CHAPTER IX

Christmas Eve at the Cabin

"I am so sorry, I never dreamed things would turn out like this," said Sylvia Wharton awkwardly, trying to control a suggestion of tears. She was standing in the center of the Sunrise cabin living room with one hand clasping Rose Dyer's skirt and the other holding on to Polly. However, if she had had half a dozen hands she would like to have grasped as many girls, for her hour of reckoning had come. Instead, her eyes mutely implored Mollie and Betty who happened to be hurrying by at the same moment and had been arrested by the apologetic and frightened note so unusual in Sylvia's voice. And this note had to be very much emphasized at the present time to have any one pay the least attention to it, since there were enough Christmas preparations now going on in the Camp Fire living room to have sufficed a small village.

On a raised platform, which occupied about a third of their entire floor space, Miss Martha McMurtry was rehearsing the two Field girls, Juliet and Beatrice, who had only arrived the night before, in the parts they were to play in the Christmas entertainment the following night. While Meg, holding "Little Brother" tight by the belt, was trying to persuade him to await more patiently his time for instruction. Toward the front of this stage, John, Billy Webster and Dick Ashton were struggling to adjust a curtain made of heavy khaki. It had a central design, the crossed logs and a splendid aspiring fire, the well-known Camp Fire emblem, painted by Eleanor Meade, who was at this moment making suggestions to the curtain raisers from the top of a step-ladder. Nan Graham and Edith Norton ran about the room meanwhile, carrying holly wreaths, bunches of mistletoe and garlands of cedar, that several of their Boy Scout friends were helping festoon along the walls. Indeed, every girl in the Sunrise Camp Fire was represented except Esther. She had gone over to the old orphan asylum where she had lived as a child, for a final rehearsal of her song with the German Herr Professor, who was staying with the superintendent of the asylum. For what reason he was there no one knew except that he must have intended getting music pupils in the village later on.

However, in the midst of the prevailing noise the little group about Sylvia had remained silent, for their guardian's face was flushing strangely, her yellow-brown eyes darkening and for the first time since she came into the Sunrise Club it was possible to see how Rose Dyer felt when she was truly angry. Although her voice never lost its softness there was a severity in it that the girls felt to be rather worse than Miss McMurtry's in her moods of disapproval.

"Do you mean, Sylvia," Rose asked, "that you and Dr. Barton have arranged to have a young girl whom none of us know brought to our cabin to be taken care of all winter, without consulting me or even mentioning the subject to a single one of the girls? And that this child, who has been so ill she will require a great deal of care, is actually to arrive this afternoon? It seems to me that not only have you broken every principle of our Camp Fire life but you have been lacking in the very simplest courtesy."

Never in her life would Sylvia Wharton be able to explain herself or her motives properly in words. She was one of the often misunderstood people to whom expression comes with difficulty. Now her plain face was nearly purple with embarrassment. "I didn't mean to be rude; yes, I know it looks horrid and impossible of me, but you see I meant to explain and to ask permission, only I didn't dream that she would arrive for another week, and I was just waiting until our festivities would be over and you would be better able to be interested." She looked rather desperately at Betty, Polly and Mollie before going on, but they appeared almost as overwhelmed as their guardian.

"You see, Betty, it was something you said a while ago that made me think of it first," she continued. "You said to Miss Dyer one evening that you thought we Sunrise Camp Fire girls were getting rather selfish, that we were not letting strangers into our club or doing anything for outside people. So I thought as Christmas was coming I would like to help somebody. Perhaps we all would! So when Dr. Barton told me about a poor little girl (she is only thirteen, I think) who was ill, probably dying, and if only she could have an outdoor life such as we girls are living she might get well, why, I told him I thought we would like to have her in our camp."

Sylvia stopped because her words had given out, but she could hardly have chosen a wiser moment, for Mollie, whose gentleness and good judgment everybody respected, was beginning to understand.

"I think Sylvia is trying to show the Christmas spirit of doing good to the people who need it and letting us help," she whispered, coming closer to their guardian and slipping an arm about her waist. "Perhaps our Christmas preparations have been a little bit too much for ourselves. Of course Sylvia ought to have asked permission, Rose, and of course the little girl is not to stay if you don't want her, but she didn't expect her for another week and--and please don't be angry on Christmas eve."

This was exactly what poor Sylvia would like to have said without knowing how; however it did not matter who spoke, as Rose was plainly softening.

"But it is Dr. Barton's part I don't understand, Sylvia; he is older, a great deal older, than you, he must have understood that you had not the right to make such a proposition without consulting me or any one," Rose declared thoughtfully.

"He did," Sylvia now answered more confidently, feeling the atmosphere a bit more friendly. "He said at the beginning that the idea was quite impossible, that Miss Dyer would never be willing to undertake a responsibility of such a character, that he was surprised she had stayed with our Camp Fire club so long. It was only when I promised to try and save you all the trouble possible that he consented, Miss Dyer. You see Abbie is the daughter of a landlady Dr. Barton once had when he was a student in Boston, and so he is much interested in her, only he is too poor to pay her board and hasn't anybody to look after her at his little place; and you mustn't think it is just goodness on my part, wanting this girl at our cabin. You see I do care about learning to look after sick people more than anything else and I do want to know if our way of living really helps."

