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+Project Gutenberg's Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer, by Rena I. Halsey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer
+
+Author: Rena I. Halsey
+
+Illustrator: Nana French Bickford
+
+Release Date: July 26, 2011 [EBook #36846]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”]
+
+                              BLUE ROBIN,
+                            THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RENA I. HALSEY
+
+                 _ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD_
+
+                                 BOSTON
+                       LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
+
+
+
+
+                         Published, March, 1917
+
+                            Copyright, 1917
+                     By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
+
+                         _All rights reserved_
+                      BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+                             Norwood Press
+                          BERWICK & SMITH CO.
+                             NORWOOD, MASS.
+                                U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+                      BLUE ROBIN THE GIRL PIONEER
+                                   IS
+                        AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                                   TO
+
+                            MISS LINA BEARD
+
+                                FOUNDER
+                                  AND
+                             CHIEF PIONEER
+                                   OF
+                       THE NATIONAL INCORPORATED
+                            ORGANIZATION OF
+                      THE GIRL PIONEERS OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+                       WHAT ARE “GIRL PIONEERS”?
+
+The first public meeting of the National Organization of the Girl
+Pioneers of America was held by the founder, Miss Lina Beard, in the
+quaint old Pioneer meeting-house on Broadway, in Flushing, New York,
+February 8, 1912.
+
+The aim of the Organization of Girl Pioneers is: To cultivate in girls
+the sterling qualities displayed by our early pioneer women; to create a
+desire in them for a happy, broad, and useful life and to show them how
+to attain it; to give them things to do that are interesting, wholesome,
+and that will strengthen character; and to develop a love for
+out-of-door life by showing them how to live it.
+
+The watchword of the Girl Pioneer is, “I Can.”
+
+The principles upon which the organization is founded are not simply
+taught as precepts, they are found and practiced in all the delightful
+activities of the movement. Outdoor life with its limitless avenues of
+interest: camping, trailing, woodcraft, learning to know the wild life
+of the open, its plants, its flowers, birds, common wild animals and
+insects; the stars and the meaning of the shadows, the use of nature’s
+material in handicraft; all these and many more are opened to the Girl
+Pioneer, and by actual contact she is finding the beauty of truth and
+the wonder of reality. By her membership in this large organization she
+is learning to be less self-centered, learning to work with others and
+for others, and to share her enjoyments with others. By the joyous
+participation in field-sports, and such recreation as rowing, swimming,
+fishing, riding, kite-flying, stilt-walking, and the more conventional
+games, such as basket-ball, service-ball, tennis, and archery, she is
+learning to play honestly and fairly, and _is building up bodily health
+and strength_ to keep pace with the mental and moral health that is
+being developed within her.
+
+By her indoor life, lived as truly in the pioneer spirit as her life in
+the open, she is bringing into play the faculties of resourcefulness, of
+adaptability, of thoroughness, and the virtue of helpful kindness. She
+learns to do all household tasks, to do them well, and to be interested
+in them. She is taught in charming ways the use of her five senses, and
+is delighted to find that she can develop them and consciously enjoy
+them. She learns to care for the sick and the young children; she is
+proud of being able to render “first aid” according to the latest and
+best methods; she learns how to avoid accidents as well as what to do in
+case of accidents. She has a system of signs for blazing the trail which
+belongs solely to the Girl Pioneers, and she learns what to do in case
+she is lost when camping or trailing. In short, the Girl Pioneer’s
+teaching makes her efficient in all fields. The mind and imagination of
+the Girl Pioneer are stimulated by true stories of heroism and the
+adventures of the early pioneers. Her merit badges are given the names
+of the women pioneers, including besides the early settlers those who
+were in helpful work for humanity. Her honors are shown by stars worn on
+the sleeve, which indicate the tests successfully passed and lead up to
+the final merit badge.
+
+The Girl Pioneer colors, red, white, and blue, not only signify that the
+organization is national in extent but hold a still further meaning for
+the Girl Pioneers; red standing for courage, white for purity, and blue
+for truth. The graceful salute symbolizes a brave heart, an honest mind,
+a resourceful hand. The motto of the Girl Pioneer is, “Brave, Honest,
+Resourceful.”
+
+The Girl Pioneers have their khaki uniform with red tie and red hatband,
+which is practical, adaptable, and pleasing. They have their banners,
+their Pioneer sign, their initiation, with its ceremony and membership
+certificate; their rallies, field-days, and other general meetings
+indoors and out. They have their Pioneer cheer, and each Band and each
+group has a cheer of its own. There is the official song which all the
+Pioneers sing, and there are songs composed by the Bands.
+
+Each Band is under the leadership of a volunteer director who furnishes
+acceptable credentials. The Band is composed of one group, or several
+groups, of from six to ten girls in each. The name of an American wild
+bird is chosen for the name of each group, and the Band is known by its
+number. The bird cheers of the groups are very breezy and inspiring.
+
+The Girl Pioneer ranks are open to all girls, and the work is very
+helpful in Sunday-schools, public schools, private schools, camps, and
+all large societies for girls, such as Young Women’s Christian
+Association, Young Women’s Christian Temperance Union, playgrounds, etc.
+
+The Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames, and like
+organizations seek to preserve the historical records and objects
+connected with the early life of our country, while the Girl Pioneers
+seek to revive and perpetuate the spirit that dominated the invincible
+men and women who made our nation possible.
+
+The Girl Pioneer organization is governed by an Executive Board, of
+which the Chief Pioneer, Lina Beard, is the head. There is also a
+National Council composed of eminent and influential men and women
+living in various parts of the United States, to be called upon when
+needed.
+
+The Pioneer folder will be sent upon application, and the Manual will be
+sent upon receipt of price, thirty-five cents, and seven cents for
+postage. For further information and for literature, address:
+
+                 Secretary of Girl Pioneers of America,
+                 Flushing, New York.
+
+
+
+
+                                FOREWORD
+
+A few summers ago I had the pleasure of being entertained by several
+Bands of The Girl Pioneers of America, on the wooded shores of one of
+Long Island’s noted bays, at Camp Laff-a-Lot. As I watched these
+wholesome-looking, happy girls in their attractive uniforms, and saw
+their bright, animated faces as they made merry in joyous sport under
+God’s blue, and then turned to the more serious employment of making
+bayberry candles, building camp fires, gathering wildflowers in their
+study of Nature, or blazing the trail as they made the woodland resound
+to their wonderful imitation of bird-notes, in the various calls of
+their groups, my interest was awakened. Later, as I gathered with them
+in the red glow of their Cheer Fire and heard their rousing Pioneer
+cheer, and their inspiring Band songs, and saw how a love for history
+and the true meaning of patriotism was engendered, while their minds and
+imaginations were being stimulated by their stories of the heroism of
+the women Pioneers, I realized that as our patriotic organizations were
+seeking to honor the Founders of our Nation by preserving historical
+records and objects, these Pioneer daughters were seeking to revive and
+perpetuate the spirit that dominated the men and women who brought to
+these shores, the grand principles of a civilization that has made our
+Republic the greatest in the world! It was in recognition of the
+nobleness of the aims of The Girl Pioneers of America, as well as in
+appreciation of the worthy Founder’s efforts to bring out the best in
+them, that inspired me to set forth if only in a limited way these many
+truths, and so I was emboldened to write “Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer!”
+
+                                                         Rena I. Halsey.
+                                                             _Brooklyn,_
+                                                      _January 1, 1917._
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+       CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+             I The Nest in the Old Cedar                         11
+            II Her Next-door Neighbor                            27
+           III Girl Pioneers                                     40
+            IV Nathalie Is Asked to Become a Blue Robin          55
+             V The Gray Stone House                              72
+            VI Working into Harness                              90
+           VII The Mayflower Feast                              108
+          VIII The Motto, “I Can”                               126
+            IX Searching for Rosy                               143
+             X Nathalie as the Story Lady                       159
+            XI The Princess in the Tower                        179
+           XII The Wild-flower Hike                             194
+          XIII Around the Cheer Fire                            213
+           XIV Overcomes                                        230
+            XV A Chapter of Surprises                           250
+           XVI Pioneer Stunts                                   270
+          XVII Liberty Banners                                  289
+         XVIII The Princess Makes Two More Friends              308
+           XIX The Fagot Party                                  330
+            XX The Dutch _Kraeg_                                348
+           XXI An Invitation                                    366
+          XXII Camp Laff-a-Lot                                  385
+         XXIII Miss Camphelia                                   403
+          XXIV The Wireless Operator                            421
+           XXV Good-by to Eagle Lake                            438
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  “What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”             _Frontispiece_
+  “Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen                         122
+  “Why, how did you get there?”                                    172
+  “Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess,
+  with a merry laugh                                               194
+  The rope had broken in her grasp                                 228
+  Up went two hands in pretended subjugation                       290
+  With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn              338
+  She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water        436
+
+
+
+
+BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I—THE NEST IN THE OLD CEDAR
+
+
+Nathalie came running up the steps of the veranda her brown eyes alight
+with excitement as she cried, “Oh, Mother, what do you think? Down in
+the old cedar-tree on the lawn is a nest of tiny blue robins—they’re
+just the cutest things—do come and see them!”
+
+“Blue robins?” quizzed her brother Dick from where he lay reading in the
+hammock. “Who ever heard of blue robins?”
+
+“I think she means bluebirds,” ventured Mrs. Page, looking up from the
+morning paper and smiling at the earnest young face of her daughter.
+Then her eyes dimmed, but she winked her lashes quickly as if to
+restrain a sudden rush of tears, rose in answer to the note of appeal in
+the girl’s voice, and stepped to her side.
+
+A moment later they were strolling across the new-grown grass of the
+lawn, the girl of sixteen supporting the slender, black-gowned figure of
+her mother, whose delicate, high-bred face with its impress of recent
+sorrow defined the youthful glow of the one that smiled upon her so
+tenderly.
+
+“Now, Mumsie, look!” whispered the girl as she pointed to a dark cavity
+in the trunk of the cedar but a short distance from the ground; “see,
+are they not robins?”
+
+Mrs. Page’s tired eyes brightened as she watched with keen interest the
+five bobbing heads with open bills, turweeing in hungry clamor, “Why no,
+Nathalie,” she replied laughingly, “they are bluebirds.”
+
+At this instant they spied the mother bird as she flitted excitedly
+among the upper branches of the tree. Drawing her mother to one side,
+Nathalie whispered tensely, “Oh, there’s the mother bird—she wants to
+feed them! Let’s see what she will do!” Nathalie’s eyes sparkled
+expectantly.
+
+It was quite evident what Mrs. Bluebird was going to do, for she
+immediately jumped to the edge of the nest and dropped a fat, squirming
+worm into an open bill. As she poised over her nestlings she caught
+sight of the two figures under the tree. In another instant she had set
+up such a vigorous scolding that the interlopers were quite disturbed.
+Seeing, however, that they did not offer to molest her little ones, Mrs.
+Birdie finally subsided, cocked her head perkily on one side, and
+watched them with eyes that shone like two fireflies.
+
+Father bird now came flying up with another good-sized wriggler in his
+beak, which mother bird, with an eye to business, hastily snatched and
+dropped into a wide-open bill.
+
+“Why, Mother,” commented Nathalie, “do you see that the father bird is
+much the handsomer of the two, for he is of a deep blue color, while
+mother bird’s feathers are grayish-blue.”
+
+Her mother nodded as she answered, “Yes, and his beautiful coat is in
+striking contrast to his throat and breast, which are reddish-brown.”
+
+“And the white feathers below,” continued Nathalie, with keen eyes,
+“look like a white apron.”
+
+“But come, dear,” interposed her mother, “we must go back, for I hear
+Dick whistling—he is getting impatient—I promised to get him a sofa
+pillow for the hammock.”
+
+As they stepped on the veranda, Dick inquired, with sarcastic
+inflection, balancing himself on the edge of the hammock and pushing it
+to and fro with his crutch, “Well, how many blue robins did you find?”
+
+“We found five tiny bluebirds,” responded his mother with unwonted
+animation as she seated herself in a low rocker, and then she continued
+in lower tone as her daughter disappeared in quest of the pillow, “Oh,
+Dick! I am so glad to see some color in Nathalie’s cheeks again, for she
+has been looking very wan and pale. The poor child has not only suffered
+the loss of her father, but she has had to give up so many things—the
+very things, too, that a girl of her age longs for so much!” Mrs. Page
+sighed drearily.
+
+“Giving up college was the hardest,” added her son, his face expressing
+the sympathy he hardly knew how to voice; “but she’s a corker, for she
+has faced every disappointment like a little hero. I didn’t know she had
+so much pluck in her.”
+
+“She takes after her father, he was always so cheerful about facing the
+inevitable—” His mother’s lips quivered; she paused as if to gain
+control of her voice and then resumed brokenly, “Oh, Dick, to think he
+has gone—it seems as if it could not be true—”
+
+“True enough,” retorted Dick gruffly; and then he added, in a softer
+voice, “but after all, Mother, every one has to have trouble. We’re
+having ours just now—that’s all—and we’ve got to bear it. Things might
+have been worse, I suppose—we’ve got enough left to live on—oh, if it
+wasn’t for this confounded knee of mine—to be helpless when—”
+
+“Hush, Dick, don’t say that,” cried his mother in a pained voice; “just
+have patience, and you will be all right; have patience with me, too,
+dear, because I am such a coward to allow myself to get so depressed.”
+She made a brave attempt at a smile. “It will be as you say, all right
+soon.”
+
+Hearing Nathalie’s step, she hastily hid her tear-stained face behind
+the paper; then, as that young woman threw the sofa pillow at Dick’s
+head, she exclaimed, “I am so glad, Nathalie, to see you take an
+interest in the new home. I think it is a lovely—”
+
+“Doll’s house!” interposed the girl laughingly. “But, O dear, I must be
+careful, for when I called it a doll’s house while Mrs. Morton was here
+she looked rather queer, and then I remembered that her house is not
+much bigger. But do you know, Mother,” she rattled on girlishly, “I
+think we are going to be quite comfy in this little home—after a time of
+course,” she hastened to add, “when we have become used to the
+change—and all—” she stopped abruptly, for she, too, was thinking of the
+dear father who had gone so suddenly—without even saying good-by, as she
+had so often wailed in the darkness of night—leaving Mother with only a
+meager income, and with poor Dick to take care of, and her and Dorothy,
+who didn’t know enough to earn a penny!
+
+A sudden slam of the door was heard, a “How are you, Auntie?” in a
+sweet, assured voice, and then with smiling eyes a tall, graceful, young
+woman, with shiny, fluffy hair came forward and kissed her aunt
+caressingly.
+
+“Oh, Lucille, what do you think?” broke from Nathalie impetuously; “I
+found a nest of tiny bluebirds down in the old cedar-tree on the lawn!”
+
+“Um-m, well, you are always finding something to enthuse over,” remarked
+her cousin with careless indifference, “but I wish you would make that
+all-round maid of yours do my room, I want to write a letter.” There was
+spoiled impatience in the girl’s voice.
+
+Mrs. Page looked up with a startled expression as she murmured
+apologetically, “Oh, I forgot, Lucille. I will do it—I thought—”
+
+“No, no, Mother,” came from Nathalie hurriedly, as with heightened color
+and gentle insistence she forced her mother back to her seat. “I will do
+it.”
+
+Nathalie disappeared within the door. She had smiled sweetly for her
+mother’s sake, but as she went up the stairs there was an upward lift to
+her chin that showed that she had a will and a temper of some weight.
+“Why is Lucille so mean,” she questioned mutinously, “as not to make her
+own bed when she knows that now we shall have to get along with only one
+maid? Mother is not going to wait on her!” Her eyes gleamed with angry
+decision, and then the curves of her mouth softened as she struggled
+silently with her jarring thoughts.
+
+Yes, it must be borne, for was it not a part of the great change that
+had come into her life with her first great sorrow? The shock of her
+father’s death had dazed her, and she had suffered in a dulled,
+uncomprehending way until she was aroused from her grief by the many
+anxieties and disappointing changes that the financial tangle of her
+father’s affairs had caused.
+
+Leaving their beautiful city home, giving up the many luxuries and the
+pleasures to which she had been accustomed, parting from her school
+friends, and coming to the unknown suburban town were bitter
+disappointments; the one that cut the deepest was giving up college, but
+the hardest to bear was Dick’s accident!
+
+The next moment the girl was hard at work picking up Lucille’s
+disordered room, humming cheerily as she went about her task, for, after
+all, her cousin was independent—she paid her board—and now they would
+need every penny.
+
+A resolute will and deft fingers can accomplish much in this workaday
+world, and so Nathalie soon finished her new job, as she called it, and
+sat on the veranda watching the robins as they hopped nimbly over the
+lawn, ducking their heads every minute or so to reappear with fat,
+dangling worms in their beaks.
+
+Their cheerful twitter, the budding leaves on trees and bushes, and the
+many reminders of the revival of life under the warmth and glow of the
+spring sunshine thrilled her with exhilaration. Her depression vanished,
+she felt happy again, but vaguely perhaps, scarcely comprehending that
+the buoyancy of youth and the joy of life were compensations that dulled
+the harrowing edge of grief.
+
+With a long breath, as if to capture as much as possible of the spring
+balminess, Nathalie turned to see her mother seated in the low chair,
+with her basket of mending, wearing the same dazed, worried look on her
+face that had haunted the girl ever since their sorrow. She became
+keenly aware that her tireless mother, who had always stood ready to do
+the thousand and one things that were constantly calling her, was
+failing. Something swelled up in her throat, she fought valiantly a
+moment, and then jumping up, she grabbed the half-darned sock from her
+mother’s hand, pitched it into the basket, picked it up and carried it
+over to her chair.
+
+“Now, Mumsie,” she declared in answer to her mother’s startled look,
+“you are not to darn any more stockings; henceforth your humble servant
+is to be the champion mender.” Nathalie’s cheeks flushed, for as she
+raised her eyes she encountered those of a young girl about her own age
+who was just coming out of the adjoining house.
+
+As her neighbor saw Nathalie, she smiled a cheery good-morning, showing
+a row of strong, white teeth, and then strode down the walk with the
+light step and easy swing of the athletic girl.
+
+“Huh! what a queer rig,” commented Lucille, with a supercilious raising
+of her eyebrows, as she noted that the girl wore a short brown khaki
+skirt over bloomers, a middy with a Turkey red tie, and a broad-brimmed
+hat banded with red. “Is that the Salvation Army’s summer apparel?” Then
+seeing that the girl carried a strong staff in her hand, she added with
+a giggle, “Or perhaps she is some aspiring member of the militants.”
+
+“Why, I think the uniform—for I presume it is that—” interposed Mrs.
+Page, “is very attractive, and most appropriate for a Girl Pioneer.”
+
+“Why, Mother, how do you know she is a Girl Pioneer?” questioned
+Nathalie with mild amazement.
+
+“Ah, I forgot to tell you that her mother, Mrs. Dame, called the day you
+were out walking. She told me that Helen, her only daughter, belongs to
+‘The Girl Pioneers of America.’”
+
+“The Girl Pioneers of America!” repeated her daughter; “why, I never
+heard of them. Is it a patriotic society?”
+
+“In a way I presume it is,” returned her mother, “as it is an
+organization which trains girls to emulate the sterling qualities of the
+early pioneer women.”
+
+“I wonder what they do, and if it is anything like the Boy Scouts!”
+continued Nathalie interestedly.
+
+“I think from what Mrs. Dame told me that it must be a sister society to
+that organization, for its object is to awaken within the girls a desire
+for healthy, outdoor activities, as well as a broad and useful life
+along many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are so shallow and
+artificial-looking, and have no higher thought than getting all the
+pleasure they can out of life, that it is something which is sadly
+needed.” Mrs. Page’s tones were expressive.
+
+“Oh, Aunt Mary,” demurred Lucille, looking up with a frown from her
+novel, “one would think that you expected girls to dress and act like
+their grandmothers. I am sure one can be young but once, and if one
+doesn’t have a good time then, what’s the use of living? And for putting
+a little color on one’s face, why, the most fashionable people do it
+nowadays.”
+
+Mrs. Page’s face flushed slightly, but she replied with quiet dignity,
+“I am surprised, Lucille, to hear you talk that way, brought up as you
+have been, too. It is true,” she continued, “that there is no harm in
+wanting a good time—as you call it—that is youth’s privilege, and no one
+wishes to turn youth into age, but back of it all there should be common
+sense and a desire for right living. As for putting artificial color on
+a face that should represent the freshness and the natural bloom of
+youth, why, to me it is demoralizing.”
+
+Lucille frowned impatiently and resumed her reading.
+
+“Mrs. Dame,” continued her aunt, turning towards Nathalie, “said her
+daughter Helen was coming in to call on you; she will probably give you
+all the information you want about the new organization. I hope you will
+like her, dear, for she seems a pleasant, well-bred girl and surely will
+prove companionable to you. We might as well, all of us, try to forget
+our city life with its past pleasures, and see if we cannot adapt
+ourselves to our surroundings.”
+
+“Indeed I will try, Mumsie,” replied Nathalie with a slight catch in her
+voice, as her thoughts turned back to her chums in the city, and she
+wondered what they would think of her humble little home. “But really,
+Mother,” she spoke aloud, “I think Miss Dame has an awfully bright face,
+and I wish she would call, for I should like to know about the Girl
+Pioneers.”
+
+A few days after the finding of the bluebird’s nest, Nathalie, enlivened
+by the desire to investigate her surroundings, and curious for new
+experiences, set forth on a little exploring tour to the woods on the
+outskirts of the town. She had tried to induce her cousin to join her,
+but that young lady was absorbed in running over a new ragtime song. Her
+sister Dorothy, aged twelve, had also declined on the score that she had
+an engagement with a girl neighbor who lived in the big house down the
+road.
+
+Sunshine and youth are joy-bearers, and as Nathalie felt the air in
+fragrant little whiffs against her cheeks, she thrilled with pleasure as
+she strode briskly up the hill. A moment later, however, her shining
+eyes shadowed, and she unconsciously shivered as she encountered a cold
+glance from a lady, weirdly garbed in gray, who was just passing.
+
+The color flashed to her cheeks; she felt as if some one had slapped her
+as the haunting vision of that uncanny stare of aversion from two
+steely-gray eyes penetrated her consciousness. Tempted by curiosity she
+turned and watched the peculiar-looking figure as it glided with almost
+specter-like swiftness down the hill.
+
+“I wonder who she is and why she gave me such a harrowing glance,”
+thought Nathalie. “Whew! she has frozen me stiff,” and then a laugh
+brightened the brown eyes as she continued on her way. She had almost
+reached the top of the hill when she saw a large brown card on the walk.
+Picking it up she read, “Westport Library,” and then the written name,
+“Elizabeth Van Vorst.” Not a great loss, to be sure, but likely to cause
+inconvenience.
+
+“Oh, I wonder if that lady didn’t drop it, she had a book under her
+arm,” flashed into the girl’s mind. She hesitated—she did not want to
+climb that long hill again—but the next second she had whirled about and
+was running lightly down the slope in the direction of a Carnegie
+building that glimmered picturesquely between green-boughed trees.
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” panted Nathalie as she held out the card to the
+gray lady who had just emerged from the library and was looking vexedly
+about on the walk in front of the building, “did you not lose your
+library card?”
+
+The lady turned sharply, stared suspiciously at the girl a moment, and
+then, as her eyes fell upon the extended card, exclaimed coldly, “Oh,
+did you find it? Thank you, I am much obliged!” With a haughty glance of
+dismissal she turned and ascended the library steps.
+
+Nathalie’s eyes gleamed angrily, but with a toss of her head she was off
+on her second trudge up the slope. “Well, she is the limit—” she
+muttered. “Of all hateful, disagreeable, peculiar, mysterious creatures,
+she takes first rank.” But when the girl reached the woods where the
+new-gowned trees and the white blossoms of the dogwood, which she had
+spied the day before, riding in a trolley car, rustled softly in the
+sunlight, as if in a spring greeting to the flower-seeker, the
+unpleasant incident was forgotten.
+
+With eager eyes and cheeks aglow she began to break off a sprig here and
+there, lingering only to caress the snowy petals that tantalizingly
+brushed her cheek.
+
+“What a beauty!” she exclaimed as she suddenly halted; “it will be just
+the spray to sketch.” Up went her arm—a little higher—and then something
+went from under her; she tried to regain her footing, but slipped again
+on the moist turf. She felt her foot turn, and then came a sharp twinge
+that whitened her lips as she dropped, a helpless heap, on the ground.
+
+For a few moments the girl forgot her dogwood blossoms, the slip, and
+the pain, and then she opened her eyes to realize, with a pang of
+dismay, that she must have fainted. Oh, she must have twisted her ankle,
+for when she tried to stand she almost screamed with the knife-like
+twinges.
+
+She leaned her head against the tree with closed eyes, trying to think,
+but her thoughts seemed to run around in a circle, for she could see no
+way out of her dilemma. She was too far from the trolley line to hail a
+car, or to beckon to any passer-by who might be on the road.
+
+She thought ruefully of how worried her mother would be if she did not
+return before dark. And who was there to look for her? Dick was helpless
+with his crutch, Dorothy would not be home until late, and Lucille—well,
+whoever heard of Lucille ever doing anything for any one but herself?
+
+She screamed, but when her voice rang out with reverberating shrillness
+she clapped her hands to her ears. She would sing; and her fresh young
+voice broke forth into ragtime song.
+
+But the ragtime quivered pathetically into a half-wail. What should she
+do? At last in sheer desperation she began to sing hymns; but they
+sounded so doleful in her nervous state that she desisted with a sound
+that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was about to embrace
+resignation to fate when she caught the glimmer of a brown skirt between
+the low-hung branches of the trees near by. In a moment there was a
+sharp crack of a twig, and Nathalie with a sudden exclamation of joy saw
+a young girl coming quickly toward her, wearing the same kind of a brown
+uniform she had perceived on her neighbor a few days ago.
+
+“Oh, are you hurt?” asked the girl quickly, as she saw Nathalie’s white
+face resting against the tree.
+
+Nathalie, attempting to smile, told of her mishap, and then with
+widening eyes saw the girl run a few steps into the open. Then the
+short, staccato whistle of Bob White struck the air.
+
+It was hardly a moment when, in response to this bird-call, several
+girls appeared in the opening beyond. A few hurried words with the girl
+who had signaled them, and they were around Nathalie, listening to the
+story of her accident.
+
+After expressing their sympathy, two of the taller girls quickly slipped
+off their khaki skirts, unbuttoned them, and then, to the injured one’s
+amazement, one of the girls pushed her staff through the belt of one
+skirt and hem of the other, while her companion did the same with her
+staff. They were improvising a stretcher, as neat and
+comfortable-looking as if it had just been removed from an ambulance.
+
+While the stretcher was being made, one of the girls had taken from her
+knapsack a small black case from which she extracted a bottle. Hastily
+kneeling on the ground, after Nathalie’s boot had been removed by her
+assistant, she bathed the injured foot, then, as her companion handed
+her a roll of white lint she bound it with a cotton compress, while
+Nathalie, with much curiosity, watched her as she quickly and skillfully
+performed the work of First Aid to the Injured. As she rose to her feet
+and turned to direct her companions in the lifting of her patient on the
+stretcher, Nathalie recognized her next-door neighbor, Helen Dame, the
+Girl Pioneer!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II—HER NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR
+
+
+If Nathalie was surprised at the deftness and resourcefulness of these
+Girl Pioneers, she was amazed at the ease and comfort she experienced as
+the four girls strode forward, two at the head and two at the foot of
+the improvised stretcher.
+
+Notwithstanding the sharp twinges in her foot, she felt as if she could
+have dropped into a doze if a sudden, jarring thought had not caused her
+to raise her head in search of her next-door neighbor. By the decision
+of her voice and her methodical manner of directing her companions as
+they prepared the “bed of ease,” Nathalie had recognized this girl as
+the leader.
+
+But Helen Dame was not to be seen. One of the girls, however, on seeing
+Nathalie’s movement, commanded a halt and hastened to her side. “What
+can I do for you?” she inquired in an anxious tone. “Are you in pain?”
+
+Her ready sympathy brought the tears to Nathalie’s eyes, for her nerves
+were somewhat under a strain, but she fought them bravely back, and
+looking up with a reassuring smile replied, “Oh no, I am all right, but
+I was looking for Miss Dame. I am afraid if Mother sees me on a
+stretcher, she will think something very dreadful has happened.”
+
+“Ah, Helen thought of that,” was the quick reply, “and she has gone
+ahead to tell your mother that you have only hurt your foot, and to see
+if she can get Dr. Morrow to come over and look at it.”
+
+“Oh, how kind of her—and of you all—” there was a slight tremor in
+Nathalie’s voice. “I am sure I do not know what would have become of me,
+alone there in the woods, if you girls had not come to my rescue.”
+
+As the girls walked slowly on with their burden, the one walking by the
+side of the stretcher told Nathalie that they were a group of Girl
+Pioneers, that they had been on a hike, and that her name was Grace
+Tyson. As they chatted pleasantly, Nathalie told of her recent removal
+from the city to Westport. With wise forethought she suppressed all
+mention of her former wealth and the many luxuries she had been used to,
+for fear that these suburban girls, not comprehending, might misjudge
+her and think that she considered herself above them. She had learned
+from the girls of her own set in school that when a newcomer took
+particular care to advise them how rich she was, her mates usually
+dubbed her a snob. So she only told of her great loss in the death of
+her father, how Dick, her older brother, had injured his knee in an
+accident and was an invalid, and how she liked her new home.
+
+In the companionship of this new girl she scarcely realized how quickly
+the time had passed until she saw her mother’s anxious face bending over
+her, and heard a masculine voice say, “Well, is this the young lady who
+reached too high?”
+
+Nathalie looked quickly up and immediately her heart went out to this
+big, bluff man with iron-gray hair and kindly blue eyes who picked her
+up as if she had been a manikin, carried her into the hall, and laid her
+on the couch. She recognized the face of the doctor who lived on the
+opposite corner whom she had often envied as he went chugging down the
+street in his automobile.
+
+After the doctor had pressed her foot here and there with a touch as
+soft as silk from the gentleness of trained fingers, he brought forth
+some surgical plaster from a black case, and strapped the injured
+member, remarking as he did so on the surgeon-like way in which Miss
+Dame had bandaged it.
+
+After the “exam,” as Dick called it, was over, the doctor explained the
+case as a few strained ligaments, and said that with care his patient
+would be able to walk in about a week.
+
+“A week?” sprang from the young girl involuntarily. Dismay shone in her
+eyes, but the doctor, with a fatherly pat, assured her that she had
+great cause for gratitude, as it might have been much worse.
+
+“The next time you go to gather dogwood blossoms, young lady,” he
+advised jovially, “wear rubber heels, and then you won’t slip on
+stones.”
+
+As the doctor bade her good afternoon, promising to come again in a few
+days to see how the foot was progressing, Nathalie thought of her
+rescuers, and raising her head peered anxiously around.
+
+“The girls have gone, but they left a good-by for you,” her mother
+answered to her look of inquiry, “and Miss Dame says she will be in
+to-morrow to see how you are.”
+
+By to-morrow Nathalie had begun to think it was not at all unpleasant to
+be a short-time invalid, and she jokingly requested her mother to see
+that her head was not screwed around from sheer conceit at being the
+recipient of so much attention.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, the doctor’s young wife, had sent her a beautiful bunch of
+yellow daffodils from the very garden that Nathalie had been admiring
+all the week, while the little, silver-haired old lady next
+door—Nathalie could have hugged her, she looked so grand-motherly—had
+sent her a snow-frosted nut-cake. Lucille—an unheard-of thing—had
+condescended to alight from her pedestal of self and had played and sung
+Nathalie’s favorite selections all the morning. Even Dorothy, whose
+engagement book was always brimming over, had darned stockings for her.
+Of course, Nathalie knew that she would have to rip out every stitch,
+but that was the child’s way of showing that she, too, wanted to be
+sympathetic and kind.
+
+The success of the day, however, was when Helen Dame’s dark eyes smiled
+at her from the adjoining porch, and she asked if Nathalie felt like
+chatting for a while.
+
+“Indeed I do,” answered Nathalie animatedly, “I have been just dying to
+talk with you ever since you were so kind.”
+
+“Oh, how sweet you look!” exclaimed Helen a few moments later as she
+shook hands with the patient, “with your pink ribbons—just the color of
+your cheeks.” For the girl’s color had deepened as her visitor laid a
+bunch of violets on her lap. “These are from the girls, the Girl
+Pioneers—that is our Pioneer song,” she added laughingly.
+
+“I just love violets!” Nathalie sniffed at the purple petals. “And the
+girls, do you mean the ones who so kindly came to my aid the other day?
+Oh, Miss Dame, I hardly know how to express my appreciation of your
+kindness,” her voice trembled slightly, “in hurrying home to tell
+Mother.”
+
+“Oh, that was nothing,” replied Helen with assumed indifference,
+although her eyes darkened in appreciation of Nathalie’s gratefulness,
+“that was only courtesy; you know we are Girl Pioneers, and kindness is
+one of the laws of the organization.”
+
+“Do you know,” Nathalie broke in impulsively, “Mother thinks the girls
+very clever in making that stretcher; do tell me about the Girl
+Pioneers!” She hesitated for a moment. “Perhaps I am very ignorant, but
+I never heard of them until your mother told mine that you were a Girl
+Pioneer.”
+
+Helen laughed with a gratified gleam in her eyes. “Oh, Mother!—she
+thinks it just the dandiest thing going. Mrs. Morrow, our Director,
+introduced the movement here. The founder is a friend of hers, so she is
+steeped to her finger-tips with it.
+
+“She started me going—enthusiasm is contagious, you know—and I organized
+the first group. A group means six or eight girls; several groups form
+what is called a band.”
+
+“Do you mean Mrs. Morrow, the doctor’s wife?” inquired her companion.
+“She must be lovely, for she looks so pretty flitting about the garden,”
+turning wistful eyes toward the corner house with its flower beds and
+green lawn. “I often watch her from my window.”
+
+“Yes, she is a dear,” assented Helen, “and we girls adore her. Have you
+seen the twins?”
+
+“The kiddies who go about in khaki uniforms and carry little poles.”
+
+“Yes, baby Boy Scouts. You should hear them call themselves ‘the twims’;
+they both lisp. But there, I must tell you about the Pioneers—but I
+don’t want to tire you,” she paused abruptly, “for Mother says there is
+no end to me when I get talking on that subject.”
+
+“But I want to hear about them!” pleaded Nathalie.
+
+“Well, after I organized the group, the girls elected me leader, and
+Grace Tyson—that’s the girl who walked beside you coming home—my
+assistant. You see every group has to have a leader and an assistant
+from the group, and then when a band is formed there is a Director. Any
+one over twenty-one years of age can be a Director. After we formed our
+group, we had to get busy and qualify.”
+
+“Qualify?” repeated her hostess, “that sounds big.”
+
+“Yes, every Girl Pioneer has to qualify, that is to pass several tests
+to prove that she is competent to do the work. It is no end of fun
+training a girl to qualify, for you know she has to recite the Girl
+Pioneer pledge, and the Pioneer laws; she must give the names of the
+President and Vice-President of the United States, the name of the
+Governor of the State in which she lives, and then tell all about our
+country’s flag. She must know how to sew a button on properly,” Helen
+made a grimace, “to tie a square knot and to do several other things.
+After a girl has passed these tests, she becomes a third-class Pioneer;
+then after a month she can qualify for a second-class Pioneer, and
+finally for a first-class Pioneer. We can win merit badges, too, for
+proficiency in certain lines. Yes, you are right, it is a big thing to
+be a Girl Pioneer, for every true Pioneer’s aim is to be courageous,
+resourceful, and upright, under all circumstances and in all
+emergencies.
+
+“You know, we have to pledge ourselves to speak the truth at all times,
+to be honest in all things, and to obey the Pioneer law.” Helen’s face
+grew serious. “Yes, and our laws mean something, too, for they stand for
+the doing of things that are worth while, the things that develop
+nobility of character, for, as Mrs. Morrow tells us, it is character
+that makes the great men and women of the world.
+
+“But don’t think we are serious all the time,” she continued, her eyes
+brightening, “for we have heaps of fun. We take hikes; sometimes just a
+group go with their leader, but generally our Director takes the band.
+On these hikes we study woodcraft; that means we study the birds, their
+habits, and learn to know their songs and call-notes. We gather wild
+flowers, ferns, and grasses, and each girl reads up about the particular
+thing she finds and passes the information along. We study the trees,
+and the animals also by tracking their footmarks—well, to sum it all up,
+we study nature from growing things and living creatures.
+
+“To read about things in a book is all right, Mrs. Morrow says, as it is
+helpful in identification and suggestion, but we strive to know things
+through personal experience. We are taught to find nature, too, in the
+crowded cities. That’s big, isn’t it?”
+
+“Big!” echoed Nathalie, “the word _big_ isn’t big enough to express it.
+I should say it meant—well”—she held out her arms, “the universe.”
+
+There was something so responsive in her words and attitude, although
+they did not exactly express what she meant to convey, that Helen, with
+almost boyish frankness, held out her hand, crying, “Good! let’s shake.
+You are simply immense, Miss Page, or, in the words of our old French
+professor at school, ‘you—haf—much com—pree—henshun!’” This was said in
+mimic tone with laughing eyes, a shrug of the shoulders, and with
+outspread hands.
+
+“We have indoor rallies, or Pioneer circles, also, Miss Page, when our
+Director gives us delightful little talks on ethical culture,—only ten
+minutes—” she pleaded laughingly, “also on history, astronomy,—we call
+them our star talks,—and other instructive subjects.
+
+“You will be surprised, perhaps, but these talks are very interesting,
+not at all tiresome. The girls listen with all their ears and we learn
+an awful lot. One reason is that Mrs. Morrow loves young girls—for you
+see, she isn’t so very much older than we are—and she knows just how to
+talk to us, so that we don’t feel as if we were being preached at, or
+having wisdom jammed down our throats. It is just dramatizing serious
+things through play, so as to make us remember them as well as
+entertaining us. Then we have spelling-contests, cooking-matches,—I call
+them trials by fire,—sewing-bees, and all sorts of old-fashioned
+things.”
+
+“But you have outdoor sports, too, do you not?” asked her listener, who
+was intensely interested.
+
+“Indeed we do, any number of them: swimming, horseback-riding, rowing,
+canoeing, basket-ball, tennis, dancing, stilt-walking,—we make our own
+stilts,—kite-flying,—and we make our own kites, too. In fact, we do just
+about everything that stands for healthful recreation and wholesome fun.
+Isn’t that comprehensive enough?”
+
+“How did you come to take the name ‘Pioneer’?”
+
+“Well, you see it was this way; as the Boy Scouts strive to imitate the
+chivalry and higher qualities of the knights of olden times, so we,
+their sister organization, endeavor to emulate the sterling qualities of
+the early pioneer women. They learned to be courageous, resourceful, and
+efficient, as the home-makers of the brave men who founded this
+Republic—”
+
+“Do you mean the wives of the Puritans and Pilgrims?”
+
+“Yes, we mean all those women, North, East, South, and West,” Helen
+declared smilingly, “who helped their good men to build homes in the
+wilderness, who mothered their children with Spartan-like denial, and
+who—yes, who knew how to handle an old flintlock when they heard the cry
+of the Indian. Oh, no, I’m not originating, I am only an echo of Mrs.
+Morrow, who is way up on Colonial history.
+
+“The Pioneer Girls,” she continued more seriously, “aim, by imitating
+the many qualities of these splendid women, to be worthy wives and
+mothers. Who knows?” she broke into a laugh, “the Girl Pioneers may be
+the mothers of men like Washington, Lincoln—O dear,” she stopped
+suddenly, “I am talking as if I had to speed a thousand words a minute!”
+
+“Oh, go on!” cried Nathalie, inspired by her guest’s fervency, “I just
+love to hear you talk.”
+
+“It is very good of you to say that,” declared Helen with a slight
+blush, “but I am almost ‘at the finish,’ as the boys say. But I must not
+forget to tell you that we love to gather around the open fire, cheer
+fires we call them, and tell stories. We generally try to make them
+stories about the pioneers, or heroic women, and sometimes we run in a
+story about some brave kiddie, for you know almost every one loves to
+hear about brave little children. Ah, that reminds me, did you ever hear
+about Mary Chilton? She was a real pioneer girl you know, for she came
+over with the Pilgrims.” Helen nodded her head impressively.
+
+“No, I have read about Lola Standish, and I believe—yes—I saw her
+sampler once, and I am quite up on all the points of Priscilla’s
+courtship, but—”
+
+“Who isn’t?” replied Miss Dame, “for she was a dear. Mary Chilton was a
+friend of hers. Why, don’t you remember she was the girl who made the
+bet with John Alden—slow old John—that when the little shallop struck
+Plymouth Rock (of course they never dreamed that they were going to make
+that old rock immortal) that she would jump on the rock first; and sure
+enough she did manage to land a second or so before John Alden.”
+
+“Well, the Girl Pioneers aim high,” declared Nathalie, “and I certainly
+think they must be worthwhile girls. I shall love to meet your Pioneer
+friends—they cheered me up—” she added, “for they made me think of the
+girls at school, especially Grace Tyson. Why, she is so much like my
+chum that it almost seemed as if I were talking to her the other day!
+Your friends all have such happy faces, and ‘it is such a relief to see
+good red cheeks as made by Mother Nature,’ as Mother says. Some of the
+girls one sees in the cities nowadays have such a made-up appearance,
+especially those on the avenue Saturday afternoons in New York.”
+
+“Yes, they have regular clown faces with their splashes of red, and
+their powdered noses,” returned her neighbor laughingly. “I always feel
+as if I wanted to tell them they had forgotten to rub the flour off. It
+doesn’t seem possible that any well-bred girl could think she looks nice
+all dabbed up in that way. But there, I am tiring you,” she added
+hastily, “so I am going to say good-by. Oh, I came very near forgetting
+to ask if you would like to have the girls call on you—I mean the girls
+of our group?” she hesitated. “I think you would like them, although
+they may not be as fashionable as your city friends.”
+
+“Oh, but they are the kind of girls I like,” protested Nathalie
+hurriedly, “for I do not care for girls who are nothing but fuss and
+feathers. Please do bring your friends, for I know I shall like them,
+and then, too, they may tell me more about the good times you have.”
+
+“Indeed they will,” said Helen with decision; “they will be only too
+pleased. When shall we come, will Thursday be a good day for you?”
+
+“Yes, indeed; I shall be here—still in this old chair I presume; I shall
+watch for them with great impatience, for you know,” she added a little
+sadly, “they remind me of my schoolmates in the city. Oh, I have missed
+them dreadfully! Now, be sure to come—all of you!”
+
+She rose in her chair to wave a good-by to her new friend, who, as she
+reached the gate, had turned and waved her hand.
+
+Nathalie sank back in her chair with tear-dimmed eyes, for somehow that
+friendly salute had brought it all back—the faces of her merry comrades,
+and the happy care-free hours they had spent together. She swallowed
+hard, for Helen had waved her hand just the way the girls used to do
+when they came in afternoons for a chatty little visit, and then hurried
+away with just such a parting salute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III—GIRL PIONEERS
+
+
+“Oh, I wish you would tell me something about your school life in New
+York,” begged Helen wistfully; “I had a friend who used to go to one of
+the high schools. I hear they are very fine.”
+
+It was Thursday, the day the Girl Pioneers were to call on Nathalie, and
+Helen Dame had run over a few moments before their arrival to have a
+short chat with her new friend.
+
+“Oh—I,” Nathalie hesitated with rising color, “I did not go to high
+school. Yes, I know they are very fine, but I attended a private school
+kept by Madame Chemidlin.”
+
+An “oh!” escaped Helen involuntarily, as her eyes gloomed a little, but
+her companion plunged recklessly on.
+
+“It is considered one of the finest schools in the city, because, well,
+for one thing, Madame is adorable, her father was one of the nobility, a
+political refugee from France, and then because the girls who attend
+come from the best families in New York. They were just dears—” with a
+sigh of regret—“Nellie Blinton, she was my chummiest chum, she’s the one
+I told you Miss Tyson reminded me of, she has the same kind of a face as
+Nell, with big, dark eyes and the same gentle, ladylike way about her
+that my friend has.
+
+“Then there was Puss Davidson, she’s awfully clever. She writes stories,
+and last year won a gold medal from St. Nicholas. She was Valedictorian
+of our class last Spring. You know I graduated then, but took a
+post-graduate course last winter and expected to enter college this
+fall, but now, of course, things are different.” She spoke a little
+sadly.
+
+Helen could not help feeling somewhat disappointed as she heard about
+these rich schoolmates of Nathalie’s; she had taken a great liking to
+this girl with the daintily colored face with its rounding curves,
+lighted by eyes that held you captive with their frank, direct gaze.
+Although bright and clever-looking, this Girl Pioneer possessed no claim
+to beauty, for, as she ruefully commented at times, she had a nose with
+a knob on it. For that reason, perhaps, being free from that enviousness
+that characterizes so many girls, she was a beauty-lover. Too often she
+had made friends with girls just because they appealed to her love for
+the beautiful, only to realize when it was too late that good looks do
+not always mean pleasing traits of character. In fact, Helen was
+somewhat tired of being disappointed, and had vowed to her mother that
+she was never again going to care for a pretty girl. She was not sure
+that Nathalie was a real beauty, but surely, with her lovely brown eyes
+and the gracious little way she had, not at all self-conscious, but just
+real “self,” she was in a fair way to become very popular with the
+girls.
+
+Her eyes clouded momentarily and something caused an unpleasant jar. No,
+she was not jealous of Nathalie, for she was willing to have her know
+and be liked by the other girls, but as she had been the first one to
+know her, she wanted to be her special friend. But then if she had
+always had so many high-toned schoolmates, perhaps she would not care to
+be a friend to a girl who was learning to be a wage-earner. Helen had
+always felt proud to think that some day she could be ranked among that
+class of highly regarded women, but would Nathalie think as she did?
+
+There was something so straightforward, however, so honest, about
+Nathalie as she went on and told of her studies, her friends, and a few
+of the incidents in her school life in the big city, that Helen forgot
+her fears, and was compelled to believe that she would be doing her an
+injustice in fearing that she would choose her companions for what they
+had and not for what they were.
+
+“Oh, here they come!” cried Nathalie at this moment as she caught a
+glimpse of a group of girls in brown uniforms coming down the street.
+She half rose from her chair and with sparkling eyes watched them as
+they came, a dozen or more, perhaps, up the steps of the veranda. In
+another second her eyes grew big as she saw each girl’s hand placed
+quickly over her heart, then up to her forehead, and lastly held with
+open palm at a level with the right shoulder. It was the Girl Pioneers’
+salute to their leader, for Helen with a sudden straightening of the
+shoulders had responded to the greeting with a similar movement.
+
+Nathalie had already stepped forward, leaning on Dick’s crutch,—he had
+been relegated to the couch in the hall,—and was crying, as her color
+came and went in pink flushes, “Oh, I am so glad to see you!” extending
+her hand to the foremost girl, Grace Tyson. “I think it’s just lovely
+for you all to come to see me!” nodding towards the rest of the group,
+with eyes that attested the cordiality of her welcome. She stopped
+abruptly, for the girls had broken forth into
+
+  “Hear! hear! hear! Girl Pioneer!
+  Come, give a cheer, G-i-r-l Pi-o-neer!”
+
+“And a cheer for our hostess!” added Grace Tyson, lifting up her hand as
+she faced her companions. Before Nathalie could catch her breath there
+came another ringing cheer as each girl with smiling eyes shouted,
+
+  “Hear! hear! a cheer for Nathalie dear!
+  Girl Pi-o-neer! Girl Pi-o-neer!”
+
+If Nathalie’s color had been going and coming, it now flooded her face
+as she laughingly held out her hand to each one in turn, giving a soft
+little squeeze that made each girl vote her a comrade.
+
+Grace and Helen now led Nathalie back to her chair, somewhat solicitous
+as to the sprained foot; but she laughingly assured them that she was
+all right. Then with animated eyes she bowed and smiled as Helen, who
+was spokesman for the group, began to introduce each one of the Pioneers
+in turn, in an offhand, half quizzing way that relieved the formality of
+the ceremony.
+
+“This is Miss Jessie Ford, our literary scribe and Editor-in-chief of
+‘The Pioneer,’ a penny newspaper issued monthly, devoted to the news and
+doings of the Girl Pioneers.”
+
+Jessie, a wholesome-looking girl with golden hair worn in a coronet
+braid, and with bright, keen eyes, shook hands pleasantly, half smiling
+at the words of their leader. “Yes, she is clever, our Jess, and
+progressive, too,” went on Helen, her eyes twinkling, “which means a lot
+in these times.” There was the suspicion of laughter in her tone.
+
+“That she’s progressive can’t be denied,” interposed Grace Tyson
+laughingly, “for when we had a Pioneer party a short time ago, Jess
+wasn’t going to be outdone by any newspaper reporter and wrote a
+detailed description of each girl’s costume and sent it to the ‘Town
+Journal.’ The paper appeared the afternoon of the ‘come-off,’ one of the
+girls saw the article, and suggested as a joke that we all change
+costumes. O dear, what a laugh we had on Jess!”
+
+Miss Jessie, however, only smiled at all of this chaffing, as if proud
+of this proof of her alertness and stepped to one side.
+
+“And this bluebird—oh, Miss Page did I tell you that each Pioneer group
+is named after a bird, and that ours is the Bluebird Group?” Helen had
+forgotten her teasing tone in her eagerness to impart this information.
+
+“What a pretty idea,” responded Nathalie, “and bluebird, the name of
+your group!” thinking of the nest of bluebirds she had found down in the
+old cedar.
+
+Helen nodded with pleasure and then said, “This is Miss Kitty Corwin; we
+call her our pot-boiler—that means that Kitty always manages to keep the
+pot boiling not only by holding up her end of the line, but all the
+other ends, too, when the derelict Girl Pioneers forget to do so.”
+
+“And you might say she always carries all the pots and pans, too, when
+there’s a hike,” interposed the newcomer, with a nervous laugh. She was
+an awkward-looking girl about fourteen, all arms and elbows, but with a
+rather winsome face lighted by big, serious eyes. There was such nervous
+activity about her grip as she yanked Nathalie’s hand like a pump-handle
+that that young lady had no doubts as to her surplus energy. As Kitty
+tried to make her escape there was a suppressed howl, and then a
+twitter, for alas, she had backed into one of her companions with such
+force that the victim almost lost her balance.
+
+The girls, each one smiling, but with a palpitating heart as if doubtful
+what Helen would say when her turn came, all looked up expectantly as a
+tall girl, somewhat older than the others, but with a certain dash about
+her that added to her charm, came forward. She moved with willowy grace
+and had an ease of manner that accentuated the Pot-Boiler’s embarrassed
+movements.
+
+“Miss Page, allow me to introduce you to Miss Lillie Bell.” There was a
+certain emphasis in Helen’s tone as she presented this pretty,
+attractive girl, that indicated her pride in one of the most popular
+girls belonging to the group.
+
+Miss Bell smiled in a self-assured manner as Helen introduced her, and
+then greeted Nathalie with sweet graciousness as she waited expectantly
+for her characterization to be given.
+
+“Lillie is our story-teller,” continued Helen with a gleam of mischief
+in her eyes, “a would-be thriller, for we all shiver with the creeps
+when she begins her yellow-journal romances. Her specialty is ghost
+tales, the kind that, as we sit in the dark around our cheer fire, its
+glare (blood-red, please note), casting weird shadows over our pallid
+faces—” Helen intoned in tragic burlesque, and then stopped with a
+laugh.
+
+Lillie Bell, however, did not appear at all annoyed at this banter, but
+returned coolly, “I hope Miss Page, you will not believe all Helen says,
+for she dotes on teasing, but we get even with her when the chance
+comes.” From a certain gleam in the smiling gray eyes Nathalie did not
+doubt her, but as her voice was musical, and her manner impressive,
+bordering on the dramatic, she wished she could hear one of her
+thrillers.
+
+“Observe,” tantalized the spokesman as Lillie disappeared and her place
+was taken by a young girl who looked as if she was all blood and muscle,
+with ruddy cheeks, alert eyes, and the poise and bearing of one who was
+a frequenter of the gym.
+
+As Helen said, “This is Miss Edith Whiton,” she made an old-time curtsy,
+“generally dubbed the Sport, as she is the champion knee-doubler,
+arm-stretcher, toe-raiser, and all the rest of the ball-and-socket
+team.”
+
+With attempted nonchalance Edith twisted her shoulders and flashed Helen
+a quick glance as much as to say, “Wait, my turn is coming later!” She
+then stepped forward and shook Nathalie’s hand, smiling pleasantly down
+at her with frank friendliness.
+
+As she made her way back to her seat, a pale, studious-looking young
+girl with a head that looked almost top-heavy with its black braids, and
+who wore glasses, presented herself before Nathalie. She smiled
+nervously as Helen began, “Oh, this owl-like individual is Barbara
+Worth; she is very learned—she knows it all.”
+
+“Oh, Helen!” came in pained expostulation from the girl, as her eyes
+turned distressfully upon her hostess in shamed embarrassment.
+
+“Oh, Barbara, don’t mind,” spoke up Lillie Bell kindly, “Helen is only
+in fun.”
+
+Barbara looked somewhat relieved at this brace to her injured feelings,
+and then stood nervously clasping and unclasping her hands together.
+
+“Yes,” went on Helen relentlessly, “we call her the Encyclopedia for
+short. Wait until you want to know something in a hurry, she will help
+you out, for she has the best heart in the world.” With a little ripple
+of laughter Helen leaned forward and looking up at Barbara cried,
+“There, did I say anything so dreadful?”
+
+Barbara smiled gratefully and then said quietly, “Yes, Miss Page, I have
+a fine library, it is grandfather’s, and I shall—” she drew a deep
+breath—“always be glad to live up to my name.”
+
+There was loud clapping at this brave remark and then she was gone, but
+in her place stood a little lass who smiled bewitchingly at the girl in
+the chair, showing a coy little dimple in one cheek, and then with a
+slight frown waited for her executioner to behead her.
+
+“This little damsel is Louise Gaynor,” introduced Helen; “she is the
+Flower of the family—spelt both ways. We call her flower, because she
+resembles one,” Louise bowed prettily with a surprised glance, “and then
+because she is an expert manipulator of the flour bag; she makes most
+edible flapjacks when we go on a hike. It is needless to say that we
+always have indigestion afterwards.” There was a laugh at this, and then
+as the Flower disappeared, Helen drew to her side a diminutive girl who
+wore her flaxen hair in two large braids down her back. With her broad,
+good-natured face and cornflower blue eyes she was a miniature Gretchen.
+
+“This is Carol Tyke—we spell it T-i-k-e, because she is a tike and the
+fag of the group as well.” The little girl, who was about eleven, but
+small for her age, grinned at Nathalie and ducked her head. “She is a
+Junior Pioneer, not yet twelve. But we have her in training and she is
+taking tests daily, which doesn’t give her much leisure time, does it,
+Tike?”
+
+At last, much to Nathalie’s relief, the introductions were over, and
+then she listened intently as the girls began to tell her of a hike they
+had taken the week before, when one of their number had found a hundred
+different leaf specimens.
+
+“Yes, it was a leaf hike,” said Grace. “We all have our own note-books;
+and make impressions from the leaves; that is, we print them in our
+books, and then write the date of the hike, the name of the leaf, and
+any other data we have gathered.”
+
+“I should think it would be very interesting,” remarked her listener, as
+she thought of the outings she and her schoolmates used to take on
+Saturday mornings when they visited Bronx Park, and studied “cooped-up
+nature” as one of the girls used to call it, when they eyed some fierce
+monarch of the forest in his iron cage, or exclaimed over the beauties
+of some hot-house flower.
+
+“We are going to have a wild-flower hike soon,” volunteered the Tike,
+smiling at Nathalie in a most friendly manner. “The Sport says there are
+a lot of beautiful flowers in the woods near Edgemere, didn’t you,
+Sport?”
+
+“But I wish you would tell me something about your tests—is that what
+you call them?” Nathalie asked. “I should think they would be no end of
+fun if they mean making one do stunts, or anything in the hazing line?”
+
+“Oh, we do not haze, or anything of that sort, for that would not be
+kind, and kindness is one of the laws of the Girl Pioneer,” explained
+Grace. “By tests we mean trying to see what a girl can do that is
+useful, and if she can’t do it, we teach her. We have to sew, cook, and
+know all the emergency things.”
+
+“You mean the First Aid to the Injured methods,” corrected Helen;
+“knowing what to do to revive a person when almost drowned, how to put
+out a fire—”
+
+“How to bathe and bandage a sprained foot—”
+
+“You needn’t tell me you know that,” cried Nathalie with sparkling eyes,
+“for I know by experience,” and then she told the girls what the doctor
+had said about Helen’s skillful way of binding her foot—in spite of that
+young lady’s blushes at this open praise—and how clever her mother
+thought the girls were for the ready way in which they had made the
+stretcher from their khaki skirts.
+
+“Then we have to know how to restore a person who has fainted,” some one
+volunteered.
+
+“And learn the Fireman’s Lift,” added another girl.
+
+“Oh, let’s tell things from the beginning!” interrupted some methodical
+girl from the farther end of the porch.
+
+“Oh, but I told Miss Page—” Helen stopped, for her hostess was looking
+at her with beseeching eyes, clearly due to the formal title.
+
+“Won’t you please call me Nathalie?” the owner of that name ventured
+with a coaxing little smile.
+
+“If you will say Helen,” replied the girl with evident delight.
+
+The girls both laughed, shook hands on it, and then Helen continued.
+“Yes, I told Nathalie all about the tests for the third-class Pioneer.
+Well, to become a second-class Pioneer it is necessary to have been a
+third-class Pioneer for at least a month. Then you have to know how to
+cook a piece of meat properly—”
+
+“Boil a potato as it should be done!” interrupted Lillie Bell. This was
+impressively said, and followed by a chime of laughter from the girls.
+
+“And make a coal fire in a cooking-stove—ye stars!” ejaculated Grace,
+“when I made my first, I literally smoked every one in the house to a
+ham—but when I made my first out-of-door fire—”
+
+“You didn’t do any better,” cried Lillie Bell irrelevantly, “for you
+sooted the whole bunch of us.”
+
+“Oh, Lillie,” cried Grace in dismayed tone, “that wasn’t from making the
+fire, for I was the only one who made it with a single match, but it was
+from putting it out.”
+
+“Now girls, don’t tell tales; for, as Mrs. Morrow says, we are all
+breakable and no one should cast the first stone,” called out their
+leader.
+
+“Oh, the tests are all easy but the next one,” cried Edith Whiton, “that
+is not a cinch by any means: how to remove a cinder from the eye—”
+
+“Or any other foreign substance!”
+
+“We have to know all the primary colors, too,” went on Edith.
+
+“Pshaw, any kindergarten kid knows that,” spoke the Encyclopedia, who up
+to this moment had taken no part in this flow of information, “but to
+tie a bundle properly, that means hard labor.”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” added Jessie Ford quickly, “one has to have an awful lot
+of practice to do that. I worked so hard tying up bundles at home for
+every one in the house that Father suggested I apply for a position as
+bundle-wrapper at some department store. And I would have, just for a
+joke, if I hadn’t succeeded in making every one for whom I tied a bundle
+give me five cents—and I made a dollar.” Her eyes gleamed reminiscently.
+
+“You have forgotten about the trees!” called out the Sport.
+
+“Yes, we have to name three kinds of trees, three flowers and three
+birds.”
+
+“Easy!” chimed the girls in unison.
+
+“But the hardest—that was for me—” exclaimed Grace (Nathalie bent
+forward eagerly, for somehow she did like Grace), “was to earn or to
+save fifty cents and put it in the bank.” There was a general shout at
+this, for, as Helen explained in an aside to Nathalie, Grace was the
+richest girl in the Pioneer group. She had a beautiful home, her own
+automobile, her own allowance, and yet she was always hard up.
+
+“She’s awfully generous, you know, and doesn’t know how to count her
+pennies,” she added wisely, “the way we girls do, because we have to.
+But she’s learning.”
+
+But Helen’s whispered comments about her friend were not all heard by
+Nathalie, who suddenly stiffened, and with a quick exclamation leaned
+forward and stared curiously at a gray figure that was walking past the
+house with strained, averted eyes, as if fearful that she might see the
+group of merry girls on the veranda.
+
+“Who is that lady all in gray?” she demanded, abruptly clutching Helen’s
+arm as her eyes followed the gliding figure of the strange-appearing
+woman whose library card she had found the day of her accident in the
+woods.
+
+Helen looked up quickly in response to Nathalie’s question, but before
+she could answer, Kitty Corwin cried hastily, “Girls, look! there goes
+‘The Mystic’!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV—NATHALIE IS ASKED TO BECOME A BLUE ROBIN
+
+
+“The Mystic!” echoed Nathalie in mild amazement, while one or two of the
+group turned and gazed curiously at the gray-shrouded figure hurrying
+by.
+
+“You needn’t ask me to look at her,” asserted the Sport with a scowl,
+“after screwing up my courage as I did to ask her if we could use her
+terraced lawn for one of our drills; why, the glance she gave me almost
+froze me stiff!”
+
+The girls laughed at Edith’s tragic tone, while Lillie Bell retorted
+teasingly, “Well, she must be a chill-raiser, Edith, if she could freeze
+the marrow in your spine.”
+
+“Girls, you should not speak as you do about Mrs. Van Vorst,” admonished
+Helen, “you know Mrs. Morrow says that she has suffered a great sorrow.”
+
+“Pshaw, we all know that,” returned the Sport unfeelingly, “but that is
+no reason why she should make every one else suffer, too.”
+
+“Granted,” rejoined Helen, “but she has grown to look at things through
+morbid eyes.”
+
+“I should think the gray gown she wears would make any one morbid,”
+suggested Lillie. “But what is the use of discussing her? I believe she
+is just a crank with a fad,” she added.
+
+“Who is she, and why does she go about in that queer gray gown?”
+inquired Nathalie, insistently.
+
+“She is Mrs. Van Vorst, the richest woman in town,” explained Grace.
+“She lives in that big, gray house surrounded by the stone wall. Haven’t
+you noticed it? It’s on Willow Street, up on the hill. You must have
+seen it.”
+
+“Oh, the big house with the beautiful Dutch garden,” exclaimed Nathalie,
+“and the queer little house at one side of it?”
+
+“Yes,” nodded Helen, “but that queer little house is an ancient
+landmark—a Dutch homestead—built on a grant of land given by Governor
+Stuyvesant to Janse Van Vorst way back in 1667. The Van Vorsts, or their
+descendants, have lived on that place for hundreds of years. Billy Van
+Vorst, the last of the line, married Betty Walton, a rich New York girl.
+He died some years ago, and—well, I don’t know the exact story—” Helen
+hesitated, “but they say Mrs. Van Vorst has an awful temper—oh, I hate
+to tell it—and then it may not be true.”
+
+“But it is true,” asserted Jessie Ford, “for Mother used to know Billy
+and Betty, too. She said shortly after Billy’s death Mrs. Van Vorst
+became angry with her little child—I don’t know whether it is a boy or
+girl—and—”
+
+“Whatever it is,” broke in Edith, “it is all distorted and twisted,
+looks like a monster, for I saw it one day in the garden, the day I was
+there. It is always muffled up so people can’t see it.”
+
+“Well, anyway,” went on Jessie, “Mrs. Van Vorst got into a temper with
+the child and shut it up in a dark room, and then went off to a
+reception or something, and forgot all about it.”
+
+“Oh, how could she?” ejaculated Nathalie with a shudder.
+
+“Well, when she came home and remembered it—it wasn’t in the room—”
+
+“And they found it all in a heap on the pavement in the yard,” again
+interrupted Edith, anxious to forestall the climax; “I have heard all
+about it, they say it was an awful sight.”
+
+“Dead?” cried Nathalie in a shocked tone.
+
+“No, not dead,” returned Jessie, “but it might as well have been. It had
+become frightened in the dark, said some one was chasing it, and in
+trying to escape climbed out on a shed and fell to the ground. Mrs. Van
+Vorst was ill for a long time, almost lost her mind. Then she gave up
+society and came down here and built this big house beside the
+homestead. She has lived in it ever since, but keeps to herself; she
+doesn’t seem to want to know people.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t wonder she mourns in gray then!” exclaimed Nathalie. “I
+feel sorry for her!”
+
+“And so do I!” chimed Helen squeezing her new friend’s hand
+responsively, “for she will have to suffer remorse all her life. Mother
+says she is to be pitied.”
+
+“Well, I should have more pity for her if she would let us have the lawn
+back of her house for our flag drill,” remarked Lillie Bell, “or for one
+of our demonstrations.”
+
+“You can be sure I’ll never ask her again,” declared the Sport,
+vehemently; “I believe she hates us just because we are young, and can
+enjoy life when her child can’t.”
+
+At this moment Grace arose and handed Nathalie a peculiar-looking
+envelope of rough brown paper. “No, it won’t explode,” she giggled, as
+she saw Nathalie handling the quaintly-folded envelope rather gingerly.
+
+“You needn’t think it is the butcher’s bill, either,” laughed Helen,
+“for it isn’t. It is simply an invitation to one of our group meetings,
+or Pioneer Rallies, as we call them. We always use that kind of paper
+when we invite guests, for it was the kind used in pioneer times.”
+
+Reassured by Helen’s explanation, Nathalie opened the envelope, noting
+the old-style script printed by hand in scarlet letters, evidently the
+work of one of the Pioneers. Then she slowly read aloud:
+
+  “They knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things,
+  but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and
+  quieted their spirits within.”
+
+                                                           — Bradford.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Ye presence of ye young maide, Mistress Nathalie Page is enjoined to
+  appear on ye 23rd of this month at ye Common House (Seton Hall) on
+  ye corner of ye cross roades to Bergen Town, to join with ye maides
+  of ye colony of Westport in a seemly diversion and Mayflower Feast.
+
+  Postscript: Kindly come apparelled in ye meeting-house cloathes and
+  behave as a young maide should so do.
+
+  From the Girl Pioneers of America, ye Many-greated-grand-daughters
+  of ye Mothers of ye Pilgrim Colony, who came to this new world in ye
+  good sloop MAYFLOWER in 1620.
+
+The expression of wonderment in Nathalie’s eyes changed to one of
+amusement as she laughingly cried, “My, but you are the real article!”
+
+“Yes, the scribe did that,” said Helen proudly; “I think it ought to be
+put in a glass case.”
+
+“Thank you!” promptly returned Jessie; “I accept your praise, but
+suggest, as industry is one of the laws of the Pioneers, that I should
+receive a special badge of merit, for if you could have seen me poking
+into those musty documents at the library to get the thing right, you
+would say I deserved it.”
+
+“But what does it mean?” demanded Nathalie curiously. “What have you to
+do with the Pilgrims?”
+
+“Why, it means,” explained Helen, “that we girls, to freshen up our
+minds on pioneer history, so that we may learn more about the women we
+emulate, name each of our rallies after some one group of pioneers, or
+some special pioneer woman, in memory of their service to us. Then we
+all talk about them, each one telling what she knows.”
+
+“Or what she doesn’t know, generally,” broke in Lillie, dryly.
+
+“I guess you are about right, Lillie,” added Grace, “for we are awfully
+rusty on pioneer history. It always seemed so stupid at school, but we
+have learned a lot since we started naming our rallies after pioneer
+things, and trying to see what we can cram. Why, girls,” she cried
+suddenly, as if impelled by inspiration to tell the latest thing she had
+learned, “do you know that there were almost thirty children who came
+over with the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_?”
+
+“Well, I for one did not,” remarked Jessie candidly; “I didn’t know that
+the Pilgrims had any children; supposed they were just a lot of
+blue-nosed men who wore high ruffs and tall, round hats, and who went
+about with long faces, telling people they would go to the devil if they
+dared to smile.”
+
+“There, Jess,” broke in Lillie Bell mischievously, “you needn’t get
+profane over it.”
+
+“Of course they were grim and forbidding-looking,” supplemented Kitty,
+“and—”
+
+“And sanctimonious,” added some one, “with their blue laws.”
+
+“Girls, you are all wrong,” spoke up Helen, with a sort of call-you-down
+air, “it was the Connecticut elders who made the blue laws. The Pilgrims
+were sincere, earnest men. Remember what Mrs. Morrow said about them?”
+
+There was a sudden silence for a moment, and then a faint voice was
+heard from the other end of the veranda. Every one pricked up her ears
+and craned her neck to see who was speaking.
+
+“Ye Stars! it is the Flower of the Family,” whispered Edith; “what has
+come to her?”
+
+The sweet, low voice went on slowly, perhaps a trifle unsteadily, “God
+sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain into the
+wilderness.”
+
+“Hooray for the Flower!” shouted some one, and then of course they all
+had to clap, while the editor-in-chief of the “Pioneer,” who was sitting
+next to the speaker, jotted down this little saying with the air of an
+expert reporter.
+
+“Now, do you suppose,” went on Helen, “that these picked men—”
+
+“This choice grain,” corrected the Sport softly, who was trying hard to
+create a laugh.
+
+“Edith, please be serious,” admonished Helen, looking at that young lady
+with reproving eyes, but she was sitting with folded arms and eyes cast
+down, the picture of innocent and bland decorum.
+
+Helen, seeing she had subdued the Sport for the time being, continued:
+“Yes, this choice grain was composed of not only sincere and courageous
+men, as we know, but the most tolerant of any of the first settlers in
+this country. But, of course, in serious, solemn times one is not apt to
+be funny. They were not really sanctimonious, they just got that name
+because they tried to live up to their convictions.”
+
+“But they got it!” retorted the Sport, who was always hard to convince
+in an argument. Helen flashed her eyes at her in rebuke, and then,
+turning toward Nathalie, said, “We are not only going to tell what we
+have learned about the Pilgrims at the rally, but we are to end with a
+Mayflower Feast. We do not expect to eat the things the colonists did,
+of course, but the table is to be decorated with May-flowers—that is
+with all the flowers that grow in May—so you see, it will really be a
+May-flower Feast.”
+
+“The Boy Scouts are going to pick the flowers for us!” chimed the Tike,
+her good-natured face beaming good-fellowship at Nathalie.
+
+“Dr. Homer—he is Mrs. Morrow’s brother—” supplemented Grace, “is the
+Scout Master of the Eagle Patrol, and as he is very anxious to make the
+boys chivalrous, he likes to have them help us all they can.”
+
+“But we are to have a great big entertainment,” exclaimed Carol
+importantly, “very soon, and we’re to sell tickets so that we can make
+money for the Camping Fund.”
+
+“And we have such a bright idea for getting up something novel in the
+way of entertainments,” spoke up Helen interestedly. “Each girl is to
+put on her thinking-cap and get to work on an idea; it has to be
+original, nothing borrowed, or that has been used before, and then turn
+it in to our Director in proper shape to be carried out. All of these
+novel ideas are to be kept secret until we have had all of the
+entertainments, and then we shall vote for the one we think the best.
+The winners will receive merit badges for their efficiency.”
+
+“Oh, that will be great!” cried Nathalie, “but tell me, where are you
+going camping?” she questioned animatedly, for her thoughts had
+instantly reverted to a summer or so before when she and a party of
+school girls had camped up in the woods of Maine.
+
+“We don’t know yet,” was Helen’s practical rejoinder, “for we have got
+to know how much money we shall have to spend. But come, girls, be
+serious and tell Nathalie some of our sports and activities. We want to
+show her that we can do things worth while, you know.”
+
+“Oh, get Lillie Bell to tell us one of her stories!” cried the Sport,
+who was a warm admirer of the story-teller.
+
+“Oh, I can’t think of any now!” replied Lillie lazily. And then as a
+chorus of voices seconded this plea, she cried, “Really girls, I can’t.
+I was up half the night studying for exam. But,” her face brightened, “I
+will tell you about the picked chicken if you like. As it has something
+to do with our pioneer law, it will come in all right.”
+
+“Oh, yes, do!” pleaded her hostess, who had been wishing that she might
+hear one of the story-teller’s thrillers.
+
+“It isn’t a blood-curdler this time, Miss Page,” apologized Lillie, “so
+I cannot give you an exhibition of my reputed talent as a fictionizer.
+It is simply that Mother had a headache, Father was going to bring home
+a swell friend to dine with us, and as it happened, the butcher sent a
+feathered fowl, and our little Dutch maid was ill.”
+
+“Oh, it was maddening,” she sighed in dolorous reminiscence, “but there
+was no way out of it, for we had to have that chick for dinner. So I set
+to work; some people say that when you try to do right everything rises
+up against you. So it proved to me, but I remembered our Pioneer motto,
+‘I Can,’ and glued myself to that job. Verily, I thought that chicken
+must be a relative to the goose that laid the golden egg, for every
+feather I pulled, a dozen at least came to the funeral. But I won out,
+and went to bed with a clear conscience, and that fowl—inside of me!”
+
+“Hooray for the Pioneer laws!” called several voices hilariously, and
+then at one and the same time, in their eagerness to give proof of
+well-doing, each one started to relate some personal experience. The
+effect of several story-tellers spinning yarns at the same time was so
+ludicrously funny that all the stories ended in merry laughter.
+
+“Oh, let’s vary the entertainment,” suggested Grace, “and sing our
+Pioneer song for Miss Page.”
+
+In another moment the fresh young voices, accompanied by a swing of
+heads and a tap of feet, were singing, to the tune of “Oh, Maryland, My
+Maryland”:
+
+  “We laugh, we sing, we jump, we run,
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We’re always having lots of fun;
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  The wild birds answer to our call,
+  These feathered friends in trees so tall;
+  We learn to know them one and all.
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+
+                Refrain.
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We will be brave, and kind, and true;
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!”
+
+Nathalie, who was enjoying this musical treat immensely, and longed to
+join in, suddenly gave a start. She had heard a familiar hand strike the
+keyboard of the piano, and then start in with the tune the girls were
+singing, while a clear, high, soprano voice—one that the girl had never
+heard before—took up the air, and in a moment was leading the girls in
+their song, and as though accustomed to do it.
+
+She saw one or two of the girls smile at another in a mysterious way,
+and began to wonder what it all meant. As the last verse came to a
+close, and there were three, Mrs. Page stepped through the low French
+window from the living-room on the veranda, followed by a figure in
+white and Dick, who was hobbling along on a broom turned upside down.
+
+There was a silent moment, and then the Girl Pioneers had jumped to
+their feet and were saluting the lady in white, for it was Mrs. Morrow,
+their Director. No, they did not touch their shoulders as in the salute
+to Helen, their group leader, but the forehead, in military salute.
+
+Mrs. Morrow returned the salute, and then, as the girls broke into their
+Pioneer yell, came over to Nathalie without waiting for an introduction.
+But the young hostess had risen to her feet and was standing with
+outstretched hand.
+
+“Oh, my dear! you must sit down, or you may strain your foot!” cried
+Mrs. Morrow anxiously, as she caught Nathalie’s hand in hers and smiled
+down at her with luminous gray eyes, the kind that seem to radiate
+hearty good-will and cheer. Her greeting was so gracious, and there was
+such an undefinable charm in the bright face of the young matron, that
+Nathalie surrendered immediately.
+
+“I did not mean to intrude on your sport, girls,” cried Mrs. Morrow in a
+moment, turning toward the group, still holding Nathalie’s hand, “but I
+was as anxious as you all were to meet our new neighbor.”
+
+The color deepened in Nathalie’s cheeks as she cried in her impulsive
+way, “Oh, but you are not intruding at all, Mrs. Morrow; I am more than
+anxious to meet you, for—” she stopped a moment, and then flashed, “the
+girls all say you are lovely!”
+
+There was a wild cheer at this, whereupon, the gray-blue eyes smiled at
+Nathalie again. Then turning, the lady nodded to the compliments so
+boisterously expressed by the girls. For a few moments it seemed as if
+each girl was trying to outdo every other girl as to who should win in
+this race for tongue speed, as they crowded around Nathalie and their
+Director.
+
+Presently Nathalie looked up and laughed, for Dick did look so funny as
+he hobbled from one girl to another—he had always been a lover of
+girls—on his broomstick. As if divining why she laughed, Dick, who had
+heard her looked up. “Hello there, Blue Robin!” he cried teasingly,
+“what have you got to say about it?”
+
+“Blue Robin?” repeated Mrs. Morrow in puzzled query, turning towards
+Nathalie, “why does he call you Blue Robin? That is the name of this
+group.”
+
+“But I thought the name of this group was Bluebird,” answered Nathalie
+in some surprise.
+
+“So it is,” returned Mrs. Morrow, “but you know, bluebird means blue
+robin, too.”
+
+“There, Dick! I was not so far wrong after all!” cried Nathalie
+triumphantly, looking at her brother with convincing eyes. Then she
+turned and quickly told how she had found the bluebird’s nest in the old
+cedar, how she had called the birdlings blue robins, and how Dick—who
+was a terrible tease—had plagued her about it ever since.
+
+“But please inform me, Mrs. Morrow,” now spoke that young man, “why you
+say bluebirds are blue robins?”
+
+“Why, you know, the first bird seen by the Pilgrims when they came to
+this land was a bluebird—our earliest songster. As it resembled the
+robin so much, they wrote home to their friends and told of the
+beautiful blue robins they had seen in the new land.”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie,” cried Helen with joy in her voice, “do you know the
+finding of the blue robin’s nest surely must be an omen for good! Keep
+the name your brother has given you, and become a real bluebird, or blue
+robin, by joining our group and becoming a Pioneer!”
+
+“Oh, yes, Miss Page, do!” came quickly to Nathalie’s ears; “we should
+love to have you one of us.”
+
+“I’ll coach you in the tests!” sang out Helen, who was ready to dance
+with pleasure to think that there was a prospect of her new friend
+becoming a Pioneer.
+
+“And I’ll help!” added Grace. “And so will I,” “And I!” chimed several
+girlish voices.
+
+Nathalie sat in embarrassed silence, hardly knowing what to answer to
+these many cordial invitations to join, and offers to help her do the
+tests. “I would love to be one of you,” she spoke hesitatingly, “but I
+am not at all clever at doing things, for I can’t sew, or cook, or do
+anything useful at all!” The girl’s voice was almost plaintive.
+
+“Ah, you are just the one we want, then,” was Mrs. Morrow’s quick reply;
+“we want girls who don’t know how, so we can teach and train them in the
+right way.”
+
+There was loud applause at this remark, and then as the hubbub subsided
+somewhat, Mrs. Morrow held up her hand for silence. “Now, girls,” she
+said, “give Miss Page time to think. Yes, we should be overjoyed to have
+you join the group, Miss Page, for later, in the summer, one of our
+bluebirds is to emigrate South for the winter, and we should love to
+have you take her place. I agree with Helen that the finding of the
+bluebird’s nest in the old cedar meant that you were to become a true
+bluebird, or Blue Robin, as we shall have to call you.”
+
+Nathalie looked at Dick, and then at her mother. Mrs. Page was smiling
+at her so reassuringly that Nathalie understood that she gave her
+consent, and joyfully signified her willingness to become a Pioneer.
+With a bob of her head at Dick she declared, that she would become one
+if only to show her brother that there was such a thing as a Blue Robin.
+
+Mrs. Morrow then explained that they had selected the bluebird as their
+mascot not only because it was the bird of pioneer days, but because the
+word blue means true, and Girl Pioneers were to be true in word, and
+thought, and deed. And then as a bird means swift, they were to be swift
+to the truth.
+
+“The bluebird is also noted for its cheerfulness,” she continued. “The
+Pioneers are to be cheerful. It is a loyal bird; the Pioneers are to be
+loyal to one another, to their pledges and laws, and to every one and to
+all things that are right, good, and pure. The bird is also very gentle,
+and we want the Pioneers to cultivate kindliness and gentleness.
+Flower,” she called suddenly, “sing us that pretty little bluebird song
+you know.”
+
+In compliance with this request the Flower sang, in her sweet soprano, a
+funny little song about a bluebird courting his lady love. Each verse
+ended with the call-note, “Tru-al-lee,” which the girls caught up as a
+refrain and sang with sweet, low tones, the Flower’s bird-like trill
+rising high above the others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V—THE GRAY STONE HOUSE
+
+
+“Do you know, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie, looking at her friend with
+reminiscent eyes, “that it is only three weeks since I met you, but it
+seems like three months.”
+
+“That is because you have been on probation for a Pioneer,” retorted
+Helen smilingly, “and are beginning to take life more seriously.”
+
+“Not very seriously, I am afraid,” lamented Nathalie, “judging from the
+bungle I made in trying to learn that square knot.”
+
+“Oh, you will learn,” encouraged Helen, “but I must be off, for I have
+some typing to do for to-morrow.” Yes, Helen’s new friend knew that she
+was learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact had been
+divulged in the natural course of events, Nathalie had listened with
+great interest to Helen’s declaration of her life purpose—to be
+independent—not only for the pleasure that independence would bring to
+her, but because she wanted to earn money so that she could give her
+mother little comforts and luxuries that Mrs. Dame had been denied
+because her husband’s income was limited.
+
+Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie had wished her
+great success, apparently appreciating the unselfish motive that
+actuated her, while lamenting that she herself was not as clever.
+
+“O dear,” she had impulsively declared, “I want to earn money, too; oh,
+if I only had a purpose in life! I do not want to be a drone.” And then
+on the impulse of the moment she had confided to Helen her many
+disappointments, and how anxious they all were about her brother Dick,
+fearful that he might never recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had
+seemed that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship had grown
+up between them, much to that young lady’s joy.
+
+She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the Pioneer Pledge and
+laws, give the names of the Presidential party, as Nathalie called them,
+adding the name of the governor of the State in which she lived,
+describe the United States flag, sew a button on—as it should be done,
+she had declared with solemn unction—and then exhibit her skill at tying
+a square knot.
+
+“After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally to-morrow, I shall
+begin to drill you in the tests necessary to make you a Second-Class
+Pioneer,” Helen had declared when the lesson was over and she began to
+gather up her sewing materials.
+
+“Oh, will you?” cried Nathalie, “but when can I become one?”
+
+“In a month,” was the reply, “if you pass the tests; but there, I shall
+never get my work done if I stand here and talk,” and Helen started for
+the steps.
+
+“Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow says about Dick’s
+knee,” returned Nathalie as she followed her friend to the edge of the
+veranda. “You know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so anxious
+to hear what he had to say.”
+
+“How did your brother injure his knee?” asked Helen as she paused at the
+foot of the steps, “I have often wanted to ask.”
+
+“Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after Father’s death,”
+rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening sorrowfully. “The New York
+physician said it was only sprained ligaments and would be all right
+soon. But he has been growing worse—it pains him dreadfully
+sometimes—oh, you don’t know how worried we are—” her voice quavered,
+“suppose he should be lame for life!”
+
+“Oh, don’t get nervous over it,” advised Helen cheerfully, “but hurry in
+and see what Dr. Morrow said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town
+doctor, but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon,” and then with a
+smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward the gate.
+
+Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes as she hurried across
+the lawn. Somehow the girl’s companionship had revived her drooping
+spirits; the many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and the
+tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming one, had in a measure
+brightened her life. To be sure, they could never take the place of her
+friends of the city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things
+of the past and the desires that at times threatened to overwhelm her.
+She realized that she was beginning to take a keener interest in her
+surroundings, and felt that it was all owing to the Pioneers.
+
+“Nathalie, I am here—in the sitting-room!” called her mother’s voice
+faintly a few moments later as she heard the girl’s step in the hall. An
+apprehensive pang seized Nathalie’s heart as she flew to her mother’s
+side.
+
+“What did the doctor say, Mumsie?” she demanded anxiously. “Will Dick be
+lame?”
+
+“I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an operation—” her
+mother’s voice sank to a whisper, “and oh, it will cost us several
+hundred dollars.” Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on her
+daughter’s shoulder wept silently. The girl gently patted the
+gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender form closely, but with
+intuitive divination she let her have her cry out, although she was
+seething with impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the
+mother heart.
+
+“It is all right, I am just a coward.” Mrs. Page choked a moment, then
+imprinted a wet kiss on the rounded cheek so close to her own as she
+felt the comfort of her unspoken sympathy. “I am sure Dick will be all
+right in time—but I am so worried—I have had bad news, too. It does seem
+as if misfortunes never come singly, as they claim,” she said, thrusting
+a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter’s hand.
+
+The girl’s eyes swept the type-written page, once, twice, then in a
+tense tone she demanded, “Oh, Mother, do you mean that the Portland
+cement bonds are in danger—why, I thought—”
+
+“They are to stop paying interest while the company is being
+reorganized; something has gone wrong. I was afraid of it, as they say
+cement is being sold at a very low figure.”
+
+“But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are crossing your bridges
+before you get there as Father used to say,” Nathalie replied with
+attempted cheerfulness, “but did you not say that they were first
+mortgage bonds?”
+
+“Yes, but child, we have got to live,” exclaimed her mother irritably;
+“that money, the interest, is part of my income, and it is little
+enough—expenses are so heavy. And where the money will come for Dick’s
+operation I am sure I don’t know—but there, don’t worry—it will be all
+right in time, I know.” She sank back in her chair and dabbed her
+reddened eyelids with her moist handkerchief.
+
+“But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick to have an
+operation?” questioned Nathalie insistently with anxious eyes.
+
+“The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected. It will have to be
+removed, and a new bone put in.”
+
+“A new bone put in!” ejaculated Nathalie, “why—”
+
+“Yes, it is something new in surgery,” replied her mother. “Dr. Morrow
+says thousands of cripples have been made well by this new method of
+treating cases like Dick’s. He says—” a long sigh—“if Dick does not have
+an operation, he will probably be lame, if he is ever able to walk at
+all.” The tears began to glisten in Mrs. Page’s eyes again, as Nathalie,
+with a sudden sharp realization what this would mean for Dick and all of
+them, turned and rushed from the room with the dread that if she
+remained a moment longer she too would fall to weeping.
+
+She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she wanted time to think.
+Oh, suppose there should be no money for the operation, and Dick should
+be lame all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so well and
+robust, and who for his athletic prowess had won so many silver cups and
+medals! She threw herself into the low rocker, and leaning her head on
+her desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to hear.
+
+Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard it was to lose her
+father, her beautiful home and friends, to give up college, to have to
+live in that poky old town—even the Pioneers could not compensate for
+that—and then to have Dick lame because they had no money! Nathalie wept
+on in woeful lamentation, feeling with the untriedness of youth that she
+was a great martyr. Did not God’s world owe her happiness? Was it not
+sinning against her in denying her right to its joys?
+
+But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs died away to a
+shiver, as her head dropped wearily on the back of her chair. Oh, if she
+were not so helpless, if she could only earn money like Helen! But what
+could she do? She couldn’t sew, she had no musical ability—like Lucille!
+A Bob White whistle, followed by a “Tru-al-lee!” beneath her window
+reminded her that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.
+
+Yes, Nathalie knew that “Tru-al-lee!” for that young lady was the only
+Pioneer who could so successfully imitate that little bird’s sweet
+trill. She jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of youth cast
+all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried down to the lower floor.
+
+“I’ll be down in a moment,” she called out to Grace, who had just
+entered the hall and was chatting with Dick, who had been reading on the
+couch. She flew into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a
+moment, and then flying into her room grabbed her hat from its peg in
+the closet, and then hastened down the stairs humming blithely a new
+ragtime song as she went.
+
+“I want to say good-by to Mother,” she exclaimed as she nodded to Grace
+and hurried into the sitting-room. But when she saw the big pile of
+mending on the table in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang
+assailed her.
+
+“Oh, Mumsie,” she cried, “don’t you do that mending. I will do it when I
+come back. I meant to do it yesterday,” she excused herself lamely, “but
+I forgot all about it.”
+
+“Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me from worrying,” was the
+reply; “as ’tis said, there is nothing like work to keep up one’s
+spirits.”
+
+“Oh, Mumsie,” the girl cried impulsively, rubbing her hands caressingly
+over her mother’s cheek, “don’t let’s worry any more. We’re just silly
+to cry over what may not happen,” and then she added hopefully, “I’m
+sure things will come out all right.”
+
+Mrs. Page’s eyes filled as she bent forward and kissed her
+would-be-comforter. “Yes, we are silly, no doubt,” she smiled through
+her tears, “to waste time and strength worrying over what, after all,
+may not happen.”
+
+“But, Mother,” suddenly questioned the girl with uneasy eyes, “do—do you
+think I ought to become a Pioneer?”
+
+“Why not, Nathalie?” inquired Mrs. Page in surprise. “Perhaps it will
+teach you some of the many things you should know, for if we are to be
+poor, you may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness, courage,
+those will be the things—” her mother’s voice ceased abruptly.
+
+Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her mother’s voice that
+seemed like reproof. A sudden depression seized her again as it came to
+her with renewed force how helpless she was, what things Helen did to
+help her mother, and the many useful things the Pioneer girls—plain
+girls, too, who had never had the advantages that she had had—could do.
+
+But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts aside with the
+rebellious feeling that she had never been brought up to do these
+things, that she had been born a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother
+hastily and hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.
+
+“Where shall we walk?” she asked that young girl, as they passed down
+the street. She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted
+like rudderless ships at sea.
+
+“Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has asked me to deliver a
+note to ‘The Mystic.’”
+
+“‘The Mystic?’” echoed Nathalie in doubting amazement, “why I thought
+she had never had anything to do—”
+
+“To do with the people of the town,” finished Grace. “Well, she doesn’t
+as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow’s patients and had the grace to
+return Mrs. Morrow’s call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young
+people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow, and then, too,
+I rather think she is writing to ask her if we could have her lawn for
+one of our demonstrations. We had a lovely idea for a May-Day
+celebration, but we had to give it up, as we had no place to hold it.”
+
+“What were you going to have?” inquired Nathalie, as the two girls
+turned up the hill leading to the big gray house enclosed in its barrier
+of gray wall.
+
+“We were going to get some ox carts and decorate them with Mayflowers,
+and parade to the grounds. There we were to choose a queen and dance
+around the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring. Fred was to be
+Robin Hood—O dear,” she suddenly ejaculated with a dismayed face, “I do
+believe I left the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned it to
+the cushion so I wouldn’t forget it and then walked straight off and
+left it.”
+
+The girls stared blankly at one another a moment and then Grace cried,
+“Come, we might as well go back for it; do you mind? It is only a few
+blocks out of our way.”
+
+On receiving Nathalie’s assent she added contentedly, “I’ll get Dorcas
+to make us some lemonade to cool us off, and—why, I can show you my
+Pioneer room!”
+
+“Oh, I should just love to see it!” enthused Nathalie; “Helen told me
+about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the
+Pioneer band have a Pioneer room.”
+
+“Isn’t it old-timey?” she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her
+into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of
+many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch
+and for that reason had been selected.
+
+Nathalie’s keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors,
+etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days,
+that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New
+Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable
+ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque
+designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its
+quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
+
+Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its
+dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with
+silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a
+funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
+
+“But that clock is a dear!” she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly
+upon a tall grandfather’s clock in the corner, which returned her glance
+with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie’s
+brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting
+themselves to her vivid imagination.
+
+“Father gave that clock to me last birthday,” informed Grace with pride;
+“it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my
+forebears. See, there’s his picture over the mantel,” pointing to a
+seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at
+them with stolid complacency.
+
+“Yes, it is very old,” continued Grace, “some unimaginative relative of
+Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie’s little hatchet, but Father
+rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel.
+Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief.”
+
+“Yes,” she rattled on, “I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown
+for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear
+not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of
+things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let’s go
+down and have the lemonade, I’m dying for a cooling drink.”
+
+As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up
+crying, “Oh, there’s Fred! I want you to meet him!” She began to wave
+and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall,
+well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.
+
+“Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I’m in a hurry!” came in response a
+moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently,
+vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.
+
+But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly ceased, and
+with a few strides he reached the veranda and was eyeing the new girl’s
+health-flushed face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor. After a
+hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister’s introduction, he
+dropped into a chair by Nathalie’s side, and soon they were all chatting
+and laughing merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had
+happened on their last hike.
+
+“But you had an adventure, too, did you not?” he asked suddenly, looking
+at the young girl by his side with a glint of mischief in his eyes, “the
+day you were rescued by the Pioneers?”
+
+“Oh, did you hear about that?” Nathalie cried, her face taking on a
+deeper tinge of pink. She had always felt the least mite ashamed of that
+mishap.
+
+“Yes, and how about the blue robins?” he continued in a quizzing tone.
+
+“Oh, Grace,” exclaimed Nathalie, “you have been telling tales!” and then
+with a laugh, she told of finding the bluebird’s nest, excusing her
+ignorance by the plea that she was a city-bred girl.
+
+The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred being a Patrol Leader,
+and greatly interested in the organization. Finding that Nathalie had
+had some difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered to
+give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil proved an apt
+scholar, as it was not long before she had mastered the weaver’s, the
+overhand, the reef, and had gained a fair insight into several other
+knots. Before the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might not come
+up some evening with Grace, and give her another lesson and meet her
+brother Dick.
+
+Nathalie’s face dimpled; she hastened to assure him that she would be
+pleased to welcome them at the house, and that she knew her brother
+would be more than delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told
+him all about her brother’s misfortune, and how depressed he grew at
+times without his chums to drop in and cheer him.
+
+The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted by Fred, who
+claimed he was going their way, neared the high stone wall overtopped
+with gray turrets and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned to
+leap beyond their barrier.
+
+“Wasn’t it a queer idea to build a beautiful house like this and then
+fence it in like some old monastery?” questioned Grace. “See, here’s a
+bell in the stone gate, the way they used to have it in olden times.”
+
+“Ugh! I hate to go in—the place gives me the creeps!” she shivered
+nervously. “Oh, Fred, do come in with us, we shall not be long.”
+
+Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time
+yielded to his sister’s entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door
+was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
+
+He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but
+when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow’s
+wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
+
+Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and
+tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading
+to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design,
+with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there.
+A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a
+porte-cochère.
+
+“This is the old Dutch shack,” remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so
+later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung
+like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.
+
+Nathalie’s eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping
+roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like
+thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a
+foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of
+honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of
+hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous
+hedge around it.
+
+Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage
+ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window
+above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against
+it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a
+grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading
+to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge
+when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.
+
+As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the
+broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the
+gate, promising to wait outside for them.
+
+As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler’s
+impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn
+tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace
+conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van
+Vorst.
+
+For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in
+their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her
+words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he
+asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the
+hall, while a stag’s head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them
+glassily.
+
+The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated
+the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires,
+possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by
+the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose
+spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came
+the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the
+canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel
+down the broad stairway.
+
+But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still retaining his
+sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a little reception room opening from
+the hall fitted up to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated
+themselves on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the many curios
+that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each betraying some eccentric
+custom of the land of the yellow peril.
+
+“O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!” observed Grace with an
+apprehensive shiver. “Ugh, I should hate to have that grim-looking man
+come back and tell me my company wasn’t wanted.”
+
+Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed in
+sympathetic recognition of her companion’s mood. Her eye was caught by a
+huge mandarin who grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered,
+half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed to inhabit
+China were not hidden behind his wrinkled brown skin, and were looking
+at her through his bead-like eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his
+sinister glare. Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did
+move—oh, what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching all of a heap
+in abject fear as she stared with horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin,
+as if that weird, shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim
+silence had come from his mummy-like lips.
+
+“Oh, what is it?” whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper, as she stared in
+paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.
+
+Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more piercing and, if could
+be, more blood-curdling than the first, came echoing down the hall,
+followed by a demoniacal laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror
+was something more human than an old Chinese idol. Grace, with a frantic
+scream of terror that almost equaled in its intensity the one that they
+had heard sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the door!
+
+Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a loss to determine
+whence came the horrible shrieks, but in another instant, as another one
+rent the air with the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no
+longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her, she flew into the
+hall, through the door that Grace had flung wide open, and with
+terror-winged feet and thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide
+steps and along the path after Grace!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI—WORKING INTO HARNESS
+
+
+A half-hour later the two girls stood on Mrs. Morrow’s veranda, and with
+Fred’s mocking laughter still ringing in their ears told of their hasty
+exit from the gray house. With shame-mantled face and downcast eyes
+Grace handed Mrs. Morrow her note.
+
+In answer to that lady’s surprised inquiries the story was told at
+length, a few extra flourishes unconsciously added to plead for the
+unexpected finale to their errand. But Mrs. Morrow was most kind, not at
+all like Fred, and did not laugh at them for being “scare-babies” as he
+had expressed it. She voiced her sympathy most generously, saying she
+did not wonder they were frightened, as she was sure at their age she
+would have done the same.
+
+“I cannot imagine what it could have been,” she pondered, in much
+perplexity. “I will ask the doctor. If he does not know he will probably
+hear about it, if it was really anything serious.”
+
+She smiled in a way that made Nathalie, whose intuitions were keen,
+exclaim hastily, “Oh, indeed, Mrs. Morrow, we did not imagine it at all.
+I am sure if you could have heard that terrible shriek—and that laugh!
+Oh, I can hear it still!” Her brown eyes emphasized her words as they
+darkened with the haunting terror that caused her to rush pell-mell
+after Grace.
+
+“But I do hope,” remarked Mrs. Morrow, “that Mrs. Van Vorst will never
+know that the young girls who took such sudden flight from her house
+were Pioneers, as Pioneers are supposed to be very courageous.” There
+was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke that partly atoned for the
+implication as to the girls’ lack of courage.
+
+They made no reply for a moment, and then Grace, as if to atone for her
+delinquency, exclaimed contritely, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Morrow, I was
+frightened—but if you want me to—” her voice faltered, “I will take it
+to her again.”
+
+“No, indeed,” quickly rejoined that lady, “I could not be so cruel as to
+send you there again, for no matter if the shriek was nothing, you were
+really frightened. I did not mean to rebuke you; I only wanted to seize
+this opportunity to show you what an important thing courage is—and how
+we should cultivate it, even in small things. As for the note, I will
+get the doctor to take it or send it by post. I will have to confess,
+however, that I am disappointed, for I was so anxious to have Mrs. Van
+Vorst see what well-behaved and pleasing young girls belonged to the
+organization.”
+
+“And you sent me!” wailed Grace. “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Morrow, but what
+an arrant coward I have proved—and Nathalie of course would not have run
+if I had not!” The tears welled up piteously in her blue eyes.
+
+“Oh, no, Grace,” interposed Nathalie loyally, “I was just on the verge
+of running away myself!” And then she told them about the mandarin with
+the grinning mouth, and sinister, bead-like eyes, that she was sure had
+blinked at her. This caused a laugh and cleared the atmosphere of the
+unpleasantness that had been created by the morning’s adventure.
+
+The Saturday of the Pilgrim Rally—the day that was to make Nathalie a
+Pioneer—arrived. At an early hour of the morning the Pioneers of the
+three bird groups—each one with a package—began to file into Seton Hall,
+the little stone building used by the town for important meetings and
+often for social functions. Out of deference to Nathalie the girls had
+decided to bring their Pilgrim costumes with them—hence the mysterious
+packages—and not don them until she had been admitted to the
+organization.
+
+With interested eyes Nathalie heard the Pioneers recite their pledge,
+give the sign, the salute,—the three movements of the closed hand,
+signifying a brave heart, an honest mind, and a resourceful hand,—and
+give the rousing Girl Pioneer cheer. She felt a trifle shaky, she
+confided to Helen who was seated next to her, dreading the ordeal of
+being made prominent as most girls do, but she regained her nerve
+somewhat as the Director arose and with a smiling nod of welcome began
+to call the names.
+
+Certainly it was a pretty fancy to have each member respond to her name
+by giving the bird call of her group. The quick clear note of Bob White,
+the “Chip! chip!” of the meadow sparrow, and the oriole’s greeting were
+all inspiring, but it was the melodious “Tru-al-lee!” of the bluebird
+group that held her with its sweet, low trill.
+
+As Nathalie heard her name called when it came time to perform the
+initiative ceremony of making her a Pioneer, her head began to whirl,
+but setting her teeth determinedly, with squared shoulders and head
+erect, she walked down the aisle, faced the Director, and in a clear
+voice repeated her pledge. In answer to the question, would she remember
+that the honor of a world-wide organization had been placed in her
+hands, and that henceforth whatever she said or did was not done simply
+as Nathalie Page, but as a Girl Pioneer, she answered gravely, “I will!”
+
+The second question was now asked, if she would try to live in such a
+way that through and by her example the words Girl Pioneer should come
+to mean all that was honest, highest, best, and most efficient in the
+girlhood of her country, she again replied with the solemn, “I will.”
+
+The Director now stepped to her side, and taking her by the hand said,
+“Nathalie Page, in the name of the Girl Pioneers of America, and by the
+authority vested in me as a Director, I receive you into our
+organization. You are now a Girl Pioneer of America. May you be a worthy
+successor of those women, brave, honest, resourceful, from whom our name
+is taken, and who in the early days of the country, standing side by
+side with the men, faced hardships, privations, and dangers, and helped
+to make possible the United States of America!”
+
+Mrs. Morrow paused a moment, and then with one of her ready smiles took
+Nathalie’s hand in hers and gave her a cordial welcome. Then turning
+toward the Pioneers she said, “Let us welcome our new member.”
+
+The girls sprang quickly but noiselessly on their feet, crying:
+
+  “Whom have we here?
+  A new Pioneer!
+  Come give a cheer
+  Girl Pi-o-neer
+  Nathalie Page!”
+
+The new Pioneer unconsciously heaved a deep sigh when the ceremony was
+over and she was allowed to return to her seat. She was tempted to smile
+at her palpitating heart when going through such a simple ceremony as
+the initiation to an organization of girls; and yet she was vaguely
+conscious that it was a momentous episode in her life, and she firmly
+resolved that her vow should be a binding one, and that she would try
+her best to become a worth-while Pioneer and a Blue Robin.
+
+The seriousness of her act became even more apparent as she listened
+with keen interest to Mrs. Morrow’s little talk, which was, in memory of
+the day’s celebration, about the Pilgrims. It was the desire to do right
+in the face of all difficulties which animated the Founders of this
+great nation in their struggle for Freedom and Right, and which led
+their wives, daughters, and sisters to forego the necessities of life,
+to cross an unknown sea and to face the perils of the wilderness and to
+aid them in their noble purpose.
+
+It was this sacrifice of the things that made life endurable, and their
+strict adherence to duty that gave rise to the sterling qualities of
+unflinching determination, hardy courage, stern endurance, unrepining
+cheerfulness, untiring loyalty, patient industry, and quick
+resourcefulness that has gained the name of the Pioneer spirit, and made
+these early women founders of our nation models of all that is pure and
+best in womanhood.
+
+Their Director then went on and told of the handicrafts of the Pilgrims,
+such as baking, brewing, sewing, knitting, quilting, spinning, planting
+the foodstuffs, carding wool, and the many industries that were
+necessary to keep life in those pioneer days.
+
+As the new Pioneer heard the gentle, persuasive voice, she began to see
+life in a new aspect, and to understand something of what it meant to
+emulate these noble women. “In your hikes, before your cheer fires, in
+your camps, in your home and school life, as well as in the tests and
+your outdoor and indoor activities, and in your sports and games, keep
+these women as your cheer star,” said Mrs. Morrow earnestly, “so that
+you, too, will be actuated by the qualities that ennobled them. And when
+the call comes, be kindly, helpful, resourceful, pure, and upright in
+the midst of all temptation and danger, and you will not only have the
+name of Pioneer, but will be filled with the real pioneer spirit.”
+
+Mrs. Morrow stood silent a moment and then repeated slowly:
+
+      “Life is more than the breath and the quick round of blood,
+      It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
+      We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
+      In feelings, not figures on a dial.
+      We should count time as heart throbs. He most lives
+      Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
+                                                         —Bailey.
+
+The girls now seated themselves in a circle, and as Jessie read the news
+from the monthly “Pioneer,” which reported a flower hike for the
+Saturday two weeks hence, they took out their materials and set to work.
+Some wove gay-colored yarn on small frames, others braided raffia
+baskets, or made squares of plaited slips of paper, while Mrs. Morrow
+told them something about the art of weaving.
+
+After some time spent in learning this old-time craft, the Director
+asked the girls how they could best apply this industry to a very common
+fundamental of the home. There was a slight pause, and then some one
+called out “To the carpet!” Another girl ventured to say “Our clothes.”
+Mrs. Morrow smiled as she said they were all right in a sense, but the
+particular craft she meant at that time was what Helen had timidly
+suggested, and that was, darning stockings!
+
+There was a ripple of laughter at this truism and then, to Nathalie’s
+surprise, there was a stocking drill, every one hauling forth a stocking
+from her basket and setting to work to practice this homely art. It was
+indeed a trial by needle to Nathalie, and she suffered some
+embarrassment when, after borrowing a stocking from her neighbor, and
+trying her very best to do it well, it was returned to her from the
+Director with the remark that she needed training in the science.
+
+Later, when Mrs. Morrow came to her side and showed how neatly her
+stocking hole appeared after weaving her thread back and forth, and made
+Nathalie practice doing the same, the girl suddenly realized what a
+braggart she had been. “Oh, I told Mother I was the champion mender,”
+she thought remorsefully. “What a bungle I must have been making of
+those stockings!” With the avowed purpose that she was going to make
+darning her life-work for the next three weeks, she laid her work aside
+and hurried with the girls into the adjoining dressing-room to get ready
+for the real Pilgrimy time, when they were to represent the women of
+Plymouth town.
+
+“Do you always have an all-day meeting?” she asked Grace, who was
+pinning a blue bird on Nathalie’s gown, for at Helen’s suggestion she
+was to appear at this, her first Rally, as a Blue Robin, in memory of
+the first songster that welcomed the Pilgrims.
+
+“Oh, no, indeed,” answered Grace, “but we departed from our usual plan,
+which is to meet in the afternoon only, unless we have a hike or
+demonstration, as we wanted to make our luncheon the Mayflower Feast.
+But, oh, Nathalie,” she ended enthusiastically, “you are a veritable
+blue bird! Look, girls, isn’t she the dearest? That bluebird blue makes
+her cheeks like pink roses!”
+
+At this sudden thrust into notoriety the girl’s color grew more vivid as
+she turned for the inspection of the girls. They grew very enthusiastic
+over her bluebird costume with its bluish-gray slip with scalloped
+edges, and bluebird cap edged with tiny blue wings, where a blue bird,
+standing up in the front, poised with outspread wings “ready to fly,” as
+one of the girls asserted.
+
+“Oh, it’s only blue paper muslin,” explained the “flier,” as her mates
+had called her, when they examined the Blue Robin gown. “Helen helped me
+make it, and what a time we had making that birdie stick—hands off,” she
+finished laughingly, as some too ardent admirer pressed her close, “or I
+shall not fly away but fall to pieces.”
+
+By this time, however, her admirers had found a new love in the Tike,
+who came dancing before them all in white. She was literally a bower of
+trailing arbutus, as sprays of that spring flower were fastened all over
+her gown.
+
+“I am the Pilgrim flower,” she piped pertly, “some call me the Mayflower
+blossom.” And then catching up her skirts, with a low curtsey she
+repeated softly:
+
+  “Oh I’m the flower that never dies,
+  ’Neath leaves so brown in bed so low.
+  The arbutus, who in glad surprise
+  Bloomed ‘Welcome’ from fields of snow
+  To our Pilgrim sires of long ago.”
+
+“Oh, here’s Lillie Bell!” called some one. “Isn’t she a duck of a dear!”
+Simultaneously the girls forsook the Tike and flocked around Lillie,
+who, gowned in pure white, with kerchief and lace cap, represented
+Susannah White, the first bride of the colony.
+
+“Yes, and I want you to note, girls,” she asserted impressively, with a
+nonchalant nod to the welcome accorded her, “that I am not only the
+first bride, but the first mother of the colony, for my little Peregrine
+was born when the _Mayflower_ rode at anchor in Cape Cod Bay, and Mrs.
+Morrow claims this is even a greater honor than to be the first bride.
+But, girls—” she ended abruptly, dropping her matronly pose, “have you
+seen Edith—she was to be Helen Billington—I never knew her to be so late
+before?”
+
+“There! that accounts for the aching void in my heart, I know I missed
+some one,” cried Jessie half mockingly. “O dear, what will become of my
+Pioneer article if the Sport does not appear?” The girls all laughed in
+appreciation of Jessie’s serio-comic declaration, for it was generally
+conceded that Edith was the most active spirit of the band, as her
+sporting proclivities, her general good-nature, and her dashing
+escapades always furnished plenty of “copy” when any of their various
+hikes or demonstrations were in progress.
+
+“Oh, don’t fret; a bad penny always turns up!” chimed in Kitty, who did
+not particularly admire the Sport.
+
+“I’ll bet you a cookie that she has been arrested for appearing in
+disorderly apparel on the street,” observed Grace roguishly; “for she
+told me she was going to dress at home.”
+
+“Oh, girls, aren’t you ready?” at this instant asked Louise Gaynor,
+suddenly appearing in the doorway leading to the room where Mrs. Morrow,
+as Mistress Carver, the Governor’s lady, was waiting to receive them.
+
+“Her Sweet Graciousness, Mistress Carver, waits for you without in the
+Common House.”
+
+  “Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla,
+  Priscilla, the Mayflower of Plymouth!”
+
+Thus hummed Lillie as she walked around this winsome representation of
+that Puritan maiden, surveying her critically, but with approving eye.
+
+“Oh, you’re just too sweet for anything!” warbled another bluebird,
+“you’re—”
+
+“You’re too sweet to have to do your own proposing, methinks,” broke in
+Jessie, touching one of the long golden braids that fell from beneath
+the demure little cap of this first edition of women’s rights.
+
+But at sweet Priscilla’s gentle reminder that the first lady of the land
+should not be kept waiting, the merry girls ceased their chatter, did
+their best to assume the decorous manners of the Puritan women, filed
+into line, and were soon in the adjoining room.
+
+Here they were greeted by Dame Brewster, the Elder’s wife, no other than
+Helen, who, in ruffled cap and quaintly flowered gown, excelled even her
+own aspirations to appear like that motherly dame, as in speech of
+quaint wording she made each Mayflower damsel known to Mistress Carver.
+
+After the greetings had been voiced, the first surprise came, and that
+was when the Tike came bounding into the midst of the gentle dames and
+informed them that a cheer fire was blazing on the grass-plot in the
+rear of the Hall. The Pioneers in profound wonder—as they had not
+expected to have a cheer fire—followed Mistress Carver to the garden,
+where a circle was formed around this magic inspirer of cheer, whose
+burning fagots snapped and crackled noisily, as if to do its share in
+the old-time celebration. It was in memory, Grace declared, of the many
+fires that had cheered the settlers in the cold and desolation of the
+new world.
+
+Murmurs of wonder and queries about this mysterious surprise were
+silenced, as some one started a general clapping, a recognition often
+accorded the Pioneers’ cheer star. Then, as they gathered around the
+flaming light, some one suggested that perhaps the Governor’s lady could
+tell as to who was the magic fire-maker.
+
+The lady in question, although disclaiming that she knew who lighted the
+magic inspirer, did finally admit that she could guess who had done it,
+but as that was a privilege that every one had, she had nothing to tell.
+However, the mystery remained unsolved, although some bright one
+ventured to suggest that it might have been the Sport, who was still
+missing, as she delighted to do the unexpected.
+
+Immediately the missing Pioneer began to be eulogized for her clever and
+mysterious absence, as these representatives of hundreds of years ago
+circled about their emblem of cheer and romance. To usher in the first
+ceremony, or, as the girls sometimes called it “the christening of the
+blazer,” some one called for the story-teller to give one of her
+thrillers. This cry was forthwith taken up by the little company, and
+became so imperative that Lillie at last complied with the request, and
+in a few moments was telling, in her usual impressive way, the story of
+those pioneers, the Pilgrim men and women, who fought the first battle
+for liberty and union on the shores of this land.
+
+When Lillie’s story came to an end, she received her usual applause, for
+every one had listened with the closest attention to the account of the
+many pilgrimages of these simple folk from the northeastern countries of
+England. In trying to serve God as they deemed right they had separated
+themselves from the English church and had begun to hold little meetings
+in the village of Scrooby. Hounded by the authorities they finally
+sailed to the low countries, which at that time were considered a place
+of refuge for the oppressed of all nations. They lived one year in
+Amsterdam, meeting for worship near a convent, whose sweet chimes called
+them to a low-ceiled room, where they sung their songs of praise and
+read God’s word.
+
+But their wanderings were not over, and a year later they sailed on one
+of the great waterways of this Dutch land to Leyden. Here they remained
+twelve years in twenty-three humble little homes, built on a plot of
+ground known as the _Koltsteeg_, and called Bell Alley, just across the
+way from the great dome of St. Peter’s church.
+
+Here in this land of foreign tongue their children grew up, learned
+their trades and, alas, many of the ways of these people, especially
+their methods of keeping the Sabbath, which were contrary to the beliefs
+of these God-loving people. It was for this reason as well as for
+others, that they started forth on their wanderings again, and migrated
+to the new land across the sea, sailing in the _Mayflower_ on the
+twenty-second of July, 1620.
+
+Nathalie was somewhat disappointed in the beginning, that she was not to
+hear one of Lillie’s twentieth-century thrillers, but the story of the
+Pilgrims was so interesting that she felt amply repaid for her
+disappointment. Although familiar with their story in this land, she had
+never heard much about the lives of these founders before they came to
+America.
+
+The tale of these ancient folk was rendered even more interesting by
+various interruptions at intervals, as when Dame Brewster read, in
+solemn tone, the Constitution formed by these people in the cabin of the
+_Mayflower_, said to have been written on an old chest, and known as The
+Compact, the first stone in the American Commonwealth.
+
+The Governor’s lady enlivened the tedious voyage over by telling of
+several little incidents that had occurred; one was when the _Mayflower_
+during a severe storm was saved from going to the bottom by some one
+wedging a _kracht_, or jackscrew, in a leak that had suddenly sprung
+amidships.
+
+Little Humility Cooper, one of the children of the _Mayflower_ voyagers,
+an Oriole Pioneer, recited Mrs. Heman’s “Landing of the Pilgrims,” while
+sprightly Mary Chilton told of her race with John Alden to be the first
+one of the little company to step on Plymouth Rock. She added to the
+interest of this recital by giving a short account of this historical
+granite from the day it served as a foundation stone of her victory
+until the present time.
+
+A Bob White told about the first American washday, and the fun the
+children had gathering sweet juniper boughs to build the fires, over
+which hung the tripod from which was suspended the kettles of that
+historic occasion.
+
+Louise Gaynor, as Priscilla, recited parts of Longfellow’s poem, “The
+Courtship of Myles Standish,” with its picturesque account of the most
+romantic happening of the little town, while as Mistress Fuller, Barbara
+described Fort Hill and told about Captain Standish and his sixteen
+valiant men-at-arms who explored the hills and woods of the wilderness.
+
+Kitty Corwin, as another Pilgrim dame, told of the erection of the seven
+little houses with their thatched roofs, built in a row on First, or
+Leyden Street, giving a rather exciting account of the many serious
+accidents that happened to the Common House where the stores and
+ammunition of the community were stored. And so, in picturesque detail,
+each feature of the story was brought forth to form in the minds of
+these twentieth century Pioneers a picture that would last through the
+years that were to follow, and help them gain an insight into the
+characters they were representing.
+
+Elizabeth Winslow, the first wife of the first American statesman, one
+of the first to pass away in the fatal sickness of that lonely winter;
+Mrs. Hopkins, who won fame as the mother of the boy Oceanus, born on the
+_Mayflower_; Bridget Fuller, the wife of the genial Dr. Fuller, and
+others, were all impersonated by some one of the Pioneers.
+
+Even the ghosts, as Grace dubbed them, were heard from: Myles Standish’s
+first wife, known as the beautiful English Rose, who died soon after
+reaching the new land, and Dorothy Bradford, the young wife of William
+Bradford, who came to her death by falling overboard while her husband
+was exploring the shores with Captain Standish and his men.
+
+By the time the story with its variations had been told, the girls,
+tired of posing with old-time stiffness and ceremony, were all laughing
+merrily as some one of the band suddenly spied some comical or grotesque
+aspect of the impersonator, when the Tike screamed shrilly, “Oh, who is
+that?” pointing to a black-draped figure standing in the doorway of the
+hall, with red, perspiring face, hat cocked on one side, and a generally
+bedraggled appearance.
+
+It was the missing Pioneer, Edith, who, after the hubbub had subsided as
+to her untimely appearance and tardy arrival, pulled off her long black
+cloak and threw herself on the grass by the side of Lillie. With gasps
+and sundry emphasizing shrieks she told what had befallen her on the way
+to the Rally.
+
+“Father was ill last night, so the first thing this morning I had to go
+for the doctor. Then as mother was busy attending to Father I had to get
+the youngsters ready,—they were going to a May picnic, for of course,”
+Edith added petulantly, “no matter what happened to me, Mother would not
+have the kiddies disappointed.”
+
+Catching Mrs. Morrow’s reproving eye, she stammered apologetically, “Of
+course, I would not have them disappointed myself—they are dears—but it
+lost me my morning; and then, just as I was hurrying by the gray
+house,—oh, girls—” dropping her voice to a tense whisper, “what do you
+think I heard?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII—THE MAYFLOWER FEAST
+
+
+The tenseness of Edith’s tone, coupled with her mysterious manner, had
+the desired effect, and the Pioneers all bent forward eagerly with
+expectant eyes, anxious to hear what she had seen and heard, while some
+too impetuous one called out, “Oh, do hurry and tell us what it was!”
+
+“It was the most terrible shriek I ever heard,” answered Edith, with a
+long-drawn sigh. Having succeeded in getting her audience where she
+wanted them she was anxious to prolong her triumph. “Why, my heart
+jumped into my mouth, and I—”
+
+“Where did the noise come from?” inquired practical Helen impatiently,
+who never wasted any time in getting wrought up, as she called it, by
+the Sport’s yarns.
+
+“It came from the garden of the gray house,” was the quick retort; and
+then, crossly, “I do wish, Helen, you would wait—you’ll spoil the whole
+thing if you don’t let me tell it properly.”
+
+Grace, who had been listening intently to the Sport’s recital, looked up
+quickly and encountered a glance from Nathalie’s eyes as she suddenly
+turned from Edith and looked across the circle at Grace to see if she
+had heard. But Grace, whose memory was still rankling with her adventure
+at the gray house, was afraid that if the girls knew they would plague
+her unmercifully for being a runaway, and hastily put her hand on her
+lips in warning not to tell what had happened to them.
+
+Nathalie nodded loyally and then turned to hear Edith repeat, “Yes, the
+noise came from the garden of the gray house, I have always told you
+there was something queer about that place. At first I started to run
+away, and then I thought, ‘O pshaw! whatever it is, it won’t hurt me
+behind those high walls.’ So I walked close up to the wall near one
+corner to see if I could not manage to climb up in some way and look
+into the garden. I had just spied a tiny hole in the lower part of the
+wall—I guess some boys had made it, you know they are always spying
+about that place, anyway—when I heard loud breathing. I looked up and
+saw a man creeping stealthily around the corner of the wall, as if
+dodging some one. Well, I just gave one look at him, he had great black,
+burning kind of eyes, staring out of a face as white as a corpse. He
+suddenly spied me, and by the uncanny glare he gave I knew right off he
+was the one who had been shrieking, he was the crazy man who lives
+there! Great guns! but I didn’t wait to take another look, I took to my
+heels and flew. Then I heard steps thumping behind me—looked back—oh,
+girls,” she shrieked hysterically, “he was chasing me, running after me
+as hard as he could!”
+
+She gulped, and then with a gasp continued, “Oh, for a moment I thought
+I was doomed, but—well—you know I can run, and I did, for my life. I ran
+every step of the way here—and—oh, I’m so hungry! Have you had the feast
+yet?”
+
+“What became of the man?” inquired Helen tersely.
+
+“Oh, yes, what became of him?” added one or two others.
+
+“I don’t know and I don’t care,” asserted Miss Edith carelessly. “All I
+know is that he is as crazy as a loon, and that he lives in the gray
+house.”
+
+“Edith,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow sharply, “as long as you did not see the
+man come from the gray house do not say he lives there; and as for
+saying he is crazy, that is absurd. That is just an idle report; do not
+repeat it until you have proof that what you say is correct. He was
+probably a tramp, and may have been chased from the garden by one of the
+servants.” Mrs. Morrow’s face showed keenly her annoyance and disbelief
+in Edith’s surmise.
+
+“But what could the screams have been?” asked Helen, wonderingly, “if
+they really came from the garden?”
+
+“Oh, I am sure they did,” asserted the Sport positively, “for I have
+heard other people say that they have heard queer noises coming from
+that place. But girls,” she exclaimed, as if anxious to dismiss the
+subject, “do tell me what you have been doing. Oh, I did so hate to miss
+all the fun.”
+
+“Yes, kiddie, it is too bad,” consoled Lillie, putting her arm around
+her friend, “but we have not had the feast yet, we’ve just been
+listening to little stories about the Pilgrims—you know you heard me
+read my story the other day—” she stopped abruptly, for a sudden
+rustling in a clump of trees back of the garden had caused every one to
+turn and peer apprehensively over their shoulders.
+
+“Oh,” shivered the Sport nervously, “perhaps it is the crazy man!” She
+sprang to her feet and made as if to take to her heels again.
+
+Every girl followed her example, and in another moment there would have
+been a wild stampede to the shelter of the hall, if a loud voice had not
+called out, “Welcome, Englishmen! Welcome!”
+
+Simultaneously with these words a lithe form sprang into the midst of
+the terrified girls, who clung to one another with wildly beating hearts
+as with dilated eyes they glared at the intruder, a tall Indian youth,
+resplendent with a feathered head-gear. He was clad in deerskin trousers
+fringed at the seams, a string of hairy scalps hung at his belt, and he
+held a bow and arrow in his hands as he stood and looked down at this
+bevy of frightened colonial maids with a broad smile on his grease
+besmeared face.
+
+There was just a second’s pause, and then Helen shouted merrily, “Oh,
+it’s Teddy Hart, and he’s Samoset! Oh, girls, don’t you remember? He was
+the Indian who came and welcomed the Pilgrims!”
+
+Of course they all remembered, for had not Lillie dealt at length upon
+that very scene when telling her story? And Teddy Hart, why, he was a
+Boy Scout, one of Fred Tyson’s patrol, which was known as the Eagle
+patrol.
+
+This was all that was needed to make the girls forget the crazy man and
+the Sport’s harrowing tale, and they crowded about Teddy crying, “Oh,
+Ted, where did you get the rig?” or, “What made you think of it?” and,
+“Isn’t it the best ever?” This last was from the Tike who was hopping
+about the new arrival examining the hairy scalps—which turned out to be
+a few wigs borrowed from the village barber—with keen curiosity.
+
+“Great Cæsar! give a fellow a chance to breathe, won’t you?” fired the
+make-believe Samoset, as he mopped his face energetically. “Don’t riddle
+me with questions; I’m not a target!”
+
+Yes, this was the second surprise, or the forerunner of it, for before
+Teddy was ready to surrender his place as the hero of the moment, the
+beat of a drum was heard, and from the little bit of woodland where Ted
+had been hiding issued a group of queer-looking individuals. They were
+all attired in somber-colored clothes with broad white collars, high
+conical-shaped hats, and all carried guns and had swords clanking at
+their sides in good impersonation of the Fathers of their country. The
+next moment they had formed in line and with well-simulated solemnity of
+countenance, “as if going to meeting-house,” tittered Grace, these
+sixteen men-at-arms, headed by Capt. Standish—who was no other than Fred
+Tyson—marched valiantly down the street towards the garden.
+
+It was the Sport after all who saved the day for the Pioneers, for as
+they stood in dazed laughter wondering how to greet these unexpected
+guests, the Sport’s hand shot up, and two seconds later the girls had
+joined her in saluting their brother organization, as with one accord
+they gave the Pioneer cheer.
+
+In quick response to a signal from their leader, the Scouts came to a
+halt, and as one man each Scout’s hand went up to his forehead in the
+salute of three ringers held upright. This was followed by another
+cheer, a rousing one this time, as each boy shouted lustily:
+
+  “Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
+  Good turn daily! Shout! Shout! Shout!”
+
+The boys now fell into step again, and in a few moments had entered the
+little wicker gate where they broke ranks as they were cordially
+welcomed by the Governor’s lady and Dame Brewster. For a short space
+following pandemonium reigned, as the boys tried to answer the many
+queries propounded by the girls, each Pioneer, spying some one favorite
+boy, singled him out with merry jest to answer as to the why and
+wherefore of the unlooked for surprise.
+
+Nathalie felt somewhat embarrassed and stood apart from the girls, not
+having met any of the Scouts of the town. Perhaps she was a little
+scornful, for in the city she had been wont to pass a khaki uniform with
+scant approval, considering these emulators of chivalrous knights mere
+boys. Not understanding the aims or purposes of the organization they
+had failed to attract her.
+
+But as she stood watching these tall, well-developed lads with heads
+held high, squared shoulders, and with the ruddy glow of an active life
+in the open on their bright faces, she reluctantly admitted that they
+were interesting to look at, at least.
+
+“Ah, Miss Nathalie, I see you have forgotten me!” spoke a voice at the
+girl’s elbow. She turned quickly to see the laughing brown eyes of Fred
+Tyson. Fred’s face was flushed with embarrassment as he felt somewhat
+timorous as to this city girl’s greeting, since he had last seen her
+walking away from him with flushed cheeks and angry mien as he teasingly
+taunted, “Scare-babies! Scare-babies!”
+
+But Nathalie had forgotten all about that trivial incident—perhaps
+because she had a brother and knew the moods of boys and how they
+delighted to tease and hark at the girls—and she dimpled with cordiality
+as she returned his greeting.
+
+She was soon sparkling with merriment as Fred told of the fun they had
+in rigging up, and the sensation they created as they marched through
+Main Street. By this time the explanations from the boys were over, and
+the secret of the cheer fire was revealed. It had been made by the
+Scouts at the suggestion of Dr. Homer, who was much interested in the
+Pioneers and had planned the two surprises to give a little more tone to
+the celebration and fun to the girls.
+
+The girls now clamored that they were hungry, and at an intimation from
+Mrs. Morrow the Scouts were invited to repair to one of the side rooms
+in the hall, where their Mayflower Feast was to be held.
+
+The invitation was accepted by Fred for the patrol, and the party of
+merry-makers filed noisily into the hall. When the boys saw the Stars
+and Stripes, and the yards of red, white, and blue bunting hanging in
+graceful folds from the walls of the room, they broke into patriotic
+song. “Red, White, and Blue” was first sung in compliment to the Girl
+Pioneers’ colors, and was quickly succeeded by the “Battle Cry of
+Freedom,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in recognition of the starry
+emblem that symbolizes—more than any design that floats to the wind—the
+uplift of mankind, Liberty, and Union!
+
+A cheery fire of pine knots blazed a greeting from the hearth, while two
+long boards supported on trestles and covered with a shining damask
+cloth, represented the table of Pioneer days. Odd bits of old-time ware,
+such as silver porringers, queer-shaped jugs, or blackjacks, a number of
+wooden bowls, a high-standing salt-cellar, and a pewter tankard, were
+distributed about the table. But it was the flowers that lay in bunches
+here and there—and all May ones, too, from the clusters of white
+snowballs, lilacs, pink and yellow azaleas, to the big bowls filled with
+sprigs of arbutus—that held Nathalie’s eyes.
+
+But flags, antiques, and flowers soon became things of the past, as the
+girls brought forth their lunch-baskets; each one had vied with the
+other to bring some choice edible and with the help of the modern
+knights, who declared that they had come for that purpose, the table was
+loaded with goodies.
+
+Just before the feast was served, Will Ditmas, a fair counterpart of
+William Brewster, the ruling elder of Plymouth, suddenly stood up and,
+after much throat-clearing, announced in a droning voice that if those
+present were willing, for the furtherance of sobriety and seemly
+behavior, he would read a few rules from “A Pretty Little Pocket Book.”
+
+After stonily staring over a pair of goggles at a few irrepressible
+gigglers the would-be Elder read: “Speak not until spoken to; break not
+thy bread, nor bite into a whole slice; take not salt unless with a
+clean knife, and throw no bones under the table.”
+
+Those who were trying to keep their faces straight wavered in the
+attempt and joined the irrepressible Tike in a few hysterical titters as
+he continued: “Hold not thy fork upright, but sloping, lay it down at
+the right hand of the plate, with the end of the blade on the table
+plate, and look not earnestly at any person that is eating.”
+
+This last was the final straw for the Tike, and she giggled so
+unrestrainedly that she threatened hysteria, and Helen had to whack her
+on the back so that she could get her breathing apparatus in working
+order again. This ebullition was like a match to fire, and all those who
+had been smothering their mirth now broke forth into loud laughter,
+which threatened to become clamorous had not Mrs. Morrow held up her
+restraining finger.
+
+The signal was too well known not to be obeyed, and the too mirthful
+ones were recalled to themselves. Then, too, they were all hungry; so
+forgetting the old-time admonitions of their forebears, they were soon
+occupied satisfying their hunger.
+
+After the left-over goodies had been gathered into baskets to be
+delivered to a poor family, and the place was set in order again, the
+chivalrous knights and the emulating Pioneers swarmed merrily into the
+dance hall, where they held high court to the light fantastic as Mrs.
+Morrow, the one-piece orchestra, rattled off ragtime harmony for round
+and square dances.
+
+Nathalie by this time had met a number of the Scouts, and to her
+surprise found that some of them danced as well as, and in some cases
+better than her boy friends in the city. The would-be Elder, who had
+droned the rules from the pocket book, proved not only a good dancer,
+but most companionable, and finding that Nathalie was sadly ignorant as
+to the aims and purposes of the Scout organization, he set forth to
+enlighten her.
+
+He took off his Scout badge, pointed out the eagle, and the stars and
+shield, explaining that it was a trefoil badge and represented the three
+points in the Scout oath. The curl-up at the end of the scroll was a
+reminder to each Scout that the corners of his mouth should always be
+turned up in a smile of cheerfulness. The knot in the loop was a
+“conscience pricker,” as he expressed it, that a Scout was pledged to do
+some one a good turn every day.
+
+The next dance was Fred Tyson’s, and when it ended they seated
+themselves in a corner of the hall to cool off, and as Nathalie fanned
+herself with a much bedraggled handkerchief, they hit upon a topic that
+proved most entertaining, and that was—college. Fred stated that he
+expected to go to Dartmouth in the fall and was therefore looking
+forward to it with much pleasure.
+
+Nathalie, with sparkling eyes, told how she had dreamed and longed to go
+to college, and then the golden lights in her eyes shadowed as she said
+that since the death of her father she had decided to stop dreaming
+about what was impossible for her, and to do something worth while, so
+she had become a Pioneer.
+
+“But don’t you think it worth while to go to college?” was Fred’s
+puzzled query, “for surely there is nothing that will help a girl more
+in life than to have—what is it—the higher education?”
+
+“Yes, I know,” assented his companion, “that is all right, but when one
+finds that they can’t have a thing—no matter how big or grand it is, or
+how much they want it—if it is impossible, it ceases to be worth while;
+that is, why spend time lamenting, or thinking about something that
+can’t be accomplished?”
+
+“Why, you are a regular little philosopher!” laughed Fred. But Nathalie
+was not heeding, for suddenly looking across the room she perceived that
+the dancers had retired from the floor, all but the Pioneers, who were
+standing in two lines in the center of the room facing one another as if
+about to dance the Virginia Reel.
+
+“Oh, what are they going to do?” she cried, but before her companion
+could answer Helen came running up.
+
+“Come on, Nathalie, we are going to dance the Pioneer dance. It’s lots
+of fun.”
+
+“But I don’t know it,” objected the girl. “I am not going to make a show
+of myself before all these boys.”
+
+“Oh, but you won’t,” urged Helen, “for you can be my partner, and I will
+tell you as we go along; and then its awfully simple, for we just go
+through the motions of pioneer handcraft—”
+
+“Pioneer handcraft?” echoed Nathalie more puzzled than before.
+
+“Yes, don’t you remember what Mrs. Morrow told us about the handcrafts
+of the Pioneer women? Well, she made up this dance to make these crafts
+definite. Oh, come, it is easy!” In a moment, Nathalie’s objection being
+overruled, she bade Fred good-by and was hurried by her partner to join
+one of the two lines on the floor.
+
+Only a few explanations were necessary, and Nathalie, who was quick to
+learn, joined her voice to the girlish ones singing:
+
+  “Singing, ringing thro’ the air
+  Comes the song of Molly fair.
+  Milking, milking Crumple Horn
+  Down in the barn at early dawn.”
+
+As the song ended, the closed right hand of every Girl Pioneer was held
+out in front, elbow bent upward. Then came three movements up and down
+in imitation of the act of churning. This was done three times, as in
+chorus came:
+
+  “Churning, turning, see it splash,
+  This way, that way, with a dash.”
+
+As the next two lines rang out:
+
+  “Skimming skimming foamy white,
+  Making the butter golden bright,”
+
+the motions were changed to those of skimming milk, repeated three times
+as in the previous movement, the girls emphasizing the end of each
+movement by stamping the feet, using first one and then the other. They
+ended this last motion by each girl placing her hands on her hips and
+tripping in line with the others lightly down the room in time with the
+music and then back to place.
+
+A second of time, and each dancer was making the motion of holding a
+baby in her encircled arms, and while swaying to and fro these words
+were softly crooned:
+
+  “Golden slumber kiss your eyes,
+  Smiles awake you when you rise.
+  Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry,
+  And I will sing a lullabye.”
+
+Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl faced her opposite
+partner, and then linking hands together they were rocking a cradle as
+they joyously warbled:
+
+  “Baby is a sailor boy, swing, cradle, swing;
+  Sailing is the sailor’s joy, swing, cradle, swing.”
+
+Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room and back again to place,
+where this time they formed in rows of three in each line. A crash of
+chords from the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched
+left hand, and made the motion of taking something with the right hand
+from the closed left, and casting it on the ground, as they repeated
+clearly and loudly:
+
+  “Good flax and good hemp to have of her own,
+  In May, a good housewife will see that it is sown.
+  And afterwards trim it to serve in a need,
+  The fimble to spin, the card from her reel.”
+
+Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers had done
+hundreds of years ago—a sign of a thrifty housewife. Now came three
+claps of the hand and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each
+performer now lightly put forward the right foot, poised on the ball of
+the left one, while making the motion as of moving the treadle of a
+spinning-wheel, as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping
+every moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup fastened to the
+distaff.
+
+[Illustration: “Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen.]
+
+“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen as leader of the dance, and
+then came the old-fashioned couplet softly hummed:
+
+  “Count your threads right,
+  If you reel in the night
+  When I am far away.”
+
+Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count
+your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung
+into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately
+measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy
+that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of
+early days.
+
+Now they are singing:
+
+  “Twice a year deplumed may they be
+  In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,”
+
+as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up something with her
+left hand while the right flew up and down with noiseless
+regularity—plucking a goose for dinner.
+
+The next instant every alternate girl had put her hand over her mouth in
+the form of a horn and was calling loudly, “Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple
+Horn!” This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation when each
+fair dancer caught up the hem of her apron and, bending forward, with
+well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the
+ground which was quickly thrust into her apron. Another flash of white
+arms, and each girl had caught up the hem of her neighbor’s gown and
+with a pretended switch was driving her forward while merrily singing:
+
+  “Driving in twilight the waiting cows home,
+  With arms full-laden with hemlock boughs,
+  To be traced on a broom ere the coming day
+  From its eastern chamber should dance away.”
+
+As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into line and marched
+around the room as if carrying muskets, that is, women’s muskets,
+brooms.
+
+Once more in row, each girl pretended she was holding a card with one
+hand, while drawing another card softly, but swiftly across the first.
+This was done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:
+
+  “Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy
+  Two heads on one body.”
+
+“Now we are imitating the motions of carding wool,” Helen whispered
+softly to Nathalie. “Niddy-noddy means the old-fashioned hand-reel used
+in the days when there were no machines.”
+
+The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were dancing the Virginia
+Reel, spinning each other around with the vigor and vim of young hearts
+as a prelude to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing, taking
+their stitches with a precision and handiness that rivalled the little
+maids of Puritan days. With a posture as of holding a wooden frame,
+while in and out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with
+quaint precision:
+
+  “Lola Standish is my name.
+  Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy will,
+  And fill my Hands with such convenient skill
+  As will conduce to Virtue void of shame,
+  And I will give the Glory to thy name.”
+
+Only a space of time and the samplers were dropped, and each girl grew
+strangely still, with bent head and listening ears. With eyes flaming in
+a fixed stare she poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.
+They stood for a moment in this pose as each one present grasped the
+idea that they were doing the deed that many a Pioneer woman had bravely
+done in those early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard over
+the home from the relentless ravages of the red man!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII—THE MOTTO, “I CAN”
+
+
+A few days after the Pilgrim Rally, as Nathalie lay in the hammock
+dreaming day dreams as she was wont to do, her mother came and seated
+herself in a low chair near by.
+
+Nathalie turned, and then with a quick movement sat up as she asked
+anxiously, “Oh, Mother, has anything happened?”
+
+“I should say ‘anything’ has happened,” ejaculated Dick, who was
+lounging near, ignoring his mother’s gesture to be silent, “for your
+mother has been chief cook and bottle-washer all day!”
+
+Nathalie, who had been off on a Pioneer demonstration most of the day,
+showed her dismay as she exclaimed, “Oh, where is Ophelia?”
+
+Mrs. Page’s worry lines deepened as she answered, “Oh, she is ill. She
+has been complaining for some days, and when she begged to be allowed to
+go home this morning I did not have the heart to refuse her. Poor thing!
+she looked the embodiment of woe!”
+
+“But isn’t she coming back?” inquired alarmed Nathalie.
+
+“Not for several days,” was the answer, as Mrs. Page leaned wearily back
+in her chair.
+
+“But can’t we get some one to help us?” demanded her daughter
+insistently.
+
+“Dorothy went to the colored settlement, but could not get any one.
+Colored people don’t like to work in warm weather, and I don’t blame
+them,” her mother added in an undertone, “for standing over a fire in
+this heat is terrible.”
+
+“Oh, what shall we do?” thought Nathalie ruefully, as she saw a pile of
+unwashed dishes confronting her. But a cheery “Hello?” caused her to
+look up to see her friend, with dust-brush in hand, cleaning the window
+shutters of the neighboring house. With gripping force she suddenly
+realized how useful Helen was, and the numerous things she managed to do
+to help her mother, notwithstanding the many hours she was compelled to
+spend at the stenography school.
+
+Nathalie twisted about in the hammock; somehow it did not seem as
+comfortable as it did before her mother had come. Her sky visions had
+departed, and in their place had come the thought that she ought to help
+her mother. Oh, but dish-washing was degrading, such greasy work. She
+glanced down at her slim, white hands as if they would aid her in this
+argument with self.
+
+“Oh, why do people have to do the very things they hate?” she questioned
+rebelliously as she arose from her comfortable position and with a
+long-drawn sigh started to enter the house.
+
+“You have dropped your book!” exclaimed her mother as she stooped and
+picked up the Pioneer manual that had fallen from Nathalie’s lap and
+handed it to her.
+
+“Thank you,” returned the girl and then, with a pang of regret as she
+noted her mother’s weary eyes, she bent and kissed her.
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry you had to work so hard!” she cried impulsively.
+“Isn’t there something I can do to help?” She almost wished her mother
+would say no.
+
+“Not now,” replied her mother with a brighter expression than she had
+worn, “but perhaps you can help me later—when I get dinner.”
+
+“All right,” returned her daughter with forced cheerfulness. As she
+entered the hall her eyes were caught by the word “Pioneer” in big,
+black letters on the manual. Reminded by the name that flaunted itself
+so determinedly before her, she remembered that she was a Pioneer, that
+she had taken vows upon herself, and that in order to keep these vows
+she should do the very things, perhaps, that she hated to do. This new
+thought jarred her uncomfortably as she hurried up to her room and began
+to make herself cool and comfortable after a rather strenuous morning
+spent in trying her hand at the many new interests that had come to her
+as a Pioneer.
+
+But somehow she was haunted, as it were, by the thought that she was not
+making a good beginning as a Pioneer; oh, yes, being a Pioneer did not
+mean all play, or even doing the things that were interesting, or that
+one liked to do, those were the Director’s words that morning. The more
+one gives up or overcomes in order to do and accomplish the demands made
+upon her as a Pioneer, the greater the victory. She picked up the manual
+from the bureau and began to turn its leaves aimlessly, and then she
+halted, for two very small words held her eyes, “I can!” why, that was
+the Pioneer motto—the one Lillie Bell had mentioned when she told of the
+picked chicken. She would read the laws!
+
+“A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy.” Oh, Nathalie was sure she was that.
+“Helpful,” her conscience pricked sharply. Was she helpful if she didn’t
+try and do all she could to help her mother? “O dear,” she ruminated, “I
+am shying at the first ‘overcome.’” She remembered that Mrs. Morrow had
+said all the disagreeable things that one didn’t want to do, but did in
+the end, were “overcomes.”
+
+“Kind—” she heaved a sigh, well, she was afraid she hadn’t been very
+kind the other day when she had answered Lucille so sharply, but she was
+trying, and the hasty retort would slip out; she would have to put a
+button on her lips as her mother often told her.
+
+“Reverent,” her religion taught her that. “Happy,” not always, for how
+could one be happy when life had been full of disappointments? Her eyes
+saddened as she thought of Dick, who was so patiently waiting for
+something to turn up, so that he could have the operation on his knee.
+Poor fellow! she had felt like crying the other day when she heard him
+telling how he had written to a law firm in the city in the hope that he
+could get some copying to do so that he could earn some money.
+
+“Happiness does not always mean having what we want; it is being
+contented with what we have,” that was another of Mrs. Morrow’s
+interpretations of the Pioneer laws. “Cheerful,” here Nathalie broke
+into a laugh, quite sure she was always cheerful when she had the things
+she wanted. “There!” she cried aloud, “I am not going to read any more
+of those laws, for if I am to—” she stooped, for the manual had fallen
+to the floor. As she picked it up she again encountered the words, “I
+can.”
+
+“I can!” she repeated once or twice mechanically. Then her face lighted,
+as if the meaning of the words had suddenly flashed themselves clear of
+the thoughts that had been revolving in her mind.
+
+“But what can I do?” she continued doubtingly.
+
+“You can wash the dishes for your mother in the morning so that she can
+read her morning paper,” some one seemed to whisper. She started. “And
+you can get up and get breakfast the way Helen does when her mother is
+not feeling well,” this time the some one spoke very loudly.
+
+“Oh, but I can’t cook, nobody would eat my breakfast,” she thought,
+still holding back.
+
+“But if you are a Pioneer you should learn to do these things.” She
+frowned as if to brush aside an unpleasant thought.
+
+“Yes, I suppose I can do these things,” she reluctantly admitted after a
+moment’s thought. “O dear—I have been lamenting that I had no purpose in
+life, that I was just drifting. I cried the other day because Mother
+said my talents were gilt-edged. ‘Yes, I Can,’” suddenly broke from her.
+“I’m going to begin right now, too; I’ll show Mother that I am not a
+gilt-edge drifter. I’ll learn to cook—oh, I’ll just make myself do those
+horrible, horrible things—I’ll show you, Miss I Can, so there!” She
+hastily wiped away the tears that would come, and then, as was her wont
+after a mental conflict, she began to sing. A few moments later she was
+down in the kitchen hustling about, seeing what there was for dinner.
+
+A steak, oh, yes, she knew how to broil that—and potatoes—oh, they were
+easy! The next minute she had seated herself before the kitchen table,
+and as she peeled the potatoes she sang with unwonted animation:
+
+  “We stick to work until it’s done
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
+  We never from our duty run,
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
+  We learn to cook, to sew, to mend
+  To sweep, to dust, to clean, to tend,
+  And always willing hands to lend.”
+
+As she paused to think how she could manage the next vegetable, Mrs.
+Page entered, showing amazement as she saw what her daughter was doing,
+for full well she knew that Nathalie disliked anything in the way of
+housework.
+
+“Why, Nathalie!” she exclaimed, “you need not do that. I will get
+dinner; there is not so much to do, for Felia made some pies yesterday,
+and with a steak, thank goodness! there will not be much to cook.”
+
+“Now, see here, Mumsie,” cried the new housewife, flourishing her knife
+menacingly at her mother, “I am chief of this ranch. You have lamented
+that I was just a gilt-edged doll, now I’m going to show you I’m not.
+I’m a Pioneer, and I’m going to learn everything useful. Now be off!” As
+her mother protested there ensued a little wrestling-match in which the
+girl came off victor, and Mrs. Page, subdued into meekness, retired to
+the veranda, somewhat relieved to think she could rest awhile.
+
+As Nathalie snuggled down to sleep that night—she was so tired she could
+hardly keep her eyes open—she felt supremely happy, for she had cooked
+dinner all by herself. To be sure Dick had growled and claimed the steak
+was burnt, and Lucille had volunteered the information that Felia never
+mashed her potatoes that way, but it made no difference to the happy
+Blue Robin—as Dick had called her—for she was pleased to think that for
+once in her life she had helped. Of course, Mother had laughed at her
+blunders, but it was in the old happy way that she used to do when Papa
+had been with them.
+
+Next morning Nathalie awoke with a start, she smiled drowsily at some
+passing remembrance of the day before, and then turned over for a beauty
+nap. Suddenly she sat up with eyes keen and alert; if she was to be maid
+of all work that day she must get at her job. In fifteen minutes she was
+creeping stealthily down the kitchen stairs with her shoes in her hands,
+so as not to awaken her mother.
+
+Oh! the fire was out; that was a difficulty she had not taken into
+calculation. For a moment she was tempted to crawl up those stairs and
+leave the fire to the next one who discovered it. Oh, but that would not
+do at all. She didn’t know how to make a fire, but the words “I can,”
+made her close her mouth determinedly, and in a few moments clouds of
+rising smoke attested that she was learning. But alas, the smoke soon
+drifted into space, and the blaze disappeared in a mass of black paper!
+
+Nathalie’s tears came at this; oh, why would not that wood catch fire?
+Tried to the soul, she went to the window and gazed through a mist of
+tears at the dew sparkling on bush and grass. A low, sweet whistling
+caused her to look up to see Helen, as fresh as a new-blown rose,
+throwing open the shutters of her room.
+
+Nathalie pursed up her lips and then broke into a “Tru-al-lee!”
+
+Helen glanced down quickly, her eyes lighted, and then came a quick Bob
+White call that sounded much like “More wet! More wet!” In another
+instant she was down on the porch calling merrily to her friend, “Oh,
+Nathalie, how are you this morning?”
+
+Nathalie dimpled cheerily. “Oh, fine!” making a dab at her eyes, “but at
+my wits’ end trying to make a fire. Will you tell me why it will insist
+upon going out? It is maddening! I have lighted it six times.”
+
+“What, you making a fire?” said Helen, and then, “Just wait a moment and
+I will come over and see what is wrong.”
+
+Under Helen’s nimble fingers the brown paper was taken out, the fire-pot
+filled with loosely wrapped newspaper, small sticks laid crisscross, a
+few larger ones on top, and then a match applied. Like magic the tiny
+blue flame sputtered, caught hold of an edge of paper, and then in a few
+moments a blazing fire was seething and swirling. Nathalie, in exuberant
+joy, seized her friend and the two girls waltzed merrily around the
+kitchen.
+
+Of course Nathalie knew how to make toast, but when Helen showed her how
+to hold it over the coals until it was a golden-brown, butter it while
+hot, and then cut off the scraggly edges and a rim of crust, she
+realized that toast-making was indeed a domestic science. Scrambled eggs
+came next, simple, but deliciously done, as her friend showed her. Then
+came putting the coffee in the percolator with the water heated beneath
+by the tiny alcohol lamp, thus drawing from the beverage the most
+nutritious qualities, Helen declared, without injuring one’s digestion.
+
+But the grape-fruit—that was another new thing learned—was prepared the
+way Helen said a trained nurse had taught her, one time when her mother
+was ill. It was cut in half, the pulp dug out with a spoon into a cup or
+saucer, and after the pith had been removed, chopped finely, returned to
+shell, and then sugared and put on the ice. But perhaps the best part of
+helping Mother that morning was when, after striking the Japanese gong
+eight bells, Nathalie arrayed herself in Felia’s freshly laundered cap
+and apron and stationed herself back of her mother’s chair to serve
+breakfast.
+
+How pleased and surprised her mother was! Dick “Blue Robined” her again,
+while Lucille patronizingly exclaimed, “Oh, Nathalie, you make a swell
+maid—and how smart you are getting!”
+
+Just before dinner, Helen appeared again, and taught her how to make
+soup from a few boiled bones and a chunk of meat, a few left-over
+tomatoes, and a bit of onion and seasoning. She taught her to broil a
+steak,—this time without a burnt speck—how to make white sauce for some
+left-over fish, how to scrape new potatoes economically, and the right
+way to cook peas. Then came a delicious dessert of stale pieces of cake
+and canned peaches, laid in layers with beaten cream, and topped off
+with little white pigs, as Nathalie called the tiny bits of egg froth
+floating on its surface. Truly, it was a dinner fit for a king!
+
+After dinner her sensitive soul rebelled at the pile of greasy dishes,
+but the task grew lighter when Helen showed her how to make the water
+hot and soapy, using a lot of dried bits of soap that Nathalie was going
+to throw away, by sewing them in cheese-cloth bags. She washed the
+glasses and silver first, then the china, and then—oh, horrors—the pots!
+But when the new Pioneer saw how her friend put them on to boil, thus
+doing away with so much grease, it was a revelation. And when the
+dish-towels were washed and hung out in the sun to sweeten, and the sink
+was scrubbed with a brush and a cleansing soap, Nathalie was again
+forced to admit that she had mastered another household science.
+
+Oh, no, it wasn’t all plain sailing—the world isn’t run that way—and the
+new Pioneer’s back, eyes, and feet made themselves forcibly known before
+she went to bed that night. Many a time she had had to grit her teeth,
+summon Miss I Can to her side, and with forced determination go on with
+the job; but after all, she declared, as she turned out the light, “I
+have helped Mother!” and then sleep claimed the tired girl.
+
+When Saturday morning came, however, and no Felia made her appearance
+according to promise, Nathalie’s face grew somber, and she could not
+help going to the door every few minutes to see if she were not in
+sight, for she had planned to go on a bird-hike that morning with the
+Pioneers to learn bird-calls. As the clock struck nine she dropped her
+broom—she was sweeping the kitchen—and rushed to her room. Here she wept
+copiously for a while in her clothes closet with her head buried in the
+skirts of her dresses, so no one could hear, and then she heard her
+mother calling her.
+
+She dried her eyes guiltily, scrubbed her face to brush away all trace
+of tears, and then answered blithely, “Here I am, Mumsie, I’m coming
+right down to finish the kitchen.” When she came tearing down the stairs
+she found the kitchen swept and garnished, and lo! there stood Mother
+with big, surprised eyes pointing to Lucille, who, as she caught sight
+of her cousin, bobbed her head and dropped a curtsy, crying, “Sure,
+ma’am, it’s a new job I’m afther takin’ on meself, but do yez see the
+loikes of it for the claneness?”
+
+Nathalie gave one bewildered stare, and then a merry peal of laughter
+broke from her, seconded with a minor note from her mother, and with a
+bass accompaniment added by Dick, as he entered and sensed the
+situation. Yes, Miss I Can must have caught Lucille in her meshes, too,
+for that young lady, generally so dainty in her labor preferences, had
+condescended to sweep the kitchen.
+
+“Well,” she explained apologetically, “I was jealous of the praise
+bestowed upon Nathalie, and thought I’d show you folks that people can
+do things even if they are not Blue Robins.”
+
+“Oh, Lucille, you aren’t a Blue Robin, you’re a duck of a dear,” bubbled
+Nathalie as she hugged her cousin rapturously. “It was just lovely of
+you. But Mother, did you know what she was doing?”
+
+“No, I did not,” rejoined Mrs. Page; “I thought it was you working all
+by yourself and came in to help, as I knew you wanted to go on the hike.
+But before you go, dear,” she added anxiously, “I want you to go down to
+Felia’s and see how she is. If she is not coming back by Monday you will
+have to hunt around for a washerwoman; the clothes can’t go another
+week.”
+
+An hour later, Nathalie, delighted to think she could take a day off
+with a clear conscience, hurried in the direction of Ophelia’s little
+gray shanty; but to her surprise, as she came near the door she heard a
+loud wailing and the confused hum of several voices.
+
+As she entered the stuffy parlor hung with gay colored prints and
+dingy-looking chromos, she found Ophelia seated in a rocking chair with
+her face buried in a gingham apron, wailing and crying hysterically.
+Pushing her way through the crowd of sympathizing friends, Nathalie
+grabbed the arm of a colored woman who stood by Felia’s side crying,
+“Oh, please, won’t you tell me what’s the matter?”
+
+“Sure, Miss,” respectfully answered the woman, wiping a tear from her
+eye. “It’s little Rosy, she’s lost—we can’t find her—ah, honey, don’t
+take on so!” she ended, turning towards the grieving mother and giving
+her a caressing pat on the shoulder. “Surely some one will find her.”
+
+Nathalie now stepped to Felia’s side and pulled her gently by the
+sleeve, determined to get some definite information about black Rosebud,
+as Dick called the little pickaninny who had often come to the house
+with her mother, and who, being a bright child, had become a prime
+favorite. “Ophelia, please tell me about your trouble!” insisted the
+girl. “Is Rosy surely lost?”
+
+“She lost sure nuff, Missy, down at de bottom of de pond,” quavered
+Felia’s mother dismally, an aged negress standing by the side of her
+daughter, as she rolled up her eyes until the whites looked like saucers
+on a shelf. “I’se gwine to tell you de trufe—dat chile is drowned. Oh, I
+see her face a-shinin’ in de water—”
+
+Her horrible prognostication as to Rosy’s woeful fate was terminated by
+her daughter’s renewed wails of anguish, as she again began to rock
+herself to and fro with redoubled force.
+
+“Oh,” thought Nathalie, frowning angrily in the direction of the old
+mammy, “I do wish she would stop.” Then she cried, “Oh, Felia, don’t cry
+so—I am sure she will be found—perhaps she is at one of the neighbors’
+houses, you know she is fond of visiting.”
+
+There was such sympathetic concern in the girl’s voice that Felia
+desisted from her lamentations long enough to cry, “Oh, Miss Natty, she
+done go and get lost—she ain’t nowhere hereabouts!” Then in answer to
+further questioning she said that the child had been seen just before
+dark picking posies over in a meadow with several children, but when
+bedtime came she could not be found.
+
+“Has any one looked for her?” demanded Nathalie, turning towards the
+group of colored women as poor Felia went back to her apron wailing
+pitifully, “I’se gwine promise yo’, Lord, if yo’ bring my baby back,
+I’ll never get mad with her again. I’ll promise sure—” but the rest of
+Felia’s prayer was lost as the women crowded around Nathalie and eagerly
+explained that Dan Washington, Paul Jones, and Abe Smith had searched
+the town for her. They had been up all night, but when morning came had
+to return to their jobs, and there was no one looking for her at that
+time.
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry, Felia!” sympathized Nathalie again to the weeping
+mother. Then, after asking if the town authorities had been notified,
+she decided to hasten home, knowing that she could not get any one to
+promise to work for her at that time.
+
+“Oh, it is too bad!” she lamented as she hurried down Main Street. “It
+does seem as if some one ought to be searching for her now, why the poor
+child may be injured or something!” Her too vivid imagination pictured
+her, not down at the bottom of the pond, as mammy had done, but crying
+piteously of fear and hunger in some lonely place. “I suppose the police
+in this town will take some hours to get on to the job, as Dick says.”
+She suddenly paused and her eyes shone with a bright light. She wrinkled
+her brow thoughtfully a moment as if going over something in her mind,
+and then with the glad cry, “Oh, I know we can do it—it will be just the
+thing!” She broke into a run as if her sudden inspiration would escape
+her if she did not hurry.
+
+With good speed she soon reached the house, hurriedly told her mother
+what had befallen Rosy and the condition she had found things in at the
+negro settlement, and then, telling her she would be back in a few
+moments, she flew post-haste across the road to Mrs. Morrow’s house.
+Here the Pioneers with eager, expectant faces were all talking
+animatedly, their brown uniforms, red ties, and broad-brimmed hats
+suggestive of the good time in store for them.
+
+“Oh, here she comes!” sang out Helen, as she spied Nathalie hastening up
+the path towards the veranda. “Why, where have you been? We began to
+think you were not coming.”
+
+“I had to go on an errand for Mother!” Then with glowing eyes she told
+them of the visit to the colored settlement and about the lost Rosy, the
+grief of her mother, and how there was no one looking for the child.
+“Oh, girls,” she ended in a quiver of excitement, “let’s give up the
+bird-hike for to-day, and see if we cannot find little Rosy!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX—SEARCHING FOR ROSY
+
+
+An oppressive silence followed, while each girl looked blankly at her
+neighbor. The new Pioneer’s face flushed, and her eager, excited eyes
+shadowed, as she quickly realized that in her eagerness to follow the
+law of kindliness she had been too officious. She stood in dismayed
+embarrassment, the chill of an unpleasant surprise benumbed her. With a
+faint hope she turned her eyes appealingly towards Helen, surely her
+level head and kind heart would prompt her to second her. Helen caught
+the look and smiled faintly.
+
+Edith, who was always the first one to either second or down a
+proposition, broke the silence by exclaiming in an aggrieved tone, “Why,
+the idea, Nathalie Page! we can’t give up the bird-hike, we’ve all
+brought our lunches!”
+
+“I should say not,” interposed Lillie Bell with flashing eyes. “Why, it
+would take the whole morning, and there could be no hike for to-day, and
+next week I can’t go, I—”
+
+“Oh, they have probably found the child by this time!” ventured Barbara
+North, to Nathalie’s surprise, as she had always found her of a kindly
+nature.
+
+“Well, _I_ for _one_ don’t think it is our place to look for the child,
+anyway,” asserted Jessie, decisively. “Let the men of the town do it.
+There are three policemen hanging around all day with nothing to do.”
+
+Nathalie’s cheeks had lost their pink bloom; her face stiffened as she
+retorted coolly, “Well, just as you please, I see I have made a
+mistake.” She nerved herself. “I thought kindliness was one of the laws
+of the organization, and it seemed to me that our pleasure was to take a
+secondary place when we had an opportunity to do a kind act. If you had
+seen the poor mother sobbing—”
+
+“Oh, fiddle!” ejaculated Lillie, “those colored people are all emotion;
+their sobs don’t count for much. I agree with Jessie that the
+townspeople should send out a search party, and I for one refuse to give
+up the hike. Who’s on my side?” she ended abruptly, turning and facing
+the group.
+
+“I!” and “I!” shouted several voices at once in answer.
+
+Nathalie backed towards the edge of the veranda. “I seem to be in the
+minority,” she said with assumed indifference, although her heart was
+beating in double-quick time, for something had whispered, “They are
+very rude, I would resign immediately.” But this suggestion was bravely
+silenced by the thought, “No, I will not be as small as that, I will
+show I do not care.”
+
+“There must be some one who thinks as I do,” she ended resolutely,
+wishing that she could run from this affront to her sensitiveness.
+
+“I am with you, Nathalie!” suddenly cried Helen, walking towards her
+friend and putting her arm around her.
+
+Grace looked at the bevy of girls who had bunched together, then at the
+faces of her two friends. In a faint voice she asserted lamely, “And I,
+Nathalie, I didn’t stop to think—”
+
+“And, Nathalie, you can count me on your side!” broke in a voice at this
+moment. The girls, alert at the prospect of a division in the group,
+turned quickly to see Mrs. Morrow place herself by the side of Nathalie,
+taking her hand as she did so and giving it a cordial squeeze.
+
+Nathalie’s color came racing back and her heart leaped with joy. Ah,
+then she had not been too officious, after all! She turned to see the
+girls standing in embarrassed silence with shamed eyes and uncertain
+mien. But Lillie, who was generally the spokesman of the group when
+Helen was on the opposite side, cried somewhat pertly, “Why, Mrs.
+Morrow, do you think it is our place to go and hunt for that colored
+child? I should think it was the duty of the townspeople to look after
+those things.”
+
+“That is not the question,” replied the Director coldly. “As Nathalie
+said, kindliness is one of the basic laws of the organization. We should
+be poor Pioneers indeed if we saw a man drowning and then stood and
+argued as to whether it was our place to save him or not. Nathalie, I
+commend you not only for your kind suggestion, but for having the real
+pioneer courage in maintaining what you believed to be right. You have
+shown yourself a true Blue Robin and I am proud of you. Now, girls, we
+will put it to a vote. Those of you who want to go on the hike, up with
+their hands.” Not a hand was raised.
+
+Mrs. Morrow’s face brightened as she cried laughingly, “Now who wants to
+join a search-party with Nathalie as captain, and see if they can find
+little Rosebud?”
+
+Every hand flew up, and there was a general cry of, “I do! I do!”
+
+“Well, girls,” said Mrs. Morrow kindly, as her eyes traveled from face
+to face, “I see you have repented of the error of your way. Let
+Nathalie’s example inspire you!”
+
+“Oh, I guess we just didn’t stop to think!” broke forth Barbara, with
+shamed eyes.
+
+“Well, when one has made up her mind to do a thing she would be a saint
+to give it up without a fuss,” remarked Lillie. “Of course, Nathalie was
+all right, but she had had time to think it all out and we hadn’t!”
+
+“A good explanation, Lillie,” answered Mrs. Morrow, “but I hope you have
+all learned a lesson. Now, Nathalie, make your suggestions and we’ll get
+to work.”
+
+The new Pioneer had already divided the girls into two sections, with
+Helen as one leader, and Lillie Bell as the other. It did hurt a little
+to give Lillie the first place after she had spoken as she had, but
+Nathalie realized her worth, and then, too, she did not want to show any
+resentment. “You see,” she explained, “I am only a dummy captain, for I
+am not as familiar with the town as the rest of you are, and there will
+be no time lost in making false moves.”
+
+“That is a very sensible decision, Nathalie,” nodded Mrs. Morrow, “but
+the question is where to look first!”
+
+“Suppose we go down to the settlement, make a survey, and get our
+bearings?” voiced Helen.
+
+“Good, Helen, that is just the thing!” acquiesced the Director, as the
+girls at her suggestion hurriedly deposited their lunch-boxes in the
+hall, while Nathalie ran over to tell her mother her plans.
+
+In a few moments the would-be searchers started, each girl equipped with
+her staff, while the two leaders triumphantly displayed their whistles,
+which they claimed would be of great help if any of the party got lost
+and their voices did not carry.
+
+It did not take long to reach Felia’s shanty, and as Nathalie ran in to
+tell her that the Pioneers were going to hunt for Rosy, the rest of the
+party gazed with quick, alert eyes first in one direction and then in
+the other.
+
+“I should not be surprised if the child had wandered away looking for
+flowers,” remarked Mrs. Morrow, suddenly remembering what Nathalie had
+said the child was doing when she was last seen.
+
+“But where would she be apt to go?” inquired Nathalie, who had returned
+in time to hear Mrs. Morrow’s remark.
+
+“Why, to the woods!” retorted Helen quickly, and her eyes lighted in
+sudden thought as they dwelt on a green belt of woodland that loomed
+against the sky on the opposite side of the road.
+
+“Don’t you think she might have strayed down the hill?” questioned
+Nathalie, pointing to a pond shimmering in the sun at the bottom of a
+knoll near-by. “Poor Mammy is quite sure she is drowned and lies at the
+bottom of the pond.”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you what we can do,” spoke up Lillie, “I’ll take my
+squad and search down by the pond, and Helen and the rest of you can go
+over to the woods; somehow I’m with Mammy, for all children love to
+paddle in the water.”
+
+Lillie’s suggestion was a timely one, and as she, Grace, Jessie, and a
+few Orioles disappeared over the slope of the hill, Helen and Nathalie,
+as the advance guard, hurried across the road and into the cool recesses
+of the woods. As they hastened onward every girl’s eyes were alert,
+watchfully peering behind every bush and tree as they stumbled over
+gnarled roots and broken stumps in their efforts to reach some shaded
+nook, or lichen-covered rock dimly seen in the shadows of the trees.
+
+Helen proved an efficient leader and did not hesitate to keep her
+followers busy, as she sent first one and then the other to look here or
+there, determined not to miss a nook or spot where the child might be
+hidden. Every now and then some of the party would give a bird call, or
+Helen’s whistle would reverberate sharply through the swaying pines.
+
+But Mrs. Morrow, whose strength began to waver, finally suggested to
+Nathalie and Edith, who had been acting as her body-guard, that they
+rest for a few minutes. Spying a decayed tree-trunk that had fallen
+across the damp, spongy earth a few feet away, they seated themselves
+upon it.
+
+“Oh, I’m really tired!” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, for she had proved as
+indefatigable as the girls in searching, thinking, she declared, of her
+own two kiddies safe in the garden at home.
+
+Nathalie, impressed by the solemn stillness about her, slowly fanned
+herself with her hat, while Edith made frantic dabs at her red face,
+from which beady drops were oozing. “Oh, I should just love to stay here
+all day,” she cried, sniffing the air, redolent with the odors of pine,
+spicy balsam, silver birch, and many other trees that loomed darkly in
+the mysterious retreats of the forest.
+
+“Hark!” cried Mrs. Morrow, suddenly putting up her hand for silence as
+she peered up at the green boughs above her. “Taweel-ab, taweel-ab,
+twil-ab, twil-ab!” came in a succession of weird, sweet trills.
+
+“Wheew, whoit, wheew, whoit!” imitated the Sport with quick readiness.
+
+“It is a hermit thrush!” explained Mrs. Morrow softly, and her hand
+clutched Nathalie’s as she pointed to a brown bird that was scudding
+swiftly over the fern a few feet away.
+
+“Oh, isn’t it a dear?” whispered delighted Nathalie, for to her this
+coming, as she called it, into the very heart of nature was a new
+experience. She half regretted at times that they had been compelled to
+forego the bird-hike, as she was so anxious to get in touch with the
+feathered songsters of the wood and field. Then, too, suppose the
+searching-party should fail of its purpose, she would feel that she had
+been the means of leading them on a wild-goose chase!
+
+As her eyes roamed here and there in the hope that she might see the
+brown thrush again, she started, stared a moment, and then springing to
+her feet dashed across to the clump of ferns where the bird had been
+flying.
+
+“I have found a clew!” she cried triumphantly a moment later, as she
+returned and held up her hand. Between her thumb and forefinger was a
+bit of red, which she was waving gleefully as she came towards them. As
+the Sport and Mrs. Morrow hurried to her side they saw a loop of red
+ribbon still with the knot in it by which it had evidently been recently
+tied to some object.
+
+“It is Rosy’s hair-ribbon!” cried Nathalie. “I found it clinging to one
+of the ferns.”
+
+“Oh, are you sure?” burst from Mrs. Morrow, her eyes eager with hope as
+she bent over the little scarlet knot.
+
+“Indeed I am sure,” answered the delighted girl, “for it is the very
+ribbon I found in my work basket and tied on Rosy’s funny little topknot
+the day she was at our house. See, here is the very cut in the edge—that
+is the reason it was of no use to me—but Rosy was as happy as a lark
+over it. Oh, isn’t this too lovely, for now I know the child is
+somewhere near!”
+
+With renewed hope they set forth again on the hunt, Nathalie running
+ahead and calling “Tru-al-lee!” as loud as she could—it was the only
+bird call she knew—to get in touch with the advance guard and tell them
+the good news.
+
+In answer to her Blue Robin call, in a few moments a Bob White whistle
+was heard, rather faint, but there was no mistake as to that quick,
+clear note. The Sport, a few yards behind, immediately responded by
+giving a similar call, and then as they stood waiting to ascertain from
+what direction the whistle had come, there sounded a sudden, sharp snap
+of the underbrush near, and Kitty Corwin’s face emerged into view.
+“Hurrah, girls!” she shouted jubilantly, “we have found her!”
+
+“Oh, where? Where?” came in an instant from three throats as Kitty
+leaned against a tree and panted.
+
+“Down in a ravine, huddled close against a rock, asleep. Helen did not
+want to waken her until Nathalie came, for fear she would be frightened
+at the strange faces. Come on, quick!” she exclaimed excitedly, turning
+and darting back the way she had come with light, fleet steps.
+
+But the belated ones needed no urging, especially Nathalie, who dashed
+ahead without regard to time or place, with a haste that left no doubt
+as to her joy that her searching party had been a success. Overhanging
+branches and dried twigs that blocked her way were ruthlessly brushed
+aside, or run against, scratching and bruising her unmercifully as she
+discovered later, but it made no difference to the happy girl.
+
+It seemed but a moment when she emerged into a clearing, and close at
+the heels of Kitty climbed down into a small ravine. It had evidently
+been at one time the road-bed of a brook, but was now filled with
+scraggy stones, dried underbrush, and fallen logs.
+
+As Nathalie saw the little motionless figure cuddled in a heap against
+the rock, her heart leaped with misgiving. “Oh, is she dead?” she asked
+Helen, who stood guard by the side of the rock, every now and then
+brushing away a gnat or a fly that descended with a loud buzz on the
+smeared black face, which lay partly exposed to view as it rested on a
+mite of an arm.
+
+“Oh, no,” assured Helen, “she is all right, only asleep. I suppose she
+wandered about for some time in the darkness and was tired out, poor
+little tot!”
+
+The little one looked so pathetically small as she lay there, just a
+heap of bones, black skin, and woolly hair, with the tears still
+glistening on the black lashes, that Nathalie’s heart was stirred with
+pity.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward and quickly felt her pulse, crying as she
+did so, “Oh, you poor little black baby! Yes, she is all right!” she
+nodded assuringly, “but Helen, what is the matter with her leg?” Her
+sharp glance noted that it lay rather limply on the ground.
+
+“I am not sure,” said Helen with bent brows as she touched it softly,
+“but I am afraid it is broken. That is why I waited for you and
+Nathalie, I did not like to move her for fear of hurting her.”
+
+“But we shall have to,” returned Mrs. Morrow as she finished examining
+the injured limb, “for it is broken, and we must get her home as soon as
+possible, for it will have to be set.”
+
+As Helen and Mrs. Morrow attempted to take hold of the child to lift her
+on the stretcher the girls had made, she opened her eyes wide into the
+strange faces bending over her. Then she closed them quickly, and as the
+little black face wrinkled in fear she let forth such a howl of absolute
+despair that the girls were all on the verge of joining with her in
+their keen sympathy.
+
+“Oh, Rosy,” cried Nathalie springing hastily forward and taking the
+child’s hand softly in hers, “see, it is Mrs. Page’s little girl. Don’t
+you remember when you called me that—Mrs. Page’s little girl?” She
+repeated softly as she saw the child had stopped her crying and was
+staring up at her. But the black eyes closed again and the little form
+shivered as a prolonged howl answered the questioner.
+
+But Nathalie, who loved children, lifted up the little head with its
+pigtails and laid it against her breast as she tried again. “There
+dearie, don’t you want to go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma?”
+
+These words had the desired effect, and the howl was arrested as two big
+black eyes stared with awakening interest while Nathalie caught hold of
+the stretcher and choo-chooed it back and forth. “Come, Rosy!” she cried
+in a third attempt, “and we will go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma,
+and—oh, yes, the little rag-dollie I made for you, don’t you remember
+what a lovely time we had?”
+
+The black eyes opened wide, stood still for a wee second, and then
+twinkled into a smile as their owner cried, “Oh, yes, I knows youse;
+youse de Story Lady!”
+
+“Yes, I’m the Story Lady,” quickly answered Nathalie, her face breaking
+into a smile; then as Rosy smiled back, “but how did you get here,
+Rosebud, so far away from home?”
+
+The little face screwed into a knot as she whimpered, “Oh, I got lost,
+Story Lady. I picked daisies in de lot, and den Jacob he showed me de
+blue flowers he got in de wood. So I runned to de wood, and oh, I got a
+lot!” Her eyes gleamed with joy as she held up a few withered violets
+still clutched in her tiny hand. “And den it grew all dark,” she moaned,
+“and I couldn’t fin’ de road, and I fell and hurt my leg. Oh, I’se so
+hungry!” she ended piteously.
+
+But when she saw so many eyes watching her, she covered her tiny face
+with her hand, shyly peeping out from between her fingers.
+
+The girls all laughed merrily at her coquettishness, but their laughter
+became almost a howl as the little black eyes began to play peek-a-boo
+at them, and then danced in unison with their laughter, as if enjoying
+the sensation she had created.
+
+But time was precious, and so with the promise of candy and a story from
+Nathalie the little one was lifted from the ground and carefully placed
+in the stretcher, and the Pioneer search party, weary, and warm, but
+jubilantly happy at their success, started for home.
+
+“Some one of you girls ought to run ahead and get the doctor!” exclaimed
+Mrs. Morrow as the rescuers plodded carefully but slowly up the ravine
+with their burden, “for the child needs attention at once. I don’t
+wonder she cries!” For, alas! the little one had begun to whimper
+softly, although Nathalie was still playing choo-choo car as hard as she
+could, so as to divert her mind from the pain and hunger pangs that had
+now begun to assert themselves more forcibly.
+
+“I will go!” cried Edith quickly, and then at a nod of assent from their
+Director she disappeared in the shadowy gloom of the trees like a small
+whirlwind. Barbara and Kitty were then despatched to hurry and tell
+Rosebud’s mother that the lost was found.
+
+As they reached the edge of the woods, Mrs. Morrow thought she heard the
+throb of an automobile engine, and as it was followed in a moment by the
+toot of a horn, she begged Nathalie to hurry to the road, just a few
+feet beyond in the opening. “It sounds like the doctor’s car—perhaps he
+will take little Rosy home—for, O dear, she is suffering so!”
+
+Nathalie softly unfastened the little hands that were clinging to hers,
+and with a few bounds reached the road where, sure enough, she saw a few
+yards ahead an automobile that had just passed.
+
+Yes, it was the doctor! Nathalie thought she recognized his car, and
+with mad haste tore after it, shouting to the full extent of her lungs,
+“Doctor! Doctor!”
+
+The occupant of the car, who evidently was not driving at a very high
+rate of speed, heard her shouts and in a moment brought his car to a
+standstill. As he turned about and stared at the oncoming figure of
+Nathalie, who, red-faced and bedraggled was speeding towards him, he
+looked slightly surprised.
+
+“Oh, Doctor,” began the girl. She paused, for the gentleman who was
+looking at her with such a puzzled expression, coupled with slight
+indignation at being stopped in this way, was a strange young man!
+
+Nathalie halted abruptly as she discovered her error, feeling as if her
+face would burst from the heat of her unwonted exercise and the fact
+that she had been tagging in this tomboy style, after a strange man.
+
+“Oh—I’m so sorry,” she panted apologetically, “but Mrs. Morrow thought
+she heard an automobile, she was sure it was the doctor—”
+
+“Mrs. Morrow!” exclaimed the young man, “why, is she anywhere about?” He
+jumped from his car as he spoke and came towards her.
+
+“Oh, yes,” cried the girl, with a gleam of hope that if this young man
+knew their Director there was a chance for Rosy. “We have been looking
+for a little colored girl who was lost—oh, I mean the Pioneers—we have
+been searching in the woods,” she explained confusedly, the blood
+surging furiously into her cheeks under the keen gray eyes that were
+looking so searchingly down at her. “Oh, can’t you help us?” she burst
+off appealingly. “Mrs. Morrow wants to get her home as soon as she can,
+for she has a broken leg.”
+
+“A broken leg?” echoed the young man, “why, of course I will help you,”
+he continued heartily. “Where is Mrs. Morrow? And—oh, I see—” the gray
+eyes gleamed pleasantly, “you are Blue Robin, the little girl who lives
+across the way from us. I am Mrs. Morrow’s brother, Jack Homer!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X—NATHALIE AS THE STORY LADY
+
+
+Nathalie’s color flamed again as she heard that “little girl,” and she
+drew herself up in momentary indignation. Oh, this was evidently the Dr.
+Homer whom she had heard the girls talk so much about, and who had been
+giving them lessons in First Aid to the Injured. But who could have told
+him she was a little girl?
+
+This affront to her dignity was forgotten, however, as she quickly
+remembered the need of getting little Rosy home. “Mrs. Morrow is in the
+woods—oh, there she is now!” she cried hastily, as she pointed to the
+Director, who, with the Pioneers and their burden, had halted on the
+edge of the woods and stood waiting for her. As Mrs. Morrow perceived
+her brother she quickly beckoned to him.
+
+A few steps, and Dr. Homer was at his sister’s side, listening to her
+hurried recital of the preceding events and her anxiously expressed wish
+that Rosy could be seen to as soon as possible.
+
+“Why, if it isn’t little Rosebud!” said the doctor jovially as he turned
+from his sister and looked down at the helpless mite of humanity, lying
+so patient and still in the stretcher.
+
+The child smiled shyly, and Nathalie, perceiving that he knew her, gave
+a sigh of relief, for she felt that now everything would soon be all
+right.
+
+It did not take the doctor long to lift Rosy tenderly into the car and
+to make her comfortable with her little black head on Mrs. Morrow’s lap.
+As he was about to jump in himself an “I want my Story Lady! I want my
+Story Lady!” came in a loud wail from the little patient, for Rosy’s
+face had knotted up again as she pushed away Mrs. Morrow’s detaining
+hand and tried to lift her head in search of Nathalie.
+
+Nathalie hastened to the side of the car crying, “Oh, Rosy, it’s all
+right. I’m going home to your mamma. I will be there almost as soon as
+you—”
+
+“Why, Nathalie, get in with us,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, “there is room
+on the front seat with the doctor. Oh, I beg your pardon, Nathalie,
+perhaps you have not met my brother. Jack, this is Miss Page, our new
+Pioneer, and oh, Jack; if it had not been for her I don’t know when poor
+little Rosy would have been found!”
+
+“I am most pleased to meet you, Miss Page,” smiled the doctor with undue
+emphasis on the Miss. Then, as he noted Nathalie’s stiff little bow, he
+continued apologetically, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “I have
+heard so much about Blue Robin, that somehow I thought she was a little
+girl.”
+
+Nathalie smiled pleasantly, instantly recognizing that this frank-eyed
+young man was doing his best to atone for his mistake of a few minutes
+ago. But she must not keep him waiting, and a moment later she sprang
+into the car. Although it was but a short ride to Felia’s house, there
+was time enough for the doctor to chat pleasantly with the young girl,
+so by the time they had reached their destination Nathalie understood
+why Dr. Homer was such a favorite with the Pioneers.
+
+Fortunately, Edith had caught Dr. Morrow just as he was about to set out
+to call on a patient, so he soon arrived. In a short time he and Dr.
+Homer had set the broken limb and made the child comfortable, who, with
+a smile of content, received a bowl of bread and milk from Mammy, whose
+black face was wreathed in smiles again as she saw that the little one
+was not lying down at the bottom of the pond.
+
+A half-hour later a group of girls straggled wearily along the main
+street of the village, animatedly discussing first one and then another
+detail of the morning’s hunt. As they were all tired, it was unanimously
+decided to postpone the bird hike to another day.
+
+When this decision was reached, Nathalie’s bright face clouded as she
+exclaimed contritely, “Oh, girls, I’m awfully sorry I broke up the hike,
+but I was so anxious to find Rosy.”
+
+“Well, I for one am glad we gave it up,” asserted Kitty Corwin, “for
+girls, it paid for the disappointment to see that poor mother’s joy when
+she saw her child.”
+
+“And the old black mammy—huh—she is a regular plantation coon,” chimed
+in Edith; “did you hear her shout ‘Praise de Lord! Hallelujah!’? Oh, but
+how her eyes did shine!”
+
+“She was a black sunbeam, all right,” observed Helen, “and it’s all
+owing to Nathalie!” putting her arm about her friend and giving her an
+enthusiastic squeeze; “she ought to have a white star.”
+
+“A white star,” ejaculated Nathalie, “what does that mean?”
+
+“Why, it means that you should receive a badge of merit, but as a
+Pioneer can’t receive a badge until she is a first-class member, Mrs.
+Morrow gives white stars instead to the girls who deserve badges but are
+not yet old enough to receive them,” explained Helen. “We keep our stars
+and then sew them on a big United States flag we are making for our new
+Pioneer room.”
+
+“Oh, I should be pleased to have one!” cried Nathalie, “but it gives me
+more pleasure to know that you do not think I spoiled your fun, and have
+been so nice about it. I should just hate to have you think me
+officious!”
+
+“But we didn’t think that, Nathalie,” assured Lillie quickly. “In fact,
+I guess we just didn’t think at all, we were so intent on having our own
+selfish ways. We are all friends of yours, and as Pioneers and
+personally,” she spoke warmly, “we are glad you won the victory over our
+naughty, wicked selves.”
+
+Several days later, Nathalie, who was still the maid of all work, stood
+washing the breakfast dishes. Somehow, helping Mother seemed to have
+lost its charm. She felt as if she and Miss I Can were not as good
+friends as they were at the beginning of her kitchen campaign. O dear,
+she did wish Rosy would get better so Felia could come back. She sighed
+heavily, and then hastily wiped away a stray tear that was meandering
+down her cheek—she had heard a step on the back stoop.
+
+“Hello, Blue Robin!” was Helen’s cheery greeting as she entered,—she
+usually came in by the back door in the morning—then she stopped, for
+Nathalie’s usually smiling face wore such a look of woe that she
+exclaimed anxiously, “Oh, Nathalie, what is the matter?”
+
+But her only answer was a stifled sob as the girl flung herself into a
+chair by the kitchen table, and dropping her head on her elbow gave way
+to the pent up flood that had been gathering for the last few days.
+Helen stood a moment, uncertain what to say or do, dreading that some
+great calamity had overtaken the family. Then she stepped to her
+friend’s side and lifting her head encircled her with her arm
+caressingly. “Now,” she cried, softly patting the brown head, “tell
+friend Helen all about it.”
+
+Nathalie’s tears flowed unrestrainedly for a moment and then, feeling
+somewhat better for the overflow, and a little ashamed of useless tears
+as she always called them, she withdrew from the friendly shelter and
+sat up. “Oh, it’s just nothing at all, Helen,” she cried in a choked
+voice, “only that I’m a great baby—and then—I’m tired”—her voice
+quavered. “I’m tired of washing dishes and sweeping—” a sniffle—“all the
+time.”
+
+“Of course you are tired, who wouldn’t be, Nat, with all the wonderful
+things you’ve done this last week?” sympathized Helen; “considering,
+too, that it’s all new to you. Why, Mother says you are going to make a
+splendid Pioneer.”
+
+“Oh, did she?” asked Nathalie, her eyes brightening. “It makes one feel
+good to be praised, I have felt so discouraged,” with an intake of her
+breath, “for I’ve tried so hard to do everything I could, and then
+Mother, why she hasn’t said one word of praise since the first day.
+Everybody just takes it all—all the work I do—just as if it was nothing,
+and things drag so. Of course I don’t expect to be praised all the
+time,” she hastened to add, “but oh, I don’t seem to feel as happy about
+working as I did at first.”
+
+“Oh, well, you’re tired,” replied Helen condolingly. “I know just how
+you feel, for I used to feel the same way when I first began to help
+Mother around the house. You see the enthusiasm and the glory have all
+gone out of it.”
+
+“The enthusiasm and the glory?” repeated Nathalie in puzzled inquiry.
+
+“Yes, the novelty of doing something new is the enthusiasm that put you
+on the job; and the praise you got for doing it—which made you feel as
+if you were awfully good—that’s the glory. But when things get stale and
+people stop saying how smart you are and so on, why then it will be just
+plain duty all through. You know, the frosting always comes first before
+we get to the cake.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose that has something to do with it,” responded Nathalie
+alertly, “when one comes to think of it. So from now on it will be just
+plain duty, won’t it?” with a quiver of her chin, for somehow the
+prospect was not an enjoyable one at that moment.
+
+“Yes, that’s about the size of it,” was the practical answer. “But if
+you keep right on doing what you ought to, you’ll get something better
+than the sugary stuff. Just keep Miss I Can for your friend, and then
+after a time you will find that you like to do the very things that at
+first seemed so hard. Experience, Mother says, brings knowledge, and
+knowledge puts you in the end where you want to be.”
+
+“I wish it would,” exclaimed Nathalie, her eyes flashing with sudden
+hope, “for oh, Helen, I do so want to know things, that is the useful
+arts, for I am so eager to learn how to make money the way you are
+doing! You know I have told you all about Dick, Helen,” she lowered her
+voice, “I think it is just that, seeing the poor fellow striving to earn
+a little money so he can be made well again, that makes me so
+down-hearted, for I feel that I am not doing a thing to help him.”
+
+“But you are helping him, and your mother, too, Nathalie,” said Helen.
+“By the very work you are doing you are helping your mother to save
+money, that ought to be something to comfort you.”
+
+“Oh, but it’s mean kind of work,” emphasized Nathalie, “and then, too,
+it’s only saving a mite; and it will take so much money for Dick’s
+operation.”
+
+“Now, see here, Nathalie,” exclaimed her friend, “let’s figure this
+thing out.” Taking a pencil and pad that always hung by the table with
+Nathalie’s list of edibles to be served at each meal, she drew a chair
+up to the table and began to figure just how much Nathalie was saving
+her mother by doing the work herself.
+
+Nathalie bent over her shoulder and watched eagerly as she saw the line
+of figures jotted down by Helen. Then she, too, put on her thinking-cap
+and in a few minutes the two girls had figured out quite a sum that
+Nathalie was actually saving in dollars and cents each week she did the
+work.
+
+As Nathalie realized this fact, demonstrated so clearly by her friend,
+her eyes sparkled, and clapping her hands she cried, “Oh, Helen, I’m
+going to get Mother to let me do the work all the time—of course, as you
+say, the washing will have to be done out—but oh, I shall feel—”
+
+“Now, Nathalie, don’t go off at a tangent; stop and consider before you
+make this suggestion to your mother. You must think just what it will
+cost you, that is, count what it will mean to suffer aches in your back
+and feet, to have fire-scorched cheeks,—they say cooking ruins the
+complexion,—red, sloppy hands, and all the rest of the penalties imposed
+on one for doing housework. If you put your hand to the plow, you know,
+once started you can’t look back.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know, Helen, it will be terrible to have to do these things,
+but if it will help me to earn money, even the teeniest bit, now that I
+know that it is to be done without the glory perhaps it won’t be so
+hard. Oh, I know Miss I Can will help me!” Nathalie smiled through the
+mist that would blur her eyes, “for I must help Dick.”
+
+“Yes,” returned her friend, “if you feel that way, determined to help
+Dick, go ahead; for that will serve as the glory, that is, the incentive
+will help you through lots of hard things.”
+
+Nathalie looked up at her friend’s grave face with wonder-lit eyes. “Oh,
+Helen,” she said solemnly, “do you know you are going to be a great
+woman? You are awfully wise for a girl of your age!”
+
+Helen interrupted her with a merry laugh. “Oh, no, I’m not going to be a
+great woman at all. I should love to be—that is my ambition,—but one’s
+ambitions are not apt to materialize the way one expects them to, you
+know. But I’ll tell you, Nathalie,” her face sobered, “I have a very
+wise mother—she tells me these things. And then as I go about I find
+from experience that what she has said comes true.”
+
+“Yes, Helen, you will be great,” nodded Nathalie sagely. “Perhaps you
+will not go about blowing a trumpet to let people know you are one of
+the world’s great ones, but you will be all the same, even if you never
+do a thing but live in this sleepy town and become a stenographer.”
+
+“Well, it looks that way,” laughed Helen, “from the pile of typing that
+awaits me. Yes, I am, as you say, in a fair way to become a
+stenographer, but Ye Stars! if I do not become an expert one, I’ll—well
+I’ll go hang myself, as the boys say, for I must succeed!”
+
+“Oh, are you really going, friend comforter?” laughed Nathalie, as Helen
+rose to go. “Yes, you are that, for you have given me lots of comfort
+this morning; you put new life in me when the cause was almost lost. On
+the strength of your calculations I’m going to lay my plans before
+Mother, and then I’m going to get some books and trinkets and go to see
+Rosy.”
+
+“Oh, yes, how is she?” inquired Helen interestedly. “I was thinking
+about her the other day.”
+
+“She is getting along nicely, but it is awfully hard for the little
+thing to lie there most of the time alone. I was down to see her
+yesterday and told her some stories, and I promised to come again
+to-day.”
+
+“I wish I could help you! But see here, Nathalie, speak to Grace and
+Lillie about the story-telling; perhaps they will help you at that.
+Grace is a lady with plenty of leisure to waste, and Lillie Bell dotes
+on yarns.”
+
+“I did ask Lillie, but she said she was no good telling stories to
+children, and Grace—why, she said she was busy getting her clothes ready
+for the summer.”
+
+“There’s Kitty. Ah, I expect to see her this afternoon. I’ll ask her to
+lend you a hand, but I must go, so good-by and good luck to you, Story
+Lady!”
+
+“Oh, Mother, you are just a dear!” cried Nathalie a little later, as she
+was about to set forth to see Rosy. Her mother had come down from the
+attic with a couple of old picture-books, and handed them to her to give
+to the little invalid.
+
+“Gloriana! won’t they make her eyes shine!” exclaimed Nathalie as she
+tucked them under her arm, picked up the basket of goodies she had
+prepared, and hurried down the walk. As she knocked at the door of the
+gray shanty she heard Rosy whimpering softly. “Poor kiddie,” she
+thought, with a wave of pity. Receiving no answer she pushed open the
+door, which was partly ajar, and entered. On the bed lay the little form
+with its head buried in a pillow, emitting a series of feeble whines.
+
+“Good morning!” said the smiling visitor as she touched the half-buried
+shoulder.
+
+At the sound of her voice the child’s woolly head rolled over, and a
+smile of welcome radiated her tear-stained face.
+
+“How is it that you are all alone?” asked Nathalie, taking out an orange
+from the basket; “where are Mother and Mammy?”
+
+“Mamma went to de town, and Mammy—she’s doin’ de wash,” and then her
+eyes expanded with joy as she spied the orange.
+
+The orange was soon demolished, and then, as Nathalie started to show
+her the two picture-books, she realized that Miss I Can confronted her
+again, for a sticky mouth and hands revealed the fact that she had an
+unpleasant task to perform. For a moment she hesitated, but quickly
+overcoming her disinclination, she plunged in, got a basin of water, and
+finding no wash-cloth, dipped her own dainty handkerchief in it, and
+amid sundry squeals and protests gave the little face and hands a good
+scrubbing.
+
+This performed, the picture-books were brought forth and she was soon
+busy explaining the pictures to the pleased little girl. But this
+diversion she soon tired of and then came the cry, “Oh, Story Lady,
+won’t yo’ please tell me er story?”
+
+“Why, I don’t think I know any now—” Nathalie had meant to look up a
+fairy book so as to be prepared, but the pleading look in the black eyes
+upturned to hers won its way and she said, “All right, I’ll see what I
+know? How would ‘The Babes in the Woods’ do?”
+
+As this title was mentioned, a cry of protest came from the child, “No,
+I don’t want to hear about de woods. I’se afraid of de woods.”
+
+“Of course you don’t, you poor little chickie,” answered Nathalie
+contritely, and then her face lightened up as a streak of sunshine at
+that moment glancing in the window proved an inspiration. So she began
+to tell about Sunshine Polly, who had been told that if she could get
+some sunshine in her heart she would always be happy, and how she
+forthwith set out for this golden country, and after many adventures
+found it. Indeed it proved to be a most beautiful place, with a king,
+very round and bright, and a lot of sunshine fairies flying all about
+throwing some of their sunny treasure into the eyes of every one they
+saw.
+
+By the bright eyes watching her, Nathalie knew that she had made a good
+selection this time, and the story progressed. She told how Polly got
+the sunbeams, with a breathing spell every now and then to think up some
+more, and the cries, “Oh, dat’s a lubly story! Oh, I likes dat story!”
+But at last Polly returned from the land of sunshine with a crown of
+sunbeams on her head and a big bundle of it in her heart.
+
+Nathalie smiled as she finished, for it seemed as if she too, had been
+to the sunshine land and had put some of it into Rosy’s little heart.
+“Ah, now I will get a chance to slip away,” she thought, picking up her
+basket as a prelude to her departure.
+
+But Rosy, surmising by her movement that she contemplated leaving, began
+to wail plaintively, begging her so hard to tell just one more “lubly
+story.” As Nathalie stood, trying her best to think of another story,
+she heard a slight noise, and looked up to see three little black faces
+with big shiny eyes staring at her from over the ledge of the window.
+
+The girl broke into a merry laugh, for really it was funny to see those
+three round faces—like a row of flower-pot saucers on a shelf. “Why, how
+did you get there?” she cried and then again burst into laughter. The
+laughter proved contagious, for the three little pickaninnies
+immediately joined in her merriment, and then, evidently thinking this
+was an invitation to come in, one after the other slid over the sill and
+trotted up to the bed, to the great delight of Rosy. Here they climbed
+up, sitting on the edge with their naked black feet hanging down,
+looking for all the world like monkeys’ claws as they swung them to and
+fro, anxiously waiting for the story to begin.
+
+[Illustration: “Why, how did you get there?”]
+
+“Oh, what shall I tell them?” worried Nathalie, but in a flash she
+remembered, and was soon in the mysteries of that beloved of all fairy
+tales, “Jack and the Bean Stalk.” The interested glow in four pairs of
+eyes was inspiring, and amply repaid her for the time that she had so
+reluctantly given the little hearers.
+
+The tale was soon ended, and again Nathalie sprang to her feet, feeling
+that now she must go, for there was that dessert she had to make for
+dinner. She gathered up her basket and had just turned to say good-by to
+her audience of four, when she saw Dr. Morrow, who was standing by the
+door, smiling down at her with his kindly eyes.
+
+“Oh, were you there all the time?” she asked in dismay. The doctor
+nodded as he said, “Yes, Blue Robin, I have enjoyed your story very
+much. You had such an appreciative audience,” smiling at the little
+black faces, “that I was reluctant to disturb their bliss. Our little
+friend Rosy has well named you, ‘The Story Lady.’”
+
+He turned towards his patient, and then with a kindly word for each of
+her little friends, he began to inquire as to how Rosy was. As Felia at
+this moment entered the room, Nathalie waved a good-by to Rosy, and
+surrounded by the three pickaninnies, each one eager to carry her
+basket, hurried out of the room and into the sunshine she had been
+telling about. The many comments made by her body-guard of three, showed
+how eager they were for the joys of story-land—a rare treat to them.
+Realizing how much can be taught a child through story-telling, as she
+had found when she was a child, Nathalie fell to thinking. By the time
+she reached home she had planned a story club—oh, it would be just the
+thing—if the Pioneers would agree to it. They could take turns, only an
+hour once or twice a week, in telling stories to these new friends of
+hers, and who knows, if the class grew they might eventually do a great
+deal of good? Still somewhat timid of taking the initiative, she planned
+to lay it before Helen and let the suggestion come from her.
+
+Nathalie was trilling softly to herself little snatches of song, for
+somehow on that bright June day she felt very happy. She had started, as
+she told Helen, on a new career. Of course her mother had objected at
+first to her taking Felia’s place, but when she found that Nathalie was
+determined, she had consented, feeling that perhaps it would not harm
+her for a while. And then, too, she would learn many things she needed
+to know, and this was her opportunity to learn them. So Nathalie had won
+her consent, and with the help of Dorothy, who had been pressed into
+service, and the few things she allowed her mother to do, she had found
+her work slip along more easily than she had anticipated, and the
+thought that she was earning a mite towards a great object, as Helen
+said, had proved the glory.
+
+And so she sang away, doing the week’s stint of darning, as the stocking
+drill at the Pilgrim Rally had helped her wonderfully, and now she was
+quite assured that her mother did not have to do her work over.
+
+As she glanced up from her work to watch a tiny humming bird that was
+flitting among the leaves of the honeysuckle trellis, she heard the
+throb of an engine, and looked up to see Dr. Morrow’s car coming up the
+road. To her surprise, instead of running his car in through his gate to
+the garage, he brought it to a standstill in front of their house,
+alighted, and a moment later was coming briskly up the path.
+
+His cheery greeting broke in upon her surprise as he cried, “Well, Blue
+Robin, so you are at home!” O dear! every one seemed to be calling her
+that nowadays, the girl thought a little ruefully.
+
+“Good morning,” she cried; then her face paled apprehensively. “Oh, have
+you come about Dick—do you think his knee is worse?” she faltered,
+suddenly remembering that her brother had complained quite a little the
+last three days with the pain in his knee.
+
+“No, I have not come about Dick,” was the reassuring answer. “I have
+come to see you on important business. Dick is doing as well as can be
+until he is operated on.”
+
+Nathalie sighed, and then said, “Oh, Doctor, I do wish you would explain
+to me about Dick’s operation! Mother told me a little, but you see I
+don’t know much about these things.”
+
+The doctor raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise and then he said in
+a serious tone, “I should say not. Such things as operations are not for
+little Blue Robins. They are supposed to trill little tru-al-lee songs,
+or tell fairy tales to children, as I hear some of them have been doing
+lately.”
+
+The girl’s eyes grew bright. “Oh, we are all doing it. Has Mrs. Morrow
+told you about the Pioneer Story Club we have formed? Helen suggested
+it, in a way.” Nathalie was modest, for the suggestion had really come
+from herself, and also the planning with the aid of Helen’s wise head.
+“We go down to the colored settlement,” she continued, “every Saturday
+morning and take turns in telling stories to the little children. Don’t
+you think it a fine idea?” She spoke animatedly.
+
+“Indeed I do, but now for the business.”
+
+“Oh—but please tell me about the operation first!” Nathalie was afraid
+the doctor intended to put her off. “Tell me, will Dick really be good
+and strong again after he has the operation?”
+
+The doctor gazed at her a moment with serious eyes and then said slowly,
+“Yes, Miss Nathalie, I believe that if your brother could have that
+operation he would be just as well as if this unfortunate accident had
+not happened.”
+
+“But what makes the operation necessary, and what would you do to him?”
+she insistently demanded.
+
+“Well, I am not going to tell you exactly what we would do to him. We
+shall not make hash of him—”
+
+“Oh, Doctor!” exclaimed Nathalie with a shiver.
+
+“But we will remove an unhealthy bone in his leg and replace it with a
+new one. I saw an infected finger joint removed the other day and
+replaced with a joint taken from one of the patient’s toes.”
+
+“Oh, Doctor Morrow,” cried the distressed girl, “you are kidding, as the
+boys say.”
+
+The doctor shook his head. “No, some years ago I might have been
+indulging in a yarn, but surgery has made great strides these last few
+decades, and cripples nowadays may be restored to health and strength by
+transplanting entire bones with their joint surfaces. This discovery was
+announced a short time ago by an eminent surgeon before the Philadelphia
+Academy of Surgery. Tests were made on dogs first, and the results were
+so satisfactory that the same methods have since been applied to the
+human body with like results.
+
+“Hitherto bone transplantation had been attended with great stiffness
+and lack of power in the members treated, but now an infected hip joint
+may be removed in the same way, and replaced by healthy bones, and the
+functions work properly. But, young lady, I came here not to deliver a
+lecture on the transplantation of bones, but to ask you to do something
+for me.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI—THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+“Do something for you? Oh, Doctor, I should just love to!” Surprise and
+pleasure caused Nathalie’s eyes to light expectantly. And then, “Do tell
+me what it is; perhaps it is something I can’t do!” she said doubtfully.
+
+“Oh, you can do it all right,” asserted the doctor confidently.
+“Remember the old adage, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’” His
+eyes twinkled humorously as he watched the girl’s face. “But let’s get
+at the beginning of things. The other day as I was hastening to my
+little African friend, Rosy, I heard some one talking to her. I stood
+still, for it was some one telling the fairy tale of Jack and the Bean
+Stalk.
+
+“Now when I was a wee laddie,” continued the doctor, “that fairy tale
+was the star one to me, so I plead guilty, I was tempted and listened.
+And then when I discovered that the Story Lady, as Rosy says, was a
+sometime friend of mine, I found that old tale doubly interesting. A few
+days ago, when talking to a patient, I happened to relate this little
+incident in connection with something else I was telling, and then my
+troubles began.”
+
+The doctor pretended dismay. “That lady has a crippled child who rarely
+goes out, never meets children of her own age, but is compelled a good
+part of the time to lie on a couch suffering more or less pain. This
+little girl was injured in an accident which her mother, poor creature,
+believes was her fault.”
+
+“Oh, how dreadfully she must suffer!” burst from Nathalie involuntarily.
+
+“Yes, I sometimes think the poor mother suffers more than the child. Now
+this mother, from a mistaken idea, believes it best to keep her child
+secluded, thinking that the comments of strangers would hurt the child’s
+feelings and cause more suffering. So you see what a miserable life the
+little one leads. Well, I must cut my tale short—” taking out his watch
+and glancing at it; “perhaps it was something I said, I don’t know, but
+this lady asked me if I thought the young lady who was so good at
+story-telling would be willing to come and amuse her child with stories.
+You see I was in for it, but all I could do was to say I would ask her,”
+the doctor’s eyes sobered, “for I believe that this Story Lady girl is
+not only a worth while girl—is that the way my wife puts it when she
+lectures you?” the doctor’s face had wrinkled into a smile again, “but
+that she has one of the kindest hearts in the world.”
+
+“Oh, Doctor, Mrs. Morrow never lectures,” answered Nathalie
+enthusiastically; “she just talks to us in the sweetest way; we just
+love to hear her. But, Doctor, why did you not tell the lady I would be
+only too glad to tell her little girl stories, but if she suffers so
+much it might tire her.” This was all said in one breath.
+
+“Not so fast, Blue Robin. No, I did not tell her you would, for I did
+not know how it would strike you,” rejoined the doctor gravely. “I only
+told her what you could do.”
+
+“Oh,” exclaimed his companion; “well then, please tell her the first
+time you see her that I shall be delighted to do all I can for her
+little girl.”
+
+“When I see her—well, I’m going to see her now.” The doctor looked down
+at Nathalie keenly. “If you are willing to give this pleasure suppose
+you begin to-day?”
+
+“To-day—you mean now—this morning?” exclaimed surprised Nathalie.
+
+The doctor nodded gravely.
+
+“Why, well, yes, I suppose I could go this morning.” Nathalie wrinkled
+her brows; she was wondering about dinner. “All right,” she said in a
+moment, “I’ll tell Mother and get my hat!” She started for the door.
+
+“Just wait a moment!” commanded the doctor suddenly, taking Nathalie by
+the arm and peering down into her face with intent eyes. “I forgot
+something, for amusing this little girl means that you will have to
+promise two things.”
+
+“What are they?” asked the girl curiously.
+
+“The first one is that you will have to promise—as a Girl Pioneer—” the
+doctor’s eyes gleamed again “not to betray to a living soul that you are
+telling stories to this child; there is a reason.”
+
+“Oh, that is easy,” nodded Nathalie; “that is, if you except Mamma, for
+I always tell everything to her.”
+
+“Well, we’ll trust Mrs. Page as to secrecy, and the next thing—this is a
+big promise, for it will not be so easy to keep—is that when you go to
+this lady’s house you will consent to be blindfolded.” The doctor looked
+relieved.
+
+“Blindfolded?” repeated puzzled Nathalie. “Why, do you mean that I will
+have to have my eyes covered up so I can’t see?”
+
+Dr. Morrow nodded, his keen eyes watching the girl’s face intently.
+
+There was a pause. “Am I to go with you?” inquired Nathalie. The
+doctor’s gray head jerked again.
+
+“Why, yes, I’m willing to be blinded—as long as you’re with me to lead
+me about—but what a strange idea!”
+
+“Yes, it is a strange idea, and I tried to reason the lady out of it. I
+even refused at first—and again yesterday—to ask you to do this
+ridiculous thing, but after thinking it over I have ventured. You know,
+there is the little girl to be considered, and you will?”
+
+“Of course I will!” was the quick reply. “It is a funny thing to do,
+makes me think of the heroine of some detective tale. Blindfolded! Oh,
+it will be fun, a real adventure, I do wish I could tell Helen about it,
+I know she won’t tell.”
+
+“No, not yet,” said the doctor, “just wait and see what happens. I’ll
+predict that after you tell one or two of your exciting tales the
+blindfold act will be out of it. Now get your hat.”
+
+It was a glorious morning and Nathalie, in a merry chat with the doctor
+as they glided down one street and up another, forgot to wonder where
+they were going. But when they suddenly slowed up on a lonely road, the
+doctor peered cautiously about and then with a flourish drew forth a big
+black handkerchief, she remembered. She did indeed feel somewhat queer
+as the doctor laughingly tied the black cap, as he called it, over her
+eyes, and then, after seeing that it was not pressing too tightly,
+started his car again.
+
+This time the car went so swiftly that Nathalie caught her breath. O
+dear, she was beginning to feel nervous. “It really seems as if you were
+kidnaping me!” she cried, with an attempt at merriment.
+
+“So I am,” replied the doctor glumly. Evidently this blindfolding
+business was not to his liking.
+
+As the car came to a standstill the doctor cried, “Now, Blue Robin, we
+are about to perform the first act in our little drama, so get up your
+nerve.”
+
+“I hope you won’t let me fall!” exclaimed Nathalie cheerily. “I don’t
+want to break my nose or anything just yet.”
+
+What a weird feeling it gave her to be led along a stone walk, then up a
+few steps guided by her companion’s strong arm, then evidently into a
+hall, as Nathalie surmised by the polished floor covered with heavy
+rugs. After being led stumblingly up the stairway—which she thought
+would never come to an end—they crept slowly along for some distance;
+she could not tell whether it was a hall or a room, and felt very
+trembly as she afterwards told her mother, and she was brought to a
+sudden halt by hearing, “Oh, Mamma, here she is!”
+
+The voice did not belong to a small child and Nathalie, surprised, stood
+still in embarrassed silence wondering what was coming next.
+
+“Oh, Doctor, how kind you are!” cried another voice. “I had given you
+up, how obstinate you must think me!” The voice faltered, and then
+Nathalie felt a soft touch on her arm as it continued, “Oh, it was very
+kind of you to consent to come and entertain my daughter, and to be
+obliged to come this way, too. I feel guilty; I know how unpleasant it
+must be to have something over your eyes.”
+
+“Well, don’t worry over that now,” was the doctor’s terse admonition. “I
+have complied with your requests—on second thought, and my young girl
+friend has been most kind in agreeing to your wishes, for the present at
+least. Later, I hope, you will change your mind about these blinders.”
+
+“Please don’t scold,” cried the voice again, “I know it is foolish of
+me. I will lead you to a chair!” the owner of the voice exclaimed as the
+girl gropingly put out her hand as if afraid of falling. Then the same
+soft touch led the blinded one across the room. “No, you are not going
+to fall; there you are all right now,” she said, as Nathalie with a
+sense of relief sank back in a chair.
+
+“Now,” continued the voice, “I am going to be your eyes and tell you
+what is before you.”
+
+“That will be very nice,” interposed embarrassed Nathalie, feeling
+somewhat foolish at having to sit in this queer way before people. She
+was at a loss what to say, but had time to collect herself as the lady
+went on talking rapidly. She described the room with its hangings, the
+pictures on the wall, told where the doors and windows were, and—“Oh,
+here is the couch—” she hesitated slightly, “and on it is my daughter,
+her name is—”
+
+“Oh, Mamma, if you don’t want the young lady to know my name, tell her
+I’m the Princess in the Tower!” exclaimed the same sweet voice that had
+called out when Nathalie first entered the room.
+
+“That will be just the thing, ‘the Princess in the Tower,’” laughed the
+lady lightly. “Now, Princess, I am going to leave you to entertain
+Miss—”
+
+“Nathalie Page,” interposed the girl quickly, who, reassured by the
+laughing tone of the young girl on the couch, had begun to recover from
+the awkwardness of her plight. Somehow the situation appealed to the
+girl’s imagination and she began to enjoy it. “Oh, I ought to be the one
+in the tower,” she merrily asserted, “for I feel as if I were a prisoner
+with this funny thing over my eyes.”
+
+“It is too bad,” cried her companion sympathetically, “but you know it
+is a whim of Mamma’s. You see,” she explained, “I had an accident when I
+was a child, and it has made me deformed—” there was a pathetic note in
+her voice. “Mamma is so sensitive, she is afraid that if people see me
+they will make unkind remarks.”
+
+“Oh, how could any one be unkind?” exclaimed horrified Nathalie.
+
+“Well, they are sometimes. I used to be sensitive myself, too, but I’m
+getting used to it. I tell Mamma if I don’t mind she ought not to. Yes,”
+she ended sadly, “I am indeed a prisoner shut up in these big gray
+walls.”
+
+“How hard it must be!” answered Nathalie. “But do you never go out?”
+
+“Sometimes I go in the garden. I used to drive, but the people in this
+town are so curious; they stare so. I believe they are worse than in the
+city, where I suppose people are used to all kinds of strange sights.
+But there, I’m doing all the talking, please tell me about yourself! I’m
+so glad to know some one who comes from New York. The doctor told me you
+were a New Yorker; he told me, too, that you were very clever, and that
+you told stories beautifully.”
+
+“Nonsense,” exclaimed Nathalie. “The doctor is a dear, but he natters
+me; I am not clever, I wish I were. I studied hard at school and am
+ready to enter college this fall, and as I am only sixteen people think
+it very clever for a girl to accomplish, but I don’t see why a girl
+can’t do it as well as a boy. But now I’m not going to have a chance to
+show people whether I am really clever or not,” and then she briefly
+told about her disappointment in having to give up college.
+
+“But what are you going to do if you do not go to college? Please tell
+me!” said the princess, as Nathalie hesitated. “I just love the sound of
+your voice!” burst from the girl impulsively.
+
+Nathalie laughed at this extravagant praise, wondering for a moment if
+the young girl were not making fun of her. Loath to believe that she
+could be so rude, however, she went on and told of her city life, her
+schoolmates, about Dick’s accident, and how they came to settle in
+Westport, and then she stopped. She had been on the verge of telling
+about the Pioneers when she recollected that the doctor had said she was
+to tell the child stories. “Oh, I must stop talking—I was to tell you
+stories—what will your mother think of me?”
+
+“That is all right,” promptly returned the girl, “you are here to
+entertain me; that’s what she told the doctor, and if I would rather
+have you talk than tell stories, it will be as I say.”
+
+“Are you sure of that?” questioned conscience-stricken Nathalie. “The
+doctor told me I was to tell you stories.”
+
+“Of course he did, but because he said a thing doesn’t make it so; Mamma
+told him that, I guess, but you are really to do as I say.”
+
+There was a note of decision in the girl’s voice, which was an
+intimation that she was used to having her own way. Nathalie somehow
+felt awkward and uncertain as to what course to pursue, and became
+suddenly silent, inwardly racking her brains, trying to think of some
+story that would please a young girl of about the age she judged her
+companion to be.
+
+“Oh, aren’t you going to tell me about the Girl Pioneers?” was the
+question that suddenly interrupted Nathalie’s train of thought.
+
+“The Girl Pioneers!” echoed Nathalie, wondering how her companion came
+to know about that organization.
+
+“I want to tell you a secret,” the princess whispered at that moment.
+Nathalie felt a slim hand touch her with a clinging pressure on the arm.
+“Do you know the doctor and I are great friends, we have lots of jolly
+talks together. Oh, I just love to hear his step; don’t tell, but
+sometimes I make believe I’m suffering terribly so Mamma will send for
+him!”
+
+“But you shouldn’t do that!” cried Nathalie, rather shocked at the idea
+of simulating pain, suddenly remembering a story she had heard of a
+young girl who had finally come to suffer from the very disease she had
+feigned.
+
+“Oh, what difference does it make as long as it brings him?” retorted
+the princess. “You see he tells me of the outside world, and makes me
+laugh when I have pain, for I do have lots of it sometimes. One day when
+I was having an awful time with my back he almost made me forget the
+pain by telling me some of the funny things that have happened to the
+Boy Scouts and to the Girl Pioneers.
+
+“He told me all about you, too, how you sprained your foot and about
+your brother Dick, and about your finding the blue robin’s nest in the
+old cedar. He said you were pretty, too. I like pretty people. I wish
+you didn’t have that horrible thing on your eyes, I want to see them.
+Mother said I would have been pretty, too, if I had not had this
+terrible hump—oh,” she cried abruptly, “I was not to tell you anything
+about myself, for I’m a horrible thing to look at now.”
+
+“Oh, no, you can’t be,” exclaimed Nathalie involuntarily, for by this
+time the sweet girlish voice and soft clinging hand had stirred her
+imagination, and the pictures presented had made the make-believe
+princess a most beautiful creature.
+
+“Oh, but I am,” persisted the girl in a resigned voice. “But then, do
+tell me about the Pioneers!” Then noting Nathalie’s reluctance, she
+called out in a high, shrill voice, “Mamma, come here, I want you!”
+
+“What is it, darling?” answered her mother coming hastily from the
+adjoining room, where she had been conversing with the doctor. “What
+does my princess want?” remembering the rôle the girl had assumed.
+
+“The princess wants to be obeyed,” answered that personage imperiously.
+“Miss Page refuses to talk about herself or to tell me anything, because
+she says you ordered her to tell me only stories.”
+
+Nathalie’s face reddened under her black mask, “Oh, no,” she interposed
+swiftly, “I did not say it that way. I said the doctor had asked me to
+come here and tell you stories, but then I supposed you were a little
+girl.”
+
+“No, I am not a little girl,” replied the princess, “I am fourteen.”
+
+“Miss Page, if you do not mind I shall be glad if you will do as
+Ni—as—the princess desires,” said her mother pleadingly. “She is an
+invalid, you know, and, I am afraid, sadly spoiled.”
+
+“Very well,” rejoined Nathalie briefly, feeling somewhat relieved to
+think she could talk about the Pioneers and not to have to think up a
+story. Yet it did seem strange to ask her to come there and tell stories
+and then ask her not to do so.
+
+“Now that you have permission, please go right ahead and tell me
+everything you know about the Pioneers!”
+
+“That will be delightfully easy, I can assure you,” exclaimed Nathalie.
+“Although I am a new Pioneer, I am beginning to be very enthusiastic. I
+can’t tell you much about the hikes for I have never been on a long hike
+yet. We were going on a bird hike the other day—” then she remembered
+the search party and its results, and in a few words told about Rosebud
+and the morning spent in searching for her.
+
+“Oh, that was just fine of you,” cried the princess as Nathalie came to
+the part where the Pioneers had acted as if they did not want to hunt
+for the little girl. “And those girls! I think they were very selfish,
+but go on and tell me some more about the Pioneers!”
+
+Nathalie, thus pressed, told of the Pilgrim Rally, the coming of the Boy
+Scouts, the Pioneer dance, and then lastly how she had accepted Miss I
+Can, the motto of the organization, as a very dear friend, and how she
+was trying to live up to it. The girl could not account for the feeling
+that made her sacrifice her usual reserve in regard to her inner life,
+and tell this make-believe princess about what she was trying to do. In
+thinking it over when by herself, she concluded that perhaps it was the
+lesson in this little motto that she had intuitively felt might help the
+little prisoner in the tower.
+
+“Oh, I wish you would get up a story club for me!” exclaimed the blood
+royal, as Nathalie finally ended her Pioneer recital by telling about
+the story club the girls had formed to tell stories to the little
+children in the colored settlement.
+
+“Wouldn’t it be just lovely! And they would all be real live girls, too,
+not story-book people, for oh, Miss Page, I get so tired of book folks!
+I want to meet just real every-day girls. That is why I coaxed my mother
+to get the doctor to have you come here and tell me stories, but don’t
+say another word about telling me stories,” she lowered her voice, “for
+that was just a trick to get Mother to consent. When I want a thing I
+just keep plaguing her and then she lets me have my way.”
+
+“Oh, but you ought to tell your mother everything,” exclaimed her new
+friend, somewhat repelled by this frank admission of deceit. “I always
+tell my mother everything, why I could not sleep at night if I thought I
+had deceived her.”
+
+“Everything is fair in love and war, that’s what my governess used to
+say, but she was a horrid thing,” the princess confessed candidly; “I
+just hated her. She had a beau and I used to steal his letters and
+pretend I had read them, just for the fun of seeing her get in a rage.
+But go on, and tell me more about those girls.”
+
+The last word had barely left her lips when a shriek, shrill and
+terrifying, rang through the room. Nathalie jumped up in a spasm of
+terror, but before she could ascertain what it was, another one, even
+shriller and more prolonged than the first one, as it seemed to the
+frightened girl, sounded right in her very ear. Her heart leaped to her
+throat, a stifled cry escaped her as she dropped back in her chair
+cowering with fear. Then came another cry, followed by weird, demoniacal
+laughter. Nathalie put her hands up to her face determined to tear off
+her bandage, for that blood-curdling shriek, that hideous laugh, she had
+heard before—and then she remembered—oh, she was in the house of the
+Mystic!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII—THE WILD FLOWER HIKE
+
+
+“Oh, it’s the crazy man!” came with a flash into Nathalie’s mind. What
+should she do? If she could only take off that horrible bandage from her
+eyes!
+
+“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess with a merry laugh as
+she saw her companion cower in her chair. “It’s only Jimmie! Jimmie,
+stop that racket!” she continued with a loud clap of her hands. But
+Jimmie, whoever he was, only replied with another agonizing shriek. This
+time the princess called angrily, “Mamma, come and make Jimmie stop his
+shrieking. Miss Page is awfully frightened!”
+
+Nathalie, as she heard the foregoing explanation, and realized that it
+was not an insane person screaming, gave a hysterical gasp and turned
+her head in the direction of the shrieks, but alas! her blinders, like a
+black wall, barred her vision.
+
+A few hurried steps, a scuffle evidently, accompanied by the loud
+flapping of wings, and then a jumble of French, Spanish, and English,
+jabbered in defiant rage, revealed that Jimmie was a cockatoo!
+
+[Illustration: “Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess, with
+a merry laugh.]
+
+But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his fight to be heard, with
+much loudness and clearness of note now broke into “In the Sweet Bye and
+Bye.” This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial
+proved too much for Jimmie’s audience, and peals of laughter rang out,
+in which Nathalie’s treble and the doctor’s deeper note mingled with the
+cockatoo’s song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore, started in
+with “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief—” but this time he was
+summarily thrust from the room by an attendant—amid jabbering protests.
+
+The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must be going, as he had an
+important case on hand; he had waited for her, he explained, knowing
+that she would be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he called
+the handkerchief.
+
+As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand, crying, “No, you
+shall not go. You have only been here a few moments!” Notwithstanding
+her mother’s admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the
+invalid persisted in clutching her new friend’s hand in a vise-like
+grip, much to her embarrassment. Finding, however, that she was not to
+have her way, the princess broke forth into a low whimpering.
+
+Nathalie stood still, and then feeling ashamed that a girl of her age
+should act the part of a child of five, endeavored to persuade her to
+let her go, promising to come again soon. She met with no success, and
+driven desperate by the command, “Come, Nathalie, we must go!” she
+roughly pulled her hand away. Whereupon, the whimpering cries of the
+princess degenerated into shrieks of rage, so prolonged and shrill that
+Nathalie, with a thrill of surprise, immediately recognized from whom
+Jimmie had learned his shrieks.
+
+As the car sped swiftly along in the direction of home, after the black
+handkerchief had been relegated to the doctor’s pocket again, Nathalie
+suddenly reddened furiously, looked queer for a moment, and then burst
+into stifled laughter, much to the doctor’s amusement, who was gravely
+watching her.
+
+“Hello!” he cried at length, “what’s up?” after his companion had made
+one or two ineffectual efforts to control her risibility.
+
+But at last she sobered, and with the tears still in her eyes told how
+she and Grace had been sent by Mrs. Morrow a short time before—to
+deliver a letter to Mrs. Van Vorst, and how when they were waiting in
+the reception room they had heard those same terrible shrieks and
+frenzied laughter that Jimmie had emitted that morning, and, thinking
+that it was an insane person, they had run for their lives.
+
+“O dear,” she gasped hysterically, “what a joke on Grace and me! To
+think of our running away when it was only a cockatoo! Oh, what sillies
+we were!”
+
+“I agree with you,” returned the doctor so solemnly that the girl
+flushed and looked at him quickly with shamed eyes, but his humorous
+twinkle did not agree with his blunt assurance, so Nathalie’s
+self-esteem suffered no wound.
+
+“You know where you were then to-day?” questioned the doctor slowly
+after a pause.
+
+“Oh, yes, at the house of the Mystic!”
+
+“The house of the Mystic?” with some astonishment.
+
+“Oh, that is the name the girls have given Mrs. Van Vorst because she
+acts so queerly. She has been very disagreeable to the Pioneers, they
+claim, refusing to let them drill on the lawn in the rear of her house.
+The girls say she hates young people, and then she always dresses so
+queerly in gray, too. She has shrouded herself in mystery by shutting
+herself up in that big gray house behind those walls. Edith Whiton
+insists that there is an insane person in the house and that he chased
+her the day of the Pilgrim Rally.”
+
+“An insane person! There is no insane person in the house. That is
+nonsense, and should not be repeated!” exclaimed the doctor in an
+annoyed tone.
+
+“Yes, I know, but the girls believe Edith, and so did I until to-day.
+But Grace and I have never told a soul what we heard, only Mrs. Morrow.
+But, oh, Doctor,” she cried impulsively, “can’t I tell Grace about the
+cockatoo? I will tell her not to tell a living soul,” she ended
+earnestly.
+
+“No,” returned the doctor decidedly, “Miss Grace is all right, but she
+might let it out in her sleep. No, you wait, and some time you girls can
+have the best laugh ever, as my kiddies say.”
+
+So the story of Nathalie’s visit to the princess in the tower was buried
+deep within her heart, although it came very near being unearthed
+several times when she was in the company of Grace or Helen, for really,
+it was hard to keep it a secret when it was such a good joke.
+
+Saturday, the day of the wild-flower hike, was warm and sunshiny, with
+the balminess of summer in its gently wafting breezes. Every one present
+was filled with the anticipation that they were going to have a “dandy
+time.”
+
+“Are we all here?” questioned Mrs. Morrow, as she stood on the veranda
+steps, craning her neck from one side to the other in the endeavor to
+see that her bird groups were all there. In her natty khaki suit, with
+its red-banded sombrero and red tie, she looked as jaunty and young as
+the Bluebirds, Bob Whites, and Orioles, who, with admiring eyes, watched
+her as they stood lined up on the path with knapsacks, staffs, and all
+the paraphernalia needed for the hike.
+
+The several bird calls attested that the band were all on hand, and then
+they filed up on the veranda before their Director as lunch-baskets were
+opened for inspection, so that she could see that each one had been
+properly prepared and was in a “relishy condition,” as Helen explained
+to Nathalie.
+
+In a few moments the inspection was over and the girls tripped merrily
+down the walk and out of the gate, making such a hubbub with the clatter
+of their tongues that the doctor, as he came hurriedly up the path,
+teasingly put his fingers in his ears in intimation that they were
+making undue clamor.
+
+The Flower of the Family’s knapsack bulged with a package of Aunt
+Jemima’s Pancake Flour, suggestive of the flapjacks to be, while the
+Editor-in-chief, with a reporter-like air, carried a large note-book
+under her arm so as to feature the affair in the forthcoming “Pioneer.”
+The Encyclopedia was lumbered with two musty volumes on flower lore, she
+explained, so as to be able to give all desired information on the
+various specimens that were to be gathered by the hikers.
+
+The Pot-Boiler’s knapsack was not only stuffed with several
+mysterious-looking packages, but was glaringly conspicuous, that young
+lady, true to her name, having pasted a paper advertisement of an iron
+pot on its cover. The Sport carried a few garden implements: a small
+shovel, a rake, and a hoe, with which to burrow in the ground for those
+specimens that grew in a brook or in the mossy hollows in the woods. The
+Tike, as the privileged fag, carried a basket to fill with wild-flowers
+to be distributed to the shut-ins of the town hospital on their return.
+
+Each Pioneer, besides her lunch-box, carried a self-made
+note-book—Nathalie had spent several hours making hers—with a pencil
+attached for her flower specimens, data, and so forth. Nathalie felt a
+bit disappointed that she had not been able to buy a uniform, although
+Helen had said that it made no difference, for she noticed to her dismay
+that she was the only Pioneer minus that very desirable accessory, dear
+to the heart of every hiker.
+
+The girls had gone but half a block when a sudden cry of pleasure
+rippled through the line. Then, as one Pioneer, the girls gave their
+call in welcome to Dr. Homer, who, as Mrs. Morrow explained, was to take
+the place usually occupied by her husband, when the Pioneers were on a
+long hike.
+
+The doctor responded by giving the Boy Scout salute as he stood a moment
+with raised hat. When the girls filed by, to Nathalie’s surprise he
+stepped to her side and asked, as he smiled in recognition, “May I have
+the pleasure of hiking with you?”
+
+Nathalie’s cheeks bloomed pink at the remembrance of their last meeting,
+but her eyes brightened as she nodded an assent. Perhaps some of the
+girls felt a little envious as they saw whom the doctor had selected for
+the favor of his company, as he was a great favorite and had always
+proved a delightful companion. But they quickly stifled any feeling that
+jarred, as each one remembered that she had had her turn, and that now
+it was Nathalie’s opportunity to have this pleasure as the new Pioneer.
+
+And Nathalie’s turn added a zest and enjoyment to her first hike that
+was long remembered, for through Dr. Homer’s kindness in imparting to
+her many stray bits of knowledge she was able to hide her greenness in
+wood-lore, bird-lore, and many of the activities in which the other
+Pioneers were so proficient.
+
+The Pioneers had barely reached the open when the Sport and one of the
+Orioles were despatched by the Director to blaze a trail. In order to
+give this advance corps a chance to get ahead, the rest of the company
+rested on the road, sitting down on the grass, or on some decayed tree
+trunk, while others practiced wall-scaling, among them Nathalie and the
+doctor, the latter acting as their instructor.
+
+This scaling feat meant stepping carefully upon the ledge of a stone
+wall that skirted the road, and then springing down as quickly and
+lightly as possible, so as not to dislodge stray stones and bring them
+rattling after one. This forerunner of other feats to come led the
+doctor to tell how a Scout practiced wall-scaling; sometimes by standing
+on the shoulders of another Scout, and then climbing a high wooden
+fence, which was claimed by many to be a more difficult performance than
+scaling a stone wall. This, of course, proved an incentive for the girls
+to do their best, especially Nathalie, who as a city-bred girl did not
+want to prove a laggard.
+
+A few minutes later, as they resumed their tramp, Nathalie’s face grew
+radiant as she suddenly spied a tree near with a penknife notch on the
+bark. “Oh, girls, here is the trail! Go this way!” she cried excitedly,
+pointing as she spoke to the notched sign of a twig bent at the end,
+making it look somewhat like the point of a broken arrow. As she was
+coming to be a zealous student of the bent-twig signs, the trail-blazing
+system invented for the Pioneers, she explained a number of these
+bent-twig signs to the doctor, who was deeply interested and not only
+told of the many signs used by the Scouts, but showed her the trees that
+were the easiest to cut.
+
+Chatting, laughing, and singing—for the girls vied with the birds in
+their joyousness that summer morning—making bird calls, alternating with
+notch-making and flower-gathering made the time pass swiftly. The new
+Pioneer was amazed when Dr. Homer pulled out his watch and looking at
+his pedometer said that they had walked four miles, and that in a short
+time they would hit the wood trail, where they were to camp for dinner.
+
+Nathalie’s flower-box was soon full of specimens that she had gathered
+from the roadside and the meadow where her lesson in wall-scaling came
+in handy. Perhaps this wild flower hunt proved but a small part of her
+pleasure, for as she strolled along the doctor proved most companionable
+as he coached her in hike knowledge.
+
+Never walk over anything you can go around, he had told her, and never
+step on anything you can step over, for every time you step on anything
+you lift the weight of your body, which makes more to carry when
+tramping. He also made her laugh heartily when he insisted upon
+examining the footwear of the hikers, expounding as he did so upon the
+foolishness of damsels in general, who would insist upon wearing shoes
+either too big or too small for them. The small shoes, he said, crowded
+the feet, and the big ones added extra weight, and made them road-weary
+before the tramp was half over.
+
+He also told her about the weather signs; a low cloud moving swiftly
+indicated coolness; hard-edged clouds, wind; rolled or jagged clouds,
+strong wind; and a mackerel sky, a whole day of fair weather. Nathalie,
+perhaps to show this young man with the smiling gray eyes who looked at
+you so fearlessly that she, too, did know just a tiny bit about weather
+signs, sang softly:
+
+  “Hark to the East Wind’s song from the sea,
+  Blowing the misty clouds o’er lea;
+  Shaking the sheaves of golden grain
+  With the patter of the rain;
+  Giving the earth a cooling drink,
+  Washing the flow’rs a brighter pink.
+  Hark to the West Wind’s song of cheer
+  Bringing blue sky and weather clear;
+  Driving away the clouds so gray
+  Filling the earth with sunlight’s ray;
+  Cheering the hearts of those who mourn,
+  Filling the dark with golden dawn.”
+
+When the little lecture had ended she had learned that when a slack rope
+tightens, when smoke beats down, when the sun is red in the morning, or
+when there is a yellowish or greenish sunset it means rain; how to tell
+which way the wind blows by pulling blades of grass and then letting the
+wind blow them, or to suck your thumb and let the wind blow around it,
+the cool side telling the tale.
+
+To be sure, they were all simple things to learn, but they were the
+essentials of life, as the doctor said, who had a most jolly manner of
+giving his stray bits of information, all the while making so much
+sport, as he ambled on, that Nathalie was sure she would remember
+everything he had told her.
+
+When the girls reached the wood with its cool, damp shade, moss-grown
+paths, and running brooklet, they set to work with renewed vigor to hunt
+for specimens. The Sport, notwithstanding the fun the girls had made of
+her garden implements, found that they were in great demand. For a time
+she was the star hiker, as first one and another pleaded, “Oh, Edith,
+just let me have that rake a minute!” or, “Oh, I see the dandiest little
+blue flower here in this crevice!” and so on.
+
+When they finally grew tired of flower-hunting they pushed their way to
+a level space in the open on the edge of the woods, where knapsacks,
+frying-pans, pots, and all such camping utensils were hastily thrown on
+the grass, and the girls hied themselves to the spring to wash their
+heated cheeks and rearrange their tangled tresses. Some, more
+venturesome than the others, took off their shoes and stockings and
+waded in the brook’s cooling flow, while the older ones, summoned by a
+series of bird calls, hurried back to camp to prepare dinner.
+
+To their delight, as the girls returned from the spring, they found that
+Dr. Homer had built an Indian “wickiup,” that is a dome-shaped wigwam,
+by sticking in the ground in a circle a number of limber poles. The ones
+the doctor had used were willow wands, but almost any kind of a bough
+would do, he claimed. He then showed the girls how he had bent the tops
+of each pair of opposites or poles forward until they met. The ends were
+then interlocked and tied firmly. Over this impromptu wigwam—for it had
+been made with no tool but his strong penknife—he had thrown a blanket
+shawl.
+
+The girls were all much interested in the Indian wigwam for this was the
+simplest way of making a tent, and they examined it eagerly. They were
+especially interested when the doctor told them that one time when he
+had lost his trail up in the Maine woods, he had made a dome-shaped
+wigwam and had rested in its shelter, high and dry, during a severe
+storm.
+
+When the novelty of the wigwam had worn off, every girl declared herself
+famished for something to eat, and the dinner committee hustled about
+picking up small dry twigs, which were placed in a heap, lightly, so as
+to draw the air. These were then covered with the heavier sticks until
+the desired height for a campfire was reached. Several fires were to be
+started, as no time was to be wasted in cooking the edibles.
+
+When all was in readiness, there was a general call for Nathalie, who,
+as the new Pioneer, was to take her first lesson in lighting a fire with
+only one match. Every Pioneer, of course, was eager to show her how to
+do this feat, but Mrs. Morrow silenced the clamor by assigning the task
+to Helen.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Morrow—I think—” Nathalie stopped, a sudden roguish expression
+flittered over her face, and then she meekly followed Helen to the
+wood-pile and stood silent as she watched that young lady scratch her
+match, hold it in the hollow of her hand, and then, with a soft puff,
+kneel, and apply it to a twig.
+
+The twig was obstinate, however, and Helen’s one match attempt was a
+decided failure. The Sport now offered her services as instructor, but
+Nathalie, feeling sorry for Helen, who with a crestfallen air had
+retired to the ranks of onlookers, cried, “Oh, no, Mrs. Morrow, can’t I
+try by myself?”
+
+As the Director nodded an assent, while the doctor laughingly declared
+she would have beginner’s luck, Nathalie took her match, examined it
+carefully, and then scratched it on the box. A tiny blue flame quivered
+in the air, which she carefully sheltered with her hand as she knelt
+before the heap of twigs, and blew, oh, so softly. It must have been a
+magic blow, for as she bent down and held it to the smallest twig she
+could find, almost a wisp of straw, it spread itself to the air, caught
+the twig in its flame, and in another moment drifting spurts of smoke
+showed that Nathalie had lighted the fire with one match!
+
+The doctor whistled softly as he saw that Nathalie had succeeded, but
+before she could regain an upright position, the Pioneers had broken
+forth into loud clapping, somewhat to her confusion as she stood with
+the blackened match still in her hand.
+
+Should she tell, she pondered, as her glance swept from face to face of
+the applauding girls; then as she saw the amused look in the doctor’s
+eyes, as he stood with folded arms leaning against a tree watching her,
+she gave a little laugh. She opened her lips to speak, but when the
+clapping continued, as if each Pioneer was bent on seeing who could clap
+the loudest, she raised her hand as she had seen Mrs. Morrow and Helen
+do sometimes.
+
+This appeal had the desired effect, and as the clapping dwindled,
+Nathalie, with a nervous laugh, cried, “Girls, please don’t clap me any
+more, for I do not deserve it. This is not the first time I have lighted
+a fire with a single match. A few summers ago I camped up in the Maine
+woods. The second day at camp some one upset a pail of water on the box
+with our match supply, and as only one dry box was left, and it was some
+miles to the nearest settlement, we were compelled to economize, and
+were allowed only one match to light a fire. I was going to tell you,”
+she gave a little ripple of laughter, “but you were all so anxious to
+show me I did not want to spoil your fun, and then as I have not
+attempted the feat since that summer, I did not know whether I could do
+it again or not.”
+
+A circle of stones was now placed around the fires so as to prevent them
+from spreading in case of a strong wind, and then the lunch-boxes were
+opened. It was not long before the savory fumes of frying frankfurters,
+boiling cocoa, and flapjacks signified that a camp dinner was in
+progress.
+
+The girls found a level rock on which they spread a cloth and small
+board, and then the bread was cut and buttered in a way that showed that
+they were experts at the task. Nathalie made the cocoa, counting noses
+as she put in a teaspoonful of cocoa to every cup of boiling water,
+letting it boil three minutes by the watch of the doctor, who had kindly
+offered to help his little hike-mate, as he called her.
+
+The hikers now seated themselves around the fires—for there were
+three—and then something happened that held Nathalie with reverent awe
+for she saw Mrs. Morrow’s face sober with a sweet seriousness, as she
+gave the signal for silence. Every head was quickly lowered in response
+to this signal, and then a timid voice—it belonged to the Flower—broke
+the reverent stillness by softly chanting a blessing to the Giver of all
+good.
+
+Each girl had brought her own tin cup, plate, knife and fork, lump of
+sugar, and napkin. Pats of butter were now distributed, followed by the
+molasses jug, so as to be ready for the flapjacks that were now browning
+to a turn. The “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” of delight that burst forth as the
+cakes found their way around the circle amply repaid the baker for her
+reddened face and hard labor over the burning fagots.
+
+Of course there had to be mishaps; the first piece of bacon to grease
+the griddle dropped into the fire instead of the pan, and a number of
+cakes turned out failures and had to be consigned to the waste-heap. But
+it was a regular hike spread, and meant lots and lots of fun, especially
+when the pancake contest was started.
+
+This was something new to Nathalie, and she quite enjoyed it as she
+watched one girl after the other take her turn in making a flapjack. She
+first poured the batter on the griddle in just the right quantity, and
+then skillfully tossed it high in air as she turned it, so that it would
+land in just the right place on the pan and finish to just the right
+shade of brown.
+
+All the party, even the doctor, tried their hands at this feat, all but
+the new Pioneer, who shrank back, afraid to venture as she knew that
+expertness came only with many trials. But the girls were persistent and
+so good-natured in trying to show her that she felt a little ashamed,
+especially when Mrs. Morrow, who was jotting down the names of the
+experts for merit badges, repeated softly, “I can!”
+
+Nathalie immediately sprang up, and although feeling that she would make
+a perfect goose of herself at this new trial, took the little pitcher,
+poured out the batter, and then with a quaking heart watched it darken.
+Ah, she slipped the turner under, and was just about to give it the
+magic toss when her hand slipped, and batter and turner fell into the
+flames.
+
+She was so disgusted with this dismal attempt that she would have liked
+to disappear to parts unknown if the doctor had not cried, “Ah, just one
+more trial, I know you will get it this time!” To her unutterable
+astonishment the doctor’s prediction came true, and she really tossed a
+flapjack with such success that her hike-mate declared it was “the best
+ever,” and begged permission to eat it in memory of the plucky deed.
+
+Of course Grace, Louise, and Helen each won a badge, as was discovered
+when the contest was over. But even feasting has its limitations on a
+warm day in June, and as the edibles disappeared the hike spread came to
+an end. The Tike and one of the Bob Whites were now despatched to the
+spring for some water, while the rest of the hikers—all but Mrs. Morrow,
+who was escorted to the wigwam for a siesta—flew hither and thither,
+filling the pots with water to boil off the grease, rubbing the griddle
+with sand, and so on.
+
+As Nathalie and the doctor were jabbing the knives in the dirt to clean
+them, Helen came running up crying, “Oh, what do you suppose the
+water-carriers are up to? They have been gone an awfully long time and
+we have not a drop of water to wash the dishes?”
+
+“I will go and see!” exclaimed the doctor, jumping up hastily, but he
+had not gone more than a few steps when a shrill scream broke the
+brooding silence of the woods. In another instant pots, pans, and dishes
+were flung broadcast as every one made a wild rush in the direction of
+the spring, headed by the doctor. As the doctor reached the spring,
+however, and saw that the screams did not issue from that quarter he
+turned, and with a few flying leaps reached the scene of disaster, some
+distance down the stream.
+
+The girls started to run after him, but in a moment his loud laughter
+brought them to a standstill, for surely it could not be anything very
+serious or he would not be indulging in such levity! Helen and the
+Sport, however, who had rushed steadily on, were not far behind the
+doctor, and as they swung around the bend of the trees, they beheld a
+diminutive figure, sputtering and gasping, with rivulets of water
+trickling from bedraggled garments and locks, being assisted up the bank
+by the doctor’s strong arm!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII—AROUND THE CHEER FIRE
+
+
+The sorry-looking object proved to be the Tike, who between sobs and
+shivery shakes explained, as the party surrounded her, that tempted by
+the mirror-like surface of a dark pool in the middle of the brook she
+had stooped to see if she could see her face in it. Unfortunately, her
+knee slipped on a loose stone, and she had tumbled in.
+
+With much laughter and merriment the girls made a stretcher, tumbled the
+somewhat subdued fag into it, and then set off for the wigwam, where
+Miss Carol was speedily disrobed and her clothes hung out to dry, as the
+girls merrily sang, “on a hickory limb!”
+
+Bundled up in wraps after a few drops of stimulant had been administered
+to prevent her taking cold, which made her drowsy, she was left to the
+ministrations of the dream fairies, while the girls hurried off to wash
+the dishes and finish cleaning up. While this was being performed, the
+doctor showed Nathalie how to throw dirt or water on the fires—all but
+one, which was left for a cheer fire—so as to be sure that they were all
+out. The girls, he said, had learned a lesson last summer when they left
+a fire smoldering when they struck camp. It soon burst into a blaze and
+if it hadn’t been for a party of Scouts who had been off for a tramp the
+woods would have been on fire.
+
+Camp duties done, the cheer fire blazed a welcome and the girls hastily
+circled around it, and were soon busily engaged in packing the roots of
+their wild flowers with clay, wrapping them in big leaves and tying them
+securely with sweet grasses or string. They were then placed in the
+Tike’s basket to delight the heart of some shut-in, whose only outing
+was from the window.
+
+When this task was completed the flower specimens were laid in rows, and
+then Helen as leader, gave the names of her specimens; each girl having
+a like specimen laid it carefully between a sheet of blotting paper to
+remove the moisture, and then pressed it deftly in her note-book, where
+it was fastened with gummed paper across the stems and thick parts of
+the plant. Under each flower was now written its botanical name, its
+common name, the date of finding it, its habitat, and any other data
+that could be obtained from the Encyclopedia, who, with flower books
+spread before her, was kept busy supplying all the needed information.
+
+Each odd specimen was passed around for inspection, and then the lucky
+finder jubilantly placed it on record, while others wrote additional
+information as to the insects that visit it, whether it is a
+pollen-bearer, if it slept at night, or closed in the sun. The doctor
+supplemented Barbara’s book lore by stray bits of knowledge that he had
+picked up from actual experience in his many scout rambles. The girls
+were only too pleased to listen, being particularly interested in his
+account of the evolution of color in flowers.
+
+When the time came for telling cheer fire stories, Mrs. Morrow suggested
+that they should be flower stories, stipulating, however, that the
+legends told should be about the specimens that had been found in that
+day’s hike.
+
+With this, the doctor, who was lying on the grass by the side of
+Nathalie, pulled off his hat which she had decorated with a dandelion
+wreath, and waving it high so every one could see it in its yellow
+glory, said he would start the wheel of yarns by telling about the
+maiden with the fluffy cobweb hair.
+
+As he said “hair,” Lillie Bell rose, and in ready imitation of the
+renowned Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm tragically intoned:
+
+  “Robaire! Robaire!
+  Let down your hair!”
+
+The girls burst into peals of laughter, for even in the sleepy town of
+Westport every one had seen the beloved Rebecca, and keenly appreciated
+Lillie’s timely pose.
+
+“But this slim bit of a girl,” smiled the doctor, “didn’t let down her
+yellow tresses, they just flew with the wind, until Shawondassee—this is
+an Indian legend—the South Wind saw her. Instead of seeking this
+witching maiden, whom he admired so deeply, he was lulled to sleep by
+the fragrance of the summer flowers and forgot all about her. The next
+day he again spied his yellow charmer away off among the grasses of the
+meadows, but after lazily wishing she would come to him he snoozed off
+again. To his horror, the next day he found that the maiden’s tresses
+were gone, and that in her place stood an old woman who looked as if
+Jack Frost had sprinkled her with his silver dust.
+
+“‘Ah,’ sighed Shawondassee, ‘my brother the North Wind has done this
+wrong.’ So he hurriedly arose and blew his horn loud and fierce to the
+whitened figure standing so forlornly out in the fields. But alas, as
+his soft breezes whistled gently about the old woman, her snow-white
+hair fell to the ground, and then she, too, soon disappeared, leaving
+nothing but a few upright stems and a bunch of withered leaves. She was
+the dandelion, whose petals turn to fluffy hair when touched by the
+North Wind. This yellow maiden is said to be a symbol of the sun, and
+has been named Dandelion because it is claimed that its petals resemble
+a lion’s tooth.”
+
+The common little field flower seemed to have gained in interest after
+the legend, and was examined with greater curiosity, while the Scribe
+hurriedly wrote the legend on a stray page of her copy-pad to feature it
+in the “Pioneer.”
+
+Lillie Bell, who had gathered a number of wild forget-me-nots, told a
+pathetic German legend about that sweetheart flower, while Helen
+explained that the marigold, instead of being such a common plant, was
+in reality the bride of the sun. It was once a maiden named Caltha, who,
+in reward for her faithfulness to the sun, was finally lost in his
+golden rays, and on the spot where she used to stand and gaze at her
+fiery lover the marigold grew.
+
+Nathalie, who had been deeply interested in the legends, experienced
+somewhat of a shock when Mrs. Morrow suddenly said, “Now, Nathalie, are
+we not to hear a flower legend, or some kind of a story from you?”
+
+“Oh, I am a poor hand at story-telling,” the girl speedily answered.
+
+“Hear! hear! this is treason!” called Helen loudly, “for a Pioneer who
+has won fame as a Story Lady!”
+
+“Oh, that is different,” pleaded her friend in mild despair, “those were
+only children’s stories.”
+
+“To be able to tell stories to children, Nathalie, and to keep their
+attention,” spoke Mrs. Morrow, “shows ability, and if we have so gifted
+a Pioneer I think it is our due to hear from her.”
+
+“And then, Nathalie,” urged Grace, “every Pioneer has to know how to
+tell stories, and this is a good time to make a beginning.”
+
+“Well, I see I am doomed, notwithstanding my protests,” said the girl
+after a short pause. “I will try to tell one if you will let me put on
+my thinking-cap for a moment.” As permission was accorded to this
+request, Nathalie turned and glanced helplessly at the doctor, as if she
+might find inspiration in his merry eyes, Helen laughingly declared.
+
+Nathalie blushed as the doctor shook his head and said, “No, hike-mate,
+I am at your service in everything but a story, for I ran dry when I
+told mine. Then I know you have nerve and brains enough to do your own
+thinking.”
+
+“Oh, I know one!” the girl suddenly cried as her face lighted, and then
+closing her eyes for a moment, as if to invoke the aid of some unknown
+muse, she said, “I read it in a newspaper the other day. It is about a
+flower, but I will let you guess its name.”
+
+“It was in the spring,” she continued slowly, “and old Peboan sat alone
+in his ragged tepee. His hair fell about his time-worn face like
+glistening icicles as he shivered in his fur robes; oh, so cold, so weak
+and hungry, for he had had no food for days. As he bent over to blow
+upon the smoldering embers that glowed at his feet, he besought the
+Great Spirit to come to his aid.
+
+“As he thus prayed and lamented a handsome young girl stepped within the
+tent. Her eyes were as blue as the summer sky and were filled with a
+liquid light, while her golden hair floated gracefully with the wind.
+Her cheeks were like apple blossoms and her gown was made of sweet
+grasses and green leaves. In her arms she carried twigs of the
+pussy-willow. Going softly to the old man, she cried in a voice as sweet
+as the brook’s gentle flow, ‘Peboan, what can I do for thee?’
+
+“The old man raised his head as he heard the maiden’s sweet voice, and
+as he saw her in her spring glory he cried bitterly, ‘I am hungry and
+cold. I have lost my power over nature, for the streams have refused to
+stand still for me. My mantle disappears from the earth as rapidly as I
+cover it, and the flowers are peeping from their brown beds, although I
+have bidden them sleep.’
+
+“‘Peboan,’ replied the maiden, ‘I am Seguin, the summer manitou; the
+flowers are obeying me, for I have bidden them arise. The leaves are
+budding on the trees, the pussies are out in all their furry finery, for
+I, Seguin, now possess the earth. The snow and ice have disappeared, for
+they have obeyed my voice, and your power is gone. All nature pays me
+homage, for I am the Queen of the earth, the Goddess of spring!
+
+“’Peboan, you are the winter manitou, and the Great Spirit calls you!
+Now go!’ As Seguin said these words she gently waved her wand over the
+old man’s head as it sank between his shoulders.
+
+“The winter manitou made no reply, but drew his furs closer about his
+shivering form, and then, as he heard the song of the spring birds, and
+the rustling of the leaves in the sunshine, he sank to the ground.
+
+“As a ray of the warm sun filtered through the top of the tepee and fell
+upon the old man, who lay exhausted on the earth; Seguin again raised
+her wand, and the winter manitou disappeared. His furs had turned to
+dancing leaves; his tepee to a tall tree. Then Seguin stooped, and
+gathering a handful of the leaves from the tree she breathed on
+them—very softly—and then threw them on the earth. They immediately
+stood upright, each holding forth a tiny pink flower, gay with a
+delicate perfume.
+
+“‘Grow and blossom,’ cried the spring maiden softly, ‘and bloom a
+welcome to the hearts of those who are depressed by winter’s gales, for
+you are a token that Peboan, the winter manitou is gone. You are the
+first flower that comes in the spring.’ Now what is the name of it?”
+ended Nathalie abruptly.
+
+“Snowdrop!” called Helen quickly. Nathalie shook her head.
+
+“Violet!” timidly ventured some one.
+
+“Violet?” the Sport repeated scornfully. “Who ever heard of a pink
+violet? Nathalie said this flower was pink.”
+
+Mrs. Morrow broke the sudden silence that followed the Sport’s remark by
+saying softly, “I think it is the arbutus!”
+
+“That’s it!” cried Nathalie, and then to her bewilderment every one
+began to clap again. As the clapping continued, the girls meanwhile,
+watching her with sparkling eyes, Nathalie turned and whispered to the
+doctor, “Why, what are they clapping for?”
+
+But before he could reply the Sport shouted, “Hurrah for the Story
+Lady!”
+
+The cry was repeated again and again to Nathalie’s confusion. In a
+moment, however, her wits asserted themselves, and springing to her
+feet, with a low sweeping courtesy she cried, “Thank you, fellow
+Pioneers, I am glad you liked my first cheer-fire story!”
+
+The clapping now subsided, and after several had expressed their
+admiration by saying that the story was the “best ever,” Mrs. Morrow
+started a floral conundrum, which proved a thriller, the doctor claimed,
+as he sat with humorous eyes and watched the girls, who all sat up and
+took notice, as one after the other called out the name of a flower in
+answer to the questions propounded by their Director.
+
+When the questions had all been answered, it was discovered that the
+names of the star actors in this little floral drama, the color of their
+eyes, hair, and so on, as well as the musical instrument played by the
+lover, the words of his proposal, the wedding, and even the time and
+place of the honeymoon, had all been answered by the names of flowers.
+
+Lillie Bell, at Mrs. Morrow’s request, took her mandolin, and after
+thrumming it softly broke into a quaint low strain of melody, while
+Louise sang in her sweet little soprano voice, “All in a Garden Fair,”
+“Fortune My Foe,” and “Nymphs and Shepherds,” each number being one of a
+group of old English songs dating as far back as 1555. After receiving
+an encore, Louise favored them with “Polly Willis,” and “Golden Slumber
+Kiss Your Eyes,” two more popular ballads of the seventeenth century.
+
+These old-time songs were a surprise for Mrs. Morrow, who had often been
+heard to remark that it was a pity, as they were Pioneers, that they did
+not know some of the songs that used to be sung in those days, instead
+of ragtime songs. But ragtime was not altogether displaced, for in a few
+minutes the girls were singing “The Sweet Little Girl with the Quaint
+Squeegee,” “Dry yo’ Eyes,” and “My Little Dream Girl,” with a verve and
+gusto that made the woods resound to the ring of their girlish voices.
+
+By this time cramped limbs and the joyousness of life asserted
+themselves, and every one began to feel that they wanted to run, leap,
+and jump, so at the doctor’s suggestion they played the Scout game of
+“Stalking.” The doctor was the deer, not hiding, but standing and moving
+a little now and then as he liked, while the girls vied with one another
+in trying to touch him without being seen.
+
+The doctor did his part so well that he was duly tantalizing, the
+Pioneers declared, as they watched him with strained eyes, being unable
+to catch him napping. When the doctor called “Time,” the game ended by
+all the girls coming to a halt on the spot where they were standing when
+the call sounded, the girl nearest the deer winning the game.
+
+Prisoner’s Base was then started; the goals were marked off, the players
+divided into two sections, one stationed in each goal, and then the fun
+began. A girl would advance towards the opposite goal, and then run back
+into safety, while one of her mates came to her rescue by chasing her
+pursuer, who, in turn, was rescued by one of her own mates. The rushing
+about gave health, glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes attesting that
+muscles, limbs, and blood were being exercised to a good purpose. But
+after the doctor had again defeated them by never getting caught, the
+game was abandoned, the girls all vowing he was magic-limbed, for he was
+so quick and agile on his feet.
+
+After a short time spent in practicing bird calls, as it was nearing the
+time to return home the hikers gathered up their belongings, packed
+their knapsacks, and with staffs in hand started out on the homeward
+hike. They all declared that they were not a bit fatigued by the day’s
+activities, and jested merrily one with another, or happily sang
+snatches of songs as they wended their way back to town.
+
+By the time they had reached the cross-roads their spirits had subsided
+somewhat, all but the Sport’s, who teasingly whisked off Barbara’s hat
+and the next instant was whizzing down the road with it clutched in her
+hand.
+
+Barbara, notwithstanding her weighty nickname of the Encyclopedia, was
+agile, and lost no time in flying after her, urged to speed by the
+girls. Although inclined to poke fun sometimes at Barbara for her
+absent-mindedness and love of books, the girls were her firm friends.
+They loved her for her kindly heart and sincere efforts to help others.
+
+There was a shout of victory when it was seen that the Encyclopedia had
+captured her head-gear, and they were all clapping vociferously when an
+automobile rounded the bend in the road. The car turned out to be the
+doctor’s, whose chauffeur had promised to meet him near the cross-roads
+as he had to be in his office by five that afternoon.
+
+The doctor quickly assisted Mrs. Morrow into the car as she had decided
+to ride, and then stood and waited while the Pioneers—two of whom had
+been invited to join their Director—urged Kitty with her iron pot, and
+the Flower with her griddle to accept the invitation.
+
+The girls finally consented, and with many waves of the hands to the
+pedestrians, and a loud honk, honk, the car glided down the road and out
+of sight.
+
+Helen, Nathalie, and Edith, as they lived near one another, bade their
+mates good-by, and, as they had decided to take a short cut home, turned
+down a side path. As they strolled slowly along a road running by a low
+stone wall hedging a pasture, where a brook twisted like a silver cord
+in the undulating grass, Edith asked her companions if they did not want
+to walk to the Bluff, where they would have a fine view of the bay in
+the distance.
+
+“Oh, yes,” assented Helen, “it is a lovely view, Nathalie, and will only
+be a step out of the way if we go by the brook.”
+
+Nathalie, although feeling somewhat tired, was anxious to visit the
+Bluff, and a minute later the three girls climbed the stone barricade
+and were keeping pace with the brook’s windings as it leaped
+boisterously over a bed of stones, or crept lingeringly, with murmuring
+ripples, between grass-fringed banks.
+
+Presently they wandered into the shade of the trees, where, to
+Nathalie’s surprise, she found the old brook bed. Instead of being earth
+and stones, however, it was green and flower-starred, overshadowed by
+weeping willows and silver birches, their interlaced tops bending low as
+if seeking their old-time friend with its murmuring song.
+
+Lulled by the mossy dell and the fragrance of the woodland posies, the
+girls loitered, and did not realize that the afternoon was waning until
+they reached the Bluff. They raced to the top, where Nathalie’s joy at
+being the fleetest was forgotten, as with stilled eyes she gazed upon
+the fertile strip of valley below, its green specked by tiny white
+cottages and washed by the waters of the bay that shone in the glow of
+the setting sun like a sheet of brass.
+
+The air was becoming chilled by the mist that was hovering in the
+distance, and they turned and quickly made their way back to the road.
+Whereupon, Edith insisted that they take the summit road, leading over a
+small hill at one end of the town, which she declared would save time.
+
+Her companions assented, and in a short space they were pantingly
+trudging up the slope, and then, beginning to realize how tired they
+were, they sat down on a rock near the edge of the summit to rest. Lured
+by the changing colors of the afterglow they grew silent, awed, perhaps,
+by the calm that hushes all nature when the light of day is fading into
+the misty shadows of twilight.
+
+Nathalie had turned from the mountains of pink foam that floated up from
+the golden west, and was gazing down at the town, where little twinkling
+lights were beginning to peep here and there between the tree-tops, when
+Edith suddenly cried, “Oh, look at that smoke!” pointing to a street
+just below the slope where black columns of smoke were rushing upward.
+
+“Some one must be making a big bonfire,” answered Helen inertly, as her
+eyes followed the direction of Edith’s finger.
+
+“Why, Helen, that is not a bonfire,” was the Sport’s quick retort. “Oh,
+I saw a flame shoot up!” she added excitedly.
+
+“So did I!” exclaimed Nathalie, springing on her feet. “And oh, there’s
+another.”
+
+“Why, the church is on fire!” shouted Edith. “There—don’t you see—the
+flames are coming out of the back!”
+
+The girls with dazed eyes and beating hearts looked at the old Methodist
+church, set back from a tree mantled road, within a few feet of a white
+cottage, the parsonage, that nested like some white bird in the shelter
+of the waving boughs of the trees.
+
+“Oh, girls,” wailed the Sport, as she turned abruptly and gazed at them
+with an awe-struck countenance; “it is the church—and the new organ—they
+were to finish it to-day!” She wrung her hands frantically.
+
+Her companions made no reply, their eyes were glued on the columns of
+smoke that hurtled in dense masses up into the air.
+
+“I don’t believe any one knows about it!” exclaimed Helen. “Oh, what
+shall we do? It will be of no use to shout ‘Fire!’ we are too far away.”
+
+“Oh, I know what we can do,” cried Edith heatedly. “We can run to the
+fire-house and give the alarm!”
+
+But Helen had already started forward, and Nathalie followed blindly,
+not even knowing where the fire-house was. Edith, like the flash of a
+flame, shot ahead of the two girls, and the next instant was tearing
+like some wild thing down the hill. In a few moments she had turned up a
+road and was speeding in the direction of a red house with a funny
+little cupola that loomed up above the small cottages surrounding it.
+
+“Fire!” yelled the Sport, as she tore frantically along. Helen took up
+the cry, but Nathalie, although she tried to follow her example, only
+succeeded in making a hoarse sound that died away almost as soon as it
+left her whitened lips.
+
+As her breath began to come in gasps she was half tempted to stop and
+let the other two girls give the alarm. But something told her that
+would not be the act of a Pioneer, and she struggled on until she
+arrived in front of the old ramshackle building with the red cupola
+which looked as if it had once done service as a barn.
+
+“Oh, there is no one here!” panted Helen as she beat frenziedly with her
+two hands on the big wooden door. “It is barred inside.”
+
+But the Sport, like a whirlwind, had flown around to the rear of the
+building, and the next moment was crawling through a window she had
+found unfastened. It took but a moment’s time to speed across the floor,
+give the bar a pull, and fling wide the door.
+
+[Illustration: The rope had broken in her grasp.]
+
+“We must ring the bell,” gasped Helen, as she glanced up at an old rope
+that dangled in the center of the fire-house from a big bell which hung
+motionless in the small tower above their heads.
+
+The three girls sprang for the rope, but the Sport was the quickest and
+caught the dangling rope in her hands. Summoning all her strength she
+gave it a hard pull. The next instant, as the loud clang of the bell
+rang out, the girls heard a sudden imprecation, and looked hastily down
+to see the Sport with a rueful countenance sitting on the floor—the rope
+had broken in her grasp!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV—OVERCOMES
+
+
+The girls gazed in wide-eyed surprise at their prostrate companion, and
+then, as they saw that she was not hurt, their sense of humor broke
+bounds, and they burst into merry peals of laughter, for she did look so
+comical sitting there with that “Where—am—I?” sort of look on her face.
+
+But the Sport was too excited to mind bumps or laughter as she jumped up
+and peered above her head. “The rope has broken!” she exclaimed
+irritably. “Oh, if I could only get hold of that broken end up there,”
+her eyes leaped quickly around the barn, “I could ring the bell again.
+Oh, there’s a ladder!” With an alert spring she had grabbed it and then
+began to drag it under the tower.
+
+The girls by this time had recovered from their unwonted merriment, and,
+feeling somewhat ashamed of leaving the Sport to work unaided, rushed to
+her assistance. They soon had the ladder resting against a broad beam
+that ran across the barn directly under the tower where the broken piece
+of rope still swung.
+
+Up the ladder climbed Edith, high to the top, but alas, she was just a
+few inches short of touching the swaying rope, which she now perceived
+was fastened to a chain that hung from the bell.
+
+“Oh, what will you do?” cried Helen, as the two girls stretched their
+necks almost off their shoulders to see if there was not some way out of
+the difficulty.
+
+“I know what I will do,” exclaimed the Sport suddenly. “I will climb up
+on the beam, walk a few steps, and then I can reach it.”
+
+“You will fall!” exclaimed Nathalie in nervous fear.
+
+“Oh, no, she won’t,” called out Helen hastily. “You don’t know Edith;
+that’s an easy feat for her, for she’s a regular acrobat. But, Edith, be
+careful!” she finished, with sudden anxiety, as she saw the girl climb
+up on the beam and then lift herself upright.
+
+Nathalie, with her breath held, watched Edith for a moment, and then as
+she saw her reach out to catch the dangling rope, she closed her eyes,
+thrilled in every nerve with silent terror for fear she would miss her
+footing.
+
+But she didn’t, for when Nathalie opened her eyes just for a hurried
+peep, she saw Edith with the rope in her hand. The next instant she had
+bent to her task and a loud “Clang! Clang!” rang sharply out.
+
+“One, two, three!” a moment’s pause, then, “One, two, three!” Twice this
+was repeated as the girls stood waiting below with their eyes fixed on
+the ringer’s every movement; Helen, fearful that she would become
+reckless and reach too far, while Nathalie obeyed an impulse she could
+not define and just watched in nervous tension.
+
+Ah, she had dropped her arms and was looking down at the girls. “What
+are you standing there for, ninnies?” she emphasized with a stamp of her
+foot that sent a shiver of horror through Nathalie’s wildly beating
+heart. “Why don’t you go and get the engine out?”
+
+“Oh, so we can,” rejoined Helen quickly. “I never thought! Come, you
+help me!” catching Nathalie by the arm.
+
+Nathalie turned and followed Helen, who had swiftly run to the
+fire-engine, a newly painted affair, a box on wheels, standing in the
+rear of the fire-house. With an alert spring she was close at Helen’s
+heels, and in a moment more had grabbed one of the two ropes tied to the
+front axle. Helen, who stood with the other rope in her hand, now cried,
+“Quick, let’s run it out to the road!”
+
+It rolled easily, and the two girls were just about to wheel it through
+the open door, when a man in a red shirt, leather hat, and his trousers
+tucked into his rubber boots dashed hurriedly up to them.
+
+“Where’s the fire?” he panted. With heated face and eyes bulging
+excitement he seized the rope from Nathalie’s hand, and the next minute,
+with Helen’s help, had run the engine out into the road.
+
+“The Methodist church is on fire!” yelled the Sport from her high perch
+on the beam, but there was no need to say more, for several other men
+had arrived, all in red shirts and firemen’s helmets, while others were
+seen racing from all directions towards the fire-house. In a few
+moments’ time a crowd had collected, each one bent in lending a hand,
+and all shouting with full vocal power as if they thought—so it seemed
+to Nathalie—their shouts would put out the fire.
+
+In the midst of this clamorous din, another rubber-booted individual
+appeared, not only in fireman’s regalia, but with a big brass trumpet.
+On this he blew a mighty blast, and then with much gesticulation
+bellowed his orders to the men.
+
+A final order from the chief, as the man with the trumpet proved to be,
+and the six or eight men holding the ropes of the engine started at
+breakneck speed down the hill. They were followed by a crowd of shouting
+men, women, hooting boys, and crying children, each one frenzied with
+excitement and with the avowed purpose of being first at the fire.
+
+The girls, for by this time Edith had descended from her perilous perch,
+stood silent and watched the engine whiz down the slope leading to the
+town, the red-shirted firemen in front of it shouting angrily in their
+endeavors to stop the rear men from pushing it down on their heels too
+rapidly.
+
+But Edith, who was never still two minutes if there was anything going
+on, with a wild, “Hoopla, I’m going to see the fire!” started in the
+wake of the hooting mob, running at a speed that soon made her one of
+the rank and file that went plunging down the hill.
+
+Helen’s eyes followed the flying figure, and then, with a “Come on,
+don’t let the Sport outdo us!” she was racing after her. Nathalie,
+bewildered by this strange and novel experience that had leaped into her
+life, stood still, uncertain what to do. She felt a sudden abhorrence of
+mingling with the fire-crazed crowd that surged before her. Brought up
+to keep away from these spectacular affairs of the city, she felt she
+would be transgressing all laws of decorum if she followed her friends.
+But the impulse to do as the other Pioneers did spurred her on, and with
+a quick leap forward she cast all conventionalities to the wind, and
+started on a dead run to catch up with Helen.
+
+The girls were too quick for her and she arrived in front of the church
+only to make one more of a densely packed crowd of fire-seekers standing
+opposite the burning building, wild-eyed and weirdly pale from the
+reflection of the flaming tongues of red, which darted upward with a
+licking greediness that made the wooden building crack and snap under
+their devouring greed.
+
+Spying Edith a few feet away, she hastily pushed through the jam of
+people to her side, only to hear her scream frantically, “Look out,
+Nathalie!” But the warning came too late, for a shower of water had
+already struck her in the back with terrific force, almost bowling her
+over. Ugh! it was running down her back with such icy spray that she
+screamed aloud, and then shrank back as jeering laughter from those
+standing by greeted her mishap.
+
+But their merriment was short-lived, as the water deluge came again and
+Nathalie saw the contortions that shot from face to face of her
+neighbors as with shrill cries they tried to dodge to one side in their
+frantic endeavors to escape. In the midst of the confusion some one
+suddenly bellowed, “Run for your lives, the hose has burst!”
+
+There were more shouts of dismay from the crowd of struggling, fighting
+figures, and then they had scattered. Edith by this time had grabbed
+Nathalie by the hand and in a moment or so she was safe on a neighboring
+porch.
+
+“O dear, what will they do?” lamented Edith. “That hose is the only one
+in town!” For a few moments it looked as if not only the church but the
+parsonage and the adjacent buildings were to fall victims to the blazing
+flames that swept upward and outward with shooting jets between tall
+columns of black rolling smoke.
+
+“They are going to form a bucket brigade!” shouted Edith suddenly into
+Nathalie’s ear. The words had barely passed her lips when she dropped
+her companion’s cold fingers, and was racing with a crowd of men, women,
+and boys towards a pond a short distance away.
+
+Nathalie stood still and gazed with suppressed excitement at this new
+development of the fire-crazed people. It seemed to her as if every one
+in Westport must have owned a bucket from the number of people that
+sped—as if magic swept—towards the pond, where a long line of human
+beings, with a deftness and quickness that amazed her, were already
+passing buckets from one to the other and then on to the firemen who
+formed a line across the road in front of the church.
+
+Each fireman would grab a bucket, pass it on to his mate, who in turn
+passed it on to the next one, and so on, until its contents had been
+splashed on the seething flames. Then just as quickly it was shoved by
+way of another line back to the pond to be filled again and once more
+hurried on its journey of rescue.
+
+“Come, get busy!” some one suddenly yelled at this crisis. “They are
+forming another line at the pump!” Nathalie swung about to see Fred
+Tyson holding out to her an empty bucket. The unexpectedness of this new
+demand upon her overwrought nerves tempted her to scurry to parts
+unknown, as she backed away from Fred with the startled exclamation, “O
+dear, no!”
+
+Fred, realizing how she felt, looked down at her with a reassuring smile
+as he answered, “Come, you must help; you are a Pioneer—it will be a
+fine experience for you!” Nathalie, without a word, grabbed the bucket
+and in another second was running swiftly by the side of this new friend
+as he guided her to the pump.
+
+An hour later Nathalie appeared at the corner of the street leading to
+her home. Weary, bedraggled, sooted from head to foot, and with gleaming
+beads of perspiration running over her face, she was still jubilant. She
+had been to a real fire, and, what is more, had helped to put it out.
+For the buckets had done their work, and although the church stood a
+framework of glowing embers, the parsonage and other buildings had been
+saved.
+
+She was so glad when she saw she was nearing her home, that, as she
+informed Fred, who had accompanied her, she felt like dancing a jig on
+her head from sheer joy, although she was not only tired to the verge of
+distraction, but faint from hunger.
+
+“Oh, and there’s Mother! I guess she’s been almost worried to death,”
+she exclaimed as she spied her mother standing on the veranda anxiously
+peering down the path.
+
+“Well, I guess she has been almost worried to death!” exclaimed a voice,
+as a white-robed figure stepped out from the shadows of the trees on the
+lawn.
+
+It was Lucille. “If it hadn’t been for me, Nathalie Page,” she
+emphasized with upheld finger, “your mother would have been down to the
+fire herself. She was sure you were the first one burned to death. Why,
+you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Nathalie Page!” she averred
+indignantly.
+
+But there was no need to lecture Nathalie further, for her heart had
+been thumping violently in nervous dread all the way home, and she was
+already scurrying up the walk to the stoop. “Oh, Mother,” she panted,
+“did you think something dreadful had happened to me?”
+
+“Well, I was quite nervous about you for a time,” replied her mother
+rather cheerily for one who had been almost worried to death, as she put
+her arm around the tired girl. “Lucille obligingly started to look for
+you, and met Dr. Homer, who said you were all right, helping put the
+fire out as a bucket maiden. But, my dear, you are all wet, and hungry,
+too, I’ll warrant.”
+
+“You just believe I am,” cried Nathalie. “But, oh, Mother, I have had
+such an adventurous day! Do let me have something to eat, for I’m just
+about starved, but, O dear, where’s Fred Tyson; he came home with me?”
+
+Fred was all right, having the cosiest of chats with Lucille—whom all
+men adored from youth to old age—as they walked up the path to the
+veranda. Would he come in and have supper? Why, he guessed he would, for
+he hadn’t had a mouthful since noon.
