"Just because I can't swim as well as you do and Esther can't swim at all, you are going off without us. You are fine Camp Fire girls; please bring our bathing suits here, too."

Both girls nodded and laughed in rather an abashed fashion. But at a safe distance away Betty turned to Polly. "Won't you confess, please, that it is rather a nuisance having Esther Clark in the tent with us? I don't see why Martha McMurtry insisted upon it when we might have had Meg or most anybody else."

Polly looked unusually grave. "You don't care for Esther, do you?" she questioned. "It is curious, because though you haven't been particularly nice to her, she is devoted to you and I believe would do anything in the world for you."

Ten minutes later the four girls in their Camp Fire bathing suits were in the waters of the lake near their camp, Polly and Betty swimming with long even strokes toward its center, Mollie hovering near the sh.o.r.e, while Esther stood shivering in a foot of water trying vainly to warm herself by splashing and throwing handfuls of water on her chest and face.

Half a mile out Betty turned over on her side. "Say the Law of the Camp Fire to yourself, Polly. I have just said it and I am going back toward sh.o.r.e. I suppose if one makes a vow to 'give service' it is little enough to show another girl how to swim. If Esther didn't look so big and wasn't so horribly shy, I am sure I should like her better, but here goes!"

It wasn't easy work teaching Esther to swim, for she was so much larger than Betty and had such an absurd fashion of keeping both feet down and splashing the water into her own and her teacher's face. Polly laughed softly to herself as she swam slowly forward to offer her a.s.sistance.

She was wondering if a single week in camp had really begun to reform her spoiled Betty and if it had, had any change also been wrought in her? She was to find out in a very few minutes.

One Camp Fire law, that there was no escaping, was that the girls were not to spend but fifteen minutes in bathing. Really it hardly seemed like half that time before the four girls were once again on land getting into their bathing gowns which had been left hanging on a willow tree nearby. They were to dress later on in their tent, so they were hardly on sh.o.r.e more than a few moments, but even in that short s.p.a.ce of time a noise a few yards away startled them. The four girls turned indignantly. In the entire week of their stay in camp they had not been disturbed by a single intruder. Sunrise Hill, with its tall pines--the emblem of the Camp Fire--its wooded lake for fishing, bathing and canoeing, and its utter seclusion, had seemed, after several weeks of careful search in the neighborhood about Woodford, the ideal place for the girls' summer camp. So far not even a friend, man or woman, had been allowed to visit them, because the camp was to be in running order before they received any outside criticism.

Now a young fellow of perhaps sixteen stood only a short distance off from the lake with an expression of superior amus.e.m.e.nt on his face. He was a country boy, for he wore no hat and his hair was burnt to a light straw color at the ends, his skin was almost bronze.

"Please go away," Polly demanded haughtily. She had gathered her bathing gown about her as though it were a Roman matron's robe and was feeling that her presence must be impressive although her hair was extremely wet and drops of water were trickling down her face.

However, the intruder paid not the least attention to her request, except to laugh as though her indignation gave him special pleasure. He was carrying a large tin pail on one arm and a basket on the other and of course his behavior was hardly that of a gentleman.

Anger for the moment kept Polly speechless, but a chorus of protests arose from Betty, Mollie and Esther. "We are camping here and we would rather not have visitors, so would you mind going back the way you have come?" Betty requested in her most Princess-like fashion.

"Not until I have seen the sights," the newcomer answered. He did not really look impertinent, only mischievous, and his eyes were as blue as Polly's.

"You don't suppose that I have walked a mile before breakfast and carried these heavy things except to find out what on the face of the earth you crazy girls are doing here, trying to pretend you are scouts or Indian squaws. Of all the foolishness!"

Perhaps even this short acquaintance with Polly O'Neill has suggested that she had, what is for some reason or other called an Irish temper, though temper does not belong wholly to Irish people. Polly herself did not know when this temper would take possession of her nor where it would lead her. At present the young man continued to walk slowly on toward the white tents, whistling to show his complete indifference, while the four girls could see that their friends were now stirring about in camp evidently getting ready to start breakfast.

Without reflecting Polly stooped. There on the ground before her lay a sharp rock, ground and polished by the waters of the lake, and like a shot from a bow she flung this stone whistling through the air at the intruder.

