The Camp Fire Girls on the March
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Jane L. Stewart >> The Camp Fire Girls on the March
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9 [Illustration: "Keep still, and you won't be hurt," commanded the man.]
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Camp Fire Girls Series, Volume V
THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE MARCH
or
BESSIE KING'S TEST OF FRIENDSHIP
by
JANE L. STEWART
The Saalfield Publishing Company
Chicago AKRON, OHIO New York
MADE IN U. S. A.
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Copyright, 1914
By
The Saalfield Publishing Co.
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THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON THE MARCH
CHAPTER I
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
"Oh, what a glorious day!" cried Bessie King, the first of the members
of the Manasquan Camp Fire Girls of America to emerge from the sleeping
house of Camp Sunset, on Lake Dean, and to see the sun sparkling on the
water of the lake. She was not long alone in her enjoyment of the scene,
however.
"Oh, it's lovely!" said Dolly Ransom, as, rubbing her eyes sleepily,
since it was only a little after six, she joined her friend on the
porch. "This is really the first time we've had a chance to see what the
lake looks like. It's been covered with that dense smoke ever since
we've been here."
"Well, the smoke has nearly all gone, Dolly. The change in the wind not
only helped to put out the fire, but it's driving the smoke away from
us."
"The smoke isn't all gone, though, Bessie. Look over there. It's still
rising from the other end of the woods on the other side of the lake,
but it isn't bothering us over here any more."
"What a pity it is that we've got to go away just as the weather gives
us a chance to enjoy it here! But then I guess we'll have a good time
when we do go away, anyhow. We thought we weren't going to enjoy it
here, but it hasn't been so bad, after all, has it?"
"No, because it ended well, Bessie. But if those girls in the camp next
door had had their way, we wouldn't have had a single pleasant thing to
remember about staying here, would we?"
"They've had their lesson, I think, Dolly. Perhaps they won't be so
ready to look down on the Camp Fire Girls after this--and I'm sure they
would be nice and friendly if we stayed."
"I wouldn't want any of their friendliness. All I'd ask would be for
them to let us alone. That's all I ever did want them to do, anyhow. If
they had just minded their own affairs, there wouldn't have been any
trouble."
"Well, I feel sort of sorry for them, Dolly. When they finally got into
real trouble they had to come to us for help, and if they are the sort
of girls they seem to be, they couldn't have liked doing that very
well."
"You bet they didn't, Bessie! It was just the hardest thing they could
have done. You see, the reason they were so mean to us is that they are
awfully proud, and they think they're better than any other people."
"Then what's the use of still being angry at them? I thought you weren't
last night--not at Gladys Cooper, at least."
"Why, I thought then that she was in danger because of what I'd done,
and that made me feel bad. But you and I helped to get her back to their
camp safely, so I feel as if we were square. I suppose I ought to be
willing to forgive them for the way they acted, but I just can't seem to
do it, Bessie."
"Well, as long as we're going away from here to-day anyhow, it doesn't
make much difference. We're not likely to see them again, are we?"
"I don't know why not--those who live in the same town, anyhow. Marcia
Bates and Gladys Cooper--the two who were lost on the mountain last
night, you know--live very close to me at home."
"You were always good friends with Gladys until you met her up here,
weren't you?"
"Oh, yes, good friends enough. I don't think we either of us cared
particularly about the other. Each of us had a lot of friends we liked
better, but we got along well enough."
"Well, don't you think she just made a mistake, and then was afraid to
admit it, and try to make up for it? I think lots of people are like
that. They do something wrong, and then, just because it frightens them
a little and they think it would be hard to set matters right, they
make a bad thing much worse."
"Oh, you can't make me feel charitable about them, and there's no use
trying, Bessie! Let's try not to talk about them, for it makes me angry
every time I think of the way they behaved. They were just plain snobs,
that's all!"
"I thought Gladys Cooper was pretty mean, after all the trouble we had
taken last night to help her and her chum, but I do think the rest were
sorry, and felt that they'd been all wrong. They really said so, if you
remember."
"Well, they ought to have been, certainly! What a lot of lazy girls they
must be! Do look, Bessie. There isn't a sign of life over at their camp.
I bet not one of them is up yet!"
"You're a fine one to criticise anyone else for being lazy, Dolly
Ransom! How long did it take me to wake you up this morning? And how
many times have you nearly missed breakfast by going back to bed after
you'd pretended to get up?"
