Chapter 11

"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 and pouted, but seeing no other way to get what she wanted she set to work in earnest. And as the work grew under her hands, her interest in it grew. When, finally, the box was done, it was really a creditable bit of work for the first attempt of a girl barely fourteen, and Sadie was inordinately proud of it.

It was December now and Christmas was the absorbing interest of the Camp Fire Girls. They were to have a tree in the Camp Fire room, but Laura told them to make their gifts very simple and inexpensive.

"We must not spoil the Great Day by giving what we cannot afford," she said. "The loving thought is the heart of Christmas giving--not the money value. I'll get our tree, but you can help me string popcorn and cranberries to trim it, and put up the greenery."

"Me too--O Miss Laura, can't I help too?" Jim cried anxiously.

"Why, of course. We couldn't get along without you, Jim," half a dozen voices assured him before Laura could answer.

"I wish our old ladies could come to our tree," Elsie Harding said to Alice Reynolds.

"They couldn't. Most of them can't go out evenings, you know. But we might put gifts for them on the tree they have at the Home."

"Or have them hang up stockings," suggested Louise Johnson. "Just imagine forty long black stockings strung around those parlour walls. Wouldn't it be a sight?" she giggled.

"Nancy Rextrew wouldn't have her stocking hung on any parlour wall. It would be in her own room or nowhere," put in Lena.

"Why not get some of those red Christmas stockings from the five cent store, and fill one for each old lady?" Mary Hastings proposed. "We could go late, after they'd all gone to their rooms, and hang the stockings, full, on their doorknobs."

"Or get the superintendent to hang them early in the morning," was Laura's suggestion.

"Yes, we can get the stockings and the 'fillings,'" Mary Hastings went on, "and have all sent to the superintendent's room. Then we can go there and fill them. It won't take long if we all go."

"And not have any tree for them?" Myra asked in a disappointed tone.

"O, they always have a tree with candles and trimmings--the Board ladies furnish that," Frances explained.

The girls lingered late that night talking over Christmas plans. The air was heavy with secrets, there were whispered conferences in corners, and somebody was always drawing Laura aside to ask advice or help. Only Elizabeth had no part in these mysterious whisperings. She had blossomed into happy friendliness with all the girls now that she came regularly to the meetings, but the old sad silence crept over her again in these December days. It was Olga who guessed her trouble and went with it to Sadie, drawing her away from a group of girls who were busy over crochet work.

"Look at Elizabeth," she began.

Sadie stared at her sister sitting apart from the others, listlessly gazing into the fire. "Well, what of her? What's eating her?" Sadie demanded in her most aggravating manner.

Olga frowned. Sadie's slang was a trial to her.

"Elizabeth says she is not coming to the Christmas tree here."

"Well, she don't have to, if she don't want to," Sadie retorted, but she cast an uneasy glance at the silent figure by the fire.

"She does want to, Sadie Page--you know she does."

"Well, then--what's the answer?" demanded Sadie.

"Would _you_ come if you couldn't give a single thing to any one?" Olga asked quietly.

"Why don't she make things then--same's I do?" Sadie's tone was sullen now.

"You know why. Your mother gives you a little money----"

"Mighty little," Sadie interrupted. "I'm going to work when I'm sixteen. Then I'll have my own money to spend."

"And Elizabeth is nearly eighteen and can't work for herself because she spends all her time working for the rest of you at home," said Olga.

A startled look flashed into the sharp black eyes. Sadie had actually never before thought of that.

Olga went on, "I guess you'd miss Elizabeth at home if she should go away to work, but she ought to do it as soon as she is eighteen. And if she should, you'd have to do some of the kitchen work, wouldn't you? And maybe then you wouldn't have a chance to go away and earn money for yourself."

"Is she going to do that--go off to work when she's eighteen?" Sadie demanded, plainly disturbed at the suggestion.

"Everybody would say she had a right to. Most girls would have gone long ago--you know it, Sadie. You'd better make things easier for her at home if you want to keep her there."

"How?" Sadie's voice was despondent now. "Father gets so little pay--we're pinched all the time."

"Yet _you_ have good clothes and money for your silver work----"

"Well, I have to just tease it out of mother. You don't know how I have to tease."