Whether she thought her stone would strike the young man or what particular effect her childish bad manners would have if it should, Polly herself did not know. However, she was startled and flushed hotly when, with an exclamation of pain, the boy put down his pail, placing one hand quickly to his head.

The four girls had started for their camp, but now Mollie, first flashing a look of surprise and scorn at her usually beloved sister, ran on ahead of the others. "I am so sorry," she said in a gentle, reserved manner peculiar to her, "you were rude not to go away when we asked you, but it is far worse for one of us to have been so childish as to strike you. I am dreadfully ashamed."

The young man smiled, not very cheerfully it must be admitted, but at least not looking so angry as he had the right to. "Did you throw the stone?" he inquired. "I never would have believed a girl could throw straight if I hadn't felt the blow, so perhaps you are learning one or two things by living like boys. Never mind, I can see you are not the guilty one."

"We are not trying to live in the least like boys, only like sensible girls," Mollie started in to reply quietly, but the last part of her sentence trailed off into a faint whisper, for the young man had just taken his hand down from his head and his fingers were covered with blood, a few drops were even trickling down the back of his neck inside his soft flannel shirt.

The other three girls had now come close enough to see the blood also, and except for Betty, Pony would everlastingly have disgraced herself.

There are many persons in the world whom the sight of blood fills with a strange shrinking and terror that is almost like faintness, and Polly was one of them. Now she wanted to run away, she even turned to fly, when her friend caught hold of her. "Don't be utterly stupid, Polly, you have done a foolish trick and you've got to face the music, for if you don't, you know Mollie is apt to take the blame upon herself."

Polly's knees were shaking and her thin expressive face so pale that she looked quite unlike herself. However, she managed to save a part of her dignity by saying with an attempt at a smile, as she stopped alongside Mollie and the young fellow, "I am sorry, I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet, so please feel all the anger against me. I do hope I haven't hurt you very much."

The young man now stared at Polly and then at Mollie and afterwards back again from one to the other. He started to whistle but stopped himself in time. "Gee, but you are alike--with a difference," he returned, neither accepting nor refusing to accept Polly's half-hearted apology.

Hardly knowing why, except that the back of his neck was apparently covered with perspiration when there was no heat to explain it, the boy again put up his hand to his head. This time it was impossible to ignore the amount of blood that covered his hand nor the horrified faces of his small audience.

"I expect I can't go up to your camp, after all, when I am in such a fix, so you've come kind of close to getting your own way. I guess you, usually do!" he said, frowning up at Polly. "I wonder if it is too much to ask you girls to carry these things up to your tents; the pail has your morning's milk and is pretty heavy; the basket is only filled with strawberries. My father is the farmer who owns the land about here and I thought it would be a lark to find out what you campers were trying to do. Didn't mean anything serious but I guess you'll have to come for your own supplies after this as there ain't no one but me to bring 'em."

He spoke rather churlishly, but then he did have cause.

"Hadn't you better wash your cut at the lake or come on up to the tent and let us do something there for you," Betty proposed, not knowing exactly what they should do in the present situation and yet feeling that something ought to be done. "I am afraid walking home in the sun with your head in that condition may make you ill."

The young man shook his head and then winced. "It ain't anything," he replied, beginning to back away, but at the same moment Mollie O'Neill took firm hold on his sleeve. "Come down to the water," she demanded quietly, "you are cut pretty badly, but I think I can stop the bleeding.

I suppose the other girls will laugh at me, but ever since I have been in camp I have been carrying some gauze bandage about in my pocket and finding out what to do in case of accidents. I won't hurt you."

The young fellow had intended utterly to decline Mollie's kindly offer, but now her suggestion of not hurting amused him, besides he was sensible enough to know she was right. It was embarra.s.sing, however, to have three other girls looking on during the operation, so whatever anguish Mollie caused him he felt prepared to endure in silence.

In a very business-like fashion the young girl drew her roll of surgeon's lint from an inside pocket of her bathing gown and a small pair of scissors. Then she made her patient sit down on the ground by the water's edge while she carefully examined his cut.

