WOODLAND THRILLS
It was Margaret Slowden who lost the Badge of Merit. The pretty gilt
wreath, with its clover leaf center on a dainty white ribbon hanger,
had been presented to Margaret on such an auspicious occasion, that the
emblem meant much more to the girl scout than its official value of
rank indicated.
The True Tred Troop of Flosston had been organized one month when
Margaret won the medal. Shortly after the holidays, an event of unusual
importance occurred in the mill town, when its small company of service
boys returned from "Over There." They were royally welcomed by the
entire town folks, together with the many officials of the silk
industries, from whose ranks the boys had marched away.
With the lads returned was Margaret's brother Tom. He was handsome and
a Marine, and well might Mrs. Slowden and Margaret take pride in the
honor their soldier brought them. On the night of the Great Welcome
Home, the scout girls, then newly organized, assisted with ushering and
attending to the platform needs of the speakers and honored heroes,
each of the latter receiving a special small, gold military cross, the
gift of the silk mill magnates. This insignia was presented by the most
famous authorities of army and navy available, and Tom Slowden was
given the special honor of a real military presentation of the D. S.
C., he being the only member of Flosston recruits to receive such a
notable tribute.
As might have been expected this gave real distinction to the Welcome
Home, and Margaret was suffused with pardonable pride. But when she
took her place in the check room, to attend to the coats and other
belongings of the distinguished visitors--she was forgotten by her
troop, and she remained there all during Tom's presentation. She never
heard a word of major's wonderful speech, when the people fairly roared
for Tom's glory. There she was, downstairs in the dark, lonely cloak
room.
"Oh, my dear!" deplored Captain Clark. "I never meant that you should
stay down here at this time."
"But it was my task," returned the melancholy Margaret.
"I would not have had you miss your brother's presentation for the
world! Such a thing can never come again. Why did you not call some of
the girls to relieve you?"
"If Tom did anything like that he could never have received the D. S.
C., and I am a Scout and pledged to honor commands," returned Margaret
nobly.
For that sacrifice she received from the same platform, one week later,
her own badge of merit, and the occasion was a real rally, with
officials from headquarters, and all the neighboring troops
participating.
Was it strange then that Margaret should lament her loss?
No other badge could actually take the place of that one, and while
Captain Clark would immediately advise headquarters of the loss, and
order a new one, the brave little scout girl would still feel she had
lost that one vested with the special presentation honors.
On the morning following the loss, the girls of True Tred were seen out
on the road so early, the station master, old Pete, hurried to his
window, and got ready for business, surmising an excursion or at least
a local convention imminent.
But no such occurrence was probable, it was only the troop out looking
for the badge, and inevitably they did not find it. Signs made by
Captain Clark were posted in the station, the post-office, and at
prominent corners, but Margaret was disconsolate. She had called her
badge the "D. S. C." because of its connection with Tom's insignia, and
though the big brother had promised the scout sister all sorts of
valuable substitutes, offering her the little hand carved box he had
brought for "another girl," and which Margaret had openly coveted, even
this did not seem adequate compensation.
All day at school the girls of True Tred planned and contrived little
favors for their unhappy sister, and it was noticeable those of the
classes who usually scoffed at the scouts and their activities, could
not well conceal their admiration for the spirit of kindliness
displayed.
The True Treds had members in the seventh and eighth grammar grades,
and the girls' ages ranged from thirteen to fifteen years. Margaret
Slowden was fifteen, Cleo Harris fourteen and Grace Philow and Madaline
Mower were thirteen. This group was most active in the scout girls'
movement, and although the organization was only three months old in
Flosston, few there were in the town who had not seen and admired the
smart little troopers, in their neat uniforms, always ready to assist
in the home or in public at any task consigned to them. It was to be
expected they would meet opposition in the way of criticism from such
girls as are always indifferent to team play, and the best interests of
the largest numbers, but the scouts knew how much they enjoyed their
troop, and realized how beneficial was the attractive training they
were receiving from its rules and regulations.
Grace and Madaline were still in the tenderfoot class, and wore the
little brooch at the neck of their blouses. Margaret and Cleo were
already in the first class, and permitted to wear the left sleeve
badge, while others showed their rank in the Tenderfoot, the first and
third class, three patrols of eight members each making up Flosston
troop.
The real work of the scouts is so interesting in character that the
writer has no idea of detracting from it, by relating the detail,
feeling the charm and significance is best expressed in a real story of
the live girls as they live their characteristic scout life.
Nevertheless, it may not be amiss to call attention here to the value
of such training given almost in play, and without question in such
attractive forms as to make character building through its influence an
ideal pastime, a valuable investment, and a complete program, for
growing girls, who may emerge from the "bundle of habits" as strong
members of society, progressive business women, or nicely trained
little helpers for the home, or for the more sheltering conditions in
whatever path of life they may be selected to tread.
