The Woodcraft Girls in the City Part 6

"Corner or not, that last suggestion is all right!" declared Hilda.

"And instead of tacking the scenery on top of the poles and having it sag between each upright, why not have a wire or rope stretched taut from one pole to the next, and so on, and hang the scenery by means of hooks?" continued the Guide.

"I suppose such common commodities as clothes-pins would be spurned by Indians," ventured Hilda.

"I should say 'double yes'!" retorted Zan, slangily.

"It is most apparent that Zan is a.s.sociating with the 'causes' of her slang again. She said this Summer that the habit was the fault of hearing her brothers use it so freely," remarked Miss Miller.

"This time it was the fault of Hilda's clothes-pins," laughed Zan.

"Well anyway, clothes-pins are made of forest stuff and curtain pins are not!" defended Hilda.

"I will offer my services to the Band and inquire of an interior decorator I know, to see what would be the best hanger," said the Guide.

"All right, Miss Miller, you do that and we will attend to the rest,"

added Jane.

"I suppose two white-wash brushes ought to be better to paint with than camels-hair No. 0," laughed Elena.

"Use whatever you like but for goodness' sake, girls, don't put your 'atmosphere' on too thick! It will take an age to dry out if you do,"

commented Zan.

Then the Council ended with the singing of the Zuni Sunset Song and the quenching of the Council Fire-in this case the electric current was switched off and the log fire-place taken back to the closet. When everything was in order, the girls left and went home, eagerly talking over the beautiful scenery-to-be.

CHAPTER THREE-HEARD IN THE "SCENIC FOREST"

After leaving the other girls at the corner of Maple Avenue, May Randall and Eleanor Wilbur walked on alone. May was large for her age, but most enthusiastic over Woodcraft as she was a devotee of gymnastics and all out-door exercises.

"Isn't that Woodcraft foolishness a perfect scream?" said Eleanor, jeeringly.

May looked at her companion with surprise. "A scream! Why don't you think it is splendid?"

"Oh, it answers well enough when one has nothing else to do, but you won't catch me giving my time to making things or helping work just to boost a League that wants free advertising," retorted Eleanor.

"Why Eleanor Wilbur! You know that isn't true. Why would the Woodcraft League want advertising? They should worry whether we girls boost or not. The cost of keeping this thing going is far beyond what we pay in.

That Manual alone is worth ten times the price we are charged for it.

Then too, each Band has the free right to make its own individual laws and work or meet as it likes," defended May.

"I suppose you are so mesmerised by Zan and Miss Miller, who are crazy about the thing, that you can't see how silly the ideas of Council, or singing, or obeying laws are! Of course the camping and fun are all right!"

"If that's the way you feel about it why not resign now before your name is posted on the Totem? You know there is one too many."

"Why should I resign when I want some fun this Winter? Resign yourself if there is one too many! If I had the money Jane Hubert or Zan Baker have for an allowance, you wouldn't catch me wasting time with your old Band. I'd go to a matinee every chance I'd get, and have other fun, too.

But I never get enough spending-money to buy decent candy, let alone go to a good show!" complained Eleanor.

May made no reply but she looked at her companion, and Eleanor, glancing at her as she concluded, read May's thoughts.

"I suppose you are such a Pharisee that you couldn't think of anything so wicked as a theatre or a little supper-party," ventured Eleanor, with a mean sneer.

"I guess I'll turn down this street and walk home alone. I prefer it to any such company as you can offer me," retorted May. And that sentence caused all the after trouble.

"Old hypocrite!" muttered Eleanor to herself, as she went on alone. "She thinks by pandering to the first Woodcrafters she'll push herself in.

But those five girls are too clannish to admit outsiders into their charmed circle, and that sweet p.u.s.s.y-footed Miller is worst of all!"

Hence Eleanor was not in the friendliest of moods when she met May at school the following morning. She pretended not to see her and only when May spoke directly to her, did she reply. May said nothing to the other girls about the conversation that took place between them on that walk home the day before, although Eleanor thought she had.

The names of the six members-to-be were posted on the Totem Pole which was placed at the entrance to the gymnasium where every scholar going in or coming out could read the notice.

