"Oh, Mother, isn't it just beautiful?" exclaimed the princess the night
of the fagot party, as she watched the flames leap and dance down on the
lawn.
"Yes; it is very suggestive, too," answered Mrs. Van Vorst, "for it
makes one think of the witches in Macbeth, as they stood around the
cauldron watching their queer concoction 'boil and bubble.'"
"O dear!" was Nita's wail again, "it is lovely to see the fire and the
girls, but I do want to hear the stories they tell."
"Perhaps Nathalie will come up later," suggested her mother, "and tell
you some of the thrillers. Is that what she calls them?"
"There, they have stopped the witches' dance and are forming a circle.
Oh, one of the girls has thrown on a bundle of fagots! Yes, it's that
friend of Nathalie's, Miss Sensible. Oh, Mother," cried the little
shut-in with a woeful countenance, "I am sure I could walk down there."
She stood up as she spoke and began to walk restlessly up and down the
room.
"Oh, Nita, be careful!" pleaded her mother. "You do not want to overdo
your walking, and you have been on your feet a good deal to-day."
Notwithstanding Mrs. Van Vorst's protest there was a note of hope in her
voice that betrayed that she had at last begun to see things as Nathalie
had predicted, that she had made a mistake in housing her daughter
behind high walls, and that the mingling with girls of her own age might
bring new life to her.
"Ah, there's Grace," went on the voice at the window. "She's the other
girl who came with Nathalie. Oh, she's throwing on her fagots!" The girl
turned from the window as she perceived that Ellen had entered the room
and was telling her mother that some one desired to see her in the
library.
As Mrs. Van Vorst arose to leave the room Nita demurred, "Oh, Mother, I
don't want to be left here alone."
"I will return as soon as possible, Nita, dear," was the reply; "Ellen
will stay with you. You can tell her about the fagot party," she added
hastily as she saw the cloud on the girl's face. With a backward glance,
as she hurried from the room, she saw that her suggestion had been
followed and that Ellen had drawn her chair close to Nita's, and was
eagerly listening as her daughter related the incidents leading up to
the demonstration down on the lawn.
Indeed it was not long before the faithful nurse, always interested in
anything to brighten the life of her young charge, was watching the
Pioneers and their doings as keenly as Nita, while wishing with her that
they could hear the stories the girls were telling.
Suddenly Nita, who had been unusually silent for some time, drew Ellen's
head down to hers, and began to whisper softly in her ear.
"Oh, Ellen, will you?" she coaxed pleadingly, as she finished her
whispering of something that had brought a protest from the good woman.
Ellen looked dubious for a minute or so, and then the persuasive pleader
had her way, for Ellen had given her assent and Nita was clapping her
hands happily, as she thought of the fun in store for her later in the
evening.
Meanwhile, the girls on the lawn with tense expectancy kept their eyes
on Nathalie, who arose, walked towards the flaming pyre, and with a
quick toss landed another bundle of fagots on the leaping flames.
"Oh, Nathalie, you will have to hurry," called Grace excitedly, as her
friend scurried back to her seat. "One of your fagots is already
ablaze."
Nathalie needed no warning for she had already plunged into her tale,
and in short, concise sentences--she had practiced with Helen--was
describing in graphic tone a colonial wedding, the going away of the
bridal pair, the building of a log hut in the wilderness, the departure
of the young husband, and the loneliness of the young bride. She paused
a moment and drew a long breath as if to gather her forces for the
coming ordeal.
Then with her eyes fastened in a rigid stare on the twirling glare from
the flames--so as to bring her story to a proper climax when the fiery
fagots fell apart--she went on and told of the face of a redskin suddenly
being thrust into a window of the little cabin, of a shriek of terror,
of cruel, fiendish laughter, of the fair bride being carried on the back
of a tall savage, and of the final arrival at an Indian encampment,
where a paint-bedaubed warrior with flaunting head-gear tried to induce
the wailing bride to become his squaw.
Nathalie's eyes, big in the flaming redness of the firelight, were
riveted on the seething flames as if she saw in the twist and curl of
their darting tongues the enactment of the story she was telling. The
girls all bent forward eagerly, for the fagots were getting ready to
burst apart as she told of the imprisonment of the bride, the making of
a big bonfire, the tying of the bride to the stake, the lighting of the
underbrush at her feet, and the whirling flames as they leaped up and
greedily licked the terror-stricken face.