+
+“By the Lord Harry, is that you, Blue Robin?” spoke a voice from the
+couch as Nathalie ushered Fred into the hall. “Gee, but you are as black
+as a colored ‘pusson,’” quoth Dick, as he rose from the couch and
+hobbled towards her.
+
+It was a most exciting supper, eagerly devoured by Fred and Nathalie, as
+between bites, with glowing eyes, each one told of her or his
+experience. Nathalie told of the ringing of the fire bell, the exploits
+of the Sport, and how she did duty at the pump.
+
+“Oh, Mother, it has just been a regular red-letter day!” she cried at
+length, “and I’m never again going to despise Edith Whiton for being
+sporty, for if it hadn’t been for her, I just believe the whole town
+would have burned down!”
+
+The second day after the fire was a Pioneer Rally day, a Camp Fund day
+it had been called, for it was at this meeting that the Pioneers were to
+decide upon the entertainments they proposed having in order to raise
+the money to pay the cost of two or three weeks at camp that summer. One
+or two affairs had been held during the winter and spring, so that a
+small nucleus had been banked, but if this was not increased the hearts
+of the Pioneers would be “wrung with woe,” as the Sport had put it.
+
+After the usual formalities of the Rally were over, Mrs. Morrow called
+the names of those who for some meritorious act or word were to receive
+badges of merit. To Nathalie’s astonishment her name was called, and at
+a shove from Helen the dazed girl went forward, and received three white
+stars, one for suggesting the search-party and sticking to her colors in
+the face of discouragement, another for telling stories to Rosy, and the
+last for planning and getting up the Story Club. She received the stars,
+Mrs. Morrow explained, as badges of merit were not given until a Pioneer
+had passed all tests and was a member of the first order.
+
+The Sport received two badges—being a first class Pioneer—one for
+winning a contest in wigwagging, and another for ringing the bell for
+the church fire. Helen was also the recipient of a badge for her
+planning and excellent supervision of the Flower hike, while the Scribe
+received one for her skill in editing the “Pioneer,” which had come to
+be a journal not only of news, but of information.
+
+“And now,” cried their Director, as she finished distributing the
+badges, “I am going to talk about the Camping Fund. As you all know, we
+must have one or two entertainments to raise money for that purpose.
+Several ideas have been submitted in compliance with my request for
+suggestions from the girls, but unfortunately, while a number are very
+good, only a few will suit our purpose. There is one, however, that is
+both patriotic and colonial, but it would require a large lawn and I am
+at a loss what to say about it. I think you all understand that the
+Pioneer who suggests the best entertainment, although her name is to be
+kept secret until the end of the season, is to receive some kind of a
+reward.”
+
+“Could we not ask Mrs. Van Vorst again if she would let us have her
+grounds?” ventured Louise Gaynor somewhat timidly, realizing that the
+lady in question was not in favor with the Pioneers because of her
+rather eccentric ways.
+
+“Well, I should say not!” broke in Edith. “She has refused two or three
+times already, and if there is an insane person there—” She stopped
+abruptly, rebuked by a warning look from Mrs. Morrow.
+
+“No, I do not think I would bother Mrs. Van Vorst again,” said that
+lady. “But suppose I name a committee to see if they cannot scour the
+town and find a lawn.” Helen, Louise, and Nathalie were then named to
+perform this duty.
+
+During this discussion Nathalie’s eyes had sparkled with suppressed
+emotion as she remembered her visit to the gray house, accompanied by an
+overwhelming desire to tell what she knew. Oh, wouldn’t it create a
+sensation? But she had given her word, and like the Spartan boy,
+although desire was gnawing at her vitals, she kept still and smiled in
+evident ease.
+
+“There is another entertainment that has been suggested,” continued the
+Director. “It is an excellent idea for it will put you all to work
+thinking. It is to be called Pioneer Stunts, which means that each one
+of you is to be responsible for a recitation, a tableau, a song, a
+playlet, in fact anything that is colonial or pioneer in character. Each
+Pioneer is to work out her own idea, and all ideas are to be kept secret
+until after the performance, when a vote will be taken as to the best
+stunt—that is, the best idea, and the stunt acted the best—and then the
+name of the author will be revealed.”
+
+The girls received this notice with applause, and each one immediately
+began to suggest one thing and another until warned by Mrs. Morrow again
+that the ideas were to remain secrets. After some further discussion it
+was decided to have the Pioneer Stunts the first part of June, at Seton
+Hall, Mrs. Morrow suggesting that the girls make it a Rose party and
+serve ice-cream and strawberries on the lawn.
+
+Nathalie came home very enthusiastic about the Pioneer Stunt
+entertainment, and immediately set to work to jot down the idea that had
+come to her at the Rally. In the midst of writing her mother joined her
+and sat down to sew.
+
+“Oh, Mother,” exclaimed the girl happily, “I’m awfully busy.”
+
+“And working very hard, I see,” interposed Mrs. Page, smiling at her
+daughter’s animated face, as she patted the sunburned arm resting on the
+table.
+
+“Yes,” replied Nathalie, “I have an awful lot to do.” And then she told
+about the entertainment, and what she was planning. With a long drawn
+sigh she cried, “Oh, Mumsie, I’m learning a terrible lot of useful
+things.”
+
+“I see you are,” assented her mother, “and I am proud of you.”
+
+“Oh, but they have not been a bit easy!” The girl’s face grew grave.
+“Sometimes I have thought I would have to give right up, but I haven’t,”
+she added with an emphatic little nod. And then for the first time she
+told her mother about the motto, “I Can,” and what a great help she had
+found it.
+
+“Yes, Daughter, every little thing Miss I Can has helped you to do has
+been an overcome.”
+
+“Indeed they have been overcomes,” assented the girl with another
+emphatic shake of her brown head. “Washing dishes—oh, how I used to hate
+that job—now I don’t mind it so much; cooking, telling stories to Rosy,
+going to the fire, yes, and even getting up the Story Club. I have just
+braced up, and then the first thing I knew, presto! the job was done!
+
+“Yes, they have all been overcomes,” repeated Nathalie, “but it will be
+all right if I only manage to earn—” She paused abruptly, suddenly
+remembering, as she saw the lines of worry about her mother’s mouth,
+that she and Dick had pledged themselves not to talk about his
+operation, or to hint that they were trying to save in any way for it.
+They had both been troubled when they realized that when an anxiety was
+mentioned her mother’s face lost its happy look and she became sad and
+worried.
+
+“Yes,” added Mrs. Page, not noticing Nathalie’s sudden pause, “I have
+been watching you for some time grappling with these try-outs that have
+come into your life, but I have said nothing, for I wanted to see if you
+or they would conquer.”
+
+“Oh, you dear Mumsie,” cried Nathalie joyously, jumping up and giving
+her mother a good hug. “Do you know, I felt dreadfully the other day to
+think you had not said one word of praise; not that I want to be praised
+all the time, but still a word now and then comes in handy, you know;
+makes one feel so goody-goody.” This was said laughingly.
+
+Nathalie could not help feeling encouraged after this comforting talk
+with her mother; she felt as if she had conquered the whole world, that
+there was nothing she could not overcome. But the next morning such a
+big overcome, or try-out, as her mother had expressed it, appeared, that
+it sufficed to lessen the glory of her former victories.
+
+Lucille was ill; she had retired to her bed with a fit of indigestion,
+and the planning for the Pioneer Stunt, the survey work that Nathalie
+and her committee were to do, all had to be laid aside as she was
+instituted head nurse in her cousin’s room.
+
+“Oh, Mother,” she moaned dolefully, as she kissed her mother good-night,
+“Lucille has been dreadfully cross; nothing pleases her. It has been,
+‘Oh, Nathalie, don’t let that wind blow on me! Didn’t I tell you I don’t
+like rice pudding! Oh, you’re the slowest poke!’ Oh, Mother—” there was
+a lump in the girl’s throat, “if I hadn’t felt so humiliated at being
+spoken to in that way, I just believe I would have given her a good
+shaking.”
+
+“Never mind, Nathalie,” replied Mrs. Page consolingly, “just remember it
+is another overcome and have patience. She will soon be herself again,
+you know she has been terribly upset, as she expected to spend a few
+days with her friend and she is disappointed.”
+
+“Of course, no one ever had a disappointment but Lucille!” exclaimed
+Nathalie irritably.
+
+“Nathalie!” reproved her mother, with a quick glance at the girl.
+
+“Oh, well, it’s so, Mumsie,” replied her daughter with the tears very
+near the surface, and then with another kiss she hurried to her bed.
+
+“Have you got your Stunt written?” inquired Helen a few days later from
+her window as Nathalie sat writing on the veranda. She held her hand up
+and flourished a couple of typewritten pages as she spoke.
+
+“No, I’m discouraged,” Nathalie lowered her voice. “Lucille has been
+ill, and I have been kept awfully busy waiting on her. Then when I
+finally managed to get time to go to the library to get some dates, I
+lost the whole thing.”
+
+“What—the idea?”
+
+“Yes, the idea, and everything. I had been in the library some time and
+had just finished. I did not discover my loss until I was almost home,
+so I hurried back, but the librarian knew nothing about it. I hunted
+until I was distracted, and then I came home; so that is the end of
+that. This morning I am trying to think up another one.”
+
+“Couldn’t you remember it?” questioned Helen concernedly.
+
+“No, I tried to, but I’ve been so busy it has just flown away.”
+
+“Well, you are a lucky girl to have brains enough to have more than one
+idea in your head to write up. You should have seen the Sport; she was
+over here last night, the picture of unadulterated woe, for she could
+not even scare up one idea. She hung around trying to get some
+suggestions from me, but I just told her she would have to do her own
+work. She’s the best ever when it comes to anything in the way of
+sports, or any activity, but she will not use her brains. She has a few,
+at least.”
+
+“If she would spend more time reading instead of—” Nathalie stopped with
+slightly reddened face, for here was another overcome to win. She was
+thoughtless at times, never having been disciplined, and so, without
+meaning any harm, she was apt to express her opinion too freely about
+the people around her. “Oh, well,” she ended lamely, “she is a good
+Sport; if it hadn’t been for her the other night the town would have
+burned down.”
+
+“That’s true,” laughed Helen good-naturedly, and then with a wave of her
+typewritten pages she disappeared from the window, as Nathalie turned
+and with a dimpling face greeted Dr. Morrow, who had just driven up to
+visit Lucille.
+
+“You haven’t come to see me this time,” she suggested archly.
+
+“Oh, it’s half and half this time, Blue Robin, for I have come to
+ask—oh, it is a message from the princess.” The doctor lowered his voice
+cautiously as he noted Dick at the other end of the veranda. “She wants
+to know if you will make her another visit.”
+
+Nathalie’s bright face sobered and an embarrassed silence followed as
+she vainly tried to think of something that would excuse her from the
+unpleasantness of having her eyes blindfolded again.
+
+“Why, yes, I would like to go, only you see I am very busy just now,
+helping Mother and doing Pioneer work, and—”
+
+“Yes, I see,” interrupted the doctor somewhat coldly, with a keen glance
+at Nathalie’s downcast face. “Then I will tell her you are busy.”
+
+“Oh, don’t say that,” cried the girl in desperation. “It
+sounds—well—tell her I will come some time later.” She felt the blood
+rush to her face.
+
+“Oh, I’ll manage to make her understand somehow,” answered the doctor.
+Nathalie sensed a note of disappointment in his voice, and then without
+further parley he hurried up the stairs to Lucille.
+
+“Mother,” questioned Nathalie a few minutes later, for she had confided
+to her all about the adventure at the gray house, “do you think I ought
+to visit the princess again?” She then told what had transpired between
+her and the doctor.
+
+“You must be your own judge, Nathalie,” replied Mrs. Page slowly. “I
+agree with you that it is a foolish thing for the child’s mother to ask
+you to visit her in this way, but perhaps she may be induced to change
+her mind. But, after all, Nathalie, it is a small thing to
+overcome”—Mrs. Page emphasized the word—“when you can give the little
+girl so much pleasure by going.”
+
+“O dear!” thought Nathalie, as she stood waiting for the doctor to come
+down-stairs a moment or so later, “it does seem that since I have become
+a Pioneer I am just overcoming things all the time. Funny, but these
+things never troubled me before.” “Oh, Doctor,” she exclaimed eagerly,
+as that gentleman’s genial face appeared in the doorway, “I have changed
+my mind, and if you like I will go with you to see the princess.”
+
+An hour later Nathalie was greeted with a cry of delight from her new
+friend, who clapped her hands and called, “Oh, Mother, she has come!”
+Nathalie, imprisoned behind the muffler, rejoiced at heart to think she
+had won another overcome.
+
+“How do you do?” spoke Mrs. Van Vorst’s low voice, and then the girl’s
+hand was taken in a cordial clasp. “It is so good of you to come; oh, if
+you could only realize the joy you have brought into my child’s life,
+and mine, too!” she added quickly.
+
+“I am very glad,” replied Nathalie simply, as Mrs. Van Vorst led her to
+a seat by the couch.
+
+“Here, sit by me—no, not on that chair,” commanded her Royal Highness.
+Nathalie felt a tug at her skirt, she was jerked suddenly down, and then
+two arms were thrown around her neck. A hand touched her face, softly at
+first, and then with a loud, “There, you are not going to sit with that
+horrid thing on your face again, I just hate it!” there came a sudden
+wrench, something gave way, the blinders were on the floor, and Nathalie
+was looking at the face of the princess with free, untrammeled eyes!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV—A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES
+
+
+Nathalie gave a gasp of relief. Oh, it was good to be rid of that
+horrible black handkerchief! Then her blinders faded into the past as
+she became aware of the eyes that were gazing into hers, blue ones with
+violet shadows, fringed by long black lashes!
+
+The eyes were set in the face of a girl about fourteen, that had,
+notwithstanding the pain-tired mouth with its lines of petulance, a
+winsome sweetness about it which partly atoned for a jagged crimson scar
+running across one end of the forehead, partly hidden by short, curly
+hair which was boyishly parted on one side.
+
+But the blue eyes were gleeful just at this moment, as if their owner
+was proud of her deftness in slipping off the handkerchief. She clapped
+her hands and cried, “Oh, aren’t you glad to get rid of that horrid
+black thing?”
+
+Raising herself on her elbow she drew Nathalie’s face down to hers and
+whispered, “Don’t say a word to Mother, but it was all arranged—the
+doctor and I managed it—let Mother think it was an accident.” Before
+Nathalie could remonstrate the princess called out with a merry trill in
+her voice, “Oh, Mother! come quick, Miss Page’s blinders have fallen
+off!”
+
+Nathalie flushed in embarrassed silence as she heard Mrs. Van Vorst’s
+step hurrying to the couch. O dear, what should she do? It certainly was
+awkward to have to deceive her. Oh, if the doctor would—but as she
+turned around to face the lady in question she saw that the doctor was
+not there.
+
+“The doctor has gone, he had an important call to make,” spoke Mrs. Van
+Vorst hurriedly, as she came towards the girls and saw Nathalie’s look
+of distress. “But never mind, Miss Page, it is all right,” she cried
+reassuringly. “It was a shame to keep you muffled up like that—just for
+a whim—but if you could understand!” She looked down at Nathalie
+apologetically.
+
+“I should say it was a whim,” broke in the princess, “and it just serves
+you right, too, for making her do it. Now Miss Page will go away and
+tell every one what a horrible-looking thing I am, and it will be all
+your fault because you are so afraid any one will see me, just as if I
+was a monster of some sort! Oh, Nathalie—can’t I call you Nathalie?—the
+doctor told me your name, and then you know you are not so much older
+than I am.”
+
+“I’m sixteen,” answered Nathalie readily, glad to turn the conversation
+from the blinders, for she saw that Mrs. Van Vorst was greatly
+perturbed.
+
+“Oh, Nita, don’t talk that way to Mother,” cried Mrs. Van Vorst in a
+pained voice. “You know, dear, I only did what I thought was right, and
+it was to save you, people talk so!”
+
+“I don’t care if they do,” broke in Nita angrily. “I have as much right
+in this world as they have, even if I am ugly-looking with this scar and
+hump, they needn’t look at me!”
+
+Nathalie started, for as the girl spoke she deliberately threw off a
+soft white shawl that had been thrown about her shoulders. With a sudden
+feeling of deep pity Nathalie recognized that the princess was a
+hump-back!
+
+“Oh, you won’t hate me now, will you?” pleaded Nita suddenly, as she saw
+Nathalie’s start of surprise, “just because I’m humped like a camel.”
+She caught the girl’s hand in hers and clung to it with piteous appeal
+in her blue eyes.
+
+“Oh, no,” returned shocked Nathalie. “Why, I think you are lovely, even
+if you are—” But the word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden
+impulse, stooped forward and kissed the red lips.
+
+Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own boldness, two arms
+were flung around her neck and Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she
+thought she would smother. “Oh, I just love you!” said Nita’s stifled
+voice from her shoulder, “and I’m going to keep you with me all the
+time. Oh, Mother,” she wailed beseechingly, lifting her head, but still
+keeping Nathalie a prisoner, “won’t you buy her?”
+
+“Buy her!” repeated her mother, who during this affectionate outburst
+had stood silently by, a pleased smile struggling with an expression of
+dismay at the girl’s rudeness. “Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be
+bought and sold.”
+
+“Well, I wish she was then,” said the child, for she was but that,
+dropping her arms from Nathalie’s neck and lying back with sudden
+exhaustion.
+
+“Oh, she is going to faint,” cried dismayed Nathalie, while the mother
+rushed to the dresser for the smelling salts. But when she attempted to
+hold the bottle to Nita’s nose, she pushed her mother’s hand away
+crying, “Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room; I want
+Nathalie to myself!”
+
+And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray, who looked at her
+neighbors with a cold, formal stare of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went
+softly out of the room and closed the door after her in obedience to her
+daughter’s sharp cry, “Do you hear? Shut the door!”
+
+Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she could not sit there
+another minute and hear the girl talk like that to her mother. “Oh,
+don’t speak to your mother like that, she is so good to you!” the girl’s
+voice trembled.
+
+“How do you know she is good?” retorted Nita, after a short pause of
+surprise at this merited rebuke.
+
+“Why—why—because her face shows it,” stammered Nathalie, “and then, why
+she is your mother, and if I should talk to my mother like that, why—I
+should expect her to die then and there.”
+
+“Why?” persisted the voice.
+
+“Because it would hurt her so,—” Nathalie labored, she hated to
+preach—“to think I could be so disrespectful to her, and ill-bred.”
+
+“Well, your mother isn’t my mother; your mother didn’t shut you up in a
+dark room so that you tried to get away.”
+
+“Nita!” came in a pain-stricken voice, “don’t talk that way!”
+
+Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in the doorway, her face
+drawn and lined. “I was coming in to ask—oh, Miss Page, will you come in
+here a moment? I should like to speak to you.”
+
+Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with pity for this poor
+mother who was only too surely paying the penalty of neglect and anger.
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she cried hastily, “do not mind your daughter, she
+doesn’t mean to hurt you, she—I think she is just spoiled, you know.”
+
+By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst into the adjoining
+room, a sun-parlor, whose glass windows looked down upon a terraced
+garden, green with trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers,
+surrounded by low rolling hillocks or mounds.
+
+Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her displeasure in
+shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother, with set, rigid lips, closed the
+door softly, and then turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly,
+between deep-drawn breaths.
+
+“Oh, I have been foolish—I am afraid—in letting you come to see Nita,
+but oh, it is so hard for her, shut up in this house, with only me and
+the servants. So when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded
+so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But oh, Miss Page, do not,
+I beg of you, repeat what you have seen or heard, don’t mind what Nita
+says about me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she
+says.” The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst’s face.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” exclaimed Nathalie, tears misting in her eyes in
+sympathy with the lady’s grief, “I know how you feel, but it is all
+right. I think you are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of
+course, I know that your daughter does not mean what she says, she’s
+just spoiled.” A sudden thought came to the girl. “Don’t you think if
+you were to let her see people—that is girls of her own age—that she
+would be better? Oh, I am sure she would,” broke from the girl
+impetuously, “and it would make her so happy!”
+
+“Do you really think so?” inquired Mrs. Van Vorst with a note of hope in
+her voice. “Would it not hurt her when people said rude things about
+her?”
+
+“But no one would say rude things about her,” persisted Nathalie
+determinedly. “Every one would love her—she’s a dear, so
+sweet-looking—and then she would soon get over her spoiled ways; she
+would learn by seeing that other girls act differently.” Nathalie felt
+that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem such a shame!
+
+“I don’t know about that,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst, her face hardening
+again to the same impenetrable mask that had puzzled Nathalie the first
+time she met her. “Well, we will not discuss it now—we’ll see how things
+turn out—only, Miss Page,” she grew stiff and formal, although a note in
+her voice betrayed that she was battling with her emotion, “I should
+like to ask you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell—how
+foolish I was—” she broke off suddenly, and then she added, “of course,
+you have a right to tell; but let me explain that what Nita says is not
+true, she likes to tease me into getting her way. Sit down—oh—she has
+fallen asleep.” Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door softly and then closed
+it. “She always does when she cries that way.”
+
+“Yes, I have been foolish,” she reiterated, “but I am not a criminal,
+and it is not altogether pride, because I have a deformed child, that
+makes me keep her secluded. It is because I want to save her, I would
+give my life for her happiness, but I can’t—” there was a hopeless wail
+to her voice. “That is my punishment!” And then, as if reminded of what
+she wanted to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, “It is true that
+I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her—she has always had those
+temper spells—I never knew what to do with her. Some one told me I was
+too easy with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped crying
+I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried to get out, she said
+some one was chasing her, and climbed out on the shed and fell off the
+roof! She broke—her back!” Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face in her hands,
+but although no sounds came, Nathalie could see the convulsive shivers
+that shook her frame.
+
+The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was awful! Oh, but if she
+didn’t say something she would be boo-hooing herself in a minute. “But
+that was not your fault,” she cried with sudden inspiration. “It was
+right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, I should consider it
+just an accident that you could not help.”
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl with wide,
+appealing eyes. “Oh, do you think that? If I could be led to believe I
+was not to blame! For years I have suffered the tortures of hell, doing
+penance.”
+
+“Yes, and making yourself and your daughter miserable!” Nathalie spoke
+boldly, she couldn’t help it, the words came of themselves as it seemed
+to her. “But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps I
+should not speak this way to you, for I am just a girl, but I feel so
+sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem such a shame to shut her off from
+all pleasure just because an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs.
+Morrow says we should regard trouble like clouds that we can’t blow away
+unless we fill the atmosphere with sunshine.” Nathalie came to a sudden
+stop, afraid she had gone beyond her depth. But in a moment she added,
+“Oh, if you would just think of it as an accident! Try to make Nita
+happy, and then you will be happy, and forget all about it!”
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst’s eyes grew moist as she cried impulsively, “Oh, you are
+a dear girl to talk to me this way. I shall always remember it, always.
+Yes, you are right, I have been miserable and have been making my poor
+child so. Oh, I have been wrong!”
+
+Before Nathalie could answer, Nita’s voice was heard shrilly crying,
+“Mother, I want Nathalie!”
+
+“I am coming,” cried the girl, hurrying into the room and up to the
+couch. “Did you have a nice little nap?” she asked cheerily, as she
+patted the girl’s hand that lay inertly on the coverlid.
+
+“Oh, I just dropped off, I always get so tired when I cry.”
+
+“But why do you cry then?” questioned practical Nathalie.
+
+“Why—oh, I cried because Mamma took you away from me, and now you will
+be going soon, and I won’t have had time to talk to you at all.”
+
+“Oh, yes you will,” replied her companion, glancing at the clock. “It is
+only eleven, I sha’n’t go for another hour, so start right in and talk.”
+
+“But I don’t want to talk,” came the contrary answer. “I want to hear
+you talk. Please tell me about the Girl Pioneers. Did you go on the
+wild-flower hike?”
+
+“Oh, yes!” was the answer; and then Nathalie’s tongue flew as she told
+about the hike, the different things they did, how she had learned to
+blaze a trail, what a delightful companion Dr. Homer had proved, how she
+lighted the fire with only one match, about the Tike’s escapade, and the
+flower legends.
+
+“Oh, but the fire, I must tell you about the fire and the bucket
+brigade!” she cried, and then followed that exciting story with all its
+climaxes, and what fun it had proved, although, as the girl confessed,
+she had been tempted to run away several times.
+
+“I just wish I could have seen it all!” exclaimed Nita regretfully, as
+Nathalie paused for a rest. “I should have liked to go on that flower
+hike, and the flower legends, can’t you tell them to me? I just love
+flowers!”
+
+“Why yes, perhaps I can,” nodded the Story Lady. And then in a moment
+she was animatedly telling about the Forget-me-not lover, the Dandelion
+legend, and then last of all about the spring goddess who brought the
+arbutus.
+
+“What are you going to do next?” inquired her listener as Nathalie’s
+flower stories ended.
+
+“We are all busy now getting up entertainments; that is, we are thinking
+up ideas for the Pioneer Stunts. You know, we are anxious to make money
+for our Camp Fund, and—”
+
+“Camp Fund! what is that?” inquired the girl interestedly.
+
+“Why, the Pioneers, that is the Bluebirds, the Bob Whites, and the
+Orioles, are going camping this summer, probably in August, or as soon
+as we can raise the money. There are sixteen Pioneers going. Oh, I am
+sure we shall have a dandy time! We are to sleep in tents, but there
+will be a house or something for the dining room and kitchen, that is,
+if we can get them.”
+
+“Where are you going to get the tents to sleep in?”
+
+“Helen and I are to make our own tent, Fred Tyson is going to help us.
+It will take an awfully long time, we are to begin next week. The other
+tents, well, some of the girls have their own and then we shall borrow
+one or two. Of course, you know, each girl will have to pay her expenses
+to camp and back, but all the other expenses are expected to come out of
+the Fund, so you see we shall have a lot of work to do. We are to charge
+admission to the Pioneer Stunts.” And then Nathalie told of the novel
+way they were to get ideas, and how each girl was to keep her idea a
+secret until after the vote had been taken as to the best Stunt the
+night of the performance.
+
+“Have you got your idea yet?” inquired Nita eagerly. “Oh, I just bet
+your idea will be the best one of all!”
+
+“Oh, no,” answered Nathalie modestly, “far from it! I am awfully worried
+for fear it will be a terrible failure.” And then she told how she had
+lost her idea and was writing up another one.
+
+“Well, after you have the Stunts, what are you going to have?” demanded
+Nita eagerly.
+
+“We want to have a flag drill, that is, if we can get the ground for it,
+as we want to have it in the open. Oh, it will be the loveliest thing!
+The girls are to be Daughters of Liberty and carry banners, the little
+flags used by the different States and soldiers before and during the
+revolution, before we had the Stars and Stripes. Oh, did I tell you that
+all of our entertainments have to be either colonial or patriotic, that
+is, something that happened in or belonged to the early days of the
+nation, when all the people were pioneers, or the children of pioneers?”
+
+“When are you going to have the flag drill? Oh, how I should like to see
+it!”
+
+“I have rattled on so fast I forgot to say that—why—we are not sure
+about that, for, you see, we have got to get a lawn, or grounds that
+would be suitable.” Her face reddened, for she suddenly remembered that
+it was Mrs. Van Vorst’s lawn that the girls had wanted, and that she had
+refused to let them have it.
+
+“You see,” she explained awkwardly, “we want a place where the people
+can see us, and then we want to have booths decorated with our
+colors—they are Red, White, and Blue, you know—so we can sell ice-cream.
+Each table is to be named after one of the thirteen States; but there, I
+don’t believe we can have it.”
+
+“Mamma, come here quick,” called Nita imperiously, sitting up and
+peering into the sun parlor where her mother was seated sewing, “I want
+you to hear about the Flag Drill, and oh, Mother, won’t you let me see
+it? Oh, please, Mother, I can go all muffled up, no one will see me,”
+pleaded the girlish voice pathetically.
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst bent over and softly stroked the golden head as she
+cried, “Now dear, don’t get excited! Mother will do all she can for
+you.”
+
+“You tell _her_ about it!” broke from Nita hurriedly, as she pulled at
+Nathalie’s gown. Then falling back on the couch she exclaimed with
+determination, “But I’m going to see it, Mother, yes I am!”
+
+Somewhat hesitatingly Nathalie began, but in a moment, perceiving that
+her listener was much interested, she launched forth and told about the
+Flag Drill in all its details.
+
+“And you are going to use the money you make for your Camping Fund?”
+inquired Nita’s mother as Nathalie finished.
+
+Nathalie nodded, “That is, if we can get the right place to hold it—oh—”
+she flushed again and then grew suddenly silent.
+
+“Did not one of the Pioneers ask me if I would let them have my lawn in
+the rear of the house?”
+
+Before embarrassed Nathalie could answer, Nita interposed excitedly,
+“Our lawn? Oh, let them have it, Mamma, let them have it, and then I can
+see it from the window, and no one will see me, oh, say yes, Mamma!”
+
+Nathalie’s eyes looked dismay as she heard Nita’s wailing request. Of
+course Mrs. Van Vorst would refuse, but suppose she should think that
+she had urged Nita to ask her?
+
+“Why, I suppose they could,” answered Mrs. Van Vorst slowly. “Then, as
+you say, you could see it from the window, Nita; yes the Pioneers can
+have it!”
+
+“Oh, do you really mean it?” exclaimed Nathalie, almost as excited as
+Nita. “The girls will be just crazy with joy—and—oh, isn’t it funny? I
+was one of a committee of three to find a place, and—”
+
+“Well, you will not have to look any further,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst.
+“If my lawn suits, take it, child. I am sure I am only too glad to do
+anything for the brave girl who has been so kind to my Nita as to come
+here and make her happy.”
+
+“That is lovely of you,” rejoined the Pioneer, her eyes glowing, “and
+can we have it this month, the fourteenth? That is Flag Day, you know,
+and we wanted to have it then.”
+
+“Have it whenever you like, my dear. I will tell Peter to have the grass
+mowed, and if he can help you in any way in arranging the tables or
+anything, I shall be delighted to let you have his services.”
+
+“Oh, that will be the delightfulest thing!” The girl’s face radiated
+sunshine. “It seems just too lovely to be true!”
+
+But the surprise Nathalie held in store for the Pioneers was almost
+forgotten in the surprise that awaited her when after saying good-by to
+Nita, Mrs. Van Vorst met her at the foot of the staircase and asked if
+she would not come into the reception-room a minute.
+
+“I wanted to speak to you on a little matter of business,” the lady
+explained somewhat hesitatingly. Nathalie, wondering what terrible thing
+she had done or said, followed her silently into the room, where she
+again spied her Chinese friend, the mandarin, grinning at her from the
+cabinet.
+
+“I have been thinking it over, Miss Page—”
+
+“O dear,” thought poor Nathalie, “she is going to change her mind about
+the drill!”
+
+“And I wanted to know—of course this is a business proposition—” she
+paused. “You have given so much pleasure to Nita, I thought perhaps you
+might be willing to come regularly every day, say for a couple of
+hours.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried relieved Nathalie, “that would be just fine!
+I should be only too glad, but you know, I have things to do for Mother,
+we haven’t any maid at present.”
+
+“But would it not pay you to give up these things, or let some one else
+do them? It would only be two hours in the morning,” there was a
+persuasive note in her voice, “and of course I would pay you enough to
+make it worth your while, and oh, I would give anything to bring joy
+into—”
+
+She stopped, for there was something in the girl’s wide opened eyes that
+made her hesitate.
+
+“Oh, I would not like to take money just for talking to Nita—that would
+hardly be fair—” Nathalie floundered desperately, for something brought
+Dick and his operation to her mind, and she did want so badly to earn
+money. She caught her breath sharply, opened her mouth, and then said,
+“Why, I don’t know, I will see what Mother says and let you know.”
+
+“That will be just the thing,” was the reply. “You can drop me a note as
+soon as you decide, for Nita will be anxious, and then we will want to
+fix the days and times. If you can make up your mind to do this for me,
+Miss Page, I shall feel so indebted to you!”
+
+As Nathalie flew post-haste towards home she heard the chug of an
+automobile and looked up in time to see Dr. Morrow sweep past in his
+car. But he, too, had eyes, and a moment later had backed his car and
+was asking Nathalie if she would like a ride home. The girl was only too
+pleased to accept, as she was fairly brimming over with impatience to
+tell some one her two surprises. They had not gone far before the story
+was out, and the doctor had heard everything.
+
+“Well now, I call that luck,” declared the doctor, “and of course you
+said you would accept Mrs. Van Vorst’s offer?”
+
+“Why, no,” answered the girl hesitatingly, “I should love to do it, but
+I don’t know that I ought to take money for it.”
+
+“And why not?” queried Dr. Morrow with some surprise. “Isn’t money as
+much to you as to other people?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” laughed honest Nathalie; “of course I would like the money, I
+am just dying to earn money for Dick.” The girl stopped with frightened
+eyes; oh, what was she going to tell? “But then it doesn’t seem exactly
+right to take money just for talking, and I don’t know how Mother would
+feel about it, she might feel badly.” Nathalie choked, and her eyes
+filled with tears as she remembered how hard it was for her mother to
+think of even Dick earning money when he was so helpless.
+
+“You haven’t got to if you don’t want to, little Blue Robin,” declared
+her friend, who perhaps suspected how things were. “But I tell you what,
+friend Nathalie—” emphatically—“if I had a nice little voice like a
+certain Robin I know, with big brown eyes, and knew how to use those big
+eyes and that sweet little tru-al-lee of a voice by telling people
+stories, or talking to them—it’s all the same—well, I’d waste no time in
+accepting that offer. And then, too, see what pleasure it would bring
+Nita and her mother, too, for that matter. Of course, I’m a man and look
+at things from a commercial point of view; ah, here we are!” And then
+with a cheery farewell the doctor helped the girl out of the car and
+Nathalie walked slowly up the path.
+
+To Nathalie’s surprise, her mother thought as the doctor did about the
+matter. She was not hurt at all, but overjoyed to think that Nathalie
+was clever enough to earn money that way.
+
+“Why, Nathalie,” she mused, pleasantly, “you can do lots of things with
+the money you earn. It probably won’t be much, but it will give you
+pin-money, and a few necessities. Perhaps it will pay your way to camp!”
+
+“Now, Mumsie,” laughed the girl with a trill of glee in her voice,
+“remember about counting your chicks before they’re hatched!”
+
+She turned and ran swiftly up-stairs, and after imparting her good news
+to Dick, she sat down and penned her note to Mrs. Van Vorst, all her
+doubts and fears at rest. And she knew what she would do with the money,
+it came like a flash into her mind as she looked up and saw Dick
+plodding through an official-looking document.
+
+After the note was mailed, there were just a few minutes left to run
+over and tell Mrs. Morrow what had transpired in regard to the lawn for
+the Flag Drill, and to announce, with joy shining in every feature, that
+they could have the drill on the fourteenth. Then came a few minutes at
+Helen’s, where the news was also told, two surprises, Nathalie declared,
+after she had unburdened herself to that young lady of the many things
+she had been bottling up for the last few weeks.
+
+But Nathalie’s day of surprises was to bear more fruit, for about five
+o’clock the postman delivered a package by parcel post, a big box that
+had a very mysterious look about it. “I don’t see what it can be?” she
+soliloquized, as she looked at the address. And then, “Oh, Mother, do
+you know where the scissors are?” as she found that her fingers were too
+unsteady with haste to untie the string.
+
+Dick, however, after hearing her excited outcry, had whipped out a
+penknife. There was a zip, the string was off, the box slipped out of
+the paper, and then the girl, with radiant, mystified eyes, was looking
+down at a Pioneer uniform, a jaunty little affair, with its red tie and
+red-banded hat to complete the outfit.
+
+“Don’t stand there and gape at it any longer, Nathalie,” imperiously
+voiced Dick, with an odd gleam in his eyes. “Look at the card and see
+who sent it!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI—PIONEER STUNTS
+
+
+An exclamation escaped dazed Nathalie; and then a search was started,
+resulting at last in finding the card in one of the pockets of the
+skirt. Another cry issued from the finder as she read:
+
+           “To Nathalie, my faithful little nurse and helper.
+                                                   “Lucille.”
+
+“O dear!” said the girl with a shamed glance into the faces surrounding
+her, “I will never again say that Lucille is cross—oh, she is a duck of
+a dear! It is the very thing I want, too. Now I shall not be the only
+Pioneer without a uniform. I must run and tell Helen!” In another moment
+she was racing with mad speed across the lawn, the uniform bulging out
+of the half-opened box in her arms.
+
+In a short space she came speeding back, crying, “Oh, Mother, where is
+Lucille? I must go and thank her this very minute!”
+
+“Up in her room, I think,” spoke up Dick, but Nathalie was already
+half-way up the stairs.
+
+“Lucille, it was just too lovely of you to think of me this way!” cried
+the girl rapturously; and then before Lucille realized what was going to
+happen, she was receiving a hug that threatened to demolish her
+entirely. “There, Nathalie Page,” she cried, “that’s more than enough;
+please leave just a wee bit of me, I’ll take your thanks for granted.”
+
+“No, you won’t!” persisted Nathalie with another hug. “I’m here to give
+them to you in person.” She loosened her hold so her cousin could
+breathe and then began to kiss her softly on the cheek. “Oh, but,
+Lucille, it was lovely of you to think of it,” she ended as she finally
+freed her cousin, who ruefully began to twist up a few stray locks that
+had been pulled down in the hugging process.
+
+“Oh, pshaw, I don’t want any thanks,” Lucille responded as she finished
+tucking up her hair. “As long as you are pleased, it’s all right.”
+
+“But I’m serious, Lucille, for you have heaped coals of fire on my head,
+I’ll have to ’fess that I was not a bit pleasant about waiting on you,
+because, you see, I had so much to see to with the Pioneer Stunts, the
+work, and everything, and then—”
+
+“And then,” mimicked Lucille with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “I’m
+an awful cross patient; is that it? But it’s all right, Nat, turn about
+is fair play, and if you had felt as badly as I did those few days, to
+miss it all, the anticipated good times at Bessie’s, well, you would
+have been cross, too.”
+
+“Oh, I know it, and I was worse than you were, for I should have
+possessed my soul in patience, but it was perfectly dear of you to give
+me the uniform, and then to be so nice about it.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad I’m nice,” teased her cousin, “but run along, child, for
+I have about forty-seven letters to get off by this mail.”
+
+And Nathalie, with a heart brimful of joy at the many surprises of the
+day, was very glad to hurry away and talk matters over with her mother.
+
+“What shall I talk to Nita about?” she lamented the next morning as she
+flew hither and thither, getting her work done in a jiffy so that she
+could reach the gray house by ten-thirty, the hour set for the talk with
+the princess, as Nathalie delighted to call her.
+
+“Mother, can’t you suggest something?” she asked dolefully as she
+stooped to kiss her mother good-by. “I do feel that it will not be right
+for me to take money for just chattering nonsense, and Nita won’t let me
+tell her stories.”
+
+“Well, it does seem as if it was undue extravagance, but still, if Mrs.
+Van Vorst thinks you are worth paying in order to help make her child’s
+life more enjoyable, it seems to me I should not worry about it.”
+
+“Yes, I know, but if I could only tell her stories,” rejoined the girl,
+“perhaps I could help her more, for I could make my stories instructive,
+about nature, history, or—”
+
+“That is true,” was the answer. And then, as if reminded by the word
+history, she said, “Why not tell her stories about the Pioneer women?
+You say she is so interested in the Girl Pioneers. In that way you could
+teach her American history.”
+
+“Oh, Mumsie, you are a dear,” cried elated Nathalie. “That is just the
+thing, how stupid I was not to think of it! I will stop at the library
+on my way home this afternoon. What a help it will be to me, too, for we
+are going to have a fagot party, sort of a good-by to Louise Gaynor.
+Gloriana! I won’t have any reading to do for that, for I’ll be posted
+from my talks with Nita.” Then she was off down the walk on her “way to
+business,” as she laughingly told her mother.
+
+“Oh, tell me all about the Pioneer Stunts!” exclaimed the princess as
+Nathalie settled herself for a cozy chat after her cheery greeting to
+her new pupil. Nita’s eyes were sparkling expectantly, and the
+anticipated chat with her new friend had brought a tinge of color to her
+usually pale face.
+
+“We have not had that as yet; it is to take place to-morrow night—oh,
+I’ll tell you all about it,” was the reply. And then, as Mrs. Van Vorst
+entered the room with a pleasant good morning, Nathalie demanded, “Do
+you not want me to tell stories to Nita?”
+
+“That is for Nita to decide,” was the careless rejoinder. “I have asked
+you here to please my daughter, and if she wants you here just to talk,
+why, talk away.”
+
+“But I feel as if I ought to instruct her in some way,” demurred
+Nathalie.
+
+“Do not worry,” returned Mrs. Van Vorst. “You will be worth all you earn
+if you only succeed in making Nita happy for two hours, and give her
+something to look forward to when you are not here. Of course, if you
+could get something informative in once in a while, it would do good, no
+doubt.”
+
+“I don’t want any stories,” interrupted Miss Nita petulantly. “Miss
+Stitt used to tell me stories by the yard and I have hated them ever
+since.”
+
+Nathalie made no reply; she was thinking how she could slip in a bit of
+information without Nita’s realizing it. “Oh, I will tell you about the
+flag drill!” she cried with sudden thought.
+
+“Yes, do,” acquiesced Nita, readily falling into the trap. “I want to
+know just everything about it.”
+
+“Well, you shall,” promptly returned her delighted teacher, and
+forthwith she set to define the meaning of the word liberty. “You know,
+Nita, when the Pilgrims and Puritans settled America they came here to
+build homes where they could have liberty of conscience, speech, and
+action. Of course, you know all about how these first little settlements
+grew, until there were thirteen of them that bade fair to become very
+populous and wealthy. Well, the King of England, fearing perhaps that
+they would grow into a great nation and take power from him, began to
+deprive them of some of their rights and privileges.
+
+“The people for a time submitted, but as his tyranny increased they
+began to feel greatly depressed, for it looked as if the liberty that
+they had been enjoying in the new land was going to be taken away from
+them, and that they were going to be chained like slaves.
+
+“Now the first scene in the flag drill represents liberty—as the Goddess
+of course—lamenting that if she can live only at the price of slavery,
+she would rather die. So we see her walking up and down the platform
+repeating in great agitation the famous words of Patrick Henry, ‘Give me
+Liberty, or give me death!’
+
+“Just at this moment music is heard, and the Daughters of Liberty
+enter—”
+
+“The Daughters of Liberty—who are they?”
+
+“Why, don’t you know that when King George tried to impose the Stamp Act
+on the colonists they rebelled, and there was a great time. Bands of men
+were organized all over the country, who called themselves the Sons of
+Liberty, and refused to accept the Stamp Act, and—”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know all that,” cried Nita impatiently, “but what did they
+have to do with these girls who are to be in the Flag Drill?”
+
+“Just you wait and you’ll see,” replied Nathalie somewhat abashed by
+this practical question. “Well, these little patriotic bands acted like
+a whirlwind of fire, spreading patriotism—the determination not to
+submit to the king’s tyranny—all over the land, so that King George was
+defeated for a time at least.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know all about him,” was the reply, “Miss Stitt just doted
+on history, and she drilled me in American history until I just hated
+it.”
+
+“In 1776,” continued the Story Lady, “seventeen young girls met in
+Providence at the house of Deacon Bowen, and formed themselves into one
+of these Liberty Bands, only you see they were just girls like you and
+me. They were very industrious and spun all day making homespun clothes,
+for they had resolved that they would not wear any more clothes that had
+been manufactured in England.
+
+“It is claimed that the clothes worn by the first president of Brown
+University in Providence, and the graduating class, too, on Commencement
+Day were garments made by these girls. These young girls not only vowed
+that they would not drink tea, because you see, it all had to come from
+the mother country, but they would have nothing to do with any young men
+who were not as patriotic as they were, and who were not willing to
+follow their example. These bands of girls were formed all through the
+colonies and became known as ‘The Daughters of Liberty.’”
+
+“Oh, now I know, but do hurry and tell me what they did to the Goddess
+of Liberty!”
+
+“Well, in our Flag Drill music is heard; then the Daughters of Liberty
+appear on the platform,—there are to be thirteen of them, to represent
+the thirteen states,—all carrying banners.”
+
+“What kind of banners?” burst from Nathalie’s auditor impatiently.
+
+“All kinds,” was the answer. “You know, the first flag used in this
+country was the English one, with the red cross of St. George; that was
+the flag carried by the _Mayflower_. After a while it was used only for
+special occasions, for the Red Ensign of Great Britain took its place.
+But as time wore on, each little State came to have its own flag or
+banner, so that when the Revolution came these State banners became
+known as liberty banners.
+
+“Some of them were very quaint and grotesque, with strange emblems and
+designs—some had rattlesnakes or pine-trees—and queer inscriptions. A
+flag from South Carolina had a silver crescent on it; another from New
+York had a beaver; troops from Rhode Island floated a white ensign with
+a blue anchor; while the New England flag bore a pine tree. But to go
+back to the Daughters; as they march on the platform they form a
+half-circle before the Goddess, who has retired to her throne, a chair
+draped with red. In her hand she carries a green branch,—no, don’t ask
+me why, for you will know when you hear the girls sing the ‘Liberty
+Tree.’
+
+“When they finish singing, each girl in turn steps before the Goddess
+and tells the story of her flag, until a story has been told about each
+of the thirteen flags. Of course, there were a number of these liberty
+banners, but we use only thirteen of them.
+
+“There! I said I would not tell you any more today, and I’m not going
+to. Oh, did I tell you that I told Mrs. Morrow about your mother
+consenting to let us have your lawn? She is perfectly delighted, and at
+the next Rally the scribe will write a note to your mother for the
+Pioneers, thanking her for her offer.”
+
+And then—Nathalie could not remember what started the conversation in
+this channel—she was telling about her brother Dick and his operation,
+while Nita listened with big sympathetic eyes, for somehow she was very
+much interested in this invalid brother of Nathalie’s.
+
+“You see, it is this way,” rattled on Nathalie. “Dick must have the
+operation as soon as possible—and—as it happens—well, you know Mother’s
+income is limited since Father died and we have had to retrench a great
+deal. Then to make matters worse, just at the present time some bonds
+that Mother owns are not paying any interest and we feel dreadfully
+about it, all on account of Dick. So we are all trying to be as
+economical as possible; Dorothy and I have a little bank, and every odd
+nickel we can scare up we drop it in, and oh! the money your mother is
+going to give me for talking to you, why, that’s going in the bank, too!
+Dorothy and I sometimes wish that some magic fairy would come along and
+turn those stray cents and nickels into gold dollars, but there, I
+should think your head would ache, my tongue has galloped so hard and
+fast.” She paused, and with a merry laugh cried, “I should not wonder if
+after a while your mother paid me not to come and talk to you, for you
+will get so tired of me.”
+
+“Indeed I won’t!” asserted the princess stoutly as she threw up her
+arms. There was a mutual hug and then Nathalie was off, for she had to
+get dinner and it would take her at least ten minutes to walk home.
+
+A week later Nathalie was flying out of the gate of the big gray house
+with something tightly clasped in her hand. It had been a week of hard
+work, for O dear, she had grown tired of talking, and then too, she had
+spent some little time in the library hunting up pioneer women. She had
+been overjoyed that morning when Mrs. Van Vorst, who had been secretly
+acquainted with the scheme of telling about these women founders of the
+nation presented her with a new book from a New York publisher that gave
+a number of interesting details about these dames of early times. She
+and Nita had spent the two hours that morning reading about the New
+Amsterdam vrouws. She laughed slyly as she hurried along to think how
+adroitly she had managed in such a short time to tell her pupil not only
+about the Pilgrim and Puritan dames, but other interesting historical
+events of those early days.
+
+As the girl ran swiftly up on the porch and spied her mother reading a
+few feet away, she burst out with, “Oh, Mother, what do you think Mrs.
+Van Vorst gave me for teach—talking, rather, to Nita for the week? And
+I’m to have the same every week. Oh, Mumsie, just guess!”
+
+Mrs. Page’s eyes smiled into Nathalie’s joyous ones as she said, “I’m
+not a good guesser, I’m afraid, Daughter, but I’ll venture—five
+dollars?”
+
+“Five dollars!” repeated the girl disdainfully. “Oh, Mother, guess
+again, it’s more than that,” she added encouragingly.
+
+“Well, I’ll have to give it up,” replied her mother after a short pause,
+with a regretful shake of her head. “I told you I was not a good
+guesser.”
+
+“Ten dollars!” burst from happy Nathalie. “Just think, a dollar an hour,
+two dollars a day, and ten dollars for the week! And, Mother, it’s all
+to be put away for Dick!”
+
+The night of the entertainment arrived, and promised to be a howling
+success, as Grace declared, who, with Nathalie, had been detailed to act
+as an usher. They had been kept pretty busy seating the guests, who had
+appeared in multicolored gowns, and gay flowered hats, with here and
+there a dress coat of masculine gender which gave quite an air of
+festivity to the occasion.
+
+The program was opened by Lillie Bell. Attired in a very quaint colonial
+gown, she tripped along the platform, and with well-simulated blushes
+and much demureness of manner made an old-time curtsy. After being
+greeted with an ovation from her many friends, she bashfully sidled up
+to a rather puzzling-looking instrument on the platform, on which many
+eyes had been focussed ever since the raising of the curtain, and seated
+herself before it.
+
+Upon this old-time spinet she played such ravishing strains of melody
+that the hearts of her audience were captivated, and she was encored
+again and again. Louise Gaynor, a dear little colonial dame, now
+appeared, and in her tru-al-lee voice—as the girls often called it—sang
+some old English ballads, “Annie Laurie,” “Robin Adair” and several of
+similar character, whose celebrity had grown with the years.
+
+The second Stunt was the renowned race for the Forefathers’ Rock, Kitty
+Corwin as Mary Chilton, and Fred Tyson as the slow-footed John Alden. A
+spinning contest followed, the fair spinners being colonial dames from
+Plymouth town, New Amsterdam, Boston, and Jamestown. The fair maiden of
+Plymouth, Priscilla, spun with such deftness and skill that she not only
+won the plaudits of those assembled, but the prize. As she gracefully
+bowed her acknowledgment to her friends’ loud clapping, she backed
+hastily off the platform. Alas, she backed into John Alden, who at this
+opportune moment had appeared on the stage, with such terrific force
+that she almost bowled him over. John, however, to prove that he was not
+as slow as the name he had gained, adroitly caught the falling maiden in
+his arms and then led the blushing damsel, Jessie Ford, forward as his
+captured prize.
+
+Barbara Worth proved quite a heroine in her single-act comedy on Pioneer
+craft, the plucking of a live goose. Mistress Goose, however, not
+understanding her part of silent acquiescence, being a twentieth-century
+goose and not a pioneer one, mutinied, and as Barbara came to the end of
+the couplet,
+
+  “Twice a year depluméd may they be,
+  In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,”
+
+she escaped from her captor’s clutch and with a loud, “Quack! quack!” of
+disapproval flew across the stage.
+
+Barbara, dumb with fright for fear the goose would fly down among the
+spectators, gave chase, and then ensued a regular “movie” as amid loud
+calls urging her on in the race, and protestations voiced by the goose
+in a clamorous quacking, she chased it about the platform. Just as
+Barbara was about to capture her prey she tripped on a rug and measured
+her five feet two on the floor. But Barbara was game, Fred Tyson
+declared to Nathalie as they watched her, and jumping to her feet she
+soon captured her featherless fowl, which, after being shown in its
+deplumed condition, was borne from the scene of its torments by the
+victor.
+
+The curtain now rose on “The First American Wash Day,” a little playlet
+representing the women of the Pilgrim colony, with arms bared to the
+elbows, rubbing and scrubbing in tubs of foamy soap-suds, washing
+clothes, for the noble sires of our nation.
+
+Nathalie gave a quick start and her eyes leaped wide open as she
+convulsively clutched Grace by the arm, and then she grew strangely
+still as she watched the actors on the stage. The scene was a
+distinctive one, as the children of the _Mayflower_ ran hither and
+thither gathering boughs, make-believe sweet-smelling juniper, to place
+under the tripod from which kettles of water were suspended over a small
+fire that simulated a cheery blaze.
+
+As these pioneer mothers washed, and then wrung out their clothes,
+slashing them about in true washer woman’s fashion, some one in the rear
+of the stage recited in a loud, clear voice:
+
+                  “There did the Pilgrim fathers
+                  With matchlock and ax well swung
+                  Keep guard o’er the smoking kettles
+                  That propped on the crotches hung.
+                  For the earliest act of the heroes
+                  Whose fame has a world-wide sway,
+                  Was to fashion a crane for a kettle
+                  And order a washing-day.”
+
+                        “Pioneer Mothers of America.”
+                                    By Hand W. Green.
+
+The applause of the spectators testified to the merit of the
+performance, and as the curtain dropped, Nathalie, whose eyes were
+ashine with a strange fire, hastened out into the hall. “Oh, it was mean
+of her! It is the same as stealing, she knew she had no right to use
+it!” were the thoughts that flashed at white heat through her brain, for
+the playlet that had just been enacted was the one she had lost in the
+library!
+
+And the one who had passed it off as her own, the one who had been the
+head performer, and who had recited the verses, was Edith Whiton!
+
+On rushed Nathalie straight towards the dressing room, determined to
+tell Edith just what she thought of her, but the sight of a crowd of
+girls of which Edith was the central figure brought her to a standstill.
+“Of course, Edith, we all recognized you!” “It was a clever Stunt.”
+“Well, you have shown you are a Pioneer, all right!” Many similar pæans
+of praise came to Nathalie’s ears.
+
+The girl stood still, inwardly raging with indignation, almost ready to
+cry with the strife between her outraged sense of right, and a
+commonplace little monitor who whispered, “It would be mean to accuse
+Edith of a sneaking act in the very midst of her glorification. And
+then, too,” continued the whisperer, “you are not really sure that Edith
+has not some excuse to offer; there was no name on your paper.” Nathalie
+swallowed hard, then her muscles relaxed, and the hard angry gleam
+disappeared from her eyes. Well, Edith might be mean and small, but she
+at least would be above her, she would say nothing!
+
+With a certain pride that she had risen above doing what she would
+undoubtedly have regretted afterwards, Nathalie hurried into the
+dressing-room. A few minutes later as the curtain rose it displayed in
+its completed form the second idea that she had spent so much time in
+planning.
+
+Around the hearthstone in a Dutch kitchen sat a _huys-moeder_, busily
+undressing her two little kinderkins while she sang the crooning nursery
+rhyme:[1]
+
+             “Trip attroup attronjes,
+             De vaarken in de boojes,
+             De koejes in de klaver,
+             De paarden in de haver,
+             De kalver in de lang gras,
+             De eenjes in de water plas,
+             So grootmyn klein poppetje was.”
+                         “_Colonial Days in Old New York._”
+                                                     Earle.
+
+Through a window in the back of the cozy kitchen a blanketed squaw was
+seen dandling her swaddled papoose in her arms, as she peered hungrily
+in at the glowing fire, and watched the _huys-moeder_ fill the warming
+pan with coals, thrust it between the sheets of the little trundle-bed,
+and then give her babies some mulled cider to drink.
+
+The tiny figures in their _cosyntjes_, or nightcaps with long capes, had
+just crawled into bed when “tap-toes” sounded, and the honest mynheer
+and his good vrouw hastened to cover the still glowing embers with ashes
+for the fire of the morrow. The Dutch curfew had sounded, which meant
+that all good simple folk must hie to bed.
+
+This fireside scene in old New York won its merited applause, and
+Nathalie, who had been the Dutch mother, Mrs. Morrow’s kiddies, the
+kinderkins, and Fred Tyson, the mynheer, were called before the curtain
+to receive the plaudits of their friends.
+
+As Nathalie was hurrying from the dressing-room, glad that she was
+through her long-anticipated Stunt, and doubly glad that it had been a
+success, her name was called. She turned to see Helen, who, with an
+anxious face, was peering from the adjoining dressing room.
+
+“Oh, has anything gone wrong?” demanded Nathalie hastening to the door.
+
+“I should say!” exclaimed Helen with woebegone countenance, “I have left
+my gun at home, and I must have it. Oh, I can’t imagine how I could have
+been so careless! Can’t you get some one to go and get it for me? Tell
+them to hurry, for my scene goes on in ten minutes.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry,” sympathized Nathalie, “tell me where to find it,
+quick, and I’ll get some one.”
+
+“It is in the hall just behind the rack! Do hurry, Nat, I’m just about
+wild!”
+
+Nathalie darted away; but alas, she could not find any one who could go
+at that moment, every one had some important duty to perform just then
+and there. Even the Scouts, who were always so ready to help the girls,
+were missing. “Oh, it is too bad!” bemoaned the girl. Presently her eyes
+lighted and in another instant she had flown up the stairs, seized her
+long cloak in the dressing-room, and then sped down the steps into the
+garden, and out into the street.
+
+Ten minutes, that meant she would have to run every step of the way to
+get that gun there in time. So with the lightness of a bird she darted
+down one street, up another, and then—her heart gave a great leap as she
+came to the long, lonely stretch of road skirting the cemetery of the
+old Presbyterian church. But on she flew, hardly daring to cast her eyes
+towards the tall tombstones that gleamed at her with ghostly whiteness
+from the ghoulish shadows cast by the waving branches of the trees above
+them.
+
+No, she was not afraid of ghosts, but she suddenly remembered a story
+she had heard as a little child, of a young girl who had been waylaid
+and killed by a man in a cemetery one dark night. Fiddle! she was not
+going to be afraid of a mere story, so with a snatch of melody on her
+lips she kept bravely on and soon left behind her the marble records of
+the dead. It did not take but a minute to ring the bell, tell Helen’s
+aunt what she wanted, then grab the gun and start off on her return
+journey.
+
+Oh, she did hate to have to go by that old graveyard, she would take the
+other way around; but no, that would take twice the time and she must
+hurry! So nerving up her courage she ran on with the firm determination
+to play soldier, and level her musket if any one assailed her.
+
+As she neared the cemetery her breath gave out, and instead of running
+by this danger post she had to walk every step. Determined not to look
+in the direction of these ghostly reminders of the past, she pushed
+resolutely on. She had almost reached the end of the long fence when the
+sudden snap of a twig, followed by a rustling noise caused her heart to
+pause in its beating. A scream escaped her quivering lips, for there in
+the bright radiance that fell like a silver veil over all objects she
+saw the figure of a man rise from one of the tombstones near the fence
+and come towards her!
+
+-----
+[1]
+  “From your throne on my knee,
+  The pigs in the bean-patch see,
+  The cows in the clover meet,
+  The horses in the oat field eat.
+  The ducks in the water pass
+  The calves scamper through the grass.
+  They love the baby on my knee
+  And none there are as sweet as she.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII—LIBERTY BANNERS
+
+
+Nathalie’s eyes dilated with terror, and her heart pounded with such
+leaping beats that it almost choked her. She attempted to run, but alas,
+her limbs seemed tied with ropes, and then she remembered the gun!
+
+Just an instant and she had raised it, and with trembling hands was
+pointing it at the enemy, who by this time had lightly vaulted the
+wooden fence and was coming towards her. Nathalie’s hand was feeling for
+the trigger when, “Oh, don’t shoot!” cried a voice in serio-comic tone,
+“I surrender!” Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.
+
+The girl gasped, dropped the gun, and then broke into hysterical
+laughter as she cried, “Oh—is—that you?”
+
+“Yes, it is I; Fred Tyson in the flesh!” rejoined the supposed murderer
+coolly, as with a stride he was at her side and, stooping picked up the
+gun.
+
+The reaction was so great that for a moment Nathalie feared she was
+going to cry, but controlling herself by a strong effort she exclaimed,
+“Oh, I was sure you were a tramp,” with a nervous giggle, “or a murderer
+intent on killing me, and then hiding my body in the thicket yonder.”
+She shuddered.
+
+“Great guns!” Fred exclaimed as he looked the gun over. “It is lucky
+this thing didn’t go off. By the Lord Harry, how did you come to be
+carrying it?”
+
+Nathalie, with a long breath of relief that all was well after her
+fright, then told Fred how she came to be near the graveyard at that
+time. Then suddenly remembering that she had not a minute to lose, she
+cried hurriedly, “Oh, let us go on. I am afraid I am too late!”
+
+“You’re all hunky,” returned Fred calmly. “You have plenty of time, for
+I overheard Mrs. Morrow tell Helen to postpone her Stunt until one of
+the last.”
+
+“But how did you come to be here, may I ask?” queried Nathalie as they
+turned to walk up.
+
+“Oh, I was in the next room and heard Helen tell you to go and get
+something at her house. I started out to offer my services, but some one
+buttonholed me for the next Stunt; I had forgotten I was in it. As soon
+as it was over I hurried out to find you, but you had skipped. I rushed
+after you, missed you, and then remembering that you would return this
+way as it is the shortest, sat down on one of the tombstones to wait for
+you. But you’re the stuff, all right, Nathalie Page, you ought to have a
+medal for bravery.”
+
+[Illustration: Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.]
+
+He suddenly pointed the gun and then pulled the trigger.
+
+Nathalie gave a shrill scream in a spasm of apprehension, and jumped to
+one side. “Oh, please, don’t do that, it might be loaded, you know!”
+
+Fred threw his head back and burst into a hearty laugh. “Oh, ho, I see
+you are not as nervy as I thought,” there was a mischievous glint in his
+merry black eyes. And then as if ashamed of torturing the nerve-racked
+girl he cried soothingly, “Don’t you fret, Miss Blue Robin; there isn’t
+any guess with me, I don’t take chances. I saw it wasn’t loaded when I
+first picked it up, but come, let’s hurry!”
+
+“Please don’t tell any one I was afraid!” pleaded Nathalie, as they
+hastened on under the swaying branches of the trees that cast weird,
+fanciful designs on the moon-mantled path. “They will think me an awful
+coward and tease me unmercifully.”
+
+Fred assured her that he would keep mum, and added that she was not a
+coward, but a very brave girl. Then, in response to a challenge to race
+him to the Hall, they were off, Nathalie by this time having regained
+her usual poise and nerve. She won the race, for Fred, desiring to be
+gallant, dropped back a space or two just at the right time, and thus
+allowed his partner to be the victor in this race of two blocks.
+
+The gun was quickly delivered to Helen and then they hurried into the
+hall in time to see the portraits of Henry Hudson, Edward Winslow,
+William Penn, Governor Stuyvesant, and Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan,
+two pirates of pioneer fame. These colonial portraits were produced by
+their representatives standing behind a large wooden frame that had been
+made by the Scouts, gilded by the Pioneers, and then placed in front of
+a dark curtain.
+
+Helen’s Stunt proved to be a canvas background on which was painted a
+log cabin. At the door of this pioneer home stood Helen with a baby
+clinging to her skirts, pointing a gun at a skulking savage just
+disappearing beyond a very fair representation of a clump of trees. This
+picture of a mother of the wilderness was loudly encored, as it was
+significant of the hardy courage displayed by the women of those early
+days.
+
+The last Stunt showed the Pioneers in line, each one with a big red
+letter pinned to the skirt of her uniform; the combination making the
+word “Pioneer Women.” Giving bird-calls, building miniature log-cabins,
+making camp fires, jumping, throwing the lifeline, as well as making the
+motions of rowing and swimming, these and many other activities of the
+organization were performed. The girls ended by falling into line again
+and singing a farewell Pioneer song.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward, and after thanking the audience for their
+kind attention and aid in helping make the affair a success by buying
+tickets and by their presence, she announced that there would be another
+entertainment, a Flag Drill, to take place on the fourteenth of that
+month. It would be held in the rear of the home of Mrs. Van Vorst, that
+lady having kindly offered her lawn for the affair.
+
+The faces of the Pioneers, with the exception of Nathalie’s and Helen’s,
+expressed unbounded surprise as they heard this announcement. As Fred
+Tyson and two other Scouts passed slips of paper so that each one
+present could write her or his opinion as to the best Stunt of the
+evening, there was a merry clack of tongues as each girl queried how and
+when this wonderful thing had come to pass.
+
+Lillie Bell, who had been watching Nathalie, suddenly leaned forward
+crying, “Nathalie Page, I just believe that you know all about it!”
+Nathalie did her best to look bland and innocent when this accusation
+was hurled at her, but the query was as a match to fire, and instantly
+Nathalie was surrounded by a bevy of girls, all eagerly demanding that
+she tell them how it came about.
+
+“O dear, how should I know?” she demanded with seeming indignation.
+
+“There, I told you she knew,” declared the Sport, who at that moment
+joined the group. “Her face betrays her! And then she is on the
+committee.”
+
+Nathalie turned and flashed at Edith angrily, “Well, if I do know I am
+not going to tell. If you want any information go and ask Mrs. Morrow.”
+Then feeling that things were growing desperate and that she might
+reveal what she had striven so hard to keep a secret, she broke from her
+tormentors and hurried into the hall.
+
+Seeing Helen at that moment she dashed up to her, and grabbing her by
+the arm cried, “Helen, the girls are tormenting me to tell them about
+the lawn party; oh, do keep them from asking me again, for I am in
+mortal terror that I may tell something that should not be told just
+yet.”
+
+“All right,” soothed her friend, “don’t you bother about the girls
+finding out, I’ll see to them. But here’s Fred, he wants you to vote. By
+the way, have you heard that the Sport’s Stunt has so far the greatest
+number of votes, and—”
+
+But Helen had been carried off by one of the Scouts, and Nathalie turned
+to find Fred at her side eagerly demanding her vote.
+
+“Why don’t you vote for ‘The First American Wash-Day’?” demanded the
+young man as he saw Nathalie hesitate and swing her pencil, lost in
+abstraction. “It will win, I think, and it was a good Stunt, too; well
+acted out. Edith deserves credit.”
+
+“Do you think so?” flashed Nathalie. She colored angrily. “I do not
+agree with you. I think—” She stopped, compressed her lips, and then
+added coolly, “I shall vote for Helen, for I consider her Stunt the best
+one of the evening.” She wrote the name of the Stunt hurriedly, signed
+her name, and then handed the card to Fred, who was regarding her with a
+puzzled expression on his face.
+
+He took the card and turned to go, but seeing that the floor had been
+cleared for dancing he stopped, and swinging about asked Nathalie if he
+could have the next dance. Nathalie assented, although she did not feel
+in the mood for dancing just at that moment.
+
+“You won’t mind waiting a moment, will you?” asked Fred. “I have got to
+turn in my cards. Then I see this is a square dance, and I want a waltz
+with you. Are you angry with me?” he asked wonderingly as he saw that
+Nathalie’s eyes still gleamed fire and that her cheeks were bright red.
+
+The girl looked up at him absently and then, suddenly comprehending that
+she was acting rather rudely towards this new friend, cried laughing,
+“Angry with you? Indeed, no! I _am angry_ with—some one,” she added
+bitterly, her glance suddenly falling on Edith. “But there, return your
+cards and then we will dance.”
+
+Five minutes later as Fred swung his partner lightly up and down the
+hall to waltz time, Nathalie forgot all the unpleasant jars of the
+evening in the enjoyment of the moment. But later, as they hurried out
+on the veranda for a breath of fresh air, she remembered how rudely she
+had acted and felt as if she ought to make some kind of an explanation
+to Fred for her seeming rudeness. Then it suddenly came to her that
+perhaps he might think she was jealous of Edith. Oh, no, she was not
+jealous—she was willing Edith should win the highest number of votes,
+only it did seem a bit hard to have to give all the glory up to some one
+else, when it rightfully belonged to her, and then Edith _had been_ mean
+about it.
+
+“Please don’t think I didn’t want Edith to win,” she burst forth as they
+seated themselves in a cozy corner where she could see the dancers in
+the hall. “Only—you see it is this way, I—”
+
+But before she could finish, the Tike came rushing up all of a whirl
+crying, “Oh, Nathalie, your Stunt won! I’m awfully glad!” And she danced
+up and down in her delight at Nathalie’s success.
+
+“Oh, ‘The First American Wash-Day’ was Edith’s Stunt,” Nathalie hastened
+to explain, resolved that she would be a martyr to her wounded pride
+with a good grace.
+
+“That didn’t win the highest vote, but your Stunt did,” retorted Carol
+jubilantly; “the one with the old Dutchwoman putting the kiddies to bed.
+And that Dutch lullaby—oh, Nathalie, where did you learn it?”
+
+Before Nathalie could answer Carol had skipped away, leaving the girl
+with a strange expression on her face as she stared at Fred with
+mystified eyes. “Do you suppose I really won it?” she demanded after a
+pause. “I thought you said Edith’s Stunt was the winner.”
+
+“So I heard,” was Fred’s reply. “But then, Miss Nathalie, I am awfully
+glad your Stunt won. It was a peach, I thought myself, but I heard—”
+
+“Oh, I don’t care about that,” cried Nathalie. There was a quiver to her
+voice. “I don’t deserve it; oh, I have been awfully mean, and yet I have
+been calling Edith mean—” She stopped abruptly. How queerly it had
+turned out!
+
+Catching a rather strange look in her companion’s eyes she exclaimed,
+“Oh, indeed I was willing that Edith should win—I don’t care a snap
+about it myself—only, you see it was this way.” She floundered for a
+moment and then with a sudden catch in her breath leaned towards Fred
+crying, “If I tell you something, will you swear never to reveal it?”
+Fred’s face brightened; he was delighted to think Nathalie considered
+him worthy of her confidence, and lost no time in assuring her of this
+fact. But the girl was thinking of only one thing, and that was that she
+was going to break her silence in regard to Edith and unburden herself
+of what had been causing her a good deal of discomfort all the evening.
+Nathalie talked rapidly and in a few minutes Fred was in possession of
+the facts about “The First American Wash-Day,” and how it had come about
+that although the idea was Nathalie’s, Edith had won the glory of it
+without the work.
+
+“Say, but you’re game!” declared Fred admiringly, as Nathalie finished
+her story. “It was a fine thing for you not to tell; I don’t blame you
+for feeling mean about it. But the Sport had no right to use it—”
+
+“Well, never mind now,” cried Nathalie, “it is all over with and I am
+glad I didn’t tell any one but you, and you won’t break your word, will
+you? The word of a Scout, you know,” added the girl archly.
+
+Fred laughingly assured her that his word as a gentleman was sufficient
+and as binding as that of a Scout. Then as they discussed the Scout
+oath, its pledges, and so forth, Dr. Homer appeared and asked his little
+hike-mate if he might have the pleasure of a dance with her.
+
+Nathalie smilingly assured him she would be most happy and then with a
+good-by to Fred, the quaint little figure in its queer Dutch cap and
+flowered gown followed the doctor into the hall.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long anticipated fourteenth of June had arrived, and the level
+stretch of green grass with its circling hillocks in the rear of the
+gray house was ablaze with color. Beneath a high arch festooned with the
+red, white, and blue—the Pioneers’ color again—stood a number of merry
+girls, each one gowned in white with a scarlet sash, and a red liberty
+cap, and holding in her hand a flag or small banner.
+
+Every eye as well as tongue was on duty, as each girl triumphantly
+displayed her flag to her comrades, proudly claiming that it was an
+exact copy of one of the liberty banners used by the colonies preceding
+or during the Revolution.
+
+“Hurrah for the Concord flag,” cried Kitty Corwin, as she hoisted up a
+small maroon banner inscribed with the motto, “Conquer or Die.” “This is
+one of the oldest flags in America, for it was the one carried when the
+‘embattled farmers fired the shot heard round the world’”—she twirled it
+high in air—“on the 19th of April, 1775, at the first battle of the
+Revolution!”
+
+“Oh, but your flag hasn’t the romance that mine has,” said Edith,
+ostentatiously waving a crimson flag fringed at the ends, and with a
+cord and tassel. “This is the Eutaw flag and was made by Miss Jane
+Elliot. Col. William Washington—he was a relative or something of little
+Georgie—when stationed at Charleston, South Carolina, fell in love with
+Miss Jane. One night, after spending the evening with his lady love, as
+he bade her good night, she said she hoped to hear good news of his flag
+and fortune. Whereupon the poor colonel was forced to confess that his
+corps had no flag. Upon hearing this the young lady pulled down one of
+the portières, cut it to the right size, fringed it at the ends, stuck
+it on a curtain pole, and then presented it to her gallant lover,
+telling him to make it his standard. Of course after that it brought
+good luck and won a great victory at Cowpens, January, 1781, and another
+at Eutaw Springs the following September. Forty years later the flag was
+presented by the hands that made it to the Washington Light Infantry of
+Charleston, for the fair Jane married the colonel, all right.”
+
+“Well, don’t you girls boast too much,” declared Jessie, “for if it
+hadn’t been for my flag there wouldn’t have been any banners of liberty
+to make you patriotic.” And Jessie held up a white flag barred with the
+scarlet cross of St. George, the flag dear to Merrie Old England as the
+flag of the people, and beloved by the colonists as the ensign that
+floated from the little ship _Mayflower_.
+
+As if to supplement Jessie’s declaration, an Oriole gayly flaunted the
+Red Ensign of Great Britain with its canton quartered by the cross of
+St. George and St. Andrew. “This is the flag that followed Jessie’s and
+was necessarily adopted by the colonists as the flag of the mother
+country. It was called the Union flag—the two crosses signifying the
+union of Scotland and England, when King James of Scotland became
+king—and remained in use in America until the beginning of the
+Revolution.”
+
+Grace, who had been impatiently waiting to float her flag, now cried,
+“Away with your old Johnnie Bull flags! Mine is worth a hundred of those
+old English rags, for it was the first distinctively American flag used
+by the Colonies, ‘The Pine Tree Flag of New England.’”
+
+“But it has the red cross on the white canton just the same,” ventured
+Jessie, “and it is red, too.”
+
+“Of course it has the cross on it,” quickly retorted Grace, “for at that
+time the Colonies still belonged to England; but if you look, my lady,
+you’ll see that pine in the first quarter of the canton, and that is
+American all through, every pine on it. It meant that the colonists,
+although they were English, had a right to representation in the mother
+country and to a symbol of their own.”
+
+“Well,” persisted Jessie, in whose veins flowed a goodly supply of
+English blood, “your scrubby old pine was such a poor representation of
+that noble tree that Charles II asked what it represented—and was told
+it was an oak.”
+
+“Come, Jessie,” laughed Helen, “that story is a back number. Every one
+can guess without much effort that the man who told that yarn to the
+king was a New Englander. He wanted to gain favor with Charles and
+bluffed him a bit, trying to make out it was a model of the royal oak in
+which his majesty took refuge after the battle of Worcester.”
+
+“Oh, stop discussing the merits of that old pine and look at my banner,”
+sang out Louise Gaynor, shaking her flag furiously to and fro so as to
+get the attention of the girls. “This flag is the Crescent flag and
+stands for the bravest of the brave. Now listen, and you will all
+understand what true heroism means.”
+
+The girls, impressed by the Flower’s declaration, grew silent, and gazed
+curiously at a red banner with a white crescent in the upper corner near
+the staff. “This flag was designed by Col. Moultrie of the Second
+Carolina Infantry in 1775. During the siege of Charleston when the flag
+was shot down, Sergeant William Jasper at the peril of his life
+recovered it, and held it in place on the parapet until another staff
+was found. In 1779, at the assault on Savannah, it was again shot from
+its holdings. Two lieutenants sprang forward and held it in position
+until they were killed by the enemy’s bullets. Jasper again sprang
+forward and held the colors up until he, too, was riddled with bullets,
+and fell into a ditch. As he was dying he seized the flag in his hands
+and cried, ‘Tell Mrs. Elliot’—she was the wife of one of the
+majors—‘that I lost my life supporting the colors she gave our
+regiment.’”
+
+Barbara, who was usually so placid and mild, now grew quite intense as
+she pointed to her flag, the Cambridge flag, claiming that it was the
+first flag on this side of the water to float the red and white bars. It
+signified, she said, that although the colonists were willing to return
+to the rule of the English, they were a body of armed men fighting for
+just and equal rights with their brothers who had crossed the sea to
+whip them into submission. “But they didn’t,” ended Barbara with
+triumphant eyes. “And this flag, also known as the Union flag—meaning
+that the colonists stood as a man in their desire for the right—was
+displayed by Washington in his camp at Cambridge, January 2nd, 1776.”
+
+“Now let me have a chance,” pleaded Nathalie, who had been impatiently
+waiting to show her design for some time. “My flag has a story, too.”
+She held up as high as she could a white flag with a rattlesnake in the
+center. It bore in black letters the name, “The Culpeper Minute Men of
+Virginia,” the snaky slogan, “Don’t Tread On Me,” and the famous words
+of its commander, Patrick Henry, “Liberty or Death!”
+
+“Do you see that rattlesnake?” continued Miss Nathalie, as she brought
+her flag to a standstill and pointed to the snaky emblem. “That has a
+story—”
+
+“Pooh,” interposed Edith, who was jealously guarding her declaration
+that her flag was the most beautiful because it had a story. “I don’t
+see any story about that snaky old thing. Ugh, I never could understand
+why so many flags had that design.”
+
+“I will tell you why,” declared Nathalie, “because I have looked it up,
+and—”
+
+“But you are not the only one who has looked up flags,” chimed Jessie,
+“for my eyes were just about ruined trying to get a merit badge for
+proficiency in flag history—”
+
+“And for deftness and skill in making our flags,” broke in a Pioneer
+from the Bob White group.
+
+“I beg your pardon, girls, I know you are all very wise on the subject
+of flags this morning,” rejoined Nathalie good-naturedly, “but do you
+know why the rattlesnake was chosen as an ensign?”
+
+She waited a moment, but as no one seemed to know she went on. “The
+rattlesnake is to be found only in America; my authority is Benjamin
+Franklin. It is the wisest of the snake family, therefore a symbol of
+wisdom. Its bright, lidless eyes never close, this signifies vigilance.
+It never attacks without giving due notice, which meant that the
+American colonies were on the square. Each rattle is perfect, while at
+the same time it is so firmly attached to its fellows that it cannot be
+separated without incurring the ruin of all; each colony was a complete
+unit in itself, and yet it could not stand unless it had the support of
+the others. As it ages, the rattles increase in numbers, which meant
+that it was the fervent desire of the people that the colonies should
+increase in numbers with the years.”
+
+As Nathalie finished her little lecture, Helen, with a sudden movement,
+shouldered her flag like a musket, and parting the group of girls,
+marched jubilantly down the center, crying, “Oh, girls, you have had the
+floor long enough to tell of the beauties and glories of your paltry
+banners, but let me tell you, not a flag has won the honors and glories
+that mine has. Hurrah, girls, for Old Glory!” she ended with a
+triumphant wave of the Stars and Stripes above their heads.
+
+As if inspired by the sight of the cheery banner so gallantly flung to
+the breezes by their comrade, the girls with one accord broke into the
+flag cheer:
+
+  “Hear! hear; hear Girl Pioneer!
+  For flag so dear give a cheer!
+  For the bars that are white and red,
+  And stars on blue overhead
+  We honor thee with a cheer!
+  Hurrah! Hurrah! Girl Pioneer!”
+
+Before the echo of the cheer had died in the distance Nathalie cried,
+“Oh, girls, the first signal!” Immediately these little patriotic
+Daughters of that which every one holds dear fell into line, and with
+flags upheld fastened their eyes on a small platform that had been
+erected in the center of the lawn draped with the national colors, where
+the Goddess of Liberty had just appeared. Holding up a green branch in
+her hand she began to walk agitatedly up and down the stage, pausing
+abruptly every moment or so to peer to the right or left, as if watching
+for some one.
+
+Suddenly she halted, and with the dramatic gestures of Lillie Bell—for
+it was she—cried in mournful tone, “‘Is life so dear, or peace so sweet
+as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
+give me liberty, or give me death!’”
+
+As the tragic intonation of her voice ceased, the band—composed, by the
+way, of a number of Scouts—burst forth with that old melody, “The
+Wearing of the Green.” This was another signal, and the girls waiting
+under the arch began to march slowly towards the stage, while the
+Goddess in feigned mystification moved quickly from side to side with
+her hand held to her ear, as if trying to ascertain whence came this
+martial tune.
+
+But on came the Daughters of Liberty with flashes of white and red, and
+with banners of many designs and devices. They presented such a
+brilliant showing that the audience seated in rows on the circling
+mounds broke into loud applause, which burst into enthusiastic cheers of
+greeting, as in the bright glare of the sunlight they perceived Old
+Glory floating far above the heads of the banner bearers as they proudly
+marched across the green.
+
+When the Goddess perceived this procession of fair damsels she stood
+apparently in a maze for a moment, and then slowly retreated backward
+until she stood on the scarlet draped dais with its throne. As the
+thirteen maids of freedom filed slowly on the platform, forming a half
+circle before the Goddess, the band struck into that old-time air, “The
+Liberty Tree,” and a second later every Daughter had chimed in and was
+singing:
+
+  “In a chariot of light from the regions of day
+    The Goddess of Liberty came;
+  Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
+    And hither conducted the dame.
+  A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
+    Where millions and millions agree
+  She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
+    And the plant she named Liberty Tree.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII—THE PRINCESS MAKES TWO MORE FRIENDS
+
+
+“And the plant she named Liberty Tree,” sang Nita blithely up in the
+window of the sun parlor, where she sat with her mother and her old
+Scotch nurse, Ellen, watching the brilliant scene being enacted down on
+the lawn.
+
+As the last verse ended—and there were four—Helen stepped before the
+Goddess, and after saluting told in a few words how the brave pioneers
+had brought to this land a tiny spark which had flamed into the sacred
+fire of Liberty. As time wore on, trampled by the sons of Tyranny, it
+was in danger of being stamped out, when the daughters of these pioneers
+fled to its aid in their great fight for the right, and by their bravery
+and heroic self-denial had revived the sacred fire. The ensigns now
+floating before her were the signals of their success in making this
+land, “The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!”
+
+An expression of regret flitted across Nita’s face as she realized that
+she could not hear the words Helen was speaking, but in a moment,
+remembering, she cried, “But I have them, Mamma, for Nathalie not only
+taught me the words of the songs, but wrote down for me the speeches of
+the girls. Ah, Helen is telling the Goddess how the Pilgrims came to
+this land and planted the Liberty Tree. Of course they did not really
+plant it, you know, only in their hearts, for they were determined to
+have liberty of conscience, speech, and action.
+
+“Oh, and there’s another daughter speaking to the Goddess. See, she
+carries the flag that came over in the _Mayflower_ with the Pilgrims.”
+Then Miss Nita, finding she had an appreciative audience in her mother
+and Ellen, rattled on, highly pleased to think she was giving them such
+good entertainment. She repeated the words of each fair daughter as she
+displayed her trophy of liberty, and could clap as enthusiastically as
+the spectators watching from the hillocks in the distance. Mrs. Van
+Vorst, as she heard her daughter’s words and witnessed her joy, entering
+with as much zest and spirit into the patriotic little drill as the
+Pioneers smiled in attune with the invalid, showing more enjoyment than
+she had done for years.
+
+“There’s the flag of Bunker Hill; it is just like the Pine Tree flag,
+only it is blue instead of red,” exclaimed Nita. “And, oh, Mother, see,
+there’s the real Liberty Flag with its pine tree, and motto, ‘An Appeal
+to Heaven.’ Look quick! that’s the Markoe flag! See, it is yellow and
+has thirteen stripes of blue and silver. Nathalie said this flag was the
+first one on land to float stripes, and that it was the flag carried by
+the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse when they escorted Washington to
+New York. And that crimson silk flag is the Casimir flag; it belonged to
+Count Casimir. He was the son of Pulaski, who perished in a dungeon for
+advocating the cause of liberty. The Count came to America and organized
+a corps of cavalry at Baltimore, and when the Moravian nuns heard of it
+they presented him with that flag. But, oh, Mother, the poor Count died
+after all; he was shot at the siege of Savannah in 1779.”
+
+Ellen, the old Scotch nurse who adored her invalid charge, and who had
+always taken care of her from the time she was a wee tot, was deeply
+stirred as she saw how Nita entered into the new life that had suddenly
+been opened up to her, and her face fairly beamed with gratified pride
+as she heard her repeat the songs and speeches of the girls in the
+playlet.
+
+When the last speech ended, the strains of Yankee Doodle were heard, and
+presently a Scout in the uniform of a Continental soldier appeared on
+the platform carrying a draped flag. After saluting the mother of
+Freedom he planted his pole in the center of the circle of Liberty
+maidens, and the next instant each one had caught up one of the red,
+blue, and white streamers that hung from it, and were swinging gayly
+around, singing “The Red, White, and Blue.”
+
+This song was followed by the “Battle Cry of Freedom,” and then the
+soldier, saluting the Goddess again in a short speech, said he desired
+to present to her an emblem, the outgrowth of the labors of the Sons and
+Daughters of Liberty. The ensign that stands for everything that is
+just, true, and progressive, the symbol of the sovereignty of
+Civilization, the banner that had been unfurled in more movements for
+the protection, the liberty, and the elevation of mankind, than any
+ensign that ripples to the four winds of Heaven.
+
+Oh, no, the little company up in the window didn’t hear all these words
+from the lips of the soldier, but from Nita as she read them softly from
+her paper. But they did see the signal given by the soldier, and clapped
+with joy when each fair daughter pulled her streamer, the red drapings
+fell from the pole, and Old Glory stood revealed. And as the colors
+swayed softly in the gentle breeze they joined with patriotic fervor as
+the girls and audience broke into “The Star Spangled Banner!”
+
+The Flag Drill was over, and the girls, breaking ranks, were soon
+scattered here and there over the lawn in groups, as they stood
+receiving the congratulations of their friends on the success of the
+entertainment. It was but a moment or so, however, and the girls had all
+rushed back to duty, and each one with a scout was serving ice-cream and
+cake to the buyers at the gayly festooned tables under the trees.
+
+Nathalie, nerve and bone tired, was wishing that she could sit down if
+only for a moment, when her eyes suddenly grew bright with thought, and
+the next second she had darted across the grass crying, “Oh, Grace,
+don’t you think it would be nice if we could take some cream and cake up
+to Nita and her mother?”
+
+“Nita?” repeated that young lady, who had never heard the name before.
+“Why, what do you mean?”
+
+Nathalie started. “Oh, why, to be sure, I forgot to tell you about her,
+but Mrs. Morrow thought best to—”
+
+Nathalie broke off in despair as she realized that Grace knew nothing
+about the princess in the tower and the many other happenings at the
+gray house, only that its owner had consented to allow the girls to use
+her lawn.
+
+“Why, you know Nita is Mrs. Van Vorst’s daughter; she was the one who
+got her mother to let us have the lawn. She’s just lovely, I have been
+going to see her every day for—”
+
+At this moment Ellen, her face glowing with pleasure, touched Nathalie
+on the arm as she cried, “Oh, Miss Nathalie, Mrs. Van Vorst has sent me
+to ask you to come up and see Miss Nita, and to bring two of your
+friends with you!”
+
+Nathalie stared a moment as if not comprehending what Ellen had said,
+and then, “Oh, Ellen, do you mean that Mrs. Van Vorst wants me to come
+up to see Miss Nita and to—”
+
+“Yes, that is just what I mean, Miss,” rejoined Ellen, evidently
+enjoying Nathalie’s amazement. “Miss Nita wants to meet some of your
+Pioneer friends. Bless the child, Miss Nathalie, but you and your
+friends have brought real sunshine straight to the heart of my bairn.
+Bless you for it!”
+
+Nathalie smiled and nodded as she answered, “All right, Ellen, I’ll be
+right up!” Then, as the old nurse disappeared among the throngs on the
+lawn Nathalie turned to Grace, who was standing in open-mouthed
+astonishment at this sudden turn in the day’s doings.
+
+“Oh, Grace, will you go with me? Didn’t I tell you Nita was lovely?”
+Then seizing the girl by the arm she swept her across the grass to where
+Helen was standing talking to her brother.
+
+“Helen,” she panted, “I want you to come with me to see Nita. Mrs. Van
+Vorst has sent for me to come up and says for me to bring two of my
+friends. Will you come?”
+
+“Come!” exclaimed Helen, “of course I will. I have been on the point of
+expiring with curiosity ever since you told me of your adventure at the
+gray house.”
+
+“Adventure?” repeated Grace. “Oh, Nathalie, you have not told me about
+it!” in an aggrieved tone.
+
+“But I’m going to! Oh, but I must hurry and get the cream ready or it
+will be too late!” She started to run, but after a few steps turned
+back, and waving her hand at the girls, called, “Helen, you tell her
+while I am getting the tray.”
+
+“But I’m coming to help you,” replied that young woman. “You come, too,”
+she added, catching Grace by the arm. But to her surprise Grace pulled
+away from her with the exclamation, “Oh, Helen! I wouldn’t go in that
+house for a mint of money! Why didn’t you know? No, I’m not to tell,”
+she ended mysteriously, “but you go,” she added, “that is if you are not
+afraid.”
+
+“Afraid?” echoed her companion in amazement, “why should I be afraid,
+surely you don’t think any one could harm us as long as Nathalie has
+been there and come away safely?”
+
+“I don’t know,” hesitated Grace, “I!—”
+
+“Oh, girls, I have the tray all ready, but you will have to help me
+carry it. Do come on, for I do not want to keep Mrs. Van Vorst waiting
+too long!” Nathalie was back again.
+
+“Grace says she is afraid to go,” explained Helen.
+
+“Afraid!” repeated Nathalie bewildered. “What are you afraid of?” she
+demanded abruptly turning towards her friend.
+
+“Why Nathalie, don’t you remember that day we—”
+
+Nathalie continued to gaze at her blankly, and then her face broke into
+a smile as she remembered the day she and Grace had run away from the
+gray house afraid of the crazy man.
+
+“Oh, Grace,” she cried with merry laughter, “that was the best joke on
+you and me, for, O dear, why, Grace, it wasn’t any crazy man at all, it
+was only a cockatoo!”
+
+The long kept secret that had troubled Nathalie so much at first was out
+at last, and she and Helen, who had been told about that when her
+friend’s silence was first broken as far as she was concerned, broke
+into prolonged laughter at the richness of the joke.
+
+“A cockatoo?” exclaimed Grace incredulously, and then annoyed at the
+girls’ merriment she added crossly, “Oh, I do wish you would explain
+what is so funny, I think it real mean of you both to laugh that way!”
+
+“Yes, it is mean,” added Nathalie, stifling her laughter as she saw the
+irate expression on her friend’s face. “But, Grace, it was funny. I
+would have told you all about it before—that is how I found out—only I
+had sworn not to tell. But if you will promise not to reveal what I am
+going to tell you—honor bright—” this in answer to the girl’s nod of
+assent, “I will tell you the mystery of the gray house!”
+
+It was not long now before Grace heard the long story of how Nathalie
+had come to go to the house, how she had found out about the cockatoo,
+the star part she had played with the princess, and the many other
+happenings that had taken place within the last few weeks.
+
+“But is the poor thing such a terrible monster?” demanded Grace in ready
+sympathy.
+
+“A monster?” ejaculated Nathalie in amazement. “Who said she was a
+monster?”
+
+“Why, don’t you remember? Edith—”
+
+“Now, see here,” exclaimed Nathalie stamping her feet angrily, “don’t
+tell me another word of what the Sport says. I am just beginning to hate
+that girl, she is always saying and doing things she has no—” She
+stopped suddenly as it came to her in a conscience-stricken flash that
+Pioneers were never to say evil of any one.
+
+Helen, seeing the strange expression in her eyes and noticing how her
+color was coming and going in flashes, cried, “Oh, Nathalie, what is
+it?”
+
+“It is nothing,” replied the girl quickly in a choked voice, “I just
+stopped—because—well, I remembered that one of the Pioneer laws is not
+to speak evil of any one. I’m going to keep mum after this, but that
+girl,” her eyes shadowed again, “does provoke me so!”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie, you are a dear girl,” exclaimed Helen, putting her arm
+around her friend and giving her a hug. “I wish we were all as careful
+about keeping the Pioneer laws as you, but gracious, child, don’t repent
+with such dire woe, for none of us are saints, and the Sport is trying,
+the Lord knows. But explain to Grace about your friend.”
+
+“No,” said Nathalie determinedly. “I am not going to say another thing,
+only that Nita is not a monster, only a humpback, and—but there, if you
+want to know about her, come and see her.”
+
+“Well,” spoke up Helen, “if we are going to see the Princess in the
+tower—how fairylike that sounds—we had better go. And then, as seeing is
+believing, we’ll go and tell the Sport all about it, and stop that funny
+little tongue of hers that creates so much trouble at times.”
+
+“Oh, that will be just the thing; Helen, you are a dear!” cried
+Nathalie. Then the three girls hurried to the ice-cream table for the
+tray. Hastily taking it they pushed their way through the crowd, coming
+and going about the tables, to the porch, where Ellen relieved them of
+their burden and then conducted them to the sun parlor, where Mrs. Van
+Vorst and Nita sat waiting to receive them.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried Nathalie as she greeted that lady and her
+daughter, “it was lovely of you to allow me to bring my two friends to
+meet Nita. This is Miss Helen Dame,” she continued drawing Helen to her,
+“and this is another Pioneer friend, Miss Grace Tyson.”
+
+“I am very glad to meet you, Mrs. Van Vorst,” broke in Helen, “for I
+feel that we are very much indebted to you for allowing us to use your
+lawn.”
+
+“Yes,” chimed Grace, as she shook the lady’s hand, “we all feel that you
+have given us a lovely afternoon.”
+
+“I think the indebtedness is on my side,” smiled the lady, looking down
+with pleased eyes at the two girls, as they stood glancing shyly at her,
+their white dresses and red caps making them appear unusually pretty.
+“But let me make you acquainted with my daughter,” she added, leading
+them to where Nita sat, her blue eyes almost black with the excitement
+of meeting these two new Pioneers, while her cheeks, usually so pale,
+were flushed with a delicate pinkness.
+
+After the general hand-shaking was over and the little party had
+gathered closer to the window to admire the gay-colored flags that
+fluttered, one from each table, showing with unusual vividness between
+the green foliage and light dresses of strollers across the lawn,
+Nathalie asked Nita how she had liked the drill.
+
+“Oh, Nathalie,” rejoined the princess enthusiastically, “it was just the
+prettiest sight, and I told Ellen and Mamma every flag story, didn’t I?”
+Then suddenly remembering the two strangers, she relapsed into a shy
+silence and crouched back in the friendly shelter of her chair as if
+with the sudden thought of her deformity and the fear that the girls
+would see it.
+
+But Grace and Helen were not thinking of the “awful hump” as Nathalie
+had defined it, but of the pale sweet face with the lovely violet eyes
+that were shining like bright stars.
+
+“I am awfully glad you liked it,” said Helen, suddenly recalled to her
+duties as the leader of one of the groups. “We tried to make it look as
+festive as we could with Uncle Sam’s old liberty banners, but if it had
+not been for the lawn we should not have been able to have the drill.”
+
+“You are all very kind to thank me so prettily,” said Mrs. Van Vorst,
+“but, as I said, I think you have given me and my little daughter more
+pleasure than we have given you. The poor child sees so little of life,
+as we are so secluded here behind these high walls.”
+
+In a few moments, as Nita’s shyness began to wear off, the little group
+was chatting in the most friendly way, talking over the incidents of the
+drill, the Pioneers telling about the nice little sum they had made for
+their camp expenses, while they all ate their cream and cake. Ellen,
+like a good soul that she was, had hastened out to the lawn and brought
+enough of those delicacies to provide for the whole group.
+
+Helen’s remark about the Camping Fund started a new subject of
+conversation and opened the way for Nita to ask many questions about
+this summer dream of the Pioneers. “Oh,” she declared at length, “I just
+wish you could come up to Eagle Lake and camp on its shores. We have a
+bungalow up there, you know, and it is just a glorious place. But it
+gets so lonely after a while, with nothing but the birds and squirrels
+to talk to. Oh,” she ended suddenly with a little sigh, “if I was only
+well and strong, then I would be a Pioneer, too.”
+
+“Oh, but you—” interrupted Nathalie, and then she paused. She was going
+to say “why you can be,” but the quick remembrance of the hump and the
+delicate face of the girl caused her to halt. With quick readiness she
+changed to, “Oh, but you would enjoy seeing one of our cheer fires; they
+are an inspiration for all kinds of dreams with the burning logs and
+glowing embers.”
+
+“You ought to see the fagot party we are going to have Monday night,”
+chimed in Grace. “It is to be a burning send-off to one of the girls who
+is going South to live for a while.”
+
+“A fagot party?” exclaimed Nita with interested eyes. “Oh, do tell all
+about it; it sounds, well it sounds fagoty. What do you do?”
+
+“Why, we use small fagots tied into bundles,” explained Helen, “that is,
+after we have started a good blazing fire. Each girl has her fagot
+bundle and as soon as one burns up she throws hers on—”
+
+“Oh, but you haven’t told the best part,” broke in Grace. “While each
+girl’s fagot bundle is burning she tells a story, which has to be ended
+by the time her fagots are burned.”
+
+“Does she have to stop on the very second?” questioned Nita.
+
+“Yes, she begins as soon as she throws her bundle on the blaze, and
+keeps on talking until it is all burned up and falls to a shower of
+fiery sparks. But of course she has to keep a sharp look out on the
+burning fagots, so as to end her tale with a good climax as the fagots
+fall,” explained Helen.
+
+“Where are you going to have it?” questioned Nita, a shade of
+disappointment on her face as she thought how she would like to see this
+fagot party.
+
+“We haven’t found a place yet,” answered Grace, who was one of the
+committee, “but we are working hard to have it down in Deacon Ditmas’s
+lot, near the cross-roads.”
+
+“Why can’t you have it on our lawn?” exclaimed Nita timidly, turning
+appealing eyes towards her mother. “Oh, Mother, do say they can have it
+here, and then I can see it.”
+
+The girls were so amazed at this sudden and unexpected proposition that
+they all remained silent, Nathalie in a spasm of dread for fear that
+Mrs. Van Vorst would think that the Pioneers were a great nuisance being
+thrust upon her hospitality in this abrupt manner. But she was quickly
+undeceived as the lady rejoined hastily, “Why, I should be most pleased
+to let the Pioneers have the lawn for the fagot party. It would give
+Nita great pleasure, I am sure.”
+
+“That will be just lovely!” cried her daughter, clapping her hands
+delightedly. “And you will take it, won’t you?” she coaxed pleadingly,
+suddenly stopping her demonstrations as if realizing that her plan might
+not be pleasing to the girls.
+
+“I think it would be dandy,” answered Grace. “What do you girls think?”
+turning towards them as she spoke.
+
+“Why, I think it would be fine,” added Helen, “and—”
+
+“But oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, it will destroy the grass on the lawn,” spoke
+up Nathalie doubtfully, “for our cheer fires always leave a blackened
+burnt place on the ground.”
+
+“That will not make any difference,” was the prompt rejoinder from that
+lady. “Peter can rake it off and if necessary he can resod it. I shall
+only be delighted if you young girls can use it, and the favor will all
+be on my side—” her voice trembled slightly—“for it will give my little
+daughter so much pleasure.”
+
+“Oh, Nita! you are walking, you will fall and hurt yourself!” exclaimed
+Nathalie excitedly, as she entered that young lady’s room the Monday
+after the Flag Drill, and found her walking about with a coolness and
+ease that she had never before seen her display.
+
+Nita broke into merry laughter at the look of dismay on her friend’s
+face. “Of course I’m walking, the doctor says I can, so there!” There
+was a triumphant toss of her head at Nathalie.
+
+“But you have never walked, that is not much since I have known you!”
+cried the puzzled girl.
+
+“And you thought I never could,” replied the little lady independently.
+“Well, you are wrong. I used to walk when I felt able, sometimes quite a
+little. Then a crank of a doctor frightened Mamma to death by telling
+her I should always lie on my back or side, and for years I have been
+nailed like a mast to a ship on that couch. But Dr. Morrow says if I
+have the strength I should walk, and that my strength will come
+gradually. Oh, who knows what I can do? Walk off this old hump, I hope!”
+
+“Oh, you dear thing!” cried Nathalie, rushing to her friend and giving
+her a squeeze. “Isn’t that just the loveliest thing? What nice times we
+can have after a while if you can walk, and Dr. Morrow, I always knew he
+was a dear!”
+
+“There, don’t squeeze me to bits, but tell me all the things that have
+happened since the Flag Drill, and oh, Nathalie, your friends are dears.
+The one you call Grace is sweet, and the other one, why, she isn’t so
+pretty, but she looks a good sort.”
+
+“She is something more than a ‘good sort,’” answered Nathalie swiftly,
+“she is a gem, she is so clever and sensible, and, oh, what a friend she
+has proved to me! She has a wonderful way of helping you over the hard
+places. But there, I will tell you what Grace said about you, she said
+you were a sweet little cherub—and—”
+
+“Just arrived from angel land I suppose, with wings all sprouting,”
+ventured Nita sarcastically. “Well, she ought to see me when I’m mad.
+Cherub indeed! What did the other one say?”
+
+Nathalie hesitated; her face flushed, “Oh—why, she thought you were a
+dear, but said you were a bit spoiled.”
+
+Nita looked surprised for a minute; then her eyes flashed as she cried
+with a defiant lift of her head. “Well, I guess if Miss Sensible had a
+hump to carry about that could never be taken off, no matter how it
+hurt, and had to be shut up behind walls with nothing to see or any one
+to talk to, she’d be spoiled, too!” There was a quiver of the chin as
+the red lips closed tightly in the effort not to cry.
+
+“Oh, you poor little thing, I should not have told you that, for really,
+Helen thought you were lovely!” Nathalie regretted with all her heart
+the impulse that had prompted her to tell the truth to Nita. It seemed
+unkind but it was really spoken in the hope of doing her little friend
+good.
+
+But Nita pushed her away, “Oh, don’t pet me!” as Nathalie attempted to
+caress her, “I was only teasing. Yes, I know I’m spoiled, but there, do
+tell me the news, for your face shows that you are just dying to tell me
+something worth the hearing.”
+
+“Well, yes, I have _some_ news—that’s slang, but O dear, it does mean so
+much sometimes,” laughed Nathalie as she and Nita seated themselves on
+the couch. “Saturday we had a Pioneer Rally. Judge Benson, a friend of
+Dr. Morrow’s from the city, gave us a talk on self-government. He
+explained the difference between natural, spiritual, and civic law. He
+also explained the meaning of an ordinance, told us how justice was
+administered in the different courts, and how self-government, or the
+reform system is having its try-out in some of the prisons to-day. He
+says it bids fair to make criminals—men hardened in sin and
+crime—respectable members of a community.”
+
+“Self-government?” queried mystified Nita, “why, the Pioneers are not
+citizens or criminals; you don’t have to be governed!”
+
+“Yes, we do,” asserted Nathalie stoutly, “and so does everybody. Civic,
+natural, and spiritual laws are all right, but back of those laws is the
+law of self-government, that is the something within each one of us that
+makes us what we want to be, that makes us control ourselves even when
+we are babies, when we get slapped for being naughty. If there was no
+self-government in the world—for it is the government of self when we
+make ourselves obey the laws of God and man, when we cease evil and do
+the right—why, if there was no self-government we would all be savages
+without law and order.
+
+“Judge Benson told us how self-government came to be used in the schools
+and prisons. Of course, as I said, we all have to govern ourselves in a
+measure, but it is the applying of this self-government in a new way
+that has done so much good.
+
+“A very good man, he said, took some waifs from the poor settlements in
+New York to the country and tried to better them physically and morally
+by teaching them to be good. But of course, they would do wicked things
+and have to be punished, and he became very much discouraged because the
+punishments didn’t seem to do them any permanent good. So he thought for
+a long time and then he formed a Junior Republic, made all the boys and
+girls citizens, and then told them to appoint their own officials, that
+is, their own lawyers, judges, officers, and so on. Then when any of
+them did wrong they were haled into court and tried by their own
+comrades. Of course, they all became so interested in this new system of
+punishing—for you see, they all had a part in it—that they became
+wonderfully good. You see, the boys and girls had to learn to control
+themselves, for of course, they not only wanted to stand high in the
+court and be lawyers and judges themselves, but they did not like to be
+corrected and called down—that’s what the judge said—by their own
+comrades. This venture at making boys and girls learn to control
+themselves not only taught them self-denial, self-repression,
+self-development, and the difference between right and wrong, and their
+duty to themselves as well as to their companions, but it was the means
+of introducing the same system into the public schools, and in time into
+the prisons.”
+
+“Yes, but I don’t understand how it interests you girls.”
+
+“Why, Mrs. Morrow read so much about self-government and the good it did
+that she introduced it into the Pioneer organization, and it has worked
+wonderfully well there, Mrs. Morrow claims. Instead of a court we have a
+senate, which is composed of two girls from each bird group, elected by
+the girls. The Pioneers also elected a president, that’s Helen, and a
+vice-president, she’s an Oriole girl and quite clever, too. Jessie Ford
+is the secretary, and Mrs. Morrow is the Advisory Judge and has the
+power to veto any ruling of the president, but she never has as yet.
+
+“So you see what it does for the Pioneers, for if any member of the
+organization breaks a law or does anything wrong she is brought before
+the Senate. Every Pioneer served with an indictment to appear before the
+Senate has, of course, the right to choose one of the girls as a
+counsel, and when there are two girls implicated they both choose
+counsel. Then after the witnesses are all heard the lawyers sum up, and
+the case goes to the Senate, who act as a jury and vote by ballot. The
+case can be appealed to the Advisory Judge; or an offender, by asking or
+showing contrition, can have her sentence lightened. You don’t know what
+fun it is, and then it helps to make us govern ourselves and teaches us
+law, too, in a small way, of course.”
+
+“Well, I wish they’d try to punish that hateful Sport for using your
+idea, and to think she got all the credit for it! Why—”
+
+“No, she didn’t,” laughed Nathalie with an odd little gleam in her eye,
+“for she was tried before the Senate Saturday.”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie, you don’t mean it! Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Nita clapping
+her hands delightedly. “I do hope she got her deserts, the deceitful
+thing!”
+
+“Well, I am afraid she got all that was coming to her, as Dick said.”
+Nathalie’s bright face sobered. “Nita, I was awfully sorry for her. It
+was so humiliating to have to face that Senate, oh, the girls just hate
+to be brought before it. I had to tell as a witness, about losing the
+Stunt, the librarian told of helping me get data and then helping me to
+look for it, and then how she saw Edith pick it up as it fell from under
+a book on the table.”
+
+“Do tell me what they did to her!” Nita bent forward in curious
+excitement as she spoke.
+
+“Poor thing! she had all her stars and badges of merit taken from her.
+Just think, she will have to begin all over again to win them! At first
+it was voted that she would have to go back and be a third-class Pioneer
+again, but I was so sorry that I pleaded for clemency, and so the
+sentence was lightened.
+
+“You see, there is an awful lot of good in Edith, and I am never again
+going to say anything against her, she has been punished enough. And oh,
+Nita, Dorothy at the Rally received her third-class badge, and I
+received my badge for a second-class Pioneer. I’m going to work awfully
+hard while at camp, so as to qualify as a first-class Pioneer. But
+there, it is getting late and we shall have to stop talking and take up
+our reading on the ‘Pioneer Women of America.’”
+
+Nita nodded, and in a few moments the two girls were busily engaged;
+Nita listening with the keenest attention while Nathalie read about the
+Dutch women who came from Holland and settled New York, little dreaming
+as she read that this lesson was to culminate in an event of the utmost
+importance to the Girl Pioneers of Westport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX—THE FAGOT PARTY
+
+
+“Oh, Mother, isn’t it just beautiful?” exclaimed the princess the night
+of the fagot party, as she watched the flames leap and dance down on the
+lawn.
+
+“Yes; it is very suggestive, too,” answered Mrs. Van Vorst, “for it
+makes one think of the witches in Macbeth, as they stood around the
+cauldron watching their queer concoction ‘boil and bubble.’”
+
+“O dear!” was Nita’s wail again, “it is lovely to see the fire and the
+girls, but I do want to hear the stories they tell.”
+
+“Perhaps Nathalie will come up later,” suggested her mother, “and tell
+you some of the thrillers. Is that what she calls them?”
+
+“There, they have stopped the witches’ dance and are forming a circle.
+Oh, one of the girls has thrown on a bundle of fagots! Yes, it’s that
+friend of Nathalie’s, Miss Sensible. Oh, Mother,” cried the little
+shut-in with a woeful countenance, “I am sure I could walk down there.”
+She stood up as she spoke and began to walk restlessly up and down the
+room.
+
+“Oh, Nita, be careful!” pleaded her mother. “You do not want to overdo
+your walking, and you have been on your feet a good deal to-day.”
+Notwithstanding Mrs. Van Vorst’s protest there was a note of hope in her
+voice that betrayed that she had at last begun to see things as Nathalie
+had predicted, that she had made a mistake in housing her daughter
+behind high walls, and that the mingling with girls of her own age might
+bring new life to her.
+
+“Ah, there’s Grace,” went on the voice at the window. “She’s the other
+girl who came with Nathalie. Oh, she’s throwing on her fagots!” The girl
+turned from the window as she perceived that Ellen had entered the room
+and was telling her mother that some one desired to see her in the
+library.
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst arose to leave the room Nita demurred, “Oh, Mother, I
+don’t want to be left here alone.”
+
+“I will return as soon as possible, Nita, dear,” was the reply; “Ellen
+will stay with you. You can tell her about the fagot party,” she added
+hastily as she saw the cloud on the girl’s face. With a backward glance,
+as she hurried from the room, she saw that her suggestion had been
+followed and that Ellen had drawn her chair close to Nita’s, and was
+eagerly listening as her daughter related the incidents leading up to
+the demonstration down on the lawn.
+
+Indeed it was not long before the faithful nurse, always interested in
+anything to brighten the life of her young charge, was watching the
+Pioneers and their doings as keenly as Nita, while wishing with her that
+they could hear the stories the girls were telling.
+
+Suddenly Nita, who had been unusually silent for some time, drew Ellen’s
+head down to hers, and began to whisper softly in her ear.
+
+“Oh, Ellen, will you?” she coaxed pleadingly, as she finished her
+whispering of something that had brought a protest from the good woman.
+Ellen looked dubious for a minute or so, and then the persuasive pleader
+had her way, for Ellen had given her assent and Nita was clapping her
+hands happily, as she thought of the fun in store for her later in the
+evening.
+
+Meanwhile, the girls on the lawn with tense expectancy kept their eyes
+on Nathalie, who arose, walked towards the flaming pyre, and with a
+quick toss landed another bundle of fagots on the leaping flames.
+
+“Oh, Nathalie, you will have to hurry,” called Grace excitedly, as her
+friend scurried back to her seat. “One of your fagots is already
+ablaze.”
+
+Nathalie needed no warning for she had already plunged into her tale,
+and in short, concise sentences—she had practiced with Helen—was
+describing in graphic tone a colonial wedding, the going away of the
+bridal pair, the building of a log hut in the wilderness, the departure
+of the young husband, and the loneliness of the young bride. She paused
+a moment and drew a long breath as if to gather her forces for the
+coming ordeal.
+
+Then with her eyes fastened in a rigid stare on the twirling glare from
+the flames—so as to bring her story to a proper climax when the fiery
+fagots fell apart—she went on and told of the face of a redskin suddenly
+being thrust into a window of the little cabin, of a shriek of terror,
+of cruel, fiendish laughter, of the fair bride being carried on the back
+of a tall savage, and of the final arrival at an Indian encampment,
+where a paint-bedaubed warrior with flaunting head-gear tried to induce
+the wailing bride to become his squaw.
+
+Nathalie’s eyes, big in the flaming redness of the firelight, were
+riveted on the seething flames as if she saw in the twist and curl of
+their darting tongues the enactment of the story she was telling. The
+girls all bent forward eagerly, for the fagots were getting ready to
+burst apart as she told of the imprisonment of the bride, the making of
+a big bonfire, the tying of the bride to the stake, the lighting of the
+underbrush at her feet, and the whirling flames as they leaped up and
+greedily licked the terror-stricken face.
+
+But Nathalie, like a photo-play screen, had transported her listeners to
+a sun-baked plain, where a white man was galloping in mad speed. A fagot
+had leaped from its fellows. “Oh, Nathalie, hurry!” whispered Grace,
+wringing her hands nervously. Ah, but Nathalie was on time, and as the
+fagots gave a loud snap and fell into a shower of twinkling lights the
+horseman came galloping into the street of the Indian encampment with a
+troop of soldiers close at his heels, and leaped into the fiery embers
+and cut—There was a loud clapping followed by cries of applause, for
+there was no need to tell what happened after that leap into the fire,
+every one knew.
+
+“Now, Lillie, it is your turn!” shouted several voices as Nathalie,
+exhausted by her strenuous race between words and flames, sank back
+somewhat exhausted against her friend’s shoulder.
+
+Lillie Bell, in response to her name, seized a bundle of fagots, and
+with a few flourishes, which she declared to be an incantation for
+success, threw it on the blazing pile. In a moment she was back in her
+seat and had started her tale of romance.
+
+“When Washington Irving’s headless horseman was the terror of the
+Hudson, a party of young girls, who were wandering in the fields one
+moonlight night, was chased by a huge and airy phantom to the banks of
+the river. In order to escape their foe two of the girls darted into an
+empty boat fastened near the bank and rowed out into the stream. The
+phantom, a strange and weird object, pursued, swimming rapidly in the
+wake of the canoe.
+
+“Suddenly, to the horror of the girls crouched up against a rock on
+shore they saw, in a broad band of moonlight shining on the water, that
+the phantom was the headless one. Even as they gazed it had reached the
+boat, and with one sweep of its mighty arm had grabbed one of the girls
+from her sister’s clutch, and was swimming swiftly back to land.
+
+“The girl in the boat rowed quickly back, only to see, with her
+companions on shore, the phantom disappear into the woods. With
+phenomenal courage she flew after the headless one, screaming with all
+her strength. But alas, her speed and screams were of no avail, for she
+ran after the phantom only to see it dash into an uninhabited mansion
+that stood in a park thick with the gloom of forest trees.
+
+“Horror-stricken, the girls hastened home and parties were sent in
+pursuit of the stolen girl, but no trace of her was found, although the
+empty mansion, dark with the forest gloom was searched from attic to
+cellar.
+
+“Time passed, and the maiden returned not to her home, nor was any trace
+of her ever discovered, although every effort possible had been made. At
+last her sister, loved by a young farmer, refused to marry him unless he
+would visit the haunted mansion at midnight, to see if possibly he could
+obtain any clew to her sister’s whereabouts, it being generally believed
+that she had been murdered in the house and that her ghost haunted the
+abode.
+
+“Determined to win the girl, the young farmer with his revolver and a
+few tapers secreted himself in the cellar of the house one day, just
+before twilight. He was resolved to solve the mystery of the girl’s
+disappearance and the reason why the house at night was filled with a
+peculiar, bluish light, said to be the candle borne by the headless one
+in his midnight tour of the premises.
+
+“Just before midnight the farmer hastened to the upper floor and hid in
+a closet, where, with quaking limbs and wildly beating heart he awaited
+the magic hour. Unfortunately, weary with waiting, he fell asleep, but
+was soon awakened by a peculiar, creeping sensation along his spine. He
+crouched against the door holding it ajar with one hand and the pistol
+in the other.
+
+“All at once there was the swish of a garment against the door. He
+scratched a match, lit his taper, and glared forth into the darkness.
+Again he heard that swish. It was in the hall. Stealthily he tiptoed to
+the hall door, opened it with trembling hand, and stepped forth into
+dense blackness, when—”
+
+“Oh, Lillie, hurry!” screamed the Sport. “Your logs will fall in a
+minute!”
+
+A strange smile flitted over Lillie’s face, but her voice went
+thrillingly on. “When something huge and hairy spread over him like a
+net, benumbing every nerve and muscle. He struggled, and finally
+succeeded in getting free of the unknown thing and sprang for the door
+leading to the open. He would get out of that house. No, he would lose
+Kitty, he could not live without her! He turned—ah, what was that weird
+flash at the top of the staircase? He heard the swish again—this time
+very near—it was some one coming down the stairs! He crouched against
+the wall and peered up; the rattling of a chain sounded on his ears;
+again came that weird glare, and he saw—” the fagots fell with a loud
+sputter, throwing forth a shower of fiery sparks. Lillie remained silent
+a moment, each girl held her breath in paralyzed terror, and then, as
+the last fagot dropped a shapeless heap on the grass, Lillie cried with
+tragic emphasis, “Girls, I leave you to guess what he saw!”
+
+A second of space, Lillie’s eyes shown in a mocking smile as she glanced
+around the circle, and then, the smile froze on her lips, her eyes
+dilated wildly, and she jumped to her feet crying in frenzied horror,
+“What is that?” pointing as she spoke to a clump of trees on the lawn.
+Another second and she had turned, and with an unearthly shriek was
+flying across the lawn towards the house!
+
+The girls, whose nerves had been wrought up to the highest pitch by
+Lillie’s weird tale, remained dumb, thinking as they saw her strange
+actions that it was a new thriller, and were uncertain whether to laugh
+or cry, as they stared at her flying figure.
+
+Jessie, who always disliked Lillie’s tragic tales, with a half laugh
+sprang to her feet crying, “Well, if she isn’t the limit!” Her glance
+had followed Lillie’s to the clump of trees with a curious stare; the
+stare became fixed; she uttered a wild scream, and the next moment she,
+too, was rushing in mad terror across the lawn in the wake of the
+story-teller!
+
+As the girls saw her glance and heard her cry, terror struck each one
+like an electric shock, and the next second every girl present had
+broken into a wild cry, and without waiting to see what was the cause of
+the rush over the lawn, was speeding, helter-skelter towards the house!
+
+Nathalie had run with the others, and then, swayed by some unknown
+impulse, she had halted and glanced back in the direction she had seen
+Lillie and Jessie look. She gave a low cry, started to flee again, and
+then stood suddenly still, and with panting breath gazed again at the
+clump of trees. She caught her breath, for under the swaying boughs
+stood a weird, white object pointing a long white finger at her!
+
+What was it? Could it be a Boy Scout trying to frighten them? She bent
+forward with intent eyes, for as the white figure swayed slightly there
+was something curiously familiar in its movements. The next instant
+Nathalie had turned, and as if shot from a catapult was speeding towards
+the white figure that still stood, uncannily waving its arms to and fro
+in the moonlight.
+
+[Illustration: With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn.]
+
+“Oh, Nita!” burst from the girl, “how did you come here?“ Before the
+white figure could answer, Ellen was seen running swiftly towards them.
+
+“Oh, Miss Nita,” she wailed, “what a scare you have given me! Oh, you
+naughty girl, you promised that you would not leave the lower porch!”
+
+“Well,” flashed the girl, “I changed my mind!” Then seizing Nathalie,
+who was still staring at her with big, frightened eyes, she began to
+laugh hysterically. “Oh, wasn’t it funny, Nathalie? Did you see how she
+ran? What a joke, when she was trying to scare the girls—and was scared
+herself—O dear, it is so funny!”
+
+But Nathalie, with a sober face was staring down at the grass. “Oh,
+Nita,” she exclaimed with a sudden fear, “the grass is wet, and, Ellen,
+she will take cold! Oh, how did she get here? Mrs. Van Vorst will be so
+displeased!”
+
+But at that instant Mrs. Van Vorst came running down the path followed
+by Mrs. Morrow. “Oh, Nita! Nita!” she wailed, “how could you be so
+foolish, you will surely take your death! Ellen, how did it happen?”
+
+“Sure, there’s no harm done,” broke in Peter’s voice at this critical
+moment. “I have her chair and we’ll soon get her in, marm. Sure, I saw
+her stealing across the lawn all alone by herself, and I hurried after
+the chair, thinking she would be tired before she had gone far.”
+
+“Thank you, Peter,” cried Nita’s mother, “you are so good and
+considerate. O dear, I hope she won’t take cold! It was such an
+imprudent thing for her to do, but Ellen, how did it happen?” There was
+a note of condemnation in the lady’s voice.
+
+But before Ellen could answer, Nita, whom Peter had wrapped and placed
+in her chair, cried, “Now, Mamma, don’t blame Ellen. It was all my
+fault. I sent her to get my shawl and then I stole down here. I just
+wanted to hear some of the stories. But when I got here that girl—the
+Pioneers called her Lillie—was telling a story. She was trying to scare
+the girls, and then—oh, Mother, it was so funny to see her run—why, I
+thought I would scare her, and when she looked up, just as she had
+worked the girls all to a fever, I waved my arm and pointed my finger at
+her. Oh, Mother, if you could have heard her shriek!” Nita was again in
+hysterical laughter.
+
+By this time she had her audience laughing with her, especially Peter
+and Ellen, who thought their young mistress had been most brilliant in
+outwitting them, and in frightening the young lady who had been trying
+so hard to frighten her companions.
+
+“O dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, who proved to be the lady who was
+visiting with Mrs. Van Vorst when Nita stole down to the lower porch, “I
+am ashamed of my Pioneers; they are supposed to be very brave, but
+to-night’s performance does not appear as if they were. Nathalie, how
+was it you did not run with the others?”
+
+“I did,” confessed Nathalie frankly, “but something brought me to a halt
+and I turned and looked back. O dear, but Nita did look terrible waving
+her white arms to and fro! And then it came to me that there was
+something familiar about the figure, I stared a moment, and then I knew!
+But, Mrs. Morrow, hadn’t I better look for the girls? Please do not
+blame them, I am sure you would have run, too, if you could have seen
+Nita in that sheet, pointing her finger at you.”
+
+Then Nathalie was off, running swiftly over the lawn, peering first on
+one side and then the other as she gave a Bob White whistle, then a
+Tru-al-lee, ending with the shout, “Girls! Girls! where are you?” then
+the Bob White whistle again.
+
+Her cry was heard, and one by one the Pioneers sheepishly crawled from
+their places of safety and joined Nathalie on the lawn. They listened
+with shamed faces as she told them who and what it was that had caused
+their sudden departure. They were reluctant to show themselves at first,
+especially when they learned that Mrs. Morrow was there and had heard
+all about their foolish flight. But with a bit of coaxing on Nathalie’s
+part they returned, and in a few minutes were again in their cheer-fire
+circle, with two additional guests, Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, besides
+Mrs. Morrow, who had thought when the girls first began to tell their
+stories to slip in and thank Mrs. Van Vorst for her kindness, with the
+result that she had been a witness to their lack of bravery, as she
+termed it.
+
+The rest of the evening passed quickly after one or two had told their
+thrillers, to the great satisfaction of Nita, who enjoyed them
+immensely. After the stories were told, there was a marshmallow roast,
+which was entered into with zest, and then came the burning send-off to
+Louise Gaynor, who, when her name was called, came shyly forward to
+receive an enormous pie, from which hung streamers of gay colored
+ribbons, each streamer being tied to a keepsake from one of the
+Pioneers.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now expressed the regret of the Pioneers at losing so good a
+comrade and friend, with the added wish that she would always remember
+them with love, and the assurance that they would carry her on their
+hearts with devout wishes for her health and happiness. The streamers
+were pulled one by one and the loving gifts were brought forth as a
+tribute to the sweetest songster of the band.
+
+The last streamer brought to light a Round Robin letter, which Louise
+faithfully promised not to open until the dates set, as for each day in
+the year of absence she would find a few words of cheer and love from
+her comrades, the Girl Pioneers of America.
+
+After a few songs from the girls, Louise sang one or two of her old
+English songs, Lillie accompanying her on the mandolin, and then Mrs.
+Morrow, in a neat little speech, commended Nathalie for her courage in
+holding her ground when the others had taken to flight. As she ended
+there was a moment’s silence and then each and every girl was shouting
+as loud as she could:
+
+  “Hear! hear! a brave Pioneer!
+  Three cheers for Nathalie dear!”
+
+This cheer was most embarrassing to Nathalie, who wiggled uneasily with
+flushed cheeks as she tried to make the girls hear that she was not
+brave at all. But her protests were drowned by the merry voices, as
+after three cheers they broke into their Pioneer song of good-by to
+Louise. This was followed by the song that every Pioneer loves to sing
+and that was:
+
+  “We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We will be brave, and kind and true;
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+      Hear! Hear! Hear!
+      Girl Pioneer!
+      Come, give a cheer!
+      Girl Pi-o-neer!!!”
+
+One bright morning two weeks after the fagot party, Helen with wondering
+surprise mingled with pleasure read the following:
+
+  “Madame Van Vorst presents her compliments to Mistress Helen Dame,
+  and begs the pleasure of her company on the afternoon of the sixth
+  of July, at a _Kraeg_, to meet her daughter, Mistress Anita Van
+  Vorst, in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth
+  anniversary of the building of the Van Vorst homestead. Mistress
+  Helen is requested to appear in the costume of a ‘goede vrouw’ of
+  Mana-ha-ta.”
+
+“A _Kraeg_—what does that mean?” queried the girl, as with puzzled brows
+she eyed the tiny picture of the “Homestead” surmounting the invitation,
+with the dates, 1664-1914. “Ah, Nathalie will know!” The next moment the
+girl was hurrying across the lawn to her neighbor’s veranda, where she
+had spied her cosily ensconced in the hammock screened from observant
+eyes by a bower of green leaves.
+
+Nathalie looked up as she heard her step and trilled a soft tru-al-lee
+in recognition, as Helen gave the brownish envelope in her hand a
+flourish.
+
+“I knew you would be wanting to know what that meant.” Nathalie smiled
+happily at her friend as she pointed to the envelope.
+
+“I understand the invitation all right,” was the quick retort, “and
+congratulate you on your success in winning the madame to your views
+that it was a shame to allow little Anita to bloom behind those high
+walls. But—can you tell me what kind of a thing a _Kraeg_ is?”
+
+“It means a Dutch house-warming! But there, I am not going to tell you
+any more, wait until the sixth.”
+
+“‘In the costume of a goede vrouw of Mana-ha-ta,’” read Helen slowly.
+“May I deign to ask your Dutch Majesty to explain what this means?”
+
+“You may,” nodded the occupant of the hammock, “for her Dutch Majesty
+has spent many weary hours with Miss Anita studying just that part of
+the program. You see, we want to have the real Dutch atmosphere of the
+early period, so we decided to have each girl impersonate some woman
+pioneer, and then tell who she was and what she did.”
+
+“Well, I don’t imagine that the girls will care to get themselves up
+like those old Dutch vrouws, as they were so terribly stolid and
+uninteresting.”
+
+“Oh, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie sitting suddenly up in the hammock,
+“those Dutch vrouws were anything but uninteresting. Nita and I have
+read all about them in a book Mrs. Van Vorst bought for us in New York,
+it has just been published and is very interesting. As a matter of fact,
+the women who settled New York were the most efficient, the most
+industrious, and the most capable of any of the early pioneer women of
+that period.”
+
+“I did not know that,” said Helen, raising her eyebrows; “I thought they
+were just stolid Dutch peasant women with little ability to do anything
+but knit, tend the cows, and so on.”
+
+“A great many people seem to have that idea,” returned her friend, “but
+the Dutch housewives were not mere stoical drudges. Holland at that
+time, you know, was the only country that gave as good an education to
+her girls as to her boys. They were not only educated to fill
+responsible positions, but to have a love for literature as well as for
+painting, music, and the arts. So these Dutch peasants, as you call
+them, were better educated, better protected by the laws of the colony,
+and held more important positions than any of their Southern or Northern
+sisters.
+
+“It is claimed,” she went on, warming to her subject, “that the Dutch
+housewife was the manufacturer of the day, producing under her own roof
+nearly all the necessities for the family use. Besides being proficient
+in the art of cooking, she made perfumes from the flowers in her garden,
+planted, gathered, dried, and brewed the hops. She culled simples and
+herbs for medicine, thus becoming the physician of the household. She
+taught her maids to card and weave wool for clothes; she spun the fine
+thread of the flax, grown in her yard, for the linen, knit the socks,
+oh, I could not begin to tell you her many industries!
+
+“But besides all that,” continued the girl, “the goede vrouws had such
+good sense and judgment, and such a fine eye for commercial values that
+they not only owned real estate, but ofttimes carried on their own
+business. The burgomasters of the town paid great deference to the Dutch
+women’s shrewdness, judgment, and independence, so that they exerted no
+little influence in the state affairs of New Amsterdam.”
+
+“Well, I never!” laughed Helen teasingly. “If you haven’t become a
+regular schoolma’am since you have been teaching the princess. Pray, how
+much am I to pay you per word?”
+
+Nathalie laughed merrily. “Yes, isn’t it funny? I started reading about
+the Pioneer women to get Nita interested in something that would be
+instructive as well as entertaining. And lo, she has not only become
+absorbed in anything that pertains to the pioneers, but in many other
+historical subjects as well. As for me, why, I have learned a great
+deal, too, and that is how, when Mrs. Van Vorst said she would like to
+entertain the Pioneers in return for amusing Nita by the drill and the
+fagot party, we decided to have a _Kraeg_.”
+
+“How will the girls know what characters they are to take, what they
+did, and so on?”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Morrow and I arranged all that. Notices were sent—you’ll get
+yours—telling the girls that all information would be furnished by
+Annetje Jans—that’s I—gratis. I will arrange with each girl as to her
+character and so on. Oh, there’s Grace! I’ll warrant you she has her
+notice and is in a hurry for news. But, Helen, here is the book that
+tells all about these Dutch women. I wish you would take it and look it
+over, for I know I shall need lots of help.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX—THE DUTCH KRAEG
+
+
+The sixth of July had arrived, and little Miss New York was fidgeting
+nervously in her chair—draped with the Star Spangled Banner and the
+flaunting colors of the Dutch Republic—placed in line with the hostess
+and the receiving party of the day. She was a rather startling Miss New
+York, arrayed as a Goddess of Liberty—she had claimed she was too modern
+to be a vrouw—with her chair as well as her small person hung with
+placards of well-known places, streets, and buildings of the metropolis.
+
+By her side stood Madame New Amsterdam—Mrs. Van Vorst—whose
+multitudinous skirts stood out from her figure with such amplitude that
+she resembled the quaint little green pincushion that dangled from her
+waist. Her neat white cap was tied under her chin with formal stiffness,
+while a large silk apron completed a make-up that transformed the
+slender, dignified Mrs. Van Vorst into a typical Dutch matron. She too,
+like her daughter, was hung with tiny white signs from bodice to skirt,
+which excited curiosity if not admiration.
+
+“Oh, Mother, I do wish they would hurry and come!” cried Miss New York
+impatiently, craning her neck to see if some one had not yet appeared on
+the broad stairway leading to the main sitting-room. “Oh, somebody’s
+coming!” and the little lady, with the weight of a city on her
+shoulders, drew back as she clapped her hands with delight.
+
+“Ah, here comes the Governor’s lady,” exclaimed Madame New Amsterdam as
+Madame Stuyvesant—Mrs. Morrow—announced her coming by stopping on the
+threshold of the low-ceiled room, and bowed with such stately formality
+that Miss New York’s eyes suddenly stilled, as she stiffened with
+similar dignity to receive the first guest.
+
+The Governor’s lady was followed by Annetje Jans, her comely little
+person looking like a blooming Dutch posy, arrayed in a bright green
+petticoat and a blue waistcoat with yellow sleeves. The brown eyes,
+ready smile, and brilliant cheeks of Miss Nathalie made her a fitting
+representative of the little lady who formed so large a part of the
+history of New Amsterdam, coming over in 1630 in the ship _Endracht_
+with her husband and three children from Holland. After the death of her
+husband, who left her a _bouwerie_ (farm) of sixty acres, a good part of
+New York, she married Dominie Bogardus, thus becoming with her wealth
+and influence a dominant character in the colony.
+
+Annetje came a few steps forward, and then bobbed such a low curtsy that
+the wings of her lace cap flapped out like the sails of a windmill in a
+greeting to her hostesses. But in a second her old-time pose was
+forgotten, as her eyes fell on the much “be-signed” person of the lady
+of the house, and she flew to her aid, declaring that she was losing
+some of her signs.
+
+“This will never do,” she commented as she hurriedly pinned the sign
+“Bouwerie” in its place. “Oh, and here’s another old place that’s gone
+astray!” poking “Der Halle” on a straight line with its neighbor, “De
+claver Waytie.”
+
+“Will you please inform me why New Amsterdam is thus placarded?” It was
+the voice of the Governor’s lady, who was curiously watching this
+adjustment of signs.
+
+“Why, these signs are the Dutch names of the different localities and
+streets as named in the days of New Amsterdam,” explained Annetje
+quickly. “See. Broad street means Broad way; _Kloch-Hoeck_ was the site
+of the first village, as it was all covered with bits of clam and oyster
+shells, the word means Shell Point. _De claver Waytie_ was a hill
+leading to a spring covered with grass, where the young maidens used to
+bleach their linen. The path they wore up the hill came to be known as
+_Maadje-Paatje_, Maiden Lane. _Der Halle_ was the name of a tavern near
+a big tree on the corner of Broad and Wall Street. It took the arms of
+six men to go round _der groot_ tree.
+
+“Here is _Cowfoot Hill_, the old cow-path up the hill, _Canoe Place_,
+where the Indians used to tie their canoes, and _Catiemuts_ is the hill
+where the Indians had built their castle. _Collect_ means a dear little
+lake near-by, yes, and here’s the Boston Highway, here’s the
+_Stadt-Huys_, the town hall. _Graft_ was a ditch crossed by a bridge;
+_De Smits Vlye_ was an old blacksmith shop near the ferry to Long
+Island. _Vlacke_ was the grazing ground for the cows, now the City Hall
+Park. _De Schaape Waytie_ was the sheep pasture—”
+
+“Annetje Jans,” exclaimed Madame Van Stuyvesant at this point, with a
+solemn face, “do you expect me to remember all those Dutch names?
+Verily, child, you have improved your time and twisted your tongue.” But
+Annetje was off, for at that moment she spied another arrival, one of
+the Orioles, and as the sprightly dominie’s widow was to act as mistress
+of ceremonies, she was soon by her side, as she stood hesitatingly in
+the doorway.
+
+“How do you do, _Mutter_. Oh, but you do look fine!” cried Nathalie as
+her keen eyes noted the broad appearing figure with hair pushed straight
+back under a close fitting cap, short petticoat and gown displaying her
+wooden sabots. The _mutter_ was knitting industriously, like a typical
+Dutch vrouw, as she talked to Annetje and told of the woes that attended
+the getting up of her make-up.
+
+Annetje now led the new arrival to the line waiting to welcome her.
+“Allow me to present to you Catalina de Trice, the _mutter_ of New York,
+having been the first woman to land on that famous little isle.”
+
+“Yes,” added the _mutter_ with a stiff little bow to the grand Dutch
+dames receiving her with stately courtesy, “I came over in the first
+ship, the _Unity_, sent by the West India Company to the settlement, and
+I have the added distinction,” another quaint bob, “of being the mother
+of the first white child born in New Amsterdam, Sara Rapelje.”
+
+Catalina had no time to continue her family history for Annetje had
+hurried her to Miss New York, a little lady in whom all the Pioneers
+were greatly interested. She was next shown a table in the rear of Nita,
+holding a ship encrusted with silver frosting to represent snow, and
+bearing the words, “_Half-Moon_.” On the deck of this famous craft was
+the miniature figure of a man, which Nathalie explained, was intended
+for the discoverer who had named the river Hudson after himself. Back of
+the ship were small sized rocks with the sign, “Great Rocks of
+Wiehocken,” which Annetje declared needed no explanation.
+
+A few feet away was a large windmill guarded by a demure little
+serving-maid who was no other than Carol. With her flower-blue eyes and
+corn-colored hair hanging in two braids from under her cute little cap
+she was a miniature Dutch vrouw. Catalina was now invited to pull one of
+a number of gay-colored streamers that flew with the windmill as it
+buzzed rapidly around.
+
+To the girl’s surprise, as she gave a quick pull to a ribbon, a card
+dropped from one of the sails. It was painted with a gaudy red tulip
+with an appropriate verse on Holland’s national posy. Catalina, on being
+told to keep it, pinned it to her bodice, and then hurried with Annetje
+to receive the guests standing at the door, the two girls being the
+oldest representatives of the Dutch colony.
+
+The new comer proved to be Tryntje Jonas, alias Barbara Worth. She was
+made known to the hostess as the mother of Annetje, and as the first
+nurse and woman doctor in the settlement. Her skirt was of true
+linsey-woolsey, from which hung an immense pincushion. With her glasses
+and her knitting-bag on her arm she looked duly professional as she paid
+her respects to the Dutch vrouw with stately dignity.
+
+A sweeping curtsy and Madame Kiersted, Annetje’s daughter, otherwise
+Grace Tyson, was telling with pride of the part she had played as Indian
+interpreter, when the officials of the town were making a treaty with
+the Indians. She was well-versed in the Algonquin language, she
+explained, as she had played with little Indian children from the time
+she was a wee lassie.
+
+She told, too, how she had signed a petition and presented it to the
+councillors, begging that the good vrouws be permitted to hold a market
+day. This petition was granted, and market day was held thenceforth on
+Saturdays, when the dames of the colony were permitted to offer their
+wares for sale on the Strand near her home. Furthermore, the Madame
+stated she had a shed built in her back yard, so that the Indian squaws
+could make brooms and string wampum, which they, too, sold on market
+day. From a little bag she now produced a wampum belt, explaining that
+it was made of twisted periwinkle shells strung on hemp. A blue
+clam-shell was also brought forth, which had been punctured with holes
+and which was called _sewant_; these two shells at that time
+constituting the currency of the colony.
+
+But the Indian’s friend had gone and in her place stood a _grande dame_,
+the famous Madame Van Cortland, generally known in the olden days as
+“the maker of a stone street.” Madame, when inquiry was made, said she
+had been born in Holland, but came to the _dorp_ to marry her lover,
+Captain Oloff Van Cortland. “We lived in a very grand house for those
+times, for it was made of glazed brick and had a sloping roof with a
+gable turned towards the street, after the manner of the ‘Patria,’” she
+added with pompous gravity. “There were steps leading to the roof, too,
+so when it rained or snowed the water could run into a hogshead in the
+yard instead of on my neighbor’s sidewalk or head. The house was
+furnished in a grand style, all the furniture came from Holland, and in
+front of it was a little stoop with two side benches and a door with an
+enormous brass knocker.”
+
+“But the stone street, Madame?” inquired Madame New Amsterdam, who
+seemed greatly interested in these little stories of the people and
+doings of the city whose name she bore.
+
+“Cobbles,” corrected Dame Van Cortland. “You see, it was this way. My
+husband, the captain, resigned from the militia and went into the
+brewing business. He built a brewery on Brower Street near the Fort, one
+of the first lanes made by the settlers. But alas,” sighed Madame
+ruefully, “when my husband’s brewery wagons made their way over the lane
+they raised so much dust and dirt that I begged my better half to pave
+it with stones. He laughed at me, as was his wont, and the dust and dirt
+grew thicker on the lane. Driven desperate, I now marshaled my servants
+to the lane, and we laid it with small, round cobblestones. I won my way
+as well as fame, for the little stone street was the first of its kind
+in the _dorp_, and was regarded with much curiosity by the burghers.”
+
+Annetje, now spying two more comers, flew to welcome them and the grande
+dame of Manhattan Isle was forgotten, as an ancient little lady appeared
+with silver curls peeping from beneath a cap of rare old lace, a
+rustling silk crossed with a kerchief, and a chatelaine hanging from her
+girdle. She bowed with quaint grace before the ladies, as Madame
+Killiaen Van Rensselaer, otherwise known as, “The Lady of the Thimble.”
+
+“Yes,” spoke the little old lady, who by the way was a Bob White, and
+who had studied her part with due diligence, “I was the first woman to
+wear a gold thimble. I was seated at my work one day with an ivory
+thimble, big and cumbersome, on my fingers, the kind ’tis claimed the
+tailors use. A young friend of mine to whom I had rendered some slight
+service was at work in his shop just across the lane. He spied my
+thimble, and, being a goldsmith, then and there vowed that on my
+birthday I should receive a gift. ’Tis needless to say that this vow was
+fulfilled, for the young man presented me with a gold thimble on that
+day, which he had made with the wish that I would wear his finger-hat as
+a covering to a diligent and beautiful finger.”
+
+A comely Dutch matron with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks was now bowing
+in sprightly manner before the hostess. By her pose she was immediately
+recognized as Lillie Bell, who indeed was just the one to personate the
+fair and bewitching “Lady of Petticoat Lane,” alias Polly Spratt, Polly
+Prevoorst, and Polly Alexander. The fair Polly was the recognized social
+leader of New York in the days when coasting down _Flattenbarack Hill_,
+or skating on the _Collect_ with a party of lads and lassies as merry as
+herself gained her the name of a hoyden. Always the bonniest, the
+merriest lass at a wedding or dance, the acknowledged leader of her set,
+counting her suitors by the score, it was not to be wondered when she
+became a matron at seventeen. As a widow of twenty-six she assumed
+control of her husband’s business, building a row of offices in front of
+her house. She, too, built a stone street, Marketfield Lane, thus
+inciting her neighbors to do the same. Hence, the brick walks that now
+came into fashion called _Strookes_.
+
+The keeper of a shop, the maker of a stone lane, the owner of a
+wonderful coach, Madame’s fame as a beauty and a social leader, added to
+her shrewdness, her ingenuity, and sprightly intelligence, won her an
+influence in the more weighty matters of the town, gaining her the title
+of “My Lady of Petticoat Lane.” Undoubtedly it also won her another
+husband, as when the _pinter_ flower was in bloom, pretty Polly married
+Mr. James Alexander, one of the most distinguished gentlemen of the
+times.
+
+But on they came, the Pioneer Girls, as Dutch matrons or maidens,
+impersonating those famous pioneer women, who not only were the bone and
+sinew of old New York, but who were the progenitors of some of its most
+distinguished men in the days that followed. Katrina de Brough, who
+lived in a fine stone house on Hanover Square, was a most suitable
+example of the housewife of the day. Her days were spent in planting her
+garden, culling her simples, distilling her medicines, and many other
+well-known crafts of the times.
+
+Judith Varleth had gained the name of the “witch maiden,” having been
+arrested and imprisoned in Hartford, Connecticut, when quite a young
+girl. Whether her beauty or her Dutch tongue brought this dire calamity
+upon her is not known, but the witch maiden was duly released and
+returned to her home by her brother, and in a few years disposed of her
+unfortunate name by marrying a gallant gentleman by the name of Col.
+Nicholas Bayard.
+
+Margaret Hardenbroeck not only won a husband, Captain Patrus de Vries, a
+wealthy ship-owner, but won fame as well. On the death of her husband
+she continued his business, and established a line of ships, the first
+packet line that crossed the Atlantic. Her ability as a business woman
+evidently won her not only fame, but a husband, for she soon married
+again, a Mr. Frederick Phillipse, and in later days became the owner of
+the Phillipse Manor, so well known during the days of the Revolution.
+
+Cornelia Lubbetse became Mrs. Johannes de Beyster, while her daughter
+Marie, the wife of three husbands, became known as the wealthiest woman
+in the settlement. She was also noted for her industry, filling a great
+_kos_ (chest) with beautiful linen tied in packages with colored tape
+and marked by herself at the time of her first marriage. She also
+carried on a thrifty business trading with ships between New Amsterdam,
+Connecticut, and Virginia, as well as being the mother of “The Lady of
+Petticoat Lane,” who married a younger brother of her third husband.
+
+Anna Stuyvesant, Rachel Hartjers, and Madame Van Corlear were all in due
+turn presented to the hostess, as well as Grietje Janssen, who was known
+in the old days as a double-tongued woman, having won fame as being the
+gossip of the burgh.
+
+But the merry chatter and low-pitched laughter of these would-be
+historic maidens was suddenly stilled, as a strange, grotesque figure
+was seen in the doorway gazing at the assembled company with an odd
+little smile on its bedaubed face.
+
+A murmur of surprise and astonishment caused eyes and mouths to open in
+curious wonder, as Annetje, although as bewildered as her neighbors,
+made her way to the door to welcome the unknown intruder.
+
+As Nathalie approached the uncouth, blanketed savage it emitted a
+strange sound; some claimed it was a grunt, while others said it was a
+groan. The girl stared a moment in startled inquiry and then a smile
+parted her lips, which was quickly repressed as in a quick glance she
+noted the eyes heavily underlined with black paint, the brown dyed skin,
+the red patched cheeks much besmeared with grease, and the black
+snake-like strings of hair that straggled from beneath a derby hat,
+several sizes too small for the head.
+
+As the redskin strode with measured gait to the ladies, the painted lips
+opened, and an excellent imitation of an Indian warwhoop broke forth
+with startling intensity. Little Miss New York jumped nervously, Madame
+New Amsterdam started back in surprise, but Mrs. Morrow and Nathalie
+burst into laughter as they both cried, “Why—it’s Edith!”
+
+Yes, it was the Sport, who seeing she was the sensation of the moment
+took off her derby hat and with a low bow to hostesses, in guttural tone
+exclaimed, “No, me no Edith, me Indian squaw from Mana-ha-ta!”
+
+This unexpected announcement created no little astonishment, and the
+girls flocked around her with exclamations of wonder and surprise. As
+they began to ply her with questions she cried triumphantly, “Ah, girls,
+I fooled you that time, for I guess you had all forgotten about the
+Indian women of Manhattan, who always wore their husband’s hats.”
+
+“Oh, girls,” cried Nathalie quickly, “the joke is on me, for I had
+forgotten, as Edith says, all about these Indian squaws.”
+
+“Edith, it was clever of you to remember,” now interposed the Governor’s
+lady, “and your get-up too, is very good.” She gazed with keen eyes at
+the girl’s deerskin robe, fringed at the sides, with its embroidered
+bodice, and the rows of colored beads that decorated her neck and her
+brown bedaubed arms. “But Edith,” she continued, “can’t you tell us
+something about these squaws?”
+
+The girl looked somewhat dismayed for a moment; perhaps the sudden
+recollection of the last time she had faced her companions, the shame
+she had felt, and the punishment that had been meted out to her, caused
+the flush that showed even beneath her paint and grease.
+
+“Why—I—oh, I don’t think there is much to tell,” she faltered. But
+encouraged by a nod from Mrs. Morrow she continued, “Lillie Bell lent me
+Washington Irving’s History of New York. It tells how Peter Minuit
+purchased the island from the Indians—the Dutch people called them
+Wilden—and where the bargain was made. It was close to a little block
+house inside a palisade of red cedars very near the traders’ hut in a
+place called _Capsey_, the place of safe landing. Washington Irving
+claimed that the name, ‘Manhattan,’ came from a tribe of Indians whose
+squaws always wore their husband’s hats, but I never knew that Indians
+wore hats, so I suppose it is just one of his jokes.”
+
+There was a general laugh at Edith’s sally, and then the girls broke
+into loud applause. Perhaps they, too, were doing a little thinking and
+were anxious to show Edith that the deeds of the past were forgotten in
+her well-doing.
+
+Annetje, after marshaling her forces, now led the girls through the
+quaint Dutch room to show them the many relics of past days. The
+wide-throated fireplace with its gay-colored tiles—still in a state of
+good preservation—with their queer scriptural figures, each picture with
+the number of the text in the Bible that told its story, awakened great
+interest.
+
+Mahogany tables, queer little sideboards, and curiously carved chairs
+next claimed their attention, while the _slaap-bauck_, a funny little
+closet built in the side walls of the room, its shelf covered with a
+mattress, and with folding doors to open at night for a guest bed, won
+special favor.
+
+A flowered tabby cloth, a foot-warmer, and an old chest called a _kos_,
+and which Nathalie declared was similar to the one that the industrious
+Marie de Peyster had filled with linen, was regarded with much awe. A
+nutwood case, a wardrobe called a _kasten_—filled with old Dutch
+costumes, grimy and moth-eaten—divided honors with a beautiful old
+cupboard with glass doors, displaying rare old blue and white Delft,
+said to have come from Holland years and years ago.
+
+But curios pall in time, and so the girls were not at all reluctant to
+follow their hostesses into the quaint old kitchen, gayly decorated with
+the orange and blue of the Dutch Republic. Here, many exclamations of
+admiration escaped them when they saw the long table in the center of
+the room, with its bloom of hyacinths, gillyflowers, narcissus,
+daffodils, and tulips, all reminders of the little beau-pots that
+adorned the window sills, or peeped from the flower patches in front of
+the gable-roofed houses in the days of the first settlers.
+
+Embowered in this floral display was a huge silver bowl hung with tiny
+silver spoons. This was the caudle dish, the inseparable accompaniment
+of feast gatherings or when the _kinder_ were christened. From the hot,
+spicy odor that emanated from this relic of Dutch festivity the girls
+knew it held something good.
+
+But there was no more time to admire, for it was now discovered that a
+flower was tied with daintily colored ribbon to the back of each chair.
+Recognizing that they were intended for place-cards, the girls flew
+hurriedly around the table trying to find the flower that matched the
+one on the cards they had received from the windmill.
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst, typifying the first Dutch settlement in the New World,
+now cordially welcomed her guests with a few appropriate words. She was
+followed by Nita, who, standing on the platform of her chair, recited a
+greeting in Dutch—a little thing that Nathalie had taught her—with
+quaint precision, while her eyes twinkled humorously.
+
+The edibles were now served, the little serving-maid being Carol
+assisted by Peter attired as a herdsman in low-heeled shoes, brass
+buckles, gray stockings, and with a twisted cow’s horn hanging from his
+shoulder.
+
+Roasted oysters served with hot split biscuits tempered with butter were
+the first course. Then came salmon à la Hollandaise and patriotic crabs,
+so called because the settlers declared that they were the color of the
+flag of the Prince of Orange. Frankfurters now appeared, so deliciously
+prepared that the Pioneers barely recognized their hike stand-by, served
+with carrots and turnips garnished with parsley. Green salad now
+followed with the caudle served from the silver bowl, each girl ladling
+this particular Dutch dainty, piping hot, into her own china cup.
+
+The goodies were jellies, custards, _oly krecks_—sometimes called
+doughnuts because of the tiny nut in the center—krullers,
+_izer-cookies_, or waffles, syllabubs, and many other toothsome sweets.
+All of these viands were greatly enjoyed, not only because they were of
+Dutch renown, but because they were eaten, as their Director declared in
+memory of the _goede vrouven_ who helped their _goede_ men to lay the
+first stones of the great city of New York.
+
+Every one was at their merriest when Annetje Jans, who had suddenly
+grown unduly restive, arose in her chair and holding her caudle cup high
+proposed a toast to Madame New Amsterdam, Mrs. Van Vorst, their hostess!
+
+Immediately glasses were touched to the lady so honored, who in return
+proposed a like honor for Madame Stuyvesant, Mrs. Morrow, the Director
+of the Girl Pioneers of America. Little Miss New York was now honored,
+who, as she bowed in response to the loud clapping that followed her
+name, passed the honor on to her friend, Miss Nathalie Page, in Dutch,
+Madame Annetje Jans.
+
+There was more applause in appreciation of Nita’s tribute, although her
+voice was low and tremulous with timidity at speaking before so many.
+But when Nathalie rose on her feet to reply, the clapping grew so
+vociferous that the color deepened her cheeks to a more vivid pink.
+
+But she stood her ground, and as the teasing girls wearied of clapping
+she spoke. There was a slight tremor in her voice, but she went steadily
+on, and after expressing in the name of the Pioneers the great pleasure
+it had given them to meet the daughter of their hostess, voiced their
+desires in asking Miss Nita to join with them in their endeavors to
+imitate the sterling qualities of the early pioneer women, and to become
+a Girl Pioneer of America!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI—AN INVITATION
+
+
+As Nathalie sank back in her seat glad to think the ordeal—to her—of the
+day was over, there was a moment’s silence, and then every Pioneer was
+doing her best to second this invitation to the daughter of their
+hostess by making as loud a demonstration as possible.
+
+Nita, as she heard this invitation, grew white, speechless with
+surprise, but only for a moment, as the next second, with joy shining in
+her eyes, she leaned over crying in a tense whisper, “Oh, Mother, tell
+them yes! Tell them yes!”
+
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had already risen to her feet, eyes smiling but tear
+dimmed as she gazed down at the bright expectant faces upturned to hers.
+For a moment she stood, and then in a voice broken by emotion and
+pleasure thanked the Pioneers for an invitation that she knew had been
+prompted by kindness and that she appreciated more than she could
+express. Her little daughter, as they all knew, was a shut-in. She would
+be delighted to become one of a band of girls who had proved so worthy
+of the name they bore, but, her face saddened, would she not prove a
+burden to them, for would it not require too much patience to bear with
+one who perhaps had been over indulged on account of her misfortune?
+
+At this juncture Madame Stuyvesant stepped to her side crying, “Oh, Mrs.
+Van Vorst, your little shut-in is just the one I want my girls to be
+with, so that by the patience they will acquire in her companionship
+they will become more gentle and considerate to others. And as for Miss
+Nita, the mingling with healthy, active girls of her own age and the
+exercise and aid she will derive from the sports, and industries—taken
+lightly of course—I am sure will brighten her life in many ways.”
+
+A few more words from Helen, Lillie, and one or two of the older girls,
+and Mrs. Van Vorst’s consent was won, and Nita with bright, happy eyes
+was clapping her hands very softly under the Starry Banner that fell in
+folds across her chair.
+
+Each girl in turn was then toasted, under the name of the pioneer she
+impersonated, being required in response to tell something about
+herself, as to who and what part she had played in the days of New
+Amsterdam. When the name of Mrs. Polly Prevoorst was called, Lillie Bell
+stood up, and had just begun with her usual dramatic gestures and
+intonations to relate some little incident in the life of that noted
+lady, when a shrill falsetto voice shrieked, “Pretty Polly! Pretty
+Polly! Polly want a cobble?”
+
+There was a sudden turning and twisting of heads and necks at this
+unlooked for interruption, to see who was making sport of the fair lady,
+but before the speaker could be seen, with a quick flutter of wings Mr.
+Jimmie landed in the middle of the table. Surprise caused the girls to
+exclaim and then laugh, as they watched the new guest cocking his head
+from side to side as he winked at them with his red-rimmed eyes.
+
+All at once his head stopped its restless motion, as with a quick glance
+he seemed suddenly to spy Lillie Bell, who was still standing, waiting
+for a chance to deliver her little speech. The girls ceased to giggle
+and with observant eyes wondered what was going to happen. They did not
+have to wait long for Jimmie, with another flash of his wings, screeched
+shrilly, “Polly! Poor Polly! Polly want a petticoat—Polly—want a
+petticoat?”
+
+But Jimmie’s concern for the “Lady of Petticoat Lane” was drowned in
+shouts of laughter, while Lillie Bell with a reddened, embarrassed face
+sat down. Thus Jimmie became the beau of the afternoon, as each girl
+vainly tried to coax him with a sweetie to notice her, but Jimmie
+disdained their advances and, flying to the shoulder of Nathalie,
+evinced his partiality for that young lady by chattering noisily, “Hell
+Nat! Ah—Blue Robin, pretty Blue Robin!” And then a shrill Tru-al-lee,
+tru-al-lee! rang through the room.
+
+But this effort to do the wise thing ended Jimmie’s performance, for
+suddenly noting the applause that greeted him, he set up such a hideous
+shrieking, interspersed with fiendish laughter, that he was promptly
+seized by Peter and carried from public sight to muse on his sins in the
+privacy of his cage.
+
+When Lillie’s tormentor disappeared she was able to act the part of the
+fair Polly and relate the incident she had striven so vainly to tell. As
+she finished, finding that all the notables had been duly honored, the
+girls again turned to the rather novel menus that they had found in
+front of their plates.
+
+These were post-card holders, rather dainty little affairs of flowered
+silk that had contained post-cards, one for each course that had been
+served. One was a quaint little picture of New Amsterdam. Another was a
+well-known building or landmark of old New York, while others portraits
+of famous Dutch painters or authors, each one with an appropriate
+inscription either in Dutch or English.
+
+These cards had excited many comments of admiration, and as the girls’
+attention was drawn to them again Edith suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, girls,
+why see, my post-card holder has a tiny white envelope in it!” As she
+began to tear it open each girl turned eagerly to hers and with renewed
+interest began to inspect it again, while Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita with
+smiling eyes watched the little by-play that was being enacted.
+
+By this time Nathalie had read the contents of her envelope and with
+eyes all alight was crying, “Oh, girls! my envelope contains an
+invitation from Mrs. Van Vorst as a Pioneer to camp—”
+
+“At Eagle Lake!” broke in a chorus from the girls as they excitedly
+flourished the bits of white paper to and fro while watching Nathalie
+intently.
+
+Nathalie was too dazed to speak, but in a moment, as she realized that
+each girl present had been honored with a similar invitation, she bent
+forward and began to talk to Helen in low, hurried tones. When she
+finished she was on her feet crying in tremulous voice, “Oh, Mrs. Van
+Vorst—this seems too good to be true—O dear, how are we to thank you for
+your kindness, it is too much for us to accept!”
+
+But her hostess was ready with a reply, as with brightening eyes she
+answered, “Girls, the invitations you have read I repeat, I want you
+Girl Pioneers to spend the three weeks of your camp life at Eagle Lake.
+I have a bungalow there and expect to leave for the Lake next week, and
+shall be pleased to welcome you there whenever you think best to come.
+
+“The Lake is very beautiful, surrounded by woods and within two or three
+miles of a town. Of course, I have not accommodations for you all, but I
+have an empty bungalow near mine, and a little log cabin that was once a
+summer house, so that with a few tents I think you will find ample
+accommodations for your three bird groups. And girls—” she spoke
+earnestly, “I do not want you to thank me, for your thanks will be the
+acceptance of this invitation and coming up to the Lake and having a
+merry time. I am sure I stand ready, and my daughter Nita, to help you
+towards that end.”
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst finished Helen arose, and on behalf of the Pioneers
+thanked her for her kind invitation. “Indeed, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she
+continued, “we shall be most pleased to camp at Eagle Lake—if our
+Director is willing—and I hope that we shall be able to show you that we
+are worthy the kindness you have seen fit to extend to us. Now, girls—”
+
+  “Girl Pi-o-neers! Now give a cheer!
+  For our hostess so kind and dear!
+  Girl Pi-o-neers! again we cheer,
+  This time for Miss Nita, the dear!”
+
+As the cheering ceased Mrs. Van Vorst stood again, and in a few words
+declared she felt impelled to say that the Pioneers should be very proud
+of a young lady in their group who had so ably helped her in the
+arrangements and the getting up of the afternoon’s festivity. She would
+mention no names—Nathalie’s face was a full-blown rose—as they all knew
+to whom she referred, but she would like it known that the invitation to
+the Lake had been given not only to furnish pleasure to the Pioneers,
+but in appreciation of the great kindness, sympathy, and aid that had
+been given to her daughter and herself by that same Pioneer, a kindness
+that she would always remember.
+
+The girls, laughing and talking about the pleasure of the _Kraeg_, of
+the joys and the future held in store for them at camp, now returned to
+the sitting room. Here they were greeted with another surprise in the
+shape of a huge, unwieldy figure in baggy knee-breeches, full skirted
+coat, wide-brimmed hat and long white beard and locks, whom Mrs. Van
+Vorst presented as Father Knickerbocker, although several declared that
+he was the exact counterpart of the famous pictures of Rip Van Winkle.
+
+Whomever he personated was a matter of indifference to the girls as long
+as his identity was concealed, which was ably done behind a red-checked
+mask, through the eye-holes of which two eyes glinted humorously in
+merry jest or pleasantry as he joined the girls in a game of quoits or a
+game of nine-pins which Peter had arranged on an old billiard table.
+
+As Nathalie and Helen were doing their best to beat this strange
+antagonist, and at the same time to provoke him to speech—as he would
+persist in playing he was deaf and dumb—Peter led in an old darkey who,
+with fiddle in hand, was soon squeaking away to the delight of the
+girls. In a few moments old-time melodies were heard, and they went
+flying over the floor in waltz, schottische, polka, and in many of the
+long-forgotten dances.
+
+When the dancing began the mysterious guest was seen to edge towards the
+door, but Nathalie and Helen were too quick for him, and in a moment he
+was surrounded by a bevy of girls, each one begging him to dance the
+Virginia reel with her. Even these many honors failed to loosen the
+strings of his tongue, but Nathalie did not despair.
+
+Presently, as he had made this young lady his honored choice in the
+dance, she was led up and down the room, or twirled about like a
+pin-wheel. That he was nimble of foot was soon perceived as they all
+spun round like a merry-go-round.
+
+Suddenly Annetje was seen to whisper to her neighbor. The whisper spread
+like a whirlwind, and all eyes were soon fastened on the whirling Father
+as he chasséed to the right and left of the merry girls. Suddenly there
+was a stampede to his side, and the next minute he was surrounded by a
+cordon of slim young hands, while one of his assailants made a spring
+towards him. Just another moment, and nose, beard, and locks were on the
+floor, while his tormentors laughed and danced merrily around their
+prisoner, a good friend who had eased many of their aches and pains, for
+it was no other but Dr. Morrow!
+
+Four weeks later Nathalie stood on the veranda with her arms around her
+mother. “Oh, Mumsie,” she wailed, “I hate to go and leave you!” She
+winked hard, she was determined not to get lachrymose. “I just wish I
+wasn’t going, it does seem so mean to leave you here in this heat.”
+
+“But, Daughter, I have Dick with me, and it is lovely and cool here on
+the veranda. We shall not mind it at all, and then you know the nights
+are generally comfortable in August,” Mrs. Page ended with a cheery
+smile.
+
+“Mumsie, you’re a dear—” rejoined Nathalie with another suppressed
+sniffle. “You’re just trying to make the best of it, but—”
+
+“There is no but about it,” answered her mother quickly, “for I am
+afraid I am very selfish, but I shall have to confess that there has
+been so much going on these last days, well, I shall enjoy the rest and
+quiet. Felia is here, too, and I shall have nothing to do but to be—”
+
+“Jolly!” broke in Dick at this moment, who for some mysterious reason
+seemed unusually jubilant. He had received a letter a few days before;
+Nathalie had caught him reading it, but he had slipped it hurriedly into
+his pocket as he saw her, declaring in answer to her questioning that it
+was nothing, but nevertheless, ever since that day he had seemed more
+like his old self.
+
+Did they really want to get rid of her? Was Mamma in earnest? How much
+more cheerful she had seemed the last few days! These thoughts flashed
+in quick succession through Nathalie’s brain. Somewhat puzzled, but
+disarmed of her fears by these signs of cheer from her loved ones, the
+girl bestowed a final kiss all round, notwithstanding Dick’s protests,
+who declared that he had been slobbered over about fifty times already.
+Then she flew down the path and into the automobile, where Mrs. Morrow,
+the kiddies, and the doctor were waiting to drive her to the depot.
+
+Seventeen happy girls, their hearts pulsating with joyful anticipation,
+boarded the train at the New Jersey Central that August morning.
+Notwithstanding the fact that the day was intensely warm, their tongues,
+hands, and feet kept up a ceaseless activity as they disposed of their
+bags, valises, and the impedimenta that they had found it impossible to
+squeeze into their trunks, for it was rather tight packing when there
+were two girls to a trunk.
+
+Lillie Bell carried her mandolin, the Scribe her book for reporting the
+many happenings that were to be, while Barbara was burdened with several
+books on bird, flower, and wood lore, for camp was the place to study
+nature. With tennis-rackets and golf-bags it certainly seemed as if
+those seventeen girls and their belongings were going to fill the car.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, who had a great dislike of annoying people, began to look
+worried, but suddenly catching sight of the faces of several of the
+passengers, all looking so smiling, so in sympathy with this young life
+and its overflow of exuberance, as if they were enjoying the clamor and
+bustle as much as the girls themselves, her face relaxed. She broke into
+a smile of relief, although shaking her head at two of the girls who
+were making the greatest noise.
+
+They finally settled in their seats, but as hands and feet became more
+quiet, alas, it seemed as if the clack of their tongues grew greater!
+They fell to discussing their plans for the camp, the sports they would
+have, and a thousand and one things that occupied their minds at the
+present moment.
+
+But even tongues need a rest, and the girls at last quieted down and
+began to read, each one having provided herself with some book to while
+away the hours. After a time, however, they all seemed to tire of
+reading, and growing restive had just started an argument as to the
+respective merits of their books, when the train dashed into a little
+wooden station and the conductor yelled, “Eagle Lake!”
+
+Bags, knapsacks, rackets, and all camping impedimenta were hastily
+gathered up, and a few minutes later the merry girls were crowding into
+an old-fashioned stage that Mrs. Van Vorst had hired for the occasion,
+giving due honor to the doctor and his wife by sending her own
+automobile for them.
+
+It was a delightful ride to the lake, and thoroughly enjoyed by the
+girls, who evinced their pleasure by being unusually silent. Eyes were
+keenly alert, however, noting the rolling patches of green meadows with
+their grazing cows, the rippling brook meandering from a hill near by,
+and the somber foliage of a long range of low foothills in the distance
+crowned with a misty haze. But the silence was broken when some one
+spied a reddish gray chipmunk scurrying across the road in frantic
+terror as he saw the many faces bearing down upon him, and heard their
+hurried exclamations of eager delight at this, the girls’ first glimpse
+of one of the green forest people of Eagle Lake.
+
+It was not long before the sheen of silver water glimmered in the
+distance, bordered with somber foliage, and then hearts beat quicker and
+voices grew louder in excited hubbub as in a minute or so they could see
+the cupola of Mrs. Van Vorst’s cottage against the green of its shores.
+
+After a joyous welcome from Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, seconded by Peter
+and Ellen, who all stood awaiting them on the large veranda, the girls
+ran riot. With swift steps they hurried—after first inspecting Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s bungalow, so suggestive of luxury and cozy cheer—to the smaller
+bungalow, where the Morrows were to abide, with its big living-room
+abloom with golden-rod. This was to be used as an assembly room for the
+Pioneer Rallies. Then they hastened to the little wooden shack, which
+they dubbed the Grub House, as it was here that the camp cooking was to
+be done.
+
+After duly admiring the boat-house, which they all declared would make a
+lovely place for a dance, they were conducted by Peter to the loft
+above, where he stood silently enjoying their delight as they exclaimed
+over this unexpected surprise. It had been turned into a good sized
+bedroom with two bureaus, a center-table, a few odd chairs, and four
+little white cots, looking so restful that the Sport declared she wanted
+to go to bed that very second.
+
+But their rhapsodies came to an abrupt end as Lillie Bell suddenly spied
+the Lake from one of the windows. In a moment the girls were crowding
+about her, gazing in hushed silence at the silver sheet of water—three
+miles round Peter informed them—with its enticing little inlets, or
+coves, and tiny islands running like a series of stepping-stones through
+the center.
+
+The Sport had caught sight of several newly painted boats and canoes
+that bobbed cheerily at her, moored to the pier below, and a moment
+later the girls were off like a cavalcade of young Indians to inspect
+them, for did they not all have to be named on the morrow, when a
+general christening of all camp tents, boats, and so on was to take
+place?
+
+But there were other things to claim a share of their hearts’ joy they
+found, as Carol, who made the seventeenth camper, suddenly saw a large
+tent on the edge of the woods to which they all made a mad rush. Here
+they found the doctor and his wife, who said it was an army tent that
+had been loaned, put up, and furnished by that good lady, Mrs. Van
+Vorst. Lifting the flap the girls peeped in to see four more tiny cots,
+a little book-case made from soap-boxes by Peter, and the usual camp
+furniture staring at them invitingly.
+
+A tiny log cabin was also inspected—Peter said it had once been a
+summer-house—which contained two cots. But time was limited, and Dr.
+Morrow—who was for the time being captain of the working squad—began to
+issue his orders. All baggage and camp equipment had arrived the day
+before and the girls were soon busily engaged in putting up tents. It
+meant lots of work, but each one was at her cheeriest best as she
+overhauled canvases, measured spaces, dug pole-holes, sewed on rings for
+tape, tied ropes, and performed the various odd jobs necessary to have
+the camp city in shape before night.
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst had generously provided so many sleeping
+accommodations, there were only three tents to be erected, an old canvas
+tent which the doctor had loaned, an Indian tepee belonging to the
+brother of one of the Orioles, and a natty little affair made of heavy
+cotton sheeting. It is needless to say that this was the pride of
+Helen’s and Nathalie’s hearts, the tent they had wrestled with through
+many toilsome hours on the rear lawn, with Fred Tyson doing duty as a
+master tent-maker.
+
+When the tents were erected with openings to the East, in a row by the
+water, backed by a belt of woodland, whose pungent odors added a zest to
+the girls’ ideals of the camp life, Nathalie and Helen hurried to their
+tent to unpack. The big packing-box which had served as a trunk for two
+was hastily turned on its narrowest side, with open side to the tent,
+and then with hammer and nails converted into a combination arrangement
+of book-case and dresser, the top having a piece of white shelf oilcloth
+tacked on it.
+
+Here pincushions, hair-pin trays, brushes, and various toilet articles,
+with cologne, lotion, and medicine bottles—the last in case of need—were
+hastily bestowed. On the upper shelf books were stored—for the story
+hour—while the other shelves were quickly filled with all sorts of
+knick-knacks, things they just had to have, even in the wilderness, as
+Helen had affirmed.
+
+Two ropes, one on each side of the tent, were fastened up so that each
+girl could have a handy place to dispose of superfluous articles of
+wearing apparel. There was also a smaller one near the soap-box with its
+little tin pitcher and bowl, to serve as a towel-rack. After hanging a
+mirror for mutual use and tacking on the floor between the cots a pink
+and blue cotton rug—Mrs. Page’s idea and gift—they started on the beds.
+These were real camping affairs, and would ordinarily have meant hard
+labor, but Peter, who had been let into the secret before he left
+Westport, had already cut eight logs, four to a bed frame, one on each
+side of the tent, and had brought the dry evergreen boughs.
+
+With the boughs the girls filled the frames, and after stuffing two
+ticking bags with dry leaves and grass, they placed them on the beds,
+and covered them with rubber sheets and blankets. They were then made up
+with sheets and double blankets, and then after throwing a number of
+sofa pillows about—to be used at night for pillows—the tent-makers were
+ready to hold an impromptu reception to their Pioneer friends.
+
+Nathalie now played the part of town crier and rushed hither and thither
+inviting the guests to their camp nest in the woods. The girls quickly
+gathered and, after due examination, expressed by cries of praise their
+admiration of the handiness and deftness displayed by the two girls, and
+the first tent feast was held. To be sure, it was only crackers and
+fruit left from the girls’ lunch-boxes, but they filled the bill, so
+that when the bugle sounded its clarion blast, as Lillie expressed it,
+the pangs of hunger being appeased, the girls all hastened with joyful
+steps to Mrs. Morrow’s bungalow to hold their first Pioneer Rally.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, as presiding officer, in a short space of time was able to
+despatch considerable camp business, the girls having had so many
+discussions that their plans were matured and no time was lost in
+needless talk. It was quickly settled to name the camp “Laff-a-Lot,” to
+govern it as a city, with the girls as citizens with power to elect
+their own officials, which meant a mayor, a board of aldermen, a justice
+of the court as well as a clerk and an attorney in case of need, and the
+squads.
+
+Mrs. Morrow was immediately chosen mayor, and the squads elected. There
+was the Coast Squad, composed of two Pioneers whose duty it was to sound
+the bugle for taps at six, for a dip in the Lake at quarter past, the
+call for breakfast at seven and the succeeding meals, for bathing drill
+at eleven, and all other calls required by camp regulations. This squad
+was also to see that the coast was kept clear of débrís, that the
+bathers observed all rules, and was to give the alarm and act in command
+of the rescue committee in times of danger.
+
+The Tent Squad was to see that the girls kept their tents in regulation
+order,—each girl to make her own bed and so on,—and that all sanitary
+rules were carried out according to schedule.
+
+The Grub Squad meant two cooks, a chief and an assistant, and two
+helpers or waitresses. Each girl, of course, was required to bring her
+own plate, cup, saucer, bowl, knife, and fork, and see that they were
+washed, dried, and placed on the shelf, as well as to wash her own
+drying-towel.
+
+The Rally Squad was composed of one person—considered the most important
+member of camp—to act as officer of the day by planning with the mayor
+the day’s program, reporting this at breakfast, and seeing that all
+notices, as well as the schedule for the day’s events, were duly written
+on the bulletin each morning.
+
+The Board of Aldermen was made up of the first member of each Squad. All
+officials, with the exception of the mayor and court officers, were to
+serve for three days only, and the members of all squads were to be
+chosen according to their qualifications for the work as determined by
+the number of merit badges.
+
+As soon as the Rally was over, the girls made a rush for the Lake, as
+every one was wild to go on its gleaming surface that shone under the
+rays of the dipping sun like a silver shield, burnished with the golden
+red of the West.
+
+But Helen, who declared it was too late to enjoy that pleasure as it was
+so near supper time, was rudely interrupted by Lillie Bell, who had been
+peering with intent eyes across the water. Suddenly she gave a low cry
+and pointed to a solitary figure on the opposite bank dragging a
+row-boat from the water.
+
+Instantly all eyes were riveted in that direction as each girl vainly
+tried to decide whether the figure belonged to a man or a woman. “Oh, I
+know!” screamed the Sport frantically after a short stare opposite.
+“Girls, yes, it’s a Scout! See he has on a khaki suit, and his staff,
+oh, where do you suppose he could have come from!” she said, looking up
+at the girls with delighted inquiry in her sparkling eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII—CAMP LAFF-A-LOT
+
+
+“O fiddle!” exclaimed Lillie squelchingly. “You have got scouts on the
+brain! Where would a scout come from up here in these wilds?”
+
+But Edith was not to be gainsaid and had flown post-haste up to the
+Morrows’ bungalow to reappear a few moments later with a field glass.
+Raising it she began to yell triumphantly, “There, girls—I’m right—it is
+a scout! a real scout!” In a moment she was surrounded by a bevy of
+girls, each one begging for the loan of the glasses, but Edith was
+whimsical, and refusing to comply handed the glasses to Helen, who,
+after a calm survey of the bank on the other side of the Lake, declared
+that Edith was right and that it was a scout.
+
+“Oh, do you think—” exclaimed some one. But no one stopped to think, for
+at that moment the clear notes of the bugle announced supper, driving
+all thoughts of scouts from the heads of the famished girls as with a
+cheer of delight they made a swift rush for cup, plate, saucer, and
+headed for the dining-room.
+
+It was a tired lot of girls who, with sharpened appetites but dismayed
+faces, gazed at the slim array of eatables that confronted them at this,
+their first camp meal. Nathalie made a wry face, but as she heard
+Helen’s reminder that every one was to be satisfied even if she ate
+tacks, she smiled in attempted contentment and started in on mush.
+
+But tacks were not to be on the menu that night, for Peter suddenly
+appeared, and with his best bow presented a big platter of cold chicken
+with Mrs. Van Vorst’s compliments. Everything now went as merrily as a
+wedding feast. Really, it was surprising how that chicken lasted, for
+the girls had attacked it with grim determination. Nathalie half
+suspected that Peter had a secret supply hidden under the table, for
+every one had all she wanted and still there was more.
+
+Supper was soon over and, then after each girl had washed her own
+table-ware and laid it in its place, they hied themselves down to the
+water’s edge. Here, in sweaters and caps—as the air was chilly—they
+listened to the crooning melodies of nature, and watched for life on the
+opposite shore—reminded again of that scout—and talked, well, just the
+things that a lot of happy girls would discuss with the prospect of
+three glorious weeks in the open before them.
+
+A trill of song from a hermit thrush in the woods near-by stirred the
+hearts of the music-lovers and soon the campers were singing, “Suwanee
+River,” to Lillie’s thrumming accompaniment on the mandolin. Then came
+“Tenting on the Old Camp Ground,” “Oh, My Darling Clementine,” and a
+host of songs familiar and dear to the heart of youth.
+
+As they ended the last line of “Bring Back My Bonnie to Me,” every one
+suddenly sat up and took notice, while an impetuous one called out, “Oh,
+what was that?”
+
+“Some one is mocking us!” added another listener.
+
+“Oh, nonsense,” laughed Helen, whose ear for music was not keen, “that’s
+an echo!”
+
+But it proved to be no echo, for as the girls started in again to sing
+they found that if they stopped suddenly, the voices, which they now
+recognized as coming from the other shore, would continue with the song.
+This created no end of laughter among the girls, and their surprise and
+amusement increased as they recognized that their friends on the other
+side of the Lake laughed when they laughed, as if in mockery.
+
+“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” suggested Kitty, “let’s give the Pioneer
+yell and see if they answer.” This was no sooner suggested than it was
+done, but not a sound was heard, no, not even an echo in reply.
+
+“Well, they can’t be scouts,” said an Oriole, “or they would answer in
+some way.”
+
+“Let’s sing, ‘We’re Pioneers,’ and then they’ll know who we are,
+anyway,” some one proposed, a little more cheerily.
+
+This proposition met with favor, and the girls were soon singing with a
+zest and verve that deserved a reward, but as before a dead silence
+greeted their efforts.
+
+The campers felt inconsolable, for some of them had already begun to
+dream of the fun they would have if there were some jolly scouts about,
+especially if they proved as chivalrous and as manly as the scouts at
+Westport. As the girls discussed ways and means of making these strange
+neighbors reveal who they were, suddenly from the other shore came in
+stentorian tones, evidently through a megaphone, “Be prepared!” This
+startling announcement was immediately followed by a chorus of male
+voices singing with hearty gusto, “Zing-a-Zing! Bom! Bom!” to the
+accompaniment of a loud sound, as if every one was pounding on a tin
+pan.
+
+The girls sat stunned with surprise for a moment and then Edith cried,
+“Why, they can’t be scouts after all, for that is not the salute used by
+the Westport Scouts.”
+
+“Huh! but that is just what they are—scouts,” cried one of the Orioles
+quickly, “for that is the national salute. My brother has a Scout book
+and I have seen their call.”
+
+“Well, they’re not Westport Scouts, that’s one sure thing,” voiced one
+of the girls who had been dreaming.
+
+“What difference does that make,” cried Lillie, “as long as they are
+scouts? But don’t you think we girls ought to make some return, hadn’t
+we better sing our Pioneer—” But before the girls could answer they
+heard the scout salute again. As they clapped an encore, the Sport
+blowing the bugle to add to the demonstration of praise, their neighbors
+broke into song.
+
+“Oh, it is a song to us, a serenade!” ejaculated one of the girls; and
+then as each one grew silent they heard:
+
+  “Welcome! Welcome! sisters dear,
+  As we round our fire’s cheer
+  We wish you luck in camp so fine
+  Sweet with birch and wooded pine.
+  Pleasure and joy attend each day,
+  As by the Lake you make your stay!”
+
+“Oh, isn’t that just dandy?” “If we could only tell who they were!” But
+these exclamations came to an end as Nathalie cried, “Girls, let’s shout
+our new call, don’t you know the one we made up so as to salute the
+scouts? Now, ready!” and with a “One! two! three!” the girls’ voices
+rang out over the water as they chorused:
+
+  “Ragglety! Pagglety! Rah! Rah! Rah!
+  You’re welcome scouts with a Ha! Ha! Ha!
+  Comrades and friends, we’ll make the woods hum
+  When you to Camp Laff-a-Lot come.
+  For your wishes we’ll give you three cheers,
+  Hurrah for Scouts and Girl Pioneers!”
+
+“Why, Nathalie, you changed the words!” cried one or two slow ones as
+they perceived that the girl had substituted certain words that were
+more appropriate to the occasion than the ones they had learned.
+
+Nathalie only laughed, and waved her hand for silence as the little
+company of merry, fun-loving girls listened to the noise their neighbors
+were making. Certainly it was a medley of sounds, for it appeared as if
+horns, tin pans, and just about everything capable of making a racket
+had been called into service in their appreciation of the fair ones’
+ready reply to their song.
+
+Mrs. Morrow appeared at this moment with the announcement that it was
+nine o’clock, and according to camp rules all Pioneers were to be in bed
+by that hour, so the girls sounded a parting cheer and then hurried to
+their tents. The few who loitered, as if reluctant to leave their
+friends across the lake, heard an old-time good-night song with one or
+two variations in words that added to its charms ring out clearly:
+
+          “Good-night, campers,
+          Good-night campers,
+          Good-night campers,
+          We’re going to leave you now!
+  Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along;
+  Merrily we roll along, o’er the dark blue sea.”
+
+A few moments before six the next morning Nathalie opened her eyes,
+yawned drowsily, and then rolled over to see Helen staring at her from
+the opposite bed with wide-open eyes.
+
+“Oh, I have had such a delicious sleep,” she cried. “I don’t believe I
+wakened from the time I touched the pillow. Helen, isn’t it just too
+lovely up here in these woods? Did you hear that whippoorwill toot just
+after we got into bed? And these bough beds, aren’t they the coziest—”
+
+“Well, you’ll get coziest with a vengeance, Blue Robin,” was Helen’s
+terse reply, “if you don’t get into your bathing-suit—” Helen ended with
+a shrill scream as the bugle’s blast sounded with startling clearness in
+the still morning air.
+
+But Nathalie was already half-way into her suit. The last button was
+caught. “There, I’m ready before you, Miss Poke!” she taunted gleefully,
+as the second call sounded. The two girls tripped lightly across the
+open space in front of the tents thickly strewn with pine needles and
+thus on down to the boathouse pier.
+
+Just a moment and a slim figure was seen leaping through the air, then
+Nathalie arose like a mermaid from the sea, blowing and puffing the
+water from her mouth as she floated for a moment on her back and swam
+gracefully back to the bank. As she reached shallow water she stood up
+and waved her hand to a group of shivering ones on the bank crying, “Oh,
+come on, kiddies!
+
+“Sure, it’s cold!” she nodded to a faint remonstrance from a timorous
+one, “but you’ll get heated if you’ll take the plunge!”
+
+Out from her dip, with the wish that it could have been longer, she
+hurried to her tent; after a rub came the dressing, the picking up of
+her clothes, the putting her bed to air, and then the call for
+breakfast.
+
+After this meal came the event of the day, the naming of the camp, the
+tents, and the boats. Camp duties were soon disposed of and then there
+was a general stampede to Mrs. Morrow’s bungalow, where the Sport, as
+chairman of this committee, stood waving the Stars and Stripes on the
+roof of the veranda.
+
+A cheer arose a few moments later when its bright colors fluttered
+gently to and fro in the morning wind from the flag staff that had been
+hoisted over the Director’s abiding-place, and the girls, quickly
+forming in line, gave the flag salute. The Star Spangled Banner was then
+sung with a heartiness that found its echo in the woods, the very leaves
+on the trees seeming to rustle in reverence to the country’s honored
+emblem.
+
+The campers now gathered before Mrs. Van Vorst’s bungalow, where, from a
+high flagstaff erected by Peter, a white flag fluttered gracefully to
+the breezes, disclosing in red letters the words, “Camp Laff-a-Lot.”
+Beneath this flag curled a smaller one, also white, bearing in blue
+letters, “The Girl Pioneers of America.”
+
+Some one was just about to mount a ladder placed against the flagstaff
+when Nathalie, with sudden thought, turned and whispered to Mrs. Morrow,
+who immediately signaled to Helen. Helen nodded as she listened to her
+Director, and then stepping forward stood before Nita who, with her
+mother and Ellen, was a joyful spectator of this camp demonstration. A
+sudden look of delight overspread her face as she heard what Helen had
+to say, and then after a hurried assent from Mrs. Van Vorst, Nita with
+the help of Peter had mounted the ladder, holding a bottle of water in
+her hand.
+
+A swing of the bottle, a crash of glass, a stream of water trickling
+down the pole, and Nita in a voice somewhat faint at first, but that
+grew louder as she caught Nathalie’s eye, cried, “Summer camp of the
+Girl Pioneers of America, I name thee, Camp Laff-a-Lot!” Wild bursts of
+applause now broke forth, even Ellen and Peter doing their share, the
+former tearing off her apron and flapping it vigorously, while the
+latter brandished his hat hilariously, stopping every moment or so to
+rub the back of his hand across his eyes. “Sure,” as he afterwards
+confessed to Nathalie, “it was enough to make any one weep with joy to
+see Miss Nita spilling all over with happiness!”
+
+As the Pioneers hastened to the boat-house they saw a diminutive figure
+standing on the top of its little square cupola. With many flourishes of
+her bottle Carol—who had been elected to this honor—chimed jubilantly,
+“Boat-house, in memory of the ship that crossed the unknown sea to carry
+the founders of this nation to its shores, I now name thee, ‘The
+Mayflower’!”
+
+And so the naming continued, the little log summer-house being honored
+by the name of Ann Burras, a pioneer of the Jamestown colony, known as
+the first white bride in America. The tent loaned by Mrs. Van Vorst was
+dubbed “The Three Guardian Angels,” in appreciation of the services of
+Ann Drummond, Sarah Cottin, and Mrs. Cheisman, also of the Jamestown
+company, sometimes known as “The White Apron Brigade,” as during the
+Bacon rebellion they were placed in front of a trench where Bacon’s men
+were digging, to prevent Governor Berkeley from firing on the Fort.
+
+The “Grub House” was to be known as the “Common House,” a most
+appropriate name, the campers declared, as it contained their food and
+ammunition, just as the little log hut known by that name held the
+necessities to sustain and defend the lives of the Pilgrims in the
+Plymouth settlement.
+
+The doctor’s army tent was named the “Three Margarets,” to honor
+Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman suffragist, Margaret Draper,
+the first woman to publish a newspaper, and Margaret Duncan, the first
+of her sex in the new world to engage in mercantile life. Helen and
+Nathalie’s tent was to be known as the “Two Anns,” out of respect to Ann
+Hutchinson, the first club woman, and Ann Bradstreet, the first American
+poetess.
+
+The boats were quickly honored with the names _Priscilla_, _Mary
+Chilton_, _Annetje Jans_, and _Polly Prevoorst_, while shady retreats,
+lofty trees, and rocky coves were named anew to do homage to those women
+who helped their good sires build the foundation of this great Republic,
+by being faithful, enduring wives and mothers.
+
+At eleven o’clock the girls assembled on the shores of the Lake for a
+life-saving drill. Forming in line at a given signal, each girl quickly
+unfastened her red necktie, and turning swiftly to the right tied one
+end of it in a square knot to her neighbor’s. This red life-line was
+then thrown to the sinker—as the girls dubbed Edith, who was playing the
+part of the person drowning. She hurriedly grabbed this necktie rope and
+was drawn ashore by her comrades.
+
+The girls found that this drill not only made them keen and alert,
+training them to keep cool heads, but helped to give them reliance as
+well as courage, and—heaps of fun.
+
+The bathers were now lined up for a swimming contest, each girl at the
+toot of the horn making a wild dash for the water, and swimming out as
+far as she could to the stake-boat, manned by the doctor, anchored some
+distance from shore. This contest was to determine not only who could
+swim, and the best swimmers, but those who had the greatest amount of
+strength and endurance, who would be able to train others not so
+competent.
+
+Nathalie, who had spent a number of summers at a seaside resort and
+therefore was at home in the water, found to her surprise that she,
+Helen, and Edith were the three best swimmers of the campers. This was
+as much of a surprise to her as to the Pioneers, for, supposing that she
+was a swimmer of only average skill, she had never even told that she
+could swim.
+
+Drills and contests being over, the girls were allowed to do as they
+liked, and so were soon gambolling about in the water, having the
+merriest time running races in the more shallow water, ducking one
+another, or teaching some more timid one to swim or dive.
+
+Nathalie and Helen had rowed out some distance from shore and were
+practicing diving by jumping from the boat. “Now!” Helen would shout as
+they stood poised in the center, “One! Two! Three!” The next instant
+there would be a flash of pointed hands, a sweep of blue
+bathing-suits—like bluebirds skimming through the air—a splash, and then
+first one head would appear and then the other, each one blowing and
+puffing water from her eyes and nose like a porpoise.
+
+“O dear,” exclaimed Nathalie suddenly as the two girls sat sunning
+themselves in the boat, “here comes the Sport. I wonder what she is up
+to now!”
+
+But it was all in a morning’s fun, and the three girls were soon having
+fine sport as a diving team of three. Tired at last, they settled for a
+short rest, Helen and Nathalie laughing merrily as they watched Lillie
+Bell trying to induce Carol to do something more than wet her feet.
+Suddenly there came a shove, and a second later the two girls went
+splashing head-foremost into the water!
+
+A few moments and they bobbed up, not at all serenely, as they sputtered
+and gasped, struggling to eject the water from eyes and noses. Helen,
+seeing Edith disporting herself some distance away, demanded with
+flashing eyes, “What did you do that for?” while Nathalie, whose cheeks
+were sea pink, sputtered between gasps, “Edith, I think you are just as
+mean as you can be!”
+
+But the Sport was off, waving her hand at them derisively as she swam
+rapidly towards shore. The girls by this time had righted their
+cockle-shell, which they found floating right side up with the tide, and
+after clambering in Helen grabbed the oars, exclaiming wrathfully, “Oh,
+how I would like to get even with her for that!”
+
+“So would I!” echoed her friend. “It does seem as if the imp himself was
+in that girl sometimes. But wait, I’ll get one on her yet, see if I
+don’t.”
+
+Full of the ozone of the forest and animated by that spirit of
+exploration that always inspires one in a new place, directly after
+lunch the Pioneers with staffs, knapsacks, and note-books, lined up for
+an afternoon tramp. To vary the adventure it had been decided to name it
+a salmagundi hike, which meant a tramp of observation, each girl aiming
+to see how many things she could observe, birds, animals, flowers, or
+leaves, in fact, anything that was to be seen in the field or woods.
+
+Nathalie had prepared for the expedition in glad anticipation, being
+particularly anxious to get in touch with so many things that she lacked
+of nature’s many lores, but when she caught sight of the disappointed
+face of Nita, who was not, as yet, equal to a hike her spirits sank to
+zero.
+
+Somehow her conscience would not be downed as it urged her to atone in
+some way to Nita for the many things that she was forced to be deprived
+of in her young girlhood. “No, I do not believe it is my place to stay
+with her,” argued Nathalie’s naughty self, “for I have already given up
+a great deal of time and fun in qualifying her to become a Pioneer. And
+then if I once begin by staying with her she will want me to remain all
+the time, and I shall never have a bit of fun.”
+
+But after a short inward struggle Nathalie pleaded that she was tired,
+and declared she was going to remain at home and have a good cozy chat
+with Nita.
+
+The joy that shown on Nita’s face at this declaration compensated her
+for her sacrifice, and she was just trying to think what she could do to
+make the time pass pleasantly for the girl when a sudden loud shout
+sounded from the woods. Before the girls could question as to what it
+was a chorus of boyish voices were heard shouting:
+
+  “Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
+  Good turn daily. Shout! Shout! Shout!”
+
+For one moment the girls stared in dazed amazement, why—oh! that was the
+salute call of the Westport Scouts! But all thought came to an end a
+minute later as a troop of boys in brown suddenly appeared at a bend of
+the road leading from the woods. As they spied the Pioneers they broke
+into wild shouts and whistles, energetically waving handkerchiefs,
+staffs, anything they could muster, while the foremost one, no other
+than Dr. Homer, twirled his hat over his head hilariously.
+
+In a few moments the scout mystery was solved as the girls stood
+surrounded by the Eagle Patrol of Westport, every one talking eagerly,
+some telling how they came to be there, while others were having great
+sport as they teased the girls about how nicely they had fooled them. It
+soon developed that the doctor and his wife were in the secret; in fact,
+Mrs. Morrow said that the doctor had chuckled so when he saw how
+mystified the girls were when they heard the calls from across the Lake,
+that she feared he would spring the surprise before it was time.
+
+Yes, the scouts of Westport, who had been thinking of a three weeks’
+tramp in some place not too far from the city, after hearing how Mrs.
+Van Vorst had invited the Pioneers to camp at Eagle Lake, had gone to
+that lady, and after due inquiries had made their plans to camp at the
+same time as the girls, only on the opposite shore of the Lake.
+
+Finding that the girls were bound for a tramp, the scouts, through Dr.
+Homer, begged permission to accompany them. The girls quickly gave their
+assent, and in a short space the hikers set out for a survey of the
+land, all but Fred Tyson, who lingered at Nathalie’s side as if waiting
+for her to join them.
+
+Seeing, however, that Nathalie made no attempt to follow the others, he
+asked with puzzled eyes, “What’s the matter, Miss Blue Robin, aren’t you
+going to hike?”
+
+Nathalie choked for a moment, then gaining control of her emotions, with
+an attempt at a smile returned, “Why, no, I’m tired, you know we have
+been working awfully hard ever since we came—getting the camp in shape—”
+she had caught a glimpse of Nita’s keen eyes—“so I thought I’d just stay
+at home and rest with Nita. You know, she can’t stand a long walk.” This
+was said in a lower tone.
+
+Fred’s face showed disappointment, and then he cried boyishly, “Oh, I
+say, Miss Nathalie, you’ll miss all the fun!” Then, as if half
+suspecting what might be the cause of Nathalie’s staying at home, he
+said, “As for Miss Nita, if she wants to come with us we’ll fix it so
+she won’t have to walk a step!”
+
+Putting his fingers to his mouth he emitted a sharp whistle, which two
+scouts lagging in the rear heard and immediately turned about and
+retraced their steps. “Here,” continued Fred, “you fellows improvise a
+stretcher to carry Miss Nita so she can hike with us!”
+
+Nita’s eyes began to gleam, but Mrs. Van Vorst approaching from the
+other end of the veranda at this moment, and hearing of the proposed
+plan of navigation, demurred, thanking the boys most graciously for
+their kindness, but declining to let Nita go, claiming that it would be
+too much for her that warm day.
+
+Fred, thus forced to be content, after a lingering look of regret raised
+his cap and then hurriedly joined the party who were already
+disappearing in the winding path of the woods.
+
+Nathalie, with an unconscious sigh, turned away. O dear, it did seem
+mean to have to give up that walk. It had been hard enough to win the
+first battle over the temptation to go, but this second one had seemed
+even harder. But immediately seeing that she was a great baby to let a
+little disappointment mar the pleasure of the beautiful day, she turned
+with smiling eyes to the princess, and suggested that they have a nice
+little row to one of the tiny islands in the center of the Lake.
+
+This, Nita was very glad to do, and so with notebooks and pencils, and
+with the remark that they could have a nice little salmagundi hike all
+by their lone selves, they started for the boat-house.
+
+And indeed, Nathalie and her little friend spent a most enjoyable
+afternoon, for, as she afterwards declared to Helen, “It was lovely and
+cool down on that little island with the green trees and shady coves.
+And do you know,” she continued, “I was so surprised, for Nita is a most
+observant little person. Why, she knows the names of many of the grasses
+and wood flowers, and the birds—she knows their names, can tell what
+birds are nesting in August and any number of interesting things about
+nature. I am sure she will make a most wonderful little Pioneer, after
+she becomes acquainted with the girls.”
+
+Of course Helen had many things to tell about the salmagundi hike, and
+the different objects they had seen and noted on their tramp. She had
+taken notes and Nathalie was invited to take a peep at them some time,
+Helen suggesting that she might find them of some help later on. The
+scouts, she said, had been most kind and had told them lots of
+interesting things, particularly about tracking the footprints of
+animals.
+
+“Well,” declared Nathalie as Helen finished telling of the good times
+they had had, “I have had two good times, instead of your one, for I had
+a fine time with Nita, and then I have had the coziest of chats with
+you, which has proved almost as good as if I had been with you on the
+hike.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII—MISS CAMPHELIA
+
+
+A week had passed, and although the novelty of many of the activities
+and pleasures of this life in the open had dulled, every moment proved
+one of joy. Drills, contests, sports, hikes, and various entertainments
+had merged so evenly, one into the other, that tasks had lost their
+irksomeness and play had received an added zest.
+
+To be sure, some unfortunate accidents had happened; Grace had cut her
+hand when opening a can of tomatoes, Carol had been stung by some
+mysterious insect so severely that even the doctor was puzzled, and one
+of the Orioles had sprained her ankle. But these mishaps had been
+received with true camp fortitude—the Pioneer spirit, Helen called
+it—and had only served as object lessons in the First Aid to the Injured
+talks given by Dr. Morrow, thus giving Helen and Kitty a chance to
+display their expertness in the triangular, the four-tailed, and many
+other kinds of bandages.
+
+Hammers, saws, and hatchets were in great demand one morning—the girls
+all busy making stilts, some to show their scout friends that they could
+handle men’s tools, while others were qualifying for first-class
+Pioneers—when Lillie appeared. With woebegone face she reported to
+Nathalie, who was serving as her assistant on the Grub committee, that
+there was no milk.
+
+“No milk?” ejaculated the girl. “Why, wasn’t the milkman here this
+morning?”
+
+“Sure,” nodded Lillie, “but that Oriole girl—Nannie Plummer—dropped some
+swill into the milk can. She mistook it for the garbage pail—” Lillie’s
+eyes glinted humorously—“she was so busy expressing her admiration for
+that Will Hopper, you know the scout with the languishing eyes, as Helen
+calls them.”
+
+Nathalie’s face expressed dismay. “Oh, what shall we do?” she almost
+wailed; “we have got to have milk for that pudding, and—”
+
+“To be sure,” laconically returned Lillie, “and you will have to go and
+get some.”
+
+“Get some?” echoed Nathalie faintly; “where?”
+
+“At the farm-house, you know the place—with the red barn—on the road to
+Boonton.”
+
+“But there isn’t time for me to walk there and back before dinner,”
+protested the girl somewhat wrathfully, “on this hot day, too!”
+
+“No, but you can take Edith’s bicycle, and go and get back in no time.”
+
+“Oh, but it is hot!” ejaculated Nathalie, some fifteen minutes later, as
+with reddened, perspiring face she slowed up her wheel, and spying a
+mossy bank overlooking a brook meandering beneath a group of willows,
+jumped to the ground. As she was standing her wheel against a tree, a
+woman with a reddish handkerchief tied over her head came up the bank.
+She started when she saw Nathalie, but instantly averting her eyes
+hurried on down the road in the direction of the farm-house where
+Nathalie was to get the milk.
+
+The girl had thrown herself on the grassy slope and was fanning
+vigorously with her hat, when her eyes were arrested by something white
+lying under an overhanging bush near the brook. Perhaps she would not
+have stared so intently if she had not thought that she saw it move.
+Just at that moment a low wailing cry came to her ears.
+
+Assured beyond doubt that the cry came from the bundle, she hurried down
+the slope, and a moment later was bending over a baby, who, on seeing
+the wondering face, looked up with innocent appeal in its wide blue
+eyes.
+
+“Why, you dear,” cooed the girl, “how did you come here?” She looked up
+expecting to see some one to whom the baby belonged, but as there was no
+one in sight and she saw the little lip quiver pathetically, she
+gathered it up in her arms and chucking the dimpled chin began to jabber
+to it in baby language.
+
+“Whom do you belong to, baby?” she questioned aloud, silently wondering
+if that tramp woman who had come up the bank could have been its mother.
+But that could hardly be, she pondered, for she looked like an Italian,
+while the baby was fair with tiny wisps of golden hair straying from
+beneath its neat white cap.
+
+Reminded finally that the camp’s need of milk was urgent, she laid the
+baby down and ran along the bank first in one direction, and then the
+other, shouting and calling until her voice was hoarse. O dear, what
+should she do? She could not leave that dear thing there alone! Ah, she
+would take it with her to the farm-house, perhaps Mrs. Hansen might know
+something about it.
+
+Carrying her find with one arm and trundling her wheel with the other
+hand, she arrived in a short space at her destination. But alas, she met
+with no satisfaction. Mrs. Hansen declared that in all probability the
+woman was a gypsy, as there was a settlement of them some miles beyond
+the town and that she had purposely deserted the baby. She also informed
+the girl in a most emphatic manner that she could not leave the child
+there as she had enough of her own to look after.
+
+“But this is a white baby,” persisted Nathalie, “see, it is very fair!”
+showing the little puckered face, for by this time it had begun to
+whimper quite loudly.
+
+“Poor waif!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife, “it is hungry!” Hastily
+getting a cup of milk she put it to the mouth of the little one, whose
+fingers closed on it tightly as it drank greedily.
+
+But feeding the baby did not soften Mrs. Hansen’s heart, and Nathalie
+was forced to see that there was nothing else to do but to carry the
+deserted one to camp with her. But how could she trundle a wheel, carry
+a five-quart can of milk, and the baby all at the same time? Poor
+Nathalie! she was in deep waters!
+
+Mrs. Hansen, however, who was not unkindly, seeing the girl’s dilemma
+called her boy Joe, and giving him the milk and wheel told him to hurry
+with it to the camp, so that Nathalie would have her arms free to carry
+her charge.
+
+Some time after the dinner hour Nathalie, tired, hot, hungry, and every
+muscle aching from weariness, arrived at the camp. She was immediately
+surrounded by the girls, who besieged her with questions as to the why
+and wherefore of her tardy appearance. But when their eyes lighted on
+the blue-eyed cherub, who had been blissfully sleeping the greater part
+of the girl’s three-mile tramp on a sunny road, they went wild with
+excitement.
+
+Mrs. Morrow presently arrived on the scene and promptly driving
+Nathalie’s tormentors away, handed the infant to Ellen and Nita. Then
+she made the girl lie down in the hammock to cool off, while Helen and
+Grace rushed off to get her dinner.
+
+As the girl, between bites, told of her strange adventure, she saw that
+it was not to prove as disastrous as she feared, for the little stranger
+had already captivated every member of the camp, even down to Peter,
+also Rosy, Mrs. Van Vorst’s black cook. Indeed, it was petted, hugged,
+and kissed so many times that Mrs. Morrow, fearing it would be brought
+to evil by so many caressing hands, then and there made rules as to how
+each girl should care for it.
+
+They all declared that Nathalie’s finding that baby was providential,
+for one of the Pioneers that very morning had expressed the wish that
+they could find a baby in one of the farm-houses. They wanted to
+practice bathing and dressing it, as these were some of the
+qualifications necessary for a first-class Pioneer.
+
+Although notices were posted in the post-offices of the towns, and also
+sent to several newspapers, advertising the fact that a baby had been
+found and was at Camp Laff-a-Lot, no one claimed it. The girls were
+delighted as they were enamored of their new toy, each one secretly
+hoping it could remain with them.
+
+The girls had even begun to discuss the project of calling it the Girl
+Pioneer baby, and were deep in plans to raise money so they could have
+it taken care of and educated as such, when Mrs. Van Vorst avowed that
+if no mother appeared to claim it she would adopt it as her own.
+
+This of course took away the girls’ hopes of having the little one for
+their own, as who could deny Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita what they so
+eagerly desired and what they were so able to do? In the meantime, Miss
+Camphelia—for so she had been christened—cooed, gurgled, and dimpled
+with delight at each new mother who bathed and dressed her in silent
+adoration of the tyrant of the camp.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nathalie stirred restlessly, jumbled up her pillow, and then flopped
+over with a sigh. O dear, why couldn’t she go to sleep? It was not near
+time to get up!
+
+“Nathalie Page, what ails you?” came in exasperated tone from the other
+bed. “You have been wiggling, bouncing, jumping, and sighing like a
+porpoise for half the night. For pity’s sake do go to sleep!”
+
+Nathalie made no reply, assured that if she did she would betray what a
+baby she was.
+
+“What does ail you anyway?” persisted Helen in a softer tone. “Have you
+been doing the green-apple act like Carol, and—”
+
+“Oh, it’s just Nita,” replied the girl dolefully. “You see it is this
+way, Helen. I told Mrs. Van Vorst that if Nita could mingle with girls
+about her own age it would do her a world of good.” Nathalie sat up in
+bed and began to hug her knees. “So, you see, I feel responsible in a
+measure to see that she gets a good time, but dear me, she is just
+having a horrible time!”
+
+“How do you know?” questioned Helen, “she—”
+
+“Oh, the poor little thing mopes and cries all the time. She won’t admit
+it, but she doesn’t want me out of her sight. Really, Helen, I know it
+is selfish when she is so afflicted—” Nathalie’s voice quavered, “but I
+do want a bit of fun myself sometimes.”
+
+“Well, I should say!” was Helen’s ejaculation. “But I wouldn’t worry
+over it. She’s selfish, that’s all, and shouldn’t be encouraged. I have
+noticed that she is terribly offish with the girls, and they are half
+afraid to be pleasant with her.”
+
+“Oh, she does not mean to be offish, as you say,” answered Nathalie
+quickly, “she is shy, and sensitive. I think she imagines the girls do
+not care for her because she is a humpback. If there was only some way
+by which she could become better acquainted with the girls, and give
+them a chance to know her better! She’s an awfully bright little thing,
+and I know she would be a prime favorite, for there’s lots of fun in
+her. She’s just pining—well—for love.”
+
+“Humph!” came from Helen, “she gets enough of it from her mother and
+Ellen; they spoil her.”
+
+“Yes, I know, but that is what she doesn’t want—mother-coddling. What
+she wants is to come out here and kick around as one of us in a rough
+and tumble way. Then she would get over her sensitiveness, but somehow I
+can’t seem to manage it.”
+
+There was silence for a moment as both girls fell to thinking. All at
+once Helen bounced up in bed crying, “There, Nathalie, I have nailed
+it!”
+
+“Nailed it?” repeated her companion. “Why—”
+
+“Oh, you know what I mean, I mean about Nita. Now listen to Solon the
+Wise. You get Nita to come and sleep in this tent—”
+
+“Where, on the floor?” inquired Nathalie teasingly.
+
+“You know what I mean—on my cot. I’ll take her room. Then you drill her
+to take her part with the other girls, and so on, just as if she were
+one of us. In three days I’ll come back and take my turn with her, and
+you take my place. Then in three days again let Lillie take a turn, and
+so on until the turns have gone the rounds, each girl being her
+tent-mate for three days. In that way she will become acquainted and
+have a chance to get in with us.”
+
+“Oh, Helen, you are the brightest—but suppose she won’t come?”
+
+“Won’t be your tent-mate? Why, she worships the ground you walk on!
+That’s one thing that ails her, Nathalie, she’s jealous of the girls,
+because in a way she is outside of it all. Get her into harness like the
+rest of us and in ten days’ time she’ll be like another girl, or you can
+shut me up for a lunatic.”
+
+Nathalie, as soon as possible after the morning conference, had a little
+talk with her Director, and finding that she agreed with Helen, sought
+Mrs. Van Vorst and laid before her the new plan. Of course she found
+that she had a number of objections to fight from that lady, but
+eventually she won, and it was decided that for the rest of the time in
+camp Nita Van Vorst was to be lost to her mother’s bungalow, for to her
+unbounded joy she was to be one of the girls!
+
+It was bathing hour, and Nathalie, with bugle in hand, was patroling the
+beach, keeping her brain and eyes keenly alert, for some of the girls
+were careless, and would swim out beyond the raft.
+
+Carol was giving her considerable trouble, for having just mastered the
+art of swimming she had become very daring, doing her best to “show off”
+before the girls. Her companions had promised to keep an eye on her, but
+Nathalie knew that when they were sporting about in the water they were
+apt to forget their duty.
+
+Her eyes swept from one group to the other. Ah, the Sport was swimming
+out to the raft! How well she looked in that red cap, and what a
+beautiful swimmer she was, so free and graceful in her movements!
+Hearing a sudden cry, as she thought, Nathalie turned and glanced at
+Carol. Good! she had stopped her antics of pretending she was sinking.
+Her eyes again wandered to Edith, why where was she? There was her red
+cap bobbing on the water, what new trick was she up to now? She had
+thrown up her arms. Oh, was she screaming? Pshaw, she was just fooling
+as usual, what a plague she was!
+
+Nathalie strained her eyes, why, yes, she _was_ screaming! she had gone
+down again! Just a moment, and then as Nathalie saw the red cap bob up
+again and heard another piercing shriek, she realized that Edith was
+drowning! Nathalie’s brain spun like a wheel—what should she do—she
+glanced helplessly around. Where was Helen?
+
+“Edith is drowning!” she tried to shriek, but her voice sounded faint,
+as if far away. O God! and then she remembered. Up went her bugle and
+two loud blasts—the danger signal that some one was drowning—rang
+sharply over the water.
+
+Just a moment, and then with a sudden swirl through the air, Nathalie
+had leaped into the water, and with long, swift strokes swam towards the
+spot where she had seen the red cap go down! Ah, she was almost there!
+As Edith threw up her arms again with another frenzied scream, for help,
+Nathalie grabbed her under the shoulders. But Edith, with a hysterical
+cry, threw her arms around her neck. Oh, she was dragging her down!
+
+Nathalie regained control of herself, and was frantically beating back
+the clutching arms. She had swung her around; she tried to get a firmer
+grip, but a nameless fear was pinching her heart. She felt her strength
+was giving out! Then she heard Helen’s voice crying, “Don’t lose your
+hold, Nathalie, we’re almost there!”
+
+Edith was so heavy; Nathalie tried to tighten her grip; she was more
+quiet now. Oh, could it be? She heard the purling of water and saw, but
+dimly, something dark moving towards her. Oh, if they would only hurry?
+Some one had caught hold of Edith and was dragging—
+
+When Nathalie regained her consciousness it was to hear Mrs. Morrow’s
+voice crying, “Poor little Blue Robin!” She opened her eyes to see the
+doctor bending over her while Mrs. Morrow peeped over his shoulder with
+a cheery smile. “Edith?” she gasped, making an attempt to rise.
+
+“As snug as a bug in a rug,” rejoined the doctor promptly, “and you will
+be, too, if you will drink this.”
+
+Nathalie meekly obeyed. She was so tired, would she ever get rested? But
+she did, and a few hours later was half sitting up on her cot supported
+by pillows, surrounded by a group of sober-faced girls all eagerly
+listening as she told how it came about. “If she hadn’t gripped me so
+hard,” she ended as she sank back on the pillows, beginning to feel
+tired again, “I could have managed.” Then suddenly a queer little smile
+curved her mouth and drawing Helen down to her she whispered softly,
+“Helen, do you remember the day Edith ducked us when we were off in the
+boat, and how I declared I would get even?” Her friend nodded gravely.
+“Well,” said Nathalie, still with that queer little smile, “I have got
+one on her, haven’t I?”
+
+A cheer fire was in progress, and a noisy one at that. The Pioneers had
+spent the afternoon and evening of the previous day over at the camp
+across the Lake at an entertainment called Scout Day, given in their
+honor by their friends.
+
+Certainly it had been a most wonderful Scout Day, for there had been
+scouts saluting the colors, giving calls, making signals, lighting
+fires, and building shacks, tepees, and miniature log huts. Scouts, too,
+had engaged in all kinds of drills, contests, and races, such as tilting
+jousts, hand-wrestling, spear fighting and sham battles. And the games!
+They were a revelation to the girls in the uniqueness and cleverness of
+the ideas displayed. They had found, too, that scouts knew how to cook
+the very things dear to a camper’s heart, and sing—well, about every war
+and camp song known.
+
+The Camp Circus presented the ludicrous side of these knights of
+chivalry, as they did clown stunts, causing the girls to laugh
+immoderately. After supper had come a firefly dance, which made strong
+appeal to the weird and mystic in every girl’s nature, as they watched
+the scouts swing about the blazing light in strange and grotesque
+evolution.
+
+Perhaps the best was the scouts on the water, when, with a flotilla of
+row-boats and canoes decorated with the figures of paper animals, and
+brilliantly aglow with Japanese lights they glided over the water, the
+motion of the boats making the lights look like fireflies dancing in the
+air.
+
+The jolly times given by the scouts must be returned! When, how, and
+where, were the three questions causing no little agitation, when Carol,
+with a white, frightened face, leaped into their midst crying, “Oh,
+girls, the baby has a fit!”
+
+On hearing this startling statement some of the girls began to cry,
+others jumped up and wrung their hands frantically, while a few made a
+wild dash for Mrs. Van Vorst’s bungalow. Helen fortunately kept cool,
+and, perceiving that a panic would ensue, seized her bugle and blew it
+quickly.
+
+This halted the stampede, arrested the hysterical ones midway between a
+sob and a cry, and caused a sudden quiet to fall, as she cried, in a
+loud clear voice, “Girls, keep perfectly still. Nathalie Page, Edith
+Whiton, and Lillie Bell, I appoint a committee of three to go and see if
+Carol’s report is so, and whether our services are needed. And please,
+Pioneers,” she called out as the three girls sprang on their feet, “one
+of you girls come back and let us know how things are progressing, as we
+shall all be anxious to know.”
+
+The next moment the three girls were running swiftly after Carol, who,
+immediately after delivering her news, had started to run back to the
+bungalow.
+
+“Now, girls,” continued Helen, “let us go on talking. Of course we are
+all worried, for we just love that baby!” she paused for a second, “but
+we can’t all help. Mrs. Morrow will let us know if we can do anything,
+so in the meantime, let us go on thinking up ideas.”
+
+A cheer greeted this speech as a tribute to their leader’s level head
+and courage, for this was not the first time that she had preserved her
+poise, and held the scales when unduly weighted on the wrong side.
+
+Yes, it was true, little Camphelia was writhing in convulsions on Mrs.
+Morrow’s lap, while Mrs. Van Vorst bent over her with agitated
+movements, applying with Ellen’s help hot water, and mustard, and such
+remedies as were available at the moment.
+
+Nathalie touched Mrs. Van Vorst softly on the arm, “Is there anything we
+girls can do?” Her eyes were big with anxious fear.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” replied that lady distractedly; “if the doctor were
+only here!”
+
+“Blue Robin, is that you?” asked Mrs. Morrow quickly, as she heard
+Nathalie’s voice. “Oh, we must have help! How unfortunate the doctor had
+to go to the city to-day! But, Nathalie, can’t you send a wireless to
+Dr. Homer? Tell him to come immediately, for the baby is very ill!”
+
+But Nathalie was already out of the sound of her voice, as with quick,
+light steps she ran to the girls who, with white distressed faces,
+awaited her on the veranda. “Mrs. Morrow says to send a wireless to Dr.
+Homer over at camp,” she explained hurriedly, “but I am afraid we won’t
+get him, as the wireless hours are nine, twelve and eight, and it is not
+eight yet.”
+
+“Oh, yes it is,” returned Lillie, “five minutes to eight,” looking up
+from her little wrist-watch in its leather bandlet. “I’m sure we shall
+catch him.”
+
+The girls hurried to the boat-house and climbed up to the little cupola,
+where Dr. Morrow, on first coming to camp, had installed his wireless
+apparatus. The Pioneers had been somewhat mystified by this procedure,
+wondering of what use a wireless would be to him up there in those
+woods. But the doctor had soon demonstrated that it was not only one of
+the most useful things about camp, but one of the most entertaining.
+
+He had not only been able to discuss with his fellow physician across
+the lake many professional questions that he came across in his medical
+books now and then, or letters from his colleague in Westport, who had
+charge of some of his important cases, but at times had been able to
+give valuable advice to the younger physician when dealing with some
+refractory or eccentric scout.
+
+But the doctor had done more than this, for he had gathered the four
+older girls, Helen, Edith, Lillie, and Nathalie together, and given them
+lessons in wireless telegraphy, so that they were soon glibly talking
+about ether waves, spark-coils, condensers, tuners, keys, and so on, in
+a way that proved his lessons had been well learned. They had, in fact,
+not only learned the Morse code, so that they could “listen in” when the
+doctor was “picking up” an S. O. S. call from some ship in distress, but
+they had heard many a wireless message from some signal station, or from
+some out-going or in-coming sea craft.
+
+At first it had seemed quite odd that although their little amateur
+apparatus could send messages only within a radius of five miles, it was
+able to receive them from a distance of over a thousand. They became so
+proficient in this click-clack language that they were soon sending
+aerograms, or wireless messages, to the camp across the Lake for the
+doctor. Sometimes, too, they sent messages to their scout friends, a
+privilege only accorded after the messages had been read by their
+Director, so as to avoid senseless talk or idle gossip.
+
+As soon as the girls reached the little wooden table holding the
+wireless, Lillie and Edith instinctively drew back, feeling that as
+Nathalie was the one who had found the baby she had the prior right to
+send this call for help. Seating herself, Nathalie quickly adjusted the
+telephones over her ears and set to work. But to her surprise, as she
+pressed the wireless key on the detector to close the circuit, she heard
+no sharp crack, and saw no spark-gap. Again she tried with like result.
+“Why, what is the matter with it?” she questioned turning towards the
+girls in some trepidation.
+
+“Let me try,” pleaded Lillie. But alas, she met with no better luck than
+Nathalie, although she tried one experiment after the other. “I think it
+is the strangest thing,” she commented staring helplessly before her;
+“what can be the matter with the thing anyway?”
+
+But Edith, who had dropped down on her hands and knees to examine the
+battery under the wooden board, now rose to her feet crying, “There is
+nothing the matter with the condenser, it must be that the aerial wires
+are not right!”
+
+As the girl made this announcement there was an ominous silence as they
+stared with distressed, worried faces at one another. “Oh, what can we
+do?” lamented Nathalie, “could we—”
+
+“I know what we can do,” said Lillie suddenly; “we can row across the
+Lake to the camp!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV—THE WIRELESS OPERATOR
+
+
+“Yes, that is the only thing we can do,” said Nathalie quickly, “but
+suppose the doctor is not there! You know the boys said they were going
+on a two or three days’ tramp this week.”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you how we can settle that problem and make sure,”
+replied Lillie, whose mind acted quickly. “Suppose we row over while
+Edith goes on her wheel to Mrs. Hansen’s and telephones to Boonton.”
+
+“What, go all that distance alone in the dark?” protested the Sport in
+an appalled tone, “and then I don’t know what doctor to telephone to!”
+
+“What, Edith, do you want us to think that you are really afraid?”
+laughed Lillie; “_you_, the girl who has never shown the white feather
+at any dare? Why, I—”
+
+But Nathalie’s cheery voice, like oil on troubled waters, interposed
+quickly, “Of course she is not afraid, but it is an unpleasant thing to
+do to ride that distance alone at night. But we can’t take chances, and
+we must have a doctor. And as to the one you telephone to, Edith,” she
+cried, turning to that young lady, whose face had brightened somewhat,
+“call Dr. McGill, he’s the little white-haired doctor who called on Dr.
+Morrow the other day. He lives at Boonton.”
+
+Without another protest Edith turned, and after running back to the
+cheer fire circle to inform Helen what the girls were going to do, she
+hurried after her wheel. A few minutes later, with the lantern fastened
+to the front of it, flickering like a firefly as she sped through the
+woods, she was on her way to the farm to telephone.
+
+Lillie and Nathalie had hurried down to the boathouse, and in a flash of
+time had unfastened one of the row boats. Springing quickly in, they
+were soon out some distance from shore, rowing as rapidly as they could
+towards the opposite bank. It was a weird night, the sky seemed hung
+with heavy black curtains, the only light being that from the moon, as
+at rare intervals she darted swiftly through some opening between the
+clouds, or betrayed her presence by streaks of foamy silver on the edge
+of some unusually inky cloud.
+
+But the path across the Lake was a familiar one, and ten minutes later
+the girls reached the opposite shores. “Why, it looks as if there wasn’t
+a soul about,” exclaimed Lillie, as, after drawing in their oars, the
+two girls stood up in the boat and peered anxiously through the bit of
+woodland that led to the camp, whose signal lantern glimmered dimly
+through the foliage of the trees.
+
+“I guess you’re right, Nathalie, the boys must be on a tramp,” said
+Lillie after several loud “Hellos!” the only reply to which had been a
+faint echo from across the Lake.
+
+Putting her fingers to her mouth Lillie emitted several sharp whistles,
+but still no sign of life! “Huh, it looks as if it was a case of
+Goldsmith’s ‘Deserted Village,’” she soliloquized dismally, but Nathalie
+was busy giving the Pioneer yell. This evoked such a strange medley of
+echoing sounds that the girls burst out laughing.
+
+Nathalie’s face soon sobered, however, as she exclaimed dolefully, “O
+dear, it does seem as if we were destined to have bad luck. I wonder if
+they could have gone to bed!” burst from her in sudden thought.
+
+“If they have, we’ll soon rout them out,” declared Lillie, jumping on
+the bank. “Come on, let’s drag the boat up and then hike to camp.”
+
+After slipping on pine needles, stumbling over gnarled roots and
+blackened stumps, they finally found the path, devoutly thankful that
+the moon had at last emerged from behind the clouds. Indeed, as they
+stepped from the shadows of the woods and stood on the campus—as the
+scouts called the level space in front of the tents—the moon was shining
+with a brightness that equalled the day.
+
+As the girls’ eyes traveled from the pots on the top pole suspended over
+what had once been a camp fire to the rows of tents, whose open flaps
+revealed that they were tenantless, Lillie uttered a sudden cry of
+delighted surprise!
+
+The next moment she had shot across the campus, for she had spied a
+white paper fastened to one of the larger tents, directly under the
+glare of the lantern above the door.
+
+“Hurrah! we’re in luck,” she cried, wildly jubilant, pointing to the
+white paper as Nathalie reached her side. “Read that!” The girl stepped
+closer and slowly deciphered from the big black letters in charcoal
+print:
+
+            “Have gone to the Scout Council at the rooms of
+            the Wolf Patrol at Boonton.
+                                “G. A. Homer, Scoutmaster.”
+
+“But that does not help us any!” Nathalie said when she finished reading
+the notice, her face losing its eagerness as she faced her companion.
+
+“Indeed it does, goosie,” replied Lillie stoutly, “for the doctor has a
+wireless. So have the scouts at Boonton, for I heard one of the boys
+tell of a message one of them had picked up the other night, the night
+we had that awful thunder storm, don’t you remember? So don’t say we’re
+not lucky, Nathalie Page, after finding that note. I’ll warrant you,
+though, that some of the scouts did go on a tramp, and that the doctor
+left that word in case they returned before he did. But let’s look for
+that wireless!”
+
+Surmising that the tent with the note pinned on the flap must be Dr.
+Homer’s, the girls hastened in, and by the light from the lantern which
+Nathalie had taken from the pole by standing on a couple of soap-boxes
+she had found, it was soon discovered on a roughly-hewn table in a
+corner of the tent.
+
+This time the wireless key did its work; there was a sharp crack, the
+amateur wireless operator had clicked off the R. Z., the camp’s private
+call, and then with palpitating heart and expectant eyes sat waiting to
+see if it had been picked up. Suddenly her face broke into a smile, for
+as she “listened in,” she caught the wireless O. K. G. (go ahead). She
+went ahead, and in a few moments had made the operator at the Patrol
+rooms understand that Dr. Homer was wanted. There was a moment’s delay,
+and then the doctor himself was sending a message through the air. It
+took but a short space of time for Nathalie to click off why he was
+wanted, and how the girls had come to wire him from the scout camp.
+
+“Now let’s make tracks for home,” said Lillie as Nathalie hung up the
+lantern on the pole again. “I am afraid it may rain, for I thought I
+heard thunder.” But she must have been mistaken, for not a cloud
+disturbed the soft silver haze that guided them across the Lake to Camp
+Laff-a-Lot.
+
+“Dear me,” ejaculated Nathalie an hour later as she and Helen were
+undressing for bed, “what a lot of things have happened in the two weeks
+we have been at camp! But how glad I am that Dr. Homer got here in time,
+and that the baby is all right.”
+
+“Well, it ought to be, with two doctors on the job,” retorted Helen with
+her usual bluntness. “Isn’t that old Dr. McGill jolly?”
+
+“Oh, yes, it was comical to see him look the baby over, and then declare
+that there was nothing for him to do but to look wise, as Dr. Homer had
+done all there was to be done. What a chummy confab they had too, after
+it was all over! He was so pleased to meet Dr. Homer, he said, for he
+had heard Dr. Morrow speak of him.”
+
+“Well, one thing’s settled, Miss Blue Robin,” remarked Helen decidedly,
+“and that is that Miss Camphelia is not to have any more sweets. I half
+suspect that Carol tried to stuff her with a bite of green apple, for
+she looked frightened to death when she saw that she was ill. Dr. Homer
+said there had been too much mothering going on. I just knew it would
+come to this, the way—”
+
+“Stop your scolding, Lady Fuss,” laughed Nathalie, “for it seems to me
+that I saw you trying to stuff the kiddie with a lollipop the other day.
+But, anyway, the rules have been posted, ‘No one to feed, or to handle
+Miss Camphelia without permission of the head nurse, Miss Ellen
+Carmichael!’ I’m dead for sleep, so good night!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The camp presented an appearance of unusual activity, with flags and
+bunting rippling in the sunlit air, and girls, scouts, and village
+guests in a state of restless progression, for it was the Pioneer Sport
+Day. The girls were in a whirl as they flew hither and thither, seeing
+that everything was in readiness for the anticipated fun, the visitors
+curiously prying into the living arrangements of this girls’ camp, while
+the scouts impatiently tramped about, waiting for the sports to begin.
+
+Ah, there was the bugle call, the signal for a rush down to the shores
+of the Lake to witness the aquatic feats of the young campers! “A
+ghostly dive,” read Fred Tyson slowly from an imposing little program,
+hand-printed in red, and tied to a birch-bark cover with sweet-grass.
+“I’d like to know—” but his query was cut short as the bugle again
+sounded to announce that the first race was to start.
+
+Fred turned his eyes towards the pier and stared curiously at the little
+figure in a khaki suit with red tie and hat, standing so proudly erect
+on a small platform as the Pioneer announcer for the day. Could it be?
+Yes it was Miss Anita Van Vorst, with her knapsack so adroitly arranged
+that no one would have suspected she was the little humpback who had
+once only taken an outing when wheeled in a chair.
+
+A sudden scurry from the boat-house of two ghostly figures, a quick rush
+up the plank leading to the barrel platform,—Peter’s diving-tower,—the
+spectral habiliments suddenly flung away to float with the tide, and two
+blue-suited forms had sped swiftly downward.
+
+There was a splash, a shower of silvery spray, a few bubbles, and two
+heads were bobbing about like floating corks. The next minute Kitty and
+Edith were swimming swiftly back to the pier, Edith in the lead, and
+Kitty a close second amid the noisy hurrahs from their friends on the
+bank. Edith, of course, won the blue, and with a wave of her hand as an
+acknowledgment to the cheering audience darted quickly back to the
+boat-house.
+
+A tennis match now followed, which proved to be Lillie and Jessie
+arrayed in tennis-suits seated in wooden tubs with tennis-rackets for
+paddles, paddling to the goal, an anchored raft some yards from shore.
+Lillie was the winner this time, and, amid a general laugh received her
+prize, a dime and pin, with radiant smiles from the bugler on the pier.
+
+A pioneer race was engaged in by two Orioles, one in the costume of a
+colonial maiden of Plymouth town, while the other closely resembled
+pictures of that laggard in love, John Alden. The contestants swam to
+the raft where they attempted in double-quick time to divest themselves
+of their old-time clothes, the one, of course, who accomplished this
+feat first having the best chance to win the race.
+
+But shoes would stick, strings would knot, and buttons wouldn’t
+unfasten. Nannie Plummer at last was free, and jumped back to the water.
+But alas, her bonnet still clung to her; no, not to her head, but to one
+of her feet, causing her audience to shout with merriment at her antics
+to rid herself of this obstacle, while Johnnie the slow was still making
+futile endeavors to rid herself of her undesirable trousers.
+
+A Japanese race was applauded perhaps as much for its picturesqueness as
+for the skill displayed, as two daintily gowned figures,—one in a pink
+and one in a blue flowered kimono, with flowers and fans coquettishly
+arranged à la Japanese in their hair—with mincing steps hied themselves
+down to their boats. Here, each one holding an umbrella in one hand and
+a palm-leaf fan in the other, they paddled out to the stake boat.
+
+“Gee whiz! I’d like to know how they make those fans work!” exclaimed
+Teddie Hart in puzzled tone, to the joy of a group of girls near by, who
+giggled unrestrainedly as they saw that they had succeeded in mystifying
+their scout friends. Perhaps Peter, if he had minded, could have
+explained that a flat board to which the fans were nailed did the work.
+
+A Silver Race was composed of teams of two, rowing out to the raft and
+back, each girl holding a silver spoon in her mouth containing an egg.
+The winners were Nathalie and Edith, who reached shore with their eggs
+intact, while Lillie Bell and a Bob White raced back to land with
+streams of yellow dripping from their faces and clothes, the race rules
+requiring that each racer should return to the shore with what remained
+of the egg.
+
+The Trail of the Lonesome Pine created yells of laughter, as Helen
+stepped gingerly along with bare feet on a peeled pine sapling suspended
+over the shallow water near the shore. It was greased, of course, but
+the red apple at its end proved an incentive as the girl slipped
+cautiously towards it. Hurrah, she was almost there! Hadn’t she
+practiced that feat for days? There was a sudden swerve to one side, the
+supple figure tottered, and then Miss Helen plunged to her fate in the
+water below. But she only laughed with the spectators as she wrung out
+her skirts and scurried for the bank, while Barbara began her greasy
+career.
+
+Surely she had rosin on her feet! No, she didn’t, for the next moment
+she too was clawing the air. She swayed for a minute like a reed in the
+wind, and then went down, not into the water, but on the pole where she
+gazed with a bewildered stare in her near-sighted eyes at the jeering
+little prize that had proved so elusive.
+
+The first number of the land sports was a contest in the air, the
+performers walking on stilts while balancing potatoes on their heads. A
+tilting joust also took place, and helped to prove that the time the
+girls had spent in making and walking on the stilts had not been wasted.
+
+The Up Against It Race, turned out to be an obstacle race, one of the
+obstacles being twelve eggs to be picked up from the ground and placed
+in a basket. The second obstacle was hailed with deafening shouts, for
+it was no other than Miss Camphelia sitting on the race-track
+contentedly sucking a lollipop. She was speedily seized by the
+contestant and arrayed in a coat and hat, while gazing with wondering
+eyes at this new red-faced mother. The girl who made the best time as an
+egg-picker and baby-dresser proved to be an Oriole, and was duly
+applauded for her speed and deftness.
+
+In the Light that Failed contest the fair racers made a twenty-yard dash
+carrying lighted candles and pails of water, one in each hand, at the
+same time. All lights flickered out to be sure, but the one that lasted
+the longest won the contest for its holder.
+
+A fifty-yard dash won by Edith now followed, while one of the Bob Whites
+broke the tape at a twenty-five yard dash. In a Ring the Bell
+competition the girls were divided into teams, the team having the
+greatest number of girls who threw a bean bag through a barrel-hoop with
+a bell hung in its center without touching the bell were the jubilant
+ones.
+
+Lillie and Edith now gave an exhibition of wigwagging, using the Myers
+code, in which nearly all the girls were proficient. Lillie, to her
+delight, showed the most proficiency, although Edith had generally been
+considered the greatest expert in this science. An Indian-club drill,
+and a nail-driving contest not only showed the scouts what their sisters
+could accomplish in the way of strength, and manual labor, but brought
+the sports for the day to a close.
+
+By this time pangs of hunger began to assail the jolly campers, and
+Nita, with a strenuous toot of her horn, made known that a Grub
+Contest—a hike for supper packages hidden in the woods, among the rocks
+on the shore, or around the tents—would now take place. With much
+laughter and jesting the girls lined up opposite the boys, and at three
+blasts of the bugle they were off, flying in all directions, each one
+bent on searching some one particular locality that he or she had in
+mind. The fortunate ones were soon shouting hilariously; in fact even
+the slow ones were keener than usual in this supper hike, and soon
+bagged their game and cheered lustily as they returned to camp.
+
+Every one now gathered around the dining-room table—appropriately
+decorated for the occasion—and was soon dulling appetite with the choice
+bits found in the packages that had been done up by the Pioneers but
+hidden by Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Van Vorst.
+
+As they frolicked over the supper it was voted that every one present
+contribute to the moment’s pleasure by telling a story, singing a song,
+asking a conundrum, and so on. A ball was passed to Helen who
+immediately told a funny story, and ended by tossing the ball to
+Nathalie, the rule being that the reciter was to throw the ball to any
+one he or she chose, which resulted in its being thrown to the more
+timid or lazy ones, thus causing surprise and laughter.
+
+Nathalie made a rhyme impromptu, then tossed the ball to one of the
+boys, and so it kept going the rounds, not only bracing the timid or
+nervous ones, but revealing latent talent that had never been suspected.
+
+Teddy Hart, who had played the knight to the announcer of the day, Miss
+Anita, spied her laughing at his antics when he was called to the front
+and mischievously tossed the ball to her. The smile died on the girl’s
+face and she gasped with a start of terror, but in a moment, with a
+defiant toss of her head, she started in and recited some funny verses
+so comically that she received an ovation of cheers and claps.
+
+When Nathalie perceived this unexpected turn in the festivity, her heart
+went pit-a-pat in sympathy with Nita’s unexpected ordeal, but when she
+saw the upward toss of her head and the flash in her eyes, she knew the
+girl would prove game. Indeed, she had been proving game for the last
+ten days or more, for Helen’s plan of helping her to know the girls had
+succeeded so well that Nita had lost much of her supersensitiveness in
+regard to her deformity, by being made to forget it and by the
+kindliness and deference shown her by both girls and boys.
+
+The intimacy that had come from tenting with the different Pioneers had
+not only shown her the need of correcting many of her own faults, but
+had revealed the good points of her associates. Many of the girls she
+had secretly vowed to Nathalie she would never care for, she had
+accepted as the best of friends.
+
+From being deemed an aristocrat of whom the girls stood slightly in awe,
+thinking her proud and exclusive, she had proved to be most democratic,
+entirely devoid of the many airs and graces they feared. In fact she had
+become, as Nathalie said, a favorite with every one, and had nearly as
+many adorers as Miss Camphelia, who at that moment was having a most
+beautiful time eating bread and milk in the lap of Ellen, gurgling and
+winking with baby joy at the gay colors and lights that held her eye.
+
+Supper over, the campers hurried to the cheer fire circle where a tall,
+uncouth-looking object covered with sheets towered specter-like in the
+center. Helen, mounting a small platform, announced that the campers had
+gathered to celebrate the burning of Miss Dummy, who represented the
+evil spirits that had run riot during their stay at camp.
+
+An Oriole girl now came to the fore as chairman of the spirit committee,
+as it was called, and made known that a thorough investigation had
+brought to light many evil spirits that had dominated certain members of
+the camp at intervals, not only hindering the development of character,
+but causing discomfort and a few heartaches among their mates.
+
+The evil spirits of grouchiness, shiftlessness, dishonesty, and
+selfishness, in a sense, had been tamed by the Pioneers’ laws and the
+flames from their cheer fire so that they had not caused much havoc, but
+there were a few evil ones not so familiar, perhaps, that had persisted
+in doing their evil work. The principal ones, she claimed, were
+forgetting each one’s own particular failing in the fun of ridiculing
+the faults and eccentricities of her mates, the disloyalty to one’s self
+by not trying to do one’s best, a habit of giggling when there was
+nothing to giggle at, a desire to shirk responsibility by letting the
+other one do work that was distasteful, and the weakness of letting
+one’s nerves get the better of one on certain occasions instead of
+getting the better of the nerves.
+
+Of course this caused much laughter, although each girl recognized her
+own particular fault, and then and there secretly swore that she would
+subdue it or die in the attempt.
+
+Helen now asked if there was any reason why the evil spirits just
+mentioned should not be disposed of for good and all. Receiving a shout
+that evidently meant a big “No!” she pulled a string, the ghostlike
+garments fell to the ground, and Miss Dummy stood revealed, an effigy
+arrayed in an old suit belonging to one of the Pioneers, even to the
+staff and knapsack, surmounting a pile of dried twigs and brush.
+
+“Miss Dummy,” solemnly continued Helen, with as straight a face as she
+could muster as she confronted the ludicrous-looking evil one, who, with
+hat awry, huge red nose, and goggle-eyes, stared at her with a leer, “I
+consign to thee those evil spirits that have caused sorrow and
+heartaches among the members of Camp Laff-a-Lot, to be burned until thou
+art ashes, and then to be buried at the bottom of the lake to lie there
+forever!”
+
+As she ended there was a sudden scurry forward as each Pioneer made one
+of a circle kneeling around Miss Dummy, and in an instant’s time had
+struck her match and applied it to one of the twigs which served as a
+pedestal for the evil one. As the firewood had been well oiled it caught
+quickly from the blue sputterings of so many matches, and yellow flames
+were soon shooting savagely upward to glow like strings of scarlet among
+the twigs and briers, causing them to snap and crackle hilariously. In a
+moment darting tongues were licking Miss Dummy’s red cheeks with fiery
+greed and floated upward to circle about in wreaths of white and black
+smoke.
+
+[Illustration: She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid
+water.]
+
+Some of the unduly imaginative girls turned away, declaring that the
+effigy looked like some one of the girls in that suit in the reddened
+glare of the flames. But the rest joined hands with the scouts and
+leaped merrily about the blazing pyre, executing weird and strange
+gyrations, which they termed a fire dance, as a last farewell to their
+enemy, who finally, done to the death, tumbled to the ground a fiery
+mass of scarlet embers. A pail of water soon quenched the last of the
+spirits, when the ashes were gathered into a big pail and carried in a
+procession to the shores of the lake.
+
+Here Helen, holding the pail carefully in her hand, stepped into a
+row-boat and was conveyed to the middle of the lake. By the light of the
+moon just peeping above the horizon she dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy
+into the placid water, and to the singing of a comic dirge, composed by
+one of the Orioles, was rowed silently back to shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV—GOOD-BY TO EAGLE LAKE
+
+
+After Miss Dummy had been disposed of there was a return to the cheer
+fire circle, where the Sport performed the unusual feat of lighting
+three fires with one match. The giving out of merit badges and stars for
+the work performed during camp life and for the day’s sports now took
+place. These rewards of merit were each accompanied by camp gifts, the
+work of the girls done afternoons at their “trial by needle” hour, as
+some of the girls called it, when raffia and bead work, candle making,
+sewing, and many other crafts had occupied the Pioneers’ busy fingers,
+while some expert read of heroic deeds, or the girls chatted pleasantly
+of the pleasures that were, or that were to be.
+
+Pioneer and Scout, each in turn, now told of some special good that had
+come to them from the life in the open, which Mrs. Morrow said would be
+food for thought on their return to the city. A rhyming contest made no
+end of merriment, as well as the games of menagerie, gossip, animal,
+blind man’s buff, and others of like character. The scout orchestra now
+varied the entertainment with a few musical selections which started the
+girls and boys dancing around the fire again, this time with the
+graceful swing and motions of the modern dances.
+
+But they tired at last, and, some one starting a song, they all fell in
+and sang to their heart’s content one song after the other, rendering
+the old-remembered one of “Juanita” with undue emphasis, in honor to
+Miss Anita Van Vorst.
+
+After Dr. Homer, with the assistance of a few scouts, had made a deal of
+laughter by his comic shadowgraphs, done by a flash-lamp placed in the
+rear of one of the big tents with the flaps closed, the time came to say
+good-by. A few protested that it was still early, but when reminded by
+Mrs. Morrow that they had already been allowed an hour longer than usual
+and that they would have a lot of work to do in the morning as they were
+to break camp to return to the city, the protests ended, and the
+good-nights were said.
+
+The last day was a busy one, any number of camp rules were broken but
+the squads were lenient—they were still sleepy—so no reports were made,
+and the work of pulling down tents, packing the camp equipment, and
+making everything as clean and orderly as possible progressed.
+
+In the midst of this confusion Carol, who had made her last trip to the
+post-office, came rushing up to Nathalie with a letter. “Oh, it’s from
+Dick!” cried the delighted girl as she tore it open.
+
+“Oh, Helen,” she exclaimed in a moment to that young lady who was down
+on her knees packing the big box, “it’s the funniest letter. Dick says
+he’s having the time of his life—the jolliest ever—why, where can he
+be?” stopping to glance at the envelope.
+
+“Why, he must be in New York, or I wonder—yes,” she nodded in answer to
+Helen’s inquiry, “he says Mamma is fine—says they have had a glorious
+three weeks—well, I like that,” she grumbled with rueful face, “it looks
+as if they had not missed me a bit and—” But the sound of voices at this
+moment caused both of the girls to go to the tent door, to see Miss
+Carol hurriedly heading a procession of men and women towards the tent.
+She was screaming excitedly as she came, “Oh, Nathalie, where are you?”
+
+Nathalie, somewhat alarmed by all this appearance of excitement, cried
+quickly, “Oh, what is it, Carol? What is it?”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie,” the girl screamed, “the baby’s mother has come!”
+
+“The baby’s mother!” echoed the dazed girl with wide eyes. “Why, what
+does she mean?” turning to Helen, who at that moment had picked up Miss
+Camphelia, who had just awakened from a nap on one of the cots.
+
+By this time the party of country folk, breathless and somewhat moist
+from undue haste, with expectancy and delight beaming from every
+feature, had arrived in front of the tent. Nathalie gave one glance at
+the many faces, and then with a sudden cry rushed to the defense of what
+she had come to consider as her own, and the next minute was seated on
+the cot holding on to Miss Camphelia with a gripping clutch. She stared
+defiantly at the intruders as they pushed and jostled one another in
+their haste to enter the tent.
+
+But a moment later her arms relaxed, as a faded-looking, worried-faced
+little woman, with eyes as blue as the sea, and hair like corn-silk,
+gave an inarticulate cry as she caught sight of the baby on the girl’s
+lap. Dropping on her knees with outstretched arms she cried, “Oh, my
+baby! My precious baby!”
+
+Well, after that Nathalie could hold out no longer, especially when she
+saw that the baby’s sweet smile and dimpling cheeks were counterparts of
+those of the woman who claimed her as her own.
+
+Then it was all explained. The child had been stolen by the gypsy woman
+who, evidently, after a day or so of tramping from house to house
+begging for money to reach the Gypsy settlement some distance from the
+neighboring town, had decided to abandon it. Unfortunately the notice
+that had been sent to be put up in the post-office had failed to reach
+its destination, and if it had not been for Dr. McGill, the physician
+who had been summoned by Edith when Camphelia was ill, the baby would
+never have been found.
+
+Dr. MCGill had been puzzled by the baby’s resemblance to some one he
+knew, but supposing the little one belonged to some of the ladies at
+camp he had thought no more about it. Afterwards, however, on
+accidentally learning from Dr. Homer that it was a lost baby, he had
+sent the mother to reclaim it.
+
+Of course there were pangs of disappointment to be endured, but, as
+Nathalie said, no one could be anything but glad to give the baby up
+after witnessing the mother’s joy. After the mother had thanked them
+all, from Mrs. Van Vorst down to Ellen, for their kindness and the care
+they had given her baby, hoping that each one of the girls would some
+day have one of her own to caress and fondle, they all kissed Camphelia
+good-by, and the camp baby departed to return to its own home.
+
+After a dirge had been composed by Jessie, who had bloomed into quite a
+poetess, and any number of farewell letters and wishes had been written
+for the good luck of the next campers at the Lake, these were buried in
+the ground under a cairn of stones with a tiny American flag fastened at
+the top. This was the girls’ memorial to the good times they had had, as
+well as an expression of the sadness they felt on leaving the place
+where they had spent three such happy weeks.
+
+The sadness of parting with the friends they had made in Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s household—not the least being our friend Jimmie—was somewhat
+lessened when they learned that their hostess and her daughter were to
+accompany them to New York to spend a day or so with Mrs. Morrow.
+
+Going down in the car, although surrounded by a merry, chattering crowd,
+Nathalie and Helen became unusually silent. Helen, perhaps, was thinking
+of the new position she was to enter on her return to Westport, and
+Nathalie,—well, she could not have told why, but soon she became aware
+that her thoughts had jumped backward and she was reviewing her first
+meeting with Helen and the Pioneers.
+
+She half smiled as each one in turn presented herself to her as she
+first appeared; Barbara, with her queer staring eyes, absent-minded
+manner, and her frumpish clothes that always made Nathalie think of a
+five-and-ten-cent store. How often she had been tempted to laugh until
+she learned of the meanness of Barbara’s grandfather, for although he
+was a rich man Barbara had to scrimp and haggle to get enough to eat, to
+say nothing of clothes to cover her back. The tears came into her eyes
+when she realized the kind heart that beat so loyally beneath the
+despised apparel. After all, what were one’s clothes, mere externals
+necessary of course, but in reality only of face value, for surely they
+would never gain one an entrance into Heaven. And Helen, what would her
+life have been in her new home without this neighbor friend—who had
+taught her to master herself by helping her to overcome the many
+problems that had confronted her when she had become a Pioneer?
+
+Then she smiled again as she thought of Lillie Bell, with her thrillers
+and dramatic poses. She had learned that they were but the frosting to
+the solid worth beneath. Indeed, the thrillers in a way had proved an
+incentive in the telling of her stories to Rosy, the opening wedge into
+the good things that had followed, meeting Nita, making the money for
+Dick, Mrs. Van Vorst’s asking the Pioneers to Eagle Lake, and so on.
+Why, when she came to think of it, there was not a girl in her bird
+group who had not helped her in some way, even Edith, who had taught her
+to guard her tongue.
+
+And from the Pioneer industries and crafts she had learned to be useful.
+She thought of the first time she had tried to darn a stocking at the
+Rally. Yes, and they had helped her to be happy, for they had given her
+a purpose in life. As for the sports and activities, they had brought
+her in closer touch with nature, giving her a keener interest in things
+that had never appealed to her before. And the rules and laws, even the
+good old-timey women had all done their share in making definite those
+qualities which she now saw were necessary in order to be a success in
+life.
+
+She realized, but dimly, perhaps, that she had gotten nearer the hearts
+of these people of the workaday world, not only Helen, but Edith and
+Jessie, who were all to be wage-earners that fall, thus opening up to
+her a new avenue of hopes and desires. Wasn’t it strange how she used to
+dread the thought of having to earn her own living, and now she was
+worrying as to how she could earn more money to add to what she had
+earned already for Dick! Then a sudden thought jarred, oh, suppose Mrs.
+Van Vorst, now that Nita had become so different with her sunburned
+cheeks and merry ways from what she had been before she met the
+Pioneers, should not want her any more! Oh, well, if that should be—ah,
+they were getting into New York! She stooped and had begun to gather up
+her belongings when some one spoke to her.
+
+It was Mrs. Van Vorst, who, with her gracious little smile—how changed
+she seemed from on that morning when Nathalie had handed her the card in
+front of the library—said, “Nathalie, Nita and I are going to take a run
+up to St. Luke’s Hospital to visit that sick friend—you know the one I
+told you about, who just had an operation performed—and Nita wants you
+to go with us.”
+
+“Oh, but Mother will be waiting to see me!” exclaimed the girl blankly.
+O dear, she didn’t want to go, for she was in such a hurry to see her
+mother and Dick.
+
+“Oh, that will be all right,” nodded her friend quickly. “Mrs. Morrow
+will stop at the door, and you can tell her you will be along in the
+next train, for we shall not be long at the hospital.”
+
+Twenty minutes later the three ladies, each with a big bouquet which
+Nita had insisted upon their taking, were entering a large, bare-looking
+reception room. “Now, girls,” said Mrs. Van Vorst, “I will hurry up in
+the elevator and see how the patient is, and then perhaps you can both
+come and see him—her—” Mrs. Van Vorst’s face grew strangely red—she
+turned abruptly and hurried from the room.
+
+It was but a few moments when she was back again, and with a bright
+little nod cried, “Come, Nathalie, my friend is fine this morning, and
+very anxious to see visitors, so come along!”
+
+“I wonder why the patient wants to see me,” soliloquized the girl in
+puzzled query. “Isn’t Nita coming?” she cried aloud, seeing the girl
+standing by the window with an odd little smile on her face.
+
+“Oh, yes, later; only one at a time at present,” was the quick reply.
+
+Nathalie was still thinking how strange it seemed and how smiling Mrs.
+Van Vorst appeared, when they came to a halt in front of a door in an
+upper corridor. “Here we are,” said her companion, “now run in and see
+my friend!” She threw open the door as she spoke.
+
+Nathalie took a step forward, stared a minute with puzzled brows, and
+then with a loud cry flung herself with outstretched arms upon a figure
+standing in the center of the room, for it was Dick!
+
+“Oh, how did you get here and—” but the rest was lost, for Dick was
+hugging her and kissing her in a way that more than astonished the girl,
+for he had always declared he hated to kiss people. And then he held her
+off and with shining eyes surveyed the suntanned cheeks of Nathalie
+approvingly, as he cried, “So you’re back, Blue Robin—and—great guns, as
+fat as a porpoise, too!”
+
+“But what are you doing here?” inquired the still dazed girl slowly—“are
+you the lady?”
+
+“Lady!” echoed Dick. “I, a lady? Not on your life! What have you got
+into your head now?” he quizzed teasingly.
+
+“But Mrs. Van Vorst said I was to meet a lady—”
+
+“Oh, she was just bluffing you, that’s all,” jeered Dick. “She wanted to
+surprise you, for—” then Nathalie gave a loud scream, for Dick had begun
+to walk towards the bureau, slowly, to be sure, for his muscles were
+stiff, but he was straight as an arrow.
+
+“Oh—why, Dick, where is your cane? You’ll fall—” and then something must
+have whispered to the girl,—perhaps it was intuition for in a flash she
+seemed to know.
+
+“Dick,” she gasped, “you’ve had the operation, and you’re all right?”
+This last was in a tense whisper.
+
+“You bet I am,” returned Dick cheerily, “and in good shape, too. The
+doctor says I can go home in a week.”
+
+“But where did you get the money?” asked the girl, her eyes big with
+wonder.
+
+“From a check sent by Mrs. Van Vorst as a tribute to her little friend
+and adviser, Nathalie Page,” read Dick slowly from a letter which he had
+suddenly slipped from his pocket. As he glanced down at the girl and saw
+her staring eyes he flicked the letter before them, laughing as if to
+recall her to herself. Nathalie blinked, stepped back, and then a sudden
+light flashed into her eyes, and with a swoop of her hand she snatched
+the letter from her brother, crying, “Oh, Dick, isn’t she just the
+dearest! Oh, I’m not worth so much money, I—” Then her eyes swept the
+page before her.
+
+“No, I don’t believe you are, Blue Robin,” teased Dick smilingly. And
+then his voice grew more earnest, as he added, “Nathalie Page, you’re
+the blood, all right. You captured her heart on sight, and this is the
+result.” He started to walk slowly towards the bed, but the girl was at
+his side, for she saw that he was beginning to feel a little tired.
+
+“To be sure,” he cried apologetically as he leaned on her a little
+heavily. “I’m not a speeder just yet, but wait a bit and you’ll see me
+do a twenty-mile dash in no time.
+
+“Yes,” explained Dick, after he was resting on the bed again, and Mrs.
+Van Vorst’s kindness had been rehearsed in detail; “Mrs. Van Vorst sent
+a letter to Mother expressing her love, admiration, and all the rest of
+it, for you, and then begged to be allowed to give you this surprise.
+She said we could consider the money a loan and pay it back when we
+liked.”
+
+“Oh, was that the letter that came just before I went away, that you
+wouldn’t tell me about?”
+
+Dick nodded, and then went on, “I was brought here the day after you
+left for the Lake; operated on the day after, and have had the jolliest
+time ever since. The nurses here are O. K. I have only been permitted to
+stand on my feet the last few days, but the doctor says I’ll soon be
+walking all right. But Blue Robin, how goes it with you? I hear you’re a
+great sport since you left.”
+
+But Nathalie’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed
+presently, “when do you think we can pay Mrs. Van Vorst the money back?
+I have some, you know—” her eyes grew bright—“fifty dollars, in the
+bank!”
+
+“And I have, well, I guess I have more than that,” said the boy proudly,
+“from the various jobs I did. Oh, Nathalie, did I tell you I wrote a
+little skit and sold it to ‘Life’ for fifty dollars?”
+
+“You did?” ejaculated the girl. “Oh, I’m so glad! I always said you
+could write funny things. Well, that will make—” but at this moment she
+heard the door open. Oh, it was Mrs. Van Vorst—what should she say to
+thank her?
+
+But the question faded from her mind as with a cry of delight she sprang
+into the outstretched arms of her mother.
+
+Well, it seemed as if the three would never get through going over this
+great joy that had come into their lives! Then, too, they were all
+anxious to pay back as soon as possible Mrs. Van Vorst’s kind loan.
+
+“Well,” said Nathalie at length, “I am sure if we all work hard we can
+do it pretty soon. How much did you say it cost?”
+
+But before Dick could answer Mrs. Page cried, taking a hand of each as
+she spoke, “It will take time to be sure, but Mother is going to do her
+share, for, children, the bonds are all right, I received my interest
+yesterday, the usual six per cent.”
+
+“Oh, isn’t that just too lovely!” exclaimed Nathalie. But before she
+could say more the door opened and Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita entered, Nita
+all shyness again as she bowed stiffly to Dick, whom she had always been
+anxious to meet. And then the unexpected happened, for as Nathalie
+turned to thank her kind benefactor she burst into tears and cried as if
+her heart would break, to the dismay of every one present. Oh, what a
+fool she did make of herself, she afterwards confessed with shamed eyes
+to Helen.
+
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had been a girl herself once, and so she understood
+just how her young friend felt. She comforted Nathalie so sweetly that
+the girl fell in love with her over again, her tears dried, and she was
+soon her happy self.
+
+In a short space the good-bys were said to Dick, and the four ladies
+hurried to the taxi that was to whirl them to Westport. Of course there
+was so much to tell and talk over during the journey that it was not
+until Nathalie was undressing for bed that she heard that as soon as
+Dick was able he and her mother were to spend two weeks at Eagle Lake
+with Mrs. Van Vorst. Nathalie received this news with unfeigned joy, for
+now her mother would have a change, and then she and Dick could see what
+a lovely place the Lake was.
+
+There had been so many unexpected bits of brightness to make Nathalie
+happy that day that when she finally got into bed, although she was
+terribly tired, her brain was in such a whirl she was sure she would
+never go to sleep. But at last, with a drowsy sigh, she snuggled down on
+her pillow with the happy thought that she was so glad she had found
+that nest—of blue birds—and had become—a Girl Pioneer!
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+American Heroes and Heroines
+
+By Pauline Carrington Bouvé
+
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth $1.25 _net_
+
+This book, which will tend directly toward the making of patriotism in
+young Americans, contains some twenty brief, clever and attractive
+sketches of famous men and women in American history, among them Father
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+
+  “The style of the book for simplicity and clearness of expression
+  could hardly be excelled.”—_Boston Budget._
+
+The Scarlet Patch
+
+The Story of a Patriot Boy in the Mohawk Valley
+
+By Mary E. Q. Brush Illustrated $1.25 _net_
+
+“The Scarlet Patch” was the badge of a Tory organization, and a loyal
+patriot boy, Donald Bastien, is dismayed at learning that his uncle,
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+
+  “A book that will be most valuable to the library of the young
+  boy.”—_Providence News._
+
+Stories of Brave Old Times
+
+Some Pen Pictures of Scenes Which Took Place Previous to, or Connected
+With, the American Revolution
+
+By Helen M. Cleveland
+
+Profusely illustrated
+
+Large 12mo Cloth $1.25 _net_
+
+  “It is a book for every library, a book for adults, and a book for
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+
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+
+For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers,
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+A Little Maid of Boston Town
+
+By MARGARET SIDNEY
+
+12mo Cloth
+
+Illustrated by F. T. MERRILL $1.35 _net_
+
+The opening chapters introduce us to old Boston in England. Margaret
+Sidney went there in 1907 and absorbed the atmosphere of Cotton Mather’s
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+story is changed to Boston Town of New England.
+
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+
+  It is an inspiring, patriotic story for the young, and contains
+  striking and realistic pictures of the times with which it
+  deals.—_Sunday School Magazine, Nashville._
+
+  The author presents a story, but she gives a veracious picture of
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+
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+
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+
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+
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+
+
+
+JEAN CABOT SERIES
+
+By GERTRUDE FISHER SCOTT
+
+Illustrated by Arthur O. Scott 12mo Cloth
+
+Price, Net, $1.25 each
+
+Jean Cabot at Ashton
+
+Here is the “real thing” in a girl’s college story. Older authors can
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+time severely testing both character and ability.
+
+Jean Cabot in the British Isles
+
+This is a college story, although dealing with a summer vacation, and
+full of college spirit. It begins with a Yale-Harvard boat race at New
+London, but soon Jean and her room-mate sail for Great Britain under the
+chaperonage of Miss Hooper, a favorite member of the faculty at Ashton
+College. Their trip is full of the delight that comes to the traveler
+first seeing the countries forming “our old home.”
+
+Jean Cabot in Cap and Gown
+
+Jean Cabot is a superb young woman, physically and mentally, but
+thoroughly human and thus favored with many warm friendships. Her final
+year at Ashton College is the culmination of a course in which study,
+sport and exercise, and social matters have been well balanced.
+
+Jean Cabot at the House With the Blue Shutters
+
+Such a group as Jean and her most intimate friends could not scatter at
+once, as do most college companions after graduation, and six of them
+under the chaperonage of a married older graduate and member of the same
+sorority spend a most eventful summer in a historic farm-house in Maine.
+
+For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers
+
+
+
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+BRAVE HEART SERIES
+
+By Adele E. Thompson
+
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth _Net_ $1.25 each
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+Betty Seldon, Patriot
+
+A book that is at the same time fascinating and noble. Historical events
+are accurately traced leading up to the surrender of Cornwallis at
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+Brave Heart Elizabeth
+
+It is a story of the making of the Ohio frontier, much of it taken from
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+A Lassie of the Isles
+
+This is the romantic story of Flora Macdonald, the lassie of Skye, who
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+
+Polly of the Pines
+
+The events of the story occur in the years 1775-82. Polly was an orphan
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+American Patty
+
+A Story of 1812
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+Patty is a brave, winsome girl of sixteen whose family have settled
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+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price to
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+   7. HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION.
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+   8. FACING THE ENEMY; Life of Gen. W. T. Sherman.
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+
+“The story and its telling are worthy of Miss Alcott. Young folks of
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+_For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg's Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer, by Rena I. Halsey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer
+
+Author: Rena I. Halsey
+
+Illustrator: Nana French Bickford
+
+Release Date: July 26, 2011 [EBook #36846]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: “What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”]
+
+                              BLUE ROBIN,
+                            THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RENA I. HALSEY
+
+                 _ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD_
+
+                                 BOSTON
+                       LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
+
+
+
+
+                         Published, March, 1917
+
+                            Copyright, 1917
+                     By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
+
+                         _All rights reserved_
+                      BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+                             Norwood Press
+                          BERWICK & SMITH CO.
+                             NORWOOD, MASS.
+                                U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+                      BLUE ROBIN THE GIRL PIONEER
+                                   IS
+                        AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                                   TO
+
+                            MISS LINA BEARD
+
+                                FOUNDER
+                                  AND
+                             CHIEF PIONEER
+                                   OF
+                       THE NATIONAL INCORPORATED
+                            ORGANIZATION OF
+                      THE GIRL PIONEERS OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+                       WHAT ARE “GIRL PIONEERS”?
+
+The first public meeting of the National Organization of the Girl
+Pioneers of America was held by the founder, Miss Lina Beard, in the
+quaint old Pioneer meeting-house on Broadway, in Flushing, New York,
+February 8, 1912.
+
+The aim of the Organization of Girl Pioneers is: To cultivate in girls
+the sterling qualities displayed by our early pioneer women; to create a
+desire in them for a happy, broad, and useful life and to show them how
+to attain it; to give them things to do that are interesting, wholesome,
+and that will strengthen character; and to develop a love for
+out-of-door life by showing them how to live it.
+
+The watchword of the Girl Pioneer is, “I Can.”
+
+The principles upon which the organization is founded are not simply
+taught as precepts, they are found and practiced in all the delightful
+activities of the movement. Outdoor life with its limitless avenues of
+interest: camping, trailing, woodcraft, learning to know the wild life
+of the open, its plants, its flowers, birds, common wild animals and
+insects; the stars and the meaning of the shadows, the use of nature’s
+material in handicraft; all these and many more are opened to the Girl
+Pioneer, and by actual contact she is finding the beauty of truth and
+the wonder of reality. By her membership in this large organization she
+is learning to be less self-centered, learning to work with others and
+for others, and to share her enjoyments with others. By the joyous
+participation in field-sports, and such recreation as rowing, swimming,
+fishing, riding, kite-flying, stilt-walking, and the more conventional
+games, such as basket-ball, service-ball, tennis, and archery, she is
+learning to play honestly and fairly, and _is building up bodily health
+and strength_ to keep pace with the mental and moral health that is
+being developed within her.
+
+By her indoor life, lived as truly in the pioneer spirit as her life in
+the open, she is bringing into play the faculties of resourcefulness, of
+adaptability, of thoroughness, and the virtue of helpful kindness. She
+learns to do all household tasks, to do them well, and to be interested
+in them. She is taught in charming ways the use of her five senses, and
+is delighted to find that she can develop them and consciously enjoy
+them. She learns to care for the sick and the young children; she is
+proud of being able to render “first aid” according to the latest and
+best methods; she learns how to avoid accidents as well as what to do in
+case of accidents. She has a system of signs for blazing the trail which
+belongs solely to the Girl Pioneers, and she learns what to do in case
+she is lost when camping or trailing. In short, the Girl Pioneer’s
+teaching makes her efficient in all fields. The mind and imagination of
+the Girl Pioneer are stimulated by true stories of heroism and the
+adventures of the early pioneers. Her merit badges are given the names
+of the women pioneers, including besides the early settlers those who
+were in helpful work for humanity. Her honors are shown by stars worn on
+the sleeve, which indicate the tests successfully passed and lead up to
+the final merit badge.
+
+The Girl Pioneer colors, red, white, and blue, not only signify that the
+organization is national in extent but hold a still further meaning for
+the Girl Pioneers; red standing for courage, white for purity, and blue
+for truth. The graceful salute symbolizes a brave heart, an honest mind,
+a resourceful hand. The motto of the Girl Pioneer is, “Brave, Honest,
+Resourceful.”
+
+The Girl Pioneers have their khaki uniform with red tie and red hatband,
+which is practical, adaptable, and pleasing. They have their banners,
+their Pioneer sign, their initiation, with its ceremony and membership
+certificate; their rallies, field-days, and other general meetings
+indoors and out. They have their Pioneer cheer, and each Band and each
+group has a cheer of its own. There is the official song which all the
+Pioneers sing, and there are songs composed by the Bands.
+
+Each Band is under the leadership of a volunteer director who furnishes
+acceptable credentials. The Band is composed of one group, or several
+groups, of from six to ten girls in each. The name of an American wild
+bird is chosen for the name of each group, and the Band is known by its
+number. The bird cheers of the groups are very breezy and inspiring.
+
+The Girl Pioneer ranks are open to all girls, and the work is very
+helpful in Sunday-schools, public schools, private schools, camps, and
+all large societies for girls, such as Young Women’s Christian
+Association, Young Women’s Christian Temperance Union, playgrounds, etc.
+
+The Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames, and like
+organizations seek to preserve the historical records and objects
+connected with the early life of our country, while the Girl Pioneers
+seek to revive and perpetuate the spirit that dominated the invincible
+men and women who made our nation possible.
+
+The Girl Pioneer organization is governed by an Executive Board, of
+which the Chief Pioneer, Lina Beard, is the head. There is also a
+National Council composed of eminent and influential men and women
+living in various parts of the United States, to be called upon when
+needed.
+
+The Pioneer folder will be sent upon application, and the Manual will be
+sent upon receipt of price, thirty-five cents, and seven cents for
+postage. For further information and for literature, address:
+
+                 Secretary of Girl Pioneers of America,
+                 Flushing, New York.
+
+
+
+
+                                FOREWORD
+
+A few summers ago I had the pleasure of being entertained by several
+Bands of The Girl Pioneers of America, on the wooded shores of one of
+Long Island’s noted bays, at Camp Laff-a-Lot. As I watched these
+wholesome-looking, happy girls in their attractive uniforms, and saw
+their bright, animated faces as they made merry in joyous sport under
+God’s blue, and then turned to the more serious employment of making
+bayberry candles, building camp fires, gathering wildflowers in their
+study of Nature, or blazing the trail as they made the woodland resound
+to their wonderful imitation of bird-notes, in the various calls of
+their groups, my interest was awakened. Later, as I gathered with them
+in the red glow of their Cheer Fire and heard their rousing Pioneer
+cheer, and their inspiring Band songs, and saw how a love for history
+and the true meaning of patriotism was engendered, while their minds and
+imaginations were being stimulated by their stories of the heroism of
+the women Pioneers, I realized that as our patriotic organizations were
+seeking to honor the Founders of our Nation by preserving historical
+records and objects, these Pioneer daughters were seeking to revive and
+perpetuate the spirit that dominated the men and women who brought to
+these shores, the grand principles of a civilization that has made our
+Republic the greatest in the world! It was in recognition of the
+nobleness of the aims of The Girl Pioneers of America, as well as in
+appreciation of the worthy Founder’s efforts to bring out the best in
+them, that inspired me to set forth if only in a limited way these many
+truths, and so I was emboldened to write “Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer!”
+
+                                                         Rena I. Halsey.
+                                                             _Brooklyn,_
+                                                      _January 1, 1917._
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+       CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+             I The Nest in the Old Cedar                         11
+            II Her Next-door Neighbor                            27
+           III Girl Pioneers                                     40
+            IV Nathalie Is Asked to Become a Blue Robin          55
+             V The Gray Stone House                              72
+            VI Working into Harness                              90
+           VII The Mayflower Feast                              108
+          VIII The Motto, “I Can”                               126
+            IX Searching for Rosy                               143
+             X Nathalie as the Story Lady                       159
+            XI The Princess in the Tower                        179
+           XII The Wild-flower Hike                             194
+          XIII Around the Cheer Fire                            213
+           XIV Overcomes                                        230
+            XV A Chapter of Surprises                           250
+           XVI Pioneer Stunts                                   270
+          XVII Liberty Banners                                  289
+         XVIII The Princess Makes Two More Friends              308
+           XIX The Fagot Party                                  330
+            XX The Dutch _Kraeg_                                348
+           XXI An Invitation                                    366
+          XXII Camp Laff-a-Lot                                  385
+         XXIII Miss Camphelia                                   403
+          XXIV The Wireless Operator                            421
+           XXV Good-by to Eagle Lake                            438
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  “What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”             _Frontispiece_
+  “Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen                         122
+  “Why, how did you get there?”                                    172
+  “Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess,
+  with a merry laugh                                               194
+  The rope had broken in her grasp                                 228
+  Up went two hands in pretended subjugation                       290
+  With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn              338
+  She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water        436
+
+
+
+
+BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I—THE NEST IN THE OLD CEDAR
+
+
+Nathalie came running up the steps of the veranda her brown eyes alight
+with excitement as she cried, “Oh, Mother, what do you think? Down in
+the old cedar-tree on the lawn is a nest of tiny blue robins—they’re
+just the cutest things—do come and see them!”
+
+“Blue robins?” quizzed her brother Dick from where he lay reading in the
+hammock. “Who ever heard of blue robins?”
+
+“I think she means bluebirds,” ventured Mrs. Page, looking up from the
+morning paper and smiling at the earnest young face of her daughter.
+Then her eyes dimmed, but she winked her lashes quickly as if to
+restrain a sudden rush of tears, rose in answer to the note of appeal in
+the girl’s voice, and stepped to her side.
+
+A moment later they were strolling across the new-grown grass of the
+lawn, the girl of sixteen supporting the slender, black-gowned figure of
+her mother, whose delicate, high-bred face with its impress of recent
+sorrow defined the youthful glow of the one that smiled upon her so
+tenderly.
+
+“Now, Mumsie, look!” whispered the girl as she pointed to a dark cavity
+in the trunk of the cedar but a short distance from the ground; “see,
+are they not robins?”
+
+Mrs. Page’s tired eyes brightened as she watched with keen interest the
+five bobbing heads with open bills, turweeing in hungry clamor, “Why no,
+Nathalie,” she replied laughingly, “they are bluebirds.”
+
+At this instant they spied the mother bird as she flitted excitedly
+among the upper branches of the tree. Drawing her mother to one side,
+Nathalie whispered tensely, “Oh, there’s the mother bird—she wants to
+feed them! Let’s see what she will do!” Nathalie’s eyes sparkled
+expectantly.
+
+It was quite evident what Mrs. Bluebird was going to do, for she
+immediately jumped to the edge of the nest and dropped a fat, squirming
+worm into an open bill. As she poised over her nestlings she caught
+sight of the two figures under the tree. In another instant she had set
+up such a vigorous scolding that the interlopers were quite disturbed.
+Seeing, however, that they did not offer to molest her little ones, Mrs.
+Birdie finally subsided, cocked her head perkily on one side, and
+watched them with eyes that shone like two fireflies.
+
+Father bird now came flying up with another good-sized wriggler in his
+beak, which mother bird, with an eye to business, hastily snatched and
+dropped into a wide-open bill.
+
+“Why, Mother,” commented Nathalie, “do you see that the father bird is
+much the handsomer of the two, for he is of a deep blue color, while
+mother bird’s feathers are grayish-blue.”
+
+Her mother nodded as she answered, “Yes, and his beautiful coat is in
+striking contrast to his throat and breast, which are reddish-brown.”
+
+“And the white feathers below,” continued Nathalie, with keen eyes,
+“look like a white apron.”
+
+“But come, dear,” interposed her mother, “we must go back, for I hear
+Dick whistling—he is getting impatient—I promised to get him a sofa
+pillow for the hammock.”
+
+As they stepped on the veranda, Dick inquired, with sarcastic
+inflection, balancing himself on the edge of the hammock and pushing it
+to and fro with his crutch, “Well, how many blue robins did you find?”
