Chapter 12

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 little bit what happens to me, I'll try to pull through somehow. The Camp Fire's the only thing that has made life endurable to me this past year, and I haven't enjoyed that so awfully much, for nobody there seems to really care--I just hang on to the edges."

"Miss Laura cares."

"O, in a way, because I belong to her Camp Fire--that's all," returned Lizette moodily.

"No, she cares--really," Olga persisted, but Lizette answered only by an incredulous lift of her thin, sandy brows.

"I must go now," she said, rising, and with her hands on Olga's shoulders she added, "You don't know what this evening here has meant to me. I--was about at the end of my rope."

"I'm glad you came," Olga spoke heartily, "and you are coming again Thursday. Maybe I'll have something then to tell you, but if I don't, anyhow, we'll have supper together and a talk after it."

To that Lizette answered nothing, but the look in her eyes sent a little thrill of happiness through Olga's heart.

Olga carried the bit of linen to Laura the next evening, and told her what she had learned of Lizette's hard life.

"Poor child!" Miss Laura said. "I imagined something like this. We must find other work for her. Perhaps I can get her into Miss Bayly's Art Store. She would not have to be on her feet so much there, and would have a chance to learn embroidery if she really has any aptitude for it. I know Miss Bayly very well, and I think I can arrange it to have Lizette work there for six months. That would be long enough to give her a chance."

"Would she get any pay?" Olga asked.

"Of course--the same she gets now," Laura returned, but Olga was sure that the pay would not come out of Miss Bayly's purse.

Laura went on thoughtfully, "The other matter is not so easily arranged. Even if we get her a better boarding place, she might be just as lonely as at Miss Rankin's. Evidently she does not make friends easily."

"No, she is plain and unattractive and so painfully conscious of it that she thinks nobody can want to be her friend, so she draws into herself and--and pushes everybody away," Olga was speaking her thought aloud--one of her thoughts--the other that had been in her heart since her talk with Lizette, she refused to consider. But it insisted upon being considered when she went away. It was with her in her own room where Lizette's hopeless words seemed to echo and re-echo. Finally, in desperation she faced it.

"I _can't_ have her come here!" she cried aloud. "It would mean that I'd never be sure of an hour alone. She'd be forever running in and out and I'd feel I must be forever bracing her up--pumping hope and courage into her. It's too much to ask of me. I'm alone in the world as she is, but I'm not whining. I stand on my own feet and other people can stand on theirs. I can't have that girl here and I won't--and that ends it!" But it didn't end it. Lizette's hopeless eyes, Lizette's reckless voice, would not be banished from her memory, and when Thursday evening the girl herself came, Olga knew that she must yield--there was no other way.

Lizette paused on the threshold. "You can still back out," she said, longing and pride mingling in her eyes. "I can get back to Rankin's in time for my share of liver and prunes."

Olga drew her in and shut the door. "Your days at Miss Rankin's are numbered," she said, "that is if you will come here. There's a little room across the hall you can have if you want it."

Lizette dropped into a chair, the colour slowly ebbing from her sallow cheeks. "Don't fool with me, Olga," she cried, "I'm--not up to it."

"I'm not fooling."

"But--I don't understand." The girl's lips were quivering.

Olga went on, "And your days at Silverstein's are numbered too. I showed your embroidery to Miss Laura, and she has found you a place at Bayly's Art Store. You can go there as soon as you can leave Silverstein's," she ended. To her utter dismay Lizette dropped her head on the table and began to cry. Olga sat looking at her in silence. She did not know what to do. But presently Lizette lifted her blurred and tear-stained face and smiled through her tears.

"You must excuse me this once," she cried. "I'm not tear-y as a general thing, but--but, I hadn't dared to hope--for anything--and it bowled me over. I'll promise not to do so again; but O, Olga Priest, I'll never, _never_ forget what you've done, as long as I live!"

"It's not I, it's Miss Laura. I couldn't have got you the place."

"I know, and I'm grateful to Miss Laura, but that isn't half as much as your letting me come here. I--I won't be a bother, truly I won't. But O, it will be so heavenly good to be in reach of somebody who _cares_ even a little bit. You shall not be sorry, Olga--I promise you that."

"I'm not sorry. I'm glad," Olga said. "Come now and see the room."

