THE
CAMP FIRE GIRLS
IN
GLORIOUS FRANCE
BY
MARGARET VANDERCOOK
Author of “The Ranch Girls” Series, “The Red
Cross Girls” Series, etc.
ILLUSTRATED
PHILADELPHIA
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
PUBLISHERS
Copyright 1919, by
The John C. Winston Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A March Day 7
II. The Château Yvonne 20
III. The Retreat 31
IV. The Road to Paris 47
V. Armistice Day in Paris 57
VI. Versailles 71
VII. Next Morning 83
VIII. A Home in Versailles 96
IX. The Dinner Party 111
X. Plans and Purposes 125
XI. A Day in Paris 139
XII. Peace 159
XIII. A Pilgrimage 172
XIV. Foundation Stones 184
XV. An Intimate Conversation 197
XVI. Another Afternoon 216
XVII. An Unexpected Intrusion 229
XVIII. One Afternoon 241
XIX. L’Envoi to Glorious France 253
ILLUSTRATIONS
“Can’t You Guess at Least Something of My Reason?” _Frontispiece_
PAGE
“It Was Impossible to Climb the Wall” 81
“They Were Both too Angry to Pay the Slightest Attention to Her!” 165
“She Was Able to Talk and Tell Me What She Had Endured“ 227
The Camp Fire Girls in
Glorious France
CHAPTER I
A March Day
One afternoon in March, the windows of an old French farmhouse stood
open, the curtains blowing in the breeze like white flags of truce, while
from indoors came the murmur of a number of voices, girls’ voices, gay
and animated and speaking in English, not French.
The next moment there was a brief silence; afterwards one of them began
singing, with an odd foreign accent, a song strange to hear in this
French countryside, the song of an American camp fire:
“The fire of our camp is burning,
Sing sweet, sing low, sing far,
From the long, long trail returning
Led by the evening star.
“Bright is our fireside’s glowing,
Sing sweet, sing low, sing high,
Fragrant the wind now blowing
Over the fields nearby.
“Pleasant shall be our resting,
Sing sweet, sing low, sing clear,
Others life’s storms are breasting,
Ours is the home fire dear.
“Yet what is the night wind sighing?
Sing sweet, sing low, sing true,
The ill, the hungry and dying,
Are they not calling you?
“Back over the long trail moving,
Sing sweet, sing low, sing wide,
Following the law of loving,
France, we come to thy side!”
A murmur of applause, and then a group of girls in Camp Fire costumes
stepped out of the house and into the front yard. The March afternoon was
unusually warm with a flood of pale sunshine covering the landscape, the
sky was a delicate blue, the clouds changing into fantastic shapes.
Beyond, the open country was showing little patches of green in the
upturned fields; on the branches of a few newly planted fruit trees were
tiny buds.
“I want to congratulate you, Bettina, on your original Camp Fire song,”
one of the girls declared. She had dark hair with red lights in it, a
slightly tanned skin, a little slender figure, as forceful and erect as a
young boy’s. Indeed both in her appearance and manner Mary Gilchrist gave
one the impression at this time in her life that she possessed certain
qualities of mind and character which are not supposed to be essentially
feminine.
Bettina Graham, who was a tall, fair girl, older than her companion,
smiled.
“It is good of you, Gill, to congratulate me, when I realize that you
were longing to be outdoors and at work during all our Camp Fire
ceremony. If there was any value in my song it was due to Yvonne’s
singing.”
Standing close beside the two American girls was a young French girl who
apparently had not heard their conversation. Her expression was troubled,
there was a frown between her brows. It was as if she were listening,
straining her ears for the sounds of battle which had been resounding
through France for almost four years.
It was now the memorable spring of the year before the last desperate
German drive and the final victory of the Allies.
Slipping her arm through Yvonne Fleury’s, Bettina Graham made an effort
to distract her attention.
