Chapter 15

"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 could support her, though it would not be easy, for she is hard on clothes. She doesn't take care of them and she wears them out much faster than I do. She has almost worn out my best shoes already, and my gloves, as well as my hat and suit, and she uses my handkerchiefs and--and everything, just as if they were her own. I can't earn enough to clothe her and keep myself decent." She glanced down at the old serge skirt she wore. "Miss Laura, tell me--what shall I do? Would it be right for me to leave her? The continual fret and worry of it all are wearing me out."

"I know it, dear--that is why I felt you must come and talk it all over with me."

Olga went on, "It isn't only a matter of money--and clothes, but I have _nothing_ left. If I go out evenings--even across to Lizette's room--she wants to go too, or else she goes off somewhere as soon as I am out of sight, and leaves the baby shut up all alone. That's why I can't go anywhere--not even to the Camp Fire meetings. And, O Miss Laura, I was so happy when I came back from camp--I had so many lovely plans for Camp Fire work! I did mean to be a good Torch Bearer--I _did_!"

"I know you did."

"And now it's all spoilt. I can't do a single bit of Camp Fire work," she ended sadly.

"Olga," Laura's arm was around the girl's shoulders, her voice very low and tender, "you say that now you cannot do a single bit of Camp Fire work?"

Olga looked up in surprise. "How can I--when I can't be with the girls at all, nor attend the meetings?"

"Do you know what I think is the best Camp Fire service the girls have done? It is the work in their own homes. Mrs. Bicknell says that Eva is getting to be a real comfort to her. She helps with the housework and the younger children as she never used to do, and her influence is making the younger ones so much easier to manage."

"But, Miss Laura, I don't see how that is _Camp Fire_ work," Olga said.

"Don't you?" Very softly Laura repeated, "'Love is the _joy of service_ so deep that self is forgotten.' And isn't the home the place above all others where Camp Fire Girls should render service?"

"I--never--thought of it--that way," Olga said very slowly.

"But isn't it so?" Laura persisted. "Think now."

"Yes--of course it is so. Miss Laura, it will--it _will_ make it easier to think of it as Camp Fire service, for I did so hate to be out of it all--all the Camp Fire work, I mean. I'll try to think of it that way after this. And--and I guess there isn't any way out. I suppose I ought not to long so for a way out, if I am going to be a faithful Torch Bearer." She made a brave attempt to smile.

"There is a way out--I am sure of it, but we may not find it just at once. Meantime you have a great opportunity, Olga. Don't you see? It is easy to be happy as you were in August at the camp, when you were growing stronger every day, and had just begun to realise what Camp Fire might mean to you in your service for and with the girls, and their love for you. Once you had opened your heart, you could not help being happy. But now it is different. Now you must be happy not because of, but in spite of, circumstances. And so if you keep the law of the Camp Fire to give service--a service that it is very hard for you to give--and to be happy in spite of the trying things in your life--don't you see how much more your happiness will mean--how much deeper and stronger and finer it will be?"

"Yes, I see."

"And the girls will see too, Olga. You know how quick they are. You could not deceive them if you tried--Lena, Sadie, Louise Johnson--they will all be watching you--weighing you; and if they see that, in spite of the hard things, you are really and truly happy--that you have really found the 'joy in service so deep that _self is forgotten_'--don't you see how much stronger your influence over them will be--how immensely stronger?"

Slowly, thoughtfully, Olga nodded, her eyes on the glowing embers in the fireplace.

"So all these things that are making your life now so hard, are your great opportunity, dear," the low voice went on. "If in spite of all, you can hold high the torch of love and happiness, every girl in our Camp Fire will gladly follow her Torch Bearer."

Olga looked up, and now her eyes were shining. "_You_ are the real Torch Bearer, Miss Laura!" she cried. "You have shown me the light to-night when I didn't think there was any."

"I've shown you how to keep your torch burning--that is all. Now you must hold it high to light the way for others; for you know, dear, there are others in our Camp Fire who are stumbling in dark and stony pathways, and we--you and I--must help them too, to find the lighted way."

"O, I'll try, Miss Laura, I will," Olga promised, and in her voice now there was determination as well as humility.

XIX

CLEAR SHINING AFTER DARKNESS

Sonia was an adept in thinking up remarks that carried a taunt or a sting, and she had one ready to greet her sister that night on her return; but as she looked up, she saw in Olga's face something that held back the provoking words trembling on her tongue. Instead she said, half enviously, "You look as if you'd had a fine time. What you been doing?"

