THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL
By Margaret Vandercook
First of a series
CHAPTER I
THE VOICE
Betty Ashton sighed until the leaves of the book she held in her hand
quivered, then she flung it face downward on the floor.
"Oh dear, I do wish some one would invent something new for girls!" she
exclaimed, although there was no one in the room to hear her. "It seems
to me that all girls do nowadays is to imitate boys. We play their
games, read their old books and even do their work, when all the time
girls are really wanting girl things. I agree with King Solomon: 'The
thing that hath been, it is that which, shall be; and that which is done
is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.'
At least not for girls!"
Then with a laugh at her own pessimism, Betty, like Hamlet, having found
relief in soliloquy, jumped up from her chair and crossing her room
pressed the electric button near the fireplace until the noise of its
ringing reverberated through the big, quiet house.
"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered. Do the
maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire? I suppose
I could do it if I tried."
She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the
sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually
doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the
next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the glass of her
closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into her
own garden.
Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a
darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their
white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as
though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.
In spite of her petulance Betty laughed. She was wearing a blue
dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet
ribbon of the same shade. Her room was in blue, "Betty's Blue" as her
friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but
has soft shadows in it.
Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen. She had gray eyes, a
short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an
effect of refinement that was almost disdain. Her mouth was a little
discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though she
had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for
something.
"The outdoors is as dismal as I am, no wonder we used to be sun
worshipers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting; "but since
Prometheus stole the fire from heaven some ages ago, I really don't see
why I should have to freeze because the sun won't shine."
Frowning and gathering her dressing gown more closely about her with
another impatient gesture, Betty swept out into the hall.
The house was strangely silent for the middle of a week-day afternoon;
not a sound came either from below stairs or above, not the rattle of a
window blind nor the echo of a single pair of footsteps.
At some time has a sudden silence ever fallen upon you with a sense of
foreboding like the hour before a storm or the moment preceding some
unexpected news or change in your life?
Betty hurried toward the back-stairs. She was leaning over the
banisters and had called once for one of the maids, when she ceased
abruptly, and stood still for several moments with her head tilted back
and her body tense with surprise.
So long as Betty could recall, there had been a vacant room in the rear
of the old Ashton homestead, which had stood for more than a hundred
years at the comer of Elm Street in Woodford, New Hampshire. She was
stupider than other people about remembering the events of her childhood
and yet she was sure that this room had never been used for any purpose
save as a storehouse for old pieces of furniture, for discarded
pictures, for any odds and ends that found no other resting place about
the great house. It was curious because the room was a particularly
attractive one, with big windows overlooking the back garden, but then
there was some story or other connected with it (old houses have old
memories) and this must have made it unpopular. Betty did not know what
the story was and yet she had grown up with a queer, childish dread of
this room and rarely went into it unless she felt compelled.
Now, though she was not a coward, it did give her an uncanny sensation
to hear a low, humming sound proceeding from this supposedly empty room.
Cautiously Betty stole toward its closed door and quietly turned the
knob without making the least noise. Then she looked in.
What transformation had taken place! The room was a store place no
longer, for most of the old furniture and all the other rubbish had been
cleared away and what was left was arranged in a comfortable, living
fashion. An old rug was spread out on the floor, a white iron bed stood
in one corner with an empty bookshelf above it. There was a vase on a
table holding a branch of blossoming pussy willow, and seated before one
of the big, open windows was a strange girl whom Betty Ashton never
remembered to have seen before in her life.
The girl was sewing, but this was not what kept Betty silent. She was
also singing a new and strangely beautiful song.
"Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame, 0 Master of the Hidden Fire; Wash
pure my heart, and cleanse for me My soul's desire."
Unconscious of the intruder and forgetful of everything else the
singer's voice rose clearer and sweeter with the second verse.
"In flame of sunrise bathe my mind, 0 Master of the Hidden Fire, That
when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul's desire."
Then in silence, as she leaned closer to the window to get a better
light on her sewing, an unexpected ray of sunshine managing at this
moment to break through the clouds fell directly on her bowed head. Her
hair was not auburn, like Betty's, but bright, undeniable red.
"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you mind
telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you happen to
be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton inquired, coolly,
still keeping her position just outside the opened door.
