The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows

CHAPTER XXI

Misfortune

Several days later Dick Ashton, walking out to the Sunrise cabin from Woodford, unexpectedly caught up with Esther making the same journey. He came up to her side very quickly and with one look in his face the girl gave a cry of dismay. Dick was always serious and yet in spite of his seriousness there was no one with a keener appreciation of humorous situations and people, but to-day his face was drawn and there was a set look about his lips.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, Esther,” Dick said quietly, “but I am very glad it is you I have met rather than any one of the other girls. I have bad news for Betty.”

Did Esther’s face for a fleeting instant show surprise and almost alarm?

“It has nothing to do with me, has it?” she asked, but Dick, shaking his head and hardly heeding her question, went on:

“I have just received news of my father’s death and must break it to Betty. It is going to be very hard; Betty has never known anything but happiness and in spite of – in spite of everything, I believe my father loved her almost better than either my mother or me.”

After her first exclamation of sympathy Esther continued silent, feeling it wiser to let Dick talk himself out to a sympathetic listener than to pour forth her own regrets.

“It isn’t only the loss of my father that Betty and mother will have to endure,” he continued, “but the entire loss of my father’s fortune. The trouble has been brewing for some time, but a few weeks ago the crash came and it must have hastened the end.”

“You don’t mean to say they will have nothing?” Esther inquired in a frightened voice. The thought of Betty, whom her friends had always called “Princess” because of her careless generosity, her indifference, her absolute ignorance of the whole money question, now to face poverty without any training or preparation for it, – the thought fairly made Esther gasp, and Dick who had some idea of what was passing in her mind added:

“Yes, it is pretty rough to bring a girl up to live like a Princess and then suddenly to leave her a pauper. I have always been afraid we have not been quite fair with Betty, maybe it would have been easier for her to have known the truth about things from the beginning. Still it can’t be helped now. But the worst of it is that I know nothing about business either; I have never cared for anything but my profession and it takes a long time for a man to be able to support even himself in medicine until he has had several years of experience at least. I must give it up.”

Dick’s face went whiter than ever at this and Esther, who in spite of a certain shyness and nervousness when she found herself the center of observation, had a really good judgment and self-control, now replied quietly: “I wouldn’t think too much of this now, Mr. Ashton, things are pretty sure to turn out a little better than you feel they can at present and in any case I am sure something will be arranged so that you can go on with your profession. It would be too great a pity, when you have studied so long and are now so near your graduation, to have to give it up.”

Dick Ashton looked at Esther gratefully, thinking of how their positions had been reversed in a little less than a year. Had he not, when first he came upon the shy, homely girl among his sister’s group of friends, done his best to make her more comfortable, less of a stranger and an outsider, and now he felt strangely strengthened and calmed by her presence and advice. He too saw that there were times when Esther’s self-forgetfulness gave her a kind of beauty which was more important than mere lines and color, since it was a beauty that would last far longer.

So the young people walked on for a little time in silence, until Dick Ashton colored and then hesitated.

“I hope you won’t think me rude, Miss Esther, that in my own trouble I have forgotten to congratulate you on having found your father. Betty has written me all about it and I certainly hope it may add to your happiness. I used to wonder even when I was a little boy if you felt very lonely at the asylum without a – a single relative.”

“You wondered about me; then you knew about me?” Esther asked quietly, and turned, stopping short in the path to give Dick Ashton a long, quiet look. Something passed between them without words, one of those subtle and silent communications of thought for which there has been no satisfactory explanation. Yet in the instant each one of them knew that the other had guessed his and her secret, or if not quite guessing it, at least had very reasonable foundations for their suspicion.

Dick’s formerly pale face crimsoned and he looked down at the ground, beginning to walk slowly on. “We – we thought it best this way, Miss Esther, and still think so. It has been hard upon you perhaps, but isn’t it better that one person should suffer than that a number should be made unhappy?” There was almost entreaty in Dick Ashton’s voice and at the same time he meant to make no betrayal if Esther did not know what he supposed she might possibly have learned within the past few weeks.

Esther’s reply left no room for doubt. “It is best this way now,” she answered slowly. “I can’t say that I think it altogether fair or just at the beginning. But so far as I am concerned, why you need never worry.”

“I wish there were some way in which we could make it up to you, but we have nothing now to be of any assistance to anybody. It is what my mother meant in a measure when – ”

Esther nodded. “I understand and there is no need of talking about repaying me. Betty has already done more than that and there is nothing in the world I would not do or give up for her sake. I care for her more than she may ever know.”

His companion’s voice trembled so that Dick feared she might be losing her self-control and knew that they had a hard enough task before them.

They were not very far from Sunrise cabin now and feared that at any moment Betty Ashton might come out to meet them, since Dick had telegraphed that he was coming to see her on important business in order that she might be a little bit prepared for what was to follow.

