CHAPTER XXIV

FULFILLMENT

"Of course, she'll come over. Didn't I say I'd leave a flap up?" asked Wyn. It was so early that the very Chickadees, after whom the patrol had been named, were still asleep in their own tree-top scout tents.

"As if she could get out of bed----"

"Why couldn't she? After last night I wonder if she will ever feel safe in bed again. Seems to me," said the incorrigible Wynnie, "she could do lots more good sitting up--raiding attics and things like that."

"But Chicks," said Thistle from a rumpled pillow, "isn't that child a dream?"

"You mean didn't that child dream----"

"No, I do not. I think she is the most adorable thing. Why, she looks exactly like a painting we have----"

"There--there," soothed Treble.

"Don't get homesick," Pell called out. "We have a few more days to go before time to break camp and you want to be in at the big party, don't you?"

"I think the prince part simply the most marvelous story I have ever heard," said Treble, under her breath. It was too early to join in a general wake-up.

"Leave it to Alma," whispered Laddie. "I always said these quiet little girls have the most fun. I heard Wyn groaning in her sleep after every one else was aslumber. That's the kind of fun _she_ has."

"Looks as if Nora had not walked in _her_ sleep, at any rate," put in Betta. "I move we get up and slick things up early. How do we know but the myth flew away in the night?"

"We don't, but she didn't," replied Treble crisply. "But hark to a familiar sound. It calls arise----"

Then began the duties, and in spite of their anxiety to get over to the Nest, the Scouts did succeed in performing their tasks with the usual accuracy and unusual alacrity.

At nine o'clock they were free.

No need to ask what anyone was going to do that morning. Every Girl Scout who had been in "the raid" was ready to run before the day's orders had been read from the bulletin.

They headed for the Mantons' cottage.

"Did you ever?"

"No, I never!"

This was a part of the meaningless contribution in words offered as the girls came up to the Nest. They had seen the tableau on the front porch.

"Hello!" called out Nora.

"'Lo, yourself," sang back Thistle.

"Too early for a fashionable call?" asked Treble.

"Come along, girls," Mrs. Manton welcomed them. "I am sure Nora has been anxiously waiting for you. I'll let her tell you the news," she finished, indicating the chairs for the party.

Lucia was in a big steamer chair. It almost swallowed up the tiny figure, but she had a way of reclining, quite gracefully.

"How are you today, Lucia?" asked Alma.

"Oh, I'm all right," replied the child, pinking through her dark skin. She looked very pretty in one of Nora's bright rose dresses, with the same color hair ribbon, and her feet encased in a pair of white slippers. No wonder she was "all right."

"She's going to stay," said Nora proudly. "We've adopted her."

"Quick work," remarked Laddie. "But I don't blame you. She looks as if she grew right here in this lovely big wild wood. Don't you like it, Lucia?"

"Lots, much," said the child.

"We found out all about it, of course," continued Nora. "Lucia won't mind if I tell you?" she questioned.

"No," said the stranger. The single word indicated her timidity.

"You see, she is the daughter of Vita's daughter who died last year," Nora explained. "She has been living with cousins, and the man Nick, of whom she was so frightened, is the cousin's husband."

Lucia now seemed to shrink back, and at that sign Nora signaled the girls to leave the porch and adjourn to more convenient quarters for their confidences.

Once away from the restriction, words flew back and forth in questions and answers, until Wyn wanted to know if it was all a duet between Alma and Nora, or could they make it a chorus?

"And he didn't beat her?" demanded Pell.

"And she is really related to Vita, not kidnapped?" asked Betta.

"You didn't find her all bruised up----"

"Now girls," scoffed Nora. "I know perfectly well you don't think anything of the kind. You all know Vita was always kind and generous----"

"Whew!" whistled Wyn. "How we can change! I thought she was a regular bear this time yesterday morning."

"I think your cousins are perfectly splendid," said Betta, sensibly. "Is she really going to adopt the child?"