The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown
embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood
with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously
twisting her big, rather coarse-looking hands. She was a year older
than Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult
to imagine two persons more unlike. Betty was slender but perfectly
proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which her
friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished ancestors,
while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet that seemed
too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin. She too had gray eyes, but
while Betty's brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this girl's
were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her eyes.
In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across the
room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her unexpected
charm and dignity.
"Hasn't your mother told you of my coming? didn't she ask you if you
wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly. "I am sorry; my name is
Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you. Your mother has
asked me here to live, to take care of your clothes, to read to you, to
take walks when there is no one else - "
"Oh, you mean you are to be my maid," Betty finished, coming now into
the center of the room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes
suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.
"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to
me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to
whether I wished to be bothered with you." Betty bit her lips, for she
did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was
unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.
The older girl's face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson.
"No, I am not to be your maid," she returned. "At least Mrs. Ashton
said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in
any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for
studying. Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I
hope to graduate. If you don't wish me to stay you will please explain
it to your mother, only - " Esther tried to speak naturally, but her
voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least
until I can find some other place. I am too old to go back to the
asylum."
"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed,
showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that
relieved her face of some of its former plainness.
"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don't be frightened," she
explained. "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever
since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there
was nothing else to do with me. But you need not feel specially sorry,
because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in
books. Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been
going to school for years. Only when your mother came last week and
said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of
wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of
all I wanted to know you. You will think it strange of me, but I have
been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little
girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been
interested in you."
Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an
exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed. "Oh, you will be sorry
enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably
think I am dreadfully spoiled. But do please stay for a while if you
wish, at least until we find how we get on together."
Since Betty's first speech at the door had startled her, Esther had
never for a moment taken her eyes from her face. Never in all her life,
even when she had seen and learned far more of the ways of the world,
could this girl learn not to speak the truth. So now she slowly shook
her head. "Your mother did say you were spoiled; it was one reason why
she wished me to come here to live," she replied. "You see, she said
that you had been too much alone and had too much done for you and that
your brother was so much older that he only helped to spoil you. But,"
Esther was hardly conscious of her listener and seemed only to be
thinking aloud, "I shall not mind if you are spoiled, for how can you
help being when you are so pretty and fortunate and have all the things
that other girls have just to dream of possessing."
It was odd, perhaps, but the new girl's speech was made so simply and
sincerely that Betty Ashton instead of feeling angry or complimented was
instead a little ashamed. Had fortune been kinder to her than to other
girls, kinder than to the awkward girl in front of her in her plain gray
linen dress?
Betty now backed toward the door which she had so lately opened. "I am
sorry to have disturbed you, but usually this room isn't occupied and I
was curious to know who could be in here. I should have knocked. Some
day you must sing that lovely song to me, again, for I think I would
like very much to know just what my soul's desire is. The worst of life
is not knowing just what you want."
Esther had followed Betty toward the hall. "How funny that sounds to
me," she returned shyly, "because I think the hard part of life is not
having what you want. I know very well. But can't I do something for
you now? Your mother said you were not well and perhaps would not wish
to see me this afternoon, but I could read to you or - "
Betty's irritability returned. "Thank you very much," she returned
coldly, "but I can think of nothing in the world that would amuse me at
present. I simply wish not to freeze, and to save my life I can't get
one of our tiresome maids to answer my bell."
Betty's grand manner had returned, but in spite of her haughtiness the
newcomer persisted. "Do let me make the fire for you. I am only a wood-
gatherer at present, but pretty soon I shall be a real fire-maker, for I
have already been working for two months."
"A wood-gatherer and fire-maker; what extraordinary things a girl was
forced to become at an orphan asylum!" Betty's sympathies were
immediately aroused and her cheeks burned with resentment at the sudden
vision of this girl at her side trudging through the woods, her back
bent under heavy burdens. No wonder her shoulders stooped and her hands
were coarse. Betty slipped her arm through the stranger's.
"No, I won't trouble you to make my fire, but do come into my room and
let us just talk. None of my friends have been in to see me this
afternoon, not even the faithless Polly! They are too busy getting
ready for the end of school to think about poor, ill me." And Betty
laughed gayly at the untruthfulness of this picture of herself.
