THE STORY ALMA DID NOT TELL
Under a canvas tent sheltered by a particularly broad chestnut tree and
surrounded by a group of beautiful white birch, the girls of Chickadee
Patrol, Girl Scouts, were listening, all attention, to the very wildest
tale they had ever given ears to.
Alma was talking. "Honestly girls," she insisted, "he was a real prince,
dressed in black velvet and a beautiful jaunty cap----"
"Alma! Alma!" shouted her companions in derision.
"Where did you see the fairies? Just imagine in broad daylight in the
woodlands----" teased one.
"Then, I shall not tell you anything more about it," desisted the abused
one. "As if I wasn't surprised. Why, I was so dumfounded I could not ask
him if he saw you, and I was miles behind the crowd."
"Now girls, let Alma tell," chirped Doro, in her lispy voice. "Go ahead,
Al. _I_ believe you saw Prince Charming."
"Was he old enough to ride a horse?" asked Laddie, christened Eulalia.
She was defying her dentist on a piece of fudge two days old.
"Honestly, girls," began Alma again, "I never saw a boy so beautiful.
Light curls----"
"Oh!!!" came a chorus that stopped the narrator and sent her pouting
over to the bed couch, where she pouted still more.
"Then, all right, I am absolutely through," she declared quite as if she
meant it.
"Now just see what you have done," mourned Treble. She was so tall the
girls always considered her in that clef. "Don't you mind them, Allie. I
know perfectly well there are even flying cupids in the big woodlands,
and I fully expect to bring a couple home to lunch----"
Cushions in one big bang stopped Treble. At this rate Alma's story would
never be published, orally or otherwise.
In the Scout tent the evening was being spent in recreation: hence the
fun they were having with Alma. At a table fashioned from an upside-down
packing case, with real hand carved legs where the boards were knocked
out and the hatchet braces left standing, sat three of the Chickadees,
discussing the new Girl Scout stories.
"I just love the first," insisted Thistle whose name was as Scotch as
the emblem. "I liked the mill story and I just loved that wild, exciting
time the girls had trying to win back--was it Dagmar?"
"Oh, yes, I remember," chimed in Betta. They were referring to the first
volume, "The Girl Scout Pioneers," but others of the group spoke up for
their particular choice of the series, naming, "The Girl Scouts at
Bellaire" and "The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest."
"You may have those," offered Doro, "but I perfectly love this." She
held up the last book published. It was entitled "The Girl Scouts at
Camp Comalong."
"Why is that such a prize?" inquired Pell.
"Oh, haven't you read it? Well, it is a real story of the most
interesting girl, Peg of the Hills."
This brought about a general discussion of the entire series, and
although the method being used is not usually employed to remind readers
of the other books of a series, perhaps, since the girls were speaking
for themselves, it will be accepted.
Alma was whispering her Prince Charming story into the ears of Doro.
Doro was accredited the very best listener among the Chicks and she had
not the faintest idea of interrupting the story teller. Of course, it
was Nora whom Alma had encountered, and it was not difficult to
understand why her companions should discredit the tale. A prince in the
woodlands, indeed!
"Louder, Alma," begged Treble, catching only enough of the story to make
her curious.
"Well, you won't believe me."
"We will! We will! Hear! Hear!" shouted Betta, whose full appellation
was none other than Betta-be-good, given because she had a habit of
lecturing.
"She did see a real prince," chimed in Doro. "And he did wear buckles
and laces and everything."
"Where, oh where, fair maid? Lead me thither and hither and yon," moaned
Pell Mell. "Next to a movie star I love a prince best," she finished
dramatically, although it was common knowledge that Pell loved nothing
so well as rushing about and falling over adventures. She actually fell
over the Ridge, that is as far down as the big flat rock, before her
chums decided she was hereafter to be known as Pell Mell.
"That is all there is to tell," announced Alma, in a tone tinctured with
finality. She knew perfectly well the girls would never rest until they
had sought out the darling prince, and she also knew it would be lots of
fun to make them "sit up and beg" for the details they had been scoffing
at.
"Where, Alma?"
"Near the bend, Alma?"
"Wasn't it over by the Nest, Al?"
"She said she saw him over by the Ledge."
All this and much more was thrown out as bait, but in the parlance of
the tribe, Alma did not "bite," she merely picked up a discarded book
and proceeded to read.
