Chapter 13

Sadie, swinging one foot, gnawed at a fingernail. Finally, "I helped you start the cake-making," she reminded.

"I know--I never forget it," Elizabeth said warmly.

"You've made a lot of money----"

"It seems a lot to me--forty-seven dollars--just think of it! I haven't spent any except for materials."

"And you'll make more."

"Yes, but Mr. Burchell says cakes don't sell after it gets hot. He won't want any after May."

"That's four or five weeks longer. You'll have enough to get you heaps of fine clothes," Sadie flung out enviously, with one of her needle-sharp glances.

"O--clothes!" returned Elizabeth slightingly. "I suppose I must have a few--shoes, and a plain hat and a blue serge skirt, and some blouses--they won't cost much."

"Then what _are_ you going to do with all that money?" Sadie blurted out the question impatiently.

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 lately. I'm going to send two girls to Camp Nepahwin for three weeks in August. I'm one of the girls and--you are the other."

For once in her life Sadie Page was genuinely astonished and genuinely ashamed. For a long moment she sat quite still, the colour slowly mounting in her face until it flamed. Then, all the sharpness gone from her voice, she stammered, "I--I--Elizabeth, I never _thought_ of such a thing as you paying for me. I--think you're real good!" and she was gone.

Elizabeth looked after her with a smile, all the shadows gone from her blue eyes.

One hot evening a week later, Elizabeth and Sadie met Lizette at Olga's door. She silently led the way to her own room.

"Olga's sick," she said, dropping wearily down on the bed.

"What's the matter?" Sadie demanded before Elizabeth could speak.

"It's a fever. The doctor can't tell yet whether it's typhoid or malarial, but she's very sick. The doctor has sent a nurse to take care of her."

"I wish I could help take care of her," Elizabeth said earnestly.

"Well, you can't!" Sadie snapped out. "And, anyhow, she doesn't need you if she has a nurse."

"But the nurse must sleep sometimes--I could help then. O Lizette, ask Olga to let me," Elizabeth pleaded.

"She won't." Lizette shook her head. "Much as ever she'll let me do anything. I get the meals for the nurse--Olga takes only milk. The nurse says she can do with only four hours' sleep, and I can see to Olga that little time."

"No," Elizabeth said decidedly, "no, Lizette, you have your work at the shop and the cooking. You mustn't do more than that. I can come after supper--at eight o'clock--and stay till twelve----"

"You couldn't go home all alone at midnight--you know you couldn't," Sadie interrupted.

"I needn't to. I could sleep in a chair till morning."

"As to that, you could sleep on the nurse's cot, I guess," Lizette admitted. "Well, if Olga will let you--I'll ask her."

But as she started up Elizabeth gently pushed her back. "No, don't ask her. I'll just come to-morrow night, anyway."

"Let it go so, then," Lizette answered. "Maybe it will be best, for I'm pretty well tired out myself with the heat, and worrying over Olga, and all. I knew she was overworking but I couldn't help it."

On the way home Elizabeth was silent until Sadie broke out gloomily, "I s'pose if she don't get better you won't go to the camp, 'Lizabeth."

"O, _no_, I couldn't go away and leave her sick--of course, I couldn't."

"Huh!" growled Sadie. "You don't think about _me_, only just about Olga, and she isn't your sister."

At another time Elizabeth would have smiled at this belated claim of relationship, but now she said only, "Olga has been so good to me, Sadie--I never can forget it--and now when I have a chance to do a little for her, I'm so _glad_ to do it! I couldn't enjoy the camp if I left her here sick, but it won't make any difference to you. You can go just the same."

Sadie's face cleared at that. "We-ell," she agreed, "I might just as well go. I couldn't do anything much for Olga if I stayed; and maybe, anyhow, she'll get well before the tenth. I'm most sure she will."

"O, I hope so," Elizabeth sighed, but she was not thinking of the camp.

Anxious weeks followed, for Olga was very sick. Day after day the fever held her in restless misery, and when at last it yielded to the treatment, it left her weak and worn--the shadow of her former self.

Then one morning Miss Laura came, and carried her and the nurse off to the yacht, and there followed quiet, restful, beautiful days for Olga--such days as she had never dreamed of. Judge Haven and Jim, and Jo Barton were on the yacht, but she saw little of any one except Miss Laura and the nurse, and day by day strength came back to her body as the joy of life flooded her soul.