Once inside the blue room, without asking permission, Esther knelt
straightway down before the brass andirons and with deft fingers placed
a roll of twisted paper under a lattice-like pile of kindling, arranging
three small pine logs in a triangle above it. But before setting a
match to the paper she turned toward the other girl hovering about her
like a butterfly.
"I wonder if you would like me to recite the fire-maker's song?" she
asked. "I haven't the right to say it yet, but it is so lovely that I
would like you to hear it."
Betty stared and laughed. "Do fire-makers have songs?" she demanded.
"How queer that sounds! Perhaps the Indians used to have fire songs
long ago when a fire really meant so much. But I can't imagine a maid's
chanting a song before one's fire in the morning and I don't think I
should like being wakened up by it."
"You would like this one," the other girl persisted.
Little yellow spurts of flame were now creeping forth from between the
sticks, some leaping away into nothingness, others curling and enfolding
them. The paper in the grate crackled noisily as the cold May wind
swept down the chimney with a defiant roar and both girls silently
watched the newly kindled fire with the fascination that is eternal.
Betty had also dropped down on her knees. "What is your song?" she
asked curiously an instant later, raising her hands before her face to
let the firelight shine through.
Esther's head was bent so that her face could not be seen, but the
beauty of her speech was reflected in the other girl's changing
expression.
"As fuel is brought to the fire, So I purpose to bring My strength, my
ambition, My heart's desire, My joy And my sorrow To the fire Of
humankind."
Purposely Esther's voice dropped with these last words, and she did not
continue until a hand was placed gently on her shoulder and a voice
urged: "Please go on; what is the 'fire of humankind'?"
"For I will tend As my fathers have tended And my fathers' fathers Since
time began, The fire that is called The love of man for man, The love of
man for God."
At the end, Esther glancing around at the girl beside her was surprised
to see a kind of mist over her gray eyes.
But Betty laughed as she got up to her feet and going over to her table
stooped to pick up the book she had thrown on the floor half an hour
before.
"I might have made my own fire if I had known that song," she said,
switching on the electric light under the rose-colored shade. For the
clouds outside had broken at last, the rain was pouring and the blue
room save for the firelight would have been in darkness.
Betty sat down, putting her feet under her and resting her chin on her
hands. "I wonder what it feels like to be useful?" she asked, evidently
questioning herself, for afterwards she turned toward her companion.
"You must have learned a great many things by being brought up at an
orphan asylum, how to care for, other people and all that, but I never
would have dreamed that poetry would have played any part in your
education."
Esther had turned and was about to leave the room, but now at Betty's
words, she looked at her strangely.
Her face had reddened again and because of the intensity of her feelings
her big hands were once more pressed nervously together.
"Why, no, I never learned anything at the asylum but work," she answered
slowly, "just dull, hateful, routine work; doing the same things over
again every day in the same way, cooking and washing dishes and
scrubbing. I suppose I was being useful, but there isn't much fun in
being useful when nobody cares or seems to be helped by what you do. I
know I am ugly and not clever, but I love beautiful people and,
beautiful things."
Unconsciously her glance traveled from her listener's face to the small
piano in the corner of the room. "And it never seemed to me that
things, were divided quite fairly in this world, but now that I know
about the Camp Fire, Girls I am ever so much happier."
"Camp Fire Girls?" Betty queried. "Do sit down, child, I don't wish you
to leave me, and please don't say horrid things about yourself, for it
isn't polite and you never can tell how things are going to turn out.
But who are the Camp Fire Girls; what are the Camp Fire Girls; are they
Indians or Esquimaux or the fire-maidens in 'The Nibelungen'? Perhaps,
after all, something new has been invented for girls, and a little while
ago I felt as discouraged as King Solomon and believed there was nothing
new and nothing worth while under the sun."
Betty's eyes were dancing with fun and anticipation, her bored look had
entirely disappeared, but the other girl evidently took her question
seriously. She had seated herself in a small desk chair and kept her
eyes fixed on the fire. "It seems very queer to me that you don't know
about the 'Camp Fire Girls'," she answered slowly, "and it may take me a
long time to tell you even the little bit I know, but I think it the
most splendid thing that has ever happened."
CHAPTER II
"METHINKS YOU ARE MY GLASS"
Just across the street from the old Ashton place was another house
equally old and yet wholly unlike it, for instead of being a stately,
well-kept-up mansion with great rooms and broad halls and half an acre
of garden about it, this was a cottage of the earliest New England type.