"Oh, well," said Dolly, defiantly, "it's just because I'm lazy myself
and know what a fault it is that I'm the proper one to call other people
down for it. It's always the one who knows all about some sin who can
preach the best sermon against it, you know."
"Turning preacher, Dolly?" asked Eleanor Mercer. Both the girls spun
around and rushed toward her as soon as they heard her voice, and
realized that she had stepped noiselessly out on the porch. They
embraced her happily. She was Guardian of the Camp Fire, and no more
popular Guardian could have been found in the whole State.
"Dolly's got something more against the girls from Halsted Camp!"
explained Bessie, with a peal of laughter. "She says they're lazy
because they're not up yet, and I said she was a fine one to say
anything about that! Don't you think so too, Miss Eleanor?"
"Well, she's up early enough this morning, Bessie. But, well, I'm afraid
you're right. Dolly's got a lot of good qualities, but getting up early
in the morning unless someone pulls her out of bed and keeps her from
climbing in again, isn't one of them."
"What time are we going to start, Miss Eleanor?" asked Dolly, who felt
that it was time to change the topic of conversation. Dolly was usually
willing enough to talk about herself, but she preferred to choose the
subject herself.
"After we've had breakfast and cleaned things up here. It was very nice
of the Worcesters to let us use their camp, and we must leave it looking
just as nice as when we came."
"Are they coming back here this summer?"
"The Worcesters? No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure, though, that
they have invited some friends of theirs to use the camp next week and
stay as long as they like."
"I hope their friends will please the Halsted Camp crowd better than we
did," said Dolly, sarcastically. "The Worcesters ought to be very
careful only to let people come here who are a little better socially
than those girls. Then they'd probably be satisfied."
"Now, don't hold a grudge against all those girls, Dolly," said Eleanor,
smiling. "Gladys Cooper was really the ringleader in all the trouble
they tried to make for us, and you've had your revenge on her. On all of
them, for that matter."
"Oh, Miss Eleanor, if you could only have seen them when I threw that
basket full of mice among them! I never saw such a scared lot of girls
in my life!"
"That was a pretty mean trick," said Eleanor. "I don't think what they
did to bother us deserved such a revenge as that, even if I believed in
revenge, anyhow. I don't because it usually hurts the people who get it
more than the victims."
Bessie looked at Dolly sharply, but, if she meant to say anything,
Eleanor herself anticipated her remark.
"Now come on, Dolly, own up!" she said. "Didn't you feel pretty bad when
you heard Gladys and Marcia were lost in the woods last night? Didn't
you think that it was because you'd got the best of the girls that they
turned against Gladys, and so drove her into taking that foolish night
walk in the woods?"
"Oh, I did--I did!" cried Dolly. "And I told Bessie so last night, too.
I never would have forgiven myself if anything really serious had
happened to those two girls."
"That's just it, Dolly. You may think that revenge is a joke, perhaps,
as you meant yours to be, but you never can tell how far it's going, nor
what the final effect is going to be."
"I'm beginning to see that, Miss Mercer."
"I know you are, Dolly. You were lucky--as lucky as Gladys and Marcia.
You were particularly lucky, because, after all, it was your pluck in
going into that cave, when you didn't know what sort of danger you might
run into, that found them. So you had a salve for your conscience right
then. But often and often it wouldn't have happened that way. You might
very well have had to remember always that your revenge, though you
thought it was such a trifling thing, had had a whole lot of pretty
serious results."
"Well, I really am beginning to feel a little sorry," admitted Dolly,
"though Gladys acted just as if she was insulted because we found them.
She said she and Marcia would have been all right in that cave if they'd
stayed there until morning."
"I think she'll have reason to change her mind," said Eleanor. "She'd
have found herself pretty uncomfortable this morning with nothing to
eat. And she's in for a bad cold, unless I'm mistaken, and it might very
well have been pneumonia if they'd had to stay out all night."
"She's a softy!" declared Dolly, scornfully. "I'll bet Bessie and I
could have spent the night there and been all right, too, after it was
all over."
"You and Bessie are both unusually strong and healthy, Dolly. It may not
be her fault that she's a softy, as you call her. The Camp Fire pays a
whole lot of attention to health. That's why Health is one of the words
that we use to make up Wo-he-lo. Work, and Health, and Love. Because
you can't work properly, and love properly, unless you are healthy."
"I suppose what happened to Gladys last night was one of the things you
were talking about when you wanted us to be patient, wasn't it?"