One night sitting on deck in the moonlight, she said suddenly, "Miss Laura, I'm glad of this sickness."

"Why?"

"Because I've learned a big lesson. I've learned why Camp Fire Girls must 'Hold on to health.' I didn't know before, else I would not have been so careless--so wicked. I see now that it was all my own fault. I should not have been sick if I had taken care of myself--if I had held on to my health as you tried so hard to make me do."

"Yes, dear, you had to have a hard lesson because you had always had such splendid health that you didn't know what it would mean to lose it."

"Yes," Olga agreed, "I didn't believe that I could get sick--I was so strong. And down in my heart I really half believed that people need not be sick--that it was mostly imagination. I shall not be so uncharitable after this."

"Girls need not be sick many times when they are," Laura said, "if they would be more careful and reasonable."

"I know. I won't go with wet feet any more," Olga promised, "and I won't work fourteen hours a day and go without eating, as I've been doing this summer. You see, Miss Laura, when I got the order for all that silver work, I knew that if I could fill it satisfactorily, it would mean many other orders. And I did--I finished the last piece the day I was taken sick. But now the money I got for it will go to the doctor and the nurse, and I've lost all this time and other work. And that isn't all. My sickness made it harder for Lizette and Elizabeth. I can't forgive myself for that. They were so good to me, and so were all the Camp Fire Girls! Every single one of them came to see me, some of them many times, and they brought so many things, and all wanted to stay and help--O, they are the dearest girls!"

Laura's eyes searched the eyes of the other in the moonlight.

"Olga, are you happy?" she asked softly.

Olga caught her breath and for a moment was silent. When she spoke there was wonder and a great joy in her voice. "O, I am--I am!" she said. "And--and I believe I have been for a long time, but I never realised it till this minute. I didn't _want_ to be happy--I didn't mean to be--after mother died. I shut my heart tight and wouldn't see anything pleasant or happy in all my world. It was so when I went to the camp last year. I went just to please Miss Grandis because she had gotten me into the Arts and Crafts work, and though I wanted to refuse, I couldn't, when she asked me to go. But I'm so glad now that I went--so _glad_! Just think if I had not gone, and had never known you and Elizabeth, and Lizette, and the others! Miss Laura, I can't ever be half glad enough for all that the Camp Fire has done for me."

"You will pay it all back--to others, Olga," Laura said gently, her eyes shining. "When I made you my Torch Bearer, you did not realise the importance of holding on to health, nor the duty as well as privilege of being happy. Now you do."

"O, I do--I _do_!" the girl cried earnestly.

"So now my Torch Bearer is ready to lead others."

"I'll be glad to do it now. I want to 'pass on' all that you and the girls have done for me. It will take a lifetime to do it, though. And--I'm not half good enough for a Torch Bearer, Miss Laura."

"If you thought you were good enough I shouldn't want you to be one," Laura answered.

XVI

CAMP FIRE GIRLS AND THE FLAG

Miss Laura's girls had been at the camp a few days when Sadie Page one morning raced breathlessly up to a group of them, crying out, "There's a big white yacht coming--I saw it from the Lookout. Do you s'pose it's Judge Haven's?"

"Won't it be splendid if it is--if it's bringing Miss Laura and Olga!" Frances Chapin cried. "Could you see the name, Sadie?"

"No, it was too far off."

"Let's borrow Miss Anne's glass," cried two or three voices, and Frances ran off in search of Anne Wentworth. When she returned with the glass, they all rushed over to the Lookout. The yacht was just dropping anchor as they turned the glass upon it and Frances cried out,

"O, it is--it is! I can read the name easily. Here, look!" she surrendered the glass to Elsie.

"It _is_ the Sea Gull," Elsie confirmed her, "and they are lowering a boat already."

"O, tell us if Miss Laura gets into it, and Olga," cried Lizette.

"Two men--sailors, I suppose, two girls, and two boys," Elsie announced.

"Then it's Miss Laura and Olga and Jim and Jo Barton," Frances cried joyfully.

"Let's hurry down to the landing to meet them," Mary Hastings proposed, and instantly the whole group turned and raced back to camp to leave the glass, with the joyous announcement, "Miss Laura's coming, and Olga. We're going to the landing to meet them." And waiting for no response they sped through the pines to the landing-steps, Elsie snatching up a flag as she passed her own tent.