+
+“We found five tiny bluebirds,” responded his mother with unwonted
+animation as she seated herself in a low rocker, and then she continued
+in lower tone as her daughter disappeared in quest of the pillow, “Oh,
+Dick! I am so glad to see some color in Nathalie’s cheeks again, for she
+has been looking very wan and pale. The poor child has not only suffered
+the loss of her father, but she has had to give up so many things—the
+very things, too, that a girl of her age longs for so much!” Mrs. Page
+sighed drearily.
+
+“Giving up college was the hardest,” added her son, his face expressing
+the sympathy he hardly knew how to voice; “but she’s a corker, for she
+has faced every disappointment like a little hero. I didn’t know she had
+so much pluck in her.”
+
+“She takes after her father, he was always so cheerful about facing the
+inevitable—” His mother’s lips quivered; she paused as if to gain
+control of her voice and then resumed brokenly, “Oh, Dick, to think he
+has gone—it seems as if it could not be true—”
+
+“True enough,” retorted Dick gruffly; and then he added, in a softer
+voice, “but after all, Mother, every one has to have trouble. We’re
+having ours just now—that’s all—and we’ve got to bear it. Things might
+have been worse, I suppose—we’ve got enough left to live on—oh, if it
+wasn’t for this confounded knee of mine—to be helpless when—”
+
+“Hush, Dick, don’t say that,” cried his mother in a pained voice; “just
+have patience, and you will be all right; have patience with me, too,
+dear, because I am such a coward to allow myself to get so depressed.”
+She made a brave attempt at a smile. “It will be as you say, all right
+soon.”
+
+Hearing Nathalie’s step, she hastily hid her tear-stained face behind
+the paper; then, as that young woman threw the sofa pillow at Dick’s
+head, she exclaimed, “I am so glad, Nathalie, to see you take an
+interest in the new home. I think it is a lovely—”
+
+“Doll’s house!” interposed the girl laughingly. “But, O dear, I must be
+careful, for when I called it a doll’s house while Mrs. Morton was here
+she looked rather queer, and then I remembered that her house is not
+much bigger. But do you know, Mother,” she rattled on girlishly, “I
+think we are going to be quite comfy in this little home—after a time of
+course,” she hastened to add, “when we have become used to the
+change—and all—” she stopped abruptly, for she, too, was thinking of the
+dear father who had gone so suddenly—without even saying good-by, as she
+had so often wailed in the darkness of night—leaving Mother with only a
+meager income, and with poor Dick to take care of, and her and Dorothy,
+who didn’t know enough to earn a penny!
+
+A sudden slam of the door was heard, a “How are you, Auntie?” in a
+sweet, assured voice, and then with smiling eyes a tall, graceful, young
+woman, with shiny, fluffy hair came forward and kissed her aunt
+caressingly.
+
+“Oh, Lucille, what do you think?” broke from Nathalie impetuously; “I
+found a nest of tiny bluebirds down in the old cedar-tree on the lawn!”
+
+“Um-m, well, you are always finding something to enthuse over,” remarked
+her cousin with careless indifference, “but I wish you would make that
+all-round maid of yours do my room, I want to write a letter.” There was
+spoiled impatience in the girl’s voice.
+
+Mrs. Page looked up with a startled expression as she murmured
+apologetically, “Oh, I forgot, Lucille. I will do it—I thought—”
+
+“No, no, Mother,” came from Nathalie hurriedly, as with heightened color
+and gentle insistence she forced her mother back to her seat. “I will do
+it.”
+
+Nathalie disappeared within the door. She had smiled sweetly for her
+mother’s sake, but as she went up the stairs there was an upward lift to
+her chin that showed that she had a will and a temper of some weight.
+“Why is Lucille so mean,” she questioned mutinously, “as not to make her
+own bed when she knows that now we shall have to get along with only one
+maid? Mother is not going to wait on her!” Her eyes gleamed with angry
+decision, and then the curves of her mouth softened as she struggled
+silently with her jarring thoughts.
+
+Yes, it must be borne, for was it not a part of the great change that
+had come into her life with her first great sorrow? The shock of her
+father’s death had dazed her, and she had suffered in a dulled,
+uncomprehending way until she was aroused from her grief by the many
+anxieties and disappointing changes that the financial tangle of her
+father’s affairs had caused.
+
+Leaving their beautiful city home, giving up the many luxuries and the
+pleasures to which she had been accustomed, parting from her school
+friends, and coming to the unknown suburban town were bitter
+disappointments; the one that cut the deepest was giving up college, but
+the hardest to bear was Dick’s accident!
+
+The next moment the girl was hard at work picking up Lucille’s
+disordered room, humming cheerily as she went about her task, for, after
+all, her cousin was independent—she paid her board—and now they would
+need every penny.
+
+A resolute will and deft fingers can accomplish much in this workaday
+world, and so Nathalie soon finished her new job, as she called it, and
+sat on the veranda watching the robins as they hopped nimbly over the
+lawn, ducking their heads every minute or so to reappear with fat,
+dangling worms in their beaks.
+
+Their cheerful twitter, the budding leaves on trees and bushes, and the
+many reminders of the revival of life under the warmth and glow of the
+spring sunshine thrilled her with exhilaration. Her depression vanished,
+she felt happy again, but vaguely perhaps, scarcely comprehending that
+the buoyancy of youth and the joy of life were compensations that dulled
+the harrowing edge of grief.
+
+With a long breath, as if to capture as much as possible of the spring
+balminess, Nathalie turned to see her mother seated in the low chair,
+with her basket of mending, wearing the same dazed, worried look on her
+face that had haunted the girl ever since their sorrow. She became
+keenly aware that her tireless mother, who had always stood ready to do
+the thousand and one things that were constantly calling her, was
+failing. Something swelled up in her throat, she fought valiantly a
+moment, and then jumping up, she grabbed the half-darned sock from her
+mother’s hand, pitched it into the basket, picked it up and carried it
+over to her chair.
+
+“Now, Mumsie,” she declared in answer to her mother’s startled look,
+“you are not to darn any more stockings; henceforth your humble servant
+is to be the champion mender.” Nathalie’s cheeks flushed, for as she
+raised her eyes she encountered those of a young girl about her own age
+who was just coming out of the adjoining house.
+
+As her neighbor saw Nathalie, she smiled a cheery good-morning, showing
+a row of strong, white teeth, and then strode down the walk with the
+light step and easy swing of the athletic girl.
+
+“Huh! what a queer rig,” commented Lucille, with a supercilious raising
+of her eyebrows, as she noted that the girl wore a short brown khaki
+skirt over bloomers, a middy with a Turkey red tie, and a broad-brimmed
+hat banded with red. “Is that the Salvation Army’s summer apparel?” Then
+seeing that the girl carried a strong staff in her hand, she added with
+a giggle, “Or perhaps she is some aspiring member of the militants.”
+
+“Why, I think the uniform—for I presume it is that—” interposed Mrs.
+Page, “is very attractive, and most appropriate for a Girl Pioneer.”
+
+“Why, Mother, how do you know she is a Girl Pioneer?” questioned
+Nathalie with mild amazement.
+
+“Ah, I forgot to tell you that her mother, Mrs. Dame, called the day you
+were out walking. She told me that Helen, her only daughter, belongs to
+‘The Girl Pioneers of America.’”
+
+“The Girl Pioneers of America!” repeated her daughter; “why, I never
+heard of them. Is it a patriotic society?”
+
+“In a way I presume it is,” returned her mother, “as it is an
+organization which trains girls to emulate the sterling qualities of the
+early pioneer women.”
+
+“I wonder what they do, and if it is anything like the Boy Scouts!”
+continued Nathalie interestedly.
+
+“I think from what Mrs. Dame told me that it must be a sister society to
+that organization, for its object is to awaken within the girls a desire
+for healthy, outdoor activities, as well as a broad and useful life
+along many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are so shallow and
+artificial-looking, and have no higher thought than getting all the
+pleasure they can out of life, that it is something which is sadly
+needed.” Mrs. Page’s tones were expressive.
+
+“Oh, Aunt Mary,” demurred Lucille, looking up with a frown from her
+novel, “one would think that you expected girls to dress and act like
+their grandmothers. I am sure one can be young but once, and if one
+doesn’t have a good time then, what’s the use of living? And for putting
+a little color on one’s face, why, the most fashionable people do it
+nowadays.”
+
+Mrs. Page’s face flushed slightly, but she replied with quiet dignity,
+“I am surprised, Lucille, to hear you talk that way, brought up as you
+have been, too. It is true,” she continued, “that there is no harm in
+wanting a good time—as you call it—that is youth’s privilege, and no one
+wishes to turn youth into age, but back of it all there should be common
+sense and a desire for right living. As for putting artificial color on
+a face that should represent the freshness and the natural bloom of
+youth, why, to me it is demoralizing.”
+
+Lucille frowned impatiently and resumed her reading.
+
+“Mrs. Dame,” continued her aunt, turning towards Nathalie, “said her
+daughter Helen was coming in to call on you; she will probably give you
+all the information you want about the new organization. I hope you will
+like her, dear, for she seems a pleasant, well-bred girl and surely will
+prove companionable to you. We might as well, all of us, try to forget
+our city life with its past pleasures, and see if we cannot adapt
+ourselves to our surroundings.”
+
+“Indeed I will try, Mumsie,” replied Nathalie with a slight catch in her
+voice, as her thoughts turned back to her chums in the city, and she
+wondered what they would think of her humble little home. “But really,
+Mother,” she spoke aloud, “I think Miss Dame has an awfully bright face,
+and I wish she would call, for I should like to know about the Girl
+Pioneers.”
+
+A few days after the finding of the bluebird’s nest, Nathalie, enlivened
+by the desire to investigate her surroundings, and curious for new
+experiences, set forth on a little exploring tour to the woods on the
+outskirts of the town. She had tried to induce her cousin to join her,
+but that young lady was absorbed in running over a new ragtime song. Her
+sister Dorothy, aged twelve, had also declined on the score that she had
+an engagement with a girl neighbor who lived in the big house down the
+road.
+
+Sunshine and youth are joy-bearers, and as Nathalie felt the air in
+fragrant little whiffs against her cheeks, she thrilled with pleasure as
+she strode briskly up the hill. A moment later, however, her shining
+eyes shadowed, and she unconsciously shivered as she encountered a cold
+glance from a lady, weirdly garbed in gray, who was just passing.
+
+The color flashed to her cheeks; she felt as if some one had slapped her
+as the haunting vision of that uncanny stare of aversion from two
+steely-gray eyes penetrated her consciousness. Tempted by curiosity she
+turned and watched the peculiar-looking figure as it glided with almost
+specter-like swiftness down the hill.
+
+“I wonder who she is and why she gave me such a harrowing glance,”
+thought Nathalie. “Whew! she has frozen me stiff,” and then a laugh
+brightened the brown eyes as she continued on her way. She had almost
+reached the top of the hill when she saw a large brown card on the walk.
+Picking it up she read, “Westport Library,” and then the written name,
+“Elizabeth Van Vorst.” Not a great loss, to be sure, but likely to cause
+inconvenience.
+
+“Oh, I wonder if that lady didn’t drop it, she had a book under her
+arm,” flashed into the girl’s mind. She hesitated—she did not want to
+climb that long hill again—but the next second she had whirled about and
+was running lightly down the slope in the direction of a Carnegie
+building that glimmered picturesquely between green-boughed trees.
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” panted Nathalie as she held out the card to the
+gray lady who had just emerged from the library and was looking vexedly
+about on the walk in front of the building, “did you not lose your
+library card?”
+
+The lady turned sharply, stared suspiciously at the girl a moment, and
+then, as her eyes fell upon the extended card, exclaimed coldly, “Oh,
+did you find it? Thank you, I am much obliged!” With a haughty glance of
+dismissal she turned and ascended the library steps.
+
+Nathalie’s eyes gleamed angrily, but with a toss of her head she was off
+on her second trudge up the slope. “Well, she is the limit—” she
+muttered. “Of all hateful, disagreeable, peculiar, mysterious creatures,
+she takes first rank.” But when the girl reached the woods where the
+new-gowned trees and the white blossoms of the dogwood, which she had
+spied the day before, riding in a trolley car, rustled softly in the
+sunlight, as if in a spring greeting to the flower-seeker, the
+unpleasant incident was forgotten.
+
+With eager eyes and cheeks aglow she began to break off a sprig here and
+there, lingering only to caress the snowy petals that tantalizingly
+brushed her cheek.
+
+“What a beauty!” she exclaimed as she suddenly halted; “it will be just
+the spray to sketch.” Up went her arm—a little higher—and then something
+went from under her; she tried to regain her footing, but slipped again
+on the moist turf. She felt her foot turn, and then came a sharp twinge
+that whitened her lips as she dropped, a helpless heap, on the ground.
+
+For a few moments the girl forgot her dogwood blossoms, the slip, and
+the pain, and then she opened her eyes to realize, with a pang of
+dismay, that she must have fainted. Oh, she must have twisted her ankle,
+for when she tried to stand she almost screamed with the knife-like
+twinges.
+
+She leaned her head against the tree with closed eyes, trying to think,
+but her thoughts seemed to run around in a circle, for she could see no
+way out of her dilemma. She was too far from the trolley line to hail a
+car, or to beckon to any passer-by who might be on the road.
+
+She thought ruefully of how worried her mother would be if she did not
+return before dark. And who was there to look for her? Dick was helpless
+with his crutch, Dorothy would not be home until late, and Lucille—well,
+whoever heard of Lucille ever doing anything for any one but herself?
+
+She screamed, but when her voice rang out with reverberating shrillness
+she clapped her hands to her ears. She would sing; and her fresh young
+voice broke forth into ragtime song.
+
+But the ragtime quivered pathetically into a half-wail. What should she
+do? At last in sheer desperation she began to sing hymns; but they
+sounded so doleful in her nervous state that she desisted with a sound
+that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was about to embrace
+resignation to fate when she caught the glimmer of a brown skirt between
+the low-hung branches of the trees near by. In a moment there was a
+sharp crack of a twig, and Nathalie with a sudden exclamation of joy saw
+a young girl coming quickly toward her, wearing the same kind of a brown
+uniform she had perceived on her neighbor a few days ago.
+
+“Oh, are you hurt?” asked the girl quickly, as she saw Nathalie’s white
+face resting against the tree.
+
+Nathalie, attempting to smile, told of her mishap, and then with
+widening eyes saw the girl run a few steps into the open. Then the
+short, staccato whistle of Bob White struck the air.
+
+It was hardly a moment when, in response to this bird-call, several
+girls appeared in the opening beyond. A few hurried words with the girl
+who had signaled them, and they were around Nathalie, listening to the
+story of her accident.
+
+After expressing their sympathy, two of the taller girls quickly slipped
+off their khaki skirts, unbuttoned them, and then, to the injured one’s
+amazement, one of the girls pushed her staff through the belt of one
+skirt and hem of the other, while her companion did the same with her
+staff. They were improvising a stretcher, as neat and
+comfortable-looking as if it had just been removed from an ambulance.
+
+While the stretcher was being made, one of the girls had taken from her
+knapsack a small black case from which she extracted a bottle. Hastily
+kneeling on the ground, after Nathalie’s boot had been removed by her
+assistant, she bathed the injured foot, then, as her companion handed
+her a roll of white lint she bound it with a cotton compress, while
+Nathalie, with much curiosity, watched her as she quickly and skillfully
+performed the work of First Aid to the Injured. As she rose to her feet
+and turned to direct her companions in the lifting of her patient on the
+stretcher, Nathalie recognized her next-door neighbor, Helen Dame, the
+Girl Pioneer!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II—HER NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR
+
+
+If Nathalie was surprised at the deftness and resourcefulness of these
+Girl Pioneers, she was amazed at the ease and comfort she experienced as
+the four girls strode forward, two at the head and two at the foot of
+the improvised stretcher.
+
+Notwithstanding the sharp twinges in her foot, she felt as if she could
+have dropped into a doze if a sudden, jarring thought had not caused her
+to raise her head in search of her next-door neighbor. By the decision
+of her voice and her methodical manner of directing her companions as
+they prepared the “bed of ease,” Nathalie had recognized this girl as
+the leader.
+
+But Helen Dame was not to be seen. One of the girls, however, on seeing
+Nathalie’s movement, commanded a halt and hastened to her side. “What
+can I do for you?” she inquired in an anxious tone. “Are you in pain?”
+
+Her ready sympathy brought the tears to Nathalie’s eyes, for her nerves
+were somewhat under a strain, but she fought them bravely back, and
+looking up with a reassuring smile replied, “Oh no, I am all right, but
+I was looking for Miss Dame. I am afraid if Mother sees me on a
+stretcher, she will think something very dreadful has happened.”
+
+“Ah, Helen thought of that,” was the quick reply, “and she has gone
+ahead to tell your mother that you have only hurt your foot, and to see
+if she can get Dr. Morrow to come over and look at it.”
+
+“Oh, how kind of her—and of you all—” there was a slight tremor in
+Nathalie’s voice. “I am sure I do not know what would have become of me,
+alone there in the woods, if you girls had not come to my rescue.”
+
+As the girls walked slowly on with their burden, the one walking by the
+side of the stretcher told Nathalie that they were a group of Girl
+Pioneers, that they had been on a hike, and that her name was Grace
+Tyson. As they chatted pleasantly, Nathalie told of her recent removal
+from the city to Westport. With wise forethought she suppressed all
+mention of her former wealth and the many luxuries she had been used to,
+for fear that these suburban girls, not comprehending, might misjudge
+her and think that she considered herself above them. She had learned
+from the girls of her own set in school that when a newcomer took
+particular care to advise them how rich she was, her mates usually
+dubbed her a snob. So she only told of her great loss in the death of
+her father, how Dick, her older brother, had injured his knee in an
+accident and was an invalid, and how she liked her new home.
+
+In the companionship of this new girl she scarcely realized how quickly
+the time had passed until she saw her mother’s anxious face bending over
+her, and heard a masculine voice say, “Well, is this the young lady who
+reached too high?”
+
+Nathalie looked quickly up and immediately her heart went out to this
+big, bluff man with iron-gray hair and kindly blue eyes who picked her
+up as if she had been a manikin, carried her into the hall, and laid her
+on the couch. She recognized the face of the doctor who lived on the
+opposite corner whom she had often envied as he went chugging down the
+street in his automobile.
+
+After the doctor had pressed her foot here and there with a touch as
+soft as silk from the gentleness of trained fingers, he brought forth
+some surgical plaster from a black case, and strapped the injured
+member, remarking as he did so on the surgeon-like way in which Miss
+Dame had bandaged it.
+
+After the “exam,” as Dick called it, was over, the doctor explained the
+case as a few strained ligaments, and said that with care his patient
+would be able to walk in about a week.
+
+“A week?” sprang from the young girl involuntarily. Dismay shone in her
+eyes, but the doctor, with a fatherly pat, assured her that she had
+great cause for gratitude, as it might have been much worse.
+
+“The next time you go to gather dogwood blossoms, young lady,” he
+advised jovially, “wear rubber heels, and then you won’t slip on
+stones.”
+
+As the doctor bade her good afternoon, promising to come again in a few
+days to see how the foot was progressing, Nathalie thought of her
+rescuers, and raising her head peered anxiously around.
+
+“The girls have gone, but they left a good-by for you,” her mother
+answered to her look of inquiry, “and Miss Dame says she will be in
+to-morrow to see how you are.”
+
+By to-morrow Nathalie had begun to think it was not at all unpleasant to
+be a short-time invalid, and she jokingly requested her mother to see
+that her head was not screwed around from sheer conceit at being the
+recipient of so much attention.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, the doctor’s young wife, had sent her a beautiful bunch of
+yellow daffodils from the very garden that Nathalie had been admiring
+all the week, while the little, silver-haired old lady next
+door—Nathalie could have hugged her, she looked so grand-motherly—had
+sent her a snow-frosted nut-cake. Lucille—an unheard-of thing—had
+condescended to alight from her pedestal of self and had played and sung
+Nathalie’s favorite selections all the morning. Even Dorothy, whose
+engagement book was always brimming over, had darned stockings for her.
+Of course, Nathalie knew that she would have to rip out every stitch,
+but that was the child’s way of showing that she, too, wanted to be
+sympathetic and kind.
+
+The success of the day, however, was when Helen Dame’s dark eyes smiled
+at her from the adjoining porch, and she asked if Nathalie felt like
+chatting for a while.
+
+“Indeed I do,” answered Nathalie animatedly, “I have been just dying to
+talk with you ever since you were so kind.”
+
+“Oh, how sweet you look!” exclaimed Helen a few moments later as she
+shook hands with the patient, “with your pink ribbons—just the color of
+your cheeks.” For the girl’s color had deepened as her visitor laid a
+bunch of violets on her lap. “These are from the girls, the Girl
+Pioneers—that is our Pioneer song,” she added laughingly.
+
+“I just love violets!” Nathalie sniffed at the purple petals. “And the
+girls, do you mean the ones who so kindly came to my aid the other day?
+Oh, Miss Dame, I hardly know how to express my appreciation of your
+kindness,” her voice trembled slightly, “in hurrying home to tell
+Mother.”
+
+“Oh, that was nothing,” replied Helen with assumed indifference,
+although her eyes darkened in appreciation of Nathalie’s gratefulness,
+“that was only courtesy; you know we are Girl Pioneers, and kindness is
+one of the laws of the organization.”
+
+“Do you know,” Nathalie broke in impulsively, “Mother thinks the girls
+very clever in making that stretcher; do tell me about the Girl
+Pioneers!” She hesitated for a moment. “Perhaps I am very ignorant, but
+I never heard of them until your mother told mine that you were a Girl
+Pioneer.”
+
+Helen laughed with a gratified gleam in her eyes. “Oh, Mother!—she
+thinks it just the dandiest thing going. Mrs. Morrow, our Director,
+introduced the movement here. The founder is a friend of hers, so she is
+steeped to her finger-tips with it.
+
+“She started me going—enthusiasm is contagious, you know—and I organized
+the first group. A group means six or eight girls; several groups form
+what is called a band.”
+
+“Do you mean Mrs. Morrow, the doctor’s wife?” inquired her companion.
+“She must be lovely, for she looks so pretty flitting about the garden,”
+turning wistful eyes toward the corner house with its flower beds and
+green lawn. “I often watch her from my window.”
+
+“Yes, she is a dear,” assented Helen, “and we girls adore her. Have you
+seen the twins?”
+
+“The kiddies who go about in khaki uniforms and carry little poles.”
+
+“Yes, baby Boy Scouts. You should hear them call themselves ‘the twims’;
+they both lisp. But there, I must tell you about the Pioneers—but I
+don’t want to tire you,” she paused abruptly, “for Mother says there is
+no end to me when I get talking on that subject.”
+
+“But I want to hear about them!” pleaded Nathalie.
+
+“Well, after I organized the group, the girls elected me leader, and
+Grace Tyson—that’s the girl who walked beside you coming home—my
+assistant. You see every group has to have a leader and an assistant
+from the group, and then when a band is formed there is a Director. Any
+one over twenty-one years of age can be a Director. After we formed our
+group, we had to get busy and qualify.”
+
+“Qualify?” repeated her hostess, “that sounds big.”
+
+“Yes, every Girl Pioneer has to qualify, that is to pass several tests
+to prove that she is competent to do the work. It is no end of fun
+training a girl to qualify, for you know she has to recite the Girl
+Pioneer pledge, and the Pioneer laws; she must give the names of the
+President and Vice-President of the United States, the name of the
+Governor of the State in which she lives, and then tell all about our
+country’s flag. She must know how to sew a button on properly,” Helen
+made a grimace, “to tie a square knot and to do several other things.
+After a girl has passed these tests, she becomes a third-class Pioneer;
+then after a month she can qualify for a second-class Pioneer, and
+finally for a first-class Pioneer. We can win merit badges, too, for
+proficiency in certain lines. Yes, you are right, it is a big thing to
+be a Girl Pioneer, for every true Pioneer’s aim is to be courageous,
+resourceful, and upright, under all circumstances and in all
+emergencies.
+
+“You know, we have to pledge ourselves to speak the truth at all times,
+to be honest in all things, and to obey the Pioneer law.” Helen’s face
+grew serious. “Yes, and our laws mean something, too, for they stand for
+the doing of things that are worth while, the things that develop
+nobility of character, for, as Mrs. Morrow tells us, it is character
+that makes the great men and women of the world.
+
+“But don’t think we are serious all the time,” she continued, her eyes
+brightening, “for we have heaps of fun. We take hikes; sometimes just a
+group go with their leader, but generally our Director takes the band.
+On these hikes we study woodcraft; that means we study the birds, their
+habits, and learn to know their songs and call-notes. We gather wild
+flowers, ferns, and grasses, and each girl reads up about the particular
+thing she finds and passes the information along. We study the trees,
+and the animals also by tracking their footmarks—well, to sum it all up,
+we study nature from growing things and living creatures.
+
+“To read about things in a book is all right, Mrs. Morrow says, as it is
+helpful in identification and suggestion, but we strive to know things
+through personal experience. We are taught to find nature, too, in the
+crowded cities. That’s big, isn’t it?”
+
+“Big!” echoed Nathalie, “the word _big_ isn’t big enough to express it.
+I should say it meant—well”—she held out her arms, “the universe.”
+
+There was something so responsive in her words and attitude, although
+they did not exactly express what she meant to convey, that Helen, with
+almost boyish frankness, held out her hand, crying, “Good! let’s shake.
+You are simply immense, Miss Page, or, in the words of our old French
+professor at school, ‘you—haf—much com—pree—henshun!’” This was said in
+mimic tone with laughing eyes, a shrug of the shoulders, and with
+outspread hands.
+
+“We have indoor rallies, or Pioneer circles, also, Miss Page, when our
+Director gives us delightful little talks on ethical culture,—only ten
+minutes—” she pleaded laughingly, “also on history, astronomy,—we call
+them our star talks,—and other instructive subjects.
+
+“You will be surprised, perhaps, but these talks are very interesting,
+not at all tiresome. The girls listen with all their ears and we learn
+an awful lot. One reason is that Mrs. Morrow loves young girls—for you
+see, she isn’t so very much older than we are—and she knows just how to
+talk to us, so that we don’t feel as if we were being preached at, or
+having wisdom jammed down our throats. It is just dramatizing serious
+things through play, so as to make us remember them as well as
+entertaining us. Then we have spelling-contests, cooking-matches,—I call
+them trials by fire,—sewing-bees, and all sorts of old-fashioned
+things.”
+
+“But you have outdoor sports, too, do you not?” asked her listener, who
+was intensely interested.
+
+“Indeed we do, any number of them: swimming, horseback-riding, rowing,
+canoeing, basket-ball, tennis, dancing, stilt-walking,—we make our own
+stilts,—kite-flying,—and we make our own kites, too. In fact, we do just
+about everything that stands for healthful recreation and wholesome fun.
+Isn’t that comprehensive enough?”
+
+“How did you come to take the name ‘Pioneer’?”
+
+“Well, you see it was this way; as the Boy Scouts strive to imitate the
+chivalry and higher qualities of the knights of olden times, so we,
+their sister organization, endeavor to emulate the sterling qualities of
+the early pioneer women. They learned to be courageous, resourceful, and
+efficient, as the home-makers of the brave men who founded this
+Republic—”
+
+“Do you mean the wives of the Puritans and Pilgrims?”
+
+“Yes, we mean all those women, North, East, South, and West,” Helen
+declared smilingly, “who helped their good men to build homes in the
+wilderness, who mothered their children with Spartan-like denial, and
+who—yes, who knew how to handle an old flintlock when they heard the cry
+of the Indian. Oh, no, I’m not originating, I am only an echo of Mrs.
+Morrow, who is way up on Colonial history.
+
+“The Pioneer Girls,” she continued more seriously, “aim, by imitating
+the many qualities of these splendid women, to be worthy wives and
+mothers. Who knows?” she broke into a laugh, “the Girl Pioneers may be
+the mothers of men like Washington, Lincoln—O dear,” she stopped
+suddenly, “I am talking as if I had to speed a thousand words a minute!”
+
+“Oh, go on!” cried Nathalie, inspired by her guest’s fervency, “I just
+love to hear you talk.”
+
+“It is very good of you to say that,” declared Helen with a slight
+blush, “but I am almost ‘at the finish,’ as the boys say. But I must not
+forget to tell you that we love to gather around the open fire, cheer
+fires we call them, and tell stories. We generally try to make them
+stories about the pioneers, or heroic women, and sometimes we run in a
+story about some brave kiddie, for you know almost every one loves to
+hear about brave little children. Ah, that reminds me, did you ever hear
+about Mary Chilton? She was a real pioneer girl you know, for she came
+over with the Pilgrims.” Helen nodded her head impressively.
+
+“No, I have read about Lola Standish, and I believe—yes—I saw her
+sampler once, and I am quite up on all the points of Priscilla’s
+courtship, but—”
+
+“Who isn’t?” replied Miss Dame, “for she was a dear. Mary Chilton was a
+friend of hers. Why, don’t you remember she was the girl who made the
+bet with John Alden—slow old John—that when the little shallop struck
+Plymouth Rock (of course they never dreamed that they were going to make
+that old rock immortal) that she would jump on the rock first; and sure
+enough she did manage to land a second or so before John Alden.”
+
+“Well, the Girl Pioneers aim high,” declared Nathalie, “and I certainly
+think they must be worthwhile girls. I shall love to meet your Pioneer
+friends—they cheered me up—” she added, “for they made me think of the
+girls at school, especially Grace Tyson. Why, she is so much like my
+chum that it almost seemed as if I were talking to her the other day!
+Your friends all have such happy faces, and ‘it is such a relief to see
+good red cheeks as made by Mother Nature,’ as Mother says. Some of the
+girls one sees in the cities nowadays have such a made-up appearance,
+especially those on the avenue Saturday afternoons in New York.”
+
+“Yes, they have regular clown faces with their splashes of red, and
+their powdered noses,” returned her neighbor laughingly. “I always feel
+as if I wanted to tell them they had forgotten to rub the flour off. It
+doesn’t seem possible that any well-bred girl could think she looks nice
+all dabbed up in that way. But there, I am tiring you,” she added
+hastily, “so I am going to say good-by. Oh, I came very near forgetting
+to ask if you would like to have the girls call on you—I mean the girls
+of our group?” she hesitated. “I think you would like them, although
+they may not be as fashionable as your city friends.”
+
+“Oh, but they are the kind of girls I like,” protested Nathalie
+hurriedly, “for I do not care for girls who are nothing but fuss and
+feathers. Please do bring your friends, for I know I shall like them,
+and then, too, they may tell me more about the good times you have.”
+
+“Indeed they will,” said Helen with decision; “they will be only too
+pleased. When shall we come, will Thursday be a good day for you?”
+
+“Yes, indeed; I shall be here—still in this old chair I presume; I shall
+watch for them with great impatience, for you know,” she added a little
+sadly, “they remind me of my schoolmates in the city. Oh, I have missed
+them dreadfully! Now, be sure to come—all of you!”
+
+She rose in her chair to wave a good-by to her new friend, who, as she
+reached the gate, had turned and waved her hand.
+
+Nathalie sank back in her chair with tear-dimmed eyes, for somehow that
+friendly salute had brought it all back—the faces of her merry comrades,
+and the happy care-free hours they had spent together. She swallowed
+hard, for Helen had waved her hand just the way the girls used to do
+when they came in afternoons for a chatty little visit, and then hurried
+away with just such a parting salute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III—GIRL PIONEERS
+
+
+“Oh, I wish you would tell me something about your school life in New
+York,” begged Helen wistfully; “I had a friend who used to go to one of
+the high schools. I hear they are very fine.”
+
+It was Thursday, the day the Girl Pioneers were to call on Nathalie, and
+Helen Dame had run over a few moments before their arrival to have a
+short chat with her new friend.
+
+“Oh—I,” Nathalie hesitated with rising color, “I did not go to high
+school. Yes, I know they are very fine, but I attended a private school
+kept by Madame Chemidlin.”
+
+An “oh!” escaped Helen involuntarily, as her eyes gloomed a little, but
+her companion plunged recklessly on.
+
+“It is considered one of the finest schools in the city, because, well,
+for one thing, Madame is adorable, her father was one of the nobility, a
+political refugee from France, and then because the girls who attend
+come from the best families in New York. They were just dears—” with a
+sigh of regret—“Nellie Blinton, she was my chummiest chum, she’s the one
+I told you Miss Tyson reminded me of, she has the same kind of a face as
+Nell, with big, dark eyes and the same gentle, ladylike way about her
+that my friend has.
+
+“Then there was Puss Davidson, she’s awfully clever. She writes stories,
+and last year won a gold medal from St. Nicholas. She was Valedictorian
+of our class last Spring. You know I graduated then, but took a
+post-graduate course last winter and expected to enter college this
+fall, but now, of course, things are different.” She spoke a little
+sadly.
+
+Helen could not help feeling somewhat disappointed as she heard about
+these rich schoolmates of Nathalie’s; she had taken a great liking to
+this girl with the daintily colored face with its rounding curves,
+lighted by eyes that held you captive with their frank, direct gaze.
+Although bright and clever-looking, this Girl Pioneer possessed no claim
+to beauty, for, as she ruefully commented at times, she had a nose with
+a knob on it. For that reason, perhaps, being free from that enviousness
+that characterizes so many girls, she was a beauty-lover. Too often she
+had made friends with girls just because they appealed to her love for
+the beautiful, only to realize when it was too late that good looks do
+not always mean pleasing traits of character. In fact, Helen was
+somewhat tired of being disappointed, and had vowed to her mother that
+she was never again going to care for a pretty girl. She was not sure
+that Nathalie was a real beauty, but surely, with her lovely brown eyes
+and the gracious little way she had, not at all self-conscious, but just
+real “self,” she was in a fair way to become very popular with the
+girls.
+
+Her eyes clouded momentarily and something caused an unpleasant jar. No,
+she was not jealous of Nathalie, for she was willing to have her know
+and be liked by the other girls, but as she had been the first one to
+know her, she wanted to be her special friend. But then if she had
+always had so many high-toned schoolmates, perhaps she would not care to
+be a friend to a girl who was learning to be a wage-earner. Helen had
+always felt proud to think that some day she could be ranked among that
+class of highly regarded women, but would Nathalie think as she did?
+
+There was something so straightforward, however, so honest, about
+Nathalie as she went on and told of her studies, her friends, and a few
+of the incidents in her school life in the big city, that Helen forgot
+her fears, and was compelled to believe that she would be doing her an
+injustice in fearing that she would choose her companions for what they
+had and not for what they were.
+
+“Oh, here they come!” cried Nathalie at this moment as she caught a
+glimpse of a group of girls in brown uniforms coming down the street.
+She half rose from her chair and with sparkling eyes watched them as
+they came, a dozen or more, perhaps, up the steps of the veranda. In
+another second her eyes grew big as she saw each girl’s hand placed
+quickly over her heart, then up to her forehead, and lastly held with
+open palm at a level with the right shoulder. It was the Girl Pioneers’
+salute to their leader, for Helen with a sudden straightening of the
+shoulders had responded to the greeting with a similar movement.
+
+Nathalie had already stepped forward, leaning on Dick’s crutch,—he had
+been relegated to the couch in the hall,—and was crying, as her color
+came and went in pink flushes, “Oh, I am so glad to see you!” extending
+her hand to the foremost girl, Grace Tyson. “I think it’s just lovely
+for you all to come to see me!” nodding towards the rest of the group,
+with eyes that attested the cordiality of her welcome. She stopped
+abruptly, for the girls had broken forth into
+
+  “Hear! hear! hear! Girl Pioneer!
+  Come, give a cheer, G-i-r-l Pi-o-neer!”
+
+“And a cheer for our hostess!” added Grace Tyson, lifting up her hand as
+she faced her companions. Before Nathalie could catch her breath there
+came another ringing cheer as each girl with smiling eyes shouted,
+
+  “Hear! hear! a cheer for Nathalie dear!
+  Girl Pi-o-neer! Girl Pi-o-neer!”
+
+If Nathalie’s color had been going and coming, it now flooded her face
+as she laughingly held out her hand to each one in turn, giving a soft
+little squeeze that made each girl vote her a comrade.
+
+Grace and Helen now led Nathalie back to her chair, somewhat solicitous
+as to the sprained foot; but she laughingly assured them that she was
+all right. Then with animated eyes she bowed and smiled as Helen, who
+was spokesman for the group, began to introduce each one of the Pioneers
+in turn, in an offhand, half quizzing way that relieved the formality of
+the ceremony.
+
+“This is Miss Jessie Ford, our literary scribe and Editor-in-chief of
+‘The Pioneer,’ a penny newspaper issued monthly, devoted to the news and
+doings of the Girl Pioneers.”
+
+Jessie, a wholesome-looking girl with golden hair worn in a coronet
+braid, and with bright, keen eyes, shook hands pleasantly, half smiling
+at the words of their leader. “Yes, she is clever, our Jess, and
+progressive, too,” went on Helen, her eyes twinkling, “which means a lot
+in these times.” There was the suspicion of laughter in her tone.
+
+“That she’s progressive can’t be denied,” interposed Grace Tyson
+laughingly, “for when we had a Pioneer party a short time ago, Jess
+wasn’t going to be outdone by any newspaper reporter and wrote a
+detailed description of each girl’s costume and sent it to the ‘Town
+Journal.’ The paper appeared the afternoon of the ‘come-off,’ one of the
+girls saw the article, and suggested as a joke that we all change
+costumes. O dear, what a laugh we had on Jess!”
+
+Miss Jessie, however, only smiled at all of this chaffing, as if proud
+of this proof of her alertness and stepped to one side.
+
+“And this bluebird—oh, Miss Page did I tell you that each Pioneer group
+is named after a bird, and that ours is the Bluebird Group?” Helen had
+forgotten her teasing tone in her eagerness to impart this information.
+
+“What a pretty idea,” responded Nathalie, “and bluebird, the name of
+your group!” thinking of the nest of bluebirds she had found down in the
+old cedar.
+
+Helen nodded with pleasure and then said, “This is Miss Kitty Corwin; we
+call her our pot-boiler—that means that Kitty always manages to keep the
+pot boiling not only by holding up her end of the line, but all the
+other ends, too, when the derelict Girl Pioneers forget to do so.”
+
+“And you might say she always carries all the pots and pans, too, when
+there’s a hike,” interposed the newcomer, with a nervous laugh. She was
+an awkward-looking girl about fourteen, all arms and elbows, but with a
+rather winsome face lighted by big, serious eyes. There was such nervous
+activity about her grip as she yanked Nathalie’s hand like a pump-handle
+that that young lady had no doubts as to her surplus energy. As Kitty
+tried to make her escape there was a suppressed howl, and then a
+twitter, for alas, she had backed into one of her companions with such
+force that the victim almost lost her balance.
+
+The girls, each one smiling, but with a palpitating heart as if doubtful
+what Helen would say when her turn came, all looked up expectantly as a
+tall girl, somewhat older than the others, but with a certain dash about
+her that added to her charm, came forward. She moved with willowy grace
+and had an ease of manner that accentuated the Pot-Boiler’s embarrassed
+movements.
+
+“Miss Page, allow me to introduce you to Miss Lillie Bell.” There was a
+certain emphasis in Helen’s tone as she presented this pretty,
+attractive girl, that indicated her pride in one of the most popular
+girls belonging to the group.
+
+Miss Bell smiled in a self-assured manner as Helen introduced her, and
+then greeted Nathalie with sweet graciousness as she waited expectantly
+for her characterization to be given.
+
+“Lillie is our story-teller,” continued Helen with a gleam of mischief
+in her eyes, “a would-be thriller, for we all shiver with the creeps
+when she begins her yellow-journal romances. Her specialty is ghost
+tales, the kind that, as we sit in the dark around our cheer fire, its
+glare (blood-red, please note), casting weird shadows over our pallid
+faces—” Helen intoned in tragic burlesque, and then stopped with a
+laugh.
+
+Lillie Bell, however, did not appear at all annoyed at this banter, but
+returned coolly, “I hope Miss Page, you will not believe all Helen says,
+for she dotes on teasing, but we get even with her when the chance
+comes.” From a certain gleam in the smiling gray eyes Nathalie did not
+doubt her, but as her voice was musical, and her manner impressive,
+bordering on the dramatic, she wished she could hear one of her
+thrillers.
+
+“Observe,” tantalized the spokesman as Lillie disappeared and her place
+was taken by a young girl who looked as if she was all blood and muscle,
+with ruddy cheeks, alert eyes, and the poise and bearing of one who was
+a frequenter of the gym.
+
+As Helen said, “This is Miss Edith Whiton,” she made an old-time curtsy,
+“generally dubbed the Sport, as she is the champion knee-doubler,
+arm-stretcher, toe-raiser, and all the rest of the ball-and-socket
+team.”
+
+With attempted nonchalance Edith twisted her shoulders and flashed Helen
+a quick glance as much as to say, “Wait, my turn is coming later!” She
+then stepped forward and shook Nathalie’s hand, smiling pleasantly down
+at her with frank friendliness.
+
+As she made her way back to her seat, a pale, studious-looking young
+girl with a head that looked almost top-heavy with its black braids, and
+who wore glasses, presented herself before Nathalie. She smiled
+nervously as Helen began, “Oh, this owl-like individual is Barbara
+Worth; she is very learned—she knows it all.”
+
+“Oh, Helen!” came in pained expostulation from the girl, as her eyes
+turned distressfully upon her hostess in shamed embarrassment.
+
+“Oh, Barbara, don’t mind,” spoke up Lillie Bell kindly, “Helen is only
+in fun.”
+
+Barbara looked somewhat relieved at this brace to her injured feelings,
+and then stood nervously clasping and unclasping her hands together.
+
+“Yes,” went on Helen relentlessly, “we call her the Encyclopedia for
+short. Wait until you want to know something in a hurry, she will help
+you out, for she has the best heart in the world.” With a little ripple
+of laughter Helen leaned forward and looking up at Barbara cried,
+“There, did I say anything so dreadful?”
+
+Barbara smiled gratefully and then said quietly, “Yes, Miss Page, I have
+a fine library, it is grandfather’s, and I shall—” she drew a deep
+breath—“always be glad to live up to my name.”
+
+There was loud clapping at this brave remark and then she was gone, but
+in her place stood a little lass who smiled bewitchingly at the girl in
+the chair, showing a coy little dimple in one cheek, and then with a
+slight frown waited for her executioner to behead her.
+
+“This little damsel is Louise Gaynor,” introduced Helen; “she is the
+Flower of the family—spelt both ways. We call her flower, because she
+resembles one,” Louise bowed prettily with a surprised glance, “and then
+because she is an expert manipulator of the flour bag; she makes most
+edible flapjacks when we go on a hike. It is needless to say that we
+always have indigestion afterwards.” There was a laugh at this, and then
+as the Flower disappeared, Helen drew to her side a diminutive girl who
+wore her flaxen hair in two large braids down her back. With her broad,
+good-natured face and cornflower blue eyes she was a miniature Gretchen.
+
+“This is Carol Tyke—we spell it T-i-k-e, because she is a tike and the
+fag of the group as well.” The little girl, who was about eleven, but
+small for her age, grinned at Nathalie and ducked her head. “She is a
+Junior Pioneer, not yet twelve. But we have her in training and she is
+taking tests daily, which doesn’t give her much leisure time, does it,
+Tike?”
+
+At last, much to Nathalie’s relief, the introductions were over, and
+then she listened intently as the girls began to tell her of a hike they
+had taken the week before, when one of their number had found a hundred
+different leaf specimens.
+
+“Yes, it was a leaf hike,” said Grace. “We all have our own note-books;
+and make impressions from the leaves; that is, we print them in our
+books, and then write the date of the hike, the name of the leaf, and
+any other data we have gathered.”
+
+“I should think it would be very interesting,” remarked her listener, as
+she thought of the outings she and her schoolmates used to take on
+Saturday mornings when they visited Bronx Park, and studied “cooped-up
+nature” as one of the girls used to call it, when they eyed some fierce
+monarch of the forest in his iron cage, or exclaimed over the beauties
+of some hot-house flower.
+
+“We are going to have a wild-flower hike soon,” volunteered the Tike,
+smiling at Nathalie in a most friendly manner. “The Sport says there are
+a lot of beautiful flowers in the woods near Edgemere, didn’t you,
+Sport?”
+
+“But I wish you would tell me something about your tests—is that what
+you call them?” Nathalie asked. “I should think they would be no end of
+fun if they mean making one do stunts, or anything in the hazing line?”
+
+“Oh, we do not haze, or anything of that sort, for that would not be
+kind, and kindness is one of the laws of the Girl Pioneer,” explained
+Grace. “By tests we mean trying to see what a girl can do that is
+useful, and if she can’t do it, we teach her. We have to sew, cook, and
+know all the emergency things.”
+
+“You mean the First Aid to the Injured methods,” corrected Helen;
+“knowing what to do to revive a person when almost drowned, how to put
+out a fire—”
+
+“How to bathe and bandage a sprained foot—”
+
+“You needn’t tell me you know that,” cried Nathalie with sparkling eyes,
+“for I know by experience,” and then she told the girls what the doctor
+had said about Helen’s skillful way of binding her foot—in spite of that
+young lady’s blushes at this open praise—and how clever her mother
+thought the girls were for the ready way in which they had made the
+stretcher from their khaki skirts.
+
+“Then we have to know how to restore a person who has fainted,” some one
+volunteered.
+
+“And learn the Fireman’s Lift,” added another girl.
+
+“Oh, let’s tell things from the beginning!” interrupted some methodical
+girl from the farther end of the porch.
+
+“Oh, but I told Miss Page—” Helen stopped, for her hostess was looking
+at her with beseeching eyes, clearly due to the formal title.
+
+“Won’t you please call me Nathalie?” the owner of that name ventured
+with a coaxing little smile.
+
+“If you will say Helen,” replied the girl with evident delight.
+
+The girls both laughed, shook hands on it, and then Helen continued.
+“Yes, I told Nathalie all about the tests for the third-class Pioneer.
+Well, to become a second-class Pioneer it is necessary to have been a
+third-class Pioneer for at least a month. Then you have to know how to
+cook a piece of meat properly—”
+
+“Boil a potato as it should be done!” interrupted Lillie Bell. This was
+impressively said, and followed by a chime of laughter from the girls.
+
+“And make a coal fire in a cooking-stove—ye stars!” ejaculated Grace,
+“when I made my first, I literally smoked every one in the house to a
+ham—but when I made my first out-of-door fire—”
+
+“You didn’t do any better,” cried Lillie Bell irrelevantly, “for you
+sooted the whole bunch of us.”
+
+“Oh, Lillie,” cried Grace in dismayed tone, “that wasn’t from making the
+fire, for I was the only one who made it with a single match, but it was
+from putting it out.”
+
+“Now girls, don’t tell tales; for, as Mrs. Morrow says, we are all
+breakable and no one should cast the first stone,” called out their
+leader.
+
+“Oh, the tests are all easy but the next one,” cried Edith Whiton, “that
+is not a cinch by any means: how to remove a cinder from the eye—”
+
+“Or any other foreign substance!”
+
+“We have to know all the primary colors, too,” went on Edith.
+
+“Pshaw, any kindergarten kid knows that,” spoke the Encyclopedia, who up
+to this moment had taken no part in this flow of information, “but to
+tie a bundle properly, that means hard labor.”
+
+“Yes, indeed,” added Jessie Ford quickly, “one has to have an awful lot
+of practice to do that. I worked so hard tying up bundles at home for
+every one in the house that Father suggested I apply for a position as
+bundle-wrapper at some department store. And I would have, just for a
+joke, if I hadn’t succeeded in making every one for whom I tied a bundle
+give me five cents—and I made a dollar.” Her eyes gleamed reminiscently.
+
+“You have forgotten about the trees!” called out the Sport.
+
+“Yes, we have to name three kinds of trees, three flowers and three
+birds.”
+
+“Easy!” chimed the girls in unison.
+
+“But the hardest—that was for me—” exclaimed Grace (Nathalie bent
+forward eagerly, for somehow she did like Grace), “was to earn or to
+save fifty cents and put it in the bank.” There was a general shout at
+this, for, as Helen explained in an aside to Nathalie, Grace was the
+richest girl in the Pioneer group. She had a beautiful home, her own
+automobile, her own allowance, and yet she was always hard up.
+
+“She’s awfully generous, you know, and doesn’t know how to count her
+pennies,” she added wisely, “the way we girls do, because we have to.
+But she’s learning.”
+
+But Helen’s whispered comments about her friend were not all heard by
+Nathalie, who suddenly stiffened, and with a quick exclamation leaned
+forward and stared curiously at a gray figure that was walking past the
+house with strained, averted eyes, as if fearful that she might see the
+group of merry girls on the veranda.
+
+“Who is that lady all in gray?” she demanded, abruptly clutching Helen’s
+arm as her eyes followed the gliding figure of the strange-appearing
+woman whose library card she had found the day of her accident in the
+woods.
+
+Helen looked up quickly in response to Nathalie’s question, but before
+she could answer, Kitty Corwin cried hastily, “Girls, look! there goes
+‘The Mystic’!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV—NATHALIE IS ASKED TO BECOME A BLUE ROBIN
+
+
+“The Mystic!” echoed Nathalie in mild amazement, while one or two of the
+group turned and gazed curiously at the gray-shrouded figure hurrying
+by.
+
+“You needn’t ask me to look at her,” asserted the Sport with a scowl,
+“after screwing up my courage as I did to ask her if we could use her
+terraced lawn for one of our drills; why, the glance she gave me almost
+froze me stiff!”
+
+The girls laughed at Edith’s tragic tone, while Lillie Bell retorted
+teasingly, “Well, she must be a chill-raiser, Edith, if she could freeze
+the marrow in your spine.”
+
+“Girls, you should not speak as you do about Mrs. Van Vorst,” admonished
+Helen, “you know Mrs. Morrow says that she has suffered a great sorrow.”
+
+“Pshaw, we all know that,” returned the Sport unfeelingly, “but that is
+no reason why she should make every one else suffer, too.”
+
+“Granted,” rejoined Helen, “but she has grown to look at things through
+morbid eyes.”
+
+“I should think the gray gown she wears would make any one morbid,”
+suggested Lillie. “But what is the use of discussing her? I believe she
+is just a crank with a fad,” she added.
+
+“Who is she, and why does she go about in that queer gray gown?”
+inquired Nathalie, insistently.
+
+“She is Mrs. Van Vorst, the richest woman in town,” explained Grace.
+“She lives in that big, gray house surrounded by the stone wall. Haven’t
+you noticed it? It’s on Willow Street, up on the hill. You must have
+seen it.”
+
+“Oh, the big house with the beautiful Dutch garden,” exclaimed Nathalie,
+“and the queer little house at one side of it?”
+
+“Yes,” nodded Helen, “but that queer little house is an ancient
+landmark—a Dutch homestead—built on a grant of land given by Governor
+Stuyvesant to Janse Van Vorst way back in 1667. The Van Vorsts, or their
+descendants, have lived on that place for hundreds of years. Billy Van
+Vorst, the last of the line, married Betty Walton, a rich New York girl.
+He died some years ago, and—well, I don’t know the exact story—” Helen
+hesitated, “but they say Mrs. Van Vorst has an awful temper—oh, I hate
+to tell it—and then it may not be true.”
+
+“But it is true,” asserted Jessie Ford, “for Mother used to know Billy
+and Betty, too. She said shortly after Billy’s death Mrs. Van Vorst
+became angry with her little child—I don’t know whether it is a boy or
+girl—and—”
+
+“Whatever it is,” broke in Edith, “it is all distorted and twisted,
+looks like a monster, for I saw it one day in the garden, the day I was
+there. It is always muffled up so people can’t see it.”
+
+“Well, anyway,” went on Jessie, “Mrs. Van Vorst got into a temper with
+the child and shut it up in a dark room, and then went off to a
+reception or something, and forgot all about it.”
+
+“Oh, how could she?” ejaculated Nathalie with a shudder.
+
+“Well, when she came home and remembered it—it wasn’t in the room—”
+
+“And they found it all in a heap on the pavement in the yard,” again
+interrupted Edith, anxious to forestall the climax; “I have heard all
+about it, they say it was an awful sight.”
+
+“Dead?” cried Nathalie in a shocked tone.
+
+“No, not dead,” returned Jessie, “but it might as well have been. It had
+become frightened in the dark, said some one was chasing it, and in
+trying to escape climbed out on a shed and fell to the ground. Mrs. Van
+Vorst was ill for a long time, almost lost her mind. Then she gave up
+society and came down here and built this big house beside the
+homestead. She has lived in it ever since, but keeps to herself; she
+doesn’t seem to want to know people.”
+
+“Oh, I don’t wonder she mourns in gray then!” exclaimed Nathalie. “I
+feel sorry for her!”
+
+“And so do I!” chimed Helen squeezing her new friend’s hand
+responsively, “for she will have to suffer remorse all her life. Mother
+says she is to be pitied.”
+
+“Well, I should have more pity for her if she would let us have the lawn
+back of her house for our flag drill,” remarked Lillie Bell, “or for one
+of our demonstrations.”
+
+“You can be sure I’ll never ask her again,” declared the Sport,
+vehemently; “I believe she hates us just because we are young, and can
+enjoy life when her child can’t.”
+
+At this moment Grace arose and handed Nathalie a peculiar-looking
+envelope of rough brown paper. “No, it won’t explode,” she giggled, as
+she saw Nathalie handling the quaintly-folded envelope rather gingerly.
+
+“You needn’t think it is the butcher’s bill, either,” laughed Helen,
+“for it isn’t. It is simply an invitation to one of our group meetings,
+or Pioneer Rallies, as we call them. We always use that kind of paper
+when we invite guests, for it was the kind used in pioneer times.”
+
+Reassured by Helen’s explanation, Nathalie opened the envelope, noting
+the old-style script printed by hand in scarlet letters, evidently the
+work of one of the Pioneers. Then she slowly read aloud:
+
+  “They knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things,
+  but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and
+  quieted their spirits within.”
+
+                                                           — Bradford.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Ye presence of ye young maide, Mistress Nathalie Page is enjoined to
+  appear on ye 23rd of this month at ye Common House (Seton Hall) on
+  ye corner of ye cross roades to Bergen Town, to join with ye maides
+  of ye colony of Westport in a seemly diversion and Mayflower Feast.
+
+  Postscript: Kindly come apparelled in ye meeting-house cloathes and
+  behave as a young maide should so do.
+
+  From the Girl Pioneers of America, ye Many-greated-grand-daughters
+  of ye Mothers of ye Pilgrim Colony, who came to this new world in ye
+  good sloop MAYFLOWER in 1620.
+
+The expression of wonderment in Nathalie’s eyes changed to one of
+amusement as she laughingly cried, “My, but you are the real article!”
+
+“Yes, the scribe did that,” said Helen proudly; “I think it ought to be
+put in a glass case.”
+
+“Thank you!” promptly returned Jessie; “I accept your praise, but
+suggest, as industry is one of the laws of the Pioneers, that I should
+receive a special badge of merit, for if you could have seen me poking
+into those musty documents at the library to get the thing right, you
+would say I deserved it.”
+
+“But what does it mean?” demanded Nathalie curiously. “What have you to
+do with the Pilgrims?”
+
+“Why, it means,” explained Helen, “that we girls, to freshen up our
+minds on pioneer history, so that we may learn more about the women we
+emulate, name each of our rallies after some one group of pioneers, or
+some special pioneer woman, in memory of their service to us. Then we
+all talk about them, each one telling what she knows.”
+
+“Or what she doesn’t know, generally,” broke in Lillie, dryly.
+
+“I guess you are about right, Lillie,” added Grace, “for we are awfully
+rusty on pioneer history. It always seemed so stupid at school, but we
+have learned a lot since we started naming our rallies after pioneer
+things, and trying to see what we can cram. Why, girls,” she cried
+suddenly, as if impelled by inspiration to tell the latest thing she had
+learned, “do you know that there were almost thirty children who came
+over with the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_?”
+
+“Well, I for one did not,” remarked Jessie candidly; “I didn’t know that
+the Pilgrims had any children; supposed they were just a lot of
+blue-nosed men who wore high ruffs and tall, round hats, and who went
+about with long faces, telling people they would go to the devil if they
+dared to smile.”
+
+“There, Jess,” broke in Lillie Bell mischievously, “you needn’t get
+profane over it.”
+
+“Of course they were grim and forbidding-looking,” supplemented Kitty,
+“and—”
+
+“And sanctimonious,” added some one, “with their blue laws.”
+
+“Girls, you are all wrong,” spoke up Helen, with a sort of call-you-down
+air, “it was the Connecticut elders who made the blue laws. The Pilgrims
+were sincere, earnest men. Remember what Mrs. Morrow said about them?”
+
+There was a sudden silence for a moment, and then a faint voice was
+heard from the other end of the veranda. Every one pricked up her ears
+and craned her neck to see who was speaking.
+
+“Ye Stars! it is the Flower of the Family,” whispered Edith; “what has
+come to her?”
+
+The sweet, low voice went on slowly, perhaps a trifle unsteadily, “God
+sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain into the
+wilderness.”
+
+“Hooray for the Flower!” shouted some one, and then of course they all
+had to clap, while the editor-in-chief of the “Pioneer,” who was sitting
+next to the speaker, jotted down this little saying with the air of an
+expert reporter.
+
+“Now, do you suppose,” went on Helen, “that these picked men—”
+
+“This choice grain,” corrected the Sport softly, who was trying hard to
+create a laugh.
+
+“Edith, please be serious,” admonished Helen, looking at that young lady
+with reproving eyes, but she was sitting with folded arms and eyes cast
+down, the picture of innocent and bland decorum.
+
+Helen, seeing she had subdued the Sport for the time being, continued:
+“Yes, this choice grain was composed of not only sincere and courageous
+men, as we know, but the most tolerant of any of the first settlers in
+this country. But, of course, in serious, solemn times one is not apt to
+be funny. They were not really sanctimonious, they just got that name
+because they tried to live up to their convictions.”
+
+“But they got it!” retorted the Sport, who was always hard to convince
+in an argument. Helen flashed her eyes at her in rebuke, and then,
+turning toward Nathalie, said, “We are not only going to tell what we
+have learned about the Pilgrims at the rally, but we are to end with a
+Mayflower Feast. We do not expect to eat the things the colonists did,
+of course, but the table is to be decorated with May-flowers—that is
+with all the flowers that grow in May—so you see, it will really be a
+May-flower Feast.”
+
+“The Boy Scouts are going to pick the flowers for us!” chimed the Tike,
+her good-natured face beaming good-fellowship at Nathalie.
+
+“Dr. Homer—he is Mrs. Morrow’s brother—” supplemented Grace, “is the
+Scout Master of the Eagle Patrol, and as he is very anxious to make the
+boys chivalrous, he likes to have them help us all they can.”
+
+“But we are to have a great big entertainment,” exclaimed Carol
+importantly, “very soon, and we’re to sell tickets so that we can make
+money for the Camping Fund.”
+
+“And we have such a bright idea for getting up something novel in the
+way of entertainments,” spoke up Helen interestedly. “Each girl is to
+put on her thinking-cap and get to work on an idea; it has to be
+original, nothing borrowed, or that has been used before, and then turn
+it in to our Director in proper shape to be carried out. All of these
+novel ideas are to be kept secret until we have had all of the
+entertainments, and then we shall vote for the one we think the best.
+The winners will receive merit badges for their efficiency.”
+
+“Oh, that will be great!” cried Nathalie, “but tell me, where are you
+going camping?” she questioned animatedly, for her thoughts had
+instantly reverted to a summer or so before when she and a party of
+school girls had camped up in the woods of Maine.
+
+“We don’t know yet,” was Helen’s practical rejoinder, “for we have got
+to know how much money we shall have to spend. But come, girls, be
+serious and tell Nathalie some of our sports and activities. We want to
+show her that we can do things worth while, you know.”
+
+“Oh, get Lillie Bell to tell us one of her stories!” cried the Sport,
+who was a warm admirer of the story-teller.
+
+“Oh, I can’t think of any now!” replied Lillie lazily. And then as a
+chorus of voices seconded this plea, she cried, “Really girls, I can’t.
+I was up half the night studying for exam. But,” her face brightened, “I
+will tell you about the picked chicken if you like. As it has something
+to do with our pioneer law, it will come in all right.”
+
+“Oh, yes, do!” pleaded her hostess, who had been wishing that she might
+hear one of the story-teller’s thrillers.
+
+“It isn’t a blood-curdler this time, Miss Page,” apologized Lillie, “so
+I cannot give you an exhibition of my reputed talent as a fictionizer.
+It is simply that Mother had a headache, Father was going to bring home
+a swell friend to dine with us, and as it happened, the butcher sent a
+feathered fowl, and our little Dutch maid was ill.”
+
+“Oh, it was maddening,” she sighed in dolorous reminiscence, “but there
+was no way out of it, for we had to have that chick for dinner. So I set
+to work; some people say that when you try to do right everything rises
+up against you. So it proved to me, but I remembered our Pioneer motto,
+‘I Can,’ and glued myself to that job. Verily, I thought that chicken
+must be a relative to the goose that laid the golden egg, for every
+feather I pulled, a dozen at least came to the funeral. But I won out,
+and went to bed with a clear conscience, and that fowl—inside of me!”
+
+“Hooray for the Pioneer laws!” called several voices hilariously, and
+then at one and the same time, in their eagerness to give proof of
+well-doing, each one started to relate some personal experience. The
+effect of several story-tellers spinning yarns at the same time was so
+ludicrously funny that all the stories ended in merry laughter.
+
+“Oh, let’s vary the entertainment,” suggested Grace, “and sing our
+Pioneer song for Miss Page.”
+
+In another moment the fresh young voices, accompanied by a swing of
+heads and a tap of feet, were singing, to the tune of “Oh, Maryland, My
+Maryland”:
+
+  “We laugh, we sing, we jump, we run,
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We’re always having lots of fun;
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  The wild birds answer to our call,
+  These feathered friends in trees so tall;
+  We learn to know them one and all.
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+
+                Refrain.
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We will be brave, and kind, and true;
+    We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!”
+
+Nathalie, who was enjoying this musical treat immensely, and longed to
+join in, suddenly gave a start. She had heard a familiar hand strike the
+keyboard of the piano, and then start in with the tune the girls were
+singing, while a clear, high, soprano voice—one that the girl had never
+heard before—took up the air, and in a moment was leading the girls in
+their song, and as though accustomed to do it.
+
+She saw one or two of the girls smile at another in a mysterious way,
+and began to wonder what it all meant. As the last verse came to a
+close, and there were three, Mrs. Page stepped through the low French
+window from the living-room on the veranda, followed by a figure in
+white and Dick, who was hobbling along on a broom turned upside down.
+
+There was a silent moment, and then the Girl Pioneers had jumped to
+their feet and were saluting the lady in white, for it was Mrs. Morrow,
+their Director. No, they did not touch their shoulders as in the salute
+to Helen, their group leader, but the forehead, in military salute.
+
+Mrs. Morrow returned the salute, and then, as the girls broke into their
+Pioneer yell, came over to Nathalie without waiting for an introduction.
+But the young hostess had risen to her feet and was standing with
+outstretched hand.
+
+“Oh, my dear! you must sit down, or you may strain your foot!” cried
+Mrs. Morrow anxiously, as she caught Nathalie’s hand in hers and smiled
+down at her with luminous gray eyes, the kind that seem to radiate
+hearty good-will and cheer. Her greeting was so gracious, and there was
+such an undefinable charm in the bright face of the young matron, that
+Nathalie surrendered immediately.
+
+“I did not mean to intrude on your sport, girls,” cried Mrs. Morrow in a
+moment, turning toward the group, still holding Nathalie’s hand, “but I
+was as anxious as you all were to meet our new neighbor.”
+
+The color deepened in Nathalie’s cheeks as she cried in her impulsive
+way, “Oh, but you are not intruding at all, Mrs. Morrow; I am more than
+anxious to meet you, for—” she stopped a moment, and then flashed, “the
+girls all say you are lovely!”
+
+There was a wild cheer at this, whereupon, the gray-blue eyes smiled at
+Nathalie again. Then turning, the lady nodded to the compliments so
+boisterously expressed by the girls. For a few moments it seemed as if
+each girl was trying to outdo every other girl as to who should win in
+this race for tongue speed, as they crowded around Nathalie and their
+Director.
+
+Presently Nathalie looked up and laughed, for Dick did look so funny as
+he hobbled from one girl to another—he had always been a lover of
+girls—on his broomstick. As if divining why she laughed, Dick, who had
+heard her looked up. “Hello there, Blue Robin!” he cried teasingly,
+“what have you got to say about it?”
+
+“Blue Robin?” repeated Mrs. Morrow in puzzled query, turning towards
+Nathalie, “why does he call you Blue Robin? That is the name of this
+group.”
+
+“But I thought the name of this group was Bluebird,” answered Nathalie
+in some surprise.
+
+“So it is,” returned Mrs. Morrow, “but you know, bluebird means blue
+robin, too.”
+
+“There, Dick! I was not so far wrong after all!” cried Nathalie
+triumphantly, looking at her brother with convincing eyes. Then she
+turned and quickly told how she had found the bluebird’s nest in the old
+cedar, how she had called the birdlings blue robins, and how Dick—who
+was a terrible tease—had plagued her about it ever since.
+
+“But please inform me, Mrs. Morrow,” now spoke that young man, “why you
+say bluebirds are blue robins?”
+
+“Why, you know, the first bird seen by the Pilgrims when they came to
+this land was a bluebird—our earliest songster. As it resembled the
+robin so much, they wrote home to their friends and told of the
+beautiful blue robins they had seen in the new land.”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie,” cried Helen with joy in her voice, “do you know the
+finding of the blue robin’s nest surely must be an omen for good! Keep
+the name your brother has given you, and become a real bluebird, or blue
+robin, by joining our group and becoming a Pioneer!”
+
+“Oh, yes, Miss Page, do!” came quickly to Nathalie’s ears; “we should
+love to have you one of us.”
+
+“I’ll coach you in the tests!” sang out Helen, who was ready to dance
+with pleasure to think that there was a prospect of her new friend
+becoming a Pioneer.
+
+“And I’ll help!” added Grace. “And so will I,” “And I!” chimed several
+girlish voices.
+
+Nathalie sat in embarrassed silence, hardly knowing what to answer to
+these many cordial invitations to join, and offers to help her do the
+tests. “I would love to be one of you,” she spoke hesitatingly, “but I
+am not at all clever at doing things, for I can’t sew, or cook, or do
+anything useful at all!” The girl’s voice was almost plaintive.
+
+“Ah, you are just the one we want, then,” was Mrs. Morrow’s quick reply;
+“we want girls who don’t know how, so we can teach and train them in the
+right way.”
+
+There was loud applause at this remark, and then as the hubbub subsided
+somewhat, Mrs. Morrow held up her hand for silence. “Now, girls,” she
+said, “give Miss Page time to think. Yes, we should be overjoyed to have
+you join the group, Miss Page, for later, in the summer, one of our
+bluebirds is to emigrate South for the winter, and we should love to
+have you take her place. I agree with Helen that the finding of the
+bluebird’s nest in the old cedar meant that you were to become a true
+bluebird, or Blue Robin, as we shall have to call you.”
+
+Nathalie looked at Dick, and then at her mother. Mrs. Page was smiling
+at her so reassuringly that Nathalie understood that she gave her
+consent, and joyfully signified her willingness to become a Pioneer.
+With a bob of her head at Dick she declared, that she would become one
+if only to show her brother that there was such a thing as a Blue Robin.
+
+Mrs. Morrow then explained that they had selected the bluebird as their
+mascot not only because it was the bird of pioneer days, but because the
+word blue means true, and Girl Pioneers were to be true in word, and
+thought, and deed. And then as a bird means swift, they were to be swift
+to the truth.
+
+“The bluebird is also noted for its cheerfulness,” she continued. “The
+Pioneers are to be cheerful. It is a loyal bird; the Pioneers are to be
+loyal to one another, to their pledges and laws, and to every one and to
+all things that are right, good, and pure. The bird is also very gentle,
+and we want the Pioneers to cultivate kindliness and gentleness.
+Flower,” she called suddenly, “sing us that pretty little bluebird song
+you know.”
+
+In compliance with this request the Flower sang, in her sweet soprano, a
+funny little song about a bluebird courting his lady love. Each verse
+ended with the call-note, “Tru-al-lee,” which the girls caught up as a
+refrain and sang with sweet, low tones, the Flower’s bird-like trill
+rising high above the others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V—THE GRAY STONE HOUSE
+
+
+“Do you know, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie, looking at her friend with
+reminiscent eyes, “that it is only three weeks since I met you, but it
+seems like three months.”
+
+“That is because you have been on probation for a Pioneer,” retorted
+Helen smilingly, “and are beginning to take life more seriously.”
+
+“Not very seriously, I am afraid,” lamented Nathalie, “judging from the
+bungle I made in trying to learn that square knot.”
+
+“Oh, you will learn,” encouraged Helen, “but I must be off, for I have
+some typing to do for to-morrow.” Yes, Helen’s new friend knew that she
+was learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact had been
+divulged in the natural course of events, Nathalie had listened with
+great interest to Helen’s declaration of her life purpose—to be
+independent—not only for the pleasure that independence would bring to
+her, but because she wanted to earn money so that she could give her
+mother little comforts and luxuries that Mrs. Dame had been denied
+because her husband’s income was limited.
+
+Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie had wished her
+great success, apparently appreciating the unselfish motive that
+actuated her, while lamenting that she herself was not as clever.
+
+“O dear,” she had impulsively declared, “I want to earn money, too; oh,
+if I only had a purpose in life! I do not want to be a drone.” And then
+on the impulse of the moment she had confided to Helen her many
+disappointments, and how anxious they all were about her brother Dick,
+fearful that he might never recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had
+seemed that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship had grown
+up between them, much to that young lady’s joy.
+
+She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the Pioneer Pledge and
+laws, give the names of the Presidential party, as Nathalie called them,
+adding the name of the governor of the State in which she lived,
+describe the United States flag, sew a button on—as it should be done,
+she had declared with solemn unction—and then exhibit her skill at tying
+a square knot.
+
+“After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally to-morrow, I shall
+begin to drill you in the tests necessary to make you a Second-Class
+Pioneer,” Helen had declared when the lesson was over and she began to
+gather up her sewing materials.
+
+“Oh, will you?” cried Nathalie, “but when can I become one?”
+
+“In a month,” was the reply, “if you pass the tests; but there, I shall
+never get my work done if I stand here and talk,” and Helen started for
+the steps.
+
+“Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow says about Dick’s
+knee,” returned Nathalie as she followed her friend to the edge of the
+veranda. “You know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so anxious
+to hear what he had to say.”
+
+“How did your brother injure his knee?” asked Helen as she paused at the
+foot of the steps, “I have often wanted to ask.”
+
+“Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after Father’s death,”
+rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening sorrowfully. “The New York
+physician said it was only sprained ligaments and would be all right
+soon. But he has been growing worse—it pains him dreadfully
+sometimes—oh, you don’t know how worried we are—” her voice quavered,
+“suppose he should be lame for life!”
+
+“Oh, don’t get nervous over it,” advised Helen cheerfully, “but hurry in
+and see what Dr. Morrow said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town
+doctor, but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon,” and then with a
+smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward the gate.
+
+Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes as she hurried across
+the lawn. Somehow the girl’s companionship had revived her drooping
+spirits; the many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and the
+tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming one, had in a measure
+brightened her life. To be sure, they could never take the place of her
+friends of the city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things
+of the past and the desires that at times threatened to overwhelm her.
+She realized that she was beginning to take a keener interest in her
+surroundings, and felt that it was all owing to the Pioneers.
+
+“Nathalie, I am here—in the sitting-room!” called her mother’s voice
+faintly a few moments later as she heard the girl’s step in the hall. An
+apprehensive pang seized Nathalie’s heart as she flew to her mother’s
+side.
+
+“What did the doctor say, Mumsie?” she demanded anxiously. “Will Dick be
+lame?”
+
+“I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an operation—” her
+mother’s voice sank to a whisper, “and oh, it will cost us several
+hundred dollars.” Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on her
+daughter’s shoulder wept silently. The girl gently patted the
+gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender form closely, but with
+intuitive divination she let her have her cry out, although she was
+seething with impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the
+mother heart.
+
+“It is all right, I am just a coward.” Mrs. Page choked a moment, then
+imprinted a wet kiss on the rounded cheek so close to her own as she
+felt the comfort of her unspoken sympathy. “I am sure Dick will be all
+right in time—but I am so worried—I have had bad news, too. It does seem
+as if misfortunes never come singly, as they claim,” she said, thrusting
+a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter’s hand.
+
+The girl’s eyes swept the type-written page, once, twice, then in a
+tense tone she demanded, “Oh, Mother, do you mean that the Portland
+cement bonds are in danger—why, I thought—”
+
+“They are to stop paying interest while the company is being
+reorganized; something has gone wrong. I was afraid of it, as they say
+cement is being sold at a very low figure.”
+
+“But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are crossing your bridges
+before you get there as Father used to say,” Nathalie replied with
+attempted cheerfulness, “but did you not say that they were first
+mortgage bonds?”
+
+“Yes, but child, we have got to live,” exclaimed her mother irritably;
+“that money, the interest, is part of my income, and it is little
+enough—expenses are so heavy. And where the money will come for Dick’s
+operation I am sure I don’t know—but there, don’t worry—it will be all
+right in time, I know.” She sank back in her chair and dabbed her
+reddened eyelids with her moist handkerchief.
+
+“But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick to have an
+operation?” questioned Nathalie insistently with anxious eyes.
+
+“The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected. It will have to be
+removed, and a new bone put in.”
+
+“A new bone put in!” ejaculated Nathalie, “why—”
+
+“Yes, it is something new in surgery,” replied her mother. “Dr. Morrow
+says thousands of cripples have been made well by this new method of
+treating cases like Dick’s. He says—” a long sigh—“if Dick does not have
+an operation, he will probably be lame, if he is ever able to walk at
+all.” The tears began to glisten in Mrs. Page’s eyes again, as Nathalie,
+with a sudden sharp realization what this would mean for Dick and all of
+them, turned and rushed from the room with the dread that if she
+remained a moment longer she too would fall to weeping.
+
+She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she wanted time to think.
+Oh, suppose there should be no money for the operation, and Dick should
+be lame all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so well and
+robust, and who for his athletic prowess had won so many silver cups and
+medals! She threw herself into the low rocker, and leaning her head on
+her desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to hear.
+
+Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard it was to lose her
+father, her beautiful home and friends, to give up college, to have to
+live in that poky old town—even the Pioneers could not compensate for
+that—and then to have Dick lame because they had no money! Nathalie wept
+on in woeful lamentation, feeling with the untriedness of youth that she
+was a great martyr. Did not God’s world owe her happiness? Was it not
+sinning against her in denying her right to its joys?
+
+But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs died away to a
+shiver, as her head dropped wearily on the back of her chair. Oh, if she
+were not so helpless, if she could only earn money like Helen! But what
+could she do? She couldn’t sew, she had no musical ability—like Lucille!
+A Bob White whistle, followed by a “Tru-al-lee!” beneath her window
+reminded her that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.
+
+Yes, Nathalie knew that “Tru-al-lee!” for that young lady was the only
+Pioneer who could so successfully imitate that little bird’s sweet
+trill. She jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of youth cast
+all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried down to the lower floor.
+
+“I’ll be down in a moment,” she called out to Grace, who had just
+entered the hall and was chatting with Dick, who had been reading on the
+couch. She flew into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a
+moment, and then flying into her room grabbed her hat from its peg in
+the closet, and then hastened down the stairs humming blithely a new
+ragtime song as she went.
+
+“I want to say good-by to Mother,” she exclaimed as she nodded to Grace
+and hurried into the sitting-room. But when she saw the big pile of
+mending on the table in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang
+assailed her.
+
+“Oh, Mumsie,” she cried, “don’t you do that mending. I will do it when I
+come back. I meant to do it yesterday,” she excused herself lamely, “but
+I forgot all about it.”
+
+“Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me from worrying,” was the
+reply; “as ’tis said, there is nothing like work to keep up one’s
+spirits.”
+
+“Oh, Mumsie,” the girl cried impulsively, rubbing her hands caressingly
+over her mother’s cheek, “don’t let’s worry any more. We’re just silly
+to cry over what may not happen,” and then she added hopefully, “I’m
+sure things will come out all right.”
+
+Mrs. Page’s eyes filled as she bent forward and kissed her
+would-be-comforter. “Yes, we are silly, no doubt,” she smiled through
+her tears, “to waste time and strength worrying over what, after all,
+may not happen.”
+
+“But, Mother,” suddenly questioned the girl with uneasy eyes, “do—do you
+think I ought to become a Pioneer?”
+
+“Why not, Nathalie?” inquired Mrs. Page in surprise. “Perhaps it will
+teach you some of the many things you should know, for if we are to be
+poor, you may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness, courage,
+those will be the things—” her mother’s voice ceased abruptly.
+
+Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her mother’s voice that
+seemed like reproof. A sudden depression seized her again as it came to
+her with renewed force how helpless she was, what things Helen did to
+help her mother, and the many useful things the Pioneer girls—plain
+girls, too, who had never had the advantages that she had had—could do.
+
+But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts aside with the
+rebellious feeling that she had never been brought up to do these
+things, that she had been born a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother
+hastily and hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.
+
+“Where shall we walk?” she asked that young girl, as they passed down
+the street. She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted
+like rudderless ships at sea.
+
+“Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has asked me to deliver a
+note to ‘The Mystic.’”
+
+“‘The Mystic?’” echoed Nathalie in doubting amazement, “why I thought
+she had never had anything to do—”
+
+“To do with the people of the town,” finished Grace. “Well, she doesn’t
+as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow’s patients and had the grace to
+return Mrs. Morrow’s call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young
+people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow, and then, too,
+I rather think she is writing to ask her if we could have her lawn for
+one of our demonstrations. We had a lovely idea for a May-Day
+celebration, but we had to give it up, as we had no place to hold it.”
+
+“What were you going to have?” inquired Nathalie, as the two girls
+turned up the hill leading to the big gray house enclosed in its barrier
+of gray wall.
+
+“We were going to get some ox carts and decorate them with Mayflowers,
+and parade to the grounds. There we were to choose a queen and dance
+around the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring. Fred was to be
+Robin Hood—O dear,” she suddenly ejaculated with a dismayed face, “I do
+believe I left the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned it to
+the cushion so I wouldn’t forget it and then walked straight off and
+left it.”
+
+The girls stared blankly at one another a moment and then Grace cried,
+“Come, we might as well go back for it; do you mind? It is only a few
+blocks out of our way.”
+
+On receiving Nathalie’s assent she added contentedly, “I’ll get Dorcas
+to make us some lemonade to cool us off, and—why, I can show you my
+Pioneer room!”
+
+“Oh, I should just love to see it!” enthused Nathalie; “Helen told me
+about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the
+Pioneer band have a Pioneer room.”
+
+“Isn’t it old-timey?” she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her
+into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of
+many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch
+and for that reason had been selected.
+
+Nathalie’s keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors,
+etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days,
+that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New
+Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable
+ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque
+designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its
+quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
+
+Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its
+dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with
+silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a
+funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
+
+“But that clock is a dear!” she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly
+upon a tall grandfather’s clock in the corner, which returned her glance
+with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie’s
+brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting
+themselves to her vivid imagination.
+
+“Father gave that clock to me last birthday,” informed Grace with pride;
+“it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my
+forebears. See, there’s his picture over the mantel,” pointing to a
+seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at
+them with stolid complacency.
+
+“Yes, it is very old,” continued Grace, “some unimaginative relative of
+Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie’s little hatchet, but Father
+rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel.
+Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief.”
+
+“Yes,” she rattled on, “I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown
+for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear
+not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of
+things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let’s go
+down and have the lemonade, I’m dying for a cooling drink.”
+
+As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up
+crying, “Oh, there’s Fred! I want you to meet him!” She began to wave
+and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall,
+well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.
+
+“Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I’m in a hurry!” came in response a
+moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently,
+vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.
+
+But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly ceased, and
+with a few strides he reached the veranda and was eyeing the new girl’s
+health-flushed face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor. After a
+hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister’s introduction, he
+dropped into a chair by Nathalie’s side, and soon they were all chatting
+and laughing merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had
+happened on their last hike.
+
+“But you had an adventure, too, did you not?” he asked suddenly, looking
+at the young girl by his side with a glint of mischief in his eyes, “the
+day you were rescued by the Pioneers?”
+
+“Oh, did you hear about that?” Nathalie cried, her face taking on a
+deeper tinge of pink. She had always felt the least mite ashamed of that
+mishap.
+
+“Yes, and how about the blue robins?” he continued in a quizzing tone.
+
+“Oh, Grace,” exclaimed Nathalie, “you have been telling tales!” and then
+with a laugh, she told of finding the bluebird’s nest, excusing her
+ignorance by the plea that she was a city-bred girl.
+
+The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred being a Patrol Leader,
+and greatly interested in the organization. Finding that Nathalie had
+had some difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered to
+give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil proved an apt
+scholar, as it was not long before she had mastered the weaver’s, the
+overhand, the reef, and had gained a fair insight into several other
+knots. Before the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might not come
+up some evening with Grace, and give her another lesson and meet her
+brother Dick.
+
+Nathalie’s face dimpled; she hastened to assure him that she would be
+pleased to welcome them at the house, and that she knew her brother
+would be more than delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told
+him all about her brother’s misfortune, and how depressed he grew at
+times without his chums to drop in and cheer him.
+
+The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted by Fred, who
+claimed he was going their way, neared the high stone wall overtopped
+with gray turrets and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned to
+leap beyond their barrier.
+
+“Wasn’t it a queer idea to build a beautiful house like this and then
+fence it in like some old monastery?” questioned Grace. “See, here’s a
+bell in the stone gate, the way they used to have it in olden times.”
+
+“Ugh! I hate to go in—the place gives me the creeps!” she shivered
+nervously. “Oh, Fred, do come in with us, we shall not be long.”
+
+Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time
+yielded to his sister’s entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door
+was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
+
+He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but
+when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow’s
+wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
+
+Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and
+tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading
+to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design,
+with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there.
+A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a
+porte-cochère.
+
+“This is the old Dutch shack,” remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so
+later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung
+like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.
+
+Nathalie’s eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping
+roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like
+thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a
+foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of
+honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of
+hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous
+hedge around it.
+
+Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage
+ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window
+above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against
+it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a
+grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading
+to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge
+when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.
+
+As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the
+broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the
+gate, promising to wait outside for them.
+
+As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler’s
+impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn
+tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace
+conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van
+Vorst.
+
+For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in
+their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her
+words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he
+asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the
+hall, while a stag’s head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them
+glassily.
+
+The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated
+the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires,
+possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by
+the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose
+spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came
+the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the
+canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel
+down the broad stairway.
+
+But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still retaining his
+sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a little reception room opening from
+the hall fitted up to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated
+themselves on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the many curios
+that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each betraying some eccentric
+custom of the land of the yellow peril.
+
+“O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!” observed Grace with an
+apprehensive shiver. “Ugh, I should hate to have that grim-looking man
+come back and tell me my company wasn’t wanted.”
+
+Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed in
+sympathetic recognition of her companion’s mood. Her eye was caught by a
+huge mandarin who grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered,
+half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed to inhabit
+China were not hidden behind his wrinkled brown skin, and were looking
+at her through his bead-like eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his
+sinister glare. Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did
+move—oh, what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching all of a heap
+in abject fear as she stared with horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin,
+as if that weird, shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim
+silence had come from his mummy-like lips.
+
+“Oh, what is it?” whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper, as she stared in
+paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.
+
+Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more piercing and, if could
+be, more blood-curdling than the first, came echoing down the hall,
+followed by a demoniacal laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror
+was something more human than an old Chinese idol. Grace, with a frantic
+scream of terror that almost equaled in its intensity the one that they
+had heard sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the door!
+
+Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a loss to determine
+whence came the horrible shrieks, but in another instant, as another one
+rent the air with the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no
+longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her, she flew into the
+hall, through the door that Grace had flung wide open, and with
+terror-winged feet and thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide
+steps and along the path after Grace!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI—WORKING INTO HARNESS
+
+
+A half-hour later the two girls stood on Mrs. Morrow’s veranda, and with
+Fred’s mocking laughter still ringing in their ears told of their hasty
+exit from the gray house. With shame-mantled face and downcast eyes
+Grace handed Mrs. Morrow her note.
+
+In answer to that lady’s surprised inquiries the story was told at
+length, a few extra flourishes unconsciously added to plead for the
+unexpected finale to their errand. But Mrs. Morrow was most kind, not at
+all like Fred, and did not laugh at them for being “scare-babies” as he
+had expressed it. She voiced her sympathy most generously, saying she
+did not wonder they were frightened, as she was sure at their age she
+would have done the same.
+
+“I cannot imagine what it could have been,” she pondered, in much
+perplexity. “I will ask the doctor. If he does not know he will probably
+hear about it, if it was really anything serious.”
+
+She smiled in a way that made Nathalie, whose intuitions were keen,
+exclaim hastily, “Oh, indeed, Mrs. Morrow, we did not imagine it at all.
+I am sure if you could have heard that terrible shriek—and that laugh!
+Oh, I can hear it still!” Her brown eyes emphasized her words as they
+darkened with the haunting terror that caused her to rush pell-mell
+after Grace.
+
+“But I do hope,” remarked Mrs. Morrow, “that Mrs. Van Vorst will never
+know that the young girls who took such sudden flight from her house
+were Pioneers, as Pioneers are supposed to be very courageous.” There
+was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke that partly atoned for the
+implication as to the girls’ lack of courage.
+
+They made no reply for a moment, and then Grace, as if to atone for her
+delinquency, exclaimed contritely, “Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Morrow, I was
+frightened—but if you want me to—” her voice faltered, “I will take it
+to her again.”
+
+“No, indeed,” quickly rejoined that lady, “I could not be so cruel as to
+send you there again, for no matter if the shriek was nothing, you were
+really frightened. I did not mean to rebuke you; I only wanted to seize
+this opportunity to show you what an important thing courage is—and how
+we should cultivate it, even in small things. As for the note, I will
+get the doctor to take it or send it by post. I will have to confess,
+however, that I am disappointed, for I was so anxious to have Mrs. Van
+Vorst see what well-behaved and pleasing young girls belonged to the
+organization.”
+
+“And you sent me!” wailed Grace. “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Morrow, but what
+an arrant coward I have proved—and Nathalie of course would not have run
+if I had not!” The tears welled up piteously in her blue eyes.
+
+“Oh, no, Grace,” interposed Nathalie loyally, “I was just on the verge
+of running away myself!” And then she told them about the mandarin with
+the grinning mouth, and sinister, bead-like eyes, that she was sure had
+blinked at her. This caused a laugh and cleared the atmosphere of the
+unpleasantness that had been created by the morning’s adventure.
+
+The Saturday of the Pilgrim Rally—the day that was to make Nathalie a
+Pioneer—arrived. At an early hour of the morning the Pioneers of the
+three bird groups—each one with a package—began to file into Seton Hall,
+the little stone building used by the town for important meetings and
+often for social functions. Out of deference to Nathalie the girls had
+decided to bring their Pilgrim costumes with them—hence the mysterious
+packages—and not don them until she had been admitted to the
+organization.
+
+With interested eyes Nathalie heard the Pioneers recite their pledge,
+give the sign, the salute,—the three movements of the closed hand,
+signifying a brave heart, an honest mind, and a resourceful hand,—and
+give the rousing Girl Pioneer cheer. She felt a trifle shaky, she
+confided to Helen who was seated next to her, dreading the ordeal of
+being made prominent as most girls do, but she regained her nerve
+somewhat as the Director arose and with a smiling nod of welcome began
+to call the names.
+
+Certainly it was a pretty fancy to have each member respond to her name
+by giving the bird call of her group. The quick clear note of Bob White,
+the “Chip! chip!” of the meadow sparrow, and the oriole’s greeting were
+all inspiring, but it was the melodious “Tru-al-lee!” of the bluebird
+group that held her with its sweet, low trill.
+
+As Nathalie heard her name called when it came time to perform the
+initiative ceremony of making her a Pioneer, her head began to whirl,
+but setting her teeth determinedly, with squared shoulders and head
+erect, she walked down the aisle, faced the Director, and in a clear
+voice repeated her pledge. In answer to the question, would she remember
+that the honor of a world-wide organization had been placed in her
+hands, and that henceforth whatever she said or did was not done simply
+as Nathalie Page, but as a Girl Pioneer, she answered gravely, “I will!”
+
+The second question was now asked, if she would try to live in such a
+way that through and by her example the words Girl Pioneer should come
+to mean all that was honest, highest, best, and most efficient in the
+girlhood of her country, she again replied with the solemn, “I will.”
+
+The Director now stepped to her side, and taking her by the hand said,
+“Nathalie Page, in the name of the Girl Pioneers of America, and by the
+authority vested in me as a Director, I receive you into our
+organization. You are now a Girl Pioneer of America. May you be a worthy
+successor of those women, brave, honest, resourceful, from whom our name
+is taken, and who in the early days of the country, standing side by
+side with the men, faced hardships, privations, and dangers, and helped
+to make possible the United States of America!”
+
+Mrs. Morrow paused a moment, and then with one of her ready smiles took
+Nathalie’s hand in hers and gave her a cordial welcome. Then turning
+toward the Pioneers she said, “Let us welcome our new member.”
+
+The girls sprang quickly but noiselessly on their feet, crying:
+
+  “Whom have we here?
+  A new Pioneer!
+  Come give a cheer
+  Girl Pi-o-neer
+  Nathalie Page!”
+
+The new Pioneer unconsciously heaved a deep sigh when the ceremony was
+over and she was allowed to return to her seat. She was tempted to smile
+at her palpitating heart when going through such a simple ceremony as
+the initiation to an organization of girls; and yet she was vaguely
+conscious that it was a momentous episode in her life, and she firmly
+resolved that her vow should be a binding one, and that she would try
+her best to become a worth-while Pioneer and a Blue Robin.
+
+The seriousness of her act became even more apparent as she listened
+with keen interest to Mrs. Morrow’s little talk, which was, in memory of
+the day’s celebration, about the Pilgrims. It was the desire to do right
+in the face of all difficulties which animated the Founders of this
+great nation in their struggle for Freedom and Right, and which led
+their wives, daughters, and sisters to forego the necessities of life,
+to cross an unknown sea and to face the perils of the wilderness and to
+aid them in their noble purpose.
+
+It was this sacrifice of the things that made life endurable, and their
+strict adherence to duty that gave rise to the sterling qualities of
+unflinching determination, hardy courage, stern endurance, unrepining
+cheerfulness, untiring loyalty, patient industry, and quick
+resourcefulness that has gained the name of the Pioneer spirit, and made
+these early women founders of our nation models of all that is pure and
+best in womanhood.
+
+Their Director then went on and told of the handicrafts of the Pilgrims,
+such as baking, brewing, sewing, knitting, quilting, spinning, planting
+the foodstuffs, carding wool, and the many industries that were
+necessary to keep life in those pioneer days.
+
+As the new Pioneer heard the gentle, persuasive voice, she began to see
+life in a new aspect, and to understand something of what it meant to
+emulate these noble women. “In your hikes, before your cheer fires, in
+your camps, in your home and school life, as well as in the tests and
+your outdoor and indoor activities, and in your sports and games, keep
+these women as your cheer star,” said Mrs. Morrow earnestly, “so that
+you, too, will be actuated by the qualities that ennobled them. And when
+the call comes, be kindly, helpful, resourceful, pure, and upright in
+the midst of all temptation and danger, and you will not only have the
+name of Pioneer, but will be filled with the real pioneer spirit.”
+
+Mrs. Morrow stood silent a moment and then repeated slowly:
+
+      “Life is more than the breath and the quick round of blood,
+      It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
+      We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
+      In feelings, not figures on a dial.
+      We should count time as heart throbs. He most lives
+      Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”
+                                                         —Bailey.
+
+The girls now seated themselves in a circle, and as Jessie read the news
+from the monthly “Pioneer,” which reported a flower hike for the
+Saturday two weeks hence, they took out their materials and set to work.
+Some wove gay-colored yarn on small frames, others braided raffia
+baskets, or made squares of plaited slips of paper, while Mrs. Morrow
+told them something about the art of weaving.
+
+After some time spent in learning this old-time craft, the Director
+asked the girls how they could best apply this industry to a very common
+fundamental of the home. There was a slight pause, and then some one
+called out “To the carpet!” Another girl ventured to say “Our clothes.”
+Mrs. Morrow smiled as she said they were all right in a sense, but the
+particular craft she meant at that time was what Helen had timidly
+suggested, and that was, darning stockings!
+
+There was a ripple of laughter at this truism and then, to Nathalie’s
+surprise, there was a stocking drill, every one hauling forth a stocking
+from her basket and setting to work to practice this homely art. It was
+indeed a trial by needle to Nathalie, and she suffered some
+embarrassment when, after borrowing a stocking from her neighbor, and
+trying her very best to do it well, it was returned to her from the
+Director with the remark that she needed training in the science.
+
+Later, when Mrs. Morrow came to her side and showed how neatly her
+stocking hole appeared after weaving her thread back and forth, and made
+Nathalie practice doing the same, the girl suddenly realized what a
+braggart she had been. “Oh, I told Mother I was the champion mender,”
+she thought remorsefully. “What a bungle I must have been making of
+those stockings!” With the avowed purpose that she was going to make
+darning her life-work for the next three weeks, she laid her work aside
+and hurried with the girls into the adjoining dressing-room to get ready
+for the real Pilgrimy time, when they were to represent the women of
+Plymouth town.
+
+“Do you always have an all-day meeting?” she asked Grace, who was
+pinning a blue bird on Nathalie’s gown, for at Helen’s suggestion she
+was to appear at this, her first Rally, as a Blue Robin, in memory of
+the first songster that welcomed the Pilgrims.
+
+“Oh, no, indeed,” answered Grace, “but we departed from our usual plan,
+which is to meet in the afternoon only, unless we have a hike or
+demonstration, as we wanted to make our luncheon the Mayflower Feast.
+But, oh, Nathalie,” she ended enthusiastically, “you are a veritable
+blue bird! Look, girls, isn’t she the dearest? That bluebird blue makes
+her cheeks like pink roses!”
+
+At this sudden thrust into notoriety the girl’s color grew more vivid as
+she turned for the inspection of the girls. They grew very enthusiastic
+over her bluebird costume with its bluish-gray slip with scalloped
+edges, and bluebird cap edged with tiny blue wings, where a blue bird,
+standing up in the front, poised with outspread wings “ready to fly,” as
+one of the girls asserted.
+
+“Oh, it’s only blue paper muslin,” explained the “flier,” as her mates
+had called her, when they examined the Blue Robin gown. “Helen helped me
+make it, and what a time we had making that birdie stick—hands off,” she
+finished laughingly, as some too ardent admirer pressed her close, “or I
+shall not fly away but fall to pieces.”
+
+By this time, however, her admirers had found a new love in the Tike,
+who came dancing before them all in white. She was literally a bower of
+trailing arbutus, as sprays of that spring flower were fastened all over
+her gown.
+
+“I am the Pilgrim flower,” she piped pertly, “some call me the Mayflower
+blossom.” And then catching up her skirts, with a low curtsey she
+repeated softly:
+
+  “Oh I’m the flower that never dies,
+  ’Neath leaves so brown in bed so low.
+  The arbutus, who in glad surprise
+  Bloomed ‘Welcome’ from fields of snow
+  To our Pilgrim sires of long ago.”
+
+“Oh, here’s Lillie Bell!” called some one. “Isn’t she a duck of a dear!”
+Simultaneously the girls forsook the Tike and flocked around Lillie,
+who, gowned in pure white, with kerchief and lace cap, represented
+Susannah White, the first bride of the colony.
+
+“Yes, and I want you to note, girls,” she asserted impressively, with a
+nonchalant nod to the welcome accorded her, “that I am not only the
+first bride, but the first mother of the colony, for my little Peregrine
+was born when the _Mayflower_ rode at anchor in Cape Cod Bay, and Mrs.
+Morrow claims this is even a greater honor than to be the first bride.
+But, girls—” she ended abruptly, dropping her matronly pose, “have you
+seen Edith—she was to be Helen Billington—I never knew her to be so late
+before?”
+
+“There! that accounts for the aching void in my heart, I know I missed
+some one,” cried Jessie half mockingly. “O dear, what will become of my
+Pioneer article if the Sport does not appear?” The girls all laughed in
+appreciation of Jessie’s serio-comic declaration, for it was generally
+conceded that Edith was the most active spirit of the band, as her
+sporting proclivities, her general good-nature, and her dashing
+escapades always furnished plenty of “copy” when any of their various
+hikes or demonstrations were in progress.
+
+“Oh, don’t fret; a bad penny always turns up!” chimed in Kitty, who did
+not particularly admire the Sport.
+
+“I’ll bet you a cookie that she has been arrested for appearing in
+disorderly apparel on the street,” observed Grace roguishly; “for she
+told me she was going to dress at home.”
+
+“Oh, girls, aren’t you ready?” at this instant asked Louise Gaynor,
+suddenly appearing in the doorway leading to the room where Mrs. Morrow,
+as Mistress Carver, the Governor’s lady, was waiting to receive them.
+
+“Her Sweet Graciousness, Mistress Carver, waits for you without in the
+Common House.”
+
+  “Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla,
+  Priscilla, the Mayflower of Plymouth!”
+
+Thus hummed Lillie as she walked around this winsome representation of
+that Puritan maiden, surveying her critically, but with approving eye.
+
+“Oh, you’re just too sweet for anything!” warbled another bluebird,
+“you’re—”
+
+“You’re too sweet to have to do your own proposing, methinks,” broke in
+Jessie, touching one of the long golden braids that fell from beneath
+the demure little cap of this first edition of women’s rights.
+
+But at sweet Priscilla’s gentle reminder that the first lady of the land
+should not be kept waiting, the merry girls ceased their chatter, did
+their best to assume the decorous manners of the Puritan women, filed
+into line, and were soon in the adjoining room.
+
+Here they were greeted by Dame Brewster, the Elder’s wife, no other than
+Helen, who, in ruffled cap and quaintly flowered gown, excelled even her
+own aspirations to appear like that motherly dame, as in speech of
+quaint wording she made each Mayflower damsel known to Mistress Carver.
+
+After the greetings had been voiced, the first surprise came, and that
+was when the Tike came bounding into the midst of the gentle dames and
+informed them that a cheer fire was blazing on the grass-plot in the
+rear of the Hall. The Pioneers in profound wonder—as they had not
+expected to have a cheer fire—followed Mistress Carver to the garden,
+where a circle was formed around this magic inspirer of cheer, whose
+burning fagots snapped and crackled noisily, as if to do its share in
+the old-time celebration. It was in memory, Grace declared, of the many
+fires that had cheered the settlers in the cold and desolation of the
+new world.
+
+Murmurs of wonder and queries about this mysterious surprise were
+silenced, as some one started a general clapping, a recognition often
+accorded the Pioneers’ cheer star. Then, as they gathered around the
+flaming light, some one suggested that perhaps the Governor’s lady could
+tell as to who was the magic fire-maker.
+
+The lady in question, although disclaiming that she knew who lighted the
+magic inspirer, did finally admit that she could guess who had done it,
+but as that was a privilege that every one had, she had nothing to tell.
+However, the mystery remained unsolved, although some bright one
+ventured to suggest that it might have been the Sport, who was still
+missing, as she delighted to do the unexpected.
+
+Immediately the missing Pioneer began to be eulogized for her clever and
+mysterious absence, as these representatives of hundreds of years ago
+circled about their emblem of cheer and romance. To usher in the first
+ceremony, or, as the girls sometimes called it “the christening of the
+blazer,” some one called for the story-teller to give one of her
+thrillers. This cry was forthwith taken up by the little company, and
+became so imperative that Lillie at last complied with the request, and
+in a few moments was telling, in her usual impressive way, the story of
+those pioneers, the Pilgrim men and women, who fought the first battle
+for liberty and union on the shores of this land.
+
+When Lillie’s story came to an end, she received her usual applause, for
+every one had listened with the closest attention to the account of the
+many pilgrimages of these simple folk from the northeastern countries of
+England. In trying to serve God as they deemed right they had separated
+themselves from the English church and had begun to hold little meetings
+in the village of Scrooby. Hounded by the authorities they finally
+sailed to the low countries, which at that time were considered a place
+of refuge for the oppressed of all nations. They lived one year in
+Amsterdam, meeting for worship near a convent, whose sweet chimes called
+them to a low-ceiled room, where they sung their songs of praise and
+read God’s word.
+
+But their wanderings were not over, and a year later they sailed on one
+of the great waterways of this Dutch land to Leyden. Here they remained
+twelve years in twenty-three humble little homes, built on a plot of
+ground known as the _Koltsteeg_, and called Bell Alley, just across the
+way from the great dome of St. Peter’s church.
+
+Here in this land of foreign tongue their children grew up, learned
+their trades and, alas, many of the ways of these people, especially
+their methods of keeping the Sabbath, which were contrary to the beliefs
+of these God-loving people. It was for this reason as well as for
+others, that they started forth on their wanderings again, and migrated
+to the new land across the sea, sailing in the _Mayflower_ on the
+twenty-second of July, 1620.
+
+Nathalie was somewhat disappointed in the beginning, that she was not to
+hear one of Lillie’s twentieth-century thrillers, but the story of the
+Pilgrims was so interesting that she felt amply repaid for her
+disappointment. Although familiar with their story in this land, she had
+never heard much about the lives of these founders before they came to
+America.
+
+The tale of these ancient folk was rendered even more interesting by
+various interruptions at intervals, as when Dame Brewster read, in
+solemn tone, the Constitution formed by these people in the cabin of the
+_Mayflower_, said to have been written on an old chest, and known as The
+Compact, the first stone in the American Commonwealth.
+
+The Governor’s lady enlivened the tedious voyage over by telling of
+several little incidents that had occurred; one was when the _Mayflower_
+during a severe storm was saved from going to the bottom by some one
+wedging a _kracht_, or jackscrew, in a leak that had suddenly sprung
+amidships.
+
+Little Humility Cooper, one of the children of the _Mayflower_ voyagers,
+an Oriole Pioneer, recited Mrs. Heman’s “Landing of the Pilgrims,” while
+sprightly Mary Chilton told of her race with John Alden to be the first
+one of the little company to step on Plymouth Rock. She added to the
+interest of this recital by giving a short account of this historical
+granite from the day it served as a foundation stone of her victory
+until the present time.
+
+A Bob White told about the first American washday, and the fun the
+children had gathering sweet juniper boughs to build the fires, over
+which hung the tripod from which was suspended the kettles of that
+historic occasion.
+
+Louise Gaynor, as Priscilla, recited parts of Longfellow’s poem, “The
+Courtship of Myles Standish,” with its picturesque account of the most
+romantic happening of the little town, while as Mistress Fuller, Barbara
+described Fort Hill and told about Captain Standish and his sixteen
+valiant men-at-arms who explored the hills and woods of the wilderness.
+
+Kitty Corwin, as another Pilgrim dame, told of the erection of the seven
+little houses with their thatched roofs, built in a row on First, or
+Leyden Street, giving a rather exciting account of the many serious
+accidents that happened to the Common House where the stores and
+ammunition of the community were stored. And so, in picturesque detail,
+each feature of the story was brought forth to form in the minds of
+these twentieth century Pioneers a picture that would last through the
+years that were to follow, and help them gain an insight into the
+characters they were representing.
+
+Elizabeth Winslow, the first wife of the first American statesman, one
+of the first to pass away in the fatal sickness of that lonely winter;
+Mrs. Hopkins, who won fame as the mother of the boy Oceanus, born on the
+_Mayflower_; Bridget Fuller, the wife of the genial Dr. Fuller, and
+others, were all impersonated by some one of the Pioneers.
+
+Even the ghosts, as Grace dubbed them, were heard from: Myles Standish’s
+first wife, known as the beautiful English Rose, who died soon after
+reaching the new land, and Dorothy Bradford, the young wife of William
+Bradford, who came to her death by falling overboard while her husband
+was exploring the shores with Captain Standish and his men.
+
+By the time the story with its variations had been told, the girls,
+tired of posing with old-time stiffness and ceremony, were all laughing
+merrily as some one of the band suddenly spied some comical or grotesque
+aspect of the impersonator, when the Tike screamed shrilly, “Oh, who is
+that?” pointing to a black-draped figure standing in the doorway of the
+hall, with red, perspiring face, hat cocked on one side, and a generally
+bedraggled appearance.
+
+It was the missing Pioneer, Edith, who, after the hubbub had subsided as
+to her untimely appearance and tardy arrival, pulled off her long black
+cloak and threw herself on the grass by the side of Lillie. With gasps
+and sundry emphasizing shrieks she told what had befallen her on the way
+to the Rally.
+
+“Father was ill last night, so the first thing this morning I had to go
+for the doctor. Then as mother was busy attending to Father I had to get
+the youngsters ready,—they were going to a May picnic, for of course,”
+Edith added petulantly, “no matter what happened to me, Mother would not
+have the kiddies disappointed.”
+
+Catching Mrs. Morrow’s reproving eye, she stammered apologetically, “Of
+course, I would not have them disappointed myself—they are dears—but it
+lost me my morning; and then, just as I was hurrying by the gray
+house,—oh, girls—” dropping her voice to a tense whisper, “what do you
+think I heard?”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII—THE MAYFLOWER FEAST
+
+
+The tenseness of Edith’s tone, coupled with her mysterious manner, had
+the desired effect, and the Pioneers all bent forward eagerly with
+expectant eyes, anxious to hear what she had seen and heard, while some
+too impetuous one called out, “Oh, do hurry and tell us what it was!”
+
+“It was the most terrible shriek I ever heard,” answered Edith, with a
+long-drawn sigh. Having succeeded in getting her audience where she
+wanted them she was anxious to prolong her triumph. “Why, my heart
+jumped into my mouth, and I—”
+
+“Where did the noise come from?” inquired practical Helen impatiently,
+who never wasted any time in getting wrought up, as she called it, by
+the Sport’s yarns.
+
+“It came from the garden of the gray house,” was the quick retort; and
+then, crossly, “I do wish, Helen, you would wait—you’ll spoil the whole
+thing if you don’t let me tell it properly.”
+
+Grace, who had been listening intently to the Sport’s recital, looked up
+quickly and encountered a glance from Nathalie’s eyes as she suddenly
+turned from Edith and looked across the circle at Grace to see if she
+had heard. But Grace, whose memory was still rankling with her adventure
+at the gray house, was afraid that if the girls knew they would plague
+her unmercifully for being a runaway, and hastily put her hand on her
+lips in warning not to tell what had happened to them.
+
+Nathalie nodded loyally and then turned to hear Edith repeat, “Yes, the
+noise came from the garden of the gray house, I have always told you
+there was something queer about that place. At first I started to run
+away, and then I thought, ‘O pshaw! whatever it is, it won’t hurt me
+behind those high walls.’ So I walked close up to the wall near one
+corner to see if I could not manage to climb up in some way and look
+into the garden. I had just spied a tiny hole in the lower part of the
+wall—I guess some boys had made it, you know they are always spying
+about that place, anyway—when I heard loud breathing. I looked up and
+saw a man creeping stealthily around the corner of the wall, as if
+dodging some one. Well, I just gave one look at him, he had great black,
+burning kind of eyes, staring out of a face as white as a corpse. He
+suddenly spied me, and by the uncanny glare he gave I knew right off he
+was the one who had been shrieking, he was the crazy man who lives
+there! Great guns! but I didn’t wait to take another look, I took to my
+heels and flew. Then I heard steps thumping behind me—looked back—oh,
+girls,” she shrieked hysterically, “he was chasing me, running after me
+as hard as he could!”
+
+She gulped, and then with a gasp continued, “Oh, for a moment I thought
+I was doomed, but—well—you know I can run, and I did, for my life. I ran
+every step of the way here—and—oh, I’m so hungry! Have you had the feast
+yet?”
+
+“What became of the man?” inquired Helen tersely.
+
+“Oh, yes, what became of him?” added one or two others.
+
+“I don’t know and I don’t care,” asserted Miss Edith carelessly. “All I
+know is that he is as crazy as a loon, and that he lives in the gray
+house.”
+
+“Edith,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow sharply, “as long as you did not see the
+man come from the gray house do not say he lives there; and as for
+saying he is crazy, that is absurd. That is just an idle report; do not
+repeat it until you have proof that what you say is correct. He was
+probably a tramp, and may have been chased from the garden by one of the
+servants.” Mrs. Morrow’s face showed keenly her annoyance and disbelief
+in Edith’s surmise.
+
+“But what could the screams have been?” asked Helen, wonderingly, “if
+they really came from the garden?”
+
+“Oh, I am sure they did,” asserted the Sport positively, “for I have
+heard other people say that they have heard queer noises coming from
+that place. But girls,” she exclaimed, as if anxious to dismiss the
+subject, “do tell me what you have been doing. Oh, I did so hate to miss
+all the fun.”
+
+“Yes, kiddie, it is too bad,” consoled Lillie, putting her arm around
+her friend, “but we have not had the feast yet, we’ve just been
+listening to little stories about the Pilgrims—you know you heard me
+read my story the other day—” she stopped abruptly, for a sudden
+rustling in a clump of trees back of the garden had caused every one to
+turn and peer apprehensively over their shoulders.
+
+“Oh,” shivered the Sport nervously, “perhaps it is the crazy man!” She
+sprang to her feet and made as if to take to her heels again.
+
+Every girl followed her example, and in another moment there would have
+been a wild stampede to the shelter of the hall, if a loud voice had not
+called out, “Welcome, Englishmen! Welcome!”
+
+Simultaneously with these words a lithe form sprang into the midst of
+the terrified girls, who clung to one another with wildly beating hearts
+as with dilated eyes they glared at the intruder, a tall Indian youth,
+resplendent with a feathered head-gear. He was clad in deerskin trousers
+fringed at the seams, a string of hairy scalps hung at his belt, and he
+held a bow and arrow in his hands as he stood and looked down at this
+bevy of frightened colonial maids with a broad smile on his grease
+besmeared face.
+
+There was just a second’s pause, and then Helen shouted merrily, “Oh,
+it’s Teddy Hart, and he’s Samoset! Oh, girls, don’t you remember? He was
+the Indian who came and welcomed the Pilgrims!”
+
+Of course they all remembered, for had not Lillie dealt at length upon
+that very scene when telling her story? And Teddy Hart, why, he was a
+Boy Scout, one of Fred Tyson’s patrol, which was known as the Eagle
+patrol.
+
+This was all that was needed to make the girls forget the crazy man and
+the Sport’s harrowing tale, and they crowded about Teddy crying, “Oh,
+Ted, where did you get the rig?” or, “What made you think of it?” and,
+“Isn’t it the best ever?” This last was from the Tike who was hopping
+about the new arrival examining the hairy scalps—which turned out to be
+a few wigs borrowed from the village barber—with keen curiosity.
+
+“Great Cæsar! give a fellow a chance to breathe, won’t you?” fired the
+make-believe Samoset, as he mopped his face energetically. “Don’t riddle
+me with questions; I’m not a target!”
+
+Yes, this was the second surprise, or the forerunner of it, for before
+Teddy was ready to surrender his place as the hero of the moment, the
+beat of a drum was heard, and from the little bit of woodland where Ted
+had been hiding issued a group of queer-looking individuals. They were
+all attired in somber-colored clothes with broad white collars, high
+conical-shaped hats, and all carried guns and had swords clanking at
+their sides in good impersonation of the Fathers of their country. The
+next moment they had formed in line and with well-simulated solemnity of
+countenance, “as if going to meeting-house,” tittered Grace, these
+sixteen men-at-arms, headed by Capt. Standish—who was no other than Fred
+Tyson—marched valiantly down the street towards the garden.
+
+It was the Sport after all who saved the day for the Pioneers, for as
+they stood in dazed laughter wondering how to greet these unexpected
+guests, the Sport’s hand shot up, and two seconds later the girls had
+joined her in saluting their brother organization, as with one accord
+they gave the Pioneer cheer.
+
+In quick response to a signal from their leader, the Scouts came to a
+halt, and as one man each Scout’s hand went up to his forehead in the
+salute of three ringers held upright. This was followed by another
+cheer, a rousing one this time, as each boy shouted lustily:
+
+  “Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
+  Good turn daily! Shout! Shout! Shout!”
+
+The boys now fell into step again, and in a few moments had entered the
+little wicker gate where they broke ranks as they were cordially
+welcomed by the Governor’s lady and Dame Brewster. For a short space
+following pandemonium reigned, as the boys tried to answer the many
+queries propounded by the girls, each Pioneer, spying some one favorite
+boy, singled him out with merry jest to answer as to the why and
+wherefore of the unlooked for surprise.
+
+Nathalie felt somewhat embarrassed and stood apart from the girls, not
+having met any of the Scouts of the town. Perhaps she was a little
+scornful, for in the city she had been wont to pass a khaki uniform with
+scant approval, considering these emulators of chivalrous knights mere
+boys. Not understanding the aims or purposes of the organization they
+had failed to attract her.
+
+But as she stood watching these tall, well-developed lads with heads
+held high, squared shoulders, and with the ruddy glow of an active life
+in the open on their bright faces, she reluctantly admitted that they
+were interesting to look at, at least.
+
+“Ah, Miss Nathalie, I see you have forgotten me!” spoke a voice at the
+girl’s elbow. She turned quickly to see the laughing brown eyes of Fred
+Tyson. Fred’s face was flushed with embarrassment as he felt somewhat
+timorous as to this city girl’s greeting, since he had last seen her
+walking away from him with flushed cheeks and angry mien as he teasingly
+taunted, “Scare-babies! Scare-babies!”
+
+But Nathalie had forgotten all about that trivial incident—perhaps
+because she had a brother and knew the moods of boys and how they
+delighted to tease and hark at the girls—and she dimpled with cordiality
+as she returned his greeting.
+
+She was soon sparkling with merriment as Fred told of the fun they had
+in rigging up, and the sensation they created as they marched through
+Main Street. By this time the explanations from the boys were over, and
+the secret of the cheer fire was revealed. It had been made by the
+Scouts at the suggestion of Dr. Homer, who was much interested in the
+Pioneers and had planned the two surprises to give a little more tone to
+the celebration and fun to the girls.
+
+The girls now clamored that they were hungry, and at an intimation from
+Mrs. Morrow the Scouts were invited to repair to one of the side rooms
+in the hall, where their Mayflower Feast was to be held.
+
+The invitation was accepted by Fred for the patrol, and the party of
+merry-makers filed noisily into the hall. When the boys saw the Stars
+and Stripes, and the yards of red, white, and blue bunting hanging in
+graceful folds from the walls of the room, they broke into patriotic
+song. “Red, White, and Blue” was first sung in compliment to the Girl
+Pioneers’ colors, and was quickly succeeded by the “Battle Cry of
+Freedom,” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in recognition of the starry
+emblem that symbolizes—more than any design that floats to the wind—the
+uplift of mankind, Liberty, and Union!
+
+A cheery fire of pine knots blazed a greeting from the hearth, while two
+long boards supported on trestles and covered with a shining damask
+cloth, represented the table of Pioneer days. Odd bits of old-time ware,
+such as silver porringers, queer-shaped jugs, or blackjacks, a number of
+wooden bowls, a high-standing salt-cellar, and a pewter tankard, were
+distributed about the table. But it was the flowers that lay in bunches
+here and there—and all May ones, too, from the clusters of white
+snowballs, lilacs, pink and yellow azaleas, to the big bowls filled with
+sprigs of arbutus—that held Nathalie’s eyes.
+
+But flags, antiques, and flowers soon became things of the past, as the
+girls brought forth their lunch-baskets; each one had vied with the
+other to bring some choice edible and with the help of the modern
+knights, who declared that they had come for that purpose, the table was
+loaded with goodies.
+
+Just before the feast was served, Will Ditmas, a fair counterpart of
+William Brewster, the ruling elder of Plymouth, suddenly stood up and,
+after much throat-clearing, announced in a droning voice that if those
+present were willing, for the furtherance of sobriety and seemly
+behavior, he would read a few rules from “A Pretty Little Pocket Book.”
+
+After stonily staring over a pair of goggles at a few irrepressible
+gigglers the would-be Elder read: “Speak not until spoken to; break not
+thy bread, nor bite into a whole slice; take not salt unless with a
+clean knife, and throw no bones under the table.”
+
+Those who were trying to keep their faces straight wavered in the
+attempt and joined the irrepressible Tike in a few hysterical titters as
+he continued: “Hold not thy fork upright, but sloping, lay it down at
+the right hand of the plate, with the end of the blade on the table
+plate, and look not earnestly at any person that is eating.”
+
+This last was the final straw for the Tike, and she giggled so
+unrestrainedly that she threatened hysteria, and Helen had to whack her
+on the back so that she could get her breathing apparatus in working
+order again. This ebullition was like a match to fire, and all those who
+had been smothering their mirth now broke forth into loud laughter,
+which threatened to become clamorous had not Mrs. Morrow held up her
+restraining finger.
+
+The signal was too well known not to be obeyed, and the too mirthful
+ones were recalled to themselves. Then, too, they were all hungry; so
+forgetting the old-time admonitions of their forebears, they were soon
+occupied satisfying their hunger.
+
+After the left-over goodies had been gathered into baskets to be
+delivered to a poor family, and the place was set in order again, the
+chivalrous knights and the emulating Pioneers swarmed merrily into the
+dance hall, where they held high court to the light fantastic as Mrs.
+Morrow, the one-piece orchestra, rattled off ragtime harmony for round
+and square dances.
+
+Nathalie by this time had met a number of the Scouts, and to her
+surprise found that some of them danced as well as, and in some cases
+better than her boy friends in the city. The would-be Elder, who had
+droned the rules from the pocket book, proved not only a good dancer,
+but most companionable, and finding that Nathalie was sadly ignorant as
+to the aims and purposes of the Scout organization, he set forth to
+enlighten her.
+
+He took off his Scout badge, pointed out the eagle, and the stars and
+shield, explaining that it was a trefoil badge and represented the three
+points in the Scout oath. The curl-up at the end of the scroll was a
+reminder to each Scout that the corners of his mouth should always be
+turned up in a smile of cheerfulness. The knot in the loop was a
+“conscience pricker,” as he expressed it, that a Scout was pledged to do
+some one a good turn every day.
+
+The next dance was Fred Tyson’s, and when it ended they seated
+themselves in a corner of the hall to cool off, and as Nathalie fanned
+herself with a much bedraggled handkerchief, they hit upon a topic that
+proved most entertaining, and that was—college. Fred stated that he
+expected to go to Dartmouth in the fall and was therefore looking
+forward to it with much pleasure.
+
+Nathalie, with sparkling eyes, told how she had dreamed and longed to go
+to college, and then the golden lights in her eyes shadowed as she said
+that since the death of her father she had decided to stop dreaming
+about what was impossible for her, and to do something worth while, so
+she had become a Pioneer.
+
+“But don’t you think it worth while to go to college?” was Fred’s
+puzzled query, “for surely there is nothing that will help a girl more
+in life than to have—what is it—the higher education?”
+
+“Yes, I know,” assented his companion, “that is all right, but when one
+finds that they can’t have a thing—no matter how big or grand it is, or
+how much they want it—if it is impossible, it ceases to be worth while;
+that is, why spend time lamenting, or thinking about something that
+can’t be accomplished?”
+
+“Why, you are a regular little philosopher!” laughed Fred. But Nathalie
+was not heeding, for suddenly looking across the room she perceived that
+the dancers had retired from the floor, all but the Pioneers, who were
+standing in two lines in the center of the room facing one another as if
+about to dance the Virginia Reel.
+
+“Oh, what are they going to do?” she cried, but before her companion
+could answer Helen came running up.
+
+“Come on, Nathalie, we are going to dance the Pioneer dance. It’s lots
+of fun.”
+
+“But I don’t know it,” objected the girl. “I am not going to make a show
+of myself before all these boys.”
+
+“Oh, but you won’t,” urged Helen, “for you can be my partner, and I will
+tell you as we go along; and then its awfully simple, for we just go
+through the motions of pioneer handcraft—”
+
+“Pioneer handcraft?” echoed Nathalie more puzzled than before.
+
+“Yes, don’t you remember what Mrs. Morrow told us about the handcrafts
+of the Pioneer women? Well, she made up this dance to make these crafts
+definite. Oh, come, it is easy!” In a moment, Nathalie’s objection being
+overruled, she bade Fred good-by and was hurried by her partner to join
+one of the two lines on the floor.
+
+Only a few explanations were necessary, and Nathalie, who was quick to
+learn, joined her voice to the girlish ones singing:
+
+  “Singing, ringing thro’ the air
+  Comes the song of Molly fair.
+  Milking, milking Crumple Horn
+  Down in the barn at early dawn.”
+
+As the song ended, the closed right hand of every Girl Pioneer was held
+out in front, elbow bent upward. Then came three movements up and down
+in imitation of the act of churning. This was done three times, as in
+chorus came:
+
+  “Churning, turning, see it splash,
+  This way, that way, with a dash.”
+
+As the next two lines rang out:
+
+  “Skimming skimming foamy white,
+  Making the butter golden bright,”
+
+the motions were changed to those of skimming milk, repeated three times
+as in the previous movement, the girls emphasizing the end of each
+movement by stamping the feet, using first one and then the other. They
+ended this last motion by each girl placing her hands on her hips and
+tripping in line with the others lightly down the room in time with the
+music and then back to place.
+
+A second of time, and each dancer was making the motion of holding a
+baby in her encircled arms, and while swaying to and fro these words
+were softly crooned:
+
+  “Golden slumber kiss your eyes,
+  Smiles awake you when you rise.
+  Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry,
+  And I will sing a lullabye.”
+
+Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl faced her opposite
+partner, and then linking hands together they were rocking a cradle as
+they joyously warbled:
+
+  “Baby is a sailor boy, swing, cradle, swing;
+  Sailing is the sailor’s joy, swing, cradle, swing.”
+
+Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room and back again to place,
+where this time they formed in rows of three in each line. A crash of
+chords from the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched
+left hand, and made the motion of taking something with the right hand
+from the closed left, and casting it on the ground, as they repeated
+clearly and loudly:
+
+  “Good flax and good hemp to have of her own,
+  In May, a good housewife will see that it is sown.
+  And afterwards trim it to serve in a need,
+  The fimble to spin, the card from her reel.”
+
+Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers had done
+hundreds of years ago—a sign of a thrifty housewife. Now came three
+claps of the hand and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each
+performer now lightly put forward the right foot, poised on the ball of
+the left one, while making the motion as of moving the treadle of a
+spinning-wheel, as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping
+every moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup fastened to the
+distaff.
+
+[Illustration: “Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen.]
+
+“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen as leader of the dance, and
+then came the old-fashioned couplet softly hummed:
+
+  “Count your threads right,
+  If you reel in the night
+  When I am far away.”
+
+Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count
+your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung
+into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately
+measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy
+that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of
+early days.
+
+Now they are singing:
+
+  “Twice a year deplumed may they be
+  In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,”
+
+as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up something with her
+left hand while the right flew up and down with noiseless
+regularity—plucking a goose for dinner.
+
+The next instant every alternate girl had put her hand over her mouth in
+the form of a horn and was calling loudly, “Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple
+Horn!” This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation when each
+fair dancer caught up the hem of her apron and, bending forward, with
+well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the
+ground which was quickly thrust into her apron. Another flash of white
+arms, and each girl had caught up the hem of her neighbor’s gown and
+with a pretended switch was driving her forward while merrily singing:
+
+  “Driving in twilight the waiting cows home,
+  With arms full-laden with hemlock boughs,
+  To be traced on a broom ere the coming day
+  From its eastern chamber should dance away.”
+
+As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into line and marched
+around the room as if carrying muskets, that is, women’s muskets,
+brooms.
+
+Once more in row, each girl pretended she was holding a card with one
+hand, while drawing another card softly, but swiftly across the first.
+This was done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:
+
+  “Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy
+  Two heads on one body.”
+
+“Now we are imitating the motions of carding wool,” Helen whispered
+softly to Nathalie. “Niddy-noddy means the old-fashioned hand-reel used
+in the days when there were no machines.”
+
+The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were dancing the Virginia
+Reel, spinning each other around with the vigor and vim of young hearts
+as a prelude to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing, taking
+their stitches with a precision and handiness that rivalled the little
+maids of Puritan days. With a posture as of holding a wooden frame,
+while in and out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with
+quaint precision:
+
+  “Lola Standish is my name.
+  Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy will,
+  And fill my Hands with such convenient skill
+  As will conduce to Virtue void of shame,
+  And I will give the Glory to thy name.”
+
+Only a space of time and the samplers were dropped, and each girl grew
+strangely still, with bent head and listening ears. With eyes flaming in
+a fixed stare she poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.
+They stood for a moment in this pose as each one present grasped the
+idea that they were doing the deed that many a Pioneer woman had bravely
+done in those early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard over
+the home from the relentless ravages of the red man!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII—THE MOTTO, “I CAN”
+
+
+A few days after the Pilgrim Rally, as Nathalie lay in the hammock
+dreaming day dreams as she was wont to do, her mother came and seated
+herself in a low chair near by.
+
+Nathalie turned, and then with a quick movement sat up as she asked
+anxiously, “Oh, Mother, has anything happened?”
+
+“I should say ‘anything’ has happened,” ejaculated Dick, who was
+lounging near, ignoring his mother’s gesture to be silent, “for your
+mother has been chief cook and bottle-washer all day!”
+
+Nathalie, who had been off on a Pioneer demonstration most of the day,
+showed her dismay as she exclaimed, “Oh, where is Ophelia?”
+
+Mrs. Page’s worry lines deepened as she answered, “Oh, she is ill. She
+has been complaining for some days, and when she begged to be allowed to
+go home this morning I did not have the heart to refuse her. Poor thing!
+she looked the embodiment of woe!”
+
+“But isn’t she coming back?” inquired alarmed Nathalie.
+
+“Not for several days,” was the answer, as Mrs. Page leaned wearily back
+in her chair.
+
+“But can’t we get some one to help us?” demanded her daughter
+insistently.
+
+“Dorothy went to the colored settlement, but could not get any one.
+Colored people don’t like to work in warm weather, and I don’t blame
+them,” her mother added in an undertone, “for standing over a fire in
+this heat is terrible.”
+
+“Oh, what shall we do?” thought Nathalie ruefully, as she saw a pile of
+unwashed dishes confronting her. But a cheery “Hello?” caused her to
+look up to see her friend, with dust-brush in hand, cleaning the window
+shutters of the neighboring house. With gripping force she suddenly
+realized how useful Helen was, and the numerous things she managed to do
+to help her mother, notwithstanding the many hours she was compelled to
+spend at the stenography school.
+
+Nathalie twisted about in the hammock; somehow it did not seem as
+comfortable as it did before her mother had come. Her sky visions had
+departed, and in their place had come the thought that she ought to help
+her mother. Oh, but dish-washing was degrading, such greasy work. She
+glanced down at her slim, white hands as if they would aid her in this
+argument with self.
+
+“Oh, why do people have to do the very things they hate?” she questioned
+rebelliously as she arose from her comfortable position and with a
+long-drawn sigh started to enter the house.
+
+“You have dropped your book!” exclaimed her mother as she stooped and
+picked up the Pioneer manual that had fallen from Nathalie’s lap and
+handed it to her.
+
+“Thank you,” returned the girl and then, with a pang of regret as she
+noted her mother’s weary eyes, she bent and kissed her.
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry you had to work so hard!” she cried impulsively.
+“Isn’t there something I can do to help?” She almost wished her mother
+would say no.
+
+“Not now,” replied her mother with a brighter expression than she had
+worn, “but perhaps you can help me later—when I get dinner.”
+
+“All right,” returned her daughter with forced cheerfulness. As she
+entered the hall her eyes were caught by the word “Pioneer” in big,
+black letters on the manual. Reminded by the name that flaunted itself
+so determinedly before her, she remembered that she was a Pioneer, that
+she had taken vows upon herself, and that in order to keep these vows
+she should do the very things, perhaps, that she hated to do. This new
+thought jarred her uncomfortably as she hurried up to her room and began
+to make herself cool and comfortable after a rather strenuous morning
+spent in trying her hand at the many new interests that had come to her
+as a Pioneer.
+
+But somehow she was haunted, as it were, by the thought that she was not
+making a good beginning as a Pioneer; oh, yes, being a Pioneer did not
+mean all play, or even doing the things that were interesting, or that
+one liked to do, those were the Director’s words that morning. The more
+one gives up or overcomes in order to do and accomplish the demands made
+upon her as a Pioneer, the greater the victory. She picked up the manual
+from the bureau and began to turn its leaves aimlessly, and then she
+halted, for two very small words held her eyes, “I can!” why, that was
+the Pioneer motto—the one Lillie Bell had mentioned when she told of the
+picked chicken. She would read the laws!
+
+“A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy.” Oh, Nathalie was sure she was that.
+“Helpful,” her conscience pricked sharply. Was she helpful if she didn’t
+try and do all she could to help her mother? “O dear,” she ruminated, “I
+am shying at the first ‘overcome.’” She remembered that Mrs. Morrow had
+said all the disagreeable things that one didn’t want to do, but did in
+the end, were “overcomes.”
+
+“Kind—” she heaved a sigh, well, she was afraid she hadn’t been very
+kind the other day when she had answered Lucille so sharply, but she was
+trying, and the hasty retort would slip out; she would have to put a
+button on her lips as her mother often told her.
+
+“Reverent,” her religion taught her that. “Happy,” not always, for how
+could one be happy when life had been full of disappointments? Her eyes
+saddened as she thought of Dick, who was so patiently waiting for
+something to turn up, so that he could have the operation on his knee.
+Poor fellow! she had felt like crying the other day when she heard him
+telling how he had written to a law firm in the city in the hope that he
+could get some copying to do so that he could earn some money.
+
+“Happiness does not always mean having what we want; it is being
+contented with what we have,” that was another of Mrs. Morrow’s
+interpretations of the Pioneer laws. “Cheerful,” here Nathalie broke
+into a laugh, quite sure she was always cheerful when she had the things
+she wanted. “There!” she cried aloud, “I am not going to read any more
+of those laws, for if I am to—” she stooped, for the manual had fallen
+to the floor. As she picked it up she again encountered the words, “I
+can.”
+
+“I can!” she repeated once or twice mechanically. Then her face lighted,
+as if the meaning of the words had suddenly flashed themselves clear of
+the thoughts that had been revolving in her mind.
+
+“But what can I do?” she continued doubtingly.
+
+“You can wash the dishes for your mother in the morning so that she can
+read her morning paper,” some one seemed to whisper. She started. “And
+you can get up and get breakfast the way Helen does when her mother is
+not feeling well,” this time the some one spoke very loudly.
+
+“Oh, but I can’t cook, nobody would eat my breakfast,” she thought,
+still holding back.
+
+“But if you are a Pioneer you should learn to do these things.” She
+frowned as if to brush aside an unpleasant thought.
+
+“Yes, I suppose I can do these things,” she reluctantly admitted after a
+moment’s thought. “O dear—I have been lamenting that I had no purpose in
+life, that I was just drifting. I cried the other day because Mother
+said my talents were gilt-edged. ‘Yes, I Can,’” suddenly broke from her.
+“I’m going to begin right now, too; I’ll show Mother that I am not a
+gilt-edge drifter. I’ll learn to cook—oh, I’ll just make myself do those
+horrible, horrible things—I’ll show you, Miss I Can, so there!” She
+hastily wiped away the tears that would come, and then, as was her wont
+after a mental conflict, she began to sing. A few moments later she was
+down in the kitchen hustling about, seeing what there was for dinner.
+
+A steak, oh, yes, she knew how to broil that—and potatoes—oh, they were
+easy! The next minute she had seated herself before the kitchen table,
+and as she peeled the potatoes she sang with unwonted animation:
+
+  “We stick to work until it’s done
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
+  We never from our duty run,
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
+  We learn to cook, to sew, to mend
+  To sweep, to dust, to clean, to tend,
+  And always willing hands to lend.”
+
+As she paused to think how she could manage the next vegetable, Mrs.
+Page entered, showing amazement as she saw what her daughter was doing,
+for full well she knew that Nathalie disliked anything in the way of
+housework.
+
+“Why, Nathalie!” she exclaimed, “you need not do that. I will get
+dinner; there is not so much to do, for Felia made some pies yesterday,
+and with a steak, thank goodness! there will not be much to cook.”
+
+“Now, see here, Mumsie,” cried the new housewife, flourishing her knife
+menacingly at her mother, “I am chief of this ranch. You have lamented
+that I was just a gilt-edged doll, now I’m going to show you I’m not.
+I’m a Pioneer, and I’m going to learn everything useful. Now be off!” As
+her mother protested there ensued a little wrestling-match in which the
+girl came off victor, and Mrs. Page, subdued into meekness, retired to
+the veranda, somewhat relieved to think she could rest awhile.
+
+As Nathalie snuggled down to sleep that night—she was so tired she could
+hardly keep her eyes open—she felt supremely happy, for she had cooked
+dinner all by herself. To be sure Dick had growled and claimed the steak
+was burnt, and Lucille had volunteered the information that Felia never
+mashed her potatoes that way, but it made no difference to the happy
+Blue Robin—as Dick had called her—for she was pleased to think that for
+once in her life she had helped. Of course, Mother had laughed at her
+blunders, but it was in the old happy way that she used to do when Papa
+had been with them.
+
+Next morning Nathalie awoke with a start, she smiled drowsily at some
+passing remembrance of the day before, and then turned over for a beauty
+nap. Suddenly she sat up with eyes keen and alert; if she was to be maid
+of all work that day she must get at her job. In fifteen minutes she was
+creeping stealthily down the kitchen stairs with her shoes in her hands,
+so as not to awaken her mother.
+
+Oh! the fire was out; that was a difficulty she had not taken into
+calculation. For a moment she was tempted to crawl up those stairs and
+leave the fire to the next one who discovered it. Oh, but that would not
+do at all. She didn’t know how to make a fire, but the words “I can,”
+made her close her mouth determinedly, and in a few moments clouds of
+rising smoke attested that she was learning. But alas, the smoke soon
+drifted into space, and the blaze disappeared in a mass of black paper!
+
+Nathalie’s tears came at this; oh, why would not that wood catch fire?
+Tried to the soul, she went to the window and gazed through a mist of
+tears at the dew sparkling on bush and grass. A low, sweet whistling
+caused her to look up to see Helen, as fresh as a new-blown rose,
+throwing open the shutters of her room.
+
+Nathalie pursed up her lips and then broke into a “Tru-al-lee!”
+
+Helen glanced down quickly, her eyes lighted, and then came a quick Bob
+White call that sounded much like “More wet! More wet!” In another
+instant she was down on the porch calling merrily to her friend, “Oh,
+Nathalie, how are you this morning?”
+
+Nathalie dimpled cheerily. “Oh, fine!” making a dab at her eyes, “but at
+my wits’ end trying to make a fire. Will you tell me why it will insist
+upon going out? It is maddening! I have lighted it six times.”
+
+“What, you making a fire?” said Helen, and then, “Just wait a moment and
+I will come over and see what is wrong.”
+
+Under Helen’s nimble fingers the brown paper was taken out, the fire-pot
+filled with loosely wrapped newspaper, small sticks laid crisscross, a
+few larger ones on top, and then a match applied. Like magic the tiny
+blue flame sputtered, caught hold of an edge of paper, and then in a few
+moments a blazing fire was seething and swirling. Nathalie, in exuberant
+joy, seized her friend and the two girls waltzed merrily around the
+kitchen.
+
+Of course Nathalie knew how to make toast, but when Helen showed her how
+to hold it over the coals until it was a golden-brown, butter it while
+hot, and then cut off the scraggly edges and a rim of crust, she
+realized that toast-making was indeed a domestic science. Scrambled eggs
+came next, simple, but deliciously done, as her friend showed her. Then
+came putting the coffee in the percolator with the water heated beneath
+by the tiny alcohol lamp, thus drawing from the beverage the most
+nutritious qualities, Helen declared, without injuring one’s digestion.
+
+But the grape-fruit—that was another new thing learned—was prepared the
+way Helen said a trained nurse had taught her, one time when her mother
+was ill. It was cut in half, the pulp dug out with a spoon into a cup or
+saucer, and after the pith had been removed, chopped finely, returned to
+shell, and then sugared and put on the ice. But perhaps the best part of
+helping Mother that morning was when, after striking the Japanese gong
+eight bells, Nathalie arrayed herself in Felia’s freshly laundered cap
+and apron and stationed herself back of her mother’s chair to serve
+breakfast.
+
+How pleased and surprised her mother was! Dick “Blue Robined” her again,
+while Lucille patronizingly exclaimed, “Oh, Nathalie, you make a swell
+maid—and how smart you are getting!”
+
+Just before dinner, Helen appeared again, and taught her how to make
+soup from a few boiled bones and a chunk of meat, a few left-over
+tomatoes, and a bit of onion and seasoning. She taught her to broil a
+steak,—this time without a burnt speck—how to make white sauce for some
+left-over fish, how to scrape new potatoes economically, and the right
+way to cook peas. Then came a delicious dessert of stale pieces of cake
+and canned peaches, laid in layers with beaten cream, and topped off
+with little white pigs, as Nathalie called the tiny bits of egg froth
+floating on its surface. Truly, it was a dinner fit for a king!
+
+After dinner her sensitive soul rebelled at the pile of greasy dishes,
+but the task grew lighter when Helen showed her how to make the water
+hot and soapy, using a lot of dried bits of soap that Nathalie was going
+to throw away, by sewing them in cheese-cloth bags. She washed the
+glasses and silver first, then the china, and then—oh, horrors—the pots!
+But when the new Pioneer saw how her friend put them on to boil, thus
+doing away with so much grease, it was a revelation. And when the
+dish-towels were washed and hung out in the sun to sweeten, and the sink
+was scrubbed with a brush and a cleansing soap, Nathalie was again
+forced to admit that she had mastered another household science.
+
+Oh, no, it wasn’t all plain sailing—the world isn’t run that way—and the
+new Pioneer’s back, eyes, and feet made themselves forcibly known before
+she went to bed that night. Many a time she had had to grit her teeth,
+summon Miss I Can to her side, and with forced determination go on with
+the job; but after all, she declared, as she turned out the light, “I
+have helped Mother!” and then sleep claimed the tired girl.
+
+When Saturday morning came, however, and no Felia made her appearance
+according to promise, Nathalie’s face grew somber, and she could not
+help going to the door every few minutes to see if she were not in
+sight, for she had planned to go on a bird-hike that morning with the
+Pioneers to learn bird-calls. As the clock struck nine she dropped her
+broom—she was sweeping the kitchen—and rushed to her room. Here she wept
+copiously for a while in her clothes closet with her head buried in the
+skirts of her dresses, so no one could hear, and then she heard her
+mother calling her.
+
+She dried her eyes guiltily, scrubbed her face to brush away all trace
+of tears, and then answered blithely, “Here I am, Mumsie, I’m coming
+right down to finish the kitchen.” When she came tearing down the stairs
+she found the kitchen swept and garnished, and lo! there stood Mother
+with big, surprised eyes pointing to Lucille, who, as she caught sight
+of her cousin, bobbed her head and dropped a curtsy, crying, “Sure,
+ma’am, it’s a new job I’m afther takin’ on meself, but do yez see the
+loikes of it for the claneness?”
+
+Nathalie gave one bewildered stare, and then a merry peal of laughter
+broke from her, seconded with a minor note from her mother, and with a
+bass accompaniment added by Dick, as he entered and sensed the
+situation. Yes, Miss I Can must have caught Lucille in her meshes, too,
+for that young lady, generally so dainty in her labor preferences, had
+condescended to sweep the kitchen.
+
+“Well,” she explained apologetically, “I was jealous of the praise
+bestowed upon Nathalie, and thought I’d show you folks that people can
+do things even if they are not Blue Robins.”
+
+“Oh, Lucille, you aren’t a Blue Robin, you’re a duck of a dear,” bubbled
+Nathalie as she hugged her cousin rapturously. “It was just lovely of
+you. But Mother, did you know what she was doing?”
+
+“No, I did not,” rejoined Mrs. Page; “I thought it was you working all
+by yourself and came in to help, as I knew you wanted to go on the hike.
+But before you go, dear,” she added anxiously, “I want you to go down to
+Felia’s and see how she is. If she is not coming back by Monday you will
+have to hunt around for a washerwoman; the clothes can’t go another
+week.”
+
+An hour later, Nathalie, delighted to think she could take a day off
+with a clear conscience, hurried in the direction of Ophelia’s little
+gray shanty; but to her surprise, as she came near the door she heard a
+loud wailing and the confused hum of several voices.
+
+As she entered the stuffy parlor hung with gay colored prints and
+dingy-looking chromos, she found Ophelia seated in a rocking chair with
+her face buried in a gingham apron, wailing and crying hysterically.
+Pushing her way through the crowd of sympathizing friends, Nathalie
+grabbed the arm of a colored woman who stood by Felia’s side crying,
+“Oh, please, won’t you tell me what’s the matter?”
+
+“Sure, Miss,” respectfully answered the woman, wiping a tear from her
+eye. “It’s little Rosy, she’s lost—we can’t find her—ah, honey, don’t
+take on so!” she ended, turning towards the grieving mother and giving
+her a caressing pat on the shoulder. “Surely some one will find her.”
+
+Nathalie now stepped to Felia’s side and pulled her gently by the
+sleeve, determined to get some definite information about black Rosebud,
+as Dick called the little pickaninny who had often come to the house
+with her mother, and who, being a bright child, had become a prime
+favorite. “Ophelia, please tell me about your trouble!” insisted the
+girl. “Is Rosy surely lost?”
+
+“She lost sure nuff, Missy, down at de bottom of de pond,” quavered
+Felia’s mother dismally, an aged negress standing by the side of her
+daughter, as she rolled up her eyes until the whites looked like saucers
+on a shelf. “I’se gwine to tell you de trufe—dat chile is drowned. Oh, I
+see her face a-shinin’ in de water—”
+
+Her horrible prognostication as to Rosy’s woeful fate was terminated by
+her daughter’s renewed wails of anguish, as she again began to rock
+herself to and fro with redoubled force.
+
+“Oh,” thought Nathalie, frowning angrily in the direction of the old
+mammy, “I do wish she would stop.” Then she cried, “Oh, Felia, don’t cry
+so—I am sure she will be found—perhaps she is at one of the neighbors’
+houses, you know she is fond of visiting.”
+
+There was such sympathetic concern in the girl’s voice that Felia
+desisted from her lamentations long enough to cry, “Oh, Miss Natty, she
+done go and get lost—she ain’t nowhere hereabouts!” Then in answer to
+further questioning she said that the child had been seen just before
+dark picking posies over in a meadow with several children, but when
+bedtime came she could not be found.
+
+“Has any one looked for her?” demanded Nathalie, turning towards the
+group of colored women as poor Felia went back to her apron wailing
+pitifully, “I’se gwine promise yo’, Lord, if yo’ bring my baby back,
+I’ll never get mad with her again. I’ll promise sure—” but the rest of
+Felia’s prayer was lost as the women crowded around Nathalie and eagerly
+explained that Dan Washington, Paul Jones, and Abe Smith had searched
+the town for her. They had been up all night, but when morning came had
+to return to their jobs, and there was no one looking for her at that
+time.
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry, Felia!” sympathized Nathalie again to the weeping
+mother. Then, after asking if the town authorities had been notified,
+she decided to hasten home, knowing that she could not get any one to
+promise to work for her at that time.
+
+“Oh, it is too bad!” she lamented as she hurried down Main Street. “It
+does seem as if some one ought to be searching for her now, why the poor
+child may be injured or something!” Her too vivid imagination pictured
+her, not down at the bottom of the pond, as mammy had done, but crying
+piteously of fear and hunger in some lonely place. “I suppose the police
+in this town will take some hours to get on to the job, as Dick says.”
+She suddenly paused and her eyes shone with a bright light. She wrinkled
+her brow thoughtfully a moment as if going over something in her mind,
+and then with the glad cry, “Oh, I know we can do it—it will be just the
+thing!” She broke into a run as if her sudden inspiration would escape
+her if she did not hurry.
+
+With good speed she soon reached the house, hurriedly told her mother
+what had befallen Rosy and the condition she had found things in at the
+negro settlement, and then, telling her she would be back in a few
+moments, she flew post-haste across the road to Mrs. Morrow’s house.
+Here the Pioneers with eager, expectant faces were all talking
+animatedly, their brown uniforms, red ties, and broad-brimmed hats
+suggestive of the good time in store for them.
+
+“Oh, here she comes!” sang out Helen, as she spied Nathalie hastening up
+the path towards the veranda. “Why, where have you been? We began to
+think you were not coming.”
+
+“I had to go on an errand for Mother!” Then with glowing eyes she told
+them of the visit to the colored settlement and about the lost Rosy, the
+grief of her mother, and how there was no one looking for the child.
+“Oh, girls,” she ended in a quiver of excitement, “let’s give up the
+bird-hike for to-day, and see if we cannot find little Rosy!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX—SEARCHING FOR ROSY
+
+
+An oppressive silence followed, while each girl looked blankly at her
+neighbor. The new Pioneer’s face flushed, and her eager, excited eyes
+shadowed, as she quickly realized that in her eagerness to follow the
+law of kindliness she had been too officious. She stood in dismayed
+embarrassment, the chill of an unpleasant surprise benumbed her. With a
+faint hope she turned her eyes appealingly towards Helen, surely her
+level head and kind heart would prompt her to second her. Helen caught
+the look and smiled faintly.
+
+Edith, who was always the first one to either second or down a
+proposition, broke the silence by exclaiming in an aggrieved tone, “Why,
+the idea, Nathalie Page! we can’t give up the bird-hike, we’ve all
+brought our lunches!”
+
+“I should say not,” interposed Lillie Bell with flashing eyes. “Why, it
+would take the whole morning, and there could be no hike for to-day, and
+next week I can’t go, I—”
+
+“Oh, they have probably found the child by this time!” ventured Barbara
+North, to Nathalie’s surprise, as she had always found her of a kindly
+nature.
+
+“Well, _I_ for _one_ don’t think it is our place to look for the child,
+anyway,” asserted Jessie, decisively. “Let the men of the town do it.
+There are three policemen hanging around all day with nothing to do.”
+
+Nathalie’s cheeks had lost their pink bloom; her face stiffened as she
+retorted coolly, “Well, just as you please, I see I have made a
+mistake.” She nerved herself. “I thought kindliness was one of the laws
+of the organization, and it seemed to me that our pleasure was to take a
+secondary place when we had an opportunity to do a kind act. If you had
+seen the poor mother sobbing—”
+
+“Oh, fiddle!” ejaculated Lillie, “those colored people are all emotion;
+their sobs don’t count for much. I agree with Jessie that the
+townspeople should send out a search party, and I for one refuse to give
+up the hike. Who’s on my side?” she ended abruptly, turning and facing
+the group.
+
+“I!” and “I!” shouted several voices at once in answer.
+
+Nathalie backed towards the edge of the veranda. “I seem to be in the
+minority,” she said with assumed indifference, although her heart was
+beating in double-quick time, for something had whispered, “They are
+very rude, I would resign immediately.” But this suggestion was bravely
+silenced by the thought, “No, I will not be as small as that, I will
+show I do not care.”
+
+“There must be some one who thinks as I do,” she ended resolutely,
+wishing that she could run from this affront to her sensitiveness.
+
+“I am with you, Nathalie!” suddenly cried Helen, walking towards her
+friend and putting her arm around her.
+
+Grace looked at the bevy of girls who had bunched together, then at the
+faces of her two friends. In a faint voice she asserted lamely, “And I,
+Nathalie, I didn’t stop to think—”
+
+“And, Nathalie, you can count me on your side!” broke in a voice at this
+moment. The girls, alert at the prospect of a division in the group,
+turned quickly to see Mrs. Morrow place herself by the side of Nathalie,
+taking her hand as she did so and giving it a cordial squeeze.
+
+Nathalie’s color came racing back and her heart leaped with joy. Ah,
+then she had not been too officious, after all! She turned to see the
+girls standing in embarrassed silence with shamed eyes and uncertain
+mien. But Lillie, who was generally the spokesman of the group when
+Helen was on the opposite side, cried somewhat pertly, “Why, Mrs.
+Morrow, do you think it is our place to go and hunt for that colored
+child? I should think it was the duty of the townspeople to look after
+those things.”
+
+“That is not the question,” replied the Director coldly. “As Nathalie
+said, kindliness is one of the basic laws of the organization. We should
+be poor Pioneers indeed if we saw a man drowning and then stood and
+argued as to whether it was our place to save him or not. Nathalie, I
+commend you not only for your kind suggestion, but for having the real
+pioneer courage in maintaining what you believed to be right. You have
+shown yourself a true Blue Robin and I am proud of you. Now, girls, we
+will put it to a vote. Those of you who want to go on the hike, up with
+their hands.” Not a hand was raised.
+
+Mrs. Morrow’s face brightened as she cried laughingly, “Now who wants to
+join a search-party with Nathalie as captain, and see if they can find
+little Rosebud?”
+
+Every hand flew up, and there was a general cry of, “I do! I do!”
+
+“Well, girls,” said Mrs. Morrow kindly, as her eyes traveled from face
+to face, “I see you have repented of the error of your way. Let
+Nathalie’s example inspire you!”
+
+“Oh, I guess we just didn’t stop to think!” broke forth Barbara, with
+shamed eyes.
+
+“Well, when one has made up her mind to do a thing she would be a saint
+to give it up without a fuss,” remarked Lillie. “Of course, Nathalie was
+all right, but she had had time to think it all out and we hadn’t!”
+
+“A good explanation, Lillie,” answered Mrs. Morrow, “but I hope you have
+all learned a lesson. Now, Nathalie, make your suggestions and we’ll get
+to work.”
+
+The new Pioneer had already divided the girls into two sections, with
+Helen as one leader, and Lillie Bell as the other. It did hurt a little
+to give Lillie the first place after she had spoken as she had, but
+Nathalie realized her worth, and then, too, she did not want to show any
+resentment. “You see,” she explained, “I am only a dummy captain, for I
+am not as familiar with the town as the rest of you are, and there will
+be no time lost in making false moves.”
+
+“That is a very sensible decision, Nathalie,” nodded Mrs. Morrow, “but
+the question is where to look first!”
+
+“Suppose we go down to the settlement, make a survey, and get our
+bearings?” voiced Helen.
+
+“Good, Helen, that is just the thing!” acquiesced the Director, as the
+girls at her suggestion hurriedly deposited their lunch-boxes in the
+hall, while Nathalie ran over to tell her mother her plans.
+
+In a few moments the would-be searchers started, each girl equipped with
+her staff, while the two leaders triumphantly displayed their whistles,
+which they claimed would be of great help if any of the party got lost
+and their voices did not carry.
+
+It did not take long to reach Felia’s shanty, and as Nathalie ran in to
+tell her that the Pioneers were going to hunt for Rosy, the rest of the
+party gazed with quick, alert eyes first in one direction and then in
+the other.
+
+“I should not be surprised if the child had wandered away looking for
+flowers,” remarked Mrs. Morrow, suddenly remembering what Nathalie had
+said the child was doing when she was last seen.
+
+“But where would she be apt to go?” inquired Nathalie, who had returned
+in time to hear Mrs. Morrow’s remark.
+
+“Why, to the woods!” retorted Helen quickly, and her eyes lighted in
+sudden thought as they dwelt on a green belt of woodland that loomed
+against the sky on the opposite side of the road.
+
+“Don’t you think she might have strayed down the hill?” questioned
+Nathalie, pointing to a pond shimmering in the sun at the bottom of a
+knoll near-by. “Poor Mammy is quite sure she is drowned and lies at the
+bottom of the pond.”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you what we can do,” spoke up Lillie, “I’ll take my
+squad and search down by the pond, and Helen and the rest of you can go
+over to the woods; somehow I’m with Mammy, for all children love to
+paddle in the water.”
+
+Lillie’s suggestion was a timely one, and as she, Grace, Jessie, and a
+few Orioles disappeared over the slope of the hill, Helen and Nathalie,
+as the advance guard, hurried across the road and into the cool recesses
+of the woods. As they hastened onward every girl’s eyes were alert,
+watchfully peering behind every bush and tree as they stumbled over
+gnarled roots and broken stumps in their efforts to reach some shaded
+nook, or lichen-covered rock dimly seen in the shadows of the trees.
+
+Helen proved an efficient leader and did not hesitate to keep her
+followers busy, as she sent first one and then the other to look here or
+there, determined not to miss a nook or spot where the child might be
+hidden. Every now and then some of the party would give a bird call, or
+Helen’s whistle would reverberate sharply through the swaying pines.
+
+But Mrs. Morrow, whose strength began to waver, finally suggested to
+Nathalie and Edith, who had been acting as her body-guard, that they
+rest for a few minutes. Spying a decayed tree-trunk that had fallen
+across the damp, spongy earth a few feet away, they seated themselves
+upon it.
+
+“Oh, I’m really tired!” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, for she had proved as
+indefatigable as the girls in searching, thinking, she declared, of her
+own two kiddies safe in the garden at home.
+
+Nathalie, impressed by the solemn stillness about her, slowly fanned
+herself with her hat, while Edith made frantic dabs at her red face,
+from which beady drops were oozing. “Oh, I should just love to stay here
+all day,” she cried, sniffing the air, redolent with the odors of pine,
+spicy balsam, silver birch, and many other trees that loomed darkly in
+the mysterious retreats of the forest.
+
+“Hark!” cried Mrs. Morrow, suddenly putting up her hand for silence as
+she peered up at the green boughs above her. “Taweel-ab, taweel-ab,
+twil-ab, twil-ab!” came in a succession of weird, sweet trills.
+
+“Wheew, whoit, wheew, whoit!” imitated the Sport with quick readiness.
+
+“It is a hermit thrush!” explained Mrs. Morrow softly, and her hand
+clutched Nathalie’s as she pointed to a brown bird that was scudding
+swiftly over the fern a few feet away.
+
+“Oh, isn’t it a dear?” whispered delighted Nathalie, for to her this
+coming, as she called it, into the very heart of nature was a new
+experience. She half regretted at times that they had been compelled to
+forego the bird-hike, as she was so anxious to get in touch with the
+feathered songsters of the wood and field. Then, too, suppose the
+searching-party should fail of its purpose, she would feel that she had
+been the means of leading them on a wild-goose chase!
+
+As her eyes roamed here and there in the hope that she might see the
+brown thrush again, she started, stared a moment, and then springing to
+her feet dashed across to the clump of ferns where the bird had been
+flying.
+
+“I have found a clew!” she cried triumphantly a moment later, as she
+returned and held up her hand. Between her thumb and forefinger was a
+bit of red, which she was waving gleefully as she came towards them. As
+the Sport and Mrs. Morrow hurried to her side they saw a loop of red
+ribbon still with the knot in it by which it had evidently been recently
+tied to some object.
+
+“It is Rosy’s hair-ribbon!” cried Nathalie. “I found it clinging to one
+of the ferns.”
+
+“Oh, are you sure?” burst from Mrs. Morrow, her eyes eager with hope as
+she bent over the little scarlet knot.
+
+“Indeed I am sure,” answered the delighted girl, “for it is the very
+ribbon I found in my work basket and tied on Rosy’s funny little topknot
+the day she was at our house. See, here is the very cut in the edge—that
+is the reason it was of no use to me—but Rosy was as happy as a lark
+over it. Oh, isn’t this too lovely, for now I know the child is
+somewhere near!”
+
+With renewed hope they set forth again on the hunt, Nathalie running
+ahead and calling “Tru-al-lee!” as loud as she could—it was the only
+bird call she knew—to get in touch with the advance guard and tell them
+the good news.
+
+In answer to her Blue Robin call, in a few moments a Bob White whistle
+was heard, rather faint, but there was no mistake as to that quick,
+clear note. The Sport, a few yards behind, immediately responded by
+giving a similar call, and then as they stood waiting to ascertain from
+what direction the whistle had come, there sounded a sudden, sharp snap
+of the underbrush near, and Kitty Corwin’s face emerged into view.
+“Hurrah, girls!” she shouted jubilantly, “we have found her!”
+
+“Oh, where? Where?” came in an instant from three throats as Kitty
+leaned against a tree and panted.
+
+“Down in a ravine, huddled close against a rock, asleep. Helen did not
+want to waken her until Nathalie came, for fear she would be frightened
+at the strange faces. Come on, quick!” she exclaimed excitedly, turning
+and darting back the way she had come with light, fleet steps.
+
+But the belated ones needed no urging, especially Nathalie, who dashed
+ahead without regard to time or place, with a haste that left no doubt
+as to her joy that her searching party had been a success. Overhanging
+branches and dried twigs that blocked her way were ruthlessly brushed
+aside, or run against, scratching and bruising her unmercifully as she
+discovered later, but it made no difference to the happy girl.
+
+It seemed but a moment when she emerged into a clearing, and close at
+the heels of Kitty climbed down into a small ravine. It had evidently
+been at one time the road-bed of a brook, but was now filled with
+scraggy stones, dried underbrush, and fallen logs.
+
+As Nathalie saw the little motionless figure cuddled in a heap against
+the rock, her heart leaped with misgiving. “Oh, is she dead?” she asked
+Helen, who stood guard by the side of the rock, every now and then
+brushing away a gnat or a fly that descended with a loud buzz on the
+smeared black face, which lay partly exposed to view as it rested on a
+mite of an arm.
+
+“Oh, no,” assured Helen, “she is all right, only asleep. I suppose she
+wandered about for some time in the darkness and was tired out, poor
+little tot!”
+
+The little one looked so pathetically small as she lay there, just a
+heap of bones, black skin, and woolly hair, with the tears still
+glistening on the black lashes, that Nathalie’s heart was stirred with
+pity.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward and quickly felt her pulse, crying as she
+did so, “Oh, you poor little black baby! Yes, she is all right!” she
+nodded assuringly, “but Helen, what is the matter with her leg?” Her
+sharp glance noted that it lay rather limply on the ground.
+
+“I am not sure,” said Helen with bent brows as she touched it softly,
+“but I am afraid it is broken. That is why I waited for you and
+Nathalie, I did not like to move her for fear of hurting her.”
+
+“But we shall have to,” returned Mrs. Morrow as she finished examining
+the injured limb, “for it is broken, and we must get her home as soon as
+possible, for it will have to be set.”
+
+As Helen and Mrs. Morrow attempted to take hold of the child to lift her
+on the stretcher the girls had made, she opened her eyes wide into the
+strange faces bending over her. Then she closed them quickly, and as the
+little black face wrinkled in fear she let forth such a howl of absolute
+despair that the girls were all on the verge of joining with her in
+their keen sympathy.
+
+“Oh, Rosy,” cried Nathalie springing hastily forward and taking the
+child’s hand softly in hers, “see, it is Mrs. Page’s little girl. Don’t
+you remember when you called me that—Mrs. Page’s little girl?” She
+repeated softly as she saw the child had stopped her crying and was
+staring up at her. But the black eyes closed again and the little form
+shivered as a prolonged howl answered the questioner.
+
+But Nathalie, who loved children, lifted up the little head with its
+pigtails and laid it against her breast as she tried again. “There
+dearie, don’t you want to go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma?”
+
+These words had the desired effect, and the howl was arrested as two big
+black eyes stared with awakening interest while Nathalie caught hold of
+the stretcher and choo-chooed it back and forth. “Come, Rosy!” she cried
+in a third attempt, “and we will go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma,
+and—oh, yes, the little rag-dollie I made for you, don’t you remember
+what a lovely time we had?”
+
+The black eyes opened wide, stood still for a wee second, and then
+twinkled into a smile as their owner cried, “Oh, yes, I knows youse;
+youse de Story Lady!”
+
+“Yes, I’m the Story Lady,” quickly answered Nathalie, her face breaking
+into a smile; then as Rosy smiled back, “but how did you get here,
+Rosebud, so far away from home?”
+
+The little face screwed into a knot as she whimpered, “Oh, I got lost,
+Story Lady. I picked daisies in de lot, and den Jacob he showed me de
+blue flowers he got in de wood. So I runned to de wood, and oh, I got a
+lot!” Her eyes gleamed with joy as she held up a few withered violets
+still clutched in her tiny hand. “And den it grew all dark,” she moaned,
+“and I couldn’t fin’ de road, and I fell and hurt my leg. Oh, I’se so
+hungry!” she ended piteously.
+
+But when she saw so many eyes watching her, she covered her tiny face
+with her hand, shyly peeping out from between her fingers.
+
+The girls all laughed merrily at her coquettishness, but their laughter
+became almost a howl as the little black eyes began to play peek-a-boo
+at them, and then danced in unison with their laughter, as if enjoying
+the sensation she had created.
+
+But time was precious, and so with the promise of candy and a story from
+Nathalie the little one was lifted from the ground and carefully placed
+in the stretcher, and the Pioneer search party, weary, and warm, but
+jubilantly happy at their success, started for home.
+
+“Some one of you girls ought to run ahead and get the doctor!” exclaimed
+Mrs. Morrow as the rescuers plodded carefully but slowly up the ravine
+with their burden, “for the child needs attention at once. I don’t
+wonder she cries!” For, alas! the little one had begun to whimper
+softly, although Nathalie was still playing choo-choo car as hard as she
+could, so as to divert her mind from the pain and hunger pangs that had
+now begun to assert themselves more forcibly.
+
+“I will go!” cried Edith quickly, and then at a nod of assent from their
+Director she disappeared in the shadowy gloom of the trees like a small
+whirlwind. Barbara and Kitty were then despatched to hurry and tell
+Rosebud’s mother that the lost was found.
+
+As they reached the edge of the woods, Mrs. Morrow thought she heard the
+throb of an automobile engine, and as it was followed in a moment by the
+toot of a horn, she begged Nathalie to hurry to the road, just a few
+feet beyond in the opening. “It sounds like the doctor’s car—perhaps he
+will take little Rosy home—for, O dear, she is suffering so!”
+
+Nathalie softly unfastened the little hands that were clinging to hers,
+and with a few bounds reached the road where, sure enough, she saw a few
+yards ahead an automobile that had just passed.
+
+Yes, it was the doctor! Nathalie thought she recognized his car, and
+with mad haste tore after it, shouting to the full extent of her lungs,
+“Doctor! Doctor!”
+
+The occupant of the car, who evidently was not driving at a very high
+rate of speed, heard her shouts and in a moment brought his car to a
+standstill. As he turned about and stared at the oncoming figure of
+Nathalie, who, red-faced and bedraggled was speeding towards him, he
+looked slightly surprised.
+
+“Oh, Doctor,” began the girl. She paused, for the gentleman who was
+looking at her with such a puzzled expression, coupled with slight
+indignation at being stopped in this way, was a strange young man!
+
+Nathalie halted abruptly as she discovered her error, feeling as if her
+face would burst from the heat of her unwonted exercise and the fact
+that she had been tagging in this tomboy style, after a strange man.
+
+“Oh—I’m so sorry,” she panted apologetically, “but Mrs. Morrow thought
+she heard an automobile, she was sure it was the doctor—”
+
+“Mrs. Morrow!” exclaimed the young man, “why, is she anywhere about?” He
+jumped from his car as he spoke and came towards her.
+
+“Oh, yes,” cried the girl, with a gleam of hope that if this young man
+knew their Director there was a chance for Rosy. “We have been looking
+for a little colored girl who was lost—oh, I mean the Pioneers—we have
+been searching in the woods,” she explained confusedly, the blood
+surging furiously into her cheeks under the keen gray eyes that were
+looking so searchingly down at her. “Oh, can’t you help us?” she burst
+off appealingly. “Mrs. Morrow wants to get her home as soon as she can,
+for she has a broken leg.”
+
+“A broken leg?” echoed the young man, “why, of course I will help you,”
+he continued heartily. “Where is Mrs. Morrow? And—oh, I see—” the gray
+eyes gleamed pleasantly, “you are Blue Robin, the little girl who lives
+across the way from us. I am Mrs. Morrow’s brother, Jack Homer!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X—NATHALIE AS THE STORY LADY
+
+
+Nathalie’s color flamed again as she heard that “little girl,” and she
+drew herself up in momentary indignation. Oh, this was evidently the Dr.
+Homer whom she had heard the girls talk so much about, and who had been
+giving them lessons in First Aid to the Injured. But who could have told
+him she was a little girl?
+
+This affront to her dignity was forgotten, however, as she quickly
+remembered the need of getting little Rosy home. “Mrs. Morrow is in the
+woods—oh, there she is now!” she cried hastily, as she pointed to the
+Director, who, with the Pioneers and their burden, had halted on the
+edge of the woods and stood waiting for her. As Mrs. Morrow perceived
+her brother she quickly beckoned to him.
+
+A few steps, and Dr. Homer was at his sister’s side, listening to her
+hurried recital of the preceding events and her anxiously expressed wish
+that Rosy could be seen to as soon as possible.
+
+“Why, if it isn’t little Rosebud!” said the doctor jovially as he turned
+from his sister and looked down at the helpless mite of humanity, lying
+so patient and still in the stretcher.
+
+The child smiled shyly, and Nathalie, perceiving that he knew her, gave
+a sigh of relief, for she felt that now everything would soon be all
+right.
+
+It did not take the doctor long to lift Rosy tenderly into the car and
+to make her comfortable with her little black head on Mrs. Morrow’s lap.
+As he was about to jump in himself an “I want my Story Lady! I want my
+Story Lady!” came in a loud wail from the little patient, for Rosy’s
+face had knotted up again as she pushed away Mrs. Morrow’s detaining
+hand and tried to lift her head in search of Nathalie.
+
+Nathalie hastened to the side of the car crying, “Oh, Rosy, it’s all
+right. I’m going home to your mamma. I will be there almost as soon as
+you—”
+
+“Why, Nathalie, get in with us,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, “there is room
+on the front seat with the doctor. Oh, I beg your pardon, Nathalie,
+perhaps you have not met my brother. Jack, this is Miss Page, our new
+Pioneer, and oh, Jack; if it had not been for her I don’t know when poor
+little Rosy would have been found!”
+
+“I am most pleased to meet you, Miss Page,” smiled the doctor with undue
+emphasis on the Miss. Then, as he noted Nathalie’s stiff little bow, he
+continued apologetically, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “I have
+heard so much about Blue Robin, that somehow I thought she was a little
+girl.”
+
+Nathalie smiled pleasantly, instantly recognizing that this frank-eyed
+young man was doing his best to atone for his mistake of a few minutes
+ago. But she must not keep him waiting, and a moment later she sprang
+into the car. Although it was but a short ride to Felia’s house, there
+was time enough for the doctor to chat pleasantly with the young girl,
+so by the time they had reached their destination Nathalie understood
+why Dr. Homer was such a favorite with the Pioneers.
+
+Fortunately, Edith had caught Dr. Morrow just as he was about to set out
+to call on a patient, so he soon arrived. In a short time he and Dr.
+Homer had set the broken limb and made the child comfortable, who, with
+a smile of content, received a bowl of bread and milk from Mammy, whose
+black face was wreathed in smiles again as she saw that the little one
+was not lying down at the bottom of the pond.
+
+A half-hour later a group of girls straggled wearily along the main
+street of the village, animatedly discussing first one and then another
+detail of the morning’s hunt. As they were all tired, it was unanimously
+decided to postpone the bird hike to another day.
+
+When this decision was reached, Nathalie’s bright face clouded as she
+exclaimed contritely, “Oh, girls, I’m awfully sorry I broke up the hike,
+but I was so anxious to find Rosy.”
+
+“Well, I for one am glad we gave it up,” asserted Kitty Corwin, “for
+girls, it paid for the disappointment to see that poor mother’s joy when
+she saw her child.”
+
+“And the old black mammy—huh—she is a regular plantation coon,” chimed
+in Edith; “did you hear her shout ‘Praise de Lord! Hallelujah!’? Oh, but
+how her eyes did shine!”
+
+“She was a black sunbeam, all right,” observed Helen, “and it’s all
+owing to Nathalie!” putting her arm about her friend and giving her an
+enthusiastic squeeze; “she ought to have a white star.”
+
+“A white star,” ejaculated Nathalie, “what does that mean?”
+
+“Why, it means that you should receive a badge of merit, but as a
+Pioneer can’t receive a badge until she is a first-class member, Mrs.
+Morrow gives white stars instead to the girls who deserve badges but are
+not yet old enough to receive them,” explained Helen. “We keep our stars
+and then sew them on a big United States flag we are making for our new
+Pioneer room.”
+
+“Oh, I should be pleased to have one!” cried Nathalie, “but it gives me
+more pleasure to know that you do not think I spoiled your fun, and have
+been so nice about it. I should just hate to have you think me
+officious!”
+
+“But we didn’t think that, Nathalie,” assured Lillie quickly. “In fact,
+I guess we just didn’t think at all, we were so intent on having our own
+selfish ways. We are all friends of yours, and as Pioneers and
+personally,” she spoke warmly, “we are glad you won the victory over our
+naughty, wicked selves.”
+
+Several days later, Nathalie, who was still the maid of all work, stood
+washing the breakfast dishes. Somehow, helping Mother seemed to have
+lost its charm. She felt as if she and Miss I Can were not as good
+friends as they were at the beginning of her kitchen campaign. O dear,
+she did wish Rosy would get better so Felia could come back. She sighed
+heavily, and then hastily wiped away a stray tear that was meandering
+down her cheek—she had heard a step on the back stoop.
+
+“Hello, Blue Robin!” was Helen’s cheery greeting as she entered,—she
+usually came in by the back door in the morning—then she stopped, for
+Nathalie’s usually smiling face wore such a look of woe that she
+exclaimed anxiously, “Oh, Nathalie, what is the matter?”
+
+But her only answer was a stifled sob as the girl flung herself into a
+chair by the kitchen table, and dropping her head on her elbow gave way
+to the pent up flood that had been gathering for the last few days.
+Helen stood a moment, uncertain what to say or do, dreading that some
+great calamity had overtaken the family. Then she stepped to her
+friend’s side and lifting her head encircled her with her arm
+caressingly. “Now,” she cried, softly patting the brown head, “tell
+friend Helen all about it.”
+
+Nathalie’s tears flowed unrestrainedly for a moment and then, feeling
+somewhat better for the overflow, and a little ashamed of useless tears
+as she always called them, she withdrew from the friendly shelter and
+sat up. “Oh, it’s just nothing at all, Helen,” she cried in a choked
+voice, “only that I’m a great baby—and then—I’m tired”—her voice
+quavered. “I’m tired of washing dishes and sweeping—” a sniffle—“all the
+time.”
+
+“Of course you are tired, who wouldn’t be, Nat, with all the wonderful
+things you’ve done this last week?” sympathized Helen; “considering,
+too, that it’s all new to you. Why, Mother says you are going to make a
+splendid Pioneer.”
+
+“Oh, did she?” asked Nathalie, her eyes brightening. “It makes one feel
+good to be praised, I have felt so discouraged,” with an intake of her
+breath, “for I’ve tried so hard to do everything I could, and then
+Mother, why she hasn’t said one word of praise since the first day.
+Everybody just takes it all—all the work I do—just as if it was nothing,
+and things drag so. Of course I don’t expect to be praised all the
+time,” she hastened to add, “but oh, I don’t seem to feel as happy about
+working as I did at first.”
+
+“Oh, well, you’re tired,” replied Helen condolingly. “I know just how
+you feel, for I used to feel the same way when I first began to help
+Mother around the house. You see the enthusiasm and the glory have all
+gone out of it.”
+
+“The enthusiasm and the glory?” repeated Nathalie in puzzled inquiry.
+
+“Yes, the novelty of doing something new is the enthusiasm that put you
+on the job; and the praise you got for doing it—which made you feel as
+if you were awfully good—that’s the glory. But when things get stale and
+people stop saying how smart you are and so on, why then it will be just
+plain duty all through. You know, the frosting always comes first before
+we get to the cake.”
+
+“Oh, I suppose that has something to do with it,” responded Nathalie
+alertly, “when one comes to think of it. So from now on it will be just
+plain duty, won’t it?” with a quiver of her chin, for somehow the
+prospect was not an enjoyable one at that moment.
+
+“Yes, that’s about the size of it,” was the practical answer. “But if
+you keep right on doing what you ought to, you’ll get something better
+than the sugary stuff. Just keep Miss I Can for your friend, and then
+after a time you will find that you like to do the very things that at
+first seemed so hard. Experience, Mother says, brings knowledge, and
+knowledge puts you in the end where you want to be.”
+
+“I wish it would,” exclaimed Nathalie, her eyes flashing with sudden
+hope, “for oh, Helen, I do so want to know things, that is the useful
+arts, for I am so eager to learn how to make money the way you are
+doing! You know I have told you all about Dick, Helen,” she lowered her
+voice, “I think it is just that, seeing the poor fellow striving to earn
+a little money so he can be made well again, that makes me so
+down-hearted, for I feel that I am not doing a thing to help him.”
+
+“But you are helping him, and your mother, too, Nathalie,” said Helen.
+“By the very work you are doing you are helping your mother to save
+money, that ought to be something to comfort you.”
+
+“Oh, but it’s mean kind of work,” emphasized Nathalie, “and then, too,
+it’s only saving a mite; and it will take so much money for Dick’s
+operation.”
+
+“Now, see here, Nathalie,” exclaimed her friend, “let’s figure this
+thing out.” Taking a pencil and pad that always hung by the table with
+Nathalie’s list of edibles to be served at each meal, she drew a chair
+up to the table and began to figure just how much Nathalie was saving
+her mother by doing the work herself.
+
+Nathalie bent over her shoulder and watched eagerly as she saw the line
+of figures jotted down by Helen. Then she, too, put on her thinking-cap
+and in a few minutes the two girls had figured out quite a sum that
+Nathalie was actually saving in dollars and cents each week she did the
+work.
+
+As Nathalie realized this fact, demonstrated so clearly by her friend,
+her eyes sparkled, and clapping her hands she cried, “Oh, Helen, I’m
+going to get Mother to let me do the work all the time—of course, as you
+say, the washing will have to be done out—but oh, I shall feel—”
+
+“Now, Nathalie, don’t go off at a tangent; stop and consider before you
+make this suggestion to your mother. You must think just what it will
+cost you, that is, count what it will mean to suffer aches in your back
+and feet, to have fire-scorched cheeks,—they say cooking ruins the
+complexion,—red, sloppy hands, and all the rest of the penalties imposed
+on one for doing housework. If you put your hand to the plow, you know,
+once started you can’t look back.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know, Helen, it will be terrible to have to do these things,
+but if it will help me to earn money, even the teeniest bit, now that I
+know that it is to be done without the glory perhaps it won’t be so
+hard. Oh, I know Miss I Can will help me!” Nathalie smiled through the
+mist that would blur her eyes, “for I must help Dick.”
+
+“Yes,” returned her friend, “if you feel that way, determined to help
+Dick, go ahead; for that will serve as the glory, that is, the incentive
+will help you through lots of hard things.”
+
+Nathalie looked up at her friend’s grave face with wonder-lit eyes. “Oh,
+Helen,” she said solemnly, “do you know you are going to be a great
+woman? You are awfully wise for a girl of your age!”
+
+Helen interrupted her with a merry laugh. “Oh, no, I’m not going to be a
+great woman at all. I should love to be—that is my ambition,—but one’s
+ambitions are not apt to materialize the way one expects them to, you
+know. But I’ll tell you, Nathalie,” her face sobered, “I have a very
+wise mother—she tells me these things. And then as I go about I find
+from experience that what she has said comes true.”
+
+“Yes, Helen, you will be great,” nodded Nathalie sagely. “Perhaps you
+will not go about blowing a trumpet to let people know you are one of
+the world’s great ones, but you will be all the same, even if you never
+do a thing but live in this sleepy town and become a stenographer.”
+
+“Well, it looks that way,” laughed Helen, “from the pile of typing that
+awaits me. Yes, I am, as you say, in a fair way to become a
+stenographer, but Ye Stars! if I do not become an expert one, I’ll—well
+I’ll go hang myself, as the boys say, for I must succeed!”
+
+“Oh, are you really going, friend comforter?” laughed Nathalie, as Helen
+rose to go. “Yes, you are that, for you have given me lots of comfort
+this morning; you put new life in me when the cause was almost lost. On
+the strength of your calculations I’m going to lay my plans before
+Mother, and then I’m going to get some books and trinkets and go to see
+Rosy.”
+
+“Oh, yes, how is she?” inquired Helen interestedly. “I was thinking
+about her the other day.”
+
+“She is getting along nicely, but it is awfully hard for the little
+thing to lie there most of the time alone. I was down to see her
+yesterday and told her some stories, and I promised to come again
+to-day.”
+
+“I wish I could help you! But see here, Nathalie, speak to Grace and
+Lillie about the story-telling; perhaps they will help you at that.
+Grace is a lady with plenty of leisure to waste, and Lillie Bell dotes
+on yarns.”
+
+“I did ask Lillie, but she said she was no good telling stories to
+children, and Grace—why, she said she was busy getting her clothes ready
+for the summer.”
+
+“There’s Kitty. Ah, I expect to see her this afternoon. I’ll ask her to
+lend you a hand, but I must go, so good-by and good luck to you, Story
+Lady!”
+
+“Oh, Mother, you are just a dear!” cried Nathalie a little later, as she
+was about to set forth to see Rosy. Her mother had come down from the
+attic with a couple of old picture-books, and handed them to her to give
+to the little invalid.
+
+“Gloriana! won’t they make her eyes shine!” exclaimed Nathalie as she
+tucked them under her arm, picked up the basket of goodies she had
+prepared, and hurried down the walk. As she knocked at the door of the
+gray shanty she heard Rosy whimpering softly. “Poor kiddie,” she
+thought, with a wave of pity. Receiving no answer she pushed open the
+door, which was partly ajar, and entered. On the bed lay the little form
+with its head buried in a pillow, emitting a series of feeble whines.
+
+“Good morning!” said the smiling visitor as she touched the half-buried
+shoulder.
+
+At the sound of her voice the child’s woolly head rolled over, and a
+smile of welcome radiated her tear-stained face.
+
+“How is it that you are all alone?” asked Nathalie, taking out an orange
+from the basket; “where are Mother and Mammy?”
+
+“Mamma went to de town, and Mammy—she’s doin’ de wash,” and then her
+eyes expanded with joy as she spied the orange.
+
+The orange was soon demolished, and then, as Nathalie started to show
+her the two picture-books, she realized that Miss I Can confronted her
+again, for a sticky mouth and hands revealed the fact that she had an
+unpleasant task to perform. For a moment she hesitated, but quickly
+overcoming her disinclination, she plunged in, got a basin of water, and
+finding no wash-cloth, dipped her own dainty handkerchief in it, and
+amid sundry squeals and protests gave the little face and hands a good
+scrubbing.
+
+This performed, the picture-books were brought forth and she was soon
+busy explaining the pictures to the pleased little girl. But this
+diversion she soon tired of and then came the cry, “Oh, Story Lady,
+won’t yo’ please tell me er story?”
+
+“Why, I don’t think I know any now—” Nathalie had meant to look up a
+fairy book so as to be prepared, but the pleading look in the black eyes
+upturned to hers won its way and she said, “All right, I’ll see what I
+know? How would ‘The Babes in the Woods’ do?”
+
+As this title was mentioned, a cry of protest came from the child, “No,
+I don’t want to hear about de woods. I’se afraid of de woods.”
+
+“Of course you don’t, you poor little chickie,” answered Nathalie
+contritely, and then her face lightened up as a streak of sunshine at
+that moment glancing in the window proved an inspiration. So she began
+to tell about Sunshine Polly, who had been told that if she could get
+some sunshine in her heart she would always be happy, and how she
+forthwith set out for this golden country, and after many adventures
+found it. Indeed it proved to be a most beautiful place, with a king,
+very round and bright, and a lot of sunshine fairies flying all about
+throwing some of their sunny treasure into the eyes of every one they
+saw.
+
+By the bright eyes watching her, Nathalie knew that she had made a good
+selection this time, and the story progressed. She told how Polly got
+the sunbeams, with a breathing spell every now and then to think up some
+more, and the cries, “Oh, dat’s a lubly story! Oh, I likes dat story!”
+But at last Polly returned from the land of sunshine with a crown of
+sunbeams on her head and a big bundle of it in her heart.
+
+Nathalie smiled as she finished, for it seemed as if she too, had been
+to the sunshine land and had put some of it into Rosy’s little heart.
+“Ah, now I will get a chance to slip away,” she thought, picking up her
+basket as a prelude to her departure.
+
+But Rosy, surmising by her movement that she contemplated leaving, began
+to wail plaintively, begging her so hard to tell just one more “lubly
+story.” As Nathalie stood, trying her best to think of another story,
+she heard a slight noise, and looked up to see three little black faces
+with big shiny eyes staring at her from over the ledge of the window.
+
+The girl broke into a merry laugh, for really it was funny to see those
+three round faces—like a row of flower-pot saucers on a shelf. “Why, how
+did you get there?” she cried and then again burst into laughter. The
+laughter proved contagious, for the three little pickaninnies
+immediately joined in her merriment, and then, evidently thinking this
+was an invitation to come in, one after the other slid over the sill and
+trotted up to the bed, to the great delight of Rosy. Here they climbed
+up, sitting on the edge with their naked black feet hanging down,
+looking for all the world like monkeys’ claws as they swung them to and
+fro, anxiously waiting for the story to begin.
+
+[Illustration: “Why, how did you get there?”]
+
+“Oh, what shall I tell them?” worried Nathalie, but in a flash she
+remembered, and was soon in the mysteries of that beloved of all fairy
+tales, “Jack and the Bean Stalk.” The interested glow in four pairs of
+eyes was inspiring, and amply repaid her for the time that she had so
+reluctantly given the little hearers.
+
+The tale was soon ended, and again Nathalie sprang to her feet, feeling
+that now she must go, for there was that dessert she had to make for
+dinner. She gathered up her basket and had just turned to say good-by to
+her audience of four, when she saw Dr. Morrow, who was standing by the
+door, smiling down at her with his kindly eyes.
+
+“Oh, were you there all the time?” she asked in dismay. The doctor
+nodded as he said, “Yes, Blue Robin, I have enjoyed your story very
+much. You had such an appreciative audience,” smiling at the little
+black faces, “that I was reluctant to disturb their bliss. Our little
+friend Rosy has well named you, ‘The Story Lady.’”
+
+He turned towards his patient, and then with a kindly word for each of
+her little friends, he began to inquire as to how Rosy was. As Felia at
+this moment entered the room, Nathalie waved a good-by to Rosy, and
+surrounded by the three pickaninnies, each one eager to carry her
+basket, hurried out of the room and into the sunshine she had been
+telling about. The many comments made by her body-guard of three, showed
+how eager they were for the joys of story-land—a rare treat to them.
+Realizing how much can be taught a child through story-telling, as she
+had found when she was a child, Nathalie fell to thinking. By the time
+she reached home she had planned a story club—oh, it would be just the
+thing—if the Pioneers would agree to it. They could take turns, only an
+hour once or twice a week, in telling stories to these new friends of
+hers, and who knows, if the class grew they might eventually do a great
+deal of good? Still somewhat timid of taking the initiative, she planned
+to lay it before Helen and let the suggestion come from her.
+
+Nathalie was trilling softly to herself little snatches of song, for
+somehow on that bright June day she felt very happy. She had started, as
+she told Helen, on a new career. Of course her mother had objected at
+first to her taking Felia’s place, but when she found that Nathalie was
+determined, she had consented, feeling that perhaps it would not harm
+her for a while. And then, too, she would learn many things she needed
+to know, and this was her opportunity to learn them. So Nathalie had won
+her consent, and with the help of Dorothy, who had been pressed into
+service, and the few things she allowed her mother to do, she had found
+her work slip along more easily than she had anticipated, and the
+thought that she was earning a mite towards a great object, as Helen
+said, had proved the glory.
+
+And so she sang away, doing the week’s stint of darning, as the stocking
+drill at the Pilgrim Rally had helped her wonderfully, and now she was
+quite assured that her mother did not have to do her work over.
+
+As she glanced up from her work to watch a tiny humming bird that was
+flitting among the leaves of the honeysuckle trellis, she heard the
+throb of an engine, and looked up to see Dr. Morrow’s car coming up the
+road. To her surprise, instead of running his car in through his gate to
+the garage, he brought it to a standstill in front of their house,
+alighted, and a moment later was coming briskly up the path.
+
+His cheery greeting broke in upon her surprise as he cried, “Well, Blue
+Robin, so you are at home!” O dear! every one seemed to be calling her
+that nowadays, the girl thought a little ruefully.
+
+“Good morning,” she cried; then her face paled apprehensively. “Oh, have
+you come about Dick—do you think his knee is worse?” she faltered,
+suddenly remembering that her brother had complained quite a little the
+last three days with the pain in his knee.
+
+“No, I have not come about Dick,” was the reassuring answer. “I have
+come to see you on important business. Dick is doing as well as can be
+until he is operated on.”
+
+Nathalie sighed, and then said, “Oh, Doctor, I do wish you would explain
+to me about Dick’s operation! Mother told me a little, but you see I
+don’t know much about these things.”
+
+The doctor raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise and then he said in
+a serious tone, “I should say not. Such things as operations are not for
+little Blue Robins. They are supposed to trill little tru-al-lee songs,
+or tell fairy tales to children, as I hear some of them have been doing
+lately.”
+
+The girl’s eyes grew bright. “Oh, we are all doing it. Has Mrs. Morrow
+told you about the Pioneer Story Club we have formed? Helen suggested
+it, in a way.” Nathalie was modest, for the suggestion had really come
+from herself, and also the planning with the aid of Helen’s wise head.
+“We go down to the colored settlement,” she continued, “every Saturday
+morning and take turns in telling stories to the little children. Don’t
+you think it a fine idea?” She spoke animatedly.
+
+“Indeed I do, but now for the business.”
+
+“Oh—but please tell me about the operation first!” Nathalie was afraid
+the doctor intended to put her off. “Tell me, will Dick really be good
+and strong again after he has the operation?”
+
+The doctor gazed at her a moment with serious eyes and then said slowly,
+“Yes, Miss Nathalie, I believe that if your brother could have that
+operation he would be just as well as if this unfortunate accident had
+not happened.”
+
+“But what makes the operation necessary, and what would you do to him?”
+she insistently demanded.
+
+“Well, I am not going to tell you exactly what we would do to him. We
+shall not make hash of him—”
+
+“Oh, Doctor!” exclaimed Nathalie with a shiver.
+
+“But we will remove an unhealthy bone in his leg and replace it with a
+new one. I saw an infected finger joint removed the other day and
+replaced with a joint taken from one of the patient’s toes.”
+
+“Oh, Doctor Morrow,” cried the distressed girl, “you are kidding, as the
+boys say.”
+
+The doctor shook his head. “No, some years ago I might have been
+indulging in a yarn, but surgery has made great strides these last few
+decades, and cripples nowadays may be restored to health and strength by
+transplanting entire bones with their joint surfaces. This discovery was
+announced a short time ago by an eminent surgeon before the Philadelphia
+Academy of Surgery. Tests were made on dogs first, and the results were
+so satisfactory that the same methods have since been applied to the
+human body with like results.
+
+“Hitherto bone transplantation had been attended with great stiffness
+and lack of power in the members treated, but now an infected hip joint
+may be removed in the same way, and replaced by healthy bones, and the
+functions work properly. But, young lady, I came here not to deliver a
+lecture on the transplantation of bones, but to ask you to do something
+for me.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI—THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+“Do something for you? Oh, Doctor, I should just love to!” Surprise and
+pleasure caused Nathalie’s eyes to light expectantly. And then, “Do tell
+me what it is; perhaps it is something I can’t do!” she said doubtfully.
+
+“Oh, you can do it all right,” asserted the doctor confidently.
+“Remember the old adage, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’” His
+eyes twinkled humorously as he watched the girl’s face. “But let’s get
+at the beginning of things. The other day as I was hastening to my
+little African friend, Rosy, I heard some one talking to her. I stood
+still, for it was some one telling the fairy tale of Jack and the Bean
+Stalk.
+
+“Now when I was a wee laddie,” continued the doctor, “that fairy tale
+was the star one to me, so I plead guilty, I was tempted and listened.
+And then when I discovered that the Story Lady, as Rosy says, was a
+sometime friend of mine, I found that old tale doubly interesting. A few
+days ago, when talking to a patient, I happened to relate this little
+incident in connection with something else I was telling, and then my
+troubles began.”
+
+The doctor pretended dismay. “That lady has a crippled child who rarely
+goes out, never meets children of her own age, but is compelled a good
+part of the time to lie on a couch suffering more or less pain. This
+little girl was injured in an accident which her mother, poor creature,
+believes was her fault.”
+
+“Oh, how dreadfully she must suffer!” burst from Nathalie involuntarily.
+
+“Yes, I sometimes think the poor mother suffers more than the child. Now
+this mother, from a mistaken idea, believes it best to keep her child
+secluded, thinking that the comments of strangers would hurt the child’s
+feelings and cause more suffering. So you see what a miserable life the
+little one leads. Well, I must cut my tale short—” taking out his watch
+and glancing at it; “perhaps it was something I said, I don’t know, but
+this lady asked me if I thought the young lady who was so good at
+story-telling would be willing to come and amuse her child with stories.
+You see I was in for it, but all I could do was to say I would ask her,”
+the doctor’s eyes sobered, “for I believe that this Story Lady girl is
+not only a worth while girl—is that the way my wife puts it when she
+lectures you?” the doctor’s face had wrinkled into a smile again, “but
+that she has one of the kindest hearts in the world.”
+
+“Oh, Doctor, Mrs. Morrow never lectures,” answered Nathalie
+enthusiastically; “she just talks to us in the sweetest way; we just
+love to hear her. But, Doctor, why did you not tell the lady I would be
+only too glad to tell her little girl stories, but if she suffers so
+much it might tire her.” This was all said in one breath.
+
+“Not so fast, Blue Robin. No, I did not tell her you would, for I did
+not know how it would strike you,” rejoined the doctor gravely. “I only
+told her what you could do.”
+
+“Oh,” exclaimed his companion; “well then, please tell her the first
+time you see her that I shall be delighted to do all I can for her
+little girl.”
+
+“When I see her—well, I’m going to see her now.” The doctor looked down
+at Nathalie keenly. “If you are willing to give this pleasure suppose
+you begin to-day?”
+
+“To-day—you mean now—this morning?” exclaimed surprised Nathalie.
+
+The doctor nodded gravely.
+
+“Why, well, yes, I suppose I could go this morning.” Nathalie wrinkled
+her brows; she was wondering about dinner. “All right,” she said in a
+moment, “I’ll tell Mother and get my hat!” She started for the door.
+
+“Just wait a moment!” commanded the doctor suddenly, taking Nathalie by
+the arm and peering down into her face with intent eyes. “I forgot
+something, for amusing this little girl means that you will have to
+promise two things.”
+
+“What are they?” asked the girl curiously.
+
+“The first one is that you will have to promise—as a Girl Pioneer—” the
+doctor’s eyes gleamed again “not to betray to a living soul that you are
+telling stories to this child; there is a reason.”
+
+“Oh, that is easy,” nodded Nathalie; “that is, if you except Mamma, for
+I always tell everything to her.”
+
+“Well, we’ll trust Mrs. Page as to secrecy, and the next thing—this is a
+big promise, for it will not be so easy to keep—is that when you go to
+this lady’s house you will consent to be blindfolded.” The doctor looked
+relieved.
+
+“Blindfolded?” repeated puzzled Nathalie. “Why, do you mean that I will
+have to have my eyes covered up so I can’t see?”
+
+Dr. Morrow nodded, his keen eyes watching the girl’s face intently.
+
+There was a pause. “Am I to go with you?” inquired Nathalie. The
+doctor’s gray head jerked again.
+
+“Why, yes, I’m willing to be blinded—as long as you’re with me to lead
+me about—but what a strange idea!”
+
+“Yes, it is a strange idea, and I tried to reason the lady out of it. I
+even refused at first—and again yesterday—to ask you to do this
+ridiculous thing, but after thinking it over I have ventured. You know,
+there is the little girl to be considered, and you will?”
+
+“Of course I will!” was the quick reply. “It is a funny thing to do,
+makes me think of the heroine of some detective tale. Blindfolded! Oh,
+it will be fun, a real adventure, I do wish I could tell Helen about it,
+I know she won’t tell.”
+
+“No, not yet,” said the doctor, “just wait and see what happens. I’ll
+predict that after you tell one or two of your exciting tales the
+blindfold act will be out of it. Now get your hat.”
+
+It was a glorious morning and Nathalie, in a merry chat with the doctor
+as they glided down one street and up another, forgot to wonder where
+they were going. But when they suddenly slowed up on a lonely road, the
+doctor peered cautiously about and then with a flourish drew forth a big
+black handkerchief, she remembered. She did indeed feel somewhat queer
+as the doctor laughingly tied the black cap, as he called it, over her
+eyes, and then, after seeing that it was not pressing too tightly,
+started his car again.
+
+This time the car went so swiftly that Nathalie caught her breath. O
+dear, she was beginning to feel nervous. “It really seems as if you were
+kidnaping me!” she cried, with an attempt at merriment.
+
+“So I am,” replied the doctor glumly. Evidently this blindfolding
+business was not to his liking.
+
+As the car came to a standstill the doctor cried, “Now, Blue Robin, we
+are about to perform the first act in our little drama, so get up your
+nerve.”
+
+“I hope you won’t let me fall!” exclaimed Nathalie cheerily. “I don’t
+want to break my nose or anything just yet.”
+
+What a weird feeling it gave her to be led along a stone walk, then up a
+few steps guided by her companion’s strong arm, then evidently into a
+hall, as Nathalie surmised by the polished floor covered with heavy
+rugs. After being led stumblingly up the stairway—which she thought
+would never come to an end—they crept slowly along for some distance;
+she could not tell whether it was a hall or a room, and felt very
+trembly as she afterwards told her mother, and she was brought to a
+sudden halt by hearing, “Oh, Mamma, here she is!”
+
+The voice did not belong to a small child and Nathalie, surprised, stood
+still in embarrassed silence wondering what was coming next.
+
+“Oh, Doctor, how kind you are!” cried another voice. “I had given you
+up, how obstinate you must think me!” The voice faltered, and then
+Nathalie felt a soft touch on her arm as it continued, “Oh, it was very
+kind of you to consent to come and entertain my daughter, and to be
+obliged to come this way, too. I feel guilty; I know how unpleasant it
+must be to have something over your eyes.”
+
+“Well, don’t worry over that now,” was the doctor’s terse admonition. “I
+have complied with your requests—on second thought, and my young girl
+friend has been most kind in agreeing to your wishes, for the present at
+least. Later, I hope, you will change your mind about these blinders.”
+
+“Please don’t scold,” cried the voice again, “I know it is foolish of
+me. I will lead you to a chair!” the owner of the voice exclaimed as the
+girl gropingly put out her hand as if afraid of falling. Then the same
+soft touch led the blinded one across the room. “No, you are not going
+to fall; there you are all right now,” she said, as Nathalie with a
+sense of relief sank back in a chair.
+
+“Now,” continued the voice, “I am going to be your eyes and tell you
+what is before you.”
+
+“That will be very nice,” interposed embarrassed Nathalie, feeling
+somewhat foolish at having to sit in this queer way before people. She
+was at a loss what to say, but had time to collect herself as the lady
+went on talking rapidly. She described the room with its hangings, the
+pictures on the wall, told where the doors and windows were, and—“Oh,
+here is the couch—” she hesitated slightly, “and on it is my daughter,
+her name is—”
+
+“Oh, Mamma, if you don’t want the young lady to know my name, tell her
+I’m the Princess in the Tower!” exclaimed the same sweet voice that had
+called out when Nathalie first entered the room.
+
+“That will be just the thing, ‘the Princess in the Tower,’” laughed the
+lady lightly. “Now, Princess, I am going to leave you to entertain
+Miss—”
+
+“Nathalie Page,” interposed the girl quickly, who, reassured by the
+laughing tone of the young girl on the couch, had begun to recover from
+the awkwardness of her plight. Somehow the situation appealed to the
+girl’s imagination and she began to enjoy it. “Oh, I ought to be the one
+in the tower,” she merrily asserted, “for I feel as if I were a prisoner
+with this funny thing over my eyes.”
+
+“It is too bad,” cried her companion sympathetically, “but you know it
+is a whim of Mamma’s. You see,” she explained, “I had an accident when I
+was a child, and it has made me deformed—” there was a pathetic note in
+her voice. “Mamma is so sensitive, she is afraid that if people see me
+they will make unkind remarks.”
+
+“Oh, how could any one be unkind?” exclaimed horrified Nathalie.
+
+“Well, they are sometimes. I used to be sensitive myself, too, but I’m
+getting used to it. I tell Mamma if I don’t mind she ought not to. Yes,”
+she ended sadly, “I am indeed a prisoner shut up in these big gray
+walls.”
+
+“How hard it must be!” answered Nathalie. “But do you never go out?”
+
+“Sometimes I go in the garden. I used to drive, but the people in this
+town are so curious; they stare so. I believe they are worse than in the
+city, where I suppose people are used to all kinds of strange sights.
+But there, I’m doing all the talking, please tell me about yourself! I’m
+so glad to know some one who comes from New York. The doctor told me you
+were a New Yorker; he told me, too, that you were very clever, and that
+you told stories beautifully.”
+
+“Nonsense,” exclaimed Nathalie. “The doctor is a dear, but he natters
+me; I am not clever, I wish I were. I studied hard at school and am
+ready to enter college this fall, and as I am only sixteen people think
+it very clever for a girl to accomplish, but I don’t see why a girl
+can’t do it as well as a boy. But now I’m not going to have a chance to
+show people whether I am really clever or not,” and then she briefly
+told about her disappointment in having to give up college.
+
+“But what are you going to do if you do not go to college? Please tell
+me!” said the princess, as Nathalie hesitated. “I just love the sound of
+your voice!” burst from the girl impulsively.
+
+Nathalie laughed at this extravagant praise, wondering for a moment if
+the young girl were not making fun of her. Loath to believe that she
+could be so rude, however, she went on and told of her city life, her
+schoolmates, about Dick’s accident, and how they came to settle in
+Westport, and then she stopped. She had been on the verge of telling
+about the Pioneers when she recollected that the doctor had said she was
+to tell the child stories. “Oh, I must stop talking—I was to tell you
+stories—what will your mother think of me?”
+
+“That is all right,” promptly returned the girl, “you are here to
+entertain me; that’s what she told the doctor, and if I would rather
+have you talk than tell stories, it will be as I say.”
+
+“Are you sure of that?” questioned conscience-stricken Nathalie. “The
+doctor told me I was to tell you stories.”
+
+“Of course he did, but because he said a thing doesn’t make it so; Mamma
+told him that, I guess, but you are really to do as I say.”
+
+There was a note of decision in the girl’s voice, which was an
+intimation that she was used to having her own way. Nathalie somehow
+felt awkward and uncertain as to what course to pursue, and became
+suddenly silent, inwardly racking her brains, trying to think of some
+story that would please a young girl of about the age she judged her
+companion to be.
+
+“Oh, aren’t you going to tell me about the Girl Pioneers?” was the
+question that suddenly interrupted Nathalie’s train of thought.
+
+“The Girl Pioneers!” echoed Nathalie, wondering how her companion came
+to know about that organization.
+
+“I want to tell you a secret,” the princess whispered at that moment.
+Nathalie felt a slim hand touch her with a clinging pressure on the arm.
+“Do you know the doctor and I are great friends, we have lots of jolly
+talks together. Oh, I just love to hear his step; don’t tell, but
+sometimes I make believe I’m suffering terribly so Mamma will send for
+him!”
+
+“But you shouldn’t do that!” cried Nathalie, rather shocked at the idea
+of simulating pain, suddenly remembering a story she had heard of a
+young girl who had finally come to suffer from the very disease she had
+feigned.
+
+“Oh, what difference does it make as long as it brings him?” retorted
+the princess. “You see he tells me of the outside world, and makes me
+laugh when I have pain, for I do have lots of it sometimes. One day when
+I was having an awful time with my back he almost made me forget the
+pain by telling me some of the funny things that have happened to the
+Boy Scouts and to the Girl Pioneers.
+
+“He told me all about you, too, how you sprained your foot and about
+your brother Dick, and about your finding the blue robin’s nest in the
+old cedar. He said you were pretty, too. I like pretty people. I wish
+you didn’t have that horrible thing on your eyes, I want to see them.
+Mother said I would have been pretty, too, if I had not had this
+terrible hump—oh,” she cried abruptly, “I was not to tell you anything
+about myself, for I’m a horrible thing to look at now.”
+
+“Oh, no, you can’t be,” exclaimed Nathalie involuntarily, for by this
+time the sweet girlish voice and soft clinging hand had stirred her
+imagination, and the pictures presented had made the make-believe
+princess a most beautiful creature.
+
+“Oh, but I am,” persisted the girl in a resigned voice. “But then, do
+tell me about the Pioneers!” Then noting Nathalie’s reluctance, she
+called out in a high, shrill voice, “Mamma, come here, I want you!”
+
+“What is it, darling?” answered her mother coming hastily from the
+adjoining room, where she had been conversing with the doctor. “What
+does my princess want?” remembering the rôle the girl had assumed.
+
+“The princess wants to be obeyed,” answered that personage imperiously.
+“Miss Page refuses to talk about herself or to tell me anything, because
+she says you ordered her to tell me only stories.”
+
+Nathalie’s face reddened under her black mask, “Oh, no,” she interposed
+swiftly, “I did not say it that way. I said the doctor had asked me to
+come here and tell you stories, but then I supposed you were a little
+girl.”
+
+“No, I am not a little girl,” replied the princess, “I am fourteen.”
+
+“Miss Page, if you do not mind I shall be glad if you will do as
+Ni—as—the princess desires,” said her mother pleadingly. “She is an
+invalid, you know, and, I am afraid, sadly spoiled.”
+
+“Very well,” rejoined Nathalie briefly, feeling somewhat relieved to
+think she could talk about the Pioneers and not to have to think up a
+story. Yet it did seem strange to ask her to come there and tell stories
+and then ask her not to do so.
+
+“Now that you have permission, please go right ahead and tell me
+everything you know about the Pioneers!”
+
+“That will be delightfully easy, I can assure you,” exclaimed Nathalie.
+“Although I am a new Pioneer, I am beginning to be very enthusiastic. I
+can’t tell you much about the hikes for I have never been on a long hike
+yet. We were going on a bird hike the other day—” then she remembered
+the search party and its results, and in a few words told about Rosebud
+and the morning spent in searching for her.
+
+“Oh, that was just fine of you,” cried the princess as Nathalie came to
+the part where the Pioneers had acted as if they did not want to hunt
+for the little girl. “And those girls! I think they were very selfish,
+but go on and tell me some more about the Pioneers!”
+
+Nathalie, thus pressed, told of the Pilgrim Rally, the coming of the Boy
+Scouts, the Pioneer dance, and then lastly how she had accepted Miss I
+Can, the motto of the organization, as a very dear friend, and how she
+was trying to live up to it. The girl could not account for the feeling
+that made her sacrifice her usual reserve in regard to her inner life,
+and tell this make-believe princess about what she was trying to do. In
+thinking it over when by herself, she concluded that perhaps it was the
+lesson in this little motto that she had intuitively felt might help the
+little prisoner in the tower.
+
+“Oh, I wish you would get up a story club for me!” exclaimed the blood
+royal, as Nathalie finally ended her Pioneer recital by telling about
+the story club the girls had formed to tell stories to the little
+children in the colored settlement.
+
+“Wouldn’t it be just lovely! And they would all be real live girls, too,
+not story-book people, for oh, Miss Page, I get so tired of book folks!
+I want to meet just real every-day girls. That is why I coaxed my mother
+to get the doctor to have you come here and tell me stories, but don’t
+say another word about telling me stories,” she lowered her voice, “for
+that was just a trick to get Mother to consent. When I want a thing I
+just keep plaguing her and then she lets me have my way.”
+
+“Oh, but you ought to tell your mother everything,” exclaimed her new
+friend, somewhat repelled by this frank admission of deceit. “I always
+tell my mother everything, why I could not sleep at night if I thought I
+had deceived her.”
+
+“Everything is fair in love and war, that’s what my governess used to
+say, but she was a horrid thing,” the princess confessed candidly; “I
+just hated her. She had a beau and I used to steal his letters and
+pretend I had read them, just for the fun of seeing her get in a rage.
+But go on, and tell me more about those girls.”
+
+The last word had barely left her lips when a shriek, shrill and
+terrifying, rang through the room. Nathalie jumped up in a spasm of
+terror, but before she could ascertain what it was, another one, even
+shriller and more prolonged than the first one, as it seemed to the
+frightened girl, sounded right in her very ear. Her heart leaped to her
+throat, a stifled cry escaped her as she dropped back in her chair
+cowering with fear. Then came another cry, followed by weird, demoniacal
+laughter. Nathalie put her hands up to her face determined to tear off
+her bandage, for that blood-curdling shriek, that hideous laugh, she had
+heard before—and then she remembered—oh, she was in the house of the
+Mystic!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII—THE WILD FLOWER HIKE
+
+
+“Oh, it’s the crazy man!” came with a flash into Nathalie’s mind. What
+should she do? If she could only take off that horrible bandage from her
+eyes!
+
+“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess with a merry laugh as
+she saw her companion cower in her chair. “It’s only Jimmie! Jimmie,
+stop that racket!” she continued with a loud clap of her hands. But
+Jimmie, whoever he was, only replied with another agonizing shriek. This
+time the princess called angrily, “Mamma, come and make Jimmie stop his
+shrieking. Miss Page is awfully frightened!”
+
+Nathalie, as she heard the foregoing explanation, and realized that it
+was not an insane person screaming, gave a hysterical gasp and turned
+her head in the direction of the shrieks, but alas! her blinders, like a
+black wall, barred her vision.
+
+A few hurried steps, a scuffle evidently, accompanied by the loud
+flapping of wings, and then a jumble of French, Spanish, and English,
+jabbered in defiant rage, revealed that Jimmie was a cockatoo!
+
+[Illustration: “Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess, with
+a merry laugh.]
+
+But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his fight to be heard, with
+much loudness and clearness of note now broke into “In the Sweet Bye and
+Bye.” This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial
+proved too much for Jimmie’s audience, and peals of laughter rang out,
+in which Nathalie’s treble and the doctor’s deeper note mingled with the
+cockatoo’s song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore, started in
+with “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief—” but this time he was
+summarily thrust from the room by an attendant—amid jabbering protests.
+
+The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must be going, as he had an
+important case on hand; he had waited for her, he explained, knowing
+that she would be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he called
+the handkerchief.
+
+As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand, crying, “No, you
+shall not go. You have only been here a few moments!” Notwithstanding
+her mother’s admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the
+invalid persisted in clutching her new friend’s hand in a vise-like
+grip, much to her embarrassment. Finding, however, that she was not to
+have her way, the princess broke forth into a low whimpering.
+
+Nathalie stood still, and then feeling ashamed that a girl of her age
+should act the part of a child of five, endeavored to persuade her to
+let her go, promising to come again soon. She met with no success, and
+driven desperate by the command, “Come, Nathalie, we must go!” she
+roughly pulled her hand away. Whereupon, the whimpering cries of the
+princess degenerated into shrieks of rage, so prolonged and shrill that
+Nathalie, with a thrill of surprise, immediately recognized from whom
+Jimmie had learned his shrieks.
+
+As the car sped swiftly along in the direction of home, after the black
+handkerchief had been relegated to the doctor’s pocket again, Nathalie
+suddenly reddened furiously, looked queer for a moment, and then burst
+into stifled laughter, much to the doctor’s amusement, who was gravely
+watching her.
+
+“Hello!” he cried at length, “what’s up?” after his companion had made
+one or two ineffectual efforts to control her risibility.
+
+But at last she sobered, and with the tears still in her eyes told how
+she and Grace had been sent by Mrs. Morrow a short time before—to
+deliver a letter to Mrs. Van Vorst, and how when they were waiting in
+the reception room they had heard those same terrible shrieks and
+frenzied laughter that Jimmie had emitted that morning, and, thinking
+that it was an insane person, they had run for their lives.
+
+“O dear,” she gasped hysterically, “what a joke on Grace and me! To
+think of our running away when it was only a cockatoo! Oh, what sillies
+we were!”
+
+“I agree with you,” returned the doctor so solemnly that the girl
+flushed and looked at him quickly with shamed eyes, but his humorous
+twinkle did not agree with his blunt assurance, so Nathalie’s
+self-esteem suffered no wound.
+
+“You know where you were then to-day?” questioned the doctor slowly
+after a pause.
+
+“Oh, yes, at the house of the Mystic!”
+
+“The house of the Mystic?” with some astonishment.
+
+“Oh, that is the name the girls have given Mrs. Van Vorst because she
+acts so queerly. She has been very disagreeable to the Pioneers, they
+claim, refusing to let them drill on the lawn in the rear of her house.
+The girls say she hates young people, and then she always dresses so
+queerly in gray, too. She has shrouded herself in mystery by shutting
+herself up in that big gray house behind those walls. Edith Whiton
+insists that there is an insane person in the house and that he chased
+her the day of the Pilgrim Rally.”
+
+“An insane person! There is no insane person in the house. That is
+nonsense, and should not be repeated!” exclaimed the doctor in an
+annoyed tone.
+
+“Yes, I know, but the girls believe Edith, and so did I until to-day.
+But Grace and I have never told a soul what we heard, only Mrs. Morrow.
+But, oh, Doctor,” she cried impulsively, “can’t I tell Grace about the
+cockatoo? I will tell her not to tell a living soul,” she ended
+earnestly.
+
+“No,” returned the doctor decidedly, “Miss Grace is all right, but she
+might let it out in her sleep. No, you wait, and some time you girls can
+have the best laugh ever, as my kiddies say.”
+
+So the story of Nathalie’s visit to the princess in the tower was buried
+deep within her heart, although it came very near being unearthed
+several times when she was in the company of Grace or Helen, for really,
+it was hard to keep it a secret when it was such a good joke.
+
+Saturday, the day of the wild-flower hike, was warm and sunshiny, with
+the balminess of summer in its gently wafting breezes. Every one present
+was filled with the anticipation that they were going to have a “dandy
+time.”
+
+“Are we all here?” questioned Mrs. Morrow, as she stood on the veranda
+steps, craning her neck from one side to the other in the endeavor to
+see that her bird groups were all there. In her natty khaki suit, with
+its red-banded sombrero and red tie, she looked as jaunty and young as
+the Bluebirds, Bob Whites, and Orioles, who, with admiring eyes, watched
+her as they stood lined up on the path with knapsacks, staffs, and all
+the paraphernalia needed for the hike.
+
+The several bird calls attested that the band were all on hand, and then
+they filed up on the veranda before their Director as lunch-baskets were
+opened for inspection, so that she could see that each one had been
+properly prepared and was in a “relishy condition,” as Helen explained
+to Nathalie.
+
+In a few moments the inspection was over and the girls tripped merrily
+down the walk and out of the gate, making such a hubbub with the clatter
+of their tongues that the doctor, as he came hurriedly up the path,
+teasingly put his fingers in his ears in intimation that they were
+making undue clamor.
+
+The Flower of the Family’s knapsack bulged with a package of Aunt
+Jemima’s Pancake Flour, suggestive of the flapjacks to be, while the
+Editor-in-chief, with a reporter-like air, carried a large note-book
+under her arm so as to feature the affair in the forthcoming “Pioneer.”
+The Encyclopedia was lumbered with two musty volumes on flower lore, she
+explained, so as to be able to give all desired information on the
+various specimens that were to be gathered by the hikers.
+
+The Pot-Boiler’s knapsack was not only stuffed with several
+mysterious-looking packages, but was glaringly conspicuous, that young
+lady, true to her name, having pasted a paper advertisement of an iron
+pot on its cover. The Sport carried a few garden implements: a small
+shovel, a rake, and a hoe, with which to burrow in the ground for those
+specimens that grew in a brook or in the mossy hollows in the woods. The
+Tike, as the privileged fag, carried a basket to fill with wild-flowers
+to be distributed to the shut-ins of the town hospital on their return.
+
+Each Pioneer, besides her lunch-box, carried a self-made
+note-book—Nathalie had spent several hours making hers—with a pencil
+attached for her flower specimens, data, and so forth. Nathalie felt a
+bit disappointed that she had not been able to buy a uniform, although
+Helen had said that it made no difference, for she noticed to her dismay
+that she was the only Pioneer minus that very desirable accessory, dear
+to the heart of every hiker.
+
+The girls had gone but half a block when a sudden cry of pleasure
+rippled through the line. Then, as one Pioneer, the girls gave their
+call in welcome to Dr. Homer, who, as Mrs. Morrow explained, was to take
+the place usually occupied by her husband, when the Pioneers were on a
+long hike.
+
+The doctor responded by giving the Boy Scout salute as he stood a moment
+with raised hat. When the girls filed by, to Nathalie’s surprise he
+stepped to her side and asked, as he smiled in recognition, “May I have
+the pleasure of hiking with you?”
+
+Nathalie’s cheeks bloomed pink at the remembrance of their last meeting,
+but her eyes brightened as she nodded an assent. Perhaps some of the
+girls felt a little envious as they saw whom the doctor had selected for
+the favor of his company, as he was a great favorite and had always
+proved a delightful companion. But they quickly stifled any feeling that
+jarred, as each one remembered that she had had her turn, and that now
+it was Nathalie’s opportunity to have this pleasure as the new Pioneer.
+
+And Nathalie’s turn added a zest and enjoyment to her first hike that
+was long remembered, for through Dr. Homer’s kindness in imparting to
+her many stray bits of knowledge she was able to hide her greenness in
+wood-lore, bird-lore, and many of the activities in which the other
+Pioneers were so proficient.
+
+The Pioneers had barely reached the open when the Sport and one of the
+Orioles were despatched by the Director to blaze a trail. In order to
+give this advance corps a chance to get ahead, the rest of the company
+rested on the road, sitting down on the grass, or on some decayed tree
+trunk, while others practiced wall-scaling, among them Nathalie and the
+doctor, the latter acting as their instructor.
+
+This scaling feat meant stepping carefully upon the ledge of a stone
+wall that skirted the road, and then springing down as quickly and
+lightly as possible, so as not to dislodge stray stones and bring them
+rattling after one. This forerunner of other feats to come led the
+doctor to tell how a Scout practiced wall-scaling; sometimes by standing
+on the shoulders of another Scout, and then climbing a high wooden
+fence, which was claimed by many to be a more difficult performance than
+scaling a stone wall. This, of course, proved an incentive for the girls
+to do their best, especially Nathalie, who as a city-bred girl did not
+want to prove a laggard.
+
+A few minutes later, as they resumed their tramp, Nathalie’s face grew
+radiant as she suddenly spied a tree near with a penknife notch on the
+bark. “Oh, girls, here is the trail! Go this way!” she cried excitedly,
+pointing as she spoke to the notched sign of a twig bent at the end,
+making it look somewhat like the point of a broken arrow. As she was
+coming to be a zealous student of the bent-twig signs, the trail-blazing
+system invented for the Pioneers, she explained a number of these
+bent-twig signs to the doctor, who was deeply interested and not only
+told of the many signs used by the Scouts, but showed her the trees that
+were the easiest to cut.
+
+Chatting, laughing, and singing—for the girls vied with the birds in
+their joyousness that summer morning—making bird calls, alternating with
+notch-making and flower-gathering made the time pass swiftly. The new
+Pioneer was amazed when Dr. Homer pulled out his watch and looking at
+his pedometer said that they had walked four miles, and that in a short
+time they would hit the wood trail, where they were to camp for dinner.
+
+Nathalie’s flower-box was soon full of specimens that she had gathered
+from the roadside and the meadow where her lesson in wall-scaling came
+in handy. Perhaps this wild flower hunt proved but a small part of her
+pleasure, for as she strolled along the doctor proved most companionable
+as he coached her in hike knowledge.
+
+Never walk over anything you can go around, he had told her, and never
+step on anything you can step over, for every time you step on anything
+you lift the weight of your body, which makes more to carry when
+tramping. He also made her laugh heartily when he insisted upon
+examining the footwear of the hikers, expounding as he did so upon the
+foolishness of damsels in general, who would insist upon wearing shoes
+either too big or too small for them. The small shoes, he said, crowded
+the feet, and the big ones added extra weight, and made them road-weary
+before the tramp was half over.
+
+He also told her about the weather signs; a low cloud moving swiftly
+indicated coolness; hard-edged clouds, wind; rolled or jagged clouds,
+strong wind; and a mackerel sky, a whole day of fair weather. Nathalie,
+perhaps to show this young man with the smiling gray eyes who looked at
+you so fearlessly that she, too, did know just a tiny bit about weather
+signs, sang softly:
+
+  “Hark to the East Wind’s song from the sea,
+  Blowing the misty clouds o’er lea;
+  Shaking the sheaves of golden grain
+  With the patter of the rain;
+  Giving the earth a cooling drink,
+  Washing the flow’rs a brighter pink.
+  Hark to the West Wind’s song of cheer
+  Bringing blue sky and weather clear;
+  Driving away the clouds so gray
+  Filling the earth with sunlight’s ray;
+  Cheering the hearts of those who mourn,
+  Filling the dark with golden dawn.”
+
+When the little lecture had ended she had learned that when a slack rope
+tightens, when smoke beats down, when the sun is red in the morning, or
+when there is a yellowish or greenish sunset it means rain; how to tell
+which way the wind blows by pulling blades of grass and then letting the
+wind blow them, or to suck your thumb and let the wind blow around it,
+the cool side telling the tale.
+
+To be sure, they were all simple things to learn, but they were the
+essentials of life, as the doctor said, who had a most jolly manner of
+giving his stray bits of information, all the while making so much
+sport, as he ambled on, that Nathalie was sure she would remember
+everything he had told her.
+
+When the girls reached the wood with its cool, damp shade, moss-grown
+paths, and running brooklet, they set to work with renewed vigor to hunt
+for specimens. The Sport, notwithstanding the fun the girls had made of
+her garden implements, found that they were in great demand. For a time
+she was the star hiker, as first one and another pleaded, “Oh, Edith,
+just let me have that rake a minute!” or, “Oh, I see the dandiest little
+blue flower here in this crevice!” and so on.
+
+When they finally grew tired of flower-hunting they pushed their way to
+a level space in the open on the edge of the woods, where knapsacks,
+frying-pans, pots, and all such camping utensils were hastily thrown on
+the grass, and the girls hied themselves to the spring to wash their
+heated cheeks and rearrange their tangled tresses. Some, more
+venturesome than the others, took off their shoes and stockings and
+waded in the brook’s cooling flow, while the older ones, summoned by a
+series of bird calls, hurried back to camp to prepare dinner.
+
+To their delight, as the girls returned from the spring, they found that
+Dr. Homer had built an Indian “wickiup,” that is a dome-shaped wigwam,
+by sticking in the ground in a circle a number of limber poles. The ones
+the doctor had used were willow wands, but almost any kind of a bough
+would do, he claimed. He then showed the girls how he had bent the tops
+of each pair of opposites or poles forward until they met. The ends were
+then interlocked and tied firmly. Over this impromptu wigwam—for it had
+been made with no tool but his strong penknife—he had thrown a blanket
+shawl.
+
+The girls were all much interested in the Indian wigwam for this was the
+simplest way of making a tent, and they examined it eagerly. They were
+especially interested when the doctor told them that one time when he
+had lost his trail up in the Maine woods, he had made a dome-shaped
+wigwam and had rested in its shelter, high and dry, during a severe
+storm.
+
+When the novelty of the wigwam had worn off, every girl declared herself
+famished for something to eat, and the dinner committee hustled about
+picking up small dry twigs, which were placed in a heap, lightly, so as
+to draw the air. These were then covered with the heavier sticks until
+the desired height for a campfire was reached. Several fires were to be
+started, as no time was to be wasted in cooking the edibles.
+
+When all was in readiness, there was a general call for Nathalie, who,
+as the new Pioneer, was to take her first lesson in lighting a fire with
+only one match. Every Pioneer, of course, was eager to show her how to
+do this feat, but Mrs. Morrow silenced the clamor by assigning the task
+to Helen.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Morrow—I think—” Nathalie stopped, a sudden roguish expression
+flittered over her face, and then she meekly followed Helen to the
+wood-pile and stood silent as she watched that young lady scratch her
+match, hold it in the hollow of her hand, and then, with a soft puff,
+kneel, and apply it to a twig.
+
+The twig was obstinate, however, and Helen’s one match attempt was a
+decided failure. The Sport now offered her services as instructor, but
+Nathalie, feeling sorry for Helen, who with a crestfallen air had
+retired to the ranks of onlookers, cried, “Oh, no, Mrs. Morrow, can’t I
+try by myself?”
+
+As the Director nodded an assent, while the doctor laughingly declared
+she would have beginner’s luck, Nathalie took her match, examined it
+carefully, and then scratched it on the box. A tiny blue flame quivered
+in the air, which she carefully sheltered with her hand as she knelt
+before the heap of twigs, and blew, oh, so softly. It must have been a
+magic blow, for as she bent down and held it to the smallest twig she
+could find, almost a wisp of straw, it spread itself to the air, caught
+the twig in its flame, and in another moment drifting spurts of smoke
+showed that Nathalie had lighted the fire with one match!
+
+The doctor whistled softly as he saw that Nathalie had succeeded, but
+before she could regain an upright position, the Pioneers had broken
+forth into loud clapping, somewhat to her confusion as she stood with
+the blackened match still in her hand.
+
+Should she tell, she pondered, as her glance swept from face to face of
+the applauding girls; then as she saw the amused look in the doctor’s
+eyes, as he stood with folded arms leaning against a tree watching her,
+she gave a little laugh. She opened her lips to speak, but when the
+clapping continued, as if each Pioneer was bent on seeing who could clap
+the loudest, she raised her hand as she had seen Mrs. Morrow and Helen
+do sometimes.
+
+This appeal had the desired effect, and as the clapping dwindled,
+Nathalie, with a nervous laugh, cried, “Girls, please don’t clap me any
+more, for I do not deserve it. This is not the first time I have lighted
+a fire with a single match. A few summers ago I camped up in the Maine
+woods. The second day at camp some one upset a pail of water on the box
+with our match supply, and as only one dry box was left, and it was some
+miles to the nearest settlement, we were compelled to economize, and
+were allowed only one match to light a fire. I was going to tell you,”
+she gave a little ripple of laughter, “but you were all so anxious to
+show me I did not want to spoil your fun, and then as I have not
+attempted the feat since that summer, I did not know whether I could do
+it again or not.”
+
+A circle of stones was now placed around the fires so as to prevent them
+from spreading in case of a strong wind, and then the lunch-boxes were
+opened. It was not long before the savory fumes of frying frankfurters,
+boiling cocoa, and flapjacks signified that a camp dinner was in
+progress.
+
+The girls found a level rock on which they spread a cloth and small
+board, and then the bread was cut and buttered in a way that showed that
+they were experts at the task. Nathalie made the cocoa, counting noses
+as she put in a teaspoonful of cocoa to every cup of boiling water,
+letting it boil three minutes by the watch of the doctor, who had kindly
+offered to help his little hike-mate, as he called her.
+
+The hikers now seated themselves around the fires—for there were
+three—and then something happened that held Nathalie with reverent awe
+for she saw Mrs. Morrow’s face sober with a sweet seriousness, as she
+gave the signal for silence. Every head was quickly lowered in response
+to this signal, and then a timid voice—it belonged to the Flower—broke
+the reverent stillness by softly chanting a blessing to the Giver of all
+good.
+
+Each girl had brought her own tin cup, plate, knife and fork, lump of
+sugar, and napkin. Pats of butter were now distributed, followed by the
+molasses jug, so as to be ready for the flapjacks that were now browning
+to a turn. The “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” of delight that burst forth as the
+cakes found their way around the circle amply repaid the baker for her
+reddened face and hard labor over the burning fagots.
+
+Of course there had to be mishaps; the first piece of bacon to grease
+the griddle dropped into the fire instead of the pan, and a number of
+cakes turned out failures and had to be consigned to the waste-heap. But
+it was a regular hike spread, and meant lots and lots of fun, especially
+when the pancake contest was started.
+
+This was something new to Nathalie, and she quite enjoyed it as she
+watched one girl after the other take her turn in making a flapjack. She
+first poured the batter on the griddle in just the right quantity, and
+then skillfully tossed it high in air as she turned it, so that it would
+land in just the right place on the pan and finish to just the right
+shade of brown.
+
+All the party, even the doctor, tried their hands at this feat, all but
+the new Pioneer, who shrank back, afraid to venture as she knew that
+expertness came only with many trials. But the girls were persistent and
+so good-natured in trying to show her that she felt a little ashamed,
+especially when Mrs. Morrow, who was jotting down the names of the
+experts for merit badges, repeated softly, “I can!”
+
+Nathalie immediately sprang up, and although feeling that she would make
+a perfect goose of herself at this new trial, took the little pitcher,
+poured out the batter, and then with a quaking heart watched it darken.
+Ah, she slipped the turner under, and was just about to give it the
+magic toss when her hand slipped, and batter and turner fell into the
+flames.
+
+She was so disgusted with this dismal attempt that she would have liked
+to disappear to parts unknown if the doctor had not cried, “Ah, just one
+more trial, I know you will get it this time!” To her unutterable
+astonishment the doctor’s prediction came true, and she really tossed a
+flapjack with such success that her hike-mate declared it was “the best
+ever,” and begged permission to eat it in memory of the plucky deed.
+
+Of course Grace, Louise, and Helen each won a badge, as was discovered
+when the contest was over. But even feasting has its limitations on a
+warm day in June, and as the edibles disappeared the hike spread came to
+an end. The Tike and one of the Bob Whites were now despatched to the
+spring for some water, while the rest of the hikers—all but Mrs. Morrow,
+who was escorted to the wigwam for a siesta—flew hither and thither,
+filling the pots with water to boil off the grease, rubbing the griddle
+with sand, and so on.
+
+As Nathalie and the doctor were jabbing the knives in the dirt to clean
+them, Helen came running up crying, “Oh, what do you suppose the
+water-carriers are up to? They have been gone an awfully long time and
+we have not a drop of water to wash the dishes?”
+
+“I will go and see!” exclaimed the doctor, jumping up hastily, but he
+had not gone more than a few steps when a shrill scream broke the
+brooding silence of the woods. In another instant pots, pans, and dishes
+were flung broadcast as every one made a wild rush in the direction of
+the spring, headed by the doctor. As the doctor reached the spring,
+however, and saw that the screams did not issue from that quarter he
+turned, and with a few flying leaps reached the scene of disaster, some
+distance down the stream.
+
+The girls started to run after him, but in a moment his loud laughter
+brought them to a standstill, for surely it could not be anything very
+serious or he would not be indulging in such levity! Helen and the
+Sport, however, who had rushed steadily on, were not far behind the
+doctor, and as they swung around the bend of the trees, they beheld a
+diminutive figure, sputtering and gasping, with rivulets of water
+trickling from bedraggled garments and locks, being assisted up the bank
+by the doctor’s strong arm!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII—AROUND THE CHEER FIRE
+
+
+The sorry-looking object proved to be the Tike, who between sobs and
+shivery shakes explained, as the party surrounded her, that tempted by
+the mirror-like surface of a dark pool in the middle of the brook she
+had stooped to see if she could see her face in it. Unfortunately, her
+knee slipped on a loose stone, and she had tumbled in.
+
+With much laughter and merriment the girls made a stretcher, tumbled the
+somewhat subdued fag into it, and then set off for the wigwam, where
+Miss Carol was speedily disrobed and her clothes hung out to dry, as the
+girls merrily sang, “on a hickory limb!”
+
+Bundled up in wraps after a few drops of stimulant had been administered
+to prevent her taking cold, which made her drowsy, she was left to the
+ministrations of the dream fairies, while the girls hurried off to wash
+the dishes and finish cleaning up. While this was being performed, the
+doctor showed Nathalie how to throw dirt or water on the fires—all but
+one, which was left for a cheer fire—so as to be sure that they were all
+out. The girls, he said, had learned a lesson last summer when they left
+a fire smoldering when they struck camp. It soon burst into a blaze and
+if it hadn’t been for a party of Scouts who had been off for a tramp the
+woods would have been on fire.
+
+Camp duties done, the cheer fire blazed a welcome and the girls hastily
+circled around it, and were soon busily engaged in packing the roots of
+their wild flowers with clay, wrapping them in big leaves and tying them
+securely with sweet grasses or string. They were then placed in the
+Tike’s basket to delight the heart of some shut-in, whose only outing
+was from the window.
+
+When this task was completed the flower specimens were laid in rows, and
+then Helen as leader, gave the names of her specimens; each girl having
+a like specimen laid it carefully between a sheet of blotting paper to
+remove the moisture, and then pressed it deftly in her note-book, where
+it was fastened with gummed paper across the stems and thick parts of
+the plant. Under each flower was now written its botanical name, its
+common name, the date of finding it, its habitat, and any other data
+that could be obtained from the Encyclopedia, who, with flower books
+spread before her, was kept busy supplying all the needed information.
+
+Each odd specimen was passed around for inspection, and then the lucky
+finder jubilantly placed it on record, while others wrote additional
+information as to the insects that visit it, whether it is a
+pollen-bearer, if it slept at night, or closed in the sun. The doctor
+supplemented Barbara’s book lore by stray bits of knowledge that he had
+picked up from actual experience in his many scout rambles. The girls
+were only too pleased to listen, being particularly interested in his
+account of the evolution of color in flowers.
+
+When the time came for telling cheer fire stories, Mrs. Morrow suggested
+that they should be flower stories, stipulating, however, that the
+legends told should be about the specimens that had been found in that
+day’s hike.
+
+With this, the doctor, who was lying on the grass by the side of
+Nathalie, pulled off his hat which she had decorated with a dandelion
+wreath, and waving it high so every one could see it in its yellow
+glory, said he would start the wheel of yarns by telling about the
+maiden with the fluffy cobweb hair.
+
+As he said “hair,” Lillie Bell rose, and in ready imitation of the
+renowned Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm tragically intoned:
+
+  “Robaire! Robaire!
+  Let down your hair!”
+
+The girls burst into peals of laughter, for even in the sleepy town of
+Westport every one had seen the beloved Rebecca, and keenly appreciated
+Lillie’s timely pose.
+
+“But this slim bit of a girl,” smiled the doctor, “didn’t let down her
+yellow tresses, they just flew with the wind, until Shawondassee—this is
+an Indian legend—the South Wind saw her. Instead of seeking this
+witching maiden, whom he admired so deeply, he was lulled to sleep by
+the fragrance of the summer flowers and forgot all about her. The next
+day he again spied his yellow charmer away off among the grasses of the
+meadows, but after lazily wishing she would come to him he snoozed off
+again. To his horror, the next day he found that the maiden’s tresses
+were gone, and that in her place stood an old woman who looked as if
+Jack Frost had sprinkled her with his silver dust.
+
+“‘Ah,’ sighed Shawondassee, ‘my brother the North Wind has done this
+wrong.’ So he hurriedly arose and blew his horn loud and fierce to the
+whitened figure standing so forlornly out in the fields. But alas, as
+his soft breezes whistled gently about the old woman, her snow-white
+hair fell to the ground, and then she, too, soon disappeared, leaving
+nothing but a few upright stems and a bunch of withered leaves. She was
+the dandelion, whose petals turn to fluffy hair when touched by the
+North Wind. This yellow maiden is said to be a symbol of the sun, and
+has been named Dandelion because it is claimed that its petals resemble
+a lion’s tooth.”
+
+The common little field flower seemed to have gained in interest after
+the legend, and was examined with greater curiosity, while the Scribe
+hurriedly wrote the legend on a stray page of her copy-pad to feature it
+in the “Pioneer.”
+
+Lillie Bell, who had gathered a number of wild forget-me-nots, told a
+pathetic German legend about that sweetheart flower, while Helen
+explained that the marigold, instead of being such a common plant, was
+in reality the bride of the sun. It was once a maiden named Caltha, who,
+in reward for her faithfulness to the sun, was finally lost in his
+golden rays, and on the spot where she used to stand and gaze at her
+fiery lover the marigold grew.
+
+Nathalie, who had been deeply interested in the legends, experienced
+somewhat of a shock when Mrs. Morrow suddenly said, “Now, Nathalie, are
+we not to hear a flower legend, or some kind of a story from you?”
+
+“Oh, I am a poor hand at story-telling,” the girl speedily answered.
+
+“Hear! hear! this is treason!” called Helen loudly, “for a Pioneer who
+has won fame as a Story Lady!”
+
+“Oh, that is different,” pleaded her friend in mild despair, “those were
+only children’s stories.”
+
+“To be able to tell stories to children, Nathalie, and to keep their
+attention,” spoke Mrs. Morrow, “shows ability, and if we have so gifted
+a Pioneer I think it is our due to hear from her.”
+
+“And then, Nathalie,” urged Grace, “every Pioneer has to know how to
+tell stories, and this is a good time to make a beginning.”
+
+“Well, I see I am doomed, notwithstanding my protests,” said the girl
+after a short pause. “I will try to tell one if you will let me put on
+my thinking-cap for a moment.” As permission was accorded to this
+request, Nathalie turned and glanced helplessly at the doctor, as if she
+might find inspiration in his merry eyes, Helen laughingly declared.
+
+Nathalie blushed as the doctor shook his head and said, “No, hike-mate,
+I am at your service in everything but a story, for I ran dry when I
+told mine. Then I know you have nerve and brains enough to do your own
+thinking.”
+
+“Oh, I know one!” the girl suddenly cried as her face lighted, and then
+closing her eyes for a moment, as if to invoke the aid of some unknown
+muse, she said, “I read it in a newspaper the other day. It is about a
+flower, but I will let you guess its name.”
+
+“It was in the spring,” she continued slowly, “and old Peboan sat alone
+in his ragged tepee. His hair fell about his time-worn face like
+glistening icicles as he shivered in his fur robes; oh, so cold, so weak
+and hungry, for he had had no food for days. As he bent over to blow
+upon the smoldering embers that glowed at his feet, he besought the
+Great Spirit to come to his aid.
+
+“As he thus prayed and lamented a handsome young girl stepped within the
+tent. Her eyes were as blue as the summer sky and were filled with a
+liquid light, while her golden hair floated gracefully with the wind.
+Her cheeks were like apple blossoms and her gown was made of sweet
+grasses and green leaves. In her arms she carried twigs of the
+pussy-willow. Going softly to the old man, she cried in a voice as sweet
+as the brook’s gentle flow, ‘Peboan, what can I do for thee?’
+
+“The old man raised his head as he heard the maiden’s sweet voice, and
+as he saw her in her spring glory he cried bitterly, ‘I am hungry and
+cold. I have lost my power over nature, for the streams have refused to
+stand still for me. My mantle disappears from the earth as rapidly as I
+cover it, and the flowers are peeping from their brown beds, although I
+have bidden them sleep.’
+
+“‘Peboan,’ replied the maiden, ‘I am Seguin, the summer manitou; the
+flowers are obeying me, for I have bidden them arise. The leaves are
+budding on the trees, the pussies are out in all their furry finery, for
+I, Seguin, now possess the earth. The snow and ice have disappeared, for
+they have obeyed my voice, and your power is gone. All nature pays me
+homage, for I am the Queen of the earth, the Goddess of spring!
+
+“’Peboan, you are the winter manitou, and the Great Spirit calls you!
+Now go!’ As Seguin said these words she gently waved her wand over the
+old man’s head as it sank between his shoulders.
+
+“The winter manitou made no reply, but drew his furs closer about his
+shivering form, and then, as he heard the song of the spring birds, and
+the rustling of the leaves in the sunshine, he sank to the ground.
+
+“As a ray of the warm sun filtered through the top of the tepee and fell
+upon the old man, who lay exhausted on the earth; Seguin again raised
+her wand, and the winter manitou disappeared. His furs had turned to
+dancing leaves; his tepee to a tall tree. Then Seguin stooped, and
+gathering a handful of the leaves from the tree she breathed on
+them—very softly—and then threw them on the earth. They immediately
+stood upright, each holding forth a tiny pink flower, gay with a
+delicate perfume.
+
+“‘Grow and blossom,’ cried the spring maiden softly, ‘and bloom a
+welcome to the hearts of those who are depressed by winter’s gales, for
+you are a token that Peboan, the winter manitou is gone. You are the
+first flower that comes in the spring.’ Now what is the name of it?”
+ended Nathalie abruptly.
+
+“Snowdrop!” called Helen quickly. Nathalie shook her head.
+
+“Violet!” timidly ventured some one.
+
+“Violet?” the Sport repeated scornfully. “Who ever heard of a pink
+violet? Nathalie said this flower was pink.”
+
+Mrs. Morrow broke the sudden silence that followed the Sport’s remark by
+saying softly, “I think it is the arbutus!”
+
+“That’s it!” cried Nathalie, and then to her bewilderment every one
+began to clap again. As the clapping continued, the girls meanwhile,
+watching her with sparkling eyes, Nathalie turned and whispered to the
+doctor, “Why, what are they clapping for?”
+
+But before he could reply the Sport shouted, “Hurrah for the Story
+Lady!”
+
+The cry was repeated again and again to Nathalie’s confusion. In a
+moment, however, her wits asserted themselves, and springing to her
+feet, with a low sweeping courtesy she cried, “Thank you, fellow
+Pioneers, I am glad you liked my first cheer-fire story!”
+
+The clapping now subsided, and after several had expressed their
+admiration by saying that the story was the “best ever,” Mrs. Morrow
+started a floral conundrum, which proved a thriller, the doctor claimed,
+as he sat with humorous eyes and watched the girls, who all sat up and
+took notice, as one after the other called out the name of a flower in
+answer to the questions propounded by their Director.
+
+When the questions had all been answered, it was discovered that the
+names of the star actors in this little floral drama, the color of their
+eyes, hair, and so on, as well as the musical instrument played by the
+lover, the words of his proposal, the wedding, and even the time and
+place of the honeymoon, had all been answered by the names of flowers.
+
+Lillie Bell, at Mrs. Morrow’s request, took her mandolin, and after
+thrumming it softly broke into a quaint low strain of melody, while
+Louise sang in her sweet little soprano voice, “All in a Garden Fair,”
+“Fortune My Foe,” and “Nymphs and Shepherds,” each number being one of a
+group of old English songs dating as far back as 1555. After receiving
+an encore, Louise favored them with “Polly Willis,” and “Golden Slumber
+Kiss Your Eyes,” two more popular ballads of the seventeenth century.
+
+These old-time songs were a surprise for Mrs. Morrow, who had often been
+heard to remark that it was a pity, as they were Pioneers, that they did
+not know some of the songs that used to be sung in those days, instead
+of ragtime songs. But ragtime was not altogether displaced, for in a few
+minutes the girls were singing “The Sweet Little Girl with the Quaint
+Squeegee,” “Dry yo’ Eyes,” and “My Little Dream Girl,” with a verve and
+gusto that made the woods resound to the ring of their girlish voices.
+
+By this time cramped limbs and the joyousness of life asserted
+themselves, and every one began to feel that they wanted to run, leap,
+and jump, so at the doctor’s suggestion they played the Scout game of
+“Stalking.” The doctor was the deer, not hiding, but standing and moving
+a little now and then as he liked, while the girls vied with one another
+in trying to touch him without being seen.
+
+The doctor did his part so well that he was duly tantalizing, the
+Pioneers declared, as they watched him with strained eyes, being unable
+to catch him napping. When the doctor called “Time,” the game ended by
+all the girls coming to a halt on the spot where they were standing when
+the call sounded, the girl nearest the deer winning the game.
+
+Prisoner’s Base was then started; the goals were marked off, the players
+divided into two sections, one stationed in each goal, and then the fun
+began. A girl would advance towards the opposite goal, and then run back
+into safety, while one of her mates came to her rescue by chasing her
+pursuer, who, in turn, was rescued by one of her own mates. The rushing
+about gave health, glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes attesting that
+muscles, limbs, and blood were being exercised to a good purpose. But
+after the doctor had again defeated them by never getting caught, the
+game was abandoned, the girls all vowing he was magic-limbed, for he was
+so quick and agile on his feet.
+
+After a short time spent in practicing bird calls, as it was nearing the
+time to return home the hikers gathered up their belongings, packed
+their knapsacks, and with staffs in hand started out on the homeward
+hike. They all declared that they were not a bit fatigued by the day’s
+activities, and jested merrily one with another, or happily sang
+snatches of songs as they wended their way back to town.
+
+By the time they had reached the cross-roads their spirits had subsided
+somewhat, all but the Sport’s, who teasingly whisked off Barbara’s hat
+and the next instant was whizzing down the road with it clutched in her
+hand.
+
+Barbara, notwithstanding her weighty nickname of the Encyclopedia, was
+agile, and lost no time in flying after her, urged to speed by the
+girls. Although inclined to poke fun sometimes at Barbara for her
+absent-mindedness and love of books, the girls were her firm friends.
+They loved her for her kindly heart and sincere efforts to help others.
+
+There was a shout of victory when it was seen that the Encyclopedia had
+captured her head-gear, and they were all clapping vociferously when an
+automobile rounded the bend in the road. The car turned out to be the
+doctor’s, whose chauffeur had promised to meet him near the cross-roads
+as he had to be in his office by five that afternoon.
+
+The doctor quickly assisted Mrs. Morrow into the car as she had decided
+to ride, and then stood and waited while the Pioneers—two of whom had
+been invited to join their Director—urged Kitty with her iron pot, and
+the Flower with her griddle to accept the invitation.
+
+The girls finally consented, and with many waves of the hands to the
+pedestrians, and a loud honk, honk, the car glided down the road and out
+of sight.
+
+Helen, Nathalie, and Edith, as they lived near one another, bade their
+mates good-by, and, as they had decided to take a short cut home, turned
+down a side path. As they strolled slowly along a road running by a low
+stone wall hedging a pasture, where a brook twisted like a silver cord
+in the undulating grass, Edith asked her companions if they did not want
+to walk to the Bluff, where they would have a fine view of the bay in
+the distance.
+
+“Oh, yes,” assented Helen, “it is a lovely view, Nathalie, and will only
+be a step out of the way if we go by the brook.”
+
+Nathalie, although feeling somewhat tired, was anxious to visit the
+Bluff, and a minute later the three girls climbed the stone barricade
+and were keeping pace with the brook’s windings as it leaped
+boisterously over a bed of stones, or crept lingeringly, with murmuring
+ripples, between grass-fringed banks.
+
+Presently they wandered into the shade of the trees, where, to
+Nathalie’s surprise, she found the old brook bed. Instead of being earth
+and stones, however, it was green and flower-starred, overshadowed by
+weeping willows and silver birches, their interlaced tops bending low as
+if seeking their old-time friend with its murmuring song.
+
+Lulled by the mossy dell and the fragrance of the woodland posies, the
+girls loitered, and did not realize that the afternoon was waning until
+they reached the Bluff. They raced to the top, where Nathalie’s joy at
+being the fleetest was forgotten, as with stilled eyes she gazed upon
+the fertile strip of valley below, its green specked by tiny white
+cottages and washed by the waters of the bay that shone in the glow of
+the setting sun like a sheet of brass.
+
+The air was becoming chilled by the mist that was hovering in the
+distance, and they turned and quickly made their way back to the road.
+Whereupon, Edith insisted that they take the summit road, leading over a
+small hill at one end of the town, which she declared would save time.
+
+Her companions assented, and in a short space they were pantingly
+trudging up the slope, and then, beginning to realize how tired they
+were, they sat down on a rock near the edge of the summit to rest. Lured
+by the changing colors of the afterglow they grew silent, awed, perhaps,
+by the calm that hushes all nature when the light of day is fading into
+the misty shadows of twilight.
+
+Nathalie had turned from the mountains of pink foam that floated up from
+the golden west, and was gazing down at the town, where little twinkling
+lights were beginning to peep here and there between the tree-tops, when
+Edith suddenly cried, “Oh, look at that smoke!” pointing to a street
+just below the slope where black columns of smoke were rushing upward.
+
+“Some one must be making a big bonfire,” answered Helen inertly, as her
+eyes followed the direction of Edith’s finger.
+
+“Why, Helen, that is not a bonfire,” was the Sport’s quick retort. “Oh,
+I saw a flame shoot up!” she added excitedly.
+
+“So did I!” exclaimed Nathalie, springing on her feet. “And oh, there’s
+another.”
+
+“Why, the church is on fire!” shouted Edith. “There—don’t you see—the
+flames are coming out of the back!”
+
+The girls with dazed eyes and beating hearts looked at the old Methodist
+church, set back from a tree mantled road, within a few feet of a white
+cottage, the parsonage, that nested like some white bird in the shelter
+of the waving boughs of the trees.
+
+“Oh, girls,” wailed the Sport, as she turned abruptly and gazed at them
+with an awe-struck countenance; “it is the church—and the new organ—they
+were to finish it to-day!” She wrung her hands frantically.
+
+Her companions made no reply, their eyes were glued on the columns of
+smoke that hurtled in dense masses up into the air.
+
+“I don’t believe any one knows about it!” exclaimed Helen. “Oh, what
+shall we do? It will be of no use to shout ‘Fire!’ we are too far away.”
+
+“Oh, I know what we can do,” cried Edith heatedly. “We can run to the
+fire-house and give the alarm!”
+
+But Helen had already started forward, and Nathalie followed blindly,
+not even knowing where the fire-house was. Edith, like the flash of a
+flame, shot ahead of the two girls, and the next instant was tearing
+like some wild thing down the hill. In a few moments she had turned up a
+road and was speeding in the direction of a red house with a funny
+little cupola that loomed up above the small cottages surrounding it.
+
+“Fire!” yelled the Sport, as she tore frantically along. Helen took up
+the cry, but Nathalie, although she tried to follow her example, only
+succeeded in making a hoarse sound that died away almost as soon as it
+left her whitened lips.
+
+As her breath began to come in gasps she was half tempted to stop and
+let the other two girls give the alarm. But something told her that
+would not be the act of a Pioneer, and she struggled on until she
+arrived in front of the old ramshackle building with the red cupola
+which looked as if it had once done service as a barn.
+
+“Oh, there is no one here!” panted Helen as she beat frenziedly with her
+two hands on the big wooden door. “It is barred inside.”
+
+But the Sport, like a whirlwind, had flown around to the rear of the
+building, and the next moment was crawling through a window she had
+found unfastened. It took but a moment’s time to speed across the floor,
+give the bar a pull, and fling wide the door.
+
+[Illustration: The rope had broken in her grasp.]
+
+“We must ring the bell,” gasped Helen, as she glanced up at an old rope
+that dangled in the center of the fire-house from a big bell which hung
+motionless in the small tower above their heads.
+
+The three girls sprang for the rope, but the Sport was the quickest and
+caught the dangling rope in her hands. Summoning all her strength she
+gave it a hard pull. The next instant, as the loud clang of the bell
+rang out, the girls heard a sudden imprecation, and looked hastily down
+to see the Sport with a rueful countenance sitting on the floor—the rope
+had broken in her grasp!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV—OVERCOMES
+
+
+The girls gazed in wide-eyed surprise at their prostrate companion, and
+then, as they saw that she was not hurt, their sense of humor broke
+bounds, and they burst into merry peals of laughter, for she did look so
+comical sitting there with that “Where—am—I?” sort of look on her face.
+
+But the Sport was too excited to mind bumps or laughter as she jumped up
+and peered above her head. “The rope has broken!” she exclaimed
+irritably. “Oh, if I could only get hold of that broken end up there,”
+her eyes leaped quickly around the barn, “I could ring the bell again.
+Oh, there’s a ladder!” With an alert spring she had grabbed it and then
+began to drag it under the tower.
+
+The girls by this time had recovered from their unwonted merriment, and,
+feeling somewhat ashamed of leaving the Sport to work unaided, rushed to
+her assistance. They soon had the ladder resting against a broad beam
+that ran across the barn directly under the tower where the broken piece
+of rope still swung.
+
+Up the ladder climbed Edith, high to the top, but alas, she was just a
+few inches short of touching the swaying rope, which she now perceived
+was fastened to a chain that hung from the bell.
+
+“Oh, what will you do?” cried Helen, as the two girls stretched their
+necks almost off their shoulders to see if there was not some way out of
+the difficulty.
+
+“I know what I will do,” exclaimed the Sport suddenly. “I will climb up
+on the beam, walk a few steps, and then I can reach it.”
+
+“You will fall!” exclaimed Nathalie in nervous fear.
+
+“Oh, no, she won’t,” called out Helen hastily. “You don’t know Edith;
+that’s an easy feat for her, for she’s a regular acrobat. But, Edith, be
+careful!” she finished, with sudden anxiety, as she saw the girl climb
+up on the beam and then lift herself upright.
+
+Nathalie, with her breath held, watched Edith for a moment, and then as
+she saw her reach out to catch the dangling rope, she closed her eyes,
+thrilled in every nerve with silent terror for fear she would miss her
+footing.
+
+But she didn’t, for when Nathalie opened her eyes just for a hurried
+peep, she saw Edith with the rope in her hand. The next instant she had
+bent to her task and a loud “Clang! Clang!” rang sharply out.
+
+“One, two, three!” a moment’s pause, then, “One, two, three!” Twice this
+was repeated as the girls stood waiting below with their eyes fixed on
+the ringer’s every movement; Helen, fearful that she would become
+reckless and reach too far, while Nathalie obeyed an impulse she could
+not define and just watched in nervous tension.
+
+Ah, she had dropped her arms and was looking down at the girls. “What
+are you standing there for, ninnies?” she emphasized with a stamp of her
+foot that sent a shiver of horror through Nathalie’s wildly beating
+heart. “Why don’t you go and get the engine out?”
+
+“Oh, so we can,” rejoined Helen quickly. “I never thought! Come, you
+help me!” catching Nathalie by the arm.
+
+Nathalie turned and followed Helen, who had swiftly run to the
+fire-engine, a newly painted affair, a box on wheels, standing in the
+rear of the fire-house. With an alert spring she was close at Helen’s
+heels, and in a moment more had grabbed one of the two ropes tied to the
+front axle. Helen, who stood with the other rope in her hand, now cried,
+“Quick, let’s run it out to the road!”
+
+It rolled easily, and the two girls were just about to wheel it through
+the open door, when a man in a red shirt, leather hat, and his trousers
+tucked into his rubber boots dashed hurriedly up to them.
+
+“Where’s the fire?” he panted. With heated face and eyes bulging
+excitement he seized the rope from Nathalie’s hand, and the next minute,
+with Helen’s help, had run the engine out into the road.
+
+“The Methodist church is on fire!” yelled the Sport from her high perch
+on the beam, but there was no need to say more, for several other men
+had arrived, all in red shirts and firemen’s helmets, while others were
+seen racing from all directions towards the fire-house. In a few
+moments’ time a crowd had collected, each one bent in lending a hand,
+and all shouting with full vocal power as if they thought—so it seemed
+to Nathalie—their shouts would put out the fire.
+
+In the midst of this clamorous din, another rubber-booted individual
+appeared, not only in fireman’s regalia, but with a big brass trumpet.
+On this he blew a mighty blast, and then with much gesticulation
+bellowed his orders to the men.
+
+A final order from the chief, as the man with the trumpet proved to be,
+and the six or eight men holding the ropes of the engine started at
+breakneck speed down the hill. They were followed by a crowd of shouting
+men, women, hooting boys, and crying children, each one frenzied with
+excitement and with the avowed purpose of being first at the fire.
+
+The girls, for by this time Edith had descended from her perilous perch,
+stood silent and watched the engine whiz down the slope leading to the
+town, the red-shirted firemen in front of it shouting angrily in their
+endeavors to stop the rear men from pushing it down on their heels too
+rapidly.
+
+But Edith, who was never still two minutes if there was anything going
+on, with a wild, “Hoopla, I’m going to see the fire!” started in the
+wake of the hooting mob, running at a speed that soon made her one of
+the rank and file that went plunging down the hill.
+
+Helen’s eyes followed the flying figure, and then, with a “Come on,
+don’t let the Sport outdo us!” she was racing after her. Nathalie,
+bewildered by this strange and novel experience that had leaped into her
+life, stood still, uncertain what to do. She felt a sudden abhorrence of
+mingling with the fire-crazed crowd that surged before her. Brought up
+to keep away from these spectacular affairs of the city, she felt she
+would be transgressing all laws of decorum if she followed her friends.
+But the impulse to do as the other Pioneers did spurred her on, and with
+a quick leap forward she cast all conventionalities to the wind, and
+started on a dead run to catch up with Helen.
+
+The girls were too quick for her and she arrived in front of the church
+only to make one more of a densely packed crowd of fire-seekers standing
+opposite the burning building, wild-eyed and weirdly pale from the
+reflection of the flaming tongues of red, which darted upward with a
+licking greediness that made the wooden building crack and snap under
+their devouring greed.
+
+Spying Edith a few feet away, she hastily pushed through the jam of
+people to her side, only to hear her scream frantically, “Look out,
+Nathalie!” But the warning came too late, for a shower of water had
+already struck her in the back with terrific force, almost bowling her
+over. Ugh! it was running down her back with such icy spray that she
+screamed aloud, and then shrank back as jeering laughter from those
+standing by greeted her mishap.
+
+But their merriment was short-lived, as the water deluge came again and
+Nathalie saw the contortions that shot from face to face of her
+neighbors as with shrill cries they tried to dodge to one side in their
+frantic endeavors to escape. In the midst of the confusion some one
+suddenly bellowed, “Run for your lives, the hose has burst!”
+
+There were more shouts of dismay from the crowd of struggling, fighting
+figures, and then they had scattered. Edith by this time had grabbed
+Nathalie by the hand and in a moment or so she was safe on a neighboring
+porch.
+
+“O dear, what will they do?” lamented Edith. “That hose is the only one
+in town!” For a few moments it looked as if not only the church but the
+parsonage and the adjacent buildings were to fall victims to the blazing
+flames that swept upward and outward with shooting jets between tall
+columns of black rolling smoke.
+
+“They are going to form a bucket brigade!” shouted Edith suddenly into
+Nathalie’s ear. The words had barely passed her lips when she dropped
+her companion’s cold fingers, and was racing with a crowd of men, women,
+and boys towards a pond a short distance away.
+
+Nathalie stood still and gazed with suppressed excitement at this new
+development of the fire-crazed people. It seemed to her as if every one
+in Westport must have owned a bucket from the number of people that
+sped—as if magic swept—towards the pond, where a long line of human
+beings, with a deftness and quickness that amazed her, were already
+passing buckets from one to the other and then on to the firemen who
+formed a line across the road in front of the church.
+
+Each fireman would grab a bucket, pass it on to his mate, who in turn
+passed it on to the next one, and so on, until its contents had been
+splashed on the seething flames. Then just as quickly it was shoved by
+way of another line back to the pond to be filled again and once more
+hurried on its journey of rescue.
+
+“Come, get busy!” some one suddenly yelled at this crisis. “They are
+forming another line at the pump!” Nathalie swung about to see Fred
+Tyson holding out to her an empty bucket. The unexpectedness of this new
+demand upon her overwrought nerves tempted her to scurry to parts
+unknown, as she backed away from Fred with the startled exclamation, “O
+dear, no!”
+
+Fred, realizing how she felt, looked down at her with a reassuring smile
+as he answered, “Come, you must help; you are a Pioneer—it will be a
+fine experience for you!” Nathalie, without a word, grabbed the bucket
+and in another second was running swiftly by the side of this new friend
+as he guided her to the pump.
+
+An hour later Nathalie appeared at the corner of the street leading to
+her home. Weary, bedraggled, sooted from head to foot, and with gleaming
+beads of perspiration running over her face, she was still jubilant. She
+had been to a real fire, and, what is more, had helped to put it out.
+For the buckets had done their work, and although the church stood a
+framework of glowing embers, the parsonage and other buildings had been
+saved.
+
+She was so glad when she saw she was nearing her home, that, as she
+informed Fred, who had accompanied her, she felt like dancing a jig on
+her head from sheer joy, although she was not only tired to the verge of
+distraction, but faint from hunger.
+
+“Oh, and there’s Mother! I guess she’s been almost worried to death,”
+she exclaimed as she spied her mother standing on the veranda anxiously
+peering down the path.
+
+“Well, I guess she has been almost worried to death!” exclaimed a voice,
+as a white-robed figure stepped out from the shadows of the trees on the
+lawn.
+
+It was Lucille. “If it hadn’t been for me, Nathalie Page,” she
+emphasized with upheld finger, “your mother would have been down to the
+fire herself. She was sure you were the first one burned to death. Why,
+you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Nathalie Page!” she averred
+indignantly.
+
+But there was no need to lecture Nathalie further, for her heart had
+been thumping violently in nervous dread all the way home, and she was
+already scurrying up the walk to the stoop. “Oh, Mother,” she panted,
+“did you think something dreadful had happened to me?”
+
+“Well, I was quite nervous about you for a time,” replied her mother
+rather cheerily for one who had been almost worried to death, as she put
+her arm around the tired girl. “Lucille obligingly started to look for
+you, and met Dr. Homer, who said you were all right, helping put the
+fire out as a bucket maiden. But, my dear, you are all wet, and hungry,
+too, I’ll warrant.”
+
+“You just believe I am,” cried Nathalie. “But, oh, Mother, I have had
+such an adventurous day! Do let me have something to eat, for I’m just
+about starved, but, O dear, where’s Fred Tyson; he came home with me?”
+
+Fred was all right, having the cosiest of chats with Lucille—whom all
+men adored from youth to old age—as they walked up the path to the
+veranda. Would he come in and have supper? Why, he guessed he would, for
+he hadn’t had a mouthful since noon.
+
+“By the Lord Harry, is that you, Blue Robin?” spoke a voice from the
+couch as Nathalie ushered Fred into the hall. “Gee, but you are as black
+as a colored ‘pusson,’” quoth Dick, as he rose from the couch and
+hobbled towards her.
+
+It was a most exciting supper, eagerly devoured by Fred and Nathalie, as
+between bites, with glowing eyes, each one told of her or his
+experience. Nathalie told of the ringing of the fire bell, the exploits
+of the Sport, and how she did duty at the pump.
+
+“Oh, Mother, it has just been a regular red-letter day!” she cried at
+length, “and I’m never again going to despise Edith Whiton for being
+sporty, for if it hadn’t been for her, I just believe the whole town
+would have burned down!”
+
+The second day after the fire was a Pioneer Rally day, a Camp Fund day
+it had been called, for it was at this meeting that the Pioneers were to
+decide upon the entertainments they proposed having in order to raise
+the money to pay the cost of two or three weeks at camp that summer. One
+or two affairs had been held during the winter and spring, so that a
+small nucleus had been banked, but if this was not increased the hearts
+of the Pioneers would be “wrung with woe,” as the Sport had put it.
+
+After the usual formalities of the Rally were over, Mrs. Morrow called
+the names of those who for some meritorious act or word were to receive
+badges of merit. To Nathalie’s astonishment her name was called, and at
+a shove from Helen the dazed girl went forward, and received three white
+stars, one for suggesting the search-party and sticking to her colors in
+the face of discouragement, another for telling stories to Rosy, and the
+last for planning and getting up the Story Club. She received the stars,
+Mrs. Morrow explained, as badges of merit were not given until a Pioneer
+had passed all tests and was a member of the first order.
+
+The Sport received two badges—being a first class Pioneer—one for
+winning a contest in wigwagging, and another for ringing the bell for
+the church fire. Helen was also the recipient of a badge for her
+planning and excellent supervision of the Flower hike, while the Scribe
+received one for her skill in editing the “Pioneer,” which had come to
+be a journal not only of news, but of information.
+
+“And now,” cried their Director, as she finished distributing the
+badges, “I am going to talk about the Camping Fund. As you all know, we
+must have one or two entertainments to raise money for that purpose.
+Several ideas have been submitted in compliance with my request for
+suggestions from the girls, but unfortunately, while a number are very
+good, only a few will suit our purpose. There is one, however, that is
+both patriotic and colonial, but it would require a large lawn and I am
+at a loss what to say about it. I think you all understand that the
+Pioneer who suggests the best entertainment, although her name is to be
+kept secret until the end of the season, is to receive some kind of a
+reward.”
+
+“Could we not ask Mrs. Van Vorst again if she would let us have her
+grounds?” ventured Louise Gaynor somewhat timidly, realizing that the
+lady in question was not in favor with the Pioneers because of her
+rather eccentric ways.
+
+“Well, I should say not!” broke in Edith. “She has refused two or three
+times already, and if there is an insane person there—” She stopped
+abruptly, rebuked by a warning look from Mrs. Morrow.
+
+“No, I do not think I would bother Mrs. Van Vorst again,” said that
+lady. “But suppose I name a committee to see if they cannot scour the
+town and find a lawn.” Helen, Louise, and Nathalie were then named to
+perform this duty.
+
+During this discussion Nathalie’s eyes had sparkled with suppressed
+emotion as she remembered her visit to the gray house, accompanied by an
+overwhelming desire to tell what she knew. Oh, wouldn’t it create a
+sensation? But she had given her word, and like the Spartan boy,
+although desire was gnawing at her vitals, she kept still and smiled in
+evident ease.
+
+“There is another entertainment that has been suggested,” continued the
+Director. “It is an excellent idea for it will put you all to work
+thinking. It is to be called Pioneer Stunts, which means that each one
+of you is to be responsible for a recitation, a tableau, a song, a
+playlet, in fact anything that is colonial or pioneer in character. Each
+Pioneer is to work out her own idea, and all ideas are to be kept secret
+until after the performance, when a vote will be taken as to the best
+stunt—that is, the best idea, and the stunt acted the best—and then the
+name of the author will be revealed.”
+
+The girls received this notice with applause, and each one immediately
+began to suggest one thing and another until warned by Mrs. Morrow again
+that the ideas were to remain secrets. After some further discussion it
+was decided to have the Pioneer Stunts the first part of June, at Seton
+Hall, Mrs. Morrow suggesting that the girls make it a Rose party and
+serve ice-cream and strawberries on the lawn.
+
+Nathalie came home very enthusiastic about the Pioneer Stunt
+entertainment, and immediately set to work to jot down the idea that had
+come to her at the Rally. In the midst of writing her mother joined her
+and sat down to sew.
+
+“Oh, Mother,” exclaimed the girl happily, “I’m awfully busy.”
+
+“And working very hard, I see,” interposed Mrs. Page, smiling at her
+daughter’s animated face, as she patted the sunburned arm resting on the
+table.
+
+“Yes,” replied Nathalie, “I have an awful lot to do.” And then she told
+about the entertainment, and what she was planning. With a long drawn
+sigh she cried, “Oh, Mumsie, I’m learning a terrible lot of useful
+things.”
+
+“I see you are,” assented her mother, “and I am proud of you.”
+
+“Oh, but they have not been a bit easy!” The girl’s face grew grave.
+“Sometimes I have thought I would have to give right up, but I haven’t,”
+she added with an emphatic little nod. And then for the first time she
+told her mother about the motto, “I Can,” and what a great help she had
+found it.
+
+“Yes, Daughter, every little thing Miss I Can has helped you to do has
+been an overcome.”
+
+“Indeed they have been overcomes,” assented the girl with another
+emphatic shake of her brown head. “Washing dishes—oh, how I used to hate
+that job—now I don’t mind it so much; cooking, telling stories to Rosy,
+going to the fire, yes, and even getting up the Story Club. I have just
+braced up, and then the first thing I knew, presto! the job was done!
+
+“Yes, they have all been overcomes,” repeated Nathalie, “but it will be
+all right if I only manage to earn—” She paused abruptly, suddenly
+remembering, as she saw the lines of worry about her mother’s mouth,
+that she and Dick had pledged themselves not to talk about his
+operation, or to hint that they were trying to save in any way for it.
+They had both been troubled when they realized that when an anxiety was
+mentioned her mother’s face lost its happy look and she became sad and
+worried.
+
+“Yes,” added Mrs. Page, not noticing Nathalie’s sudden pause, “I have
+been watching you for some time grappling with these try-outs that have
+come into your life, but I have said nothing, for I wanted to see if you
+or they would conquer.”
+
+“Oh, you dear Mumsie,” cried Nathalie joyously, jumping up and giving
+her mother a good hug. “Do you know, I felt dreadfully the other day to
+think you had not said one word of praise; not that I want to be praised
+all the time, but still a word now and then comes in handy, you know;
+makes one feel so goody-goody.” This was said laughingly.
+
+Nathalie could not help feeling encouraged after this comforting talk
+with her mother; she felt as if she had conquered the whole world, that
+there was nothing she could not overcome. But the next morning such a
+big overcome, or try-out, as her mother had expressed it, appeared, that
+it sufficed to lessen the glory of her former victories.
+
+Lucille was ill; she had retired to her bed with a fit of indigestion,
+and the planning for the Pioneer Stunt, the survey work that Nathalie
+and her committee were to do, all had to be laid aside as she was
+instituted head nurse in her cousin’s room.
+
+“Oh, Mother,” she moaned dolefully, as she kissed her mother good-night,
+“Lucille has been dreadfully cross; nothing pleases her. It has been,
+‘Oh, Nathalie, don’t let that wind blow on me! Didn’t I tell you I don’t
+like rice pudding! Oh, you’re the slowest poke!’ Oh, Mother—” there was
+a lump in the girl’s throat, “if I hadn’t felt so humiliated at being
+spoken to in that way, I just believe I would have given her a good
+shaking.”
+
+“Never mind, Nathalie,” replied Mrs. Page consolingly, “just remember it
+is another overcome and have patience. She will soon be herself again,
+you know she has been terribly upset, as she expected to spend a few
+days with her friend and she is disappointed.”
+
+“Of course, no one ever had a disappointment but Lucille!” exclaimed
+Nathalie irritably.
+
+“Nathalie!” reproved her mother, with a quick glance at the girl.
+
+“Oh, well, it’s so, Mumsie,” replied her daughter with the tears very
+near the surface, and then with another kiss she hurried to her bed.
+
+“Have you got your Stunt written?” inquired Helen a few days later from
+her window as Nathalie sat writing on the veranda. She held her hand up
+and flourished a couple of typewritten pages as she spoke.
+
+“No, I’m discouraged,” Nathalie lowered her voice. “Lucille has been
+ill, and I have been kept awfully busy waiting on her. Then when I
+finally managed to get time to go to the library to get some dates, I
+lost the whole thing.”
+
+“What—the idea?”
+
+“Yes, the idea, and everything. I had been in the library some time and
+had just finished. I did not discover my loss until I was almost home,
+so I hurried back, but the librarian knew nothing about it. I hunted
+until I was distracted, and then I came home; so that is the end of
+that. This morning I am trying to think up another one.”
+
+“Couldn’t you remember it?” questioned Helen concernedly.
+
+“No, I tried to, but I’ve been so busy it has just flown away.”
+
+“Well, you are a lucky girl to have brains enough to have more than one
+idea in your head to write up. You should have seen the Sport; she was
+over here last night, the picture of unadulterated woe, for she could
+not even scare up one idea. She hung around trying to get some
+suggestions from me, but I just told her she would have to do her own
+work. She’s the best ever when it comes to anything in the way of
+sports, or any activity, but she will not use her brains. She has a few,
+at least.”
+
+“If she would spend more time reading instead of—” Nathalie stopped with
+slightly reddened face, for here was another overcome to win. She was
+thoughtless at times, never having been disciplined, and so, without
+meaning any harm, she was apt to express her opinion too freely about
+the people around her. “Oh, well,” she ended lamely, “she is a good
+Sport; if it hadn’t been for her the other night the town would have
+burned down.”
+
+“That’s true,” laughed Helen good-naturedly, and then with a wave of her
+typewritten pages she disappeared from the window, as Nathalie turned
+and with a dimpling face greeted Dr. Morrow, who had just driven up to
+visit Lucille.
+
+“You haven’t come to see me this time,” she suggested archly.
+
+“Oh, it’s half and half this time, Blue Robin, for I have come to
+ask—oh, it is a message from the princess.” The doctor lowered his voice
+cautiously as he noted Dick at the other end of the veranda. “She wants
+to know if you will make her another visit.”
+
+Nathalie’s bright face sobered and an embarrassed silence followed as
+she vainly tried to think of something that would excuse her from the
+unpleasantness of having her eyes blindfolded again.
+
+“Why, yes, I would like to go, only you see I am very busy just now,
+helping Mother and doing Pioneer work, and—”
+
+“Yes, I see,” interrupted the doctor somewhat coldly, with a keen glance
+at Nathalie’s downcast face. “Then I will tell her you are busy.”
+
+“Oh, don’t say that,” cried the girl in desperation. “It
+sounds—well—tell her I will come some time later.” She felt the blood
+rush to her face.
+
+“Oh, I’ll manage to make her understand somehow,” answered the doctor.
+Nathalie sensed a note of disappointment in his voice, and then without
+further parley he hurried up the stairs to Lucille.
+
+“Mother,” questioned Nathalie a few minutes later, for she had confided
+to her all about the adventure at the gray house, “do you think I ought
+to visit the princess again?” She then told what had transpired between
+her and the doctor.
+
+“You must be your own judge, Nathalie,” replied Mrs. Page slowly. “I
+agree with you that it is a foolish thing for the child’s mother to ask
+you to visit her in this way, but perhaps she may be induced to change
+her mind. But, after all, Nathalie, it is a small thing to
+overcome”—Mrs. Page emphasized the word—“when you can give the little
+girl so much pleasure by going.”
