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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill
+by Margaret Vandercook
+
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+
+Title: The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill
+
+Author: Margaret Vandercook
+
+Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8662]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on July 30, 2003]
+[Date last updated: February 4, 2008]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Pobuda
+
+
+
+
+THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL
+
+By Margaret Vandercook
+
+First of a series
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE VOICE
+
+
+Betty Ashton sighed until the leaves of the book she held in her hand
+quivered, then she flung it face downward on the floor.
+
+"Oh dear, I do wish some one would invent something new for girls!" she
+exclaimed, although there was no one in the room to hear her.  "It seems
+to me that all girls do nowadays is to imitate boys.  We play their
+games, read their old books and even do their work, when all the time
+girls are really wanting girl things.  I agree with King Solomon: 'The
+thing that hath been, it is that which, shall be; and that which is done
+is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.'
+At least not for girls!"
+
+Then with a laugh at her own pessimism, Betty, like Hamlet, having found
+relief in soliloquy, jumped up from her chair and crossing her room
+pressed the electric button near the fireplace until the noise of its
+ringing reverberated through the big, quiet house.
+
+"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
+"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered.  Do the
+maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire?  I suppose
+I could do it if I tried."
+
+She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the
+sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually
+doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the
+next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the glass of her
+closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into her
+own garden.
+
+Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a
+darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their
+white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as
+though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.
+
+In spite of her petulance Betty laughed.  She was wearing a blue
+dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet
+ribbon of the same shade.  Her room was in blue, "Betty's Blue" as her
+friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but
+has soft shadows in it.
+
+Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen.  She had gray eyes, a
+short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an
+effect of refinement that was almost disdain.  Her mouth was a little
+discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though she
+had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for
+something.
+
+"The outdoors is as dismal as I am, no wonder we used to be sun
+worshipers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting; "but since
+Prometheus stole the fire from heaven some ages ago, I really don't see
+why I should have to freeze because the sun won't shine."
+
+Frowning and gathering her dressing gown more closely about her with
+another impatient gesture, Betty swept out into the hall.
+
+The house was strangely silent for the middle of a week-day afternoon;
+not a sound came either from below stairs or above, not the rattle of a
+window blind nor the echo of a single pair of footsteps.
+
+At some time has a sudden silence ever fallen upon you with a sense of
+foreboding like the hour before a storm or the moment preceding some
+unexpected news or change in your life?
+
+Betty hurried toward the back-stairs.  She was leaning over the
+banisters and had called once for one of the maids, when she ceased
+abruptly, and stood still for several moments with her head tilted back
+and her body tense with surprise.
+
+So long as Betty could recall, there had been a vacant room in the rear
+of the old Ashton homestead, which had stood for more than a hundred
+years at the comer of Elm Street in Woodford, New Hampshire.  She was
+stupider than other people about remembering the events of her childhood
+and yet she was sure that this room had never been used for any purpose
+save as a storehouse for old pieces of furniture, for discarded
+pictures, for any odds and ends that found no other resting place about
+the great house.  It was curious because the room was a particularly
+attractive one, with big windows overlooking the back garden, but then
+there was some story or other connected with it (old houses have old
+memories) and this must have made it unpopular.  Betty did not know what
+the story was and yet she had grown up with a queer, childish dread of
+this room and rarely went into it unless she felt compelled.
+
+Now, though she was not a coward, it did give her an uncanny sensation
+to hear a low, humming sound proceeding from this supposedly empty room.
+
+Cautiously Betty stole toward its closed door and quietly turned the
+knob without making the least noise.  Then she looked in.
+
+What transformation had taken place!  The room was a store place no
+longer, for most of the old furniture and all the other rubbish had been
+cleared away and what was left was arranged in a comfortable, living
+fashion.  An old rug was spread out on the floor, a white iron bed stood
+in one corner with an empty bookshelf above it.  There was a vase on a
+table holding a branch of blossoming pussy willow, and seated before one
+of the big, open windows was a strange girl whom Betty Ashton never
+remembered to have seen before in her life.
+
+The girl was sewing, but this was not what kept Betty silent.  She was
+also singing a new and strangely beautiful song.
+
+"Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame, O Master of the Hidden Fire; Wash
+pure my heart, and cleanse for me My soul's desire."
+
+Unconscious of the intruder and forgetful of everything else the
+singer's voice rose clearer and sweeter with the second verse.
+
+"In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, O Master of the Hidden Fire, That
+when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul's desire."
+
+Then in silence, as she leaned closer to the window to get a better
+light on her sewing, an unexpected ray of sunshine managing at this
+moment to break through the clouds fell directly on her bowed head.  Her
+hair was not auburn, like Betty's, but bright, undeniable red.
+
+"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you mind
+telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you happen to
+be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton inquired, coolly,
+still keeping her position just outside the opened door.
+
+The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown
+embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood
+with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously
+twisting her big, rather coarse-looking hands.  She was a year older
+than Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult
+to imagine two persons more unlike.  Betty was slender but perfectly
+proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which her
+friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished ancestors,
+while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet that seemed
+too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin.  She too had gray eyes, but
+while Betty's brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this girl's
+were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her eyes.
+
+In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across the
+room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her unexpected
+charm and dignity.
+
+"Hasn't your mother told you of my coming? didn't she ask you if you
+wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly.  "I am sorry; my name is
+Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you.  Your mother has
+asked me here to live, to take care of your clothes, to read to you, to
+take walks when there is no one else--"
+
+"Oh, you mean you are to be my maid," Betty finished, coming now into
+the center of the room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes
+suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.
+
+"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to
+me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to
+whether I wished to be bothered with you."  Betty bit her lips, for she
+did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was
+unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.
+
+The older girl's face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson.
+"No, I am not to be your maid," she returned.  "At least Mrs. Ashton
+said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in
+any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for
+studying.  Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I
+hope to graduate. If you don't wish me to stay you will please explain
+it to your mother, only--"  Esther tried to speak naturally, but her
+voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least
+until I can find some other place.  I am too old to go back to the
+asylum."
+
+"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed,
+showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that
+relieved her face of some of its former plainness.
+
+"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don't be frightened," she
+explained.  "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever
+since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there
+was nothing else to do with me.  But you need not feel specially sorry,
+because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in
+books.  Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been
+going to school for years.  Only when your mother came last week and
+said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of
+wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of
+all I wanted to know you.  You will think it strange of me, but I have
+been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little
+girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been
+interested in you."
+
+Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an
+exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed.  "Oh, you will be sorry
+enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably
+think I am dreadfully spoiled.  But do please stay for a while if you
+wish, at least until we find how we get on together."
+
+Since Betty's first speech at the door had startled her, Esther had
+never for a moment taken her eyes from her face.  Never in all her life,
+even when she had seen and learned far more of the ways of the world,
+could this girl learn not to speak the truth.  So now she slowly shook
+her head. "Your mother did say you were spoiled; it was one reason why
+she wished me to come here to live," she replied.  "You see, she said
+that you had been too much alone and had too much done for you and that
+your brother was so much older that he only helped to spoil you. But,"
+Esther was hardly conscious of her listener and seemed only to be
+thinking aloud, "I shall not mind if you are spoiled, for how can you
+help being when you are so pretty and fortunate and have all the things
+that other girls have just to dream of possessing."
+
+It was odd, perhaps, but the new girl's speech was made so simply and
+sincerely that Betty Ashton instead of feeling angry or complimented was
+instead a little ashamed.  Had fortune been kinder to her than to other
+girls, kinder than to the awkward girl in front of her in her plain gray
+linen dress?
+
+Betty now backed toward the door which she had so lately opened.  "I am
+sorry to have disturbed you, but usually this room isn't occupied and I
+was curious to know who could be in here.  I should have knocked.  Some
+day you must sing that lovely song to me, again, for I think I would
+like very much to know just what my soul's desire is.  The worst of life
+is not knowing just what you want."
+
+Esther had followed Betty toward the hall.  "How funny that sounds to
+me," she returned shyly, "because I think the hard part of life is not
+having what you want.  I know very well.  But can't I do something for
+you now? Your mother said you were not well and perhaps would not wish
+to see me this afternoon, but I could read to you or--"
+
+Betty's irritability returned.  "Thank you very much," she returned
+coldly, "but I can think of nothing in the world that would amuse me at
+present.  I simply wish not to freeze, and to save my life I can't get
+one of our tiresome maids to answer my bell."
+
+Betty's grand manner had returned, but in spite of her haughtiness the
+newcomer persisted.  "Do let me make the fire for you. I am only a wood-
+gatherer at present, but pretty soon I shall be a real fire-maker, for I
+have already been working for two months."
+
+"A wood-gatherer and fire-maker; what extraordinary things a girl was
+forced to become at an orphan asylum!"  Betty's sympathies were
+immediately aroused and her cheeks burned with resentment at the sudden
+vision of this girl at her side trudging through the woods, her back
+bent under heavy burdens.  No wonder her shoulders stooped and her hands
+were coarse.  Betty slipped her arm through the stranger's.
+
+"No, I won't trouble you to make my fire, but do come into my room and
+let us just talk.  None of my friends have been in to see me this
+afternoon, not even the faithless Polly!  They are too busy getting
+ready for the end of school to think about poor, ill me."  And Betty
+laughed gayly at the untruthfulness of this picture of herself.
+
+Once inside the blue room, without asking permission, Esther knelt
+straightway down before the brass andirons and with deft fingers placed
+a roll of twisted paper under a lattice-like pile of kindling, arranging
+three small pine logs in a triangle above it.  But before setting a
+match to the paper she turned toward the other girl hovering about her
+like a butterfly.
+
+"I wonder if you would like me to recite the fire-maker's song?" she
+asked.  "I haven't the right to say it yet, but it is so lovely that I
+would like you to hear it."
+
+Betty stared and laughed.  "Do fire-makers have songs?" she demanded.
+"How queer that sounds!  Perhaps the Indians used to have fire songs
+long ago when a fire really meant so much.  But I can't imagine a maid's
+chanting a song before one's fire in the morning and I don't think I
+should like being wakened up by it."
+
+"You would like this one," the other girl persisted.
+
+Little yellow spurts of flame were now creeping forth from between the
+sticks, some leaping away into nothingness, others curling and enfolding
+them.  The paper in the grate crackled noisily as the cold May wind
+swept down the chimney with a defiant roar and both girls silently
+watched the newly kindled fire with the fascination that is eternal.
+
+Betty had also dropped down on her knees.  "What is your song?" she
+asked curiously an instant later, raising her hands before her face to
+let the firelight shine through.
+
+Esther's head was bent so that her face could not be seen, but the
+beauty of her speech was reflected in the other girl's changing
+expression.
+
+"As fuel is brought to the fire, So I purpose to bring My strength, my
+ambition, My heart's desire, My joy And my sorrow To the fire Of
+humankind."
+
+Purposely Esther's voice dropped with these last words, and she did not
+continue until a hand was placed gently on her shoulder and a voice
+urged: "Please go on; what is the 'fire of humankind'?"
+
+"For I will tend As my fathers have tended And my fathers' fathers Since
+time began, The fire that is called The love of man for man, The love of
+man for God."
+
+At the end, Esther glancing around at the girl beside her was surprised
+to see a kind of mist over her gray eyes.
+
+But Betty laughed as she got up to her feet and going over to her table
+stooped to pick up the book she had thrown on the floor half an hour
+before.
+
+"I might have made my own fire if I had known that song," she said,
+switching on the electric light under the rose-colored shade.  For the
+clouds outside had broken at last, the rain was pouring and the blue
+room save for the firelight would have been in darkness.
+
+Betty sat down, putting her feet under her and resting her chin on her
+hands.  "I wonder what it feels like to be useful?" she asked, evidently
+questioning herself, for afterwards she turned toward her companion.
+"You must have learned a great many things by being brought up at an
+orphan asylum, how to care for, other people and all that, but I never
+would have dreamed that poetry would have played any part in your
+education."
+
+Esther had turned and was about to leave the room, but now at Betty's
+words, she looked at her strangely.
+
+Her face had reddened again and because of the intensity of her feelings
+her big hands were once more pressed nervously together.
+
+"Why, no, I never learned anything at the asylum but work," she answered
+slowly, "just dull, hateful, routine work; doing the same things over
+again every day in the same way, cooking and washing dishes and
+scrubbing.  I suppose I was being useful, but there isn't much fun in
+being useful when nobody cares or seems to be helped by what you do.  I
+know I am ugly and not clever, but I love beautiful people and,
+beautiful things."
+
+Unconsciously her glance traveled from her listener's face to the small
+piano in the corner of the room.  "And it never seemed to me that
+things, were divided quite fairly in this world, but now that I know
+about the Camp Fire Girls I am ever so much happier."
+
+"Camp Fire Girls?" Betty queried.  "Do sit down, child, I don't wish you
+to leave me, and please don't say horrid things about yourself, for it
+isn't polite and you never can tell how things are going to turn out.
+But who are the Camp Fire Girls; what are the Camp Fire Girls; are they
+Indians or Esquimaux or the fire-maidens in 'The Nibelungen'?  Perhaps,
+after all, something new has been invented for girls, and a little while
+ago I felt as discouraged as King Solomon and believed there was nothing
+new and nothing worth while under the sun."
+
+Betty's eyes were dancing with fun and anticipation, her bored look had
+entirely disappeared, but the other girl evidently took her question
+seriously.  She had seated herself in a small desk chair and kept her
+eyes fixed on the fire.  "It seems very queer to me that you don't know
+about the 'Camp Fire Girls'," she answered slowly, "and it may take me a
+long time to tell you even the little bit I know, but I think it the
+most splendid thing that has ever happened."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"METHINKS YOU ARE MY GLASS"
+
+
+Just across the street from the old Ashton place was another house
+equally old and yet wholly unlike it, for instead of being a stately,
+well-kept-up mansion with great rooms and broad halls and half an acre
+of garden about it, this was a cottage of the earliest New England type.
+It was low and rambling, covering a good deal of ground and yet without
+any porch and very little yard, because as the village closed about it
+and Elm Street became a fashionable quarter the land had been gradually
+sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet from the
+front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its parlor
+windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield.  By immemorial
+custom the cottage had always been painted white and green, but for a
+good many years it had not been troubled by any paint at all, "but had
+lived," as Polly said, "on its past, and like a good many persons in
+Woodford had gotten considerably run down by the process."
+
+Now there were no lights at any of the front windows, although it was
+eight o'clock in the evening, but as the warm steady glow of a lamp
+shone from the rear of the house, it was plainly occupied.
+
+There was no doubt of this in the mind of the girl who stood knocking
+noisily at the closed door, saying in an imploring voice:
+
+"Oh, do please hurry, Polly dear, you know it is only me and that I
+can't bear to be kept waiting."
+
+At this moment a candle was evidently being borne down the hall, for the
+door opened so quickly afterwards that two girls, one on either side the
+door, fell into, one another's arms.
+
+"Dear me, it's 'The Princess' and she is no more ill than I am, though
+we were told she couldn't possibly be at school to-day on account of her
+ill health," the girl on the inside spoke first, recovering her breath.
+"I suppose royal persons may lie abed and nurse their dispositions,
+while poor ones have to keep on washing dishes.  But come on into the
+kitchen, Betty, we are in there to-night and I haven't yet finished my
+chores."
+
+She led the way with the candle down the shabby hall until both girls
+entered the lighted room.  There, with a little cry of surprise, Betty
+ran over and dropped down on her knees by the side of a lounge.
+
+The woman on the lounge was not so large as the girl, although her brown
+hair showed a good deal of gray and her face looked tired and worn.  She
+had been holding a magazine in her hands, but evidently had not been
+reading, for her eyes had turned from the girl, who stood only a few
+feet away from her drying some cups and saucers, to the two others who
+had just come in, without an instant's delay.
+
+"I am quite all right, dear," she answered the newcomer, "only the
+kitchen seemed so warm and cozy after the wet day and I was tired."
+
+Betty was too familiar with the lovely, old-fashioned kitchen of her
+dearest friends even to think about it, but to-night she did look about
+her for a moment.
+
+The room was the largest in the cottage; the walls were of oak so dark a
+brown from age that they were almost black; there were heavy rafters
+across the ceiling and swinging from them bunches of dried, sweet-
+smelling herbs. The windows had broad sills filled with pots of red
+geraniums and ground ivy, and as they were wide open the odor of the
+wet, spring earth outside mingled with the aromatic fragrance of the
+flowers.
+
+An old stove was set deep into the farthest wall with a Dutch oven at
+one side and above it a high, severely plain mantel holding a number of
+venerable pots and pans of pewter and copper and two tall, copper
+candlesticks.  The candles were lighted, as the room was too large for
+the single light of the lamp on the table near the lounge.
+
+Polly O'Neill had gone straight to her sister and putting both hands on
+her shoulders had pushed her steadily back inch by inch until she forced
+her into a large armchair.
+
+"Mollie Mavourneen, you know I hate washing dishes like an owl does the
+day light, but I am not going to let you do my work and to-night you
+know the agreeable task of cleaning up belongs to me.  I asked you to
+leave things alone when I went to the door and I don't think you play
+fair."  Polly seized a cup with such vehemence that it slipped from her
+hand and crashed onto the floor, but neither her mother nor Mollie
+showed the least sign of surprise and only Betty's eyes widened with
+understanding.
+
+Strangers always insisted that there were never twin sisters in the
+world so exactly alike as Mollie and Polly O'Neill (not that their names
+had ever been intended to rhyme in this absurd fashion, for they had
+started quite sensibly, as Mary and Pauline), but to the friends who
+knew them both well this idea was absurd.  It was true they were of the
+same height and their hair and eyes of the same color, their noses and
+mouths of somewhat the same shape, but with these superficial likenesses
+the resemblance ended. Anybody should have been able to see that in each
+detail Polly was the more intense; her hair was blacker and longer, her
+eyes bluer, her cheek bones a little higher with brighter color and her
+chin and delicate nose a trifle longer and more pointed.  Of the two
+girls, however, Mollie was the prettier because her features were more
+regular and her expression more serene; but once under the spell of her
+sister, one never thought much of her appearance.
+
+Polly had a temperament and she was having an attack of it to-night; the
+room was fairly electric with it.  From some far off Irish ancestor she
+must have inherited it, for though her father had been an Irishman and
+had spent forty out of the fifty years of his life in Ireland, he had
+quite a different disposition and had been as amazed by Polly in her
+babyhood as the rest of her family.
+
+Captain O'Neill had resigned from the English army eighteen years before
+and crossed the ocean to spend a few years in the neighborhood of the
+White Mountains on account of his health; he had no more money than most
+Irish gentlemen, but had charming manners, was extremely handsome and
+had soon fallen in love and married a girl twenty years younger than
+himself.  Mary Poindexter had been the girl most loved in Woodford, one
+of its belles and heiresses, but her money had not amounted to much and
+soon disappeared after her marriage, until now she had only the cottage
+in which she and her daughters lived and the income earned by her work
+as private secretary to Mr. Edward Wharton of "The Wharton Granite Co."
+Captain O'Neill had lived only until his twin daughters were eight years
+old and since then the girls and their mother had kept up their small
+home together.
+
+"You are dead tired and Polly is cross as two sticks and poor Mollie
+does not know what to do with you.  Would you rather I should go away?
+I only came to tell you something wonderful," Betty whispered in Mrs.
+O'Neill's ear.
+
+The older woman shook her head.  "No, you have come just at the right
+time. I am not very tired, only my daughters chose to think so and
+wouldn't let me help with dinner and so, as I am an obedient, well
+brought-up mother, I am doing as I am told.  And Polly is not in a bad
+humor, at least I hope--"
+
+The girl, who had been picking up the bits of broken china from the
+kitchen floor, now straightened up and for the first time Betty
+discovered that she must have been crying a short while before.
+
+"Oh, yes, I am anything you may like to call me," Polly announced
+indifferently, "and I am not in the least ashamed to have 'The Princess'
+know it.  If Betty had to stand all the things I have stood to-day, she
+would be in a far worse humor.  She and I are not angels like Mary and
+Mollie, so I suppose that is the reason why we love one another part of
+the time and hate one another the rest.  I am sure I never pretend not
+to being dreadfully envious of 'The Princess'."
+
+Polly came over and sat down cross-legged on the old rug near her mother
+and best friend, and though she smiled a little to remove the sting from
+her words, something in her expression kept Betty from answering at
+once. In the meantime Mollie joined the group, taking her place at the
+foot of the lounge.
+
+The three girls were nearly the same age and the closest friends, and
+Betty probably spent nearly as much of her waking time, at the cottage
+as she did in her own home, for whenever she was lonely or bored, or,
+tired perhaps of having too much done for her, she had been used to run
+across the street to play or work with her friends from the time they
+were children.  Mrs. O'Neill had never seemed very much older than her
+daughters and had always been called "Mary" by the three girls.
+
+Now Betty reached over and laid one and lightly on Polly.  "Don't say we
+hate no another just because we quarrel now and then and both have bad
+tempers.  I never hate Polly, do I Mary?"
+
+But before Mrs. O'Neill could answer, Polly suddenly faced fiercely
+about. "I hate you to-night, Betty," she insisted, and then to make her
+words entirely unlike her actions, slipped one arm around her friend.
+"Oh, you know that I don't really mean I hate you, I only mean that I am
+horribly envious and jealous of your having all the money you want and
+being able to do things without worry, not just things for yourself, but
+things for other people."  And Polly bit her lips and ceased speaking,
+both because of the note of warning in her mother's face and because the
+brightness had died away from Betty's.
+
+"I wish you would understand, Polly, that just having things does not
+necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor
+and to have to help like you and Mollie do.  This afternoon I was
+feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one
+came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber
+there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too
+homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful that
+it sounds almost like a fairy tale.  I talked of it to father at dinner
+and then rushed over to tell you, as I thought you might be interested,
+but perhaps I had better wait--"
+
+From the foot of the lounge Mollie O'Neill now interrupted.  Utterly
+unlike either her sister or friend in her disposition, her influence
+often held them together.
+
+"We do want to hear what you have to tell us, Betty, most dreadfully.
+Just because we happen to be specially worried about something to-night
+is no reason why Polly should be so mysterious.  I vote we tell you what
+our trouble is and then you tell us your secret."
+
+Polly got up from the floor.  She was always curiously intense, not
+deliberately, but perhaps as a part of her inheritance.  Now she made a
+little bow to Betty.  "I am sorry I was rude to you, Princess," she said
+gently, "but tell you the reason for my special tirade against poverty
+to-night, I will not and Mollie shall not tell either."
+
+Without replying Betty turned to pick up her blue cloak which had
+dropped from her shoulders as she knelt by the lounge.  It had a cap
+attached with a blue silk lining and this she slipped over her head.
+
+"It isn't worth while for me to talk of my plan to-night, then," she
+returned, "for if Polly won't be interested, you and, I could never make
+a go of it by ourselves, Mollie.  Good-night; I promised not to stay
+very long."  Passing by the lounge Mrs. O'Neill reached out, slipping
+her hand in Betty's and drew her to a place beside her.  Usually a girl
+with the three other girls there was now and then a note in Mrs.
+O'Neill's voice which they seldom failed to recognize.
+
+"Mollie is right, as Betty is almost one of our family, it is only fair
+to tell her what has put Polly in her present mood.  The truth is, dear,
+the doctor thinks I am not very well and am needing a rest, so I am
+being made to lie down every evening after my work, by my daughters, and
+I am sure when warm weather comes I shall be all right again."
+
+"You won't," Polly interrupted, "and if that is all you mean to tell
+Betty, why I shall certainly tell her everything now you have started."
+
+Polly went on quickly, with two bright spots of color in her cheeks:
+"Resting in the evenings is not going to help mother; Dr. Hawkes says
+she needs months and months of rest and unless she has it she will soon
+be having a nervous breakdown or something else; that working for nearly
+eight years in an office supporting herself and two daughters is enough
+to tire any woman out.  Then to-day a wonderful invitation came from my
+father's relatives, who have never paid the least attention to us
+before, asking mother to spend the summer with them in Ireland, and--"
+
+Betty's hands were clapped eagerly together as she concluded, "So you
+are going to accept and Polly's blue at the thought of being separated
+from you, but really I can't see any reason why I should not have been
+told of this."
+
+Instead of replying, Polly frowned and Mrs. O'Neill shook her head, so
+the explanation fell to Mollie.  "No, mother is not going to accept;
+that is what the trouble is and that is why Polly and I sometimes feel
+cross with you, Betty, because rich people never seem to be able to
+understand about poor ones.  You do what you like without thinking of
+the money, and we can't do anything we like without thinking of it.
+Mother feels she can't afford to go."
+
+Looking almost as depressed as her two friends, Betty now turned her
+back deliberately on both girls to whisper in the older woman's ear.
+
+"Oh, Mary, won't you, can't you; you know how happy it would make us."
+But she knew her answer even before it was given and also understood
+that Polly's pride would never have agreed to let her mother accept any
+favor through her.  Indeed, never in all the long years of their
+friendship had Betty ever dared do half the things she longed to do for
+her two friends, and indeed Mrs. Ashton often said that Betty accepted
+far more than she was able to return, since she spent so much of her
+time in Mrs. O'Neill's home.
+
+"You are awfully foolish, Mary," Betty argued, "because if you should
+really get ill--"
+
+"That is just what I have been saying, Betty dear, for the past two
+hours," Polly protested, forgetting the difference between herself and
+her friend and edging close enough to the lounge to lay her head in, the
+other girl's lap.  "And the worst of it is, Mr. Wharton says mother can
+have the holiday, he will pay her salary while she is away, and she only
+won't go because she says she can't leave Mollie and me alone and can't
+afford to pay any one to look after us.  It is so foolish, when we are
+old enough to be taking care of her!  I suppose she wouldn't be afraid
+to leave Mollie, it is just me!  Sometimes it does not seem quite fair
+to be born a twin, because see how things are put into Mollie divided,
+all the good got and all the bad into me; so I suppose mother thinks I
+would set the house on fire or run away and go on the stage as I
+sometimes threaten, so soon as her back was turned.  Oh, Mavourneen
+darling of the world, the very name of Lake Killarney, where our cousins
+live, would make you well."
+
+But again Polly stopped talking because Betty had seized her by both
+shoulders, giving her a decided shake.  "Say it again to me quickly.  Is
+it just because Mary does not know what to do with you and Mollie that
+she won't go away?"
+
+And both sisters nodded silently.
+
+With a cry of what sounded like delight, Betty rose hurriedly to her
+feet, letting the blue cloak slip away from her for the second time.
+
+Then dancing across the kitchen she seized the two tall candlesticks
+from the mantelpiece and setting them down in the center of the floor
+afterwards added the third, with which Polly had lighted their way
+through the hall. Above them she made a mystic sign by flattening the
+fingers of her right hand against those of her left, while slowly she
+revolved about them chanting: "Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo, in you lies the
+answer to all our difficulties," to the entire amazement of her small
+audience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"WORK, HEALTH AND LOVE"
+
+
+"Much learning hath made her mad," sighed Polly mournfully, Betty being
+a notoriously poor student.
