Читать книгу The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows - Vandercook Margaret - Страница 2

“Ach, gnädige Fräuleins, it ist not possible.”

“No, I know it isn’t,” Betty returned with her most demure expression, although there were little sparks of light at the back of her gray-blue eyes. She rose stiffly from the ground with Esther’s assistance and stood leaning on her arm, while both girls without trying to hide their astonishment surveyed a middle aged, shabbily dressed German with his violin case under one arm and his violin under the other.

“I haf been visiting the Orphan Asylum in this neighborhood where I haf friends,” he explained. “I am in Woodford only a few days now and after supper when the storm is over I start back to town. Then I thought I heard some one singing, calling, perhaps it is you?” He looked only at Betty, since in the semi-darkness with the fire as a background it was difficult to distinguish but one object at a time and that only by concentrated attention. But as she shook her head he turned toward Esther.

“When I hear the singing I play my violin, thinking if some one was lost in these hills I may find them.”

But Esther was not thinking of her discoverer, only of what he had said. “Do you mean we are really not far from the Country Orphan Asylum?” she asked incredulously. “And actually I have gotten lost in a neighborhood where I have spent most of my life! It is the snow that has made things seem so strange and different!” Turning to Betty she forgot for a moment the presence of the stranger. “I’ll find my way to the asylum right off and bring some one here to mend our sleigh and give poor little Fire Star something to eat. I don’t believe we are more than two miles from Sunrise Camp.”

However, Betty was by this time attempting to make their situation clearer to the newcomer. She pointed toward their sleigh at the bottom of the gully and their pony under the tree and told him of camp fires and grocery supplies to be carried to Sunrise cabin, until out of the chaos these facts at least became clear to his mind – the girls had lost their way in the storm and because of Betty’s injured ankle and the broken vehicle, had been unable to make their way home.

At about the same hour of this same evening, two other young women were walking slowly up and down in front of a log house in a clearing near the base of a hill, with their arms intertwined about each other’s shoulder. Outside the closed front door of the house a lighted lantern swung. From the inside other lights shone through the windows, while every now and then a face appeared and a finger beckoned toward the sentinels outside. Nevertheless, they continued their unbroken marching, only stopping now and then to stare out across the snow-covered landscape.

“They simply have not tried to attempt it, Polly; it is foolish for you to be so worried,” one of the voices said.

But her companion, whose long black hair was hanging loose to her waist and who wore a long red cape and a red woolen cap giving her a curiously fantastic appearance, only shook her head decisively.

“You can’t know the Princess as well as I do, Rose, or you would never believe she would give up having her own way. She went into town when the rest of us thought it unwise and she will come back, frozen, starved, goodness only knows what, still come back she will. Poor Esther is but wax in her hands. I wonder if anything happens to break the Princess’ will whatever will become of her?”

The other girl sighed and her friend gazed at her sympathetically but a little curiously.

“Betty will bear disappointment just as the rest of the world does,” she answered, “filling her life with what she can have. But I do wish she and Esther would come back to camp now, or at least send us some word. The storm has been over for several hours and none of us will be able to sleep to-night on account of the uncertainty.”

With one of her characteristic movements Polly O’Neill now moved swiftly away from the speaker. “I am going to ring our emergency bell if you are willing, Rose,” she announced. “Oh, I know we Camp Fire girls hate to appeal to outsiders for aid, but it’s got to be done for once, for I simply can’t stand this suspense about Betty and Esther any longer.” Then without waiting for an answer, she ran toward the back yard of the cabin and an instant later the loud clanging of a bell startled the peace and quiet of the country night, but only for a moment, because before the second pull at the bell rope Polly felt her arm being held fast.

“Don’t ring again, Polly, or at least not yet,” her companion insisted, “for I am almost sure I can see a dark object coming this way along our road and there’s a chance of its being Betty and Esther.”

Ten minutes later the front door of the Sunrise cabin was suddenly burst open and out into the snow piled half a dozen other girls in as many varieties of heavy blanket wrappers. The music of Fire Star’s sleigh bells had reached their ears several moments before the arrival of the wayfarers.

