The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest Part 6

she began, with a kind of awkward earnestness. The statement had not a happy sound, but the other girls waited, knowing that Louise had an odd fas.h.i.+on of expressing herself. One could not at first be altogether sure of her meaning.

"We must remember that it is not for Kara's sake only that we are to keep her here, if Dr. McClain agrees it will be wise, but for our own sakes as well. While Tory has been talking I have been wondering if we were equal, as Girl Scouts, to the test.

"You look surprised, Tory, as if there could be no question save the joy of having Kara to take care of and her pleasure in being with us.

There will be other sides to it. Some one of us will always have to stay with Kara day and night. She must never be left alone for any length of time, when we may be wanting to go off together on a hike or a swimming party. It may be hard now and then to be left out. We must not expect Kara always to be cheerful and patient."

Louise had been looking toward Tory Drew. She now turned her head and her glance traveled from one face to the other.

The group of girls, except for a few additional ones, was the same that had gathered in the old Fenton home in Westhaven on a momentous evening the winter before.

On that evening they had formed the first Patrol of the Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing Troop. Margaret Hale remained the Patrol Leader and Dorothy McClain her Corporal. The other girls were Victoria Drew, Joan Peters, Louise Miller, Teresa Peterson and Katherine Moore. Edith Linder had been asked later to become the eighth member and so complete the favored number.

To-day, amid the outdoor council in the woods, there were four girls from a second Patrol in the same Girl Scout Troop.

"Honor, loyalty, duty, a sister to every other Girl Scout, courtesy, cheerfulness. These are some of our Scout principles. I wonder if bringing Katherine Moore here as an invalid to be cared for by us would not put our Scout principles into a crucible?" one of the four remarked unexpectedly.

Tory Drew frowned upon her, and then realizing the truth of what she had said, her expression changed and she nodded agreement.

Why should she expect that all the other girls must appreciate as she did the degree of Kara's misfortune and the necessity to do something to make her lot easier without delay.

The girl she was looking down upon always had amused Kara and herself.

She was so unlike any of them. Her light hair was almost as short as a boy's and was boyish in appearance, save that it curled in an almost babyish fas.h.i.+on. Her eyes were wide open and a light china blue. Here her doll-like attributes ended. She had a short, determined nose, a square chin, and a large mouth filled with small, even teeth.

She had an odd, boyish name as well, Evan Phillips. No one knew a great deal about her. She had come with her mother to live in Westhaven the winter before in order to go to school. She had spoken of living in California before that time. A member of a Girl Scout Patrol in the west, she had asked to be admitted into the Eagle's Wing Troop in Westhaven.

The three other members of the second Patrol were Julia and Frances Murray and Ann Fletcher.

"What is a crucible, Evan?" Tory inquired. "I don't care in the least how many of our Scout principles are cast into it, if only Kara is here at camp with us. I know what Louise means, but no one need be troubled. If Kara will permit it, I shall wish to be with her always."

"You will not be allowed, Tory. Remember, Kara is our friend as well as yours, and we have known her longer," Dorothy McClain and the other girls protested, almost in the same words and at the same instant.

"Suppose you do not argue any more for the present," a quiet voice interrupted, the same voice that so often gave Tory the sensation that she had been quietly and politely restrained from too great intensity.

"I am sure I hear some one coming, three people in fact."

It was slightly annoying to the American Girl Scouts that in many ways their English guest had a better outdoor training than any one of them. However, this was not her first camping experience.

A moment or so later Dr. McClain appeared at an opening between two of the trees in the encircling grove. He was accompanied by Sheila Mason and Miss Frean. The two women remained outside. Alone Dr. McClain entered the charmed circle. At once a dozen girls were crowding about him.

A quarter of an hour after Tory Drew and Dorothy McClain were walking with him toward the road that led back into Westhaven.

"We will have the little evergreen house made comfortable for Kara.

Miss Mason and all of us have decided she will be safer and easier to care for there than in one of the tents. You are sure it will be best for her? She must become stronger and in better spirits being with us," Dorothy McClain insisted, clinging to her father's arm as if she were unwilling to let him go. "I declare it is wonderful to have a Girl Scout doctor--father!"

Dr. McClain made a sound half pleasure, half displeasure.