+
+Mollie was staring thoughtfully at their visitor.  "That is an Indian
+folk dance; perhaps Betty is pretending to be Pocahontas," she
+suggested, with such an evident attempt to explain away her friend's
+eccentricities that Betty stopped in her dance to laugh, and Polly and
+Mrs. O'Neill followed suit.
+
+"I am not mad and I am not playing at being Pocahontas, but as usual
+Mollie is nearer right than her sister Polly because there is a good
+deal about the Indians in what I want to tell you." Betty sat down
+before the three shining candles and taking a little stick from the pile
+of wood near by she pointed it at her third candle.  "You are to guess
+what my strange word, 'Wohelo' means.  No, it is not an Indian, word,
+although it sounds like it. Mary, you begin by taking the last syllable
+first.  What is the greatest thing in the world?"
+
+Mrs. O'Neill, some minutes before, had risen half way up from her lounge
+and was leaning her head on her arm, while she watched Betty's curious
+proceedings.  "The greatest thing in the world?" she repeated softly.
+"Far wiser persons than I found the answer to that question many years
+ago.  The greatest thing in the world is love."
+
+Betty nodded.  "Now, Polly, you may have the next guess, though you are
+sure to say the wrong thing.  What is the next greatest thing to love?"
+
+Polly shrugged her thin shoulders, her face still moody in spite of her
+recently awakened interest.  "Oh, I told you the answer to that question
+when you first came into this room, Betty Ashton, though none of you
+chose to believe me.  It is plain as a pipe-stem to me that wealth is
+the next best thing to love and sometimes it is better when you happen
+to love the wrong thing--or person."
+
+"It rhymes with wealth but begins with the letter 'h'," the questioner
+returned hastily, too much in earnest to waste further time in argument.
+"Now, Mollie, you have the third turn, remember you are to decide what
+the first syllable stands for, 'Wo'."
+
+For a few seconds the third girl hesitated, her cheeks flushing
+uncomfortably.  Not so quick or clever with her tongue as Polly and
+Betty she was far more gifted with her fingers.  "I am sure I don't know
+what you mean," she replied.  "'Wo' is the beginning of the word
+'woman', but you can't mean woman.  I know you and Polly think books of
+plays and novels the greatest things in the world, but I don't and
+besides I can't find the right word for them.  You know what I really
+like best is just cooking and cleaning up and putting flowers on the
+table, stupid household things that can't have anything to do with your
+wonderful word."  And Mollie looked so apologetic for her own domestic
+tastes that her mother took both her hands and held them tight.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Mollie dear, even in these days of the advanced
+female it is still something to be proud of, to have real womanly
+tastes.  Because some women go out into the world is no reason why they
+should lose their womanly instincts.  What we are all working for, both
+men and women, is really just the making of a home, a big or a little
+one.  I don't know myself what word Betty is searching for, but I do
+believe these very things that you like best come very close to my own
+guess.  For if love is the greatest thing in the world, the making of a
+home to shelter it is most important.  I have an idea that love would
+come to a tragic end if, when it returned home to dinner, Polly should
+meet it in the character of Ophelia, with wild flowers in her hair,
+offering it rosemary and rue for dinner instead of meat and vegetables."
+
+Again the audience laughed because of Polly's well-known devotion to the
+drama and because if she were left alone to look after the cooking, her
+mother and Mollie often returned to find her poring over her recitations
+with the dinner burning on the stove.
+
+"If mother is going to preach a sermon with me for a text, Betty's
+candles will sputter and die out before ever she explains her word,"
+Polly suggested.
+
+"Oh, the word is 'work'; Mollie wasn't so far wrong, though work may
+mean different things to different people.  Wohelo means 'Work, Health
+and Love'," Betty explained quickly, still keeping her eyes on the
+candle flames.
+
+But Polly rising from her place slipped over and took Betty by both
+shoulders.
+
+"Elizabeth Ashton, more commonly known as 'The Princess,' Bettina or
+Betty, will you kindly explain yourself?  No doubt those are three
+estimable things you are recommending to us, but please tell me how
+Work, Health and Love are going to solve our present difficulties and
+help mother get the rest she needs.  It seems to me she has given us too
+much of the first and last of your watchword already and has too little
+of the middle thing left in consequence."
+
+Betty's long lashes swept her cheeks in a tantalizing fashion and her
+color deepened as, clasping her hands over her knees, she began slowly
+swaying back and forth, her eyes fastened on Polly.
+
+"I am dreadfully long in coming to my point," she confessed, "but it is
+such fun to keep you guessing and I do so want you to be interested.
+You see, I suppose you know about the Camp Fire Girls, everybody seems
+to have heard except me, but now 'That light which has been given to me,
+I desire to pass undimmed to others.'  Will you, won't you, will you,
+won't you be a Camp Fire Girl?"  Her manner, which had been a queer
+combination of fun and seriousness, now at last appeared entirely grave.
+"Mollie and Polly," she continued quietly, "You know how often we have
+talked lately of being dissatisfied, of feeling that here we are growing
+older and older every day and yet not learning half the things we ought
+to learn nor having half the fun we ought to have.  Of course we read
+novels all the time, because it is the only way for nice girls to learn
+about romance or adventure, but we would like really to live the things
+we think about just the same as boys do.  They don't dream and scold
+about the things they want to do; they go ahead and do them, teaching
+one another by working things out together. They belong to things and
+don't just have to have things belong to them' to make them happy like
+girls do."
+
+"Hear, hear!" cried Polly, not exactly seeing what Betty was driving at
+and desiring to tease her into greater confusion.
+
+But as Mrs. O'Neill shook her head encouragingly, Betty would not deign
+to consider her tormentor.
+
+"Oh, it is foolish for me to try to explain all the Camp Fire idea
+means," she added simply.  "I couldn't if I tried, for Esther Clark, the
+strange girl who has been living at the asylum and has just come to our
+house, only told me what she knew this afternoon.  But I want to find
+out by living the Camp Fire idea, I want to see what we could get out of
+forming a Camp Fire Club, the first one here in Woodford.  Just take
+Polly and Mollie and me, for example, Mary dear," she continued
+coaxingly.  "I am longing to know the things Mollie does about cooking
+and housekeeping and all the rest and I can't learn at home.  Think what
+it means to go messing about in our kitchen with, cook and half a dozen
+servants laughing at you!  Then Mollie really would like to know what
+Polly and I find so fascinating in books and in prowling about together
+in the woods and Polly--well, I don't know that she wishes to learn
+anything from Mollie or me or anybody else who joins our club, but if
+she doesn't, that is just what she ought to learn."
+
+Polly held up both hands.  "For goodness sake, Betty, stop talking, I
+will join your Camp Fire Club and be made an example of at any time,
+also I will use my noble influence to persuade any girls you wish to
+join.  All the same I don't see what your wretched club has to do with
+helping us solve our problem about mother, and that is all I care about
+at present."
+
+"Has to do,--why everything," Betty repeated slowly.  But before she was
+able to finish her sentence there was a sudden loud ringing of the front
+door bell and the three girls jumped to their feet.  In another moment
+Polly had disappeared into the hall, returning with her expression
+changed again to its original look of gloom.
+
+"It's that granite man, mother, Mr. Wharton, with his entire family, son
+and daughter.  I wonder why they can't leave you alone after business
+hours?  I had to ask them in the parlor, since we can't entertain any
+one in the kitchen except 'The Princess,' but we simply can't join you
+until we hear what she has to say."
+
+Polly sighed as her mother rose without replying and left the room, and
+Betty did he her best to hide her smiles, for everybody in Woodford
+believed that Mrs. O'Neill's employer had more than a friendly interest
+in her, and though Polly constantly railed at their poverty and Mr.
+Wharton was the richest man in the village, the very sound of his name
+used often to irritate her.
+
+The candles had at last burned down to their sockets and softly Betty
+blew out the last flickering flames.  With a nod of understanding Mollie
+turned down the lighted lamp and after a fashion of many years the three
+girls drew three little old fashioned rockers in a semicircle up before
+the kitchen fire.
+
+"My plan is to form our Camp Fire Club of just the right girls and to
+have just the right guardian and then to spend our whole summer camping
+in the woods," Betty explained quickly at last.  "You see I don't want
+to go to Europe with mother and father this summer one bit, I am dead
+tired of hotels and sights.  So at dinner to-night I talked over the
+Camp Fire plan with father and though mother wasn't enthusiastic I could
+see father didn't think it in the least a bad idea, so I am sure he will
+give us the camping outfit if I beg very hard and we can all share
+expenses afterwards.  Can't you understand that if Mary lets you spend
+your summer in camp she can go away and rest and think no more about you
+and we can have such a wonderful time."
+
+In the half darkness Polly danced a shadow dance and then flung her arms
+about her friend.  "Oh, Princess, I might have known you were as clever
+as 'Sentimental Tommy' and would surely 'find a wa'.  I am sure mother
+will think it a beautiful plan for us.  Just to live among the trees and
+the stars and hear the birds sing, and tell stories about our own camp
+fire and to sing."
+
+"Yes, and to do our own cooking and cleaning and wood gathering and a
+thousand other practical things," laughed Betty, to stop Polly's
+rhapsodizing.  "But the truly important part of our scheme is to find
+congenial girls for our club and the right guardian."
+
+"There are four of us already," Mollie suggested.
+
+Betty appeared surprised.  "Just you and Polly and me; what fourth girl
+do you mean?"
+
+As Mollie did not answer at once, a low whistle came from between
+Polly's closed lips.  "Do you mean, Princess, that you do not intend to
+invite the girl who told you about the Camp Fire Club, Esther Clark?  I
+know her by sight at school."
+
+Betty frowned.  "Certainly I had not meant to include her; she does not
+belong to our set.  I don't mean to be rude, but she has been raised in
+an orphan asylum and nobody knows who she is.  I suppose she comes of
+some very common family."
+
+"Common families sometimes produce very uncommon characters," Polly
+returned dryly.  "And s-n-o-b spells snob, but not Betty, I hope.  I
+wish you wouldn't think so much about 'family', Princess; I do believe
+we ought to judge people by what they are themselves and not by what
+their ancestors have been."
+
+With a quick movement Betty half overturned her chair.  "Good-night,"
+she said, "we can talk things over to-morrow.  I promised not to be too
+late to-night.  It isn't that I really mind having Esther in our club,
+only we don't know her very well and it seems most important that we
+should all be congenial."
+
+But Betty could not move toward the door because her skirts were held
+fast. "If you go now I shall cry my eyes out all night," Polly protested
+in a tone that was almost convincing.  "It was horrid of me, darling, to
+tell you the truth and me Irish and believin' in the blarney stone," she
+apologized in her Pollyesque fashion.  "Please never, never tell me the
+truth about myself and have anybody in your club you like.  Only if you
+expect to have twelve girls who exactly agree you will have to leave
+both you and me out to start with."
+
+Betty laughed, only half appeased, but Mollie was speaking quietly and
+because she talked less frequently than the other two girls they usually
+paused to listen to her.
+
+"I think the more unlike we girls are the more fun we will have and the
+more we will help one another," she suggested.  "But, Betty, do you know
+who has started this Camp Fire idea in Woodford and who knows just what
+we ought to do?"
+
+Betty groaned.  "Who else could it be, my dear, but my arch-enemy, the
+person I like least and who likes me even less in all this village.  Ah,
+is anything ever perfect in this life?  Martha McMurtry, the science
+teacher at the high school, who will certainly cause me to remain in the
+sophomore class another year unless I learn something more than what H2O
+means, is the only woman Esther could suggest."
+
+The sisters laughed, since Betty's battles with this teacher had kept
+things lively.
+
+"You poor dear, we can't have her for our guardian," Polly insisted
+sympathetically.  "Can you imagine such a prim, scientific old maid ever
+understanding anything of the beauty and romance of life in the woods?
+I would like Titania, Queen of the Fairies, to be our only chaperon."
+
+Before the other girls could dispute the absurdity of Polly's final
+suggestion, the kitchen door opened and Mrs. O'Neill returned looking
+unusually cross.  "Why didn't you join me, you wicked children?" she
+said reproachfully.  "Mr. Wharton came to ask me, since I was not going
+away, to look after his little girl this summer.  He has to leave on
+some business trip and as Frank is to camp in the woods, there was
+nothing for the poor man to do with Sylvia.  I hope you won't mind very
+much, for I have promised to take care of her."
+
+"Sylvia!" The three voices made a dismal chorus.
+
+"That stupid, ill-mannered child!  I am sorry, dear, but you are not
+going to look after anything or anybody this summer but yourself.  You
+see you are sailing for Ireland in a few weeks and we are going to live
+in the woods and be taken care of by our old mother earth and our
+father, the sun," Polly replied dramatically.
+
+"You are talking nonsense, Polly; please don't be tiresome any more
+to-night," Mrs. O'Neill urged, lying down on the sofa again, as though
+she were too weary to be up another minute.  "I can't discuss the matter
+with you, but Mr. Wharton has been too kind for me to refuse him this
+request."
+
+Betty found her blue cloak again and softly slipped over to kiss the
+older woman good-night.  "Don't worry, what Polly told you is true, but
+Sylvia shall be looked after just the same."
+
+She slipped away, Polly following to watch her safely across the street
+as she always did.  Outdoors the girls stood silent for a moment looking
+up at the beauty of the night.  The stars were shining and the warmth
+the day had failed to bring to the earth had been followed by some
+unseen messenger of the night.
+
+"You are going to include that hateful child in your Camp Fire Club
+after what I said to you, Betty?" Polly whispered.  "Oh, if only her
+name wasn't Sylvia and she didn't have a snub nose and wear goggles I
+could forgive her.  But think how absurd the combination is!  Anyhow you
+are a dear, and it must be because I am Irish that I am always in the
+wrong."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"MEG"
+
+
+Thump, thump, thump came the sound of a heavy object rolling slowly step
+by step down a long stairway and then after an interval of ten seconds a
+prolonged, ear-piercing roar.
+
+Immediately a girl darted out of a room on the second floor of a pretty
+brick house, colliding with a young man several years older, who came
+forth at the same time from his own room across the hall.
+
+"Great Scott, Meg, what are you doing only half-dressed at this hour of
+the day?" he demanded with brotherly contempt.
+
+"We will discuss my costume or lack of it later," she returned, holding
+her short flannel dressing sacque together and laughing over her
+shoulder where one long blond plait hung neatly braided, the rest of her
+hair falling loose.  "Methinks that was Horace Virgil Everett trying to
+break up the furniture somewhere!  Was there ever such an infant born
+into this suffering world?  I simply never turn my back without his
+getting into fresh trouble."
+
+While she was talking she was also running downstairs, followed in a
+more leisurely manner by her brother.  Both of them glanced into the
+empty library and untidy dining-room as they passed and finally arrived
+in a dark passageway at the end of the back stairs.
+
+A small object lay on the floor with its arms and legs outspread,
+showing not the slightest inclination to pick itself up, and on Meg's
+bending over it the wails broke out afresh.
+
+"Oh, do shut up, 'Bumps'," Jack Everett said good-naturedly.  "You
+haven't killed yourself and you're much too big for Meg to carry."
+
+But the small boy clung desperately to his sister, his fat arms about
+her neck and his legs about her waist until with difficulty she was able
+to get him upstairs and into her own room.
+
+He was probably about three feet high and almost as broad, between three
+and four years old, with brown hair that would stand up in a pompadour
+simply because it was too stiff to lie down, a perfectly insignificant
+nose, a Cupid's bow of a mouth and two large grave blue eyes, as
+innocent of mischief as any lamb's.
+
+At the present moment, however, his eyes were simply raining tears, as
+though they had their source in a cloudburst, and over one of them a
+bump appeared as large as an egg.  Indeed, Horace Virgil, named for his
+Professor father's favorite Latin poets, had been rechristened 'Bumps'
+by his older brother and was more commonly known by that title.
+
+Meg kept glancing at the clock as she dampened her small brother's
+forehead with witch hazel.  "I am afraid I can't go," she said in a
+disappointed tone, "and I am dreadfully sorry because I promised.  But
+if I leave Horace with the servants now he will howl himself ill.  I
+don't suppose you were going to stay in for a few hours.  Oh, of course
+not!" she concluded, seeing that her older brother was wearing his khaki
+service uniform and held a big, broad-brimmed hat in his hand.  "Heigh-
+ho, don't I wish I were a boy," she sighed whimsically, turning at last
+toward her mirror, decorated with college flags, and beginning to braid
+the second half of her hair.
+
+John Everett, frowned and fidgeted.  "I am sorry, Meg," he replied after
+a moment.  "I would stay at home, only there is a meeting of my brigade
+and when a fellow belongs to a thing why he owes it some of his time.  I
+don't see why you have to stay at home so much.  Of course it is a good
+deal for a girl to have to look after, a house and father and the kid
+and me, but you have two maids and if you only were a better manager.
+Why you don't seem even to take time to dress like other girls, you are
+always kind of flying apart with a button off your waist or the braid
+torn on your skirt, and I do love a spick and span girl.  Why don't you
+look like Betty Ashton, she's always up to the limit?"
+
+Margaret Everett coiled her yellow plaits about her head, keeping her
+back turned to hide the trembling of her lips until she was able to
+answer cheerfully.  "Why yes, I should like to look like 'The Princess'
+and wear clothes like she does, but in the first place I am not so good
+looking as Betty, I haven't a maid to see after my clothes and fifty
+dollars a month to dress on--and I haven't a mother."
+
+Jack Everett flushed.  He was a splendid looking fellow, big and brown,
+with light hair of almost the same coppery tones as his sister's, and
+although but eighteen was nearly six feet tall.  It was his last year at
+the Male High School of which his father was President, and already he
+had passed with high honors his entrance examinations for Dartmouth
+College.
+
+"Oh, I say, Meg, don't pile it on," he protested.  "You are handsome
+enough all right, and it was only on your own account that I was wishing
+you could run things better."
+
+Meg had evidently given up the idea of her engagement by this time, for
+she had seated herself in a big chair with her small brother on her lap
+and was rocking him slowly back and forth, his head resting on her
+shoulder.
+
+"You are right, Jack, I am not offended," she answered.  "I know I am a
+poor manager, but somehow I don't just take to housekeeping and
+mothering naturally.  Men always think girls know such things by
+instinct.  They don't understand that we have to learn them just as boys
+learn bookkeeping or office work and I have never had any one to teach
+me."
+
+"The late Miss Everett," a new voice called unexpectedly, apparently
+coming from about midway up the front steps.  "Meg, may I come on
+upstairs, the front door was half open and I knew full well that you
+would never keep your promise to me unless I came and got you."
+
+Meg put down her small burden hastily and John unconsciously stiffened
+his broad shoulders until his appearance was more than ever military.
+
+"Come on up, Betty dear, I am sorry I am such a sight, but the baby has
+just gotten hurt and I have to give up the club meeting," Meg called
+back.
+
+The next instant Betty Ashton appeared at the open bedroom door, wearing
+a light woolen motor coat, a blue hat with a red-brown wing in it
+fitting close over her hair which was tucked up out of sight in a very
+grown-up fashion.  She had a great deal of color and her eyes were
+bright with desire.
+
+"Oh, you can't disappoint me, Meg; I shall never forgive you," she
+protested, and then came to a sudden stop seeing that John Everett was
+also in her friend's room.  But as he bowed low to her it was impossible
+for him to have observed her slight blush.
+
+"Do take Meg with you by force, Miss Ashton," he urged.  (It was always
+quite thrilling to Betty at fifteen to be called "Miss Ashton," and no
+other boy of her acquaintance seemed to realize that one could grow out
+of being addressed as "Betty".)  "She spoils the small boy and all the
+rest of us far too much.  'Bumps' has just taken another tumble."  Jack
+Everett then backed out of the room in soldierly fashion and at the
+instant of his disappearance Betty tucked her arms about the small
+Horace, critically surveying his injured eye.
+
+"Do hurry and get dressed, Meg, that's a dear.  You know we simply can't
+get on without you this afternoon.  I will button you up in a jiffy and
+we can take this bumptious little person along with us.  He will
+probably escape and fall down somewhere while we are having our meeting,
+but we can both keep our eyes on him."
+
+"He would be too much trouble," Meg demurred, but already she was
+surveying her only clean shirt waists, a blue and a white one, to see
+which was in the better state of repair.  The blue was faded but whole,
+so she slipped into it, letting Betty button it up the back, and then
+with her brother's words still rankling in her mind carefully adjusted
+her skirt at, the belt. "You are awfully good to let me come this
+afternoon, Betty, because I told you it would be just impossible for me
+to spend the summer with you girls as it would be for me to take a trip
+to the moon.  John is going camping and father is to have a summer
+lecture course in Boston and--"
+
+"Oh yes, and you are to stay at home and take care of this house and
+baby! I don't think it is fair, or that your father or brother in the
+least realize what you do for them.  But see here, dear, if what I
+thinks is true, as my old nurse used to say, and you come to be a Camp
+Fire girl this summer, why you will learn an awful lot about keeping
+house and being first aid to broken babies and everything you need to
+know.  Never mind, don't let's argue about the question now, just come
+along, for the motor is waiting at the gate.  Nearly all the girls I
+have asked must be at home by this time, but I have to collect two more
+people, Martha McMurtry--you know how I love her--and yet she carries
+the information in her brain of the right way to organize a Camp Fire
+club.  Also there is Eleanor Meade; being a genius, you know Eleanor
+can't be expected to remember anything, should a wave of inspiration
+happen to flow over her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THEIR FIRST MEETING
+
+
+The drawing-room at the Ashton homestead ran the whole length of one
+side of the house and on this particular May afternoon was so filled
+with sunshine and light that even the old portraits on the walls
+appeared to change their severe Puritanical expressions and to look
+down, from out their heavy gold frames, with something almost
+approaching friendliness, on the strange girl now alone in the room,
+although nothing in her appearance or manner suggested the birth and
+breeding partly responsible for their New England pride.
+
+The girl was also humbly engaged in placing fresh flowers on the tables
+and mantel and in rearranging the chairs and ornaments in the room to
+their best advantage.  Finally, after a lingering glance out the front
+window, she picked up her last vase of flowers, a single branch of apple
+blossoms in a tall, green jar, and, crossing over to the grand piano so
+placed it that the sunlight shone full upon it.  Then she stood for a
+moment looking thoughtfully at the open keyboard, which had a small
+sheet of music spread before it.  Esther Clark next sat down at the
+piano and lightly ran her fingers over the keys so that it could
+scarcely have been possible for any one farther away than the adjoining
+hall to have heard her playing.  The refrain was simple and repeated
+itself, yet had dramatic force and lingered in one's memory, the musical
+call of the watchword for the Camp Fire Girls.
+
+Only that morning Betty had asked Esther to try to teach this call to
+her friends when they came together at her home that afternoon to form
+their club, and though Esther was painfully shy she felt obliged to do
+her best. Some few of Betty's friends were known to her through their
+acquaintance at school, but into not one of their homes had she ever
+been invited socially.
+
+The door of the drawing-room farthest from the piano opened quietly.
+
+"Betty," a young man's voice inquired reproachfully, "aren't you even
+glad enough to see me to say hello?  When before did I ever know you so
+devoted to practicing that you wouldn't stop for any excuse, and yet
+here I have come all the way home from Portsmouth on your account!"
+
+Richard Ashton ceased talking abruptly, for instead of the pretty figure
+of his sister, Betty, he now beheld rising from the piano stool a tall
+girl with bright red hair, looking as though she had been frightened
+speechless.
+
+"Great Caesar's ghost, what a homely girl!" was his first thought, but
+not a change in his expression revealed what was in the young man's mind
+as he stretched forth his hand.
+
+"I am sorry to have interrupted you," he said quickly, "but I am Richard
+Ashton, Betty's brother."
+
+Of course he expected that the strange girl would then answer him, at
+least tell him who she was or give some explanation of her presence, but
+instead Esther stood silently looking down at the floor and twisting her
+hands together in a wholly unnecessary state of embarrassment.
+
+Richard Ashton was of medium height, slenderly built, but with broad
+shoulders, and at this time of life twenty-three years old.  His hair
+and eyes were light brown; he bore no resemblance to Betty and had a
+curiously serious expression for so young and fortunate a fellow.
+Although not handsome, Dick had a look of purpose and distinction and
+always had unconsciously served as the ideal for Betty's girl friends.
+He was a Princeton graduate, but was now studying medicine in Portsmouth
+and expected later to continue his studies in Germany.  Perhaps it was
+his own seriousness and settled purpose that had made him assist in
+spoiling his small sister almost from her babyhood, yet lately seeing
+Betty's restlessness and discontent he had begun to wonder if he and his
+father and mother had been as kind to her as they had meant to be.
+Betty was growing up and it might be she too needed to have something
+asked of her, that she too wished to give as well as to receive.
+
+"I am not your sister's friend (the girl near the piano had finally made
+up her mind to speak), I am only a kind of companion, to help her with
+her studying or to do whatever she desires."
+
+Dick Ashton laughed, his face immediately losing its look of gravity.
+"Well, that is no particular reason why you should not be her friend as
+well, is it?  At least I hope Betty won't make the task too hard for
+you, but as to doing all the things she desires, I am afraid that will
+keep you pretty busy.  I believe I remember now, my mother did write me
+about asking you to come here to stay; you have lived before--"  The
+young man hesitated.  But Esther had now come nearer and really she
+seemed almost too plain even to serve his pretty sister, Betty, the
+contrast might be too hard for the homely girl.
+
+"You were playing something when I came in, won't you go on," Dick
+continued hastily, fearing that the strange girl, with her pale eyes
+fixed on his, might be able to read his inmost thoughts and not desiring
+to hurt her feelings.  However she had started, edging toward the door.
+"I would much rather not; your sister is to have some friends here this
+afternoon and wishes me to teach them a few lines of music.  I hope your
+mother won't mind my touching this splendid piano."
+
+"What on earth is the girl afraid of?  I have no desire to eat her,"
+Richard thought to himself, continuing to observe Esther's frightened
+expression and nervous manner, but only answering good-naturedly:
+"Certainly she won't mind.  Please use the piano whenever you like, for
+Betty hates practicing and I don't care much for a man musician,
+especially a poor one, though I love music."
+
+Just for a moment the newcomer's timidity vanished and her smile of
+pleasure, showing her big, strong mouth with its white teeth, relieved
+her face of its entire plainness.  "I should love it more than anything
+in the world; would you mind asking your mother if I may?  I am afraid
+to ask her."
+
+"But not afraid of asking me?" Richard laughed; he had made his
+suggestion without any special thought, but the girl might as well be
+allowed to bang at their piano if she liked.  Should she get it out of
+order why it could soon be straightened out again.  And then kindness to
+persons less fortunate than himself was second nature with Richard
+Ashton.
