The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill

The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise
Hill
by Margaret Vandercook

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill
by Margaret Vandercook Copyright laws are changing all over the
world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before
downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg
eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill
Author: Margaret Vandercook

Release Date: August, 2005 [EBook #8662] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 30,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMP FIRE
GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL ***

Produced by John Pobuda

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SUNRISE HILL
By Margaret Vandercook
First of a series
CHAPTER I
THE VOICE
Betty Ashton sighed until the leaves of the book she held in her hand
quivered, then she flung it face downward on the floor.
"Oh dear, I do wish some one would invent something new for girls!"
she exclaimed, although there was no one in the room to hear her. "It
seems to me that all girls do nowadays is to imitate boys. We play their
games, read their old books and even do their work, when all the time
girls are really wanting girl things. I agree with King Solomon: 'The
thing that hath been, it is that which, shall be; and that which is done is
that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun.' At
least not for girls!"

Then with a laugh at her own pessimism, Betty, like Hamlet, having
found relief in soliloquy, jumped up from her chair and crossing her
room pressed the electric button near the fireplace until the noise of its
ringing reverberated through the big, quiet house.
"There, that ought to bring some one to me at last," she announced.
"Three times have I rung that bell and yet no one has answered. Do the
maids in this house actually expect me to build my own fire? I suppose
I could do it if I tried."
She glanced at the pile of kindling inside her wood box and then at the
sweet smelling pine logs standing nearby, but the thought of actually
doing something for herself must have struck her as impossible, for the
next moment she turned with a shiver to stare through the glass of her
closed window, first up toward the sullen May sky and then down into
her own garden.
Outside the gray clouds were slowly pursuing one another against a
darker background and in the garden the lilacs having just opened their
white and purple blossoms were now looking pale and discouraged as
though born too soon into a world that was failing to appreciate them.
In spite of her petulance Betty laughed. She was wearing a blue
dressing gown and her red-brown hair was caught back with a velvet
ribbon of the same shade. Her room was in blue, "Betty's Blue" as her
friends used to call it, the color that is neither light nor dark, but has
soft shadows in it.
Betty herself was between fifteen and sixteen. She had gray eyes, a
short, straight nose and her head, which was oddly square, conveyed an
effect of refinement that was almost disdain. Her mouth was a little
discontented and somehow she gave one the impression that, though
she had most of the things other girls wish for, she was still seeking for
something.
"The outdoors is as dismal as I am, no wonder we used to be sun
worshipers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting; "but since
Prometheus stole the fire from heaven some ages ago, I really don't see

why I should have to freeze because the sun won't shine."
Frowning and gathering her dressing gown more closely about her with
another impatient gesture, Betty swept out into the hall.
The house was strangely silent for the middle of a week-day afternoon;
not a sound came either from below stairs or above, not the rattle of a
window