From Tenderfoot to Golden Eaglet

BOOKS BY
AMY E. BLANCHARD

IN THE GIRLS’ BOOKSHELF

A GIRL OF ’76. A Story of the Early Period of the War for Independence. 331 pages.

ELIZABETH, BETSY AND BESS. A Story. 284 pages.

ELIZABETH, BETSY AND BESS—SCHOOLMATES. A Story. 308 pages.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS OF BRIGHTWOOD. A Story of How They Kindled Their Fire and Kept It Burning. 309 pages.

FAGOTS AND FLAMES. A Story of Winter Camp Fires. 306 pages.

IN CAMP WITH THE MUSKODAY CAMP FIRE GIRLS. A Story of Summer Camp Fires by Cabin and Lake. 310 pages.

A GIRL SCOUT OF RED ROSE TROOP. A Story for Girl Scouts. 320 pages.

A LITTLE MAID OF PICARDY. Story of a Little Refugee in France. 338 pages.

LUCKY PENNY OF THISTLE TROOP. A Girl Scout Story. 320 pages.

FROM TENDERFOOT TO GOLDEN EAGLET. A Girl Scout Story. 317 pages.

Each illustrated by Colored Frontispiece and with
Colored Jacket.
Cloth Bound. Price, $1.75 net each.
Also Books in the AMERICAN GIRL SERIES.

From Tenderfoot to
Golden Eaglet

A GIRL SCOUT STORY

By
AMY E. BLANCHARD
Author of “A Girl Scout of Red Rose Troop,”
“Lucky Penny of Thistle Troop,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK T. MERRILL

W. A. WILDE COMPANY
BOSTON CHICAGO

Copyrighted, 1921,
By Amy E. Blanchard
All rights reserved
From Tenderfoot to Golden Eaglet

Foreword

THE increasing numbers of Girl Scouts all over the country leads to an increasing demand for information about them. It is sometimes from rather unpromising material that a good scout is made. To demonstrate this, to show what benefits come from obeying the laws, to encourage girls who are but half-hearted scouts, and to prove that none need fail of becoming a Golden Eaglet who is faithful to her set purpose, this story of Joanne Selden is written.

A. E. B.

Contents

From Tenderfoot to
Golden Eaglet

CHAPTER I
THE STOWAWAY

JOANNE was leaning on the deck’s rail watching the loading of freight. The black, perspiring men made much ado about it, and Joanne did not much wonder, for it seemed heavy work. She was not particularly interested in the boxes and bales, but presently she did see something which specially attracted her attention, and she leaned far over the rail to catch a last glimpse of a little black pony which came along with a dash once he gained his footing.

“Take care, Joanne,” her grandmother called from her steamer chair in which she was already established, “don’t lean over too far.”

Joanne came back to the perpendicular. “Oh, but Gradda, you should have seen the darling pony that just came aboard; he was so much more interesting than all those bunches of bananas and crates of stuff. At first he didn’t want to come and planted his feet as stubbornly as a mule with his head up and ears back; that was when they put him on the barge to bring him to the steamer; then they hoisted him up by a strap over the side. He must have been scared, poor dear, but now he is safe, I hope. He is such a darling little fellow, bigger than a Shetland, but rough like one.”

“Why didn’t you call me to see all this?” asked her grandmother.

“Why, I was so excited and so afraid I would miss something that I forgot. I wish I had a pony like that.”

“You couldn’t ride it, my dear, if you had.”

“But I could learn. Whose is it, do you suppose? I wonder if it is going to a new home and if its people are on board. I’m going to ask the captain when I get acquainted with him. There is a lot of freight, isn’t there? I don’t suppose we can start till it is all on board.”

“We needn’t have come down so soon,” remarked Mrs. Selden, “but that is just the way at the small ports; it takes forever to get ready to start. Probably we shall be here the rest of the day. You’d better sit down and rest, Joanne, and not wear yourself out by rushing around.”

“But, Gradda, there are hours and hours ahead when there will be nothing to do but rest; I shall get too much rested.”

“Well, don’t get overheated,” charged Mrs. Selden as she watched the slim little figure return to her place at the rail.

A pale, thin, dark-haired, dark-eyed little person was Joanne, possessed of an exuberance of spirit and an enthusiasm which often outran her strength, so that her grandmother was continually curbing the excess of energy.

Presently she returned from her point of lookout to say: “I’m going to hunt up Grad. He can find out whose is the pony.”

“Don’t get into mischief,” warned Mrs. Selden, picking up the book lying open in her lap.

“I won’t,” returned Joanne dashing off.

She met her grandfather on the stairway. He had an open paper in his hand, and looked a little troubled although there was a smile hovering about his lips. “Well, Pickings,” he began—one of his names for Joanne was Slim Pickings, shortened to Pickings—“where are you bound?”

“Just going to hunt you up, Grad,” answered Joanne. “I want you to find out who that darling pony belongs to.”

Her grandfather puckered up his lips in a whimsical way. “I don’t believe any one can tell you better than I can.”

“Oh, but why do you say that? Please tell me.”

Her grandfather made no direct answer, but asked, “Where is your grandmother?”

“Out there on deck in a steamer chair.”

“Come along and let’s find her.”

Joanne linked her arm in her grandfather’s and together they appeared before Mrs. Selden. She looked up with a smile. “Well, doctor,” she began.

He dropped in her lap the open paper he had been holding. “What do you make out of that, madam?” he asked.

She bent her gaze upon it, then looked up with a puzzled smile. “What’s it all about, Gregory?” she inquired. “I can’t quite make it out. My Spanish might be up to it, but the handwriting baffles me.”

Dr. Selden settled himself in the chair by her side and took possession of the paper again. “Well, it seems that I am responsible for one more passenger than I bargained for.”

“What do you mean?” asked his wife.

The doctor spread out the paper on his knee and ran over the contents in glib Spanish, Joanne leaning on his shoulder the while.

Before he reached the last line she cried out excitedly: “The pony! the pony! That is what jaco means, isn’t it? Not the little black pony, Grad, not that, is it? Oh, Grad, did he give it to you?” She plumped down on her grandfather’s knee and tried to take the paper from him.

“Here, here, miss, go slow,” he cried. “That document is not for you. Now keep still while I explain. You remember that man Paulino Lopez whose son I doctored? Of course I couldn’t take any fee for a thing like that, but that does not suit my friend Lopez, so here comes this note, to the Señor Doctor, with the pony begging that I will accept the gift from my ‘grateful servant, Paulino Lopez de Machorro who kisses my hand.’ He has raised the little beast from a colt, it seems, and when I went to his house offered it to me with his house and all his possessions. Knowing the Spanish habit of placing one’s entire establishment at the disposal of the merest acquaintance, I refused to accept, which was the proper thing to do. He placed himself at my feet theoretically; I answered in kind and I supposed that was the last of it. But, no, here comes this; the pony is below, the man who brought him has returned and here am I in a quandary. Now, what in the mischief is to be done? We have no stable in Washington and who would look after him? I don’t see how we are to keep him.”

“Of course we can’t,” agreed Mrs. Selden.

Joanne flung herself wildly upon her grandfather. “Oh, please, please,” she cried. “I’ll take care of him; I’ll do anything if you’ll only keep him.”