“Try not to be unhappy, Yvonne. Even if the Germans are winning an
unexpected success in Flanders, surely you cannot think they will ever
reach the valleys of the Marne and Aisne a second time! I don’t believe
our work of reconstruction will go for nothing. Of course it is hard for
you to be compelled to give up your brother after so brief a time
together when for so long you had supposed him killed. Yet he has
scarcely had opportunity to have rejoined his regiment at the front,
since he was first to report at Soissons. We must do our best to continue
our efforts here at our farmhouse on the Aisne until his return. Surely
the war cannot last much longer!”
At this instant Bettina’s conversation was interrupted.
“Behold a sight to banish all gloom!” exclaimed Mary Gilchrist, pointing
over toward a field which adjoined the farmhouse yard.
There in truth was an amazing spectacle to be seen in a quiet French
countryside!
Mounted upon an American tractor, which was ploughing vigorously through
the earth, was an elderly American woman. She was wearing the usual blue
blouse of the French peasant made slightly longer and showing underneath
an unmistakable pair of full trousers of the same material. Upon her head
was a large straw hat, tied under her chin with a bright red ribbon.
Forgetting their anxieties the three girls laughed in chorus.
“Count upon Miss Patricia Lord’s doing and saying exactly what she
pleases at any time or place,” Mary Gilchrist continued. “As it happens I
promised Miss Patricia to run our tractor over that particular field some
time this afternoon, as soon as our Camp Fire ceremony closed. But you
see she has preferred not to wait for me. In regard to her present
costume, I heard Mrs. Burton say to Miss Patricia the other day that such
a costume was not to be endured, France having already suffered enough
without being compelled to behold Miss Patricia looking as she does at
present. She even suggested that the influence of our Camp Fire
organization in this neighborhood might be affected if Miss Patricia
persisted in wearing so ridiculous an outfit. Yet observe Miss Patricia!
Recently she has been acting as if she intended to plow and sow every
acre in the devastated regions of France within the next few weeks, as if
actually she were racing with fate. I don’t believe the German army
itself will be able to stop her, certainly not for long. But I must go to
fulfill my promise.”
Concluding her speech, Mary Gilchrist left her two companions, and at the
same time the two girls turned to greet a newcomer.
She was a woman between thirty and forty years of age, slender, with
brilliant blue eyes and dark hair; seated in a wheeled chair she was
evidently recovering from a serious illness. About her there was a look
of extreme delicacy, nevertheless her expression was gay, almost
challenging.
“Do please let me get out of this absurd chair at once,” she demanded of
the two girls who had charge of her. “After a little more of this I shall
feel like a mummy! I am just as well as I ever was before that small
piece of German shell chose me for its victim and turned Aunt Patricia
into a true prophet of evil. How persistently she did object to my
journey into southern France! But what an exquisite afternoon! I think
one never appreciates the true value of sunshine until one has been shut
away from it. And how peaceful the French country about us seems! Surely
the Germans will never again overrun this portion of France!”
To understand the present scene, one must know that a number of months
before, Mrs. Richard Burton, the famous American actress, had arrived in
one of the devastated districts of France near the river Aisne, bringing
with her a group of American Camp Fire girls to help with the restoration
work and also to originate the first Camp Fire organization among young
French girls. Accompanying them was Miss Patricia Lord, an American
spinster of great wealth.[1]
At the end of her speech, the Camp Fire guardian, arising from her chair,
stood up a little shakily, resting her arm upon that of her niece, Peggy
Webster.
The young girl was like and at the same time unlike her, as she was the
daughter of Mrs. Burton’s twin sister.
At the present time Peggy was about eighteen years old, with vivid dark
coloring, a short, straight nose and a firmly modeled chin.
There was a suggestion of splendid physical vitality in contrast with the
older woman’s frailty. Yet the woman and girl had the same look of a
determined will hidden beneath natural sweetness and gaiety.
“Perhaps it may be as well for you not to recover too promptly, Tante. We
may all be driven from this area of France as soon as you are strong
enough to travel. I believe there is no reason for immediate anxiety, yet
recently the news from the front is not encouraging. I believe the French
authorities are beginning to feel it may be as well to send the women and
children back from the Marne and Aisne a second time to some place of
greater security. But I agree with you, the idea seems impossible. To
think of the Germans again overrunning the dear little French villages
which have so recently been restored is a nightmare. Personally I won’t
even consider it. Suppose the Germans are enjoying another temporary
success, they will be thrust back eventually.”
