CHAPTER VIII

THE STORY ALMA DID NOT TELL

Under a canvas tent sheltered by a particularly broad chestnut tree and surrounded by a group of beautiful white birch, the girls of Chickadee Patrol, Girl Scouts, were listening, all attention, to the very wildest tale they had ever given ears to.

Alma was talking. "Honestly girls," she insisted, "he was a real prince, dressed in black velvet and a beautiful jaunty cap----"

"Alma! Alma!" shouted her companions in derision.

"Where did you see the fairies? Just imagine in broad daylight in the woodlands----" teased one.

"Then, I shall not tell you anything more about it," desisted the abused one. "As if I wasn't surprised. Why, I was so dumfounded I could not ask him if he saw you, and I was miles behind the crowd."

"Now girls, let Alma tell," chirped Doro, in her lispy voice. "Go ahead, Al. _I_ believe you saw Prince Charming."

"Was he old enough to ride a horse?" asked Laddie, christened Eulalia. She was defying her dentist on a piece of fudge two days old.

"Honestly, girls," began Alma again, "I never saw a boy so beautiful. Light curls----"

"Oh!!!" came a chorus that stopped the narrator and sent her pouting over to the bed couch, where she pouted still more.

"Then, all right, I am absolutely through," she declared quite as if she meant it.

"Now just see what you have done," mourned Treble. She was so tall the girls always considered her in that clef. "Don't you mind them, Allie. I know perfectly well there are even flying cupids in the big woodlands, and I fully expect to bring a couple home to lunch----"

Cushions in one big bang stopped Treble. At this rate Alma's story would never be published, orally or otherwise.

In the Scout tent the evening was being spent in recreation: hence the fun they were having with Alma. At a table fashioned from an upside-down packing case, with real hand carved legs where the boards were knocked out and the hatchet braces left standing, sat three of the Chickadees, discussing the new Girl Scout stories.

"I just love the first," insisted Thistle whose name was as Scotch as the emblem. "I liked the mill story and I just loved that wild, exciting time the girls had trying to win back--was it Dagmar?"

"Oh, yes, I remember," chimed in Betta. They were referring to the first volume, "The Girl Scout Pioneers," but others of the group spoke up for their particular choice of the series, naming, "The Girl Scouts at Bellaire" and "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest."

"You may have those," offered Doro, "but I perfectly love this." She held up the last book published. It was entitled "The Girl Scouts at Camp Comalong."

"Why is that such a prize?" inquired Pell.

"Oh, haven't you read it? Well, it is a real story of the most interesting girl, Peg of the Hills."

This brought about a general discussion of the entire series, and although the method being used is not usually employed to remind readers of the other books of a series, perhaps, since the girls were speaking for themselves, it will be accepted.

Alma was whispering her Prince Charming story into the ears of Doro. Doro was accredited the very best listener among the Chicks and she had not the faintest idea of interrupting the story teller. Of course, it was Nora whom Alma had encountered, and it was not difficult to understand why her companions should discredit the tale. A prince in the woodlands, indeed!

"Louder, Alma," begged Treble, catching only enough of the story to make her curious.

"Well, you won't believe me."

"We will! We will! Hear! Hear!" shouted Betta, whose full appellation was none other than Betta-be-good, given because she had a habit of lecturing.

"She did see a real prince," chimed in Doro. "And he did wear buckles and laces and everything."

"Where, oh where, fair maid? Lead me thither and hither and yon," moaned Pell Mell. "Next to a movie star I love a prince best," she finished dramatically, although it was common knowledge that Pell loved nothing so well as rushing about and falling over adventures. She actually fell over the Ridge, that is as far down as the big flat rock, before her chums decided she was hereafter to be known as Pell Mell.

"That is all there is to tell," announced Alma, in a tone tinctured with finality. She knew perfectly well the girls would never rest until they had sought out the darling prince, and she also knew it would be lots of fun to make them "sit up and beg" for the details they had been scoffing at.

"Where, Alma?"

"Near the bend, Alma?"

"Wasn't it over by the Nest, Al?"

"She said she saw him over by the Ledge."

All this and much more was thrown out as bait, but in the parlance of the tribe, Alma did not "bite," she merely picked up a discarded book and proceeded to read.