“You!” exclaimed her grandmother scornfully. “What do you know about horses?”

“But I could, I could. I’d feed him and water him. I’d curry him and I could learn to ride him. Oh, Grad, when kind heaven has sent such a gift like manna from the skies could you have the heart to refuse it?”

“I suppose I shall have to make a pretense of accepting,” responded her grandfather doubtfully. “It would never do to send the creature back. Lopez would be hurt to the core, mortally offended, in fact. He would probably denounce me as one of those boorish Americans who has no idea of courtesy. No, the little beast will have to complete his journey; we can’t pitch him overboard. Meanwhile we’ll decide what is to be done with him. Here, Joanne, don’t make a spectacle of yourself like that. Get up.” For Joanne had prostrated herself in Oriental style at her grandfather’s feet.

She rose, however, at her grandfather’s bidding and went over to her grandmother. “Goodness me, Joanne,” said that lady, “your hands are as cold as ice. I do wish we could keep you from getting so worked up.”

“But who wouldn’t be worked up, when a darling pony is thrust upon one?” argued Joanne.

“You’d be more liable to be worked down in such an event,” remarked her grandfather laughing. “Quiet yourself, Joanne, or I shall have to send you to bed with a hot water bottle.”

“I’m quiet, really I am,” protested Joanne.

“Of course it is an exciting thing for her, you must admit that,” put in Mrs. Selden, taking her granddaughter’s part. “She has every reason to be excited; you would have been at her age. You’re not far from being so now,” she added slyly.

Encouraged by this Joanne put in her plea. “Won’t you take me down where I can see him, Grad?” she begged. “Of course he’s yours not mine, but as he is really one of the family I at least should be introduced to him. I’m afraid he’ll be lonely among entire strangers and we must make him understand that we are his friends.”

“All right,” responded her grandfather, rather glad of an excuse to visit the little charge so unexpectedly placed in his care.

A docile but fine-spirited little creature they found him, already in high favor with the sailors, the stewards and deck hands. He rubbed his nose against Joanne’s shoulder when she spoke caressingly to him, but turned from her with a low whinny when Dr. Selden spoke to him in Spanish. “Chico, chiquita, que bueno jaco,” he said.

“What did you say to him?” queried Joanne all intent.

“I said ‘Little one, what a good little pony.’”

“I believe he understood. You must teach me to say that to him. I mean to learn more Spanish; yes, I intend to be very proficient.”

Satisfied that they were leaving the pony in good hands the two went up on deck again. Before long the last lighter was relieved of its freight and soon the vessel was plowing through the blue waters leaving adobe houses and waving palmettos behind them. Joanne watched the little port fade from sight in a flare of sunset light, and then gave her attention to her fellow passengers whom she had scarcely noted before.

Her grandfather, a retired surgeon of the navy, her grandmother, a dainty little body, with Joanne, their only grandchild, had been spending the winter in the West Indies where they had gone mainly for Joanne’s health. She was a frail child from the first. Her father had died in the Philippines, her mother, none too robust, soon followed him, and the little girl was taken in charge by her grandparents who doted on her, but were perhaps a little over anxious and over particular, so that she was never allowed to rough it and knew little of the outdoor sports which most girls enjoy. She had studied at home with a governess, losing much time because of real or fancied illness, yet she had picked up much information from a grandfather who had travelled all over the world and knew many things not taught in books. By reading much Joanne had gained more knowledge, so she was by no means an ignorant young person in spite of having studied few school books.

Restless child that she was she paid many visits to the little pony between the time the vessel left her port and the following morning, sometimes alone, sometimes in her grandfather’s company. Between whiles she took careful survey of her fellow passengers hoping to see some one her own age of whom she could make a companion, but all appeared to be much younger or much older. The nearest approach to an acquaintance was begun with a lad a little older who smiled genially at her when she paced along the deck with her grandfather or rushed impetuously by herself as she tried to see how many circuits she could make within a given time.

This boy was sitting by a lady whom Joanne had noticed from the first. She, too, had smiled at the little girl who had smiled back. “I like that lady,” she told herself. “She is so handsome and has such kind eyes and such a lovely smile. I’d like to find out who she is. I suppose the boy is her son. I like him, too; he has the same kind of smile. He looks rather serious when the smile flashes out like the sun from under a cloud. I’d like to tell him about the pony.”

But if the arrival of the pony was an exciting incident of the voyage a still greater one occurred the next morning when one of the ship’s officers came to where Joanne was with her grandparents, sitting still for a wonder.

“Dr. Selden?” said the officer.

“I’m the man,” responded Dr. Selden.

“Would you be good enough to come below, sir?”

Up jumped Joanne. “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with the pony, is there?” she cried. “He was all right just after breakfast. I gave him a lump of sugar. I hope it didn’t disagree with him.”

The officer’s grave face relaxed into a smile. “Well, no, I can’t say there is anything wrong with the pony;” he emphasized the last word.

“I’ll come,” said Dr. Selden getting up.

“Oh, please, Grad, I’m coming, too,” declared Joanne.

Her grandfather looked inquiringly at the officer.

“That is as you say, sir,” the man answered the look by saying.

The two men started off, Joanne following close at their heels. She was sure in spite of what the officer said that there was something afoot which concerned the pony even though there might be nothing the matter with his health.

The officer led the way to the captain’s room where, with eyes half frightened, half defiant, stood a begrimed, frowsy, half-clad little lad, mumbling out replies to the captain’s questions.

The captain arose as his visitors came in. “Good-morning, doctor,” he said. “Sorry to trouble you, but we thought you might be able to help us out of a little difficulty. This your granddaughter?”

“My granddaughter, Joanne.”

The captain held out a hearty hand. “Sit down, won’t you?” he said, yielding his chair to Joanne. “I’ve no doubt you’ll be interested in this affair, too. One of our men,” he went on, addressing himself to Dr. Selden, “discovered this boy this morning. He had stowed himself away somewhere in the hold. Do you happen to know him? You speak Spanish, probably.”

“To a certain extent,” Dr. Selden replied looking the lad over critically. “What is your name, muchacho?” he asked in the language mentioned.

“Pablo Lopez,” returned the boy.

“Son of Paulino Lopez?”

“Si, señor.”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, I remember; you are the boy I treated. Why are you here? Why have you run away from home?”

“It is the little pony, señor, the small one who is my always friend. I cannot be apart from him. No, it is not possible, I come that where he go so I. You are so good. I tell myself that the Señor Doctor who was so kind as to take away that agony in the ear he will not send me back; he will permit me to go back with him to take care of Chico.” All this was poured out in voluble Spanish, beseechingly, tearfully.

“Humph!” The doctor looked at the captain. “This is a pretty kettle of fish, isn’t it?” he said. “He’ll have to go back on the next ship, of course. Meanwhile I will be responsible for him. I suppose you can manage to give him a place to sleep and something to eat.”

The captain’s lips relaxed under his short moustache. “I don’t exactly see where you are responsible, doctor,” he remarked, “and of course we can’t let him starve, can we? He can bunk in somewhere; that’s easily arranged. We asked you to see him because we thought you might be able to identify him, as it was your pony he was concerned about. Certainly he must be returned to his parents. You know them?”

