THE TANGLED WEB
While the Girl Scouts of Flosston were arranging to extend their troop
activities so that they would include the girls from Fluffdown mills,
who wished to join, two other girls were becoming more and more
involved in an influence, seemingly subtle, but surely sufficiently
powerful to "win out" eventually.
Tessie Wartliz was enmeshed in that oftquoted "tangled web," coincident
with the first attempt at deception.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive!"
Reading those lines mean very little to the girl who has never been so
unfortunate as to know their fullest meaning, but Tessie knew not the
lines, it was their threat she felt, their dark story she was living
through.
Rose returned from the rally of the True Tred Troop with deeper blue in
her eyes and brighter pink in her cheeks. It had been so wonderful! To
see all those girls promising to do so much, not only for one another,
but for all girls, then the inspiring ceremony, the lovely exercises,
the music! It did not seem possible that all this came to the good
fortune of some girls in that mill town, while others struggled to gain
advantage over their companions, as they worked in gloomy surroundings,
prone to some sort of rebellion.
And to think Rose had been asked to help carry this new story to her
former companions, and to those with whom she was now associated!
Sitting for a few precious moments in her little room at Mrs.
Cosgrove's, although her light had been extinguished, and it was too
late to enjoy the tempting reverie, Rose, even in the dark, could feel
the comfort and sense the luxury of that simple, well-ordered home. How
strange that she should have been picked up from the peril of
waywardness, and become so safely sheltered by these benevolent
strangers! Was it because Molly Cosgrove, too, taught and practiced the
girl scout principles, and because Mrs. Cosgrove was a pioneer from
whom such principles emanate?
Gradually Rose sensed the difference in American and foreign ideals,
and now it was as if the curtain had lifted, and her own mind was
cleared of the confusing doubts and suspicions she had heretofore
struggled with.
The soft, sweet air of young summer wafted from the flowery vines,
caressed her pretty face as she stared out of the low window into the
velvet night, and she was glad, so glad she had sent those roses!
"If only I could have returned that badge!" she pondered; "why did
Tessie run off with it!"
The dark thought immediately cast a shadow over her happiness just at
that moment, a vagrant cloud in a sky almost untarnished, deliberately
sailed into the moon, and blackened the window through which Rose gazed.
"I guess that means bed!" she decided and promptly slipped between the
grateful covers. But not to sleep. The thoughts of Tessie and her
insinuating letters were too persistent to be immediately banished. Try
as she might, Rose could find no key to the problem of how to reach the
girl and reclaim the innocent badge, now serving as a baneful influence
in the uncertain career of Tessie Wartliz.
"If only I could talk with her just a few minutes," Rose kept
repeating, and that wish became the source of a plan, from which sprung
a new resolve.
She must see Tessie!
Fixed in her brain, that resolve actually took root, and even in sleep
it seemed to grow, to get stronger with the hours, and to mature with
courage silently imparted through tired nature's sweet restorer. Balmy
sleep!
Troubled dreams discovered the runaway girl in strange surroundings,
now working in a dark gloomy mill, and flashing her black eyes like
lighted coals at every word of correction offered by her superiors,
again Tessie seemed to be enjoying the soft luxury of some favored
home, a wild flower in a garden of hot-house blooms.
But it was all a dream, and Rose knew nothing of Tessie's adventure,
beyond the suspicions conveyed in the two sketchy letters sent since
the escapade.
A few days later the Leader, an evening paper, contained a story
startling to the girls of Flosston, and positively shocking to Rose
Dixon. This told of a young girl claiming to be a girl scout, running
off with a lot of ticket money, the funds she had obtained by
pretending to assist an entertainment being conducted for the benefit
of the Violet Circle of Shut-ins.
That a girl scout should rob cripples! And that a clue should lead back
to Flosston, inferring the culprit might belong in that town! Instantly
Rose knew the mystery meant Tessie, and that the purloined badge had
served as her scout credential!
Panic seized her! She had seen the paper on her way home from work, and
at table, when Molly Cosgrove discussed the item, Rose felt her own
guilt must be obvious to those around her. Yet no one knew Tessie had
taken the badge. No one knew Rose had found the pretty emblem!
"How could a girl scout act so dishonorably?" Molly questioned
indignantly.
"And she actually got away with the money," Mrs. Cosgrove repeated.
"Some young bold girls can cover their tracks better than hardened men."
Rose felt her cheeks pale. She had never known the antics of nervous
chill, but just now a series of "goose-flesh-flashes" chased all over
her.
"You must be very tired, Rose," remarked Molly keenly. "Better go to
bed early and omit the meeting. Mrs. Brennen, the welfare leader at
Conit, is coming over, but you can hear her another time. You had
nervous work on those scarfs to-day. I heard the girls say that floss
stuck like chiffon."
"It was sticky," Rose was glad to comment, "and I guess I won't go over
to the school house if you don't mind. Perhaps I will just take a walk
in the air and later write a few letters."
