The Camp Fire Girls' Careers

CHAPTER VI – The Fire-Maker’s Desire

Outside the window of a small florist’s shop Betty paused for an instant. Then she stepped in and a little later came out carrying half a dozen red roses and a bunch of holly and fragrant cedar. Curiously enough, her expression in this short time had changed. Perhaps the flowers gave the added color to her face. She was repeating something over to herself and half smiling; but, as there were no people on the street except a few dirty children who were playing cheerfully in the gutter, no one observed her eccentric behavior.

“As fuel is brought to the fire

Betty’s delicate, eyebrows were drawn so close together that they appeared almost heart shaped. “I fear I have only been tending the love of a girl for herself these past few months, so perhaps it is just as well that I should try to reform,” she thought half whimsically and yet with reproach. “Anyhow, I shall telephone Meg Everett this very afternoon, though I am glad Esther does not know the reason Meg and I have been seeing so little of each other lately, and that the fault is mine, not hers.”

By this time the girl had arrived in front of a large, dull, brown-stone building in the middle of a dingy street, with a subdued hush about it. Above the broad entrance hung a sign, “Home For Crippled Children.” Here for a moment Betty Ashton’s courage seemed to waver, for she paused irresolutely, but a little later she entered the hall. A week before she had promised an acquaintance at the church where Esther was singing to come to the children’s hospital some day and amuse them by telling stories. Since she had not thought seriously of her promise, although intending to fulfill it when she had discovered stories worth the telling. This morning while worrying over her own affair it had occurred to her that the best thing she could do was to do something for some one else. Hence the visit to the hospital.

Yet here at the moment of her arrival Betty had not the faintest idea of what she could do or say to make herself acceptable as a visitor. She had a peculiar antipathy to being regarded as a conventional philanthropist, one of the individuals with the instinct to patronize persons less fortunate.

Long ago when through her wealth and sympathy Betty had been able to do helpful things for her acquaintances, always she had felt the same shrinking sense of embarrassment, disliking to be thanked for kindnesses. Yet actually in his last letter Anthony Graham had dared remind her of their first meeting, an occasion she wished forgotten between them both.

The matron of the children’s hospital had been sent for and a little later she was conducting Betty down a broad, bare hall and then ushering her into a big sunlit room, not half so cheerless as its visitor had anticipated.

There were two large French windows on the southern side and a table piled with books and magazines. Near one of these windows two girls were seated in rolling chairs reading. They must have been about fourteen years old and did not look particularly frail. Across from them were four other girls, perhaps a year or so younger, engaged in a game of parchesi. On the floor in the corner a pretty little girl was sewing on her doll clothes and another was hopping merrily about on her crutches, interfering with every one else. Only two of the cot beds in the room were occupied, and to these Betty’s eyes turned instinctively. In one she saw a happy little German maiden with yellow hair and pale pink cheeks propped up on pillows, busily assorting half a dozen colors of crochet cotton. In the other a figure was lying flat with the eyes staring at the ceiling. And at the first glance there was merely an effect of some one indescribably thin with a quantity of short, curly dark hair spread out on the white pillow.

The matron introduced Betty, told her errand, and then went swiftly away, leaving her to do the rest for herself, and the rest appeared exceedingly difficult. The older girls who were reading closed their books politely and bowed. Yet it was self-evident that they would have preferred going on with their books to hearing anything their visitor might have to tell. Among the parchesi players there was a hurried consultation and then one of them looked up. “We will be through with our game in a few moments,” she explained with a note of interrogation in her voice.

“Oh, please don’t stop on my account,” the newcomer said hastily.

On the big table Betty put down her roses and evergreens, not liking to present them with any formality under the circumstances. She could see that the little girl who was sewing in the corner was smiling a welcome to her and that the little German Mädchen in bed was pleased with her winter bouquet. For she had whispered, “Schön, wunderschön,” and stopped assorting her crochet work. Then the child on crutches came across the floor, and picking up one of the roses placed it on the pillow by the dark-eyed girl, who showed not the least sign of having noticed the attention.

