E-text prepared by Roger Frank
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

The Torch Bearer

ILLUSTRATIONS

CONTENTS

Running up the steps, she followed a well-trodden path through a pine grove, and in a few minutes, through the trees, she caught the gleam of white tents and stopped to reconnoitre. A dozen or more tents were set irregularly around an open space; also there was a large frame building with canvas instead of boarding on two sides, and adjoining this a small frame shack, evidently a kitchen—and girls were everywhere.

“O, I’m hungry for girls!” breathed the one peering through the green branches. “I wonder if I dare venture——” She broke off abruptly, staring in surprise at a group approaching her. Then she ran forward crying out, “Why, Anne Wentworth—to think of finding you here!”

“To think of finding you here, Laura Haven! Where did you drop from?” cried the other. The two were holding each other’s hands and looking into each other’s faces with eyes full of glad surprise.

“I? I didn’t drop—I climbed—up the steps from the landing,” Laura laughed. “I was out on the bay in my canoe—we came up yesterday in the yacht—and I heard that beautiful Indian call, and I just had to find out where it came from, and what it meant. I suspected a girls’ camp, but of course I never dreamed of finding you here. Do tell me all about it. It is a camp, isn’t it?”

“Yes, we are Camp Fire Girls,” Anne Wentworth replied. She glanced behind her, but the others had disappeared. “They vanished for fear they might be in the way,” she said. “O Laura, I’m so glad you’re here, for this is the night for our Council Fire. You can stay to it, can’t you—I’m sure you would be interested.”

“Stay—how long? It’s after sunset now.”

“O, stay all night with me, and all day to-morrow. You must stay to the Council Fire to-night, anyhow.”

“I’d love to dearly, but father won’t know where I am.” Laura’s voice was full of regret.

“Why can’t you go back and tell him? I’ll go with you,” Anne suggested.

“Will there be time before your Council Fire?”

“Yes, if we hurry—wait one minute.” Anne called to the nearest girl, gave her a brief message, and turned again to her friend. “Come on, we’ve no time to lose, but I know how you can make a canoe fly,” she said, and hand-in-hand the two went scurrying through the grove and down to the landing. Then while the canoe swept swiftly over the water, Anne Wentworth answered the eager questions of her friend.

“It’s a new organisation—the Camp Fire Girls,” she explained. “It is something like the Boy Scouts only, I think, planned on broader lines and with higher and finer ideals—at any rate it is better suited for girls. It aims to help them to be healthy, useful, trustworthy, and happy. Health—work—love—as shown in service—these are the ideals on which we try to build. We have three grades. First a girl becomes a Wood Gatherer; then after passing certain tests, a Fire Maker, then a Torch Bearer.”

“And which are you?” Laura asked.

“I’m a Guardian—that is, I am the head of one of our city Camp Fires. Mrs. Royall is our Chief Guardian.” She went on to explain about the work and play, the tests and rewards, ending with, “But you’ll understand it all so much better after our Council Fire to-night.”

Laura nodded. “What kind of girls is it for—poor girls—working girls?” she asked.

“It is for any kind of girls—just girls, you know. Of course we can’t admit any bad ones, nothing else matters. Dorothy Groves is one of my twelve, and I’ve two dear little High School girls; all the rest are working girls. They can stay here at the camp only two weeks—some of them only ten days—the working girls, I mean, and it would make your heart ache to see how much those ten days mean to them, and how intensely they enjoy even the commonest pleasures of camping out.”

“Who pays for them?” Laura demanded.

“They pay for themselves. It’s no charity, and the charges are very low. They wouldn’t come if it were charity.”

Laura shook her head half impatiently. “It’s so hard to get a chance really to help the ones who need help most,” she said.

“Yes, it surely is,” Anne agreed; and then they were alongside the big white yacht with its shining brass, and Judge Haven was helping them up the steps.

Fifteen minutes later they were on their way back to the camp, but this time in a boat rowed by two of the crew. The last golden gleam of the afterglow was fading slowly in the West as the two girls came again through the pines into the open space between the tents. Mrs. Royall met them and made Laura cordially welcome.

“She’s just the right one—a real camp mother,” Anne said, as she led her friend over to a group gathered on the grass before one of the tents. “And these are my own girls,” she added, introducing each by name.

“You’ve got to take me right in,” Laura told them. “I can’t help it if I am an odd number—I’m going to belong to this particular Camp Fire to-night.”