It was a small room--the one across the hall--and rather shabby, with its matting soiled and torn, its cheap iron bedstead and painted washstand and chairs. Lizette however was quite content with it.

"It's lots better than the one I have at Rankin's," she declared.

But the next day Laura came and saw the room, and then sent word to all the girls except Lizette to come on Wednesday evening to the Camp Fire room and bring their thimbles. And when they came she had some soft curtain material to be hemmed, and some cream linen to be hemstitched. Many fingers made light work, and all was finished that evening, and an appointment made with two of the High School girls for the next Monday afternoon. Then two hours of steady work transformed the bare little room. There was fresh white matting on the floor with a new rag rug before the white enamelled bedstead with its clean new mattress, a chiffonier and washstand of oak, with two chairs, and a tiny round table that could be folded to save room. The soft cream curtains that the girls had hemmed shaded the window, and the linen covers were on the chiffonier and washstand.

"Doesn't it look fresh and pretty!" Alice Reynolds cried, as she looked around, when all was done.

"I'm sure she'll like it," Elsie Harding added.

"Like it?" Olga spoke from the doorway. "You can't begin to know what it will mean to her. You'd have to see her room at Rankin's to understand. But that isn't all. Lizette will believe now that _somebody cares_."

"O!" Elsie's eyes filled with tears. "Did she think that--that nobody cared?"

"She said she was 'most at the end of her rope' the first time she came to see me."

"She shall never again feel that nobody cares," Laura said softly.

"Indeed, no!" echoed Alice, and added, "I'm going to bring down a few books to put on that table."

"I'll make a hanging shelf to hold them. That will be better than having them on the table," Elsie said.

"And I'll bring some growing plants for the window-sill," Laura promised.

"O, I hope she'll just _love_ this room," Elsie cried, when reluctantly they turned away.

"She will--you needn't be afraid," Olga assured her.

But Olga was the only one privileged to see Lizette when she had her first glimpse of the room. She stopped short inside the door and looked around her, missing no single detail. Then she turned to Olga a face stirred with emotion too deep for words. When she did speak it was in a whisper. "For _me_? Olga, who did it?"

"Miss Laura, Elsie, and Alice--and we all helped on the curtains and covers."

"I just can't believe it. I--I must be dreaming. Don't let me wake up till I enjoy it a little first," she pleaded. After a moment she added, "And this all came through the Camp Fire, and my place at Miss Bayly's too. Olga Priest, I'm a Camp Fire Girl heart and soul and body from now on. I've been only the shell of one before, but now--now, I've got to pass this on somehow. I must do things for other girls that have no one and nothing--as they've done this for me."

And through Olga's mind floated like a glad refrain, "'Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.'"

Olga was glad--glad with all her heart--for Lizette, and yet that first evening she sat in her own room dreading to hear the tap on her door which she expected every moment. At nine o'clock, however, it had not come, and then she went across and did the knocking herself.

"Come in, come in," Lizette cried, as she opened her door.

"I've been expecting you over all the evening," Olga said, "and when you didn't come I was afraid you were sick--or something."

Lizette looked at her with a queer little smile. "I know. You sat there thinking that you'd never have any peace now with me so near; but you needn't worry. I'm not going to haunt you. I've got a home corner here all my own, and I know that you are there just across the hall, and that's enough. It's going to _be_ enough."

"But I don't want you to feel that way," Olga protested. "I want you to come."

"You _want_ to want me, you mean. O, I'm sharp enough, Olga, if I'm not smart. I know--and I don't mean that you shall ever be sorry that you brought me here. If I get way down in the doleful dumps some night I'll knock at your door--perhaps. Anyhow, you're _there_, and that means a lot to me."

Almost every evening after that Olga heard light footsteps and voices in the hall, and taps on Lizette's door. Elsie and Alice were determined she should no longer feel that "nobody cared," so they were her first callers, but others followed. Lizette welcomed them all with shining eyes, and once she cried earnestly, "I just _love_ every one of you girls now! And I wish I could do something for you as lovely as what you have done for me."

"And that's Lizette Stone!" Lena said to Eva after they left. "Who would ever have thought she'd say a thing like that?"

For more than a week Olga, alone in her room, listened to the merry voices across the hall. Then one night, she put aside her work, and went across again.

