The Girl Scout Pioneers Part 11

"Oh, yes, the pretty blonde with the blue crocheted tam, I saw her. I guess everyone did," Madaline replied.

"Well, she was so pretty I couldn't help watching her, and I am sure she acted awfully nervous when the flowers were sent up to Margaret."

"She went out directly the ushers took up the bouquet," Madaline added. "And never came back for the ice cream," went on Grace.

"Well, what I wanted to say is, I have seen that pretty girl before and I sort of think she was the one who used to be with the dark-eyed girl they say ran away."

"Why, she came with Lieutenant Cosgrove, and surely wouldn't be a companion to a runaway mill girl!" protested Madaline.

"You forget, newly second cla.s.s, that we are taking in the mill girls in our troop, and are all pledged to do our best to help them," Grace declared. "I know more than one very nice girl in Fluffdown. Daddy is one of the superintendents there."

"Yes, of course," Cleo acquiesced. "And my daddy is in charge of the main office."

"I am sure we should be interested in that line, and our scouting is so practical. I understand Lieutenant Lindsley is going to call a special meeting of True Tred to make definite plans. Some of our girls need education in social lat.i.tude, quite as much as do the mill girls, she told us last night, and, judging from the way Hattie Thompson laughed when a mill girl slipped in the mud the other day, I think some of the girls need a special course in common politeness," said Madaline.

"There come Ben's boys," Grace announced. "Let's go out on the lawn and have a game of 'Heel and Toe.'"

"I can't, Grace. I have some shopping to do for mamma, and we have been talking nearly an hour," Cleo declared, glancing at her wrist watch. "You stay, Madaline. Don't go because I have to."

"I really must go," Madaline also insisted. "But be sure, Grace, that Cleo understands all about the letter," she added.

"I will write it and call a meeting of this committee to consider it," proposed Cleo. "Isn't it lovely and exciting?"

"You may think so, but I am glad I no longer have to lug that secret around all alone," said Grace, as the girls were preparing to leave.

"Almost as heavy as Mrs. Johnston's wash," teased Madaline. "Well, good-bye, Grace. We will do all we can to find--you know."

Benny was almost close enough to hear the parting words, but in his boyish head, chuck full of sports and frolics, he had little room for girls' secrets, and even the knowledge thrust upon him by Grace in her trip to the woods had long ago gone the way of his lost game of "Bear in the Pit." Boys have a wonderful way of forgetting failures, and it is that trait which later ent.i.tles them to the claims of being good sports, using the t.i.tle "sport"

in its best and most vigorous application.

"Well, that's over, thank goodness!" breathed Grace, referring to her "confession," as she smilingly turned to her piano practice, a duty indifferently done since her encounter with the writer of the mysterious letter.

CHAPTER XI

THE TANGLED WEB

While the Girl Scouts of Flosston were arranging to extend their troop activities so that they would include the girls from Fluffdown mills, who wished to join, two other girls were becoming more and more involved in an influence, seemingly subtle, but surely sufficiently powerful to "win out" eventually.

Tessie Wartliz was enmeshed in that oftquoted "tangled web,"

coincident with the first attempt at deception.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!"

Reading those lines mean very little to the girl who has never been so unfortunate as to know their fullest meaning, but Tessie knew not the lines, it was their threat she felt, their dark story she was living through.

Rose returned from the rally of the True Tred Troop with deeper blue in her eyes and brighter pink in her cheeks. It had been so wonderful! To see all those girls promising to do so much, not only for one another, but for all girls, then the inspiring ceremony, the lovely exercises, the music! It did not seem possible that all this came to the good fortune of some girls in that mill town, while others struggled to gain advantage over their companions, as they worked in gloomy surroundings, p.r.o.ne to some sort of rebellion.

And to think Rose had been asked to help carry this new story to her former companions, and to those with whom she was now a.s.sociated!

Sitting for a few precious moments in her little room at Mrs.