"Nothing but having a firelight talk with Miss Laura. That always does me good."

"Hm!" returned Sonia. She wondered what kind of a talk it could have been to drive away the sullen gloom that had darkened her sister's face for days, and bring that strange shining look into her eyes. Sonia shrugged her shoulders. At least, Olga wouldn't hound her about finding work--not while she had that look in her eyes--and, with a mind at ease, Sonia went off to bed.

She went out the next morning, but came back in the middle of the afternoon in a gay mood. "I didn't find any place," she announced, "but I had a good dinner for once. I met--an old friend."

Something in her voice and her heightened colour awakened an indefinite suspicion in Olga's mind. "Who was it? Any one I know?" she asked.

Sonia made no reply. She had gone into the bedroom to put away her hat and jacket. When she came back she spoke of something else, but all that evening there was a curious air of repressed excitement about her.

"Oh, I forgot--the postman gave me a letter for you. It's in my bag," she exclaimed later, and bringing it from the other room, tossed it carelessly into her sister's lap.

Olga read it and handed it back. "It concerns you. O, I do hope you'll get the place," she said.

The note was from Miss Laura to say that the manager of one of the large department stores had promised to employ Sonia if she applied at once.

"Isn't that fine!" Olga cried.

"O--perhaps," Sonia returned with a chilling lack of enthusiasm.

"O Sonia, don't act so about it," Olga pleaded. "You know you must get something to do. You will go to-morrow and see the manager, won't you--after Miss Laura has taken so much trouble for you?"

"For _me_!" There was a sneer in Sonia's voice. "Much she cares for me. She did it for you--you know she did. You needn't pretend anything else."

"I don't pretend--anything," Olga said, the brightness dying out of her face.

In the morning she watched her sister with intense anxiety, but she dared not urge her further, and Sonia seemed possessed by some imp of perversity to do everything in her power to prolong Olga's suspense. She stayed in bed till the last minute, dawdled over her breakfast, insisted upon giving the baby her bath--a task which she usually left to her sister--and when at last she was ready to go out it was nearly noon.

"You'll have to give me money to get something to eat down town, Olga," she said then. "It will be noon by the time I get to that store, and I can't talk business on an empty stomach. I'd be sure to make a bad impression if I did. Half a dollar will do."

With a sigh Olga handed her the money. Sonia took it with a mocking little laugh, and was gone at last.

"O, I wonder--I _wonder_ if she will really try to get the place," Olga said to herself as the door closed. She set to work then, but her restless anxiety affected her nerves and the work did not go well. The baby too fretted and required more attention than usual. As the day wore on Olga began to worry about the baby--her small face was so pinched, and the blue shadows under her eyes were more noticeable than usual; so it was with an exclamation of relief that, opening the door in response to a knock in the late afternoon, she saw the nurse who had taken care of her in the summer.

"O, I'm so glad it's you, Miss Kennan!" she cried. "Do come in and tell me what ails this baby."

"A _baby_! Whose is it?" the nurse asked; but as she looked at the child, she forgot her question. "The poor little soul!" she exclaimed. Then with a quick sharp glance at the girl, "What have you been giving it?"

"Giving it?" Olga echoed. "Why, nothing except her food."

"What kind of food--milk?"

"Milk, and this." Olga brought a bottle of the malted food.

"That's all right. Let me see some of the milk," the nurse ordered.

She looked at the milk, smelt it, tasted it. "That seems all right too," she declared. "And you've put nothing--no medicine of any sort--in her food?"

"Why, of course not."

"Do you prepare her food always?"

"Not always. Her mother--my sister--fixes it some times."

"Ah!" said the nurse.

"What do you mean, Miss Kennan? What is the matter with the baby?"

"She's been doped," answered the nurse shortly. "Soothing syrup or something probably, to keep her quiet. Sleeps a lot, doesn't she?"

"Yes. She never seems really awake. O Miss Kennan, I never knew----"

"I see. Well, you'll have to know now. Find out what has been given her, and fix all her food after this, yourself. Can you?"

"I don't know. I'll try to."

"If you don't, she won't need food much longer," said the nurse.

"O, how can any one be so wicked!" cried Olga.

"It isn't wickedness--it's ignorance mostly--laziness sometimes, when a mother doesn't want to be troubled with the care of a baby. Probably this one had an overdose this morning."