“Of course we’ll take you in, and love to. Aren’t you Miss Anne’s friend?” said one, as she snuggled down on the grass beside Laura. “It’s so nice you came on our Council Fire night!”

Laura’s eyes swept the group. “It must be nice—you all look so happy,” she answered.

Anne Wentworth excused herself for a few minutes, and Laura settled back against a tree with a little sigh of content. “I’ve been abroad for a year,” she said, “and it seems so good to be with girls again—American girls! Please, won’t you forget that I am here and talk just as if I were not? I want to sit still and enjoy the place and you and—everything, for a bit, before your Council begins.”

With ready courtesy they took her at her word, and chatted of camp plans and happenings until the talk was interrupted by a clear musical call that floated softly out of the gathering dusk.

“How beautiful! What is it?” Laura asked as all the girls started up.

“It’s the bugle call to the Council,” one explained, “and here comes Miss Anne.”

Laura glanced curiously at her friend’s dress. It was a long loose garment of dark brown, fringed at the bottom and the sleeves. A band of beadwork was fastened over her forehead, and she wore a long necklace of bright-coloured beads.

“What is it—a robe of state?” Laura inquired.

“Yes, the ceremonial dress,” Anne told her, “but you can’t see in this light how pretty it is. Come on, we must join the procession.”

“What has become of your girls?” Laura asked. “They were here a moment ago.”

“They have gone to get their necklaces,” Anne returned. “My girls are all Wood Gatherers as yet—we’ve not been organised long, you know; but they’ve been working hard for honours, and for every honour they are entitled to add a bead to their necklaces.”

“Yours then must represent a great many honours.”

“Yes,” Anne replied. “You see it incites the girls to work for honours when they see that their Guardians have worked and won them. The red beads show that the wearer has won health honours by keeping free from colds, headaches, etc., for a number of months, or by sleeping out of doors, or doing some sort of athletics—walking, swimming, rowing, and the like. The blue ones are for nature study, the black and gold for business, and so on. Each bead has a meaning for the girl—it tells a story—and the more she wins, the finer her record, of course.”

“What a splendid idea! And how the girls will prize their necklaces by-and-by, and enjoy recalling the stories connected with them!”

“Yes,” Anne agreed, “they will hand them down to their daughters as a new kind of heirloom, but——” with a laugh she added, “that’s looking a long way ahead, isn’t it?”

By this time the two were in the midst of a merry procession of girls from twelve to twenty, perhaps a third of them wearing the ceremonial dress.

“What a gay company they are!” Laura commented, as the procession followed a winding path through the woods, a few carrying lanterns. “Is there anything in the world, Anne, lovelier than a crowd of happy girls?”

“Nothing,” her friend assented in a low tone. “And, Laura, if you could only see the difference a few days here make in some of the girls who have had all work and no play—like some of mine! It is so delightful to see them grow merry and glad day by day. But here we are. This is our Council Chamber.”

“I want as many eyes as a spider so that I can look every way at once,” Laura cried as the girls arranged themselves in a large circle. “What are those girls over there doing?”

“They are the Fire Makers. They were Wood Gatherers for over three months, and have met the requirements for the second class. Some of the others are to be made Fire Makers to-night. Watch Mary Walsh—the one rubbing two sticks. She will make fire without matches—or at least she will try to.”

The girl, with one knee on the ground, was rubbing one stick briskly back and forth in the groove of another. A little group beside her watched her with eager interest, two of them holding lanterns, and Mrs. Royall stood near her, watch in hand. The talk and laughter had ceased as the circle formed, and now in silence, all eyes were centred on the girl. Faster and faster her hands moved to the accompaniment of a whining, scraping sound that rose at intervals to a shrill squeak. At last a tiny puff of smoke arose, and the girl blew carefully until she had a glowing spark, which she fed with tiny shreds of wood, until suddenly it blazed up brightly. Then, springing lightly to her feet, she stood erect, the flaming wood in her outstretched hand distinctly revealing her happy, triumphant face against the dark background of the pines.

There was a quick clamour of applause as Mrs. Royall announced, “Thirty seconds within the time limit, Mary. Well done! Now light the Council Fire.”

The girl stepped forward and touched her flaming brand to the wood that had been made ready by the other Fire Makers, and soon the flames began to blaze and crackle, filling the air with a spicy fragrance, and sending a vivid glow across the circle of intent young faces. Laura caught her breath as she looked around the circle.

“What a picture!” she whispered. “It is lovely—lovely!”

