CHAPTER V

THE WOODS AT ROCKY LEDGE

Out in the woods!

Forgotten was the dread idea of a Scout uniform or the possible program of a Scout ritual. Nora romped with Cap, discovering new delights at every few paces and only pausing to exchange salutations with birds, bees and butterflies. The sky was as blue as her gown, and her eyes matched the entire scheme. Her golden hair tossed in the wind like new corn silk, and when Jerry and Ted slyly inspected their charge at a safe distance, a most comprehensive nod of a pair of wise heads told volumes to the woodlands and the surrounding Nature audience.

Yes, Nora would do. Now life at the Nest seemed complete. Even this dreamy, romantic little bit of humanity was a real child, and to the pair of adopted parents she seemed as beautiful as a wild flower.

"Now Ted, you just hold back on that Scout stuff," Jerry had the temerity to suggest. "We don't want to scare her off, first shot. And you can see she's opposed."

"She doesn't understand," replied Ted. "But, of course, there is no need to urge her. No hurry, at any rate."

"I don't know as I like the tom-boy idea," continued Jerry. "She's very pretty just as she is."

Ted laughed knowingly. "You're the boy who pulls down the shades rather than say 'no' to the peddlers," she reminded him. "It is easy to understand why you are opposing the Scouts."

He adjusted his tripod and seemed to have found something very absorbing at that moment. Nevertheless, his big shoulders shook, and his curly head wagged a little suspiciously.

They were surveying the end of a big strip of woodland. All over the young forest could be seen the yellow stripes that marked the trees that were to be spared, while those unmarked were doomed for the woodman's ax. Birds liked the yellow-banded trees best, to judge from the perches they made upon such, but of course, they could not have known that the other, not so fortunate, needed their musical sympathy to make less gloomy the approaching execution.

"See! Just see!" Nora called, running back from the wild grape-vine cave. "Do come over and see this--little play house. It's perfect as can be, with vine draperies, and moss carpet, and real wild-rose decoration. Cap led me to it, I guess it's his secret place." She was panting with sheer joy. The woods were new to the girl from the boarding school, where walks were confined to the limits of neuritis and neuralgia as "enjoyed" by the Baily Sisters.

"Cap'll show you," replied Jerry. "He has nothing to do but hunt while Ted and I work for our living."

"Oh, could I help?" Nora felt like an intruder upon their industry.

"Not just today, but pretty soon. Perhaps the day after." This was another of Jerry's characteristic replies. Nora understood them better now.

"But it is real fun--fun to look through that spy glass. Do you have cobwebs in there?"

Asking this brought back to her mind the cobweb nest in the attic. Jerry's reply, however, forestalled further reflection in that direction at the moment.

"Some day, pretty soon, perhaps the day after tomorrow," he laughed again, "I'll show you all about this and the cobwebs. Ted has some town stuff to attend to; and listen, Bobbs" (he stepped over and whispered in Nora's ear), "Ted is a perfect terror if she is held too late in the woods. She would starve us to death, like as not, if I didn't get back before the clock cooled striking. So you and Cap just run along and find out what the fairies want from the village, while we mark a few more spots."

Was there ever such a jolly man? Once again he had quickly avoided embarrassment to Nora. He would not even let her think she should be useful.

"Yes," called Mrs. Manton from her position astride a small white birch, "you and Cap have a good time, Nora. He will teach you to explore."

Willingly Nora ran back to the bower she had discovered. Surely it had been fashioned by elves and fairies, for it was perfect in every detail. Unconscious of time, she flitted about making a little window in the wild grape vine, and fashioning a door between the hazel-nut boughs.

A murmuring song escaped her lips, while Cap now and then yelped sharply, impatient to be understood and receive attention.

"Why, Cap!" asked Nora in reply to one of these outbursts, "I don't quite understand your language. What is it?"

The big dog was vainly trying to make Nora see a nest of late sparrows. The tiny feathered babies could just stretch their little heads above the rim of the straw cup of a nest they cuddled in, and when Cap found them he knew he should notify somebody. The bush was so low, although it was safely sheltered by the thick vines, and a wild trumpet vine loaned two beautiful flowers to cheer the little birds during their mother's absence. Still, Cap felt certain it was dangerous for such tiny creatures to be there in the very path of any wild, rough animal happening by.

Nora had never seen such baby birds before. First, she wanted to fondle them, but Cap gave warning and she desisted. Then, she wanted to feed them, as if birds could eat the black berries she offered them. But presently the mother bird flew into the bower with such a wild, shrill call, Nora knew her own presence was not desired so near the baby birds, so she followed Cap out into the clearance. As she did she saw approaching a group of girls, and they wore the Girl Scout uniform.