“She will look at it in a moment if she thinks we are not watching her,” explained Betty’s one friendly confidant, motioning to a chair to suggest that their visitor might sit down if she wished.

It was an extremely awkward situation. Betty sat down. She had come to make a call at a place where her society was not desired and though they were only children, and she a grown woman, still she had no right to intrude upon their privacy. She found herself blushing furiously. Besides, what story had she to tell that would be of sufficient interest to hold their attention? Had she not thought of at least a dozen, only to discard them all as unsuitable?

“I believe you were going to entertain us, I suppose with a fairy story,” began one of the girls, still keeping her finger between the covers of Little Women. It was hard luck to be torn away from that delightful love scene between Laurie and Jo to hear some silly tale of princes and princesses and probably a golden apple when one was fourteen years old. However, this morning’s visitor was so pretty it was a pleasure to look at her. Besides, she had on lovely clothes and was dreadfully embarrassed. Moreover, she was sitting quite still and helpless instead of poking about, asking tiresome questions as most visitors did. One could not avoid feeling a little sorry for her instead of having to receive her pity.

Both wheeled chairs were now rolled over alongside Betty and Little Women was closed and laid on the table. The next instant the parchesi game was finished and the four players glanced with greater interest at their guest. The girl who had been dancing about on her crutches hopped up on the table.

“I am ‘Cricket’ not on the hearth, but on the table at this moment,” she confided gayly; “at least, that is what the girls here call me and it is as good a name as any other. Now won’t you tell us your name?”

“Betty Ashton,” the visitor answered, still feeling ill at ease and angry and disgusted with herself for not knowing how to make the best of the situation. Yet she need no longer have worried. For there was some silent, almost indescribable influence at work in the little company until almost irresistibly most of its occupants felt themselves drawn toward the newcomer. Of course, Polly O’Neill would have described this influence as the Princess’ charm and that is as good an explanation as any other. But I think it was Betty Ashton’s ability to put herself in other people’s places, to think and feel and understand for them and with them. Now she knew that these eight girls, poor and ill though they might be, did not want either her pity or her patronage.

“Well, fire away with your tale, Miss Ashton,” suggested Cricket somewhat impatiently, “and don’t make it too goody-goody if you can help it. Most of us are anxious to hear.” Cricket had pretty gray eyes and a great deal of fluffy brown hair, but otherwise the face was plain, except for its clever, good-natured expression. She gave a sudden side glance toward the figure on the bed only a dozen feet away and Betty’s glance followed hers.

She saw that the red rose had been taken off the pillow and that the eyes that had been staring at the ceiling were gazing toward her. However, their look was anything but friendly.

For some foolish, unexplainable reason the girl made Betty think of Polly. Yet this child’s eyes were black instead of blue, her hair short and curly instead of long and dark. And though Polly had often been impatient and dissatisfied, thank heaven she had never had that expression of sullen anger and of something else that Betty could not yet understand.

For Betty had of course to turn again toward her auditors and smile an entirely friendly and charming smile.

“May I take off my hat first? It may help me to think,” she said. Then when Cricket had helped her remove both her coat and hat she sat down again and sighed.

“Do you know I have come here under absolutely false pretences? I announced that I had a story to tell, but I simply can’t think of anything that would entertain you in the least and I should so hate to be a bore.”

Then in spite of her twenty-one years, Betty Ashton seemed as young as any girl in the room. Moreover, she was exquisitely pretty. Her auburn hair, now neatly coiled, shone gold from the light behind her. Her cheeks were almost too flushed and every now and then her dark lashes drooped, shading the frank friendliness of her gray eyes. She wore a walking skirt, beautifully tailored, and a soft white silk blouse with a knot of her same favorite blue velvet pinned at her throat with her torch-bearer’s pin.

Agnes Edgerton, the former reader of Little Women, made no effort to conceal her admiration. “Oh, don’t tell us a story,” she protested, “we read such a lot of books. Tell us something about yourself. Real people are so much more interesting.”

