Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer
by Rena I. Halsey · English · Gutenberg #36846 · 617,501 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer
Author: Rena I. Halsey
Illustrator: Nana French Bickford
Release date: July 26, 2011 [eBook #36846]
Most recently updated: September 19, 2011
Language: English
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Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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[Illustration: "What can I do for you? Are you in pain?"]
BLUE ROBIN,
THE GIRL PIONEER
BY
RENA I. HALSEY
_ILLUSTRATED BY NANA FRENCH BICKFORD_
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, March, 1917
Copyright, 1917
By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
_All rights reserved_
BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
Norwood Press
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
BLUE ROBIN THE GIRL PIONEER
IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
TO
MISS LINA BEARD
FOUNDER
AND
CHIEF PIONEER
OF
THE NATIONAL INCORPORATED
ORGANIZATION OF
THE GIRL PIONEERS OF AMERICA
WHAT ARE "GIRL PIONEERS"?
The first public meeting of the National Organization of the Girl
Pioneers of America was held by the founder, Miss Lina Beard, in the
quaint old Pioneer meeting-house on Broadway, in Flushing, New York,
February 8, 1912.
The aim of the Organization of Girl Pioneers is: To cultivate in girls
the sterling qualities displayed by our early pioneer women; to create a
desire in them for a happy, broad, and useful life and to show them how
to attain it; to give them things to do that are interesting, wholesome,
and that will strengthen character; and to develop a love for
out-of-door life by showing them how to live it.
The watchword of the Girl Pioneer is, "I Can."
The principles upon which the organization is founded are not simply
taught as precepts, they are found and practiced in all the delightful
activities of the movement. Outdoor life with its limitless avenues of
interest: camping, trailing, woodcraft, learning to know the wild life
of the open, its plants, its flowers, birds, common wild animals and
insects; the stars and the meaning of the shadows, the use of nature's
material in handicraft; all these and many more are opened to the Girl
Pioneer, and by actual contact she is finding the beauty of truth and
the wonder of reality. By her membership in this large organization she
is learning to be less self-centered, learning to work with others and
for others, and to share her enjoyments with others. By the joyous
participation in field-sports, and such recreation as rowing, swimming,
fishing, riding, kite-flying, stilt-walking, and the more conventional
games, such as basket-ball, service-ball, tennis, and archery, she is
learning to play honestly and fairly, and _is building up bodily health
and strength_ to keep pace with the mental and moral health that is
being developed within her.
By her indoor life, lived as truly in the pioneer spirit as her life in
the open, she is bringing into play the faculties of resourcefulness, of
adaptability, of thoroughness, and the virtue of helpful kindness. She
learns to do all household tasks, to do them well, and to be interested
in them. She is taught in charming ways the use of her five senses, and
is delighted to find that she can develop them and consciously enjoy
them. She learns to care for the sick and the young children; she is
proud of being able to render "first aid" according to the latest and
best methods; she learns how to avoid accidents as well as what to do in
case of accidents. She has a system of signs for blazing the trail which
belongs solely to the Girl Pioneers, and she learns what to do in case
she is lost when camping or trailing. In short, the Girl Pioneer's
teaching makes her efficient in all fields. The mind and imagination of
the Girl Pioneer are stimulated by true stories of heroism and the
adventures of the early pioneers. Her merit badges are given the names
of the women pioneers, including besides the early settlers those who
were in helpful work for humanity. Her honors are shown by stars worn on
the sleeve, which indicate the tests successfully passed and lead up to
the final merit badge.
The Girl Pioneer colors, red, white, and blue, not only signify that the
organization is national in extent but hold a still further meaning for
the Girl Pioneers; red standing for courage, white for purity, and blue
for truth. The graceful salute symbolizes a brave heart, an honest mind,
a resourceful hand. The motto of the Girl Pioneer is, "Brave, Honest,
Resourceful."
The Girl Pioneers have their khaki uniform with red tie and red hatband,
which is practical, adaptable, and pleasing. They have their banners,
their Pioneer sign, their initiation, with its ceremony and membership
certificate; their rallies, field-days, and other general meetings
indoors and out. They have their Pioneer cheer, and each Band and each
group has a cheer of its own. There is the official song which all the
Pioneers sing, and there are songs composed by the Bands.
Each Band is under the leadership of a volunteer director who furnishes
acceptable credentials. The Band is composed of one group, or several
groups, of from six to ten girls in each. The name of an American wild
bird is chosen for the name of each group, and the Band is known by its
number. The bird cheers of the groups are very breezy and inspiring.
The Girl Pioneer ranks are open to all girls, and the work is very
helpful in Sunday-schools, public schools, private schools, camps, and
all large societies for girls, such as Young Women's Christian
Association, Young Women's Christian Temperance Union, playgrounds, etc.
The Daughters of the American Revolution, Colonial Dames, and like
organizations seek to preserve the historical records and objects
connected with the early life of our country, while the Girl Pioneers
seek to revive and perpetuate the spirit that dominated the invincible
men and women who made our nation possible.
The Girl Pioneer organization is governed by an Executive Board, of
which the Chief Pioneer, Lina Beard, is the head. There is also a
National Council composed of eminent and influential men and women
living in various parts of the United States, to be called upon when
needed.
The Pioneer folder will be sent upon application, and the Manual will be
sent upon receipt of price, thirty-five cents, and seven cents for
postage. For further information and for literature, address:
Secretary of Girl Pioneers of America,
Flushing, New York.
FOREWORD
A few summers ago I had the pleasure of being entertained by several
Bands of The Girl Pioneers of America, on the wooded shores of one of
Long Island's noted bays, at Camp Laff-a-Lot. As I watched these
wholesome-looking, happy girls in their attractive uniforms, and saw
their bright, animated faces as they made merry in joyous sport under
God's blue, and then turned to the more serious employment of making
bayberry candles, building camp fires, gathering wildflowers in their
study of Nature, or blazing the trail as they made the woodland resound
to their wonderful imitation of bird-notes, in the various calls of
their groups, my interest was awakened. Later, as I gathered with them
in the red glow of their Cheer Fire and heard their rousing Pioneer
cheer, and their inspiring Band songs, and saw how a love for history
and the true meaning of patriotism was engendered, while their minds and
imaginations were being stimulated by their stories of the heroism of
the women Pioneers, I realized that as our patriotic organizations were
seeking to honor the Founders of our Nation by preserving historical
records and objects, these Pioneer daughters were seeking to revive and
perpetuate the spirit that dominated the men and women who brought to
these shores, the grand principles of a civilization that has made our
Republic the greatest in the world! It was in recognition of the
nobleness of the aims of The Girl Pioneers of America, as well as in
appreciation of the worthy Founder's efforts to bring out the best in
them, that inspired me to set forth if only in a limited way these many
truths, and so I was emboldened to write "Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer!"
Rena I. Halsey.
_Brooklyn,_
_January 1, 1917._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Nest in the Old Cedar 11
II Her Next-door Neighbor 27
III Girl Pioneers 40
IV Nathalie Is Asked to Become a Blue Robin 55
V The Gray Stone House 72
VI Working into Harness 90
VII The Mayflower Feast 108
VIII The Motto, "I Can" 126
IX Searching for Rosy 143
X Nathalie as the Story Lady 159
XI The Princess in the Tower 179
XII The Wild-flower Hike 194
XIII Around the Cheer Fire 213
XIV Overcomes 230
XV A Chapter of Surprises 250
XVI Pioneer Stunts 270
XVII Liberty Banners 289
XVIII The Princess Makes Two More Friends 308
XIX The Fagot Party 330
XX The Dutch _Kraeg_ 348
XXI An Invitation 366
XXII Camp Laff-a-Lot 385
XXIII Miss Camphelia 403
XXIV The Wireless Operator 421
XXV Good-by to Eagle Lake 438
ILLUSTRATIONS
"What can I do for you? Are you in pain?" _Frontispiece_
"Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen 122
"Why, how did you get there?" 172
"Oh, don't be frightened!" exclaimed the princess,
with a merry laugh 194
The rope had broken in her grasp 228
Up went two hands in pretended subjugation 290
With an unearthly shriek was flying across the lawn 338
She dropped the ashes of Miss Dummy into the placid water 436
BLUE ROBIN, THE GIRL PIONEER
CHAPTER I--THE NEST IN THE OLD CEDAR
Nathalie came running up the steps of the veranda her brown eyes alight
with excitement as she cried, "Oh, Mother, what do you think? Down in
the old cedar-tree on the lawn is a nest of tiny blue robins--they're
just the cutest things--do come and see them!"
"Blue robins?" quizzed her brother Dick from where he lay reading in the
hammock. "Who ever heard of blue robins?"
"I think she means bluebirds," ventured Mrs. Page, looking up from the
morning paper and smiling at the earnest young face of her daughter.
Then her eyes dimmed, but she winked her lashes quickly as if to
restrain a sudden rush of tears, rose in answer to the note of appeal in
the girl's voice, and stepped to her side.
A moment later they were strolling across the new-grown grass of the
lawn, the girl of sixteen supporting the slender, black-gowned figure of
her mother, whose delicate, high-bred face with its impress of recent
sorrow defined the youthful glow of the one that smiled upon her so
tenderly.
"Now, Mumsie, look!" whispered the girl as she pointed to a dark cavity
in the trunk of the cedar but a short distance from the ground; "see,
are they not robins?"
Mrs. Page's tired eyes brightened as she watched with keen interest the
five bobbing heads with open bills, turweeing in hungry clamor, "Why no,
Nathalie," she replied laughingly, "they are bluebirds."
At this instant they spied the mother bird as she flitted excitedly
among the upper branches of the tree. Drawing her mother to one side,
Nathalie whispered tensely, "Oh, there's the mother bird--she wants to
feed them! Let's see what she will do!" Nathalie's eyes sparkled
expectantly.
It was quite evident what Mrs. Bluebird was going to do, for she
immediately jumped to the edge of the nest and dropped a fat, squirming
worm into an open bill. As she poised over her nestlings she caught
sight of the two figures under the tree. In another instant she had set
up such a vigorous scolding that the interlopers were quite disturbed.
Seeing, however, that they did not offer to molest her little ones, Mrs.
Birdie finally subsided, cocked her head perkily on one side, and
watched them with eyes that shone like two fireflies.
Father bird now came flying up with another good-sized wriggler in his
beak, which mother bird, with an eye to business, hastily snatched and
dropped into a wide-open bill.
"Why, Mother," commented Nathalie, "do you see that the father bird is
much the handsomer of the two, for he is of a deep blue color, while
mother bird's feathers are grayish-blue."
Her mother nodded as she answered, "Yes, and his beautiful coat is in
striking contrast to his throat and breast, which are reddish-brown."
"And the white feathers below," continued Nathalie, with keen eyes,
"look like a white apron."
"But come, dear," interposed her mother, "we must go back, for I hear
Dick whistling--he is getting impatient--I promised to get him a sofa
pillow for the hammock."
As they stepped on the veranda, Dick inquired, with sarcastic
inflection, balancing himself on the edge of the hammock and pushing it
to and fro with his crutch, "Well, how many blue robins did you find?"
"We found five tiny bluebirds," responded his mother with unwonted
animation as she seated herself in a low rocker, and then she continued
in lower tone as her daughter disappeared in quest of the pillow, "Oh,
Dick! I am so glad to see some color in Nathalie's cheeks again, for she
has been looking very wan and pale. The poor child has not only suffered
the loss of her father, but she has had to give up so many things--the
very things, too, that a girl of her age longs for so much!" Mrs. Page
sighed drearily.
"Giving up college was the hardest," added her son, his face expressing
the sympathy he hardly knew how to voice; "but she's a corker, for she
has faced every disappointment like a little hero. I didn't know she had
so much pluck in her."
"She takes after her father, he was always so cheerful about facing the
inevitable--" His mother's lips quivered; she paused as if to gain
control of her voice and then resumed brokenly, "Oh, Dick, to think he
has gone--it seems as if it could not be true--"
"True enough," retorted Dick gruffly; and then he added, in a softer
voice, "but after all, Mother, every one has to have trouble. We're
having ours just now--that's all--and we've got to bear it. Things might
have been worse, I suppose--we've got enough left to live on--oh, if it
wasn't for this confounded knee of mine--to be helpless when--"
"Hush, Dick, don't say that," cried his mother in a pained voice; "just
have patience, and you will be all right; have patience with me, too,
dear, because I am such a coward to allow myself to get so depressed."
She made a brave attempt at a smile. "It will be as you say, all right
soon."
Hearing Nathalie's step, she hastily hid her tear-stained face behind
the paper; then, as that young woman threw the sofa pillow at Dick's
head, she exclaimed, "I am so glad, Nathalie, to see you take an
interest in the new home. I think it is a lovely--"
"Doll's house!" interposed the girl laughingly. "But, O dear, I must be
careful, for when I called it a doll's house while Mrs. Morton was here
she looked rather queer, and then I remembered that her house is not
much bigger. But do you know, Mother," she rattled on girlishly, "I
think we are going to be quite comfy in this little home--after a time of
course," she hastened to add, "when we have become used to the
change--and all--" she stopped abruptly, for she, too, was thinking of the
dear father who had gone so suddenly--without even saying good-by, as she
had so often wailed in the darkness of night--leaving Mother with only a
meager income, and with poor Dick to take care of, and her and Dorothy,
who didn't know enough to earn a penny!
A sudden slam of the door was heard, a "How are you, Auntie?" in a
sweet, assured voice, and then with smiling eyes a tall, graceful, young
woman, with shiny, fluffy hair came forward and kissed her aunt
caressingly.
"Oh, Lucille, what do you think?" broke from Nathalie impetuously; "I
found a nest of tiny bluebirds down in the old cedar-tree on the lawn!"
"Um-m, well, you are always finding something to enthuse over," remarked
her cousin with careless indifference, "but I wish you would make that
all-round maid of yours do my room, I want to write a letter." There was
spoiled impatience in the girl's voice.
Mrs. Page looked up with a startled expression as she murmured
apologetically, "Oh, I forgot, Lucille. I will do it--I thought--"
"No, no, Mother," came from Nathalie hurriedly, as with heightened color
and gentle insistence she forced her mother back to her seat. "I will do
it."
Nathalie disappeared within the door. She had smiled sweetly for her
mother's sake, but as she went up the stairs there was an upward lift to
her chin that showed that she had a will and a temper of some weight.
"Why is Lucille so mean," she questioned mutinously, "as not to make her
own bed when she knows that now we shall have to get along with only one
maid? Mother is not going to wait on her!" Her eyes gleamed with angry
decision, and then the curves of her mouth softened as she struggled
silently with her jarring thoughts.
Yes, it must be borne, for was it not a part of the great change that
had come into her life with her first great sorrow? The shock of her
father's death had dazed her, and she had suffered in a dulled,
uncomprehending way until she was aroused from her grief by the many
anxieties and disappointing changes that the financial tangle of her
father's affairs had caused.
Leaving their beautiful city home, giving up the many luxuries and the
pleasures to which she had been accustomed, parting from her school
friends, and coming to the unknown suburban town were bitter
disappointments; the one that cut the deepest was giving up college, but
the hardest to bear was Dick's accident!
The next moment the girl was hard at work picking up Lucille's
disordered room, humming cheerily as she went about her task, for, after
all, her cousin was independent--she paid her board--and now they would
need every penny.
A resolute will and deft fingers can accomplish much in this workaday
world, and so Nathalie soon finished her new job, as she called it, and
sat on the veranda watching the robins as they hopped nimbly over the
lawn, ducking their heads every minute or so to reappear with fat,
dangling worms in their beaks.
Their cheerful twitter, the budding leaves on trees and bushes, and the
many reminders of the revival of life under the warmth and glow of the
spring sunshine thrilled her with exhilaration. Her depression vanished,
she felt happy again, but vaguely perhaps, scarcely comprehending that
the buoyancy of youth and the joy of life were compensations that dulled
the harrowing edge of grief.
With a long breath, as if to capture as much as possible of the spring
balminess, Nathalie turned to see her mother seated in the low chair,
with her basket of mending, wearing the same dazed, worried look on her
face that had haunted the girl ever since their sorrow. She became
keenly aware that her tireless mother, who had always stood ready to do
the thousand and one things that were constantly calling her, was
failing. Something swelled up in her throat, she fought valiantly a
moment, and then jumping up, she grabbed the half-darned sock from her
mother's hand, pitched it into the basket, picked it up and carried it
over to her chair.
"Now, Mumsie," she declared in answer to her mother's startled look,
"you are not to darn any more stockings; henceforth your humble servant
is to be the champion mender." Nathalie's cheeks flushed, for as she
raised her eyes she encountered those of a young girl about her own age
who was just coming out of the adjoining house.
As her neighbor saw Nathalie, she smiled a cheery good-morning, showing
a row of strong, white teeth, and then strode down the walk with the
light step and easy swing of the athletic girl.
"Huh! what a queer rig," commented Lucille, with a supercilious raising
of her eyebrows, as she noted that the girl wore a short brown khaki
skirt over bloomers, a middy with a Turkey red tie, and a broad-brimmed
hat banded with red. "Is that the Salvation Army's summer apparel?" Then
seeing that the girl carried a strong staff in her hand, she added with
a giggle, "Or perhaps she is some aspiring member of the militants."
"Why, I think the uniform--for I presume it is that--" interposed Mrs.
Page, "is very attractive, and most appropriate for a Girl Pioneer."
"Why, Mother, how do you know she is a Girl Pioneer?" questioned
Nathalie with mild amazement.
"Ah, I forgot to tell you that her mother, Mrs. Dame, called the day you
were out walking. She told me that Helen, her only daughter, belongs to
'The Girl Pioneers of America.'"
"The Girl Pioneers of America!" repeated her daughter; "why, I never
heard of them. Is it a patriotic society?"
"In a way I presume it is," returned her mother, "as it is an
organization which trains girls to emulate the sterling qualities of the
early pioneer women."
"I wonder what they do, and if it is anything like the Boy Scouts!"
continued Nathalie interestedly.
"I think from what Mrs. Dame told me that it must be a sister society to
that organization, for its object is to awaken within the girls a desire
for healthy, outdoor activities, as well as a broad and useful life
along many lines. I am sure in these days, when girls are so shallow and
artificial-looking, and have no higher thought than getting all the
pleasure they can out of life, that it is something which is sadly
needed." Mrs. Page's tones were expressive.
"Oh, Aunt Mary," demurred Lucille, looking up with a frown from her
novel, "one would think that you expected girls to dress and act like
their grandmothers. I am sure one can be young but once, and if one
doesn't have a good time then, what's the use of living? And for putting
a little color on one's face, why, the most fashionable people do it
nowadays."
Mrs. Page's face flushed slightly, but she replied with quiet dignity,
"I am surprised, Lucille, to hear you talk that way, brought up as you
have been, too. It is true," she continued, "that there is no harm in
wanting a good time--as you call it--that is youth's privilege, and no one
wishes to turn youth into age, but back of it all there should be common
sense and a desire for right living. As for putting artificial color on
a face that should represent the freshness and the natural bloom of
youth, why, to me it is demoralizing."
Lucille frowned impatiently and resumed her reading.
"Mrs. Dame," continued her aunt, turning towards Nathalie, "said her
daughter Helen was coming in to call on you; she will probably give you
all the information you want about the new organization. I hope you will
like her, dear, for she seems a pleasant, well-bred girl and surely will
prove companionable to you. We might as well, all of us, try to forget
our city life with its past pleasures, and see if we cannot adapt
ourselves to our surroundings."
"Indeed I will try, Mumsie," replied Nathalie with a slight catch in her
voice, as her thoughts turned back to her chums in the city, and she
wondered what they would think of her humble little home. "But really,
Mother," she spoke aloud, "I think Miss Dame has an awfully bright face,
and I wish she would call, for I should like to know about the Girl
Pioneers."
A few days after the finding of the bluebird's nest, Nathalie, enlivened
by the desire to investigate her surroundings, and curious for new
experiences, set forth on a little exploring tour to the woods on the
outskirts of the town. She had tried to induce her cousin to join her,
but that young lady was absorbed in running over a new ragtime song. Her
sister Dorothy, aged twelve, had also declined on the score that she had
an engagement with a girl neighbor who lived in the big house down the
road.
Sunshine and youth are joy-bearers, and as Nathalie felt the air in
fragrant little whiffs against her cheeks, she thrilled with pleasure as
she strode briskly up the hill. A moment later, however, her shining
eyes shadowed, and she unconsciously shivered as she encountered a cold
glance from a lady, weirdly garbed in gray, who was just passing.
The color flashed to her cheeks; she felt as if some one had slapped her
as the haunting vision of that uncanny stare of aversion from two
steely-gray eyes penetrated her consciousness. Tempted by curiosity she
turned and watched the peculiar-looking figure as it glided with almost
specter-like swiftness down the hill.
"I wonder who she is and why she gave me such a harrowing glance,"
thought Nathalie. "Whew! she has frozen me stiff," and then a laugh
brightened the brown eyes as she continued on her way. She had almost
reached the top of the hill when she saw a large brown card on the walk.