+
+"Here is the mater coming, I will ask her at once," he returned, and
+then seeing Esther's unspoken look of entreaty, as he went forward to
+open the door for his mother, he silently agreed to postpone his
+request.
+
+Mrs. Ashton was a tall, blonde, handsomely dressed woman, who rarely
+showed affection for anyone save her husband and children and whose
+leisure time was largely devoted to playing bridge.  Neither Betty nor
+her son looked like her.  Richard resembled his father, while Betty must
+have inherited her appearance from some more remote ancestor.  In one
+comer of the parlor hung an oil painting of one of Mr. Ashton's great-
+aunts, a young English girl in a white muslin dress and picture hat,
+whom Betty always insisted she resembled.
+
+Mrs. Ashton was frowning anxiously.
+
+"Hasn't Betty returned, Dick?" she inquired.  "It is an hour since
+luncheon and her friends may arrive at any moment.  The child was not at
+all well yesterday and, I do wonder if her science teacher can be
+keeping her in, Miss McMurtry is so inconsiderate.  I really don't know
+what to do about Betty this summer, she is so opposed to going to Europe
+with us again and wants to form a club or a camp, something perfectly
+extraordinary, so as to spend her summer in the woods.  She almost
+talked your father into the idea last evening, but I do hope, dear
+Richard, that you will oppose her.  You have such influence with Betty."
+
+Dick and his mother were standing together by the window now on the
+lookout, for the truant.  "Don't be such a weakling, mother," the young
+man replied teasingly.  "If you really wish Betty to go to Europe with
+you and father say so and let that settle the matter, but I am not so
+sure this new scheme of hers is a bad one.  Betty sent me a night
+telegram at bedtime last night (telephoned it, I suppose, when you
+thought she was in bed) asking me to come home for the day and help her
+get her own way.  Living out of doors all summer, mother, and learning
+to look after herself and to rub up against other girls may be the best
+thing in the world for Betty.  I am afraid she has been growing up to be
+more ornamental than useful."
+
+"There is no reason why Betty should be anything but ornamental," Mrs.
+Ashton argued, although plainly thinking over her son's words.
+
+Dick Ashton shook his head.  "No, mother, the modern world has no place
+in it but for useful people nowadays.  And somehow it seems to me that
+even more is going to be asked of women than has been asked of men.
+They have got to do their own housekeeping and some of the world's too,
+pretty soon."
+
+Before the young fellow finished speaking he and his mother were both
+smiling and waving their hands toward Mollie and Polly O'Neill, who were
+at this moment crossing the street with several other girl friends.
+Before they entered the house, however, Betty's automobile, driven by
+herself, dashed into sight, containing five other passengers: Margaret
+Everett and her small brother; Miss McMurtry, the science teacher at the
+high school; a tall girl with a clever face and a far-away expression in
+her near-sighted blue eyes; and a fifth girl, an entire stranger both to
+Mrs. Ashton and Dick and until a short while before an equal stranger to
+Betty.
+
+Almost before the car stopped Betty was out of her seat and ushering her
+visitors into their big, sweet-smelling drawing-room.  There Esther
+stood close against the wall, trying her best to shrink out of sight
+even while she reproached herself for her unnecessary awkwardness and
+fear.  Suppose she had had no home and no social training like the
+greater number of these other girls, yet did she not mean to follow
+forever the law of the Camp Fire and would it not teach her in time to
+gain the knowledge necessary to happiness?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LAW OF THE CAMP FIRE
+
+
+"Esther, won't you repeat the Law of the Camp Fire for the girls?" Miss
+McMurtry asked, fifteen minutes later, when Betty's guests were seated
+in a close circle about the drawing-room, their faces eager with
+curiosity.
+
+Esther alone sat at some distance from the others, so that Betty was
+compelled to draw her forward toward the center of their group.  How she
+longed to refuse to recite, for instead of a dozen pairs of eyes
+fastened upon her she felt there must be at least a hundred!  Yet
+catching an expression of amused sympathy on Dick Ashton's face somehow
+she felt encouraged to go on.
+
+"Esther and I have been studying the plan of the Camp Fire organization
+for the past two months and it is really very simple," Miss McMurtry
+continued. "One must just follow certain general rules and then add
+whatever seems appropriate to give one's special camp originality and
+character.  I had been hoping to form a club in the village this summer,
+but of course if we can carry out Betty's idea and spend our summer
+together in the woods, why we will learn in a few months what it might
+have taken us years to find out in weekly meetings in town."  The young
+woman stopped, turning toward Esther, and the girl then felt obliged to
+speak.  Esther's voice was low, but had that rare quality given to but a
+few voices of being heard at even a great distance without being raised.
+
+"Seek beauty. Give service. Pursue knowledge. Be trustworthy. Hold on to
+health. Glorify work. Be happy."
+
+With each line, feeling the sympathy of her small audience increase,
+Esther gained courage until at last she was able to finish her verse
+with fervor and conviction.
+
+After her conclusion most of the faces near her were unusually
+thoughtful until Polly O'Neill, seated next Mrs. Ashton, gave a
+characteristic laugh followed by a sigh.
+
+"My dear children, if we ever learn to live up to that law of the Camp
+Fire, then shall we be angels and not girls!" she exclaimed.
+
+And she might have added more had not an imploring frown from Betty
+silenced her.  Of course some of the girls would understand that Polly
+rarely meant what she said, but there we're other members of the little
+company with whom Betty wished to take no risks.  Besides, Polly's laugh
+could sometimes dampen even her own enthusiasm!  And had she not placed
+her friend next her mother in order that she might interest Mrs. Ashton
+in their plan, for Polly was a great favorite with the older woman and
+never afraid of using her pretty blarney stone with her.
+
+However, except for a laugh no one seemed in the least influenced by
+Polly's skepticism.
+
+"We can at least try to live up to the law," Mollie replied quietly,
+answering from her chair a few feet away.
+
+In a few moments, however, Betty no longer feared the effect of her
+friend's attitude.  Perhaps to some of the girls the idea of a summer
+camp seemed too beautiful to be possible, yet plainly the ideals of the
+Camp Fire organization, as Miss McMurtry explained them more fully, had
+fired their imaginations, filling them with new hopes and enthusiasm.
+
+Meg had been listening to what had been said with glowing cheeks,
+meaning to become a Camp Fire girl even though it was entirely
+impossible for her to join the summer camp.  She was holding her small
+brother tight in her arms, trying to distract his attention with objects
+to be seen out the front window, and so entirely oblivious of the fact
+that the hastily adjusted hairpins had been slipping out of her hair,
+until one yellow braid now dangled over her pink ear.
+
+Mollie O'Neill's cheeks were also flushed, but she sat perfectly still,
+keeping her hands clasped tight together in a fashion she had when
+desiring a thing greatly and not feeling sure she would receive it.
+
+Eleanor Meade had even forgiven Betty for dragging her away from her
+unfinished painting of the May, sky (a painting which Meg and Betty had
+assured her resembled soap suds), so enthralled had she become with the
+summer plan.  If her parents could be persuaded to allow her to stay in
+camp with the girls during the summer, why then surely she need not be
+bothered with having to take exercise and help with the housework, as
+her mother insisted, she could simply give up all her time to her
+drawing and painting.  You see Eleanor, like a good many other girls,
+did not at once grasp the meaning of the Camp Fire idea.
+
+Apparently only one person in Mrs. Ashton's drawing-room up to this time
+seemed to have gotten nothing at all out of Miss McMurtry's explanations
+and the girls' discussion of a Camp Fire club.  But then how could she,
+for Sylvia Wharton apparently had not listened and certainly had never
+taken her eyes from Polly's face?  She appeared a stupid child, short
+and stout and, although fourteen, hardly seemed more than twelve.  Her
+clothes were expensive but always inappropriate, indeed they were far
+too handsome for such a plain little girl.  However, they were in accord
+with her father's taste, and although Mr. Wharton was now a wealthy man,
+he had begun life as a stone-cutter and could hardly be expected to know
+much about the proper way to dress a small, motherless daughter.
+
+Several times in the past half hour Polly had almost yielded to the
+inclination to implore Sylvia to take her eyes off her, for the little
+girl did not look sensitive and her eyes were so large and
+expressionless they made one uncomfortable, but then Polly forbore,
+until, as her own interest in their meeting proceeded, she forgot all
+about her inquisitor.
+
+It must have been about five o'clock when Betty at last arose and
+holding a curiously wrought silver ring, a bracelet and a pin in her
+hand, started to walk slowly about among the circle of her guests.
+
+"If you wish to join our Camp Fire club this afternoon," she invited
+coaxingly, "you are simply to repeat the lines Esther has just recited
+for us.  Then Miss McMurtry says you may each receive a woodgatherers'
+ring. Afterwards, when we have acquired sufficient honors in the seven
+crafts, 'Health Craft, Home Craft, Nature Lore, Camp Craft, Business and
+Patriotism'," (Betty repeated the list slowly as though not quite
+certain of herself), "why then we may attain next to the rank of Fire-
+Makers and wear their bracelets.  The highest honor of all, which I for
+one shall probably never attain, is to become a Torch Bearer and receive
+the Torch Bearer's pin.  It is all right for me to give the girls the
+rings, isn't it, Miss McMurtry, after they have repeated the law to
+you?" Betty asked, "since you have been appointed official guardian by
+the headquarters in New York?  Later on I suppose the girls will tell us
+when they will wish to come into camp."
+
+Miss McMurtry laughed.  Never until this afternoon had she had any
+liking for Betty Ashton.  They were such utterly different types of
+woman and girl!  Yet, now Betty's habit of expecting to have her own
+way, which her teacher so disliked, was assuredly making their Camp Fire
+plans go ahead with a rush.
+
+"Yes, I am a properly appointed guardian," Miss McMurtry answered
+slowly, "and Esther and I have been studying the Camp Fire program until
+she is almost ready to become a Fire-Maker, but I wonder if, you girls
+wish me to be your guardian in camp this summer?  Perhaps I am not
+suited to it!"  She turned to look at Betty, but failing to catch her
+eye, looked toward Polly. For the same reason both girls kept their
+heads bowed, until Betty was finally able to reply with as much
+enthusiasm as she could muster:
+
+"Oh, of course we wish you, and we shall try to give as little trouble
+as possible."  Really in her present enthusiasm Betty believed that she
+and her science teacher would be able to put away all past differences
+and live in perfect accord under the influence of their new ideals.
+
+Miss McMurtry now turned again to Esther; there were special reasons for
+her unusual interest in this girl, although even Esther herself was
+unaware of them.
+
+"You are wearing your bead chains, aren't you?" the new guardian asked,
+slipping two narrow strips of leather, one strung with orange and the
+other with bright red beads, from about Esther's throat.  "You see each
+one of these beads represents some honor a girl has attained in the Camp
+Fire," she explained, "so the girl who finally arrives at the rank of
+Torch Bearer, really an assistant to the guardian, may own seven
+different chains of bead, one color for each of the seven crafts."
+
+"My honors so far have been won in health and home craft because of what
+I was taught at the orphan asylum," Esther added frankly and then
+blushed uncomfortably, for several of Betty's friends were staring at
+her curiously.  What had inspired Mrs. Ashton and Betty, supposed to be
+the most exclusive persons in Woodford, to introduce this unknown girl
+into their home as though she were a member of their family?
+
+Moreover, Betty must have suffered another change of heart for she was
+now engaged in almost forcing a Wood-Gatherer's ring upon the stranger
+whom she had lately brought home in the automobile with her.
+
+Mrs. Ashton lifted her lorgnettes to gaze at the visitor.  "Tell me,
+Polly dear," she whispered, "who is that girl with whom Betty is now
+talking? She is not one of her school friends and yet I feel I have seen
+her somewhere before, though I am not able to place her."
+
+Polly smiled, shaking her head.  "You have seen her, I know I have many
+times, although she is not a friend or even an acquaintance of mine.
+But I don't know what has happened to 'The Princess', so I would rather
+you would put your question to her after we go away."
+
+Mrs. Ashton kept hold of Polly's hand.  Two maids had just come into the
+drawing-room at this moment and were passing plates of cake and cups of
+hot chocolate about among the guests.  The greater number of the girls
+were crowding around Miss McMurtry and Betty, so only Dick Ashton
+happened to notice that no one, not even a maid, had come near Esther.
+Securing chocolate and cake for her himself, he sat down next her,
+talking but asking no questions, since he feared to embarrass her as he
+had earlier in the afternoon.
+
+"Do you think, Polly, that this is really a good plan of Betty's?" Mrs.
+Ashton inquired thoughtfully.  "She has seemed so restless and
+dissatisfied lately.  Of course I don't understand all this Camp Fire
+idea seems to mean to her, I suppose I would have to be a girl again to
+understand thoroughly, but there may be possibilities in it.  Even a
+conventional society woman longs sometimes to get away from her
+monotonous life, and surely you will find romance and adventure awaiting
+you in the woods.  I have decided I shall not stand in Betty's way, I
+shall go away this summer and leave you girls to work things out
+together, then when I return I may be able to discover what miracles
+have been wrought in you."
+
+"Oh, you will find us entirely reformed," Polly answered carelessly, not
+realizing that she of all the girls in the room would be the one to bear
+the ordeal of fire, the symbol that cleanses and purifies.
+
+But both the girl and woman suddenly became silent, for Dick Ashton had
+persuaded Esther Clark to the piano and now the entire group of guests
+closed in about her.
+
+Once again she was singing the morning and evening hymn of the Camp Fire
+Girls' "My Soul's Desire."
+
+Mrs. Ashton sat listening intently with an odd expression of something
+almost like relief crossing her face.  "Polly dear," she whispered
+unexpectedly at the close of Esther's song, "perhaps life does even
+things up more justly than we know, for this strange girl, Esther Clark,
+has a truly remarkable voice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WHITE CLOUDS
+
+
+"White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, Light mists, whose soft
+embraces keep The sunshine on the bills asleep."
+
+The sun was just rising above the crests of a group of the White
+Mountains called long ago by the indians "Waumbek" because of their
+snowy foreheads. But this morning, instead of shining like crystal, the
+snow at their summits was opal tinted rose, yellow and violet from the
+early rays of the June sun.
+
+Sunrise Hill, standing in the foreground, seemed to catch an even
+stronger reflection from the sky, for the colors drained down its sides
+until they emptied into a small, wooded lake at its base.
+
+On either side this hill the sloping lands were a soft green and the
+meadows beyond golden with the new summer grain, but only fifty yards
+away a grove of pine trees made a deep mass of shade, and with the birds
+in their branches singing their daily matins, suggested an old cathedral
+choir.
+
+The singers were evidently indifferent to intruders, for, close by, four
+white tents were pitched in a square as though a caravan had halted on
+its travels.  But the caravaneers must have been in the place for some
+days and showed no intention of moving on, for their arrangements had
+been made with the idea of permanent comfort.
+
+Around each tent a narrow trench several inches deep had been dug to
+prevent flooding in case of rain, farther off two large bins held all
+rubbish until such time as it could be conveniently burned.  The camp
+ground was also beautifully clean, not a scrap of paper nor a tin can
+could be seen anywhere, and even the grass itself had been swept with a
+novel, but at the same time, a very old-fashioned broom, for a stake
+tightly bound with a few sprigs of birch rested against one of the
+tents, plainly--from the evidences about it--the kitchen tent.  At a
+safe distance a camp fire was smoldering, a fire built according to the
+best scout methods.  Two stout stakes driven slantwise in the ground
+with three logs cut the same length, one on top the other, resting
+against these stakes.  On either side this elevation two logs lay on the
+ground like fire logs, with a third crossing them in front, and inside
+this enclosure a bed of ashes still glowed, carefully covered over for
+the night.  On the lake two birch bark canoes were moored to willow
+stakes, and hanging on a line stretching from a tree to a pole a number
+of girls' bathing suits flapped and danced in the air, but no human
+being was yet in sight.
+
+Suddenly there came a ripple of music from one of the pine trees, "Whee-
+you, whee-you," a small bird with a spotted breast and a cream-buff coat
+sang to itself and then began a whistling, ringing monotone that for a
+moment silenced the other bird chorus.
+
+A girl in a dark red dressing gown quietly opened a tent flap.
+
+"There, the morning has come at last, for that is the voice of
+'Oopehanka', the thrush.  So after a week in the woods I really am
+beginning to recognize some of the birds and the Indian names for them."
+She clapped her hands softly together.
+
+"Oh, Princess, do wake up and let us have a swim before any one else
+wakens," she whispered imploringly.
+
+Then disappearing inside her tent, she knelt by a bed of hemlock
+branches covered with soft blue blankets.  "Princess," she whispered
+again.
+
+A sleepy voice answered.  "Polly child, please go back to bed, it must
+be the middle of the night and I ache all over from carrying water and
+digging trenches.  Who could have supposed camping would be such a lot
+of work!"
+
+"Or such a lot of joy!" Polly laughed.  "Ah, Betty, I thought you were
+yearning to be useful; think of the honor beads you mean to earn!  But
+come now and be useful to me; do let us have a swim together."
+
+Betty was never proof against her friend's pleading.  "All right," she
+agreed, searching about near her bed for her sandals while Polly wrapped
+a light woolen gown about her, "I don't know whether Miss McMurtry will
+like our going off by ourselves, but I don't remember her having said we
+should not, though Camp Fire life does mean doing things together."
+
+The two girls had been talking in the lowest possible tones and were now
+tiptoeing softly out of their tent, when another voice from another bed
+interrupted them.
+
+"Betty and Polly, you are sneaks!" Mollie O'Neill exclaimed indignantly.
+"Just because I can't swim as well as you do and Esther can't swim at
+all, you are going off without us.  You are fine Camp Fire girls; please
+bring our bathing suits here, too."
+
+Both girls nodded and laughed in rather an abashed fashion.  But at a
+safe distance away Betty turned to Polly.  "Won't you confess, please,
+that it is rather a nuisance having Esther Clark in the tent with us?  I
+don't see why Martha McMurtry insisted upon it when we might have had
+Meg or most anybody else."
+
+Polly looked unusually grave.  "You don't care for Esther, do you?" she
+questioned.  "It is curious, because though you haven't been
+particularly nice to her, she is devoted to you and I believe would do
+anything in the world for you."
+
+Ten minutes later the four girls in their Camp Fire bathing suits were
+in the waters of the lake near their camp, Polly and Betty swimming with
+long even strokes toward its center, Mollie hovering near the shore,
+while Esther stood shivering in a foot of water trying vainly to warm
+herself by splashing and throwing handfuls of water on her chest and
+face.
+
+Half a mile out Betty turned over on her side.  "Say the Law of the Camp
+Fire to yourself, Polly.  I have just said it and I am going back toward
+shore.  I suppose if one makes a vow to 'give service' it is little
+enough to show another girl how to swim.  If Esther didn't look so big
+and wasn't so horribly shy, I am sure I should like her better, but here
+goes!"
+
+It wasn't easy work teaching Esther to swim, for she was so much larger
+than Betty and had such an absurd fashion of keeping both feet down and
+splashing the water into her own and her teacher's face.  Polly laughed
+softly to herself as she swam slowly forward to offer her assistance.
+She was wondering if a single week in camp had really begun to reform
+her spoiled Betty and if it had, had any change also been wrought in
+her?  She was to find out in a very few minutes.
+
+One Camp Fire law, that there was no escaping, was that the girls were
+not to spend but fifteen minutes in bathing.  Really it hardly seemed
+like half that time before the four girls were once again on land
+getting into their bathing gowns which had been left hanging on a willow
+tree nearby.  They were to dress later on in their tent, so they were
+hardly on shore more than a few moments, but even in that short space of
+time a noise a few yards away startled them.  The four girls turned
+indignantly.  In the entire week of their stay in camp they had not been
+disturbed by a single intruder.  Sunrise Hill, with its tall pines--the
+emblem of the Camp Fire--its wooded lake for fishing, bathing and
+canoeing, and its utter seclusion, had seemed, after several weeks of
+careful search in the neighborhood about Woodford, the ideal place for
+the girls' summer camp. So far not even a friend, man or woman, had been
+allowed to visit them, because the camp was to be in running order
+before they received any outside criticism.
+
+Now a young fellow of perhaps sixteen stood only a short distance off
+from the lake with an expression of superior amusement on his face.  He
+was a country boy, for he wore no hat and his hair was burnt to a light
+straw color at the ends, his skin was almost bronze.
+
+"Please go away," Polly demanded haughtily.  She had gathered her
+bathing gown about her as though it were a Roman matron's robe and was
+feeling that her presence must be impressive although her hair was
+extremely wet and drops of water were trickling down her face.
+
+However, the intruder paid not the least attention to her request,
+except to laugh as though her indignation gave him special pleasure.  He
+was carrying a large tin pail on one arm and a basket on the other and
+of course his behavior was hardly that of a gentleman.
+
+Anger for the moment kept Polly speechless, but a chorus of protests
+arose from Betty, Mollie and Esther.  "We are camping here and we would
+rather not have visitors, so would you mind going back the way you have
+come?" Betty requested in her most Princess-like fashion.
+
+"Not until I have seen the sights," the newcomer answered.  He did not
+really look impertinent, only mischievous, and his eyes were as blue as
+Polly's.
+
+"You don't suppose that I have walked a mile before breakfast and
+carried these heavy things except to find out what on the face of the
+earth you crazy girls are doing here, trying to pretend you are scouts
+or Indian squaws.  Of all the foolishness!"
+
+Perhaps even this short acquaintance with Polly O'Neill has suggested
+that she had, what is for some reason or other called an Irish temper,
+though temper does not belong wholly to Irish people.  Polly herself did
+not know when this temper would take possession of her nor where it
+would lead her. At present the young man continued to walk slowly on
+toward the white tents, whistling to show his complete indifference,
+while the four girls could see that their friends were now stirring
+about in camp evidently getting ready to start breakfast.
+
+Without reflecting Polly stooped.  There on the ground before her lay a
+sharp rock, ground and polished by the waters of the lake, and like a
+shot from a bow she flung this stone whistling through the air at the
+intruder.
+
+Whether she thought her stone would strike the young man or what
+particular effect her childish bad manners would have if it should,
+Polly herself did not know.  However, she was startled and flushed hotly
+when, with an exclamation of pain, the boy put down his pail, placing
+one hand quickly to his head.
+
+The four girls had started for their camp, but now Mollie, first
+flashing a look of surprise and scorn at her usually beloved sister, ran
+on ahead of the others.  "I am so sorry," she said in a gentle, reserved
+manner peculiar to her, "you were rude not to go away when we asked you,
+but it is far worse for one of us to have been so childish as to strike
+you.  I am dreadfully ashamed."
+
+The young man smiled, not very cheerfully it must be admitted, but at
+least not looking so angry as he had the right to.  "Did you throw the
+stone?" he inquired.  "I never would have believed a girl could throw
+straight if I hadn't felt the blow, so perhaps you are learning one or
+two things by living like boys.  Never mind, I can see you are not the
+guilty one."
+
+"We are not trying to live in the least like boys, only like sensible
+girls," Mollie started in to reply quietly, but the last part of her
+sentence trailed off into a faint whisper, for the young man had just
+taken his hand down from his head and his fingers were covered with
+blood, a few drops were even trickling down the back of his neck inside
+his soft flannel shirt.
+
+The other three girls had now come close enough to see the blood also,
+and except for Betty, Pony would everlastingly have disgraced herself.
+There are many persons in the world whom the sight of blood fills with a
+strange shrinking and terror that is almost like faintness, and Polly
+was one of them.  Now she wanted to run away, she even turned to fly,
+when her friend caught hold of her.  "Don't be utterly stupid, Polly,
+you have done a foolish trick and you've got to face the music, for if
+you don't, you know Mollie is apt to take the blame upon herself."
+
+Polly's knees were shaking and her thin expressive face so pale that she
+looked quite unlike herself.  However, she managed to save a part of her
+dignity by saying with an attempt at a smile, as she stopped alongside
+Mollie and the young fellow, "I am sorry, I cannot tell a lie, I did it
+with my little hatchet, so please feel all the anger against me.  I do
+hope I haven't hurt you very much."
+
+The young man now stared at Polly and then at Mollie and afterwards back
+again from one to the other.  He started to whistle but stopped himself
+in time.  "Gee, but you are alike--with a difference," he returned,
+neither accepting nor refusing to accept Polly's half-hearted apology.
+
+Hardly knowing why, except that the back of his neck was apparently
+covered with perspiration when there was no heat to explain it, the boy
+again put up his hand to his head.  This time it was impossible to
+ignore the amount of blood that covered his hand nor the horrified faces
+of his small audience.
+
+"I expect I can't go up to your camp, after all, when I am in such a
+fix, so you've come kind of close to getting your own way.  I guess you,
+usually do!" he said, frowning up at Polly.  "I wonder if it is too much
+to ask you girls to carry these things up to your tents; the pail has
+your morning's milk and is pretty heavy; the basket is only filled with
+strawberries.  My father is the farmer who owns the land about here and
+I thought it would be a lark to find out what you campers were trying to
+do.  Didn't mean anything serious but I guess you'll have to come for
+your own supplies after this as there ain't no one but me to bring 'em."
+He spoke rather churlishly, but then he did have cause.
+
+"Hadn't you better wash your cut at the lake or come on up to the tent
+and let us do something there for you," Betty proposed, not knowing
+exactly what they should do in the present situation and yet feeling
+that something ought to be done.  "I am afraid walking home in the sun
+with your head in that condition may make you ill."
+
+The young man shook his head and then winced.  "It ain't anything," he
+replied, beginning to back away, but at the same moment Mollie O'Neill
+took firm hold on his sleeve.  "Come down to the water," she demanded
+quietly, "you are cut pretty badly, but I think I can stop the bleeding.
+I suppose the other girls will laugh at me, but ever since I have been
+in camp I have been carrying some gauze bandage about in my pocket and
+finding out what to do in case of accidents.  I won't hurt you."
+
+The young fellow had intended utterly to decline Mollie's kindly offer,
+but now her suggestion of not hurting amused him, besides he was
+sensible enough to know she was right.  It was embarrassing, however, to
+have three other girls looking on during the operation, so whatever
+anguish Mollie caused him he felt prepared to endure in silence.
+
+In a very business-like fashion the young girl drew her roll of
+surgeon's lint from an inside pocket of her bathing gown and a small
+pair of scissors.  Then she made her patient sit down on the ground by
+the water's edge while she carefully examined his cut.
+
+"I ought to help, Mollie," her sister suggested faintly, but Mollie
+shook her head and the young man appeared grateful.  "I don't mind blood
+and you do, Polly," she returned, "besides if anybody is to help I would
+rather have Esther.  I am afraid, if you don't mind, I have got to cut
+your hair away, it is already so matted with blood."
+
+To almost any suggestion the patient would have agreed, since he had but
+one desire now, and that to get away from the strange girls about whom
+he had been so curious an hour before.
