The Camp Fire Girls on the edge of the desert — Key Ideas to Explore

ham. After her father had served his state as Governor for two terms, he had been sent as United States senator to Washington, where the family had since been living, coming back home to New Hampshire only for occasional summer vacations.

Yet now it was April and Bettina was on her way to the old Webster farmhouse which stood, as it always had, not far from the first Sunrise Hill Camp.

In reality she and Polly Webster were not cousins, since Polly was Mollie O’Neill’s oldest child and named for her famous aunt; but the friendship between the mothers and the families was so great that it had passed into an intimacy closer in this world many times than the intimacies of relationship. For since Polly O’Neill, who was now Mrs. Richard Burton, traveled a great part of the year, because of her own and her husband’s profession, and because of her fondness for Europe, Mollie and Betty, now Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Graham, had grown to depend more on each other than in their girlhood days. So, when the spring came, and Bettina was not well in Washington, she had been sent at once to Mollie Webster’s home and Mollie’s care.

The girls walked quickly, as it was nearly dusk; Polly with the ease and swiftness of a girl who had been brought up in the country, and Bettina nearly as easily, yet with a different kind of grace. For there are persons who seem to be able to move with almost no effort, and their shy fleetness is characteristic of certain temperaments. In almost all cases you will find it among persons who have deep emotions but strange reserves.

Bettina Graham talked very little and perhaps this alone made her unusual among girls.

After a few further moments of silence on her part, Polly glanced up at her.

“It is curious, Bettina, that no one of your names suits you. You were called Bettina and ‘Little Princess’ when you were a tiny girl and now you are taller than your mother or any of us. ‘Tall Princess’ would be a better title at present. Even your Camp Fire name is too difficult to say—‘Anacaona,’ Flower of Gold—though I suppose the meaning is charming. But I am too matter-of-fact a person to like anything so fanciful.”

An elusive sense of humor may sometimes hide behind reserve, which served Bettina now and then not to take Polly too seriously.

“I am afraid nothing altogether suits about me,” she returned, smiling, however, and not speaking as if she were sorry for herself. “At least, I fear that is what my mother sometimes thinks, although she is good enough to try to conceal the fact. I am a disappointment to her. Here I am nearly sixteen and supposed to come out in society in another two or three years—and with a mother who is almost the most popular woman in Washington. Yet I hate even to appear at one of our own small tea parties. I never can think of a single thing to say to strangers. The truth is, Polly, one of the reasons I was not well this spring was because mother wished me to help her entertain more and I dreaded it. It is such peace to be here in these quiet woods.”

Then both girls paused for a moment.

The woods were no longer still.

Some one was walking toward them—a young fellow who kept striking at the trees and shrubs with a small stick he held in his hand. He was singing in a charming tenor voice, but stopped, took off his hat and bowed almost too gracefully to the two girls.

“Hello!” Polly said, indifferent but friendly enough.

Bettina scarcely moved her head. She flushed a little though as the young man passed, but did not speak until he was out of sight.

“I wish I might have had my visit without any other guest. I don’t like Ralph Marshall.” And then, “but please do tell me at once, Polly. I have been realizing ever since you joined me that you had more news. All day I have been feeling it in the atmosphere. You have had another letter.”

Nodding, Polly slipped her hand into her pocket.

“You do know about things, Bettina, before they happen. It is what everybody says about you, but please don’t guess about my future, I prefer not knowing till the time comes.”

She took out the letter and her eyes were brilliant.

“Yes, Tante has written again; the letter is addressed to me, but is for both of us. She says we are to talk over her plan to our families at once and that of course they will disapprove as they always have disapproved of everything she has ever suggested or done. But, just the same, we are to make them agree finally. She says _we must_—even if she has to come home and then go from here to Washington to argue the question.”

“It is too like what one has dreamed of to come true,” Bettina began, and then stopped because Polly had taken her by both shoulders and was shaking her.

