AN ALARM IN THE NIGHT
Bessie, overjoyed by Paw Hoover's kindness and his promise to do nothing
toward having her taken back to Hedgeville, spent the rest of the
afternoon happily. Indeed, she was happier than she could ever remember
having been before. But her joy was dashed when, a little while before
supper, she came upon Zara, crying bitterly. Zara had gone off by
herself, and Bessie, going to the spring for water, came upon her.
"Why, Zara, whatever is the matter? We're all right now," cried Bessie.
"I--I know that, Bessie! But I'm so worried about my father!"
"Oh, Zara, what a selfish little beast I am! I was so glad to think that
I wasn't going to be taken back that I forgot all about him. But cheer
up! I'm sure he's done nothing wrong, and I'll talk to Wanaka, and see
if there isn't something I can do or that she can do. I believe she can
do anything if she makes up her mind she will."
"Did she hear anything about him in Hedgeville?"
"Only what we knew before, Zara, that they'd come for him and taken him
to the city. But Wanaka said she was sure that it is only gossip, and
that he needn't be afraid. And we're going to the city, too, you know,
so you'll be able to see him."
"Will I, Bessie? Then that won't be so bad. If I could only talk to him
I'm sure it would seem better. And you must be right--they can't punish
a man when he hasn't done anything wrong, can they?"
"Of course not," said Bessie, laughing.
"In the country where we came from they do, sometimes," said Zara,
thoughtfully. "My father has told me about things like that."
"In Italy, Zara?"
"Yes. We're not Italians, really, but that's where we lived."
"But you don't remember anything about that, do you?"
"No, but I've been told all about it. We used to live in a white house,
on a hillside. And there were lemon trees and olive trees growing there,
and all sorts of beautiful things. And you could look out over the blue
sea, and see the boats sailing, and away off there was a great
mountain."
"I should think you'd want to go back there, Zara. It must have been
beautiful."
"Oh, I've always wanted to see that place, Bessie. Sometimes, my father
says, the mountain, would smoke, and fire would come out of it, and the
ground would shake. But it never hurt the place where we lived."
"That must have been a volcano, Zara."
"Yes, that's what he used to call it."
"Why did you come over here?"
"Because my father was always afraid over there. There were some bad men
who hated him, and he said that if he stayed there they would hurt him.
And he heard that over here everyone was welcome, and one man was as
good as another. But he wasn't, or they never seemed to think so, if he
was."
Bessie looked very thoughtful.
"This is the finest country in the world, Zara," she said. "I've heard
that, and I've read it in books, too. But I guess that things go wrong
here sometimes. You see, it's this way. Just think of Jake Hoover."
"But I don't want to think about him! I want to forget him!"
"Well, Jake Hoover explains what I'm thinking about. He's an American,
but that isn't the reason he was so mean to us. He'd be mean anywhere,
no matter whether he was an American or what. He just can't help it. And
I think he'll get over it, anyhow."
"There you go, Bessie! He's made all this trouble for you, and you're
standing up for him already."
"No, I'm not. But what trouble has he made for me, Zara? I'm going to be
happier than I ever was back there in Hedgeville--and if it hadn't been
for him I'd still be there, and I'd be chopping wood or something right
now."
"But he didn't mean to make you happier, Bessie. He thought he could get
you punished for something he'd done."
"Well, I wasn't, so why should I be angry at him, Zara? Even if he did
mean to be nasty, he wasn't."
"But suppose he'd hurt you some way, without meaning to at all? Would
you be angry at him then for hurting you, when he didn't mean to do it?"
"Of course not--just because he didn't mean to."
"Well, then," said Zara, triumphantly, "you ought to be angry now, if
it's what one means to do, and not what one does that counts. I would
be."
Bessie laughed. For once Zara seemed to have trapped her and beaten her
in an argument.
"But I don't like to be angry, and to feel revengeful," she said. "It
hurts me more than it does the other person. When anything happens that
isn't nice it only bothers you as long as you keep on thinking about it,
Zara. Suppose someone threw a stone at you, and hit you?"
"It would hurt me--and I'd want to throw it back."
"But then suppose the stone was thrown, and it didn't hit you, and you
didn't even know it had been thrown, you wouldn't be angry then, would
you?"
"Why, how could I be, Bessie, if I didn't know anything about it?"
"Well, don't you see how it worked out, Zara? If you refuse to notice
the mean things people do when they don't succeed in hurting you, it's
just as if you didn't know anything about it, isn't it? And if the stone
was thrown, and you saw it, and knew who'd thrown it, you'd be
angry--but you could get over it by just making up your mind to forget
it, and acting as if they'd never done it at all."
Zara didn't answer for a minute. She was thinking that over.
"I guess you're right, Bessie," she said, finally. "That _is_ the best
way to do. When I get angry I get all hot inside, and I feel dreadful.