It was low and rambling, covering a good deal of ground and yet without
any porch and very little yard, because as the village closed about it
and Elm Street became a fashionable quarter the land had been gradually
sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet from the
front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its parlor
windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield. By immemorial
custom the cottage had always been painted white and green, but for a
good many years it had not been troubled by any paint at all, "but had
lived," as Polly said, "on its past, and like a good many persons in
Woodford had gotten considerably run down by the process."
Now there were no lights at any of the front windows, although it was
eight o'clock in the evening, but as the warm steady glow of a lamp
shone from the rear of the house, it was plainly occupied.
There was no doubt of this in the mind of the girl who stood knocking
noisily at the closed door, saying in an imploring voice:
"Oh, do please hurry, Polly dear, you know it is only me and that I
can't bear to be kept waiting."
At this moment a candle was evidently being borne down the hall, for the
door opened so quickly afterwards that two girls, one on either side the
door, fell into, one another's arms.
"Dear me, it's 'The Princess' and she is no more ill than I am, though
we were told she couldn't possibly be at school to-day on account of her
ill health," the girl on the inside spoke first, recovering her breath.
"I suppose royal persons may lie abed and nurse their dispositions,
while poor ones have to keep on washing dishes. But come on into the
kitchen, Betty, we are in there to-night and I haven't yet finished my
chores."
She led the way with the candle down the shabby hall until both girls
entered the lighted room. There, with a little cry of surprise, Betty
ran over and dropped down on her knees by the side of a lounge.
The woman on the lounge was not so large as the girl, although her brown
hair showed a good deal of gray and her face looked tired and worn. She
had been holding a magazine in her hands, but evidently had not been
reading, for her eyes had turned from the girl, who stood only a few
feet away from her drying some cups and saucers, to the two others who
had just come in, without an instant's delay.
"I am quite all right, dear," she answered the newcomer, "only the
kitchen seemed so warm and cozy after the wet day and I was tired."
Betty was too familiar with the lovely, old-fashioned kitchen of her
dearest friends even to think about it, but to-night she did look about
her for a moment.
The room was the largest in the cottage; the walls were of oak so dark a
brown from age that they were almost black; there were heavy rafters
across the ceiling and swinging from them bunches of dried, sweet-
smelling herbs. The windows had broad sills filled with pots of red
geraniums and ground ivy, and as they were wide open the odor of the
wet, spring earth outside mingled with the aromatic fragrance of the
flowers.
An old stove was set deep into the farthest wall with a Dutch oven at
one side and above it a high, severely plain mantel holding a number of
venerable pots and pans of pewter and copper and two tall, copper
candlesticks. The candles were lighted, as the room was too large for
the single light of the lamp on the table near the lounge.
Polly O'Neill had gone straight to her sister and putting both hands on
her shoulders had pushed her steadily back inch by inch until she forced
her into a large armchair.
"Mollie Mavourneen, you know I hate washing dishes like an owl does the
day light, but I am not going to let you do my work and to-night you
know the agreeable task of cleaning up belongs to me. I asked you to
leave things alone when I went to the door and I don't think you play
fair." Polly seized a cup with such vehemence that it slipped from her
hand and crashed onto the floor, but neither her mother nor Mollie
showed the least sign of surprise and only Betty's eyes widened with
understanding.
Strangers always insisted that there were never twin sisters in the
world so exactly alike as Mollie and Polly O'Neill (not that their names
had ever been intended to rhyme in this absurd fashion, for they had
started quite sensibly, as Mary and Pauline), but to the friends who
knew them both well this idea was absurd. It was true they were of the
same height and their hair and eyes of the same color, their noses and
mouths of somewhat the same shape, but with these superficial likenesses
the resemblance ended. Anybody should have been able to see that in each
detail Polly was the more intense; her hair was blacker and longer, her
eyes bluer, her cheek bones a little higher with brighter color and her
chin and delicate nose a trifle longer and more pointed. Of the two
girls, however, Mollie was the prettier because her features were more
regular and her expression more serene; but once under the spell of her
sister, one never thought much of her appearance.
