Jane L. Stewart

“ And there won't be another race, Gladys doesn't deserve another chance."
"Gladys is quite right," said Dolly, soberly. "It's very easy to be nice and generous when you've won; it's much harder to be fair when you've lost. And it was a trick, after all."
"No, it wasn't, Dolly," said Eleanor, seriously. "It was perfectly fair. It was good strategy, but it wasn't tricky at all. Gladys knew just as much about the wind as you did. If she had done as you did in time, instead of waiting until after she'd seen you do it, she would have won the race." ”

“ She's the nicest girl I ever saw or dreamed of seeing."
"Oh, she's all of that," agreed Dolly, loyally. "You can't tell me anything nice about Miss Eleanor that I haven't found out for myself long ago. But Mr. Jamieson isn't in love with her—and he's known her much longer than Mr. Trenwith has."
"That hasn't got anything at all to do with it," declared Bessie. "People don't have to know one another a long time to fall in love—though sometimes they don't always know about it themselves right away. And, besides, I think she and Mr. Jamieson are just like brother and sister. ”

“ And, while Margery Burton applied a light to it, the girls formed a circle about it, and danced around, singing the while the most popular of Camp Fire songs, Wo-he-lo.
"That's like burning all the unpleasant things that have happened to us, isn't it?" said Eleanor. "We just toss them into the flames, and—they're gone! What's left is clean and good and useful, and we will make all the better use of it for having lost what is burning now."
"Isn't it strange, Miss Eleanor," said Bessie King, "that this should have happened to us so soon after the fire that burned up the Pratt's farm?" ”

“ Charlie Jamieson, who was almost like a brother in his relations with Eleanor, was hugely amused by this. Somehow cousins who are so intimate with a girl that they take a brother's place, never do seem able to understand that she may have the same attraction for other men that the sisters and the cousins of the other men have for them. The idea that their friends may fall in love with the girls they regard in such a perfectly matter-of-fact way strikes them, when it reaches them at all, as a huge joke. ”

“ I'm so glad you girls were here for this first Council Fire of ours. You know how everything should be done, and that seems to make it so much better."
"It would have pleased you just as much, and been just as lovely if you'd done it all by yourselves, Marcia. It's the words, and the ceremony that are so beautiful—not the way we do it. Every Camp Fire has its own way of doing things. For instance, some Camp Fires sing the Ode to Fire all together, but we have Margery do it alone because she has such a lovely voice." ”

“ And someone is going to be sorry for this or my name's not Eleanor Mercer!"
"I don't understand it yet," said Bessie, who, although the capture meant more to her than it did to any of the others, had not given way to her emotions, and seemed as cool and calm as if she had been safely back on Plum Beach.
"It's only too easy to understand," said Eleanor, bitterly. "Charlie was deceived in his friend, Mr. Trenwith. He's just as easy to bribe as Jake Hoover. That's all. He cares more for money and success than he does for his reputation as an honorable man. ”

“ Now that she was racing, however, Dolly changed her tactics. Fresh as the wind was, she shook out a reef in her mainsail, and as they neared the bar the Eleanor actually carried more canvas than Gladys dared to keep on the Defiance. Being less used to heavy going than Dolly, she was not so sure of the strength of her sticks, and reckless though she was, she was too wise to be willing to take a chance of being dismasted. ”

“ Don't you see that she'll blame us for making trouble between you girls and her? She'll think that we've set her own friends against her. Really, Marcia, I think all the trouble would be ended sooner, in the long run, if you just let her alone until she changed her mind. She'll do it, too, sooner or later."
"I guess Bessie's right, Marcia," said Dolly, thoughtfully. "I don't see why Gladys acts this way, but I do think that the only thing that will make her act differently will be for her to feel differently, and nothing you can do will do that." ”