Olga could imagine. "Well," she said, "the girls all guess how it is about Elizabeth, and, if you come to the tree and she doesn't, I shan't envy you, that's all. You are smart enough to think up some way to help Elizabeth out."

"I d'know how!" grumbled Sadie. "I think you're real mean, Olga Priest--always saying things to spoil my fun, so there!" and she whirled around and went back to the other girls.

"All the same," said Olga to herself, "I've set her to thinking."

The next afternoon Sadie burst tumultuously into Olga's room crying out, "I've thought what Elizabeth can do! She can make some cakes--she made some for us last Christmas--awful nice ones, with nuts an' citron an' raisins in 'em. She can put white icing over 'em an' little blobs of red sugar for holly berries, you know, with citron leaves. I thought that up myself, about the icing. Won't they be dandy?"

"Fine! Good for you, Sadie!"

Sadie accepted the approval as her due, and went on breathlessly, "I thought it all out in school to-day. An' say, Olga--I can make baskets of green and white crêpe paper to hold three or four of the cakes, an' stick a bit of holly in each basket. Then they can be from me an' 'Lizabeth both--how's that?"

"Couldn't be better," Olga declared.

"Uh huh, you see little Sadie has a head on her all right!" Sadie exulted. But Olga could overlook her conceit since, for once, she had taken thought for Elizabeth too.

Laura wondered if, amid all the bustle and excitement of Christmas planning and doing, Jim would forget about the Christmas for the Children's Hospital, but he did not forget; and when she told him that she was depending upon him to tell her what the boys there would like, Jim had no trouble at all in deciding. So one Saturday Miss Laura took him down town early before the stores were crowded and they had a delightful time selecting books and toys.

"My-ee!" Jim cried, as they were speeding up Connecticut Avenue, the car piled with packages, "won't this be a splendid Christmas! Ours first at home, and the hospital Christmas and the Camp Fire one and the old ladies' one--it'll be four Christmases all in one year, won't it, Miss Laura?" he exulted.

"Besides a tree and a gift for each one in your outdoor school," Laura added.

Jim stared at her wide-eyed. "O, who's going to give them?" he cried. "You?"

"You and I and the judge, Jim. That is our thank-offering for all that the school is doing for you--and for Jo."

Jim moved close and hid his face for a long moment on Laura's shoulder. She knew that he was afraid he might cry, but this time they would have been tears of pure joy. He explained presently, when he was sure that his eyes were all right.

"That will be the best Christmas of all, 'cause some of the out-doorers wouldn't have a teeny bit of Christmas at home. Jo wouldn't. He says they never hang up stockings or anything like that at his house. He said he didn't care, but I know he did."

That evening Miss Laura asked, "How would you like to put something on our tree for Jo?"

"The Camp Fire tree--and have him come?" Jim cried eagerly.

"Of course."

It took three somersaults to get that out of Jim's system. When he came up, flushed and joyful, Laura said, "I'm going to tell you a Christmas secret, Jim. I am going to have each Camp Fire Girl invite her mother, or any one else she likes, to come to our tree. We can't have presents for them all, of course, but there will be ice cream and cake enough for everybody."

"O, Miss _Laura_!" Jim cried. "It's going to be the best Christmas that ever was in this world!"

And Jim was not the only one who thought so before the Great Day was over. The tree at the outdoor school, the day before, was a splendid surprise to every one there except the teacher and Jim, and all the little "out-doorers," as Jim called them, went home with their hands full. At the hospital the celebration was very quiet, but in spite of pain and weariness, the boys in the first ward enjoyed their gifts as much as Jim had hoped they would. And the Christmas stocking, full and running over, that each old lady at the Home found hanging to her doorknob, made those old children as happy as the young ones.

Jim's stocking could not hold half his treasures, and words failed him utterly before he had opened the last package. But the Camp Fire celebration was the great success. The tree was a blaze of light and colour, and the gifts which the girls had made for each other were many and varied. Some of the beadwork and basket work was really beautiful, and there were pretty bits of crochet and some knitted slippers--all the work of the girls themselves. Miss Laura had begged them to give her no gift, and hers to each of them was only a little water-colour sketch with "Love is the joy of service," beautifully lettered, beneath it.