Picking it up she read, "Westport Library," and then the written name,
"Elizabeth Van Vorst." Not a great loss, to be sure, but likely to cause
inconvenience.
"Oh, I wonder if that lady didn't drop it, she had a book under her
arm," flashed into the girl's mind. She hesitated--she did not want to
climb that long hill again--but the next second she had whirled about and
was running lightly down the slope in the direction of a Carnegie
building that glimmered picturesquely between green-boughed trees.
"Oh, I beg your pardon," panted Nathalie as she held out the card to the
gray lady who had just emerged from the library and was looking vexedly
about on the walk in front of the building, "did you not lose your
library card?"
The lady turned sharply, stared suspiciously at the girl a moment, and
then, as her eyes fell upon the extended card, exclaimed coldly, "Oh,
did you find it? Thank you, I am much obliged!" With a haughty glance of
dismissal she turned and ascended the library steps.
Nathalie's eyes gleamed angrily, but with a toss of her head she was off
on her second trudge up the slope. "Well, she is the limit--" she
muttered. "Of all hateful, disagreeable, peculiar, mysterious creatures,
she takes first rank." But when the girl reached the woods where the
new-gowned trees and the white blossoms of the dogwood, which she had
spied the day before, riding in a trolley car, rustled softly in the
sunlight, as if in a spring greeting to the flower-seeker, the
unpleasant incident was forgotten.
With eager eyes and cheeks aglow she began to break off a sprig here and
there, lingering only to caress the snowy petals that tantalizingly
brushed her cheek.
"What a beauty!" she exclaimed as she suddenly halted; "it will be just
the spray to sketch." Up went her arm--a little higher--and then something
went from under her; she tried to regain her footing, but slipped again
on the moist turf. She felt her foot turn, and then came a sharp twinge
that whitened her lips as she dropped, a helpless heap, on the ground.
For a few moments the girl forgot her dogwood blossoms, the slip, and
the pain, and then she opened her eyes to realize, with a pang of
dismay, that she must have fainted. Oh, she must have twisted her ankle,
for when she tried to stand she almost screamed with the knife-like
twinges.
She leaned her head against the tree with closed eyes, trying to think,
but her thoughts seemed to run around in a circle, for she could see no
way out of her dilemma. She was too far from the trolley line to hail a
car, or to beckon to any passer-by who might be on the road.
She thought ruefully of how worried her mother would be if she did not
return before dark. And who was there to look for her? Dick was helpless
with his crutch, Dorothy would not be home until late, and Lucille--well,
whoever heard of Lucille ever doing anything for any one but herself?
She screamed, but when her voice rang out with reverberating shrillness
she clapped her hands to her ears. She would sing; and her fresh young
voice broke forth into ragtime song.
But the ragtime quivered pathetically into a half-wail. What should she
do? At last in sheer desperation she began to sing hymns; but they
sounded so doleful in her nervous state that she desisted with a sound
that was half a sob and half a laugh. She was about to embrace
resignation to fate when she caught the glimmer of a brown skirt between
the low-hung branches of the trees near by. In a moment there was a
sharp crack of a twig, and Nathalie with a sudden exclamation of joy saw
a young girl coming quickly toward her, wearing the same kind of a brown
uniform she had perceived on her neighbor a few days ago.
"Oh, are you hurt?" asked the girl quickly, as she saw Nathalie's white
face resting against the tree.
Nathalie, attempting to smile, told of her mishap, and then with
widening eyes saw the girl run a few steps into the open. Then the
short, staccato whistle of Bob White struck the air.
It was hardly a moment when, in response to this bird-call, several
girls appeared in the opening beyond. A few hurried words with the girl
who had signaled them, and they were around Nathalie, listening to the
story of her accident.
After expressing their sympathy, two of the taller girls quickly slipped
off their khaki skirts, unbuttoned them, and then, to the injured one's
amazement, one of the girls pushed her staff through the belt of one
skirt and hem of the other, while her companion did the same with her
staff. They were improvising a stretcher, as neat and
comfortable-looking as if it had just been removed from an ambulance.
While the stretcher was being made, one of the girls had taken from her
knapsack a small black case from which she extracted a bottle. Hastily
kneeling on the ground, after Nathalie's boot had been removed by her
assistant, she bathed the injured foot, then, as her companion handed
her a roll of white lint she bound it with a cotton compress, while
Nathalie, with much curiosity, watched her as she quickly and skillfully
performed the work of First Aid to the Injured. As she rose to her feet
and turned to direct her companions in the lifting of her patient on the
stretcher, Nathalie recognized her next-door neighbor, Helen Dame, the
Girl Pioneer!
CHAPTER II--HER NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR
If Nathalie was surprised at the deftness and resourcefulness of these
Girl Pioneers, she was amazed at the ease and comfort she experienced as
the four girls strode forward, two at the head and two at the foot of
the improvised stretcher.
Notwithstanding the sharp twinges in her foot, she felt as if she could
have dropped into a doze if a sudden, jarring thought had not caused her
to raise her head in search of her next-door neighbor. By the decision
of her voice and her methodical manner of directing her companions as
they prepared the "bed of ease," Nathalie had recognized this girl as
the leader.
But Helen Dame was not to be seen. One of the girls, however, on seeing
Nathalie's movement, commanded a halt and hastened to her side. "What
can I do for you?" she inquired in an anxious tone. "Are you in pain?"
Her ready sympathy brought the tears to Nathalie's eyes, for her nerves
were somewhat under a strain, but she fought them bravely back, and
looking up with a reassuring smile replied, "Oh no, I am all right, but
I was looking for Miss Dame. I am afraid if Mother sees me on a
stretcher, she will think something very dreadful has happened."
"Ah, Helen thought of that," was the quick reply, "and she has gone
ahead to tell your mother that you have only hurt your foot, and to see
if she can get Dr. Morrow to come over and look at it."
"Oh, how kind of her--and of you all--" there was a slight tremor in
Nathalie's voice. "I am sure I do not know what would have become of me,
alone there in the woods, if you girls had not come to my rescue."
As the girls walked slowly on with their burden, the one walking by the
side of the stretcher told Nathalie that they were a group of Girl
Pioneers, that they had been on a hike, and that her name was Grace
Tyson. As they chatted pleasantly, Nathalie told of her recent removal
from the city to Westport. With wise forethought she suppressed all
mention of her former wealth and the many luxuries she had been used to,
for fear that these suburban girls, not comprehending, might misjudge
her and think that she considered herself above them. She had learned
from the girls of her own set in school that when a newcomer took
particular care to advise them how rich she was, her mates usually
dubbed her a snob. So she only told of her great loss in the death of
her father, how Dick, her older brother, had injured his knee in an
accident and was an invalid, and how she liked her new home.
In the companionship of this new girl she scarcely realized how quickly
the time had passed until she saw her mother's anxious face bending over
her, and heard a masculine voice say, "Well, is this the young lady who
reached too high?"
Nathalie looked quickly up and immediately her heart went out to this
big, bluff man with iron-gray hair and kindly blue eyes who picked her
up as if she had been a manikin, carried her into the hall, and laid her
on the couch. She recognized the face of the doctor who lived on the
opposite corner whom she had often envied as he went chugging down the
street in his automobile.
After the doctor had pressed her foot here and there with a touch as
soft as silk from the gentleness of trained fingers, he brought forth
some surgical plaster from a black case, and strapped the injured
member, remarking as he did so on the surgeon-like way in which Miss
Dame had bandaged it.
After the "exam," as Dick called it, was over, the doctor explained the
case as a few strained ligaments, and said that with care his patient
would be able to walk in about a week.
"A week?" sprang from the young girl involuntarily. Dismay shone in her
eyes, but the doctor, with a fatherly pat, assured her that she had
great cause for gratitude, as it might have been much worse.
"The next time you go to gather dogwood blossoms, young lady," he
advised jovially, "wear rubber heels, and then you won't slip on
stones."
As the doctor bade her good afternoon, promising to come again in a few
days to see how the foot was progressing, Nathalie thought of her
rescuers, and raising her head peered anxiously around.
"The girls have gone, but they left a good-by for you," her mother
answered to her look of inquiry, "and Miss Dame says she will be in
to-morrow to see how you are."
By to-morrow Nathalie had begun to think it was not at all unpleasant to
be a short-time invalid, and she jokingly requested her mother to see
that her head was not screwed around from sheer conceit at being the
recipient of so much attention.
Mrs. Morrow, the doctor's young wife, had sent her a beautiful bunch of
yellow daffodils from the very garden that Nathalie had been admiring
all the week, while the little, silver-haired old lady next
door--Nathalie could have hugged her, she looked so grand-motherly--had
sent her a snow-frosted nut-cake. Lucille--an unheard-of thing--had
condescended to alight from her pedestal of self and had played and sung
Nathalie's favorite selections all the morning. Even Dorothy, whose
engagement book was always brimming over, had darned stockings for her.
Of course, Nathalie knew that she would have to rip out every stitch,
but that was the child's way of showing that she, too, wanted to be
sympathetic and kind.
The success of the day, however, was when Helen Dame's dark eyes smiled
at her from the adjoining porch, and she asked if Nathalie felt like
chatting for a while.
"Indeed I do," answered Nathalie animatedly, "I have been just dying to
talk with you ever since you were so kind."
"Oh, how sweet you look!" exclaimed Helen a few moments later as she
shook hands with the patient, "with your pink ribbons--just the color of
your cheeks." For the girl's color had deepened as her visitor laid a
bunch of violets on her lap. "These are from the girls, the Girl
Pioneers--that is our Pioneer song," she added laughingly.
"I just love violets!" Nathalie sniffed at the purple petals. "And the
girls, do you mean the ones who so kindly came to my aid the other day?
Oh, Miss Dame, I hardly know how to express my appreciation of your
kindness," her voice trembled slightly, "in hurrying home to tell
Mother."
"Oh, that was nothing," replied Helen with assumed indifference,
although her eyes darkened in appreciation of Nathalie's gratefulness,
"that was only courtesy; you know we are Girl Pioneers, and kindness is
one of the laws of the organization."
"Do you know," Nathalie broke in impulsively, "Mother thinks the girls
very clever in making that stretcher; do tell me about the Girl
Pioneers!" She hesitated for a moment. "Perhaps I am very ignorant, but
I never heard of them until your mother told mine that you were a Girl
Pioneer."
Helen laughed with a gratified gleam in her eyes. "Oh, Mother!--she
thinks it just the dandiest thing going. Mrs. Morrow, our Director,
introduced the movement here. The founder is a friend of hers, so she is
steeped to her finger-tips with it.
"She started me going--enthusiasm is contagious, you know--and I organized
the first group. A group means six or eight girls; several groups form
what is called a band."
"Do you mean Mrs. Morrow, the doctor's wife?" inquired her companion.
"She must be lovely, for she looks so pretty flitting about the garden,"
turning wistful eyes toward the corner house with its flower beds and
green lawn. "I often watch her from my window."
"Yes, she is a dear," assented Helen, "and we girls adore her. Have you
seen the twins?"
"The kiddies who go about in khaki uniforms and carry little poles."
"Yes, baby Boy Scouts. You should hear them call themselves 'the twims';
they both lisp. But there, I must tell you about the Pioneers--but I
don't want to tire you," she paused abruptly, "for Mother says there is
no end to me when I get talking on that subject."
"But I want to hear about them!" pleaded Nathalie.
"Well, after I organized the group, the girls elected me leader, and
Grace Tyson--that's the girl who walked beside you coming home--my
assistant. You see every group has to have a leader and an assistant
from the group, and then when a band is formed there is a Director. Any
one over twenty-one years of age can be a Director. After we formed our
group, we had to get busy and qualify."
"Qualify?" repeated her hostess, "that sounds big."
"Yes, every Girl Pioneer has to qualify, that is to pass several tests
to prove that she is competent to do the work. It is no end of fun
training a girl to qualify, for you know she has to recite the Girl
Pioneer pledge, and the Pioneer laws; she must give the names of the
President and Vice-President of the United States, the name of the
Governor of the State in which she lives, and then tell all about our
country's flag. She must know how to sew a button on properly," Helen
made a grimace, "to tie a square knot and to do several other things.
After a girl has passed these tests, she becomes a third-class Pioneer;
then after a month she can qualify for a second-class Pioneer, and
finally for a first-class Pioneer. We can win merit badges, too, for
proficiency in certain lines. Yes, you are right, it is a big thing to
be a Girl Pioneer, for every true Pioneer's aim is to be courageous,
resourceful, and upright, under all circumstances and in all
emergencies.
"You know, we have to pledge ourselves to speak the truth at all times,
to be honest in all things, and to obey the Pioneer law." Helen's face
grew serious. "Yes, and our laws mean something, too, for they stand for
the doing of things that are worth while, the things that develop
nobility of character, for, as Mrs. Morrow tells us, it is character
that makes the great men and women of the world.
"But don't think we are serious all the time," she continued, her eyes
brightening, "for we have heaps of fun. We take hikes; sometimes just a
group go with their leader, but generally our Director takes the band.
On these hikes we study woodcraft; that means we study the birds, their
habits, and learn to know their songs and call-notes. We gather wild
flowers, ferns, and grasses, and each girl reads up about the particular
thing she finds and passes the information along. We study the trees,
and the animals also by tracking their footmarks--well, to sum it all up,
we study nature from growing things and living creatures.
"To read about things in a book is all right, Mrs. Morrow says, as it is
helpful in identification and suggestion, but we strive to know things
through personal experience. We are taught to find nature, too, in the
crowded cities. That's big, isn't it?"
"Big!" echoed Nathalie, "the word _big_ isn't big enough to express it.
I should say it meant--well"--she held out her arms, "the universe."
There was something so responsive in her words and attitude, although
they did not exactly express what she meant to convey, that Helen, with
almost boyish frankness, held out her hand, crying, "Good! let's shake.
You are simply immense, Miss Page, or, in the words of our old French
professor at school, 'you--haf--much com--pree--henshun!'" This was said in
mimic tone with laughing eyes, a shrug of the shoulders, and with
outspread hands.
"We have indoor rallies, or Pioneer circles, also, Miss Page, when our
Director gives us delightful little talks on ethical culture,--only ten
minutes--" she pleaded laughingly, "also on history, astronomy,--we call
them our star talks,--and other instructive subjects.
"You will be surprised, perhaps, but these talks are very interesting,
not at all tiresome. The girls listen with all their ears and we learn
an awful lot. One reason is that Mrs. Morrow loves young girls--for you
see, she isn't so very much older than we are--and she knows just how to
talk to us, so that we don't feel as if we were being preached at, or
having wisdom jammed down our throats. It is just dramatizing serious
things through play, so as to make us remember them as well as
entertaining us. Then we have spelling-contests, cooking-matches,--I call
them trials by fire,--sewing-bees, and all sorts of old-fashioned
things."
"But you have outdoor sports, too, do you not?" asked her listener, who
was intensely interested.
"Indeed we do, any number of them: swimming, horseback-riding, rowing,
canoeing, basket-ball, tennis, dancing, stilt-walking,--we make our own
stilts,--kite-flying,--and we make our own kites, too. In fact, we do just
about everything that stands for healthful recreation and wholesome fun.
Isn't that comprehensive enough?"
"How did you come to take the name 'Pioneer'?"
"Well, you see it was this way; as the Boy Scouts strive to imitate the
chivalry and higher qualities of the knights of olden times, so we,
their sister organization, endeavor to emulate the sterling qualities of
the early pioneer women. They learned to be courageous, resourceful, and
efficient, as the home-makers of the brave men who founded this
Republic--"
"Do you mean the wives of the Puritans and Pilgrims?"
"Yes, we mean all those women, North, East, South, and West," Helen
declared smilingly, "who helped their good men to build homes in the
wilderness, who mothered their children with Spartan-like denial, and
who--yes, who knew how to handle an old flintlock when they heard the cry
of the Indian. Oh, no, I'm not originating, I am only an echo of Mrs.
Morrow, who is way up on Colonial history.
"The Pioneer Girls," she continued more seriously, "aim, by imitating
the many qualities of these splendid women, to be worthy wives and
mothers. Who knows?" she broke into a laugh, "the Girl Pioneers may be
the mothers of men like Washington, Lincoln--O dear," she stopped
suddenly, "I am talking as if I had to speed a thousand words a minute!"
"Oh, go on!" cried Nathalie, inspired by her guest's fervency, "I just
love to hear you talk."
"It is very good of you to say that," declared Helen with a slight
blush, "but I am almost 'at the finish,' as the boys say. But I must not
forget to tell you that we love to gather around the open fire, cheer
fires we call them, and tell stories. We generally try to make them
stories about the pioneers, or heroic women, and sometimes we run in a
story about some brave kiddie, for you know almost every one loves to
hear about brave little children. Ah, that reminds me, did you ever hear
about Mary Chilton? She was a real pioneer girl you know, for she came
over with the Pilgrims." Helen nodded her head impressively.
"No, I have read about Lola Standish, and I believe--yes--I saw her
sampler once, and I am quite up on all the points of Priscilla's
courtship, but--"
"Who isn't?" replied Miss Dame, "for she was a dear. Mary Chilton was a
friend of hers. Why, don't you remember she was the girl who made the
bet with John Alden--slow old John--that when the little shallop struck
Plymouth Rock (of course they never dreamed that they were going to make
that old rock immortal) that she would jump on the rock first; and sure
enough she did manage to land a second or so before John Alden."
"Well, the Girl Pioneers aim high," declared Nathalie, "and I certainly
think they must be worthwhile girls. I shall love to meet your Pioneer
friends--they cheered me up--" she added, "for they made me think of the
girls at school, especially Grace Tyson. Why, she is so much like my
chum that it almost seemed as if I were talking to her the other day!
Your friends all have such happy faces, and 'it is such a relief to see
good red cheeks as made by Mother Nature,' as Mother says. Some of the
girls one sees in the cities nowadays have such a made-up appearance,
especially those on the avenue Saturday afternoons in New York."
"Yes, they have regular clown faces with their splashes of red, and
their powdered noses," returned her neighbor laughingly. "I always feel
as if I wanted to tell them they had forgotten to rub the flour off. It
doesn't seem possible that any well-bred girl could think she looks nice
all dabbed up in that way. But there, I am tiring you," she added
hastily, "so I am going to say good-by. Oh, I came very near forgetting
to ask if you would like to have the girls call on you--I mean the girls
of our group?" she hesitated. "I think you would like them, although
they may not be as fashionable as your city friends."
"Oh, but they are the kind of girls I like," protested Nathalie
hurriedly, "for I do not care for girls who are nothing but fuss and
feathers. Please do bring your friends, for I know I shall like them,
and then, too, they may tell me more about the good times you have."
"Indeed they will," said Helen with decision; "they will be only too
pleased. When shall we come, will Thursday be a good day for you?"
"Yes, indeed; I shall be here--still in this old chair I presume; I shall
watch for them with great impatience, for you know," she added a little
sadly, "they remind me of my schoolmates in the city. Oh, I have missed
them dreadfully! Now, be sure to come--all of you!"
She rose in her chair to wave a good-by to her new friend, who, as she
reached the gate, had turned and waved her hand.
Nathalie sank back in her chair with tear-dimmed eyes, for somehow that
friendly salute had brought it all back--the faces of her merry comrades,
and the happy care-free hours they had spent together. She swallowed
hard, for Helen had waved her hand just the way the girls used to do
when they came in afternoons for a chatty little visit, and then hurried
away with just such a parting salute.
CHAPTER III--GIRL PIONEERS
"Oh, I wish you would tell me something about your school life in New
York," begged Helen wistfully; "I had a friend who used to go to one of
the high schools. I hear they are very fine."
It was Thursday, the day the Girl Pioneers were to call on Nathalie, and
Helen Dame had run over a few moments before their arrival to have a
short chat with her new friend.
"Oh--I," Nathalie hesitated with rising color, "I did not go to high
school. Yes, I know they are very fine, but I attended a private school
kept by Madame Chemidlin."
An "oh!" escaped Helen involuntarily, as her eyes gloomed a little, but
her companion plunged recklessly on.
"It is considered one of the finest schools in the city, because, well,
for one thing, Madame is adorable, her father was one of the nobility, a
political refugee from France, and then because the girls who attend
come from the best families in New York. They were just dears--" with a
sigh of regret--"Nellie Blinton, she was my chummiest chum, she's the one
I told you Miss Tyson reminded me of, she has the same kind of a face as
Nell, with big, dark eyes and the same gentle, ladylike way about her
that my friend has.
"Then there was Puss Davidson, she's awfully clever. She writes stories,
and last year won a gold medal from St. Nicholas. She was Valedictorian
of our class last Spring. You know I graduated then, but took a
post-graduate course last winter and expected to enter college this
fall, but now, of course, things are different." She spoke a little
sadly.
Helen could not help feeling somewhat disappointed as she heard about
these rich schoolmates of Nathalie's; she had taken a great liking to
this girl with the daintily colored face with its rounding curves,
lighted by eyes that held you captive with their frank, direct gaze.