“ It's just that she has always been brought up to feel a certain way about things, and she couldn't change all at once. A whole lot of girls, while they believed just what she did, and hated the whole idea just as much, would never have dared to say so, when they knew no one agreed with them."
"Yes, it's just as Miss Eleanor said," said Bessie. "She's not a hypocrite, no matter what her other faults are. She's not afraid to say just what she thinks—and that's pretty fine, after all." ”

“ Trenwith and Jamieson, laughing a good deal, and enjoying themselves immensely, insisted on doing the heavy work of setting up the ridge poles, and laying down the floors of the new tents, but when it came to stretching the canvas over the framework, they were not in it with the girls.
"You men mean well, but I never saw anything so clumsy in my life!" declared Eleanor, laughingly. "It's a wonder to me how you ever come home alive when you go out camping by yourselves." ”

“ Be strong as the fagots are sturdy;
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;
And—follow the law of the Fire!
One by one as they received their rings, the newcomers slipped into seats about the fire, each one finding a place between two of the Manasquan girls. Marcia Bates, flushed with pleasure, took a seat between Bessie and Dolly.
"Oh, how beautiful it all is!" she said. "I don't see how any of us could ever have laughed at the Camp Fire! ”

“ Aren't you going to behave decently?"
"I don't think I know just what you mean, Dolly," said Gladys, stiffly. "As long as the other girls have decided to be friendly with your—friends, I am not going to make myself unpleasant. But you can hardly expect me to like people just because you do. I must say that I get along better with girls of my own class."
"I ought to be mad at you, Gladys," said Dolly, with a peal of laughter. "But you're too funny! What do you mean by girls of your own class? Girls whose parents have as much money as yours? ”

“ Eleanor looked at him as if she understood just what he meant.
"Maybe it isn't so much of a pity, though," she said. "I tell you one thing—a girl isn't going to make any the worse wife for being self-reliant, and knowing how to take care of herself a little bit. And that's what we want to make of our Camp Fire Girls—girls who can help themselves if there's need for it, and who don't need to have a man wasting a lot of time doing things for them that he ought to be spending in serious work—things that she can do just as well for herself." ”

“ I'll go over the facts with you in Bay City to-night, and then I'll go up to town and see what I can do with Jake Hoover and Zara's father."
"Well, let's do something, for Heaven's sake!" said Trenwith. "I hate to think that all you girls out here are in danger as a result of this man's villainy. If he does anything rotten, I can see that he's punished but that might not do you much good."
"I tell you what would do some good, and that's to let Holmes know that you will punish him, if he exposes himself to punishment," said Charlie Jamieson. "That's the chief reason he's so bold. ”

“ I'm perfectly willing to be friends with you, and I've forgiven you for throwing those mice at us at Lake Dean, but I certainly don't see why I should be friendly with all those common girls in your camp."
"They're not common—and don't you dare to say they are! And you certainly can't be my friend if you're going to talk about them that way."
"All right!" snapped Gladys. "I guess I can get along without your friendship if you can get along without mine!"
"I didn't mean to," she said, disgustedly, to Bessie and Marcia, "but I'm afraid I've simply made her madder than ever. ”

“ I made an awful mess of that, Margery, and I know it. Gladys had more nerve than I, that's all. She deserves the lead she's got. It isn't a question of the boats, at all. The Defiance is being sailed better than the Eleanor."
"Margery's right, though, Dolly," said Eleanor. "The race isn't over yet. You haven't given up hope, have you?"
"Given up?" cried Dolly, scornfully, through set teeth. "Just you watch, that's all! I'm going to get home ahead if I have to swamp us all."
"That's more like her," Margery whispered to Bessie. ”

“ If we're good enough to race with, we're good enough for her to be decently polite to us, I should think."
"Easy, Dolly!" said Margery. "It won't help any for you to lose your temper, you know. Remember you've still got to sail your boat."
The Defiance was far ahead when, at last, after a wait that seemed to those on board interminable, the Eleanor rounded the lighthouse in her turn.
"Lively now!" commanded Dolly. "Shake out the spinnaker! We're going to need all the sail we've got. There isn't enough wind now to make a flag stand out properly." ”