However, very soon afterwards, following a suggestion of Sylvia Wharton’s, Betty Ashton was borne into the cabin, four of the girls carrying her on a light canvas cot. This they set down before their big fire glowing in the center of the living room of the Sunrise cabin – Sunrise cabin which had not existed even in the dreams of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls until one afternoon in September not four months ago. Esther, with Mollie O’Neill’s arm about her, walked into the cabin on foot, since she was only stiff with fatigue and cold. However, on throwing herself back in a big arm chair and allowing her shoes to be changed by Mollie for slippers, she seemed more affected, by their adventure than Betty.

For Betty, in Princess fashion, with Polly, Sylvia and Nan, and the girl whom Polly had called Rose, all kneeling devotedly at her feet, was talking cheerfully.

“He was just the most impossible, ridiculous looking person you ever could imagine, with red hair and glasses and dreadfully shabby clothes, the kind of a man in a German band to whom you would throw pennies out the window, but he declared that he had once lived here in Woodford for a short time years ago and had come back on some business or other. Oh, Esther, don’t look at me so disapprovingly; I am saying nothing against him really. I am sure it was I who invited him to come out to our cabin and play for us girls. He looked so poor I thought I might be able to pay him then and I couldn’t quite offer him anything for helping Esther mend the sleigh and then seeing us part of the way home. Home! Oh, isn’t our beloved Sunrise cabin the most delightful and original home a group of Camp Fire girls ever possessed!”

And Betty’s eyes clouded with tears, partly from pain and weariness but more from joy at her return, as she looked from the faces gathered about hers in the neighborhood of the great fireplace and then saw all their glances follow hers with equal ardor throughout the length of their great living room.

For if ever Betty Ashton had proved her right to her friend Polly’s definition of her as a “Fairy Princess,” it was when through her desire and largely through her money, Sunrise cabin rose on the very ground covered by the white tents of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls only the summer before.

The cabin was built of pine logs from the woods at the foot of Sunrise Hill and the entire front of forty-five feet formed a single great room. The end nearer the kitchen the girls used as their dining room, while the rest of the room was music room, study, reception and every other kind of a room. And, except for the piano which Betty had brought from her own blue room at home and a few chairs, every other article of furniture and almost every ornament had been made by the Sunrise Camp Fire girls themselves.

On either side the high mantel there were low book shelves and a music rack stood by the piano filled with the songs of the Camp Fire. Polly, Nan and Sylvia had manufactured a dining room table which was considered an extraordinary achievement although the design was really very simple. Four wide pine boards about ten feet in length formed the top and the legs were of heavy beams crossed under it at the center and at either end. The furniture of the living room was stained a Flemish brown to match the walls and floor done in the same color. On the floor were rag rugs of almost oriental beauty made by the girls and dyed into seven craft colors. On the walls hung pieces of homemade tapestry, leather skins embossed with Camp Fire emblems, and flowers so pressed and mounted as to give the effect of nature. Then on the mantelpiece were two hammered brass candlesticks and a great brass bowl filled with holly and cedar from the surrounding wood. On odd tables and shelves were Indian baskets woven by the girls and used for every convenient purpose from holding stockings waiting to be darned to treasuring the Sunrise Camp Record Book which now had twenty-five written and illustrated pages setting forth the history of Sunrise Camp since its infancy.

But Eleanor Meade had given the living room its really unique distinction. Having once read a description of a famous Indian snow tepi, she had painted on the ceiling toward the northern end of the room seven stars which were to represent the north from whence the winter blizzards blew and on the southern side a red disc for the sun. The artist had pleaded long to be permitted to make the rest of the ceiling a bright blue with outlines of rolling prairie on the walls beneath, but this was greater realism in Indian ideals of art than the other girls were able to endure.

Yet notwithstanding so much artistic decoration, Science also had her place in the Sunrise cabin living room. For Sylvia Wharton had established a cupboard in an inconspicuous corner where she kept a collection of first aid supplies: gauze for bandaging, medicated cotton, peroxide, lime water and sweet oil, arnica, and half a dozen or more simple remedies useful in emergencies. True to her surprising announcement at the close of their summer camp Sylvia, without wasting time, and in her own quiet and apparently dull fashion, had already set about preparing herself for her future work as a trained nurse by persuading her father to let her have first aid lessons from a young doctor in Woodford. So now it was stupid little Sylvia (although the Camp Fire girls were no longer so convinced of her stupidity) who took real charge of caring for Betty’s foot, going back and forth to her cupboard and doing whatever she thought necessary without asking or heeding any one else’s advice.