Although bright and clever-looking, this Girl Pioneer possessed no claim
to beauty, for, as she ruefully commented at times, she had a nose with
a knob on it. For that reason, perhaps, being free from that enviousness
that characterizes so many girls, she was a beauty-lover. Too often she
had made friends with girls just because they appealed to her love for
the beautiful, only to realize when it was too late that good looks do
not always mean pleasing traits of character. In fact, Helen was
somewhat tired of being disappointed, and had vowed to her mother that
she was never again going to care for a pretty girl. She was not sure
that Nathalie was a real beauty, but surely, with her lovely brown eyes
and the gracious little way she had, not at all self-conscious, but just
real "self," she was in a fair way to become very popular with the
girls.
Her eyes clouded momentarily and something caused an unpleasant jar. No,
she was not jealous of Nathalie, for she was willing to have her know
and be liked by the other girls, but as she had been the first one to
know her, she wanted to be her special friend. But then if she had
always had so many high-toned schoolmates, perhaps she would not care to
be a friend to a girl who was learning to be a wage-earner. Helen had
always felt proud to think that some day she could be ranked among that
class of highly regarded women, but would Nathalie think as she did?
There was something so straightforward, however, so honest, about
Nathalie as she went on and told of her studies, her friends, and a few
of the incidents in her school life in the big city, that Helen forgot
her fears, and was compelled to believe that she would be doing her an
injustice in fearing that she would choose her companions for what they
had and not for what they were.
"Oh, here they come!" cried Nathalie at this moment as she caught a
glimpse of a group of girls in brown uniforms coming down the street.
She half rose from her chair and with sparkling eyes watched them as
they came, a dozen or more, perhaps, up the steps of the veranda. In
another second her eyes grew big as she saw each girl's hand placed
quickly over her heart, then up to her forehead, and lastly held with
open palm at a level with the right shoulder. It was the Girl Pioneers'
salute to their leader, for Helen with a sudden straightening of the
shoulders had responded to the greeting with a similar movement.
Nathalie had already stepped forward, leaning on Dick's crutch,--he had
been relegated to the couch in the hall,--and was crying, as her color
came and went in pink flushes, "Oh, I am so glad to see you!" extending
her hand to the foremost girl, Grace Tyson. "I think it's just lovely
for you all to come to see me!" nodding towards the rest of the group,
with eyes that attested the cordiality of her welcome. She stopped
abruptly, for the girls had broken forth into
"Hear! hear! hear! Girl Pioneer!
Come, give a cheer, G-i-r-l Pi-o-neer!"
"And a cheer for our hostess!" added Grace Tyson, lifting up her hand as
she faced her companions. Before Nathalie could catch her breath there
came another ringing cheer as each girl with smiling eyes shouted,
"Hear! hear! a cheer for Nathalie dear!
Girl Pi-o-neer! Girl Pi-o-neer!"
If Nathalie's color had been going and coming, it now flooded her face
as she laughingly held out her hand to each one in turn, giving a soft
little squeeze that made each girl vote her a comrade.
Grace and Helen now led Nathalie back to her chair, somewhat solicitous
as to the sprained foot; but she laughingly assured them that she was
all right. Then with animated eyes she bowed and smiled as Helen, who
was spokesman for the group, began to introduce each one of the Pioneers
in turn, in an offhand, half quizzing way that relieved the formality of
the ceremony.
"This is Miss Jessie Ford, our literary scribe and Editor-in-chief of
'The Pioneer,' a penny newspaper issued monthly, devoted to the news and
doings of the Girl Pioneers."
Jessie, a wholesome-looking girl with golden hair worn in a coronet
braid, and with bright, keen eyes, shook hands pleasantly, half smiling
at the words of their leader. "Yes, she is clever, our Jess, and
progressive, too," went on Helen, her eyes twinkling, "which means a lot
in these times." There was the suspicion of laughter in her tone.
"That she's progressive can't be denied," interposed Grace Tyson
laughingly, "for when we had a Pioneer party a short time ago, Jess
wasn't going to be outdone by any newspaper reporter and wrote a
detailed description of each girl's costume and sent it to the 'Town
Journal.' The paper appeared the afternoon of the 'come-off,' one of the
girls saw the article, and suggested as a joke that we all change
costumes. O dear, what a laugh we had on Jess!"
Miss Jessie, however, only smiled at all of this chaffing, as if proud
of this proof of her alertness and stepped to one side.
"And this bluebird--oh, Miss Page did I tell you that each Pioneer group
is named after a bird, and that ours is the Bluebird Group?" Helen had
forgotten her teasing tone in her eagerness to impart this information.
"What a pretty idea," responded Nathalie, "and bluebird, the name of
your group!" thinking of the nest of bluebirds she had found down in the
old cedar.
Helen nodded with pleasure and then said, "This is Miss Kitty Corwin; we
call her our pot-boiler--that means that Kitty always manages to keep the
pot boiling not only by holding up her end of the line, but all the
other ends, too, when the derelict Girl Pioneers forget to do so."
"And you might say she always carries all the pots and pans, too, when
there's a hike," interposed the newcomer, with a nervous laugh. She was
an awkward-looking girl about fourteen, all arms and elbows, but with a
rather winsome face lighted by big, serious eyes. There was such nervous
activity about her grip as she yanked Nathalie's hand like a pump-handle
that that young lady had no doubts as to her surplus energy. As Kitty
tried to make her escape there was a suppressed howl, and then a
twitter, for alas, she had backed into one of her companions with such
force that the victim almost lost her balance.
The girls, each one smiling, but with a palpitating heart as if doubtful
what Helen would say when her turn came, all looked up expectantly as a
tall girl, somewhat older than the others, but with a certain dash about
her that added to her charm, came forward. She moved with willowy grace
and had an ease of manner that accentuated the Pot-Boiler's embarrassed
movements.
"Miss Page, allow me to introduce you to Miss Lillie Bell." There was a
certain emphasis in Helen's tone as she presented this pretty,
attractive girl, that indicated her pride in one of the most popular
girls belonging to the group.
Miss Bell smiled in a self-assured manner as Helen introduced her, and
then greeted Nathalie with sweet graciousness as she waited expectantly
for her characterization to be given.
"Lillie is our story-teller," continued Helen with a gleam of mischief
in her eyes, "a would-be thriller, for we all shiver with the creeps
when she begins her yellow-journal romances. Her specialty is ghost
tales, the kind that, as we sit in the dark around our cheer fire, its
glare (blood-red, please note), casting weird shadows over our pallid
faces--" Helen intoned in tragic burlesque, and then stopped with a
laugh.
Lillie Bell, however, did not appear at all annoyed at this banter, but
returned coolly, "I hope Miss Page, you will not believe all Helen says,
for she dotes on teasing, but we get even with her when the chance
comes." From a certain gleam in the smiling gray eyes Nathalie did not
doubt her, but as her voice was musical, and her manner impressive,
bordering on the dramatic, she wished she could hear one of her
thrillers.
"Observe," tantalized the spokesman as Lillie disappeared and her place
was taken by a young girl who looked as if she was all blood and muscle,
with ruddy cheeks, alert eyes, and the poise and bearing of one who was
a frequenter of the gym.
As Helen said, "This is Miss Edith Whiton," she made an old-time curtsy,
"generally dubbed the Sport, as she is the champion knee-doubler,
arm-stretcher, toe-raiser, and all the rest of the ball-and-socket
team."
With attempted nonchalance Edith twisted her shoulders and flashed Helen
a quick glance as much as to say, "Wait, my turn is coming later!" She
then stepped forward and shook Nathalie's hand, smiling pleasantly down
at her with frank friendliness.
As she made her way back to her seat, a pale, studious-looking young
girl with a head that looked almost top-heavy with its black braids, and
who wore glasses, presented herself before Nathalie. She smiled
nervously as Helen began, "Oh, this owl-like individual is Barbara
Worth; she is very learned--she knows it all."
"Oh, Helen!" came in pained expostulation from the girl, as her eyes
turned distressfully upon her hostess in shamed embarrassment.
"Oh, Barbara, don't mind," spoke up Lillie Bell kindly, "Helen is only
in fun."
Barbara looked somewhat relieved at this brace to her injured feelings,
and then stood nervously clasping and unclasping her hands together.
"Yes," went on Helen relentlessly, "we call her the Encyclopedia for
short. Wait until you want to know something in a hurry, she will help
you out, for she has the best heart in the world." With a little ripple
of laughter Helen leaned forward and looking up at Barbara cried,
"There, did I say anything so dreadful?"
Barbara smiled gratefully and then said quietly, "Yes, Miss Page, I have
a fine library, it is grandfather's, and I shall--" she drew a deep
breath--"always be glad to live up to my name."
There was loud clapping at this brave remark and then she was gone, but
in her place stood a little lass who smiled bewitchingly at the girl in
the chair, showing a coy little dimple in one cheek, and then with a
slight frown waited for her executioner to behead her.
"This little damsel is Louise Gaynor," introduced Helen; "she is the
Flower of the family--spelt both ways. We call her flower, because she
resembles one," Louise bowed prettily with a surprised glance, "and then
because she is an expert manipulator of the flour bag; she makes most
edible flapjacks when we go on a hike. It is needless to say that we
always have indigestion afterwards." There was a laugh at this, and then
as the Flower disappeared, Helen drew to her side a diminutive girl who
wore her flaxen hair in two large braids down her back. With her broad,
good-natured face and cornflower blue eyes she was a miniature Gretchen.
"This is Carol Tyke--we spell it T-i-k-e, because she is a tike and the
fag of the group as well." The little girl, who was about eleven, but
small for her age, grinned at Nathalie and ducked her head. "She is a
Junior Pioneer, not yet twelve. But we have her in training and she is
taking tests daily, which doesn't give her much leisure time, does it,
Tike?"
At last, much to Nathalie's relief, the introductions were over, and
then she listened intently as the girls began to tell her of a hike they
had taken the week before, when one of their number had found a hundred
different leaf specimens.
"Yes, it was a leaf hike," said Grace. "We all have our own note-books;
and make impressions from the leaves; that is, we print them in our
books, and then write the date of the hike, the name of the leaf, and
any other data we have gathered."
"I should think it would be very interesting," remarked her listener, as
she thought of the outings she and her schoolmates used to take on
Saturday mornings when they visited Bronx Park, and studied "cooped-up
nature" as one of the girls used to call it, when they eyed some fierce
monarch of the forest in his iron cage, or exclaimed over the beauties
of some hot-house flower.
"We are going to have a wild-flower hike soon," volunteered the Tike,
smiling at Nathalie in a most friendly manner. "The Sport says there are
a lot of beautiful flowers in the woods near Edgemere, didn't you,
Sport?"
"But I wish you would tell me something about your tests--is that what
you call them?" Nathalie asked. "I should think they would be no end of
fun if they mean making one do stunts, or anything in the hazing line?"
"Oh, we do not haze, or anything of that sort, for that would not be
kind, and kindness is one of the laws of the Girl Pioneer," explained
Grace. "By tests we mean trying to see what a girl can do that is
useful, and if she can't do it, we teach her. We have to sew, cook, and
know all the emergency things."
"You mean the First Aid to the Injured methods," corrected Helen;
"knowing what to do to revive a person when almost drowned, how to put
out a fire--"
"How to bathe and bandage a sprained foot--"
"You needn't tell me you know that," cried Nathalie with sparkling eyes,
"for I know by experience," and then she told the girls what the doctor
had said about Helen's skillful way of binding her foot--in spite of that
young lady's blushes at this open praise--and how clever her mother
thought the girls were for the ready way in which they had made the
stretcher from their khaki skirts.
"Then we have to know how to restore a person who has fainted," some one
volunteered.
"And learn the Fireman's Lift," added another girl.
"Oh, let's tell things from the beginning!" interrupted some methodical
girl from the farther end of the porch.
"Oh, but I told Miss Page--" Helen stopped, for her hostess was looking
at her with beseeching eyes, clearly due to the formal title.
"Won't you please call me Nathalie?" the owner of that name ventured
with a coaxing little smile.
"If you will say Helen," replied the girl with evident delight.
The girls both laughed, shook hands on it, and then Helen continued.
"Yes, I told Nathalie all about the tests for the third-class Pioneer.
Well, to become a second-class Pioneer it is necessary to have been a
third-class Pioneer for at least a month. Then you have to know how to
cook a piece of meat properly--"
"Boil a potato as it should be done!" interrupted Lillie Bell. This was
impressively said, and followed by a chime of laughter from the girls.
"And make a coal fire in a cooking-stove--ye stars!" ejaculated Grace,
"when I made my first, I literally smoked every one in the house to a
ham--but when I made my first out-of-door fire--"
"You didn't do any better," cried Lillie Bell irrelevantly, "for you
sooted the whole bunch of us."
"Oh, Lillie," cried Grace in dismayed tone, "that wasn't from making the
fire, for I was the only one who made it with a single match, but it was
from putting it out."
"Now girls, don't tell tales; for, as Mrs. Morrow says, we are all
breakable and no one should cast the first stone," called out their
leader.
"Oh, the tests are all easy but the next one," cried Edith Whiton, "that
is not a cinch by any means: how to remove a cinder from the eye--"
"Or any other foreign substance!"
"We have to know all the primary colors, too," went on Edith.
"Pshaw, any kindergarten kid knows that," spoke the Encyclopedia, who up
to this moment had taken no part in this flow of information, "but to
tie a bundle properly, that means hard labor."
"Yes, indeed," added Jessie Ford quickly, "one has to have an awful lot
of practice to do that. I worked so hard tying up bundles at home for
every one in the house that Father suggested I apply for a position as
bundle-wrapper at some department store. And I would have, just for a
joke, if I hadn't succeeded in making every one for whom I tied a bundle
give me five cents--and I made a dollar." Her eyes gleamed reminiscently.
"You have forgotten about the trees!" called out the Sport.
"Yes, we have to name three kinds of trees, three flowers and three
birds."
"Easy!" chimed the girls in unison.
"But the hardest--that was for me--" exclaimed Grace (Nathalie bent
forward eagerly, for somehow she did like Grace), "was to earn or to
save fifty cents and put it in the bank." There was a general shout at
this, for, as Helen explained in an aside to Nathalie, Grace was the
richest girl in the Pioneer group. She had a beautiful home, her own
automobile, her own allowance, and yet she was always hard up.
"She's awfully generous, you know, and doesn't know how to count her
pennies," she added wisely, "the way we girls do, because we have to.
But she's learning."
But Helen's whispered comments about her friend were not all heard by
Nathalie, who suddenly stiffened, and with a quick exclamation leaned
forward and stared curiously at a gray figure that was walking past the
house with strained, averted eyes, as if fearful that she might see the
group of merry girls on the veranda.
"Who is that lady all in gray?" she demanded, abruptly clutching Helen's
arm as her eyes followed the gliding figure of the strange-appearing
woman whose library card she had found the day of her accident in the
woods.
Helen looked up quickly in response to Nathalie's question, but before
she could answer, Kitty Corwin cried hastily, "Girls, look! there goes
'The Mystic'!"
CHAPTER IV--NATHALIE IS ASKED TO BECOME A BLUE ROBIN
"The Mystic!" echoed Nathalie in mild amazement, while one or two of the
group turned and gazed curiously at the gray-shrouded figure hurrying
by.
"You needn't ask me to look at her," asserted the Sport with a scowl,
"after screwing up my courage as I did to ask her if we could use her
terraced lawn for one of our drills; why, the glance she gave me almost
froze me stiff!"
The girls laughed at Edith's tragic tone, while Lillie Bell retorted
teasingly, "Well, she must be a chill-raiser, Edith, if she could freeze
the marrow in your spine."
"Girls, you should not speak as you do about Mrs. Van Vorst," admonished
Helen, "you know Mrs. Morrow says that she has suffered a great sorrow."
"Pshaw, we all know that," returned the Sport unfeelingly, "but that is
no reason why she should make every one else suffer, too."
"Granted," rejoined Helen, "but she has grown to look at things through
morbid eyes."
"I should think the gray gown she wears would make any one morbid,"
suggested Lillie. "But what is the use of discussing her? I believe she
is just a crank with a fad," she added.
"Who is she, and why does she go about in that queer gray gown?"
inquired Nathalie, insistently.
"She is Mrs. Van Vorst, the richest woman in town," explained Grace.
"She lives in that big, gray house surrounded by the stone wall. Haven't
you noticed it? It's on Willow Street, up on the hill. You must have
seen it."
"Oh, the big house with the beautiful Dutch garden," exclaimed Nathalie,
"and the queer little house at one side of it?"
"Yes," nodded Helen, "but that queer little house is an ancient
landmark--a Dutch homestead--built on a grant of land given by Governor
Stuyvesant to Janse Van Vorst way back in 1667. The Van Vorsts, or their
descendants, have lived on that place for hundreds of years. Billy Van
Vorst, the last of the line, married Betty Walton, a rich New York girl.
He died some years ago, and--well, I don't know the exact story--" Helen
hesitated, "but they say Mrs. Van Vorst has an awful temper--oh, I hate
to tell it--and then it may not be true."
"But it is true," asserted Jessie Ford, "for Mother used to know Billy
and Betty, too. She said shortly after Billy's death Mrs. Van Vorst
became angry with her little child--I don't know whether it is a boy or
girl--and--"
"Whatever it is," broke in Edith, "it is all distorted and twisted,
looks like a monster, for I saw it one day in the garden, the day I was
there. It is always muffled up so people can't see it."
"Well, anyway," went on Jessie, "Mrs. Van Vorst got into a temper with
the child and shut it up in a dark room, and then went off to a
reception or something, and forgot all about it."
"Oh, how could she?" ejaculated Nathalie with a shudder.
"Well, when she came home and remembered it--it wasn't in the room--"
"And they found it all in a heap on the pavement in the yard," again
interrupted Edith, anxious to forestall the climax; "I have heard all
about it, they say it was an awful sight."
"Dead?" cried Nathalie in a shocked tone.
"No, not dead," returned Jessie, "but it might as well have been. It had
become frightened in the dark, said some one was chasing it, and in
trying to escape climbed out on a shed and fell to the ground. Mrs. Van
Vorst was ill for a long time, almost lost her mind. Then she gave up
society and came down here and built this big house beside the
homestead. She has lived in it ever since, but keeps to herself; she
doesn't seem to want to know people."
"Oh, I don't wonder she mourns in gray then!" exclaimed Nathalie. "I
feel sorry for her!"
"And so do I!" chimed Helen squeezing her new friend's hand
responsively, "for she will have to suffer remorse all her life. Mother
says she is to be pitied."
"Well, I should have more pity for her if she would let us have the lawn
back of her house for our flag drill," remarked Lillie Bell, "or for one
of our demonstrations."
"You can be sure I'll never ask her again," declared the Sport,
vehemently; "I believe she hates us just because we are young, and can
enjoy life when her child can't."
At this moment Grace arose and handed Nathalie a peculiar-looking
envelope of rough brown paper. "No, it won't explode," she giggled, as
she saw Nathalie handling the quaintly-folded envelope rather gingerly.
"You needn't think it is the butcher's bill, either," laughed Helen,
"for it isn't. It is simply an invitation to one of our group meetings,
or Pioneer Rallies, as we call them. We always use that kind of paper
when we invite guests, for it was the kind used in pioneer times."
Reassured by Helen's explanation, Nathalie opened the envelope, noting
the old-style script printed by hand in scarlet letters, evidently the
work of one of the Pioneers. Then she slowly read aloud:
"They knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on those things,
but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, and
quieted their spirits within."
-- Bradford.
* * * * *
Ye presence of ye young maide, Mistress Nathalie Page is enjoined to
appear on ye 23rd of this month at ye Common House (Seton Hall) on
ye corner of ye cross roades to Bergen Town, to join with ye maides
of ye colony of Westport in a seemly diversion and Mayflower Feast.
Postscript: Kindly come apparelled in ye meeting-house cloathes and
behave as a young maide should so do.
From the Girl Pioneers of America, ye Many-greated-grand-daughters
of ye Mothers of ye Pilgrim Colony, who came to this new world in ye
good sloop MAYFLOWER in 1620.
The expression of wonderment in Nathalie's eyes changed to one of
amusement as she laughingly cried, "My, but you are the real article!"
"Yes, the scribe did that," said Helen proudly; "I think it ought to be
put in a glass case."
"Thank you!" promptly returned Jessie; "I accept your praise, but
suggest, as industry is one of the laws of the Pioneers, that I should
receive a special badge of merit, for if you could have seen me poking
into those musty documents at the library to get the thing right, you
would say I deserved it."
"But what does it mean?" demanded Nathalie curiously. "What have you to
do with the Pilgrims?"
"Why, it means," explained Helen, "that we girls, to freshen up our
minds on pioneer history, so that we may learn more about the women we
emulate, name each of our rallies after some one group of pioneers, or
some special pioneer woman, in memory of their service to us. Then we
all talk about them, each one telling what she knows."
"Or what she doesn't know, generally," broke in Lillie, dryly.
"I guess you are about right, Lillie," added Grace, "for we are awfully
rusty on pioneer history. It always seemed so stupid at school, but we
have learned a lot since we started naming our rallies after pioneer
things, and trying to see what we can cram. Why, girls," she cried
suddenly, as if impelled by inspiration to tell the latest thing she had
learned, "do you know that there were almost thirty children who came
over with the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_?"
