The Torch Bearer: A Camp Fire Girls' Story, page 2
When they needed food you changed the flesh of beasts
into savoury meat for them.
During all the ages your mysterious flame has been
a symbol to them for Spirit.
So, to-night, we light our fire in grateful remembrance
of the Great Spirit who gave you to us.’”
In a few clear-cut sentences Mrs. Royall spoke of the Camp Fire symbolism—of fire as the living, renewing, all-pervading element—“Our brother the fire, bright and pleasant, and very mighty and strong,” as being the underlying spirit—the heart of this new order of the girls of America, as the hearth-fire is the heart of the home. She spoke of the brown chevron with the crossed sticks, the symbol of the Wood Gatherer, the blue and orange symbol of the Fire Maker, and the complete insignia combining both of these with the touch of white representing smoke from the flame, worn by the Torch Bearer, trying to make clear and vivid the beautiful meaning of it all.
When the roll-call was read, each girl, as she answered to her name, gave also the number of honours she had earned since the last meeting. It was then that Laura, watching the absorbed faces, shook her head with a sigh as her eyes met Anne’s; and Anne nodded with quick understanding.
“Yes,” she whispered, “there is some rivalry. It isn’t all love and harmony—yet. But we are working that way all the time.”
There was a report of the last Council, written in rather limping rhyme, and then each girl told of some kind or gentle deed she had seen or heard of since the last meeting—things ranging all the way from hunting for a lost glove to going for the doctor at midnight when a girl was taken suddenly ill in camp. Only one had no kindness to tell. And when she reported “Nothing” it was as if a shadow fell for a moment over all the young faces turned towards her.
“Who is that? Her voice sounds so unhappy!” Laura said, and her friend answered, “I’ll tell you about her afterwards. Her name is Olga Priest. There’s a new member to be received to-night. Here she comes.”
Laura watched the new member as she stepped out of the circle, and crossed over to the Chief Guardian.
“Soon the flames began to blaze and crackle, filling the air with a spicy fragrance”
“What is your desire?” Mrs. Royall asked, and the girl answered,
“I desire to become a Camp Fire Girl and to obey the law of the Camp Fire, which is to
“‘Seek beauty,
Give service,
Pursue knowledge,
Hold on to health,
Glorify work,
Be happy.’
This law of the Camp Fire I will strive to follow.”
Slowly and impressively, Mrs. Royall explained to her the law, phrase by phrase, and as she ceased speaking, the candidate repeated her promise to keep it, and instantly every girl in the circle, placing her right hand over her heart, chanted slowly,
“‘This law of the fire I will strive to follow
With all the strength and endurance of my body,
The power of my will,
The keenness of my mind,
The warmth of my heart,
And the sincerity of my spirit.’”
And again after the last words—like a full stop in music—came the few seconds of utter silence.
It was broken by the Chief Guardian. “With this sign you become a Wood Gatherer,” and she laid the fingers of her right hand across those of her left. The candidate made the same sign; then she held out her hand, and Mrs. Royall slipped on her finger the silver ring, which all Camp Fire Girls are entitled to wear, and as she did so she said,
“‘As fagots are brought from the forest
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Whenever, wherever you find them.
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.’”
The girl returned to her place in the circle, and at a sign from Anne Wentworth, four of her girls followed her as she moved forward and stood before Mrs. Royall. From a paper in her hand she read the names of the four girls, and declared that they had all met the tests for the second grade.
The Chief Guardian turned to the four.
“What is your desire?” she asked, and together they repeated,
“‘As fuel is brought to the fire
So I purpose to bring
My strength,
My ambition,
My heart’s desire,
My joy,
And my sorrow
To the fire
Of humankind.
For I will tend
As my fathers have tended,
And my father’s fathers
Since time began,
The fire that is called
The love of man for man,
The love of man for God.’”
As the young earnest voices repeated the beautiful words, Laura Haven’s heart thrilled again with the solemn beauty of it all, and tears crowded to her eyes in the silence that followed—a silence broken only by the whispering of the night wind high in the treetops.
Then Mrs. Royall lifted her hand and soft and low the young voices chanted,
“‘Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame,
O Master of the Hidden Fire;
Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me
My soul’s desire.
In flame of service bathe my mind,
O Master of the Hidden Fire,
That when I wake clear-eyed may be
My soul’s desire.’“
It was over, and the circle broke again into laughing, chattering groups. Lanterns were lighted, every spark of the Council Fire carefully extinguished, and then back through the woods the procession wound, laughing, talking, sometimes breaking into snatches of song, the lanterns throwing strange wavering patches of light into the dense darkness of the woods on either side.
* * *
II
INTRODUCING THE PROBLEM
“You did enjoy it, didn’t you?” Anne said as the two walked back through the woods-path to camp.
“I loved every bit of it,” was the enthusiastic response. “It’s so different from anything else—so fresh and picturesque and full of interest! I should think girls would be wild to belong.”
“They are. Camp Fires are being organised all over the country. The trouble is that there are not yet enough older girls trained for Guardians.”