Sadie's baskets of crêpe paper were really very pretty, and these filled with Elizabeth's holly cakes were one of the "successes" of the evening. They were praised so highly that Elizabeth was quite, quite happy and Sadie "almost too proud to live," as she confided to Olga in an excited whisper.

But the best of all was the pleasure of the guests of the evening--Jack Harding and Jo Barton and David Chapin, who all came as Jim's guests--Louise Johnson's brother, a big awkward boy of sixteen--Eva Bicknell's mother, with her bent shoulders and rough hands, and other mothers more or less like her. The four boys helped when the cake and ice cream were served, and Jim whispered to Jo that he could have just as many helpings as he wanted--Miss Laura said so--and Jo wanted several. It was by no means a quiet occasion--there was plenty of noise and laughter, and fun, and Laura was in the heart of it all. They closed the evening with ten minutes of Christmas carols in which everybody joined, and then while the girls were getting on their wraps, the mothers crowded about Laura, and the things some of them said filled her heart with a great joy, for they told her how much the Camp Fire was doing for their girls--making them kinder and more helpful at home, keeping them off the streets, teaching them so many useful and pretty sorts of work.

"My girl is so much happier, and more contented than she used to be," one said.

"Mine, too," another added. "I can't be glad enough for the Camp Fire. Johnny's a Scout an' that's a mighty good thing, too, but for girls there's nothing like the Camp Fire."

"Eva used to hate housework, but now she does it thinkin' about the beads she's getting, and she don't hardly ever fret over it," Mrs. Bicknell confided.

"These things you are saying are the very best Christmas gift I could possibly have," Laura told them, with shining eyes.

And the girls themselves, as they bade her good-night said words that added yet more to the full cup of her Christmas joy.

"O, it pays, father--this work with my girls," she said, when all had gone, and they two sat together before the fire. "It has been such a beautiful, beautiful Christmas!"

XIV

LIZETTE

The last night of December brought a heavy storm of sleety rain, with a bitter north wind. Laura, reading beside the fire, heard the doorbell ring, and presently Olga Priest appeared. The biting wind had whipped a fresh colour into her cheeks, and her eyes were clear and shining under her heavy brows.

"You aren't afraid of bad weather, Olga," Laura said as she greeted the girl.

"All weather is the same to me," Olga returned indifferently, but as she sat down Laura cried out,

"Why, child, your feet are soaking wet! Surely you did not come without rubbers in such a storm!"

"I forgot them. It's no matter," Olga said, drawing her wet feet under her skirts.

"I'll be back in a moment," Laura replied, and left the room, returning with dry stockings and slippers.

"Take off those wet things and heat your feet thoroughly--then put these on," she ordered in a tone that admitted of no refusal.

With a frown, Olga obeyed. "But it's nonsense--I never mind wet feet," she grumbled.

"You ought to mind them. Your health is a gift. You have no right to throw it away--no _right_, Olga. It is yours--only to _use_--like everything else you have."

Olga paused, one slipper in her hand, pondering that.

"Don't you see, Olga," Laura urged gently, "we are only stewards. Everything we have--health, time, money, intellect--all are ours only to use the little while we are in this world, and not to use for ourselves alone."

"It makes life harder if you believe that," Olga flung back defiantly. "I want my things for myself."

"O no, it makes life easier, and O, so big and beautiful!" Laura leaned forward, speaking earnestly. "When we really accept this idea of service, then 'self is forgotten.' We give as freely as we have received." Olga shook her head with a gesture that put all that aside.

"You said Saturday that you wanted my help----" she began.

"Yes, I do want your help. I'll tell you how presently. Sadie Page is doing very well in the craft work, isn't she?"

"Yes. She can copy anything--designing is her weak point--but she is doing very well."

"She is improving in other ways."

"There's room for improvement still," Olga retorted in her grimmest voice. Then her conscience forced her to add, "But she is more endurable. She treats Elizabeth some better than she did."

"Yes, Elizabeth seems so happy now."

Laura went on thoughtfully, "You are a Fire Maker. Olga, I want you for a Torch Bearer."