"Well, I for one did not," remarked Jessie candidly; "I didn't know that
the Pilgrims had any children; supposed they were just a lot of
blue-nosed men who wore high ruffs and tall, round hats, and who went
about with long faces, telling people they would go to the devil if they
dared to smile."
"There, Jess," broke in Lillie Bell mischievously, "you needn't get
profane over it."
"Of course they were grim and forbidding-looking," supplemented Kitty,
"and--"
"And sanctimonious," added some one, "with their blue laws."
"Girls, you are all wrong," spoke up Helen, with a sort of call-you-down
air, "it was the Connecticut elders who made the blue laws. The Pilgrims
were sincere, earnest men. Remember what Mrs. Morrow said about them?"
There was a sudden silence for a moment, and then a faint voice was
heard from the other end of the veranda. Every one pricked up her ears
and craned her neck to see who was speaking.
"Ye Stars! it is the Flower of the Family," whispered Edith; "what has
come to her?"
The sweet, low voice went on slowly, perhaps a trifle unsteadily, "God
sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain into the
wilderness."
"Hooray for the Flower!" shouted some one, and then of course they all
had to clap, while the editor-in-chief of the "Pioneer," who was sitting
next to the speaker, jotted down this little saying with the air of an
expert reporter.
"Now, do you suppose," went on Helen, "that these picked men--"
"This choice grain," corrected the Sport softly, who was trying hard to
create a laugh.
"Edith, please be serious," admonished Helen, looking at that young lady
with reproving eyes, but she was sitting with folded arms and eyes cast
down, the picture of innocent and bland decorum.
Helen, seeing she had subdued the Sport for the time being, continued:
"Yes, this choice grain was composed of not only sincere and courageous
men, as we know, but the most tolerant of any of the first settlers in
this country. But, of course, in serious, solemn times one is not apt to
be funny. They were not really sanctimonious, they just got that name
because they tried to live up to their convictions."
"But they got it!" retorted the Sport, who was always hard to convince
in an argument. Helen flashed her eyes at her in rebuke, and then,
turning toward Nathalie, said, "We are not only going to tell what we
have learned about the Pilgrims at the rally, but we are to end with a
Mayflower Feast. We do not expect to eat the things the colonists did,
of course, but the table is to be decorated with May-flowers--that is
with all the flowers that grow in May--so you see, it will really be a
May-flower Feast."
"The Boy Scouts are going to pick the flowers for us!" chimed the Tike,
her good-natured face beaming good-fellowship at Nathalie.
"Dr. Homer--he is Mrs. Morrow's brother--" supplemented Grace, "is the
Scout Master of the Eagle Patrol, and as he is very anxious to make the
boys chivalrous, he likes to have them help us all they can."
"But we are to have a great big entertainment," exclaimed Carol
importantly, "very soon, and we're to sell tickets so that we can make
money for the Camping Fund."
"And we have such a bright idea for getting up something novel in the
way of entertainments," spoke up Helen interestedly. "Each girl is to
put on her thinking-cap and get to work on an idea; it has to be
original, nothing borrowed, or that has been used before, and then turn
it in to our Director in proper shape to be carried out. All of these
novel ideas are to be kept secret until we have had all of the
entertainments, and then we shall vote for the one we think the best.
The winners will receive merit badges for their efficiency."
"Oh, that will be great!" cried Nathalie, "but tell me, where are you
going camping?" she questioned animatedly, for her thoughts had
instantly reverted to a summer or so before when she and a party of
school girls had camped up in the woods of Maine.
"We don't know yet," was Helen's practical rejoinder, "for we have got
to know how much money we shall have to spend. But come, girls, be
serious and tell Nathalie some of our sports and activities. We want to
show her that we can do things worth while, you know."
"Oh, get Lillie Bell to tell us one of her stories!" cried the Sport,
who was a warm admirer of the story-teller.
"Oh, I can't think of any now!" replied Lillie lazily. And then as a
chorus of voices seconded this plea, she cried, "Really girls, I can't.
I was up half the night studying for exam. But," her face brightened, "I
will tell you about the picked chicken if you like. As it has something
to do with our pioneer law, it will come in all right."
"Oh, yes, do!" pleaded her hostess, who had been wishing that she might
hear one of the story-teller's thrillers.
"It isn't a blood-curdler this time, Miss Page," apologized Lillie, "so
I cannot give you an exhibition of my reputed talent as a fictionizer.
It is simply that Mother had a headache, Father was going to bring home
a swell friend to dine with us, and as it happened, the butcher sent a
feathered fowl, and our little Dutch maid was ill."
"Oh, it was maddening," she sighed in dolorous reminiscence, "but there
was no way out of it, for we had to have that chick for dinner. So I set
to work; some people say that when you try to do right everything rises
up against you. So it proved to me, but I remembered our Pioneer motto,
'I Can,' and glued myself to that job. Verily, I thought that chicken
must be a relative to the goose that laid the golden egg, for every
feather I pulled, a dozen at least came to the funeral. But I won out,
and went to bed with a clear conscience, and that fowl--inside of me!"
"Hooray for the Pioneer laws!" called several voices hilariously, and
then at one and the same time, in their eagerness to give proof of
well-doing, each one started to relate some personal experience. The
effect of several story-tellers spinning yarns at the same time was so
ludicrously funny that all the stories ended in merry laughter.
"Oh, let's vary the entertainment," suggested Grace, "and sing our
Pioneer song for Miss Page."
In another moment the fresh young voices, accompanied by a swing of
heads and a tap of feet, were singing, to the tune of "Oh, Maryland, My
Maryland":
"We laugh, we sing, we jump, we run,
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
We're always having lots of fun;
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
The wild birds answer to our call,
These feathered friends in trees so tall;
We learn to know them one and all.
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
Refrain.
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!
We will be brave, and kind, and true;
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers!"
Nathalie, who was enjoying this musical treat immensely, and longed to
join in, suddenly gave a start. She had heard a familiar hand strike the
keyboard of the piano, and then start in with the tune the girls were
singing, while a clear, high, soprano voice--one that the girl had never
heard before--took up the air, and in a moment was leading the girls in
their song, and as though accustomed to do it.
She saw one or two of the girls smile at another in a mysterious way,
and began to wonder what it all meant. As the last verse came to a
close, and there were three, Mrs. Page stepped through the low French
window from the living-room on the veranda, followed by a figure in
white and Dick, who was hobbling along on a broom turned upside down.
There was a silent moment, and then the Girl Pioneers had jumped to
their feet and were saluting the lady in white, for it was Mrs. Morrow,
their Director. No, they did not touch their shoulders as in the salute
to Helen, their group leader, but the forehead, in military salute.
Mrs. Morrow returned the salute, and then, as the girls broke into their
Pioneer yell, came over to Nathalie without waiting for an introduction.
But the young hostess had risen to her feet and was standing with
outstretched hand.
"Oh, my dear! you must sit down, or you may strain your foot!" cried
Mrs. Morrow anxiously, as she caught Nathalie's hand in hers and smiled
down at her with luminous gray eyes, the kind that seem to radiate
hearty good-will and cheer. Her greeting was so gracious, and there was
such an undefinable charm in the bright face of the young matron, that
Nathalie surrendered immediately.
"I did not mean to intrude on your sport, girls," cried Mrs. Morrow in a
moment, turning toward the group, still holding Nathalie's hand, "but I
was as anxious as you all were to meet our new neighbor."
The color deepened in Nathalie's cheeks as she cried in her impulsive
way, "Oh, but you are not intruding at all, Mrs. Morrow; I am more than
anxious to meet you, for--" she stopped a moment, and then flashed, "the
girls all say you are lovely!"
There was a wild cheer at this, whereupon, the gray-blue eyes smiled at
Nathalie again. Then turning, the lady nodded to the compliments so
boisterously expressed by the girls. For a few moments it seemed as if
each girl was trying to outdo every other girl as to who should win in
this race for tongue speed, as they crowded around Nathalie and their
Director.
Presently Nathalie looked up and laughed, for Dick did look so funny as
he hobbled from one girl to another--he had always been a lover of
girls--on his broomstick. As if divining why she laughed, Dick, who had
heard her looked up. "Hello there, Blue Robin!" he cried teasingly,
"what have you got to say about it?"
"Blue Robin?" repeated Mrs. Morrow in puzzled query, turning towards
Nathalie, "why does he call you Blue Robin? That is the name of this
group."
"But I thought the name of this group was Bluebird," answered Nathalie
in some surprise.
"So it is," returned Mrs. Morrow, "but you know, bluebird means blue
robin, too."
"There, Dick! I was not so far wrong after all!" cried Nathalie
triumphantly, looking at her brother with convincing eyes. Then she
turned and quickly told how she had found the bluebird's nest in the old
cedar, how she had called the birdlings blue robins, and how Dick--who
was a terrible tease--had plagued her about it ever since.
"But please inform me, Mrs. Morrow," now spoke that young man, "why you
say bluebirds are blue robins?"
"Why, you know, the first bird seen by the Pilgrims when they came to
this land was a bluebird--our earliest songster. As it resembled the
robin so much, they wrote home to their friends and told of the
beautiful blue robins they had seen in the new land."
"Oh, Nathalie," cried Helen with joy in her voice, "do you know the
finding of the blue robin's nest surely must be an omen for good! Keep
the name your brother has given you, and become a real bluebird, or blue
robin, by joining our group and becoming a Pioneer!"
"Oh, yes, Miss Page, do!" came quickly to Nathalie's ears; "we should
love to have you one of us."
"I'll coach you in the tests!" sang out Helen, who was ready to dance
with pleasure to think that there was a prospect of her new friend
becoming a Pioneer.
"And I'll help!" added Grace. "And so will I," "And I!" chimed several
girlish voices.
Nathalie sat in embarrassed silence, hardly knowing what to answer to
these many cordial invitations to join, and offers to help her do the
tests. "I would love to be one of you," she spoke hesitatingly, "but I
am not at all clever at doing things, for I can't sew, or cook, or do
anything useful at all!" The girl's voice was almost plaintive.
"Ah, you are just the one we want, then," was Mrs. Morrow's quick reply;
"we want girls who don't know how, so we can teach and train them in the
right way."
There was loud applause at this remark, and then as the hubbub subsided
somewhat, Mrs. Morrow held up her hand for silence. "Now, girls," she
said, "give Miss Page time to think. Yes, we should be overjoyed to have
you join the group, Miss Page, for later, in the summer, one of our
bluebirds is to emigrate South for the winter, and we should love to
have you take her place. I agree with Helen that the finding of the
bluebird's nest in the old cedar meant that you were to become a true
bluebird, or Blue Robin, as we shall have to call you."
Nathalie looked at Dick, and then at her mother. Mrs. Page was smiling
at her so reassuringly that Nathalie understood that she gave her
consent, and joyfully signified her willingness to become a Pioneer.
With a bob of her head at Dick she declared, that she would become one
if only to show her brother that there was such a thing as a Blue Robin.
Mrs. Morrow then explained that they had selected the bluebird as their
mascot not only because it was the bird of pioneer days, but because the
word blue means true, and Girl Pioneers were to be true in word, and
thought, and deed. And then as a bird means swift, they were to be swift
to the truth.
"The bluebird is also noted for its cheerfulness," she continued. "The
Pioneers are to be cheerful. It is a loyal bird; the Pioneers are to be
loyal to one another, to their pledges and laws, and to every one and to
all things that are right, good, and pure. The bird is also very gentle,
and we want the Pioneers to cultivate kindliness and gentleness.
Flower," she called suddenly, "sing us that pretty little bluebird song
you know."
In compliance with this request the Flower sang, in her sweet soprano, a
funny little song about a bluebird courting his lady love. Each verse
ended with the call-note, "Tru-al-lee," which the girls caught up as a
refrain and sang with sweet, low tones, the Flower's bird-like trill
rising high above the others.
CHAPTER V--THE GRAY STONE HOUSE
"Do you know, Helen," exclaimed Nathalie, looking at her friend with
reminiscent eyes, "that it is only three weeks since I met you, but it
seems like three months."
"That is because you have been on probation for a Pioneer," retorted
Helen smilingly, "and are beginning to take life more seriously."
"Not very seriously, I am afraid," lamented Nathalie, "judging from the
bungle I made in trying to learn that square knot."
"Oh, you will learn," encouraged Helen, "but I must be off, for I have
some typing to do for to-morrow." Yes, Helen's new friend knew that she
was learning to be a stenographer. When that little fact had been
divulged in the natural course of events, Nathalie had listened with
great interest to Helen's declaration of her life purpose--to be
independent--not only for the pleasure that independence would bring to
her, but because she wanted to earn money so that she could give her
mother little comforts and luxuries that Mrs. Dame had been denied
because her husband's income was limited.
Instead of scorning her, as the girl had feared, Nathalie had wished her
great success, apparently appreciating the unselfish motive that
actuated her, while lamenting that she herself was not as clever.
"O dear," she had impulsively declared, "I want to earn money, too; oh,
if I only had a purpose in life! I do not want to be a drone." And then
on the impulse of the moment she had confided to Helen her many
disappointments, and how anxious they all were about her brother Dick,
fearful that he might never recover the use of his leg. To Helen it had
seemed that since these mutual confidences a closer friendship had grown
up between them, much to that young lady's joy.
She had just finished hearing Nathalie recite the Pioneer Pledge and
laws, give the names of the Presidential party, as Nathalie called them,
adding the name of the governor of the State in which she lived,
describe the United States flag, sew a button on--as it should be done,
she had declared with solemn unction--and then exhibit her skill at tying
a square knot.
"After you become a Bluebird at the Pilgrim Rally to-morrow, I shall
begin to drill you in the tests necessary to make you a Second-Class
Pioneer," Helen had declared when the lesson was over and she began to
gather up her sewing materials.
"Oh, will you?" cried Nathalie, "but when can I become one?"
"In a month," was the reply, "if you pass the tests; but there, I shall
never get my work done if I stand here and talk," and Helen started for
the steps.
"Yes, and I am in a hurry to hear what Dr. Morrow says about Dick's
knee," returned Nathalie as she followed her friend to the edge of the
veranda. "You know he was in this morning to examine it; I am so anxious
to hear what he had to say."
"How did your brother injure his knee?" asked Helen as she paused at the
foot of the steps, "I have often wanted to ask."
"Why, he slipped on the ice just two days after Father's death,"
rejoined Nathalie, her eyes darkening sorrowfully. "The New York
physician said it was only sprained ligaments and would be all right
soon. But he has been growing worse--it pains him dreadfully
sometimes--oh, you don't know how worried we are--" her voice quavered,
"suppose he should be lame for life!"
"Oh, don't get nervous over it," advised Helen cheerfully, "but hurry in
and see what Dr. Morrow said. To be sure he is only a one-horse-town
doctor, but it is claimed that he is an expert surgeon," and then with a
smile and a wave of her hand she hastened toward the gate.
Nathalie watched her friend with brightening eyes as she hurried across
the lawn. Somehow the girl's companionship had revived her drooping
spirits; the many little chats they had had about the Pioneers and the
tests, coupled with the anticipation of becoming one, had in a measure
brightened her life. To be sure, they could never take the place of her
friends of the city, but might perhaps dull the longing for the things
of the past and the desires that at times threatened to overwhelm her.
She realized that she was beginning to take a keener interest in her
surroundings, and felt that it was all owing to the Pioneers.
"Nathalie, I am here--in the sitting-room!" called her mother's voice
faintly a few moments later as she heard the girl's step in the hall. An
apprehensive pang seized Nathalie's heart as she flew to her mother's
side.
"What did the doctor say, Mumsie?" she demanded anxiously. "Will Dick be
lame?"
"I hope not, Nathalie, but there will have to be an operation--" her
mother's voice sank to a whisper, "and oh, it will cost us several
hundred dollars." Here Mrs. Page broke down, and burying her face on her
daughter's shoulder wept silently. The girl gently patted the
gray-streaked head as she hugged the slender form closely, but with
intuitive divination she let her have her cry out, although she was
seething with impatience, for she knew it would prove a relief to the
mother heart.
"It is all right, I am just a coward." Mrs. Page choked a moment, then
imprinted a wet kiss on the rounded cheek so close to her own as she
felt the comfort of her unspoken sympathy. "I am sure Dick will be all
right in time--but I am so worried--I have had bad news, too. It does seem
as if misfortunes never come singly, as they claim," she said, thrusting
a crumpled sheet of paper into her daughter's hand.
The girl's eyes swept the type-written page, once, twice, then in a
tense tone she demanded, "Oh, Mother, do you mean that the Portland
cement bonds are in danger--why, I thought--"
"They are to stop paying interest while the company is being
reorganized; something has gone wrong. I was afraid of it, as they say
cement is being sold at a very low figure."
"But perhaps it will only be for a time, you are crossing your bridges
before you get there as Father used to say," Nathalie replied with
attempted cheerfulness, "but did you not say that they were first
mortgage bonds?"
"Yes, but child, we have got to live," exclaimed her mother irritably;
"that money, the interest, is part of my income, and it is little
enough--expenses are so heavy. And where the money will come for Dick's
operation I am sure I don't know--but there, don't worry--it will be all
right in time, I know." She sank back in her chair and dabbed her
reddened eyelids with her moist handkerchief.
"But, Mumsie, tell me, why is it necessary for Dick to have an
operation?" questioned Nathalie insistently with anxious eyes.
"The doctor says there is a bone in his leg infected. It will have to be
removed, and a new bone put in."
"A new bone put in!" ejaculated Nathalie, "why--"
"Yes, it is something new in surgery," replied her mother. "Dr. Morrow
says thousands of cripples have been made well by this new method of
treating cases like Dick's. He says--" a long sigh--"if Dick does not have
an operation, he will probably be lame, if he is ever able to walk at
all." The tears began to glisten in Mrs. Page's eyes again, as Nathalie,
with a sudden sharp realization what this would mean for Dick and all of
them, turned and rushed from the room with the dread that if she
remained a moment longer she too would fall to weeping.
She hastened up the attic stairs to her den; she wanted time to think.
Oh, suppose there should be no money for the operation, and Dick should
be lame all the rest of his life, Dick, who had always been so well and
robust, and who for his athletic prowess had won so many silver cups and
medals! She threw herself into the low rocker, and leaning her head on
her desk began to cry softly; she did not want Mother to hear.
Oh, why did they have so much trouble? How hard it was to lose her
father, her beautiful home and friends, to give up college, to have to
live in that poky old town--even the Pioneers could not compensate for
that--and then to have Dick lame because they had no money! Nathalie wept
on in woeful lamentation, feeling with the untriedness of youth that she
was a great martyr. Did not God's world owe her happiness? Was it not
sinning against her in denying her right to its joys?
But even sorrow has its limit, and gradually her sobs died away to a
shiver, as her head dropped wearily on the back of her chair. Oh, if she
were not so helpless, if she could only earn money like Helen! But what
could she do? She couldn't sew, she had no musical ability--like Lucille!
A Bob White whistle, followed by a "Tru-al-lee!" beneath her window
reminded her that she had promised to take a walk with Grace Tyson.
Yes, Nathalie knew that "Tru-al-lee!" for that young lady was the only
Pioneer who could so successfully imitate that little bird's sweet
trill. She jumped up quickly, and then with the buoyancy of youth cast
all her dismal forebodings skyward and hurried down to the lower floor.
"I'll be down in a moment," she called out to Grace, who had just
entered the hall and was chatting with Dick, who had been reading on the
couch. She flew into the bath-room, scrubbed her face vigorously a
moment, and then flying into her room grabbed her hat from its peg in
the closet, and then hastened down the stairs humming blithely a new
ragtime song as she went.
"I want to say good-by to Mother," she exclaimed as she nodded to Grace
and hurried into the sitting-room. But when she saw the big pile of
mending on the table in front of Mrs. Page, a sudden guilty pang
assailed her.
"Oh, Mumsie," she cried, "don't you do that mending. I will do it when I
come back. I meant to do it yesterday," she excused herself lamely, "but
I forgot all about it."
"Never mind, daughter, perhaps it will keep me from worrying," was the
reply; "as 'tis said, there is nothing like work to keep up one's
spirits."
"Oh, Mumsie," the girl cried impulsively, rubbing her hands caressingly
over her mother's cheek, "don't let's worry any more. We're just silly
to cry over what may not happen," and then she added hopefully, "I'm
sure things will come out all right."
Mrs. Page's eyes filled as she bent forward and kissed her
would-be-comforter. "Yes, we are silly, no doubt," she smiled through
her tears, "to waste time and strength worrying over what, after all,
may not happen."
"But, Mother," suddenly questioned the girl with uneasy eyes, "do--do you
think I ought to become a Pioneer?"
"Why not, Nathalie?" inquired Mrs. Page in surprise. "Perhaps it will
teach you some of the many things you should know, for if we are to be
poor, you may have to earn your own living. Resourcefulness, courage,
those will be the things--" her mother's voice ceased abruptly.