“It is a pretty dark road for all of us just now, Miss Esther, but some day perhaps without our having to make the decision things will right themselves somehow,” he returned kindly.

And at this instant the young man and girl discovered Betty flying along the path in their direction. It was a fairly warm April afternoon and she wore her blue cape, the cape which Esther remembered so well during the spring of her own coming to the big Ashton house. She had on no hat and her hair was tied back in a loose bunch of red-brown curls.

Evidently Betty had suspected no trouble from Dick’s telegram (Betty and trouble were so far apart these days), for she laughed and waved both hands in joyous welcome at her brother’s approach.

“Where did you two people find one another? I believe it was all arranged beforehand and Dick Ashton’s visits to our cabin are quite as much to see Miss Esther Clark – Crippen I meant to say – as they are to see poor little me.” Betty had always enjoyed teasing Esther and now she expected this silly remark of hers to make her friend blush and scold, but Esther seemed not to have paid the least attention, not even to have heard her. And in the same instant Betty guessed that something serious had occurred.

Her expression changed instantly. Betty looked suddenly older and unlike any one had ever seen her look before.

She took her brother’s hand. “Never mind, Dick, I think I know already,” she whispered, and unexpectedly it seemed to be Dick who was having to be upheld and consoled.

Esther slipped silently away, leaving the brother and sister together in their sorrow, and somehow in her loneliness she felt almost envious of them in the closeness of their grief.

CHAPTER XXII

Saying Farewell to the Cabin

“For my part,” announced Polly O’Neill, “I am not so heart-broken as I expected at having to say farewell to Sunrise cabin. It is so different for us all, with the Princess not here and having to think of her back home in their big house with only her mother and one little maid of all work. To think that I used to tell the Princess I thought she ought to be poor a little while just to find out what it felt like! I could cry my eyes out now when I realize that it has actually come true.”

It was the May meeting of the Sunrise Council Fire and because it was to be the last meeting for some time which might be held on their old camping grounds, the girls and their guardian had decided that it should take place outdoors and that at the close of their regular program there should be, a general talk over the history of the past year.

Esther rose quietly at this speech of Polly’s, partly because she seemed to wish to find relief in action and then because the May night was cold, and put several fresh pine logs on their already glowing fire.

“You must not think I am ungrateful, Rose dear,” Polly continued. “This winter has been to me the most wonderful one, sometimes I think the turning point in my whole life, but if Betty is going to be trying to take boarders in that big Ashton house to support herself and her mother and let Dick finish his medical studies, why I think Mollie and mother and I had better be back in our own tiny cottage to give her our valuable advice.”

“But Betty won’t be keeping boarders herself, will she? I thought it was Mrs. Ashton who was to look after things with Betty to help,” Nan Graham spoke in a kind of awed tone. “Still it wouldn’t seem very nice of us to keep on living here in our cabin, which Betty did a great deal more toward building than the rest of us, if she were not here to share it.”

Mollie shook her head decidedly, so that the feathers of her Indian head-dress made fantastic small shadows on the ground. “I don’t think that would matter in the least and certainly not to Betty,” she said in her sensible, far-seeing fashion. “Betty would love to think of our being here and she would come and visit us whenever it were possible, but circumstances seem to have changed for all of us. Here is mother coming home from Ireland and Polly and I will want to keep house for her and look after things while she is at work just as we have always done, and then Mrs. Meade says she isn’t willing for Eleanor to be away from her any longer, and Nan feels she ought to go home and help her mother with the younger children, and Esther going away after a while to New York to study. Dear me, what changes a few months can bring! I am glad they have not brought such big ones to us, Polly.”

Sylvia Wharton had been in the act of wrapping a white woolen shawl about the small Faith, who was cuddled close to Rose Dyer, but now she stopped and stared hard at Mollie and then at Polly with an apparently wooden expression of face.

“What makes you feel things won’t be different for you and that your mother will go back to work?” she stammered, feeling their guardian give a little warning tug at her dress but unable to change the form of her question once it had taken a start in that way in her mind.

However, both the sisters only laughed, Polly exclaiming in an amused tone: “Of course we don’t know anything definitely, oh Sylvia, in this world of surprises, but merely that present indications point the way Mollie has just mentioned.” Fortunately, Polly, who was usually quick as a flash to follow up any suggestion, had her mind on other than her own affairs to-night.

“Esther,” she continued the next moment, “this is a kind of confessional to-night, or at least it may be if we girls decide that we are willing to confide in one another (autobiography is so much more interesting than history anyhow), so I wonder if you would mind telling us why you changed your mind so suddenly about going away from Woodford to study. At first you said nothing in the world would persuade you to go and then all of a sudden, after Betty’s misfortune, when it looked as though you might be a help to her, you determined to leave. Don’t answer me if you don’t like, Esther, I know you have a perfectly good reason. Of course I change my mind without a reason, but you don’t.”