Polly had a temperament and she was having an attack of it to-night; the
room was fairly electric with it. From some far off Irish ancestor she
must have inherited it, for though her father had been an Irishman and
had spent forty out of the fifty years of his life in Ireland, he had
quite a different disposition and had been as amazed by Polly in her
babyhood as the rest of her family.
Captain O'Neill had resigned from the English army eighteen years before
and crossed the ocean to spend a few years in the neighborhood of the
White Mountains on account of his health; he had no more money than most
Irish gentlemen, but had charming manners, was extremely handsome and
had soon fallen in love and married a girl twenty years younger than
himself. Mary Poindexter had been the girl most loved in Woodford, one
of its belles and heiresses, but her money had not amounted to much and
soon disappeared after her marriage, until now she had only the cottage
in which she and her daughters lived and the income earned by her work
as private secretary to Mr. Edward Wharton of "The Wharton Granite Co."
Captain O'Neill had lived only until his twin daughters were eight years
old and since then the girls and their mother had kept up their small
home together.
"You are dead tired and Polly is cross as two sticks and poor Mollie
does not know what to do with you. Would you rather I should go away?
I only came to tell you something wonderful," Betty whispered in Mrs.
O'Neill's ear.
The older woman shook her head. "No, you have come just at the right
time. I am not very tired, only my daughters chose to think so and
wouldn't let me help with dinner and so, as I am an obedient, well
brought-up mother, I am doing as I am told. And Polly is not in a bad
humor, at least I hope - "
The girl, who had been picking up the bits of broken china from the
kitchen floor, now straightened up and for the first time Betty
discovered that she must have been crying a short while before.
"Oh, yes, I am anything you may like to call me," Polly announced
indifferently, "and I am not in the least ashamed to have 'The Princess'
know it. If Betty had to stand all the things I have stood to-day, she
would be in a far worse humor. She and I are not angels like Mary and
Mollie, so I suppose that is the reason why we love one another part of
the time and hate one another the rest. I am sure I never pretend not
to being dreadfully envious of 'The Princess'."
Polly came over and sat down cross-legged on the old rug near her mother
and best friend, and though she smiled a little to remove the sting from
her words, something in her expression kept Betty from answering at
once. In the meantime Mollie joined the group, taking her place at the
foot of the lounge.
The three girls were nearly the same age and the closest friends, and
Betty probably spent nearly as much of her waking time, at the cottage
as she did in her own home, for whenever she was lonely or bored, or,
tired perhaps of having too much done for her, she had been used to run
across the street to play or work with her friends from the time they
were children. Mrs. O'Neill had never seemed very much older than her
daughters and had always been called "Mary" by the three girls.
Now Betty reached over and laid one and lightly on Polly. "Don't say we
hate no another just because we quarrel now and then and both have bad
tempers. I never hate Polly, do I Mary?"
But before Mrs. O'Neill could answer, Polly suddenly faced fiercely
about. "I hate you to-night, Betty," she insisted, and then to make her
words entirely unlike her actions, slipped one arm around her friend.
"Oh, you know that I don't really mean I hate you, I only mean that I am
horribly envious and jealous of your having all the money you want and
being able to do things without worry, not just things for yourself, but
things for other people." And Polly bit her lips and ceased speaking,
both because of the note of warning in her mother's face and because the
brightness had died away from Betty's.
"I wish you would understand, Polly, that just having things does not
necessarily make one happy; I often think it must be nicer to be poor
and to have to help like you and Mollie do. This afternoon I was
feeling quite forlorn myself, as I had a kind of headache and no one
came to see me, and then just like magic from out our haunted chamber
there appeared well, I can hardly call her a good fairy, she was too
homely, but at least a girl who told me of something so delightful that
it sounds almost like a fairy tale. I talked of it to father at dinner
and then rushed over to tell you, as I thought you might be interested,
but perhaps I had better wait - "
From the foot of the lounge Mollie O'Neill now interrupted. Utterly
unlike either her sister or friend in her disposition, her influence
often held them together.
"We do want to hear what you have to tell us, Betty, most dreadfully.
Just because we happen to be specially worried about something to-night
is no reason why Polly should be so mysterious. I vote we tell you what
our trouble is and then you tell us your secret."