“But there isn’t anything very interesting about me, I am far too ordinary a person,” Betty returned. Then she glanced almost desperately about the big room. There was a mantel and a fireplace, but no fire, as the room was warmed with steam radiators. However, on the mantel stood three brass candlesticks holding three white candles and these may have been the source of Betty’s inspiration.

Outside the smoky chimney tops of old Boston houses and factories reared their heads against the winter sky, and yet Betty began her story telling with the question: “I wonder if you would like me to tell you of a summer twelve girls spent together at Sunrise Hill?” For in the glory of the early morning, with the Camp Fire cabin at its base, Sunrise Hill had suddenly flashed before her eyes like a welcome vision.

CHAPTER VII – “The Flames in the Wind”

When an hour later Betty Ashton finished her story of the first years of the Camp Fire girls at Sunrise Hill on the table nearby three candles were burning and about them was a circle of eager faces.

Moreover, from the cedar which Betty had bought as a part of her winter bouquet a miniature tree had been built as the eternal Camp Fire emblem and there also were the emblems of the wood gatherer, fire maker and torch bearer constructed from odd sticks which Cricket had mysteriously produced in the interval of the story telling.

“That is the most delightful experience that I ever heard of girls having, a whole year out of doors with a chance to do nice things for yourself, a fairy story that was really true,” Cricket sighed finally. “Funny, but I never heard of a Camp Fire club and I have never been to the country.”

“You have never been to the country?” Betty repeated her words slowly, staring first at Cricket and then at the other girls. No one else seemed surprised by the remark.

In answer the younger girl flushed. “I told you I had not,” she repeated in a slightly sarcastic tone. “But please don’t look as if the world had come to an end. Lots of poor people don’t do much traveling and we have five children in the family besides me. Of course, I couldn’t go on school picnics and Sunday-school excursions like the others.” Here an annoyed, disappointed expression crept into Cricket’s eyes and she grew less cheerful.

“Please don’t spoil our nice morning together, Miss Ashton, by beginning to pity me. I hate people who are sorry for themselves. That is the reason we girls have liked you so much, you have been so different from the others.”

Quietly Betty began putting on her wraps. She had been watching Cricket’s face all the time she had been talking of Sunrise Hill, of the grove of pine trees and the lake. Yet if the thought had leapt into her mind that she would like to show her new acquaintance something more beautiful than the chimney tops of Boston, it was now plain that she must wait until they were better friends.

“But you’ll come again soon and tell us more?” Cricket next asked, picking up their visitor’s muff and pressing it close to her face with something like a caress. Then more softly, “I did not mean to be rude.”

Betty nodded. “Of course I’ll come if you wish me. You see, I am a stranger in Boston and lonely. But I’ll never have anything half so interesting to tell you as the history of our club with such girls as Polly O’Neill, Esther and Meg and the rest for heroines. Nothing in my whole life has ever been such fun. Do you know I was wondering – ”

Here a slight noise from the figure on the cot near them for an instant distracted Betty’s attention. Yet glancing in that direction, there seemed to have been no movement. Not for a single moment did she believe the little girl had been listening to a word she was saying. For she had never caught another glance straying in her direction.

“You were wondering what?” Agnes Edgerton demanded a little impatiently and Betty thought she saw the same expression on all the faces about her.

“Wondering if you would like my sister, Esther, to come and sing our old Camp Fire songs to you some day?” This time there was no mistaking it. Her audience did look disappointed. “And wondering something else, only perhaps I had best wait, you may not think it would be fun, or perhaps it might be too much work – ” Betty’s face was flushed, again she seemed very little older than the other girls about her.

“Yes, we would,” Agnes Edgerton answered gravely, having by this time quite forgotten the interruption of Little Women in her new interest. “I know what you mean, because almost from the start I have been wondering the same thing. Do you think we girls could start a Camp Fire club here among ourselves, if you would show us how? Why, it would make everything so much easier and happier. There are some of the Camp Fire things we could not do, of course, but the greater part of them – ”

Here, with a sudden exclamation of pleasure, Cricket bounced off her perch on the table and began dancing about in a fashion which showed how she had earned her name.

