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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"I don't say anything about you girls in particular, because I don't
know enough about you," replied Eleanor. "Of course, it's easy to get to
be so bound up in enjoying yourself that you don't think of anything
else. But people who do that soon get tired of just amusing themselves,
so, as a rule, there's no great harm done. They get so that everything
they do bores them, and they turn to something serious and useful, for a
change."
"But you just said having a good time was important--"
"And I meant it," said Eleanor, with a smile. "Because it's just as bad
to go to one extreme as to the other, and that's true in about
everything. People who never work, but spend all their time playing
aren't happy, as a rule, or healthy, either. And people who reverse
that, and work all the time without ever playing, are in just about the
same boat, only they're really worse off than the others, because it's
harder for them to change."
"I think I'm beginning to see what you mean, Miss Mercer."
"Why, of course you are, Marcia! It's in the middle ground that the
right answer lies. Work a little, and play a little, that's the way to
get on and be happy. When you've worked hard, you need some sort of
relaxation, and it's pretty important to know how to enjoy yourself, and
have a good time."
"And you certainly can have bully good times in the Camp Fire," said
Dolly, enthusiastically. "I've never enjoyed myself half so much as I
have since I've belonged. Why, we have bacon bats, and picnics, and all
sorts of things that are the best fun you ever dreamed of, Marcia. Much
nicer than those stiff old parties you and I used to go to all the time,
when we always did the same things, and could tell before we went just
what was going to happen."
"And the regular camp fires, the ceremonial ones, Dolly," reminded
Bessie. "Don't you think Marcia would enjoy that?"
"Oh, I know she would! Couldn't I bring her to one some time?" Dolly
asked Eleanor.
"She'll be very welcome, any time," said Eleanor with a smile. "There's
nothing secret about the Camp Fire meetings," she went on. "They're not
a bit like high school and private school fraternities or
sororities--whichever you call them."
"Why, look where we are!" said Marcia suddenly. "We'll be at the dock
pretty soon."
"Why, so we will!" Eleanor said. "That's Cranford, sure enough, girls!
We get off here, and begin our real tramp."
"I wish we were going with you," said Marcia, with a sigh of regret.
"But we can't, of course. Well, I told Dolly we might have a surprise
for her pretty soon, and we will if I've got anything to say about it,
too. This has been awfully jolly! I guess I know a lot more about your
Camp Fire now than I ever expected to. And I've enjoyed hearing every
word, too."
Soon the little steamer was made fast to the dock, and the Camp Fire
Girls streamed off, lining up on the dock. On the steamer the girls from
Camp Halsted--all but Gladys Cooper, who had not made the trip--lined
up, leaning over the rail.
"We'll see them off as the boat goes right back again," said Eleanor.
"And let's give them the Wo-he-lo cheer for good-bye, girls."
So their voices rose on the quiet air as the steamer's whistle shrieked,
and she began to pull out.
"Good-bye! Good luck!" cried Marcia and all the Halsted girls. "And come
back whenever you can! We'll have a mighty different sort of welcome for
you next time!"
"Good-bye! And thank you ever so much for the blankets!" called the Camp
Fire Girls.
CHAPTER III
THE WORK OF THE FIRE
At Cranford began the road which the Camp Fire Girls were to follow
through Indian Notch, the gap between the two big mountains, Mount Grant
and Mount Sherman. Then they were to travel easily toward the seashore,
since the Manasquan Camp Fire, ever since it had been organized, had
spent a certain length of time each summer by the sea.
The Village of Cranford had been saved from the fire only by a shift of
the wind. The woods to the west and the north had been burning briskly
for several days, and every able-bodied man in the village had been out,
day and night, with little food and less rest, trying to turn off the
fire. In spite of all their efforts, however, they would have failed in
their task if the change in the weather had not come to their aid. As a
consequence, everyone in the village, naturally enough, was still
talking about the fire.
"It isn't often that a village in this part of the country has such a
narrow escape," said Eleanor, looking around, "See, girls, you can see
for yourselves how close they were to having to turn and run from the
fire."
"It looks as if some of the houses here had actually been on fire," said
Dolly, as they passed into the outskirts of the village.