+
+Mollie cheerfully snipped away several locks of his hair covering a
+space about as large as a dollar.  The cut she discovered was deeper
+than she had expected and, as it was still bleeding profusely, she next
+called Esther for advice.  Very carefully then the two girls washed out
+the cut with clean water and then Mollie, finding a flat stone, made a
+pad by wrapping it a number of times with gauze.  This she placed over
+the wound, binding the young man's head, Esther assisting in making the
+bandage as tight as he could  endure.
+
+All this time Polly, with Betty's hand firmly clutching hers, had stood
+quietly looking on at the scene.  She was feeling penitent and ashamed,
+and yet her Irish sense of humor made her a little bit amused as well.
+Mollie was so entirely unconscious, but she did seem to be intensely
+enjoying her first opportunity to prove herself a worthy Camp Fire Girl.
+
+Perhaps the young man vaguely felt Polly's amusement, although he did
+not look at her and certainly did not give her the satisfaction of
+knowing whether or not she had been forgiven.  But he managed to thank
+Mollie and Esther more politely for what they had done for him, than his
+boorish manners earlier in the morning suggested, and even insisted on
+going on up to the camp with them in order to carry the heavy pail.
+
+Several others of the Camp Fire girls, were by this time engaged in
+getting break fast and although they could hardly help showing surprise
+at the unexpected appearance of a wounded hero no questions were then
+asked.
+
+Miss McMurtry did not seem annoyed at seeing the young man, indeed it
+turned out that she and several of the girls had walked over to Mr.
+Webster's farm the day before to ask as a special favor that milk be
+sent their camp each day.  If she felt any displeasure, Betty and Polly
+were sure it was directed toward them, for the first week of Camp Fire
+life had not been altogether smooth and there were still adjustments to
+be made between some of the girls and their guardian.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+OTHER GIRLS
+
+
+Besides the four girls who have just returned from the lake there were
+six others in the camp at Sunrise Hill, their guardian, Miss McMurtry
+and one small imp or angel, according to one's way of looking at things.
+For Margaret Everett had joined the summer campers and, in order to
+accomplish it, had brought her small brother, Horace Virgil Everett,
+along with her. You see, the girls felt they simply must have Meg, so
+after a great deal of discussion it was decided that Horace Virgil would
+be an excellent person to practice mother craft upon and would certainly
+bring into service whatever first aid information might be required.
+
+Meg was so gay, so sweet tempered and so utterly inconsequential.  If
+things were going well in camp, if the sun was shining and everybody was
+feeling amiable then she was entirely happy, but if things were going
+wrong, then it was that Meg counted, for she kept her temper through
+almost any kind of stress.  She did not have so many moods as Polly, she
+was not so quiet and reserved as Mollie, nor did she expect the world to
+move according to her desires, as Betty Ashton did.  Meg's faults were
+that she was not a good manager and did try to do too many things at
+once and so did none of them well, but she had not had an easy time
+since her mother died two years ago.  Although her father and older
+brother adored her, they were selfish in unconscious masculine ways,
+President Everett in devoting too much time to his school and John to
+his studies and amusements. Unfortunately neither of them realized that
+Meg might now and then grow weary of having a small brother, capable of
+originating new kind of mischief at least once an hour, everlastingly
+tagging after her.  But Meg's cares (if she ever called them by that
+name) had for the present been entirely lifted from her, for she had ten
+other people now to help, her take care of "Bumps," whom the girls had
+rechristened "Hai-yi" or "Little Brother," and if Meg had been asked to
+vote upon the happiest week of her life since her mother's death she
+would instantly have voted her first week in camp with her own club of
+Camp Fire Girls.
+
+Then there was Sylvia Wharton!  Did Sylvia really enjoy the change in
+her life from staying cooped up in a great house, looked after by
+servants and alone a great part of the time when her father was away?
+Her brother Frank, who was several years older, seldom paid the least
+attention to her. If the little girl did enjoy the woods and the
+companionship of the other girls and all the opportunities that the camp
+fire life offered her, so far she showed not the slightest sign.  Her
+one pleasure must have been her chance to haunt Polly O'Neill, for
+although she did not seem particularly happy when she was with Polly,
+certainly she never left her side unless she were compelled to do her
+share of the camp work and only then when Polly insisted upon it.
+Already Miss McMurtry felt that Sylvia might become difficult, but then
+the child had had no training, and besides Miss McMurtry shared the
+belief of almost all other persons that Sylvia was simply stupid.
+Curiously enough Eleanor Meade now appeared to have been invited into
+the first Woodford Camp Fire circle under a false impression. You see,
+the girls at the high school where Eleanor was also a student considered
+her a genius, and it is agreeable for a community to have one genius in
+its midst.  Eleanor did have talent for drawing, and besides she had a
+number of characteristics which many persons associate with genius. She
+was entirely careless of her other responsibilities, and, if she
+happened to wish to paint, considered it entirely unreasonable that
+anything or anybody should interfere with her desire.  She was often in
+the habit of forgetting engagements and at times there was a faraway
+expression in her eyes, which may have come from having neglected to
+wear her glasses, but which her friends believed due to the thrall of
+some wonderful creative idea which might be presented to the world some
+day in the form of a great picture.  And Eleanor, being but human and
+seventeen, had done her best to foster this belief.  She would not dress
+in modern fashions like the other girls; her parents had little money,
+but Eleanor's mother was a clever needlewoman and her eldest daughter
+always appeared in gowns made after exactly the same pattern and of some
+soft clinging material, whether cashmere or cheesecloth, they were
+always short waisted with a folded girdle and deep hem and cut low in
+the neck.  Then Eleanor's hair, which was heavy and straight and a kind
+of ashen brown, was always worn parted in the middle and fixed in a
+great loose knot at the back of her neck. Eleanor was not pretty like
+Betty and Meg and Mollie and, at times, Polly O'Neill, but she would
+have scorned to have been thought pretty--interesting was the adjective
+she preferred.
+
+However, since Eleanor's appearance in camp for almost a week she had
+forgotten to be a genius.  For one thing the girls were all wearing the
+regulation Camp Fire uniform, a loose blouse and dark blue serge skirt,
+and so she could not dress the part.  Then, although the Camp Fire
+official log book had been given her to illustrate she had not even
+started to paint the totem of the Sunrise Camp on its brown leather
+cover, although Sunrise Hill stood, always before her in its changing
+beauty.  The girls had taken its name for their camp with the thought
+that the hill might symbolize their own efforts to look upward always to
+the highest and most beautiful things.
+
+But Eleanor should hardly be blamed for not having done much painting so
+far, there, had been such a lot of other work to do, in helping to put
+things in order in camp, and besides she had developed the most
+surprising talent for making an Irish stew, that was the envy and
+delight of all the other girls.  Eleanor said it was because she had a
+soul above science and used her imagination in her stew, but whatever
+the reason, since the first day when the cooking of dinner fell to her,
+this stew had been one of the greatest successes in camp and Eleanor
+received her first honor bead for her genius in cooking instead of in
+art.
+
+Besides these seven girls already described, there was an eighth girl in
+the Sunrise camp, the stranger whom Betty had brought home with her on
+the day their club had first been discussed--the girl whose face was so
+familiar to Mrs. Ashton but whose name was unknown.  There had been a
+question as to whether or not this particular girl could come to summer
+camp, not because the other girls were unwilling to have her, but because
+she worked in a milliner's shop in Woodford and had to go back and forth
+to be at work every day.  Quite by accident on the eventful afternoon
+Betty had stooped by this shop in her journey to Meg's to ask about her
+new spring hat, and being so full of her plan had poured it into Edith
+Norton's ear, while the little milliner was trying on her hat.
+Naturally Edith thought it a wonderful plan, so Betty, with one of her
+sudden impulses, immediately insisted that the young milliner come home
+with her to become a member of their new Camp Fire club.  This seemed at
+the time a perfectly impossible dream to Edith, who was a poor girl with
+her own living to make, but then she did not understand Betty's ability
+to make things happen.  Every obstacle had been smoothed away, Edith was
+now riding Betty's bicycle back and forth from camp to town every day
+and, already the headaches, which had first wakened Betty's sympathy,
+because of the pallor of her face and the dark circles under her eyes,
+had begun to grow better from the daily fresh air and exercise.  Of the
+Camp Fire Girls Edith was the oldest; she was about eighteen and had
+blonde hair and delicate features, with brown eyes. She might have been
+pretty, but that she needed to grow stronger in body and character, and
+already the girls and their guardian had discovered that Edith was too
+fond of tea and coffee and sweets and modern novels for her own health
+or happiness.  The trouble was that her home was too filled with small
+brothers and sisters and a father and mother too poor to make them
+comfortable, so that the eldest daughter had been forced to find her own
+pleasures.
+
+The last two members of the Sunrise Hill camp were unknown to the other
+girls until a few days before.  They were two sisters, daughters of a
+favorite doctor, cousin of Miss McMurtry's, who had been pupils in a
+fashionable boarding school in Philadelphia.  They were not alike,
+either in appearance or character, for the older one of them thought too
+much about clothes and wealth and position, and so immediately fell to
+admiring and imitating Betty, while the other was an impossible tomboy,
+more like a feminine Puck, the very incarnation of mischief, whose one
+idea of happiness seemed to lie in playing pranks.
+
+Juliet Field, the older girl, had light brown hair and eyes, was rather
+pretty and had a plump girlish figure, round fat cheeks with a good deal
+of color and a piquant, turned-up nose, while Beatrice, whom everybody
+called "Bee," wore her curly dark hair cut short, had a melancholy brown
+face entirely unlike her character and was as slender and small and
+quick in her movements as a tiny wren.
+
+The two sisters and Sylvia Wharton slept in the tent with Miss McMurtry,
+while the third tent sheltered Eleanor, Edith, Meg and, of course,
+"little brother".
+
+When Miss McMurtry had wakened to discover that four of the Camp Fire
+girls had gone in swimming without the others, she had not been pleased,
+more because she felt that Betty and Polly were too much inclined to be
+leaders among the girls and to disregard her advice.  They had not yet
+openly disobeyed her, so of course she had been unable to say anything
+to them, but now she made up her mind to hang in each tent the rules for
+each day's camp routine so that there could be no more uncertainty.
+Miss McMurtry had merely been waiting to decide what rules were wisest
+before making her schedule.
+
+As soon as their first masculine visitor departed Eleanor, Meg and
+Juliet announced breakfast.  At a comfortable distance from the kitchen
+fire a large white cloth had been spread on the grass and in the center
+stood the great basket of fresh strawberries just brought over by the
+young man to whom Polly had given such an uncomfortable reception.  A
+big coffee pot and two jugs of milk stood at opposite ends of the cloth
+besides toast and a dozen boiled eggs in a chafing dish, while from the
+nearby fire came the most delicious food odor in the world: bacon fried
+before open coals. Nevertheless the girls did not sit down to breakfast
+at once although they were dreadfully hungry.  Already they had
+established certain Camp Fire customs, and one was their morning habit
+of reciting some verse of thanksgiving in unison before beginning the
+real living of their day.  The hymn, which first introduced Betty to
+Esther was always sung at the close of each day, but this morning verse
+had always to be original and one girl at a time was allowed to make the
+selection.  To-day it had fallen to Polly's lot and she had taught it to
+the other girls over their camp fire the night before.
+
+So now the ten girls with their guardian in the center stood in a
+semicircle facing Sunrise Hill.  The sun had fully risen and the earth,
+as the Indians used to say, had "become white."  Led by Polly they
+slowly recited this ancient chant:
+
+"Shine on our gardens and fields, Shine on our working and weaving;
+Shine on the whole race of man, Believing and unbelieving; Shine on us
+now through the night, Shine on us now in Thy might, The flame of our
+holy love And the song of our worship receiving."
+
+And when they had finished, Polly O'Neill, with a note of reverence in
+her voice that gave it an unconscious dramatic quality she would have
+vainly tried to have at any other time, added: "We Camp Fire girls
+worship not the fire but Him of whom in ages past it was the chosen
+symbol because it was the purest of all created things."
+
+And then without further ceremony there was a sudden rush for breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE GUARDIAN
+
+
+Miss Martha McMurtry was an odd guardian for a Camp Fire club which owed
+its existence to Betty Ashton's enthusiasm, for two more different
+persons cannot well be imagined.  Of course the girls in the club were
+of many kinds and characters and it would have been almost impossible
+for any guardian to have been congenial with all of them, but it was
+unfortunate that the head of the Sunrise Camp and the two girls who were
+its leading spirits had at the beginning of the summer so little in
+common.  For there was no question but that Betty and Polly were
+leaders, one week in camp had been more than sufficient to prove this.
+
+Betty's influence was of course easy to understand, for she was
+uncommonly pretty and wealthy, and though spoiled and wayward, given to
+sudden generous impulses and affections which made her friends willing
+to overlook her faults.  With Polly, O'Neill the case was different, she
+had no money and was not particularly good looking, it was simply that
+the intensity of her emotions would always, whether as a woman or child,
+make her a force for good or evil.  When Polly was happy persons about
+her found it almost impossible not to share in her mood, she had such a
+delicious sense of humor and was so full of clever jokes and delicate,
+unconscious flatterings.  Then when an ugly mood descended upon her,
+and, as Polly in Irish fashion used to say, "a witch rode on her
+shoulders," it was almost equally impossible to ignore her foolishly
+tragic points of view.  There is an old name for Ireland, Innis Fodhla,
+which means the Island of Destiny, and though Polly had been born in a
+little New England village, nevertheless, in her blood there was a
+strain of those inheritances which have made the Irish nation so unlike
+all others.
+
+While Betty and Polly were friends there was apt to be peace among all
+the girls in camp, but if they should disagree?  Ah well, they had never
+really had any serious differences of opinion in their lives which
+Mollie, after the passing of a day or two, had not been able to smooth
+over.  And they both had every intention of making themselves as
+agreeable as possible to their guardian.
+
+Of course from the beginning of things it had been perfectly apparent
+that Betty would never voluntarily have chosen Miss McMurtry for their
+camp guardian, but finding that her science teacher was the only woman
+in Woodford who knew about the Camp Fire movement and was able to spend
+the summer with them, she had accepted the situation with as good a
+grace as possible.
+
+Miss Martha McMurtry was not an attractive woman when she first came
+into the Sunrise Camp.  Names have an odd fashion of describing the
+persons who own them and Miss McMurtry's exactly described her.  Have
+you not a mental picture of a tall, learned young woman, with straight
+black hair, which she wore pulled back very tight, forming an
+unattractive knot at the back of her head?  Of course she also wore
+glasses, having spent all her life inside of books until her pupils were
+convinced that she knew everything in the world.  She did know a great
+deal and because of her knowledge was a splendid Camp Fire guardian, but
+there were a few things about human nature which her girls were to teach
+her in exchange for her science.  Her information covered a number of
+fields, for while she taught botany and chemistry at the Girls' High
+School, she had also taken a two years' course in domestic science
+before beginning her teaching.  Miss McMurtry was only twenty-six, had
+no family and lived all alone in a small house in Woodford. However, she
+appeared much older, and one of the questions her pupils were never able
+to answer was whether she had ever had a man call on her in her life.
+About her early history there was very little known, as she did not care
+to talk about herself and no one asked about her past.
+
+About five o'clock on the next afternoon Miss McMurtry and Esther Clark
+were seated not far from a small fire which they had lately built near
+their pine grove.  The day was not cold, but New Hampshire is seldom
+very warm in June and, besides, no one in camp ever tried to resist the
+opportunity for having a fire when most of their pleasure in being in
+camp centered around it.
+
+Back and forth from the pine grove to his friends Hai-ya, Little
+Brother, traveled.  He was cheerfully engaged in bringing pine cones to
+Miss McMurtry, and piling them into a small mound, later to be thrown on
+the fire.  On the ground between the woman and girl were some odd pieces
+of khaki galatea, bits of leather fringe, shells and beads, and Esther
+was busily sewing.  Miss McMurtry was writing: several times she had
+torn up what she had written, throwing the waste paper into the fire,
+but finally she handed a sheet to Esther in a hesitating way.
+
+"See what you think of this, Esther?" she asked.  "You see the Camp
+Guardians are advised to follow certain rules and regulations in camp
+life and I have been trying to decide what would best suit us.  Please
+tell me what you think?"
+
+Esther looked the paper over thoughtfully, and then began reading it
+aloud.
+
+6:30 A.M. Arise, wash, either bathing in lake or tent, then air bedding
+thoroughly.  Hoist American flag, salute it.  Three girls prepare
+breakfast.
+
+7:30 A.M.  Recite in unison morning verse, eat breakfast, make up own
+bed and clean tent, also do whatever share of work is apportioned for
+the day.
+
+10 to 12 A.M.  Devote to practice in one of the seven Camp Fire crafts
+for obtaining honors.
+
+12 to 1 P.M.  Three girls prepare dinner.
+
+1 to 2 P.M.  Dinner served.
+
+2 to 3 P.M.  Rest.
+
+3 to 5:30 P.M.  Recreation.
+
+5:30 to 6:30 P.M.  Three girls prepare tea.
+
+6:30 to 7 P.M.  Tea served.
+
+7:00 to 8:30 P.M.  Camp Fire, stories, songs, confidences, etc.
+
+8:30 P.M. Milk and crackers, bed.
+
+9 P.M.  Lights out.
+
+Ester read the schedule over the second time and then nodded her head
+approvingly.  "It's splendid and I am sure the girls will think it can't
+be improved upon," she answered, adding the latter part of her speech as
+she handed the paper back, for Miss McMurtry was looking troubled and
+Ester half guessed the cause.
+
+Miss McMurtry said nothing, however, only picking up a piece of Ester's
+sewing.
+
+"What is this you're making, Ester?" she inquired.  "I thought you had
+made your ceremonial Camp Fire dress some time ago!"
+
+Ester did not reply at once as she bent more closely over her work, but
+on being asked the question the second time returned with an attempt at
+speaking carelessly: "Oh, it's Betty's costume, I hope you won't mind,
+but she says really she never has had time to do any sewing since our
+club was formed.  So, as we are to have our June Council Fire to-night,
+I promised to finished it for her.  You see this is our most important
+meeting because that afternoon in town we did not have an opportunity to
+arrange appropriate ceremonies."
+
+Miss McMurtry nodded, "Yes, but I thought it was part of our plan to
+have each girl make her own dress.  Even Sylvia Wharton has done her
+best to help."
+
+Miss McMurtry picked up a portion of the neglected dress, however, and
+began to assist Esther.  "I wonder if it is a good thing for you and
+Betty to be together," she remarked thoughtfully.  "Of course I know
+Mrs. Aston's intentions were for the best in taking you to live with
+them at this late date and  they will probably be very kind to you, but
+really there isn't any reason, Esther, why you should take all the cares
+away from Betty. She seems to be one of the persons in the world for
+whom nothing is ever made difficult, while you--"  Breaking off abruptly
+she turned to see if her small charge was still busy and then shaded her
+eyes from the sun.
+
+Esther laughed happily.  Not so shy and awkward here in the woods with
+the other girls, she had lately thought little of her own lack of
+advantages. "You needn't worry about me," she now replied, stopping her
+work for a moment to look off across the fields for the return of the
+other Camp Fire Girls.  "Already I perfectly adore Betty.  Of course she
+does not care a great deal for me, for there is nothing in me to attract
+her, but all my life I have wanted some one to love, and sort of take
+care of and do things for.  Of course Betty has so many people she does
+not need me much now, but some day.  Oh well, as she herself says, one
+never can tell just how things may turn out in this world."
+
+"Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo!" A far cry from several voices sounded across
+the fields and a few moments later Betty Ashton, Meg, Eleanor and Juliet
+Field came into view.  Betty was wearing her every day Camp Fire costume
+with the official hat of blue cloth embroidered with a silver gray "W"
+on a dark red background and over her shoulder was strapped a smart
+knapsack.  She seemed to dance away from the other girls, although she
+was not dancing but running.  Yet such was her grace and slenderness
+that somehow she appeared:
+
+Like to a lady turning in the dance, Foot before foot from earth so
+slightly moved, That scarce perceptible her advance.
+
+Arriving first she threw herself down on the ground near Esther, tossing
+off her hat and resting her head on the other girl's lap.
+
+"I am nearly dead!" she exclaimed rather irritably.  "Two miles walk
+into town and two miles back is a good deal when one has been doing a
+thousand things beforehand.  Besides, I didn't find a letter from mother
+or father, and Mollie and Polly have seven from Mrs. O'Neill, one for
+each day of her trip from New York to Queenstown.  Of course it does
+take longer for a ship to land in Naples, so I am silly to be
+disappointed, yet I am just the same!  Besides, Polly was dreadfully
+obstinate and would insist on coming back to camp by another route, said
+it was shorter and much more adventurous than the open road.  So we
+parted, and Mollie and Sylvia and Bee axe returning with her.  She may
+be having more adventures than we did, but the way is not shorter, for
+we appear to have arrived first."
+
+Opening her knapsack Betty then handed two letters to Miss McMurtry and
+gave a little rolled package to Esther.  "Here is something for you from
+Dick; he doesn't seem to have written me either."
+
+Esther unwrapped her parcel.  "It is just a piece of music your brother
+told me about, an Indian love song.  He thought perhaps I could learn it
+and we could sing it together in camp.  He is very kind."
+
+Betty shrugged her shoulders.  "Oh yes, Dick is kind to nearly
+everybody, except to me sometimes when he thinks I need discipline.  But
+he and mother both think you have a remarkable voice, Esther, and that
+it will be a pity if you don't have it cultivated some day."
+
+Esther laughed, touching Betty's auburn hair affectionately.  It was
+loosened from her walk and curling round her face.  "That is my soul's
+desire, Betty," she whispered, surprised at her sudden burst of
+confidence. But Betty's manner with her was unexpectedly more intimate
+than it had been since their first meeting.  She could hardly have known
+that it was owing to the fact that she had just quarreled with her
+adored Polly.  Of course Betty did not intend to be deceitful, she was
+simply in the habit of seeking consolation from some source, whenever
+things went wrong with her.
+
+Now she put her hand the second time into her knapsack and, drawing
+forth a square white box, she proceeded to open it in a slightly
+shamefaced fashion and then handed it to Miss McMurtry.  "I am a
+dreadful backslider from Camp Fire rules, but I just had to have some
+candy this afternoon.  Do eat some with me, so I won't be the only
+sinner in camp," she begged.
+
+Miss McMurtry shook her head.  "Don't tempt Esther or any of the other
+girls, Betty," she replied in a tone that Betty was familiar with at
+school.  "One of the health craft rules you girls have promised to
+observe is to give up candy between meals for three months.  Of course
+if you wish to break your word you may, but I had rather you would not
+try to influence any one else."
+
+Betty banged the lid back on her box.
+
+"Oh," she replied unsteadily.  "I am sorry you feel about me in that
+way. I didn't mean to be a mischief maker, but you need not worry about
+Esther, for she is not the kind that falls from grace."
+
+She sat a few moments longer leaning her chin on her hand and looking
+toward the grove of pine trees where the shadows were now growing longer
+and darker as the afternoon lengthened.  Sorry to have fallen from grace
+herself, Betty at this moment would have perished rather than confess
+it.
+
+The other three girls had gone straight on up to the tents, Meg taking
+"Little Brother" with her.  But now Eleanor appeared at the opening
+before their kitchen tent and began vigorously ringing a large dinner
+bell.
+
+"Betty Ashton," she called, "it is half-past five o'clock and time to
+begin dinner.  You know it is your turn to help with Juliet and me.  Meg
+is putting the baby to bed."
+
+Betty encircled her hand above her lips forming a small trumpet.  "I am
+not going to help with dinner to-night, I am too dead tired," she
+halloed back. "I will help to-morrow instead."
+
+"To-morrow?" Eleanor cried indignantly.  "What has to-morrow, got to do
+with it?  You are no more tired than the rest of us and besides it is
+your turn to-night and we have promised not to try to get out of things
+unless we are ill."  Eleanor said nothing more, but even at a distance
+of a good many yards it was plain that she had flounced back inside the
+tent.  When she came out again with some pots and pans her air was one
+of conscious and offended virtue.
+
+A moment later Betty sighed.  "I wonder if you would mind taking my
+place this afternoon, Esther?" she inquired.  "I am very tired and you
+haven't been doing anything.  Would you mind, Miss Martha?"
+
+Betty made her request very prettily and really without the least idea
+that it could be refused, for she was not in the habit of being made to
+do what she did not wish.  With her own family to have said she was
+tired would have been regarded as a sufficient excuse for any change of
+plan.
+
+Perhaps Miss McMurtry would have been wiser had she agreed to Betty's
+request, and had she been another girl she possibly might have been more
+lenient.  Now she decided that Betty was simply trying to shirk her
+responsibilities and so slowly shook her head.
+
+"Of course if you are not well, Betty, I will be glad to take your place
+myself," she answered, trying to speak kindly.  "However, if I were you,
+I would hardly say that Esther has been doing nothing since she has been
+sewing all afternoon on the ceremonial dress you promised to make your
+self, so that you may wear it to our Council Fire to-night."
+
+Betty got up quickly.  "Please don't do any further work for me while we
+are in camp together, Esther," she demanded, "for it is evident that
+Miss McMurtry thinks I spend my time trying to impose upon you.  As far
+as the dress is concerned, I shall not need it to-night, for I shall not
+come to the Council Fire.  I will do my part in helping to get dinner,
+of course, but I prefer to rest afterwards."
+
+Hardly, knowing what she was doing because of her anger, Betty yet
+managed to get up quietly from her place and start toward camp without
+glancing at either Esther or Miss McMurtry, although she heard Esther
+following close behind her.  "Please don't disappoint us, dear," Esther
+pleaded.  "I know Miss Martha will be willing to let me do your work
+to-night, if we ask her again, and it will quite ruin our Council Fire if
+you are not with us. What will Polly say when you and she have planned
+the whole ceremony?  And I--I shall be so disappointed, for I am to be
+made a Fire-Maker to-night. Besides, you know we are to talk over the
+names we hope to be known by in our club."
+
+But Betty only walked steadily on as though deaf to the other girl's
+entreaty.  Near her own tent she turned at last and Esther could see
+that her eyes were full of tears.  "You are mistaken, Esther, though I
+am sure you are very kind," she insisted with her offended Princess air,
+about which Polly used so often to tease her.  "I am sure no one will
+miss me in the least and my absence will give you a chance to bestow on
+me the title you think really belongs to me, such as: 'Betty who won't
+bear her own burdens' or anything you prefer.  Please leave me alone
+now."
+
+So there was nothing more for Esther to do but to return to her work,
+knowing how little influence she had with Betty at any time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+PIPES OF PEACE
+
+
+Half an hour later Polly discovered Esther seated alone by her slowly
+perishing fire taking the last stitches in Betty's rejected ceremonial
+dress.  She had even embroidered on the left sleeve a small crown in
+gold colored silk, since Betty's old title "The Princess" would scarcely
+be changed whatever new names might be awarded to the other girls in
+their Camp Fire.
