The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest Part 8

She had cared for society and beautiful surroundings and been forced to do without them. To have Louise, her oldest child, another disappointment, was difficult to bear.

If Louise had been pretty, if she had appeared to be clever, if she had cared for her home life and been anxious to a.s.sist her mother with the younger children, Mrs. Miller would have been quick to appreciate any one of these characteristics. But Louise was not handsome, she insisted upon disliking every character of household work, and her position at school was not always above the average. In certain cla.s.ses she did excel. Louise herself was the last person who could have explained why there were days when she was so absorbed that she seemed more than ordinarily dull even in the subjects that sometimes interested her.

She was never a favorite with her teachers or with strangers. But for one thing Louise was always grateful. Her own troop of Girl Scouts sincerely liked her, for her own sake as well as Dorothy's. Only Dorothy she believed really understood and cared for her deeply in spite of her faults and idiosyncrasies.

With Dorothy alone she felt able to say and behave exactly as she desired. She could drop into one of her moods of self-absorption, or speak as if she were thinking aloud. Not always were her ideas clear even to herself until she had slowly evolved them.

Now these days in the woods Louise felt freer, less awkward and self-conscious. Mysteriously, unexpectedly, she was finding herself.

With the other girls nature study was a pastime, or merely a necessity of their outdoor Scout training. With Louise it was becoming a pa.s.sionate delight.

The note of the first bird singing deep among the beechwoods found her awake and guessing the name before slipping noiselessly outdoors to see if the warbler could be discovered.

The other girls were amused by the fact that Louise wandered about all day carrying a nature book in her hand. She studied the trees and flowers, even the stones, silent most of the time while her companions chattered. If one of them asked a question concerning the outdoors that she could answer, she would become eloquent enough. But to Dorothy McClain alone she confided her deeper spiritual and mental reactions.

"It is as if I had been asleep all my life before, Dorothy, dear, and was only beginning to wake up. Somehow I cannot explain it, even to myself, I feel so convinced that this summer in the woods will have a tremendous influence on my future life. I am going to find something in these woods that I have been looking for in a stupid fas.h.i.+on since I was a little girl."

"We are what the winds and sun and waters made us," Dorothy quoted, glad to recall at this moment the lines her father so often repeated.

Louise shook her head.

"No, I mean something different. We all are what you have just said. I feel lately that the outdoors is going to do something special for me.

Actually I mean I am going to find something here the rest of you may not find."

Louise laughed. She had a large mouth with strong, white teeth. "That speech of mine would annoy my mother dreadfully. She says I am always dreaming and never interested in _real_ things. Nothing ever seemed real to me until this summer in Beechwood Forest."

Carefully she smoothed the brown army blanket on her cot bed.

She and Dorothy McClain were straightening their tent preparatory for inspection in the hour after breakfast. Their flag raising and Scout drill were the first features of the long summer day.

The tent was scrupulously neat.

Dorothy McClain stooped to pick up a fallen book. She was paying a slightly puzzled attention to the other girl's odd conversation.

"Would it not be difficult to persuade your mother to believe, Louise, that you and I are interested in our camp housekeeping? Miss Mason said the other day you probably would earn a merit badge before the summer was past for cooking over a camp fire. Is this because you are preparing to spend your entire life out of doors?"

Dorothy appeared amused and incredulous. She was devoted to athletics and a thoroughly normal and delightful person. Nevertheless, the two people for whom she cared most, excepting her father, were her brother Lance and her friend Louise Miller, both of whom were unusual.

"You are an angel, Dorothy, to try to be sympathetic with me. You can't know what I am talking about, if I don't myself. There is only one other person in the world to whom I could speak, Miss Frean. When I know better what I am only dreaming of at present I shall confide to her and ask her advice. Isn't it fine to think of her nearby in her little House in the Woods, always ready to give us help and advice.

Tory declares she would never have dared to insist we have Kara at camp with us when she is so ill and unhappy except for Miss Frean's nearness."

Her task accomplished, Louise turned aside from her cot bed and put her arm about the other girl's shoulders.

"Dorothy, I know I am selfish with you. I suppose because I am so tongue-tied with other people I pour forth everything upon you. I have not forgotten you said you wanted to speak to me about something this morning when we were alone. What is it?"

Dorothy stooped and glanced in the small square mirror which hung suspended from one of the tent poles.

Her bright chestnut hair was braided and twisted about her head.

