Chapter 12

NAN

At the close of the calumet ceremony the girls immediately drew closer together about the fire, making ready for an informal discussion. Of course they had been uncommonly serious for the past hour, but the night was so mystically beautiful with the new moon casting a silver radiance over the hills and fields, that there in the yellow glow of the Council Fire the girls had felt the inspiration of its beauty and their own seclusion.

Since darkness had fallen there had been no noise save the murmur of their own voices and the cry of "Hinakaga", the owl, like a sentry at his post making his report from the grove of pines.

Once or twice as the time slipped away Miss McMurtry had faintly suggested that the hour had come for retiring, but always the girls, led by Polly O'Neill, had pleaded that to-night was not like other nights, and they must be allowed a slightly longer respite. During the earlier part of the evening, when she had believed no one observing her, Polly had evidently been on the lookout for something or some one, for she had kept glancing slyly out across the country toward the path leading to their camp; now, however, this idea must have passed from her mind, for she was as completely absorbed as her companions in the selection of the new names, which the girls might hope to bear in their Camp Fire club.

Miss McMurtry talked very little--persons who are deep students rarely do; far more apt are those of us who play upon the surface of life to like to do our thinking aloud. So now, the Council was surprised to hear her speak in so earnest a tone that every one else was silenced:

"Girls, I want you to do me a favor to-night. I don't know whether it is usual for the guardian of a Camp Fire club to have a new title awarded her, but nevertheless I want you to give me one. You see I am Miss Martha or Miss McMurtry to most of you at school and really I wish to forget that I am a schoolmarm this summer and to have you forget it. I have been finding out a good many things since I came into camp, though it hasn't been very long, and one of them is that a guardian does not need so much to be a teacher as a friend to her girls. You see no guardian can know everything that you girls are studying to gain your elective honors, but, if we are friends we can work them out together."

Deeply grateful was Betty Ashton for the night and the shadows of the firelight that were playing on her face while Miss McMurtry was making this little speech, which she could hardly help knowing was directed in a large measure to her. However, she could not refrain from giving Esther's arm a knowing pinch and then raising her eyes to intercept a returning glance from Polly.

Possibly Miss McMurtry expected Betty's point of view, even if she did not see her express her surprise, for although some distance away from her place in the circle her next remark was addressed to Betty.

"Betty, can't you think of a name for me?" she asked deliberately, wondering what answer under the circumstances she would be apt to receive. "I know you and Polly have been reading a good deal in order to find new names to suggest to the girls, so haven't you come across a name that might be suitable for me? There are astrologers and fortune tellers who believe that one's good or evil fate depends on bearing an appropriate name and I have always hated mine."

"But it exactly suits you and doesn't make you ridiculous like my name does me!" Sylvia Wharton announced unexpectedly, breaking into the conversation for the first time during the evening in her dull, even tones. "What is really horrid is to have a name that suggests some one very beautiful and graceful--a name that sounds like water running over pebbles in a brook and then to look like I do. I wish everybody would call me Mary Jane! I would like to have a plain, homely name."

Such was the astonishment following Sylvia's protest that no one spoke for at least half a minute. Who could have supposed her capable of developing so much of an idea? For once in their acquaintance Polly (for of course Sylvia managed to be next her) laughed with the little girl instead of at her, at the same time taking the trouble to give one of her stiff flaxen braids an amused tug, while Miss McMurtry, in order to break the silence, went on talking about herself.

"Of course my name suits me, Sylvia, that is the worst of it," she laughed. "How can any one named Martha escape being a Martha? Oh, I presume the name taken by itself is a good old-fashioned one, but in combination with McMurtry it has such an old-maidy, school-teachery sound that I have been compelled to live up to it. Now, Betty, please make a suggestion."

Betty flushed and at the same time smiled to herself. The Indian name "Pokamp" or catbird had come to her mind shortly after her quarrel with Miss McMurtry during the afternoon. "Minerva," she now proposed faintly, "she was the Goddess of Wisdom."

"Gracious no, that is worse than Martha to live up to!" Miss McMurtry objected and also declined just as decisively the dignity of "Hypatia" and "Aspasia', when those learned ladies of ancient times were offered for her consideration.