Nathalie remained silent; there was a note in her mother's voice that
seemed like reproof. A sudden depression seized her again as it came to
her with renewed force how helpless she was, what things Helen did to
help her mother, and the many useful things the Pioneer girls--plain
girls, too, who had never had the advantages that she had had--could do.
But mentally pushing these reproachful thoughts aside with the
rebellious feeling that she had never been brought up to do these
things, that she had been born a lady, she stooped and kissed her mother
hastily and hurriedly joined Grace on the veranda.
"Where shall we walk?" she asked that young girl, as they passed down
the street. She glanced up at the blue sky, where snowy clouds drifted
like rudderless ships at sea.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you, but Mrs. Morrow has asked me to deliver a
note to 'The Mystic.'"
"'The Mystic?'" echoed Nathalie in doubting amazement, "why I thought
she had never had anything to do--"
"To do with the people of the town," finished Grace. "Well, she doesn't
as a rule, but she is one of Dr. Morrow's patients and had the grace to
return Mrs. Morrow's call. I hate to go, as I know she dislikes young
people, but of course I could not say no to Mrs. Morrow, and then, too,
I rather think she is writing to ask her if we could have her lawn for
one of our demonstrations. We had a lovely idea for a May-Day
celebration, but we had to give it up, as we had no place to hold it."
"What were you going to have?" inquired Nathalie, as the two girls
turned up the hill leading to the big gray house enclosed in its barrier
of gray wall.
"We were going to get some ox carts and decorate them with Mayflowers,
and parade to the grounds. There we were to choose a queen and dance
around the May-pole in welcome to the goddess of spring. Fred was to be
Robin Hood--O dear," she suddenly ejaculated with a dismayed face, "I do
believe I left the note at home. What a ninny I am! Why, I pinned it to
the cushion so I wouldn't forget it and then walked straight off and
left it."
The girls stared blankly at one another a moment and then Grace cried,
"Come, we might as well go back for it; do you mind? It is only a few
blocks out of our way."
On receiving Nathalie's assent she added contentedly, "I'll get Dorcas
to make us some lemonade to cool us off, and--why, I can show you my
Pioneer room!"
"Oh, I should just love to see it!" enthused Nathalie; "Helen told me
about it. She said she was going to suggest that the groups of the
Pioneer band have a Pioneer room."
"Isn't it old-timey?" she mused a half hour later, as Grace ushered her
into a low-ceiled room whose walls were flauntingly gay with a paper of
many-colored tulips, which, Grace proudly admitted, was decidedly Dutch
and for that reason had been selected.
Nathalie's keen eyes were lured to the photographs, water-colors,
etchings, and cuts from magazines, all representative of pioneer days,
that peeped from between the gorgeous rows of tulips. An etching of New
Amsterdam dated 1650, with rows of one story houses, with their gable
ends notched like steps, and weather vanes surmounted with grotesque
designs of horses, lions, and geese, proved a great contrast in its
quaint simplicity to the New York of to-day.
Her eyes swept from this pictured history to the four-poster with its
dimity valance, and then on to the oval dressing table, resplendent with
silver candle-sticks, snuffers, and a curious little Dutch lamp with a
funny mite of a tinder-box by its side.
"But that clock is a dear!" she murmured as her gaze lingered admiringly
upon a tall grandfather's clock in the corner, which returned her glance
with such old-time solemnity on its ivory-tinted face that Nathalie's
brain became a movie screen, one scene after another presenting
themselves to her vivid imagination.
"Father gave that clock to me last birthday," informed Grace with pride;
"it belonged to the Very Reverend Henricus Van Twiller, one of my
forebears. See, there's his picture over the mantel," pointing to a
seamed and dingy-looking canvass of said forebear, who looked down at
them with stolid complacency.
"Yes, it is very old," continued Grace, "some unimaginative relative of
Papa was going to chop it up with Georgie's little hatchet, but Father
rescued it just in time. But you must look at the spinning-wheel.
Grandmother gave it to me for being a thief."
"Yes," she rattled on, "I stole a satin bow from her old wedding gown
for a souvenir, and when she discovered what I had done, the old dear
not only forgave me, but added this spinning-wheel to my collection of
things ancient. See, here is the bow on the distaff. But come, let's go
down and have the lemonade, I'm dying for a cooling drink."
As the two girls sat sipping the beverage, Grace suddenly sprang up
crying, "Oh, there's Fred! I want you to meet him!" She began to wave
and call frantically in the direction of the lawn, where a tall,
well-formed youth was striding, nonchalantly swinging his tennis-racket.
"Oh, I say, kid, what do you want? I'm in a hurry!" came in response a
moment later, as the youth stopped and eyed his sister impatiently,
vigorously mopping his face, for the day was warm.
But as he caught sight of Nathalie, his excuses suddenly ceased, and
with a few strides he reached the veranda and was eyeing the new girl's
health-flushed face and sparkling brown eyes with much favor. After a
hearty shake of the hand in answer to his sister's introduction, he
dropped into a chair by Nathalie's side, and soon they were all chatting
and laughing merrily as Fred told of some Scout adventure that had
happened on their last hike.
"But you had an adventure, too, did you not?" he asked suddenly, looking
at the young girl by his side with a glint of mischief in his eyes, "the
day you were rescued by the Pioneers?"
"Oh, did you hear about that?" Nathalie cried, her face taking on a
deeper tinge of pink. She had always felt the least mite ashamed of that
mishap.
"Yes, and how about the blue robins?" he continued in a quizzing tone.
"Oh, Grace," exclaimed Nathalie, "you have been telling tales!" and then
with a laugh, she told of finding the bluebird's nest, excusing her
ignorance by the plea that she was a city-bred girl.
The conversation soon drifted to Boy Scouts, Fred being a Patrol Leader,
and greatly interested in the organization. Finding that Nathalie had
had some difficulty in learning knot-tying, he kindly volunteered to
give her a lesson in that intricate art. His pupil proved an apt
scholar, as it was not long before she had mastered the weaver's, the
overhand, the reef, and had gained a fair insight into several other
knots. Before the lesson had ended Fred had asked if he might not come
up some evening with Grace, and give her another lesson and meet her
brother Dick.
Nathalie's face dimpled; she hastened to assure him that she would be
pleased to welcome them at the house, and that she knew her brother
would be more than delighted to know a Westport lad. And then she told
him all about her brother's misfortune, and how depressed he grew at
times without his chums to drop in and cheer him.
The clock had just struck four when the girls, escorted by Fred, who
claimed he was going their way, neared the high stone wall overtopped
with gray turrets and nodding trees that looked as if they yearned to
leap beyond their barrier.
"Wasn't it a queer idea to build a beautiful house like this and then
fence it in like some old monastery?" questioned Grace. "See, here's a
bell in the stone gate, the way they used to have it in olden times."
"Ugh! I hate to go in--the place gives me the creeps!" she shivered
nervously. "Oh, Fred, do come in with us, we shall not be long."
Fred took out his watch, and finding that he was not hurried for time
yielded to his sister's entreaties and rang the bell. Presently the door
was opened by a stern-looking man in overalls, evidently a gardener.
He frowned unpleasantly when the girls asked to see Mrs. Van Vorst, but
when Grace produced her note and said she had been sent by Dr. Morrow's
wife, he reluctantly held the gate open for them to enter.
Nathalie gazed eagerly down the garden path, with its old-time hedge and
tall pines that swayed gently to the rhythm of the May breezes, leading
to the handsome modern structure at the end. It was colonial in design,
with low French windows and overhanging Juliet balconies here and there.
A long veranda ran across the front, with high white pillars, and a
porte-cochere.
"This is the old Dutch shack," remarked Fred irreverently a moment or so
later, as they stood in front of the weather-beaten landmark that clung
like some ugly parasite to the stately mansion which towered above it.
Nathalie's eyes were awe-struck as her glance traveled over the sloping
roof with its red chimneys, where quaint dormer windows stood forth like
thrust out heads from its gray shingles. The long, low porch, only a
foot from the ground, was almost lost to view behind the vines of
honeysuckle and rambling roses screening the trellis. Bushes of
hollyhocks, white peonies and many old-time posies grew in a riotous
hedge around it.
Fred showed her the hatchet-scarred door-lintel, a memento of savage
ferocity, and told of the little Dutch maiden who, from a small window
above the door, fired on a group of redskins as they hammered against
it, killing two. In the rear of the homestead he pointed out a
grass-grown mound, where it was claimed an outhouse once stood, leading
to an underground passageway, where the settlers at times took refuge
when hearing the fiendish war-whoop.
As the girls nervously ascended the low steps leading to the
broad-floored veranda of the gray house, Fred turned back towards the
gate, promising to wait outside for them.
As the great door swung open in answer to their ring, and the butler's
impassive face stared stonily at them, the girls were tempted to turn
tail and follow Fred as he went whistling down the path. But Grace
conquered the inclination, and with assumed boldness asked for Mrs. Van
Vorst.
For an instant Nathalie thought the man was going to shut the door in
their faces, but when Grace held out the note for confirmation of her
words his impassivity relaxed somewhat, and with stiff formality he
asked them to walk in. With hushed breath they gazed curiously about the
hall, while a stag's head above a quaintly-carved table eyed them
glassily.
The rusty swords, the flint-locks, and many other curios that decorated
the casement, beneath faded canvasses of ancient dames and sires,
possessed a weird charm for the girl. She was particularly beguiled by
the wide oaken staircase with its daintily carved balustrade that rose
spiral-like to the floor above, and to her imaginative ear there came
the swish of a brocade gown as some haughty fair one, kin to the
canvassed beauties on the tapestried walls, came with tap of dainty heel
down the broad stairway.
But no romantic thing occurred as the butler, still retaining his
sphinx-like mask, ushered them into a little reception room opening from
the hall fitted up to simulate a Chinese pagoda. The girls seated
themselves on two teakwood chairs and stared silently at the many curios
that gleamed from cabinet and screen, each betraying some eccentric
custom of the land of the yellow peril.
"O dear, I feel as if I were a beggar!" observed Grace with an
apprehensive shiver. "Ugh, I should hate to have that grim-looking man
come back and tell me my company wasn't wanted."
Nathalie burst into a giggle, which was quickly suppressed in
sympathetic recognition of her companion's mood. Her eye was caught by a
huge mandarin who grinned at her with a hideous leer, and she shivered,
half wondering if some of the many evil spirits believed to inhabit
China were not hidden behind his wrinkled brown skin, and were looking
at her through his bead-like eyes, trying to hypnotize her with his
sinister glare. Surely those glittering, shiny specks of eyes did
move--oh, what was that? She jumped to her feet, crouching all of a heap
in abject fear as she stared with horror-stricken eyes at the mandarin,
as if that weird, shrill scream that had suddenly broken the grim
silence had come from his mummy-like lips.
"Oh, what is it?" whispered Grace in a hoarse whisper, as she stared in
paralyzed appeal at Nathalie.
Before Nathalie could answer another cry, more piercing and, if could
be, more blood-curdling than the first, came echoing down the hall,
followed by a demoniacal laugh which assured Nathalie that the terror
was something more human than an old Chinese idol. Grace, with a frantic
scream of terror that almost equaled in its intensity the one that they
had heard sprang into the hall and rushed frenziedly toward the door!
Nathalie stood a moment in indecision, utterly at a loss to determine
whence came the horrible shrieks, but in another instant, as another one
rent the air with the same frenzied note of merriment, she hesitated no
longer. As fast as her fear-tied feet would allow her, she flew into the
hall, through the door that Grace had flung wide open, and with
terror-winged feet and thumping heart rushed pell-mell down the wide
steps and along the path after Grace!
CHAPTER VI--WORKING INTO HARNESS
A half-hour later the two girls stood on Mrs. Morrow's veranda, and with
Fred's mocking laughter still ringing in their ears told of their hasty
exit from the gray house. With shame-mantled face and downcast eyes
Grace handed Mrs. Morrow her note.
In answer to that lady's surprised inquiries the story was told at
length, a few extra flourishes unconsciously added to plead for the
unexpected finale to their errand. But Mrs. Morrow was most kind, not at
all like Fred, and did not laugh at them for being "scare-babies" as he
had expressed it. She voiced her sympathy most generously, saying she
did not wonder they were frightened, as she was sure at their age she
would have done the same.
"I cannot imagine what it could have been," she pondered, in much
perplexity. "I will ask the doctor. If he does not know he will probably
hear about it, if it was really anything serious."
She smiled in a way that made Nathalie, whose intuitions were keen,
exclaim hastily, "Oh, indeed, Mrs. Morrow, we did not imagine it at all.
I am sure if you could have heard that terrible shriek--and that laugh!
Oh, I can hear it still!" Her brown eyes emphasized her words as they
darkened with the haunting terror that caused her to rush pell-mell
after Grace.
"But I do hope," remarked Mrs. Morrow, "that Mrs. Van Vorst will never
know that the young girls who took such sudden flight from her house
were Pioneers, as Pioneers are supposed to be very courageous." There
was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke that partly atoned for the
implication as to the girls' lack of courage.
They made no reply for a moment, and then Grace, as if to atone for her
delinquency, exclaimed contritely, "Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs. Morrow, I was
frightened--but if you want me to--" her voice faltered, "I will take it
to her again."
"No, indeed," quickly rejoined that lady, "I could not be so cruel as to
send you there again, for no matter if the shriek was nothing, you were
really frightened. I did not mean to rebuke you; I only wanted to seize
this opportunity to show you what an important thing courage is--and how
we should cultivate it, even in small things. As for the note, I will
get the doctor to take it or send it by post. I will have to confess,
however, that I am disappointed, for I was so anxious to have Mrs. Van
Vorst see what well-behaved and pleasing young girls belonged to the
organization."
"And you sent me!" wailed Grace. "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Morrow, but what
an arrant coward I have proved--and Nathalie of course would not have run
if I had not!" The tears welled up piteously in her blue eyes.
"Oh, no, Grace," interposed Nathalie loyally, "I was just on the verge
of running away myself!" And then she told them about the mandarin with
the grinning mouth, and sinister, bead-like eyes, that she was sure had
blinked at her. This caused a laugh and cleared the atmosphere of the
unpleasantness that had been created by the morning's adventure.
The Saturday of the Pilgrim Rally--the day that was to make Nathalie a
Pioneer--arrived. At an early hour of the morning the Pioneers of the
three bird groups--each one with a package--began to file into Seton Hall,
the little stone building used by the town for important meetings and
often for social functions. Out of deference to Nathalie the girls had
decided to bring their Pilgrim costumes with them--hence the mysterious
packages--and not don them until she had been admitted to the
organization.
With interested eyes Nathalie heard the Pioneers recite their pledge,
give the sign, the salute,--the three movements of the closed hand,
signifying a brave heart, an honest mind, and a resourceful hand,--and
give the rousing Girl Pioneer cheer. She felt a trifle shaky, she
confided to Helen who was seated next to her, dreading the ordeal of
being made prominent as most girls do, but she regained her nerve
somewhat as the Director arose and with a smiling nod of welcome began
to call the names.
Certainly it was a pretty fancy to have each member respond to her name
by giving the bird call of her group. The quick clear note of Bob White,
the "Chip! chip!" of the meadow sparrow, and the oriole's greeting were
all inspiring, but it was the melodious "Tru-al-lee!" of the bluebird
group that held her with its sweet, low trill.
As Nathalie heard her name called when it came time to perform the
initiative ceremony of making her a Pioneer, her head began to whirl,
but setting her teeth determinedly, with squared shoulders and head
erect, she walked down the aisle, faced the Director, and in a clear
voice repeated her pledge. In answer to the question, would she remember
that the honor of a world-wide organization had been placed in her
hands, and that henceforth whatever she said or did was not done simply
as Nathalie Page, but as a Girl Pioneer, she answered gravely, "I will!"
The second question was now asked, if she would try to live in such a
way that through and by her example the words Girl Pioneer should come
to mean all that was honest, highest, best, and most efficient in the
girlhood of her country, she again replied with the solemn, "I will."
The Director now stepped to her side, and taking her by the hand said,
"Nathalie Page, in the name of the Girl Pioneers of America, and by the
authority vested in me as a Director, I receive you into our
organization. You are now a Girl Pioneer of America. May you be a worthy
successor of those women, brave, honest, resourceful, from whom our name
is taken, and who in the early days of the country, standing side by
side with the men, faced hardships, privations, and dangers, and helped
to make possible the United States of America!"
Mrs. Morrow paused a moment, and then with one of her ready smiles took
Nathalie's hand in hers and gave her a cordial welcome. Then turning
toward the Pioneers she said, "Let us welcome our new member."
The girls sprang quickly but noiselessly on their feet, crying:
"Whom have we here?
A new Pioneer!
Come give a cheer
Girl Pi-o-neer
Nathalie Page!"
The new Pioneer unconsciously heaved a deep sigh when the ceremony was
over and she was allowed to return to her seat. She was tempted to smile
at her palpitating heart when going through such a simple ceremony as
the initiation to an organization of girls; and yet she was vaguely
conscious that it was a momentous episode in her life, and she firmly
resolved that her vow should be a binding one, and that she would try
her best to become a worth-while Pioneer and a Blue Robin.
The seriousness of her act became even more apparent as she listened
with keen interest to Mrs. Morrow's little talk, which was, in memory of
the day's celebration, about the Pilgrims. It was the desire to do right
in the face of all difficulties which animated the Founders of this
great nation in their struggle for Freedom and Right, and which led
their wives, daughters, and sisters to forego the necessities of life,
to cross an unknown sea and to face the perils of the wilderness and to
aid them in their noble purpose.
It was this sacrifice of the things that made life endurable, and their
strict adherence to duty that gave rise to the sterling qualities of
unflinching determination, hardy courage, stern endurance, unrepining
cheerfulness, untiring loyalty, patient industry, and quick
resourcefulness that has gained the name of the Pioneer spirit, and made
these early women founders of our nation models of all that is pure and
best in womanhood.
Their Director then went on and told of the handicrafts of the Pilgrims,
such as baking, brewing, sewing, knitting, quilting, spinning, planting
the foodstuffs, carding wool, and the many industries that were
necessary to keep life in those pioneer days.
As the new Pioneer heard the gentle, persuasive voice, she began to see
life in a new aspect, and to understand something of what it meant to
emulate these noble women. "In your hikes, before your cheer fires, in
your camps, in your home and school life, as well as in the tests and
your outdoor and indoor activities, and in your sports and games, keep
these women as your cheer star," said Mrs. Morrow earnestly, "so that
you, too, will be actuated by the qualities that ennobled them. And when
the call comes, be kindly, helpful, resourceful, pure, and upright in
the midst of all temptation and danger, and you will not only have the
name of Pioneer, but will be filled with the real pioneer spirit."
Mrs. Morrow stood silent a moment and then repeated slowly:
"Life is more than the breath and the quick round of blood,
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not figures on a dial.
We should count time as heart throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
--Bailey.
The girls now seated themselves in a circle, and as Jessie read the news
from the monthly "Pioneer," which reported a flower hike for the
Saturday two weeks hence, they took out their materials and set to work.
Some wove gay-colored yarn on small frames, others braided raffia
baskets, or made squares of plaited slips of paper, while Mrs. Morrow
told them something about the art of weaving.
After some time spent in learning this old-time craft, the Director
asked the girls how they could best apply this industry to a very common
fundamental of the home. There was a slight pause, and then some one
called out "To the carpet!" Another girl ventured to say "Our clothes."
Mrs. Morrow smiled as she said they were all right in a sense, but the
particular craft she meant at that time was what Helen had timidly
suggested, and that was, darning stockings!
There was a ripple of laughter at this truism and then, to Nathalie's
surprise, there was a stocking drill, every one hauling forth a stocking
from her basket and setting to work to practice this homely art. It was
indeed a trial by needle to Nathalie, and she suffered some
embarrassment when, after borrowing a stocking from her neighbor, and
trying her very best to do it well, it was returned to her from the
Director with the remark that she needed training in the science.
Later, when Mrs. Morrow came to her side and showed how neatly her
stocking hole appeared after weaving her thread back and forth, and made
Nathalie practice doing the same, the girl suddenly realized what a
braggart she had been. "Oh, I told Mother I was the champion mender,"
she thought remorsefully. "What a bungle I must have been making of
those stockings!" With the avowed purpose that she was going to make
darning her life-work for the next three weeks, she laid her work aside
and hurried with the girls into the adjoining dressing-room to get ready
for the real Pilgrimy time, when they were to represent the women of
Plymouth town.
"Do you always have an all-day meeting?" she asked Grace, who was
pinning a blue bird on Nathalie's gown, for at Helen's suggestion she
was to appear at this, her first Rally, as a Blue Robin, in memory of
the first songster that welcomed the Pilgrims.
"Oh, no, indeed," answered Grace, "but we departed from our usual plan,
which is to meet in the afternoon only, unless we have a hike or
demonstration, as we wanted to make our luncheon the Mayflower Feast.
But, oh, Nathalie," she ended enthusiastically, "you are a veritable
blue bird! Look, girls, isn't she the dearest? That bluebird blue makes
her cheeks like pink roses!"