At recess-time the Woodcrafters were the centre of attraction and many eager requests from other girls to be allowed to join the Tribe, was the result of the notice on the Totem Pole.

"Just can't do it, girls! We have one too many as it is. A Band is only allowed ten members and we have eleven proposed, so one has to be dropped," explained Zan.

"Which one?" asked Martha Wheaton, curiously.

"We won't know until the time for testing is up. The one that falls short will have to make a graceful exit, I s'pose," replied Jane.

"It ought to be Eleanor Wilbur, then. She's going around telling everybody what a farce the whole business is. She acts as if she had a bone to pick with you girls. Did anything happen at the Council to antagonise her?" said Martha.

"Why-no! I thought she was enjoying herself immensely. I'll go and ask her if she intends to drop out," said Zan.

"But don't tell who told you! I don't want to get in bad with her-you know what a mean tongue she has!" hurriedly cried Martha, wis.h.i.+ng she had kept quiet about the entire affair.

"Hey, there, Ella! Wait a minute-I want to see you!" called Zan, running after the girl who was making for the doorway.

"What do you want? I'm going in to study!" snapped Eleanor, fearing Zan meant to find fault with her about May Randall.

"I just heard something about your way of looking at our Woodcraft work, so you'd better make up your mind to-day whether you meant what you said or not. There're piles of other girls only waiting a chance to grab what you laugh at!" Zan spoke angrily as she stood at the foot of the door-steps looking up at Eleanor.

Eleanor half-turned at the entrance door and sneered: "I read part of that poky Manual last night, and I couldn't find a single thing there that would authorise a Chief to call down a member of the Tribe outside of Woodcraft meetings. I can do or say what I please without your over-bearing dominion of my rights!"

Zan felt like throwing her Latin book at Eleanor's head, but Jane ran up and whispered: "Forget it! Give her rope enough and she'll hang herself, all right!"

And as Zan turned away with Jane, Eleanor watched them and thought to herself: "I'd better not say anything that'll get to that Miller's ears, or she'll remove my name from the Totem without as much as saying 'By your leave!' But I'll have it out on that May Randall, all right, for tattling what she should have considered a confidential talk."

Down in her heart, Eleanor knew she wanted to be a member of Woodcraft, not for the fun alone, but because she saw what it had done for the five girls that Summer. She longed to be a different type of girl from what she generally was, but so all-powerful was her human will that it kept her from doing or saying what she really wished to; and so cowardly was the trait to make strangers believe her charmingly perfect, that she generally found herself in trouble about one friend or another. Even at home, she praised the maid to her face and then denounced her to her mother. Had she dared she might have carried out the same hypocrisy between her mother and father, but Mr. Wilbur was the one being for whom she had any fear or respect, so she never misrepresented things to him.

It was not the _real_ Eleanor that scoffed at Woodcraft and gossiped injuriously about it, but the weak mortal self that was the wretched counterfeit of the real and true Eleanor. The girl had not yet discovered this duality in her nature, but she had felt a growing dissatisfaction with herself and her environment since entering High School, and this unhappy state of mind aggravated her desire to belittle others or their efforts to climb to a higher plane of living.

Had Eleanor stopped to diagnose her feelings and actions she would have realised that the "misunderstandings" (as she termed the quarrels and trouble resulting from her poisoned darts of gossip) could be easily traced to the vindictive and malicious desires she entertained, while the sweet and pure and altogether attractive qualities that had been paramount in her early childhood years were becoming weaker and weaker through lack of expression. So at fourteen, at the character-forming time when a girl needs to be on guard that all undesirable tendencies are carefully eliminated to keep them from taking root for all future years, Eleanor, and those she a.s.sociated with, were in a constant state of confusion and irritation created by her stubborn and selfish wilfulness.

During the week following the first Council meeting of the new members, the Band bought materials and began work on the forest scenery and wooden upright stands. Elena, Nita, and May Randall were given the roll of white duck to paint, while the other girls measured and sawed and hammered the 2 x 4 timbers to make the uprights necessary to hold the scenic walls of the woodland camp.

All that week Eleanor had been one of the first of the Woodcrafters to be on hand, but the moment the actual carpentry began, she would sigh, and scoff, and belittle the efforts of the others, or wonder why anyone spent good time on such foolish ideas!