Olga stared in blank amazement, then her face darkened. "But I don't want to be a Torch Bearer," she cried. "A Torch Bearer is a leader. I don't want to be a leader."

"But I need your help, and some of the girls need you. You can be a splendid leader, if you will. Have you any right to refuse?"

"I don't see why not."

"If in our Camp Fire there are girls whom you might hold back from what will harm them, or whom you could help to higher and happier living, don't you owe it to them to do this?"

"Why? They do nothing for me. I don't ask them to do anything for me."

"But that is pure selfishness. That attitude is unworthy of you, Olga."

The girl stirred restlessly. "I don't want to be responsible for other girls," she impatiently cried out.

"Have you any choice--you or I? We have promised to keep the law."

"What law?"

"The law of love and service--have you forgotten?" Miss Laura repeated softly, "'I purpose to bring my strength, my ambition, my heart's desire, my joy, and my sorrow, to the fire of humankind. The fire that is called the love of man for man--the love of man for God.'"

Then for many minutes in the room there was silence broken only by the crackling of the fire, and the voices of the storm without. Olga sat motionless, the old sombre shadow brooding in her eyes. At last she stirred impatiently, and spoke.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Have you noticed Lizette Stone lately?" Miss Laura asked.

"No. I never notice her."

"Poor girl, I'm afraid most of you feel that way about her," Laura said, with infinite pity in her voice. "She never looks happy, but lately there is something in her face that troubles me. She looks as if she had lost hope and courage, and were simply drifting. I've tried to win her confidence, but she will not talk with me about herself. I thought--at least, I hoped--that you might be able to find out what is the trouble."

"Why I, rather than any other girl?"

"I don't know why I feel so sure that you might succeed, but I do feel so, Olga. She may be in great trouble. If you could find out what it is, I might be able to help her. Will you try, Olga?"

The girl shook her head. "I can't promise, Miss Laura. I'll think about it," was all she would concede.

"She works in Silverstein's," Laura added, "and I think she has no relatives in the city."

The talk drifted then to other matters, and when Olga glanced at the clock, Miss Laura touched a bell, and in a few minutes a maid brought up a cup of hot clam bouillon. "You must take it, Olga, before you go out again in this storm," Laura said, and reluctantly the girl obeyed.

When she went away, Laura went to the door with her. The car stood there, and before she fairly realised that it was waiting for her Olga was inside, and the chauffeur was tucking the fur rug around her. As, leaning back against the cushions, shielded from wet and cold, she was borne swiftly through the storm, something hard and cold and bitter in the girl's heart was suddenly swept away in a strong tide of feeling quite new to her, and strangely mingled of sweet and bitter. It was Miss Laura she was thinking of--Miss Laura who had furnished the beautiful Camp Fire room for the girls and made them all so warmly welcome there--who so plainly carried them all in her heart and made their joys and sorrows, their cares and troubles, her own--as she was making Lizette Stone's now. How good she had been to Elizabeth, how patient and gentle with that provoking Sadie, and with careless slangy Lena Barton and Eva! And to her--Olga thought of the dry stockings and slippers, the hot broth, and now--the car ordered out on such a night just for her. The girl's throat swelled, her eyes burned, and the last vestige of bitterness was washed out of her heart in a rain of hot tears.

"If she can do so much for all of us I _can't_ be mean enough to shirk any longer. I'll see Lizette to-morrow," she vowed, as the car stopped at her door. She stood for a moment on the steps looking after it before she went in. It had been only "common humanity" to send the girl home in the car on that stormy night, so Miss Laura would have said. She did not guess what it would mean to Olga and through her to other girls--many others--before all was done.

Silverstein's was a large department store on Seventh Street. Lizette Stone, listlessly putting away goods the next day, stopped in surprise at sight of Olga Priest coming towards her.

"Almost closing time, isn't it?" Olga said, and added, as Lizette nodded silently, "I want to speak to you--I'll wait outside."

In five minutes Lizette joined her. "Do you walk home?" Olga asked.

"Yes, it isn't far--Ninth Street near T."

"We're neighbours then. I live on Eleventh."

"I know. Saw you going in there once," Lizette replied.

There was little talk between them as they walked. Lizette was waiting--Olga wondering what she should say to this girl.