“Hurrah for the Shut-In Camp Fire Girls and the fairy princess who brought us the idea!” she exclaimed. Then, surveying Betty more critically, “You know you do look rather like a princess. Are you one in disguise?”

Betty laughed. She had not felt so cheerful in months. For with Agnes and Cricket on her side, the thought that had slowly been growing in her mind would surely bear fruit. But how strangely her old title sounded! How it did bring back the past Camp Fire days!

“No,” she returned, “I am not a princess or anything in the least like one. But we can all have new names in our Camp Fire club if we like, select any character or idea we choose and try to live up to it. Next time I come I will try and explain things better and bring you our manual. Now I really must hurry.”

Betty Ashton was moving quickly toward the door, accompanied by Cricket, when a hand reached suddenly out from the side of a bed clutching at her skirt.

“I would rather have that Polly girl come the next time instead of you; I am sure I should like her much better,” the voice said with a decidedly foreign accent. Then Betty looked quickly into the pair of black eyes that had been so relentlessly fixed upon the ceiling.

“I don’t wonder you would rather have the Polly girl instead of me,” she returned smiling; “most people would, and perhaps you may see her some day if I can find her. Only I don’t know where she is just at present.”

So this strange child had been listening to her story-telling after all. Curious that her fancy had lighted upon Polly, but perhaps the name carried its own magic.

Out in the hall Betty whispered to her companion:

“Tell me that little girl’s name, won’t you, Cricket? I didn’t dare ask her. What a strange little thing she is, and yet she makes me think of an old friend. Already I believe she has taken a dislike to me.”

The other girl shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t be flattered, she dislikes everybody and won’t have anything to do with the rest of us if she can help it. Yet her name is Angelique, that is all we know. ‘The Angel’ we call her when we wish to make her particularly furious. She is French, and we believe an orphan, because no one comes to see her, though she has letters now and then, which she hides under her pillow,” Cricket concluded almost spitefully, since curiosity was one of her leading traits.

On her way back home, oddly enough, Betty found her attention divided between two subjects. The first was natural enough; she was greatly pleased with her morning’s experience. Perhaps, if she could interest her new acquaintances in forming a Camp Fire, her winter need not be an altogether unhappy and dissatisfied one.

There had been a definite reason for her leaving Woodford, which she hoped was known to no one but herself. It had been making her very unhappy, but now she intended rising above it if possible. Of course, work in which she felt an interest was the best possible cure; there was no use in preaching such a transparent philosophy as Esther had earlier in the day. But she had no inclination toward pursuing a definite career such as Sylvia, Nan and Polly had chosen. The money Judge Maynard had left her relieved her from this necessity. But the name of Polly immediately set her thinking along the second direction. What was it in the unfortunate child at the hospital that had brought Polly so forcibly before her mind? There was no definite resemblance between them, only a line here and there in the face or a slight movement. Could Polly even be conscious of the girl’s existence? For Betty felt that there were many unexplainable forms of mental telegraphy by which one might communicate a thought to a friend closely in sympathy with one’s own nature.

But by this time, as she was within a few feet of Esther’s and Dick’s home, Betty smiled to herself. She had merely become interested in this particular child because she seemed more unfortunate and less content than the others and she meant to do what she could to help her, no matter what her personal attitude might be. As for Polly’s influence in the matter, it of course amounted to nothing. Was she not always wondering what had become of her best-loved friend and hoping she might soon be taken into her confidence?

CHAPTER VIII – Afternoon Tea and a Mystery

Ten days later, returning from another of her now regular visits to the hospital, Betty Ashton was surprised by hearing voices inside the living room just as she was passing the closed door. Possibly Esther had invited some of their new acquaintances in to tea and had forgotten to mention it. Now she could hear her own name being called.

Her hair had been blown in every direction by the east wind and she had been sitting on the floor at the hospital, building a camp fire in the old chimney place, with the grate removed, according to the most approved camping methods. Straightening her hat and rubbing her face for an instant with her handkerchief, Betty made a casual entrance into the room, trying to assume an agreeable society manner to make up for her other deficiencies.