Nevertheless, her work must have been successful, because in less than an hour after their return Betty, Esther and all the other girls were in dreamland in the two bedrooms which, besides the kitchen, completed Sunrise cabin. So soundly were they sleeping that it was only Polly O’Neill who was suddenly aroused by an unexpected knocking at their front door. It was nearly midnight and Polly shivered, not so much with fear as with apprehension. What could have happened to bring a human being to their cabin at such an hour? Instantly she thought of her mother still in Ireland, of Mr. and Mrs. Ashton traveling in Europe for Mr. Ashton’s health. Slipping on her dressing gown Polly touched the figure in the bed near hers.

“Rose,” she whispered, so quietly as not to disturb any one else. “There is some one knocking. I am going to the door, so be awake if anything happens.” Then without delaying she slipped into the next room.

Crossing the floor in her slippers Polly made no noise and picking up the lantern which was always kept burning at night in the cabin, without any warning of her approach she suddenly pulled open the door. The figure waiting outside started.

“I – you,” he began breathlessly and then stopped because Polly O’Neill’s cheeks had turned as crimson as her dressing gown and her Irish blue eyes were sending forth electric sparks of anger.

“Billy Webster,” she gasped, “I didn’t dream that anything in the world could have made you do so ungentlemanly a thing as to disturb us in this fashion at such an hour of the night. Of course I have never liked you very much or thought you had really good manners, but I didn’t believe – ”

“Stop, will you, and let me explain,” the young man returned, now fully as angry as Polly and in a voice to justify her final accusation. Then he turned courteously toward the young woman who had entered the room soon after Polly. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Dyer,” he continued, “I must have made some stupid mistake, but some little time ago I thought I heard the sound of your alarm bell. It rang only once, so I waited for a little while expecting to hear it again and then I was rather a long time in getting to you through the woods on account of the heavy snow. It is awfully rough on you to have been awakened at such an hour because of my stupidity.”

But Rose Dyer, who was a good deal older than Polly, put out both hands and drew the young man, rather against his will, inside the living room.

“Please come in and get warm and dry, you know our Camp Fire is never allowed to go out, and please do not apologize for your kindness in coming to our aid.” She lighted the candles, giving Polly a chance to make her own confession. Though looking only a girl herself she was in reality the new guardian of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.

Polly, however, did not seem to be enthusiastic over her opportunity to announce that she had been responsible for the alarm bell which had brought their visitor forth on such an arduous tramp. Billy Webster was of course their nearest neighbor, as his father owned most of the land in their vicinity, still the farm house itself was a considerable distance away. And to make matters worse the young man was too deeply offended by Polly’s reception of him to give even a glance in her direction.

Polly coughed several times and then opened her mouth to speak, but Billy was staring into the fire poking at the logs with his wet boot. Rose had disappeared toward the kitchen to get their visitor something to eat as a small expression of their gratitude.

Unexpectedly the young man felt some one pulling at the back of his coat and turning found himself again facing Polly, whose cheeks were quite as red as they had been at the time of his arrival, but whose eyes were shining until their color seemed to change as frequently as a wind swept sky.

“Mr. William Daniel Webster,” she began in a small crushed voice, “there are certain persons in this world who seem preordained to put me always in the wrong. You are one of them! I rang that bell because I thought my beloved Betty and Esther were lost in the storm, but they weren’t, and then I forgot all about having rung it. So now I am overcome with embarrassment and shame and regret and any other humiliating emotion you would like to have me feel. But really, Billy,” and here Polly extended her thin hand, which always had a curious warmth and intensity in keeping with her temperament, “can’t you see how hard it is to like a person who is always making one eat humble pie?”

Billy took the proffered hand and shook it with a forgiving strength that made the girl wince though nothing in her manner betrayed it.

“Oh, cut that out, Miss Polly O’Neill,” he commanded in the confused manner that Polly’s teasing usually induced in him. “It’s a whole lot rottener to be apologized to than it is to have to apologize, and it is utterly unnecessary this evening because, though, of course, I didn’t know you had rung the alarm bell, I did know if there was trouble at Sunrise cabin you were sure to be in it.”

And, as Polly accepted this assertion with entire amiability, ten minutes afterward she and their chaperon were both offering their visitor hot chocolate and biscuits to fortify him for the journey home. In order to make him feel entirely comfortable Polly also devoured an equal amount of the refreshments, not because she was given to self-sacrifice but because uneasiness about her friends had made her forget to eat her supper.