“Ye-es, after a fashion,” the doctor replied. “You see I happened to perform a slight service for them. In some way or other a grain of corn had penetrated this boy’s ear and had begun to sprout, causing him intense pain. One of the waiters at the hotel learned that I was a surgeon, informed this Paulino Lopez, who was a relative of his, and they begged that I would see the boy. Out of sheer humanity I couldn’t refuse. I went out to where Lopez lives, extracted the corn and in a few days the boy was all right.” The doctor paused.

“But where does the pony come in?” asked the captain.

“That is the sequel. One is bound to get some sort of boomerang if he is too soft-hearted. I’m not practising, as you know, and anyway I would have no right to take a fee, besides who would for a little thing like that? As I told you I went out to the Lopez ranch, saw a swarm of half naked children and a horde of black workmen. This Lopez insisted upon giving me this pony then and there, since I wouldn’t take a fee. I refused, of course, knowing the Spanish grand manner of offering gifts, but here comes the little beast after all when I have no use for him, and now appears this boy whom we don’t know what to do with. Pretty hard lines, isn’t it, in return for a common, every-day bit of benevolence?”

The doctor was so testy that the captain laughed. “Well,” he said, “some persons might not think so. I’m glad you can tell us something about the boy. I thought maybe you could. We’ll see that he gets back home all right.” He turned to the boy. “You stay on the steamer till we get to New York, then we send you back home by next steamer. Understand?”

The boy looked bewildered, his lips twitched, his hands twisted nervously. He cast an imploring look at Joanne who was observing him closely. His big, mournful eyes questioned her, then he plumped down on his knees before her, pouring forth a string of Spanish, only a little of which she could understand. Still, what she did gather was enough to make her jump up from the chair impetuously and go to her grandfather, clasping his arm till he should interrupt his talk with the captain long enough so that he might listen to her.

“Grad, Grad,” she said excitedly, “you know you said you couldn’t keep Chico, that’s his name, the boy says—you couldn’t keep him because there would be no one to look after him. I said I would, and you laughed. Now, you see, comes this boy in answer to my prayers. He’s just sent from heaven like the pony. I’ve always been perfectly crazy for a pony, and I’ll be ill, I will, I will, if he is torn from me.” She burst into tears.

Her grandfather looked down at the excited face and then passed his hand over the girl’s hair. “What would you do with such a nervous, excitable little body?” he said to the captain, who shook his head as if that were a question he couldn’t answer.

“You said—you said—you’d think it over,” sobbed Joanne, “and here when everything arranges itself so wonderfully you turn a deaf ear to my plea.”

The captain gave a little chuckle as the doctor turned a whimsical glance upon him.

“There, there, child,” said the doctor soothingly, “there is no use in making tragedy of this. We can’t do anything now, here on the high seas anyway. We have no intention of throwing the pony overboard and the boy after him. They’ve both got to stay on board till we dock. In the meantime we will see what can be done. It isn’t a matter that can be decided in a moment. I suppose the boy’s parents are crazy because of his absence. We’d better send them a wireless, eh, captain?”

The captain nodded. “We’ll see to that.”

“Come then, kitten,” said her grandfather to Joanne. “It is all right. I’ll tell the boy that we will see what can be done. Now go to your grandmother. Better wash off some of those superfluous tears first. I’ll come up after I have settled some further matters with the captain.”

So Joanne dried her eyes and nodded to the boy, calling upon her small stock of Spanish for a word of comfort. “Paciencia! Paciencia! Pablo,” she stammered, and with a bright smile at the captain, chasing away her tears she ran to her stateroom.

CHAPTER II
THE LOVELY LADY

THE news of a stowaway had reached the upper deck before Joanne arrived there. She had quite recovered her composure by this time, and, as usual after one of her excitable outbursts, she was turning her dark cloud to show the silver lining. It was fortunate, she told herself, that there were some days before the vessel could reach New York, and in that time, probably she could coax her grandfather into keeping both Pablo and Chico. She remembered that Dr. Selden had said that Paulino Lopez had a swarm of children, so why should he not be pleased to have one of them provided for? This pleasant thought caused her to flash a sudden smile at the friendly boy now standing by his mother’s side.

This time the boy did more than smile; he spoke. “Say,” he began, “have you heard about the stowaway? Is there really one?”

“Oh, yes, there is,” Joanne halted in her walk. “He is ours. I have just been down to see him.”

The boy turned to his mother. “Well, what do you think of that?” he said. Then, to Joanne, “Tell us about him, won’t you?”

Joanne moved over to where he stood.

“This is my mother,” he said. “My name is Bob Marriott. What’s yours?”

“Joanne Selden,” was the reply.

“Sit down, won’t you?” The lady indicated a vacant chair by her side. “My son has been telling me about the little pony you have below.”

“He isn’t exactly mine,” responded Joanne; “he is Grad’s—that’s what I call my grandfather. I couldn’t say grandfather when I was little, so I always called him Grad. He is a dear, the pony, I mean, though my grandfather is, too, for that matter.”

Bob laughed. “I’ve seen him and I think he is fine—the pony, I mean,” then coloring up, “of course your grandfather is, too.”

Then they all laughed and felt very well acquainted.

“So the fine pony is your fine grandfather’s,” began Bob’s mother. “However, I suppose that is the same as if he belonged to you, isn’t it?”

“Well,” answered Joanne rather doubtfully, “perhaps so, if Grad decides to keep him. You see he came most unexpectedly, as if he’d dropped from the skies. I’ll tell you about it.” So she launched forth into the story of Chico which, of course, included that of Pablo, ending up by saying: “So you see poor Grad is in quite a pickle. He has two things on his hands that he doesn’t know what to do with, three if you count me.”

“But why you?” asked Mrs. Marriott interestedly.

“Because you see my father died when I was a baby and my mother when I was four years old, so I have lived with my grandparents most of my life. I’m rather delicate and have to go south in the winter or to California or somewhere like that. This year we went to Bermuda first, then off to other places in the West Indies and to some queer little ports. Now that Grad has retired from the navy he can go along, too, which is rather fortunate for Gradda and me, for we have had to go wandering off alone. We usually don’t, however, for there are always some navy people going along at the same time.”

“Don’t you go to school?”

“Yes, at least I’ve had a governess. I had a French nursery governess first, then an English governess, but now I have none at all. I should like to go to school. Maybe I shall if we are to live in Washington. I don’t know; that is one of the makings up of his mind that Grad is bothered about. There he comes now. I must go and find out what he has to say about Pablo.”

This was the first of many talks which Joanne had with these two. She had never known boys very well, and Bob was a revelation to her. He was a Boy Scout, in the first place, he played the violin in the second and in the third he had a number of girl cousins of whose doings he told Joanne, making her sigh enviously as she wished she could do some of the things they did.

She expressed this wish to Bob one day when the two were leaning on the rail watching the churning of the water in the wake of the steamer. “How I’d love to play outdoor games and go camping and do all those things your cousins do,” she said.

“Well, what’s the matter with your getting out and doing them?”

“How could I?”

“That’s an easy one. Join the Girl Scouts.”

“Oh, tell me about them.”