"I expect they were. You see, the wind was very high just before the
shift came, and it would carry sparks and blazing branches. It's been a
very hot, dry summer, too, and so all the wooden houses were ready to
catch fire. The paint was dry and blistered. They probably had to watch
these houses very carefully, to be ready to put out a fire the minute it
started."
"It didn't look so bad from our side of the lake, though, did it?"
"The smoke hid the things that were really dangerous from us, but here
they could see all right. I'll bet that before another summer comes
around they'll be in a position to laugh at a fire."
"How do you mean? Is there anything they can do to protect
themselves--before a fire starts, I mean?"
"That's the time to protect themselves. When people wait until the fire
has actually begun to burn, it's almost impossible for them to check it.
It would have been this time, if the wind had blown for a few hours
longer the way it was doing when the fire started."
"But what can they do?"
"They can have a cleared space between the town and the forest, for one
thing, with a lot of brush growing there, if they want to keep that.
Then, if a fire starts, they can set the brush afire, and make a back
fire, so that the big fire will be checked by the little one. The fire
has to have something to feed on, you see, and if it comes to a cleared
space that's fairly wide, it can't get any further.
"Oh, a cleared space like that doesn't mean that the village could go
to sleep and feel safe! But it's a lot easier to fight the fire then.
All the men in town could line up, with beaters and plenty of water, and
as soon as sparks started a fire on their side of the clearing, they
could put it out before it could get beyond control."
"Oh, I see! And being able to see the fire as soon as it started, they
wouldn't have half so much trouble fighting it as if they had to be
after the really big blaze."
"Yes. The fire problem in places like this seems very dreadful, but when
the conditions are as good as they are here, with plenty of water, all
that's needed is a little forethought. It's different in some of the
lumber towns out west, because there the fires get such a terrific start
that they would jump any sort of a clearing, and the only thing to do
when a fire gets within a certain distance of a town is for the people
who live in the town to run."
Soon the road began to pass between desolate stretches of woods, where
the fire had raged at its hottest. Here the ground on each side of the
road was covered with smoking ashes, and blackened stumps stood up from
the barren, burnt ground.
"It looks like a big graveyard, with those stumps for headstones," said
Dolly, with a shudder.
"It is a little like that," said Eleanor, with a sigh. "But if you came
here next year you wouldn't know the place. All that ash will fertilize
the ground, and it will all be green. The stumps will still be there,
but a great new growth will be beginning to push out. Of course it will
be years and years before it's real forest again, but nature isn't dead,
though it looks so. There's life underneath all that waste and
desolation, and it will soon spring up again."
"I hope we'll get out of this burned country soon," said Dolly. "I think
it's as gloomy and depressing as it can be. I'd like to have seen this
road before the fire--it must have been beautiful."
"It certainly was, Dolly. And all this won't last for many miles. We
really ought to stop pretty soon to eat our dinner. What do you say,
girls? Would you like to wait, and press on until we come to a more
cheerful spot, where the trees aren't all burnt!"
"Yes, oh, yes!" cried Margery Burton. "I think that would be ever so
much nicer! Suppose we are a little hungry before we get our dinner? We
can stand that for once."
"I think we'll enjoy our meal more. So we'll keep on, then, if the rest
of you feel the same way."
Not a voice dissented from that proposition, either. Dolly was not the
only one who was saddened by the picture of desolation through which
they were passing. The road, of course, was deep in dust and ashes, and
the air, still filled with the smoke that rose from the smouldering
woods, was heavy and pungent, so that eyes were watery, and there was a
good deal of coughing and sneezing.
"It's a lucky thing there weren't any houses along here, isn't it?"
said Margery. "I don't see how they could possibly have been saved, do
you, Miss Eleanor?"
"There's no way that they could have saved them, unless, perhaps, by
having a lot of city fire engines, and keeping them completely covered
with water on all sides while the fire was burning. They call that a
water blanket, but of course there's no way that they could manage that
up here."
"What do you suppose started this fire, Miss Eleanor?"
"No one will ever know. Perhaps someone was walking in the woods, and
threw a lighted cigar or cigarette in a pile of dry leaves. Perhaps some
party of campers left their camp without being sure that their fire was
out."
"Just think of it--that all the trouble could be started by a little
thing like that! It makes you realize what a good thing it is that we
have to be careful never to leave a single spark behind when we're
leaving a fire, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It's a dreadful thing that people should be so careless with fire.