"I've found out that I'm lonesome," she said as Lizette opened the door. "May I come in?"

"Well, I _guess_!" and Lizette drew her in and motioned to the bed. "You shall have a reserved seat there with Bessie and Myra," she cried, "and we're gladder than glad to have you."

For a moment sheer surprise held the others silent till Olga exclaimed, "Don't let me be a wet blanket. If you do I shall run straight back."

The tongues were loosened then and though Olga said little, the girls felt the difference in her attitude. She lingered a moment after the others left, to say, "Lizette, you mustn't stay away any more. I really want you to come to my room."

Lizette's sharp eyes studied her face before she answered, "Yes, I see you do now, and I'll come. I'll love to."

Back in her own room Olga turned up the gas and stood for some minutes looking about. Clean it was, and in immaculate order, but bare, with no touch of beauty anywhere. The contrast with the simple beauty of Lizette's room made her see her own in a new light. The words of the Wood Gatherer's "Desire" came into her mind--"Seek beauty." She had not done that. "Give service." She had given it, grudgingly at first to Elizabeth, grudgingly all this time to Sadie, grudgingly to Lizette, and not at all to any one else. Only one part of her promise had she kept faithfully--to "Glorify work." She had done that, after a fashion. She drew in her breath sharply. "Lizette is a long way ahead of me. She is trying to be an all-around Camp Fire Girl. If I'm going to keep up with her, I must get busy," she said to herself. "Before I can be Miss Laura's Torch Bearer I've a lot to make up. Here I've been calling Sadie Page a selfish little beast and all the time I've been as bad as she in a different way. Well--we'll see."

She went shopping the next morning. Her purchases did not cost much, but they transformed the bare room. Cheesecloth curtains at the windows, a green crex rug on the dull stained floor, two red geraniums, and on the mantelpiece three brass candlesticks holding red candles. These and a few pretty dishes were all, but she was amazed at the difference they made. At six o'clock she set her door ajar, and when Lizette came, called her in.

"You are to have supper with me to-night," she said.

"But I've had my supper. I----" Lizette began--then stopped short with a little cry, "O, how pretty! Why, your room is lovely now, Olga."

"You see the influence of example," replied Olga. "Yours is so pretty that I couldn't stand the bareness of mine any longer."

"I'm glad." Lizette spoke earnestly. "Isn't it splendid--the way the Camp Fire ideas grow and spread? They are making me over, Olga."

Olga nodded. "Take off your things. I'll have supper ready in two minutes. Did you get yours at the Cafeteria?"

"Yes, I'm getting all my meals there--ten cents apiece."

"Ten cents. I know you don't get enough--for that, Lizette Stone."

Lizette laughed. "It's all I can afford," she said "out of six dollars a week. When I earn more----"

"You can't cook for yourself as I do--you haven't room. Lizette, why can't we co-operate?"

"What do you mean?" breathlessly Lizette questioned.

"I mean, take our meals together and share the expense. It won't cost you more than thirty cents a day, and you'll have enough then."

"But I can't cook--I don't know how," Lizette objected.

"I'll teach you. And you've got to learn before you can be a Fire Maker, you know."

"Yes--I know," said Lizette slowly, "and I'd like it, but you--Olga, you'd get sick of it. You're used to being alone. You wouldn't want any one around every day--you know you wouldn't."

"It would be better for me than eating alone, and better for you than the Cafeteria. Come, Lizette, say 'yes.'"

"Yes, then," Lizette answered. "At least--I'll try it for a month, if you'll promise to tell me frankly at the end of the month if you'd rather not keep on."

"Agreed," said Olga.

"My! But it will be good to have a change from the Cafeteria!" Lizette admitted.

And now, having opened her heart to the sunshine of love, Olga began to find many pleasant things springing up there. She no longer held Miss Laura and the girls at arm's length. They were all friends, even Lena Barton and Eva Bicknell, whom until now she had regarded with scornful indifference, and Sadie Page, whom she had barely tolerated for Elizabeth's sake--even these she counted now as friends; and Laura, noting the growing comradeship--seeing week by week the strengthening of the bond between the girls, said to herself, joyfully,

"It was in Olga's heart that the fire of love burst into flame, and it has leaped from heart to heart until now I believe in all my girls it is burning--'The love of man to man--the love of man to God.'"

