CHAPTER V
Mollie’s Suggestion
The trouble with Betty Ashton’s foot was only a sprained ankle but it kept her confined for several days and gave her plenty of time for reflection. She must of course pay her debts, for she could not make up her mind to send back the things she had ordered (self-denial and Betty had very slight acquaintance with one another), and besides the disappointment would not be hers alone but all of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.
For the truth is that Betty and Polly together had written a Camp Fire play setting forth some of the ideals of their organization and they wished to give the entertainment during Christmas week in the most beautiful possible fashion. Of course in the beginning they had assured Miss McMurtry, who was still a kind of advisory guardian, and Miss Dyer, that everything would be very simple and inexpensive, but naturally their ambitions grew with each passing day, and with scenery and costumes to be bought, besides the gifts and decorations for the Camp Fire tree, Betty found herself very much involved. As usual she was bearing the greater share of the expenses and then, though no one outside the Camp Fire club except Dick Ashton knew of it, Betty had been giving a part of her allowance each week so that Esther Clark might have singing lessons with the best possible teacher in Woodford. Not that the relation between Betty and Esther had seriously changed. The older girl still felt toward Betty the same adoring and self-sacrificing devotion, still considered her the most beautiful and charming person in the world and that her careless generosity lifted her above every one else, while, though to do Betty Ashton credit, she was entirely unconscious of it, her attitude toward Esther was just the least little bit condescending. Esther was so plain and awkward and particularly she lacked the birth and breeding Betty considered so essential, but then she was fond of her and did want Esther to have her chance – this chance she felt must lie in the cultivation of her beautiful voice.
So that when Betty, unable to make up her mind what had best be done, determined to consult with the girls, it was to her old friends, Mollie and Polly O’Neill, that she turned rather than to Esther. She had been unusually quiet one evening, although insisting that her ankle was entirely well. Suddenly, however, she plead fatigue and with a little gesture, which both girls understood as a signal, asked that Mollie and Polly come and help her get ready for bed.
When Betty was finally undressed, she sat bolt upright in her cot with her cheeks flushed and her gray eyes shining. So unusually pretty did she appear that Polly, who never ceased to admire her, even when she happened to be angry, set a silver paper crown upon her head. The crown was a part of their Christmas stage property and not intended for Betty, but now Polly stood a few feet away and clasped her hands together from sheer admiration, while Mollie, who was usually undemonstrative, leaned over and kissed her friend’s cheek before settling herself at the foot of the bed.
“You certainly are lovely, Princess, and so is Mollie for that matter,” Polly exclaimed, generously seating herself opposite her sister. Betty happened to be wearing a heavy blue silk dressing jacket over her gown and her auburn hair hung in two heavy braids, one over each shoulder. Her forehead was low and she had delicate level brows. But just now Betty flushed scarlet and frowned, for whatever her other faults she was not vain.
“Please don’t call me Princess, Polly, dear,” she urged, taking off her paper crown and surveying it rather ruefully, “because I am in truth only a paper princess to-night. You have told me a hundred times, Polly, child, that you thought I ought to know the sensation of being poor like other people, that I needed it for my education. Well, I do at last, for I have bought a lot of things for Christmas that I can’t pay for, as mother writes she can’t let me have any extra money.”
Betty’s expression, however, was not half so serious as that of her two friends as she made this confession. For the girls had also heard the rumor which had troubled Rose Dyer in regard to Mr. Ashton’s possible change of fortune, and knew that Betty did not in the least understand the gravity of her mother’s refusal.
Polly positively shivered. Betty poor! It was impossible to imagine! Yet what, after all, did the supposed loss of a few thousand dollars mean to a man of Mr. Ashton’s wealth.
Polly patted Betty’s hand sympathetically. “Debt is the most horrible thing in the world, isn’t it? I haven’t forgotten how I felt when I was in your debt last summer, Betty, and took such a horrid way to get out of it.”
“Maybe you had better send back what you have bought,” suggested the more practical Mollie, making the same suggestion as their guardian.
