The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows

“It’s against our Camp Fire rules to eat candy, Betty, and I don’t approve of it or like it very much myself, but I couldn’t think of anything else to bring when Polly and Mollie went off without me; and there won’t be enough to make so many people sick.”

During the laughter over Sylvia’s remark, Nan Graham walked shyly in through the now open door, bearing a loaf of cake.

“I couldn’t bring a real present, Betty,” she explained with far more grace and sweetness than one could have dreamed possible of so rough and untrained a girl the year before, “but this is the kind of cake you used to like when I made it at the cabin and I thought you wouldn’t mind eating a piece on your birthday for old times’ sake.”

Feeling a sudden rush of emotion, Betty gave Nan a swift embrace and then excusing herself from her friends for a moment slipped out of the room for two purposes: she wanted to find her mother and make her join her friends and she wanted to prepare a great pitcher of lemonade for her guests, for Betty was neither foolish nor selfish in her sorrow, and if her friends had come to her to bring their good wishes, she desired that the afternoon might pass as pleasantly as possible.

Things had not gone quite so badly with the Ashton fortune as Dick Ashton had originally feared, although conditions were surely bad enough. For Mrs. Ashton still had the house and Betty a small income settled on her by Mr. Ashton years before as a dress allowance, which now had to cover many other needs. For the completion of Dick’s medical course there were several thousand dollars that an aunt had left him as a legacy when he was only a small boy and to use the capital in this way now seemed the wisest investment he could make. To keep the big Ashton house and try and make it yield an income was perhaps not quite so wise, but this had been Betty’s dearest desire, and her mother and brother had agreed to it for her sake. To give up the home of her ancestors, to see the beloved old portraits stored away in some one’s attic or stuck up in a small room where they would seem absurdly out of place, Betty felt that she could bear everything, do anything if only their old home remained! And so she was allowed at least to try the experiment of renting rooms or taking boarders, whichever might turn out the simpler plan.

But when Mrs. Ashton was finally persuaded to join Betty’s friends, it was fairly plain that the greater part of the planning and work for the future must fall upon Betty and not her mother, for Mrs. Ashton looked dazed by misfortune and was already a semi-invalid, querulous and rebellious against more evil fortune than she had character or health to withstand. It was no wonder therefore, that even Betty’s best friends doubted whether she would be able to meet the responsibilities that had so unexpectedly come upon her, although rejoicing that a year of Camp Fire training found her far better prepared than most girls of her age and position.

Esther had been sitting in the room with Mrs. Ashton when Betty found them, as the older woman seemed to enjoy the society of her daughter’s companion more than any one’s else these days, so the two girls soon brought the lemonade back to Betty’s room. In her absence Betty found that her writing table had been cleared and was now decorated with Rose’s flowers, Nan’s cake and Sylvia’s candy, with sandwiches which Meg had just brought in and which “Little Brother” was rapidly devouring, and with a little pile of gifts at the head. Betty’s eyes filled with tears, but instinctively her hands flew toward a small square of canvas that stood facing her leaning against one of her candlesticks. It was a painting of the Sunrise cabin which Eleanor had made after Betty had returned home and quite the best piece of work she had ever done. The painting had been made in the dawn and the colors of the sunrise flooded the log cabin, touching the tops of the tall pines standing a little in the foreground and making a crown of light for the high peak of the Sunrise Hill.

“It is too lovely; I ought not to have it,” Betty exclaimed, extending her picture toward Miss McMurtry, for she and Edith Norton had at this moment joined the party; but seeing that their first Camp Fire guardian shook her head, Betty then turned to Rose Dyer. “Oughtn’t you to have it then, Rose, and let the Sunrise Camp Fire girls just come in and look at it now and then?”

But at this Eleanor Meade laughed. “Look here, Princess, we all know your passion for giving away your possessions, but do you think you ought to thrust my gift upon some one else while I am standing here watching you? I would like humbly to mention that I painted that picture of the Sunrise cabin for your particular birthday gift and that I would prefer to have you keep it.”

“And I would like to add,” said Miss McMurtry, with an affectionate, even an admiring glance toward the Betty for whom she had once felt so keen a disapproval, “that among us there is no one with quite the same claim upon whatever has to do with our Sunrise club as Betty Ashton. For though she may have forgotten, we have not, that it was to Betty’s enthusiasm and a great deal to her efforts that we owe the organization of our club.” The chief guardian now leaned over, lighting three candles on Betty’s tea table – “Work, Health, Love.”

“We wish you all the good things that following the law of the Camp Fire may bring you, Betty dear,” she whispered.

“Seek beautyGive servicePursue knowledgeBe trustworthyHold on to healthGlorify workBe happy.”

While the older woman was speaking, Esther had slipped quietly over to Betty’s own piano, which had been brought home from the cabin to her room, and now in order to relieve the atmosphere of emotion which was making ordinary conversation impossible at this moment, she commenced singing her own and Betty’s favorite Camp Fire song, the other girls joining in an instant later.

“Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame,O Master of the Hidden Fire,Wash pure my heart and cleanse for meMy soul’s desire.In flame of sunrise bathe my mind,O Master of the Hidden Fire,That when I wake, clear-eyed may beMy soul’s desire.”

And before the song had ended, half a dozen of the girls in the room at least were wondering whether they were any nearer to the all-important knowledge of what their soul’s desire might be.

********

A year the Sunrise Camp Fire girls have tried living and working together, following to the best of their different abilities the Camp Fire law, but while the third volume in this series will show them still under its influence, they will be pursuing their own careers under utterly different circumstances in a story to be called: “The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World.”