Cosgrove's, although her light had been extinguished, and it was too late to enjoy the tempting reverie, Rose, even in the dark, could feel the comfort and sense the luxury of that simple, well- ordered home. How strange that she should have been picked up from the peril of waywardness, and become so safely sheltered by these benevolent strangers! Was it because Molly Cosgrove, too, taught and practiced the girl scout principles, and because Mrs. Cosgrove was a pioneer from whom such principles emanate?

Gradually Rose sensed the difference in American and foreign ideals, and now it was as if the curtain had lifted, and her own mind was cleared of the confusing doubts and suspicions she had heretofore struggled with.

The soft, sweet air of young summer wafted from the flowery vines, caressed her pretty face as she stared out of the low window into the velvet night, and she was glad, so glad she had sent those roses!

"If only I could have returned that badge!" she pondered; "why did Tessie run off with it!"

The dark thought immediately cast a shadow over her happiness just at that moment, a vagrant cloud in a sky almost untarnished, deliberately sailed into the moon, and blackened the window through which Rose gazed.

"I guess that means bed!" she decided and promptly slipped between the grateful covers. But not to sleep. The thoughts of Tessie and her insinuating letters were too persistent to be immediately banished. Try as she might, Rose could find no key to the problem of how to reach the girl and reclaim the innocent badge, now serving as a baneful influence in the uncertain career of Tessie Wartliz.

"If only I could talk with her just a few minutes," Rose kept repeating, and that wish became the source of a plan, from which sprung a new resolve.

She must see Tessie!

Fixed in her brain, that resolve actually took root, and even in sleep it seemed to grow, to get stronger with the hours, and to mature with courage silently imparted through tired nature's sweet restorer. Balmy sleep!

Troubled dreams discovered the runaway girl in strange surroundings, now working in a dark gloomy mill, and flas.h.i.+ng her black eyes like lighted coals at every word of correction offered by her superiors, again Tessie seemed to be enjoying the soft luxury of some favored home, a wild flower in a garden of hot- house blooms.

But it was all a dream, and Rose knew nothing of Tessie's adventure, beyond the suspicions conveyed in the two sketchy letters sent since the escapade.

A few days later the Leader, an evening paper, contained a story startling to the girls of Flosston, and positively shocking to Rose Dixon. This told of a young girl claiming to be a girl scout, running off with a lot of ticket money, the funds she had obtained by pretending to a.s.sist an entertainment being conducted for the benefit of the Violet Circle of Shut-ins.

That a girl scout should rob cripples! And that a clue should lead back to Flosston, inferring the culprit might belong in that town!

Instantly Rose knew the mystery meant Tessie, and that the purloined badge had served as her scout credential!

Panic seized her! She had seen the paper on her way home from work, and at table, when Molly Cosgrove discussed the item, Rose felt her own guilt must be obvious to those around her. Yet no one knew Tessie had taken the badge. No one knew Rose had found the pretty emblem!

"How could a girl scout act so dishonorably?" Molly questioned indignantly.

"And she actually got away with the money," Mrs. Cosgrove repeated. "Some young bold girls can cover their tracks better than hardened men."

Rose felt her cheeks pale. She had never known the antics of nervous chill, but just now a series of "goose-flesh-flashes"

chased all over her.

"You must be very tired, Rose," remarked Molly keenly. "Better go to bed early and omit the meeting. Mrs. Brennen, the welfare leader at Conit, is coming over, but you can hear her another time. You had nervous work on those scarfs to-day. I heard the girls say that floss stuck like chiffon."

"It was sticky," Rose was glad to comment, "and I guess I won't go over to the school house if you don't mind. Perhaps I will just take a walk in the air and later write a few letters."

"The fresh air is what you want," Mrs. Cosgrove unconsciously a.s.sisted in the plans seething through the troubled brain of Rose.

"I've noticed you are a bit pale lately. But we can't expect to make a robust Rose out of you all at once. You feel all right, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, thank you. I have a little headache, the reds and pinks glare so, I guess they hurt the eyes a little," Rose qualified.