“They’re Scouts as near like Boy Scouts as girls can be. Our organization was started in England by Sir Baden Powell, and his sister started the Girl Scouts, then Mrs. Juliette Low got the idea and brought it over to the United States. The movement has spread so that now there are hundreds and hundreds of Girl Scouts all over the country, and I tell you they are just fine. My mother was captain of a troop, but she had to give it up.”

“I’m going to ask her to tell me about her troop, do you call it? I love that. My father was a navy man, you know, and it does appeal to me, troops and captains and things. My father was only a lieutenant for he was very young when he died.”

“Of course mother will tell you about her troop. She’d love to, for if there is anything mum’s daffy about it is the Girl Scout idea.”

So Joanne sought out Mrs. Marriott and listened attentively while she was being informed of the Girl Scout activities. “I think it must be the finest thing to be one,” she commented at last.

“It certainly is fine and dandy to be a Boy Scout,” Bob put in, “so it must be just as fine for a girl.”

Joanne was very thoughtful for a moment before she said: “I’m afraid my grandparents wouldn’t like the idea.”

“Pooh! Why not?” queried Bob.

“Oh, because they don’t like me to do conspicuous things; they’d object to my marching in a parade, for instance.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed Bob again. “You’d be just one of a bunch, all dressed alike and no one would notice you particularly any more than if you were one potato in a bushel.”

Joanne laughed but immediately looked serious again, then she went on: “They’d be scared to death for fear I’d overtax my strength. Gradda is always talking about me overtaxing my strength, and charging me not to take cold and all that sort of thing.” She turned to Mrs. Marriott. “I wish you’d get acquainted with Gradda; she’s Mrs. Gregory Selden, you know. You could get to talking about how interesting and fine it is to be a Girl Scout and get her used to the idea gradually. It would never do to spring it on her suddenly; she’d get all ruffled up like a hen with one chick.”

“I’d like very much to meet your grandmother,” returned Mrs. Marriott. “Won’t you present me?”

Joanne looked up from under her dark lashes. She wasn’t quite sure whether her grandmother, being a very particular lady, would like the idea of meeting a perfectly strange person of whom Joanne could tell her nothing except that she had made the acquaintance in a very unconventional way. However, she reflected, that she did very often pick up acquaintances in travelling, and her grandmother had followed them up or dropped them as she felt disposed. So she replied politely: “If Gradda admires you as much as I do she’ll be delighted. I picked you out that first day as the dearest-faced person on board.”

Mrs. Marriott smiled. “Thank you for that very nice compliment,” she said quietly.

Joanne fidgeted around for a few minutes. “Let’s go now,” she said at last.

“Go where?” asked Bob.

“Over to Gradda; we may as well get it over.”

Mrs. Marriott laughed, but she gave Joanne’s hand a squeeze. “You are simply delicious,” she exclaimed.

Joanne wondered why, but jumped up, settled her cap upon her curly head and led the way to the other side of the deck where her grandmother sat. Dr. Selden was pacing up and down in company of another man. Joanne paused in front of Mrs. Selden saying: “Gradda, dear, I want you to know my friend, Mrs. Marriott, and this is Bob, her son.”

Mrs. Selden removed her eye-glasses and looked up with faint suspicion at the tall, handsome woman before her. “Oh, Mrs. Marriott,” she said, “I have heard Joanne speak of you. Won’t you sit down? Joanne, take that rug of your grandfather’s out of the way, and—Robert, is it? I’m afraid there is not another vacant chair for you.”

“Oh, never mind, Mrs. Selden,” returned Bob, quickly lifting the rug from the steamer chair and tucking it around his mother when she sat down. “Joanne and I will just walk while you and mother talk, that is, if you don’t object.”

“Not in the least,” replied Mrs. Selden graciously, pleased with the boy’s courteous manner.

“I’m glad you said that,” remarked Joanne as she and Bob turned away. “Now Gradda will talk about me, which she wouldn’t do before my face.”

That is precisely what did happen, for Mrs. Marriott tactfully led the way to the subject. “I was attracted to your little granddaughter when I first saw her,” she began. “She has such a bright interesting face, rather intense at times.”

“Yes, she is too intense, I’m afraid,” responded Mrs. Selden. “She is not strong but is nervously active, and I find it difficult to curb her nervous energies which outweigh her physical powers.”

“Then,” returned Mrs. Marriott, “it would seem a good thing to build up her physical strength.”

“That is what my husband advises. He advocates an outdoor life, but how is the child to be properly educated if we were to live in the country? I could not endure the isolation and where would she find proper companionship, a matter so important now that she is growing beyond childhood? She has had governesses, but now that the doctor has retired we have about decided to live in Washington and send her to school.”

“There are excellent schools in Washington,” remarked Mrs. Marriott.

“So we hear. Do you recommend any special ones?”

Mrs. Marriott rapidly turned over in her mind the schools of which she knew, then mentioned one which encouraged its pupils to belong to a troop of Girl Scouts whose meeting place for rallies was the school’s gymnasium, and presently the subject of this organization was brought up. While this was being discussed Dr. Selden joined them, and soon the three were animatedly talking over schools and schoolgirls in general and Joanne in particular.

This was the beginning of more than one conversation upon the same subject, so that by the time the steamer docked it was almost settled that Joanne should try the Everleigh school, though the matter of her joining the Girl Scouts was left open.

Meanwhile the story of the pony and Pablo had become generally known and every one was interested in the pair, all hoping they would not be separated.

The little pony had begun life with wild mountain companions, many of whom, from time to time, were captured and brought into the market-place to be sold. Chico and his mother were among these, but the wild, little mother refusing captivity, managed to get away, but in her mad efforts to escape, stumbled into a hole, broke her leg and was shot. Chico, who had tried to keep up with her, gave out at last, after making a good flight. Paulino Lopez bought the little creature for a mere song, took him to his home, where he became a great pet and Pablo’s chief companion. In time he became as gentle as a kitten and docile enough to offer no objection to having a saddle put upon him or to be harnessed to a rough cart. He was strong and sturdy, much like a Shetland pony, and even Mrs. Selden, after having been persuaded to go down to see him, observed that he had “a very engaging personality.”

At this comment Dr. Selden gave Joanne a sly wink which encouraged her to believe that Chico would remain in the family.

As for Pablo’s future, that was still an open question which was not answered till some weeks later.

At the dock Joanne parted from Bob and his mother. She and Bob had become good comrades while for Mrs. Marriott she had acquired the worshipful feeling which a girl of fourteen often feels for an older woman, and “my lovely lady,” was the way Joanne always spoke of her. At parting she threw herself into Mrs. Marriott’s arms sobbing out: “I must part from you! We must part and I may never see you again!” She tremblingly took from her finger a little forget-me-not ring which she thrust into Mrs. Marriott’s hand saying: “Please keep this to remember me by.” Then, after watching mother and son go off in a cab, she turned her attention to the landing of Chico.

The little pony came ashore much more readily than he had gone aboard, perhaps sensing the fact that his voyage was over and that he would now have the freedom of dry land. Moreover, this time he was led by his comrade, Pablo, who was clothed in a decent suit of Bob’s clothes, donated by Mrs. Marriott.