Esther now felt that the eyes of all the members of the Camp Fire circle were fixed upon her and that many of them held the same question that Polly had just so frankly asked.

For a moment she hesitated, looking a little appealingly at Miss McMurtry and then at Rose Dyer. Rose nodded her head.

“I would tell just what I felt, Esther, as far as you can,” Rose recommended. “It is only fair to you that Betty’s dearest friends should understand your position, even though you would rather that Betty herself should not know. I feel you can trust them to keep your secret.”

Esther wound the seven strings of honor beads into a single chain before she spoke. “It sounds rather absurd of me and pretentious I know,” she began slowly; “of course I have a great many reasons in my mind why I feel it best for me to go away from Woodford right now and the most important one I cannot tell, but there is another which perhaps I have the right to let you try to understand. I am not deserting Betty just when she seems to need me most; it is because Betty now is poor and some day I may be able to help her if I do go away and succeed with my music that I am willing to go. You see Betty has done such a lot for me and has wanted to do so much more and – and – ” Esther could not continue with her confession, but it was hardly necessary, for rising from her place Polly marched solemnly around their circle and sitting down by Esther put her arm about her neck.

“I understand you perfectly now, Esther, though I want you to believe that no one of us has ever doubted you. You are too unselfish and too unworldly to care to make a big success in the world with your talent if it is only for yourself, but the thought that maybe you can some day bring back wealth and happiness again to the Princess makes most any effort worth while?”

Esther bowed her head, too full of emotion to answer Polly’s question in words.

“I supposed I cared for Betty a lot, I have known her so much longer than you have,” Polly went on thoughtfully, “but I don’t half love her as you do, Esther, even in this little while. I suppose it is because you haven’t any relatives of your own and your father is still so new to you. But didn’t you have a baby brother or some one long years ago – ?”

Polly’s remark was never finished because Miss Dyer now got up quickly. Because the evenings were so cool the May Council Fire had started early and though it was well nigh over, there was still a faint reflection of daylight.

“I thought I heard the wheels of a wagon several moments ago,” she explained, “and now I think I can see Dr. Barton’s buggy being driven this way. I wonder what in the world he can want with us at this time of the evening? Polly, will you come back to the cabin with me to see.”

The Council Fire was being held at no great distance from the Sunrise cabin, but perhaps it was Rose Dyer’s purpose at this moment to separate Polly and Esther.

Of course Polly followed with entire willingness, but a few feet from their door, seeing Dr. Barton’s buggy draw nearer and that it held two occupants instead of one, her face crimsoned and she bit her lips to control her vexation. She was returning to join the girls when Dr. Barton’s voice called after her: “Don’t go away, Miss O’Neill, please, our call is upon your sister and you. I was driving through the woods and found Mr. Webster with a telegram which had been telephoned to the farm and which he was bringing out to you and I offered to give him a lift.”

Although neither of the two young men had received any invitation to alight, they both got out of the buggy and both wearing somewhat crestfallen expressions, stood gazing at the two young women.

“I will call Mollie,” Polly declared stiffly, drawing back from Billy’s hand which held a square of paper in it.

“You need not speak to me, Miss O’Neill, simply because I happen to be your messenger boy,” the young man said as haughtily as Polly could have spoken. “And you need not feel any contamination at accepting this message from me. The telegram was telephoned out to our farm and my mother wrote it down, so I haven’t the faintest idea what the paper contains.”

Without showing any further signs of recognizing the speaker, Polly reached for the paper, but the next instant her frightened cry for Mollie brought her sister, Sylvia Wharton, and half a dozen other persons to her side. “I must have read it wrong, it is so dark, or your mother must have made some mistake!” Polly cried, forgetting her policy of silence in her agitation. And then standing with a white face and clenched teeth she watched Mollie read the message.

Mollie did not betray any great grief or anger, only a considerable amount of surprise, so that Polly for an instant believed her own eyes must have deceived her.

“Why, I can’t quite understand it,” Mollie said aloud, seeing the puzzled group of faces around her. “Mother telegraphs that she and Mr. Wharton, Sylvia’s father, have been engaged to be married for the past few months and that she was coming home to tell us about it and to ask us if we were willing, but something has happened or else Mr. Wharton has just persuaded her, for they are married already and are sailing for home to-morrow. Mother says she is very happy and hopes we will forgive her and be almost as overjoyed as she is in coming home to us. At least that is what I think the cablegram means. Billy was mistaken in thinking it a telegram. How do you feel, Polly dear? I am too dazed to take it all in.”

“I feel,” said Polly, with a return to her old passionate, uncontrolled manner, “that I shall never be happy again as long as I live.” And then observing a slow, hurt look in Sylvia Wharton’s usually unmoved face, she turned for an instant toward her. “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Sylvia, or to say anything against your father, but it just isn’t possible for you to understand what this means to me.” And with this thoroughly Polly-like point of view she ran away and hid herself inside the cabin.