+
+“O dear!” thought Nathalie, as she stood waiting for the doctor to come
+down-stairs a moment or so later, “it does seem that since I have become
+a Pioneer I am just overcoming things all the time. Funny, but these
+things never troubled me before.” “Oh, Doctor,” she exclaimed eagerly,
+as that gentleman’s genial face appeared in the doorway, “I have changed
+my mind, and if you like I will go with you to see the princess.”
+
+An hour later Nathalie was greeted with a cry of delight from her new
+friend, who clapped her hands and called, “Oh, Mother, she has come!”
+Nathalie, imprisoned behind the muffler, rejoiced at heart to think she
+had won another overcome.
+
+“How do you do?” spoke Mrs. Van Vorst’s low voice, and then the girl’s
+hand was taken in a cordial clasp. “It is so good of you to come; oh, if
+you could only realize the joy you have brought into my child’s life,
+and mine, too!” she added quickly.
+
+“I am very glad,” replied Nathalie simply, as Mrs. Van Vorst led her to
+a seat by the couch.
+
+“Here, sit by me—no, not on that chair,” commanded her Royal Highness.
+Nathalie felt a tug at her skirt, she was jerked suddenly down, and then
+two arms were thrown around her neck. A hand touched her face, softly at
+first, and then with a loud, “There, you are not going to sit with that
+horrid thing on your face again, I just hate it!” there came a sudden
+wrench, something gave way, the blinders were on the floor, and Nathalie
+was looking at the face of the princess with free, untrammeled eyes!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV—A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES
+
+
+Nathalie gave a gasp of relief. Oh, it was good to be rid of that
+horrible black handkerchief! Then her blinders faded into the past as
+she became aware of the eyes that were gazing into hers, blue ones with
+violet shadows, fringed by long black lashes!
+
+The eyes were set in the face of a girl about fourteen, that had,
+notwithstanding the pain-tired mouth with its lines of petulance, a
+winsome sweetness about it which partly atoned for a jagged crimson scar
+running across one end of the forehead, partly hidden by short, curly
+hair which was boyishly parted on one side.
+
+But the blue eyes were gleeful just at this moment, as if their owner
+was proud of her deftness in slipping off the handkerchief. She clapped
+her hands and cried, “Oh, aren’t you glad to get rid of that horrid
+black thing?”
+
+Raising herself on her elbow she drew Nathalie’s face down to hers and
+whispered, “Don’t say a word to Mother, but it was all arranged—the
+doctor and I managed it—let Mother think it was an accident.” Before
+Nathalie could remonstrate the princess called out with a merry trill in
+her voice, “Oh, Mother! come quick, Miss Page’s blinders have fallen
+off!”
+
+Nathalie flushed in embarrassed silence as she heard Mrs. Van Vorst’s
+step hurrying to the couch. O dear, what should she do? It certainly was
+awkward to have to deceive her. Oh, if the doctor would—but as she
+turned around to face the lady in question she saw that the doctor was
+not there.
+
+“The doctor has gone, he had an important call to make,” spoke Mrs. Van
+Vorst hurriedly, as she came towards the girls and saw Nathalie’s look
+of distress. “But never mind, Miss Page, it is all right,” she cried
+reassuringly. “It was a shame to keep you muffled up like that—just for
+a whim—but if you could understand!” She looked down at Nathalie
+apologetically.
+
+“I should say it was a whim,” broke in the princess, “and it just serves
+you right, too, for making her do it. Now Miss Page will go away and
+tell every one what a horrible-looking thing I am, and it will be all
+your fault because you are so afraid any one will see me, just as if I
+was a monster of some sort! Oh, Nathalie—can’t I call you Nathalie?—the
+doctor told me your name, and then you know you are not so much older
+than I am.”
+
+“I’m sixteen,” answered Nathalie readily, glad to turn the conversation
+from the blinders, for she saw that Mrs. Van Vorst was greatly
+perturbed.
+
+“Oh, Nita, don’t talk that way to Mother,” cried Mrs. Van Vorst in a
+pained voice. “You know, dear, I only did what I thought was right, and
+it was to save you, people talk so!”
+
+“I don’t care if they do,” broke in Nita angrily. “I have as much right
+in this world as they have, even if I am ugly-looking with this scar and
+hump, they needn’t look at me!”
+
+Nathalie started, for as the girl spoke she deliberately threw off a
+soft white shawl that had been thrown about her shoulders. With a sudden
+feeling of deep pity Nathalie recognized that the princess was a
+hump-back!
+
+“Oh, you won’t hate me now, will you?” pleaded Nita suddenly, as she saw
+Nathalie’s start of surprise, “just because I’m humped like a camel.”
+She caught the girl’s hand in hers and clung to it with piteous appeal
+in her blue eyes.
+
+“Oh, no,” returned shocked Nathalie. “Why, I think you are lovely, even
+if you are—” But the word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden
+impulse, stooped forward and kissed the red lips.
+
+Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own boldness, two arms
+were flung around her neck and Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she
+thought she would smother. “Oh, I just love you!” said Nita’s stifled
+voice from her shoulder, “and I’m going to keep you with me all the
+time. Oh, Mother,” she wailed beseechingly, lifting her head, but still
+keeping Nathalie a prisoner, “won’t you buy her?”
+
+“Buy her!” repeated her mother, who during this affectionate outburst
+had stood silently by, a pleased smile struggling with an expression of
+dismay at the girl’s rudeness. “Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be
+bought and sold.”
+
+“Well, I wish she was then,” said the child, for she was but that,
+dropping her arms from Nathalie’s neck and lying back with sudden
+exhaustion.
+
+“Oh, she is going to faint,” cried dismayed Nathalie, while the mother
+rushed to the dresser for the smelling salts. But when she attempted to
+hold the bottle to Nita’s nose, she pushed her mother’s hand away
+crying, “Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room; I want
+Nathalie to myself!”
+
+And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray, who looked at her
+neighbors with a cold, formal stare of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went
+softly out of the room and closed the door after her in obedience to her
+daughter’s sharp cry, “Do you hear? Shut the door!”
+
+Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she could not sit there
+another minute and hear the girl talk like that to her mother. “Oh,
+don’t speak to your mother like that, she is so good to you!” the girl’s
+voice trembled.
+
+“How do you know she is good?” retorted Nita, after a short pause of
+surprise at this merited rebuke.
+
+“Why—why—because her face shows it,” stammered Nathalie, “and then, why
+she is your mother, and if I should talk to my mother like that, why—I
+should expect her to die then and there.”
+
+“Why?” persisted the voice.
+
+“Because it would hurt her so,—” Nathalie labored, she hated to
+preach—“to think I could be so disrespectful to her, and ill-bred.”
+
+“Well, your mother isn’t my mother; your mother didn’t shut you up in a
+dark room so that you tried to get away.”
+
+“Nita!” came in a pain-stricken voice, “don’t talk that way!”
+
+Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in the doorway, her face
+drawn and lined. “I was coming in to ask—oh, Miss Page, will you come in
+here a moment? I should like to speak to you.”
+
+Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with pity for this poor
+mother who was only too surely paying the penalty of neglect and anger.
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she cried hastily, “do not mind your daughter, she
+doesn’t mean to hurt you, she—I think she is just spoiled, you know.”
+
+By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst into the adjoining
+room, a sun-parlor, whose glass windows looked down upon a terraced
+garden, green with trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers,
+surrounded by low rolling hillocks or mounds.
+
+Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her displeasure in
+shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother, with set, rigid lips, closed the
+door softly, and then turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly,
+between deep-drawn breaths.
+
+“Oh, I have been foolish—I am afraid—in letting you come to see Nita,
+but oh, it is so hard for her, shut up in this house, with only me and
+the servants. So when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded
+so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But oh, Miss Page, do not,
+I beg of you, repeat what you have seen or heard, don’t mind what Nita
+says about me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she
+says.” The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst’s face.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” exclaimed Nathalie, tears misting in her eyes in
+sympathy with the lady’s grief, “I know how you feel, but it is all
+right. I think you are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of
+course, I know that your daughter does not mean what she says, she’s
+just spoiled.” A sudden thought came to the girl. “Don’t you think if
+you were to let her see people—that is girls of her own age—that she
+would be better? Oh, I am sure she would,” broke from the girl
+impetuously, “and it would make her so happy!”
+
+“Do you really think so?” inquired Mrs. Van Vorst with a note of hope in
+her voice. “Would it not hurt her when people said rude things about
+her?”
+
+“But no one would say rude things about her,” persisted Nathalie
+determinedly. “Every one would love her—she’s a dear, so
+sweet-looking—and then she would soon get over her spoiled ways; she
+would learn by seeing that other girls act differently.” Nathalie felt
+that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem such a shame!
+
+“I don’t know about that,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst, her face hardening
+again to the same impenetrable mask that had puzzled Nathalie the first
+time she met her. “Well, we will not discuss it now—we’ll see how things
+turn out—only, Miss Page,” she grew stiff and formal, although a note in
+her voice betrayed that she was battling with her emotion, “I should
+like to ask you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell—how
+foolish I was—” she broke off suddenly, and then she added, “of course,
+you have a right to tell; but let me explain that what Nita says is not
+true, she likes to tease me into getting her way. Sit down—oh—she has
+fallen asleep.” Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door softly and then closed
+it. “She always does when she cries that way.”
+
+“Yes, I have been foolish,” she reiterated, “but I am not a criminal,
+and it is not altogether pride, because I have a deformed child, that
+makes me keep her secluded. It is because I want to save her, I would
+give my life for her happiness, but I can’t—” there was a hopeless wail
+to her voice. “That is my punishment!” And then, as if reminded of what
+she wanted to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, “It is true that
+I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her—she has always had those
+temper spells—I never knew what to do with her. Some one told me I was
+too easy with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped crying
+I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried to get out, she said
+some one was chasing her, and climbed out on the shed and fell off the
+roof! She broke—her back!” Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face in her hands,
+but although no sounds came, Nathalie could see the convulsive shivers
+that shook her frame.
+
+The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was awful! Oh, but if she
+didn’t say something she would be boo-hooing herself in a minute. “But
+that was not your fault,” she cried with sudden inspiration. “It was
+right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, I should consider it
+just an accident that you could not help.”
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl with wide,
+appealing eyes. “Oh, do you think that? If I could be led to believe I
+was not to blame! For years I have suffered the tortures of hell, doing
+penance.”
+
+“Yes, and making yourself and your daughter miserable!” Nathalie spoke
+boldly, she couldn’t help it, the words came of themselves as it seemed
+to her. “But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps I
+should not speak this way to you, for I am just a girl, but I feel so
+sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem such a shame to shut her off from
+all pleasure just because an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs.
+Morrow says we should regard trouble like clouds that we can’t blow away
+unless we fill the atmosphere with sunshine.” Nathalie came to a sudden
+stop, afraid she had gone beyond her depth. But in a moment she added,
+“Oh, if you would just think of it as an accident! Try to make Nita
+happy, and then you will be happy, and forget all about it!”
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst’s eyes grew moist as she cried impulsively, “Oh, you are
+a dear girl to talk to me this way. I shall always remember it, always.
+Yes, you are right, I have been miserable and have been making my poor
+child so. Oh, I have been wrong!”
+
+Before Nathalie could answer, Nita’s voice was heard shrilly crying,
+“Mother, I want Nathalie!”
+
+“I am coming,” cried the girl, hurrying into the room and up to the
+couch. “Did you have a nice little nap?” she asked cheerily, as she
+patted the girl’s hand that lay inertly on the coverlid.
+
+“Oh, I just dropped off, I always get so tired when I cry.”
+
+“But why do you cry then?” questioned practical Nathalie.
+
+“Why—oh, I cried because Mamma took you away from me, and now you will
+be going soon, and I won’t have had time to talk to you at all.”
+
+“Oh, yes you will,” replied her companion, glancing at the clock. “It is
+only eleven, I sha’n’t go for another hour, so start right in and talk.”
+
+“But I don’t want to talk,” came the contrary answer. “I want to hear
+you talk. Please tell me about the Girl Pioneers. Did you go on the
+wild-flower hike?”
+
+“Oh, yes!” was the answer; and then Nathalie’s tongue flew as she told
+about the hike, the different things they did, how she had learned to
+blaze a trail, what a delightful companion Dr. Homer had proved, how she
+lighted the fire with only one match, about the Tike’s escapade, and the
+flower legends.
+
+“Oh, but the fire, I must tell you about the fire and the bucket
+brigade!” she cried, and then followed that exciting story with all its
+climaxes, and what fun it had proved, although, as the girl confessed,
+she had been tempted to run away several times.
+
+“I just wish I could have seen it all!” exclaimed Nita regretfully, as
+Nathalie paused for a rest. “I should have liked to go on that flower
+hike, and the flower legends, can’t you tell them to me? I just love
+flowers!”
+
+“Why yes, perhaps I can,” nodded the Story Lady. And then in a moment
+she was animatedly telling about the Forget-me-not lover, the Dandelion
+legend, and then last of all about the spring goddess who brought the
+arbutus.
+
+“What are you going to do next?” inquired her listener as Nathalie’s
+flower stories ended.
+
+“We are all busy now getting up entertainments; that is, we are thinking
+up ideas for the Pioneer Stunts. You know, we are anxious to make money
+for our Camp Fund, and—”
+
+“Camp Fund! what is that?” inquired the girl interestedly.
+
+“Why, the Pioneers, that is the Bluebirds, the Bob Whites, and the
+Orioles, are going camping this summer, probably in August, or as soon
+as we can raise the money. There are sixteen Pioneers going. Oh, I am
+sure we shall have a dandy time! We are to sleep in tents, but there
+will be a house or something for the dining room and kitchen, that is,
+if we can get them.”
+
+“Where are you going to get the tents to sleep in?”
+
+“Helen and I are to make our own tent, Fred Tyson is going to help us.
+It will take an awfully long time, we are to begin next week. The other
+tents, well, some of the girls have their own and then we shall borrow
+one or two. Of course, you know, each girl will have to pay her expenses
+to camp and back, but all the other expenses are expected to come out of
+the Fund, so you see we shall have a lot of work to do. We are to charge
+admission to the Pioneer Stunts.” And then Nathalie told of the novel
+way they were to get ideas, and how each girl was to keep her idea a
+secret until after the vote had been taken as to the best Stunt the
+night of the performance.
+
+“Have you got your idea yet?” inquired Nita eagerly. “Oh, I just bet
+your idea will be the best one of all!”
+
+“Oh, no,” answered Nathalie modestly, “far from it! I am awfully worried
+for fear it will be a terrible failure.” And then she told how she had
+lost her idea and was writing up another one.
+
+“Well, after you have the Stunts, what are you going to have?” demanded
+Nita eagerly.
+
+“We want to have a flag drill, that is, if we can get the ground for it,
+as we want to have it in the open. Oh, it will be the loveliest thing!
+The girls are to be Daughters of Liberty and carry banners, the little
+flags used by the different States and soldiers before and during the
+revolution, before we had the Stars and Stripes. Oh, did I tell you that
+all of our entertainments have to be either colonial or patriotic, that
+is, something that happened in or belonged to the early days of the
+nation, when all the people were pioneers, or the children of pioneers?”
+
+“When are you going to have the flag drill? Oh, how I should like to see
+it!”
+
+“I have rattled on so fast I forgot to say that—why—we are not sure
+about that, for, you see, we have got to get a lawn, or grounds that
+would be suitable.” Her face reddened, for she suddenly remembered that
+it was Mrs. Van Vorst’s lawn that the girls had wanted, and that she had
+refused to let them have it.
+
+“You see,” she explained awkwardly, “we want a place where the people
+can see us, and then we want to have booths decorated with our
+colors—they are Red, White, and Blue, you know—so we can sell ice-cream.
+Each table is to be named after one of the thirteen States; but there, I
+don’t believe we can have it.”
+
+“Mamma, come here quick,” called Nita imperiously, sitting up and
+peering into the sun parlor where her mother was seated sewing, “I want
+you to hear about the Flag Drill, and oh, Mother, won’t you let me see
+it? Oh, please, Mother, I can go all muffled up, no one will see me,”
+pleaded the girlish voice pathetically.
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst bent over and softly stroked the golden head as she
+cried, “Now dear, don’t get excited! Mother will do all she can for
+you.”
+
+“You tell _her_ about it!” broke from Nita hurriedly, as she pulled at
+Nathalie’s gown. Then falling back on the couch she exclaimed with
+determination, “But I’m going to see it, Mother, yes I am!”
+
+Somewhat hesitatingly Nathalie began, but in a moment, perceiving that
+her listener was much interested, she launched forth and told about the
+Flag Drill in all its details.
+
+“And you are going to use the money you make for your Camping Fund?”
+inquired Nita’s mother as Nathalie finished.
+
+Nathalie nodded, “That is, if we can get the right place to hold it—oh—”
+she flushed again and then grew suddenly silent.
+
+“Did not one of the Pioneers ask me if I would let them have my lawn in
+the rear of the house?”
+
+Before embarrassed Nathalie could answer, Nita interposed excitedly,
+“Our lawn? Oh, let them have it, Mamma, let them have it, and then I can
+see it from the window, and no one will see me, oh, say yes, Mamma!”
+
+Nathalie’s eyes looked dismay as she heard Nita’s wailing request. Of
+course Mrs. Van Vorst would refuse, but suppose she should think that
+she had urged Nita to ask her?
+
+“Why, I suppose they could,” answered Mrs. Van Vorst slowly. “Then, as
+you say, you could see it from the window, Nita; yes the Pioneers can
+have it!”
+
+“Oh, do you really mean it?” exclaimed Nathalie, almost as excited as
+Nita. “The girls will be just crazy with joy—and—oh, isn’t it funny? I
+was one of a committee of three to find a place, and—”
+
+“Well, you will not have to look any further,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst.
+“If my lawn suits, take it, child. I am sure I am only too glad to do
+anything for the brave girl who has been so kind to my Nita as to come
+here and make her happy.”
+
+“That is lovely of you,” rejoined the Pioneer, her eyes glowing, “and
+can we have it this month, the fourteenth? That is Flag Day, you know,
+and we wanted to have it then.”
+
+“Have it whenever you like, my dear. I will tell Peter to have the grass
+mowed, and if he can help you in any way in arranging the tables or
+anything, I shall be delighted to let you have his services.”
+
+“Oh, that will be the delightfulest thing!” The girl’s face radiated
+sunshine. “It seems just too lovely to be true!”
+
+But the surprise Nathalie held in store for the Pioneers was almost
+forgotten in the surprise that awaited her when after saying good-by to
+Nita, Mrs. Van Vorst met her at the foot of the staircase and asked if
+she would not come into the reception-room a minute.
+
+“I wanted to speak to you on a little matter of business,” the lady
+explained somewhat hesitatingly. Nathalie, wondering what terrible thing
+she had done or said, followed her silently into the room, where she
+again spied her Chinese friend, the mandarin, grinning at her from the
+cabinet.
+
+“I have been thinking it over, Miss Page—”
+
+“O dear,” thought poor Nathalie, “she is going to change her mind about
+the drill!”
+
+“And I wanted to know—of course this is a business proposition—” she
+paused. “You have given so much pleasure to Nita, I thought perhaps you
+might be willing to come regularly every day, say for a couple of
+hours.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried relieved Nathalie, “that would be just fine!
+I should be only too glad, but you know, I have things to do for Mother,
+we haven’t any maid at present.”
+
+“But would it not pay you to give up these things, or let some one else
+do them? It would only be two hours in the morning,” there was a
+persuasive note in her voice, “and of course I would pay you enough to
+make it worth your while, and oh, I would give anything to bring joy
+into—”
+
+She stopped, for there was something in the girl’s wide opened eyes that
+made her hesitate.
+
+“Oh, I would not like to take money just for talking to Nita—that would
+hardly be fair—” Nathalie floundered desperately, for something brought
+Dick and his operation to her mind, and she did want so badly to earn
+money. She caught her breath sharply, opened her mouth, and then said,
+“Why, I don’t know, I will see what Mother says and let you know.”
+
+“That will be just the thing,” was the reply. “You can drop me a note as
+soon as you decide, for Nita will be anxious, and then we will want to
+fix the days and times. If you can make up your mind to do this for me,
+Miss Page, I shall feel so indebted to you!”
+
+As Nathalie flew post-haste towards home she heard the chug of an
+automobile and looked up in time to see Dr. Morrow sweep past in his
+car. But he, too, had eyes, and a moment later had backed his car and
+was asking Nathalie if she would like a ride home. The girl was only too
+pleased to accept, as she was fairly brimming over with impatience to
+tell some one her two surprises. They had not gone far before the story
+was out, and the doctor had heard everything.
+
+“Well now, I call that luck,” declared the doctor, “and of course you
+said you would accept Mrs. Van Vorst’s offer?”
+
+“Why, no,” answered the girl hesitatingly, “I should love to do it, but
+I don’t know that I ought to take money for it.”
+
+“And why not?” queried Dr. Morrow with some surprise. “Isn’t money as
+much to you as to other people?”
+
+“Oh, yes,” laughed honest Nathalie; “of course I would like the money, I
+am just dying to earn money for Dick.” The girl stopped with frightened
+eyes; oh, what was she going to tell? “But then it doesn’t seem exactly
+right to take money just for talking, and I don’t know how Mother would
+feel about it, she might feel badly.” Nathalie choked, and her eyes
+filled with tears as she remembered how hard it was for her mother to
+think of even Dick earning money when he was so helpless.
+
+“You haven’t got to if you don’t want to, little Blue Robin,” declared
+her friend, who perhaps suspected how things were. “But I tell you what,
+friend Nathalie—” emphatically—“if I had a nice little voice like a
+certain Robin I know, with big brown eyes, and knew how to use those big
+eyes and that sweet little tru-al-lee of a voice by telling people
+stories, or talking to them—it’s all the same—well, I’d waste no time in
+accepting that offer. And then, too, see what pleasure it would bring
+Nita and her mother, too, for that matter. Of course, I’m a man and look
+at things from a commercial point of view; ah, here we are!” And then
+with a cheery farewell the doctor helped the girl out of the car and
+Nathalie walked slowly up the path.
+
+To Nathalie’s surprise, her mother thought as the doctor did about the
+matter. She was not hurt at all, but overjoyed to think that Nathalie
+was clever enough to earn money that way.
+
+“Why, Nathalie,” she mused, pleasantly, “you can do lots of things with
+the money you earn. It probably won’t be much, but it will give you
+pin-money, and a few necessities. Perhaps it will pay your way to camp!”
+
+“Now, Mumsie,” laughed the girl with a trill of glee in her voice,
+“remember about counting your chicks before they’re hatched!”
+
+She turned and ran swiftly up-stairs, and after imparting her good news
+to Dick, she sat down and penned her note to Mrs. Van Vorst, all her
+doubts and fears at rest. And she knew what she would do with the money,
+it came like a flash into her mind as she looked up and saw Dick
+plodding through an official-looking document.
+
+After the note was mailed, there were just a few minutes left to run
+over and tell Mrs. Morrow what had transpired in regard to the lawn for
+the Flag Drill, and to announce, with joy shining in every feature, that
+they could have the drill on the fourteenth. Then came a few minutes at
+Helen’s, where the news was also told, two surprises, Nathalie declared,
+after she had unburdened herself to that young lady of the many things
+she had been bottling up for the last few weeks.
+
+But Nathalie’s day of surprises was to bear more fruit, for about five
+o’clock the postman delivered a package by parcel post, a big box that
+had a very mysterious look about it. “I don’t see what it can be?” she
+soliloquized, as she looked at the address. And then, “Oh, Mother, do
+you know where the scissors are?” as she found that her fingers were too
+unsteady with haste to untie the string.
+
+Dick, however, after hearing her excited outcry, had whipped out a
+penknife. There was a zip, the string was off, the box slipped out of
+the paper, and then the girl, with radiant, mystified eyes, was looking
+down at a Pioneer uniform, a jaunty little affair, with its red tie and
+red-banded hat to complete the outfit.
+
+“Don’t stand there and gape at it any longer, Nathalie,” imperiously
+voiced Dick, with an odd gleam in his eyes. “Look at the card and see
+who sent it!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI—PIONEER STUNTS
+
+
+An exclamation escaped dazed Nathalie; and then a search was started,
+resulting at last in finding the card in one of the pockets of the
+skirt. Another cry issued from the finder as she read:
+
+           “To Nathalie, my faithful little nurse and helper.
+                                                   “Lucille.”
+
+“O dear!” said the girl with a shamed glance into the faces surrounding
+her, “I will never again say that Lucille is cross—oh, she is a duck of
+a dear! It is the very thing I want, too. Now I shall not be the only
+Pioneer without a uniform. I must run and tell Helen!” In another moment
+she was racing with mad speed across the lawn, the uniform bulging out
+of the half-opened box in her arms.
+
+In a short space she came speeding back, crying, “Oh, Mother, where is
+Lucille? I must go and thank her this very minute!”
+
+“Up in her room, I think,” spoke up Dick, but Nathalie was already
+half-way up the stairs.
+
+“Lucille, it was just too lovely of you to think of me this way!” cried
+the girl rapturously; and then before Lucille realized what was going to
+happen, she was receiving a hug that threatened to demolish her
+entirely. “There, Nathalie Page,” she cried, “that’s more than enough;
+please leave just a wee bit of me, I’ll take your thanks for granted.”
+
+“No, you won’t!” persisted Nathalie with another hug. “I’m here to give
+them to you in person.” She loosened her hold so her cousin could
+breathe and then began to kiss her softly on the cheek. “Oh, but,
+Lucille, it was lovely of you to think of it,” she ended as she finally
+freed her cousin, who ruefully began to twist up a few stray locks that
+had been pulled down in the hugging process.
+
+“Oh, pshaw, I don’t want any thanks,” Lucille responded as she finished
+tucking up her hair. “As long as you are pleased, it’s all right.”
+
+“But I’m serious, Lucille, for you have heaped coals of fire on my head,
+I’ll have to ’fess that I was not a bit pleasant about waiting on you,
+because, you see, I had so much to see to with the Pioneer Stunts, the
+work, and everything, and then—”
+
+“And then,” mimicked Lucille with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “I’m
+an awful cross patient; is that it? But it’s all right, Nat, turn about
+is fair play, and if you had felt as badly as I did those few days, to
+miss it all, the anticipated good times at Bessie’s, well, you would
+have been cross, too.”
+
+“Oh, I know it, and I was worse than you were, for I should have
+possessed my soul in patience, but it was perfectly dear of you to give
+me the uniform, and then to be so nice about it.”
+
+“Well, I’m glad I’m nice,” teased her cousin, “but run along, child, for
+I have about forty-seven letters to get off by this mail.”
+
+And Nathalie, with a heart brimful of joy at the many surprises of the
+day, was very glad to hurry away and talk matters over with her mother.
+
+“What shall I talk to Nita about?” she lamented the next morning as she
+flew hither and thither, getting her work done in a jiffy so that she
+could reach the gray house by ten-thirty, the hour set for the talk with
+the princess, as Nathalie delighted to call her.
+
+“Mother, can’t you suggest something?” she asked dolefully as she
+stooped to kiss her mother good-by. “I do feel that it will not be right
+for me to take money for just chattering nonsense, and Nita won’t let me
+tell her stories.”
+
+“Well, it does seem as if it was undue extravagance, but still, if Mrs.
+Van Vorst thinks you are worth paying in order to help make her child’s
+life more enjoyable, it seems to me I should not worry about it.”
+
+“Yes, I know, but if I could only tell her stories,” rejoined the girl,
+“perhaps I could help her more, for I could make my stories instructive,
+about nature, history, or—”
+
+“That is true,” was the answer. And then, as if reminded by the word
+history, she said, “Why not tell her stories about the Pioneer women?
+You say she is so interested in the Girl Pioneers. In that way you could
+teach her American history.”
+
+“Oh, Mumsie, you are a dear,” cried elated Nathalie. “That is just the
+thing, how stupid I was not to think of it! I will stop at the library
+on my way home this afternoon. What a help it will be to me, too, for we
+are going to have a fagot party, sort of a good-by to Louise Gaynor.
+Gloriana! I won’t have any reading to do for that, for I’ll be posted
+from my talks with Nita.” Then she was off down the walk on her “way to
+business,” as she laughingly told her mother.
+
+“Oh, tell me all about the Pioneer Stunts!” exclaimed the princess as
+Nathalie settled herself for a cozy chat after her cheery greeting to
+her new pupil. Nita’s eyes were sparkling expectantly, and the
+anticipated chat with her new friend had brought a tinge of color to her
+usually pale face.
+
+“We have not had that as yet; it is to take place to-morrow night—oh,
+I’ll tell you all about it,” was the reply. And then, as Mrs. Van Vorst
+entered the room with a pleasant good morning, Nathalie demanded, “Do
+you not want me to tell stories to Nita?”
+
+“That is for Nita to decide,” was the careless rejoinder. “I have asked
+you here to please my daughter, and if she wants you here just to talk,
+why, talk away.”
+
+“But I feel as if I ought to instruct her in some way,” demurred
+Nathalie.
+
+“Do not worry,” returned Mrs. Van Vorst. “You will be worth all you earn
+if you only succeed in making Nita happy for two hours, and give her
+something to look forward to when you are not here. Of course, if you
+could get something informative in once in a while, it would do good, no
+doubt.”
+
+“I don’t want any stories,” interrupted Miss Nita petulantly. “Miss
+Stitt used to tell me stories by the yard and I have hated them ever
+since.”
+
+Nathalie made no reply; she was thinking how she could slip in a bit of
+information without Nita’s realizing it. “Oh, I will tell you about the
+flag drill!” she cried with sudden thought.
+
+“Yes, do,” acquiesced Nita, readily falling into the trap. “I want to
+know just everything about it.”
+
+“Well, you shall,” promptly returned her delighted teacher, and
+forthwith she set to define the meaning of the word liberty. “You know,
+Nita, when the Pilgrims and Puritans settled America they came here to
+build homes where they could have liberty of conscience, speech, and
+action. Of course, you know all about how these first little settlements
+grew, until there were thirteen of them that bade fair to become very
+populous and wealthy. Well, the King of England, fearing perhaps that
+they would grow into a great nation and take power from him, began to
+deprive them of some of their rights and privileges.
+
+“The people for a time submitted, but as his tyranny increased they
+began to feel greatly depressed, for it looked as if the liberty that
+they had been enjoying in the new land was going to be taken away from
+them, and that they were going to be chained like slaves.
+
+“Now the first scene in the flag drill represents liberty—as the Goddess
+of course—lamenting that if she can live only at the price of slavery,
+she would rather die. So we see her walking up and down the platform
+repeating in great agitation the famous words of Patrick Henry, ‘Give me
+Liberty, or give me death!’
+
+“Just at this moment music is heard, and the Daughters of Liberty
+enter—”
+
+“The Daughters of Liberty—who are they?”
+
+“Why, don’t you know that when King George tried to impose the Stamp Act
+on the colonists they rebelled, and there was a great time. Bands of men
+were organized all over the country, who called themselves the Sons of
+Liberty, and refused to accept the Stamp Act, and—”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know all that,” cried Nita impatiently, “but what did they
+have to do with these girls who are to be in the Flag Drill?”
+
+“Just you wait and you’ll see,” replied Nathalie somewhat abashed by
+this practical question. “Well, these little patriotic bands acted like
+a whirlwind of fire, spreading patriotism—the determination not to
+submit to the king’s tyranny—all over the land, so that King George was
+defeated for a time at least.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I know all about him,” was the reply, “Miss Stitt just doted
+on history, and she drilled me in American history until I just hated
+it.”
+
+“In 1776,” continued the Story Lady, “seventeen young girls met in
+Providence at the house of Deacon Bowen, and formed themselves into one
+of these Liberty Bands, only you see they were just girls like you and
+me. They were very industrious and spun all day making homespun clothes,
+for they had resolved that they would not wear any more clothes that had
+been manufactured in England.
+
+“It is claimed that the clothes worn by the first president of Brown
+University in Providence, and the graduating class, too, on Commencement
+Day were garments made by these girls. These young girls not only vowed
+that they would not drink tea, because you see, it all had to come from
+the mother country, but they would have nothing to do with any young men
+who were not as patriotic as they were, and who were not willing to
+follow their example. These bands of girls were formed all through the
+colonies and became known as ‘The Daughters of Liberty.’”
+
+“Oh, now I know, but do hurry and tell me what they did to the Goddess
+of Liberty!”
+
+“Well, in our Flag Drill music is heard; then the Daughters of Liberty
+appear on the platform,—there are to be thirteen of them, to represent
+the thirteen states,—all carrying banners.”
+
+“What kind of banners?” burst from Nathalie’s auditor impatiently.
+
+“All kinds,” was the answer. “You know, the first flag used in this
+country was the English one, with the red cross of St. George; that was
+the flag carried by the _Mayflower_. After a while it was used only for
+special occasions, for the Red Ensign of Great Britain took its place.
+But as time wore on, each little State came to have its own flag or
+banner, so that when the Revolution came these State banners became
+known as liberty banners.
+
+“Some of them were very quaint and grotesque, with strange emblems and
+designs—some had rattlesnakes or pine-trees—and queer inscriptions. A
+flag from South Carolina had a silver crescent on it; another from New
+York had a beaver; troops from Rhode Island floated a white ensign with
+a blue anchor; while the New England flag bore a pine tree. But to go
+back to the Daughters; as they march on the platform they form a
+half-circle before the Goddess, who has retired to her throne, a chair
+draped with red. In her hand she carries a green branch,—no, don’t ask
+me why, for you will know when you hear the girls sing the ‘Liberty
+Tree.’
+
+“When they finish singing, each girl in turn steps before the Goddess
+and tells the story of her flag, until a story has been told about each
+of the thirteen flags. Of course, there were a number of these liberty
+banners, but we use only thirteen of them.
+
+“There! I said I would not tell you any more today, and I’m not going
+to. Oh, did I tell you that I told Mrs. Morrow about your mother
+consenting to let us have your lawn? She is perfectly delighted, and at
+the next Rally the scribe will write a note to your mother for the
+Pioneers, thanking her for her offer.”
+
+And then—Nathalie could not remember what started the conversation in
+this channel—she was telling about her brother Dick and his operation,
+while Nita listened with big sympathetic eyes, for somehow she was very
+much interested in this invalid brother of Nathalie’s.
+
+“You see, it is this way,” rattled on Nathalie. “Dick must have the
+operation as soon as possible—and—as it happens—well, you know Mother’s
+income is limited since Father died and we have had to retrench a great
+deal. Then to make matters worse, just at the present time some bonds
+that Mother owns are not paying any interest and we feel dreadfully
+about it, all on account of Dick. So we are all trying to be as
+economical as possible; Dorothy and I have a little bank, and every odd
+nickel we can scare up we drop it in, and oh! the money your mother is
+going to give me for talking to you, why, that’s going in the bank, too!
+Dorothy and I sometimes wish that some magic fairy would come along and
+turn those stray cents and nickels into gold dollars, but there, I
+should think your head would ache, my tongue has galloped so hard and
+fast.” She paused, and with a merry laugh cried, “I should not wonder if
+after a while your mother paid me not to come and talk to you, for you
+will get so tired of me.”
+
+“Indeed I won’t!” asserted the princess stoutly as she threw up her
+arms. There was a mutual hug and then Nathalie was off, for she had to
+get dinner and it would take her at least ten minutes to walk home.
+
+A week later Nathalie was flying out of the gate of the big gray house
+with something tightly clasped in her hand. It had been a week of hard
+work, for O dear, she had grown tired of talking, and then too, she had
+spent some little time in the library hunting up pioneer women. She had
+been overjoyed that morning when Mrs. Van Vorst, who had been secretly
+acquainted with the scheme of telling about these women founders of the
+nation presented her with a new book from a New York publisher that gave
+a number of interesting details about these dames of early times. She
+and Nita had spent the two hours that morning reading about the New
+Amsterdam vrouws. She laughed slyly as she hurried along to think how
+adroitly she had managed in such a short time to tell her pupil not only
+about the Pilgrim and Puritan dames, but other interesting historical
+events of those early days.
+
+As the girl ran swiftly up on the porch and spied her mother reading a
+few feet away, she burst out with, “Oh, Mother, what do you think Mrs.
+Van Vorst gave me for teach—talking, rather, to Nita for the week? And
+I’m to have the same every week. Oh, Mumsie, just guess!”
+
+Mrs. Page’s eyes smiled into Nathalie’s joyous ones as she said, “I’m
+not a good guesser, I’m afraid, Daughter, but I’ll venture—five
+dollars?”
+
+“Five dollars!” repeated the girl disdainfully. “Oh, Mother, guess
+again, it’s more than that,” she added encouragingly.
+
+“Well, I’ll have to give it up,” replied her mother after a short pause,
+with a regretful shake of her head. “I told you I was not a good
+guesser.”
+
+“Ten dollars!” burst from happy Nathalie. “Just think, a dollar an hour,
+two dollars a day, and ten dollars for the week! And, Mother, it’s all
+to be put away for Dick!”
+
+The night of the entertainment arrived, and promised to be a howling
+success, as Grace declared, who, with Nathalie, had been detailed to act
+as an usher. They had been kept pretty busy seating the guests, who had
+appeared in multicolored gowns, and gay flowered hats, with here and
+there a dress coat of masculine gender which gave quite an air of
+festivity to the occasion.
+
+The program was opened by Lillie Bell. Attired in a very quaint colonial
+gown, she tripped along the platform, and with well-simulated blushes
+and much demureness of manner made an old-time curtsy. After being
+greeted with an ovation from her many friends, she bashfully sidled up
+to a rather puzzling-looking instrument on the platform, on which many
+eyes had been focussed ever since the raising of the curtain, and seated
+herself before it.
+
+Upon this old-time spinet she played such ravishing strains of melody
+that the hearts of her audience were captivated, and she was encored
+again and again. Louise Gaynor, a dear little colonial dame, now
+appeared, and in her tru-al-lee voice—as the girls often called it—sang
+some old English ballads, “Annie Laurie,” “Robin Adair” and several of
+similar character, whose celebrity had grown with the years.
+
+The second Stunt was the renowned race for the Forefathers’ Rock, Kitty
+Corwin as Mary Chilton, and Fred Tyson as the slow-footed John Alden. A
+spinning contest followed, the fair spinners being colonial dames from
+Plymouth town, New Amsterdam, Boston, and Jamestown. The fair maiden of
+Plymouth, Priscilla, spun with such deftness and skill that she not only
+won the plaudits of those assembled, but the prize. As she gracefully
+bowed her acknowledgment to her friends’ loud clapping, she backed
+hastily off the platform. Alas, she backed into John Alden, who at this
+opportune moment had appeared on the stage, with such terrific force
+that she almost bowled him over. John, however, to prove that he was not
+as slow as the name he had gained, adroitly caught the falling maiden in
+his arms and then led the blushing damsel, Jessie Ford, forward as his
+captured prize.
+
+Barbara Worth proved quite a heroine in her single-act comedy on Pioneer
+craft, the plucking of a live goose. Mistress Goose, however, not
+understanding her part of silent acquiescence, being a twentieth-century
+goose and not a pioneer one, mutinied, and as Barbara came to the end of
+the couplet,
+
+  “Twice a year depluméd may they be,
+  In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,”
+
+she escaped from her captor’s clutch and with a loud, “Quack! quack!” of
+disapproval flew across the stage.
+
+Barbara, dumb with fright for fear the goose would fly down among the
+spectators, gave chase, and then ensued a regular “movie” as amid loud
+calls urging her on in the race, and protestations voiced by the goose
+in a clamorous quacking, she chased it about the platform. Just as
+Barbara was about to capture her prey she tripped on a rug and measured
+her five feet two on the floor. But Barbara was game, Fred Tyson
+declared to Nathalie as they watched her, and jumping to her feet she
+soon captured her featherless fowl, which, after being shown in its
+deplumed condition, was borne from the scene of its torments by the
+victor.
+
+The curtain now rose on “The First American Wash Day,” a little playlet
+representing the women of the Pilgrim colony, with arms bared to the
+elbows, rubbing and scrubbing in tubs of foamy soap-suds, washing
+clothes, for the noble sires of our nation.
+
+Nathalie gave a quick start and her eyes leaped wide open as she
+convulsively clutched Grace by the arm, and then she grew strangely
+still as she watched the actors on the stage. The scene was a
+distinctive one, as the children of the _Mayflower_ ran hither and
+thither gathering boughs, make-believe sweet-smelling juniper, to place
+under the tripod from which kettles of water were suspended over a small
+fire that simulated a cheery blaze.
+
+As these pioneer mothers washed, and then wrung out their clothes,
+slashing them about in true washer woman’s fashion, some one in the rear
+of the stage recited in a loud, clear voice:
+
+                  “There did the Pilgrim fathers
+                  With matchlock and ax well swung
+                  Keep guard o’er the smoking kettles
+                  That propped on the crotches hung.
+                  For the earliest act of the heroes
+                  Whose fame has a world-wide sway,
+                  Was to fashion a crane for a kettle
+                  And order a washing-day.”
+
+                        “Pioneer Mothers of America.”
+                                    By Hand W. Green.
+
+The applause of the spectators testified to the merit of the
+performance, and as the curtain dropped, Nathalie, whose eyes were
+ashine with a strange fire, hastened out into the hall. “Oh, it was mean
+of her! It is the same as stealing, she knew she had no right to use
+it!” were the thoughts that flashed at white heat through her brain, for
+the playlet that had just been enacted was the one she had lost in the
+library!
+
+And the one who had passed it off as her own, the one who had been the
+head performer, and who had recited the verses, was Edith Whiton!
+
+On rushed Nathalie straight towards the dressing room, determined to
+tell Edith just what she thought of her, but the sight of a crowd of
+girls of which Edith was the central figure brought her to a standstill.
+“Of course, Edith, we all recognized you!” “It was a clever Stunt.”
+“Well, you have shown you are a Pioneer, all right!” Many similar pæans
+of praise came to Nathalie’s ears.
+
+The girl stood still, inwardly raging with indignation, almost ready to
+cry with the strife between her outraged sense of right, and a
+commonplace little monitor who whispered, “It would be mean to accuse
+Edith of a sneaking act in the very midst of her glorification. And
+then, too,” continued the whisperer, “you are not really sure that Edith
+has not some excuse to offer; there was no name on your paper.” Nathalie
+swallowed hard, then her muscles relaxed, and the hard angry gleam
+disappeared from her eyes. Well, Edith might be mean and small, but she
+at least would be above her, she would say nothing!
+
+With a certain pride that she had risen above doing what she would
+undoubtedly have regretted afterwards, Nathalie hurried into the
+dressing-room. A few minutes later as the curtain rose it displayed in
+its completed form the second idea that she had spent so much time in
+planning.
+
+Around the hearthstone in a Dutch kitchen sat a _huys-moeder_, busily
+undressing her two little kinderkins while she sang the crooning nursery
+rhyme:[1]
+
+             “Trip attroup attronjes,
+             De vaarken in de boojes,
+             De koejes in de klaver,
+             De paarden in de haver,
+             De kalver in de lang gras,
+             De eenjes in de water plas,
+             So grootmyn klein poppetje was.”
+                         “_Colonial Days in Old New York._”
+                                                     Earle.
+
+Through a window in the back of the cozy kitchen a blanketed squaw was
+seen dandling her swaddled papoose in her arms, as she peered hungrily
+in at the glowing fire, and watched the _huys-moeder_ fill the warming
+pan with coals, thrust it between the sheets of the little trundle-bed,
+and then give her babies some mulled cider to drink.
+
+The tiny figures in their _cosyntjes_, or nightcaps with long capes, had
+just crawled into bed when “tap-toes” sounded, and the honest mynheer
+and his good vrouw hastened to cover the still glowing embers with ashes
+for the fire of the morrow. The Dutch curfew had sounded, which meant
+that all good simple folk must hie to bed.
+
+This fireside scene in old New York won its merited applause, and
+Nathalie, who had been the Dutch mother, Mrs. Morrow’s kiddies, the
+kinderkins, and Fred Tyson, the mynheer, were called before the curtain
+to receive the plaudits of their friends.
+
+As Nathalie was hurrying from the dressing-room, glad that she was
+through her long-anticipated Stunt, and doubly glad that it had been a
+success, her name was called. She turned to see Helen, who, with an
+anxious face, was peering from the adjoining dressing room.
+
+“Oh, has anything gone wrong?” demanded Nathalie hastening to the door.
+
+“I should say!” exclaimed Helen with woebegone countenance, “I have left
+my gun at home, and I must have it. Oh, I can’t imagine how I could have
+been so careless! Can’t you get some one to go and get it for me? Tell
+them to hurry, for my scene goes on in ten minutes.”
+
+“Oh, I’m so sorry,” sympathized Nathalie, “tell me where to find it,
+quick, and I’ll get some one.”
+
+“It is in the hall just behind the rack! Do hurry, Nat, I’m just about
+wild!”
+
+Nathalie darted away; but alas, she could not find any one who could go
+at that moment, every one had some important duty to perform just then
+and there. Even the Scouts, who were always so ready to help the girls,
+were missing. “Oh, it is too bad!” bemoaned the girl. Presently her eyes
+lighted and in another instant she had flown up the stairs, seized her
+long cloak in the dressing-room, and then sped down the steps into the
+garden, and out into the street.
+
+Ten minutes, that meant she would have to run every step of the way to
+get that gun there in time. So with the lightness of a bird she darted
+down one street, up another, and then—her heart gave a great leap as she
+came to the long, lonely stretch of road skirting the cemetery of the
+old Presbyterian church. But on she flew, hardly daring to cast her eyes
+towards the tall tombstones that gleamed at her with ghostly whiteness
+from the ghoulish shadows cast by the waving branches of the trees above
+them.
+
+No, she was not afraid of ghosts, but she suddenly remembered a story
+she had heard as a little child, of a young girl who had been waylaid
+and killed by a man in a cemetery one dark night. Fiddle! she was not
+going to be afraid of a mere story, so with a snatch of melody on her
+lips she kept bravely on and soon left behind her the marble records of
+the dead. It did not take but a minute to ring the bell, tell Helen’s
+aunt what she wanted, then grab the gun and start off on her return
+journey.
+
+Oh, she did hate to have to go by that old graveyard, she would take the
+other way around; but no, that would take twice the time and she must
+hurry! So nerving up her courage she ran on with the firm determination
+to play soldier, and level her musket if any one assailed her.
+
+As she neared the cemetery her breath gave out, and instead of running
+by this danger post she had to walk every step. Determined not to look
+in the direction of these ghostly reminders of the past, she pushed
+resolutely on. She had almost reached the end of the long fence when the
+sudden snap of a twig, followed by a rustling noise caused her heart to
+pause in its beating. A scream escaped her quivering lips, for there in
+the bright radiance that fell like a silver veil over all objects she
+saw the figure of a man rise from one of the tombstones near the fence
+and come towards her!
+
+-----
+[1]
+  “From your throne on my knee,
+  The pigs in the bean-patch see,
+  The cows in the clover meet,
+  The horses in the oat field eat.
+  The ducks in the water pass
+  The calves scamper through the grass.
+  They love the baby on my knee
+  And none there are as sweet as she.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII—LIBERTY BANNERS
+
+
+Nathalie’s eyes dilated with terror, and her heart pounded with such
+leaping beats that it almost choked her. She attempted to run, but alas,
+her limbs seemed tied with ropes, and then she remembered the gun!
+
+Just an instant and she had raised it, and with trembling hands was
+pointing it at the enemy, who by this time had lightly vaulted the
+wooden fence and was coming towards her. Nathalie’s hand was feeling for
+the trigger when, “Oh, don’t shoot!” cried a voice in serio-comic tone,
+“I surrender!” Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.
+
+The girl gasped, dropped the gun, and then broke into hysterical
+laughter as she cried, “Oh—is—that you?”
+
+“Yes, it is I; Fred Tyson in the flesh!” rejoined the supposed murderer
+coolly, as with a stride he was at her side and, stooping picked up the
+gun.
+
+The reaction was so great that for a moment Nathalie feared she was
+going to cry, but controlling herself by a strong effort she exclaimed,
+“Oh, I was sure you were a tramp,” with a nervous giggle, “or a murderer
+intent on killing me, and then hiding my body in the thicket yonder.”
+She shuddered.
+
+“Great guns!” Fred exclaimed as he looked the gun over. “It is lucky
+this thing didn’t go off. By the Lord Harry, how did you come to be
+carrying it?”
+
+Nathalie, with a long breath of relief that all was well after her
+fright, then told Fred how she came to be near the graveyard at that
+time. Then suddenly remembering that she had not a minute to lose, she
+cried hurriedly, “Oh, let us go on. I am afraid I am too late!”
+
+“You’re all hunky,” returned Fred calmly. “You have plenty of time, for
+I overheard Mrs. Morrow tell Helen to postpone her Stunt until one of
+the last.”
+
+“But how did you come to be here, may I ask?” queried Nathalie as they
+turned to walk up.
+
+“Oh, I was in the next room and heard Helen tell you to go and get
+something at her house. I started out to offer my services, but some one
+buttonholed me for the next Stunt; I had forgotten I was in it. As soon
+as it was over I hurried out to find you, but you had skipped. I rushed
+after you, missed you, and then remembering that you would return this
+way as it is the shortest, sat down on one of the tombstones to wait for
+you. But you’re the stuff, all right, Nathalie Page, you ought to have a
+medal for bravery.”
+
+[Illustration: Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.]
+
+He suddenly pointed the gun and then pulled the trigger.
+
+Nathalie gave a shrill scream in a spasm of apprehension, and jumped to
+one side. “Oh, please, don’t do that, it might be loaded, you know!”
+
+Fred threw his head back and burst into a hearty laugh. “Oh, ho, I see
+you are not as nervy as I thought,” there was a mischievous glint in his
+merry black eyes. And then as if ashamed of torturing the nerve-racked
+girl he cried soothingly, “Don’t you fret, Miss Blue Robin; there isn’t
+any guess with me, I don’t take chances. I saw it wasn’t loaded when I
+first picked it up, but come, let’s hurry!”
+
+“Please don’t tell any one I was afraid!” pleaded Nathalie, as they
+hastened on under the swaying branches of the trees that cast weird,
+fanciful designs on the moon-mantled path. “They will think me an awful
+coward and tease me unmercifully.”
+
+Fred assured her that he would keep mum, and added that she was not a
+coward, but a very brave girl. Then, in response to a challenge to race
+him to the Hall, they were off, Nathalie by this time having regained
+her usual poise and nerve. She won the race, for Fred, desiring to be
+gallant, dropped back a space or two just at the right time, and thus
+allowed his partner to be the victor in this race of two blocks.
+
+The gun was quickly delivered to Helen and then they hurried into the
+hall in time to see the portraits of Henry Hudson, Edward Winslow,
+William Penn, Governor Stuyvesant, and Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan,
+two pirates of pioneer fame. These colonial portraits were produced by
+their representatives standing behind a large wooden frame that had been
+made by the Scouts, gilded by the Pioneers, and then placed in front of
+a dark curtain.
+
+Helen’s Stunt proved to be a canvas background on which was painted a
+log cabin. At the door of this pioneer home stood Helen with a baby
+clinging to her skirts, pointing a gun at a skulking savage just
+disappearing beyond a very fair representation of a clump of trees. This
+picture of a mother of the wilderness was loudly encored, as it was
+significant of the hardy courage displayed by the women of those early
+days.
+
+The last Stunt showed the Pioneers in line, each one with a big red
+letter pinned to the skirt of her uniform; the combination making the
+word “Pioneer Women.” Giving bird-calls, building miniature log-cabins,
+making camp fires, jumping, throwing the lifeline, as well as making the
+motions of rowing and swimming, these and many other activities of the
+organization were performed. The girls ended by falling into line again
+and singing a farewell Pioneer song.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward, and after thanking the audience for their
+kind attention and aid in helping make the affair a success by buying
+tickets and by their presence, she announced that there would be another
+entertainment, a Flag Drill, to take place on the fourteenth of that
+month. It would be held in the rear of the home of Mrs. Van Vorst, that
+lady having kindly offered her lawn for the affair.
+
+The faces of the Pioneers, with the exception of Nathalie’s and Helen’s,
+expressed unbounded surprise as they heard this announcement. As Fred
+Tyson and two other Scouts passed slips of paper so that each one
+present could write her or his opinion as to the best Stunt of the
+evening, there was a merry clack of tongues as each girl queried how and
+when this wonderful thing had come to pass.
+
+Lillie Bell, who had been watching Nathalie, suddenly leaned forward
+crying, “Nathalie Page, I just believe that you know all about it!”
+Nathalie did her best to look bland and innocent when this accusation
+was hurled at her, but the query was as a match to fire, and instantly
+Nathalie was surrounded by a bevy of girls, all eagerly demanding that
+she tell them how it came about.
+
+“O dear, how should I know?” she demanded with seeming indignation.
+
+“There, I told you she knew,” declared the Sport, who at that moment
+joined the group. “Her face betrays her! And then she is on the
+committee.”
+
+Nathalie turned and flashed at Edith angrily, “Well, if I do know I am
+not going to tell. If you want any information go and ask Mrs. Morrow.”
+Then feeling that things were growing desperate and that she might
+reveal what she had striven so hard to keep a secret, she broke from her
+tormentors and hurried into the hall.
+
+Seeing Helen at that moment she dashed up to her, and grabbing her by
+the arm cried, “Helen, the girls are tormenting me to tell them about
+the lawn party; oh, do keep them from asking me again, for I am in
+mortal terror that I may tell something that should not be told just
+yet.”
+
+“All right,” soothed her friend, “don’t you bother about the girls
+finding out, I’ll see to them. But here’s Fred, he wants you to vote. By
+the way, have you heard that the Sport’s Stunt has so far the greatest
+number of votes, and—”
+
+But Helen had been carried off by one of the Scouts, and Nathalie turned
+to find Fred at her side eagerly demanding her vote.
+
+“Why don’t you vote for ‘The First American Wash-Day’?” demanded the
+young man as he saw Nathalie hesitate and swing her pencil, lost in
+abstraction. “It will win, I think, and it was a good Stunt, too; well
+acted out. Edith deserves credit.”
+
+“Do you think so?” flashed Nathalie. She colored angrily. “I do not
+agree with you. I think—” She stopped, compressed her lips, and then
+added coolly, “I shall vote for Helen, for I consider her Stunt the best
+one of the evening.” She wrote the name of the Stunt hurriedly, signed
+her name, and then handed the card to Fred, who was regarding her with a
+puzzled expression on his face.
+
+He took the card and turned to go, but seeing that the floor had been
+cleared for dancing he stopped, and swinging about asked Nathalie if he
+could have the next dance. Nathalie assented, although she did not feel
+in the mood for dancing just at that moment.
+
+“You won’t mind waiting a moment, will you?” asked Fred. “I have got to
+turn in my cards. Then I see this is a square dance, and I want a waltz
+with you. Are you angry with me?” he asked wonderingly as he saw that
+Nathalie’s eyes still gleamed fire and that her cheeks were bright red.
+
+The girl looked up at him absently and then, suddenly comprehending that
+she was acting rather rudely towards this new friend, cried laughing,
+“Angry with you? Indeed, no! I _am angry_ with—some one,” she added
+bitterly, her glance suddenly falling on Edith. “But there, return your
+cards and then we will dance.”
+
+Five minutes later as Fred swung his partner lightly up and down the
+hall to waltz time, Nathalie forgot all the unpleasant jars of the
+evening in the enjoyment of the moment. But later, as they hurried out
+on the veranda for a breath of fresh air, she remembered how rudely she
+had acted and felt as if she ought to make some kind of an explanation
+to Fred for her seeming rudeness. Then it suddenly came to her that
+perhaps he might think she was jealous of Edith. Oh, no, she was not
+jealous—she was willing Edith should win the highest number of votes,
+only it did seem a bit hard to have to give all the glory up to some one
+else, when it rightfully belonged to her, and then Edith _had been_ mean
+about it.
+
+“Please don’t think I didn’t want Edith to win,” she burst forth as they
+seated themselves in a cozy corner where she could see the dancers in
+the hall. “Only—you see it is this way, I—”
+
+But before she could finish, the Tike came rushing up all of a whirl
+crying, “Oh, Nathalie, your Stunt won! I’m awfully glad!” And she danced
+up and down in her delight at Nathalie’s success.
+
+“Oh, ‘The First American Wash-Day’ was Edith’s Stunt,” Nathalie hastened
+to explain, resolved that she would be a martyr to her wounded pride
+with a good grace.
+
+“That didn’t win the highest vote, but your Stunt did,” retorted Carol
+jubilantly; “the one with the old Dutchwoman putting the kiddies to bed.
+And that Dutch lullaby—oh, Nathalie, where did you learn it?”
+
+Before Nathalie could answer Carol had skipped away, leaving the girl
+with a strange expression on her face as she stared at Fred with
+mystified eyes. “Do you suppose I really won it?” she demanded after a
+pause. “I thought you said Edith’s Stunt was the winner.”
+
+“So I heard,” was Fred’s reply. “But then, Miss Nathalie, I am awfully
+glad your Stunt won. It was a peach, I thought myself, but I heard—”
+
+“Oh, I don’t care about that,” cried Nathalie. There was a quiver to her
+voice. “I don’t deserve it; oh, I have been awfully mean, and yet I have
+been calling Edith mean—” She stopped abruptly. How queerly it had
+turned out!
+
+Catching a rather strange look in her companion’s eyes she exclaimed,
+“Oh, indeed I was willing that Edith should win—I don’t care a snap
+about it myself—only, you see it was this way.” She floundered for a
+moment and then with a sudden catch in her breath leaned towards Fred
+crying, “If I tell you something, will you swear never to reveal it?”
+Fred’s face brightened; he was delighted to think Nathalie considered
+him worthy of her confidence, and lost no time in assuring her of this
+fact. But the girl was thinking of only one thing, and that was that she
+was going to break her silence in regard to Edith and unburden herself
+of what had been causing her a good deal of discomfort all the evening.
+Nathalie talked rapidly and in a few minutes Fred was in possession of
+the facts about “The First American Wash-Day,” and how it had come about
+that although the idea was Nathalie’s, Edith had won the glory of it
+without the work.
+
+“Say, but you’re game!” declared Fred admiringly, as Nathalie finished
+her story. “It was a fine thing for you not to tell; I don’t blame you
+for feeling mean about it. But the Sport had no right to use it—”
+
+“Well, never mind now,” cried Nathalie, “it is all over with and I am
+glad I didn’t tell any one but you, and you won’t break your word, will
+you? The word of a Scout, you know,” added the girl archly.
+
+Fred laughingly assured her that his word as a gentleman was sufficient
+and as binding as that of a Scout. Then as they discussed the Scout
+oath, its pledges, and so forth, Dr. Homer appeared and asked his little
+hike-mate if he might have the pleasure of a dance with her.
+
+Nathalie smilingly assured him she would be most happy and then with a
+good-by to Fred, the quaint little figure in its queer Dutch cap and
+flowered gown followed the doctor into the hall.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long anticipated fourteenth of June had arrived, and the level
+stretch of green grass with its circling hillocks in the rear of the
+gray house was ablaze with color. Beneath a high arch festooned with the
+red, white, and blue—the Pioneers’ color again—stood a number of merry
+girls, each one gowned in white with a scarlet sash, and a red liberty
+cap, and holding in her hand a flag or small banner.
+
+Every eye as well as tongue was on duty, as each girl triumphantly
+displayed her flag to her comrades, proudly claiming that it was an
+exact copy of one of the liberty banners used by the colonies preceding
+or during the Revolution.
+
+“Hurrah for the Concord flag,” cried Kitty Corwin, as she hoisted up a
+small maroon banner inscribed with the motto, “Conquer or Die.” “This is
+one of the oldest flags in America, for it was the one carried when the
+‘embattled farmers fired the shot heard round the world’”—she twirled it
+high in air—“on the 19th of April, 1775, at the first battle of the
+Revolution!”
+
+“Oh, but your flag hasn’t the romance that mine has,” said Edith,
+ostentatiously waving a crimson flag fringed at the ends, and with a
+cord and tassel. “This is the Eutaw flag and was made by Miss Jane
+Elliot. Col. William Washington—he was a relative or something of little
+Georgie—when stationed at Charleston, South Carolina, fell in love with
+Miss Jane. One night, after spending the evening with his lady love, as
+he bade her good night, she said she hoped to hear good news of his flag
+and fortune. Whereupon the poor colonel was forced to confess that his
+corps had no flag. Upon hearing this the young lady pulled down one of
+the portières, cut it to the right size, fringed it at the ends, stuck
+it on a curtain pole, and then presented it to her gallant lover,
+telling him to make it his standard. Of course after that it brought
+good luck and won a great victory at Cowpens, January, 1781, and another
+at Eutaw Springs the following September. Forty years later the flag was
+presented by the hands that made it to the Washington Light Infantry of
+Charleston, for the fair Jane married the colonel, all right.”
+
+“Well, don’t you girls boast too much,” declared Jessie, “for if it
+hadn’t been for my flag there wouldn’t have been any banners of liberty
+to make you patriotic.” And Jessie held up a white flag barred with the
+scarlet cross of St. George, the flag dear to Merrie Old England as the
+flag of the people, and beloved by the colonists as the ensign that
+floated from the little ship _Mayflower_.
+
+As if to supplement Jessie’s declaration, an Oriole gayly flaunted the
+Red Ensign of Great Britain with its canton quartered by the cross of
+St. George and St. Andrew. “This is the flag that followed Jessie’s and
+was necessarily adopted by the colonists as the flag of the mother
+country. It was called the Union flag—the two crosses signifying the
+union of Scotland and England, when King James of Scotland became
+king—and remained in use in America until the beginning of the
+Revolution.”
+
+Grace, who had been impatiently waiting to float her flag, now cried,
+“Away with your old Johnnie Bull flags! Mine is worth a hundred of those
+old English rags, for it was the first distinctively American flag used
+by the Colonies, ‘The Pine Tree Flag of New England.’”
+
+“But it has the red cross on the white canton just the same,” ventured
+Jessie, “and it is red, too.”
+
+“Of course it has the cross on it,” quickly retorted Grace, “for at that
+time the Colonies still belonged to England; but if you look, my lady,
+you’ll see that pine in the first quarter of the canton, and that is
+American all through, every pine on it. It meant that the colonists,
+although they were English, had a right to representation in the mother
+country and to a symbol of their own.”
+
+“Well,” persisted Jessie, in whose veins flowed a goodly supply of
+English blood, “your scrubby old pine was such a poor representation of
+that noble tree that Charles II asked what it represented—and was told
+it was an oak.”
+
+“Come, Jessie,” laughed Helen, “that story is a back number. Every one
+can guess without much effort that the man who told that yarn to the
+king was a New Englander. He wanted to gain favor with Charles and
+bluffed him a bit, trying to make out it was a model of the royal oak in
+which his majesty took refuge after the battle of Worcester.”
+
+“Oh, stop discussing the merits of that old pine and look at my banner,”
+sang out Louise Gaynor, shaking her flag furiously to and fro so as to
+get the attention of the girls. “This flag is the Crescent flag and
+stands for the bravest of the brave. Now listen, and you will all
+understand what true heroism means.”
+
+The girls, impressed by the Flower’s declaration, grew silent, and gazed
+curiously at a red banner with a white crescent in the upper corner near
+the staff. “This flag was designed by Col. Moultrie of the Second
+Carolina Infantry in 1775. During the siege of Charleston when the flag
+was shot down, Sergeant William Jasper at the peril of his life
+recovered it, and held it in place on the parapet until another staff
+was found. In 1779, at the assault on Savannah, it was again shot from
+its holdings. Two lieutenants sprang forward and held it in position
+until they were killed by the enemy’s bullets. Jasper again sprang
+forward and held the colors up until he, too, was riddled with bullets,
+and fell into a ditch. As he was dying he seized the flag in his hands
+and cried, ‘Tell Mrs. Elliot’—she was the wife of one of the
+majors—‘that I lost my life supporting the colors she gave our
+regiment.’”
+
+Barbara, who was usually so placid and mild, now grew quite intense as
+she pointed to her flag, the Cambridge flag, claiming that it was the
+first flag on this side of the water to float the red and white bars. It
+signified, she said, that although the colonists were willing to return
+to the rule of the English, they were a body of armed men fighting for
+just and equal rights with their brothers who had crossed the sea to
+whip them into submission. “But they didn’t,” ended Barbara with
+triumphant eyes. “And this flag, also known as the Union flag—meaning
+that the colonists stood as a man in their desire for the right—was
+displayed by Washington in his camp at Cambridge, January 2nd, 1776.”
+
+“Now let me have a chance,” pleaded Nathalie, who had been impatiently
+waiting to show her design for some time. “My flag has a story, too.”
+She held up as high as she could a white flag with a rattlesnake in the
+center. It bore in black letters the name, “The Culpeper Minute Men of
+Virginia,” the snaky slogan, “Don’t Tread On Me,” and the famous words
+of its commander, Patrick Henry, “Liberty or Death!”
+
+“Do you see that rattlesnake?” continued Miss Nathalie, as she brought
+her flag to a standstill and pointed to the snaky emblem. “That has a
+story—”
+
+“Pooh,” interposed Edith, who was jealously guarding her declaration
+that her flag was the most beautiful because it had a story. “I don’t
+see any story about that snaky old thing. Ugh, I never could understand
+why so many flags had that design.”
+
+“I will tell you why,” declared Nathalie, “because I have looked it up,
+and—”
+
+“But you are not the only one who has looked up flags,” chimed Jessie,
+“for my eyes were just about ruined trying to get a merit badge for
+proficiency in flag history—”
+
+“And for deftness and skill in making our flags,” broke in a Pioneer
+from the Bob White group.
+
+“I beg your pardon, girls, I know you are all very wise on the subject
+of flags this morning,” rejoined Nathalie good-naturedly, “but do you
+know why the rattlesnake was chosen as an ensign?”
+
+She waited a moment, but as no one seemed to know she went on. “The
+rattlesnake is to be found only in America; my authority is Benjamin
+Franklin. It is the wisest of the snake family, therefore a symbol of
+wisdom. Its bright, lidless eyes never close, this signifies vigilance.
+It never attacks without giving due notice, which meant that the
+American colonies were on the square. Each rattle is perfect, while at
+the same time it is so firmly attached to its fellows that it cannot be
+separated without incurring the ruin of all; each colony was a complete
+unit in itself, and yet it could not stand unless it had the support of
+the others. As it ages, the rattles increase in numbers, which meant
+that it was the fervent desire of the people that the colonies should
+increase in numbers with the years.”
+
+As Nathalie finished her little lecture, Helen, with a sudden movement,
+shouldered her flag like a musket, and parting the group of girls,
+marched jubilantly down the center, crying, “Oh, girls, you have had the
+floor long enough to tell of the beauties and glories of your paltry
+banners, but let me tell you, not a flag has won the honors and glories
+that mine has. Hurrah, girls, for Old Glory!” she ended with a
+triumphant wave of the Stars and Stripes above their heads.
+
+As if inspired by the sight of the cheery banner so gallantly flung to
+the breezes by their comrade, the girls with one accord broke into the
+flag cheer:
+
+  “Hear! hear; hear Girl Pioneer!
+  For flag so dear give a cheer!
+  For the bars that are white and red,
+  And stars on blue overhead
+  We honor thee with a cheer!
+  Hurrah! Hurrah! Girl Pioneer!”
+
+Before the echo of the cheer had died in the distance Nathalie cried,
+“Oh, girls, the first signal!” Immediately these little patriotic
+Daughters of that which every one holds dear fell into line, and with
+flags upheld fastened their eyes on a small platform that had been
+erected in the center of the lawn draped with the national colors, where
+the Goddess of Liberty had just appeared. Holding up a green branch in
+her hand she began to walk agitatedly up and down the stage, pausing
+abruptly every moment or so to peer to the right or left, as if watching
+for some one.
+
+Suddenly she halted, and with the dramatic gestures of Lillie Bell—for
+it was she—cried in mournful tone, “‘Is life so dear, or peace so sweet
+as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
+give me liberty, or give me death!’”
+
+As the tragic intonation of her voice ceased, the band—composed, by the
+way, of a number of Scouts—burst forth with that old melody, “The
+Wearing of the Green.” This was another signal, and the girls waiting
+under the arch began to march slowly towards the stage, while the
+Goddess in feigned mystification moved quickly from side to side with
+her hand held to her ear, as if trying to ascertain whence came this
+martial tune.
+
+But on came the Daughters of Liberty with flashes of white and red, and
+with banners of many designs and devices. They presented such a
+brilliant showing that the audience seated in rows on the circling
+mounds broke into loud applause, which burst into enthusiastic cheers of
+greeting, as in the bright glare of the sunlight they perceived Old
+Glory floating far above the heads of the banner bearers as they proudly
+marched across the green.
+
+When the Goddess perceived this procession of fair damsels she stood
+apparently in a maze for a moment, and then slowly retreated backward
+until she stood on the scarlet draped dais with its throne. As the
+thirteen maids of freedom filed slowly on the platform, forming a half
+circle before the Goddess, the band struck into that old-time air, “The
+Liberty Tree,” and a second later every Daughter had chimed in and was
+singing:
+
+  “In a chariot of light from the regions of day
+    The Goddess of Liberty came;
+  Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
+    And hither conducted the dame.
+  A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
+    Where millions and millions agree
+  She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
+    And the plant she named Liberty Tree.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII—THE PRINCESS MAKES TWO MORE FRIENDS
+
+
+“And the plant she named Liberty Tree,” sang Nita blithely up in the
+window of the sun parlor, where she sat with her mother and her old
+Scotch nurse, Ellen, watching the brilliant scene being enacted down on
+the lawn.
+
+As the last verse ended—and there were four—Helen stepped before the
+Goddess, and after saluting told in a few words how the brave pioneers
+had brought to this land a tiny spark which had flamed into the sacred
+fire of Liberty. As time wore on, trampled by the sons of Tyranny, it
+was in danger of being stamped out, when the daughters of these pioneers
+fled to its aid in their great fight for the right, and by their bravery
+and heroic self-denial had revived the sacred fire. The ensigns now
+floating before her were the signals of their success in making this
+land, “The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!”
+
+An expression of regret flitted across Nita’s face as she realized that
+she could not hear the words Helen was speaking, but in a moment,
+remembering, she cried, “But I have them, Mamma, for Nathalie not only
+taught me the words of the songs, but wrote down for me the speeches of
+the girls. Ah, Helen is telling the Goddess how the Pilgrims came to
+this land and planted the Liberty Tree. Of course they did not really
+plant it, you know, only in their hearts, for they were determined to
+have liberty of conscience, speech, and action.
+
+“Oh, and there’s another daughter speaking to the Goddess. See, she
+carries the flag that came over in the _Mayflower_ with the Pilgrims.”
+Then Miss Nita, finding she had an appreciative audience in her mother
+and Ellen, rattled on, highly pleased to think she was giving them such
+good entertainment. She repeated the words of each fair daughter as she
+displayed her trophy of liberty, and could clap as enthusiastically as
+the spectators watching from the hillocks in the distance. Mrs. Van
+Vorst, as she heard her daughter’s words and witnessed her joy, entering
+with as much zest and spirit into the patriotic little drill as the
+Pioneers smiled in attune with the invalid, showing more enjoyment than
+she had done for years.
+
+“There’s the flag of Bunker Hill; it is just like the Pine Tree flag,
+only it is blue instead of red,” exclaimed Nita. “And, oh, Mother, see,
+there’s the real Liberty Flag with its pine tree, and motto, ‘An Appeal
+to Heaven.’ Look quick! that’s the Markoe flag! See, it is yellow and
+has thirteen stripes of blue and silver. Nathalie said this flag was the
+first one on land to float stripes, and that it was the flag carried by
+the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse when they escorted Washington to
+New York. And that crimson silk flag is the Casimir flag; it belonged to
+Count Casimir. He was the son of Pulaski, who perished in a dungeon for
+advocating the cause of liberty. The Count came to America and organized
+a corps of cavalry at Baltimore, and when the Moravian nuns heard of it
+they presented him with that flag. But, oh, Mother, the poor Count died
+after all; he was shot at the siege of Savannah in 1779.”
+
+Ellen, the old Scotch nurse who adored her invalid charge, and who had
+always taken care of her from the time she was a wee tot, was deeply
+stirred as she saw how Nita entered into the new life that had suddenly
+been opened up to her, and her face fairly beamed with gratified pride
+as she heard her repeat the songs and speeches of the girls in the
+playlet.
+
+When the last speech ended, the strains of Yankee Doodle were heard, and
+presently a Scout in the uniform of a Continental soldier appeared on
+the platform carrying a draped flag. After saluting the mother of
+Freedom he planted his pole in the center of the circle of Liberty
+maidens, and the next instant each one had caught up one of the red,
+blue, and white streamers that hung from it, and were swinging gayly
+around, singing “The Red, White, and Blue.”
+
+This song was followed by the “Battle Cry of Freedom,” and then the
+soldier, saluting the Goddess again in a short speech, said he desired
+to present to her an emblem, the outgrowth of the labors of the Sons and
+Daughters of Liberty. The ensign that stands for everything that is
+just, true, and progressive, the symbol of the sovereignty of
+Civilization, the banner that had been unfurled in more movements for
+the protection, the liberty, and the elevation of mankind, than any
+ensign that ripples to the four winds of Heaven.
+
+Oh, no, the little company up in the window didn’t hear all these words
+from the lips of the soldier, but from Nita as she read them softly from
+her paper. But they did see the signal given by the soldier, and clapped
+with joy when each fair daughter pulled her streamer, the red drapings
+fell from the pole, and Old Glory stood revealed. And as the colors
+swayed softly in the gentle breeze they joined with patriotic fervor as
+the girls and audience broke into “The Star Spangled Banner!”
+
+The Flag Drill was over, and the girls, breaking ranks, were soon
+scattered here and there over the lawn in groups, as they stood
+receiving the congratulations of their friends on the success of the
+entertainment. It was but a moment or so, however, and the girls had all
+rushed back to duty, and each one with a scout was serving ice-cream and
+cake to the buyers at the gayly festooned tables under the trees.
+
+Nathalie, nerve and bone tired, was wishing that she could sit down if
+only for a moment, when her eyes suddenly grew bright with thought, and
+the next second she had darted across the grass crying, “Oh, Grace,
+don’t you think it would be nice if we could take some cream and cake up
+to Nita and her mother?”
+
+“Nita?” repeated that young lady, who had never heard the name before.
+“Why, what do you mean?”
+
+Nathalie started. “Oh, why, to be sure, I forgot to tell you about her,
+but Mrs. Morrow thought best to—”
+
+Nathalie broke off in despair as she realized that Grace knew nothing
+about the princess in the tower and the many other happenings at the
+gray house, only that its owner had consented to allow the girls to use
+her lawn.
+
+“Why, you know Nita is Mrs. Van Vorst’s daughter; she was the one who
+got her mother to let us have the lawn. She’s just lovely, I have been
+going to see her every day for—”
+
+At this moment Ellen, her face glowing with pleasure, touched Nathalie
+on the arm as she cried, “Oh, Miss Nathalie, Mrs. Van Vorst has sent me
+to ask you to come up and see Miss Nita, and to bring two of your
+friends with you!”
+
+Nathalie stared a moment as if not comprehending what Ellen had said,
+and then, “Oh, Ellen, do you mean that Mrs. Van Vorst wants me to come
+up to see Miss Nita and to—”
+
+“Yes, that is just what I mean, Miss,” rejoined Ellen, evidently
+enjoying Nathalie’s amazement. “Miss Nita wants to meet some of your
+Pioneer friends. Bless the child, Miss Nathalie, but you and your
+friends have brought real sunshine straight to the heart of my bairn.
+Bless you for it!”
+
+Nathalie smiled and nodded as she answered, “All right, Ellen, I’ll be
+right up!” Then, as the old nurse disappeared among the throngs on the
+lawn Nathalie turned to Grace, who was standing in open-mouthed
+astonishment at this sudden turn in the day’s doings.
+
+“Oh, Grace, will you go with me? Didn’t I tell you Nita was lovely?”
+Then seizing the girl by the arm she swept her across the grass to where
+Helen was standing talking to her brother.
+
+“Helen,” she panted, “I want you to come with me to see Nita. Mrs. Van
+Vorst has sent for me to come up and says for me to bring two of my
+friends. Will you come?”
+
+“Come!” exclaimed Helen, “of course I will. I have been on the point of
+expiring with curiosity ever since you told me of your adventure at the
+gray house.”
+
+“Adventure?” repeated Grace. “Oh, Nathalie, you have not told me about
+it!” in an aggrieved tone.
+
+“But I’m going to! Oh, but I must hurry and get the cream ready or it
+will be too late!” She started to run, but after a few steps turned
+back, and waving her hand at the girls, called, “Helen, you tell her
+while I am getting the tray.”
+
+“But I’m coming to help you,” replied that young woman. “You come, too,”
+she added, catching Grace by the arm. But to her surprise Grace pulled
+away from her with the exclamation, “Oh, Helen! I wouldn’t go in that
+house for a mint of money! Why didn’t you know? No, I’m not to tell,”
+she ended mysteriously, “but you go,” she added, “that is if you are not
+afraid.”
+
+“Afraid?” echoed her companion in amazement, “why should I be afraid,
+surely you don’t think any one could harm us as long as Nathalie has
+been there and come away safely?”
+
+“I don’t know,” hesitated Grace, “I!—”
+
+“Oh, girls, I have the tray all ready, but you will have to help me
+carry it. Do come on, for I do not want to keep Mrs. Van Vorst waiting
+too long!” Nathalie was back again.
+
+“Grace says she is afraid to go,” explained Helen.
+
+“Afraid!” repeated Nathalie bewildered. “What are you afraid of?” she
+demanded abruptly turning towards her friend.
+
+“Why Nathalie, don’t you remember that day we—”
+
+Nathalie continued to gaze at her blankly, and then her face broke into
+a smile as she remembered the day she and Grace had run away from the
+gray house afraid of the crazy man.
+
+“Oh, Grace,” she cried with merry laughter, “that was the best joke on
+you and me, for, O dear, why, Grace, it wasn’t any crazy man at all, it
+was only a cockatoo!”
+
+The long kept secret that had troubled Nathalie so much at first was out
+at last, and she and Helen, who had been told about that when her
+friend’s silence was first broken as far as she was concerned, broke
+into prolonged laughter at the richness of the joke.
+
+“A cockatoo?” exclaimed Grace incredulously, and then annoyed at the
+girls’ merriment she added crossly, “Oh, I do wish you would explain
+what is so funny, I think it real mean of you both to laugh that way!”
+
+“Yes, it is mean,” added Nathalie, stifling her laughter as she saw the
+irate expression on her friend’s face. “But, Grace, it was funny. I
+would have told you all about it before—that is how I found out—only I
+had sworn not to tell. But if you will promise not to reveal what I am
+going to tell you—honor bright—” this in answer to the girl’s nod of
+assent, “I will tell you the mystery of the gray house!”
+
+It was not long now before Grace heard the long story of how Nathalie
+had come to go to the house, how she had found out about the cockatoo,
+the star part she had played with the princess, and the many other
+happenings that had taken place within the last few weeks.
+
+“But is the poor thing such a terrible monster?” demanded Grace in ready
+sympathy.
+
+“A monster?” ejaculated Nathalie in amazement. “Who said she was a
+monster?”
+
+“Why, don’t you remember? Edith—”
+
+“Now, see here,” exclaimed Nathalie stamping her feet angrily, “don’t
+tell me another word of what the Sport says. I am just beginning to hate
+that girl, she is always saying and doing things she has no—” She
+stopped suddenly as it came to her in a conscience-stricken flash that
+Pioneers were never to say evil of any one.
+
+Helen, seeing the strange expression in her eyes and noticing how her
+color was coming and going in flashes, cried, “Oh, Nathalie, what is
+it?”
+
+“It is nothing,” replied the girl quickly in a choked voice, “I just
+stopped—because—well, I remembered that one of the Pioneer laws is not
+to speak evil of any one. I’m going to keep mum after this, but that
+girl,” her eyes shadowed again, “does provoke me so!”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie, you are a dear girl,” exclaimed Helen, putting her arm
+around her friend and giving her a hug. “I wish we were all as careful
+about keeping the Pioneer laws as you, but gracious, child, don’t repent
+with such dire woe, for none of us are saints, and the Sport is trying,
+the Lord knows. But explain to Grace about your friend.”
+
+“No,” said Nathalie determinedly. “I am not going to say another thing,
+only that Nita is not a monster, only a humpback, and—but there, if you
+want to know about her, come and see her.”
+
+“Well,” spoke up Helen, “if we are going to see the Princess in the
+tower—how fairylike that sounds—we had better go. And then, as seeing is
+believing, we’ll go and tell the Sport all about it, and stop that funny
+little tongue of hers that creates so much trouble at times.”
+
+“Oh, that will be just the thing; Helen, you are a dear!” cried
+Nathalie. Then the three girls hurried to the ice-cream table for the
+tray. Hastily taking it they pushed their way through the crowd, coming
+and going about the tables, to the porch, where Ellen relieved them of
+their burden and then conducted them to the sun parlor, where Mrs. Van
+Vorst and Nita sat waiting to receive them.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried Nathalie as she greeted that lady and her
+daughter, “it was lovely of you to allow me to bring my two friends to
+meet Nita. This is Miss Helen Dame,” she continued drawing Helen to her,
+“and this is another Pioneer friend, Miss Grace Tyson.”
+
+“I am very glad to meet you, Mrs. Van Vorst,” broke in Helen, “for I
+feel that we are very much indebted to you for allowing us to use your
+lawn.”
+
+“Yes,” chimed Grace, as she shook the lady’s hand, “we all feel that you
+have given us a lovely afternoon.”
+
+“I think the indebtedness is on my side,” smiled the lady, looking down
+with pleased eyes at the two girls, as they stood glancing shyly at her,
+their white dresses and red caps making them appear unusually pretty.
+“But let me make you acquainted with my daughter,” she added, leading
+them to where Nita sat, her blue eyes almost black with the excitement
+of meeting these two new Pioneers, while her cheeks, usually so pale,
+were flushed with a delicate pinkness.
+
+After the general hand-shaking was over and the little party had
+gathered closer to the window to admire the gay-colored flags that
+fluttered, one from each table, showing with unusual vividness between
+the green foliage and light dresses of strollers across the lawn,
+Nathalie asked Nita how she had liked the drill.
+
+“Oh, Nathalie,” rejoined the princess enthusiastically, “it was just the
+prettiest sight, and I told Ellen and Mamma every flag story, didn’t I?”
+Then suddenly remembering the two strangers, she relapsed into a shy
+silence and crouched back in the friendly shelter of her chair as if
+with the sudden thought of her deformity and the fear that the girls
+would see it.
+
+But Grace and Helen were not thinking of the “awful hump” as Nathalie
+had defined it, but of the pale sweet face with the lovely violet eyes
+that were shining like bright stars.
+
+“I am awfully glad you liked it,” said Helen, suddenly recalled to her
+duties as the leader of one of the groups. “We tried to make it look as
+festive as we could with Uncle Sam’s old liberty banners, but if it had
+not been for the lawn we should not have been able to have the drill.”
+
+“You are all very kind to thank me so prettily,” said Mrs. Van Vorst,
+“but, as I said, I think you have given me and my little daughter more
+pleasure than we have given you. The poor child sees so little of life,
+as we are so secluded here behind these high walls.”
+
+In a few moments, as Nita’s shyness began to wear off, the little group
+was chatting in the most friendly way, talking over the incidents of the
+drill, the Pioneers telling about the nice little sum they had made for
+their camp expenses, while they all ate their cream and cake. Ellen,
+like a good soul that she was, had hastened out to the lawn and brought
+enough of those delicacies to provide for the whole group.
+
+Helen’s remark about the Camping Fund started a new subject of
+conversation and opened the way for Nita to ask many questions about
+this summer dream of the Pioneers. “Oh,” she declared at length, “I just
+wish you could come up to Eagle Lake and camp on its shores. We have a
+bungalow up there, you know, and it is just a glorious place. But it
+gets so lonely after a while, with nothing but the birds and squirrels
+to talk to. Oh,” she ended suddenly with a little sigh, “if I was only
+well and strong, then I would be a Pioneer, too.”
+
+“Oh, but you—” interrupted Nathalie, and then she paused. She was going
+to say “why you can be,” but the quick remembrance of the hump and the
+delicate face of the girl caused her to halt. With quick readiness she
+changed to, “Oh, but you would enjoy seeing one of our cheer fires; they
+are an inspiration for all kinds of dreams with the burning logs and
+glowing embers.”
+
+“You ought to see the fagot party we are going to have Monday night,”
+chimed in Grace. “It is to be a burning send-off to one of the girls who
+is going South to live for a while.”
+
+“A fagot party?” exclaimed Nita with interested eyes. “Oh, do tell all
+about it; it sounds, well it sounds fagoty. What do you do?”
+
+“Why, we use small fagots tied into bundles,” explained Helen, “that is,
+after we have started a good blazing fire. Each girl has her fagot
+bundle and as soon as one burns up she throws hers on—”
+
+“Oh, but you haven’t told the best part,” broke in Grace. “While each
+girl’s fagot bundle is burning she tells a story, which has to be ended
+by the time her fagots are burned.”
+
+“Does she have to stop on the very second?” questioned Nita.
+
+“Yes, she begins as soon as she throws her bundle on the blaze, and
+keeps on talking until it is all burned up and falls to a shower of
+fiery sparks. But of course she has to keep a sharp look out on the
+burning fagots, so as to end her tale with a good climax as the fagots
+fall,” explained Helen.
+
+“Where are you going to have it?” questioned Nita, a shade of
+disappointment on her face as she thought how she would like to see this
+fagot party.
+
+“We haven’t found a place yet,” answered Grace, who was one of the
+committee, “but we are working hard to have it down in Deacon Ditmas’s
+lot, near the cross-roads.”
+
+“Why can’t you have it on our lawn?” exclaimed Nita timidly, turning
+appealing eyes towards her mother. “Oh, Mother, do say they can have it
+here, and then I can see it.”
+
+The girls were so amazed at this sudden and unexpected proposition that
+they all remained silent, Nathalie in a spasm of dread for fear that
+Mrs. Van Vorst would think that the Pioneers were a great nuisance being
+thrust upon her hospitality in this abrupt manner. But she was quickly
+undeceived as the lady rejoined hastily, “Why, I should be most pleased
+to let the Pioneers have the lawn for the fagot party. It would give
+Nita great pleasure, I am sure.”
+
+“That will be just lovely!” cried her daughter, clapping her hands
+delightedly. “And you will take it, won’t you?” she coaxed pleadingly,
+suddenly stopping her demonstrations as if realizing that her plan might
+not be pleasing to the girls.
+
+“I think it would be dandy,” answered Grace. “What do you girls think?”
+turning towards them as she spoke.
+
+“Why, I think it would be fine,” added Helen, “and—”
+
+“But oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, it will destroy the grass on the lawn,” spoke
+up Nathalie doubtfully, “for our cheer fires always leave a blackened
+burnt place on the ground.”
+
+“That will not make any difference,” was the prompt rejoinder from that
+lady. “Peter can rake it off and if necessary he can resod it. I shall
+only be delighted if you young girls can use it, and the favor will all
+be on my side—” her voice trembled slightly—“for it will give my little
+daughter so much pleasure.”
+
+“Oh, Nita! you are walking, you will fall and hurt yourself!” exclaimed
+Nathalie excitedly, as she entered that young lady’s room the Monday
+after the Flag Drill, and found her walking about with a coolness and
+ease that she had never before seen her display.
+
+Nita broke into merry laughter at the look of dismay on her friend’s
+face. “Of course I’m walking, the doctor says I can, so there!” There
+was a triumphant toss of her head at Nathalie.
+
+“But you have never walked, that is not much since I have known you!”
+cried the puzzled girl.
+
+“And you thought I never could,” replied the little lady independently.
+“Well, you are wrong. I used to walk when I felt able, sometimes quite a
+little. Then a crank of a doctor frightened Mamma to death by telling
+her I should always lie on my back or side, and for years I have been
+nailed like a mast to a ship on that couch. But Dr. Morrow says if I
+have the strength I should walk, and that my strength will come
+gradually. Oh, who knows what I can do? Walk off this old hump, I hope!”
+
+“Oh, you dear thing!” cried Nathalie, rushing to her friend and giving
+her a squeeze. “Isn’t that just the loveliest thing? What nice times we
+can have after a while if you can walk, and Dr. Morrow, I always knew he
+was a dear!”
+
+“There, don’t squeeze me to bits, but tell me all the things that have
+happened since the Flag Drill, and oh, Nathalie, your friends are dears.
+The one you call Grace is sweet, and the other one, why, she isn’t so
+pretty, but she looks a good sort.”
+
+“She is something more than a ‘good sort,’” answered Nathalie swiftly,
+“she is a gem, she is so clever and sensible, and, oh, what a friend she
+has proved to me! She has a wonderful way of helping you over the hard
+places. But there, I will tell you what Grace said about you, she said
+you were a sweet little cherub—and—”
+
+“Just arrived from angel land I suppose, with wings all sprouting,”
+ventured Nita sarcastically. “Well, she ought to see me when I’m mad.
+Cherub indeed! What did the other one say?”
+
+Nathalie hesitated; her face flushed, “Oh—why, she thought you were a
+dear, but said you were a bit spoiled.”
+
+Nita looked surprised for a minute; then her eyes flashed as she cried
+with a defiant lift of her head. “Well, I guess if Miss Sensible had a
+hump to carry about that could never be taken off, no matter how it
+hurt, and had to be shut up behind walls with nothing to see or any one
+to talk to, she’d be spoiled, too!” There was a quiver of the chin as
+the red lips closed tightly in the effort not to cry.
+
+“Oh, you poor little thing, I should not have told you that, for really,
+Helen thought you were lovely!” Nathalie regretted with all her heart
+the impulse that had prompted her to tell the truth to Nita. It seemed
+unkind but it was really spoken in the hope of doing her little friend
+good.
+
+But Nita pushed her away, “Oh, don’t pet me!” as Nathalie attempted to
+caress her, “I was only teasing. Yes, I know I’m spoiled, but there, do
+tell me the news, for your face shows that you are just dying to tell me
+something worth the hearing.”
+
+“Well, yes, I have _some_ news—that’s slang, but O dear, it does mean so
+much sometimes,” laughed Nathalie as she and Nita seated themselves on
+the couch. “Saturday we had a Pioneer Rally. Judge Benson, a friend of
+Dr. Morrow’s from the city, gave us a talk on self-government. He
+explained the difference between natural, spiritual, and civic law. He
+also explained the meaning of an ordinance, told us how justice was
+administered in the different courts, and how self-government, or the
+reform system is having its try-out in some of the prisons to-day. He
+says it bids fair to make criminals—men hardened in sin and
+crime—respectable members of a community.”
+
+“Self-government?” queried mystified Nita, “why, the Pioneers are not
+citizens or criminals; you don’t have to be governed!”
+
+“Yes, we do,” asserted Nathalie stoutly, “and so does everybody. Civic,
+natural, and spiritual laws are all right, but back of those laws is the
+law of self-government, that is the something within each one of us that
+makes us what we want to be, that makes us control ourselves even when
+we are babies, when we get slapped for being naughty. If there was no
+self-government in the world—for it is the government of self when we
+make ourselves obey the laws of God and man, when we cease evil and do
+the right—why, if there was no self-government we would all be savages
+without law and order.
+
+“Judge Benson told us how self-government came to be used in the schools
+and prisons. Of course, as I said, we all have to govern ourselves in a
+measure, but it is the applying of this self-government in a new way
+that has done so much good.
+
+“A very good man, he said, took some waifs from the poor settlements in
+New York to the country and tried to better them physically and morally
+by teaching them to be good. But of course, they would do wicked things
+and have to be punished, and he became very much discouraged because the
+punishments didn’t seem to do them any permanent good. So he thought for
+a long time and then he formed a Junior Republic, made all the boys and
+girls citizens, and then told them to appoint their own officials, that
+is, their own lawyers, judges, officers, and so on. Then when any of
+them did wrong they were haled into court and tried by their own
+comrades. Of course, they all became so interested in this new system of
+punishing—for you see, they all had a part in it—that they became
+wonderfully good. You see, the boys and girls had to learn to control
+themselves, for of course, they not only wanted to stand high in the
+court and be lawyers and judges themselves, but they did not like to be
+corrected and called down—that’s what the judge said—by their own
+comrades. This venture at making boys and girls learn to control
+themselves not only taught them self-denial, self-repression,
+self-development, and the difference between right and wrong, and their
+duty to themselves as well as to their companions, but it was the means
+of introducing the same system into the public schools, and in time into
+the prisons.”
+
+“Yes, but I don’t understand how it interests you girls.”
+
+“Why, Mrs. Morrow read so much about self-government and the good it did
+that she introduced it into the Pioneer organization, and it has worked
+wonderfully well there, Mrs. Morrow claims. Instead of a court we have a
+senate, which is composed of two girls from each bird group, elected by
+the girls. The Pioneers also elected a president, that’s Helen, and a
+vice-president, she’s an Oriole girl and quite clever, too. Jessie Ford
+is the secretary, and Mrs. Morrow is the Advisory Judge and has the
+power to veto any ruling of the president, but she never has as yet.
+
+“So you see what it does for the Pioneers, for if any member of the
+organization breaks a law or does anything wrong she is brought before
+the Senate. Every Pioneer served with an indictment to appear before the
+Senate has, of course, the right to choose one of the girls as a
+counsel, and when there are two girls implicated they both choose
+counsel. Then after the witnesses are all heard the lawyers sum up, and
+the case goes to the Senate, who act as a jury and vote by ballot. The
+case can be appealed to the Advisory Judge; or an offender, by asking or
+showing contrition, can have her sentence lightened. You don’t know what
+fun it is, and then it helps to make us govern ourselves and teaches us
+law, too, in a small way, of course.”
+
+“Well, I wish they’d try to punish that hateful Sport for using your
+idea, and to think she got all the credit for it! Why—”
+
+“No, she didn’t,” laughed Nathalie with an odd little gleam in her eye,
+“for she was tried before the Senate Saturday.”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie, you don’t mean it! Oh, I’m so glad!” cried Nita clapping
+her hands delightedly. “I do hope she got her deserts, the deceitful
+thing!”
+
+“Well, I am afraid she got all that was coming to her, as Dick said.”
+Nathalie’s bright face sobered. “Nita, I was awfully sorry for her. It
+was so humiliating to have to face that Senate, oh, the girls just hate
+to be brought before it. I had to tell as a witness, about losing the
+Stunt, the librarian told of helping me get data and then helping me to
+look for it, and then how she saw Edith pick it up as it fell from under
+a book on the table.”
+
+“Do tell me what they did to her!” Nita bent forward in curious
+excitement as she spoke.
+
+“Poor thing! she had all her stars and badges of merit taken from her.
+Just think, she will have to begin all over again to win them! At first
+it was voted that she would have to go back and be a third-class Pioneer
+again, but I was so sorry that I pleaded for clemency, and so the
+sentence was lightened.
+
+“You see, there is an awful lot of good in Edith, and I am never again
+going to say anything against her, she has been punished enough. And oh,
+Nita, Dorothy at the Rally received her third-class badge, and I
+received my badge for a second-class Pioneer. I’m going to work awfully
+hard while at camp, so as to qualify as a first-class Pioneer. But
+there, it is getting late and we shall have to stop talking and take up
+our reading on the ‘Pioneer Women of America.’”
+
+Nita nodded, and in a few moments the two girls were busily engaged;
+Nita listening with the keenest attention while Nathalie read about the
+Dutch women who came from Holland and settled New York, little dreaming
+as she read that this lesson was to culminate in an event of the utmost
+importance to the Girl Pioneers of Westport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX—THE FAGOT PARTY
+
+
+“Oh, Mother, isn’t it just beautiful?” exclaimed the princess the night
+of the fagot party, as she watched the flames leap and dance down on the
+lawn.
+
+“Yes; it is very suggestive, too,” answered Mrs. Van Vorst, “for it
+makes one think of the witches in Macbeth, as they stood around the
+cauldron watching their queer concoction ‘boil and bubble.’”
+
+“O dear!” was Nita’s wail again, “it is lovely to see the fire and the
+girls, but I do want to hear the stories they tell.”
+
+“Perhaps Nathalie will come up later,” suggested her mother, “and tell
+you some of the thrillers. Is that what she calls them?”
+
+“There, they have stopped the witches’ dance and are forming a circle.
+Oh, one of the girls has thrown on a bundle of fagots! Yes, it’s that
+friend of Nathalie’s, Miss Sensible. Oh, Mother,” cried the little
+shut-in with a woeful countenance, “I am sure I could walk down there.”
+She stood up as she spoke and began to walk restlessly up and down the
+room.
+
+“Oh, Nita, be careful!” pleaded her mother. “You do not want to overdo
+your walking, and you have been on your feet a good deal to-day.”
+Notwithstanding Mrs. Van Vorst’s protest there was a note of hope in her
+voice that betrayed that she had at last begun to see things as Nathalie
+had predicted, that she had made a mistake in housing her daughter
+behind high walls, and that the mingling with girls of her own age might
+bring new life to her.
+
+“Ah, there’s Grace,” went on the voice at the window. “She’s the other
+girl who came with Nathalie. Oh, she’s throwing on her fagots!” The girl
+turned from the window as she perceived that Ellen had entered the room
+and was telling her mother that some one desired to see her in the
+library.
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst arose to leave the room Nita demurred, “Oh, Mother, I
+don’t want to be left here alone.”
+
+“I will return as soon as possible, Nita, dear,” was the reply; “Ellen
+will stay with you. You can tell her about the fagot party,” she added
+hastily as she saw the cloud on the girl’s face. With a backward glance,
+as she hurried from the room, she saw that her suggestion had been
+followed and that Ellen had drawn her chair close to Nita’s, and was
+eagerly listening as her daughter related the incidents leading up to
+the demonstration down on the lawn.
+
+Indeed it was not long before the faithful nurse, always interested in
+anything to brighten the life of her young charge, was watching the
+Pioneers and their doings as keenly as Nita, while wishing with her that
+they could hear the stories the girls were telling.
+
+Suddenly Nita, who had been unusually silent for some time, drew Ellen’s
+head down to hers, and began to whisper softly in her ear.
+
+“Oh, Ellen, will you?” she coaxed pleadingly, as she finished her
+whispering of something that had brought a protest from the good woman.
+Ellen looked dubious for a minute or so, and then the persuasive pleader
+had her way, for Ellen had given her assent and Nita was clapping her
+hands happily, as she thought of the fun in store for her later in the
+evening.
+
+Meanwhile, the girls on the lawn with tense expectancy kept their eyes
+on Nathalie, who arose, walked towards the flaming pyre, and with a
+quick toss landed another bundle of fagots on the leaping flames.
+
+“Oh, Nathalie, you will have to hurry,” called Grace excitedly, as her
+friend scurried back to her seat. “One of your fagots is already
+ablaze.”
+
+Nathalie needed no warning for she had already plunged into her tale,
+and in short, concise sentences—she had practiced with Helen—was
+describing in graphic tone a colonial wedding, the going away of the
+bridal pair, the building of a log hut in the wilderness, the departure
+of the young husband, and the loneliness of the young bride. She paused
+a moment and drew a long breath as if to gather her forces for the
+coming ordeal.
+
+Then with her eyes fastened in a rigid stare on the twirling glare from
+the flames—so as to bring her story to a proper climax when the fiery
+fagots fell apart—she went on and told of the face of a redskin suddenly
+being thrust into a window of the little cabin, of a shriek of terror,
+of cruel, fiendish laughter, of the fair bride being carried on the back
+of a tall savage, and of the final arrival at an Indian encampment,
+where a paint-bedaubed warrior with flaunting head-gear tried to induce
+the wailing bride to become his squaw.
+
+Nathalie’s eyes, big in the flaming redness of the firelight, were
+riveted on the seething flames as if she saw in the twist and curl of
+their darting tongues the enactment of the story she was telling. The
+girls all bent forward eagerly, for the fagots were getting ready to
+burst apart as she told of the imprisonment of the bride, the making of
+a big bonfire, the tying of the bride to the stake, the lighting of the
+underbrush at her feet, and the whirling flames as they leaped up and
+greedily licked the terror-stricken face.
+
+But Nathalie, like a photo-play screen, had transported her listeners to
+a sun-baked plain, where a white man was galloping in mad speed. A fagot
+had leaped from its fellows. “Oh, Nathalie, hurry!” whispered Grace,
+wringing her hands nervously. Ah, but Nathalie was on time, and as the
+fagots gave a loud snap and fell into a shower of twinkling lights the
+horseman came galloping into the street of the Indian encampment with a
+troop of soldiers close at his heels, and leaped into the fiery embers
+and cut—There was a loud clapping followed by cries of applause, for
+there was no need to tell what happened after that leap into the fire,
+every one knew.
+
+“Now, Lillie, it is your turn!” shouted several voices as Nathalie,
+exhausted by her strenuous race between words and flames, sank back
+somewhat exhausted against her friend’s shoulder.
+
+Lillie Bell, in response to her name, seized a bundle of fagots, and
+with a few flourishes, which she declared to be an incantation for
+success, threw it on the blazing pile. In a moment she was back in her
+seat and had started her tale of romance.
+
+“When Washington Irving’s headless horseman was the terror of the
+Hudson, a party of young girls, who were wandering in the fields one
+moonlight night, was chased by a huge and airy phantom to the banks of
+the river. In order to escape their foe two of the girls darted into an
+empty boat fastened near the bank and rowed out into the stream. The
+phantom, a strange and weird object, pursued, swimming rapidly in the
+wake of the canoe.
+
+“Suddenly, to the horror of the girls crouched up against a rock on
+shore they saw, in a broad band of moonlight shining on the water, that
+the phantom was the headless one. Even as they gazed it had reached the
+boat, and with one sweep of its mighty arm had grabbed one of the girls
+from her sister’s clutch, and was swimming swiftly back to land.
+
+“The girl in the boat rowed quickly back, only to see, with her
+companions on shore, the phantom disappear into the woods. With
+phenomenal courage she flew after the headless one, screaming with all
+her strength. But alas, her speed and screams were of no avail, for she
+ran after the phantom only to see it dash into an uninhabited mansion
+that stood in a park thick with the gloom of forest trees.
+
+“Horror-stricken, the girls hastened home and parties were sent in
+pursuit of the stolen girl, but no trace of her was found, although the
+empty mansion, dark with the forest gloom was searched from attic to
+cellar.
+
+“Time passed, and the maiden returned not to her home, nor was any trace
+of her ever discovered, although every effort possible had been made. At
+last her sister, loved by a young farmer, refused to marry him unless he
+would visit the haunted mansion at midnight, to see if possibly he could
+obtain any clew to her sister’s whereabouts, it being generally believed
+that she had been murdered in the house and that her ghost haunted the
+abode.
+
+“Determined to win the girl, the young farmer with his revolver and a
+few tapers secreted himself in the cellar of the house one day, just
+before twilight. He was resolved to solve the mystery of the girl’s
+disappearance and the reason why the house at night was filled with a
+peculiar, bluish light, said to be the candle borne by the headless one
+in his midnight tour of the premises.
+
+“Just before midnight the farmer hastened to the upper floor and hid in
+a closet, where, with quaking limbs and wildly beating heart he awaited
+the magic hour. Unfortunately, weary with waiting, he fell asleep, but
+was soon awakened by a peculiar, creeping sensation along his spine. He
+crouched against the door holding it ajar with one hand and the pistol
+in the other.
+
+“All at once there was the swish of a garment against the door. He
+scratched a match, lit his taper, and glared forth into the darkness.
+Again he heard that swish. It was in the hall. Stealthily he tiptoed to
+the hall door, opened it with trembling hand, and stepped forth into
+dense blackness, when—”
+
+“Oh, Lillie, hurry!” screamed the Sport. “Your logs will fall in a
+minute!”
+
+A strange smile flitted over Lillie’s face, but her voice went
+thrillingly on. “When something huge and hairy spread over him like a
+net, benumbing every nerve and muscle. He struggled, and finally
+succeeded in getting free of the unknown thing and sprang for the door
+leading to the open. He would get out of that house. No, he would lose
+Kitty, he could not live without her! He turned—ah, what was that weird
+flash at the top of the staircase? He heard the swish again—this time
+very near—it was some one coming down the stairs! He crouched against
+the wall and peered up; the rattling of a chain sounded on his ears;
+again came that weird glare, and he saw—” the fagots fell with a loud
+sputter, throwing forth a shower of fiery sparks. Lillie remained silent
+a moment, each girl held her breath in paralyzed terror, and then, as
+the last fagot dropped a shapeless heap on the grass, Lillie cried with
+tragic emphasis, “Girls, I leave you to guess what he saw!”
+
+A second of space, Lillie’s eyes shown in a mocking smile as she glanced
+around the circle, and then, the smile froze on her lips, her eyes
+dilated wildly, and she jumped to her feet crying in frenzied horror,
+“What is that?” pointing as she spoke to a clump of trees on the lawn.
+Another second and she had turned, and with an unearthly shriek was
+flying across the lawn towards the house!
+
+The girls, whose nerves had been wrought up to the highest pitch by
+Lillie’s weird tale, remained dumb, thinking as they saw her strange
+actions that it was a new thriller, and were uncertain whether to laugh
+or cry, as they stared at her flying figure.
+
+Jessie, who always disliked Lillie’s tragic tales, with a half laugh
+sprang to her feet crying, “Well, if she isn’t the limit!” Her glance
+had followed Lillie’s to the clump of trees with a curious stare; the
+stare became fixed; she uttered a wild scream, and the next moment she,
+too, was rushing in mad terror across the lawn in the wake of the
+story-teller!
+
+As the girls saw her glance and heard her cry, terror struck each one
+like an electric shock, and the next second every girl present had
+broken into a wild cry, and without waiting to see what was the cause of
+the rush over the lawn, was speeding, helter-skelter towards the house!
+
+Nathalie had run with the others, and then, swayed by some unknown
+impulse, she had halted and glanced back in the direction she had seen
+Lillie and Jessie look. She gave a low cry, started to flee again, and
+then stood suddenly still, and with panting breath gazed again at the
+clump of trees. She caught her breath, for under the swaying boughs
+stood a weird, white object pointing a long white finger at her!
+
+What was it? Could it be a Boy Scout trying to frighten them? She bent
+forward with intent eyes, for as the white figure swayed slightly there
+was something curiously familiar in its movements. The next instant
+Nathalie had turned, and as if shot from a catapult was speeding towards
+the white figure that still stood, uncannily waving its arms to and fro
+in the moonlight.
+
+[Illustration: With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn.]
+
+“Oh, Nita!” burst from the girl, “how did you come here?“ Before the
+white figure could answer, Ellen was seen running swiftly towards them.
+
+“Oh, Miss Nita,” she wailed, “what a scare you have given me! Oh, you
+naughty girl, you promised that you would not leave the lower porch!”
+
+“Well,” flashed the girl, “I changed my mind!” Then seizing Nathalie,
+who was still staring at her with big, frightened eyes, she began to
+laugh hysterically. “Oh, wasn’t it funny, Nathalie? Did you see how she
+ran? What a joke, when she was trying to scare the girls—and was scared
+herself—O dear, it is so funny!”
+
+But Nathalie, with a sober face was staring down at the grass. “Oh,
+Nita,” she exclaimed with a sudden fear, “the grass is wet, and, Ellen,
+she will take cold! Oh, how did she get here? Mrs. Van Vorst will be so
+displeased!”
+
+But at that instant Mrs. Van Vorst came running down the path followed
+by Mrs. Morrow. “Oh, Nita! Nita!” she wailed, “how could you be so
+foolish, you will surely take your death! Ellen, how did it happen?”
+
+“Sure, there’s no harm done,” broke in Peter’s voice at this critical
+moment. “I have her chair and we’ll soon get her in, marm. Sure, I saw
+her stealing across the lawn all alone by herself, and I hurried after
+the chair, thinking she would be tired before she had gone far.”
+
+“Thank you, Peter,” cried Nita’s mother, “you are so good and
+considerate. O dear, I hope she won’t take cold! It was such an
+imprudent thing for her to do, but Ellen, how did it happen?” There was
+a note of condemnation in the lady’s voice.
+
+But before Ellen could answer, Nita, whom Peter had wrapped and placed
+in her chair, cried, “Now, Mamma, don’t blame Ellen. It was all my
+fault. I sent her to get my shawl and then I stole down here. I just
+wanted to hear some of the stories. But when I got here that girl—the
+Pioneers called her Lillie—was telling a story. She was trying to scare
+the girls, and then—oh, Mother, it was so funny to see her run—why, I
+thought I would scare her, and when she looked up, just as she had
+worked the girls all to a fever, I waved my arm and pointed my finger at
+her. Oh, Mother, if you could have heard her shriek!” Nita was again in
+hysterical laughter.
+
+By this time she had her audience laughing with her, especially Peter
+and Ellen, who thought their young mistress had been most brilliant in
+outwitting them, and in frightening the young lady who had been trying
+so hard to frighten her companions.
+
+“O dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, who proved to be the lady who was
+visiting with Mrs. Van Vorst when Nita stole down to the lower porch, “I
+am ashamed of my Pioneers; they are supposed to be very brave, but
+to-night’s performance does not appear as if they were. Nathalie, how
+was it you did not run with the others?”
+
+“I did,” confessed Nathalie frankly, “but something brought me to a halt
+and I turned and looked back. O dear, but Nita did look terrible waving
+her white arms to and fro! And then it came to me that there was
+something familiar about the figure, I stared a moment, and then I knew!
+But, Mrs. Morrow, hadn’t I better look for the girls? Please do not
+blame them, I am sure you would have run, too, if you could have seen
+Nita in that sheet, pointing her finger at you.”
+
+Then Nathalie was off, running swiftly over the lawn, peering first on
+one side and then the other as she gave a Bob White whistle, then a
+Tru-al-lee, ending with the shout, “Girls! Girls! where are you?” then
+the Bob White whistle again.
+
+Her cry was heard, and one by one the Pioneers sheepishly crawled from
+their places of safety and joined Nathalie on the lawn. They listened
+with shamed faces as she told them who and what it was that had caused
+their sudden departure. They were reluctant to show themselves at first,
+especially when they learned that Mrs. Morrow was there and had heard
+all about their foolish flight. But with a bit of coaxing on Nathalie’s
+part they returned, and in a few minutes were again in their cheer-fire
+circle, with two additional guests, Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, besides
+Mrs. Morrow, who had thought when the girls first began to tell their
+stories to slip in and thank Mrs. Van Vorst for her kindness, with the
+result that she had been a witness to their lack of bravery, as she
+termed it.
+
+The rest of the evening passed quickly after one or two had told their
+thrillers, to the great satisfaction of Nita, who enjoyed them
+immensely. After the stories were told, there was a marshmallow roast,
+which was entered into with zest, and then came the burning send-off to
+Louise Gaynor, who, when her name was called, came shyly forward to
+receive an enormous pie, from which hung streamers of gay colored
+ribbons, each streamer being tied to a keepsake from one of the
+Pioneers.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now expressed the regret of the Pioneers at losing so good a
+comrade and friend, with the added wish that she would always remember
+them with love, and the assurance that they would carry her on their
+hearts with devout wishes for her health and happiness. The streamers
+were pulled one by one and the loving gifts were brought forth as a
+tribute to the sweetest songster of the band.
+
+The last streamer brought to light a Round Robin letter, which Louise
+faithfully promised not to open until the dates set, as for each day in
+the year of absence she would find a few words of cheer and love from
+her comrades, the Girl Pioneers of America.
+
+After a few songs from the girls, Louise sang one or two of her old
+English songs, Lillie accompanying her on the mandolin, and then Mrs.
+Morrow, in a neat little speech, commended Nathalie for her courage in
+holding her ground when the others had taken to flight. As she ended
+there was a moment’s silence and then each and every girl was shouting
+as loud as she could:
+
+  “Hear! hear! a brave Pioneer!
+  Three cheers for Nathalie dear!”
+
+This cheer was most embarrassing to Nathalie, who wiggled uneasily with
+flushed cheeks as she tried to make the girls hear that she was not
+brave at all. But her protests were drowned by the merry voices, as
+after three cheers they broke into their Pioneer song of good-by to
+Louise. This was followed by the song that every Pioneer loves to sing
+and that was:
+
+  “We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We will be brave, and kind and true;
+  We’re Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+      Hear! Hear! Hear!
+      Girl Pioneer!
+      Come, give a cheer!
+      Girl Pi-o-neer!!!”
+
+One bright morning two weeks after the fagot party, Helen with wondering
+surprise mingled with pleasure read the following:
+
+  “Madame Van Vorst presents her compliments to Mistress Helen Dame,
+  and begs the pleasure of her company on the afternoon of the sixth
+  of July, at a _Kraeg_, to meet her daughter, Mistress Anita Van
+  Vorst, in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth
+  anniversary of the building of the Van Vorst homestead. Mistress
+  Helen is requested to appear in the costume of a ‘goede vrouw’ of
+  Mana-ha-ta.”
+
+“A _Kraeg_—what does that mean?” queried the girl, as with puzzled brows
+she eyed the tiny picture of the “Homestead” surmounting the invitation,
+with the dates, 1664-1914. “Ah, Nathalie will know!” The next moment the
+girl was hurrying across the lawn to her neighbor’s veranda, where she
+had spied her cosily ensconced in the hammock screened from observant
+eyes by a bower of green leaves.
+
+Nathalie looked up as she heard her step and trilled a soft tru-al-lee
+in recognition, as Helen gave the brownish envelope in her hand a
+flourish.
+
+“I knew you would be wanting to know what that meant.” Nathalie smiled
+happily at her friend as she pointed to the envelope.
+
+“I understand the invitation all right,” was the quick retort, “and
+congratulate you on your success in winning the madame to your views
+that it was a shame to allow little Anita to bloom behind those high
+walls. But—can you tell me what kind of a thing a _Kraeg_ is?”
+
+“It means a Dutch house-warming! But there, I am not going to tell you
+any more, wait until the sixth.”
+
+“‘In the costume of a goede vrouw of Mana-ha-ta,’” read Helen slowly.
+“May I deign to ask your Dutch Majesty to explain what this means?”
+
+“You may,” nodded the occupant of the hammock, “for her Dutch Majesty
+has spent many weary hours with Miss Anita studying just that part of
+the program. You see, we want to have the real Dutch atmosphere of the
+early period, so we decided to have each girl impersonate some woman
+pioneer, and then tell who she was and what she did.”
+
+“Well, I don’t imagine that the girls will care to get themselves up
+like those old Dutch vrouws, as they were so terribly stolid and
+uninteresting.”
+
+“Oh, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie sitting suddenly up in the hammock,
+“those Dutch vrouws were anything but uninteresting. Nita and I have
+read all about them in a book Mrs. Van Vorst bought for us in New York,
+it has just been published and is very interesting. As a matter of fact,
+the women who settled New York were the most efficient, the most
+industrious, and the most capable of any of the early pioneer women of
+that period.”
+
+“I did not know that,” said Helen, raising her eyebrows; “I thought they
+were just stolid Dutch peasant women with little ability to do anything
+but knit, tend the cows, and so on.”
+
+“A great many people seem to have that idea,” returned her friend, “but
+the Dutch housewives were not mere stoical drudges. Holland at that
+time, you know, was the only country that gave as good an education to
+her girls as to her boys. They were not only educated to fill
+responsible positions, but to have a love for literature as well as for
+painting, music, and the arts. So these Dutch peasants, as you call
+them, were better educated, better protected by the laws of the colony,
+and held more important positions than any of their Southern or Northern
+sisters.
+
+“It is claimed,” she went on, warming to her subject, “that the Dutch
+housewife was the manufacturer of the day, producing under her own roof
+nearly all the necessities for the family use. Besides being proficient
+in the art of cooking, she made perfumes from the flowers in her garden,
+planted, gathered, dried, and brewed the hops. She culled simples and
+herbs for medicine, thus becoming the physician of the household. She
+taught her maids to card and weave wool for clothes; she spun the fine
+thread of the flax, grown in her yard, for the linen, knit the socks,
+oh, I could not begin to tell you her many industries!
+
+“But besides all that,” continued the girl, “the goede vrouws had such
+good sense and judgment, and such a fine eye for commercial values that
+they not only owned real estate, but ofttimes carried on their own
+business. The burgomasters of the town paid great deference to the Dutch
+women’s shrewdness, judgment, and independence, so that they exerted no
+little influence in the state affairs of New Amsterdam.”
+
+“Well, I never!” laughed Helen teasingly. “If you haven’t become a
+regular schoolma’am since you have been teaching the princess. Pray, how
+much am I to pay you per word?”
+
+Nathalie laughed merrily. “Yes, isn’t it funny? I started reading about
+the Pioneer women to get Nita interested in something that would be
+instructive as well as entertaining. And lo, she has not only become
+absorbed in anything that pertains to the pioneers, but in many other
+historical subjects as well. As for me, why, I have learned a great
+deal, too, and that is how, when Mrs. Van Vorst said she would like to
+entertain the Pioneers in return for amusing Nita by the drill and the
+fagot party, we decided to have a _Kraeg_.”
+
+“How will the girls know what characters they are to take, what they
+did, and so on?”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Morrow and I arranged all that. Notices were sent—you’ll get
+yours—telling the girls that all information would be furnished by
+Annetje Jans—that’s I—gratis. I will arrange with each girl as to her
+character and so on. Oh, there’s Grace! I’ll warrant you she has her
+notice and is in a hurry for news. But, Helen, here is the book that
+tells all about these Dutch women. I wish you would take it and look it
+over, for I know I shall need lots of help.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX—THE DUTCH KRAEG
+
+
+The sixth of July had arrived, and little Miss New York was fidgeting
+nervously in her chair—draped with the Star Spangled Banner and the
+flaunting colors of the Dutch Republic—placed in line with the hostess
+and the receiving party of the day. She was a rather startling Miss New
+York, arrayed as a Goddess of Liberty—she had claimed she was too modern
+to be a vrouw—with her chair as well as her small person hung with
+placards of well-known places, streets, and buildings of the metropolis.
+
+By her side stood Madame New Amsterdam—Mrs. Van Vorst—whose
+multitudinous skirts stood out from her figure with such amplitude that
+she resembled the quaint little green pincushion that dangled from her
+waist. Her neat white cap was tied under her chin with formal stiffness,
+while a large silk apron completed a make-up that transformed the
+slender, dignified Mrs. Van Vorst into a typical Dutch matron. She too,
+like her daughter, was hung with tiny white signs from bodice to skirt,
+which excited curiosity if not admiration.
+
+“Oh, Mother, I do wish they would hurry and come!” cried Miss New York
+impatiently, craning her neck to see if some one had not yet appeared on
+the broad stairway leading to the main sitting-room. “Oh, somebody’s
+coming!” and the little lady, with the weight of a city on her
+shoulders, drew back as she clapped her hands with delight.
+
+“Ah, here comes the Governor’s lady,” exclaimed Madame New Amsterdam as
+Madame Stuyvesant—Mrs. Morrow—announced her coming by stopping on the
+threshold of the low-ceiled room, and bowed with such stately formality
+that Miss New York’s eyes suddenly stilled, as she stiffened with
+similar dignity to receive the first guest.
+
+The Governor’s lady was followed by Annetje Jans, her comely little
+person looking like a blooming Dutch posy, arrayed in a bright green
+petticoat and a blue waistcoat with yellow sleeves. The brown eyes,
+ready smile, and brilliant cheeks of Miss Nathalie made her a fitting
+representative of the little lady who formed so large a part of the
+history of New Amsterdam, coming over in 1630 in the ship _Endracht_
+with her husband and three children from Holland. After the death of her
+husband, who left her a _bouwerie_ (farm) of sixty acres, a good part of
+New York, she married Dominie Bogardus, thus becoming with her wealth
+and influence a dominant character in the colony.
+
+Annetje came a few steps forward, and then bobbed such a low curtsy that
+the wings of her lace cap flapped out like the sails of a windmill in a
+greeting to her hostesses. But in a second her old-time pose was
+forgotten, as her eyes fell on the much “be-signed” person of the lady
+of the house, and she flew to her aid, declaring that she was losing
+some of her signs.
+
+“This will never do,” she commented as she hurriedly pinned the sign
+“Bouwerie” in its place. “Oh, and here’s another old place that’s gone
+astray!” poking “Der Halle” on a straight line with its neighbor, “De
+claver Waytie.”
+
+“Will you please inform me why New Amsterdam is thus placarded?” It was
+the voice of the Governor’s lady, who was curiously watching this
+adjustment of signs.
+
+“Why, these signs are the Dutch names of the different localities and
+streets as named in the days of New Amsterdam,” explained Annetje
+quickly. “See. Broad street means Broad way; _Kloch-Hoeck_ was the site
+of the first village, as it was all covered with bits of clam and oyster
+shells, the word means Shell Point. _De claver Waytie_ was a hill
+leading to a spring covered with grass, where the young maidens used to
+bleach their linen. The path they wore up the hill came to be known as
+_Maadje-Paatje_, Maiden Lane. _Der Halle_ was the name of a tavern near
+a big tree on the corner of Broad and Wall Street. It took the arms of
+six men to go round _der groot_ tree.
+
+“Here is _Cowfoot Hill_, the old cow-path up the hill, _Canoe Place_,
+where the Indians used to tie their canoes, and _Catiemuts_ is the hill
+where the Indians had built their castle. _Collect_ means a dear little
+lake near-by, yes, and here’s the Boston Highway, here’s the
+_Stadt-Huys_, the town hall. _Graft_ was a ditch crossed by a bridge;
+_De Smits Vlye_ was an old blacksmith shop near the ferry to Long
+Island. _Vlacke_ was the grazing ground for the cows, now the City Hall
+Park. _De Schaape Waytie_ was the sheep pasture—”
+
+“Annetje Jans,” exclaimed Madame Van Stuyvesant at this point, with a
+solemn face, “do you expect me to remember all those Dutch names?
+Verily, child, you have improved your time and twisted your tongue.” But
+Annetje was off, for at that moment she spied another arrival, one of
+the Orioles, and as the sprightly dominie’s widow was to act as mistress
+of ceremonies, she was soon by her side, as she stood hesitatingly in
+the doorway.
+
+“How do you do, _Mutter_. Oh, but you do look fine!” cried Nathalie as
+her keen eyes noted the broad appearing figure with hair pushed straight
+back under a close fitting cap, short petticoat and gown displaying her
+wooden sabots. The _mutter_ was knitting industriously, like a typical
+Dutch vrouw, as she talked to Annetje and told of the woes that attended
+the getting up of her make-up.
+
+Annetje now led the new arrival to the line waiting to welcome her.
+“Allow me to present to you Catalina de Trice, the _mutter_ of New York,
+having been the first woman to land on that famous little isle.”
+
+“Yes,” added the _mutter_ with a stiff little bow to the grand Dutch
+dames receiving her with stately courtesy, “I came over in the first
+ship, the _Unity_, sent by the West India Company to the settlement, and
+I have the added distinction,” another quaint bob, “of being the mother
+of the first white child born in New Amsterdam, Sara Rapelje.”
+
+Catalina had no time to continue her family history for Annetje had
+hurried her to Miss New York, a little lady in whom all the Pioneers
+were greatly interested. She was next shown a table in the rear of Nita,
+holding a ship encrusted with silver frosting to represent snow, and
+bearing the words, “_Half-Moon_.” On the deck of this famous craft was
+the miniature figure of a man, which Nathalie explained, was intended
+for the discoverer who had named the river Hudson after himself. Back of
+the ship were small sized rocks with the sign, “Great Rocks of
+Wiehocken,” which Annetje declared needed no explanation.
+
+A few feet away was a large windmill guarded by a demure little
+serving-maid who was no other than Carol. With her flower-blue eyes and
+corn-colored hair hanging in two braids from under her cute little cap
+she was a miniature Dutch vrouw. Catalina was now invited to pull one of
+a number of gay-colored streamers that flew with the windmill as it
+buzzed rapidly around.
+
+To the girl’s surprise, as she gave a quick pull to a ribbon, a card
+dropped from one of the sails. It was painted with a gaudy red tulip
+with an appropriate verse on Holland’s national posy. Catalina, on being
+told to keep it, pinned it to her bodice, and then hurried with Annetje
+to receive the guests standing at the door, the two girls being the
+oldest representatives of the Dutch colony.
+
+The new comer proved to be Tryntje Jonas, alias Barbara Worth. She was
+made known to the hostess as the mother of Annetje, and as the first
+nurse and woman doctor in the settlement. Her skirt was of true
+linsey-woolsey, from which hung an immense pincushion. With her glasses
+and her knitting-bag on her arm she looked duly professional as she paid
+her respects to the Dutch vrouw with stately dignity.
+
+A sweeping curtsy and Madame Kiersted, Annetje’s daughter, otherwise
+Grace Tyson, was telling with pride of the part she had played as Indian
+interpreter, when the officials of the town were making a treaty with
+the Indians. She was well-versed in the Algonquin language, she
+explained, as she had played with little Indian children from the time
+she was a wee lassie.
+
+She told, too, how she had signed a petition and presented it to the
+councillors, begging that the good vrouws be permitted to hold a market
+day. This petition was granted, and market day was held thenceforth on
+Saturdays, when the dames of the colony were permitted to offer their
+wares for sale on the Strand near her home. Furthermore, the Madame
+stated she had a shed built in her back yard, so that the Indian squaws
+could make brooms and string wampum, which they, too, sold on market
+day. From a little bag she now produced a wampum belt, explaining that
+it was made of twisted periwinkle shells strung on hemp. A blue
+clam-shell was also brought forth, which had been punctured with holes
+and which was called _sewant_; these two shells at that time
+constituting the currency of the colony.
+
+But the Indian’s friend had gone and in her place stood a _grande dame_,
+the famous Madame Van Cortland, generally known in the olden days as
+“the maker of a stone street.” Madame, when inquiry was made, said she
+had been born in Holland, but came to the _dorp_ to marry her lover,
+Captain Oloff Van Cortland. “We lived in a very grand house for those
+times, for it was made of glazed brick and had a sloping roof with a
+gable turned towards the street, after the manner of the ‘Patria,’” she
+added with pompous gravity. “There were steps leading to the roof, too,
+so when it rained or snowed the water could run into a hogshead in the
+yard instead of on my neighbor’s sidewalk or head. The house was
+furnished in a grand style, all the furniture came from Holland, and in
+front of it was a little stoop with two side benches and a door with an
+enormous brass knocker.”
+
+“But the stone street, Madame?” inquired Madame New Amsterdam, who
+seemed greatly interested in these little stories of the people and
+doings of the city whose name she bore.
+
+“Cobbles,” corrected Dame Van Cortland. “You see, it was this way. My
+husband, the captain, resigned from the militia and went into the
+brewing business. He built a brewery on Brower Street near the Fort, one
+of the first lanes made by the settlers. But alas,” sighed Madame
+ruefully, “when my husband’s brewery wagons made their way over the lane
+they raised so much dust and dirt that I begged my better half to pave
+it with stones. He laughed at me, as was his wont, and the dust and dirt
+grew thicker on the lane. Driven desperate, I now marshaled my servants
+to the lane, and we laid it with small, round cobblestones. I won my way
+as well as fame, for the little stone street was the first of its kind
+in the _dorp_, and was regarded with much curiosity by the burghers.”
+
+Annetje, now spying two more comers, flew to welcome them and the grande
+dame of Manhattan Isle was forgotten, as an ancient little lady appeared
+with silver curls peeping from beneath a cap of rare old lace, a
+rustling silk crossed with a kerchief, and a chatelaine hanging from her
+girdle. She bowed with quaint grace before the ladies, as Madame
+Killiaen Van Rensselaer, otherwise known as, “The Lady of the Thimble.”
+
+“Yes,” spoke the little old lady, who by the way was a Bob White, and
+who had studied her part with due diligence, “I was the first woman to
+wear a gold thimble. I was seated at my work one day with an ivory
+thimble, big and cumbersome, on my fingers, the kind ’tis claimed the
+tailors use. A young friend of mine to whom I had rendered some slight
+service was at work in his shop just across the lane. He spied my
+thimble, and, being a goldsmith, then and there vowed that on my
+birthday I should receive a gift. ’Tis needless to say that this vow was
+fulfilled, for the young man presented me with a gold thimble on that
+day, which he had made with the wish that I would wear his finger-hat as
+a covering to a diligent and beautiful finger.”
+
+A comely Dutch matron with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks was now bowing
+in sprightly manner before the hostess. By her pose she was immediately
+recognized as Lillie Bell, who indeed was just the one to personate the
+fair and bewitching “Lady of Petticoat Lane,” alias Polly Spratt, Polly
+Prevoorst, and Polly Alexander. The fair Polly was the recognized social
+leader of New York in the days when coasting down _Flattenbarack Hill_,
+or skating on the _Collect_ with a party of lads and lassies as merry as
+herself gained her the name of a hoyden. Always the bonniest, the
+merriest lass at a wedding or dance, the acknowledged leader of her set,
+counting her suitors by the score, it was not to be wondered when she
+became a matron at seventeen. As a widow of twenty-six she assumed
+control of her husband’s business, building a row of offices in front of
+her house. She, too, built a stone street, Marketfield Lane, thus
+inciting her neighbors to do the same. Hence, the brick walks that now
+came into fashion called _Strookes_.
+
+The keeper of a shop, the maker of a stone lane, the owner of a
+wonderful coach, Madame’s fame as a beauty and a social leader, added to
+her shrewdness, her ingenuity, and sprightly intelligence, won her an
+influence in the more weighty matters of the town, gaining her the title
+of “My Lady of Petticoat Lane.” Undoubtedly it also won her another
+husband, as when the _pinter_ flower was in bloom, pretty Polly married
+Mr. James Alexander, one of the most distinguished gentlemen of the
+times.
+
+But on they came, the Pioneer Girls, as Dutch matrons or maidens,
+impersonating those famous pioneer women, who not only were the bone and
+sinew of old New York, but who were the progenitors of some of its most
+distinguished men in the days that followed. Katrina de Brough, who
+lived in a fine stone house on Hanover Square, was a most suitable
+example of the housewife of the day. Her days were spent in planting her
+garden, culling her simples, distilling her medicines, and many other
+well-known crafts of the times.
+
+Judith Varleth had gained the name of the “witch maiden,” having been
+arrested and imprisoned in Hartford, Connecticut, when quite a young
+girl. Whether her beauty or her Dutch tongue brought this dire calamity
+upon her is not known, but the witch maiden was duly released and
+returned to her home by her brother, and in a few years disposed of her
+unfortunate name by marrying a gallant gentleman by the name of Col.
+Nicholas Bayard.
+
+Margaret Hardenbroeck not only won a husband, Captain Patrus de Vries, a
+wealthy ship-owner, but won fame as well. On the death of her husband
+she continued his business, and established a line of ships, the first
+packet line that crossed the Atlantic. Her ability as a business woman
+evidently won her not only fame, but a husband, for she soon married
+again, a Mr. Frederick Phillipse, and in later days became the owner of
+the Phillipse Manor, so well known during the days of the Revolution.
+
+Cornelia Lubbetse became Mrs. Johannes de Beyster, while her daughter
+Marie, the wife of three husbands, became known as the wealthiest woman
+in the settlement. She was also noted for her industry, filling a great
+_kos_ (chest) with beautiful linen tied in packages with colored tape
+and marked by herself at the time of her first marriage. She also
+carried on a thrifty business trading with ships between New Amsterdam,
+Connecticut, and Virginia, as well as being the mother of “The Lady of
+Petticoat Lane,” who married a younger brother of her third husband.
+
+Anna Stuyvesant, Rachel Hartjers, and Madame Van Corlear were all in due
+turn presented to the hostess, as well as Grietje Janssen, who was known
+in the old days as a double-tongued woman, having won fame as being the
+gossip of the burgh.
+
+But the merry chatter and low-pitched laughter of these would-be
+historic maidens was suddenly stilled, as a strange, grotesque figure
+was seen in the doorway gazing at the assembled company with an odd
+little smile on its bedaubed face.
+
+A murmur of surprise and astonishment caused eyes and mouths to open in
+curious wonder, as Annetje, although as bewildered as her neighbors,
+made her way to the door to welcome the unknown intruder.
+
+As Nathalie approached the uncouth, blanketed savage it emitted a
+strange sound; some claimed it was a grunt, while others said it was a
+groan. The girl stared a moment in startled inquiry and then a smile
+parted her lips, which was quickly repressed as in a quick glance she
+noted the eyes heavily underlined with black paint, the brown dyed skin,
+the red patched cheeks much besmeared with grease, and the black
+snake-like strings of hair that straggled from beneath a derby hat,
+several sizes too small for the head.
+
+As the redskin strode with measured gait to the ladies, the painted lips
+opened, and an excellent imitation of an Indian warwhoop broke forth
+with startling intensity. Little Miss New York jumped nervously, Madame
+New Amsterdam started back in surprise, but Mrs. Morrow and Nathalie
+burst into laughter as they both cried, “Why—it’s Edith!”
+
+Yes, it was the Sport, who seeing she was the sensation of the moment
+took off her derby hat and with a low bow to hostesses, in guttural tone
+exclaimed, “No, me no Edith, me Indian squaw from Mana-ha-ta!”
+
+This unexpected announcement created no little astonishment, and the
+girls flocked around her with exclamations of wonder and surprise. As
+they began to ply her with questions she cried triumphantly, “Ah, girls,
+I fooled you that time, for I guess you had all forgotten about the
+Indian women of Manhattan, who always wore their husband’s hats.”
+
+“Oh, girls,” cried Nathalie quickly, “the joke is on me, for I had
+forgotten, as Edith says, all about these Indian squaws.”
+
+“Edith, it was clever of you to remember,” now interposed the Governor’s
+lady, “and your get-up too, is very good.” She gazed with keen eyes at
+the girl’s deerskin robe, fringed at the sides, with its embroidered
+bodice, and the rows of colored beads that decorated her neck and her
+brown bedaubed arms. “But Edith,” she continued, “can’t you tell us
+something about these squaws?”
+
+The girl looked somewhat dismayed for a moment; perhaps the sudden
+recollection of the last time she had faced her companions, the shame
+she had felt, and the punishment that had been meted out to her, caused
+the flush that showed even beneath her paint and grease.
+
+“Why—I—oh, I don’t think there is much to tell,” she faltered. But
+encouraged by a nod from Mrs. Morrow she continued, “Lillie Bell lent me
+Washington Irving’s History of New York. It tells how Peter Minuit
+purchased the island from the Indians—the Dutch people called them
+Wilden—and where the bargain was made. It was close to a little block
+house inside a palisade of red cedars very near the traders’ hut in a
+place called _Capsey_, the place of safe landing. Washington Irving
+claimed that the name, ‘Manhattan,’ came from a tribe of Indians whose
+squaws always wore their husband’s hats, but I never knew that Indians
+wore hats, so I suppose it is just one of his jokes.”
+
+There was a general laugh at Edith’s sally, and then the girls broke
+into loud applause. Perhaps they, too, were doing a little thinking and
+were anxious to show Edith that the deeds of the past were forgotten in
+her well-doing.
+
+Annetje, after marshaling her forces, now led the girls through the
+quaint Dutch room to show them the many relics of past days. The
+wide-throated fireplace with its gay-colored tiles—still in a state of
+good preservation—with their queer scriptural figures, each picture with
+the number of the text in the Bible that told its story, awakened great
+interest.
+
+Mahogany tables, queer little sideboards, and curiously carved chairs
+next claimed their attention, while the _slaap-bauck_, a funny little
+closet built in the side walls of the room, its shelf covered with a
+mattress, and with folding doors to open at night for a guest bed, won
+special favor.
+
+A flowered tabby cloth, a foot-warmer, and an old chest called a _kos_,
+and which Nathalie declared was similar to the one that the industrious
+Marie de Peyster had filled with linen, was regarded with much awe. A
+nutwood case, a wardrobe called a _kasten_—filled with old Dutch
+costumes, grimy and moth-eaten—divided honors with a beautiful old
+cupboard with glass doors, displaying rare old blue and white Delft,
+said to have come from Holland years and years ago.
+
+But curios pall in time, and so the girls were not at all reluctant to
+follow their hostesses into the quaint old kitchen, gayly decorated with
+the orange and blue of the Dutch Republic. Here, many exclamations of
+admiration escaped them when they saw the long table in the center of
+the room, with its bloom of hyacinths, gillyflowers, narcissus,
+daffodils, and tulips, all reminders of the little beau-pots that
+adorned the window sills, or peeped from the flower patches in front of
+the gable-roofed houses in the days of the first settlers.
+
+Embowered in this floral display was a huge silver bowl hung with tiny
+silver spoons. This was the caudle dish, the inseparable accompaniment
+of feast gatherings or when the _kinder_ were christened. From the hot,
+spicy odor that emanated from this relic of Dutch festivity the girls
+knew it held something good.
+
+But there was no more time to admire, for it was now discovered that a
+flower was tied with daintily colored ribbon to the back of each chair.
+Recognizing that they were intended for place-cards, the girls flew
+hurriedly around the table trying to find the flower that matched the
+one on the cards they had received from the windmill.
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst, typifying the first Dutch settlement in the New World,
+now cordially welcomed her guests with a few appropriate words. She was
+followed by Nita, who, standing on the platform of her chair, recited a
+greeting in Dutch—a little thing that Nathalie had taught her—with
+quaint precision, while her eyes twinkled humorously.
+
+The edibles were now served, the little serving-maid being Carol
+assisted by Peter attired as a herdsman in low-heeled shoes, brass
+buckles, gray stockings, and with a twisted cow’s horn hanging from his
+shoulder.
+
+Roasted oysters served with hot split biscuits tempered with butter were
+the first course. Then came salmon à la Hollandaise and patriotic crabs,
+so called because the settlers declared that they were the color of the
+flag of the Prince of Orange. Frankfurters now appeared, so deliciously
+prepared that the Pioneers barely recognized their hike stand-by, served
+with carrots and turnips garnished with parsley. Green salad now
+followed with the caudle served from the silver bowl, each girl ladling
+this particular Dutch dainty, piping hot, into her own china cup.
+
+The goodies were jellies, custards, _oly krecks_—sometimes called
+doughnuts because of the tiny nut in the center—krullers,
+_izer-cookies_, or waffles, syllabubs, and many other toothsome sweets.
+All of these viands were greatly enjoyed, not only because they were of
+Dutch renown, but because they were eaten, as their Director declared in
+memory of the _goede vrouven_ who helped their _goede_ men to lay the
+first stones of the great city of New York.
+
+Every one was at their merriest when Annetje Jans, who had suddenly
+grown unduly restive, arose in her chair and holding her caudle cup high
+proposed a toast to Madame New Amsterdam, Mrs. Van Vorst, their hostess!
+
+Immediately glasses were touched to the lady so honored, who in return
+proposed a like honor for Madame Stuyvesant, Mrs. Morrow, the Director
+of the Girl Pioneers of America. Little Miss New York was now honored,
+who, as she bowed in response to the loud clapping that followed her
+name, passed the honor on to her friend, Miss Nathalie Page, in Dutch,
+Madame Annetje Jans.
+
+There was more applause in appreciation of Nita’s tribute, although her
+voice was low and tremulous with timidity at speaking before so many.
+But when Nathalie rose on her feet to reply, the clapping grew so
+vociferous that the color deepened her cheeks to a more vivid pink.
+
+But she stood her ground, and as the teasing girls wearied of clapping
+she spoke. There was a slight tremor in her voice, but she went steadily
+on, and after expressing in the name of the Pioneers the great pleasure
+it had given them to meet the daughter of their hostess, voiced their
+desires in asking Miss Nita to join with them in their endeavors to
+imitate the sterling qualities of the early pioneer women, and to become
+a Girl Pioneer of America!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI—AN INVITATION
+
+
+As Nathalie sank back in her seat glad to think the ordeal—to her—of the
+day was over, there was a moment’s silence, and then every Pioneer was
+doing her best to second this invitation to the daughter of their
+hostess by making as loud a demonstration as possible.
+
+Nita, as she heard this invitation, grew white, speechless with
+surprise, but only for a moment, as the next second, with joy shining in
+her eyes, she leaned over crying in a tense whisper, “Oh, Mother, tell
+them yes! Tell them yes!”
+
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had already risen to her feet, eyes smiling but tear
+dimmed as she gazed down at the bright expectant faces upturned to hers.
+For a moment she stood, and then in a voice broken by emotion and
+pleasure thanked the Pioneers for an invitation that she knew had been
+prompted by kindness and that she appreciated more than she could
+express. Her little daughter, as they all knew, was a shut-in. She would
+be delighted to become one of a band of girls who had proved so worthy
+of the name they bore, but, her face saddened, would she not prove a
+burden to them, for would it not require too much patience to bear with
+one who perhaps had been over indulged on account of her misfortune?
+
+At this juncture Madame Stuyvesant stepped to her side crying, “Oh, Mrs.
+Van Vorst, your little shut-in is just the one I want my girls to be
+with, so that by the patience they will acquire in her companionship
+they will become more gentle and considerate to others. And as for Miss
+Nita, the mingling with healthy, active girls of her own age and the
+exercise and aid she will derive from the sports, and industries—taken
+lightly of course—I am sure will brighten her life in many ways.”
+
+A few more words from Helen, Lillie, and one or two of the older girls,
+and Mrs. Van Vorst’s consent was won, and Nita with bright, happy eyes
+was clapping her hands very softly under the Starry Banner that fell in
+folds across her chair.
+
+Each girl in turn was then toasted, under the name of the pioneer she
+impersonated, being required in response to tell something about
+herself, as to who and what part she had played in the days of New
+Amsterdam. When the name of Mrs. Polly Prevoorst was called, Lillie Bell
+stood up, and had just begun with her usual dramatic gestures and
+intonations to relate some little incident in the life of that noted
+lady, when a shrill falsetto voice shrieked, “Pretty Polly! Pretty
+Polly! Polly want a cobble?”
+
+There was a sudden turning and twisting of heads and necks at this
+unlooked for interruption, to see who was making sport of the fair lady,
+but before the speaker could be seen, with a quick flutter of wings Mr.
+Jimmie landed in the middle of the table. Surprise caused the girls to
+exclaim and then laugh, as they watched the new guest cocking his head
+from side to side as he winked at them with his red-rimmed eyes.
+
+All at once his head stopped its restless motion, as with a quick glance
+he seemed suddenly to spy Lillie Bell, who was still standing, waiting
+for a chance to deliver her little speech. The girls ceased to giggle
+and with observant eyes wondered what was going to happen. They did not
+have to wait long for Jimmie, with another flash of his wings, screeched
+shrilly, “Polly! Poor Polly! Polly want a petticoat—Polly—want a
+petticoat?”
+
+But Jimmie’s concern for the “Lady of Petticoat Lane” was drowned in
+shouts of laughter, while Lillie Bell with a reddened, embarrassed face
+sat down. Thus Jimmie became the beau of the afternoon, as each girl
+vainly tried to coax him with a sweetie to notice her, but Jimmie
+disdained their advances and, flying to the shoulder of Nathalie,
+evinced his partiality for that young lady by chattering noisily, “Hell
+Nat! Ah—Blue Robin, pretty Blue Robin!” And then a shrill Tru-al-lee,
+tru-al-lee! rang through the room.
+
+But this effort to do the wise thing ended Jimmie’s performance, for
+suddenly noting the applause that greeted him, he set up such a hideous
+shrieking, interspersed with fiendish laughter, that he was promptly
+seized by Peter and carried from public sight to muse on his sins in the
+privacy of his cage.
+
+When Lillie’s tormentor disappeared she was able to act the part of the
+fair Polly and relate the incident she had striven so vainly to tell. As
+she finished, finding that all the notables had been duly honored, the
+girls again turned to the rather novel menus that they had found in
+front of their plates.
+
+These were post-card holders, rather dainty little affairs of flowered
+silk that had contained post-cards, one for each course that had been
+served. One was a quaint little picture of New Amsterdam. Another was a
+well-known building or landmark of old New York, while others portraits
+of famous Dutch painters or authors, each one with an appropriate
+inscription either in Dutch or English.
+
+These cards had excited many comments of admiration, and as the girls’
+attention was drawn to them again Edith suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, girls,
+why see, my post-card holder has a tiny white envelope in it!” As she
+began to tear it open each girl turned eagerly to hers and with renewed
+interest began to inspect it again, while Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita with
+smiling eyes watched the little by-play that was being enacted.
+
+By this time Nathalie had read the contents of her envelope and with
+eyes all alight was crying, “Oh, girls! my envelope contains an
+invitation from Mrs. Van Vorst as a Pioneer to camp—”
+
+“At Eagle Lake!” broke in a chorus from the girls as they excitedly
+flourished the bits of white paper to and fro while watching Nathalie
+intently.
+
+Nathalie was too dazed to speak, but in a moment, as she realized that
+each girl present had been honored with a similar invitation, she bent
+forward and began to talk to Helen in low, hurried tones. When she
+finished she was on her feet crying in tremulous voice, “Oh, Mrs. Van
+Vorst—this seems too good to be true—O dear, how are we to thank you for
+your kindness, it is too much for us to accept!”
+
+But her hostess was ready with a reply, as with brightening eyes she
+answered, “Girls, the invitations you have read I repeat, I want you
+Girl Pioneers to spend the three weeks of your camp life at Eagle Lake.
+I have a bungalow there and expect to leave for the Lake next week, and
+shall be pleased to welcome you there whenever you think best to come.
+
+“The Lake is very beautiful, surrounded by woods and within two or three
+miles of a town. Of course, I have not accommodations for you all, but I
+have an empty bungalow near mine, and a little log cabin that was once a
+summer house, so that with a few tents I think you will find ample
+accommodations for your three bird groups. And girls—” she spoke
+earnestly, “I do not want you to thank me, for your thanks will be the
+acceptance of this invitation and coming up to the Lake and having a
+merry time. I am sure I stand ready, and my daughter Nita, to help you
+towards that end.”
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst finished Helen arose, and on behalf of the Pioneers
+thanked her for her kind invitation. “Indeed, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she
+continued, “we shall be most pleased to camp at Eagle Lake—if our
+Director is willing—and I hope that we shall be able to show you that we
+are worthy the kindness you have seen fit to extend to us. Now, girls—”
+
+  “Girl Pi-o-neers! Now give a cheer!
+  For our hostess so kind and dear!
+  Girl Pi-o-neers! again we cheer,
+  This time for Miss Nita, the dear!”
+
+As the cheering ceased Mrs. Van Vorst stood again, and in a few words
+declared she felt impelled to say that the Pioneers should be very proud
+of a young lady in their group who had so ably helped her in the
+arrangements and the getting up of the afternoon’s festivity. She would
+mention no names—Nathalie’s face was a full-blown rose—as they all knew
+to whom she referred, but she would like it known that the invitation to
+the Lake had been given not only to furnish pleasure to the Pioneers,
+but in appreciation of the great kindness, sympathy, and aid that had
+been given to her daughter and herself by that same Pioneer, a kindness
+that she would always remember.
+
+The girls, laughing and talking about the pleasure of the _Kraeg_, of
+the joys and the future held in store for them at camp, now returned to
+the sitting room. Here they were greeted with another surprise in the
+shape of a huge, unwieldy figure in baggy knee-breeches, full skirted
+coat, wide-brimmed hat and long white beard and locks, whom Mrs. Van
+Vorst presented as Father Knickerbocker, although several declared that
+he was the exact counterpart of the famous pictures of Rip Van Winkle.
+
+Whomever he personated was a matter of indifference to the girls as long
+as his identity was concealed, which was ably done behind a red-checked
+mask, through the eye-holes of which two eyes glinted humorously in
+merry jest or pleasantry as he joined the girls in a game of quoits or a
+game of nine-pins which Peter had arranged on an old billiard table.
+
+As Nathalie and Helen were doing their best to beat this strange
+antagonist, and at the same time to provoke him to speech—as he would
+persist in playing he was deaf and dumb—Peter led in an old darkey who,
+with fiddle in hand, was soon squeaking away to the delight of the
+girls. In a few moments old-time melodies were heard, and they went
+flying over the floor in waltz, schottische, polka, and in many of the
+long-forgotten dances.
+
+When the dancing began the mysterious guest was seen to edge towards the
+door, but Nathalie and Helen were too quick for him, and in a moment he
+was surrounded by a bevy of girls, each one begging him to dance the
+Virginia reel with her. Even these many honors failed to loosen the
+strings of his tongue, but Nathalie did not despair.
+
+Presently, as he had made this young lady his honored choice in the
+dance, she was led up and down the room, or twirled about like a
+pin-wheel. That he was nimble of foot was soon perceived as they all
+spun round like a merry-go-round.
+
+Suddenly Annetje was seen to whisper to her neighbor. The whisper spread
+like a whirlwind, and all eyes were soon fastened on the whirling Father
+as he chasséed to the right and left of the merry girls. Suddenly there
+was a stampede to his side, and the next minute he was surrounded by a
+cordon of slim young hands, while one of his assailants made a spring
+towards him. Just another moment, and nose, beard, and locks were on the
+floor, while his tormentors laughed and danced merrily around their
+prisoner, a good friend who had eased many of their aches and pains, for
+it was no other but Dr. Morrow!
+
+Four weeks later Nathalie stood on the veranda with her arms around her
+mother. “Oh, Mumsie,” she wailed, “I hate to go and leave you!” She
+winked hard, she was determined not to get lachrymose. “I just wish I
+wasn’t going, it does seem so mean to leave you here in this heat.”
+
+“But, Daughter, I have Dick with me, and it is lovely and cool here on
+the veranda. We shall not mind it at all, and then you know the nights
+are generally comfortable in August,” Mrs. Page ended with a cheery
+smile.
+
+“Mumsie, you’re a dear—” rejoined Nathalie with another suppressed
+sniffle. “You’re just trying to make the best of it, but—”
+
+“There is no but about it,” answered her mother quickly, “for I am
+afraid I am very selfish, but I shall have to confess that there has
+been so much going on these last days, well, I shall enjoy the rest and
+quiet. Felia is here, too, and I shall have nothing to do but to be—”
+
+“Jolly!” broke in Dick at this moment, who for some mysterious reason
+seemed unusually jubilant. He had received a letter a few days before;
+Nathalie had caught him reading it, but he had slipped it hurriedly into
+his pocket as he saw her, declaring in answer to her questioning that it
+was nothing, but nevertheless, ever since that day he had seemed more
+like his old self.
+
+Did they really want to get rid of her? Was Mamma in earnest? How much
+more cheerful she had seemed the last few days! These thoughts flashed
+in quick succession through Nathalie’s brain. Somewhat puzzled, but
+disarmed of her fears by these signs of cheer from her loved ones, the
+girl bestowed a final kiss all round, notwithstanding Dick’s protests,
+who declared that he had been slobbered over about fifty times already.
+Then she flew down the path and into the automobile, where Mrs. Morrow,
+the kiddies, and the doctor were waiting to drive her to the depot.
+
+Seventeen happy girls, their hearts pulsating with joyful anticipation,
+boarded the train at the New Jersey Central that August morning.
+Notwithstanding the fact that the day was intensely warm, their tongues,
+hands, and feet kept up a ceaseless activity as they disposed of their
+bags, valises, and the impedimenta that they had found it impossible to
+squeeze into their trunks, for it was rather tight packing when there
+were two girls to a trunk.
+
+Lillie Bell carried her mandolin, the Scribe her book for reporting the
+many happenings that were to be, while Barbara was burdened with several
+books on bird, flower, and wood lore, for camp was the place to study
+nature. With tennis-rackets and golf-bags it certainly seemed as if
+those seventeen girls and their belongings were going to fill the car.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, who had a great dislike of annoying people, began to look
+worried, but suddenly catching sight of the faces of several of the
+passengers, all looking so smiling, so in sympathy with this young life
+and its overflow of exuberance, as if they were enjoying the clamor and
+bustle as much as the girls themselves, her face relaxed. She broke into
+a smile of relief, although shaking her head at two of the girls who
+were making the greatest noise.
+
+They finally settled in their seats, but as hands and feet became more
+quiet, alas, it seemed as if the clack of their tongues grew greater!
+They fell to discussing their plans for the camp, the sports they would
+have, and a thousand and one things that occupied their minds at the
+present moment.
+
+But even tongues need a rest, and the girls at last quieted down and
+began to read, each one having provided herself with some book to while
+away the hours. After a time, however, they all seemed to tire of
+reading, and growing restive had just started an argument as to the
+respective merits of their books, when the train dashed into a little
+wooden station and the conductor yelled, “Eagle Lake!”
+
+Bags, knapsacks, rackets, and all camping impedimenta were hastily
+gathered up, and a few minutes later the merry girls were crowding into
+an old-fashioned stage that Mrs. Van Vorst had hired for the occasion,
+giving due honor to the doctor and his wife by sending her own
+automobile for them.
+
+It was a delightful ride to the lake, and thoroughly enjoyed by the
+girls, who evinced their pleasure by being unusually silent. Eyes were
+keenly alert, however, noting the rolling patches of green meadows with
+their grazing cows, the rippling brook meandering from a hill near by,
+and the somber foliage of a long range of low foothills in the distance
+crowned with a misty haze. But the silence was broken when some one
+spied a reddish gray chipmunk scurrying across the road in frantic
+terror as he saw the many faces bearing down upon him, and heard their
+hurried exclamations of eager delight at this, the girls’ first glimpse
+of one of the green forest people of Eagle Lake.
+
+It was not long before the sheen of silver water glimmered in the
+distance, bordered with somber foliage, and then hearts beat quicker and
+voices grew louder in excited hubbub as in a minute or so they could see
+the cupola of Mrs. Van Vorst’s cottage against the green of its shores.
+
+After a joyous welcome from Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, seconded by Peter
+and Ellen, who all stood awaiting them on the large veranda, the girls
+ran riot. With swift steps they hurried—after first inspecting Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s bungalow, so suggestive of luxury and cozy cheer—to the smaller
+bungalow, where the Morrows were to abide, with its big living-room
+abloom with golden-rod. This was to be used as an assembly room for the
+Pioneer Rallies. Then they hastened to the little wooden shack, which
+they dubbed the Grub House, as it was here that the camp cooking was to
+be done.
+
+After duly admiring the boat-house, which they all declared would make a
+lovely place for a dance, they were conducted by Peter to the loft
+above, where he stood silently enjoying their delight as they exclaimed
+over this unexpected surprise. It had been turned into a good sized
+bedroom with two bureaus, a center-table, a few odd chairs, and four
+little white cots, looking so restful that the Sport declared she wanted
+to go to bed that very second.
+
+But their rhapsodies came to an abrupt end as Lillie Bell suddenly spied
+the Lake from one of the windows. In a moment the girls were crowding
+about her, gazing in hushed silence at the silver sheet of water—three
+miles round Peter informed them—with its enticing little inlets, or
+coves, and tiny islands running like a series of stepping-stones through
+the center.
+
+The Sport had caught sight of several newly painted boats and canoes
+that bobbed cheerily at her, moored to the pier below, and a moment
+later the girls were off like a cavalcade of young Indians to inspect
+them, for did they not all have to be named on the morrow, when a
+general christening of all camp tents, boats, and so on was to take
+place?
+
+But there were other things to claim a share of their hearts’ joy they
+found, as Carol, who made the seventeenth camper, suddenly saw a large
+tent on the edge of the woods to which they all made a mad rush. Here
+they found the doctor and his wife, who said it was an army tent that
+had been loaned, put up, and furnished by that good lady, Mrs. Van
+Vorst. Lifting the flap the girls peeped in to see four more tiny cots,
+a little book-case made from soap-boxes by Peter, and the usual camp
+furniture staring at them invitingly.
+
+A tiny log cabin was also inspected—Peter said it had once been a
+summer-house—which contained two cots. But time was limited, and Dr.
+Morrow—who was for the time being captain of the working squad—began to
+issue his orders. All baggage and camp equipment had arrived the day
+before and the girls were soon busily engaged in putting up tents. It
+meant lots of work, but each one was at her cheeriest best as she
+overhauled canvases, measured spaces, dug pole-holes, sewed on rings for
+tape, tied ropes, and performed the various odd jobs necessary to have
+the camp city in shape before night.
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst had generously provided so many sleeping
+accommodations, there were only three tents to be erected, an old canvas
+tent which the doctor had loaned, an Indian tepee belonging to the
+brother of one of the Orioles, and a natty little affair made of heavy
+cotton sheeting. It is needless to say that this was the pride of
+Helen’s and Nathalie’s hearts, the tent they had wrestled with through
+many toilsome hours on the rear lawn, with Fred Tyson doing duty as a
+master tent-maker.
+
+When the tents were erected with openings to the East, in a row by the
+water, backed by a belt of woodland, whose pungent odors added a zest to
+the girls’ ideals of the camp life, Nathalie and Helen hurried to their
+tent to unpack. The big packing-box which had served as a trunk for two
+was hastily turned on its narrowest side, with open side to the tent,
+and then with hammer and nails converted into a combination arrangement
+of book-case and dresser, the top having a piece of white shelf oilcloth
+tacked on it.
+
+Here pincushions, hair-pin trays, brushes, and various toilet articles,
+with cologne, lotion, and medicine bottles—the last in case of need—were
+hastily bestowed. On the upper shelf books were stored—for the story
+hour—while the other shelves were quickly filled with all sorts of
+knick-knacks, things they just had to have, even in the wilderness, as
+Helen had affirmed.
+
+Two ropes, one on each side of the tent, were fastened up so that each
+girl could have a handy place to dispose of superfluous articles of
+wearing apparel. There was also a smaller one near the soap-box with its
+little tin pitcher and bowl, to serve as a towel-rack. After hanging a
+mirror for mutual use and tacking on the floor between the cots a pink
+and blue cotton rug—Mrs. Page’s idea and gift—they started on the beds.
+These were real camping affairs, and would ordinarily have meant hard
+labor, but Peter, who had been let into the secret before he left
+Westport, had already cut eight logs, four to a bed frame, one on each
+side of the tent, and had brought the dry evergreen boughs.
+
+With the boughs the girls filled the frames, and after stuffing two
+ticking bags with dry leaves and grass, they placed them on the beds,
+and covered them with rubber sheets and blankets. They were then made up
+with sheets and double blankets, and then after throwing a number of
+sofa pillows about—to be used at night for pillows—the tent-makers were
+ready to hold an impromptu reception to their Pioneer friends.
+
+Nathalie now played the part of town crier and rushed hither and thither
+inviting the guests to their camp nest in the woods. The girls quickly
+gathered and, after due examination, expressed by cries of praise their
+admiration of the handiness and deftness displayed by the two girls, and
+the first tent feast was held. To be sure, it was only crackers and
+fruit left from the girls’ lunch-boxes, but they filled the bill, so
+that when the bugle sounded its clarion blast, as Lillie expressed it,
+the pangs of hunger being appeased, the girls all hastened with joyful
+steps to Mrs. Morrow’s bungalow to hold their first Pioneer Rally.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, as presiding officer, in a short space of time was able to
+despatch considerable camp business, the girls having had so many
+discussions that their plans were matured and no time was lost in
+needless talk. It was quickly settled to name the camp “Laff-a-Lot,” to
+govern it as a city, with the girls as citizens with power to elect
+their own officials, which meant a mayor, a board of aldermen, a justice
+of the court as well as a clerk and an attorney in case of need, and the
+squads.
+
+Mrs. Morrow was immediately chosen mayor, and the squads elected. There
+was the Coast Squad, composed of two Pioneers whose duty it was to sound
+the bugle for taps at six, for a dip in the Lake at quarter past, the
+call for breakfast at seven and the succeeding meals, for bathing drill
+at eleven, and all other calls required by camp regulations. This squad
+was also to see that the coast was kept clear of débrís, that the
+bathers observed all rules, and was to give the alarm and act in command
+of the rescue committee in times of danger.
+
+The Tent Squad was to see that the girls kept their tents in regulation
+order,—each girl to make her own bed and so on,—and that all sanitary
+rules were carried out according to schedule.
+
+The Grub Squad meant two cooks, a chief and an assistant, and two
+helpers or waitresses. Each girl, of course, was required to bring her
+own plate, cup, saucer, bowl, knife, and fork, and see that they were
+washed, dried, and placed on the shelf, as well as to wash her own
+drying-towel.
+
+The Rally Squad was composed of one person—considered the most important
+member of camp—to act as officer of the day by planning with the mayor
+the day’s program, reporting this at breakfast, and seeing that all
+notices, as well as the schedule for the day’s events, were duly written
+on the bulletin each morning.
+
+The Board of Aldermen was made up of the first member of each Squad. All
+officials, with the exception of the mayor and court officers, were to
+serve for three days only, and the members of all squads were to be
+chosen according to their qualifications for the work as determined by
+the number of merit badges.
+
+As soon as the Rally was over, the girls made a rush for the Lake, as
+every one was wild to go on its gleaming surface that shone under the
+rays of the dipping sun like a silver shield, burnished with the golden
+red of the West.
+
+But Helen, who declared it was too late to enjoy that pleasure as it was
+so near supper time, was rudely interrupted by Lillie Bell, who had been
+peering with intent eyes across the water. Suddenly she gave a low cry
+and pointed to a solitary figure on the opposite bank dragging a
+row-boat from the water.
+
+Instantly all eyes were riveted in that direction as each girl vainly
+tried to decide whether the figure belonged to a man or a woman. “Oh, I
+know!” screamed the Sport frantically after a short stare opposite.
+“Girls, yes, it’s a Scout! See he has on a khaki suit, and his staff,
+oh, where do you suppose he could have come from!” she said, looking up
+at the girls with delighted inquiry in her sparkling eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII—CAMP LAFF-A-LOT
+
+
+“O fiddle!” exclaimed Lillie squelchingly. “You have got scouts on the
+brain! Where would a scout come from up here in these wilds?”
+
+But Edith was not to be gainsaid and had flown post-haste up to the
+Morrows’ bungalow to reappear a few moments later with a field glass.
+Raising it she began to yell triumphantly, “There, girls—I’m right—it is
+a scout! a real scout!” In a moment she was surrounded by a bevy of
+girls, each one begging for the loan of the glasses, but Edith was
+whimsical, and refusing to comply handed the glasses to Helen, who,
+after a calm survey of the bank on the other side of the Lake, declared
+that Edith was right and that it was a scout.
+
+“Oh, do you think—” exclaimed some one. But no one stopped to think, for
+at that moment the clear notes of the bugle announced supper, driving
+all thoughts of scouts from the heads of the famished girls as with a
+cheer of delight they made a swift rush for cup, plate, saucer, and
+headed for the dining-room.
+
+It was a tired lot of girls who, with sharpened appetites but dismayed
+faces, gazed at the slim array of eatables that confronted them at this,
+their first camp meal. Nathalie made a wry face, but as she heard
+Helen’s reminder that every one was to be satisfied even if she ate
+tacks, she smiled in attempted contentment and started in on mush.
+
+But tacks were not to be on the menu that night, for Peter suddenly
+appeared, and with his best bow presented a big platter of cold chicken
+with Mrs. Van Vorst’s compliments. Everything now went as merrily as a
+wedding feast. Really, it was surprising how that chicken lasted, for
+the girls had attacked it with grim determination. Nathalie half
+suspected that Peter had a secret supply hidden under the table, for
+every one had all she wanted and still there was more.
+
+Supper was soon over and, then after each girl had washed her own
+table-ware and laid it in its place, they hied themselves down to the
+water’s edge. Here, in sweaters and caps—as the air was chilly—they
+listened to the crooning melodies of nature, and watched for life on the
+opposite shore—reminded again of that scout—and talked, well, just the
+things that a lot of happy girls would discuss with the prospect of
+three glorious weeks in the open before them.
+
+A trill of song from a hermit thrush in the woods near-by stirred the
+hearts of the music-lovers and soon the campers were singing, “Suwanee
+River,” to Lillie’s thrumming accompaniment on the mandolin. Then came
+“Tenting on the Old Camp Ground,” “Oh, My Darling Clementine,” and a
+host of songs familiar and dear to the heart of youth.
+
+As they ended the last line of “Bring Back My Bonnie to Me,” every one
+suddenly sat up and took notice, while an impetuous one called out, “Oh,
+what was that?”
+
+“Some one is mocking us!” added another listener.
+
+“Oh, nonsense,” laughed Helen, whose ear for music was not keen, “that’s
+an echo!”
+
+But it proved to be no echo, for as the girls started in again to sing
+they found that if they stopped suddenly, the voices, which they now
+recognized as coming from the other shore, would continue with the song.
+This created no end of laughter among the girls, and their surprise and
+amusement increased as they recognized that their friends on the other
+side of the Lake laughed when they laughed, as if in mockery.
+
+“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” suggested Kitty, “let’s give the Pioneer
+yell and see if they answer.” This was no sooner suggested than it was
+done, but not a sound was heard, no, not even an echo in reply.
+
+“Well, they can’t be scouts,” said an Oriole, “or they would answer in
+some way.”
+
+“Let’s sing, ‘We’re Pioneers,’ and then they’ll know who we are,
+anyway,” some one proposed, a little more cheerily.
+
+This proposition met with favor, and the girls were soon singing with a
+zest and verve that deserved a reward, but as before a dead silence
+greeted their efforts.
+
+The campers felt inconsolable, for some of them had already begun to
+dream of the fun they would have if there were some jolly scouts about,
+especially if they proved as chivalrous and as manly as the scouts at
+Westport. As the girls discussed ways and means of making these strange
+neighbors reveal who they were, suddenly from the other shore came in
+stentorian tones, evidently through a megaphone, “Be prepared!” This
+startling announcement was immediately followed by a chorus of male
+voices singing with hearty gusto, “Zing-a-Zing! Bom! Bom!” to the
+accompaniment of a loud sound, as if every one was pounding on a tin
+pan.
+
+The girls sat stunned with surprise for a moment and then Edith cried,
+“Why, they can’t be scouts after all, for that is not the salute used by
+the Westport Scouts.”
+
+“Huh! but that is just what they are—scouts,” cried one of the Orioles
+quickly, “for that is the national salute. My brother has a Scout book
+and I have seen their call.”
+
+“Well, they’re not Westport Scouts, that’s one sure thing,” voiced one
+of the girls who had been dreaming.
+
+“What difference does that make,” cried Lillie, “as long as they are
+scouts? But don’t you think we girls ought to make some return, hadn’t
+we better sing our Pioneer—” But before the girls could answer they
+heard the scout salute again. As they clapped an encore, the Sport
+blowing the bugle to add to the demonstration of praise, their neighbors
+broke into song.
+
+“Oh, it is a song to us, a serenade!” ejaculated one of the girls; and
+then as each one grew silent they heard:
+
+  “Welcome! Welcome! sisters dear,
+  As we round our fire’s cheer
+  We wish you luck in camp so fine
+  Sweet with birch and wooded pine.
+  Pleasure and joy attend each day,
+  As by the Lake you make your stay!”
+
+“Oh, isn’t that just dandy?” “If we could only tell who they were!” But
+these exclamations came to an end as Nathalie cried, “Girls, let’s shout
+our new call, don’t you know the one we made up so as to salute the
+scouts? Now, ready!” and with a “One! two! three!” the girls’ voices
+rang out over the water as they chorused:
+
+  “Ragglety! Pagglety! Rah! Rah! Rah!
+  You’re welcome scouts with a Ha! Ha! Ha!
+  Comrades and friends, we’ll make the woods hum
+  When you to Camp Laff-a-Lot come.
+  For your wishes we’ll give you three cheers,
+  Hurrah for Scouts and Girl Pioneers!”
+
+“Why, Nathalie, you changed the words!” cried one or two slow ones as
+they perceived that the girl had substituted certain words that were
+more appropriate to the occasion than the ones they had learned.
+
+Nathalie only laughed, and waved her hand for silence as the little
+company of merry, fun-loving girls listened to the noise their neighbors
+were making. Certainly it was a medley of sounds, for it appeared as if
+horns, tin pans, and just about everything capable of making a racket
+had been called into service in their appreciation of the fair ones’
+ready reply to their song.
+
+Mrs. Morrow appeared at this moment with the announcement that it was
+nine o’clock, and according to camp rules all Pioneers were to be in bed
+by that hour, so the girls sounded a parting cheer and then hurried to
+their tents. The few who loitered, as if reluctant to leave their
+friends across the lake, heard an old-time good-night song with one or
+two variations in words that added to its charms ring out clearly:
+
+          “Good-night, campers,
+          Good-night campers,
+          Good-night campers,
+          We’re going to leave you now!
+  Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along;
+  Merrily we roll along, o’er the dark blue sea.”
+
+A few moments before six the next morning Nathalie opened her eyes,
+yawned drowsily, and then rolled over to see Helen staring at her from
+the opposite bed with wide-open eyes.
+
+“Oh, I have had such a delicious sleep,” she cried. “I don’t believe I
+wakened from the time I touched the pillow. Helen, isn’t it just too
+lovely up here in these woods? Did you hear that whippoorwill toot just
+after we got into bed? And these bough beds, aren’t they the coziest—”
+
+“Well, you’ll get coziest with a vengeance, Blue Robin,” was Helen’s
+terse reply, “if you don’t get into your bathing-suit—” Helen ended with
+a shrill scream as the bugle’s blast sounded with startling clearness in
+the still morning air.
+
+But Nathalie was already half-way into her suit. The last button was
+caught. “There, I’m ready before you, Miss Poke!” she taunted gleefully,
+as the second call sounded. The two girls tripped lightly across the
+open space in front of the tents thickly strewn with pine needles and
+thus on down to the boathouse pier.
+
+Just a moment and a slim figure was seen leaping through the air, then
+Nathalie arose like a mermaid from the sea, blowing and puffing the
+water from her mouth as she floated for a moment on her back and swam
+gracefully back to the bank. As she reached shallow water she stood up
+and waved her hand to a group of shivering ones on the bank crying, “Oh,
+come on, kiddies!
+
+“Sure, it’s cold!” she nodded to a faint remonstrance from a timorous
+one, “but you’ll get heated if you’ll take the plunge!”
+
+Out from her dip, with the wish that it could have been longer, she
+hurried to her tent; after a rub came the dressing, the picking up of
+her clothes, the putting her bed to air, and then the call for
+breakfast.
+
+After this meal came the event of the day, the naming of the camp, the
+tents, and the boats. Camp duties were soon disposed of and then there
+was a general stampede to Mrs. Morrow’s bungalow, where the Sport, as
+chairman of this committee, stood waving the Stars and Stripes on the
+roof of the veranda.
+
+A cheer arose a few moments later when its bright colors fluttered
+gently to and fro in the morning wind from the flag staff that had been
+hoisted over the Director’s abiding-place, and the girls, quickly
+forming in line, gave the flag salute. The Star Spangled Banner was then
+sung with a heartiness that found its echo in the woods, the very leaves
+on the trees seeming to rustle in reverence to the country’s honored
+emblem.
+
+The campers now gathered before Mrs. Van Vorst’s bungalow, where, from a
+high flagstaff erected by Peter, a white flag fluttered gracefully to
+the breezes, disclosing in red letters the words, “Camp Laff-a-Lot.”
+Beneath this flag curled a smaller one, also white, bearing in blue
+letters, “The Girl Pioneers of America.”
+
+Some one was just about to mount a ladder placed against the flagstaff
+when Nathalie, with sudden thought, turned and whispered to Mrs. Morrow,
+who immediately signaled to Helen. Helen nodded as she listened to her
+Director, and then stepping forward stood before Nita who, with her
+mother and Ellen, was a joyful spectator of this camp demonstration. A
+sudden look of delight overspread her face as she heard what Helen had
+to say, and then after a hurried assent from Mrs. Van Vorst, Nita with
+the help of Peter had mounted the ladder, holding a bottle of water in
+her hand.
+
+A swing of the bottle, a crash of glass, a stream of water trickling
+down the pole, and Nita in a voice somewhat faint at first, but that
+grew louder as she caught Nathalie’s eye, cried, “Summer camp of the
+Girl Pioneers of America, I name thee, Camp Laff-a-Lot!” Wild bursts of
+applause now broke forth, even Ellen and Peter doing their share, the
+former tearing off her apron and flapping it vigorously, while the
+latter brandished his hat hilariously, stopping every moment or so to
+rub the back of his hand across his eyes. “Sure,” as he afterwards
+confessed to Nathalie, “it was enough to make any one weep with joy to
+see Miss Nita spilling all over with happiness!”
+
+As the Pioneers hastened to the boat-house they saw a diminutive figure
+standing on the top of its little square cupola. With many flourishes of
+her bottle Carol—who had been elected to this honor—chimed jubilantly,
+“Boat-house, in memory of the ship that crossed the unknown sea to carry
+the founders of this nation to its shores, I now name thee, ‘The
+Mayflower’!”
+
+And so the naming continued, the little log summer-house being honored
+by the name of Ann Burras, a pioneer of the Jamestown colony, known as
+the first white bride in America. The tent loaned by Mrs. Van Vorst was
+dubbed “The Three Guardian Angels,” in appreciation of the services of
+Ann Drummond, Sarah Cottin, and Mrs. Cheisman, also of the Jamestown
+company, sometimes known as “The White Apron Brigade,” as during the
+Bacon rebellion they were placed in front of a trench where Bacon’s men
+were digging, to prevent Governor Berkeley from firing on the Fort.
+
+The “Grub House” was to be known as the “Common House,” a most
+appropriate name, the campers declared, as it contained their food and
+ammunition, just as the little log hut known by that name held the
+necessities to sustain and defend the lives of the Pilgrims in the
+Plymouth settlement.
+
+The doctor’s army tent was named the “Three Margarets,” to honor
+Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman suffragist, Margaret Draper,
+the first woman to publish a newspaper, and Margaret Duncan, the first
+of her sex in the new world to engage in mercantile life. Helen and
+Nathalie’s tent was to be known as the “Two Anns,” out of respect to Ann
+Hutchinson, the first club woman, and Ann Bradstreet, the first American
+poetess.
+
+The boats were quickly honored with the names _Priscilla_, _Mary
+Chilton_, _Annetje Jans_, and _Polly Prevoorst_, while shady retreats,
+lofty trees, and rocky coves were named anew to do homage to those women
+who helped their good sires build the foundation of this great Republic,
+by being faithful, enduring wives and mothers.
+
+At eleven o’clock the girls assembled on the shores of the Lake for a
+life-saving drill. Forming in line at a given signal, each girl quickly
+unfastened her red necktie, and turning swiftly to the right tied one
+end of it in a square knot to her neighbor’s. This red life-line was
+then thrown to the sinker—as the girls dubbed Edith, who was playing the
+part of the person drowning. She hurriedly grabbed this necktie rope and
+was drawn ashore by her comrades.
+
+The girls found that this drill not only made them keen and alert,
+training them to keep cool heads, but helped to give them reliance as
+well as courage, and—heaps of fun.
+
+The bathers were now lined up for a swimming contest, each girl at the
+toot of the horn making a wild dash for the water, and swimming out as
+far as she could to the stake-boat, manned by the doctor, anchored some
+distance from shore. This contest was to determine not only who could
+swim, and the best swimmers, but those who had the greatest amount of
+strength and endurance, who would be able to train others not so
+competent.
+
+Nathalie, who had spent a number of summers at a seaside resort and
+therefore was at home in the water, found to her surprise that she,
+Helen, and Edith were the three best swimmers of the campers. This was
+as much of a surprise to her as to the Pioneers, for, supposing that she
+was a swimmer of only average skill, she had never even told that she
+could swim.
+
+Drills and contests being over, the girls were allowed to do as they
+liked, and so were soon gambolling about in the water, having the
+merriest time running races in the more shallow water, ducking one
+another, or teaching some more timid one to swim or dive.
+
+Nathalie and Helen had rowed out some distance from shore and were
+practicing diving by jumping from the boat. “Now!” Helen would shout as
+they stood poised in the center, “One! Two! Three!” The next instant
+there would be a flash of pointed hands, a sweep of blue
+bathing-suits—like bluebirds skimming through the air—a splash, and then
+first one head would appear and then the other, each one blowing and
+puffing water from her eyes and nose like a porpoise.
+
+“O dear,” exclaimed Nathalie suddenly as the two girls sat sunning
+themselves in the boat, “here comes the Sport. I wonder what she is up
+to now!”
+
+But it was all in a morning’s fun, and the three girls were soon having
+fine sport as a diving team of three. Tired at last, they settled for a
+short rest, Helen and Nathalie laughing merrily as they watched Lillie
+Bell trying to induce Carol to do something more than wet her feet.
+Suddenly there came a shove, and a second later the two girls went
+splashing head-foremost into the water!
+
+A few moments and they bobbed up, not at all serenely, as they sputtered
+and gasped, struggling to eject the water from eyes and noses. Helen,
+seeing Edith disporting herself some distance away, demanded with
+flashing eyes, “What did you do that for?” while Nathalie, whose cheeks
+were sea pink, sputtered between gasps, “Edith, I think you are just as
+mean as you can be!”
+
+But the Sport was off, waving her hand at them derisively as she swam
+rapidly towards shore. The girls by this time had righted their
+cockle-shell, which they found floating right side up with the tide, and
+after clambering in Helen grabbed the oars, exclaiming wrathfully, “Oh,
+how I would like to get even with her for that!”
+
+“So would I!” echoed her friend. “It does seem as if the imp himself was
+in that girl sometimes. But wait, I’ll get one on her yet, see if I
+don’t.”
+
+Full of the ozone of the forest and animated by that spirit of
+exploration that always inspires one in a new place, directly after
+lunch the Pioneers with staffs, knapsacks, and note-books, lined up for
+an afternoon tramp. To vary the adventure it had been decided to name it
+a salmagundi hike, which meant a tramp of observation, each girl aiming
+to see how many things she could observe, birds, animals, flowers, or
+leaves, in fact, anything that was to be seen in the field or woods.
+
+Nathalie had prepared for the expedition in glad anticipation, being
+particularly anxious to get in touch with so many things that she lacked
+of nature’s many lores, but when she caught sight of the disappointed
+face of Nita, who was not, as yet, equal to a hike her spirits sank to
+zero.
+
+Somehow her conscience would not be downed as it urged her to atone in
+some way to Nita for the many things that she was forced to be deprived
+of in her young girlhood. “No, I do not believe it is my place to stay
+with her,” argued Nathalie’s naughty self, “for I have already given up
+a great deal of time and fun in qualifying her to become a Pioneer. And
+then if I once begin by staying with her she will want me to remain all
+the time, and I shall never have a bit of fun.”
+
+But after a short inward struggle Nathalie pleaded that she was tired,
+and declared she was going to remain at home and have a good cozy chat
+with Nita.
+
+The joy that shown on Nita’s face at this declaration compensated her
+for her sacrifice, and she was just trying to think what she could do to
+make the time pass pleasantly for the girl when a sudden loud shout
+sounded from the woods. Before the girls could question as to what it
+was a chorus of boyish voices were heard shouting:
+
+  “Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
+  Good turn daily. Shout! Shout! Shout!”
+
+For one moment the girls stared in dazed amazement, why—oh! that was the
+salute call of the Westport Scouts! But all thought came to an end a
+minute later as a troop of boys in brown suddenly appeared at a bend of
+the road leading from the woods. As they spied the Pioneers they broke
+into wild shouts and whistles, energetically waving handkerchiefs,
+staffs, anything they could muster, while the foremost one, no other
+than Dr. Homer, twirled his hat over his head hilariously.
+
+In a few moments the scout mystery was solved as the girls stood
+surrounded by the Eagle Patrol of Westport, every one talking eagerly,
+some telling how they came to be there, while others were having great
+sport as they teased the girls about how nicely they had fooled them. It
+soon developed that the doctor and his wife were in the secret; in fact,
+Mrs. Morrow said that the doctor had chuckled so when he saw how
+mystified the girls were when they heard the calls from across the Lake,
+that she feared he would spring the surprise before it was time.
+
+Yes, the scouts of Westport, who had been thinking of a three weeks’
+tramp in some place not too far from the city, after hearing how Mrs.
+Van Vorst had invited the Pioneers to camp at Eagle Lake, had gone to
+that lady, and after due inquiries had made their plans to camp at the
+same time as the girls, only on the opposite shore of the Lake.
+
+Finding that the girls were bound for a tramp, the scouts, through Dr.
+Homer, begged permission to accompany them. The girls quickly gave their
+assent, and in a short space the hikers set out for a survey of the
+land, all but Fred Tyson, who lingered at Nathalie’s side as if waiting
+for her to join them.
+
+Seeing, however, that Nathalie made no attempt to follow the others, he
+asked with puzzled eyes, “What’s the matter, Miss Blue Robin, aren’t you
+going to hike?”
+
+Nathalie choked for a moment, then gaining control of her emotions, with
+an attempt at a smile returned, “Why, no, I’m tired, you know we have
+been working awfully hard ever since we came—getting the camp in shape—”
+she had caught a glimpse of Nita’s keen eyes—“so I thought I’d just stay
+at home and rest with Nita. You know, she can’t stand a long walk.” This
+was said in a lower tone.
+
+Fred’s face showed disappointment, and then he cried boyishly, “Oh, I
+say, Miss Nathalie, you’ll miss all the fun!” Then, as if half
+suspecting what might be the cause of Nathalie’s staying at home, he
+said, “As for Miss Nita, if she wants to come with us we’ll fix it so
+she won’t have to walk a step!”
+
+Putting his fingers to his mouth he emitted a sharp whistle, which two
+scouts lagging in the rear heard and immediately turned about and
+retraced their steps. “Here,” continued Fred, “you fellows improvise a
+stretcher to carry Miss Nita so she can hike with us!”
+
+Nita’s eyes began to gleam, but Mrs. Van Vorst approaching from the
+other end of the veranda at this moment, and hearing of the proposed
+plan of navigation, demurred, thanking the boys most graciously for
+their kindness, but declining to let Nita go, claiming that it would be
+too much for her that warm day.
+
+Fred, thus forced to be content, after a lingering look of regret raised
+his cap and then hurriedly joined the party who were already
+disappearing in the winding path of the woods.
+
+Nathalie, with an unconscious sigh, turned away. O dear, it did seem
+mean to have to give up that walk. It had been hard enough to win the
+first battle over the temptation to go, but this second one had seemed
+even harder. But immediately seeing that she was a great baby to let a
+little disappointment mar the pleasure of the beautiful day, she turned
+with smiling eyes to the princess, and suggested that they have a nice
+little row to one of the tiny islands in the center of the Lake.
+
+This, Nita was very glad to do, and so with notebooks and pencils, and
+with the remark that they could have a nice little salmagundi hike all
+by their lone selves, they started for the boat-house.
+
+And indeed, Nathalie and her little friend spent a most enjoyable
+afternoon, for, as she afterwards declared to Helen, “It was lovely and
+cool down on that little island with the green trees and shady coves.
+And do you know,” she continued, “I was so surprised, for Nita is a most
+observant little person. Why, she knows the names of many of the grasses
+and wood flowers, and the birds—she knows their names, can tell what
+birds are nesting in August and any number of interesting things about
+nature. I am sure she will make a most wonderful little Pioneer, after
+she becomes acquainted with the girls.”
+
+Of course Helen had many things to tell about the salmagundi hike, and
+the different objects they had seen and noted on their tramp. She had
+taken notes and Nathalie was invited to take a peep at them some time,
+Helen suggesting that she might find them of some help later on. The
+scouts, she said, had been most kind and had told them lots of
+interesting things, particularly about tracking the footprints of
+animals.
+
+“Well,” declared Nathalie as Helen finished telling of the good times
+they had had, “I have had two good times, instead of your one, for I had
+a fine time with Nita, and then I have had the coziest of chats with
+you, which has proved almost as good as if I had been with you on the
+hike.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII—MISS CAMPHELIA
+
+
+A week had passed, and although the novelty of many of the activities
+and pleasures of this life in the open had dulled, every moment proved
+one of joy. Drills, contests, sports, hikes, and various entertainments
+had merged so evenly, one into the other, that tasks had lost their
+irksomeness and play had received an added zest.
+
+To be sure, some unfortunate accidents had happened; Grace had cut her
+hand when opening a can of tomatoes, Carol had been stung by some
+mysterious insect so severely that even the doctor was puzzled, and one
+of the Orioles had sprained her ankle. But these mishaps had been
+received with true camp fortitude—the Pioneer spirit, Helen called
+it—and had only served as object lessons in the First Aid to the Injured
+talks given by Dr. Morrow, thus giving Helen and Kitty a chance to
+display their expertness in the triangular, the four-tailed, and many
+other kinds of bandages.
+
+Hammers, saws, and hatchets were in great demand one morning—the girls
+all busy making stilts, some to show their scout friends that they could
+handle men’s tools, while others were qualifying for first-class
+Pioneers—when Lillie appeared. With woebegone face she reported to
+Nathalie, who was serving as her assistant on the Grub committee, that
+there was no milk.
+
+“No milk?” ejaculated the girl. “Why, wasn’t the milkman here this
+morning?”
+
+“Sure,” nodded Lillie, “but that Oriole girl—Nannie Plummer—dropped some
+swill into the milk can. She mistook it for the garbage pail—” Lillie’s
+eyes glinted humorously—“she was so busy expressing her admiration for
+that Will Hopper, you know the scout with the languishing eyes, as Helen
+calls them.”
+
+Nathalie’s face expressed dismay. “Oh, what shall we do?” she almost
+wailed; “we have got to have milk for that pudding, and—”
+
+“To be sure,” laconically returned Lillie, “and you will have to go and
+get some.”
+
+“Get some?” echoed Nathalie faintly; “where?”
+
+“At the farm-house, you know the place—with the red barn—on the road to
+Boonton.”
+
+“But there isn’t time for me to walk there and back before dinner,”
+protested the girl somewhat wrathfully, “on this hot day, too!”
+
+“No, but you can take Edith’s bicycle, and go and get back in no time.”
+
+“Oh, but it is hot!” ejaculated Nathalie, some fifteen minutes later, as
+with reddened, perspiring face she slowed up her wheel, and spying a
+mossy bank overlooking a brook meandering beneath a group of willows,
+jumped to the ground. As she was standing her wheel against a tree, a
+woman with a reddish handkerchief tied over her head came up the bank.
+She started when she saw Nathalie, but instantly averting her eyes
+hurried on down the road in the direction of the farm-house where
+Nathalie was to get the milk.
+
+The girl had thrown herself on the grassy slope and was fanning
+vigorously with her hat, when her eyes were arrested by something white
+lying under an overhanging bush near the brook. Perhaps she would not
+have stared so intently if she had not thought that she saw it move.
+Just at that moment a low wailing cry came to her ears.
+
+Assured beyond doubt that the cry came from the bundle, she hurried down
+the slope, and a moment later was bending over a baby, who, on seeing
+the wondering face, looked up with innocent appeal in its wide blue
+eyes.
+
+“Why, you dear,” cooed the girl, “how did you come here?” She looked up
+expecting to see some one to whom the baby belonged, but as there was no
+one in sight and she saw the little lip quiver pathetically, she
+gathered it up in her arms and chucking the dimpled chin began to jabber
+to it in baby language.
+
+“Whom do you belong to, baby?” she questioned aloud, silently wondering
+if that tramp woman who had come up the bank could have been its mother.
+But that could hardly be, she pondered, for she looked like an Italian,
+while the baby was fair with tiny wisps of golden hair straying from
+beneath its neat white cap.
+
+Reminded finally that the camp’s need of milk was urgent, she laid the
+baby down and ran along the bank first in one direction, and then the
+other, shouting and calling until her voice was hoarse. O dear, what
+should she do? She could not leave that dear thing there alone! Ah, she
+would take it with her to the farm-house, perhaps Mrs. Hansen might know
+something about it.
+
+Carrying her find with one arm and trundling her wheel with the other
+hand, she arrived in a short space at her destination. But alas, she met
+with no satisfaction. Mrs. Hansen declared that in all probability the
+woman was a gypsy, as there was a settlement of them some miles beyond
+the town and that she had purposely deserted the baby. She also informed
+the girl in a most emphatic manner that she could not leave the child
+there as she had enough of her own to look after.
+
+“But this is a white baby,” persisted Nathalie, “see, it is very fair!”
+showing the little puckered face, for by this time it had begun to
+whimper quite loudly.
+
+“Poor waif!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife, “it is hungry!” Hastily
+getting a cup of milk she put it to the mouth of the little one, whose
+fingers closed on it tightly as it drank greedily.
+
+But feeding the baby did not soften Mrs. Hansen’s heart, and Nathalie
+was forced to see that there was nothing else to do but to carry the
+deserted one to camp with her. But how could she trundle a wheel, carry
+a five-quart can of milk, and the baby all at the same time? Poor
+Nathalie! she was in deep waters!
+
+Mrs. Hansen, however, who was not unkindly, seeing the girl’s dilemma
+called her boy Joe, and giving him the milk and wheel told him to hurry
+with it to the camp, so that Nathalie would have her arms free to carry
+her charge.
+
+Some time after the dinner hour Nathalie, tired, hot, hungry, and every
+muscle aching from weariness, arrived at the camp. She was immediately
+surrounded by the girls, who besieged her with questions as to the why
+and wherefore of her tardy appearance. But when their eyes lighted on
+the blue-eyed cherub, who had been blissfully sleeping the greater part
+of the girl’s three-mile tramp on a sunny road, they went wild with
+excitement.
+
+Mrs. Morrow presently arrived on the scene and promptly driving
+Nathalie’s tormentors away, handed the infant to Ellen and Nita. Then
+she made the girl lie down in the hammock to cool off, while Helen and
+Grace rushed off to get her dinner.
+
+As the girl, between bites, told of her strange adventure, she saw that
+it was not to prove as disastrous as she feared, for the little stranger
+had already captivated every member of the camp, even down to Peter,
+also Rosy, Mrs. Van Vorst’s black cook. Indeed, it was petted, hugged,
+and kissed so many times that Mrs. Morrow, fearing it would be brought
+to evil by so many caressing hands, then and there made rules as to how
+each girl should care for it.
+
+They all declared that Nathalie’s finding that baby was providential,
+for one of the Pioneers that very morning had expressed the wish that
+they could find a baby in one of the farm-houses. They wanted to
+practice bathing and dressing it, as these were some of the
+qualifications necessary for a first-class Pioneer.
+
+Although notices were posted in the post-offices of the towns, and also
+sent to several newspapers, advertising the fact that a baby had been
+found and was at Camp Laff-a-Lot, no one claimed it. The girls were
+delighted as they were enamored of their new toy, each one secretly
+hoping it could remain with them.
+
+The girls had even begun to discuss the project of calling it the Girl
+Pioneer baby, and were deep in plans to raise money so they could have
+it taken care of and educated as such, when Mrs. Van Vorst avowed that
+if no mother appeared to claim it she would adopt it as her own.
+
+This of course took away the girls’ hopes of having the little one for
+their own, as who could deny Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita what they so
+eagerly desired and what they were so able to do? In the meantime, Miss
+Camphelia—for so she had been christened—cooed, gurgled, and dimpled
+with delight at each new mother who bathed and dressed her in silent
+adoration of the tyrant of the camp.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nathalie stirred restlessly, jumbled up her pillow, and then flopped
+over with a sigh. O dear, why couldn’t she go to sleep? It was not near
+time to get up!
+
+“Nathalie Page, what ails you?” came in exasperated tone from the other
+bed. “You have been wiggling, bouncing, jumping, and sighing like a
+porpoise for half the night. For pity’s sake do go to sleep!”
+
+Nathalie made no reply, assured that if she did she would betray what a
+baby she was.
+
+“What does ail you anyway?” persisted Helen in a softer tone. “Have you
+been doing the green-apple act like Carol, and—”
+
+“Oh, it’s just Nita,” replied the girl dolefully. “You see it is this
+way, Helen. I told Mrs. Van Vorst that if Nita could mingle with girls
+about her own age it would do her a world of good.” Nathalie sat up in
+bed and began to hug her knees. “So, you see, I feel responsible in a
+measure to see that she gets a good time, but dear me, she is just
+having a horrible time!”
+
+“How do you know?” questioned Helen, “she—”
+
+“Oh, the poor little thing mopes and cries all the time. She won’t admit
+it, but she doesn’t want me out of her sight. Really, Helen, I know it
+is selfish when she is so afflicted—” Nathalie’s voice quavered, “but I
+do want a bit of fun myself sometimes.”
+
+“Well, I should say!” was Helen’s ejaculation. “But I wouldn’t worry
+over it. She’s selfish, that’s all, and shouldn’t be encouraged. I have
+noticed that she is terribly offish with the girls, and they are half
+afraid to be pleasant with her.”
+
+“Oh, she does not mean to be offish, as you say,” answered Nathalie
+quickly, “she is shy, and sensitive. I think she imagines the girls do
+not care for her because she is a humpback. If there was only some way
+by which she could become better acquainted with the girls, and give
+them a chance to know her better! She’s an awfully bright little thing,
+and I know she would be a prime favorite, for there’s lots of fun in
+her. She’s just pining—well—for love.”
+
+“Humph!” came from Helen, “she gets enough of it from her mother and
+Ellen; they spoil her.”
+
+“Yes, I know, but that is what she doesn’t want—mother-coddling. What
+she wants is to come out here and kick around as one of us in a rough
+and tumble way. Then she would get over her sensitiveness, but somehow I
+can’t seem to manage it.”
+
+There was silence for a moment as both girls fell to thinking. All at
+once Helen bounced up in bed crying, “There, Nathalie, I have nailed
+it!”
+
+“Nailed it?” repeated her companion. “Why—”
+
+“Oh, you know what I mean, I mean about Nita. Now listen to Solon the
+Wise. You get Nita to come and sleep in this tent—”
+
+“Where, on the floor?” inquired Nathalie teasingly.
+
+“You know what I mean—on my cot. I’ll take her room. Then you drill her
+to take her part with the other girls, and so on, just as if she were
+one of us. In three days I’ll come back and take my turn with her, and
+you take my place. Then in three days again let Lillie take a turn, and
+so on until the turns have gone the rounds, each girl being her
+tent-mate for three days. In that way she will become acquainted and
+have a chance to get in with us.”
+
+“Oh, Helen, you are the brightest—but suppose she won’t come?”
+
+“Won’t be your tent-mate? Why, she worships the ground you walk on!
+That’s one thing that ails her, Nathalie, she’s jealous of the girls,
+because in a way she is outside of it all. Get her into harness like the
+rest of us and in ten days’ time she’ll be like another girl, or you can
+shut me up for a lunatic.”
+
+Nathalie, as soon as possible after the morning conference, had a little
+talk with her Director, and finding that she agreed with Helen, sought
+Mrs. Van Vorst and laid before her the new plan. Of course she found
+that she had a number of objections to fight from that lady, but
+eventually she won, and it was decided that for the rest of the time in
+camp Nita Van Vorst was to be lost to her mother’s bungalow, for to her
+unbounded joy she was to be one of the girls!
+
+It was bathing hour, and Nathalie, with bugle in hand, was patroling the
+beach, keeping her brain and eyes keenly alert, for some of the girls
+were careless, and would swim out beyond the raft.
+
+Carol was giving her considerable trouble, for having just mastered the
+art of swimming she had become very daring, doing her best to “show off”
+before the girls. Her companions had promised to keep an eye on her, but
+Nathalie knew that when they were sporting about in the water they were
+apt to forget their duty.
+
+Her eyes swept from one group to the other. Ah, the Sport was swimming
+out to the raft! How well she looked in that red cap, and what a
+beautiful swimmer she was, so free and graceful in her movements!
+Hearing a sudden cry, as she thought, Nathalie turned and glanced at
+Carol. Good! she had stopped her antics of pretending she was sinking.
+Her eyes again wandered to Edith, why where was she? There was her red
+cap bobbing on the water, what new trick was she up to now? She had
+thrown up her arms. Oh, was she screaming? Pshaw, she was just fooling
+as usual, what a plague she was!
+
+Nathalie strained her eyes, why, yes, she _was_ screaming! she had gone
+down again! Just a moment, and then as Nathalie saw the red cap bob up
+again and heard another piercing shriek, she realized that Edith was
+drowning! Nathalie’s brain spun like a wheel—what should she do—she
+glanced helplessly around. Where was Helen?
+
+“Edith is drowning!” she tried to shriek, but her voice sounded faint,
+as if far away. O God! and then she remembered. Up went her bugle and
+two loud blasts—the danger signal that some one was drowning—rang
+sharply over the water.
+
+Just a moment, and then with a sudden swirl through the air, Nathalie
+had leaped into the water, and with long, swift strokes swam towards the
+spot where she had seen the red cap go down! Ah, she was almost there!
+As Edith threw up her arms again with another frenzied scream, for help,
+Nathalie grabbed her under the shoulders. But Edith, with a hysterical
+cry, threw her arms around her neck. Oh, she was dragging her down!
+
+Nathalie regained control of herself, and was frantically beating back
+the clutching arms. She had swung her around; she tried to get a firmer
+grip, but a nameless fear was pinching her heart. She felt her strength
+was giving out! Then she heard Helen’s voice crying, “Don’t lose your
+hold, Nathalie, we’re almost there!”
+
+Edith was so heavy; Nathalie tried to tighten her grip; she was more
+quiet now. Oh, could it be? She heard the purling of water and saw, but
+dimly, something dark moving towards her. Oh, if they would only hurry?
+Some one had caught hold of Edith and was dragging—
+
+When Nathalie regained her consciousness it was to hear Mrs. Morrow’s
+voice crying, “Poor little Blue Robin!” She opened her eyes to see the
+doctor bending over her while Mrs. Morrow peeped over his shoulder with
+a cheery smile. “Edith?” she gasped, making an attempt to rise.
+
+“As snug as a bug in a rug,” rejoined the doctor promptly, “and you will
+be, too, if you will drink this.”
+
+Nathalie meekly obeyed. She was so tired, would she ever get rested? But
+she did, and a few hours later was half sitting up on her cot supported
+by pillows, surrounded by a group of sober-faced girls all eagerly
+listening as she told how it came about. “If she hadn’t gripped me so
+hard,” she ended as she sank back on the pillows, beginning to feel
+tired again, “I could have managed.” Then suddenly a queer little smile
+curved her mouth and drawing Helen down to her she whispered softly,
+“Helen, do you remember the day Edith ducked us when we were off in the
+boat, and how I declared I would get even?” Her friend nodded gravely.
+“Well,” said Nathalie, still with that queer little smile, “I have got
+one on her, haven’t I?”
+
+A cheer fire was in progress, and a noisy one at that. The Pioneers had
+spent the afternoon and evening of the previous day over at the camp
+across the Lake at an entertainment called Scout Day, given in their
+honor by their friends.
+
+Certainly it had been a most wonderful Scout Day, for there had been
+scouts saluting the colors, giving calls, making signals, lighting
+fires, and building shacks, tepees, and miniature log huts. Scouts, too,
+had engaged in all kinds of drills, contests, and races, such as tilting
+jousts, hand-wrestling, spear fighting and sham battles. And the games!
+They were a revelation to the girls in the uniqueness and cleverness of
+the ideas displayed. They had found, too, that scouts knew how to cook
+the very things dear to a camper’s heart, and sing—well, about every war
+and camp song known.
+
+The Camp Circus presented the ludicrous side of these knights of
+chivalry, as they did clown stunts, causing the girls to laugh
+immoderately. After supper had come a firefly dance, which made strong
+appeal to the weird and mystic in every girl’s nature, as they watched
+the scouts swing about the blazing light in strange and grotesque
+evolution.
+
+Perhaps the best was the scouts on the water, when, with a flotilla of
+row-boats and canoes decorated with the figures of paper animals, and
+brilliantly aglow with Japanese lights they glided over the water, the
+motion of the boats making the lights look like fireflies dancing in the
+air.
+
+The jolly times given by the scouts must be returned! When, how, and
+where, were the three questions causing no little agitation, when Carol,
+with a white, frightened face, leaped into their midst crying, “Oh,
+girls, the baby has a fit!”
+
+On hearing this startling statement some of the girls began to cry,
+others jumped up and wrung their hands frantically, while a few made a
+wild dash for Mrs. Van Vorst’s bungalow. Helen fortunately kept cool,
+and, perceiving that a panic would ensue, seized her bugle and blew it
+quickly.
+
+This halted the stampede, arrested the hysterical ones midway between a
+sob and a cry, and caused a sudden quiet to fall, as she cried, in a
+loud clear voice, “Girls, keep perfectly still. Nathalie Page, Edith
+Whiton, and Lillie Bell, I appoint a committee of three to go and see if
+Carol’s report is so, and whether our services are needed. And please,
+Pioneers,” she called out as the three girls sprang on their feet, “one
+of you girls come back and let us know how things are progressing, as we
+shall all be anxious to know.”
+
+The next moment the three girls were running swiftly after Carol, who,
+immediately after delivering her news, had started to run back to the
+bungalow.
+
+“Now, girls,” continued Helen, “let us go on talking. Of course we are
+all worried, for we just love that baby!” she paused for a second, “but
+we can’t all help. Mrs. Morrow will let us know if we can do anything,
+so in the meantime, let us go on thinking up ideas.”
+
+A cheer greeted this speech as a tribute to their leader’s level head
+and courage, for this was not the first time that she had preserved her
+poise, and held the scales when unduly weighted on the wrong side.
+
+Yes, it was true, little Camphelia was writhing in convulsions on Mrs.
+Morrow’s lap, while Mrs. Van Vorst bent over her with agitated
+movements, applying with Ellen’s help hot water, and mustard, and such
+remedies as were available at the moment.
+
+Nathalie touched Mrs. Van Vorst softly on the arm, “Is there anything we
+girls can do?” Her eyes were big with anxious fear.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” replied that lady distractedly; “if the doctor were
+only here!”
+
+“Blue Robin, is that you?” asked Mrs. Morrow quickly, as she heard
+Nathalie’s voice. “Oh, we must have help! How unfortunate the doctor had
+to go to the city to-day! But, Nathalie, can’t you send a wireless to
+Dr. Homer? Tell him to come immediately, for the baby is very ill!”
+
+But Nathalie was already out of the sound of her voice, as with quick,
+light steps she ran to the girls who, with white distressed faces,
+awaited her on the veranda. “Mrs. Morrow says to send a wireless to Dr.
+Homer over at camp,” she explained hurriedly, “but I am afraid we won’t
+get him, as the wireless hours are nine, twelve and eight, and it is not
+eight yet.”
+
+“Oh, yes it is,” returned Lillie, “five minutes to eight,” looking up
+from her little wrist-watch in its leather bandlet. “I’m sure we shall
+catch him.”
+
+The girls hurried to the boat-house and climbed up to the little cupola,
+where Dr. Morrow, on first coming to camp, had installed his wireless
+apparatus. The Pioneers had been somewhat mystified by this procedure,
+wondering of what use a wireless would be to him up there in those
+woods. But the doctor had soon demonstrated that it was not only one of
+the most useful things about camp, but one of the most entertaining.
+
+He had not only been able to discuss with his fellow physician across
+the lake many professional questions that he came across in his medical
+books now and then, or letters from his colleague in Westport, who had
+charge of some of his important cases, but at times had been able to
+give valuable advice to the younger physician when dealing with some
+refractory or eccentric scout.
+
+But the doctor had done more than this, for he had gathered the four
+older girls, Helen, Edith, Lillie, and Nathalie together, and given them
+lessons in wireless telegraphy, so that they were soon glibly talking
+about ether waves, spark-coils, condensers, tuners, keys, and so on, in
+a way that proved his lessons had been well learned. They had, in fact,
+not only learned the Morse code, so that they could “listen in” when the
+doctor was “picking up” an S. O. S. call from some ship in distress, but
+they had heard many a wireless message from some signal station, or from
+some out-going or in-coming sea craft.
+
+At first it had seemed quite odd that although their little amateur
+apparatus could send messages only within a radius of five miles, it was
+able to receive them from a distance of over a thousand. They became so
+proficient in this click-clack language that they were soon sending
+aerograms, or wireless messages, to the camp across the Lake for the
+doctor. Sometimes, too, they sent messages to their scout friends, a
+privilege only accorded after the messages had been read by their
+Director, so as to avoid senseless talk or idle gossip.
+
+As soon as the girls reached the little wooden table holding the
+wireless, Lillie and Edith instinctively drew back, feeling that as
+Nathalie was the one who had found the baby she had the prior right to
+send this call for help. Seating herself, Nathalie quickly adjusted the
+telephones over her ears and set to work. But to her surprise, as she
+pressed the wireless key on the detector to close the circuit, she heard
+no sharp crack, and saw no spark-gap. Again she tried with like result.
+“Why, what is the matter with it?” she questioned turning towards the
+girls in some trepidation.
+
+“Let me try,” pleaded Lillie. But alas, she met with no better luck than
+Nathalie, although she tried one experiment after the other. “I think it
+is the strangest thing,” she commented staring helplessly before her;
+“what can be the matter with the thing anyway?”
+
+But Edith, who had dropped down on her hands and knees to examine the
+battery under the wooden board, now rose to her feet crying, “There is
+nothing the matter with the condenser, it must be that the aerial wires
+are not right!”
+
+As the girl made this announcement there was an ominous silence as they
+stared with distressed, worried faces at one another. “Oh, what can we
+do?” lamented Nathalie, “could we—”
+
+“I know what we can do,” said Lillie suddenly; “we can row across the
+Lake to the camp!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV—THE WIRELESS OPERATOR
+
+
+“Yes, that is the only thing we can do,” said Nathalie quickly, “but
+suppose the doctor is not there! You know the boys said they were going
+on a two or three days’ tramp this week.”
+
+“Well, I’ll tell you how we can settle that problem and make sure,”
+replied Lillie, whose mind acted quickly. “Suppose we row over while
+Edith goes on her wheel to Mrs. Hansen’s and telephones to Boonton.”
+
+“What, go all that distance alone in the dark?” protested the Sport in
+an appalled tone, “and then I don’t know what doctor to telephone to!”
+
+“What, Edith, do you want us to think that you are really afraid?”
+laughed Lillie; “_you_, the girl who has never shown the white feather
+at any dare? Why, I—”
+
+But Nathalie’s cheery voice, like oil on troubled waters, interposed
+quickly, “Of course she is not afraid, but it is an unpleasant thing to
+do to ride that distance alone at night. But we can’t take chances, and
+we must have a doctor. And as to the one you telephone to, Edith,” she
+cried, turning to that young lady, whose face had brightened somewhat,
+“call Dr. McGill, he’s the little white-haired doctor who called on Dr.
+Morrow the other day. He lives at Boonton.”
+
+Without another protest Edith turned, and after running back to the
+cheer fire circle to inform Helen what the girls were going to do, she
+hurried after her wheel. A few minutes later, with the lantern fastened
+to the front of it, flickering like a firefly as she sped through the
+woods, she was on her way to the farm to telephone.
+
+Lillie and Nathalie had hurried down to the boathouse, and in a flash of
+time had unfastened one of the row boats. Springing quickly in, they
+were soon out some distance from shore, rowing as rapidly as they could
+towards the opposite bank. It was a weird night, the sky seemed hung
+with heavy black curtains, the only light being that from the moon, as
+at rare intervals she darted swiftly through some opening between the
+clouds, or betrayed her presence by streaks of foamy silver on the edge
+of some unusually inky cloud.
+
+But the path across the Lake was a familiar one, and ten minutes later
+the girls reached the opposite shores. “Why, it looks as if there wasn’t
+a soul about,” exclaimed Lillie, as, after drawing in their oars, the
+two girls stood up in the boat and peered anxiously through the bit of
+woodland that led to the camp, whose signal lantern glimmered dimly
+through the foliage of the trees.
+
+“I guess you’re right, Nathalie, the boys must be on a tramp,” said
+Lillie after several loud “Hellos!” the only reply to which had been a
+faint echo from across the Lake.
+
+Putting her fingers to her mouth Lillie emitted several sharp whistles,
+but still no sign of life! “Huh, it looks as if it was a case of
+Goldsmith’s ‘Deserted Village,’” she soliloquized dismally, but Nathalie
+was busy giving the Pioneer yell. This evoked such a strange medley of
+echoing sounds that the girls burst out laughing.
+
+Nathalie’s face soon sobered, however, as she exclaimed dolefully, “O
+dear, it does seem as if we were destined to have bad luck. I wonder if
+they could have gone to bed!” burst from her in sudden thought.
+
+“If they have, we’ll soon rout them out,” declared Lillie, jumping on
+the bank. “Come on, let’s drag the boat up and then hike to camp.”
+
+After slipping on pine needles, stumbling over gnarled roots and
+blackened stumps, they finally found the path, devoutly thankful that
+the moon had at last emerged from behind the clouds. Indeed, as they
+stepped from the shadows of the woods and stood on the campus—as the
+scouts called the level space in front of the tents—the moon was shining
+with a brightness that equalled the day.
+
+As the girls’ eyes traveled from the pots on the top pole suspended over
+what had once been a camp fire to the rows of tents, whose open flaps
+revealed that they were tenantless, Lillie uttered a sudden cry of
+delighted surprise!
+
+The next moment she had shot across the campus, for she had spied a
+white paper fastened to one of the larger tents, directly under the
+glare of the lantern above the door.
+
+“Hurrah! we’re in luck,” she cried, wildly jubilant, pointing to the
+white paper as Nathalie reached her side. “Read that!” The girl stepped
+closer and slowly deciphered from the big black letters in charcoal
+print:
+
+            “Have gone to the Scout Council at the rooms of
+            the Wolf Patrol at Boonton.
+                                “G. A. Homer, Scoutmaster.”
+
+“But that does not help us any!” Nathalie said when she finished reading
+the notice, her face losing its eagerness as she faced her companion.
+
+“Indeed it does, goosie,” replied Lillie stoutly, “for the doctor has a
+wireless. So have the scouts at Boonton, for I heard one of the boys
+tell of a message one of them had picked up the other night, the night
+we had that awful thunder storm, don’t you remember? So don’t say we’re
+not lucky, Nathalie Page, after finding that note. I’ll warrant you,
+though, that some of the scouts did go on a tramp, and that the doctor
+left that word in case they returned before he did. But let’s look for
+that wireless!”
+
+Surmising that the tent with the note pinned on the flap must be Dr.
+Homer’s, the girls hastened in, and by the light from the lantern which
+Nathalie had taken from the pole by standing on a couple of soap-boxes
+she had found, it was soon discovered on a roughly-hewn table in a
+corner of the tent.
+
+This time the wireless key did its work; there was a sharp crack, the
+amateur wireless operator had clicked off the R. Z., the camp’s private
+call, and then with palpitating heart and expectant eyes sat waiting to
+see if it had been picked up. Suddenly her face broke into a smile, for
+as she “listened in,” she caught the wireless O. K. G. (go ahead). She
+went ahead, and in a few moments had made the operator at the Patrol
+rooms understand that Dr. Homer was wanted. There was a moment’s delay,
+and then the doctor himself was sending a message through the air. It
+took but a short space of time for Nathalie to click off why he was
+wanted, and how the girls had come to wire him from the scout camp.
+
+“Now let’s make tracks for home,” said Lillie as Nathalie hung up the
+lantern on the pole again. “I am afraid it may rain, for I thought I
+heard thunder.” But she must have been mistaken, for not a cloud
+disturbed the soft silver haze that guided them across the Lake to Camp
+Laff-a-Lot.
+
+“Dear me,” ejaculated Nathalie an hour later as she and Helen were
+undressing for bed, “what a lot of things have happened in the two weeks
+we have been at camp! But how glad I am that Dr. Homer got here in time,
+and that the baby is all right.”
+
+“Well, it ought to be, with two doctors on the job,” retorted Helen with
+her usual bluntness. “Isn’t that old Dr. McGill jolly?”
+
+“Oh, yes, it was comical to see him look the baby over, and then declare
+that there was nothing for him to do but to look wise, as Dr. Homer had
+done all there was to be done. What a chummy confab they had too, after
+it was all over! He was so pleased to meet Dr. Homer, he said, for he
+had heard Dr. Morrow speak of him.”
+
+“Well, one thing’s settled, Miss Blue Robin,” remarked Helen decidedly,
+“and that is that Miss Camphelia is not to have any more sweets. I half
+suspect that Carol tried to stuff her with a bite of green apple, for
+she looked frightened to death when she saw that she was ill. Dr. Homer
+said there had been too much mothering going on. I just knew it would
+come to this, the way—”
+
+“Stop your scolding, Lady Fuss,” laughed Nathalie, “for it seems to me
+that I saw you trying to stuff the kiddie with a lollipop the other day.
+But, anyway, the rules have been posted, ‘No one to feed, or to handle
+Miss Camphelia without permission of the head nurse, Miss Ellen
+Carmichael!’ I’m dead for sleep, so good night!”
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The camp presented an appearance of unusual activity, with flags and
+bunting rippling in the sunlit air, and girls, scouts, and village
+guests in a state of restless progression, for it was the Pioneer Sport
+Day. The girls were in a whirl as they flew hither and thither, seeing
+that everything was in readiness for the anticipated fun, the visitors
+curiously prying into the living arrangements of this girls’ camp, while
+the scouts impatiently tramped about, waiting for the sports to begin.
+
+Ah, there was the bugle call, the signal for a rush down to the shores
+of the Lake to witness the aquatic feats of the young campers! “A
+ghostly dive,” read Fred Tyson slowly from an imposing little program,
+hand-printed in red, and tied to a birch-bark cover with sweet-grass.
+“I’d like to know—” but his query was cut short as the bugle again
+sounded to announce that the first race was to start.
+
+Fred turned his eyes towards the pier and stared curiously at the little
+figure in a khaki suit with red tie and hat, standing so proudly erect
+on a small platform as the Pioneer announcer for the day. Could it be?
+Yes it was Miss Anita Van Vorst, with her knapsack so adroitly arranged
+that no one would have suspected she was the little humpback who had
+once only taken an outing when wheeled in a chair.
+
+A sudden scurry from the boat-house of two ghostly figures, a quick rush
+up the plank leading to the barrel platform,—Peter’s diving-tower,—the
+spectral habiliments suddenly flung away to float with the tide, and two
+blue-suited forms had sped swiftly downward.
+
+There was a splash, a shower of silvery spray, a few bubbles, and two
+heads were bobbing about like floating corks. The next minute Kitty and
+Edith were swimming swiftly back to the pier, Edith in the lead, and
+Kitty a close second amid the noisy hurrahs from their friends on the
+bank. Edith, of course, won the blue, and with a wave of her hand as an
+acknowledgment to the cheering audience darted quickly back to the
+boat-house.
+
+A tennis match now followed, which proved to be Lillie and Jessie
+arrayed in tennis-suits seated in wooden tubs with tennis-rackets for
+paddles, paddling to the goal, an anchored raft some yards from shore.
+Lillie was the winner this time, and, amid a general laugh received her
+prize, a dime and pin, with radiant smiles from the bugler on the pier.
+
+A pioneer race was engaged in by two Orioles, one in the costume of a
+colonial maiden of Plymouth town, while the other closely resembled
+pictures of that laggard in love, John Alden. The contestants swam to
+the raft where they attempted in double-quick time to divest themselves
+of their old-time clothes, the one, of course, who accomplished this
+feat first having the best chance to win the race.
+
+But shoes would stick, strings would knot, and buttons wouldn’t
+unfasten. Nannie Plummer at last was free, and jumped back to the water.
+But alas, her bonnet still clung to her; no, not to her head, but to one
+of her feet, causing her audience to shout with merriment at her antics
+to rid herself of this obstacle, while Johnnie the slow was still making
+futile endeavors to rid herself of her undesirable trousers.
+
+A Japanese race was applauded perhaps as much for its picturesqueness as
+for the skill displayed, as two daintily gowned figures,—one in a pink
+and one in a blue flowered kimono, with flowers and fans coquettishly
+arranged à la Japanese in their hair—with mincing steps hied themselves
+down to their boats. Here, each one holding an umbrella in one hand and
+a palm-leaf fan in the other, they paddled out to the stake boat.
+
+“Gee whiz! I’d like to know how they make those fans work!” exclaimed
+Teddie Hart in puzzled tone, to the joy of a group of girls near by, who
+giggled unrestrainedly as they saw that they had succeeded in mystifying
+their scout friends. Perhaps Peter, if he had minded, could have
+explained that a flat board to which the fans were nailed did the work.
+
+A Silver Race was composed of teams of two, rowing out to the raft and
+back, each girl holding a silver spoon in her mouth containing an egg.
+The winners were Nathalie and Edith, who reached shore with their eggs
+intact, while Lillie Bell and a Bob White raced back to land with
+streams of yellow dripping from their faces and clothes, the race rules
+requiring that each racer should return to the shore with what remained
+of the egg.
+
+The Trail of the Lonesome Pine created yells of laughter, as Helen
+stepped gingerly along with bare feet on a peeled pine sapling suspended
+over the shallow water near the shore. It was greased, of course, but
+the red apple at its end proved an incentive as the girl slipped
+cautiously towards it. Hurrah, she was almost there! Hadn’t she
+practiced that feat for days? There was a sudden swerve to one side, the
+supple figure tottered, and then Miss Helen plunged to her fate in the
+water below. But she only laughed with the spectators as she wrung out
+her skirts and scurried for the bank, while Barbara began her greasy
+career.
+
+Surely she had rosin on her feet! No, she didn’t, for the next moment
+she too was clawing the air. She swayed for a minute like a reed in the
+wind, and then went down, not into the water, but on the pole where she
+gazed with a bewildered stare in her near-sighted eyes at the jeering
+little prize that had proved so elusive.
+
+The first number of the land sports was a contest in the air, the
+performers walking on stilts while balancing potatoes on their heads. A
+tilting joust also took place, and helped to prove that the time the
+girls had spent in making and walking on the stilts had not been wasted.
+
+The Up Against It Race, turned out to be an obstacle race, one of the
+obstacles being twelve eggs to be picked up from the ground and placed
+in a basket. The second obstacle was hailed with deafening shouts, for
+it was no other than Miss Camphelia sitting on the race-track
+contentedly sucking a lollipop. She was speedily seized by the
+contestant and arrayed in a coat and hat, while gazing with wondering
+eyes at this new red-faced mother. The girl who made the best time as an
+egg-picker and baby-dresser proved to be an Oriole, and was duly
+applauded for her speed and deftness.
+
+In the Light that Failed contest the fair racers made a twenty-yard dash
+carrying lighted candles and pails of water, one in each hand, at the
+same time. All lights flickered out to be sure, but the one that lasted
+the longest won the contest for its holder.
+
+A fifty-yard dash won by Edith now followed, while one of the Bob Whites
+broke the tape at a twenty-five yard dash. In a Ring the Bell
+competition the girls were divided into teams, the team having the
+greatest number of girls who threw a bean bag through a barrel-hoop with
+a bell hung in its center without touching the bell were the jubilant
+ones.
+
+Lillie and Edith now gave an exhibition of wigwagging, using the Myers
+code, in which nearly all the girls were proficient. Lillie, to her
+delight, showed the most proficiency, although Edith had generally been
+considered the greatest expert in this science. An Indian-club drill,
+and a nail-driving contest not only showed the scouts what their sisters
+could accomplish in the way of strength, and manual labor, but brought
+the sports for the day to a close.
+
+By this time pangs of hunger began to assail the jolly campers, and
+Nita, with a strenuous toot of her horn, made known that a Grub
+Contest—a hike for supper packages hidden in the woods, among the rocks
+on the shore, or around the tents—would now take place. With much
+laughter and jesting the girls lined up opposite the boys, and at three
+blasts of the bugle they were off, flying in all directions, each one
+bent on searching some one particular locality that he or she had in
+mind. The fortunate ones were soon shouting hilariously; in fact even
+the slow ones were keener than usual in this supper hike, and soon
+bagged their game and cheered lustily as they returned to camp.
+
+Every one now gathered around the dining-room table—appropriately
+decorated for the occasion—and was soon dulling appetite with the choice
+bits found in the packages that had been done up by the Pioneers but
+hidden by Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Van Vorst.
+
+As they frolicked over the supper it was voted that every one present
+contribute to the moment’s pleasure by telling a story, singing a song,
+asking a conundrum, and so on. A ball was passed to Helen who
+immediately told a funny story, and ended by tossing the ball to
+Nathalie, the rule being that the reciter was to throw the ball to any
+one he or she chose, which resulted in its being thrown to the more
+timid or lazy ones, thus causing surprise and laughter.
+
+Nathalie made a rhyme impromptu, then tossed the ball to one of the
+boys, and so it kept going the rounds, not only bracing the timid or
+nervous ones, but revealing latent talent that had never been suspected.
+
+Teddy Hart, who had played the knight to the announcer of the day, Miss
+Anita, spied her laughing at his antics when he was called to the front
+and mischievously tossed the ball to her. The smile died on the girl’s
+face and she gasped with a start of terror, but in a moment, with a
+defiant toss of her head, she started in and recited some funny verses
+so comically that she received an ovation of cheers and claps.
+
+When Nathalie perceived this unexpected turn in the festivity, her heart
+went pit-a-pat in sympathy with Nita’s unexpected ordeal, but when she
+saw the upward toss of her head and the flash in her eyes, she knew the
+girl would prove game. Indeed, she had been proving game for the last
+ten days or more, for Helen’s plan of helping her to know the girls had
+succeeded so well that Nita had lost much of her supersensitiveness in
+regard to her deformity, by being made to forget it and by the
+kindliness and deference shown her by both girls and boys.
+
+The intimacy that had come from tenting with the different Pioneers had
+not only shown her the need of correcting many of her own faults, but
+had revealed the good points of her associates. Many of the girls she
+had secretly vowed to Nathalie she would never care for, she had
+accepted as the best of friends.
+
+From being deemed an aristocrat of whom the girls stood slightly in awe,
+thinking her proud and exclusive, she had proved to be most democratic,
+entirely devoid of the many airs and graces they feared. In fact she had
+become, as Nathalie said, a favorite with every one, and had nearly as
+many adorers as Miss Camphelia, who at that moment was having a most
+beautiful time eating bread and milk in the lap of Ellen, gurgling and
+winking with baby joy at the gay colors and lights that held her eye.
+
+Supper over, the campers hurried to the cheer fire circle where a tall,
+uncouth-looking object covered with sheets towered specter-like in the
+center. Helen, mounting a small platform, announced that the campers had
+gathered to celebrate the burning of Miss Dummy, who represented the
+evil spirits that had run riot during their stay at camp.
+
+An Oriole girl now came to the fore as chairman of the spirit committee,
+as it was called, and made known that a thorough investigation had
+brought to light many evil spirits that had dominated certain members of
+the camp at intervals, not only hindering the development of character,
+but causing discomfort and a few heartaches among their mates.
+
+The evil spirits of grouchiness, shiftlessness, dishonesty, and
+selfishness, in a sense, had been tamed by the Pioneers’ laws and the
+flames from their cheer fire so that they had not caused much havoc, but
+there were a few evil ones not so familiar, perhaps, that had persisted
+in doing their evil work. The principal ones, she claimed, were
+forgetting each one’s own particular failing in the fun of ridiculing
+the faults and eccentricities of her mates, the disloyalty to one’s self
+by not trying to do one’s best, a habit of giggling when there was
+nothing to giggle at, a desire to shirk responsibility by letting the
+other one do work that was distasteful, and the weakness of letting
+one’s nerves get the better of one on certain occasions instead of
+getting the better of the nerves.
+
+Of course this caused much laughter, although each girl recognized her
+own particular fault, and then and there secretly swore that she would
+subdue it or die in the attempt.
+
+Helen now asked if there was any reason why the evil spirits just
+mentioned should not be disposed of for good and all. Receiving a shout
+that evidently meant a big “No!” she pulled a string, the ghostlike
+garments fell to the ground, and Miss Dummy stood revealed, an effigy
+arrayed in an old suit belonging to one of the Pioneers, even to the
+staff and knapsack, surmounting a pile of dried twigs and brush.
+
+“Miss Dummy,” solemnly continued Helen, with as straight a face as she
+could muster as she confronted the ludicrous-looking evil one, who, with
+hat awry, huge red nose, and goggle-eyes, stared at her with a leer, “I
+consign to thee those evil spirits that have caused sorrow and
+heartaches among the members of Camp Laff-a-Lot, to be burned until thou
+art ashes, and then to be buried at the bottom of the lake to lie there
+forever!”
+
+As she ended there was a sudden scurry forward as each Pioneer made one
+of a circle kneeling around Miss Dummy, and in an instant’s time had
+struck her match and applied it to one of the twigs which served as a
+pedestal for the evil one. As the firewood had been well oiled it caught
+quickly from the blue sputterings of so many matches, and yellow flames
+were soon shooting savagely upward to glow like strings of scarlet among
+the twigs and briers, causing them to snap and crackle hilariously. In a
+moment darting tongues were licking Miss Dummy’s red cheeks with fiery
+greed and floated upward to circle about in wreaths of white and black
+smoke.
+
+[Illustration: She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid
+water.]
+
+Some of the unduly imaginative girls turned away, declaring that the
+effigy looked like some one of the girls in that suit in the reddened
+glare of the flames. But the rest joined hands with the scouts and
+leaped merrily about the blazing pyre, executing weird and strange
+gyrations, which they termed a fire dance, as a last farewell to their
+enemy, who finally, done to the death, tumbled to the ground a fiery
+mass of scarlet embers. A pail of water soon quenched the last of the
+spirits, when the ashes were gathered into a big pail and carried in a
+procession to the shores of the lake.
+
+Here Helen, holding the pail carefully in her hand, stepped into a
+row-boat and was conveyed to the middle of the lake. By the light of the
+moon just peeping above the horizon she dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy
+into the placid water, and to the singing of a comic dirge, composed by
+one of the Orioles, was rowed silently back to shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV—GOOD-BY TO EAGLE LAKE
+
+
+After Miss Dummy had been disposed of there was a return to the cheer
+fire circle, where the Sport performed the unusual feat of lighting
+three fires with one match. The giving out of merit badges and stars for
+the work performed during camp life and for the day’s sports now took
+place. These rewards of merit were each accompanied by camp gifts, the
+work of the girls done afternoons at their “trial by needle” hour, as
+some of the girls called it, when raffia and bead work, candle making,
+sewing, and many other crafts had occupied the Pioneers’ busy fingers,
+while some expert read of heroic deeds, or the girls chatted pleasantly
+of the pleasures that were, or that were to be.
+
+Pioneer and Scout, each in turn, now told of some special good that had
+come to them from the life in the open, which Mrs. Morrow said would be
+food for thought on their return to the city. A rhyming contest made no
+end of merriment, as well as the games of menagerie, gossip, animal,
+blind man’s buff, and others of like character. The scout orchestra now
+varied the entertainment with a few musical selections which started the
+girls and boys dancing around the fire again, this time with the
+graceful swing and motions of the modern dances.
+
+But they tired at last, and, some one starting a song, they all fell in
+and sang to their heart’s content one song after the other, rendering
+the old-remembered one of “Juanita” with undue emphasis, in honor to
+Miss Anita Van Vorst.
+
+After Dr. Homer, with the assistance of a few scouts, had made a deal of
+laughter by his comic shadowgraphs, done by a flash-lamp placed in the
+rear of one of the big tents with the flaps closed, the time came to say
+good-by. A few protested that it was still early, but when reminded by
+Mrs. Morrow that they had already been allowed an hour longer than usual
+and that they would have a lot of work to do in the morning as they were
+to break camp to return to the city, the protests ended, and the
+good-nights were said.
+
+The last day was a busy one, any number of camp rules were broken but
+the squads were lenient—they were still sleepy—so no reports were made,
+and the work of pulling down tents, packing the camp equipment, and
+making everything as clean and orderly as possible progressed.
+
+In the midst of this confusion Carol, who had made her last trip to the
+post-office, came rushing up to Nathalie with a letter. “Oh, it’s from
+Dick!” cried the delighted girl as she tore it open.
+
+“Oh, Helen,” she exclaimed in a moment to that young lady who was down
+on her knees packing the big box, “it’s the funniest letter. Dick says
+he’s having the time of his life—the jolliest ever—why, where can he
+be?” stopping to glance at the envelope.
+
+“Why, he must be in New York, or I wonder—yes,” she nodded in answer to
+Helen’s inquiry, “he says Mamma is fine—says they have had a glorious
+three weeks—well, I like that,” she grumbled with rueful face, “it looks
+as if they had not missed me a bit and—” But the sound of voices at this
+moment caused both of the girls to go to the tent door, to see Miss
+Carol hurriedly heading a procession of men and women towards the tent.
+She was screaming excitedly as she came, “Oh, Nathalie, where are you?”
+
+Nathalie, somewhat alarmed by all this appearance of excitement, cried
+quickly, “Oh, what is it, Carol? What is it?”
+
+“Oh, Nathalie,” the girl screamed, “the baby’s mother has come!”
+
+“The baby’s mother!” echoed the dazed girl with wide eyes. “Why, what
+does she mean?” turning to Helen, who at that moment had picked up Miss
+Camphelia, who had just awakened from a nap on one of the cots.
+
+By this time the party of country folk, breathless and somewhat moist
+from undue haste, with expectancy and delight beaming from every
+feature, had arrived in front of the tent. Nathalie gave one glance at
+the many faces, and then with a sudden cry rushed to the defense of what
+she had come to consider as her own, and the next minute was seated on
+the cot holding on to Miss Camphelia with a gripping clutch. She stared
+defiantly at the intruders as they pushed and jostled one another in
+their haste to enter the tent.
+
+But a moment later her arms relaxed, as a faded-looking, worried-faced
+little woman, with eyes as blue as the sea, and hair like corn-silk,
+gave an inarticulate cry as she caught sight of the baby on the girl’s
+lap. Dropping on her knees with outstretched arms she cried, “Oh, my
+baby! My precious baby!”
+
+Well, after that Nathalie could hold out no longer, especially when she
+saw that the baby’s sweet smile and dimpling cheeks were counterparts of
+those of the woman who claimed her as her own.
+
+Then it was all explained. The child had been stolen by the gypsy woman
+who, evidently, after a day or so of tramping from house to house
+begging for money to reach the Gypsy settlement some distance from the
+neighboring town, had decided to abandon it. Unfortunately the notice
+that had been sent to be put up in the post-office had failed to reach
+its destination, and if it had not been for Dr. McGill, the physician
+who had been summoned by Edith when Camphelia was ill, the baby would
+never have been found.
+
+Dr. MCGill had been puzzled by the baby’s resemblance to some one he
+knew, but supposing the little one belonged to some of the ladies at
+camp he had thought no more about it. Afterwards, however, on
+accidentally learning from Dr. Homer that it was a lost baby, he had
+sent the mother to reclaim it.
+
+Of course there were pangs of disappointment to be endured, but, as
+Nathalie said, no one could be anything but glad to give the baby up
+after witnessing the mother’s joy. After the mother had thanked them
+all, from Mrs. Van Vorst down to Ellen, for their kindness and the care
+they had given her baby, hoping that each one of the girls would some
+day have one of her own to caress and fondle, they all kissed Camphelia
+good-by, and the camp baby departed to return to its own home.
+
+After a dirge had been composed by Jessie, who had bloomed into quite a
+poetess, and any number of farewell letters and wishes had been written
+for the good luck of the next campers at the Lake, these were buried in
+the ground under a cairn of stones with a tiny American flag fastened at
+the top. This was the girls’ memorial to the good times they had had, as
+well as an expression of the sadness they felt on leaving the place
+where they had spent three such happy weeks.
+
+The sadness of parting with the friends they had made in Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s household—not the least being our friend Jimmie—was somewhat
+lessened when they learned that their hostess and her daughter were to
+accompany them to New York to spend a day or so with Mrs. Morrow.
+
+Going down in the car, although surrounded by a merry, chattering crowd,
+Nathalie and Helen became unusually silent. Helen, perhaps, was thinking
+of the new position she was to enter on her return to Westport, and
+Nathalie,—well, she could not have told why, but soon she became aware
+that her thoughts had jumped backward and she was reviewing her first
+meeting with Helen and the Pioneers.
+
+She half smiled as each one in turn presented herself to her as she
+first appeared; Barbara, with her queer staring eyes, absent-minded
+manner, and her frumpish clothes that always made Nathalie think of a
+five-and-ten-cent store. How often she had been tempted to laugh until
+she learned of the meanness of Barbara’s grandfather, for although he
+was a rich man Barbara had to scrimp and haggle to get enough to eat, to
+say nothing of clothes to cover her back. The tears came into her eyes
+when she realized the kind heart that beat so loyally beneath the
+despised apparel. After all, what were one’s clothes, mere externals
+necessary of course, but in reality only of face value, for surely they
+would never gain one an entrance into Heaven. And Helen, what would her
+life have been in her new home without this neighbor friend—who had
+taught her to master herself by helping her to overcome the many
+problems that had confronted her when she had become a Pioneer?
+
+Then she smiled again as she thought of Lillie Bell, with her thrillers
+and dramatic poses. She had learned that they were but the frosting to
+the solid worth beneath. Indeed, the thrillers in a way had proved an
+incentive in the telling of her stories to Rosy, the opening wedge into
+the good things that had followed, meeting Nita, making the money for
+Dick, Mrs. Van Vorst’s asking the Pioneers to Eagle Lake, and so on.
+Why, when she came to think of it, there was not a girl in her bird
+group who had not helped her in some way, even Edith, who had taught her
+to guard her tongue.
+
+And from the Pioneer industries and crafts she had learned to be useful.
+She thought of the first time she had tried to darn a stocking at the
+Rally. Yes, and they had helped her to be happy, for they had given her
+a purpose in life. As for the sports and activities, they had brought
+her in closer touch with nature, giving her a keener interest in things
+that had never appealed to her before. And the rules and laws, even the
+good old-timey women had all done their share in making definite those
+qualities which she now saw were necessary in order to be a success in
+life.
+
+She realized, but dimly, perhaps, that she had gotten nearer the hearts
+of these people of the workaday world, not only Helen, but Edith and
+Jessie, who were all to be wage-earners that fall, thus opening up to
+her a new avenue of hopes and desires. Wasn’t it strange how she used to
+dread the thought of having to earn her own living, and now she was
+worrying as to how she could earn more money to add to what she had
+earned already for Dick! Then a sudden thought jarred, oh, suppose Mrs.
+Van Vorst, now that Nita had become so different with her sunburned
+cheeks and merry ways from what she had been before she met the
+Pioneers, should not want her any more! Oh, well, if that should be—ah,
+they were getting into New York! She stooped and had begun to gather up
+her belongings when some one spoke to her.
+
+It was Mrs. Van Vorst, who, with her gracious little smile—how changed
+she seemed from on that morning when Nathalie had handed her the card in
+front of the library—said, “Nathalie, Nita and I are going to take a run
+up to St. Luke’s Hospital to visit that sick friend—you know the one I
+told you about, who just had an operation performed—and Nita wants you
+to go with us.”
+
+“Oh, but Mother will be waiting to see me!” exclaimed the girl blankly.
+O dear, she didn’t want to go, for she was in such a hurry to see her
+mother and Dick.
+
+“Oh, that will be all right,” nodded her friend quickly. “Mrs. Morrow
+will stop at the door, and you can tell her you will be along in the
+next train, for we shall not be long at the hospital.”
+
+Twenty minutes later the three ladies, each with a big bouquet which
+Nita had insisted upon their taking, were entering a large, bare-looking
+reception room. “Now, girls,” said Mrs. Van Vorst, “I will hurry up in
+the elevator and see how the patient is, and then perhaps you can both
+come and see him—her—” Mrs. Van Vorst’s face grew strangely red—she
+turned abruptly and hurried from the room.
+
+It was but a few moments when she was back again, and with a bright
+little nod cried, “Come, Nathalie, my friend is fine this morning, and
+very anxious to see visitors, so come along!”
+
+“I wonder why the patient wants to see me,” soliloquized the girl in
+puzzled query. “Isn’t Nita coming?” she cried aloud, seeing the girl
+standing by the window with an odd little smile on her face.
+
+“Oh, yes, later; only one at a time at present,” was the quick reply.
+
+Nathalie was still thinking how strange it seemed and how smiling Mrs.
+Van Vorst appeared, when they came to a halt in front of a door in an
+upper corridor. “Here we are,” said her companion, “now run in and see
+my friend!” She threw open the door as she spoke.
+
+Nathalie took a step forward, stared a minute with puzzled brows, and
+then with a loud cry flung herself with outstretched arms upon a figure
+standing in the center of the room, for it was Dick!
+
+“Oh, how did you get here and—” but the rest was lost, for Dick was
+hugging her and kissing her in a way that more than astonished the girl,
+for he had always declared he hated to kiss people. And then he held her
+off and with shining eyes surveyed the suntanned cheeks of Nathalie
+approvingly, as he cried, “So you’re back, Blue Robin—and—great guns, as
+fat as a porpoise, too!”
+
+“But what are you doing here?” inquired the still dazed girl slowly—“are
+you the lady?”
+
+“Lady!” echoed Dick. “I, a lady? Not on your life! What have you got
+into your head now?” he quizzed teasingly.
+
+“But Mrs. Van Vorst said I was to meet a lady—”
+
+“Oh, she was just bluffing you, that’s all,” jeered Dick. “She wanted to
+surprise you, for—” then Nathalie gave a loud scream, for Dick had begun
+to walk towards the bureau, slowly, to be sure, for his muscles were
+stiff, but he was straight as an arrow.
+
+“Oh—why, Dick, where is your cane? You’ll fall—” and then something must
+have whispered to the girl,—perhaps it was intuition for in a flash she
+seemed to know.
+
+“Dick,” she gasped, “you’ve had the operation, and you’re all right?”
+This last was in a tense whisper.
+
+“You bet I am,” returned Dick cheerily, “and in good shape, too. The
+doctor says I can go home in a week.”
+
+“But where did you get the money?” asked the girl, her eyes big with
+wonder.
+
+“From a check sent by Mrs. Van Vorst as a tribute to her little friend
+and adviser, Nathalie Page,” read Dick slowly from a letter which he had
+suddenly slipped from his pocket. As he glanced down at the girl and saw
+her staring eyes he flicked the letter before them, laughing as if to
+recall her to herself. Nathalie blinked, stepped back, and then a sudden
+light flashed into her eyes, and with a swoop of her hand she snatched
+the letter from her brother, crying, “Oh, Dick, isn’t she just the
+dearest! Oh, I’m not worth so much money, I—” Then her eyes swept the
+page before her.
+
+“No, I don’t believe you are, Blue Robin,” teased Dick smilingly. And
+then his voice grew more earnest, as he added, “Nathalie Page, you’re
+the blood, all right. You captured her heart on sight, and this is the
+result.” He started to walk slowly towards the bed, but the girl was at
+his side, for she saw that he was beginning to feel a little tired.
+
+“To be sure,” he cried apologetically as he leaned on her a little
+heavily. “I’m not a speeder just yet, but wait a bit and you’ll see me
+do a twenty-mile dash in no time.
+
+“Yes,” explained Dick, after he was resting on the bed again, and Mrs.
+Van Vorst’s kindness had been rehearsed in detail; “Mrs. Van Vorst sent
+a letter to Mother expressing her love, admiration, and all the rest of
+it, for you, and then begged to be allowed to give you this surprise.
+She said we could consider the money a loan and pay it back when we
+liked.”
+
+“Oh, was that the letter that came just before I went away, that you
+wouldn’t tell me about?”
+
+Dick nodded, and then went on, “I was brought here the day after you
+left for the Lake; operated on the day after, and have had the jolliest
+time ever since. The nurses here are O. K. I have only been permitted to
+stand on my feet the last few days, but the doctor says I’ll soon be
+walking all right. But Blue Robin, how goes it with you? I hear you’re a
+great sport since you left.”
+
+But Nathalie’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed
+presently, “when do you think we can pay Mrs. Van Vorst the money back?
+I have some, you know—” her eyes grew bright—“fifty dollars, in the
+bank!”
+
+“And I have, well, I guess I have more than that,” said the boy proudly,
+“from the various jobs I did. Oh, Nathalie, did I tell you I wrote a
+little skit and sold it to ‘Life’ for fifty dollars?”
+
+“You did?” ejaculated the girl. “Oh, I’m so glad! I always said you
+could write funny things. Well, that will make—” but at this moment she
+heard the door open. Oh, it was Mrs. Van Vorst—what should she say to
+thank her?
+
+But the question faded from her mind as with a cry of delight she sprang
+into the outstretched arms of her mother.
+
+Well, it seemed as if the three would never get through going over this
+great joy that had come into their lives! Then, too, they were all
+anxious to pay back as soon as possible Mrs. Van Vorst’s kind loan.
+
+“Well,” said Nathalie at length, “I am sure if we all work hard we can
+do it pretty soon. How much did you say it cost?”
+
+But before Dick could answer Mrs. Page cried, taking a hand of each as
+she spoke, “It will take time to be sure, but Mother is going to do her
+share, for, children, the bonds are all right, I received my interest
+yesterday, the usual six per cent.”
+
+“Oh, isn’t that just too lovely!” exclaimed Nathalie. But before she
+could say more the door opened and Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita entered, Nita
+all shyness again as she bowed stiffly to Dick, whom she had always been
+anxious to meet. And then the unexpected happened, for as Nathalie
+turned to thank her kind benefactor she burst into tears and cried as if
+her heart would break, to the dismay of every one present. Oh, what a
+fool she did make of herself, she afterwards confessed with shamed eyes
+to Helen.
+
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had been a girl herself once, and so she understood
+just how her young friend felt. She comforted Nathalie so sweetly that
+the girl fell in love with her over again, her tears dried, and she was
+soon her happy self.
+
+In a short space the good-bys were said to Dick, and the four ladies
+hurried to the taxi that was to whirl them to Westport. Of course there
+was so much to tell and talk over during the journey that it was not
+until Nathalie was undressing for bed that she heard that as soon as
+Dick was able he and her mother were to spend two weeks at Eagle Lake
+with Mrs. Van Vorst. Nathalie received this news with unfeigned joy, for
+now her mother would have a change, and then she and Dick could see what
+a lovely place the Lake was.
+
+There had been so many unexpected bits of brightness to make Nathalie
+happy that day that when she finally got into bed, although she was
+terribly tired, her brain was in such a whirl she was sure she would
+never go to sleep. But at last, with a drowsy sigh, she snuggled down on
+her pillow with the happy thought that she was so glad she had found
+that nest—of blue birds—and had become—a Girl Pioneer!
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+American Heroes and Heroines
+
+By Pauline Carrington Bouvé
+
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth $1.25 _net_
+
+This book, which will tend directly toward the making of patriotism in
+young Americans, contains some twenty brief, clever and attractive
+sketches of famous men and women in American history, among them Father
+Marquette, Anne Hutchinson, Israel Putnam, Molly Pitcher, Paul Jones,
+Dolly Madison, Daniel Boone, etc. Mrs. Bouvé is well known as a writer
+both of fiction and history, and her work in this case is admirable.
+
+  “The style of the book for simplicity and clearness of expression
+  could hardly be excelled.”—_Boston Budget._
+
+The Scarlet Patch
+
+The Story of a Patriot Boy in the Mohawk Valley
+
+By Mary E. Q. Brush Illustrated $1.25 _net_
+
+“The Scarlet Patch” was the badge of a Tory organization, and a loyal
+patriot boy, Donald Bastien, is dismayed at learning that his uncle,
+with whom he is a “bound boy,” is secretly connected with this
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+figures prominently, and there is a vivid presentation of the school and
+home life as well as the public affairs of those times.
+
+  “A book that will be most valuable to the library of the young
+  boy.”—_Providence News._
+
+Stories of Brave Old Times
+
+Some Pen Pictures of Scenes Which Took Place Previous to, or Connected
+With, the American Revolution
+
+By Helen M. Cleveland
+
+Profusely illustrated
+
+Large 12mo Cloth $1.25 _net_
+
+  “It is a book for every library, a book for adults, and a book for
+  the young. Perhaps no other book yet written sets the great cost of
+  freedom so clearly before the young, consequently is such a spur to
+  patriotism.
+
+  “It can unqualifiedly be commended as a book for youthful readers;
+  its great wealth of illustrations adding to its value.”—_Chicago
+  News._
+
+For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers,
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+A Little Maid of Boston Town
+
+By MARGARET SIDNEY
+
+12mo Cloth
+
+Illustrated by F. T. MERRILL $1.35 _net_
+
+The opening chapters introduce us to old Boston in England. Margaret
+Sidney went there in 1907 and absorbed the atmosphere of Cotton Mather’s
+“St. Botolph’s Town,” gathering for herself facts and traditions. Then
+“St. Botolph’s Town” yields its scenic effects, and the setting of the
+story is changed to Boston Town of New England.
+
+The story is absorbing, graphic, and truly delightful, carrying one
+along till it seems as if actual participation in the events had been
+the lot of the reader. The same naturalness that is so conspicuous in
+her famous “Pepper Books” marks this latest story of Margaret Sidney’s.
+She makes characters live and speak for themselves.
+
+  It is an inspiring, patriotic story for the young, and contains
+  striking and realistic pictures of the times with which it
+  deals.—_Sunday School Magazine, Nashville._
+
+  The author presents a story, but she gives a veracious picture of
+  conditions in the town of Boston during the Revolution. Parents who
+  are seeking wholesome books can place this in the front tank with
+  entire safety.—_Boston Globe._
+
+  Surely Margaret Sidney deserves the gratitude of many a child, and
+  grown-ups, too, for that matter, in telling in so charming, yet,
+  withal, so simple a manner, of these early days in this
+  country.—_Utica Observer._
+
+  A really thrilling tale of the American Revolution. Interesting for
+  both old and young.—_Minneapolis Journal._
+
+_For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., Boston
+
+
+
+
+JEAN CABOT SERIES
+
+By GERTRUDE FISHER SCOTT
+
+Illustrated by Arthur O. Scott 12mo Cloth
+
+Price, Net, $1.25 each
+
+Jean Cabot at Ashton
+
+Here is the “real thing” in a girl’s college story. Older authors can
+invent situations and supply excellently written general delineations of
+character, but all lack the vital touch of this work of a bright young
+recent graduate of a well-known college for women, who has lost none of
+the enthusiasm felt as a student. Every activity of a popular girl’s
+first year is woven into a narrative, photographic in its description of
+a life that calls into play most attractive qualities, while at the same
+time severely testing both character and ability.
+
+Jean Cabot in the British Isles
+
+This is a college story, although dealing with a summer vacation, and
+full of college spirit. It begins with a Yale-Harvard boat race at New
+London, but soon Jean and her room-mate sail for Great Britain under the
+chaperonage of Miss Hooper, a favorite member of the faculty at Ashton
+College. Their trip is full of the delight that comes to the traveler
+first seeing the countries forming “our old home.”
+
+Jean Cabot in Cap and Gown
+
+Jean Cabot is a superb young woman, physically and mentally, but
+thoroughly human and thus favored with many warm friendships. Her final
+year at Ashton College is the culmination of a course in which study,
+sport and exercise, and social matters have been well balanced.
+
+Jean Cabot at the House With the Blue Shutters
+
+Such a group as Jean and her most intimate friends could not scatter at
+once, as do most college companions after graduation, and six of them
+under the chaperonage of a married older graduate and member of the same
+sorority spend a most eventful summer in a historic farm-house in Maine.
+
+For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers
+
+
+
+
+BRAVE HEART SERIES
+
+By Adele E. Thompson
+
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth _Net_ $1.25 each
+
+Betty Seldon, Patriot
+
+A book that is at the same time fascinating and noble. Historical events
+are accurately traced leading up to the surrender of Cornwallis at
+Yorktown, with reunion and happiness for all who deserve it.
+
+Brave Heart Elizabeth
+
+It is a story of the making of the Ohio frontier, much of it taken from
+life, and the heroine one of the famous Zane family after which
+Zanesville, O., takes its name. An accurate, pleasing, and yet at times
+intensely thrilling picture of the stirring period of border settlement.
+
+A Lassie of the Isles
+
+This is the romantic story of Flora Macdonald, the lassie of Skye, who
+aided in the escape of Charles Stuart, otherwise known as the “Young
+Pretender.”
+
+Polly of the Pines
+
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+“The story and its telling are worthy of Miss Alcott. Young folks of
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+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
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+
+Project Gutenberg's Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer, by Rena I. Halsey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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+Title: Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer
+
+Author: Rena I. Halsey
+
+Illustrator: Nana French Bickford
+
+Release Date: July 26, 2011 [EBook #36846]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER ***
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+
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+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
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+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i001' id='i001'></a>
+<img src='images/illus-cvr.jpg' alt='' title=''/><br />
+</div>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-fpc' id='illus-fpc'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i002' id='i002'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-fpc.jpg" alt="“What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”" title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>“What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”</span>
+</div>
+<div class='center'>
+<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>BLUE ROBIN,</span></p>
+<p><span style='font-size:1.4em;font-weight:bold;'>THE GIRL PIONEER</span></p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p>BY</p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p><span style='font-size:1.2em;'>RENA I. HALSEY</span></p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p><em>ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD</em></p>
+</div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i003' id='i003'></a>
+<img src='images/illus-emb.png' alt='' title=''/><br />
+</div>
+<div class='center'>
+<p>BOSTON</p>
+<p>LOTHROP, LEE &amp; SHEPARD CO.</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<p>Published, March, 1917</p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p>Copyright, 1917</p>
+<p><span class='sc'>By Lothrop, Lee &amp; Shepard Co.</span></p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p><em>All rights reserved</em></p>
+<p>BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER</p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p>Norwood Press</p>
+<p>BERWICK &amp; SMITH CO.</p>
+<p>NORWOOD, MASS.</p>
+<p>U. S. A.</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<p>BLUE ROBIN THE GIRL PIONEER</p>
+<p>IS</p>
+<p>AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED</p>
+<p>TO</p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p>MISS LINA BEARD</p>
+<p>&#160;</p>
+<p>FOUNDER</p>
+<p>AND</p>
+<p>CHIEF PIONEER</p>
+<p>OF</p>
+<p>THE NATIONAL INCORPORATED</p>
+<p>ORGANIZATION OF</p>
+<p>THE GIRL PIONEERS OF AMERICA</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_1'></a>1</span></div>
+<div class='center'>
+<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>WHAT ARE “GIRL PIONEERS”?</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The first public meeting of the National Organization of
+the Girl Pioneers of America was held by the founder,
+Miss Lina Beard, in the quaint old Pioneer meeting-house
+on Broadway, in Flushing, New York, February 8, 1912.
+</p>
+<p>
+The aim of the Organization of Girl Pioneers is: To
+cultivate in girls the sterling qualities displayed by our
+early pioneer women; to create a desire in them for
+a happy, broad, and useful life and to show them how
+to attain it; to give them things to do that are interesting,
+wholesome, and that will strengthen character; and to
+develop a love for out-of-door life by showing them how
+to live it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The watchword of the Girl Pioneer is, “I Can.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The principles upon which the organization is founded
+are not simply taught as precepts, they are found and
+practiced in all the delightful activities of the movement.
+Outdoor life with its limitless avenues of interest: camping,
+trailing, woodcraft, learning to know the wild life of
+the open, its plants, its flowers, birds, common wild animals
+and insects; the stars and the meaning of the
+shadows, the use of nature’s material in handicraft; all
+these and many more are opened to the Girl Pioneer, and
+by actual contact she is finding the beauty of truth and the
+wonder of reality. By her membership in this large organization
+she is learning to be less self-centered, learning
+to work with others and for others, and to share her enjoyments
+with others. By the joyous participation in
+field-sports, and such recreation as rowing, swimming,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_2'></a>2</span>
+fishing, riding, kite-flying, stilt-walking, and the more conventional
+games, such as basket-ball, service-ball, tennis,
+and archery, she is learning to play honestly and fairly,
+and <em>is building up bodily health and strength</em> to keep pace
+with the mental and moral health that is being developed
+within her.
+</p>
+<p>
+By her indoor life, lived as truly in the pioneer spirit
+as her life in the open, she is bringing into play the faculties
+of resourcefulness, of adaptability, of thoroughness,
+and the virtue of helpful kindness. She learns to do all
+household tasks, to do them well, and to be interested in
+them. She is taught in charming ways the use of her five
+senses, and is delighted to find that she can develop them
+and consciously enjoy them. She learns to care for the
+sick and the young children; she is proud of being able to
+render “first aid” according to the latest and best
+methods; she learns how to avoid accidents as well as what
+to do in case of accidents. She has a system of signs for
+blazing the trail which belongs solely to the Girl Pioneers,
+and she learns what to do in case she is lost when camping
+or trailing. In short, the Girl Pioneer’s teaching
+makes her efficient in all fields. The mind and imagination
+of the Girl Pioneer are stimulated by true stories of
+heroism and the adventures of the early pioneers. Her
+merit badges are given the names of the women pioneers,
+including besides the early settlers those who were
+in helpful work for humanity. Her honors are shown by
+stars worn on the sleeve, which indicate the tests successfully
+passed and lead up to the final merit badge.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Girl Pioneer colors, red, white, and blue, not only
+signify that the organization is national in extent but hold
+a still further meaning for the Girl Pioneers; red
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_3'></a>3</span>
+standing for courage, white for purity, and blue for truth. The
+graceful salute symbolizes a brave heart, an honest mind,
+a resourceful hand. The motto of the Girl Pioneer is,
+“Brave, Honest, Resourceful.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The Girl Pioneers have their khaki uniform with red
+tie and red hatband, which is practical, adaptable, and
+pleasing. They have their banners, their Pioneer sign,
+their initiation, with its ceremony and membership certificate;
+their rallies, field-days, and other general meetings
+indoors and out. They have their Pioneer cheer, and each
+Band and each group has a cheer of its own. There is the
+official song which all the Pioneers sing, and there are
+songs composed by the Bands.
+</p>
+<p>
+Each Band is under the leadership of a volunteer director
+who furnishes acceptable credentials. The Band is
+composed of one group, or several groups, of from six to
+ten girls in each. The name of an American wild bird is
+chosen for the name of each group, and the Band is known
+by its number. The bird cheers of the groups are very
+breezy and inspiring.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Girl Pioneer ranks are open to all girls, and the
+work is very helpful in Sunday-schools, public schools,
+private schools, camps, and all large societies for girls,
+such as Young Women’s Christian Association, Young
+Women’s Christian Temperance Union, playgrounds,
+etc.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial
+Dames, and like organizations seek to preserve the historical
+records and objects connected with the early life
+of our country, while the Girl Pioneers seek to revive and
+perpetuate the spirit that dominated the invincible men
+and women who made our nation possible.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_4'></a>4</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The Girl Pioneer organization is governed by an Executive
+Board, of which the Chief Pioneer, Lina Beard, is the
+head. There is also a National Council composed of eminent
+and influential men and women living in various
+parts of the United States, to be called upon when needed.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Pioneer folder will be sent upon application, and
+the Manual will be sent upon receipt of price, thirty-five
+cents, and seven cents for postage. For further information
+and for literature, address:
+</p>
+<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class='sc'>Secretary&#160;of&#160;Girl&#160;Pioneers&#160;of&#160;America,</span></p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'><span class='sc'>Flushing,&#160;New&#160;York</span>.</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>FOREWORD</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>
+A few summers ago I had the pleasure of being entertained
+by several Bands of The Girl Pioneers of
+America, on the wooded shores of one of Long Island’s
+noted bays, at Camp Laff-a-Lot. As I watched these
+wholesome-looking, happy girls in their attractive uniforms,
+and saw their bright, animated faces as they
+made merry in joyous sport under God’s blue, and then
+turned to the more serious employment of making bayberry
+candles, building camp fires, gathering wildflowers
+in their study of Nature, or blazing the trail
+as they made the woodland resound to their wonderful
+imitation of bird-notes, in the various calls of their
+groups, my interest was awakened. Later, as I gathered
+with them in the red glow of their Cheer Fire and
+heard their rousing Pioneer cheer, and their inspiring
+Band songs, and saw how a love for history and the
+true meaning of patriotism was engendered, while their
+minds and imaginations were being stimulated by their
+stories of the heroism of the women Pioneers, I realized
+that as our patriotic organizations were seeking to
+honor the Founders of our Nation by preserving historical
+records and objects, these Pioneer daughters
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_5'></a>5</span>
+were seeking to revive and perpetuate the spirit that
+dominated the men and women who brought to these
+shores, the grand principles of a civilization that has
+made our Republic the greatest in the world! It was
+in recognition of the nobleness of the aims of The Girl
+Pioneers of America, as well as in appreciation of the
+worthy Founder’s efforts to bring out the best in them,
+that inspired me to set forth if only in a limited way
+these many truths, and so I was emboldened to write
+“Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer!”
+</p>
+<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'><span class='sc'>Rena I. Halsey.</span></p>
+<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'><em>Brooklyn,</em></p>
+<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'><em>January 1, 1917.</em></p>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>CONTENTS</span></p>
+</div>
+<table class='c' summary='table of contents'>
+<tr><td style='font-size:smaller'>CHAPTER</td><td></td><td style='font-size:smaller'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>I</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Nest in the Old Cedar</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chI'>11</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>II</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Her Next-door Neighbor</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chII'>27</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>III</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Girl Pioneers</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIII'>40</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Nathalie Is Asked to Become a Blue Robin</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIV'>55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>V</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Gray Stone House</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chV'>72</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Working into Harness</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVI'>90</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Mayflower Feast</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVII'>108</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>VIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Motto, “I Can”</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chVIII'>126</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>IX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Searching for Rosy</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chIX'>143</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>X</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Nathalie as the Story Lady</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chX'>159</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Princess in the Tower</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXI'>179</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Wild-flower Hike</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXII'>194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Around the Cheer Fire</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIII'>213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Overcomes</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIV'>230</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>A Chapter of Surprises</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXV'>250</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Pioneer Stunts</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVI'>270</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Liberty Banners</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVII'>289</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XVIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Princess Makes Two More Friends</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXVIII'>308</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XIX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Fagot Party</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXIX'>330</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XX</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Dutch <em>Kraeg</em></span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXX'>348</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXI</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>An Invitation</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXI'>366</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Camp Laff-a-Lot</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXII'>385</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIII</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Miss Camphelia</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIII'>403</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXIV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>The Wireless Operator</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXIV'>421</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:right; padding-right:1em;'>XXV</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:3em;'><span style='font-variant:small-caps'>Good-by to Eagle Lake</span></td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#chXXV'>438</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<p><span style='font-size:larger;'>ILLUSTRATIONS</span></p>
+</div>
+<table class='c' summary='loi'>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>“What can I do for you? Are you in pain?”</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-fpc'><em>Frontispiece</em></a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-122'>122</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>“Why, how did you get there?”</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-172'>172</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess, with a merry laugh</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-194'>194</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>The rope had broken in her grasp</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-228'>228</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>Up went two hands in pretended subjugation</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-290'>290</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-338'>338</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td valign='top' style='text-align:left; padding-right:1em;'>She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water</td><td valign='top' style='text-align:right;'><a href='#illus-436'>436</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<h1>BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER</h1>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_11'></a>11</span><a name='chI' id='chI'></a>CHAPTER I—THE NEST IN THE OLD CEDAR</h2>
+<p>
+Nathalie came running up the steps of the
+veranda her brown eyes alight with excitement
+as she cried, “Oh, Mother, what do you think?
+Down in the old cedar-tree on the lawn is a nest of
+tiny blue robins—they’re just the cutest things—do
+come and see them!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Blue robins?” quizzed her brother Dick from
+where he lay reading in the hammock. “Who ever
+heard of blue robins?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I think she means bluebirds,” ventured Mrs. Page,
+looking up from the morning paper and smiling at the
+earnest young face of her daughter. Then her eyes
+dimmed, but she winked her lashes quickly as if to restrain
+a sudden rush of tears, rose in answer to the
+note of appeal in the girl’s voice, and stepped to her
+side.
+</p>
+<p>
+A moment later they were strolling across the new-grown
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_12'></a>12</span>
+grass of the lawn, the girl of sixteen supporting
+the slender, black-gowned figure of her mother, whose
+delicate, high-bred face with its impress of recent sorrow
+defined the youthful glow of the one that smiled
+upon her so tenderly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, Mumsie, look!” whispered the girl as she
+pointed to a dark cavity in the trunk of the cedar but
+a short distance from the ground; “see, are they not
+robins?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Page’s tired eyes brightened as she watched
+with keen interest the five bobbing heads with open
+bills, turweeing in hungry clamor, “Why no, Nathalie,”
+she replied laughingly, “they are bluebirds.”
+</p>
+<p>
+At this instant they spied the mother bird as she
+flitted excitedly among the upper branches of the tree.
+Drawing her mother to one side, Nathalie whispered
+tensely, “Oh, there’s the mother bird—she wants to
+feed them! Let’s see what she will do!” Nathalie’s
+eyes sparkled expectantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was quite evident what Mrs. Bluebird was going
+to do, for she immediately jumped to the edge of the
+nest and dropped a fat, squirming worm into an open
+bill. As she poised over her nestlings she caught sight
+of the two figures under the tree. In another instant
+she had set up such a vigorous scolding that the interlopers
+were quite disturbed. Seeing, however, that
+they did not offer to molest her little ones, Mrs. Birdie
+finally subsided, cocked her head perkily on one side,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_13'></a>13</span>
+and watched them with eyes that shone like two fireflies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Father bird now came flying up with another good-sized
+wriggler in his beak, which mother bird, with
+an eye to business, hastily snatched and dropped into
+a wide-open bill.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Mother,” commented Nathalie, “do you see
+that the father bird is much the handsomer of the two,
+for he is of a deep blue color, while mother bird’s
+feathers are grayish-blue.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Her mother nodded as she answered, “Yes, and his
+beautiful coat is in striking contrast to his throat and
+breast, which are reddish-brown.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And the white feathers below,” continued Nathalie,
+with keen eyes, “look like a white apron.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But come, dear,” interposed her mother, “we must
+go back, for I hear Dick whistling—he is getting impatient—I
+promised to get him a sofa pillow for the
+hammock.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As they stepped on the veranda, Dick inquired, with
+sarcastic inflection, balancing himself on the edge of
+the hammock and pushing it to and fro with his crutch,
+“Well, how many blue robins did you find?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“We found five tiny bluebirds,” responded his
+mother with unwonted animation as she seated herself
+in a low rocker, and then she continued in lower tone
+as her daughter disappeared in quest of the pillow,
+“Oh, Dick! I am so glad to see some color in Nathalie’s
+cheeks again, for she has been looking very
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_14'></a>14</span>
+wan and pale. The poor child has not only suffered
+the loss of her father, but she has had to give up so
+many things—the very things, too, that a girl of her
+age longs for so much!” Mrs. Page sighed drearily.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Giving up college was the hardest,” added her son,
+his face expressing the sympathy he hardly knew how
+to voice; “but she’s a corker, for she has faced every
+disappointment like a little hero. I didn’t know she
+had so much pluck in her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“She takes after her father, he was always so cheerful
+about facing the inevitable—” His mother’s lips
+quivered; she paused as if to gain control of her voice
+and then resumed brokenly, “Oh, Dick, to think he
+has gone—it seems as if it could not be true—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“True enough,” retorted Dick gruffly; and then he
+added, in a softer voice, “but after all, Mother, every
+one has to have trouble. We’re having ours just now—that’s
+all—and we’ve got to bear it. Things might
+have been worse, I suppose—we’ve got enough left to
+live on—oh, if it wasn’t for this confounded knee of
+mine—to be helpless when—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hush, Dick, don’t say that,” cried his mother in
+a pained voice; “just have patience, and you will be
+all right; have patience with me, too, dear, because I
+am such a coward to allow myself to get so depressed.”
+She made a brave attempt at a smile. “It will be as
+you say, all right soon.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Hearing Nathalie’s step, she hastily hid her tear-stained
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_15'></a>15</span>
+face behind the paper; then, as that young
+woman threw the sofa pillow at Dick’s head, she exclaimed,
+“I am so glad, Nathalie, to see you take an
+interest in the new home. I think it is a lovely—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Doll’s house!” interposed the girl laughingly.
+“But, O dear, I must be careful, for when I called it
+a doll’s house while Mrs. Morton was here she looked
+rather queer, and then I remembered that her house is
+not much bigger. But do you know, Mother,” she
+rattled on girlishly, “I think we are going to be quite
+comfy in this little home—after a time of course,”
+she hastened to add, “when we have become used to
+the change—and all—” she stopped abruptly, for she,
+too, was thinking of the dear father who had gone so
+suddenly—without even saying good-by, as she had
+so often wailed in the darkness of night—leaving
+Mother with only a meager income, and with poor Dick
+to take care of, and her and Dorothy, who didn’t know
+enough to earn a penny!
+</p>
+<p>
+A sudden slam of the door was heard, a “How are
+you, Auntie?” in a sweet, assured voice, and then with
+smiling eyes a tall, graceful, young woman, with shiny,
+fluffy hair came forward and kissed her aunt
+caressingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Lucille, what do you think?” broke from
+Nathalie impetuously; “I found a nest of tiny bluebirds
+down in the old cedar-tree on the lawn!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Um-m, well, you are always finding something to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_16'></a>16</span>
+enthuse over,” remarked her cousin with careless indifference,
+“but I wish you would make that all-round
+maid of yours do my room, I want to write a letter.”
+There was spoiled impatience in the girl’s voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Page looked up with a startled expression as
+she murmured apologetically, “Oh, I forgot, Lucille.
+I will do it—I thought—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, no, Mother,” came from Nathalie hurriedly, as
+with heightened color and gentle insistence she forced
+her mother back to her seat. “I will do it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie disappeared within the door. She had
+smiled sweetly for her mother’s sake, but as she went
+up the stairs there was an upward lift to her chin that
+showed that she had a will and a temper of some
+weight. “Why is Lucille so mean,” she questioned
+mutinously, “as not to make her own bed when she
+knows that now we shall have to get along with only
+one maid? Mother is not going to wait on her!”
+Her eyes gleamed with angry decision, and then the
+curves of her mouth softened as she struggled silently
+with her jarring thoughts.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, it must be borne, for was it not a part of the
+great change that had come into her life with her first
+great sorrow? The shock of her father’s death had
+dazed her, and she had suffered in a dulled, uncomprehending
+way until she was aroused from her grief by
+the many anxieties and disappointing changes that the
+financial tangle of her father’s affairs had caused.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_17'></a>17</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Leaving their beautiful city home, giving up the
+many luxuries and the pleasures to which she had been
+accustomed, parting from her school friends, and coming
+to the unknown suburban town were bitter disappointments;
+the one that cut the deepest was giving
+up college, but the hardest to bear was Dick’s accident!
+</p>
+<p>
+The next moment the girl was hard at work picking
+up Lucille’s disordered room, humming cheerily as she
+went about her task, for, after all, her cousin was independent—she
+paid her board—and now they would
+need every penny.
+</p>
+<p>
+A resolute will and deft fingers can accomplish much
+in this workaday world, and so Nathalie soon finished
+her new job, as she called it, and sat on the veranda
+watching the robins as they hopped nimbly over the
+lawn, ducking their heads every minute or so to reappear
+with fat, dangling worms in their beaks.
+</p>
+<p>
+Their cheerful twitter, the budding leaves on trees
+and bushes, and the many reminders of the revival of
+life under the warmth and glow of the spring sunshine
+thrilled her with exhilaration. Her depression vanished,
+she felt happy again, but vaguely perhaps,
+scarcely comprehending that the buoyancy of youth
+and the joy of life were compensations that dulled the
+harrowing edge of grief.
+</p>
+<p>
+With a long breath, as if to capture as much as possible
+of the spring balminess, Nathalie turned to see
+her mother seated in the low chair, with her basket of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_18'></a>18</span>
+mending, wearing the same dazed, worried look on her
+face that had haunted the girl ever since their sorrow.
+She became keenly aware that her tireless mother, who
+had always stood ready to do the thousand and one
+things that were constantly calling her, was failing.
+Something swelled up in her throat, she fought
+valiantly a moment, and then jumping up, she grabbed
+the half-darned sock from her mother’s hand, pitched
+it into the basket, picked it up and carried it over to
+her chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, Mumsie,” she declared in answer to her
+mother’s startled look, “you are not to darn any more
+stockings; henceforth your humble servant is to be
+the champion mender.” Nathalie’s cheeks flushed, for
+as she raised her eyes she encountered those of a young
+girl about her own age who was just coming out of the
+adjoining house.
+</p>
+<p>
+As her neighbor saw Nathalie, she smiled a cheery
+good-morning, showing a row of strong, white teeth,
+and then strode down the walk with the light step and
+easy swing of the athletic girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Huh! what a queer rig,” commented Lucille, with
+a supercilious raising of her eyebrows, as she noted
+that the girl wore a short brown khaki skirt over
+bloomers, a middy with a Turkey red tie, and a broad-brimmed
+hat banded with red. “Is that the Salvation
+Army’s summer apparel?” Then seeing that the girl
+carried a strong staff in her hand, she added with a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_19'></a>19</span>
+giggle, “Or perhaps she is some aspiring member of
+the militants.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, I think the uniform—for I presume it is
+that—” interposed Mrs. Page, “is very attractive, and
+most appropriate for a Girl Pioneer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Mother, how do you know she is a Girl
+Pioneer?” questioned Nathalie with mild amazement.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah, I forgot to tell you that her mother, Mrs.
+Dame, called the day you were out walking. She told
+me that Helen, her only daughter, belongs to ‘The
+Girl Pioneers of America.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Girl Pioneers of America!” repeated her
+daughter; “why, I never heard of them. Is it a patriotic
+society?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“In a way I presume it is,” returned her mother,
+“as it is an organization which trains girls to emulate
+the sterling qualities of the early pioneer women.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I wonder what they do, and if it is anything like
+the Boy Scouts!” continued Nathalie interestedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I think from what Mrs. Dame told me that it must
+be a sister society to that organization, for its object
+is to awaken within the girls a desire for healthy, outdoor
+activities, as well as a broad and useful life along
+many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are
+so shallow and artificial-looking, and have no higher
+thought than getting all the pleasure they can out of
+life, that it is something which is sadly needed.” Mrs.