“Where will he go now?” inquired Joanne linking her arm in her grandfather’s.

“That’s what I must find out,” he said. “Such a nuisance having a responsibility like this thrust upon us.”

“Oh, Grad, Grad,” cried Joanne, “there’s Cousin Ned.” She had suddenly caught sight of a well set up young man behind the barriers.

“Good!” responded her grandfather. “Just the one I’d most wish to see.” He hurried up to the gate calling heartily: “Good boy, Ned! Just the very one I want. Can you wait till we’re through with these customs?”

“Sure can, uncle,” returned the young man.

Joanne waved her cousin a greeting and then rushed off to where her grandmother sat forlornly, if patiently, on a trunk. “Gradda! Gradda,” cried Joanne, “Cousin Ned Pattison is here. He came down to meet us. Isn’t that fine?” Her excitement and pleasure at the new arrival completely chased away the tears which had attended her parting with the Marriotts.

In due course of time the customs were done with and Cousin Ned was permitted to join his relatives. “Well, Ned, my boy,” said his uncle, “it’s mighty good of you to give us this surprise.”

“Thought I’d combine business with pleasure and run on to New York for a few days. Had some matters to look up and made it convenient to time it so as to be here when you all got in. Going right on to Washington, uncle, or do you linger in this mad city for a while?” He smiled down at Joanne.

“Well,” returned Dr. Selden, “the trouble is that I’m tied up in the matter of a boy and a pony.”

His nephew stared. “What?”

“Fact. I’ve got to find a place for them. Queer sort of dunnage, but they were forced upon me,” and Dr. Selden proceeded to tell the story of Chico and Pablo to which Mr. Pattison listened with close attention.

“Why don’t you ship them right on to my place?” he said at the conclusion of the tale.

Dr. Selden laughed. “Where would you put a pony in an apartment house? In the dumb-waiter?”

It was his nephew’s turn to laugh. “Pshaw! I forgot that you didn’t know that I was a landed proprietor, that I had acquired a farm.”

“Really?”

“Sure thing. I have a dandy place about twenty miles above Washington on the Potomac. I can take care of your pony, Jo.” He smiled down at the little girl.

“But,” said Joanne plaintively, “he isn’t mine; he’s Grad’s.”

“Same thing,” returned Cousin Ned with assurance. “I would be glad, too, to take the boy,” he said to his uncle. “Help is none too easy to find these days and an extra pair of hands would be mighty welcome. How old is this chap?”

“Twelve or fourteen, I should say. He is rather small, so it’s hard to tell.”

“Good enough; he’s old enough to do a lot. Just you leave it all to me. Did you say you were going to stay over or not?”

“I suppose I shall have to till we get this matter straightened out, though I’d like to get off to-morrow if possible.”

“I reckon we can fix it up. I must be here for a couple of days, and can look after your live stock till I go, then I can take them right along with me. Meanwhile I know a man that will look after them. Where are they, by the way?”

“Over here,” responded Dr. Selden. “No, Joanne, you must stay with your grandmother.”

So Joanne watched the two men go off, and then sat down by her grandmother to wait their return. After what seemed, and really was, a long time she saw them coming back talking earnestly.

“There’s bound to be a lot of red tape,” she heard her grandfather say, “but I’ll get in touch with the consul—I know him personally—and no doubt he will be able to hurry it up.”

“All right. I’ll meet you at the hotel,” replied Cousin Ned, and hurried off.

In a few minutes Joanne and her grandparents were seated in a taxicab and a little later found themselves in a hotel from which they departed on the second day following.

Then came days which were exciting enough for Joanne; the selecting of a new home, the prospect of school life, the anticipation of spending week ends and holidays on Cousin Ned’s farm, all these were too much for Joanne who, at the end of a week, went to bed with a headache and was treated as an invalid for several days longer.

But she emerged from this durance vile the better for the rest, and one Monday morning entered school with high hopes if with palpitating heart and nervous tremors. However, at the end of another week she had found congenial companions, had chosen one special friend, had made up her mind that she must become a Girl Scout whether or no, and was already working at her Tenderfoot tests.

CHAPTER III
HARD AT IT

THE girl whom Joanne settled upon as the one she would like for her best friend was Winnie Merryman. Joanne observed her across the big schoolroom that first morning. She was the exact opposite of the dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-faced Joanne, being rosy and fair-haired, with big turquoise blue eyes and lips which smiled a friendly greeting to Joanne as, a little scared, the latter took the seat assigned her and glanced around the room.

At recess Joanne, too proud, and still too scared, to make advances, stood off with head up and a don’t care look on her face. Winnie at once made her way over to the new pupil. “I don’t believe you know any of the girls, do you?” she said.

Joanne shook her head. “No, I don’t know a single one.”

“Then come and eat lunch with me. I am Winifred Merryman. I can tell you about the other girls and you can meet some of them so you won’t feel that you are among entire strangers.”

This was the beginning and by Friday afternoon Joanne and Winifred were sworn friends, moreover Joanne knew most of the other girls, by name at least, and was in high favor with a number of them, being considered something of a heroine because of her travels and her somewhat unusual experiences.

“Just think,” said Betty Streeter to Esther Rhodes, “she speaks languages, French and Spanish, and she’s been to all sorts of queer places like Hawaii and the West Indies.”

“Yes, but she’s awfully backward in some of her studies; math. and Latin, for example.”

“Yes, but she’s very bright; I heard Miss Hunter say so; she’ll catch up.”

“She looks very delicate.”

“I believe she is, but I heard her say to Miriam Overton that she had always been coddled, carried around in cotton wool, as it were, but that now she was going to join the Girl Scouts and have more outdoor life. That should bring her up if anything can.”

“Perhaps,” returned Esther doubtfully.

It was true enough that Joanne had declared that she intended to become a Girl Scout although as yet, her grandmother’s consent had not been gained. It took a little diplomacy to get this, but Joanne was tactful, and first, by coaxings and cajolings, won her grandfather over to her side, then one day she brought home the rosy Winnie who was certainly a brilliant example of an outdoor girl.

“Of course,” Winnie told Mrs. Selden, “I don’t suppose my robust appearance is all due to scouting, but mother thinks ever so much can be laid to that. I know myself, that I get flabby and lazy and headachy when I stay indoors too much; so do lots of the girls. Why, look at Miriam Overton; she used to have indigestion and couldn’t walk a mile without giving out. Now she’s given up eating so much candy and takes more exercise so she can do a five mile hike with any of us.”

So in the face of these and other arguments Mrs. Selden finally gave in, especially when she learned the character of the girls who comprised Sunflower Troop. However, it was not at once that Joanne was able to attend her first rally, for, being not only a high-strung, nervous young person, she was likewise a very ambitious one who went at her studies with a rush and a determination to be outdone by no one, so that more than once she was kept at home because of headaches which followed fits of weeping when she thought herself unable to keep up with her class, or failed in some of her work. On such occasions her grandfather bore her off to Cousin Ned’s farm from which she returned with renewed confidence and quite ready to start in again with fresh vigor.

So at last it came about that it was a very enthusiastic girl who perched upon the arm of her grandfather’s chair on the evening of the day when she attended her first rally.

