The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World Part 1

The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World.

by Margaret Vandercook.

CHAPTER I

"DO YOU REMEMBER ME?"

Walking slowly down a broad stairway, a girl carried three old silver candlesticks in her hands. And although the hallway was in semi-darkness, the candles had not yet been lighted. It was a cold November afternoon and the great house was chill and silent.

Entering the drawing room, she placed the candles upon the mantelpiece.

Her breath was like a small gray cloud before her; and her dress, too, was the color of the mist and soft and clinging.

"Work, health and love," she murmured quietly, striking a match and watching the candles flicker and flare until finally they burned with a steady glow. "If one has these three things in life as I have, what else is worth worrying over?" Then the sigh that came in answer to her own question almost extinguished the candle flames.

"There are bills and boarders of course--too many of the first and at present none of the second," she added with a kind of whimsical smile.

"But, oh dear, what a trying Thanksgiving day this has been, when even the Camp Fire ideals won't comfort me! d.i.c.k 'way off in Germany, Polly and Esther studying in New York and me face to face with my failure to save the old house. It is not worth while pretending; the house must be sold and mother and I shall have to find some other place to live.

In the morning I will go and tell Judge Maynard that I give up."

Sadly Betty Ashton glanced about the familiar room. The portraits of her New England ancestors appeared to gaze coldly and reproachfully down upon her. They had not been of the stuff of which failures are made. Her grand piano was closed and dusty, the window blinds were partly pulled down, and although a fire was laid in the grate, it was not burning. Dust, cold and an unaccustomed atmosphere of neglect enveloped everything.

With a lifting of her head and a tightening of her lips that gave her face a new expression, the girl suddenly pulled open a table drawer and began fiercely to polish the top of the piano while she talked.

"There is no reason why I should allow this place to look so dismal just because things have gone wrong with my efforts to keep boarders and continue my work at school. As no one is coming to see me I can't afford a fire, but I'll open the piano and place Esther's song, 'The Soul's Desire,' on the music rack, just as though she were at home to sing it for me. d.i.c.k's dull old books shall lie here on the table where he used to leave them, near this red rose that John Everett brought me this morning. Somehow the rose makes me think of Polly. It is so radiant. How curious that certain persons suggest certain colors! Now Polly is often pale as a ghost, and yet red always makes me recall her."

A few moments afterwards and Betty moved toward the front window and stood there staring out into the street, too deep in thought to be actually conscious of what she was doing.

She had changed in the past six months of struggle with poverty and work beyond her strength. There were shadows under her gray eyes and worried lines about the corners of her mouth. Instead of being slim as formerly, she was undeniably so thin that even the folds of her delicate crepe dress could not wholly disguise it.

It was not that Mrs. Ashton and Betty had spent this lonely day in their old home, because their former friends had neglected them.

Indeed, they had had invitations to Thanksgiving dinners from half a dozen sources. But Mrs. Ashton had not been well in several months and was today too ill for her daughter to leave her. The two women were now entirely alone in the house. One by one their boarders had deserted them, and the previous week they had even felt compelled to give up the old cook, who had been in the service of the Ashton family for twenty years.

At first Betty saw nothing to attract her attention in the street outside--not a single pa.s.ser-by. It was odd how quiet and cold the world seemed with her mother asleep in one of the far-away rooms upstairs and other persons evidently too much interested in indoor amus.e.m.e.nts to care for wandering through the dull town.

In another instant, however, the girl's attention was caught by the appearance of a figure which seemed to spring up suddenly out of nowhere and to stand gazing intently toward the Ashton house. It was almost dark, and yet Betty could distinguish a young man, roughly dressed, wearing no overcoat, with his coat collar turned up and a cap pulled down over his eyes. Without being frightened, she was curious and interested. Why should the man behave so queerly? He now walked past the house and then turned and came back, not once but several times. Evidently he had not observed the girl at the window. At last however he gave up, and Betty believed that she saw him disappear behind the closed cottage of the O'Neills. No longer entertained, she prepared to leave the drawing room. It was too chilly to remain there any longer. Moreover, studying the familiar objects she had loved so long only made the thought of their surrender more painful. Betty once more faced her three candles.

"Be strong as the f.a.gots are st.u.r.dy; Be pure in your deepest desire; Be true to the truth that is in you;"

"And--follow the law of the fire," she repeated with a catch in her breath. Then with greater strength and resolution in her face she blew out two of the candles, and picking up the third, started on her way upstairs.

The next moment there came a quick, m.u.f.fled ring at the front door bell.

The girl hesitated; yet there was no one else in the house to answer the bell, and only a friend, she thought, could come at this hour.