+Page’s tones were expressive.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_20'></a>20</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Aunt Mary,” demurred Lucille, looking up
+with a frown from her novel, “one would think that
+you expected girls to dress and act like their grandmothers.
+I am sure one can be young but once, and
+if one doesn’t have a good time then, what’s the use of
+living? And for putting a little color on one’s face,
+why, the most fashionable people do it nowadays.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Page’s face flushed slightly, but she replied with
+quiet dignity, “I am surprised, Lucille, to hear you
+talk that way, brought up as you have been, too. It
+is true,” she continued, “that there is no harm in
+wanting a good time—as you call it—that is youth’s
+privilege, and no one wishes to turn youth into age, but
+back of it all there should be common sense and a desire
+for right living. As for putting artificial color on
+a face that should represent the freshness and the
+natural bloom of youth, why, to me it is demoralizing.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Lucille frowned impatiently and resumed her reading.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mrs. Dame,” continued her aunt, turning towards
+Nathalie, “said her daughter Helen was coming in to
+call on you; she will probably give you all the information
+you want about the new organization. I hope you
+will like her, dear, for she seems a pleasant, well-bred
+girl and surely will prove companionable to you. We
+might as well, all of us, try to forget our city life with
+its past pleasures, and see if we cannot adapt ourselves
+to our surroundings.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_21'></a>21</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed I will try, Mumsie,” replied Nathalie with
+a slight catch in her voice, as her thoughts turned back
+to her chums in the city, and she wondered what they
+would think of her humble little home. “But really,
+Mother,” she spoke aloud, “I think Miss Dame has
+an awfully bright face, and I wish she would call, for I
+should like to know about the Girl Pioneers.”
+</p>
+<p>
+A few days after the finding of the bluebird’s nest,
+Nathalie, enlivened by the desire to investigate her surroundings,
+and curious for new experiences, set forth
+on a little exploring tour to the woods on the outskirts
+of the town. She had tried to induce her cousin to
+join her, but that young lady was absorbed in running
+over a new ragtime song. Her sister Dorothy, aged
+twelve, had also declined on the score that she had an
+engagement with a girl neighbor who lived in the big
+house down the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+Sunshine and youth are joy-bearers, and as Nathalie
+felt the air in fragrant little whiffs against her
+cheeks, she thrilled with pleasure as she strode briskly
+up the hill. A moment later, however, her shining
+eyes shadowed, and she unconsciously shivered as she
+encountered a cold glance from a lady, weirdly garbed
+in gray, who was just passing.
+</p>
+<p>
+The color flashed to her cheeks; she felt as if some
+one had slapped her as the haunting vision of that uncanny
+stare of aversion from two steely-gray eyes
+penetrated her consciousness. Tempted by curiosity
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_22'></a>22</span>
+she turned and watched the peculiar-looking figure as
+it glided with almost specter-like swiftness down the
+hill.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I wonder who she is and why she gave me such a
+harrowing glance,” thought Nathalie. “Whew! she
+has frozen me stiff,” and then a laugh brightened the
+brown eyes as she continued on her way. She had
+almost reached the top of the hill when she saw a large
+brown card on the walk. Picking it up she read,
+“Westport Library,” and then the written name,
+“Elizabeth Van Vorst.” Not a great loss, to be sure,
+but likely to cause inconvenience.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I wonder if that lady didn’t drop it, she had
+a book under her arm,” flashed into the girl’s mind.
+She hesitated—she did not want to climb that long
+hill again—but the next second she had whirled about
+and was running lightly down the slope in the direction
+of a Carnegie building that glimmered picturesquely
+between green-boughed trees.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” panted Nathalie as she
+held out the card to the gray lady who had just emerged
+from the library and was looking vexedly about on
+the walk in front of the building, “did you not lose
+your library card?”
+</p>
+<p>
+The lady turned sharply, stared suspiciously at the
+girl a moment, and then, as her eyes fell upon the extended
+card, exclaimed coldly, “Oh, did you find it?
+Thank you, I am much obliged!” With a haughty
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_23'></a>23</span>
+glance of dismissal she turned and ascended the library
+steps.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s eyes gleamed angrily, but with a toss of
+her head she was off on her second trudge up the slope.
+“Well, she is the limit—” she muttered. “Of all
+hateful, disagreeable, peculiar, mysterious creatures, she
+takes first rank.” But when the girl reached the woods
+where the new-gowned trees and the white blossoms of
+the dogwood, which she had spied the day before, riding
+in a trolley car, rustled softly in the sunlight, as if in
+a spring greeting to the flower-seeker, the unpleasant
+incident was forgotten.
+</p>
+<p>
+With eager eyes and cheeks aglow she began to break
+off a sprig here and there, lingering only to caress the
+snowy petals that tantalizingly brushed her cheek.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What a beauty!” she exclaimed as she suddenly
+halted; “it will be just the spray to sketch.” Up went
+her arm—a little higher—and then something went
+from under her; she tried to regain her footing, but
+slipped again on the moist turf. She felt her foot turn,
+and then came a sharp twinge that whitened her lips as
+she dropped, a helpless heap, on the ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+For a few moments the girl forgot her dogwood blossoms,
+the slip, and the pain, and then she opened her
+eyes to realize, with a pang of dismay, that she must
+have fainted. Oh, she must have twisted her ankle,
+for when she tried to stand she almost screamed with
+the knife-like twinges.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_24'></a>24</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+She leaned her head against the tree with closed
+eyes, trying to think, but her thoughts seemed to run
+around in a circle, for she could see no way out of her
+dilemma. She was too far from the trolley line to
+hail a car, or to beckon to any passer-by who might
+be on the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+She thought ruefully of how worried her mother
+would be if she did not return before dark. And who
+was there to look for her? Dick was helpless with
+his crutch, Dorothy would not be home until late, and
+Lucille—well, whoever heard of Lucille ever doing
+anything for any one but herself?
+</p>
+<p>
+She screamed, but when her voice rang out with
+reverberating shrillness she clapped her hands to her
+ears. She would sing; and her fresh young voice
+broke forth into ragtime song.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the ragtime quivered pathetically into a half-wail.
+What should she do? At last in sheer desperation
+she began to sing hymns; but they sounded
+so doleful in her nervous state that she desisted with a
+sound that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was
+about to embrace resignation to fate when she caught
+the glimmer of a brown skirt between the low-hung
+branches of the trees near by. In a moment there
+was a sharp crack of a twig, and Nathalie with a sudden
+exclamation of joy saw a young girl coming quickly
+toward her, wearing the same kind of a brown uniform
+she had perceived on her neighbor a few days ago.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_25'></a>25</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, are you hurt?” asked the girl quickly, as she
+saw Nathalie’s white face resting against the tree.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, attempting to smile, told of her mishap,
+and then with widening eyes saw the girl run a few
+steps into the open. Then the short, staccato whistle
+of Bob White struck the air.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was hardly a moment when, in response to this
+bird-call, several girls appeared in the opening beyond.
+A few hurried words with the girl who had signaled
+them, and they were around Nathalie, listening to the
+story of her accident.
+</p>
+<p>
+After expressing their sympathy, two of the taller
+girls quickly slipped off their khaki skirts, unbuttoned
+them, and then, to the injured one’s amazement, one
+of the girls pushed her staff through the belt of one
+skirt and hem of the other, while her companion did
+the same with her staff. They were improvising a
+stretcher, as neat and comfortable-looking as if it had
+just been removed from an ambulance.
+</p>
+<p>
+While the stretcher was being made, one of the girls
+had taken from her knapsack a small black case from
+which she extracted a bottle. Hastily kneeling on the
+ground, after Nathalie’s boot had been removed by her
+assistant, she bathed the injured foot, then, as her companion
+handed her a roll of white lint she bound it with
+a cotton compress, while Nathalie, with much curiosity,
+watched her as she quickly and skillfully performed
+the work of First Aid to the Injured. As she rose to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_26'></a>26</span>
+her feet and turned to direct her companions in the
+lifting of her patient on the stretcher, Nathalie recognized
+her next-door neighbor, Helen Dame, the Girl
+Pioneer!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_27'></a>27</span><a name='chII' id='chII'></a>CHAPTER II—HER NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR</h2>
+<p>
+If Nathalie was surprised at the deftness and resourcefulness
+of these Girl Pioneers, she was
+amazed at the ease and comfort she experienced
+as the four girls strode forward, two at the head and
+two at the foot of the improvised stretcher.
+</p>
+<p>
+Notwithstanding the sharp twinges in her foot, she
+felt as if she could have dropped into a doze if a sudden,
+jarring thought had not caused her to raise her
+head in search of her next-door neighbor. By the decision
+of her voice and her methodical manner of directing
+her companions as they prepared the “bed of
+ease,” Nathalie had recognized this girl as the leader.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Helen Dame was not to be seen. One of the
+girls, however, on seeing Nathalie’s movement, commanded
+a halt and hastened to her side. “What can I
+do for you?” she inquired in an anxious tone. “Are
+you in pain?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Her ready sympathy brought the tears to Nathalie’s
+eyes, for her nerves were somewhat under a strain, but
+she fought them bravely back, and looking up with a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_28'></a>28</span>
+reassuring smile replied, “Oh no, I am all right, but
+I was looking for Miss Dame. I am afraid if Mother
+sees me on a stretcher, she will think something very
+dreadful has happened.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah, Helen thought of that,” was the quick reply,
+“and she has gone ahead to tell your mother that you
+have only hurt your foot, and to see if she can get Dr.
+Morrow to come over and look at it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, how kind of her—and of you all—” there
+was a slight tremor in Nathalie’s voice. “I am sure
+I do not know what would have become of me, alone
+there in the woods, if you girls had not come to my
+rescue.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girls walked slowly on with their burden,
+the one walking by the side of the stretcher told Nathalie
+that they were a group of Girl Pioneers, that they
+had been on a hike, and that her name was Grace Tyson.
+As they chatted pleasantly, Nathalie told of her
+recent removal from the city to Westport. With wise
+forethought she suppressed all mention of her former
+wealth and the many luxuries she had been used to,
+for fear that these suburban girls, not comprehending,
+might misjudge her and think that she considered herself
+above them. She had learned from the girls of
+her own set in school that when a newcomer took particular
+care to advise them how rich she was, her mates
+usually dubbed her a snob. So she only told of her
+great loss in the death of her father, how Dick, her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_29'></a>29</span>
+older brother, had injured his knee in an accident and
+was an invalid, and how she liked her new home.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the companionship of this new girl she scarcely
+realized how quickly the time had passed until she saw
+her mother’s anxious face bending over her, and heard
+a masculine voice say, “Well, is this the young lady
+who reached too high?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie looked quickly up and immediately her heart
+went out to this big, bluff man with iron-gray hair and
+kindly blue eyes who picked her up as if she had been
+a manikin, carried her into the hall, and laid her on the
+couch. She recognized the face of the doctor who
+lived on the opposite corner whom she had often envied
+as he went chugging down the street in his automobile.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the doctor had pressed her foot here and there
+with a touch as soft as silk from the gentleness of
+trained fingers, he brought forth some surgical plaster
+from a black case, and strapped the injured member,
+remarking as he did so on the surgeon-like way in
+which Miss Dame had bandaged it.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the “exam,” as Dick called it, was over, the
+doctor explained the case as a few strained ligaments,
+and said that with care his patient would be able to
+walk in about a week.
+</p>
+<p>
+“A week?” sprang from the young girl involuntarily.
+Dismay shone in her eyes, but the doctor, with
+a fatherly pat, assured her that she had great cause
+for gratitude, as it might have been much worse.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_30'></a>30</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“The next time you go to gather dogwood blossoms,
+young lady,” he advised jovially, “wear rubber heels,
+and then you won’t slip on stones.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As the doctor bade her good afternoon, promising to
+come again in a few days to see how the foot was
+progressing, Nathalie thought of her rescuers, and
+raising her head peered anxiously around.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The girls have gone, but they left a good-by for
+you,” her mother answered to her look of inquiry,
+“and Miss Dame says she will be in to-morrow to see
+how you are.”
+</p>
+<p>
+By to-morrow Nathalie had begun to think it was not
+at all unpleasant to be a short-time invalid, and she
+jokingly requested her mother to see that her head was
+not screwed around from sheer conceit at being the
+recipient of so much attention.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow, the doctor’s young wife, had sent her
+a beautiful bunch of yellow daffodils from the very
+garden that Nathalie had been admiring all the week,
+while the little, silver-haired old lady next door—Nathalie
+could have hugged her, she looked so grand-motherly—had
+sent her a snow-frosted nut-cake.
+Lucille—an unheard-of thing—had condescended to
+alight from her pedestal of self and had played and
+sung Nathalie’s favorite selections all the morning.
+Even Dorothy, whose engagement book was always
+brimming over, had darned stockings for her. Of
+course, Nathalie knew that she would have to rip out
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_31'></a>31</span>
+every stitch, but that was the child’s way of showing
+that she, too, wanted to be sympathetic and kind.
+</p>
+<p>
+The success of the day, however, was when Helen
+Dame’s dark eyes smiled at her from the adjoining
+porch, and she asked if Nathalie felt like chatting for
+a while.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed I do,” answered Nathalie animatedly, “I
+have been just dying to talk with you ever since you
+were so kind.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, how sweet you look!” exclaimed Helen a few
+moments later as she shook hands with the patient,
+“with your pink ribbons—just the color of your
+cheeks.” For the girl’s color had deepened as her
+visitor laid a bunch of violets on her lap. “These are
+from the girls, the Girl Pioneers—that is our Pioneer
+song,” she added laughingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I just love violets!” Nathalie sniffed at the purple
+petals. “And the girls, do you mean the ones who
+so kindly came to my aid the other day? Oh, Miss
+Dame, I hardly know how to express my appreciation
+of your kindness,” her voice trembled slightly, “in
+hurrying home to tell Mother.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that was nothing,” replied Helen with assumed
+indifference, although her eyes darkened in appreciation
+of Nathalie’s gratefulness, “that was only courtesy;
+you know we are Girl Pioneers, and kindness is
+one of the laws of the organization.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you know,” Nathalie broke in impulsively,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_32'></a>32</span>
+“Mother thinks the girls very clever in making that
+stretcher; do tell me about the Girl Pioneers!” She
+hesitated for a moment. “Perhaps I am very ignorant,
+but I never heard of them until your mother
+told mine that you were a Girl Pioneer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen laughed with a gratified gleam in her eyes.
+“Oh, Mother!—she thinks it just the dandiest thing
+going. Mrs. Morrow, our Director, introduced the
+movement here. The founder is a friend of hers, so
+she is steeped to her finger-tips with it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“She started me going—enthusiasm is contagious,
+you know—and I organized the first group. A group
+means six or eight girls; several groups form what is
+called a band.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you mean Mrs. Morrow, the doctor’s wife?”
+inquired her companion. “She must be lovely, for she
+looks so pretty flitting about the garden,” turning wistful
+eyes toward the corner house with its flower beds
+and green lawn. “I often watch her from my
+window.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, she is a dear,” assented Helen, “and we girls
+adore her. Have you seen the twins?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The kiddies who go about in khaki uniforms and
+carry little poles.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, baby Boy Scouts. You should hear them
+call themselves ‘the twims’; they both lisp. But there,
+I must tell you about the Pioneers—but I don’t want
+to tire you,” she paused abruptly, “for Mother says
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_33'></a>33</span>
+there is no end to me when I get talking on that
+subject.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I want to hear about them!” pleaded Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, after I organized the group, the girls elected
+me leader, and Grace Tyson—that’s the girl who
+walked beside you coming home—my assistant. You
+see every group has to have a leader and an assistant
+from the group, and then when a band is formed there
+is a Director. Any one over twenty-one years of age
+can be a Director. After we formed our group, we
+had to get busy and qualify.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Qualify?” repeated her hostess, “that sounds big.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, every Girl Pioneer has to qualify, that is to
+pass several tests to prove that she is competent to do
+the work. It is no end of fun training a girl to qualify,
+for you know she has to recite the Girl Pioneer pledge,
+and the Pioneer laws; she must give the names of the
+President and Vice-President of the United States,
+the name of the Governor of the State in which she
+lives, and then tell all about our country’s flag. She
+must know how to sew a button on properly,” Helen
+made a grimace, “to tie a square knot and to do several
+other things. After a girl has passed these tests,
+she becomes a third-class Pioneer; then after a month
+she can qualify for a second-class Pioneer, and finally
+for a first-class Pioneer. We can win merit badges,
+too, for proficiency in certain lines. Yes, you are
+right, it is a big thing to be a Girl Pioneer, for every
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_34'></a>34</span>
+true Pioneer’s aim is to be courageous, resourceful, and
+upright, under all circumstances and in all emergencies.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You know, we have to pledge ourselves to speak
+the truth at all times, to be honest in all things, and to
+obey the Pioneer law.” Helen’s face grew serious.
+“Yes, and our laws mean something, too, for they
+stand for the doing of things that are worth while,
+the things that develop nobility of character, for, as
+Mrs. Morrow tells us, it is character that makes the
+great men and women of the world.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But don’t think we are serious all the time,” she
+continued, her eyes brightening, “for we have heaps
+of fun. We take hikes; sometimes just a group go
+with their leader, but generally our Director takes the
+band. On these hikes we study woodcraft; that means
+we study the birds, their habits, and learn to know their
+songs and call-notes. We gather wild flowers, ferns,
+and grasses, and each girl reads up about the particular
+thing she finds and passes the information along. We
+study the trees, and the animals also by tracking their
+footmarks—well, to sum it all up, we study nature
+from growing things and living creatures.
+</p>
+<p>
+“To read about things in a book is all right, Mrs.
+Morrow says, as it is helpful in identification and suggestion,
+but we strive to know things through personal
+experience. We are taught to find nature, too, in the
+crowded cities. That’s big, isn’t it?”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_35'></a>35</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Big!” echoed Nathalie, “the word <em>big</em> isn’t big
+enough to express it. I should say it meant—well”—she
+held out her arms, “the universe.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something so responsive in her words and
+attitude, although they did not exactly express what
+she meant to convey, that Helen, with almost boyish
+frankness, held out her hand, crying, “Good! let’s
+shake. You are simply immense, Miss Page, or, in
+the words of our old French professor at school, ‘you—haf—much
+com—pree—henshun!’” This was
+said in mimic tone with laughing eyes, a shrug of the
+shoulders, and with outspread hands.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We have indoor rallies, or Pioneer circles, also,
+Miss Page, when our Director gives us delightful little
+talks on ethical culture,—only ten minutes—” she
+pleaded laughingly, “also on history, astronomy,—we
+call them our star talks,—and other instructive
+subjects.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You will be surprised, perhaps, but these talks are
+very interesting, not at all tiresome. The girls listen
+with all their ears and we learn an awful lot. One reason
+is that Mrs. Morrow loves young girls—for you
+see, she isn’t so very much older than we are—and
+she knows just how to talk to us, so that we don’t feel
+as if we were being preached at, or having wisdom
+jammed down our throats. It is just dramatizing serious
+things through play, so as to make us remember
+them as well as entertaining us. Then we have spelling-contests,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_36'></a>36</span>
+cooking-matches,—I call them trials by
+fire,—sewing-bees, and all sorts of old-fashioned
+things.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But you have outdoor sports, too, do you not?”
+asked her listener, who was intensely interested.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed we do, any number of them: swimming,
+horseback-riding, rowing, canoeing, basket-ball, tennis,
+dancing, stilt-walking,—we make our own stilts,—kite-flying,—and
+we make our own kites, too. In
+fact, we do just about everything that stands for healthful
+recreation and wholesome fun. Isn’t that comprehensive
+enough?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“How did you come to take the name ‘Pioneer’?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, you see it was this way; as the Boy Scouts
+strive to imitate the chivalry and higher qualities of the
+knights of olden times, so we, their sister organization,
+endeavor to emulate the sterling qualities of the early
+pioneer women. They learned to be courageous, resourceful,
+and efficient, as the home-makers of the
+brave men who founded this Republic—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you mean the wives of the Puritans and
+Pilgrims?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, we mean all those women, North, East, South,
+and West,” Helen declared smilingly, “who helped
+their good men to build homes in the wilderness, who
+mothered their children with Spartan-like denial, and
+who—yes, who knew how to handle an old flintlock
+when they heard the cry of the Indian. Oh, no, I’m
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_37'></a>37</span>
+not originating, I am only an echo of Mrs. Morrow,
+who is way up on Colonial history.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Pioneer Girls,” she continued more seriously,
+“aim, by imitating the many qualities of these splendid
+women, to be worthy wives and mothers. Who
+knows?” she broke into a laugh, “the Girl Pioneers
+may be the mothers of men like Washington, Lincoln—O
+dear,” she stopped suddenly, “I am talking as if
+I had to speed a thousand words a minute!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, go on!” cried Nathalie, inspired by her guest’s
+fervency, “I just love to hear you talk.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is very good of you to say that,” declared Helen
+with a slight blush, “but I am almost ‘at the finish,’
+as the boys say. But I must not forget to tell you that
+we love to gather around the open fire, cheer fires we
+call them, and tell stories. We generally try to make
+them stories about the pioneers, or heroic women, and
+sometimes we run in a story about some brave kiddie,
+for you know almost every one loves to hear about
+brave little children. Ah, that reminds me, did you
+ever hear about Mary Chilton? She was a real pioneer
+girl you know, for she came over with the Pilgrims.”
+Helen nodded her head impressively.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I have read about Lola Standish, and I believe—yes—I
+saw her sampler once, and I am quite
+up on all the points of Priscilla’s courtship, but—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Who isn’t?” replied Miss Dame, “for she was a
+dear. Mary Chilton was a friend of hers. Why,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_38'></a>38</span>
+don’t you remember she was the girl who made the bet
+with John Alden—slow old John—that when the
+little shallop struck Plymouth Rock (of course they
+never dreamed that they were going to make that old
+rock immortal) that she would jump on the rock first;
+and sure enough she did manage to land a second or
+so before John Alden.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, the Girl Pioneers aim high,” declared Nathalie,
+“and I certainly think they must be worthwhile
+girls. I shall love to meet your Pioneer friends—they
+cheered me up—” she added, “for they made
+me think of the girls at school, especially Grace Tyson.
+Why, she is so much like my chum that it almost seemed
+as if I were talking to her the other day! Your friends
+all have such happy faces, and ‘it is such a relief to see
+good red cheeks as made by Mother Nature,’ as Mother
+says. Some of the girls one sees in the cities nowadays
+have such a made-up appearance, especially those on
+the avenue Saturday afternoons in New York.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, they have regular clown faces with their
+splashes of red, and their powdered noses,” returned
+her neighbor laughingly. “I always feel as if I
+wanted to tell them they had forgotten to rub the flour
+off. It doesn’t seem possible that any well-bred girl
+could think she looks nice all dabbed up in that way.
+But there, I am tiring you,” she added hastily, “so I
+am going to say good-by. Oh, I came very near forgetting
+to ask if you would like to have the girls call on
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_39'></a>39</span>
+you—I mean the girls of our group?” she hesitated.
+“I think you would like them, although they may not
+be as fashionable as your city friends.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but they are the kind of girls I like,” protested
+Nathalie hurriedly, “for I do not care for girls who
+are nothing but fuss and feathers. Please do bring
+your friends, for I know I shall like them, and then, too,
+they may tell me more about the good times you have.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed they will,” said Helen with decision; “they
+will be only too pleased. When shall we come, will
+Thursday be a good day for you?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, indeed; I shall be here—still in this old chair
+I presume; I shall watch for them with great impatience,
+for you know,” she added a little sadly, “they
+remind me of my schoolmates in the city. Oh, I have
+missed them dreadfully! Now, be sure to come—all
+of you!”
+</p>
+<p>
+She rose in her chair to wave a good-by to her new
+friend, who, as she reached the gate, had turned and
+waved her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie sank back in her chair with tear-dimmed
+eyes, for somehow that friendly salute had brought it
+all back—the faces of her merry comrades, and the
+happy care-free hours they had spent together. She
+swallowed hard, for Helen had waved her hand just
+the way the girls used to do when they came in afternoons
+for a chatty little visit, and then hurried away
+with just such a parting salute.
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_40'></a>40</span><a name='chIII' id='chIII'></a>CHAPTER III—GIRL PIONEERS</h2>
+<p>
+“Oh, I wish you would tell me something about
+your school life in New York,” begged
+Helen wistfully; “I had a friend who used
+to go to one of the high schools. I hear they are very
+fine.”
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Thursday, the day the Girl Pioneers were to
+call on Nathalie, and Helen Dame had run over a few
+moments before their arrival to have a short chat with
+her new friend.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh—I,” Nathalie hesitated with rising color, “I
+did not go to high school. Yes, I know they are very
+fine, but I attended a private school kept by Madame
+Chemidlin.”
+</p>
+<p>
+An “oh!” escaped Helen involuntarily, as her eyes
+gloomed a little, but her companion plunged recklessly
+on.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is considered one of the finest schools in the city,
+because, well, for one thing, Madame is adorable, her
+father was one of the nobility, a political refugee from
+France, and then because the girls who attend come
+from the best families in New York. They were just
+dears—” with a sigh of regret—“Nellie Blinton, she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_41'></a>41</span>
+was my chummiest chum, she’s the one I told you Miss
+Tyson reminded me of, she has the same kind of a
+face as Nell, with big, dark eyes and the same gentle,
+ladylike way about her that my friend has.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Then there was Puss Davidson, she’s awfully
+clever. She writes stories, and last year won a gold
+medal from St. Nicholas. She was Valedictorian
+of our class last Spring. You know I graduated then,
+but took a post-graduate course last winter and expected
+to enter college this fall, but now, of course,
+things are different.” She spoke a little sadly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen could not help feeling somewhat disappointed
+as she heard about these rich schoolmates of Nathalie’s;
+she had taken a great liking to this girl with the daintily
+colored face with its rounding curves, lighted by eyes
+that held you captive with their frank, direct gaze.
+Although bright and clever-looking, this Girl Pioneer
+possessed no claim to beauty, for, as she ruefully commented
+at times, she had a nose with a knob on it.
+For that reason, perhaps, being free from that enviousness
+that characterizes so many girls, she was a beauty-lover.
+Too often she had made friends with girls just
+because they appealed to her love for the beautiful,
+only to realize when it was too late that good looks do
+not always mean pleasing traits of character. In fact,
+Helen was somewhat tired of being disappointed, and
+had vowed to her mother that she was never again
+going to care for a pretty girl. She was not sure that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_42'></a>42</span>
+Nathalie was a real beauty, but surely, with her lovely
+brown eyes and the gracious little way she had, not at
+all self-conscious, but just real “self,” she was in a
+fair way to become very popular with the girls.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her eyes clouded momentarily and something caused
+an unpleasant jar. No, she was not jealous of Nathalie,
+for she was willing to have her know and be
+liked by the other girls, but as she had been the first
+one to know her, she wanted to be her special friend.
+But then if she had always had so many high-toned
+schoolmates, perhaps she would not care to be a friend
+to a girl who was learning to be a wage-earner. Helen
+had always felt proud to think that some day she could
+be ranked among that class of highly regarded women,
+but would Nathalie think as she did?
+</p>
+<p>
+There was something so straightforward, however,
+so honest, about Nathalie as she went on and told of
+her studies, her friends, and a few of the incidents in
+her school life in the big city, that Helen forgot her
+fears, and was compelled to believe that she would be
+doing her an injustice in fearing that she would choose
+her companions for what they had and not for what
+they were.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, here they come!” cried Nathalie at this moment
+as she caught a glimpse of a group of girls in
+brown uniforms coming down the street. She half
+rose from her chair and with sparkling eyes watched
+them as they came, a dozen or more, perhaps, up the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_43'></a>43</span>
+steps of the veranda. In another second her eyes grew
+big as she saw each girl’s hand placed quickly over her
+heart, then up to her forehead, and lastly held with open
+palm at a level with the right shoulder. It was the
+Girl Pioneers’ salute to their leader, for Helen with a
+sudden straightening of the shoulders had responded
+to the greeting with a similar movement.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie had already stepped forward, leaning on
+Dick’s crutch,—he had been relegated to the couch in
+the hall,—and was crying, as her color came and went
+in pink flushes, “Oh, I am so glad to see you!” extending
+her hand to the foremost girl, Grace Tyson. “I
+think it’s just lovely for you all to come to see me!”
+nodding towards the rest of the group, with eyes that
+attested the cordiality of her welcome. She stopped
+abruptly, for the girls had broken forth into
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Come,&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer,&nbsp;&nbsp;G-i-r-l&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neer!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+“And a cheer for our hostess!” added Grace Tyson,
+lifting up her hand as she faced her companions.
+Before Nathalie could catch her breath there came another
+ringing cheer as each girl with smiling eyes
+shouted,
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer&nbsp;&nbsp;for&nbsp;&nbsp;Nathalie&nbsp;&nbsp;dear!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neer!&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neer!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+If Nathalie’s color had been going and coming, it
+now flooded her face as she laughingly held out her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_44'></a>44</span>
+hand to each one in turn, giving a soft little squeeze
+that made each girl vote her a comrade.
+</p>
+<p>
+Grace and Helen now led Nathalie back to her chair,
+somewhat solicitous as to the sprained foot; but she
+laughingly assured them that she was all right. Then
+with animated eyes she bowed and smiled as Helen,
+who was spokesman for the group, began to introduce
+each one of the Pioneers in turn, in an offhand, half
+quizzing way that relieved the formality of the ceremony.
+</p>
+<p>
+“This is Miss Jessie Ford, our literary scribe and
+Editor-in-chief of ‘The Pioneer,’ a penny newspaper
+issued monthly, devoted to the news and doings of the
+Girl Pioneers.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Jessie, a wholesome-looking girl with golden hair
+worn in a coronet braid, and with bright, keen eyes,
+shook hands pleasantly, half smiling at the words of
+their leader. “Yes, she is clever, our Jess, and progressive,
+too,” went on Helen, her eyes twinkling,
+“which means a lot in these times.” There was the
+suspicion of laughter in her tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+“That she’s progressive can’t be denied,” interposed
+Grace Tyson laughingly, “for when we had a Pioneer
+party a short time ago, Jess wasn’t going to be outdone
+by any newspaper reporter and wrote a detailed description
+of each girl’s costume and sent it to the ‘Town
+Journal.’ The paper appeared the afternoon of the
+‘come-off,’ one of the girls saw the article, and suggested
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_45'></a>45</span>
+as a joke that we all change costumes. O dear,
+what a laugh we had on Jess!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Jessie, however, only smiled at all of this chaffing,
+as if proud of this proof of her alertness and
+stepped to one side.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And this bluebird—oh, Miss Page did I tell you
+that each Pioneer group is named after a bird, and that
+ours is the Bluebird Group?” Helen had forgotten
+her teasing tone in her eagerness to impart this information.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What a pretty idea,” responded Nathalie, “and
+bluebird, the name of your group!” thinking of the nest
+of bluebirds she had found down in the old cedar.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen nodded with pleasure and then said, “This
+is Miss Kitty Corwin; we call her our pot-boiler—that
+means that Kitty always manages to keep the pot boiling
+not only by holding up her end of the line, but all
+the other ends, too, when the derelict Girl Pioneers forget
+to do so.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And you might say she always carries all the pots
+and pans, too, when there’s a hike,” interposed the newcomer,
+with a nervous laugh. She was an awkward-looking
+girl about fourteen, all arms and elbows, but
+with a rather winsome face lighted by big, serious eyes.
+There was such nervous activity about her grip as she
+yanked Nathalie’s hand like a pump-handle that that
+young lady had no doubts as to her surplus energy.
+As Kitty tried to make her escape there was a suppressed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_46'></a>46</span>
+howl, and then a twitter, for alas, she had
+backed into one of her companions with such force
+that the victim almost lost her balance.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls, each one smiling, but with a palpitating
+heart as if doubtful what Helen would say when her
+turn came, all looked up expectantly as a tall girl, somewhat
+older than the others, but with a certain dash
+about her that added to her charm, came forward.
+She moved with willowy grace and had an ease of
+manner that accentuated the Pot-Boiler’s embarrassed
+movements.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Miss Page, allow me to introduce you to Miss Lillie
+Bell.” There was a certain emphasis in Helen’s tone
+as she presented this pretty, attractive girl, that indicated
+her pride in one of the most popular girls belonging
+to the group.
+</p>
+<p>
+Miss Bell smiled in a self-assured manner as Helen
+introduced her, and then greeted Nathalie with sweet
+graciousness as she waited expectantly for her characterization
+to be given.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Lillie is our story-teller,” continued Helen with a
+gleam of mischief in her eyes, “a would-be thriller, for
+we all shiver with the creeps when she begins her yellow-journal
+romances. Her specialty is ghost tales,
+the kind that, as we sit in the dark around our cheer
+fire, its glare (blood-red, please note), casting weird
+shadows over our pallid faces—” Helen intoned in
+tragic burlesque, and then stopped with a laugh.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_47'></a>47</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie Bell, however, did not appear at all annoyed
+at this banter, but returned coolly, “I hope Miss Page,
+you will not believe all Helen says, for she dotes on
+teasing, but we get even with her when the chance
+comes.” From a certain gleam in the smiling gray
+eyes Nathalie did not doubt her, but as her voice was
+musical, and her manner impressive, bordering on the
+dramatic, she wished she could hear one of her thrillers.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Observe,” tantalized the spokesman as Lillie disappeared
+and her place was taken by a young girl who
+looked as if she was all blood and muscle, with ruddy
+cheeks, alert eyes, and the poise and bearing of one who
+was a frequenter of the gym.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Helen said, “This is Miss Edith Whiton,” she
+made an old-time curtsy, “generally dubbed the Sport,
+as she is the champion knee-doubler, arm-stretcher, toe-raiser,
+and all the rest of the ball-and-socket team.”
+</p>
+<p>
+With attempted nonchalance Edith twisted her
+shoulders and flashed Helen a quick glance as much as
+to say, “Wait, my turn is coming later!” She then
+stepped forward and shook Nathalie’s hand, smiling
+pleasantly down at her with frank friendliness.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she made her way back to her seat, a pale, studious-looking
+young girl with a head that looked almost
+top-heavy with its black braids, and who wore glasses,
+presented herself before Nathalie. She smiled nervously
+as Helen began, “Oh, this owl-like individual is
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_48'></a>48</span>
+Barbara Worth; she is very learned—she knows it
+all.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Helen!” came in pained expostulation from
+the girl, as her eyes turned distressfully upon her
+hostess in shamed embarrassment.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Barbara, don’t mind,” spoke up Lillie Bell
+kindly, “Helen is only in fun.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Barbara looked somewhat relieved at this brace to
+her injured feelings, and then stood nervously clasping
+and unclasping her hands together.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” went on Helen relentlessly, “we call her the
+Encyclopedia for short. Wait until you want to know
+something in a hurry, she will help you out, for she
+has the best heart in the world.” With a little ripple
+of laughter Helen leaned forward and looking up at
+Barbara cried, “There, did I say anything so dreadful?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Barbara smiled gratefully and then said quietly,
+“Yes, Miss Page, I have a fine library, it is grandfather’s,
+and I shall—” she drew a deep breath—“always
+be glad to live up to my name.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was loud clapping at this brave remark and
+then she was gone, but in her place stood a little lass
+who smiled bewitchingly at the girl in the chair, showing
+a coy little dimple in one cheek, and then with a
+slight frown waited for her executioner to behead her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“This little damsel is Louise Gaynor,” introduced
+Helen; “she is the Flower of the family—spelt both
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_49'></a>49</span>
+ways. We call her flower, because she resembles one,”
+Louise bowed prettily with a surprised glance, “and
+then because she is an expert manipulator of the flour
+bag; she makes most edible flapjacks when we go on a
+hike. It is needless to say that we always have indigestion
+afterwards.” There was a laugh at this, and
+then as the Flower disappeared, Helen drew to her side
+a diminutive girl who wore her flaxen hair in two
+large braids down her back. With her broad, good-natured
+face and cornflower blue eyes she was a miniature
+Gretchen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“This is Carol Tyke—we spell it T-i-k-e, because
+she is a tike and the fag of the group as well.” The
+little girl, who was about eleven, but small for her
+age, grinned at Nathalie and ducked her head. “She
+is a Junior Pioneer, not yet twelve. But we have her
+in training and she is taking tests daily, which doesn’t
+give her much leisure time, does it, Tike?”
+</p>
+<p>
+At last, much to Nathalie’s relief, the introductions
+were over, and then she listened intently as the girls
+began to tell her of a hike they had taken the week before,
+when one of their number had found a hundred
+different leaf specimens.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, it was a leaf hike,” said Grace. “We all
+have our own note-books; and make impressions from
+the leaves; that is, we print them in our books, and
+then write the date of the hike, the name of the leaf,
+and any other data we have gathered.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_50'></a>50</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should think it would be very interesting,” remarked
+her listener, as she thought of the outings she
+and her schoolmates used to take on Saturday mornings
+when they visited Bronx Park, and studied “cooped-up
+nature” as one of the girls used to call it, when they
+eyed some fierce monarch of the forest in his iron cage,
+or exclaimed over the beauties of some hot-house
+flower.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We are going to have a wild-flower hike soon,”
+volunteered the Tike, smiling at Nathalie in a most
+friendly manner. “The Sport says there are a lot of
+beautiful flowers in the woods near Edgemere, didn’t
+you, Sport?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I wish you would tell me something about your
+tests—is that what you call them?” Nathalie asked.
+“I should think they would be no end of fun if they
+mean making one do stunts, or anything in the hazing
+line?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, we do not haze, or anything of that sort, for
+that would not be kind, and kindness is one of the laws
+of the Girl Pioneer,” explained Grace. “By tests we
+mean trying to see what a girl can do that is useful,
+and if she can’t do it, we teach her. We have to sew,
+cook, and know all the emergency things.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You mean the First Aid to the Injured methods,”
+corrected Helen; “knowing what to do to revive a person
+when almost drowned, how to put out a fire—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“How to bathe and bandage a sprained foot—”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_51'></a>51</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“You needn’t tell me you know that,” cried Nathalie
+with sparkling eyes, “for I know by experience,” and
+then she told the girls what the doctor had said about
+Helen’s skillful way of binding her foot—in spite of
+that young lady’s blushes at this open praise—and
+how clever her mother thought the girls were for the
+ready way in which they had made the stretcher from
+their khaki skirts.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Then we have to know how to restore a person
+who has fainted,” some one volunteered.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And learn the Fireman’s Lift,” added another girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, let’s tell things from the beginning!” interrupted
+some methodical girl from the farther end of
+the porch.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but I told Miss Page—” Helen stopped, for
+her hostess was looking at her with beseeching eyes,
+clearly due to the formal title.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Won’t you please call me Nathalie?” the owner of
+that name ventured with a coaxing little smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+“If you will say Helen,” replied the girl with evident
+delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls both laughed, shook hands on it, and then
+Helen continued. “Yes, I told Nathalie all about the
+tests for the third-class Pioneer. Well, to become a
+second-class Pioneer it is necessary to have been a
+third-class Pioneer for at least a month. Then you
+have to know how to cook a piece of meat properly—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Boil a potato as it should be done!” interrupted
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_52'></a>52</span>
+Lillie Bell. This was impressively said, and followed
+by a chime of laughter from the girls.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And make a coal fire in a cooking-stove—ye
+stars!” ejaculated Grace, “when I made my first, I
+literally smoked every one in the house to a ham—but
+when I made my first out-of-door fire—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You didn’t do any better,” cried Lillie Bell irrelevantly,
+“for you sooted the whole bunch of us.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Lillie,” cried Grace in dismayed tone, “that
+wasn’t from making the fire, for I was the only one
+who made it with a single match, but it was from putting
+it out.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now girls, don’t tell tales; for, as Mrs. Morrow
+says, we are all breakable and no one should cast the
+first stone,” called out their leader.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, the tests are all easy but the next one,” cried
+Edith Whiton, “that is not a cinch by any means: how
+to remove a cinder from the eye—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Or any other foreign substance!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“We have to know all the primary colors, too,”
+went on Edith.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Pshaw, any kindergarten kid knows that,” spoke
+the Encyclopedia, who up to this moment had taken
+no part in this flow of information, “but to tie a bundle
+properly, that means hard labor.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, indeed,” added Jessie Ford quickly, “one has
+to have an awful lot of practice to do that. I worked
+so hard tying up bundles at home for every one in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_53'></a>53</span>
+house that Father suggested I apply for a position as
+bundle-wrapper at some department store. And I
+would have, just for a joke, if I hadn’t succeeded in
+making every one for whom I tied a bundle give me five
+cents—and I made a dollar.” Her eyes gleamed
+reminiscently.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You have forgotten about the trees!” called out
+the Sport.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, we have to name three kinds of trees, three
+flowers and three birds.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Easy!” chimed the girls in unison.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But the hardest—that was for me—” exclaimed
+Grace (Nathalie bent forward eagerly, for somehow
+she did like Grace), “was to earn or to save fifty cents
+and put it in the bank.” There was a general shout at
+this, for, as Helen explained in an aside to Nathalie,
+Grace was the richest girl in the Pioneer group. She
+had a beautiful home, her own automobile, her own
+allowance, and yet she was always hard up.
+</p>
+<p>
+“She’s awfully generous, you know, and doesn’t
+know how to count her pennies,” she added wisely,
+“the way we girls do, because we have to. But she’s
+learning.”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Helen’s whispered comments about her friend
+were not all heard by Nathalie, who suddenly stiffened,
+and with a quick exclamation leaned forward and
+stared curiously at a gray figure that was walking past
+the house with strained, averted eyes, as if fearful that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_54'></a>54</span>
+she might see the group of merry girls on the veranda.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Who is that lady all in gray?” she demanded,
+abruptly clutching Helen’s arm as her eyes followed
+the gliding figure of the strange-appearing woman
+whose library card she had found the day of her accident
+in the woods.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen looked up quickly in response to Nathalie’s
+question, but before she could answer, Kitty Corwin
+cried hastily, “Girls, look! there goes ‘The Mystic’!”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_55'></a>55</span><a name='chIV' id='chIV'></a>CHAPTER IV—NATHALIE IS ASKED TO BECOME A BLUE ROBIN</h2>
+<p>
+“The Mystic!” echoed Nathalie in mild
+amazement, while one or two of the group
+turned and gazed curiously at the gray-shrouded
+figure hurrying by.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You needn’t ask me to look at her,” asserted the
+Sport with a scowl, “after screwing up my courage as
+I did to ask her if we could use her terraced lawn for
+one of our drills; why, the glance she gave me almost
+froze me stiff!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls laughed at Edith’s tragic tone, while Lillie
+Bell retorted teasingly, “Well, she must be a chill-raiser,
+Edith, if she could freeze the marrow in your
+spine.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Girls, you should not speak as you do about Mrs.
+Van Vorst,” admonished Helen, “you know Mrs. Morrow
+says that she has suffered a great sorrow.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Pshaw, we all know that,” returned the Sport unfeelingly,
+“but that is no reason why she should make
+every one else suffer, too.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Granted,” rejoined Helen, “but she has grown to
+look at things through morbid eyes.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_56'></a>56</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should think the gray gown she wears would
+make any one morbid,” suggested Lillie. “But what
+is the use of discussing her? I believe she is just a
+crank with a fad,” she added.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Who is she, and why does she go about in that
+queer gray gown?” inquired Nathalie, insistently.
+</p>
+<p>
+“She is Mrs. Van Vorst, the richest woman in
+town,” explained Grace. “She lives in that big, gray
+house surrounded by the stone wall. Haven’t you noticed
+it? It’s on Willow Street, up on the hill. You
+must have seen it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, the big house with the beautiful Dutch garden,”
+exclaimed Nathalie, “and the queer little house
+at one side of it?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” nodded Helen, “but that queer little house
+is an ancient landmark—a Dutch homestead—built
+on a grant of land given by Governor Stuyvesant to
+Janse Van Vorst way back in 1667. The Van Vorsts,
+or their descendants, have lived on that place for hundreds
+of years. Billy Van Vorst, the last of the line,
+married Betty Walton, a rich New York girl. He
+died some years ago, and—well, I don’t know the
+exact story—” Helen hesitated, “but they say Mrs.
+Van Vorst has an awful temper—oh, I hate to tell
+it—and then it may not be true.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But it is true,” asserted Jessie Ford, “for Mother
+used to know Billy and Betty, too. She said shortly
+after Billy’s death Mrs. Van Vorst became angry with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_57'></a>57</span>
+her little child—I don’t know whether it is a boy or
+girl—and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Whatever it is,” broke in Edith, “it is all distorted
+and twisted, looks like a monster, for I saw it one day
+in the garden, the day I was there. It is always muffled
+up so people can’t see it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, anyway,” went on Jessie, “Mrs. Van Vorst
+got into a temper with the child and shut it up in a
+dark room, and then went off to a reception or something,
+and forgot all about it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, how could she?” ejaculated Nathalie with a
+shudder.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, when she came home and remembered it—it
+wasn’t in the room—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And they found it all in a heap on the pavement in
+the yard,” again interrupted Edith, anxious to forestall
+the climax; “I have heard all about it, they say it was
+an awful sight.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Dead?” cried Nathalie in a shocked tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, not dead,” returned Jessie, “but it might as
+well have been. It had become frightened in the dark,
+said some one was chasing it, and in trying to escape
+climbed out on a shed and fell to the ground. Mrs.
+Van Vorst was ill for a long time, almost lost her mind.
+Then she gave up society and came down here and
+built this big house beside the homestead. She has
+lived in it ever since, but keeps to herself; she doesn’t
+seem to want to know people.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_58'></a>58</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I don’t wonder she mourns in gray then!” exclaimed
+Nathalie. “I feel sorry for her!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And so do I!” chimed Helen squeezing her new
+friend’s hand responsively, “for she will have to suffer
+remorse all her life. Mother says she is to be
+pitied.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I should have more pity for her if she would
+let us have the lawn back of her house for our flag
+drill,” remarked Lillie Bell, “or for one of our demonstrations.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You can be sure I’ll never ask her again,” declared
+the Sport, vehemently; “I believe she hates us just because
+we are young, and can enjoy life when her child
+can’t.”
+</p>
+<p>
+At this moment Grace arose and handed Nathalie a
+peculiar-looking envelope of rough brown paper.
+“No, it won’t explode,” she giggled, as she saw Nathalie
+handling the quaintly-folded envelope rather
+gingerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You needn’t think it is the butcher’s bill, either,”
+laughed Helen, “for it isn’t. It is simply an invitation
+to one of our group meetings, or Pioneer Rallies, as we
+call them. We always use that kind of paper when
+we invite guests, for it was the kind used in pioneer
+times.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Reassured by Helen’s explanation, Nathalie opened
+the envelope, noting the old-style script printed by hand
+in scarlet letters, evidently the work of one of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_59'></a>59</span>
+Pioneers. Then she slowly read aloud:
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+“They knew
+they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those
+things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest
+country, and quieted their spirits within.”
+</p>
+<p style='text-align:right; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-right:2em;;'>— <span class='sc'>Bradford.</span></p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<div style='margin-left:2em; margin-right:2em'>
+<p>Y<sup>e</sup> presence of y<sup>e</sup> young maide, Mistress Nathalie
+Page is enjoined to appear on y<sup>e</sup> 23^<sup>rd</sup> of this month
+at y<sup>e</sup> Common House (Seton Hall) on y<sup>e</sup> corner of y<sup>e</sup> cross
+roades to Bergen Town, to join with y<sup>e</sup> maides of y<sup>e</sup> colony
+of Westport in a seemly diversion and Mayflower Feast.</p>
+
+<p>Postscript: Kindly come apparelled in y<sup>e</sup> meeting-house
+cloathes and behave as a young maide should so do.</p>
+
+<p>From the Girl Pioneers of America, y<sup>e</sup> Many-greated-grand-daughters
+of y<sup>e</sup> Mothers of y<sup>e</sup> Pilgrim Colony, who
+came to this new world in y<sup>e</sup> good sloop MAYFLOWER in 1620.</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The expression of wonderment in Nathalie’s eyes
+changed to one of amusement as she laughingly cried,
+“My, but you are the real article!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, the scribe did that,” said Helen proudly; “I
+think it ought to be put in a glass case.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Thank you!” promptly returned Jessie; “I accept
+your praise, but suggest, as industry is one of the
+laws of the Pioneers, that I should receive a special
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_60'></a>60</span>
+badge of merit, for if you could have seen me poking
+into those musty documents at the library to get the
+thing right, you would say I deserved it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But what does it mean?” demanded Nathalie curiously.
+“What have you to do with the Pilgrims?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, it means,” explained Helen, “that we girls,
+to freshen up our minds on pioneer history, so that we
+may learn more about the women we emulate, name
+each of our rallies after some one group of pioneers, or
+some special pioneer woman, in memory of their service
+to us. Then we all talk about them, each one telling
+what she knows.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Or what she doesn’t know, generally,” broke in
+Lillie, dryly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I guess you are about right, Lillie,” added Grace,
+“for we are awfully rusty on pioneer history. It always
+seemed so stupid at school, but we have learned
+a lot since we started naming our rallies after pioneer
+things, and trying to see what we can cram. Why,
+girls,” she cried suddenly, as if impelled by inspiration
+to tell the latest thing she had learned, “do you know
+that there were almost thirty children who came over
+with the Pilgrims in the <em>Mayflower</em>?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I for one did not,” remarked Jessie candidly;
+“I didn’t know that the Pilgrims had any children;
+supposed they were just a lot of blue-nosed men who
+wore high ruffs and tall, round hats, and who went
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_61'></a>61</span>
+about with long faces, telling people they would go to
+the devil if they dared to smile.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There, Jess,” broke in Lillie Bell mischievously,
+“you needn’t get profane over it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course they were grim and forbidding-looking,”
+supplemented Kitty, “and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And sanctimonious,” added some one, “with their
+blue laws.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Girls, you are all wrong,” spoke up Helen, with
+a sort of call-you-down air, “it was the Connecticut
+elders who made the blue laws. The Pilgrims were
+sincere, earnest men. Remember what Mrs. Morrow
+said about them?”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a sudden silence for a moment, and then
+a faint voice was heard from the other end of the
+veranda. Every one pricked up her ears and craned
+her neck to see who was speaking.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ye Stars! it is the Flower of the Family,” whispered
+Edith; “what has come to her?”
+</p>
+<p>
+The sweet, low voice went on slowly, perhaps a trifle
+unsteadily, “God sifted a whole nation that he might
+send choice grain into the wilderness.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hooray for the Flower!” shouted some one, and
+then of course they all had to clap, while the editor-in-chief
+of the “Pioneer,” who was sitting next to the
+speaker, jotted down this little saying with the air of
+an expert reporter.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_62'></a>62</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, do you suppose,” went on Helen, “that these
+picked men—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“This choice grain,” corrected the Sport softly, who
+was trying hard to create a laugh.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Edith, please be serious,” admonished Helen, looking
+at that young lady with reproving eyes, but she
+was sitting with folded arms and eyes cast down, the
+picture of innocent and bland decorum.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen, seeing she had subdued the Sport for the time
+being, continued: “Yes, this choice grain was composed
+of not only sincere and courageous men, as we
+know, but the most tolerant of any of the first settlers
+in this country. But, of course, in serious, solemn
+times one is not apt to be funny. They were not really
+sanctimonious, they just got that name because they
+tried to live up to their convictions.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But they got it!” retorted the Sport, who was always
+hard to convince in an argument. Helen flashed
+her eyes at her in rebuke, and then, turning toward
+Nathalie, said, “We are not only going to tell what we
+have learned about the Pilgrims at the rally, but we are
+to end with a Mayflower Feast. We do not expect to
+eat the things the colonists did, of course, but the table
+is to be decorated with May-flowers—that is with all
+the flowers that grow in May—so you see, it will
+really be a May-flower Feast.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Boy Scouts are going to pick the flowers for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_63'></a>63</span>
+us!” chimed the Tike, her good-natured face beaming
+good-fellowship at Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Dr. Homer—he is Mrs. Morrow’s brother—”
+supplemented Grace, “is the Scout Master of the Eagle
+Patrol, and as he is very anxious to make the boys
+chivalrous, he likes to have them help us all they can.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But we are to have a great big entertainment,”
+exclaimed Carol importantly, “very soon, and we’re
+to sell tickets so that we can make money for the
+Camping Fund.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And we have such a bright idea for getting up
+something novel in the way of entertainments,” spoke
+up Helen interestedly. “Each girl is to put on her
+thinking-cap and get to work on an idea; it has to be
+original, nothing borrowed, or that has been used before,
+and then turn it in to our Director in proper shape
+to be carried out. All of these novel ideas are to be
+kept secret until we have had all of the entertainments,
+and then we shall vote for the one we think the best.
+The winners will receive merit badges for their efficiency.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that will be great!” cried Nathalie, “but tell
+me, where are you going camping?” she questioned
+animatedly, for her thoughts had instantly reverted to
+a summer or so before when she and a party of school
+girls had camped up in the woods of Maine.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We don’t know yet,” was Helen’s practical rejoinder,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_64'></a>64</span>
+“for we have got to know how much money we
+shall have to spend. But come, girls, be serious and
+tell Nathalie some of our sports and activities. We
+want to show her that we can do things worth while,
+you know.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, get Lillie Bell to tell us one of her stories!”
+cried the Sport, who was a warm admirer of the story-teller.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I can’t think of any now!” replied Lillie lazily.
+And then as a chorus of voices seconded this plea, she
+cried, “Really girls, I can’t. I was up half the night
+studying for exam. But,” her face brightened, “I will
+tell you about the picked chicken if you like. As it
+has something to do with our pioneer law, it will come
+in all right.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, do!” pleaded her hostess, who had been
+wishing that she might hear one of the story-teller’s
+thrillers.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It isn’t a blood-curdler this time, Miss Page,”
+apologized Lillie, “so I cannot give you an exhibition
+of my reputed talent as a fictionizer. It is simply that
+Mother had a headache, Father was going to bring
+home a swell friend to dine with us, and as it happened,
+the butcher sent a feathered fowl, and our little Dutch
+maid was ill.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, it was maddening,” she sighed in dolorous
+reminiscence, “but there was no way out of it, for we
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_65'></a>65</span>
+had to have that chick for dinner. So I set to work;
+some people say that when you try to do right everything
+rises up against you. So it proved to me, but
+I remembered our Pioneer motto, ‘I Can,’ and glued
+myself to that job. Verily, I thought that chicken
+must be a relative to the goose that laid the golden egg,
+for every feather I pulled, a dozen at least came to the
+funeral. But I won out, and went to bed with a clear
+conscience, and that fowl—inside of me!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hooray for the Pioneer laws!” called several
+voices hilariously, and then at one and the same time,
+in their eagerness to give proof of well-doing, each one
+started to relate some personal experience. The effect
+of several story-tellers spinning yarns at the same
+time was so ludicrously funny that all the stories ended
+in merry laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, let’s vary the entertainment,” suggested Grace,
+“and sing our Pioneer song for Miss Page.”
+</p>
+<p>
+In another moment the fresh young voices, accompanied
+by a swing of heads and a tap of feet, were singing,
+to the tune of “Oh, Maryland, My Maryland”:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“We&nbsp;&nbsp;laugh,&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;sing,&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;jump,&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;run,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;always&nbsp;&nbsp;having&nbsp;&nbsp;lots&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;fun;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;wild&nbsp;&nbsp;birds&nbsp;&nbsp;answer&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;our&nbsp;&nbsp;call,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;These&nbsp;&nbsp;feathered&nbsp;&nbsp;friends&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;trees&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;tall;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;learn&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;know&nbsp;&nbsp;them&nbsp;&nbsp;one&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;all.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_66'></a>66</span></div>
+<p>
+&#160;<br/>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Refrain.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;will&nbsp;&nbsp;be&nbsp;&nbsp;brave,&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;kind,&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;true;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, who was enjoying this musical treat immensely,
+and longed to join in, suddenly gave a start.
+She had heard a familiar hand strike the keyboard of
+the piano, and then start in with the tune the girls were
+singing, while a clear, high, soprano voice—one that
+the girl had never heard before—took up the air, and
+in a moment was leading the girls in their song, and as
+though accustomed to do it.
+</p>
+<p>
+She saw one or two of the girls smile at another in
+a mysterious way, and began to wonder what it all
+meant. As the last verse came to a close, and there
+were three, Mrs. Page stepped through the low French
+window from the living-room on the veranda, followed
+by a figure in white and Dick, who was hobbling along
+on a broom turned upside down.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a silent moment, and then the Girl
+Pioneers had jumped to their feet and were saluting
+the lady in white, for it was Mrs. Morrow, their Director.
+No, they did not touch their shoulders as in
+the salute to Helen, their group leader, but the forehead,
+in military salute.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow returned the salute, and then, as the
+girls broke into their Pioneer yell, came over to Nathalie
+without waiting for an introduction. But the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_67'></a>67</span>
+young hostess had risen to her feet and was standing
+with outstretched hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, my dear! you must sit down, or you may
+strain your foot!” cried Mrs. Morrow anxiously, as
+she caught Nathalie’s hand in hers and smiled down at
+her with luminous gray eyes, the kind that seem to
+radiate hearty good-will and cheer. Her greeting was
+so gracious, and there was such an undefinable charm
+in the bright face of the young matron, that Nathalie
+surrendered immediately.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I did not mean to intrude on your sport, girls,”
+cried Mrs. Morrow in a moment, turning toward the
+group, still holding Nathalie’s hand, “but I was as
+anxious as you all were to meet our new neighbor.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The color deepened in Nathalie’s cheeks as she cried
+in her impulsive way, “Oh, but you are not intruding
+at all, Mrs. Morrow; I am more than anxious to meet
+you, for—” she stopped a moment, and then flashed,
+“the girls all say you are lovely!”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a wild cheer at this, whereupon, the gray-blue
+eyes smiled at Nathalie again. Then turning, the
+lady nodded to the compliments so boisterously expressed
+by the girls. For a few moments it seemed
+as if each girl was trying to outdo every other girl as
+to who should win in this race for tongue speed, as
+they crowded around Nathalie and their Director.
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently Nathalie looked up and laughed, for Dick
+did look so funny as he hobbled from one girl to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_68'></a>68</span>
+another—he had always been a lover of girls—on his
+broomstick. As if divining why she laughed, Dick,
+who had heard her looked up. “Hello there, Blue
+Robin!” he cried teasingly, “what have you got to
+say about it?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Blue Robin?” repeated Mrs. Morrow in puzzled
+query, turning towards Nathalie, “why does he call
+you Blue Robin? That is the name of this group.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I thought the name of this group was Bluebird,”
+answered Nathalie in some surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+“So it is,” returned Mrs. Morrow, “but you know,
+bluebird means blue robin, too.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There, Dick! I was not so far wrong after all!”
+cried Nathalie triumphantly, looking at her brother
+with convincing eyes. Then she turned and quickly
+told how she had found the bluebird’s nest in the old
+cedar, how she had called the birdlings blue robins, and
+how Dick—who was a terrible tease—had plagued
+her about it ever since.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But please inform me, Mrs. Morrow,” now spoke
+that young man, “why you say bluebirds are blue
+robins?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, you know, the first bird seen by the Pilgrims
+when they came to this land was a bluebird—our
+earliest songster. As it resembled the robin so
+much, they wrote home to their friends and told of
+the beautiful blue robins they had seen in the new
+land.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_69'></a>69</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nathalie,” cried Helen with joy in her voice,
+“do you know the finding of the blue robin’s nest
+surely must be an omen for good! Keep the name
+your brother has given you, and become a real bluebird,
+or blue robin, by joining our group and becoming a
+Pioneer!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, Miss Page, do!” came quickly to Nathalie’s
+ears; “we should love to have you one of us.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I’ll coach you in the tests!” sang out Helen, who
+was ready to dance with pleasure to think that there
+was a prospect of her new friend becoming a Pioneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And I’ll help!” added Grace. “And so will I,”
+“And I!” chimed several girlish voices.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie sat in embarrassed silence, hardly knowing
+what to answer to these many cordial invitations
+to join, and offers to help her do the tests. “I would
+love to be one of you,” she spoke hesitatingly, “but
+I am not at all clever at doing things, for I can’t sew,
+or cook, or do anything useful at all!” The girl’s
+voice was almost plaintive.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah, you are just the one we want, then,” was Mrs.
+Morrow’s quick reply; “we want girls who don’t know
+how, so we can teach and train them in the right way.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was loud applause at this remark, and then as
+the hubbub subsided somewhat, Mrs. Morrow held up
+her hand for silence. “Now, girls,” she said, “give
+Miss Page time to think. Yes, we should be overjoyed
+to have you join the group, Miss Page, for later, in
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_70'></a>70</span>
+the summer, one of our bluebirds is to emigrate South
+for the winter, and we should love to have you take
+her place. I agree with Helen that the finding of the
+bluebird’s nest in the old cedar meant that you were
+to become a true bluebird, or Blue Robin, as we shall
+have to call you.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie looked at Dick, and then at her mother.
+Mrs. Page was smiling at her so reassuringly that Nathalie
+understood that she gave her consent, and joyfully
+signified her willingness to become a Pioneer.
+With a bob of her head at Dick she declared, that she
+would become one if only to show her brother that
+there was such a thing as a Blue Robin.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow then explained that they had selected
+the bluebird as their mascot not only because it was
+the bird of pioneer days, but because the word blue
+means true, and Girl Pioneers were to be true in word,
+and thought, and deed. And then as a bird means
+swift, they were to be swift to the truth.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The bluebird is also noted for its cheerfulness,”
+she continued. “The Pioneers are to be cheerful. It
+is a loyal bird; the Pioneers are to be loyal to one another,
+to their pledges and laws, and to every one and
+to all things that are right, good, and pure. The bird
+is also very gentle, and we want the Pioneers to cultivate
+kindliness and gentleness. Flower,” she called
+suddenly, “sing us that pretty little bluebird song you
+know.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_71'></a>71</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+In compliance with this request the Flower sang, in
+her sweet soprano, a funny little song about a bluebird
+courting his lady love. Each verse ended with the call-note,
+“Tru-al-lee,” which the girls caught up as a refrain
+and sang with sweet, low tones, the Flower’s bird-like
+trill rising high above the others.
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_72'></a>72</span><a name='chV' id='chV'></a>CHAPTER V—THE GRAY STONE HOUSE</h2>
+<p>
+“Do you know, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie,
+looking at her friend with reminiscent eyes,
+“that it is only three weeks since I met
+you, but it seems like three months.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is because you have been on probation for a
+Pioneer,” retorted Helen smilingly, “and are beginning
+to take life more seriously.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Not very seriously, I am afraid,” lamented Nathalie,
+“judging from the bungle I made in trying to
+learn that square knot.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you will learn,” encouraged Helen, “but I
+must be off, for I have some typing to do for to-morrow.”
+Yes, Helen’s new friend knew that she was
+learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact
+had been divulged in the natural course of events,
+Nathalie had listened with great interest to Helen’s
+declaration of her life purpose—to be independent—not
+only for the pleasure that independence would bring
+to her, but because she wanted to earn money so that
+she could give her mother little comforts and luxuries
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_73'></a>73</span>
+that Mrs. Dame had been denied because her husband’s
+income was limited.
+</p>
+<p>
+Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie
+had wished her great success, apparently appreciating
+the unselfish motive that actuated her, while
+lamenting that she herself was not as clever.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear,” she had impulsively declared, “I want
+to earn money, too; oh, if I only had a purpose in life!
+I do not want to be a drone.” And then on the impulse
+of the moment she had confided to Helen her
+many disappointments, and how anxious they all were
+about her brother Dick, fearful that he might never
+recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had seemed
+that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship
+had grown up between them, much to that young
+lady’s joy.
+</p>
+<p>
+She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the
+Pioneer Pledge and laws, give the names of the Presidential
+party, as Nathalie called them, adding the
+name of the governor of the State in which she lived,
+describe the United States flag, sew a button on—as
+it should be done, she had declared with solemn unction—and
+then exhibit her skill at tying a square knot.
+</p>
+<p>
+“After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally
+to-morrow, I shall begin to drill you in the tests necessary
+to make you a Second-Class Pioneer,” Helen had
+declared when the lesson was over and she began to
+gather up her sewing materials.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_74'></a>74</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, will you?” cried Nathalie, “but when can I
+become one?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“In a month,” was the reply, “if you pass the tests;
+but there, I shall never get my work done if I stand
+here and talk,” and Helen started for the steps.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow
+says about Dick’s knee,” returned Nathalie as she followed
+her friend to the edge of the veranda. “You
+know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so
+anxious to hear what he had to say.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“How did your brother injure his knee?” asked
+Helen as she paused at the foot of the steps, “I have
+often wanted to ask.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after
+Father’s death,” rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening
+sorrowfully. “The New York physician said it was
+only sprained ligaments and would be all right soon.
+But he has been growing worse—it pains him dreadfully
+sometimes—oh, you don’t know how worried we
+are—” her voice quavered, “suppose he should be
+lame for life!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t get nervous over it,” advised Helen
+cheerfully, “but hurry in and see what Dr. Morrow
+said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town doctor,
+but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon,” and then
+with a smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward
+the gate.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_75'></a>75</span>
+as she hurried across the lawn. Somehow the girl’s
+companionship had revived her drooping spirits; the
+many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and
+the tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming
+one, had in a measure brightened her life. To be sure,
+they could never take the place of her friends of the
+city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things
+of the past and the desires that at times threatened to
+overwhelm her. She realized that she was beginning
+to take a keener interest in her surroundings, and felt
+that it was all owing to the Pioneers.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nathalie, I am here—in the sitting-room!” called
+her mother’s voice faintly a few moments later as she
+heard the girl’s step in the hall. An apprehensive pang
+seized Nathalie’s heart as she flew to her mother’s side.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What did the doctor say, Mumsie?” she demanded
+anxiously. “Will Dick be lame?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an
+operation—” her mother’s voice sank to a whisper,
+“and oh, it will cost us several hundred dollars.”
+Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on
+her daughter’s shoulder wept silently. The girl gently
+patted the gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender
+form closely, but with intuitive divination she let
+her have her cry out, although she was seething with
+impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the
+mother heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is all right, I am just a coward.” Mrs. Page
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_76'></a>76</span>
+choked a moment, then imprinted a wet kiss on the
+rounded cheek so close to her own as she felt the comfort
+of her unspoken sympathy. “I am sure Dick
+will be all right in time—but I am so worried—I
+have had bad news, too. It does seem as if misfortunes
+never come singly, as they claim,” she said,
+thrusting a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter’s
+hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl’s eyes swept the type-written page, once,
+twice, then in a tense tone she demanded, “Oh, Mother,
+do you mean that the Portland cement bonds are in
+danger—why, I thought—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“They are to stop paying interest while the company
+is being reorganized; something has gone wrong. I
+was afraid of it, as they say cement is being sold at a
+very low figure.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are
+crossing your bridges before you get there as Father
+used to say,” Nathalie replied with attempted cheerfulness,
+“but did you not say that they were first mortgage
+bonds?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, but child, we have got to live,” exclaimed her
+mother irritably; “that money, the interest, is part of
+my income, and it is little enough—expenses are so
+heavy. And where the money will come for Dick’s
+operation I am sure I don’t know—but there, don’t
+worry—it will be all right in time, I know.” She
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_77'></a>77</span>
+sank back in her chair and dabbed her reddened eyelids
+with her moist handkerchief.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick
+to have an operation?” questioned Nathalie insistently
+with anxious eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected.
+It will have to be removed, and a new bone put in.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“A new bone put in!” ejaculated Nathalie,
+“why—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, it is something new in surgery,” replied her
+mother. “Dr. Morrow says thousands of cripples
+have been made well by this new method of treating
+cases like Dick’s. He says—” a long sigh—“if Dick
+does not have an operation, he will probably be lame,
+if he is ever able to walk at all.” The tears began to
+glisten in Mrs. Page’s eyes again, as Nathalie, with a
+sudden sharp realization what this would mean for
+Dick and all of them, turned and rushed from the
+room with the dread that if she remained a moment
+longer she too would fall to weeping.
+</p>
+<p>
+She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she
+wanted time to think. Oh, suppose there should be
+no money for the operation, and Dick should be lame
+all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so
+well and robust, and who for his athletic prowess had
+won so many silver cups and medals! She threw herself
+into the low rocker, and leaning her head on her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_78'></a>78</span>
+desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to
+hear.
+</p>
+<p>
+Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard
+it was to lose her father, her beautiful home and
+friends, to give up college, to have to live in that poky
+old town—even the Pioneers could not compensate
+for that—and then to have Dick lame because they
+had no money! Nathalie wept on in woeful lamentation,
+feeling with the untriedness of youth that she was
+a great martyr. Did not God’s world owe her happiness?
+Was it not sinning against her in denying her
+right to its joys?
+</p>
+<p>
+But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs
+died away to a shiver, as her head dropped wearily on
+the back of her chair. Oh, if she were not so helpless,
+if she could only earn money like Helen! But what
+could she do? She couldn’t sew, she had no musical
+ability—like Lucille! A Bob White whistle, followed
+by a “Tru-al-lee!” beneath her window reminded her
+that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, Nathalie knew that “Tru-al-lee!” for that
+young lady was the only Pioneer who could so successfully
+imitate that little bird’s sweet trill. She
+jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of
+youth cast all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried
+down to the lower floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I’ll be down in a moment,” she called out to Grace,
+who had just entered the hall and was chatting with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_79'></a>79</span>
+Dick, who had been reading on the couch. She flew
+into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a moment,
+and then flying into her room grabbed her hat
+from its peg in the closet, and then hastened down the
+stairs humming blithely a new ragtime song as she
+went.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I want to say good-by to Mother,” she exclaimed as
+she nodded to Grace and hurried into the sitting-room.
+But when she saw the big pile of mending on the table
+in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang assailed
+her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mumsie,” she cried, “don’t you do that mending.
+I will do it when I come back. I meant to do it
+yesterday,” she excused herself lamely, “but I forgot
+all about it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me
+from worrying,” was the reply; “as ’tis said, there is
+nothing like work to keep up one’s spirits.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mumsie,” the girl cried impulsively, rubbing
+her hands caressingly over her mother’s cheek, “don’t
+let’s worry any more. We’re just silly to cry over
+what may not happen,” and then she added hopefully,
+“I’m sure things will come out all right.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Page’s eyes filled as she bent forward and
+kissed her would-be-comforter. “Yes, we are silly, no
+doubt,” she smiled through her tears, “to waste time
+and strength worrying over what, after all, may not
+happen.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_80'></a>80</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“But, Mother,” suddenly questioned the girl with
+uneasy eyes, “do—do you think I ought to become
+a Pioneer?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why not, Nathalie?” inquired Mrs. Page in surprise.
+“Perhaps it will teach you some of the many
+things you should know, for if we are to be poor, you
+may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness,
+courage, those will be the things—” her mother’s
+voice ceased abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her
+mother’s voice that seemed like reproof. A sudden depression
+seized her again as it came to her with renewed
+force how helpless she was, what things Helen
+did to help her mother, and the many useful things the
+Pioneer girls—plain girls, too, who had never had
+the advantages that she had had—could do.
+</p>
+<p>
+But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts
+aside with the rebellious feeling that she had never been
+brought up to do these things, that she had been born
+a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother hastily and
+hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where shall we walk?” she asked that young girl,
+as they passed down the street. She glanced up at the
+blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted like rudderless
+ships at sea.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has
+asked me to deliver a note to ‘The Mystic.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+“‘The Mystic?’” echoed Nathalie in doubting
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_81'></a>81</span>
+amazement, “why I thought she had never had anything
+to do—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“To do with the people of the town,” finished Grace.
+“Well, she doesn’t as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow’s
+patients and had the grace to return Mrs. Morrow’s
+call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young
+people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow,
+and then, too, I rather think she is writing to ask
+her if we could have her lawn for one of our demonstrations.
+We had a lovely idea for a May-Day celebration,
+but we had to give it up, as we had no place to
+hold it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What were you going to have?” inquired Nathalie,
+as the two girls turned up the hill leading to
+the big gray house enclosed in its barrier of gray wall.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We were going to get some ox carts and decorate
+them with Mayflowers, and parade to the grounds.
+There we were to choose a queen and dance around
+the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring.
+Fred was to be Robin Hood—O dear,” she suddenly
+ejaculated with a dismayed face, “I do believe I left
+the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned
+it to the cushion so I wouldn’t forget it and then walked
+straight off and left it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls stared blankly at one another a moment
+and then Grace cried, “Come, we might as well go back
+for it; do you mind? It is only a few blocks out of
+our way.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_82'></a>82</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+On receiving Nathalie’s assent she added contentedly,
+“I’ll get Dorcas to make us some lemonade to cool us
+off, and—why, I can show you my Pioneer room!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I should just love to see it!” enthused Nathalie;
+“Helen told me about it. She said she was
+going to suggest that the groups of the Pioneer band
+have a Pioneer room.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Isn’t it old-timey?” she mused a half hour later,
+as Grace ushered her into a low-ceiled room whose
+walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of many-colored
+tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly
+Dutch and for that reason had been selected.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s keen eyes were lured to the photographs,
+water-colors, etchings, and cuts from magazines, all
+representative of pioneer days, that peeped from between
+the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of
+New Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story
+houses, with their gable ends notched like steps, and
+weather vanes surmounted with grotesque designs of
+horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its
+quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the
+four-poster with its dimity valance, and then on to
+the oval dressing table, resplendent with silver candle-sticks,
+snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a
+funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But that clock is a dear!” she murmured as her
+gaze lingered admiringly upon a tall grandfather’s clock
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_83'></a>83</span>
+in the corner, which returned her glance with such
+old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie’s
+brain became a movie screen, one scene after
+another presenting themselves to her vivid imagination.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Father gave that clock to me last birthday,” informed
+Grace with pride; “it belonged to the Very
+Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my forebears.
+See, there’s his picture over the mantel,” pointing to a
+seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear,
+who looked down at them with stolid complacency.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, it is very old,” continued Grace, “some unimaginative
+relative of Papa was going to chop it up
+with Georgie’s little hatchet, but Father rescued it just
+in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel.
+Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” she rattled on, “I stole a satin bow from her
+old wedding gown for a souvenir, and when she discovered
+what I had done, the old dear not only forgave
+me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of
+things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff.
+But come, let’s go down and have the lemonade, I’m
+dying for a cooling drink.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly
+sprang up crying, “Oh, there’s Fred! I want
+you to meet him!” She began to wave and call frantically
+in the direction of the lawn, where a tall, well-formed
+youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his
+tennis-racket.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_84'></a>84</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I’m in a
+hurry!” came in response a moment later, as the youth
+stopped and eyed his sister impatiently, vigorously
+mopping his face, for the day was warm.
+</p>
+<p>
+But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly
+ceased, and with a few strides he reached the
+veranda and was eyeing the new girl’s health-flushed
+face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor.
+After a hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister’s
+introduction, he dropped into a chair by Nathalie’s
+side, and soon they were all chatting and laughing
+merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had
+happened on their last hike.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But you had an adventure, too, did you not?” he
+asked suddenly, looking at the young girl by his side
+with a glint of mischief in his eyes, “the day you were
+rescued by the Pioneers?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, did you hear about that?” Nathalie cried, her
+face taking on a deeper tinge of pink. She had always
+felt the least mite ashamed of that mishap.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, and how about the blue robins?” he continued
+in a quizzing tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Grace,” exclaimed Nathalie, “you have been
+telling tales!” and then with a laugh, she told of finding
+the bluebird’s nest, excusing her ignorance by the
+plea that she was a city-bred girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred
+being a Patrol Leader, and greatly interested in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_85'></a>85</span>
+organization. Finding that Nathalie had had some
+difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered
+to give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil
+proved an apt scholar, as it was not long before she
+had mastered the weaver’s, the overhand, the reef, and
+had gained a fair insight into several other knots. Before
+the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might
+not come up some evening with Grace, and give her another
+lesson and meet her brother Dick.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s face dimpled; she hastened to assure him
+that she would be pleased to welcome them at the house,
+and that she knew her brother would be more than
+delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told
+him all about her brother’s misfortune, and how depressed
+he grew at times without his chums to drop
+in and cheer him.
+</p>
+<p>
+The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted
+by Fred, who claimed he was going their way,
+neared the high stone wall overtopped with gray turrets
+and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned
+to leap beyond their barrier.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Wasn’t it a queer idea to build a beautiful house
+like this and then fence it in like some old monastery?”
+questioned Grace. “See, here’s a bell in the stone
+gate, the way they used to have it in olden times.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ugh! I hate to go in—the place gives me the
+creeps!” she shivered nervously. “Oh, Fred, do come
+in with us, we shall not be long.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_86'></a>86</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was
+not hurried for time yielded to his sister’s entreaties
+and rang the bell. Presently the door was opened by
+a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
+</p>
+<p>
+He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see
+Mrs. Van Vorst, but when Grace produced her note
+and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow’s wife, he
+reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with
+its old-time hedge and tall pines that swayed gently to
+the rhythm of the May breezes, leading to the handsome
+modern structure at the end. It was colonial
+in design, with low French windows and overhanging
+Juliet balconies here and there. A long veranda ran
+across the front, with high white pillars, and a porte-cochère.
+</p>
+<p>
+“This is the old Dutch shack,” remarked Fred irreverently
+a moment or so later, as they stood in front
+of the weather-beaten landmark that clung like some
+ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered
+above it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled
+over the sloping roof with its red chimneys, where
+quaint dormer windows stood forth like thrust out
+heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch,
+only a foot from the ground, was almost lost to view
+behind the vines of honeysuckle and rambling roses
+screening the trellis. Bushes of hollyhocks, white
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_87'></a>87</span>
+peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous
+hedge around it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a
+memento of savage ferocity, and told of the little Dutch
+maiden who, from a small window above the door,
+fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against
+it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed
+out a grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse
+once stood, leading to an underground passageway,
+where the settlers at times took refuge when hearing
+the fiendish war-whoop.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading
+to the broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred
+turned back towards the gate, promising to wait outside
+for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the great door swung open in answer to their
+ring, and the butler’s impassive face stared stonily at
+them, the girls were tempted to turn tail and follow
+Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace
+conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness
+asked for Mrs. Van Vorst.
+</p>
+<p>
+For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going
+to shut the door in their faces, but when Grace held out
+the note for confirmation of her words his impassivity
+relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he asked
+them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously
+about the hall, while a stag’s head above a
+quaintly-carved table eyed them glassily.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_88'></a>88</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other
+curios that decorated the casement, beneath faded canvasses
+of ancient dames and sires, possessed a weird
+charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by
+the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade
+that rose spiral-like to the floor above, and to her
+imaginative ear there came the swish of a brocade gown
+as some haughty fair one, kin to the canvassed beauties
+on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel
+down the broad stairway.
+</p>
+<p>
+But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still
+retaining his sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a
+little reception room opening from the hall fitted up
+to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated themselves
+on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the
+many curios that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each
+betraying some eccentric custom of the land of the yellow
+peril.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!” observed
+Grace with an apprehensive shiver. “Ugh, I should
+hate to have that grim-looking man come back and tell
+me my company wasn’t wanted.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed
+in sympathetic recognition of her companion’s
+mood. Her eye was caught by a huge mandarin who
+grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered,
+half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed
+to inhabit China were not hidden behind his wrinkled
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_89'></a>89</span>
+brown skin, and were looking at her through his bead-like
+eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his sinister glare.
+Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did move—oh,
+what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching
+all of a heap in abject fear as she stared with
+horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin, as if that weird,
+shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim silence
+had come from his mummy-like lips.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, what is it?” whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper,
+as she stared in paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more
+piercing and, if could be, more blood-curdling than the
+first, came echoing down the hall, followed by a demoniacal
+laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror
+was something more human than an old Chinese idol.
+Grace, with a frantic scream of terror that almost
+equaled in its intensity the one that they had heard
+sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the
+door!
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a
+loss to determine whence came the horrible shrieks,
+but in another instant, as another one rent the air with
+the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no
+longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her,
+she flew into the hall, through the door that Grace had
+flung wide open, and with terror-winged feet and
+thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide steps
+and along the path after Grace!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_90'></a>90</span><a name='chVI' id='chVI'></a>CHAPTER VI—WORKING INTO HARNESS</h2>
+<p>
+A half-hour later the two girls stood on Mrs.
+Morrow’s veranda, and with Fred’s mocking
+laughter still ringing in their ears told of their
+hasty exit from the gray house. With shame-mantled
+face and downcast eyes Grace handed Mrs. Morrow
+her note.
+</p>
+<p>
+In answer to that lady’s surprised inquiries the story
+was told at length, a few extra flourishes unconsciously
+added to plead for the unexpected finale to their errand.
+But Mrs. Morrow was most kind, not at all like
+Fred, and did not laugh at them for being “scare-babies”
+as he had expressed it. She voiced her sympathy
+most generously, saying she did not wonder they
+were frightened, as she was sure at their age she would
+have done the same.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I cannot imagine what it could have been,” she
+pondered, in much perplexity. “I will ask the doctor.
+If he does not know he will probably hear about it, if
+it was really anything serious.”
+</p>
+<p>
+She smiled in a way that made Nathalie, whose intuitions
+were keen, exclaim hastily, “Oh, indeed, Mrs.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_91'></a>91</span>
+Morrow, we did not imagine it at all. I am sure if
+you could have heard that terrible shriek—and that
+laugh! Oh, I can hear it still!” Her brown eyes
+emphasized her words as they darkened with the haunting
+terror that caused her to rush pell-mell after Grace.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I do hope,” remarked Mrs. Morrow, “that
+Mrs. Van Vorst will never know that the young girls
+who took such sudden flight from her house were
+Pioneers, as Pioneers are supposed to be very courageous.”
+There was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke
+that partly atoned for the implication as to the girls’
+lack of courage.
+</p>
+<p>
+They made no reply for a moment, and then Grace,
+as if to atone for her delinquency, exclaimed contritely,
+“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs. Morrow, I was frightened—but
+if you want me to—” her voice faltered,
+“I will take it to her again.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, indeed,” quickly rejoined that lady, “I could
+not be so cruel as to send you there again, for no matter
+if the shriek was nothing, you were really frightened.
+I did not mean to rebuke you; I only wanted to seize
+this opportunity to show you what an important thing
+courage is—and how we should cultivate it, even in
+small things. As for the note, I will get the doctor to
+take it or send it by post. I will have to confess, however,
+that I am disappointed, for I was so anxious to
+have Mrs. Van Vorst see what well-behaved and pleasing
+young girls belonged to the organization.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_92'></a>92</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“And you sent me!” wailed Grace. “Oh, thank
+you, Mrs. Morrow, but what an arrant coward I have
+proved—and Nathalie of course would not have run
+if I had not!” The tears welled up piteously in her
+blue eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no, Grace,” interposed Nathalie loyally, “I
+was just on the verge of running away myself!” And
+then she told them about the mandarin with the grinning
+mouth, and sinister, bead-like eyes, that she was
+sure had blinked at her. This caused a laugh and
+cleared the atmosphere of the unpleasantness that had
+been created by the morning’s adventure.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Saturday of the Pilgrim Rally—the day that
+was to make Nathalie a Pioneer—arrived. At an
+early hour of the morning the Pioneers of the three
+bird groups—each one with a package—began to
+file into Seton Hall, the little stone building used by
+the town for important meetings and often for social
+functions. Out of deference to Nathalie the girls
+had decided to bring their Pilgrim costumes with them—hence
+the mysterious packages—and not don them
+until she had been admitted to the organization.
+</p>
+<p>
+With interested eyes Nathalie heard the Pioneers
+recite their pledge, give the sign, the salute,—the three
+movements of the closed hand, signifying a brave heart,
+an honest mind, and a resourceful hand,—and give the
+rousing Girl Pioneer cheer. She felt a trifle shaky,
+she confided to Helen who was seated next to her,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_93'></a>93</span>
+dreading the ordeal of being made prominent as most
+girls do, but she regained her nerve somewhat as the
+Director arose and with a smiling nod of welcome began
+to call the names.
+</p>
+<p>
+Certainly it was a pretty fancy to have each member
+respond to her name by giving the bird call of her
+group. The quick clear note of Bob White, the
+“Chip! chip!” of the meadow sparrow, and the oriole’s
+greeting were all inspiring, but it was the melodious
+“Tru-al-lee!” of the bluebird group that held her with
+its sweet, low trill.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie heard her name called when it came time
+to perform the initiative ceremony of making her a
+Pioneer, her head began to whirl, but setting her teeth
+determinedly, with squared shoulders and head erect,
+she walked down the aisle, faced the Director, and in
+a clear voice repeated her pledge. In answer to the
+question, would she remember that the honor of a
+world-wide organization had been placed in her hands,
+and that henceforth whatever she said or did was not
+done simply as Nathalie Page, but as a Girl Pioneer,
+she answered gravely, “I will!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The second question was now asked, if she would
+try to live in such a way that through and by her example
+the words Girl Pioneer should come to mean all
+that was honest, highest, best, and most efficient in the
+girlhood of her country, she again replied with the
+solemn, “I will.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_94'></a>94</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The Director now stepped to her side, and taking her
+by the hand said, “Nathalie Page, in the name of the
+Girl Pioneers of America, and by the authority vested
+in me as a Director, I receive you into our organization.
+You are now a Girl Pioneer of America. May you be
+a worthy successor of those women, brave, honest, resourceful,
+from whom our name is taken, and who in
+the early days of the country, standing side by side with
+the men, faced hardships, privations, and dangers, and
+helped to make possible the United States of
+America!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow paused a moment, and then with one
+of her ready smiles took Nathalie’s hand in hers and
+gave her a cordial welcome. Then turning toward
+the Pioneers she said, “Let us welcome our new
+member.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls sprang quickly but noiselessly on their
+feet, crying:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Whom&nbsp;&nbsp;have&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;here?<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A&nbsp;&nbsp;new&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Come&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neer<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nathalie&nbsp;&nbsp;Page!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+The new Pioneer unconsciously heaved a deep sigh
+when the ceremony was over and she was allowed to
+return to her seat. She was tempted to smile at her
+palpitating heart when going through such a simple
+ceremony as the initiation to an organization of girls;
+and yet she was vaguely conscious that it was a momentous
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_95'></a>95</span>
+episode in her life, and she firmly resolved that
+her vow should be a binding one, and that she would
+try her best to become a worth-while Pioneer and a
+Blue Robin.
+</p>
+<p>
+The seriousness of her act became even more apparent
+as she listened with keen interest to Mrs. Morrow’s
+little talk, which was, in memory of the day’s
+celebration, about the Pilgrims. It was the desire to
+do right in the face of all difficulties which animated
+the Founders of this great nation in their struggle
+for Freedom and Right, and which led their wives,
+daughters, and sisters to forego the necessities of life,
+to cross an unknown sea and to face the perils of the
+wilderness and to aid them in their noble purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was this sacrifice of the things that made life endurable,
+and their strict adherence to duty that gave
+rise to the sterling qualities of unflinching determination,
+hardy courage, stern endurance, unrepining cheerfulness,
+untiring loyalty, patient industry, and quick
+resourcefulness that has gained the name of the Pioneer
+spirit, and made these early women founders of
+our nation models of all that is pure and best in
+womanhood.
+</p>
+<p>
+Their Director then went on and told of the handicrafts
+of the Pilgrims, such as baking, brewing, sewing,
+knitting, quilting, spinning, planting the foodstuffs,
+carding wool, and the many industries that were
+necessary to keep life in those pioneer days.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_96'></a>96</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+As the new Pioneer heard the gentle, persuasive
+voice, she began to see life in a new aspect, and to understand
+something of what it meant to emulate these
+noble women. “In your hikes, before your cheer
+fires, in your camps, in your home and school life, as
+well as in the tests and your outdoor and indoor activities,
+and in your sports and games, keep these
+women as your cheer star,” said Mrs. Morrow earnestly,
+“so that you, too, will be actuated by the qualities
+that ennobled them. And when the call comes, be
+kindly, helpful, resourceful, pure, and upright in the
+midst of all temptation and danger, and you will not
+only have the name of Pioneer, but will be filled with
+the real pioneer spirit.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow stood silent a moment and then repeated
+slowly:
+</p>
+<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>“Life&#160;is&#160;more&#160;than&#160;the&#160;breath&#160;and&#160;the&#160;quick&#160;round&#160;of&#160;blood,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>It&#160;is&#160;a&#160;great&#160;spirit&#160;and&#160;a&#160;busy&#160;heart.</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>We&#160;live&#160;in&#160;deeds,&#160;not&#160;years;&#160;in&#160;thoughts,&#160;not&#160;breaths;</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>In&#160;feelings,&#160;not&#160;figures&#160;on&#160;a&#160;dial.</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>We&#160;should&#160;count&#160;time&#160;as&#160;heart&#160;throbs.&#160;He&#160;most&#160;lives</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Who&#160;thinks&#160;most,&#160;feels&#160;the&#160;noblest,&#160;acts&#160;the&#160;best.”</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'>—<span class='sc'>Bailey.</span></p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>
+The girls now seated themselves in a circle, and as
+Jessie read the news from the monthly “Pioneer,”
+which reported a flower hike for the Saturday two
+weeks hence, they took out their materials and set to
+work. Some wove gay-colored yarn on small frames,
+others braided raffia baskets, or made squares of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_97'></a>97</span>
+plaited slips of paper, while Mrs. Morrow told them
+something about the art of weaving.
+</p>
+<p>
+After some time spent in learning this old-time craft,
+the Director asked the girls how they could best apply
+this industry to a very common fundamental of the
+home. There was a slight pause, and then some one
+called out “To the carpet!” Another girl ventured to
+say “Our clothes.” Mrs. Morrow smiled as she said
+they were all right in a sense, but the particular craft
+she meant at that time was what Helen had timidly
+suggested, and that was, darning stockings!
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a ripple of laughter at this truism and
+then, to Nathalie’s surprise, there was a stocking drill,
+every one hauling forth a stocking from her basket
+and setting to work to practice this homely art. It
+was indeed a trial by needle to Nathalie, and she suffered
+some embarrassment when, after borrowing a
+stocking from her neighbor, and trying her very best
+to do it well, it was returned to her from the Director
+with the remark that she needed training in the science.
+</p>
+<p>
+Later, when Mrs. Morrow came to her side and
+showed how neatly her stocking hole appeared after
+weaving her thread back and forth, and made Nathalie
+practice doing the same, the girl suddenly realized
+what a braggart she had been. “Oh, I told Mother I
+was the champion mender,” she thought remorsefully.
+“What a bungle I must have been making of those
+stockings!” With the avowed purpose that she was going
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_98'></a>98</span>
+to make darning her life-work for the next three
+weeks, she laid her work aside and hurried with the
+girls into the adjoining dressing-room to get ready for
+the real Pilgrimy time, when they were to represent
+the women of Plymouth town.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you always have an all-day meeting?” she
+asked Grace, who was pinning a blue bird on Nathalie’s
+gown, for at Helen’s suggestion she was to appear at
+this, her first Rally, as a Blue Robin, in memory of the
+first songster that welcomed the Pilgrims.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no, indeed,” answered Grace, “but we departed
+from our usual plan, which is to meet in the afternoon
+only, unless we have a hike or demonstration, as
+we wanted to make our luncheon the Mayflower Feast.
+But, oh, Nathalie,” she ended enthusiastically, “you
+are a veritable blue bird! Look, girls, isn’t she the
+dearest? That bluebird blue makes her cheeks like
+pink roses!”
+</p>
+<p>
+At this sudden thrust into notoriety the girl’s color
+grew more vivid as she turned for the inspection of the
+girls. They grew very enthusiastic over her bluebird
+costume with its bluish-gray slip with scalloped edges,
+and bluebird cap edged with tiny blue wings, where a
+blue bird, standing up in the front, poised with outspread
+wings “ready to fly,” as one of the girls asserted.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s only blue paper muslin,” explained the
+“flier,” as her mates had called her, when they examined
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_99'></a>99</span>
+the Blue Robin gown. “Helen helped me
+make it, and what a time we had making that birdie
+stick—hands off,” she finished laughingly, as some
+too ardent admirer pressed her close, “or I shall not
+fly away but fall to pieces.”
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time, however, her admirers had found a
+new love in the Tike, who came dancing before them
+all in white. She was literally a bower of trailing
+arbutus, as sprays of that spring flower were fastened
+all over her gown.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am the Pilgrim flower,” she piped pertly, “some
+call me the Mayflower blossom.” And then catching
+up her skirts, with a low curtsey she repeated softly:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Oh&nbsp;&nbsp;I’m&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;flower&nbsp;&nbsp;that&nbsp;&nbsp;never&nbsp;&nbsp;dies,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;’Neath&nbsp;&nbsp;leaves&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;brown&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;bed&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;low.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;arbutus,&nbsp;&nbsp;who&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;glad&nbsp;&nbsp;surprise<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bloomed&nbsp;&nbsp;‘Welcome’&nbsp;&nbsp;from&nbsp;&nbsp;fields&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;snow<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To&nbsp;&nbsp;our&nbsp;&nbsp;Pilgrim&nbsp;&nbsp;sires&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;long&nbsp;&nbsp;ago.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, here’s Lillie Bell!” called some one. “Isn’t
+she a duck of a dear!” Simultaneously the girls forsook
+the Tike and flocked around Lillie, who, gowned
+in pure white, with kerchief and lace cap, represented
+Susannah White, the first bride of the colony.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, and I want you to note, girls,” she asserted
+impressively, with a nonchalant nod to the welcome
+accorded her, “that I am not only the first bride, but
+the first mother of the colony, for my little Peregrine
+was born when the <em>Mayflower</em> rode at anchor in Cape
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_100'></a>100</span>
+Cod Bay, and Mrs. Morrow claims this is even a greater
+honor than to be the first bride. But, girls—” she
+ended abruptly, dropping her matronly pose, “have
+you seen Edith—she was to be Helen Billington—I
+never knew her to be so late before?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There! that accounts for the aching void in my
+heart, I know I missed some one,” cried Jessie half
+mockingly. “O dear, what will become of my Pioneer
+article if the Sport does not appear?” The girls
+all laughed in appreciation of Jessie’s serio-comic declaration,
+for it was generally conceded that Edith was
+the most active spirit of the band, as her sporting
+proclivities, her general good-nature, and her dashing
+escapades always furnished plenty of “copy” when
+any of their various hikes or demonstrations were in
+progress.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t fret; a bad penny always turns up!”
+chimed in Kitty, who did not particularly admire the
+Sport.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I’ll bet you a cookie that she has been arrested for
+appearing in disorderly apparel on the street,” observed
+Grace roguishly; “for she told me she was going to
+dress at home.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, girls, aren’t you ready?” at this instant asked
+Louise Gaynor, suddenly appearing in the doorway
+leading to the room where Mrs. Morrow, as Mistress
+Carver, the Governor’s lady, was waiting to receive
+them.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_101'></a>101</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Her Sweet Graciousness, Mistress Carver, waits
+for you without in the Common House.”
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Modest&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;simple&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;sweet,&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;very&nbsp;&nbsp;type&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Priscilla,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Priscilla,&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;Mayflower&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Plymouth!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Thus hummed Lillie as she walked around this winsome
+representation of that Puritan maiden, surveying
+her critically, but with approving eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you’re just too sweet for anything!” warbled
+another bluebird, “you’re—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You’re too sweet to have to do your own proposing,
+methinks,” broke in Jessie, touching one of the
+long golden braids that fell from beneath the demure
+little cap of this first edition of women’s rights.
+</p>
+<p>
+But at sweet Priscilla’s gentle reminder that the first
+lady of the land should not be kept waiting, the merry
+girls ceased their chatter, did their best to assume the
+decorous manners of the Puritan women, filed into line,
+and were soon in the adjoining room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Here they were greeted by Dame Brewster, the
+Elder’s wife, no other than Helen, who, in ruffled cap
+and quaintly flowered gown, excelled even her own
+aspirations to appear like that motherly dame, as in
+speech of quaint wording she made each Mayflower
+damsel known to Mistress Carver.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the greetings had been voiced, the first surprise
+came, and that was when the Tike came bounding
+into the midst of the gentle dames and informed them
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_102'></a>102</span>
+that a cheer fire was blazing on the grass-plot in the
+rear of the Hall. The Pioneers in profound wonder—as
+they had not expected to have a cheer fire—followed
+Mistress Carver to the garden, where a circle
+was formed around this magic inspirer of cheer, whose
+burning fagots snapped and crackled noisily, as if to
+do its share in the old-time celebration. It was in
+memory, Grace declared, of the many fires that had
+cheered the settlers in the cold and desolation of the
+new world.
+</p>
+<p>
+Murmurs of wonder and queries about this mysterious
+surprise were silenced, as some one started a general
+clapping, a recognition often accorded the Pioneers’
+cheer star. Then, as they gathered around the
+flaming light, some one suggested that perhaps the
+Governor’s lady could tell as to who was the magic fire-maker.
+</p>
+<p>
+The lady in question, although disclaiming that she
+knew who lighted the magic inspirer, did finally admit
+that she could guess who had done it, but as that was
+a privilege that every one had, she had nothing to tell.
+However, the mystery remained unsolved, although
+some bright one ventured to suggest that it might have
+been the Sport, who was still missing, as she delighted
+to do the unexpected.
+</p>
+<p>
+Immediately the missing Pioneer began to be eulogized
+for her clever and mysterious absence, as these
+representatives of hundreds of years ago circled about
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_103'></a>103</span>
+their emblem of cheer and romance. To usher in
+the first ceremony, or, as the girls sometimes called
+it “the christening of the blazer,” some one called for
+the story-teller to give one of her thrillers. This cry
+was forthwith taken up by the little company, and became
+so imperative that Lillie at last complied with
+the request, and in a few moments was telling, in her
+usual impressive way, the story of those pioneers, the
+Pilgrim men and women, who fought the first battle
+for liberty and union on the shores of this land.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Lillie’s story came to an end, she received her
+usual applause, for every one had listened with the
+closest attention to the account of the many pilgrimages
+of these simple folk from the northeastern countries
+of England. In trying to serve God as they deemed
+right they had separated themselves from the English
+church and had begun to hold little meetings in the
+village of Scrooby. Hounded by the authorities they
+finally sailed to the low countries, which at that time
+were considered a place of refuge for the oppressed
+of all nations. They lived one year in Amsterdam,
+meeting for worship near a convent, whose sweet
+chimes called them to a low-ceiled room, where they
+sung their songs of praise and read God’s word.
+</p>
+<p>
+But their wanderings were not over, and a year
+later they sailed on one of the great waterways of
+this Dutch land to Leyden. Here they remained
+twelve years in twenty-three humble little homes, built
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_104'></a>104</span>
+on a plot of ground known as the <em>Koltsteeg</em>, and called
+Bell Alley, just across the way from the great dome of
+St. Peter’s church.
+</p>
+<p>
+Here in this land of foreign tongue their children
+grew up, learned their trades and, alas, many of the
+ways of these people, especially their methods of keeping
+the Sabbath, which were contrary to the beliefs of
+these God-loving people. It was for this reason as
+well as for others, that they started forth on their wanderings
+again, and migrated to the new land across
+the sea, sailing in the <em>Mayflower</em> on the twenty-second
+of July, 1620.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie was somewhat disappointed in the beginning,
+that she was not to hear one of Lillie’s twentieth-century
+thrillers, but the story of the Pilgrims was so
+interesting that she felt amply repaid for her disappointment.
+Although familiar with their story in
+this land, she had never heard much about the lives of
+these founders before they came to America.
+</p>
+<p>
+The tale of these ancient folk was rendered even
+more interesting by various interruptions at intervals,
+as when Dame Brewster read, in solemn tone, the Constitution
+formed by these people in the cabin of the
+<em>Mayflower</em>, said to have been written on an old chest,
+and known as The Compact, the first stone in the
+American Commonwealth.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Governor’s lady enlivened the tedious voyage
+over by telling of several little incidents that had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_105'></a>105</span>
+occurred; one was when the <em>Mayflower</em> during a severe
+storm was saved from going to the bottom by some
+one wedging a <em>kracht</em>, or jackscrew, in a leak that had
+suddenly sprung amidships.
+</p>
+<p>
+Little Humility Cooper, one of the children of the
+<em>Mayflower</em> voyagers, an Oriole Pioneer, recited Mrs.
+Heman’s “Landing of the Pilgrims,” while sprightly
+Mary Chilton told of her race with John Alden to be
+the first one of the little company to step on Plymouth
+Rock. She added to the interest of this recital by
+giving a short account of this historical granite from
+the day it served as a foundation stone of her victory
+until the present time.
+</p>
+<p>
+A Bob White told about the first American washday,
+and the fun the children had gathering sweet juniper
+boughs to build the fires, over which hung the
+tripod from which was suspended the kettles of that
+historic occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+Louise Gaynor, as Priscilla, recited parts of Longfellow’s
+poem, “The Courtship of Myles Standish,”
+with its picturesque account of the most romantic happening
+of the little town, while as Mistress Fuller,
+Barbara described Fort Hill and told about Captain
+Standish and his sixteen valiant men-at-arms who explored
+the hills and woods of the wilderness.
+</p>
+<p>
+Kitty Corwin, as another Pilgrim dame, told of the
+erection of the seven little houses with their thatched
+roofs, built in a row on First, or Leyden Street, giving
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_106'></a>106</span>
+a rather exciting account of the many serious
+accidents that happened to the Common House where
+the stores and ammunition of the community were
+stored. And so, in picturesque detail, each feature of
+the story was brought forth to form in the minds of
+these twentieth century Pioneers a picture that would
+last through the years that were to follow, and help
+them gain an insight into the characters they were
+representing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Elizabeth Winslow, the first wife of the first American
+statesman, one of the first to pass away in the fatal
+sickness of that lonely winter; Mrs. Hopkins, who won
+fame as the mother of the boy Oceanus, born on the
+<em>Mayflower</em>; Bridget Fuller, the wife of the genial Dr.
+Fuller, and others, were all impersonated by some
+one of the Pioneers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Even the ghosts, as Grace dubbed them, were heard
+from: Myles Standish’s first wife, known as the beautiful
+English Rose, who died soon after reaching the
+new land, and Dorothy Bradford, the young wife of
+William Bradford, who came to her death by falling
+overboard while her husband was exploring the shores
+with Captain Standish and his men.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the time the story with its variations had been
+told, the girls, tired of posing with old-time stiffness
+and ceremony, were all laughing merrily as some one
+of the band suddenly spied some comical or grotesque
+aspect of the impersonator, when the Tike screamed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_107'></a>107</span>
+shrilly, “Oh, who is that?” pointing to a black-draped
+figure standing in the doorway of the hall, with
+red, perspiring face, hat cocked on one side, and a
+generally bedraggled appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was the missing Pioneer, Edith, who, after the
+hubbub had subsided as to her untimely appearance and
+tardy arrival, pulled off her long black cloak and threw
+herself on the grass by the side of Lillie. With gasps
+and sundry emphasizing shrieks she told what had
+befallen her on the way to the Rally.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Father was ill last night, so the first thing this
+morning I had to go for the doctor. Then as mother
+was busy attending to Father I had to get the youngsters
+ready,—they were going to a May picnic, for
+of course,” Edith added petulantly, “no matter what
+happened to me, Mother would not have the kiddies
+disappointed.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Catching Mrs. Morrow’s reproving eye, she stammered
+apologetically, “Of course, I would not have
+them disappointed myself—they are dears—but it
+lost me my morning; and then, just as I was hurrying
+by the gray house,—oh, girls—” dropping her voice
+to a tense whisper, “what do you think I heard?”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_108'></a>108</span><a name='chVII' id='chVII'></a>CHAPTER VII—THE MAYFLOWER FEAST</h2>
+<p>
+The tenseness of Edith’s tone, coupled with her
+mysterious manner, had the desired effect, and
+the Pioneers all bent forward eagerly with expectant
+eyes, anxious to hear what she had seen and
+heard, while some too impetuous one called out, “Oh,
+do hurry and tell us what it was!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It was the most terrible shriek I ever heard,” answered
+Edith, with a long-drawn sigh. Having succeeded
+in getting her audience where she wanted them
+she was anxious to prolong her triumph. “Why, my
+heart jumped into my mouth, and I—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where did the noise come from?” inquired practical
+Helen impatiently, who never wasted any time
+in getting wrought up, as she called it, by the Sport’s
+yarns.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It came from the garden of the gray house,” was
+the quick retort; and then, crossly, “I do wish, Helen,
+you would wait—you’ll spoil the whole thing if you
+don’t let me tell it properly.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Grace, who had been listening intently to the Sport’s
+recital, looked up quickly and encountered a glance
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_109'></a>109</span>
+from Nathalie’s eyes as she suddenly turned from
+Edith and looked across the circle at Grace to see if
+she had heard. But Grace, whose memory was still
+rankling with her adventure at the gray house, was
+afraid that if the girls knew they would plague her
+unmercifully for being a runaway, and hastily put her
+hand on her lips in warning not to tell what had happened
+to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie nodded loyally and then turned to hear
+Edith repeat, “Yes, the noise came from the garden
+of the gray house, I have always told you there was
+something queer about that place. At first I started
+to run away, and then I thought, ‘O pshaw! whatever
+it is, it won’t hurt me behind those high walls.’
+So I walked close up to the wall near one corner to
+see if I could not manage to climb up in some way and
+look into the garden. I had just spied a tiny hole in
+the lower part of the wall—I guess some boys had
+made it, you know they are always spying about that
+place, anyway—when I heard loud breathing. I
+looked up and saw a man creeping stealthily around the
+corner of the wall, as if dodging some one. Well, I
+just gave one look at him, he had great black, burning
+kind of eyes, staring out of a face as white as a corpse.
+He suddenly spied me, and by the uncanny glare he
+gave I knew right off he was the one who had been
+shrieking, he was the crazy man who lives there!
+Great guns! but I didn’t wait to take another look, I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_110'></a>110</span>
+took to my heels and flew. Then I heard steps thumping
+behind me—looked back—oh, girls,” she shrieked
+hysterically, “he was chasing me, running after me as
+hard as he could!”
+</p>
+<p>
+She gulped, and then with a gasp continued, “Oh,
+for a moment I thought I was doomed, but—well—you
+know I can run, and I did, for my life. I ran
+every step of the way here—and—oh, I’m so hungry!
+Have you had the feast yet?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What became of the man?” inquired Helen
+tersely.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, what became of him?” added one or two
+others.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don’t know and I don’t care,” asserted Miss
+Edith carelessly. “All I know is that he is as crazy
+as a loon, and that he lives in the gray house.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Edith,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow sharply, “as long
+as you did not see the man come from the gray house
+do not say he lives there; and as for saying he is crazy,
+that is absurd. That is just an idle report; do not repeat
+it until you have proof that what you say is correct.
+He was probably a tramp, and may have been
+chased from the garden by one of the servants.” Mrs.
+Morrow’s face showed keenly her annoyance and disbelief
+in Edith’s surmise.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But what could the screams have been?” asked
+Helen, wonderingly, “if they really came from the
+garden?”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_111'></a>111</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I am sure they did,” asserted the Sport positively,
+“for I have heard other people say that they
+have heard queer noises coming from that place. But
+girls,” she exclaimed, as if anxious to dismiss the subject,
+“do tell me what you have been doing. Oh, I
+did so hate to miss all the fun.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, kiddie, it is too bad,” consoled Lillie, putting
+her arm around her friend, “but we have not had the
+feast yet, we’ve just been listening to little stories about
+the Pilgrims—you know you heard me read my story
+the other day—” she stopped abruptly, for a sudden
+rustling in a clump of trees back of the garden had
+caused every one to turn and peer apprehensively over
+their shoulders.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh,” shivered the Sport nervously, “perhaps it is
+the crazy man!” She sprang to her feet and made
+as if to take to her heels again.
+</p>
+<p>
+Every girl followed her example, and in another
+moment there would have been a wild stampede to the
+shelter of the hall, if a loud voice had not called out,
+“Welcome, Englishmen! Welcome!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Simultaneously with these words a lithe form sprang
+into the midst of the terrified girls, who clung to one
+another with wildly beating hearts as with dilated eyes
+they glared at the intruder, a tall Indian youth, resplendent
+with a feathered head-gear. He was clad
+in deerskin trousers fringed at the seams, a string of
+hairy scalps hung at his belt, and he held a bow and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_112'></a>112</span>
+arrow in his hands as he stood and looked down at
+this bevy of frightened colonial maids with a broad
+smile on his grease besmeared face.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was just a second’s pause, and then Helen
+shouted merrily, “Oh, it’s Teddy Hart, and he’s Samoset!
+Oh, girls, don’t you remember? He was the
+Indian who came and welcomed the Pilgrims!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course they all remembered, for had not Lillie
+dealt at length upon that very scene when telling her
+story? And Teddy Hart, why, he was a Boy Scout,
+one of Fred Tyson’s patrol, which was known as the
+Eagle patrol.
+</p>
+<p>
+This was all that was needed to make the girls forget
+the crazy man and the Sport’s harrowing tale, and
+they crowded about Teddy crying, “Oh, Ted, where
+did you get the rig?” or, “What made you think of
+it?” and, “Isn’t it the best ever?” This last was
+from the Tike who was hopping about the new arrival
+examining the hairy scalps—which turned out to be
+a few wigs borrowed from the village barber—with
+keen curiosity.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Great Cæsar! give a fellow a chance to breathe,
+won’t you?” fired the make-believe Samoset, as he
+mopped his face energetically. “Don’t riddle me with
+questions; I’m not a target!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, this was the second surprise, or the forerunner
+of it, for before Teddy was ready to surrender his
+place as the hero of the moment, the beat of a drum
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_113'></a>113</span>
+was heard, and from the little bit of woodland where
+Ted had been hiding issued a group of queer-looking
+individuals. They were all attired in somber-colored
+clothes with broad white collars, high conical-shaped
+hats, and all carried guns and had swords clanking at
+their sides in good impersonation of the Fathers of
+their country. The next moment they had formed in
+line and with well-simulated solemnity of countenance,
+“as if going to meeting-house,” tittered Grace, these
+sixteen men-at-arms, headed by Capt. Standish—who
+was no other than Fred Tyson—marched valiantly
+down the street towards the garden.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was the Sport after all who saved the day for the
+Pioneers, for as they stood in dazed laughter wondering
+how to greet these unexpected guests, the Sport’s
+hand shot up, and two seconds later the girls had joined
+her in saluting their brother organization, as with one
+accord they gave the Pioneer cheer.
+</p>
+<p>
+In quick response to a signal from their leader, the
+Scouts came to a halt, and as one man each Scout’s
+hand went up to his forehead in the salute of three
+ringers held upright. This was followed by another
+cheer, a rousing one this time, as each boy shouted
+lustily:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Ready!&nbsp;&nbsp;Ready!&nbsp;&nbsp;Scout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Scout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Scout!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Good&nbsp;&nbsp;turn&nbsp;&nbsp;daily!&nbsp;&nbsp;Shout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Shout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Shout!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+The boys now fell into step again, and in a few moments
+had entered the little wicker gate where they
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_114'></a>114</span>
+broke ranks as they were cordially welcomed by the
+Governor’s lady and Dame Brewster. For a short
+space following pandemonium reigned, as the boys
+tried to answer the many queries propounded by the
+girls, each Pioneer, spying some one favorite boy,
+singled him out with merry jest to answer as to the
+why and wherefore of the unlooked for surprise.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie felt somewhat embarrassed and stood apart
+from the girls, not having met any of the Scouts of
+the town. Perhaps she was a little scornful, for in
+the city she had been wont to pass a khaki uniform with
+scant approval, considering these emulators of chivalrous
+knights mere boys. Not understanding the aims
+or purposes of the organization they had failed to attract
+her.
+</p>
+<p>
+But as she stood watching these tall, well-developed
+lads with heads held high, squared shoulders, and with
+the ruddy glow of an active life in the open on their
+bright faces, she reluctantly admitted that they were
+interesting to look at, at least.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah, Miss Nathalie, I see you have forgotten me!”
+spoke a voice at the girl’s elbow. She turned quickly
+to see the laughing brown eyes of Fred Tyson. Fred’s
+face was flushed with embarrassment as he felt somewhat
+timorous as to this city girl’s greeting, since he
+had last seen her walking away from him with flushed
+cheeks and angry mien as he teasingly taunted, “Scare-babies!
+Scare-babies!”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_115'></a>115</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie had forgotten all about that trivial incident—perhaps
+because she had a brother and knew
+the moods of boys and how they delighted to tease and
+hark at the girls—and she dimpled with cordiality as
+she returned his greeting.
+</p>
+<p>
+She was soon sparkling with merriment as Fred told
+of the fun they had in rigging up, and the sensation
+they created as they marched through Main Street.
+By this time the explanations from the boys were over,
+and the secret of the cheer fire was revealed. It had
+been made by the Scouts at the suggestion of Dr.
+Homer, who was much interested in the Pioneers and
+had planned the two surprises to give a little more tone
+to the celebration and fun to the girls.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls now clamored that they were hungry, and
+at an intimation from Mrs. Morrow the Scouts were
+invited to repair to one of the side rooms in the hall,
+where their Mayflower Feast was to be held.
+</p>
+<p>
+The invitation was accepted by Fred for the patrol,
+and the party of merry-makers filed noisily into the
+hall. When the boys saw the Stars and Stripes, and
+the yards of red, white, and blue bunting hanging in
+graceful folds from the walls of the room, they broke
+into patriotic song. “Red, White, and Blue” was
+first sung in compliment to the Girl Pioneers’ colors,
+and was quickly succeeded by the “Battle Cry of Freedom,”
+and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in recognition
+of the starry emblem that symbolizes—more than
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_116'></a>116</span>
+any design that floats to the wind—the uplift of mankind,
+Liberty, and Union!
+</p>
+<p>
+A cheery fire of pine knots blazed a greeting from
+the hearth, while two long boards supported on trestles
+and covered with a shining damask cloth, represented
+the table of Pioneer days. Odd bits of old-time ware,
+such as silver porringers, queer-shaped jugs, or blackjacks,
+a number of wooden bowls, a high-standing
+salt-cellar, and a pewter tankard, were distributed
+about the table. But it was the flowers that lay in
+bunches here and there—and all May ones, too, from
+the clusters of white snowballs, lilacs, pink and yellow
+azaleas, to the big bowls filled with sprigs of arbutus—that
+held Nathalie’s eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+But flags, antiques, and flowers soon became things
+of the past, as the girls brought forth their lunch-baskets;
+each one had vied with the other to bring some
+choice edible and with the help of the modern knights,
+who declared that they had come for that purpose,
+the table was loaded with goodies.
+</p>
+<p>
+Just before the feast was served, Will Ditmas, a fair
+counterpart of William Brewster, the ruling elder of
+Plymouth, suddenly stood up and, after much throat-clearing,
+announced in a droning voice that if those
+present were willing, for the furtherance of sobriety
+and seemly behavior, he would read a few rules from
+“A Pretty Little Pocket Book.”
+</p>
+<p>
+After stonily staring over a pair of goggles at a few
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_117'></a>117</span>
+irrepressible gigglers the would-be Elder read:
+“Speak not until spoken to; break not thy bread, nor
+bite into a whole slice; take not salt unless with a clean
+knife, and throw no bones under the table.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Those who were trying to keep their faces straight
+wavered in the attempt and joined the irrepressible
+Tike in a few hysterical titters as he continued:
+“Hold not thy fork upright, but sloping, lay it down
+at the right hand of the plate, with the end of the blade
+on the table plate, and look not earnestly at any person
+that is eating.”
+</p>
+<p>
+This last was the final straw for the Tike, and she
+giggled so unrestrainedly that she threatened hysteria,
+and Helen had to whack her on the back so that she
+could get her breathing apparatus in working order
+again. This ebullition was like a match to fire, and all
+those who had been smothering their mirth now broke
+forth into loud laughter, which threatened to become
+clamorous had not Mrs. Morrow held up her restraining
+finger.
+</p>
+<p>
+The signal was too well known not to be obeyed,
+and the too mirthful ones were recalled to themselves.
+Then, too, they were all hungry; so forgetting the old-time
+admonitions of their forebears, they were soon
+occupied satisfying their hunger.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the left-over goodies had been gathered into
+baskets to be delivered to a poor family, and the place
+was set in order again, the chivalrous knights and the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_118'></a>118</span>
+emulating Pioneers swarmed merrily into the dance
+hall, where they held high court to the light fantastic
+as Mrs. Morrow, the one-piece orchestra, rattled off
+ragtime harmony for round and square dances.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie by this time had met a number of the
+Scouts, and to her surprise found that some of them
+danced as well as, and in some cases better than her boy
+friends in the city. The would-be Elder, who had
+droned the rules from the pocket book, proved not only
+a good dancer, but most companionable, and finding
+that Nathalie was sadly ignorant as to the aims and
+purposes of the Scout organization, he set forth to
+enlighten her.
+</p>
+<p>
+He took off his Scout badge, pointed out the eagle,
+and the stars and shield, explaining that it was a trefoil
+badge and represented the three points in the Scout
+oath. The curl-up at the end of the scroll was a
+reminder to each Scout that the corners of his mouth
+should always be turned up in a smile of cheerfulness.
+The knot in the loop was a “conscience pricker,” as
+he expressed it, that a Scout was pledged to do some
+one a good turn every day.
+</p>
+<p>
+The next dance was Fred Tyson’s, and when it
+ended they seated themselves in a corner of the hall
+to cool off, and as Nathalie fanned herself with a
+much bedraggled handkerchief, they hit upon a topic
+that proved most entertaining, and that was—college.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_119'></a>119</span>
+Fred stated that he expected to go to Dartmouth in the
+fall and was therefore looking forward to it with
+much pleasure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, with sparkling eyes, told how she had
+dreamed and longed to go to college, and then the
+golden lights in her eyes shadowed as she said that
+since the death of her father she had decided to stop
+dreaming about what was impossible for her, and to
+do something worth while, so she had become a
+Pioneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But don’t you think it worth while to go to college?”
+was Fred’s puzzled query, “for surely there
+is nothing that will help a girl more in life than to have—what
+is it—the higher education?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I know,” assented his companion, “that is
+all right, but when one finds that they can’t have a
+thing—no matter how big or grand it is, or how much
+they want it—if it is impossible, it ceases to be worth
+while; that is, why spend time lamenting, or thinking
+about something that can’t be accomplished?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, you are a regular little philosopher!”
+laughed Fred. But Nathalie was not heeding, for suddenly
+looking across the room she perceived that the
+dancers had retired from the floor, all but the Pioneers,
+who were standing in two lines in the center of the
+room facing one another as if about to dance the Virginia
+Reel.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_120'></a>120</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, what are they going to do?” she cried, but
+before her companion could answer Helen came running
+up.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Come on, Nathalie, we are going to dance the
+Pioneer dance. It’s lots of fun.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I don’t know it,” objected the girl. “I am
+not going to make a show of myself before all these
+boys.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but you won’t,” urged Helen, “for you can
+be my partner, and I will tell you as we go along; and
+then its awfully simple, for we just go through the
+motions of pioneer handcraft—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Pioneer handcraft?” echoed Nathalie more puzzled
+than before.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, don’t you remember what Mrs. Morrow told
+us about the handcrafts of the Pioneer women? Well,
+she made up this dance to make these crafts definite.
+Oh, come, it is easy!” In a moment, Nathalie’s objection
+being overruled, she bade Fred good-by and
+was hurried by her partner to join one of the two lines
+on the floor.
+</p>
+<p>
+Only a few explanations were necessary, and Nathalie,
+who was quick to learn, joined her voice to the
+girlish ones singing:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Singing,&nbsp;&nbsp;ringing&nbsp;&nbsp;thro’&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;air<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Comes&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;song&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Molly&nbsp;&nbsp;fair.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Milking,&nbsp;&nbsp;milking&nbsp;&nbsp;Crumple&nbsp;&nbsp;Horn<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Down&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;barn&nbsp;&nbsp;at&nbsp;&nbsp;early&nbsp;&nbsp;dawn.”<br />
+</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_121'></a>121</span></div>
+<p>
+As the song ended, the closed right hand of every
+Girl Pioneer was held out in front, elbow bent upward.
+Then came three movements up and down in imitation
+of the act of churning. This was done three
+times, as in chorus came:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Churning,&nbsp;&nbsp;turning,&nbsp;&nbsp;see&nbsp;&nbsp;it&nbsp;&nbsp;splash,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This&nbsp;&nbsp;way,&nbsp;&nbsp;that&nbsp;&nbsp;way,&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;dash.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+As the next two lines rang out:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Skimming&nbsp;&nbsp;skimming&nbsp;&nbsp;foamy&nbsp;&nbsp;white,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Making&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;butter&nbsp;&nbsp;golden&nbsp;&nbsp;bright,”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+the motions were changed to those of skimming milk,
+repeated three times as in the previous movement, the
+girls emphasizing the end of each movement by stamping
+the feet, using first one and then the other. They
+ended this last motion by each girl placing her hands
+on her hips and tripping in line with the others lightly
+down the room in time with the music and then back
+to place.
+</p>
+<p>
+A second of time, and each dancer was making the
+motion of holding a baby in her encircled arms, and
+while swaying to and fro these words were softly
+crooned:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Golden&nbsp;&nbsp;slumber&nbsp;&nbsp;kiss&nbsp;&nbsp;your&nbsp;&nbsp;eyes,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Smiles&nbsp;&nbsp;awake&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;when&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;rise.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sleep&nbsp;&nbsp;pretty&nbsp;&nbsp;wantons,&nbsp;&nbsp;do&nbsp;&nbsp;not&nbsp;&nbsp;cry,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;I&nbsp;&nbsp;will&nbsp;&nbsp;sing&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;lullabye.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl
+faced her opposite partner, and then linking hands
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_122'></a>122</span>
+together they were rocking a cradle as they joyously
+warbled:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Baby&nbsp;&nbsp;is&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;sailor&nbsp;&nbsp;boy,&nbsp;&nbsp;swing,&nbsp;&nbsp;cradle,&nbsp;&nbsp;swing;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sailing&nbsp;&nbsp;is&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;sailor’s&nbsp;&nbsp;joy,&nbsp;&nbsp;swing,&nbsp;&nbsp;cradle,&nbsp;&nbsp;swing.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room
+and back again to place, where this time they formed
+in rows of three in each line. A crash of chords from
+the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched
+left hand, and made the motion of taking
+something with the right hand from the closed left,
+and casting it on the ground, as they repeated clearly
+and loudly:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Good&nbsp;&nbsp;flax&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;good&nbsp;&nbsp;hemp&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;have&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;her&nbsp;&nbsp;own,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In&nbsp;&nbsp;May,&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;good&nbsp;&nbsp;housewife&nbsp;&nbsp;will&nbsp;&nbsp;see&nbsp;&nbsp;that&nbsp;&nbsp;it&nbsp;&nbsp;is&nbsp;&nbsp;sown.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;afterwards&nbsp;&nbsp;trim&nbsp;&nbsp;it&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;serve&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;need,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;fimble&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;spin,&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;card&nbsp;&nbsp;from&nbsp;&nbsp;her&nbsp;&nbsp;reel.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers
+had done hundreds of years ago—a sign of a
+thrifty housewife. Now came three claps of the hand
+and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each
+performer now lightly put forward the right foot,
+poised on the ball of the left one, while making the
+motion as of moving the treadle of a spinning-wheel,
+as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping every
+moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup
+fastened to the distaff.
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-122' id='illus-122'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i004' id='i004'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-122.jpg" alt="“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen." title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen.</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_123'></a>123</span></div>
+<p>
+“Polly Green, her reel,” announced Helen as leader
+of the dance, and then came the old-fashioned couplet
+softly hummed:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Count&nbsp;&nbsp;your&nbsp;&nbsp;threads&nbsp;&nbsp;right,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;If&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;reel&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;night<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When&nbsp;&nbsp;I&nbsp;&nbsp;am&nbsp;&nbsp;far&nbsp;&nbsp;away.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet
+meant only to count your threads at night while Polly
+was far away, the dancers had swung into place and
+were going through the minuet. With slow and stately
+measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping,
+sweeping curtsy that has made that dance so
+graceful a reminder of the festivities of early days.
+</p>
+<p>
+Now they are singing:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Twice&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;year&nbsp;&nbsp;deplumed&nbsp;&nbsp;may&nbsp;&nbsp;they&nbsp;&nbsp;be<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In&nbsp;&nbsp;spryngen&nbsp;&nbsp;tyme&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;harvest&nbsp;&nbsp;tyme,”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up
+something with her left hand while the right flew up
+and down with noiseless regularity—plucking a goose
+for dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+The next instant every alternate girl had put her
+hand over her mouth in the form of a horn and was
+calling loudly, “Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple
+Horn!” This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation
+when each fair dancer caught up the hem of
+her apron and, bending forward, with well-simulated
+deftness was gathering or picking up something from
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_124'></a>124</span>
+the ground which was quickly thrust into her apron.
+Another flash of white arms, and each girl had caught
+up the hem of her neighbor’s gown and with a pretended
+switch was driving her forward while merrily
+singing:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Driving&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;twilight&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;waiting&nbsp;&nbsp;cows&nbsp;&nbsp;home,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With&nbsp;&nbsp;arms&nbsp;&nbsp;full-laden&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;hemlock&nbsp;&nbsp;boughs,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To&nbsp;&nbsp;be&nbsp;&nbsp;traced&nbsp;&nbsp;on&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;broom&nbsp;&nbsp;ere&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;coming&nbsp;&nbsp;day<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;From&nbsp;&nbsp;its&nbsp;&nbsp;eastern&nbsp;&nbsp;chamber&nbsp;&nbsp;should&nbsp;&nbsp;dance&nbsp;&nbsp;away.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into
+line and marched around the room as if carrying muskets,
+that is, women’s muskets, brooms.
+</p>
+<p>
+Once more in row, each girl pretended she was
+holding a card with one hand, while drawing another
+card softly, but swiftly across the first. This was
+done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Niddy-noddy,&nbsp;&nbsp;niddy-noddy<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Two&nbsp;&nbsp;heads&nbsp;&nbsp;on&nbsp;&nbsp;one&nbsp;&nbsp;body.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now we are imitating the motions of carding
+wool,” Helen whispered softly to Nathalie. “Niddy-noddy
+means the old-fashioned hand-reel used in the
+days when there were no machines.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were
+dancing the Virginia Reel, spinning each other around
+with the vigor and vim of young hearts as a prelude
+to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing,
+taking their stitches with a precision and handiness
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_125'></a>125</span>
+that rivalled the little maids of Puritan days. With
+a posture as of holding a wooden frame, while in and
+out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with
+quaint precision:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Lola&nbsp;&nbsp;Standish&nbsp;&nbsp;is&nbsp;&nbsp;my&nbsp;&nbsp;name.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Lord,&nbsp;&nbsp;guide&nbsp;&nbsp;my&nbsp;&nbsp;heart&nbsp;&nbsp;that&nbsp;&nbsp;I&nbsp;&nbsp;may&nbsp;&nbsp;do&nbsp;&nbsp;thy&nbsp;&nbsp;will,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;fill&nbsp;&nbsp;my&nbsp;&nbsp;Hands&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;such&nbsp;&nbsp;convenient&nbsp;&nbsp;skill<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As&nbsp;&nbsp;will&nbsp;&nbsp;conduce&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;Virtue&nbsp;&nbsp;void&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;shame,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;I&nbsp;&nbsp;will&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;Glory&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;thy&nbsp;&nbsp;name.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Only a space of time and the samplers were dropped,
+and each girl grew strangely still, with bent head and
+listening ears. With eyes flaming in a fixed stare she
+poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.
+They stood for a moment in this pose as each one
+present grasped the idea that they were doing the deed
+that many a Pioneer woman had bravely done in those
+early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard
+over the home from the relentless ravages of the red
+man!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_126'></a>126</span><a name='chVIII' id='chVIII'></a>CHAPTER VIII—THE MOTTO, “I CAN”</h2>
+<p>
+A few days after the Pilgrim Rally, as Nathalie
+lay in the hammock dreaming day dreams as
+she was wont to do, her mother came and
+seated herself in a low chair near by.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie turned, and then with a quick movement
+sat up as she asked anxiously, “Oh, Mother, has anything
+happened?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should say ‘anything’ has happened,” ejaculated
+Dick, who was lounging near, ignoring his mother’s
+gesture to be silent, “for your mother has been chief
+cook and bottle-washer all day!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, who had been off on a Pioneer demonstration
+most of the day, showed her dismay as she
+exclaimed, “Oh, where is Ophelia?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Page’s worry lines deepened as she answered,
+“Oh, she is ill. She has been complaining for some
+days, and when she begged to be allowed to go home
+this morning I did not have the heart to refuse her.
+Poor thing! she looked the embodiment of woe!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But isn’t she coming back?” inquired alarmed
+Nathalie.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_127'></a>127</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Not for several days,” was the answer, as Mrs.
+Page leaned wearily back in her chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But can’t we get some one to help us?” demanded
+her daughter insistently.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Dorothy went to the colored settlement, but could
+not get any one. Colored people don’t like to work
+in warm weather, and I don’t blame them,” her mother
+added in an undertone, “for standing over a fire in
+this heat is terrible.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, what shall we do?” thought Nathalie ruefully,
+as she saw a pile of unwashed dishes confronting her.
+But a cheery “Hello?” caused her to look up to see
+her friend, with dust-brush in hand, cleaning the window
+shutters of the neighboring house. With gripping
+force she suddenly realized how useful Helen
+was, and the numerous things she managed to do to
+help her mother, notwithstanding the many hours she
+was compelled to spend at the stenography school.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie twisted about in the hammock; somehow
+it did not seem as comfortable as it did before her
+mother had come. Her sky visions had departed, and
+in their place had come the thought that she ought to
+help her mother. Oh, but dish-washing was degrading,
+such greasy work. She glanced down at her slim,
+white hands as if they would aid her in this argument
+with self.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, why do people have to do the very things they
+hate?” she questioned rebelliously as she arose from
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_128'></a>128</span>
+her comfortable position and with a long-drawn sigh
+started to enter the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You have dropped your book!” exclaimed her
+mother as she stooped and picked up the Pioneer
+manual that had fallen from Nathalie’s lap and handed
+it to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Thank you,” returned the girl and then, with a
+pang of regret as she noted her mother’s weary eyes,
+she bent and kissed her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m so sorry you had to work so hard!” she
+cried impulsively. “Isn’t there something I can do
+to help?” She almost wished her mother would
+say no.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Not now,” replied her mother with a brighter expression
+than she had worn, “but perhaps you can help
+me later—when I get dinner.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“All right,” returned her daughter with forced
+cheerfulness. As she entered the hall her eyes were
+caught by the word “Pioneer” in big, black letters
+on the manual. Reminded by the name that flaunted
+itself so determinedly before her, she remembered that
+she was a Pioneer, that she had taken vows upon herself,
+and that in order to keep these vows she should
+do the very things, perhaps, that she hated to do.
+This new thought jarred her uncomfortably as she
+hurried up to her room and began to make herself cool
+and comfortable after a rather strenuous morning
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_129'></a>129</span>
+spent in trying her hand at the many new interests that
+had come to her as a Pioneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+But somehow she was haunted, as it were, by the
+thought that she was not making a good beginning as
+a Pioneer; oh, yes, being a Pioneer did not mean all
+play, or even doing the things that were interesting, or
+that one liked to do, those were the Director’s words
+that morning. The more one gives up or overcomes in
+order to do and accomplish the demands made upon
+her as a Pioneer, the greater the victory. She picked
+up the manual from the bureau and began to turn its
+leaves aimlessly, and then she halted, for two very
+small words held her eyes, “I can!” why, that was the
+Pioneer motto—the one Lillie Bell had mentioned
+when she told of the picked chicken. She would read
+the laws!
+</p>
+<p>
+“A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy.” Oh, Nathalie was
+sure she was that. “Helpful,” her conscience pricked
+sharply. Was she helpful if she didn’t try and do all
+she could to help her mother? “O dear,” she ruminated,
+“I am shying at the first ‘overcome.’” She remembered
+that Mrs. Morrow had said all the disagreeable
+things that one didn’t want to do, but did in the
+end, were “overcomes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Kind—” she heaved a sigh, well, she was afraid
+she hadn’t been very kind the other day when she had
+answered Lucille so sharply, but she was trying, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_130'></a>130</span>
+the hasty retort would slip out; she would have to put
+a button on her lips as her mother often told her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Reverent,” her religion taught her that.
+“Happy,” not always, for how could one be happy
+when life had been full of disappointments? Her
+eyes saddened as she thought of Dick, who was so
+patiently waiting for something to turn up, so that he
+could have the operation on his knee. Poor fellow!
+she had felt like crying the other day when she heard
+him telling how he had written to a law firm in the
+city in the hope that he could get some copying to do
+so that he could earn some money.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Happiness does not always mean having what we
+want; it is being contented with what we have,” that
+was another of Mrs. Morrow’s interpretations of the
+Pioneer laws. “Cheerful,” here Nathalie broke into
+a laugh, quite sure she was always cheerful when she
+had the things she wanted. “There!” she cried
+aloud, “I am not going to read any more of those laws,
+for if I am to—” she stooped, for the manual had
+fallen to the floor. As she picked it up she again encountered
+the words, “I can.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I can!” she repeated once or twice mechanically.
+Then her face lighted, as if the meaning of the words
+had suddenly flashed themselves clear of the thoughts
+that had been revolving in her mind.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But what can I do?” she continued doubtingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You can wash the dishes for your mother in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_131'></a>131</span>
+morning so that she can read her morning paper,”
+some one seemed to whisper. She started. “And
+you can get up and get breakfast the way Helen does
+when her mother is not feeling well,” this time the
+some one spoke very loudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but I can’t cook, nobody would eat my breakfast,”
+she thought, still holding back.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But if you are a Pioneer you should learn to do
+these things.” She frowned as if to brush aside an
+unpleasant thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I suppose I can do these things,” she reluctantly
+admitted after a moment’s thought. “O
+dear—I have been lamenting that I had no purpose
+in life, that I was just drifting. I cried the other day
+because Mother said my talents were gilt-edged.
+‘Yes, I Can,’” suddenly broke from her. “I’m going
+to begin right now, too; I’ll show Mother that I am not
+a gilt-edge drifter. I’ll learn to cook—oh, I’ll just
+make myself do those horrible, horrible things—I’ll
+show you, Miss I Can, so there!” She hastily wiped
+away the tears that would come, and then, as was her
+wont after a mental conflict, she began to sing. A
+few moments later she was down in the kitchen hustling
+about, seeing what there was for dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+A steak, oh, yes, she knew how to broil that—and
+potatoes—oh, they were easy! The next minute she
+had seated herself before the kitchen table, and as she
+peeled the potatoes she sang with unwonted animation:
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_132'></a>132</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“We&nbsp;&nbsp;stick&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;work&nbsp;&nbsp;until&nbsp;&nbsp;it’s&nbsp;&nbsp;done<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;never&nbsp;&nbsp;from&nbsp;&nbsp;our&nbsp;&nbsp;duty&nbsp;&nbsp;run,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;learn&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;cook,&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;sew,&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;mend<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;To&nbsp;&nbsp;sweep,&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;dust,&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;clean,&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;tend,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;always&nbsp;&nbsp;willing&nbsp;&nbsp;hands&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;lend.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+As she paused to think how she could manage the
+next vegetable, Mrs. Page entered, showing amazement
+as she saw what her daughter was doing, for full
+well she knew that Nathalie disliked anything in the
+way of housework.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Nathalie!” she exclaimed, “you need not
+do that. I will get dinner; there is not so much to do,
+for Felia made some pies yesterday, and with a steak,
+thank goodness! there will not be much to cook.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, see here, Mumsie,” cried the new housewife,
+flourishing her knife menacingly at her mother, “I am
+chief of this ranch. You have lamented that I was
+just a gilt-edged doll, now I’m going to show you
+I’m not. I’m a Pioneer, and I’m going to learn everything
+useful. Now be off!” As her mother protested
+there ensued a little wrestling-match in which
+the girl came off victor, and Mrs. Page, subdued into
+meekness, retired to the veranda, somewhat relieved to
+think she could rest awhile.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie snuggled down to sleep that night—she
+was so tired she could hardly keep her eyes open—she
+felt supremely happy, for she had cooked dinner
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_133'></a>133</span>
+all by herself. To be sure Dick had growled and
+claimed the steak was burnt, and Lucille had volunteered
+the information that Felia never mashed her potatoes
+that way, but it made no difference to the happy
+Blue Robin—as Dick had called her—for she was
+pleased to think that for once in her life she had helped.
+Of course, Mother had laughed at her blunders, but it
+was in the old happy way that she used to do when
+Papa had been with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Next morning Nathalie awoke with a start, she
+smiled drowsily at some passing remembrance of the
+day before, and then turned over for a beauty nap.
+Suddenly she sat up with eyes keen and alert; if she
+was to be maid of all work that day she must get at
+her job. In fifteen minutes she was creeping stealthily
+down the kitchen stairs with her shoes in her hands,
+so as not to awaken her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+Oh! the fire was out; that was a difficulty she had
+not taken into calculation. For a moment she was
+tempted to crawl up those stairs and leave the fire to
+the next one who discovered it. Oh, but that would
+not do at all. She didn’t know how to make a fire,
+but the words “I can,” made her close her mouth determinedly,
+and in a few moments clouds of rising
+smoke attested that she was learning. But alas, the
+smoke soon drifted into space, and the blaze disappeared
+in a mass of black paper!
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s tears came at this; oh, why would not
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_134'></a>134</span>
+that wood catch fire? Tried to the soul, she went to
+the window and gazed through a mist of tears at the
+dew sparkling on bush and grass. A low, sweet
+whistling caused her to look up to see Helen, as fresh
+as a new-blown rose, throwing open the shutters of her
+room.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie pursed up her lips and then broke into a
+“Tru-al-lee!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen glanced down quickly, her eyes lighted, and
+then came a quick Bob White call that sounded much
+like “More wet! More wet!” In another instant
+she was down on the porch calling merrily to her
+friend, “Oh, Nathalie, how are you this morning?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie dimpled cheerily. “Oh, fine!” making a
+dab at her eyes, “but at my wits’ end trying to make
+a fire. Will you tell me why it will insist upon going
+out? It is maddening! I have lighted it six times.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What, you making a fire?” said Helen, and then,
+“Just wait a moment and I will come over and see
+what is wrong.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Under Helen’s nimble fingers the brown paper was
+taken out, the fire-pot filled with loosely wrapped newspaper,
+small sticks laid crisscross, a few larger ones
+on top, and then a match applied. Like magic the tiny
+blue flame sputtered, caught hold of an edge of paper,
+and then in a few moments a blazing fire was seething
+and swirling. Nathalie, in exuberant joy, seized her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_135'></a>135</span>
+friend and the two girls waltzed merrily around the
+kitchen.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course Nathalie knew how to make toast, but
+when Helen showed her how to hold it over the coals
+until it was a golden-brown, butter it while hot, and
+then cut off the scraggly edges and a rim of crust, she
+realized that toast-making was indeed a domestic science.
+Scrambled eggs came next, simple, but deliciously
+done, as her friend showed her. Then came
+putting the coffee in the percolator with the water
+heated beneath by the tiny alcohol lamp, thus drawing
+from the beverage the most nutritious qualities, Helen
+declared, without injuring one’s digestion.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the grape-fruit—that was another new thing
+learned—was prepared the way Helen said a trained
+nurse had taught her, one time when her mother was
+ill. It was cut in half, the pulp dug out with a spoon
+into a cup or saucer, and after the pith had been removed,
+chopped finely, returned to shell, and then
+sugared and put on the ice. But perhaps the best part
+of helping Mother that morning was when, after striking
+the Japanese gong eight bells, Nathalie arrayed
+herself in Felia’s freshly laundered cap and apron and
+stationed herself back of her mother’s chair to serve
+breakfast.
+</p>
+<p>
+How pleased and surprised her mother was! Dick
+“Blue Robined” her again, while Lucille patronizingly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_136'></a>136</span>
+exclaimed, “Oh, Nathalie, you make a swell maid—and
+how smart you are getting!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Just before dinner, Helen appeared again, and taught
+her how to make soup from a few boiled bones and a
+chunk of meat, a few left-over tomatoes, and a bit of
+onion and seasoning. She taught her to broil a steak,—this
+time without a burnt speck—how to make
+white sauce for some left-over fish, how to scrape new
+potatoes economically, and the right way to cook peas.
+Then came a delicious dessert of stale pieces of cake
+and canned peaches, laid in layers with beaten cream,
+and topped off with little white pigs, as Nathalie called
+the tiny bits of egg froth floating on its surface.
+Truly, it was a dinner fit for a king!
+</p>
+<p>
+After dinner her sensitive soul rebelled at the pile of
+greasy dishes, but the task grew lighter when Helen
+showed her how to make the water hot and soapy, using
+a lot of dried bits of soap that Nathalie was going to
+throw away, by sewing them in cheese-cloth bags. She
+washed the glasses and silver first, then the china, and
+then—oh, horrors—the pots! But when the new
+Pioneer saw how her friend put them on to boil, thus
+doing away with so much grease, it was a revelation.
+And when the dish-towels were washed and hung out
+in the sun to sweeten, and the sink was scrubbed with
+a brush and a cleansing soap, Nathalie was again forced
+to admit that she had mastered another household
+science.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_137'></a>137</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Oh, no, it wasn’t all plain sailing—the world isn’t
+run that way—and the new Pioneer’s back, eyes, and
+feet made themselves forcibly known before she went
+to bed that night. Many a time she had had to grit
+her teeth, summon Miss I Can to her side, and with
+forced determination go on with the job; but after all,
+she declared, as she turned out the light, “I have helped
+Mother!” and then sleep claimed the tired girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Saturday morning came, however, and no
+Felia made her appearance according to promise, Nathalie’s
+face grew somber, and she could not help going
+to the door every few minutes to see if she were
+not in sight, for she had planned to go on a bird-hike
+that morning with the Pioneers to learn bird-calls. As
+the clock struck nine she dropped her broom—she was
+sweeping the kitchen—and rushed to her room.
+Here she wept copiously for a while in her clothes
+closet with her head buried in the skirts of her dresses,
+so no one could hear, and then she heard her mother
+calling her.
+</p>
+<p>
+She dried her eyes guiltily, scrubbed her face to brush
+away all trace of tears, and then answered blithely,
+“Here I am, Mumsie, I’m coming right down to finish
+the kitchen.” When she came tearing down the stairs
+she found the kitchen swept and garnished, and lo!
+there stood Mother with big, surprised eyes pointing to
+Lucille, who, as she caught sight of her cousin, bobbed
+her head and dropped a curtsy, crying, “Sure, ma’am,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_138'></a>138</span>
+it’s a new job I’m afther takin’ on meself, but do yez
+see the loikes of it for the claneness?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie gave one bewildered stare, and then a merry
+peal of laughter broke from her, seconded with a minor
+note from her mother, and with a bass accompaniment
+added by Dick, as he entered and sensed the situation.
+Yes, Miss I Can must have caught Lucille in her
+meshes, too, for that young lady, generally so dainty in
+her labor preferences, had condescended to sweep the
+kitchen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” she explained apologetically, “I was jealous
+of the praise bestowed upon Nathalie, and thought
+I’d show you folks that people can do things even if
+they are not Blue Robins.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Lucille, you aren’t a Blue Robin, you’re a duck
+of a dear,” bubbled Nathalie as she hugged her cousin
+rapturously. “It was just lovely of you. But
+Mother, did you know what she was doing?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I did not,” rejoined Mrs. Page; “I thought
+it was you working all by yourself and came in to help,
+as I knew you wanted to go on the hike. But before
+you go, dear,” she added anxiously, “I want you to go
+down to Felia’s and see how she is. If she is not coming
+back by Monday you will have to hunt around for
+a washerwoman; the clothes can’t go another week.”
+</p>
+<p>
+An hour later, Nathalie, delighted to think she could
+take a day off with a clear conscience, hurried in the
+direction of Ophelia’s little gray shanty; but to her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_139'></a>139</span>
+surprise, as she came near the door she heard a loud
+wailing and the confused hum of several voices.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she entered the stuffy parlor hung with gay colored
+prints and dingy-looking chromos, she found
+Ophelia seated in a rocking chair with her face buried
+in a gingham apron, wailing and crying hysterically.
+Pushing her way through the crowd of sympathizing
+friends, Nathalie grabbed the arm of a colored woman
+who stood by Felia’s side crying, “Oh, please, won’t
+you tell me what’s the matter?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Sure, Miss,” respectfully answered the woman,
+wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s little Rosy, she’s
+lost—we can’t find her—ah, honey, don’t take on
+so!” she ended, turning towards the grieving mother
+and giving her a caressing pat on the shoulder.
+“Surely some one will find her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie now stepped to Felia’s side and pulled her
+gently by the sleeve, determined to get some definite
+information about black Rosebud, as Dick called the
+little pickaninny who had often come to the house
+with her mother, and who, being a bright child, had
+become a prime favorite. “Ophelia, please tell me
+about your trouble!” insisted the girl. “Is Rosy
+surely lost?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“She lost sure nuff, Missy, down at de bottom of
+de pond,” quavered Felia’s mother dismally, an aged
+negress standing by the side of her daughter, as she
+rolled up her eyes until the whites looked like saucers
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_140'></a>140</span>
+on a shelf. “I’se gwine to tell you de trufe—dat
+chile is drowned. Oh, I see her face a-shinin’ in de
+water—”
+</p>
+<p>
+Her horrible prognostication as to Rosy’s woeful
+fate was terminated by her daughter’s renewed wails
+of anguish, as she again began to rock herself to and
+fro with redoubled force.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh,” thought Nathalie, frowning angrily in the
+direction of the old mammy, “I do wish she would
+stop.” Then she cried, “Oh, Felia, don’t cry so—I
+am sure she will be found—perhaps she is at one of
+the neighbors’ houses, you know she is fond of
+visiting.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was such sympathetic concern in the girl’s
+voice that Felia desisted from her lamentations long
+enough to cry, “Oh, Miss Natty, she done go and get
+lost—she ain’t nowhere hereabouts!” Then in answer
+to further questioning she said that the child had
+been seen just before dark picking posies over in a
+meadow with several children, but when bedtime came
+she could not be found.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Has any one looked for her?” demanded Nathalie,
+turning towards the group of colored women
+as poor Felia went back to her apron wailing pitifully,
+“I’se gwine promise yo’, Lord, if yo’ bring my baby
+back, I’ll never get mad with her again. I’ll promise
+sure—” but the rest of Felia’s prayer was lost as the
+women crowded around Nathalie and eagerly explained
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_141'></a>141</span>
+that Dan Washington, Paul Jones, and Abe
+Smith had searched the town for her. They had been
+up all night, but when morning came had to return to
+their jobs, and there was no one looking for her at
+that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m so sorry, Felia!” sympathized Nathalie
+again to the weeping mother. Then, after asking if
+the town authorities had been notified, she decided to
+hasten home, knowing that she could not get any one
+to promise to work for her at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, it is too bad!” she lamented as she hurried
+down Main Street. “It does seem as if some one
+ought to be searching for her now, why the poor child
+may be injured or something!” Her too vivid
+imagination pictured her, not down at the bottom of
+the pond, as mammy had done, but crying piteously
+of fear and hunger in some lonely place. “I suppose
+the police in this town will take some hours to get on
+to the job, as Dick says.” She suddenly paused and
+her eyes shone with a bright light. She wrinkled her
+brow thoughtfully a moment as if going over something
+in her mind, and then with the glad cry, “Oh,
+I know we can do it—it will be just the thing!”
+She broke into a run as if her sudden inspiration would
+escape her if she did not hurry.
+</p>
+<p>
+With good speed she soon reached the house, hurriedly
+told her mother what had befallen Rosy and the
+condition she had found things in at the negro settlement,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_142'></a>142</span>
+and then, telling her she would be back in a few
+moments, she flew post-haste across the road to Mrs.
+Morrow’s house. Here the Pioneers with eager, expectant
+faces were all talking animatedly, their brown
+uniforms, red ties, and broad-brimmed hats suggestive
+of the good time in store for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, here she comes!” sang out Helen, as she spied
+Nathalie hastening up the path towards the veranda.
+“Why, where have you been? We began to think you
+were not coming.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I had to go on an errand for Mother!” Then with
+glowing eyes she told them of the visit to the colored
+settlement and about the lost Rosy, the grief of her
+mother, and how there was no one looking for the
+child. “Oh, girls,” she ended in a quiver of excitement,
+“let’s give up the bird-hike for to-day, and see
+if we cannot find little Rosy!”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_143'></a>143</span><a name='chIX' id='chIX'></a>CHAPTER IX—SEARCHING FOR ROSY</h2>
+<p>
+An oppressive silence followed, while each girl
+looked blankly at her neighbor. The new
+Pioneer’s face flushed, and her eager, excited
+eyes shadowed, as she quickly realized that in her
+eagerness to follow the law of kindliness she had been
+too officious. She stood in dismayed embarrassment,
+the chill of an unpleasant surprise benumbed her.
+With a faint hope she turned her eyes appealingly towards
+Helen, surely her level head and kind heart
+would prompt her to second her. Helen caught the
+look and smiled faintly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Edith, who was always the first one to either second
+or down a proposition, broke the silence by exclaiming
+in an aggrieved tone, “Why, the idea, Nathalie Page!
+we can’t give up the bird-hike, we’ve all brought our
+lunches!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should say not,” interposed Lillie Bell with flashing
+eyes. “Why, it would take the whole morning,
+and there could be no hike for to-day, and next week
+I can’t go, I—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, they have probably found the child by this
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_144'></a>144</span>
+time!” ventured Barbara North, to Nathalie’s surprise,
+as she had always found her of a kindly nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, <em>I</em> for <em>one</em> don’t think it is our place to look
+for the child, anyway,” asserted Jessie, decisively.
+“Let the men of the town do it. There are three policemen
+hanging around all day with nothing to do.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s cheeks had lost their pink bloom; her face
+stiffened as she retorted coolly, “Well, just as you
+please, I see I have made a mistake.” She nerved herself.
+“I thought kindliness was one of the laws of
+the organization, and it seemed to me that our pleasure
+was to take a secondary place when we had an opportunity
+to do a kind act. If you had seen the poor
+mother sobbing—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, fiddle!” ejaculated Lillie, “those colored people
+are all emotion; their sobs don’t count for much.
+I agree with Jessie that the townspeople should send
+out a search party, and I for one refuse to give up the
+hike. Who’s on my side?” she ended abruptly, turning
+and facing the group.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I!” and “I!” shouted several voices at once in
+answer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie backed towards the edge of the veranda.
+“I seem to be in the minority,” she said with assumed
+indifference, although her heart was beating in double-quick
+time, for something had whispered, “They are
+very rude, I would resign immediately.” But this
+suggestion was bravely silenced by the thought, “No,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_145'></a>145</span>
+I will not be as small as that, I will show I do not
+care.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There must be some one who thinks as I do,” she
+ended resolutely, wishing that she could run from this
+affront to her sensitiveness.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am with you, Nathalie!” suddenly cried Helen,
+walking towards her friend and putting her arm
+around her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Grace looked at the bevy of girls who had bunched
+together, then at the faces of her two friends. In a
+faint voice she asserted lamely, “And I, Nathalie, I
+didn’t stop to think—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And, Nathalie, you can count me on your side!”
+broke in a voice at this moment. The girls, alert at the
+prospect of a division in the group, turned quickly to
+see Mrs. Morrow place herself by the side of Nathalie,
+taking her hand as she did so and giving it a cordial
+squeeze.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s color came racing back and her heart
+leaped with joy. Ah, then she had not been too officious,
+after all! She turned to see the girls standing
+in embarrassed silence with shamed eyes and uncertain
+mien. But Lillie, who was generally the spokesman
+of the group when Helen was on the opposite
+side, cried somewhat pertly, “Why, Mrs. Morrow, do
+you think it is our place to go and hunt for that colored
+child? I should think it was the duty of the townspeople
+to look after those things.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_146'></a>146</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is not the question,” replied the Director
+coldly. “As Nathalie said, kindliness is one of the
+basic laws of the organization. We should be poor
+Pioneers indeed if we saw a man drowning and
+then stood and argued as to whether it was our place
+to save him or not. Nathalie, I commend you not only
+for your kind suggestion, but for having the real
+pioneer courage in maintaining what you believed to
+be right. You have shown yourself a true Blue Robin
+and I am proud of you. Now, girls, we will put it to
+a vote. Those of you who want to go on the hike, up
+with their hands.” Not a hand was raised.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow’s face brightened as she cried laughingly,
+“Now who wants to join a search-party with
+Nathalie as captain, and see if they can find little
+Rosebud?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Every hand flew up, and there was a general cry of,
+“I do! I do!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, girls,” said Mrs. Morrow kindly, as her
+eyes traveled from face to face, “I see you have repented
+of the error of your way. Let Nathalie’s example
+inspire you!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I guess we just didn’t stop to think!” broke
+forth Barbara, with shamed eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, when one has made up her mind to do a
+thing she would be a saint to give it up without a
+fuss,” remarked Lillie. “Of course, Nathalie was all
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_147'></a>147</span>
+right, but she had had time to think it all out and we
+hadn’t!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“A good explanation, Lillie,” answered Mrs. Morrow,
+“but I hope you have all learned a lesson. Now,
+Nathalie, make your suggestions and we’ll get to
+work.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The new Pioneer had already divided the girls into
+two sections, with Helen as one leader, and Lillie Bell
+as the other. It did hurt a little to give Lillie the first
+place after she had spoken as she had, but Nathalie
+realized her worth, and then, too, she did not want to
+show any resentment. “You see,” she explained, “I
+am only a dummy captain, for I am not as familiar
+with the town as the rest of you are, and there will be
+no time lost in making false moves.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is a very sensible decision, Nathalie,” nodded
+Mrs. Morrow, “but the question is where to look
+first!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Suppose we go down to the settlement, make a survey,
+and get our bearings?” voiced Helen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Good, Helen, that is just the thing!” acquiesced
+the Director, as the girls at her suggestion hurriedly
+deposited their lunch-boxes in the hall, while Nathalie
+ran over to tell her mother her plans.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few moments the would-be searchers started,
+each girl equipped with her staff, while the two leaders
+triumphantly displayed their whistles, which they
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_148'></a>148</span>
+claimed would be of great help if any of the party got
+lost and their voices did not carry.
+</p>
+<p>
+It did not take long to reach Felia’s shanty, and as
+Nathalie ran in to tell her that the Pioneers were going
+to hunt for Rosy, the rest of the party gazed with quick,
+alert eyes first in one direction and then in the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should not be surprised if the child had wandered
+away looking for flowers,” remarked Mrs. Morrow,
+suddenly remembering what Nathalie had said
+the child was doing when she was last seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But where would she be apt to go?” inquired Nathalie,
+who had returned in time to hear Mrs. Morrow’s
+remark.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, to the woods!” retorted Helen quickly, and
+her eyes lighted in sudden thought as they dwelt on a
+green belt of woodland that loomed against the sky
+on the opposite side of the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Don’t you think she might have strayed down the
+hill?” questioned Nathalie, pointing to a pond shimmering
+in the sun at the bottom of a knoll near-by.
+“Poor Mammy is quite sure she is drowned and lies
+at the bottom of the pond.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll tell you what we can do,” spoke up
+Lillie, “I’ll take my squad and search down by the
+pond, and Helen and the rest of you can go over to
+the woods; somehow I’m with Mammy, for all children
+love to paddle in the water.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie’s suggestion was a timely one, and as she,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_149'></a>149</span>
+Grace, Jessie, and a few Orioles disappeared over the
+slope of the hill, Helen and Nathalie, as the advance
+guard, hurried across the road and into the cool recesses
+of the woods. As they hastened onward every
+girl’s eyes were alert, watchfully peering behind every
+bush and tree as they stumbled over gnarled roots and
+broken stumps in their efforts to reach some shaded
+nook, or lichen-covered rock dimly seen in the shadows
+of the trees.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen proved an efficient leader and did not hesitate
+to keep her followers busy, as she sent first one and
+then the other to look here or there, determined not to
+miss a nook or spot where the child might be hidden.
+Every now and then some of the party would give a
+bird call, or Helen’s whistle would reverberate sharply
+through the swaying pines.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Mrs. Morrow, whose strength began to waver,
+finally suggested to Nathalie and Edith, who had been
+acting as her body-guard, that they rest for a few
+minutes. Spying a decayed tree-trunk that had fallen
+across the damp, spongy earth a few feet away, they
+seated themselves upon it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m really tired!” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow,
+for she had proved as indefatigable as the girls in
+searching, thinking, she declared, of her own two
+kiddies safe in the garden at home.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, impressed by the solemn stillness about
+her, slowly fanned herself with her hat, while Edith
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_150'></a>150</span>
+made frantic dabs at her red face, from which beady
+drops were oozing. “Oh, I should just love to stay
+here all day,” she cried, sniffing the air, redolent with
+the odors of pine, spicy balsam, silver birch, and many
+other trees that loomed darkly in the mysterious retreats
+of the forest.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hark!” cried Mrs. Morrow, suddenly putting up
+her hand for silence as she peered up at the green
+boughs above her. “Taweel-ab, taweel-ab, twil-ab,
+twil-ab!” came in a succession of weird, sweet trills.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Wheew, whoit, wheew, whoit!” imitated the Sport
+with quick readiness.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is a hermit thrush!” explained Mrs. Morrow
+softly, and her hand clutched Nathalie’s as she pointed
+to a brown bird that was scudding swiftly over the
+fern a few feet away.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, isn’t it a dear?” whispered delighted Nathalie,
+for to her this coming, as she called it, into the very
+heart of nature was a new experience. She half regretted
+at times that they had been compelled to forego
+the bird-hike, as she was so anxious to get in touch
+with the feathered songsters of the wood and field.
+Then, too, suppose the searching-party should fail of
+its purpose, she would feel that she had been the means
+of leading them on a wild-goose chase!
+</p>
+<p>
+As her eyes roamed here and there in the hope that
+she might see the brown thrush again, she started,
+stared a moment, and then springing to her feet dashed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_151'></a>151</span>
+across to the clump of ferns where the bird had been
+flying.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I have found a clew!” she cried triumphantly a
+moment later, as she returned and held up her hand.
+Between her thumb and forefinger was a bit of red,
+which she was waving gleefully as she came towards
+them. As the Sport and Mrs. Morrow hurried to her
+side they saw a loop of red ribbon still with the knot
+in it by which it had evidently been recently tied to
+some object.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is Rosy’s hair-ribbon!” cried Nathalie. “I
+found it clinging to one of the ferns.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, are you sure?” burst from Mrs. Morrow, her
+eyes eager with hope as she bent over the little scarlet
+knot.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed I am sure,” answered the delighted girl,
+“for it is the very ribbon I found in my work basket
+and tied on Rosy’s funny little topknot the day she was
+at our house. See, here is the very cut in the edge—that
+is the reason it was of no use to me—but Rosy
+was as happy as a lark over it. Oh, isn’t this too
+lovely, for now I know the child is somewhere near!”
+</p>
+<p>
+With renewed hope they set forth again on the hunt,
+Nathalie running ahead and calling “Tru-al-lee!” as
+loud as she could—it was the only bird call she knew—to
+get in touch with the advance guard and tell them
+the good news.
+</p>
+<p>
+In answer to her Blue Robin call, in a few moments
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_152'></a>152</span>
+a Bob White whistle was heard, rather faint, but there
+was no mistake as to that quick, clear note. The Sport,
+a few yards behind, immediately responded by giving
+a similar call, and then as they stood waiting to ascertain
+from what direction the whistle had come, there
+sounded a sudden, sharp snap of the underbrush near,
+and Kitty Corwin’s face emerged into view. “Hurrah,
+girls!” she shouted jubilantly, “we have found
+her!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, where? Where?” came in an instant from
+three throats as Kitty leaned against a tree and panted.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Down in a ravine, huddled close against a rock,
+asleep. Helen did not want to waken her until Nathalie
+came, for fear she would be frightened at the
+strange faces. Come on, quick!” she exclaimed excitedly,
+turning and darting back the way she had come
+with light, fleet steps.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the belated ones needed no urging, especially
+Nathalie, who dashed ahead without regard to time
+or place, with a haste that left no doubt as to her joy
+that her searching party had been a success. Overhanging
+branches and dried twigs that blocked her way
+were ruthlessly brushed aside, or run against, scratching
+and bruising her unmercifully as she discovered
+later, but it made no difference to the happy girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+It seemed but a moment when she emerged into a
+clearing, and close at the heels of Kitty climbed down
+into a small ravine. It had evidently been at one time
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_153'></a>153</span>
+the road-bed of a brook, but was now filled with scraggy
+stones, dried underbrush, and fallen logs.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie saw the little motionless figure cuddled
+in a heap against the rock, her heart leaped with misgiving.
+“Oh, is she dead?” she asked Helen, who
+stood guard by the side of the rock, every now and
+then brushing away a gnat or a fly that descended with
+a loud buzz on the smeared black face, which lay partly
+exposed to view as it rested on a mite of an arm.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no,” assured Helen, “she is all right, only
+asleep. I suppose she wandered about for some time
+in the darkness and was tired out, poor little tot!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The little one looked so pathetically small as she
+lay there, just a heap of bones, black skin, and woolly
+hair, with the tears still glistening on the black lashes,
+that Nathalie’s heart was stirred with pity.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward and quickly felt
+her pulse, crying as she did so, “Oh, you poor little
+black baby! Yes, she is all right!” she nodded assuringly,
+“but Helen, what is the matter with her leg?”
+Her sharp glance noted that it lay rather limply on
+the ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am not sure,” said Helen with bent brows as she
+touched it softly, “but I am afraid it is broken. That
+is why I waited for you and Nathalie, I did not like to
+move her for fear of hurting her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But we shall have to,” returned Mrs. Morrow as
+she finished examining the injured limb, “for it is
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_154'></a>154</span>
+broken, and we must get her home as soon as possible,
+for it will have to be set.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As Helen and Mrs. Morrow attempted to take hold
+of the child to lift her on the stretcher the girls had
+made, she opened her eyes wide into the strange
+faces bending over her. Then she closed them quickly,
+and as the little black face wrinkled in fear she let
+forth such a howl of absolute despair that the girls
+were all on the verge of joining with her in their keen
+sympathy.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Rosy,” cried Nathalie springing hastily forward
+and taking the child’s hand softly in hers, “see,
+it is Mrs. Page’s little girl. Don’t you remember when
+you called me that—Mrs. Page’s little girl?” She
+repeated softly as she saw the child had stopped her
+crying and was staring up at her. But the black eyes
+closed again and the little form shivered as a prolonged
+howl answered the questioner.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie, who loved children, lifted up the little
+head with its pigtails and laid it against her breast as
+she tried again. “There dearie, don’t you want to go
+in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma?”
+</p>
+<p>
+These words had the desired effect, and the howl
+was arrested as two big black eyes stared with awakening
+interest while Nathalie caught hold of the stretcher
+and choo-chooed it back and forth. “Come, Rosy!”
+she cried in a third attempt, “and we will go in the
+choo-choo cars to see Mamma, and—oh, yes, the little
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_155'></a>155</span>
+rag-dollie I made for you, don’t you remember what
+a lovely time we had?”
+</p>
+<p>
+The black eyes opened wide, stood still for a wee
+second, and then twinkled into a smile as their owner
+cried, “Oh, yes, I knows youse; youse de Story
+Lady!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I’m the Story Lady,” quickly answered Nathalie,
+her face breaking into a smile; then as Rosy
+smiled back, “but how did you get here, Rosebud, so
+far away from home?”
+</p>
+<p>
+The little face screwed into a knot as she whimpered,
+“Oh, I got lost, Story Lady. I picked daisies in de
+lot, and den Jacob he showed me de blue flowers he
+got in de wood. So I runned to de wood, and oh, I got
+a lot!” Her eyes gleamed with joy as she held up a
+few withered violets still clutched in her tiny hand.
+“And den it grew all dark,” she moaned, “and I
+couldn’t fin’ de road, and I fell and hurt my leg. Oh,
+I’se so hungry!” she ended piteously.
+</p>
+<p>
+But when she saw so many eyes watching her, she
+covered her tiny face with her hand, shyly peeping out
+from between her fingers.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls all laughed merrily at her coquettishness,
+but their laughter became almost a howl as the little
+black eyes began to play peek-a-boo at them, and then
+danced in unison with their laughter, as if enjoying
+the sensation she had created.
+</p>
+<p>
+But time was precious, and so with the promise of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_156'></a>156</span>
+candy and a story from Nathalie the little one was
+lifted from the ground and carefully placed in the
+stretcher, and the Pioneer search party, weary, and
+warm, but jubilantly happy at their success, started for
+home.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Some one of you girls ought to run ahead and get
+the doctor!” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow as the rescuers
+plodded carefully but slowly up the ravine with their
+burden, “for the child needs attention at once. I don’t
+wonder she cries!” For, alas! the little one had begun
+to whimper softly, although Nathalie was still
+playing choo-choo car as hard as she could, so as to
+divert her mind from the pain and hunger pangs that
+had now begun to assert themselves more forcibly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I will go!” cried Edith quickly, and then at a
+nod of assent from their Director she disappeared in
+the shadowy gloom of the trees like a small whirlwind.
+Barbara and Kitty were then despatched to hurry and
+tell Rosebud’s mother that the lost was found.
+</p>
+<p>
+As they reached the edge of the woods, Mrs. Morrow
+thought she heard the throb of an automobile engine,
+and as it was followed in a moment by the toot
+of a horn, she begged Nathalie to hurry to the road,
+just a few feet beyond in the opening. “It sounds
+like the doctor’s car—perhaps he will take little Rosy
+home—for, O dear, she is suffering so!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie softly unfastened the little hands that were
+clinging to hers, and with a few bounds reached the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_157'></a>157</span>
+road where, sure enough, she saw a few yards ahead
+an automobile that had just passed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, it was the doctor! Nathalie thought she recognized
+his car, and with mad haste tore after it, shouting
+to the full extent of her lungs, “Doctor! Doctor!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The occupant of the car, who evidently was not
+driving at a very high rate of speed, heard her shouts
+and in a moment brought his car to a standstill. As
+he turned about and stared at the oncoming figure
+of Nathalie, who, red-faced and bedraggled was speeding
+towards him, he looked slightly surprised.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Doctor,” began the girl. She paused, for the
+gentleman who was looking at her with such a puzzled
+expression, coupled with slight indignation at being
+stopped in this way, was a strange young man!
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie halted abruptly as she discovered her error,
+feeling as if her face would burst from the heat of her
+unwonted exercise and the fact that she had been tagging
+in this tomboy style, after a strange man.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh—I’m so sorry,” she panted apologetically,
+“but Mrs. Morrow thought she heard an automobile,
+she was sure it was the doctor—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mrs. Morrow!” exclaimed the young man, “why,
+is she anywhere about?” He jumped from his car
+as he spoke and came towards her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes,” cried the girl, with a gleam of hope that
+if this young man knew their Director there was a
+chance for Rosy. “We have been looking for a little
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_158'></a>158</span>
+colored girl who was lost—oh, I mean the Pioneers—we
+have been searching in the woods,” she explained
+confusedly, the blood surging furiously into her cheeks
+under the keen gray eyes that were looking so searchingly
+down at her. “Oh, can’t you help us?” she
+burst off appealingly. “Mrs. Morrow wants to get
+her home as soon as she can, for she has a broken leg.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“A broken leg?” echoed the young man, “why, of
+course I will help you,” he continued heartily. “Where
+is Mrs. Morrow? And—oh, I see—” the gray eyes
+gleamed pleasantly, “you are Blue Robin, the little
+girl who lives across the way from us. I am Mrs.
+Morrow’s brother, Jack Homer!”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_159'></a>159</span><a name='chX' id='chX'></a>CHAPTER X—NATHALIE AS THE STORY LADY</h2>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s color flamed again as she heard
+that “little girl,” and she drew herself up in
+momentary indignation. Oh, this was evidently
+the Dr. Homer whom she had heard the girls
+talk so much about, and who had been giving them
+lessons in First Aid to the Injured. But who could
+have told him she was a little girl?
+</p>
+<p>
+This affront to her dignity was forgotten, however,
+as she quickly remembered the need of getting little
+Rosy home. “Mrs. Morrow is in the woods—oh,
+there she is now!” she cried hastily, as she pointed to
+the Director, who, with the Pioneers and their burden,
+had halted on the edge of the woods and stood waiting
+for her. As Mrs. Morrow perceived her brother she
+quickly beckoned to him.
+</p>
+<p>
+A few steps, and Dr. Homer was at his sister’s side,
+listening to her hurried recital of the preceding events
+and her anxiously expressed wish that Rosy could be
+seen to as soon as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, if it isn’t little Rosebud!” said the doctor
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_160'></a>160</span>
+jovially as he turned from his sister and looked down
+at the helpless mite of humanity, lying so patient and
+still in the stretcher.
+</p>
+<p>
+The child smiled shyly, and Nathalie, perceiving that
+he knew her, gave a sigh of relief, for she felt that
+now everything would soon be all right.
+</p>
+<p>
+It did not take the doctor long to lift Rosy tenderly
+into the car and to make her comfortable with her
+little black head on Mrs. Morrow’s lap. As he was
+about to jump in himself an “I want my Story Lady!
+I want my Story Lady!” came in a loud wail from
+the little patient, for Rosy’s face had knotted up again
+as she pushed away Mrs. Morrow’s detaining hand and
+tried to lift her head in search of Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie hastened to the side of the car crying, “Oh,
+Rosy, it’s all right. I’m going home to your mamma.
+I will be there almost as soon as you—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Nathalie, get in with us,” exclaimed Mrs.
+Morrow, “there is room on the front seat with the
+doctor. Oh, I beg your pardon, Nathalie, perhaps you
+have not met my brother. Jack, this is Miss Page, our
+new Pioneer, and oh, Jack; if it had not been for her
+I don’t know when poor little Rosy would have been
+found!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am most pleased to meet you, Miss Page,” smiled
+the doctor with undue emphasis on the Miss. Then,
+as he noted Nathalie’s stiff little bow, he continued
+apologetically, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_161'></a>161</span>
+have heard so much about Blue Robin, that somehow
+I thought she was a little girl.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie smiled pleasantly, instantly recognizing
+that this frank-eyed young man was doing his best to
+atone for his mistake of a few minutes ago. But she
+must not keep him waiting, and a moment later she
+sprang into the car. Although it was but a short ride
+to Felia’s house, there was time enough for the doctor
+to chat pleasantly with the young girl, so by the time
+they had reached their destination Nathalie understood
+why Dr. Homer was such a favorite with the Pioneers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fortunately, Edith had caught Dr. Morrow just as
+he was about to set out to call on a patient, so he soon
+arrived. In a short time he and Dr. Homer had set
+the broken limb and made the child comfortable, who,
+with a smile of content, received a bowl of bread and
+milk from Mammy, whose black face was wreathed in
+smiles again as she saw that the little one was not lying
+down at the bottom of the pond.
+</p>
+<p>
+A half-hour later a group of girls straggled wearily
+along the main street of the village, animatedly discussing
+first one and then another detail of the morning’s
+hunt. As they were all tired, it was unanimously
+decided to postpone the bird hike to another day.
+</p>
+<p>
+When this decision was reached, Nathalie’s bright
+face clouded as she exclaimed contritely, “Oh, girls,
+I’m awfully sorry I broke up the hike, but I was so
+anxious to find Rosy.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_162'></a>162</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I for one am glad we gave it up,” asserted
+Kitty Corwin, “for girls, it paid for the disappointment
+to see that poor mother’s joy when she saw her
+child.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And the old black mammy—huh—she is a regular
+plantation coon,” chimed in Edith; “did you hear
+her shout ‘Praise de Lord! Hallelujah!’? Oh, but
+how her eyes did shine!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“She was a black sunbeam, all right,” observed
+Helen, “and it’s all owing to Nathalie!” putting her
+arm about her friend and giving her an enthusiastic
+squeeze; “she ought to have a white star.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“A white star,” ejaculated Nathalie, “what does
+that mean?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, it means that you should receive a badge of
+merit, but as a Pioneer can’t receive a badge until she
+is a first-class member, Mrs. Morrow gives white stars
+instead to the girls who deserve badges but are not yet
+old enough to receive them,” explained Helen. “We
+keep our stars and then sew them on a big United
+States flag we are making for our new Pioneer room.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I should be pleased to have one!” cried Nathalie,
+“but it gives me more pleasure to know that
+you do not think I spoiled your fun, and have been so
+nice about it. I should just hate to have you think
+me officious!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But we didn’t think that, Nathalie,” assured Lillie
+quickly. “In fact, I guess we just didn’t think at all,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_163'></a>163</span>
+we were so intent on having our own selfish ways. We
+are all friends of yours, and as Pioneers and personally,”
+she spoke warmly, “we are glad you won the
+victory over our naughty, wicked selves.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Several days later, Nathalie, who was still the maid
+of all work, stood washing the breakfast dishes.
+Somehow, helping Mother seemed to have lost its
+charm. She felt as if she and Miss I Can were not
+as good friends as they were at the beginning of her
+kitchen campaign. O dear, she did wish Rosy would
+get better so Felia could come back. She sighed
+heavily, and then hastily wiped away a stray tear that
+was meandering down her cheek—she had heard a
+step on the back stoop.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hello, Blue Robin!” was Helen’s cheery greeting
+as she entered,—she usually came in by the back door
+in the morning—then she stopped, for Nathalie’s
+usually smiling face wore such a look of woe that she
+exclaimed anxiously, “Oh, Nathalie, what is the
+matter?”
+</p>
+<p>
+But her only answer was a stifled sob as the girl
+flung herself into a chair by the kitchen table, and dropping
+her head on her elbow gave way to the pent up
+flood that had been gathering for the last few days.
+Helen stood a moment, uncertain what to say or do,
+dreading that some great calamity had overtaken the
+family. Then she stepped to her friend’s side and
+lifting her head encircled her with her arm caressingly.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_164'></a>164</span>
+“Now,” she cried, softly patting the brown head, “tell
+friend Helen all about it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s tears flowed unrestrainedly for a moment
+and then, feeling somewhat better for the overflow,
+and a little ashamed of useless tears as she always called
+them, she withdrew from the friendly shelter and sat
+up. “Oh, it’s just nothing at all, Helen,” she cried
+in a choked voice, “only that I’m a great baby—and
+then—I’m tired”—her voice quavered. “I’m tired
+of washing dishes and sweeping—” a sniffle—“all the
+time.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course you are tired, who wouldn’t be, Nat,
+with all the wonderful things you’ve done this last
+week?” sympathized Helen; “considering, too, that
+it’s all new to you. Why, Mother says you are going
+to make a splendid Pioneer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, did she?” asked Nathalie, her eyes brightening.
+“It makes one feel good to be praised, I have
+felt so discouraged,” with an intake of her breath,
+“for I’ve tried so hard to do everything I could, and
+then Mother, why she hasn’t said one word of praise
+since the first day. Everybody just takes it all—all
+the work I do—just as if it was nothing, and things
+drag so. Of course I don’t expect to be praised all the
+time,” she hastened to add, “but oh, I don’t seem to
+feel as happy about working as I did at first.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, well, you’re tired,” replied Helen condolingly.
+“I know just how you feel, for I used to feel the same
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_165'></a>165</span>
+way when I first began to help Mother around the
+house. You see the enthusiasm and the glory have all
+gone out of it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The enthusiasm and the glory?” repeated Nathalie
+in puzzled inquiry.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, the novelty of doing something new is the
+enthusiasm that put you on the job; and the praise you
+got for doing it—which made you feel as if you were
+awfully good—that’s the glory. But when things
+get stale and people stop saying how smart you are
+and so on, why then it will be just plain duty all
+through. You know, the frosting always comes first
+before we get to the cake.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I suppose that has something to do with it,”
+responded Nathalie alertly, “when one comes to think
+of it. So from now on it will be just plain duty, won’t
+it?” with a quiver of her chin, for somehow the prospect
+was not an enjoyable one at that moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, that’s about the size of it,” was the practical
+answer. “But if you keep right on doing what you
+ought to, you’ll get something better than the sugary
+stuff. Just keep Miss I Can for your friend, and then
+after a time you will find that you like to do the very
+things that at first seemed so hard. Experience,
+Mother says, brings knowledge, and knowledge puts
+you in the end where you want to be.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I wish it would,” exclaimed Nathalie, her eyes
+flashing with sudden hope, “for oh, Helen, I do so
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_166'></a>166</span>
+want to know things, that is the useful arts, for I am
+so eager to learn how to make money the way you are
+doing! You know I have told you all about Dick,
+Helen,” she lowered her voice, “I think it is just that,
+seeing the poor fellow striving to earn a little money
+so he can be made well again, that makes me so down-hearted,
+for I feel that I am not doing a thing to help
+him.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But you are helping him, and your mother, too,
+Nathalie,” said Helen. “By the very work you are
+doing you are helping your mother to save money,
+that ought to be something to comfort you.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but it’s mean kind of work,” emphasized Nathalie,
+“and then, too, it’s only saving a mite; and it
+will take so much money for Dick’s operation.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, see here, Nathalie,” exclaimed her friend,
+“let’s figure this thing out.” Taking a pencil and pad
+that always hung by the table with Nathalie’s list of
+edibles to be served at each meal, she drew a chair up
+to the table and began to figure just how much Nathalie
+was saving her mother by doing the work herself.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie bent over her shoulder and watched eagerly
+as she saw the line of figures jotted down by Helen.
+Then she, too, put on her thinking-cap and in a few
+minutes the two girls had figured out quite a sum
+that Nathalie was actually saving in dollars and cents
+each week she did the work.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_167'></a>167</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie realized this fact, demonstrated so
+clearly by her friend, her eyes sparkled, and clapping
+her hands she cried, “Oh, Helen, I’m going to get
+Mother to let me do the work all the time—of course,
+as you say, the washing will have to be done out—but
+oh, I shall feel—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, Nathalie, don’t go off at a tangent; stop and
+consider before you make this suggestion to your
+mother. You must think just what it will cost you,
+that is, count what it will mean to suffer aches in your
+back and feet, to have fire-scorched cheeks,—they say
+cooking ruins the complexion,—red, sloppy hands, and
+all the rest of the penalties imposed on one for doing
+housework. If you put your hand to the plow, you
+know, once started you can’t look back.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, I know, Helen, it will be terrible to have
+to do these things, but if it will help me to earn money,
+even the teeniest bit, now that I know that it is to be
+done without the glory perhaps it won’t be so hard.
+Oh, I know Miss I Can will help me!” Nathalie smiled
+through the mist that would blur her eyes, “for I must
+help Dick.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” returned her friend, “if you feel that way,
+determined to help Dick, go ahead; for that will serve
+as the glory, that is, the incentive will help you through
+lots of hard things.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie looked up at her friend’s grave face with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_168'></a>168</span>
+wonder-lit eyes. “Oh, Helen,” she said solemnly, “do
+you know you are going to be a great woman? You
+are awfully wise for a girl of your age!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen interrupted her with a merry laugh. “Oh,
+no, I’m not going to be a great woman at all. I
+should love to be—that is my ambition,—but one’s
+ambitions are not apt to materialize the way one expects
+them to, you know. But I’ll tell you, Nathalie,”
+her face sobered, “I have a very wise mother—she
+tells me these things. And then as I go about I find
+from experience that what she has said comes true.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, Helen, you will be great,” nodded Nathalie
+sagely. “Perhaps you will not go about blowing a
+trumpet to let people know you are one of the world’s
+great ones, but you will be all the same, even if you
+never do a thing but live in this sleepy town and become
+a stenographer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, it looks that way,” laughed Helen, “from
+the pile of typing that awaits me. Yes, I am, as you
+say, in a fair way to become a stenographer, but Ye
+Stars! if I do not become an expert one, I’ll—well
+I’ll go hang myself, as the boys say, for I must
+succeed!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, are you really going, friend comforter?”
+laughed Nathalie, as Helen rose to go. “Yes, you are
+that, for you have given me lots of comfort this morning;
+you put new life in me when the cause was almost
+lost. On the strength of your calculations I’m going
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_169'></a>169</span>
+to lay my plans before Mother, and then I’m going to
+get some books and trinkets and go to see Rosy.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, how is she?” inquired Helen interestedly.
+“I was thinking about her the other day.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“She is getting along nicely, but it is awfully hard
+for the little thing to lie there most of the time alone.
+I was down to see her yesterday and told her some
+stories, and I promised to come again to-day.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I wish I could help you! But see here, Nathalie,
+speak to Grace and Lillie about the story-telling; perhaps
+they will help you at that. Grace is a lady with
+plenty of leisure to waste, and Lillie Bell dotes on
+yarns.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I did ask Lillie, but she said she was no good telling
+stories to children, and Grace—why, she said she
+was busy getting her clothes ready for the summer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There’s Kitty. Ah, I expect to see her this afternoon.
+I’ll ask her to lend you a hand, but I must go,
+so good-by and good luck to you, Story Lady!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mother, you are just a dear!” cried Nathalie
+a little later, as she was about to set forth to see Rosy.
+Her mother had come down from the attic with a
+couple of old picture-books, and handed them to her
+to give to the little invalid.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Gloriana! won’t they make her eyes shine!” exclaimed
+Nathalie as she tucked them under her arm,
+picked up the basket of goodies she had prepared, and
+hurried down the walk. As she knocked at the door
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_170'></a>170</span>
+of the gray shanty she heard Rosy whimpering softly.
+“Poor kiddie,” she thought, with a wave of pity. Receiving
+no answer she pushed open the door, which
+was partly ajar, and entered. On the bed lay the little
+form with its head buried in a pillow, emitting a series
+of feeble whines.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Good morning!” said the smiling visitor as she
+touched the half-buried shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>
+At the sound of her voice the child’s woolly head
+rolled over, and a smile of welcome radiated her tear-stained
+face.
+</p>
+<p>
+“How is it that you are all alone?” asked Nathalie,
+taking out an orange from the basket; “where are
+Mother and Mammy?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mamma went to de town, and Mammy—she’s
+doin’ de wash,” and then her eyes expanded with joy
+as she spied the orange.
+</p>
+<p>
+The orange was soon demolished, and then, as Nathalie
+started to show her the two picture-books, she
+realized that Miss I Can confronted her again, for a
+sticky mouth and hands revealed the fact that she had
+an unpleasant task to perform. For a moment she
+hesitated, but quickly overcoming her disinclination,
+she plunged in, got a basin of water, and finding no
+wash-cloth, dipped her own dainty handkerchief in it,
+and amid sundry squeals and protests gave the little
+face and hands a good scrubbing.
+</p>
+<p>
+This performed, the picture-books were brought
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_171'></a>171</span>
+forth and she was soon busy explaining the pictures to
+the pleased little girl. But this diversion she soon tired
+of and then came the cry, “Oh, Story Lady, won’t yo’
+please tell me er story?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, I don’t think I know any now—” Nathalie
+had meant to look up a fairy book so as to be prepared,
+but the pleading look in the black eyes upturned to hers
+won its way and she said, “All right, I’ll see what I
+know? How would ‘The Babes in the Woods’ do?”
+</p>
+<p>
+As this title was mentioned, a cry of protest came
+from the child, “No, I don’t want to hear about de
+woods. I’se afraid of de woods.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course you don’t, you poor little chickie,” answered
+Nathalie contritely, and then her face lightened
+up as a streak of sunshine at that moment glancing in
+the window proved an inspiration. So she began to
+tell about Sunshine Polly, who had been told that if she
+could get some sunshine in her heart she would always
+be happy, and how she forthwith set out for this golden
+country, and after many adventures found it. Indeed
+it proved to be a most beautiful place, with a king, very
+round and bright, and a lot of sunshine fairies flying
+all about throwing some of their sunny treasure into
+the eyes of every one they saw.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the bright eyes watching her, Nathalie knew
+that she had made a good selection this time, and the
+story progressed. She told how Polly got the sunbeams,
+with a breathing spell every now and then to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_172'></a>172</span>
+think up some more, and the cries, “Oh, dat’s a lubly
+story! Oh, I likes dat story!” But at last Polly
+returned from the land of sunshine with a crown of
+sunbeams on her head and a big bundle of it in her
+heart.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie smiled as she finished, for it seemed as if
+she too, had been to the sunshine land and had put
+some of it into Rosy’s little heart. “Ah, now I will
+get a chance to slip away,” she thought, picking up her
+basket as a prelude to her departure.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Rosy, surmising by her movement that she contemplated
+leaving, began to wail plaintively, begging
+her so hard to tell just one more “lubly story.” As
+Nathalie stood, trying her best to think of another
+story, she heard a slight noise, and looked up to see
+three little black faces with big shiny eyes staring at
+her from over the ledge of the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl broke into a merry laugh, for really it was
+funny to see those three round faces—like a row of
+flower-pot saucers on a shelf. “Why, how did you
+get there?” she cried and then again burst into laughter.
+The laughter proved contagious, for the three
+little pickaninnies immediately joined in her merriment,
+and then, evidently thinking this was an invitation
+to come in, one after the other slid over the sill
+and trotted up to the bed, to the great delight of Rosy.
+Here they climbed up, sitting on the edge with their
+naked black feet hanging down, looking for all the
+world like monkeys’ claws as they swung them to and
+fro, anxiously waiting for the story to begin.
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-172' id='illus-172'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i005' id='i005'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-172.jpg" alt="“Why, how did you get there?”" title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>“Why, how did you get there?”</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_173'></a>173</span></div>
+<p>
+“Oh, what shall I tell them?” worried Nathalie, but
+in a flash she remembered, and was soon in the mysteries
+of that beloved of all fairy tales, “Jack and the
+Bean Stalk.” The interested glow in four pairs of
+eyes was inspiring, and amply repaid her for the time
+that she had so reluctantly given the little hearers.
+</p>
+<p>
+The tale was soon ended, and again Nathalie sprang
+to her feet, feeling that now she must go, for there was
+that dessert she had to make for dinner. She gathered
+up her basket and had just turned to say good-by to
+her audience of four, when she saw Dr. Morrow, who
+was standing by the door, smiling down at her with
+his kindly eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, were you there all the time?” she asked in
+dismay. The doctor nodded as he said, “Yes, Blue
+Robin, I have enjoyed your story very much. You
+had such an appreciative audience,” smiling at the little
+black faces, “that I was reluctant to disturb their bliss.
+Our little friend Rosy has well named you, ‘The Story
+Lady.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+He turned towards his patient, and then with a
+kindly word for each of her little friends, he began to
+inquire as to how Rosy was. As Felia at this moment
+entered the room, Nathalie waved a good-by to Rosy,
+and surrounded by the three pickaninnies, each one
+eager to carry her basket, hurried out of the room and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_174'></a>174</span>
+into the sunshine she had been telling about. The
+many comments made by her body-guard of three,
+showed how eager they were for the joys of story-land—a
+rare treat to them. Realizing how much can be
+taught a child through story-telling, as she had found
+when she was a child, Nathalie fell to thinking. By
+the time she reached home she had planned a story club—oh,
+it would be just the thing—if the Pioneers
+would agree to it. They could take turns, only an
+hour once or twice a week, in telling stories to these
+new friends of hers, and who knows, if the class grew
+they might eventually do a great deal of good? Still
+somewhat timid of taking the initiative, she planned to
+lay it before Helen and let the suggestion come from
+her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie was trilling softly to herself little snatches
+of song, for somehow on that bright June day she felt
+very happy. She had started, as she told Helen, on a
+new career. Of course her mother had objected at
+first to her taking Felia’s place, but when she found
+that Nathalie was determined, she had consented, feeling
+that perhaps it would not harm her for a while.
+And then, too, she would learn many things she needed
+to know, and this was her opportunity to learn them.
+So Nathalie had won her consent, and with the help
+of Dorothy, who had been pressed into service, and
+the few things she allowed her mother to do, she had
+found her work slip along more easily than she had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_175'></a>175</span>
+anticipated, and the thought that she was earning a
+mite towards a great object, as Helen said, had proved
+the glory.
+</p>
+<p>
+And so she sang away, doing the week’s stint of
+darning, as the stocking drill at the Pilgrim Rally had
+helped her wonderfully, and now she was quite assured
+that her mother did not have to do her work
+over.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she glanced up from her work to watch a tiny
+humming bird that was flitting among the leaves of the
+honeysuckle trellis, she heard the throb of an engine,
+and looked up to see Dr. Morrow’s car coming up the
+road. To her surprise, instead of running his car in
+through his gate to the garage, he brought it to a
+standstill in front of their house, alighted, and a moment
+later was coming briskly up the path.
+</p>
+<p>
+His cheery greeting broke in upon her surprise as
+he cried, “Well, Blue Robin, so you are at home!”
+O dear! every one seemed to be calling her that nowadays,
+the girl thought a little ruefully.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Good morning,” she cried; then her face paled
+apprehensively. “Oh, have you come about Dick—do
+you think his knee is worse?” she faltered, suddenly
+remembering that her brother had complained
+quite a little the last three days with the pain in his
+knee.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I have not come about Dick,” was the reassuring
+answer. “I have come to see you on important
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_176'></a>176</span>
+business. Dick is doing as well as can be until he is
+operated on.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie sighed, and then said, “Oh, Doctor, I do
+wish you would explain to me about Dick’s operation!
+Mother told me a little, but you see I don’t know much
+about these things.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise
+and then he said in a serious tone, “I should say
+not. Such things as operations are not for little Blue
+Robins. They are supposed to trill little tru-al-lee
+songs, or tell fairy tales to children, as I hear some of
+them have been doing lately.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl’s eyes grew bright. “Oh, we are all doing
+it. Has Mrs. Morrow told you about the Pioneer
+Story Club we have formed? Helen suggested it, in
+a way.” Nathalie was modest, for the suggestion had
+really come from herself, and also the planning with
+the aid of Helen’s wise head. “We go down to the
+colored settlement,” she continued, “every Saturday
+morning and take turns in telling stories to the little
+children. Don’t you think it a fine idea?” She spoke
+animatedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed I do, but now for the business.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh—but please tell me about the operation first!”
+Nathalie was afraid the doctor intended to put her off.
+“Tell me, will Dick really be good and strong again
+after he has the operation?”
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor gazed at her a moment with serious eyes
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_177'></a>177</span>
+and then said slowly, “Yes, Miss Nathalie, I believe
+that if your brother could have that operation he would
+be just as well as if this unfortunate accident had not
+happened.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But what makes the operation necessary, and what
+would you do to him?” she insistently demanded.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I am not going to tell you exactly what we
+would do to him. We shall not make hash of him—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Doctor!” exclaimed Nathalie with a shiver.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But we will remove an unhealthy bone in his leg
+and replace it with a new one. I saw an infected finger
+joint removed the other day and replaced with a joint
+taken from one of the patient’s toes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Doctor Morrow,” cried the distressed girl,
+“you are kidding, as the boys say.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor shook his head. “No, some years ago
+I might have been indulging in a yarn, but surgery has
+made great strides these last few decades, and cripples
+nowadays may be restored to health and strength by
+transplanting entire bones with their joint surfaces.
+This discovery was announced a short time ago by an
+eminent surgeon before the Philadelphia Academy of
+Surgery. Tests were made on dogs first, and the results
+were so satisfactory that the same methods have
+since been applied to the human body with like results.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hitherto bone transplantation had been attended
+with great stiffness and lack of power in the members
+treated, but now an infected hip joint may be removed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_178'></a>178</span>
+in the same way, and replaced by healthy bones, and
+the functions work properly. But, young lady, I came
+here not to deliver a lecture on the transplantation of
+bones, but to ask you to do something for me.”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_179'></a>179</span><a name='chXI' id='chXI'></a>CHAPTER XI—THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER</h2>
+<p>
+“Do something for you? Oh, Doctor, I should
+just love to!” Surprise and pleasure
+caused Nathalie’s eyes to light expectantly.
+And then, “Do tell me what it is; perhaps it is something
+I can’t do!” she said doubtfully.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you can do it all right,” asserted the doctor
+confidently. “Remember the old adage, ‘Where
+there’s a will, there’s a way.’” His eyes twinkled
+humorously as he watched the girl’s face. “But let’s
+get at the beginning of things. The other day as I
+was hastening to my little African friend, Rosy, I
+heard some one talking to her. I stood still, for it
+was some one telling the fairy tale of Jack and the
+Bean Stalk.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now when I was a wee laddie,” continued the doctor,
+“that fairy tale was the star one to me, so I plead
+guilty, I was tempted and listened. And then when I
+discovered that the Story Lady, as Rosy says, was a
+sometime friend of mine, I found that old tale doubly
+interesting. A few days ago, when talking to a patient,
+I happened to relate this little incident in connection
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_180'></a>180</span>
+with something else I was telling, and then my
+troubles began.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor pretended dismay. “That lady has a
+crippled child who rarely goes out, never meets children
+of her own age, but is compelled a good part of
+the time to lie on a couch suffering more or less pain.
+This little girl was injured in an accident which her
+mother, poor creature, believes was her fault.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, how dreadfully she must suffer!” burst from
+Nathalie involuntarily.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I sometimes think the poor mother suffers
+more than the child. Now this mother, from a mistaken
+idea, believes it best to keep her child secluded,
+thinking that the comments of strangers would hurt
+the child’s feelings and cause more suffering. So you
+see what a miserable life the little one leads. Well, I
+must cut my tale short—” taking out his watch and
+glancing at it; “perhaps it was something I said, I
+don’t know, but this lady asked me if I thought the
+young lady who was so good at story-telling would be
+willing to come and amuse her child with stories. You
+see I was in for it, but all I could do was to say I
+would ask her,” the doctor’s eyes sobered, “for I believe
+that this Story Lady girl is not only a worth while
+girl—is that the way my wife puts it when she lectures
+you?” the doctor’s face had wrinkled into a
+smile again, “but that she has one of the kindest hearts
+in the world.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_181'></a>181</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Doctor, Mrs. Morrow never lectures,” answered
+Nathalie enthusiastically; “she just talks to us
+in the sweetest way; we just love to hear her. But,
+Doctor, why did you not tell the lady I would be only
+too glad to tell her little girl stories, but if she suffers
+so much it might tire her.” This was all said in one
+breath.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Not so fast, Blue Robin. No, I did not tell her
+you would, for I did not know how it would strike
+you,” rejoined the doctor gravely. “I only told her
+what you could do.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh,” exclaimed his companion; “well then, please
+tell her the first time you see her that I shall be delighted
+to do all I can for her little girl.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“When I see her—well, I’m going to see her now.”
+The doctor looked down at Nathalie keenly. “If you
+are willing to give this pleasure suppose you begin
+to-day?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“To-day—you mean now—this morning?” exclaimed
+surprised Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor nodded gravely.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, well, yes, I suppose I could go this morning.”
+Nathalie wrinkled her brows; she was wondering
+about dinner. “All right,” she said in a moment,
+“I’ll tell Mother and get my hat!” She started for
+the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Just wait a moment!” commanded the doctor suddenly,
+taking Nathalie by the arm and peering down
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_182'></a>182</span>
+into her face with intent eyes. “I forgot something,
+for amusing this little girl means that you will have to
+promise two things.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What are they?” asked the girl curiously.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The first one is that you will have to promise—as
+a Girl Pioneer—” the doctor’s eyes gleamed again
+“not to betray to a living soul that you are telling
+stories to this child; there is a reason.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that is easy,” nodded Nathalie; “that is, if
+you except Mamma, for I always tell everything to
+her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, we’ll trust Mrs. Page as to secrecy, and the
+next thing—this is a big promise, for it will not be so
+easy to keep—is that when you go to this lady’s house
+you will consent to be blindfolded.” The doctor
+looked relieved.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Blindfolded?” repeated puzzled Nathalie.
+“Why, do you mean that I will have to have my eyes
+covered up so I can’t see?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Dr. Morrow nodded, his keen eyes watching the
+girl’s face intently.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a pause. “Am I to go with you?” inquired
+Nathalie. The doctor’s gray head jerked
+again.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, yes, I’m willing to be blinded—as long as
+you’re with me to lead me about—but what a strange
+idea!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, it is a strange idea, and I tried to reason the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_183'></a>183</span>
+lady out of it. I even refused at first—and again
+yesterday—to ask you to do this ridiculous thing, but
+after thinking it over I have ventured. You know,
+there is the little girl to be considered, and you
+will?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course I will!” was the quick reply. “It is a
+funny thing to do, makes me think of the heroine of
+some detective tale. Blindfolded! Oh, it will be fun,
+a real adventure, I do wish I could tell Helen about it,
+I know she won’t tell.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, not yet,” said the doctor, “just wait and see
+what happens. I’ll predict that after you tell one or
+two of your exciting tales the blindfold act will be out
+of it. Now get your hat.”
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a glorious morning and Nathalie, in a merry
+chat with the doctor as they glided down one street and
+up another, forgot to wonder where they were going.
+But when they suddenly slowed up on a lonely road,
+the doctor peered cautiously about and then with a
+flourish drew forth a big black handkerchief, she remembered.
+She did indeed feel somewhat queer as
+the doctor laughingly tied the black cap, as he called it,
+over her eyes, and then, after seeing that it was not
+pressing too tightly, started his car again.
+</p>
+<p>
+This time the car went so swiftly that Nathalie
+caught her breath. O dear, she was beginning to feel
+nervous. “It really seems as if you were kidnaping
+me!” she cried, with an attempt at merriment.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_184'></a>184</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“So I am,” replied the doctor glumly. Evidently
+this blindfolding business was not to his liking.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the car came to a standstill the doctor cried,
+“Now, Blue Robin, we are about to perform the first
+act in our little drama, so get up your nerve.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I hope you won’t let me fall!” exclaimed Nathalie
+cheerily. “I don’t want to break my nose or anything
+just yet.”
+</p>
+<p>
+What a weird feeling it gave her to be led along a
+stone walk, then up a few steps guided by her companion’s
+strong arm, then evidently into a hall, as Nathalie
+surmised by the polished floor covered with
+heavy rugs. After being led stumblingly up the stairway—which
+she thought would never come to an end—they
+crept slowly along for some distance; she could
+not tell whether it was a hall or a room, and felt very
+trembly as she afterwards told her mother, and she
+was brought to a sudden halt by hearing, “Oh,
+Mamma, here she is!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The voice did not belong to a small child and Nathalie,
+surprised, stood still in embarrassed silence wondering
+what was coming next.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Doctor, how kind you are!” cried another
+voice. “I had given you up, how obstinate you must
+think me!” The voice faltered, and then Nathalie felt
+a soft touch on her arm as it continued, “Oh, it was
+very kind of you to consent to come and entertain my
+daughter, and to be obliged to come this way, too. I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_185'></a>185</span>
+feel guilty; I know how unpleasant it must be to have
+something over your eyes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, don’t worry over that now,” was the doctor’s
+terse admonition. “I have complied with your
+requests—on second thought, and my young girl
+friend has been most kind in agreeing to your wishes,
+for the present at least. Later, I hope, you will change
+your mind about these blinders.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Please don’t scold,” cried the voice again, “I know
+it is foolish of me. I will lead you to a chair!” the
+owner of the voice exclaimed as the girl gropingly put
+out her hand as if afraid of falling. Then the same
+soft touch led the blinded one across the room. “No,
+you are not going to fall; there you are all right now,”
+she said, as Nathalie with a sense of relief sank back
+in a chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now,” continued the voice, “I am going to be
+your eyes and tell you what is before you.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That will be very nice,” interposed embarrassed
+Nathalie, feeling somewhat foolish at having to sit in
+this queer way before people. She was at a loss what
+to say, but had time to collect herself as the lady went
+on talking rapidly. She described the room with its
+hangings, the pictures on the wall, told where the doors
+and windows were, and—“Oh, here is the couch—”
+she hesitated slightly, “and on it is my daughter, her
+name is—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mamma, if you don’t want the young lady to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_186'></a>186</span>
+know my name, tell her I’m the Princess in the
+Tower!” exclaimed the same sweet voice that had
+called out when Nathalie first entered the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+“That will be just the thing, ‘the Princess in the
+Tower,’” laughed the lady lightly. “Now, Princess,
+I am going to leave you to entertain Miss—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nathalie Page,” interposed the girl quickly, who,
+reassured by the laughing tone of the young girl on the
+couch, had begun to recover from the awkwardness of
+her plight. Somehow the situation appealed to the
+girl’s imagination and she began to enjoy it. “Oh,
+I ought to be the one in the tower,” she merrily asserted,
+“for I feel as if I were a prisoner with this
+funny thing over my eyes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is too bad,” cried her companion sympathetically,
+“but you know it is a whim of Mamma’s. You see,”
+she explained, “I had an accident when I was a child,
+and it has made me deformed—” there was a pathetic
+note in her voice. “Mamma is so sensitive, she
+is afraid that if people see me they will make unkind
+remarks.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, how could any one be unkind?” exclaimed
+horrified Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, they are sometimes. I used to be sensitive
+myself, too, but I’m getting used to it. I tell Mamma
+if I don’t mind she ought not to. Yes,” she ended
+sadly, “I am indeed a prisoner shut up in these big
+gray walls.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_187'></a>187</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“How hard it must be!” answered Nathalie. “But
+do you never go out?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Sometimes I go in the garden. I used to drive,
+but the people in this town are so curious; they stare
+so. I believe they are worse than in the city, where I
+suppose people are used to all kinds of strange sights.
+But there, I’m doing all the talking, please tell me about
+yourself! I’m so glad to know some one who comes
+from New York. The doctor told me you were a
+New Yorker; he told me, too, that you were very
+clever, and that you told stories beautifully.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nonsense,” exclaimed Nathalie. “The doctor is a
+dear, but he natters me; I am not clever, I wish I were.
+I studied hard at school and am ready to enter college
+this fall, and as I am only sixteen people think it very
+clever for a girl to accomplish, but I don’t see why a
+girl can’t do it as well as a boy. But now I’m not
+going to have a chance to show people whether I am
+really clever or not,” and then she briefly told about
+her disappointment in having to give up college.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But what are you going to do if you do not go to
+college? Please tell me!” said the princess, as Nathalie
+hesitated. “I just love the sound of your
+voice!” burst from the girl impulsively.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie laughed at this extravagant praise, wondering
+for a moment if the young girl were not making
+fun of her. Loath to believe that she could be so
+rude, however, she went on and told of her city life, her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_188'></a>188</span>
+schoolmates, about Dick’s accident, and how they came
+to settle in Westport, and then she stopped. She had
+been on the verge of telling about the Pioneers when
+she recollected that the doctor had said she was to tell
+the child stories. “Oh, I must stop talking—I was
+to tell you stories—what will your mother think of
+me?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is all right,” promptly returned the girl, “you
+are here to entertain me; that’s what she told the doctor,
+and if I would rather have you talk than tell
+stories, it will be as I say.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Are you sure of that?” questioned conscience-stricken
+Nathalie. “The doctor told me I was to tell
+you stories.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course he did, but because he said a thing
+doesn’t make it so; Mamma told him that, I guess, but
+you are really to do as I say.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a note of decision in the girl’s voice, which
+was an intimation that she was used to having her own
+way. Nathalie somehow felt awkward and uncertain
+as to what course to pursue, and became suddenly
+silent, inwardly racking her brains, trying to think of
+some story that would please a young girl of about the
+age she judged her companion to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, aren’t you going to tell me about the Girl
+Pioneers?” was the question that suddenly interrupted
+Nathalie’s train of thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Girl Pioneers!” echoed Nathalie, wondering
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_189'></a>189</span>
+how her companion came to know about that organization.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I want to tell you a secret,” the princess whispered
+at that moment. Nathalie felt a slim hand touch her
+with a clinging pressure on the arm. “Do you know
+the doctor and I are great friends, we have lots of jolly
+talks together. Oh, I just love to hear his step; don’t
+tell, but sometimes I make believe I’m suffering terribly
+so Mamma will send for him!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But you shouldn’t do that!” cried Nathalie, rather
+shocked at the idea of simulating pain, suddenly remembering
+a story she had heard of a young girl who
+had finally come to suffer from the very disease she
+had feigned.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, what difference does it make as long as it
+brings him?” retorted the princess. “You see he
+tells me of the outside world, and makes me laugh
+when I have pain, for I do have lots of it sometimes.
+One day when I was having an awful time with my
+back he almost made me forget the pain by telling me
+some of the funny things that have happened to the
+Boy Scouts and to the Girl Pioneers.
+</p>
+<p>
+“He told me all about you, too, how you sprained
+your foot and about your brother Dick, and about your
+finding the blue robin’s nest in the old cedar. He
+said you were pretty, too. I like pretty people. I
+wish you didn’t have that horrible thing on your eyes,
+I want to see them. Mother said I would have been
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_190'></a>190</span>
+pretty, too, if I had not had this terrible hump—oh,”
+she cried abruptly, “I was not to tell you anything
+about myself, for I’m a horrible thing to look at now.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no, you can’t be,” exclaimed Nathalie involuntarily,
+for by this time the sweet girlish voice and soft
+clinging hand had stirred her imagination, and the
+pictures presented had made the make-believe princess
+a most beautiful creature.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but I am,” persisted the girl in a resigned voice.
+“But then, do tell me about the Pioneers!” Then
+noting Nathalie’s reluctance, she called out in a high,
+shrill voice, “Mamma, come here, I want you!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What is it, darling?” answered her mother coming
+hastily from the adjoining room, where she had
+been conversing with the doctor. “What does my
+princess want?” remembering the rôle the girl had
+assumed.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The princess wants to be obeyed,” answered that
+personage imperiously. “Miss Page refuses to talk
+about herself or to tell me anything, because she says
+you ordered her to tell me only stories.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s face reddened under her black mask, “Oh,
+no,” she interposed swiftly, “I did not say it that way.
+I said the doctor had asked me to come here and tell
+you stories, but then I supposed you were a little girl.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I am not a little girl,” replied the princess, “I
+am fourteen.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Miss Page, if you do not mind I shall be glad if
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_191'></a>191</span>
+you will do as Ni—as—the princess desires,” said
+her mother pleadingly. “She is an invalid, you know,
+and, I am afraid, sadly spoiled.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Very well,” rejoined Nathalie briefly, feeling somewhat
+relieved to think she could talk about the Pioneers
+and not to have to think up a story. Yet it did seem
+strange to ask her to come there and tell stories and
+then ask her not to do so.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now that you have permission, please go right
+ahead and tell me everything you know about the
+Pioneers!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That will be delightfully easy, I can assure you,”
+exclaimed Nathalie. “Although I am a new Pioneer,
+I am beginning to be very enthusiastic. I can’t tell you
+much about the hikes for I have never been on a long
+hike yet. We were going on a bird hike the other
+day—” then she remembered the search party and its
+results, and in a few words told about Rosebud and
+the morning spent in searching for her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that was just fine of you,” cried the princess
+as Nathalie came to the part where the Pioneers had
+acted as if they did not want to hunt for the little girl.
+“And those girls! I think they were very selfish, but
+go on and tell me some more about the Pioneers!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, thus pressed, told of the Pilgrim Rally,
+the coming of the Boy Scouts, the Pioneer dance, and
+then lastly how she had accepted Miss I Can, the motto
+of the organization, as a very dear friend, and how she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_192'></a>192</span>
+was trying to live up to it. The girl could not account
+for the feeling that made her sacrifice her usual reserve
+in regard to her inner life, and tell this make-believe
+princess about what she was trying to do. In thinking
+it over when by herself, she concluded that perhaps it
+was the lesson in this little motto that she had intuitively
+felt might help the little prisoner in the tower.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I wish you would get up a story club for me!”
+exclaimed the blood royal, as Nathalie finally ended her
+Pioneer recital by telling about the story club the girls
+had formed to tell stories to the little children in the
+colored settlement.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Wouldn’t it be just lovely! And they would all
+be real live girls, too, not story-book people, for oh,
+Miss Page, I get so tired of book folks! I want to
+meet just real every-day girls. That is why I coaxed
+my mother to get the doctor to have you come here
+and tell me stories, but don’t say another word about
+telling me stories,” she lowered her voice, “for that
+was just a trick to get Mother to consent. When I
+want a thing I just keep plaguing her and then she lets
+me have my way.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but you ought to tell your mother everything,”
+exclaimed her new friend, somewhat repelled by this
+frank admission of deceit. “I always tell my mother
+everything, why I could not sleep at night if I thought
+I had deceived her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Everything is fair in love and war, that’s what my
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_193'></a>193</span>
+governess used to say, but she was a horrid thing,” the
+princess confessed candidly; “I just hated her. She
+had a beau and I used to steal his letters and pretend I
+had read them, just for the fun of seeing her get in a
+rage. But go on, and tell me more about those girls.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The last word had barely left her lips when a shriek,
+shrill and terrifying, rang through the room. Nathalie
+jumped up in a spasm of terror, but before she could
+ascertain what it was, another one, even shriller and
+more prolonged than the first one, as it seemed to the
+frightened girl, sounded right in her very ear. Her
+heart leaped to her throat, a stifled cry escaped her as
+she dropped back in her chair cowering with fear.
+Then came another cry, followed by weird, demoniacal
+laughter. Nathalie put her hands up to her face determined
+to tear off her bandage, for that blood-curdling
+shriek, that hideous laugh, she had heard before—and
+then she remembered—oh, she was in the house of the
+Mystic!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_194'></a>194</span><a name='chXII' id='chXII'></a>CHAPTER XII—THE WILD FLOWER HIKE</h2>
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s the crazy man!” came with a flash
+into Nathalie’s mind. What should she
+do? If she could only take off that horrible
+bandage from her eyes!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess
+with a merry laugh as she saw her companion cower
+in her chair. “It’s only Jimmie! Jimmie, stop that
+racket!” she continued with a loud clap of her hands.
+But Jimmie, whoever he was, only replied with another
+agonizing shriek. This time the princess called
+angrily, “Mamma, come and make Jimmie stop his
+shrieking. Miss Page is awfully frightened!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, as she heard the foregoing explanation, and
+realized that it was not an insane person screaming,
+gave a hysterical gasp and turned her head in the direction
+of the shrieks, but alas! her blinders, like a
+black wall, barred her vision.
+</p>
+<p>
+A few hurried steps, a scuffle evidently, accompanied
+by the loud flapping of wings, and then a jumble of
+French, Spanish, and English, jabbered in defiant rage,
+revealed that Jimmie was a cockatoo!
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-194' id='illus-194'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i006' id='i006'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-194.jpg" alt="“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed the princess, with a merry laugh." title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>“Oh, don’t be frightened!” exclaimed<br/>the princess, with a merry laugh.</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_195'></a>195</span></div>
+<p>
+But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his
+fight to be heard, with much loudness and clearness
+of note now broke into “In the Sweet Bye and Bye.”
+This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial
+proved too much for Jimmie’s audience, and peals
+of laughter rang out, in which Nathalie’s treble and
+the doctor’s deeper note mingled with the cockatoo’s
+song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore,
+started in with “Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a
+thief—” but this time he was summarily thrust from
+the room by an attendant—amid jabbering protests.
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must
+be going, as he had an important case on hand; he had
+waited for her, he explained, knowing that she would
+be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he
+called the handkerchief.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand,
+crying, “No, you shall not go. You have only been
+here a few moments!” Notwithstanding her mother’s
+admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the
+invalid persisted in clutching her new friend’s hand in
+a vise-like grip, much to her embarrassment. Finding,
+however, that she was not to have her way, the princess
+broke forth into a low whimpering.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie stood still, and then feeling ashamed that a
+girl of her age should act the part of a child of five,
+endeavored to persuade her to let her go, promising to
+come again soon. She met with no success, and driven
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_196'></a>196</span>
+desperate by the command, “Come, Nathalie, we must
+go!” she roughly pulled her hand away. Whereupon,
+the whimpering cries of the princess degenerated into
+shrieks of rage, so prolonged and shrill that Nathalie,
+with a thrill of surprise, immediately recognized from
+whom Jimmie had learned his shrieks.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the car sped swiftly along in the direction of
+home, after the black handkerchief had been relegated
+to the doctor’s pocket again, Nathalie suddenly reddened
+furiously, looked queer for a moment, and then
+burst into stifled laughter, much to the doctor’s amusement,
+who was gravely watching her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hello!” he cried at length, “what’s up?” after his
+companion had made one or two ineffectual efforts to
+control her risibility.
+</p>
+<p>
+But at last she sobered, and with the tears still in
+her eyes told how she and Grace had been sent by Mrs.
+Morrow a short time before—to deliver a letter to
+Mrs. Van Vorst, and how when they were waiting in
+the reception room they had heard those same terrible
+shrieks and frenzied laughter that Jimmie had emitted
+that morning, and, thinking that it was an insane person,
+they had run for their lives.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear,” she gasped hysterically, “what a joke
+on Grace and me! To think of our running away
+when it was only a cockatoo! Oh, what sillies we
+were!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I agree with you,” returned the doctor so solemnly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_197'></a>197</span>
+that the girl flushed and looked at him quickly with
+shamed eyes, but his humorous twinkle did not agree
+with his blunt assurance, so Nathalie’s self-esteem suffered
+no wound.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You know where you were then to-day?” questioned
+the doctor slowly after a pause.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, at the house of the Mystic!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The house of the Mystic?” with some astonishment.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that is the name the girls have given Mrs. Van
+Vorst because she acts so queerly. She has been very
+disagreeable to the Pioneers, they claim, refusing to
+let them drill on the lawn in the rear of her house. The
+girls say she hates young people, and then she always
+dresses so queerly in gray, too. She has shrouded herself
+in mystery by shutting herself up in that big gray
+house behind those walls. Edith Whiton insists that
+there is an insane person in the house and that he chased
+her the day of the Pilgrim Rally.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“An insane person! There is no insane person in
+the house. That is nonsense, and should not be repeated!”
+exclaimed the doctor in an annoyed tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I know, but the girls believe Edith, and so
+did I until to-day. But Grace and I have never told
+a soul what we heard, only Mrs. Morrow. But, oh,
+Doctor,” she cried impulsively, “can’t I tell Grace
+about the cockatoo? I will tell her not to tell a living
+soul,” she ended earnestly.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_198'></a>198</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“No,” returned the doctor decidedly, “Miss Grace
+is all right, but she might let it out in her sleep. No,
+you wait, and some time you girls can have the best
+laugh ever, as my kiddies say.”
+</p>
+<p>
+So the story of Nathalie’s visit to the princess in the
+tower was buried deep within her heart, although it
+came very near being unearthed several times when
+she was in the company of Grace or Helen, for really,
+it was hard to keep it a secret when it was such a good
+joke.
+</p>
+<p>
+Saturday, the day of the wild-flower hike, was warm
+and sunshiny, with the balminess of summer in its
+gently wafting breezes. Every one present was filled
+with the anticipation that they were going to have a
+“dandy time.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Are we all here?” questioned Mrs. Morrow, as
+she stood on the veranda steps, craning her neck from
+one side to the other in the endeavor to see that her
+bird groups were all there. In her natty khaki suit,
+with its red-banded sombrero and red tie, she looked
+as jaunty and young as the Bluebirds, Bob Whites, and
+Orioles, who, with admiring eyes, watched her as they
+stood lined up on the path with knapsacks, staffs, and
+all the paraphernalia needed for the hike.
+</p>
+<p>
+The several bird calls attested that the band were
+all on hand, and then they filed up on the veranda before
+their Director as lunch-baskets were opened for
+inspection, so that she could see that each one had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_199'></a>199</span>
+been properly prepared and was in a “relishy condition,”
+as Helen explained to Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few moments the inspection was over and the
+girls tripped merrily down the walk and out of the gate,
+making such a hubbub with the clatter of their tongues
+that the doctor, as he came hurriedly up the path, teasingly
+put his fingers in his ears in intimation that they
+were making undue clamor.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Flower of the Family’s knapsack bulged with a
+package of Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Flour, suggestive
+of the flapjacks to be, while the Editor-in-chief, with
+a reporter-like air, carried a large note-book under her
+arm so as to feature the affair in the forthcoming
+“Pioneer.” The Encyclopedia was lumbered with two
+musty volumes on flower lore, she explained, so as to
+be able to give all desired information on the various
+specimens that were to be gathered by the hikers.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Pot-Boiler’s knapsack was not only stuffed with
+several mysterious-looking packages, but was glaringly
+conspicuous, that young lady, true to her name, having
+pasted a paper advertisement of an iron pot on its cover.
+The Sport carried a few garden implements: a small
+shovel, a rake, and a hoe, with which to burrow in the
+ground for those specimens that grew in a brook or
+in the mossy hollows in the woods. The Tike, as the
+privileged fag, carried a basket to fill with wild-flowers
+to be distributed to the shut-ins of the town hospital on
+their return.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_200'></a>200</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Each Pioneer, besides her lunch-box, carried a self-made
+note-book—Nathalie had spent several hours
+making hers—with a pencil attached for her flower
+specimens, data, and so forth. Nathalie felt a bit
+disappointed that she had not been able to buy a uniform,
+although Helen had said that it made no difference,
+for she noticed to her dismay that she was the
+only Pioneer minus that very desirable accessory, dear
+to the heart of every hiker.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls had gone but half a block when a sudden
+cry of pleasure rippled through the line. Then, as one
+Pioneer, the girls gave their call in welcome to Dr.
+Homer, who, as Mrs. Morrow explained, was to take
+the place usually occupied by her husband, when the
+Pioneers were on a long hike.
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor responded by giving the Boy Scout salute
+as he stood a moment with raised hat. When the girls
+filed by, to Nathalie’s surprise he stepped to her side
+and asked, as he smiled in recognition, “May I have
+the pleasure of hiking with you?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s cheeks bloomed pink at the remembrance
+of their last meeting, but her eyes brightened as she
+nodded an assent. Perhaps some of the girls felt a
+little envious as they saw whom the doctor had selected
+for the favor of his company, as he was a great favorite
+and had always proved a delightful companion.
+But they quickly stifled any feeling that jarred, as each
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_201'></a>201</span>
+one remembered that she had had her turn, and that
+now it was Nathalie’s opportunity to have this pleasure
+as the new Pioneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+And Nathalie’s turn added a zest and enjoyment to
+her first hike that was long remembered, for through
+Dr. Homer’s kindness in imparting to her many stray
+bits of knowledge she was able to hide her greenness in
+wood-lore, bird-lore, and many of the activities in
+which the other Pioneers were so proficient.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Pioneers had barely reached the open when the
+Sport and one of the Orioles were despatched by the
+Director to blaze a trail. In order to give this advance
+corps a chance to get ahead, the rest of the company
+rested on the road, sitting down on the grass, or on
+some decayed tree trunk, while others practiced wall-scaling,
+among them Nathalie and the doctor, the latter
+acting as their instructor.
+</p>
+<p>
+This scaling feat meant stepping carefully upon the
+ledge of a stone wall that skirted the road, and then
+springing down as quickly and lightly as possible, so
+as not to dislodge stray stones and bring them rattling
+after one. This forerunner of other feats to come led
+the doctor to tell how a Scout practiced wall-scaling;
+sometimes by standing on the shoulders of another
+Scout, and then climbing a high wooden fence, which
+was claimed by many to be a more difficult performance
+than scaling a stone wall. This, of course, proved an
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_202'></a>202</span>
+incentive for the girls to do their best, especially Nathalie,
+who as a city-bred girl did not want to prove a
+laggard.
+</p>
+<p>
+A few minutes later, as they resumed their tramp,
+Nathalie’s face grew radiant as she suddenly spied a
+tree near with a penknife notch on the bark. “Oh,
+girls, here is the trail! Go this way!” she cried excitedly,
+pointing as she spoke to the notched sign of a
+twig bent at the end, making it look somewhat like the
+point of a broken arrow. As she was coming to be a
+zealous student of the bent-twig signs, the trail-blazing
+system invented for the Pioneers, she explained a number
+of these bent-twig signs to the doctor, who was
+deeply interested and not only told of the many signs
+used by the Scouts, but showed her the trees that were
+the easiest to cut.
+</p>
+<p>
+Chatting, laughing, and singing—for the girls vied
+with the birds in their joyousness that summer morning—making
+bird calls, alternating with notch-making
+and flower-gathering made the time pass swiftly.
+The new Pioneer was amazed when Dr. Homer pulled
+out his watch and looking at his pedometer said that
+they had walked four miles, and that in a short time
+they would hit the wood trail, where they were to camp
+for dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s flower-box was soon full of specimens that
+she had gathered from the roadside and the meadow
+where her lesson in wall-scaling came in handy. Perhaps
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_203'></a>203</span>
+this wild flower hunt proved but a small part of
+her pleasure, for as she strolled along the doctor proved
+most companionable as he coached her in hike knowledge.
+</p>
+<p>
+Never walk over anything you can go around, he had
+told her, and never step on anything you can step over,
+for every time you step on anything you lift the weight
+of your body, which makes more to carry when tramping.
+He also made her laugh heartily when he insisted
+upon examining the footwear of the hikers, expounding
+as he did so upon the foolishness of damsels in general,
+who would insist upon wearing shoes either too big or
+too small for them. The small shoes, he said, crowded
+the feet, and the big ones added extra weight, and made
+them road-weary before the tramp was half over.
+</p>
+<p>
+He also told her about the weather signs; a low cloud
+moving swiftly indicated coolness; hard-edged clouds,
+wind; rolled or jagged clouds, strong wind; and a
+mackerel sky, a whole day of fair weather. Nathalie,
+perhaps to show this young man with the smiling gray
+eyes who looked at you so fearlessly that she, too,
+did know just a tiny bit about weather signs, sang
+softly:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Hark&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;East&nbsp;&nbsp;Wind’s&nbsp;&nbsp;song&nbsp;&nbsp;from&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;sea,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Blowing&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;misty&nbsp;&nbsp;clouds&nbsp;&nbsp;o’er&nbsp;&nbsp;lea;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Shaking&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;sheaves&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;golden&nbsp;&nbsp;grain<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;With&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;patter&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;rain;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Giving&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;earth&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cooling&nbsp;&nbsp;drink,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Washing&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;flow’rs&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;brighter&nbsp;&nbsp;pink.<br />
+</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_204'></a>204</span></div>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hark&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;West&nbsp;&nbsp;Wind’s&nbsp;&nbsp;song&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Bringing&nbsp;&nbsp;blue&nbsp;&nbsp;sky&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;weather&nbsp;&nbsp;clear;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Driving&nbsp;&nbsp;away&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;clouds&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;gray<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Filling&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;earth&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;sunlight’s&nbsp;&nbsp;ray;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Cheering&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;hearts&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;those&nbsp;&nbsp;who&nbsp;&nbsp;mourn,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Filling&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;dark&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;golden&nbsp;&nbsp;dawn.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+When the little lecture had ended she had learned
+that when a slack rope tightens, when smoke beats
+down, when the sun is red in the morning, or when
+there is a yellowish or greenish sunset it means rain;
+how to tell which way the wind blows by pulling blades
+of grass and then letting the wind blow them, or to
+suck your thumb and let the wind blow around it, the
+cool side telling the tale.
+</p>
+<p>
+To be sure, they were all simple things to learn, but
+they were the essentials of life, as the doctor said, who
+had a most jolly manner of giving his stray bits of
+information, all the while making so much sport, as he
+ambled on, that Nathalie was sure she would remember
+everything he had told her.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the girls reached the wood with its cool, damp
+shade, moss-grown paths, and running brooklet, they
+set to work with renewed vigor to hunt for specimens.
+The Sport, notwithstanding the fun the girls had made
+of her garden implements, found that they were in
+great demand. For a time she was the star hiker, as
+first one and another pleaded, “Oh, Edith, just let me
+have that rake a minute!” or, “Oh, I see the dandiest
+little blue flower here in this crevice!” and so on.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_205'></a>205</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+When they finally grew tired of flower-hunting they
+pushed their way to a level space in the open on the edge
+of the woods, where knapsacks, frying-pans, pots, and
+all such camping utensils were hastily thrown on the
+grass, and the girls hied themselves to the spring to
+wash their heated cheeks and rearrange their tangled
+tresses. Some, more venturesome than the others, took
+off their shoes and stockings and waded in the brook’s
+cooling flow, while the older ones, summoned by a
+series of bird calls, hurried back to camp to prepare
+dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+To their delight, as the girls returned from the
+spring, they found that Dr. Homer had built an Indian
+“wickiup,” that is a dome-shaped wigwam, by sticking
+in the ground in a circle a number of limber poles.
+The ones the doctor had used were willow wands, but
+almost any kind of a bough would do, he claimed. He
+then showed the girls how he had bent the tops of each
+pair of opposites or poles forward until they met. The
+ends were then interlocked and tied firmly. Over this
+impromptu wigwam—for it had been made with no
+tool but his strong penknife—he had thrown a blanket
+shawl.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls were all much interested in the Indian wigwam
+for this was the simplest way of making a tent,
+and they examined it eagerly. They were especially
+interested when the doctor told them that one time when
+he had lost his trail up in the Maine woods, he had made
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_206'></a>206</span>
+a dome-shaped wigwam and had rested in its shelter,
+high and dry, during a severe storm.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the novelty of the wigwam had worn off,
+every girl declared herself famished for something to
+eat, and the dinner committee hustled about picking
+up small dry twigs, which were placed in a heap, lightly,
+so as to draw the air. These were then covered with
+the heavier sticks until the desired height for a campfire
+was reached. Several fires were to be started, as
+no time was to be wasted in cooking the edibles.
+</p>
+<p>
+When all was in readiness, there was a general call
+for Nathalie, who, as the new Pioneer, was to take her
+first lesson in lighting a fire with only one match.
+Every Pioneer, of course, was eager to show her how to
+do this feat, but Mrs. Morrow silenced the clamor by
+assigning the task to Helen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Morrow—I think—” Nathalie stopped,
+a sudden roguish expression flittered over her face, and
+then she meekly followed Helen to the wood-pile and
+stood silent as she watched that young lady scratch her
+match, hold it in the hollow of her hand, and then, with
+a soft puff, kneel, and apply it to a twig.
+</p>
+<p>
+The twig was obstinate, however, and Helen’s one
+match attempt was a decided failure. The Sport now
+offered her services as instructor, but Nathalie, feeling
+sorry for Helen, who with a crestfallen air had retired
+to the ranks of onlookers, cried, “Oh, no, Mrs. Morrow,
+can’t I try by myself?”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_207'></a>207</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+As the Director nodded an assent, while the doctor
+laughingly declared she would have beginner’s luck, Nathalie
+took her match, examined it carefully, and then
+scratched it on the box. A tiny blue flame quivered in
+the air, which she carefully sheltered with her hand
+as she knelt before the heap of twigs, and blew, oh, so
+softly. It must have been a magic blow, for as she
+bent down and held it to the smallest twig she could
+find, almost a wisp of straw, it spread itself to the air,
+caught the twig in its flame, and in another moment
+drifting spurts of smoke showed that Nathalie had
+lighted the fire with one match!
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor whistled softly as he saw that Nathalie
+had succeeded, but before she could regain an upright
+position, the Pioneers had broken forth into loud clapping,
+somewhat to her confusion as she stood with the
+blackened match still in her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+Should she tell, she pondered, as her glance swept
+from face to face of the applauding girls; then as she
+saw the amused look in the doctor’s eyes, as he stood
+with folded arms leaning against a tree watching her,
+she gave a little laugh. She opened her lips to speak,
+but when the clapping continued, as if each Pioneer was
+bent on seeing who could clap the loudest, she raised
+her hand as she had seen Mrs. Morrow and Helen do
+sometimes.
+</p>
+<p>
+This appeal had the desired effect, and as the clapping
+dwindled, Nathalie, with a nervous laugh, cried,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_208'></a>208</span>
+“Girls, please don’t clap me any more, for I do not
+deserve it. This is not the first time I have lighted a
+fire with a single match. A few summers ago I camped
+up in the Maine woods. The second day at camp some
+one upset a pail of water on the box with our match
+supply, and as only one dry box was left, and it was
+some miles to the nearest settlement, we were compelled
+to economize, and were allowed only one match
+to light a fire. I was going to tell you,” she gave a
+little ripple of laughter, “but you were all so anxious
+to show me I did not want to spoil your fun, and then
+as I have not attempted the feat since that summer, I
+did not know whether I could do it again or not.”
+</p>
+<p>
+A circle of stones was now placed around the fires so
+as to prevent them from spreading in case of a strong
+wind, and then the lunch-boxes were opened. It was
+not long before the savory fumes of frying frankfurters,
+boiling cocoa, and flapjacks signified that a
+camp dinner was in progress.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls found a level rock on which they spread
+a cloth and small board, and then the bread was cut
+and buttered in a way that showed that they were experts
+at the task. Nathalie made the cocoa, counting
+noses as she put in a teaspoonful of cocoa to every cup
+of boiling water, letting it boil three minutes by the
+watch of the doctor, who had kindly offered to help
+his little hike-mate, as he called her.
+</p>
+<p>
+The hikers now seated themselves around the fires—for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_209'></a>209</span>
+there were three—and then something happened
+that held Nathalie with reverent awe for she
+saw Mrs. Morrow’s face sober with a sweet seriousness,
+as she gave the signal for silence. Every head
+was quickly lowered in response to this signal, and
+then a timid voice—it belonged to the Flower—broke
+the reverent stillness by softly chanting a blessing to
+the Giver of all good.
+</p>
+<p>
+Each girl had brought her own tin cup, plate, knife
+and fork, lump of sugar, and napkin. Pats of butter
+were now distributed, followed by the molasses jug,
+so as to be ready for the flapjacks that were now
+browning to a turn. The “Ohs!” and “Ahs!” of
+delight that burst forth as the cakes found their way
+around the circle amply repaid the baker for her reddened
+face and hard labor over the burning fagots.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course there had to be mishaps; the first piece
+of bacon to grease the griddle dropped into the fire
+instead of the pan, and a number of cakes turned out
+failures and had to be consigned to the waste-heap.
+But it was a regular hike spread, and meant lots and
+lots of fun, especially when the pancake contest was
+started.
+</p>
+<p>
+This was something new to Nathalie, and she quite
+enjoyed it as she watched one girl after the other take
+her turn in making a flapjack. She first poured the
+batter on the griddle in just the right quantity, and
+then skillfully tossed it high in air as she turned it,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_210'></a>210</span>
+so that it would land in just the right place on the
+pan and finish to just the right shade of brown.
+</p>
+<p>
+All the party, even the doctor, tried their hands at
+this feat, all but the new Pioneer, who shrank back,
+afraid to venture as she knew that expertness came
+only with many trials. But the girls were persistent
+and so good-natured in trying to show her that she
+felt a little ashamed, especially when Mrs. Morrow,
+who was jotting down the names of the experts for
+merit badges, repeated softly, “I can!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie immediately sprang up, and although feeling
+that she would make a perfect goose of herself at
+this new trial, took the little pitcher, poured out the
+batter, and then with a quaking heart watched it
+darken. Ah, she slipped the turner under, and was
+just about to give it the magic toss when her hand
+slipped, and batter and turner fell into the flames.
+</p>
+<p>
+She was so disgusted with this dismal attempt that
+she would have liked to disappear to parts unknown
+if the doctor had not cried, “Ah, just one more trial,
+I know you will get it this time!” To her unutterable
+astonishment the doctor’s prediction came true, and
+she really tossed a flapjack with such success that her
+hike-mate declared it was “the best ever,” and begged
+permission to eat it in memory of the plucky deed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course Grace, Louise, and Helen each won a
+badge, as was discovered when the contest was over.
+But even feasting has its limitations on a warm day
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_211'></a>211</span>
+in June, and as the edibles disappeared the hike spread
+came to an end. The Tike and one of the Bob Whites
+were now despatched to the spring for some water,
+while the rest of the hikers—all but Mrs. Morrow,
+who was escorted to the wigwam for a siesta—flew
+hither and thither, filling the pots with water to boil
+off the grease, rubbing the griddle with sand, and so on.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie and the doctor were jabbing the knives
+in the dirt to clean them, Helen came running up
+crying, “Oh, what do you suppose the water-carriers
+are up to? They have been gone an awfully long
+time and we have not a drop of water to wash the
+dishes?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I will go and see!” exclaimed the doctor, jumping
+up hastily, but he had not gone more than a few
+steps when a shrill scream broke the brooding silence
+of the woods. In another instant pots, pans, and dishes
+were flung broadcast as every one made a wild rush in
+the direction of the spring, headed by the doctor. As
+the doctor reached the spring, however, and saw that
+the screams did not issue from that quarter he turned,
+and with a few flying leaps reached the scene of disaster,
+some distance down the stream.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls started to run after him, but in a moment
+his loud laughter brought them to a standstill, for
+surely it could not be anything very serious or he
+would not be indulging in such levity! Helen and the
+Sport, however, who had rushed steadily on, were not
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_212'></a>212</span>
+far behind the doctor, and as they swung around the
+bend of the trees, they beheld a diminutive figure, sputtering
+and gasping, with rivulets of water trickling
+from bedraggled garments and locks, being assisted up
+the bank by the doctor’s strong arm!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_213'></a>213</span><a name='chXIII' id='chXIII'></a>CHAPTER XIII—AROUND THE CHEER FIRE</h2>
+<p>
+The sorry-looking object proved to be the Tike,
+who between sobs and shivery shakes explained,
+as the party surrounded her, that
+tempted by the mirror-like surface of a dark pool in
+the middle of the brook she had stooped to see if she
+could see her face in it. Unfortunately, her knee
+slipped on a loose stone, and she had tumbled in.
+</p>
+<p>
+With much laughter and merriment the girls made
+a stretcher, tumbled the somewhat subdued fag into
+it, and then set off for the wigwam, where Miss Carol
+was speedily disrobed and her clothes hung out to dry,
+as the girls merrily sang, “on a hickory limb!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Bundled up in wraps after a few drops of stimulant
+had been administered to prevent her taking cold,
+which made her drowsy, she was left to the ministrations
+of the dream fairies, while the girls hurried off
+to wash the dishes and finish cleaning up. While this
+was being performed, the doctor showed Nathalie how
+to throw dirt or water on the fires—all but one, which
+was left for a cheer fire—so as to be sure that they
+were all out. The girls, he said, had learned a lesson
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_214'></a>214</span>
+last summer when they left a fire smoldering when
+they struck camp. It soon burst into a blaze and if it
+hadn’t been for a party of Scouts who had been off for
+a tramp the woods would have been on fire.
+</p>
+<p>
+Camp duties done, the cheer fire blazed a welcome
+and the girls hastily circled around it, and were soon
+busily engaged in packing the roots of their wild
+flowers with clay, wrapping them in big leaves and
+tying them securely with sweet grasses or string.
+They were then placed in the Tike’s basket to delight
+the heart of some shut-in, whose only outing was from
+the window.
+</p>
+<p>
+When this task was completed the flower specimens
+were laid in rows, and then Helen as leader, gave the
+names of her specimens; each girl having a like specimen
+laid it carefully between a sheet of blotting paper
+to remove the moisture, and then pressed it deftly in
+her note-book, where it was fastened with gummed
+paper across the stems and thick parts of the plant.
+Under each flower was now written its botanical name,
+its common name, the date of finding it, its habitat,
+and any other data that could be obtained from the
+Encyclopedia, who, with flower books spread before
+her, was kept busy supplying all the needed information.
+</p>
+<p>
+Each odd specimen was passed around for inspection,
+and then the lucky finder jubilantly placed it on
+record, while others wrote additional information as
+to the insects that visit it, whether it is a pollen-bearer,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_215'></a>215</span>
+if it slept at night, or closed in the sun. The doctor
+supplemented Barbara’s book lore by stray bits of
+knowledge that he had picked up from actual experience
+in his many scout rambles. The girls were only
+too pleased to listen, being particularly interested in
+his account of the evolution of color in flowers.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the time came for telling cheer fire stories,
+Mrs. Morrow suggested that they should be flower
+stories, stipulating, however, that the legends told
+should be about the specimens that had been found in
+that day’s hike.
+</p>
+<p>
+With this, the doctor, who was lying on the grass
+by the side of Nathalie, pulled off his hat which she
+had decorated with a dandelion wreath, and waving it
+high so every one could see it in its yellow glory, said
+he would start the wheel of yarns by telling about the
+maiden with the fluffy cobweb hair.
+</p>
+<p>
+As he said “hair,” Lillie Bell rose, and in ready
+imitation of the renowned Rebecca of Sunnybrook
+Farm tragically intoned:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Robaire!&nbsp;&nbsp;Robaire!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Let&nbsp;&nbsp;down&nbsp;&nbsp;your&nbsp;&nbsp;hair!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls burst into peals of laughter, for even in
+the sleepy town of Westport every one had seen the
+beloved Rebecca, and keenly appreciated Lillie’s timely
+pose.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But this slim bit of a girl,” smiled the doctor,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_216'></a>216</span>
+“didn’t let down her yellow tresses, they just flew
+with the wind, until Shawondassee—this is an Indian
+legend—the South Wind saw her. Instead of seeking
+this witching maiden, whom he admired so deeply,
+he was lulled to sleep by the fragrance of the summer
+flowers and forgot all about her. The next day he
+again spied his yellow charmer away off among the
+grasses of the meadows, but after lazily wishing she
+would come to him he snoozed off again. To his horror,
+the next day he found that the maiden’s tresses
+were gone, and that in her place stood an old woman
+who looked as if Jack Frost had sprinkled her with
+his silver dust.
+</p>
+<p>
+“‘Ah,’ sighed Shawondassee, ‘my brother the North
+Wind has done this wrong.’ So he hurriedly arose
+and blew his horn loud and fierce to the whitened figure
+standing so forlornly out in the fields. But alas, as
+his soft breezes whistled gently about the old woman,
+her snow-white hair fell to the ground, and then she,
+too, soon disappeared, leaving nothing but a few upright
+stems and a bunch of withered leaves. She was
+the dandelion, whose petals turn to fluffy hair when
+touched by the North Wind. This yellow maiden is
+said to be a symbol of the sun, and has been named
+Dandelion because it is claimed that its petals resemble
+a lion’s tooth.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The common little field flower seemed to have gained
+in interest after the legend, and was examined with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_217'></a>217</span>
+greater curiosity, while the Scribe hurriedly wrote the
+legend on a stray page of her copy-pad to feature it in
+the “Pioneer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie Bell, who had gathered a number of wild forget-me-nots,
+told a pathetic German legend about that
+sweetheart flower, while Helen explained that the
+marigold, instead of being such a common plant, was
+in reality the bride of the sun. It was once a maiden
+named Caltha, who, in reward for her faithfulness to
+the sun, was finally lost in his golden rays, and on the
+spot where she used to stand and gaze at her fiery
+lover the marigold grew.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, who had been deeply interested in the
+legends, experienced somewhat of a shock when Mrs.
+Morrow suddenly said, “Now, Nathalie, are we not
+to hear a flower legend, or some kind of a story from
+you?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I am a poor hand at story-telling,” the girl
+speedily answered.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hear! hear! this is treason!” called Helen loudly,
+“for a Pioneer who has won fame as a Story Lady!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that is different,” pleaded her friend in mild
+despair, “those were only children’s stories.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“To be able to tell stories to children, Nathalie, and
+to keep their attention,” spoke Mrs. Morrow, “shows
+ability, and if we have so gifted a Pioneer I think it is
+our due to hear from her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And then, Nathalie,” urged Grace, “every Pioneer
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_218'></a>218</span>
+has to know how to tell stories, and this is a good time
+to make a beginning.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I see I am doomed, notwithstanding my protests,”
+said the girl after a short pause. “I will try
+to tell one if you will let me put on my thinking-cap
+for a moment.” As permission was accorded to this
+request, Nathalie turned and glanced helplessly at the
+doctor, as if she might find inspiration in his merry
+eyes, Helen laughingly declared.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie blushed as the doctor shook his head and
+said, “No, hike-mate, I am at your service in everything
+but a story, for I ran dry when I told mine.
+Then I know you have nerve and brains enough to do
+your own thinking.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I know one!” the girl suddenly cried as her
+face lighted, and then closing her eyes for a moment,
+as if to invoke the aid of some unknown muse, she
+said, “I read it in a newspaper the other day. It is
+about a flower, but I will let you guess its name.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It was in the spring,” she continued slowly, “and
+old Peboan sat alone in his ragged tepee. His hair
+fell about his time-worn face like glistening icicles as
+he shivered in his fur robes; oh, so cold, so weak and
+hungry, for he had had no food for days. As he bent
+over to blow upon the smoldering embers that glowed
+at his feet, he besought the Great Spirit to come to
+his aid.
+</p>
+<p>
+“As he thus prayed and lamented a handsome young
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_219'></a>219</span>
+girl stepped within the tent. Her eyes were as blue
+as the summer sky and were filled with a liquid light,
+while her golden hair floated gracefully with the wind.
+Her cheeks were like apple blossoms and her gown was
+made of sweet grasses and green leaves. In her arms
+she carried twigs of the pussy-willow. Going softly
+to the old man, she cried in a voice as sweet as the
+brook’s gentle flow, ‘Peboan, what can I do for
+thee?’
+</p>
+<p>
+“The old man raised his head as he heard the maiden’s
+sweet voice, and as he saw her in her spring glory
+he cried bitterly, ‘I am hungry and cold. I have lost
+my power over nature, for the streams have refused
+to stand still for me. My mantle disappears from the
+earth as rapidly as I cover it, and the flowers are peeping
+from their brown beds, although I have bidden them
+sleep.’
+</p>
+<p>
+“‘Peboan,’ replied the maiden, ‘I am Seguin, the
+summer manitou; the flowers are obeying me, for I
+have bidden them arise. The leaves are budding on
+the trees, the pussies are out in all their furry finery,
+for I, Seguin, now possess the earth. The snow and
+ice have disappeared, for they have obeyed my voice,
+and your power is gone. All nature pays me homage,
+for I am the Queen of the earth, the Goddess of
+spring!
+</p>
+<p>
+“’Peboan, you are the winter manitou, and the
+Great Spirit calls you! Now go!’ As Seguin said
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_220'></a>220</span>
+these words she gently waved her wand over the old
+man’s head as it sank between his shoulders.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The winter manitou made no reply, but drew his
+furs closer about his shivering form, and then, as he
+heard the song of the spring birds, and the rustling of
+the leaves in the sunshine, he sank to the ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+“As a ray of the warm sun filtered through the top
+of the tepee and fell upon the old man, who lay exhausted
+on the earth; Seguin again raised her wand,
+and the winter manitou disappeared. His furs had
+turned to dancing leaves; his tepee to a tall tree. Then
+Seguin stooped, and gathering a handful of the leaves
+from the tree she breathed on them—very softly—and
+then threw them on the earth. They immediately
+stood upright, each holding forth a tiny pink flower,
+gay with a delicate perfume.
+</p>
+<p>
+“‘Grow and blossom,’ cried the spring maiden
+softly, ‘and bloom a welcome to the hearts of those who
+are depressed by winter’s gales, for you are a token
+that Peboan, the winter manitou is gone. You are
+the first flower that comes in the spring.’ Now what
+is the name of it?” ended Nathalie abruptly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Snowdrop!” called Helen quickly. Nathalie
+shook her head.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Violet!” timidly ventured some one.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Violet?” the Sport repeated scornfully. “Who
+ever heard of a pink violet? Nathalie said this flower
+was pink.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_221'></a>221</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow broke the sudden silence that followed
+the Sport’s remark by saying softly, “I think it is the
+arbutus!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That’s it!” cried Nathalie, and then to her bewilderment
+every one began to clap again. As the
+clapping continued, the girls meanwhile, watching her
+with sparkling eyes, Nathalie turned and whispered to
+the doctor, “Why, what are they clapping for?”
+</p>
+<p>
+But before he could reply the Sport shouted, “Hurrah
+for the Story Lady!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The cry was repeated again and again to Nathalie’s
+confusion. In a moment, however, her wits asserted
+themselves, and springing to her feet, with a low sweeping
+courtesy she cried, “Thank you, fellow Pioneers,
+I am glad you liked my first cheer-fire story!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The clapping now subsided, and after several had expressed
+their admiration by saying that the story was
+the “best ever,” Mrs. Morrow started a floral conundrum,
+which proved a thriller, the doctor claimed, as
+he sat with humorous eyes and watched the girls, who
+all sat up and took notice, as one after the other called
+out the name of a flower in answer to the questions
+propounded by their Director.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the questions had all been answered, it was
+discovered that the names of the star actors in this
+little floral drama, the color of their eyes, hair, and so
+on, as well as the musical instrument played by the
+lover, the words of his proposal, the wedding, and even
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_222'></a>222</span>
+the time and place of the honeymoon, had all been answered
+by the names of flowers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie Bell, at Mrs. Morrow’s request, took her mandolin,
+and after thrumming it softly broke into a quaint
+low strain of melody, while Louise sang in her sweet
+little soprano voice, “All in a Garden Fair,” “Fortune
+My Foe,” and “Nymphs and Shepherds,” each number
+being one of a group of old English songs dating as
+far back as 1555. After receiving an encore, Louise
+favored them with “Polly Willis,” and “Golden Slumber
+Kiss Your Eyes,” two more popular ballads of the
+seventeenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+These old-time songs were a surprise for Mrs. Morrow,
+who had often been heard to remark that it was
+a pity, as they were Pioneers, that they did not know
+some of the songs that used to be sung in those days,
+instead of ragtime songs. But ragtime was not altogether
+displaced, for in a few minutes the girls were
+singing “The Sweet Little Girl with the Quaint
+Squeegee,” “Dry yo’ Eyes,” and “My Little Dream
+Girl,” with a verve and gusto that made the woods resound
+to the ring of their girlish voices.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time cramped limbs and the joyousness of
+life asserted themselves, and every one began to feel
+that they wanted to run, leap, and jump, so at the doctor’s
+suggestion they played the Scout game of “Stalking.”
+The doctor was the deer, not hiding, but standing
+and moving a little now and then as he liked, while
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_223'></a>223</span>
+the girls vied with one another in trying to touch him
+without being seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor did his part so well that he was duly
+tantalizing, the Pioneers declared, as they watched him
+with strained eyes, being unable to catch him napping.
+When the doctor called “Time,” the game ended
+by all the girls coming to a halt on the spot where they
+were standing when the call sounded, the girl nearest
+the deer winning the game.
+</p>
+<p>
+Prisoner’s Base was then started; the goals were
+marked off, the players divided into two sections, one
+stationed in each goal, and then the fun began. A girl
+would advance towards the opposite goal, and then run
+back into safety, while one of her mates came to her
+rescue by chasing her pursuer, who, in turn, was rescued
+by one of her own mates. The rushing about
+gave health, glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes attesting
+that muscles, limbs, and blood were being exercised
+to a good purpose. But after the doctor had again
+defeated them by never getting caught, the game was
+abandoned, the girls all vowing he was magic-limbed,
+for he was so quick and agile on his feet.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a short time spent in practicing bird calls, as
+it was nearing the time to return home the hikers gathered
+up their belongings, packed their knapsacks, and
+with staffs in hand started out on the homeward hike.
+They all declared that they were not a bit fatigued by
+the day’s activities, and jested merrily one with another,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_224'></a>224</span>
+or happily sang snatches of songs as they wended
+their way back to town.
+</p>
+<p>
+By the time they had reached the cross-roads their
+spirits had subsided somewhat, all but the Sport’s, who
+teasingly whisked off Barbara’s hat and the next instant
+was whizzing down the road with it clutched in
+her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+Barbara, notwithstanding her weighty nickname of
+the Encyclopedia, was agile, and lost no time in flying
+after her, urged to speed by the girls. Although inclined
+to poke fun sometimes at Barbara for her absent-mindedness
+and love of books, the girls were her firm
+friends. They loved her for her kindly heart and sincere
+efforts to help others.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a shout of victory when it was seen that
+the Encyclopedia had captured her head-gear, and they
+were all clapping vociferously when an automobile
+rounded the bend in the road. The car turned out to
+be the doctor’s, whose chauffeur had promised to meet
+him near the cross-roads as he had to be in his office
+by five that afternoon.
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor quickly assisted Mrs. Morrow into the
+car as she had decided to ride, and then stood and
+waited while the Pioneers—two of whom had been
+invited to join their Director—urged Kitty with her
+iron pot, and the Flower with her griddle to accept the
+invitation.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls finally consented, and with many waves
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_225'></a>225</span>
+of the hands to the pedestrians, and a loud honk, honk,
+the car glided down the road and out of sight.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen, Nathalie, and Edith, as they lived near one
+another, bade their mates good-by, and, as they had
+decided to take a short cut home, turned down a side
+path. As they strolled slowly along a road running by
+a low stone wall hedging a pasture, where a brook
+twisted like a silver cord in the undulating grass, Edith
+asked her companions if they did not want to walk to
+the Bluff, where they would have a fine view of the
+bay in the distance.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes,” assented Helen, “it is a lovely view,
+Nathalie, and will only be a step out of the way if we
+go by the brook.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, although feeling somewhat tired, was
+anxious to visit the Bluff, and a minute later the three
+girls climbed the stone barricade and were keeping pace
+with the brook’s windings as it leaped boisterously over
+a bed of stones, or crept lingeringly, with murmuring
+ripples, between grass-fringed banks.
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently they wandered into the shade of the trees,
+where, to Nathalie’s surprise, she found the old brook
+bed. Instead of being earth and stones, however, it
+was green and flower-starred, overshadowed by weeping
+willows and silver birches, their interlaced tops
+bending low as if seeking their old-time friend with its
+murmuring song.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lulled by the mossy dell and the fragrance of the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_226'></a>226</span>
+woodland posies, the girls loitered, and did not realize
+that the afternoon was waning until they reached the
+Bluff. They raced to the top, where Nathalie’s joy at
+being the fleetest was forgotten, as with stilled eyes she
+gazed upon the fertile strip of valley below, its green
+specked by tiny white cottages and washed by the
+waters of the bay that shone in the glow of the setting
+sun like a sheet of brass.
+</p>
+<p>
+The air was becoming chilled by the mist that was
+hovering in the distance, and they turned and quickly
+made their way back to the road. Whereupon, Edith
+insisted that they take the summit road, leading over
+a small hill at one end of the town, which she declared
+would save time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her companions assented, and in a short space they
+were pantingly trudging up the slope, and then, beginning
+to realize how tired they were, they sat down on a
+rock near the edge of the summit to rest. Lured by
+the changing colors of the afterglow they grew silent,
+awed, perhaps, by the calm that hushes all nature when
+the light of day is fading into the misty shadows of
+twilight.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie had turned from the mountains of pink
+foam that floated up from the golden west, and was
+gazing down at the town, where little twinkling lights
+were beginning to peep here and there between the
+tree-tops, when Edith suddenly cried, “Oh, look at
+that smoke!” pointing to a street just below the slope
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_227'></a>227</span>
+where black columns of smoke were rushing upward.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Some one must be making a big bonfire,” answered
+Helen inertly, as her eyes followed the direction of
+Edith’s finger.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Helen, that is not a bonfire,” was the
+Sport’s quick retort. “Oh, I saw a flame shoot up!”
+she added excitedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“So did I!” exclaimed Nathalie, springing on her
+feet. “And oh, there’s another.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, the church is on fire!” shouted Edith.
+“There—don’t you see—the flames are coming out
+of the back!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls with dazed eyes and beating hearts looked
+at the old Methodist church, set back from a tree mantled
+road, within a few feet of a white cottage, the
+parsonage, that nested like some white bird in the shelter
+of the waving boughs of the trees.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, girls,” wailed the Sport, as she turned abruptly
+and gazed at them with an awe-struck countenance;
+“it is the church—and the new organ—they
+were to finish it to-day!” She wrung her hands frantically.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her companions made no reply, their eyes were
+glued on the columns of smoke that hurtled in dense
+masses up into the air.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don’t believe any one knows about it!” exclaimed
+Helen. “Oh, what shall we do? It will be
+of no use to shout ‘Fire!’ we are too far away.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_228'></a>228</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I know what we can do,” cried Edith heatedly.
+“We can run to the fire-house and give the alarm!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Helen had already started forward, and Nathalie
+followed blindly, not even knowing where the fire-house
+was. Edith, like the flash of a flame, shot ahead
+of the two girls, and the next instant was tearing like
+some wild thing down the hill. In a few moments she
+had turned up a road and was speeding in the direction
+of a red house with a funny little cupola that loomed
+up above the small cottages surrounding it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Fire!” yelled the Sport, as she tore frantically
+along. Helen took up the cry, but Nathalie, although
+she tried to follow her example, only succeeded in making
+a hoarse sound that died away almost as soon as it
+left her whitened lips.
+</p>
+<p>
+As her breath began to come in gasps she was half
+tempted to stop and let the other two girls give the
+alarm. But something told her that would not be the
+act of a Pioneer, and she struggled on until she arrived
+in front of the old ramshackle building with the red
+cupola which looked as if it had once done service as
+a barn.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, there is no one here!” panted Helen as she
+beat frenziedly with her two hands on the big wooden
+door. “It is barred inside.”
+</p>
+<p>
+But the Sport, like a whirlwind, had flown around
+to the rear of the building, and the next moment was
+crawling through a window she had found unfastened.
+It took but a moment’s time to speed across the floor,
+give the bar a pull, and fling wide the door.
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-228' id='illus-228'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i007' id='i007'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-228.jpg" alt="The rope had broken in her grasp." title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>The rope had broken in her grasp.</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_229'></a>229</span></div>
+<p>
+“We must ring the bell,” gasped Helen, as she
+glanced up at an old rope that dangled in the center
+of the fire-house from a big bell which hung motionless
+in the small tower above their heads.
+</p>
+<p>
+The three girls sprang for the rope, but the Sport
+was the quickest and caught the dangling rope in her
+hands. Summoning all her strength she gave it a hard
+pull. The next instant, as the loud clang of the bell
+rang out, the girls heard a sudden imprecation, and
+looked hastily down to see the Sport with a rueful
+countenance sitting on the floor—the rope had broken
+in her grasp!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_230'></a>230</span><a name='chXIV' id='chXIV'></a>CHAPTER XIV—OVERCOMES</h2>
+<p>
+The girls gazed in wide-eyed surprise at their
+prostrate companion, and then, as they saw
+that she was not hurt, their sense of humor
+broke bounds, and they burst into merry peals of laughter,
+for she did look so comical sitting there with that
+“Where—am—I?” sort of look on her face.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the Sport was too excited to mind bumps or
+laughter as she jumped up and peered above her head.
+“The rope has broken!” she exclaimed irritably.
+“Oh, if I could only get hold of that broken end up
+there,” her eyes leaped quickly around the barn, “I
+could ring the bell again. Oh, there’s a ladder!”
+With an alert spring she had grabbed it and then began
+to drag it under the tower.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls by this time had recovered from their unwonted
+merriment, and, feeling somewhat ashamed of
+leaving the Sport to work unaided, rushed to her assistance.
+They soon had the ladder resting against a
+broad beam that ran across the barn directly under the
+tower where the broken piece of rope still swung.
+</p>
+<p>
+Up the ladder climbed Edith, high to the top, but
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_231'></a>231</span>
+alas, she was just a few inches short of touching the
+swaying rope, which she now perceived was fastened
+to a chain that hung from the bell.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, what will you do?” cried Helen, as the two
+girls stretched their necks almost off their shoulders to
+see if there was not some way out of the difficulty.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I know what I will do,” exclaimed the Sport suddenly.
+“I will climb up on the beam, walk a few steps,
+and then I can reach it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You will fall!” exclaimed Nathalie in nervous
+fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no, she won’t,” called out Helen hastily.
+“You don’t know Edith; that’s an easy feat for her,
+for she’s a regular acrobat. But, Edith, be careful!”
+she finished, with sudden anxiety, as she saw the girl
+climb up on the beam and then lift herself upright.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, with her breath held, watched Edith for a
+moment, and then as she saw her reach out to catch the
+dangling rope, she closed her eyes, thrilled in every
+nerve with silent terror for fear she would miss her
+footing.
+</p>
+<p>
+But she didn’t, for when Nathalie opened her eyes
+just for a hurried peep, she saw Edith with the rope
+in her hand. The next instant she had bent to her
+task and a loud “Clang! Clang!” rang sharply out.
+</p>
+<p>
+“One, two, three!” a moment’s pause, then, “One,
+two, three!” Twice this was repeated as the girls
+stood waiting below with their eyes fixed on the ringer’s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_232'></a>232</span>
+every movement; Helen, fearful that she would become
+reckless and reach too far, while Nathalie obeyed an
+impulse she could not define and just watched in nervous
+tension.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ah, she had dropped her arms and was looking down
+at the girls. “What are you standing there for, ninnies?”
+she emphasized with a stamp of her foot that
+sent a shiver of horror through Nathalie’s wildly beating
+heart. “Why don’t you go and get the engine
+out?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, so we can,” rejoined Helen quickly. “I never
+thought! Come, you help me!” catching Nathalie by
+the arm.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie turned and followed Helen, who had
+swiftly run to the fire-engine, a newly painted affair, a
+box on wheels, standing in the rear of the fire-house.
+With an alert spring she was close at Helen’s heels,
+and in a moment more had grabbed one of the two
+ropes tied to the front axle. Helen, who stood with
+the other rope in her hand, now cried, “Quick, let’s run
+it out to the road!”
+</p>
+<p>
+It rolled easily, and the two girls were just about
+to wheel it through the open door, when a man in a
+red shirt, leather hat, and his trousers tucked into his
+rubber boots dashed hurriedly up to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where’s the fire?” he panted. With heated face
+and eyes bulging excitement he seized the rope from
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_233'></a>233</span>
+Nathalie’s hand, and the next minute, with Helen’s
+help, had run the engine out into the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Methodist church is on fire!” yelled the Sport
+from her high perch on the beam, but there was no need
+to say more, for several other men had arrived, all in
+red shirts and firemen’s helmets, while others were seen
+racing from all directions towards the fire-house. In
+a few moments’ time a crowd had collected, each one
+bent in lending a hand, and all shouting with full vocal
+power as if they thought—so it seemed to Nathalie—their
+shouts would put out the fire.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the midst of this clamorous din, another rubber-booted
+individual appeared, not only in fireman’s regalia,
+but with a big brass trumpet. On this he blew
+a mighty blast, and then with much gesticulation bellowed
+his orders to the men.
+</p>
+<p>
+A final order from the chief, as the man with the
+trumpet proved to be, and the six or eight men holding
+the ropes of the engine started at breakneck speed down
+the hill. They were followed by a crowd of shouting
+men, women, hooting boys, and crying children, each
+one frenzied with excitement and with the avowed purpose
+of being first at the fire.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls, for by this time Edith had descended from
+her perilous perch, stood silent and watched the engine
+whiz down the slope leading to the town, the red-shirted
+firemen in front of it shouting angrily in their
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_234'></a>234</span>
+endeavors to stop the rear men from pushing it down
+on their heels too rapidly.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Edith, who was never still two minutes if there
+was anything going on, with a wild, “Hoopla, I’m
+going to see the fire!” started in the wake of the hooting
+mob, running at a speed that soon made her one of
+the rank and file that went plunging down the hill.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen’s eyes followed the flying figure, and then,
+with a “Come on, don’t let the Sport outdo us!” she
+was racing after her. Nathalie, bewildered by this
+strange and novel experience that had leaped into her
+life, stood still, uncertain what to do. She felt a sudden
+abhorrence of mingling with the fire-crazed crowd
+that surged before her. Brought up to keep away
+from these spectacular affairs of the city, she felt she
+would be transgressing all laws of decorum if she followed
+her friends. But the impulse to do as the other
+Pioneers did spurred her on, and with a quick leap
+forward she cast all conventionalities to the wind, and
+started on a dead run to catch up with Helen.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls were too quick for her and she arrived in
+front of the church only to make one more of a densely
+packed crowd of fire-seekers standing opposite the
+burning building, wild-eyed and weirdly pale from the
+reflection of the flaming tongues of red, which darted
+upward with a licking greediness that made the wooden
+building crack and snap under their devouring greed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Spying Edith a few feet away, she hastily pushed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_235'></a>235</span>
+through the jam of people to her side, only to hear her
+scream frantically, “Look out, Nathalie!” But the
+warning came too late, for a shower of water had already
+struck her in the back with terrific force, almost
+bowling her over. Ugh! it was running down her
+back with such icy spray that she screamed aloud, and
+then shrank back as jeering laughter from those standing
+by greeted her mishap.
+</p>
+<p>
+But their merriment was short-lived, as the water
+deluge came again and Nathalie saw the contortions
+that shot from face to face of her neighbors as with
+shrill cries they tried to dodge to one side in their frantic
+endeavors to escape. In the midst of the confusion
+some one suddenly bellowed, “Run for your lives, the
+hose has burst!”
+</p>
+<p>
+There were more shouts of dismay from the crowd
+of struggling, fighting figures, and then they had scattered.
+Edith by this time had grabbed Nathalie by
+the hand and in a moment or so she was safe on a
+neighboring porch.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear, what will they do?” lamented Edith.
+“That hose is the only one in town!” For a few moments
+it looked as if not only the church but the parsonage
+and the adjacent buildings were to fall victims
+to the blazing flames that swept upward and outward
+with shooting jets between tall columns of black rolling
+smoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+“They are going to form a bucket brigade!” shouted
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_236'></a>236</span>
+Edith suddenly into Nathalie’s ear. The words had
+barely passed her lips when she dropped her companion’s
+cold fingers, and was racing with a crowd of men,
+women, and boys towards a pond a short distance away.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie stood still and gazed with suppressed excitement
+at this new development of the fire-crazed people.
+It seemed to her as if every one in Westport must
+have owned a bucket from the number of people that
+sped—as if magic swept—towards the pond, where
+a long line of human beings, with a deftness and quickness
+that amazed her, were already passing buckets
+from one to the other and then on to the firemen who
+formed a line across the road in front of the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+Each fireman would grab a bucket, pass it on to his
+mate, who in turn passed it on to the next one, and
+so on, until its contents had been splashed on the seething
+flames. Then just as quickly it was shoved by way
+of another line back to the pond to be filled again and
+once more hurried on its journey of rescue.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Come, get busy!” some one suddenly yelled at this
+crisis. “They are forming another line at the pump!”
+Nathalie swung about to see Fred Tyson holding out to
+her an empty bucket. The unexpectedness of this new
+demand upon her overwrought nerves tempted her to
+scurry to parts unknown, as she backed away from
+Fred with the startled exclamation, “O dear, no!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred, realizing how she felt, looked down at her
+with a reassuring smile as he answered, “Come, you
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_237'></a>237</span>
+must help; you are a Pioneer—it will be a fine experience
+for you!” Nathalie, without a word, grabbed the
+bucket and in another second was running swiftly by
+the side of this new friend as he guided her to the pump.
+</p>
+<p>
+An hour later Nathalie appeared at the corner of the
+street leading to her home. Weary, bedraggled, sooted
+from head to foot, and with gleaming beads of perspiration
+running over her face, she was still jubilant.
+She had been to a real fire, and, what is more, had
+helped to put it out. For the buckets had done their
+work, and although the church stood a framework of
+glowing embers, the parsonage and other buildings had
+been saved.
+</p>
+<p>
+She was so glad when she saw she was nearing her
+home, that, as she informed Fred, who had accompanied
+her, she felt like dancing a jig on her head from
+sheer joy, although she was not only tired to the verge
+of distraction, but faint from hunger.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, and there’s Mother! I guess she’s been almost
+worried to death,” she exclaimed as she spied her
+mother standing on the veranda anxiously peering
+down the path.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I guess she has been almost worried to
+death!” exclaimed a voice, as a white-robed figure
+stepped out from the shadows of the trees on the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Lucille. “If it hadn’t been for me, Nathalie
+Page,” she emphasized with upheld finger, “your
+mother would have been down to the fire herself. She
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_238'></a>238</span>
+was sure you were the first one burned to death. Why,
+you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Nathalie Page!”
+she averred indignantly.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there was no need to lecture Nathalie further,
+for her heart had been thumping violently in nervous
+dread all the way home, and she was already scurrying
+up the walk to the stoop. “Oh, Mother,” she panted,
+“did you think something dreadful had happened to
+me?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I was quite nervous about you for a time,”
+replied her mother rather cheerily for one who had
+been almost worried to death, as she put her arm
+around the tired girl. “Lucille obligingly started to
+look for you, and met Dr. Homer, who said you were
+all right, helping put the fire out as a bucket maiden.
+But, my dear, you are all wet, and hungry, too, I’ll
+warrant.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You just believe I am,” cried Nathalie. “But, oh,
+Mother, I have had such an adventurous day! Do let
+me have something to eat, for I’m just about starved,
+but, O dear, where’s Fred Tyson; he came home with
+me?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred was all right, having the cosiest of chats with
+Lucille—whom all men adored from youth to old age—as
+they walked up the path to the veranda. Would
+he come in and have supper? Why, he guessed he
+would, for he hadn’t had a mouthful since noon.
+</p>
+<p>
+“By the Lord Harry, is that you, Blue Robin?”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_239'></a>239</span>
+spoke a voice from the couch as Nathalie ushered Fred
+into the hall. “Gee, but you are as black as a colored
+‘pusson,’” quoth Dick, as he rose from the couch and
+hobbled towards her.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a most exciting supper, eagerly devoured by
+Fred and Nathalie, as between bites, with glowing eyes,
+each one told of her or his experience. Nathalie told
+of the ringing of the fire bell, the exploits of the Sport,
+and how she did duty at the pump.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mother, it has just been a regular red-letter
+day!” she cried at length, “and I’m never again going
+to despise Edith Whiton for being sporty, for if it
+hadn’t been for her, I just believe the whole town would
+have burned down!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The second day after the fire was a Pioneer Rally
+day, a Camp Fund day it had been called, for it was at
+this meeting that the Pioneers were to decide upon the
+entertainments they proposed having in order to raise
+the money to pay the cost of two or three weeks at
+camp that summer. One or two affairs had been held
+during the winter and spring, so that a small nucleus
+had been banked, but if this was not increased the
+hearts of the Pioneers would be “wrung with woe,”
+as the Sport had put it.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the usual formalities of the Rally were over,
+Mrs. Morrow called the names of those who for some
+meritorious act or word were to receive badges of
+merit. To Nathalie’s astonishment her name was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_240'></a>240</span>
+called, and at a shove from Helen the dazed girl went
+forward, and received three white stars, one for suggesting
+the search-party and sticking to her colors in
+the face of discouragement, another for telling stories
+to Rosy, and the last for planning and getting up the
+Story Club. She received the stars, Mrs. Morrow explained,
+as badges of merit were not given until a
+Pioneer had passed all tests and was a member of the
+first order.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Sport received two badges—being a first class
+Pioneer—one for winning a contest in wigwagging,
+and another for ringing the bell for the church fire.
+Helen was also the recipient of a badge for her planning
+and excellent supervision of the Flower hike,
+while the Scribe received one for her skill in editing
+the “Pioneer,” which had come to be a journal not only
+of news, but of information.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And now,” cried their Director, as she finished distributing
+the badges, “I am going to talk about the
+Camping Fund. As you all know, we must have one
+or two entertainments to raise money for that purpose.
+Several ideas have been submitted in compliance
+with my request for suggestions from the girls, but unfortunately,
+while a number are very good, only a few
+will suit our purpose. There is one, however, that is
+both patriotic and colonial, but it would require a large
+lawn and I am at a loss what to say about it. I think
+you all understand that the Pioneer who suggests the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_241'></a>241</span>
+best entertainment, although her name is to be kept
+secret until the end of the season, is to receive some
+kind of a reward.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Could we not ask Mrs. Van Vorst again if she
+would let us have her grounds?” ventured Louise
+Gaynor somewhat timidly, realizing that the lady in
+question was not in favor with the Pioneers because of
+her rather eccentric ways.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I should say not!” broke in Edith. “She
+has refused two or three times already, and if there is
+an insane person there—” She stopped abruptly, rebuked
+by a warning look from Mrs. Morrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I do not think I would bother Mrs. Van Vorst
+again,” said that lady. “But suppose I name a committee
+to see if they cannot scour the town and find a
+lawn.” Helen, Louise, and Nathalie were then named
+to perform this duty.
+</p>
+<p>
+During this discussion Nathalie’s eyes had sparkled
+with suppressed emotion as she remembered her visit
+to the gray house, accompanied by an overwhelming
+desire to tell what she knew. Oh, wouldn’t it create a
+sensation? But she had given her word, and like the
+Spartan boy, although desire was gnawing at her vitals,
+she kept still and smiled in evident ease.
+</p>
+<p>
+“There is another entertainment that has been suggested,”
+continued the Director. “It is an excellent
+idea for it will put you all to work thinking. It is to
+be called Pioneer Stunts, which means that each one of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_242'></a>242</span>
+you is to be responsible for a recitation, a tableau, a
+song, a playlet, in fact anything that is colonial or
+pioneer in character. Each Pioneer is to work out her
+own idea, and all ideas are to be kept secret until after
+the performance, when a vote will be taken as to the
+best stunt—that is, the best idea, and the stunt acted
+the best—and then the name of the author will be revealed.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls received this notice with applause, and each
+one immediately began to suggest one thing and another
+until warned by Mrs. Morrow again that the
+ideas were to remain secrets. After some further discussion
+it was decided to have the Pioneer Stunts the
+first part of June, at Seton Hall, Mrs. Morrow suggesting
+that the girls make it a Rose party and serve
+ice-cream and strawberries on the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie came home very enthusiastic about the Pioneer
+Stunt entertainment, and immediately set to work
+to jot down the idea that had come to her at the Rally.