Polly got up from the floor. She was always curiously intense, not
deliberately, but perhaps as a part of her inheritance. Now she made a
little bow to Betty. "I am sorry I was rude to you, Princess," she said
gently, "but tell you the reason for my special tirade against poverty
to-night, I will not and Mollie shall not tell either."
Without replying Betty turned to pick up her blue cloak which had
dropped from her shoulders as she knelt by the lounge. It had a cap
attached with a blue silk lining and this she slipped over her head.
"It isn't worth while for me to talk of my plan to-night, then," she
returned, "for if Polly won't be interested, you and, I could never make
a go of it by ourselves, Mollie. Good-night; I promised not to stay
very long." Passing by the lounge Mrs. O'Neill reached out, slipping
her hand in Betty's and drew her to a place beside her. Usually a girl
with the three other girls there was now and then a note in Mrs.
O'Neill's voice which they seldom failed to recognize.
"Mollie is right, as Betty is almost one of our family, it is only fair
to tell her what has put Polly in her present mood. The truth is, dear,
the doctor thinks I am not very well and am needing a rest, so I am
being made to lie down every evening after my work, by my daughters, and
I am sure when warm weather comes I shall be all right again."
"You won't," Polly interrupted, "and if that is all you mean to tell
Betty, why I shall certainly tell her everything now you have started."
Polly went on quickly, with two bright spots of color in her cheeks:
"Resting in the evenings is not going to help mother; Dr. Hawkes says
she needs months and months of rest and unless she has it she will soon
be having a nervous breakdown or something else; that working for nearly
eight years in an office supporting herself and two daughters is enough
to tire any woman out. Then to-day a wonderful invitation came from my
father's relatives, who have never paid the least attention to us
before, asking mother to spend the summer with them in Ireland, and - "
Betty's hands were clapped eagerly together as she concluded, "So you
are going to accept and Polly's blue at the thought of being separated
from you, but really I can't see any reason why I should not have been
told of this."
Instead of replying, Polly frowned and Mrs. O'Neill shook her head, so
the explanation fell to Mollie. "No, mother is not going to accept;
that is what the trouble is and that is why Polly and I sometimes feel
cross with you, Betty, because rich people never seem to be able to
understand about poor ones. You do what you like without thinking of
the money, and we can't do anything we like without thinking of it.
Mother feels she can't afford to go."
Looking almost as depressed as her two friends, Betty now turned her
back deliberately on both girls to whisper in the older woman's ear.
"Oh, Mary, won't you, can't you; you know how happy it would make us."
But she knew her answer even before it was given and also understood
that Polly's pride would never have agreed to let her mother accept any
favor through her. Indeed, never in all the long years of their
friendship had Betty ever dared do half the things she longed to do for
her two friends, and indeed Mrs. Ashton often said that Betty accepted
far more than she was able to return, since she spent so much of her
time in Mrs. O'Neill's home.
"You are awfully foolish, Mary," Betty argued, "because if you should
really get ill - "
"That is just what I have been saying, Betty dear, for the past two
hours," Polly protested, forgetting the difference between herself and
her friend and edging close enough to the lounge to lay her head in, the
other girl's lap. "And the worst of it is, Mr. Wharton says mother can
have the holiday, he will pay her salary while she is away, and she only
won't go because she says she can't leave Mollie and me alone and can't
afford to pay any one to look after us. It is so foolish, when we are
old enough to be taking care of her! I suppose she wouldn't be afraid
to leave Mollie, it is just me! Sometimes it does not seem quite fair
to be born a twin, because see how things are put into Mollie divided,
all the good got and all the bad into me; so I suppose mother thinks I
would set the house on fire or run away and go on the stage as I
sometimes threaten, so soon as her back was turned. Oh, Mavourneen
darling of the world, the very name of Lake Killarney, where our cousins
live, would make you well."
But again Polly stopped talking because Betty had seized her by both
shoulders, giving her a decided shake. "Say it again to me quickly. Is
it just because Mary does not know what to do with you and Mollie that
she won't go away?"
And both sisters nodded silently.
With a cry of what sounded like delight, Betty rose hurriedly to her
feet, letting the blue cloak slip away from her for the second time.
Then dancing across the kitchen she seized the two tall candlesticks
from the mantelpiece and setting them down in the center of the floor
afterwards added the third, with which Polly had lighted their way
through the hall. Above them she made a mystic sign by flattening the
fingers of her right hand against those of her left, while slowly she
revolved about them chanting: "Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo, in you lies the
answer to all our difficulties," to the entire amazement of her small
audience.