“Just think, Grad,” she exclaimed, “there are ever so many tests I don’t have to bother about. You have already taught me how to tie more than four knots, so I can check those off. The girls were so surprised that I knew so many, but when I told them I belonged to the navy they understood.”

“You belong to the navy?” Her grandfather softly pinched her cheek.

“Why, of course. Haven’t you always belonged, and didn’t my father? Of course I knew the names of governors of states, only the District of Columbia doesn’t have any, and Washington hasn’t any mayor. As for the history of the flag and how to fly it, I’d be a poor sort of granddaughter to a navy man if I didn’t know that much. There are ten Scout laws, and I think I know them perfectly. Don’t you want to hear me say them, Grad?”

“Most certainly.”

Joanne jumped down and stood rigidly before her grandfather. “First comes the promise,” she began; “I must promise to try to do three things: To do my duty to God and my country. To help other people at all times. To obey the laws of the Scouts. The laws are these: ‘A Girl Scout’s honor is to be trusted. A Girl Scout is loyal. A Girl Scout’s duty is to be useful and to help others. A Girl Scout is a friend to all and a sister to every other Girl Scout. A Girl Scout is courteous. A Girl Scout keeps herself pure. A Girl Scout is a friend to animals. A Girl Scout obeys orders. A Girl Scout is cheerful. A Girl Scout is thrifty.’”

“Fine! Fine!” cried her grandfather when she had finished. “I hope my little Puss will be able to keep those laws.”

“It’s going to be pretty hard to keep them all but I shall try very, very hard, for I am just crazy to become a Golden Eaglet.”

“And what’s that, pray?”

“Well, you see first you’re a Tenderfoot, then you are a Second Class Scout, then a First Class; just like the middies, you know. Well, when you have passed the tests for a whole lot of things, fourteen or something, you can become a Golden Eaglet. You can get badges for other things, too. I think I can pass the test for Interpreter and I know something about signalling and I can swim a little, but there are ever so many more; I will show you the list in my handbook. Oh, Grad, it is a perfect cinch that I can go to Cousin Ned’s, for that’s where I shall practise horsemanship and farming.”

Her grandfather threw back his head and laughed heartily. “I see you becoming a farmerette,” he said.

“Oh, but I can be, really I can. Now don’t you laugh at me, you dear old blessedness,” she dashed over to give him a hug, “for I’m counting on you for first aid and instructor in a lot of things.”

“Better not place too much confidence in my powers.”

“Oh, but of course I can, Mr. Doctorman, for where could I find any one who could tell me more about Red Cross stuff and Civics and all that?”

“Well, well, we’ll see. Do you know this is the very first day that you have forgotten to ask about Pablo, being so interested in this new idea, of course.”

“Oh, Grad, tell me, have you heard at last from his people?”

“Well, chatterbox, if you will give me a chance to get a word in edgewise I might be able to tell you something.”

Joanne promptly drew up a chair and sat down in front of him, folding her hands in her lap. “I won’t say one word till you say I may. Please now go ahead and tell me.”

“Very well, then; I have heard from Pablo’s parents and they give their consent to the boy’s remaining in this country. They really seem glad of the opportunity which has come to him. The father writes that the fact that one of his family can be provided for in this great United States is to be considered in the light of a blessing.”

“And——” began Joanne, then put her finger on her lip and went no further.

“So your Cousin Ned, finding the boy really quite a willing, capable little chap, is ready to do the best he can for him, hoping in time that he will prove an apt and reliable assistant. So, that’s settled.”

Joanne could restrain herself no longer, but flung herself into her grandfather’s arms. “And Chico! Oh, Grad, you will let me learn to ride him.”

“Why, yes. I thought we’d decided that,” he said patting her shoulder.

“But Gradda hasn’t said it was settled.”

“Nonsense! Gradda won’t object.”

“Oh, but she does, she does. She’s afraid Chico will run away with me and break my back or neck or something. She can’t get over the fact that he was born wild.”

Her grandfather laughed. “Then we shall have to calm her fears, and let her be convinced that whatever he may have been in his infancy he is now a very gentle little beast.”

“Oh, you blessed darling! I’m so glad you’ve retired and are going to stay at home always, for now I shall have you to come to my rescue in any emergency.” She threw her arms around her grandfather’s neck and kissed him ardently.

“Here, here,” he cried, “don’t eat me up. Do you mean you expect me to come to your rescue if Chico runs away with you?”

“Oh, no, no,” Joanne shook her curly head. “I never expect Chico to run away with me; I mean when it comes to tiffs with Gradda. She is a dear, of course, but she is always so anxious about me that she makes my life miserable. She wants me to take nice, orderly little walks around the block and never to cross the street alone for fear I’ll be run over. She is afraid I’ll get rough and suffragettish if I do the stunts the other girls do, and she’s always feeling my hands to see if they are cold and asking if I am in a draught and where is my appetite and did I sleep well last night and am I warm enough, hadn’t I better put on a sweater and do I think I should study so hard and—— Oh dear!” Joanne gave a long sigh.

Her grandfather shook his head thoughtfully. “I understand, Pickings. She is too apprehensive; it’s her way, but maybe we can get her used to a different point of view; it will have to be done gradually, of course. Meantime this old fellow will keep an eye on you and if he finds you are overstepping bounds he will pull you up short. It is to be understood that both you and your grandmother must obey this doctor’s orders.”

So was Joanne launched, her grandfather her aid and abettor in many of the activities heretofore denied her. She passed her Tenderfoot tests successfully and started out enthusiastically to acquire the knowledge necessary to become a Second Class Scout, which rank she intended to lose no time in gaining.

“You’re a perfect sponge,” declared Winnie Merryman, herself a First Class Scout. “I never saw any one soak up information as you do. Here you are forging ahead in every direction like a steam engine.”

Joanne laughed. “Steam engines don’t usually go in every direction; those old army tanks do that. Besides, you see, I knew some of the things already. There are the points of the compass; of course I know those and how to box it, then I know a lot about steamers and tides and things, and what to do in case of fire. Grad taught me those ages ago. Can you ride horseback, Win?”

“A little; at least I can stick on.”

“Then you can ride Chico. Did I tell you that Grad has promised to give him to me for my very own as soon as I have learned to ride? He is such a darling, a little rough mountain pony. The cut of his jib is more like that of a horse than a pony such as you usually see.”

Winnie laughed. “You use so many funny expressions, sailor-like ones.”

“That’s because I belong to the navy,” returned Joanne proudly, at which speech Winnie laughed again.

Joanne chose to ignore the laugh and went on: “If we fall off we won’t fall very far, but I don’t intend to fall off; I mean to stick no matter what. We’ll go out to Cousin Ned’s some day and you can see Chico and Pablo, too. You can go, can’t you?”

“Oh, Jo, I’d just adore to go, but”—she hesitated, “shouldn’t I wait for an invitation from your cousin?”

“Of course not,” returned Joanne positively. “Any of my friends will be entirely welcome. Cousin Ned has no children and he dotes on me, so if I invite you it is the same as if he did. It is such a dear place. You wouldn’t believe anything so wild could be within twenty miles of Washington; great cliffs and forests and rushing rapids in the river.”

