The Girl Scouts at Home Part 10

Minnie was not happy. Silly and foolish as it was, she well knew that the proud old Mrs. Horton would not be willing to accept as poor and simple a child as Helen for Rosanna's closest friend, no matter how sweet and well mannered she might be. Minnie, who knew real worth when she saw it, despised Mrs. Horton for her overbearing ideas, but what to do she didn't know. She feared a storm if she let things go until Mrs.

Horton's return, yet she dreaded a separation for the children, when they might enjoy each other for two or three weeks longer.

Rosanna was improving daily. Minnie was pleased and proud to see how she continued to do for herself and learn in every way to be independent.

Her sewing was wonderful. She was working eagerly on a little dark blue dress like Helen's for herself, and with Minnie's help was even putting a little simple cross-st.i.tching on the cuffs and yoke. Rosanna was prouder of that dress than of anything she had ever had in her beautiful, crowded wardrobe.

Minnie felt that she wanted to consult with someone, and the most sensible person she knew was Mrs. Hargrave. But with Mrs. Hargrave away, all Minnie could see to do was to let things go along, and "trust to luck" as she put it. Minnie didn't like "trusting to luck" at all; and every time she saw the two children playing together so happily and busily she shook her head and sighed.

Rosanna, too, in a dim way was feeling troubled, because she too knew her grandmother, and remembered other times when she had been severely scolded for trying to make friends with children whose parents did not measure up to the standard set by Mrs. Horton.

In fact, for all the seeming happiness, no one was wholly happy but Helen!

Helen had been taught by her wise young mother that the most important things in life are not to be measured as anything that money can buy.

According to Mrs. Culver, a little girl must be obedient and truthful and well behaved and kind. She must have a low and pleasant voice and be able to sit in the presence of her elders without trying to enter the conversation unless asked to do so. These things she had taught Helen, and her little girl had been a ready pupil. Mrs. Culver was justly proud of her.

Rosanna was just a bit afraid. And the fear caused her to go in a line that was not _perfectly_ straightforward. She was sorry enough for it afterward--sorrier than she thought she could ever be. But that did not mend things in the least.

Because she did not know just how to turn around and explain everything to her grandmother and still be sure of her happy time, to say nothing of protecting her dear Helen from distress, when she answered her grandmother's letter she wrote as follows:

Dear Grandmother:

"I was glad to get your letter, and I am glad Uncle Robert is home again. Give my love to him, please. I am glad you are having a good time, and I hope you will stay away as long as you like. I am having a very good time. Oh, grandmother, I am having a lovely time. What do you think? Mrs. Hargrave had Helen and me to luncheon with her, and she likes Helen as much as I do, only she doesn't belong to the Lee family, and after luncheon Mrs. Hargrave took us down town with her, and before we came home she bought each of us a gold notebook with a gold pencil on a gold chain fastened to it. She bought herself one too so we each have one just like a secret society.

"I am learning to cook and to sew. I am making myself a dress. It is very pretty. I shall make a good many of my dresses after this. It saves a good deal of money, Minnie says, and I can help the poor with it.

"We went out to Jacobs Park for a picnic, and five poor little children had lost their basket of supper. So I thought what you would do if you saw five little children who had lost their supper, and I asked them to have supper with us. There was enough, on account of our taking Uncle Robert's hamper, and Uncle Robert always liking to be generous.

"We have planned a great many things. If they don't all get done before you come home, grandmother, perhaps you will enjoy doing them too.

"I am learning a great deal about the Girl Scouts. I want to be one.

"Did you know our cook has a little lame boy at home? I was glad to find it out. It is one more person to be kind to. I have sent him all my set of puzzle pictures.

"Minnie is planning to get married. She has a trunk of things. When you come home won't it be nice because we can go down town and buy something for her. She will like something you have given her.

"She likes you very much, I am sure, because she always says, 'Well, all I can say is there's not many like your grandmother in this world.'

"I think it is so nice to be liked. I want to grow up to be liked. I think being a Girl Scout will help. Helen says all sorts of girls belong, rich as well as poor, and that it broadens you.

"This is a long letter, grandmother, but I had a good deal to tell you.