But at this Betty and Polly glanced at one another despairingly. “Give up making their Camp Fire play a success?” For this is what it would mean should Betty have to send back her purchases!
“How much do you owe, dear?” Polly next inquired in a crushed voice.
And at this Betty drew the same sheets of complex figures out from under her pillow. “It is a hundred and fifty dollars, I can’t make it any less,” she confessed. “That sounds pretty dreadful doesn’t it, when you have not a single cent to pay with, though I never thought one hundred and fifty dollars so very much before. Of course I could save something out of my allowance every month, but not very much, and father would not like me to ask people to wait.”
“Can’t you give up something besides the Christmas present from your mother which you were not going to have?” Mollie inquired so seriously and with such a horrified expression over the amount of her friend’s indebtedness, and such an entire disregard for the Irishness of her speech, that both the other girls laughed in spite of their worry. Mollie’s pretty face showed no answering smiles in return, nor did she take the least interest in the reason for their laughter. For it was not her way to be interrupted by their perfectly idle merriment.
“But haven’t you, Betty?” she repeated.
And Betty leaned her chin on her hands. “I have my piano,” she replied slowly, “but I can’t sell that because then Esther would have no chance to practice, and we could never half enjoy our Camp Fire songs without.”
Both the other girls shook their heads. Giving up the piano was out of the question.
For a moment longer there was silence and then Betty’s cheeks flushed again. “I have got some things I suppose I can part with, though I rather hate to,” she confessed. “I don’t know whether mother and father would like it, but then they would not like my being in debt. In a safety box in the bank in town I have some jewelry I never wear because mother thinks it too handsome for a girl of my age. Father and Dick have given it to me at different times. I suppose somebody would tell me how to dispose of at least a part of it.”
And although both Polly and Mollie at first strenuously objected to Betty’s suggestion, it was finally decided that Betty and Polly should drive into Woodford on the following Saturday morning without saying anything to any one else and bring the safety box back with them. Then they could talk the matter over and find out what Betty could dispose of with the least regret. Her ankle was now well enough for her to make the trip in their sleigh without difficulty.
CHAPTER VI
A Black Sheep
The one month in the winter camp had made more change in Nan Graham than the entire preceding summer, and the influence exerted by Rose Dyer in so short a time greater than all Miss McMurtry’s conscientious efforts, so does one character often affect another, so by a strange law of nature do extremes meet. Unconsciously Nan had always cherished just such an ideal as Rose represented. This uncouth young girl, untrained in even the simple things of life, with her curious mixed parentage of an Italian peasant mother and a ne’er-do-well father, who nevertheless was of good old New England stock, wished to be like the lovely southern girl who had nearly every grace and charm and had had every possible social advantage. Yet in spite of the contrast Nan did wish to be like her and though even to herself there seemed little chance of her succeeding, did try to mold herself after Rose’s pattern. The other girls quickly noted her attempts to soften her coarse voice, to give up the use of the ugly expressions that had so annoyed them and even to wear her clothes and to fix her thick black hair in a soft coil at the back of her neck as their guardian did. But fortunately they were kind enough not to laugh nor even to let Nan know that they were watching her. The girl had a certain beauty of her own with her dark coloring and sometimes sullen, sometimes eager, face. Her figure, however, was short and square, indeed she showed no trace of her New England blood and bore no resemblance to graceful Rose.
However, as the days went by Nan was growing to be more like the other Camp Fire girls in her manner and behavior, and was probably learning more than any one of them, since she had had fewer opportunities before.
Miss Dyer could hardly help suspecting Nan’s devotion, for although she was still faithful to Polly as her first friend in the club, always she was at Rose’s side ready to do anything she wished, and always accepting her suggestions in the best spirit. It was therefore the new Camp Fire guardian who was responsible for Nan’s not separating herself from her family as the young girl would like to have done during this time of her effort at self-improvement. For Rose knew that the whole effort of the Camp Fire organization was to make the girls more useful, to give better and happier service to the people they loved. Therefore, because of Rose’s advice and after a long talk with her in which Nan explained the conditions of her own home, it was decided that the young girl should spend every Saturday with her mother helping her with the work of the home and the care of the children, and trying to make practical the lessons she was learning in the Camp Fire.