“It sounds perfectly entrancing,” declared Winnie.

“There is a farmhouse where the manager lives,” Joanne went on, “but that isn’t where we would stay. Cousin Ned has built the cunningest fishing lodge, sort of like a bungalow; he and some of his friends did most of it themselves, and you never knew anything so clever. It is built of hewn logs with a huge fireplace made of the stones on the place. They just rolled them down from the top of the hill. The chimneys are made of discarded ice cans, the kind they use in factories where they manufacture ice; they sort of telescoped them together for only a makeshift, and found they served so well they have left them just so. The water comes from a never-failing spring half-way up the hill, such clear, sparkling water; it is piped down into the house which is at the foot of the hill on the border of the canal with the river beyond. Cousin Ned has a canoe and a motor-boat. Sometimes we go part way in his car and the rest of the way in the motor-boat; I like that way best.”

“Do you go up often?” asked Winnie, much interested.

“Well, I’ve been up only twice,” said Joanne truthfully, “and once we went in the motor-boat part of the way.”

Winnie laughed for Joanne had spoken as if her visits were of great frequency. “Could our troop hike up there?” she asked.

“It would be a pretty long hike,” replied Joanne doubtfully, “but we might take a train to the nearest railway station and walk from there. It would be about nine or ten miles and up a lot of hills.”

Winifred considered this, then presently she broke out with: “I have an idea! I tell you what I think would be perfectly great: we could go up on a canal boat and it would be such fun to go through the locks.”

“Wouldn’t it?” returned Joanne enthusiastically. “I have always been crazy to go through those locks. Cousin Ned took me over to the one nearest his place and showed me how they worked. It would take a pretty long time to get up there, I suppose, but we wouldn’t mind that. I’ll find out from Cousin Ned if it would be possible, and let you know. I don’t suppose it would be best to say anything to the other girls till we know whether or not it can be done.”

“No, I suppose not,” agreed Winnie, “but I hope you can find out soon so we won’t have to burden our minds with a secret any longer than necessary.”

“I’ll find out the very first chance I get,” promised Joanne earnestly, and remembering that Joanne was not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Winnie was satisfied that she would push the matter.

An opportunity to question Mr. Pattison and also to make her first attempt to ride Chico was vouchsafed Joanne no later than the next Friday when Cousin Ned appeared to bear her off with her grandfather for a week end in the country.

“Wild flowers are out, fish biting,” announced Cousin Ned. “Now’s your chance. If you want to take advantage of this fine weather while it lasts, you’d better come up. Aunt Alice, you’ll come, won’t you please?”

Mrs. Selden raised a hand in protest. “Oh, Ned, dear, it is very kind of you to want me, but I am not fond of roughing it, and from what I hear I am afraid I shouldn’t enjoy it. Then, too, one is so liable to take cold this time of year in making sudden changes.”

Mr. Pattison nodded understandingly. He had scarcely expected his invitation to be accepted. “You’ll come, won’t you?” he turned to his uncle, “and Jo, of course.”

“Do you think it would be wise to take Joanne?” inquired Mrs. Selden. “Of course it is just as you say, Gregory, but if she should take cold——”

“She won’t,” Dr. Selden interrupted. “Let her take plenty of warm things and her rubbers. I’ll carry along a medicine case, if you say so, and I’ll be there to doctor her if she sneezes.”

Joanne looked at Cousin Ned and hid a little chuckle as he drew down his mouth and gave a sly wink.

So, after receiving many charges not to get her feet wet, not to sit up late, not to get tired, not to eat anything which might disagree with her, Joanne set off with her grandfather and cousin to spin through the wide streets, across a bridge to old Georgetown and then up the river road where lovely vistas of the blue Potomac and the Virginia hills beyond met her eyes when she looked that way. It was a good road most of the distance until they turned off into a private way. At the gate leading to this Joanne spied two figures.

“Look, look!” she cried, “there are Pablo and old Unc’ Aaron. They are watching for us.”

Sure enough, as soon as he saw them coming, Pablo sprang to open the gate, smiling and showing his white teeth as they passed through, while old Aaron took off his nondescript hat and bowed to the ground. “Howdy, Pablo! Howdy, Unc’ Aaron,” cried Joanne standing up and waving to the two.

But the pair were soon left behind and the car sped on to draw up presently outside a little rustic fence beyond which was the bungalow. Joanne was the first to hop out, stumbling over her grandfather’s feet in her eagerness to reach the ground. Once there she danced about in sheer delight, treading the new, up-springing grass beneath her feet, exclaiming, questioning, and finally hugging her cousin as he came forward. “Oh, isn’t it the dearest spot?” she cried. “Look at that shining river! Listen to the rapids! Oh, there is a bird! Where are the wild violets? Oh, there’s a canal boat. Are we going to eat here or up at the farmhouse?”

“For an animated visitor commend me to Joanne,” said her cousin, going up the steps to open the door. “Which would you rather do, Jo, have a picnic supper here or go to Mrs. Clover’s?”

Joanne considered this for a moment, hesitating between the prospect of Mrs. Clover’s abundant table heaped with products of the farm, and the simpler fare the picnic supper suggested. “I tell you what I think would be best,” she finally decided, “to have our breakfast and supper here and our dinner at Mrs. Clover’s.”

“Wise old owl,” declared Cousin Ned. “I’ll look over the larder and see what we can have.”

Joanne followed him to the kitchen where he opened a cupboard and looked over the contents. “Let me see,” he said; “here’s a lot of canned stuff and groceries. I tell you what, Jo, I think we’d better have ham and eggs with some griddle cakes. Unc’ Aaron is a jim dandy at baking griddle cakes.”

“But that isn’t picnicking,” said Joanne.

“No more is it, but it is the kind of picnicking we generally have up here, for I’ll have you to know that nobody is a better cook than old Aaron. How does the bill of fare strike you?”

“I think it is great,” replied Joanne, “and I am so hungry I could eat it raw.”

“Good! I’ll tell Aaron to give us a double supply. Here he comes now and Pablo with him. That boy is Unc’ Aaron’s shadow. They have taken the greatest shine to each other, and Pablo is beginning to talk the darkiest English you ever heard.”

Unc’ Aaron came in bowing and scraping. “I jes’ thought I’d ruminate around and require of yuh what was yo desires, Mistah Ned,” he began.

“My desires are for some ham and eggs, some cream and milk and butter. We’d better send Pablo up to the house for them while you whirl in and make the fire here. We’re nearly starved and we are counting on you to get supper for us, some of those famous griddle cakes of yours, and see that you are not stingy with them.”

“Yass suh, yass suh, I gits yuh-alls up a fine suppah, an’ does it puromptily, yass suh, I speeds aroun’ an’ represents dat suppah in de shake or two of a sheep’s tail.”

“All right. Go on with your representing while I light a fire in the dining-room.”

“Oh, can’t I go with Pablo to get the eggs and things?” begged Joanne, “and, oh, I do so want just to glimpse Chico.”

“Go along, then, and ask Mrs. Clover if she hasn’t some jam or some sort of sweet thing she can let us have. She’ll talk you to death if you let her, so if you want to see Chico you’ll have to head her off and hurry back.”