"Well, here's where I hang out." In Lizette's voice there was a reckless and bitter tone.

"O--here!" Olga's quick glance took in the ugly house-front with its soiled "Kensington" curtains--its door ajar showing worn oilcloth in the hall.

"Cheerful place--eh?" Lizette said. "Want to see the inside, or is the outside enough?"

"I want you to come home to supper with me--will you?" Olga said, half against her will.

"Do you mean it?" Lizette's hard blue eyes searched her face. "Take it back in a hurry if you don't, for I'd accept an invitation from--anybody to-night, rather than spend the evening here."

"Of course, I mean it. Please come." Olga laid a compelling hand on the other girl's arm and they went on down the street.

"Now you are to rest while I get supper," Olga said as she threw open her own door. "Here--give me your things." She took Lizette's hat and coat. "Now you lie down in there until I call you."

Without a word Lizette obeyed.

Olga creamed some chipped beef, toasted bread, and made tea, adding a few cakes that she had bought on the way home. When all was ready, she stood a moment, frowning at the table. The cloth was fresh and clean, but the dishes were cheap and ugly. She had never cared before. Now, for this other girl, she wanted some touch of beauty. But Lizette found nothing lacking.

"Everything tastes so good," she said. "You sure do know how to cook, Olga."

"Just a few simple things. I never care much what I eat."

"You'd care if you had to eat at Miss Rankin's table," Lizette declared.

With a question now and then, Olga drew her on to tell of her life at Miss Rankin's, and her work at the store. After a little she talked freely, glad to pour the tale of her troubles into a sympathetic ear.

"I _hate_ it all--that boarding-house, where nothing and nobody is really clean, and the store where only the pretty girls or the extra smart ones ever get on. The pretty girls always have chances, but me--I'm homely as sin, and I know it; and I'm not smart, and I know that, too. I shall get my walking ticket the first dull spell, and then----"

"Then, what, Lizette?"

"The Lord knows. It's a hard world for girls, Olga."

"You've no relatives?"

"Only some cousins. They're all as poor as poverty too, and they don't care a pin for me."

"Is there any kind of work you would really like if you could do it?"

"What's the use of talking--I can't do it."

"But tell me," Olga urged.

"You'll think I'm a fool."

"No, I will not," Olga promised.

"It seems ridiculous----" Lizette hesitated, the colour rising in her sallow cheeks, "but I'd just _love_ to make beautiful white things--lingerie, you know, like what I sell at the store. It would be next best to having them to wear myself. I don't care so much about the outside things--gowns and hats--but I think it would be just heavenly to have all the underneath things white and lacey, and lovely--don't you think so?"

"I never thought of it. You see I don't care about clothes," Olga returned. "Can you sew, Lizette?"

Lizette hesitated, then, with a look half shamefaced and half proud, she drew from her bag a bit of linen.

"It was a damaged handkerchief. I got it for five cents, at a sale," she explained. "It will make a jabot."

"And you did this?" Olga asked.

Lizette nodded. "I know it isn't good work, but if I had time I could learn----"

"Yes, you could--if you had the time and a few lessons. Are your eyes strong?"

The other nodded again. "Strong as they are ugly," she flung out.

"Leave this with me for a day or two, will you, Lizette?"

"Uh-huh," Lizette returned indifferently. "Give it to you, if you'll take it."

"Oh no--it's too pretty. Lizette, you hate it so at Miss Rankin's--why don't you rent a room and get your own meals as I do?"

"Couldn't. I'm so dead tired most nights that I'd rather go hungry than get my own supper. Some girls don't seem to mind being on their feet from eight to six, but I can't stand it. Sometimes I get so tired it seems as if I'd rather _die_ than drag through another day of it! And besides--I don't much like the other boarders at Rankin's, but they're better than nobody. To go back at night to an empty room and sit there till bedtime with not a soul to speak to--O, I couldn't stand it. I'd get in a blue funk and end it all some night. I'm tempted to, as it is, sometimes." She added, with a miserable laugh that was half a sob, "Nobody'd care," and Olga heard her own voice saying earnestly,

"I'd care, Lizette. You must never, _never_ think a thing like that again!"