But Nathalie, like a photo-play screen, had transported her listeners to
a sun-baked plain, where a white man was galloping in mad speed. A fagot
had leaped from its fellows. "Oh, Nathalie, hurry!" whispered Grace,
wringing her hands nervously. Ah, but Nathalie was on time, and as the
fagots gave a loud snap and fell into a shower of twinkling lights the
horseman came galloping into the street of the Indian encampment with a
troop of soldiers close at his heels, and leaped into the fiery embers
and cut--There was a loud clapping followed by cries of applause, for
there was no need to tell what happened after that leap into the fire,
every one knew.
"Now, Lillie, it is your turn!" shouted several voices as Nathalie,
exhausted by her strenuous race between words and flames, sank back
somewhat exhausted against her friend's shoulder.
Lillie Bell, in response to her name, seized a bundle of fagots, and
with a few flourishes, which she declared to be an incantation for
success, threw it on the blazing pile. In a moment she was back in her
seat and had started her tale of romance.
"When Washington Irving's headless horseman was the terror of the
Hudson, a party of young girls, who were wandering in the fields one
moonlight night, was chased by a huge and airy phantom to the banks of
the river. In order to escape their foe two of the girls darted into an
empty boat fastened near the bank and rowed out into the stream. The
phantom, a strange and weird object, pursued, swimming rapidly in the
wake of the canoe.
"Suddenly, to the horror of the girls crouched up against a rock on
shore they saw, in a broad band of moonlight shining on the water, that
the phantom was the headless one. Even as they gazed it had reached the
boat, and with one sweep of its mighty arm had grabbed one of the girls
from her sister's clutch, and was swimming swiftly back to land.
"The girl in the boat rowed quickly back, only to see, with her
companions on shore, the phantom disappear into the woods. With
phenomenal courage she flew after the headless one, screaming with all
her strength. But alas, her speed and screams were of no avail, for she
ran after the phantom only to see it dash into an uninhabited mansion
that stood in a park thick with the gloom of forest trees.
"Horror-stricken, the girls hastened home and parties were sent in
pursuit of the stolen girl, but no trace of her was found, although the
empty mansion, dark with the forest gloom was searched from attic to
cellar.
"Time passed, and the maiden returned not to her home, nor was any trace
of her ever discovered, although every effort possible had been made. At
last her sister, loved by a young farmer, refused to marry him unless he
would visit the haunted mansion at midnight, to see if possibly he could
obtain any clew to her sister's whereabouts, it being generally believed
that she had been murdered in the house and that her ghost haunted the
abode.
"Determined to win the girl, the young farmer with his revolver and a
few tapers secreted himself in the cellar of the house one day, just
before twilight. He was resolved to solve the mystery of the girl's
disappearance and the reason why the house at night was filled with a
peculiar, bluish light, said to be the candle borne by the headless one
in his midnight tour of the premises.
"Just before midnight the farmer hastened to the upper floor and hid in
a closet, where, with quaking limbs and wildly beating heart he awaited
the magic hour. Unfortunately, weary with waiting, he fell asleep, but
was soon awakened by a peculiar, creeping sensation along his spine. He
crouched against the door holding it ajar with one hand and the pistol
in the other.
"All at once there was the swish of a garment against the door. He
scratched a match, lit his taper, and glared forth into the darkness.
Again he heard that swish. It was in the hall. Stealthily he tiptoed to
the hall door, opened it with trembling hand, and stepped forth into
dense blackness, when--"
"Oh, Lillie, hurry!" screamed the Sport. "Your logs will fall in a
minute!"
A strange smile flitted over Lillie's face, but her voice went
thrillingly on. "When something huge and hairy spread over him like a
net, benumbing every nerve and muscle. He struggled, and finally
succeeded in getting free of the unknown thing and sprang for the door
leading to the open. He would get out of that house. No, he would lose
Kitty, he could not live without her! He turned--ah, what was that weird
flash at the top of the staircase? He heard the swish again--this time
very near--it was some one coming down the stairs! He crouched against
the wall and peered up; the rattling of a chain sounded on his ears;
again came that weird glare, and he saw--" the fagots fell with a loud
sputter, throwing forth a shower of fiery sparks. Lillie remained silent
a moment, each girl held her breath in paralyzed terror, and then, as
the last fagot dropped a shapeless heap on the grass, Lillie cried with
tragic emphasis, "Girls, I leave you to guess what he saw!"