"Let's all go," one of the other girls cried, but Miss Anne said,

"No, let Miss Laura's girls have the first greeting--they all love her so! But we might go to the Lookout and wave her a welcome from there."

"What shall we wave?" some one asked, and another cried, "O, towels, handkerchiefs--anything. But _hurry_!" and they did, reaching the Lookout breathless and laughing, to see the yacht resting like a great bird on the blue water, and the small boat already nearing the point.

"Get your breath, girls, then--the wohelo cheer," said Miss Anne.

Two score young voices followed her lead, and as they chanted, the white banners fluttered in the breeze. Instantly there came a response from the boat in fluttering handkerchiefs and waving caps, while the girls below on the landing echoed back the wohelo greeting.

But when the boat rounded the point the voices of those on the landing wavered into silence. They were too glad to sing as they saw Laura and Olga coming back to them--they could only wait in silence. Lizette's lips were quivering nervously and Elizabeth's blue eyes were full of happy tears. Even Sadie for once was silent, but she waved her handkerchief frantically to the two boys who were gaily swinging their caps. When the boat reached the landing, however, and the girls crowded about Laura and Olga, tongues were loosened, and everybody talked.

"How well Olga looks!" Mary cried.

"Doesn't she? I'm so proud of her for gaining so fast!" Laura laughed.

"I couldn't help gaining with all she has done for me," Olga said with a grateful glance.

"And you've come to stay? Do say you have, Miss Laura," the girls begged.

"Of course, we're going to stay--we've been homesick for the camp," Laura answered.

"That's splendid. We've missed you so!" they cried.

"The camp's fine. I'm having the time of my life!" Sadie declared, and added, "Elizabeth, you haven't said one word."

"She doesn't need to," Olga put in quickly, her hand on Elizabeth's shoulder.

They were climbing the steps now, and at the camp they were greeted with another song of welcome from the Guardians and the rest of the girls, and then Laura put Olga into the most comfortable hammock to rest and, leaving Elizabeth beside her, carried the others off for a talk.

That night the supper was a festival. The girls had gathered masses of purple asters with which they had filled every available dish to decorate the tables, the mantelpiece, and even the tents where the newcomers were to sleep. Miss Anne had brought to camp a big box of tiny tapers, and these stuck in yellow apples made a glow of light along the tables.

Nobody appreciated all this more than Jim. With his hands in his pockets he stood looking about admiringly, and finally expressed his opinion thus: "Gee, but it's pretty! Camp Fire Girls beat the Scouts some ways, if they ain't so patriotic."

Instantly there was an outburst of reproach and denial from Miss Laura's girls.

"O, come, Jim, that's not fair!"

"We're _just_ as patriotic as the Scouts!"

"Boy Scouts can't hold a candle to Camp Fire Girls _any_ way!"

"We'll put you out if you go back on Camp Fire Girls, Jim."

Jim, flushed and a little bewildered at the storm he had raised, instinctively sidled towards Laura, while Jo, close behind him, chuckled, "Started a hornets' nest that time, ol' feller."

Laura, her arm about the boy's shoulders, quickly interposed. "We'll let Jim explain another time. I know he thinks Camp Fire Girls are the nicest girls there are, don't you, Jim?"

"Sure!" Jim assented hastily, and peace was restored--for the time.

But the girls did not forget nor allow Jim to. The next night after supper they swooped down on him.

"Now tell us, Jim," Lena Barton began, "why you think Boy Scoots are more patriotic than we are."

"'Tisn't Boy _Scoots_--you know it isn't," Jim countered, flushing.

"O, excuse me." Lena bowed politely. "I only had one letter wrong, and, anyhow, they do scoot, don't they? Well, Boy Scouts then, if you like that better."

"They love the flag better'n you do--_lots_ better!" Jim declared with conviction.

"Prove it! Prove it!" cried half a dozen voices.

"Er--er----" Jim choked and stammered, searching desperately for words. "You've got an awful nice Camp Fire room at Miss Laura's, but you haven't even a little teeny flag in it, and Scouts _always_ have a flag in their rooms--don't they, Jo?" he ended in triumph.

"You bet they do!" Jo stoutly supported his friend.