At a signal from Mrs. Royall the girls now gathered closer about the fire and began to chant all together,

“‘Wohelo—wohelo—wohelo.
Wohelo means love.
We love love, for love is the heart of life.
It is light and joy and sweetness,
Comradeship and all dear kinship.
Love is the joy of service so deep
That self is forgotten.
Wohelo means love.’”

Then louder swelled the chorus,

“‘Wohelo for aye,
Wohelo for aye,
Wohelo, wohelo, wohelo for aye.’”

The last note was followed by a moment of utter silence; then one side of the circle chanted,

“‘Wohelo for work!’”

and the opposite side flung back,

“‘Wohelo for health!’”

and all together they chorused exultantly,

“‘Wohelo, wohelo, wohelo for love!’”

Then in unison, led by Anne Wentworth, the beautiful Fire Ode was repeated,

“‘O Fire!
Long years ago when our fathers fought with great
animals you were their great protection.
When they fought the cold of the cruel winter you
saved them.
When they needed food you changed the flesh of beasts
into savoury meat for them.
During all the ages your mysterious flame has been
a symbol to them for Spirit.
So, to-night, we light our fire in grateful remembrance
of the Great Spirit who gave you to us.’”

In a few clear-cut sentences Mrs. Royall spoke of the Camp Fire symbolism—of fire as the living, renewing, all-pervading element—“Our brother the fire, bright and pleasant, and very mighty and strong,” as being the underlying spirit—the heart of this new order of the girls of America, as the hearth-fire is the heart of the home. She spoke of the brown chevron with the crossed sticks, the symbol of the Wood Gatherer, the blue and orange symbol of the Fire Maker, and the complete insignia combining both of these with the touch of white representing smoke from the flame, worn by the Torch Bearer, trying to make clear and vivid the beautiful meaning of it all.

When the roll-call was read, each girl, as she answered to her name, gave also the number of honours she had earned since the last meeting. It was then that Laura, watching the absorbed faces, shook her head with a sigh as her eyes met Anne’s; and Anne nodded with quick understanding.

“Yes,” she whispered, “there is some rivalry. It isn’t all love and harmony—yet. But we are working that way all the time.”

There was a report of the last Council, written in rather limping rhyme, and then each girl told of some kind or gentle deed she had seen or heard of since the last meeting—things ranging all the way from hunting for a lost glove to going for the doctor at midnight when a girl was taken suddenly ill in camp. Only one had no kindness to tell. And when she reported “Nothing” it was as if a shadow fell for a moment over all the young faces turned towards her.

“Who is that? Her voice sounds so unhappy!” Laura said, and her friend answered, “I’ll tell you about her afterwards. Her name is Olga Priest. There’s a new member to be received to-night. Here she comes.”

Laura watched the new member as she stepped out of the circle, and crossed over to the Chief Guardian.

“What is your desire?” Mrs. Royall asked, and the girl answered,

“I desire to become a Camp Fire Girl and to obey the law of the Camp Fire, which is to

“‘Seek beauty,
Give service,
Pursue knowledge,
Hold on to health,
Glorify work,
Be happy.’

This law of the Camp Fire I will strive to follow.”

Slowly and impressively, Mrs. Royall explained to her the law, phrase by phrase, and as she ceased speaking, the candidate repeated her promise to keep it, and instantly every girl in the circle, placing her right hand over her heart, chanted slowly,

“‘This law of the fire I will strive to follow
With all the strength and endurance of my body,
The power of my will,
The keenness of my mind,
The warmth of my heart,
And the sincerity of my spirit.’”

And again after the last words—like a full stop in music—came the few seconds of utter silence.

It was broken by the Chief Guardian. “With this sign you become a Wood Gatherer,” and she laid the fingers of her right hand across those of her left. The candidate made the same sign; then she held out her hand, and Mrs. Royall slipped on her finger the silver ring, which all Camp Fire Girls are entitled to wear, and as she did so she said,

“‘As fagots are brought from the forest
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Whenever, wherever you find them.
Be strong as the fagots are sturdy;
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;
And—follow the law of the fire.’”

The girl returned to her place in the circle, and at a sign from Anne Wentworth, four of her girls followed her as she moved forward and stood before Mrs. Royall. From a paper in her hand she read the names of the four girls, and declared that they had all met the tests for the second grade.

The Chief Guardian turned to the four.