"What do you mean, Dolly?"
"Why, when you said that pride went before a fall, and that she'd be
sure to have something unpleasant happen if we only let her alone, and
didn't try to get even ourselves?"
"Well, it looks like it, doesn't it?"
"I don't get much satisfaction out of seeing people punished that way,
though," admitted Dolly, after a moment's thought. "It seems to
me--well, listen, Miss Eleanor. Suppose someone did something awfully
nice for me. It wouldn't be right, would it, for me just to say to
myself, 'Oh, well, something nice will happen to her.' She might have
some piece of good fortune, but I wouldn't have anything to do with it.
I'd want to do something nice myself to show that I was grateful."
"Of course you would," said Eleanor, who saw the point Dolly was trying
to make and admired her power of working out a logical proposition.
"Well, then, if that's true, why shouldn't it be true if someone does
something hateful to me? I don't take any credit for the pleasant things
that happen to people who are nice to me, so why should I feel satisfied
because the hateful ones have some piece of bad luck that I didn't have
anything to do with, either?"
"That's a perfectly good argument as far as it goes, Dolly. But the
trouble is that it doesn't go far enough. You've got a false step in it.
Can't you see where she goes wrong, Bessie?"
"I think I can, Miss Eleanor," said Bessie. "It's that we ought not to
be glad when people are in trouble, even if they are mean to us, isn't
it? But we are glad, and ought to be, when nice people have good luck.
So the two cases aren't the same a bit, are they?"
"Right!" said Eleanor, heartily. "Think that over a bit, Dolly. You'll
see the point pretty soon and then maybe you'll understand the whole
business better."
Just then the girls whose turn it had been to prepare breakfast came to
the door of the Living Camp, which contained the dining-room and the
kitchen, and a blast on a horn announced that breakfast was ready.
"Come on! We'll eat our next meal sitting around a camp fire in the
woods, if that forest fire has left any woods where we're going,"
announced Eleanor. "So we want to make this meal a good one. No telling
what sort of places we'll find on our tramp."
"I bet it will be good fun, no matter what they're like," said Margery
Burton, one of the other members of the Camp Fire. She was a Fire-Maker,
the second rank of the Camp Fire. First are the Wood-Gatherers, to which
Bessie and Dolly belonged; then the Fire-Makers, and finally, and next
to the Guardian, whom they serve as assistants, the Torch-Bearers.
Margery hoped soon to be made a Torch-Bearer, and had an ambition to
become a Guardian herself as soon as Miss Eleanor and the local council
of the National Camp Fire decided that she was qualified for the work.
"Oh, you'd like any old thing just because you had to stand for it,
Margery, whether it was any good or not," said Dolly.
"Well, isn't that a good idea? Why, I even manage to get along with you,
Dolly! Sometimes I like you quite well. And anyone who could stand for
you!"
Dolly laughed as loudly as the rest. She had been pretty thoroughly
spoiled, but her association with the other girls in the Camp Fire had
taught her to take a joke when it was aimed at her, unlike most people
who are fond of making jokes at the expense of others, and of teasing
them. She recognized that she had fairly invited Margery's sharp reply.
"We'll have to hurry and get ready when breakfast is over," said Eleanor
as they were finishing the meal. "You girls whose turn it is to wash up
had better get through as quickly as you can. Then we'll all get the
packs ready. We have to take the boat that leaves at half past nine for
the other end of Lake Dean."
"Why, there's someone coming! It's those girls from the other camp!"
announced Dolly, suddenly. She had left the table, and was looking out
of the window.
And, sure enough, when the Camp Fire Girls went out on the porch in a
minute, they saw advancing the private school girls, whose snobbishness
had nearly ruined their stay at Camp Sunset. Marcia Bates, who had been
rescued with her friend, Gladys Cooper, acted as spokesman for them.
"We've come to tell you that we've all decided we were nasty and acted
like horrid snobs," she said. "We have found out that you're nice
girls--nicer than we are. And we're very grateful--of course I am,
especially--for you helping us. And so we want you to accept these
little presents we've brought for you."
CHAPTER II
TROUBLE SMOOTHED AWAY
Probably none of the Camp Fire Girls had ever been so surprised in their
lives as when they heard the object of this utterly unexpected visit.
Marcia's eyes were rather blurred while she was speaking, and anyone
could see that it was a hard task she had assumed.