Billy Webster walked off with Mollie and the other Camp Fire girls to talk things over, giving Dr. Barton a chance to linger for a few moments with Rose Dyer.

“I don’t know why you seem so offended with me these days, Miss Rose,” that young man was soon saying in rather an humble voice for so stern and upright a judge of other people’s duties, “but may I say that I think your work among the Camp Fire girls this winter has been quite wonderful and that I never dreamed you could or would be interested in anything outside of society? Oh, Rose – ”

“Rose of the World,” Rose Dyer finished in a slightly mocking tone, which did not show whether or not she had forgiven the young man’s former opinion of her.

However, he was obstinate and so would not be interrupted. “Oh, Rose of a Thousand Leaves,” he ended for himself.

CHAPTER XXIII

Future Plans

“It was Sylvia who really arranged things for me,” Polly explained confidentially.

The girls were in Betty Ashton’s own blue room, having said good-bye to Sunrise cabin and turned their backs upon it for a time at least. But the cabin had been left ready to receive its owners at any time when they might be able to come back to it and week-end parties and Council Fire meetings were often to take place there, besides more important events which the girls could not well anticipate now.

But to-day was Betty Ashton’s birthday and although she was in too deep mourning for any kind of gayety, her Camp Fire friends had planned to stop by her house during the afternoon to leave little gifts for her, along with their best wishes. And Mollie and Polly O’Neill had arrived first.

“I shall miss you terribly, Polly,” Betty returned wistfully; her bright color had gone in the last few weeks and there were slight shadows under her gray eyes. “Still I feel sure that under the circumstances it is best for you to go. You are too restless anyhow to have wanted to stay in Woodford and the new life with the new people and sights will make you much happier. You will probably have a good deal of liberty at a New York boarding school and you’ll be able to go to the theater now and then and do many of the things you will like. But Mollie and I hope you will come back for Christmas and will write us pretty often.”

Polly looked thoughtfully from her friend to her sister. “I know I am an absolutely selfish person and I would rather neither one of you would even attempt to deny it. I am not leaving my home though simply because I am restless. The truth is I simply can’t get used to mother’s being married to Mr. Wharton and to living in their great ugly house instead of our own beloved cottage. I don’t like Frank Wharton and though Mr. Wharton is very kind and wants to do everything for Mollie and me, he is one of those dreadfully literal persons, so I am afraid we never will understand one another.”

“But you used to say, Polly, that you were tired of our small house and that you wanted to live in a big one with lots of money and servants. And now you have it you are dying to get away.” And Mollie sighed, for the thought of being parted from her sister even as far away as the next fall, was very hard to bear, and yet she would not leave her mother, since for both of her daughters to go away would look like a reflection upon her marriage.

“Heigh, ho!” laughed Polly. “Perhaps I have made some such statement in the past but I suppose I wanted to get rich in my own little way, like I wish to do everything else. And inconsistency, which is not a jewel, is certainly Polly O’Neill. But don’t let’s talk about me any more, it’s Betty’s birthday. However, I would like to register this statement – Sylvia Wharton is the most extraordinary person I ever met. And what Sylvia starts out to do in this world she’ll do. It was Sylvia who saw I wasn’t happy in her home, Sylvia who talked things over first to me, and then suggested my departure to mother and her father. And though our parents were both horribly opposed to the idea at first, Sylvia brought them around without any arguments or excitement simply by continuing to make plain statements of the facts.”

“Well, the wheel of fortune we hear so much about has truly turned, dear, and you’re rich and I’m poor and now we must wait to see what will happen next,” Betty remarked, hearing a faint knock at her bedroom door and moving forward to open it, but in passing she stopped and kissed Polly lightly on the forehead. “Don’t look as though you were the wheel, Polly child, and had made the changes. I am not going to be half so miserable being poor as you girls think I will. Just think of how much more self-respecting I am going to feel if, when I go to bed some night, I can say to myself: ‘Betty Ashton has earned her salt to-day.’”

Betty now opened her door and there on the threshold stood Rose Dyer with a bunch of pink roses and Faith with a pot of lemon verbena in her hand. Faith was not yet well enough to go home to the boarding house in Boston, so Miss Dyer had brought her to her own home in Woodford, where she and Mammy were still to look after the odd child.

On the arrival of Polly and Mollie a few moments before, Betty had not been in the least surprised. The two girls usually ran in to see her every afternoon now and had been giving her birthday presents for nearly as many years as she could remember, but when Rose and Faith also appeared she realized that the members of the Sunrise club might all be coming in to see her during the afternoon in just this same quiet fashion. And the next instant she was convinced when Sylvia solemnly appeared with a box of candy, which she thrust awkwardly at her.