+In the midst of writing her mother joined her and sat
+down to sew.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mother,” exclaimed the girl happily, “I’m
+awfully busy.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And working very hard, I see,” interposed Mrs.
+Page, smiling at her daughter’s animated face, as she
+patted the sunburned arm resting on the table.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” replied Nathalie, “I have an awful lot to
+do.” And then she told about the entertainment, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_243'></a>243</span>
+what she was planning. With a long drawn sigh she
+cried, “Oh, Mumsie, I’m learning a terrible lot of useful
+things.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I see you are,” assented her mother, “and I am
+proud of you.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but they have not been a bit easy!” The
+girl’s face grew grave. “Sometimes I have thought I
+would have to give right up, but I haven’t,” she added
+with an emphatic little nod. And then for the first
+time she told her mother about the motto, “I Can,”
+and what a great help she had found it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, Daughter, every little thing Miss I Can has
+helped you to do has been an overcome.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed they have been overcomes,” assented the
+girl with another emphatic shake of her brown head.
+“Washing dishes—oh, how I used to hate that job—now
+I don’t mind it so much; cooking, telling stories
+to Rosy, going to the fire, yes, and even getting up the
+Story Club. I have just braced up, and then the first
+thing I knew, presto! the job was done!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, they have all been overcomes,” repeated Nathalie,
+“but it will be all right if I only manage to
+earn—” She paused abruptly, suddenly remembering,
+as she saw the lines of worry about her mother’s
+mouth, that she and Dick had pledged themselves not
+to talk about his operation, or to hint that they were
+trying to save in any way for it. They had both been
+troubled when they realized that when an anxiety was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_244'></a>244</span>
+mentioned her mother’s face lost its happy look and she
+became sad and worried.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” added Mrs. Page, not noticing Nathalie’s
+sudden pause, “I have been watching you for some
+time grappling with these try-outs that have come into
+your life, but I have said nothing, for I wanted to see
+if you or they would conquer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you dear Mumsie,” cried Nathalie joyously,
+jumping up and giving her mother a good hug. “Do
+you know, I felt dreadfully the other day to think you
+had not said one word of praise; not that I want to be
+praised all the time, but still a word now and then
+comes in handy, you know; makes one feel so goody-goody.”
+This was said laughingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie could not help feeling encouraged after this
+comforting talk with her mother; she felt as if she had
+conquered the whole world, that there was nothing she
+could not overcome. But the next morning such a big
+overcome, or try-out, as her mother had expressed it,
+appeared, that it sufficed to lessen the glory of her
+former victories.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lucille was ill; she had retired to her bed with a fit
+of indigestion, and the planning for the Pioneer Stunt,
+the survey work that Nathalie and her committee were
+to do, all had to be laid aside as she was instituted head
+nurse in her cousin’s room.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mother,” she moaned dolefully, as she kissed
+her mother good-night, “Lucille has been dreadfully
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_245'></a>245</span>
+cross; nothing pleases her. It has been, ‘Oh, Nathalie,
+don’t let that wind blow on me! Didn’t I tell you I
+don’t like rice pudding! Oh, you’re the slowest poke!’
+Oh, Mother—” there was a lump in the girl’s throat,
+“if I hadn’t felt so humiliated at being spoken to in
+that way, I just believe I would have given her a good
+shaking.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Never mind, Nathalie,” replied Mrs. Page consolingly,
+“just remember it is another overcome and have
+patience. She will soon be herself again, you know
+she has been terribly upset, as she expected to spend a
+few days with her friend and she is disappointed.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course, no one ever had a disappointment but
+Lucille!” exclaimed Nathalie irritably.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nathalie!” reproved her mother, with a quick
+glance at the girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, well, it’s so, Mumsie,” replied her daughter
+with the tears very near the surface, and then with another
+kiss she hurried to her bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Have you got your Stunt written?” inquired
+Helen a few days later from her window as Nathalie
+sat writing on the veranda. She held her hand up and
+flourished a couple of typewritten pages as she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I’m discouraged,” Nathalie lowered her voice.
+“Lucille has been ill, and I have been kept awfully
+busy waiting on her. Then when I finally managed
+to get time to go to the library to get some dates, I lost
+the whole thing.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_246'></a>246</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“What—the idea?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, the idea, and everything. I had been in the
+library some time and had just finished. I did not
+discover my loss until I was almost home, so I hurried
+back, but the librarian knew nothing about it. I
+hunted until I was distracted, and then I came home;
+so that is the end of that. This morning I am trying
+to think up another one.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Couldn’t you remember it?” questioned Helen
+concernedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I tried to, but I’ve been so busy it has just
+flown away.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, you are a lucky girl to have brains enough
+to have more than one idea in your head to write up.
+You should have seen the Sport; she was over here
+last night, the picture of unadulterated woe, for she
+could not even scare up one idea. She hung around
+trying to get some suggestions from me, but I just
+told her she would have to do her own work. She’s
+the best ever when it comes to anything in the way of
+sports, or any activity, but she will not use her brains.
+She has a few, at least.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“If she would spend more time reading instead
+of—” Nathalie stopped with slightly reddened face,
+for here was another overcome to win. She was
+thoughtless at times, never having been disciplined, and
+so, without meaning any harm, she was apt to express
+her opinion too freely about the people around her.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_247'></a>247</span>
+“Oh, well,” she ended lamely, “she is a good Sport;
+if it hadn’t been for her the other night the town would
+have burned down.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That’s true,” laughed Helen good-naturedly, and
+then with a wave of her typewritten pages she disappeared
+from the window, as Nathalie turned and with
+a dimpling face greeted Dr. Morrow, who had just
+driven up to visit Lucille.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You haven’t come to see me this time,” she suggested
+archly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s half and half this time, Blue Robin, for I
+have come to ask—oh, it is a message from the princess.”
+The doctor lowered his voice cautiously as he
+noted Dick at the other end of the veranda. “She
+wants to know if you will make her another visit.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s bright face sobered and an embarrassed
+silence followed as she vainly tried to think of something
+that would excuse her from the unpleasantness of
+having her eyes blindfolded again.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, yes, I would like to go, only you see I am
+very busy just now, helping Mother and doing Pioneer
+work, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I see,” interrupted the doctor somewhat
+coldly, with a keen glance at Nathalie’s downcast face.
+“Then I will tell her you are busy.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, don’t say that,” cried the girl in desperation.
+“It sounds—well—tell her I will come some time
+later.” She felt the blood rush to her face.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_248'></a>248</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I’ll manage to make her understand somehow,”
+answered the doctor. Nathalie sensed a note of disappointment
+in his voice, and then without further parley
+he hurried up the stairs to Lucille.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mother,” questioned Nathalie a few minutes later,
+for she had confided to her all about the adventure at
+the gray house, “do you think I ought to visit the
+princess again?” She then told what had transpired
+between her and the doctor.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You must be your own judge, Nathalie,” replied
+Mrs. Page slowly. “I agree with you that it is a foolish
+thing for the child’s mother to ask you to visit her
+in this way, but perhaps she may be induced to change
+her mind. But, after all, Nathalie, it is a small thing
+to overcome”—Mrs. Page emphasized the word—“when
+you can give the little girl so much pleasure by
+going.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear!” thought Nathalie, as she stood waiting
+for the doctor to come down-stairs a moment or so
+later, “it does seem that since I have become a Pioneer
+I am just overcoming things all the time. Funny,
+but these things never troubled me before.” “Oh,
+Doctor,” she exclaimed eagerly, as that gentleman’s
+genial face appeared in the doorway, “I have changed
+my mind, and if you like I will go with you to see the
+princess.”
+</p>
+<p>
+An hour later Nathalie was greeted with a cry of
+delight from her new friend, who clapped her hands
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_249'></a>249</span>
+and called, “Oh, Mother, she has come!” Nathalie,
+imprisoned behind the muffler, rejoiced at heart to think
+she had won another overcome.
+</p>
+<p>
+“How do you do?” spoke Mrs. Van Vorst’s low
+voice, and then the girl’s hand was taken in a cordial
+clasp. “It is so good of you to come; oh, if you could
+only realize the joy you have brought into my child’s
+life, and mine, too!” she added quickly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am very glad,” replied Nathalie simply, as Mrs.
+Van Vorst led her to a seat by the couch.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Here, sit by me—no, not on that chair,” commanded
+her Royal Highness. Nathalie felt a tug at
+her skirt, she was jerked suddenly down, and then two
+arms were thrown around her neck. A hand touched
+her face, softly at first, and then with a loud, “There,
+you are not going to sit with that horrid thing on your
+face again, I just hate it!” there came a sudden wrench,
+something gave way, the blinders were on the floor, and
+Nathalie was looking at the face of the princess with
+free, untrammeled eyes!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_250'></a>250</span><a name='chXV' id='chXV'></a>CHAPTER XV—A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES</h2>
+<p>
+Nathalie gave a gasp of relief. Oh, it was
+good to be rid of that horrible black handkerchief!
+Then her blinders faded into the past
+as she became aware of the eyes that were gazing into
+hers, blue ones with violet shadows, fringed by long
+black lashes!
+</p>
+<p>
+The eyes were set in the face of a girl about fourteen,
+that had, notwithstanding the pain-tired mouth with
+its lines of petulance, a winsome sweetness about it
+which partly atoned for a jagged crimson scar running
+across one end of the forehead, partly hidden by short,
+curly hair which was boyishly parted on one side.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the blue eyes were gleeful just at this moment,
+as if their owner was proud of her deftness in slipping
+off the handkerchief. She clapped her hands and
+cried, “Oh, aren’t you glad to get rid of that horrid
+black thing?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Raising herself on her elbow she drew Nathalie’s
+face down to hers and whispered, “Don’t say a word
+to Mother, but it was all arranged—the doctor and I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_251'></a>251</span>
+managed it—let Mother think it was an accident.”
+Before Nathalie could remonstrate the princess called
+out with a merry trill in her voice, “Oh, Mother! come
+quick, Miss Page’s blinders have fallen off!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie flushed in embarrassed silence as she heard
+Mrs. Van Vorst’s step hurrying to the couch. O dear,
+what should she do? It certainly was awkward to
+have to deceive her. Oh, if the doctor would—but
+as she turned around to face the lady in question she
+saw that the doctor was not there.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The doctor has gone, he had an important call to
+make,” spoke Mrs. Van Vorst hurriedly, as she came
+towards the girls and saw Nathalie’s look of distress.
+“But never mind, Miss Page, it is all right,” she cried
+reassuringly. “It was a shame to keep you muffled up
+like that—just for a whim—but if you could understand!”
+She looked down at Nathalie apologetically.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should say it was a whim,” broke in the princess,
+“and it just serves you right, too, for making her do
+it. Now Miss Page will go away and tell every one
+what a horrible-looking thing I am, and it will be all
+your fault because you are so afraid any one will see
+me, just as if I was a monster of some sort! Oh,
+Nathalie—can’t I call you Nathalie?—the doctor
+told me your name, and then you know you are not so
+much older than I am.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I’m sixteen,” answered Nathalie readily, glad to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_252'></a>252</span>
+turn the conversation from the blinders, for she saw
+that Mrs. Van Vorst was greatly perturbed.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nita, don’t talk that way to Mother,” cried
+Mrs. Van Vorst in a pained voice. “You know, dear,
+I only did what I thought was right, and it was to save
+you, people talk so!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don’t care if they do,” broke in Nita angrily. “I
+have as much right in this world as they have, even if
+I am ugly-looking with this scar and hump, they
+needn’t look at me!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie started, for as the girl spoke she deliberately
+threw off a soft white shawl that had been thrown
+about her shoulders. With a sudden feeling of deep
+pity Nathalie recognized that the princess was a hump-back!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you won’t hate me now, will you?” pleaded
+Nita suddenly, as she saw Nathalie’s start of surprise,
+“just because I’m humped like a camel.” She caught
+the girl’s hand in hers and clung to it with piteous
+appeal in her blue eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no,” returned shocked Nathalie. “Why, I
+think you are lovely, even if you are—” But the
+word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden impulse,
+stooped forward and kissed the red lips.
+</p>
+<p>
+Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own
+boldness, two arms were flung around her neck and
+Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she thought she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_253'></a>253</span>
+would smother. “Oh, I just love you!” said Nita’s
+stifled voice from her shoulder, “and I’m going to keep
+you with me all the time. Oh, Mother,” she wailed
+beseechingly, lifting her head, but still keeping Nathalie
+a prisoner, “won’t you buy her?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Buy her!” repeated her mother, who during this
+affectionate outburst had stood silently by, a pleased
+smile struggling with an expression of dismay at the
+girl’s rudeness. “Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be
+bought and sold.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I wish she was then,” said the child, for she
+was but that, dropping her arms from Nathalie’s neck
+and lying back with sudden exhaustion.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, she is going to faint,” cried dismayed Nathalie,
+while the mother rushed to the dresser for the smelling
+salts. But when she attempted to hold the bottle to
+Nita’s nose, she pushed her mother’s hand away crying,
+“Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room;
+I want Nathalie to myself!”
+</p>
+<p>
+And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray,
+who looked at her neighbors with a cold, formal stare
+of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went softly out of
+the room and closed the door after her in obedience to
+her daughter’s sharp cry, “Do you hear? Shut the
+door!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she
+could not sit there another minute and hear the girl talk
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_254'></a>254</span>
+like that to her mother. “Oh, don’t speak to your
+mother like that, she is so good to you!” the girl’s
+voice trembled.
+</p>
+<p>
+“How do you know she is good?” retorted Nita,
+after a short pause of surprise at this merited rebuke.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why—why—because her face shows it,” stammered
+Nathalie, “and then, why she is your mother,
+and if I should talk to my mother like that, why—I
+should expect her to die then and there.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why?” persisted the voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Because it would hurt her so,—” Nathalie labored,
+she hated to preach—“to think I could be so disrespectful
+to her, and ill-bred.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, your mother isn’t my mother; your mother
+didn’t shut you up in a dark room so that you tried to
+get away.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nita!” came in a pain-stricken voice, “don’t talk
+that way!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in
+the doorway, her face drawn and lined. “I was coming
+in to ask—oh, Miss Page, will you come in here
+a moment? I should like to speak to you.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with
+pity for this poor mother who was only too surely
+paying the penalty of neglect and anger. “Oh, Mrs.
+Van Vorst,” she cried hastily, “do not mind your
+daughter, she doesn’t mean to hurt you, she—I think
+she is just spoiled, you know.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_255'></a>255</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst
+into the adjoining room, a sun-parlor, whose glass windows
+looked down upon a terraced garden, green with
+trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers, surrounded
+by low rolling hillocks or mounds.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her
+displeasure in shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother,
+with set, rigid lips, closed the door softly, and then
+turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly, between
+deep-drawn breaths.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I have been foolish—I am afraid—in letting
+you come to see Nita, but oh, it is so hard for her, shut
+up in this house, with only me and the servants. So
+when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded
+so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But
+oh, Miss Page, do not, I beg of you, repeat what you
+have seen or heard, don’t mind what Nita says about
+me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she
+says.” The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst’s
+face.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” exclaimed Nathalie, tears
+misting in her eyes in sympathy with the lady’s grief,
+“I know how you feel, but it is all right. I think you
+are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of
+course, I know that your daughter does not mean what
+she says, she’s just spoiled.” A sudden thought came
+to the girl. “Don’t you think if you were to let her
+see people—that is girls of her own age—that she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_256'></a>256</span>
+would be better? Oh, I am sure she would,” broke
+from the girl impetuously, “and it would make her so
+happy!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you really think so?” inquired Mrs. Van Vorst
+with a note of hope in her voice. “Would it not hurt
+her when people said rude things about her?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But no one would say rude things about her,” persisted
+Nathalie determinedly. “Every one would love
+her—she’s a dear, so sweet-looking—and then she
+would soon get over her spoiled ways; she would learn
+by seeing that other girls act differently.” Nathalie
+felt that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem
+such a shame!
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don’t know about that,” replied Mrs. Van Vorst,
+her face hardening again to the same impenetrable mask
+that had puzzled Nathalie the first time she met her.
+“Well, we will not discuss it now—we’ll see how
+things turn out—only, Miss Page,” she grew stiff and
+formal, although a note in her voice betrayed that she
+was battling with her emotion, “I should like to ask
+you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell—how
+foolish I was—” she broke off suddenly, and then she
+added, “of course, you have a right to tell; but let me
+explain that what Nita says is not true, she likes to
+tease me into getting her way. Sit down—oh—she
+has fallen asleep.” Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door
+softly and then closed it. “She always does when she
+cries that way.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_257'></a>257</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I have been foolish,” she reiterated, “but I
+am not a criminal, and it is not altogether pride, because
+I have a deformed child, that makes me keep her secluded.
+It is because I want to save her, I would give
+my life for her happiness, but I can’t—” there was
+a hopeless wail to her voice. “That is my punishment!”
+And then, as if reminded of what she wanted
+to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, “It is true
+that I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her—she
+has always had those temper spells—I never knew
+what to do with her. Some one told me I was too easy
+with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped
+crying I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried
+to get out, she said some one was chasing her, and
+climbed out on the shed and fell off the roof! She
+broke—her back!” Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face
+in her hands, but although no sounds came, Nathalie
+could see the convulsive shivers that shook her frame.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was
+awful! Oh, but if she didn’t say something she would
+be boo-hooing herself in a minute. “But that was not
+your fault,” she cried with sudden inspiration. “It
+was right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,
+I should consider it just an accident that you could not
+help.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl
+with wide, appealing eyes. “Oh, do you think that?
+If I could be led to believe I was not to blame! For
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_258'></a>258</span>
+years I have suffered the tortures of hell, doing
+penance.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, and making yourself and your daughter
+miserable!” Nathalie spoke boldly, she couldn’t help
+it, the words came of themselves as it seemed to her.
+“But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps
+I should not speak this way to you, for I am just
+a girl, but I feel so sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem
+such a shame to shut her off from all pleasure just because
+an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs.
+Morrow says we should regard trouble like clouds that
+we can’t blow away unless we fill the atmosphere with
+sunshine.” Nathalie came to a sudden stop, afraid she
+had gone beyond her depth. But in a moment she
+added, “Oh, if you would just think of it as an accident!
+Try to make Nita happy, and then you will be
+happy, and forget all about it!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Van Vorst’s eyes grew moist as she cried impulsively,
+“Oh, you are a dear girl to talk to me this
+way. I shall always remember it, always. Yes, you
+are right, I have been miserable and have been making
+my poor child so. Oh, I have been wrong!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Before Nathalie could answer, Nita’s voice was heard
+shrilly crying, “Mother, I want Nathalie!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am coming,” cried the girl, hurrying into the room
+and up to the couch. “Did you have a nice little
+nap?” she asked cheerily, as she patted the girl’s hand
+that lay inertly on the coverlid.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_259'></a>259</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I just dropped off, I always get so tired when
+I cry.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But why do you cry then?” questioned practical
+Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why—oh, I cried because Mamma took you
+away from me, and now you will be going soon, and
+I won’t have had time to talk to you at all.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes you will,” replied her companion, glancing
+at the clock. “It is only eleven, I sha’n’t go for another
+hour, so start right in and talk.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I don’t want to talk,” came the contrary answer.
+“I want to hear you talk. Please tell me about
+the Girl Pioneers. Did you go on the wild-flower
+hike?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes!” was the answer; and then Nathalie’s
+tongue flew as she told about the hike, the different
+things they did, how she had learned to blaze a trail,
+what a delightful companion Dr. Homer had proved,
+how she lighted the fire with only one match, about the
+Tike’s escapade, and the flower legends.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but the fire, I must tell you about the fire and
+the bucket brigade!” she cried, and then followed that
+exciting story with all its climaxes, and what fun it
+had proved, although, as the girl confessed, she had
+been tempted to run away several times.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I just wish I could have seen it all!” exclaimed
+Nita regretfully, as Nathalie paused for a rest. “I
+should have liked to go on that flower hike, and the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_260'></a>260</span>
+flower legends, can’t you tell them to me? I just love
+flowers!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why yes, perhaps I can,” nodded the Story Lady.
+And then in a moment she was animatedly telling about
+the Forget-me-not lover, the Dandelion legend, and
+then last of all about the spring goddess who brought
+the arbutus.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What are you going to do next?” inquired her
+listener as Nathalie’s flower stories ended.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We are all busy now getting up entertainments;
+that is, we are thinking up ideas for the Pioneer Stunts.
+You know, we are anxious to make money for our
+Camp Fund, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Camp Fund! what is that?” inquired the girl interestedly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, the Pioneers, that is the Bluebirds, the Bob
+Whites, and the Orioles, are going camping this summer,
+probably in August, or as soon as we can raise
+the money. There are sixteen Pioneers going. Oh,
+I am sure we shall have a dandy time! We are to
+sleep in tents, but there will be a house or something
+for the dining room and kitchen, that is, if we can
+get them.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where are you going to get the tents to sleep
+in?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Helen and I are to make our own tent, Fred Tyson
+is going to help us. It will take an awfully long time,
+we are to begin next week. The other tents, well,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_261'></a>261</span>
+some of the girls have their own and then we shall
+borrow one or two. Of course, you know, each girl
+will have to pay her expenses to camp and back, but
+all the other expenses are expected to come out of the
+Fund, so you see we shall have a lot of work to do.
+We are to charge admission to the Pioneer Stunts.”
+And then Nathalie told of the novel way they were to
+get ideas, and how each girl was to keep her idea a
+secret until after the vote had been taken as to the
+best Stunt the night of the performance.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Have you got your idea yet?” inquired Nita
+eagerly. “Oh, I just bet your idea will be the best
+one of all!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, no,” answered Nathalie modestly, “far from
+it! I am awfully worried for fear it will be a terrible
+failure.” And then she told how she had lost
+her idea and was writing up another one.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, after you have the Stunts, what are you
+going to have?” demanded Nita eagerly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We want to have a flag drill, that is, if we can get
+the ground for it, as we want to have it in the open.
+Oh, it will be the loveliest thing! The girls are to
+be Daughters of Liberty and carry banners, the little
+flags used by the different States and soldiers before
+and during the revolution, before we had the Stars
+and Stripes. Oh, did I tell you that all of our entertainments
+have to be either colonial or patriotic, that
+is, something that happened in or belonged to the early
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_262'></a>262</span>
+days of the nation, when all the people were pioneers,
+or the children of pioneers?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“When are you going to have the flag drill? Oh,
+how I should like to see it!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I have rattled on so fast I forgot to say that—why—we
+are not sure about that, for, you see, we
+have got to get a lawn, or grounds that would be suitable.”
+Her face reddened, for she suddenly remembered
+that it was Mrs. Van Vorst’s lawn that the girls
+had wanted, and that she had refused to let them
+have it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You see,” she explained awkwardly, “we want a
+place where the people can see us, and then we want
+to have booths decorated with our colors—they are
+Red, White, and Blue, you know—so we can sell ice-cream.
+Each table is to be named after one of the
+thirteen States; but there, I don’t believe we can
+have it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mamma, come here quick,” called Nita imperiously,
+sitting up and peering into the sun parlor where
+her mother was seated sewing, “I want you to hear
+about the Flag Drill, and oh, Mother, won’t you let
+me see it? Oh, please, Mother, I can go all muffled
+up, no one will see me,” pleaded the girlish voice
+pathetically.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Van Vorst bent over and softly stroked the
+golden head as she cried, “Now dear, don’t get excited!
+Mother will do all she can for you.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_263'></a>263</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“You tell <em>her</em> about it!” broke from Nita hurriedly,
+as she pulled at Nathalie’s gown. Then falling back
+on the couch she exclaimed with determination, “But
+I’m going to see it, Mother, yes I am!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Somewhat hesitatingly Nathalie began, but in a moment,
+perceiving that her listener was much interested,
+she launched forth and told about the Flag Drill in all
+its details.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And you are going to use the money you make
+for your Camping Fund?” inquired Nita’s mother as
+Nathalie finished.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie nodded, “That is, if we can get the right
+place to hold it—oh—” she flushed again and then
+grew suddenly silent.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Did not one of the Pioneers ask me if I would let
+them have my lawn in the rear of the house?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Before embarrassed Nathalie could answer, Nita
+interposed excitedly, “Our lawn? Oh, let them have
+it, Mamma, let them have it, and then I can see it from
+the window, and no one will see me, oh, say yes,
+Mamma!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s eyes looked dismay as she heard Nita’s
+wailing request. Of course Mrs. Van Vorst would
+refuse, but suppose she should think that she had urged
+Nita to ask her?
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, I suppose they could,” answered Mrs. Van
+Vorst slowly. “Then, as you say, you could see it
+from the window, Nita; yes the Pioneers can have it!”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_264'></a>264</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, do you really mean it?” exclaimed Nathalie,
+almost as excited as Nita. “The girls will be just
+crazy with joy—and—oh, isn’t it funny? I was
+one of a committee of three to find a place, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, you will not have to look any further,” replied
+Mrs. Van Vorst. “If my lawn suits, take it,
+child. I am sure I am only too glad to do anything
+for the brave girl who has been so kind to my Nita
+as to come here and make her happy.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is lovely of you,” rejoined the Pioneer, her
+eyes glowing, “and can we have it this month, the
+fourteenth? That is Flag Day, you know, and we
+wanted to have it then.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Have it whenever you like, my dear. I will tell
+Peter to have the grass mowed, and if he can help you
+in any way in arranging the tables or anything, I shall
+be delighted to let you have his services.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that will be the delightfulest thing!” The
+girl’s face radiated sunshine. “It seems just too
+lovely to be true!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But the surprise Nathalie held in store for the
+Pioneers was almost forgotten in the surprise that
+awaited her when after saying good-by to Nita, Mrs.
+Van Vorst met her at the foot of the staircase and
+asked if she would not come into the reception-room a
+minute.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I wanted to speak to you on a little matter of business,”
+the lady explained somewhat hesitatingly. Nathalie,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_265'></a>265</span>
+wondering what terrible thing she had done or
+said, followed her silently into the room, where she
+again spied her Chinese friend, the mandarin, grinning
+at her from the cabinet.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I have been thinking it over, Miss Page—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear,” thought poor Nathalie, “she is going to
+change her mind about the drill!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And I wanted to know—of course this is a business
+proposition—” she paused. “You have given so
+much pleasure to Nita, I thought perhaps you might
+be willing to come regularly every day, say for a
+couple of hours.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried relieved Nathalie,
+“that would be just fine! I should be only too glad,
+but you know, I have things to do for Mother, we
+haven’t any maid at present.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But would it not pay you to give up these things,
+or let some one else do them? It would only be two
+hours in the morning,” there was a persuasive note in
+her voice, “and of course I would pay you enough to
+make it worth your while, and oh, I would give anything
+to bring joy into—”
+</p>
+<p>
+She stopped, for there was something in the girl’s
+wide opened eyes that made her hesitate.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I would not like to take money just for talking
+to Nita—that would hardly be fair—” Nathalie
+floundered desperately, for something brought Dick
+and his operation to her mind, and she did want so
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_266'></a>266</span>
+badly to earn money. She caught her breath sharply,
+opened her mouth, and then said, “Why, I don’t know,
+I will see what Mother says and let you know.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That will be just the thing,” was the reply. “You
+can drop me a note as soon as you decide, for Nita will
+be anxious, and then we will want to fix the days
+and times. If you can make up your mind to do this
+for me, Miss Page, I shall feel so indebted to you!”
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie flew post-haste towards home she heard
+the chug of an automobile and looked up in time to see
+Dr. Morrow sweep past in his car. But he, too, had
+eyes, and a moment later had backed his car and was
+asking Nathalie if she would like a ride home. The
+girl was only too pleased to accept, as she was fairly
+brimming over with impatience to tell some one her
+two surprises. They had not gone far before the
+story was out, and the doctor had heard everything.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well now, I call that luck,” declared the doctor,
+“and of course you said you would accept Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s offer?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, no,” answered the girl hesitatingly, “I
+should love to do it, but I don’t know that I ought to
+take money for it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And why not?” queried Dr. Morrow with some
+surprise. “Isn’t money as much to you as to other
+people?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes,” laughed honest Nathalie; “of course I
+would like the money, I am just dying to earn money
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_267'></a>267</span>
+for Dick.” The girl stopped with frightened eyes;
+oh, what was she going to tell? “But then it doesn’t
+seem exactly right to take money just for talking, and
+I don’t know how Mother would feel about it, she
+might feel badly.” Nathalie choked, and her eyes
+filled with tears as she remembered how hard it was
+for her mother to think of even Dick earning money
+when he was so helpless.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You haven’t got to if you don’t want to, little Blue
+Robin,” declared her friend, who perhaps suspected
+how things were. “But I tell you what, friend Nathalie—”
+emphatically—“if I had a nice little voice
+like a certain Robin I know, with big brown eyes, and
+knew how to use those big eyes and that sweet little
+tru-al-lee of a voice by telling people stories, or talking
+to them—it’s all the same—well, I’d waste no
+time in accepting that offer. And then, too, see what
+pleasure it would bring Nita and her mother, too, for
+that matter. Of course, I’m a man and look at things
+from a commercial point of view; ah, here we are!”
+And then with a cheery farewell the doctor helped the
+girl out of the car and Nathalie walked slowly up the
+path.
+</p>
+<p>
+To Nathalie’s surprise, her mother thought as the
+doctor did about the matter. She was not hurt at all,
+but overjoyed to think that Nathalie was clever enough
+to earn money that way.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Nathalie,” she mused, pleasantly, “you can
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_268'></a>268</span>
+do lots of things with the money you earn. It probably
+won’t be much, but it will give you pin-money,
+and a few necessities. Perhaps it will pay your way
+to camp!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, Mumsie,” laughed the girl with a trill of
+glee in her voice, “remember about counting your
+chicks before they’re hatched!”
+</p>
+<p>
+She turned and ran swiftly up-stairs, and after imparting
+her good news to Dick, she sat down and
+penned her note to Mrs. Van Vorst, all her doubts
+and fears at rest. And she knew what she would do
+with the money, it came like a flash into her mind as
+she looked up and saw Dick plodding through an official-looking
+document.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the note was mailed, there were just a few
+minutes left to run over and tell Mrs. Morrow what
+had transpired in regard to the lawn for the Flag Drill,
+and to announce, with joy shining in every feature,
+that they could have the drill on the fourteenth. Then
+came a few minutes at Helen’s, where the news was
+also told, two surprises, Nathalie declared, after she
+had unburdened herself to that young lady of the
+many things she had been bottling up for the last few
+weeks.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie’s day of surprises was to bear more
+fruit, for about five o’clock the postman delivered a
+package by parcel post, a big box that had a very
+mysterious look about it. “I don’t see what it can
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_269'></a>269</span>
+be?” she soliloquized, as she looked at the address.
+And then, “Oh, Mother, do you know where the scissors
+are?” as she found that her fingers were too unsteady
+with haste to untie the string.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dick, however, after hearing her excited outcry,
+had whipped out a penknife. There was a zip, the
+string was off, the box slipped out of the paper, and
+then the girl, with radiant, mystified eyes, was looking
+down at a Pioneer uniform, a jaunty little affair, with
+its red tie and red-banded hat to complete the outfit.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Don’t stand there and gape at it any longer, Nathalie,”
+imperiously voiced Dick, with an odd gleam
+in his eyes. “Look at the card and see who sent it!”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_270'></a>270</span><a name='chXVI' id='chXVI'></a>CHAPTER XVI—PIONEER STUNTS</h2>
+<p>
+An exclamation escaped dazed Nathalie; and then
+a search was started, resulting at last in finding
+the card in one of the pockets of the skirt.
+Another cry issued from the finder as she read:
+</p>
+<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>“To&#160;Nathalie,&#160;my&#160;faithful&#160;little&#160;nurse&#160;and&#160;helper.</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'>“<span class='sc'>Lucille.</span>”</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>
+“O dear!” said the girl with a shamed glance into
+the faces surrounding her, “I will never again say that
+Lucille is cross—oh, she is a duck of a dear! It is
+the very thing I want, too. Now I shall not be the
+only Pioneer without a uniform. I must run and tell
+Helen!” In another moment she was racing with
+mad speed across the lawn, the uniform bulging out
+of the half-opened box in her arms.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a short space she came speeding back, crying,
+“Oh, Mother, where is Lucille? I must go and thank
+her this very minute!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Up in her room, I think,” spoke up Dick, but Nathalie
+was already half-way up the stairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Lucille, it was just too lovely of you to think of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_271'></a>271</span>
+me this way!” cried the girl rapturously; and then
+before Lucille realized what was going to happen, she
+was receiving a hug that threatened to demolish her
+entirely. “There, Nathalie Page,” she cried, “that’s
+more than enough; please leave just a wee bit of me,
+I’ll take your thanks for granted.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, you won’t!” persisted Nathalie with another
+hug. “I’m here to give them to you in person.” She
+loosened her hold so her cousin could breathe and then
+began to kiss her softly on the cheek. “Oh, but, Lucille,
+it was lovely of you to think of it,” she ended as
+she finally freed her cousin, who ruefully began to
+twist up a few stray locks that had been pulled down
+in the hugging process.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, pshaw, I don’t want any thanks,” Lucille responded
+as she finished tucking up her hair. “As long
+as you are pleased, it’s all right.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I’m serious, Lucille, for you have heaped
+coals of fire on my head, I’ll have to ’fess that I was
+not a bit pleasant about waiting on you, because, you
+see, I had so much to see to with the Pioneer Stunts,
+the work, and everything, and then—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And then,” mimicked Lucille with a mischievous
+glint in her eyes, “I’m an awful cross patient; is
+that it? But it’s all right, Nat, turn about is fair
+play, and if you had felt as badly as I did those few
+days, to miss it all, the anticipated good times at
+Bessie’s, well, you would have been cross, too.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_272'></a>272</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I know it, and I was worse than you were, for
+I should have possessed my soul in patience, but it
+was perfectly dear of you to give me the uniform, and
+then to be so nice about it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I’m glad I’m nice,” teased her cousin, “but
+run along, child, for I have about forty-seven letters
+to get off by this mail.”
+</p>
+<p>
+And Nathalie, with a heart brimful of joy at the
+many surprises of the day, was very glad to hurry
+away and talk matters over with her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What shall I talk to Nita about?” she lamented
+the next morning as she flew hither and thither, getting
+her work done in a jiffy so that she could reach
+the gray house by ten-thirty, the hour set for the talk
+with the princess, as Nathalie delighted to call her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mother, can’t you suggest something?” she asked
+dolefully as she stooped to kiss her mother good-by.
+“I do feel that it will not be right for me to take
+money for just chattering nonsense, and Nita won’t
+let me tell her stories.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, it does seem as if it was undue extravagance,
+but still, if Mrs. Van Vorst thinks you are worth paying
+in order to help make her child’s life more enjoyable,
+it seems to me I should not worry about it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I know, but if I could only tell her stories,”
+rejoined the girl, “perhaps I could help her more, for
+I could make my stories instructive, about nature,
+history, or—”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_273'></a>273</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is true,” was the answer. And then, as if
+reminded by the word history, she said, “Why not
+tell her stories about the Pioneer women? You say
+she is so interested in the Girl Pioneers. In that way
+you could teach her American history.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mumsie, you are a dear,” cried elated Nathalie.
+“That is just the thing, how stupid I was
+not to think of it! I will stop at the library on my
+way home this afternoon. What a help it will be to
+me, too, for we are going to have a fagot party, sort
+of a good-by to Louise Gaynor. Gloriana! I won’t
+have any reading to do for that, for I’ll be posted from
+my talks with Nita.” Then she was off down the
+walk on her “way to business,” as she laughingly told
+her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, tell me all about the Pioneer Stunts!” exclaimed
+the princess as Nathalie settled herself for a
+cozy chat after her cheery greeting to her new pupil.
+Nita’s eyes were sparkling expectantly, and the anticipated
+chat with her new friend had brought a tinge
+of color to her usually pale face.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We have not had that as yet; it is to take place
+to-morrow night—oh, I’ll tell you all about it,” was
+the reply. And then, as Mrs. Van Vorst entered the
+room with a pleasant good morning, Nathalie demanded,
+“Do you not want me to tell stories to
+Nita?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That is for Nita to decide,” was the careless rejoinder.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_274'></a>274</span>
+“I have asked you here to please my daughter,
+and if she wants you here just to talk, why, talk
+away.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I feel as if I ought to instruct her in some
+way,” demurred Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do not worry,” returned Mrs. Van Vorst. “You
+will be worth all you earn if you only succeed in making
+Nita happy for two hours, and give her something
+to look forward to when you are not here. Of course,
+if you could get something informative in once in a
+while, it would do good, no doubt.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don’t want any stories,” interrupted Miss Nita
+petulantly. “Miss Stitt used to tell me stories by
+the yard and I have hated them ever since.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie made no reply; she was thinking how she
+could slip in a bit of information without Nita’s realizing
+it. “Oh, I will tell you about the flag drill!”
+she cried with sudden thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, do,” acquiesced Nita, readily falling into the
+trap. “I want to know just everything about it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, you shall,” promptly returned her delighted
+teacher, and forthwith she set to define the meaning
+of the word liberty. “You know, Nita, when the
+Pilgrims and Puritans settled America they came here
+to build homes where they could have liberty of conscience,
+speech, and action. Of course, you know all
+about how these first little settlements grew, until there
+were thirteen of them that bade fair to become very
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_275'></a>275</span>
+populous and wealthy. Well, the King of England,
+fearing perhaps that they would grow into a great
+nation and take power from him, began to deprive
+them of some of their rights and privileges.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The people for a time submitted, but as his tyranny
+increased they began to feel greatly depressed, for it
+looked as if the liberty that they had been enjoying in
+the new land was going to be taken away from them,
+and that they were going to be chained like slaves.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now the first scene in the flag drill represents
+liberty—as the Goddess of course—lamenting that
+if she can live only at the price of slavery, she would
+rather die. So we see her walking up and down the
+platform repeating in great agitation the famous words
+of Patrick Henry, ‘Give me Liberty, or give me
+death!’
+</p>
+<p>
+“Just at this moment music is heard, and the
+Daughters of Liberty enter—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Daughters of Liberty—who are they?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, don’t you know that when King George
+tried to impose the Stamp Act on the colonists they
+rebelled, and there was a great time. Bands of men
+were organized all over the country, who called themselves
+the Sons of Liberty, and refused to accept the
+Stamp Act, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, I know all that,” cried Nita impatiently,
+“but what did they have to do with these girls who
+are to be in the Flag Drill?”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_276'></a>276</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Just you wait and you’ll see,” replied Nathalie
+somewhat abashed by this practical question. “Well,
+these little patriotic bands acted like a whirlwind of
+fire, spreading patriotism—the determination not to
+submit to the king’s tyranny—all over the land, so
+that King George was defeated for a time at least.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, I know all about him,” was the reply,
+“Miss Stitt just doted on history, and she drilled me
+in American history until I just hated it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“In 1776,” continued the Story Lady, “seventeen
+young girls met in Providence at the house of Deacon
+Bowen, and formed themselves into one of these
+Liberty Bands, only you see they were just girls like
+you and me. They were very industrious and spun
+all day making homespun clothes, for they had resolved
+that they would not wear any more clothes that
+had been manufactured in England.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is claimed that the clothes worn by the first
+president of Brown University in Providence, and the
+graduating class, too, on Commencement Day were
+garments made by these girls. These young girls not
+only vowed that they would not drink tea, because you
+see, it all had to come from the mother country, but
+they would have nothing to do with any young men
+who were not as patriotic as they were, and who were
+not willing to follow their example. These bands of
+girls were formed all through the colonies and became
+known as ‘The Daughters of Liberty.’”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_277'></a>277</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, now I know, but do hurry and tell me what
+they did to the Goddess of Liberty!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, in our Flag Drill music is heard; then the
+Daughters of Liberty appear on the platform,—there
+are to be thirteen of them, to represent the thirteen
+states,—all carrying banners.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What kind of banners?” burst from Nathalie’s
+auditor impatiently.
+</p>
+<p>
+“All kinds,” was the answer. “You know, the
+first flag used in this country was the English one,
+with the red cross of St. George; that was the flag
+carried by the <em>Mayflower</em>. After a while it was used
+only for special occasions, for the Red Ensign of
+Great Britain took its place. But as time wore on,
+each little State came to have its own flag or banner,
+so that when the Revolution came these State banners
+became known as liberty banners.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Some of them were very quaint and grotesque,
+with strange emblems and designs—some had rattlesnakes
+or pine-trees—and queer inscriptions. A flag
+from South Carolina had a silver crescent on it;
+another from New York had a beaver; troops from
+Rhode Island floated a white ensign with a blue anchor;
+while the New England flag bore a pine tree.
+But to go back to the Daughters; as they march on
+the platform they form a half-circle before the Goddess,
+who has retired to her throne, a chair draped
+with red. In her hand she carries a green branch,—no,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_278'></a>278</span>
+don’t ask me why, for you will know when you hear
+the girls sing the ‘Liberty Tree.’
+</p>
+<p>
+“When they finish singing, each girl in turn steps
+before the Goddess and tells the story of her flag, until
+a story has been told about each of the thirteen flags.
+Of course, there were a number of these liberty banners,
+but we use only thirteen of them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“There! I said I would not tell you any more today,
+and I’m not going to. Oh, did I tell you that I
+told Mrs. Morrow about your mother consenting to let
+us have your lawn? She is perfectly delighted, and at
+the next Rally the scribe will write a note to your
+mother for the Pioneers, thanking her for her offer.”
+</p>
+<p>
+And then—Nathalie could not remember what
+started the conversation in this channel—she was
+telling about her brother Dick and his operation, while
+Nita listened with big sympathetic eyes, for somehow
+she was very much interested in this invalid brother
+of Nathalie’s.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You see, it is this way,” rattled on Nathalie.
+“Dick must have the operation as soon as possible—and—as
+it happens—well, you know Mother’s income
+is limited since Father died and we have had to
+retrench a great deal. Then to make matters worse,
+just at the present time some bonds that Mother owns
+are not paying any interest and we feel dreadfully
+about it, all on account of Dick. So we are all trying
+to be as economical as possible; Dorothy and I have
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_279'></a>279</span>
+a little bank, and every odd nickel we can scare up we
+drop it in, and oh! the money your mother is going to
+give me for talking to you, why, that’s going in the
+bank, too! Dorothy and I sometimes wish that some
+magic fairy would come along and turn those stray
+cents and nickels into gold dollars, but there, I should
+think your head would ache, my tongue has galloped
+so hard and fast.” She paused, and with a merry
+laugh cried, “I should not wonder if after a while
+your mother paid me not to come and talk to you, for
+you will get so tired of me.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed I won’t!” asserted the princess stoutly as
+she threw up her arms. There was a mutual hug and
+then Nathalie was off, for she had to get dinner and
+it would take her at least ten minutes to walk home.
+</p>
+<p>
+A week later Nathalie was flying out of the gate
+of the big gray house with something tightly clasped
+in her hand. It had been a week of hard work, for
+O dear, she had grown tired of talking, and then too,
+she had spent some little time in the library hunting
+up pioneer women. She had been overjoyed that
+morning when Mrs. Van Vorst, who had been secretly
+acquainted with the scheme of telling about these
+women founders of the nation presented her with a new
+book from a New York publisher that gave a number
+of interesting details about these dames of early times.
+She and Nita had spent the two hours that morning
+reading about the New Amsterdam vrouws. She
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_280'></a>280</span>
+laughed slyly as she hurried along to think how adroitly
+she had managed in such a short time to tell her pupil
+not only about the Pilgrim and Puritan dames, but
+other interesting historical events of those early days.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girl ran swiftly up on the porch and spied
+her mother reading a few feet away, she burst out
+with, “Oh, Mother, what do you think Mrs. Van
+Vorst gave me for teach—talking, rather, to Nita for
+the week? And I’m to have the same every week.
+Oh, Mumsie, just guess!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Page’s eyes smiled into Nathalie’s joyous ones
+as she said, “I’m not a good guesser, I’m afraid,
+Daughter, but I’ll venture—five dollars?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Five dollars!” repeated the girl disdainfully.
+“Oh, Mother, guess again, it’s more than that,” she
+added encouragingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll have to give it up,” replied her mother
+after a short pause, with a regretful shake of her
+head. “I told you I was not a good guesser.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ten dollars!” burst from happy Nathalie. “Just
+think, a dollar an hour, two dollars a day, and ten
+dollars for the week! And, Mother, it’s all to be put
+away for Dick!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The night of the entertainment arrived, and promised
+to be a howling success, as Grace declared, who,
+with Nathalie, had been detailed to act as an usher.
+They had been kept pretty busy seating the guests, who
+had appeared in multicolored gowns, and gay flowered
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_281'></a>281</span>
+hats, with here and there a dress coat of masculine
+gender which gave quite an air of festivity to the
+occasion.
+</p>
+<p>
+The program was opened by Lillie Bell. Attired in
+a very quaint colonial gown, she tripped along the
+platform, and with well-simulated blushes and much
+demureness of manner made an old-time curtsy.
+After being greeted with an ovation from her many
+friends, she bashfully sidled up to a rather puzzling-looking
+instrument on the platform, on which many
+eyes had been focussed ever since the raising of the
+curtain, and seated herself before it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Upon this old-time spinet she played such ravishing
+strains of melody that the hearts of her audience were
+captivated, and she was encored again and again.
+Louise Gaynor, a dear little colonial dame, now appeared,
+and in her tru-al-lee voice—as the girls often
+called it—sang some old English ballads, “Annie
+Laurie,” “Robin Adair” and several of similar character,
+whose celebrity had grown with the years.
+</p>
+<p>
+The second Stunt was the renowned race for the
+Forefathers’ Rock, Kitty Corwin as Mary Chilton,
+and Fred Tyson as the slow-footed John Alden. A
+spinning contest followed, the fair spinners being
+colonial dames from Plymouth town, New Amsterdam,
+Boston, and Jamestown. The fair maiden of
+Plymouth, Priscilla, spun with such deftness and skill
+that she not only won the plaudits of those assembled,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_282'></a>282</span>
+but the prize. As she gracefully bowed her acknowledgment
+to her friends’ loud clapping, she backed
+hastily off the platform. Alas, she backed into John
+Alden, who at this opportune moment had appeared on
+the stage, with such terrific force that she almost
+bowled him over. John, however, to prove that he
+was not as slow as the name he had gained, adroitly
+caught the falling maiden in his arms and then led the
+blushing damsel, Jessie Ford, forward as his captured
+prize.
+</p>
+<p>
+Barbara Worth proved quite a heroine in her single-act
+comedy on Pioneer craft, the plucking of a live
+goose. Mistress Goose, however, not understanding
+her part of silent acquiescence, being a twentieth-century
+goose and not a pioneer one, mutinied, and as
+Barbara came to the end of the couplet,
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Twice&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;year&nbsp;&nbsp;depluméd&nbsp;&nbsp;may&nbsp;&nbsp;they&nbsp;&nbsp;be,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In&nbsp;&nbsp;spryngen&nbsp;&nbsp;tyme&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;harvest&nbsp;&nbsp;tyme,”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+she escaped from her captor’s clutch and with a loud,
+“Quack! quack!” of disapproval flew across the
+stage.
+</p>
+<p>
+Barbara, dumb with fright for fear the goose would
+fly down among the spectators, gave chase, and then
+ensued a regular “movie” as amid loud calls urging
+her on in the race, and protestations voiced by the goose
+in a clamorous quacking, she chased it about the platform.
+Just as Barbara was about to capture her prey
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_283'></a>283</span>
+she tripped on a rug and measured her five feet two
+on the floor. But Barbara was game, Fred Tyson
+declared to Nathalie as they watched her, and jumping
+to her feet she soon captured her featherless fowl,
+which, after being shown in its deplumed condition,
+was borne from the scene of its torments by the victor.
+</p>
+<p>
+The curtain now rose on “The First American
+Wash Day,” a little playlet representing the women of
+the Pilgrim colony, with arms bared to the elbows,
+rubbing and scrubbing in tubs of foamy soap-suds,
+washing clothes, for the noble sires of our nation.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie gave a quick start and her eyes leaped wide
+open as she convulsively clutched Grace by the arm,
+and then she grew strangely still as she watched the
+actors on the stage. The scene was a distinctive one,
+as the children of the <em>Mayflower</em> ran hither and thither
+gathering boughs, make-believe sweet-smelling juniper,
+to place under the tripod from which kettles of
+water were suspended over a small fire that simulated
+a cheery blaze.
+</p>
+<p>
+As these pioneer mothers washed, and then wrung
+out their clothes, slashing them about in true washer
+woman’s fashion, some one in the rear of the stage
+recited in a loud, clear voice:
+</p>
+<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>“There&#160;did&#160;the&#160;Pilgrim&#160;fathers</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>With&#160;matchlock&#160;and&#160;ax&#160;well&#160;swung</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Keep&#160;guard&#160;o’er&#160;the&#160;smoking&#160;kettles</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>That&#160;propped&#160;on&#160;the&#160;crotches&#160;hung.</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>For&#160;the&#160;earliest&#160;act&#160;of&#160;the&#160;heroes</p>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_284'></a>284</span></div>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Whose&#160;fame&#160;has&#160;a&#160;world-wide&#160;sway,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>Was&#160;to&#160;fashion&#160;a&#160;crane&#160;for&#160;a&#160;kettle</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>And&#160;order&#160;a&#160;washing-day.”</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>&#160;</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'>“Pioneer&#160;Mothers&#160;of&#160;America.”</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'>By&#160;<span class='sc'>Hand&#160;W.&#160;Green</span>.</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>
+The applause of the spectators testified to the merit
+of the performance, and as the curtain dropped, Nathalie,
+whose eyes were ashine with a strange fire,
+hastened out into the hall. “Oh, it was mean of her!
+It is the same as stealing, she knew she had no right
+to use it!” were the thoughts that flashed at white
+heat through her brain, for the playlet that had just
+been enacted was the one she had lost in the library!
+</p>
+<p>
+And the one who had passed it off as her own, the
+one who had been the head performer, and who had
+recited the verses, was Edith Whiton!
+</p>
+<p>
+On rushed Nathalie straight towards the dressing
+room, determined to tell Edith just what she thought
+of her, but the sight of a crowd of girls of which Edith
+was the central figure brought her to a standstill.
+“Of course, Edith, we all recognized you!” “It
+was a clever Stunt.” “Well, you have shown you are
+a Pioneer, all right!” Many similar pæans of praise
+came to Nathalie’s ears.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl stood still, inwardly raging with indignation,
+almost ready to cry with the strife between her
+outraged sense of right, and a commonplace little monitor
+who whispered, “It would be mean to accuse
+Edith of a sneaking act in the very midst of her glorification.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_285'></a>285</span>
+And then, too,” continued the whisperer,
+“you are not really sure that Edith has not some excuse
+to offer; there was no name on your paper.” Nathalie
+swallowed hard, then her muscles relaxed, and
+the hard angry gleam disappeared from her eyes.
+Well, Edith might be mean and small, but she at least
+would be above her, she would say nothing!
+</p>
+<p>
+With a certain pride that she had risen above doing
+what she would undoubtedly have regretted afterwards,
+Nathalie hurried into the dressing-room. A
+few minutes later as the curtain rose it displayed in
+its completed form the second idea that she had spent
+so much time in planning.
+</p>
+<p>
+Around the hearthstone in a Dutch kitchen sat a
+<em>huys-moeder</em>, busily undressing her two little kinderkins
+while she sang the crooning nursery rhyme:<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor"><sup>[1]</sup></a>
+</p>
+<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>“Trip&#160;attroup&#160;attronjes,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>De&#160;vaarken&#160;in&#160;de&#160;boojes,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>De&#160;koejes&#160;in&#160;de&#160;klaver,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>De&#160;paarden&#160;in&#160;de&#160;haver,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>De&#160;kalver&#160;in&#160;de&#160;lang&#160;gras,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>De&#160;eenjes&#160;in&#160;de&#160;water&#160;plas,</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>So&#160;grootmyn&#160;klein&#160;poppetje&#160;was.”&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'>“<em>Colonial&#160;Days&#160;in&#160;Old&#160;New&#160;York.</em>”</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'><span class='sc'>Earle.</span></p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_286'></a>286</span></div>
+<p>
+Through a window in the back of the cozy kitchen
+a blanketed squaw was seen dandling her swaddled
+papoose in her arms, as she peered hungrily in at the
+glowing fire, and watched the <em>huys-moeder</em> fill the
+warming pan with coals, thrust it between the sheets
+of the little trundle-bed, and then give her babies some
+mulled cider to drink.
+</p>
+<p>
+The tiny figures in their <em>cosyntjes</em>, or nightcaps with
+long capes, had just crawled into bed when “tap-toes”
+sounded, and the honest mynheer and his good vrouw
+hastened to cover the still glowing embers with ashes
+for the fire of the morrow. The Dutch curfew had
+sounded, which meant that all good simple folk must
+hie to bed.
+</p>
+<p>
+This fireside scene in old New York won its merited
+applause, and Nathalie, who had been the Dutch
+mother, Mrs. Morrow’s kiddies, the kinderkins, and
+Fred Tyson, the mynheer, were called before the curtain
+to receive the plaudits of their friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie was hurrying from the dressing-room,
+glad that she was through her long-anticipated Stunt,
+and doubly glad that it had been a success, her name
+was called. She turned to see Helen, who, with an
+anxious face, was peering from the adjoining dressing
+room.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, has anything gone wrong?” demanded Nathalie
+hastening to the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I should say!” exclaimed Helen with woebegone
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_287'></a>287</span>
+countenance, “I have left my gun at home, and I
+must have it. Oh, I can’t imagine how I could have
+been so careless! Can’t you get some one to go and
+get it for me? Tell them to hurry, for my scene goes
+on in ten minutes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I’m so sorry,” sympathized Nathalie, “tell me
+where to find it, quick, and I’ll get some one.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is in the hall just behind the rack! Do hurry,
+Nat, I’m just about wild!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie darted away; but alas, she could not find
+any one who could go at that moment, every one had
+some important duty to perform just then and there.
+Even the Scouts, who were always so ready to help
+the girls, were missing. “Oh, it is too bad!” bemoaned
+the girl. Presently her eyes lighted and in
+another instant she had flown up the stairs, seized her
+long cloak in the dressing-room, and then sped down
+the steps into the garden, and out into the street.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ten minutes, that meant she would have to run
+every step of the way to get that gun there in time.
+So with the lightness of a bird she darted down one
+street, up another, and then—her heart gave a great
+leap as she came to the long, lonely stretch of road
+skirting the cemetery of the old Presbyterian church.
+But on she flew, hardly daring to cast her eyes towards
+the tall tombstones that gleamed at her with ghostly
+whiteness from the ghoulish shadows cast by the waving
+branches of the trees above them.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_288'></a>288</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+No, she was not afraid of ghosts, but she suddenly
+remembered a story she had heard as a little child, of
+a young girl who had been waylaid and killed by a
+man in a cemetery one dark night. Fiddle! she was
+not going to be afraid of a mere story, so with a snatch
+of melody on her lips she kept bravely on and soon
+left behind her the marble records of the dead. It did
+not take but a minute to ring the bell, tell Helen’s
+aunt what she wanted, then grab the gun and start off
+on her return journey.
+</p>
+<p>
+Oh, she did hate to have to go by that old graveyard,
+she would take the other way around; but no, that
+would take twice the time and she must hurry! So
+nerving up her courage she ran on with the firm determination
+to play soldier, and level her musket if
+any one assailed her.
+</p>
+<p>
+As she neared the cemetery her breath gave out,
+and instead of running by this danger post she had to
+walk every step. Determined not to look in the direction
+of these ghostly reminders of the past, she pushed
+resolutely on. She had almost reached the end of the
+long fence when the sudden snap of a twig, followed
+by a rustling noise caused her heart to pause in its
+beating. A scream escaped her quivering lips, for
+there in the bright radiance that fell like a silver veil
+over all objects she saw the figure of a man rise from
+one of the tombstones near the fence and come towards
+her!
+</p>
+<hr class='fnsep' />
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
+&nbsp;
+</p></div>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“From&nbsp;&nbsp;your&nbsp;&nbsp;throne&nbsp;&nbsp;on&nbsp;&nbsp;my&nbsp;&nbsp;knee,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;pigs&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;bean-patch&nbsp;&nbsp;see,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;cows&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;clover&nbsp;&nbsp;meet,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;horses&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;oat&nbsp;&nbsp;field&nbsp;&nbsp;eat.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;ducks&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;water&nbsp;&nbsp;pass<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;calves&nbsp;&nbsp;scamper&nbsp;&nbsp;through&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;grass.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;They&nbsp;&nbsp;love&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;baby&nbsp;&nbsp;on&nbsp;&nbsp;my&nbsp;&nbsp;knee<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;none&nbsp;&nbsp;there&nbsp;&nbsp;are&nbsp;&nbsp;as&nbsp;&nbsp;sweet&nbsp;&nbsp;as&nbsp;&nbsp;she.”<br />
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_289'></a>289</span><a name='chXVII' id='chXVII'></a>CHAPTER XVII—LIBERTY BANNERS</h2>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s eyes dilated with terror, and her
+heart pounded with such leaping beats that it
+almost choked her. She attempted to run, but
+alas, her limbs seemed tied with ropes, and then she
+remembered the gun!
+</p>
+<p>
+Just an instant and she had raised it, and with
+trembling hands was pointing it at the enemy, who
+by this time had lightly vaulted the wooden fence and
+was coming towards her. Nathalie’s hand was feeling
+for the trigger when, “Oh, don’t shoot!” cried a
+voice in serio-comic tone, “I surrender!” Up went
+two hands in pretended subjugation.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl gasped, dropped the gun, and then broke
+into hysterical laughter as she cried, “Oh—is—that
+you?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, it is I; Fred Tyson in the flesh!” rejoined
+the supposed murderer coolly, as with a stride he was
+at her side and, stooping picked up the gun.
+</p>
+<p>
+The reaction was so great that for a moment Nathalie
+feared she was going to cry, but controlling herself
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_290'></a>290</span>
+by a strong effort she exclaimed, “Oh, I was sure
+you were a tramp,” with a nervous giggle, “or a murderer
+intent on killing me, and then hiding my body
+in the thicket yonder.” She shuddered.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Great guns!” Fred exclaimed as he looked the
+gun over. “It is lucky this thing didn’t go off. By
+the Lord Harry, how did you come to be carrying it?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, with a long breath of relief that all was
+well after her fright, then told Fred how she came
+to be near the graveyard at that time. Then suddenly
+remembering that she had not a minute to lose, she
+cried hurriedly, “Oh, let us go on. I am afraid I am
+too late!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You’re all hunky,” returned Fred calmly. “You
+have plenty of time, for I overheard Mrs. Morrow tell
+Helen to postpone her Stunt until one of the last.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But how did you come to be here, may I ask?”
+queried Nathalie as they turned to walk up.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I was in the next room and heard Helen tell
+you to go and get something at her house. I started
+out to offer my services, but some one buttonholed me
+for the next Stunt; I had forgotten I was in it. As
+soon as it was over I hurried out to find you, but you
+had skipped. I rushed after you, missed you, and
+then remembering that you would return this way as
+it is the shortest, sat down on one of the tombstones
+to wait for you. But you’re the stuff, all right, Nathalie
+Page, you ought to have a medal for bravery.”
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-290' id='illus-290'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i008' id='i008'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-290.jpg" alt="Up went two hands in pretended subjugation." title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_291'></a>291</span></div>
+<p>
+He suddenly pointed the gun and then pulled the
+trigger.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie gave a shrill scream in a spasm of apprehension,
+and jumped to one side. “Oh, please, don’t
+do that, it might be loaded, you know!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred threw his head back and burst into a hearty
+laugh. “Oh, ho, I see you are not as nervy as I
+thought,” there was a mischievous glint in his merry
+black eyes. And then as if ashamed of torturing the
+nerve-racked girl he cried soothingly, “Don’t you fret,
+Miss Blue Robin; there isn’t any guess with me, I
+don’t take chances. I saw it wasn’t loaded when I
+first picked it up, but come, let’s hurry!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Please don’t tell any one I was afraid!” pleaded
+Nathalie, as they hastened on under the swaying
+branches of the trees that cast weird, fanciful designs
+on the moon-mantled path. “They will think me an
+awful coward and tease me unmercifully.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred assured her that he would keep mum, and added
+that she was not a coward, but a very brave girl.
+Then, in response to a challenge to race him to the
+Hall, they were off, Nathalie by this time having regained
+her usual poise and nerve. She won the race,
+for Fred, desiring to be gallant, dropped back a space
+or two just at the right time, and thus allowed his
+partner to be the victor in this race of two blocks.
+</p>
+<p>
+The gun was quickly delivered to Helen and then
+they hurried into the hall in time to see the portraits
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_292'></a>292</span>
+of Henry Hudson, Edward Winslow, William Penn,
+Governor Stuyvesant, and Captain Kidd and Henry
+Morgan, two pirates of pioneer fame. These colonial
+portraits were produced by their representatives standing
+behind a large wooden frame that had been made
+by the Scouts, gilded by the Pioneers, and then placed
+in front of a dark curtain.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen’s Stunt proved to be a canvas background on
+which was painted a log cabin. At the door of this
+pioneer home stood Helen with a baby clinging to her
+skirts, pointing a gun at a skulking savage just disappearing
+beyond a very fair representation of a clump of
+trees. This picture of a mother of the wilderness was
+loudly encored, as it was significant of the hardy
+courage displayed by the women of those early days.
+</p>
+<p>
+The last Stunt showed the Pioneers in line, each one
+with a big red letter pinned to the skirt of her uniform;
+the combination making the word “Pioneer
+Women.” Giving bird-calls, building miniature log-cabins,
+making camp fires, jumping, throwing the lifeline,
+as well as making the motions of rowing and
+swimming, these and many other activities of the organization
+were performed. The girls ended by falling
+into line again and singing a farewell Pioneer song.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward, and after thanking
+the audience for their kind attention and aid in
+helping make the affair a success by buying tickets and
+by their presence, she announced that there would be
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_293'></a>293</span>
+another entertainment, a Flag Drill, to take place on
+the fourteenth of that month. It would be held in
+the rear of the home of Mrs. Van Vorst, that lady
+having kindly offered her lawn for the affair.
+</p>
+<p>
+The faces of the Pioneers, with the exception of
+Nathalie’s and Helen’s, expressed unbounded surprise
+as they heard this announcement. As Fred Tyson
+and two other Scouts passed slips of paper so that each
+one present could write her or his opinion as to the
+best Stunt of the evening, there was a merry clack of
+tongues as each girl queried how and when this wonderful
+thing had come to pass.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie Bell, who had been watching Nathalie, suddenly
+leaned forward crying, “Nathalie Page, I just
+believe that you know all about it!” Nathalie did her
+best to look bland and innocent when this accusation
+was hurled at her, but the query was as a match to fire,
+and instantly Nathalie was surrounded by a bevy of
+girls, all eagerly demanding that she tell them how it
+came about.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear, how should I know?” she demanded with
+seeming indignation.
+</p>
+<p>
+“There, I told you she knew,” declared the Sport,
+who at that moment joined the group. “Her face betrays
+her! And then she is on the committee.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie turned and flashed at Edith angrily, “Well,
+if I do know I am not going to tell. If you want any
+information go and ask Mrs. Morrow.” Then feeling
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_294'></a>294</span>
+that things were growing desperate and that she might
+reveal what she had striven so hard to keep a secret,
+she broke from her tormentors and hurried into the
+hall.
+</p>
+<p>
+Seeing Helen at that moment she dashed up to her,
+and grabbing her by the arm cried, “Helen, the girls
+are tormenting me to tell them about the lawn party;
+oh, do keep them from asking me again, for I am in
+mortal terror that I may tell something that should
+not be told just yet.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“All right,” soothed her friend, “don’t you bother
+about the girls finding out, I’ll see to them. But
+here’s Fred, he wants you to vote. By the way, have
+you heard that the Sport’s Stunt has so far the greatest
+number of votes, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Helen had been carried off by one of the Scouts,
+and Nathalie turned to find Fred at her side eagerly
+demanding her vote.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why don’t you vote for ‘The First American
+Wash-Day’?” demanded the young man as he saw
+Nathalie hesitate and swing her pencil, lost in abstraction.
+“It will win, I think, and it was a good Stunt,
+too; well acted out. Edith deserves credit.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you think so?” flashed Nathalie. She colored
+angrily. “I do not agree with you. I think—”
+She stopped, compressed her lips, and then added
+coolly, “I shall vote for Helen, for I consider her
+Stunt the best one of the evening.” She wrote the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_295'></a>295</span>
+name of the Stunt hurriedly, signed her name, and
+then handed the card to Fred, who was regarding her
+with a puzzled expression on his face.
+</p>
+<p>
+He took the card and turned to go, but seeing that
+the floor had been cleared for dancing he stopped, and
+swinging about asked Nathalie if he could have the
+next dance. Nathalie assented, although she did not
+feel in the mood for dancing just at that moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You won’t mind waiting a moment, will you?”
+asked Fred. “I have got to turn in my cards. Then
+I see this is a square dance, and I want a waltz with
+you. Are you angry with me?” he asked wonderingly
+as he saw that Nathalie’s eyes still gleamed fire
+and that her cheeks were bright red.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl looked up at him absently and then, suddenly
+comprehending that she was acting rather rudely
+towards this new friend, cried laughing, “Angry with
+you? Indeed, no! I <em>am angry</em> with—some one,”
+she added bitterly, her glance suddenly falling on
+Edith. “But there, return your cards and then we
+will dance.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Five minutes later as Fred swung his partner lightly
+up and down the hall to waltz time, Nathalie forgot all
+the unpleasant jars of the evening in the enjoyment
+of the moment. But later, as they hurried out on the
+veranda for a breath of fresh air, she remembered how
+rudely she had acted and felt as if she ought to make
+some kind of an explanation to Fred for her seeming
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_296'></a>296</span>
+rudeness. Then it suddenly came to her that perhaps
+he might think she was jealous of Edith. Oh, no, she
+was not jealous—she was willing Edith should win
+the highest number of votes, only it did seem a bit hard
+to have to give all the glory up to some one else, when it
+rightfully belonged to her, and then Edith <em>had been</em>
+mean about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Please don’t think I didn’t want Edith to win,” she
+burst forth as they seated themselves in a cozy corner
+where she could see the dancers in the hall. “Only—you
+see it is this way, I—”
+</p>
+<p>
+But before she could finish, the Tike came rushing
+up all of a whirl crying, “Oh, Nathalie, your Stunt
+won! I’m awfully glad!” And she danced up and
+down in her delight at Nathalie’s success.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, ‘The First American Wash-Day’ was Edith’s
+Stunt,” Nathalie hastened to explain, resolved that she
+would be a martyr to her wounded pride with a good
+grace.
+</p>
+<p>
+“That didn’t win the highest vote, but your Stunt
+did,” retorted Carol jubilantly; “the one with the
+old Dutchwoman putting the kiddies to bed. And
+that Dutch lullaby—oh, Nathalie, where did you learn
+it?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Before Nathalie could answer Carol had skipped
+away, leaving the girl with a strange expression on her
+face as she stared at Fred with mystified eyes. “Do
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_297'></a>297</span>
+you suppose I really won it?” she demanded after a
+pause. “I thought you said Edith’s Stunt was the
+winner.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“So I heard,” was Fred’s reply. “But then, Miss
+Nathalie, I am awfully glad your Stunt won. It was
+a peach, I thought myself, but I heard—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I don’t care about that,” cried Nathalie.
+There was a quiver to her voice. “I don’t deserve it;
+oh, I have been awfully mean, and yet I have been
+calling Edith mean—” She stopped abruptly.
+How queerly it had turned out!
+</p>
+<p>
+Catching a rather strange look in her companion’s
+eyes she exclaimed, “Oh, indeed I was willing that
+Edith should win—I don’t care a snap about it myself—only,
+you see it was this way.” She floundered
+for a moment and then with a sudden catch in her
+breath leaned towards Fred crying, “If I tell you
+something, will you swear never to reveal it?” Fred’s
+face brightened; he was delighted to think Nathalie
+considered him worthy of her confidence, and lost no
+time in assuring her of this fact. But the girl was
+thinking of only one thing, and that was that she was
+going to break her silence in regard to Edith and unburden
+herself of what had been causing her a good
+deal of discomfort all the evening. Nathalie talked
+rapidly and in a few minutes Fred was in possession of
+the facts about “The First American Wash-Day,” and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_298'></a>298</span>
+how it had come about that although the idea was
+Nathalie’s, Edith had won the glory of it without the
+work.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Say, but you’re game!” declared Fred admiringly,
+as Nathalie finished her story. “It was a fine
+thing for you not to tell; I don’t blame you for feeling
+mean about it. But the Sport had no right to use
+it—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, never mind now,” cried Nathalie, “it is all
+over with and I am glad I didn’t tell any one but you,
+and you won’t break your word, will you? The word
+of a Scout, you know,” added the girl archly.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred laughingly assured her that his word as a gentleman
+was sufficient and as binding as that of a Scout.
+Then as they discussed the Scout oath, its pledges, and
+so forth, Dr. Homer appeared and asked his little hike-mate
+if he might have the pleasure of a dance with her.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie smilingly assured him she would be most
+happy and then with a good-by to Fred, the quaint
+little figure in its queer Dutch cap and flowered gown
+followed the doctor into the hall.
+</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>
+The long anticipated fourteenth of June had arrived,
+and the level stretch of green grass with its circling
+hillocks in the rear of the gray house was ablaze with
+color. Beneath a high arch festooned with the red,
+white, and blue—the Pioneers’ color again—stood a
+number of merry girls, each one gowned in white with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_299'></a>299</span>
+a scarlet sash, and a red liberty cap, and holding in her
+hand a flag or small banner.
+</p>
+<p>
+Every eye as well as tongue was on duty, as each
+girl triumphantly displayed her flag to her comrades,
+proudly claiming that it was an exact copy of one of
+the liberty banners used by the colonies preceding or
+during the Revolution.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hurrah for the Concord flag,” cried Kitty Corwin,
+as she hoisted up a small maroon banner inscribed with
+the motto, “Conquer or Die.” “This is one of the
+oldest flags in America, for it was the one carried
+when the ‘embattled farmers fired the shot heard
+round the world’”—she twirled it high in air—“on
+the 19th of April, 1775, at the first battle of the Revolution!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but your flag hasn’t the romance that mine
+has,” said Edith, ostentatiously waving a crimson flag
+fringed at the ends, and with a cord and tassel.
+“This is the Eutaw flag and was made by Miss Jane
+Elliot. Col. William Washington—he was a relative
+or something of little Georgie—when stationed
+at Charleston, South Carolina, fell in love with Miss
+Jane. One night, after spending the evening with his
+lady love, as he bade her good night, she said she hoped
+to hear good news of his flag and fortune. Whereupon
+the poor colonel was forced to confess that his
+corps had no flag. Upon hearing this the young lady
+pulled down one of the portières, cut it to the right
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_300'></a>300</span>
+size, fringed it at the ends, stuck it on a curtain pole,
+and then presented it to her gallant lover, telling him
+to make it his standard. Of course after that it
+brought good luck and won a great victory at Cowpens,
+January, 1781, and another at Eutaw Springs the following
+September. Forty years later the flag was presented
+by the hands that made it to the Washington
+Light Infantry of Charleston, for the fair Jane married
+the colonel, all right.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, don’t you girls boast too much,” declared
+Jessie, “for if it hadn’t been for my flag there wouldn’t
+have been any banners of liberty to make you patriotic.”
+And Jessie held up a white flag barred with the
+scarlet cross of St. George, the flag dear to Merrie Old
+England as the flag of the people, and beloved by the
+colonists as the ensign that floated from the little ship
+<em>Mayflower</em>.
+</p>
+<p>
+As if to supplement Jessie’s declaration, an Oriole
+gayly flaunted the Red Ensign of Great Britain with
+its canton quartered by the cross of St. George and
+St. Andrew. “This is the flag that followed Jessie’s
+and was necessarily adopted by the colonists as the flag
+of the mother country. It was called the Union flag—the
+two crosses signifying the union of Scotland
+and England, when King James of Scotland became
+king—and remained in use in America until the beginning
+of the Revolution.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Grace, who had been impatiently waiting to float
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_301'></a>301</span>
+her flag, now cried, “Away with your old Johnnie
+Bull flags! Mine is worth a hundred of those old
+English rags, for it was the first distinctively American
+flag used by the Colonies, ‘The Pine Tree Flag of
+New England.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But it has the red cross on the white canton just
+the same,” ventured Jessie, “and it is red, too.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Of course it has the cross on it,” quickly retorted
+Grace, “for at that time the Colonies still belonged
+to England; but if you look, my lady, you’ll see that
+pine in the first quarter of the canton, and that is
+American all through, every pine on it. It meant that
+the colonists, although they were English, had a right
+to representation in the mother country and to a symbol
+of their own.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” persisted Jessie, in whose veins flowed a
+goodly supply of English blood, “your scrubby old
+pine was such a poor representation of that noble tree
+that Charles II asked what it represented—and was
+told it was an oak.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Come, Jessie,” laughed Helen, “that story is a
+back number. Every one can guess without much
+effort that the man who told that yarn to the king was
+a New Englander. He wanted to gain favor with
+Charles and bluffed him a bit, trying to make out it
+was a model of the royal oak in which his majesty
+took refuge after the battle of Worcester.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, stop discussing the merits of that old pine and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_302'></a>302</span>
+look at my banner,” sang out Louise Gaynor, shaking
+her flag furiously to and fro so as to get the attention
+of the girls. “This flag is the Crescent flag and
+stands for the bravest of the brave. Now listen, and
+you will all understand what true heroism means.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls, impressed by the Flower’s declaration,
+grew silent, and gazed curiously at a red banner with
+a white crescent in the upper corner near the staff.
+“This flag was designed by Col. Moultrie of the Second
+Carolina Infantry in 1775. During the siege of
+Charleston when the flag was shot down, Sergeant
+William Jasper at the peril of his life recovered it,
+and held it in place on the parapet until another staff
+was found. In 1779, at the assault on Savannah, it
+was again shot from its holdings. Two lieutenants
+sprang forward and held it in position until they were
+killed by the enemy’s bullets. Jasper again sprang
+forward and held the colors up until he, too, was riddled
+with bullets, and fell into a ditch. As he was
+dying he seized the flag in his hands and cried, ‘Tell
+Mrs. Elliot’—she was the wife of one of the majors—‘that
+I lost my life supporting the colors she gave
+our regiment.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+Barbara, who was usually so placid and mild, now
+grew quite intense as she pointed to her flag, the Cambridge
+flag, claiming that it was the first flag on this
+side of the water to float the red and white bars. It
+signified, she said, that although the colonists were
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_303'></a>303</span>
+willing to return to the rule of the English, they were
+a body of armed men fighting for just and equal rights
+with their brothers who had crossed the sea to whip
+them into submission. “But they didn’t,” ended
+Barbara with triumphant eyes. “And this flag, also
+known as the Union flag—meaning that the colonists
+stood as a man in their desire for the right—was
+displayed by Washington in his camp at Cambridge,
+January 2nd, 1776.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now let me have a chance,” pleaded Nathalie, who
+had been impatiently waiting to show her design for
+some time. “My flag has a story, too.” She held up
+as high as she could a white flag with a rattlesnake in
+the center. It bore in black letters the name, “The
+Culpeper Minute Men of Virginia,” the snaky slogan,
+“Don’t Tread On Me,” and the famous words of its
+commander, Patrick Henry, “Liberty or Death!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do you see that rattlesnake?” continued Miss
+Nathalie, as she brought her flag to a standstill and
+pointed to the snaky emblem. “That has a story—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Pooh,” interposed Edith, who was jealously
+guarding her declaration that her flag was the most
+beautiful because it had a story. “I don’t see any
+story about that snaky old thing. Ugh, I never could
+understand why so many flags had that design.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I will tell you why,” declared Nathalie, “because
+I have looked it up, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But you are not the only one who has looked up
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_304'></a>304</span>
+flags,” chimed Jessie, “for my eyes were just about
+ruined trying to get a merit badge for proficiency in
+flag history—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And for deftness and skill in making our flags,”
+broke in a Pioneer from the Bob White group.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I beg your pardon, girls, I know you are all very
+wise on the subject of flags this morning,” rejoined
+Nathalie good-naturedly, “but do you know why the
+rattlesnake was chosen as an ensign?”
+</p>
+<p>
+She waited a moment, but as no one seemed to know
+she went on. “The rattlesnake is to be found only
+in America; my authority is Benjamin Franklin. It
+is the wisest of the snake family, therefore a symbol
+of wisdom. Its bright, lidless eyes never close, this
+signifies vigilance. It never attacks without giving
+due notice, which meant that the American colonies
+were on the square. Each rattle is perfect, while at
+the same time it is so firmly attached to its fellows that
+it cannot be separated without incurring the ruin of
+all; each colony was a complete unit in itself, and yet
+it could not stand unless it had the support of the
+others. As it ages, the rattles increase in numbers,
+which meant that it was the fervent desire of the people
+that the colonies should increase in numbers with
+the years.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie finished her little lecture, Helen, with a
+sudden movement, shouldered her flag like a musket,
+and parting the group of girls, marched jubilantly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_305'></a>305</span>
+down the center, crying, “Oh, girls, you have had
+the floor long enough to tell of the beauties and
+glories of your paltry banners, but let me tell you,
+not a flag has won the honors and glories that mine
+has. Hurrah, girls, for Old Glory!” she ended with
+a triumphant wave of the Stars and Stripes above
+their heads.
+</p>
+<p>
+As if inspired by the sight of the cheery banner so
+gallantly flung to the breezes by their comrade, the
+girls with one accord broke into the flag cheer:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;hear;&nbsp;&nbsp;hear&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For&nbsp;&nbsp;flag&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;dear&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;bars&nbsp;&nbsp;that&nbsp;&nbsp;are&nbsp;&nbsp;white&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;red,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;stars&nbsp;&nbsp;on&nbsp;&nbsp;blue&nbsp;&nbsp;overhead<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;honor&nbsp;&nbsp;thee&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurrah!&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurrah!&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneer!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+Before the echo of the cheer had died in the distance
+Nathalie cried, “Oh, girls, the first signal!” Immediately
+these little patriotic Daughters of that which
+every one holds dear fell into line, and with flags upheld
+fastened their eyes on a small platform that had
+been erected in the center of the lawn draped with the
+national colors, where the Goddess of Liberty had just
+appeared. Holding up a green branch in her hand she
+began to walk agitatedly up and down the stage, pausing
+abruptly every moment or so to peer to the right
+or left, as if watching for some one.
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly she halted, and with the dramatic gestures
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_306'></a>306</span>
+of Lillie Bell—for it was she—cried in mournful
+tone, “‘Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased
+at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may
+take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me
+death!’”
+</p>
+<p>
+As the tragic intonation of her voice ceased, the
+band—composed, by the way, of a number of Scouts—burst
+forth with that old melody, “The Wearing
+of the Green.” This was another signal, and the girls
+waiting under the arch began to march slowly towards
+the stage, while the Goddess in feigned mystification
+moved quickly from side to side with her hand held
+to her ear, as if trying to ascertain whence came this
+martial tune.
+</p>
+<p>
+But on came the Daughters of Liberty with flashes
+of white and red, and with banners of many designs
+and devices. They presented such a brilliant showing
+that the audience seated in rows on the circling mounds
+broke into loud applause, which burst into enthusiastic
+cheers of greeting, as in the bright glare of the sunlight
+they perceived Old Glory floating far above the
+heads of the banner bearers as they proudly marched
+across the green.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the Goddess perceived this procession of fair
+damsels she stood apparently in a maze for a moment,
+and then slowly retreated backward until she stood on
+the scarlet draped dais with its throne. As the thirteen
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_307'></a>307</span>
+maids of freedom filed slowly on the platform, forming
+a half circle before the Goddess, the band struck
+into that old-time air, “The Liberty Tree,” and a second
+later every Daughter had chimed in and was singing:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“In&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;chariot&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;light&nbsp;&nbsp;from&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;regions&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;day<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;Goddess&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Liberty&nbsp;&nbsp;came;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ten&nbsp;&nbsp;thousand&nbsp;&nbsp;celestials&nbsp;&nbsp;directed&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;way,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;hither&nbsp;&nbsp;conducted&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;dame.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A&nbsp;&nbsp;fair&nbsp;&nbsp;budding&nbsp;&nbsp;branch&nbsp;&nbsp;from&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;gardens&nbsp;&nbsp;above,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Where&nbsp;&nbsp;millions&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;millions&nbsp;&nbsp;agree<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;She&nbsp;&nbsp;brought&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;her&nbsp;&nbsp;hand&nbsp;&nbsp;as&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;pledge&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;her&nbsp;&nbsp;love,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;plant&nbsp;&nbsp;she&nbsp;&nbsp;named&nbsp;&nbsp;Liberty&nbsp;&nbsp;Tree.”<br />
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_308'></a>308</span><a name='chXVIII' id='chXVIII'></a>CHAPTER XVIII—THE PRINCESS MAKES TWO MORE FRIENDS</h2>
+<p>
+“And the plant she named Liberty Tree,” sang
+Nita blithely up in the window of the sun
+parlor, where she sat with her mother and
+her old Scotch nurse, Ellen, watching the brilliant scene
+being enacted down on the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the last verse ended—and there were four—Helen
+stepped before the Goddess, and after saluting
+told in a few words how the brave pioneers had
+brought to this land a tiny spark which had flamed into
+the sacred fire of Liberty. As time wore on, trampled
+by the sons of Tyranny, it was in danger of being
+stamped out, when the daughters of these pioneers fled
+to its aid in their great fight for the right, and by their
+bravery and heroic self-denial had revived the sacred
+fire. The ensigns now floating before her were the
+signals of their success in making this land, “The
+Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!”
+</p>
+<p>
+An expression of regret flitted across Nita’s face
+as she realized that she could not hear the words
+Helen was speaking, but in a moment, remembering,
+she cried, “But I have them, Mamma, for Nathalie
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_309'></a>309</span>
+not only taught me the words of the songs, but wrote
+down for me the speeches of the girls. Ah, Helen is
+telling the Goddess how the Pilgrims came to this land
+and planted the Liberty Tree. Of course they did not
+really plant it, you know, only in their hearts, for they
+were determined to have liberty of conscience, speech,
+and action.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, and there’s another daughter speaking to the
+Goddess. See, she carries the flag that came over in
+the <em>Mayflower</em> with the Pilgrims.” Then Miss Nita,
+finding she had an appreciative audience in her mother
+and Ellen, rattled on, highly pleased to think she was
+giving them such good entertainment. She repeated
+the words of each fair daughter as she displayed her
+trophy of liberty, and could clap as enthusiastically as
+the spectators watching from the hillocks in the distance.
+Mrs. Van Vorst, as she heard her daughter’s
+words and witnessed her joy, entering with as much
+zest and spirit into the patriotic little drill as the Pioneers
+smiled in attune with the invalid, showing more
+enjoyment than she had done for years.
+</p>
+<p>
+“There’s the flag of Bunker Hill; it is just like the
+Pine Tree flag, only it is blue instead of red,” exclaimed
+Nita. “And, oh, Mother, see, there’s the real
+Liberty Flag with its pine tree, and motto, ‘An Appeal
+to Heaven.’ Look quick! that’s the Markoe flag!
+See, it is yellow and has thirteen stripes of blue and
+silver. Nathalie said this flag was the first one on
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_310'></a>310</span>
+land to float stripes, and that it was the flag carried
+by the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse when they
+escorted Washington to New York. And that crimson
+silk flag is the Casimir flag; it belonged to Count
+Casimir. He was the son of Pulaski, who perished in
+a dungeon for advocating the cause of liberty. The
+Count came to America and organized a corps of cavalry
+at Baltimore, and when the Moravian nuns heard
+of it they presented him with that flag. But, oh,
+Mother, the poor Count died after all; he was shot at
+the siege of Savannah in 1779.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Ellen, the old Scotch nurse who adored her invalid
+charge, and who had always taken care of her from
+the time she was a wee tot, was deeply stirred as she
+saw how Nita entered into the new life that had suddenly
+been opened up to her, and her face fairly beamed
+with gratified pride as she heard her repeat the songs
+and speeches of the girls in the playlet.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the last speech ended, the strains of Yankee
+Doodle were heard, and presently a Scout in the uniform
+of a Continental soldier appeared on the platform
+carrying a draped flag. After saluting the
+mother of Freedom he planted his pole in the center of
+the circle of Liberty maidens, and the next instant
+each one had caught up one of the red, blue, and white
+streamers that hung from it, and were swinging gayly
+around, singing “The Red, White, and Blue.”
+</p>
+<p>
+This song was followed by the “Battle Cry of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_311'></a>311</span>
+Freedom,” and then the soldier, saluting the Goddess
+again in a short speech, said he desired to present to
+her an emblem, the outgrowth of the labors of the
+Sons and Daughters of Liberty. The ensign that
+stands for everything that is just, true, and progressive,
+the symbol of the sovereignty of Civilization, the banner
+that had been unfurled in more movements for the
+protection, the liberty, and the elevation of mankind,
+than any ensign that ripples to the four winds of
+Heaven.
+</p>
+<p>
+Oh, no, the little company up in the window didn’t
+hear all these words from the lips of the soldier, but
+from Nita as she read them softly from her paper.
+But they did see the signal given by the soldier, and
+clapped with joy when each fair daughter pulled her
+streamer, the red drapings fell from the pole, and Old
+Glory stood revealed. And as the colors swayed
+softly in the gentle breeze they joined with patriotic
+fervor as the girls and audience broke into “The Star
+Spangled Banner!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The Flag Drill was over, and the girls, breaking
+ranks, were soon scattered here and there over the lawn
+in groups, as they stood receiving the congratulations
+of their friends on the success of the entertainment.
+It was but a moment or so, however, and the girls had
+all rushed back to duty, and each one with a scout was
+serving ice-cream and cake to the buyers at the gayly
+festooned tables under the trees.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_312'></a>312</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, nerve and bone tired, was wishing that she
+could sit down if only for a moment, when her eyes
+suddenly grew bright with thought, and the next second
+she had darted across the grass crying, “Oh,
+Grace, don’t you think it would be nice if we could
+take some cream and cake up to Nita and her mother?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nita?” repeated that young lady, who had never
+heard the name before. “Why, what do you mean?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie started. “Oh, why, to be sure, I forgot
+to tell you about her, but Mrs. Morrow thought best
+to—”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie broke off in despair as she realized that
+Grace knew nothing about the princess in the tower
+and the many other happenings at the gray house, only
+that its owner had consented to allow the girls to use
+her lawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, you know Nita is Mrs. Van Vorst’s daughter;
+she was the one who got her mother to let us have
+the lawn. She’s just lovely, I have been going to see
+her every day for—”
+</p>
+<p>
+At this moment Ellen, her face glowing with pleasure,
+touched Nathalie on the arm as she cried, “Oh,
+Miss Nathalie, Mrs. Van Vorst has sent me to ask you
+to come up and see Miss Nita, and to bring two of
+your friends with you!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie stared a moment as if not comprehending
+what Ellen had said, and then, “Oh, Ellen, do you
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_313'></a>313</span>
+mean that Mrs. Van Vorst wants me to come up to
+see Miss Nita and to—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, that is just what I mean, Miss,” rejoined
+Ellen, evidently enjoying Nathalie’s amazement.
+“Miss Nita wants to meet some of your Pioneer
+friends. Bless the child, Miss Nathalie, but you and
+your friends have brought real sunshine straight to the
+heart of my bairn. Bless you for it!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie smiled and nodded as she answered, “All
+right, Ellen, I’ll be right up!” Then, as the old nurse
+disappeared among the throngs on the lawn Nathalie
+turned to Grace, who was standing in open-mouthed
+astonishment at this sudden turn in the day’s
+doings.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Grace, will you go with me? Didn’t I tell
+you Nita was lovely?” Then seizing the girl by the
+arm she swept her across the grass to where Helen was
+standing talking to her brother.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Helen,” she panted, “I want you to come with me
+to see Nita. Mrs. Van Vorst has sent for me to come
+up and says for me to bring two of my friends. Will
+you come?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Come!” exclaimed Helen, “of course I will. I
+have been on the point of expiring with curiosity ever
+since you told me of your adventure at the gray house.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Adventure?” repeated Grace. “Oh, Nathalie, you
+have not told me about it!” in an aggrieved tone.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_314'></a>314</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I’m going to! Oh, but I must hurry and get
+the cream ready or it will be too late!” She started
+to run, but after a few steps turned back, and waving
+her hand at the girls, called, “Helen, you tell her while
+I am getting the tray.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But I’m coming to help you,” replied that young
+woman. “You come, too,” she added, catching Grace
+by the arm. But to her surprise Grace pulled away
+from her with the exclamation, “Oh, Helen! I
+wouldn’t go in that house for a mint of money! Why
+didn’t you know? No, I’m not to tell,” she ended
+mysteriously, “but you go,” she added, “that is if you
+are not afraid.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Afraid?” echoed her companion in amazement,
+“why should I be afraid, surely you don’t think any
+one could harm us as long as Nathalie has been there
+and come away safely?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I don’t know,” hesitated Grace, “I!—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, girls, I have the tray all ready, but you will
+have to help me carry it. Do come on, for I do not
+want to keep Mrs. Van Vorst waiting too long!” Nathalie
+was back again.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Grace says she is afraid to go,” explained Helen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Afraid!” repeated Nathalie bewildered. “What
+are you afraid of?” she demanded abruptly turning towards
+her friend.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why Nathalie, don’t you remember that day
+we—”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_315'></a>315</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie continued to gaze at her blankly, and then
+her face broke into a smile as she remembered the day
+she and Grace had run away from the gray house
+afraid of the crazy man.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Grace,” she cried with merry laughter, “that
+was the best joke on you and me, for, O dear, why,
+Grace, it wasn’t any crazy man at all, it was only a
+cockatoo!”
+</p>
+<p>
+The long kept secret that had troubled Nathalie so
+much at first was out at last, and she and Helen, who
+had been told about that when her friend’s silence was
+first broken as far as she was concerned, broke into
+prolonged laughter at the richness of the joke.
+</p>
+<p>
+“A cockatoo?” exclaimed Grace incredulously, and
+then annoyed at the girls’ merriment she added crossly,
+“Oh, I do wish you would explain what is so funny,
+I think it real mean of you both to laugh that way!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, it is mean,” added Nathalie, stifling her laughter
+as she saw the irate expression on her friend’s face.
+“But, Grace, it was funny. I would have told you all
+about it before—that is how I found out—only I
+had sworn not to tell. But if you will promise not to
+reveal what I am going to tell you—honor bright—”
+this in answer to the girl’s nod of assent, “I will tell
+you the mystery of the gray house!”
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not long now before Grace heard the long
+story of how Nathalie had come to go to the house,
+how she had found out about the cockatoo, the star
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_316'></a>316</span>
+part she had played with the princess, and the many
+other happenings that had taken place within the last
+few weeks.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But is the poor thing such a terrible monster?” demanded
+Grace in ready sympathy.
+</p>
+<p>
+“A monster?” ejaculated Nathalie in amazement.
+“Who said she was a monster?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, don’t you remember? Edith—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, see here,” exclaimed Nathalie stamping her
+feet angrily, “don’t tell me another word of what the
+Sport says. I am just beginning to hate that girl, she
+is always saying and doing things she has no—”
+She stopped suddenly as it came to her in a conscience-stricken
+flash that Pioneers were never to say evil of
+any one.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen, seeing the strange expression in her eyes and
+noticing how her color was coming and going in
+flashes, cried, “Oh, Nathalie, what is it?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is nothing,” replied the girl quickly in a choked
+voice, “I just stopped—because—well, I remembered
+that one of the Pioneer laws is not to speak evil
+of any one. I’m going to keep mum after this, but
+that girl,” her eyes shadowed again, “does provoke
+me so!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nathalie, you are a dear girl,” exclaimed
+Helen, putting her arm around her friend and giving
+her a hug. “I wish we were all as careful about keeping
+the Pioneer laws as you, but gracious, child, don’t
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_317'></a>317</span>
+repent with such dire woe, for none of us are saints,
+and the Sport is trying, the Lord knows. But explain
+to Grace about your friend.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No,” said Nathalie determinedly. “I am not going
+to say another thing, only that Nita is not a monster,
+only a humpback, and—but there, if you want
+to know about her, come and see her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” spoke up Helen, “if we are going to see
+the Princess in the tower—how fairylike that sounds—we
+had better go. And then, as seeing is believing,
+we’ll go and tell the Sport all about it, and stop that
+funny little tongue of hers that creates so much trouble
+at times.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that will be just the thing; Helen, you are a
+dear!” cried Nathalie. Then the three girls hurried to
+the ice-cream table for the tray. Hastily taking it they
+pushed their way through the crowd, coming and going
+about the tables, to the porch, where Ellen relieved
+them of their burden and then conducted them to the
+sun parlor, where Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita sat waiting
+to receive them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst,” cried Nathalie as she
+greeted that lady and her daughter, “it was lovely of
+you to allow me to bring my two friends to meet Nita.
+This is Miss Helen Dame,” she continued drawing
+Helen to her, “and this is another Pioneer friend, Miss
+Grace Tyson.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am very glad to meet you, Mrs. Van Vorst,”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_318'></a>318</span>
+broke in Helen, “for I feel that we are very much indebted
+to you for allowing us to use your lawn.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” chimed Grace, as she shook the lady’s hand,
+“we all feel that you have given us a lovely afternoon.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I think the indebtedness is on my side,” smiled the
+lady, looking down with pleased eyes at the two girls,
+as they stood glancing shyly at her, their white dresses
+and red caps making them appear unusually pretty.
+“But let me make you acquainted with my daughter,”
+she added, leading them to where Nita sat, her blue
+eyes almost black with the excitement of meeting these
+two new Pioneers, while her cheeks, usually so pale,
+were flushed with a delicate pinkness.
+</p>
+<p>
+After the general hand-shaking was over and the
+little party had gathered closer to the window to admire
+the gay-colored flags that fluttered, one from each
+table, showing with unusual vividness between the
+green foliage and light dresses of strollers across the
+lawn, Nathalie asked Nita how she had liked the drill.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nathalie,” rejoined the princess enthusiastically,
+“it was just the prettiest sight, and I told Ellen
+and Mamma every flag story, didn’t I?” Then suddenly
+remembering the two strangers, she relapsed into
+a shy silence and crouched back in the friendly shelter
+of her chair as if with the sudden thought of her deformity
+and the fear that the girls would see it.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Grace and Helen were not thinking of the “awful
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_319'></a>319</span>
+hump” as Nathalie had defined it, but of the pale
+sweet face with the lovely violet eyes that were shining
+like bright stars.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I am awfully glad you liked it,” said Helen, suddenly
+recalled to her duties as the leader of one of the
+groups. “We tried to make it look as festive as we
+could with Uncle Sam’s old liberty banners, but if it
+had not been for the lawn we should not have been able
+to have the drill.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You are all very kind to thank me so prettily,” said
+Mrs. Van Vorst, “but, as I said, I think you have given
+me and my little daughter more pleasure than we have
+given you. The poor child sees so little of life, as we
+are so secluded here behind these high walls.”
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few moments, as Nita’s shyness began to wear
+off, the little group was chatting in the most friendly
+way, talking over the incidents of the drill, the Pioneers
+telling about the nice little sum they had made
+for their camp expenses, while they all ate their cream
+and cake. Ellen, like a good soul that she was, had
+hastened out to the lawn and brought enough of those
+delicacies to provide for the whole group.
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen’s remark about the Camping Fund started a
+new subject of conversation and opened the way for
+Nita to ask many questions about this summer dream
+of the Pioneers. “Oh,” she declared at length, “I
+just wish you could come up to Eagle Lake and camp
+on its shores. We have a bungalow up there, you
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_320'></a>320</span>
+know, and it is just a glorious place. But it gets so
+lonely after a while, with nothing but the birds and
+squirrels to talk to. Oh,” she ended suddenly with a
+little sigh, “if I was only well and strong, then I would
+be a Pioneer, too.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but you—” interrupted Nathalie, and then she
+paused. She was going to say “why you can be,” but
+the quick remembrance of the hump and the delicate
+face of the girl caused her to halt. With quick readiness
+she changed to, “Oh, but you would enjoy seeing
+one of our cheer fires; they are an inspiration for all
+kinds of dreams with the burning logs and glowing
+embers.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You ought to see the fagot party we are going to
+have Monday night,” chimed in Grace. “It is to be
+a burning send-off to one of the girls who is going
+South to live for a while.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“A fagot party?” exclaimed Nita with interested
+eyes. “Oh, do tell all about it; it sounds, well it
+sounds fagoty. What do you do?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, we use small fagots tied into bundles,” explained
+Helen, “that is, after we have started a good
+blazing fire. Each girl has her fagot bundle and as
+soon as one burns up she throws hers on—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but you haven’t told the best part,” broke in
+Grace. “While each girl’s fagot bundle is burning she
+tells a story, which has to be ended by the time her
+fagots are burned.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_321'></a>321</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Does she have to stop on the very second?” questioned
+Nita.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, she begins as soon as she throws her bundle
+on the blaze, and keeps on talking until it is all burned
+up and falls to a shower of fiery sparks. But of course
+she has to keep a sharp look out on the burning fagots,
+so as to end her tale with a good climax as the fagots
+fall,” explained Helen.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where are you going to have it?” questioned Nita,
+a shade of disappointment on her face as she thought
+how she would like to see this fagot party.
+</p>
+<p>
+“We haven’t found a place yet,” answered Grace,
+who was one of the committee, “but we are working
+hard to have it down in Deacon Ditmas’s lot, near the
+cross-roads.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why can’t you have it on our lawn?” exclaimed
+Nita timidly, turning appealing eyes towards her
+mother. “Oh, Mother, do say they can have it here,
+and then I can see it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls were so amazed at this sudden and unexpected
+proposition that they all remained silent, Nathalie
+in a spasm of dread for fear that Mrs. Van Vorst
+would think that the Pioneers were a great nuisance
+being thrust upon her hospitality in this abrupt manner.
+But she was quickly undeceived as the lady rejoined
+hastily, “Why, I should be most pleased to let
+the Pioneers have the lawn for the fagot party. It
+would give Nita great pleasure, I am sure.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_322'></a>322</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“That will be just lovely!” cried her daughter,
+clapping her hands delightedly. “And you will take
+it, won’t you?” she coaxed pleadingly, suddenly stopping
+her demonstrations as if realizing that her plan
+might not be pleasing to the girls.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I think it would be dandy,” answered Grace.
+“What do you girls think?” turning towards them as
+she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, I think it would be fine,” added Helen,
+“and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, it will destroy the grass
+on the lawn,” spoke up Nathalie doubtfully, “for our
+cheer fires always leave a blackened burnt place on the
+ground.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“That will not make any difference,” was the prompt
+rejoinder from that lady. “Peter can rake it off and
+if necessary he can resod it. I shall only be delighted
+if you young girls can use it, and the favor will all be
+on my side—” her voice trembled slightly—“for it
+will give my little daughter so much pleasure.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nita! you are walking, you will fall and hurt
+yourself!” exclaimed Nathalie excitedly, as she entered
+that young lady’s room the Monday after the
+Flag Drill, and found her walking about with a coolness
+and ease that she had never before seen her
+display.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nita broke into merry laughter at the look of dismay
+on her friend’s face. “Of course I’m walking,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_323'></a>323</span>
+the doctor says I can, so there!” There was a triumphant
+toss of her head at Nathalie.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But you have never walked, that is not much since
+I have known you!” cried the puzzled girl.
+</p>
+<p>
+“And you thought I never could,” replied the little
+lady independently. “Well, you are wrong. I used
+to walk when I felt able, sometimes quite a little.
+Then a crank of a doctor frightened Mamma to death
+by telling her I should always lie on my back or side,
+and for years I have been nailed like a mast to a ship
+on that couch. But Dr. Morrow says if I have the
+strength I should walk, and that my strength will come
+gradually. Oh, who knows what I can do? Walk off
+this old hump, I hope!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you dear thing!” cried Nathalie, rushing to
+her friend and giving her a squeeze. “Isn’t that just
+the loveliest thing? What nice times we can have after
+a while if you can walk, and Dr. Morrow, I always
+knew he was a dear!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There, don’t squeeze me to bits, but tell me all the
+things that have happened since the Flag Drill, and oh,
+Nathalie, your friends are dears. The one you call
+Grace is sweet, and the other one, why, she isn’t so
+pretty, but she looks a good sort.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“She is something more than a ‘good sort,’” answered
+Nathalie swiftly, “she is a gem, she is so
+clever and sensible, and, oh, what a friend she has
+proved to me! She has a wonderful way of helping
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_324'></a>324</span>
+you over the hard places. But there, I will tell you
+what Grace said about you, she said you were a sweet
+little cherub—and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Just arrived from angel land I suppose, with wings
+all sprouting,” ventured Nita sarcastically. “Well,
+she ought to see me when I’m mad. Cherub indeed!
+What did the other one say?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie hesitated; her face flushed, “Oh—why,
+she thought you were a dear, but said you were a bit
+spoiled.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nita looked surprised for a minute; then her eyes
+flashed as she cried with a defiant lift of her head.
+“Well, I guess if Miss Sensible had a hump to carry
+about that could never be taken off, no matter how it
+hurt, and had to be shut up behind walls with nothing
+to see or any one to talk to, she’d be spoiled, too!”
+There was a quiver of the chin as the red lips closed
+tightly in the effort not to cry.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you poor little thing, I should not have told
+you that, for really, Helen thought you were lovely!”
+Nathalie regretted with all her heart the impulse that
+had prompted her to tell the truth to Nita. It seemed
+unkind but it was really spoken in the hope of doing
+her little friend good.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nita pushed her away, “Oh, don’t pet me!” as
+Nathalie attempted to caress her, “I was only teasing.
+Yes, I know I’m spoiled, but there, do tell me
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_325'></a>325</span>
+the news, for your face shows that you are just dying
+to tell me something worth the hearing.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, yes, I have <em>some</em> news—that’s slang, but
+O dear, it does mean so much sometimes,” laughed
+Nathalie as she and Nita seated themselves on the
+couch. “Saturday we had a Pioneer Rally. Judge
+Benson, a friend of Dr. Morrow’s from the city, gave
+us a talk on self-government. He explained the difference
+between natural, spiritual, and civic law. He
+also explained the meaning of an ordinance, told us
+how justice was administered in the different courts,
+and how self-government, or the reform system is having
+its try-out in some of the prisons to-day. He says
+it bids fair to make criminals—men hardened in sin
+and crime—respectable members of a community.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Self-government?” queried mystified Nita, “why,
+the Pioneers are not citizens or criminals; you don’t
+have to be governed!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, we do,” asserted Nathalie stoutly, “and so
+does everybody. Civic, natural, and spiritual laws are
+all right, but back of those laws is the law of self-government,
+that is the something within each one of us
+that makes us what we want to be, that makes us control
+ourselves even when we are babies, when we get
+slapped for being naughty. If there was no self-government
+in the world—for it is the government of
+self when we make ourselves obey the laws of God and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_326'></a>326</span>
+man, when we cease evil and do the right—why, if
+there was no self-government we would all be savages
+without law and order.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Judge Benson told us how self-government came
+to be used in the schools and prisons. Of course, as
+I said, we all have to govern ourselves in a measure,
+but it is the applying of this self-government in a new
+way that has done so much good.
+</p>
+<p>
+“A very good man, he said, took some waifs from
+the poor settlements in New York to the country and
+tried to better them physically and morally by teaching
+them to be good. But of course, they would do wicked
+things and have to be punished, and he became very
+much discouraged because the punishments didn’t seem
+to do them any permanent good. So he thought for a
+long time and then he formed a Junior Republic, made
+all the boys and girls citizens, and then told them to
+appoint their own officials, that is, their own lawyers,
+judges, officers, and so on. Then when any of them
+did wrong they were haled into court and tried by
+their own comrades. Of course, they all became so
+interested in this new system of punishing—for you
+see, they all had a part in it—that they became wonderfully
+good. You see, the boys and girls had to
+learn to control themselves, for of course, they not only
+wanted to stand high in the court and be lawyers and
+judges themselves, but they did not like to be corrected
+and called down—that’s what the judge said—by
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_327'></a>327</span>
+their own comrades. This venture at making boys and
+girls learn to control themselves not only taught them
+self-denial, self-repression, self-development, and the
+difference between right and wrong, and their duty to
+themselves as well as to their companions, but it was
+the means of introducing the same system into the public
+schools, and in time into the prisons.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, but I don’t understand how it interests you
+girls.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Mrs. Morrow read so much about self-government
+and the good it did that she introduced it into
+the Pioneer organization, and it has worked wonderfully
+well there, Mrs. Morrow claims. Instead of a
+court we have a senate, which is composed of two girls
+from each bird group, elected by the girls. The Pioneers
+also elected a president, that’s Helen, and a vice-president,
+she’s an Oriole girl and quite clever, too.
+Jessie Ford is the secretary, and Mrs. Morrow is the
+Advisory Judge and has the power to veto any ruling
+of the president, but she never has as yet.
+</p>
+<p>
+“So you see what it does for the Pioneers, for if
+any member of the organization breaks a law or does
+anything wrong she is brought before the Senate.
+Every Pioneer served with an indictment to appear
+before the Senate has, of course, the right to choose
+one of the girls as a counsel, and when there are two
+girls implicated they both choose counsel. Then after
+the witnesses are all heard the lawyers sum up, and the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_328'></a>328</span>
+case goes to the Senate, who act as a jury and vote by
+ballot. The case can be appealed to the Advisory
+Judge; or an offender, by asking or showing contrition,
+can have her sentence lightened. You don’t know
+what fun it is, and then it helps to make us govern
+ourselves and teaches us law, too, in a small way, of
+course.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I wish they’d try to punish that hateful
+Sport for using your idea, and to think she got all the
+credit for it! Why—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, she didn’t,” laughed Nathalie with an odd
+little gleam in her eye, “for she was tried before the
+Senate Saturday.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nathalie, you don’t mean it! Oh, I’m so
+glad!” cried Nita clapping her hands delightedly. “I
+do hope she got her deserts, the deceitful thing!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I am afraid she got all that was coming to
+her, as Dick said.” Nathalie’s bright face sobered.
+“Nita, I was awfully sorry for her. It was so humiliating
+to have to face that Senate, oh, the girls just hate
+to be brought before it. I had to tell as a witness,
+about losing the Stunt, the librarian told of helping me
+get data and then helping me to look for it, and then
+how she saw Edith pick it up as it fell from under a
+book on the table.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Do tell me what they did to her!” Nita bent forward
+in curious excitement as she spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Poor thing! she had all her stars and badges of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_329'></a>329</span>
+merit taken from her. Just think, she will have to begin
+all over again to win them! At first it was voted
+that she would have to go back and be a third-class
+Pioneer again, but I was so sorry that I pleaded for
+clemency, and so the sentence was lightened.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You see, there is an awful lot of good in Edith,
+and I am never again going to say anything against
+her, she has been punished enough. And oh, Nita,
+Dorothy at the Rally received her third-class badge,
+and I received my badge for a second-class Pioneer.
+I’m going to work awfully hard while at camp, so as
+to qualify as a first-class Pioneer. But there, it is
+getting late and we shall have to stop talking and take
+up our reading on the ‘Pioneer Women of America.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nita nodded, and in a few moments the two girls
+were busily engaged; Nita listening with the keenest
+attention while Nathalie read about the Dutch women
+who came from Holland and settled New York, little
+dreaming as she read that this lesson was to culminate
+in an event of the utmost importance to the Girl
+Pioneers of Westport.
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_330'></a>330</span><a name='chXIX' id='chXIX'></a>CHAPTER XIX—THE FAGOT PARTY</h2>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mother, isn’t it just beautiful?” exclaimed
+the princess the night of the fagot
+party, as she watched the flames leap and
+dance down on the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes; it is very suggestive, too,” answered Mrs.
+Van Vorst, “for it makes one think of the witches in
+Macbeth, as they stood around the cauldron watching
+their queer concoction ‘boil and bubble.’”
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear!” was Nita’s wail again, “it is lovely to
+see the fire and the girls, but I do want to hear the
+stories they tell.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Perhaps Nathalie will come up later,” suggested
+her mother, “and tell you some of the thrillers. Is
+that what she calls them?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There, they have stopped the witches’ dance and
+are forming a circle. Oh, one of the girls has thrown
+on a bundle of fagots! Yes, it’s that friend of Nathalie’s,
+Miss Sensible. Oh, Mother,” cried the little
+shut-in with a woeful countenance, “I am sure I could
+walk down there.” She stood up as she spoke and
+began to walk restlessly up and down the room.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_331'></a>331</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nita, be careful!” pleaded her mother.
+“You do not want to overdo your walking, and you
+have been on your feet a good deal to-day.” Notwithstanding
+Mrs. Van Vorst’s protest there was a note
+of hope in her voice that betrayed that she had at last
+begun to see things as Nathalie had predicted, that she
+had made a mistake in housing her daughter behind
+high walls, and that the mingling with girls of her own
+age might bring new life to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah, there’s Grace,” went on the voice at the window.
+“She’s the other girl who came with Nathalie.
+Oh, she’s throwing on her fagots!” The girl turned
+from the window as she perceived that Ellen had entered
+the room and was telling her mother that some
+one desired to see her in the library.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Mrs. Van Vorst arose to leave the room Nita
+demurred, “Oh, Mother, I don’t want to be left here
+alone.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I will return as soon as possible, Nita, dear,” was
+the reply; “Ellen will stay with you. You can tell her
+about the fagot party,” she added hastily as she saw
+the cloud on the girl’s face. With a backward glance,
+as she hurried from the room, she saw that her suggestion
+had been followed and that Ellen had drawn her
+chair close to Nita’s, and was eagerly listening as her
+daughter related the incidents leading up to the demonstration
+down on the lawn.
+</p>
+<p>
+Indeed it was not long before the faithful nurse,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_332'></a>332</span>
+always interested in anything to brighten the life of her
+young charge, was watching the Pioneers and their
+doings as keenly as Nita, while wishing with her that
+they could hear the stories the girls were telling.
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly Nita, who had been unusually silent for
+some time, drew Ellen’s head down to hers, and began
+to whisper softly in her ear.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Ellen, will you?” she coaxed pleadingly, as
+she finished her whispering of something that had
+brought a protest from the good woman. Ellen looked
+dubious for a minute or so, and then the persuasive
+pleader had her way, for Ellen had given her assent
+and Nita was clapping her hands happily, as she thought
+of the fun in store for her later in the evening.
+</p>
+<p>
+Meanwhile, the girls on the lawn with tense expectancy
+kept their eyes on Nathalie, who arose, walked
+towards the flaming pyre, and with a quick toss landed
+another bundle of fagots on the leaping flames.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nathalie, you will have to hurry,” called
+Grace excitedly, as her friend scurried back to her seat.
+“One of your fagots is already ablaze.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie needed no warning for she had already
+plunged into her tale, and in short, concise sentences—she
+had practiced with Helen—was describing in
+graphic tone a colonial wedding, the going away of the
+bridal pair, the building of a log hut in the wilderness,
+the departure of the young husband, and the loneliness
+of the young bride. She paused a moment and drew
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_333'></a>333</span>
+a long breath as if to gather her forces for the coming
+ordeal.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then with her eyes fastened in a rigid stare on the
+twirling glare from the flames—so as to bring her
+story to a proper climax when the fiery fagots fell
+apart—she went on and told of the face of a redskin
+suddenly being thrust into a window of the little cabin,
+of a shriek of terror, of cruel, fiendish laughter, of the
+fair bride being carried on the back of a tall savage,
+and of the final arrival at an Indian encampment, where
+a paint-bedaubed warrior with flaunting head-gear
+tried to induce the wailing bride to become his squaw.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s eyes, big in the flaming redness of the
+firelight, were riveted on the seething flames as if she
+saw in the twist and curl of their darting tongues the
+enactment of the story she was telling. The girls all
+bent forward eagerly, for the fagots were getting ready
+to burst apart as she told of the imprisonment of the
+bride, the making of a big bonfire, the tying of the
+bride to the stake, the lighting of the underbrush at
+her feet, and the whirling flames as they leaped up and
+greedily licked the terror-stricken face.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie, like a photo-play screen, had transported
+her listeners to a sun-baked plain, where a white
+man was galloping in mad speed. A fagot had leaped
+from its fellows. “Oh, Nathalie, hurry!” whispered
+Grace, wringing her hands nervously. Ah, but
+Nathalie was on time, and as the fagots gave a loud
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_334'></a>334</span>
+snap and fell into a shower of twinkling lights the
+horseman came galloping into the street of the Indian
+encampment with a troop of soldiers close at his heels,
+and leaped into the fiery embers and cut—There was
+a loud clapping followed by cries of applause, for there
+was no need to tell what happened after that leap into
+the fire, every one knew.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, Lillie, it is your turn!” shouted several
+voices as Nathalie, exhausted by her strenuous race
+between words and flames, sank back somewhat exhausted
+against her friend’s shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie Bell, in response to her name, seized a bundle
+of fagots, and with a few flourishes, which she declared
+to be an incantation for success, threw it on the blazing
+pile. In a moment she was back in her seat and had
+started her tale of romance.
+</p>
+<p>
+“When Washington Irving’s headless horseman was
+the terror of the Hudson, a party of young girls, who
+were wandering in the fields one moonlight night, was
+chased by a huge and airy phantom to the banks of
+the river. In order to escape their foe two of the
+girls darted into an empty boat fastened near the bank
+and rowed out into the stream. The phantom, a
+strange and weird object, pursued, swimming rapidly
+in the wake of the canoe.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Suddenly, to the horror of the girls crouched up
+against a rock on shore they saw, in a broad band of
+moonlight shining on the water, that the phantom was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_335'></a>335</span>
+the headless one. Even as they gazed it had reached
+the boat, and with one sweep of its mighty arm had
+grabbed one of the girls from her sister’s clutch, and
+was swimming swiftly back to land.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The girl in the boat rowed quickly back, only to
+see, with her companions on shore, the phantom disappear
+into the woods. With phenomenal courage she
+flew after the headless one, screaming with all her
+strength. But alas, her speed and screams were of no
+avail, for she ran after the phantom only to see it dash
+into an uninhabited mansion that stood in a park thick
+with the gloom of forest trees.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Horror-stricken, the girls hastened home and parties
+were sent in pursuit of the stolen girl, but no trace
+of her was found, although the empty mansion, dark
+with the forest gloom was searched from attic to cellar.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Time passed, and the maiden returned not to her
+home, nor was any trace of her ever discovered, although
+every effort possible had been made. At last
+her sister, loved by a young farmer, refused to marry
+him unless he would visit the haunted mansion at midnight,
+to see if possibly he could obtain any clew to her
+sister’s whereabouts, it being generally believed that
+she had been murdered in the house and that her ghost
+haunted the abode.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Determined to win the girl, the young farmer with
+his revolver and a few tapers secreted himself in the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_336'></a>336</span>
+cellar of the house one day, just before twilight. He
+was resolved to solve the mystery of the girl’s disappearance
+and the reason why the house at night was
+filled with a peculiar, bluish light, said to be the candle
+borne by the headless one in his midnight tour of the
+premises.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Just before midnight the farmer hastened to the
+upper floor and hid in a closet, where, with quaking
+limbs and wildly beating heart he awaited the magic
+hour. Unfortunately, weary with waiting, he fell
+asleep, but was soon awakened by a peculiar, creeping
+sensation along his spine. He crouched against the
+door holding it ajar with one hand and the pistol in
+the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+“All at once there was the swish of a garment
+against the door. He scratched a match, lit his taper,
+and glared forth into the darkness. Again he heard
+that swish. It was in the hall. Stealthily he tiptoed
+to the hall door, opened it with trembling hand, and
+stepped forth into dense blackness, when—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Lillie, hurry!” screamed the Sport. “Your
+logs will fall in a minute!”
+</p>
+<p>
+A strange smile flitted over Lillie’s face, but her
+voice went thrillingly on. “When something huge
+and hairy spread over him like a net, benumbing every
+nerve and muscle. He struggled, and finally succeeded
+in getting free of the unknown thing and sprang for the
+door leading to the open. He would get out of that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_337'></a>337</span>
+house. No, he would lose Kitty, he could not live
+without her! He turned—ah, what was that weird
+flash at the top of the staircase? He heard the swish
+again—this time very near—it was some one coming
+down the stairs! He crouched against the wall and
+peered up; the rattling of a chain sounded on his ears;
+again came that weird glare, and he saw—” the fagots
+fell with a loud sputter, throwing forth a shower of
+fiery sparks. Lillie remained silent a moment, each
+girl held her breath in paralyzed terror, and then, as
+the last fagot dropped a shapeless heap on the grass,
+Lillie cried with tragic emphasis, “Girls, I leave you
+to guess what he saw!”
+</p>
+<p>
+A second of space, Lillie’s eyes shown in a mocking
+smile as she glanced around the circle, and then, the
+smile froze on her lips, her eyes dilated wildly, and she
+jumped to her feet crying in frenzied horror, “What
+is that?” pointing as she spoke to a clump of trees on
+the lawn. Another second and she had turned, and
+with an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn
+towards the house!
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls, whose nerves had been wrought up to the
+highest pitch by Lillie’s weird tale, remained dumb,
+thinking as they saw her strange actions that it was a
+new thriller, and were uncertain whether to laugh or
+cry, as they stared at her flying figure.
+</p>
+<p>
+Jessie, who always disliked Lillie’s tragic tales, with
+a half laugh sprang to her feet crying, “Well, if she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_338'></a>338</span>
+isn’t the limit!” Her glance had followed Lillie’s to
+the clump of trees with a curious stare; the stare became
+fixed; she uttered a wild scream, and the next
+moment she, too, was rushing in mad terror across the
+lawn in the wake of the story-teller!
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girls saw her glance and heard her cry, terror
+struck each one like an electric shock, and the next
+second every girl present had broken into a wild cry,
+and without waiting to see what was the cause of the
+rush over the lawn, was speeding, helter-skelter towards
+the house!
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie had run with the others, and then, swayed
+by some unknown impulse, she had halted and glanced
+back in the direction she had seen Lillie and Jessie look.
+She gave a low cry, started to flee again, and then stood
+suddenly still, and with panting breath gazed again at
+the clump of trees. She caught her breath, for under
+the swaying boughs stood a weird, white object pointing
+a long white finger at her!
+</p>
+<p>
+What was it? Could it be a Boy Scout trying to
+frighten them? She bent forward with intent eyes,
+for as the white figure swayed slightly there was something
+curiously familiar in its movements. The next
+instant Nathalie had turned, and as if shot from a
+catapult was speeding towards the white figure that
+still stood, uncannily waving its arms to and fro in the
+moonlight.
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-338' id='illus-338'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i009' id='i009'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-338.jpg" alt="With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn." title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn.</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_339'></a>339</span></div>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nita!” burst from the girl, “how did you
+come here?“ Before the white figure could answer,
+Ellen was seen running swiftly towards them.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Miss Nita,” she wailed, “what a scare you
+have given me! Oh, you naughty girl, you promised
+that you would not leave the lower porch!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” flashed the girl, “I changed my mind!”
+Then seizing Nathalie, who was still staring at her
+with big, frightened eyes, she began to laugh hysterically.
+“Oh, wasn’t it funny, Nathalie? Did you see
+how she ran? What a joke, when she was trying to
+scare the girls—and was scared herself—O dear, it
+is so funny!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie, with a sober face was staring down at
+the grass. “Oh, Nita,” she exclaimed with a sudden
+fear, “the grass is wet, and, Ellen, she will take cold!
+Oh, how did she get here? Mrs. Van Vorst will be
+so displeased!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But at that instant Mrs. Van Vorst came running
+down the path followed by Mrs. Morrow. “Oh, Nita!
+Nita!” she wailed, “how could you be so foolish, you
+will surely take your death! Ellen, how did it
+happen?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Sure, there’s no harm done,” broke in Peter’s voice
+at this critical moment. “I have her chair and we’ll
+soon get her in, marm. Sure, I saw her stealing across
+the lawn all alone by herself, and I hurried after the
+chair, thinking she would be tired before she had gone
+far.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_340'></a>340</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Thank you, Peter,” cried Nita’s mother, “you are
+so good and considerate. O dear, I hope she won’t
+take cold! It was such an imprudent thing for her
+to do, but Ellen, how did it happen?” There was a
+note of condemnation in the lady’s voice.
+</p>
+<p>
+But before Ellen could answer, Nita, whom Peter
+had wrapped and placed in her chair, cried, “Now,
+Mamma, don’t blame Ellen. It was all my fault. I
+sent her to get my shawl and then I stole down here.
+I just wanted to hear some of the stories. But when
+I got here that girl—the Pioneers called her Lillie—was
+telling a story. She was trying to scare the girls,
+and then—oh, Mother, it was so funny to see her
+run—why, I thought I would scare her, and when
+she looked up, just as she had worked the girls all to a
+fever, I waved my arm and pointed my finger at her.
+Oh, Mother, if you could have heard her shriek!”
+Nita was again in hysterical laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time she had her audience laughing with her,
+especially Peter and Ellen, who thought their young
+mistress had been most brilliant in outwitting them,
+and in frightening the young lady who had been trying
+so hard to frighten her companions.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear,” exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, who proved to
+be the lady who was visiting with Mrs. Van Vorst
+when Nita stole down to the lower porch, “I am
+ashamed of my Pioneers; they are supposed to be very
+brave, but to-night’s performance does not appear as
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_341'></a>341</span>
+if they were. Nathalie, how was it you did not run
+with the others?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I did,” confessed Nathalie frankly, “but something
+brought me to a halt and I turned and looked
+back. O dear, but Nita did look terrible waving her
+white arms to and fro! And then it came to me that
+there was something familiar about the figure, I stared
+a moment, and then I knew! But, Mrs. Morrow,
+hadn’t I better look for the girls? Please do not blame
+them, I am sure you would have run, too, if you could
+have seen Nita in that sheet, pointing her finger at
+you.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Then Nathalie was off, running swiftly over the
+lawn, peering first on one side and then the other as
+she gave a Bob White whistle, then a Tru-al-lee, ending
+with the shout, “Girls! Girls! where are you?” then
+the Bob White whistle again.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her cry was heard, and one by one the Pioneers
+sheepishly crawled from their places of safety and
+joined Nathalie on the lawn. They listened with
+shamed faces as she told them who and what it was
+that had caused their sudden departure. They were
+reluctant to show themselves at first, especially when
+they learned that Mrs. Morrow was there and had
+heard all about their foolish flight. But with a bit of
+coaxing on Nathalie’s part they returned, and in a few
+minutes were again in their cheer-fire circle, with two
+additional guests, Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, besides
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_342'></a>342</span>
+Mrs. Morrow, who had thought when the girls first
+began to tell their stories to slip in and thank Mrs.
+Van Vorst for her kindness, with the result that she
+had been a witness to their lack of bravery, as she
+termed it.
+</p>
+<p>
+The rest of the evening passed quickly after one or
+two had told their thrillers, to the great satisfaction
+of Nita, who enjoyed them immensely. After the
+stories were told, there was a marshmallow roast,
+which was entered into with zest, and then came the
+burning send-off to Louise Gaynor, who, when her
+name was called, came shyly forward to receive an
+enormous pie, from which hung streamers of gay colored
+ribbons, each streamer being tied to a keepsake
+from one of the Pioneers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow now expressed the regret of the Pioneers
+at losing so good a comrade and friend, with
+the added wish that she would always remember them
+with love, and the assurance that they would carry her
+on their hearts with devout wishes for her health and
+happiness. The streamers were pulled one by one and
+the loving gifts were brought forth as a tribute to the
+sweetest songster of the band.
+</p>
+<p>
+The last streamer brought to light a Round Robin
+letter, which Louise faithfully promised not to open
+until the dates set, as for each day in the year of absence
+she would find a few words of cheer and love
+from her comrades, the Girl Pioneers of America.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_343'></a>343</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+After a few songs from the girls, Louise sang
+one or two of her old English songs, Lillie accompanying
+her on the mandolin, and then Mrs. Morrow, in a
+neat little speech, commended Nathalie for her courage
+in holding her ground when the others had taken to
+flight. As she ended there was a moment’s silence
+and then each and every girl was shouting as loud as
+she could:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;brave&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Three&nbsp;&nbsp;cheers&nbsp;&nbsp;for&nbsp;&nbsp;Nathalie&nbsp;&nbsp;dear!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+This cheer was most embarrassing to Nathalie, who
+wiggled uneasily with flushed cheeks as she tried to
+make the girls hear that she was not brave at all. But
+her protests were drowned by the merry voices, as after
+three cheers they broke into their Pioneer song of
+good-by to Louise. This was followed by the song
+that every Pioneer loves to sing and that was:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;will&nbsp;&nbsp;be&nbsp;&nbsp;brave,&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;kind&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;true;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers,&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;Hear!&nbsp;&nbsp;Hear!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Come,&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neer!!!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+One bright morning two weeks after the fagot party,
+Helen with wondering surprise mingled with pleasure
+read the following:
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_344'></a>344</span>
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+“Madame Van Vorst presents her compliments to
+Mistress Helen Dame, and begs the pleasure of her
+company on the afternoon of the sixth of July, at a
+<em>Kraeg</em>, to meet her daughter, Mistress Anita Van
+Vorst, in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth
+anniversary of the building of the Van Vorst homestead.
+Mistress Helen is requested to appear in the
+costume of a ‘goede vrouw’ of Mana-ha-ta.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“A <em>Kraeg</em>—what does that mean?” queried the
+girl, as with puzzled brows she eyed the tiny picture
+of the “Homestead” surmounting the invitation, with
+the dates, 1664-1914. “Ah, Nathalie will know!”
+The next moment the girl was hurrying across the lawn
+to her neighbor’s veranda, where she had spied her
+cosily ensconced in the hammock screened from observant
+eyes by a bower of green leaves.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie looked up as she heard her step and trilled
+a soft tru-al-lee in recognition, as Helen gave the
+brownish envelope in her hand a flourish.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I knew you would be wanting to know what that
+meant.” Nathalie smiled happily at her friend as she
+pointed to the envelope.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I understand the invitation all right,” was the
+quick retort, “and congratulate you on your success in
+winning the madame to your views that it was a shame
+to allow little Anita to bloom behind those high walls.
+But—can you tell me what kind of a thing a <em>Kraeg</em>
+is?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“It means a Dutch house-warming! But there, I
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_345'></a>345</span>
+am not going to tell you any more, wait until the
+sixth.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“‘In the costume of a goede vrouw of Mana-ha-ta,’”
+read Helen slowly. “May I deign to ask your
+Dutch Majesty to explain what this means?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You may,” nodded the occupant of the hammock,
+“for her Dutch Majesty has spent many weary hours
+with Miss Anita studying just that part of the program.
+You see, we want to have the real Dutch atmosphere
+of the early period, so we decided to have
+each girl impersonate some woman pioneer, and then
+tell who she was and what she did.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I don’t imagine that the girls will care to
+get themselves up like those old Dutch vrouws, as they
+were so terribly stolid and uninteresting.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Helen,” exclaimed Nathalie sitting suddenly
+up in the hammock, “those Dutch vrouws were anything
+but uninteresting. Nita and I have read all
+about them in a book Mrs. Van Vorst bought for us in
+New York, it has just been published and is very interesting.
+As a matter of fact, the women who settled
+New York were the most efficient, the most industrious,
+and the most capable of any of the early pioneer
+women of that period.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I did not know that,” said Helen, raising her eyebrows;
+“I thought they were just stolid Dutch peasant
+women with little ability to do anything but knit, tend
+the cows, and so on.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_346'></a>346</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“A great many people seem to have that idea,” returned
+her friend, “but the Dutch housewives were not
+mere stoical drudges. Holland at that time, you know,
+was the only country that gave as good an education
+to her girls as to her boys. They were not only educated
+to fill responsible positions, but to have a love
+for literature as well as for painting, music, and the
+arts. So these Dutch peasants, as you call them, were
+better educated, better protected by the laws of the
+colony, and held more important positions than any of
+their Southern or Northern sisters.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is claimed,” she went on, warming to her subject,
+“that the Dutch housewife was the manufacturer
+of the day, producing under her own roof nearly all
+the necessities for the family use. Besides being proficient
+in the art of cooking, she made perfumes from
+the flowers in her garden, planted, gathered, dried,
+and brewed the hops. She culled simples and herbs
+for medicine, thus becoming the physician of the household.
+She taught her maids to card and weave wool
+for clothes; she spun the fine thread of the flax, grown
+in her yard, for the linen, knit the socks, oh, I could
+not begin to tell you her many industries!
+</p>
+<p>
+“But besides all that,” continued the girl, “the goede
+vrouws had such good sense and judgment, and such a
+fine eye for commercial values that they not only
+owned real estate, but ofttimes carried on their own
+business. The burgomasters of the town paid great
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_347'></a>347</span>
+deference to the Dutch women’s shrewdness, judgment,
+and independence, so that they exerted no little influence
+in the state affairs of New Amsterdam.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I never!” laughed Helen teasingly. “If
+you haven’t become a regular schoolma’am since you
+have been teaching the princess. Pray, how much am
+I to pay you per word?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie laughed merrily. “Yes, isn’t it funny?
+I started reading about the Pioneer women to get Nita
+interested in something that would be instructive as
+well as entertaining. And lo, she has not only become
+absorbed in anything that pertains to the pioneers, but
+in many other historical subjects as well. As for me,
+why, I have learned a great deal, too, and that is how,
+when Mrs. Van Vorst said she would like to entertain
+the Pioneers in return for amusing Nita by the drill
+and the fagot party, we decided to have a <em>Kraeg</em>.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“How will the girls know what characters they are
+to take, what they did, and so on?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mrs. Morrow and I arranged all that. Notices
+were sent—you’ll get yours—telling the girls
+that all information would be furnished by Annetje
+Jans—that’s I—gratis. I will arrange with each girl
+as to her character and so on. Oh, there’s Grace!
+I’ll warrant you she has her notice and is in a hurry
+for news. But, Helen, here is the book that tells all
+about these Dutch women. I wish you would take it
+and look it over, for I know I shall need lots of help.”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_348'></a>348</span><a name='chXX' id='chXX'></a>CHAPTER XX—THE DUTCH KRAEG</h2>
+<p>
+The sixth of July had arrived, and little Miss
+New York was fidgeting nervously in her
+chair—draped with the Star Spangled Banner
+and the flaunting colors of the Dutch Republic—placed
+in line with the hostess and the receiving party
+of the day. She was a rather startling Miss New
+York, arrayed as a Goddess of Liberty—she had
+claimed she was too modern to be a vrouw—with her
+chair as well as her small person hung with placards of
+well-known places, streets, and buildings of the metropolis.
+</p>
+<p>
+By her side stood Madame New Amsterdam—Mrs.
+Van Vorst—whose multitudinous skirts stood out
+from her figure with such amplitude that she resembled
+the quaint little green pincushion that dangled from
+her waist. Her neat white cap was tied under her
+chin with formal stiffness, while a large silk apron
+completed a make-up that transformed the slender, dignified
+Mrs. Van Vorst into a typical Dutch matron.
+She too, like her daughter, was hung with tiny white
+signs from bodice to skirt, which excited curiosity if
+not admiration.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_349'></a>349</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Mother, I do wish they would hurry and
+come!” cried Miss New York impatiently, craning her
+neck to see if some one had not yet appeared on the
+broad stairway leading to the main sitting-room.
+“Oh, somebody’s coming!” and the little lady, with
+the weight of a city on her shoulders, drew back as she
+clapped her hands with delight.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Ah, here comes the Governor’s lady,” exclaimed
+Madame New Amsterdam as Madame Stuyvesant—Mrs.
+Morrow—announced her coming by stopping on
+the threshold of the low-ceiled room, and bowed with
+such stately formality that Miss New York’s eyes suddenly
+stilled, as she stiffened with similar dignity to
+receive the first guest.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Governor’s lady was followed by Annetje Jans,
+her comely little person looking like a blooming Dutch
+posy, arrayed in a bright green petticoat and a blue
+waistcoat with yellow sleeves. The brown eyes, ready
+smile, and brilliant cheeks of Miss Nathalie made her
+a fitting representative of the little lady who formed
+so large a part of the history of New Amsterdam, coming
+over in 1630 in the ship <em>Endracht</em> with her husband
+and three children from Holland. After the
+death of her husband, who left her a <em>bouwerie</em> (farm)
+of sixty acres, a good part of New York, she married
+Dominie Bogardus, thus becoming with her wealth and
+influence a dominant character in the colony.
+</p>
+<p>
+Annetje came a few steps forward, and then bobbed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_350'></a>350</span>
+such a low curtsy that the wings of her lace cap
+flapped out like the sails of a windmill in a greeting to
+her hostesses. But in a second her old-time pose was
+forgotten, as her eyes fell on the much “be-signed”
+person of the lady of the house, and she flew to her
+aid, declaring that she was losing some of her signs.
+</p>
+<p>
+“This will never do,” she commented as she hurriedly
+pinned the sign “Bouwerie” in its place. “Oh,
+and here’s another old place that’s gone astray!” poking
+“Der Halle” on a straight line with its neighbor,
+“De claver Waytie.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Will you please inform me why New Amsterdam
+is thus placarded?” It was the voice of the Governor’s
+lady, who was curiously watching this adjustment
+of signs.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, these signs are the Dutch names of the different
+localities and streets as named in the days of
+New Amsterdam,” explained Annetje quickly. “See.
+Broad street means Broad way; <em>Kloch-Hoeck</em> was the
+site of the first village, as it was all covered with bits
+of clam and oyster shells, the word means Shell Point.
+<em>De claver Waytie</em> was a hill leading to a spring covered
+with grass, where the young maidens used to
+bleach their linen. The path they wore up the hill
+came to be known as <em>Maadje-Paatje</em>, Maiden Lane.
+<em>Der Halle</em> was the name of a tavern near a big tree on
+the corner of Broad and Wall Street. It took the arms
+of six men to go round <em>der groot</em> tree.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_351'></a>351</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Here is <em>Cowfoot Hill</em>, the old cow-path up the hill,
+<em>Canoe Place</em>, where the Indians used to tie their
+canoes, and <em>Catiemuts</em> is the hill where the Indians had
+built their castle. <em>Collect</em> means a dear little lake
+near-by, yes, and here’s the Boston Highway, here’s
+the <em>Stadt-Huys</em>, the town hall. <em>Graft</em> was a ditch
+crossed by a bridge; <em>De Smits Vlye</em> was an old
+blacksmith shop near the ferry to Long Island. <em>Vlacke</em>
+was the grazing ground for the cows, now the City
+Hall Park. <em>De Schaape Waytie</em> was the sheep
+pasture—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Annetje Jans,” exclaimed Madame Van Stuyvesant
+at this point, with a solemn face, “do you expect me
+to remember all those Dutch names? Verily, child,
+you have improved your time and twisted your tongue.”
+But Annetje was off, for at that moment she spied another
+arrival, one of the Orioles, and as the sprightly
+dominie’s widow was to act as mistress of ceremonies,
+she was soon by her side, as she stood hesitatingly in
+the doorway.
+</p>
+<p>
+“How do you do, <em>Mutter</em>. Oh, but you do look
+fine!” cried Nathalie as her keen eyes noted the broad
+appearing figure with hair pushed straight back under
+a close fitting cap, short petticoat and gown displaying
+her wooden sabots. The <em>mutter</em> was knitting industriously,
+like a typical Dutch vrouw, as she talked to
+Annetje and told of the woes that attended the getting
+up of her make-up.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_352'></a>352</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Annetje now led the new arrival to the line waiting
+to welcome her. “Allow me to present to you Catalina
+de Trice, the <em>mutter</em> of New York, having been the
+first woman to land on that famous little isle.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” added the <em>mutter</em> with a stiff little bow to
+the grand Dutch dames receiving her with stately courtesy,
+“I came over in the first ship, the <em>Unity</em>, sent by
+the West India Company to the settlement, and I have
+the added distinction,” another quaint bob, “of being
+the mother of the first white child born in New Amsterdam,
+Sara Rapelje.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Catalina had no time to continue her family history
+for Annetje had hurried her to Miss New York, a little
+lady in whom all the Pioneers were greatly interested.
+She was next shown a table in the rear of Nita, holding
+a ship encrusted with silver frosting to represent
+snow, and bearing the words, “<em>Half-Moon</em>.” On the
+deck of this famous craft was the miniature figure of
+a man, which Nathalie explained, was intended for the
+discoverer who had named the river Hudson after himself.
+Back of the ship were small sized rocks with the
+sign, “Great Rocks of Wiehocken,” which Annetje declared
+needed no explanation.
+</p>
+<p>
+A few feet away was a large windmill guarded by
+a demure little serving-maid who was no other than
+Carol. With her flower-blue eyes and corn-colored
+hair hanging in two braids from under her cute little
+cap she was a miniature Dutch vrouw. Catalina was
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_353'></a>353</span>
+now invited to pull one of a number of gay-colored
+streamers that flew with the windmill as it buzzed rapidly
+around.
+</p>
+<p>
+To the girl’s surprise, as she gave a quick pull to a
+ribbon, a card dropped from one of the sails. It was
+painted with a gaudy red tulip with an appropriate
+verse on Holland’s national posy. Catalina, on being
+told to keep it, pinned it to her bodice, and then hurried
+with Annetje to receive the guests standing at the door,
+the two girls being the oldest representatives of the
+Dutch colony.
+</p>
+<p>
+The new comer proved to be Tryntje Jonas, alias
+Barbara Worth. She was made known to the hostess
+as the mother of Annetje, and as the first nurse and
+woman doctor in the settlement. Her skirt was of true
+linsey-woolsey, from which hung an immense pincushion.
+With her glasses and her knitting-bag on
+her arm she looked duly professional as she paid her
+respects to the Dutch vrouw with stately dignity.
+</p>
+<p>
+A sweeping curtsy and Madame Kiersted, Annetje’s
+daughter, otherwise Grace Tyson, was telling
+with pride of the part she had played as Indian interpreter,
+when the officials of the town were making a
+treaty with the Indians. She was well-versed in the
+Algonquin language, she explained, as she had played
+with little Indian children from the time she was a wee
+lassie.
+</p>
+<p>
+She told, too, how she had signed a petition and presented
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_354'></a>354</span>
+it to the councillors, begging that the good
+vrouws be permitted to hold a market day. This petition
+was granted, and market day was held thenceforth
+on Saturdays, when the dames of the colony were
+permitted to offer their wares for sale on the Strand
+near her home. Furthermore, the Madame stated she
+had a shed built in her back yard, so that the Indian
+squaws could make brooms and string wampum, which
+they, too, sold on market day. From a little bag she
+now produced a wampum belt, explaining that it was
+made of twisted periwinkle shells strung on hemp. A
+blue clam-shell was also brought forth, which had
+been punctured with holes and which was called <em>sewant</em>;
+these two shells at that time constituting the currency
+of the colony.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the Indian’s friend had gone and in her place
+stood a <em>grande dame</em>, the famous Madame Van Cortland,
+generally known in the olden days as “the maker
+of a stone street.” Madame, when inquiry was made,
+said she had been born in Holland, but came to the
+<em>dorp</em> to marry her lover, Captain Oloff Van Cortland.
+“We lived in a very grand house for those times, for
+it was made of glazed brick and had a sloping roof
+with a gable turned towards the street, after the manner
+of the ‘Patria,’” she added with pompous gravity.
+“There were steps leading to the roof, too, so
+when it rained or snowed the water could run into a
+hogshead in the yard instead of on my neighbor’s sidewalk
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_355'></a>355</span>
+or head. The house was furnished in a grand
+style, all the furniture came from Holland, and in front
+of it was a little stoop with two side benches and a door
+with an enormous brass knocker.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But the stone street, Madame?” inquired Madame
+New Amsterdam, who seemed greatly interested in
+these little stories of the people and doings of the city
+whose name she bore.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Cobbles,” corrected Dame Van Cortland. “You
+see, it was this way. My husband, the captain, resigned
+from the militia and went into the brewing business.
+He built a brewery on Brower Street near the
+Fort, one of the first lanes made by the settlers. But
+alas,” sighed Madame ruefully, “when my husband’s
+brewery wagons made their way over the lane they
+raised so much dust and dirt that I begged my better
+half to pave it with stones. He laughed at me, as was
+his wont, and the dust and dirt grew thicker on the
+lane. Driven desperate, I now marshaled my servants
+to the lane, and we laid it with small, round cobblestones.
+I won my way as well as fame, for the little
+stone street was the first of its kind in the <em>dorp</em>, and
+was regarded with much curiosity by the burghers.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Annetje, now spying two more comers, flew to welcome
+them and the grande dame of Manhattan Isle was
+forgotten, as an ancient little lady appeared with silver
+curls peeping from beneath a cap of rare old lace, a
+rustling silk crossed with a kerchief, and a chatelaine
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_356'></a>356</span>
+hanging from her girdle. She bowed with quaint
+grace before the ladies, as Madame Killiaen Van
+Rensselaer, otherwise known as, “The Lady of the
+Thimble.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” spoke the little old lady, who by the way was
+a Bob White, and who had studied her part with due
+diligence, “I was the first woman to wear a gold
+thimble. I was seated at my work one day with an
+ivory thimble, big and cumbersome, on my fingers, the
+kind ’tis claimed the tailors use. A young friend of
+mine to whom I had rendered some slight service was
+at work in his shop just across the lane. He spied my
+thimble, and, being a goldsmith, then and there vowed
+that on my birthday I should receive a gift. ’Tis
+needless to say that this vow was fulfilled, for the
+young man presented me with a gold thimble on that
+day, which he had made with the wish that I would
+wear his finger-hat as a covering to a diligent and
+beautiful finger.”
+</p>
+<p>
+A comely Dutch matron with bright eyes and ruddy
+cheeks was now bowing in sprightly manner before the
+hostess. By her pose she was immediately recognized
+as Lillie Bell, who indeed was just the one to personate
+the fair and bewitching “Lady of Petticoat Lane,”
+alias Polly Spratt, Polly Prevoorst, and Polly Alexander.
+The fair Polly was the recognized social leader
+of New York in the days when coasting down <em>Flattenbarack
+Hill</em>, or skating on the <em>Collect</em> with a party of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_357'></a>357</span>
+lads and lassies as merry as herself gained her the
+name of a hoyden. Always the bonniest, the merriest
+lass at a wedding or dance, the acknowledged leader
+of her set, counting her suitors by the score, it was not
+to be wondered when she became a matron at seventeen.
+As a widow of twenty-six she assumed control
+of her husband’s business, building a row of offices in
+front of her house. She, too, built a stone street,
+Marketfield Lane, thus inciting her neighbors to do
+the same. Hence, the brick walks that now came into
+fashion called <em>Strookes</em>.
+</p>
+<p>
+The keeper of a shop, the maker of a stone lane, the
+owner of a wonderful coach, Madame’s fame as a
+beauty and a social leader, added to her shrewdness,
+her ingenuity, and sprightly intelligence, won her an
+influence in the more weighty matters of the town,
+gaining her the title of “My Lady of Petticoat Lane.”
+Undoubtedly it also won her another husband, as when
+the <em>pinter</em> flower was in bloom, pretty Polly married
+Mr. James Alexander, one of the most distinguished
+gentlemen of the times.
+</p>
+<p>
+But on they came, the Pioneer Girls, as Dutch matrons
+or maidens, impersonating those famous pioneer
+women, who not only were the bone and sinew of old
+New York, but who were the progenitors of some of
+its most distinguished men in the days that followed.
+Katrina de Brough, who lived in a fine stone house
+on Hanover Square, was a most suitable example of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_358'></a>358</span>
+the housewife of the day. Her days were spent in
+planting her garden, culling her simples, distilling her
+medicines, and many other well-known crafts of the
+times.
+</p>
+<p>
+Judith Varleth had gained the name of the “witch
+maiden,” having been arrested and imprisoned in
+Hartford, Connecticut, when quite a young girl.
+Whether her beauty or her Dutch tongue brought this
+dire calamity upon her is not known, but the witch
+maiden was duly released and returned to her home
+by her brother, and in a few years disposed of her
+unfortunate name by marrying a gallant gentleman by
+the name of Col. Nicholas Bayard.
+</p>
+<p>
+Margaret Hardenbroeck not only won a husband,
+Captain Patrus de Vries, a wealthy ship-owner, but
+won fame as well. On the death of her husband she
+continued his business, and established a line of ships,
+the first packet line that crossed the Atlantic. Her
+ability as a business woman evidently won her not only
+fame, but a husband, for she soon married again, a
+Mr. Frederick Phillipse, and in later days became the
+owner of the Phillipse Manor, so well known during
+the days of the Revolution.
+</p>
+<p>
+Cornelia Lubbetse became Mrs. Johannes de Beyster,
+while her daughter Marie, the wife of three husbands,
+became known as the wealthiest woman in the settlement.
+She was also noted for her industry, filling a
+great <em>kos</em> (chest) with beautiful linen tied in packages
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_359'></a>359</span>
+with colored tape and marked by herself at the time
+of her first marriage. She also carried on a thrifty
+business trading with ships between New Amsterdam,
+Connecticut, and Virginia, as well as being the mother
+of “The Lady of Petticoat Lane,” who married a
+younger brother of her third husband.
+</p>
+<p>
+Anna Stuyvesant, Rachel Hartjers, and Madame
+Van Corlear were all in due turn presented to the
+hostess, as well as Grietje Janssen, who was known in
+the old days as a double-tongued woman, having won
+fame as being the gossip of the burgh.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the merry chatter and low-pitched laughter of
+these would-be historic maidens was suddenly stilled,
+as a strange, grotesque figure was seen in the doorway
+gazing at the assembled company with an odd little
+smile on its bedaubed face.
+</p>
+<p>
+A murmur of surprise and astonishment caused
+eyes and mouths to open in curious wonder, as Annetje,
+although as bewildered as her neighbors, made her way
+to the door to welcome the unknown intruder.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie approached the uncouth, blanketed savage
+it emitted a strange sound; some claimed it was a
+grunt, while others said it was a groan. The girl
+stared a moment in startled inquiry and then a smile
+parted her lips, which was quickly repressed as in a
+quick glance she noted the eyes heavily underlined with
+black paint, the brown dyed skin, the red patched cheeks
+much besmeared with grease, and the black snake-like
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_360'></a>360</span>
+strings of hair that straggled from beneath a derby hat,
+several sizes too small for the head.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the redskin strode with measured gait to the
+ladies, the painted lips opened, and an excellent imitation
+of an Indian warwhoop broke forth with startling
+intensity. Little Miss New York jumped nervously,
+Madame New Amsterdam started back in surprise, but
+Mrs. Morrow and Nathalie burst into laughter as they
+both cried, “Why—it’s Edith!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, it was the Sport, who seeing she was the sensation
+of the moment took off her derby hat and with a
+low bow to hostesses, in guttural tone exclaimed, “No,
+me no Edith, me Indian squaw from Mana-ha-ta!”
+</p>
+<p>
+This unexpected announcement created no little astonishment,
+and the girls flocked around her with exclamations
+of wonder and surprise. As they began to
+ply her with questions she cried triumphantly, “Ah,
+girls, I fooled you that time, for I guess you had all
+forgotten about the Indian women of Manhattan, who
+always wore their husband’s hats.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, girls,” cried Nathalie quickly, “the joke is
+on me, for I had forgotten, as Edith says, all about
+these Indian squaws.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Edith, it was clever of you to remember,” now
+interposed the Governor’s lady, “and your get-up too,
+is very good.” She gazed with keen eyes at the girl’s
+deerskin robe, fringed at the sides, with its embroidered
+bodice, and the rows of colored beads that decorated
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_361'></a>361</span>
+her neck and her brown bedaubed arms. “But
+Edith,” she continued, “can’t you tell us something
+about these squaws?”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl looked somewhat dismayed for a moment;
+perhaps the sudden recollection of the last time she
+had faced her companions, the shame she had felt, and
+the punishment that had been meted out to her, caused
+the flush that showed even beneath her paint and
+grease.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why—I—oh, I don’t think there is much to
+tell,” she faltered. But encouraged by a nod from
+Mrs. Morrow she continued, “Lillie Bell lent me
+Washington Irving’s History of New York. It tells
+how Peter Minuit purchased the island from the Indians—the
+Dutch people called them Wilden—and
+where the bargain was made. It was close to a little
+block house inside a palisade of red cedars very near
+the traders’ hut in a place called <em>Capsey</em>, the place of
+safe landing. Washington Irving claimed that the
+name, ‘Manhattan,’ came from a tribe of Indians
+whose squaws always wore their husband’s hats, but I
+never knew that Indians wore hats, so I suppose it is
+just one of his jokes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a general laugh at Edith’s sally, and then
+the girls broke into loud applause. Perhaps they, too,
+were doing a little thinking and were anxious to show
+Edith that the deeds of the past were forgotten in her
+well-doing.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_362'></a>362</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Annetje, after marshaling her forces, now led the
+girls through the quaint Dutch room to show them the
+many relics of past days. The wide-throated fireplace
+with its gay-colored tiles—still in a state of good
+preservation—with their queer scriptural figures, each
+picture with the number of the text in the Bible that
+told its story, awakened great interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mahogany tables, queer little sideboards, and curiously
+carved chairs next claimed their attention, while
+the <em>slaap-bauck</em>, a funny little closet built in the side
+walls of the room, its shelf covered with a mattress, and
+with folding doors to open at night for a guest bed,
+won special favor.
+</p>
+<p>
+A flowered tabby cloth, a foot-warmer, and an old
+chest called a <em>kos</em>, and which Nathalie declared was
+similar to the one that the industrious Marie de Peyster
+had filled with linen, was regarded with much
+awe. A nutwood case, a wardrobe called a <em>kasten</em>—filled
+with old Dutch costumes, grimy and moth-eaten—divided
+honors with a beautiful old cupboard with
+glass doors, displaying rare old blue and white Delft,
+said to have come from Holland years and years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+But curios pall in time, and so the girls were not at
+all reluctant to follow their hostesses into the quaint
+old kitchen, gayly decorated with the orange and blue
+of the Dutch Republic. Here, many exclamations of
+admiration escaped them when they saw the long table
+in the center of the room, with its bloom of hyacinths,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_363'></a>363</span>
+gillyflowers, narcissus, daffodils, and tulips, all reminders
+of the little beau-pots that adorned the window
+sills, or peeped from the flower patches in front
+of the gable-roofed houses in the days of the first
+settlers.
+</p>
+<p>
+Embowered in this floral display was a huge silver
+bowl hung with tiny silver spoons. This was the
+caudle dish, the inseparable accompaniment of feast
+gatherings or when the <em>kinder</em> were christened. From
+the hot, spicy odor that emanated from this relic of
+Dutch festivity the girls knew it held something good.
+</p>
+<p>
+But there was no more time to admire, for it was
+now discovered that a flower was tied with daintily
+colored ribbon to the back of each chair. Recognizing
+that they were intended for place-cards, the girls flew
+hurriedly around the table trying to find the flower
+that matched the one on the cards they had received
+from the windmill.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Van Vorst, typifying the first Dutch settlement
+in the New World, now cordially welcomed her guests
+with a few appropriate words. She was followed by
+Nita, who, standing on the platform of her chair, recited
+a greeting in Dutch—a little thing that Nathalie
+had taught her—with quaint precision, while her eyes
+twinkled humorously.
+</p>
+<p>
+The edibles were now served, the little serving-maid
+being Carol assisted by Peter attired as a herdsman in
+low-heeled shoes, brass buckles, gray stockings, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_364'></a>364</span>
+with a twisted cow’s horn hanging from his shoulder.
+</p>
+<p>
+Roasted oysters served with hot split biscuits tempered
+with butter were the first course. Then came
+salmon à la Hollandaise and patriotic crabs, so called
+because the settlers declared that they were the color of
+the flag of the Prince of Orange. Frankfurters now
+appeared, so deliciously prepared that the Pioneers
+barely recognized their hike stand-by, served with carrots
+and turnips garnished with parsley. Green salad
+now followed with the caudle served from the silver
+bowl, each girl ladling this particular Dutch dainty,
+piping hot, into her own china cup.
+</p>
+<p>
+The goodies were jellies, custards, <em>oly krecks</em>—sometimes
+called doughnuts because of the tiny nut
+in the center—krullers, <em>izer-cookies</em>, or waffles, syllabubs,
+and many other toothsome sweets. All of
+these viands were greatly enjoyed, not only because
+they were of Dutch renown, but because they were
+eaten, as their Director declared in memory of the
+<em>goede vrouven</em> who helped their <em>goede</em> men to lay the
+first stones of the great city of New York.
+</p>
+<p>
+Every one was at their merriest when Annetje Jans,
+who had suddenly grown unduly restive, arose in her
+chair and holding her caudle cup high proposed a toast
+to Madame New Amsterdam, Mrs. Van Vorst, their
+hostess!
+</p>
+<p>
+Immediately glasses were touched to the lady so
+honored, who in return proposed a like honor for
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_365'></a>365</span>
+Madame Stuyvesant, Mrs. Morrow, the Director of
+the Girl Pioneers of America. Little Miss New York
+was now honored, who, as she bowed in response to
+the loud clapping that followed her name, passed the
+honor on to her friend, Miss Nathalie Page, in Dutch,
+Madame Annetje Jans.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was more applause in appreciation of Nita’s
+tribute, although her voice was low and tremulous with
+timidity at speaking before so many. But when Nathalie
+rose on her feet to reply, the clapping grew so
+vociferous that the color deepened her cheeks to a more
+vivid pink.
+</p>
+<p>
+But she stood her ground, and as the teasing girls
+wearied of clapping she spoke. There was a slight
+tremor in her voice, but she went steadily on, and after
+expressing in the name of the Pioneers the great pleasure
+it had given them to meet the daughter of their
+hostess, voiced their desires in asking Miss Nita to
+join with them in their endeavors to imitate the sterling
+qualities of the early pioneer women, and to become
+a Girl Pioneer of America!
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_366'></a>366</span><a name='chXXI' id='chXXI'></a>CHAPTER XXI—AN INVITATION</h2>
+<p>
+As Nathalie sank back in her seat glad to
+think the ordeal—to her—of the day was
+over, there was a moment’s silence, and then
+every Pioneer was doing her best to second this invitation
+to the daughter of their hostess by making as
+loud a demonstration as possible.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nita, as she heard this invitation, grew white, speechless
+with surprise, but only for a moment, as the next
+second, with joy shining in her eyes, she leaned over
+crying in a tense whisper, “Oh, Mother, tell them yes!
+Tell them yes!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had already risen to her feet,
+eyes smiling but tear dimmed as she gazed down at
+the bright expectant faces upturned to hers. For a
+moment she stood, and then in a voice broken by emotion
+and pleasure thanked the Pioneers for an invitation
+that she knew had been prompted by kindness and
+that she appreciated more than she could express. Her
+little daughter, as they all knew, was a shut-in. She
+would be delighted to become one of a band of girls
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_367'></a>367</span>
+who had proved so worthy of the name they bore, but,
+her face saddened, would she not prove a burden to
+them, for would it not require too much patience to
+bear with one who perhaps had been over indulged on
+account of her misfortune?
+</p>
+<p>
+At this juncture Madame Stuyvesant stepped to her
+side crying, “Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, your little shut-in
+is just the one I want my girls to be with, so that by
+the patience they will acquire in her companionship
+they will become more gentle and considerate to others.
+And as for Miss Nita, the mingling with healthy, active
+girls of her own age and the exercise and aid she will
+derive from the sports, and industries—taken lightly
+of course—I am sure will brighten her life in many
+ways.”
+</p>
+<p>
+A few more words from Helen, Lillie, and one or
+two of the older girls, and Mrs. Van Vorst’s consent
+was won, and Nita with bright, happy eyes was clapping
+her hands very softly under the Starry Banner
+that fell in folds across her chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+Each girl in turn was then toasted, under the name
+of the pioneer she impersonated, being required in response
+to tell something about herself, as to who and
+what part she had played in the days of New Amsterdam.
+When the name of Mrs. Polly Prevoorst was
+called, Lillie Bell stood up, and had just begun with
+her usual dramatic gestures and intonations to relate
+some little incident in the life of that noted lady, when
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_368'></a>368</span>
+a shrill falsetto voice shrieked, “Pretty Polly! Pretty
+Polly! Polly want a cobble?”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a sudden turning and twisting of heads
+and necks at this unlooked for interruption, to see who
+was making sport of the fair lady, but before the
+speaker could be seen, with a quick flutter of wings
+Mr. Jimmie landed in the middle of the table. Surprise
+caused the girls to exclaim and then laugh, as
+they watched the new guest cocking his head from
+side to side as he winked at them with his red-rimmed
+eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+All at once his head stopped its restless motion, as
+with a quick glance he seemed suddenly to spy Lillie
+Bell, who was still standing, waiting for a chance to
+deliver her little speech. The girls ceased to giggle
+and with observant eyes wondered what was going to
+happen. They did not have to wait long for Jimmie,
+with another flash of his wings, screeched shrilly,
+“Polly! Poor Polly! Polly want a petticoat—Polly—want
+a petticoat?”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Jimmie’s concern for the “Lady of Petticoat
+Lane” was drowned in shouts of laughter, while Lillie
+Bell with a reddened, embarrassed face sat down.
+Thus Jimmie became the beau of the afternoon, as each
+girl vainly tried to coax him with a sweetie to notice
+her, but Jimmie disdained their advances and, flying
+to the shoulder of Nathalie, evinced his partiality for
+that young lady by chattering noisily, “Hell Nat!
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_369'></a>369</span>
+Ah—Blue Robin, pretty Blue Robin!” And then a
+shrill Tru-al-lee, tru-al-lee! rang through the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+But this effort to do the wise thing ended Jimmie’s
+performance, for suddenly noting the applause that
+greeted him, he set up such a hideous shrieking, interspersed
+with fiendish laughter, that he was promptly
+seized by Peter and carried from public sight to muse
+on his sins in the privacy of his cage.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Lillie’s tormentor disappeared she was able
+to act the part of the fair Polly and relate the incident
+she had striven so vainly to tell. As she finished, finding
+that all the notables had been duly honored, the
+girls again turned to the rather novel menus that they
+had found in front of their plates.
+</p>
+<p>
+These were post-card holders, rather dainty little
+affairs of flowered silk that had contained post-cards,
+one for each course that had been served. One was a
+quaint little picture of New Amsterdam. Another was
+a well-known building or landmark of old New York,
+while others portraits of famous Dutch painters or
+authors, each one with an appropriate inscription either
+in Dutch or English.
+</p>
+<p>
+These cards had excited many comments of admiration,
+and as the girls’ attention was drawn to them
+again Edith suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, girls, why see,
+my post-card holder has a tiny white envelope in it!”
+As she began to tear it open each girl turned eagerly to
+hers and with renewed interest began to inspect it
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_370'></a>370</span>
+again, while Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita with smiling
+eyes watched the little by-play that was being enacted.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time Nathalie had read the contents of her
+envelope and with eyes all alight was crying, “Oh,
+girls! my envelope contains an invitation from Mrs.
+Van Vorst as a Pioneer to camp—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“At Eagle Lake!” broke in a chorus from the girls
+as they excitedly flourished the bits of white paper to
+and fro while watching Nathalie intently.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie was too dazed to speak, but in a moment,
+as she realized that each girl present had been honored
+with a similar invitation, she bent forward and began
+to talk to Helen in low, hurried tones. When she finished
+she was on her feet crying in tremulous voice,
+“Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst—this seems too good to be
+true—O dear, how are we to thank you for your kindness,
+it is too much for us to accept!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But her hostess was ready with a reply, as with
+brightening eyes she answered, “Girls, the invitations
+you have read I repeat, I want you Girl Pioneers to
+spend the three weeks of your camp life at Eagle Lake.
+I have a bungalow there and expect to leave for the
+Lake next week, and shall be pleased to welcome you
+there whenever you think best to come.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Lake is very beautiful, surrounded by woods
+and within two or three miles of a town. Of course,
+I have not accommodations for you all, but I have an
+empty bungalow near mine, and a little log cabin that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_371'></a>371</span>
+was once a summer house, so that with a few tents I
+think you will find ample accommodations for your
+three bird groups. And girls—” she spoke earnestly,
+“I do not want you to thank me, for your thanks will
+be the acceptance of this invitation and coming up to
+the Lake and having a merry time. I am sure I stand
+ready, and my daughter Nita, to help you towards
+that end.”
+</p>
+<p>
+As Mrs. Van Vorst finished Helen arose, and on
+behalf of the Pioneers thanked her for her kind invitation.
+“Indeed, Mrs. Van Vorst,” she continued,
+“we shall be most pleased to camp at Eagle Lake—if
+our Director is willing—and I hope that we shall be
+able to show you that we are worthy the kindness you
+have seen fit to extend to us. Now, girls—”
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neers!&nbsp;&nbsp;Now&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For&nbsp;&nbsp;our&nbsp;&nbsp;hostess&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;kind&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;dear!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pi-o-neers!&nbsp;&nbsp;again&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This&nbsp;&nbsp;time&nbsp;&nbsp;for&nbsp;&nbsp;Miss&nbsp;&nbsp;Nita,&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;dear!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+As the cheering ceased Mrs. Van Vorst stood again,
+and in a few words declared she felt impelled to say
+that the Pioneers should be very proud of a young lady
+in their group who had so ably helped her in the arrangements
+and the getting up of the afternoon’s festivity.
+She would mention no names—Nathalie’s
+face was a full-blown rose—as they all knew to whom
+she referred, but she would like it known that the invitation
+to the Lake had been given not only to furnish
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_372'></a>372</span>
+pleasure to the Pioneers, but in appreciation of the
+great kindness, sympathy, and aid that had been given
+to her daughter and herself by that same Pioneer, a
+kindness that she would always remember.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls, laughing and talking about the pleasure of
+the <em>Kraeg</em>, of the joys and the future held in store for
+them at camp, now returned to the sitting room. Here
+they were greeted with another surprise in the shape
+of a huge, unwieldy figure in baggy knee-breeches, full
+skirted coat, wide-brimmed hat and long white beard
+and locks, whom Mrs. Van Vorst presented as Father
+Knickerbocker, although several declared that he was
+the exact counterpart of the famous pictures of Rip
+Van Winkle.
+</p>
+<p>
+Whomever he personated was a matter of indifference
+to the girls as long as his identity was concealed,
+which was ably done behind a red-checked mask,
+through the eye-holes of which two eyes glinted humorously
+in merry jest or pleasantry as he joined the
+girls in a game of quoits or a game of nine-pins which
+Peter had arranged on an old billiard table.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Nathalie and Helen were doing their best to beat
+this strange antagonist, and at the same time to provoke
+him to speech—as he would persist in playing he
+was deaf and dumb—Peter led in an old darkey who,
+with fiddle in hand, was soon squeaking away to the
+delight of the girls. In a few moments old-time melodies
+were heard, and they went flying over the floor
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_373'></a>373</span>
+in waltz, schottische, polka, and in many of the long-forgotten
+dances.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the dancing began the mysterious guest was
+seen to edge towards the door, but Nathalie and Helen
+were too quick for him, and in a moment he was surrounded
+by a bevy of girls, each one begging him to
+dance the Virginia reel with her. Even these many
+honors failed to loosen the strings of his tongue, but
+Nathalie did not despair.
+</p>
+<p>
+Presently, as he had made this young lady his honored
+choice in the dance, she was led up and down
+the room, or twirled about like a pin-wheel. That
+he was nimble of foot was soon perceived as they all
+spun round like a merry-go-round.
+</p>
+<p>
+Suddenly Annetje was seen to whisper to her neighbor.
+The whisper spread like a whirlwind, and all eyes
+were soon fastened on the whirling Father as he
+chasséed to the right and left of the merry girls.
+Suddenly there was a stampede to his side, and the next
+minute he was surrounded by a cordon of slim young
+hands, while one of his assailants made a spring towards
+him. Just another moment, and nose, beard,
+and locks were on the floor, while his tormentors
+laughed and danced merrily around their prisoner, a
+good friend who had eased many of their aches and
+pains, for it was no other but Dr. Morrow!
+</p>
+<p>
+Four weeks later Nathalie stood on the veranda with
+her arms around her mother. “Oh, Mumsie,” she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_374'></a>374</span>
+wailed, “I hate to go and leave you!” She winked
+hard, she was determined not to get lachrymose. “I
+just wish I wasn’t going, it does seem so mean to leave
+you here in this heat.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But, Daughter, I have Dick with me, and it is lovely
+and cool here on the veranda. We shall not mind it
+at all, and then you know the nights are generally comfortable
+in August,” Mrs. Page ended with a cheery
+smile.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Mumsie, you’re a dear—” rejoined Nathalie with
+another suppressed sniffle. “You’re just trying to
+make the best of it, but—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“There is no but about it,” answered her mother
+quickly, “for I am afraid I am very selfish, but I shall
+have to confess that there has been so much going on
+these last days, well, I shall enjoy the rest and quiet.
+Felia is here, too, and I shall have nothing to do but
+to be—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Jolly!” broke in Dick at this moment, who for
+some mysterious reason seemed unusually jubilant.
+He had received a letter a few days before; Nathalie
+had caught him reading it, but he had slipped it hurriedly
+into his pocket as he saw her, declaring in answer
+to her questioning that it was nothing, but nevertheless,
+ever since that day he had seemed more like his old
+self.
+</p>
+<p>
+Did they really want to get rid of her? Was
+Mamma in earnest? How much more cheerful she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_375'></a>375</span>
+had seemed the last few days! These thoughts flashed
+in quick succession through Nathalie’s brain. Somewhat
+puzzled, but disarmed of her fears by these
+signs of cheer from her loved ones, the girl bestowed
+a final kiss all round, notwithstanding Dick’s protests,
+who declared that he had been slobbered over about
+fifty times already. Then she flew down the path and
+into the automobile, where Mrs. Morrow, the kiddies,
+and the doctor were waiting to drive her to the depot.
+</p>
+<p>
+Seventeen happy girls, their hearts pulsating with
+joyful anticipation, boarded the train at the New Jersey
+Central that August morning. Notwithstanding
+the fact that the day was intensely warm, their tongues,
+hands, and feet kept up a ceaseless activity as they disposed
+of their bags, valises, and the impedimenta that
+they had found it impossible to squeeze into their
+trunks, for it was rather tight packing when there were
+two girls to a trunk.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie Bell carried her mandolin, the Scribe her book
+for reporting the many happenings that were to be,
+while Barbara was burdened with several books on
+bird, flower, and wood lore, for camp was the place
+to study nature. With tennis-rackets and golf-bags
+it certainly seemed as if those seventeen girls and their
+belongings were going to fill the car.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow, who had a great dislike of annoying
+people, began to look worried, but suddenly catching
+sight of the faces of several of the passengers, all
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_376'></a>376</span>
+looking so smiling, so in sympathy with this young life and
+its overflow of exuberance, as if they were enjoying the
+clamor and bustle as much as the girls themselves, her
+face relaxed. She broke into a smile of relief, although
+shaking her head at two of the girls who were
+making the greatest noise.
+</p>
+<p>
+They finally settled in their seats, but as hands and
+feet became more quiet, alas, it seemed as if the clack
+of their tongues grew greater! They fell to discussing
+their plans for the camp, the sports they would have,
+and a thousand and one things that occupied their
+minds at the present moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+But even tongues need a rest, and the girls at last
+quieted down and began to read, each one having provided
+herself with some book to while away the hours.
+After a time, however, they all seemed to tire of reading,
+and growing restive had just started an argument
+as to the respective merits of their books, when the
+train dashed into a little wooden station and the conductor
+yelled, “Eagle Lake!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Bags, knapsacks, rackets, and all camping impedimenta
+were hastily gathered up, and a few minutes
+later the merry girls were crowding into an old-fashioned
+stage that Mrs. Van Vorst had hired for the occasion,
+giving due honor to the doctor and his wife
+by sending her own automobile for them.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a delightful ride to the lake, and thoroughly
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_377'></a>377</span>
+enjoyed by the girls, who evinced their pleasure by
+being unusually silent. Eyes were keenly alert, however,
+noting the rolling patches of green meadows with
+their grazing cows, the rippling brook meandering from
+a hill near by, and the somber foliage of a long range
+of low foothills in the distance crowned with a
+misty haze. But the silence was broken when some
+one spied a reddish gray chipmunk scurrying across the
+road in frantic terror as he saw the many faces bearing
+down upon him, and heard their hurried exclamations
+of eager delight at this, the girls’ first glimpse
+of one of the green forest people of Eagle Lake.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was not long before the sheen of silver water
+glimmered in the distance, bordered with somber foliage,
+and then hearts beat quicker and voices grew
+louder in excited hubbub as in a minute or so they
+could see the cupola of Mrs. Van Vorst’s cottage
+against the green of its shores.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a joyous welcome from Mrs. Van Vorst and
+Nita, seconded by Peter and Ellen, who all stood awaiting
+them on the large veranda, the girls ran riot. With
+swift steps they hurried—after first inspecting Mrs.
+Van Vorst’s bungalow, so suggestive of luxury and
+cozy cheer—to the smaller bungalow, where the Morrows
+were to abide, with its big living-room abloom
+with golden-rod. This was to be used as an assembly
+room for the Pioneer Rallies. Then they hastened to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_378'></a>378</span>
+the little wooden shack, which they dubbed the Grub
+House, as it was here that the camp cooking was to be
+done.
+</p>
+<p>
+After duly admiring the boat-house, which they all
+declared would make a lovely place for a dance, they
+were conducted by Peter to the loft above, where he
+stood silently enjoying their delight as they exclaimed
+over this unexpected surprise. It had been turned into
+a good sized bedroom with two bureaus, a center-table,
+a few odd chairs, and four little white cots, looking so
+restful that the Sport declared she wanted to go to
+bed that very second.
+</p>
+<p>
+But their rhapsodies came to an abrupt end as Lillie
+Bell suddenly spied the Lake from one of the windows.
+In a moment the girls were crowding about her, gazing
+in hushed silence at the silver sheet of water—three
+miles round Peter informed them—with its enticing
+little inlets, or coves, and tiny islands running like a
+series of stepping-stones through the center.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Sport had caught sight of several newly painted
+boats and canoes that bobbed cheerily at her, moored to
+the pier below, and a moment later the girls were off
+like a cavalcade of young Indians to inspect them, for
+did they not all have to be named on the morrow,
+when a general christening of all camp tents, boats,
+and so on was to take place?
+</p>
+<p>
+But there were other things to claim a share of their
+hearts’ joy they found, as Carol, who made the seventeenth
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_379'></a>379</span>
+camper, suddenly saw a large tent on the edge
+of the woods to which they all made a mad rush. Here
+they found the doctor and his wife, who said it was an
+army tent that had been loaned, put up, and furnished
+by that good lady, Mrs. Van Vorst. Lifting the flap
+the girls peeped in to see four more tiny cots, a little
+book-case made from soap-boxes by Peter, and the
+usual camp furniture staring at them invitingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+A tiny log cabin was also inspected—Peter said it
+had once been a summer-house—which contained two
+cots. But time was limited, and Dr. Morrow—who
+was for the time being captain of the working squad—began
+to issue his orders. All baggage and camp
+equipment had arrived the day before and the girls
+were soon busily engaged in putting up tents. It meant
+lots of work, but each one was at her cheeriest best
+as she overhauled canvases, measured spaces, dug pole-holes,
+sewed on rings for tape, tied ropes, and performed
+the various odd jobs necessary to have the camp
+city in shape before night.
+</p>
+<p>
+As Mrs. Van Vorst had generously provided so
+many sleeping accommodations, there were only three
+tents to be erected, an old canvas tent which the doctor
+had loaned, an Indian tepee belonging to the brother of
+one of the Orioles, and a natty little affair made of
+heavy cotton sheeting. It is needless to say that this
+was the pride of Helen’s and Nathalie’s hearts, the tent
+they had wrestled with through many toilsome hours
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_380'></a>380</span>
+on the rear lawn, with Fred Tyson doing duty as a
+master tent-maker.
+</p>
+<p>
+When the tents were erected with openings to the
+East, in a row by the water, backed by a belt of woodland,
+whose pungent odors added a zest to the girls’
+ideals of the camp life, Nathalie and Helen hurried
+to their tent to unpack. The big packing-box which
+had served as a trunk for two was hastily turned on
+its narrowest side, with open side to the tent, and then
+with hammer and nails converted into a combination
+arrangement of book-case and dresser, the top having
+a piece of white shelf oilcloth tacked on it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Here pincushions, hair-pin trays, brushes, and various
+toilet articles, with cologne, lotion, and medicine
+bottles—the last in case of need—were hastily bestowed.
+On the upper shelf books were stored—for
+the story hour—while the other shelves were quickly
+filled with all sorts of knick-knacks, things they just
+had to have, even in the wilderness, as Helen had
+affirmed.
+</p>
+<p>
+Two ropes, one on each side of the tent, were fastened
+up so that each girl could have a handy place to
+dispose of superfluous articles of wearing apparel.
+There was also a smaller one near the soap-box with its
+little tin pitcher and bowl, to serve as a towel-rack.
+After hanging a mirror for mutual use and tacking on
+the floor between the cots a pink and blue cotton rug—Mrs.
+Page’s idea and gift—they started on the beds.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_381'></a>381</span>
+These were real camping affairs, and would ordinarily
+have meant hard labor, but Peter, who had been let
+into the secret before he left Westport, had already cut
+eight logs, four to a bed frame, one on each side of the
+tent, and had brought the dry evergreen boughs.
+</p>
+<p>
+With the boughs the girls filled the frames, and after
+stuffing two ticking bags with dry leaves and grass,
+they placed them on the beds, and covered them with
+rubber sheets and blankets. They were then made up
+with sheets and double blankets, and then after throwing
+a number of sofa pillows about—to be used at
+night for pillows—the tent-makers were ready to
+hold an impromptu reception to their Pioneer friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie now played the part of town crier and
+rushed hither and thither inviting the guests to their
+camp nest in the woods. The girls quickly gathered
+and, after due examination, expressed by cries of praise
+their admiration of the handiness and deftness displayed
+by the two girls, and the first tent feast was
+held. To be sure, it was only crackers and fruit left
+from the girls’ lunch-boxes, but they filled the bill, so
+that when the bugle sounded its clarion blast, as Lillie
+expressed it, the pangs of hunger being appeased, the
+girls all hastened with joyful steps to Mrs. Morrow’s
+bungalow to hold their first Pioneer Rally.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow, as presiding officer, in a short space
+of time was able to despatch considerable camp business,
+the girls having had so many discussions that
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_382'></a>382</span>
+their plans were matured and no time was lost in needless
+talk. It was quickly settled to name the camp
+“Laff-a-Lot,” to govern it as a city, with the girls as
+citizens with power to elect their own officials, which
+meant a mayor, a board of aldermen, a justice of the
+court as well as a clerk and an attorney in case of need,
+and the squads.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow was immediately chosen mayor, and
+the squads elected. There was the Coast Squad, composed
+of two Pioneers whose duty it was to sound the
+bugle for taps at six, for a dip in the Lake at quarter
+past, the call for breakfast at seven and the succeeding
+meals, for bathing drill at eleven, and all other calls required
+by camp regulations. This squad was also to
+see that the coast was kept clear of débrís, that the
+bathers observed all rules, and was to give the alarm
+and act in command of the rescue committee in times
+of danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Tent Squad was to see that the girls kept their
+tents in regulation order,—each girl to make her own
+bed and so on,—and that all sanitary rules were carried
+out according to schedule.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Grub Squad meant two cooks, a chief and an
+assistant, and two helpers or waitresses. Each girl, of
+course, was required to bring her own plate, cup,
+saucer, bowl, knife, and fork, and see that they were
+washed, dried, and placed on the shelf, as well as to
+wash her own drying-towel.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_383'></a>383</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The Rally Squad was composed of one person—considered
+the most important member of camp—to
+act as officer of the day by planning with the mayor the
+day’s program, reporting this at breakfast, and seeing
+that all notices, as well as the schedule for the day’s
+events, were duly written on the bulletin each morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Board of Aldermen was made up of the first
+member of each Squad. All officials, with the exception
+of the mayor and court officers, were to serve for
+three days only, and the members of all squads were
+to be chosen according to their qualifications for the
+work as determined by the number of merit badges.
+</p>
+<p>
+As soon as the Rally was over, the girls made a rush
+for the Lake, as every one was wild to go on its gleaming
+surface that shone under the rays of the dipping
+sun like a silver shield, burnished with the golden red
+of the West.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Helen, who declared it was too late to enjoy
+that pleasure as it was so near supper time, was rudely
+interrupted by Lillie Bell, who had been peering with
+intent eyes across the water. Suddenly she gave a
+low cry and pointed to a solitary figure on the opposite
+bank dragging a row-boat from the water.
+</p>
+<p>
+Instantly all eyes were riveted in that direction as
+each girl vainly tried to decide whether the figure belonged
+to a man or a woman. “Oh, I know!”
+screamed the Sport frantically after a short stare
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_384'></a>384</span>
+opposite. “Girls, yes, it’s a Scout! See he has on a
+khaki suit, and his staff, oh, where do you suppose he
+could have come from!” she said, looking up at the
+girls with delighted inquiry in her sparkling eyes.
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_385'></a>385</span><a name='chXXII' id='chXXII'></a>CHAPTER XXII—CAMP LAFF-A-LOT</h2>
+<p>
+“O fiddle!” exclaimed Lillie squelchingly.
+“You have got scouts on the brain!
+Where would a scout come from up here in
+these wilds?”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Edith was not to be gainsaid and had flown post-haste
+up to the Morrows’ bungalow to reappear a few
+moments later with a field glass. Raising it she began
+to yell triumphantly, “There, girls—I’m right—it
+is a scout! a real scout!” In a moment she was surrounded
+by a bevy of girls, each one begging for the
+loan of the glasses, but Edith was whimsical, and refusing
+to comply handed the glasses to Helen, who,
+after a calm survey of the bank on the other side of
+the Lake, declared that Edith was right and that it
+was a scout.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, do you think—” exclaimed some one. But
+no one stopped to think, for at that moment the clear
+notes of the bugle announced supper, driving all
+thoughts of scouts from the heads of the famished girls
+as with a cheer of delight they made a swift rush for
+cup, plate, saucer, and headed for the dining-room.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_386'></a>386</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+It was a tired lot of girls who, with sharpened appetites
+but dismayed faces, gazed at the slim array of
+eatables that confronted them at this, their first camp
+meal. Nathalie made a wry face, but as she heard
+Helen’s reminder that every one was to be satisfied
+even if she ate tacks, she smiled in attempted contentment
+and started in on mush.
+</p>
+<p>
+But tacks were not to be on the menu that night, for
+Peter suddenly appeared, and with his best bow presented
+a big platter of cold chicken with Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s compliments. Everything now went as merrily
+as a wedding feast. Really, it was surprising how
+that chicken lasted, for the girls had attacked it with
+grim determination. Nathalie half suspected that
+Peter had a secret supply hidden under the table, for
+every one had all she wanted and still there was more.
+</p>
+<p>
+Supper was soon over and, then after each girl had
+washed her own table-ware and laid it in its place, they
+hied themselves down to the water’s edge. Here, in
+sweaters and caps—as the air was chilly—they
+listened to the crooning melodies of nature, and
+watched for life on the opposite shore—reminded
+again of that scout—and talked, well, just the things
+that a lot of happy girls would discuss with the prospect
+of three glorious weeks in the open before them.
+</p>
+<p>
+A trill of song from a hermit thrush in the woods
+near-by stirred the hearts of the music-lovers and soon
+the campers were singing, “Suwanee River,” to Lillie’s
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_387'></a>387</span>
+thrumming accompaniment on the mandolin. Then
+came “Tenting on the Old Camp Ground,” “Oh, My
+Darling Clementine,” and a host of songs familiar and
+dear to the heart of youth.
+</p>
+<p>
+As they ended the last line of “Bring Back My Bonnie
+to Me,” every one suddenly sat up and took notice,
+while an impetuous one called out, “Oh, what was
+that?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Some one is mocking us!” added another listener.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, nonsense,” laughed Helen, whose ear for music
+was not keen, “that’s an echo!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But it proved to be no echo, for as the girls started
+in again to sing they found that if they stopped suddenly,
+the voices, which they now recognized as coming
+from the other shore, would continue with the song.
+This created no end of laughter among the girls, and
+their surprise and amusement increased as they recognized
+that their friends on the other side of the Lake
+laughed when they laughed, as if in mockery.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” suggested Kitty, “let’s
+give the Pioneer yell and see if they answer.” This
+was no sooner suggested than it was done, but not a
+sound was heard, no, not even an echo in reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, they can’t be scouts,” said an Oriole, “or
+they would answer in some way.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Let’s sing, ‘We’re Pioneers,’ and then they’ll know
+who we are, anyway,” some one proposed, a little more
+cheerily.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_388'></a>388</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+This proposition met with favor, and the girls were
+soon singing with a zest and verve that deserved a
+reward, but as before a dead silence greeted their
+efforts.
+</p>
+<p>
+The campers felt inconsolable, for some of them had
+already begun to dream of the fun they would have
+if there were some jolly scouts about, especially if they
+proved as chivalrous and as manly as the scouts at
+Westport. As the girls discussed ways and means of
+making these strange neighbors reveal who they were,
+suddenly from the other shore came in stentorian tones,
+evidently through a megaphone, “Be prepared!”
+This startling announcement was immediately followed
+by a chorus of male voices singing with hearty
+gusto, “Zing-a-Zing! Bom! Bom!” to the accompaniment
+of a loud sound, as if every one was pounding
+on a tin pan.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls sat stunned with surprise for a moment
+and then Edith cried, “Why, they can’t be scouts after
+all, for that is not the salute used by the Westport
+Scouts.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Huh! but that is just what they are—scouts,”
+cried one of the Orioles quickly, “for that is the national
+salute. My brother has a Scout book and I
+have seen their call.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, they’re not Westport Scouts, that’s one sure
+thing,” voiced one of the girls who had been dreaming.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What difference does that make,” cried Lillie, “as
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_389'></a>389</span>
+long as they are scouts? But don’t you think we girls
+ought to make some return, hadn’t we better sing our
+Pioneer—” But before the girls could answer they
+heard the scout salute again. As they clapped an encore,
+the Sport blowing the bugle to add to the demonstration
+of praise, their neighbors broke into song.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, it is a song to us, a serenade!” ejaculated one
+of the girls; and then as each one grew silent they
+heard:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Welcome!&nbsp;&nbsp;Welcome!&nbsp;&nbsp;sisters&nbsp;&nbsp;dear,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;round&nbsp;&nbsp;our&nbsp;&nbsp;fire’s&nbsp;&nbsp;cheer<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We&nbsp;&nbsp;wish&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;luck&nbsp;&nbsp;in&nbsp;&nbsp;camp&nbsp;&nbsp;so&nbsp;&nbsp;fine<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sweet&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;birch&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;wooded&nbsp;&nbsp;pine.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Pleasure&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;joy&nbsp;&nbsp;attend&nbsp;&nbsp;each&nbsp;&nbsp;day,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;As&nbsp;&nbsp;by&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;Lake&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;make&nbsp;&nbsp;your&nbsp;&nbsp;stay!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, isn’t that just dandy?” “If we could only
+tell who they were!” But these exclamations came to
+an end as Nathalie cried, “Girls, let’s shout our new
+call, don’t you know the one we made up so as to salute
+the scouts? Now, ready!” and with a “One! two!
+three!” the girls’ voices rang out over the water as they
+chorused:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Ragglety!&nbsp;&nbsp;Pagglety!&nbsp;&nbsp;Rah!&nbsp;&nbsp;Rah!&nbsp;&nbsp;Rah!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;You’re&nbsp;&nbsp;welcome&nbsp;&nbsp;scouts&nbsp;&nbsp;with&nbsp;&nbsp;a&nbsp;&nbsp;Ha!&nbsp;&nbsp;Ha!&nbsp;&nbsp;Ha!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Comrades&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;friends,&nbsp;&nbsp;we’ll&nbsp;&nbsp;make&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;woods&nbsp;&nbsp;hum<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;When&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;Camp&nbsp;&nbsp;Laff-a-Lot&nbsp;&nbsp;come.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;For&nbsp;&nbsp;your&nbsp;&nbsp;wishes&nbsp;&nbsp;we’ll&nbsp;&nbsp;give&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;three&nbsp;&nbsp;cheers,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hurrah&nbsp;&nbsp;for&nbsp;&nbsp;Scouts&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;Girl&nbsp;&nbsp;Pioneers!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, Nathalie, you changed the words!” cried
+one or two slow ones as they perceived that the girl
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_390'></a>390</span>
+had substituted certain words that were more appropriate
+to the occasion than the ones they had learned.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie only laughed, and waved her hand for silence
+as the little company of merry, fun-loving girls
+listened to the noise their neighbors were making.
+Certainly it was a medley of sounds, for it appeared as
+if horns, tin pans, and just about everything capable
+of making a racket had been called into service in their
+appreciation of the fair ones’ ready reply to their song.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow appeared at this moment with the announcement
+that it was nine o’clock, and according to
+camp rules all Pioneers were to be in bed by that hour,
+so the girls sounded a parting cheer and then hurried
+to their tents. The few who loitered, as if reluctant
+to leave their friends across the lake, heard an old-time
+good-night song with one or two variations in words
+that added to its charms ring out clearly:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Good-night,&nbsp;&nbsp;campers,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Good-night&nbsp;&nbsp;campers,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Good-night&nbsp;&nbsp;campers,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;We’re&nbsp;&nbsp;going&nbsp;&nbsp;to&nbsp;&nbsp;leave&nbsp;&nbsp;you&nbsp;&nbsp;now!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Merrily&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;roll&nbsp;&nbsp;along,&nbsp;&nbsp;roll&nbsp;&nbsp;along,&nbsp;&nbsp;roll&nbsp;&nbsp;along;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Merrily&nbsp;&nbsp;we&nbsp;&nbsp;roll&nbsp;&nbsp;along,&nbsp;&nbsp;o’er&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;dark&nbsp;&nbsp;blue&nbsp;&nbsp;sea.”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+A few moments before six the next morning Nathalie
+opened her eyes, yawned drowsily, and then
+rolled over to see Helen staring at her from the opposite
+bed with wide-open eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I have had such a delicious sleep,” she cried.
+“I don’t believe I wakened from the time I touched the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_391'></a>391</span>
+pillow. Helen, isn’t it just too lovely up here in these
+woods? Did you hear that whippoorwill toot just
+after we got into bed? And these bough beds, aren’t
+they the coziest—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, you’ll get coziest with a vengeance, Blue
+Robin,” was Helen’s terse reply, “if you don’t get into
+your bathing-suit—” Helen ended with a shrill scream
+as the bugle’s blast sounded with startling clearness in
+the still morning air.
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie was already half-way into her suit.
+The last button was caught. “There, I’m ready before
+you, Miss Poke!” she taunted gleefully, as the second
+call sounded. The two girls tripped lightly across the
+open space in front of the tents thickly strewn with pine
+needles and thus on down to the boathouse pier.
+</p>
+<p>
+Just a moment and a slim figure was seen leaping
+through the air, then Nathalie arose like a mermaid
+from the sea, blowing and puffing the water from her
+mouth as she floated for a moment on her back and
+swam gracefully back to the bank. As she reached
+shallow water she stood up and waved her hand to a
+group of shivering ones on the bank crying, “Oh,
+come on, kiddies!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Sure, it’s cold!” she nodded to a faint remonstrance
+from a timorous one, “but you’ll get heated if
+you’ll take the plunge!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Out from her dip, with the wish that it could have
+been longer, she hurried to her tent; after a rub came
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_392'></a>392</span>
+the dressing, the picking up of her clothes, the putting
+her bed to air, and then the call for breakfast.
+</p>
+<p>
+After this meal came the event of the day, the naming
+of the camp, the tents, and the boats. Camp duties
+were soon disposed of and then there was a general
+stampede to Mrs. Morrow’s bungalow, where the
+Sport, as chairman of this committee, stood waving
+the Stars and Stripes on the roof of the veranda.
+</p>
+<p>
+A cheer arose a few moments later when its bright
+colors fluttered gently to and fro in the morning wind
+from the flag staff that had been hoisted over the Director’s
+abiding-place, and the girls, quickly forming
+in line, gave the flag salute. The Star Spangled Banner
+was then sung with a heartiness that found its echo
+in the woods, the very leaves on the trees seeming to
+rustle in reverence to the country’s honored emblem.
+</p>
+<p>
+The campers now gathered before Mrs. Van Vorst’s
+bungalow, where, from a high flagstaff erected by
+Peter, a white flag fluttered gracefully to the breezes,
+disclosing in red letters the words, “Camp Laff-a-Lot.”
+Beneath this flag curled a smaller one, also
+white, bearing in blue letters, “The Girl Pioneers of
+America.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Some one was just about to mount a ladder placed
+against the flagstaff when Nathalie, with sudden
+thought, turned and whispered to Mrs. Morrow, who
+immediately signaled to Helen. Helen nodded as she
+listened to her Director, and then stepping forward
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_393'></a>393</span>
+stood before Nita who, with her mother and Ellen, was
+a joyful spectator of this camp demonstration. A
+sudden look of delight overspread her face as she heard
+what Helen had to say, and then after a hurried assent
+from Mrs. Van Vorst, Nita with the help of Peter
+had mounted the ladder, holding a bottle of water in
+her hand.
+</p>
+<p>
+A swing of the bottle, a crash of glass, a stream of
+water trickling down the pole, and Nita in a voice
+somewhat faint at first, but that grew louder as she
+caught Nathalie’s eye, cried, “Summer camp of the
+Girl Pioneers of America, I name thee, Camp Laff-a-Lot!”
+Wild bursts of applause now broke forth, even
+Ellen and Peter doing their share, the former tearing
+off her apron and flapping it vigorously, while the
+latter brandished his hat hilariously, stopping every
+moment or so to rub the back of his hand across his
+eyes. “Sure,” as he afterwards confessed to Nathalie,
+“it was enough to make any one weep with joy
+to see Miss Nita spilling all over with happiness!”
+</p>
+<p>
+As the Pioneers hastened to the boat-house they
+saw a diminutive figure standing on the top of its little
+square cupola. With many flourishes of her bottle
+Carol—who had been elected to this honor—chimed
+jubilantly, “Boat-house, in memory of the ship that
+crossed the unknown sea to carry the founders of this
+nation to its shores, I now name thee, ‘The Mayflower’!”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_394'></a>394</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+And so the naming continued, the little log summer-house
+being honored by the name of Ann Burras, a
+pioneer of the Jamestown colony, known as the first
+white bride in America. The tent loaned by Mrs. Van
+Vorst was dubbed “The Three Guardian Angels,” in
+appreciation of the services of Ann Drummond, Sarah
+Cottin, and Mrs. Cheisman, also of the Jamestown company,
+sometimes known as “The White Apron Brigade,”
+as during the Bacon rebellion they were placed
+in front of a trench where Bacon’s men were digging,
+to prevent Governor Berkeley from firing on the Fort.
+</p>
+<p>
+The “Grub House” was to be known as the “Common
+House,” a most appropriate name, the campers declared,
+as it contained their food and ammunition, just
+as the little log hut known by that name held the necessities
+to sustain and defend the lives of the Pilgrims
+in the Plymouth settlement.
+</p>
+<p>
+The doctor’s army tent was named the “Three Margarets,”
+to honor Margaret Brent of Maryland, the
+first woman suffragist, Margaret Draper, the first
+woman to publish a newspaper, and Margaret Duncan,
+the first of her sex in the new world to engage in mercantile
+life. Helen and Nathalie’s tent was to be
+known as the “Two Anns,” out of respect to Ann
+Hutchinson, the first club woman, and Ann Bradstreet,
+the first American poetess.
+</p>
+<p>
+The boats were quickly honored with the names
+<em>Priscilla</em>, <em>Mary Chilton</em>, <em>Annetje Jans</em>, and
+<em>Polly Prevoorst</em>,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_395'></a>395</span>
+while shady retreats, lofty trees, and rocky
+coves were named anew to do homage to those women
+who helped their good sires build the foundation of
+this great Republic, by being faithful, enduring wives
+and mothers.
+</p>
+<p>
+At eleven o’clock the girls assembled on the shores
+of the Lake for a life-saving drill. Forming in line
+at a given signal, each girl quickly unfastened her red
+necktie, and turning swiftly to the right tied one end
+of it in a square knot to her neighbor’s. This red life-line
+was then thrown to the sinker—as the girls
+dubbed Edith, who was playing the part of the person
+drowning. She hurriedly grabbed this necktie rope
+and was drawn ashore by her comrades.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls found that this drill not only made them
+keen and alert, training them to keep cool heads, but
+helped to give them reliance as well as courage, and—heaps
+of fun.
+</p>
+<p>
+The bathers were now lined up for a swimming contest,
+each girl at the toot of the horn making a wild
+dash for the water, and swimming out as far as she
+could to the stake-boat, manned by the doctor, anchored
+some distance from shore. This contest was to determine
+not only who could swim, and the best swimmers,
+but those who had the greatest amount of strength and
+endurance, who would be able to train others not so
+competent.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, who had spent a number of summers at a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_396'></a>396</span>
+seaside resort and therefore was at home in the
+water, found to her surprise that she, Helen, and Edith
+were the three best swimmers of the campers. This
+was as much of a surprise to her as to the Pioneers,
+for, supposing that she was a swimmer of only average
+skill, she had never even told that she could swim.
+</p>
+<p>
+Drills and contests being over, the girls were allowed
+to do as they liked, and so were soon gambolling
+about in the water, having the merriest time running
+races in the more shallow water, ducking one another,
+or teaching some more timid one to swim or dive.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie and Helen had rowed out some distance
+from shore and were practicing diving by jumping
+from the boat. “Now!” Helen would shout as they
+stood poised in the center, “One! Two! Three!”
+The next instant there would be a flash of pointed
+hands, a sweep of blue bathing-suits—like bluebirds
+skimming through the air—a splash, and then first
+one head would appear and then the other, each one
+blowing and puffing water from her eyes and nose like
+a porpoise.
+</p>
+<p>
+“O dear,” exclaimed Nathalie suddenly as the two
+girls sat sunning themselves in the boat, “here comes
+the Sport. I wonder what she is up to now!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But it was all in a morning’s fun, and the three girls
+were soon having fine sport as a diving team of three.
+Tired at last, they settled for a short rest, Helen and
+Nathalie laughing merrily as they watched Lillie Bell
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_397'></a>397</span>
+trying to induce Carol to do something more than wet
+her feet. Suddenly there came a shove, and a second
+later the two girls went splashing head-foremost into
+the water!
+</p>
+<p>
+A few moments and they bobbed up, not at all
+serenely, as they sputtered and gasped, struggling to
+eject the water from eyes and noses. Helen, seeing
+Edith disporting herself some distance away, demanded
+with flashing eyes, “What did you do that
+for?” while Nathalie, whose cheeks were sea pink,
+sputtered between gasps, “Edith, I think you are just
+as mean as you can be!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But the Sport was off, waving her hand at them
+derisively as she swam rapidly towards shore. The
+girls by this time had righted their cockle-shell, which
+they found floating right side up with the tide, and
+after clambering in Helen grabbed the oars, exclaiming
+wrathfully, “Oh, how I would like to get even with
+her for that!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“So would I!” echoed her friend. “It does seem
+as if the imp himself was in that girl sometimes. But
+wait, I’ll get one on her yet, see if I don’t.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Full of the ozone of the forest and animated by that
+spirit of exploration that always inspires one in a new
+place, directly after lunch the Pioneers with staffs,
+knapsacks, and note-books, lined up for an afternoon
+tramp. To vary the adventure it had been decided to
+name it a salmagundi hike, which meant a tramp of
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_398'></a>398</span>
+observation, each girl aiming to see how many things
+she could observe, birds, animals, flowers, or leaves,
+in fact, anything that was to be seen in the field or
+woods.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie had prepared for the expedition in glad
+anticipation, being particularly anxious to get in touch
+with so many things that she lacked of nature’s many
+lores, but when she caught sight of the disappointed
+face of Nita, who was not, as yet, equal to a hike her
+spirits sank to zero.
+</p>
+<p>
+Somehow her conscience would not be downed as
+it urged her to atone in some way to Nita for the many
+things that she was forced to be deprived of in her
+young girlhood. “No, I do not believe it is my place
+to stay with her,” argued Nathalie’s naughty self, “for
+I have already given up a great deal of time and fun
+in qualifying her to become a Pioneer. And then if I
+once begin by staying with her she will want me to
+remain all the time, and I shall never have a bit of fun.”
+</p>
+<p>
+But after a short inward struggle Nathalie pleaded
+that she was tired, and declared she was going to remain
+at home and have a good cozy chat with Nita.
+</p>
+<p>
+The joy that shown on Nita’s face at this declaration
+compensated her for her sacrifice, and she was
+just trying to think what she could do to make the time
+pass pleasantly for the girl when a sudden loud shout
+sounded from the woods. Before the girls could question
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_399'></a>399</span>
+as to what it was a chorus of boyish voices were
+heard shouting:
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;“Ready!&nbsp;&nbsp;Ready!&nbsp;&nbsp;Scout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Scout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Scout!<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Good&nbsp;&nbsp;turn&nbsp;&nbsp;daily.&nbsp;&nbsp;Shout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Shout!&nbsp;&nbsp;Shout!”<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+For one moment the girls stared in dazed amazement,
+why—oh! that was the salute call of the Westport
+Scouts! But all thought came to an end a minute
+later as a troop of boys in brown suddenly appeared at
+a bend of the road leading from the woods. As they
+spied the Pioneers they broke into wild shouts and
+whistles, energetically waving handkerchiefs, staffs,
+anything they could muster, while the foremost one,
+no other than Dr. Homer, twirled his hat over his
+head hilariously.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a few moments the scout mystery was solved as
+the girls stood surrounded by the Eagle Patrol of
+Westport, every one talking eagerly, some telling how
+they came to be there, while others were having great
+sport as they teased the girls about how nicely they
+had fooled them. It soon developed that the doctor
+and his wife were in the secret; in fact, Mrs. Morrow
+said that the doctor had chuckled so when he saw how
+mystified the girls were when they heard the calls from
+across the Lake, that she feared he would spring the
+surprise before it was time.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, the scouts of Westport, who had been thinking
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_400'></a>400</span>
+of a three weeks’ tramp in some place not too far from
+the city, after hearing how Mrs. Van Vorst had invited
+the Pioneers to camp at Eagle Lake, had gone to
+that lady, and after due inquiries had made their plans
+to camp at the same time as the girls, only on the opposite
+shore of the Lake.
+</p>
+<p>
+Finding that the girls were bound for a tramp, the
+scouts, through Dr. Homer, begged permission to accompany
+them. The girls quickly gave their assent,
+and in a short space the hikers set out for a survey of
+the land, all but Fred Tyson, who lingered at Nathalie’s
+side as if waiting for her to join them.
+</p>
+<p>
+Seeing, however, that Nathalie made no attempt to
+follow the others, he asked with puzzled eyes, “What’s
+the matter, Miss Blue Robin, aren’t you going to
+hike?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie choked for a moment, then gaining control
+of her emotions, with an attempt at a smile returned,
+“Why, no, I’m tired, you know we have been working
+awfully hard ever since we came—getting the camp
+in shape—” she had caught a glimpse of Nita’s keen
+eyes—“so I thought I’d just stay at home and rest
+with Nita. You know, she can’t stand a long walk.”
+This was said in a lower tone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred’s face showed disappointment, and then he
+cried boyishly, “Oh, I say, Miss Nathalie, you’ll miss
+all the fun!” Then, as if half suspecting what might
+be the cause of Nathalie’s staying at home, he said,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_401'></a>401</span>
+“As for Miss Nita, if she wants to come with us we’ll
+fix it so she won’t have to walk a step!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Putting his fingers to his mouth he emitted a sharp
+whistle, which two scouts lagging in the rear heard
+and immediately turned about and retraced their steps.
+“Here,” continued Fred, “you fellows improvise a
+stretcher to carry Miss Nita so she can hike with us!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nita’s eyes began to gleam, but Mrs. Van Vorst approaching
+from the other end of the veranda at this
+moment, and hearing of the proposed plan of navigation,
+demurred, thanking the boys most graciously for
+their kindness, but declining to let Nita go, claiming
+that it would be too much for her that warm day.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred, thus forced to be content, after a lingering
+look of regret raised his cap and then hurriedly joined
+the party who were already disappearing in the winding
+path of the woods.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, with an unconscious sigh, turned away.
+O dear, it did seem mean to have to give up that walk.
+It had been hard enough to win the first battle over the
+temptation to go, but this second one had seemed even
+harder. But immediately seeing that she was a great
+baby to let a little disappointment mar the pleasure of
+the beautiful day, she turned with smiling eyes to the
+princess, and suggested that they have a nice little row
+to one of the tiny islands in the center of the Lake.
+</p>
+<p>
+This, Nita was very glad to do, and so with notebooks
+and pencils, and with the remark that they could
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_402'></a>402</span>
+have a nice little salmagundi hike all by their lone
+selves, they started for the boat-house.
+</p>
+<p>
+And indeed, Nathalie and her little friend spent a
+most enjoyable afternoon, for, as she afterwards declared
+to Helen, “It was lovely and cool down on that
+little island with the green trees and shady coves.
+And do you know,” she continued, “I was so surprised,
+for Nita is a most observant little person. Why, she
+knows the names of many of the grasses and wood
+flowers, and the birds—she knows their names, can
+tell what birds are nesting in August and any number
+of interesting things about nature. I am sure she will
+make a most wonderful little Pioneer, after she becomes
+acquainted with the girls.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course Helen had many things to tell about the
+salmagundi hike, and the different objects they had
+seen and noted on their tramp. She had taken notes
+and Nathalie was invited to take a peep at them some
+time, Helen suggesting that she might find them of
+some help later on. The scouts, she said, had been
+most kind and had told them lots of interesting things,
+particularly about tracking the footprints of animals.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” declared Nathalie as Helen finished telling
+of the good times they had had, “I have had two good
+times, instead of your one, for I had a fine time with
+Nita, and then I have had the coziest of chats with you,
+which has proved almost as good as if I had been with
+you on the hike.”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_403'></a>403</span><a name='chXXIII' id='chXXIII'></a>CHAPTER XXIII—MISS CAMPHELIA</h2>
+<p>
+A week had passed, and although the novelty
+of many of the activities and pleasures of this
+life in the open had dulled, every moment
+proved one of joy. Drills, contests, sports, hikes, and
+various entertainments had merged so evenly, one into
+the other, that tasks had lost their irksomeness and
+play had received an added zest.
+</p>
+<p>
+To be sure, some unfortunate accidents had happened;
+Grace had cut her hand when opening a can
+of tomatoes, Carol had been stung by some mysterious
+insect so severely that even the doctor was puzzled, and
+one of the Orioles had sprained her ankle. But these
+mishaps had been received with true camp fortitude—the
+Pioneer spirit, Helen called it—and had only
+served as object lessons in the First Aid to the Injured
+talks given by Dr. Morrow, thus giving Helen and
+Kitty a chance to display their expertness in the triangular,
+the four-tailed, and many other kinds of
+bandages.
+</p>
+<p>
+Hammers, saws, and hatchets were in great demand
+one morning—the girls all busy making stilts, some
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_404'></a>404</span>
+to show their scout friends that they could handle men’s
+tools, while others were qualifying for first-class Pioneers—when
+Lillie appeared. With woebegone
+face she reported to Nathalie, who was serving as her
+assistant on the Grub committee, that there was no
+milk.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No milk?” ejaculated the girl. “Why, wasn’t
+the milkman here this morning?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Sure,” nodded Lillie, “but that Oriole girl—Nannie
+Plummer—dropped some swill into the milk
+can. She mistook it for the garbage pail—” Lillie’s
+eyes glinted humorously—“she was so busy expressing
+her admiration for that Will Hopper, you know
+the scout with the languishing eyes, as Helen calls
+them.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s face expressed dismay. “Oh, what shall
+we do?” she almost wailed; “we have got to have
+milk for that pudding, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“To be sure,” laconically returned Lillie, “and you
+will have to go and get some.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Get some?” echoed Nathalie faintly; “where?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“At the farm-house, you know the place—with the
+red barn—on the road to Boonton.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But there isn’t time for me to walk there and back
+before dinner,” protested the girl somewhat wrathfully,
+“on this hot day, too!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, but you can take Edith’s bicycle, and go and
+get back in no time.”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_405'></a>405</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but it is hot!” ejaculated Nathalie, some fifteen
+minutes later, as with reddened, perspiring face
+she slowed up her wheel, and spying a mossy bank
+overlooking a brook meandering beneath a group of
+willows, jumped to the ground. As she was standing
+her wheel against a tree, a woman with a reddish handkerchief
+tied over her head came up the bank. She
+started when she saw Nathalie, but instantly averting
+her eyes hurried on down the road in the direction of
+the farm-house where Nathalie was to get the milk.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girl had thrown herself on the grassy slope and
+was fanning vigorously with her hat, when her eyes
+were arrested by something white lying under an
+overhanging bush near the brook. Perhaps she would
+not have stared so intently if she had not thought that
+she saw it move. Just at that moment a low wailing
+cry came to her ears.
+</p>
+<p>
+Assured beyond doubt that the cry came from the
+bundle, she hurried down the slope, and a moment
+later was bending over a baby, who, on seeing the wondering
+face, looked up with innocent appeal in its wide
+blue eyes.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, you dear,” cooed the girl, “how did you
+come here?” She looked up expecting to see some
+one to whom the baby belonged, but as there was no
+one in sight and she saw the little lip quiver pathetically,
+she gathered it up in her arms and chucking the
+dimpled chin began to jabber to it in baby language.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_406'></a>406</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Whom do you belong to, baby?” she questioned
+aloud, silently wondering if that tramp woman who
+had come up the bank could have been its mother.
+But that could hardly be, she pondered, for she looked
+like an Italian, while the baby was fair with tiny wisps
+of golden hair straying from beneath its neat white cap.
+</p>
+<p>
+Reminded finally that the camp’s need of milk was
+urgent, she laid the baby down and ran along the bank
+first in one direction, and then the other, shouting and
+calling until her voice was hoarse. O dear, what
+should she do? She could not leave that dear thing
+there alone! Ah, she would take it with her to the
+farm-house, perhaps Mrs. Hansen might know something
+about it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Carrying her find with one arm and trundling her
+wheel with the other hand, she arrived in a short space
+at her destination. But alas, she met with no satisfaction.
+Mrs. Hansen declared that in all probability the
+woman was a gypsy, as there was a settlement of them
+some miles beyond the town and that she had purposely
+deserted the baby. She also informed the girl
+in a most emphatic manner that she could not leave the
+child there as she had enough of her own to look after.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But this is a white baby,” persisted Nathalie, “see,
+it is very fair!” showing the little puckered face, for
+by this time it had begun to whimper quite loudly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Poor waif!” exclaimed the farmer’s wife, “it is
+hungry!” Hastily getting a cup of milk she put it to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_407'></a>407</span>
+the mouth of the little one, whose fingers closed on it
+tightly as it drank greedily.
+</p>
+<p>
+But feeding the baby did not soften Mrs. Hansen’s
+heart, and Nathalie was forced to see that there was
+nothing else to do but to carry the deserted one to camp
+with her. But how could she trundle a wheel, carry a
+five-quart can of milk, and the baby all at the same
+time? Poor Nathalie! she was in deep waters!
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Hansen, however, who was not unkindly, seeing
+the girl’s dilemma called her boy Joe, and giving
+him the milk and wheel told him to hurry with it to
+the camp, so that Nathalie would have her arms free
+to carry her charge.
+</p>
+<p>
+Some time after the dinner hour Nathalie, tired, hot,
+hungry, and every muscle aching from weariness, arrived
+at the camp. She was immediately surrounded
+by the girls, who besieged her with questions as to the
+why and wherefore of her tardy appearance. But
+when their eyes lighted on the blue-eyed cherub, who
+had been blissfully sleeping the greater part of the
+girl’s three-mile tramp on a sunny road, they went wild
+with excitement.
+</p>
+<p>
+Mrs. Morrow presently arrived on the scene and
+promptly driving Nathalie’s tormentors away, handed
+the infant to Ellen and Nita. Then she made the girl
+lie down in the hammock to cool off, while Helen and
+Grace rushed off to get her dinner.
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girl, between bites, told of her strange adventure,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_408'></a>408</span>
+she saw that it was not to prove as disastrous
+as she feared, for the little stranger had already captivated
+every member of the camp, even down to Peter,
+also Rosy, Mrs. Van Vorst’s black cook. Indeed, it
+was petted, hugged, and kissed so many times that
+Mrs. Morrow, fearing it would be brought to evil by
+so many caressing hands, then and there made rules
+as to how each girl should care for it.
+</p>
+<p>
+They all declared that Nathalie’s finding that baby
+was providential, for one of the Pioneers that very
+morning had expressed the wish that they could find a
+baby in one of the farm-houses. They wanted to practice
+bathing and dressing it, as these were some of the
+qualifications necessary for a first-class Pioneer.
+</p>
+<p>
+Although notices were posted in the post-offices of
+the towns, and also sent to several newspapers, advertising
+the fact that a baby had been found and was at
+Camp Laff-a-Lot, no one claimed it. The girls were
+delighted as they were enamored of their new toy, each
+one secretly hoping it could remain with them.
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls had even begun to discuss the project of
+calling it the Girl Pioneer baby, and were deep in plans
+to raise money so they could have it taken care of and
+educated as such, when Mrs. Van Vorst avowed that
+if no mother appeared to claim it she would adopt it
+as her own.
+</p>
+<p>
+This of course took away the girls’ hopes of having
+the little one for their own, as who could deny Mrs.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_409'></a>409</span>
+Van Vorst and Nita what they so eagerly desired and
+what they were so able to do? In the meantime, Miss
+Camphelia—for so she had been christened—cooed,
+gurgled, and dimpled with delight at each new mother
+who bathed and dressed her in silent adoration of the
+tyrant of the camp.
+</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>
+Nathalie stirred restlessly, jumbled up her pillow,
+and then flopped over with a sigh. O dear, why
+couldn’t she go to sleep? It was not near time to
+get up!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nathalie Page, what ails you?” came in exasperated
+tone from the other bed. “You have been wiggling,
+bouncing, jumping, and sighing like a porpoise
+for half the night. For pity’s sake do go to sleep!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie made no reply, assured that if she did she
+would betray what a baby she was.
+</p>
+<p>
+“What does ail you anyway?” persisted Helen in a
+softer tone. “Have you been doing the green-apple
+act like Carol, and—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, it’s just Nita,” replied the girl dolefully.
+“You see it is this way, Helen. I told Mrs. Van
+Vorst that if Nita could mingle with girls about her
+own age it would do her a world of good.” Nathalie
+sat up in bed and began to hug her knees. “So, you
+see, I feel responsible in a measure to see that she gets
+a good time, but dear me, she is just having a horrible
+time!”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_410'></a>410</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“How do you know?” questioned Helen, “she—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, the poor little thing mopes and cries all the
+time. She won’t admit it, but she doesn’t want me
+out of her sight. Really, Helen, I know it is selfish
+when she is so afflicted—” Nathalie’s voice quavered,
+“but I do want a bit of fun myself sometimes.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I should say!” was Helen’s ejaculation.
+“But I wouldn’t worry over it. She’s selfish, that’s
+all, and shouldn’t be encouraged. I have noticed that
+she is terribly offish with the girls, and they are half
+afraid to be pleasant with her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, she does not mean to be offish, as you say,”
+answered Nathalie quickly, “she is shy, and sensitive.
+I think she imagines the girls do not care for her because
+she is a humpback. If there was only some way
+by which she could become better acquainted with the
+girls, and give them a chance to know her better!
+She’s an awfully bright little thing, and I know she
+would be a prime favorite, for there’s lots of fun in
+her. She’s just pining—well—for love.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Humph!” came from Helen, “she gets enough of
+it from her mother and Ellen; they spoil her.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes, I know, but that is what she doesn’t want—mother-coddling.
+What she wants is to come out here
+and kick around as one of us in a rough and tumble
+way. Then she would get over her sensitiveness, but
+somehow I can’t seem to manage it.”
+</p>
+<p>
+There was silence for a moment as both girls fell
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_411'></a>411</span>
+to thinking. All at once Helen bounced up in bed
+crying, “There, Nathalie, I have nailed it!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Nailed it?” repeated her companion. “Why—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, you know what I mean, I mean about Nita.
+Now listen to Solon the Wise. You get Nita to come
+and sleep in this tent—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Where, on the floor?” inquired Nathalie teasingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“You know what I mean—on my cot. I’ll take
+her room. Then you drill her to take her part with
+the other girls, and so on, just as if she were one of us.
+In three days I’ll come back and take my turn with
+her, and you take my place. Then in three days again
+let Lillie take a turn, and so on until the turns have
+gone the rounds, each girl being her tent-mate for
+three days. In that way she will become acquainted
+and have a chance to get in with us.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Helen, you are the brightest—but suppose she
+won’t come?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Won’t be your tent-mate? Why, she worships the
+ground you walk on! That’s one thing that ails her,
+Nathalie, she’s jealous of the girls, because in a way
+she is outside of it all. Get her into harness like the
+rest of us and in ten days’ time she’ll be like another
+girl, or you can shut me up for a lunatic.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, as soon as possible after the morning conference,
+had a little talk with her Director, and finding
+that she agreed with Helen, sought Mrs. Van Vorst
+and laid before her the new plan. Of course she found
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_412'></a>412</span>
+that she had a number of objections to fight from that
+lady, but eventually she won, and it was decided that
+for the rest of the time in camp Nita Van Vorst was
+to be lost to her mother’s bungalow, for to her unbounded
+joy she was to be one of the girls!
+</p>
+<p>
+It was bathing hour, and Nathalie, with bugle in
+hand, was patroling the beach, keeping her brain and
+eyes keenly alert, for some of the girls were careless,
+and would swim out beyond the raft.
+</p>
+<p>
+Carol was giving her considerable trouble, for having
+just mastered the art of swimming she had become
+very daring, doing her best to “show off” before
+the girls. Her companions had promised to keep
+an eye on her, but Nathalie knew that when they were
+sporting about in the water they were apt to forget
+their duty.
+</p>
+<p>
+Her eyes swept from one group to the other. Ah,
+the Sport was swimming out to the raft! How well
+she looked in that red cap, and what a beautiful swimmer
+she was, so free and graceful in her movements!
+Hearing a sudden cry, as she thought, Nathalie turned
+and glanced at Carol. Good! she had stopped her
+antics of pretending she was sinking. Her eyes again
+wandered to Edith, why where was she? There was
+her red cap bobbing on the water, what new trick was
+she up to now? She had thrown up her arms. Oh,
+was she screaming? Pshaw, she was just fooling as
+usual, what a plague she was!
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_413'></a>413</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie strained her eyes, why, yes, she <em>was</em>
+screaming! she had gone down again! Just a moment,
+and then as Nathalie saw the red cap bob up
+again and heard another piercing shriek, she realized
+that Edith was drowning! Nathalie’s brain spun like
+a wheel—what should she do—she glanced helplessly
+around. Where was Helen?
+</p>
+<p>
+“Edith is drowning!” she tried to shriek, but her
+voice sounded faint, as if far away. O God! and
+then she remembered. Up went her bugle and two
+loud blasts—the danger signal that some one was
+drowning—rang sharply over the water.
+</p>
+<p>
+Just a moment, and then with a sudden swirl
+through the air, Nathalie had leaped into the water,
+and with long, swift strokes swam towards the spot
+where she had seen the red cap go down! Ah, she
+was almost there! As Edith threw up her arms again
+with another frenzied scream, for help, Nathalie
+grabbed her under the shoulders. But Edith, with a
+hysterical cry, threw her arms around her neck. Oh,
+she was dragging her down!
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie regained control of herself, and was frantically
+beating back the clutching arms. She had
+swung her around; she tried to get a firmer grip, but
+a nameless fear was pinching her heart. She felt her
+strength was giving out! Then she heard Helen’s
+voice crying, “Don’t lose your hold, Nathalie, we’re
+almost there!”
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_414'></a>414</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Edith was so heavy; Nathalie tried to tighten her
+grip; she was more quiet now. Oh, could it be? She
+heard the purling of water and saw, but dimly, something
+dark moving towards her. Oh, if they would
+only hurry? Some one had caught hold of Edith and
+was dragging—
+</p>
+<p>
+When Nathalie regained her consciousness it was
+to hear Mrs. Morrow’s voice crying, “Poor little Blue
+Robin!” She opened her eyes to see the doctor bending
+over her while Mrs. Morrow peeped over his
+shoulder with a cheery smile. “Edith?” she gasped,
+making an attempt to rise.
+</p>
+<p>
+“As snug as a bug in a rug,” rejoined the doctor
+promptly, “and you will be, too, if you will drink
+this.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie meekly obeyed. She was so tired, would
+she ever get rested? But she did, and a few hours
+later was half sitting up on her cot supported by pillows,
+surrounded by a group of sober-faced girls all
+eagerly listening as she told how it came about. “If
+she hadn’t gripped me so hard,” she ended as she sank
+back on the pillows, beginning to feel tired again, “I
+could have managed.” Then suddenly a queer little
+smile curved her mouth and drawing Helen down to
+her she whispered softly, “Helen, do you remember
+the day Edith ducked us when we were off in the boat,
+and how I declared I would get even?” Her friend
+nodded gravely. “Well,” said Nathalie, still with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_415'></a>415</span>
+that queer little smile, “I have got one on her,
+haven’t I?”
+</p>
+<p>
+A cheer fire was in progress, and a noisy one at that.
+The Pioneers had spent the afternoon and evening of
+the previous day over at the camp across the Lake at
+an entertainment called Scout Day, given in their
+honor by their friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+Certainly it had been a most wonderful Scout Day,
+for there had been scouts saluting the colors, giving
+calls, making signals, lighting fires, and building
+shacks, tepees, and miniature log huts. Scouts, too,
+had engaged in all kinds of drills, contests, and races,
+such as tilting jousts, hand-wrestling, spear fighting
+and sham battles. And the games! They were a
+revelation to the girls in the uniqueness and cleverness
+of the ideas displayed. They had found, too, that
+scouts knew how to cook the very things dear to a
+camper’s heart, and sing—well, about every war and
+camp song known.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Camp Circus presented the ludicrous side of
+these knights of chivalry, as they did clown stunts,
+causing the girls to laugh immoderately. After supper
+had come a firefly dance, which made strong appeal
+to the weird and mystic in every girl’s nature, as
+they watched the scouts swing about the blazing light
+in strange and grotesque evolution.
+</p>
+<p>
+Perhaps the best was the scouts on the water, when,
+with a flotilla of row-boats and canoes decorated with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_416'></a>416</span>
+the figures of paper animals, and brilliantly aglow
+with Japanese lights they glided over the water, the
+motion of the boats making the lights look like fireflies
+dancing in the air.
+</p>
+<p>
+The jolly times given by the scouts must be returned!
+When, how, and where, were the three questions causing
+no little agitation, when Carol, with a white, frightened
+face, leaped into their midst crying, “Oh, girls,
+the baby has a fit!”
+</p>
+<p>
+On hearing this startling statement some of the girls
+began to cry, others jumped up and wrung their hands
+frantically, while a few made a wild dash for Mrs.
+Van Vorst’s bungalow. Helen fortunately kept cool,
+and, perceiving that a panic would ensue, seized her
+bugle and blew it quickly.
+</p>
+<p>
+This halted the stampede, arrested the hysterical
+ones midway between a sob and a cry, and caused a
+sudden quiet to fall, as she cried, in a loud clear voice,
+“Girls, keep perfectly still. Nathalie Page, Edith
+Whiton, and Lillie Bell, I appoint a committee of three
+to go and see if Carol’s report is so, and whether our
+services are needed. And please, Pioneers,” she called
+out as the three girls sprang on their feet, “one of you
+girls come back and let us know how things are progressing,
+as we shall all be anxious to know.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The next moment the three girls were running
+swiftly after Carol, who, immediately after delivering
+her news, had started to run back to the bungalow.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_417'></a>417</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now, girls,” continued Helen, “let us go on talking.
+Of course we are all worried, for we just love
+that baby!” she paused for a second, “but we can’t
+all help. Mrs. Morrow will let us know if we can do
+anything, so in the meantime, let us go on thinking up
+ideas.”
+</p>
+<p>
+A cheer greeted this speech as a tribute to their
+leader’s level head and courage, for this was not the
+first time that she had preserved her poise, and held
+the scales when unduly weighted on the wrong side.
+</p>
+<p>
+Yes, it was true, little Camphelia was writhing in
+convulsions on Mrs. Morrow’s lap, while Mrs. Van
+Vorst bent over her with agitated movements, applying
+with Ellen’s help hot water, and mustard, and such
+remedies as were available at the moment.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie touched Mrs. Van Vorst softly on the arm,
+“Is there anything we girls can do?” Her eyes were
+big with anxious fear.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, I don’t know,” replied that lady distractedly;
+“if the doctor were only here!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Blue Robin, is that you?” asked Mrs. Morrow
+quickly, as she heard Nathalie’s voice. “Oh, we must
+have help! How unfortunate the doctor had to go
+to the city to-day! But, Nathalie, can’t you send a
+wireless to Dr. Homer? Tell him to come immediately,
+for the baby is very ill!”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie was already out of the sound of her
+voice, as with quick, light steps she ran to the girls
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_418'></a>418</span>
+who, with white distressed faces, awaited her on the
+veranda. “Mrs. Morrow says to send a wireless to
+Dr. Homer over at camp,” she explained hurriedly,
+“but I am afraid we won’t get him, as the wireless
+hours are nine, twelve and eight, and it is not eight
+yet.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes it is,” returned Lillie, “five minutes to
+eight,” looking up from her little wrist-watch in its
+leather bandlet. “I’m sure we shall catch him.”
+</p>
+<p>
+The girls hurried to the boat-house and climbed up
+to the little cupola, where Dr. Morrow, on first coming
+to camp, had installed his wireless apparatus. The
+Pioneers had been somewhat mystified by this procedure,
+wondering of what use a wireless would be
+to him up there in those woods. But the doctor had
+soon demonstrated that it was not only one of the most
+useful things about camp, but one of the most entertaining.
+</p>
+<p>
+He had not only been able to discuss with his fellow
+physician across the lake many professional questions
+that he came across in his medical books now and
+then, or letters from his colleague in Westport, who
+had charge of some of his important cases, but at
+times had been able to give valuable advice to the
+younger physician when dealing with some refractory
+or eccentric scout.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the doctor had done more than this, for he had
+gathered the four older girls, Helen, Edith, Lillie, and
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_419'></a>419</span>
+Nathalie together, and given them lessons in wireless
+telegraphy, so that they were soon glibly talking about
+ether waves, spark-coils, condensers, tuners, keys,
+and so on, in a way that proved his lessons had been
+well learned. They had, in fact, not only learned the
+Morse code, so that they could “listen in” when the
+doctor was “picking up” an S. O. S. call from some
+ship in distress, but they had heard many a wireless
+message from some signal station, or from some out-going
+or in-coming sea craft.
+</p>
+<p>
+At first it had seemed quite odd that although their
+little amateur apparatus could send messages only
+within a radius of five miles, it was able to receive
+them from a distance of over a thousand. They became
+so proficient in this click-clack language that they
+were soon sending aerograms, or wireless messages,
+to the camp across the Lake for the doctor. Sometimes,
+too, they sent messages to their scout friends, a
+privilege only accorded after the messages had been
+read by their Director, so as to avoid senseless talk or
+idle gossip.
+</p>
+<p>
+As soon as the girls reached the little wooden table
+holding the wireless, Lillie and Edith instinctively drew
+back, feeling that as Nathalie was the one who had
+found the baby she had the prior right to send this
+call for help. Seating herself, Nathalie quickly adjusted
+the telephones over her ears and set to work.
+But to her surprise, as she pressed the wireless key
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_420'></a>420</span>
+on the detector to close the circuit, she heard no sharp
+crack, and saw no spark-gap. Again she tried with
+like result. “Why, what is the matter with it?” she
+questioned turning towards the girls in some trepidation.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Let me try,” pleaded Lillie. But alas, she met
+with no better luck than Nathalie, although she tried
+one experiment after the other. “I think it is the
+strangest thing,” she commented staring helplessly before
+her; “what can be the matter with the thing
+anyway?”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Edith, who had dropped down on her hands
+and knees to examine the battery under the wooden
+board, now rose to her feet crying, “There is nothing
+the matter with the condenser, it must be that the
+aerial wires are not right!”
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girl made this announcement there was an
+ominous silence as they stared with distressed, worried
+faces at one another. “Oh, what can we do?” lamented
+Nathalie, “could we—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I know what we can do,” said Lillie suddenly;
+“we can row across the Lake to the camp!”
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_421'></a>421</span><a name='chXXIV' id='chXXIV'></a>CHAPTER XXIV—THE WIRELESS OPERATOR</h2>
+<p>
+“Yes, that is the only thing we can do,” said
+Nathalie quickly, “but suppose the doctor
+is not there! You know the boys said they
+were going on a two or three days’ tramp this week.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, I’ll tell you how we can settle that problem
+and make sure,” replied Lillie, whose mind acted
+quickly. “Suppose we row over while Edith goes
+on her wheel to Mrs. Hansen’s and telephones to
+Boonton.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What, go all that distance alone in the dark?”
+protested the Sport in an appalled tone, “and then I
+don’t know what doctor to telephone to!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“What, Edith, do you want us to think that you are
+really afraid?” laughed Lillie; “<em>you</em>, the girl who
+has never shown the white feather at any dare?
+Why, I—”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie’s cheery voice, like oil on troubled
+waters, interposed quickly, “Of course she is not
+afraid, but it is an unpleasant thing to do to ride that
+distance alone at night. But we can’t take chances,
+and we must have a doctor. And as to the one you
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_422'></a>422</span>
+telephone to, Edith,” she cried, turning to that young
+lady, whose face had brightened somewhat, “call Dr.
+McGill, he’s the little white-haired doctor who called
+on Dr. Morrow the other day. He lives at Boonton.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Without another protest Edith turned, and after
+running back to the cheer fire circle to inform Helen
+what the girls were going to do, she hurried after her
+wheel. A few minutes later, with the lantern fastened
+to the front of it, flickering like a firefly as she sped
+through the woods, she was on her way to the farm to
+telephone.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie and Nathalie had hurried down to the boathouse,
+and in a flash of time had unfastened one of
+the row boats. Springing quickly in, they were soon
+out some distance from shore, rowing as rapidly as
+they could towards the opposite bank. It was a weird
+night, the sky seemed hung with heavy black curtains,
+the only light being that from the moon, as at rare intervals
+she darted swiftly through some opening between
+the clouds, or betrayed her presence by streaks
+of foamy silver on the edge of some unusually inky
+cloud.
+</p>
+<p>
+But the path across the Lake was a familiar one, and
+ten minutes later the girls reached the opposite shores.
+“Why, it looks as if there wasn’t a soul about,” exclaimed
+Lillie, as, after drawing in their oars, the two
+girls stood up in the boat and peered anxiously through
+the bit of woodland that led to the camp, whose signal
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_423'></a>423</span>
+lantern glimmered dimly through the foliage of
+the trees.
+</p>
+<p>
+“I guess you’re right, Nathalie, the boys must be
+on a tramp,” said Lillie after several loud “Hellos!”
+the only reply to which had been a faint echo from
+across the Lake.
+</p>
+<p>
+Putting her fingers to her mouth Lillie emitted several
+sharp whistles, but still no sign of life! “Huh, it
+looks as if it was a case of Goldsmith’s ‘Deserted Village,’”
+she soliloquized dismally, but Nathalie was
+busy giving the Pioneer yell. This evoked such a
+strange medley of echoing sounds that the girls burst
+out laughing.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie’s face soon sobered, however, as she exclaimed
+dolefully, “O dear, it does seem as if we were
+destined to have bad luck. I wonder if they could
+have gone to bed!” burst from her in sudden thought.
+</p>
+<p>
+“If they have, we’ll soon rout them out,” declared
+Lillie, jumping on the bank. “Come on, let’s drag
+the boat up and then hike to camp.”
+</p>
+<p>
+After slipping on pine needles, stumbling over
+gnarled roots and blackened stumps, they finally found
+the path, devoutly thankful that the moon had at last
+emerged from behind the clouds. Indeed, as they
+stepped from the shadows of the woods and stood on
+the campus—as the scouts called the level space in
+front of the tents—the moon was shining with a
+brightness that equalled the day.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_424'></a>424</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+As the girls’ eyes traveled from the pots on the top
+pole suspended over what had once been a camp fire
+to the rows of tents, whose open flaps revealed that
+they were tenantless, Lillie uttered a sudden cry of
+delighted surprise!
+</p>
+<p>
+The next moment she had shot across the campus,
+for she had spied a white paper fastened to one of the
+larger tents, directly under the glare of the lantern
+above the door.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Hurrah! we’re in luck,” she cried, wildly jubilant,
+pointing to the white paper as Nathalie reached
+her side. “Read that!” The girl stepped closer and
+slowly deciphered from the big black letters in charcoal
+print:
+</p>
+<table class='c' summary='centered block'><tr><td>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>“Have&#160;gone&#160;to&#160;the&#160;Scout&#160;Council&#160;at&#160;the&#160;rooms&#160;of</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0'>the&#160;Wolf&#160;Patrol&#160;at&#160;Boonton.</p>
+<p style='margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; text-align:right'>“<span class='sc'>G.&#160;A.&#160;Homer,&#160;Scoutmaster.</span>”</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+<p>
+“But that does not help us any!” Nathalie said
+when she finished reading the notice, her face losing
+its eagerness as she faced her companion.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Indeed it does, goosie,” replied Lillie stoutly,
+“for the doctor has a wireless. So have the scouts
+at Boonton, for I heard one of the boys tell of a
+message one of them had picked up the other night, the
+night we had that awful thunder storm, don’t you
+remember? So don’t say we’re not lucky, Nathalie
+Page, after finding that note. I’ll warrant you,
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_425'></a>425</span>
+though, that some of the scouts did go on a tramp,
+and that the doctor left that word in case they returned
+before he did. But let’s look for that wireless!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Surmising that the tent with the note pinned on the
+flap must be Dr. Homer’s, the girls hastened in, and
+by the light from the lantern which Nathalie had taken
+from the pole by standing on a couple of soap-boxes
+she had found, it was soon discovered on a roughly-hewn
+table in a corner of the tent.
+</p>
+<p>
+This time the wireless key did its work; there was
+a sharp crack, the amateur wireless operator had
+clicked off the R. Z., the camp’s private call, and then
+with palpitating heart and expectant eyes sat waiting
+to see if it had been picked up. Suddenly her face
+broke into a smile, for as she “listened in,” she caught
+the wireless O. K. G. (go ahead). She went ahead,
+and in a few moments had made the operator at the
+Patrol rooms understand that Dr. Homer was wanted.
+There was a moment’s delay, and then the doctor himself
+was sending a message through the air. It took
+but a short space of time for Nathalie to click off why
+he was wanted, and how the girls had come to wire
+him from the scout camp.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Now let’s make tracks for home,” said Lillie as
+Nathalie hung up the lantern on the pole again. “I
+am afraid it may rain, for I thought I heard thunder.”
+But she must have been mistaken, for not a cloud disturbed
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_426'></a>426</span>
+the soft silver haze that guided them across the
+Lake to Camp Laff-a-Lot.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Dear me,” ejaculated Nathalie an hour later as
+she and Helen were undressing for bed, “what a lot
+of things have happened in the two weeks we have
+been at camp! But how glad I am that Dr. Homer got
+here in time, and that the baby is all right.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, it ought to be, with two doctors on the job,”
+retorted Helen with her usual bluntness. “Isn’t that
+old Dr. McGill jolly?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, it was comical to see him look the baby
+over, and then declare that there was nothing for him
+to do but to look wise, as Dr. Homer had done all there
+was to be done. What a chummy confab they had
+too, after it was all over! He was so pleased to meet
+Dr. Homer, he said, for he had heard Dr. Morrow
+speak of him.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well, one thing’s settled, Miss Blue Robin,” remarked
+Helen decidedly, “and that is that Miss Camphelia
+is not to have any more sweets. I half suspect
+that Carol tried to stuff her with a bite of green apple,
+for she looked frightened to death when she saw that
+she was ill. Dr. Homer said there had been too much
+mothering going on. I just knew it would come to
+this, the way—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Stop your scolding, Lady Fuss,” laughed Nathalie,
+“for it seems to me that I saw you trying to stuff the
+kiddie with a lollipop the other day. But, anyway, the
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_427'></a>427</span>
+rules have been posted, ‘No one to feed, or to handle
+Miss Camphelia without permission of the head nurse,
+Miss Ellen Carmichael!’ I’m dead for sleep, so
+good night!”
+</p>
+<hr class='tb' />
+<p>
+The camp presented an appearance of unusual activity,
+with flags and bunting rippling in the sunlit air,
+and girls, scouts, and village guests in a state of restless
+progression, for it was the Pioneer Sport Day.
+The girls were in a whirl as they flew hither and
+thither, seeing that everything was in readiness for
+the anticipated fun, the visitors curiously prying into
+the living arrangements of this girls’ camp, while the
+scouts impatiently tramped about, waiting for the
+sports to begin.
+</p>
+<p>
+Ah, there was the bugle call, the signal for a rush
+down to the shores of the Lake to witness the aquatic
+feats of the young campers! “A ghostly dive,” read
+Fred Tyson slowly from an imposing little program,
+hand-printed in red, and tied to a birch-bark cover
+with sweet-grass. “I’d like to know—” but his query
+was cut short as the bugle again sounded to announce
+that the first race was to start.
+</p>
+<p>
+Fred turned his eyes towards the pier and stared
+curiously at the little figure in a khaki suit with red
+tie and hat, standing so proudly erect on a small platform
+as the Pioneer announcer for the day. Could
+it be? Yes it was Miss Anita Van Vorst, with her
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_428'></a>428</span>
+knapsack so adroitly arranged that no one would have
+suspected she was the little humpback who had once
+only taken an outing when wheeled in a chair.
+</p>
+<p>
+A sudden scurry from the boat-house of two ghostly
+figures, a quick rush up the plank leading to the barrel
+platform,—Peter’s diving-tower,—the spectral habiliments
+suddenly flung away to float with the tide, and
+two blue-suited forms had sped swiftly downward.
+</p>
+<p>
+There was a splash, a shower of silvery spray, a
+few bubbles, and two heads were bobbing about like
+floating corks. The next minute Kitty and Edith
+were swimming swiftly back to the pier, Edith in the
+lead, and Kitty a close second amid the noisy hurrahs
+from their friends on the bank. Edith, of course,
+won the blue, and with a wave of her hand as an acknowledgment
+to the cheering audience darted quickly
+back to the boat-house.
+</p>
+<p>
+A tennis match now followed, which proved to be
+Lillie and Jessie arrayed in tennis-suits seated in
+wooden tubs with tennis-rackets for paddles, paddling
+to the goal, an anchored raft some yards from shore.
+Lillie was the winner this time, and, amid a general
+laugh received her prize, a dime and pin, with radiant
+smiles from the bugler on the pier.
+</p>
+<p>
+A pioneer race was engaged in by two Orioles, one
+in the costume of a colonial maiden of Plymouth town,
+while the other closely resembled pictures of that laggard
+in love, John Alden. The contestants swam to
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_429'></a>429</span>
+the raft where they attempted in double-quick time to
+divest themselves of their old-time clothes, the one,
+of course, who accomplished this feat first having the
+best chance to win the race.
+</p>
+<p>
+But shoes would stick, strings would knot, and buttons
+wouldn’t unfasten. Nannie Plummer at last was
+free, and jumped back to the water. But alas, her
+bonnet still clung to her; no, not to her head, but to
+one of her feet, causing her audience to shout with
+merriment at her antics to rid herself of this obstacle,
+while Johnnie the slow was still making futile endeavors
+to rid herself of her undesirable trousers.
+</p>
+<p>
+A Japanese race was applauded perhaps as much
+for its picturesqueness as for the skill displayed, as
+two daintily gowned figures,—one in a pink and one
+in a blue flowered kimono, with flowers and fans coquettishly
+arranged à la Japanese in their hair—with
+mincing steps hied themselves down to their boats.
+Here, each one holding an umbrella in one hand and
+a palm-leaf fan in the other, they paddled out to the
+stake boat.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Gee whiz! I’d like to know how they make those
+fans work!” exclaimed Teddie Hart in puzzled tone,
+to the joy of a group of girls near by, who giggled
+unrestrainedly as they saw that they had succeeded
+in mystifying their scout friends. Perhaps Peter, if
+he had minded, could have explained that a flat board
+to which the fans were nailed did the work.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_430'></a>430</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+A Silver Race was composed of teams of two, rowing
+out to the raft and back, each girl holding a silver
+spoon in her mouth containing an egg. The winners
+were Nathalie and Edith, who reached shore with
+their eggs intact, while Lillie Bell and a Bob White
+raced back to land with streams of yellow dripping
+from their faces and clothes, the race rules requiring
+that each racer should return to the shore with what
+remained of the egg.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Trail of the Lonesome Pine created yells of
+laughter, as Helen stepped gingerly along with bare
+feet on a peeled pine sapling suspended over the shallow
+water near the shore. It was greased, of course, but
+the red apple at its end proved an incentive as the
+girl slipped cautiously towards it. Hurrah, she was
+almost there! Hadn’t she practiced that feat for days?
+There was a sudden swerve to one side, the supple
+figure tottered, and then Miss Helen plunged to her
+fate in the water below. But she only laughed with
+the spectators as she wrung out her skirts and scurried
+for the bank, while Barbara began her greasy career.
+</p>
+<p>
+Surely she had rosin on her feet! No, she didn’t,
+for the next moment she too was clawing the air.
+She swayed for a minute like a reed in the wind, and
+then went down, not into the water, but on the pole
+where she gazed with a bewildered stare in her near-sighted
+eyes at the jeering little prize that had proved
+so elusive.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_431'></a>431</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The first number of the land sports was a contest
+in the air, the performers walking on stilts while balancing
+potatoes on their heads. A tilting joust also
+took place, and helped to prove that the time the girls
+had spent in making and walking on the stilts had not
+been wasted.
+</p>
+<p>
+The Up Against It Race, turned out to be an obstacle
+race, one of the obstacles being twelve eggs to
+be picked up from the ground and placed in a basket.
+The second obstacle was hailed with deafening shouts,
+for it was no other than Miss Camphelia sitting on the
+race-track contentedly sucking a lollipop. She was
+speedily seized by the contestant and arrayed in a
+coat and hat, while gazing with wondering eyes at this
+new red-faced mother. The girl who made the best
+time as an egg-picker and baby-dresser proved to be an
+Oriole, and was duly applauded for her speed and deftness.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the Light that Failed contest the fair racers made
+a twenty-yard dash carrying lighted candles and pails
+of water, one in each hand, at the same time. All lights
+flickered out to be sure, but the one that lasted the
+longest won the contest for its holder.
+</p>
+<p>
+A fifty-yard dash won by Edith now followed, while
+one of the Bob Whites broke the tape at a twenty-five
+yard dash. In a Ring the Bell competition the girls
+were divided into teams, the team having the greatest
+number of girls who threw a bean bag through a
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_432'></a>432</span>
+barrel-hoop with a bell hung in its center without touching
+the bell were the jubilant ones.
+</p>
+<p>
+Lillie and Edith now gave an exhibition of wigwagging,
+using the Myers code, in which nearly all
+the girls were proficient. Lillie, to her delight,
+showed the most proficiency, although Edith had generally
+been considered the greatest expert in this
+science. An Indian-club drill, and a nail-driving contest
+not only showed the scouts what their sisters could
+accomplish in the way of strength, and manual labor,
+but brought the sports for the day to a close.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time pangs of hunger began to assail the
+jolly campers, and Nita, with a strenuous toot of her
+horn, made known that a Grub Contest—a hike for
+supper packages hidden in the woods, among the rocks
+on the shore, or around the tents—would now take
+place. With much laughter and jesting the girls lined
+up opposite the boys, and at three blasts of the bugle
+they were off, flying in all directions, each one bent
+on searching some one particular locality that he or
+she had in mind. The fortunate ones were soon
+shouting hilariously; in fact even the slow ones were
+keener than usual in this supper hike, and soon bagged
+their game and cheered lustily as they returned to
+camp.
+</p>
+<p>
+Every one now gathered around the dining-room
+table—appropriately decorated for the occasion—and
+was soon dulling appetite with the choice bits
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_433'></a>433</span>
+found in the packages that had been done up by the
+Pioneers but hidden by Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Van
+Vorst.
+</p>
+<p>
+As they frolicked over the supper it was voted that
+every one present contribute to the moment’s pleasure
+by telling a story, singing a song, asking a conundrum,
+and so on. A ball was passed to Helen who immediately
+told a funny story, and ended by tossing
+the ball to Nathalie, the rule being that the reciter
+was to throw the ball to any one he or she chose,
+which resulted in its being thrown to the more timid
+or lazy ones, thus causing surprise and laughter.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie made a rhyme impromptu, then tossed the
+ball to one of the boys, and so it kept going the
+rounds, not only bracing the timid or nervous ones, but
+revealing latent talent that had never been suspected.
+</p>
+<p>
+Teddy Hart, who had played the knight to the announcer
+of the day, Miss Anita, spied her laughing at
+his antics when he was called to the front and mischievously
+tossed the ball to her. The smile died on
+the girl’s face and she gasped with a start of terror,
+but in a moment, with a defiant toss of her head, she
+started in and recited some funny verses so comically
+that she received an ovation of cheers and claps.
+</p>
+<p>
+When Nathalie perceived this unexpected turn in
+the festivity, her heart went pit-a-pat in sympathy with
+Nita’s unexpected ordeal, but when she saw the upward
+toss of her head and the flash in her eyes, she
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_434'></a>434</span>
+knew the girl would prove game. Indeed, she had
+been proving game for the last ten days or more, for
+Helen’s plan of helping her to know the girls had
+succeeded so well that Nita had lost much of her
+supersensitiveness in regard to her deformity, by being
+made to forget it and by the kindliness and deference
+shown her by both girls and boys.
+</p>
+<p>
+The intimacy that had come from tenting with the
+different Pioneers had not only shown her the need
+of correcting many of her own faults, but had revealed
+the good points of her associates. Many of
+the girls she had secretly vowed to Nathalie she would
+never care for, she had accepted as the best of friends.
+</p>
+<p>
+From being deemed an aristocrat of whom the girls
+stood slightly in awe, thinking her proud and exclusive,
+she had proved to be most democratic, entirely
+devoid of the many airs and graces they feared. In
+fact she had become, as Nathalie said, a favorite with
+every one, and had nearly as many adorers as Miss
+Camphelia, who at that moment was having a most
+beautiful time eating bread and milk in the lap of
+Ellen, gurgling and winking with baby joy at the gay
+colors and lights that held her eye.
+</p>
+<p>
+Supper over, the campers hurried to the cheer fire
+circle where a tall, uncouth-looking object covered with
+sheets towered specter-like in the center. Helen,
+mounting a small platform, announced that the campers
+had gathered to celebrate the burning of Miss
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_435'></a>435</span>
+Dummy, who represented the evil spirits that had run
+riot during their stay at camp.
+</p>
+<p>
+An Oriole girl now came to the fore as chairman
+of the spirit committee, as it was called, and made
+known that a thorough investigation had brought to
+light many evil spirits that had dominated certain
+members of the camp at intervals, not only hindering
+the development of character, but causing discomfort
+and a few heartaches among their mates.
+</p>
+<p>
+The evil spirits of grouchiness, shiftlessness, dishonesty,
+and selfishness, in a sense, had been tamed
+by the Pioneers’ laws and the flames from their cheer
+fire so that they had not caused much havoc, but there
+were a few evil ones not so familiar, perhaps, that
+had persisted in doing their evil work. The principal
+ones, she claimed, were forgetting each one’s own particular
+failing in the fun of ridiculing the faults and
+eccentricities of her mates, the disloyalty to one’s self
+by not trying to do one’s best, a habit of giggling when
+there was nothing to giggle at, a desire to shirk responsibility
+by letting the other one do work that was
+distasteful, and the weakness of letting one’s nerves
+get the better of one on certain occasions instead of
+getting the better of the nerves.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course this caused much laughter, although each
+girl recognized her own particular fault, and then and
+there secretly swore that she would subdue it or die in
+the attempt.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_436'></a>436</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Helen now asked if there was any reason why the
+evil spirits just mentioned should not be disposed of
+for good and all. Receiving a shout that evidently
+meant a big “No!” she pulled a string, the ghostlike
+garments fell to the ground, and Miss Dummy stood
+revealed, an effigy arrayed in an old suit belonging
+to one of the Pioneers, even to the staff and knapsack,
+surmounting a pile of dried twigs and brush.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Miss Dummy,” solemnly continued Helen, with
+as straight a face as she could muster as she confronted
+the ludicrous-looking evil one, who, with hat awry,
+huge red nose, and goggle-eyes, stared at her with a
+leer, “I consign to thee those evil spirits that have
+caused sorrow and heartaches among the members of
+Camp Laff-a-Lot, to be burned until thou art ashes,
+and then to be buried at the bottom of the lake to lie
+there forever!”
+</p>
+<p>
+As she ended there was a sudden scurry forward as
+each Pioneer made one of a circle kneeling around
+Miss Dummy, and in an instant’s time had struck
+her match and applied it to one of the twigs which
+served as a pedestal for the evil one. As the firewood
+had been well oiled it caught quickly from the blue
+sputterings of so many matches, and yellow flames
+were soon shooting savagely upward to glow like
+strings of scarlet among the twigs and briers, causing
+them to snap and crackle hilariously. In a moment
+darting tongues were licking Miss Dummy’s red
+cheeks with fiery greed and floated upward to circle
+about in wreaths of white and black smoke.
+</p>
+<div><a name='illus-436' id='illus-436'></a></div>
+<div class='figcenter' style='padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em'>
+<a name='i010' id='i010'></a>
+<img src="images/illus-436.jpg" alt="She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water." title=""/><br />
+<span class='caption'>She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water.</span>
+</div>
+<div><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_437'></a>437</span></div>
+<p>
+Some of the unduly imaginative girls turned away,
+declaring that the effigy looked like some one of the
+girls in that suit in the reddened glare of the flames.
+But the rest joined hands with the scouts and leaped
+merrily about the blazing pyre, executing weird and
+strange gyrations, which they termed a fire dance, as
+a last farewell to their enemy, who finally, done to the
+death, tumbled to the ground a fiery mass of scarlet
+embers. A pail of water soon quenched the last of
+the spirits, when the ashes were gathered into a big
+pail and carried in a procession to the shores of the
+lake.
+</p>
+<p>
+Here Helen, holding the pail carefully in her hand,
+stepped into a row-boat and was conveyed to the
+middle of the lake. By the light of the moon just
+peeping above the horizon she dropped the ashes of
+Miss Dummy into the placid water, and to the singing
+of a comic dirge, composed by one of the Orioles,
+was rowed silently back to shore.
+</p>
+<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_438'></a>438</span><a name='chXXV' id='chXXV'></a>CHAPTER XXV—GOOD-BY TO EAGLE LAKE</h2>
+<p>
+After Miss Dummy had been disposed of there
+was a return to the cheer fire circle, where the
+Sport performed the unusual feat of lighting
+three fires with one match. The giving out of merit
+badges and stars for the work performed during camp
+life and for the day’s sports now took place. These rewards
+of merit were each accompanied by camp gifts,
+the work of the girls done afternoons at their “trial by
+needle” hour, as some of the girls called it, when raffia
+and bead work, candle making, sewing, and many other
+crafts had occupied the Pioneers’ busy fingers, while
+some expert read of heroic deeds, or the girls chatted
+pleasantly of the pleasures that were, or that were to be.
+</p>
+<p>
+Pioneer and Scout, each in turn, now told of some
+special good that had come to them from the life
+in the open, which Mrs. Morrow said would be food
+for thought on their return to the city. A rhyming
+contest made no end of merriment, as well as the
+games of menagerie, gossip, animal, blind man’s buff,
+and others of like character. The scout orchestra now
+varied the entertainment with a few musical selections
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_439'></a>439</span>
+which started the girls and boys dancing around the
+fire again, this time with the graceful swing and motions
+of the modern dances.
+</p>
+<p>
+But they tired at last, and, some one starting a song,
+they all fell in and sang to their heart’s content one
+song after the other, rendering the old-remembered
+one of “Juanita” with undue emphasis, in honor to
+Miss Anita Van Vorst.
+</p>
+<p>
+After Dr. Homer, with the assistance of a few
+scouts, had made a deal of laughter by his comic
+shadowgraphs, done by a flash-lamp placed in the rear
+of one of the big tents with the flaps closed, the time
+came to say good-by. A few protested that it was still
+early, but when reminded by Mrs. Morrow that they
+had already been allowed an hour longer than usual
+and that they would have a lot of work to do in the
+morning as they were to break camp to return to the
+city, the protests ended, and the good-nights were said.
+</p>
+<p>
+The last day was a busy one, any number of camp
+rules were broken but the squads were lenient—they
+were still sleepy—so no reports were made, and the
+work of pulling down tents, packing the camp equipment,
+and making everything as clean and orderly as
+possible progressed.
+</p>
+<p>
+In the midst of this confusion Carol, who had made
+her last trip to the post-office, came rushing up to
+Nathalie with a letter. “Oh, it’s from Dick!” cried
+the delighted girl as she tore it open.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_440'></a>440</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Helen,” she exclaimed in a moment to that
+young lady who was down on her knees packing the
+big box, “it’s the funniest letter. Dick says he’s having
+the time of his life—the jolliest ever—why,
+where can he be?” stopping to glance at the envelope.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Why, he must be in New York, or I wonder—yes,”
+she nodded in answer to Helen’s inquiry, “he
+says Mamma is fine—says they have had a glorious
+three weeks—well, I like that,” she grumbled with
+rueful face, “it looks as if they had not missed me a
+bit and—” But the sound of voices at this moment
+caused both of the girls to go to the tent door, to see
+Miss Carol hurriedly heading a procession of men and
+women towards the tent. She was screaming excitedly
+as she came, “Oh, Nathalie, where are you?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie, somewhat alarmed by all this appearance
+of excitement, cried quickly, “Oh, what is it, Carol?
+What is it?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, Nathalie,” the girl screamed, “the baby’s
+mother has come!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“The baby’s mother!” echoed the dazed girl with
+wide eyes. “Why, what does she mean?” turning to
+Helen, who at that moment had picked up Miss Camphelia,
+who had just awakened from a nap on one of
+the cots.
+</p>
+<p>
+By this time the party of country folk, breathless
+and somewhat moist from undue haste, with expectancy
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_441'></a>441</span>
+and delight beaming from every feature, had
+arrived in front of the tent. Nathalie gave one glance
+at the many faces, and then with a sudden cry rushed
+to the defense of what she had come to consider as
+her own, and the next minute was seated on the cot
+holding on to Miss Camphelia with a gripping clutch.
+She stared defiantly at the intruders as they pushed
+and jostled one another in their haste to enter the
+tent.
+</p>
+<p>
+But a moment later her arms relaxed, as a faded-looking,
+worried-faced little woman, with eyes as blue
+as the sea, and hair like corn-silk, gave an inarticulate
+cry as she caught sight of the baby on the girl’s lap.
+Dropping on her knees with outstretched arms she
+cried, “Oh, my baby! My precious baby!”
+</p>
+<p>
+Well, after that Nathalie could hold out no longer,
+especially when she saw that the baby’s sweet smile
+and dimpling cheeks were counterparts of those of the
+woman who claimed her as her own.
+</p>
+<p>
+Then it was all explained. The child had been
+stolen by the gypsy woman who, evidently, after a
+day or so of tramping from house to house begging
+for money to reach the Gypsy settlement some distance
+from the neighboring town, had decided to abandon
+it. Unfortunately the notice that had been sent to be
+put up in the post-office had failed to reach its destination,
+and if it had not been for Dr. McGill, the
+physician who had been summoned by Edith when
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_442'></a>442</span>
+Camphelia was ill, the baby would never have been
+found.
+</p>
+<p>
+Dr. MCGill had been puzzled by the baby’s resemblance
+to some one he knew, but supposing the little
+one belonged to some of the ladies at camp he had
+thought no more about it. Afterwards, however, on
+accidentally learning from Dr. Homer that it was a
+lost baby, he had sent the mother to reclaim it.
+</p>
+<p>
+Of course there were pangs of disappointment to be
+endured, but, as Nathalie said, no one could be anything
+but glad to give the baby up after witnessing
+the mother’s joy. After the mother had thanked them
+all, from Mrs. Van Vorst down to Ellen, for their kindness
+and the care they had given her baby, hoping that
+each one of the girls would some day have one of her
+own to caress and fondle, they all kissed Camphelia
+good-by, and the camp baby departed to return to its
+own home.
+</p>
+<p>
+After a dirge had been composed by Jessie, who
+had bloomed into quite a poetess, and any number of
+farewell letters and wishes had been written for the
+good luck of the next campers at the Lake, these were
+buried in the ground under a cairn of stones with a
+tiny American flag fastened at the top. This was the
+girls’ memorial to the good times they had had, as well
+as an expression of the sadness they felt on leaving
+the place where they had spent three such happy weeks.
+</p>
+<p>
+The sadness of parting with the friends they had
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_443'></a>443</span>
+made in Mrs. Van Vorst’s household—not the least
+being our friend Jimmie—was somewhat lessened
+when they learned that their hostess and her daughter
+were to accompany them to New York to spend a day
+or so with Mrs. Morrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+Going down in the car, although surrounded by a
+merry, chattering crowd, Nathalie and Helen became
+unusually silent. Helen, perhaps, was thinking of the
+new position she was to enter on her return to Westport,
+and Nathalie,—well, she could not have told
+why, but soon she became aware that her thoughts
+had jumped backward and she was reviewing her first
+meeting with Helen and the Pioneers.
+</p>
+<p>
+She half smiled as each one in turn presented herself
+to her as she first appeared; Barbara, with her
+queer staring eyes, absent-minded manner, and her
+frumpish clothes that always made Nathalie think of
+a five-and-ten-cent store. How often she had been
+tempted to laugh until she learned of the meanness of
+Barbara’s grandfather, for although he was a rich
+man Barbara had to scrimp and haggle to get enough
+to eat, to say nothing of clothes to cover her back.
+The tears came into her eyes when she realized the kind
+heart that beat so loyally beneath the despised apparel.
+After all, what were one’s clothes, mere externals necessary
+of course, but in reality only of face value, for
+surely they would never gain one an entrance into
+Heaven. And Helen, what would her life have been
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_444'></a>444</span>
+in her new home without this neighbor friend—who
+had taught her to master herself by helping her to
+overcome the many problems that had confronted her
+when she had become a Pioneer?
+</p>
+<p>
+Then she smiled again as she thought of Lillie Bell,
+with her thrillers and dramatic poses. She had learned
+that they were but the frosting to the solid worth beneath.
+Indeed, the thrillers in a way had proved an
+incentive in the telling of her stories to Rosy, the
+opening wedge into the good things that had followed,
+meeting Nita, making the money for Dick, Mrs. Van
+Vorst’s asking the Pioneers to Eagle Lake, and so on.
+Why, when she came to think of it, there was not a
+girl in her bird group who had not helped her in some
+way, even Edith, who had taught her to guard her
+tongue.
+</p>
+<p>
+And from the Pioneer industries and crafts she had
+learned to be useful. She thought of the first time
+she had tried to darn a stocking at the Rally. Yes,
+and they had helped her to be happy, for they had
+given her a purpose in life. As for the sports and
+activities, they had brought her in closer touch with
+nature, giving her a keener interest in things that had
+never appealed to her before. And the rules and laws,
+even the good old-timey women had all done their share
+in making definite those qualities which she now saw
+were necessary in order to be a success in life.
+</p>
+<p>
+She realized, but dimly, perhaps, that she had gotten
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_445'></a>445</span>
+nearer the hearts of these people of the workaday
+world, not only Helen, but Edith and Jessie, who were
+all to be wage-earners that fall, thus opening up to
+her a new avenue of hopes and desires. Wasn’t it
+strange how she used to dread the thought of having
+to earn her own living, and now she was worrying as
+to how she could earn more money to add to what she
+had earned already for Dick! Then a sudden thought
+jarred, oh, suppose Mrs. Van Vorst, now that Nita
+had become so different with her sunburned cheeks
+and merry ways from what she had been before she
+met the Pioneers, should not want her any more! Oh,
+well, if that should be—ah, they were getting into
+New York! She stooped and had begun to gather up
+her belongings when some one spoke to her.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was Mrs. Van Vorst, who, with her gracious
+little smile—how changed she seemed from on that
+morning when Nathalie had handed her the card in
+front of the library—said, “Nathalie, Nita and I are
+going to take a run up to St. Luke’s Hospital to visit
+that sick friend—you know the one I told you about,
+who just had an operation performed—and Nita
+wants you to go with us.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, but Mother will be waiting to see me!” exclaimed
+the girl blankly. O dear, she didn’t want
+to go, for she was in such a hurry to see her mother
+and Dick.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, that will be all right,” nodded her friend
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_446'></a>446</span>
+quickly. “Mrs. Morrow will stop at the door, and
+you can tell her you will be along in the next train, for
+we shall not be long at the hospital.”
+</p>
+<p>
+Twenty minutes later the three ladies, each with a
+big bouquet which Nita had insisted upon their taking,
+were entering a large, bare-looking reception room.
+“Now, girls,” said Mrs. Van Vorst, “I will hurry
+up in the elevator and see how the patient is, and then
+perhaps you can both come and see him—her—”
+Mrs. Van Vorst’s face grew strangely red—she turned
+abruptly and hurried from the room.
+</p>
+<p>
+It was but a few moments when she was back again,
+and with a bright little nod cried, “Come, Nathalie,
+my friend is fine this morning, and very anxious to see
+visitors, so come along!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“I wonder why the patient wants to see me,” soliloquized
+the girl in puzzled query. “Isn’t Nita coming?”
+she cried aloud, seeing the girl standing by the
+window with an odd little smile on her face.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, yes, later; only one at a time at present,” was
+the quick reply.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie was still thinking how strange it seemed
+and how smiling Mrs. Van Vorst appeared, when they
+came to a halt in front of a door in an upper corridor.
+“Here we are,” said her companion, “now run in and
+see my friend!” She threw open the door as she
+spoke.
+</p>
+<p>
+Nathalie took a step forward, stared a minute with
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_447'></a>447</span>
+puzzled brows, and then with a loud cry flung herself
+with outstretched arms upon a figure standing in the
+center of the room, for it was Dick!
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, how did you get here and—” but the rest was
+lost, for Dick was hugging her and kissing her in a
+way that more than astonished the girl, for he had
+always declared he hated to kiss people. And then he
+held her off and with shining eyes surveyed the suntanned
+cheeks of Nathalie approvingly, as he cried,
+“So you’re back, Blue Robin—and—great guns, as
+fat as a porpoise, too!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But what are you doing here?” inquired the still
+dazed girl slowly—“are you the lady?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Lady!” echoed Dick. “I, a lady? Not on your
+life! What have you got into your head now?” he
+quizzed teasingly.
+</p>
+<p>
+“But Mrs. Van Vorst said I was to meet a lady—”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, she was just bluffing you, that’s all,” jeered
+Dick. “She wanted to surprise you, for—” then
+Nathalie gave a loud scream, for Dick had begun to
+walk towards the bureau, slowly, to be sure, for his
+muscles were stiff, but he was straight as an arrow.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh—why, Dick, where is your cane? You’ll
+fall—” and then something must have whispered to
+the girl,—perhaps it was intuition for in a flash she
+seemed to know.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Dick,” she gasped, “you’ve had the operation, and
+you’re all right?” This last was in a tense whisper.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_448'></a>448</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“You bet I am,” returned Dick cheerily, “and in
+good shape, too. The doctor says I can go home in a
+week.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“But where did you get the money?” asked the
+girl, her eyes big with wonder.
+</p>
+<p>
+“From a check sent by Mrs. Van Vorst as a tribute
+to her little friend and adviser, Nathalie Page,” read
+Dick slowly from a letter which he had suddenly
+slipped from his pocket. As he glanced down at the
+girl and saw her staring eyes he flicked the letter before
+them, laughing as if to recall her to herself.
+Nathalie blinked, stepped back, and then a sudden light
+flashed into her eyes, and with a swoop of her hand
+she snatched the letter from her brother, crying, “Oh,
+Dick, isn’t she just the dearest! Oh, I’m not worth
+so much money, I—” Then her eyes swept the page
+before her.
+</p>
+<p>
+“No, I don’t believe you are, Blue Robin,” teased
+Dick smilingly. And then his voice grew more earnest,
+as he added, “Nathalie Page, you’re the blood,
+all right. You captured her heart on sight, and this is
+the result.” He started to walk slowly towards the
+bed, but the girl was at his side, for she saw that he
+was beginning to feel a little tired.
+</p>
+<p>
+“To be sure,” he cried apologetically as he leaned
+on her a little heavily. “I’m not a speeder just yet,
+but wait a bit and you’ll see me do a twenty-mile dash
+in no time.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_449'></a>449</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+“Yes,” explained Dick, after he was resting on the
+bed again, and Mrs. Van Vorst’s kindness had been
+rehearsed in detail; “Mrs. Van Vorst sent a letter to
+Mother expressing her love, admiration, and all the
+rest of it, for you, and then begged to be allowed to
+give you this surprise. She said we could consider
+the money a loan and pay it back when we liked.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, was that the letter that came just before I
+went away, that you wouldn’t tell me about?”
+</p>
+<p>
+Dick nodded, and then went on, “I was brought
+here the day after you left for the Lake; operated on
+the day after, and have had the jolliest time ever since.
+The nurses here are O. K. I have only been permitted
+to stand on my feet the last few days, but the
+doctor says I’ll soon be walking all right. But Blue
+Robin, how goes it with you? I hear you’re a great
+sport since you left.”
+</p>
+<p>
+But Nathalie’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Oh,
+Dick,” she exclaimed presently, “when do you think
+we can pay Mrs. Van Vorst the money back? I have
+some, you know—” her eyes grew bright—“fifty
+dollars, in the bank!”
+</p>
+<p>
+“And I have, well, I guess I have more than that,”
+said the boy proudly, “from the various jobs I did.
+Oh, Nathalie, did I tell you I wrote a little skit and
+sold it to ‘Life’ for fifty dollars?”
+</p>
+<p>
+“You did?” ejaculated the girl. “Oh, I’m so
+glad! I always said you could write funny things.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_450'></a>450</span>
+Well, that will make—” but at this moment she heard
+the door open. Oh, it was Mrs. Van Vorst—what
+should she say to thank her?
+</p>
+<p>
+But the question faded from her mind as with a
+cry of delight she sprang into the outstretched arms of
+her mother.
+</p>
+<p>
+Well, it seemed as if the three would never get
+through going over this great joy that had come into
+their lives! Then, too, they were all anxious to pay
+back as soon as possible Mrs. Van Vorst’s kind loan.
+</p>
+<p>
+“Well,” said Nathalie at length, “I am sure if we
+all work hard we can do it pretty soon. How much
+did you say it cost?”
+</p>
+<p>
+But before Dick could answer Mrs. Page cried,
+taking a hand of each as she spoke, “It will take time
+to be sure, but Mother is going to do her share, for,
+children, the bonds are all right, I received my interest
+yesterday, the usual six per cent.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“Oh, isn’t that just too lovely!” exclaimed Nathalie.
+But before she could say more the door
+opened and Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita entered, Nita all
+shyness again as she bowed stiffly to Dick, whom she
+had always been anxious to meet. And then the unexpected
+happened, for as Nathalie turned to thank her
+kind benefactor she burst into tears and cried as if her
+heart would break, to the dismay of every one present.
+Oh, what a fool she did make of herself, she
+afterwards confessed with shamed eyes to Helen.
+<span class='pagenum pncolor'><a id='page_451'></a>451</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had been a girl herself once,
+and so she understood just how her young friend felt.
+She comforted Nathalie so sweetly that the girl fell
+in love with her over again, her tears dried, and she was
+soon her happy self.
+</p>
+<p>
+In a short space the good-bys were said to Dick, and
+the four ladies hurried to the taxi that was to whirl
+them to Westport. Of course there was so much to
+tell and talk over during the journey that it was not
+until Nathalie was undressing for bed that she heard
+that as soon as Dick was able he and her mother were
+to spend two weeks at Eagle Lake with Mrs. Van
+Vorst. Nathalie received this news with unfeigned
+joy, for now her mother would have a change, and
+then she and Dick could see what a lovely place the
+Lake was.
+</p>
+<p>
+There had been so many unexpected bits of brightness
+to make Nathalie happy that day that when she
+finally got into bed, although she was terribly tired,
+her brain was in such a whirl she was sure she would
+never go to sleep. But at last, with a drowsy sigh, she
+snuggled down on her pillow with the happy thought
+that she was so glad she had found that nest—of blue
+birds—and had become—a Girl Pioneer!
+</p>
+<div class='center'>
+<p>THE END</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>American Heroes and Heroines</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+By <span class='sc'>Pauline Carrington Bouvé</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth $1.25 <em>net</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+This book, which will tend directly toward
+the making of patriotism in young Americans,
+contains some twenty brief, clever and attractive
+sketches of famous men and women in American
+history, among them Father Marquette, Anne
+Hutchinson, Israel Putnam, Molly Pitcher, Paul
+Jones, Dolly Madison, Daniel Boone, etc. Mrs.
+Bouvé is well known as a writer both of fiction and
+history, and her work in this case is admirable.
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+“The style of the book for simplicity and clearness
+of expression could hardly be excelled.”—<em>Boston Budget.</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>The Scarlet Patch</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The Story of a Patriot Boy in the Mohawk Valley
+</p>
+<p>
+By <span class='sc'>Mary E. Q. Brush</span> Illustrated $1.25 <em>net</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+“The Scarlet Patch” was the badge of a Tory organization, and a
+loyal patriot boy, Donald Bastien, is dismayed at learning that his
+uncle, with whom he is a “bound boy,” is secretly connected with this
+treacherous band. Thrilling scenes follow in which a faithful Indian
+figures prominently, and there is a vivid presentation of the school and
+home life as well as the public affairs of those times.
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+“A book that will be most valuable to the library of the young
+boy.”—<em>Providence News.</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Stories of Brave Old Times</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Some Pen Pictures of Scenes Which
+Took Place Previous to, or Connected
+With, the American Revolution
+</p>
+<p>
+By <span class='sc'>Helen M. Cleveland</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Profusely illustrated
+</p>
+<p>
+Large 12mo Cloth $1.25 <em>net</em>
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+“It is a book for every library, a book for
+adults, and a book for the young. Perhaps
+no other book yet written sets the great
+cost of freedom so clearly before the young,
+consequently is such a spur to patriotism.
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+“It can unqualifiedly be commended as a book for
+youthful readers; its great wealth of illustrations
+adding to its value.”—<em>Chicago News.</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price
+by the publishers,
+</p>
+<p>
+LOTHROP, LEE &amp; SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+</p>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>A Little Maid of Boston Town</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+By MARGARET SIDNEY
+</p>
+<p>
+12mo Cloth
+</p>
+<p>
+Illustrated by F. T. MERRILL $1.35 <em>net</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+The opening chapters introduce us to
+old Boston in England. Margaret
+Sidney went there in 1907 and absorbed
+the atmosphere of Cotton Mather’s “St.
+Botolph’s Town,” gathering for herself
+facts and traditions. Then “St. Botolph’s
+Town” yields its scenic effects, and the
+setting of the story is changed to Boston
+Town of New England.
+</p>
+<p>
+The story is absorbing, graphic, and
+truly delightful, carrying one along till it
+seems as if actual participation in the
+events had been the lot of the reader. The same naturalness
+that is so conspicuous in her famous “Pepper Books” marks
+this latest story of Margaret Sidney’s. She makes characters
+live and speak for themselves.
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+It is an inspiring, patriotic story for the young, and contains striking
+and realistic pictures of the times with which it deals.—<em>Sunday School
+Magazine, Nashville.</em>
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+The author presents a story, but she gives a veracious picture of conditions
+in the town of Boston during the Revolution. Parents who are
+seeking wholesome books can place this in the front tank with entire
+safety.—<em>Boston Globe.</em>
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+Surely Margaret Sidney deserves the gratitude of many a child, and
+grown-ups, too, for that matter, in telling in so charming, yet, withal, so
+simple a manner, of these early days in this country.—<em>Utica Observer.</em>
+</p>
+<p style='margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;'>
+A really thrilling tale of the American Revolution. Interesting for
+both old and young.—<em>Minneapolis Journal.</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+<em>For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of
+price by the publishers</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+LOTHROP, LEE &amp; SHEPARD CO., Boston
+</p>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;'>JEAN CABOT SERIES</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+By GERTRUDE FISHER SCOTT
+</p>
+<p>
+Illustrated by Arthur O. Scott 12mo Cloth
+</p>
+<p>
+Price, Net, $1.25 each
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Jean Cabot at Ashton</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Here is the “real thing” in a girl’s
+college story. Older authors can invent
+situations and supply excellently written
+general delineations of character, but all
+lack the vital touch of this work of a bright
+young recent graduate of a well-known
+college for women, who has lost none of the
+enthusiasm felt as a student. Every activity
+of a popular girl’s first year is woven into a
+narrative, photographic in its description of
+a life that calls into play most attractive
+qualities, while at the same time severely
+testing both character and ability.