At this sudden thrust into notoriety the girl's color grew more vivid as
she turned for the inspection of the girls. They grew very enthusiastic
over her bluebird costume with its bluish-gray slip with scalloped
edges, and bluebird cap edged with tiny blue wings, where a blue bird,
standing up in the front, poised with outspread wings "ready to fly," as
one of the girls asserted.
"Oh, it's only blue paper muslin," explained the "flier," as her mates
had called her, when they examined the Blue Robin gown. "Helen helped me
make it, and what a time we had making that birdie stick--hands off," she
finished laughingly, as some too ardent admirer pressed her close, "or I
shall not fly away but fall to pieces."
By this time, however, her admirers had found a new love in the Tike,
who came dancing before them all in white. She was literally a bower of
trailing arbutus, as sprays of that spring flower were fastened all over
her gown.
"I am the Pilgrim flower," she piped pertly, "some call me the Mayflower
blossom." And then catching up her skirts, with a low curtsey she
repeated softly:
"Oh I'm the flower that never dies,
'Neath leaves so brown in bed so low.
The arbutus, who in glad surprise
Bloomed 'Welcome' from fields of snow
To our Pilgrim sires of long ago."
"Oh, here's Lillie Bell!" called some one. "Isn't she a duck of a dear!"
Simultaneously the girls forsook the Tike and flocked around Lillie,
who, gowned in pure white, with kerchief and lace cap, represented
Susannah White, the first bride of the colony.
"Yes, and I want you to note, girls," she asserted impressively, with a
nonchalant nod to the welcome accorded her, "that I am not only the
first bride, but the first mother of the colony, for my little Peregrine
was born when the _Mayflower_ rode at anchor in Cape Cod Bay, and Mrs.
Morrow claims this is even a greater honor than to be the first bride.
But, girls--" she ended abruptly, dropping her matronly pose, "have you
seen Edith--she was to be Helen Billington--I never knew her to be so late
before?"
"There! that accounts for the aching void in my heart, I know I missed
some one," cried Jessie half mockingly. "O dear, what will become of my
Pioneer article if the Sport does not appear?" The girls all laughed in
appreciation of Jessie's serio-comic declaration, for it was generally
conceded that Edith was the most active spirit of the band, as her
sporting proclivities, her general good-nature, and her dashing
escapades always furnished plenty of "copy" when any of their various
hikes or demonstrations were in progress.
"Oh, don't fret; a bad penny always turns up!" chimed in Kitty, who did
not particularly admire the Sport.
"I'll bet you a cookie that she has been arrested for appearing in
disorderly apparel on the street," observed Grace roguishly; "for she
told me she was going to dress at home."
"Oh, girls, aren't you ready?" at this instant asked Louise Gaynor,
suddenly appearing in the doorway leading to the room where Mrs. Morrow,
as Mistress Carver, the Governor's lady, was waiting to receive them.
"Her Sweet Graciousness, Mistress Carver, waits for you without in the
Common House."
"Modest and simple and sweet, the very type of Priscilla,
Priscilla, the Mayflower of Plymouth!"
Thus hummed Lillie as she walked around this winsome representation of
that Puritan maiden, surveying her critically, but with approving eye.
"Oh, you're just too sweet for anything!" warbled another bluebird,
"you're--"
"You're too sweet to have to do your own proposing, methinks," broke in
Jessie, touching one of the long golden braids that fell from beneath
the demure little cap of this first edition of women's rights.
But at sweet Priscilla's gentle reminder that the first lady of the land
should not be kept waiting, the merry girls ceased their chatter, did
their best to assume the decorous manners of the Puritan women, filed
into line, and were soon in the adjoining room.
Here they were greeted by Dame Brewster, the Elder's wife, no other than
Helen, who, in ruffled cap and quaintly flowered gown, excelled even her
own aspirations to appear like that motherly dame, as in speech of
quaint wording she made each Mayflower damsel known to Mistress Carver.
After the greetings had been voiced, the first surprise came, and that
was when the Tike came bounding into the midst of the gentle dames and
informed them that a cheer fire was blazing on the grass-plot in the
rear of the Hall. The Pioneers in profound wonder--as they had not
expected to have a cheer fire--followed Mistress Carver to the garden,
where a circle was formed around this magic inspirer of cheer, whose
burning fagots snapped and crackled noisily, as if to do its share in
the old-time celebration. It was in memory, Grace declared, of the many
fires that had cheered the settlers in the cold and desolation of the
new world.
Murmurs of wonder and queries about this mysterious surprise were
silenced, as some one started a general clapping, a recognition often
accorded the Pioneers' cheer star. Then, as they gathered around the
flaming light, some one suggested that perhaps the Governor's lady could
tell as to who was the magic fire-maker.
The lady in question, although disclaiming that she knew who lighted the
magic inspirer, did finally admit that she could guess who had done it,
but as that was a privilege that every one had, she had nothing to tell.
However, the mystery remained unsolved, although some bright one
ventured to suggest that it might have been the Sport, who was still
missing, as she delighted to do the unexpected.
Immediately the missing Pioneer began to be eulogized for her clever and
mysterious absence, as these representatives of hundreds of years ago
circled about their emblem of cheer and romance. To usher in the first
ceremony, or, as the girls sometimes called it "the christening of the
blazer," some one called for the story-teller to give one of her
thrillers. This cry was forthwith taken up by the little company, and
became so imperative that Lillie at last complied with the request, and
in a few moments was telling, in her usual impressive way, the story of
those pioneers, the Pilgrim men and women, who fought the first battle
for liberty and union on the shores of this land.
When Lillie's story came to an end, she received her usual applause, for
every one had listened with the closest attention to the account of the
many pilgrimages of these simple folk from the northeastern countries of
England. In trying to serve God as they deemed right they had separated
themselves from the English church and had begun to hold little meetings
in the village of Scrooby. Hounded by the authorities they finally
sailed to the low countries, which at that time were considered a place
of refuge for the oppressed of all nations. They lived one year in
Amsterdam, meeting for worship near a convent, whose sweet chimes called
them to a low-ceiled room, where they sung their songs of praise and
read God's word.
But their wanderings were not over, and a year later they sailed on one
of the great waterways of this Dutch land to Leyden. Here they remained
twelve years in twenty-three humble little homes, built on a plot of
ground known as the _Koltsteeg_, and called Bell Alley, just across the
way from the great dome of St. Peter's church.
Here in this land of foreign tongue their children grew up, learned
their trades and, alas, many of the ways of these people, especially
their methods of keeping the Sabbath, which were contrary to the beliefs
of these God-loving people. It was for this reason as well as for
others, that they started forth on their wanderings again, and migrated
to the new land across the sea, sailing in the _Mayflower_ on the
twenty-second of July, 1620.
Nathalie was somewhat disappointed in the beginning, that she was not to
hear one of Lillie's twentieth-century thrillers, but the story of the
Pilgrims was so interesting that she felt amply repaid for her
disappointment. Although familiar with their story in this land, she had
never heard much about the lives of these founders before they came to
America.
The tale of these ancient folk was rendered even more interesting by
various interruptions at intervals, as when Dame Brewster read, in
solemn tone, the Constitution formed by these people in the cabin of the
_Mayflower_, said to have been written on an old chest, and known as The
Compact, the first stone in the American Commonwealth.
The Governor's lady enlivened the tedious voyage over by telling of
several little incidents that had occurred; one was when the _Mayflower_
during a severe storm was saved from going to the bottom by some one
wedging a _kracht_, or jackscrew, in a leak that had suddenly sprung
amidships.
Little Humility Cooper, one of the children of the _Mayflower_ voyagers,
an Oriole Pioneer, recited Mrs. Heman's "Landing of the Pilgrims," while
sprightly Mary Chilton told of her race with John Alden to be the first
one of the little company to step on Plymouth Rock. She added to the
interest of this recital by giving a short account of this historical
granite from the day it served as a foundation stone of her victory
until the present time.
A Bob White told about the first American washday, and the fun the
children had gathering sweet juniper boughs to build the fires, over
which hung the tripod from which was suspended the kettles of that
historic occasion.
Louise Gaynor, as Priscilla, recited parts of Longfellow's poem, "The
Courtship of Myles Standish," with its picturesque account of the most
romantic happening of the little town, while as Mistress Fuller, Barbara
described Fort Hill and told about Captain Standish and his sixteen
valiant men-at-arms who explored the hills and woods of the wilderness.
Kitty Corwin, as another Pilgrim dame, told of the erection of the seven
little houses with their thatched roofs, built in a row on First, or
Leyden Street, giving a rather exciting account of the many serious
accidents that happened to the Common House where the stores and
ammunition of the community were stored. And so, in picturesque detail,
each feature of the story was brought forth to form in the minds of
these twentieth century Pioneers a picture that would last through the
years that were to follow, and help them gain an insight into the
characters they were representing.
Elizabeth Winslow, the first wife of the first American statesman, one
of the first to pass away in the fatal sickness of that lonely winter;
Mrs. Hopkins, who won fame as the mother of the boy Oceanus, born on the
_Mayflower_; Bridget Fuller, the wife of the genial Dr. Fuller, and
others, were all impersonated by some one of the Pioneers.
Even the ghosts, as Grace dubbed them, were heard from: Myles Standish's
first wife, known as the beautiful English Rose, who died soon after
reaching the new land, and Dorothy Bradford, the young wife of William
Bradford, who came to her death by falling overboard while her husband
was exploring the shores with Captain Standish and his men.
By the time the story with its variations had been told, the girls,
tired of posing with old-time stiffness and ceremony, were all laughing
merrily as some one of the band suddenly spied some comical or grotesque
aspect of the impersonator, when the Tike screamed shrilly, "Oh, who is
that?" pointing to a black-draped figure standing in the doorway of the
hall, with red, perspiring face, hat cocked on one side, and a generally
bedraggled appearance.
It was the missing Pioneer, Edith, who, after the hubbub had subsided as
to her untimely appearance and tardy arrival, pulled off her long black
cloak and threw herself on the grass by the side of Lillie. With gasps
and sundry emphasizing shrieks she told what had befallen her on the way
to the Rally.
"Father was ill last night, so the first thing this morning I had to go
for the doctor. Then as mother was busy attending to Father I had to get
the youngsters ready,--they were going to a May picnic, for of course,"
Edith added petulantly, "no matter what happened to me, Mother would not
have the kiddies disappointed."
Catching Mrs. Morrow's reproving eye, she stammered apologetically, "Of
course, I would not have them disappointed myself--they are dears--but it
lost me my morning; and then, just as I was hurrying by the gray
house,--oh, girls--" dropping her voice to a tense whisper, "what do you
think I heard?"
CHAPTER VII--THE MAYFLOWER FEAST
The tenseness of Edith's tone, coupled with her mysterious manner, had
the desired effect, and the Pioneers all bent forward eagerly with
expectant eyes, anxious to hear what she had seen and heard, while some
too impetuous one called out, "Oh, do hurry and tell us what it was!"
"It was the most terrible shriek I ever heard," answered Edith, with a
long-drawn sigh. Having succeeded in getting her audience where she
wanted them she was anxious to prolong her triumph. "Why, my heart
jumped into my mouth, and I--"
"Where did the noise come from?" inquired practical Helen impatiently,
who never wasted any time in getting wrought up, as she called it, by
the Sport's yarns.
"It came from the garden of the gray house," was the quick retort; and
then, crossly, "I do wish, Helen, you would wait--you'll spoil the whole
thing if you don't let me tell it properly."
Grace, who had been listening intently to the Sport's recital, looked up
quickly and encountered a glance from Nathalie's eyes as she suddenly
turned from Edith and looked across the circle at Grace to see if she
had heard. But Grace, whose memory was still rankling with her adventure
at the gray house, was afraid that if the girls knew they would plague
her unmercifully for being a runaway, and hastily put her hand on her
lips in warning not to tell what had happened to them.
Nathalie nodded loyally and then turned to hear Edith repeat, "Yes, the
noise came from the garden of the gray house, I have always told you
there was something queer about that place. At first I started to run
away, and then I thought, 'O pshaw! whatever it is, it won't hurt me
behind those high walls.' So I walked close up to the wall near one
corner to see if I could not manage to climb up in some way and look
into the garden. I had just spied a tiny hole in the lower part of the
wall--I guess some boys had made it, you know they are always spying
about that place, anyway--when I heard loud breathing. I looked up and
saw a man creeping stealthily around the corner of the wall, as if
dodging some one. Well, I just gave one look at him, he had great black,
burning kind of eyes, staring out of a face as white as a corpse. He
suddenly spied me, and by the uncanny glare he gave I knew right off he
was the one who had been shrieking, he was the crazy man who lives
there! Great guns! but I didn't wait to take another look, I took to my
heels and flew. Then I heard steps thumping behind me--looked back--oh,
girls," she shrieked hysterically, "he was chasing me, running after me
as hard as he could!"
She gulped, and then with a gasp continued, "Oh, for a moment I thought
I was doomed, but--well--you know I can run, and I did, for my life. I ran
every step of the way here--and--oh, I'm so hungry! Have you had the feast
yet?"
"What became of the man?" inquired Helen tersely.
"Oh, yes, what became of him?" added one or two others.
"I don't know and I don't care," asserted Miss Edith carelessly. "All I
know is that he is as crazy as a loon, and that he lives in the gray
house."
"Edith," exclaimed Mrs. Morrow sharply, "as long as you did not see the
man come from the gray house do not say he lives there; and as for
saying he is crazy, that is absurd. That is just an idle report; do not
repeat it until you have proof that what you say is correct. He was
probably a tramp, and may have been chased from the garden by one of the
servants." Mrs. Morrow's face showed keenly her annoyance and disbelief
in Edith's surmise.
"But what could the screams have been?" asked Helen, wonderingly, "if
they really came from the garden?"
"Oh, I am sure they did," asserted the Sport positively, "for I have
heard other people say that they have heard queer noises coming from
that place. But girls," she exclaimed, as if anxious to dismiss the
subject, "do tell me what you have been doing. Oh, I did so hate to miss
all the fun."
"Yes, kiddie, it is too bad," consoled Lillie, putting her arm around
her friend, "but we have not had the feast yet, we've just been
listening to little stories about the Pilgrims--you know you heard me
read my story the other day--" she stopped abruptly, for a sudden
rustling in a clump of trees back of the garden had caused every one to
turn and peer apprehensively over their shoulders.
"Oh," shivered the Sport nervously, "perhaps it is the crazy man!" She
sprang to her feet and made as if to take to her heels again.
Every girl followed her example, and in another moment there would have
been a wild stampede to the shelter of the hall, if a loud voice had not
called out, "Welcome, Englishmen! Welcome!"
Simultaneously with these words a lithe form sprang into the midst of
the terrified girls, who clung to one another with wildly beating hearts
as with dilated eyes they glared at the intruder, a tall Indian youth,
resplendent with a feathered head-gear. He was clad in deerskin trousers
fringed at the seams, a string of hairy scalps hung at his belt, and he
held a bow and arrow in his hands as he stood and looked down at this
bevy of frightened colonial maids with a broad smile on his grease
besmeared face.
There was just a second's pause, and then Helen shouted merrily, "Oh,
it's Teddy Hart, and he's Samoset! Oh, girls, don't you remember? He was
the Indian who came and welcomed the Pilgrims!"
Of course they all remembered, for had not Lillie dealt at length upon
that very scene when telling her story? And Teddy Hart, why, he was a
Boy Scout, one of Fred Tyson's patrol, which was known as the Eagle
patrol.
This was all that was needed to make the girls forget the crazy man and
the Sport's harrowing tale, and they crowded about Teddy crying, "Oh,
Ted, where did you get the rig?" or, "What made you think of it?" and,
"Isn't it the best ever?" This last was from the Tike who was hopping
about the new arrival examining the hairy scalps--which turned out to be
a few wigs borrowed from the village barber--with keen curiosity.
"Great Caesar! give a fellow a chance to breathe, won't you?" fired the
make-believe Samoset, as he mopped his face energetically. "Don't riddle
me with questions; I'm not a target!"
Yes, this was the second surprise, or the forerunner of it, for before
Teddy was ready to surrender his place as the hero of the moment, the
beat of a drum was heard, and from the little bit of woodland where Ted
had been hiding issued a group of queer-looking individuals. They were
all attired in somber-colored clothes with broad white collars, high
conical-shaped hats, and all carried guns and had swords clanking at
their sides in good impersonation of the Fathers of their country. The
next moment they had formed in line and with well-simulated solemnity of
countenance, "as if going to meeting-house," tittered Grace, these
sixteen men-at-arms, headed by Capt. Standish--who was no other than Fred
Tyson--marched valiantly down the street towards the garden.
It was the Sport after all who saved the day for the Pioneers, for as
they stood in dazed laughter wondering how to greet these unexpected
guests, the Sport's hand shot up, and two seconds later the girls had
joined her in saluting their brother organization, as with one accord
they gave the Pioneer cheer.
In quick response to a signal from their leader, the Scouts came to a
halt, and as one man each Scout's hand went up to his forehead in the
salute of three ringers held upright. This was followed by another
cheer, a rousing one this time, as each boy shouted lustily:
"Ready! Ready! Scout! Scout! Scout!
Good turn daily! Shout! Shout! Shout!"
The boys now fell into step again, and in a few moments had entered the
little wicker gate where they broke ranks as they were cordially
welcomed by the Governor's lady and Dame Brewster. For a short space
following pandemonium reigned, as the boys tried to answer the many
queries propounded by the girls, each Pioneer, spying some one favorite
boy, singled him out with merry jest to answer as to the why and
wherefore of the unlooked for surprise.
Nathalie felt somewhat embarrassed and stood apart from the girls, not
having met any of the Scouts of the town. Perhaps she was a little
scornful, for in the city she had been wont to pass a khaki uniform with
scant approval, considering these emulators of chivalrous knights mere
boys. Not understanding the aims or purposes of the organization they
had failed to attract her.
But as she stood watching these tall, well-developed lads with heads
held high, squared shoulders, and with the ruddy glow of an active life
in the open on their bright faces, she reluctantly admitted that they
were interesting to look at, at least.
"Ah, Miss Nathalie, I see you have forgotten me!" spoke a voice at the
girl's elbow. She turned quickly to see the laughing brown eyes of Fred
Tyson. Fred's face was flushed with embarrassment as he felt somewhat
timorous as to this city girl's greeting, since he had last seen her
walking away from him with flushed cheeks and angry mien as he teasingly
taunted, "Scare-babies! Scare-babies!"
But Nathalie had forgotten all about that trivial incident--perhaps
because she had a brother and knew the moods of boys and how they
delighted to tease and hark at the girls--and she dimpled with cordiality
as she returned his greeting.
She was soon sparkling with merriment as Fred told of the fun they had
in rigging up, and the sensation they created as they marched through
Main Street. By this time the explanations from the boys were over, and
the secret of the cheer fire was revealed. It had been made by the
Scouts at the suggestion of Dr. Homer, who was much interested in the
Pioneers and had planned the two surprises to give a little more tone to
the celebration and fun to the girls.
The girls now clamored that they were hungry, and at an intimation from
Mrs. Morrow the Scouts were invited to repair to one of the side rooms
in the hall, where their Mayflower Feast was to be held.
The invitation was accepted by Fred for the patrol, and the party of
merry-makers filed noisily into the hall. When the boys saw the Stars
and Stripes, and the yards of red, white, and blue bunting hanging in
graceful folds from the walls of the room, they broke into patriotic
song. "Red, White, and Blue" was first sung in compliment to the Girl
Pioneers' colors, and was quickly succeeded by the "Battle Cry of
Freedom," and "The Star-Spangled Banner," in recognition of the starry
emblem that symbolizes--more than any design that floats to the wind--the
uplift of mankind, Liberty, and Union!
A cheery fire of pine knots blazed a greeting from the hearth, while two
long boards supported on trestles and covered with a shining damask
cloth, represented the table of Pioneer days. Odd bits of old-time ware,
such as silver porringers, queer-shaped jugs, or blackjacks, a number of
wooden bowls, a high-standing salt-cellar, and a pewter tankard, were
distributed about the table. But it was the flowers that lay in bunches
here and there--and all May ones, too, from the clusters of white
snowballs, lilacs, pink and yellow azaleas, to the big bowls filled with
sprigs of arbutus--that held Nathalie's eyes.
But flags, antiques, and flowers soon became things of the past, as the
girls brought forth their lunch-baskets; each one had vied with the
other to bring some choice edible and with the help of the modern
knights, who declared that they had come for that purpose, the table was
loaded with goodies.
Just before the feast was served, Will Ditmas, a fair counterpart of
William Brewster, the ruling elder of Plymouth, suddenly stood up and,
after much throat-clearing, announced in a droning voice that if those
present were willing, for the furtherance of sobriety and seemly
behavior, he would read a few rules from "A Pretty Little Pocket Book."
After stonily staring over a pair of goggles at a few irrepressible
gigglers the would-be Elder read: "Speak not until spoken to; break not
thy bread, nor bite into a whole slice; take not salt unless with a
clean knife, and throw no bones under the table."