"I ought to help, Mollie," her sister suggested faintly, but Mollie shook her head and the young man appeared grateful. "I don't mind blood and you do, Polly," she returned, "besides if anybody is to help I would rather have Esther. I am afraid, if you don't mind, I have got to cut your hair away, it is already so matted with blood."

To almost any suggestion the patient would have agreed, since he had but one desire now, and that to get away from the strange girls about whom he had been so curious an hour before.

Mollie cheerfully snipped away several locks of his hair covering a s.p.a.ce about as large as a dollar. The cut she discovered was deeper than she had expected and, as it was still bleeding profusely, she next called Esther for advice. Very carefully then the two girls washed out the cut with clean water and then Mollie, finding a flat stone, made a pad by wrapping it a number of times with gauze. This she placed over the wound, binding the young man's head, Esther a.s.sisting in making the bandage as tight as he could endure.

All this time Polly, with Betty's hand firmly clutching hers, had stood quietly looking on at the scene. She was feeling penitent and ashamed, and yet her Irish sense of humor made her a little bit amused as well.

Mollie was so entirely unconscious, but she did seem to be intensely enjoying her first opportunity to prove herself a worthy Camp Fire Girl.

Perhaps the young man vaguely felt Polly's amus.e.m.e.nt, although he did not look at her and certainly did not give her the satisfaction of knowing whether or not she had been forgiven. But he managed to thank Mollie and Esther more politely for what they had done for him, than his boorish manners earlier in the morning suggested, and even insisted on going on up to the camp with them in order to carry the heavy pail.

Several others of the Camp Fire girls, were by this time engaged in getting break fast and although they could hardly help showing surprise at the unexpected appearance of a wounded hero no questions were then asked.

Miss McMurtry did not seem annoyed at seeing the young man, indeed it turned out that she and several of the girls had walked over to Mr.

Webster's farm the day before to ask as a special favor that milk be sent their camp each day. If she felt any displeasure, Betty and Polly were sure it was directed toward them, for the first week of Camp Fire life had not been altogether smooth and there were still adjustments to be made between some of the girls and their guardian.

CHAPTER VIII

OTHER GIRLS

Besides the four girls who have just returned from the lake there were six others in the camp at Sunrise Hill, their guardian, Miss McMurtry and one small imp or angel, according to one's way of looking at things.

For Margaret Everett had joined the summer campers and, in order to accomplish it, had brought her small brother, Horace Virgil Everett, along with her. You see, the girls felt they simply must have Meg, so after a great deal of discussion it was decided that Horace Virgil would be an excellent person to practice mother craft upon and would certainly bring into service whatever first aid information might be required.

Meg was so gay, so sweet tempered and so utterly inconsequential. If things were going well in camp, if the sun was shining and everybody was feeling amiable then she was entirely happy, but if things were going wrong, then it was that Meg counted, for she kept her temper through almost any kind of stress. She did not have so many moods as Polly, she was not so quiet and reserved as Mollie, nor did she expect the world to move according to her desires, as Betty Ashton did. Meg's faults were that she was not a good manager and did try to do too many things at once and so did none of them well, but she had not had an easy time since her mother died two years ago. Although her father and older brother adored her, they were selfish in unconscious masculine ways, President Everett in devoting too much time to his school and John to his studies and amus.e.m.e.nts. Unfortunately neither of them realized that Meg might now and then grow weary of having a small brother, capable of originating new kind of mischief at least once an hour, everlastingly tagging after her. But Meg's cares (if she ever called them by that name) had for the present been entirely lifted from her, for she had ten other people now to help, her take care of "b.u.mps," whom the girls had rechristened "Hai-yi" or "Little Brother," and if Meg had been asked to vote upon the happiest week of her life since her mother's death she would instantly have voted her first week in camp with her own club of Camp Fire Girls.

Then there was Sylvia Wharton! Did Sylvia really enjoy the change in her life from staying cooped up in a great house, looked after by servants and alone a great part of the time when her father was away?

Her brother Frank, who was several years older, seldom paid the least attention to her. If the little girl did enjoy the woods and the companionship of the other girls and all the opportunities that the camp fire life offered her, so far she showed not the slightest sign. Her one pleasure must have been her chance to haunt Polly O'Neill, for although she did not seem particularly happy when she was with Polly, certainly she never left her side unless she were compelled to do her share of the camp work and only then when Polly insisted upon it.