So please have a good time, grandmother, and I am your loving little girl

"ROSANNA."

Minnie sent a letter too. It read:

"Mrs. Horton:

"I wish to report that everything seems to be going smoothly. Mrs.

Hargrave has taken a great liking to Miss Rosanna, and her new friend Miss Helen, and likes to have them with her. Miss Rosanna practices and studies faithfully, and her music teacher says she never had such a bright pupil. I have her take a rest in the middle of each day. The day you left she broke her bottle of tonic, and I could not get more, as you have the prescription. But I do not think she needs it. She has gained two pounds since you left us. I give her hair a hundred strokes each night. I think she wants to bob her hair, it is so very long and heavy, but I tell her not for worlds, as you are so proud of it.

"We are keeping to the routine you ordered except when Mrs. Hargrave has made some slight change, but of course I know that is all right, as you told me she might wish to do so.

"Respectfully,

"MINNIE."

And Mrs. Hargrave wrote from the country a letter full of praise for both little girls and for Minnie.

Mrs. Horton received all three letters the same day. She slipped them away in her portfolio, thinking as she did so, with a smile, of Cousin Hendy's trunks full of letters.

One thing troubled her a little. It seemed as though she could see in all the letters evidences that little Rosanna was undergoing some slight changes in her way of thinking and acting. And Mrs. Horton did not care to have Rosanna change in the least. She was perfectly satisfied the way she was. It had not occurred to Mrs. Horton to wonder if poor little motherless Rosanna was satisfied with her pampered, lonely life.

Mrs. Horton had Rosanna's life all mapped out. However, she remembered the high stone wall and reflected that the child could see very little of the outside world if she was kept behind that.

CHAPTER XI

How the time did fly! The days were not long enough for all the two girls crowded into them.

In a few weeks Helen would be going away to a Scout camp where dozens of girls would live in tents and row and swim and fish and cook and listen to wise and sympathetic talks from their leaders. Helen knew all about it from past trips, and she spent hours while they sat working on their presents for Mrs. Hargrave, whose birthday was rapidly approaching, telling Rosanna all about their good times. Rosanna felt that she never could bear it if she couldn't be a Girl Scout. Helen, not knowing Mrs.

Horton, did not see how any grown person could refuse such a request and she told Rosanna so.

They had made a great many plans for Mrs. Hargrave's birthday. She was coming to take dinner with them.

Mrs. Hargrave never looked more beautiful nor more imposing than when she arrived. The two girls were overcome with pride as they saw their guest descend from her little carriage and, laying her hand on the arm of the old colored man who attended her, walk slowly up the steps.

When dinner was served, it was perfectly splendid to hear Mrs. Hargrave exclaim over the flowers and the favors and everything.

During the meal the children told Mrs. Hargrave what they hoped to be.

Rosanna wanted to be an artist. Helen said she intended to grow up and marry and be the mother of a family.

"Bless my soul!" said Mrs. Hargrave, staring at her. "What put that in your head?"

"Something mother learned in college," said Helen simply. "She believes it, and of course so do I. There was a teacher in college who was very wise, mother says, and he warned them and warned them against what he called popular complaints. He said they must always be careful before they joined anything and promised to uphold it to understand _exactly_ what it was and how far it would lead them. He said it didn't matter whether they were thinking of going into a nunnery or joining the Salvation Army or the Suffragets or what else, they wanted to ask themselves could they lift themselves and help humanity by doing that thing. And he said in this day and age when there were so many dissatisfied people everywhere, he thought the most important thing in the world was to teach everyone, and especially children, the love of country."

"Wise man," said Mrs. Hargrave, nodding. "What else?"

"He told them that love of country was not boasting about where you came from, and telling everybody how high the corn grows in New York, or how blue the gra.s.s is in Kentucky or things about places like that. He says that is nothing but bragging. But he said what people needed was to love all their country, east and west and south and north, to try to understand one another and to pull together for the United States.

"And he said that if every one of those girls who married and had children would teach them this as hard as ever they could, some day the states would really be united, and wiser laws would be made, and all the young Americans would love their country and be willing to live for her.

He said it is harder to live faithfully for anything than to die for it because it takes so much longer."