"Ho! That doesn't prove anything. Besides, we'll _have_ a flag when we go back," Lena asserted promptly.

"Well, anyhow, girls an' women can't fight for the flag, so of course, they _can't_ be so patriotic," Jim declared.

"Can't, eh? How about the women that go to nurse the wounded men?" said Mary.

"And the women that send their husbands and sons to fight?" added Elsie.

"And how about----" began another girl, but Laura's hand falling lightly on her lips, cut short the question, and then Laura dropped down on the grass pulling Jim down beside her. Holding his hand in both hers, and softly patting it, she said, "Sit down, girls, and we'll talk this matter over. Jim's hardly big enough or old enough to face you all at once. But, honestly, don't you think there is some truth in what he says? As Camp Fire Girls, do we think as much about patriotism as the Scouts do? Elsie, you have a Scout brother, what do you think about it?"

Elsie laughed but flushed a little too as she answered, "I hate to admit it, but I don't think we do."

"Time we did then. We can't have any Boy Scouts getting ahead of us," Lena declared emphatically.

Jim, gathering courage from Miss Laura's championship, looked up with a mischievous smile. "Bet you can't tell about the stars and stripes in the flag," he said.

"Can you? How many can?" Miss Laura looked about the group. "Elsie, Frances--and Mary--I see you can, and nobody else is sure. How does it happen?" There was a twinkle now in her eyes. "Is there any special reason for you three being better posted than the others?"

The three girls exchanged smiling glances, and Elsie admitted reluctantly, "I think there is--a Boy Scout reason--isn't there, Mary?" and as Mary Hastings nodded, Elsie went on, "You know my brother Jack is the most loyal of Scouts, and before he was old enough to be one, he had learned all the things that a boy has to know to join--and to describe the flag is one of those things. He discovered one day that I didn't know how many stars there are on it and how they are arranged, and he was so dreadfully distressed and mortified at my ignorance that I had to take a flag lesson from him on the spot--and it was a thorough one."

"Uh huh!" Jim triumphed under his breath, but the girls heard and there was a shout of laughter. Over the boy's head Laura's laughing eyes swept the group.

"Jim," she said, "will you ask Miss Anne to lend us her flag for a few minutes?"

"Won't ours do? Jo'n' I've got one," Jim cried instantly, and as Miss Laura nodded, he scampered off.

"I think Jim has won, girls," she said, and then the laughter dying out of her eyes, added gravely, "Really I quite agree with him. I think we--I mean our own Camp Fire--have not given as much thought to patriotism as we ought. There have been so many things for us to talk about and work for! But we'll learn the flag to-day, and when we go home, it may be well for us to arrange a sort of 'course' in patriotism for the coming year. Of all girls in America, those who live in Washington ought to be the most interested in their own country. We will all be more patriotic--better Americans--a year from now."

Jim came running back with a small silk flag. He held it up proudly for the inspection of the girls, and it was safe to say that they would all remember that brief object lesson. It was Lena whose eyes lingered longest on the boy's eager face as he looked at the flag.

"He does--he really _loves_ it," she said wonderingly to Elsie standing beside her. "He's right. We girls don't care for it that way--honest we don't."

"Maybe not just for the flag," Elsie admitted, "but we care just as much as boys do for our country. Don't you think we do, Miss Laura?"

"I'm not sure, Elsie. You see many boys look forward to a soldier's life, and most of them feel that they may some time have to fight for their flag--their country--and so perhaps they think more about it than girls do. And patriotism is made prominent among the Scouts."

"They always salute the flag wherever they see it," Mary said.

"Must keep 'em busy in Washington," Lena observed.

"It does. Jim is forever saluting it when he is out with me," Laura replied, "but he never seems to tire of it, and I like to see him do it."

"The girls salute it in the schools--you know we have Flag Day every year," Frances added.

"Yes, and it is a good thing. There is no danger of any of us caring too much for our country or the flag that represents it. When I catch sight of our flag in a foreign land I always want to kiss it."

"Can't we have one in our Camp Fire room when we go back?" Lena asked.

"We surely will. I'm really quite ashamed of myself for not having one long ago. We owe something--do we not?--to a going-to-be Boy Scout for reminding us?" Laura said.

