired.  "I thought you had
made your ceremonial Camp Fire dress some time ago!"

Ester did not reply at once as she bent more closely over her work, but
on being asked the question the second time returned with an attempt at
speaking carelessly: "Oh, it's Betty's costume, I hope you won't mind,
but she says really she never has had time to do any sewing since our
club was formed.  So, as we are to have our June Council Fire to-night,
I promised to finished it for her.  You see this is our most important
meeting because that afternoon in town we did not have an opportunity to
arrange appropriate ceremonies."

Miss McMurtry nodded, "Yes, but I thought it was part of our plan to
have each girl make her own dress.  Even Sylvia Wharton has done her
best to help."

Miss McMurtry picked up a portion of the neglected dress, however, and
began to assist Esther.  "I wonder if it is a good thing for you and
Betty to be together," she remarked thoughtfully.  "Of course I know
Mrs. Aston's intentions were for the best in taking you to live with
them at this late date and  they will probably be very kind to you, but
really there isn't any reason, Esther, why you should take all the cares
away from Betty. She seems to be one of the persons in the world for
whom nothing is ever made difficult, while you--"  Breaking off abruptly
she turned to see if her small charge was still busy and then shaded her
eyes from the sun.

Esther laughed happily.  Not so shy and awkward here in the woods with
the other girls, she had lately thought little of her own lack of
advantages. "You needn't worry about me," she now replied, stopping her
work for a moment to look off across the fields for the return of the
other Camp Fire Girls.  "Already I perfectly adore Betty.  Of course she
does not care a great deal for me, for there is nothing in me to attract
her, but all my life I have wanted some one to love, and sort of take
care of and do things for.  Of course Betty has so many people she does
not need me much now, but some day.  Oh well, as she herself says, one
never can tell just how things may turn out in this world."

"Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo!" A far cry from several voices sounded across
the fields and a few moments later Betty Ashton, Meg, Eleanor and Juliet
Field came into view.  Betty was wearing her every day Camp Fire costume
with the official hat of blue cloth embroidered with a silver gray "W"
on a dark red background and over her shoulder was strapped a smart
knapsack.  She seemed to dance away from the other girls, although she
was not dancing but running.  Yet such was her grace and slenderness
that somehow she appeared:

Like to a lady turning in the dance, Foot before foot from earth so
slightly moved, That scarce perceptible her advance.

Arriving first she threw herself down on the ground near Esther, tossing
off her hat and resting her head on the other girl's lap.

"I am nearly dead!" she exclaimed rather irritably.  "Two miles walk
into town and two miles back is a good deal when one has been doing a
thousand things beforehand.  Besides, I didn't find a letter from mother
or father, and Mollie and Polly have seven from Mrs. O'Neill, one for
each day of her trip from New York to Queenstown.  Of course it does
take longer for a ship to land in Naples, so I am silly to be
disappointed, yet I am just the same!  Besides, Polly was dreadfully
obstinate and would insist on coming back to camp by another route, said
it was shorter and much more adventurous than the open road.  So we
parted, and Mollie and Sylvia and Bee axe returning with her.  She may
be having more adventures than we did, but the way is not shorter, for
we appear to have arrived first."

Opening her knapsack Betty then handed two letters to Miss McMurtry and
gave a little rolled package to Esther.  "Here is something for you from
Dick; he doesn't seem to have written me either."

Esther unwrapped her parcel.  "It is just a piece of music your brother
told me about, an Indian love song.  He thought perhaps I could learn it
and we could sing it together in camp.  He is very kind."

Betty shrugged her shoulders.  "Oh yes, Dick is kind to nearly
everybody, except to me sometimes when he thinks I need discipline.  But
he and mother both think you have a remarkable voice, Esther, and that
it will be a pity if you don't have it cultivated some day."

Esther laughed, touching Betty's auburn hair affectionately.  It was
loosened from her walk and curling round her face.  "That is my soul's
desire, Betty," she whispered, surprised at her sudden burst of
confidence. But Betty's manner with her was unexpectedly more intimate
than it had been since their first meeting.  She could hardly have known
that it was owing to the fact that she had just quarreled with her
adored Polly.  Of course Betty did not intend to be deceitful, she was
simply in the habit of seeking consolation from some source, whenever
things went wrong with her.

Now she put her hand the second time into her knapsack and, drawing
forth a square white box, she proceeded to open it in a slightly
shamefaced fashion and then handed it to Miss McMurtry.  "I am a
dreadful backslider from Camp Fire rules, but I just had to have some
candy this afternoon.  Do eat some with me, so I won't be the only
sinner in camp," she begged.