“The things that Tante plans always come true, no matter how everybody else opposes them. That is one of the blessed facts about her. Ever since I can remember she had been more than a fairy godmother to us.” And Polly’s face showed that there was one person in the world about whom she was not matter-of-fact. Indeed, no one understood—not even Polly herself how much hero worship she felt for her mother’s famous sister.

But they were nearly at home. Lights were shining through the windows of the living room at the big farm, and on the veranda two persons were waiting.

“Let us not speak of the plan until after tea,” Polly whispered, as her father and mother walked forward to meet them.

Polly slipped her hand in her father’s and they went swinging along hand in hand back to the house.

Mrs. Webster walked more slowly with Bettina keeping beside her. She was still unchanged from our Mollie O’Neill, except that there were a few gray hairs which had come when her children were ill. She was plump, of course, but then soon after her marriage Mollie had settled down to the serenities of life, and they had kept her eyes as blue and her skin as soft and rose-colored as ever.

She enjoyed being solicitous about some one’s health and at present was much concerned about Bettina’s. But she was more concerned later because, when supper time arrived, one of her sons had not come in. And this was Billy Webster, who was not in the least like his father—the Billy Webster of other days. This Billy was always in the habit of doing all the things he should not, and Dan, all the things he should. And Mollie might have remembered that this difference in her twin sons was not unlike her own and her sister’s behavior in other days. But they had had no father to guide them and her husband was strict with his sons.

Ralph Marshall—the other visitor at the farm whom the girls had passed in the woods—was having dinner with other friends, and for this Bettina at least was grateful.

Yet the meal was not so agreeable as usual. Bettina and Polly were too silent and too absorbed, Mrs. Webster was plainly nervous and Dan, who was like her in almost every way, shared her emotion.

“It would not be a propitious evening for persuading her father to see things as she wished him to,” Polly thought. But Billy was always the family difficulty.

Half an hour later he had not yet appeared in the library. Neither had Polly or Bettina broached the subject on both their minds, although Polly sat on the arm of her father’s chair reading the same book with him.

Better than any one, she understood her father. He would not show anxiety; but until Billy came in he would not be able to give his attention to anything else, and his reading was only a pretense.

Then, just a few moments after half-past eight, there was an unexpected noise along the drive leading up to the front door.

Polly reached the window first. She could see the lights of an approaching automobile which, a moment later, stopped at the foot of their steps.

To her amazement her small brother, who had been at home but a few hours before, stepped out of the car with a suitcase in his hand. The next instant some one following ran in ahead of Billy.

Polly reached the front door in time to open it for their visitor; but, by this time the family was in the hall, and the figure swept by Polly to throw her arms about her mother’s neck.

“Mollie O’Neill, are you glad to see me? I have just traveled hundreds of miles until I am nearly dead. Yes, I know I ought to have telegraphed, but I’ve something I want to talk to you about and I did not want you to know I was coming. You might have tried to stop me, Richard did try.”

Then she stopped embracing Mrs. Webster and kissed Polly and Bettina and Dan and Mr. Webster—all as gaily and quickly as possible.

Of course it was Polly O’Neill—Mrs. Richard Burton—for no one else had such a fashion of turning up at unexpected moments.

“But, Tante, we have not even mentioned your scheme—your letter only arrived today,” Polly Webster said aloud.

Mrs. Webster shook her head and laughed at the same time.

“Of course you want to do something impossible, Polly O’Neill Burton, but I am glad to see you for any reason. It has been two years since you were here. Where did you find my Billy?”

A boy of about fourteen, small for his age and with fair hair and blue eyes, had by this time slipped quietly in and put down the suitcase. He had spoken to no one.

“Where did I find Billy?” Polly was moving toward the big living room. “I found him because he and I are birds of a feather, which means we know where to look for each other.”

CHAPTER II DREAM PLACES

“It isn’t so impracticable as you think, Mr. William Webster,” said Polly O’Neill Burton from the depth of a big camp chair.

