Camp Fire Girls

“ The sun rose over Plum Beach to shine down on a scene of confusion and wreckage that might have caused girls less determined and courageous than those who belonged to the Manasquan Camp Fire of the Camp Fire Girls of America to feel that there was only one thing to do–pack up and move away. ”

“ Tremblingly the twelve Camp Fire Girls followed two of the men down the cellar steps. It was evident to them that resistance would be worse than useless. A single blow from the fist of one of those powerful men would stun any of the girls, if it did not knock her unconscious. In fact their captors could make quick work of them if necessary, and, cooped up as they were in this isolated prison, they could scarcely hope to send forth an effective cry of distress before they were rendered physically incapable of sounding further alarm. ”

“ Just be all smiles and dimples and give them the sweetest con game welcome imaginable. Pretend to be delighted to meet the bunch of Camp Fire Girls. Tell them you had long held their organization in the highest esteem. Take your two daughters into your full confidence. Tell them they must play their part, too, and play it well. They must be eager to become Camp Fire Girls and seek to be chummy with the spies.
“And as for the boy, in whom they are specially interested, you must treat him as if you regard him the dearest little darling on earth.” (Mrs. Graham’s face soured at this suggestion.) ”

“ Olga paused, a new thought dawning in her dark eyes.
Laura answered as if she had spoken it. “Yes, the Camp Fire is to help any girl in any way possible. Not only to help weak girls to grow strong, and timid girls to grow brave, and helpless girls to become useful, and lonely girls to find friends and social opportunities—it is for all these things, but for more—much more besides. It is to show selfish, narrow-minded girls—like that poor little Sadie—the beauty of unselfishness and generosity and thoughtful kindness to others. ”

“ Sitting before a fire in their bedroom, which they had chosen to share so as to be able to talk for as long a time as they wished before retiring, were the two Sunrise Camp Fire girls, Bettina Graham and Vera Lagerloff. Both girls had changed conspicuously in manner and appearance since the summer before when they had been in camp together “Behind the Lines” in southern California. However, there comes a day in every girl’s life when with entire suddenness she seems to understand and accept the revelation of her womanhood. ”

“ Not a bit, Zara. Because the Camp Fire isn't a new thing, really. Not the big idea that's back of it, that you'll learn as you stay with us, and get to know more about us. All we hope to do is to make our girls fine, strong women when they get older, like all the great brave women that we read about in history. They've all been women who loved the home, and all it means—and the fire is the great symbol of the home. It was fire that made it possible for people to have real homes. ”

“ For my part I will undertake to find some interesting women in Paris who will agree to aid us with our French Camp Fire and take charge of it after we leave France. We must interest poorer French girls as well as rich ones, we must introduce them by letter to Camp Fire girls in the United States so they may exchange ideas and plans and learn from each other. I hate to confess the fact that you girls are growing older and must soon look forward to undertaking the duties of Camp Fire guardians, nevertheless it is true. ”

“ They say a lot of the Boy Scouts think the Camp Fire Girls are just imitating them, and that isn't so at all, because I got Miss Eleanor to tell me all about it. The Camp Fire Girls are more serious. They want to prepare girls to make good homes, and look after them properly, and to help them to make things better in their own homes. ”

“ They had been talking about the different things Camp Fire Girls could do together for the good of the community.
“Girls,” said Katherine, standing in her favorite attitude beside the fireplace, with her toes turned in and her elbow on the shelf, “I don’t believe we’re doing all we ought. We’re having a royal good time among ourselves and learning no end of things to our own advantage, but what are we doing for others? ”

“ Of the summer Sunrise Camp Fire girls, only Juliet and Beatrice Field had really to say serious farewells when returning to their school in Philadelphia, but they departed with at least the consoling thought that they were to come back to the cabin for their Christmas holidays. So that there remained only seven of the original girls pledged to give this experiment of winter housekeeping as a Camp Fire club a real test. ”

“ For seated where they had left the San-Clu Camp Fire Girls were the Captain, Bottomless Pitt, the Monkey, Dan Porter, Peter Jenkins and Harry Raymond. The girls had vanished.
“Why, when did you come in, boys?” asked Nyoda in surprise. “And where are the girls?”
“What girls?” asked the Captain.
“Why, the San-Clu Camp Fire girls,” said Nyoda, “who were visiting us.”
“Here they are,” said the six boys, rising and speaking together. “We are the ‘San-Clu’ Camp Fire Girls. ‘San-Clu’—short for Sandwich Club! Ho-ho-ho, Katherine! You’d know us in a minute with girls’ clothes on, would you!” ”

“ The Camp Fire girls were accustomed to their guardian’s gift and therefore accepted it in a more matter-of-fact fashion, although Bettina Graham and Alice Ashton were both aware that she was showing added power, and understood her impatience to return to her profession. ”

“ The group of girls who first came together to spend a summer as a Camp Fire Club in the woods are now grown up and life has, of course, altered and widened for all of them. The question now is, What will each girl do to make her future happy and successful? Will she marry well or ill, or will she choose to follow some career in which marriage has no part? Although the fifth volume is to deal with the original number of heroines, it will be more largely devoted to the most brilliant and erratic of the twelve Camp Fire Girls, Polly O'Neill. ”

“ Three years of Camp Fire life at the most impressionable period, of feelings quickened by a romantic ritual, of heart knit to other girl-heart by the entwining flame of the outdoor Council Fire--of coming, as Olive had said, very near to the Father Heart in which lay their unity--this, and more, had brought one to kneeling, undaunted, by a gassed soldier, the other to embroidering an elm leaf--symbolic American elm--upon the dress of a little immigrant of not two years’ standing. ”

