Chapter 2

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 name to the Board which has the appointing power."

"She is lovely, isn't she?" Laura said as they left the Chief Guardian. "I don't wonder you call her the Camp Mother."

Something in the tone reminded Anne that her friend had long been motherless, and she slipped her arm affectionately around Laura's waist as she answered, "She is the most motherly woman I ever met. She seems to have room in her big, warm heart for every girl that wants mothering, no matter who or what she is." They were back at the camp now, and she added, "But we must get to bed quickly--there's the curfew," as a bugle sounded a few clear notes.

"O dear, I've a hundred and one questions to ask you," sighed Laura.

"They'll keep till morning," replied the other. "It's so hard for the girls to stop chattering after the curfew sounds! We Guardians have to set them a good example."

The cots in the sleeping tents were placed on wooden platforms raised three or four inches from the ground, and on clear nights the sides of the tents were rolled up. Laura, too interested and excited to sleep at once, lay in her cot looking out across the open space now flooded with light from the late-risen moon, and thought of the girls sleeping around her. Herself an only child, she had a great desire--almost a passion--for girls; girls who were lonely like herself--girls who had to struggle with ill-health, poverty, and hard work as she did not.

Suddenly she started up in bed, her eyes wide with half-startled surprise. Reaching over to the adjoining cot, she touched her friend, whispering, "Anne, Anne, look!" and as Anne opened drowsy eyes, Laura pointed to the moonlit space.

Anne stared for a moment, then she laughed softly and whispered back, "It's a ghost dance, Laura. Some of those irrepressible girls couldn't resist this moonlight. They're doing an Indian folk dance."

"Isn't it weird--in the moonlight and in utter silence!" Laura said under her breath. "I should think somebody would giggle and spoil the effect."

"That would be a signal for Mrs. Royall to 'discover' them and send them back to bed," Anne returned. "So long as they do it in utter silence so as to disturb no one else, the Guardians wink at it. It is pretty, isn't it?"

"Lovely!"

Anne turned over and went to sleep again, but Laura watched the slender graceful figures in their loose white garments till suddenly they melted into the shadows and were gone. Then she too slept till a shaft of sunlight, touching her eyelids, awakened her to a new day. She looked across at her friend, who smiled back at her. "I feel so well and so happy!" she exclaimed.

"It is sleeping in the open air," Anne replied. "Almost everybody wakes happy here--except the Problem."

"The Problem?" Laura echoed.

"I mean Olga Priest, the girl you asked about last night. We Guardians call her the Problem because no one has yet been able to do anything for her."

"Tell me about her," Laura begged, as, dropping the sides of the tent, Anne began to dress.

"Wait till we are outside--there are too many sharp young ears about us here," Anne cautioned. "There'll be time for a walk or a row before breakfast and we can talk then."

"Good--let's have a walk," Laura said, and made quick work of her dressing.

"Now tell me about the Problem," she urged, when they were seated on a rocky point overlooking the blue waters of the bay.

"Poor Olga," Anne said. "I wonder sometimes if she has ever had a really happy day in the eighteen years of her life. Her mother was a Russian of good family and well educated. She married an American who made life bitter for her until he drank himself to death. There were three children older than Olga--two sons who went to the bad, following their father's example. The older girl married a worthless fellow and disappeared, and there was no one left but Olga to support the sick mother and herself, and Olga was only thirteen then! She supported them, somehow, but of course she had to leave her mother alone all day, and one night when she went home she found her gone. She had died all alone."

"_O!_" cried Laura.

"Yes, it was pitiful. I suppose the child was as nearly heartbroken as any one could be, for her mother was everything to her. Of course there were many who would have been glad to help had they known, but Olga's pride is something terrible, and it seems as if she hates everybody because her father and her brothers and sister neglected her mother, and she was left to die alone. I don't believe there is a single person in the world whom she likes even a little."

"O, the poor thing!" sighed Laura. "Not even Mrs. Royall?"

"No, not even Mrs. Royall, who has been heavenly kind to her."