It is never easy to confess that one has been in the wrong, and it was
particularly hard for these girls, whose whole campaign against the Camp
Fire party had been based on pride and a false sense of their own
superiority, which, of course, had existed only in their imaginations.
For a moment no one seemed to know what to do or say. Strangely enough,
it was Dolly, who had resented the previous attitude of the rich girls
more than any of her companions, who found by instinct the true
solution.
She didn't say a word; she simply ran forward impulsively and threw her
arms about Marcia's neck. Then, and not till then, as she kissed the
friend with whom she had quarreled, did she find words.
"You're an old dear, Marcia!" she cried. "I knew you wouldn't keep on
hating us when you knew us better--and you'll forgive me, won't you, for
playing that horrid trick with the mice?"
Dolly had broken the ice, and in a moment the stiffness of the two
groups of girls was gone, and they mingled, talking and laughing
naturally.
"I don't know what the presents you brought are--you haven't shown them
to us yet," said Dolly, with a laugh. "But I'm sure they must be lovely,
and as for accepting them, why, you just bet we will!"
"You know," said Marcia a little apologetically, "there aren't any real
stores up here, and we couldn't get what we would really have liked, but
we just did the best we could. Girls, get those things out!"
And then a dozen blankets were unrolled, beautifully woven Indian
blankets, such as girls love to use for their dens, as couch covers and
for hangings on the walls. Dolly exclaimed with delight as she saw hers.
"Heavens! And you act as if they weren't perfectly lovely!" she cried.
"Why, Marcia, how can you talk as if they weren't the prettiest things!
If that's what you call just doing the best you can, I'm afraid to think
of what you'd have got for us if you'd been able to pick out whatever
you wanted. It would have been something so fine that we'd have been
afraid to take it, I'm sure."
"Well, we thought perhaps you'd find them useful if you're going on this
tramp of yours," said Marcia, blushing with pleasure. "And I'm ever so
glad you like them, if you really do, because I helped to pick them out.
There's one for each of you, and then we've got a big Mackinaw jacket
for Miss Mercer, so that she'd have something different."
"I can't tell you how happy this makes me!" said Eleanor, swallowing a
little hard, for she was evidently deeply touched. "I don't mean the
presents, Marcia, though they're lovely, but the spirit in which you all
bring them."
"We--we wanted to show you we were sorry, and that we understood how
mean we'd been," said Marcia.
"Oh, my dear, do let's forget all that!" said Eleanor, heartily. "We
don't want to remember anything unpleasant. Let's bury all that, and
just have the memory that we're all good friends now, and that we'd
never have been anything else if we'd only understood one another in the
beginning as well as we do now.
"That's the reason for most of the quarrels in this world; people don't
understand one another, that's all. And when they do, it's just as it is
with us--they wonder how they ever could have hated one another!"
"Why, where's Gladys Cooper?" asked Dolly, suddenly. She had been
looking around for the girl who had been chiefly responsible for all
the trouble, and who had been, before this meeting, one of Dolly's
friends in the city from which she and Marcia, as well as the Camp Fire
Girls, came. And Gladys was missing.
"She--why--she--she isn't feeling very well," stammered Marcia
unhappily. But a look at Dolly's face convinced her that she might as
well tell the truth. "I'm awfully sorry," she went on shamefacedly, "but
Gladys was awfully silly."
"You mean she hasn't forgiven us?" said Eleanor gently.
"She's just stupid," flashed Marcia. "What has she got to forgive? She
ought to be here, thanking Dolly and Bessie King for finding us, just as
I am. And she's sulking in her room, instead!"
"She'll change her mind, Marcia," said Eleanor, "just as the rest of you
have done. I'm dreadfully sorry that she feels that way, because it must
make her unhappy. But please don't be angry with her if you really want
to please us. We're just as ready and just as anxious to be friends
with her as with all the rest of you, and some time we will be, too. I'm
sure of that."
"We'll make her see what a fool she is!" said Marcia, hotly. "If she'd
only come with us, she'd have seen it for herself. She said all the
girls here would crow over us, and act as if we were backing down, and
had done this because someone made us."
Eleanor laughed heartily.
"Well, that is a silly idea!" she said. "Just explain to her that we
were just as pleased and as surprised to see you as we could be, Marcia.
You didn't need to come here this way at all, and we know it perfectly
well. You did it just because you are nice girls and wanted to be
friendly, and we appreciate the way you've come a good deal more than we
do the lovely presents, even."
