Lilian Garis

“ Lights and shadows crossing the youthful face betrayed the hopes, and fears mingling with, such emotions as the girl lived through in this crowded hour, but no sooner had she slipped the small roll of bills into the flaring neck of her thin blouse, than a shaking at the door caused her to kick the telescope bag under the bed, hastily readjust the cover of the orange box, blow out the capering candle flame, and then open the door. A woman young in face but old in posture scuffled in. ”

“ Everyone wanted tickets for the Violet Shut-in Benefit and every ticket brought fifty cents to the attractive girl wearing the scout badge of merit.
"I call this luck, the kind that grows on bushes," she was thinking, as in that strange town she hurried from door to door with the violet bits of pasteboard that were printed to bring cheer to the Shut Ins.
"Of course I'll replace this at once," she also decided. "I wouldn't really touch a cent of this, even for one day, only I must get Daggie out of her trouble wherever she is. It isn't fair to leave her all alone to face the music." ”

“ Dagmar was too frightened to notice the grimy mill hands who were crowded into the old bus, making their way to another settlement in search of an evening's recreation, but Tessie slunk deep down in her corner, burying her face in her scarf and hiding her eyes with her tam. She knew better than to run the risk of having her cross father discover her in flight. ”

“ You are too pretty, that's all's the matter with you. But just wait. Hush! There's that crowd of nifty-nice, preachy, snippy scout girls. Duck, or they'll be on our trail," and she dragged her companion around the corner of the high fence, where, in the shadow of its bill-posted height they crouched, until the laughing, happy girls of True Tred Troop, just out from their early evening meeting at Sunset Hall, over the post-office, had passed down into Elm Street.
"I think they saw us," whispered Dagmar, "I heard one girl say some one was hiding by the signboard." ”

“ The little girl scout—she whom Tessie had noticed but a few minutes before, was now hanging on the reins!
But Gyp was dragging her on. Would she, too, be killed? If some man would only come to their rescue!
Then everything seemed to whirl before Tessie's distorted vision. Things "got black and went out." Next, she felt herself tumble back in the box of daisies.
But Gyp had stopped! The girl scout had pulled him up somehow, and now Frank was there talking, and shouting, and praising the girl who had saved Tessie's life. ”

“ I am going back first chance—"
"You do!" threatened Madaline, with a glance Grace rightfully interpreted. "I will never, as long as I live, go into the Cedar grove again. It's too scary for words."
"I loved it," drawled Grace. "I am going again. See if I don't. Want to come, Maggie?"
"Maybe, but just now I want an alibi for mother's promised watercress. Grace, you are a great scout! You lure us all out here, with the most tempting offer of prize watercress, and here we go home with a bunch of last year's cattails. ”

“ A ten-mile hike is a trifle."
"Did you say triffle or truffle?" asked Grace.
"Truffles don't grow here, nothing but mushrooms and toadstools," broke in Margaret. "All Girl Scouts ought to know that!" "Thanks for the information," retorted Grace. "Oh, what a perfectly scrumptious place!" she exclaimed as, after some rather severe jolting and swaying from side to side, the auto came to a stop in the depths of a grove of trees, amid which were pitched several tents and a slab-sided shack; from the stovepipe of the shack smoke drifted, and with it emanated the most appetizing odors. ”

“ But the reflection of a girl scout meeting at Flosston, and the stinging memory of the honor badge, picked up that night and carried off by the reckless Tessie, would torture her in spite of the more important issues in the girl's experience.
Where would Tessie go? Where would she stay and what would become of her? No doubt, as the officer had remarked, such a girl would easily become the prey of the unscrupulous, and at this thought Dagmar shuddered. What dreadful things always happen to runaway girls in the movies? ”

“ Over on a little moss-covered tree stump Tessie and Rose alone knew the complete story of that lost badge, and only their eyes attempted to give an expression to the details.
The call to "fall in ranks" was not sounded for a full hour later, for such a picnic as these girls enjoyed had never been heard of in River Bend Woods.
All the wealth and generosity of Gerald Douglass seemed poured out in his sister's woody banquet; and as we have guessed he was by no means a stranger to the attractive Captain Clark. ”

“ Madaline was admiring Cleo's cross when she heard her name called. Captain Clark announced: "A tiny four-leaf clover picked and bestowed in love as a nature gift is not too small to be recognized, and when Madaline Mower hurried after the wheel-chair of this little queen she touched a secret spring. An honor badge' must mark the result," and the much-astonished Madaline also received an award from the queen.
"And who in this troop lost a merit badge?" joyously asked the queen, as soon as her words could be heard through the growing excitement. ”

“ Of course you are hungry."
"Not very," gulped the girl, who had not tasted food since she snapped the cover on her lunch box that eventful noon day, when the girl, having agreed with Tessie to leave Milltown, had eaten the dark bread and bologna, for what she supposed would be the last time. So Dagmar was hungry, although her emotion for the time was choking her, and hiding the pangs of actual hunger.
"All the same tea tastes good when we use up nerves," insisted the woman, leaving the room, and presently clicking dishes and utensils in the kitchen. ”

“ No?"
"I was going to, so I locked the door," replied the girl Dagmar. "But
I, too, was tired."
"Yes, it is so. Well, the mill is not so bad. It has a new window near my bench, and I breathe better. But, daughter, we must go down. Keep the door locked as you dress. Those new peoples may not tell which is the right room." With a glance at the fair daughter, so unlike herself in coloring, the working mother dragged herself out again, and soon could be heard cliptrapping down the dark stairs that led to the kitchens on the first floor of the mill workers, community lodgings. ”

