The Girl Scout Pioneers | Page 6

a risky flourish of her red tie, a hop, skip and a jump,
the Tenderfoot pranced across the big green schoolyard, in a fashion
that belied her limitations on the tenderfoot basis.
"Yes, I'll go," Cleo was agreeing, "but I am afraid we can't get Captain
Clark. I know she is going out to Kingsley to form a troop. Maybe we
can get Lieutenant Lindsley. She is free from Normal at four. They

have a lecture after two-thirty almost every day."
"Oh, Lieutenant Lindsley would be lots of fun. She knows everything
in hill and dale, and is not afraid of snakes or cows. But do you think
we should notify the other girls? It is rather hard to get in touch with
them in time," Grace ranted on.
By this time Margaret and Madaline had joined the group, and now all
the scouts in seventh and eighth grammar grades were discussing plans
for the precipitous hike. There were Mable Blake, also a tenderfoot,
Adaline Alien and Mildred Clark, second grades, and the McKay twins,
first class scouts. All of these willingly agreed to make the foot trip out
to the Falls.
The afternoon school session received scant attention from the
prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in the
prospects of a spring afternoon in the woods.
So interested were Grace and Madaline they exchanged preparatory
notes in the five minute rest period, although that time was set aside for
real relaxation, and no one was supposed to use eyes or fingers during
the short rest.
When school was finally dismissed the girls arranged to pass the homes
of most of the group, as many of them lived on the same Oakley
Avenue, and thus notify parents of their scout plans for the hike, and
when Lieutenant Lindsley was eventually picked up from the practicing
department of the Normal School, the ranks were filled, and the hike
moved off towards the River Road.
It was a glorious afternoon, in late April. The peach blossoms were just
breaking into pink puff balls, and the pear trees were burdened with a
crop of spring "snow," fragrant in their whitest of dainty blossoms.
But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the joyous,
happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more noisy town
streets, into the highways and byways of the long green stretch of
country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on its border.

"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't care
just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am called up to
take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in daylight, so beware!
I may do something very desperate and rash this afternoon."
"Spare us," pleaded Madaline. "I have seen some of our courage
worked out in the woods before. Remember the time you nearly set fire
to the river? Well, don't, please, go try anything like that today."
"No, it must be something for which I should receive a badge of
courage, if I were in the first class. I want to blush with fitting modesty
when Captain Clark invests me with the next degree, and I shall only
blush when reminded of my noble deed this afternoon."
"Since you are not particular about what deed shall be the noble one,
won't you just give me a hand, and help me save this heel of mine from
a blistering shoe? The shoe was all right in school, but just now it has
picked up a snag, somehow, and between the shoe and the snag, my life
is not worth living."
"Poor Madie," soothed her chum. "Let us sit right down here and
diagnose the case. I'm first rate at diagnosing anything but why my
bureau can't stay fixed. It has chronic upsettedness, and all my
operations are of no avail. There go the girls down into the hazel nut
gully. Let's sit on this lovely mossy couch, and look after the heel.
Doesn't moss grow beautifully smooth under the cedars? I wonder how
it ever gets so velvety?"
At the twined and natural woven seat, wrought from the uncovered
roots of a great hemlock, the girls caressed and patted the velvet moss
that formed a veritable carpet--no--it was softer than carpet, a silken
velvet throw, over a natural cedar divan. Even the suffering heel was
forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in green, with the darker green
canopy of cedars, and the music of a running river at the foot of the
sloping hill. Here the scent of watercress vied with the hemlock and
cedar, for its place as nature's perfume, and only such mingling of wild
ferns, trailing arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could produce
the aroma of