At the sight something within Nora seemed to tighten up. The girls were coming straight to the bower and their laughing voices had the strange effect of all but chilling Nora.

Without waiting to exchange so much as a smile she called Cap and ran off to the surveyor's camp.

"Well," she heard one girl exclaim, as she sped away, "one would think we were--Indians."

Nora's ears stung as her cheeks flamed.

"There! Wasn't that just what one might expect? As if a girl couldn't do just as she pleased in the woodlands! And they were her own Cousin Jerry's lands too," Nora scoffed.

"What's the matter, Nora?" asked Mrs. Manton, as she panting, sank down on a freshly-cut stump. "You don't mean to tell me you are actually afraid of those little girls, just because they wear uniforms?"

"Oh, no, Cousin Ted, I am not afraid of them," her voice would shake somehow, "but I didn't know them."

"I see. Well, we must all get acquainted in these pretty parts. The birds and the furry things never wait for an introduction," replied Ted, kindly.

"Come along with me, Bobbs," called Jerry, who was packing up his instruments. "I need help with this chain; it is bound to snarl."

"Jerry!" called out Mrs. Ted rather sharply. "You really must not interfere every time I attempt to tell Nora something useful. I want her to know the Girl Scouts, and the sooner she makes up her mind to do so the happier she will be. The Scouts are all over this place you know, Jerry," and the laughter of the girls up at the bower attested to the truth of that statement. "Anyone who is not interested in Scouting will have a poor chance of a real vacation in the woodlands," concluded Mrs. Manton.

"But we are going to scout," insisted the man with the tripod on his shoulder. "The only thing is, we are going to do it in our own way. Isn't that so, Bobbs?"

Young and simple minded as was Nora, she was fully conscious of a difference of opinions regarding her management. Jerry was surely siding with her, even in her whims, whereas Ted, mother-like, felt the necessity of giving advice.

That was it. She had never before known anything the least bit mother-like. Would she find the relationship too irksome?

There was the hint of a tear in her blinking eye when she pulled the kinky tape out for Jerry and felt it snap back into its leather case. After all, things were not exactly as she had pictured them at the Nest. First, she was dragged down from her attic--she felt now she had been dragged down in the very middle of the night by that great, big Vita, and now, there were those horrid Girl Scouts being held up as examples for her to follow and imitate. Well, she would never be a Scout. Each time the question presented itself she felt more decidedly against it. She would always have big Cousin Jerry to stand by her, and if Cousin Ted----

"Want to come to town with me, dear?" called the owner of the name she was opposing.

"Sure she does. She is going to ride Cyclone. Aren't you, Bobbs?" This was from Jerry.

"I couldn't ride a big horse," faltered the confused girl.

"We will go in our handsome ca--our little tame flivver," interrupted Ted. "When you want to ride a horse you will have plenty of time to practice." Mrs. Manton had assembled her tools. Nora marvelled at the strong hands that could so skillfully wield the sharp hatchet and the dangerous-looking trimming knife. Into the loop at her belt Ted carelessly slipped the glittering tools, and as she did so Nora recalled the sight of the dainty hands she had been accustomed to admiring. What would the ladies who visited the school say to a person like Cousin Ted?

They were ready to leave for the cottage. Over the hill the Girl Scouts were calling their mysterious "Wha-hoo," and to Nora it sounded like a call to battle. What had at first been merely an indifference was now assuming the proportions of actual dislike. How was Nora to know she was a very much spoiled little girl? And how was she to guess what the cost of her change of heart would mean to her?

She was a total stranger to the word "snob." Her training had been one straight line of avoiding this, that, and the other thing; but as for doing this, that and everything, no place was given in the curriculum.

Mrs. Manton, herself a product of the most modern college, knew the weakness of little Nora's character at a glance, but to introduce strength and purpose! To bend the vine without crushing the tendrils!

This very first day was marked with a danger signal. If Nora slighted the Scouts, they who came almost daily to Ted for information and companionship, there was sure to be trouble. It was this surety that prompted Ted to say with decision:

"The sooner Nora gets acquainted the happier she will be."

Meanwhile the girls of Chickadee Patrol had all but forgotten about the stranger. They were after specimens and had discovered more than one new bird's nest. Cameras were clicking, notes being taken, and so many interesting matters were being attended to, it was not strange that the sight of one little girl in a pretty blue frock, with a disdainful expression on her otherwise attractive face, might have been forgotten for the time.

If there were really fairies in those woods they should have intervened just then, for it would have been so much easier for Nora to have met the Scouts as companions, whereas she, holding away from the very idea of organization, kept building up a dislike which threatened to cause her much unhappiness.

The woodlands were broad enough for both to roam, but it was inevitable that both should meet some day, and, under what circumstances?