"Well, there was a prince, I'm sure of that," persisted Pell, determined to make Alma repeat her story.

"Let's go prince hunting tomorrow," suggested Betta.

"With Treble's moth scoop?" joked Wyn.

"I suppose none of you happen to know that Mrs. Jerry Manton has a visitor," spoke Doro. She gave the statement a tone implying: "Why wouldn't the prince be the visitor?"

"Oh, that's so," drawled Thistle. "Maybe it's the duke."

This brought out a new shout of nonsense.

"Duke!" roared Betta. "Keep on and we'll have him on the throne."

"There are no more thrones," informed Pell. "Don't you know the war made every thing democratic?"

This turned the joke into a serious moment, for even the rollicking Scouts did not feel inclined to enlarge upon so serious a thought.

Presently everyone was speculating upon the possibility of the little stranger being the one entertained by the Mantons.

"Couldn't we call?" suggested Wyn. "Mrs. Manton is always lovely to us, and if she has such a little cherub on her hands we ought to help her care for him."

"Cherub, Wynnie! Why, we would have to get a cage for anything like that in this camp. He would be eaten by bugs, moths and beetles." A dash at a flying thing confirmed this opinion from Treble.

"Now, if you all have finished your skylarking I would like to study," announced Alma. "I have to learn all that new class lesson, and I hope to get out of the Tenderfoot tribe before next week. No fun swimming in a barrel." She referred to the water restrictions of "Tenderfoots."

"Hush girls! Alma is thinking," joked Pell. "Please don't interrupt the spell----"

Poor Alma could stand the teasing no longer. She picked up her manual and headed for the tent occupied by those very studious Scouts who chose the company of the leader to that of the distracting girls.

"Chickadees never scratch," fired Betta as Alma stepped over protruding feet and reached the tent flap. "Now Chick-a-dee, Peep! Peep! Pretty for the ladies----"

But the girl with the manual was gone.

"What do you make of it?" asked Pell, when the titters subsided.

"She saw something different, that's sure," replied Treble.

"She told me all about it," put in Thistle proudly. "And it was really a wonderful child all done up in black velvets and ribbons," she declared.

"I see nothing to do but ask Mrs. Manton about it," suggested Wyn. "It looks like a first class lot of fun."

"Ask her if she is entertaining a boy in velvet pants?" said Treble, so foolishly, the girls all but rolled under the table and the oil lamp shook dangerously in the merriment.

"When they're velvet they're never pants," spoke Wyn, as soon as speaking amounted to anything.

"Trousers," amended Treble.

"Nor those," objected Pell. "When they have cute little buckles and go with a jaunty cap----"

"They're knickers," finished Betta.

"Not a--tall," shouted Treble. "I know better than that myself. You're thinking of golf. Didn't I see Lord Fauntleroy play his Dearest?"

"Did you really? Well, what did _he_ call call them?" demanded Thistle. She had been so busy enjoying the fun that this was her first attempt at making any.

"I have it," sang out Laddie. "They're bloomers."

"Oh no, rompers," insisted Thistle. "Rompers are much prettier."

"What ever would you girls have done this evening if Alma's little story did not furnish you with debate material," scoffed Doro.

"The story Alma never told," chanted Lad.

"All the same," declared Treble, "it is perfectly delicious. Who's going to make the call on Mrs. Jerry Manton?"

The shout that followed this question brought a protest from the next tent where candidates were studying manuals.

"Let's take a vote on it," suggested Thistle, when quiet seemed possible. "Since every one wants to go and we haven't heard the Mantons were going to give a picnic or anything like that--why--the best thing to do is to draw lots."

"How tragic! Draw lots! I say we make it numbers from Doro's cap. Here girls, get busy and numb."

A page of note paper was quickly numbered and torn into squares. Then the lot was tossed into Doro's cap--it was the deepest for the little girl did not wear her hair bobbed. When the cap was filled she was the one chosen to hold it, and upon the highest chair she presently stood while the girls jumped for numbers. The four highest were to constitute the committee and the lot fell to Betta, Pell, Wyn and Thistle.

It was arranged that these four should go in the morning to call upon Mrs. Jerry Manton, their good friend and erstwhile preceptor in woodlore, and it was fully expected that the young visitor would then naturally be introduced.

And this was the very day that Nora donned her new service suit.