“Where can they get the training?”
“In New York there is a regular training class, and there will soon be others in other cities,” Anne returned, and then, with a laugh, “I believe you’ve caught the fever already, Laura.”
“I have—hard. You know, Anne, all the time we were abroad I was trying to decide what kind of work I could take up, among girls, and this appeals to me as nothing else has done. It seems to me there are great possibilities in it. I’d like to be a Guardian. Do you think I’m fit?”
“Of course you’re fit, dear. O Laura, I’m so glad. We can work together when we go home.”
“But, Anne, I want to stay right here in this camp now. Do you suppose Mrs. Royall will be willing? Of course I’ll pay anything she says——”
“She’ll be delighted. She needs more helpers, and I can teach you all I learned before I took charge of my girls. But will your father be willing?”
“I’m sure he will. He knows you, and everybody in Washington knows and honours Mrs. Royall. Father is going to Alaska on a business trip and I’ve been trying to decide where I would stay while he is gone. This will solve my problem beautifully.”
“Come then—we’ll see Mrs. Royall right now and arrange it,” Anne returned, turning back.
Mrs. Royall was more than willing to accede to Laura’s proposal. “Stay at the camp as long as you like,” she said, “and if you really want to be a Guardian, I will send your name to the Board which has the appointing power.”
“She is lovely, isn’t she?” Laura said as they left the Chief Guardian. “I don’t wonder you call her the Camp Mother.”
Something in the tone reminded Anne that her friend had long been motherless, and she slipped her arm affectionately around Laura’s waist as she answered, “She is the most motherly woman I ever met. She seems to have room in her big, warm heart for every girl that wants mothering, no matter who or what she is.” They were back at the camp now, and she added, “But we must get to bed quickly—there’s the curfew,” as a bugle sounded a few clear notes.
“O dear, I’ve a hundred and one questions to ask you,” sighed Laura.
“They’ll keep till morning,” replied the other. “It’s so hard for the girls to stop chattering after the curfew sounds! We Guardians have to set them a good example.”
The cots in the sleeping tents were placed on wooden platforms raised three or four inches from the ground, and on clear nights the sides of the tents were rolled up. Laura, too interested and excited to sleep at once, lay in her cot looking out across the open space now flooded with light from the late-risen moon, and thought of the girls sleeping around her. Herself an only child, she had a great desire—almost a passion—for girls; girls who were lonely like herself—girls who had to struggle with ill-health, poverty, and hard work as she did not.
Suddenly she started up in bed, her eyes wide with half-startled surprise. Reaching over to the adjoining cot, she touched her friend, whispering, “Anne, Anne, look!” and as Anne opened drowsy eyes, Laura pointed to the moonlit space.
Anne stared for a moment, then she laughed softly and whispered back, “It’s a ghost dance, Laura. Some of those irrepressible girls couldn’t resist this moonlight. They’re doing an Indian folk dance.”
“Isn’t it weird—in the moonlight and in utter silence!” Laura said under her breath. “I should think somebody would giggle and spoil the effect.”
“That would be a signal for Mrs. Royall to ‘discover’ them and send them back to bed,” Anne returned. “So long as they do it in utter silence so as to disturb no one else, the Guardians wink at it. It is pretty, isn’t it?”
“Lovely!”
Anne turned over and went to sleep again, but Laura watched the slender graceful figures in their loose white garments till suddenly they melted into the shadows and were gone. Then she too slept till a shaft of sunlight, touching her eyelids, awakened her to a new day. She looked across at her friend, who smiled back at her. “I feel so well and so happy!” she exclaimed.
“It is sleeping in the open air,” Anne replied. “Almost everybody wakes happy here—except the Problem.”
“The Problem?” Laura echoed.
“I mean Olga Priest, the girl you asked about last night. We Guardians call her the Problem because no one has yet been able to do anything for her.”
“Tell me about her,” Laura begged, as, dropping the sides of the tent, Anne began to dress.
“Wait till we are outside—there are too many sharp young ears about us here,” Anne cautioned. “There’ll be time for a walk or a row before breakfast and we can talk then.”
“Good—let’s have a walk,” Laura said, and made quick work of her dressing.
“Now tell me about the Problem,” she urged, when they were seated on a rocky point overlooking the blue waters of the bay.
“Poor Olga,” Anne said. “I wonder sometimes if she has ever had a really happy day in the eighteen years of her life. Her mother was a Russian of good family and well educated. She married an American who made life bitter for her until he drank himself to death. There were three children older than Olga—two sons who went to the bad, following their father’s example. The older girl married a worthless fellow and disappeared, and there was no one left but Olga to support the sick mother and herself, and Olga was only thirteen then! She supported them, somehow, but of course she had to leave her mother alone all day, and one night when she went home she found her gone. She had died all alone.”
“O!” cried Laura.