XV

AN OPEN DOOR FOR ELIZABETH

Sadie Page burst tumultuously into Olga's room one afternoon and hardly waited to get inside the door before she cried out, "I've thought of something Elizabeth can do--something splendid."

"Well," said Olga drily, "if it is something splendid for Elizabeth, I'll excuse you for coming in without knocking."

"All right, please excuse me, I forgot," Sadie responded with unusual good nature, "I was in such a hurry to tell you. It's a way Elizabeth can earn money at home----Now, Olga Priest, I think you're real mean to look so!" she ended with a scowl.

"Look how?" Olga laughed.

"You know. As if--as if I was just thinking of keeping Elizabeth at home."

"But weren't you?"

"No, I _wasn't_!" Sadie retorted. "At any rate--I was thinking of Elizabeth too. I was, honest, Olga."

"Well, tell me," said Olga.

"Why, you know those Christmas cakes she made?"

"Yes."

"Well, she can make them and other kinds to sell in one of the big groceries. I saw some homemade cakes in Council's to-day that didn't look half as nice as Elizabeth's and they charged a lot for them."

Olga nodded thoughtfully. "I shouldn't wonder if you'd hit upon a good plan, Sadie. But if she does that, you'll have to help her with the work at home, for she has all she can do now."

Sadie scowled. She hated housework. "Guess I have plenty to do myself," she grumbled, "with school and my silver work and all."

"But your silver work is just for yourself," Olga reminded her, "and Elizabeth has no time to do anything for herself."

"Well, anyhow, if she makes lots of cakes she'll have money for herself."

"And she's got to have money for herself," Olga said decidedly. "I've been thinking about that." Sadie wriggled uneasily. She had been thinking about it too, and that Elizabeth would be eighteen soon, and free to go out and earn her own living, if she chose.

"Well, I must go and tell her," she said and left abruptly.

Elizabeth listened in silence to Sadie's eager plans, but the colour came and went in her face and her blue eyes were full of longing.

"O, if I could only do it--if I only _could_!" she breathed. "But I--I couldn't go around to the stores and ask them to sell for me. I never could do that!"

"Well, you don't have to. I'd do that for you. I wouldn't mind it," Sadie declared. "You just make up some of those spicy Christmas cakes and some others, a few, you know, just for samples, and I'll take 'em out for you. I know they'll sell."

"I--I'm not so sure," Elizabeth faltered.

Sadie's brows met in a black frown. "You're a regular 'fraid-cat, 'Lizabeth Page!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot. "How do you ever expect to do _any_thing if you're scared to try! To-morrow's Sat'-day. Can't you get up early an' make some?"

It was settled that she should. There was little sleep for Elizabeth that night, so eager and excited was she, and very early in the morning she crept down to the kitchen and set to work. Before her usual rising time, Sadie ran downstairs, buttoning her dress as she went.

"Have you made 'em?" she demanded, her black eyes snapping.

"Yes," Elizabeth glanced at the clock, "I'm just going to take them out." She opened the oven door, then she gasped and her face whitened as she drew out the pans.

"My _goodness_!" cried Sadie. "Elizabeth Page--what ails 'em?"

"O--_O_!" wailed Elizabeth, "I must have left out the baking powder--and I never did before in all my life!"

"_Well!_" Sadie exploded. "If this is the way you're going to----" Then the misery in Elizabeth's face was too much for her. She stopped short, biting her tongue to keep back the bitter words.

Elizabeth crouched beside the oven, her tears dropping on the cakes.

"O, come now--no need to cry all over 'em--they're flat enough without any extra wetting," Sadie exclaimed after a moment's silence. "You just fling them out an' make some more after breakfast. I bet you'll never leave out the baking powder again."

"I never, never _could_ again," sobbed Elizabeth.

"O, forget it, an' come on in to breakfast," Sadie said with more sympathy in her heart than in her words.

"I don't want any--I couldn't eat a mouthful. You take in the coffee, Sadie--everything else is on the table."

"Well, you just make more cakes then. They'll be all right--the next ones--I know they will," and coffee-pot in hand, Sadie whisked into the dining-room.

