OTHER GIRLS
The other girls in the camp in Beechwood Forest were not passing
through so trying an ordeal as Victoria Drew and Katherine Moore,
after Katherine's return to camp.
Sympathetic they were with Kara's misfortune, yet upon them it did not
press so heavily.
Frankly two of the girls acknowledged that the few weeks at camp were
the happiest of their entire lives. These two girls were Louise Miller
and Teresa Peterson. Neither of them was particularly congenial with
their home surroundings.
An odd contradiction, Louise Miller was oftentimes so quiet, so slow
and awkward in her movements that many persons regarded her as stupid.
This was never true among the friends who knew her intimately, if for
no other reason, than because of Dorothy McClain's attitude. From the
time they were children the two girls had admired and loved each
other, notwithstanding the difference in their natures. Dorothy was
one of the happy persons whose attraction was so apparent that few
natures resisted it. She was handsome and straightforward and sweet
tempered. One girl in a family of six brothers, she had learned a
freemasonry of living, and had not the sensitiveness and introspection
that troubles so many young girls. Her mother was dead, yet she and
her father had been such intimate friends that she had not felt the
keenness of her loss as she must have under different circumstances.
Indeed, Louise Miller, whose parents were living, endured a deeper
loneliness.
There had never been any pretence of anything else. Her father was a
business failure. This had narrowed and embittered his nature. He was
devoted to his wife but to no one else.
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 assist 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
classes 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
passionate 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 fashion 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 fashion. 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 principally
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 sunshine 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 shores 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 shore 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 fashion 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
associates 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."
"I see, Teresa, feminine society is not enough for you. I wonder if it
ever will be," Louise remarked with such profound disgust and
annoyance that Dorothy shook her head reproachfully.
"Don't be so cross, Ouida, I am sure Teresa does not mean any great
harm. I like boys, I am obliged to like them with six brothers of my
own. Besides, I feel as Teresa does that it is stupid and self
righteous of us to continue to refuse to have anything to do with the
Boy Scouts simply because they once offended us. Certainly I miss the
opportunity to see Lance and Don now and then."
Anxious to be out of the conversation, Louise Miller picked up a book
of nature studies on the New England country, by John Burroughs, and
began reading.
Teresa Peterson's nature was not a straightforward one. Without actual
proof Louise Miller felt this instinctively. Of course there was no
great harm in her. But then all the more reason why she might make
mischief without intending it.
A few moments later the three girls moved back toward camp. Tent
inspection was over and they were going for an all-day hike through
the woods.