A second of space, Lillie's eyes shown in a mocking smile as she glanced
around the circle, and then, the smile froze on her lips, her eyes
dilated wildly, and she jumped to her feet crying in frenzied horror,
"What is that?" pointing as she spoke to a clump of trees on the lawn.
Another second and she had turned, and with an unearthly shriek was
flying across the lawn towards the house!
The girls, whose nerves had been wrought up to the highest pitch by
Lillie's weird tale, remained dumb, thinking as they saw her strange
actions that it was a new thriller, and were uncertain whether to laugh
or cry, as they stared at her flying figure.
Jessie, who always disliked Lillie's tragic tales, with a half laugh
sprang to her feet crying, "Well, if she isn't the limit!" Her glance
had followed Lillie's to the clump of trees with a curious stare; the
stare became fixed; she uttered a wild scream, and the next moment she,
too, was rushing in mad terror across the lawn in the wake of the
story-teller!
As the girls saw her glance and heard her cry, terror struck each one
like an electric shock, and the next second every girl present had
broken into a wild cry, and without waiting to see what was the cause of
the rush over the lawn, was speeding, helter-skelter towards the house!
Nathalie had run with the others, and then, swayed by some unknown
impulse, she had halted and glanced back in the direction she had seen
Lillie and Jessie look. She gave a low cry, started to flee again, and
then stood suddenly still, and with panting breath gazed again at the
clump of trees. She caught her breath, for under the swaying boughs
stood a weird, white object pointing a long white finger at her!
What was it? Could it be a Boy Scout trying to frighten them? She bent
forward with intent eyes, for as the white figure swayed slightly there
was something curiously familiar in its movements. The next instant
Nathalie had turned, and as if shot from a catapult was speeding towards
the white figure that still stood, uncannily waving its arms to and fro
in the moonlight.
[Illustration: With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn.]
"Oh, Nita!" burst from the girl, "how did you come here?" Before the
white figure could answer, Ellen was seen running swiftly towards them.
"Oh, Miss Nita," she wailed, "what a scare you have given me! Oh, you
naughty girl, you promised that you would not leave the lower porch!"
"Well," flashed the girl, "I changed my mind!" Then seizing Nathalie,
who was still staring at her with big, frightened eyes, she began to
laugh hysterically. "Oh, wasn't it funny, Nathalie? Did you see how she
ran? What a joke, when she was trying to scare the girls--and was scared
herself--O dear, it is so funny!"
But Nathalie, with a sober face was staring down at the grass. "Oh,
Nita," she exclaimed with a sudden fear, "the grass is wet, and, Ellen,
she will take cold! Oh, how did she get here? Mrs. Van Vorst will be so
displeased!"
But at that instant Mrs. Van Vorst came running down the path followed
by Mrs. Morrow. "Oh, Nita! Nita!" she wailed, "how could you be so
foolish, you will surely take your death! Ellen, how did it happen?"
"Sure, there's no harm done," broke in Peter's voice at this critical
moment. "I have her chair and we'll soon get her in, marm. Sure, I saw
her stealing across the lawn all alone by herself, and I hurried after
the chair, thinking she would be tired before she had gone far."
"Thank you, Peter," cried Nita's mother, "you are so good and
considerate. O dear, I hope she won't take cold! It was such an
imprudent thing for her to do, but Ellen, how did it happen?" There was
a note of condemnation in the lady's voice.
But before Ellen could answer, Nita, whom Peter had wrapped and placed
in her chair, cried, "Now, Mamma, don't blame Ellen. It was all my
fault. I sent her to get my shawl and then I stole down here. I just
wanted to hear some of the stories. But when I got here that girl--the
Pioneers called her Lillie--was telling a story. She was trying to scare
the girls, and then--oh, Mother, it was so funny to see her run--why, I
thought I would scare her, and when she looked up, just as she had
worked the girls all to a fever, I waved my arm and pointed my finger at
her. Oh, Mother, if you could have heard her shriek!" Nita was again in
hysterical laughter.