CHAPTER III
"WORK, HEALTH AND LOVE"
"Much learning hath made her mad," sighed Polly mournfully, Betty being
a notoriously poor student.
Mollie was staring thoughtfully at their visitor. "That is an Indian
folk dance; perhaps Betty is pretending to be Pocahontas," she
suggested, with such an evident attempt to explain away her friend's
eccentricities that Betty stopped in her dance to laugh, and Polly and
Mrs. O'Neill followed suit.
"I am not mad and I am not playing at being Pocahontas, but as usual
Mollie is nearer right than her sister Polly because there is a good
deal about the Indians in what I want to tell you." Betty sat down
before the three shining candles and taking a little stick from the pile
of wood near by she pointed it at her third candle. "You are to guess
what my strange word, 'Wohelo' means. No, it is not an Indian, word,
although it sounds like it. Mary, you begin by taking the last syllable
first. What is the greatest thing in the world?"
Mrs. O'Neill, some minutes before, had risen half way up from her lounge
and was leaning her head on her arm, while she watched Betty's curious
proceedings. "The greatest thing in the world?" she repeated softly.
"Far wiser persons than I found the answer to that question many years
ago. The greatest thing in the world is love."
Betty nodded. "Now, Polly, you may have the next guess, though you are
sure to say the wrong thing. What is the next greatest thing to love?"
Polly shrugged her thin shoulders, her face still moody in spite of her
recently awakened interest. "Oh, I told you the answer to that question
when you first came into this room, Betty Ashton, though none of you
chose to believe me. It is plain as a pipe-stem to me that wealth is
the next best thing to love and sometimes it is better when you happen
to love the wrong thing - or person."
"It rhymes with wealth but begins with the letter 'h'," the questioner
returned hastily, too much in earnest to waste further time in argument.
"Now, Mollie, you have the third turn, remember you are to decide what
the first syllable stands for, 'Wo'."
For a few seconds the third girl hesitated, her cheeks flushing
uncomfortably. Not so quick or clever with her tongue as Polly and
Betty she was far more gifted with her fingers. "I am sure I don't know
what you mean," she replied. "'Wo' is the beginning of the word
'woman', but you can't mean woman. I know you and Polly think books of
plays and novels the greatest things in the world, but I don't and
besides I can't find the right word for them. You know what I really
like best is just cooking and cleaning up and putting flowers on the
table, stupid household things that can't have anything to do with your
wonderful word." And Mollie looked so apologetic for her own domestic
tastes that her mother took both her hands and held them tight.
"For goodness' sake, Mollie dear, even in these days of the advanced
female it is still something to be proud of, to have real womanly
tastes. Because some women go out into the world is no reason why they
should lose their womanly instincts. What we are all working for, both
men and women, is really just the making of a home, a big or a little
one. I don't know myself what word Betty is searching for, but I do
believe these very things that you like best come very close to my own
guess. For if love is the greatest thing in the world, the making of a
home to shelter it is most important. I have an idea that love would
come to a tragic end if, when it returned home to dinner, Polly should
meet it in the character of Ophelia, with wild flowers in her hair,
offering it rosemary and rue for dinner instead of meat and vegetables."
Again the audience laughed because of Polly's well-known devotion to the
drama and because if she were left alone to look after the cooking, her
mother and Mollie often returned to find her poring over her recitations
with the dinner burning on the stove.
"If mother is going to preach a sermon with me for a text, Betty's
candles will sputter and die out before ever she explains her word,"
Polly suggested.
"Oh, the word is 'work'; Mollie wasn't so far wrong, though work may
mean different things to different people. Wohelo means 'Work, Health
and Love'," Betty explained quickly, still keeping her eyes on the
candle flames.
But Polly rising from her place slipped over and took Betty by both
shoulders.
"Elizabeth Ashton, more commonly known as 'The Princess,' Bettina or
Betty, will you kindly explain yourself? No doubt those are three
estimable things you are recommending to us, but please tell me how
Work, Health and Love are going to solve our present difficulties and
help mother get the rest she needs. It seems to me she has given us too
much of the first and last of your watchword already and has too little
of the middle thing left in consequence."