Fire, and the heat we get from it, is responsible for the whole progress
of the race. It was the discovery that fire could be used by man that
was back of every invention that has ever been made."
"That's why it's the symbol of the Camp Fire, isn't it?"
"Yes. And in this country people ought to think more of fire than they
do. We lose more by fire every year than any other country in the world,
because we're so terribly careless."
"What is that there, ahead of us, in the road?" asked Bessie, suddenly.
They had just come to a bend in the road, and about a hundred yards away
a group of people stood in the road.
Eleanor looked grave. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and stared
ahead of her.
"Oh," she cried, "what a shame! I remember now. There was a farm house
there! I'm afraid we were wrong when we spoke of there being no houses
in the path of this fire!"
They pressed on steadily, and, as they approached the group forlorn,
distressed and unhappy, they saw that their fears were only too well
grounded. The people in the road were staring, with drawn faces, at a
scene of ruin and desolation that far outdid the burnt wastes beside the
road, since what they were looking at represented human work and the
toil of hands.
The foundations of a farm house were plainly to be seen, the cellar
filled with the charred wood of the house itself, and in what had
evidently been the yard there were heaps of ashes that showed where the
barns and other buildings had stood.
In the road, staring dully at the girls as they came up, were two women
and a boy about seventeen years old, as well as several young children.
Eleanor looked at them pityingly, and then spoke to the older of the two
women.
"You seem to be in great trouble," she said. "Is this your house?"
"It was!" said the woman, bitterly. "You can see what's left of it!
What are you--picnickers? Be off with you! Don't come around here
gloating over the misfortunes of hard working people!"
"How can you think we'd do that?" said Eleanor, with tears in her eyes.
"We can see that things look very bad for you. Have you any place to
go--any home?"
"You can see it!" said the woman, ungraciously.
Eleanor looked at her and at the ruined farm for a minute very
thoughtfully. Then she made up her mind.
"Well, if you've got to start all over again," she said, "you are going
to need a lot of help, and I don't see why we can't be the first to help
you! Girls, we won't go any further now. We'll stay here and help these
poor people to get started!"
"What can people like you do to help us?" asked the woman, scornfully.
"This isn't a joke--'t ain't like a quiltin' party!"
"Just you watch us, and see if we can't help," said Eleanor, sturdily.
"We're not as useless as we look, I can tell you that! And the first
thing we're going to do is to cook a fine dinner, and you are all going
to sit right down on the ground and help us eat it. You'll be glad of a
meal you don't have to cook yourselves, I'm sure. Where is your well, or
your spring for drinking water? Show us that, and we'll do the rest!"
Only half convinced of Eleanor's really friendly intentions, the woman
sullenly pointed out the well, and in a few moments Eleanor had set the
girls to work.
"The poor things!" she said to Margery, sympathetically. "What they need
most of all is courage to pick up again, now that everything seems to
have come to an end for them, and make a new start. And I can't imagine
anything harder than that!"
"Why, it's dreadful!" said Margery. "She seems to have lost all
ambition--to be ready to let things go."
"That's just the worst of it," said Eleanor. "And it's in making them
see that there's still hope and cheer and good friendship in the world
that we can help them most. I do think we can be of some practical use
to them, too, but the main thing is to brace them up, and make them want
to be busy helping themselves. It would be so easy for me to give them
the money to start over again or I could get my friends to come in with
me, and make up the money, if I couldn't do it all myself."
"But they ought to do it for themselves, you mean?"
"Yes. They'll really be ever so much better off in the long run if it's
managed that way. Often and often, in the city, I've heard the people
who work in the charity organizations tell about families that were
quite ruined because they were helped too much."
"I can see how that would be," said Margery. "They would get into the
habit of thinking they couldn't do anything for themselves--that they
could turn to someone else whenever they got into trouble."
"Yes. You see these poor people are in the most awful sort of trouble
now. They're discouraged and hopeless. Well, the thing to do is to make
them understand that they can rise superior to their troubles, that they
can build a new home on the ashes of their old one."
"Oh, I think it will be splendid if we can help them to do that!"
"They'll feel better, physically, as soon as they have had a good
dinner, Margery. Often and often people don't think enough about that.