By this time she had her audience laughing with her, especially Peter
and Ellen, who thought their young mistress had been most brilliant in
outwitting them, and in frightening the young lady who had been trying
so hard to frighten her companions.
"O dear," exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, who proved to be the lady who was
visiting with Mrs. Van Vorst when Nita stole down to the lower porch, "I
am ashamed of my Pioneers; they are supposed to be very brave, but
to-night's performance does not appear as if they were. Nathalie, how
was it you did not run with the others?"
"I did," confessed Nathalie frankly, "but something brought me to a halt
and I turned and looked back. O dear, but Nita did look terrible waving
her white arms to and fro! And then it came to me that there was
something familiar about the figure, I stared a moment, and then I knew!
But, Mrs. Morrow, hadn't I better look for the girls? Please do not
blame them, I am sure you would have run, too, if you could have seen
Nita in that sheet, pointing her finger at you."
Then Nathalie was off, running swiftly over the lawn, peering first on
one side and then the other as she gave a Bob White whistle, then a
Tru-al-lee, ending with the shout, "Girls! Girls! where are you?" then
the Bob White whistle again.
Her cry was heard, and one by one the Pioneers sheepishly crawled from
their places of safety and joined Nathalie on the lawn. They listened
with shamed faces as she told them who and what it was that had caused
their sudden departure. They were reluctant to show themselves at first,
especially when they learned that Mrs. Morrow was there and had heard
all about their foolish flight. But with a bit of coaxing on Nathalie's
part they returned, and in a few minutes were again in their cheer-fire
circle, with two additional guests, Mrs. Van Vorst and Nita, besides
Mrs. Morrow, who had thought when the girls first began to tell their
stories to slip in and thank Mrs. Van Vorst for her kindness, with the
result that she had been a witness to their lack of bravery, as she
termed it.
The rest of the evening passed quickly after one or two had told their
thrillers, to the great satisfaction of Nita, who enjoyed them
immensely. After the stories were told, there was a marshmallow roast,
which was entered into with zest, and then came the burning send-off to
Louise Gaynor, who, when her name was called, came shyly forward to
receive an enormous pie, from which hung streamers of gay colored
ribbons, each streamer being tied to a keepsake from one of the
Pioneers.
Mrs. Morrow now expressed the regret of the Pioneers at losing so good a
comrade and friend, with the added wish that she would always remember
them with love, and the assurance that they would carry her on their
hearts with devout wishes for her health and happiness. The streamers
were pulled one by one and the loving gifts were brought forth as a
tribute to the sweetest songster of the band.
The last streamer brought to light a Round Robin letter, which Louise
faithfully promised not to open until the dates set, as for each day in
the year of absence she would find a few words of cheer and love from
her comrades, the Girl Pioneers of America.
After a few songs from the girls, Louise sang one or two of her old
English songs, Lillie accompanying her on the mandolin, and then Mrs.
Morrow, in a neat little speech, commended Nathalie for her courage in
holding her ground when the others had taken to flight. As she ended
there was a moment's silence and then each and every girl was shouting
as loud as she could:
"Hear! hear! a brave Pioneer!
Three cheers for Nathalie dear!"
This cheer was most embarrassing to Nathalie, who wiggled uneasily with
flushed cheeks as she tried to make the girls hear that she was not
brave at all. But her protests were drowned by the merry voices, as
after three cheers they broke into their Pioneer song of good-by to
Louise. This was followed by the song that every Pioneer loves to sing
and that was:
"We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
We will be brave, and kind and true;
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
Hear! Hear! Hear!
Girl Pioneer!
Come, give a cheer!
Girl Pi-o-neer!!!"
One bright morning two weeks after the fagot party, Helen with wondering
surprise mingled with pleasure read the following:
"Madame Van Vorst presents her compliments to Mistress Helen Dame,
and begs the pleasure of her company on the afternoon of the sixth
of July, at a _Kraeg_, to meet her daughter, Mistress Anita Van
Vorst, in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth
anniversary of the building of the Van Vorst homestead. Mistress
Helen is requested to appear in the costume of a 'goede vrouw' of
Mana-ha-ta."
"A _Kraeg_--what does that mean?" queried the girl, as with puzzled brows
she eyed the tiny picture of the "Homestead" surmounting the invitation,
with the dates, 1664-1914. "Ah, Nathalie will know!" The next moment the
girl was hurrying across the lawn to her neighbor's veranda, where she
had spied her cosily ensconced in the hammock screened from observant
eyes by a bower of green leaves.