These days at home were not easy ones, and the girls were accustomed to seeing Nan come back at night tired and cross or at least dispirited. Her mother had no interest in her efforts. She was opposed to her oldest daughter’s living away from home if she were earning no money, and had no desire to have her house disturbed by Nan’s vigorous weekly efforts at cleaning. Indeed, except for Nan’s father, she would never have been permitted to live at the cabin, where her share of the expenses were now being paid by Rose Dyer. He, however, had a kind of sympathy with the girl’s efforts, and a slowly awakening sense that his daughter had the right to wish to be a lady. Though he might not actually help her, at least no one should stand in her way. So at his command Nan had been allowed this winter with the girls at the cabin and was also to do what she liked without interference when she returned home on Saturdays. Personally he liked the smell of soap and water which her visits left about his shack and greatly enjoyed the homemade bread and the weekly pumpkin pie which was always cooked especially for him.
But Nan’s most serious opposition came not from her idle but fairly good-natured mother but from her older brother Antonio, or Anthony as he preferred to be called. Having been given the Italian name he was less Italian than any other member of the family. Indeed, he was a good-looking American boy with hazel eyes and a fair skin and, except for his curly dark hair and a certain unconscious grace, not different in appearance from other American boys. Yet he shared the family weaknesses and had refused to go to school for the past two years. Indeed, he would not work at anything for a sufficiently long enough time to make it count, so that probably because he was a boy, and a fairly capable one if he had been more ambitious, his present reputation was now the worst in the family. He appeared also to resent Nan’s new friendships and new efforts with the greatest possible bitterness.
On the Saturday morning when Polly and Betty started driving toward town on their errand, about a quarter of a mile from the cabin they came unexpectedly upon Nan. She was trudging steadfastly along with a bundle of clothing which Rose had given her for the younger children under her arm, looking resolute and yet none too cheerful.
Before catching up with her the two girls sighed and then smiled at one another. They had wanted this drive together without any one else and had waited until Saturday morning so that Betty’s pony, Fire Star, would be free for her use and they could have the small sleigh, which had been well mended since the accident. Fire Star and a pony belonging to Sylvia Wharton had made the trips back and forth to school each day and a return journey was too much for them except for some special emergency. Both the girls had particularly wanted to discuss certain features of their Camp Fire play without interruption, but now the sight of Nan’s faithful figure awoke their sympathy.
“For goodness’ sake, squeeze into the middle along with us, Nan,” Betty invited. “How selfish you must have thought Polly and me this morning when we were planning right before you to drive into town and never said a word about taking you as far as your home. The fact is we both had something so important on our minds, or at least the thing seems important to me, so that really we forgot about you.”
The girls then said nothing of their errand while they were driving along the road, where the snow was now beaten down into a hard, firm crust. But when they had set Nan down in front of the ram-shackle hut at the edge of the village which served as her home, Betty leaned out remarking confidentially: “I am sorry we can’t come back for you, Nan, but I am to get my box of jewelry from the bank and take it to our cabin so that I feel we ought to get back as soon as we can.”
There was no point in Betty’s making this confession at this special time and Polly disapproved of it. They had taken no one into their confidence except Mollie, and, of course, their guardian. However, since Nan had been falsely suspected of stealing her money, Betty had never failed of showing her faith in her.
And Nan understood this as she stood for several moments watching the pony and sleigh out of sight and hearing. Polly was wearing a crimson felt hat with a small black quill in it and a long red coat, and Betty, a seal-skin cap with a knot of her favorite blue velvet on one side and a fur coat. Nan could not help feeling the contrast between their lives and hers as she stepped later into their crowded and untidy kitchen. Nevertheless their friendship helped her to bear the fact that her brother Anthony, whom she loved best in her family, would not even speak to her. Indeed the thought of the Camp Fire club sustained her through the long and specially trying day.
