A NOVEL JAIL
Thus it was that the girl scouts of Flosston and Lieutenant Molly
Cosgrove of Franklin stumbled over the same case of a sister in need.
Returning from the big rally at the County Headquarters on that
eventful evening, Molly Cosgrove found more than her usual hot cup of
tea awaiting her. There was the strange young girl with the wonderful
blue eyes, around which a telltale pink rim outlined the long silky
lashes.
Molly thought she had never seen a prettier girl, while in turn Dagmar
decided Molly Cosgrove was the very biggest, dearest, noblest girl she
had ever seen. Formalities over, talk of the rally quickly put the
stranger at ease.
"We had a wonderful rally," Molly enthused, "and at a business meeting
held before the open session, it was decided to start obtaining
recruits from the mills."
"Oh, that will be splendid!" exclaimed Dagmar, who now felt quite at
home with the Cosgroves. "We have always wanted to know about those
girl scouts."
"Well, you will soon have an opportunity," continued the girl, whose
cheeks still glowed with rally excitement, "and I am a member of the
committee appointed to visit the mills."
"That is just the thing," declared Mrs. Cosgrove, "for your boss always
lets you follow the Troop orders, and by going into Flosston you may
fix it for this scared little girl to stay here for a while."
"There, Mother, I always said you should be on the pay-roll. Isn't she
the loveliest cop?" Molly asked Dagmar. "No wonder the Town Council
thanked Mrs. Jim Cosgrove for her work among the women and girls! Why,
Mom, you are a born welfare worker, and could easily have my position
in the Mill. You see, I am what they call a welfare worker," again
Molly addressed Dagmar directly.
"Oh, yes, I know. We have one in the Fluffdown Mill. Her name is Miss
Mathews but she hardly ever comes in our room," offered Dagmar.
"Well, now Molly," said Mrs. Cosgrove very decidedly, "I just mentioned
we might see that the girl got work in new surroundings, with you and
me to keep an eye on her, so she could cut away from that crowd. What I
have been able to find out is not much to its credit and there's
reasons (with a look that pointed at Dagmar's beauty) why a girl like
this should not run wild. It seems to me," smoothing out her big apron,
by way of punctuation, "that it has all happened for the best. We can
fix it so Pop won't make it an arrest after all, then you can get leave
to go to Flosston first thing in the morning, can't you?"
"Oh, yes, the welfare work of all the big mills is co-related," replied
the daughter, while the mother put her feet on the little velvet
hassock, and seemed glad of the chance to draw her breath after the
long speech.
Dagmar was sitting in one of the narrow arm chairs of the old-fashioned
parlor suite. Her long, rather shapely hands traced the lines and
cross-bars in her plaid skirt, and the sudden shifting of her gaze,
from one speaker to the other, betrayed the nervousness she was
laboring under.
"All right then, that's one more thing settled. And do you think the
girl--say, girl, I don't like that name you have, what else can we call
you?" she broke off suddenly with this question to Dagmar.
"My name is Dagmar Bosika, and I like Bosika best," replied the little
stranger.
"All right, that's number three settled. You will be Bose. I can say
that, but I never could think of the other queer foreign name."
"And we will have to change your last name, too, I guess," put in
Molly, "as some one from Flosston might recognize it. We can just leave
off the first syllable and have it Rose Dix or Dixon. I think Dixon
would sound best."
"We are settling quite a few points," laughed Mrs. Cosgrove, "if some
one doesn't upset them. I have no fears from Pop--"
"Oh, Pop is putty in our hands," went on the resourceful Molly, "no
danger from his end. But how about your folks, Rose?"
Dagmar smiled before she replied. The new name struck on her ear a
little oddly, but it pleased her, she had never liked Dagmar, and
utterly despised the mill girls' nickname "Daggie."
"Mother and father have always said they would let me do what I thought
would be best for me," she said at length. "I never did anything they
told me I should not, and we often talked of my getting in a store or
something like that. Mother works in the mill in another room, and she
was always worried about me being away from her."