“ Just as the first spark answered Margery's efforts with her fire-making sticks, they reached the fire, and sat down in a great circle, with a good deal of space between each pair of girls. Eleanor took her place in the centre, facing Margery, who now stood up, lifting a torch that she had lighted above her head. As she touched the tinder beneath the fire Eleanor raised her hand, and, as the flames began to crackle, she lowered it, and at once the girls began the song of Wo-he-lo:
Wo-he-lo means love. ”

“ Do you mean to tell me that you and I aren't in a better class socially than these girls you're camping with?"
"I'm not talking about society—and you haven't any business to be. You don't know anything about it. But if people are divided into real classes, the two big classes are nice people and people who aren't nice. And each of those classes is divided up again into a lot of other classes. I hope I'm in as good a class as Bessie King and Margery Burton, but I'm pretty sure I'm not. And I know you're not."
"There's no use talking to you, Dolly," said Gladys, furiously. ”

“ Anyhow, Bessie had only too good reason to know that his mother would believe him and take his word, no matter what she and Zara said. So, being scared, she just ran. I don't blame her; I'd have done the same thing myself. You and I both know that knowing he's innocent doesn't keep a man who is unjustly accused from being afraid."
"No," said Trenwith, thoughtfully. "I've had to learn that it doesn't pay to think a man's guilty because he's scared and confused. ”

“ Salters came over from Green Cove in his boat, when he saw the fire, to see if he couldn't help in some way, and he's gone in to Bay City. He'll be out pretty soon with a load of provisions, and as many other things as he can stuff into the Sally S."
"Then we're really going to stay here?" said Bessie King.
"We certainly are!" said Eleanor, her eyes flashing. "I don't see why we should let a little thing like this fire drive us away! We are going to stay here, and, what's more, we're going to have just as good a time as we planned to have when we came here—if not a better one!" ”

“ Eleanor was gone only a few minutes, and when she returned she was smiling, as if at some joke that she shared with no one.
"I'm sure you haven't had any supper, Jake," she said. "The girls have finished. See, they're coming out now. Come inside, and I'll see that you get a good meal. You'll be able to talk better when you've eaten."
Jake hesitated, plainly struggling between his hunger and his fear. But hunger won, and he went into the tent, followed by Bessie and Dolly, who, although the service was reluctant on Dolly's part, at least, saw to it that he had plenty to eat. ”

“ You pretend you are terribly frightened, and all the time you're enjoying it just as much as I am. I wish there was some way we could have a race. That's where the real fun comes in with a sail boat."
"You could get all the racing you want over at Bay City, Dolly. The yacht club there has races every week, I think."
"But Miss Eleanor would never let me sail in one of those races, Margery. I guess she's right, too. I may be pretty good for a girl, but I'm afraid I wouldn't have a chance with those men." ”

“ The look in Trenwith's eyes, and the sheepish, hangdog expression of his whole face made Eleanor gasp. So he had betrayed them! After all, despite his fine talk, he had been tempted by the money that Holmes seemed prepared to spend so lavishly! And he had led Bessie and Zara right into a trap—a merciless trap, as she knew, from which escape would be most difficult, if not utterly impossible.
And in a moment the lingering remnants of her faith were shattered. For Holmes called out, in a loud tone, at Bates:
"Bates!" he cried. "Come aboard and start that engine! ”

“ Eleanor went on, "that there's a chance here for us to make a real convert—one who will count. It's easy enough to make girls understand our Camp Fire idea when they want to like it, and feel sure that they're going to. The hard cases are the girls like Gladys, who have a prejudice against the Camp Fire without really knowing anything at all about it. And if the Camp Fire idea is the fine, strong, splendid thing we all believe, why, this is a good time to prove it. ”