Nathalie looked up as she heard her step and trilled a soft tru-al-lee
in recognition, as Helen gave the brownish envelope in her hand a
flourish.
"I knew you would be wanting to know what that meant." Nathalie smiled
happily at her friend as she pointed to the envelope.
"I understand the invitation all right," was the quick retort, "and
congratulate you on your success in winning the madame to your views
that it was a shame to allow little Anita to bloom behind those high
walls. But--can you tell me what kind of a thing a _Kraeg_ is?"
"It means a Dutch house-warming! But there, I am not going to tell you
any more, wait until the sixth."
"'In the costume of a goede vrouw of Mana-ha-ta,'" read Helen slowly.
"May I deign to ask your Dutch Majesty to explain what this means?"
"You may," nodded the occupant of the hammock, "for her Dutch Majesty
has spent many weary hours with Miss Anita studying just that part of
the program. You see, we want to have the real Dutch atmosphere of the
early period, so we decided to have each girl impersonate some woman
pioneer, and then tell who she was and what she did."
"Well, I don't imagine that the girls will care to get themselves up
like those old Dutch vrouws, as they were so terribly stolid and
uninteresting."
"Oh, Helen," exclaimed Nathalie sitting suddenly up in the hammock,
"those Dutch vrouws were anything but uninteresting. Nita and I have
read all about them in a book Mrs. Van Vorst bought for us in New York,
it has just been published and is very interesting. As a matter of fact,
the women who settled New York were the most efficient, the most
industrious, and the most capable of any of the early pioneer women of
that period."
"I did not know that," said Helen, raising her eyebrows; "I thought they
were just stolid Dutch peasant women with little ability to do anything
but knit, tend the cows, and so on."
"A great many people seem to have that idea," returned her friend, "but
the Dutch housewives were not mere stoical drudges. Holland at that
time, you know, was the only country that gave as good an education to
her girls as to her boys. They were not only educated to fill
responsible positions, but to have a love for literature as well as for
painting, music, and the arts. So these Dutch peasants, as you call
them, were better educated, better protected by the laws of the colony,
and held more important positions than any of their Southern or Northern
sisters.
"It is claimed," she went on, warming to her subject, "that the Dutch
housewife was the manufacturer of the day, producing under her own roof
nearly all the necessities for the family use. Besides being proficient
in the art of cooking, she made perfumes from the flowers in her garden,
planted, gathered, dried, and brewed the hops. She culled simples and
herbs for medicine, thus becoming the physician of the household. She
taught her maids to card and weave wool for clothes; she spun the fine
thread of the flax, grown in her yard, for the linen, knit the socks,
oh, I could not begin to tell you her many industries!
"But besides all that," continued the girl, "the goede vrouws had such
good sense and judgment, and such a fine eye for commercial values that
they not only owned real estate, but ofttimes carried on their own
business. The burgomasters of the town paid great deference to the Dutch
women's shrewdness, judgment, and independence, so that they exerted no
little influence in the state affairs of New Amsterdam."
"Well, I never!" laughed Helen teasingly. "If you haven't become a
regular schoolma'am since you have been teaching the princess. Pray, how
much am I to pay you per word?"
Nathalie laughed merrily. "Yes, isn't it funny? I started reading about
the Pioneer women to get Nita interested in something that would be
instructive as well as entertaining. And lo, she has not only become
absorbed in anything that pertains to the pioneers, but in many other
historical subjects as well. As for me, why, I have learned a great
deal, too, and that is how, when Mrs. Van Vorst said she would like to
entertain the Pioneers in return for amusing Nita by the drill and the
fagot party, we decided to have a _Kraeg_."
"How will the girls know what characters they are to take, what they
did, and so on?"
"Oh, Mrs. Morrow and I arranged all that. Notices were sent--you'll get
yours--telling the girls that all information would be furnished by
Annetje Jans--that's I--gratis. I will arrange with each girl as to her
character and so on. Oh, there's Grace! I'll warrant you she has her
notice and is in a hurry for news. But, Helen, here is the book that
tells all about these Dutch women. I wish you would take it and look it
over, for I know I shall need lots of help."