"Is she in your Camp Fire?"

"No, Ellen Grandis is her Guardian, but Ellen is to be married next month and will live in New York, so that Camp Fire will have to have a new Guardian."

"What about the other girls in it?"

"All but three are working girls--salesgirls in stores, I think, most of them."

"How did Olga happen to join the Camp Fire?"

"I don't know. I've wondered about that myself. She doesn't make friends with any of the girls, nor join in any of the games; but work--she has a perfect passion for work, and it seems as if she can do anything. She has won twice as many honours as any other girl since she came, but she cares nothing for them--except to win them."

"She must be a strange character, but she interests me," Laura said thoughtfully. "Anne, maybe I can take Miss Grandis' place when she leaves."

Anne gave her friend a searching look. "Are you sure you would like it? Wouldn't you rather have a different class of girls?" she asked.

Laura answered gravely, "I want the girls I can help most--those that need me most--and from what you say, I should think Olga needed--some one--as much as any girl could."

"As much perhaps, but hardly more than some of the others. There's that little Annie Pearson who thinks of nothing but her pretty face and 'good times,' and Myra Karr who is afraid of her own shadow and always clinging to the person she happens to be with. The Camp Fire is a splendid organisation, Laura, and it will do a deal for the girls, but still almost every one of them is some sort of 'problem' that we have to study and watch and labour over with heart and head and hands if we hope really to accomplish any permanent good. But come, we must go back or we shall be late for breakfast."

"Then let's hurry, for this air has given me a famous appetite," Laura replied. But she did not find it easy to keep up with her friend's steady stride.

"You'll have to get in training for tramps if you are going to be a Camp Fire Girl," Anne taunted gaily.

Laura's eyes brightened as she entered the big dining-room with its canvas sides rolled high.

"Just in time," Anne said, as she pulled out a chair for Laura and slipped into the next one herself.

The meal was cheerful, almost hilarious. "Mrs. Royall believes in laughter. She never checks the girls unless it's really necessary," Anne explained under cover of the merry chatter. "She----"

But Laura interrupted her. "O Anne, that must be Olga--the dark still girl, at the end of the next table, isn't it?"

"Yes, and Myra Karr is next to her. All at that table belong to the Busy Corner Camp Fire."

After breakfast Laura again paddled off to the yacht with Anne. It did not require much coaxing to secure her father's permission for her to spend a month at the camp with Anne Wentworth and Mrs. Royall. He kept the girls on the yacht for luncheon, and after that they went back to camp, a couple of sailors following in another boat with Laura's luggage.

"How still it is--I don't hear a sound," Laura said wonderingly, as she and her friend approached the camp through the pines.

Anne listened, looking a little perplexed, as they came out into the camp and found it quite deserted--not a girl anywhere in sight.

"I'll go and find out where everybody is," she said. "I see some one moving in the kitchen. The cook must be there."

She came back laughing. "They've all gone berrying. That's one of the charms of this camp--the spontaneous fashion in which things are done. Probably some one said, 'There are blueberries over yonder--loads of them,' and somebody else exclaimed, 'Let's go get some,' and behold"--she waved her hand--"a deserted camp."

III

THE CAMP COWARD DARES

Each girl at the camp was expected to make her own bed and keep her belongings in order. Each one also served her turn in setting tables, washing dishes, etc. Beyond this there were no obligatory tasks, but all the girls were working for honours, and most of them were trying to meet the requirements for higher rank. Some were making their official dresses. Girls who were skilful with the needle could secure beautiful and effective results with silks and beads, and of course every girl wanted a headband of beadwork and a necklace--all except Olga Priest. Olga was working on a basket of raffia, making it from a design of her own, when Ellen Grandis, her Guardian, came to her just after Anne Wentworth and Laura had left the camp.

"I've come to ask your help, Olga," Miss Grandis began.

The girl dropped the basket in her lap, and waited.

Miss Grandis went on, "It is something that will require much patience and kindness----"

"Then you'd better ask some one else, Miss Grandis. You know that I do not pretend to be kind," Olga interrupted, not rudely but with finality.

