The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest Part 3

"I don't see any comparison between your Girl Scout camp and our own, Tory," he returned at length. "The two camps are not in the least alike. In the first place, you tell me that you have only fourteen Girl Scouts and we have nearly forty boys. Of course things look neater and more picturesque here, with girls one expects this. Our problem is different. I have an idea we have more discipline and do more hard work."

Tory Drew looked annoyed.

Dorothy McClain took up the defense.

"I am not so sure of the work and the discipline, Don. We do everything at our camp, the cooking, was.h.i.+ng and cleaning. We have been pretending that we were members of Penelope's household. If you have never read the 'Odyssey' you won't know what I am talking about.

Joan Peters we sometimes call Penelope. She is everlastingly at her weaving, but does not unravel her web at night that she has woven in the daytime. She is not troubled by Penelope's importunate suitors.

Tory at present is the Princess Nausicaa, the daughter of the King Alcinous, who conducts the family was.h.i.+ng as a part of her work. I won't bore you with all our distinguished t.i.tles.

"As for discipline! I don't mean to be rude and I am glad you did not wish your Troop of Scouts to descend upon us like a band of Indians on a group of pioneer women. Still, I would scarcely be proud of such discipline."

"See here, Dorothy, what is the use? You know you are reflecting upon me, not upon old Don. But with my well-known amiability I forgive you.

Whose idea was it that you pretend to be Greek heroines as well as American Girl Scouts?" Lance inquired in the tone that nearly always brought peace.

"Oh, we have not gone into the idea seriously," Joan Peters returned.

Her head was bent over the square frame she held in her lap, her fingers busy with the strands of flax. "Miss Frean comes to camp every few evenings and reads aloud to us. She insists that we are too frivolous in our own summer reading and wishes to read us something we ought to remember."

Joan Peters liked Lance McClain. She was a great reader and perhaps because of his more delicate health Lance did not feel the same scorn of books that Donald affected.

With a swift movement Tory arose suddenly. Apparently she forgot the group of friends close about her. She clasped her hands tightly together, her eyes suddenly looked larger and darker, her lips twitched.

The Girl Scouts of the Eagle's Wing had chosen silver and gold as their camp colors.

Near the spot where Tory was standing lay two canoes. One was golden in color with an eagle's wing in silver on the bow, the other the opposite color scheme. Tory's own khaki costume looked golden in the sunlight. The water was now silver.

Don had a fleeting impression that Tory intended to jump into one of the canoes and disappear from sight.

Now and then she affected him curiously. He never knew what she intended to do or say. She thought so quickly, moved so swiftly, and he was stupid and slow.

At the present moment he was puzzled and troubled by her sudden look of intense unhappiness. The instant before she had been arguing the respective merits of the two camps and had appeared cheerful as usual.

"What is the matter, Tory? You are the most startling person! You upset one," Teresa Peterson protested.

She glanced toward Donald and then toward Lance McClain for their attention or approval.

Teresa was unlike the other Girl Scouts. She was extremely pretty with dusky hair that curled about a low forehead and soft rose colored cheeks. She gave one an impression of sweetness and yet one could not be sure of her actual character. She seemed always anxious for attention and the approval of other people. Several of the girls in her Patrol felt that Teresa was unnecessarily self-conscious before a masculine audience.

At this instant Tory Drew returned her glance. Her face showed bewilderment.

"Why, Teresa, how can you ask what is troubling me? Is one of us thinking any other thought? Of course we have had to talk of other things, but nothing matters except what Dr. McClain may at this moment be deciding about Kara. You know we all care for her more than any other girl at camp. She has had so much more to contend with than the rest of us even before this.

"She thought first of our camp in Beechwood Forest and we used to talk of it when it did not seem a possibility. The day of her accident Kara told me the past few weeks had been the happiest of her life."

Tory walked away from the others.

"I have been trying to keep my word and stay here with you until after Dr. McClain had seen Kara. Now I cannot wait any longer. I am sure something more dreadful than any of us realize has happened."

Margaret Hale rose and slipped her arm inside the other girl's.

"We will go back together. You are more nervous over Kara than need be because of the strain of last night."

They moved on a few yards.

Coming out of the cabin they could see Dr. McClain, Miss Frean and Sheila Mason. Dr. McClain, a.s.sisted by the two women, was bearing Kara in his arms.

Before Margaret and Tory reached them, he had placed Kara in his motor car and they were driving away.

CHAPTER IV

RIGHT ABOUT, FACE

Tory toiled up the long, hot street, her arms filled with packages, her face flushed.

How different the atmosphere from the cool green shade of Beechwood Forest!

At the end of the street upon a rise of ground stood the Old Gray House. This had been Katherine Moore's name for the house, accepted and used by the town of Westhaven. To-day it appeared what it actually was: the village orphan asylum.

No longer could Kara's optimism conceal reality from Victoria Drew.

The house showed blistered and bare of paint. The open s.p.a.ce of yard, green and fresh in the springtime, when she and Kara oftentimes sat outdoors to dream and plan, was now baked brown and sere.

The children playing in the yard behind the tall iron fence looked tired and cross, a little like prisoners to Tory's present state of mind.

She had come in from camp early in the day and had spent several hours at home with her uncle, Mr. Richard Fenton. Their own house was empty save for his presence. Miss Victoria had gone for a month's holiday to the sea.

After a talk with her uncle and an hour's shopping, she was now on her way to call upon Kara.

She saw a mental picture of Kara's small room on the top floor of the Gray House. How proud Kara had been because she need share her room with no one!

And what a place to be shut up in when one was ill!

For Kara's sake Tory had endeavored to view this room with Kara's eyes. Kara loved it and the old Gray House that had sheltered her since babyhood, her refuge when apparently deserted by the parents she had never known.

Victoria Drew was an artist. This did not mean that necessarily she was possessed of an artist's talent, but of the artist's temperament.

Besides, had she not lived with her artist father wandering about the most beautiful countries in Europe[A] until her arrival in Westhaven the winter before?

If this temperament oftentimes allowed Tory to color humdrumness with rose, it also gave her a sensitive distaste to what other people might not feel so intensely.

With half a dozen of the children in the yard of the Gray House, Tory now stopped to talk a few moments. Never before could she recall wanting to see Kara so much and so little at the same time.

Of the two children who had been Kara's special charges and her own favorites, only the boy remained.

His eyes bluer and more wistful than formerly, Billy Duncan came forward to speak to Tory.

He seemed older and thinner and less the cherub she remembered.