It was a warm April afternoon and tea was being served out under the elms not far from the Webster house. Mollie Webster sat before a big wicker table covered with the Webster tea service and china over a hundred years old.

Dan Webster, who was a big, dark-haired fellow with blue eyes and his mother’s sweet nature, was carrying about teacups. He was followed by Ralph Marshall, who was spending a spring vacation from college at the Webster farm, and was now making himself useful by serving the hot muffins and cakes.

Billy Webster sat apart from the others reading, while Bettina and Polly were on either side of Mrs. Burton’s camp chair; and Mr. Webster stood upright, smiling down on its occupant.

“When was there anything that Polly O’Neill wanted from her girlhood up that wasn’t practical according to her view?” he demanded.

The Polly in the camp chair reached up and took hold of his hand.

“Do sit down, William, I suppose I must call you by that bugbear of a name, since we have another Billy and are getting so hopelessly old. We shall have to find another name for Polly as well, now that we are going to be together for a long time.” And having persuaded her brother-in-law to sit down beside her, the older Polly pulled one of the younger’s curls, “Why not Peggy, ‘Peg o’ My Heart,’ after the charming play? But see here, William, I have persuaded my husband to come around to my way of thinking, and he is not an easy person to manage.

“Although she won’t confess it, Mollie is half persuaded; and when I can lead you to the light, then I must see Betty and Anthony. But, seriously, why not? It will be a wonderful experience for the girls and one we shall never forget in this life and perhaps in another. I have to spend a year outdoors. For that length of time I am not to be allowed to act for a single night. Richard must, of course, go on with his engagements. Now I never am able to see my family or my friends when I am working and I regret it a great deal more than any of you realize.

“Instead of being sent off somewhere with my maid to a horrid hotel, where I shall probably die of the blues and the lonesomes, as I did once years ago before Bobbin and Richard rescued me, why won’t all of you or some of you come and camp in the desert with me?”

Polly’s cheeks were glowing with two bright spots of color and her eyes darkening as they always did in moments of excitement or pleading. She had forgotten the sofa pillows back of her, upon which she was supposed to recline, like an invalid, and had raised herself upright in her chair with one foot twisted up under her.

Mrs. Richard Burton was still as slender as Polly O’Neill had been, but, unlike Mollie, her black hair had no gray in it. Her years of work and success had kept her extraordinarily young; but then she had that vivid quality which keeps people from ever growing old. She was not beautiful and never had been, even as a girl; yet her face was extraordinarily fascinating and her voice had an almost magic quality in it, which had come from her long years of training as an actress.

Everybody watched her now, as they always did whenever she talked.

“I’ll come with pleasure, Mrs. Burton,” Ralph Marshall answered, walking over toward her chair with his offerings from the tea table.

Looking at him in a friendly but half critical fashion, she shook her head. Her sister had explained that Ralph was a college student and the son of one of the richest men in the state, who was also a friend of her husband’s and of Senator Graham’s.

“Sorry, but this is a Camp Fire girls’ expedition and no male persons are allowed except relatives,” Mrs. Burton returned good-naturedly.

Then, moving her head in order to speak to her sister, she observed Ralph drop a small piece of paper into Bettina’s lap. Also she saw Bettina flush as her hand closed quickly over it.

“You know, Mollie, years ago when we started our Sunrise Camp Fire club we began to wish then that we might live outdoors some day in a climate where it would be possible the whole year through. Well, it has taken half a lifetime to accomplish, but the idea is practical now. And even if we have become somewhat elderly Camp Fire girls, your Polly and Bettina’s Betty are not. Then I want to ask some other girls—Dick and Esther’s two daughters—enough to form another Sunrise Hill club.”

