The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm | Page 2

Weeks, who tried so hard to make you stay behind and work for him, is at the bottom of all the trouble."
Zara shuddered at the name.
"How I hate that Farmer Weeks!" she exclaimed.
Eleanor Mercer sighed and shook her head. She couldn't blame Zara for hating the man, and yet, as she well knew, the spirit in the little foreign girl that cherished hatred and ideas of revenge was bad--bad for her. But how to eradicate it, and to make Zara feel more charitable, was something that puzzled the Guardian mightily, was, as she foresaw, likely to puzzle her still more. She left the two girls together, then, to answer a call from outside the room.
"I don't exactly like Farmer Weeks myself," said Bessie, thoughtfully, when they were alone. "But what's the use of hating him, Zara?"
"Why, Bessie! He made us run away from Hedgeville--he made me anyhow. And if he'd had his way, he'd have taken me back, and had me bound over to work for him just for board until I was twenty-one, if I hadn't starved to death first. You know what a miser he is."
"Yes, that's true enough, Zara. But, after all, if it hadn't happened that way, we'd never have met Miss Eleanor and the Camp Fire Girls, would we? And you're not sorry for that, are you?"
Zara's face, which had grown hard, softened.
"No, indeed, Bessie! They're the nicest people I ever did know, except you. But, even after we were with them, and had started to come to the city with them, he caught me, and if it hadn't been for you following us and guessing where he'd put me, I'd be with him now."
"Well, you're not, Zara. And you want to try to think of the good things that happen. Then you won't have time to remember all the bad things, and they won't bother you any more than if they'd never happened at all. Don't you see!"
"Well, I'll try, Bessie. I guess they can't hurt us here, anyhow, or on the farm. I think we're going to have lots of fun on the farm."
"I hope so, Zara. But I've often read about how jolly farms are--in books. In the books, you don't have to get up at four o'clock on the cold winter mornings to do chores, and you don't have to work all the time, the way I had to do for Maw Hoover."
"I guess that was just because it was Maw Hoover, Bessie, and not because it was on a farm. She'd have been mean to you, and made you work all the time, just the same, if it had been a farm or wherever it was. I think it's people that make you happy or unhappy, not other things."
"I guess that's about right, Zara. I'm awfully glad you're going to see your father in the morning. I bet he'll be glad to see you."
"Bessie! Zara!" Miss Eleanor was calling from downstairs, and they ran to answer the call.
"Come into the parlor," she said, as she heard them approaching.
They obeyed, and found her talking to a tall, good looking young man, who smiled cheerfully at them.
"This is my cousin, Charlie Jamieson, the lawyer, girls," said Miss Eleanor. "I've told him all about you, of course, and now he wants to talk to you."
"I'm going to be your lawyer, you know," Charlie Jamieson explained. "Girls like you don't have much use for a lawyer, as a rule, but I guess you need one about as badly as anyone I can think of. So I'm going to take the job, unless you know someone better."
"No, indeed," they chorused in answer, and both laughed when they saw that he was joking.
"I wish about a thousand other people were as anxious as that to be my clients. Then maybe I'd make enough money to pay my office rent."
"Don't you believe him, girls," said Eleanor, laughing, too. "He's one of the smartest young lawyers in this town, and he's busy most of the time, too. He always is, lately, when I want him to come to one of my parties or anything like that."
"Well, let's be serious for a while," said Jamieson. "I'm going to try to help your father out of his trouble, Zara, and I'm finding it pretty hard, because he doesn't want to trust me, or tell me much of anything. Perhaps you'll be able to do better."
Zara looked grave.
"I don't know much," she said. "But I do know this. My father used to trust people, but they've treated him so badly that he's afraid to do it any more. Like Farmer Weeks--I think' he trusted him."
"That's more than I'd do," said the lawyer, with a grin, "From all I've heard of him I wouldn't trust him around the corner with a counterfeit