"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."
Betty's long lashes swept her cheeks in a tantalizing fashion and her
color deepened as, clasping her hands over her knees, she began slowly
swaying back and forth, her eyes fastened on Polly.
"I am dreadfully long in coming to my point," she confessed, "but it is
such fun to keep you guessing and I do so want you to be interested.
You see, I suppose you know about the Camp Fire Girls, everybody seems
to have heard except me, but now 'That light which has been given to me,
I desire to pass undimmed to others.' Will you, won't you, will you,
won't you be a Camp Fire Girl?" Her manner, which had been a queer
combination of fun and seriousness, now at last appeared entirely grave.
"Mollie and Polly," she continued quietly, "You know how often we have
talked lately of being dissatisfied, of feeling that here we are growing
older and older every day and yet not learning half the things we ought
to learn nor having half the fun we ought to have. Of course we read
novels all the time, because it is the only way for nice girls to learn
about romance or adventure, but we would like really to live the things
we think about just the same as boys do. They don't dream and scold
about the things they want to do; they go ahead and do them, teaching
one another by working things out together. They belong to things and
don't just have to have things belong to them' to make them happy like
girls do."
"Hear, hear!" cried Polly, not exactly seeing what Betty was driving at
and desiring to tease her into greater confusion.
But as Mrs. O'Neill shook her head encouragingly, Betty would not deign
to consider her tormentor.
"Oh, it is foolish for me to try to explain all the Camp Fire idea
means," she added simply. "I couldn't if I tried, for Esther Clark, the
strange girl who has been living at the asylum and has just come to our
house, only told me what she knew this afternoon. But I want to find
out by living the Camp Fire idea, I want to see what we could get out of
forming a Camp Fire Club, the first one here in Woodford. Just take
Polly and Mollie and me, for example, Mary dear," she continued
coaxingly. "I am longing to know the things Mollie does about cooking
and housekeeping and all the rest and I can't learn at home. Think what
it means to go messing about in our kitchen with, cook and half a dozen
servants laughing at you! Then Mollie really would like to know what
Polly and I find so fascinating in books and in prowling about together
in the woods and Polly--well, I don't know that she wishes to learn
anything from Mollie or me or anybody else who joins our club, but if
she doesn't, that is just what she ought to learn."
Polly held up both hands. "For goodness sake, Betty, stop talking, I
will join your Camp Fire Club and be made an example of at any time,
also I will use my noble influence to persuade any girls you wish to
join. All the same I don't see what your wretched club has to do with
helping us solve our problem about mother, and that is all I care about
at present."
"Has to do,--why everything," Betty repeated slowly. But before she was
able to finish her sentence there was a sudden loud ringing of the front
door bell and the three girls jumped to their feet. In another moment
Polly had disappeared into the hall, returning with her expression
changed again to its original look of gloom.
"It's that granite man, mother, Mr. Wharton, with his entire family, son
and daughter. I wonder why they can't leave you alone after business
hours? I had to ask them in the parlor, since we can't entertain any
one in the kitchen except 'The Princess,' but we simply can't join you
until we hear what she has to say."
Polly sighed as her mother rose without replying and left the room, and
Betty did he her best to hide her smiles, for everybody in Woodford
believed that Mrs. O'Neill's employer had more than a friendly interest
in her, and though Polly constantly railed at their poverty and Mr.
Wharton was the richest man in the village, the very sound of his name
used often to irritate her.
The candles had at last burned down to their sockets and softly Betty
blew out the last flickering flames. With a nod of understanding Mollie
turned down the lighted lamp and after a fashion of many years the three
girls drew three little old fashioned rockers in a semicircle up before
the kitchen fire.
"My plan is to form our Camp Fire Club of just the right girls and to
have just the right guardian and then to spend our whole summer camping
in the woods," Betty explained quickly at last. "You see I don't want
to go to Europe with mother and father this summer one bit, I am dead
tired of hotels and sights. So at dinner to-night I talked over the
Camp Fire plan with father and though mother wasn't enthusiastic I could
see father didn't think it in the least a bad idea, so I am sure he will
give us the camping outfit if I beg very hard and we can all share
expenses afterwards. Can't you understand that if Mary lets you spend
your summer in camp she can go away and rest and think no more about you
and we can have such a wonderful time."
In the half darkness Polly danced a shadow dance and then flung her arms
about her friend. "Oh, Princess, I might have known you were as clever
as 'Sentimental Tommy' and would surely 'find a wa'. I am sure mother
will think it a beautiful plan for us. Just to live among the trees and
the stars and hear the birds sing, and tell stories about our own camp
fire and to sing."