Olga stood silently thinking. Yes, Sonia had given the baby her bottle that morning, and always gave it to her at night. She went into the bedroom and searched the closet and the bed. Sonia usually made the bed. Under the pillow Olga found a bottle which she handed without a word, to the nurse. Miss Kennan nodded.

"That's it," she said briefly.

Opening the window Olga flung the bottle passionately into the street.

"Can't you do anything to--to counteract it?" she questioned, her face as white as the child's.

"I'll bring you something," the nurse said, "and now you must stop worrying. You can't take proper care of this baby if you are in a white heat--she'll feel the mental atmosphere. I wish I could take her home with me to-night."

"You can. I wish you would. I'd feel safer about her," said Olga.

"And her mother?" the nurse questioned with a searching look.

"I won't tell her where you live. You can bring the baby back in the morning if she's better--if not, keep her till she is. I'll pay you--when I can."

"This isn't a pay-case," the nurse said in her crisp way, "it's a case of life-saving. Then I'll take her away now, before--anybody--comes to interfere."

An hour later Sonia came home. In her absorption over the baby, Olga had quite forgotten about Laura's note, and she asked no questions. That puzzled Sonia.

"What's happened?" she demanded abruptly. "You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

"I feel as if I had," Olga answered gravely.

"What do you mean, Olga?"

"The baby is sick."

"The baby?" Sonia cast a swift glance about, then hurried to the bedroom. "Where is she? What have you done with her?" she cried.

"Sonia, a nurse came here this afternoon, and she said some one had been poisoning the baby with soothing syrup."

"Poisoning her!" Sonia echoed under her breath.

"She had had an overdose," said Olga. "O Sonia, how _could_ you give her that dangerous stuff?"

"How'd I know it was dangerous? An old nurse told me it was harmless," Sonia defended herself, but the colour had faded out of her face and her eyes were full of terror.

Olga told her what the nurse had said. "I asked her to take the baby home with her to-night. I knew that she would take better care of her than we could," she ended.

Sonia was too frightened to object. "I didn't know. Of course I wouldn't have given her the stuff if I had known," she said again and again, and finally to turn her thoughts to something else, Olga asked about the place.

"Yes, they took me. I am to begin Monday," Sonia answered briefly.

Neither of them slept much that night, and immediately after breakfast Olga hurried over to Miss Kennan's. The nurse met her with a smile.

"She's better--she'll pull through--and she's a darling of a baby, Olga," she said. "But you'll have to watch her closely for a while. That deadly stuff has weakened her so!"

"O, I will, I will!" Olga promised. A great love for the little creature filled her heart, as she stooped to kiss her.

For a month after this, things went better. Sonia was at the store from eight to six, and Olga in her quiet rooms, worked steadily except when the baby claimed her attention. The baby wanted more and more attention as the days went by. She no longer lay limp and half unconscious, but awoke from sleep, laughing and crowing, to stretch and roll and kick like any healthy baby. She took many precious moments of Olga's time, but Olga did not grudge them. In that one day of fear and dread, the baby had established herself once for all in the girl's heart. If things could only go on as they were--if Sonia would earn her own clothes even, and be content to stay on and leave the baby to her care, Olga felt that she could be quite happy. But she had her misgivings in regard to Sonia. There was about her at times an air of mystery and of suppressed excitement that puzzled her sister. She spent many evenings out--with friends, she said, but she never told who the friends were. Still Olga was happy. Her work, her baby (she thought of it always now as hers), and the Camp Fire friends--these filled her days, and she put aside resolutely her misgivings in regard to her sister, worked doubly hard to pay the extra bills, and endured without complaint the discomfort of her crowded rooms where Sonia claimed and kept the most and best of everything. There was a cheery old lady in the room below--an old lady who dearly loved to get hold of a baby, and with her Olga left her little niece on Camp Fire nights, and when she went to market or to the school. The girls began to drop in again evenings, now that Sonia was so seldom there, and Olga welcomed them with shining eyes. The baby soon had all the girls at her feet. They called her "The Camp Fire Baby" and would have adopted her forthwith, but Olga would not agree to that.

"You can play with her and love her as much as you like, but she's my very own," she told them.

But with her delight in the child was always mingled a haunting fear that Sonia would some day snatch her up and disappear with her as suddenly as she had come.

It was in December that the blow fell. Sonia had not come back to supper, and Olga left the baby with old Mrs. Morris, and set off with Lizette for the Camp Fire meeting. It was a delightful meeting, and Olga enjoyed every minute of it, and the walk home with Elizabeth afterwards, while Sadie followed with Lizette.