+
+"Where's Betty?" Polly inquired carelessly.  "I hope she wasn't cross; I
+suppose it was not kind of me to leave her and return another way, and
+she was right, it did make us late, but we had a delicious adventure!"
+Polly had dropped down on the ground and put her arms about her, knees,
+slowly rocking herself back and forth, her face shining with mischief
+and excitement, so that her color came and went quickly and tiny sparks
+appeared to dart forth from the blueness of her eyes and the blackness
+of her hair.
+
+But as Esther neither answered nor asked any questions Polly stared at
+her in amazement.  She had no particular emotion for Esther one way or
+the other, perhaps because she was not yet a rival in Betty's
+affections, but she had always tried to make herself agreeable to her
+and to have her feel like one of them; moreover, she did not enjoy being
+disregarded.
+
+Halfway up on her feet a glance at Esther's face made her drop back into
+her old position, except that she put one hand under the girl's chin,
+turning her face toward her.
+
+"For goodness' sake, Esther, what is the matter?" she demanded.  "I
+suppose it is Betty!"
+
+And Esther nodded, feeling an absurd disposition to shed actual tears of
+disappointment.  So much had been planned for to-night's Council Fire
+and this was the first disagreement in their camp.  Should Betty fail to
+appear, the other girls, learning the cause, were sure to take sides and
+no one would be really happy.
+
+Until Esther finished her story Polly listened without comment, although
+her face flushed and her lips were pressed close together.
+
+"I do think Miss McMurtry was a little hard," she said finally.  "It
+isn't fair to expect us to reform all at once and she might remember
+that Betty has never had the discipline of having to do things when she
+didn't wish to before.  It is different when one has been poor, isn't
+it, Esther?  Never mind, I will do my best.  Betty hasn't any right to
+make everybody uncomfortable just because she is offended, particularly
+when she has had so much to do with our plans for to-night."
+
+Polly disappeared, but when tea was served a short time later a signal
+to Esther reported that she had met with no success.  Betty helped with
+the evening work, saying nothing but looking pale and tired, so that
+Miss McMurtry wondered if she had been too severe.  Perhaps Betty was
+used up by her walk!  She would have liked to have talked to her but had
+no opportunity, for as soon as supper was over (and three other girls
+always did the clearing up) Betty immediately disappeared inside her
+tent, and when her three friends came in to dress for their meeting they
+found her in bed covered up with her blue blankets and not in the mood
+for conversation.
+
+Vainly Mollie and Esther attempted persuasion, reproaches, they received
+always the same answer--fatigue and not ill temper kept Betty from their
+entertainment.  She was sorry of course but they would probably have a
+better time without her.
+
+Curious, but in the half hour required by the three girls for their
+dressing, Polly, in spite of her promise, added not a single word of
+regret or entreaty in spite of Esther's pleading looks and Mollie's
+outspoken demands that her sister exert her influence.  Appearing
+utterly absorbed in her own costume and in admiring Esther's and
+Mollie's, Polly only shook her head.
+
+The June afternoon was a long one, so there still remained sufficient
+daylight for the girls to see to dress in their tent.  Over the crest of
+Sunrise Hill a pale crescent moon with a single star glowing beneath it
+had now arisen and the moonlight later on promised to be radiant.
+
+There were bursts of laughter, cries of admiration floating from one
+open tent to the other, for this was the first time the girls had seen
+one another dressed in their new costumes.
+
+Polly plaited her long black hair in two braids, twining it in and out
+with narrow strips of bright orange ribbon, and then around her head she
+bound a broader band of ribbon the same color with a single black
+feather just above her forehead on the left side.  With her dark hair
+and high cheek bones, which to-night were crimson with excitement, she
+made an unusually picturesque Indian girl.  Mollie's hair was softer in
+texture and less heavy, so that she wore it hanging loose over her
+shoulders.
+
+At first, however, Esther's appearance was not much of a success.
+Although, apparently lost in languor and uninterested in anything, from
+her couch Betty observed her, wondering what could be done.  For Esther
+to look so awkward and plain to-night, when as the first of their Camp
+Fire girls to be raised to the rank of Fire Maker she would be the
+center of all eyes, did seem hardly fair.
+
+Trying to make the best of herself and without the gift most girls have
+in this direction, Esther had also arranged her hair in two braids, but
+while her hair was thick it was too short to be effective in this style,
+and parted in the middle accentuated the plainness of her long face with
+its irregular features, light blue eyes and large mouth; moreover, the
+bright yellow of her khaki costume with its red fringes, gay shell and
+beads made her complexion appear in contrast paler than ever.  In
+despair she was twisting a band of bright red cotton decorated in brass
+spangles about her forehead, when a cry from Polly, who happened at this
+moment to catch sight of her, made her drop her head-dress.
+
+"Stop, and don't you ever so long as you live, Esther Clark, dare to put
+a touch of red near your face," Polly demanded autocratically, rummaging
+at the same time in a small box on a table which she knew held a number
+of trinkets belonging to Betty.  The next moment drawing forth a band of
+dull silver embroidery about an inch and a half wide, she crossed over
+to the older girl.
+
+"Please let me fix you a little differently," she urged coaxingly,
+beginning at once to unwind Esther's hair and combing it out over her
+shoulders; then loosening it in front she put the silver band like a
+crown about it.  Esther's hair wag red, of this there could be no
+denial, but now unbound it showed bright strands of gold and darker
+shades of red that could never have been discovered when tightly
+fastened to her head. Perhaps it was partly due to Polly's little act of
+friendliness making the other girl happier, but certainly there was a
+marked change for the better in Esther's appearance, so much so that
+Betty decided she looked almost pretty when a few moments afterwards her
+three friends bidding farewell to her went out leaving her alone in her
+tent, where the darkness was now closing in.  In parting, Mollie and
+Esther had added a final plea to Betty to join them, but still Polly had
+spoken no word.
+
+Lying alone on her couch Betty wondered why?  Of course Polly was always
+being swept off her feet by new people and new interests and so after
+ten days in camp would not be so fond of her, but it was odd that she
+cared nothing for her presence at their Council Fire to-night, since
+they had planned the whole ceremony together and were to play leading
+parts.
+
+Partly to close out the moonlight, which was now shining faintly inside
+her tent, and partly to shut her ears to the voices and laughter of her
+friends, Betty turned over on her balsam pillow with her face to the
+tent side, and there covering up her head lay perfectly still, so still
+that she would not even put her handkerchief to her eyes, although for
+some reason or other they were uncomfortably moist.
+
+Fifteen minutes passed and there was no noise of a returning footfall,
+but presently there was a faint, sweet odor in the lodge and Betty heard
+a low call such as a boy would make on a wild reed whistle.
+
+She did not stir, so the sound was repeated more shrilly, and by and by
+a pair of hands forcibly pulled the blankets down from her face.
+
+There stood Polly in her Indian costume with her intense love for the
+dramatic shining in her eager face and holding above Betty's head two
+perforated sticks, one painted blue to represent the sky, the other
+green to represent the earth, and both of them decorated in tiny
+feathers of birds and a pair of wing-like pendants.
+
+"Betty," Polly asked quietly, "do you remember the names of these two
+Indian treasures and how hard we have worked to make them as like the
+originals as we could?"
+
+"Of course, they are the calumets you are to use in the Council Fire
+ceremony to-night.  They are pretty!" Betty conceded.
+
+But Polly had dropped down by the side of her bed.  "They have another
+name, Betty, which isn't calumets and you know it, and we were to use
+them at our Council Fire to-night.  They are called 'pipes of peace' and
+I can't very well lead the party that is to bring them to camp and also
+the children who are to receive them."
+
+A silence in the tent then followed, lasting several moments.
+
+"Aren't you a little ashamed, Princess, thinking of the character of our
+ceremony this evening, not to be willing to be present?  It is to be war
+and not peace then, isn't it?"
+
+Betty laughed.  "I only said I was tired," she argued faintly.  "I am
+sure no one has the least reason for thinking I am angry if I happen to
+prefer to rest."
+
+Then Polly began to feel that her case was won.  Very quietly she
+slipped over to a wooden dress-good's box covered with bright cretonne
+and, opening it, drew forth the ceremonial dress so recently finished by
+Esther, then she lighted two candles on either side the table underneath
+their small mirror.  Betty's head-dress was there, a band of her
+favorite blue velvet ribbon with three white feathers crossed in front.
+Catching it up Polly waved it temptingly.
+
+"Come on, Betty, and let me help you dress, everybody is waiting for us
+and there never was such a night!"  But seeing that her friend still
+hesitated, added in a tone which was a question, not a reproach: "Don't
+you think, dear, that so long as you really originated our Camp Fire
+club and asked Miss McMurtry to be our guardian, it is rather a pity for
+you to make the first break?  Isn't one of the Camp Fire ideas to learn
+to put the happiness of a good many people before our own personal
+desires?"
+
+In a half minute Betty was out of bed with her Camp Fire dress nearly
+on. "If you are going to turn preacher and reform at this time of life,
+Polly O'Neill, then goodness knows what is to become of me!  Once you
+were my partner in crime, but now--well, it is hard to think of you even
+yet as 'Saint Polly'!"
+
+"And will be to the end, me darling," Polly agreed, dropping into her
+Irish brogue from sheer pleasure that her purpose was accomplished.
+
+Five minutes later the two friends were hurrying forth toward a circular
+piece of ground some yards from their tent, which to-night the girls
+wished known as their "earth lodge."  There the other Camp Fire members
+had already assembled with a great pile of wood in their midst waiting
+to be kindled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+UNDER THE ROSE MOON
+
+
+In June the moon of the Camp Fire girls is known as the Rose Moon.  But
+there were no roses blooming near their camping grounds at Sunrise Hill
+to-night and only the odor of the pines made the night air fragrant.
+
+Betty went straight up to Miss McMurtry, however, and in her hand
+carried a small cluster of pink roses.
+
+"I brought you these from our garden at home this afternoon; the house
+is closed, but our old gardener is miserable because no one is about to
+enjoy his flowers.  Please wear them."
+
+Then before the older woman could do more than murmur "Thank you," Betty
+had slipped away and taken her place in the circle of girls between Meg
+and Esther, not without noticing, however, that their guardian looked
+unusually well in a dress of plain white serge with her dark hair bound
+about her head like a coronet.  Also she saw that Miss McMurtry's face
+had brightened, as she placed the flowers in her belt and felt that
+peace was restored between them even before the beginning of their
+ceremony of peace.
+
+The little company had evidently been waiting for the appearance of
+Betty and Polly, for now Miss McMurtry stepped into the center of their
+group and there was instant silence.  She looked slowly about at the ten
+faces gazing upon her with rapt attention and then sang in a low tone,
+and yet one that could be distinctly heard, this ancient Indian chant.
+
+"To-day our Father (Sun) shone into our lodge, his power is very strong,
+To-night our mother (Moon) shines into our lodge, her power is very
+strong, I pray the Morning Star (their Son) that when he rises at
+daybreak, he too will shine in to bless us and give us long life."
+
+This chant signified the opening of the Council Fire.  For the next
+moment Miss McMurtry turned toward the heap of wood carefully placed in
+the center of the circle, by the wood-gatherers.  A little pile of paper
+with some small chips and dried twigs on top of it lay on the ground,
+above which leaned a pyramid of larger logs, waiting to be lighted.
+
+Kneeling close by this pile the guardian of the Sunrise Camp Fire took
+from her pocket a bit of flint and a piece of steel, striking them
+sharply together.  Tiny sparks flew forth but no answering crackle
+resounded from the wood and paper, although the sparks darted in and out
+among them like miniature fireflies.  Once more Miss McMurtry tried her
+flint and steel according to the prescribed rules, but again the result
+was failure.
+
+Of course matches were not a luxury at Sunrise Camp and in the making of
+their daily fires the campers were not superior to the using of them,
+but this lighting of their first real Council Fire was to be a truly
+important ceremony and greatly the members desired to return to the
+primitive method of fire-making.
+
+There must be something more than superstition in the old axiom that the
+third time is charm, perhaps three efforts are required for the training
+of the human will; but however that may be, at the third striking
+together of the metal and the flint the Sunrise Council fire sprang into
+life, stick by stick it blazed forth, until at last a tongue of flame
+leaping up in the air encircled the whole pyramid, setting the pine logs
+into a splendid flare.
+
+On ten different faces it shone, revealing as many characters when,
+seated in Indian fashion on straw mats upon the ground, the Camp Fire
+girls now repeated in unison their "Ode to Fire."
+
+"Oh, Fire! Long years ago when our fathers fought with great animals you
+were their protection. From the cruel cold of winter, you saved them.
+When they needed food you changed the flesh of beasts into savory meat
+for them. During all the ages your mysterious flame has been a symbol to
+them for Spirit. So (to-night) we light our fire in remembrance of the
+Great Spirit who gave you to us."
+
+Then Polly slowly arose from her place, approached the flames and cast
+upon them a great bunch of sweet dried grass; a moment later the rising
+smoke filled the air with an odor like incense.
+
+But the chief feature of to-night's ceremony was to be the elevation of
+Esther Clark to the rank of Fire-Maker.  For three months had she been
+working to gain the fourteen necessary requirements and the twenty
+elective honors, yet now as the moment for receiving her reward drew
+near she felt a strong disposition to run away.  Betty must have guessed
+her feeling, for at the critical moment she slipped her arm through the
+older girl's, smiling at her and pressing her hand encouragingly.
+
+"Don't be foolish and don't be frightened, Esther," she whispered
+encouragingly, "for you are only to receive the honor that is your just
+due!"
+
+Curious how often in the years that would follow, these same simple
+words of Betty's were to be repeated in almost the same form to the girl
+now seated at her side!
+
+Seeing that Esther was too timid to approach the center of the circle
+alone, Betty accompanied her, standing a little to one side, while
+Esther, in order to show her complete understanding of the whole Camp
+Fire idea, repeated once again in her low beautiful voice (almost her
+only attraction at this time of her life) "The Firemaker's Desire," the
+same verse she had recited to Betty Ashton over her own fire on the day
+of their first meeting in the Ashton home.  Then Miss McMurtry slipped
+over Esther's head a string of twenty shining beads representing her new
+honors, and amid much clapping of hands from their small audience the
+two girls returned to their places, Esther wondering if she were not
+almost as happy in Betty's companionship as in her new title.  For
+remember, she had never had any intimate tie in her life, no father or
+mother, no sisters or brothers, and only the care and kindness of
+strangers until Miss McMurtry had made of her a friend.
+
+All this time Polly O'Neill has been vainly trying to pretend that she
+is devoutly interested in what is taking place, although any one knowing
+her would have understood that Polly's real attention was absorbed in
+the feature of their Council Fire ceremony in which she was to play the
+leading role.  Now without further delay, and followed by Meg, Eleanor,
+Beatrice and the faithful Sylvia, she disappeared into the Pine grove
+not far from the gathering of the Council, while the remaining girls and
+their guardian drew nearer to their own fire, heaping it with fresh pine
+branches.
+
+And by and by, from the edge of the trees, the same notes from the reed-
+like whistle that had called Betty to her place in the ceremony of
+peace, now about to take place, were repeated.  Then along a white path
+of moonlight, in their Indian costumes, the five girls led by Polly,
+swaying her pipes of peace slowly above her head, came dancing with a
+queer, rhythmical movement of their bodies, arms and feet.
+
+A strange spectacle for these modern days, and yet many such an Indian
+dance had taken place in these same New England hills hundreds of years
+before!
+
+As they drew near enough to be plainly seen by the little party waiting
+in their "earth lodge," Betty got up from her place, lifting on high a
+fluttering white handkerchief tied to a birch pole.
+
+In the old days there were always two parties to this ancient Indian
+ceremony of peace: those bringing the calumets were called "the fathers"
+and those receiving them "the children".  So it was necessary that Betty
+should now indicate that "the children" were willing to receive the
+blessing the other party desired to bring.
+
+The five visiting girls stood facing those seated on the ground; Polly
+standing before their guardian and still waving her blue and green
+perforated sticks made her carefully memorized speech with the dramatic
+intensity dear to her theatrical soul.
+
+"These pipes of peace once symbolized heaven and earth to the Indians
+and the mysterious power that permeates all nature.  In their presence
+the Indians were taught to care for their children, to think of the
+future welfare of their people and to live at peace with one another.
+The Indians were supposed to be a savage race and yet their prayer seems
+to come very near to the ideals of the Camp Fire girls.  May we also
+live in peace with one another, learning from the women of the past all
+that was best in their lives and refitting it to the needs of the now
+women of to-day and to-morrow."
+
+Then at the end of her invocation she moved quietly from one Camp Fire
+girl to the other, waving her blessing of peace over each bowed head.
+And as she moved she sang the Indian song of peace, the other girls
+straightway joining in, but it was not Polly's voice but Esther's that
+carried the music of the refrain far out over the fields, carried it at
+last to the ears of some one who had been seeking the home of the
+Sunrise Camp for the past two hours.
+
+"Down through the ages vast On wings strong and true, From great
+Wa-kon-da comes Good will to you--Peace that shall here remain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+NAN
+
+
+At the close of the calumet ceremony the girls immediately drew closer
+together about the fire, making ready for an informal discussion.  Of
+course they had been uncommonly serious for the past hour, but the night
+was so mystically beautiful with the new moon casting a silver radiance
+over the hills and fields, that there in the yellow glow of the Council
+Fire the girls had felt the inspiration of its beauty and their own
+seclusion.
+
+Since darkness had fallen there had been no noise save the murmur of
+their own voices and the cry of "Hinakaga", the owl, like a sentry at
+his post making his report from the grove of pines.
+
+Once or twice as the time slipped away Miss McMurtry had faintly
+suggested that the hour had come for retiring, but always the girls, led
+by Polly O'Neill, had pleaded that to-night was not like other nights,
+and they must be allowed a slightly longer respite.  During the earlier
+part of the evening, when she had believed no one observing her, Polly
+had evidently been on the lookout for something or some one, for she had
+kept glancing slyly out across the country toward the path leading to
+their camp; now, however, this idea must have passed from her mind, for
+she was as completely absorbed as her companions in the selection of the
+new names, which the girls might hope to bear in their Camp Fire club.
+
+Miss McMurtry talked very little--persons who are deep students rarely
+do; far more apt are those of us who play upon the surface of life to
+like to do our thinking aloud.  So now, the Council was surprised to
+hear her speak in so earnest a tone that every one else was silenced:
+
+"Girls, I want you to do me a favor to-night.  I don't know whether it
+is usual for the guardian of a Camp Fire club to have a new title
+awarded her, but nevertheless I want you to give me one.  You see I am
+Miss Martha or Miss McMurtry to most of you at school and really I wish
+to forget that I am a schoolmarm this summer and to have you forget it.
+I have been finding out a good many things since I came into camp,
+though it hasn't been very long, and one of them is that a guardian does
+not need so much to be a teacher as a friend to her girls.  You see no
+guardian can know everything that you girls are studying to gain your
+elective honors, but, if we are friends we can work them out together."
+
+Deeply grateful was Betty Ashton for the night and the shadows of the
+firelight that were playing on her face while Miss McMurtry was making
+this little speech, which she could hardly help knowing was directed in
+a large measure to her.  However, she could not refrain from giving
+Esther's arm a knowing pinch and then raising her eyes to intercept a
+returning glance from Polly.
+
+Possibly Miss McMurtry expected Betty's point of view, even if she did
+not see her express her surprise, for although some distance away from
+her place in the circle her next remark was addressed to Betty.
+
+"Betty, can't you think of a name for me?" she asked deliberately,
+wondering what answer under the circumstances she would be apt to
+receive. "I know you and Polly have been reading a good deal in order to
+find new names to suggest to the girls, so haven't you come across a
+name that might be suitable for me?  There are astrologers and fortune
+tellers who believe that one's good or evil fate depends on bearing an
+appropriate name and I have always hated mine."
+
+"But it exactly suits you and doesn't make you ridiculous like my name
+does me!" Sylvia Wharton announced unexpectedly, breaking into the
+conversation for the first time during the evening in her dull, even
+tones.  "What is really horrid is to have a name that suggests some one
+very beautiful and graceful--a name that sounds like water running over
+pebbles in a brook and then to look like I do.  I wish everybody would
+call me Mary Jane!  I would like to have a plain, homely name."
+
+Such was the astonishment following Sylvia's protest that no one spoke
+for at least half a minute.  Who could have supposed her capable of
+developing so much of an idea?  For once in their acquaintance Polly
+(for of course Sylvia managed to be next her) laughed with the little
+girl instead of at her, at the same time taking the trouble to give one
+of her stiff flaxen braids an amused tug, while Miss McMurtry, in order
+to break the silence, went on talking about herself.
+
+"Of course my name suits me, Sylvia, that is the worst of it," she
+laughed. "How can any one named Martha escape being a Martha?  Oh, I
+presume the name taken by itself is a good old-fashioned one, but in
+combination with McMurtry it has such an old-maidy, school-teachery
+sound that I have been compelled to live up to it.  Now, Betty, please
+make a suggestion."
+
+Betty flushed and at the same time smiled to herself.  The Indian name
+"Pokamp" or catbird had come to her mind shortly after her quarrel with
+Miss McMurtry during the afternoon.  "Minerva," she now proposed
+faintly, "she was the Goddess of Wisdom."
+
+"Gracious no, that is worse than Martha to live up to!" Miss McMurtry
+objected and also declined just as decisively the dignity of "Hypatia"
+and "Aspasia', when those learned ladies of ancient times were offered
+for her consideration.
+
+"We might call you 'Our Lady Protector'; it is just another expression
+for guardian," Mollie O'Neill proposed uncertainly, not because she had
+any enthusiasm for her idea but because no one else had anything better
+to introduce, but before Miss McMurtry could answer, Polly's laugh had
+settled the proposition.
+
+"Or we might call Miss Martha 'Chest Protector' or 'Bella Donna
+Plaster', which is a very soothing title, meaning 'Beautiful Lady
+Covering'," she teased.  "Suppose, Miss Martha, that we just wait and
+perhaps follow the old Indian custom of choosing your name through a
+dream or the first object we see at an appointed time.  But I must be
+allowed to bestow Mollie's new name upon her," she added, gazing
+sentimentally up into the sky and putting her arm apologetically about
+her sister, riot knowing how much she might have enjoyed being laughed
+at in public.
+
+This time, however, it was Mollie who plainly scored, for she only
+laughed good humouredly saying: "Go ahead, Polly, you have arranged
+everything else for me in my life except my name and you only didn't do
+that at baptism because you were but a few weeks old!"
+
+During the shouts of merriment, Polly, acknowledging her autocratic
+tendencies, could only hide her diminished head on her sister's
+shoulder; nevertheless, sitting up again a few moments later she pointed
+one hand in a dramatic fashion toward the heavens.  "Only hear the name
+I have found for you and you will forgive me much, Mollie Mavourneen,"
+she pleaded.  "It is a part of our Camp Fire education to study the
+stars, isn't it?  Well, see the Seven Brothers, the Great Bear family
+forming the Big Dipper in the northern sky.  How many of us know that
+those stars were shot up there to escape the wrath of their terrible
+brother, Grizzly Bear, according to Indian astronomy.  Now see that
+small star just at one side of the handle of the Dipper, known as
+'Sinopa'.  Don't you think we ought to call Mollie, 'Sinopa,' when it
+means 'Little Sister'?"
+
+Overwhelmed by the general approval of Polly's suggestion, Mollie would
+never have had the courage to oppose it, but fortunately had no such
+desire and so as usual agreed to her sister's wishes.
+
+"Marjoram" the girls next voted an appropriate new name for Margaret
+Everett if she needed one, because in the first place the word was like
+her own name and more important was its pretty German meaning, "happy-
+minded", one of those rare plants that has no single ugly quality.
+
+Edith Norton agreed to be called "Apoi-a-kimi," because the Indian word
+meant "light hair" and she was particularly proud of her own fluffy
+blonde hair even though since becoming a Camp Fire girl she had felt
+compelled to hide away her puffs.
+
+Very easily might the girls have continued this discussion of their
+titles until the sun rose beyond their Sunrise Hill, had not Miss
+McMurtry suddenly looked at her watch by bending close to the light of
+their fire. Then she rose so quickly and with such a sharp exclamation
+of surprise that several of the girls got up with her.
+
+"Camp Fire maidens, what are we thinking of?  It is after ten o'clock
+and we must say good-night and extinguish our fire.  What a wonderful
+night it has been, so quiet, so serene that I think no one of us will
+soon forget it!"  Very naturally she looked away from the group of girls
+close about her for a wider view of the landscape, hoping that this
+vision of its beauty might remain with her.  Already the early splendor
+of the night was beginning to fade and although the moonlight still made
+the objects near by fairly distinct, farther off they were black and
+ghostlike.  Perhaps for this reason Miss McMurtry at first made no sign,
+though believing she saw a small object dart forth from the shelter of
+the pine trees, run a few steps, crouch down and then getting up again
+run on a few feet more.
+
+Of course she and the Camp Fire girls felt perfectly safe in their
+retreat in the woods, although just at the beginning of their
+encampment, when the nights closed down upon them, some few of the girls
+had felt awed and nervous, now after ten such experiences the sense of
+unfamiliarity was quite gone.
+
+Sunrise Hill was on the border of the Webster farm, two miles from the
+village and well out of the way of trespassers.  There were no wild
+animals about in these New Hampshire hills, for hunters had long since
+driven them away, and yet Miss McMurtry wondered dimly if the object
+plainly intending to come up to them could be an animal.  She did not
+have to wonder very long, however, for the object soon rose on two legs
+and was plainly a human being.
+
+What should be done?  Miss McMurtry did not wish to alarm the younger
+girls, when there was no possible reason for fear, and yet she was
+annoyed, for if some one were trying to spy upon them at this hour the
+intruder must be summarily dealt with.  Fortunately, Polly O'Neill had
+risen when her guardian did and happened to be standing next her at this
+minute.  Slipping her arm through Polly's a slight movement drew her
+aside.
+
+"Polly," she whispered, "there is something or someone coming toward us;
+let us go forward quietly and find out what or who it is."
+
+Instantly catching the direction of Miss McMurtry's guarded glance,
+Polly, not hesitating a second, broke away and ran forward alone to meet
+the advancing figure.  Nevertheless, the older woman followed so
+promptly that she was able to catch the girl's first words even before
+seeing the person to whom they were addressed.
+
+"Why, Nan Graham, what do you mean by coming out here so late?" Polly
+demanded.  "When I told you that you might look on at our Council Fire
+to-night I thought of course that you would come to camp before dark so
+that I could ask permission and explain."
