"A Rose of the World"
However much of a fairy Princess Betty Ashton's friends may have
considered her, Sunrise cabin had not arisen like "Aladdin's Wonderful
Palace" in a single night, although six months would seem a short enough
time in which to see one's dream come true. Particularly a dream which in
the beginning had appeared to have no chance of ever becoming a reality.
For in the first place "The Lady of the Hills," Miss McMurtry, on that
very afternoon when coming across the fields to the Camp Fire she had
there been told of the plan for keeping the Sunrise Camp Fire club
together for the winter, had not approved the idea. The country would
certainly be too cold and too lonely for the girls and the getting back
and forth from the cabin to school too difficult. Fathers and mothers
could never be persuaded to approve and, moreover, there would be no
guardian, since Miss McMurtry could not attend to her work at the High
School and also look after a permanent winter camp fire.
In a measure of course even the greatest enthusiasts for the new idea had
known that there might be just these same difficulties to be overcome.
Yet in conference they had decided to meet the obstacles one by one and
in turn by following the old axiom of not climbing fences before coming
to them. So as the money for building the cabin was a first necessity
Betty Ashton had written at once to her brother Dick. Sylvia Wharton had
seen her father, who had in September returned to Woodford, and Polly and
Mollie had sent off appealing letters to Ireland asking for their
mother's approval and whatever small sum of money they might be allowed
to contribute. Indeed each Sunrise Camp girl had met the demands of the
situation in the best way she knew how. But really, although help and
interest developed in various directions, once the business of building
the cabin had been fairly started, it was from Richard Ashton that the
first real aid and encouragement came. For Dick was a student in the
modern school of medical science which believes in fresh air, exercise
and congenial work as a cure for most ills instead of the old-time
methods of pills and poultices, and having seen the benefit of a summer
camp upon twelve girls he had faith enough for the winter experiment.
Besides this plan had appeared to him as a solution for certain personal
problems which had been worrying him for a number of weeks. His father
and mother were not returning to America this fall as they had expected,
since Mr. Ashton's health required a milder climate than New Hampshire.
It had seemed almost impossible for Dick to give up the graduating year
of his study of medicine in Dartmouth in order to come home to Woodford
to look after his sister and her friend, Esther Clark, who rather,
through force of circumstances, appeared now to be Betty's permanent
companion.
So an offering from Dick Ashton with Betty's fifty dollars, which had
been returned to her by Polly O'Neill, had actually laid the foundation
of Sunrise Cabin, although every single member of the club gave something
big or little so that the house might belong alike to them all. As Esther
and Nan Graham had no money of their own and Edith Norton very little and
no parents able to help, the three girls added their portions by doing
work for their friends in the village which they had learned in their
summer camp fire. At last they were able to stock the new kitchen with
almost a complete set of new kitchen utensils, the summer ones having
suffered from continuous outdoor use.
Of course all the summer club members could not share the winter
housekeeping scheme, but that did not affect their interest nor desire to
help. Meg and "Little Brother" to everybody's despair had to return home,
since with John leaving for college, that same fall, their professor
father could not live or keep house without them. But then they were to
be allowed to come out to the cabin each Friday for week ends, and Edith
Norton, whose work in the millinery store made living in town imperative,
was to take her Sunday rests in camp. Of the summer Sunrise Camp Fire
girls, only Juliet and Beatrice Field had really to say serious farewells
when returning to their school in Philadelphia, but they departed with at
least the consoling thought that they were to come back to the cabin for
their Christmas holidays. So that there remained only seven of the
original girls pledged to give this experiment of winter housekeeping as
a Camp Fire club a real test. And as they worked, pleaded and waited, one
by one each difficulty had been overcome until now there remained but
one--the necessity for finding a new guardian able to give all of her
time to living at Sunrise cabin and to working with the girls.
One evening toward the early part of November after the cabin had been
completed, Betty Ashton had called a meeting at her home for the final
discussion of this serious problem. As there were no outsiders present,
before mentioning the subject the girls had arranged themselves in their
accustomed Camp Fire attitudes, in a kind of semi-circle about the great
drawing room fire, in order to talk more freely. For the past week each
girl had been asked to search diligently for a suitable guardian. Yet
when Betty looked hopefully about at the faces of her friends without
speaking she sighed, shading her gray eyes with her hand. Only by an
effort of will could she keep her tears from falling--not a line of
success showed in a single countenance.