Shading her light from the wind with one hand she pulled open the door with the other, already smiling with pleasure at the idea of thus ending her loneliness.

Close against the door she discovered the young man whom she had seen only a few moments before in the street.

He did not speak nor move immediately.

"What do you wish?" Betty demanded a trifle impatiently. The fellow had both fists rammed deep into his pockets and had not the courtesy to remove his hat. With a slight sense of uneasiness, Betty thought of closing the door. The unexpected visitor kept edging closer toward her and was apparently fumbling for something in his coat.

"Please tell me what it is you want at once," the girl repeated almost angrily. "This is Mrs. Ashton's house if you are looking for it. My mother and I are entirely alone." Having made this speech Betty instantly recognized its stupidity and regretted it.

However the young man had at last succeeded in removing a small oblong package from his pocket, which he silently thrust toward her. On the wrapper in big letters, such as a child might have written, the girl was able to decipher her own name. But while she was puzzling over it, and before she could thank the messenger, he had hurried off.

Betty set her candle down on the lowest of the front steps and kneeling before it rapidly undid her parcel. Inside the paper she discovered a crudely hand-carved wooden box, and opening the lid, a blank sheet of folded white paper.

She shook the paper. Had some one sent her a Thanksgiving present or was she being made the victim of a joke? But from between the blank sheets something slowly fluttered to her feet. And picking it up with a little cry of surprise Betty saw a crisp new ten dollar bill.

Immediately her cheeks turned scarlet and her eyes filled with indignant tears. Only by an effort of will could the tears be kept from falling. Did any one of her friends consider her so poverty-stricken that it was necessary to send her money in this anonymous fas.h.i.+on?

Scarcely waiting to think, Betty rushed out of the house and down the old paved brick walk out into the street. For there might be a bare chance that the messenger was not yet out of sight. Sure enough, there he was still loitering on the corner about half a block away.

Bareheaded, and in her thin dress, with the money in her hand, the girl ran forward. And actually as she reached the young man, she caught him fast by the sleeve.

"Please, you must tell me who sent me this money or else take it back at once and say that though I am very much obliged I cannot receive a gift delivered in this secret fas.h.i.+on."

The two young people were standing near an electric light so that they could now see each other plainly. Betty observed a tall, overgrown boy with thin, straight features and clear hazel eyes, and now that his hat was removed, a ma.s.s of curly dark hair, which had been vainly smoothed down.

"I can't take the money back, since it belongs to you," the young man answered awkwardly.

Inside her Betty heard a small voice whispering: "If it only really did!" For the ten dollars would buy Christmas presents for her mother, for Polly and Esther and others of her friends. Nevertheless she shook her head.

"The money cannot be mine and so you must return it." Then finding that her insistence was failing to have any effect, she dropped the money on the ground at the young fellow's feet and walked away.

"But, Miss Ashton," the stranger's voice argued, "please believe me when I say that this money is yours. Oh, of course I don't mean this special ten dollar bill; for yours was spent nearly a year ago. But at least the money represents the same amount."

Betty paused and again faced the speaker. There was sincerity in his tone--a determined appeal. But what on earth could he be talking about? He looked perfectly rational, although his statement was so extraordinary.

"You don't recognize me and I am truly glad," the young man went on.

"But can't you recall once having befriended a fellow when instead you ought to have sent him to jail? He did not deserve your kindness then.

He was actually trying to steal from you the money which you afterwards gave him of your own free will. But he has tried since to be honest."

He ceased abruptly. For Betty's eyes were s.h.i.+ning and she was thrusting her little cold hand into his big one.

"You're not!" she exclaimed.

"Yes I am," the boy returned.

"Anthony Graham, Nan's brother?" Betty laughed happily. "Then please give me back the money I refused. I did not understand that you were returning the loan. Of course I understand how you feel about it. And do come back and into the house with me. I so want you to tell me all about yourself. I hope you have had splendid luck."

The young man's shabby appearance did not suggest sudden riches.

Nevertheless he smiled.

For more than ever did Betty Ashton appear to him like the Princess of his dreams. Only once before had he met her face to face. And yet the vision had never left him. He could still see the picture of a girl moving toward him, her face filled with shame--for him--and her eyes downcast; and thrusting into his clenched fist, which had so lately been raised to injure her, the money which had given him the desired opportunity for getting away from his old a.s.sociations and beginning again.

Enter her home and tell her of his struggle! Anthony felt far more like kneeling in the dust at her feet. Yet being a boy he could only blush and stammer without words to voice his grat.i.tude.