The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest Part 16

A few moments after the Hammonds had said farewell and were gone.

An instant it appeared as if Lucy wished to break away and speak to Kara. The other girl never glanced toward her, or seemed conscious of her presence after her first display of affection, so apparently Lucy lost the desire or the courage.

Immediately the Girl Scouts departed for their sleeping tents accompanied by their Troop Captain.

Miss Mason would return to say good-night to Kara and see that she was comfortable for the night. In the meantime there was the final evening ceremony with her Girl Scouts.

In the big room at present were only Tory, Miss Frean and Mr. Fenton, save for the girl in the wheeled chair.

Mr. Fenton approached Kara.

"I trust so many visitors and so much excitement will not be harmful to you," he said in the dignified fas.h.i.+on that always charmed Kara and his own niece. Mr. Fenton never addressed them as if they were merely young girls and of no special importance.

Always his manner was courtly and agreeable.

Toward Kara he extended a box of candy which he had been carrying under his arm.

"I know candy is to a large extent a forbidden fruit at camp. But as you are a kind of uncrowned queen these days, Kara, I thought you might be permitted to offer a sweet now and then to your ladies in waiting."

During this conversation Tory had crossed over to Miss Frean, persuading her to be seated on a low bench and sitting down beside her.

"I was deeply offended with you, Memory, an hour ago when you held a 'mirror up to nature,' my nature. I detest being lectured. Just the same, I promise to try not to bore Kara too much with my society and to give the other girls more opportunity. But dear me, I did think I was doing the right thing! Often I have wanted dreadfully to go off on our Scouting expeditions and have remained at camp because I thought Kara needed me and did not wish the other girls to be sacrificed. It does require an extraordinary number of virtues to be a good Scout."

Memory Frean shook her head.

"I don't believe I would put the case in just that fas.h.i.+on, Tory. To be a good Scout demands first of all common sense. You have the artistic temperament, Tory, and common sense is perhaps more difficult for you. Glad you are willing to be friends again."

Memory Frean and Mr. Richard Fenton walked back together to the House in the Woods. They had not been alone with each other in more than twenty years.

CHAPTER XIII

A PORTRAIT

Several days later Tory Drew, accompanied by two other of her Troop of Girl Scouts, went forth to spend the morning sketching, not far from their camp.

Her companions were Edith Linder and Martha Greaves, the English Girl Guide, who was her guest.

Personally Tory felt considerable embarra.s.sment concerning her own neglect of the young English girl who had been left dependent in a measure upon her interest and friendliness. She had not intended any rudeness or indifference. Her greater interest and affection for Katherine Moore had dominated all other ideas and emotions.

Even before Miss Frean's lecture Tory had suffered an occasional moment of self-reproach. However, only within the past twenty-four hours had she talked over the situation frankly and openly with Martha and offered an apology.

It was delightful to have discovered her to be altogether sensible and agreeable. Apparently the young English Girl Guide had understood and accepted the circ.u.mstances. She not only failed to express any show of resentment at Tory's unintentional disregard of her, she appeared not to feel any resentment.

"It has all been a wonderful experience for me, the opportunity this summer to meet and know so many American Girl Scouts," she explained.

"Nor has it been possible to feel either lonely or neglected. The other girls have been so friendly and interested. They have talked to me of your devotion to Kara and told me something of Kara's difficult life. I would not have you give up an hour when she needs you to look after me."

Tory was thinking of this and of other characteristics of the English girl, as she sat idly holding her sketch book open in her lap, a drawing pencil in her hand.

Martha and Edith had gone over into one of the fields to look for mushrooms. As Edith had spent the greater part of her life on a small farm, she possessed a good deal of practical outdoor knowledge which the other Girl Scouts were endeavoring to acquire through books and teachers.

Particularly was the English Girl Guide interested in learning all that was possible in one brief summer concerning the American woods and fields. Now and then they appeared oddly unlike her own green and fragrant country with its miles of cultivated gardens and carefully trimmed hedges.

Martha and Edith were especially friendly. Tory was possessed of sufficient knowledge of the world to appreciate this fact as indicating an unusual sweetness and poise upon the part of their English visitor.

Obviously Edith Linder came of simple people. Her father and mother had been poor farmers and were now working in a factory in Westhaven.

Edith made no pretense of anything else and had not received a great deal of education. She had learned much from her winter with Miss Frean, and was learning through her summer with her Troop of Girl Scouts. Nevertheless, there were ways in which she revealed the difference in her past circ.u.mstances from the lives of most of the Girl Scouts with whom she was a.s.sociated at present.

To Martha, Edith's lack of social training must have been especially conspicuous. Martha had been reared in a careful fas.h.i.+on. Her family had been wealthy before the war and owners of a large estate.

Nevertheless the English Girl Guide accepted Edith's efforts toward self-improvement and her evident desire to make friends with perfect tact and good breeding.

Tory knew that social distinctions were more seriously regarded in England than the United States. She concluded if ever the moment were propitious to inquire of Martha if the Girl Guides represented an effort toward real Democracy in the sense the American Girl Scouts trusted that they represented the same purpose.

At length Tory took up her pencil and began drawing.

She was seated in an open place in the woods not far from their dancing ground within the circle of giant beech trees.

Later in the day Evan Phillips' mother was to give the Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing their first lesson in outdoor dancing.

The thought of this in prospect interrupted Tory's effort. With an impatient gesture she picked up the paper upon which she was working and tearing it into bits flung the pieces to the winds.

Her father insisted that she draw from still life and she had been using a distant tree as her model.

Is there anything in the world more difficult to represent with its dignity, grace and beneficence than a tree?

At this instant Tory certainly was convinced there was not.

Half unconsciously her pencil began indicating the figure of a girl in various att.i.tudes.

For years, whenever left to her own devices, Tory had amused herself in this fas.h.i.+on. However crude her drawings of human figures, since she was a tiny girl they had in them a suggestion of life and action.

A noise, apparently coming from behind a clump of bushes not far off, distracted the artist's attention.

Tory raised her eyes.

Beyond the bushes she thought she beheld some one move.

"Martha, Edith!" she called out.

At first there was no reply.

The second call brought a response.

From farther away Martha and Edith halloed in Girl Scout fas.h.i.+on.