Already Miss McMurtry felt that Sylvia might become difficult, but then the child had had no training, and besides Miss McMurtry shared the belief of almost all other persons that Sylvia was simply stupid.

Curiously enough Eleanor Meade now appeared to have been invited into the first Woodford Camp Fire circle under a false impression. You see, the girls at the high school where Eleanor was also a student considered her a genius, and it is agreeable for a community to have one genius in its midst. Eleanor did have talent for drawing, and besides she had a number of characteristics which many persons a.s.sociate with genius. She was entirely careless of her other responsibilities, and, if she happened to wish to paint, considered it entirely unreasonable that anything or anybody should interfere with her desire. She was often in the habit of forgetting engagements and at times there was a faraway expression in her eyes, which may have come from having neglected to wear her gla.s.ses, but which her friends believed due to the thrall of some wonderful creative idea which might be presented to the world some day in the form of a great picture. And Eleanor, being but human and seventeen, had done her best to foster this belief. She would not dress in modern fashions like the other girls; her parents had little money, but Eleanor's mother was a clever needlewoman and her eldest daughter always appeared in gowns made after exactly the same pattern and of some soft clinging material, whether cashmere or cheesecloth, they were always short waisted with a folded girdle and deep hem and cut low in the neck. Then Eleanor's hair, which was heavy and straight and a kind of ashen brown, was always worn parted in the middle and fixed in a great loose knot at the back of her neck. Eleanor was not pretty like Betty and Meg and Mollie and, at times, Polly O'Neill, but she would have scorned to have been thought pretty--interesting was the adjective she preferred.

However, since Eleanor's appearance in camp for almost a week she had forgotten to be a genius. For one thing the girls were all wearing the regulation Camp Fire uniform, a loose blouse and dark blue serge skirt, and so she could not dress the part. Then, although the Camp Fire official log book had been given her to ill.u.s.trate she had not even started to paint the totem of the Sunrise Camp on its brown leather cover, although Sunrise Hill stood, always before her in its changing beauty. The girls had taken its name for their camp with the thought that the hill might symbolize their own efforts to look upward always to the highest and most beautiful things.

But Eleanor should hardly be blamed for not having done much painting so far, there, had been such a lot of other work to do, in helping to put things in order in camp, and besides she had developed the most surprising talent for making an Irish stew, that was the envy and delight of all the other girls. Eleanor said it was because she had a soul above science and used her imagination in her stew, but whatever the reason, since the first day when the cooking of dinner fell to her, this stew had been one of the greatest successes in camp and Eleanor received her first honor bead for her genius in cooking instead of in art.

Besides these seven girls already described, there was an eighth girl in the Sunrise camp, the stranger whom Betty had brought home with her on the day their club had first been discussed--the girl whose face was so familiar to Mrs. Ashton but whose name was unknown. There had been a question as to whether or not this particular girl could come to summer camp, not because the other girls were unwilling to have her, but because she worked in a milliner's shop in Woodford and had to go back and forth to be at work every day. Quite by accident on the eventful afternoon Betty had stooped by this shop in her journey to Meg's to ask about her new spring hat, and being so full of her plan had poured it into Edith Norton's ear, while the little milliner was trying on her hat.

Naturally Edith thought it a wonderful plan, so Betty, with one of her sudden impulses, immediately insisted that the young milliner come home with her to become a member of their new Camp Fire club. This seemed at the time a perfectly impossible dream to Edith, who was a poor girl with her own living to make, but then she did not understand Betty's ability to make things happen. Every obstacle had been smoothed away, Edith was now riding Betty's bicycle back and forth from camp to town every day and, already the headaches, which had first wakened Betty's sympathy, because of the pallor of her face and the dark circles under her eyes, had begun to grow better from the daily fresh air and exercise. Of the Camp Fire Girls Edith was the oldest; she was about eighteen and had blonde hair and delicate features, with brown eyes. She might have been pretty, but that she needed to grow stronger in body and character, and already the girls and their guardian had discovered that Edith was too fond of tea and coffee and sweets and modern novels for her own health or happiness. The trouble was that her home was too filled with small brothers and sisters and a father and mother too poor to make them comfortable, so that the eldest daughter had been forced to find her own pleasures.