The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows. Vandercook Margaret
gown Polly touched the figure in the bed near hers.
“Rose,” she whispered, so quietly as not to disturb any one else. “There is some one knocking. I am going to the door, so be awake if anything happens.” Then without delaying she slipped into the next room.
Crossing the floor in her slippers Polly made no noise and picking up the lantern which was always kept burning at night in the cabin, without any warning of her approach she suddenly pulled open the door. The figure waiting outside started.
“I – you,” he began breathlessly and then stopped because Polly O’Neill’s cheeks had turned as crimson as her dressing gown and her Irish blue eyes were sending forth electric sparks of anger.
“Billy Webster,” she gasped, “I didn’t dream that anything in the world could have made you do so ungentlemanly a thing as to disturb us in this fashion at such an hour of the night. Of course I have never liked you very much or thought you had really good manners, but I didn’t believe – ”
“Stop, will you, and let me explain,” the young man returned, now fully as angry as Polly and in a voice to justify her final accusation. Then he turned courteously toward the young woman who had entered the room soon after Polly. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Dyer,” he continued, “I must have made some stupid mistake, but some little time ago I thought I heard the sound of your alarm bell. It rang only once, so I waited for a little while expecting to hear it again and then I was rather a long time in getting to you through the woods on account of the heavy snow. It is awfully rough on you to have been awakened at such an hour because of my stupidity.”
But Rose Dyer, who was a good deal older than Polly, put out both hands and drew the young man, rather against his will, inside the living room.
“Please come in and get warm and dry, you know our Camp Fire is never allowed to go out, and please do not apologize for your kindness in coming to our aid.” She lighted the candles, giving Polly a chance to make her own confession. Though looking only a girl herself she was in reality the new guardian of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.
Polly, however, did not seem to be enthusiastic over her opportunity to announce that she had been responsible for the alarm bell which had brought their visitor forth on such an arduous tramp. Billy Webster was of course their nearest neighbor, as his father owned most of the land in their vicinity, still the farm house itself was a considerable distance away. And to make matters worse the young man was too deeply offended by Polly’s reception of him to give even a glance in her direction.
Polly coughed several times and then opened her mouth to speak, but Billy was staring into the fire poking at the logs with his wet boot. Rose had disappeared toward the kitchen to get their visitor something to eat as a small expression of their gratitude.
Unexpectedly the young man felt some one pulling at the back of his coat and turning found himself again facing Polly, whose cheeks were quite as red as they had been at the time of his arrival, but whose eyes were shining until their color seemed to change as frequently as a wind swept sky.
“Mr. William Daniel Webster,” she began in a small crushed voice, “there are certain persons in this world who seem preordained to put me always in the wrong. You are one of them! I rang that bell because I thought my beloved Betty and Esther were lost in the storm, but they weren’t, and then I forgot all about having rung it. So now I am overcome with embarrassment and shame and regret and any other humiliating emotion you would like to have me feel. But really, Billy,” and here Polly extended her thin hand, which always had a curious warmth and intensity in keeping with her temperament, “can’t you see how hard it is to like a person who is always making one eat humble pie?”
Billy took the proffered hand and shook it with a forgiving strength that made the girl wince though nothing in her manner betrayed it.
“Oh, cut that out, Miss Polly O’Neill,” he commanded in the confused manner that Polly’s teasing usually induced in him. “It’s a whole lot rottener to be apologized to than it is to have to apologize, and it is utterly unnecessary this evening because, though, of course, I didn’t know you had rung the alarm bell, I did know if there was trouble at Sunrise cabin you were sure to be in it.”
And, as Polly accepted this assertion with entire amiability, ten minutes afterward she and their chaperon were both offering their visitor hot chocolate and biscuits to fortify him for the journey home. In order to make him feel entirely comfortable Polly also devoured an equal amount of the refreshments, not because she was given to self-sacrifice but because uneasiness about her friends had made her forget to eat her supper.
CHAPTER III
“A Rose of the World”
However much of a fairy Princess Betty Ashton’s friends may have considered her, Sunrise cabin had not arisen like “Aladdin’s Wonderful Palace” in a single night, although six months would seem a short enough time in which to see one’s dream come true. Particularly a dream which in the beginning had appeared to have no chance of ever becoming a reality.
For in the first place “The Lady of the Hills,” Miss McMurtry, on that very afternoon when coming across the fields to the Camp Fire she had there been told of the plan for keeping the Sunrise Camp Fire club together for the winter, had not approved the idea. The country would certainly be too cold and too lonely for the girls and the getting back and forth from the cabin to school too difficult. Fathers and mothers could never be persuaded to approve and, moreover, there would be no guardian, since Miss McMurtry could not attend to her work at the High School and also look after a permanent winter camp fire.
In a measure of course even the greatest enthusiasts for the new idea had known that there might be just these same difficulties to be overcome. Yet in conference they had decided to meet the obstacles one by one and in turn by following the old axiom of not climbing fences before coming to them. So as the money for building the cabin was a first necessity Betty Ashton had written at once to her brother Dick. Sylvia Wharton had seen her father, who had in September returned to Woodford, and Polly and Mollie had sent off appealing letters to Ireland asking for their mother’s approval and whatever small sum of money they might be allowed to contribute. Indeed each Sunrise Camp girl had met the demands of the situation in the best way she knew how. But really, although help and interest developed in various directions, once the business of building the cabin had been fairly started, it was from Richard Ashton that the first real aid and encouragement came. For Dick was a student in the modern school of medical science which believes in fresh air, exercise and congenial work as a cure for most ills instead of the old-time methods of pills and poultices, and having seen the benefit of a summer camp upon twelve girls he had faith enough for the winter experiment. Besides this plan had appeared to him as a solution for certain personal problems which had been worrying him for a number of weeks. His father and mother were not returning to America this fall as they had expected, since Mr. Ashton’s health required a milder climate than New Hampshire. It had seemed almost impossible for Dick to give up the graduating year of his study of medicine in Dartmouth in order to come home to Woodford to look after his sister and her friend, Esther Clark, who rather, through force of circumstances, appeared now to be Betty’s permanent companion.
So an offering from Dick Ashton with Betty’s fifty dollars, which had been returned to her by Polly O’Neill, had actually laid the foundation of Sunrise Cabin, although every single member of the club gave something big or little so that the house might belong alike to them all. As Esther and Nan Graham had no money of their own and Edith Norton very little and no parents able to help, the three girls added their portions by doing work for their friends in the village which they had learned in their summer camp fire. At last they were able to stock the new kitchen with almost a complete set of new kitchen utensils, the summer ones having suffered from continuous outdoor use.
Of course all the summer club members could not share the winter housekeeping scheme, but that did not affect their interest nor desire to help. Meg and “Little Brother” to everybody’s despair had to return home, since with John leaving for college, that same fall, their professor father could not live or keep house without them. But then they were to be allowed to come out to the cabin each Friday for week ends, and Edith Norton, whose work in the millinery