"We had a doctor this morning," said Nora with an important air, "and he advised change of scene----"

"Let's take her over to Chickadee!" interrupted Thistle. "That would be a distinct and decided change."

"Oh, hush," begged Alma. "What else did the doctor say, Nora?"

"She is hysterical--all came from the fright of her mother's sudden death," continued Nora. "But girls, I don't know how much to thank you," she broke off. "Being a Scout has done much for me."

"We believe you," said Wyn in her usual bantering way. "But say, little girl, are you going back to that school where they teach you to wear silk underwear in the cold, blasty winter weather? Couldn't you make out to get adopted at the Nest yourself?"

A laugh, then a set of laughs, followed this.

"You are coming over to camp tonight, remember," said Alma, seriously. "We have not initiated you yet, you know."

"How about that first formal ducking, with Jimbsy in the background?" Pell reminded them. "That seemed all right for an initiation."

Mrs. Manton was coming down the path with the inevitable letter. Was there ever a story finished without "a letter"? Mr. Jerry followed up.

It was, as you have guessed, from Nora's mother, and she did grant permission for her to stay.

"So," said Mrs. Teddy Manton, otherwise Theodora, while the real Jerry looked over her shoulder at the letter, and Cap sniffed approvingly at Nora's khaki skirt, "we expect to have Nora go to school in town this winter, and perhaps next summer we will all be back again at Rocky Ledge."

"This was a real vacation," sighed Nora, "the best I ever had."

"Three cheers!" yelled the Scouts; and Lucia from her porch was truly sorry she had ever called those girls "crazy."

It was all so comfortable and safe now. Even her "bad fit" was gone with the winds, and how lovely to be out in the sunlight and have nothing to fear!

Again came a riotous shout from the girls on and off the bench.

"Chick! Chick! Chick-a-dees!" they yelled. And it must have been Wyn who echoed:

"Cut! Cut! ka-dah! cut!"

Girl Scouts are many and their adventures equally numerous, from mountain to valley, over hill and dale, and their further activities will be told of in the next volume of this series, which will be entitled: The Girl Scouts at Spindlewood Knoll.

THE END.

THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES

By LILIAN GARIS

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The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated by the foremost organizations of America form the background for these stories and while unobtrusive there is a message in every volume.

1. THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS, _or Winning the First B. C._

A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania town. Two runaway girls, who want to see the city, are reclaimed through troop influence. The story is correct in scout detail.

2. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE, _or Maid Mary's Awakening_

The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in other girls' activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. How she was discovered by the Bellaire Troop and came into her own as "Maid Mary" makes a fascinating story.

3. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST, _or The Wig Wag Rescue_

Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come.

4. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG, _or Peg of Tamarack Hills_

The girls of Bobolink Troop spend their summer on the shores of Lake Hocomo. Their discovery of Peg, the mysterious rider, and the clearing up of her remarkable adventures afford a vigorous plot.

5. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE, _or Nora's Real Vacation_

Nora Blair is the pampered daughter of a frivolous mother. Her dislike for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, becomes a problem for the girls to solve.

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RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL _or Jasper Parloe's Secret_

RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL _or Solving the Campus Mystery_

RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP _or Lost in the Backwoods_

RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT _or Nita, the Girl Castaway_

RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH _or Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys_

RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND _or The Old Hunter's Treasure Box_

RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM _or What Became of the Raby Orphans_

RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES _or The Missing Pearl Necklace_

RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES _or Helping the Dormitory Fund_

RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE _or Great Days in the Land of Cotton_

RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE _or The Missing Examination Papers_

RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE _or College Girls in the Land of Gold_

RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS _or Doing Her Bit for Uncle Sam_

RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT _or The Hunt for a Lost Soldier_

RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND _or A Red Cross Worker's Ocean Perils_

RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST _or The Hermit of Beach Plum Point_

RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST _or The Indian Girl Star of the Movies_

RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE _or The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands_

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Girl Scouts at Rocky Ledge, by Lilian Garis