The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill | Page 5

feet under her and resting her chin on her
hands. "I wonder what it feels like to be useful?" she asked, evidently
questioning herself, for afterwards she turned toward her companion.
"You must have learned a great many things by being brought up at an
orphan asylum, how to care for, other people and all that, but I never
would have dreamed that poetry would have played any part in your
education."
Esther had turned and was about to leave the room, but now at Betty's
words, she looked at her strangely.
Her face had reddened again and because of the intensity of her
feelings her big hands were once more pressed nervously together.
"Why, no, I never learned anything at the asylum but work," she
answered slowly, "just dull, hateful, routine work; doing the same

things over again every day in the same way, cooking and washing
dishes and scrubbing. I suppose I was being useful, but there isn't much
fun in being useful when nobody cares or seems to be helped by what
you do. I know I am ugly and not clever, but I love beautiful people
and, beautiful things."
Unconsciously her glance traveled from her listener's face to the small
piano in the corner of the room. "And it never seemed to me that things,
were divided quite fairly in this world, but now that I know about the
Camp Fire, Girls I am ever so much happier."
"Camp Fire Girls?" Betty queried. "Do sit down, child, I don't wish you
to leave me, and please don't say horrid things about yourself, for it
isn't polite and you never can tell how things are going to turn out. But
who are the Camp Fire Girls; what are the Camp Fire Girls; are they
Indians or Esquimaux or the fire-maidens in 'The Nibelungen'? Perhaps,
after all, something new has been invented for girls, and a little while
ago I felt as discouraged as King Solomon and believed there was
nothing new and nothing worth while under the sun."
Betty's eyes were dancing with fun and anticipation, her bored look had
entirely disappeared, but the other girl evidently took her question
seriously. She had seated herself in a small desk chair and kept her eyes
fixed on the fire. "It seems very queer to me that you don't know about
the 'Camp Fire Girls'," she answered slowly, "and it may take me a long
time to tell you even the little bit I know, but I think it the most
splendid thing that has ever happened."
CHAPTER II
"METHINKS YOU ARE MY GLASS"
Just across the street from the old Ashton place was another house
equally old and yet wholly unlike it, for instead of being a stately,
well-kept-up mansion with great rooms and broad halls and half an acre
of garden about it, this was a cottage of the earliest New England type.
It was low and rambling, covering a good deal of ground and yet
without any porch and very little yard, because as the village closed

about it and Elm Street became a fashionable quarter the land had been
gradually sold until now its white picket fence was only a dozen feet
from the front door and passers-by could easily have looked inside its
parlor windows save for the tall bushes that served as a shield. By
immemorial custom the cottage had always been painted white and
green, but for a good many years it had not been troubled by any paint
at all, "but had lived," as Polly said, "on its past, and like a good many
persons in Woodford had gotten considerably run down by the
process."
Now there were no lights at any of the front windows, although it was
eight o'clock in the evening, but as the warm steady glow of a lamp
shone from the rear of the house, it was plainly occupied.
There was no doubt of this in the mind of the girl who stood knocking
noisily at the closed door, saying in an imploring voice:
"Oh, do please hurry, Polly dear, you know it is only me and that I can't
bear to be kept waiting."
At this moment a candle was evidently being borne down the hall, for
the door opened so quickly afterwards that two girls, one on either side
the door, fell into, one another's arms.
"Dear me, it's 'The Princess' and she is no more ill than I am, though we
were told she couldn't possibly be at school to-day on account of her ill
health," the girl on the inside spoke first, recovering her breath. "I
suppose royal persons may lie abed and nurse their dispositions, while
poor ones have to keep on washing dishes. But come on into the
kitchen, Betty, we are