“What is your desire?” she asked, and together they repeated,

“‘As fuel is brought to the fire
So I purpose to bring
My strength,
My ambition,
My heart’s desire,
My joy,
And my sorrow
To the fire
Of humankind.
For I will tend
As my fathers have tended,
And my father’s fathers
Since time began,
The fire that is called
The love of man for man,
The love of man for God.’”

As the young earnest voices repeated the beautiful words, Laura Haven’s heart thrilled again with the solemn beauty of it all, and tears crowded to her eyes in the silence that followed—a silence broken only by the whispering of the night wind high in the treetops.

Then Mrs. Royall lifted her hand and soft and low the young voices chanted,

“‘Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame,
O Master of the Hidden Fire;
Wash pure my heart, and cleanse for me
My soul’s desire.

In flame of service bathe my mind,
O Master of the Hidden Fire,
That when I wake clear-eyed may be
My soul’s desire.’“

It was over, and the circle broke again into laughing, chattering groups. Lanterns were lighted, every spark of the Council Fire carefully extinguished, and then back through the woods the procession wound, laughing, talking, sometimes breaking into snatches of song, the lanterns throwing strange wavering patches of light into the dense darkness of the woods on either side.

“She’ll be delighted. She needs more helpers, and I can teach you all I learned before I took charge of my girls. But will your father be willing?”

“I’m sure he will. He knows you, and everybody in Washington knows and honours Mrs. Royall. Father is going to Alaska on a business trip and I’ve been trying to decide where I would stay while he is gone. This will solve my problem beautifully.”

“Come then—we’ll see Mrs. Royall right now and arrange it,” Anne returned, turning back.

Mrs. Royall was more than willing to accede to Laura’s proposal. “Stay at the camp as long as you like,” she said, “and if you really want to be a Guardian, I will send your name to the Board which has the appointing power.”

“She is lovely, isn’t she?” Laura said as they left the Chief Guardian. “I don’t wonder you call her the Camp Mother.”

Something in the tone reminded Anne that her friend had long been motherless, and she slipped her arm affectionately around Laura’s waist as she answered, “She is the most motherly woman I ever met. She seems to have room in her big, warm heart for every girl that wants mothering, no matter who or what she is.” They were back at the camp now, and she added, “But we must get to bed quickly—there’s the curfew,” as a bugle sounded a few clear notes.

“O dear, I’ve a hundred and one questions to ask you,” sighed Laura.

“They’ll keep till morning,” replied the other. “It’s so hard for the girls to stop chattering after the curfew sounds! We Guardians have to set them a good example.”

The cots in the sleeping tents were placed on wooden platforms raised three or four inches from the ground, and on clear nights the sides of the tents were rolled up. Laura, too interested and excited to sleep at once, lay in her cot looking out across the open space now flooded with light from the late-risen moon, and thought of the girls sleeping around her. Herself an only child, she had a great desire—almost a passion—for girls; girls who were lonely like herself—girls who had to struggle with ill-health, poverty, and hard work as she did not.

Suddenly she started up in bed, her eyes wide with half-startled surprise. Reaching over to the adjoining cot, she touched her friend, whispering, “Anne, Anne, look!” and as Anne opened drowsy eyes, Laura pointed to the moonlit space.

Anne stared for a moment, then she laughed softly and whispered back, “It’s a ghost dance, Laura. Some of those irrepressible girls couldn’t resist this moonlight. They’re doing an Indian folk dance.”

“Isn’t it weird—in the moonlight and in utter silence!” Laura said under her breath. “I should think somebody would giggle and spoil the effect.”

“That would be a signal for Mrs. Royall to ‘discover’ them and send them back to bed,” Anne returned. “So long as they do it in utter silence so as to disturb no one else, the Guardians wink at it. It is pretty, isn’t it?”

“Lovely!”

Anne turned over and went to sleep again, but Laura watched the slender graceful figures in their loose white garments till suddenly they melted into the shadows and were gone. Then she too slept till a shaft of sunlight, touching her eyelids, awakened her to a new day. She looked across at her friend, who smiled back at her. “I feel so well and so happy!” she exclaimed.

“It is sleeping in the open air,” Anne replied. “Almost everybody wakes happy here—except the Problem.”

“The Problem?” Laura echoed.

“I mean Olga Priest, the girl you asked about last night. We Guardians call her the Problem because no one has yet been able to do anything for her.”

“Tell me about her,” Laura begged, as, dropping the sides of the tent, Anne began to dress.

“Wait till we are outside—there are too many sharp young ears about us here,” Anne cautioned. “There’ll be time for a walk or a row before breakfast and we can talk then.”