It's when people feel worst that they ought to be fed best. It's
impossible to be cheerful on an empty stomach. When people are well
nourished their troubles never seem so great. They look on the bright
side and they tell themselves that maybe things aren't as bad as they
look."
"How can we help them otherwise, though!"
"Oh, we'll fix up a place where they can sleep to-night, for one thing.
And we'll help them to start clearing away all the rubbish. They've got
to have a new house, of course, and they can't even start work on that
until all this wreckage is cleared away."
"I wonder if they didn't save some of their animals--their cows and
horses," said Bessie. "It seems to me they might have been able to do
that."
"I hope so, Bessie. But we'll find out when we have dinner. I didn't
want to bother them with a lot of questions at first. Look, they seem to
be a little brighter already."
The children of the family were already much brighter. It was natural
enough for them to respond more quickly than their elders to the
stimulus of the presence of these kind and helpful strangers, and they
were running around, talking to the girls who were preparing dinner, and
trying to find some way in which they could help.
And their mother began to forget herself and her troubles, and to watch
them with brightening eyes. When she saw that the girls seemed to be
fond of her children and to be anxious to make them happy, the maternal
instinct in her responded, and was grateful.
"Oh, we're going to be able to bring a lot of cheer and new happiness to
these poor people," said Eleanor, confidently. "And it will be splendid,
wont it, girls? Could anything be better fun than doing good this way?
It's something we'll always be able to remember, and look back at
happily. And the strange part of it is that, no matter how much we do
for them, we'll be doing more for ourselves."
"Isn't it fine that we've got those blankets?" said Dolly. "If we camp
out here to-night they'll be very useful."
"They certainly will. And we shall camp here, though not in tents. Later
on this afternoon, we'll have to fix up some sort of shelter. But that
will be easy. I'll show you how to do it when the time comes. Now we
want to hurry with the dinner--that's the main thing, because I think
everyone is hungry."
CHAPTER IV
GETTING A START
Often people who have been visited by great misfortunes become soured
and suspect the motives of even those who are trying to help them.
Eleanor understood this trait of human nature very well, thanks to the
fact that as a volunteer she had helped out the charity workers in her
own city more than once. And as a consequence she did not at all resent
the dark looks that were cast at her by the poor woman whose every
glance brought home to her more sharply the disaster that the fire had
brought.
"We've got to be patient if we want to be really helpful," she explained
to Dolly Ransom, who was disposed to resent the woman's unfriendly
aspect.
"But I don't see why she has to act as if we were trying to annoy her,
Miss Eleanor!"
"She doesn't mean that at all, Dolly. You've never known what it is to
face the sort of trouble and anxiety she has had for the last few days.
She'll soon change her mind about us when she sees that we are really
trying to help. And there's another thing. Don't you think she's a
little softer already?"
"Oh, she is!" said Bessie, with shining eyes. "And I think I know why--"
"So will Dolly--if she will look at her now. See, Dolly, she's looking
at her children. And when she sees how nice the girls are to them, she
is going to be grateful--far more grateful than for anything we did for
her. Because, after all, it's probably her fear for her children, and of
what this will mean to them, that is her greatest trouble."
Dinner was soon ready, and when it was prepared, Eleanor called the
homeless family together and made them sit down.
"We haven't so very much," she said. "We intended to eat just this way,
but we were going on a little way. Still, I think there's plenty of
everything, and there's lots of milk for the children."
"Why are you so good to us!" asked the woman, suddenly. It was her first
admission that she appreciated what was being done, and Eleanor secretly
hailed it as a prelude to real friendliness.
"Why, you don't think anyone could see you in so much trouble and not
stop to try to help you, do you?" she said.
"Ain't noticed none of the neighbors comin' here to help," said the
woman, sullenly.
"I think they're simply forgetful," said Eleanor. "And you know this
fire was pretty bad. They had a great fight to save Cranford from
burning up."
"Is that so?" said the woman, showing a little interest in the news. "My
land, I didn't think the fire would get that far!"
"They were fighting night and day for most of three days," said Eleanor.
"And now they're pretty tired, and I have an idea they're making up for
lost sleep and rest. But I'm sure you'll find some of them driving out
this way pretty soon to see how you are getting on."
"Well, they won't see much!" said the woman, with a despairing laugh.