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Jean Cabot in the British Isles</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+This is a college story, although dealing with a summer vacation,
+and full of college spirit. It begins with a Yale-Harvard boat
+race at New London, but soon Jean and her room-mate sail for Great
+Britain under the chaperonage of Miss Hooper, a favorite member of the
+faculty at Ashton College. Their trip is full of the delight that comes
+to the traveler first seeing the countries forming “our old home.”
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Jean Cabot in Cap and Gown</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Jean Cabot is a superb young woman, physically and mentally,
+but thoroughly human and thus favored with many warm friendships.
+Her final year at Ashton College is the culmination of a
+course in which study, sport and exercise, and social matters have
+been well balanced.
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Jean Cabot at the House With the Blue Shutters</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+Such a group as Jean and her most intimate friends could not
+scatter at once, as do most college companions after graduation,
+and six of them under the chaperonage of a married older graduate
+and member of the same sorority spend a most eventful summer in a
+historic farm-house in Maine.
+</p>
+<p>
+For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt
+of price by the publishers
+</p>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+BRAVE HEART SERIES
+</p>
+<p>
+By Adele E. Thompson
+</p>
+<p>
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth <em>Net</em> $1.25 each
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Betty Seldon, Patriot</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+A book that is at the same time fascinating and noble. Historical
+events are accurately traced leading up to the surrender of Cornwallis
+at Yorktown, with reunion and happiness for all who deserve it.
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Brave Heart Elizabeth</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+It is a story of the making of the Ohio frontier, much of it taken from
+life, and the heroine one of the famous Zane family after which Zanesville,
+O., takes its name. An accurate, pleasing, and yet at times intensely
+thrilling picture of the stirring period of border settlement.
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>A Lassie of the Isles</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+This is the romantic story of Flora Macdonald, the lassie of Skye, who
+aided in the escape of Charles Stuart, otherwise known as the
+“Young Pretender.”
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Polly of the Pines</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+The events of the story occur in the years 1775-82. Polly was an
+orphan living with her mother’s family, who were Scotch Highlanders,
+and for the most part intensely loyal to the Crown. Polly finds
+the glamor of loyal adherence hard to resist, but her heart turns towards
+the patriots and she does much to aid and encourage them.
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>American Patty</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+A Story of 1812
+</p>
+<p>
+Patty is a brave, winsome girl of sixteen
+whose family have settled across the Canadian
+border and are living in peace and
+prosperity, and on the best of terms with the
+neighbors and friendly Indians. All this is
+suddenly and entirely changed by the breaking
+out of war, and unwillingness on the part of
+her father and brother to serve against their
+native land brings distress and deadly peril.
+</p>
+<p>
+<em>For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt
+of price to the publishers</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+LOTHROP, LEE &amp; SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+</p>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>HEROES OF HISTORY SERIES</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+A newly grouped collection of standard
+favorites—the kind that never grow old.
+In school and public libraries and intelligent
+homes these books are recognized as outweighing
+any number of the trashy newer juveniles
+so much in evidence, and for bright boys and
+girls they hold a high interest. The pleasing
+new covers, at the same low price, give them
+a renewed welcome.
+</p>
+<p>
+Twenty titles by unsurpassed writers
+of history for the young: Towle, Headley,
+Bogart, Watson, and Frost.
+</p>
+<p>
+New cover design, with side titles.
+Illustrated. Price per volume, 60 cents.
+</p>
+<p>
+By GEORGE M. TOWLE
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;1.&nbsp;&nbsp;DRAKE;&nbsp;&nbsp;The&nbsp;&nbsp;Sea&nbsp;&nbsp;King&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Devon.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;2.&nbsp;&nbsp;MAGELLAN;&nbsp;&nbsp;First&nbsp;&nbsp;Around&nbsp;&nbsp;the&nbsp;&nbsp;World.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3.&nbsp;&nbsp;MARCO&nbsp;&nbsp;POLO;&nbsp;&nbsp;His&nbsp;&nbsp;Travels&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;Adventures.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;4.&nbsp;&nbsp;PIZARRO;&nbsp;&nbsp;His&nbsp;&nbsp;Adventures&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;Conquests.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;5.&nbsp;&nbsp;RALEGH;&nbsp;&nbsp;His&nbsp;&nbsp;Voyages&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;Adventures.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;6.&nbsp;&nbsp;VASCO&nbsp;&nbsp;DA&nbsp;&nbsp;GAMA;&nbsp;&nbsp;His&nbsp;&nbsp;Voyages&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;&nbsp;Adventures.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;7.&nbsp;&nbsp;HEROES&nbsp;&nbsp;AND&nbsp;&nbsp;MARTYRS&nbsp;&nbsp;OF&nbsp;&nbsp;INVENTION.<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+By P. C. HEADLEY
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;8.&nbsp;&nbsp;FACING&nbsp;&nbsp;THE&nbsp;&nbsp;ENEMY;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Gen.&nbsp;&nbsp;W.&nbsp;&nbsp;T.&nbsp;&nbsp;Sherman.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;9.&nbsp;&nbsp;FIGHT&nbsp;&nbsp;IT&nbsp;&nbsp;OUT&nbsp;&nbsp;ON&nbsp;&nbsp;THIS&nbsp;&nbsp;LINE;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Gen.&nbsp;&nbsp;U.&nbsp;&nbsp;S.&nbsp;&nbsp;Grant.<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+By W. H. BOGART
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;10.&nbsp;&nbsp;BORDER&nbsp;&nbsp;BOY;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Daniel&nbsp;&nbsp;Boone.<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+By HENRY C. WATSON
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;11.&nbsp;&nbsp;FATHER&nbsp;&nbsp;OF&nbsp;&nbsp;HIS&nbsp;&nbsp;COUNTRY;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Washington.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;12.&nbsp;&nbsp;FRIEND&nbsp;&nbsp;OF&nbsp;&nbsp;WASHINGTON;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Lafayette.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;13.&nbsp;&nbsp;GREAT&nbsp;&nbsp;PEACEMAKER;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;William&nbsp;&nbsp;Penn.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;14.&nbsp;&nbsp;POOR&nbsp;&nbsp;RICHARD’S&nbsp;&nbsp;STORY;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Franklin.<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+By JOHN FROST
+</p>
+<p>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;15.&nbsp;&nbsp;GREAT&nbsp;&nbsp;EXPOUNDER;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Daniel&nbsp;&nbsp;Webster<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;16.&nbsp;&nbsp;LITTLE&nbsp;&nbsp;CORPORAL;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Napoleon.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;17.&nbsp;&nbsp;OLD&nbsp;&nbsp;HICKORY;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Andrew&nbsp;&nbsp;Jackson.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;18.&nbsp;&nbsp;OLD&nbsp;&nbsp;ROUGH&nbsp;&nbsp;AND&nbsp;&nbsp;READY;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Gen.&nbsp;&nbsp;Zachary&nbsp;&nbsp;Taylor.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;19.&nbsp;&nbsp;MILL&nbsp;&nbsp;BOY&nbsp;&nbsp;OF&nbsp;&nbsp;THE&nbsp;&nbsp;SLASHES;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Henry&nbsp;&nbsp;Clay.<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;20.&nbsp;&nbsp;SWAMP&nbsp;&nbsp;FOX;&nbsp;&nbsp;Life&nbsp;&nbsp;of&nbsp;&nbsp;Gen.&nbsp;&nbsp;Francis&nbsp;&nbsp;Marion.<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+LOTHROP, LEE &amp; SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+</p>
+<p>
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+&#160;<br />
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Four Gordons</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+By EDNA A. BROWN
+</p>
+<p>
+Illustrated Large 12mo Decorated Cover $1.35 <em>net</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+Louise and her three brothers are the “Four
+Gordons,” and the story relates their experiences
+at home and school during the absence
+of their parents for a winter in Italy. There
+is plenty of fun and frolic, with skating, coasting,
+dancing, and a jolly Christmas visit. The
+conversation is bright and natural, the book
+presents no improbable situations, its atmosphere
+is one of refinement, and it has the merit
+of depicting simple and wholesome comradeship
+between boys and girls.
+</p>
+<p>
+“The story and its telling are worthy of Miss Alcott.
+Young folks of both sexes will enjoy it.”—<em>N.Y. Sun</em>.
+</p>
+<p>
+“It is a hearty, wholesome story of youthful life
+in which the morals are never explained but simply
+illustrated by logical results.”—<em>Christian Register</em>.
+</p>
+<p>
+<span style='font-size:larger;font-weight:bold;'>Uncle David’s Boys</span>
+</p>
+<p>
+By EDNA A. BROWN
+</p>
+<p>
+Illustrated by John Goss 12mo Cloth
+</p>
+<p>
+Price $1.35 <em>net</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+This tells how some young people whom circumstances
+brought together in a little mountain
+village spent a summer vacation, full of good
+times, but with some unexpected and rather mysterious
+occurrences. In the end, more than one
+head was required to find out exactly what was
+going on. The story is a wholesome one with a
+pleasant, well-bred atmosphere, and though it
+holds the interest, it never approaches the sensational
+nor passes the bounds of the probable.
+</p>
+<p>
+“A story which will hold the attention of youthful
+readers from cover to cover and prove not without its
+interest for older readers.”—<em>Evening Wisconsin</em>.
+</p>
+<p>
+“For those young people who like a lively story
+with some unmistakably old fashioned characteristics,
+‘Uncle David’s Boys,’ will have a strong appeal.”—<em>Churchman</em>.
+</p>
+<p>
+<em>For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of
+price by the publishers</em>
+</p>
+<p>
+LOTHROP, LEE &amp; SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer, by Rena I. Halsey
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER ***
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+Project Gutenberg's Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer, by Rena I. Halsey
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer
+
+Author: Rena I. Halsey
+
+Illustrator: Nana French Bickford
+
+Release Date: July 26, 2011 [EBook #36846]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "What can I do for you? Are you in pain?"]
+
+                              BLUE ROBIN,
+                            THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+                                   BY
+
+                             RENA I. HALSEY
+
+                 _ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD_
+
+                                 BOSTON
+                       LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
+
+
+
+
+                         Published, March, 1917
+
+                            Copyright, 1917
+                     By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
+
+                         _All rights reserved_
+                      BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+                             Norwood Press
+                          BERWICK & SMITH CO.
+                             NORWOOD, MASS.
+                                U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+                      BLUE ROBIN THE GIRL PIONEER
+                                   IS
+                        AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+                                   TO
+
+                            MISS LINA BEARD
+
+                                FOUNDER
+                                  AND
+                             CHIEF PIONEER
+                                   OF
+                       THE NATIONAL INCORPORATED
+                            ORGANIZATION OF
+                      THE GIRL PIONEERS OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+                       WHAT ARE "GIRL PIONEERS"?
+
+The first public meeting of the National Organization of the Girl
+Pioneers of America was held by the founder, Miss Lina Beard, in the
+quaint old Pioneer meeting-house on Broadway, in Flushing, New York,
+February 8, 1912.
+
+The aim of the Organization of Girl Pioneers is: To cultivate in girls
+the sterling qualities displayed by our early pioneer women; to create a
+desire in them for a happy, broad, and useful life and to show them how
+to attain it; to give them things to do that are interesting, wholesome,
+and that will strengthen character; and to develop a love for
+out-of-door life by showing them how to live it.
+
+The watchword of the Girl Pioneer is, "I Can."
+
+The principles upon which the organization is founded are not simply
+taught as precepts, they are found and practiced in all the delightful
+activities of the movement. Outdoor life with its limitless avenues of
+interest: camping, trailing, woodcraft, learning to know the wild life
+of the open, its plants, its flowers, birds, common wild animals and
+insects; the stars and the meaning of the shadows, the use of nature's
+material in handicraft; all these and many more are opened to the Girl
+Pioneer, and by actual contact she is finding the beauty of truth and
+the wonder of reality. By her membership in this large organization she
+is learning to be less self-centered, learning to work with others and
+for others, and to share her enjoyments with others. By the joyous
+participation in field-sports, and such recreation as rowing, swimming,
+fishing, riding, kite-flying, stilt-walking, and the more conventional
+games, such as basket-ball, service-ball, tennis, and archery, she is
+learning to play honestly and fairly, and _is building up bodily health
+and strength_ to keep pace with the mental and moral health that is
+being developed within her.
+
+By her indoor life, lived as truly in the pioneer spirit as her life in
+the open, she is bringing into play the faculties of resourcefulness, of
+adaptability, of thoroughness, and the virtue of helpful kindness. She
+learns to do all household tasks, to do them well, and to be interested
+in them. She is taught in charming ways the use of her five senses, and
+is delighted to find that she can develop them and consciously enjoy
+them. She learns to care for the sick and the young children; she is
+proud of being able to render "first aid" according to the latest and
+best methods; she learns how to avoid accidents as well as what to do in
+case of accidents. She has a system of signs for blazing the trail which
+belongs solely to the Girl Pioneers, and she learns what to do in case
+she is lost when camping or trailing. In short, the Girl Pioneer's
+teaching makes her efficient in all fields. The mind and imagination of
+the Girl Pioneer are stimulated by true stories of heroism and the
+adventures of the early pioneers. Her merit badges are given the names
+of the women pioneers, including besides the early settlers those who
+were in helpful work for humanity. Her honors are shown by stars worn on
+the sleeve, which indicate the tests successfully passed and lead up to
+the final merit badge.
+
+The Girl Pioneer colors, red, white, and blue, not only signify that the
+organization is national in extent but hold a still further meaning for
+the Girl Pioneers; red standing for courage, white for purity, and blue
+for truth. The graceful salute symbolizes a brave heart, an honest mind,
+a resourceful hand. The motto of the Girl Pioneer is, "Brave, Honest,
+Resourceful."
+
+The Girl Pioneers have their khaki uniform with red tie and red hatband,
+which is practical, adaptable, and pleasing. They have their banners,
+their Pioneer sign, their initiation, with its ceremony and membership
+certificate; their rallies, field-days, and other general meetings
+indoors and out. They have their Pioneer cheer, and each Band and each
+group has a cheer of its own. There is the official song which all the
+Pioneers sing, and there are songs composed by the Bands.
+
+Each Band is under the leadership of a volunteer director who furnishes
+acceptable credentials. The Band is composed of one group, or several
+groups, of from six to ten girls in each. The name of an American wild
+bird is chosen for the name of each group, and the Band is known by its
+number. The bird cheers of the groups are very breezy and inspiring.
+
+The Girl Pioneer ranks are open to all girls, and the work is very
+helpful in Sunday-schools, public schools, private schools, camps, and
+all large societies for girls, such as Young Women's Christian
+Association, Young Women's Christian Temperance Union, playgrounds, etc.
+
+The Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames, and like
+organizations seek to preserve the historical records and objects
+connected with the early life of our country, while the Girl Pioneers
+seek to revive and perpetuate the spirit that dominated the invincible
+men and women who made our nation possible.
+
+The Girl Pioneer organization is governed by an Executive Board, of
+which the Chief Pioneer, Lina Beard, is the head. There is also a
+National Council composed of eminent and influential men and women
+living in various parts of the United States, to be called upon when
+needed.
+
+The Pioneer folder will be sent upon application, and the Manual will be
+sent upon receipt of price, thirty-five cents, and seven cents for
+postage. For further information and for literature, address:
+
+                 Secretary of Girl Pioneers of America,
+                 Flushing, New York.
+
+
+
+
+                                FOREWORD
+
+A few summers ago I had the pleasure of being entertained by several
+Bands of The Girl Pioneers of America, on the wooded shores of one of
+Long Island's noted bays, at Camp Laff-a-Lot. As I watched these
+wholesome-looking, happy girls in their attractive uniforms, and saw
+their bright, animated faces as they made merry in joyous sport under
+God's blue, and then turned to the more serious employment of making
+bayberry candles, building camp fires, gathering wildflowers in their
+study of Nature, or blazing the trail as they made the woodland resound
+to their wonderful imitation of bird-notes, in the various calls of
+their groups, my interest was awakened. Later, as I gathered with them
+in the red glow of their Cheer Fire and heard their rousing Pioneer
+cheer, and their inspiring Band songs, and saw how a love for history
+and the true meaning of patriotism was engendered, while their minds and
+imaginations were being stimulated by their stories of the heroism of
+the women Pioneers, I realized that as our patriotic organizations were
+seeking to honor the Founders of our Nation by preserving historical
+records and objects, these Pioneer daughters were seeking to revive and
+perpetuate the spirit that dominated the men and women who brought to
+these shores, the grand principles of a civilization that has made our
+Republic the greatest in the world! It was in recognition of the
+nobleness of the aims of The Girl Pioneers of America, as well as in
+appreciation of the worthy Founder's efforts to bring out the best in
+them, that inspired me to set forth if only in a limited way these many
+truths, and so I was emboldened to write "Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer!"
+
+                                                         Rena I. Halsey.
+                                                             _Brooklyn,_
+                                                      _January 1, 1917._
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+       CHAPTER                                                 PAGE
+             I The Nest in the Old Cedar                         11
+            II Her Next-door Neighbor                            27
+           III Girl Pioneers                                     40
+            IV Nathalie Is Asked to Become a Blue Robin          55
+             V The Gray Stone House                              72
+            VI Working into Harness                              90
+           VII The Mayflower Feast                              108
+          VIII The Motto, "I Can"                               126
+            IX Searching for Rosy                               143
+             X Nathalie as the Story Lady                       159
+            XI The Princess in the Tower                        179
+           XII The Wild-flower Hike                             194
+          XIII Around the Cheer Fire                            213
+           XIV Overcomes                                        230
+            XV A Chapter of Surprises                           250
+           XVI Pioneer Stunts                                   270
+          XVII Liberty Banners                                  289
+         XVIII The Princess Makes Two More Friends              308
+           XIX The Fagot Party                                  330
+            XX The Dutch _Kraeg_                                348
+           XXI An Invitation                                    366
+          XXII Camp Laff-a-Lot                                  385
+         XXIII Miss Camphelia                                   403
+          XXIV The Wireless Operator                            421
+           XXV Good-by to Eagle Lake                            438
+
+
+
+
+                             ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+  "What can I do for you? Are you in pain?"             _Frontispiece_
+  "Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen                         122
+  "Why, how did you get there?"                                    172
+  "Oh, don't be frightened!" exclaimed the princess,
+  with a merry laugh                                               194
+  The rope had broken in her grasp                                 228
+  Up went two hands in pretended subjugation                       290
+  With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn              338
+  She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water        436
+
+
+
+
+BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--THE NEST IN THE OLD CEDAR
+
+
+Nathalie came running up the steps of the veranda her brown eyes alight
+with excitement as she cried, "Oh, Mother, what do you think? Down in
+the old cedar-tree on the lawn is a nest of tiny blue robins--they're
+just the cutest things--do come and see them!"
+
+"Blue robins?" quizzed her brother Dick from where he lay reading in the
+hammock. "Who ever heard of blue robins?"
+
+"I think she means bluebirds," ventured Mrs. Page, looking up from the
+morning paper and smiling at the earnest young face of her daughter.
+Then her eyes dimmed, but she winked her lashes quickly as if to
+restrain a sudden rush of tears, rose in answer to the note of appeal in
+the girl's voice, and stepped to her side.
+
+A moment later they were strolling across the new-grown grass of the
+lawn, the girl of sixteen supporting the slender, black-gowned figure of
+her mother, whose delicate, high-bred face with its impress of recent
+sorrow defined the youthful glow of the one that smiled upon her so
+tenderly.
+
+"Now, Mumsie, look!" whispered the girl as she pointed to a dark cavity
+in the trunk of the cedar but a short distance from the ground; "see,
+are they not robins?"
+
+Mrs. Page's tired eyes brightened as she watched with keen interest the
+five bobbing heads with open bills, turweeing in hungry clamor, "Why no,
+Nathalie," she replied laughingly, "they are bluebirds."
+
+At this instant they spied the mother bird as she flitted excitedly
+among the upper branches of the tree. Drawing her mother to one side,
+Nathalie whispered tensely, "Oh, there's the mother bird--she wants to
+feed them! Let's see what she will do!" Nathalie's eyes sparkled
+expectantly.
+
+It was quite evident what Mrs. Bluebird was going to do, for she
+immediately jumped to the edge of the nest and dropped a fat, squirming
+worm into an open bill. As she poised over her nestlings she caught
+sight of the two figures under the tree. In another instant she had set
+up such a vigorous scolding that the interlopers were quite disturbed.
+Seeing, however, that they did not offer to molest her little ones, Mrs.
+Birdie finally subsided, cocked her head perkily on one side, and
+watched them with eyes that shone like two fireflies.
+
+Father bird now came flying up with another good-sized wriggler in his
+beak, which mother bird, with an eye to business, hastily snatched and
+dropped into a wide-open bill.
+
+"Why, Mother," commented Nathalie, "do you see that the father bird is
+much the handsomer of the two, for he is of a deep blue color, while
+mother bird's feathers are grayish-blue."
+
+Her mother nodded as she answered, "Yes, and his beautiful coat is in
+striking contrast to his throat and breast, which are reddish-brown."
+
+"And the white feathers below," continued Nathalie, with keen eyes,
+"look like a white apron."
+
+"But come, dear," interposed her mother, "we must go back, for I hear
+Dick whistling--he is getting impatient--I promised to get him a sofa
+pillow for the hammock."
+
+As they stepped on the veranda, Dick inquired, with sarcastic
+inflection, balancing himself on the edge of the hammock and pushing it
+to and fro with his crutch, "Well, how many blue robins did you find?"
+
+"We found five tiny bluebirds," responded his mother with unwonted
+animation as she seated herself in a low rocker, and then she continued
+in lower tone as her daughter disappeared in quest of the pillow, "Oh,
+Dick! I am so glad to see some color in Nathalie's cheeks again, for she
+has been looking very wan and pale. The poor child has not only suffered
+the loss of her father, but she has had to give up so many things--the
+very things, too, that a girl of her age longs for so much!" Mrs. Page
+sighed drearily.
+
+"Giving up college was the hardest," added her son, his face expressing
+the sympathy he hardly knew how to voice; "but she's a corker, for she
+has faced every disappointment like a little hero. I didn't know she had
+so much pluck in her."
+
+"She takes after her father, he was always so cheerful about facing the
+inevitable--" His mother's lips quivered; she paused as if to gain
+control of her voice and then resumed brokenly, "Oh, Dick, to think he
+has gone--it seems as if it could not be true--"
+
+"True enough," retorted Dick gruffly; and then he added, in a softer
+voice, "but after all, Mother, every one has to have trouble. We're
+having ours just now--that's all--and we've got to bear it. Things might
+have been worse, I suppose--we've got enough left to live on--oh, if it
+wasn't for this confounded knee of mine--to be helpless when--"
+
+"Hush, Dick, don't say that," cried his mother in a pained voice; "just
+have patience, and you will be all right; have patience with me, too,
+dear, because I am such a coward to allow myself to get so depressed."
+She made a brave attempt at a smile. "It will be as you say, all right
+soon."
+
+Hearing Nathalie's step, she hastily hid her tear-stained face behind
+the paper; then, as that young woman threw the sofa pillow at Dick's
+head, she exclaimed, "I am so glad, Nathalie, to see you take an
+interest in the new home. I think it is a lovely--"
+
+"Doll's house!" interposed the girl laughingly. "But, O dear, I must be
+careful, for when I called it a doll's house while Mrs. Morton was here
+she looked rather queer, and then I remembered that her house is not
+much bigger. But do you know, Mother," she rattled on girlishly, "I
+think we are going to be quite comfy in this little home--after a time of
+course," she hastened to add, "when we have become used to the
+change--and all--" she stopped abruptly, for she, too, was thinking of the
+dear father who had gone so suddenly--without even saying good-by, as she
+had so often wailed in the darkness of night--leaving Mother with only a
+meager income, and with poor Dick to take care of, and her and Dorothy,
+who didn't know enough to earn a penny!
+
+A sudden slam of the door was heard, a "How are you, Auntie?" in a
+sweet, assured voice, and then with smiling eyes a tall, graceful, young
+woman, with shiny, fluffy hair came forward and kissed her aunt
+caressingly.
+
+"Oh, Lucille, what do you think?" broke from Nathalie impetuously; "I
+found a nest of tiny bluebirds down in the old cedar-tree on the lawn!"
+
+"Um-m, well, you are always finding something to enthuse over," remarked
+her cousin with careless indifference, "but I wish you would make that
+all-round maid of yours do my room, I want to write a letter." There was
+spoiled impatience in the girl's voice.
+
+Mrs. Page looked up with a startled expression as she murmured
+apologetically, "Oh, I forgot, Lucille. I will do it--I thought--"
+
+"No, no, Mother," came from Nathalie hurriedly, as with heightened color
+and gentle insistence she forced her mother back to her seat. "I will do
+it."
+
+Nathalie disappeared within the door. She had smiled sweetly for her
+mother's sake, but as she went up the stairs there was an upward lift to
+her chin that showed that she had a will and a temper of some weight.
+"Why is Lucille so mean," she questioned mutinously, "as not to make her
+own bed when she knows that now we shall have to get along with only one
+maid? Mother is not going to wait on her!" Her eyes gleamed with angry
+decision, and then the curves of her mouth softened as she struggled
+silently with her jarring thoughts.
+
+Yes, it must be borne, for was it not a part of the great change that
+had come into her life with her first great sorrow? The shock of her
+father's death had dazed her, and she had suffered in a dulled,
+uncomprehending way until she was aroused from her grief by the many
+anxieties and disappointing changes that the financial tangle of her
+father's affairs had caused.
+
+Leaving their beautiful city home, giving up the many luxuries and the
+pleasures to which she had been accustomed, parting from her school
+friends, and coming to the unknown suburban town were bitter
+disappointments; the one that cut the deepest was giving up college, but
+the hardest to bear was Dick's accident!
+
+The next moment the girl was hard at work picking up Lucille's
+disordered room, humming cheerily as she went about her task, for, after
+all, her cousin was independent--she paid her board--and now they would
+need every penny.
+
+A resolute will and deft fingers can accomplish much in this workaday
+world, and so Nathalie soon finished her new job, as she called it, and
+sat on the veranda watching the robins as they hopped nimbly over the
+lawn, ducking their heads every minute or so to reappear with fat,
+dangling worms in their beaks.
+
+Their cheerful twitter, the budding leaves on trees and bushes, and the
+many reminders of the revival of life under the warmth and glow of the
+spring sunshine thrilled her with exhilaration. Her depression vanished,
+she felt happy again, but vaguely perhaps, scarcely comprehending that
+the buoyancy of youth and the joy of life were compensations that dulled
+the harrowing edge of grief.
+
+With a long breath, as if to capture as much as possible of the spring
+balminess, Nathalie turned to see her mother seated in the low chair,
+with her basket of mending, wearing the same dazed, worried look on her
+face that had haunted the girl ever since their sorrow. She became
+keenly aware that her tireless mother, who had always stood ready to do
+the thousand and one things that were constantly calling her, was
+failing. Something swelled up in her throat, she fought valiantly a
+moment, and then jumping up, she grabbed the half-darned sock from her
+mother's hand, pitched it into the basket, picked it up and carried it
+over to her chair.
+
+"Now, Mumsie," she declared in answer to her mother's startled look,
+"you are not to darn any more stockings; henceforth your humble servant
+is to be the champion mender." Nathalie's cheeks flushed, for as she
+raised her eyes she encountered those of a young girl about her own age
+who was just coming out of the adjoining house.
+
+As her neighbor saw Nathalie, she smiled a cheery good-morning, showing
+a row of strong, white teeth, and then strode down the walk with the
+light step and easy swing of the athletic girl.
+
+"Huh! what a queer rig," commented Lucille, with a supercilious raising
+of her eyebrows, as she noted that the girl wore a short brown khaki
+skirt over bloomers, a middy with a Turkey red tie, and a broad-brimmed
+hat banded with red. "Is that the Salvation Army's summer apparel?" Then
+seeing that the girl carried a strong staff in her hand, she added with
+a giggle, "Or perhaps she is some aspiring member of the militants."
+
+"Why, I think the uniform--for I presume it is that--" interposed Mrs.
+Page, "is very attractive, and most appropriate for a Girl Pioneer."
+
+"Why, Mother, how do you know she is a Girl Pioneer?" questioned
+Nathalie with mild amazement.
+
+"Ah, I forgot to tell you that her mother, Mrs. Dame, called the day you
+were out walking. She told me that Helen, her only daughter, belongs to
+'The Girl Pioneers of America.'"
+
+"The Girl Pioneers of America!" repeated her daughter; "why, I never
+heard of them. Is it a patriotic society?"
+
+"In a way I presume it is," returned her mother, "as it is an
+organization which trains girls to emulate the sterling qualities of the
+early pioneer women."
+
+"I wonder what they do, and if it is anything like the Boy Scouts!"
+continued Nathalie interestedly.
+
+"I think from what Mrs. Dame told me that it must be a sister society to
+that organization, for its object is to awaken within the girls a desire
+for healthy, outdoor activities, as well as a broad and useful life
+along many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are so shallow and
+artificial-looking, and have no higher thought than getting all the
+pleasure they can out of life, that it is something which is sadly
+needed." Mrs. Page's tones were expressive.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Mary," demurred Lucille, looking up with a frown from her
+novel, "one would think that you expected girls to dress and act like
+their grandmothers. I am sure one can be young but once, and if one
+doesn't have a good time then, what's the use of living? And for putting
+a little color on one's face, why, the most fashionable people do it
+nowadays."
+
+Mrs. Page's face flushed slightly, but she replied with quiet dignity,
+"I am surprised, Lucille, to hear you talk that way, brought up as you
+have been, too. It is true," she continued, "that there is no harm in
+wanting a good time--as you call it--that is youth's privilege, and no one
+wishes to turn youth into age, but back of it all there should be common
+sense and a desire for right living. As for putting artificial color on
+a face that should represent the freshness and the natural bloom of
+youth, why, to me it is demoralizing."
+
+Lucille frowned impatiently and resumed her reading.
+
+"Mrs. Dame," continued her aunt, turning towards Nathalie, "said her
+daughter Helen was coming in to call on you; she will probably give you
+all the information you want about the new organization. I hope you will
+like her, dear, for she seems a pleasant, well-bred girl and surely will
+prove companionable to you. We might as well, all of us, try to forget
+our city life with its past pleasures, and see if we cannot adapt
+ourselves to our surroundings."
+
+"Indeed I will try, Mumsie," replied Nathalie with a slight catch in her
+voice, as her thoughts turned back to her chums in the city, and she
+wondered what they would think of her humble little home. "But really,
+Mother," she spoke aloud, "I think Miss Dame has an awfully bright face,
+and I wish she would call, for I should like to know about the Girl
+Pioneers."
+
+A few days after the finding of the bluebird's nest, Nathalie, enlivened
+by the desire to investigate her surroundings, and curious for new
+experiences, set forth on a little exploring tour to the woods on the
+outskirts of the town. She had tried to induce her cousin to join her,
+but that young lady was absorbed in running over a new ragtime song. Her
+sister Dorothy, aged twelve, had also declined on the score that she had
+an engagement with a girl neighbor who lived in the big house down the
+road.
+
+Sunshine and youth are joy-bearers, and as Nathalie felt the air in
+fragrant little whiffs against her cheeks, she thrilled with pleasure as
+she strode briskly up the hill. A moment later, however, her shining
+eyes shadowed, and she unconsciously shivered as she encountered a cold
+glance from a lady, weirdly garbed in gray, who was just passing.
+
+The color flashed to her cheeks; she felt as if some one had slapped her
+as the haunting vision of that uncanny stare of aversion from two
+steely-gray eyes penetrated her consciousness. Tempted by curiosity she
+turned and watched the peculiar-looking figure as it glided with almost
+specter-like swiftness down the hill.
+
+"I wonder who she is and why she gave me such a harrowing glance,"
+thought Nathalie. "Whew! she has frozen me stiff," and then a laugh
+brightened the brown eyes as she continued on her way. She had almost
+reached the top of the hill when she saw a large brown card on the walk.
+Picking it up she read, "Westport Library," and then the written name,
+"Elizabeth Van Vorst." Not a great loss, to be sure, but likely to cause
+inconvenience.
+
+"Oh, I wonder if that lady didn't drop it, she had a book under her
+arm," flashed into the girl's mind. She hesitated--she did not want to
+climb that long hill again--but the next second she had whirled about and
+was running lightly down the slope in the direction of a Carnegie
+building that glimmered picturesquely between green-boughed trees.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon," panted Nathalie as she held out the card to the
+gray lady who had just emerged from the library and was looking vexedly
+about on the walk in front of the building, "did you not lose your
+library card?"
+
+The lady turned sharply, stared suspiciously at the girl a moment, and
+then, as her eyes fell upon the extended card, exclaimed coldly, "Oh,
+did you find it? Thank you, I am much obliged!" With a haughty glance of
+dismissal she turned and ascended the library steps.
+
+Nathalie's eyes gleamed angrily, but with a toss of her head she was off
+on her second trudge up the slope. "Well, she is the limit--" she
+muttered. "Of all hateful, disagreeable, peculiar, mysterious creatures,
+she takes first rank." But when the girl reached the woods where the
+new-gowned trees and the white blossoms of the dogwood, which she had
+spied the day before, riding in a trolley car, rustled softly in the
+sunlight, as if in a spring greeting to the flower-seeker, the
+unpleasant incident was forgotten.
+
+With eager eyes and cheeks aglow she began to break off a sprig here and
+there, lingering only to caress the snowy petals that tantalizingly
+brushed her cheek.
+
+"What a beauty!" she exclaimed as she suddenly halted; "it will be just
+the spray to sketch." Up went her arm--a little higher--and then something
+went from under her; she tried to regain her footing, but slipped again
+on the moist turf. She felt her foot turn, and then came a sharp twinge
+that whitened her lips as she dropped, a helpless heap, on the ground.
+
+For a few moments the girl forgot her dogwood blossoms, the slip, and
+the pain, and then she opened her eyes to realize, with a pang of
+dismay, that she must have fainted. Oh, she must have twisted her ankle,
+for when she tried to stand she almost screamed with the knife-like
+twinges.
+
+She leaned her head against the tree with closed eyes, trying to think,
+but her thoughts seemed to run around in a circle, for she could see no
+way out of her dilemma. She was too far from the trolley line to hail a
+car, or to beckon to any passer-by who might be on the road.
+
+She thought ruefully of how worried her mother would be if she did not
+return before dark. And who was there to look for her? Dick was helpless
+with his crutch, Dorothy would not be home until late, and Lucille--well,
+whoever heard of Lucille ever doing anything for any one but herself?
+
+She screamed, but when her voice rang out with reverberating shrillness
+she clapped her hands to her ears. She would sing; and her fresh young
+voice broke forth into ragtime song.
+
+But the ragtime quivered pathetically into a half-wail. What should she
+do? At last in sheer desperation she began to sing hymns; but they
+sounded so doleful in her nervous state that she desisted with a sound
+that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was about to embrace
+resignation to fate when she caught the glimmer of a brown skirt between
+the low-hung branches of the trees near by. In a moment there was a
+sharp crack of a twig, and Nathalie with a sudden exclamation of joy saw
+a young girl coming quickly toward her, wearing the same kind of a brown
+uniform she had perceived on her neighbor a few days ago.
+
+"Oh, are you hurt?" asked the girl quickly, as she saw Nathalie's white
+face resting against the tree.
+
+Nathalie, attempting to smile, told of her mishap, and then with
+widening eyes saw the girl run a few steps into the open. Then the
+short, staccato whistle of Bob White struck the air.
+
+It was hardly a moment when, in response to this bird-call, several
+girls appeared in the opening beyond. A few hurried words with the girl
+who had signaled them, and they were around Nathalie, listening to the
+story of her accident.
+
+After expressing their sympathy, two of the taller girls quickly slipped
+off their khaki skirts, unbuttoned them, and then, to the injured one's
+amazement, one of the girls pushed her staff through the belt of one
+skirt and hem of the other, while her companion did the same with her
+staff. They were improvising a stretcher, as neat and
+comfortable-looking as if it had just been removed from an ambulance.
+
+While the stretcher was being made, one of the girls had taken from her
+knapsack a small black case from which she extracted a bottle. Hastily
+kneeling on the ground, after Nathalie's boot had been removed by her
+assistant, she bathed the injured foot, then, as her companion handed
+her a roll of white lint she bound it with a cotton compress, while
+Nathalie, with much curiosity, watched her as she quickly and skillfully
+performed the work of First Aid to the Injured. As she rose to her feet
+and turned to direct her companions in the lifting of her patient on the
+stretcher, Nathalie recognized her next-door neighbor, Helen Dame, the
+Girl Pioneer!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--HER NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR
+
+
+If Nathalie was surprised at the deftness and resourcefulness of these
+Girl Pioneers, she was amazed at the ease and comfort she experienced as
+the four girls strode forward, two at the head and two at the foot of
+the improvised stretcher.
+
+Notwithstanding the sharp twinges in her foot, she felt as if she could
+have dropped into a doze if a sudden, jarring thought had not caused her
+to raise her head in search of her next-door neighbor. By the decision
+of her voice and her methodical manner of directing her companions as
+they prepared the "bed of ease," Nathalie had recognized this girl as
+the leader.
+
+But Helen Dame was not to be seen. One of the girls, however, on seeing
+Nathalie's movement, commanded a halt and hastened to her side. "What
+can I do for you?" she inquired in an anxious tone. "Are you in pain?"
+
+Her ready sympathy brought the tears to Nathalie's eyes, for her nerves
+were somewhat under a strain, but she fought them bravely back, and
+looking up with a reassuring smile replied, "Oh no, I am all right, but
+I was looking for Miss Dame. I am afraid if Mother sees me on a
+stretcher, she will think something very dreadful has happened."
+
+"Ah, Helen thought of that," was the quick reply, "and she has gone
+ahead to tell your mother that you have only hurt your foot, and to see
+if she can get Dr. Morrow to come over and look at it."
+
+"Oh, how kind of her--and of you all--" there was a slight tremor in
+Nathalie's voice. "I am sure I do not know what would have become of me,
+alone there in the woods, if you girls had not come to my rescue."
+
+As the girls walked slowly on with their burden, the one walking by the
+side of the stretcher told Nathalie that they were a group of Girl
+Pioneers, that they had been on a hike, and that her name was Grace
+Tyson. As they chatted pleasantly, Nathalie told of her recent removal
+from the city to Westport. With wise forethought she suppressed all
+mention of her former wealth and the many luxuries she had been used to,
+for fear that these suburban girls, not comprehending, might misjudge
+her and think that she considered herself above them. She had learned
+from the girls of her own set in school that when a newcomer took
+particular care to advise them how rich she was, her mates usually
+dubbed her a snob. So she only told of her great loss in the death of
+her father, how Dick, her older brother, had injured his knee in an
+accident and was an invalid, and how she liked her new home.
+
+In the companionship of this new girl she scarcely realized how quickly
+the time had passed until she saw her mother's anxious face bending over
+her, and heard a masculine voice say, "Well, is this the young lady who
+reached too high?"
+
+Nathalie looked quickly up and immediately her heart went out to this
+big, bluff man with iron-gray hair and kindly blue eyes who picked her
+up as if she had been a manikin, carried her into the hall, and laid her
+on the couch. She recognized the face of the doctor who lived on the
+opposite corner whom she had often envied as he went chugging down the
+street in his automobile.
+
+After the doctor had pressed her foot here and there with a touch as
+soft as silk from the gentleness of trained fingers, he brought forth
+some surgical plaster from a black case, and strapped the injured
+member, remarking as he did so on the surgeon-like way in which Miss
+Dame had bandaged it.
+
+After the "exam," as Dick called it, was over, the doctor explained the
+case as a few strained ligaments, and said that with care his patient
+would be able to walk in about a week.
+
+"A week?" sprang from the young girl involuntarily. Dismay shone in her
+eyes, but the doctor, with a fatherly pat, assured her that she had
+great cause for gratitude, as it might have been much worse.
+
+"The next time you go to gather dogwood blossoms, young lady," he
+advised jovially, "wear rubber heels, and then you won't slip on
+stones."
+
+As the doctor bade her good afternoon, promising to come again in a few
+days to see how the foot was progressing, Nathalie thought of her
+rescuers, and raising her head peered anxiously around.
+
+"The girls have gone, but they left a good-by for you," her mother
+answered to her look of inquiry, "and Miss Dame says she will be in
+to-morrow to see how you are."
+
+By to-morrow Nathalie had begun to think it was not at all unpleasant to
+be a short-time invalid, and she jokingly requested her mother to see
+that her head was not screwed around from sheer conceit at being the
+recipient of so much attention.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, the doctor's young wife, had sent her a beautiful bunch of
+yellow daffodils from the very garden that Nathalie had been admiring
+all the week, while the little, silver-haired old lady next
+door--Nathalie could have hugged her, she looked so grand-motherly--had
+sent her a snow-frosted nut-cake. Lucille--an unheard-of thing--had
+condescended to alight from her pedestal of self and had played and sung
+Nathalie's favorite selections all the morning. Even Dorothy, whose
+engagement book was always brimming over, had darned stockings for her.
+Of course, Nathalie knew that she would have to rip out every stitch,
+but that was the child's way of showing that she, too, wanted to be
+sympathetic and kind.
+
+The success of the day, however, was when Helen Dame's dark eyes smiled
+at her from the adjoining porch, and she asked if Nathalie felt like
+chatting for a while.
+
+"Indeed I do," answered Nathalie animatedly, "I have been just dying to
+talk with you ever since you were so kind."
+
+"Oh, how sweet you look!" exclaimed Helen a few moments later as she
+shook hands with the patient, "with your pink ribbons--just the color of
+your cheeks." For the girl's color had deepened as her visitor laid a
+bunch of violets on her lap. "These are from the girls, the Girl
+Pioneers--that is our Pioneer song," she added laughingly.
+
+"I just love violets!" Nathalie sniffed at the purple petals. "And the
+girls, do you mean the ones who so kindly came to my aid the other day?
+Oh, Miss Dame, I hardly know how to express my appreciation of your
+kindness," her voice trembled slightly, "in hurrying home to tell
+Mother."
+
+"Oh, that was nothing," replied Helen with assumed indifference,
+although her eyes darkened in appreciation of Nathalie's gratefulness,
+"that was only courtesy; you know we are Girl Pioneers, and kindness is
+one of the laws of the organization."
+
+"Do you know," Nathalie broke in impulsively, "Mother thinks the girls
+very clever in making that stretcher; do tell me about the Girl
+Pioneers!" She hesitated for a moment. "Perhaps I am very ignorant, but
+I never heard of them until your mother told mine that you were a Girl
+Pioneer."
+
+Helen laughed with a gratified gleam in her eyes. "Oh, Mother!--she
+thinks it just the dandiest thing going. Mrs. Morrow, our Director,
+introduced the movement here. The founder is a friend of hers, so she is
+steeped to her finger-tips with it.
+
+"She started me going--enthusiasm is contagious, you know--and I organized
+the first group. A group means six or eight girls; several groups form
+what is called a band."
+
+"Do you mean Mrs. Morrow, the doctor's wife?" inquired her companion.
+"She must be lovely, for she looks so pretty flitting about the garden,"
+turning wistful eyes toward the corner house with its flower beds and
+green lawn. "I often watch her from my window."
+
+"Yes, she is a dear," assented Helen, "and we girls adore her. Have you
+seen the twins?"
+
+"The kiddies who go about in khaki uniforms and carry little poles."
+
+"Yes, baby Boy Scouts. You should hear them call themselves 'the twims';
+they both lisp. But there, I must tell you about the Pioneers--but I
+don't want to tire you," she paused abruptly, "for Mother says there is
+no end to me when I get talking on that subject."
+
+"But I want to hear about them!" pleaded Nathalie.
+
+"Well, after I organized the group, the girls elected me leader, and
+Grace Tyson--that's the girl who walked beside you coming home--my
+assistant. You see every group has to have a leader and an assistant
+from the group, and then when a band is formed there is a Director. Any
+one over twenty-one years of age can be a Director. After we formed our
+group, we had to get busy and qualify."
+
+"Qualify?" repeated her hostess, "that sounds big."
+
+"Yes, every Girl Pioneer has to qualify, that is to pass several tests
+to prove that she is competent to do the work. It is no end of fun
+training a girl to qualify, for you know she has to recite the Girl
+Pioneer pledge, and the Pioneer laws; she must give the names of the
+President and Vice-President of the United States, the name of the
+Governor of the State in which she lives, and then tell all about our
+country's flag. She must know how to sew a button on properly," Helen
+made a grimace, "to tie a square knot and to do several other things.
+After a girl has passed these tests, she becomes a third-class Pioneer;
+then after a month she can qualify for a second-class Pioneer, and
+finally for a first-class Pioneer. We can win merit badges, too, for
+proficiency in certain lines. Yes, you are right, it is a big thing to
+be a Girl Pioneer, for every true Pioneer's aim is to be courageous,
+resourceful, and upright, under all circumstances and in all
+emergencies.
+
+"You know, we have to pledge ourselves to speak the truth at all times,
+to be honest in all things, and to obey the Pioneer law." Helen's face
+grew serious. "Yes, and our laws mean something, too, for they stand for
+the doing of things that are worth while, the things that develop
+nobility of character, for, as Mrs. Morrow tells us, it is character
+that makes the great men and women of the world.
+
+"But don't think we are serious all the time," she continued, her eyes
+brightening, "for we have heaps of fun. We take hikes; sometimes just a
+group go with their leader, but generally our Director takes the band.
+On these hikes we study woodcraft; that means we study the birds, their
+habits, and learn to know their songs and call-notes. We gather wild
+flowers, ferns, and grasses, and each girl reads up about the particular
+thing she finds and passes the information along. We study the trees,
+and the animals also by tracking their footmarks--well, to sum it all up,
+we study nature from growing things and living creatures.
+
+"To read about things in a book is all right, Mrs. Morrow says, as it is
+helpful in identification and suggestion, but we strive to know things
+through personal experience. We are taught to find nature, too, in the
+crowded cities. That's big, isn't it?"
+
+"Big!" echoed Nathalie, "the word _big_ isn't big enough to express it.
+I should say it meant--well"--she held out her arms, "the universe."
+
+There was something so responsive in her words and attitude, although
+they did not exactly express what she meant to convey, that Helen, with
+almost boyish frankness, held out her hand, crying, "Good! let's shake.
+You are simply immense, Miss Page, or, in the words of our old French
+professor at school, 'you--haf--much com--pree--henshun!'" This was said in
+mimic tone with laughing eyes, a shrug of the shoulders, and with
+outspread hands.
+
+"We have indoor rallies, or Pioneer circles, also, Miss Page, when our
+Director gives us delightful little talks on ethical culture,--only ten
+minutes--" she pleaded laughingly, "also on history, astronomy,--we call
+them our star talks,--and other instructive subjects.
+
+"You will be surprised, perhaps, but these talks are very interesting,
+not at all tiresome. The girls listen with all their ears and we learn
+an awful lot. One reason is that Mrs. Morrow loves young girls--for you
+see, she isn't so very much older than we are--and she knows just how to
+talk to us, so that we don't feel as if we were being preached at, or
+having wisdom jammed down our throats. It is just dramatizing serious
+things through play, so as to make us remember them as well as
+entertaining us. Then we have spelling-contests, cooking-matches,--I call
+them trials by fire,--sewing-bees, and all sorts of old-fashioned
+things."
+
+"But you have outdoor sports, too, do you not?" asked her listener, who
+was intensely interested.
+
+"Indeed we do, any number of them: swimming, horseback-riding, rowing,
+canoeing, basket-ball, tennis, dancing, stilt-walking,--we make our own
+stilts,--kite-flying,--and we make our own kites, too. In fact, we do just
+about everything that stands for healthful recreation and wholesome fun.
+Isn't that comprehensive enough?"
+
+"How did you come to take the name 'Pioneer'?"
+
+"Well, you see it was this way; as the Boy Scouts strive to imitate the
+chivalry and higher qualities of the knights of olden times, so we,
+their sister organization, endeavor to emulate the sterling qualities of
+the early pioneer women. They learned to be courageous, resourceful, and
+efficient, as the home-makers of the brave men who founded this
+Republic--"
+
+"Do you mean the wives of the Puritans and Pilgrims?"
+
+"Yes, we mean all those women, North, East, South, and West," Helen
+declared smilingly, "who helped their good men to build homes in the
+wilderness, who mothered their children with Spartan-like denial, and
+who--yes, who knew how to handle an old flintlock when they heard the cry
+of the Indian. Oh, no, I'm not originating, I am only an echo of Mrs.
+Morrow, who is way up on Colonial history.
+
+"The Pioneer Girls," she continued more seriously, "aim, by imitating
+the many qualities of these splendid women, to be worthy wives and
+mothers. Who knows?" she broke into a laugh, "the Girl Pioneers may be
+the mothers of men like Washington, Lincoln--O dear," she stopped
+suddenly, "I am talking as if I had to speed a thousand words a minute!"
+
+"Oh, go on!" cried Nathalie, inspired by her guest's fervency, "I just
+love to hear you talk."
+
+"It is very good of you to say that," declared Helen with a slight
+blush, "but I am almost 'at the finish,' as the boys say. But I must not
+forget to tell you that we love to gather around the open fire, cheer
+fires we call them, and tell stories. We generally try to make them
+stories about the pioneers, or heroic women, and sometimes we run in a
+story about some brave kiddie, for you know almost every one loves to
+hear about brave little children. Ah, that reminds me, did you ever hear
+about Mary Chilton? She was a real pioneer girl you know, for she came
+over with the Pilgrims." Helen nodded her head impressively.
+
+"No, I have read about Lola Standish, and I believe--yes--I saw her
+sampler once, and I am quite up on all the points of Priscilla's
+courtship, but--"
+
+"Who isn't?" replied Miss Dame, "for she was a dear. Mary Chilton was a
+friend of hers. Why, don't you remember she was the girl who made the
+bet with John Alden--slow old John--that when the little shallop struck
+Plymouth Rock (of course they never dreamed that they were going to make
+that old rock immortal) that she would jump on the rock first; and sure
+enough she did manage to land a second or so before John Alden."
+
+"Well, the Girl Pioneers aim high," declared Nathalie, "and I certainly
+think they must be worthwhile girls. I shall love to meet your Pioneer
+friends--they cheered me up--" she added, "for they made me think of the
+girls at school, especially Grace Tyson. Why, she is so much like my
+chum that it almost seemed as if I were talking to her the other day!
+Your friends all have such happy faces, and 'it is such a relief to see
+good red cheeks as made by Mother Nature,' as Mother says. Some of the
+girls one sees in the cities nowadays have such a made-up appearance,
+especially those on the avenue Saturday afternoons in New York."
+
+"Yes, they have regular clown faces with their splashes of red, and
+their powdered noses," returned her neighbor laughingly. "I always feel
+as if I wanted to tell them they had forgotten to rub the flour off. It
+doesn't seem possible that any well-bred girl could think she looks nice
+all dabbed up in that way. But there, I am tiring you," she added
+hastily, "so I am going to say good-by. Oh, I came very near forgetting
+to ask if you would like to have the girls call on you--I mean the girls
+of our group?" she hesitated. "I think you would like them, although
+they may not be as fashionable as your city friends."
+
+"Oh, but they are the kind of girls I like," protested Nathalie
+hurriedly, "for I do not care for girls who are nothing but fuss and
+feathers. Please do bring your friends, for I know I shall like them,
+and then, too, they may tell me more about the good times you have."
+
+"Indeed they will," said Helen with decision; "they will be only too
+pleased. When shall we come, will Thursday be a good day for you?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; I shall be here--still in this old chair I presume; I shall
+watch for them with great impatience, for you know," she added a little
+sadly, "they remind me of my schoolmates in the city. Oh, I have missed
+them dreadfully! Now, be sure to come--all of you!"
+
+She rose in her chair to wave a good-by to her new friend, who, as she
+reached the gate, had turned and waved her hand.
+
+Nathalie sank back in her chair with tear-dimmed eyes, for somehow that
+friendly salute had brought it all back--the faces of her merry comrades,
+and the happy care-free hours they had spent together. She swallowed
+hard, for Helen had waved her hand just the way the girls used to do
+when they came in afternoons for a chatty little visit, and then hurried
+away with just such a parting salute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--GIRL PIONEERS
+
+
+"Oh, I wish you would tell me something about your school life in New
+York," begged Helen wistfully; "I had a friend who used to go to one of
+the high schools. I hear they are very fine."
+
+It was Thursday, the day the Girl Pioneers were to call on Nathalie, and
+Helen Dame had run over a few moments before their arrival to have a
+short chat with her new friend.
+
+"Oh--I," Nathalie hesitated with rising color, "I did not go to high
+school. Yes, I know they are very fine, but I attended a private school
+kept by Madame Chemidlin."
+
+An "oh!" escaped Helen involuntarily, as her eyes gloomed a little, but
+her companion plunged recklessly on.
+
+"It is considered one of the finest schools in the city, because, well,
+for one thing, Madame is adorable, her father was one of the nobility, a
+political refugee from France, and then because the girls who attend
+come from the best families in New York. They were just dears--" with a
+sigh of regret--"Nellie Blinton, she was my chummiest chum, she's the one
+I told you Miss Tyson reminded me of, she has the same kind of a face as
+Nell, with big, dark eyes and the same gentle, ladylike way about her
+that my friend has.
+
+"Then there was Puss Davidson, she's awfully clever. She writes stories,
+and last year won a gold medal from St. Nicholas. She was Valedictorian
+of our class last Spring. You know I graduated then, but took a
+post-graduate course last winter and expected to enter college this
+fall, but now, of course, things are different." She spoke a little
+sadly.
+
+Helen could not help feeling somewhat disappointed as she heard about
+these rich schoolmates of Nathalie's; she had taken a great liking to
+this girl with the daintily colored face with its rounding curves,
+lighted by eyes that held you captive with their frank, direct gaze.
+Although bright and clever-looking, this Girl Pioneer possessed no claim
+to beauty, for, as she ruefully commented at times, she had a nose with
+a knob on it. For that reason, perhaps, being free from that enviousness
+that characterizes so many girls, she was a beauty-lover. Too often she
+had made friends with girls just because they appealed to her love for
+the beautiful, only to realize when it was too late that good looks do
+not always mean pleasing traits of character. In fact, Helen was
+somewhat tired of being disappointed, and had vowed to her mother that
+she was never again going to care for a pretty girl. She was not sure
+that Nathalie was a real beauty, but surely, with her lovely brown eyes
+and the gracious little way she had, not at all self-conscious, but just
+real "self," she was in a fair way to become very popular with the
+girls.
+
+Her eyes clouded momentarily and something caused an unpleasant jar. No,
+she was not jealous of Nathalie, for she was willing to have her know
+and be liked by the other girls, but as she had been the first one to
+know her, she wanted to be her special friend. But then if she had
+always had so many high-toned schoolmates, perhaps she would not care to
+be a friend to a girl who was learning to be a wage-earner. Helen had
+always felt proud to think that some day she could be ranked among that
+class of highly regarded women, but would Nathalie think as she did?
+
+There was something so straightforward, however, so honest, about
+Nathalie as she went on and told of her studies, her friends, and a few
+of the incidents in her school life in the big city, that Helen forgot
+her fears, and was compelled to believe that she would be doing her an
+injustice in fearing that she would choose her companions for what they
+had and not for what they were.
+
+"Oh, here they come!" cried Nathalie at this moment as she caught a
+glimpse of a group of girls in brown uniforms coming down the street.
+She half rose from her chair and with sparkling eyes watched them as
+they came, a dozen or more, perhaps, up the steps of the veranda. In
+another second her eyes grew big as she saw each girl's hand placed
+quickly over her heart, then up to her forehead, and lastly held with
+open palm at a level with the right shoulder. It was the Girl Pioneers'
+salute to their leader, for Helen with a sudden straightening of the
+shoulders had responded to the greeting with a similar movement.
+
+Nathalie had already stepped forward, leaning on Dick's crutch,--he had
+been relegated to the couch in the hall,--and was crying, as her color
+came and went in pink flushes, "Oh, I am so glad to see you!" extending
+her hand to the foremost girl, Grace Tyson. "I think it's just lovely
+for you all to come to see me!" nodding towards the rest of the group,
+with eyes that attested the cordiality of her welcome. She stopped
+abruptly, for the girls had broken forth into
+
+  "Hear! hear! hear! Girl Pioneer!
+  Come, give a cheer, G-i-r-l Pi-o-neer!"
+
+"And a cheer for our hostess!" added Grace Tyson, lifting up her hand as
+she faced her companions. Before Nathalie could catch her breath there
+came another ringing cheer as each girl with smiling eyes shouted,
+
+  "Hear! hear! a cheer for Nathalie dear!
+  Girl Pi-o-neer! Girl Pi-o-neer!"
+
+If Nathalie's color had been going and coming, it now flooded her face
+as she laughingly held out her hand to each one in turn, giving a soft
+little squeeze that made each girl vote her a comrade.
+
+Grace and Helen now led Nathalie back to her chair, somewhat solicitous
+as to the sprained foot; but she laughingly assured them that she was
+all right. Then with animated eyes she bowed and smiled as Helen, who
+was spokesman for the group, began to introduce each one of the Pioneers
+in turn, in an offhand, half quizzing way that relieved the formality of
+the ceremony.
+
+"This is Miss Jessie Ford, our literary scribe and Editor-in-chief of
+'The Pioneer,' a penny newspaper issued monthly, devoted to the news and
+doings of the Girl Pioneers."
+
+Jessie, a wholesome-looking girl with golden hair worn in a coronet
+braid, and with bright, keen eyes, shook hands pleasantly, half smiling
+at the words of their leader. "Yes, she is clever, our Jess, and
+progressive, too," went on Helen, her eyes twinkling, "which means a lot
+in these times." There was the suspicion of laughter in her tone.
+
+"That she's progressive can't be denied," interposed Grace Tyson
+laughingly, "for when we had a Pioneer party a short time ago, Jess
+wasn't going to be outdone by any newspaper reporter and wrote a
+detailed description of each girl's costume and sent it to the 'Town
+Journal.' The paper appeared the afternoon of the 'come-off,' one of the
+girls saw the article, and suggested as a joke that we all change
+costumes. O dear, what a laugh we had on Jess!"
+
+Miss Jessie, however, only smiled at all of this chaffing, as if proud
+of this proof of her alertness and stepped to one side.
+
+"And this bluebird--oh, Miss Page did I tell you that each Pioneer group
+is named after a bird, and that ours is the Bluebird Group?" Helen had
+forgotten her teasing tone in her eagerness to impart this information.
+
+"What a pretty idea," responded Nathalie, "and bluebird, the name of
+your group!" thinking of the nest of bluebirds she had found down in the
+old cedar.
+
+Helen nodded with pleasure and then said, "This is Miss Kitty Corwin; we
+call her our pot-boiler--that means that Kitty always manages to keep the
+pot boiling not only by holding up her end of the line, but all the
+other ends, too, when the derelict Girl Pioneers forget to do so."
+
+"And you might say she always carries all the pots and pans, too, when
+there's a hike," interposed the newcomer, with a nervous laugh. She was
+an awkward-looking girl about fourteen, all arms and elbows, but with a
+rather winsome face lighted by big, serious eyes. There was such nervous
+activity about her grip as she yanked Nathalie's hand like a pump-handle
+that that young lady had no doubts as to her surplus energy. As Kitty
+tried to make her escape there was a suppressed howl, and then a
+twitter, for alas, she had backed into one of her companions with such
+force that the victim almost lost her balance.
+
+The girls, each one smiling, but with a palpitating heart as if doubtful
+what Helen would say when her turn came, all looked up expectantly as a
+tall girl, somewhat older than the others, but with a certain dash about
+her that added to her charm, came forward. She moved with willowy grace
+and had an ease of manner that accentuated the Pot-Boiler's embarrassed
+movements.
+
+"Miss Page, allow me to introduce you to Miss Lillie Bell." There was a
+certain emphasis in Helen's tone as she presented this pretty,
+attractive girl, that indicated her pride in one of the most popular
+girls belonging to the group.
+
+Miss Bell smiled in a self-assured manner as Helen introduced her, and
+then greeted Nathalie with sweet graciousness as she waited expectantly
+for her characterization to be given.
+
+"Lillie is our story-teller," continued Helen with a gleam of mischief
+in her eyes, "a would-be thriller, for we all shiver with the creeps
+when she begins her yellow-journal romances. Her specialty is ghost
+tales, the kind that, as we sit in the dark around our cheer fire, its
+glare (blood-red, please note), casting weird shadows over our pallid
+faces--" Helen intoned in tragic burlesque, and then stopped with a
+laugh.
+
+Lillie Bell, however, did not appear at all annoyed at this banter, but
+returned coolly, "I hope Miss Page, you will not believe all Helen says,
+for she dotes on teasing, but we get even with her when the chance
+comes." From a certain gleam in the smiling gray eyes Nathalie did not
+doubt her, but as her voice was musical, and her manner impressive,
+bordering on the dramatic, she wished she could hear one of her
+thrillers.
+
+"Observe," tantalized the spokesman as Lillie disappeared and her place
+was taken by a young girl who looked as if she was all blood and muscle,
+with ruddy cheeks, alert eyes, and the poise and bearing of one who was
+a frequenter of the gym.
+
+As Helen said, "This is Miss Edith Whiton," she made an old-time curtsy,
+"generally dubbed the Sport, as she is the champion knee-doubler,
+arm-stretcher, toe-raiser, and all the rest of the ball-and-socket
+team."
+
+With attempted nonchalance Edith twisted her shoulders and flashed Helen
+a quick glance as much as to say, "Wait, my turn is coming later!" She
+then stepped forward and shook Nathalie's hand, smiling pleasantly down
+at her with frank friendliness.
+
+As she made her way back to her seat, a pale, studious-looking young
+girl with a head that looked almost top-heavy with its black braids, and
+who wore glasses, presented herself before Nathalie. She smiled
+nervously as Helen began, "Oh, this owl-like individual is Barbara
+Worth; she is very learned--she knows it all."
+
+"Oh, Helen!" came in pained expostulation from the girl, as her eyes
+turned distressfully upon her hostess in shamed embarrassment.
+
+"Oh, Barbara, don't mind," spoke up Lillie Bell kindly, "Helen is only
+in fun."
+
+Barbara looked somewhat relieved at this brace to her injured feelings,
+and then stood nervously clasping and unclasping her hands together.
+
+"Yes," went on Helen relentlessly, "we call her the Encyclopedia for
+short. Wait until you want to know something in a hurry, she will help
+you out, for she has the best heart in the world." With a little ripple
+of laughter Helen leaned forward and looking up at Barbara cried,
+"There, did I say anything so dreadful?"
+
+Barbara smiled gratefully and then said quietly, "Yes, Miss Page, I have
+a fine library, it is grandfather's, and I shall--" she drew a deep
+breath--"always be glad to live up to my name."
+
+There was loud clapping at this brave remark and then she was gone, but
+in her place stood a little lass who smiled bewitchingly at the girl in
+the chair, showing a coy little dimple in one cheek, and then with a
+slight frown waited for her executioner to behead her.
+
+"This little damsel is Louise Gaynor," introduced Helen; "she is the
+Flower of the family--spelt both ways. We call her flower, because she
+resembles one," Louise bowed prettily with a surprised glance, "and then
+because she is an expert manipulator of the flour bag; she makes most
+edible flapjacks when we go on a hike. It is needless to say that we
+always have indigestion afterwards." There was a laugh at this, and then
+as the Flower disappeared, Helen drew to her side a diminutive girl who
+wore her flaxen hair in two large braids down her back. With her broad,
+good-natured face and cornflower blue eyes she was a miniature Gretchen.
+
+"This is Carol Tyke--we spell it T-i-k-e, because she is a tike and the
+fag of the group as well." The little girl, who was about eleven, but
+small for her age, grinned at Nathalie and ducked her head. "She is a
+Junior Pioneer, not yet twelve. But we have her in training and she is
+taking tests daily, which doesn't give her much leisure time, does it,
+Tike?"
+
+At last, much to Nathalie's relief, the introductions were over, and
+then she listened intently as the girls began to tell her of a hike they
+had taken the week before, when one of their number had found a hundred
+different leaf specimens.
+
+"Yes, it was a leaf hike," said Grace. "We all have our own note-books;
+and make impressions from the leaves; that is, we print them in our
+books, and then write the date of the hike, the name of the leaf, and
+any other data we have gathered."
+
+"I should think it would be very interesting," remarked her listener, as
+she thought of the outings she and her schoolmates used to take on
+Saturday mornings when they visited Bronx Park, and studied "cooped-up
+nature" as one of the girls used to call it, when they eyed some fierce
+monarch of the forest in his iron cage, or exclaimed over the beauties
+of some hot-house flower.
+
+"We are going to have a wild-flower hike soon," volunteered the Tike,
+smiling at Nathalie in a most friendly manner. "The Sport says there are
+a lot of beautiful flowers in the woods near Edgemere, didn't you,
+Sport?"
+
+"But I wish you would tell me something about your tests--is that what
+you call them?" Nathalie asked. "I should think they would be no end of
+fun if they mean making one do stunts, or anything in the hazing line?"
+
+"Oh, we do not haze, or anything of that sort, for that would not be
+kind, and kindness is one of the laws of the Girl Pioneer," explained
+Grace. "By tests we mean trying to see what a girl can do that is
+useful, and if she can't do it, we teach her. We have to sew, cook, and
+know all the emergency things."
+
+"You mean the First Aid to the Injured methods," corrected Helen;
+"knowing what to do to revive a person when almost drowned, how to put
+out a fire--"
+
+"How to bathe and bandage a sprained foot--"
+
+"You needn't tell me you know that," cried Nathalie with sparkling eyes,
+"for I know by experience," and then she told the girls what the doctor
+had said about Helen's skillful way of binding her foot--in spite of that
+young lady's blushes at this open praise--and how clever her mother
+thought the girls were for the ready way in which they had made the
+stretcher from their khaki skirts.
+
+"Then we have to know how to restore a person who has fainted," some one
+volunteered.
+
+"And learn the Fireman's Lift," added another girl.
+
+"Oh, let's tell things from the beginning!" interrupted some methodical
+girl from the farther end of the porch.
+
+"Oh, but I told Miss Page--" Helen stopped, for her hostess was looking
+at her with beseeching eyes, clearly due to the formal title.
+
+"Won't you please call me Nathalie?" the owner of that name ventured
+with a coaxing little smile.
+
+"If you will say Helen," replied the girl with evident delight.
+
+The girls both laughed, shook hands on it, and then Helen continued.
+"Yes, I told Nathalie all about the tests for the third-class Pioneer.
+Well, to become a second-class Pioneer it is necessary to have been a
+third-class Pioneer for at least a month. Then you have to know how to
+cook a piece of meat properly--"
+
+"Boil a potato as it should be done!" interrupted Lillie Bell. This was
+impressively said, and followed by a chime of laughter from the girls.
+
+"And make a coal fire in a cooking-stove--ye stars!" ejaculated Grace,
+"when I made my first, I literally smoked every one in the house to a
+ham--but when I made my first out-of-door fire--"
+
+"You didn't do any better," cried Lillie Bell irrelevantly, "for you
+sooted the whole bunch of us."
+
+"Oh, Lillie," cried Grace in dismayed tone, "that wasn't from making the
+fire, for I was the only one who made it with a single match, but it was
+from putting it out."
+
+"Now girls, don't tell tales; for, as Mrs. Morrow says, we are all
+breakable and no one should cast the first stone," called out their
+leader.
+
+"Oh, the tests are all easy but the next one," cried Edith Whiton, "that
+is not a cinch by any means: how to remove a cinder from the eye--"
+
+"Or any other foreign substance!"
+
+"We have to know all the primary colors, too," went on Edith.
+
+"Pshaw, any kindergarten kid knows that," spoke the Encyclopedia, who up
+to this moment had taken no part in this flow of information, "but to
+tie a bundle properly, that means hard labor."
+
+"Yes, indeed," added Jessie Ford quickly, "one has to have an awful lot
+of practice to do that. I worked so hard tying up bundles at home for
+every one in the house that Father suggested I apply for a position as
+bundle-wrapper at some department store. And I would have, just for a
+joke, if I hadn't succeeded in making every one for whom I tied a bundle
+give me five cents--and I made a dollar." Her eyes gleamed reminiscently.
+
+"You have forgotten about the trees!" called out the Sport.
+
+"Yes, we have to name three kinds of trees, three flowers and three
+birds."
+
+"Easy!" chimed the girls in unison.
+
+"But the hardest--that was for me--" exclaimed Grace (Nathalie bent
+forward eagerly, for somehow she did like Grace), "was to earn or to
+save fifty cents and put it in the bank." There was a general shout at
+this, for, as Helen explained in an aside to Nathalie, Grace was the
+richest girl in the Pioneer group. She had a beautiful home, her own
+automobile, her own allowance, and yet she was always hard up.
+
+"She's awfully generous, you know, and doesn't know how to count her
+pennies," she added wisely, "the way we girls do, because we have to.
+But she's learning."
+
+But Helen's whispered comments about her friend were not all heard by
+Nathalie, who suddenly stiffened, and with a quick exclamation leaned
+forward and stared curiously at a gray figure that was walking past the
+house with strained, averted eyes, as if fearful that she might see the
+group of merry girls on the veranda.
+
+"Who is that lady all in gray?" she demanded, abruptly clutching Helen's
+arm as her eyes followed the gliding figure of the strange-appearing
+woman whose library card she had found the day of her accident in the
+woods.
+
+Helen looked up quickly in response to Nathalie's question, but before
+she could answer, Kitty Corwin cried hastily, "Girls, look! there goes
+'The Mystic'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--NATHALIE IS ASKED TO BECOME A BLUE ROBIN
+
+
+"The Mystic!" echoed Nathalie in mild amazement, while one or two of the
+group turned and gazed curiously at the gray-shrouded figure hurrying
+by.
+
+"You needn't ask me to look at her," asserted the Sport with a scowl,
+"after screwing up my courage as I did to ask her if we could use her
+terraced lawn for one of our drills; why, the glance she gave me almost
+froze me stiff!"
+
+The girls laughed at Edith's tragic tone, while Lillie Bell retorted
+teasingly, "Well, she must be a chill-raiser, Edith, if she could freeze
+the marrow in your spine."
+
+"Girls, you should not speak as you do about Mrs. Van Vorst," admonished
+Helen, "you know Mrs. Morrow says that she has suffered a great sorrow."
+
+"Pshaw, we all know that," returned the Sport unfeelingly, "but that is
+no reason why she should make every one else suffer, too."
+
+"Granted," rejoined Helen, "but she has grown to look at things through
+morbid eyes."
+
+"I should think the gray gown she wears would make any one morbid,"
+suggested Lillie. "But what is the use of discussing her? I believe she
+is just a crank with a fad," she added.
+
+"Who is she, and why does she go about in that queer gray gown?"
+inquired Nathalie, insistently.
+
+"She is Mrs. Van Vorst, the richest woman in town," explained Grace.
+"She lives in that big, gray house surrounded by the stone wall. Haven't
+you noticed it? It's on Willow Street, up on the hill. You must have
+seen it."
+
+"Oh, the big house with the beautiful Dutch garden," exclaimed Nathalie,
+"and the queer little house at one side of it?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Helen, "but that queer little house is an ancient
+landmark--a Dutch homestead--built on a grant of land given by Governor
+Stuyvesant to Janse Van Vorst way back in 1667. The Van Vorsts, or their
+descendants, have lived on that place for hundreds of years. Billy Van
+Vorst, the last of the line, married Betty Walton, a rich New York girl.
+He died some years ago, and--well, I don't know the exact story--" Helen
+hesitated, "but they say Mrs. Van Vorst has an awful temper--oh, I hate
+to tell it--and then it may not be true."
+
+"But it is true," asserted Jessie Ford, "for Mother used to know Billy
+and Betty, too. She said shortly after Billy's death Mrs. Van Vorst
+became angry with her little child--I don't know whether it is a boy or
+girl--and--"
+
+"Whatever it is," broke in Edith, "it is all distorted and twisted,
+looks like a monster, for I saw it one day in the garden, the day I was
+there. It is always muffled up so people can't see it."
+
+"Well, anyway," went on Jessie, "Mrs. Van Vorst got into a temper with
+the child and shut it up in a dark room, and then went off to a
+reception or something, and forgot all about it."
+
+"Oh, how could she?" ejaculated Nathalie with a shudder.
+
+"Well, when she came home and remembered it--it wasn't in the room--"
+
+"And they found it all in a heap on the pavement in the yard," again
+interrupted Edith, anxious to forestall the climax; "I have heard all
+about it, they say it was an awful sight."
+
+"Dead?" cried Nathalie in a shocked tone.
+
+"No, not dead," returned Jessie, "but it might as well have been. It had
+become frightened in the dark, said some one was chasing it, and in
+trying to escape climbed out on a shed and fell to the ground. Mrs. Van
+Vorst was ill for a long time, almost lost her mind. Then she gave up
+society and came down here and built this big house beside the
+homestead. She has lived in it ever since, but keeps to herself; she
+doesn't seem to want to know people."
+
+"Oh, I don't wonder she mourns in gray then!" exclaimed Nathalie. "I
+feel sorry for her!"
+
+"And so do I!" chimed Helen squeezing her new friend's hand
+responsively, "for she will have to suffer remorse all her life. Mother
+says she is to be pitied."
+
+"Well, I should have more pity for her if she would let us have the lawn
+back of her house for our flag drill," remarked Lillie Bell, "or for one
+of our demonstrations."
+
+"You can be sure I'll never ask her again," declared the Sport,
+vehemently; "I believe she hates us just because we are young, and can
+enjoy life when her child can't."
+
+At this moment Grace arose and handed Nathalie a peculiar-looking
+envelope of rough brown paper. "No, it won't explode," she giggled, as
+she saw Nathalie handling the quaintly-folded envelope rather gingerly.
+
+"You needn't think it is the butcher's bill, either," laughed Helen,
+"for it isn't. It is simply an invitation to one of our group meetings,
+or Pioneer Rallies, as we call them. We always use that kind of paper
+when we invite guests, for it was the kind used in pioneer times."
+
+Reassured by Helen's explanation, Nathalie opened the envelope, noting
+the old-style script printed by hand in scarlet letters, evidently the
+work of one of the Pioneers. Then she slowly read aloud:
+
+  "They knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things,
+  but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and
+  quieted their spirits within."
+
+                                                           -- Bradford.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Ye presence of ye young maide, Mistress Nathalie Page is enjoined to
+  appear on ye 23rd of this month at ye Common House (Seton Hall) on
+  ye corner of ye cross roades to Bergen Town, to join with ye maides
+  of ye colony of Westport in a seemly diversion and Mayflower Feast.
+
+  Postscript: Kindly come apparelled in ye meeting-house cloathes and
+  behave as a young maide should so do.
+
+  From the Girl Pioneers of America, ye Many-greated-grand-daughters
+  of ye Mothers of ye Pilgrim Colony, who came to this new world in ye
+  good sloop MAYFLOWER in 1620.
+
+The expression of wonderment in Nathalie's eyes changed to one of
+amusement as she laughingly cried, "My, but you are the real article!"
+
+"Yes, the scribe did that," said Helen proudly; "I think it ought to be
+put in a glass case."
+
+"Thank you!" promptly returned Jessie; "I accept your praise, but
+suggest, as industry is one of the laws of the Pioneers, that I should
+receive a special badge of merit, for if you could have seen me poking
+into those musty documents at the library to get the thing right, you
+would say I deserved it."
+
+"But what does it mean?" demanded Nathalie curiously. "What have you to
+do with the Pilgrims?"
+
+"Why, it means," explained Helen, "that we girls, to freshen up our
+minds on pioneer history, so that we may learn more about the women we
+emulate, name each of our rallies after some one group of pioneers, or
+some special pioneer woman, in memory of their service to us. Then we
+all talk about them, each one telling what she knows."
+
+"Or what she doesn't know, generally," broke in Lillie, dryly.
+
+"I guess you are about right, Lillie," added Grace, "for we are awfully
+rusty on pioneer history. It always seemed so stupid at school, but we
+have learned a lot since we started naming our rallies after pioneer
+things, and trying to see what we can cram. Why, girls," she cried
+suddenly, as if impelled by inspiration to tell the latest thing she had
+learned, "do you know that there were almost thirty children who came
+over with the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_?"
+
+"Well, I for one did not," remarked Jessie candidly; "I didn't know that
+the Pilgrims had any children; supposed they were just a lot of
+blue-nosed men who wore high ruffs and tall, round hats, and who went
+about with long faces, telling people they would go to the devil if they
+dared to smile."
+
+"There, Jess," broke in Lillie Bell mischievously, "you needn't get
+profane over it."
+
+"Of course they were grim and forbidding-looking," supplemented Kitty,
+"and--"
+
+"And sanctimonious," added some one, "with their blue laws."
+
+"Girls, you are all wrong," spoke up Helen, with a sort of call-you-down
+air, "it was the Connecticut elders who made the blue laws. The Pilgrims
+were sincere, earnest men. Remember what Mrs. Morrow said about them?"
+
+There was a sudden silence for a moment, and then a faint voice was
+heard from the other end of the veranda. Every one pricked up her ears
+and craned her neck to see who was speaking.
+
+"Ye Stars! it is the Flower of the Family," whispered Edith; "what has
+come to her?"
+
+The sweet, low voice went on slowly, perhaps a trifle unsteadily, "God
+sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain into the
+wilderness."
+
+"Hooray for the Flower!" shouted some one, and then of course they all
+had to clap, while the editor-in-chief of the "Pioneer," who was sitting
+next to the speaker, jotted down this little saying with the air of an
+expert reporter.
+
+"Now, do you suppose," went on Helen, "that these picked men--"
+
+"This choice grain," corrected the Sport softly, who was trying hard to
+create a laugh.
+
+"Edith, please be serious," admonished Helen, looking at that young lady
+with reproving eyes, but she was sitting with folded arms and eyes cast
+down, the picture of innocent and bland decorum.
+
+Helen, seeing she had subdued the Sport for the time being, continued:
+"Yes, this choice grain was composed of not only sincere and courageous
+men, as we know, but the most tolerant of any of the first settlers in
+this country. But, of course, in serious, solemn times one is not apt to
+be funny. They were not really sanctimonious, they just got that name
+because they tried to live up to their convictions."
+
+"But they got it!" retorted the Sport, who was always hard to convince
+in an argument. Helen flashed her eyes at her in rebuke, and then,
+turning toward Nathalie, said, "We are not only going to tell what we
+have learned about the Pilgrims at the rally, but we are to end with a
+Mayflower Feast. We do not expect to eat the things the colonists did,
+of course, but the table is to be decorated with May-flowers--that is
+with all the flowers that grow in May--so you see, it will really be a
+May-flower Feast."
+
+"The Boy Scouts are going to pick the flowers for us!" chimed the Tike,
+her good-natured face beaming good-fellowship at Nathalie.
+
+"Dr. Homer--he is Mrs. Morrow's brother--" supplemented Grace, "is the
+Scout Master of the Eagle Patrol, and as he is very anxious to make the
+boys chivalrous, he likes to have them help us all they can."
+
+"But we are to have a great big entertainment," exclaimed Carol
+importantly, "very soon, and we're to sell tickets so that we can make
+money for the Camping Fund."
+
+"And we have such a bright idea for getting up something novel in the
+way of entertainments," spoke up Helen interestedly. "Each girl is to
+put on her thinking-cap and get to work on an idea; it has to be
+original, nothing borrowed, or that has been used before, and then turn
+it in to our Director in proper shape to be carried out. All of these
+novel ideas are to be kept secret until we have had all of the
+entertainments, and then we shall vote for the one we think the best.
+The winners will receive merit badges for their efficiency."
+
+"Oh, that will be great!" cried Nathalie, "but tell me, where are you
+going camping?" she questioned animatedly, for her thoughts had
+instantly reverted to a summer or so before when she and a party of
+school girls had camped up in the woods of Maine.
+
+"We don't know yet," was Helen's practical rejoinder, "for we have got
+to know how much money we shall have to spend. But come, girls, be
+serious and tell Nathalie some of our sports and activities. We want to
+show her that we can do things worth while, you know."
+
+"Oh, get Lillie Bell to tell us one of her stories!" cried the Sport,
+who was a warm admirer of the story-teller.
+
+"Oh, I can't think of any now!" replied Lillie lazily. And then as a
+chorus of voices seconded this plea, she cried, "Really girls, I can't.
+I was up half the night studying for exam. But," her face brightened, "I
+will tell you about the picked chicken if you like. As it has something
+to do with our pioneer law, it will come in all right."
+
+"Oh, yes, do!" pleaded her hostess, who had been wishing that she might
+hear one of the story-teller's thrillers.
+
+"It isn't a blood-curdler this time, Miss Page," apologized Lillie, "so
+I cannot give you an exhibition of my reputed talent as a fictionizer.
+It is simply that Mother had a headache, Father was going to bring home
+a swell friend to dine with us, and as it happened, the butcher sent a
+feathered fowl, and our little Dutch maid was ill."
+
+"Oh, it was maddening," she sighed in dolorous reminiscence, "but there
+was no way out of it, for we had to have that chick for dinner. So I set
+to work; some people say that when you try to do right everything rises
+up against you. So it proved to me, but I remembered our Pioneer motto,
+'I Can,' and glued myself to that job. Verily, I thought that chicken
+must be a relative to the goose that laid the golden egg, for every
+feather I pulled, a dozen at least came to the funeral. But I won out,
+and went to bed with a clear conscience, and that fowl--inside of me!"
+
+"Hooray for the Pioneer laws!" called several voices hilariously, and
+then at one and the same time, in their eagerness to give proof of
+well-doing, each one started to relate some personal experience. The
+effect of several story-tellers spinning yarns at the same time was so
+ludicrously funny that all the stories ended in merry laughter.
+
+"Oh, let's vary the entertainment," suggested Grace, "and sing our
+Pioneer song for Miss Page."
+
+In another moment the fresh young voices, accompanied by a swing of
+heads and a tap of feet, were singing, to the tune of "Oh, Maryland, My
+Maryland":
+
+  "We laugh, we sing, we jump, we run,
+    We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We're always having lots of fun;
+    We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  The wild birds answer to our call,
+  These feathered friends in trees so tall;
+  We learn to know them one and all.
+    We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+
+                Refrain.
+    We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+    We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We will be brave, and kind, and true;
+    We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!"
+
+Nathalie, who was enjoying this musical treat immensely, and longed to
+join in, suddenly gave a start. She had heard a familiar hand strike the
+keyboard of the piano, and then start in with the tune the girls were
+singing, while a clear, high, soprano voice--one that the girl had never
+heard before--took up the air, and in a moment was leading the girls in
+their song, and as though accustomed to do it.
+
+She saw one or two of the girls smile at another in a mysterious way,
+and began to wonder what it all meant. As the last verse came to a
+close, and there were three, Mrs. Page stepped through the low French
+window from the living-room on the veranda, followed by a figure in
+white and Dick, who was hobbling along on a broom turned upside down.
+
+There was a silent moment, and then the Girl Pioneers had jumped to
+their feet and were saluting the lady in white, for it was Mrs. Morrow,
+their Director. No, they did not touch their shoulders as in the salute
+to Helen, their group leader, but the forehead, in military salute.
+
+Mrs. Morrow returned the salute, and then, as the girls broke into their
+Pioneer yell, came over to Nathalie without waiting for an introduction.
+But the young hostess had risen to her feet and was standing with
+outstretched hand.
+
+"Oh, my dear! you must sit down, or you may strain your foot!" cried
+Mrs. Morrow anxiously, as she caught Nathalie's hand in hers and smiled
+down at her with luminous gray eyes, the kind that seem to radiate
+hearty good-will and cheer. Her greeting was so gracious, and there was
+such an undefinable charm in the bright face of the young matron, that
+Nathalie surrendered immediately.
+
+"I did not mean to intrude on your sport, girls," cried Mrs. Morrow in a
+moment, turning toward the group, still holding Nathalie's hand, "but I
+was as anxious as you all were to meet our new neighbor."
+
+The color deepened in Nathalie's cheeks as she cried in her impulsive
+way, "Oh, but you are not intruding at all, Mrs. Morrow; I am more than
+anxious to meet you, for--" she stopped a moment, and then flashed, "the
+girls all say you are lovely!"
+
+There was a wild cheer at this, whereupon, the gray-blue eyes smiled at
+Nathalie again. Then turning, the lady nodded to the compliments so
+boisterously expressed by the girls. For a few moments it seemed as if
+each girl was trying to outdo every other girl as to who should win in
+this race for tongue speed, as they crowded around Nathalie and their
+Director.
+
+Presently Nathalie looked up and laughed, for Dick did look so funny as
+he hobbled from one girl to another--he had always been a lover of
+girls--on his broomstick. As if divining why she laughed, Dick, who had
+heard her looked up. "Hello there, Blue Robin!" he cried teasingly,
+"what have you got to say about it?"
+
+"Blue Robin?" repeated Mrs. Morrow in puzzled query, turning towards
+Nathalie, "why does he call you Blue Robin? That is the name of this
+group."
+
+"But I thought the name of this group was Bluebird," answered Nathalie
+in some surprise.
+
+"So it is," returned Mrs. Morrow, "but you know, bluebird means blue
+robin, too."
+
+"There, Dick! I was not so far wrong after all!" cried Nathalie
+triumphantly, looking at her brother with convincing eyes. Then she
+turned and quickly told how she had found the bluebird's nest in the old
+cedar, how she had called the birdlings blue robins, and how Dick--who
+was a terrible tease--had plagued her about it ever since.
+
+"But please inform me, Mrs. Morrow," now spoke that young man, "why you
+say bluebirds are blue robins?"
+
+"Why, you know, the first bird seen by the Pilgrims when they came to
+this land was a bluebird--our earliest songster. As it resembled the
+robin so much, they wrote home to their friends and told of the
+beautiful blue robins they had seen in the new land."
+
+"Oh, Nathalie," cried Helen with joy in her voice, "do you know the
+finding of the blue robin's nest surely must be an omen for good! Keep
+the name your brother has given you, and become a real bluebird, or blue
+robin, by joining our group and becoming a Pioneer!"
+
+"Oh, yes, Miss Page, do!" came quickly to Nathalie's ears; "we should
+love to have you one of us."
+
+"I'll coach you in the tests!" sang out Helen, who was ready to dance
+with pleasure to think that there was a prospect of her new friend
+becoming a Pioneer.
+
+"And I'll help!" added Grace. "And so will I," "And I!" chimed several
+girlish voices.
+
+Nathalie sat in embarrassed silence, hardly knowing what to answer to
+these many cordial invitations to join, and offers to help her do the
+tests. "I would love to be one of you," she spoke hesitatingly, "but I
+am not at all clever at doing things, for I can't sew, or cook, or do
+anything useful at all!" The girl's voice was almost plaintive.
+
+"Ah, you are just the one we want, then," was Mrs. Morrow's quick reply;
+"we want girls who don't know how, so we can teach and train them in the
+right way."
+
+There was loud applause at this remark, and then as the hubbub subsided
+somewhat, Mrs. Morrow held up her hand for silence. "Now, girls," she
+said, "give Miss Page time to think. Yes, we should be overjoyed to have
+you join the group, Miss Page, for later, in the summer, one of our
+bluebirds is to emigrate South for the winter, and we should love to
+have you take her place. I agree with Helen that the finding of the
+bluebird's nest in the old cedar meant that you were to become a true
+bluebird, or Blue Robin, as we shall have to call you."
+
+Nathalie looked at Dick, and then at her mother. Mrs. Page was smiling
+at her so reassuringly that Nathalie understood that she gave her
+consent, and joyfully signified her willingness to become a Pioneer.
+With a bob of her head at Dick she declared, that she would become one
+if only to show her brother that there was such a thing as a Blue Robin.
+
+Mrs. Morrow then explained that they had selected the bluebird as their
+mascot not only because it was the bird of pioneer days, but because the
+word blue means true, and Girl Pioneers were to be true in word, and
+thought, and deed. And then as a bird means swift, they were to be swift
+to the truth.
+
+"The bluebird is also noted for its cheerfulness," she continued. "The
+Pioneers are to be cheerful. It is a loyal bird; the Pioneers are to be
+loyal to one another, to their pledges and laws, and to every one and to
+all things that are right, good, and pure. The bird is also very gentle,
+and we want the Pioneers to cultivate kindliness and gentleness.
+Flower," she called suddenly, "sing us that pretty little bluebird song
+you know."
+
+In compliance with this request the Flower sang, in her sweet soprano, a
+funny little song about a bluebird courting his lady love. Each verse
+ended with the call-note, "Tru-al-lee," which the girls caught up as a
+refrain and sang with sweet, low tones, the Flower's bird-like trill
+rising high above the others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V--THE GRAY STONE HOUSE
+
+
+"Do you know, Helen," exclaimed Nathalie, looking at her friend with
+reminiscent eyes, "that it is only three weeks since I met you, but it
+seems like three months."
+
+"That is because you have been on probation for a Pioneer," retorted
+Helen smilingly, "and are beginning to take life more seriously."
+
+"Not very seriously, I am afraid," lamented Nathalie, "judging from the
+bungle I made in trying to learn that square knot."
+
+"Oh, you will learn," encouraged Helen, "but I must be off, for I have
+some typing to do for to-morrow." Yes, Helen's new friend knew that she
+was learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact had been
+divulged in the natural course of events, Nathalie had listened with
+great interest to Helen's declaration of her life purpose--to be
+independent--not only for the pleasure that independence would bring to
+her, but because she wanted to earn money so that she could give her
+mother little comforts and luxuries that Mrs. Dame had been denied
+because her husband's income was limited.
+
+Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie had wished her
+great success, apparently appreciating the unselfish motive that
+actuated her, while lamenting that she herself was not as clever.
+
+"O dear," she had impulsively declared, "I want to earn money, too; oh,
+if I only had a purpose in life! I do not want to be a drone." And then
+on the impulse of the moment she had confided to Helen her many
+disappointments, and how anxious they all were about her brother Dick,
+fearful that he might never recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had
+seemed that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship had grown
+up between them, much to that young lady's joy.
+
+She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the Pioneer Pledge and
+laws, give the names of the Presidential party, as Nathalie called them,
+adding the name of the governor of the State in which she lived,
+describe the United States flag, sew a button on--as it should be done,
+she had declared with solemn unction--and then exhibit her skill at tying
+a square knot.
+
+"After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally to-morrow, I shall
+begin to drill you in the tests necessary to make you a Second-Class
+Pioneer," Helen had declared when the lesson was over and she began to
+gather up her sewing materials.
+
+"Oh, will you?" cried Nathalie, "but when can I become one?"
+
+"In a month," was the reply, "if you pass the tests; but there, I shall
+never get my work done if I stand here and talk," and Helen started for
+the steps.
+
+"Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow says about Dick's
+knee," returned Nathalie as she followed her friend to the edge of the
+veranda. "You know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so anxious
+to hear what he had to say."
+
+"How did your brother injure his knee?" asked Helen as she paused at the
+foot of the steps, "I have often wanted to ask."
+
+"Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after Father's death,"
+rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening sorrowfully. "The New York
+physician said it was only sprained ligaments and would be all right
+soon. But he has been growing worse--it pains him dreadfully
+sometimes--oh, you don't know how worried we are--" her voice quavered,
+"suppose he should be lame for life!"
+
+"Oh, don't get nervous over it," advised Helen cheerfully, "but hurry in
+and see what Dr. Morrow said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town
+doctor, but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon," and then with a
+smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward the gate.
+
+Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes as she hurried across
+the lawn. Somehow the girl's companionship had revived her drooping
+spirits; the many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and the
+tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming one, had in a measure
+brightened her life. To be sure, they could never take the place of her
+friends of the city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things
+of the past and the desires that at times threatened to overwhelm her.
+She realized that she was beginning to take a keener interest in her
+surroundings, and felt that it was all owing to the Pioneers.
+
+"Nathalie, I am here--in the sitting-room!" called her mother's voice
+faintly a few moments later as she heard the girl's step in the hall. An
+apprehensive pang seized Nathalie's heart as she flew to her mother's
+side.
+
+"What did the doctor say, Mumsie?" she demanded anxiously. "Will Dick be
+lame?"
+
+"I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an operation--" her
+mother's voice sank to a whisper, "and oh, it will cost us several
+hundred dollars." Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on her
+daughter's shoulder wept silently. The girl gently patted the
+gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender form closely, but with
+intuitive divination she let her have her cry out, although she was
+seething with impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the
+mother heart.
+
+"It is all right, I am just a coward." Mrs. Page choked a moment, then
+imprinted a wet kiss on the rounded cheek so close to her own as she
+felt the comfort of her unspoken sympathy. "I am sure Dick will be all
+right in time--but I am so worried--I have had bad news, too. It does seem
+as if misfortunes never come singly, as they claim," she said, thrusting
+a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter's hand.
+
+The girl's eyes swept the type-written page, once, twice, then in a
+tense tone she demanded, "Oh, Mother, do you mean that the Portland
+cement bonds are in danger--why, I thought--"
+
+"They are to stop paying interest while the company is being
+reorganized; something has gone wrong. I was afraid of it, as they say
+cement is being sold at a very low figure."
+
+"But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are crossing your bridges
+before you get there as Father used to say," Nathalie replied with
+attempted cheerfulness, "but did you not say that they were first
+mortgage bonds?"
+
+"Yes, but child, we have got to live," exclaimed her mother irritably;
+"that money, the interest, is part of my income, and it is little
+enough--expenses are so heavy. And where the money will come for Dick's
+operation I am sure I don't know--but there, don't worry--it will be all
+right in time, I know." She sank back in her chair and dabbed her
+reddened eyelids with her moist handkerchief.
+
+"But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick to have an
+operation?" questioned Nathalie insistently with anxious eyes.
+
+"The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected. It will have to be
+removed, and a new bone put in."
+
+"A new bone put in!" ejaculated Nathalie, "why--"
+
+"Yes, it is something new in surgery," replied her mother. "Dr. Morrow
+says thousands of cripples have been made well by this new method of
+treating cases like Dick's. He says--" a long sigh--"if Dick does not have
+an operation, he will probably be lame, if he is ever able to walk at
+all." The tears began to glisten in Mrs. Page's eyes again, as Nathalie,
+with a sudden sharp realization what this would mean for Dick and all of
+them, turned and rushed from the room with the dread that if she
+remained a moment longer she too would fall to weeping.
+
+She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she wanted time to think.
+Oh, suppose there should be no money for the operation, and Dick should
+be lame all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so well and
+robust, and who for his athletic prowess had won so many silver cups and
+medals! She threw herself into the low rocker, and leaning her head on
+her desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to hear.
+
+Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard it was to lose her
+father, her beautiful home and friends, to give up college, to have to
+live in that poky old town--even the Pioneers could not compensate for
+that--and then to have Dick lame because they had no money! Nathalie wept
+on in woeful lamentation, feeling with the untriedness of youth that she
+was a great martyr. Did not God's world owe her happiness? Was it not
+sinning against her in denying her right to its joys?
+
+But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs died away to a
+shiver, as her head dropped wearily on the back of her chair. Oh, if she
+were not so helpless, if she could only earn money like Helen! But what
+could she do? She couldn't sew, she had no musical ability--like Lucille!
+A Bob White whistle, followed by a "Tru-al-lee!" beneath her window
+reminded her that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.
+
+Yes, Nathalie knew that "Tru-al-lee!" for that young lady was the only
+Pioneer who could so successfully imitate that little bird's sweet
+trill. She jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of youth cast
+all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried down to the lower floor.
+
+"I'll be down in a moment," she called out to Grace, who had just
+entered the hall and was chatting with Dick, who had been reading on the
+couch. She flew into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a
+moment, and then flying into her room grabbed her hat from its peg in
+the closet, and then hastened down the stairs humming blithely a new
+ragtime song as she went.
+
+"I want to say good-by to Mother," she exclaimed as she nodded to Grace
+and hurried into the sitting-room. But when she saw the big pile of
+mending on the table in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang
+assailed her.
+
+"Oh, Mumsie," she cried, "don't you do that mending. I will do it when I
+come back. I meant to do it yesterday," she excused herself lamely, "but
+I forgot all about it."
+
+"Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me from worrying," was the
+reply; "as 'tis said, there is nothing like work to keep up one's
+spirits."
+
+"Oh, Mumsie," the girl cried impulsively, rubbing her hands caressingly
+over her mother's cheek, "don't let's worry any more. We're just silly
+to cry over what may not happen," and then she added hopefully, "I'm
+sure things will come out all right."
+
+Mrs. Page's eyes filled as she bent forward and kissed her
+would-be-comforter. "Yes, we are silly, no doubt," she smiled through
+her tears, "to waste time and strength worrying over what, after all,
+may not happen."
+
+"But, Mother," suddenly questioned the girl with uneasy eyes, "do--do you
+think I ought to become a Pioneer?"
+
+"Why not, Nathalie?" inquired Mrs. Page in surprise. "Perhaps it will
+teach you some of the many things you should know, for if we are to be
+poor, you may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness, courage,
+those will be the things--" her mother's voice ceased abruptly.
+
+Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her mother's voice that
+seemed like reproof. A sudden depression seized her again as it came to
+her with renewed force how helpless she was, what things Helen did to
+help her mother, and the many useful things the Pioneer girls--plain
+girls, too, who had never had the advantages that she had had--could do.
+
+But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts aside with the
+rebellious feeling that she had never been brought up to do these
+things, that she had been born a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother
+hastily and hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.
+
+"Where shall we walk?" she asked that young girl, as they passed down
+the street. She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted
+like rudderless ships at sea.
+
+"Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has asked me to deliver a
+note to 'The Mystic.'"
+
+"'The Mystic?'" echoed Nathalie in doubting amazement, "why I thought
+she had never had anything to do--"
+
+"To do with the people of the town," finished Grace. "Well, she doesn't
+as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow's patients and had the grace to
+return Mrs. Morrow's call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young
+people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow, and then, too,
+I rather think she is writing to ask her if we could have her lawn for
+one of our demonstrations. We had a lovely idea for a May-Day
+celebration, but we had to give it up, as we had no place to hold it."
+
+"What were you going to have?" inquired Nathalie, as the two girls
+turned up the hill leading to the big gray house enclosed in its barrier
+of gray wall.
+
+"We were going to get some ox carts and decorate them with Mayflowers,
+and parade to the grounds. There we were to choose a queen and dance
+around the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring. Fred was to be
+Robin Hood--O dear," she suddenly ejaculated with a dismayed face, "I do
+believe I left the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned it to
+the cushion so I wouldn't forget it and then walked straight off and
+left it."
+
+The girls stared blankly at one another a moment and then Grace cried,
+"Come, we might as well go back for it; do you mind? It is only a few
+blocks out of our way."
+
+On receiving Nathalie's assent she added contentedly, "I'll get Dorcas
+to make us some lemonade to cool us off, and--why, I can show you my
+Pioneer room!"
+
+"Oh, I should just love to see it!" enthused Nathalie; "Helen told me
+about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the
+Pioneer band have a Pioneer room."
+
+"Isn't it old-timey?" she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her
+into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of
+many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch
+and for that reason had been selected.
+
+Nathalie's keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors,
+etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days,
+that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New
+Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable
+ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque
+designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its
+quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
+
+Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its
+dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with
+silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a
+funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
+
+"But that clock is a dear!" she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly
+upon a tall grandfather's clock in the corner, which returned her glance
+with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie's
+brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting
+themselves to her vivid imagination.
+
+"Father gave that clock to me last birthday," informed Grace with pride;
+"it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my
+forebears. See, there's his picture over the mantel," pointing to a
+seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at
+them with stolid complacency.
+
+"Yes, it is very old," continued Grace, "some unimaginative relative of
+Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie's little hatchet, but Father
+rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel.
+Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief."
+
+"Yes," she rattled on, "I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown
+for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear
+not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of
+things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let's go
+down and have the lemonade, I'm dying for a cooling drink."
+
+As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up
+crying, "Oh, there's Fred! I want you to meet him!" She began to wave
+and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall,
+well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.
+
+"Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I'm in a hurry!" came in response a
+moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently,
+vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.
+
+But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly ceased, and
+with a few strides he reached the veranda and was eyeing the new girl's
+health-flushed face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor. After a
+hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister's introduction, he
+dropped into a chair by Nathalie's side, and soon they were all chatting
+and laughing merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had
+happened on their last hike.
+
+"But you had an adventure, too, did you not?" he asked suddenly, looking
+at the young girl by his side with a glint of mischief in his eyes, "the
+day you were rescued by the Pioneers?"
+
+"Oh, did you hear about that?" Nathalie cried, her face taking on a
+deeper tinge of pink. She had always felt the least mite ashamed of that
+mishap.
+
+"Yes, and how about the blue robins?" he continued in a quizzing tone.
+
+"Oh, Grace," exclaimed Nathalie, "you have been telling tales!" and then
+with a laugh, she told of finding the bluebird's nest, excusing her
+ignorance by the plea that she was a city-bred girl.
+
+The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred being a Patrol Leader,
+and greatly interested in the organization. Finding that Nathalie had
+had some difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered to
+give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil proved an apt
+scholar, as it was not long before she had mastered the weaver's, the
+overhand, the reef, and had gained a fair insight into several other
+knots. Before the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might not come
+up some evening with Grace, and give her another lesson and meet her
+brother Dick.
+
+Nathalie's face dimpled; she hastened to assure him that she would be
+pleased to welcome them at the house, and that she knew her brother
+would be more than delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told
+him all about her brother's misfortune, and how depressed he grew at
+times without his chums to drop in and cheer him.
+
+The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted by Fred, who
+claimed he was going their way, neared the high stone wall overtopped
+with gray turrets and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned to
+leap beyond their barrier.
+
+"Wasn't it a queer idea to build a beautiful house like this and then
+fence it in like some old monastery?" questioned Grace. "See, here's a
+bell in the stone gate, the way they used to have it in olden times."
+
+"Ugh! I hate to go in--the place gives me the creeps!" she shivered
+nervously. "Oh, Fred, do come in with us, we shall not be long."
+
+Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time
+yielded to his sister's entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door
+was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
+
+He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but
+when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow's
+wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
+
+Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and
+tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading
+to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design,
+with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there.
+A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a
+porte-cochere.
+
+"This is the old Dutch shack," remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so
+later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung
+like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.
+
+Nathalie's eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping
+roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like
+thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a
+foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of
+honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of
+hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous
+hedge around it.
+
+Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage
+ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window
+above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against
+it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a
+grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading
+to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge
+when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.
+
+As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the
+broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the
+gate, promising to wait outside for them.
+
+As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler's
+impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn
+tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace
+conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van
+Vorst.
+
+For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in
+their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her
+words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he
+asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the
+hall, while a stag's head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them
+glassily.
+
+The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated
+the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires,
+possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by
+the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose
+spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came
+the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the
+canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel
+down the broad stairway.
+
+But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still retaining his
+sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a little reception room opening from
+the hall fitted up to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated
+themselves on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the many curios
+that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each betraying some eccentric
+custom of the land of the yellow peril.
+
+"O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!" observed Grace with an
+apprehensive shiver. "Ugh, I should hate to have that grim-looking man
+come back and tell me my company wasn't wanted."
+
+Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed in
+sympathetic recognition of her companion's mood. Her eye was caught by a
+huge mandarin who grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered,
+half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed to inhabit
+China were not hidden behind his wrinkled brown skin, and were looking
+at her through his bead-like eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his
+sinister glare. Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did
+move--oh, what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching all of a heap
+in abject fear as she stared with horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin,
+as if that weird, shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim
+silence had come from his mummy-like lips.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper, as she stared in
+paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.
+
+Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more piercing and, if could
+be, more blood-curdling than the first, came echoing down the hall,
+followed by a demoniacal laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror
+was something more human than an old Chinese idol. Grace, with a frantic
+scream of terror that almost equaled in its intensity the one that they
+had heard sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the door!
+
+Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a loss to determine
+whence came the horrible shrieks, but in another instant, as another one
+rent the air with the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no
+longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her, she flew into the
+hall, through the door that Grace had flung wide open, and with
+terror-winged feet and thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide
+steps and along the path after Grace!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--WORKING INTO HARNESS
+
+
+A half-hour later the two girls stood on Mrs. Morrow's veranda, and with
+Fred's mocking laughter still ringing in their ears told of their hasty
+exit from the gray house. With shame-mantled face and downcast eyes
+Grace handed Mrs. Morrow her note.
+
+In answer to that lady's surprised inquiries the story was told at
+length, a few extra flourishes unconsciously added to plead for the
+unexpected finale to their errand. But Mrs. Morrow was most kind, not at
+all like Fred, and did not laugh at them for being "scare-babies" as he
+had expressed it. She voiced her sympathy most generously, saying she
+did not wonder they were frightened, as she was sure at their age she
+would have done the same.
+
+"I cannot imagine what it could have been," she pondered, in much
+perplexity. "I will ask the doctor. If he does not know he will probably
+hear about it, if it was really anything serious."
+
+She smiled in a way that made Nathalie, whose intuitions were keen,
+exclaim hastily, "Oh, indeed, Mrs. Morrow, we did not imagine it at all.
+I am sure if you could have heard that terrible shriek--and that laugh!
+Oh, I can hear it still!" Her brown eyes emphasized her words as they
+darkened with the haunting terror that caused her to rush pell-mell
+after Grace.
+
+"But I do hope," remarked Mrs. Morrow, "that Mrs. Van Vorst will never
+know that the young girls who took such sudden flight from her house
+were Pioneers, as Pioneers are supposed to be very courageous." There
+was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke that partly atoned for the
+implication as to the girls' lack of courage.
+
+They made no reply for a moment, and then Grace, as if to atone for her
+delinquency, exclaimed contritely, "Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs. Morrow, I was
+frightened--but if you want me to--" her voice faltered, "I will take it
+to her again."
+
+"No, indeed," quickly rejoined that lady, "I could not be so cruel as to
+send you there again, for no matter if the shriek was nothing, you were
+really frightened. I did not mean to rebuke you; I only wanted to seize
+this opportunity to show you what an important thing courage is--and how
+we should cultivate it, even in small things. As for the note, I will
+get the doctor to take it or send it by post. I will have to confess,
+however, that I am disappointed, for I was so anxious to have Mrs. Van
+Vorst see what well-behaved and pleasing young girls belonged to the
+organization."
+
+"And you sent me!" wailed Grace. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Morrow, but what
+an arrant coward I have proved--and Nathalie of course would not have run
+if I had not!" The tears welled up piteously in her blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, no, Grace," interposed Nathalie loyally, "I was just on the verge
+of running away myself!" And then she told them about the mandarin with
+the grinning mouth, and sinister, bead-like eyes, that she was sure had
+blinked at her. This caused a laugh and cleared the atmosphere of the
+unpleasantness that had been created by the morning's adventure.
+
+The Saturday of the Pilgrim Rally--the day that was to make Nathalie a
+Pioneer--arrived. At an early hour of the morning the Pioneers of the
+three bird groups--each one with a package--began to file into Seton Hall,
+the little stone building used by the town for important meetings and
+often for social functions. Out of deference to Nathalie the girls had
+decided to bring their Pilgrim costumes with them--hence the mysterious
+packages--and not don them until she had been admitted to the
+organization.
+
+With interested eyes Nathalie heard the Pioneers recite their pledge,
+give the sign, the salute,--the three movements of the closed hand,
+signifying a brave heart, an honest mind, and a resourceful hand,--and
+give the rousing Girl Pioneer cheer. She felt a trifle shaky, she
+confided to Helen who was seated next to her, dreading the ordeal of
+being made prominent as most girls do, but she regained her nerve
+somewhat as the Director arose and with a smiling nod of welcome began
+to call the names.
+
+Certainly it was a pretty fancy to have each member respond to her name
+by giving the bird call of her group. The quick clear note of Bob White,
+the "Chip! chip!" of the meadow sparrow, and the oriole's greeting were
+all inspiring, but it was the melodious "Tru-al-lee!" of the bluebird
+group that held her with its sweet, low trill.
+
+As Nathalie heard her name called when it came time to perform the
+initiative ceremony of making her a Pioneer, her head began to whirl,
+but setting her teeth determinedly, with squared shoulders and head
+erect, she walked down the aisle, faced the Director, and in a clear
+voice repeated her pledge. In answer to the question, would she remember
+that the honor of a world-wide organization had been placed in her
+hands, and that henceforth whatever she said or did was not done simply
+as Nathalie Page, but as a Girl Pioneer, she answered gravely, "I will!"
+
+The second question was now asked, if she would try to live in such a
+way that through and by her example the words Girl Pioneer should come
+to mean all that was honest, highest, best, and most efficient in the
+girlhood of her country, she again replied with the solemn, "I will."
+
+The Director now stepped to her side, and taking her by the hand said,
+"Nathalie Page, in the name of the Girl Pioneers of America, and by the
+authority vested in me as a Director, I receive you into our
+organization. You are now a Girl Pioneer of America. May you be a worthy
+successor of those women, brave, honest, resourceful, from whom our name
+is taken, and who in the early days of the country, standing side by
+side with the men, faced hardships, privations, and dangers, and helped
+to make possible the United States of America!"
+
+Mrs. Morrow paused a moment, and then with one of her ready smiles took
+Nathalie's hand in hers and gave her a cordial welcome. Then turning
+toward the Pioneers she said, "Let us welcome our new member."
+
+The girls sprang quickly but noiselessly on their feet, crying:
+
+  "Whom have we here?
+  A new Pioneer!
+  Come give a cheer
+  Girl Pi-o-neer
+  Nathalie Page!"
+
+The new Pioneer unconsciously heaved a deep sigh when the ceremony was
+over and she was allowed to return to her seat. She was tempted to smile
+at her palpitating heart when going through such a simple ceremony as
+the initiation to an organization of girls; and yet she was vaguely
+conscious that it was a momentous episode in her life, and she firmly
+resolved that her vow should be a binding one, and that she would try
+her best to become a worth-while Pioneer and a Blue Robin.
+
+The seriousness of her act became even more apparent as she listened
+with keen interest to Mrs. Morrow's little talk, which was, in memory of
+the day's celebration, about the Pilgrims. It was the desire to do right
+in the face of all difficulties which animated the Founders of this
+great nation in their struggle for Freedom and Right, and which led
+their wives, daughters, and sisters to forego the necessities of life,
+to cross an unknown sea and to face the perils of the wilderness and to
+aid them in their noble purpose.
+
+It was this sacrifice of the things that made life endurable, and their
+strict adherence to duty that gave rise to the sterling qualities of
+unflinching determination, hardy courage, stern endurance, unrepining
+cheerfulness, untiring loyalty, patient industry, and quick
+resourcefulness that has gained the name of the Pioneer spirit, and made
+these early women founders of our nation models of all that is pure and
+best in womanhood.
+
+Their Director then went on and told of the handicrafts of the Pilgrims,
+such as baking, brewing, sewing, knitting, quilting, spinning, planting
+the foodstuffs, carding wool, and the many industries that were
+necessary to keep life in those pioneer days.
+
+As the new Pioneer heard the gentle, persuasive voice, she began to see
+life in a new aspect, and to understand something of what it meant to
+emulate these noble women. "In your hikes, before your cheer fires, in
+your camps, in your home and school life, as well as in the tests and
+your outdoor and indoor activities, and in your sports and games, keep
+these women as your cheer star," said Mrs. Morrow earnestly, "so that
+you, too, will be actuated by the qualities that ennobled them. And when
+the call comes, be kindly, helpful, resourceful, pure, and upright in
+the midst of all temptation and danger, and you will not only have the
+name of Pioneer, but will be filled with the real pioneer spirit."
+
+Mrs. Morrow stood silent a moment and then repeated slowly:
+
+      "Life is more than the breath and the quick round of blood,
+      It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
+      We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
+      In feelings, not figures on a dial.
+      We should count time as heart throbs. He most lives
+      Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
+                                                         --Bailey.
+
+The girls now seated themselves in a circle, and as Jessie read the news
+from the monthly "Pioneer," which reported a flower hike for the
+Saturday two weeks hence, they took out their materials and set to work.
+Some wove gay-colored yarn on small frames, others braided raffia
+baskets, or made squares of plaited slips of paper, while Mrs. Morrow
+told them something about the art of weaving.
+
+After some time spent in learning this old-time craft, the Director
+asked the girls how they could best apply this industry to a very common
+fundamental of the home. There was a slight pause, and then some one
+called out "To the carpet!" Another girl ventured to say "Our clothes."
+Mrs. Morrow smiled as she said they were all right in a sense, but the
+particular craft she meant at that time was what Helen had timidly
+suggested, and that was, darning stockings!
+
+There was a ripple of laughter at this truism and then, to Nathalie's
+surprise, there was a stocking drill, every one hauling forth a stocking
+from her basket and setting to work to practice this homely art. It was
+indeed a trial by needle to Nathalie, and she suffered some
+embarrassment when, after borrowing a stocking from her neighbor, and
+trying her very best to do it well, it was returned to her from the
+Director with the remark that she needed training in the science.
+
+Later, when Mrs. Morrow came to her side and showed how neatly her
+stocking hole appeared after weaving her thread back and forth, and made
+Nathalie practice doing the same, the girl suddenly realized what a
+braggart she had been. "Oh, I told Mother I was the champion mender,"
+she thought remorsefully. "What a bungle I must have been making of
+those stockings!" With the avowed purpose that she was going to make
+darning her life-work for the next three weeks, she laid her work aside
+and hurried with the girls into the adjoining dressing-room to get ready
+for the real Pilgrimy time, when they were to represent the women of
+Plymouth town.
+
+"Do you always have an all-day meeting?" she asked Grace, who was
+pinning a blue bird on Nathalie's gown, for at Helen's suggestion she
+was to appear at this, her first Rally, as a Blue Robin, in memory of
+the first songster that welcomed the Pilgrims.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed," answered Grace, "but we departed from our usual plan,
+which is to meet in the afternoon only, unless we have a hike or
+demonstration, as we wanted to make our luncheon the Mayflower Feast.
+But, oh, Nathalie," she ended enthusiastically, "you are a veritable
+blue bird! Look, girls, isn't she the dearest? That bluebird blue makes
+her cheeks like pink roses!"
+
+At this sudden thrust into notoriety the girl's color grew more vivid as
+she turned for the inspection of the girls. They grew very enthusiastic
+over her bluebird costume with its bluish-gray slip with scalloped
+edges, and bluebird cap edged with tiny blue wings, where a blue bird,
+standing up in the front, poised with outspread wings "ready to fly," as
+one of the girls asserted.
+
+"Oh, it's only blue paper muslin," explained the "flier," as her mates
+had called her, when they examined the Blue Robin gown. "Helen helped me
+make it, and what a time we had making that birdie stick--hands off," she
+finished laughingly, as some too ardent admirer pressed her close, "or I
+shall not fly away but fall to pieces."
+
+By this time, however, her admirers had found a new love in the Tike,
+who came dancing before them all in white. She was literally a bower of
+trailing arbutus, as sprays of that spring flower were fastened all over
+her gown.
+
+"I am the Pilgrim flower," she piped pertly, "some call me the Mayflower
+blossom." And then catching up her skirts, with a low curtsey she
+repeated softly:
+
+  "Oh I'm the flower that never dies,
+  'Neath leaves so brown in bed so low.
+  The arbutus, who in glad surprise
+  Bloomed 'Welcome' from fields of snow
+  To our Pilgrim sires of long ago."
+
+"Oh, here's Lillie Bell!" called some one. "Isn't she a duck of a dear!"
+Simultaneously the girls forsook the Tike and flocked around Lillie,
+who, gowned in pure white, with kerchief and lace cap, represented
+Susannah White, the first bride of the colony.
+
+"Yes, and I want you to note, girls," she asserted impressively, with a
+nonchalant nod to the welcome accorded her, "that I am not only the
+first bride, but the first mother of the colony, for my little Peregrine
+was born when the _Mayflower_ rode at anchor in Cape Cod Bay, and Mrs.
+Morrow claims this is even a greater honor than to be the first bride.
+But, girls--" she ended abruptly, dropping her matronly pose, "have you
+seen Edith--she was to be Helen Billington--I never knew her to be so late
+before?"
+
+"There! that accounts for the aching void in my heart, I know I missed
+some one," cried Jessie half mockingly. "O dear, what will become of my
+Pioneer article if the Sport does not appear?" The girls all laughed in
+appreciation of Jessie's serio-comic declaration, for it was generally
+conceded that Edith was the most active spirit of the band, as her
+sporting proclivities, her general good-nature, and her dashing
+escapades always furnished plenty of "copy" when any of their various
+hikes or demonstrations were in progress.
+
+"Oh, don't fret; a bad penny always turns up!" chimed in Kitty, who did
+not particularly admire the Sport.
+
+"I'll bet you a cookie that she has been arrested for appearing in
+disorderly apparel on the street," observed Grace roguishly; "for she
+told me she was going to dress at home."
+
+"Oh, girls, aren't you ready?" at this instant asked Louise Gaynor,
+suddenly appearing in the doorway leading to the room where Mrs. Morrow,
+as Mistress Carver, the Governor's lady, was waiting to receive them.
+
+"Her Sweet Graciousness, Mistress Carver, waits for you without in the
+Common House."
+
+  "Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla,
+  Priscilla, the Mayflower of Plymouth!"
+
+Thus hummed Lillie as she walked around this winsome representation of
+that Puritan maiden, surveying her critically, but with approving eye.
+
+"Oh, you're just too sweet for anything!" warbled another bluebird,
+"you're--"
+
+"You're too sweet to have to do your own proposing, methinks," broke in
+Jessie, touching one of the long golden braids that fell from beneath
+the demure little cap of this first edition of women's rights.
+
+But at sweet Priscilla's gentle reminder that the first lady of the land
+should not be kept waiting, the merry girls ceased their chatter, did
+their best to assume the decorous manners of the Puritan women, filed
+into line, and were soon in the adjoining room.
+
+Here they were greeted by Dame Brewster, the Elder's wife, no other than
+Helen, who, in ruffled cap and quaintly flowered gown, excelled even her
+own aspirations to appear like that motherly dame, as in speech of
+quaint wording she made each Mayflower damsel known to Mistress Carver.
+
+After the greetings had been voiced, the first surprise came, and that
+was when the Tike came bounding into the midst of the gentle dames and
+informed them that a cheer fire was blazing on the grass-plot in the
+rear of the Hall. The Pioneers in profound wonder--as they had not
+expected to have a cheer fire--followed Mistress Carver to the garden,
+where a circle was formed around this magic inspirer of cheer, whose
+burning fagots snapped and crackled noisily, as if to do its share in
+the old-time celebration. It was in memory, Grace declared, of the many
+fires that had cheered the settlers in the cold and desolation of the
+new world.
+
+Murmurs of wonder and queries about this mysterious surprise were
+silenced, as some one started a general clapping, a recognition often
+accorded the Pioneers' cheer star. Then, as they gathered around the
+flaming light, some one suggested that perhaps the Governor's lady could
+tell as to who was the magic fire-maker.
+
+The lady in question, although disclaiming that she knew who lighted the
+magic inspirer, did finally admit that she could guess who had done it,
+but as that was a privilege that every one had, she had nothing to tell.
+However, the mystery remained unsolved, although some bright one
+ventured to suggest that it might have been the Sport, who was still
+missing, as she delighted to do the unexpected.
+
+Immediately the missing Pioneer began to be eulogized for her clever and
+mysterious absence, as these representatives of hundreds of years ago
+circled about their emblem of cheer and romance. To usher in the first
+ceremony, or, as the girls sometimes called it "the christening of the
+blazer," some one called for the story-teller to give one of her
+thrillers. This cry was forthwith taken up by the little company, and
+became so imperative that Lillie at last complied with the request, and
+in a few moments was telling, in her usual impressive way, the story of
+those pioneers, the Pilgrim men and women, who fought the first battle
+for liberty and union on the shores of this land.
+
+When Lillie's story came to an end, she received her usual applause, for
+every one had listened with the closest attention to the account of the
+many pilgrimages of these simple folk from the northeastern countries of
+England. In trying to serve God as they deemed right they had separated
+themselves from the English church and had begun to hold little meetings
+in the village of Scrooby. Hounded by the authorities they finally
+sailed to the low countries, which at that time were considered a place
+of refuge for the oppressed of all nations. They lived one year in
+Amsterdam, meeting for worship near a convent, whose sweet chimes called
+them to a low-ceiled room, where they sung their songs of praise and
+read God's word.
+
+But their wanderings were not over, and a year later they sailed on one
+of the great waterways of this Dutch land to Leyden. Here they remained
+twelve years in twenty-three humble little homes, built on a plot of
+ground known as the _Koltsteeg_, and called Bell Alley, just across the
+way from the great dome of St. Peter's church.
+
+Here in this land of foreign tongue their children grew up, learned
+their trades and, alas, many of the ways of these people, especially
+their methods of keeping the Sabbath, which were contrary to the beliefs
+of these God-loving people. It was for this reason as well as for
+others, that they started forth on their wanderings again, and migrated
+to the new land across the sea, sailing in the _Mayflower_ on the
+twenty-second of July, 1620.
+
+Nathalie was somewhat disappointed in the beginning, that she was not to
+hear one of Lillie's twentieth-century thrillers, but the story of the
+Pilgrims was so interesting that she felt amply repaid for her
+disappointment. Although familiar with their story in this land, she had
+never heard much about the lives of these founders before they came to
+America.
+
+The tale of these ancient folk was rendered even more interesting by
+various interruptions at intervals, as when Dame Brewster read, in
+solemn tone, the Constitution formed by these people in the cabin of the
+_Mayflower_, said to have been written on an old chest, and known as The
+Compact, the first stone in the American Commonwealth.
+
+The Governor's lady enlivened the tedious voyage over by telling of
+several little incidents that had occurred; one was when the _Mayflower_
+during a severe storm was saved from going to the bottom by some one
+wedging a _kracht_, or jackscrew, in a leak that had suddenly sprung
+amidships.
+
+Little Humility Cooper, one of the children of the _Mayflower_ voyagers,
+an Oriole Pioneer, recited Mrs. Heman's "Landing of the Pilgrims," while
+sprightly Mary Chilton told of her race with John Alden to be the first
+one of the little company to step on Plymouth Rock. She added to the
+interest of this recital by giving a short account of this historical
+granite from the day it served as a foundation stone of her victory
+until the present time.
+
+A Bob White told about the first American washday, and the fun the
+children had gathering sweet juniper boughs to build the fires, over
+which hung the tripod from which was suspended the kettles of that
+historic occasion.
+
+Louise Gaynor, as Priscilla, recited parts of Longfellow's poem, "The
+Courtship of Myles Standish," with its picturesque account of the most
+romantic happening of the little town, while as Mistress Fuller, Barbara
+described Fort Hill and told about Captain Standish and his sixteen
+valiant men-at-arms who explored the hills and woods of the wilderness.
+
+Kitty Corwin, as another Pilgrim dame, told of the erection of the seven
+little houses with their thatched roofs, built in a row on First, or
+Leyden Street, giving a rather exciting account of the many serious
+accidents that happened to the Common House where the stores and
+ammunition of the community were stored. And so, in picturesque detail,
+each feature of the story was brought forth to form in the minds of
+these twentieth century Pioneers a picture that would last through the
+years that were to follow, and help them gain an insight into the
+characters they were representing.
+
+Elizabeth Winslow, the first wife of the first American statesman, one
+of the first to pass away in the fatal sickness of that lonely winter;
+Mrs. Hopkins, who won fame as the mother of the boy Oceanus, born on the
+_Mayflower_; Bridget Fuller, the wife of the genial Dr. Fuller, and
+others, were all impersonated by some one of the Pioneers.
+
+Even the ghosts, as Grace dubbed them, were heard from: Myles Standish's
+first wife, known as the beautiful English Rose, who died soon after
+reaching the new land, and Dorothy Bradford, the young wife of William
+Bradford, who came to her death by falling overboard while her husband
+was exploring the shores with Captain Standish and his men.
+
+By the time the story with its variations had been told, the girls,
+tired of posing with old-time stiffness and ceremony, were all laughing
+merrily as some one of the band suddenly spied some comical or grotesque
+aspect of the impersonator, when the Tike screamed shrilly, "Oh, who is
+that?" pointing to a black-draped figure standing in the doorway of the
+hall, with red, perspiring face, hat cocked on one side, and a generally
+bedraggled appearance.
+
+It was the missing Pioneer, Edith, who, after the hubbub had subsided as
+to her untimely appearance and tardy arrival, pulled off her long black
+cloak and threw herself on the grass by the side of Lillie. With gasps
+and sundry emphasizing shrieks she told what had befallen her on the way
+to the Rally.
+
+"Father was ill last night, so the first thing this morning I had to go
+for the doctor. Then as mother was busy attending to Father I had to get
+the youngsters ready,--they were going to a May picnic, for of course,"
+Edith added petulantly, "no matter what happened to me, Mother would not
+have the kiddies disappointed."
+
+Catching Mrs. Morrow's reproving eye, she stammered apologetically, "Of
+course, I would not have them disappointed myself--they are dears--but it
+lost me my morning; and then, just as I was hurrying by the gray
+house,--oh, girls--" dropping her voice to a tense whisper, "what do you
+think I heard?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII--THE MAYFLOWER FEAST
+
+
+The tenseness of Edith's tone, coupled with her mysterious manner, had
+the desired effect, and the Pioneers all bent forward eagerly with
+expectant eyes, anxious to hear what she had seen and heard, while some
+too impetuous one called out, "Oh, do hurry and tell us what it was!"
+
+"It was the most terrible shriek I ever heard," answered Edith, with a
+long-drawn sigh. Having succeeded in getting her audience where she
+wanted them she was anxious to prolong her triumph. "Why, my heart
+jumped into my mouth, and I--"
+
+"Where did the noise come from?" inquired practical Helen impatiently,
+who never wasted any time in getting wrought up, as she called it, by
+the Sport's yarns.
+
+"It came from the garden of the gray house," was the quick retort; and
+then, crossly, "I do wish, Helen, you would wait--you'll spoil the whole
+thing if you don't let me tell it properly."
+
+Grace, who had been listening intently to the Sport's recital, looked up
+quickly and encountered a glance from Nathalie's eyes as she suddenly
+turned from Edith and looked across the circle at Grace to see if she
+had heard. But Grace, whose memory was still rankling with her adventure
+at the gray house, was afraid that if the girls knew they would plague
+her unmercifully for being a runaway, and hastily put her hand on her
+lips in warning not to tell what had happened to them.
+
+Nathalie nodded loyally and then turned to hear Edith repeat, "Yes, the
+noise came from the garden of the gray house, I have always told you
+there was something queer about that place. At first I started to run
+away, and then I thought, 'O pshaw! whatever it is, it won't hurt me
+behind those high walls.' So I walked close up to the wall near one
+corner to see if I could not manage to climb up in some way and look
+into the garden. I had just spied a tiny hole in the lower part of the
+wall--I guess some boys had made it, you know they are always spying
+about that place, anyway--when I heard loud breathing. I looked up and
+saw a man creeping stealthily around the corner of the wall, as if
+dodging some one. Well, I just gave one look at him, he had great black,
+burning kind of eyes, staring out of a face as white as a corpse. He
+suddenly spied me, and by the uncanny glare he gave I knew right off he
+was the one who had been shrieking, he was the crazy man who lives
+there! Great guns! but I didn't wait to take another look, I took to my
+heels and flew. Then I heard steps thumping behind me--looked back--oh,
+girls," she shrieked hysterically, "he was chasing me, running after me
+as hard as he could!"
+
+She gulped, and then with a gasp continued, "Oh, for a moment I thought
+I was doomed, but--well--you know I can run, and I did, for my life. I ran
+every step of the way here--and--oh, I'm so hungry! Have you had the feast
+yet?"
+
+"What became of the man?" inquired Helen tersely.
+
+"Oh, yes, what became of him?" added one or two others.
+
+"I don't know and I don't care," asserted Miss Edith carelessly. "All I
+know is that he is as crazy as a loon, and that he lives in the gray
+house."
+
+"Edith," exclaimed Mrs. Morrow sharply, "as long as you did not see the
+man come from the gray house do not say he lives there; and as for
+saying he is crazy, that is absurd. That is just an idle report; do not
+repeat it until you have proof that what you say is correct. He was
+probably a tramp, and may have been chased from the garden by one of the
+servants." Mrs. Morrow's face showed keenly her annoyance and disbelief
+in Edith's surmise.
+
+"But what could the screams have been?" asked Helen, wonderingly, "if
+they really came from the garden?"
+
+"Oh, I am sure they did," asserted the Sport positively, "for I have
+heard other people say that they have heard queer noises coming from
+that place. But girls," she exclaimed, as if anxious to dismiss the
+subject, "do tell me what you have been doing. Oh, I did so hate to miss
+all the fun."
+
+"Yes, kiddie, it is too bad," consoled Lillie, putting her arm around
+her friend, "but we have not had the feast yet, we've just been
+listening to little stories about the Pilgrims--you know you heard me
+read my story the other day--" she stopped abruptly, for a sudden
+rustling in a clump of trees back of the garden had caused every one to
+turn and peer apprehensively over their shoulders.
+
+"Oh," shivered the Sport nervously, "perhaps it is the crazy man!" She
+sprang to her feet and made as if to take to her heels again.
+
+Every girl followed her example, and in another moment there would have
+been a wild stampede to the shelter of the hall, if a loud voice had not
+called out, "Welcome, Englishmen! Welcome!"
+
+Simultaneously with these words a lithe form sprang into the midst of
+the terrified girls, who clung to one another with wildly beating hearts
+as with dilated eyes they glared at the intruder, a tall Indian youth,
+resplendent with a feathered head-gear. He was clad in deerskin trousers
+fringed at the seams, a string of hairy scalps hung at his belt, and he
+held a bow and arrow in his hands as he stood and looked down at this
+bevy of frightened colonial maids with a broad smile on his grease
+besmeared face.
+
+There was just a second's pause, and then Helen shouted merrily, "Oh,
+it's Teddy Hart, and he's Samoset! Oh, girls, don't you remember? He was
+the Indian who came and welcomed the Pilgrims!"
+
+Of course they all remembered, for had not Lillie dealt at length upon
+that very scene when telling her story? And Teddy Hart, why, he was a
+Boy Scout, one of Fred Tyson's patrol, which was known as the Eagle
+patrol.
+
+This was all that was needed to make the girls forget the crazy man and
+the Sport's harrowing tale, and they crowded about Teddy crying, "Oh,
+Ted, where did you get the rig?" or, "What made you think of it?" and,
+"Isn't it the best ever?" This last was from the Tike who was hopping
+about the new arrival examining the hairy scalps--which turned out to be
+a few wigs borrowed from the village barber--with keen curiosity.
+
+"Great Caesar! give a fellow a chance to breathe, won't you?" fired the
+make-believe Samoset, as he mopped his face energetically. "Don't riddle
+me with questions; I'm not a target!"
+
+Yes, this was the second surprise, or the forerunner of it, for before
+Teddy was ready to surrender his place as the hero of the moment, the
+beat of a drum was heard, and from the little bit of woodland where Ted
+had been hiding issued a group of queer-looking individuals. They were
+all attired in somber-colored clothes with broad white collars, high
+conical-shaped hats, and all carried guns and had swords clanking at
+their sides in good impersonation of the Fathers of their country. The
+next moment they had formed in line and with well-simulated solemnity of
+countenance, "as if going to meeting-house," tittered Grace, these
+sixteen men-at-arms, headed by Capt. Standish--who was no other than Fred
+Tyson--marched valiantly down the street towards the garden.
+
+It was the Sport after all who saved the day for the Pioneers, for as
+they stood in dazed laughter wondering how to greet these unexpected
+guests, the Sport's hand shot up, and two seconds later the girls had
+joined her in saluting their brother organization, as with one accord
+they gave the Pioneer cheer.
+
+In quick response to a signal from their leader, the Scouts came to a
+halt, and as one man each Scout's hand went up to his forehead in the
+salute of three ringers held upright. This was followed by another
+cheer, a rousing one this time, as each boy shouted lustily:
+
+  "Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
+  Good turn daily! Shout! Shout! Shout!"
+
+The boys now fell into step again, and in a few moments had entered the
+little wicker gate where they broke ranks as they were cordially
+welcomed by the Governor's lady and Dame Brewster. For a short space
+following pandemonium reigned, as the boys tried to answer the many
+queries propounded by the girls, each Pioneer, spying some one favorite
+boy, singled him out with merry jest to answer as to the why and
+wherefore of the unlooked for surprise.
+
+Nathalie felt somewhat embarrassed and stood apart from the girls, not
+having met any of the Scouts of the town. Perhaps she was a little
+scornful, for in the city she had been wont to pass a khaki uniform with
+scant approval, considering these emulators of chivalrous knights mere
+boys. Not understanding the aims or purposes of the organization they
+had failed to attract her.
+
+But as she stood watching these tall, well-developed lads with heads
+held high, squared shoulders, and with the ruddy glow of an active life
+in the open on their bright faces, she reluctantly admitted that they
+were interesting to look at, at least.
+
+"Ah, Miss Nathalie, I see you have forgotten me!" spoke a voice at the
+girl's elbow. She turned quickly to see the laughing brown eyes of Fred
+Tyson. Fred's face was flushed with embarrassment as he felt somewhat
+timorous as to this city girl's greeting, since he had last seen her
+walking away from him with flushed cheeks and angry mien as he teasingly
+taunted, "Scare-babies! Scare-babies!"
+
+But Nathalie had forgotten all about that trivial incident--perhaps
+because she had a brother and knew the moods of boys and how they
+delighted to tease and hark at the girls--and she dimpled with cordiality
+as she returned his greeting.
+
+She was soon sparkling with merriment as Fred told of the fun they had
+in rigging up, and the sensation they created as they marched through
+Main Street. By this time the explanations from the boys were over, and
+the secret of the cheer fire was revealed. It had been made by the
+Scouts at the suggestion of Dr. Homer, who was much interested in the
+Pioneers and had planned the two surprises to give a little more tone to
+the celebration and fun to the girls.
+
+The girls now clamored that they were hungry, and at an intimation from
+Mrs. Morrow the Scouts were invited to repair to one of the side rooms
+in the hall, where their Mayflower Feast was to be held.
+
+The invitation was accepted by Fred for the patrol, and the party of
+merry-makers filed noisily into the hall. When the boys saw the Stars
+and Stripes, and the yards of red, white, and blue bunting hanging in
+graceful folds from the walls of the room, they broke into patriotic
+song. "Red, White, and Blue" was first sung in compliment to the Girl
+Pioneers' colors, and was quickly succeeded by the "Battle Cry of
+Freedom," and "The Star-Spangled Banner," in recognition of the starry
+emblem that symbolizes--more than any design that floats to the wind--the
+uplift of mankind, Liberty, and Union!
+
+A cheery fire of pine knots blazed a greeting from the hearth, while two
+long boards supported on trestles and covered with a shining damask
+cloth, represented the table of Pioneer days. Odd bits of old-time ware,
+such as silver porringers, queer-shaped jugs, or blackjacks, a number of
+wooden bowls, a high-standing salt-cellar, and a pewter tankard, were
+distributed about the table. But it was the flowers that lay in bunches
+here and there--and all May ones, too, from the clusters of white
+snowballs, lilacs, pink and yellow azaleas, to the big bowls filled with
+sprigs of arbutus--that held Nathalie's eyes.
+
+But flags, antiques, and flowers soon became things of the past, as the
+girls brought forth their lunch-baskets; each one had vied with the
+other to bring some choice edible and with the help of the modern
+knights, who declared that they had come for that purpose, the table was
+loaded with goodies.
+
+Just before the feast was served, Will Ditmas, a fair counterpart of
+William Brewster, the ruling elder of Plymouth, suddenly stood up and,
+after much throat-clearing, announced in a droning voice that if those
+present were willing, for the furtherance of sobriety and seemly
+behavior, he would read a few rules from "A Pretty Little Pocket Book."
+
+After stonily staring over a pair of goggles at a few irrepressible
+gigglers the would-be Elder read: "Speak not until spoken to; break not
+thy bread, nor bite into a whole slice; take not salt unless with a
+clean knife, and throw no bones under the table."
+
+Those who were trying to keep their faces straight wavered in the
+attempt and joined the irrepressible Tike in a few hysterical titters as
+he continued: "Hold not thy fork upright, but sloping, lay it down at
+the right hand of the plate, with the end of the blade on the table
+plate, and look not earnestly at any person that is eating."
+
+This last was the final straw for the Tike, and she giggled so
+unrestrainedly that she threatened hysteria, and Helen had to whack her
+on the back so that she could get her breathing apparatus in working
+order again. This ebullition was like a match to fire, and all those who
+had been smothering their mirth now broke forth into loud laughter,
+which threatened to become clamorous had not Mrs. Morrow held up her
+restraining finger.
+
+The signal was too well known not to be obeyed, and the too mirthful
+ones were recalled to themselves. Then, too, they were all hungry; so
+forgetting the old-time admonitions of their forebears, they were soon
+occupied satisfying their hunger.
+
+After the left-over goodies had been gathered into baskets to be
+delivered to a poor family, and the place was set in order again, the
+chivalrous knights and the emulating Pioneers swarmed merrily into the
+dance hall, where they held high court to the light fantastic as Mrs.
+Morrow, the one-piece orchestra, rattled off ragtime harmony for round
+and square dances.
+
+Nathalie by this time had met a number of the Scouts, and to her
+surprise found that some of them danced as well as, and in some cases
+better than her boy friends in the city. The would-be Elder, who had
+droned the rules from the pocket book, proved not only a good dancer,
+but most companionable, and finding that Nathalie was sadly ignorant as
+to the aims and purposes of the Scout organization, he set forth to
+enlighten her.
+
+He took off his Scout badge, pointed out the eagle, and the stars and
+shield, explaining that it was a trefoil badge and represented the three
+points in the Scout oath. The curl-up at the end of the scroll was a
+reminder to each Scout that the corners of his mouth should always be
+turned up in a smile of cheerfulness. The knot in the loop was a
+"conscience pricker," as he expressed it, that a Scout was pledged to do
+some one a good turn every day.
+
+The next dance was Fred Tyson's, and when it ended they seated
+themselves in a corner of the hall to cool off, and as Nathalie fanned
+herself with a much bedraggled handkerchief, they hit upon a topic that
+proved most entertaining, and that was--college. Fred stated that he
+expected to go to Dartmouth in the fall and was therefore looking
+forward to it with much pleasure.
+
+Nathalie, with sparkling eyes, told how she had dreamed and longed to go
+to college, and then the golden lights in her eyes shadowed as she said
+that since the death of her father she had decided to stop dreaming
+about what was impossible for her, and to do something worth while, so
+she had become a Pioneer.
+
+"But don't you think it worth while to go to college?" was Fred's
+puzzled query, "for surely there is nothing that will help a girl more
+in life than to have--what is it--the higher education?"
+
+"Yes, I know," assented his companion, "that is all right, but when one
+finds that they can't have a thing--no matter how big or grand it is, or
+how much they want it--if it is impossible, it ceases to be worth while;
+that is, why spend time lamenting, or thinking about something that
+can't be accomplished?"
+
+"Why, you are a regular little philosopher!" laughed Fred. But Nathalie
+was not heeding, for suddenly looking across the room she perceived that
+the dancers had retired from the floor, all but the Pioneers, who were
+standing in two lines in the center of the room facing one another as if
+about to dance the Virginia Reel.
+
+"Oh, what are they going to do?" she cried, but before her companion
+could answer Helen came running up.
+
+"Come on, Nathalie, we are going to dance the Pioneer dance. It's lots
+of fun."
+
+"But I don't know it," objected the girl. "I am not going to make a show
+of myself before all these boys."
+
+"Oh, but you won't," urged Helen, "for you can be my partner, and I will
+tell you as we go along; and then its awfully simple, for we just go
+through the motions of pioneer handcraft--"
+
+"Pioneer handcraft?" echoed Nathalie more puzzled than before.
+
+"Yes, don't you remember what Mrs. Morrow told us about the handcrafts
+of the Pioneer women? Well, she made up this dance to make these crafts
+definite. Oh, come, it is easy!" In a moment, Nathalie's objection being
+overruled, she bade Fred good-by and was hurried by her partner to join
+one of the two lines on the floor.
+
+Only a few explanations were necessary, and Nathalie, who was quick to
+learn, joined her voice to the girlish ones singing:
+
+  "Singing, ringing thro' the air
+  Comes the song of Molly fair.
+  Milking, milking Crumple Horn
+  Down in the barn at early dawn."
+
+As the song ended, the closed right hand of every Girl Pioneer was held
+out in front, elbow bent upward. Then came three movements up and down
+in imitation of the act of churning. This was done three times, as in
+chorus came:
+
+  "Churning, turning, see it splash,
+  This way, that way, with a dash."
+
+As the next two lines rang out:
+
+  "Skimming skimming foamy white,
+  Making the butter golden bright,"
+
+the motions were changed to those of skimming milk, repeated three times
+as in the previous movement, the girls emphasizing the end of each
+movement by stamping the feet, using first one and then the other. They
+ended this last motion by each girl placing her hands on her hips and
+tripping in line with the others lightly down the room in time with the
+music and then back to place.
+
+A second of time, and each dancer was making the motion of holding a
+baby in her encircled arms, and while swaying to and fro these words
+were softly crooned:
+
+  "Golden slumber kiss your eyes,
+  Smiles awake you when you rise.
+  Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry,
+  And I will sing a lullabye."
+
+Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl faced her opposite
+partner, and then linking hands together they were rocking a cradle as
+they joyously warbled:
+
+  "Baby is a sailor boy, swing, cradle, swing;
+  Sailing is the sailor's joy, swing, cradle, swing."
+
+Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room and back again to place,
+where this time they formed in rows of three in each line. A crash of
+chords from the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched
+left hand, and made the motion of taking something with the right hand
+from the closed left, and casting it on the ground, as they repeated
+clearly and loudly:
+
+  "Good flax and good hemp to have of her own,
+  In May, a good housewife will see that it is sown.
+  And afterwards trim it to serve in a need,
+  The fimble to spin, the card from her reel."
+
+Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers had done
+hundreds of years ago--a sign of a thrifty housewife. Now came three
+claps of the hand and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each
+performer now lightly put forward the right foot, poised on the ball of
+the left one, while making the motion as of moving the treadle of a
+spinning-wheel, as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping
+every moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup fastened to the
+distaff.
+
+[Illustration: "Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen.]
+
+"Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen as leader of the dance, and
+then came the old-fashioned couplet softly hummed:
+
+  "Count your threads right,
+  If you reel in the night
+  When I am far away."
+
+Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count
+your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung
+into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately
+measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy
+that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of
+early days.
+
+Now they are singing:
+
+  "Twice a year deplumed may they be
+  In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,"
+
+as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up something with her
+left hand while the right flew up and down with noiseless
+regularity--plucking a goose for dinner.
+
+The next instant every alternate girl had put her hand over her mouth in
+the form of a horn and was calling loudly, "Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple
+Horn!" This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation when each
+fair dancer caught up the hem of her apron and, bending forward, with
+well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the
+ground which was quickly thrust into her apron. Another flash of white
+arms, and each girl had caught up the hem of her neighbor's gown and
+with a pretended switch was driving her forward while merrily singing:
+
+  "Driving in twilight the waiting cows home,
+  With arms full-laden with hemlock boughs,
+  To be traced on a broom ere the coming day
+  From its eastern chamber should dance away."
+
+As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into line and marched
+around the room as if carrying muskets, that is, women's muskets,
+brooms.
+
+Once more in row, each girl pretended she was holding a card with one
+hand, while drawing another card softly, but swiftly across the first.
+This was done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:
+
+  "Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy
+  Two heads on one body."
+
+"Now we are imitating the motions of carding wool," Helen whispered
+softly to Nathalie. "Niddy-noddy means the old-fashioned hand-reel used
+in the days when there were no machines."
+
+The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were dancing the Virginia
+Reel, spinning each other around with the vigor and vim of young hearts
+as a prelude to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing, taking
+their stitches with a precision and handiness that rivalled the little
+maids of Puritan days. With a posture as of holding a wooden frame,
+while in and out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with
+quaint precision:
+
+  "Lola Standish is my name.
+  Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy will,
+  And fill my Hands with such convenient skill
+  As will conduce to Virtue void of shame,
+  And I will give the Glory to thy name."
+
+Only a space of time and the samplers were dropped, and each girl grew
+strangely still, with bent head and listening ears. With eyes flaming in
+a fixed stare she poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.
+They stood for a moment in this pose as each one present grasped the
+idea that they were doing the deed that many a Pioneer woman had bravely
+done in those early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard over
+the home from the relentless ravages of the red man!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII--THE MOTTO, "I CAN"
+
+
+A few days after the Pilgrim Rally, as Nathalie lay in the hammock
+dreaming day dreams as she was wont to do, her mother came and seated
+herself in a low chair near by.
+
+Nathalie turned, and then with a quick movement sat up as she asked
+anxiously, "Oh, Mother, has anything happened?"
+
+"I should say 'anything' has happened," ejaculated Dick, who was
+lounging near, ignoring his mother's gesture to be silent, "for your
+mother has been chief cook and bottle-washer all day!"
+
+Nathalie, who had been off on a Pioneer demonstration most of the day,
+showed her dismay as she exclaimed, "Oh, where is Ophelia?"
+
+Mrs. Page's worry lines deepened as she answered, "Oh, she is ill. She
+has been complaining for some days, and when she begged to be allowed to
+go home this morning I did not have the heart to refuse her. Poor thing!
+she looked the embodiment of woe!"
+
+"But isn't she coming back?" inquired alarmed Nathalie.
+
+"Not for several days," was the answer, as Mrs. Page leaned wearily back
+in her chair.
+
+"But can't we get some one to help us?" demanded her daughter
+insistently.
+
+"Dorothy went to the colored settlement, but could not get any one.
+Colored people don't like to work in warm weather, and I don't blame
+them," her mother added in an undertone, "for standing over a fire in
+this heat is terrible."
+
+"Oh, what shall we do?" thought Nathalie ruefully, as she saw a pile of
+unwashed dishes confronting her. But a cheery "Hello?" caused her to
+look up to see her friend, with dust-brush in hand, cleaning the window
+shutters of the neighboring house. With gripping force she suddenly
+realized how useful Helen was, and the numerous things she managed to do
+to help her mother, notwithstanding the many hours she was compelled to
+spend at the stenography school.
+
+Nathalie twisted about in the hammock; somehow it did not seem as
+comfortable as it did before her mother had come. Her sky visions had
+departed, and in their place had come the thought that she ought to help
+her mother. Oh, but dish-washing was degrading, such greasy work. She
+glanced down at her slim, white hands as if they would aid her in this
+argument with self.
+
+"Oh, why do people have to do the very things they hate?" she questioned
+rebelliously as she arose from her comfortable position and with a
+long-drawn sigh started to enter the house.
+
+"You have dropped your book!" exclaimed her mother as she stooped and
+picked up the Pioneer manual that had fallen from Nathalie's lap and
+handed it to her.
+
+"Thank you," returned the girl and then, with a pang of regret as she
+noted her mother's weary eyes, she bent and kissed her.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry you had to work so hard!" she cried impulsively.
+"Isn't there something I can do to help?" She almost wished her mother
+would say no.
+
+"Not now," replied her mother with a brighter expression than she had
+worn, "but perhaps you can help me later--when I get dinner."
+
+"All right," returned her daughter with forced cheerfulness. As she
+entered the hall her eyes were caught by the word "Pioneer" in big,
+black letters on the manual. Reminded by the name that flaunted itself
+so determinedly before her, she remembered that she was a Pioneer, that
+she had taken vows upon herself, and that in order to keep these vows
+she should do the very things, perhaps, that she hated to do. This new
+thought jarred her uncomfortably as she hurried up to her room and began
+to make herself cool and comfortable after a rather strenuous morning
+spent in trying her hand at the many new interests that had come to her
+as a Pioneer.
+
+But somehow she was haunted, as it were, by the thought that she was not
+making a good beginning as a Pioneer; oh, yes, being a Pioneer did not
+mean all play, or even doing the things that were interesting, or that
+one liked to do, those were the Director's words that morning. The more
+one gives up or overcomes in order to do and accomplish the demands made
+upon her as a Pioneer, the greater the victory. She picked up the manual
+from the bureau and began to turn its leaves aimlessly, and then she
+halted, for two very small words held her eyes, "I can!" why, that was
+the Pioneer motto--the one Lillie Bell had mentioned when she told of the
+picked chicken. She would read the laws!
+
+"A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy." Oh, Nathalie was sure she was that.
+"Helpful," her conscience pricked sharply. Was she helpful if she didn't
+try and do all she could to help her mother? "O dear," she ruminated, "I
+am shying at the first 'overcome.'" She remembered that Mrs. Morrow had
+said all the disagreeable things that one didn't want to do, but did in
+the end, were "overcomes."
+
+"Kind--" she heaved a sigh, well, she was afraid she hadn't been very
+kind the other day when she had answered Lucille so sharply, but she was
+trying, and the hasty retort would slip out; she would have to put a
+button on her lips as her mother often told her.
+
+"Reverent," her religion taught her that. "Happy," not always, for how
+could one be happy when life had been full of disappointments? Her eyes
+saddened as she thought of Dick, who was so patiently waiting for
+something to turn up, so that he could have the operation on his knee.
+Poor fellow! she had felt like crying the other day when she heard him
+telling how he had written to a law firm in the city in the hope that he
+could get some copying to do so that he could earn some money.
+
+"Happiness does not always mean having what we want; it is being
+contented with what we have," that was another of Mrs. Morrow's
+interpretations of the Pioneer laws. "Cheerful," here Nathalie broke
+into a laugh, quite sure she was always cheerful when she had the things
+she wanted. "There!" she cried aloud, "I am not going to read any more
+of those laws, for if I am to--" she stooped, for the manual had fallen
+to the floor. As she picked it up she again encountered the words, "I
+can."
+
+"I can!" she repeated once or twice mechanically. Then her face lighted,
+as if the meaning of the words had suddenly flashed themselves clear of
+the thoughts that had been revolving in her mind.
+
+"But what can I do?" she continued doubtingly.
+
+"You can wash the dishes for your mother in the morning so that she can
+read her morning paper," some one seemed to whisper. She started. "And
+you can get up and get breakfast the way Helen does when her mother is
+not feeling well," this time the some one spoke very loudly.
+
+"Oh, but I can't cook, nobody would eat my breakfast," she thought,
+still holding back.
+
+"But if you are a Pioneer you should learn to do these things." She
+frowned as if to brush aside an unpleasant thought.
+
+"Yes, I suppose I can do these things," she reluctantly admitted after a
+moment's thought. "O dear--I have been lamenting that I had no purpose in
+life, that I was just drifting. I cried the other day because Mother
+said my talents were gilt-edged. 'Yes, I Can,'" suddenly broke from her.
+"I'm going to begin right now, too; I'll show Mother that I am not a
+gilt-edge drifter. I'll learn to cook--oh, I'll just make myself do those
+horrible, horrible things--I'll show you, Miss I Can, so there!" She
+hastily wiped away the tears that would come, and then, as was her wont
+after a mental conflict, she began to sing. A few moments later she was
+down in the kitchen hustling about, seeing what there was for dinner.
+
+A steak, oh, yes, she knew how to broil that--and potatoes--oh, they were
+easy! The next minute she had seated herself before the kitchen table,
+and as she peeled the potatoes she sang with unwonted animation:
+
+  "We stick to work until it's done
+  We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
+  We never from our duty run,
+  We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
+  We learn to cook, to sew, to mend
+  To sweep, to dust, to clean, to tend,
+  And always willing hands to lend."
+
+As she paused to think how she could manage the next vegetable, Mrs.
+Page entered, showing amazement as she saw what her daughter was doing,
+for full well she knew that Nathalie disliked anything in the way of
+housework.
+
+"Why, Nathalie!" she exclaimed, "you need not do that. I will get
+dinner; there is not so much to do, for Felia made some pies yesterday,
+and with a steak, thank goodness! there will not be much to cook."
+
+"Now, see here, Mumsie," cried the new housewife, flourishing her knife
+menacingly at her mother, "I am chief of this ranch. You have lamented
+that I was just a gilt-edged doll, now I'm going to show you I'm not.
+I'm a Pioneer, and I'm going to learn everything useful. Now be off!" As
+her mother protested there ensued a little wrestling-match in which the
+girl came off victor, and Mrs. Page, subdued into meekness, retired to
+the veranda, somewhat relieved to think she could rest awhile.
+
+As Nathalie snuggled down to sleep that night--she was so tired she could
+hardly keep her eyes open--she felt supremely happy, for she had cooked
+dinner all by herself. To be sure Dick had growled and claimed the steak
+was burnt, and Lucille had volunteered the information that Felia never
+mashed her potatoes that way, but it made no difference to the happy
+Blue Robin--as Dick had called her--for she was pleased to think that for
+once in her life she had helped. Of course, Mother had laughed at her
+blunders, but it was in the old happy way that she used to do when Papa
+had been with them.
+
+Next morning Nathalie awoke with a start, she smiled drowsily at some
+passing remembrance of the day before, and then turned over for a beauty
+nap. Suddenly she sat up with eyes keen and alert; if she was to be maid
+of all work that day she must get at her job. In fifteen minutes she was
+creeping stealthily down the kitchen stairs with her shoes in her hands,
+so as not to awaken her mother.
+
+Oh! the fire was out; that was a difficulty she had not taken into
+calculation. For a moment she was tempted to crawl up those stairs and
+leave the fire to the next one who discovered it. Oh, but that would not
+do at all. She didn't know how to make a fire, but the words "I can,"
+made her close her mouth determinedly, and in a few moments clouds of
+rising smoke attested that she was learning. But alas, the smoke soon
+drifted into space, and the blaze disappeared in a mass of black paper!
+
+Nathalie's tears came at this; oh, why would not that wood catch fire?
+Tried to the soul, she went to the window and gazed through a mist of
+tears at the dew sparkling on bush and grass. A low, sweet whistling
+caused her to look up to see Helen, as fresh as a new-blown rose,
+throwing open the shutters of her room.
+
+Nathalie pursed up her lips and then broke into a "Tru-al-lee!"
+
+Helen glanced down quickly, her eyes lighted, and then came a quick Bob
+White call that sounded much like "More wet! More wet!" In another
+instant she was down on the porch calling merrily to her friend, "Oh,
+Nathalie, how are you this morning?"
+
+Nathalie dimpled cheerily. "Oh, fine!" making a dab at her eyes, "but at
+my wits' end trying to make a fire. Will you tell me why it will insist
+upon going out? It is maddening! I have lighted it six times."
+
+"What, you making a fire?" said Helen, and then, "Just wait a moment and
+I will come over and see what is wrong."
+
+Under Helen's nimble fingers the brown paper was taken out, the fire-pot
+filled with loosely wrapped newspaper, small sticks laid crisscross, a
+few larger ones on top, and then a match applied. Like magic the tiny
+blue flame sputtered, caught hold of an edge of paper, and then in a few
+moments a blazing fire was seething and swirling. Nathalie, in exuberant
+joy, seized her friend and the two girls waltzed merrily around the
+kitchen.
+
+Of course Nathalie knew how to make toast, but when Helen showed her how
+to hold it over the coals until it was a golden-brown, butter it while
+hot, and then cut off the scraggly edges and a rim of crust, she
+realized that toast-making was indeed a domestic science. Scrambled eggs
+came next, simple, but deliciously done, as her friend showed her. Then
+came putting the coffee in the percolator with the water heated beneath
+by the tiny alcohol lamp, thus drawing from the beverage the most
+nutritious qualities, Helen declared, without injuring one's digestion.
+
+But the grape-fruit--that was another new thing learned--was prepared the
+way Helen said a trained nurse had taught her, one time when her mother
+was ill. It was cut in half, the pulp dug out with a spoon into a cup or
+saucer, and after the pith had been removed, chopped finely, returned to
+shell, and then sugared and put on the ice. But perhaps the best part of
+helping Mother that morning was when, after striking the Japanese gong
+eight bells, Nathalie arrayed herself in Felia's freshly laundered cap
+and apron and stationed herself back of her mother's chair to serve
+breakfast.
+
+How pleased and surprised her mother was! Dick "Blue Robined" her again,
+while Lucille patronizingly exclaimed, "Oh, Nathalie, you make a swell
+maid--and how smart you are getting!"
+
+Just before dinner, Helen appeared again, and taught her how to make
+soup from a few boiled bones and a chunk of meat, a few left-over
+tomatoes, and a bit of onion and seasoning. She taught her to broil a
+steak,--this time without a burnt speck--how to make white sauce for some
+left-over fish, how to scrape new potatoes economically, and the right
+way to cook peas. Then came a delicious dessert of stale pieces of cake
+and canned peaches, laid in layers with beaten cream, and topped off
+with little white pigs, as Nathalie called the tiny bits of egg froth
+floating on its surface. Truly, it was a dinner fit for a king!
+
+After dinner her sensitive soul rebelled at the pile of greasy dishes,
+but the task grew lighter when Helen showed her how to make the water
+hot and soapy, using a lot of dried bits of soap that Nathalie was going
+to throw away, by sewing them in cheese-cloth bags. She washed the
+glasses and silver first, then the china, and then--oh, horrors--the pots!
+But when the new Pioneer saw how her friend put them on to boil, thus
+doing away with so much grease, it was a revelation. And when the
+dish-towels were washed and hung out in the sun to sweeten, and the sink
+was scrubbed with a brush and a cleansing soap, Nathalie was again
+forced to admit that she had mastered another household science.
+
+Oh, no, it wasn't all plain sailing--the world isn't run that way--and the
+new Pioneer's back, eyes, and feet made themselves forcibly known before
+she went to bed that night. Many a time she had had to grit her teeth,
+summon Miss I Can to her side, and with forced determination go on with
+the job; but after all, she declared, as she turned out the light, "I
+have helped Mother!" and then sleep claimed the tired girl.
+
+When Saturday morning came, however, and no Felia made her appearance
+according to promise, Nathalie's face grew somber, and she could not
+help going to the door every few minutes to see if she were not in
+sight, for she had planned to go on a bird-hike that morning with the
+Pioneers to learn bird-calls. As the clock struck nine she dropped her
+broom--she was sweeping the kitchen--and rushed to her room. Here she wept
+copiously for a while in her clothes closet with her head buried in the
+skirts of her dresses, so no one could hear, and then she heard her
+mother calling her.
+
+She dried her eyes guiltily, scrubbed her face to brush away all trace
+of tears, and then answered blithely, "Here I am, Mumsie, I'm coming
+right down to finish the kitchen." When she came tearing down the stairs
+she found the kitchen swept and garnished, and lo! there stood Mother
+with big, surprised eyes pointing to Lucille, who, as she caught sight
+of her cousin, bobbed her head and dropped a curtsy, crying, "Sure,
+ma'am, it's a new job I'm afther takin' on meself, but do yez see the
+loikes of it for the claneness?"
+
+Nathalie gave one bewildered stare, and then a merry peal of laughter
+broke from her, seconded with a minor note from her mother, and with a
+bass accompaniment added by Dick, as he entered and sensed the
+situation. Yes, Miss I Can must have caught Lucille in her meshes, too,
+for that young lady, generally so dainty in her labor preferences, had
+condescended to sweep the kitchen.
+
+"Well," she explained apologetically, "I was jealous of the praise
+bestowed upon Nathalie, and thought I'd show you folks that people can
+do things even if they are not Blue Robins."
+
+"Oh, Lucille, you aren't a Blue Robin, you're a duck of a dear," bubbled
+Nathalie as she hugged her cousin rapturously. "It was just lovely of
+you. But Mother, did you know what she was doing?"
+
+"No, I did not," rejoined Mrs. Page; "I thought it was you working all
+by yourself and came in to help, as I knew you wanted to go on the hike.
+But before you go, dear," she added anxiously, "I want you to go down to
+Felia's and see how she is. If she is not coming back by Monday you will
+have to hunt around for a washerwoman; the clothes can't go another
+week."
+
+An hour later, Nathalie, delighted to think she could take a day off
+with a clear conscience, hurried in the direction of Ophelia's little
+gray shanty; but to her surprise, as she came near the door she heard a
+loud wailing and the confused hum of several voices.
+
+As she entered the stuffy parlor hung with gay colored prints and
+dingy-looking chromos, she found Ophelia seated in a rocking chair with
+her face buried in a gingham apron, wailing and crying hysterically.
+Pushing her way through the crowd of sympathizing friends, Nathalie
+grabbed the arm of a colored woman who stood by Felia's side crying,
+"Oh, please, won't you tell me what's the matter?"
+
+"Sure, Miss," respectfully answered the woman, wiping a tear from her
+eye. "It's little Rosy, she's lost--we can't find her--ah, honey, don't
+take on so!" she ended, turning towards the grieving mother and giving
+her a caressing pat on the shoulder. "Surely some one will find her."
+
+Nathalie now stepped to Felia's side and pulled her gently by the
+sleeve, determined to get some definite information about black Rosebud,
+as Dick called the little pickaninny who had often come to the house
+with her mother, and who, being a bright child, had become a prime
+favorite. "Ophelia, please tell me about your trouble!" insisted the
+girl. "Is Rosy surely lost?"
+
+"She lost sure nuff, Missy, down at de bottom of de pond," quavered
+Felia's mother dismally, an aged negress standing by the side of her
+daughter, as she rolled up her eyes until the whites looked like saucers
+on a shelf. "I'se gwine to tell you de trufe--dat chile is drowned. Oh, I
+see her face a-shinin' in de water--"
+
+Her horrible prognostication as to Rosy's woeful fate was terminated by
+her daughter's renewed wails of anguish, as she again began to rock
+herself to and fro with redoubled force.
+
+"Oh," thought Nathalie, frowning angrily in the direction of the old
+mammy, "I do wish she would stop." Then she cried, "Oh, Felia, don't cry
+so--I am sure she will be found--perhaps she is at one of the neighbors'
+houses, you know she is fond of visiting."
+
+There was such sympathetic concern in the girl's voice that Felia
+desisted from her lamentations long enough to cry, "Oh, Miss Natty, she
+done go and get lost--she ain't nowhere hereabouts!" Then in answer to
+further questioning she said that the child had been seen just before
+dark picking posies over in a meadow with several children, but when
+bedtime came she could not be found.
+
+"Has any one looked for her?" demanded Nathalie, turning towards the
+group of colored women as poor Felia went back to her apron wailing
+pitifully, "I'se gwine promise yo', Lord, if yo' bring my baby back,
+I'll never get mad with her again. I'll promise sure--" but the rest of
+Felia's prayer was lost as the women crowded around Nathalie and eagerly
+explained that Dan Washington, Paul Jones, and Abe Smith had searched
+the town for her. They had been up all night, but when morning came had
+to return to their jobs, and there was no one looking for her at that
+time.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry, Felia!" sympathized Nathalie again to the weeping
+mother. Then, after asking if the town authorities had been notified,
+she decided to hasten home, knowing that she could not get any one to
+promise to work for her at that time.
+
+"Oh, it is too bad!" she lamented as she hurried down Main Street. "It
+does seem as if some one ought to be searching for her now, why the poor
+child may be injured or something!" Her too vivid imagination pictured
+her, not down at the bottom of the pond, as mammy had done, but crying
+piteously of fear and hunger in some lonely place. "I suppose the police
+in this town will take some hours to get on to the job, as Dick says."
+She suddenly paused and her eyes shone with a bright light. She wrinkled
+her brow thoughtfully a moment as if going over something in her mind,
+and then with the glad cry, "Oh, I know we can do it--it will be just the
+thing!" She broke into a run as if her sudden inspiration would escape
+her if she did not hurry.
+
+With good speed she soon reached the house, hurriedly told her mother
+what had befallen Rosy and the condition she had found things in at the
+negro settlement, and then, telling her she would be back in a few
+moments, she flew post-haste across the road to Mrs. Morrow's house.
+Here the Pioneers with eager, expectant faces were all talking
+animatedly, their brown uniforms, red ties, and broad-brimmed hats
+suggestive of the good time in store for them.
+
+"Oh, here she comes!" sang out Helen, as she spied Nathalie hastening up
+the path towards the veranda. "Why, where have you been? We began to
+think you were not coming."
+
+"I had to go on an errand for Mother!" Then with glowing eyes she told
+them of the visit to the colored settlement and about the lost Rosy, the
+grief of her mother, and how there was no one looking for the child.
+"Oh, girls," she ended in a quiver of excitement, "let's give up the
+bird-hike for to-day, and see if we cannot find little Rosy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX--SEARCHING FOR ROSY
+
+
+An oppressive silence followed, while each girl looked blankly at her
+neighbor. The new Pioneer's face flushed, and her eager, excited eyes
+shadowed, as she quickly realized that in her eagerness to follow the
+law of kindliness she had been too officious. She stood in dismayed
+embarrassment, the chill of an unpleasant surprise benumbed her. With a
+faint hope she turned her eyes appealingly towards Helen, surely her
+level head and kind heart would prompt her to second her. Helen caught
+the look and smiled faintly.
+
+Edith, who was always the first one to either second or down a
+proposition, broke the silence by exclaiming in an aggrieved tone, "Why,
+the idea, Nathalie Page! we can't give up the bird-hike, we've all
+brought our lunches!"
+
+"I should say not," interposed Lillie Bell with flashing eyes. "Why, it
+would take the whole morning, and there could be no hike for to-day, and
+next week I can't go, I--"
+
+"Oh, they have probably found the child by this time!" ventured Barbara
+North, to Nathalie's surprise, as she had always found her of a kindly
+nature.
+
+"Well, _I_ for _one_ don't think it is our place to look for the child,
+anyway," asserted Jessie, decisively. "Let the men of the town do it.
+There are three policemen hanging around all day with nothing to do."
+
+Nathalie's cheeks had lost their pink bloom; her face stiffened as she
+retorted coolly, "Well, just as you please, I see I have made a
+mistake." She nerved herself. "I thought kindliness was one of the laws
+of the organization, and it seemed to me that our pleasure was to take a
+secondary place when we had an opportunity to do a kind act. If you had
+seen the poor mother sobbing--"
+
+"Oh, fiddle!" ejaculated Lillie, "those colored people are all emotion;
+their sobs don't count for much. I agree with Jessie that the
+townspeople should send out a search party, and I for one refuse to give
+up the hike. Who's on my side?" she ended abruptly, turning and facing
+the group.
+
+"I!" and "I!" shouted several voices at once in answer.
+
+Nathalie backed towards the edge of the veranda. "I seem to be in the
+minority," she said with assumed indifference, although her heart was
+beating in double-quick time, for something had whispered, "They are
+very rude, I would resign immediately." But this suggestion was bravely
+silenced by the thought, "No, I will not be as small as that, I will
+show I do not care."
+
+"There must be some one who thinks as I do," she ended resolutely,
+wishing that she could run from this affront to her sensitiveness.
+
+"I am with you, Nathalie!" suddenly cried Helen, walking towards her
+friend and putting her arm around her.
+
+Grace looked at the bevy of girls who had bunched together, then at the
+faces of her two friends. In a faint voice she asserted lamely, "And I,
+Nathalie, I didn't stop to think--"
+
+"And, Nathalie, you can count me on your side!" broke in a voice at this
+moment. The girls, alert at the prospect of a division in the group,
+turned quickly to see Mrs. Morrow place herself by the side of Nathalie,
+taking her hand as she did so and giving it a cordial squeeze.
+
+Nathalie's color came racing back and her heart leaped with joy. Ah,
+then she had not been too officious, after all! She turned to see the
+girls standing in embarrassed silence with shamed eyes and uncertain
+mien. But Lillie, who was generally the spokesman of the group when
+Helen was on the opposite side, cried somewhat pertly, "Why, Mrs.
+Morrow, do you think it is our place to go and hunt for that colored
+child? I should think it was the duty of the townspeople to look after
+those things."
+
+"That is not the question," replied the Director coldly. "As Nathalie
+said, kindliness is one of the basic laws of the organization. We should
+be poor Pioneers indeed if we saw a man drowning and then stood and
+argued as to whether it was our place to save him or not. Nathalie, I
+commend you not only for your kind suggestion, but for having the real
+pioneer courage in maintaining what you believed to be right. You have
+shown yourself a true Blue Robin and I am proud of you. Now, girls, we
+will put it to a vote. Those of you who want to go on the hike, up with
+their hands." Not a hand was raised.
+
+Mrs. Morrow's face brightened as she cried laughingly, "Now who wants to
+join a search-party with Nathalie as captain, and see if they can find
+little Rosebud?"
+
+Every hand flew up, and there was a general cry of, "I do! I do!"
+
+"Well, girls," said Mrs. Morrow kindly, as her eyes traveled from face
+to face, "I see you have repented of the error of your way. Let
+Nathalie's example inspire you!"
+
+"Oh, I guess we just didn't stop to think!" broke forth Barbara, with
+shamed eyes.
+
+"Well, when one has made up her mind to do a thing she would be a saint
+to give it up without a fuss," remarked Lillie. "Of course, Nathalie was
+all right, but she had had time to think it all out and we hadn't!"
+
+"A good explanation, Lillie," answered Mrs. Morrow, "but I hope you have
+all learned a lesson. Now, Nathalie, make your suggestions and we'll get
+to work."
+
+The new Pioneer had already divided the girls into two sections, with
+Helen as one leader, and Lillie Bell as the other. It did hurt a little
+to give Lillie the first place after she had spoken as she had, but
+Nathalie realized her worth, and then, too, she did not want to show any
+resentment. "You see," she explained, "I am only a dummy captain, for I
+am not as familiar with the town as the rest of you are, and there will
+be no time lost in making false moves."
+
+"That is a very sensible decision, Nathalie," nodded Mrs. Morrow, "but
+the question is where to look first!"
+
+"Suppose we go down to the settlement, make a survey, and get our
+bearings?" voiced Helen.
+
+"Good, Helen, that is just the thing!" acquiesced the Director, as the
+girls at her suggestion hurriedly deposited their lunch-boxes in the
+hall, while Nathalie ran over to tell her mother her plans.
+
+In a few moments the would-be searchers started, each girl equipped with
+her staff, while the two leaders triumphantly displayed their whistles,
+which they claimed would be of great help if any of the party got lost
+and their voices did not carry.
+
+It did not take long to reach Felia's shanty, and as Nathalie ran in to
+tell her that the Pioneers were going to hunt for Rosy, the rest of the
+party gazed with quick, alert eyes first in one direction and then in
+the other.
+
+"I should not be surprised if the child had wandered away looking for
+flowers," remarked Mrs. Morrow, suddenly remembering what Nathalie had
+said the child was doing when she was last seen.
+
+"But where would she be apt to go?" inquired Nathalie, who had returned
+in time to hear Mrs. Morrow's remark.
+
+"Why, to the woods!" retorted Helen quickly, and her eyes lighted in
+sudden thought as they dwelt on a green belt of woodland that loomed
+against the sky on the opposite side of the road.
+
+"Don't you think she might have strayed down the hill?" questioned
+Nathalie, pointing to a pond shimmering in the sun at the bottom of a
+knoll near-by. "Poor Mammy is quite sure she is drowned and lies at the
+bottom of the pond."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you what we can do," spoke up Lillie, "I'll take my
+squad and search down by the pond, and Helen and the rest of you can go
+over to the woods; somehow I'm with Mammy, for all children love to
+paddle in the water."
+
+Lillie's suggestion was a timely one, and as she, Grace, Jessie, and a
+few Orioles disappeared over the slope of the hill, Helen and Nathalie,
+as the advance guard, hurried across the road and into the cool recesses
+of the woods. As they hastened onward every girl's eyes were alert,
+watchfully peering behind every bush and tree as they stumbled over
+gnarled roots and broken stumps in their efforts to reach some shaded
+nook, or lichen-covered rock dimly seen in the shadows of the trees.
+
+Helen proved an efficient leader and did not hesitate to keep her
+followers busy, as she sent first one and then the other to look here or
+there, determined not to miss a nook or spot where the child might be
+hidden. Every now and then some of the party would give a bird call, or
+Helen's whistle would reverberate sharply through the swaying pines.
+
+But Mrs. Morrow, whose strength began to waver, finally suggested to
+Nathalie and Edith, who had been acting as her body-guard, that they
+rest for a few minutes. Spying a decayed tree-trunk that had fallen
+across the damp, spongy earth a few feet away, they seated themselves
+upon it.
+
+"Oh, I'm really tired!" exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, for she had proved as
+indefatigable as the girls in searching, thinking, she declared, of her
+own two kiddies safe in the garden at home.
+
+Nathalie, impressed by the solemn stillness about her, slowly fanned
+herself with her hat, while Edith made frantic dabs at her red face,
+from which beady drops were oozing. "Oh, I should just love to stay here
+all day," she cried, sniffing the air, redolent with the odors of pine,
+spicy balsam, silver birch, and many other trees that loomed darkly in
+the mysterious retreats of the forest.
+
+"Hark!" cried Mrs. Morrow, suddenly putting up her hand for silence as
+she peered up at the green boughs above her. "Taweel-ab, taweel-ab,
+twil-ab, twil-ab!" came in a succession of weird, sweet trills.
+
+"Wheew, whoit, wheew, whoit!" imitated the Sport with quick readiness.
+
+"It is a hermit thrush!" explained Mrs. Morrow softly, and her hand
+clutched Nathalie's as she pointed to a brown bird that was scudding
+swiftly over the fern a few feet away.
+
+"Oh, isn't it a dear?" whispered delighted Nathalie, for to her this
+coming, as she called it, into the very heart of nature was a new
+experience. She half regretted at times that they had been compelled to
+forego the bird-hike, as she was so anxious to get in touch with the
+feathered songsters of the wood and field. Then, too, suppose the
+searching-party should fail of its purpose, she would feel that she had
+been the means of leading them on a wild-goose chase!
+
+As her eyes roamed here and there in the hope that she might see the
+brown thrush again, she started, stared a moment, and then springing to
+her feet dashed across to the clump of ferns where the bird had been
+flying.
+
+"I have found a clew!" she cried triumphantly a moment later, as she
+returned and held up her hand. Between her thumb and forefinger was a
+bit of red, which she was waving gleefully as she came towards them. As
+the Sport and Mrs. Morrow hurried to her side they saw a loop of red
+ribbon still with the knot in it by which it had evidently been recently
+tied to some object.
+
+"It is Rosy's hair-ribbon!" cried Nathalie. "I found it clinging to one
+of the ferns."
+
+"Oh, are you sure?" burst from Mrs. Morrow, her eyes eager with hope as
+she bent over the little scarlet knot.
+
+"Indeed I am sure," answered the delighted girl, "for it is the very
+ribbon I found in my work basket and tied on Rosy's funny little topknot
+the day she was at our house. See, here is the very cut in the edge--that
+is the reason it was of no use to me--but Rosy was as happy as a lark
+over it. Oh, isn't this too lovely, for now I know the child is
+somewhere near!"
+
+With renewed hope they set forth again on the hunt, Nathalie running
+ahead and calling "Tru-al-lee!" as loud as she could--it was the only
+bird call she knew--to get in touch with the advance guard and tell them
+the good news.
+
+In answer to her Blue Robin call, in a few moments a Bob White whistle
+was heard, rather faint, but there was no mistake as to that quick,
+clear note. The Sport, a few yards behind, immediately responded by
+giving a similar call, and then as they stood waiting to ascertain from
+what direction the whistle had come, there sounded a sudden, sharp snap
+of the underbrush near, and Kitty Corwin's face emerged into view.
+"Hurrah, girls!" she shouted jubilantly, "we have found her!"
+
+"Oh, where? Where?" came in an instant from three throats as Kitty
+leaned against a tree and panted.
+
+"Down in a ravine, huddled close against a rock, asleep. Helen did not
+want to waken her until Nathalie came, for fear she would be frightened
+at the strange faces. Come on, quick!" she exclaimed excitedly, turning
+and darting back the way she had come with light, fleet steps.
+
+But the belated ones needed no urging, especially Nathalie, who dashed
+ahead without regard to time or place, with a haste that left no doubt
+as to her joy that her searching party had been a success. Overhanging
+branches and dried twigs that blocked her way were ruthlessly brushed
+aside, or run against, scratching and bruising her unmercifully as she
+discovered later, but it made no difference to the happy girl.
+
+It seemed but a moment when she emerged into a clearing, and close at
+the heels of Kitty climbed down into a small ravine. It had evidently
+been at one time the road-bed of a brook, but was now filled with
+scraggy stones, dried underbrush, and fallen logs.
+
+As Nathalie saw the little motionless figure cuddled in a heap against
+the rock, her heart leaped with misgiving. "Oh, is she dead?" she asked
+Helen, who stood guard by the side of the rock, every now and then
+brushing away a gnat or a fly that descended with a loud buzz on the
+smeared black face, which lay partly exposed to view as it rested on a
+mite of an arm.
+
+"Oh, no," assured Helen, "she is all right, only asleep. I suppose she
+wandered about for some time in the darkness and was tired out, poor
+little tot!"
+
+The little one looked so pathetically small as she lay there, just a
+heap of bones, black skin, and woolly hair, with the tears still
+glistening on the black lashes, that Nathalie's heart was stirred with
+pity.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward and quickly felt her pulse, crying as she
+did so, "Oh, you poor little black baby! Yes, she is all right!" she
+nodded assuringly, "but Helen, what is the matter with her leg?" Her
+sharp glance noted that it lay rather limply on the ground.
+
+"I am not sure," said Helen with bent brows as she touched it softly,
+"but I am afraid it is broken. That is why I waited for you and
+Nathalie, I did not like to move her for fear of hurting her."
+
+"But we shall have to," returned Mrs. Morrow as she finished examining
+the injured limb, "for it is broken, and we must get her home as soon as
+possible, for it will have to be set."
+
+As Helen and Mrs. Morrow attempted to take hold of the child to lift her
+on the stretcher the girls had made, she opened her eyes wide into the
+strange faces bending over her. Then she closed them quickly, and as the
+little black face wrinkled in fear she let forth such a howl of absolute
+despair that the girls were all on the verge of joining with her in
+their keen sympathy.
+
+"Oh, Rosy," cried Nathalie springing hastily forward and taking the
+child's hand softly in hers, "see, it is Mrs. Page's little girl. Don't
+you remember when you called me that--Mrs. Page's little girl?" She
+repeated softly as she saw the child had stopped her crying and was
+staring up at her. But the black eyes closed again and the little form
+shivered as a prolonged howl answered the questioner.
+
+But Nathalie, who loved children, lifted up the little head with its
+pigtails and laid it against her breast as she tried again. "There
+dearie, don't you want to go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma?"
+
+These words had the desired effect, and the howl was arrested as two big
+black eyes stared with awakening interest while Nathalie caught hold of
+the stretcher and choo-chooed it back and forth. "Come, Rosy!" she cried
+in a third attempt, "and we will go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma,
+and--oh, yes, the little rag-dollie I made for you, don't you remember
+what a lovely time we had?"
+
+The black eyes opened wide, stood still for a wee second, and then
+twinkled into a smile as their owner cried, "Oh, yes, I knows youse;
+youse de Story Lady!"
+
+"Yes, I'm the Story Lady," quickly answered Nathalie, her face breaking
+into a smile; then as Rosy smiled back, "but how did you get here,
+Rosebud, so far away from home?"
+
+The little face screwed into a knot as she whimpered, "Oh, I got lost,
+Story Lady. I picked daisies in de lot, and den Jacob he showed me de
+blue flowers he got in de wood. So I runned to de wood, and oh, I got a
+lot!" Her eyes gleamed with joy as she held up a few withered violets
+still clutched in her tiny hand. "And den it grew all dark," she moaned,
+"and I couldn't fin' de road, and I fell and hurt my leg. Oh, I'se so
+hungry!" she ended piteously.
+
+But when she saw so many eyes watching her, she covered her tiny face
+with her hand, shyly peeping out from between her fingers.
+
+The girls all laughed merrily at her coquettishness, but their laughter
+became almost a howl as the little black eyes began to play peek-a-boo
+at them, and then danced in unison with their laughter, as if enjoying
+the sensation she had created.
+
+But time was precious, and so with the promise of candy and a story from
+Nathalie the little one was lifted from the ground and carefully placed
+in the stretcher, and the Pioneer search party, weary, and warm, but
+jubilantly happy at their success, started for home.
+
+"Some one of you girls ought to run ahead and get the doctor!" exclaimed
+Mrs. Morrow as the rescuers plodded carefully but slowly up the ravine
+with their burden, "for the child needs attention at once. I don't
+wonder she cries!" For, alas! the little one had begun to whimper
+softly, although Nathalie was still playing choo-choo car as hard as she
+could, so as to divert her mind from the pain and hunger pangs that had
+now begun to assert themselves more forcibly.
+
+"I will go!" cried Edith quickly, and then at a nod of assent from their
+Director she disappeared in the shadowy gloom of the trees like a small
+whirlwind. Barbara and Kitty were then despatched to hurry and tell
+Rosebud's mother that the lost was found.
+
+As they reached the edge of the woods, Mrs. Morrow thought she heard the
+throb of an automobile engine, and as it was followed in a moment by the
+toot of a horn, she begged Nathalie to hurry to the road, just a few
+feet beyond in the opening. "It sounds like the doctor's car--perhaps he
+will take little Rosy home--for, O dear, she is suffering so!"
+
+Nathalie softly unfastened the little hands that were clinging to hers,
+and with a few bounds reached the road where, sure enough, she saw a few
+yards ahead an automobile that had just passed.
+
+Yes, it was the doctor! Nathalie thought she recognized his car, and
+with mad haste tore after it, shouting to the full extent of her lungs,
+"Doctor! Doctor!"
+
+The occupant of the car, who evidently was not driving at a very high
+rate of speed, heard her shouts and in a moment brought his car to a
+standstill. As he turned about and stared at the oncoming figure of
+Nathalie, who, red-faced and bedraggled was speeding towards him, he
+looked slightly surprised.
+
+"Oh, Doctor," began the girl. She paused, for the gentleman who was
+looking at her with such a puzzled expression, coupled with slight
+indignation at being stopped in this way, was a strange young man!
+
+Nathalie halted abruptly as she discovered her error, feeling as if her
+face would burst from the heat of her unwonted exercise and the fact
+that she had been tagging in this tomboy style, after a strange man.
+
+"Oh--I'm so sorry," she panted apologetically, "but Mrs. Morrow thought
+she heard an automobile, she was sure it was the doctor--"
+
+"Mrs. Morrow!" exclaimed the young man, "why, is she anywhere about?" He
+jumped from his car as he spoke and came towards her.
+
+"Oh, yes," cried the girl, with a gleam of hope that if this young man
+knew their Director there was a chance for Rosy. "We have been looking
+for a little colored girl who was lost--oh, I mean the Pioneers--we have
+been searching in the woods," she explained confusedly, the blood
+surging furiously into her cheeks under the keen gray eyes that were
+looking so searchingly down at her. "Oh, can't you help us?" she burst
+off appealingly. "Mrs. Morrow wants to get her home as soon as she can,
+for she has a broken leg."
+
+"A broken leg?" echoed the young man, "why, of course I will help you,"
+he continued heartily. "Where is Mrs. Morrow? And--oh, I see--" the gray
+eyes gleamed pleasantly, "you are Blue Robin, the little girl who lives
+across the way from us. I am Mrs. Morrow's brother, Jack Homer!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X--NATHALIE AS THE STORY LADY
+
+
+Nathalie's color flamed again as she heard that "little girl," and she
+drew herself up in momentary indignation. Oh, this was evidently the Dr.
+Homer whom she had heard the girls talk so much about, and who had been
+giving them lessons in First Aid to the Injured. But who could have told
+him she was a little girl?
+
+This affront to her dignity was forgotten, however, as she quickly
+remembered the need of getting little Rosy home. "Mrs. Morrow is in the
+woods--oh, there she is now!" she cried hastily, as she pointed to the
+Director, who, with the Pioneers and their burden, had halted on the
+edge of the woods and stood waiting for her. As Mrs. Morrow perceived
+her brother she quickly beckoned to him.
+
+A few steps, and Dr. Homer was at his sister's side, listening to her
+hurried recital of the preceding events and her anxiously expressed wish
+that Rosy could be seen to as soon as possible.
+
+"Why, if it isn't little Rosebud!" said the doctor jovially as he turned
+from his sister and looked down at the helpless mite of humanity, lying
+so patient and still in the stretcher.
+
+The child smiled shyly, and Nathalie, perceiving that he knew her, gave
+a sigh of relief, for she felt that now everything would soon be all
+right.
+
+It did not take the doctor long to lift Rosy tenderly into the car and
+to make her comfortable with her little black head on Mrs. Morrow's lap.
+As he was about to jump in himself an "I want my Story Lady! I want my
+Story Lady!" came in a loud wail from the little patient, for Rosy's
+face had knotted up again as she pushed away Mrs. Morrow's detaining
+hand and tried to lift her head in search of Nathalie.
+
+Nathalie hastened to the side of the car crying, "Oh, Rosy, it's all
+right. I'm going home to your mamma. I will be there almost as soon as
+you--"
+
+"Why, Nathalie, get in with us," exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, "there is room
+on the front seat with the doctor. Oh, I beg your pardon, Nathalie,
+perhaps you have not met my brother. Jack, this is Miss Page, our new
+Pioneer, and oh, Jack; if it had not been for her I don't know when poor
+little Rosy would have been found!"
+
+"I am most pleased to meet you, Miss Page," smiled the doctor with undue
+emphasis on the Miss. Then, as he noted Nathalie's stiff little bow, he
+continued apologetically, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, "I have
+heard so much about Blue Robin, that somehow I thought she was a little
+girl."
+
+Nathalie smiled pleasantly, instantly recognizing that this frank-eyed
+young man was doing his best to atone for his mistake of a few minutes
+ago. But she must not keep him waiting, and a moment later she sprang
+into the car. Although it was but a short ride to Felia's house, there
+was time enough for the doctor to chat pleasantly with the young girl,
+so by the time they had reached their destination Nathalie understood
+why Dr. Homer was such a favorite with the Pioneers.
+
+Fortunately, Edith had caught Dr. Morrow just as he was about to set out
+to call on a patient, so he soon arrived. In a short time he and Dr.
+Homer had set the broken limb and made the child comfortable, who, with
+a smile of content, received a bowl of bread and milk from Mammy, whose
+black face was wreathed in smiles again as she saw that the little one
+was not lying down at the bottom of the pond.
+
+A half-hour later a group of girls straggled wearily along the main
+street of the village, animatedly discussing first one and then another
+detail of the morning's hunt. As they were all tired, it was unanimously
+decided to postpone the bird hike to another day.
+
+When this decision was reached, Nathalie's bright face clouded as she
+exclaimed contritely, "Oh, girls, I'm awfully sorry I broke up the hike,
+but I was so anxious to find Rosy."
+
+"Well, I for one am glad we gave it up," asserted Kitty Corwin, "for
+girls, it paid for the disappointment to see that poor mother's joy when
+she saw her child."
+
+"And the old black mammy--huh--she is a regular plantation coon," chimed
+in Edith; "did you hear her shout 'Praise de Lord! Hallelujah!'? Oh, but
+how her eyes did shine!"
+
+"She was a black sunbeam, all right," observed Helen, "and it's all
+owing to Nathalie!" putting her arm about her friend and giving her an
+enthusiastic squeeze; "she ought to have a white star."
+
+"A white star," ejaculated Nathalie, "what does that mean?"
+
+"Why, it means that you should receive a badge of merit, but as a
+Pioneer can't receive a badge until she is a first-class member, Mrs.
+Morrow gives white stars instead to the girls who deserve badges but are
+not yet old enough to receive them," explained Helen. "We keep our stars
+and then sew them on a big United States flag we are making for our new
+Pioneer room."
+
+"Oh, I should be pleased to have one!" cried Nathalie, "but it gives me
+more pleasure to know that you do not think I spoiled your fun, and have
+been so nice about it. I should just hate to have you think me
+officious!"
+
+"But we didn't think that, Nathalie," assured Lillie quickly. "In fact,
+I guess we just didn't think at all, we were so intent on having our own
+selfish ways. We are all friends of yours, and as Pioneers and
+personally," she spoke warmly, "we are glad you won the victory over our
+naughty, wicked selves."
+
+Several days later, Nathalie, who was still the maid of all work, stood
+washing the breakfast dishes. Somehow, helping Mother seemed to have
+lost its charm. She felt as if she and Miss I Can were not as good
+friends as they were at the beginning of her kitchen campaign. O dear,
+she did wish Rosy would get better so Felia could come back. She sighed
+heavily, and then hastily wiped away a stray tear that was meandering
+down her cheek--she had heard a step on the back stoop.
+
+"Hello, Blue Robin!" was Helen's cheery greeting as she entered,--she
+usually came in by the back door in the morning--then she stopped, for
+Nathalie's usually smiling face wore such a look of woe that she
+exclaimed anxiously, "Oh, Nathalie, what is the matter?"
+
+But her only answer was a stifled sob as the girl flung herself into a
+chair by the kitchen table, and dropping her head on her elbow gave way
+to the pent up flood that had been gathering for the last few days.
+Helen stood a moment, uncertain what to say or do, dreading that some
+great calamity had overtaken the family. Then she stepped to her
+friend's side and lifting her head encircled her with her arm
+caressingly. "Now," she cried, softly patting the brown head, "tell
+friend Helen all about it."
+
+Nathalie's tears flowed unrestrainedly for a moment and then, feeling
+somewhat better for the overflow, and a little ashamed of useless tears
+as she always called them, she withdrew from the friendly shelter and
+sat up. "Oh, it's just nothing at all, Helen," she cried in a choked
+voice, "only that I'm a great baby--and then--I'm tired"--her voice
+quavered. "I'm tired of washing dishes and sweeping--" a sniffle--"all the
+time."
+
+"Of course you are tired, who wouldn't be, Nat, with all the wonderful
+things you've done this last week?" sympathized Helen; "considering,
+too, that it's all new to you. Why, Mother says you are going to make a
+splendid Pioneer."
+
+"Oh, did she?" asked Nathalie, her eyes brightening. "It makes one feel
+good to be praised, I have felt so discouraged," with an intake of her
+breath, "for I've tried so hard to do everything I could, and then
+Mother, why she hasn't said one word of praise since the first day.
+Everybody just takes it all--all the work I do--just as if it was nothing,
+and things drag so. Of course I don't expect to be praised all the
+time," she hastened to add, "but oh, I don't seem to feel as happy about
+working as I did at first."
+
+"Oh, well, you're tired," replied Helen condolingly. "I know just how
+you feel, for I used to feel the same way when I first began to help
+Mother around the house. You see the enthusiasm and the glory have all
+gone out of it."
+
+"The enthusiasm and the glory?" repeated Nathalie in puzzled inquiry.
+
+"Yes, the novelty of doing something new is the enthusiasm that put you
+on the job; and the praise you got for doing it--which made you feel as
+if you were awfully good--that's the glory. But when things get stale and
+people stop saying how smart you are and so on, why then it will be just
+plain duty all through. You know, the frosting always comes first before
+we get to the cake."
+
+"Oh, I suppose that has something to do with it," responded Nathalie
+alertly, "when one comes to think of it. So from now on it will be just
+plain duty, won't it?" with a quiver of her chin, for somehow the
+prospect was not an enjoyable one at that moment.
+
+"Yes, that's about the size of it," was the practical answer. "But if
+you keep right on doing what you ought to, you'll get something better
+than the sugary stuff. Just keep Miss I Can for your friend, and then
+after a time you will find that you like to do the very things that at
+first seemed so hard. Experience, Mother says, brings knowledge, and
+knowledge puts you in the end where you want to be."
+
+"I wish it would," exclaimed Nathalie, her eyes flashing with sudden
+hope, "for oh, Helen, I do so want to know things, that is the useful
+arts, for I am so eager to learn how to make money the way you are
+doing! You know I have told you all about Dick, Helen," she lowered her
+voice, "I think it is just that, seeing the poor fellow striving to earn
+a little money so he can be made well again, that makes me so
+down-hearted, for I feel that I am not doing a thing to help him."
+
+"But you are helping him, and your mother, too, Nathalie," said Helen.
+"By the very work you are doing you are helping your mother to save
+money, that ought to be something to comfort you."
+
+"Oh, but it's mean kind of work," emphasized Nathalie, "and then, too,
+it's only saving a mite; and it will take so much money for Dick's
+operation."
+
+"Now, see here, Nathalie," exclaimed her friend, "let's figure this
+thing out." Taking a pencil and pad that always hung by the table with
+Nathalie's list of edibles to be served at each meal, she drew a chair
+up to the table and began to figure just how much Nathalie was saving
+her mother by doing the work herself.
+
+Nathalie bent over her shoulder and watched eagerly as she saw the line
+of figures jotted down by Helen. Then she, too, put on her thinking-cap
+and in a few minutes the two girls had figured out quite a sum that
+Nathalie was actually saving in dollars and cents each week she did the
+work.
+
+As Nathalie realized this fact, demonstrated so clearly by her friend,
+her eyes sparkled, and clapping her hands she cried, "Oh, Helen, I'm
+going to get Mother to let me do the work all the time--of course, as you
+say, the washing will have to be done out--but oh, I shall feel--"
+
+"Now, Nathalie, don't go off at a tangent; stop and consider before you
+make this suggestion to your mother. You must think just what it will
+cost you, that is, count what it will mean to suffer aches in your back
+and feet, to have fire-scorched cheeks,--they say cooking ruins the
+complexion,--red, sloppy hands, and all the rest of the penalties imposed
+on one for doing housework. If you put your hand to the plow, you know,
+once started you can't look back."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know, Helen, it will be terrible to have to do these things,
+but if it will help me to earn money, even the teeniest bit, now that I
+know that it is to be done without the glory perhaps it won't be so
+hard. Oh, I know Miss I Can will help me!" Nathalie smiled through the
+mist that would blur her eyes, "for I must help Dick."
+
+"Yes," returned her friend, "if you feel that way, determined to help
+Dick, go ahead; for that will serve as the glory, that is, the incentive
+will help you through lots of hard things."
+
+Nathalie looked up at her friend's grave face with wonder-lit eyes. "Oh,
+Helen," she said solemnly, "do you know you are going to be a great
+woman? You are awfully wise for a girl of your age!"
+
+Helen interrupted her with a merry laugh. "Oh, no, I'm not going to be a
+great woman at all. I should love to be--that is my ambition,--but one's
+ambitions are not apt to materialize the way one expects them to, you
+know. But I'll tell you, Nathalie," her face sobered, "I have a very
+wise mother--she tells me these things. And then as I go about I find
+from experience that what she has said comes true."
+
+"Yes, Helen, you will be great," nodded Nathalie sagely. "Perhaps you
+will not go about blowing a trumpet to let people know you are one of
+the world's great ones, but you will be all the same, even if you never
+do a thing but live in this sleepy town and become a stenographer."
+
+"Well, it looks that way," laughed Helen, "from the pile of typing that
+awaits me. Yes, I am, as you say, in a fair way to become a
+stenographer, but Ye Stars! if I do not become an expert one, I'll--well
+I'll go hang myself, as the boys say, for I must succeed!"
+
+"Oh, are you really going, friend comforter?" laughed Nathalie, as Helen
+rose to go. "Yes, you are that, for you have given me lots of comfort
+this morning; you put new life in me when the cause was almost lost. On
+the strength of your calculations I'm going to lay my plans before
+Mother, and then I'm going to get some books and trinkets and go to see
+Rosy."
+
+"Oh, yes, how is she?" inquired Helen interestedly. "I was thinking
+about her the other day."
+
+"She is getting along nicely, but it is awfully hard for the little
+thing to lie there most of the time alone. I was down to see her
+yesterday and told her some stories, and I promised to come again
+to-day."
+
+"I wish I could help you! But see here, Nathalie, speak to Grace and
+Lillie about the story-telling; perhaps they will help you at that.
+Grace is a lady with plenty of leisure to waste, and Lillie Bell dotes
+on yarns."
+
+"I did ask Lillie, but she said she was no good telling stories to
+children, and Grace--why, she said she was busy getting her clothes ready
+for the summer."
+
+"There's Kitty. Ah, I expect to see her this afternoon. I'll ask her to
+lend you a hand, but I must go, so good-by and good luck to you, Story
+Lady!"
+
+"Oh, Mother, you are just a dear!" cried Nathalie a little later, as she
+was about to set forth to see Rosy. Her mother had come down from the
+attic with a couple of old picture-books, and handed them to her to give
+to the little invalid.
+
+"Gloriana! won't they make her eyes shine!" exclaimed Nathalie as she
+tucked them under her arm, picked up the basket of goodies she had
+prepared, and hurried down the walk. As she knocked at the door of the
+gray shanty she heard Rosy whimpering softly. "Poor kiddie," she
+thought, with a wave of pity. Receiving no answer she pushed open the
+door, which was partly ajar, and entered. On the bed lay the little form
+with its head buried in a pillow, emitting a series of feeble whines.
+
+"Good morning!" said the smiling visitor as she touched the half-buried
+shoulder.
+
+At the sound of her voice the child's woolly head rolled over, and a
+smile of welcome radiated her tear-stained face.
+
+"How is it that you are all alone?" asked Nathalie, taking out an orange
+from the basket; "where are Mother and Mammy?"
+
+"Mamma went to de town, and Mammy--she's doin' de wash," and then her
+eyes expanded with joy as she spied the orange.
+
+The orange was soon demolished, and then, as Nathalie started to show
+her the two picture-books, she realized that Miss I Can confronted her
+again, for a sticky mouth and hands revealed the fact that she had an
+unpleasant task to perform. For a moment she hesitated, but quickly
+overcoming her disinclination, she plunged in, got a basin of water, and
+finding no wash-cloth, dipped her own dainty handkerchief in it, and
+amid sundry squeals and protests gave the little face and hands a good
+scrubbing.
+
+This performed, the picture-books were brought forth and she was soon
+busy explaining the pictures to the pleased little girl. But this
+diversion she soon tired of and then came the cry, "Oh, Story Lady,
+won't yo' please tell me er story?"
+
+"Why, I don't think I know any now--" Nathalie had meant to look up a
+fairy book so as to be prepared, but the pleading look in the black eyes
+upturned to hers won its way and she said, "All right, I'll see what I
+know? How would 'The Babes in the Woods' do?"
+
+As this title was mentioned, a cry of protest came from the child, "No,
+I don't want to hear about de woods. I'se afraid of de woods."
+
+"Of course you don't, you poor little chickie," answered Nathalie
+contritely, and then her face lightened up as a streak of sunshine at
+that moment glancing in the window proved an inspiration. So she began
+to tell about Sunshine Polly, who had been told that if she could get
+some sunshine in her heart she would always be happy, and how she
+forthwith set out for this golden country, and after many adventures
+found it. Indeed it proved to be a most beautiful place, with a king,
+very round and bright, and a lot of sunshine fairies flying all about
+throwing some of their sunny treasure into the eyes of every one they
+saw.
+
+By the bright eyes watching her, Nathalie knew that she had made a good
+selection this time, and the story progressed. She told how Polly got
+the sunbeams, with a breathing spell every now and then to think up some
+more, and the cries, "Oh, dat's a lubly story! Oh, I likes dat story!"
+But at last Polly returned from the land of sunshine with a crown of
+sunbeams on her head and a big bundle of it in her heart.
+
+Nathalie smiled as she finished, for it seemed as if she too, had been
+to the sunshine land and had put some of it into Rosy's little heart.
+"Ah, now I will get a chance to slip away," she thought, picking up her
+basket as a prelude to her departure.
+
+But Rosy, surmising by her movement that she contemplated leaving, began
+to wail plaintively, begging her so hard to tell just one more "lubly
+story." As Nathalie stood, trying her best to think of another story,
+she heard a slight noise, and looked up to see three little black faces
+with big shiny eyes staring at her from over the ledge of the window.
+
+The girl broke into a merry laugh, for really it was funny to see those
+three round faces--like a row of flower-pot saucers on a shelf. "Why, how
+did you get there?" she cried and then again burst into laughter. The
+laughter proved contagious, for the three little pickaninnies
+immediately joined in her merriment, and then, evidently thinking this
+was an invitation to come in, one after the other slid over the sill and
+trotted up to the bed, to the great delight of Rosy. Here they climbed
+up, sitting on the edge with their naked black feet hanging down,
+looking for all the world like monkeys' claws as they swung them to and
+fro, anxiously waiting for the story to begin.
+
+[Illustration: "Why, how did you get there?"]
+
+"Oh, what shall I tell them?" worried Nathalie, but in a flash she
+remembered, and was soon in the mysteries of that beloved of all fairy
+tales, "Jack and the Bean Stalk." The interested glow in four pairs of
+eyes was inspiring, and amply repaid her for the time that she had so
+reluctantly given the little hearers.
+
+The tale was soon ended, and again Nathalie sprang to her feet, feeling
+that now she must go, for there was that dessert she had to make for
+dinner. She gathered up her basket and had just turned to say good-by to
+her audience of four, when she saw Dr. Morrow, who was standing by the
+door, smiling down at her with his kindly eyes.
+
+"Oh, were you there all the time?" she asked in dismay. The doctor
+nodded as he said, "Yes, Blue Robin, I have enjoyed your story very
+much. You had such an appreciative audience," smiling at the little
+black faces, "that I was reluctant to disturb their bliss. Our little
+friend Rosy has well named you, 'The Story Lady.'"
+
+He turned towards his patient, and then with a kindly word for each of
+her little friends, he began to inquire as to how Rosy was. As Felia at
+this moment entered the room, Nathalie waved a good-by to Rosy, and
+surrounded by the three pickaninnies, each one eager to carry her
+basket, hurried out of the room and into the sunshine she had been
+telling about. The many comments made by her body-guard of three, showed
+how eager they were for the joys of story-land--a rare treat to them.
+Realizing how much can be taught a child through story-telling, as she
+had found when she was a child, Nathalie fell to thinking. By the time
+she reached home she had planned a story club--oh, it would be just the
+thing--if the Pioneers would agree to it. They could take turns, only an
+hour once or twice a week, in telling stories to these new friends of
+hers, and who knows, if the class grew they might eventually do a great
+deal of good? Still somewhat timid of taking the initiative, she planned
+to lay it before Helen and let the suggestion come from her.
+
+Nathalie was trilling softly to herself little snatches of song, for
+somehow on that bright June day she felt very happy. She had started, as
+she told Helen, on a new career. Of course her mother had objected at
+first to her taking Felia's place, but when she found that Nathalie was
+determined, she had consented, feeling that perhaps it would not harm
+her for a while. And then, too, she would learn many things she needed
+to know, and this was her opportunity to learn them. So Nathalie had won
+her consent, and with the help of Dorothy, who had been pressed into
+service, and the few things she allowed her mother to do, she had found
+her work slip along more easily than she had anticipated, and the
+thought that she was earning a mite towards a great object, as Helen
+said, had proved the glory.
+
+And so she sang away, doing the week's stint of darning, as the stocking
+drill at the Pilgrim Rally had helped her wonderfully, and now she was
+quite assured that her mother did not have to do her work over.
+
+As she glanced up from her work to watch a tiny humming bird that was
+flitting among the leaves of the honeysuckle trellis, she heard the
+throb of an engine, and looked up to see Dr. Morrow's car coming up the
+road. To her surprise, instead of running his car in through his gate to
+the garage, he brought it to a standstill in front of their house,
+alighted, and a moment later was coming briskly up the path.
+
+His cheery greeting broke in upon her surprise as he cried, "Well, Blue
+Robin, so you are at home!" O dear! every one seemed to be calling her
+that nowadays, the girl thought a little ruefully.
+
+"Good morning," she cried; then her face paled apprehensively. "Oh, have
+you come about Dick--do you think his knee is worse?" she faltered,
+suddenly remembering that her brother had complained quite a little the
+last three days with the pain in his knee.
+
+"No, I have not come about Dick," was the reassuring answer. "I have
+come to see you on important business. Dick is doing as well as can be
+until he is operated on."
+
+Nathalie sighed, and then said, "Oh, Doctor, I do wish you would explain
+to me about Dick's operation! Mother told me a little, but you see I
+don't know much about these things."
+
+The doctor raised his eyebrows in pretended surprise and then he said in
+a serious tone, "I should say not. Such things as operations are not for
+little Blue Robins. They are supposed to trill little tru-al-lee songs,
+or tell fairy tales to children, as I hear some of them have been doing
+lately."
+
+The girl's eyes grew bright. "Oh, we are all doing it. Has Mrs. Morrow
+told you about the Pioneer Story Club we have formed? Helen suggested
+it, in a way." Nathalie was modest, for the suggestion had really come
+from herself, and also the planning with the aid of Helen's wise head.
+"We go down to the colored settlement," she continued, "every Saturday
+morning and take turns in telling stories to the little children. Don't
+you think it a fine idea?" She spoke animatedly.
+
+"Indeed I do, but now for the business."
+
+"Oh--but please tell me about the operation first!" Nathalie was afraid
+the doctor intended to put her off. "Tell me, will Dick really be good
+and strong again after he has the operation?"
+
+The doctor gazed at her a moment with serious eyes and then said slowly,
+"Yes, Miss Nathalie, I believe that if your brother could have that
+operation he would be just as well as if this unfortunate accident had
+not happened."
+
+"But what makes the operation necessary, and what would you do to him?"
+she insistently demanded.
+
+"Well, I am not going to tell you exactly what we would do to him. We
+shall not make hash of him--"
+
+"Oh, Doctor!" exclaimed Nathalie with a shiver.
+
+"But we will remove an unhealthy bone in his leg and replace it with a
+new one. I saw an infected finger joint removed the other day and
+replaced with a joint taken from one of the patient's toes."
+
+"Oh, Doctor Morrow," cried the distressed girl, "you are kidding, as the
+boys say."
+
+The doctor shook his head. "No, some years ago I might have been
+indulging in a yarn, but surgery has made great strides these last few
+decades, and cripples nowadays may be restored to health and strength by
+transplanting entire bones with their joint surfaces. This discovery was
+announced a short time ago by an eminent surgeon before the Philadelphia
+Academy of Surgery. Tests were made on dogs first, and the results were
+so satisfactory that the same methods have since been applied to the
+human body with like results.
+
+"Hitherto bone transplantation had been attended with great stiffness
+and lack of power in the members treated, but now an infected hip joint
+may be removed in the same way, and replaced by healthy bones, and the
+functions work properly. But, young lady, I came here not to deliver a
+lecture on the transplantation of bones, but to ask you to do something
+for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI--THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER
+
+
+"Do something for you? Oh, Doctor, I should just love to!" Surprise and
+pleasure caused Nathalie's eyes to light expectantly. And then, "Do tell
+me what it is; perhaps it is something I can't do!" she said doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, you can do it all right," asserted the doctor confidently.
+"Remember the old adage, 'Where there's a will, there's a way.'" His
+eyes twinkled humorously as he watched the girl's face. "But let's get
+at the beginning of things. The other day as I was hastening to my
+little African friend, Rosy, I heard some one talking to her. I stood
+still, for it was some one telling the fairy tale of Jack and the Bean
+Stalk.
+
+"Now when I was a wee laddie," continued the doctor, "that fairy tale
+was the star one to me, so I plead guilty, I was tempted and listened.
+And then when I discovered that the Story Lady, as Rosy says, was a
+sometime friend of mine, I found that old tale doubly interesting. A few
+days ago, when talking to a patient, I happened to relate this little
+incident in connection with something else I was telling, and then my
+troubles began."
+
+The doctor pretended dismay. "That lady has a crippled child who rarely
+goes out, never meets children of her own age, but is compelled a good
+part of the time to lie on a couch suffering more or less pain. This
+little girl was injured in an accident which her mother, poor creature,
+believes was her fault."
+
+"Oh, how dreadfully she must suffer!" burst from Nathalie involuntarily.
+
+"Yes, I sometimes think the poor mother suffers more than the child. Now
+this mother, from a mistaken idea, believes it best to keep her child
+secluded, thinking that the comments of strangers would hurt the child's
+feelings and cause more suffering. So you see what a miserable life the
+little one leads. Well, I must cut my tale short--" taking out his watch
+and glancing at it; "perhaps it was something I said, I don't know, but
+this lady asked me if I thought the young lady who was so good at
+story-telling would be willing to come and amuse her child with stories.
+You see I was in for it, but all I could do was to say I would ask her,"
+the doctor's eyes sobered, "for I believe that this Story Lady girl is
+not only a worth while girl--is that the way my wife puts it when she
+lectures you?" the doctor's face had wrinkled into a smile again, "but
+that she has one of the kindest hearts in the world."
+
+"Oh, Doctor, Mrs. Morrow never lectures," answered Nathalie
+enthusiastically; "she just talks to us in the sweetest way; we just
+love to hear her. But, Doctor, why did you not tell the lady I would be
+only too glad to tell her little girl stories, but if she suffers so
+much it might tire her." This was all said in one breath.
+
+"Not so fast, Blue Robin. No, I did not tell her you would, for I did
+not know how it would strike you," rejoined the doctor gravely. "I only
+told her what you could do."
+
+"Oh," exclaimed his companion; "well then, please tell her the first
+time you see her that I shall be delighted to do all I can for her
+little girl."
+
+"When I see her--well, I'm going to see her now." The doctor looked down
+at Nathalie keenly. "If you are willing to give this pleasure suppose
+you begin to-day?"
+
+"To-day--you mean now--this morning?" exclaimed surprised Nathalie.
+
+The doctor nodded gravely.
+
+"Why, well, yes, I suppose I could go this morning." Nathalie wrinkled
+her brows; she was wondering about dinner. "All right," she said in a
+moment, "I'll tell Mother and get my hat!" She started for the door.
+
+"Just wait a moment!" commanded the doctor suddenly, taking Nathalie by
+the arm and peering down into her face with intent eyes. "I forgot
+something, for amusing this little girl means that you will have to
+promise two things."
+
+"What are they?" asked the girl curiously.
+
+"The first one is that you will have to promise--as a Girl Pioneer--" the
+doctor's eyes gleamed again "not to betray to a living soul that you are
+telling stories to this child; there is a reason."
+
+"Oh, that is easy," nodded Nathalie; "that is, if you except Mamma, for
+I always tell everything to her."
+
+"Well, we'll trust Mrs. Page as to secrecy, and the next thing--this is a
+big promise, for it will not be so easy to keep--is that when you go to
+this lady's house you will consent to be blindfolded." The doctor looked
+relieved.
+
+"Blindfolded?" repeated puzzled Nathalie. "Why, do you mean that I will
+have to have my eyes covered up so I can't see?"
+
+Dr. Morrow nodded, his keen eyes watching the girl's face intently.
+
+There was a pause. "Am I to go with you?" inquired Nathalie. The
+doctor's gray head jerked again.
+
+"Why, yes, I'm willing to be blinded--as long as you're with me to lead
+me about--but what a strange idea!"
+
+"Yes, it is a strange idea, and I tried to reason the lady out of it. I
+even refused at first--and again yesterday--to ask you to do this
+ridiculous thing, but after thinking it over I have ventured. You know,
+there is the little girl to be considered, and you will?"
+
+"Of course I will!" was the quick reply. "It is a funny thing to do,
+makes me think of the heroine of some detective tale. Blindfolded! Oh,
+it will be fun, a real adventure, I do wish I could tell Helen about it,
+I know she won't tell."
+
+"No, not yet," said the doctor, "just wait and see what happens. I'll
+predict that after you tell one or two of your exciting tales the
+blindfold act will be out of it. Now get your hat."
+
+It was a glorious morning and Nathalie, in a merry chat with the doctor
+as they glided down one street and up another, forgot to wonder where
+they were going. But when they suddenly slowed up on a lonely road, the
+doctor peered cautiously about and then with a flourish drew forth a big
+black handkerchief, she remembered. She did indeed feel somewhat queer
+as the doctor laughingly tied the black cap, as he called it, over her
+eyes, and then, after seeing that it was not pressing too tightly,
+started his car again.
+
+This time the car went so swiftly that Nathalie caught her breath. O
+dear, she was beginning to feel nervous. "It really seems as if you were
+kidnaping me!" she cried, with an attempt at merriment.
+
+"So I am," replied the doctor glumly. Evidently this blindfolding
+business was not to his liking.
+
+As the car came to a standstill the doctor cried, "Now, Blue Robin, we
+are about to perform the first act in our little drama, so get up your
+nerve."
+
+"I hope you won't let me fall!" exclaimed Nathalie cheerily. "I don't
+want to break my nose or anything just yet."
+
+What a weird feeling it gave her to be led along a stone walk, then up a
+few steps guided by her companion's strong arm, then evidently into a
+hall, as Nathalie surmised by the polished floor covered with heavy
+rugs. After being led stumblingly up the stairway--which she thought
+would never come to an end--they crept slowly along for some distance;
+she could not tell whether it was a hall or a room, and felt very
+trembly as she afterwards told her mother, and she was brought to a
+sudden halt by hearing, "Oh, Mamma, here she is!"
+
+The voice did not belong to a small child and Nathalie, surprised, stood
+still in embarrassed silence wondering what was coming next.
+
+"Oh, Doctor, how kind you are!" cried another voice. "I had given you
+up, how obstinate you must think me!" The voice faltered, and then
+Nathalie felt a soft touch on her arm as it continued, "Oh, it was very
+kind of you to consent to come and entertain my daughter, and to be
+obliged to come this way, too. I feel guilty; I know how unpleasant it
+must be to have something over your eyes."
+
+"Well, don't worry over that now," was the doctor's terse admonition. "I
+have complied with your requests--on second thought, and my young girl
+friend has been most kind in agreeing to your wishes, for the present at
+least. Later, I hope, you will change your mind about these blinders."
+
+"Please don't scold," cried the voice again, "I know it is foolish of
+me. I will lead you to a chair!" the owner of the voice exclaimed as the
+girl gropingly put out her hand as if afraid of falling. Then the same
+soft touch led the blinded one across the room. "No, you are not going
+to fall; there you are all right now," she said, as Nathalie with a
+sense of relief sank back in a chair.
+
+"Now," continued the voice, "I am going to be your eyes and tell you
+what is before you."
+
+"That will be very nice," interposed embarrassed Nathalie, feeling
+somewhat foolish at having to sit in this queer way before people. She
+was at a loss what to say, but had time to collect herself as the lady
+went on talking rapidly. She described the room with its hangings, the
+pictures on the wall, told where the doors and windows were, and--"Oh,
+here is the couch--" she hesitated slightly, "and on it is my daughter,
+her name is--"
+
+"Oh, Mamma, if you don't want the young lady to know my name, tell her
+I'm the Princess in the Tower!" exclaimed the same sweet voice that had
+called out when Nathalie first entered the room.
+
+"That will be just the thing, 'the Princess in the Tower,'" laughed the
+lady lightly. "Now, Princess, I am going to leave you to entertain
+Miss--"
+
+"Nathalie Page," interposed the girl quickly, who, reassured by the
+laughing tone of the young girl on the couch, had begun to recover from
+the awkwardness of her plight. Somehow the situation appealed to the
+girl's imagination and she began to enjoy it. "Oh, I ought to be the one
+in the tower," she merrily asserted, "for I feel as if I were a prisoner
+with this funny thing over my eyes."
+
+"It is too bad," cried her companion sympathetically, "but you know it
+is a whim of Mamma's. You see," she explained, "I had an accident when I
+was a child, and it has made me deformed--" there was a pathetic note in
+her voice. "Mamma is so sensitive, she is afraid that if people see me
+they will make unkind remarks."
+
+"Oh, how could any one be unkind?" exclaimed horrified Nathalie.
+
+"Well, they are sometimes. I used to be sensitive myself, too, but I'm
+getting used to it. I tell Mamma if I don't mind she ought not to. Yes,"
+she ended sadly, "I am indeed a prisoner shut up in these big gray
+walls."
+
+"How hard it must be!" answered Nathalie. "But do you never go out?"
+
+"Sometimes I go in the garden. I used to drive, but the people in this
+town are so curious; they stare so. I believe they are worse than in the
+city, where I suppose people are used to all kinds of strange sights.
+But there, I'm doing all the talking, please tell me about yourself! I'm
+so glad to know some one who comes from New York. The doctor told me you
+were a New Yorker; he told me, too, that you were very clever, and that
+you told stories beautifully."
+
+"Nonsense," exclaimed Nathalie. "The doctor is a dear, but he natters
+me; I am not clever, I wish I were. I studied hard at school and am
+ready to enter college this fall, and as I am only sixteen people think
+it very clever for a girl to accomplish, but I don't see why a girl
+can't do it as well as a boy. But now I'm not going to have a chance to
+show people whether I am really clever or not," and then she briefly
+told about her disappointment in having to give up college.
+
+"But what are you going to do if you do not go to college? Please tell
+me!" said the princess, as Nathalie hesitated. "I just love the sound of
+your voice!" burst from the girl impulsively.
+
+Nathalie laughed at this extravagant praise, wondering for a moment if
+the young girl were not making fun of her. Loath to believe that she
+could be so rude, however, she went on and told of her city life, her
+schoolmates, about Dick's accident, and how they came to settle in
+Westport, and then she stopped. She had been on the verge of telling
+about the Pioneers when she recollected that the doctor had said she was
+to tell the child stories. "Oh, I must stop talking--I was to tell you
+stories--what will your mother think of me?"
+
+"That is all right," promptly returned the girl, "you are here to
+entertain me; that's what she told the doctor, and if I would rather
+have you talk than tell stories, it will be as I say."
+
+"Are you sure of that?" questioned conscience-stricken Nathalie. "The
+doctor told me I was to tell you stories."
+
+"Of course he did, but because he said a thing doesn't make it so; Mamma
+told him that, I guess, but you are really to do as I say."
+
+There was a note of decision in the girl's voice, which was an
+intimation that she was used to having her own way. Nathalie somehow
+felt awkward and uncertain as to what course to pursue, and became
+suddenly silent, inwardly racking her brains, trying to think of some
+story that would please a young girl of about the age she judged her
+companion to be.
+
+"Oh, aren't you going to tell me about the Girl Pioneers?" was the
+question that suddenly interrupted Nathalie's train of thought.
+
+"The Girl Pioneers!" echoed Nathalie, wondering how her companion came
+to know about that organization.
+
+"I want to tell you a secret," the princess whispered at that moment.
+Nathalie felt a slim hand touch her with a clinging pressure on the arm.
+"Do you know the doctor and I are great friends, we have lots of jolly
+talks together. Oh, I just love to hear his step; don't tell, but
+sometimes I make believe I'm suffering terribly so Mamma will send for
+him!"
+
+"But you shouldn't do that!" cried Nathalie, rather shocked at the idea
+of simulating pain, suddenly remembering a story she had heard of a
+young girl who had finally come to suffer from the very disease she had
+feigned.
+
+"Oh, what difference does it make as long as it brings him?" retorted
+the princess. "You see he tells me of the outside world, and makes me
+laugh when I have pain, for I do have lots of it sometimes. One day when
+I was having an awful time with my back he almost made me forget the
+pain by telling me some of the funny things that have happened to the
+Boy Scouts and to the Girl Pioneers.
+
+"He told me all about you, too, how you sprained your foot and about
+your brother Dick, and about your finding the blue robin's nest in the
+old cedar. He said you were pretty, too. I like pretty people. I wish
+you didn't have that horrible thing on your eyes, I want to see them.
+Mother said I would have been pretty, too, if I had not had this
+terrible hump--oh," she cried abruptly, "I was not to tell you anything
+about myself, for I'm a horrible thing to look at now."
+
+"Oh, no, you can't be," exclaimed Nathalie involuntarily, for by this
+time the sweet girlish voice and soft clinging hand had stirred her
+imagination, and the pictures presented had made the make-believe
+princess a most beautiful creature.
+
+"Oh, but I am," persisted the girl in a resigned voice. "But then, do
+tell me about the Pioneers!" Then noting Nathalie's reluctance, she
+called out in a high, shrill voice, "Mamma, come here, I want you!"
+
+"What is it, darling?" answered her mother coming hastily from the
+adjoining room, where she had been conversing with the doctor. "What
+does my princess want?" remembering the role the girl had assumed.
+
+"The princess wants to be obeyed," answered that personage imperiously.
+"Miss Page refuses to talk about herself or to tell me anything, because
+she says you ordered her to tell me only stories."
+
+Nathalie's face reddened under her black mask, "Oh, no," she interposed
+swiftly, "I did not say it that way. I said the doctor had asked me to
+come here and tell you stories, but then I supposed you were a little
+girl."
+
+"No, I am not a little girl," replied the princess, "I am fourteen."
+
+"Miss Page, if you do not mind I shall be glad if you will do as
+Ni--as--the princess desires," said her mother pleadingly. "She is an
+invalid, you know, and, I am afraid, sadly spoiled."
+
+"Very well," rejoined Nathalie briefly, feeling somewhat relieved to
+think she could talk about the Pioneers and not to have to think up a
+story. Yet it did seem strange to ask her to come there and tell stories
+and then ask her not to do so.
+
+"Now that you have permission, please go right ahead and tell me
+everything you know about the Pioneers!"
+
+"That will be delightfully easy, I can assure you," exclaimed Nathalie.
+"Although I am a new Pioneer, I am beginning to be very enthusiastic. I
+can't tell you much about the hikes for I have never been on a long hike
+yet. We were going on a bird hike the other day--" then she remembered
+the search party and its results, and in a few words told about Rosebud
+and the morning spent in searching for her.
+
+"Oh, that was just fine of you," cried the princess as Nathalie came to
+the part where the Pioneers had acted as if they did not want to hunt
+for the little girl. "And those girls! I think they were very selfish,
+but go on and tell me some more about the Pioneers!"
+
+Nathalie, thus pressed, told of the Pilgrim Rally, the coming of the Boy
+Scouts, the Pioneer dance, and then lastly how she had accepted Miss I
+Can, the motto of the organization, as a very dear friend, and how she
+was trying to live up to it. The girl could not account for the feeling
+that made her sacrifice her usual reserve in regard to her inner life,
+and tell this make-believe princess about what she was trying to do. In
+thinking it over when by herself, she concluded that perhaps it was the
+lesson in this little motto that she had intuitively felt might help the
+little prisoner in the tower.
+
+"Oh, I wish you would get up a story club for me!" exclaimed the blood
+royal, as Nathalie finally ended her Pioneer recital by telling about
+the story club the girls had formed to tell stories to the little
+children in the colored settlement.
+
+"Wouldn't it be just lovely! And they would all be real live girls, too,
+not story-book people, for oh, Miss Page, I get so tired of book folks!
+I want to meet just real every-day girls. That is why I coaxed my mother
+to get the doctor to have you come here and tell me stories, but don't
+say another word about telling me stories," she lowered her voice, "for
+that was just a trick to get Mother to consent. When I want a thing I
+just keep plaguing her and then she lets me have my way."
+
+"Oh, but you ought to tell your mother everything," exclaimed her new
+friend, somewhat repelled by this frank admission of deceit. "I always
+tell my mother everything, why I could not sleep at night if I thought I
+had deceived her."
+
+"Everything is fair in love and war, that's what my governess used to
+say, but she was a horrid thing," the princess confessed candidly; "I
+just hated her. She had a beau and I used to steal his letters and
+pretend I had read them, just for the fun of seeing her get in a rage.
+But go on, and tell me more about those girls."
+
+The last word had barely left her lips when a shriek, shrill and
+terrifying, rang through the room. Nathalie jumped up in a spasm of
+terror, but before she could ascertain what it was, another one, even
+shriller and more prolonged than the first one, as it seemed to the
+frightened girl, sounded right in her very ear. Her heart leaped to her
+throat, a stifled cry escaped her as she dropped back in her chair
+cowering with fear. Then came another cry, followed by weird, demoniacal
+laughter. Nathalie put her hands up to her face determined to tear off
+her bandage, for that blood-curdling shriek, that hideous laugh, she had
+heard before--and then she remembered--oh, she was in the house of the
+Mystic!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII--THE WILD FLOWER HIKE
+
+
+"Oh, it's the crazy man!" came with a flash into Nathalie's mind. What
+should she do? If she could only take off that horrible bandage from her
+eyes!
+
+"Oh, don't be frightened!" exclaimed the princess with a merry laugh as
+she saw her companion cower in her chair. "It's only Jimmie! Jimmie,
+stop that racket!" she continued with a loud clap of her hands. But
+Jimmie, whoever he was, only replied with another agonizing shriek. This
+time the princess called angrily, "Mamma, come and make Jimmie stop his
+shrieking. Miss Page is awfully frightened!"
+
+Nathalie, as she heard the foregoing explanation, and realized that it
+was not an insane person screaming, gave a hysterical gasp and turned
+her head in the direction of the shrieks, but alas! her blinders, like a
+black wall, barred her vision.
+
+A few hurried steps, a scuffle evidently, accompanied by the loud
+flapping of wings, and then a jumble of French, Spanish, and English,
+jabbered in defiant rage, revealed that Jimmie was a cockatoo!
+
+[Illustration: "Oh, don't be frightened!" exclaimed the princess, with
+a merry laugh.]
+
+But Jimmie, determined not to be worsted in his fight to be heard, with
+much loudness and clearness of note now broke into "In the Sweet Bye and
+Bye." This sudden transition from the terrestrial to the celestial
+proved too much for Jimmie's audience, and peals of laughter rang out,
+in which Nathalie's treble and the doctor's deeper note mingled with the
+cockatoo's song. Jimmie, thinking he was winning an encore, started in
+with "Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief--" but this time he was
+summarily thrust from the room by an attendant--amid jabbering protests.
+
+The doctor now reminded Nathalie that they must be going, as he had an
+important case on hand; he had waited for her, he explained, knowing
+that she would be unable to manage alone with her blinders, as he called
+the handkerchief.
+
+As Nathalie rose to go the princess seized her hand, crying, "No, you
+shall not go. You have only been here a few moments!" Notwithstanding
+her mother's admonition that the doctor must not be detained, the
+invalid persisted in clutching her new friend's hand in a vise-like
+grip, much to her embarrassment. Finding, however, that she was not to
+have her way, the princess broke forth into a low whimpering.
+
+Nathalie stood still, and then feeling ashamed that a girl of her age
+should act the part of a child of five, endeavored to persuade her to
+let her go, promising to come again soon. She met with no success, and
+driven desperate by the command, "Come, Nathalie, we must go!" she
+roughly pulled her hand away. Whereupon, the whimpering cries of the
+princess degenerated into shrieks of rage, so prolonged and shrill that
+Nathalie, with a thrill of surprise, immediately recognized from whom
+Jimmie had learned his shrieks.
+
+As the car sped swiftly along in the direction of home, after the black
+handkerchief had been relegated to the doctor's pocket again, Nathalie
+suddenly reddened furiously, looked queer for a moment, and then burst
+into stifled laughter, much to the doctor's amusement, who was gravely
+watching her.
+
+"Hello!" he cried at length, "what's up?" after his companion had made
+one or two ineffectual efforts to control her risibility.
+
+But at last she sobered, and with the tears still in her eyes told how
+she and Grace had been sent by Mrs. Morrow a short time before--to
+deliver a letter to Mrs. Van Vorst, and how when they were waiting in
+the reception room they had heard those same terrible shrieks and
+frenzied laughter that Jimmie had emitted that morning, and, thinking
+that it was an insane person, they had run for their lives.
+
+"O dear," she gasped hysterically, "what a joke on Grace and me! To
+think of our running away when it was only a cockatoo! Oh, what sillies
+we were!"
+
+"I agree with you," returned the doctor so solemnly that the girl
+flushed and looked at him quickly with shamed eyes, but his humorous
+twinkle did not agree with his blunt assurance, so Nathalie's
+self-esteem suffered no wound.
+
+"You know where you were then to-day?" questioned the doctor slowly
+after a pause.
+
+"Oh, yes, at the house of the Mystic!"
+
+"The house of the Mystic?" with some astonishment.
+
+"Oh, that is the name the girls have given Mrs. Van Vorst because she
+acts so queerly. She has been very disagreeable to the Pioneers, they
+claim, refusing to let them drill on the lawn in the rear of her house.
+The girls say she hates young people, and then she always dresses so
+queerly in gray, too. She has shrouded herself in mystery by shutting
+herself up in that big gray house behind those walls. Edith Whiton
+insists that there is an insane person in the house and that he chased
+her the day of the Pilgrim Rally."
+
+"An insane person! There is no insane person in the house. That is
+nonsense, and should not be repeated!" exclaimed the doctor in an
+annoyed tone.
+
+"Yes, I know, but the girls believe Edith, and so did I until to-day.
+But Grace and I have never told a soul what we heard, only Mrs. Morrow.
+But, oh, Doctor," she cried impulsively, "can't I tell Grace about the
+cockatoo? I will tell her not to tell a living soul," she ended
+earnestly.
+
+"No," returned the doctor decidedly, "Miss Grace is all right, but she
+might let it out in her sleep. No, you wait, and some time you girls can
+have the best laugh ever, as my kiddies say."
+
+So the story of Nathalie's visit to the princess in the tower was buried
+deep within her heart, although it came very near being unearthed
+several times when she was in the company of Grace or Helen, for really,
+it was hard to keep it a secret when it was such a good joke.
+
+Saturday, the day of the wild-flower hike, was warm and sunshiny, with
+the balminess of summer in its gently wafting breezes. Every one present
+was filled with the anticipation that they were going to have a "dandy
+time."
+
+"Are we all here?" questioned Mrs. Morrow, as she stood on the veranda
+steps, craning her neck from one side to the other in the endeavor to
+see that her bird groups were all there. In her natty khaki suit, with
+its red-banded sombrero and red tie, she looked as jaunty and young as
+the Bluebirds, Bob Whites, and Orioles, who, with admiring eyes, watched
+her as they stood lined up on the path with knapsacks, staffs, and all
+the paraphernalia needed for the hike.
+
+The several bird calls attested that the band were all on hand, and then
+they filed up on the veranda before their Director as lunch-baskets were
+opened for inspection, so that she could see that each one had been
+properly prepared and was in a "relishy condition," as Helen explained
+to Nathalie.
+
+In a few moments the inspection was over and the girls tripped merrily
+down the walk and out of the gate, making such a hubbub with the clatter
+of their tongues that the doctor, as he came hurriedly up the path,
+teasingly put his fingers in his ears in intimation that they were
+making undue clamor.
+
+The Flower of the Family's knapsack bulged with a package of Aunt
+Jemima's Pancake Flour, suggestive of the flapjacks to be, while the
+Editor-in-chief, with a reporter-like air, carried a large note-book
+under her arm so as to feature the affair in the forthcoming "Pioneer."
+The Encyclopedia was lumbered with two musty volumes on flower lore, she
+explained, so as to be able to give all desired information on the
+various specimens that were to be gathered by the hikers.
+
+The Pot-Boiler's knapsack was not only stuffed with several
+mysterious-looking packages, but was glaringly conspicuous, that young
+lady, true to her name, having pasted a paper advertisement of an iron
+pot on its cover. The Sport carried a few garden implements: a small
+shovel, a rake, and a hoe, with which to burrow in the ground for those
+specimens that grew in a brook or in the mossy hollows in the woods. The
+Tike, as the privileged fag, carried a basket to fill with wild-flowers
+to be distributed to the shut-ins of the town hospital on their return.
+
+Each Pioneer, besides her lunch-box, carried a self-made
+note-book--Nathalie had spent several hours making hers--with a pencil
+attached for her flower specimens, data, and so forth. Nathalie felt a
+bit disappointed that she had not been able to buy a uniform, although
+Helen had said that it made no difference, for she noticed to her dismay
+that she was the only Pioneer minus that very desirable accessory, dear
+to the heart of every hiker.
+
+The girls had gone but half a block when a sudden cry of pleasure
+rippled through the line. Then, as one Pioneer, the girls gave their
+call in welcome to Dr. Homer, who, as Mrs. Morrow explained, was to take
+the place usually occupied by her husband, when the Pioneers were on a
+long hike.
+
+The doctor responded by giving the Boy Scout salute as he stood a moment
+with raised hat. When the girls filed by, to Nathalie's surprise he
+stepped to her side and asked, as he smiled in recognition, "May I have
+the pleasure of hiking with you?"
+
+Nathalie's cheeks bloomed pink at the remembrance of their last meeting,
+but her eyes brightened as she nodded an assent. Perhaps some of the
+girls felt a little envious as they saw whom the doctor had selected for
+the favor of his company, as he was a great favorite and had always
+proved a delightful companion. But they quickly stifled any feeling that
+jarred, as each one remembered that she had had her turn, and that now
+it was Nathalie's opportunity to have this pleasure as the new Pioneer.
+
+And Nathalie's turn added a zest and enjoyment to her first hike that
+was long remembered, for through Dr. Homer's kindness in imparting to
+her many stray bits of knowledge she was able to hide her greenness in
+wood-lore, bird-lore, and many of the activities in which the other
+Pioneers were so proficient.
+
+The Pioneers had barely reached the open when the Sport and one of the
+Orioles were despatched by the Director to blaze a trail. In order to
+give this advance corps a chance to get ahead, the rest of the company
+rested on the road, sitting down on the grass, or on some decayed tree
+trunk, while others practiced wall-scaling, among them Nathalie and the
+doctor, the latter acting as their instructor.
+
+This scaling feat meant stepping carefully upon the ledge of a stone
+wall that skirted the road, and then springing down as quickly and
+lightly as possible, so as not to dislodge stray stones and bring them
+rattling after one. This forerunner of other feats to come led the
+doctor to tell how a Scout practiced wall-scaling; sometimes by standing
+on the shoulders of another Scout, and then climbing a high wooden
+fence, which was claimed by many to be a more difficult performance than
+scaling a stone wall. This, of course, proved an incentive for the girls
+to do their best, especially Nathalie, who as a city-bred girl did not
+want to prove a laggard.
+
+A few minutes later, as they resumed their tramp, Nathalie's face grew
+radiant as she suddenly spied a tree near with a penknife notch on the
+bark. "Oh, girls, here is the trail! Go this way!" she cried excitedly,
+pointing as she spoke to the notched sign of a twig bent at the end,
+making it look somewhat like the point of a broken arrow. As she was
+coming to be a zealous student of the bent-twig signs, the trail-blazing
+system invented for the Pioneers, she explained a number of these
+bent-twig signs to the doctor, who was deeply interested and not only
+told of the many signs used by the Scouts, but showed her the trees that
+were the easiest to cut.
+
+Chatting, laughing, and singing--for the girls vied with the birds in
+their joyousness that summer morning--making bird calls, alternating with
+notch-making and flower-gathering made the time pass swiftly. The new
+Pioneer was amazed when Dr. Homer pulled out his watch and looking at
+his pedometer said that they had walked four miles, and that in a short
+time they would hit the wood trail, where they were to camp for dinner.
+
+Nathalie's flower-box was soon full of specimens that she had gathered
+from the roadside and the meadow where her lesson in wall-scaling came
+in handy. Perhaps this wild flower hunt proved but a small part of her
+pleasure, for as she strolled along the doctor proved most companionable
+as he coached her in hike knowledge.
+
+Never walk over anything you can go around, he had told her, and never
+step on anything you can step over, for every time you step on anything
+you lift the weight of your body, which makes more to carry when
+tramping. He also made her laugh heartily when he insisted upon
+examining the footwear of the hikers, expounding as he did so upon the
+foolishness of damsels in general, who would insist upon wearing shoes
+either too big or too small for them. The small shoes, he said, crowded
+the feet, and the big ones added extra weight, and made them road-weary
+before the tramp was half over.
+
+He also told her about the weather signs; a low cloud moving swiftly
+indicated coolness; hard-edged clouds, wind; rolled or jagged clouds,
+strong wind; and a mackerel sky, a whole day of fair weather. Nathalie,
+perhaps to show this young man with the smiling gray eyes who looked at
+you so fearlessly that she, too, did know just a tiny bit about weather
+signs, sang softly:
+
+  "Hark to the East Wind's song from the sea,
+  Blowing the misty clouds o'er lea;
+  Shaking the sheaves of golden grain
+  With the patter of the rain;
+  Giving the earth a cooling drink,
+  Washing the flow'rs a brighter pink.
+  Hark to the West Wind's song of cheer
+  Bringing blue sky and weather clear;
+  Driving away the clouds so gray
+  Filling the earth with sunlight's ray;
+  Cheering the hearts of those who mourn,
+  Filling the dark with golden dawn."
+
+When the little lecture had ended she had learned that when a slack rope
+tightens, when smoke beats down, when the sun is red in the morning, or
+when there is a yellowish or greenish sunset it means rain; how to tell
+which way the wind blows by pulling blades of grass and then letting the
+wind blow them, or to suck your thumb and let the wind blow around it,
+the cool side telling the tale.
+
+To be sure, they were all simple things to learn, but they were the
+essentials of life, as the doctor said, who had a most jolly manner of
+giving his stray bits of information, all the while making so much
+sport, as he ambled on, that Nathalie was sure she would remember
+everything he had told her.
+
+When the girls reached the wood with its cool, damp shade, moss-grown
+paths, and running brooklet, they set to work with renewed vigor to hunt
+for specimens. The Sport, notwithstanding the fun the girls had made of
+her garden implements, found that they were in great demand. For a time
+she was the star hiker, as first one and another pleaded, "Oh, Edith,
+just let me have that rake a minute!" or, "Oh, I see the dandiest little
+blue flower here in this crevice!" and so on.
+
+When they finally grew tired of flower-hunting they pushed their way to
+a level space in the open on the edge of the woods, where knapsacks,
+frying-pans, pots, and all such camping utensils were hastily thrown on
+the grass, and the girls hied themselves to the spring to wash their
+heated cheeks and rearrange their tangled tresses. Some, more
+venturesome than the others, took off their shoes and stockings and
+waded in the brook's cooling flow, while the older ones, summoned by a
+series of bird calls, hurried back to camp to prepare dinner.
+
+To their delight, as the girls returned from the spring, they found that
+Dr. Homer had built an Indian "wickiup," that is a dome-shaped wigwam,
+by sticking in the ground in a circle a number of limber poles. The ones
+the doctor had used were willow wands, but almost any kind of a bough
+would do, he claimed. He then showed the girls how he had bent the tops
+of each pair of opposites or poles forward until they met. The ends were
+then interlocked and tied firmly. Over this impromptu wigwam--for it had
+been made with no tool but his strong penknife--he had thrown a blanket
+shawl.
+
+The girls were all much interested in the Indian wigwam for this was the
+simplest way of making a tent, and they examined it eagerly. They were
+especially interested when the doctor told them that one time when he
+had lost his trail up in the Maine woods, he had made a dome-shaped
+wigwam and had rested in its shelter, high and dry, during a severe
+storm.
+
+When the novelty of the wigwam had worn off, every girl declared herself
+famished for something to eat, and the dinner committee hustled about
+picking up small dry twigs, which were placed in a heap, lightly, so as
+to draw the air. These were then covered with the heavier sticks until
+the desired height for a campfire was reached. Several fires were to be
+started, as no time was to be wasted in cooking the edibles.
+
+When all was in readiness, there was a general call for Nathalie, who,
+as the new Pioneer, was to take her first lesson in lighting a fire with
+only one match. Every Pioneer, of course, was eager to show her how to
+do this feat, but Mrs. Morrow silenced the clamor by assigning the task
+to Helen.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Morrow--I think--" Nathalie stopped, a sudden roguish expression
+flittered over her face, and then she meekly followed Helen to the
+wood-pile and stood silent as she watched that young lady scratch her
+match, hold it in the hollow of her hand, and then, with a soft puff,
+kneel, and apply it to a twig.
+
+The twig was obstinate, however, and Helen's one match attempt was a
+decided failure. The Sport now offered her services as instructor, but
+Nathalie, feeling sorry for Helen, who with a crestfallen air had
+retired to the ranks of onlookers, cried, "Oh, no, Mrs. Morrow, can't I
+try by myself?"
+
+As the Director nodded an assent, while the doctor laughingly declared
+she would have beginner's luck, Nathalie took her match, examined it
+carefully, and then scratched it on the box. A tiny blue flame quivered
+in the air, which she carefully sheltered with her hand as she knelt
+before the heap of twigs, and blew, oh, so softly. It must have been a
+magic blow, for as she bent down and held it to the smallest twig she
+could find, almost a wisp of straw, it spread itself to the air, caught
+the twig in its flame, and in another moment drifting spurts of smoke
+showed that Nathalie had lighted the fire with one match!
+
+The doctor whistled softly as he saw that Nathalie had succeeded, but
+before she could regain an upright position, the Pioneers had broken
+forth into loud clapping, somewhat to her confusion as she stood with
+the blackened match still in her hand.
+
+Should she tell, she pondered, as her glance swept from face to face of
+the applauding girls; then as she saw the amused look in the doctor's
+eyes, as he stood with folded arms leaning against a tree watching her,
+she gave a little laugh. She opened her lips to speak, but when the
+clapping continued, as if each Pioneer was bent on seeing who could clap
+the loudest, she raised her hand as she had seen Mrs. Morrow and Helen
+do sometimes.
+
+This appeal had the desired effect, and as the clapping dwindled,
+Nathalie, with a nervous laugh, cried, "Girls, please don't clap me any
+more, for I do not deserve it. This is not the first time I have lighted
+a fire with a single match. A few summers ago I camped up in the Maine
+woods. The second day at camp some one upset a pail of water on the box
+with our match supply, and as only one dry box was left, and it was some
+miles to the nearest settlement, we were compelled to economize, and
+were allowed only one match to light a fire. I was going to tell you,"
+she gave a little ripple of laughter, "but you were all so anxious to
+show me I did not want to spoil your fun, and then as I have not
+attempted the feat since that summer, I did not know whether I could do
+it again or not."
+
+A circle of stones was now placed around the fires so as to prevent them
+from spreading in case of a strong wind, and then the lunch-boxes were
+opened. It was not long before the savory fumes of frying frankfurters,
+boiling cocoa, and flapjacks signified that a camp dinner was in
+progress.
+
+The girls found a level rock on which they spread a cloth and small
+board, and then the bread was cut and buttered in a way that showed that
+they were experts at the task. Nathalie made the cocoa, counting noses
+as she put in a teaspoonful of cocoa to every cup of boiling water,
+letting it boil three minutes by the watch of the doctor, who had kindly
+offered to help his little hike-mate, as he called her.
+
+The hikers now seated themselves around the fires--for there were
+three--and then something happened that held Nathalie with reverent awe
+for she saw Mrs. Morrow's face sober with a sweet seriousness, as she
+gave the signal for silence. Every head was quickly lowered in response
+to this signal, and then a timid voice--it belonged to the Flower--broke
+the reverent stillness by softly chanting a blessing to the Giver of all
+good.
+
+Each girl had brought her own tin cup, plate, knife and fork, lump of
+sugar, and napkin. Pats of butter were now distributed, followed by the
+molasses jug, so as to be ready for the flapjacks that were now browning
+to a turn. The "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of delight that burst forth as the
+cakes found their way around the circle amply repaid the baker for her
+reddened face and hard labor over the burning fagots.
+
+Of course there had to be mishaps; the first piece of bacon to grease
+the griddle dropped into the fire instead of the pan, and a number of
+cakes turned out failures and had to be consigned to the waste-heap. But
+it was a regular hike spread, and meant lots and lots of fun, especially
+when the pancake contest was started.
+
+This was something new to Nathalie, and she quite enjoyed it as she
+watched one girl after the other take her turn in making a flapjack. She
+first poured the batter on the griddle in just the right quantity, and
+then skillfully tossed it high in air as she turned it, so that it would
+land in just the right place on the pan and finish to just the right
+shade of brown.
+
+All the party, even the doctor, tried their hands at this feat, all but
+the new Pioneer, who shrank back, afraid to venture as she knew that
+expertness came only with many trials. But the girls were persistent and
+so good-natured in trying to show her that she felt a little ashamed,
+especially when Mrs. Morrow, who was jotting down the names of the
+experts for merit badges, repeated softly, "I can!"
+
+Nathalie immediately sprang up, and although feeling that she would make
+a perfect goose of herself at this new trial, took the little pitcher,
+poured out the batter, and then with a quaking heart watched it darken.
+Ah, she slipped the turner under, and was just about to give it the
+magic toss when her hand slipped, and batter and turner fell into the
+flames.
+
+She was so disgusted with this dismal attempt that she would have liked
+to disappear to parts unknown if the doctor had not cried, "Ah, just one
+more trial, I know you will get it this time!" To her unutterable
+astonishment the doctor's prediction came true, and she really tossed a
+flapjack with such success that her hike-mate declared it was "the best
+ever," and begged permission to eat it in memory of the plucky deed.
+
+Of course Grace, Louise, and Helen each won a badge, as was discovered
+when the contest was over. But even feasting has its limitations on a
+warm day in June, and as the edibles disappeared the hike spread came to
+an end. The Tike and one of the Bob Whites were now despatched to the
+spring for some water, while the rest of the hikers--all but Mrs. Morrow,
+who was escorted to the wigwam for a siesta--flew hither and thither,
+filling the pots with water to boil off the grease, rubbing the griddle
+with sand, and so on.
+
+As Nathalie and the doctor were jabbing the knives in the dirt to clean
+them, Helen came running up crying, "Oh, what do you suppose the
+water-carriers are up to? They have been gone an awfully long time and
+we have not a drop of water to wash the dishes?"
+
+"I will go and see!" exclaimed the doctor, jumping up hastily, but he
+had not gone more than a few steps when a shrill scream broke the
+brooding silence of the woods. In another instant pots, pans, and dishes
+were flung broadcast as every one made a wild rush in the direction of
+the spring, headed by the doctor. As the doctor reached the spring,
+however, and saw that the screams did not issue from that quarter he
+turned, and with a few flying leaps reached the scene of disaster, some
+distance down the stream.
+
+The girls started to run after him, but in a moment his loud laughter
+brought them to a standstill, for surely it could not be anything very
+serious or he would not be indulging in such levity! Helen and the
+Sport, however, who had rushed steadily on, were not far behind the
+doctor, and as they swung around the bend of the trees, they beheld a
+diminutive figure, sputtering and gasping, with rivulets of water
+trickling from bedraggled garments and locks, being assisted up the bank
+by the doctor's strong arm!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII--AROUND THE CHEER FIRE
+
+
+The sorry-looking object proved to be the Tike, who between sobs and
+shivery shakes explained, as the party surrounded her, that tempted by
+the mirror-like surface of a dark pool in the middle of the brook she
+had stooped to see if she could see her face in it. Unfortunately, her
+knee slipped on a loose stone, and she had tumbled in.
+
+With much laughter and merriment the girls made a stretcher, tumbled the
+somewhat subdued fag into it, and then set off for the wigwam, where
+Miss Carol was speedily disrobed and her clothes hung out to dry, as the
+girls merrily sang, "on a hickory limb!"
+
+Bundled up in wraps after a few drops of stimulant had been administered
+to prevent her taking cold, which made her drowsy, she was left to the
+ministrations of the dream fairies, while the girls hurried off to wash
+the dishes and finish cleaning up. While this was being performed, the
+doctor showed Nathalie how to throw dirt or water on the fires--all but
+one, which was left for a cheer fire--so as to be sure that they were all
+out. The girls, he said, had learned a lesson last summer when they left
+a fire smoldering when they struck camp. It soon burst into a blaze and
+if it hadn't been for a party of Scouts who had been off for a tramp the
+woods would have been on fire.
+
+Camp duties done, the cheer fire blazed a welcome and the girls hastily
+circled around it, and were soon busily engaged in packing the roots of
+their wild flowers with clay, wrapping them in big leaves and tying them
+securely with sweet grasses or string. They were then placed in the
+Tike's basket to delight the heart of some shut-in, whose only outing
+was from the window.
+
+When this task was completed the flower specimens were laid in rows, and
+then Helen as leader, gave the names of her specimens; each girl having
+a like specimen laid it carefully between a sheet of blotting paper to
+remove the moisture, and then pressed it deftly in her note-book, where
+it was fastened with gummed paper across the stems and thick parts of
+the plant. Under each flower was now written its botanical name, its
+common name, the date of finding it, its habitat, and any other data
+that could be obtained from the Encyclopedia, who, with flower books
+spread before her, was kept busy supplying all the needed information.
+
+Each odd specimen was passed around for inspection, and then the lucky
+finder jubilantly placed it on record, while others wrote additional
+information as to the insects that visit it, whether it is a
+pollen-bearer, if it slept at night, or closed in the sun. The doctor
+supplemented Barbara's book lore by stray bits of knowledge that he had
+picked up from actual experience in his many scout rambles. The girls
+were only too pleased to listen, being particularly interested in his
+account of the evolution of color in flowers.
+
+When the time came for telling cheer fire stories, Mrs. Morrow suggested
+that they should be flower stories, stipulating, however, that the
+legends told should be about the specimens that had been found in that
+day's hike.
+
+With this, the doctor, who was lying on the grass by the side of
+Nathalie, pulled off his hat which she had decorated with a dandelion
+wreath, and waving it high so every one could see it in its yellow
+glory, said he would start the wheel of yarns by telling about the
+maiden with the fluffy cobweb hair.
+
+As he said "hair," Lillie Bell rose, and in ready imitation of the
+renowned Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm tragically intoned:
+
+  "Robaire! Robaire!
+  Let down your hair!"
+
+The girls burst into peals of laughter, for even in the sleepy town of
+Westport every one had seen the beloved Rebecca, and keenly appreciated
+Lillie's timely pose.
+
+"But this slim bit of a girl," smiled the doctor, "didn't let down her
+yellow tresses, they just flew with the wind, until Shawondassee--this is
+an Indian legend--the South Wind saw her. Instead of seeking this
+witching maiden, whom he admired so deeply, he was lulled to sleep by
+the fragrance of the summer flowers and forgot all about her. The next
+day he again spied his yellow charmer away off among the grasses of the
+meadows, but after lazily wishing she would come to him he snoozed off
+again. To his horror, the next day he found that the maiden's tresses
+were gone, and that in her place stood an old woman who looked as if
+Jack Frost had sprinkled her with his silver dust.
+
+"'Ah,' sighed Shawondassee, 'my brother the North Wind has done this
+wrong.' So he hurriedly arose and blew his horn loud and fierce to the
+whitened figure standing so forlornly out in the fields. But alas, as
+his soft breezes whistled gently about the old woman, her snow-white
+hair fell to the ground, and then she, too, soon disappeared, leaving
+nothing but a few upright stems and a bunch of withered leaves. She was
+the dandelion, whose petals turn to fluffy hair when touched by the
+North Wind. This yellow maiden is said to be a symbol of the sun, and
+has been named Dandelion because it is claimed that its petals resemble
+a lion's tooth."
+
+The common little field flower seemed to have gained in interest after
+the legend, and was examined with greater curiosity, while the Scribe
+hurriedly wrote the legend on a stray page of her copy-pad to feature it
+in the "Pioneer."
+
+Lillie Bell, who had gathered a number of wild forget-me-nots, told a
+pathetic German legend about that sweetheart flower, while Helen
+explained that the marigold, instead of being such a common plant, was
+in reality the bride of the sun. It was once a maiden named Caltha, who,
+in reward for her faithfulness to the sun, was finally lost in his
+golden rays, and on the spot where she used to stand and gaze at her
+fiery lover the marigold grew.
+
+Nathalie, who had been deeply interested in the legends, experienced
+somewhat of a shock when Mrs. Morrow suddenly said, "Now, Nathalie, are
+we not to hear a flower legend, or some kind of a story from you?"
+
+"Oh, I am a poor hand at story-telling," the girl speedily answered.
+
+"Hear! hear! this is treason!" called Helen loudly, "for a Pioneer who
+has won fame as a Story Lady!"
+
+"Oh, that is different," pleaded her friend in mild despair, "those were
+only children's stories."
+
+"To be able to tell stories to children, Nathalie, and to keep their
+attention," spoke Mrs. Morrow, "shows ability, and if we have so gifted
+a Pioneer I think it is our due to hear from her."
+
+"And then, Nathalie," urged Grace, "every Pioneer has to know how to
+tell stories, and this is a good time to make a beginning."
+
+"Well, I see I am doomed, notwithstanding my protests," said the girl
+after a short pause. "I will try to tell one if you will let me put on
+my thinking-cap for a moment." As permission was accorded to this
+request, Nathalie turned and glanced helplessly at the doctor, as if she
+might find inspiration in his merry eyes, Helen laughingly declared.
+
+Nathalie blushed as the doctor shook his head and said, "No, hike-mate,
+I am at your service in everything but a story, for I ran dry when I
+told mine. Then I know you have nerve and brains enough to do your own
+thinking."
+
+"Oh, I know one!" the girl suddenly cried as her face lighted, and then
+closing her eyes for a moment, as if to invoke the aid of some unknown
+muse, she said, "I read it in a newspaper the other day. It is about a
+flower, but I will let you guess its name."
+
+"It was in the spring," she continued slowly, "and old Peboan sat alone
+in his ragged tepee. His hair fell about his time-worn face like
+glistening icicles as he shivered in his fur robes; oh, so cold, so weak
+and hungry, for he had had no food for days. As he bent over to blow
+upon the smoldering embers that glowed at his feet, he besought the
+Great Spirit to come to his aid.
+
+"As he thus prayed and lamented a handsome young girl stepped within the
+tent. Her eyes were as blue as the summer sky and were filled with a
+liquid light, while her golden hair floated gracefully with the wind.
+Her cheeks were like apple blossoms and her gown was made of sweet
+grasses and green leaves. In her arms she carried twigs of the
+pussy-willow. Going softly to the old man, she cried in a voice as sweet
+as the brook's gentle flow, 'Peboan, what can I do for thee?'
+
+"The old man raised his head as he heard the maiden's sweet voice, and
+as he saw her in her spring glory he cried bitterly, 'I am hungry and
+cold. I have lost my power over nature, for the streams have refused to
+stand still for me. My mantle disappears from the earth as rapidly as I
+cover it, and the flowers are peeping from their brown beds, although I
+have bidden them sleep.'
+
+"'Peboan,' replied the maiden, 'I am Seguin, the summer manitou; the
+flowers are obeying me, for I have bidden them arise. The leaves are
+budding on the trees, the pussies are out in all their furry finery, for
+I, Seguin, now possess the earth. The snow and ice have disappeared, for
+they have obeyed my voice, and your power is gone. All nature pays me
+homage, for I am the Queen of the earth, the Goddess of spring!
+
+"'Peboan, you are the winter manitou, and the Great Spirit calls you!
+Now go!' As Seguin said these words she gently waved her wand over the
+old man's head as it sank between his shoulders.
+
+"The winter manitou made no reply, but drew his furs closer about his
+shivering form, and then, as he heard the song of the spring birds, and
+the rustling of the leaves in the sunshine, he sank to the ground.
+
+"As a ray of the warm sun filtered through the top of the tepee and fell
+upon the old man, who lay exhausted on the earth; Seguin again raised
+her wand, and the winter manitou disappeared. His furs had turned to
+dancing leaves; his tepee to a tall tree. Then Seguin stooped, and
+gathering a handful of the leaves from the tree she breathed on
+them--very softly--and then threw them on the earth. They immediately
+stood upright, each holding forth a tiny pink flower, gay with a
+delicate perfume.
+
+"'Grow and blossom,' cried the spring maiden softly, 'and bloom a
+welcome to the hearts of those who are depressed by winter's gales, for
+you are a token that Peboan, the winter manitou is gone. You are the
+first flower that comes in the spring.' Now what is the name of it?"
+ended Nathalie abruptly.
+
+"Snowdrop!" called Helen quickly. Nathalie shook her head.
+
+"Violet!" timidly ventured some one.
+
+"Violet?" the Sport repeated scornfully. "Who ever heard of a pink
+violet? Nathalie said this flower was pink."
+
+Mrs. Morrow broke the sudden silence that followed the Sport's remark by
+saying softly, "I think it is the arbutus!"
+
+"That's it!" cried Nathalie, and then to her bewilderment every one
+began to clap again. As the clapping continued, the girls meanwhile,
+watching her with sparkling eyes, Nathalie turned and whispered to the
+doctor, "Why, what are they clapping for?"
+
+But before he could reply the Sport shouted, "Hurrah for the Story
+Lady!"
+
+The cry was repeated again and again to Nathalie's confusion. In a
+moment, however, her wits asserted themselves, and springing to her
+feet, with a low sweeping courtesy she cried, "Thank you, fellow
+Pioneers, I am glad you liked my first cheer-fire story!"
+
+The clapping now subsided, and after several had expressed their
+admiration by saying that the story was the "best ever," Mrs. Morrow
+started a floral conundrum, which proved a thriller, the doctor claimed,
+as he sat with humorous eyes and watched the girls, who all sat up and
+took notice, as one after the other called out the name of a flower in
+answer to the questions propounded by their Director.
+
+When the questions had all been answered, it was discovered that the
+names of the star actors in this little floral drama, the color of their
+eyes, hair, and so on, as well as the musical instrument played by the
+lover, the words of his proposal, the wedding, and even the time and
+place of the honeymoon, had all been answered by the names of flowers.
+
+Lillie Bell, at Mrs. Morrow's request, took her mandolin, and after
+thrumming it softly broke into a quaint low strain of melody, while
+Louise sang in her sweet little soprano voice, "All in a Garden Fair,"
+"Fortune My Foe," and "Nymphs and Shepherds," each number being one of a
+group of old English songs dating as far back as 1555. After receiving
+an encore, Louise favored them with "Polly Willis," and "Golden Slumber
+Kiss Your Eyes," two more popular ballads of the seventeenth century.
+
+These old-time songs were a surprise for Mrs. Morrow, who had often been
+heard to remark that it was a pity, as they were Pioneers, that they did
+not know some of the songs that used to be sung in those days, instead
+of ragtime songs. But ragtime was not altogether displaced, for in a few
+minutes the girls were singing "The Sweet Little Girl with the Quaint
+Squeegee," "Dry yo' Eyes," and "My Little Dream Girl," with a verve and
+gusto that made the woods resound to the ring of their girlish voices.
+
+By this time cramped limbs and the joyousness of life asserted
+themselves, and every one began to feel that they wanted to run, leap,
+and jump, so at the doctor's suggestion they played the Scout game of
+"Stalking." The doctor was the deer, not hiding, but standing and moving
+a little now and then as he liked, while the girls vied with one another
+in trying to touch him without being seen.
+
+The doctor did his part so well that he was duly tantalizing, the
+Pioneers declared, as they watched him with strained eyes, being unable
+to catch him napping. When the doctor called "Time," the game ended by
+all the girls coming to a halt on the spot where they were standing when
+the call sounded, the girl nearest the deer winning the game.
+
+Prisoner's Base was then started; the goals were marked off, the players
+divided into two sections, one stationed in each goal, and then the fun
+began. A girl would advance towards the opposite goal, and then run back
+into safety, while one of her mates came to her rescue by chasing her
+pursuer, who, in turn, was rescued by one of her own mates. The rushing
+about gave health, glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes attesting that
+muscles, limbs, and blood were being exercised to a good purpose. But
+after the doctor had again defeated them by never getting caught, the
+game was abandoned, the girls all vowing he was magic-limbed, for he was
+so quick and agile on his feet.
+
+After a short time spent in practicing bird calls, as it was nearing the
+time to return home the hikers gathered up their belongings, packed
+their knapsacks, and with staffs in hand started out on the homeward
+hike. They all declared that they were not a bit fatigued by the day's
+activities, and jested merrily one with another, or happily sang
+snatches of songs as they wended their way back to town.
+
+By the time they had reached the cross-roads their spirits had subsided
+somewhat, all but the Sport's, who teasingly whisked off Barbara's hat
+and the next instant was whizzing down the road with it clutched in her
+hand.
+
+Barbara, notwithstanding her weighty nickname of the Encyclopedia, was
+agile, and lost no time in flying after her, urged to speed by the
+girls. Although inclined to poke fun sometimes at Barbara for her
+absent-mindedness and love of books, the girls were her firm friends.
+They loved her for her kindly heart and sincere efforts to help others.
+
+There was a shout of victory when it was seen that the Encyclopedia had
+captured her head-gear, and they were all clapping vociferously when an
+automobile rounded the bend in the road. The car turned out to be the
+doctor's, whose chauffeur had promised to meet him near the cross-roads
+as he had to be in his office by five that afternoon.
+
+The doctor quickly assisted Mrs. Morrow into the car as she had decided
+to ride, and then stood and waited while the Pioneers--two of whom had
+been invited to join their Director--urged Kitty with her iron pot, and
+the Flower with her griddle to accept the invitation.
+
+The girls finally consented, and with many waves of the hands to the
+pedestrians, and a loud honk, honk, the car glided down the road and out
+of sight.
+
+Helen, Nathalie, and Edith, as they lived near one another, bade their
+mates good-by, and, as they had decided to take a short cut home, turned
+down a side path. As they strolled slowly along a road running by a low
+stone wall hedging a pasture, where a brook twisted like a silver cord
+in the undulating grass, Edith asked her companions if they did not want
+to walk to the Bluff, where they would have a fine view of the bay in
+the distance.
+
+"Oh, yes," assented Helen, "it is a lovely view, Nathalie, and will only
+be a step out of the way if we go by the brook."
+
+Nathalie, although feeling somewhat tired, was anxious to visit the
+Bluff, and a minute later the three girls climbed the stone barricade
+and were keeping pace with the brook's windings as it leaped
+boisterously over a bed of stones, or crept lingeringly, with murmuring
+ripples, between grass-fringed banks.
+
+Presently they wandered into the shade of the trees, where, to
+Nathalie's surprise, she found the old brook bed. Instead of being earth
+and stones, however, it was green and flower-starred, overshadowed by
+weeping willows and silver birches, their interlaced tops bending low as
+if seeking their old-time friend with its murmuring song.
+
+Lulled by the mossy dell and the fragrance of the woodland posies, the
+girls loitered, and did not realize that the afternoon was waning until
+they reached the Bluff. They raced to the top, where Nathalie's joy at
+being the fleetest was forgotten, as with stilled eyes she gazed upon
+the fertile strip of valley below, its green specked by tiny white
+cottages and washed by the waters of the bay that shone in the glow of
+the setting sun like a sheet of brass.
+
+The air was becoming chilled by the mist that was hovering in the
+distance, and they turned and quickly made their way back to the road.
+Whereupon, Edith insisted that they take the summit road, leading over a
+small hill at one end of the town, which she declared would save time.
+
+Her companions assented, and in a short space they were pantingly
+trudging up the slope, and then, beginning to realize how tired they
+were, they sat down on a rock near the edge of the summit to rest. Lured
+by the changing colors of the afterglow they grew silent, awed, perhaps,
+by the calm that hushes all nature when the light of day is fading into
+the misty shadows of twilight.
+
+Nathalie had turned from the mountains of pink foam that floated up from
+the golden west, and was gazing down at the town, where little twinkling
+lights were beginning to peep here and there between the tree-tops, when
+Edith suddenly cried, "Oh, look at that smoke!" pointing to a street
+just below the slope where black columns of smoke were rushing upward.
+
+"Some one must be making a big bonfire," answered Helen inertly, as her
+eyes followed the direction of Edith's finger.
+
+"Why, Helen, that is not a bonfire," was the Sport's quick retort. "Oh,
+I saw a flame shoot up!" she added excitedly.
+
+"So did I!" exclaimed Nathalie, springing on her feet. "And oh, there's
+another."
+
+"Why, the church is on fire!" shouted Edith. "There--don't you see--the
+flames are coming out of the back!"
+
+The girls with dazed eyes and beating hearts looked at the old Methodist
+church, set back from a tree mantled road, within a few feet of a white
+cottage, the parsonage, that nested like some white bird in the shelter
+of the waving boughs of the trees.
+
+"Oh, girls," wailed the Sport, as she turned abruptly and gazed at them
+with an awe-struck countenance; "it is the church--and the new organ--they
+were to finish it to-day!" She wrung her hands frantically.
+
+Her companions made no reply, their eyes were glued on the columns of
+smoke that hurtled in dense masses up into the air.
+
+"I don't believe any one knows about it!" exclaimed Helen. "Oh, what
+shall we do? It will be of no use to shout 'Fire!' we are too far away."
+
+"Oh, I know what we can do," cried Edith heatedly. "We can run to the
+fire-house and give the alarm!"
+
+But Helen had already started forward, and Nathalie followed blindly,
+not even knowing where the fire-house was. Edith, like the flash of a
+flame, shot ahead of the two girls, and the next instant was tearing
+like some wild thing down the hill. In a few moments she had turned up a
+road and was speeding in the direction of a red house with a funny
+little cupola that loomed up above the small cottages surrounding it.
+
+"Fire!" yelled the Sport, as she tore frantically along. Helen took up
+the cry, but Nathalie, although she tried to follow her example, only
+succeeded in making a hoarse sound that died away almost as soon as it
+left her whitened lips.
+
+As her breath began to come in gasps she was half tempted to stop and
+let the other two girls give the alarm. But something told her that
+would not be the act of a Pioneer, and she struggled on until she
+arrived in front of the old ramshackle building with the red cupola
+which looked as if it had once done service as a barn.
+
+"Oh, there is no one here!" panted Helen as she beat frenziedly with her
+two hands on the big wooden door. "It is barred inside."
+
+But the Sport, like a whirlwind, had flown around to the rear of the
+building, and the next moment was crawling through a window she had
+found unfastened. It took but a moment's time to speed across the floor,
+give the bar a pull, and fling wide the door.
+
+[Illustration: The rope had broken in her grasp.]
+
+"We must ring the bell," gasped Helen, as she glanced up at an old rope
+that dangled in the center of the fire-house from a big bell which hung
+motionless in the small tower above their heads.
+
+The three girls sprang for the rope, but the Sport was the quickest and
+caught the dangling rope in her hands. Summoning all her strength she
+gave it a hard pull. The next instant, as the loud clang of the bell
+rang out, the girls heard a sudden imprecation, and looked hastily down
+to see the Sport with a rueful countenance sitting on the floor--the rope
+had broken in her grasp!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV--OVERCOMES
+
+
+The girls gazed in wide-eyed surprise at their prostrate companion, and
+then, as they saw that she was not hurt, their sense of humor broke
+bounds, and they burst into merry peals of laughter, for she did look so
+comical sitting there with that "Where--am--I?" sort of look on her face.
+
+But the Sport was too excited to mind bumps or laughter as she jumped up
+and peered above her head. "The rope has broken!" she exclaimed
+irritably. "Oh, if I could only get hold of that broken end up there,"
+her eyes leaped quickly around the barn, "I could ring the bell again.
+Oh, there's a ladder!" With an alert spring she had grabbed it and then
+began to drag it under the tower.
+
+The girls by this time had recovered from their unwonted merriment, and,
+feeling somewhat ashamed of leaving the Sport to work unaided, rushed to
+her assistance. They soon had the ladder resting against a broad beam
+that ran across the barn directly under the tower where the broken piece
+of rope still swung.
+
+Up the ladder climbed Edith, high to the top, but alas, she was just a
+few inches short of touching the swaying rope, which she now perceived
+was fastened to a chain that hung from the bell.
+
+"Oh, what will you do?" cried Helen, as the two girls stretched their
+necks almost off their shoulders to see if there was not some way out of
+the difficulty.
+
+"I know what I will do," exclaimed the Sport suddenly. "I will climb up
+on the beam, walk a few steps, and then I can reach it."
+
+"You will fall!" exclaimed Nathalie in nervous fear.
+
+"Oh, no, she won't," called out Helen hastily. "You don't know Edith;
+that's an easy feat for her, for she's a regular acrobat. But, Edith, be
+careful!" she finished, with sudden anxiety, as she saw the girl climb
+up on the beam and then lift herself upright.
+
+Nathalie, with her breath held, watched Edith for a moment, and then as
+she saw her reach out to catch the dangling rope, she closed her eyes,
+thrilled in every nerve with silent terror for fear she would miss her
+footing.
+
+But she didn't, for when Nathalie opened her eyes just for a hurried
+peep, she saw Edith with the rope in her hand. The next instant she had
+bent to her task and a loud "Clang! Clang!" rang sharply out.
+
+"One, two, three!" a moment's pause, then, "One, two, three!" Twice this
+was repeated as the girls stood waiting below with their eyes fixed on
+the ringer's every movement; Helen, fearful that she would become
+reckless and reach too far, while Nathalie obeyed an impulse she could
+not define and just watched in nervous tension.
+
+Ah, she had dropped her arms and was looking down at the girls. "What
+are you standing there for, ninnies?" she emphasized with a stamp of her
+foot that sent a shiver of horror through Nathalie's wildly beating
+heart. "Why don't you go and get the engine out?"
+
+"Oh, so we can," rejoined Helen quickly. "I never thought! Come, you
+help me!" catching Nathalie by the arm.
+
+Nathalie turned and followed Helen, who had swiftly run to the
+fire-engine, a newly painted affair, a box on wheels, standing in the
+rear of the fire-house. With an alert spring she was close at Helen's
+heels, and in a moment more had grabbed one of the two ropes tied to the
+front axle. Helen, who stood with the other rope in her hand, now cried,
+"Quick, let's run it out to the road!"