That schools or even homes cannot compete with such training is
evident, when one considers that a girl is creative, and should have
ample chance to develop her character without force or rigid self
defacing, instead of self creating rules; also it must be apparent that
guidance is only successful when imposed gently, and with that subtle
persuasion, ever aiming to show the result of correct training, and
thus affording the principles of freedom for selection, with a
knowledge of what that selection will result in.
What sensible girl will deliberately choose to go her own careless way,
when she realizes that nothing satisfactory can be expected from such a
choice, and that the very freedom coveted makes her a slave to the most
cruel limits of prospects or attainments?
But we will not sermonize; even at this distance we may hold out the
strong arm of influence, assuring our readers that the highest aims of
writers and publishers are for the advancement of the younger girls,
whose minds, for the moment, are entrusted to our keeping.
Coming back to our group of Girl Scouts, now holding conclave in the
school yard of Flosston grammar grades, we find Grace and Madeline
forming themselves into a committee of two, with the avowed intention
of getting lip a hiking party for their own special benefit. These
younger girls must soon undergo the test necessary for their
qualification as second class scouts, and a hike on this lovely spring
afternoon would aid them greatly in acquiring the outdoor knowledge
necessary.
Margaret was rather inclined to dissent when the jaunt was proposed,
she did not feel quite as hiky as usual, and she promptly remembered
she had promised her mother some assistance in the little kitchen
garden both were developing.
"Oh, come on," pleaded Grace. "If you say you want to go, I am sure
Captain Clark will agree. I know where we can get the loveliest
watercress."
This lure won Margaret, who had now fully recovered her scout cheer,
and was trying bravely to forget the loss of her cherished badge".
"Mother loves watercress," she conceded, "and I would go, if we are
sure to be back by five. I have to go call for the mail before dark."
"Oh, goody-good!" sang out Grace. "Now I can surely get my nature work
all nicely covered. I'll tell Madaline. She is over there coaxing
Cleo," and with a risky flourish of her red tie, a hop, skip and a
jump, the Tenderfoot pranced across the big green schoolyard, in a
fashion that belied her limitations on the tenderfoot basis.
"Yes, I'll go," Cleo was agreeing, "but I am afraid we can't get
Captain Clark. I know she is going out to Kingsley to form a troop.
Maybe we can get Lieutenant Lindsley. She is free from Normal at four.
They have a lecture after two-thirty almost every day."
"Oh, Lieutenant Lindsley would be lots of fun. She knows everything in
hill and dale, and is not afraid of snakes or cows. But do you think we
should notify the other girls? It is rather hard to get in touch with
them in time," Grace ranted on.
By this time Margaret and Madaline had joined the group, and now all
the scouts in seventh and eighth grammar grades were discussing plans
for the precipitous hike. There were Mable Blake, also a tenderfoot,
Adaline Allen and Mildred Clark, second grades, and the McKay twins,
first class scouts. All of these willingly agreed to make the foot trip
out to the Falls.
The afternoon school session received scant attention from the
prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in the
prospects of a spring afternoon in the woods.
So interested were Grace and Madaline they exchanged preparatory notes
in the five minute rest period, although that time was set aside for
real relaxation, and no one was supposed to use eyes or fingers during
the short rest.
When school was finally dismissed the girls arranged to pass the homes
of most of the group, as many of them lived on the same Oakley Avenue,
and thus notify parents of their scout plans for the hike, and when
Lieutenant Lindsley was eventually picked up from the practicing
department of the Normal School, the ranks were filled, and the hike
moved off towards the River Road.
It was a glorious afternoon, in late April. The peach blossoms were
just breaking into pink puff balls, and the pear trees were burdened
with a crop of spring "snow," fragrant in their whitest of dainty
blossoms.
But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the joyous,
happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more noisy town
streets, into the highways and byways of the long green stretch of
country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on its border.
"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't care
just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am called up
to take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in daylight, so
beware! I may do something very desperate and rash this afternoon."
"Spare us," pleaded Madaline. "I have seen some of our courage worked
out in the woods before. Remember the time you nearly set fire to the
river? Well, don't, please, go try anything like that today."
"No, it must be something for which I should receive a badge of
courage, if I were in the first class. I want to blush with fitting
modesty when Captain Clark invests me with the next degree, and I shall
only blush when reminded of my noble deed this afternoon."
"Since you are not particular about what deed shall be the noble one,
won't you just give me a hand, and help me save this heel of mine from
a blistering shoe? The shoe was all right in school, but just now it
has picked up a snag, somehow, and between the shoe and the snag, my
life is not worth living."
"Poor Madie," soothed her chum. "Let us sit right down here and
diagnose the case. I'm first rate at diagnosing anything but why my
bureau can't stay fixed. It has chronic upsettedness, and all my
operations are of no avail. There go the girls down into the hazel nut
gully. Let's sit on this lovely mossy couch, and look after the heel.
