The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill | Page 4

what you want. I know very well. But can't I do something for you now? Your mother said you were not well and perhaps would not wish to see me this afternoon, but I could read to you or--"
Betty's irritability returned. "Thank you very much," she returned coldly, "but I can think of nothing in the world that would amuse me at present. I simply wish not to freeze, and to save my life I can't get one of our tiresome maids to answer my bell."
Betty's grand manner had returned, but in spite of her haughtiness the newcomer persisted. "Do let me make the fire for you. I am only a wood- gatherer at present, but pretty soon I shall be a real fire-maker, for I have already been working for two months."
"A wood-gatherer and fire-maker; what extraordinary things a girl was forced to become at an orphan asylum!" Betty's sympathies were immediately aroused and her cheeks burned with resentment at the sudden vision of this girl at her side trudging through the woods, her back bent under heavy burdens. No wonder her shoulders stooped and her hands were coarse. Betty slipped her arm through the stranger's.
"No, I won't trouble you to make my fire, but do come into my room and let us just talk. None of my friends have been in to see me this afternoon, not even the faithless Polly! They are too busy getting ready for the end of school to think about poor, ill me." And Betty laughed gayly at the untruthfulness of this picture of herself.
Once inside the blue room, without asking permission, Esther knelt straightway down before the brass andirons and with deft fingers placed a roll of twisted paper under a lattice-like pile of kindling, arranging three small pine logs in a triangle above it. But before setting a match to the paper she turned toward the other girl hovering about her like a butterfly.
"I wonder if you would like me to recite the fire-maker's song?" she asked. "I haven't the right to say it yet, but it is so lovely that I would like you to hear it."
Betty stared and laughed. "Do fire-makers have songs?" she demanded. "How queer that sounds! Perhaps the Indians used to have fire songs long ago when a fire really meant so much. But I can't imagine a maid's chanting a song before one's fire in the morning and I don't think I should like being wakened up by it."
"You would like this one," the other girl persisted.
Little yellow spurts of flame were now creeping forth from between the sticks, some leaping away into nothingness, others curling and enfolding them. The paper in the grate crackled noisily as the cold May wind swept down the chimney with a defiant roar and both girls silently watched the newly kindled fire with the fascination that is eternal.
Betty had also dropped down on her knees. "What is your song?" she asked curiously an instant later, raising her hands before her face to let the firelight shine through.
Esther's head was bent so that her face could not be seen, but the beauty of her speech was reflected in the other girl's changing expression.
"As fuel is brought to the fire, So I purpose to bring My strength, my ambition, My heart's desire, My joy And my sorrow To the fire Of humankind."
Purposely Esther's voice dropped with these last words, and she did not continue until a hand was placed gently on her shoulder and a voice urged: "Please go on; what is the 'fire of humankind'?"
"For I will tend As my fathers have tended And my fathers' fathers Since time began, The fire that is called The love of man for man, The love of man for God."
At the end, Esther glancing around at the girl beside her was surprised to see a kind of mist over her gray eyes.
But Betty laughed as she got up to her feet and going over to her table stooped to pick up the book she had thrown on the floor half an hour before.
"I might have made my own fire if I had known that song," she said, switching on the electric light under the rose-colored shade. For the clouds outside had broken at last, the rain was pouring and the blue room save for the firelight would have been in darkness.
Betty sat down, putting her 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