Miss McMurtry shook her head.  "Don't tempt Esther or any of the other
girls, Betty," she replied in a tone that Betty was familiar with at
school.  "One of the health craft rules you girls have promised to
observe is to give up candy between meals for three months.  Of course
if you wish to break your word you may, but I had rather you would not
try to influence any one else."

Betty banged the lid back on her box.

"Oh," she replied unsteadily.  "I am sorry you feel about me in that
way. I didn't mean to be a mischief maker, but you need not worry about
Esther, for she is not the kind that falls from grace."

She sat a few moments longer leaning her chin on her hand and looking
toward the grove of pine trees where the shadows were now growing longer
and darker as the afternoon lengthened.  Sorry to have fallen from grace
herself, Betty at this moment would have perished rather than confess
it.

The other three girls had gone straight on up to the tents, Meg taking
"Little Brother" with her.  But now Eleanor appeared at the opening
before their kitchen tent and began vigorously ringing a large dinner
bell.

"Betty Ashton," she called, "it is half-past five o'clock and time to
begin dinner.  You know it is your turn to help with Juliet and me.  Meg
is putting the baby to bed."

Betty encircled her hand above her lips forming a small trumpet.  "I am
not going to help with dinner to-night, I am too dead tired," she
halloed back. "I will help to-morrow instead."

"To-morrow?" Eleanor cried indignantly.  "What has to-morrow, got to do
with it?  You are no more tired than the rest of us and besides it is
your turn to-night and we have promised not to try to get out of things
unless we are ill."  Eleanor said nothing more, but even at a distance
of a good many yards it was plain that she had flounced back inside the
tent.  When she came out again with some pots and pans her air was one
of conscious and offended virtue.

A moment later Betty sighed.  "I wonder if you would mind taking my
place this afternoon, Esther?" she inquired.  "I am very tired and you
haven't been doing anything.  Would you mind, Miss Martha?"

Betty made her request very prettily and really without the least idea
that it could be refused, for she was not in the habit of being made to
do what she did not wish.  With her own family to have said she was
tired would have been regarded as a sufficient excuse for any change of
plan.

Perhaps Miss McMurtry would have been wiser had she agreed to Betty's
request, and had she been another girl she possibly might have been more
lenient.  Now she decided that Betty was simply trying to shirk her
responsibilities and so slowly shook her head.

"Of course if you are not well, Betty, I will be glad to take your place
myself," she answered, trying to speak kindly.  "However, if I were you,
I would hardly say that Esther has been doing nothing since she has been
sewing all afternoon on the ceremonial dress you promised to make your
self, so that you may wear it to our Council Fire to-night."

Betty got up quickly.  "Please don't do any further work for me while we
are in camp together, Esther," she demanded, "for it is evident that
Miss McMurtry thinks I spend my time trying to impose upon you.  As far
as the dress is concerned, I shall not need it to-night, for I shall not
come to the Council Fire.  I will do my part in helping to get dinner,
of course, but I prefer to rest afterwards."

Hardly, knowing what she was doing because of her anger, Betty yet
managed to get up quietly from her place and start toward camp without
glancing at either Esther or Miss McMurtry, although she heard Esther
following close behind her.  "Please don't disappoint us, dear," Esther
pleaded.  "I know Miss Martha will be willing to let me do your work
to-night, if we ask her again, and it will quite ruin our Council Fire if
you are not with us. What will Polly say when you and she have planned
the whole ceremony?  And I--I shall be so disappointed, for I am to be
made a Fire-Maker to-night. Besides, you know we are to talk over the
names we hope to be known by in our club."

But Betty only walked steadily on as though deaf to the other girl's
entreaty.  Near her own tent she turned at last and Esther could see
that her eyes were full of tears.  "You are mistaken, Esther, though I
am sure you are very kind," she insisted with her offended Princess air,
about which Polly used so often to tease her.  "I am sure no one will
miss me in the least and my absence will give you a chance to bestow on
me the title you think really belongs to me, such as: 'Betty who won't
bear her own burdens' or anything you prefer.  Please leave me alone
now."

So there was nothing more for Esther to do but to return to her work,
knowing how little influence she had with Betty at any time.




CHAPTER X

PIPES OF PEACE


Half an hour later Polly discovered Esther seated alone by her slowly
perishing fire taking the last stitches in Betty's rejected ceremonial
dress.  She had even embroidered on the left sleeve a small crown in
gold colored silk, since Betty's old title "The Princess" would scarcely
be changed whatever new names might be awarded to the other girls in
their Camp Fire.

"Where's Betty?" Polly inquired carelessly.  "I hope she wasn't cross; I
suppose it was not kind of me to leave her and return another way, and
she was right, it did make us late, but we had a delicious adventure!"
Poll