“ It was her idea that before the coming of the Camp Fire idea girls had been too willing to look to their brothers and their other men folks for services which they should be able, in case of need, to perform for themselves, and that, as a consequence, when suddenly deprived of the support of their natural helpers and protectors, many girls were in a particularly helpless and unfortunate position. ”

“ All commendatory doings are worked out in bright colors, but every time the Law of the Camp Fire is broken it must be recorded in black. How these seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school life the spirit of Work, Health and Love and yet manage to get into more than their share of mischief, is told in this story. ”

“ The thirteen Camp Fire Girls and their Guardian are hardly to be censured because they did little more work of a routine nature that day. One could hardly expect them to fix their minds upon any “even tenor” occupation while the thrills of recent developments supplied so much stimulus for discussion of future prospect. ”

“ Before Peggy could make a reply to Bettina's final speech, the four girls saw their Camp Fire guardians approaching and rose to greet them.
"You girls look too picturesque to disturb, and yet we must not remain outdoors all night, no matter how the beauty of the night tempts us. I trust we may have many other nights as radiant as this before our summer is over," said Mrs. Burton, half apologizing for her own and her sister's intrusion.
A few moments later the Sunrise Camp Fire girls were walking slowly away from the mission grounds to their own rose-covered hotel. ”

“ Oh, it's a girls' summer camp, Miss Eleanor. You know the sort. They're run for a lot of rich girls, whose parents want to get rid of them for the summer. They're supposed to do some studying, but all they, ever really do is to have a good time. I'd have gone to one this year if I hadn't joined the Camp Fire Girls instead. Gladys laughed at me in the city when she heard I was going to join. ”

“ In camping with so wealthy and famous a woman as Polly Burton there would be scarcely any great hardships to be endured. The new Sunrise Camp Fire girls were in more danger of having life made too easy for them rather than too difficult. Yet there might be circumstances now and then which would require good sense and courage to overcome. And, most of all, Bettina needed to see the practical side of every-day life. ”

“ We are all Camp Fire Girls, and thirteen of us and a guardian came to Hollyhill on a mission in harmony with Camp Fire teachings, that is, to work among the poor and suffering families of the strikers during the holidays. ”

“ Migwan interrupted quickly. "They're going as nurses in the hospitals right at the front; they're working in the canteens and doing lots of other things right in the thick of the excitement."
"Oh, yes, women are," replied Sahwah, "but girls aren't. Long ago, in the days before the war, I used to think if there ever would be a war the Camp Fire Girls would surely do something great and glorious, but here we are, and the only thing we can do is knit, knit, knit, and fold bandages, and the babies in the kindergarten are doing that. We're too young to do anything big and splendid. ”

“ These words were printed on the Christmas programs and it was an old time morality play such as we have seen and read in “Everyman” that Polly and Betty had attempted to write, assisted of course by both their guardians and with suggestions from every girl in the Sunrise club. Whether they were successful in keeping close to the old model was not so much their ideal as the desire to show both by words and tableaux the aims and the influence of the Camp Fire organization, and what women have given to the world since the primitive time when human life centered about the camp-fire. ”

“ Most of the folks had never seen a circus, or a show, or a parade; so there was nobody to give me any help except Justice. I myself would never have thought of tackling it, but no sooner had my Camp Fire Girls gotten absorbed in Red Cross work, and been thrilled by reading accounts of what Camp Fire Girls were doing in other sections, than they begged me to get up a pageant. ”

“ And then when supper was over Betty crept close to Esther under their rug resting her head on her shoulder.
[18]
“No one knows where we are to-night, Esther, so no one will worry. The girls will think we stayed in town on account of the storm and our friends in the village that we are now safe back in Sunrise cabin. So do let us make the best of things,” she whispered. “To-night, at least, we are real Camp Fire girls from necessity and not choice, and I believe I can better understand why our ancestors once used to worship the fire as the symbol of home. ”

“ We did start a few groups of Camp Fire girls during the months we spent on the Aisne, but the second devastation of the country by the German horde probably separated the girls so that they may never meet again. Here in Paris we can start a number of Camp Fire units at the same time. We must also try to interest some prominent French women to go on with the French Camp Fire organization after we return home. ”

“ But it's going to be a manless one. There'll be no men here until we get ready to go away, if I can help it—except as visitors."
"Well, I guess we can get along without them all right, for a change," said Dolly, blushing a little.
"Some of the men I know who are interested in the Boy Scouts think the Camp Fire Girls are a good deal of a joke," said Eleanore, with a light in her eyes that might have made some of the scoffers she referred to anxious to eat their words. "They say we get along all right because we always have some man ready to help us out if we get into any trouble. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Aunt Patricia, please don’t say you have come to argue with me about taking 21 my group of Sunrise Camp Fire girls to work with me in the devastated area of France. It is really too late now to interfere. ”

“ Another couple of years and I want to go out into the world--be free--make my mark!”
“As you’re doing now, leaving footprints on the sands of time,” chaffed Olive, as the Flame who had just spoken fitted a black-stockinged foot into the moist edge of the sand-bar. “Well! to steal a metaphor, it’s in moccasins that we Camp Fire Girls will make footprints on the sands of time, linking the past with the present, eh?”
Blue Heron, also, sank dreamily to a sitting posture, her arms encircling her knees, which did homage to the flame of the Torch Bearer’s emblem upon the breast of her bathing-suit ”