“But it is the most extravagant project I ever heard of in my life, Polly,” Mrs. Webster remonstrated. “I suppose you haven’t the shadow of an idea what it may cost to have a dozen young persons living with you in a tent in Arizona, or half a dozen tents. It all sounds too hot and terrifying to me for anything. Please do forget all about it, my dear, or we shall all be so uncomfortable,” she ended plaintively, as if there were no escape had her twin sister made up her mind.

“But you are not to come with us, Mollie, if you don’t like the idea, and perhaps you would be frightened. Once years ago, I spent a night alone near the desert and I have never forgotten the wonder of it. But you will let me have Polly with me for the summer at least, and perhaps the boys. The children have never been away from New England and it will be a part of their education to see this western country of ours.”

At a short distance from the family group Billy Webster had suddenly ceased reading. He was white and delicate looking for a country boy.

“Under no circumstances can the boys go with you, Polly,” Mr. Webster said positively.

And Polly Webster, although appreciating her own selfishness, gave a sigh of relief. This speech of her father’s gratified the desire of her own heart, since it meant that she was to be allowed to go.

But the older Polly seemed not to have heard.

“Yes, I do know in a way what it will cost,” she argued. “At least, Richard says I can perfectly afford it and he looks after the money we both earn. Besides, Mollie dear, as I have no children of my own, I don’t see why I can’t do for yours and a few others now and then.”

And Mollie, at the moment, said nothing more, for Polly’s one baby had died a few years before.

“I have written to Esther in Boston that I want her two daughters, and I am going to Washington to see Betty as soon as I am strong enough.”

Then she turned to Bettina. Since the beginning of their conversation Bettina had not spoken. Polly scarcely remembered her making a dozen speeches since her arrival, unless they were answers to questions. As she had been talking all her life whenever there was the least opportunity, Polly Burton feared that she was not going to be able to understand Bettina. Then Betty had written such odd letters about her only daughter, as if she herself did not altogether understand her.

But Betty’s letters had placed Bettina on a kind of pedestal, suggesting that she lived in a finer, purer atmosphere than other girls. Mrs. Burton was not so sure. At this moment she did not like the fashion in which Bettina had received a mysterious note from Ralph Marshall. It looked secretive. And Bettina was still flushed and embarrassed.

Polly felt a sudden qualm. After all, she knew little about girls, and if anything happened to Betty’s or Mollie’s daughter while under her care, would she not always feel responsible?

Bettina at this instant suddenly jumped up, her face growing warm and lovely as she started running across the grass lawn like a graceful child.

The next moment, forgetting her years and everything else, Mrs. Burton fled after her.

For they had both discovered almost simultaneously that a carriage was entering the gate which divided the Webster farm from the grounds about the house. And out of the carriage a handkerchief was being riotously waved.

At their approach the carriage stopped and a woman alighted.

She put her hands on Bettina’s shoulders kissing her on both cheeks.

“You are looking better, darling.”

“Polly O’Neill, didn’t you know I would come from Washington as soon as I learned you were in this part of the world? How can you look so exactly like you always did as a girl, in spite of your age and honors? You are thin as a rail.”

It was Betty Ashton—Mrs. Anthony Graham—exquisitely dressed and perhaps more beautiful than ever. She was now recognized as one of the loveliest women in Washington; indeed in the United States.

Yet she and the really great actress came gaily walking across the lawn, with their arms about each other like school girls.

“Don’t tell me you think I have gained a pound, Polly O’Neill Burton, or I shall never forgive you, though of course I know I have gained twenty. How did I find out you were here? Why, Bettina telegraphed me. Isn’t she lovely. She said you had some wonderful scheme on hand. Whoever saw Polly without a problem. Have your own way, dear, as far as I am concerned. It isn’t such a bad way as it sometimes seems. But I do wish you looked stronger.”

Then Mollie joined her sister and friend.

CHAPTER III THE HUMAN EQUATION

In an unscientific fashion Mrs. Burton was searching for her purse. She had peered in the bureau drawers, in her dismantled trunk, and was now sitting on the edge of her bed trying mentally to discover the lost object.