"A store would be no good for you," objected Mrs. Cosgrove, again
including the girl's beauty in her scrutiny. "You would be best off
within the reach of a welfare worker like Molly. But look at the time!
Martin will be in from the club, and even Dad will be comin' around for
his midnight coffee, before we call this meetin' to a halt. I say,
Molly, we are runnin' an opposition scout meetin' it seems to me," and
she got up with that finality, which plainly puts the period to all
conversation.
A few moments later Rose had washed face and hands, brushed her hair,
as Molly kindly hinted she should, and taking her shabby, washed, but
unironed, night dress from the famous "telescope," she said her prayers
and was ready for bed. How comfortable the room seemed! How strange she
should be in it? And where was the unfortunate, headstrong Tessie?
A prayer for the safety of the wandering one sprung from the heart of
this other girl, now away from home the very first night in her young
life. That her mother would believe her at a girl's home, according to
the little note left stuck in her looking glass, Rose was quite
certain, so there was no need to worry concerning distress from the
home circle, at least not yet, and tomorrow morning young Miss Cosgrove
would go to the mill and very quietly arrange everything with her
mother.
"The girl scouts are better than the police," she decided, not quite
understanding how both could work so intimately, along different lines,
yet each reaching the same result to assist wayward girls.
This was, surely, a queer sort of arrest, a lovely kind of cell, and a
most friendly pair of jailers, the little runaway had fallen among, and
that she dreamed wonderful dreams, glowing with roses and fragrant with
perfume, was not to be wondered at, for Mrs. Cosgrove's linen was sweet
enough to induce even more delicious fancies.
But what of poor, lost, erring, headstrong Tessie Warlitz? Rose
imagined her in all sorts of wild predicaments, but with that kindness
so marked in girls who have themselves suffered cruel
misunderstandings, Rose determined not to betray her chum, but rather
to do her utmost to find her, and win her back to good standing among
girls--somehow. Thus really began in so subtle a manner her own
interest in the principles of the Girl Scouts.
"To help an erring sister" is a fundamental of the cause, but Rose
little knew what that silent consecration would cost her. When all was
quiet, late that night, young Martin Cosgrove sauntered along home and
giving the familiar "three dots and a dash" whistle notified his mother
of his approach. The light in the sitting-room window had in its turn
told Martin his mother awaited him.
"S-s-sh!" whispered the mother, opening the door very softly. "Don't
make any noise."
"What's up or who's sick?" asked the good-looking young man, pinching
his mother's plump arm.
"There's a little girl asleep in the spare room. Don't wake her,"
cautioned the mother, who, to prevent even a hat falling, had secured
Martin's things and was putting them on the rack.
"Friend of Molly's? Some new girl scout?" he asked, when they reached
the seclusion of the kitchen.
"Well, no, not just that, but a poor child Dad found lost," she
compromised.
"Lost, eh! And Chief of Police Mrs. Cosgrove rescued the lost
chee-il-dd--as usual! Mom, you're a great cop, and I hear Molly is
following in your fair footsteps!"
"Stop your nonsense, Marty, and be off to bed. It's awful late! There's
your fresh shirt for the morning. Take it along with you."
"Thanks, Mom, and you have the Chink beat in his line, too," giving the
freshly ironed cambric shirt an approving pat. "Tell Molly to go easy
out at Flosston. Those True Tred Girl Scouts are a pretty lively little
bunch from what I hear."
"What do you mean?" asked the mother. "What did you hear about
Flosston?"
"Oh, just heard the boys talking. Nothing very much, but some girls ran
away, not scouts, mill girls, mill detectives on their trail, and the
Girl Scouts went on a hike and lassoed some poor guy by mistake. Oh,
you know a lot of stuff like that, everybody hears and no one knows the
real sense of. Only I thought Molly, just taking up with the Flosston
work, ought to keep both eyes open, and wear good sensible shoes.
Night, Mom!" and he kissed her very fondly. Mrs. Cosgrove indulged in
two special brands of real pride--her boy and her girl!