“ What sensible girl will deliberately choose to go her own careless way, when she realizes that nothing satisfactory can be expected from such a choice, and that the very freedom coveted makes her a slave to the most cruel limits of prospects or attainments? ”

“ But the mill girl is never an inferior, and in the exact science of skill, she can easily and at any time outdistance the most brilliant high-school graduate, for skill is her education, and she handles, and fingers, and computes sometimes many thousands of delicate threads, or intricate bits of metal, the slightest fumble of which might throw out of gear a powerful machine. ”

“ Even the suffering heel was forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in green, with the darker green canopy of cedars, and the music of a running river at the foot of the sloping hill. Here the scent of watercress vied with the hemlock and cedar, for its place as nature's perfume, and only such mingling of wild ferns, trailing arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could produce the aroma of incense that just then permeated the woody glen.
"Don't let the girls get too far away from us," cautioned Madeline. "I wouldn't like to get really lost, even for the joke of having you find me, Gracie." ”

“ She had seen the paper on her way home from work, and at table, when Molly Cosgrove discussed the item, Rose felt her own guilt must be obvious to those around her. Yet no one knew Tessie had taken the badge. No one knew Rose had found the pretty emblem!
"How could a girl scout act so dishonorably?" Molly questioned indignantly.
"And she actually got away with the money," Mrs. Cosgrove repeated.
"Some young bold girls can cover their tracks better than hardened men." ”

“ I intended to tie every knot in the course, and cut them all out to fetch back finished, and I haven't even unwound the rope."
"If there is anything easier than getting lost in the woods it must be getting caught at whispering in the eighth grade," grumbled Madaline. "I wish my old heel had behaved itself."
"And all the plans for my brave stunt gone to naught," put in the now breathless Grace. "I would never have made up the hike if I had not determined to get a glory mark out of it. Now see where we are! Miles from home, and darkness coming on at each end. ”

“ I'm glad the mill officials see the value of the girl scout movement. It's the only fair way to reach the girls without forcing them. Let them take a hand in their own interest—I always say."
"The mill men see the wisdom of that. I would not have been engaged as a welfare worker if I had not been a scout lieutenant. Well, I must run along. We have a meeting in Flosston tonight, and I am going to take Rose with me." ”

“ Then she wrote a second letter, this one to Dagmar, care of the Flosston post-office, and as the mail for Rose Dixon and Dagmar Brodix was promptly mailed to Mrs. Cosgrove at Franklin, Tessie planned better than she knew in hoping thus to reach her abandoned companion. Her letters finished, Tessie (for the time Stacia) slipped down the palatial hall to the door of Jacqueline's sunset room, to inquire if the young mistress needed any attention. It was one of those prolonged days in early summer when night seems unable to break in on the soft, pelucent shadows of sunset meeting twilight. ”

“ It was just like real fiction to Tessie, while Marcia and Phillis Osborne could hardly believe their pretty puff-hidden ears that they should have right in their own home a real girl scout who had won a merit badge! Tessie positively declined to discuss the "brave deed" she had consummated to obtain that badge, also she refused just as positively to take any part in the scout work of Elmhurst. It was delectable to have the girls beg her to come to drill, and assure her no one need know she was employed as a waitress. ”

“ The real fact of the matter was simply that Tessie, while in possession of the little badge, was continually reminded of its purpose, and the ideals it stood for, so that in her rather reckless career the emblem confronted her with constant mute appeal.
Meanwhile, Jacqueline refused the urgent demands of her nurse that she retire.
"No, nursie dear. Do be lovely to me tonight," she pleaded, "and let me wait for Jerry. I have the most glorious news for him."
"If all of this nonsense does you good, Jacqueline, I am sure I shall not oppose it," replied the nurse. ”

“ But Stacia (or Tessie) allowed the reins to lay loosely in her lap as she watched a girl scout in uniform approach. She was alone and tramped with a sure tread that might have marked her a True Tred had Tessie any knowledge of the troop's name. "Those girls are everywhere," she told herself, and then fell to day dreams of girl scout possibilities.
Buried in thought, Tessie forgot Frank's warning to look out for the express, until a shrill whistle rent the air and Gyp sprang forward, almost tossing the girl from her seat on the wagon. ”

“ Rose turned the problem of Tessie over and over in her troubled mind.
She felt keenly the need of confidence, but could not bring herself to
tell this story now to Molly Cosgrove.
"How could I make her understand why I delayed all this time?" she reflected. "No, I must wait for another letter. Perhaps I'll get one to-morrow. Anyhow our new troop is just fine, and I mean to be a real patrol leader," decided the girl, imbued with the same enthusiasm that seemed to permeate the entire girl-scout movement.
Have you ever been called upon to lead others? ”

“ Benny was almost close enough to hear the parting words, but in his boyish head, chuck full of sports and frolics, he had little room for girls' secrets, and even the knowledge thrust upon him by Grace in her trip to the woods had long ago gone the way of his lost game of "Bear in the Pit." Boys have a wonderful way of forgetting failures, and it is that trait which later entitles them to the claims of being good sports, using the title "sport" in its best and most vigorous application. ”

“ Bennet, who as housekeeper for Gerald Douglass and his young sister Jacqueline, had good reason to value her reputation, Tessie (now Stacia) was engaged. Her especial duties were to be with Jacqueline, and Mrs. Bennet deplored to Mr. Gerald the fact that this young girl brought no reference.
"But she is so young, Margaret," he had replied. "I am sure we can supervise. And you know, Jack has been taking a lot of my time lately. Yet the doctor says her ultimate cure depends on her cheerful frame of mind, and she is getting along so beautifully. ”