As if anxious fully to absorb the beauty and tranquility of the scene
about them, until they were really convinced that there was no further
danger threatening the Allied lines in France, the Camp Fire guardian and
the group of girls surrounding her remained silent a moment, after
Peggy’s speech.
Nevertheless, each one of them concealed a nervousness, impossible under
the circumstances to confess.
Rumors, none of them especially reliable, but gaining strength through
their number, had recently been reaching the Camp Fire farmhouse on the
Aisne that the German attack against the British line further north was
meeting with unexpected triumph. This did not mean that the victory would
continue, or that the enemy would ever reach the neighborhood of the
Aisne.
Yet each one of the present group of Camp Fire girls had lately faced
this possibility.
Peggy’s words may have been intended to reassure them as well as herself.
Perhaps with an effort to interrupt an unhappy train of thought,
suddenly, with a smothered exclamation compounded of amusement and
horror, Mrs. Burton pointed toward Miss Patricia Lord.
At the instant Miss Patricia was descending from her tractor and was soon
standing in the center of her freshly plowed field. In this situation her
costume appeared more remarkable than ever. Yet one had to accept the
fact that it represented a new order of American service in France.
“What impression do you think our French neighbors receive of Aunt
Patricia?” Mrs. Burton demanded. “I know most of them are puzzled by her
and a few of them are genuinely afraid of her and yet she has
accomplished more for their happiness in the last few months than half a
dozen other persons. Yet she will wear the clothes she likes and she will
not attempt to speak French that any human being can understand.”
A little in the French fashion, since one is apt to be influenced by the
mannerisms about one, Mrs. Burton now shrugged her shoulders.
“At least, girls, you know no one can move Aunt Patricia!”
Talking without any special significance, the Camp Fire guardian had
observed that Miss Lord and Mary Gilchrist were no longer standing alone
in the freshly plowed field not far from the farmhouse yard.
Running toward them across the heavy furrows was old Jean, the French
peasant who had been assisting Miss Patricia with the work of the farm.
A little in advance of him was a French boy of about fourteen.
Ordinarily old Jean’s back was bent with age and long years of outdoor
toil, yet at the present time he held himself nearly erect. He was
panting and seemed nearly exhausted. The boy was running like a young
race horse, and under the influence of an intense excitement.
Hearing their approach both Miss Patricia and Mary Gilchrist started
toward them.
“Suppose we go and find out what news old Jean is bringing us,” Mrs.
Burton suggested, her voice as controlled and quiet as usual. “He looks
as if he had something important to say!”
As she was compelled to walk slowly and as the Camp Fire girls would not
desert her, before they had gone any distance, Miss Patricia was seen to
turn from old Jean and to come stalking toward them, followed by Mary
Gilchrist.
She appeared like a general about to assume command of his troops.
“Polly Burton, within twenty-four hours you must be ready to leave our
farmhouse and to take the Camp Fire girls with you. Jean has just arrived
with the story that the Germans will soon begin an attack in this
neighborhood. There is a possibility that they may push forward a certain
distance. Personally I don’t believe a word of it, yet I can’t have you
and a group of girls here on my hands. Besides, Jean says we are to have
no choice. The French authorities insist that all women and girls,
children and old men, move further back from the battle line.
“You will go first to Yvonne Fleury’s château, which is nearer the road
to Paris. As Jean says there is no immediate danger, you will wait there
for a few days until I can make arrangements to join you. If the Germans
ever arrive at our farmhouse—and understand I don’t believe for a moment
this will occur—why they will find very little for their refreshment.
“I shall probably keep Vera Lagerloff here with me, as she is the most
sensible of the Camp Fire girls. But, Polly Burton, will you kindly not
stand there staring at me as if you did not grasp what I have just told
you. I assure you the Germans are again laying waste this beautiful
French country. It really seems to me that I cannot endure it.”
And half leading, half carrying Mrs. Burton, Miss Patricia Lord entered
the old French farmhouse.