"Well, I hope we'll see you again," said Marcia. "If you're going on
that half past nine boat we'll go back now, and let you pack, unless we
can help you?"
"No, you can't help us. We've really got very little to do. But don't
go. Stay around, if you will, and we'll all talk and visit with you
while we do what there is to be done."
"I'm awfully sorry Gladys is cutting up so. It makes me feel ashamed,
Dolly," said Marcia, when she and Dolly were alone. "But you know how
she is. I think she's really just as sorry as the rest of us, but--"
"But she's awfully proud, and she won't show it, Marcia. I know, for I'm
that way myself, though I really do think I've been behaving myself a
little better since I've belonged to the Camp Fire. I wish you'd join,
Marcia."
"Maybe I will, Dolly."
"Oh, that would be fine! Shall I speak to Miss Eleanor? She'd be
perfectly delighted, I know."
"No, don't speak to her yet. I've got a plan, or some of us have,
rather, but it's still a secret so I can't tell you anything about it.
But maybe I'll have a great surprise for you the next time I see you."
The time passed quickly and pleasantly, and all too soon Miss Eleanor
had to give the word that it was time to start for the landing if they
were to catch the little steamer that was to take them to the other end
of the lake.
"I tell you what! We'll all go with you as far as you go on the boat,
and come back on her," said Marcia. "That will be good fun, won't it?
I've got plenty of money for the fares, and those who haven't their
money with them can pay me when we get back to camp."
All the girls from Camp Halsted fell in with her suggestion, delighted
by the idea of such an unplanned excursion. It was easy enough to
arrange it, too, for the little steamer would be back on her return trip
early in the afternoon, even though she did not make very good speed and
had numerous stops to make, since Lake Dean's shores were lined with
little settlements, where camps and cottages and hotels, had been built
at convenient spots.
"We've heard you singing a lot of songs we never heard before," said
Marcia to Bessie, as they took their places on the boat. "Won't you
teach us some of them? They were awfully pretty, we thought."
"You must mean the Camp Fire songs," said Bessie, happily. "We'll be
glad to teach them to you--and they're all easy to learn, too. I think
Dolly's got an extra copy of one of the song books and I know she'll be
glad to let you have it."
And so, as soon as Bessie explained what Marcia wanted, the deck of the
steamer was turned into an impromptu concert hall, and she made her
journey to the strains of the favorite songs of the Camp Fire, the
Wo-he-lo cheer with its lovely music being, of course, sung more often
than any of the others.
"We were wondering so much about that," said Marcia. "We could make out
the word Wo-he-lo, but we couldn't understand it. It sounded like an
Indian word, but the others didn't seem to fit in with that idea."
"It's just made up from the first syllables of work and health and love,
you see," said Eleanor. "We make up a lot of the words we use. A good
many of the ceremonial names that the girls choose are made that way."
"Then they have a real meaning, haven't they?"
"Yes. You see, one of the things that we preach and try to teach in the
Camp Fire is that things ought to be useful as well as beautiful. And
it's very easy to be both."
"But tell me about the Indian sound of Wo-he-lo. Was that just an
accident, or was it chosen that way on purpose?"
"Both, I think, Marcia. You see, the Indians in this country had a lot
of good qualities that a great many people have forgotten or overlooked
completely. Of course they were savages, in a way, but they had a
civilization of their own, and a great many of their practices are
particularly well adapted to this country."
"Oh, I see! You don't want them to be forgotten."
"That's just it. It's a good way to keep the memory of earlier times
alive, and there seems to be something romantic and picturesque about
the Indian names and the Indian things."
"That's one of the things I like best that I've found out about the Camp
Fire since you came to Camp Sunset. We used to think the Camp Fire meant
being goody-goody and learning to sew and cook and all sorts of things
like that. But you have a lot of fun and good times, too, don't you?"
"Yes, and there really isn't anything goody-goody about us, Marcia.
You'd soon find that out if you were with us."
"Well, I'm very glad that so many people have been led to know the truth
about us," said Eleanor, with a smile. "If everyone knew the truth about
the Camp Fire, it would soon be as big and as influential as even the
most enthusiastic of us hope it will be. And I'm sure that we'll grow
very fast now, because when girls understand us they see that we simply
help them to have the sort of good times they enjoy most. Having a good
time is a pretty important thing in this life."
"I--I rather thought you would think that we spent too much time just
having a good time," said Marcia, plainly rather surprised by this
statement.
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