Ordinarily her father objected to this grown up fas.h.i.+on. At camp Dorothy insisted that two long plaits were always in one's way. Her eyes were a clear blue with a slight hint of gray, her skin healthy and freshly colored. A fine, frank line formed her lips. Altogether she was the type of American girlhood who represents many of our highest ideals.

At the present moment a frown appeared between her brows.

"I did want to ask your opinion about something, Louise. Yet nothing is more important to me than to see how happy you are this summer and how the life in the forest is changing you. What I wanted to ask is your view concerning the apology the Boy Scouts have made us for their rudeness. Shall we or shall we not bury the hatchet and agree to forgive them? The situation is particularly uncomfortable for me. I don't like to take any special position in the matter, because Lance and Don are my brothers. Lance has confessed he was princ.i.p.ally responsible for their effort to frighten or tease us soon after our arrival at camp. So far as I have been able to find out we seem about evenly divided on the subject. Tory Drew wishes to forget all about it. She is so grateful to Don and Lance for rescuing Kara that she refuses to consider anything else. Edith Linder agrees with Tory besides Evan Phillips and several other girls.

"Strangely the persons most opposed to forgiving the boys and making friends again are Margaret Hale and Joan Peters.

"We are to vote on the question to-night.

"But here comes Teresa. Perhaps she will tell us how she feels on the subject. I wonder what is the matter? She looks worried, and she has been so happy at camp."

At the tent opening Teresa appeared.

"Do come on down to the lake and let us sit there a half hour and talk if you have finished your work?" she asked.

Teresa's olive coloring had deepened in the weeks in the suns.h.i.+ne and fresh air, her cheeks were more rose colored, her wide eyes with their half mature, half childish expression were slightly plaintive at this instant.

The sh.o.r.es of the lake, not a great distance from the camping ground, were a favorite resting place for the Girl Scout Troop.

Not only did they rest here and hold long conversations, of necessity here a good deal of the camp work took place. Clothes and dishes were washed, water was had for cleaning. Farther up on the left-hand side, where a sh.o.r.e of bright pebbles ran down into the lake, was the bathing beach for the campers. The water for drinking was obtained at a pure spring up the hill of the Three Pines which rose not far off from the camp.

At present, as the greater number of the girls were still busy in their tents, the vicinity of the lake was agreeably solitary.

As the three girls sat down Louise Miller said suddenly:

"There is a legend of a lake where every night at midnight a maiden arises bearing in her hands a silver bowl. One may make a wish and cast it into the silver bowl. Then the maiden disappears. On another night, one can never know exactly when, the maiden returns and on this night grants your wish."

"I wish she would appear at once," Teresa grumbled. "I have a wish she might be persuaded to grant. I want something more exciting to happen at camp. Oh, I am enjoying it of course, but of late the days have been a good deal alike."

"What is it you want, Teresa?" Louise Miller demanded a little scornfully. Two girls could not have been more unlike. Because Louise was intellectual she could not altogether refrain from regarding the other girl with a mixture of pity and amused contempt, as well as occasional envy.

Teresa was so pretty, so gentle and confiding and pleasure loving.

When she failed to live up to the Scout rules, as all of the girls, being human, did now and then, no one ever blamed Teresa. Nor did Louise Miller understand that Teresa represented the type of girl who oftentimes has a stronger will than any other, hidden beneath her apparent gentleness. Teresa was not conscious of possessing a strong will. In fact, she would have denied the fact, believing she was telling the exact truth.

She only knew that in a quiet fas.h.i.+on she wanted what she wanted very intensely and that it was almost impossible to give up any wish. She might try her best, she might even pretend to herself that she had given up. The desire was inclined to be only asleep and to wake again.

One must remember this characteristic in hearing of Teresa Peterson's after career.

Teresa shrugged her shoulders.

"I am not anxious to talk to you, Louise, only it is so impossible to see Dorothy without you."

Teresa flushed prettily.

"There, I don't mean to be rude. One is now and then without intending it. I suppose you are such a profoundly intellectual individual you cannot bear with my frivolous character.

"I only want to say to Dorothy that I am specially anxious to have our camp of Girl Scouts make friends with the Boy Scouts. I have a special reason and promised to do my best with the girls. But of course I know I have not a great deal of influence, like you have Dorothy, or Margaret Hale, or Tory Drew."

Teresa's voice and manner became vaguely plaintive.

"Then we could have occasional dances, or supper parties, something to vary the outdoor monotony. Oh, of course I love the camp better than being at home. I only thought we were going to have some other a.s.sociates beside just our own Troop. Most of the boys are our old friends and Don and Lance are your brothers, Dorothy. I don't see any point in our always avoiding each other."