"So Dr. Barton thought I would not wish to help in the care of a sick child, that I was only playing at being a real Camp Fire guardian," Rose Dyer repeated slowly and then, without adding another word, somehow she seemed to drift away. However, there were a dozen voices calling for her advice and aid at this same instant, which may have explained her failure to let Sylvia and the other girls know her possible decision.

The three older friends exchanged looks and then Polly patted the crestfallen Sylvia on the shoulder. "Never mind, dear, some of us possess all the virtues except the trifling one of tact. If your little girl comes we can't very well turn her out on Christmas eve, so you had better say nothing more until Rose has thought things over and we have had a meeting of our Council Fire."

Then the girls hurried off to what was about the busiest day in their careers, with little further thought of Sylvia's protégé; Polly to a quiet rehearsal with her elocution teacher of her part in the Christmas play, Mollie and Betty to assist with the final details of certain costumes, and Sylvia, who was never of a great deal of service in frivolities, to apply her scientific interest toward helping with the cooking.

However, by six o'clock all the Sunrise Camp Fire friends and assistants had gone back to the village and by seven supper was over and cleared away so that the girls might have a quiet evening and go early to bed in order to be rested for the next day. Esther had only gotten home a few minutes before tea time, but in the excitement no one had missed her, nor did she seem much more tired than the rest of the girls from the strain of her last rehearsal. Nevertheless, Miss McMurtry, who had always a special affection for Esther, did see that she was even paler than usual and persuaded her to sit close to her when the girls grouped themselves about their great Christmas eve fire for an hour of Christmas story telling before separating for the night.

And it was while their old guardian held everybody's attention that Rose managed to slip quietly away. She was not a child, she was not even a young girl any longer, and yet she went straight to the refuge of her babyhood--to Mammy--who had a tiny room of her own just off the kitchen. To-night there was a younger colored girl in the kitchen who had come out from Woodford to help over Christmas day, but as Rose passed their pantry she saw that Mammy had forgotten her seventy years and intended giving the New England girls a taste of an old-fashioned Southern Christmas. For along with the beautiful pies and doughnuts, which the Camp Fire girls had made, there were great dishes of sugar-powdered crullers, a black cake as big as a cart wheel and half a dozen deliciously fried chickens to vie with the turkey which had not yet been cooked.

Down on a stool at the old colored woman's feet Rose let Mammy brush out her yellow-brown hair as she had done ever since she could remember. She was tired to-night; she had done more work in the past month than in all the years of her life and she loved it and was very happy and was only hoping to grow more capable and more worthy every day. Yet it was hard to have a narrow-minded New England doctor who had been a friend of her uncle's criticizing her to one of her own girls and failing to show faith in her or her work. Just because he was a recluse and spent his time in looking after the sick poor was no reason for being so severe and puritanical in his judgments.

Rose was not listening to Mammy's low crooning else her ears would not have been the first to catch the sound of a horse and buggy approaching their cabin door. If the girls had forgotten the prospect of a newcomer to their Camp Fire circle their guardian had not, so now, hastily tucking up her hair without waiting for a wrap, Rose hurried out into the darkness. It was a cold clear night with many stars, but it was hardly necessary for her actually to behold the shabby buggy before recognizing it.

However, the young doctor did not at first see her, for he stopped and hitched his horse and then lifted out what appeared to be a soft bundle of rugs. "Don't be frightened, dear," he whispered in a voice of unusual gentleness. "She--they will be very kind to you, I am sure, even if they can't keep you very long. I am sorry I didn't understand that things weren't exactly settled and that we made such a mistake about the time, but--why, Rose, Miss Dyer," he corrected himself hastily, "it is good of you to come out to meet us, I am sorry to be putting this additional burden upon you." And then his manner changed to a doctor's severity. "Please go into the house at once, you haven't any wrap and on such a cold night as this! Really I don't see how you are able to look after girls when you don't look after yourself."

But Mammy appeared at this moment wrapping her charge in a long rose-colored broadcloth cape, and Rose's manner was unexpectedly humble. "I wouldn't have forgotten if it had been one of my girls," she apologized, and then more coldly, "Won't you come into the house?"

She had so far caught but an indefinite glimpse of the young girl in Dr. Barton's charge and was steeling her heart against her until she had had time to think of whether it was best for the other Camp Fire girls to bring this sick child into their midst. For she did look such a baby standing there in the snow with an old-fashioned knitted blue woolen hood on her head, such as little girls had not worn for almost twenty years. And then, suddenly, the girl began to cry quite helplessly and pitifully, so that Rose forgot every other consideration and put her arms about her as you would comfort a baby, drawing her toward the cabin and into the kitchen that she might be warmed and comforted by Mammy before being presented to a dozen strange older girls all at once.

The young doctor did not follow them, indeed Rose had not invited him in again. But a few moments later she must have remembered his existence, for she came out for the second time into the cold.

Dr. Barton extended his hand, but apparently Rose did not see it, for she kept her own arms by her sides, saying in somewhat the same manner she had used earlier in the day to Sylvia: "I am sorry, Dr. Barton, you do not think I can be interested in the care of a sick little girl, and that you feel me unworthy to be a Camp Fire guardian. I know that I haven't all the knowledge and character that is necessary, but I am learning, and----"

Rose would not listen to the young man's explanation or apology, for with a quick good-night she turned and left him endeavoring to say something to her which evidently she did not care to hear.