I'm going to try not to lose my temper any more."
"You'll be a lot happier if you do that," said Bessie. "Now, let's get
back to the fire. I've got this water, and they must be waiting for it."
So Zara, happy again, and laughing now, helped Bessie with the pail of
water, and they went back to the fire together. Everyone was busy, each
with some appointed task. Two of the girls were spreading knives and
forks, and laying out cups and dishes in a great circle near the water,
since all the meals were eaten Indian fashion, sitting on the ground.
Others, who had been fishing, were displaying their catch, and cleaning
the gleaming trout, soon to be cooked with crisp bacon, and to form the
chief dish of the evening meal.
Wanaka smiled at them as the two girls appeared with the water.
"You're making a good start as Camp Fire Girls," she told them. "We all
try to help. Later on, if you like, I'll give you a lesson in cooking."
Bessie smiled, but said nothing. And presently she called to Zara and
disappeared with her in the woods.
"I want to give them a surprise, Zara," she said. "There's quite a long
time yet before supper. And I saw an apple tree when I was walking
through the woods. Let's go and get some of them."
Zara was quite willing, and in half an hour or less the two girls were
back in camp with a good load of apples. Then Bessie spoke to Wanaka
when the Guardian was alone for the moment.
"May I have some flour and sugar?" she said.
Wanaka looked at her curiously, but gave her what she wanted. And
Bessie, finding a smooth white board, was soon busy rolling pastry. Then
when she had made a great deep dish pie, and filled it with the apples,
which Zara, meanwhile, had pared and cut, Bessie set to work on what was
the most difficult part of her task. First she dug out a hole in the
ground and made a fire, small, but very hot, and, in a short time, with
the aid of two flat stones, she had constructed a practicable outdoor
oven, in which the heat of the embers and cinders was retained by
shutting out the air with earth. Then the pie was put in and covered at
once, so that no heat could escape, and Bessie, saying nothing about
what she had done, went back to help the others.
Obeying the unwritten rule of the Camp Fire, which allows the girls to
work out their ideas unaided if they possibly can, so as to encourage
self-reliance and independence, Wanaka did not ask her what she had
done. But when the meal was over Bessie slipped away, while Wanaka was
serving out some preserves, and returned in a moment, bearing her
pie--nobly browned, with crisp, flaky crust.
"I've only made one pie like this before and I never used that sort of
an oven," she said, shyly. "So I don't know if it's very good. But I
thought I would try it."
Bessie, however, need not have worried about the quality of that pie.
The rapidity with which it disappeared was the best possible evidence of
its goodness, and Wanaka commended her before all the girls, who were
willing enough to join the leader in singing Bessie's praises.
"My, but that was good!" said Minnehaha. "I wish I could make a pie like
that! My pastry is always heavy. Will you show me how when we get home,
Bessie?"
"Indeed I will!" promised Bessie.
And that night, after a spell of singing and story telling about the
great fire on the beach, Bessie and Zara went to bed with thoughts very
different from those they had had the night before.
"Aren't they good to us, Zara?" said Bessie.
"They're simply wonderful," said Zara, with shining eyes. "And Wanaka
talked to me about my father. She says she has a friend in the city
who's a lawyer, and that as soon as we get back she'll speak to him, and
get him to see that he is fairly treated. I feel ever so much better."
The voices of the girls all about them, laughing and singing as they
made ready for the night, and the kindly words of Wanaka, made a great
contrast to their loneliness of the night before. Then everything had
seemed black and dismal. They hadn't known what they were going to do,
or what was to happen to them; they had been hungry and tired, and with
no prospect of breakfast when they got up. But now they had more
friends, gained in one wonderful day, than they had made before in all
their lives, and Wanaka had promised to see that in the future there
should always be someone to guide them and see that no one abused them
any more. No wonder that they looked on the bright camp fire, symbol of
all the happiness that had come to them, with happy eyes. And they
listened in delight as the girls gathered, just before they went to bed,
and sang the good-night song:
"Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame,
Oh, Master of the Hidden Fire.
Wash pure my heart and cleanse for me
My soul's desire.
In flame of sunrise bathe my mind,
Oh, Master of the Hidden Fire,
That when I wake, clear eyed may be
My soul's desire."
And so, with the flames' light flickering before them, Bessie and Zara
went to sleep sure of happiness and companionship when they awoke in the
morning, with the first rays of the rising sun shining into the tents.
But Bessie was to awake before that. She lay near the door of one of the
tents, which she shared with Zara, Minnehaha, and two other girls, and
she awoke suddenly, coming at once to full consciousness, as anyone who
had been brought up with Maw Hoover to wake her every morning was pretty
certain to do at any unusual sound. For a moment, so deep was the
silence, she thought that she had been deceived. In the distance an owl
called; much nearer, there was an answer. A light wind rustled in the
trees, stirring the leaves gently as it moved. Looking out, she saw that
a faint, silvery sheen still bathed the ground outside, showing that the
moon, which had risen late, was not yet set.