"We might call you 'Our Lady Protector'; it is just another expression for guardian," Mollie O'Neill proposed uncertainly, not because she had any enthusiasm for her idea but because no one else had anything better to introduce, but before Miss McMurtry could answer, Polly's laugh had settled the proposition.

"Or we might call Miss Martha 'Chest Protector' or 'Bella Donna Plaster', which is a very soothing title, meaning 'Beautiful Lady Covering'," she teased. "Suppose, Miss Martha, that we just wait and perhaps follow the old Indian custom of choosing your name through a dream or the first object we see at an appointed time. But I must be allowed to bestow Mollie's new name upon her," she added, gazing sentimentally up into the sky and putting her arm apologetically about her sister, riot knowing how much she might have enjoyed being laughed at in public.

This time, however, it was Mollie who plainly scored, for she only laughed good humouredly saying: "Go ahead, Polly, you have arranged everything else for me in my life except my name and you only didn't do that at baptism because you were but a few weeks old!"

During the shouts of merriment, Polly, acknowledging her autocratic tendencies, could only hide her diminished head on her sister's shoulder; nevertheless, sitting up again a few moments later she pointed one hand in a dramatic fashion toward the heavens. "Only hear the name I have found for you and you will forgive me much, Mollie Mavourneen," she pleaded. "It is a part of our Camp Fire education to study the stars, isn't it? Well, see the Seven Brothers, the Great Bear family forming the Big Dipper in the northern sky. How many of us know that those stars were shot up there to escape the wrath of their terrible brother, Grizzly Bear, according to Indian astronomy. Now see that small star just at one side of the handle of the Dipper, known as 'Sinopa'. Don't you think we ought to call Mollie, 'Sinopa,' when it means 'Little Sister'?"

Overwhelmed by the general approval of Polly's suggestion, Mollie would never have had the courage to oppose it, but fortunately had no such desire and so as usual agreed to her sister's wishes.

"Marjoram" the girls next voted an appropriate new name for Margaret Everett if she needed one, because in the first place the word was like her own name and more important was its pretty German meaning, "happy-minded", one of those rare plants that has no single ugly quality.

Edith Norton agreed to be called "Apoi-a-kimi," because the Indian word meant "light hair" and she was particularly proud of her own fluffy blonde hair even though since becoming a Camp Fire girl she had felt compelled to hide away her puffs.

Very easily might the girls have continued this discussion of their titles until the sun rose beyond their Sunrise Hill, had not Miss McMurtry suddenly looked at her watch by bending close to the light of their fire. Then she rose so quickly and with such a sharp exclamation of surprise that several of the girls got up with her.

"Camp Fire maidens, what are we thinking of? It is after ten o'clock and we must say good-night and extinguish our fire. What a wonderful night it has been, so quiet, so serene that I think no one of us will soon forget it!" Very naturally she looked away from the group of girls close about her for a wider view of the landscape, hoping that this vision of its beauty might remain with her. Already the early splendor of the night was beginning to fade and although the moonlight still made the objects near by fairly distinct, farther off they were black and ghostlike. Perhaps for this reason Miss McMurtry at first made no sign, though believing she saw a small object dart forth from the shelter of the pine trees, run a few steps, crouch down and then getting up again run on a few feet more.

Of course she and the Camp Fire girls felt perfectly safe in their retreat in the woods, although just at the beginning of their encampment, when the nights closed down upon them, some few of the girls had felt awed and nervous, now after ten such experiences the sense of unfamiliarity was quite gone.

Sunrise Hill was on the border of the Webster farm, two miles from the village and well out of the way of trespassers. There were no wild animals about in these New Hampshire hills, for hunters had long since driven them away, and yet Miss McMurtry wondered dimly if the object plainly intending to come up to them could be an animal. She did not have to wonder very long, however, for the object soon rose on two legs and was plainly a human being.

What should be done? Miss McMurtry did not wish to alarm the younger girls, when there was no possible reason for fear, and yet she was annoyed, for if some one were trying to spy upon them at this hour the intruder must be summarily dealt with. Fortunately, Polly O'Neill had risen when her guardian did and happened to be standing next her at this minute. Slipping her arm through Polly's a slight movement drew her aside.