A slight flurry of snow fell during the morning, so that the four younger children would not go out of doors but kept getting under Nan’s feet while she tried to clean. Her mother objected to each thing she did and Anthony loafing in a corner smoking cigarettes tried his best to make her lose her temper.
At lunch Mr. Graham, who usually came home then and made things easier for Nan, did not return, so that by the time the dishes were washed the girl had given up the attempt to do any further cleaning and turned to her usual Saturday baking. This was usually more appreciated by her family. Because of a possible failure if she were too much interrupted, Mrs. Graham then removed the younger children to another room, leaving Nan alone with her brother.
He did not torment her any further at first, but seeing that he was unusually moody and out of sorts his sister turned to him.
“What is it, Tony?” she inquired good-naturedly, ignoring what had passed between them.
The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Wasn’t good enough to be elected a Boy Scout,” he sneered, “seems like the fellows around here said they didn’t like my record and wanted their camps kept up to the mark. Course I don’t care anything about joining but they might have given a fellow a chance. Give a man a black name – I say, Nan,” he broke off suddenly, “couldn’t you lend me some money, say five dollars or so?”
Nan stared at him in surprise. Anthony must know that she hadn’t a cent in the world to call her own and that she was having her expenses paid by Miss Dyer at the cabin. Of course she meant some day to repay Rose, Betty and Polly for all they had done for her but it might take a number of years.
“Couldn’t you borrow the money from some of your rich friends?” he demanded, irritated and ashamed at his sister’s silence. And then, unexpectedly, seeming to feel a better impulse, he came closer to the table where Nan was now mixing her pie crust and watched her quietly for a few moments. In a measure he realized his own right to be a gentleman, and resented the fact that they were everywhere looked down upon, and that Nan’s efforts to better herself had to be made outside her own family.
“There ain’t no use your trying to make something of yourself, Nan,” he said more kindly than he had spoken before during the day. “This Camp Fire business don’t mean anything real. These girls maybe are letting you live with them and treating you fairly well but once you’re grown up, maybe they’ll say ‘Howdy do’ to you on the street, but they won’t ever ask you into their houses or be your friends. I bet they didn’t want you driving into town and being seen on the street with them to-day. I was watching and saw them set you down at your own door pretty prompt.”
“It wasn’t because they were ashamed of me,” Nan defended promptly, and yet although she knew that what she had said was true she could not help feeling both sore and ashamed. For the other Camp Fire girls really had the right to feel differently toward her when her own family would do nothing to make themselves respected and when she found it so hard to struggle with so much against her. For an instant Nan felt as if she might have to give up. But only for an instant, for she raised her flushed face and her brother saw the tears standing in her large dark eyes.
“The girls would have been perfectly willing to take me into the village,” she explained more quietly, “only they knew I had to work at home and they were going in on an important errand to get some money or jewelry of Betty’s from the bank before it closed. They wanted to get back to the cabin before dark or else Betty said they would have stopped by and taken me home with them.”
The moment after these words passed Nan’s lips she regretted them, not because she believed any possible harm could come of them but because she remembered that Betty and Polly had both told her no one else had been told of their intention and she did not wish to be the one to betray their confidence.
“Please don’t tell anybody what I have just said?” she begged beseechingly, but already her brother was lounging away as though he had grown tired of the confinement of the kitchen and apparently had not even heard her. But when Nan repeated her request he returned. “Oh, certainly I won’t tell, Nan. Who on earth would I mention such a silly thing to anyway? It seems to me you Sunrise Camp Fire girls think every little thing you do and say of importance to all the world.”