"Come down soon and see my baby--and me," she said, as Elizabeth and Sadie turned off at their own corner, and she went on with Lizette.

Before she could knock at Mrs. Morris's door, it was opened by the old lady. "I've been watching for you----" she began, and instantly Olga read the truth in her troubled face.

"My--baby----" she gasped.

"She's gone, dearie--her mother took her away," the old lady said, her arms about the girl. "I tried to make her wait till you came, but she wouldn't."

"Gone--for good, you mean?" It was Lizette who questioned.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Morris, "she said so. She said you'd find a note upstairs. Here's your key. I'm so sorry for you, child--O, so sorry!"

Olga made no reply--she could not find words then. She went slowly up the stairs, Lizette following. Lighting the gas, she flashed a swift glance about the room. The note lay on her workbench. She snatched it up and read:

"I'm going with Dick--he came back a month ago. He says he's turned over a new leaf, and he's got a job in New York. I've always wanted to live in New York. Good-bye, Olga--be good to yourself. Baby sends bye-bye to auntie.

"Sonia."

She handed the note to Lizette, who read it with a scowl. "Well, of all the----" she began, but a glance from Olga stopped her. "Isn't there _any_thing I can do?" she begged, her eyes full of tears.

"Nothing, thank you. I'll--I'll brace up as--as soon as I can, Lizette. Good-night," Olga said gently, and Lizette went away, her honest heart aching with sympathy for her friend, and Olga was alone in the place that seemed so appallingly empty because a little child had gone out of it.

But the next morning when Lizette came in Olga met her with a smile.

"I'm all right," she said. "I miss my baby every minute, but, Lizette, I mean to be happy in spite of it, and I know you'll help me. Breakfast is ready--you won't leave me to eat it alone?" Her brave smile brought a lump into Lizette's throat.

So they dropped back into their old pleasant companionship, and the girls came more often than before evenings, and Olga threw herself whole-heartedly into Camp Fire work, seeking opportunities for service. And the days slipped away and it was Christmas Eve again. Olga had spent the evening in the Camp Fire room helping to put up greens and trim the tree. She had a smile and a helping hand for every one, and Laura, watching her, said to herself, "She is holding her torch high--the dear child."

But it had not been easy--holding the torch high. On the way home the reaction came, and Olga was silent. In the merry crowd, however, only Elizabeth and Lizette noticed her silence, for Laura had sent them all home in the car, and the swift flight through the snowy streets was exciting and exhilarating. The others called gay greetings and farewells as they rolled away, leaving Olga and Lizette on the steps in the moonlight.

At Lizette's door Olga said good-night and went across to her own room. Closing the door behind her she dropped into a chair by the window, and suddenly she realised that she was very tired and O, so lonely! She longed for the pressure of a little head on her arm--for tiny fingers curling about hers--she wanted her baby.

"O, why couldn't I keep her? Sonia doesn't care for her--she doesn't! And I do. I want my baby!" she cried into the night.

But again after a little she caught back her courage. "I'm ashamed--ashamed!" she said aloud. "I'm not playing fair. I've got to be happy if I can't have my baby, and I will. But, O, if I were only sure that she is cared for!"

At that moment there came a low rap on her door. Going to it, she called, "Who is it? Who is there?" but she did not open the door.

There was no reply, only the sound of soft retreating footsteps.

"Somebody going by," she said, turning away, but as she did so she thought she heard a little whimpering cry outside. Instantly she flung the door open, and there in a basket lay her baby.

"It--it _can't_ be!" Olga cried out, incredulous. Then she caught up the baby and hugged her till the little thing whimpered again, half afraid. "O, it is--it _is_!" Olga cried. "You blessed darling--if I could only keep you forever!" Still holding the child close, she snatched up the basket, shut the door, and lit the gas. In the basket she found a note from her sister.

"I'm sending back the baby [it read]; I only took her to scare you--just to pay you off for nagging me so about work. You can have her now for keeps. Dick doesn't care for children and they are an awful bother, and you've spoiled this one anyhow, fussing so over her. I reckon you and I aren't exactly congenial, and I shan't trouble you any more unless Dick goes back on me again, and I don't think he will.

"Sonia."

Through the still night air came the sound of bells--Christmas bells ringing in the Great Day. To Olga they seemed to call softly:

"'Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten.'"

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