+
+It rolled easily, and the two girls were just about to wheel it through
+the open door, when a man in a red shirt, leather hat, and his trousers
+tucked into his rubber boots dashed hurriedly up to them.
+
+"Where's the fire?" he panted. With heated face and eyes bulging
+excitement he seized the rope from Nathalie's hand, and the next minute,
+with Helen's help, had run the engine out into the road.
+
+"The Methodist church is on fire!" yelled the Sport from her high perch
+on the beam, but there was no need to say more, for several other men
+had arrived, all in red shirts and firemen's helmets, while others were
+seen racing from all directions towards the fire-house. In a few
+moments' time a crowd had collected, each one bent in lending a hand,
+and all shouting with full vocal power as if they thought--so it seemed
+to Nathalie--their shouts would put out the fire.
+
+In the midst of this clamorous din, another rubber-booted individual
+appeared, not only in fireman's regalia, but with a big brass trumpet.
+On this he blew a mighty blast, and then with much gesticulation
+bellowed his orders to the men.
+
+A final order from the chief, as the man with the trumpet proved to be,
+and the six or eight men holding the ropes of the engine started at
+breakneck speed down the hill. They were followed by a crowd of shouting
+men, women, hooting boys, and crying children, each one frenzied with
+excitement and with the avowed purpose of being first at the fire.
+
+The girls, for by this time Edith had descended from her perilous perch,
+stood silent and watched the engine whiz down the slope leading to the
+town, the red-shirted firemen in front of it shouting angrily in their
+endeavors to stop the rear men from pushing it down on their heels too
+rapidly.
+
+But Edith, who was never still two minutes if there was anything going
+on, with a wild, "Hoopla, I'm going to see the fire!" started in the
+wake of the hooting mob, running at a speed that soon made her one of
+the rank and file that went plunging down the hill.
+
+Helen's eyes followed the flying figure, and then, with a "Come on,
+don't let the Sport outdo us!" she was racing after her. Nathalie,
+bewildered by this strange and novel experience that had leaped into her
+life, stood still, uncertain what to do. She felt a sudden abhorrence of
+mingling with the fire-crazed crowd that surged before her. Brought up
+to keep away from these spectacular affairs of the city, she felt she
+would be transgressing all laws of decorum if she followed her friends.
+But the impulse to do as the other Pioneers did spurred her on, and with
+a quick leap forward she cast all conventionalities to the wind, and
+started on a dead run to catch up with Helen.
+
+The girls were too quick for her and she arrived in front of the church
+only to make one more of a densely packed crowd of fire-seekers standing
+opposite the burning building, wild-eyed and weirdly pale from the
+reflection of the flaming tongues of red, which darted upward with a
+licking greediness that made the wooden building crack and snap under
+their devouring greed.
+
+Spying Edith a few feet away, she hastily pushed through the jam of
+people to her side, only to hear her scream frantically, "Look out,
+Nathalie!" But the warning came too late, for a shower of water had
+already struck her in the back with terrific force, almost bowling her
+over. Ugh! it was running down her back with such icy spray that she
+screamed aloud, and then shrank back as jeering laughter from those
+standing by greeted her mishap.
+
+But their merriment was short-lived, as the water deluge came again and
+Nathalie saw the contortions that shot from face to face of her
+neighbors as with shrill cries they tried to dodge to one side in their
+frantic endeavors to escape. In the midst of the confusion some one
+suddenly bellowed, "Run for your lives, the hose has burst!"
+
+There were more shouts of dismay from the crowd of struggling, fighting
+figures, and then they had scattered. Edith by this time had grabbed
+Nathalie by the hand and in a moment or so she was safe on a neighboring
+porch.
+
+"O dear, what will they do?" lamented Edith. "That hose is the only one
+in town!" For a few moments it looked as if not only the church but the
+parsonage and the adjacent buildings were to fall victims to the blazing
+flames that swept upward and outward with shooting jets between tall
+columns of black rolling smoke.
+
+"They are going to form a bucket brigade!" shouted Edith suddenly into
+Nathalie's ear. The words had barely passed her lips when she dropped
+her companion's cold fingers, and was racing with a crowd of men, women,
+and boys towards a pond a short distance away.
+
+Nathalie stood still and gazed with suppressed excitement at this new
+development of the fire-crazed people. It seemed to her as if every one
+in Westport must have owned a bucket from the number of people that
+sped--as if magic swept--towards the pond, where a long line of human
+beings, with a deftness and quickness that amazed her, were already
+passing buckets from one to the other and then on to the firemen who
+formed a line across the road in front of the church.
+
+Each fireman would grab a bucket, pass it on to his mate, who in turn
+passed it on to the next one, and so on, until its contents had been
+splashed on the seething flames. Then just as quickly it was shoved by
+way of another line back to the pond to be filled again and once more
+hurried on its journey of rescue.
+
+"Come, get busy!" some one suddenly yelled at this crisis. "They are
+forming another line at the pump!" Nathalie swung about to see Fred
+Tyson holding out to her an empty bucket. The unexpectedness of this new
+demand upon her overwrought nerves tempted her to scurry to parts
+unknown, as she backed away from Fred with the startled exclamation, "O
+dear, no!"
+
+Fred, realizing how she felt, looked down at her with a reassuring smile
+as he answered, "Come, you must help; you are a Pioneer--it will be a
+fine experience for you!" Nathalie, without a word, grabbed the bucket
+and in another second was running swiftly by the side of this new friend
+as he guided her to the pump.
+
+An hour later Nathalie appeared at the corner of the street leading to
+her home. Weary, bedraggled, sooted from head to foot, and with gleaming
+beads of perspiration running over her face, she was still jubilant. She
+had been to a real fire, and, what is more, had helped to put it out.
+For the buckets had done their work, and although the church stood a
+framework of glowing embers, the parsonage and other buildings had been
+saved.
+
+She was so glad when she saw she was nearing her home, that, as she
+informed Fred, who had accompanied her, she felt like dancing a jig on
+her head from sheer joy, although she was not only tired to the verge of
+distraction, but faint from hunger.
+
+"Oh, and there's Mother! I guess she's been almost worried to death,"
+she exclaimed as she spied her mother standing on the veranda anxiously
+peering down the path.
+
+"Well, I guess she has been almost worried to death!" exclaimed a voice,
+as a white-robed figure stepped out from the shadows of the trees on the
+lawn.
+
+It was Lucille. "If it hadn't been for me, Nathalie Page," she
+emphasized with upheld finger, "your mother would have been down to the
+fire herself. She was sure you were the first one burned to death. Why,
+you ought to be ashamed of yourself, Nathalie Page!" she averred
+indignantly.
+
+But there was no need to lecture Nathalie further, for her heart had
+been thumping violently in nervous dread all the way home, and she was
+already scurrying up the walk to the stoop. "Oh, Mother," she panted,
+"did you think something dreadful had happened to me?"
+
+"Well, I was quite nervous about you for a time," replied her mother
+rather cheerily for one who had been almost worried to death, as she put
+her arm around the tired girl. "Lucille obligingly started to look for
+you, and met Dr. Homer, who said you were all right, helping put the
+fire out as a bucket maiden. But, my dear, you are all wet, and hungry,
+too, I'll warrant."
+
+"You just believe I am," cried Nathalie. "But, oh, Mother, I have had
+such an adventurous day! Do let me have something to eat, for I'm just
+about starved, but, O dear, where's Fred Tyson; he came home with me?"
+
+Fred was all right, having the cosiest of chats with Lucille--whom all
+men adored from youth to old age--as they walked up the path to the
+veranda. Would he come in and have supper? Why, he guessed he would, for
+he hadn't had a mouthful since noon.
+
+"By the Lord Harry, is that you, Blue Robin?" spoke a voice from the
+couch as Nathalie ushered Fred into the hall. "Gee, but you are as black
+as a colored 'pusson,'" quoth Dick, as he rose from the couch and
+hobbled towards her.
+
+It was a most exciting supper, eagerly devoured by Fred and Nathalie, as
+between bites, with glowing eyes, each one told of her or his
+experience. Nathalie told of the ringing of the fire bell, the exploits
+of the Sport, and how she did duty at the pump.
+
+"Oh, Mother, it has just been a regular red-letter day!" she cried at
+length, "and I'm never again going to despise Edith Whiton for being
+sporty, for if it hadn't been for her, I just believe the whole town
+would have burned down!"
+
+The second day after the fire was a Pioneer Rally day, a Camp Fund day
+it had been called, for it was at this meeting that the Pioneers were to
+decide upon the entertainments they proposed having in order to raise
+the money to pay the cost of two or three weeks at camp that summer. One
+or two affairs had been held during the winter and spring, so that a
+small nucleus had been banked, but if this was not increased the hearts
+of the Pioneers would be "wrung with woe," as the Sport had put it.
+
+After the usual formalities of the Rally were over, Mrs. Morrow called
+the names of those who for some meritorious act or word were to receive
+badges of merit. To Nathalie's astonishment her name was called, and at
+a shove from Helen the dazed girl went forward, and received three white
+stars, one for suggesting the search-party and sticking to her colors in
+the face of discouragement, another for telling stories to Rosy, and the
+last for planning and getting up the Story Club. She received the stars,
+Mrs. Morrow explained, as badges of merit were not given until a Pioneer
+had passed all tests and was a member of the first order.
+
+The Sport received two badges--being a first class Pioneer--one for
+winning a contest in wigwagging, and another for ringing the bell for
+the church fire. Helen was also the recipient of a badge for her
+planning and excellent supervision of the Flower hike, while the Scribe
+received one for her skill in editing the "Pioneer," which had come to
+be a journal not only of news, but of information.
+
+"And now," cried their Director, as she finished distributing the
+badges, "I am going to talk about the Camping Fund. As you all know, we
+must have one or two entertainments to raise money for that purpose.
+Several ideas have been submitted in compliance with my request for
+suggestions from the girls, but unfortunately, while a number are very
+good, only a few will suit our purpose. There is one, however, that is
+both patriotic and colonial, but it would require a large lawn and I am
+at a loss what to say about it. I think you all understand that the
+Pioneer who suggests the best entertainment, although her name is to be
+kept secret until the end of the season, is to receive some kind of a
+reward."
+
+"Could we not ask Mrs. Van Vorst again if she would let us have her
+grounds?" ventured Louise Gaynor somewhat timidly, realizing that the
+lady in question was not in favor with the Pioneers because of her
+rather eccentric ways.
+
+"Well, I should say not!" broke in Edith. "She has refused two or three
+times already, and if there is an insane person there--" She stopped
+abruptly, rebuked by a warning look from Mrs. Morrow.
+
+"No, I do not think I would bother Mrs. Van Vorst again," said that
+lady. "But suppose I name a committee to see if they cannot scour the
+town and find a lawn." Helen, Louise, and Nathalie were then named to
+perform this duty.
+
+During this discussion Nathalie's eyes had sparkled with suppressed
+emotion as she remembered her visit to the gray house, accompanied by an
+overwhelming desire to tell what she knew. Oh, wouldn't it create a
+sensation? But she had given her word, and like the Spartan boy,
+although desire was gnawing at her vitals, she kept still and smiled in
+evident ease.
+
+"There is another entertainment that has been suggested," continued the
+Director. "It is an excellent idea for it will put you all to work
+thinking. It is to be called Pioneer Stunts, which means that each one
+of you is to be responsible for a recitation, a tableau, a song, a
+playlet, in fact anything that is colonial or pioneer in character. Each
+Pioneer is to work out her own idea, and all ideas are to be kept secret
+until after the performance, when a vote will be taken as to the best
+stunt--that is, the best idea, and the stunt acted the best--and then the
+name of the author will be revealed."
+
+The girls received this notice with applause, and each one immediately
+began to suggest one thing and another until warned by Mrs. Morrow again
+that the ideas were to remain secrets. After some further discussion it
+was decided to have the Pioneer Stunts the first part of June, at Seton
+Hall, Mrs. Morrow suggesting that the girls make it a Rose party and
+serve ice-cream and strawberries on the lawn.
+
+Nathalie came home very enthusiastic about the Pioneer Stunt
+entertainment, and immediately set to work to jot down the idea that had
+come to her at the Rally. In the midst of writing her mother joined her
+and sat down to sew.
+
+"Oh, Mother," exclaimed the girl happily, "I'm awfully busy."
+
+"And working very hard, I see," interposed Mrs. Page, smiling at her
+daughter's animated face, as she patted the sunburned arm resting on the
+table.
+
+"Yes," replied Nathalie, "I have an awful lot to do." And then she told
+about the entertainment, and what she was planning. With a long drawn
+sigh she cried, "Oh, Mumsie, I'm learning a terrible lot of useful
+things."
+
+"I see you are," assented her mother, "and I am proud of you."
+
+"Oh, but they have not been a bit easy!" The girl's face grew grave.
+"Sometimes I have thought I would have to give right up, but I haven't,"
+she added with an emphatic little nod. And then for the first time she
+told her mother about the motto, "I Can," and what a great help she had
+found it.
+
+"Yes, Daughter, every little thing Miss I Can has helped you to do has
+been an overcome."
+
+"Indeed they have been overcomes," assented the girl with another
+emphatic shake of her brown head. "Washing dishes--oh, how I used to hate
+that job--now I don't mind it so much; cooking, telling stories to Rosy,
+going to the fire, yes, and even getting up the Story Club. I have just
+braced up, and then the first thing I knew, presto! the job was done!
+
+"Yes, they have all been overcomes," repeated Nathalie, "but it will be
+all right if I only manage to earn--" She paused abruptly, suddenly
+remembering, as she saw the lines of worry about her mother's mouth,
+that she and Dick had pledged themselves not to talk about his
+operation, or to hint that they were trying to save in any way for it.
+They had both been troubled when they realized that when an anxiety was
+mentioned her mother's face lost its happy look and she became sad and
+worried.
+
+"Yes," added Mrs. Page, not noticing Nathalie's sudden pause, "I have
+been watching you for some time grappling with these try-outs that have
+come into your life, but I have said nothing, for I wanted to see if you
+or they would conquer."
+
+"Oh, you dear Mumsie," cried Nathalie joyously, jumping up and giving
+her mother a good hug. "Do you know, I felt dreadfully the other day to
+think you had not said one word of praise; not that I want to be praised
+all the time, but still a word now and then comes in handy, you know;
+makes one feel so goody-goody." This was said laughingly.
+
+Nathalie could not help feeling encouraged after this comforting talk
+with her mother; she felt as if she had conquered the whole world, that
+there was nothing she could not overcome. But the next morning such a
+big overcome, or try-out, as her mother had expressed it, appeared, that
+it sufficed to lessen the glory of her former victories.
+
+Lucille was ill; she had retired to her bed with a fit of indigestion,
+and the planning for the Pioneer Stunt, the survey work that Nathalie
+and her committee were to do, all had to be laid aside as she was
+instituted head nurse in her cousin's room.
+
+"Oh, Mother," she moaned dolefully, as she kissed her mother good-night,
+"Lucille has been dreadfully cross; nothing pleases her. It has been,
+'Oh, Nathalie, don't let that wind blow on me! Didn't I tell you I don't
+like rice pudding! Oh, you're the slowest poke!' Oh, Mother--" there was
+a lump in the girl's throat, "if I hadn't felt so humiliated at being
+spoken to in that way, I just believe I would have given her a good
+shaking."
+
+"Never mind, Nathalie," replied Mrs. Page consolingly, "just remember it
+is another overcome and have patience. She will soon be herself again,
+you know she has been terribly upset, as she expected to spend a few
+days with her friend and she is disappointed."
+
+"Of course, no one ever had a disappointment but Lucille!" exclaimed
+Nathalie irritably.
+
+"Nathalie!" reproved her mother, with a quick glance at the girl.
+
+"Oh, well, it's so, Mumsie," replied her daughter with the tears very
+near the surface, and then with another kiss she hurried to her bed.
+
+"Have you got your Stunt written?" inquired Helen a few days later from
+her window as Nathalie sat writing on the veranda. She held her hand up
+and flourished a couple of typewritten pages as she spoke.
+
+"No, I'm discouraged," Nathalie lowered her voice. "Lucille has been
+ill, and I have been kept awfully busy waiting on her. Then when I
+finally managed to get time to go to the library to get some dates, I
+lost the whole thing."
+
+"What--the idea?"
+
+"Yes, the idea, and everything. I had been in the library some time and
+had just finished. I did not discover my loss until I was almost home,
+so I hurried back, but the librarian knew nothing about it. I hunted
+until I was distracted, and then I came home; so that is the end of
+that. This morning I am trying to think up another one."
+
+"Couldn't you remember it?" questioned Helen concernedly.
+
+"No, I tried to, but I've been so busy it has just flown away."
+
+"Well, you are a lucky girl to have brains enough to have more than one
+idea in your head to write up. You should have seen the Sport; she was
+over here last night, the picture of unadulterated woe, for she could
+not even scare up one idea. She hung around trying to get some
+suggestions from me, but I just told her she would have to do her own
+work. She's the best ever when it comes to anything in the way of
+sports, or any activity, but she will not use her brains. She has a few,
+at least."
+
+"If she would spend more time reading instead of--" Nathalie stopped with
+slightly reddened face, for here was another overcome to win. She was
+thoughtless at times, never having been disciplined, and so, without
+meaning any harm, she was apt to express her opinion too freely about
+the people around her. "Oh, well," she ended lamely, "she is a good
+Sport; if it hadn't been for her the other night the town would have
+burned down."
+
+"That's true," laughed Helen good-naturedly, and then with a wave of her
+typewritten pages she disappeared from the window, as Nathalie turned
+and with a dimpling face greeted Dr. Morrow, who had just driven up to
+visit Lucille.
+
+"You haven't come to see me this time," she suggested archly.
+
+"Oh, it's half and half this time, Blue Robin, for I have come to
+ask--oh, it is a message from the princess." The doctor lowered his voice
+cautiously as he noted Dick at the other end of the veranda. "She wants
+to know if you will make her another visit."
+
+Nathalie's bright face sobered and an embarrassed silence followed as
+she vainly tried to think of something that would excuse her from the
+unpleasantness of having her eyes blindfolded again.
+
+"Why, yes, I would like to go, only you see I am very busy just now,
+helping Mother and doing Pioneer work, and--"
+
+"Yes, I see," interrupted the doctor somewhat coldly, with a keen glance
+at Nathalie's downcast face. "Then I will tell her you are busy."
+
+"Oh, don't say that," cried the girl in desperation. "It
+sounds--well--tell her I will come some time later." She felt the blood
+rush to her face.
+
+"Oh, I'll manage to make her understand somehow," answered the doctor.
+Nathalie sensed a note of disappointment in his voice, and then without
+further parley he hurried up the stairs to Lucille.
+
+"Mother," questioned Nathalie a few minutes later, for she had confided
+to her all about the adventure at the gray house, "do you think I ought
+to visit the princess again?" She then told what had transpired between
+her and the doctor.
+
+"You must be your own judge, Nathalie," replied Mrs. Page slowly. "I
+agree with you that it is a foolish thing for the child's mother to ask
+you to visit her in this way, but perhaps she may be induced to change
+her mind. But, after all, Nathalie, it is a small thing to
+overcome"--Mrs. Page emphasized the word--"when you can give the little
+girl so much pleasure by going."
+
+"O dear!" thought Nathalie, as she stood waiting for the doctor to come
+down-stairs a moment or so later, "it does seem that since I have become
+a Pioneer I am just overcoming things all the time. Funny, but these
+things never troubled me before." "Oh, Doctor," she exclaimed eagerly,
+as that gentleman's genial face appeared in the doorway, "I have changed
+my mind, and if you like I will go with you to see the princess."
+
+An hour later Nathalie was greeted with a cry of delight from her new
+friend, who clapped her hands and called, "Oh, Mother, she has come!"
+Nathalie, imprisoned behind the muffler, rejoiced at heart to think she
+had won another overcome.
+
+"How do you do?" spoke Mrs. Van Vorst's low voice, and then the girl's
+hand was taken in a cordial clasp. "It is so good of you to come; oh, if
+you could only realize the joy you have brought into my child's life,
+and mine, too!" she added quickly.
+
+"I am very glad," replied Nathalie simply, as Mrs. Van Vorst led her to
+a seat by the couch.
+
+"Here, sit by me--no, not on that chair," commanded her Royal Highness.
+Nathalie felt a tug at her skirt, she was jerked suddenly down, and then
+two arms were thrown around her neck. A hand touched her face, softly at
+first, and then with a loud, "There, you are not going to sit with that
+horrid thing on your face again, I just hate it!" there came a sudden
+wrench, something gave way, the blinders were on the floor, and Nathalie
+was looking at the face of the princess with free, untrammeled eyes!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV--A CHAPTER OF SURPRISES
+
+
+Nathalie gave a gasp of relief. Oh, it was good to be rid of that
+horrible black handkerchief! Then her blinders faded into the past as
+she became aware of the eyes that were gazing into hers, blue ones with
+violet shadows, fringed by long black lashes!
+
+The eyes were set in the face of a girl about fourteen, that had,
+notwithstanding the pain-tired mouth with its lines of petulance, a
+winsome sweetness about it which partly atoned for a jagged crimson scar
+running across one end of the forehead, partly hidden by short, curly
+hair which was boyishly parted on one side.
+
+But the blue eyes were gleeful just at this moment, as if their owner
+was proud of her deftness in slipping off the handkerchief. She clapped
+her hands and cried, "Oh, aren't you glad to get rid of that horrid
+black thing?"
+
+Raising herself on her elbow she drew Nathalie's face down to hers and
+whispered, "Don't say a word to Mother, but it was all arranged--the
+doctor and I managed it--let Mother think it was an accident." Before
+Nathalie could remonstrate the princess called out with a merry trill in
+her voice, "Oh, Mother! come quick, Miss Page's blinders have fallen
+off!"
+
+Nathalie flushed in embarrassed silence as she heard Mrs. Van Vorst's
+step hurrying to the couch. O dear, what should she do? It certainly was
+awkward to have to deceive her. Oh, if the doctor would--but as she
+turned around to face the lady in question she saw that the doctor was
+not there.
+
+"The doctor has gone, he had an important call to make," spoke Mrs. Van
+Vorst hurriedly, as she came towards the girls and saw Nathalie's look
+of distress. "But never mind, Miss Page, it is all right," she cried
+reassuringly. "It was a shame to keep you muffled up like that--just for
+a whim--but if you could understand!" She looked down at Nathalie
+apologetically.
+
+"I should say it was a whim," broke in the princess, "and it just serves
+you right, too, for making her do it. Now Miss Page will go away and
+tell every one what a horrible-looking thing I am, and it will be all
+your fault because you are so afraid any one will see me, just as if I
+was a monster of some sort! Oh, Nathalie--can't I call you Nathalie?--the
+doctor told me your name, and then you know you are not so much older
+than I am."
+
+"I'm sixteen," answered Nathalie readily, glad to turn the conversation
+from the blinders, for she saw that Mrs. Van Vorst was greatly
+perturbed.
+
+"Oh, Nita, don't talk that way to Mother," cried Mrs. Van Vorst in a
+pained voice. "You know, dear, I only did what I thought was right, and
+it was to save you, people talk so!"
+
+"I don't care if they do," broke in Nita angrily. "I have as much right
+in this world as they have, even if I am ugly-looking with this scar and
+hump, they needn't look at me!"
+
+Nathalie started, for as the girl spoke she deliberately threw off a
+soft white shawl that had been thrown about her shoulders. With a sudden
+feeling of deep pity Nathalie recognized that the princess was a
+hump-back!
+
+"Oh, you won't hate me now, will you?" pleaded Nita suddenly, as she saw
+Nathalie's start of surprise, "just because I'm humped like a camel."
+She caught the girl's hand in hers and clung to it with piteous appeal
+in her blue eyes.
+
+"Oh, no," returned shocked Nathalie. "Why, I think you are lovely, even
+if you are--" But the word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden
+impulse, stooped forward and kissed the red lips.
+
+Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own boldness, two arms
+were flung around her neck and Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she
+thought she would smother. "Oh, I just love you!" said Nita's stifled
+voice from her shoulder, "and I'm going to keep you with me all the
+time. Oh, Mother," she wailed beseechingly, lifting her head, but still
+keeping Nathalie a prisoner, "won't you buy her?"
+
+"Buy her!" repeated her mother, who during this affectionate outburst
+had stood silently by, a pleased smile struggling with an expression of
+dismay at the girl's rudeness. "Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be
+bought and sold."
+
+"Well, I wish she was then," said the child, for she was but that,
+dropping her arms from Nathalie's neck and lying back with sudden
+exhaustion.
+
+"Oh, she is going to faint," cried dismayed Nathalie, while the mother
+rushed to the dresser for the smelling salts. But when she attempted to
+hold the bottle to Nita's nose, she pushed her mother's hand away
+crying, "Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room; I want
+Nathalie to myself!"
+
+And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray, who looked at her
+neighbors with a cold, formal stare of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went
+softly out of the room and closed the door after her in obedience to her
+daughter's sharp cry, "Do you hear? Shut the door!"
+
+Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she could not sit there
+another minute and hear the girl talk like that to her mother. "Oh,
+don't speak to your mother like that, she is so good to you!" the girl's
+voice trembled.
+
+"How do you know she is good?" retorted Nita, after a short pause of
+surprise at this merited rebuke.
+
+"Why--why--because her face shows it," stammered Nathalie, "and then, why
+she is your mother, and if I should talk to my mother like that, why--I
+should expect her to die then and there."
+
+"Why?" persisted the voice.
+
+"Because it would hurt her so,--" Nathalie labored, she hated to
+preach--"to think I could be so disrespectful to her, and ill-bred."
+
+"Well, your mother isn't my mother; your mother didn't shut you up in a
+dark room so that you tried to get away."
+
+"Nita!" came in a pain-stricken voice, "don't talk that way!"
+
+Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in the doorway, her face
+drawn and lined. "I was coming in to ask--oh, Miss Page, will you come in
+here a moment? I should like to speak to you."
+
+Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with pity for this poor
+mother who was only too surely paying the penalty of neglect and anger.
+"Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst," she cried hastily, "do not mind your daughter, she
+doesn't mean to hurt you, she--I think she is just spoiled, you know."
+
+By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst into the adjoining
+room, a sun-parlor, whose glass windows looked down upon a terraced
+garden, green with trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers,
+surrounded by low rolling hillocks or mounds.
+
+Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her displeasure in
+shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother, with set, rigid lips, closed the
+door softly, and then turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly,
+between deep-drawn breaths.
+
+"Oh, I have been foolish--I am afraid--in letting you come to see Nita,
+but oh, it is so hard for her, shut up in this house, with only me and
+the servants. So when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded
+so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But oh, Miss Page, do not,
+I beg of you, repeat what you have seen or heard, don't mind what Nita
+says about me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she
+says." The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst's face.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst," exclaimed Nathalie, tears misting in her eyes in
+sympathy with the lady's grief, "I know how you feel, but it is all
+right. I think you are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of
+course, I know that your daughter does not mean what she says, she's
+just spoiled." A sudden thought came to the girl. "Don't you think if
+you were to let her see people--that is girls of her own age--that she
+would be better? Oh, I am sure she would," broke from the girl
+impetuously, "and it would make her so happy!"
+
+"Do you really think so?" inquired Mrs. Van Vorst with a note of hope in
+her voice. "Would it not hurt her when people said rude things about
+her?"
+
+"But no one would say rude things about her," persisted Nathalie
+determinedly. "Every one would love her--she's a dear, so
+sweet-looking--and then she would soon get over her spoiled ways; she
+would learn by seeing that other girls act differently." Nathalie felt
+that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem such a shame!
+
+"I don't know about that," replied Mrs. Van Vorst, her face hardening
+again to the same impenetrable mask that had puzzled Nathalie the first
+time she met her. "Well, we will not discuss it now--we'll see how things
+turn out--only, Miss Page," she grew stiff and formal, although a note in
+her voice betrayed that she was battling with her emotion, "I should
+like to ask you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell--how
+foolish I was--" she broke off suddenly, and then she added, "of course,
+you have a right to tell; but let me explain that what Nita says is not
+true, she likes to tease me into getting her way. Sit down--oh--she has
+fallen asleep." Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door softly and then closed
+it. "She always does when she cries that way."
+
+"Yes, I have been foolish," she reiterated, "but I am not a criminal,
+and it is not altogether pride, because I have a deformed child, that
+makes me keep her secluded. It is because I want to save her, I would
+give my life for her happiness, but I can't--" there was a hopeless wail
+to her voice. "That is my punishment!" And then, as if reminded of what
+she wanted to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, "It is true that
+I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her--she has always had those
+temper spells--I never knew what to do with her. Some one told me I was
+too easy with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped crying
+I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried to get out, she said
+some one was chasing her, and climbed out on the shed and fell off the
+roof! She broke--her back!" Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face in her hands,
+but although no sounds came, Nathalie could see the convulsive shivers
+that shook her frame.
+
+The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was awful! Oh, but if she
+didn't say something she would be boo-hooing herself in a minute. "But
+that was not your fault," she cried with sudden inspiration. "It was
+right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, I should consider it
+just an accident that you could not help."
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl with wide,
+appealing eyes. "Oh, do you think that? If I could be led to believe I
+was not to blame! For years I have suffered the tortures of hell, doing
+penance."
+
+"Yes, and making yourself and your daughter miserable!" Nathalie spoke
+boldly, she couldn't help it, the words came of themselves as it seemed
+to her. "But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps I
+should not speak this way to you, for I am just a girl, but I feel so
+sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem such a shame to shut her off from
+all pleasure just because an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs.
+Morrow says we should regard trouble like clouds that we can't blow away
+unless we fill the atmosphere with sunshine." Nathalie came to a sudden
+stop, afraid she had gone beyond her depth. But in a moment she added,
+"Oh, if you would just think of it as an accident! Try to make Nita
+happy, and then you will be happy, and forget all about it!"
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst's eyes grew moist as she cried impulsively, "Oh, you are
+a dear girl to talk to me this way. I shall always remember it, always.
+Yes, you are right, I have been miserable and have been making my poor
+child so. Oh, I have been wrong!"
+
+Before Nathalie could answer, Nita's voice was heard shrilly crying,
+"Mother, I want Nathalie!"
+
+"I am coming," cried the girl, hurrying into the room and up to the
+couch. "Did you have a nice little nap?" she asked cheerily, as she
+patted the girl's hand that lay inertly on the coverlid.
+
+"Oh, I just dropped off, I always get so tired when I cry."
+
+"But why do you cry then?" questioned practical Nathalie.
+
+"Why--oh, I cried because Mamma took you away from me, and now you will
+be going soon, and I won't have had time to talk to you at all."
+
+"Oh, yes you will," replied her companion, glancing at the clock. "It is
+only eleven, I sha'n't go for another hour, so start right in and talk."
+
+"But I don't want to talk," came the contrary answer. "I want to hear
+you talk. Please tell me about the Girl Pioneers. Did you go on the
+wild-flower hike?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" was the answer; and then Nathalie's tongue flew as she told
+about the hike, the different things they did, how she had learned to
+blaze a trail, what a delightful companion Dr. Homer had proved, how she
+lighted the fire with only one match, about the Tike's escapade, and the
+flower legends.
+
+"Oh, but the fire, I must tell you about the fire and the bucket
+brigade!" she cried, and then followed that exciting story with all its
+climaxes, and what fun it had proved, although, as the girl confessed,
+she had been tempted to run away several times.
+
+"I just wish I could have seen it all!" exclaimed Nita regretfully, as
+Nathalie paused for a rest. "I should have liked to go on that flower
+hike, and the flower legends, can't you tell them to me? I just love
+flowers!"
+
+"Why yes, perhaps I can," nodded the Story Lady. And then in a moment
+she was animatedly telling about the Forget-me-not lover, the Dandelion
+legend, and then last of all about the spring goddess who brought the
+arbutus.
+
+"What are you going to do next?" inquired her listener as Nathalie's
+flower stories ended.
+
+"We are all busy now getting up entertainments; that is, we are thinking
+up ideas for the Pioneer Stunts. You know, we are anxious to make money
+for our Camp Fund, and--"
+
+"Camp Fund! what is that?" inquired the girl interestedly.
+
+"Why, the Pioneers, that is the Bluebirds, the Bob Whites, and the
+Orioles, are going camping this summer, probably in August, or as soon
+as we can raise the money. There are sixteen Pioneers going. Oh, I am
+sure we shall have a dandy time! We are to sleep in tents, but there
+will be a house or something for the dining room and kitchen, that is,
+if we can get them."
+
+"Where are you going to get the tents to sleep in?"
+
+"Helen and I are to make our own tent, Fred Tyson is going to help us.
+It will take an awfully long time, we are to begin next week. The other
+tents, well, some of the girls have their own and then we shall borrow
+one or two. Of course, you know, each girl will have to pay her expenses
+to camp and back, but all the other expenses are expected to come out of
+the Fund, so you see we shall have a lot of work to do. We are to charge
+admission to the Pioneer Stunts." And then Nathalie told of the novel
+way they were to get ideas, and how each girl was to keep her idea a
+secret until after the vote had been taken as to the best Stunt the
+night of the performance.
+
+"Have you got your idea yet?" inquired Nita eagerly. "Oh, I just bet
+your idea will be the best one of all!"
+
+"Oh, no," answered Nathalie modestly, "far from it! I am awfully worried
+for fear it will be a terrible failure." And then she told how she had
+lost her idea and was writing up another one.
+
+"Well, after you have the Stunts, what are you going to have?" demanded
+Nita eagerly.
+
+"We want to have a flag drill, that is, if we can get the ground for it,
+as we want to have it in the open. Oh, it will be the loveliest thing!
+The girls are to be Daughters of Liberty and carry banners, the little
+flags used by the different States and soldiers before and during the
+revolution, before we had the Stars and Stripes. Oh, did I tell you that
+all of our entertainments have to be either colonial or patriotic, that
+is, something that happened in or belonged to the early days of the
+nation, when all the people were pioneers, or the children of pioneers?"
+
+"When are you going to have the flag drill? Oh, how I should like to see
+it!"
+
+"I have rattled on so fast I forgot to say that--why--we are not sure
+about that, for, you see, we have got to get a lawn, or grounds that
+would be suitable." Her face reddened, for she suddenly remembered that
+it was Mrs. Van Vorst's lawn that the girls had wanted, and that she had
+refused to let them have it.
+
+"You see," she explained awkwardly, "we want a place where the people
+can see us, and then we want to have booths decorated with our
+colors--they are Red, White, and Blue, you know--so we can sell ice-cream.
+Each table is to be named after one of the thirteen States; but there, I
+don't believe we can have it."
+
+"Mamma, come here quick," called Nita imperiously, sitting up and
+peering into the sun parlor where her mother was seated sewing, "I want
+you to hear about the Flag Drill, and oh, Mother, won't you let me see
+it? Oh, please, Mother, I can go all muffled up, no one will see me,"
+pleaded the girlish voice pathetically.
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst bent over and softly stroked the golden head as she
+cried, "Now dear, don't get excited! Mother will do all she can for
+you."
+
+"You tell _her_ about it!" broke from Nita hurriedly, as she pulled at
+Nathalie's gown. Then falling back on the couch she exclaimed with
+determination, "But I'm going to see it, Mother, yes I am!"
+
+Somewhat hesitatingly Nathalie began, but in a moment, perceiving that
+her listener was much interested, she launched forth and told about the
+Flag Drill in all its details.
+
+"And you are going to use the money you make for your Camping Fund?"
+inquired Nita's mother as Nathalie finished.
+
+Nathalie nodded, "That is, if we can get the right place to hold it--oh--"
+she flushed again and then grew suddenly silent.
+
+"Did not one of the Pioneers ask me if I would let them have my lawn in
+the rear of the house?"
+
+Before embarrassed Nathalie could answer, Nita interposed excitedly,
+"Our lawn? Oh, let them have it, Mamma, let them have it, and then I can
+see it from the window, and no one will see me, oh, say yes, Mamma!"
+
+Nathalie's eyes looked dismay as she heard Nita's wailing request. Of
+course Mrs. Van Vorst would refuse, but suppose she should think that
+she had urged Nita to ask her?
+
+"Why, I suppose they could," answered Mrs. Van Vorst slowly. "Then, as
+you say, you could see it from the window, Nita; yes the Pioneers can
+have it!"
+
+"Oh, do you really mean it?" exclaimed Nathalie, almost as excited as
+Nita. "The girls will be just crazy with joy--and--oh, isn't it funny? I
+was one of a committee of three to find a place, and--"
+
+"Well, you will not have to look any further," replied Mrs. Van Vorst.
+"If my lawn suits, take it, child. I am sure I am only too glad to do
+anything for the brave girl who has been so kind to my Nita as to come
+here and make her happy."
+
+"That is lovely of you," rejoined the Pioneer, her eyes glowing, "and
+can we have it this month, the fourteenth? That is Flag Day, you know,
+and we wanted to have it then."
+
+"Have it whenever you like, my dear. I will tell Peter to have the grass
+mowed, and if he can help you in any way in arranging the tables or
+anything, I shall be delighted to let you have his services."
+
+"Oh, that will be the delightfulest thing!" The girl's face radiated
+sunshine. "It seems just too lovely to be true!"
+
+But the surprise Nathalie held in store for the Pioneers was almost
+forgotten in the surprise that awaited her when after saying good-by to
+Nita, Mrs. Van Vorst met her at the foot of the staircase and asked if
+she would not come into the reception-room a minute.
+
+"I wanted to speak to you on a little matter of business," the lady
+explained somewhat hesitatingly. Nathalie, wondering what terrible thing
+she had done or said, followed her silently into the room, where she
+again spied her Chinese friend, the mandarin, grinning at her from the
+cabinet.
+
+"I have been thinking it over, Miss Page--"
+
+"O dear," thought poor Nathalie, "she is going to change her mind about
+the drill!"
+
+"And I wanted to know--of course this is a business proposition--" she
+paused. "You have given so much pleasure to Nita, I thought perhaps you
+might be willing to come regularly every day, say for a couple of
+hours."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst," cried relieved Nathalie, "that would be just fine!
+I should be only too glad, but you know, I have things to do for Mother,
+we haven't any maid at present."
+
+"But would it not pay you to give up these things, or let some one else
+do them? It would only be two hours in the morning," there was a
+persuasive note in her voice, "and of course I would pay you enough to
+make it worth your while, and oh, I would give anything to bring joy
+into--"
+
+She stopped, for there was something in the girl's wide opened eyes that
+made her hesitate.
+
+"Oh, I would not like to take money just for talking to Nita--that would
+hardly be fair--" Nathalie floundered desperately, for something brought
+Dick and his operation to her mind, and she did want so badly to earn
+money. She caught her breath sharply, opened her mouth, and then said,
+"Why, I don't know, I will see what Mother says and let you know."
+
+"That will be just the thing," was the reply. "You can drop me a note as
+soon as you decide, for Nita will be anxious, and then we will want to
+fix the days and times. If you can make up your mind to do this for me,
+Miss Page, I shall feel so indebted to you!"
+
+As Nathalie flew post-haste towards home she heard the chug of an
+automobile and looked up in time to see Dr. Morrow sweep past in his
+car. But he, too, had eyes, and a moment later had backed his car and
+was asking Nathalie if she would like a ride home. The girl was only too
+pleased to accept, as she was fairly brimming over with impatience to
+tell some one her two surprises. They had not gone far before the story
+was out, and the doctor had heard everything.
+
+"Well now, I call that luck," declared the doctor, "and of course you
+said you would accept Mrs. Van Vorst's offer?"
+
+"Why, no," answered the girl hesitatingly, "I should love to do it, but
+I don't know that I ought to take money for it."
+
+"And why not?" queried Dr. Morrow with some surprise. "Isn't money as
+much to you as to other people?"
+
+"Oh, yes," laughed honest Nathalie; "of course I would like the money, I
+am just dying to earn money for Dick." The girl stopped with frightened
+eyes; oh, what was she going to tell? "But then it doesn't seem exactly
+right to take money just for talking, and I don't know how Mother would
+feel about it, she might feel badly." Nathalie choked, and her eyes
+filled with tears as she remembered how hard it was for her mother to
+think of even Dick earning money when he was so helpless.
+
+"You haven't got to if you don't want to, little Blue Robin," declared
+her friend, who perhaps suspected how things were. "But I tell you what,
+friend Nathalie--" emphatically--"if I had a nice little voice like a
+certain Robin I know, with big brown eyes, and knew how to use those big
+eyes and that sweet little tru-al-lee of a voice by telling people
+stories, or talking to them--it's all the same--well, I'd waste no time in
+accepting that offer. And then, too, see what pleasure it would bring
+Nita and her mother, too, for that matter. Of course, I'm a man and look
+at things from a commercial point of view; ah, here we are!" And then
+with a cheery farewell the doctor helped the girl out of the car and
+Nathalie walked slowly up the path.
+
+To Nathalie's surprise, her mother thought as the doctor did about the
+matter. She was not hurt at all, but overjoyed to think that Nathalie
+was clever enough to earn money that way.
+
+"Why, Nathalie," she mused, pleasantly, "you can do lots of things with
+the money you earn. It probably won't be much, but it will give you
+pin-money, and a few necessities. Perhaps it will pay your way to camp!"
+
+"Now, Mumsie," laughed the girl with a trill of glee in her voice,
+"remember about counting your chicks before they're hatched!"
+
+She turned and ran swiftly up-stairs, and after imparting her good news
+to Dick, she sat down and penned her note to Mrs. Van Vorst, all her
+doubts and fears at rest. And she knew what she would do with the money,
+it came like a flash into her mind as she looked up and saw Dick
+plodding through an official-looking document.
+
+After the note was mailed, there were just a few minutes left to run
+over and tell Mrs. Morrow what had transpired in regard to the lawn for
+the Flag Drill, and to announce, with joy shining in every feature, that
+they could have the drill on the fourteenth. Then came a few minutes at
+Helen's, where the news was also told, two surprises, Nathalie declared,
+after she had unburdened herself to that young lady of the many things
+she had been bottling up for the last few weeks.
+
+But Nathalie's day of surprises was to bear more fruit, for about five
+o'clock the postman delivered a package by parcel post, a big box that
+had a very mysterious look about it. "I don't see what it can be?" she
+soliloquized, as she looked at the address. And then, "Oh, Mother, do
+you know where the scissors are?" as she found that her fingers were too
+unsteady with haste to untie the string.
+
+Dick, however, after hearing her excited outcry, had whipped out a
+penknife. There was a zip, the string was off, the box slipped out of
+the paper, and then the girl, with radiant, mystified eyes, was looking
+down at a Pioneer uniform, a jaunty little affair, with its red tie and
+red-banded hat to complete the outfit.
+
+"Don't stand there and gape at it any longer, Nathalie," imperiously
+voiced Dick, with an odd gleam in his eyes. "Look at the card and see
+who sent it!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI--PIONEER STUNTS
+
+
+An exclamation escaped dazed Nathalie; and then a search was started,
+resulting at last in finding the card in one of the pockets of the
+skirt. Another cry issued from the finder as she read:
+
+           "To Nathalie, my faithful little nurse and helper.
+                                                   "Lucille."
+
+"O dear!" said the girl with a shamed glance into the faces surrounding
+her, "I will never again say that Lucille is cross--oh, she is a duck of
+a dear! It is the very thing I want, too. Now I shall not be the only
+Pioneer without a uniform. I must run and tell Helen!" In another moment
+she was racing with mad speed across the lawn, the uniform bulging out
+of the half-opened box in her arms.
+
+In a short space she came speeding back, crying, "Oh, Mother, where is
+Lucille? I must go and thank her this very minute!"
+
+"Up in her room, I think," spoke up Dick, but Nathalie was already
+half-way up the stairs.
+
+"Lucille, it was just too lovely of you to think of me this way!" cried
+the girl rapturously; and then before Lucille realized what was going to
+happen, she was receiving a hug that threatened to demolish her
+entirely. "There, Nathalie Page," she cried, "that's more than enough;
+please leave just a wee bit of me, I'll take your thanks for granted."
+
+"No, you won't!" persisted Nathalie with another hug. "I'm here to give
+them to you in person." She loosened her hold so her cousin could
+breathe and then began to kiss her softly on the cheek. "Oh, but,
+Lucille, it was lovely of you to think of it," she ended as she finally
+freed her cousin, who ruefully began to twist up a few stray locks that
+had been pulled down in the hugging process.
+
+"Oh, pshaw, I don't want any thanks," Lucille responded as she finished
+tucking up her hair. "As long as you are pleased, it's all right."
+
+"But I'm serious, Lucille, for you have heaped coals of fire on my head,
+I'll have to 'fess that I was not a bit pleasant about waiting on you,
+because, you see, I had so much to see to with the Pioneer Stunts, the
+work, and everything, and then--"
+
+"And then," mimicked Lucille with a mischievous glint in her eyes, "I'm
+an awful cross patient; is that it? But it's all right, Nat, turn about
+is fair play, and if you had felt as badly as I did those few days, to
+miss it all, the anticipated good times at Bessie's, well, you would
+have been cross, too."
+
+"Oh, I know it, and I was worse than you were, for I should have
+possessed my soul in patience, but it was perfectly dear of you to give
+me the uniform, and then to be so nice about it."
+
+"Well, I'm glad I'm nice," teased her cousin, "but run along, child, for
+I have about forty-seven letters to get off by this mail."
+
+And Nathalie, with a heart brimful of joy at the many surprises of the
+day, was very glad to hurry away and talk matters over with her mother.
+
+"What shall I talk to Nita about?" she lamented the next morning as she
+flew hither and thither, getting her work done in a jiffy so that she
+could reach the gray house by ten-thirty, the hour set for the talk with
+the princess, as Nathalie delighted to call her.
+
+"Mother, can't you suggest something?" she asked dolefully as she
+stooped to kiss her mother good-by. "I do feel that it will not be right
+for me to take money for just chattering nonsense, and Nita won't let me
+tell her stories."
+
+"Well, it does seem as if it was undue extravagance, but still, if Mrs.
+Van Vorst thinks you are worth paying in order to help make her child's
+life more enjoyable, it seems to me I should not worry about it."
+
+"Yes, I know, but if I could only tell her stories," rejoined the girl,
+"perhaps I could help her more, for I could make my stories instructive,
+about nature, history, or--"
+
+"That is true," was the answer. And then, as if reminded by the word
+history, she said, "Why not tell her stories about the Pioneer women?
+You say she is so interested in the Girl Pioneers. In that way you could
+teach her American history."
+
+"Oh, Mumsie, you are a dear," cried elated Nathalie. "That is just the
+thing, how stupid I was not to think of it! I will stop at the library
+on my way home this afternoon. What a help it will be to me, too, for we
+are going to have a fagot party, sort of a good-by to Louise Gaynor.
+Gloriana! I won't have any reading to do for that, for I'll be posted
+from my talks with Nita." Then she was off down the walk on her "way to
+business," as she laughingly told her mother.
+
+"Oh, tell me all about the Pioneer Stunts!" exclaimed the princess as
+Nathalie settled herself for a cozy chat after her cheery greeting to
+her new pupil. Nita's eyes were sparkling expectantly, and the
+anticipated chat with her new friend had brought a tinge of color to her
+usually pale face.
+
+"We have not had that as yet; it is to take place to-morrow night--oh,
+I'll tell you all about it," was the reply. And then, as Mrs. Van Vorst
+entered the room with a pleasant good morning, Nathalie demanded, "Do
+you not want me to tell stories to Nita?"
+
+"That is for Nita to decide," was the careless rejoinder. "I have asked
+you here to please my daughter, and if she wants you here just to talk,
+why, talk away."
+
+"But I feel as if I ought to instruct her in some way," demurred
+Nathalie.
+
+"Do not worry," returned Mrs. Van Vorst. "You will be worth all you earn
+if you only succeed in making Nita happy for two hours, and give her
+something to look forward to when you are not here. Of course, if you
+could get something informative in once in a while, it would do good, no
+doubt."
+
+"I don't want any stories," interrupted Miss Nita petulantly. "Miss
+Stitt used to tell me stories by the yard and I have hated them ever
+since."
+
+Nathalie made no reply; she was thinking how she could slip in a bit of
+information without Nita's realizing it. "Oh, I will tell you about the
+flag drill!" she cried with sudden thought.
+
+"Yes, do," acquiesced Nita, readily falling into the trap. "I want to
+know just everything about it."
+
+"Well, you shall," promptly returned her delighted teacher, and
+forthwith she set to define the meaning of the word liberty. "You know,
+Nita, when the Pilgrims and Puritans settled America they came here to
+build homes where they could have liberty of conscience, speech, and
+action. Of course, you know all about how these first little settlements
+grew, until there were thirteen of them that bade fair to become very
+populous and wealthy. Well, the King of England, fearing perhaps that
+they would grow into a great nation and take power from him, began to
+deprive them of some of their rights and privileges.
+
+"The people for a time submitted, but as his tyranny increased they
+began to feel greatly depressed, for it looked as if the liberty that
+they had been enjoying in the new land was going to be taken away from
+them, and that they were going to be chained like slaves.
+
+"Now the first scene in the flag drill represents liberty--as the Goddess
+of course--lamenting that if she can live only at the price of slavery,
+she would rather die. So we see her walking up and down the platform
+repeating in great agitation the famous words of Patrick Henry, 'Give me
+Liberty, or give me death!'
+
+"Just at this moment music is heard, and the Daughters of Liberty
+enter--"
+
+"The Daughters of Liberty--who are they?"
+
+"Why, don't you know that when King George tried to impose the Stamp Act
+on the colonists they rebelled, and there was a great time. Bands of men
+were organized all over the country, who called themselves the Sons of
+Liberty, and refused to accept the Stamp Act, and--"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all that," cried Nita impatiently, "but what did they
+have to do with these girls who are to be in the Flag Drill?"
+
+"Just you wait and you'll see," replied Nathalie somewhat abashed by
+this practical question. "Well, these little patriotic bands acted like
+a whirlwind of fire, spreading patriotism--the determination not to
+submit to the king's tyranny--all over the land, so that King George was
+defeated for a time at least."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all about him," was the reply, "Miss Stitt just doted
+on history, and she drilled me in American history until I just hated
+it."
+
+"In 1776," continued the Story Lady, "seventeen young girls met in
+Providence at the house of Deacon Bowen, and formed themselves into one
+of these Liberty Bands, only you see they were just girls like you and
+me. They were very industrious and spun all day making homespun clothes,
+for they had resolved that they would not wear any more clothes that had
+been manufactured in England.
+
+"It is claimed that the clothes worn by the first president of Brown
+University in Providence, and the graduating class, too, on Commencement
+Day were garments made by these girls. These young girls not only vowed
+that they would not drink tea, because you see, it all had to come from
+the mother country, but they would have nothing to do with any young men
+who were not as patriotic as they were, and who were not willing to
+follow their example. These bands of girls were formed all through the
+colonies and became known as 'The Daughters of Liberty.'"
+
+"Oh, now I know, but do hurry and tell me what they did to the Goddess
+of Liberty!"
+
+"Well, in our Flag Drill music is heard; then the Daughters of Liberty
+appear on the platform,--there are to be thirteen of them, to represent
+the thirteen states,--all carrying banners."
+
+"What kind of banners?" burst from Nathalie's auditor impatiently.
+
+"All kinds," was the answer. "You know, the first flag used in this
+country was the English one, with the red cross of St. George; that was
+the flag carried by the _Mayflower_. After a while it was used only for
+special occasions, for the Red Ensign of Great Britain took its place.
+But as time wore on, each little State came to have its own flag or
+banner, so that when the Revolution came these State banners became
+known as liberty banners.
+
+"Some of them were very quaint and grotesque, with strange emblems and
+designs--some had rattlesnakes or pine-trees--and queer inscriptions. A
+flag from South Carolina had a silver crescent on it; another from New
+York had a beaver; troops from Rhode Island floated a white ensign with
+a blue anchor; while the New England flag bore a pine tree. But to go
+back to the Daughters; as they march on the platform they form a
+half-circle before the Goddess, who has retired to her throne, a chair
+draped with red. In her hand she carries a green branch,--no, don't ask
+me why, for you will know when you hear the girls sing the 'Liberty
+Tree.'
+
+"When they finish singing, each girl in turn steps before the Goddess
+and tells the story of her flag, until a story has been told about each
+of the thirteen flags. Of course, there were a number of these liberty
+banners, but we use only thirteen of them.
+
+"There! I said I would not tell you any more today, and I'm not going
+to. Oh, did I tell you that I told Mrs. Morrow about your mother
+consenting to let us have your lawn? She is perfectly delighted, and at
+the next Rally the scribe will write a note to your mother for the
+Pioneers, thanking her for her offer."
+
+And then--Nathalie could not remember what started the conversation in
+this channel--she was telling about her brother Dick and his operation,
+while Nita listened with big sympathetic eyes, for somehow she was very
+much interested in this invalid brother of Nathalie's.
+
+"You see, it is this way," rattled on Nathalie. "Dick must have the
+operation as soon as possible--and--as it happens--well, you know Mother's
+income is limited since Father died and we have had to retrench a great
+deal. Then to make matters worse, just at the present time some bonds
+that Mother owns are not paying any interest and we feel dreadfully
+about it, all on account of Dick. So we are all trying to be as
+economical as possible; Dorothy and I have a little bank, and every odd
+nickel we can scare up we drop it in, and oh! the money your mother is
+going to give me for talking to you, why, that's going in the bank, too!
+Dorothy and I sometimes wish that some magic fairy would come along and
+turn those stray cents and nickels into gold dollars, but there, I
+should think your head would ache, my tongue has galloped so hard and
+fast." She paused, and with a merry laugh cried, "I should not wonder if
+after a while your mother paid me not to come and talk to you, for you
+will get so tired of me."
+
+"Indeed I won't!" asserted the princess stoutly as she threw up her
+arms. There was a mutual hug and then Nathalie was off, for she had to
+get dinner and it would take her at least ten minutes to walk home.
+
+A week later Nathalie was flying out of the gate of the big gray house
+with something tightly clasped in her hand. It had been a week of hard
+work, for O dear, she had grown tired of talking, and then too, she had
+spent some little time in the library hunting up pioneer women. She had
+been overjoyed that morning when Mrs. Van Vorst, who had been secretly
+acquainted with the scheme of telling about these women founders of the
+nation presented her with a new book from a New York publisher that gave
+a number of interesting details about these dames of early times. She
+and Nita had spent the two hours that morning reading about the New
+Amsterdam vrouws. She laughed slyly as she hurried along to think how
+adroitly she had managed in such a short time to tell her pupil not only
+about the Pilgrim and Puritan dames, but other interesting historical
+events of those early days.
+
+As the girl ran swiftly up on the porch and spied her mother reading a
+few feet away, she burst out with, "Oh, Mother, what do you think Mrs.
+Van Vorst gave me for teach--talking, rather, to Nita for the week? And
+I'm to have the same every week. Oh, Mumsie, just guess!"
+
+Mrs. Page's eyes smiled into Nathalie's joyous ones as she said, "I'm
+not a good guesser, I'm afraid, Daughter, but I'll venture--five
+dollars?"
+
+"Five dollars!" repeated the girl disdainfully. "Oh, Mother, guess
+again, it's more than that," she added encouragingly.
+
+"Well, I'll have to give it up," replied her mother after a short pause,
+with a regretful shake of her head. "I told you I was not a good
+guesser."
+
+"Ten dollars!" burst from happy Nathalie. "Just think, a dollar an hour,
+two dollars a day, and ten dollars for the week! And, Mother, it's all
+to be put away for Dick!"
+
+The night of the entertainment arrived, and promised to be a howling
+success, as Grace declared, who, with Nathalie, had been detailed to act
+as an usher. They had been kept pretty busy seating the guests, who had
+appeared in multicolored gowns, and gay flowered hats, with here and
+there a dress coat of masculine gender which gave quite an air of
+festivity to the occasion.
+
+The program was opened by Lillie Bell. Attired in a very quaint colonial
+gown, she tripped along the platform, and with well-simulated blushes
+and much demureness of manner made an old-time curtsy. After being
+greeted with an ovation from her many friends, she bashfully sidled up
+to a rather puzzling-looking instrument on the platform, on which many
+eyes had been focussed ever since the raising of the curtain, and seated
+herself before it.
+
+Upon this old-time spinet she played such ravishing strains of melody
+that the hearts of her audience were captivated, and she was encored
+again and again. Louise Gaynor, a dear little colonial dame, now
+appeared, and in her tru-al-lee voice--as the girls often called it--sang
+some old English ballads, "Annie Laurie," "Robin Adair" and several of
+similar character, whose celebrity had grown with the years.
+
+The second Stunt was the renowned race for the Forefathers' Rock, Kitty
+Corwin as Mary Chilton, and Fred Tyson as the slow-footed John Alden. A
+spinning contest followed, the fair spinners being colonial dames from
+Plymouth town, New Amsterdam, Boston, and Jamestown. The fair maiden of
+Plymouth, Priscilla, spun with such deftness and skill that she not only
+won the plaudits of those assembled, but the prize. As she gracefully
+bowed her acknowledgment to her friends' loud clapping, she backed
+hastily off the platform. Alas, she backed into John Alden, who at this
+opportune moment had appeared on the stage, with such terrific force
+that she almost bowled him over. John, however, to prove that he was not
+as slow as the name he had gained, adroitly caught the falling maiden in
+his arms and then led the blushing damsel, Jessie Ford, forward as his
+captured prize.
+
+Barbara Worth proved quite a heroine in her single-act comedy on Pioneer
+craft, the plucking of a live goose. Mistress Goose, however, not
+understanding her part of silent acquiescence, being a twentieth-century
+goose and not a pioneer one, mutinied, and as Barbara came to the end of
+the couplet,
+
+  "Twice a year deplumed may they be,
+  In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,"
+
+she escaped from her captor's clutch and with a loud, "Quack! quack!" of
+disapproval flew across the stage.
+
+Barbara, dumb with fright for fear the goose would fly down among the
+spectators, gave chase, and then ensued a regular "movie" as amid loud
+calls urging her on in the race, and protestations voiced by the goose
+in a clamorous quacking, she chased it about the platform. Just as
+Barbara was about to capture her prey she tripped on a rug and measured
+her five feet two on the floor. But Barbara was game, Fred Tyson
+declared to Nathalie as they watched her, and jumping to her feet she
+soon captured her featherless fowl, which, after being shown in its
+deplumed condition, was borne from the scene of its torments by the
+victor.
+
+The curtain now rose on "The First American Wash Day," a little playlet
+representing the women of the Pilgrim colony, with arms bared to the
+elbows, rubbing and scrubbing in tubs of foamy soap-suds, washing
+clothes, for the noble sires of our nation.
+
+Nathalie gave a quick start and her eyes leaped wide open as she
+convulsively clutched Grace by the arm, and then she grew strangely
+still as she watched the actors on the stage. The scene was a
+distinctive one, as the children of the _Mayflower_ ran hither and
+thither gathering boughs, make-believe sweet-smelling juniper, to place
+under the tripod from which kettles of water were suspended over a small
+fire that simulated a cheery blaze.
+
+As these pioneer mothers washed, and then wrung out their clothes,
+slashing them about in true washer woman's fashion, some one in the rear
+of the stage recited in a loud, clear voice:
+
+                  "There did the Pilgrim fathers
+                  With matchlock and ax well swung
+                  Keep guard o'er the smoking kettles
+                  That propped on the crotches hung.
+                  For the earliest act of the heroes
+                  Whose fame has a world-wide sway,
+                  Was to fashion a crane for a kettle
+                  And order a washing-day."
+
+                        "Pioneer Mothers of America."
+                                    By Hand W. Green.
+
+The applause of the spectators testified to the merit of the
+performance, and as the curtain dropped, Nathalie, whose eyes were
+ashine with a strange fire, hastened out into the hall. "Oh, it was mean
+of her! It is the same as stealing, she knew she had no right to use
+it!" were the thoughts that flashed at white heat through her brain, for
+the playlet that had just been enacted was the one she had lost in the
+library!
+
+And the one who had passed it off as her own, the one who had been the
+head performer, and who had recited the verses, was Edith Whiton!
+
+On rushed Nathalie straight towards the dressing room, determined to
+tell Edith just what she thought of her, but the sight of a crowd of
+girls of which Edith was the central figure brought her to a standstill.
+"Of course, Edith, we all recognized you!" "It was a clever Stunt."
+"Well, you have shown you are a Pioneer, all right!" Many similar paeans
+of praise came to Nathalie's ears.
+
+The girl stood still, inwardly raging with indignation, almost ready to
+cry with the strife between her outraged sense of right, and a
+commonplace little monitor who whispered, "It would be mean to accuse
+Edith of a sneaking act in the very midst of her glorification. And
+then, too," continued the whisperer, "you are not really sure that Edith
+has not some excuse to offer; there was no name on your paper." Nathalie
+swallowed hard, then her muscles relaxed, and the hard angry gleam
+disappeared from her eyes. Well, Edith might be mean and small, but she
+at least would be above her, she would say nothing!
+
+With a certain pride that she had risen above doing what she would
+undoubtedly have regretted afterwards, Nathalie hurried into the
+dressing-room. A few minutes later as the curtain rose it displayed in
+its completed form the second idea that she had spent so much time in
+planning.
+
+Around the hearthstone in a Dutch kitchen sat a _huys-moeder_, busily
+undressing her two little kinderkins while she sang the crooning nursery
+rhyme:[1]
+
+             "Trip attroup attronjes,
+             De vaarken in de boojes,
+             De koejes in de klaver,
+             De paarden in de haver,
+             De kalver in de lang gras,
+             De eenjes in de water plas,
+             So grootmyn klein poppetje was."
+                         "_Colonial Days in Old New York._"
+                                                     Earle.
+
+Through a window in the back of the cozy kitchen a blanketed squaw was
+seen dandling her swaddled papoose in her arms, as she peered hungrily
+in at the glowing fire, and watched the _huys-moeder_ fill the warming
+pan with coals, thrust it between the sheets of the little trundle-bed,
+and then give her babies some mulled cider to drink.
+
+The tiny figures in their _cosyntjes_, or nightcaps with long capes, had
+just crawled into bed when "tap-toes" sounded, and the honest mynheer
+and his good vrouw hastened to cover the still glowing embers with ashes
+for the fire of the morrow. The Dutch curfew had sounded, which meant
+that all good simple folk must hie to bed.
+
+This fireside scene in old New York won its merited applause, and
+Nathalie, who had been the Dutch mother, Mrs. Morrow's kiddies, the
+kinderkins, and Fred Tyson, the mynheer, were called before the curtain
+to receive the plaudits of their friends.
+
+As Nathalie was hurrying from the dressing-room, glad that she was
+through her long-anticipated Stunt, and doubly glad that it had been a
+success, her name was called. She turned to see Helen, who, with an
+anxious face, was peering from the adjoining dressing room.
+
+"Oh, has anything gone wrong?" demanded Nathalie hastening to the door.
+
+"I should say!" exclaimed Helen with woebegone countenance, "I have left
+my gun at home, and I must have it. Oh, I can't imagine how I could have
+been so careless! Can't you get some one to go and get it for me? Tell
+them to hurry, for my scene goes on in ten minutes."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," sympathized Nathalie, "tell me where to find it,
+quick, and I'll get some one."
+
+"It is in the hall just behind the rack! Do hurry, Nat, I'm just about
+wild!"
+
+Nathalie darted away; but alas, she could not find any one who could go
+at that moment, every one had some important duty to perform just then
+and there. Even the Scouts, who were always so ready to help the girls,
+were missing. "Oh, it is too bad!" bemoaned the girl. Presently her eyes
+lighted and in another instant she had flown up the stairs, seized her
+long cloak in the dressing-room, and then sped down the steps into the
+garden, and out into the street.
+
+Ten minutes, that meant she would have to run every step of the way to
+get that gun there in time. So with the lightness of a bird she darted
+down one street, up another, and then--her heart gave a great leap as she
+came to the long, lonely stretch of road skirting the cemetery of the
+old Presbyterian church. But on she flew, hardly daring to cast her eyes
+towards the tall tombstones that gleamed at her with ghostly whiteness
+from the ghoulish shadows cast by the waving branches of the trees above
+them.
+
+No, she was not afraid of ghosts, but she suddenly remembered a story
+she had heard as a little child, of a young girl who had been waylaid
+and killed by a man in a cemetery one dark night. Fiddle! she was not
+going to be afraid of a mere story, so with a snatch of melody on her
+lips she kept bravely on and soon left behind her the marble records of
+the dead. It did not take but a minute to ring the bell, tell Helen's
+aunt what she wanted, then grab the gun and start off on her return
+journey.
+
+Oh, she did hate to have to go by that old graveyard, she would take the
+other way around; but no, that would take twice the time and she must
+hurry! So nerving up her courage she ran on with the firm determination
+to play soldier, and level her musket if any one assailed her.
+
+As she neared the cemetery her breath gave out, and instead of running
+by this danger post she had to walk every step. Determined not to look
+in the direction of these ghostly reminders of the past, she pushed
+resolutely on. She had almost reached the end of the long fence when the
+sudden snap of a twig, followed by a rustling noise caused her heart to
+pause in its beating. A scream escaped her quivering lips, for there in
+the bright radiance that fell like a silver veil over all objects she
+saw the figure of a man rise from one of the tombstones near the fence
+and come towards her!
+
+-----
+[1]
+  "From your throne on my knee,
+  The pigs in the bean-patch see,
+  The cows in the clover meet,
+  The horses in the oat field eat.
+  The ducks in the water pass
+  The calves scamper through the grass.
+  They love the baby on my knee
+  And none there are as sweet as she."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII--LIBERTY BANNERS
+
+
+Nathalie's eyes dilated with terror, and her heart pounded with such
+leaping beats that it almost choked her. She attempted to run, but alas,
+her limbs seemed tied with ropes, and then she remembered the gun!
+
+Just an instant and she had raised it, and with trembling hands was
+pointing it at the enemy, who by this time had lightly vaulted the
+wooden fence and was coming towards her. Nathalie's hand was feeling for
+the trigger when, "Oh, don't shoot!" cried a voice in serio-comic tone,
+"I surrender!" Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.
+
+The girl gasped, dropped the gun, and then broke into hysterical
+laughter as she cried, "Oh--is--that you?"
+
+"Yes, it is I; Fred Tyson in the flesh!" rejoined the supposed murderer
+coolly, as with a stride he was at her side and, stooping picked up the
+gun.
+
+The reaction was so great that for a moment Nathalie feared she was
+going to cry, but controlling herself by a strong effort she exclaimed,
+"Oh, I was sure you were a tramp," with a nervous giggle, "or a murderer
+intent on killing me, and then hiding my body in the thicket yonder."
+She shuddered.
+
+"Great guns!" Fred exclaimed as he looked the gun over. "It is lucky
+this thing didn't go off. By the Lord Harry, how did you come to be
+carrying it?"
+
+Nathalie, with a long breath of relief that all was well after her
+fright, then told Fred how she came to be near the graveyard at that
+time. Then suddenly remembering that she had not a minute to lose, she
+cried hurriedly, "Oh, let us go on. I am afraid I am too late!"
+
+"You're all hunky," returned Fred calmly. "You have plenty of time, for
+I overheard Mrs. Morrow tell Helen to postpone her Stunt until one of
+the last."
+
+"But how did you come to be here, may I ask?" queried Nathalie as they
+turned to walk up.
+
+"Oh, I was in the next room and heard Helen tell you to go and get
+something at her house. I started out to offer my services, but some one
+buttonholed me for the next Stunt; I had forgotten I was in it. As soon
+as it was over I hurried out to find you, but you had skipped. I rushed
+after you, missed you, and then remembering that you would return this
+way as it is the shortest, sat down on one of the tombstones to wait for
+you. But you're the stuff, all right, Nathalie Page, you ought to have a
+medal for bravery."
+
+[Illustration: Up went two hands in pretended subjugation.]
+
+He suddenly pointed the gun and then pulled the trigger.
+
+Nathalie gave a shrill scream in a spasm of apprehension, and jumped to
+one side. "Oh, please, don't do that, it might be loaded, you know!"
+
+Fred threw his head back and burst into a hearty laugh. "Oh, ho, I see
+you are not as nervy as I thought," there was a mischievous glint in his
+merry black eyes. And then as if ashamed of torturing the nerve-racked
+girl he cried soothingly, "Don't you fret, Miss Blue Robin; there isn't
+any guess with me, I don't take chances. I saw it wasn't loaded when I
+first picked it up, but come, let's hurry!"
+
+"Please don't tell any one I was afraid!" pleaded Nathalie, as they
+hastened on under the swaying branches of the trees that cast weird,
+fanciful designs on the moon-mantled path. "They will think me an awful
+coward and tease me unmercifully."
+
+Fred assured her that he would keep mum, and added that she was not a
+coward, but a very brave girl. Then, in response to a challenge to race
+him to the Hall, they were off, Nathalie by this time having regained
+her usual poise and nerve. She won the race, for Fred, desiring to be
+gallant, dropped back a space or two just at the right time, and thus
+allowed his partner to be the victor in this race of two blocks.
+
+The gun was quickly delivered to Helen and then they hurried into the
+hall in time to see the portraits of Henry Hudson, Edward Winslow,
+William Penn, Governor Stuyvesant, and Captain Kidd and Henry Morgan,
+two pirates of pioneer fame. These colonial portraits were produced by
+their representatives standing behind a large wooden frame that had been
+made by the Scouts, gilded by the Pioneers, and then placed in front of
+a dark curtain.
+
+Helen's Stunt proved to be a canvas background on which was painted a
+log cabin. At the door of this pioneer home stood Helen with a baby
+clinging to her skirts, pointing a gun at a skulking savage just
+disappearing beyond a very fair representation of a clump of trees. This
+picture of a mother of the wilderness was loudly encored, as it was
+significant of the hardy courage displayed by the women of those early
+days.
+
+The last Stunt showed the Pioneers in line, each one with a big red
+letter pinned to the skirt of her uniform; the combination making the
+word "Pioneer Women." Giving bird-calls, building miniature log-cabins,
+making camp fires, jumping, throwing the lifeline, as well as making the
+motions of rowing and swimming, these and many other activities of the
+organization were performed. The girls ended by falling into line again
+and singing a farewell Pioneer song.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now came forward, and after thanking the audience for their
+kind attention and aid in helping make the affair a success by buying
+tickets and by their presence, she announced that there would be another
+entertainment, a Flag Drill, to take place on the fourteenth of that
+month. It would be held in the rear of the home of Mrs. Van Vorst, that
+lady having kindly offered her lawn for the affair.
+
+The faces of the Pioneers, with the exception of Nathalie's and Helen's,
+expressed unbounded surprise as they heard this announcement. As Fred
+Tyson and two other Scouts passed slips of paper so that each one
+present could write her or his opinion as to the best Stunt of the
+evening, there was a merry clack of tongues as each girl queried how and
+when this wonderful thing had come to pass.
+
+Lillie Bell, who had been watching Nathalie, suddenly leaned forward
+crying, "Nathalie Page, I just believe that you know all about it!"
+Nathalie did her best to look bland and innocent when this accusation
+was hurled at her, but the query was as a match to fire, and instantly
+Nathalie was surrounded by a bevy of girls, all eagerly demanding that
+she tell them how it came about.
+
+"O dear, how should I know?" she demanded with seeming indignation.
+
+"There, I told you she knew," declared the Sport, who at that moment
+joined the group. "Her face betrays her! And then she is on the
+committee."
+
+Nathalie turned and flashed at Edith angrily, "Well, if I do know I am
+not going to tell. If you want any information go and ask Mrs. Morrow."
+Then feeling that things were growing desperate and that she might
+reveal what she had striven so hard to keep a secret, she broke from her
+tormentors and hurried into the hall.
+
+Seeing Helen at that moment she dashed up to her, and grabbing her by
+the arm cried, "Helen, the girls are tormenting me to tell them about
+the lawn party; oh, do keep them from asking me again, for I am in
+mortal terror that I may tell something that should not be told just
+yet."
+
+"All right," soothed her friend, "don't you bother about the girls
+finding out, I'll see to them. But here's Fred, he wants you to vote. By
+the way, have you heard that the Sport's Stunt has so far the greatest
+number of votes, and--"
+
+But Helen had been carried off by one of the Scouts, and Nathalie turned
+to find Fred at her side eagerly demanding her vote.
+
+"Why don't you vote for 'The First American Wash-Day'?" demanded the
+young man as he saw Nathalie hesitate and swing her pencil, lost in
+abstraction. "It will win, I think, and it was a good Stunt, too; well
+acted out. Edith deserves credit."
+
+"Do you think so?" flashed Nathalie. She colored angrily. "I do not
+agree with you. I think--" She stopped, compressed her lips, and then
+added coolly, "I shall vote for Helen, for I consider her Stunt the best
+one of the evening." She wrote the name of the Stunt hurriedly, signed
+her name, and then handed the card to Fred, who was regarding her with a
+puzzled expression on his face.
+
+He took the card and turned to go, but seeing that the floor had been
+cleared for dancing he stopped, and swinging about asked Nathalie if he
+could have the next dance. Nathalie assented, although she did not feel
+in the mood for dancing just at that moment.
+
+"You won't mind waiting a moment, will you?" asked Fred. "I have got to
+turn in my cards. Then I see this is a square dance, and I want a waltz
+with you. Are you angry with me?" he asked wonderingly as he saw that
+Nathalie's eyes still gleamed fire and that her cheeks were bright red.
+
+The girl looked up at him absently and then, suddenly comprehending that
+she was acting rather rudely towards this new friend, cried laughing,
+"Angry with you? Indeed, no! I _am angry_ with--some one," she added
+bitterly, her glance suddenly falling on Edith. "But there, return your
+cards and then we will dance."
+
+Five minutes later as Fred swung his partner lightly up and down the
+hall to waltz time, Nathalie forgot all the unpleasant jars of the
+evening in the enjoyment of the moment. But later, as they hurried out
+on the veranda for a breath of fresh air, she remembered how rudely she
+had acted and felt as if she ought to make some kind of an explanation
+to Fred for her seeming rudeness. Then it suddenly came to her that
+perhaps he might think she was jealous of Edith. Oh, no, she was not
+jealous--she was willing Edith should win the highest number of votes,
+only it did seem a bit hard to have to give all the glory up to some one
+else, when it rightfully belonged to her, and then Edith _had been_ mean
+about it.
+
+"Please don't think I didn't want Edith to win," she burst forth as they
+seated themselves in a cozy corner where she could see the dancers in
+the hall. "Only--you see it is this way, I--"
+
+But before she could finish, the Tike came rushing up all of a whirl
+crying, "Oh, Nathalie, your Stunt won! I'm awfully glad!" And she danced
+up and down in her delight at Nathalie's success.
+
+"Oh, 'The First American Wash-Day' was Edith's Stunt," Nathalie hastened
+to explain, resolved that she would be a martyr to her wounded pride
+with a good grace.
+
+"That didn't win the highest vote, but your Stunt did," retorted Carol
+jubilantly; "the one with the old Dutchwoman putting the kiddies to bed.
+And that Dutch lullaby--oh, Nathalie, where did you learn it?"
+
+Before Nathalie could answer Carol had skipped away, leaving the girl
+with a strange expression on her face as she stared at Fred with
+mystified eyes. "Do you suppose I really won it?" she demanded after a
+pause. "I thought you said Edith's Stunt was the winner."
+
+"So I heard," was Fred's reply. "But then, Miss Nathalie, I am awfully
+glad your Stunt won. It was a peach, I thought myself, but I heard--"
+
+"Oh, I don't care about that," cried Nathalie. There was a quiver to her
+voice. "I don't deserve it; oh, I have been awfully mean, and yet I have
+been calling Edith mean--" She stopped abruptly. How queerly it had
+turned out!
+
+Catching a rather strange look in her companion's eyes she exclaimed,
+"Oh, indeed I was willing that Edith should win--I don't care a snap
+about it myself--only, you see it was this way." She floundered for a
+moment and then with a sudden catch in her breath leaned towards Fred
+crying, "If I tell you something, will you swear never to reveal it?"
+Fred's face brightened; he was delighted to think Nathalie considered
+him worthy of her confidence, and lost no time in assuring her of this
+fact. But the girl was thinking of only one thing, and that was that she
+was going to break her silence in regard to Edith and unburden herself
+of what had been causing her a good deal of discomfort all the evening.
+Nathalie talked rapidly and in a few minutes Fred was in possession of
+the facts about "The First American Wash-Day," and how it had come about
+that although the idea was Nathalie's, Edith had won the glory of it
+without the work.
+
+"Say, but you're game!" declared Fred admiringly, as Nathalie finished
+her story. "It was a fine thing for you not to tell; I don't blame you
+for feeling mean about it. But the Sport had no right to use it--"
+
+"Well, never mind now," cried Nathalie, "it is all over with and I am
+glad I didn't tell any one but you, and you won't break your word, will
+you? The word of a Scout, you know," added the girl archly.
+
+Fred laughingly assured her that his word as a gentleman was sufficient
+and as binding as that of a Scout. Then as they discussed the Scout
+oath, its pledges, and so forth, Dr. Homer appeared and asked his little
+hike-mate if he might have the pleasure of a dance with her.
+
+Nathalie smilingly assured him she would be most happy and then with a
+good-by to Fred, the quaint little figure in its queer Dutch cap and
+flowered gown followed the doctor into the hall.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The long anticipated fourteenth of June had arrived, and the level
+stretch of green grass with its circling hillocks in the rear of the
+gray house was ablaze with color. Beneath a high arch festooned with the
+red, white, and blue--the Pioneers' color again--stood a number of merry
+girls, each one gowned in white with a scarlet sash, and a red liberty
+cap, and holding in her hand a flag or small banner.
+
+Every eye as well as tongue was on duty, as each girl triumphantly
+displayed her flag to her comrades, proudly claiming that it was an
+exact copy of one of the liberty banners used by the colonies preceding
+or during the Revolution.
+
+"Hurrah for the Concord flag," cried Kitty Corwin, as she hoisted up a
+small maroon banner inscribed with the motto, "Conquer or Die." "This is
+one of the oldest flags in America, for it was the one carried when the
+'embattled farmers fired the shot heard round the world'"--she twirled it
+high in air--"on the 19th of April, 1775, at the first battle of the
+Revolution!"
+
+"Oh, but your flag hasn't the romance that mine has," said Edith,
+ostentatiously waving a crimson flag fringed at the ends, and with a
+cord and tassel. "This is the Eutaw flag and was made by Miss Jane
+Elliot. Col. William Washington--he was a relative or something of little
+Georgie--when stationed at Charleston, South Carolina, fell in love with
+Miss Jane. One night, after spending the evening with his lady love, as
+he bade her good night, she said she hoped to hear good news of his flag
+and fortune. Whereupon the poor colonel was forced to confess that his
+corps had no flag. Upon hearing this the young lady pulled down one of
+the portieres, cut it to the right size, fringed it at the ends, stuck
+it on a curtain pole, and then presented it to her gallant lover,
+telling him to make it his standard. Of course after that it brought
+good luck and won a great victory at Cowpens, January, 1781, and another
+at Eutaw Springs the following September. Forty years later the flag was
+presented by the hands that made it to the Washington Light Infantry of
+Charleston, for the fair Jane married the colonel, all right."
+
+"Well, don't you girls boast too much," declared Jessie, "for if it
+hadn't been for my flag there wouldn't have been any banners of liberty
+to make you patriotic." And Jessie held up a white flag barred with the
+scarlet cross of St. George, the flag dear to Merrie Old England as the
+flag of the people, and beloved by the colonists as the ensign that
+floated from the little ship _Mayflower_.
+
+As if to supplement Jessie's declaration, an Oriole gayly flaunted the
+Red Ensign of Great Britain with its canton quartered by the cross of
+St. George and St. Andrew. "This is the flag that followed Jessie's and
+was necessarily adopted by the colonists as the flag of the mother
+country. It was called the Union flag--the two crosses signifying the
+union of Scotland and England, when King James of Scotland became
+king--and remained in use in America until the beginning of the
+Revolution."
+
+Grace, who had been impatiently waiting to float her flag, now cried,
+"Away with your old Johnnie Bull flags! Mine is worth a hundred of those
+old English rags, for it was the first distinctively American flag used
+by the Colonies, 'The Pine Tree Flag of New England.'"
+
+"But it has the red cross on the white canton just the same," ventured
+Jessie, "and it is red, too."
+
+"Of course it has the cross on it," quickly retorted Grace, "for at that
+time the Colonies still belonged to England; but if you look, my lady,
+you'll see that pine in the first quarter of the canton, and that is
+American all through, every pine on it. It meant that the colonists,
+although they were English, had a right to representation in the mother
+country and to a symbol of their own."
+
+"Well," persisted Jessie, in whose veins flowed a goodly supply of
+English blood, "your scrubby old pine was such a poor representation of
+that noble tree that Charles II asked what it represented--and was told
+it was an oak."
+
+"Come, Jessie," laughed Helen, "that story is a back number. Every one
+can guess without much effort that the man who told that yarn to the
+king was a New Englander. He wanted to gain favor with Charles and
+bluffed him a bit, trying to make out it was a model of the royal oak in
+which his majesty took refuge after the battle of Worcester."
+
+"Oh, stop discussing the merits of that old pine and look at my banner,"
+sang out Louise Gaynor, shaking her flag furiously to and fro so as to
+get the attention of the girls. "This flag is the Crescent flag and
+stands for the bravest of the brave. Now listen, and you will all
+understand what true heroism means."
+
+The girls, impressed by the Flower's declaration, grew silent, and gazed
+curiously at a red banner with a white crescent in the upper corner near
+the staff. "This flag was designed by Col. Moultrie of the Second
+Carolina Infantry in 1775. During the siege of Charleston when the flag
+was shot down, Sergeant William Jasper at the peril of his life
+recovered it, and held it in place on the parapet until another staff
+was found. In 1779, at the assault on Savannah, it was again shot from
+its holdings. Two lieutenants sprang forward and held it in position
+until they were killed by the enemy's bullets. Jasper again sprang
+forward and held the colors up until he, too, was riddled with bullets,
+and fell into a ditch. As he was dying he seized the flag in his hands
+and cried, 'Tell Mrs. Elliot'--she was the wife of one of the
+majors--'that I lost my life supporting the colors she gave our
+regiment.'"
+
+Barbara, who was usually so placid and mild, now grew quite intense as
+she pointed to her flag, the Cambridge flag, claiming that it was the
+first flag on this side of the water to float the red and white bars. It
+signified, she said, that although the colonists were willing to return
+to the rule of the English, they were a body of armed men fighting for
+just and equal rights with their brothers who had crossed the sea to
+whip them into submission. "But they didn't," ended Barbara with
+triumphant eyes. "And this flag, also known as the Union flag--meaning
+that the colonists stood as a man in their desire for the right--was
+displayed by Washington in his camp at Cambridge, January 2nd, 1776."
+
+"Now let me have a chance," pleaded Nathalie, who had been impatiently
+waiting to show her design for some time. "My flag has a story, too."
+She held up as high as she could a white flag with a rattlesnake in the
+center. It bore in black letters the name, "The Culpeper Minute Men of
+Virginia," the snaky slogan, "Don't Tread On Me," and the famous words
+of its commander, Patrick Henry, "Liberty or Death!"
+
+"Do you see that rattlesnake?" continued Miss Nathalie, as she brought
+her flag to a standstill and pointed to the snaky emblem. "That has a
+story--"
+
+"Pooh," interposed Edith, who was jealously guarding her declaration
+that her flag was the most beautiful because it had a story. "I don't
+see any story about that snaky old thing. Ugh, I never could understand
+why so many flags had that design."
+
+"I will tell you why," declared Nathalie, "because I have looked it up,
+and--"
+
+"But you are not the only one who has looked up flags," chimed Jessie,
+"for my eyes were just about ruined trying to get a merit badge for
+proficiency in flag history--"
+
+"And for deftness and skill in making our flags," broke in a Pioneer
+from the Bob White group.
+
+"I beg your pardon, girls, I know you are all very wise on the subject
+of flags this morning," rejoined Nathalie good-naturedly, "but do you
+know why the rattlesnake was chosen as an ensign?"
+
+She waited a moment, but as no one seemed to know she went on. "The
+rattlesnake is to be found only in America; my authority is Benjamin
+Franklin. It is the wisest of the snake family, therefore a symbol of
+wisdom. Its bright, lidless eyes never close, this signifies vigilance.
+It never attacks without giving due notice, which meant that the
+American colonies were on the square. Each rattle is perfect, while at
+the same time it is so firmly attached to its fellows that it cannot be
+separated without incurring the ruin of all; each colony was a complete
+unit in itself, and yet it could not stand unless it had the support of
+the others. As it ages, the rattles increase in numbers, which meant
+that it was the fervent desire of the people that the colonies should
+increase in numbers with the years."
+
+As Nathalie finished her little lecture, Helen, with a sudden movement,
+shouldered her flag like a musket, and parting the group of girls,
+marched jubilantly down the center, crying, "Oh, girls, you have had the
+floor long enough to tell of the beauties and glories of your paltry
+banners, but let me tell you, not a flag has won the honors and glories
+that mine has. Hurrah, girls, for Old Glory!" she ended with a
+triumphant wave of the Stars and Stripes above their heads.
+
+As if inspired by the sight of the cheery banner so gallantly flung to
+the breezes by their comrade, the girls with one accord broke into the
+flag cheer:
+
+  "Hear! hear; hear Girl Pioneer!
+  For flag so dear give a cheer!
+  For the bars that are white and red,
+  And stars on blue overhead
+  We honor thee with a cheer!
+  Hurrah! Hurrah! Girl Pioneer!"
+
+Before the echo of the cheer had died in the distance Nathalie cried,
+"Oh, girls, the first signal!" Immediately these little patriotic
+Daughters of that which every one holds dear fell into line, and with
+flags upheld fastened their eyes on a small platform that had been
+erected in the center of the lawn draped with the national colors, where
+the Goddess of Liberty had just appeared. Holding up a green branch in
+her hand she began to walk agitatedly up and down the stage, pausing
+abruptly every moment or so to peer to the right or left, as if watching
+for some one.
+
+Suddenly she halted, and with the dramatic gestures of Lillie Bell--for
+it was she--cried in mournful tone, "'Is life so dear, or peace so sweet
+as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
+Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
+give me liberty, or give me death!'"
+
+As the tragic intonation of her voice ceased, the band--composed, by the
+way, of a number of Scouts--burst forth with that old melody, "The
+Wearing of the Green." This was another signal, and the girls waiting
+under the arch began to march slowly towards the stage, while the
+Goddess in feigned mystification moved quickly from side to side with
+her hand held to her ear, as if trying to ascertain whence came this
+martial tune.
+
+But on came the Daughters of Liberty with flashes of white and red, and
+with banners of many designs and devices. They presented such a
+brilliant showing that the audience seated in rows on the circling
+mounds broke into loud applause, which burst into enthusiastic cheers of
+greeting, as in the bright glare of the sunlight they perceived Old
+Glory floating far above the heads of the banner bearers as they proudly
+marched across the green.
+
+When the Goddess perceived this procession of fair damsels she stood
+apparently in a maze for a moment, and then slowly retreated backward
+until she stood on the scarlet draped dais with its throne. As the
+thirteen maids of freedom filed slowly on the platform, forming a half
+circle before the Goddess, the band struck into that old-time air, "The
+Liberty Tree," and a second later every Daughter had chimed in and was
+singing:
+
+  "In a chariot of light from the regions of day
+    The Goddess of Liberty came;
+  Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
+    And hither conducted the dame.
+  A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
+    Where millions and millions agree
+  She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
+    And the plant she named Liberty Tree."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII--THE PRINCESS MAKES TWO MORE FRIENDS
+
+
+"And the plant she named Liberty Tree," sang Nita blithely up in the
+window of the sun parlor, where she sat with her mother and her old
+Scotch nurse, Ellen, watching the brilliant scene being enacted down on
+the lawn.
+
+As the last verse ended--and there were four--Helen stepped before the
+Goddess, and after saluting told in a few words how the brave pioneers
+had brought to this land a tiny spark which had flamed into the sacred
+fire of Liberty. As time wore on, trampled by the sons of Tyranny, it
+was in danger of being stamped out, when the daughters of these pioneers
+fled to its aid in their great fight for the right, and by their bravery
+and heroic self-denial had revived the sacred fire. The ensigns now
+floating before her were the signals of their success in making this
+land, "The Land of the Free and Home of the Brave!"
+
+An expression of regret flitted across Nita's face as she realized that
+she could not hear the words Helen was speaking, but in a moment,
+remembering, she cried, "But I have them, Mamma, for Nathalie not only
+taught me the words of the songs, but wrote down for me the speeches of
+the girls. Ah, Helen is telling the Goddess how the Pilgrims came to
+this land and planted the Liberty Tree. Of course they did not really
+plant it, you know, only in their hearts, for they were determined to
+have liberty of conscience, speech, and action.
+
+"Oh, and there's another daughter speaking to the Goddess. See, she
+carries the flag that came over in the _Mayflower_ with the Pilgrims."
+Then Miss Nita, finding she had an appreciative audience in her mother
+and Ellen, rattled on, highly pleased to think she was giving them such
+good entertainment. She repeated the words of each fair daughter as she
+displayed her trophy of liberty, and could clap as enthusiastically as
+the spectators watching from the hillocks in the distance. Mrs. Van
+Vorst, as she heard her daughter's words and witnessed her joy, entering
+with as much zest and spirit into the patriotic little drill as the
+Pioneers smiled in attune with the invalid, showing more enjoyment than
+she had done for years.
+
+"There's the flag of Bunker Hill; it is just like the Pine Tree flag,
+only it is blue instead of red," exclaimed Nita. "And, oh, Mother, see,
+there's the real Liberty Flag with its pine tree, and motto, 'An Appeal
+to Heaven.' Look quick! that's the Markoe flag! See, it is yellow and
+has thirteen stripes of blue and silver. Nathalie said this flag was the
+first one on land to float stripes, and that it was the flag carried by
+the Philadelphia Troop of Light Horse when they escorted Washington to
+New York. And that crimson silk flag is the Casimir flag; it belonged to
+Count Casimir. He was the son of Pulaski, who perished in a dungeon for
+advocating the cause of liberty. The Count came to America and organized
+a corps of cavalry at Baltimore, and when the Moravian nuns heard of it
+they presented him with that flag. But, oh, Mother, the poor Count died
+after all; he was shot at the siege of Savannah in 1779."
+
+Ellen, the old Scotch nurse who adored her invalid charge, and who had
+always taken care of her from the time she was a wee tot, was deeply
+stirred as she saw how Nita entered into the new life that had suddenly
+been opened up to her, and her face fairly beamed with gratified pride
+as she heard her repeat the songs and speeches of the girls in the
+playlet.
+
+When the last speech ended, the strains of Yankee Doodle were heard, and
+presently a Scout in the uniform of a Continental soldier appeared on
+the platform carrying a draped flag. After saluting the mother of
+Freedom he planted his pole in the center of the circle of Liberty
+maidens, and the next instant each one had caught up one of the red,
+blue, and white streamers that hung from it, and were swinging gayly
+around, singing "The Red, White, and Blue."
+
+This song was followed by the "Battle Cry of Freedom," and then the
+soldier, saluting the Goddess again in a short speech, said he desired
+to present to her an emblem, the outgrowth of the labors of the Sons and
+Daughters of Liberty. The ensign that stands for everything that is
+just, true, and progressive, the symbol of the sovereignty of
+Civilization, the banner that had been unfurled in more movements for
+the protection, the liberty, and the elevation of mankind, than any
+ensign that ripples to the four winds of Heaven.
+
+Oh, no, the little company up in the window didn't hear all these words
+from the lips of the soldier, but from Nita as she read them softly from
+her paper. But they did see the signal given by the soldier, and clapped
+with joy when each fair daughter pulled her streamer, the red drapings
+fell from the pole, and Old Glory stood revealed. And as the colors
+swayed softly in the gentle breeze they joined with patriotic fervor as
+the girls and audience broke into "The Star Spangled Banner!"
+
+The Flag Drill was over, and the girls, breaking ranks, were soon
+scattered here and there over the lawn in groups, as they stood
+receiving the congratulations of their friends on the success of the
+entertainment. It was but a moment or so, however, and the girls had all
+rushed back to duty, and each one with a scout was serving ice-cream and
+cake to the buyers at the gayly festooned tables under the trees.
+
+Nathalie, nerve and bone tired, was wishing that she could sit down if
+only for a moment, when her eyes suddenly grew bright with thought, and
+the next second she had darted across the grass crying, "Oh, Grace,
+don't you think it would be nice if we could take some cream and cake up
+to Nita and her mother?"
+
+"Nita?" repeated that young lady, who had never heard the name before.
+"Why, what do you mean?"
+
+Nathalie started. "Oh, why, to be sure, I forgot to tell you about her,
+but Mrs. Morrow thought best to--"
+
+Nathalie broke off in despair as she realized that Grace knew nothing
+about the princess in the tower and the many other happenings at the
+gray house, only that its owner had consented to allow the girls to use
+her lawn.
+
+"Why, you know Nita is Mrs. Van Vorst's daughter; she was the one who
+got her mother to let us have the lawn. She's just lovely, I have been
+going to see her every day for--"
+
+At this moment Ellen, her face glowing with pleasure, touched Nathalie
+on the arm as she cried, "Oh, Miss Nathalie, Mrs. Van Vorst has sent me
+to ask you to come up and see Miss Nita, and to bring two of your
+friends with you!"
+
+Nathalie stared a moment as if not comprehending what Ellen had said,
+and then, "Oh, Ellen, do you mean that Mrs. Van Vorst wants me to come
+up to see Miss Nita and to--"
+
+"Yes, that is just what I mean, Miss," rejoined Ellen, evidently
+enjoying Nathalie's amazement. "Miss Nita wants to meet some of your
+Pioneer friends. Bless the child, Miss Nathalie, but you and your
+friends have brought real sunshine straight to the heart of my bairn.
+Bless you for it!"
+
+Nathalie smiled and nodded as she answered, "All right, Ellen, I'll be
+right up!" Then, as the old nurse disappeared among the throngs on the
+lawn Nathalie turned to Grace, who was standing in open-mouthed
+astonishment at this sudden turn in the day's doings.
+
+"Oh, Grace, will you go with me? Didn't I tell you Nita was lovely?"
+Then seizing the girl by the arm she swept her across the grass to where
+Helen was standing talking to her brother.
+
+"Helen," she panted, "I want you to come with me to see Nita. Mrs. Van
+Vorst has sent for me to come up and says for me to bring two of my
+friends. Will you come?"
+
+"Come!" exclaimed Helen, "of course I will. I have been on the point of
+expiring with curiosity ever since you told me of your adventure at the
+gray house."
+
+"Adventure?" repeated Grace. "Oh, Nathalie, you have not told me about
+it!" in an aggrieved tone.
+
+"But I'm going to! Oh, but I must hurry and get the cream ready or it
+will be too late!" She started to run, but after a few steps turned
+back, and waving her hand at the girls, called, "Helen, you tell her
+while I am getting the tray."
+
+"But I'm coming to help you," replied that young woman. "You come, too,"
+she added, catching Grace by the arm. But to her surprise Grace pulled
+away from her with the exclamation, "Oh, Helen! I wouldn't go in that
+house for a mint of money! Why didn't you know? No, I'm not to tell,"
+she ended mysteriously, "but you go," she added, "that is if you are not
+afraid."
+
+"Afraid?" echoed her companion in amazement, "why should I be afraid,
+surely you don't think any one could harm us as long as Nathalie has
+been there and come away safely?"
+
+"I don't know," hesitated Grace, "I!--"
+
+"Oh, girls, I have the tray all ready, but you will have to help me
+carry it. Do come on, for I do not want to keep Mrs. Van Vorst waiting
+too long!" Nathalie was back again.
+
+"Grace says she is afraid to go," explained Helen.
+
+"Afraid!" repeated Nathalie bewildered. "What are you afraid of?" she
+demanded abruptly turning towards her friend.
+
+"Why Nathalie, don't you remember that day we--"
+
+Nathalie continued to gaze at her blankly, and then her face broke into
+a smile as she remembered the day she and Grace had run away from the
+gray house afraid of the crazy man.
+
+"Oh, Grace," she cried with merry laughter, "that was the best joke on
+you and me, for, O dear, why, Grace, it wasn't any crazy man at all, it
+was only a cockatoo!"
+
+The long kept secret that had troubled Nathalie so much at first was out
+at last, and she and Helen, who had been told about that when her
+friend's silence was first broken as far as she was concerned, broke
+into prolonged laughter at the richness of the joke.
+
+"A cockatoo?" exclaimed Grace incredulously, and then annoyed at the
+girls' merriment she added crossly, "Oh, I do wish you would explain
+what is so funny, I think it real mean of you both to laugh that way!"
+
+"Yes, it is mean," added Nathalie, stifling her laughter as she saw the
+irate expression on her friend's face. "But, Grace, it was funny. I
+would have told you all about it before--that is how I found out--only I
+had sworn not to tell. But if you will promise not to reveal what I am
+going to tell you--honor bright--" this in answer to the girl's nod of
+assent, "I will tell you the mystery of the gray house!"
+
+It was not long now before Grace heard the long story of how Nathalie
+had come to go to the house, how she had found out about the cockatoo,
+the star part she had played with the princess, and the many other
+happenings that had taken place within the last few weeks.
+
+"But is the poor thing such a terrible monster?" demanded Grace in ready
+sympathy.
+
+"A monster?" ejaculated Nathalie in amazement. "Who said she was a
+monster?"
+
+"Why, don't you remember? Edith--"
+
+"Now, see here," exclaimed Nathalie stamping her feet angrily, "don't
+tell me another word of what the Sport says. I am just beginning to hate
+that girl, she is always saying and doing things she has no--" She
+stopped suddenly as it came to her in a conscience-stricken flash that
+Pioneers were never to say evil of any one.
+
+Helen, seeing the strange expression in her eyes and noticing how her
+color was coming and going in flashes, cried, "Oh, Nathalie, what is
+it?"
+
+"It is nothing," replied the girl quickly in a choked voice, "I just
+stopped--because--well, I remembered that one of the Pioneer laws is not
+to speak evil of any one. I'm going to keep mum after this, but that
+girl," her eyes shadowed again, "does provoke me so!"
+
+"Oh, Nathalie, you are a dear girl," exclaimed Helen, putting her arm
+around her friend and giving her a hug. "I wish we were all as careful
+about keeping the Pioneer laws as you, but gracious, child, don't repent
+with such dire woe, for none of us are saints, and the Sport is trying,
+the Lord knows. But explain to Grace about your friend."
+
+"No," said Nathalie determinedly. "I am not going to say another thing,
+only that Nita is not a monster, only a humpback, and--but there, if you
+want to know about her, come and see her."
+
+"Well," spoke up Helen, "if we are going to see the Princess in the
+tower--how fairylike that sounds--we had better go. And then, as seeing is
+believing, we'll go and tell the Sport all about it, and stop that funny
+little tongue of hers that creates so much trouble at times."
+
+"Oh, that will be just the thing; Helen, you are a dear!" cried
+Nathalie. Then the three girls hurried to the ice-cream table for the
+tray. Hastily taking it they pushed their way through the crowd, coming
+and going about the tables, to the porch, where Ellen relieved them of
+their burden and then conducted them to the sun parlor, where Mrs. Van
+Vorst and Nita sat waiting to receive them.
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst," cried Nathalie as she greeted that lady and her
+daughter, "it was lovely of you to allow me to bring my two friends to
+meet Nita. This is Miss Helen Dame," she continued drawing Helen to her,
+"and this is another Pioneer friend, Miss Grace Tyson."
+
+"I am very glad to meet you, Mrs. Van Vorst," broke in Helen, "for I
+feel that we are very much indebted to you for allowing us to use your
+lawn."
+
+"Yes," chimed Grace, as she shook the lady's hand, "we all feel that you
+have given us a lovely afternoon."
+
+"I think the indebtedness is on my side," smiled the lady, looking down
+with pleased eyes at the two girls, as they stood glancing shyly at her,
+their white dresses and red caps making them appear unusually pretty.
+"But let me make you acquainted with my daughter," she added, leading
+them to where Nita sat, her blue eyes almost black with the excitement
+of meeting these two new Pioneers, while her cheeks, usually so pale,
+were flushed with a delicate pinkness.
+
+After the general hand-shaking was over and the little party had
+gathered closer to the window to admire the gay-colored flags that
+fluttered, one from each table, showing with unusual vividness between
+the green foliage and light dresses of strollers across the lawn,
+Nathalie asked Nita how she had liked the drill.
+
+"Oh, Nathalie," rejoined the princess enthusiastically, "it was just the
+prettiest sight, and I told Ellen and Mamma every flag story, didn't I?"
+Then suddenly remembering the two strangers, she relapsed into a shy
+silence and crouched back in the friendly shelter of her chair as if
+with the sudden thought of her deformity and the fear that the girls
+would see it.
+
+But Grace and Helen were not thinking of the "awful hump" as Nathalie
+had defined it, but of the pale sweet face with the lovely violet eyes
+that were shining like bright stars.
+
+"I am awfully glad you liked it," said Helen, suddenly recalled to her
+duties as the leader of one of the groups. "We tried to make it look as
+festive as we could with Uncle Sam's old liberty banners, but if it had
+not been for the lawn we should not have been able to have the drill."
+
+"You are all very kind to thank me so prettily," said Mrs. Van Vorst,
+"but, as I said, I think you have given me and my little daughter more
+pleasure than we have given you. The poor child sees so little of life,
+as we are so secluded here behind these high walls."
+
+In a few moments, as Nita's shyness began to wear off, the little group
+was chatting in the most friendly way, talking over the incidents of the
+drill, the Pioneers telling about the nice little sum they had made for
+their camp expenses, while they all ate their cream and cake. Ellen,
+like a good soul that she was, had hastened out to the lawn and brought
+enough of those delicacies to provide for the whole group.
+
+Helen's remark about the Camping Fund started a new subject of
+conversation and opened the way for Nita to ask many questions about
+this summer dream of the Pioneers. "Oh," she declared at length, "I just
+wish you could come up to Eagle Lake and camp on its shores. We have a
+bungalow up there, you know, and it is just a glorious place. But it
+gets so lonely after a while, with nothing but the birds and squirrels
+to talk to. Oh," she ended suddenly with a little sigh, "if I was only
+well and strong, then I would be a Pioneer, too."
+
+"Oh, but you--" interrupted Nathalie, and then she paused. She was going
+to say "why you can be," but the quick remembrance of the hump and the
+delicate face of the girl caused her to halt. With quick readiness she
+changed to, "Oh, but you would enjoy seeing one of our cheer fires; they
+are an inspiration for all kinds of dreams with the burning logs and
+glowing embers."
+
+"You ought to see the fagot party we are going to have Monday night,"
+chimed in Grace. "It is to be a burning send-off to one of the girls who
+is going South to live for a while."
+
+"A fagot party?" exclaimed Nita with interested eyes. "Oh, do tell all
+about it; it sounds, well it sounds fagoty. What do you do?"
+
+"Why, we use small fagots tied into bundles," explained Helen, "that is,
+after we have started a good blazing fire. Each girl has her fagot
+bundle and as soon as one burns up she throws hers on--"
+
+"Oh, but you haven't told the best part," broke in Grace. "While each
+girl's fagot bundle is burning she tells a story, which has to be ended
+by the time her fagots are burned."
+
+"Does she have to stop on the very second?" questioned Nita.
+
+"Yes, she begins as soon as she throws her bundle on the blaze, and
+keeps on talking until it is all burned up and falls to a shower of
+fiery sparks. But of course she has to keep a sharp look out on the
+burning fagots, so as to end her tale with a good climax as the fagots
+fall," explained Helen.
+
+"Where are you going to have it?" questioned Nita, a shade of
+disappointment on her face as she thought how she would like to see this
+fagot party.
+
+"We haven't found a place yet," answered Grace, who was one of the
+committee, "but we are working hard to have it down in Deacon Ditmas's
+lot, near the cross-roads."
+
+"Why can't you have it on our lawn?" exclaimed Nita timidly, turning
+appealing eyes towards her mother. "Oh, Mother, do say they can have it
+here, and then I can see it."
+
+The girls were so amazed at this sudden and unexpected proposition that
+they all remained silent, Nathalie in a spasm of dread for fear that
+Mrs. Van Vorst would think that the Pioneers were a great nuisance being
+thrust upon her hospitality in this abrupt manner. But she was quickly
+undeceived as the lady rejoined hastily, "Why, I should be most pleased
+to let the Pioneers have the lawn for the fagot party. It would give
+Nita great pleasure, I am sure."
+
+"That will be just lovely!" cried her daughter, clapping her hands
+delightedly. "And you will take it, won't you?" she coaxed pleadingly,
+suddenly stopping her demonstrations as if realizing that her plan might
+not be pleasing to the girls.
+
+"I think it would be dandy," answered Grace. "What do you girls think?"
+turning towards them as she spoke.
+
+"Why, I think it would be fine," added Helen, "and--"
+
+"But oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, it will destroy the grass on the lawn," spoke
+up Nathalie doubtfully, "for our cheer fires always leave a blackened
+burnt place on the ground."
+
+"That will not make any difference," was the prompt rejoinder from that
+lady. "Peter can rake it off and if necessary he can resod it. I shall
+only be delighted if you young girls can use it, and the favor will all
+be on my side--" her voice trembled slightly--"for it will give my little
+daughter so much pleasure."
+
+"Oh, Nita! you are walking, you will fall and hurt yourself!" exclaimed
+Nathalie excitedly, as she entered that young lady's room the Monday
+after the Flag Drill, and found her walking about with a coolness and
+ease that she had never before seen her display.
+
+Nita broke into merry laughter at the look of dismay on her friend's
+face. "Of course I'm walking, the doctor says I can, so there!" There
+was a triumphant toss of her head at Nathalie.
+
+"But you have never walked, that is not much since I have known you!"
+cried the puzzled girl.
+
+"And you thought I never could," replied the little lady independently.
+"Well, you are wrong. I used to walk when I felt able, sometimes quite a
+little. Then a crank of a doctor frightened Mamma to death by telling
+her I should always lie on my back or side, and for years I have been
+nailed like a mast to a ship on that couch. But Dr. Morrow says if I
+have the strength I should walk, and that my strength will come
+gradually. Oh, who knows what I can do? Walk off this old hump, I hope!"
+
+"Oh, you dear thing!" cried Nathalie, rushing to her friend and giving
+her a squeeze. "Isn't that just the loveliest thing? What nice times we
+can have after a while if you can walk, and Dr. Morrow, I always knew he
+was a dear!"
+
+"There, don't squeeze me to bits, but tell me all the things that have
+happened since the Flag Drill, and oh, Nathalie, your friends are dears.
+The one you call Grace is sweet, and the other one, why, she isn't so
+pretty, but she looks a good sort."
+
+"She is something more than a 'good sort,'" answered Nathalie swiftly,
+"she is a gem, she is so clever and sensible, and, oh, what a friend she
+has proved to me! She has a wonderful way of helping you over the hard
+places. But there, I will tell you what Grace said about you, she said
+you were a sweet little cherub--and--"
+
+"Just arrived from angel land I suppose, with wings all sprouting,"
+ventured Nita sarcastically. "Well, she ought to see me when I'm mad.
+Cherub indeed! What did the other one say?"
+
+Nathalie hesitated; her face flushed, "Oh--why, she thought you were a
+dear, but said you were a bit spoiled."
+
+Nita looked surprised for a minute; then her eyes flashed as she cried
+with a defiant lift of her head. "Well, I guess if Miss Sensible had a
+hump to carry about that could never be taken off, no matter how it
+hurt, and had to be shut up behind walls with nothing to see or any one
+to talk to, she'd be spoiled, too!" There was a quiver of the chin as
+the red lips closed tightly in the effort not to cry.
+
+"Oh, you poor little thing, I should not have told you that, for really,
+Helen thought you were lovely!" Nathalie regretted with all her heart
+the impulse that had prompted her to tell the truth to Nita. It seemed
+unkind but it was really spoken in the hope of doing her little friend
+good.
+
+But Nita pushed her away, "Oh, don't pet me!" as Nathalie attempted to
+caress her, "I was only teasing. Yes, I know I'm spoiled, but there, do
+tell me the news, for your face shows that you are just dying to tell me
+something worth the hearing."
+
+"Well, yes, I have _some_ news--that's slang, but O dear, it does mean so
+much sometimes," laughed Nathalie as she and Nita seated themselves on
+the couch. "Saturday we had a Pioneer Rally. Judge Benson, a friend of
+Dr. Morrow's from the city, gave us a talk on self-government. He
+explained the difference between natural, spiritual, and civic law. He
+also explained the meaning of an ordinance, told us how justice was
+administered in the different courts, and how self-government, or the
+reform system is having its try-out in some of the prisons to-day. He
+says it bids fair to make criminals--men hardened in sin and
+crime--respectable members of a community."
+
+"Self-government?" queried mystified Nita, "why, the Pioneers are not
+citizens or criminals; you don't have to be governed!"
+
+"Yes, we do," asserted Nathalie stoutly, "and so does everybody. Civic,
+natural, and spiritual laws are all right, but back of those laws is the
+law of self-government, that is the something within each one of us that
+makes us what we want to be, that makes us control ourselves even when
+we are babies, when we get slapped for being naughty. If there was no
+self-government in the world--for it is the government of self when we
+make ourselves obey the laws of God and man, when we cease evil and do
+the right--why, if there was no self-government we would all be savages
+without law and order.
+
+"Judge Benson told us how self-government came to be used in the schools
+and prisons. Of course, as I said, we all have to govern ourselves in a
+measure, but it is the applying of this self-government in a new way
+that has done so much good.
+
+"A very good man, he said, took some waifs from the poor settlements in
+New York to the country and tried to better them physically and morally
+by teaching them to be good. But of course, they would do wicked things
+and have to be punished, and he became very much discouraged because the
+punishments didn't seem to do them any permanent good. So he thought for
+a long time and then he formed a Junior Republic, made all the boys and
+girls citizens, and then told them to appoint their own officials, that
+is, their own lawyers, judges, officers, and so on. Then when any of
+them did wrong they were haled into court and tried by their own
+comrades. Of course, they all became so interested in this new system of
+punishing--for you see, they all had a part in it--that they became
+wonderfully good. You see, the boys and girls had to learn to control
+themselves, for of course, they not only wanted to stand high in the
+court and be lawyers and judges themselves, but they did not like to be
+corrected and called down--that's what the judge said--by their own
+comrades. This venture at making boys and girls learn to control
+themselves not only taught them self-denial, self-repression,
+self-development, and the difference between right and wrong, and their
+duty to themselves as well as to their companions, but it was the means
+of introducing the same system into the public schools, and in time into
+the prisons."
+
+"Yes, but I don't understand how it interests you girls."
+
+"Why, Mrs. Morrow read so much about self-government and the good it did
+that she introduced it into the Pioneer organization, and it has worked
+wonderfully well there, Mrs. Morrow claims. Instead of a court we have a
+senate, which is composed of two girls from each bird group, elected by
+the girls. The Pioneers also elected a president, that's Helen, and a
+vice-president, she's an Oriole girl and quite clever, too. Jessie Ford
+is the secretary, and Mrs. Morrow is the Advisory Judge and has the
+power to veto any ruling of the president, but she never has as yet.
+
+"So you see what it does for the Pioneers, for if any member of the
+organization breaks a law or does anything wrong she is brought before
+the Senate. Every Pioneer served with an indictment to appear before the
+Senate has, of course, the right to choose one of the girls as a
+counsel, and when there are two girls implicated they both choose
+counsel. Then after the witnesses are all heard the lawyers sum up, and
+the case goes to the Senate, who act as a jury and vote by ballot. The
+case can be appealed to the Advisory Judge; or an offender, by asking or
+showing contrition, can have her sentence lightened. You don't know what
+fun it is, and then it helps to make us govern ourselves and teaches us
+law, too, in a small way, of course."
+
+"Well, I wish they'd try to punish that hateful Sport for using your
+idea, and to think she got all the credit for it! Why--"
+
+"No, she didn't," laughed Nathalie with an odd little gleam in her eye,
+"for she was tried before the Senate Saturday."
+
+"Oh, Nathalie, you don't mean it! Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Nita clapping
+her hands delightedly. "I do hope she got her deserts, the deceitful
+thing!"
+
+"Well, I am afraid she got all that was coming to her, as Dick said."
+Nathalie's bright face sobered. "Nita, I was awfully sorry for her. It
+was so humiliating to have to face that Senate, oh, the girls just hate
+to be brought before it. I had to tell as a witness, about losing the
+Stunt, the librarian told of helping me get data and then helping me to
+look for it, and then how she saw Edith pick it up as it fell from under
+a book on the table."
+
+"Do tell me what they did to her!" Nita bent forward in curious
+excitement as she spoke.
+
+"Poor thing! she had all her stars and badges of merit taken from her.
+Just think, she will have to begin all over again to win them! At first
+it was voted that she would have to go back and be a third-class Pioneer
+again, but I was so sorry that I pleaded for clemency, and so the
+sentence was lightened.
+
+"You see, there is an awful lot of good in Edith, and I am never again
+going to say anything against her, she has been punished enough. And oh,
+Nita, Dorothy at the Rally received her third-class badge, and I
+received my badge for a second-class Pioneer. I'm going to work awfully
+hard while at camp, so as to qualify as a first-class Pioneer. But
+there, it is getting late and we shall have to stop talking and take up
+our reading on the 'Pioneer Women of America.'"
+
+Nita nodded, and in a few moments the two girls were busily engaged;
+Nita listening with the keenest attention while Nathalie read about the
+Dutch women who came from Holland and settled New York, little dreaming
+as she read that this lesson was to culminate in an event of the utmost
+importance to the Girl Pioneers of Westport.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX--THE FAGOT PARTY
+
+
+"Oh, Mother, isn't it just beautiful?" exclaimed the princess the night
+of the fagot party, as she watched the flames leap and dance down on the
+lawn.
+
+"Yes; it is very suggestive, too," answered Mrs. Van Vorst, "for it
+makes one think of the witches in Macbeth, as they stood around the
+cauldron watching their queer concoction 'boil and bubble.'"
+
+"O dear!" was Nita's wail again, "it is lovely to see the fire and the
+girls, but I do want to hear the stories they tell."
+
+"Perhaps Nathalie will come up later," suggested her mother, "and tell
+you some of the thrillers. Is that what she calls them?"
+
+"There, they have stopped the witches' dance and are forming a circle.
+Oh, one of the girls has thrown on a bundle of fagots! Yes, it's that
+friend of Nathalie's, Miss Sensible. Oh, Mother," cried the little
+shut-in with a woeful countenance, "I am sure I could walk down there."
+She stood up as she spoke and began to walk restlessly up and down the
+room.
+
+"Oh, Nita, be careful!" pleaded her mother. "You do not want to overdo
+your walking, and you have been on your feet a good deal to-day."
+Notwithstanding Mrs. Van Vorst's protest there was a note of hope in her
+voice that betrayed that she had at last begun to see things as Nathalie
+had predicted, that she had made a mistake in housing her daughter
+behind high walls, and that the mingling with girls of her own age might
+bring new life to her.
+
+"Ah, there's Grace," went on the voice at the window. "She's the other
+girl who came with Nathalie. Oh, she's throwing on her fagots!" The girl
+turned from the window as she perceived that Ellen had entered the room
+and was telling her mother that some one desired to see her in the
+library.
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst arose to leave the room Nita demurred, "Oh, Mother, I
+don't want to be left here alone."
+
+"I will return as soon as possible, Nita, dear," was the reply; "Ellen
+will stay with you. You can tell her about the fagot party," she added
+hastily as she saw the cloud on the girl's face. With a backward glance,
+as she hurried from the room, she saw that her suggestion had been
+followed and that Ellen had drawn her chair close to Nita's, and was
+eagerly listening as her daughter related the incidents leading up to
+the demonstration down on the lawn.
+
+Indeed it was not long before the faithful nurse, always interested in
+anything to brighten the life of her young charge, was watching the
+Pioneers and their doings as keenly as Nita, while wishing with her that
+they could hear the stories the girls were telling.
+
+Suddenly Nita, who had been unusually silent for some time, drew Ellen's
+head down to hers, and began to whisper softly in her ear.
+
+"Oh, Ellen, will you?" she coaxed pleadingly, as she finished her
+whispering of something that had brought a protest from the good woman.
+Ellen looked dubious for a minute or so, and then the persuasive pleader
+had her way, for Ellen had given her assent and Nita was clapping her
+hands happily, as she thought of the fun in store for her later in the
+evening.
+
+Meanwhile, the girls on the lawn with tense expectancy kept their eyes
+on Nathalie, who arose, walked towards the flaming pyre, and with a
+quick toss landed another bundle of fagots on the leaping flames.
+
+"Oh, Nathalie, you will have to hurry," called Grace excitedly, as her
+friend scurried back to her seat. "One of your fagots is already
+ablaze."
+
+Nathalie needed no warning for she had already plunged into her tale,
+and in short, concise sentences--she had practiced with Helen--was
+describing in graphic tone a colonial wedding, the going away of the
+bridal pair, the building of a log hut in the wilderness, the departure
+of the young husband, and the loneliness of the young bride. She paused
+a moment and drew a long breath as if to gather her forces for the
+coming ordeal.
+
+Then with her eyes fastened in a rigid stare on the twirling glare from
+the flames--so as to bring her story to a proper climax when the fiery
+fagots fell apart--she went on and told of the face of a redskin suddenly
+being thrust into a window of the little cabin, of a shriek of terror,
+of cruel, fiendish laughter, of the fair bride being carried on the back
+of a tall savage, and of the final arrival at an Indian encampment,
+where a paint-bedaubed warrior with flaunting head-gear tried to induce
+the wailing bride to become his squaw.
+
+Nathalie's eyes, big in the flaming redness of the firelight, were
+riveted on the seething flames as if she saw in the twist and curl of
+their darting tongues the enactment of the story she was telling. The
+girls all bent forward eagerly, for the fagots were getting ready to
+burst apart as she told of the imprisonment of the bride, the making of
+a big bonfire, the tying of the bride to the stake, the lighting of the
+underbrush at her feet, and the whirling flames as they leaped up and
+greedily licked the terror-stricken face.
+
+But Nathalie, like a photo-play screen, had transported her listeners to
+a sun-baked plain, where a white man was galloping in mad speed. A fagot
+had leaped from its fellows. "Oh, Nathalie, hurry!" whispered Grace,
+wringing her hands nervously. Ah, but Nathalie was on time, and as the
+fagots gave a loud snap and fell into a shower of twinkling lights the
+horseman came galloping into the street of the Indian encampment with a
+troop of soldiers close at his heels, and leaped into the fiery embers
+and cut--There was a loud clapping followed by cries of applause, for
+there was no need to tell what happened after that leap into the fire,
+every one knew.
+
+"Now, Lillie, it is your turn!" shouted several voices as Nathalie,
+exhausted by her strenuous race between words and flames, sank back
+somewhat exhausted against her friend's shoulder.
+
+Lillie Bell, in response to her name, seized a bundle of fagots, and
+with a few flourishes, which she declared to be an incantation for
+success, threw it on the blazing pile. In a moment she was back in her
+seat and had started her tale of romance.
+
+"When Washington Irving's headless horseman was the terror of the
+Hudson, a party of young girls, who were wandering in the fields one
+moonlight night, was chased by a huge and airy phantom to the banks of
+the river. In order to escape their foe two of the girls darted into an
+empty boat fastened near the bank and rowed out into the stream. The
+phantom, a strange and weird object, pursued, swimming rapidly in the
+wake of the canoe.
+
+"Suddenly, to the horror of the girls crouched up against a rock on
+shore they saw, in a broad band of moonlight shining on the water, that
+the phantom was the headless one. Even as they gazed it had reached the
+boat, and with one sweep of its mighty arm had grabbed one of the girls
+from her sister's clutch, and was swimming swiftly back to land.
+
+"The girl in the boat rowed quickly back, only to see, with her
+companions on shore, the phantom disappear into the woods. With
+phenomenal courage she flew after the headless one, screaming with all
+her strength. But alas, her speed and screams were of no avail, for she
+ran after the phantom only to see it dash into an uninhabited mansion
+that stood in a park thick with the gloom of forest trees.
+
+"Horror-stricken, the girls hastened home and parties were sent in
+pursuit of the stolen girl, but no trace of her was found, although the
+empty mansion, dark with the forest gloom was searched from attic to
+cellar.
+
+"Time passed, and the maiden returned not to her home, nor was any trace
+of her ever discovered, although every effort possible had been made. At
+last her sister, loved by a young farmer, refused to marry him unless he
+would visit the haunted mansion at midnight, to see if possibly he could
+obtain any clew to her sister's whereabouts, it being generally believed
+that she had been murdered in the house and that her ghost haunted the
+abode.
+
+"Determined to win the girl, the young farmer with his revolver and a
+few tapers secreted himself in the cellar of the house one day, just
+before twilight. He was resolved to solve the mystery of the girl's
+disappearance and the reason why the house at night was filled with a
+peculiar, bluish light, said to be the candle borne by the headless one
+in his midnight tour of the premises.
+
+"Just before midnight the farmer hastened to the upper floor and hid in
+a closet, where, with quaking limbs and wildly beating heart he awaited
+the magic hour. Unfortunately, weary with waiting, he fell asleep, but
+was soon awakened by a peculiar, creeping sensation along his spine. He
+crouched against the door holding it ajar with one hand and the pistol
+in the other.
+
+"All at once there was the swish of a garment against the door. He
+scratched a match, lit his taper, and glared forth into the darkness.
+Again he heard that swish. It was in the hall. Stealthily he tiptoed to
+the hall door, opened it with trembling hand, and stepped forth into
+dense blackness, when--"
+
+"Oh, Lillie, hurry!" screamed the Sport. "Your logs will fall in a
+minute!"
+
+A strange smile flitted over Lillie's face, but her voice went
+thrillingly on. "When something huge and hairy spread over him like a
+net, benumbing every nerve and muscle. He struggled, and finally
+succeeded in getting free of the unknown thing and sprang for the door
+leading to the open. He would get out of that house. No, he would lose
+Kitty, he could not live without her! He turned--ah, what was that weird
+flash at the top of the staircase? He heard the swish again--this time
+very near--it was some one coming down the stairs! He crouched against
+the wall and peered up; the rattling of a chain sounded on his ears;
+again came that weird glare, and he saw--" the fagots fell with a loud
+sputter, throwing forth a shower of fiery sparks. Lillie remained silent
+a moment, each girl held her breath in paralyzed terror, and then, as
+the last fagot dropped a shapeless heap on the grass, Lillie cried with
+tragic emphasis, "Girls, I leave you to guess what he saw!"
+
+A second of space, Lillie's eyes shown in a mocking smile as she glanced
+around the circle, and then, the smile froze on her lips, her eyes
+dilated wildly, and she jumped to her feet crying in frenzied horror,
+"What is that?" pointing as she spoke to a clump of trees on the lawn.
+Another second and she had turned, and with an unearthly shriek was
+flying across the lawn towards the house!
+
+The girls, whose nerves had been wrought up to the highest pitch by
+Lillie's weird tale, remained dumb, thinking as they saw her strange
+actions that it was a new thriller, and were uncertain whether to laugh
+or cry, as they stared at her flying figure.
+
+Jessie, who always disliked Lillie's tragic tales, with a half laugh
+sprang to her feet crying, "Well, if she isn't the limit!" Her glance
+had followed Lillie's to the clump of trees with a curious stare; the
+stare became fixed; she uttered a wild scream, and the next moment she,
+too, was rushing in mad terror across the lawn in the wake of the
+story-teller!
+
+As the girls saw her glance and heard her cry, terror struck each one
+like an electric shock, and the next second every girl present had
+broken into a wild cry, and without waiting to see what was the cause of
+the rush over the lawn, was speeding, helter-skelter towards the house!
+
+Nathalie had run with the others, and then, swayed by some unknown
+impulse, she had halted and glanced back in the direction she had seen
+Lillie and Jessie look. She gave a low cry, started to flee again, and
+then stood suddenly still, and with panting breath gazed again at the
+clump of trees. She caught her breath, for under the swaying boughs
+stood a weird, white object pointing a long white finger at her!
+
+What was it? Could it be a Boy Scout trying to frighten them? She bent
+forward with intent eyes, for as the white figure swayed slightly there
+was something curiously familiar in its movements. The next instant
+Nathalie had turned, and as if shot from a catapult was speeding towards
+the white figure that still stood, uncannily waving its arms to and fro
+in the moonlight.
+
+[Illustration: With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn.]
+
+"Oh, Nita!" burst from the girl, "how did you come here?" Before the
+white figure could answer, Ellen was seen running swiftly towards them.
+
+"Oh, Miss Nita," she wailed, "what a scare you have given me! Oh, you
+naughty girl, you promised that you would not leave the lower porch!"
+
+"Well," flashed the girl, "I changed my mind!" Then seizing Nathalie,
+who was still staring at her with big, frightened eyes, she began to
+laugh hysterically. "Oh, wasn't it funny, Nathalie? Did you see how she
+ran? What a joke, when she was trying to scare the girls--and was scared
+herself--O dear, it is so funny!"
+
+But Nathalie, with a sober face was staring down at the grass. "Oh,
+Nita," she exclaimed with a sudden fear, "the grass is wet, and, Ellen,
+she will take cold! Oh, how did she get here? Mrs. Van Vorst will be so
+displeased!"
+
+But at that instant Mrs. Van Vorst came running down the path followed
+by Mrs. Morrow. "Oh, Nita! Nita!" she wailed, "how could you be so
+foolish, you will surely take your death! Ellen, how did it happen?"
+
+"Sure, there's no harm done," broke in Peter's voice at this critical
+moment. "I have her chair and we'll soon get her in, marm. Sure, I saw
+her stealing across the lawn all alone by herself, and I hurried after
+the chair, thinking she would be tired before she had gone far."
+
+"Thank you, Peter," cried Nita's mother, "you are so good and
+considerate. O dear, I hope she won't take cold! It was such an
+imprudent thing for her to do, but Ellen, how did it happen?" There was
+a note of condemnation in the lady's voice.
+
+But before Ellen could answer, Nita, whom Peter had wrapped and placed
+in her chair, cried, "Now, Mamma, don't blame Ellen. It was all my
+fault. I sent her to get my shawl and then I stole down here. I just
+wanted to hear some of the stories. But when I got here that girl--the
+Pioneers called her Lillie--was telling a story. She was trying to scare
+the girls, and then--oh, Mother, it was so funny to see her run--why, I
+thought I would scare her, and when she looked up, just as she had
+worked the girls all to a fever, I waved my arm and pointed my finger at
+her. Oh, Mother, if you could have heard her shriek!" Nita was again in
+hysterical laughter.
+
+By this time she had her audience laughing with her, especially Peter
+and Ellen, who thought their young mistress had been most brilliant in
+outwitting them, and in frightening the young lady who had been trying
+so hard to frighten her companions.
+
+"O dear," exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, who proved to be the lady who was
+visiting with Mrs. Van Vorst when Nita stole down to the lower porch, "I
+am ashamed of my Pioneers; they are supposed to be very brave, but
+to-night's performance does not appear as if they were. Nathalie, how
+was it you did not run with the others?"
+
+"I did," confessed Nathalie frankly, "but something brought me to a halt
+and I turned and looked back. O dear, but Nita did look terrible waving
+her white arms to and fro! And then it came to me that there was
+something familiar about the figure, I stared a moment, and then I knew!
+But, Mrs. Morrow, hadn't I better look for the girls? Please do not
+blame them, I am sure you would have run, too, if you could have seen
+Nita in that sheet, pointing her finger at you."
+
+Then Nathalie was off, running swiftly over the lawn, peering first on
+one side and then the other as she gave a Bob White whistle, then a
+Tru-al-lee, ending with the shout, "Girls! Girls! where are you?" then
+the Bob White whistle again.
+
+Her cry was heard, and one by one the Pioneers sheepishly crawled from
+their places of safety and joined Nathalie on the lawn. They listened
+with shamed faces as she told them who and what it was that had caused
+their sudden departure. They were reluctant to show themselves at first,
+especially when they learned that Mrs. Morrow was there and had heard
+all about their foolish flight. But with a bit of coaxing on Nathalie's
+part they returned, and in a few minutes were again in their cheer-fire
+circle, with two additional guests, Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, besides
+Mrs. Morrow, who had thought when the girls first began to tell their
+stories to slip in and thank Mrs. Van Vorst for her kindness, with the
+result that she had been a witness to their lack of bravery, as she
+termed it.
+
+The rest of the evening passed quickly after one or two had told their
+thrillers, to the great satisfaction of Nita, who enjoyed them
+immensely. After the stories were told, there was a marshmallow roast,
+which was entered into with zest, and then came the burning send-off to
+Louise Gaynor, who, when her name was called, came shyly forward to
+receive an enormous pie, from which hung streamers of gay colored
+ribbons, each streamer being tied to a keepsake from one of the
+Pioneers.
+
+Mrs. Morrow now expressed the regret of the Pioneers at losing so good a
+comrade and friend, with the added wish that she would always remember
+them with love, and the assurance that they would carry her on their
+hearts with devout wishes for her health and happiness. The streamers
+were pulled one by one and the loving gifts were brought forth as a
+tribute to the sweetest songster of the band.
+
+The last streamer brought to light a Round Robin letter, which Louise
+faithfully promised not to open until the dates set, as for each day in
+the year of absence she would find a few words of cheer and love from
+her comrades, the Girl Pioneers of America.
+
+After a few songs from the girls, Louise sang one or two of her old
+English songs, Lillie accompanying her on the mandolin, and then Mrs.
+Morrow, in a neat little speech, commended Nathalie for her courage in
+holding her ground when the others had taken to flight. As she ended
+there was a moment's silence and then each and every girl was shouting
+as loud as she could:
+
+  "Hear! hear! a brave Pioneer!
+  Three cheers for Nathalie dear!"
+
+This cheer was most embarrassing to Nathalie, who wiggled uneasily with
+flushed cheeks as she tried to make the girls hear that she was not
+brave at all. But her protests were drowned by the merry voices, as
+after three cheers they broke into their Pioneer song of good-by to
+Louise. This was followed by the song that every Pioneer loves to sing
+and that was:
+
+  "We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+  We will be brave, and kind and true;
+  We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
+      Hear! Hear! Hear!
+      Girl Pioneer!
+      Come, give a cheer!
+      Girl Pi-o-neer!!!"
+
+One bright morning two weeks after the fagot party, Helen with wondering
+surprise mingled with pleasure read the following:
+
+  "Madame Van Vorst presents her compliments to Mistress Helen Dame,
+  and begs the pleasure of her company on the afternoon of the sixth
+  of July, at a _Kraeg_, to meet her daughter, Mistress Anita Van
+  Vorst, in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth
+  anniversary of the building of the Van Vorst homestead. Mistress
+  Helen is requested to appear in the costume of a 'goede vrouw' of
+  Mana-ha-ta."
+
+"A _Kraeg_--what does that mean?" queried the girl, as with puzzled brows
+she eyed the tiny picture of the "Homestead" surmounting the invitation,
+with the dates, 1664-1914. "Ah, Nathalie will know!" The next moment the
+girl was hurrying across the lawn to her neighbor's veranda, where she
+had spied her cosily ensconced in the hammock screened from observant
+eyes by a bower of green leaves.
+
+Nathalie looked up as she heard her step and trilled a soft tru-al-lee
+in recognition, as Helen gave the brownish envelope in her hand a
+flourish.
+
+"I knew you would be wanting to know what that meant." Nathalie smiled
+happily at her friend as she pointed to the envelope.
+
+"I understand the invitation all right," was the quick retort, "and
+congratulate you on your success in winning the madame to your views
+that it was a shame to allow little Anita to bloom behind those high
+walls. But--can you tell me what kind of a thing a _Kraeg_ is?"
+
+"It means a Dutch house-warming! But there, I am not going to tell you
+any more, wait until the sixth."
+
+"'In the costume of a goede vrouw of Mana-ha-ta,'" read Helen slowly.
+"May I deign to ask your Dutch Majesty to explain what this means?"
+
+"You may," nodded the occupant of the hammock, "for her Dutch Majesty
+has spent many weary hours with Miss Anita studying just that part of
+the program. You see, we want to have the real Dutch atmosphere of the
+early period, so we decided to have each girl impersonate some woman
+pioneer, and then tell who she was and what she did."
+
+"Well, I don't imagine that the girls will care to get themselves up
+like those old Dutch vrouws, as they were so terribly stolid and
+uninteresting."
+
+"Oh, Helen," exclaimed Nathalie sitting suddenly up in the hammock,
+"those Dutch vrouws were anything but uninteresting. Nita and I have
+read all about them in a book Mrs. Van Vorst bought for us in New York,
+it has just been published and is very interesting. As a matter of fact,
+the women who settled New York were the most efficient, the most
+industrious, and the most capable of any of the early pioneer women of
+that period."
+
+"I did not know that," said Helen, raising her eyebrows; "I thought they
+were just stolid Dutch peasant women with little ability to do anything
+but knit, tend the cows, and so on."
+
+"A great many people seem to have that idea," returned her friend, "but
+the Dutch housewives were not mere stoical drudges. Holland at that
+time, you know, was the only country that gave as good an education to
+her girls as to her boys. They were not only educated to fill
+responsible positions, but to have a love for literature as well as for
+painting, music, and the arts. So these Dutch peasants, as you call
+them, were better educated, better protected by the laws of the colony,
+and held more important positions than any of their Southern or Northern
+sisters.
+
+"It is claimed," she went on, warming to her subject, "that the Dutch
+housewife was the manufacturer of the day, producing under her own roof
+nearly all the necessities for the family use. Besides being proficient
+in the art of cooking, she made perfumes from the flowers in her garden,
+planted, gathered, dried, and brewed the hops. She culled simples and
+herbs for medicine, thus becoming the physician of the household. She
+taught her maids to card and weave wool for clothes; she spun the fine
+thread of the flax, grown in her yard, for the linen, knit the socks,
+oh, I could not begin to tell you her many industries!
+
+"But besides all that," continued the girl, "the goede vrouws had such
+good sense and judgment, and such a fine eye for commercial values that
+they not only owned real estate, but ofttimes carried on their own
+business. The burgomasters of the town paid great deference to the Dutch
+women's shrewdness, judgment, and independence, so that they exerted no
+little influence in the state affairs of New Amsterdam."
+
+"Well, I never!" laughed Helen teasingly. "If you haven't become a
+regular schoolma'am since you have been teaching the princess. Pray, how
+much am I to pay you per word?"
+
+Nathalie laughed merrily. "Yes, isn't it funny? I started reading about
+the Pioneer women to get Nita interested in something that would be
+instructive as well as entertaining. And lo, she has not only become
+absorbed in anything that pertains to the pioneers, but in many other
+historical subjects as well. As for me, why, I have learned a great
+deal, too, and that is how, when Mrs. Van Vorst said she would like to
+entertain the Pioneers in return for amusing Nita by the drill and the
+fagot party, we decided to have a _Kraeg_."
+
+"How will the girls know what characters they are to take, what they
+did, and so on?"
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Morrow and I arranged all that. Notices were sent--you'll get
+yours--telling the girls that all information would be furnished by
+Annetje Jans--that's I--gratis. I will arrange with each girl as to her
+character and so on. Oh, there's Grace! I'll warrant you she has her
+notice and is in a hurry for news. But, Helen, here is the book that
+tells all about these Dutch women. I wish you would take it and look it
+over, for I know I shall need lots of help."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX--THE DUTCH KRAEG
+
+
+The sixth of July had arrived, and little Miss New York was fidgeting
+nervously in her chair--draped with the Star Spangled Banner and the
+flaunting colors of the Dutch Republic--placed in line with the hostess
+and the receiving party of the day. She was a rather startling Miss New
+York, arrayed as a Goddess of Liberty--she had claimed she was too modern
+to be a vrouw--with her chair as well as her small person hung with
+placards of well-known places, streets, and buildings of the metropolis.
+
+By her side stood Madame New Amsterdam--Mrs. Van Vorst--whose
+multitudinous skirts stood out from her figure with such amplitude that
+she resembled the quaint little green pincushion that dangled from her
+waist. Her neat white cap was tied under her chin with formal stiffness,
+while a large silk apron completed a make-up that transformed the
+slender, dignified Mrs. Van Vorst into a typical Dutch matron. She too,
+like her daughter, was hung with tiny white signs from bodice to skirt,
+which excited curiosity if not admiration.
+
+"Oh, Mother, I do wish they would hurry and come!" cried Miss New York
+impatiently, craning her neck to see if some one had not yet appeared on
+the broad stairway leading to the main sitting-room. "Oh, somebody's
+coming!" and the little lady, with the weight of a city on her
+shoulders, drew back as she clapped her hands with delight.
+
+"Ah, here comes the Governor's lady," exclaimed Madame New Amsterdam as
+Madame Stuyvesant--Mrs. Morrow--announced her coming by stopping on the
+threshold of the low-ceiled room, and bowed with such stately formality
+that Miss New York's eyes suddenly stilled, as she stiffened with
+similar dignity to receive the first guest.
+
+The Governor's lady was followed by Annetje Jans, her comely little
+person looking like a blooming Dutch posy, arrayed in a bright green
+petticoat and a blue waistcoat with yellow sleeves. The brown eyes,
+ready smile, and brilliant cheeks of Miss Nathalie made her a fitting
+representative of the little lady who formed so large a part of the
+history of New Amsterdam, coming over in 1630 in the ship _Endracht_
+with her husband and three children from Holland. After the death of her
+husband, who left her a _bouwerie_ (farm) of sixty acres, a good part of
+New York, she married Dominie Bogardus, thus becoming with her wealth
+and influence a dominant character in the colony.
+
+Annetje came a few steps forward, and then bobbed such a low curtsy that
+the wings of her lace cap flapped out like the sails of a windmill in a
+greeting to her hostesses. But in a second her old-time pose was
+forgotten, as her eyes fell on the much "be-signed" person of the lady
+of the house, and she flew to her aid, declaring that she was losing
+some of her signs.
+
+"This will never do," she commented as she hurriedly pinned the sign
+"Bouwerie" in its place. "Oh, and here's another old place that's gone
+astray!" poking "Der Halle" on a straight line with its neighbor, "De
+claver Waytie."
+
+"Will you please inform me why New Amsterdam is thus placarded?" It was
+the voice of the Governor's lady, who was curiously watching this
+adjustment of signs.
+
+"Why, these signs are the Dutch names of the different localities and
+streets as named in the days of New Amsterdam," explained Annetje
+quickly. "See. Broad street means Broad way; _Kloch-Hoeck_ was the site
+of the first village, as it was all covered with bits of clam and oyster
+shells, the word means Shell Point. _De claver Waytie_ was a hill
+leading to a spring covered with grass, where the young maidens used to
+bleach their linen. The path they wore up the hill came to be known as
+_Maadje-Paatje_, Maiden Lane. _Der Halle_ was the name of a tavern near
+a big tree on the corner of Broad and Wall Street. It took the arms of
+six men to go round _der groot_ tree.
+
+"Here is _Cowfoot Hill_, the old cow-path up the hill, _Canoe Place_,
+where the Indians used to tie their canoes, and _Catiemuts_ is the hill
+where the Indians had built their castle. _Collect_ means a dear little
+lake near-by, yes, and here's the Boston Highway, here's the
+_Stadt-Huys_, the town hall. _Graft_ was a ditch crossed by a bridge;
+_De Smits Vlye_ was an old blacksmith shop near the ferry to Long
+Island. _Vlacke_ was the grazing ground for the cows, now the City Hall
+Park. _De Schaape Waytie_ was the sheep pasture--"
+
+"Annetje Jans," exclaimed Madame Van Stuyvesant at this point, with a
+solemn face, "do you expect me to remember all those Dutch names?
+Verily, child, you have improved your time and twisted your tongue." But
+Annetje was off, for at that moment she spied another arrival, one of
+the Orioles, and as the sprightly dominie's widow was to act as mistress
+of ceremonies, she was soon by her side, as she stood hesitatingly in
+the doorway.
+
+"How do you do, _Mutter_. Oh, but you do look fine!" cried Nathalie as
+her keen eyes noted the broad appearing figure with hair pushed straight
+back under a close fitting cap, short petticoat and gown displaying her
+wooden sabots. The _mutter_ was knitting industriously, like a typical
+Dutch vrouw, as she talked to Annetje and told of the woes that attended
+the getting up of her make-up.
+
+Annetje now led the new arrival to the line waiting to welcome her.
+"Allow me to present to you Catalina de Trice, the _mutter_ of New York,
+having been the first woman to land on that famous little isle."
+
+"Yes," added the _mutter_ with a stiff little bow to the grand Dutch
+dames receiving her with stately courtesy, "I came over in the first
+ship, the _Unity_, sent by the West India Company to the settlement, and
+I have the added distinction," another quaint bob, "of being the mother
+of the first white child born in New Amsterdam, Sara Rapelje."
+
+Catalina had no time to continue her family history for Annetje had
+hurried her to Miss New York, a little lady in whom all the Pioneers
+were greatly interested. She was next shown a table in the rear of Nita,
+holding a ship encrusted with silver frosting to represent snow, and
+bearing the words, "_Half-Moon_." On the deck of this famous craft was
+the miniature figure of a man, which Nathalie explained, was intended
+for the discoverer who had named the river Hudson after himself. Back of
+the ship were small sized rocks with the sign, "Great Rocks of
+Wiehocken," which Annetje declared needed no explanation.
+
+A few feet away was a large windmill guarded by a demure little
+serving-maid who was no other than Carol. With her flower-blue eyes and
+corn-colored hair hanging in two braids from under her cute little cap
+she was a miniature Dutch vrouw. Catalina was now invited to pull one of
+a number of gay-colored streamers that flew with the windmill as it
+buzzed rapidly around.
+
+To the girl's surprise, as she gave a quick pull to a ribbon, a card
+dropped from one of the sails. It was painted with a gaudy red tulip
+with an appropriate verse on Holland's national posy. Catalina, on being
+told to keep it, pinned it to her bodice, and then hurried with Annetje
+to receive the guests standing at the door, the two girls being the
+oldest representatives of the Dutch colony.
+
+The new comer proved to be Tryntje Jonas, alias Barbara Worth. She was
+made known to the hostess as the mother of Annetje, and as the first
+nurse and woman doctor in the settlement. Her skirt was of true
+linsey-woolsey, from which hung an immense pincushion. With her glasses
+and her knitting-bag on her arm she looked duly professional as she paid
+her respects to the Dutch vrouw with stately dignity.
+
+A sweeping curtsy and Madame Kiersted, Annetje's daughter, otherwise
+Grace Tyson, was telling with pride of the part she had played as Indian
+interpreter, when the officials of the town were making a treaty with
+the Indians. She was well-versed in the Algonquin language, she
+explained, as she had played with little Indian children from the time
+she was a wee lassie.
+
+She told, too, how she had signed a petition and presented it to the
+councillors, begging that the good vrouws be permitted to hold a market
+day. This petition was granted, and market day was held thenceforth on
+Saturdays, when the dames of the colony were permitted to offer their
+wares for sale on the Strand near her home. Furthermore, the Madame
+stated she had a shed built in her back yard, so that the Indian squaws
+could make brooms and string wampum, which they, too, sold on market
+day. From a little bag she now produced a wampum belt, explaining that
+it was made of twisted periwinkle shells strung on hemp. A blue
+clam-shell was also brought forth, which had been punctured with holes
+and which was called _sewant_; these two shells at that time
+constituting the currency of the colony.
+
+But the Indian's friend had gone and in her place stood a _grande dame_,
+the famous Madame Van Cortland, generally known in the olden days as
+"the maker of a stone street." Madame, when inquiry was made, said she
+had been born in Holland, but came to the _dorp_ to marry her lover,
+Captain Oloff Van Cortland. "We lived in a very grand house for those
+times, for it was made of glazed brick and had a sloping roof with a
+gable turned towards the street, after the manner of the 'Patria,'" she
+added with pompous gravity. "There were steps leading to the roof, too,
+so when it rained or snowed the water could run into a hogshead in the
+yard instead of on my neighbor's sidewalk or head. The house was
+furnished in a grand style, all the furniture came from Holland, and in
+front of it was a little stoop with two side benches and a door with an
+enormous brass knocker."
+
+"But the stone street, Madame?" inquired Madame New Amsterdam, who
+seemed greatly interested in these little stories of the people and
+doings of the city whose name she bore.
+
+"Cobbles," corrected Dame Van Cortland. "You see, it was this way. My
+husband, the captain, resigned from the militia and went into the
+brewing business. He built a brewery on Brower Street near the Fort, one
+of the first lanes made by the settlers. But alas," sighed Madame
+ruefully, "when my husband's brewery wagons made their way over the lane
+they raised so much dust and dirt that I begged my better half to pave
+it with stones. He laughed at me, as was his wont, and the dust and dirt
+grew thicker on the lane. Driven desperate, I now marshaled my servants
+to the lane, and we laid it with small, round cobblestones. I won my way
+as well as fame, for the little stone street was the first of its kind
+in the _dorp_, and was regarded with much curiosity by the burghers."
+
+Annetje, now spying two more comers, flew to welcome them and the grande
+dame of Manhattan Isle was forgotten, as an ancient little lady appeared
+with silver curls peeping from beneath a cap of rare old lace, a
+rustling silk crossed with a kerchief, and a chatelaine hanging from her
+girdle. She bowed with quaint grace before the ladies, as Madame
+Killiaen Van Rensselaer, otherwise known as, "The Lady of the Thimble."
+
+"Yes," spoke the little old lady, who by the way was a Bob White, and
+who had studied her part with due diligence, "I was the first woman to
+wear a gold thimble. I was seated at my work one day with an ivory
+thimble, big and cumbersome, on my fingers, the kind 'tis claimed the
+tailors use. A young friend of mine to whom I had rendered some slight
+service was at work in his shop just across the lane. He spied my
+thimble, and, being a goldsmith, then and there vowed that on my
+birthday I should receive a gift. 'Tis needless to say that this vow was
+fulfilled, for the young man presented me with a gold thimble on that
+day, which he had made with the wish that I would wear his finger-hat as
+a covering to a diligent and beautiful finger."
+
+A comely Dutch matron with bright eyes and ruddy cheeks was now bowing
+in sprightly manner before the hostess. By her pose she was immediately
+recognized as Lillie Bell, who indeed was just the one to personate the
+fair and bewitching "Lady of Petticoat Lane," alias Polly Spratt, Polly
+Prevoorst, and Polly Alexander. The fair Polly was the recognized social
+leader of New York in the days when coasting down _Flattenbarack Hill_,
+or skating on the _Collect_ with a party of lads and lassies as merry as
+herself gained her the name of a hoyden. Always the bonniest, the
+merriest lass at a wedding or dance, the acknowledged leader of her set,
+counting her suitors by the score, it was not to be wondered when she
+became a matron at seventeen. As a widow of twenty-six she assumed
+control of her husband's business, building a row of offices in front of
+her house. She, too, built a stone street, Marketfield Lane, thus
+inciting her neighbors to do the same. Hence, the brick walks that now
+came into fashion called _Strookes_.
+
+The keeper of a shop, the maker of a stone lane, the owner of a
+wonderful coach, Madame's fame as a beauty and a social leader, added to
+her shrewdness, her ingenuity, and sprightly intelligence, won her an
+influence in the more weighty matters of the town, gaining her the title
+of "My Lady of Petticoat Lane." Undoubtedly it also won her another
+husband, as when the _pinter_ flower was in bloom, pretty Polly married
+Mr. James Alexander, one of the most distinguished gentlemen of the
+times.
+
+But on they came, the Pioneer Girls, as Dutch matrons or maidens,
+impersonating those famous pioneer women, who not only were the bone and
+sinew of old New York, but who were the progenitors of some of its most
+distinguished men in the days that followed. Katrina de Brough, who
+lived in a fine stone house on Hanover Square, was a most suitable
+example of the housewife of the day. Her days were spent in planting her
+garden, culling her simples, distilling her medicines, and many other
+well-known crafts of the times.
+
+Judith Varleth had gained the name of the "witch maiden," having been
+arrested and imprisoned in Hartford, Connecticut, when quite a young
+girl. Whether her beauty or her Dutch tongue brought this dire calamity
+upon her is not known, but the witch maiden was duly released and
+returned to her home by her brother, and in a few years disposed of her
+unfortunate name by marrying a gallant gentleman by the name of Col.
+Nicholas Bayard.
+
+Margaret Hardenbroeck not only won a husband, Captain Patrus de Vries, a
+wealthy ship-owner, but won fame as well. On the death of her husband
+she continued his business, and established a line of ships, the first
+packet line that crossed the Atlantic. Her ability as a business woman
+evidently won her not only fame, but a husband, for she soon married
+again, a Mr. Frederick Phillipse, and in later days became the owner of
+the Phillipse Manor, so well known during the days of the Revolution.
+
+Cornelia Lubbetse became Mrs. Johannes de Beyster, while her daughter
+Marie, the wife of three husbands, became known as the wealthiest woman
+in the settlement. She was also noted for her industry, filling a great
+_kos_ (chest) with beautiful linen tied in packages with colored tape
+and marked by herself at the time of her first marriage. She also
+carried on a thrifty business trading with ships between New Amsterdam,
+Connecticut, and Virginia, as well as being the mother of "The Lady of
+Petticoat Lane," who married a younger brother of her third husband.
+
+Anna Stuyvesant, Rachel Hartjers, and Madame Van Corlear were all in due
+turn presented to the hostess, as well as Grietje Janssen, who was known
+in the old days as a double-tongued woman, having won fame as being the
+gossip of the burgh.
+
+But the merry chatter and low-pitched laughter of these would-be
+historic maidens was suddenly stilled, as a strange, grotesque figure
+was seen in the doorway gazing at the assembled company with an odd
+little smile on its bedaubed face.
+
+A murmur of surprise and astonishment caused eyes and mouths to open in
+curious wonder, as Annetje, although as bewildered as her neighbors,
+made her way to the door to welcome the unknown intruder.
+
+As Nathalie approached the uncouth, blanketed savage it emitted a
+strange sound; some claimed it was a grunt, while others said it was a
+groan. The girl stared a moment in startled inquiry and then a smile
+parted her lips, which was quickly repressed as in a quick glance she
+noted the eyes heavily underlined with black paint, the brown dyed skin,
+the red patched cheeks much besmeared with grease, and the black
+snake-like strings of hair that straggled from beneath a derby hat,
+several sizes too small for the head.
+
+As the redskin strode with measured gait to the ladies, the painted lips
+opened, and an excellent imitation of an Indian warwhoop broke forth
+with startling intensity. Little Miss New York jumped nervously, Madame
+New Amsterdam started back in surprise, but Mrs. Morrow and Nathalie
+burst into laughter as they both cried, "Why--it's Edith!"
+
+Yes, it was the Sport, who seeing she was the sensation of the moment
+took off her derby hat and with a low bow to hostesses, in guttural tone
+exclaimed, "No, me no Edith, me Indian squaw from Mana-ha-ta!"
+
+This unexpected announcement created no little astonishment, and the
+girls flocked around her with exclamations of wonder and surprise. As
+they began to ply her with questions she cried triumphantly, "Ah, girls,
+I fooled you that time, for I guess you had all forgotten about the
+Indian women of Manhattan, who always wore their husband's hats."
+
+"Oh, girls," cried Nathalie quickly, "the joke is on me, for I had
+forgotten, as Edith says, all about these Indian squaws."
+
+"Edith, it was clever of you to remember," now interposed the Governor's
+lady, "and your get-up too, is very good." She gazed with keen eyes at
+the girl's deerskin robe, fringed at the sides, with its embroidered
+bodice, and the rows of colored beads that decorated her neck and her
+brown bedaubed arms. "But Edith," she continued, "can't you tell us
+something about these squaws?"
+
+The girl looked somewhat dismayed for a moment; perhaps the sudden
+recollection of the last time she had faced her companions, the shame
+she had felt, and the punishment that had been meted out to her, caused
+the flush that showed even beneath her paint and grease.
+
+"Why--I--oh, I don't think there is much to tell," she faltered. But
+encouraged by a nod from Mrs. Morrow she continued, "Lillie Bell lent me
+Washington Irving's History of New York. It tells how Peter Minuit
+purchased the island from the Indians--the Dutch people called them
+Wilden--and where the bargain was made. It was close to a little block
+house inside a palisade of red cedars very near the traders' hut in a
+place called _Capsey_, the place of safe landing. Washington Irving
+claimed that the name, 'Manhattan,' came from a tribe of Indians whose
+squaws always wore their husband's hats, but I never knew that Indians
+wore hats, so I suppose it is just one of his jokes."
+
+There was a general laugh at Edith's sally, and then the girls broke
+into loud applause. Perhaps they, too, were doing a little thinking and
+were anxious to show Edith that the deeds of the past were forgotten in
+her well-doing.
+
+Annetje, after marshaling her forces, now led the girls through the
+quaint Dutch room to show them the many relics of past days. The
+wide-throated fireplace with its gay-colored tiles--still in a state of
+good preservation--with their queer scriptural figures, each picture with
+the number of the text in the Bible that told its story, awakened great
+interest.
+
+Mahogany tables, queer little sideboards, and curiously carved chairs
+next claimed their attention, while the _slaap-bauck_, a funny little
+closet built in the side walls of the room, its shelf covered with a
+mattress, and with folding doors to open at night for a guest bed, won
+special favor.
+
+A flowered tabby cloth, a foot-warmer, and an old chest called a _kos_,
+and which Nathalie declared was similar to the one that the industrious
+Marie de Peyster had filled with linen, was regarded with much awe. A
+nutwood case, a wardrobe called a _kasten_--filled with old Dutch
+costumes, grimy and moth-eaten--divided honors with a beautiful old
+cupboard with glass doors, displaying rare old blue and white Delft,
+said to have come from Holland years and years ago.
+
+But curios pall in time, and so the girls were not at all reluctant to
+follow their hostesses into the quaint old kitchen, gayly decorated with
+the orange and blue of the Dutch Republic. Here, many exclamations of
+admiration escaped them when they saw the long table in the center of
+the room, with its bloom of hyacinths, gillyflowers, narcissus,
+daffodils, and tulips, all reminders of the little beau-pots that
+adorned the window sills, or peeped from the flower patches in front of
+the gable-roofed houses in the days of the first settlers.
+
+Embowered in this floral display was a huge silver bowl hung with tiny
+silver spoons. This was the caudle dish, the inseparable accompaniment
+of feast gatherings or when the _kinder_ were christened. From the hot,
+spicy odor that emanated from this relic of Dutch festivity the girls
+knew it held something good.
+
+But there was no more time to admire, for it was now discovered that a
+flower was tied with daintily colored ribbon to the back of each chair.
+Recognizing that they were intended for place-cards, the girls flew
+hurriedly around the table trying to find the flower that matched the
+one on the cards they had received from the windmill.
+
+Mrs. Van Vorst, typifying the first Dutch settlement in the New World,
+now cordially welcomed her guests with a few appropriate words. She was
+followed by Nita, who, standing on the platform of her chair, recited a
+greeting in Dutch--a little thing that Nathalie had taught her--with
+quaint precision, while her eyes twinkled humorously.
+
+The edibles were now served, the little serving-maid being Carol
+assisted by Peter attired as a herdsman in low-heeled shoes, brass
+buckles, gray stockings, and with a twisted cow's horn hanging from his
+shoulder.
+
+Roasted oysters served with hot split biscuits tempered with butter were
+the first course. Then came salmon a la Hollandaise and patriotic crabs,
+so called because the settlers declared that they were the color of the
+flag of the Prince of Orange. Frankfurters now appeared, so deliciously
+prepared that the Pioneers barely recognized their hike stand-by, served
+with carrots and turnips garnished with parsley. Green salad now
+followed with the caudle served from the silver bowl, each girl ladling
+this particular Dutch dainty, piping hot, into her own china cup.
+
+The goodies were jellies, custards, _oly krecks_--sometimes called
+doughnuts because of the tiny nut in the center--krullers,
+_izer-cookies_, or waffles, syllabubs, and many other toothsome sweets.
+All of these viands were greatly enjoyed, not only because they were of
+Dutch renown, but because they were eaten, as their Director declared in
+memory of the _goede vrouven_ who helped their _goede_ men to lay the
+first stones of the great city of New York.
+
+Every one was at their merriest when Annetje Jans, who had suddenly
+grown unduly restive, arose in her chair and holding her caudle cup high
+proposed a toast to Madame New Amsterdam, Mrs. Van Vorst, their hostess!
+
+Immediately glasses were touched to the lady so honored, who in return
+proposed a like honor for Madame Stuyvesant, Mrs. Morrow, the Director
+of the Girl Pioneers of America. Little Miss New York was now honored,
+who, as she bowed in response to the loud clapping that followed her
+name, passed the honor on to her friend, Miss Nathalie Page, in Dutch,
+Madame Annetje Jans.
+
+There was more applause in appreciation of Nita's tribute, although her
+voice was low and tremulous with timidity at speaking before so many.
+But when Nathalie rose on her feet to reply, the clapping grew so
+vociferous that the color deepened her cheeks to a more vivid pink.
+
+But she stood her ground, and as the teasing girls wearied of clapping
+she spoke. There was a slight tremor in her voice, but she went steadily
+on, and after expressing in the name of the Pioneers the great pleasure
+it had given them to meet the daughter of their hostess, voiced their
+desires in asking Miss Nita to join with them in their endeavors to
+imitate the sterling qualities of the early pioneer women, and to become
+a Girl Pioneer of America!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI--AN INVITATION
+
+
+As Nathalie sank back in her seat glad to think the ordeal--to her--of the
+day was over, there was a moment's silence, and then every Pioneer was
+doing her best to second this invitation to the daughter of their
+hostess by making as loud a demonstration as possible.
+
+Nita, as she heard this invitation, grew white, speechless with
+surprise, but only for a moment, as the next second, with joy shining in
+her eyes, she leaned over crying in a tense whisper, "Oh, Mother, tell
+them yes! Tell them yes!"
+
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had already risen to her feet, eyes smiling but tear
+dimmed as she gazed down at the bright expectant faces upturned to hers.
+For a moment she stood, and then in a voice broken by emotion and
+pleasure thanked the Pioneers for an invitation that she knew had been
+prompted by kindness and that she appreciated more than she could
+express. Her little daughter, as they all knew, was a shut-in. She would
+be delighted to become one of a band of girls who had proved so worthy
+of the name they bore, but, her face saddened, would she not prove a
+burden to them, for would it not require too much patience to bear with
+one who perhaps had been over indulged on account of her misfortune?
+
+At this juncture Madame Stuyvesant stepped to her side crying, "Oh, Mrs.
+Van Vorst, your little shut-in is just the one I want my girls to be
+with, so that by the patience they will acquire in her companionship
+they will become more gentle and considerate to others. And as for Miss
+Nita, the mingling with healthy, active girls of her own age and the
+exercise and aid she will derive from the sports, and industries--taken
+lightly of course--I am sure will brighten her life in many ways."
+
+A few more words from Helen, Lillie, and one or two of the older girls,
+and Mrs. Van Vorst's consent was won, and Nita with bright, happy eyes
+was clapping her hands very softly under the Starry Banner that fell in
+folds across her chair.
+
+Each girl in turn was then toasted, under the name of the pioneer she
+impersonated, being required in response to tell something about
+herself, as to who and what part she had played in the days of New
+Amsterdam. When the name of Mrs. Polly Prevoorst was called, Lillie Bell
+stood up, and had just begun with her usual dramatic gestures and
+intonations to relate some little incident in the life of that noted
+lady, when a shrill falsetto voice shrieked, "Pretty Polly! Pretty
+Polly! Polly want a cobble?"
+
+There was a sudden turning and twisting of heads and necks at this
+unlooked for interruption, to see who was making sport of the fair lady,
+but before the speaker could be seen, with a quick flutter of wings Mr.
+Jimmie landed in the middle of the table. Surprise caused the girls to
+exclaim and then laugh, as they watched the new guest cocking his head
+from side to side as he winked at them with his red-rimmed eyes.
+
+All at once his head stopped its restless motion, as with a quick glance
+he seemed suddenly to spy Lillie Bell, who was still standing, waiting
+for a chance to deliver her little speech. The girls ceased to giggle
+and with observant eyes wondered what was going to happen. They did not
+have to wait long for Jimmie, with another flash of his wings, screeched
+shrilly, "Polly! Poor Polly! Polly want a petticoat--Polly--want a
+petticoat?"
+
+But Jimmie's concern for the "Lady of Petticoat Lane" was drowned in
+shouts of laughter, while Lillie Bell with a reddened, embarrassed face
+sat down. Thus Jimmie became the beau of the afternoon, as each girl
+vainly tried to coax him with a sweetie to notice her, but Jimmie
+disdained their advances and, flying to the shoulder of Nathalie,
+evinced his partiality for that young lady by chattering noisily, "Hell
+Nat! Ah--Blue Robin, pretty Blue Robin!" And then a shrill Tru-al-lee,
+tru-al-lee! rang through the room.
+
+But this effort to do the wise thing ended Jimmie's performance, for
+suddenly noting the applause that greeted him, he set up such a hideous
+shrieking, interspersed with fiendish laughter, that he was promptly
+seized by Peter and carried from public sight to muse on his sins in the
+privacy of his cage.
+
+When Lillie's tormentor disappeared she was able to act the part of the
+fair Polly and relate the incident she had striven so vainly to tell. As
+she finished, finding that all the notables had been duly honored, the
+girls again turned to the rather novel menus that they had found in
+front of their plates.
+
+These were post-card holders, rather dainty little affairs of flowered
+silk that had contained post-cards, one for each course that had been
+served. One was a quaint little picture of New Amsterdam. Another was a
+well-known building or landmark of old New York, while others portraits
+of famous Dutch painters or authors, each one with an appropriate
+inscription either in Dutch or English.
+
+These cards had excited many comments of admiration, and as the girls'
+attention was drawn to them again Edith suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, girls,
+why see, my post-card holder has a tiny white envelope in it!" As she
+began to tear it open each girl turned eagerly to hers and with renewed
+interest began to inspect it again, while Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita with
+smiling eyes watched the little by-play that was being enacted.
+
+By this time Nathalie had read the contents of her envelope and with
+eyes all alight was crying, "Oh, girls! my envelope contains an
+invitation from Mrs. Van Vorst as a Pioneer to camp--"
+
+"At Eagle Lake!" broke in a chorus from the girls as they excitedly
+flourished the bits of white paper to and fro while watching Nathalie
+intently.
+
+Nathalie was too dazed to speak, but in a moment, as she realized that
+each girl present had been honored with a similar invitation, she bent
+forward and began to talk to Helen in low, hurried tones. When she
+finished she was on her feet crying in tremulous voice, "Oh, Mrs. Van
+Vorst--this seems too good to be true--O dear, how are we to thank you for
+your kindness, it is too much for us to accept!"
+
+But her hostess was ready with a reply, as with brightening eyes she
+answered, "Girls, the invitations you have read I repeat, I want you
+Girl Pioneers to spend the three weeks of your camp life at Eagle Lake.
+I have a bungalow there and expect to leave for the Lake next week, and
+shall be pleased to welcome you there whenever you think best to come.
+
+"The Lake is very beautiful, surrounded by woods and within two or three
+miles of a town. Of course, I have not accommodations for you all, but I
+have an empty bungalow near mine, and a little log cabin that was once a
+summer house, so that with a few tents I think you will find ample
+accommodations for your three bird groups. And girls--" she spoke
+earnestly, "I do not want you to thank me, for your thanks will be the
+acceptance of this invitation and coming up to the Lake and having a
+merry time. I am sure I stand ready, and my daughter Nita, to help you
+towards that end."
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst finished Helen arose, and on behalf of the Pioneers
+thanked her for her kind invitation. "Indeed, Mrs. Van Vorst," she
+continued, "we shall be most pleased to camp at Eagle Lake--if our
+Director is willing--and I hope that we shall be able to show you that we
+are worthy the kindness you have seen fit to extend to us. Now, girls--"
+
+  "Girl Pi-o-neers! Now give a cheer!
+  For our hostess so kind and dear!
+  Girl Pi-o-neers! again we cheer,
+  This time for Miss Nita, the dear!"
+
+As the cheering ceased Mrs. Van Vorst stood again, and in a few words
+declared she felt impelled to say that the Pioneers should be very proud
+of a young lady in their group who had so ably helped her in the
+arrangements and the getting up of the afternoon's festivity. She would
+mention no names--Nathalie's face was a full-blown rose--as they all knew
+to whom she referred, but she would like it known that the invitation to
+the Lake had been given not only to furnish pleasure to the Pioneers,
+but in appreciation of the great kindness, sympathy, and aid that had
+been given to her daughter and herself by that same Pioneer, a kindness
+that she would always remember.
+
+The girls, laughing and talking about the pleasure of the _Kraeg_, of
+the joys and the future held in store for them at camp, now returned to
+the sitting room. Here they were greeted with another surprise in the
+shape of a huge, unwieldy figure in baggy knee-breeches, full skirted
+coat, wide-brimmed hat and long white beard and locks, whom Mrs. Van
+Vorst presented as Father Knickerbocker, although several declared that
+he was the exact counterpart of the famous pictures of Rip Van Winkle.
+
+Whomever he personated was a matter of indifference to the girls as long
+as his identity was concealed, which was ably done behind a red-checked
+mask, through the eye-holes of which two eyes glinted humorously in
+merry jest or pleasantry as he joined the girls in a game of quoits or a
+game of nine-pins which Peter had arranged on an old billiard table.
+
+As Nathalie and Helen were doing their best to beat this strange
+antagonist, and at the same time to provoke him to speech--as he would
+persist in playing he was deaf and dumb--Peter led in an old darkey who,
+with fiddle in hand, was soon squeaking away to the delight of the
+girls. In a few moments old-time melodies were heard, and they went
+flying over the floor in waltz, schottische, polka, and in many of the
+long-forgotten dances.
+
+When the dancing began the mysterious guest was seen to edge towards the
+door, but Nathalie and Helen were too quick for him, and in a moment he
+was surrounded by a bevy of girls, each one begging him to dance the
+Virginia reel with her. Even these many honors failed to loosen the
+strings of his tongue, but Nathalie did not despair.
+
+Presently, as he had made this young lady his honored choice in the
+dance, she was led up and down the room, or twirled about like a
+pin-wheel. That he was nimble of foot was soon perceived as they all
+spun round like a merry-go-round.
+
+Suddenly Annetje was seen to whisper to her neighbor. The whisper spread
+like a whirlwind, and all eyes were soon fastened on the whirling Father
+as he chasseed to the right and left of the merry girls. Suddenly there
+was a stampede to his side, and the next minute he was surrounded by a
+cordon of slim young hands, while one of his assailants made a spring
+towards him. Just another moment, and nose, beard, and locks were on the
+floor, while his tormentors laughed and danced merrily around their
+prisoner, a good friend who had eased many of their aches and pains, for
+it was no other but Dr. Morrow!
+
+Four weeks later Nathalie stood on the veranda with her arms around her
+mother. "Oh, Mumsie," she wailed, "I hate to go and leave you!" She
+winked hard, she was determined not to get lachrymose. "I just wish I
+wasn't going, it does seem so mean to leave you here in this heat."
+
+"But, Daughter, I have Dick with me, and it is lovely and cool here on
+the veranda. We shall not mind it at all, and then you know the nights
+are generally comfortable in August," Mrs. Page ended with a cheery
+smile.
+
+"Mumsie, you're a dear--" rejoined Nathalie with another suppressed
+sniffle. "You're just trying to make the best of it, but--"
+
+"There is no but about it," answered her mother quickly, "for I am
+afraid I am very selfish, but I shall have to confess that there has
+been so much going on these last days, well, I shall enjoy the rest and
+quiet. Felia is here, too, and I shall have nothing to do but to be--"
+
+"Jolly!" broke in Dick at this moment, who for some mysterious reason
+seemed unusually jubilant. He had received a letter a few days before;
+Nathalie had caught him reading it, but he had slipped it hurriedly into
+his pocket as he saw her, declaring in answer to her questioning that it
+was nothing, but nevertheless, ever since that day he had seemed more
+like his old self.
+
+Did they really want to get rid of her? Was Mamma in earnest? How much
+more cheerful she had seemed the last few days! These thoughts flashed
+in quick succession through Nathalie's brain. Somewhat puzzled, but
+disarmed of her fears by these signs of cheer from her loved ones, the
+girl bestowed a final kiss all round, notwithstanding Dick's protests,
+who declared that he had been slobbered over about fifty times already.
+Then she flew down the path and into the automobile, where Mrs. Morrow,
+the kiddies, and the doctor were waiting to drive her to the depot.
+
+Seventeen happy girls, their hearts pulsating with joyful anticipation,
+boarded the train at the New Jersey Central that August morning.
+Notwithstanding the fact that the day was intensely warm, their tongues,
+hands, and feet kept up a ceaseless activity as they disposed of their
+bags, valises, and the impedimenta that they had found it impossible to
+squeeze into their trunks, for it was rather tight packing when there
+were two girls to a trunk.
+
+Lillie Bell carried her mandolin, the Scribe her book for reporting the
+many happenings that were to be, while Barbara was burdened with several
+books on bird, flower, and wood lore, for camp was the place to study
+nature. With tennis-rackets and golf-bags it certainly seemed as if
+those seventeen girls and their belongings were going to fill the car.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, who had a great dislike of annoying people, began to look
+worried, but suddenly catching sight of the faces of several of the
+passengers, all looking so smiling, so in sympathy with this young life
+and its overflow of exuberance, as if they were enjoying the clamor and
+bustle as much as the girls themselves, her face relaxed. She broke into
+a smile of relief, although shaking her head at two of the girls who
+were making the greatest noise.
+
+They finally settled in their seats, but as hands and feet became more
+quiet, alas, it seemed as if the clack of their tongues grew greater!
+They fell to discussing their plans for the camp, the sports they would
+have, and a thousand and one things that occupied their minds at the
+present moment.
+
+But even tongues need a rest, and the girls at last quieted down and
+began to read, each one having provided herself with some book to while
+away the hours. After a time, however, they all seemed to tire of
+reading, and growing restive had just started an argument as to the
+respective merits of their books, when the train dashed into a little
+wooden station and the conductor yelled, "Eagle Lake!"
+
+Bags, knapsacks, rackets, and all camping impedimenta were hastily
+gathered up, and a few minutes later the merry girls were crowding into
+an old-fashioned stage that Mrs. Van Vorst had hired for the occasion,
+giving due honor to the doctor and his wife by sending her own
+automobile for them.
+
+It was a delightful ride to the lake, and thoroughly enjoyed by the
+girls, who evinced their pleasure by being unusually silent. Eyes were
+keenly alert, however, noting the rolling patches of green meadows with
+their grazing cows, the rippling brook meandering from a hill near by,
+and the somber foliage of a long range of low foothills in the distance
+crowned with a misty haze. But the silence was broken when some one
+spied a reddish gray chipmunk scurrying across the road in frantic
+terror as he saw the many faces bearing down upon him, and heard their
+hurried exclamations of eager delight at this, the girls' first glimpse
+of one of the green forest people of Eagle Lake.
+
+It was not long before the sheen of silver water glimmered in the
+distance, bordered with somber foliage, and then hearts beat quicker and
+voices grew louder in excited hubbub as in a minute or so they could see
+the cupola of Mrs. Van Vorst's cottage against the green of its shores.
+
+After a joyous welcome from Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, seconded by Peter
+and Ellen, who all stood awaiting them on the large veranda, the girls
+ran riot. With swift steps they hurried--after first inspecting Mrs. Van
+Vorst's bungalow, so suggestive of luxury and cozy cheer--to the smaller
+bungalow, where the Morrows were to abide, with its big living-room
+abloom with golden-rod. This was to be used as an assembly room for the
+Pioneer Rallies. Then they hastened to the little wooden shack, which
+they dubbed the Grub House, as it was here that the camp cooking was to
+be done.
+
+After duly admiring the boat-house, which they all declared would make a
+lovely place for a dance, they were conducted by Peter to the loft
+above, where he stood silently enjoying their delight as they exclaimed
+over this unexpected surprise. It had been turned into a good sized
+bedroom with two bureaus, a center-table, a few odd chairs, and four
+little white cots, looking so restful that the Sport declared she wanted
+to go to bed that very second.
+
+But their rhapsodies came to an abrupt end as Lillie Bell suddenly spied
+the Lake from one of the windows. In a moment the girls were crowding
+about her, gazing in hushed silence at the silver sheet of water--three
+miles round Peter informed them--with its enticing little inlets, or
+coves, and tiny islands running like a series of stepping-stones through
+the center.
+
+The Sport had caught sight of several newly painted boats and canoes
+that bobbed cheerily at her, moored to the pier below, and a moment
+later the girls were off like a cavalcade of young Indians to inspect
+them, for did they not all have to be named on the morrow, when a
+general christening of all camp tents, boats, and so on was to take
+place?
+
+But there were other things to claim a share of their hearts' joy they
+found, as Carol, who made the seventeenth camper, suddenly saw a large
+tent on the edge of the woods to which they all made a mad rush. Here
+they found the doctor and his wife, who said it was an army tent that
+had been loaned, put up, and furnished by that good lady, Mrs. Van
+Vorst. Lifting the flap the girls peeped in to see four more tiny cots,
+a little book-case made from soap-boxes by Peter, and the usual camp
+furniture staring at them invitingly.
+
+A tiny log cabin was also inspected--Peter said it had once been a
+summer-house--which contained two cots. But time was limited, and Dr.
+Morrow--who was for the time being captain of the working squad--began to
+issue his orders. All baggage and camp equipment had arrived the day
+before and the girls were soon busily engaged in putting up tents. It
+meant lots of work, but each one was at her cheeriest best as she
+overhauled canvases, measured spaces, dug pole-holes, sewed on rings for
+tape, tied ropes, and performed the various odd jobs necessary to have
+the camp city in shape before night.
+
+As Mrs. Van Vorst had generously provided so many sleeping
+accommodations, there were only three tents to be erected, an old canvas
+tent which the doctor had loaned, an Indian tepee belonging to the
+brother of one of the Orioles, and a natty little affair made of heavy
+cotton sheeting. It is needless to say that this was the pride of
+Helen's and Nathalie's hearts, the tent they had wrestled with through
+many toilsome hours on the rear lawn, with Fred Tyson doing duty as a
+master tent-maker.
+
+When the tents were erected with openings to the East, in a row by the
+water, backed by a belt of woodland, whose pungent odors added a zest to
+the girls' ideals of the camp life, Nathalie and Helen hurried to their
+tent to unpack. The big packing-box which had served as a trunk for two
+was hastily turned on its narrowest side, with open side to the tent,
+and then with hammer and nails converted into a combination arrangement
+of book-case and dresser, the top having a piece of white shelf oilcloth
+tacked on it.
+
+Here pincushions, hair-pin trays, brushes, and various toilet articles,
+with cologne, lotion, and medicine bottles--the last in case of need--were
+hastily bestowed. On the upper shelf books were stored--for the story
+hour--while the other shelves were quickly filled with all sorts of
+knick-knacks, things they just had to have, even in the wilderness, as
+Helen had affirmed.
+
+Two ropes, one on each side of the tent, were fastened up so that each
+girl could have a handy place to dispose of superfluous articles of
+wearing apparel. There was also a smaller one near the soap-box with its
+little tin pitcher and bowl, to serve as a towel-rack. After hanging a
+mirror for mutual use and tacking on the floor between the cots a pink
+and blue cotton rug--Mrs. Page's idea and gift--they started on the beds.
+These were real camping affairs, and would ordinarily have meant hard
+labor, but Peter, who had been let into the secret before he left
+Westport, had already cut eight logs, four to a bed frame, one on each
+side of the tent, and had brought the dry evergreen boughs.
+
+With the boughs the girls filled the frames, and after stuffing two
+ticking bags with dry leaves and grass, they placed them on the beds,
+and covered them with rubber sheets and blankets. They were then made up
+with sheets and double blankets, and then after throwing a number of
+sofa pillows about--to be used at night for pillows--the tent-makers were
+ready to hold an impromptu reception to their Pioneer friends.
+
+Nathalie now played the part of town crier and rushed hither and thither
+inviting the guests to their camp nest in the woods. The girls quickly
+gathered and, after due examination, expressed by cries of praise their
+admiration of the handiness and deftness displayed by the two girls, and
+the first tent feast was held. To be sure, it was only crackers and
+fruit left from the girls' lunch-boxes, but they filled the bill, so
+that when the bugle sounded its clarion blast, as Lillie expressed it,
+the pangs of hunger being appeased, the girls all hastened with joyful
+steps to Mrs. Morrow's bungalow to hold their first Pioneer Rally.
+
+Mrs. Morrow, as presiding officer, in a short space of time was able to
+despatch considerable camp business, the girls having had so many
+discussions that their plans were matured and no time was lost in
+needless talk. It was quickly settled to name the camp "Laff-a-Lot," to
+govern it as a city, with the girls as citizens with power to elect
+their own officials, which meant a mayor, a board of aldermen, a justice
+of the court as well as a clerk and an attorney in case of need, and the
+squads.
+
+Mrs. Morrow was immediately chosen mayor, and the squads elected. There
+was the Coast Squad, composed of two Pioneers whose duty it was to sound
+the bugle for taps at six, for a dip in the Lake at quarter past, the
+call for breakfast at seven and the succeeding meals, for bathing drill
+at eleven, and all other calls required by camp regulations. This squad
+was also to see that the coast was kept clear of debris, that the
+bathers observed all rules, and was to give the alarm and act in command
+of the rescue committee in times of danger.
+
+The Tent Squad was to see that the girls kept their tents in regulation
+order,--each girl to make her own bed and so on,--and that all sanitary
+rules were carried out according to schedule.
+
+The Grub Squad meant two cooks, a chief and an assistant, and two
+helpers or waitresses. Each girl, of course, was required to bring her
+own plate, cup, saucer, bowl, knife, and fork, and see that they were
+washed, dried, and placed on the shelf, as well as to wash her own
+drying-towel.
+
+The Rally Squad was composed of one person--considered the most important
+member of camp--to act as officer of the day by planning with the mayor
+the day's program, reporting this at breakfast, and seeing that all
+notices, as well as the schedule for the day's events, were duly written
+on the bulletin each morning.
+
+The Board of Aldermen was made up of the first member of each Squad. All
+officials, with the exception of the mayor and court officers, were to
+serve for three days only, and the members of all squads were to be
+chosen according to their qualifications for the work as determined by
+the number of merit badges.
+
+As soon as the Rally was over, the girls made a rush for the Lake, as
+every one was wild to go on its gleaming surface that shone under the
+rays of the dipping sun like a silver shield, burnished with the golden
+red of the West.
+
+But Helen, who declared it was too late to enjoy that pleasure as it was
+so near supper time, was rudely interrupted by Lillie Bell, who had been
+peering with intent eyes across the water. Suddenly she gave a low cry
+and pointed to a solitary figure on the opposite bank dragging a
+row-boat from the water.
+
+Instantly all eyes were riveted in that direction as each girl vainly
+tried to decide whether the figure belonged to a man or a woman. "Oh, I
+know!" screamed the Sport frantically after a short stare opposite.
+"Girls, yes, it's a Scout! See he has on a khaki suit, and his staff,
+oh, where do you suppose he could have come from!" she said, looking up
+at the girls with delighted inquiry in her sparkling eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII--CAMP LAFF-A-LOT
+
+
+"O fiddle!" exclaimed Lillie squelchingly. "You have got scouts on the
+brain! Where would a scout come from up here in these wilds?"
+
+But Edith was not to be gainsaid and had flown post-haste up to the
+Morrows' bungalow to reappear a few moments later with a field glass.
+Raising it she began to yell triumphantly, "There, girls--I'm right--it is
+a scout! a real scout!" In a moment she was surrounded by a bevy of
+girls, each one begging for the loan of the glasses, but Edith was
+whimsical, and refusing to comply handed the glasses to Helen, who,
+after a calm survey of the bank on the other side of the Lake, declared
+that Edith was right and that it was a scout.
+
+"Oh, do you think--" exclaimed some one. But no one stopped to think, for
+at that moment the clear notes of the bugle announced supper, driving
+all thoughts of scouts from the heads of the famished girls as with a
+cheer of delight they made a swift rush for cup, plate, saucer, and
+headed for the dining-room.
+
+It was a tired lot of girls who, with sharpened appetites but dismayed
+faces, gazed at the slim array of eatables that confronted them at this,
+their first camp meal. Nathalie made a wry face, but as she heard
+Helen's reminder that every one was to be satisfied even if she ate
+tacks, she smiled in attempted contentment and started in on mush.
+
+But tacks were not to be on the menu that night, for Peter suddenly
+appeared, and with his best bow presented a big platter of cold chicken
+with Mrs. Van Vorst's compliments. Everything now went as merrily as a
+wedding feast. Really, it was surprising how that chicken lasted, for
+the girls had attacked it with grim determination. Nathalie half
+suspected that Peter had a secret supply hidden under the table, for
+every one had all she wanted and still there was more.
+
+Supper was soon over and, then after each girl had washed her own
+table-ware and laid it in its place, they hied themselves down to the
+water's edge. Here, in sweaters and caps--as the air was chilly--they
+listened to the crooning melodies of nature, and watched for life on the
+opposite shore--reminded again of that scout--and talked, well, just the
+things that a lot of happy girls would discuss with the prospect of
+three glorious weeks in the open before them.
+
+A trill of song from a hermit thrush in the woods near-by stirred the
+hearts of the music-lovers and soon the campers were singing, "Suwanee
+River," to Lillie's thrumming accompaniment on the mandolin. Then came
+"Tenting on the Old Camp Ground," "Oh, My Darling Clementine," and a
+host of songs familiar and dear to the heart of youth.
+
+As they ended the last line of "Bring Back My Bonnie to Me," every one
+suddenly sat up and took notice, while an impetuous one called out, "Oh,
+what was that?"
+
+"Some one is mocking us!" added another listener.
+
+"Oh, nonsense," laughed Helen, whose ear for music was not keen, "that's
+an echo!"
+
+But it proved to be no echo, for as the girls started in again to sing
+they found that if they stopped suddenly, the voices, which they now
+recognized as coming from the other shore, would continue with the song.
+This created no end of laughter among the girls, and their surprise and
+amusement increased as they recognized that their friends on the other
+side of the Lake laughed when they laughed, as if in mockery.
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," suggested Kitty, "let's give the Pioneer
+yell and see if they answer." This was no sooner suggested than it was
+done, but not a sound was heard, no, not even an echo in reply.
+
+"Well, they can't be scouts," said an Oriole, "or they would answer in
+some way."
+
+"Let's sing, 'We're Pioneers,' and then they'll know who we are,
+anyway," some one proposed, a little more cheerily.
+
+This proposition met with favor, and the girls were soon singing with a
+zest and verve that deserved a reward, but as before a dead silence
+greeted their efforts.
+
+The campers felt inconsolable, for some of them had already begun to
+dream of the fun they would have if there were some jolly scouts about,
+especially if they proved as chivalrous and as manly as the scouts at
+Westport. As the girls discussed ways and means of making these strange
+neighbors reveal who they were, suddenly from the other shore came in
+stentorian tones, evidently through a megaphone, "Be prepared!" This
+startling announcement was immediately followed by a chorus of male
+voices singing with hearty gusto, "Zing-a-Zing! Bom! Bom!" to the
+accompaniment of a loud sound, as if every one was pounding on a tin
+pan.
+
+The girls sat stunned with surprise for a moment and then Edith cried,
+"Why, they can't be scouts after all, for that is not the salute used by
+the Westport Scouts."
+
+"Huh! but that is just what they are--scouts," cried one of the Orioles
+quickly, "for that is the national salute. My brother has a Scout book
+and I have seen their call."
+
+"Well, they're not Westport Scouts, that's one sure thing," voiced one
+of the girls who had been dreaming.
+
+"What difference does that make," cried Lillie, "as long as they are
+scouts? But don't you think we girls ought to make some return, hadn't
+we better sing our Pioneer--" But before the girls could answer they
+heard the scout salute again. As they clapped an encore, the Sport
+blowing the bugle to add to the demonstration of praise, their neighbors
+broke into song.
+
+"Oh, it is a song to us, a serenade!" ejaculated one of the girls; and
+then as each one grew silent they heard:
+
+  "Welcome! Welcome! sisters dear,
+  As we round our fire's cheer
+  We wish you luck in camp so fine
+  Sweet with birch and wooded pine.
+  Pleasure and joy attend each day,
+  As by the Lake you make your stay!"
+
+"Oh, isn't that just dandy?" "If we could only tell who they were!" But
+these exclamations came to an end as Nathalie cried, "Girls, let's shout
+our new call, don't you know the one we made up so as to salute the
+scouts? Now, ready!" and with a "One! two! three!" the girls' voices
+rang out over the water as they chorused:
+
+  "Ragglety! Pagglety! Rah! Rah! Rah!
+  You're welcome scouts with a Ha! Ha! Ha!
+  Comrades and friends, we'll make the woods hum
+  When you to Camp Laff-a-Lot come.
+  For your wishes we'll give you three cheers,
+  Hurrah for Scouts and Girl Pioneers!"
+
+"Why, Nathalie, you changed the words!" cried one or two slow ones as
+they perceived that the girl had substituted certain words that were
+more appropriate to the occasion than the ones they had learned.
+
+Nathalie only laughed, and waved her hand for silence as the little
+company of merry, fun-loving girls listened to the noise their neighbors
+were making. Certainly it was a medley of sounds, for it appeared as if
+horns, tin pans, and just about everything capable of making a racket
+had been called into service in their appreciation of the fair ones'
+ready reply to their song.
+
+Mrs. Morrow appeared at this moment with the announcement that it was
+nine o'clock, and according to camp rules all Pioneers were to be in bed
+by that hour, so the girls sounded a parting cheer and then hurried to
+their tents. The few who loitered, as if reluctant to leave their
+friends across the lake, heard an old-time good-night song with one or
+two variations in words that added to its charms ring out clearly:
+
+          "Good-night, campers,
+          Good-night campers,
+          Good-night campers,
+          We're going to leave you now!
+  Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along;
+  Merrily we roll along, o'er the dark blue sea."
+
+A few moments before six the next morning Nathalie opened her eyes,
+yawned drowsily, and then rolled over to see Helen staring at her from
+the opposite bed with wide-open eyes.
+
+"Oh, I have had such a delicious sleep," she cried. "I don't believe I
+wakened from the time I touched the pillow. Helen, isn't it just too
+lovely up here in these woods? Did you hear that whippoorwill toot just
+after we got into bed? And these bough beds, aren't they the coziest--"
+
+"Well, you'll get coziest with a vengeance, Blue Robin," was Helen's
+terse reply, "if you don't get into your bathing-suit--" Helen ended with
+a shrill scream as the bugle's blast sounded with startling clearness in
+the still morning air.
+
+But Nathalie was already half-way into her suit. The last button was
+caught. "There, I'm ready before you, Miss Poke!" she taunted gleefully,
+as the second call sounded. The two girls tripped lightly across the
+open space in front of the tents thickly strewn with pine needles and
+thus on down to the boathouse pier.
+
+Just a moment and a slim figure was seen leaping through the air, then
+Nathalie arose like a mermaid from the sea, blowing and puffing the
+water from her mouth as she floated for a moment on her back and swam
+gracefully back to the bank. As she reached shallow water she stood up
+and waved her hand to a group of shivering ones on the bank crying, "Oh,
+come on, kiddies!
+
+"Sure, it's cold!" she nodded to a faint remonstrance from a timorous
+one, "but you'll get heated if you'll take the plunge!"
+
+Out from her dip, with the wish that it could have been longer, she
+hurried to her tent; after a rub came the dressing, the picking up of
+her clothes, the putting her bed to air, and then the call for
+breakfast.
+
+After this meal came the event of the day, the naming of the camp, the
+tents, and the boats. Camp duties were soon disposed of and then there
+was a general stampede to Mrs. Morrow's bungalow, where the Sport, as
+chairman of this committee, stood waving the Stars and Stripes on the
+roof of the veranda.
+
+A cheer arose a few moments later when its bright colors fluttered
+gently to and fro in the morning wind from the flag staff that had been
+hoisted over the Director's abiding-place, and the girls, quickly
+forming in line, gave the flag salute. The Star Spangled Banner was then
+sung with a heartiness that found its echo in the woods, the very leaves
+on the trees seeming to rustle in reverence to the country's honored
+emblem.
+
+The campers now gathered before Mrs. Van Vorst's bungalow, where, from a
+high flagstaff erected by Peter, a white flag fluttered gracefully to
+the breezes, disclosing in red letters the words, "Camp Laff-a-Lot."
+Beneath this flag curled a smaller one, also white, bearing in blue
+letters, "The Girl Pioneers of America."
+
+Some one was just about to mount a ladder placed against the flagstaff
+when Nathalie, with sudden thought, turned and whispered to Mrs. Morrow,
+who immediately signaled to Helen. Helen nodded as she listened to her
+Director, and then stepping forward stood before Nita who, with her
+mother and Ellen, was a joyful spectator of this camp demonstration. A
+sudden look of delight overspread her face as she heard what Helen had
+to say, and then after a hurried assent from Mrs. Van Vorst, Nita with
+the help of Peter had mounted the ladder, holding a bottle of water in
+her hand.
+
+A swing of the bottle, a crash of glass, a stream of water trickling
+down the pole, and Nita in a voice somewhat faint at first, but that
+grew louder as she caught Nathalie's eye, cried, "Summer camp of the
+Girl Pioneers of America, I name thee, Camp Laff-a-Lot!" Wild bursts of
+applause now broke forth, even Ellen and Peter doing their share, the
+former tearing off her apron and flapping it vigorously, while the
+latter brandished his hat hilariously, stopping every moment or so to
+rub the back of his hand across his eyes. "Sure," as he afterwards
+confessed to Nathalie, "it was enough to make any one weep with joy to
+see Miss Nita spilling all over with happiness!"
+
+As the Pioneers hastened to the boat-house they saw a diminutive figure
+standing on the top of its little square cupola. With many flourishes of
+her bottle Carol--who had been elected to this honor--chimed jubilantly,
+"Boat-house, in memory of the ship that crossed the unknown sea to carry
+the founders of this nation to its shores, I now name thee, 'The
+Mayflower'!"
+
+And so the naming continued, the little log summer-house being honored
+by the name of Ann Burras, a pioneer of the Jamestown colony, known as
+the first white bride in America. The tent loaned by Mrs. Van Vorst was
+dubbed "The Three Guardian Angels," in appreciation of the services of
+Ann Drummond, Sarah Cottin, and Mrs. Cheisman, also of the Jamestown
+company, sometimes known as "The White Apron Brigade," as during the
+Bacon rebellion they were placed in front of a trench where Bacon's men
+were digging, to prevent Governor Berkeley from firing on the Fort.
+
+The "Grub House" was to be known as the "Common House," a most
+appropriate name, the campers declared, as it contained their food and
+ammunition, just as the little log hut known by that name held the
+necessities to sustain and defend the lives of the Pilgrims in the
+Plymouth settlement.
+
+The doctor's army tent was named the "Three Margarets," to honor
+Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman suffragist, Margaret Draper,
+the first woman to publish a newspaper, and Margaret Duncan, the first
+of her sex in the new world to engage in mercantile life. Helen and
+Nathalie's tent was to be known as the "Two Anns," out of respect to Ann
+Hutchinson, the first club woman, and Ann Bradstreet, the first American
+poetess.
+
+The boats were quickly honored with the names _Priscilla_, _Mary
+Chilton_, _Annetje Jans_, and _Polly Prevoorst_, while shady retreats,
+lofty trees, and rocky coves were named anew to do homage to those women
+who helped their good sires build the foundation of this great Republic,
+by being faithful, enduring wives and mothers.
+
+At eleven o'clock the girls assembled on the shores of the Lake for a
+life-saving drill. Forming in line at a given signal, each girl quickly
+unfastened her red necktie, and turning swiftly to the right tied one
+end of it in a square knot to her neighbor's. This red life-line was
+then thrown to the sinker--as the girls dubbed Edith, who was playing the
+part of the person drowning. She hurriedly grabbed this necktie rope and
+was drawn ashore by her comrades.
+
+The girls found that this drill not only made them keen and alert,
+training them to keep cool heads, but helped to give them reliance as
+well as courage, and--heaps of fun.
+
+The bathers were now lined up for a swimming contest, each girl at the
+toot of the horn making a wild dash for the water, and swimming out as
+far as she could to the stake-boat, manned by the doctor, anchored some
+distance from shore. This contest was to determine not only who could
+swim, and the best swimmers, but those who had the greatest amount of
+strength and endurance, who would be able to train others not so
+competent.
+
+Nathalie, who had spent a number of summers at a seaside resort and
+therefore was at home in the water, found to her surprise that she,
+Helen, and Edith were the three best swimmers of the campers. This was
+as much of a surprise to her as to the Pioneers, for, supposing that she
+was a swimmer of only average skill, she had never even told that she
+could swim.
+
+Drills and contests being over, the girls were allowed to do as they
+liked, and so were soon gambolling about in the water, having the
+merriest time running races in the more shallow water, ducking one
+another, or teaching some more timid one to swim or dive.
+
+Nathalie and Helen had rowed out some distance from shore and were
+practicing diving by jumping from the boat. "Now!" Helen would shout as
+they stood poised in the center, "One! Two! Three!" The next instant
+there would be a flash of pointed hands, a sweep of blue
+bathing-suits--like bluebirds skimming through the air--a splash, and then
+first one head would appear and then the other, each one blowing and
+puffing water from her eyes and nose like a porpoise.
+
+"O dear," exclaimed Nathalie suddenly as the two girls sat sunning
+themselves in the boat, "here comes the Sport. I wonder what she is up
+to now!"
+
+But it was all in a morning's fun, and the three girls were soon having
+fine sport as a diving team of three. Tired at last, they settled for a
+short rest, Helen and Nathalie laughing merrily as they watched Lillie
+Bell trying to induce Carol to do something more than wet her feet.
+Suddenly there came a shove, and a second later the two girls went
+splashing head-foremost into the water!
+
+A few moments and they bobbed up, not at all serenely, as they sputtered
+and gasped, struggling to eject the water from eyes and noses. Helen,
+seeing Edith disporting herself some distance away, demanded with
+flashing eyes, "What did you do that for?" while Nathalie, whose cheeks
+were sea pink, sputtered between gasps, "Edith, I think you are just as
+mean as you can be!"
+
+But the Sport was off, waving her hand at them derisively as she swam
+rapidly towards shore. The girls by this time had righted their
+cockle-shell, which they found floating right side up with the tide, and
+after clambering in Helen grabbed the oars, exclaiming wrathfully, "Oh,
+how I would like to get even with her for that!"
+
+"So would I!" echoed her friend. "It does seem as if the imp himself was
+in that girl sometimes. But wait, I'll get one on her yet, see if I
+don't."
+
+Full of the ozone of the forest and animated by that spirit of
+exploration that always inspires one in a new place, directly after
+lunch the Pioneers with staffs, knapsacks, and note-books, lined up for
+an afternoon tramp. To vary the adventure it had been decided to name it
+a salmagundi hike, which meant a tramp of observation, each girl aiming
+to see how many things she could observe, birds, animals, flowers, or
+leaves, in fact, anything that was to be seen in the field or woods.
+
+Nathalie had prepared for the expedition in glad anticipation, being
+particularly anxious to get in touch with so many things that she lacked
+of nature's many lores, but when she caught sight of the disappointed
+face of Nita, who was not, as yet, equal to a hike her spirits sank to
+zero.
+
+Somehow her conscience would not be downed as it urged her to atone in
+some way to Nita for the many things that she was forced to be deprived
+of in her young girlhood. "No, I do not believe it is my place to stay
+with her," argued Nathalie's naughty self, "for I have already given up
+a great deal of time and fun in qualifying her to become a Pioneer. And
+then if I once begin by staying with her she will want me to remain all
+the time, and I shall never have a bit of fun."
+
+But after a short inward struggle Nathalie pleaded that she was tired,
+and declared she was going to remain at home and have a good cozy chat
+with Nita.
+
+The joy that shown on Nita's face at this declaration compensated her
+for her sacrifice, and she was just trying to think what she could do to
+make the time pass pleasantly for the girl when a sudden loud shout
+sounded from the woods. Before the girls could question as to what it
+was a chorus of boyish voices were heard shouting:
+
+  "Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
+  Good turn daily. Shout! Shout! Shout!"
+
+For one moment the girls stared in dazed amazement, why--oh! that was the
+salute call of the Westport Scouts! But all thought came to an end a
+minute later as a troop of boys in brown suddenly appeared at a bend of
+the road leading from the woods. As they spied the Pioneers they broke
+into wild shouts and whistles, energetically waving handkerchiefs,
+staffs, anything they could muster, while the foremost one, no other
+than Dr. Homer, twirled his hat over his head hilariously.
+
+In a few moments the scout mystery was solved as the girls stood
+surrounded by the Eagle Patrol of Westport, every one talking eagerly,
+some telling how they came to be there, while others were having great
+sport as they teased the girls about how nicely they had fooled them. It
+soon developed that the doctor and his wife were in the secret; in fact,
+Mrs. Morrow said that the doctor had chuckled so when he saw how
+mystified the girls were when they heard the calls from across the Lake,
+that she feared he would spring the surprise before it was time.
+
+Yes, the scouts of Westport, who had been thinking of a three weeks'
+tramp in some place not too far from the city, after hearing how Mrs.
+Van Vorst had invited the Pioneers to camp at Eagle Lake, had gone to
+that lady, and after due inquiries had made their plans to camp at the
+same time as the girls, only on the opposite shore of the Lake.
+
+Finding that the girls were bound for a tramp, the scouts, through Dr.
+Homer, begged permission to accompany them. The girls quickly gave their
+assent, and in a short space the hikers set out for a survey of the
+land, all but Fred Tyson, who lingered at Nathalie's side as if waiting
+for her to join them.
+
+Seeing, however, that Nathalie made no attempt to follow the others, he
+asked with puzzled eyes, "What's the matter, Miss Blue Robin, aren't you
+going to hike?"
+
+Nathalie choked for a moment, then gaining control of her emotions, with
+an attempt at a smile returned, "Why, no, I'm tired, you know we have
+been working awfully hard ever since we came--getting the camp in shape--"
+she had caught a glimpse of Nita's keen eyes--"so I thought I'd just stay
+at home and rest with Nita. You know, she can't stand a long walk." This
+was said in a lower tone.
+
+Fred's face showed disappointment, and then he cried boyishly, "Oh, I
+say, Miss Nathalie, you'll miss all the fun!" Then, as if half
+suspecting what might be the cause of Nathalie's staying at home, he
+said, "As for Miss Nita, if she wants to come with us we'll fix it so
+she won't have to walk a step!"
+
+Putting his fingers to his mouth he emitted a sharp whistle, which two
+scouts lagging in the rear heard and immediately turned about and
+retraced their steps. "Here," continued Fred, "you fellows improvise a
+stretcher to carry Miss Nita so she can hike with us!"
+
+Nita's eyes began to gleam, but Mrs. Van Vorst approaching from the
+other end of the veranda at this moment, and hearing of the proposed
+plan of navigation, demurred, thanking the boys most graciously for
+their kindness, but declining to let Nita go, claiming that it would be
+too much for her that warm day.
+
+Fred, thus forced to be content, after a lingering look of regret raised
+his cap and then hurriedly joined the party who were already
+disappearing in the winding path of the woods.
+
+Nathalie, with an unconscious sigh, turned away. O dear, it did seem
+mean to have to give up that walk. It had been hard enough to win the
+first battle over the temptation to go, but this second one had seemed
+even harder. But immediately seeing that she was a great baby to let a
+little disappointment mar the pleasure of the beautiful day, she turned
+with smiling eyes to the princess, and suggested that they have a nice
+little row to one of the tiny islands in the center of the Lake.
+
+This, Nita was very glad to do, and so with notebooks and pencils, and
+with the remark that they could have a nice little salmagundi hike all
+by their lone selves, they started for the boat-house.
+
+And indeed, Nathalie and her little friend spent a most enjoyable
+afternoon, for, as she afterwards declared to Helen, "It was lovely and
+cool down on that little island with the green trees and shady coves.
+And do you know," she continued, "I was so surprised, for Nita is a most
+observant little person. Why, she knows the names of many of the grasses
+and wood flowers, and the birds--she knows their names, can tell what
+birds are nesting in August and any number of interesting things about
+nature. I am sure she will make a most wonderful little Pioneer, after
+she becomes acquainted with the girls."
+
+Of course Helen had many things to tell about the salmagundi hike, and
+the different objects they had seen and noted on their tramp. She had
+taken notes and Nathalie was invited to take a peep at them some time,
+Helen suggesting that she might find them of some help later on. The
+scouts, she said, had been most kind and had told them lots of
+interesting things, particularly about tracking the footprints of
+animals.
+
+"Well," declared Nathalie as Helen finished telling of the good times
+they had had, "I have had two good times, instead of your one, for I had
+a fine time with Nita, and then I have had the coziest of chats with
+you, which has proved almost as good as if I had been with you on the
+hike."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII--MISS CAMPHELIA
+
+
+A week had passed, and although the novelty of many of the activities
+and pleasures of this life in the open had dulled, every moment proved
+one of joy. Drills, contests, sports, hikes, and various entertainments
+had merged so evenly, one into the other, that tasks had lost their
+irksomeness and play had received an added zest.
+
+To be sure, some unfortunate accidents had happened; Grace had cut her
+hand when opening a can of tomatoes, Carol had been stung by some
+mysterious insect so severely that even the doctor was puzzled, and one
+of the Orioles had sprained her ankle. But these mishaps had been
+received with true camp fortitude--the Pioneer spirit, Helen called
+it--and had only served as object lessons in the First Aid to the Injured
+talks given by Dr. Morrow, thus giving Helen and Kitty a chance to
+display their expertness in the triangular, the four-tailed, and many
+other kinds of bandages.
+
+Hammers, saws, and hatchets were in great demand one morning--the girls
+all busy making stilts, some to show their scout friends that they could
+handle men's tools, while others were qualifying for first-class
+Pioneers--when Lillie appeared. With woebegone face she reported to
+Nathalie, who was serving as her assistant on the Grub committee, that
+there was no milk.
+
+"No milk?" ejaculated the girl. "Why, wasn't the milkman here this
+morning?"
+
+"Sure," nodded Lillie, "but that Oriole girl--Nannie Plummer--dropped some
+swill into the milk can. She mistook it for the garbage pail--" Lillie's
+eyes glinted humorously--"she was so busy expressing her admiration for
+that Will Hopper, you know the scout with the languishing eyes, as Helen
+calls them."
+
+Nathalie's face expressed dismay. "Oh, what shall we do?" she almost
+wailed; "we have got to have milk for that pudding, and--"
+
+"To be sure," laconically returned Lillie, "and you will have to go and
+get some."
+
+"Get some?" echoed Nathalie faintly; "where?"
+
+"At the farm-house, you know the place--with the red barn--on the road to
+Boonton."
+
+"But there isn't time for me to walk there and back before dinner,"
+protested the girl somewhat wrathfully, "on this hot day, too!"
+
+"No, but you can take Edith's bicycle, and go and get back in no time."
+
+"Oh, but it is hot!" ejaculated Nathalie, some fifteen minutes later, as
+with reddened, perspiring face she slowed up her wheel, and spying a
+mossy bank overlooking a brook meandering beneath a group of willows,
+jumped to the ground. As she was standing her wheel against a tree, a
+woman with a reddish handkerchief tied over her head came up the bank.
+She started when she saw Nathalie, but instantly averting her eyes
+hurried on down the road in the direction of the farm-house where
+Nathalie was to get the milk.
+
+The girl had thrown herself on the grassy slope and was fanning
+vigorously with her hat, when her eyes were arrested by something white
+lying under an overhanging bush near the brook. Perhaps she would not
+have stared so intently if she had not thought that she saw it move.
+Just at that moment a low wailing cry came to her ears.
+
+Assured beyond doubt that the cry came from the bundle, she hurried down
+the slope, and a moment later was bending over a baby, who, on seeing
+the wondering face, looked up with innocent appeal in its wide blue
+eyes.
+
+"Why, you dear," cooed the girl, "how did you come here?" She looked up
+expecting to see some one to whom the baby belonged, but as there was no
+one in sight and she saw the little lip quiver pathetically, she
+gathered it up in her arms and chucking the dimpled chin began to jabber
+to it in baby language.
+
+"Whom do you belong to, baby?" she questioned aloud, silently wondering
+if that tramp woman who had come up the bank could have been its mother.
+But that could hardly be, she pondered, for she looked like an Italian,
+while the baby was fair with tiny wisps of golden hair straying from
+beneath its neat white cap.
+
+Reminded finally that the camp's need of milk was urgent, she laid the
+baby down and ran along the bank first in one direction, and then the
+other, shouting and calling until her voice was hoarse. O dear, what
+should she do? She could not leave that dear thing there alone! Ah, she
+would take it with her to the farm-house, perhaps Mrs. Hansen might know
+something about it.
+
+Carrying her find with one arm and trundling her wheel with the other
+hand, she arrived in a short space at her destination. But alas, she met
+with no satisfaction. Mrs. Hansen declared that in all probability the
+woman was a gypsy, as there was a settlement of them some miles beyond
+the town and that she had purposely deserted the baby. She also informed
+the girl in a most emphatic manner that she could not leave the child
+there as she had enough of her own to look after.
+
+"But this is a white baby," persisted Nathalie, "see, it is very fair!"
+showing the little puckered face, for by this time it had begun to
+whimper quite loudly.
+
+"Poor waif!" exclaimed the farmer's wife, "it is hungry!" Hastily
+getting a cup of milk she put it to the mouth of the little one, whose
+fingers closed on it tightly as it drank greedily.
+
+But feeding the baby did not soften Mrs. Hansen's heart, and Nathalie
+was forced to see that there was nothing else to do but to carry the
+deserted one to camp with her. But how could she trundle a wheel, carry
+a five-quart can of milk, and the baby all at the same time? Poor
+Nathalie! she was in deep waters!
+
+Mrs. Hansen, however, who was not unkindly, seeing the girl's dilemma
+called her boy Joe, and giving him the milk and wheel told him to hurry
+with it to the camp, so that Nathalie would have her arms free to carry
+her charge.
+
+Some time after the dinner hour Nathalie, tired, hot, hungry, and every
+muscle aching from weariness, arrived at the camp. She was immediately
+surrounded by the girls, who besieged her with questions as to the why
+and wherefore of her tardy appearance. But when their eyes lighted on
+the blue-eyed cherub, who had been blissfully sleeping the greater part
+of the girl's three-mile tramp on a sunny road, they went wild with
+excitement.
+
+Mrs. Morrow presently arrived on the scene and promptly driving
+Nathalie's tormentors away, handed the infant to Ellen and Nita. Then
+she made the girl lie down in the hammock to cool off, while Helen and
+Grace rushed off to get her dinner.
+
+As the girl, between bites, told of her strange adventure, she saw that
+it was not to prove as disastrous as she feared, for the little stranger
+had already captivated every member of the camp, even down to Peter,
+also Rosy, Mrs. Van Vorst's black cook. Indeed, it was petted, hugged,
+and kissed so many times that Mrs. Morrow, fearing it would be brought
+to evil by so many caressing hands, then and there made rules as to how
+each girl should care for it.
+
+They all declared that Nathalie's finding that baby was providential,
+for one of the Pioneers that very morning had expressed the wish that
+they could find a baby in one of the farm-houses. They wanted to
+practice bathing and dressing it, as these were some of the
+qualifications necessary for a first-class Pioneer.
+
+Although notices were posted in the post-offices of the towns, and also
+sent to several newspapers, advertising the fact that a baby had been
+found and was at Camp Laff-a-Lot, no one claimed it. The girls were
+delighted as they were enamored of their new toy, each one secretly
+hoping it could remain with them.
+
+The girls had even begun to discuss the project of calling it the Girl
+Pioneer baby, and were deep in plans to raise money so they could have
+it taken care of and educated as such, when Mrs. Van Vorst avowed that
+if no mother appeared to claim it she would adopt it as her own.
+
+This of course took away the girls' hopes of having the little one for
+their own, as who could deny Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita what they so
+eagerly desired and what they were so able to do? In the meantime, Miss
+Camphelia--for so she had been christened--cooed, gurgled, and dimpled
+with delight at each new mother who bathed and dressed her in silent
+adoration of the tyrant of the camp.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nathalie stirred restlessly, jumbled up her pillow, and then flopped
+over with a sigh. O dear, why couldn't she go to sleep? It was not near
+time to get up!
+
+"Nathalie Page, what ails you?" came in exasperated tone from the other
+bed. "You have been wiggling, bouncing, jumping, and sighing like a
+porpoise for half the night. For pity's sake do go to sleep!"
+
+Nathalie made no reply, assured that if she did she would betray what a
+baby she was.
+
+"What does ail you anyway?" persisted Helen in a softer tone. "Have you
+been doing the green-apple act like Carol, and--"
+
+"Oh, it's just Nita," replied the girl dolefully. "You see it is this
+way, Helen. I told Mrs. Van Vorst that if Nita could mingle with girls
+about her own age it would do her a world of good." Nathalie sat up in
+bed and began to hug her knees. "So, you see, I feel responsible in a
+measure to see that she gets a good time, but dear me, she is just
+having a horrible time!"
+
+"How do you know?" questioned Helen, "she--"
+
+"Oh, the poor little thing mopes and cries all the time. She won't admit
+it, but she doesn't want me out of her sight. Really, Helen, I know it
+is selfish when she is so afflicted--" Nathalie's voice quavered, "but I
+do want a bit of fun myself sometimes."
+
+"Well, I should say!" was Helen's ejaculation. "But I wouldn't worry
+over it. She's selfish, that's all, and shouldn't be encouraged. I have
+noticed that she is terribly offish with the girls, and they are half
+afraid to be pleasant with her."
+
+"Oh, she does not mean to be offish, as you say," answered Nathalie
+quickly, "she is shy, and sensitive. I think she imagines the girls do
+not care for her because she is a humpback. If there was only some way
+by which she could become better acquainted with the girls, and give
+them a chance to know her better! She's an awfully bright little thing,
+and I know she would be a prime favorite, for there's lots of fun in
+her. She's just pining--well--for love."
+
+"Humph!" came from Helen, "she gets enough of it from her mother and
+Ellen; they spoil her."
+
+"Yes, I know, but that is what she doesn't want--mother-coddling. What
+she wants is to come out here and kick around as one of us in a rough
+and tumble way. Then she would get over her sensitiveness, but somehow I
+can't seem to manage it."
+
+There was silence for a moment as both girls fell to thinking. All at
+once Helen bounced up in bed crying, "There, Nathalie, I have nailed
+it!"
+
+"Nailed it?" repeated her companion. "Why--"
+
+"Oh, you know what I mean, I mean about Nita. Now listen to Solon the
+Wise. You get Nita to come and sleep in this tent--"
+
+"Where, on the floor?" inquired Nathalie teasingly.
+
+"You know what I mean--on my cot. I'll take her room. Then you drill her
+to take her part with the other girls, and so on, just as if she were
+one of us. In three days I'll come back and take my turn with her, and
+you take my place. Then in three days again let Lillie take a turn, and
+so on until the turns have gone the rounds, each girl being her
+tent-mate for three days. In that way she will become acquainted and
+have a chance to get in with us."
+
+"Oh, Helen, you are the brightest--but suppose she won't come?"
+
+"Won't be your tent-mate? Why, she worships the ground you walk on!
+That's one thing that ails her, Nathalie, she's jealous of the girls,
+because in a way she is outside of it all. Get her into harness like the
+rest of us and in ten days' time she'll be like another girl, or you can
+shut me up for a lunatic."
+
+Nathalie, as soon as possible after the morning conference, had a little
+talk with her Director, and finding that she agreed with Helen, sought
+Mrs. Van Vorst and laid before her the new plan. Of course she found
+that she had a number of objections to fight from that lady, but
+eventually she won, and it was decided that for the rest of the time in
+camp Nita Van Vorst was to be lost to her mother's bungalow, for to her
+unbounded joy she was to be one of the girls!
+
+It was bathing hour, and Nathalie, with bugle in hand, was patroling the
+beach, keeping her brain and eyes keenly alert, for some of the girls
+were careless, and would swim out beyond the raft.
+
+Carol was giving her considerable trouble, for having just mastered the
+art of swimming she had become very daring, doing her best to "show off"
+before the girls. Her companions had promised to keep an eye on her, but
+Nathalie knew that when they were sporting about in the water they were
+apt to forget their duty.
+
+Her eyes swept from one group to the other. Ah, the Sport was swimming
+out to the raft! How well she looked in that red cap, and what a
+beautiful swimmer she was, so free and graceful in her movements!
+Hearing a sudden cry, as she thought, Nathalie turned and glanced at
+Carol. Good! she had stopped her antics of pretending she was sinking.
+Her eyes again wandered to Edith, why where was she? There was her red
+cap bobbing on the water, what new trick was she up to now? She had
+thrown up her arms. Oh, was she screaming? Pshaw, she was just fooling
+as usual, what a plague she was!
+
+Nathalie strained her eyes, why, yes, she _was_ screaming! she had gone
+down again! Just a moment, and then as Nathalie saw the red cap bob up
+again and heard another piercing shriek, she realized that Edith was
+drowning! Nathalie's brain spun like a wheel--what should she do--she
+glanced helplessly around. Where was Helen?
+
+"Edith is drowning!" she tried to shriek, but her voice sounded faint,
+as if far away. O God! and then she remembered. Up went her bugle and
+two loud blasts--the danger signal that some one was drowning--rang
+sharply over the water.
+
+Just a moment, and then with a sudden swirl through the air, Nathalie
+had leaped into the water, and with long, swift strokes swam towards the
+spot where she had seen the red cap go down! Ah, she was almost there!
+As Edith threw up her arms again with another frenzied scream, for help,
+Nathalie grabbed her under the shoulders. But Edith, with a hysterical
+cry, threw her arms around her neck. Oh, she was dragging her down!
+
+Nathalie regained control of herself, and was frantically beating back
+the clutching arms. She had swung her around; she tried to get a firmer
+grip, but a nameless fear was pinching her heart. She felt her strength
+was giving out! Then she heard Helen's voice crying, "Don't lose your
+hold, Nathalie, we're almost there!"
+
+Edith was so heavy; Nathalie tried to tighten her grip; she was more
+quiet now. Oh, could it be? She heard the purling of water and saw, but
+dimly, something dark moving towards her. Oh, if they would only hurry?
+Some one had caught hold of Edith and was dragging--
+
+When Nathalie regained her consciousness it was to hear Mrs. Morrow's
+voice crying, "Poor little Blue Robin!" She opened her eyes to see the
+doctor bending over her while Mrs. Morrow peeped over his shoulder with
+a cheery smile. "Edith?" she gasped, making an attempt to rise.
+
+"As snug as a bug in a rug," rejoined the doctor promptly, "and you will
+be, too, if you will drink this."
+
+Nathalie meekly obeyed. She was so tired, would she ever get rested? But
+she did, and a few hours later was half sitting up on her cot supported
+by pillows, surrounded by a group of sober-faced girls all eagerly
+listening as she told how it came about. "If she hadn't gripped me so
+hard," she ended as she sank back on the pillows, beginning to feel
+tired again, "I could have managed." Then suddenly a queer little smile
+curved her mouth and drawing Helen down to her she whispered softly,
+"Helen, do you remember the day Edith ducked us when we were off in the
+boat, and how I declared I would get even?" Her friend nodded gravely.
+"Well," said Nathalie, still with that queer little smile, "I have got
+one on her, haven't I?"
+
+A cheer fire was in progress, and a noisy one at that. The Pioneers had
+spent the afternoon and evening of the previous day over at the camp
+across the Lake at an entertainment called Scout Day, given in their
+honor by their friends.
+
+Certainly it had been a most wonderful Scout Day, for there had been
+scouts saluting the colors, giving calls, making signals, lighting
+fires, and building shacks, tepees, and miniature log huts. Scouts, too,
+had engaged in all kinds of drills, contests, and races, such as tilting
+jousts, hand-wrestling, spear fighting and sham battles. And the games!
+They were a revelation to the girls in the uniqueness and cleverness of
+the ideas displayed. They had found, too, that scouts knew how to cook
+the very things dear to a camper's heart, and sing--well, about every war
+and camp song known.
+
+The Camp Circus presented the ludicrous side of these knights of
+chivalry, as they did clown stunts, causing the girls to laugh
+immoderately. After supper had come a firefly dance, which made strong
+appeal to the weird and mystic in every girl's nature, as they watched
+the scouts swing about the blazing light in strange and grotesque
+evolution.
+
+Perhaps the best was the scouts on the water, when, with a flotilla of
+row-boats and canoes decorated with the figures of paper animals, and
+brilliantly aglow with Japanese lights they glided over the water, the
+motion of the boats making the lights look like fireflies dancing in the
+air.
+
+The jolly times given by the scouts must be returned! When, how, and
+where, were the three questions causing no little agitation, when Carol,
+with a white, frightened face, leaped into their midst crying, "Oh,
+girls, the baby has a fit!"
+
+On hearing this startling statement some of the girls began to cry,
+others jumped up and wrung their hands frantically, while a few made a
+wild dash for Mrs. Van Vorst's bungalow. Helen fortunately kept cool,
+and, perceiving that a panic would ensue, seized her bugle and blew it
+quickly.
+
+This halted the stampede, arrested the hysterical ones midway between a
+sob and a cry, and caused a sudden quiet to fall, as she cried, in a
+loud clear voice, "Girls, keep perfectly still. Nathalie Page, Edith
+Whiton, and Lillie Bell, I appoint a committee of three to go and see if
+Carol's report is so, and whether our services are needed. And please,
+Pioneers," she called out as the three girls sprang on their feet, "one
+of you girls come back and let us know how things are progressing, as we
+shall all be anxious to know."
+
+The next moment the three girls were running swiftly after Carol, who,
+immediately after delivering her news, had started to run back to the
+bungalow.
+
+"Now, girls," continued Helen, "let us go on talking. Of course we are
+all worried, for we just love that baby!" she paused for a second, "but
+we can't all help. Mrs. Morrow will let us know if we can do anything,
+so in the meantime, let us go on thinking up ideas."
+
+A cheer greeted this speech as a tribute to their leader's level head
+and courage, for this was not the first time that she had preserved her
+poise, and held the scales when unduly weighted on the wrong side.
+
+Yes, it was true, little Camphelia was writhing in convulsions on Mrs.
+Morrow's lap, while Mrs. Van Vorst bent over her with agitated
+movements, applying with Ellen's help hot water, and mustard, and such
+remedies as were available at the moment.
+
+Nathalie touched Mrs. Van Vorst softly on the arm, "Is there anything we
+girls can do?" Her eyes were big with anxious fear.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," replied that lady distractedly; "if the doctor were
+only here!"
+
+"Blue Robin, is that you?" asked Mrs. Morrow quickly, as she heard
+Nathalie's voice. "Oh, we must have help! How unfortunate the doctor had
+to go to the city to-day! But, Nathalie, can't you send a wireless to
+Dr. Homer? Tell him to come immediately, for the baby is very ill!"
+
+But Nathalie was already out of the sound of her voice, as with quick,
+light steps she ran to the girls who, with white distressed faces,
+awaited her on the veranda. "Mrs. Morrow says to send a wireless to Dr.
+Homer over at camp," she explained hurriedly, "but I am afraid we won't
+get him, as the wireless hours are nine, twelve and eight, and it is not
+eight yet."
+
+"Oh, yes it is," returned Lillie, "five minutes to eight," looking up
+from her little wrist-watch in its leather bandlet. "I'm sure we shall
+catch him."
+
+The girls hurried to the boat-house and climbed up to the little cupola,
+where Dr. Morrow, on first coming to camp, had installed his wireless
+apparatus. The Pioneers had been somewhat mystified by this procedure,
+wondering of what use a wireless would be to him up there in those
+woods. But the doctor had soon demonstrated that it was not only one of
+the most useful things about camp, but one of the most entertaining.
+
+He had not only been able to discuss with his fellow physician across
+the lake many professional questions that he came across in his medical
+books now and then, or letters from his colleague in Westport, who had
+charge of some of his important cases, but at times had been able to
+give valuable advice to the younger physician when dealing with some
+refractory or eccentric scout.
+
+But the doctor had done more than this, for he had gathered the four
+older girls, Helen, Edith, Lillie, and Nathalie together, and given them
+lessons in wireless telegraphy, so that they were soon glibly talking
+about ether waves, spark-coils, condensers, tuners, keys, and so on, in
+a way that proved his lessons had been well learned. They had, in fact,
+not only learned the Morse code, so that they could "listen in" when the
+doctor was "picking up" an S. O. S. call from some ship in distress, but
+they had heard many a wireless message from some signal station, or from
+some out-going or in-coming sea craft.
+
+At first it had seemed quite odd that although their little amateur
+apparatus could send messages only within a radius of five miles, it was
+able to receive them from a distance of over a thousand. They became so
+proficient in this click-clack language that they were soon sending
+aerograms, or wireless messages, to the camp across the Lake for the
+doctor. Sometimes, too, they sent messages to their scout friends, a
+privilege only accorded after the messages had been read by their
+Director, so as to avoid senseless talk or idle gossip.
+
+As soon as the girls reached the little wooden table holding the
+wireless, Lillie and Edith instinctively drew back, feeling that as
+Nathalie was the one who had found the baby she had the prior right to
+send this call for help. Seating herself, Nathalie quickly adjusted the
+telephones over her ears and set to work. But to her surprise, as she
+pressed the wireless key on the detector to close the circuit, she heard
+no sharp crack, and saw no spark-gap. Again she tried with like result.
+"Why, what is the matter with it?" she questioned turning towards the
+girls in some trepidation.
+
+"Let me try," pleaded Lillie. But alas, she met with no better luck than
+Nathalie, although she tried one experiment after the other. "I think it
+is the strangest thing," she commented staring helplessly before her;
+"what can be the matter with the thing anyway?"
+
+But Edith, who had dropped down on her hands and knees to examine the
+battery under the wooden board, now rose to her feet crying, "There is
+nothing the matter with the condenser, it must be that the aerial wires
+are not right!"
+
+As the girl made this announcement there was an ominous silence as they
+stared with distressed, worried faces at one another. "Oh, what can we
+do?" lamented Nathalie, "could we--"
+
+"I know what we can do," said Lillie suddenly; "we can row across the
+Lake to the camp!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV--THE WIRELESS OPERATOR
+
+
+"Yes, that is the only thing we can do," said Nathalie quickly, "but
+suppose the doctor is not there! You know the boys said they were going
+on a two or three days' tramp this week."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you how we can settle that problem and make sure,"
+replied Lillie, whose mind acted quickly. "Suppose we row over while
+Edith goes on her wheel to Mrs. Hansen's and telephones to Boonton."
+
+"What, go all that distance alone in the dark?" protested the Sport in
+an appalled tone, "and then I don't know what doctor to telephone to!"
+
+"What, Edith, do you want us to think that you are really afraid?"
+laughed Lillie; "_you_, the girl who has never shown the white feather
+at any dare? Why, I--"
+
+But Nathalie's cheery voice, like oil on troubled waters, interposed
+quickly, "Of course she is not afraid, but it is an unpleasant thing to
+do to ride that distance alone at night. But we can't take chances, and
+we must have a doctor. And as to the one you telephone to, Edith," she
+cried, turning to that young lady, whose face had brightened somewhat,
+"call Dr. McGill, he's the little white-haired doctor who called on Dr.
+Morrow the other day. He lives at Boonton."
+
+Without another protest Edith turned, and after running back to the
+cheer fire circle to inform Helen what the girls were going to do, she
+hurried after her wheel. A few minutes later, with the lantern fastened
+to the front of it, flickering like a firefly as she sped through the
+woods, she was on her way to the farm to telephone.
+
+Lillie and Nathalie had hurried down to the boathouse, and in a flash of
+time had unfastened one of the row boats. Springing quickly in, they
+were soon out some distance from shore, rowing as rapidly as they could
+towards the opposite bank. It was a weird night, the sky seemed hung
+with heavy black curtains, the only light being that from the moon, as
+at rare intervals she darted swiftly through some opening between the
+clouds, or betrayed her presence by streaks of foamy silver on the edge
+of some unusually inky cloud.
+
+But the path across the Lake was a familiar one, and ten minutes later
+the girls reached the opposite shores. "Why, it looks as if there wasn't
+a soul about," exclaimed Lillie, as, after drawing in their oars, the
+two girls stood up in the boat and peered anxiously through the bit of
+woodland that led to the camp, whose signal lantern glimmered dimly
+through the foliage of the trees.
+
+"I guess you're right, Nathalie, the boys must be on a tramp," said
+Lillie after several loud "Hellos!" the only reply to which had been a
+faint echo from across the Lake.
+
+Putting her fingers to her mouth Lillie emitted several sharp whistles,
+but still no sign of life! "Huh, it looks as if it was a case of
+Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village,'" she soliloquized dismally, but Nathalie
+was busy giving the Pioneer yell. This evoked such a strange medley of
+echoing sounds that the girls burst out laughing.
+
+Nathalie's face soon sobered, however, as she exclaimed dolefully, "O
+dear, it does seem as if we were destined to have bad luck. I wonder if
+they could have gone to bed!" burst from her in sudden thought.
+
+"If they have, we'll soon rout them out," declared Lillie, jumping on
+the bank. "Come on, let's drag the boat up and then hike to camp."
+
+After slipping on pine needles, stumbling over gnarled roots and
+blackened stumps, they finally found the path, devoutly thankful that
+the moon had at last emerged from behind the clouds. Indeed, as they
+stepped from the shadows of the woods and stood on the campus--as the
+scouts called the level space in front of the tents--the moon was shining
+with a brightness that equalled the day.
+
+As the girls' eyes traveled from the pots on the top pole suspended over
+what had once been a camp fire to the rows of tents, whose open flaps
+revealed that they were tenantless, Lillie uttered a sudden cry of
+delighted surprise!
+
+The next moment she had shot across the campus, for she had spied a
+white paper fastened to one of the larger tents, directly under the
+glare of the lantern above the door.
+
+"Hurrah! we're in luck," she cried, wildly jubilant, pointing to the
+white paper as Nathalie reached her side. "Read that!" The girl stepped
+closer and slowly deciphered from the big black letters in charcoal
+print:
+
+            "Have gone to the Scout Council at the rooms of
+            the Wolf Patrol at Boonton.
+                                "G. A. Homer, Scoutmaster."
+
+"But that does not help us any!" Nathalie said when she finished reading
+the notice, her face losing its eagerness as she faced her companion.
+
+"Indeed it does, goosie," replied Lillie stoutly, "for the doctor has a
+wireless. So have the scouts at Boonton, for I heard one of the boys
+tell of a message one of them had picked up the other night, the night
+we had that awful thunder storm, don't you remember? So don't say we're
+not lucky, Nathalie Page, after finding that note. I'll warrant you,
+though, that some of the scouts did go on a tramp, and that the doctor
+left that word in case they returned before he did. But let's look for
+that wireless!"
+
+Surmising that the tent with the note pinned on the flap must be Dr.
+Homer's, the girls hastened in, and by the light from the lantern which
+Nathalie had taken from the pole by standing on a couple of soap-boxes
+she had found, it was soon discovered on a roughly-hewn table in a
+corner of the tent.
+
+This time the wireless key did its work; there was a sharp crack, the
+amateur wireless operator had clicked off the R. Z., the camp's private
+call, and then with palpitating heart and expectant eyes sat waiting to
+see if it had been picked up. Suddenly her face broke into a smile, for
+as she "listened in," she caught the wireless O. K. G. (go ahead). She
+went ahead, and in a few moments had made the operator at the Patrol
+rooms understand that Dr. Homer was wanted. There was a moment's delay,
+and then the doctor himself was sending a message through the air. It
+took but a short space of time for Nathalie to click off why he was
+wanted, and how the girls had come to wire him from the scout camp.
+
+"Now let's make tracks for home," said Lillie as Nathalie hung up the
+lantern on the pole again. "I am afraid it may rain, for I thought I
+heard thunder." But she must have been mistaken, for not a cloud
+disturbed the soft silver haze that guided them across the Lake to Camp
+Laff-a-Lot.
+
+"Dear me," ejaculated Nathalie an hour later as she and Helen were
+undressing for bed, "what a lot of things have happened in the two weeks
+we have been at camp! But how glad I am that Dr. Homer got here in time,
+and that the baby is all right."
+
+"Well, it ought to be, with two doctors on the job," retorted Helen with
+her usual bluntness. "Isn't that old Dr. McGill jolly?"
+
+"Oh, yes, it was comical to see him look the baby over, and then declare
+that there was nothing for him to do but to look wise, as Dr. Homer had
+done all there was to be done. What a chummy confab they had too, after
+it was all over! He was so pleased to meet Dr. Homer, he said, for he
+had heard Dr. Morrow speak of him."
+
+"Well, one thing's settled, Miss Blue Robin," remarked Helen decidedly,
+"and that is that Miss Camphelia is not to have any more sweets. I half
+suspect that Carol tried to stuff her with a bite of green apple, for
+she looked frightened to death when she saw that she was ill. Dr. Homer
+said there had been too much mothering going on. I just knew it would
+come to this, the way--"
+
+"Stop your scolding, Lady Fuss," laughed Nathalie, "for it seems to me
+that I saw you trying to stuff the kiddie with a lollipop the other day.
+But, anyway, the rules have been posted, 'No one to feed, or to handle
+Miss Camphelia without permission of the head nurse, Miss Ellen
+Carmichael!' I'm dead for sleep, so good night!"
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+The camp presented an appearance of unusual activity, with flags and
+bunting rippling in the sunlit air, and girls, scouts, and village
+guests in a state of restless progression, for it was the Pioneer Sport
+Day. The girls were in a whirl as they flew hither and thither, seeing
+that everything was in readiness for the anticipated fun, the visitors
+curiously prying into the living arrangements of this girls' camp, while
+the scouts impatiently tramped about, waiting for the sports to begin.
+
+Ah, there was the bugle call, the signal for a rush down to the shores
+of the Lake to witness the aquatic feats of the young campers! "A
+ghostly dive," read Fred Tyson slowly from an imposing little program,
+hand-printed in red, and tied to a birch-bark cover with sweet-grass.
+"I'd like to know--" but his query was cut short as the bugle again
+sounded to announce that the first race was to start.
+
+Fred turned his eyes towards the pier and stared curiously at the little
+figure in a khaki suit with red tie and hat, standing so proudly erect
+on a small platform as the Pioneer announcer for the day. Could it be?
+Yes it was Miss Anita Van Vorst, with her knapsack so adroitly arranged
+that no one would have suspected she was the little humpback who had
+once only taken an outing when wheeled in a chair.
+
+A sudden scurry from the boat-house of two ghostly figures, a quick rush
+up the plank leading to the barrel platform,--Peter's diving-tower,--the
+spectral habiliments suddenly flung away to float with the tide, and two
+blue-suited forms had sped swiftly downward.
+
+There was a splash, a shower of silvery spray, a few bubbles, and two
+heads were bobbing about like floating corks. The next minute Kitty and
+Edith were swimming swiftly back to the pier, Edith in the lead, and
+Kitty a close second amid the noisy hurrahs from their friends on the
+bank. Edith, of course, won the blue, and with a wave of her hand as an
+acknowledgment to the cheering audience darted quickly back to the
+boat-house.
+
+A tennis match now followed, which proved to be Lillie and Jessie
+arrayed in tennis-suits seated in wooden tubs with tennis-rackets for
+paddles, paddling to the goal, an anchored raft some yards from shore.
+Lillie was the winner this time, and, amid a general laugh received her
+prize, a dime and pin, with radiant smiles from the bugler on the pier.
+
+A pioneer race was engaged in by two Orioles, one in the costume of a
+colonial maiden of Plymouth town, while the other closely resembled
+pictures of that laggard in love, John Alden. The contestants swam to
+the raft where they attempted in double-quick time to divest themselves
+of their old-time clothes, the one, of course, who accomplished this
+feat first having the best chance to win the race.
+
+But shoes would stick, strings would knot, and buttons wouldn't
+unfasten. Nannie Plummer at last was free, and jumped back to the water.
+But alas, her bonnet still clung to her; no, not to her head, but to one
+of her feet, causing her audience to shout with merriment at her antics
+to rid herself of this obstacle, while Johnnie the slow was still making
+futile endeavors to rid herself of her undesirable trousers.
+
+A Japanese race was applauded perhaps as much for its picturesqueness as
+for the skill displayed, as two daintily gowned figures,--one in a pink
+and one in a blue flowered kimono, with flowers and fans coquettishly
+arranged a la Japanese in their hair--with mincing steps hied themselves
+down to their boats. Here, each one holding an umbrella in one hand and
+a palm-leaf fan in the other, they paddled out to the stake boat.
+
+"Gee whiz! I'd like to know how they make those fans work!" exclaimed
+Teddie Hart in puzzled tone, to the joy of a group of girls near by, who
+giggled unrestrainedly as they saw that they had succeeded in mystifying
+their scout friends. Perhaps Peter, if he had minded, could have
+explained that a flat board to which the fans were nailed did the work.
+
+A Silver Race was composed of teams of two, rowing out to the raft and
+back, each girl holding a silver spoon in her mouth containing an egg.
+The winners were Nathalie and Edith, who reached shore with their eggs
+intact, while Lillie Bell and a Bob White raced back to land with
+streams of yellow dripping from their faces and clothes, the race rules
+requiring that each racer should return to the shore with what remained
+of the egg.
+
+The Trail of the Lonesome Pine created yells of laughter, as Helen
+stepped gingerly along with bare feet on a peeled pine sapling suspended
+over the shallow water near the shore. It was greased, of course, but
+the red apple at its end proved an incentive as the girl slipped
+cautiously towards it. Hurrah, she was almost there! Hadn't she
+practiced that feat for days? There was a sudden swerve to one side, the
+supple figure tottered, and then Miss Helen plunged to her fate in the
+water below. But she only laughed with the spectators as she wrung out
+her skirts and scurried for the bank, while Barbara began her greasy
+career.
+
+Surely she had rosin on her feet! No, she didn't, for the next moment
+she too was clawing the air. She swayed for a minute like a reed in the
+wind, and then went down, not into the water, but on the pole where she
+gazed with a bewildered stare in her near-sighted eyes at the jeering
+little prize that had proved so elusive.
+
+The first number of the land sports was a contest in the air, the
+performers walking on stilts while balancing potatoes on their heads. A
+tilting joust also took place, and helped to prove that the time the
+girls had spent in making and walking on the stilts had not been wasted.
+
+The Up Against It Race, turned out to be an obstacle race, one of the
+obstacles being twelve eggs to be picked up from the ground and placed
+in a basket. The second obstacle was hailed with deafening shouts, for
+it was no other than Miss Camphelia sitting on the race-track
+contentedly sucking a lollipop. She was speedily seized by the
+contestant and arrayed in a coat and hat, while gazing with wondering
+eyes at this new red-faced mother. The girl who made the best time as an
+egg-picker and baby-dresser proved to be an Oriole, and was duly
+applauded for her speed and deftness.
+
+In the Light that Failed contest the fair racers made a twenty-yard dash
+carrying lighted candles and pails of water, one in each hand, at the
+same time. All lights flickered out to be sure, but the one that lasted
+the longest won the contest for its holder.
+
+A fifty-yard dash won by Edith now followed, while one of the Bob Whites
+broke the tape at a twenty-five yard dash. In a Ring the Bell
+competition the girls were divided into teams, the team having the
+greatest number of girls who threw a bean bag through a barrel-hoop with
+a bell hung in its center without touching the bell were the jubilant
+ones.
+
+Lillie and Edith now gave an exhibition of wigwagging, using the Myers
+code, in which nearly all the girls were proficient. Lillie, to her
+delight, showed the most proficiency, although Edith had generally been
+considered the greatest expert in this science. An Indian-club drill,
+and a nail-driving contest not only showed the scouts what their sisters
+could accomplish in the way of strength, and manual labor, but brought
+the sports for the day to a close.
+
+By this time pangs of hunger began to assail the jolly campers, and
+Nita, with a strenuous toot of her horn, made known that a Grub
+Contest--a hike for supper packages hidden in the woods, among the rocks
+on the shore, or around the tents--would now take place. With much
+laughter and jesting the girls lined up opposite the boys, and at three
+blasts of the bugle they were off, flying in all directions, each one
+bent on searching some one particular locality that he or she had in
+mind. The fortunate ones were soon shouting hilariously; in fact even
+the slow ones were keener than usual in this supper hike, and soon
+bagged their game and cheered lustily as they returned to camp.
+
+Every one now gathered around the dining-room table--appropriately
+decorated for the occasion--and was soon dulling appetite with the choice
+bits found in the packages that had been done up by the Pioneers but
+hidden by Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Van Vorst.
+
+As they frolicked over the supper it was voted that every one present
+contribute to the moment's pleasure by telling a story, singing a song,
+asking a conundrum, and so on. A ball was passed to Helen who
+immediately told a funny story, and ended by tossing the ball to
+Nathalie, the rule being that the reciter was to throw the ball to any
+one he or she chose, which resulted in its being thrown to the more
+timid or lazy ones, thus causing surprise and laughter.
+
+Nathalie made a rhyme impromptu, then tossed the ball to one of the
+boys, and so it kept going the rounds, not only bracing the timid or
+nervous ones, but revealing latent talent that had never been suspected.
+
+Teddy Hart, who had played the knight to the announcer of the day, Miss
+Anita, spied her laughing at his antics when he was called to the front
+and mischievously tossed the ball to her. The smile died on the girl's
+face and she gasped with a start of terror, but in a moment, with a
+defiant toss of her head, she started in and recited some funny verses
+so comically that she received an ovation of cheers and claps.
+
+When Nathalie perceived this unexpected turn in the festivity, her heart
+went pit-a-pat in sympathy with Nita's unexpected ordeal, but when she
+saw the upward toss of her head and the flash in her eyes, she knew the
+girl would prove game. Indeed, she had been proving game for the last
+ten days or more, for Helen's plan of helping her to know the girls had
+succeeded so well that Nita had lost much of her supersensitiveness in
+regard to her deformity, by being made to forget it and by the
+kindliness and deference shown her by both girls and boys.
+
+The intimacy that had come from tenting with the different Pioneers had
+not only shown her the need of correcting many of her own faults, but
+had revealed the good points of her associates. Many of the girls she
+had secretly vowed to Nathalie she would never care for, she had
+accepted as the best of friends.
+
+From being deemed an aristocrat of whom the girls stood slightly in awe,
+thinking her proud and exclusive, she had proved to be most democratic,
+entirely devoid of the many airs and graces they feared. In fact she had
+become, as Nathalie said, a favorite with every one, and had nearly as
+many adorers as Miss Camphelia, who at that moment was having a most
+beautiful time eating bread and milk in the lap of Ellen, gurgling and
+winking with baby joy at the gay colors and lights that held her eye.
+
+Supper over, the campers hurried to the cheer fire circle where a tall,
+uncouth-looking object covered with sheets towered specter-like in the
+center. Helen, mounting a small platform, announced that the campers had
+gathered to celebrate the burning of Miss Dummy, who represented the
+evil spirits that had run riot during their stay at camp.
+
+An Oriole girl now came to the fore as chairman of the spirit committee,
+as it was called, and made known that a thorough investigation had
+brought to light many evil spirits that had dominated certain members of
+the camp at intervals, not only hindering the development of character,
+but causing discomfort and a few heartaches among their mates.
+
+The evil spirits of grouchiness, shiftlessness, dishonesty, and
+selfishness, in a sense, had been tamed by the Pioneers' laws and the
+flames from their cheer fire so that they had not caused much havoc, but
+there were a few evil ones not so familiar, perhaps, that had persisted
+in doing their evil work. The principal ones, she claimed, were
+forgetting each one's own particular failing in the fun of ridiculing
+the faults and eccentricities of her mates, the disloyalty to one's self
+by not trying to do one's best, a habit of giggling when there was
+nothing to giggle at, a desire to shirk responsibility by letting the
+other one do work that was distasteful, and the weakness of letting
+one's nerves get the better of one on certain occasions instead of
+getting the better of the nerves.
+
+Of course this caused much laughter, although each girl recognized her
+own particular fault, and then and there secretly swore that she would
+subdue it or die in the attempt.
+
+Helen now asked if there was any reason why the evil spirits just
+mentioned should not be disposed of for good and all. Receiving a shout
+that evidently meant a big "No!" she pulled a string, the ghostlike
+garments fell to the ground, and Miss Dummy stood revealed, an effigy
+arrayed in an old suit belonging to one of the Pioneers, even to the
+staff and knapsack, surmounting a pile of dried twigs and brush.
+
+"Miss Dummy," solemnly continued Helen, with as straight a face as she
+could muster as she confronted the ludicrous-looking evil one, who, with
+hat awry, huge red nose, and goggle-eyes, stared at her with a leer, "I
+consign to thee those evil spirits that have caused sorrow and
+heartaches among the members of Camp Laff-a-Lot, to be burned until thou
+art ashes, and then to be buried at the bottom of the lake to lie there
+forever!"
+
+As she ended there was a sudden scurry forward as each Pioneer made one
+of a circle kneeling around Miss Dummy, and in an instant's time had
+struck her match and applied it to one of the twigs which served as a
+pedestal for the evil one. As the firewood had been well oiled it caught
+quickly from the blue sputterings of so many matches, and yellow flames
+were soon shooting savagely upward to glow like strings of scarlet among
+the twigs and briers, causing them to snap and crackle hilariously. In a
+moment darting tongues were licking Miss Dummy's red cheeks with fiery
+greed and floated upward to circle about in wreaths of white and black
+smoke.
+
+[Illustration: She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid
+water.]
+
+Some of the unduly imaginative girls turned away, declaring that the
+effigy looked like some one of the girls in that suit in the reddened
+glare of the flames. But the rest joined hands with the scouts and
+leaped merrily about the blazing pyre, executing weird and strange
+gyrations, which they termed a fire dance, as a last farewell to their
+enemy, who finally, done to the death, tumbled to the ground a fiery
+mass of scarlet embers. A pail of water soon quenched the last of the
+spirits, when the ashes were gathered into a big pail and carried in a
+procession to the shores of the lake.
+
+Here Helen, holding the pail carefully in her hand, stepped into a
+row-boat and was conveyed to the middle of the lake. By the light of the
+moon just peeping above the horizon she dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy
+into the placid water, and to the singing of a comic dirge, composed by
+one of the Orioles, was rowed silently back to shore.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV--GOOD-BY TO EAGLE LAKE
+
+
+After Miss Dummy had been disposed of there was a return to the cheer
+fire circle, where the Sport performed the unusual feat of lighting
+three fires with one match. The giving out of merit badges and stars for
+the work performed during camp life and for the day's sports now took
+place. These rewards of merit were each accompanied by camp gifts, the
+work of the girls done afternoons at their "trial by needle" hour, as
+some of the girls called it, when raffia and bead work, candle making,
+sewing, and many other crafts had occupied the Pioneers' busy fingers,
+while some expert read of heroic deeds, or the girls chatted pleasantly
+of the pleasures that were, or that were to be.
+
+Pioneer and Scout, each in turn, now told of some special good that had
+come to them from the life in the open, which Mrs. Morrow said would be
+food for thought on their return to the city. A rhyming contest made no
+end of merriment, as well as the games of menagerie, gossip, animal,
+blind man's buff, and others of like character. The scout orchestra now
+varied the entertainment with a few musical selections which started the
+girls and boys dancing around the fire again, this time with the
+graceful swing and motions of the modern dances.
+
+But they tired at last, and, some one starting a song, they all fell in
+and sang to their heart's content one song after the other, rendering
+the old-remembered one of "Juanita" with undue emphasis, in honor to
+Miss Anita Van Vorst.
+
+After Dr. Homer, with the assistance of a few scouts, had made a deal of
+laughter by his comic shadowgraphs, done by a flash-lamp placed in the
+rear of one of the big tents with the flaps closed, the time came to say
+good-by. A few protested that it was still early, but when reminded by
+Mrs. Morrow that they had already been allowed an hour longer than usual
+and that they would have a lot of work to do in the morning as they were
+to break camp to return to the city, the protests ended, and the
+good-nights were said.
+
+The last day was a busy one, any number of camp rules were broken but
+the squads were lenient--they were still sleepy--so no reports were made,
+and the work of pulling down tents, packing the camp equipment, and
+making everything as clean and orderly as possible progressed.
+
+In the midst of this confusion Carol, who had made her last trip to the
+post-office, came rushing up to Nathalie with a letter. "Oh, it's from
+Dick!" cried the delighted girl as she tore it open.
+
+"Oh, Helen," she exclaimed in a moment to that young lady who was down
+on her knees packing the big box, "it's the funniest letter. Dick says
+he's having the time of his life--the jolliest ever--why, where can he
+be?" stopping to glance at the envelope.
+
+"Why, he must be in New York, or I wonder--yes," she nodded in answer to
+Helen's inquiry, "he says Mamma is fine--says they have had a glorious
+three weeks--well, I like that," she grumbled with rueful face, "it looks
+as if they had not missed me a bit and--" But the sound of voices at this
+moment caused both of the girls to go to the tent door, to see Miss
+Carol hurriedly heading a procession of men and women towards the tent.
+She was screaming excitedly as she came, "Oh, Nathalie, where are you?"
+
+Nathalie, somewhat alarmed by all this appearance of excitement, cried
+quickly, "Oh, what is it, Carol? What is it?"
+
+"Oh, Nathalie," the girl screamed, "the baby's mother has come!"
+
+"The baby's mother!" echoed the dazed girl with wide eyes. "Why, what
+does she mean?" turning to Helen, who at that moment had picked up Miss
+Camphelia, who had just awakened from a nap on one of the cots.
+
+By this time the party of country folk, breathless and somewhat moist
+from undue haste, with expectancy and delight beaming from every
+feature, had arrived in front of the tent. Nathalie gave one glance at
+the many faces, and then with a sudden cry rushed to the defense of what
+she had come to consider as her own, and the next minute was seated on
+the cot holding on to Miss Camphelia with a gripping clutch. She stared
+defiantly at the intruders as they pushed and jostled one another in
+their haste to enter the tent.
+
+But a moment later her arms relaxed, as a faded-looking, worried-faced
+little woman, with eyes as blue as the sea, and hair like corn-silk,
+gave an inarticulate cry as she caught sight of the baby on the girl's
+lap. Dropping on her knees with outstretched arms she cried, "Oh, my
+baby! My precious baby!"
+
+Well, after that Nathalie could hold out no longer, especially when she
+saw that the baby's sweet smile and dimpling cheeks were counterparts of
+those of the woman who claimed her as her own.
+
+Then it was all explained. The child had been stolen by the gypsy woman
+who, evidently, after a day or so of tramping from house to house
+begging for money to reach the Gypsy settlement some distance from the
+neighboring town, had decided to abandon it. Unfortunately the notice
+that had been sent to be put up in the post-office had failed to reach
+its destination, and if it had not been for Dr. McGill, the physician
+who had been summoned by Edith when Camphelia was ill, the baby would
+never have been found.
+
+Dr. MCGill had been puzzled by the baby's resemblance to some one he
+knew, but supposing the little one belonged to some of the ladies at
+camp he had thought no more about it. Afterwards, however, on
+accidentally learning from Dr. Homer that it was a lost baby, he had
+sent the mother to reclaim it.
+
+Of course there were pangs of disappointment to be endured, but, as
+Nathalie said, no one could be anything but glad to give the baby up
+after witnessing the mother's joy. After the mother had thanked them
+all, from Mrs. Van Vorst down to Ellen, for their kindness and the care
+they had given her baby, hoping that each one of the girls would some
+day have one of her own to caress and fondle, they all kissed Camphelia
+good-by, and the camp baby departed to return to its own home.
+
+After a dirge had been composed by Jessie, who had bloomed into quite a
+poetess, and any number of farewell letters and wishes had been written
+for the good luck of the next campers at the Lake, these were buried in
+the ground under a cairn of stones with a tiny American flag fastened at
+the top. This was the girls' memorial to the good times they had had, as
+well as an expression of the sadness they felt on leaving the place
+where they had spent three such happy weeks.
+
+The sadness of parting with the friends they had made in Mrs. Van
+Vorst's household--not the least being our friend Jimmie--was somewhat
+lessened when they learned that their hostess and her daughter were to
+accompany them to New York to spend a day or so with Mrs. Morrow.
+
+Going down in the car, although surrounded by a merry, chattering crowd,
+Nathalie and Helen became unusually silent. Helen, perhaps, was thinking
+of the new position she was to enter on her return to Westport, and
+Nathalie,--well, she could not have told why, but soon she became aware
+that her thoughts had jumped backward and she was reviewing her first
+meeting with Helen and the Pioneers.
+
+She half smiled as each one in turn presented herself to her as she
+first appeared; Barbara, with her queer staring eyes, absent-minded
+manner, and her frumpish clothes that always made Nathalie think of a
+five-and-ten-cent store. How often she had been tempted to laugh until
+she learned of the meanness of Barbara's grandfather, for although he
+was a rich man Barbara had to scrimp and haggle to get enough to eat, to
+say nothing of clothes to cover her back. The tears came into her eyes
+when she realized the kind heart that beat so loyally beneath the
+despised apparel. After all, what were one's clothes, mere externals
+necessary of course, but in reality only of face value, for surely they
+would never gain one an entrance into Heaven. And Helen, what would her
+life have been in her new home without this neighbor friend--who had
+taught her to master herself by helping her to overcome the many
+problems that had confronted her when she had become a Pioneer?
+
+Then she smiled again as she thought of Lillie Bell, with her thrillers
+and dramatic poses. She had learned that they were but the frosting to
+the solid worth beneath. Indeed, the thrillers in a way had proved an
+incentive in the telling of her stories to Rosy, the opening wedge into
+the good things that had followed, meeting Nita, making the money for
+Dick, Mrs. Van Vorst's asking the Pioneers to Eagle Lake, and so on.
+Why, when she came to think of it, there was not a girl in her bird
+group who had not helped her in some way, even Edith, who had taught her
+to guard her tongue.
+
+And from the Pioneer industries and crafts she had learned to be useful.
+She thought of the first time she had tried to darn a stocking at the
+Rally. Yes, and they had helped her to be happy, for they had given her
+a purpose in life. As for the sports and activities, they had brought
+her in closer touch with nature, giving her a keener interest in things
+that had never appealed to her before. And the rules and laws, even the
+good old-timey women had all done their share in making definite those
+qualities which she now saw were necessary in order to be a success in
+life.
+
+She realized, but dimly, perhaps, that she had gotten nearer the hearts
+of these people of the workaday world, not only Helen, but Edith and
+Jessie, who were all to be wage-earners that fall, thus opening up to
+her a new avenue of hopes and desires. Wasn't it strange how she used to
+dread the thought of having to earn her own living, and now she was
+worrying as to how she could earn more money to add to what she had
+earned already for Dick! Then a sudden thought jarred, oh, suppose Mrs.
+Van Vorst, now that Nita had become so different with her sunburned
+cheeks and merry ways from what she had been before she met the
+Pioneers, should not want her any more! Oh, well, if that should be--ah,
+they were getting into New York! She stooped and had begun to gather up
+her belongings when some one spoke to her.
+
+It was Mrs. Van Vorst, who, with her gracious little smile--how changed
+she seemed from on that morning when Nathalie had handed her the card in
+front of the library--said, "Nathalie, Nita and I are going to take a run
+up to St. Luke's Hospital to visit that sick friend--you know the one I
+told you about, who just had an operation performed--and Nita wants you
+to go with us."
+
+"Oh, but Mother will be waiting to see me!" exclaimed the girl blankly.
+O dear, she didn't want to go, for she was in such a hurry to see her
+mother and Dick.
+
+"Oh, that will be all right," nodded her friend quickly. "Mrs. Morrow
+will stop at the door, and you can tell her you will be along in the
+next train, for we shall not be long at the hospital."
+
+Twenty minutes later the three ladies, each with a big bouquet which
+Nita had insisted upon their taking, were entering a large, bare-looking
+reception room. "Now, girls," said Mrs. Van Vorst, "I will hurry up in
+the elevator and see how the patient is, and then perhaps you can both
+come and see him--her--" Mrs. Van Vorst's face grew strangely red--she
+turned abruptly and hurried from the room.
+
+It was but a few moments when she was back again, and with a bright
+little nod cried, "Come, Nathalie, my friend is fine this morning, and
+very anxious to see visitors, so come along!"
+
+"I wonder why the patient wants to see me," soliloquized the girl in
+puzzled query. "Isn't Nita coming?" she cried aloud, seeing the girl
+standing by the window with an odd little smile on her face.
+
+"Oh, yes, later; only one at a time at present," was the quick reply.
+
+Nathalie was still thinking how strange it seemed and how smiling Mrs.
+Van Vorst appeared, when they came to a halt in front of a door in an
+upper corridor. "Here we are," said her companion, "now run in and see
+my friend!" She threw open the door as she spoke.
+
+Nathalie took a step forward, stared a minute with puzzled brows, and
+then with a loud cry flung herself with outstretched arms upon a figure
+standing in the center of the room, for it was Dick!
+
+"Oh, how did you get here and--" but the rest was lost, for Dick was
+hugging her and kissing her in a way that more than astonished the girl,
+for he had always declared he hated to kiss people. And then he held her
+off and with shining eyes surveyed the suntanned cheeks of Nathalie
+approvingly, as he cried, "So you're back, Blue Robin--and--great guns, as
+fat as a porpoise, too!"
+
+"But what are you doing here?" inquired the still dazed girl slowly--"are
+you the lady?"
+
+"Lady!" echoed Dick. "I, a lady? Not on your life! What have you got
+into your head now?" he quizzed teasingly.
+
+"But Mrs. Van Vorst said I was to meet a lady--"
+
+"Oh, she was just bluffing you, that's all," jeered Dick. "She wanted to
+surprise you, for--" then Nathalie gave a loud scream, for Dick had begun
+to walk towards the bureau, slowly, to be sure, for his muscles were
+stiff, but he was straight as an arrow.
+
+"Oh--why, Dick, where is your cane? You'll fall--" and then something must
+have whispered to the girl,--perhaps it was intuition for in a flash she
+seemed to know.
+
+"Dick," she gasped, "you've had the operation, and you're all right?"
+This last was in a tense whisper.
+
+"You bet I am," returned Dick cheerily, "and in good shape, too. The
+doctor says I can go home in a week."
+
+"But where did you get the money?" asked the girl, her eyes big with
+wonder.
+
+"From a check sent by Mrs. Van Vorst as a tribute to her little friend
+and adviser, Nathalie Page," read Dick slowly from a letter which he had
+suddenly slipped from his pocket. As he glanced down at the girl and saw
+her staring eyes he flicked the letter before them, laughing as if to
+recall her to herself. Nathalie blinked, stepped back, and then a sudden
+light flashed into her eyes, and with a swoop of her hand she snatched
+the letter from her brother, crying, "Oh, Dick, isn't she just the
+dearest! Oh, I'm not worth so much money, I--" Then her eyes swept the
+page before her.
+
+"No, I don't believe you are, Blue Robin," teased Dick smilingly. And
+then his voice grew more earnest, as he added, "Nathalie Page, you're
+the blood, all right. You captured her heart on sight, and this is the
+result." He started to walk slowly towards the bed, but the girl was at
+his side, for she saw that he was beginning to feel a little tired.
+
+"To be sure," he cried apologetically as he leaned on her a little
+heavily. "I'm not a speeder just yet, but wait a bit and you'll see me
+do a twenty-mile dash in no time.
+
+"Yes," explained Dick, after he was resting on the bed again, and Mrs.
+Van Vorst's kindness had been rehearsed in detail; "Mrs. Van Vorst sent
+a letter to Mother expressing her love, admiration, and all the rest of
+it, for you, and then begged to be allowed to give you this surprise.
+She said we could consider the money a loan and pay it back when we
+liked."
+
+"Oh, was that the letter that came just before I went away, that you
+wouldn't tell me about?"
+
+Dick nodded, and then went on, "I was brought here the day after you
+left for the Lake; operated on the day after, and have had the jolliest
+time ever since. The nurses here are O. K. I have only been permitted to
+stand on my feet the last few days, but the doctor says I'll soon be
+walking all right. But Blue Robin, how goes it with you? I hear you're a
+great sport since you left."
+
+But Nathalie's thoughts were elsewhere. "Oh, Dick," she exclaimed
+presently, "when do you think we can pay Mrs. Van Vorst the money back?
+I have some, you know--" her eyes grew bright--"fifty dollars, in the
+bank!"
+
+"And I have, well, I guess I have more than that," said the boy proudly,
+"from the various jobs I did. Oh, Nathalie, did I tell you I wrote a
+little skit and sold it to 'Life' for fifty dollars?"
+
+"You did?" ejaculated the girl. "Oh, I'm so glad! I always said you
+could write funny things. Well, that will make--" but at this moment she
+heard the door open. Oh, it was Mrs. Van Vorst--what should she say to
+thank her?
+
+But the question faded from her mind as with a cry of delight she sprang
+into the outstretched arms of her mother.
+
+Well, it seemed as if the three would never get through going over this
+great joy that had come into their lives! Then, too, they were all
+anxious to pay back as soon as possible Mrs. Van Vorst's kind loan.
+
+"Well," said Nathalie at length, "I am sure if we all work hard we can
+do it pretty soon. How much did you say it cost?"
+
+But before Dick could answer Mrs. Page cried, taking a hand of each as
+she spoke, "It will take time to be sure, but Mother is going to do her
+share, for, children, the bonds are all right, I received my interest
+yesterday, the usual six per cent."
+
+"Oh, isn't that just too lovely!" exclaimed Nathalie. But before she
+could say more the door opened and Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita entered, Nita
+all shyness again as she bowed stiffly to Dick, whom she had always been
+anxious to meet. And then the unexpected happened, for as Nathalie
+turned to thank her kind benefactor she burst into tears and cried as if
+her heart would break, to the dismay of every one present. Oh, what a
+fool she did make of herself, she afterwards confessed with shamed eyes
+to Helen.
+
+But Mrs. Van Vorst had been a girl herself once, and so she understood
+just how her young friend felt. She comforted Nathalie so sweetly that
+the girl fell in love with her over again, her tears dried, and she was
+soon her happy self.
+
+In a short space the good-bys were said to Dick, and the four ladies
+hurried to the taxi that was to whirl them to Westport. Of course there
+was so much to tell and talk over during the journey that it was not
+until Nathalie was undressing for bed that she heard that as soon as
+Dick was able he and her mother were to spend two weeks at Eagle Lake
+with Mrs. Van Vorst. Nathalie received this news with unfeigned joy, for
+now her mother would have a change, and then she and Dick could see what
+a lovely place the Lake was.
+
+There had been so many unexpected bits of brightness to make Nathalie
+happy that day that when she finally got into bed, although she was
+terribly tired, her brain was in such a whirl she was sure she would
+never go to sleep. But at last, with a drowsy sigh, she snuggled down on
+her pillow with the happy thought that she was so glad she had found
+that nest--of blue birds--and had become--a Girl Pioneer!
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+American Heroes and Heroines
+
+By Pauline Carrington Bouve
+
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth $1.25 _net_
+
+This book, which will tend directly toward the making of patriotism in
+young Americans, contains some twenty brief, clever and attractive
+sketches of famous men and women in American history, among them Father
+Marquette, Anne Hutchinson, Israel Putnam, Molly Pitcher, Paul Jones,
+Dolly Madison, Daniel Boone, etc. Mrs. Bouve is well known as a writer
+both of fiction and history, and her work in this case is admirable.
+
+  "The style of the book for simplicity and clearness of expression
+  could hardly be excelled."--_Boston Budget._
+
+The Scarlet Patch
+
+The Story of a Patriot Boy in the Mohawk Valley
+
+By Mary E. Q. Brush Illustrated $1.25 _net_
+
+"The Scarlet Patch" was the badge of a Tory organization, and a loyal
+patriot boy, Donald Bastien, is dismayed at learning that his uncle,
+with whom he is a "bound boy," is secretly connected with this
+treacherous band. Thrilling scenes follow in which a faithful Indian
+figures prominently, and there is a vivid presentation of the school and
+home life as well as the public affairs of those times.
+
+  "A book that will be most valuable to the library of the young
+  boy."--_Providence News._
+
+Stories of Brave Old Times
+
+Some Pen Pictures of Scenes Which Took Place Previous to, or Connected
+With, the American Revolution
+
+By Helen M. Cleveland
+
+Profusely illustrated
+
+Large 12mo Cloth $1.25 _net_
+
+  "It is a book for every library, a book for adults, and a book for
+  the young. Perhaps no other book yet written sets the great cost of
+  freedom so clearly before the young, consequently is such a spur to
+  patriotism.
+
+  "It can unqualifiedly be commended as a book for youthful readers;
+  its great wealth of illustrations adding to its value."--_Chicago
+  News._
+
+For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers,
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+A Little Maid of Boston Town
+
+By MARGARET SIDNEY
+
+12mo Cloth
+
+Illustrated by F. T. MERRILL $1.35 _net_
+
+The opening chapters introduce us to old Boston in England. Margaret
+Sidney went there in 1907 and absorbed the atmosphere of Cotton Mather's
+"St. Botolph's Town," gathering for herself facts and traditions. Then
+"St. Botolph's Town" yields its scenic effects, and the setting of the
+story is changed to Boston Town of New England.
+
+The story is absorbing, graphic, and truly delightful, carrying one
+along till it seems as if actual participation in the events had been
+the lot of the reader. The same naturalness that is so conspicuous in
+her famous "Pepper Books" marks this latest story of Margaret Sidney's.
+She makes characters live and speak for themselves.
+
+  It is an inspiring, patriotic story for the young, and contains
+  striking and realistic pictures of the times with which it
+  deals.--_Sunday School Magazine, Nashville._
+
+  The author presents a story, but she gives a veracious picture of
+  conditions in the town of Boston during the Revolution. Parents who
+  are seeking wholesome books can place this in the front tank with
+  entire safety.--_Boston Globe._
+
+  Surely Margaret Sidney deserves the gratitude of many a child, and
+  grown-ups, too, for that matter, in telling in so charming, yet,
+  withal, so simple a manner, of these early days in this
+  country.--_Utica Observer._
+
+  A really thrilling tale of the American Revolution. Interesting for
+  both old and young.--_Minneapolis Journal._
+
+_For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., Boston
+
+
+
+
+JEAN CABOT SERIES
+
+By GERTRUDE FISHER SCOTT
+
+Illustrated by Arthur O. Scott 12mo Cloth
+
+Price, Net, $1.25 each
+
+Jean Cabot at Ashton
+
+Here is the "real thing" in a girl's college story. Older authors can
+invent situations and supply excellently written general delineations of
+character, but all lack the vital touch of this work of a bright young
+recent graduate of a well-known college for women, who has lost none of
+the enthusiasm felt as a student. Every activity of a popular girl's
+first year is woven into a narrative, photographic in its description of
+a life that calls into play most attractive qualities, while at the same
+time severely testing both character and ability.
+
+Jean Cabot in the British Isles
+
+This is a college story, although dealing with a summer vacation, and
+full of college spirit. It begins with a Yale-Harvard boat race at New
+London, but soon Jean and her room-mate sail for Great Britain under the
+chaperonage of Miss Hooper, a favorite member of the faculty at Ashton
+College. Their trip is full of the delight that comes to the traveler
+first seeing the countries forming "our old home."
+
+Jean Cabot in Cap and Gown
+
+Jean Cabot is a superb young woman, physically and mentally, but
+thoroughly human and thus favored with many warm friendships. Her final
+year at Ashton College is the culmination of a course in which study,
+sport and exercise, and social matters have been well balanced.
+
+Jean Cabot at the House With the Blue Shutters
+
+Such a group as Jean and her most intimate friends could not scatter at
+once, as do most college companions after graduation, and six of them
+under the chaperonage of a married older graduate and member of the same
+sorority spend a most eventful summer in a historic farm-house in Maine.
+
+For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers
+
+
+
+
+BRAVE HEART SERIES
+
+By Adele E. Thompson
+
+Illustrated 12mo Cloth _Net_ $1.25 each
+
+Betty Seldon, Patriot
+
+A book that is at the same time fascinating and noble. Historical events
+are accurately traced leading up to the surrender of Cornwallis at
+Yorktown, with reunion and happiness for all who deserve it.
+
+Brave Heart Elizabeth
+
+It is a story of the making of the Ohio frontier, much of it taken from
+life, and the heroine one of the famous Zane family after which
+Zanesville, O., takes its name. An accurate, pleasing, and yet at times
+intensely thrilling picture of the stirring period of border settlement.
+
+A Lassie of the Isles
+
+This is the romantic story of Flora Macdonald, the lassie of Skye, who
+aided in the escape of Charles Stuart, otherwise known as the "Young
+Pretender."
+
+Polly of the Pines
+
+The events of the story occur in the years 1775-82. Polly was an orphan
+living with her mother's family, who were Scotch Highlanders, and for
+the most part intensely loyal to the Crown. Polly finds the glamor of
+loyal adherence hard to resist, but her heart turns towards the patriots
+and she does much to aid and encourage them.
+
+American Patty
+
+A Story of 1812
+
+Patty is a brave, winsome girl of sixteen whose family have settled
+across the Canadian border and are living in peace and prosperity, and
+on the best of terms with the neighbors and friendly Indians. All this
+is suddenly and entirely changed by the breaking out of war, and
+unwillingness on the part of her father and brother to serve against
+their native land brings distress and deadly peril.
+
+_For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price to
+the publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+HEROES OF HISTORY SERIES
+
+A newly grouped collection of standard favorites--the kind that never
+grow old. In school and public libraries and intelligent homes these
+books are recognized as outweighing any number of the trashy newer
+juveniles so much in evidence, and for bright boys and girls they hold a
+high interest. The pleasing new covers, at the same low price, give them
+a renewed welcome.
+
+Twenty titles by unsurpassed writers of history for the young: Towle,
+Headley, Bogart, Watson, and Frost.
+
+New cover design, with side titles. Illustrated. Price per volume, 60
+cents.
+
+By GEORGE M. TOWLE
+
+   1. DRAKE; The Sea King of Devon.
+   2. MAGELLAN; First Around the World.
+   3. MARCO POLO; His Travels and Adventures.
+   4. PIZARRO; His Adventures and Conquests.
+   5. RALEGH; His Voyages and Adventures.
+   6. VASCO DA GAMA; His Voyages and Adventures.
+   7. HEROES AND MARTYRS OF INVENTION.
+
+By P. C. HEADLEY
+
+   8. FACING THE ENEMY; Life of Gen. W. T. Sherman.
+   9. FIGHT IT OUT ON THIS LINE; Life of Gen. U. S. Grant.
+
+By W. H. BOGART
+
+  10. BORDER BOY; Life of Daniel Boone.
+
+By HENRY C. WATSON
+
+  11. FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY; Life of Washington.
+  12. FRIEND OF WASHINGTON; Life of Lafayette.
+  13. GREAT PEACEMAKER; Life of William Penn.
+  14. POOR RICHARD'S STORY; Life of Franklin.
+
+By JOHN FROST
+
+  15. GREAT EXPOUNDER; Life of Daniel Webster
+  16. LITTLE CORPORAL; Life of Napoleon.
+  17. OLD HICKORY; Life of Andrew Jackson.
+  18. OLD ROUGH AND READY; Life of Gen. Zachary Taylor.
+  19. MILL BOY OF THE SLASHES; Life of Henry Clay.
+  20. SWAMP FOX; Life of Gen. Francis Marion.
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+Four Gordons
+
+By EDNA A. BROWN
+
+Illustrated Large 12mo Decorated Cover $1.35 _net_
+
+Louise and her three brothers are the "Four Gordons," and the story
+relates their experiences at home and school during the absence of their
+parents for a winter in Italy. There is plenty of fun and frolic, with
+skating, coasting, dancing, and a jolly Christmas visit. The
+conversation is bright and natural, the book presents no improbable
+situations, its atmosphere is one of refinement, and it has the merit of
+depicting simple and wholesome comradeship between boys and girls.
+
+"The story and its telling are worthy of Miss Alcott. Young folks of
+both sexes will enjoy it."--_N.Y. Sun_.
+
+"It is a hearty, wholesome story of youthful life in which the morals
+are never explained but simply illustrated by logical
+results."--_Christian Register_.
+
+
+Uncle David's Boys
+
+By EDNA A. BROWN
+
+Illustrated by John Goss 12mo Cloth
+
+Price $1.35 _net_
+
+This tells how some young people whom circumstances brought together in
+a little mountain village spent a summer vacation, full of good times,
+but with some unexpected and rather mysterious occurrences. In the end,
+more than one head was required to find out exactly what was going on.
+The story is a wholesome one with a pleasant, well-bred atmosphere, and
+though it holds the interest, it never approaches the sensational nor
+passes the bounds of the probable.
+
+"A story which will hold the attention of youthful readers from cover to
+cover and prove not without its interest for older readers."--_Evening
+Wisconsin_.
+
+"For those young people who like a lively story with some unmistakably
+old fashioned characteristics, 'Uncle David's Boys,' will have a strong
+appeal."--_Churchman_.
+
+_For sale by all booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
+publishers_
+
+LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer, by Rena I. Halsey
+
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