The Torch Bearer: A Camp Fire Girls' Story

He could not put into words his fear and dread of the time when he must go out into some Home where he would be only one of a hundred boys and all alone in a big lonesome world....

"But we don't want her, a hateful little snake in the grass like that!" the girl flung out angrily. "If you knew the way she treats Elizabeth--like the dirt under her feet!"

"Didn't we have a glorious rain in the night!" she cried gaily. "And it left a lovely cool breeze behind it. Last night I felt like a wet rag, but this morning I'm a different c...

"I don't know. She says she has, but I can't feel that she really wants to do anything, or that she will ever find a place as long as I let her stay on with me. Of course I coul...

Elizabeth smiled into the frowning face--a beautiful happy smile--as she answered gently, "I'll tell you, Sadie. I've been longing to tell you only--only you've held me off so l...

"If you don't make a good job of this your lessons will end right here," she declared, and Sadie had learned that when Olga spoke in that tone, she must be obeyed. She gloomed a...

Still laughing, Louise obeyed. Her clear voice carried well, and many keen young ears were strained for the response that did not come. In the silence that followed a second cal...

Mrs. Royall was more than willing to accede to Laura's proposal. "Stay at the camp as long as you like," she said, "and if you really want to be a Guardian, I will send your nam...

"I don't care nothin' about it if you was!" Nancy Rextrew broke in hastily, her little black eyes snapping and her wrinkled face all alive with eager excitement. "I don't care a...

Lizette searched the other's face with eyes in which sharp suspicion gradually changed into half incredulous joy. "Well," she said slowly, "if one living soul cares even a littl...

"We've got to play at some game every day, Elizabeth," she announced, with grim determination. She hated games, but Elizabeth must win her red beads and the red blood for which...

The girls formed the semicircle, with the Guardians in the open space. Wood had been gathered earlier in the day, and now the Wood Gatherers, each taking a stick, laid it where...

"I'm coming," called Mary instantly, and directly she was out in the storm. Where the next tent had been, nothing but the wooden flooring, the iron cots, and four wooden boxes r...

After the roll-call and reports of the last meeting there was no more ceremony. Miss Laura had set the three candles back on the mantelpiece, where they burned steadily, sending...

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Norman Duncan, author of "The Measure of a Man," calls this "Walking boss of the Sky-route Company," "a man's Christian doing an admirable work in the Woods of the Northwest." T...