+
+Half leading, half pulling the newcomer, who after all was only another
+young girl, Polly drew her closer to the circle of their slowly dying
+fire. First she looked appealingly at their guardian, who had walked
+forward with them, and then from one of her friends' faces to the other
+until she found Betty's.  There were no returning glances of sympathy
+from a single one of the Camp Fire girls.
+
+Unfortunately, Nan Graham was not a stranger to any member of the
+Sunrise Hill club except to Juliet and Beatrice Field, who were
+themselves strangers in Woodford.  Had Nan been, her reception would
+have been more cordial, even though appearing at night in so
+unconventional a fashion. But the newcomer had been a student with most
+of the girls at the high school the winter before and had been expelled
+for supposed dishonesty. Her family was impossible, the father, a man of
+good birth fallen so low that his own people would have nothing to do
+with him, had married an emigrant woman and Nan was one of many
+children.  The girl had tried working in the village, but no one cared
+to trouble with her long.  And yet she was just a little more than
+fifteen years old and not an unattractive looking girl, although her
+face was curiously older than any other girl's in the group about her.
+To-night she was wearing a shabby black frock, torn and dusty, and her
+coarse short black hair was unpleasantly disheveled.
+
+"I couldn't leave home until late and then I lost my way," she replied
+finally, answering Polly's question in a sullen fashion because of the
+weight of disapproval.
+
+"What right had you to say she could come, Polly O'Neill, when you
+understand that we like to keep our Council Fires to ourselves?" flashed
+Betty, and then stopped, knowing that it was plainly not her place to
+speak first.
+
+"You should have returned home when you found you had mistaken the way,"
+Miss McMurtry frowned.  "You ought not to have come through the woods
+alone at this hour of the night, Nan, as you know perfectly well.  But
+there is no way now for me to send you back to-night, though I am sure I
+don't know what to do with you.  Polly, I think you owe it to us to
+explain why you invited a guest to camp and then gave us no warning so
+that we might have been prepared."
+
+Under the influence of the meeting of the Council Fire and perhaps more
+under the spell of Polly's magnetism than she realized, Miss McMurtry,
+although it was plain that she was a good deal vexed, did not put her
+question severely.
+
+So it was naturally irritating, not only to her but to a number of the
+girls as well, to have Polly, in the midst of the general disapproval,
+suddenly shrug her shoulders and give a characteristic laugh.  "Oh, for
+goodness' sake, don't let us make a mountain out of a molehill!" she
+begged.  "I was coming back to camp this afternoon and happening to pass
+Nan's home, she told me something that I thought it great fun for us to
+know.  Some of our boy friends are coming out to camp to-morrow
+disguised as Indians and mean to take us by surprise.  We can be
+prepared for them and so turn the joke around the other way.  Well,
+after Nan told me this we talked for a little while, while Mollie and
+Bee and Sylvia walked on ahead. She seemed desperately anxious to hear
+about our camp and how we were living and what we were doing, so I told
+her to come along and see us.  I really don't see that she can do us any
+harm.  As far as to-night is concerned, why I will make up beds for us
+just outside our tent, for I have been wishing to sleep outdoors ever
+since we came into camp."
+
+"And then I can go back home again in the morning," the newcomer said
+with a scowl.  "I wasn't meaning to do any harm just by looking on."
+
+Polly would have liked to have embraced Margaret Everett on the spot,
+for now separating herself from her friends she came shyly forward
+taking the strange girl's hand.  "I am sorry you have had such a
+tiresome walk," she said kindly; "come let us all get ready for bed."
+
+Mollie and Sylvia Wharton followed Meg's example in speaking to their
+unwelcome visitor, but Betty set the example for the others, by merely
+passing her by with a nod of her head.
+
+However, when Esther and Mollie were both asleep, Betty came out from
+her tent and stood for a moment looking down at the two figures on their
+hastily improvised beds only a few feet away from her own tent.
+
+One of them stirring, she bent over her whispering: "Good-night, Polly;
+of course there is no harm in Nan's being here one night, but please
+don't ask her to stay longer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+"NOBODY WANTS TO BE DONE GOOD TO"
+
+
+A canoe containing three girls had been out on the waters of the lake
+near the foot of Sunrise Hill for the past two hours.  A part of the
+time it had been swiftly shot through the water only to rest afterwards
+in certain shadowed places, where fishing lines were quietly dropped
+over its sides, until now a flat birch basket in its stern was filled
+with freshly caught fish.
+
+There had been little conversation during this time, but now Polly
+O'Neill, letting her paddle rest for a moment, said to her fellow
+oarsman:
+
+"Come, Betty, let us drift for a while.  We don't have to get back to
+camp just yet, for it will be another two hours probably before our
+supposedly unexpected guests arrive, so we will have plenty of time to
+help with the preparations, to fry the fish and have Mollie make her
+inspired corn dodgers.  It will be rather good fun when the Indian
+chiefs appear to strike terror to our hospitality, if not to our souls,
+for us to be ready and waiting for them, Semper paratus, always
+prepared, we can assure them is a Camp Fire girl's motto.  But just now
+I wish to talk."
+
+Betty's back was turned to the speaker, but her sister, Mollie, sat
+facing her midway between the other two seats.  Quietly and without
+replying Betty acquiesced in the request, permitting their canoe to
+glide slowly toward a small island and getting her kodak ready for
+action.  One of her summer amusements was the making of a collection of
+animal and bird pictures, and now a large nest overhanging the water
+attracted her attention.
+
+Therefore it was Mollie who replied to her sister, although the remark
+had not been made directly to her.
+
+"Yes, Polly, we know you want to talk and we think we know what you want
+to talk about.  I saw it on your face at breakfast even if Betty didn't
+and knew perfectly well why you persuaded Miss Martha to let us come
+with you for the fishing and no one else, even when Sylvia Wharton was
+almost in tears at being left behind."
+
+"You don't know what I want to talk about, do you, Princess?  Mollie is
+absurd, for I am sure I was not thinking of it at breakfast," Polly
+halloed, wishing that her friend's face was toward her so that she might
+gain something from her expression.  A moment longer she had to wait for
+her answer because a great heron, startled by the noise, rose out of its
+nest flapping its great wings and ungainly legs and Betty's kodak
+instantly clicked with its appearance.  Then she shook her head slowly,
+still not turning around, as she replied:
+
+"Yes, I do know, Polly.  That is why I would not agree to come with you
+until I had first had a little talk with Miss McMurtry.  I didn't want
+to be obstinate if I am wrong, but she feels exactly as I do."
+
+Polly whistled softly, two bright spots of color showing on her high
+cheek bones, a signal with her of being desperately in earnest.
+Nevertheless she returned indifferently: "Of course if Betty and our
+guardian agree, then have righteousness and truth met together and there
+is no use wasting my breath by putting in my poor little plea."
+
+"There is no use in your being disagreeable, Polly," Mollie advised, who
+was not in the least afraid of scolding her sister, although rarely
+quarreling with her.  "In this case I think Betty is entirely in the
+right, for this is not a question of money or family or many of the
+things you and Betty disagree about, it is a question of the person!"
+
+"Gracious, what person?" Polly protested.  "You are both talking
+riddles. Have I mentioned anybody's name or proposed any mortal thing?
+If I happen to be interested in this Nan Graham and to believe that
+things have been made pretty hard for her, is it anybody's business?  I
+don't know just what it is about her that makes me feel as if she were a
+poor little hunted animal.  I really don't think anybody has ever been
+even decently kind to her in her life; she has always had a bad name,
+and it must be a pretty hard thing to have to grow up in the shadow of
+one with no one to give you a boost.  Take that affair at school; it was
+never positively proven that Nan was dishonest.  Only she had told a few
+lies and her family was so horrid.  Another girl might have been given
+another chance!"
+
+"Well, we can't give her a chance at our Camp Fire club this summer,
+dear, Miss Martha is positive about it, so don't pretend that is not
+what you have on your mind," Betty interrupted.  "I am sorry, but Miss
+Martha says she is a very different type of girl from the rest of us and
+might get us into trouble, and she is afraid our parents would not like
+her being with us."
+
+"I don't know about parents, but I am sure mother wouldn't mind our
+helping another girl, perhaps just because she is different."  And
+Polly's eyes filled with quick tears at the thought of her first long
+separation from her mother.
+
+But Mollie shook her head slowly though not unsympathetically.  "I am
+not so sure, Polly," she argued.  "You know mother is always urging you
+to be sensible first and sentimental afterwards, and says that half the
+trouble in your life will come from working the other way round.  Just
+take the question of the money; Nan Graham would never be able to pay
+her share, and although we let Mr. Ashton give us our camping outfit,
+each one of us is to pay her portion of our expenses and to try and find
+out how economical we can be.  It isn't fair to impose a girl on Betty--"
+
+"I have no idea of imposing Nan Graham on Betty," Polly interrupted
+hastily.  "If it ever comes to be just a question of money, why I will
+promise to pay her expenses and to try to be responsible for her."
+
+"You?"  Mollie stared.  "Polly O'Neill, you must be out of your senses.
+You know we have just barely enough for ourselves and are even trying to
+save a bit out of that, besides working at basket making and anything
+else we can do, to send mother some extra money."
+
+Polly smiled in a superior fashion.  "There are more ways for making
+money, Sinopa, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.  I have my own
+reasons for not telling you, but I expect to come into a sum of money
+shortly which will certainly be more than enough to pay this poor Nan's
+expenses."
+
+"But it is not the money that I care about in the least, Poay," Betty
+exclaimed, "and you know it!  Somehow I am just afraid that in some way
+Nan will bring unhappiness among us."
+
+"Of course it is not the money you care about, Princess."  (Polly's
+apology was as ardent as her suggestion.)  "Sometimes I wonder what
+would happen to you if you should ever be poor and have to learn to
+think about such an ugly, commonplace thing as money.  Never mind, I am
+going to be an American Sarah Bernhardt and you and Mollie can travel
+about in my private car with me.  But you understand if you agree to let
+Nan Graham stay in camp with us, I can't let her be an expense to you or
+the other girls."
+
+By way of answer Betty looked at her watch.  "It is getting pretty late,
+Polly, don't you think we had better get back to camp?" she proposed.
+
+In perfect accord the two girls now swept their canoe back to their
+landing place, for they could row perfectly together, swim, paddle a
+canoe, ride, play tennis, in fact do everything except have the same
+opinions.
+
+The two girls carried the basket of fish, leaving Mollie to tie up the
+canoe.
+
+"I hope you don't feel very disappointed, Polly, it was because I was
+afraid you might think it a good idea to have Nan Graham join our Camp
+Fire club that I asked you not to think of it last night," Betty said,
+apologetically, sorry as always to disappoint her friend and not
+unaffected by her point of view.
+
+"Ah, but you put it in my head, Betty Ashton.  Really I never dreamed at
+first of letting Nan do anything more than come and see what our Camp
+Fire life was like.  She was so eager and so interested when I met her
+yesterday that she seemed kind of pitiful to me.  She told me she was
+dreadfully lonely because nice girls wouldn't have anything more to do
+with her now and yet she didn't want really to be bad.  No one will take
+her to work, so she couldn't think what she could do with herself all
+summer.  Last night when you went in to bed I kept on thinking about her
+and about what our Camp Fire may mean some day when we are older and
+stronger ourselves and understand more about it.  Of course no one wants
+to be done good to, that is horrid and patronizing, but everybody wants
+to be made happier, rich people: and poor people too.  Remember how you
+once said that Wohelo, Work, Health and Love, solved all life's
+difficulties.
+
+"Wohelo means love. We love Love, for love is life, and light and joy
+and sweetness, And love is comradeship and motherhood, and fatherhood,
+and all dear Kinship. Love is the joy of kinship so deep that self is
+forgotten."
+
+"Now I wonder if comradeship and kinship really mean just caring about
+the people we would have had to care about anyway, our own friends or
+our own family?"
+
+Having unconsciously touched upon one of the biggest questions in the
+world and having no answer, the two girls were both silent for a moment.
+Then Polly added in a surrender unusual to her:
+
+"Don't worry, Betty, perhaps you are, right after all.  Nobody can live
+up to all the things we preach.  Anyhow it was, good of you to ask Miss
+Martha to let Nan spend the day with us.  She says she will never get
+over the pleasure of it as long as she lives."
+
+"Don't, Polly, really I do not think I can be expected to bear any more.
+You, have made me feel already that if Nan Graham ever does anything
+wrong or brings any sorrow on herself by her behavior, why it will
+somehow be my fault.  Why do you make me responsible when you know Miss
+McMurtry and most of the other girls are just as opposed to having her
+with us as I am?" said Betty, realizing that her defense was a sign of
+weakness and yet feeling that Polly had somehow driven her to the wall.
+
+"Because, Betty, you know that if you try you can bring some of the
+girls to your way of thinking and I can work on the others.  Then
+together if we promise to be responsible for Nan's good behavior, why we
+may be able to influence Miss Martha."
+
+Betty sighed.  Mollie was catching up with them and they had almost
+reached camp, which was a scene of the most amazing activity.
+
+"Ask me again to-night, Polly, I will try to think things over a little
+more."
+
+There was no opportunity for any further discussion, for at this instant
+Meg and Eleanor swept down upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+SURPRISING THE CAMP
+
+
+In the middle of the camping grounds on their return the girls now
+beheld Miss Martha McMurtry waving a large kitchen spoon in somewhat the
+same fashion that a conductor uses his baton to direct the energies of
+his orchestra.  Rushing from one spot to the other her aides were
+engaged in putting fresh wood on one smoldering camp fire, stirring up
+slumbering ashes in another, removing kettles to different points of
+vantage and generally giving the impression that they were preparing for
+the feeding of an army.  However, they were only getting ready for the
+entertainment of a few of their Boy Scout friends.
+
+Early that morning Nan Graham had been made to explain more fully the
+information bestowed on Polly the day before.  It seemed that her father
+had been engaged to do odd jobs at the camp of the Scouts several miles
+away from Sunrise Hill and had overheard the plan of the young men to
+test the mettle of the Camp Fire girls.  Take them by surprise, bear
+down upon them without warning, that was the way to discover whether the
+girls were lolling about reading novels and eating sweets as they
+suspected, or attending to the sterner duties of camp life.  Subject
+them to the trial of preparing an impromptu meal for hungry guests, in
+short, see whether the effort of the girls to effect an organization
+similar in many respects to the Boy Scouts wasn't sheer bluff.
+
+Nothing had been said, because of course it must have been so easy to
+surmise the amount of criticism and discussion that arose in Woodford
+when the village learned of the decision of the first Camp Fire girls'
+club to spend the summer together in the woods.  And sternest of all
+critics were the brothers, boy cousins and friends, most of whom
+belonged to the Boy Scout brigades, spending most of their spare time
+and money in them.  For of course the thing that was good for a boy was
+for that very reason bad for a girl, an age old argument, beginning with
+the question of educating women at all and extending now to their right
+to the vote.
+
+Curiously John Everett, Margaret's brother, was at first more bitterly
+opposed to the Camp Fire idea than any one else in Woodford.  Meg's
+place was at home, every girl's was, even though there was no one at
+home with her.  It was hard lines that his father had to be in Boston
+the greater part of the summer and that he would be in camp, but he was
+not going to have Meg getting drowned or burned up or worn out without
+masculine protection--away from home.  Should any one of these
+misfortunes overtake her at home--why somehow it would be different.
+
+But fortunately for Meg's summer happiness, her Professor father did not
+share in his son's opinions and after John had a long talk with Betty
+Ashton he became well, not convinced, but at least more open to
+conviction. Usually Betty did have this effect upon him, which was
+perhaps fortunate for them both.
+
+So John Everett might certainly be expected as one of the surprise party
+and probably Jim Meade, Eleanor's brother Frank Wharton, and Ralph and
+Hugh Bowles, who belonged to the same group of friends, besides, well,
+it was the entire uncertainty in regard to the actual number of their
+visitors which was keeping the Camp Fire girls so extraordinarily busy,
+their idea being to have everything prepared and hidden away and then
+produced as though they were in the habit of having just such a
+magnificent supply of rations always on hand.
+
+Eleanor and Meg had made an Irish stew of half their week's supply of
+meat and vegetables; Esther, assisted by Juliet Field, had baked enough
+beans for feeding half Beacon Street; while Miss McMurtry herself had
+presided over the giant loaves of brown bread, which can be easily
+boiled in closed tins and make specially superior camp food.
+
+Upon Beatrice, Sylvia and the unwelcome newcomer, Nan Graham, had
+devolved the cleaning up of the camp grounds and their work had been
+most thoroughly done, but indeed no one could be accused, of anything
+approaching sloth this morning when so much of their future reputation
+was at stake.  Only Edith Norton had been unable to help because of her
+work in town, but she hoped to be able to return to camp by noon so as
+not to miss the good times.
+
+At eleven o'clock every bit of the work, of preparation had been
+accomplished and Nan's report had said that the Scouts expected to
+appear just about the noon luncheon hour.  The food was hidden away in
+the kitchen tent and the girls rearranged their costumes, then after
+posting Nan, Beatrice and Sylvia as sentinels to give warning of the
+first approach of their guests, the other girls settled themselves to
+whatever occupations they considered might make the best impression.
+
+Eleanor got out the Camp Fire log book, whose cover she had previously
+decorated with a wonderful sunrise appearing above the summit of a
+purple hill, and now began to illustrate some of the inside pages with
+scenes recalling the events of the past ten days.  Mollie's tastes were
+too domestic for any deception, so she went on with her pretty basket
+weaving, while Esther sat near her studying the Indian song received the
+day before. However, the really impressive occupation was conceived and
+engineered by Polly's dramatic sense, for she engaged Miss McMurtry and
+the rest of the girls in the mysteries of knot tying, one of the
+difficult feats of camp craft, since there are a good many more
+varieties of knots than one has fingers.  For example, there is the
+square knot, bowline, alpine, kite string, half hitch, clove hitch for
+tying two ends together, and as many more for making knots at the end of
+a rope, and yet, unless one happens to be a Camp Fire girl, these
+comparatively simple accomplishments are entirely closed arts.
+
+Now everybody at Sunrise Camp is accounted for excepting its solitary
+masculine member--Little Brother.  During all the morning preparations
+he had been a very difficult problem, but finally washed and arrayed in
+a stiff white Russian blouse, Meg conceived the brilliant idea of
+attaching him to the camp totem pole.  The pole was simply a tree
+cleared of its branches at the present time, which the girls hoped later
+on to develop into a real Indian totem pole, but standing just a few
+yards in front of the group of tents it formed a center for all eyes and
+therefore seemed the best possible place for keeping a little boy always
+in sight.  Little Brother was at first very happy because he had with
+him the things he loved best: a discarded bathing shoe, a bottle of hard
+brown beans and an old cream whipper, that made the most delectable
+noises as one turned it about. Indeed, so soothing did its noises become
+that, on returning for the sixth time from her game to see that the
+small boy was safe, Meg discovered him fast asleep in a patch of
+sunshine on the grass.
+
+Five minutes before noon Sylvia Wharton came running breathless with
+excitement from her sentry post.  Dust was rising at some distance off
+in the curve of the lane where a path led across the fields to Sunrise
+Camp. Harder and faster the girls continued at their work, of course
+appearing superbly unconscious of possible interruption and yet ten
+minutes later, when Edith Norton returned from the village on her
+bicycle along the way of Sylvia's warning, there was a sort of general
+let-down feeling though no one confessed to it.
+
+Then half an hour passed, noon was in the background of the day and
+hunger was laying fierce hold on the camp members.  Their practice of
+knot tying abruptly ceased, Eleanor put her book and paints aside with a
+sense of relief, Mollie and Esther arose sighing.
+
+"We have got to have our own lunch, girls, we simply can't wait any
+longer," Miss McMurtry insisted, and no one seemed sufficiently
+inspirited to discuss the question, when unexpectedly a cry from Meg
+brought everybody to life.
+
+Little Brother had disappeared!  In spite of the professional knot-tying
+he had managed to slip away, leaving his moorings still attached to the
+pole. Ten seconds afterwards as many girls were searching for him, only
+Esther remaining behind with Miss McMurtry.  As his small footprints led
+directly to the grove of pines, his favorite playing ground, the entire
+party sought him there, and after running about for an eighth of a mile
+searching and calling, they came across the young man throned high on
+the shoulders of a six-foot Scout, clothed in khaki and leather boots
+but wearing a perfectly absurd Indian head-dress and false-face.  He was
+followed by ten other youths, gotten up in equally absurd fashions for
+the complete bewilderment of the Camp Fire girls.
+
+"Do take those ridiculous things off at once, John Everett," Betty
+demanded first, as she happened to be in advance of the other girls, and
+on John's immediately complying with her request, his companions
+followed his example.  Then gaily the entire procession made for camp,
+but as Miss McMurtry and Esther heard them coming when some distance
+off, they did not seem particularly surprised at their advance.  Indeed,
+the ridiculous fact was that the Scouts failed altogether to mention
+that their intention had been to steal into Sunrise Camp unperceived,
+and the girls were equally negligent in not expressing more profound
+amazement at their wholly unlooked-for visit.
+
+Only there was one special bit of surprise for Betty Ashton and possibly
+for Esther as well.  Richard Ashton had come down from Portsmouth to
+find out how Betty was getting on, and on hearing of the scouting
+expedition had joined their party.  Of course he only spoke to Esther in
+the same fashion that he did to his sister's other friends, nevertheless
+she felt more at her ease, perhaps because he was her one acquaintance
+in the group of young men.
+
+And Polly also had a surprise, though not so pleasant a one, for the
+youth whom she had tried to slay, like David did Goliath, was one of
+their Boy Scout guests and Polly wondered if it were her duty to inquire
+in regard to his wounded feelings or to pretend that to-day's more
+formal meeting was in reality their first?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+AWARNING
+
+
+But the girl did not have to decide the problem, for the young man
+solved it for her.
+
+They were in the midst of luncheon, which was spread out on a vast
+table-cloth covering ten or fifteen square feet of ground, when he arose
+solemnly and bearing his plate in his hand came over and sat down on the
+grass alongside of Polly.  In his khaki uniform, with his hair, skin and
+clothes so much the same color, he was far less countrified, indeed,
+almost good looking the girl conceded to herself, while waiting for him
+to speak first, giving her the clue to his attitude toward her.
+
+"You were awfully kind the other day and, I am much obliged to you," he
+said a trifle awkwardly, but with gracious intention.  "I am afraid I
+should have had rather an uncomfortable time of it but for you."
+
+Polly cast her eyes demurely toward her lap, turning her head slightly
+to one side, "I am afraid you did have an uncomfortable time anyhow.  I
+was very sorry."  She had flushed the least little bit, but her lips
+were twitching with amusement.
+
+The young fellow smiled.  "Oh, don't you be sorry," he protested, "leave
+that to the guilty person, or I am afraid she may keep you being sorry
+for her sins all the days of your life."
+
+"I will not!" Polly snapped, in such evident irritation that the young
+man leaned deliberately over her shoulder staring into her face.  Then
+he actually laughed.  "I am sorry myself now," he apologized, "but I
+thought you were the pretty one."
+
+"Well I am not and that is a horrid way to get even!"
+
+Again the young man laughed.  "I beg your pardon, I mean I thought you
+were the nice one!"  And this time Polly happening to catch his eye,
+which had some of her own sense of humor in it, laughed to herself and
+then swung round to talk to him more directly.
+
+"No, I am neither the pretty one nor the nice one," she avowed.   "There
+is Mollie sitting between Ralph Bowles and Frank Wharton and you can go
+talk to her in a moment.  But just the same I am sorry that I happened
+to hit you the other day and I was just as much surprised at its having
+happened as you could possibly have been."
+
+Her companion nodded as though to dismiss the subject.  "If Mollie is
+the nice one and the pretty one, would you mind telling me your name,
+then perhaps next time I may be able to tell you apart without your
+giving me such strenuous examples of your differences in character."
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders pretending to be entirely indifferent
+and yet a little piqued at the suggestion in the last sentence.  The
+difference between herself and Mollie, all in her opinion in her
+sister's favor, was a sensitive subject.
+
+"I was christened Pauline in baptism but I am usually known as Polly.
+However, my sister and I both recognize ourselves when called Miss
+O'Neill."  This was such an evident attempt on Polly's part to put her
+questioner in his proper place that he could not rise entirely superior
+to it, even though her intention to hit back was so transparent.
+
+"May I tell you my name now?" he asked in a more humble tone, as though
+wishful to make peace.
+
+"You don't have to tell me your name for I am very sure I know it
+already," the girl answered in a provoking manner, for which she had a
+peculiar talent.  "You see our guardian told us that you were the son of
+the Mr. Webster who owns the land on which we are camping, and I am
+convinced that there is no young man in New Hampshire boasting the last
+name, Webster, whose first name isn't Daniel!  Do you think we would so
+fail to commemorate our greatest statesman?  It must be rather dreary to
+be named for so great a person that you know whatever you may achieve
+yourself you must always sound like an anti-climax."
+
+This time it was surely Polly who had struck home, for the young man
+colored and applied himself to the food on his plate for at least a
+moment before he replied: "You are right, my name is Daniel and I have
+felt about it a little as you say, but then I am also called William,
+which is a better name for a farmer."
+
+"Farmer?" Polly forgot that she and her companion had been sparring and
+let a genuine interest creep into her tone.  "Do you really mean that
+you are going to be content to be a farmer all the days of your life, to
+stay right on here and never see anything or be anything else?  It
+sounds so strange to me--for a man to have no ambition!"  Almost she
+forgot her companion and sat frowning with her eyes more serious than
+usual and her thin face with its sensitive features and high cheek bones
+turned upward toward the peak of Sunrise Hill.  "I am a girl, but I am
+going all over the world and I am going to be an actress and do ten
+thousand delightful things just as fast as I can before I have a chance
+to get old."
+
+Gazing at her more intently than ever before in their conversation, the
+young fellow shook his head.  "No you won't,"' he said bluntly, "you
+will never be strong enough and you had better stay here in the hills
+and let some one look after you, your sister or--some one.  Yet you need
+not talk as though being a farmer was a thing to look down upon.  I am
+sure our great men all used to be farmers, George Washington and the
+rest of  'em. You must know their names better than I do.  So please
+bear in mind that I intend to do my best to make things grow--hayseed!"
+he laughed good humouredly, guessing Polly's secret scorn of him, "but
+at the same time I expect to see something and if I'm lucky to be
+something, though if I'm a first-class farmer it isn't so worse.  Do
+give me your plate, you have eaten very little and the rest of the crowd
+is getting dreadfully ahead of us."
+
+But Polly, jumping up hastily and the young man following her, led him
+over and introduced him to Mollie, with whom he spent the greater part
+of the afternoon.