"We came back here, 'cause we thought some of the buildings might be
saved. But there ain't a thing left exceptin' that one barn a little way
over there. You can't see it from here. It's over the hill. We did save
our cattle and a good many chickens and ducks. But all our crops is
ruined--and how we are ever goin' to get through the winter I declare I
can't tell!"
"Have you a husband? And, by the way, hadn't you better tell me your
name!" said Eleanor.
"My husband's dead--been dead nearly two years," said the woman. "I'm
Sarah Pratt. This here's my husband's sister, Ann."
"Well, Mrs. Pratt, we'll have to see if we can't think of some way of
making up for all this loss," said Eleanor, after she had told the
woman her own name, and introduced the girls of the Camp Fire.
"Why--just a minute, now! You have cows, haven't you! Plenty of them? Do
they give good milk!"
"Best there is," said the woman. "My husband, he was a crank for buyin'
fine cattle. I used to tell him he was wastin' his money, but he would
do it. Same way with the chickens."
"Then you sold the milk, I suppose?"
"Yes, ma'am, and we didn't get no more for it from the creamery than the
farmers who had just the ornery cows."
"Well, I've got an idea already. I'm going back to Cranford as soon as
we've had dinner to see if it will work out. I suppose that's your son?"
She looked with a smile at the awkward, embarrassed boy who had so
little to say for himself.
"Well, while the girls fix you up some shelters where you can sleep
to-night, if you stay here, I'm going to ask you to let him drive me
into Cranford. I want to do some telephoning--and I think I'll have
good news for you when I come back."
Strangely enough, Mrs. Pratt made no objection to this plan. Once she
had begun to yield to the charm of Eleanor's manner, and to believe that
the Camp Fire Girls meant really to help and were not merely stopping
out of idle curiosity, she recovered her natural manner, which turned
out to be sweet and cheerful enough, and she also began to look on
things with brighter eyes.
"Makes no difference whether you have good news or not, my dear," she
said to Eleanor. "You've done us a sight of good already. Waked me up
an' made me see that it's wrong to sit down and cry when it's a time to
be up an' doin'."
"Oh, you wouldn't have stayed in the dumps very long," said Eleanor,
cheerfully. "Perhaps we got you started a little bit sooner, but I can
see that you're not the sort to stay discouraged very long."
Then, while a few of the girls, with the aid of the Pratt children,
washed dishes and cleared up after the meal, Eleanor took aside Margery
and some of the stronger girls, like Bessie and Dolly, to show them what
she wanted done while she was away.
"There's plenty of wood around here," she said. "A whole lot of the
boards are only a little bit scorched, and some of them really aren't
burned at all. Now, if you take those and lay them against the side of
that steep bank there, near where the big barn stood, you'll have one
side of a shelter. Then take saplings, and put them up about seven feet
away from your boards."
She held a sapling in place, to show what she meant.
"Cut a fork in the top of each sapling, and dig holes so that they will
stand up. Then lay strips of wood from the saplings to the tops of your
boards, and cover the space you've got that way with branches. If you go
about half a mile beyond here, you'll be able to get all the branches
you want from spots where the fire hasn't burned at all."
"Why, they'll be like the Indian lean-tos I've read about, won't they?"
exclaimed Margery.
"They're on that principle," said Eleanor. "Probably we could get along
very well without laying any boards at all against that bank, but it
might be damp, and there's no use in taking chances. And--"
"Oh, Miss Eleanor," Dolly interrupted, "excuse me, but if it rained or
there were water above, wouldn't it leak right down and run through from
the top of the bank?"
"That's a good idea, Dolly. I'll tell you how to avoid that. Dig a
trench at the top of the bank, just as long as the shelter you have
underneath, and the water will all be caught in that. And if you give
the trench a little slope, one way or the other, or both ways from the
centre, not much, just an inch in ten feet--the water will all be
carried off."
"Oh, yes!" said Dolly. "That would fix that up all right."
"Get plenty of branches of evergreens for the floor, and we'll cover
those with our rubber blankets," Eleanor went on. "Then we'll be snug
and dry for to-night, anyhow, and for as long as the weather holds
fine."
"You mean it will be a place where the Pratts can sleep?" said Margery.
"Of course, it would be all right in this weather, but do you think it
will stay like this very long?"
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