“Yes, it was pitiful. I suppose the child was as nearly heartbroken as any one could be, for her mother was everything to her. Of course there were many who would have been glad to help had they known, but Olga’s pride is something terrible, and it seems as if she hates everybody because her father and her brothers and sister neglected her mother, and she was left to die alone. I don’t believe there is a single person in the world whom she likes even a little.”
“O, the poor thing!” sighed Laura. “Not even Mrs. Royall?”
“No, not even Mrs. Royall, who has been heavenly kind to her.”
“Is she in your Camp Fire?”
“No, Ellen Grandis is her Guardian, but Ellen is to be married next month and will live in New York, so that Camp Fire will have to have a new Guardian.”
“What about the other girls in it?”
“All but three are working girls—salesgirls in stores, I think, most of them.”
“How did Olga happen to join the Camp Fire?”
“I don’t know. I’ve wondered about that myself. She doesn’t make friends with any of the girls, nor join in any of the games; but work—she has a perfect passion for work, and it seems as if she can do anything. She has won twice as many honours as any other girl since she came, but she cares nothing for them—except to win them.”
“She must be a strange character, but she interests me,” Laura said thoughtfully. “Anne, maybe I can take Miss Grandis’ place when she leaves.”
Anne gave her friend a searching look. “Are you sure you would like it? Wouldn’t you rather have a different class of girls?” she asked.
Laura answered gravely, “I want the girls I can help most—those that need me most—and from what you say, I should think Olga needed—some one—as much as any girl could.”
“As much perhaps, but hardly more than some of the others. There’s that little Annie Pearson who thinks of nothing but her pretty face and ‘good times,’ and Myra Karr who is afraid of her own shadow and always clinging to the person she happens to be with. The Camp Fire is a splendid organisation, Laura, and it will do a deal for the girls, but still almost every one of them is some sort of ‘problem’ that we have to study and watch and labour over with heart and head and hands if we hope really to accomplish any permanent good. But come, we must go back or we shall be late for breakfast.”
“Then let’s hurry, for this air has given me a famous appetite,” Laura replied. But she did not find it easy to keep up with her friend’s steady stride.
“You’ll have to get in training for tramps if you are going to be a Camp Fire Girl,” Anne taunted gaily.
Laura’s eyes brightened as she entered the big dining-room with its canvas sides rolled high.
“Just in time,” Anne said, as she pulled out a chair for Laura and slipped into the next one herself.
The meal was cheerful, almost hilarious. “Mrs. Royall believes in laughter. She never checks the girls unless it’s really necessary,” Anne explained under cover of the merry chatter. “She——”
But Laura interrupted her. “O Anne, that must be Olga—the dark still girl, at the end of the next table, isn’t it?”
“Yes, and Myra Karr is next to her. All at that table belong to the Busy Corner Camp Fire.”
After breakfast Laura again paddled off to the yacht with Anne. It did not require much coaxing to secure her father’s permission for her to spend a month at the camp with Anne Wentworth and Mrs. Royall. He kept the girls on the yacht for luncheon, and after that they went back to camp, a couple of sailors following in another boat with Laura’s luggage.
“How still it is—I don’t hear a sound,” Laura said wonderingly, as she and her friend approached the camp through the pines.
Anne listened, looking a little perplexed, as they came out into the camp and found it quite deserted—not a girl anywhere in sight.
“I’ll go and find out where everybody is,” she said. “I see some one moving in the kitchen. The cook must be there.”
She came back laughing. “They’ve all gone berrying. That’s one of the charms of this camp—the spontaneous fashion in which things are done. Probably some one said, ‘There are blueberries over yonder—loads of them,’ and somebody else exclaimed, ‘Let’s go get some,’ and behold”—she waved her hand—“a deserted camp.”
* * *
III
THE CAMP COWARD DARES
Each girl at the camp was expected to make her own bed and keep her belongings in order. Each one also served her turn in setting tables, washing dishes, etc. Beyond this there were no obligatory tasks, but all the girls were working for honours, and most of them were trying to meet the requirements for higher rank. Some were making their official dresses. Girls who were skilful with the needle could secure beautiful and effective results with silks and beads, and of course every girl wanted a headband of beadwork and a necklace—all except Olga Priest. Olga was working on a basket of raffia, making it from a design of her own, when Ellen Grandis, her Guardian, came to her just after Anne Wentworth and Laura had left the camp.
“I’ve come to ask your help, Olga,” Miss Grandis began.
The girl dropped the basket in her lap, and waited.
Miss Grandis went on, “It is something that will require much patience and kindness——”
“Then you’d better ask some one else, Miss Grandis. You know that I do not pretend to be kind,” Olga interrupted, not rudely but with finality.
“But you are very patient and persevering, and—I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that you could do more for this one girl than any one else here could. She is coming to take the only vacant place in our Camp Fire. Shall I tell you about her, Olga?”
“If you like.” The girl’s tone was politely indifferent.
With a little sigh Miss Grandis went on, “Her name is Elizabeth Page. She is about a year younger than you, and she has had a very hard life.”
Olga’s lips tightened and a shadow swept across her dark eyes.