And then the sound that had awakened her came again--a curious, hoarse
call, given in imitation of a whip-poor-will, but badly done. No bird
had uttered that cry, and Bessie, country bred, listening intently, knew
it. Silently she rose and slipped on moccasins that belonged to
Minnehaha, and a dress. And then, making no more noise than a cat would
have done, she crept to the opening in the front of the tent and peeped
out. For Bessie had recognized the author of that imitation of the
bird's call, and she knew that there was mischief afoot.
Still intent on keeping the alarm she felt from the others, until she
knew whether there was a real cause for it, Bessie slipped out of the
tent and into the shadow of the trees. The camp fire still burned,
flickering in the darkness, and making great, weird shadows, as the
light fell upon the trees. It had been built up and banked before the
camp went to sleep, and in the morning it would still be burning,
although faintly, ready for the first careful attentions of the
appointed Wood-Gatherers, whose duty it was to see that the fire did not
die.
Bessie, fearing that she might be spied upon, had to keep in the
darkness, and she twisted and turned from the trunk of one tree to the
next, bending over close to the ground when she had to cross an open
space where firelight or moonbeams might reveal her to watching eyes.
And now and again, crudely given, as crudely answered, from further down
the lake, the call of the mock whip-poor-will guided her in her quest.
And Bessie, plucking up all the courage she could muster, still trembled
slightly, more from nervousness than from actual fear, for she knew
whose voice it was that was imitating the plaintive bird--Jake Hoover's!
All Hedgeville, as she well knew, must know that this camp of girls was
at the lake--and it would be just like Jake and some of the bullying,
reckless crowd of boys that he made his chief friends, to think that it
would be a fine joke to play some tricks on the sleeping camp, and alarm
these girls who were trying to enjoy themselves with outdoor life, just
as if they had been boys. Bessie, setting her teeth, determined that
they shouldn't succeed, that in some fashion she would turn the joke on
them.
Gradually she drew nearer to the sound, and she made up her mind,
thankfully, that she had waked in time, before all the jokers had
arrived. She had snatched up a sheet as she left the camp, without a
clear idea of what she meant to do with it, but now, as she stole among
the trees, a dim figure, flitting from one dark place to the next, a
wild idea formed in her mind.
It was risky--but Bessie was not timid. If Jake Hoover caught
her--well, she knew what that would mean. He would not spare her, as his
father had done, and there would be trouble for her, and for Zara and,
worst of all, for Wanaka and her other new friends. And there was
another danger. It might not, after all, be Jake Hoover that she heard.
At the Hoovers' she had heard stories of tramps and wandering gypsies,
and she had been warned, whenever there was a report that any such
vagrants were about, to keep off the roads and stay near the house.
Jake, after all, could only betray her to his mother and the others who
were after her, but a tramp or a gypsy might do far worse than that.
But, though the solitude and the darkness were enough to frighten people
older and stronger than Bessie, she kept on. And at last, before her,
she heard footsteps tramping down the dry leaves and branches, and she
heard a murmur of voices, too.
At once part of her fears fled, for it was Jake Hoover's voice that came
to her ears.
"Ha-ha!" he was laughing. "Gee, it took you fellers long enough to git
here. But, say, boys, won't we have some fun with them girls? Actin' up
just like they was boys, sleepin' out in the woods an' pretendin'
they're as brave as anythin'. I saw that one that bought a lot of truck
from Paw to-day. Bet she'll scream as loud as any of them."
"Bet she will," said another voice. "Say, Jake, we won't hurt 'em none,
will we? Jest throw a scare into them, like?"
"Sure, that's all!"
"'Cause I wouldn't want to hurt 'em none. They're jest girls, after
all."
"All we'll do will be just to get around them tents an' start yellin'
all at once--an' I'll bet they'll come a-runnin'. Ha-ha!"
But the laugh was frozen on his lips. As he spoke he looked behind him,
warned by a faint sound--and his hair rose. For waving its arms wildly,
a figure, all in white, was running toward him. As it came it made
strange, unearthly sounds--horrid noises, such as Jake had never heard.
For a moment Jake and the two boys with him stood rooted to the spot,
paralyzed with fear. Then they yelled together, and, the sound of their
own voices seeming to release their imprisoned feet, turned and ran
wildly, not knowing where they were going.
They tripped over roots, fell, then stumbled to their feet again, and
continued their flight, shrieking. And behind them the ghost, weak with
laughter, collapsed on a fallen tree trunk and laughed silently as they
fled--for the ghost that had frightened these bold raiders was only
Bessie, wrapped in the sheet she had so luckily snatched up when they
had given her the alarm.