Those who were trying to keep their faces straight wavered in the
attempt and joined the irrepressible Tike in a few hysterical titters as
he continued: "Hold not thy fork upright, but sloping, lay it down at
the right hand of the plate, with the end of the blade on the table
plate, and look not earnestly at any person that is eating."
This last was the final straw for the Tike, and she giggled so
unrestrainedly that she threatened hysteria, and Helen had to whack her
on the back so that she could get her breathing apparatus in working
order again. This ebullition was like a match to fire, and all those who
had been smothering their mirth now broke forth into loud laughter,
which threatened to become clamorous had not Mrs. Morrow held up her
restraining finger.
The signal was too well known not to be obeyed, and the too mirthful
ones were recalled to themselves. Then, too, they were all hungry; so
forgetting the old-time admonitions of their forebears, they were soon
occupied satisfying their hunger.
After the left-over goodies had been gathered into baskets to be
delivered to a poor family, and the place was set in order again, the
chivalrous knights and the emulating Pioneers swarmed merrily into the
dance hall, where they held high court to the light fantastic as Mrs.
Morrow, the one-piece orchestra, rattled off ragtime harmony for round
and square dances.
Nathalie by this time had met a number of the Scouts, and to her
surprise found that some of them danced as well as, and in some cases
better than her boy friends in the city. The would-be Elder, who had
droned the rules from the pocket book, proved not only a good dancer,
but most companionable, and finding that Nathalie was sadly ignorant as
to the aims and purposes of the Scout organization, he set forth to
enlighten her.
He took off his Scout badge, pointed out the eagle, and the stars and
shield, explaining that it was a trefoil badge and represented the three
points in the Scout oath. The curl-up at the end of the scroll was a
reminder to each Scout that the corners of his mouth should always be
turned up in a smile of cheerfulness. The knot in the loop was a
"conscience pricker," as he expressed it, that a Scout was pledged to do
some one a good turn every day.
The next dance was Fred Tyson's, and when it ended they seated
themselves in a corner of the hall to cool off, and as Nathalie fanned
herself with a much bedraggled handkerchief, they hit upon a topic that
proved most entertaining, and that was--college. Fred stated that he
expected to go to Dartmouth in the fall and was therefore looking
forward to it with much pleasure.
Nathalie, with sparkling eyes, told how she had dreamed and longed to go
to college, and then the golden lights in her eyes shadowed as she said
that since the death of her father she had decided to stop dreaming
about what was impossible for her, and to do something worth while, so
she had become a Pioneer.
"But don't you think it worth while to go to college?" was Fred's
puzzled query, "for surely there is nothing that will help a girl more
in life than to have--what is it--the higher education?"
"Yes, I know," assented his companion, "that is all right, but when one
finds that they can't have a thing--no matter how big or grand it is, or
how much they want it--if it is impossible, it ceases to be worth while;
that is, why spend time lamenting, or thinking about something that
can't be accomplished?"
"Why, you are a regular little philosopher!" laughed Fred. But Nathalie
was not heeding, for suddenly looking across the room she perceived that
the dancers had retired from the floor, all but the Pioneers, who were
standing in two lines in the center of the room facing one another as if
about to dance the Virginia Reel.
"Oh, what are they going to do?" she cried, but before her companion
could answer Helen came running up.
"Come on, Nathalie, we are going to dance the Pioneer dance. It's lots
of fun."
"But I don't know it," objected the girl. "I am not going to make a show
of myself before all these boys."
"Oh, but you won't," urged Helen, "for you can be my partner, and I will
tell you as we go along; and then its awfully simple, for we just go
through the motions of pioneer handcraft--"
"Pioneer handcraft?" echoed Nathalie more puzzled than before.
"Yes, don't you remember what Mrs. Morrow told us about the handcrafts
of the Pioneer women? Well, she made up this dance to make these crafts
definite. Oh, come, it is easy!" In a moment, Nathalie's objection being
overruled, she bade Fred good-by and was hurried by her partner to join
one of the two lines on the floor.
Only a few explanations were necessary, and Nathalie, who was quick to
learn, joined her voice to the girlish ones singing:
"Singing, ringing thro' the air
Comes the song of Molly fair.
Milking, milking Crumple Horn
Down in the barn at early dawn."
As the song ended, the closed right hand of every Girl Pioneer was held
out in front, elbow bent upward. Then came three movements up and down
in imitation of the act of churning. This was done three times, as in
chorus came:
"Churning, turning, see it splash,
This way, that way, with a dash."
As the next two lines rang out:
"Skimming skimming foamy white,
Making the butter golden bright,"
the motions were changed to those of skimming milk, repeated three times
as in the previous movement, the girls emphasizing the end of each
movement by stamping the feet, using first one and then the other. They
ended this last motion by each girl placing her hands on her hips and
tripping in line with the others lightly down the room in time with the
music and then back to place.
A second of time, and each dancer was making the motion of holding a
baby in her encircled arms, and while swaying to and fro these words
were softly crooned:
"Golden slumber kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise.
Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullabye."
Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl faced her opposite
partner, and then linking hands together they were rocking a cradle as
they joyously warbled:
"Baby is a sailor boy, swing, cradle, swing;
Sailing is the sailor's joy, swing, cradle, swing."
Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room and back again to place,
where this time they formed in rows of three in each line. A crash of
chords from the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched
left hand, and made the motion of taking something with the right hand
from the closed left, and casting it on the ground, as they repeated
clearly and loudly:
"Good flax and good hemp to have of her own,
In May, a good housewife will see that it is sown.
And afterwards trim it to serve in a need,
The fimble to spin, the card from her reel."
Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers had done
hundreds of years ago--a sign of a thrifty housewife. Now came three
claps of the hand and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each
performer now lightly put forward the right foot, poised on the ball of
the left one, while making the motion as of moving the treadle of a
spinning-wheel, as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping
every moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup fastened to the
distaff.
[Illustration: "Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen.]
"Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen as leader of the dance, and
then came the old-fashioned couplet softly hummed:
"Count your threads right,
If you reel in the night
When I am far away."
Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count
your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung
into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately
measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy
that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of
early days.
Now they are singing:
"Twice a year deplumed may they be
In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,"
as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up something with her
left hand while the right flew up and down with noiseless
regularity--plucking a goose for dinner.
The next instant every alternate girl had put her hand over her mouth in
the form of a horn and was calling loudly, "Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple
Horn!" This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation when each
fair dancer caught up the hem of her apron and, bending forward, with
well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the
ground which was quickly thrust into her apron. Another flash of white
arms, and each girl had caught up the hem of her neighbor's gown and
with a pretended switch was driving her forward while merrily singing:
"Driving in twilight the waiting cows home,
With arms full-laden with hemlock boughs,
To be traced on a broom ere the coming day
From its eastern chamber should dance away."
As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into line and marched
around the room as if carrying muskets, that is, women's muskets,
brooms.
Once more in row, each girl pretended she was holding a card with one
hand, while drawing another card softly, but swiftly across the first.
This was done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:
"Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy
Two heads on one body."
"Now we are imitating the motions of carding wool," Helen whispered
softly to Nathalie. "Niddy-noddy means the old-fashioned hand-reel used
in the days when there were no machines."
The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were dancing the Virginia
Reel, spinning each other around with the vigor and vim of young hearts
as a prelude to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing, taking
their stitches with a precision and handiness that rivalled the little
maids of Puritan days. With a posture as of holding a wooden frame,
while in and out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with
quaint precision:
"Lola Standish is my name.
Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy will,
And fill my Hands with such convenient skill
As will conduce to Virtue void of shame,
And I will give the Glory to thy name."
Only a space of time and the samplers were dropped, and each girl grew
strangely still, with bent head and listening ears. With eyes flaming in
a fixed stare she poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.
They stood for a moment in this pose as each one present grasped the
idea that they were doing the deed that many a Pioneer woman had bravely
done in those early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard over
the home from the relentless ravages of the red man!
CHAPTER VIII--THE MOTTO, "I CAN"
A few days after the Pilgrim Rally, as Nathalie lay in the hammock
dreaming day dreams as she was wont to do, her mother came and seated
herself in a low chair near by.
Nathalie turned, and then with a quick movement sat up as she asked
anxiously, "Oh, Mother, has anything happened?"
"I should say 'anything' has happened," ejaculated Dick, who was
lounging near, ignoring his mother's gesture to be silent, "for your
mother has been chief cook and bottle-washer all day!"
Nathalie, who had been off on a Pioneer demonstration most of the day,
showed her dismay as she exclaimed, "Oh, where is Ophelia?"
Mrs. Page's worry lines deepened as she answered, "Oh, she is ill. She
has been complaining for some days, and when she begged to be allowed to
go home this morning I did not have the heart to refuse her. Poor thing!
she looked the embodiment of woe!"
"But isn't she coming back?" inquired alarmed Nathalie.
"Not for several days," was the answer, as Mrs. Page leaned wearily back
in her chair.
"But can't we get some one to help us?" demanded her daughter
insistently.
"Dorothy went to the colored settlement, but could not get any one.
Colored people don't like to work in warm weather, and I don't blame
them," her mother added in an undertone, "for standing over a fire in
this heat is terrible."
"Oh, what shall we do?" thought Nathalie ruefully, as she saw a pile of
unwashed dishes confronting her. But a cheery "Hello?" caused her to
look up to see her friend, with dust-brush in hand, cleaning the window
shutters of the neighboring house. With gripping force she suddenly
realized how useful Helen was, and the numerous things she managed to do
to help her mother, notwithstanding the many hours she was compelled to
spend at the stenography school.
Nathalie twisted about in the hammock; somehow it did not seem as
comfortable as it did before her mother had come. Her sky visions had
departed, and in their place had come the thought that she ought to help
her mother. Oh, but dish-washing was degrading, such greasy work. She
glanced down at her slim, white hands as if they would aid her in this
argument with self.
"Oh, why do people have to do the very things they hate?" she questioned
rebelliously as she arose from her comfortable position and with a
long-drawn sigh started to enter the house.
"You have dropped your book!" exclaimed her mother as she stooped and
picked up the Pioneer manual that had fallen from Nathalie's lap and
handed it to her.
"Thank you," returned the girl and then, with a pang of regret as she
noted her mother's weary eyes, she bent and kissed her.
"Oh, I'm so sorry you had to work so hard!" she cried impulsively.
"Isn't there something I can do to help?" She almost wished her mother
would say no.
"Not now," replied her mother with a brighter expression than she had
worn, "but perhaps you can help me later--when I get dinner."
"All right," returned her daughter with forced cheerfulness. As she
entered the hall her eyes were caught by the word "Pioneer" in big,
black letters on the manual. Reminded by the name that flaunted itself
so determinedly before her, she remembered that she was a Pioneer, that
she had taken vows upon herself, and that in order to keep these vows
she should do the very things, perhaps, that she hated to do. This new
thought jarred her uncomfortably as she hurried up to her room and began
to make herself cool and comfortable after a rather strenuous morning
spent in trying her hand at the many new interests that had come to her
as a Pioneer.
But somehow she was haunted, as it were, by the thought that she was not
making a good beginning as a Pioneer; oh, yes, being a Pioneer did not
mean all play, or even doing the things that were interesting, or that
one liked to do, those were the Director's words that morning. The more
one gives up or overcomes in order to do and accomplish the demands made
upon her as a Pioneer, the greater the victory. She picked up the manual
from the bureau and began to turn its leaves aimlessly, and then she
halted, for two very small words held her eyes, "I can!" why, that was
the Pioneer motto--the one Lillie Bell had mentioned when she told of the
picked chicken. She would read the laws!
"A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy." Oh, Nathalie was sure she was that.
"Helpful," her conscience pricked sharply. Was she helpful if she didn't
try and do all she could to help her mother? "O dear," she ruminated, "I
am shying at the first 'overcome.'" She remembered that Mrs. Morrow had
said all the disagreeable things that one didn't want to do, but did in
the end, were "overcomes."
"Kind--" she heaved a sigh, well, she was afraid she hadn't been very
kind the other day when she had answered Lucille so sharply, but she was
trying, and the hasty retort would slip out; she would have to put a
button on her lips as her mother often told her.
"Reverent," her religion taught her that. "Happy," not always, for how
could one be happy when life had been full of disappointments? Her eyes
saddened as she thought of Dick, who was so patiently waiting for
something to turn up, so that he could have the operation on his knee.
Poor fellow! she had felt like crying the other day when she heard him
telling how he had written to a law firm in the city in the hope that he
could get some copying to do so that he could earn some money.
"Happiness does not always mean having what we want; it is being
contented with what we have," that was another of Mrs. Morrow's
interpretations of the Pioneer laws. "Cheerful," here Nathalie broke
into a laugh, quite sure she was always cheerful when she had the things
she wanted. "There!" she cried aloud, "I am not going to read any more
of those laws, for if I am to--" she stooped, for the manual had fallen
to the floor. As she picked it up she again encountered the words, "I
can."
"I can!" she repeated once or twice mechanically. Then her face lighted,
as if the meaning of the words had suddenly flashed themselves clear of
the thoughts that had been revolving in her mind.
"But what can I do?" she continued doubtingly.
"You can wash the dishes for your mother in the morning so that she can
read her morning paper," some one seemed to whisper. She started. "And
you can get up and get breakfast the way Helen does when her mother is
not feeling well," this time the some one spoke very loudly.
"Oh, but I can't cook, nobody would eat my breakfast," she thought,
still holding back.
"But if you are a Pioneer you should learn to do these things." She
frowned as if to brush aside an unpleasant thought.
"Yes, I suppose I can do these things," she reluctantly admitted after a
moment's thought. "O dear--I have been lamenting that I had no purpose in
life, that I was just drifting. I cried the other day because Mother
said my talents were gilt-edged. 'Yes, I Can,'" suddenly broke from her.
"I'm going to begin right now, too; I'll show Mother that I am not a
gilt-edge drifter. I'll learn to cook--oh, I'll just make myself do those
horrible, horrible things--I'll show you, Miss I Can, so there!" She
hastily wiped away the tears that would come, and then, as was her wont
after a mental conflict, she began to sing. A few moments later she was
down in the kitchen hustling about, seeing what there was for dinner.
A steak, oh, yes, she knew how to broil that--and potatoes--oh, they were
easy! The next minute she had seated herself before the kitchen table,
and as she peeled the potatoes she sang with unwonted animation:
"We stick to work until it's done
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
We never from our duty run,
We're Pioneers, Girl Pioneers.
We learn to cook, to sew, to mend
To sweep, to dust, to clean, to tend,
And always willing hands to lend."
As she paused to think how she could manage the next vegetable, Mrs.
Page entered, showing amazement as she saw what her daughter was doing,
for full well she knew that Nathalie disliked anything in the way of
housework.
"Why, Nathalie!" she exclaimed, "you need not do that. I will get
dinner; there is not so much to do, for Felia made some pies yesterday,
and with a steak, thank goodness! there will not be much to cook."
"Now, see here, Mumsie," cried the new housewife, flourishing her knife
menacingly at her mother, "I am chief of this ranch. You have lamented
that I was just a gilt-edged doll, now I'm going to show you I'm not.
I'm a Pioneer, and I'm going to learn everything useful. Now be off!" As
her mother protested there ensued a little wrestling-match in which the
girl came off victor, and Mrs. Page, subdued into meekness, retired to
the veranda, somewhat relieved to think she could rest awhile.
As Nathalie snuggled down to sleep that night--she was so tired she could
hardly keep her eyes open--she felt supremely happy, for she had cooked
dinner all by herself. To be sure Dick had growled and claimed the steak
was burnt, and Lucille had volunteered the information that Felia never
mashed her potatoes that way, but it made no difference to the happy
Blue Robin--as Dick had called her--for she was pleased to think that for
once in her life she had helped. Of course, Mother had laughed at her
blunders, but it was in the old happy way that she used to do when Papa
had been with them.
Next morning Nathalie awoke with a start, she smiled drowsily at some
passing remembrance of the day before, and then turned over for a beauty
nap. Suddenly she sat up with eyes keen and alert; if she was to be maid
of all work that day she must get at her job. In fifteen minutes she was
creeping stealthily down the kitchen stairs with her shoes in her hands,
so as not to awaken her mother.
Oh! the fire was out; that was a difficulty she had not taken into
calculation. For a moment she was tempted to crawl up those stairs and
leave the fire to the next one who discovered it. Oh, but that would not
do at all. She didn't know how to make a fire, but the words "I can,"
made her close her mouth determinedly, and in a few moments clouds of
rising smoke attested that she was learning. But alas, the smoke soon
drifted into space, and the blaze disappeared in a mass of black paper!
Nathalie's tears came at this; oh, why would not that wood catch fire?
Tried to the soul, she went to the window and gazed through a mist of
tears at the dew sparkling on bush and grass. A low, sweet whistling
caused her to look up to see Helen, as fresh as a new-blown rose,
throwing open the shutters of her room.
Nathalie pursed up her lips and then broke into a "Tru-al-lee!"
Helen glanced down quickly, her eyes lighted, and then came a quick Bob
White call that sounded much like "More wet! More wet!" In another
instant she was down on the porch calling merrily to her friend, "Oh,
Nathalie, how are you this morning?"
Nathalie dimpled cheerily. "Oh, fine!" making a dab at her eyes, "but at
my wits' end trying to make a fire. Will you tell me why it will insist
upon going out? It is maddening! I have lighted it six times."
"What, you making a fire?" said Helen, and then, "Just wait a moment and
I will come over and see what is wrong."
Under Helen's nimble fingers the brown paper was taken out, the fire-pot
filled with loosely wrapped newspaper, small sticks laid crisscross, a
few larger ones on top, and then a match applied. Like magic the tiny
blue flame sputtered, caught hold of an edge of paper, and then in a few
moments a blazing fire was seething and swirling. Nathalie, in exuberant
joy, seized her friend and the two girls waltzed merrily around the
kitchen.
Of course Nathalie knew how to make toast, but when Helen showed her how
to hold it over the coals until it was a golden-brown, butter it while
hot, and then cut off the scraggly edges and a rim of crust, she
realized that toast-making was indeed a domestic science. Scrambled eggs
came next, simple, but deliciously done, as her friend showed her. Then
came putting the coffee in the percolator with the water heated beneath
by the tiny alcohol lamp, thus drawing from the beverage the most
nutritious qualities, Helen declared, without injuring one's digestion.
But the grape-fruit--that was another new thing learned--was prepared the
way Helen said a trained nurse had taught her, one time when her mother
was ill. It was cut in half, the pulp dug out with a spoon into a cup or
saucer, and after the pith had been removed, chopped finely, returned to
shell, and then sugared and put on the ice. But perhaps the best part of
helping Mother that morning was when, after striking the Japanese gong
eight bells, Nathalie arrayed herself in Felia's freshly laundered cap
and apron and stationed herself back of her mother's chair to serve
breakfast.
How pleased and surprised her mother was! Dick "Blue Robined" her again,
while Lucille patronizingly exclaimed, "Oh, Nathalie, you make a swell
maid--and how smart you are getting!"
Just before dinner, Helen appeared again, and taught her how to make
soup from a few boiled bones and a chunk of meat, a few left-over
tomatoes, and a bit of onion and seasoning. She taught her to broil a
steak,--this time without a burnt speck--how to make white sauce for some
left-over fish, how to scrape new potatoes economically, and the right
way to cook peas. Then came a delicious dessert of stale pieces of cake
and canned peaches, laid in layers with beaten cream, and topped off
with little white pigs, as Nathalie called the tiny bits of egg froth
floating on its surface. Truly, it was a dinner fit for a king!
After dinner her sensitive soul rebelled at the pile of greasy dishes,
but the task grew lighter when Helen showed her how to make the water
hot and soapy, using a lot of dried bits of soap that Nathalie was going
to throw away, by sewing them in cheese-cloth bags. She washed the
glasses and silver first, then the china, and then--oh, horrors--the pots!
But when the new Pioneer saw how her friend put them on to boil, thus
doing away with so much grease, it was a revelation. And when the
dish-towels were washed and hung out in the sun to sweeten, and the sink
was scrubbed with a brush and a cleansing soap, Nathalie was again
forced to admit that she had mastered another household science.
Oh, no, it wasn't all plain sailing--the world isn't run that way--and the
new Pioneer's back, eyes, and feet made themselves forcibly known before
she went to bed that night. Many a time she had had to grit her teeth,
summon Miss I Can to her side, and with forced determination go on with
the job; but after all, she declared, as she turned out the light, "I
have helped Mother!" and then sleep claimed the tired girl.
When Saturday morning came, however, and no Felia made her appearance
according to promise, Nathalie's face grew somber, and she could not
help going to the door every few minutes to see if she were not in
sight, for she had planned to go on a bird-hike that morning with the
Pioneers to learn bird-calls. As the clock struck nine she dropped her
broom--she was sweeping the kitchen--and rushed to her room. Here she wept
copiously for a while in her clothes closet with her head buried in the
skirts of her dresses, so no one could hear, and then she heard her
mother calling her.
