The Camp Fire Girls in the Woods | Page 2

She made no answer, and Mrs. Hoover, still
scowling, finally went off.
As if that has been a signal, another girl appeared suddenly from the
back of the woodshed. She was as dark as Bessie was fair, a
mischievous, black-eyed girl, who danced like a sprite as she
approached Bessie. Her brown legs were bare, her dress was even more
worn and far dingier than Bessie's, which was clean and neat. She was
smiling as Bessie saw her.
"Oh, Zara, aren't you afraid to come here?" said Bessie, alarmed,
although Zara was her best and almost her only friend. "You know
what she said she'd do if she ever caught you around here again?'
"Yes, I know," said Zara, seating herself on a stump and swinging her
legs to and fro, after she had kissed Bessie, still laughing. "I'm not
afraid of her, though, Bessie. She'd never catch me -- she can't run fast
enough! And if she ever touched me -- "
The smile vanished suddenly from Zara's olive skinned face. Her eyes
gleamed.
"She'd better look out for herself!" she said. "She wouldn't do it again!"
"Oh, Zara, it's wrong to talk that way," said Bessie. "She's been good to
me. She's looked after me all this time -- and when I was sick she was
ever so nice to me -- "
"Pooh!" said Zara. "Oh, I know I'm not good and sweet like you, Bessie!
The teacher says that's why the nice girls won't play with me. But it
isn't. I know -- and it's the same way with you. If we had lots of money
and pretty clothes and things like the rest of them, they wouldn't care.
Look at you! You're nicer than any of them, but they don't have any
more to do with you than with me. It's because we're poor."
"I don't believe it's that, Zara. They know that I haven't got time to play
with them, and that I can't ask them here, or go to their houses if they
ask me. Some time -- "

"You're too good, Bessie. You never get angry at all. You act as if you
ought to be grateful to Maw Hoover for looking after you. Don't she
make you work like a hired girl, and pay you nothin' for it? You work
all the time -- she'd have to pay a hired girl good wages for what you do,
and treat her decently, beside. You're so nice that everyone picks on
you, just 'cause they know they can do it and you won't hit back."
Glad of a chance to rest a little, Bessie had stopped her work to talk to
Zara, and neither of the two girls heard a stealthy rustling among the
leaves back of the woodshed, nor saw a grinning face that appeared
around the corner. The first warning that they had that they were not
alone came when a long arm reached out suddenly and a skinny,
powerful hand grasped Zara's arm and dragged her from her perch.
"Caught ye this time, ain't I?" said the owner of the hand and arm,
appearing from around the corner of the shed. "My, but Maw'll pickle
yer when she gits hold of yer!"
"Jake Hoover!" exclaimed Bessie, indignantly. "You big sneak, you!
Let her go this instant! Aren't you ashamed of yourself, hurtin' her like
that?"
Zara, caught off her guard, had soon collected herself, and begun to
struggle in his grasp like the wild thing she was. But Jake Hoover only
laughed, leering at the two girls. He was a tall, lanky, overgrown boy of
seventeen, and he was enjoying himself thoroughly. He seemed to have
inherited all his mother's meanness of disposition and readiness to find
fault and to take delight in the unhappiness of others. Now, as Zara
struggled, he twisted her wrist to make her stop, and only laughed at
her cries of pain.
"Let her go! She isn't hurting you!" begged Bessie. "Please, Jake, if you
do, I'll help you do your chores tonight -- I will, indeed!"
"You'll have to do 'em anyhow," said Jake, still holding poor Zara. "I've
got a dreadful headache. I'm too sick to do any work tonight."
He made a face that he thought was comical. Zara, realizing that she

was helpless against his greater strength, had stopped struggling, and he
turned on her suddenly with a vicious glare.
"I know why you're hangin' 'round here," he said. "They took that
worthless critter you call your paw off to jail jest now -- and you're
tryin' to steal chickens till he comes out."
"That ain't true!" she exclaimed. "My father never stole anything.
They're just picking on him because he's a foreigner and can't talk as
well as some of them --