"So this is what I have come to after more than a quarter of a century of hard work, a Girl Scout Doctor! Hope you girls may have no further need for me. Hard luck about little Kara. Things may turn out better for her later on. By the way, you and Tory do not know, and perhaps had best not mention it, but the very log cabin where you are planning to install Kara is the house where the child was found deserted years ago."

"But gracious, Dr. McClain!" Tory argued, "I have always been told that Kara was found in a deserted _farmhouse_. Our evergreen cabin was never a farmhouse. Mr. Hammond once spoke of finding Kara when I was with them, and he was not aware that Kara was the child he had discovered.

"Then Jeremy Hammond does not know a farmhouse when he sees one. The house was a deserted hut in those days where no one had lived for a great many years. That is why the mystery was the greater. A bridle path then led past the door and joined a road that was a short cut into Westhaven. The path is now overgrown with gra.s.s.

"I remember very well, because I came out myself next day to see if Hammond, who was a young fellow, may have overlooked any method by which we might trace Kara's history. Save for the piece of paper pinned to the child's dress and bearing her name no other information was ever forthcoming. Good-by, here is my car waiting. I'll bring Kara out myself in a few days. Remember, this is only to be an experiment.

If she is not happier and does not improve we must try something else.

Much depends upon you. 'Be Prepared'."

CHAPTER VI

"THE CHOROS"

In the open s.p.a.ce a solitary figure was dancing.

The enclosure was not the circular place where the Girl Scouts held their councils, but deeper in the woods, although not a great distance away.

The s.p.a.ce was larger. Instead of being surrounded by giant beech trees, a new grove of young beeches was here growing up to take the places of older trees that had died or been cut down. Their slender trunks were high and arched, their branches curved downward. They seemed to stoop, as young things that have grown too tall for their own strength. The green of their leaves was paler and more transparent. Underneath the trees the ground was covered with a finer, softer gra.s.s.

The girl was dancing barefoot. She wore a thin white dress. On the ground not far away was the khaki costume which she must have discarded for the time being.

Her hair was short and fair, and she had a square, determined, lightly freckled face. She was short and her figure not particularly graceful in repose. Watching her dancing one thought of neither of these things. The square head with the light fringe of curling hair was perfectly poised, the body showed strength and lightness.

At this moment the girl was moving in a wide circle inside the fringe of young beeches. Her arms were extended above her head; at regular intervals she poised and stood upon her toes, then danced more rapidly. At length, with a little fluttering movement like a swallow about to alight, she dropped on the gra.s.s, her arms covering her head.

From a short distance away came exclamations of pleasure.

Stiffening with surprise, anger, and what might have been alarm, the small figure arose.

Tory Drew, pus.h.i.+ng a wheeled chair with a good deal of difficulty, slowly advanced. Seated in the chair was Katherine Moore.

"Evan, I am sorry we have intruded upon you and stopped your dance. It did not occur to me until this moment that you did not hear us approaching. Kara was bored and I thought if I could manage we would come down here to our 'Choros.' Isn't it learned to have called our dancing ground by the name of the first dancing grounds ever discovered and built by Daedalus, the famous artificer of Crete?

However, we are obliged to give Miss Frean the credit for most of our erudition.

"We will go on again to the lake as soon as I have rested a little.

May I say that it was wonderful to see you? I did not dream that any one of our Girl Scout Troop could dance as you do. I am sure Kara must have enjoyed watching you. So you will forgive my not having told you we were near."

The girl in the wheeled chair lifted her head.

"I wonder, Tory, why you think I enjoy seeing another person dance?

Isn't it hard enough to sit everlastingly watching you walking, swimming, doing whatever you wish, while I am more helpless than a baby? Naturally it affords me _especial_ joy to behold another girl who can do all these other things and dance like a wood nymph besides!"

In the young voice there was a note that made her companions stare helplessly toward her and then drop their eyes as if they were responsible and ashamed.

"Kara, dear, it is my fault. Things always seem to be my fault, I am so stupid these days! I never realized that you would mind the dancing. I had forgotten how much you used to care for dancing.

Besides, I did not suppose we would find any one here, and thought we could enjoy the cool and the quiet.

"Good-by, Evan. You _are_ a wood nymph. Kara was right."