"But you are very patient and persevering, and--I don't know why, but I have a feeling that you could do more for this one girl than any one else here could. She is coming to take the only vacant place in our Camp Fire. Shall I tell you about her, Olga?"

"If you like." The girl's tone was politely indifferent.

With a little sigh Miss Grandis went on, "Her name is Elizabeth Page. She is about a year younger than you, and she has had a very hard life."

Olga's lips tightened and a shadow swept across her dark eyes.

Miss Grandis continued, "You have superb health--this girl has perhaps never been really well for a single day. You have a brain and hands that enable you to accomplish almost what you will. Poor Elizabeth can do so few things well that she has no confidence in herself: yet I believe she might do many things if only she could be made to believe in herself a little. She needs--O, everything that the Camp Fire can do for a girl. Olga, won't you help us to help her?"

"How can I?" There was no trace of sympathy in the cold voice, and suddenly the eager hopefulness faded out of Miss Grandis' face.

"How can you indeed, if you do not care. I am afraid I made a mistake in coming to you, after all," she said sadly. "I'm sorry, Olga--sorry even more on your account than on Elizabeth's."

With that she rose and went away, and Olga looked after her thoughtfully for a moment before she took up her work again.

A little later Myra Karr stood looking down at her with a curious expression in her wide blue eyes.

"I'm--I'm going to walk to Kent's Corners," she announced, with a little nervous catch in her voice.

"Well, what of it? You've been there before, haven't you?" Olga retorted.

"Yes, but this time I'm going all _alone_!"

Olga's only reply was a swift mocking smile.

"I _am_--Olga Priest!" repeated Myra, stamping her foot angrily. "You all think me a coward--I'll just show you!" and with that she whirled around and marched off, her chin up and her cheeks flushed.

As she passed a group of girls busy over beadwork, one of them called out, "What's the matter, Bunny?"

Myra paused and faced them. "I'm going to walk to Kent's Corners _alone_!" she cried defiantly.

A shout of incredulous laughter greeted that.

"Better give it up before you start, Bunny," said one.

Another, with a mischievous laugh, whisked out her handkerchief and in a flash had twisted it into a rabbit with flopping ears. "Bunny, bunny, bunny!" she called, making the rabbit hop across her lap.

Myra's blue eyes filled with angry tears. "You're horrid, Louise Johnson!" she cried out. "You're _all_ horrid. But I'll show you!" and with a glance that swept the whole laughing group, she threw back her head and marched on.

The girls looked after her and then at each other.

"Believe she'll really do it?" one questioned doubtfully.

"Not she. Maybe she'll get as far as the village," replied another.

"She'd never dare pass Slabtown alone--never in the world," a third declared with decision.

"Poor Myra, I'm sorry for her. It must be awful to be scared at everything as she is!" This from Mary Hastings, a big blonde who did not know what fear was.

"Bunny certainly is the scariest girl in this camp," laughed Louise Johnson carelessly. "She's afraid of her own shadow."

"Then she ought to have more credit than the rest of us when she does do a brave thing," put in little Bess Carroll in her gentle way.

"We'll give her credit all right _if_ she goes to Kent's Corners," retorted Louise.

Just then another girl ran up to the group and announced that a blueberry picnic had been arranged. Somebody had discovered a pasture where the bushes were loaded with luscious fruit. They would carry lunch, and bring back enough for a regular blueberry festival.

"All who want to go, get baskets or pails and come on," the girl ended.

In an instant the others were on their feet, work thrown aside, and five minutes later there was no one but the cook left in the camp.