CHAPTER VII
Turning the Tables
When Anthony Graham left his home and started walking slowly through the woods he had absolutely no definite intention of any kind in his mind. He was bored and a little ashamed of harassing his sister. For if Anthony had confessed the truth to himself down in his heart he was really both glad and proud of what Nan was trying to do and had felt secretly more ashamed of himself since she began her efforts. For the boy had a better mind than his sister and had more inheritances from his father’s family. His idleness and weakness came more from his unfortunate environment and from the fact that nothing had as yet awakened any ambition or better feeling in him. He had not told Nan what he wanted with the money asked of her, but for the past ten days had been thinking that if only he could get away somewhere out of Woodford, where no one knew anything of him or his family, and have a fair start, why he too might amount to something in the future so that Nan need not be shamed by him.
He walked for half a mile or so and then sitting down on a log began to whittle. There wasn’t any use trying to clear out without money to buy food and he did not wish to remain anywhere in the immediate neighborhood. It had occurred to Anthony in the past week that he might work and earn sufficient money for his escape, but having applied at three or four places and been refused, his old shiftlessness and lack of will power laid fresh hold on him so that he gave up the effort. Now, as he sat at his usual occupation of killing time, he tried to banish all thought and all desire.
He intended waiting until it was time to walk back to the Sunrise cabin with Nan and then go into the village and find his equally idle friends.
Suddenly Polly’s laugh sounded and then Betty’s, as though in response to something her companion had said. The girls were driving along the road toward home and a little farther on would come within a dozen yards of the spot where Anthony was seated, concealed from view of the road by the grouping of trees.
The boy started, at first with surprise. The winter woods had seemed so quiet and so lonely, not even a teamster had passed in all the time of his musing. And then a curiosity seized hold on him to see his sister’s much talked of friends without being seen by them. Of course he had probably passed both Betty and Polly on the streets of Woodford a good many times and that morning had caught a distant glimpse of them from the window, but he did not know one girl from the other, and from his sister’s description he might now be able to tell. Betty was the beautiful one, and Polly, well Nan no more than other people had ever been able to decide whether Polly was beautiful or whether she was so fascinating that you had to think so while she was talking to you. When she was quiet her face was apt to be pale and a little too thin.
Anthony found a hiding place behind a tree bordering the road, until the sound of the sleigh bells came nearer and nearer, and Fire Star made her appearance. Then an impulse stronger and more dangerous than curiosity swept over him. For the first time since leaving his sister in the kitchen he remembered Nan’s information. The two girls would be carrying back to their cabin a box containing Betty’s jewelry. How easy to frighten them and make them surrender the box. Then he could get away from this neighborhood he hated and have a chance at a new life. He would do the girls no harm and only take enough money to cover his actual needs. The rest Betty could have back again. Anthony did not believe that either Betty or Polly knew him on sight. Nevertheless, though he had little time for reflection, with a quick movement he pulled his ragged cap down well over his forehead and eyes, turned up his coat collar and stooping picked up from the ground a heavy stick which was almost a log in size.
An instant later Fire Star’s bridle was seized with an ugly jerk and the pony brought to a standstill.
As Betty was driving, the tin box was being held in Polly’s lap so that the highwayman’s first words were addressed to her.
“Turn over that box to me,” he demanded, trying to make his voice sound older and more threatening than usual.
However, both girls were so entirely overcome by amazement at the unexpected appearance of a robber in their peaceful New Hampshire woods, that for a moment they could only stare. The next instant Polly with a quick flare of her Irish temper, leaned over and seizing hold of Betty’s almost toy whip, slashed it in the face of the intruder. “Get out of the way,” she cried angrily. “I am sure you can’t know what you are doing.”
But almost in the same instant the whip was torn out of her hand and dropped on the ground. When Betty attempted to rush Fire Star forward the pony’s bridle was caught the second time.
“If you don’t do what I say I’ll break your pony’s back with this stick,” the boy muttered, and at this Betty winced, making no further effort to drive on. Fire Star had been her pony since she was a small girl and the stick the young fellow held was large enough to do her serious hurt, also his manner was sufficiently ugly to indicate that he meant what he said.
Polly was by this time so angry that she could scarcely think, but, fortunately, Betty, after the first moment of surprise and natural fear, had held herself well in hand.
Now she looked so steadfastly at the figure at her pony’s head that the young man turned his face away.