"The fresh air is what you want," Mrs. Cosgrove unconsciously assisted
in the plans seething through the troubled brain of Rose. "I've noticed
you are a bit pale lately. But we can't expect to make a robust Rose
out of you all at once. You feel all right, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, thank you. I have a little headache, the reds and pinks glare
so, I guess they hurt the eyes a little," Rose qualified.
"They do indeed," agreed Mrs. Cosgrove. "Have you heard from your
folks?"
"Yes, I had a letter to-day," answered Rose truthfully. "They are
getting along splendidly, and father says he thinks he will soon have a
good place for me."
"That's fine. We are glad to have you with us, Rose, but with your own
folks will be better, when things get all nicely fixed up."
"Yes," put in Molly. "When you go off to take your own place now, Rose,
you will understand American ways much better than you did when you
came. And wherever you go, I am going to send word ahead to the Girl
Scouts so that you may join at once and keep up your training. Our own
troop is going to organize to-morrow night. We are going to call
ourselves the Venture Troop, as we will be the first troop yet formed
in a manufacturing plant."
"Then the Franklin's will be organized before the True Treds take in
the mill girls of Flosston?" queried Rose.
"They also meet this week to initiate a group of a dozen girls from
Fluffdown. These are to be scattered in two troops and they will try
the plan of putting the strangers in with the girls who have had scout
experience. You see, we have no troop at all in Franklin, and I am
ambitious to have the first formed of our own girls exclusively. They
are very enthusiastic."
"I will be sorry if I have to go away," Rose murmured, and her eyes
darkened into violet tones with deeper emotion.
"And I can't tell you how I shall miss you if you do have to go," spoke
Molly. "But you are not gone yet. At least you will be made a troop
leader before you go from Franklin. Then, in your new surroundings you
will be able to assist others to do what you have seen done here."
"I never knew how much girls could help girls until I saw the scouts at
that meeting the other night," said Rose, a note of sadness in her
subdued voice. "If only I had such a chance before--before--"
"No regrets. Remember all our trials bring compensations. For instance,
if you had not made the mistake of leaving home that night, you would
never, perhaps, have met the Cosgroves," and she smiled happily in an
attempt to cheer the drooping spirits of the girl sitting opposite, who
had not touched her cake or even sipped her tea.
"Yet I did not do it. My mistake was not the--the real clue," Rose
managed to say, her hold on useful English betraying its uncertain
foundation. "It was your mother's good nature, not my mistake," she
clarified.
"I'll accept the honors. Drink your tea and take your cake. It is not
much of a compliment to turn aside from the cake I gave up the home
lecture this afternoon to bake for you two. Marty is gone out of town
on business, and won't be back for three days, and our big officer
wants pie, and scorns cake. So you see it is the plain duty of you two
to eat this," and Mrs. Cosgrove helped herself to a real sample of the
iced pyramid.
"I cannot help thinking of that girl who ran off with the crippled
children's money," Molly reverted to the earlier conversation. "I don't
believe she was a girl scout at all," she declared emphatically.
"But the paper said she was," Rose spoke, fearing her voice would shake
her into a full confession of her own conspiracy to shield Tessie.
"Oh, no, it did not state she was a scout," Molly corrected, "the
paragraph read she claimed to be. There is a great difference."
"Well, it is very queer our own good officer," meaning Jim Cosgrove,
"never found trace of that girl. She must have covered her tracks in
some unusual way," declared Mrs. Cosgrove, "for Jim is not one to be
easily fooled. So Rose, if you are not going out I am sure you will be
glad to help with the tea things. Molly, I pressed your waist when I
had the irons for Marty's neckties, so I treated you as well."
"Momsey, you are perfect in your plans. Never use an iron for one
without applying it to the other. And I will be joyous in my fresh
blouse. Rose, please put a tag on my piece of cake, I'll enjoy that end
when I come in. I have only a little time to get ready now, as I must
make out a programme for our preliminary drill. I'll tell you all about
it, Rose. Take a walk when you finish helping mother. You don't get any
too much air, you know," and Molly hummed her newest waltz song as she
capered around in preparation for the evening's activities. Molly was
always jolly, if not singing she would be "chirping" as her brother
Martin termed the queer sort of lispy whistle she indulged in, and even
while dressing, it was a practice of hers to vary the operations with
home-made jazz.
During all this Rose was making up her mind to go straight out in the
big world and find Tessie Wartliz. She did not know just how she would
set about it, but her mind was made up on the one important point,
namely, that the finding must be undertaken and at once. Rose could no
longer stand the misery of secrecy concerning the lost scout pin. Every
headline in a paper glared out at her as if threatening to expose her
guilty knowledge. Every letter she received through the busy little
post-office sent a frightened chill over her delicate form, and now she
felt certain her benefactors, the Cosgrove family, must know she had
heard from the runaway girl, and they were too generous to ask a single
question concerning the matter. They trusted her, and she must deceive
them!
"I will have to say that mother has sent for me," she decided after a
bitter hour alone in her room, "and when I find Tessie----"
She paused. She was baffled! What would she do if she did find Tessie?