She dried her eyes guiltily, scrubbed her face to brush away all trace
of tears, and then answered blithely, "Here I am, Mumsie, I'm coming
right down to finish the kitchen." When she came tearing down the stairs
she found the kitchen swept and garnished, and lo! there stood Mother
with big, surprised eyes pointing to Lucille, who, as she caught sight
of her cousin, bobbed her head and dropped a curtsy, crying, "Sure,
ma'am, it's a new job I'm afther takin' on meself, but do yez see the
loikes of it for the claneness?"
Nathalie gave one bewildered stare, and then a merry peal of laughter
broke from her, seconded with a minor note from her mother, and with a
bass accompaniment added by Dick, as he entered and sensed the
situation. Yes, Miss I Can must have caught Lucille in her meshes, too,
for that young lady, generally so dainty in her labor preferences, had
condescended to sweep the kitchen.
"Well," she explained apologetically, "I was jealous of the praise
bestowed upon Nathalie, and thought I'd show you folks that people can
do things even if they are not Blue Robins."
"Oh, Lucille, you aren't a Blue Robin, you're a duck of a dear," bubbled
Nathalie as she hugged her cousin rapturously. "It was just lovely of
you. But Mother, did you know what she was doing?"
"No, I did not," rejoined Mrs. Page; "I thought it was you working all
by yourself and came in to help, as I knew you wanted to go on the hike.
But before you go, dear," she added anxiously, "I want you to go down to
Felia's and see how she is. If she is not coming back by Monday you will
have to hunt around for a washerwoman; the clothes can't go another
week."
An hour later, Nathalie, delighted to think she could take a day off
with a clear conscience, hurried in the direction of Ophelia's little
gray shanty; but to her surprise, as she came near the door she heard a
loud wailing and the confused hum of several voices.
As she entered the stuffy parlor hung with gay colored prints and
dingy-looking chromos, she found Ophelia seated in a rocking chair with
her face buried in a gingham apron, wailing and crying hysterically.
Pushing her way through the crowd of sympathizing friends, Nathalie
grabbed the arm of a colored woman who stood by Felia's side crying,
"Oh, please, won't you tell me what's the matter?"
"Sure, Miss," respectfully answered the woman, wiping a tear from her
eye. "It's little Rosy, she's lost--we can't find her--ah, honey, don't
take on so!" she ended, turning towards the grieving mother and giving
her a caressing pat on the shoulder. "Surely some one will find her."
Nathalie now stepped to Felia's side and pulled her gently by the
sleeve, determined to get some definite information about black Rosebud,
as Dick called the little pickaninny who had often come to the house
with her mother, and who, being a bright child, had become a prime
favorite. "Ophelia, please tell me about your trouble!" insisted the
girl. "Is Rosy surely lost?"
"She lost sure nuff, Missy, down at de bottom of de pond," quavered
Felia's mother dismally, an aged negress standing by the side of her
daughter, as she rolled up her eyes until the whites looked like saucers
on a shelf. "I'se gwine to tell you de trufe--dat chile is drowned. Oh, I
see her face a-shinin' in de water--"
Her horrible prognostication as to Rosy's woeful fate was terminated by
her daughter's renewed wails of anguish, as she again began to rock
herself to and fro with redoubled force.
"Oh," thought Nathalie, frowning angrily in the direction of the old
mammy, "I do wish she would stop." Then she cried, "Oh, Felia, don't cry
so--I am sure she will be found--perhaps she is at one of the neighbors'
houses, you know she is fond of visiting."
There was such sympathetic concern in the girl's voice that Felia
desisted from her lamentations long enough to cry, "Oh, Miss Natty, she
done go and get lost--she ain't nowhere hereabouts!" Then in answer to
further questioning she said that the child had been seen just before
dark picking posies over in a meadow with several children, but when
bedtime came she could not be found.
"Has any one looked for her?" demanded Nathalie, turning towards the
group of colored women as poor Felia went back to her apron wailing
pitifully, "I'se gwine promise yo', Lord, if yo' bring my baby back,
I'll never get mad with her again. I'll promise sure--" but the rest of
Felia's prayer was lost as the women crowded around Nathalie and eagerly
explained that Dan Washington, Paul Jones, and Abe Smith had searched
the town for her. They had been up all night, but when morning came had
to return to their jobs, and there was no one looking for her at that
time.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, Felia!" sympathized Nathalie again to the weeping
mother. Then, after asking if the town authorities had been notified,
she decided to hasten home, knowing that she could not get any one to
promise to work for her at that time.
"Oh, it is too bad!" she lamented as she hurried down Main Street. "It
does seem as if some one ought to be searching for her now, why the poor
child may be injured or something!" Her too vivid imagination pictured
her, not down at the bottom of the pond, as mammy had done, but crying
piteously of fear and hunger in some lonely place. "I suppose the police
in this town will take some hours to get on to the job, as Dick says."
She suddenly paused and her eyes shone with a bright light. She wrinkled
her brow thoughtfully a moment as if going over something in her mind,
and then with the glad cry, "Oh, I know we can do it--it will be just the
thing!" She broke into a run as if her sudden inspiration would escape
her if she did not hurry.
With good speed she soon reached the house, hurriedly told her mother
what had befallen Rosy and the condition she had found things in at the
negro settlement, and then, telling her she would be back in a few
moments, she flew post-haste across the road to Mrs. Morrow's house.
Here the Pioneers with eager, expectant faces were all talking
animatedly, their brown uniforms, red ties, and broad-brimmed hats
suggestive of the good time in store for them.
"Oh, here she comes!" sang out Helen, as she spied Nathalie hastening up
the path towards the veranda. "Why, where have you been? We began to
think you were not coming."
"I had to go on an errand for Mother!" Then with glowing eyes she told
them of the visit to the colored settlement and about the lost Rosy, the
grief of her mother, and how there was no one looking for the child.
"Oh, girls," she ended in a quiver of excitement, "let's give up the
bird-hike for to-day, and see if we cannot find little Rosy!"
CHAPTER IX--SEARCHING FOR ROSY
An oppressive silence followed, while each girl looked blankly at her
neighbor. The new Pioneer's face flushed, and her eager, excited eyes
shadowed, as she quickly realized that in her eagerness to follow the
law of kindliness she had been too officious. She stood in dismayed
embarrassment, the chill of an unpleasant surprise benumbed her. With a
faint hope she turned her eyes appealingly towards Helen, surely her
level head and kind heart would prompt her to second her. Helen caught
the look and smiled faintly.
Edith, who was always the first one to either second or down a
proposition, broke the silence by exclaiming in an aggrieved tone, "Why,
the idea, Nathalie Page! we can't give up the bird-hike, we've all
brought our lunches!"
"I should say not," interposed Lillie Bell with flashing eyes. "Why, it
would take the whole morning, and there could be no hike for to-day, and
next week I can't go, I--"
"Oh, they have probably found the child by this time!" ventured Barbara
North, to Nathalie's surprise, as she had always found her of a kindly
nature.
"Well, _I_ for _one_ don't think it is our place to look for the child,
anyway," asserted Jessie, decisively. "Let the men of the town do it.
There are three policemen hanging around all day with nothing to do."
Nathalie's cheeks had lost their pink bloom; her face stiffened as she
retorted coolly, "Well, just as you please, I see I have made a
mistake." She nerved herself. "I thought kindliness was one of the laws
of the organization, and it seemed to me that our pleasure was to take a
secondary place when we had an opportunity to do a kind act. If you had
seen the poor mother sobbing--"
"Oh, fiddle!" ejaculated Lillie, "those colored people are all emotion;
their sobs don't count for much. I agree with Jessie that the
townspeople should send out a search party, and I for one refuse to give
up the hike. Who's on my side?" she ended abruptly, turning and facing
the group.
"I!" and "I!" shouted several voices at once in answer.
Nathalie backed towards the edge of the veranda. "I seem to be in the
minority," she said with assumed indifference, although her heart was
beating in double-quick time, for something had whispered, "They are
very rude, I would resign immediately." But this suggestion was bravely
silenced by the thought, "No, I will not be as small as that, I will
show I do not care."
"There must be some one who thinks as I do," she ended resolutely,
wishing that she could run from this affront to her sensitiveness.
"I am with you, Nathalie!" suddenly cried Helen, walking towards her
friend and putting her arm around her.
Grace looked at the bevy of girls who had bunched together, then at the
faces of her two friends. In a faint voice she asserted lamely, "And I,
Nathalie, I didn't stop to think--"
"And, Nathalie, you can count me on your side!" broke in a voice at this
moment. The girls, alert at the prospect of a division in the group,
turned quickly to see Mrs. Morrow place herself by the side of Nathalie,
taking her hand as she did so and giving it a cordial squeeze.
Nathalie's color came racing back and her heart leaped with joy. Ah,
then she had not been too officious, after all! She turned to see the
girls standing in embarrassed silence with shamed eyes and uncertain
mien. But Lillie, who was generally the spokesman of the group when
Helen was on the opposite side, cried somewhat pertly, "Why, Mrs.
Morrow, do you think it is our place to go and hunt for that colored
child? I should think it was the duty of the townspeople to look after
those things."
"That is not the question," replied the Director coldly. "As Nathalie
said, kindliness is one of the basic laws of the organization. We should
be poor Pioneers indeed if we saw a man drowning and then stood and
argued as to whether it was our place to save him or not. Nathalie, I
commend you not only for your kind suggestion, but for having the real
pioneer courage in maintaining what you believed to be right. You have
shown yourself a true Blue Robin and I am proud of you. Now, girls, we
will put it to a vote. Those of you who want to go on the hike, up with
their hands." Not a hand was raised.
Mrs. Morrow's face brightened as she cried laughingly, "Now who wants to
join a search-party with Nathalie as captain, and see if they can find
little Rosebud?"
Every hand flew up, and there was a general cry of, "I do! I do!"
"Well, girls," said Mrs. Morrow kindly, as her eyes traveled from face
to face, "I see you have repented of the error of your way. Let
Nathalie's example inspire you!"
"Oh, I guess we just didn't stop to think!" broke forth Barbara, with
shamed eyes.
"Well, when one has made up her mind to do a thing she would be a saint
to give it up without a fuss," remarked Lillie. "Of course, Nathalie was
all right, but she had had time to think it all out and we hadn't!"
"A good explanation, Lillie," answered Mrs. Morrow, "but I hope you have
all learned a lesson. Now, Nathalie, make your suggestions and we'll get
to work."
The new Pioneer had already divided the girls into two sections, with
Helen as one leader, and Lillie Bell as the other. It did hurt a little
to give Lillie the first place after she had spoken as she had, but
Nathalie realized her worth, and then, too, she did not want to show any
resentment. "You see," she explained, "I am only a dummy captain, for I
am not as familiar with the town as the rest of you are, and there will
be no time lost in making false moves."
"That is a very sensible decision, Nathalie," nodded Mrs. Morrow, "but
the question is where to look first!"
"Suppose we go down to the settlement, make a survey, and get our
bearings?" voiced Helen.
"Good, Helen, that is just the thing!" acquiesced the Director, as the
girls at her suggestion hurriedly deposited their lunch-boxes in the
hall, while Nathalie ran over to tell her mother her plans.
In a few moments the would-be searchers started, each girl equipped with
her staff, while the two leaders triumphantly displayed their whistles,
which they claimed would be of great help if any of the party got lost
and their voices did not carry.
It did not take long to reach Felia's shanty, and as Nathalie ran in to
tell her that the Pioneers were going to hunt for Rosy, the rest of the
party gazed with quick, alert eyes first in one direction and then in
the other.
"I should not be surprised if the child had wandered away looking for
flowers," remarked Mrs. Morrow, suddenly remembering what Nathalie had
said the child was doing when she was last seen.
"But where would she be apt to go?" inquired Nathalie, who had returned
in time to hear Mrs. Morrow's remark.
"Why, to the woods!" retorted Helen quickly, and her eyes lighted in
sudden thought as they dwelt on a green belt of woodland that loomed
against the sky on the opposite side of the road.
"Don't you think she might have strayed down the hill?" questioned
Nathalie, pointing to a pond shimmering in the sun at the bottom of a
knoll near-by. "Poor Mammy is quite sure she is drowned and lies at the
bottom of the pond."
"Well, I'll tell you what we can do," spoke up Lillie, "I'll take my
squad and search down by the pond, and Helen and the rest of you can go
over to the woods; somehow I'm with Mammy, for all children love to
paddle in the water."
Lillie's suggestion was a timely one, and as she, Grace, Jessie, and a
few Orioles disappeared over the slope of the hill, Helen and Nathalie,
as the advance guard, hurried across the road and into the cool recesses
of the woods. As they hastened onward every girl's eyes were alert,
watchfully peering behind every bush and tree as they stumbled over
gnarled roots and broken stumps in their efforts to reach some shaded
nook, or lichen-covered rock dimly seen in the shadows of the trees.
Helen proved an efficient leader and did not hesitate to keep her
followers busy, as she sent first one and then the other to look here or
there, determined not to miss a nook or spot where the child might be
hidden. Every now and then some of the party would give a bird call, or
Helen's whistle would reverberate sharply through the swaying pines.
But Mrs. Morrow, whose strength began to waver, finally suggested to
Nathalie and Edith, who had been acting as her body-guard, that they
rest for a few minutes. Spying a decayed tree-trunk that had fallen
across the damp, spongy earth a few feet away, they seated themselves
upon it.
"Oh, I'm really tired!" exclaimed Mrs. Morrow, for she had proved as
indefatigable as the girls in searching, thinking, she declared, of her
own two kiddies safe in the garden at home.
Nathalie, impressed by the solemn stillness about her, slowly fanned
herself with her hat, while Edith made frantic dabs at her red face,
from which beady drops were oozing. "Oh, I should just love to stay here
all day," she cried, sniffing the air, redolent with the odors of pine,
spicy balsam, silver birch, and many other trees that loomed darkly in
the mysterious retreats of the forest.
"Hark!" cried Mrs. Morrow, suddenly putting up her hand for silence as
she peered up at the green boughs above her. "Taweel-ab, taweel-ab,
twil-ab, twil-ab!" came in a succession of weird, sweet trills.
"Wheew, whoit, wheew, whoit!" imitated the Sport with quick readiness.
"It is a hermit thrush!" explained Mrs. Morrow softly, and her hand
clutched Nathalie's as she pointed to a brown bird that was scudding
swiftly over the fern a few feet away.
"Oh, isn't it a dear?" whispered delighted Nathalie, for to her this
coming, as she called it, into the very heart of nature was a new
experience. She half regretted at times that they had been compelled to
forego the bird-hike, as she was so anxious to get in touch with the
feathered songsters of the wood and field. Then, too, suppose the
searching-party should fail of its purpose, she would feel that she had
been the means of leading them on a wild-goose chase!
As her eyes roamed here and there in the hope that she might see the
brown thrush again, she started, stared a moment, and then springing to
her feet dashed across to the clump of ferns where the bird had been
flying.
"I have found a clew!" she cried triumphantly a moment later, as she
returned and held up her hand. Between her thumb and forefinger was a
bit of red, which she was waving gleefully as she came towards them. As
the Sport and Mrs. Morrow hurried to her side they saw a loop of red
ribbon still with the knot in it by which it had evidently been recently
tied to some object.
"It is Rosy's hair-ribbon!" cried Nathalie. "I found it clinging to one
of the ferns."
"Oh, are you sure?" burst from Mrs. Morrow, her eyes eager with hope as
she bent over the little scarlet knot.
"Indeed I am sure," answered the delighted girl, "for it is the very
ribbon I found in my work basket and tied on Rosy's funny little topknot
the day she was at our house. See, here is the very cut in the edge--that
is the reason it was of no use to me--but Rosy was as happy as a lark
over it. Oh, isn't this too lovely, for now I know the child is
somewhere near!"
With renewed hope they set forth again on the hunt, Nathalie running
ahead and calling "Tru-al-lee!" as loud as she could--it was the only
bird call she knew--to get in touch with the advance guard and tell them
the good news.
In answer to her Blue Robin call, in a few moments a Bob White whistle
was heard, rather faint, but there was no mistake as to that quick,
clear note. The Sport, a few yards behind, immediately responded by
giving a similar call, and then as they stood waiting to ascertain from
what direction the whistle had come, there sounded a sudden, sharp snap
of the underbrush near, and Kitty Corwin's face emerged into view.
"Hurrah, girls!" she shouted jubilantly, "we have found her!"
"Oh, where? Where?" came in an instant from three throats as Kitty
leaned against a tree and panted.
"Down in a ravine, huddled close against a rock, asleep. Helen did not
want to waken her until Nathalie came, for fear she would be frightened
at the strange faces. Come on, quick!" she exclaimed excitedly, turning
and darting back the way she had come with light, fleet steps.
But the belated ones needed no urging, especially Nathalie, who dashed
ahead without regard to time or place, with a haste that left no doubt
as to her joy that her searching party had been a success. Overhanging
branches and dried twigs that blocked her way were ruthlessly brushed
aside, or run against, scratching and bruising her unmercifully as she
discovered later, but it made no difference to the happy girl.
It seemed but a moment when she emerged into a clearing, and close at
the heels of Kitty climbed down into a small ravine. It had evidently
been at one time the road-bed of a brook, but was now filled with
scraggy stones, dried underbrush, and fallen logs.
As Nathalie saw the little motionless figure cuddled in a heap against
the rock, her heart leaped with misgiving. "Oh, is she dead?" she asked
Helen, who stood guard by the side of the rock, every now and then
brushing away a gnat or a fly that descended with a loud buzz on the
smeared black face, which lay partly exposed to view as it rested on a
mite of an arm.
"Oh, no," assured Helen, "she is all right, only asleep. I suppose she
wandered about for some time in the darkness and was tired out, poor
little tot!"
The little one looked so pathetically small as she lay there, just a
heap of bones, black skin, and woolly hair, with the tears still
glistening on the black lashes, that Nathalie's heart was stirred with
pity.
Mrs. Morrow now came forward and quickly felt her pulse, crying as she
did so, "Oh, you poor little black baby! Yes, she is all right!" she
nodded assuringly, "but Helen, what is the matter with her leg?" Her
sharp glance noted that it lay rather limply on the ground.
"I am not sure," said Helen with bent brows as she touched it softly,
"but I am afraid it is broken. That is why I waited for you and
Nathalie, I did not like to move her for fear of hurting her."
"But we shall have to," returned Mrs. Morrow as she finished examining
the injured limb, "for it is broken, and we must get her home as soon as
possible, for it will have to be set."
As Helen and Mrs. Morrow attempted to take hold of the child to lift her
on the stretcher the girls had made, she opened her eyes wide into the
strange faces bending over her. Then she closed them quickly, and as the
little black face wrinkled in fear she let forth such a howl of absolute
despair that the girls were all on the verge of joining with her in
their keen sympathy.
"Oh, Rosy," cried Nathalie springing hastily forward and taking the
child's hand softly in hers, "see, it is Mrs. Page's little girl. Don't
you remember when you called me that--Mrs. Page's little girl?" She
repeated softly as she saw the child had stopped her crying and was
staring up at her. But the black eyes closed again and the little form
shivered as a prolonged howl answered the questioner.
But Nathalie, who loved children, lifted up the little head with its
pigtails and laid it against her breast as she tried again. "There
dearie, don't you want to go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma?"
These words had the desired effect, and the howl was arrested as two big
black eyes stared with awakening interest while Nathalie caught hold of
the stretcher and choo-chooed it back and forth. "Come, Rosy!" she cried
in a third attempt, "and we will go in the choo-choo cars to see Mamma,
and--oh, yes, the little rag-dollie I made for you, don't you remember
what a lovely time we had?"
The black eyes opened wide, stood still for a wee second, and then
twinkled into a smile as their owner cried, "Oh, yes, I knows youse;
youse de Story Lady!"
"Yes, I'm the Story Lady," quickly answered Nathalie, her face breaking
into a smile; then as Rosy smiled back, "but how did you get here,
Rosebud, so far away from home?"
The little face screwed into a knot as she whimpered, "Oh, I got lost,
Story Lady. I picked daisies in de lot, and den Jacob he showed me de
blue flowers he got in de wood. So I runned to de wood, and oh, I got a
lot!" Her eyes gleamed with joy as she held up a few withered violets
still clutched in her tiny hand. "And den it grew all dark," she moaned,
"and I couldn't fin' de road, and I fell and hurt my leg. Oh, I'se so
hungry!" she ended piteously.
But when she saw so many eyes watching her, she covered her tiny face
with her hand, shyly peeping out from between her fingers.
The girls all laughed merrily at her coquettishness, but their laughter
became almost a howl as the little black eyes began to play peek-a-boo
at them, and then danced in unison with their laughter, as if enjoying
the sensation she had created.
But time was precious, and so with the promise of candy and a story from
Nathalie the little one was lifted from the ground and carefully placed
in the stretcher, and the Pioneer search party, weary, and warm, but
jubilantly happy at their success, started for home.
"Some one of you girls ought to run ahead and get the doctor!" exclaimed
Mrs. Morrow as the rescuers plodded carefully but slowly up the ravine
with their burden, "for the child needs attention at once. I don
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