A Campfire Girls First Council Fire | Page 8

girls would have slept well
that night; they were too tired to do anything else. It was long after
midnight, and both had been through enough to exhaust them. The
sense of peace and safety that they found in this refuge in the woods
more than made up for the strangeness of their surroundings, and when
they awoke the sun was high. It was the sound of singing in the sweet,
fresh voices of girls that aroused them in the end. And Bessie, the first
to wake up, aroused Zara, and then peeped from the door of the cabin.
There on the beach, their hair spread out in the sun, were half a dozen
girls in bathing dresses. Beside them were a couple of canoes, drawn up
on the beach, and they were laughing and singing merrily as they dried
their hair. Looking over across the lake, in the direction of the fire she
had seen the night before, Bessie saw that it was still burning. A pillar
of smoke rose straight in the still air, and beyond it, gleaming among
the trees, Bessie saw the white sides of three or four tents. Astonished,
she called Zara.
"They're not from around here, Zara," she whispered, not ready yet for
the strangers to discover her. "Girls around here don't swim--it's only
the boys who do that."
"I'll bet they're from the city and here on a vacation," said Zara.
"They look awful happy, Zara. Isn't that lady with the brown hair pretty?
And she's older than the rest, too. You can see that, can't you?"
"Listen, Bessie! She just called one of the girls. And did you hear what
she called her? Minnehaha--that's a funny name, isn't it?"
"It's an Indian name, Zara. It means Laughing Water. That's the name
of the girl that Hiawatha loved, in the poem. I've read that, haven't
you?"
"I've never been able to read very much, Bessie. But that girl isn't an
Indian. She's ever so much lighter than I am--she's as fair as you. And

Indians are red, aren't they?"
"She's not an Indian, Zara. That's right enough. It must be some sort of
a game. Oh, listen!"
For the older girl, the one Zara had pointed out, had spied Bessie's
peeping face suddenly.
"Look, girls!" she cried, pointing.
And then, without a word of signal all the girls suddenly broke out into
a song--a song Bessie had never heard before.
"Wohelo for aye, Wohelo for aye, Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for aye;
Wohelo for work, Wohelo for health, Wohelo, Wohelo, Wohelo for
love!"
As they ended the song, all the girls, with laughing faces, followed the
eyes of their leader and looked at Bessie, who, frightened at first when
she saw that she had been discovered, now returned the look shyly.
There was something so kind, so friendly, about the manner of these
strange girls that her fear had vanished.
"Won't you come out and talk to us?" asked the leader of the crowd.
She came forward alone toward the door of the cabin, looking at Bessie
with interest.
"My name is Wanaka--that is, my Camp Fire name," said the stranger.
"We are Manasquan Camp Fire Girls, you know, and we've been
camping out by this lake. Do you live here?"
"No--not exactly, ma'am," said Bessie, still a little shy.
"Then you must be camping out, too? It's fun, isn't it? But you're not
alone, are you? Didn't I see another head peeping out?"
"That's Zara. She's my friend, and she's with me," said Bessie. "And my
name's Bessie King."

She looked curiously at Wanaka. Bessie had never heard of the Camp
Fire Girls, and the great movement they had begun, meant to do for
American girls what the Boy Scout movement had begun so well for
their brothers.
"Well, won't you and Zara spend the day with us, if you are by
yourselves?" asked Wanaka. "We'll take you over to camp in the
canoes, and you can have dinner with us. We're going back now to
cook it. The other girls have begun to prepare it already."
"Oh, we'd like to!" cried Bessie. "I'm awfully hungry--and I'm sure
Zara is, too."
Bessie hadn't meant to say that. But the thought of a real meal had been
too much for her.
"Hungry!" cried Wanaka. "Why, haven't you had breakfast? Did you
oversleep?"
She looked about curiously. And Bessie saw that she could not deceive
this tall, slim girl, with the wise eyes that seemed to see everything.
"We--we haven't anything to eat," she said. And suddenly she was
overcome with the thought of how hard things were going to be,
especially for Zara, and tears filled her eyes.
"You shall tell me all about it afterwards," said Wanaka, with decision.
"Just now you've got to come