By that time Myra Karr was tramping steadily on towards Kent's Corners. Scarcely another girl in the camp would have minded that walk, but never before had she dared to take it alone; now in spite of her nervous fears, she felt a little thrill of incredulous pride in herself. So many times she had planned to do this thing, but always before her courage had failed. Now, now she was really doing it! And if she went all the way perhaps--O, perhaps the girls would stop calling her Bunny. How she hated that name! She hurried on, her heart beating hard, her hands tight-clenched, her eyes fearfully searching the long sunny road before her and the woods or fields that bordered it. It was not so bad the first part of the way--the mile and a half to the little village of East Bassett. To be sure, she had never before been even that far alone, but she had been many times with other girls. She passed slowly and lingeringly through the village. Should she turn back now? Before her flashed the face of Olga with that little cold mocking smile, and she saw again Louise Johnson hopping her handkerchief rabbit across her lap. The incredulous laughter with which the others had greeted her announcement rang still in her ears. She was walking very very slowly, but--but no, she wouldn't--she _couldn't_ turn back. She forced her unwilling feet to go on--to go faster, faster until she was almost running. She was beyond the village now and another mile and a half would bring her to Slabtown. _Slabtown!_ She had forgotten Slabtown. The colour died swiftly out of her face as she remembered it now. Even with a crowd of girls she had never passed the place without a fearful shrinking, and now alone--_could_ she pass those ugly cabins swarming with rough, dirty men and slovenly women and rude, staring children? Her knees trembled under her even at the thought, and her newborn courage melted like wax. It was no use. She could not do it. She wavered, stopped, and turned slowly around. As she did so a grey rabbit with a white tail scurried across the road before her, his ears flattened against his head and his eyes bulging with terror. The sight of him suddenly steadied the girl. She stood still looking after the tiny grey streak flying across a wide green pasture, and a queer crooked smile was on her trembling lips.

"A bunny--_another_ bunny," she said under her breath, "and just as scared as I am--at nothing. I won't be a bunny any longer! I won't be the camp coward--I won't, won't, _won't_!" she cried aloud, and turning, went on again swiftly with her head lifted. A bit of colour drifted back to her white cheeks, and her heart stopped its heavy thumping as she drew a long deep breath. She would not let herself think of Slabtown. She counted the trees she passed, named the birds that wheeled and circled about her, even repeated the multiplication table--anything to keep Slabtown out of her thoughts; but all the while the black dread of it was there in the back of her mind. When she caught sight of the sawmill where the Slabtown men earned their bread, her feet began to drag again.

"I can't--O, I can't!" she sobbed out, two big tears rolling down her cheeks. Then across her mind flashed a vision of the little cottontail streaking madly across the road before her, and again some strange new power within urged her on. She went on slowly, reluctantly, with dragging feet, but still she went on. There were no men about the place at this hour--they were at work--but untidy women sat on their doorsteps or rocked at the windows, and a horde of ragged barefooted children catching sight of the girl swarmed out into the road to stare at her. Some begged for pennies, and getting none, yelled after her and threw stones till she took to her heels and ran "just like the other bunny!" she told herself in miserable scorn, when once she was safely past the settlement. Well, there was no other such place to pass, but--she shivered as she remembered that she must pass this one again on the way back.

She went on swiftly now with only occasionally a fearful glance on either side when the road cut through the woods. Once a farmer going by offered her a ride; but she shook her head and plodded on. It was half-past eleven when, with a great throb of relief and joy, she came in sight of the Corners. A few minutes more and she was in the village street with its homey-looking white houses and flower gardens. She longed to stop and rest on one of the vine-shaded porches, but she was too shy to ask permission. At the store she did stop, and rested a few minutes in one of the battered wooden chairs on the little porch, but it was sunny and hot there. Now for the first time she thought of lunch, but she had not a penny with her; she must go hungry until she got back to camp. A boy came up the steps munching a red apple, his pockets bulging with others. The storekeeper's little girl ran out on the porch with a big molasses cooky just out of the oven, and the warm spicy odour of it made Myra realise how hungry she was. She looked so longingly at the cooky that the child, seeming to read her thoughts, crowded it all hastily into her own mouth. Myra laughed a bit at that, and after a little rest, set off on her return. She was tired and hungry, but a strange new joy was throbbing at her heart. She had come all the way to Kent's Corners alone--they _could not call her a coward now_! That thought more than balanced her weariness and hunger. She had to walk all the way back--she had to pass Slabtown again. Yes, but now she was not afraid--_not afraid_! She drew herself up to her slender height, threw back her head, and laughed aloud in the joy of her deliverance from the fear that had held her in bondage all her life. She didn't understand in the least how it had happened, but she knew that at last she was free--_free_--like the other girls whom she had envied; and dimly she began to realise that this was a big thing--something that would make all her life different. She walked as if she were treading on air. The loneliness of the woods, of the long stretch of empty road, no longer filled her with trembling terror.