“Good—let’s have a walk,” Laura said, and made quick work of her dressing.

“Now tell me about the Problem,” she urged, when they were seated on a rocky point overlooking the blue waters of the bay.

“Poor Olga,” Anne said. “I wonder sometimes if she has ever had a really happy day in the eighteen years of her life. Her mother was a Russian of good family and well educated. She married an American who made life bitter for her until he drank himself to death. There were three children older than Olga—two sons who went to the bad, following their father’s example. The older girl married a worthless fellow and disappeared, and there was no one left but Olga to support the sick mother and herself, and Olga was only thirteen then! She supported them, somehow, but of course she had to leave her mother alone all day, and one night when she went home she found her gone. She had died all alone.”

“O!” cried Laura.

“Yes, it was pitiful. I suppose the child was as nearly heartbroken as any one could be, for her mother was everything to her. Of course there were many who would have been glad to help had they known, but Olga’s pride is something terrible, and it seems as if she hates everybody because her father and her brothers and sister neglected her mother, and she was left to die alone. I don’t believe there is a single person in the world whom she likes even a little.”

“O, the poor thing!” sighed Laura. “Not even Mrs. Royall?”

“No, not even Mrs. Royall, who has been heavenly kind to her.”

“Is she in your Camp Fire?”

“No, Ellen Grandis is her Guardian, but Ellen is to be married next month and will live in New York, so that Camp Fire will have to have a new Guardian.”

“What about the other girls in it?”

“All but three are working girls—salesgirls in stores, I think, most of them.”

“How did Olga happen to join the Camp Fire?”

“I don’t know. I’ve wondered about that myself. She doesn’t make friends with any of the girls, nor join in any of the games; but work—she has a perfect passion for work, and it seems as if she can do anything. She has won twice as many honours as any other girl since she came, but she cares nothing for them—except to win them.”

“She must be a strange character, but she interests me,” Laura said thoughtfully. “Anne, maybe I can take Miss Grandis’ place when she leaves.”

Anne gave her friend a searching look. “Are you sure you would like it? Wouldn’t you rather have a different class of girls?” she asked.

Laura answered gravely, “I want the girls I can help most—those that need me most—and from what you say, I should think Olga needed—some one—as much as any girl could.”

“As much perhaps, but hardly more than some of the others. There’s that little Annie Pearson who thinks of nothing but her pretty face and ‘good times,’ and Myra Karr who is afraid of her own shadow and always clinging to the person she happens to be with. The Camp Fire is a splendid organisation, Laura, and it will do a deal for the girls, but still almost every one of them is some sort of ‘problem’ that we have to study and watch and labour over with heart and head and hands if we hope really to accomplish any permanent good. But come, we must go back or we shall be late for breakfast.”

“Then let’s hurry, for this air has given me a famous appetite,” Laura replied. But she did not find it easy to keep up with her friend’s steady stride.

“You’ll have to get in training for tramps if you are going to be a Camp Fire Girl,” Anne taunted gaily.

Laura’s eyes brightened as she entered the big dining-room with its canvas sides rolled high.

“Just in time,” Anne said, as she pulled out a chair for Laura and slipped into the next one herself.

The meal was cheerful, almost hilarious. “Mrs. Royall believes in laughter. She never checks the girls unless it’s really necessary,” Anne explained under cover of the merry chatter. “She——”

But Laura interrupted her. “O Anne, that must be Olga—the dark still girl, at the end of the next table, isn’t it?”

“Yes, and Myra Karr is next to her. All at that table belong to the Busy Corner Camp Fire.”

After breakfast Laura again paddled off to the yacht with Anne. It did not require much coaxing to secure her father’s permission for her to spend a month at the camp with Anne Wentworth and Mrs. Royall. He kept the girls on the yacht for luncheon, and after that they went back to camp, a couple of sailors following in another boat with Laura’s luggage.

“How still it is—I don’t hear a sound,” Laura said wonderingly, as she and her friend approached the camp through the pines.

Anne listened, looking a little perplexed, as they came out into the camp and found it quite deserted—not a girl anywhere in sight.

“I’ll go and find out where everybody is,” she said. “I see some one moving in the kitchen. The cook must be there.”

She came back laughing. “They’ve all gone berrying. That’s one of the charms of this camp—the spontaneous fashion in which things are done. Probably some one said, ‘There are blueberries over yonder—loads of them,’ and somebody else exclaimed, ‘Let’s go get some,’ and behold”—she waved her hand—“a deserted camp.”