+
+From two o'clock till sundown the hours at Sunrise, Camp were fairly
+strenuous ones since the Camp Fire girls insisted on comparative tests
+of skill with their Boy Scout guests.  Of course the young men agreed,
+although they were pleasantly scornful, until possibly owing to their
+morning's contest the girls actually won out in the knot-tying contest,
+which was supposed to be a peculiarly masculine accomplishment.  In
+running, jumping and feats of marksmanship the girls of course were
+easily outclassed by their opponents; however, Beatrice Field, who was
+so light and so small that no one considered her in the race, did come
+in second in a short thirty-yard dash.  Then Miss McMurtry held a kind
+of impromptu examination in questions of patriotism and nature lore, the
+girls and men managing to about equally divide the honors.  But the
+really extraordinary feature of the afternoon was that dull little
+Sylvia Wharton, the youngest member of the company, was easily first in
+half a dozen observation games most important in the training of Camp
+Fire girls and Boy Scouts.  For instance, in a Quick-sight experiment,
+the girls and boys walking rapidly from the camping ground to the shores
+of the lake, Sylvia had seen eight small objects more than any one else
+and she was so quiet and looked so stolid while doing it that Polly
+wanted to laugh, and began to doubt her stupidity.
+
+At six o'clock it still appeared as though the Boy Scouts intended
+remaining for the evening meal and camp fire; however, Miss McMurtry
+kindly but firmly bade them farewell.  The girls were tired and it was a
+long tramp back to the Scout camp.  There had been no suggestion from
+any one that the surprise visit had been made in any spirit of criticism
+and yet John Everett made a half-hearted apology to Betty and his
+sister.
+
+When the farewells were being said all round, he called the two girls
+aside:
+
+"I say," he murmured boyishly, in spite of his years and six feet, "I
+have got to confess that I never saw you girls looking so well, so kind
+of up to the limit before, and I thought by this time you would surely
+be fagged out, or bored, or sick of trying things out together.  Now I
+don't say I approve of this Camp Fire business, I won't go so far as
+that, but it does not seem to have done either of you any harm yet."
+
+And then laughing at his grudging attitude the three of them rejoined
+their friends, who were waiting to end their day together by singing "My
+Country, 'Tis of Thee."  And they were waiting because Esther Clark was
+needed for leading the song and in the last few moments she had
+disappeared with Richard Ashton, who had been watching the proceedings
+all day with an expression that was sometimes amused but the greater
+part of the time grave.  He had no opportunity for speaking to Betty or
+to any one else alone and only to Esther because he had just made a
+deliberate effort.  As they came slowly back from the pine grove
+together, Betty felt cross at Dick's choice of a companion when any one
+of her other friends would have been pleased by his attention.
+
+Then, too, Esther looked as serious as her brother and Betty hated
+unnecessary seriousness, besides Dick needed some one to make him gay,
+not an awkward, uninteresting acquaintance like Esther.  But there was
+no use in arguing with Dick, for he would always be kind to the people
+who were left out of things and seemed most to require kindness.  Sorry
+to have seen so little of her brother during his short visit, Betty now
+slipped her hand into his and held it tight while Esther, standing some
+distance apart from them, started the air for their parting hymn.  The
+girl was not thinking of herself and so was unconscious that the others,
+even while singing, were also listening with surprise and pleasure to
+the clear, rounded tones of her beautiful mezzo-soprano voice.  In
+reality Esther Clark was thinking only of Betty and the news that Dick
+Ashton had just told her.  Mr. Ashton, his father, had been taken ill in
+Italy and, though there was no immediate danger, might never be well
+again.  For the present it was thought best that he remain indefinitely
+in Europe, so the family had not decided whether or not to tell the
+facts to Betty.  She could do no good; even Dick was not going to him,
+and it was always best to keep every possible sorrow from Betty.  But
+really, because Dick Ashton could not make up his mind just what was the
+wisest course, he confided his secret to Esther, asking her to think
+matters over and write him her judgment.  You see there was no question
+of Esther's unusual devotion to Betty and readiness to sacrifice
+everything for her, though there seemed to be no reason, and surely
+Betty was entirely careless of it.
+
+Before the twilight of the long afternoon had entirely faded into night,
+every Camp Fire girl, including Nan Graham, who was not a member, had
+vanished into bed.  The child was too tired to be sent home to-night and
+word would be taken to her parents by one of the boys.  Miss McMurtry
+herself was asleep as soon as her girls.  And indeed Polly entirely
+forgot that Betty had suggested she put the question of Nan's remaining
+in camp with them to her again during the evening.
+
+How many hours Polly had been asleep outside her tent with the newcomer
+by her side she did not know, but suddenly she was awakened by a sound
+that was like a sob.  Sitting up quickly she saw Nan kneeling on the
+ground and looking up at the sky.
+
+Polly waited in silence until the girl, feeling her wakefulness, came
+slowly back to her own bed and somehow Polly could see that her face had
+lost its sharp, old look and was like a child's.
+
+"I was praying you'd keep me in camp with you long enough to give me a
+try," she explained.
+
+Like a flash Betty's suggestion that she might change her opinion after
+thinking things over came back to Polly's mind.  Of course the day had
+not been conducive to reflection, but perhaps it might be just as well
+not to give Betty too much time to think.
+
+Half an hour afterwards Polly crawled under the blue blankets and
+putting her arms about her friend whispered her request.  And just at
+first Betty was too sleepy to know what was being asked of her and later
+on was possibly too tired to resist, for she yawned an agreement.
+
+"Oh yes, I will do my best to persuade the girls to let her stay on if
+you want her and Miss Martha consents.  But if there is trouble, Polly--"
+and she was almost asleep again.
+
+Polly gave her another gentle shake.  "Promise to keep your money hidden
+and not put temptation in her way.  Esther says she found your
+pocketbook stuffed with money in the middle of the tent floor."
+
+"I promise," Betty ended hardly knowing what she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LEARNING TO KEEP STEP
+
+
+Six weeks had passed by and it was now early August in the New Hampshire
+hills. Six wonderful weeks for the Camp Fire girls at Sunrise Hill,
+moving so swiftly that it seemed almost incredible so much time could
+have gone by. Everybody had kept well, nothing had ruffled their
+harmonies, except occasional differences of opinion which were easily
+adjusted, and yet Nan Graham had continued a member of the camp.
+
+By this time the new influences in many ways showed their effect upon
+her. At first she was inclined to use language that shocked and annoyed
+both the girls and their guardian.  She was not lazy and yet regular
+hours for work seemed irksome to her; she wanted to work when it was
+play time and play when work should be accomplished, and then her
+personal habits were not pleasant; but this was because she had never
+been taught better, for very soon she grew to be as neat as any of her
+companions and though her clothes were worn and shabby they were
+carefully washed twice a week by her own hands because she had fewer
+possessions than the other girls.  In the beginning Betty had given her
+several blouses and some underclothes and would have done far more
+except that Miss McMurtry advised her to cease. For it was not fair that
+Nan should not also learn a spirit of independence and the desire to
+earn her own way.  Miss McMurtry hoped that the Camp Fire might teach
+the girls this as one of its best lessons.  Always we have believed that
+the American boy can make his own place in the world, given an education
+and a healthy body, then why not the American girl as well, now that she
+is to have almost the same opportunity and encouragement?
+
+Notwithstanding that, there was one serious, indeed most serious, fault
+that the new Camp Fire member had not yet man aged to overcome: she was
+not always truthful.  The stories she told did not appear to be
+malicious or very important, they merely explained why she was late when
+her hour came for work, how she had gained certain elective honors when
+no one was by to witness them, and yet they caused a general feeling of
+distrust when evidence upon a question depended solely on Nan's word.
+Miss McMurtry had talked to her many times and always she had promised
+never to offend again and yet a habit of untruthfulness is not so easily
+conquered.   In reality, Polly O'Neill had more influence with the girl
+whose cause she had championed than anyone else in camp, so that once or
+twice Miss Martha had been tempted to ask Polly to talk to her and then
+had given up the idea, thinking that perhaps it was hardly fair for one
+girl to be told to lecture another.
+
+However, it was surprising to see how kind and sympathetic the little
+group of Camp Fire members tried to be to their least fortunate member
+and up to the present time Miss McMurtry felt glad that she had yielded
+her first judgment in the matter and allowed Nan to stay on with them.
+Even Betty, although unable to be intimate with a girl whose family
+connections and manners so tried her aristocratic soul, was always
+considerate and certainly at the end of each week it had been Betty who
+had quietly paid Nan's share of their expenses without a word.  That
+there had ever been a question of any one else's doing it, no one except
+Betty, Polly and Mollie knew.  And just what Polly had suffered at the
+end of each week when she had failed to fulfill her contract no one
+except a girl with exactly her disposition can understand.  For the
+money which she had spoken of so mysteriously to her sister and friend
+had up till now failed to materialize.  Nevertheless Polly had not lost
+hope, but several times had assured Betty that she would pay her the
+entire amount advanced for Nan almost any day, and the very fact that
+Betty begged her not to think of this made her the more insistent.
+
+Thirteen was Polly O'Neill's lucky number.  Possibly because it was
+regarded as an unlucky figure by other people Polly had selected and
+cherished it for her own, and with the Irish ability to prove things,
+because one wishes them to be true, she could give a long list of happy
+events in her past history all taking place on the thirteenth day of the
+mouth.  Besides, had she and Molly not been born on the thirteenth,
+naturally fitting the date to her star?
+
+So on the thirteenth of August (although no one else in camp happened to
+have thought of that day of the month) Polly begged leave of their
+guardian to go alone into Woodford on a most important errand.  The
+girls were not in the habit of going into town alone; perhaps because
+the walk was a long one no one had ever wished before to go without
+company.  However, there was no conspicuous objection since the way led
+through the Webster farm and then on to the high road into the village,
+and, moreover, Polly insisted that her reason for wishing to go
+unaccompanied was a highly important one.
+
+Nevertheless, with a slight feeling of discomfort, Miss McMurtry saw her
+start off after lunch.  Though the subject was not discussed she
+realized that Polly O'Neill was physically less strong than most girls
+and that her high spirits and nervous energy often gave a wrong
+impression.
+
+To-day, however, Polly seemed particularly well and curiously eager, so
+that the other girls teased her all through luncheon endeavoring to find
+out the cause of her mysterious errand, without gaining the least clue.
+Betty and Mollie were both offended by her secrecy in spite of her
+promise to tell them everything should matters turn out as she expected.
+
+Polly believed in destiny, or at least in her own destiny as we all
+should, but now and then, fear taking possession, her faith was less
+secure.
+
+There had been a few of these hours in the past six weeks while she had
+prayed, hoped and willed one thing, but almost always she had believed
+in it with her whole heart.  Waking at daylight on this morning of the
+thirteenth of August and seeing a particularly wonderful sunrise, a
+curious wave of conviction had swept over her.  To-day she would see her
+desire fulfilled!
+
+Truly the day was a beautiful one, a day for all lovely dreams to come
+true, and as Polly walked through the fields, heavy and golden with the
+ripened grain, the Irish buoyancy of her temperament asserting itself,
+made each object appear an omen of good luck--the sight of a bluebird
+meant happiness of course, the flight of a carrier pigeon the arrival of
+a longed-for message.  Weary finally of thinking delightful things Polly
+fell to reciting poetry aloud.  As a small girl and in spite of her
+mother's and sister's protests she had made up her mind to be an actress
+and had devoted all her spare hours to the memorizing of poetry and
+plays.  Therefore there were many hours when she loved dearly to be
+alone just in order to repeat some of the lines over and over, trying to
+read into them their deeper meaning, without an audience to be either
+bored or amused.
+
+Particularly had she loved and learned the strange, musical Irish poetry
+of William Butler Yeats.  Perhaps because the Irish believed in fairies
+Polly did too, although she called her fairies by other names.
+
+Now all alone in the yellow fields she recited the closing lines of "The
+Land of Heart's Desire," doing her level best to put into it some little
+portion of its mystical beauty.  She was not altogether successful
+because she was only a girl without any training or knowledge of her
+art, but perhaps because of her youth she was less afraid and filled
+with a sincerer enthusiasm.
+
+"The wind blows out of the gates of the day, The wind blows over the
+lonely of heart, And the lonely of heart is withered away While the
+faeries dance in a place apart, Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,
+Tossing their milk-white arms in the air; For they hear the wind laugh
+and murmur and sing Of a land where even the old are fair, And even the
+wise are merry of tongue; But I heard a reed of Coolaney say, When the
+wind has laughed and murmured and sung, The lonely of heart is withered
+away."
+
+And then, after having repeated her verse three times and feeling that
+she was no nearer than at first to expressing its beauty, Polly found
+herself through the fields and after passing by a small stretch of
+woodlands would be out on the high road and therefore no longer alone.
+
+And here, just at the entrance to the woodland, Polly's foot struck
+against something, and stooping over she picked up from the ground the
+answer to her desire, not the expected answer but one that would do as
+well in its stead.
+
+Naturally she forgot to be reasonable or sensible, forgot everything
+save the good luck that seemed to come as an answer to prayer.
+
+At the village post-office she did not even think to ask for her mail,
+although stopping long enough to write a short letter to her mother,
+enclosing a portion of her discovery and asking that it be used to
+purchase a present for the new English cousin about whom her mother had
+lately written so much.
+
+Neither was there a confession made either to Mollie or Betty or any one
+else at camp that evening, since it was far pleasanter to appear cloaked
+in mystery; but Polly secured peace for herself by bringing back with
+her a large basket of peaches to glorify their supper party, and then
+later that evening quietly presented Betty with the amount in full
+advanced for Nan Graham's expenses.  She said nothing about the way in
+which the money had been obtained and although Betty was curious to
+know, good taste forbade her asking questions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE SUSPICION
+
+
+Miss McMurtry and Betty had been alone together in one of the tents for
+the past half hour.  Not that this was in any way remarkable or at first
+excited any suspicion, for the young woman and girl had become good
+friends in the past weeks, often consulting with one another concerning
+questions of camp life.  Indeed Betty had been chiefly responsible for
+bestowing on their guardian her pretty new title, although the name had
+really developed from the suggestion first made by Mollie O'Neill and
+later turned into a jest by her sister.
+
+"Our Lady of the Hill" was now Miss McMurtry's title as guardian of the
+Sunrise Camp.  But because the expression was too long a one for
+ordinary conversation, "Donna," the soft Italian word for "lady," was
+more often substituted.
+
+"I don't think I can be mistaken, Donna," Betty now returned seriously,
+her face flushed and her gray eyes unusually grave.  "I don't want you
+to think I would make trouble in camp for all the world, as it is all
+probably my fault, but Esther was with me and has the same impression I
+have.  She thought I ought to speak to you as a kind of warning to the
+other girls.  I wish you would let me call Esther."
+
+Miss McMurtry agreed, frowning uncomfortably and resting her head on one
+hand.  Since outdoor life gives one whatever help is needed, she had
+grown far less thin with her months of fresh air, her figure was less
+angular, her expression less learned and her whole manner more like a
+girl's than an old maid's.  Possibly the gracious dignity of her new
+title was also worth living up to.
+
+"I must not be in too much of a hurry or too severe," she afterwards
+murmured to herself, "but from the first I have been dreadfully afraid
+of something like this."
+
+Esther was discovered sitting with the other girls in a group
+surrounding Polly, who had been reading aloud an old folk tale while the
+others worked at their various hand crafts.  Betty apologized for the
+interruption in leaning over to whisper to Esther, but half guessed at
+Polly's irritation as they hurried off together.  However, if it could
+be prevented, Polly was to hear of their trouble last of all!
+
+And Polly, although not acknowledging it, was annoyed, for lately Betty
+and Esther had seemed more intimate than she could ever have dreamed
+they might be.  Not that Betty appeared to feel any affection for the
+older girl, but having heard through her of her father's illness they
+had been drawn together by Esther's constant sympathy and devotion, and
+although Mr. Ashton was now better Betty had not yet forgotten.  Of
+course Polly was not jealous, that would be too small minded and absurd,
+only it was curious for her dearest friend to be sharing her secrets
+with other persons than herself.
+
+Inside the tent with their guardian, Esther was being more explicit in
+her explanation than Betty had been.
+
+"You see," she said, "I understand better about temptations of that kind
+than Betty, because I have been brought up so differently, so when the
+letter came I begged her to be particularly careful, and we hid it
+together in a small lock-box in our tent.  The strange thing is that the
+letter is still there and the outside envelope, but the envelope in
+which the package was enclosed I found crumpled up near Nan's cot when I
+was cleaning this morning."
+
+Miss McMurtry shook her head more cheerfully.  "That isn't enough
+evidence, children, to use against any human being!  And just because
+this poor Nan has one story against her, don't you think we ought to be
+especially careful about adding another?"
+
+Instead of replying at once Betty looked more miserable instead of less,
+and then biting her lips for an instant answered steadily:
+
+"Yes, you are quite right, Donna, and we won't say another word about
+the loss.  I am sorry and I confess a little disappointed, for father
+wished us to have a party in honor of his being better, but the party
+couldn't make us nearly as happy as this story would make us unhappy
+once we allowed it to be told."
+
+Miss McMurtry caught Betty's hand and kissed it unexpectedly.  Betty was
+spoiled, accepting love and good fortune too much as a matter of course,
+but when it came to a question either of generosity or good breeding
+Betty Ashton could always be counted upon.
+
+However, Esther Clark was not so persuaded.  "I am afraid Betty may be
+angry with me and that you will be more uncomfortable, Miss McMurtry,"
+she added after a moment's hesitation.  "But this is not all the
+evidence we have.  You see Mollie told us yesterday that just the next
+day after we girls made our trip to town and returned with the mail, she
+came across Nan in our tent with Betty's bunch of keys in her hand.  It
+is true that Betty had left her keys out on the table, but I don't see
+what Nan could have wanted with them?"
+
+"She told Mollie that she wanted to peep in my trunk to look at a dress
+I have  because she wanted some day to make herself one like it and did
+not know just how," Betty interposed, using no effort to hide the tears
+that had been gathering in her gray eyes and were now coursing down her
+cheeks. "Oh dear me, I do wish I had not brought the wretched money into
+camp, for I promised Polly I would not put temptation in Nan's way and
+she will be dreadfully cross with me if she hears!"
+
+"I don't think you should blame yourself, dear," Miss McMurtry
+interrupted, drawing Betty closer to her and looking almost ready to cry
+herself as they both turned toward Esther for advice.  For somehow
+Esther might have a shy and awkward personality and not seem of much
+importance when things were going happily, yet in sorrow or difficulty,
+insensibly her gravity and unselfishness counted.
+
+"Don't you think we had better send for Nan and let her offer us some
+explanation," Esther unhesitatingly suggested, "perhaps she will be able
+to make everything clear?"
+
+Miss McMurtry and, Betty were both silent and Betty moved quietly toward
+the opening of the tent.  "You really will have to let me go away," she
+pleaded, "for I can't stand up and accuse one of our own Camp Fire girls
+of having--"  Her sentence remained unfinished, but Miss McMurtry was
+able to catch hold of her skirt.  "You can't leave us in the lurch,
+Betty, child, though I do understand your feelings, you must stand by to
+help Esther and me out.  Certainly we shall not accuse poor Nan of
+anything, merely ask her a question.  Esther, will you find her for us?"
+
+Betty smiled tearfully as Esther went away on the errand, wondering if
+this time Miss Martha feared to trust her.
+
+Ten minutes passed and then fifteen and yet neither Esther nor Nan
+appeared.  Finally, however, Esther returned looking unusually angry and
+crestfallen.  "Nan says she won't come until Polly has finished the
+story she is reading, and that probably may take another half hour," she
+reported.  "I told her that you wished her particularly, Miss McMurtry,
+and waited as long as I could, but she showed no sign of obeying."
+
+"That isn't true, or at least it is only half true, which is as bad," a
+voice declared at this instant at Esther's elbow, and Nan Graham pushed
+her way saucily into the tent, rather pleased at making serious Esther
+flush with displeasure.  But at the sight of Betty, whom she always
+admired, and their guardian, whom she a little feared, her expression
+became less bold and, indeed, before any one spoke the girl's face had a
+strange look of guilt.  Why else should she toss her head and bridle so
+unnecessarily, why stare into Miss McMurtry's eyes with her own hard and
+defiant, even while her lips trembled with nervousness?
+
+"I haven't done anything; what do you want with me?" she asked quickly.
+
+"No, Nan, we only want to ask you a question," Miss McMurtry answered,
+speaking as gently as she knew how.  "Would you mind telling us what you
+were doing with Betty Ashton's keys the other afternoon and how you
+happened to get hold of them?"
+
+"I didn't have her keys, that's a lie," Nan returned fiercely, taken off
+her guard and using a word she had always been accustomed to hear in her
+home.
+
+To save the situation Betty came quickly forward.  "Please don't say
+that, Nan," she begged, "for Mollie has already told us you merely
+wanted to look at my blue dress and that was quite all right.  But if
+you deny it, why--"
+
+"Why what?" Nan demanded sullenly, her black eyes on the ground and her
+face, which had turned a healthier color with her weeks in the woods,
+now white and drawn.
+
+"Why we might not believe you when asking a more important question,"
+Miss McMurtry said sternly, angered in spite of herself by the girl's
+disagreeable manner.  "How many times have I told you that when people
+are untruthful about little things one does not believe them in large.
+The fact is that Betty has lost a large sum of money and--"
+
+"And you believe I stole it!" Nan burst into such a violent storm of
+weeping at this suggestion that Betty for the first time in their
+acquaintance actually put her arm about her.
+
+"No, we don't believe you took it just because it has vanished," she
+whispered comfortingly, casting appealing glances at her guardian and
+Esther, "only we want to ask you to try to help us find out about it.  I
+wouldn't be in the least surprised if it should turn up again!"
+
+Neither Miss McMurtry nor Esther spoke, but Nan was not to be so
+appeased.
+
+"I am sure you are very kind to give me this opportunity to put your old
+money back," she answered bitterly, "but as I did not take it I should
+find that pretty difficult.  I didn't even know you had any money,
+although I confess I did look into your trunk when perhaps I ought to
+have asked permission and I did take out an old blouse, but I was sorry
+the next minute and put it back again.  But I expect I might as well
+have kept it and anything else I could lay my hands on.  It is the old
+story, if a girl does a wrong thing once no one ever believes in her
+when she tries to be straight again.  I suppose you will be telling your
+suspicion to Polly O'Neill and the other girls so they won't let me stay
+any longer in camp. I don't care, I am innocent!" Nan's voice rose to a
+shrill cry of protest, but in spite of this there was a note of
+sincerity in it that almost convinced Betty, although unfortunately the
+effect was not the same upon Miss McMurtry and Esther.
+
+"No one shall say anything against you, Nan, nor spread this story in
+any possible way until more is found out," Miss McMurtry now remarked,
+briefly dismissing them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ONE WAY TO FIND OUT
+
+
+Nevertheless within a few days the story had been circulated about the
+camp.  Not a word, however, had been spoken concerning it by Betty,
+Esther or Miss McMurtry, but poor Nan Graham had betrayed herself.  For
+in her effort to gain sympathizers, unfortunately a wider suspicion was
+aroused.
+
+Sore and unhappy over what she insisted was a totally unjust
+supposition, it was but natural that she should turn to another girl for
+consolation. Not to Polly, however; Nan said not a word to her, for
+Polly had given no evidence of having heard of her ill-timed visit to
+Betty's trunk, having been on her way to the village at the time the
+offence was committed, and above everything Nan desired to remain fixed
+in Polly's good graces.  No, she confided the account of her interview
+first to Beatrice Field, making so tragic a tale of it that Bee, who was
+quite young and only a mischievous tomboy in her disposition and never
+having heard anything of Nan's past mistakes, was deeply indignant.
+
+"A Camp Fire girl accused of stealing, well not exactly accused but
+suspected!" Honestly Bee had never conceived of anything so dreadful,
+and so straightway put the whole case before her sister, Juliet.  Then
+to her surprise Juliet, who was a far more worldly wise person, did not
+accept the story from the same point of view, indeed Juliet became
+immediately indignant for Betty's sake, declaring that she was being a
+martyr in not spreading the news of her loss abroad and at least
+endeavoring to recover her lost property.
+
+Something of Juliet's impression must have crept into Bee, for in her
+next conversation with Nan there was a certain cooling off in sympathy
+that made Nan feel the need of another partisan.  This time she was more
+unwise in selecting Edith Norton, for Edith had always particularly
+disliked Nan's presence in the Sunrise Camp and, even while hearing her
+side of the story, had unhesitatingly revealed not only a want of pity
+for her but a plain lack of faith.
+
+Nan had forgotten to require at the beginning of their conversation that
+Edith keep her confidence a secret and so the older girl made no
+pretence of doing so.  In her bitterness Nan had not hesitated to say
+hard things of Betty, Esther and even of their guardian in speaking of
+the injustice of their attitude toward her, and these remarks Edith felt
+free to add to her own account.  Not that she really meant to be cruel
+or unfair, but honestly feeling it best that Nan stay no longer in their
+camp she started a campaign toward that end.  Perhaps because Edith was
+poor and self-supporting herself, unconsciously she resented the
+presence of another girl whose poverty was of so much less honorable a
+kind, for it is more difficult to be fair to persons almost in our own
+state of life than to those in far different ones.
+
+Not long did Edith remain alone in her conviction, for the layer of real
+faith and affection for poor little Nan in camp was so thin that the
+first effort broke through it.  In point of fact no one had actually
+wanted her at Sunrise Camp and had only been persuaded into it by Polly
+and Betty and by Miss McMurtry's approval, and really these three
+persons were still the only three who continued her champions.
+
+Betty would not hear for an instant of Nan's being sent away, threatened
+to leave herself rather than be responsible for such an act of
+injustice. Miss McMurtry was equally firm, although she added that Nan
+was not to be condemned until further proof was secured against her.
+Meanwhile Polly O'Neill was really unaware for some time of the actual
+circumstances of the case.  In the first place Betty had begged that the
+story be kept from Polly as Nan was her especial protegee, and seeing
+what a storm had been aroused in camp she herself felt more than sorry
+ever to have mentioned her loss.  Of course Polly heard vaguely that
+Betty had lost something or other about camp, but she did not know
+exactly what, but then Betty had so many possessions that she was always
+losing something.  Also she began to suspect, dimly at first, that the
+girls were in some kind of quandary, but as no one mentioned the cause
+to her, she felt rather too proud to inquire, besides having a problem
+of her own on her mind which taxed most of her waking hours, although
+she too kept her own counsel.
+
+But now a sufficient time had gone by, until the date of the meeting of
+the August Council Fire had arrived when the original number of Camp
+Fire members were to be promoted to the rank of Fire-Makers and Esther
+was to be first of the Sunrise Hill girls to be given the highest Camp
+Fire title--Torch Bearer.
+
+One of Miss McMurtry's plans for her camp was to leave to three girls
+each month the arrangements for the original features of their Council
+Fire and in August, the month of the Red or Green Corn Moon, it so
+happened that Mollie, Eleanor and Edith Norton formed the special
+committee.  Just what their plans were no one knew until the morning
+before their meeting, not even the camp guardian, or Miss McMurtry might
+possibly have interfered, although I hardly believe it.