"Yes, and to do our own cooking and cleaning and wood gathering and a
thousand other practical things," laughed Betty, to stop Polly's
rhapsodizing. "But the truly important part of our scheme is to find
congenial girls for our club and the right guardian."
"There are four of us already," Mollie suggested.
Betty appeared surprised. "Just you and Polly and me; what fourth girl
do you mean?"
As Mollie did not answer at once, a low whistle came from between
Polly's closed lips. "Do you mean, Princess, that you do not intend to
invite the girl who told you about the Camp Fire Club, Esther Clark? I
know her by sight at school."
Betty frowned. "Certainly I had not meant to include her; she does not
belong to our set. I don't mean to be rude, but she has been raised in
an orphan asylum and nobody knows who she is. I suppose she comes of
some very common family."
"Common families sometimes produce very uncommon characters," Polly
returned dryly. "And s-n-o-b spells snob, but not Betty, I hope. I
wish you wouldn't think so much about 'family', Princess; I do believe
we ought to judge people by what they are themselves and not by what
their ancestors have been."
With a quick movement Betty half overturned her chair. "Good-night,"
she said, "we can talk things over to-morrow. I promised not to be too
late to-night. It isn't that I really mind having Esther in our club,
only we don't know her very well and it seems most important that we
should all be congenial."
But Betty could not move toward the door because her skirts were held
fast. "If you go now I shall cry my eyes out all night," Polly protested
in a tone that was almost convincing. "It was horrid of me, darling, to
tell you the truth and me Irish and believin' in the blarney stone," she
apologized in her Pollyesque fashion. "Please never, never tell me the
truth about myself and have anybody in your club you like. Only if you
expect to have twelve girls who exactly agree you will have to leave
both you and me out to start with."
Betty laughed, only half appeased, but Mollie was speaking quietly and
because she talked less frequently than the other two girls they usually
paused to listen to her.
"I think the more unlike we girls are the more fun we will have and the
more we will help one another," she suggested. "But, Betty, do you know
who has started this Camp Fire idea in Woodford and who knows just what
we ought to do?"
Betty groaned. "Who else could it be, my dear, but my arch-enemy, the
person I like least and who likes me even less in all this village. Ah,
is anything ever perfect in this life? Martha McMurtry, the science
teacher at the high school, who will certainly cause me to remain in the
sophomore class another year unless I learn something more than what H2O
means, is the only woman Esther could suggest."
The sisters laughed, since Betty's battles with this teacher had kept
things lively.
"You poor dear, we can't have her for our guardian," Polly insisted
sympathetically. "Can you imagine such a prim, scientific old maid ever
understanding anything of the beauty and romance of life in the woods?
I would like Titania, Queen of the Fairies, to be our only chaperon."
Before the other girls could dispute the absurdity of Polly's final
suggestion, the kitchen door opened and Mrs. O'Neill returned looking
unusually cross. "Why didn't you join me, you wicked children?" she
said reproachfully. "Mr. Wharton came to ask me, since I was not going
away, to look after his little girl this summer. He has to leave on
some business trip and as Frank is to camp in the woods, there was
nothing for the poor man to do with Sylvia. I hope you won't mind very
much, for I have promised to take care of her."
"Sylvia!" The three voices made a dismal chorus.
"That stupid, ill-mannered child! I am sorry, dear, but you are not
going to look after anything or anybody this summer but yourself. You
see you are sailing for Ireland in a few weeks and we are going to live
in the woods and be taken care of by our old mother earth and our
father, the sun," Polly replied dramatically.
"You are talking nonsense, Polly; please don't be tiresome any more
to-night," Mrs. O'Neill urged, lying down on the sofa again, as though
she were too weary to be up another minute. "I can't discuss the matter
with you, but Mr. Wharton has been too kind for me to refuse him this
request."
Betty found her blue cloak again and softly slipped over to kiss the
older woman good-night. "Don't worry, what Polly told you is true, but
Sylvia shall be looked after just the same."
She slipped away, Polly following to watch her safely across the street
as she always did. Outdoors the girls stood silent for a moment looking
up at the beauty of the night. The stars were shining and the warmth
the day had failed to bring to the earth had been followed by some
unseen messenger of the night.
"You are going to include that hateful child in your Camp Fire Club
after what I said to you, Betty?" Polly whispered. "Oh, if only her
name wasn't Sylvia and she didn't have a snub nose and wear goggles I
could forgive her. But think how absurd the combination is! Anyhow you
are a dear, and it must be because I am Irish that I am always in the
wrong."