And the next cakes were all right. Sadie gloated over them as Elizabeth spread the icing, and added the fancy touches with pink sugar and citron.

When she had gone away with the cakes Elizabeth cooked and cleaned, washed dishes, and swept, but all the time her thoughts followed Sadie. She dared not let herself hope, and yet the time seemed endless. But at last the front door slammed, there were flying feet in the hall, and Sadie burst into the kitchen, flushed and triumphant.

"O--O Sadie--did you--will they----?" Elizabeth stumbled over the words, her breath catching in her throat.

Sadie tossed her basket on the table and bounced into the nearest chair. "Did I, and will they?" she taunted gaily. "Well, I guess I _did_ and they _will_, Elizabeth Page!"

"O, do tell me, Sadie--quick!" Elizabeth begged, and she listened with absorbed attention to the story of Sadie's experiences, and could hardly believe that Mr. Burchell had really agreed to sell for her.

"I bet Miss Laura had been talking to him," Sadie ended, "for he asked me if I knew her and then said right away he'd take your cakes every Wednesday and Saturday. _Now_ what you got to say?"

"N-n-nothing," cried Elizabeth, "only--if I can really, _really_ sell them, I'll be most too happy to live!"

All that day Elizabeth went around with a song in her heart. The first consignment of cakes sold promptly, and then orders began to come in. It meant extra work for her, but if only she could keep on selling she would not mind that. And as the weeks slipped away, every Saturday she added to the little store of bills in her bureau drawer. Even when she had paid for her materials and Mr. Burchell's commission, and for a girl who helped her with the Saturday work, there was so much left that she counted it and recounted it with almost incredulous joy. All this her very own--she who never before had had even one dollar of her own! O, it was a lovely world after all, Elizabeth told herself joyfully.

But after a while she noticed a change in Sadie. She was still interested in the cake-making, but now it seemed a cold critical interest, lacking the warm sympathy and delight in it which she had shown at first. Elizabeth longed to ask what was wrong but she had not the courage, so she only questioned with her eyes. Maybe by-and-by Sadie would tell her. If not--with a long sigh Elizabeth would leave it there, wistfully hoping. So April came and Elizabeth was eighteen years old, though still she looked two years younger. She did not suppose that any one but herself would remember her birthday--no one ever had through all the years. Sadie's glance seemed sharper and colder than usual that morning, and Elizabeth sorrowfully wondered why. The postman came just as Sadie was starting for school. He handed her an envelope addressed to Elizabeth, and she carried it to the kitchen.

"For _me?_" Elizabeth cried, hastily taking her hands from the dish-water. She drew from the envelope a birthday card in water-colour with Laura's initials in one corner.

"O, isn't it lovely!" she cried. "I never had a birthday--anything--before. Isn't it beautiful, Sadie?"

"Uh-huh," was all Sadie's response, but her lack of enthusiasm could not spoil Elizabeth's pleasure in the gift. Somebody remembered--Miss Laura remembered and made that just for her, and joy sang in her heart all day. And in the evening Olga came bringing a little silver pin. Elizabeth looked at it with incredulous delight.

"For _me_!" she said again. "O Olga, did you really make this for me?"

Olga laughed. "Why not?"

"I--I can't find anything to say--I want to say so much," Elizabeth cried, her lips quivering.

Olga leaned over and kissed her. "I just enjoyed making it--for you," she said.

She was almost startled at the radiance in Elizabeth's eyes then. "It has been the loveliest day of all my life!" she whispered. "I----"

They were in Elizabeth's little room, and now hurried footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Sadie pushed open the door.

"That yours?" she demanded, her sharp eyes on the pin.

Elizabeth held it towards her with a happy smile. "Olga made it for me. Isn't it lovely?"

Sadie did not answer, but plumped herself down on the narrow cot. When Olga had gone, Sadie still sat there, her black eyes cold and unfriendly. "Don't see why you lugged Olga up here," she began.

"She asked me to."

"Humph!" Sadie grunted.

"Sadie," Elizabeth said, gently, "what is the matter? Have I done anything you don't like?"

"I didn't say so."

"No, but you've been different to me lately, and I don't know why. You were so nice a few weeks ago--you don't know how glad it made me. I hoped we were going to be real sisters, but now," she drew a long sorrowful breath, "it is as it used to be."