“You are Nan Graham’s brother,” Betty remarked quietly, “and I hope poor Nan may never hear what you are trying to do. You may not believe I have ever seen you before, but I have. Then as we have told only Nan the reason for our errand to town only she could have told you. I am quite sure though that she did not mean to betray us.”
Betty said this so loyally and in such an unafraid, yet accusing voice, that Anthony Graham wished himself ten thousand miles from the place where he stood and as many leagues from the deed he was doing. However, since he had already disgraced both his sister and himself there was all the more reason why he should go through with this cowardly business and get himself away if he possibly could.
“No matter who I am, you will hand that box over just the same and be quick about it,” he commanded with another threatening wave of his stick.
“We will do no such thing but will have you arrested as a thief,” Polly announced defiantly, wishing with all her heart, in spite of her Camp Fire training, that the despised Billy Webster might appear at this moment driving one of his father’s wagons either to or away from town. At other times she might look down upon Billy for having only a farmer’s ideals, just now, however, the splendid strength that his outdoor life must have given him would have been peculiarly desirable.
However, to Polly’s surprise and chagrin, Betty, whom she had always considered braver than herself, showed signs of weakening.
“I will give you the key to my box if you will let me have some papers that are inside it which can be of no value to you.”
Betty said this with a nervous laugh, her face suddenly turning pale when it had formerly been flushed. Then she set her lips to keep them from trembling. Without waiting for an answer she afterwards leaned forward and began searching under the carriage rug on the bottom of her sleigh for the purse bag in which Polly remembered the key to have been concealed.
Anthony might at this instant have seized the tin box from Polly and been off with it before Betty could have driven Fire Star on. But he was willing enough to have the key to Betty’s box and even to leave her papers behind some tree if she so much desired them. He had never meant to take all her foolish trinkets which were of no value to any one except a girl. So for a brief moment Anthony did not look toward either Betty or Polly but kept his eyes fastened on the pony’s head. In that same moment, hearing a sudden whirr through the air, before he was able to move the boy found himself securely caught by a rope and his arms drawn tight to his sides so that his stick dropped with a clatter on the frozen ground. While Betty Ashton with another rapid movement wound the other end of her rope about the cross bar of her sleigh catching it with a clove hitch and then, with a little gasp of astonishment at her own prowess, dropped back into her seat, only faintly hearing Polly’s cry of delighted amazement.
Not for nothing had Betty Ashton been learning to acquire honors in camp craft for the past six months, practicing different kinds of knot tying with the other girls in friendly rivalry hour after hour. In the bottom of her sleigh along with the purse bag which really did contain her key, Betty had remembered that they had fifty feet of new clothes line being taken back to the cabin. In the moment of fumbling under the rug she had quickly tied the much practiced slip noose and then had thrown it with better skill than she could ever repeat.
Polly gave a characteristic laugh to relieve the tension of the situation. “We have caught the enemy and he is ours now, Betty, dear, but whatever are we going to do with him?”
But Betty had gathered up her reins and was quietly urging Fire Star ahead.
So there was nothing for their prisoner to do but to run along by the side of the sleigh. By superior strength the young man could have jerked away from Betty’s and Polly’s hold, but not from the sleigh itself. Now the more he pulled on the clothes line the tighter it bound him. Besides it was difficult to do even this when all his strength was required keeping up with the pony’s rapid gait.
“I have often wondered how it would feel to be a conqueror driving through the streets of Rome with one’s prisoners lashed to their chariot wheels and this is deliciously like it,” Polly sighed before her companion had once spoken, enjoying with all her vivid imagination the retribution that had overtaken the evildoer.
But Betty’s expression was strangely grave and every now and then she kept glancing aside at the figure running along beside them. For, except for a first oath and a few violent threats, the young man seemed to own himself beaten and had since said nothing. There was a horrible droop instead to his head and shoulders, and indeed to his whole figure, and he looked so ashamed that it made Betty sick to look at him, Polly did not seem to have noticed but Betty felt that she had never seen just such an expression before.