Mollie O'Neill, understanding equally well, made no such effort at
self-control. Placing her head on her sister's shoulder she frankly gave
way to tears, while Polly stared moodily into the fire with Sylvia
Wharton's square hand clutching hers despairingly. Esther and Eleanor
frowned. Nan Graham, who had more at stake than the other girls, not
trusting herself, jumped up and running across to a far corner of the big
room flung herself face downward on a sofa. So there was a most unusual
silence in the Sunrise Camp Fire circle and yet when a light knock
sounded on the door no one said "Come in." An instant later, however, the
knock was repeated, but this time, not waiting for an answer, the door
opened and a figure walked slowly toward the center of the floor. It was
a lovely figure, nevertheless, there was scarcely a person in Woodford
whom the girls at this moment desired less to see. Certainly there was no
one who had been more bitterly opposed to the whole Camp Fire idea and
particularly to Betty Ashton's having a part in it.
"I don't know whether you allow an outsider to come into one of your
meetings," the intruder began, dropping into a near-by chair.
From her place on the sofa Nan Graham lifted her head. She alone of the
little company did not know their visitor's name. She saw a young woman
of about twenty-six or seven with light golden brown hair and eyes with
the same yellow lights in them, dressed in a lovely crepe evening gown
with a bunch of roses at her belt and a scarf thrown over her shoulders.
Nan's eyes glowed with a momentary forgetfulness, having long cherished
just such an ideal and never before seen it realized.
But Betty only shook her head, answering with little enthusiasm:
"Oh, it doesn't matter this evening, Rose, you may stay if you like,
though we don't generally have strangers at our meetings." And then,
though she usually had good manners, Betty fell to studying the dancing
lights in the fire without making any further effort at conversation. She
had no desire to be rude, but it was trying to have Rose Dyer, her
mother's intimate friend, the one older girl, held up as a model for her
to follow, who had done her best to prejudice Mrs. Ashton against the
Camp Fire plan the summer before, come into their midst at an hour when
their very existence as a club seemed to be in peril.
For a few moments Miss Dyer waited without trying to speak again.
Although Polly and Esther were both endeavoring to make themselves
agreeable, the atmosphere of the drawing room continued distinctly
unfriendly.
"I--I am afraid I am in the way although you were kind enough not to say
so," Rose suggested, finding it difficult to explain what had inspired
her visit with so many faces turned away from hers. "I think I had best
go; I only came to ask you a great favor and now----" She was getting up
quietly, when Betty with a sudden realization of her duties as a hostess
made a little rush toward her and taking both the older girl's hands drew
her into the center of their circle.
"Please forgive our bad manners and do stay, Rose," she pleaded. "We
really have no business to attend to to-night and perhaps company may
cheer us up."
But although Rose, without the least regard for her lovely gown, had
immediately dropped down on the floor in regular Camp Fire fashion,
apparently she had not heard what Betty had suggested, for straightway
her expression became quite as serious as any one else's.
"You may not care for what I am going to say and you must promise to be
truthful if you don't," Rose began, as timidly as though she were not ten
years older than any other girl in the room, "but I have been hearing for
the past two months that you were looking for a Camp Fire guardian to
spend the winter with you and I have been wondering----" Here pulling the
flowers from her belt she let her gaze rest upon them. "I have been
wondering if you would care to have me?"
The silence was then more conspicuous than before and Rose flushed hotly.
"I am sure you are very kind," Polly began in a perfectly unfamiliar tone
of voice and manner since she too had known Rose all her life.
"We appreciate your kindness very much," Eleanor added, fearing that
Polly was about to break down.
But Betty Ashton dropped her chin into her hands in her familiar fashion
and stared directly at their visitor. "My dear Rose, whatever has
happened to you?" she demanded. "Why it's too absurd! You know you don't
care for anything but parties and dancing and having a good time. You
simply haven't any idea of what it means to be a Camp Fire guardian; why
it is difficult enough when you have only to preside at weekly Camp Fire
meetings and to watch over the girls in between, but when it comes to
living with us and teaching us as Miss McMurtry did last summer----"
Betty bit her lips. She did not wish to be discourteous and yet the
vision of the fashionably dressed girl before her fulfilling the
requirements of their life together in the woods was too much for her
sense of humor.
Then suddenly, to Betty's embarrassment and the surprise of everyone
else, Miss Dyer's eyes filled with tears.
"Please don't, Betty," she said a little huskily. "You know, dear, one
can get rather tired of hearing one's self described as an absolute
good-for-nothing. Oh, I know I was opposed to your Camp Fire club last
summer, but I have watched you more carefully than you dream and have
entirely changed my mind. I am not asking you to let me come into your
club to help you. I am afraid I am selfish, I can't explain it to you
now, but I want to help myself. Of course I am not wise enough to be your
guardian, but I have been talking to Miss McMurtry and she has promised
to help me and it is only because you don't seem able to find anyone else
that I dare offer myself."
At this moment Nan Graham, whom Rose had not seen before, tumbled
unexpectedly off her sofa. It was because of her eagerness to reach the
other girls. They, at a quick signal from one to the other, had arisen,
and now, forming a circle, danced slowly about their new guardian
chanting the sacred law of the Camp Fire.