"Polly," she whispered, "there is something or someone coming toward us; let us go forward quietly and find out what or who it is."

Instantly catching the direction of Miss McMurtry's guarded glance, Polly, not hesitating a second, broke away and ran forward alone to meet the advancing figure. Nevertheless, the older woman followed so promptly that she was able to catch the girl's first words even before seeing the person to whom they were addressed.

"Why, Nan Graham, what do you mean by coming out here so late?" Polly demanded. "When I told you that you might look on at our Council Fire to-night I thought of course that you would come to camp before dark so that I could ask permission and explain."

Half leading, half pulling the newcomer, who after all was only another young girl, Polly drew her closer to the circle of their slowly dying fire. First she looked appealingly at their guardian, who had walked forward with them, and then from one of her friends' faces to the other until she found Betty's. There were no returning glances of sympathy from a single one of the Camp Fire girls.

Unfortunately, Nan Graham was not a stranger to any member of the Sunrise Hill club except to Juliet and Beatrice Field, who were themselves strangers in Woodford. Had Nan been, her reception would have been more cordial, even though appearing at night in so unconventional a fashion. But the newcomer had been a student with most of the girls at the high school the winter before and had been expelled for supposed dishonesty. Her family was impossible, the father, a man of good birth fallen so low that his own people would have nothing to do with him, had married an emigrant woman and Nan was one of many children. The girl had tried working in the village, but no one cared to trouble with her long. And yet she was just a little more than fifteen years old and not an unattractive looking girl, although her face was curiously older than any other girl's in the group about her. To-night she was wearing a shabby black frock, torn and dusty, and her coarse short black hair was unpleasantly disheveled.

"I couldn't leave home until late and then I lost my way," she replied finally, answering Polly's question in a sullen fashion because of the weight of disapproval.

"What right had you to say she could come, Polly O'Neill, when you understand that we like to keep our Council Fires to ourselves?" flashed Betty, and then stopped, knowing that it was plainly not her place to speak first.

"You should have returned home when you found you had mistaken the way," Miss McMurtry frowned. "You ought not to have come through the woods alone at this hour of the night, Nan, as you know perfectly well. But there is no way now for me to send you back to-night, though I am sure I don't know what to do with you. Polly, I think you owe it to us to explain why you invited a guest to camp and then gave us no warning so that we might have been prepared."

Under the influence of the meeting of the Council Fire and perhaps more under the spell of Polly's magnetism than she realized, Miss McMurtry, although it was plain that she was a good deal vexed, did not put her question severely.

So it was naturally irritating, not only to her but to a number of the girls as well, to have Polly, in the midst of the general disapproval, suddenly shrug her shoulders and give a characteristic laugh. "Oh, for goodness' sake, don't let us make a mountain out of a molehill!" she begged. "I was coming back to camp this afternoon and happening to pass Nan's home, she told me something that I thought it great fun for us to know. Some of our boy friends are coming out to camp to-morrow disguised as Indians and mean to take us by surprise. We can be prepared for them and so turn the joke around the other way. Well, after Nan told me this we talked for a little while, while Mollie and Bee and Sylvia walked on ahead. She seemed desperately anxious to hear about our camp and how we were living and what we were doing, so I told her to come along and see us. I really don't see that she can do us any harm. As far as to-night is concerned, why I will make up beds for us just outside our tent, for I have been wishing to sleep outdoors ever since we came into camp."

"And then I can go back home again in the morning," the newcomer said with a scowl. "I wasn't meaning to do any harm just by looking on."

Polly would have liked to have embraced Margaret Everett on the spot, for now separating herself from her friends she came shyly forward taking the strange girl's hand. "I am sorry you have had such a tiresome walk," she said kindly; "come let us all get ready for bed."

Mollie and Sylvia Wharton followed Meg's example in speaking to their unwelcome visitor, but Betty set the example for the others, by merely passing her by with a nod of her head.

However, when Esther and Mollie were both asleep, Betty came out from her tent and stood for a moment looking down at the two figures on their hastily improvised beds only a few feet away from her own tent.

One of them stirring, she bent over her whispering: "Good-night, Polly; of course there is no harm in Nan's being here one night, but please don't ask her to stay longer."