"Well, there was a prince, I'm sure of that," persisted Pell, determined
to make Alma repeat her story.
"Let's go prince hunting tomorrow," suggested Betta.
"With Treble's moth scoop?" joked Wyn.
"I suppose none of you happen to know that Mrs. Jerry Manton has a
visitor," spoke Doro. She gave the statement a tone implying: "Why
wouldn't the prince be the visitor?"
"Oh, that's so," drawled Thistle. "Maybe it's the duke."
This brought out a new shout of nonsense.
"Duke!" roared Betta. "Keep on and we'll have him on the throne."
"There are no more thrones," informed Pell. "Don't you know the war made
every thing democratic?"
This turned the joke into a serious moment, for even the rollicking
Scouts did not feel inclined to enlarge upon so serious a thought.
Presently everyone was speculating upon the possibility of the little
stranger being the one entertained by the Mantons.
"Couldn't we call?" suggested Wyn. "Mrs. Manton is always lovely to us,
and if she has such a little cherub on her hands we ought to help her
care for him."
"Cherub, Wynnie! Why, we would have to get a cage for anything like that
in this camp. He would be eaten by bugs, moths and beetles." A dash at a
flying thing confirmed this opinion from Treble.
"Now, if you all have finished your skylarking I would like to study,"
announced Alma. "I have to learn all that new class lesson, and I hope
to get out of the Tenderfoot tribe before next week. No fun swimming in
a barrel." She referred to the water restrictions of "Tenderfoots."
"Hush girls! Alma is thinking," joked Pell. "Please don't interrupt the
spell----"
Poor Alma could stand the teasing no longer. She picked up her manual
and headed for the tent occupied by those very studious Scouts who chose
the company of the leader to that of the distracting girls.
"Chickadees never scratch," fired Betta as Alma stepped over protruding
feet and reached the tent flap. "Now Chick-a-dee, Peep! Peep! Pretty for
the ladies----"
But the girl with the manual was gone.
"What do you make of it?" asked Pell, when the titters subsided.
"She saw something different, that's sure," replied Treble.
"She told me all about it," put in Thistle proudly. "And it was really a
wonderful child all done up in black velvets and ribbons," she declared.
"I see nothing to do but ask Mrs. Manton about it," suggested Wyn. "It
looks like a first class lot of fun."
"Ask her if she is entertaining a boy in velvet pants?" said Treble, so
foolishly, the girls all but rolled under the table and the oil lamp
shook dangerously in the merriment.
"When they're velvet they're never pants," spoke Wyn, as soon as
speaking amounted to anything.
"Trousers," amended Treble.
"Nor those," objected Pell. "When they have cute little buckles and go
with a jaunty cap----"
"They're knickers," finished Betta.
"Not a--tall," shouted Treble. "I know better than that myself. You're
thinking of golf. Didn't I see Lord Fauntleroy play his Dearest?"
"Did you really? Well, what did _he_ call call them?" demanded Thistle.
She had been so busy enjoying the fun that this was her first attempt at
making any.
"I have it," sang out Laddie. "They're bloomers."
"Oh no, rompers," insisted Thistle. "Rompers are much prettier."
"What ever would you girls have done this evening if Alma's little story
did not furnish you with debate material," scoffed Doro.
"The story Alma never told," chanted Lad.
"All the same," declared Treble, "it is perfectly delicious. Who's going
to make the call on Mrs. Jerry Manton?"
The shout that followed this question brought a protest from the next
tent where candidates were studying manuals.
"Let's take a vote on it," suggested Thistle, when quiet seemed
possible. "Since every one wants to go and we haven't heard the Mantons
were going to give a picnic or anything like that--why--the best thing
to do is to draw lots."
"How tragic! Draw lots! I say we make it numbers from Doro's cap. Here
girls, get busy and numb."
A page of note paper was quickly numbered and torn into squares. Then
the lot was tossed into Doro's cap--it was the deepest for the little
girl did not wear her hair bobbed. When the cap was filled she was the
one chosen to hold it, and upon the highest chair she presently stood
while the girls jumped for numbers. The four highest were to constitute
the committee and the lot fell to Betta, Pell, Wyn and Thistle.
It was arranged that these four should go in the morning to call upon
Mrs. Jerry Manton, their good friend and erstwhile preceptor in
woodlore, and it was fully expected that the young visitor would then
naturally be introduced.
And this was the very day that Nora donned her new service suit.