+
+Shortly after breakfast, even before the other girls had a chance to
+disperse for their morning's work, Eleanor, Mollie and Edith Norton
+disappeared inside their tents.
+
+Edith had been chosen to help at this meeting rather than any other
+because she was now having her two weeks' August vacation.  Ten minutes
+later the girls came out again into the open air, arrayed in their
+ceremonial costumes and carrying three Indian baskets which were
+solemnly passed about from one girl to the other.  And these baskets
+contained invitations to the evening Council Fire painted on bits of
+birch bark in crimson lettering by Eleanor Meade.
+
+At the top of the scroll were the three words "The Maidens' Feast."
+Then below, the invitation read: "Sinopa the Little Sister, Apoi-a-kimi,
+the Light Hair, and Eleanor, the Painter of Sunrises, invite all the
+maidens of all the tribes to come and partake of their feast this
+evening at the close of the regular Council Fire ceremonies.  It will be
+in the Sunrise Camp before the moon reaches the middle sky.  All pure
+maidens are invited."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE DISAPPEARANCE
+
+
+The August moon had never been more radiant, indeed it flooded the
+Sunrise Camp grounds with a brightness that made it appear almost like
+day.  And now the regular Council Fire proceedings were over and the
+Indian custom of "The Maidens' Feast" about to begin.
+
+In a circle about a cone-shaped rock, which had been brought with
+infinite difficulty to its position in the camp grounds, Miss McMurtry
+and the maidens were seated, each person bearing in her lap a round
+wooden bowl, while from the smoldering ashes of the Council Fire arose a
+delicious odor of roasting ears of corn.
+
+But before the feast could be eaten a ceremony of as grave importance to
+the Camp Fire girls as to the Indian maidens of long ago must take
+place. Each girl was to take the oath of purity and honor, and then the
+maidens' song would be sung and four times they would dance around the
+altar.
+
+No one of the group of Camp Fire members and no more their guardian
+really knew at first whether in this plan of Eleanor's, Mollie's and
+Edith's there was any deeper motive than the entertainment of their
+friends and the revival of an old Indian custom seemingly appropriate
+and beautiful.  But as the details unfolded themselves the suspicion in
+the minds of most of them grew almost into certainty.  Once or twice
+Miss McMurtry had thought of stopping the proceedings altogether, but
+then she did not feel satisfied that this method of the three girls for
+testing the innocence or guilt of their companions was not an admirable
+one.  More than she would have acknowledged, since worry is not
+permitted in Camp Fire rules, had Miss McMurtry puzzled over what should
+be done in their present dilemma. Betty's money had certainly
+disappeared and some one must have stolen it; if not Nan, then who else?
+For they had had no guests since Esther and Betty returned with the
+money from the village post-office.
+
+So by the time Edith Norton, with her light hair hanging loose about her
+shoulders and a circle of red about her head, stepped forth into the
+center of the circle, looking unusually white and nervous, there was not
+but one member of her audience who did not at least partially guess at
+what was about to take place.  And this was of course Polly O'Neill!
+For not only did she fail to understand Betty's actual money loss and
+the suspicion against Nan, but so deeply had she been involved in her
+own perplexity that she had hardly been aware of anything that had taken
+place that evening. Now, however, having at last made up her mind to
+take Miss McMurtry into her confidence when the girls had gone to bed,
+she did look up with interest at the picturesque figure of Edith.
+
+Near the cone-shaped rock two arrows had been lightly stuck into the
+ground, this forming a sort of altar to which each maiden must come,
+touching first the stone and then the arrows as she declares her purity.
+
+As she stood by the side of this altar Edith's voice trembled so that it
+was with difficulty her first words could be understood.  The girls who
+knew pretty well what to expect understood her immediately, however, but
+not Polly!
+
+"Sorrow and much uneasiness have lately crept into our midst, my
+maidens," she announced, trying to preserve a certain likeness to the
+Indian speech in the form of her words, "and many of us there are who go
+about heavy of heart because the sin of one of us must be the burden of
+us all, until guilt is established and the innocent cleared.  Some days
+ago there vanished from the possession of one of us fifty dollars in
+bank notes enclosed in an envelope containing no address.  This money
+has not been found, but the envelope has been recognized as crumpled up
+and thrown away a few feet from the tent of its rightful owner.  Now no
+member of the Sunrise Camp can feel it possible that any one of its
+members has been guilty of this sin and yet no visitor has stepped foot
+within our camp limits within the time when the deed must have occurred.
+Therefore have we three maidens, after deep thought, appointed this
+evening wherein the innocent may declare her innocence and the wrong-
+doer confess her sin.  For only in confession and by the return of the
+money can she ever hope to be at peace with herself.  Moreover, we
+believe that no Camp Fire girl will take this oath of purity without
+telling the entire truth.  Betty Ashton will you come forward first."
+
+Betty jumped up quickly.  During Edith's long harangue her group of
+listeners had been supremely uncomfortable, so that no one of them dared
+do more than barely glance at Nan, who sat with her knees up to her
+chin, her eyes cast upon the ground and her black hair covering her face
+like a veil. If she felt, and of course she did, that Edith's speech was
+directed toward her rather than toward any other girl, neither by a
+sound nor a movement did she betray it.  Not even when Betty, having
+finished with her part in the ceremony, deliberately forsaking her
+former place in the circle came back and sitting down next her
+deliberately laid her arm across Nan's bowed shoulders.  There was
+nothing to do or say, she would only make things worse by any protest
+now, and yet Betty was bitterly grieved and offended. If Nan had done
+wrong this public method of making her either confess or perjure herself
+she felt to be wholly unkind.
+
+So as Nan was in everybody's thoughts during this time no one happened
+to glance toward Polly O'Neill or, seeing her, to observe anything
+unusual in her manner or appearance, for Polly also neither moved nor
+spoke during Edith's recital, although her face turned suddenly white.
+
+Fifty dollars in an envelope, the money in bank notes and the envelope
+crumpled up and thrown away near their tent!  Her discovery in the woods
+that day had been just this and she herself had thrown away that same
+envelope.  Betty of course had lost the enclosure out of her letter in
+bringing it home from the post office and, hiding the letter away
+afterwards, believed the money still there.
+
+Why did not Polly get up and make this announcement at once?  It would
+have been very simple except for one thing, she had spent the money, and
+in the first moment of surprised horror had no idea how she would ever
+be able to return it.
+
+Like a good many impetuous people Polly O'Neill sometimes had the
+misfortune to do her thinking when it was too late.  Finding the money
+in the woods, when she felt she needed it so much, had seemed to her
+like a miracle, so that it never occurred to her, either that afternoon
+or evening, that she should have tried to find out to whom the money
+rightfully belonged before using it, although she had been thinking of
+little else since then.  That this money should have been Betty's of all
+people, and that it was now her duty to stand up and confess her mistake
+before her friends.
+
+Polly set her teeth, the circle of girls revolved before her eyes, she
+had been worrying too much to be either reasonable or well.  And at any
+moment Edith Norton might demand that she step forward and take the oath
+which was meant to proclaim that she had had nothing to do with the loss
+of Betty's money.  Truly she did not understand that the charge had been
+directed against poor Nan, so watching her opportunity Polly slipped
+away without being noticed.
+
+When Nan Graham's name was called from the center of the circle the
+silence was oppressive.  But the girl rose up quietly, pushing her
+coarse black hair from her face, and as quietly walked forward to the
+cone-shaped rock where the two arrows were still standing fixed in the
+ground.  Before laying her hand on these objects, however, she stood
+perfectly still for a moment, letting her accusing eyes sweep from the
+face of one of her girl judges to the other and then, touching the stone
+and the arrows, came back quickly to her old place.  Not till then did
+she betray how deeply the atmosphere of distrust and unfaith had hurt
+her, but when Betty's arm came round her for the second time, she burst
+into weeping, hiding her face on Betty's shoulder, and hearing her
+whisper comfortingly: "I believe with all my heart that you know nothing
+of my wretched money, Nan, and I beg your pardon if I even made you
+think I suspected you."
+
+Just before the time for Polly to take the oath her absence was
+discovered, but not until the feast of the corn had actually begun did
+Mollie and Betty go back to their tent to look for her and they did not
+return for so long a time that Miss McMurtry, fearing Polly might be
+ill, rose up to follow them.  However, she had only gone a few steps
+before the two girls joined her.
+
+"We can't find Polly anywhere, Donna," Mollie said in an extremely
+annoyed tone.  "We have looked in all the tents and called and even gone
+down to the pine grove.  What silly mood do you suppose has overtaken
+her?  For the one thing mother most objects to is for Polly to wander
+off alone at night. She did it once when she was a very little girl."
+
+"Don't worry, Mollie, she is sure to be back in half a minute when she
+remembers," the older woman replied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"POLLY"
+
+
+But Polly did not come back within the hour or indeed all night.
+Naturally there was little sleep among the Camp Fire girls or their
+guardian who imagined all possible tragedies.  Miss McMurtry wondered if
+Polly could have gone down to the lake and in the darkness fallen into
+the water, but then the moon was shining brilliantly and she could swim
+with perfect ease. This idea was only brought on by fear.  What had
+probably happened was that she had wandered off for a walk, lost her way
+and decided that it was far wiser to spend the night quietly in the
+woods rather than wear herself out with tramping.  When the sunrise came
+she would return.
+
+With this idea Miss McMurtry comforted and encouraged the girls, for it
+was impossible that they should do more than search for their companion
+in the near-by woods and fields.  It is true that Betty wanted to
+attempt to climb Sunrise Hill, taking lanterns with her, fearing that
+Polly had attempted a short walk and managed to sprain her ankle, and
+that Esther and Sylvia Wharton were more than anxious to go with her,
+but Miss McMurtry would not hear of it, having a vision of four lost
+girls instead of one.  There was nothing to do but wait the few hours
+now until daybreak and then if Polly did not return, properly organize
+searching parties to seek for her.  If the Camp Fire girls had learned
+anything of scouting methods, this would be their opportunity.
+
+Mollie O'Neill was of course the person who required the tenderest care
+during the night.  She and Polly were closer than other sisters, so
+unlike in temperament and yet one another's shadows.  If only she could
+have imagined some explanation for her sister's disappearance, for of
+course everybody knew of Polly's sudden vagaries and yet it was unlike
+her to be so inconsiderate without cause.
+
+Although Betty Ashton probably understood her friend even better than
+her sister did, as she sat quietly by Mollie's side for several hours
+insisting that there was really nothing alarming in Polly's flight and
+that she would doubtless be both vexed and ashamed of herself in the
+morning, she too was equally puzzled.  For naturally she was not so
+confident as she pretended, although not until her hour came for rest
+and after she had actually tumbled into bed did she break down.  Then
+Esther and Sylvia Wharton, who in some strange, quiet fashion seemed a
+comfort to everyone to-night, had insisted that they relieve Betty's
+watch with Mollie.
+
+Dropping on her couch, not to sleep but to gain strength for the next
+day's quest, quite by accident Betty's hand slipped under her pillow.
+With a low exclamation, overheard by the other three girls in the tent,
+she drew out folded square of paper.  Her name was on the outside,
+apparently hurriedly addressed in Polly's handwriting.  It read:
+
+DEAR BETTY:
+
+Your money was stolen, at least not in the way you think it was, but
+perhaps in another almost as bad.  For I found it in the woods on the
+day when I went into the village alone and I made no effort to find out
+to whom it belonged.  You must have dropped it out of your letter on
+your way back to camp, for there was no mark on the envelope in which I
+found it.  But I do not mean this as an excuse, I do not think it one.
+If I had not felt like a thief perhaps I would not have been ashamed to
+confess my fault before the other girls as I should have done before our
+altar fire to-night.  I tried but I did not have the courage, so I am
+going away from camp.  Please tell Miss McMurtry, Mollie and the other
+girls and do not ask me to come back, for it is impossible.  If I could
+return your money, Betty, I should not feel so bitterly humiliated, but
+as I cannot at present I would rather not see you until I can.  Of
+course we are no longer friends, for you cannot wish it, and always it
+has seemed to me that your wealth and my poverty makes the gulf between
+us.  I can only say that I am truly sorry.
+
+Yours sincerely,
+
+POLLY
+
+Having finished this ungracious note of apology Betty handed it without
+comment to Esther and then buried her own head in the pillow.  If Polly
+could feel toward her in this manner because of a mistake which they had
+both made, then nothing she could do or say would make any difference.
+For to insist to Polly that she had a perfect right to use the money
+found by accident would not be altogether true and would not change her
+point of view, while to declare that the return of the money to its
+rightful owner was a matter of indifference would only deepen the
+misunderstanding.
+
+Less accustomed to Polly's writing Esther read the note aloud slowly and
+then it was that Mollie's and Betty's positions were changed, and Mollie
+became instead of the comforted--the comforter.
+
+"That is exactly like Polly O'Neill," she announced indignantly, "here
+she has done something she ought not to do without thinking, like
+spending that money without trying to find its owner, and now because
+she is so sorry she goes ahead and makes things worse for everybody
+instead of better."  Mollie slid off her own hemlock bed and crossing
+the tent sat down by Betty. "Don't you worry, dear, or feel in the least
+responsible," she whispered, "you know Polly is hateful sometimes just
+because she is so ashamed and miserable she does not know how to be
+anything else.  She does care for you more than anyone and you know that
+she will do almost anything to make peace with you as soon as she comes
+to her senses.  Of course, Betty, I understand you don't care for the
+money part, why you would give either of us ten times that amount if you
+could and we would accept it, but you won't mind my writing mother to
+make things all right."
+
+Then after a few words of explanation to their guardian the Camp Fire
+girls slept quietly until daylight, but even after they had eaten a
+hurried breakfast together the wanderer had not returned.
+
+So immediately afterwards three parties set out, leaving Edith Norton
+and Juliet Field behind to protect the camp and to announce by the
+ringing of a bell if Polly should return or if they were in any need.
+
+Betty, Sylvia and Esther went off in one direction, Miss McMurtry and
+the two younger girls, Nan and Beatrice, in another, while Mollie, Meg
+and Eleanor took the interior of the Webster farm.  The chief obstacle
+in their search being that it was apparently impossible to discover the
+direction of Polly's footprints on first leaving camp, the grass in the
+neighborhood being so constantly trodden down by the feet of so many
+girls.
+
+Billy Webster, as he preferred to be called, was in a wheat field with
+his reaper just about to start to work, when a Camp Fire girl, whether
+Mollie or Polly he could not tell at first, came running toward him in
+apparent distress.  So as not to make another mistake he let the girl
+speak first, only smiling at her in a sufficiently friendly fashion to
+make it very simple.
+
+Mollie's first words were luminous.  "Have you seen anything of Polly?
+She is lost or gone away or at least we can't find her!"
+
+Therefore until lunch time Billy kept up the search over the farm with
+the three girls.  And though they were not successful in making any
+discovery it was surprising what a comfort the girls found him,
+particularly Mollie, who seemed to depend on him as though he had been
+an old friend.
+
+"I am sure there isn't the least reason to be seriously alarmed," he
+assured her half a dozen times with a curious understanding of Polly's
+character; "you see your sister has got a funny streak in her that makes
+her mighty interesting and mighty uncertain."  (How angry Polly would
+have been could she have heard him!)  "She has got a lot to learn before
+she settles down."
+
+By noon, finding his three companions nearly exhausted, the young man
+persuaded them to go up to the big, comfortable farmhouse, see his
+mother, have their luncheon and rest.  And straightway on meeting her,
+Mrs. Webster took a liking to Mollie that was to last all the rest of
+her life.
+
+During this time Betty, Esther and Sylvia were going slowly along the
+main path that led through the fields and finally on to the high road
+into the village.  Miss McMurtry and her assistants were climbing
+Sunrise Hill.
+
+But Sylvia Wharton was so tediously slow.  About every five minutes she
+would stop and kneel down in the dirt, attempting to fit an old shoe of
+Polly's into any fresh track she happened to observe.  The other two
+girls wandered off into bits of woods or meadows near by, calling and
+hunting, but Sylvia never went with them.
+
+"There is no use," she explained, "Polly has gone straight into Woodford
+and because it was night had to take the regular path instead of going
+through the fields as she usually does."
+
+Claiming to have exactly traced her footsteps Esther and Betty were
+still not convinced.  "It is such a stupid idea, Sylvia," Betty argued,
+"for there isn't anybody in town now to whom Polly would go in the
+middle of the night, and besides she would be ashamed to let people know
+she had run away from camp."
+
+Nevertheless Sylvia kept stolidly on and because her companions had
+nothing better to suggest they followed after her.
+
+On the high road Sylvia, who would still creep like a tortoise, suddenly
+stooped down.  The August dust was very thick along the way and wagons
+had already been traveling into town, and yet she picked up a string of
+red, white and blue beads, which surely were Polly's, since patriotism
+had been one of her chief studies during the summer.
+
+It was also Sylvia's suggestion that led the little party of friends
+straight to Mrs. O'Neill's closed cottage.  The doors and windows in
+front of the house were sealed, but Betty found the door of the old
+kitchen halfway open.  And there inside on her mother's lounge lay
+Polly!  She seemed to be almost asleep when the girls entered, but
+awakened immediately and in a wholly different frame of mind.
+
+Realizing in the last few hours, when it was too late, how great an
+anxiety her disappearance must have caused, she wanted to go back to
+camp, to confess her fault and at least to persuade Betty to forgive
+her.  Yet she dared not trust herself to go alone, for Polly's head was
+aching furiously, her face was hot and flushed and any attempt to walk
+made her sick and dizzy.
+
+While Betty and Esther were discussing what had best be done, Polly
+having trusted herself wholly to their hands, neither of them noticed
+Sylvia Wharton's withdrawal.
+
+When they did there was hardly time to comment upon it before she
+reappeared at the back door with her round face covered with dust and
+looking more freckled and homelier than ever.
+
+"A carriage will be here in five minutes to take us to camp; I have
+ordered it," she announced.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE END OF THE SUMMER CAMP
+
+Good-by to summer, good-by, good-by, Good-by to summer
+
+Esther's plaintive song ceased abruptly, for Betty Ashton leaning over
+suddenly put her hand to her lips.  And at the same moment Meg Everett
+holding fast to Little Brother dropped down on the ground by the girls
+with one arm full of early goldenrod and Michaelmas daisies.
+
+"No use to make Esther stop singing, it won't help matters, Betty, dear,
+the summer has gone," she exclaimed.  "Little Brother and I have just
+seen quail whirring about in the underbrush.  See I lay our autumn
+bouquet at your feet," and she tossed her flowers over to Betty.  "Where
+is Miss McMurtry?"
+
+Betty made a wry face.  "Gone into town, if you please, to see about
+some books--school books.  Oh, it wasn't because I didn't agree with
+Esther's song that I made her stop singing, it was because it was so
+dreadfully true that I felt at the moment I couldn't bear it.  You are
+sorry too, aren't you, Nan?" she queried, turning to the girl on the
+other side of her who was sewing industriously on a soft blue cashmere
+frock, almost similar in color and texture to the one Betty had at this
+moment inside her trunk. The gown represented the complete restoration
+of peace between Nan and Betty.  At first there had been some difficulty
+in persuading Nan to accept it, but after all Betty had been kinder than
+most of the other girls! Moreover, there had been many other expressions
+of apology in words and deeds that Nan had accepted and stored away in
+her heart.
+
+"I just can't bear to think of it either," she replied slowly, letting
+her hands rest idly in her lap for a moment.  "I guess you other girls
+can't ever know what these weeks in camp have been to me and what a lot
+I've learned.  I hope I ain't going to forget it ever and Miss Martha
+says she is going to try to get them to let me come back to the High
+School.  It will be all right if any one will trust me enough to give me
+work to do afternoons."
+
+Before replying Esther Clark put several pine logs and a great bundle of
+pine cones on the fire around which she and her friends were seated, and
+the girls were quiet for a moment watching them sparkle and blaze.
+
+"I expect I know, Nan, at least better than any one else," Esther
+answered finally, "for you see this is the first summer of my whole life
+that I haven't spent at the asylum scrubbing and cooking and nobody
+caring anything about my work except that I got it done.  Work this
+summer has seemed like play, hasn't it?  And I wouldn't be here, except
+for The Princess.  I wonder if I shall ever be able to repay her?"
+
+"Oh, wonder something else, Esther," Betty returned ungraciously, for
+references of this kind always made her uncomfortable.  "Here comes
+Polly and Mollie and, of course Sylvia.  Bee, will you go find Eleanor
+and Juliet and let us have tea here by the camp fire.  Donna and Edith
+will probably be here before we finish.  Suppose each one of us places a
+stick on the fire and while it burns make a good wish for the Sunrise
+Camp.  Hello, Polly, yes Sylvia is perfectly right, you must not sit
+down on the ground without something under you, yes, and you must let
+her put that wrap over your shoulders, the sun will be going down pretty
+soon and then it will be quite cool."
+
+Polly submitted to Sylvia's attentions none too graciously, but a moment
+later turned toward the younger girl.  "You are a trump, Sylvia," she
+murmured.  "I am sure I don't know what I should have done without you
+these past two weeks while I will have been ill.  It is funny how you
+should happen to know just what to do for people who are sick when you
+are so young!"
+
+Sylvia sat stolidly down next the speaker.  "I am going to be a trained
+nurse when I am old enough, that's why," she answered calmly, apparently
+not even observing the surprise of her companions.  "You see if I
+thought I had sense enough I would try to be a doctor, but as I haven't
+I shall just take care of sick people.  I have already learned a good
+many things this summer."
+
+Polly whistled and several of the girls laughed.  "I don't doubt it for
+a moment, Sylvia Wharton!" Polly exclaimed, "for heaven alone can tell
+what you do know!  But it is absurd to talk about your being a nurse,
+when you will be the richest one of us, child, perhaps even richer than
+'The Princess'."
+
+There was no reply from Sylvia, only her lips shut tight and her chin
+looked oddly square and determined for a young girl.  But then Sylvia
+looked like her father, who, one must remember, was a self-made man.
+And sometimes the daughter also inherits the traits of character that
+have made the father a success.
+
+Eleanor and Juliet at this moment appearing with the tea things, the
+kettle was hung above the fire on an arrangement of three pronged sticks
+and not until tea was over did the girls or Betty remember her
+suggestion.  Then she handed Polly a pine knot first.  "Thrust this into
+the fire, Polly, dear, and make a parting wish for Sunrise Camp," Betty
+explained, "for a few days more you know, and we must fold our tents and
+say farewell to our summer."
+
+Polly quickly thrust her torch into the hottest blaze.  "I wish," she
+said at once, her cheeks hot from the closeness of the flames and from
+her own thoughts, "that everybody in Sunrise Camp would promise to
+forgive me for my foolish behavior two weeks ago and all the anxiety and
+trouble I caused. The camp has given me a new motto this summer that I
+shall at least try to live up to.  It reads: 'Think first!"
+
+"Yes, and if you had only thought second and asked for your mail at the
+post office that day after finding Betty's money, Polly, you would have
+had your own fifty dollar prize for the best essay on 'A Summer Camp
+Fire in the Woods'," Mollie added in her usual practical fashion, and
+then she gave a little sigh of relief that the money had been paid back
+to Betty without troubling the mother still so far away.
+
+"I wonder if Polly is going to be our genius as well as Eleanor," Esther
+next suggested quietly, "every Camp Fire club is sure to turn out at
+least one extraordinary person and of course ours will have two or
+three."  Then she blushed hotly in her old embarrassed, fashion,
+clasping her big hands closely together as Betty, half laughing at her
+own suggestion, whispered something in her ear.
+
+Juliet Field wished the Sunrise Camp long life, and Meg that they might
+keep up their work together in town during the coming winter, Eleanor
+that they might spend the next summer together, and then Betty,
+happening quite by chance to observe a wistful expression on Nan's face,
+passed the fifth pine stick to her.
+
+"Tell us what you are thinking of, Nan," she said, speaking with special
+friendliness to the one girl who had not had entirely fair treatment at
+their hands.  "I have an idea you have something special on your mind."
+
+Nan shook her head, although she did what was asked of her.  "Oh no,"
+she explained, "or at least I am afraid you will think my wish very
+silly.  I was just wishing that we were not going back to the village
+but were going to spend our winter together amid the snows."
+
+Nan's suggestion was so surprising that everybody stared at her for one,
+almost two minutes before Betty spoke.
+
+"Very well, Nan, let's stay," she returned, as though making a perfectly
+ordinary remark.  "I can't bear for Esther and me to have to go back
+alone to our great, empty house with mother and father away and no
+knowing when they may come back."  (There was a catch in Betty's voice
+that her friends understood, for Mr. Ashton was again seriously ill and
+there was no hope of his returning to America at present.)  "We can't
+live in our tents of course, but I don't know why we can't build a log
+cabin and somehow manage to get back and forth to school.  When the snow
+comes we can use our big sled."
+
+"You are quite mad, Betty Ashton; Esther, please tie a handkerchief
+around her lips before she makes us all equally so," Polly requested,
+"for there is no hope of our doing anything so impossible, as she
+suggests."  And then because she caught an expression almost of
+agreement on her sister Mollie's face, Polly paused, almost overcome
+with surprise.  Mollie, the sensible; Mollie, the practical--it was
+incredible.
+
+"I don't see that Betty's idea is so foolish, for at least some of us
+might be able to live in camp this winter," Mollie thinking aloud as she
+talked. "For you see, the doctor has said that Polly must be out of
+doors as much as possible for the next year, and mother writes she would
+rather not come home at present if we can possibly get on without her,
+for there is something or other going on in Ireland that she has not
+explained to us, but she says if she can stay a few months longer it may
+make a difference in all our futures.  I believe she would be glad to
+let us remain in Sunrise Camp for the winter if your mother and father
+are willing and we can make things comfortable, Betty," she concluded.
+
+The mental conception of a group of girls living together in a winter's
+camp in the woods was evidently too surprising to be grasped all at
+once, for no one else at the moment had anything to say, and then
+Esther, glancing off across the fields where a soft September haze
+suggested the approach of the twilight, exclaimed.  "See, there are Miss
+McMurtry and Edith returning from town.  Let us give them our Camp Fire
+call to welcome them home."
+
+"Wohelo for work, Wohelo for health, Wohelo for love!"
+
+The ten voices carried the refrain far across the country and somehow
+the echo returning to them from Sunrise Hill brought with it the
+suggestion of even happier days to come.
+
+The second volume in the Camp Fire Girls' Series will be called "The
+Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows."  In this book the history of the girls
+will be revealed under very different conditions.  More than ever will
+their life be built around the fire which has always been the center of
+the home. Various important changes will take place in the circumstances
+of the leading characters and mysteries merely suggested in the first
+story will be developed in the second.
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill
+by Margaret Vandercook
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL ***
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