As for the second time she approached Slabtown, her heart began to beat a little faster, but the newborn courage did not fail her now. She found herself whistling a gay tune and laughed. Whistling to keep her courage up? Was that what she was doing? Never mind--the courage _was_ up. The women still sat on their doorsteps or stared from their windows, but this time the children did not swarm around her. They stood by the roadside and stared, but none called after her or followed her. She did not realise how great was the difference between the girl who now walked by with shining eyes and lifted head, and the white-faced trembling little creature with terror writ large in every line of her face and figure that had scurried by earlier in the day. But the children realised it. Instinctively now they knew her unafraid, and they did not venture to badger her. She even smiled and waved her hand to them as she went by, and at that a youngster of a dozen years suddenly broke out, "Three cheers fer the girl--now, fellers!" And with the echo of the shrill response ringing in her ears, Myra passed on, proud and happy as never before in her life.

All the rest of the way she went with the new happy consciousness making music in her heart--the consciousness of victory won. The last mile or two her feet dragged, but it was from weariness and lack of food. As she drew near the camp her steps quickened, her head went up again, and her eyes began to shine; but when she came to the white tents, she stood looking about in blank amazement. There was not a girl anywhere in sight; even the cook was missing.

Myra stood for a moment wondering where they had all gone; then she walked slowly across the camp to a hammock swung behind a clump of low-growing pines. Dropping into the hammock, she tucked a cushion under her head and, with a long sigh of delicious content and restfulness her eyes closed and in two minutes she was sound asleep--so sound asleep that when, an hour later, the girls came straggling back with pails and baskets full of big luscious berries, the gay cries and laughter and chatter of many voices did not arouse her.

The girls trooped over to the kitchen and delivered up their spoil to the cook.

"Now, Katie," cried one, "you must make us some blueberry flapjacks for supper--lots and lots of 'em, too!"

"And blueberry gingerbread," added another.

"And pies--fat juicy pies," called a third.

"_And_ rolypoly--blueberry rolypoly!" shouted yet another.

The cook, her arms on her hips, stood laughing into the sun-browned young faces before her.

"Sure ye're not askin' me to make all them things fer ye _to-night_!" she protested gaily.

"We-ell, not all maybe. We can wait till to-morrow for some of them. But heaps and heaps of flapjacks, Katie dear, if you love us, and you know you do," coaxed Louise Johnson.

"Love ye? _Love_ ye, did ye say?" laughed the cook. "Be off wid ye now an' lave me in pace or ye'll not get a smirch of a flapjack to yer supper. Shoo!" and she waved them off with her apron.

As the laughing girls turned away from the kitchen, Mary Hastings came towards them from the other side of the camp.

"What's the matter, Molly? You look as sober as an owl!" cried Louise who never looked sober.

"It's Myra--she isn't here. Miss Grandis and I have hunted all over the camp for her," Mary answered. "You know she started for Kent's Corners before we went berrying."

"So she did," cried another girl, the merriment dying out of her eyes. "You don't suppose she really went there?"

"Myra Karr--alone--to Kent's Corners? Never in the world," Louise flung out carelessly. "She's somewhere about. Let's call her." She lifted her voice and called aloud, "Myra, Myra, My-raa!"

At the call Mrs. Royall came hastily towards them. "Where is Myra? Didn't she go berrying with us?" she inquired.

"No," Louise explained lightly. "Bunny got her back up this morning and said she was going alone to Kent's Corners, but of course she didn't. She's started that stunt half a dozen times and always backed out. She's just around somewhere."