Doesn't moss grow beautifully smooth under the cedars? I wonder how it
ever gets so velvety?"
At the twined and natural woven seat, wrought from the uncovered roots
of a great hemlock, the girls caressed and patted the velvet moss that
formed a veritable carpet--no--it was softer than carpet, a silken
velvet throw, over a natural cedar divan. Even the suffering heel was
forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in green, with the darker green
canopy of cedars, and the music of a running river at the foot of the
sloping hill. Here the scent of watercress vied with the hemlock and
cedar, for its place as nature's perfume, and only such mingling of
wild ferns, trailing arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could
produce the aroma of incense that just then permeated the woody glen.
"Don't let the girls get too far away from us," cautioned Madeline. "I
wouldn't like to get really lost, even for the joke of having you find
me, Gracie."
"But you would do a little thing like that to help me out on my
personal bravery stunt?" teased her companion. "I wonder why only the
first class girls are permitted to do all those wonderful things and
get all the really high honors?"
"Because they have gone through all the necessary trials and
examinations," replied Madaline sagely. "You and I can get credit for
our deeds, but we must show our full records to get the highest B. C.
That's fair. You can't make a major out of a private. He has got to go
up by degrees."
"Well, maybe it is fair, but I just love the glory of presentations. I
am so sorry for Margaret. I would have dug up the town today to find
that Merit Badge she lost last night."
"I like the way she braved it out, though," added Madaline. "She felt
badly enough, and it did mean so much to her," finished the sympathetic
scout.
"Oh, yes, I suppose so," rather reluctantly agreed the ambitious Grace.
"But I shouldn't relish the feeling that some grimy mill girl was
wearing the badge in a smoky factory."
"Oh, Grace, shame! That's not scouty. You must not speak so of the mill
girls. We hope to take some of them in our troop before long. We would
have no right to public support if we did not do something definite for
others, and the mill girls have so few chances. So don't, Gracie dear,
ever speak like that again."
"I won't if you say so, also if it isn't scouty. I am out to win the
goal, and I don't mind what I may have to do to get my scout good
conduct ball into the official basket. Now, how's the heel? Did the
little pad of soft leaves help to keep the pressure off?"
"Yes, that was a fine idea, and I shall see to it that some day, when
original work is called for, you get credit for the nature-aid heel
pad. Rather a clumsy title, but when we explain how easy it is to get
soft leaves to make pads for suffering feet, I am sure it will be
welcome news to many an ambitious hiker."
"Oh, Madie dear," suddenly exclaimed Grace. "Where are the girls gone?
They are not in the hazel nut clump, and I can't hear a sound!"
"Oh, my! Suppose they have gone looking for us the other way?"
Both girls in alarm, now scurried through the woods, calling and giving
the "Coo-ee" call, but not a sound answered them. Birds were flitting
about from limb to branch, and the strange stillness of the woods
frightened the little Tenderfoots.
"You go along the bank, and I'll scour the elderberry patch. This wood
is so dense in spots, and so clear under the hemlocks, it is easy to
lose and hard to find anyone in it," declared Grace. "I'm glad I
brought my big rope. I intended to tie every knot in the course, and
cut them all out to fetch back finished, and I haven't even unwound the
rope."
"If there is anything easier than getting lost in the woods it must be
getting caught at whispering in the eighth grade," grumbled Madaline.
"I wish my old heel had behaved itself."
"And all the plans for my brave stunt gone to naught," put in the now
breathless Grace. "I would never have made up the hike if I had not
determined to get a glory mark out of it. Now see where we are! Miles
from home, and darkness coming on at each end. Where could those girls
have gone to?"
"Sure as shooting they have gone on searching for us. There's the
reservoir road, going in the opposite direction, and also Chestnut
Hill. To go either of those roads meant getting entirely away from the
foolish little scouts who stopped to chatter and chin. Just shows what
we can do when we don't know we shouldn't."
For some moments they brushed their way through the thicket, beating
down briars with their stout sticks, then coming to a broad clearance
they found themselves in a great grove of pines, clean as a floor,
except for the layer of savory pine needles, and almost dark as night
from the density of the pine canopies.
"My, how lovely!" exclaimed Grace.
"Yes, if we could only enjoy it," demurred Madaline.
"Grace! What's that? Over under that thick tree!"
"A man! Let's run!"
"And there is a big bag beside him," whispered Grace. "See the things
sticking out of it!"
"No, I don't want to see anything. Run, I tell you!"
"Wait! Maybe I could make this my bravery act. Suppose I tie him with
my strong rope?"
"Grace Philow! Are you crazy?" and the more frightened girl attempted
to drag the other away. "Please--don't speak loud. If he wakes I shall
die."
"No, don't you dare! Just keep still. I am going to see if I can tie up
one town tramp. There are plenty loose, and this is my golden
opportunity!"