Jane L. Stewart

“ 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 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? ”

“ Everyone laughed at that.
“You’re quite right, Dolly,” said Margery.213 “When you dislike a person anyone who can see you or hear you knows about it. I’ll say that for you—you don’t pretend to be friends with people when you really hate them.”
“Why should I? Come on, Bessie, if we’re going for a walk. If we stay here much longer Margery’ll get so dry from talking that we’ll have to go and get her some more water.”
“Let’s go up the path and get on the bluff again,” said Bessie. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Jeff went on. “But the boss thinks it’s just as well if we throw them off a bit—guess he wants to have some fun with them.”
“Who is your ‘boss’?” asked Bessie, quickly. “I should think you would be ashamed of yourself, treating girls who can’t fight back this way! Do you call yourself a man?”
“Easy there, sis!” said Jeff, with a roar of laughter. “You can’t make me mad. Orders is orders, you know, and you did wrong when you run away like you did. And I ain’t tellin’ you who the boss is. What you don’t know won’t hurt you—and that goes for your friends, too.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ We’ll have a ceremonial camp fire while we’re here, and it is certainly true that there is no fire half so beautiful as that we get when we use the wood that the sea casts up.”
“Don’t they often find lots of other things beside wood along the coast after a great storm, Miss Eleanor!”
“Yes, indeed! There are people who make their living that way. Wreckers, they call them, you know. Of course, it isn’t as common to find really valuable things now as it was in the old days.” ”

“ It might well be that everyone on board was below, eating supper, and in that case voices would probably not come to them.
“I’d like to own that yacht,” said Dolly, gazing at her enviously. “What a lot of fun you could have with her, Bessie! Think of all the places one could see. And you wouldn’t have to leave a place until you got ready. Steamers leave port just as railroad trains pull out of a station, and you may have to go away when you haven’t half finished seeing all the things you want to look at.”
“Maybe they’ll send a boat ashore soon,” said Margery, hopefully. ”

“ These people around here are certainly being as nice as they can be to the poor Pratts. Just think of their coming here to-morrow to build a new house for them!”
“There are more nice, good-hearted people than bad ones all over, Dolly. That’s true of every place, city or country.”
“But it seems to me we always hear more of the bad ones, and those who do nasty things, than we do of the others, in the newspapers.”
“I think that’s because the things that the bad people do are more likely to be exciting and interesting, Dolly. ”

“ Because it’s just as exciting, but there isn’t the chance of things going wrong, and we’re doing something to make other people happy.”
“You’re certainly right about that, Bessie.72 And it makes you think of how much hard luck people have, and how easy it would be for people who are better off to help them, doesn’t it?”
“It is easy, Dolly. You know, I think Miss Eleanor must help an awful lot of people. It seems to be the first thing she thinks of when she sees any trouble.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ I heard Miss Eleanor say so. So I guess it’s a good idea to go to bed, just as you say.”
“Yes. The others are all going. We certainly are going to have a busy day to-morrow.”
“I don’t see that we can do much, Bessie. I know I wouldn’t be any good at building a house. I’d be more trouble than help, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all you know about it! There are ever so many things we can do.”
“What, for instance?”
“Well, we’ll have to get the meals for the men, and you haven’t any idea what a lot of men can eat when they’re working hard! They have appetites just like wolves.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Only the noise of the light surf disturbed the intense stillness, and that had a soothing, musical quality that made it far from a disturbance to those who slept.
But that peace was to be rudely shattered before the first watch was over. ”

“ They reached Windsor, the little town at the other end of Indian Gap, late in the afternoon, having cooked their midday meal in the gap.
“I know the people in a big boarding-house here,” said Eleanor, “and we’ll be very comfortable. In the morning we’ll take an early train, so that we can get to Plum Beach before it’s too late to get comfortably settled. I’ve sent word on ahead to have the tents ready for us, but, even so, there will be a good many things to do.”
“There always are,” sighed Dolly. “That’s the one thing I don’t like about camping out.” ”

“ Sometimes I feel as if I never would find out anything.”
“Oh, you mustn’t get discouraged, Bessie. Try to be as cheerful as you are when it’s someone else who is in trouble. You’re the best little cheerer-up I know when I feel blue.”
“Oh, Dolly, I do try to be cheerful, but it’s such a long time since they left me with the Hoovers!” ”

“ At the same moment, seizing her brief chance, Bessie gave a wild scream, and saw, to her delight, that those on shore had heard it. In a moment she was pulled roughly from the porthole, and Jeff, his face savage and all the kindness gone out of it, scowled down at her.
“Keep quiet, you little vixen!” he shouted. “Here, come with me!”
At the foot of some steps that led up to the deck he left the two girls in the care of Larry, one of the two men she had seen the night before.
“Keep them quiet,” he commanded, as he sprang up the steps. “What’s wrong, Larry; do you 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?”50
“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. ”

“ But that lawyer of his, Isaac Brack, who is so mean and crooked that no one in the city will have anything to do with him except the criminals, Mr. Jamieson says, told me once that unless I went with him I’d never find out the truth about my father and mother and what became of them.”
“Oh, Bessie, how exciting! You never told me that before. Have you told Mr. Jamieson?” ”

“ Isn’t the surf too heavy?”140
“The surf’s good fun, even if you don’t do any swimming in it, Bessie. It picks you up and throws you around, and it’s splendid sport. But down at Plum Beach you can have either still water or surf. You see, there’s a beach and a big cove—and on that beach the water is perfectly calm, unless there’s a tremendous storm, and we’re not likely to run into one of those.”
“How is that, Dolly? I thought there was always surf at the seashore.” ”

“ Dolly smacked her lips.
“You bet there is!” she said. “Best sea bass you ever tasted, and about all you can catch, too! And it tastes delicious, because the fish down there get cooked almost as soon as they’re caught. And there are lobsters and crabs—and it’s good fun to go crabbing. Then at low tide we dig for clams, and they’re good, too—I’ll bet you never dreamed how good a clam could be!”
“How about the other things—milk, and eggs, and all those!”
“Oh, that’s easy! There are a lot of farms a little way inland, and we get all sorts of fine things from them.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ When she saw that the girls seemed to be57 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.” ”

“ It’s the people who only have a little who seem to be happy, and willing to get along with what they have. How about your old Farmer Weeks?”
“That’s so, Dolly. He certainly was that way. He had more money than anyone in Hedgeville or anywhere near it, and yet he was the stingiest, closest fisted old man in town.”
“There you are!”
“Still I think Mr. Holmes must be a whole lot146 richer than Farmer Weeks, or than all the other people in Hedgeville put together. And it doesn’t seem as if there was any money he could make out of Zara or me that would tempt him to do what he’s done.” ”

“ Pratt, whose interest in small things had been wonderfully revived. “The ice-house wasn’t burned. Do you go and get a pailful of ice, and we’ll have plenty for the girls to drink. They surely will be hot and tired with all they’re doing for us.”
“I’m sorry I ever said Mrs. Pratt wasn’t nice,” said Dolly to Bessie, when they happened to overhear this, and saw how Mrs. Pratt began hustling to get the lemonade ready.
“I knew she’d be all right as soon as she began to be waked up a little,” said Bessie. “This is more fun than one of our silly adventures, isn’t it, Dolly? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”