They admitted that they did. "But, anyhow," Frances Chapin added, "even if they do think more about the _flag_, I won't admit that Scouts love their country any more than we Camp Fire Girls do. We are _quite_ as patriotic as any Boy Scouts."

"And that's right!" Lena flung out as the group separated.

XVII

SONIA

"O dear, I did hope it wouldn't be awfully hot when we got back, but it is," Lizette Stone sighed on the day they returned from camp. "Just think of the breeze on the Lookout this very minute!"

Olga glanced over her shoulder with a smile as she threw open her door. "Let's pretend it's cool here too," she said. "I'm so thankful to be well and strong again that I'm determined to be satisfied with things as they are. The camp was lovely and Miss Laura and the girls were dear, but this is home, and my work is waiting for me, and I'm _able to do it_. And you have your lovely work too, Lizette, and your home corner across the hall."

Lizette looked at her half wondering, half envious, as she slowly pulled out her hatpins. "I never knew a fever to change a girl as that one changed you, Olga Priest," she said.

"Is the change for the better?"

"Yes, it is, but----"

"But what?" Olga questioned, half laughing, yet a little curious too.

"Well--all is, I can't keep up with you," Lizette dropped unconsciously into one of her country phrasings. "I can't help getting into the doleful dumps sometimes, and I can't--I just _can't_ be happy and contented with the mercury at ninety-three. I guess it's easier for some folks to stand the heat than it is for others."

"I think it is," Olga admitted. "Give me your hat. Now take that fan and sit there by the window till I come back. I'm not so tired as you are, and I must get something for our supper."

While she was gone Lizette sat thinking of the Camp with its shady woods and blue water and wishing herself back there. She had had three weeks there, but a hateful little imp was whispering in her ear that some of the girls were staying four or five weeks, and it wasn't fair--it wasn't _fair_! Of course it was better to earn her living doing embroidery than in Goldstein's store, but still, some girls didn't have to earn their living at all, and----

The door opened and Olga came breezily in, her hands full of bundles. "I really ought to have taken a basket," she said. "There's the nicest little home bakery opened just around the corner--I got bread there."

"I'm not a bit hungry," Lizette said listlessly, then started up, crying out, "Well, I am ashamed of myself! I meant to have the table set when you came back, and I forgot all about it."

"Never mind--I'll have it ready in a minute. Sit still, Lizette."

But Lizette insisted upon helping, and her face brightened as Olga set forth fresh bread, nut cakes, ice cold milk, and a dish of sliced peaches.

"Weren't you mistaken?" Olga asked with a laugh. "Aren't you a little bit hungry?"

"Yes, I am. How good that bread looks--and the peaches."

"After all it is rather nice to be back here at our own little table, isn't it?" Olga asked as they lingered over the meal.

Lizette looked at her curiously. "Olga Priest, what makes you so happy to-night?" she demanded. "I never saw you so before."

"Maybe not quite so happy, but wasn't I happy all the time at camp? Wasn't I, Lizette?"

"Yes--yes, you were, only I didn't notice it so much there with all the girls, and something always going on. You never were so here before. Sometimes you wouldn't smile for days at a time."

"I know. I hadn't realised then that I could be happy if I'd let myself be--and that I had no right not to."

"No _right_ not to," Lizette echoed with a puzzled frown. "I don't see _that_. I should think anybody might have the privilege of being blue if she likes."

"No." Olga shook her head with decision. "No, not when she has health, and work that she likes, and friends. A girl has no right to be unhappy under those conditions--and I've found it out at last. I'm going to keep my Camp Fire promises now as I never have done."

After a little silence she went on, "I've such beautiful plans for our Camp Fire this year! One of them is to learn all we can about our country. We can't have Jim," laughter flashed into her eyes as she thought of him, "thinking us less patriotic than his beloved Scouts. And we can see and learn so much right here in Washington! I'm ashamed to think how little I know about this beautiful city where I've lived all my life. I mean to 'know my Washington' thoroughly before I'm a year older."

Lizette did not seem much interested in patriotism, but she laughed over the remembrance of the indignation of the girls at Jim's remark about their lack of it. "He did look so plucky, facing us all that day, didn't he!" she said. "And he was scared too at the rumpus he had raised; but all the same he didn't back down."

"No, Jim wouldn't back down if he thought he was right no matter how scared he might be inside."