Pablo, who had already received his instructions from Unc’ Aaron, was starting off to the farmhouse. Joanne hurried after him. “I’m going too, Pablo,” she called.

Pablo waited and they went up the hill together. “Do you like it here?” inquired Joanne, who had no idea of keeping silence.

“I like ver’ mooch,” replied the boy.

“Tell me about Chico. He is well?”

“He is bust weeth the health,” returned Pablo gravely.

Joanne turned her face toward the river in order to hide the broad smile which this speech produced. Then she said, still striving to hide the smile, “You are learning English very quickly, aren’t you?”

“I think,” returned Pablo complacently.

They hurried through their errand as rapidly as the voluble Mrs. Clover would allow, and went back bearing, not only the butter, eggs, milk and cream, but a loaf of fresh sponge cake, a comb of honey and a jar of preserved cherries. They deposited these things on the kitchen table where Unc’ Aaron was slicing the ham, already on hand, and then they went off to the stable to see Chico eating his supper and looking as sleek as needs be.

They were not allowed a very long visit to him, however, for very soon they heard a bugle call, and looking back saw Cousin Ned standing on the porch sounding the summons to supper, and down the hill they went at as rapid a gait as stones and brambles would permit.

“These are the finest griddle cakes I ever ate,” declared Dr. Selden as he helped himself to his third supply.

“I mean to ask Unc’ Aaron to teach me to make them,” said Joanne. “It will be a fine thing for me to do when I go out camping with my Girl Scout troop.”

“And I suppose your poor old grandfather will never have a chance to test your powers,” remarked Dr. Selden in pretended dejection.

“Oh yes, I will try them on you first,” returned Joanne airily, which brought a laugh from her grandfather.

She lost no time in interviewing Unc’ Aaron in order to get his recipe, but she gave up getting a written form, for all he could tell her was that he “jes’ beat up some aigs, den I sloshes in some buttermilk ef I has it, er some milk ef I hasn’t, an’ stirs in de flour.”

“But how much?” questioned Joanne, bewildered at this very casual way of making cakes.

“Well, honey, dat ’pends upon how many dey is to cook fo’,” was the answer, and this was all the satisfaction she could get, so for the present she gave up the idea of emulating Unc’ Aaron in the preparation of griddle cakes.

CHAPTER IV
CHICO

UNC’ AARON had lived on the place all his life. As it changed owners he went with the property as one might say. His little log cabin, where he lived alone, was near the road and not far from a small negro settlement. He was one of the few now remaining of the old-fashioned type who preferred the old order to the new, and was a decent, law-abiding, self-respecting old person. He knew where the best nuts were, where the largest persimmons grew, where the wild creatures hid, where was the safest swimming pool, and to what point to direct fishermen who came up for bass fishing. All these things he was teaching Pablo, whom he took under his wing from the moment of his arrival. As soon as Mr. Pattison became owner of the property Unc’ Aaron instituted himself as general factotum, and took his position as a matter of course. He was always on hand to open the gate for the automobile when it appeared with a party of jolly weekenders, and to offer his services for any and all kinds of work. Joanne doted on him and he considered her a guest to be specially honored.

With her grandfather and Cousin Ned as instructors, Joanne was not long in feeling perfectly at ease on Chico, and was so confident that one day she said to Pablo, who to be commanded was to obey, “you may put the saddle on Chico; I am going for a little ride.” Pablo adored Chico, but he also adored Joanne, who had plead his cause on shipboard, and whatever he may have thought, he would never stand in the way of her doing anything that pleased her.

So he watched her canter down the long lane toward the gate and then returned to his work of feeding the pigs.

Joanne had been gone but a short time when along came Unc’ Aaron. He went into the stable and at once missed Chico.

“Whar dat dere Cheeky?” he inquired.

“Miss Joanne she have him to ride,” responded Pablo.

“She ain’t gone off de place, is she?” said Unc’ Aaron.

“I am thinking she go to the road. No I know where.”

Unc’ Aaron raised his hands and moved them up and down shaking his grizzly head meanwhile. “Who say yuh saddle dat creetur?” asked the old man, turning a wrathful eye upon the boy.

“The young leddy say me do.”

“An’ yuh ain’t got de sense to tell nobody she gone. My lan’, boy, but yuh is foolish. Whar Mistah Ned?”

“He and the Señor Doctor make to go in the cano.”

“In de canoe? Mebbe dey ain’t gone yet. Trabble dem laigs of yo’n down to de lodge as fast as yuh can mek ’em go, an’ give ’em mah espects an’ ast ’em will dey wait twel I git dar. Hop lively, now.”

Pablo understood well enough to set off on a run and came upon Mr. Pattison and Dr. Selden, to whom he delivered his message.

“What does the old chap want, I wonder,” said Mr. Pattison. “It must be something important. I hope nothing is wrong. We’d better wait.”

“I agree with you,” returned the doctor. “I hope it is nothing about Joanne. I always feel that she is perfectly safe when she is with Unc’ Aaron, as I supposed she was.”

Just then the old man came up panting. “I hopes yuh gemmans escuse me,” he said, “but de little leddy have gone off ridin’ by huhse’f, an’ dey some mighty mean trash ’roun’ dese days. Ain’t lak hit useter be when folks could go over de face of de yearth an’ nobody moles’ dem ner mek ’em afraid. She ain’t use to ridin’ yet, Mistah Ned.”

“Which way did she go?” inquired Dr. Selden sharply.

“Ast de boy.”

“In what direction did she go?” Dr. Selden said sharply to Pablo.

“I not know, señor. She go by the road to the gate. I see no more.”

“We must follow her,” said Mr. Pattison, starting on a run toward the stables. “We will get the horses; you go one way, uncle, and I will go the other.”

In a few minutes the two were mounted and were off in search of the venturesome Joanne, who, meantime, had started out quite confidently to enjoy herself. The little pony went along quietly. The sky was blue, the air fresh and sweet, the woods a tender green. What more delightful than this free and glorious way of travelling? Up the road went pony and rider till they came to the parting of the ways.

“Now, which road shall I take, the right or the left? Which shall it be, Chico?” said Joanne. “I believe I’ll let you take your choice; you’ll probably choose the one most familiar to you.”

She let the bridle fall loosely and Chico turned to the left. This road led through the woods for part of the way, but presently passed through a little settlement of poor-looking houses. Beyond this was a schoolhouse. Some distance further along Joanne came upon a group of rough-looking boys who, spying her and the little pony, could not lose an opportunity of teasing and lined up across the road as she approached, thus barring her way.

“Hey there!” cried the ringleader. “Where you going with your hobby horse? What do you feed the little runt on?”

Joanne drew rein and sat up very straight, her heart beating fast but her courage all to the fore. She was considering what to do when one of the boys gave Chico a sharp cut from behind. This was something the little pony was not used to. He pranced nervously, but at a second cut he reared slightly. Joanne managed to keep her seat, frightened though she was. “So, Chico, so,” she tried to quiet him.

“Get off and let us have a try at him,” cried one of the boys who had been watching admiringly.

For answer, Joanne, her wits sharpened by the emergency, jerked Chico around quickly to head him away from the group. “Go, Chico, go!” she cried, giving him a slight touch of the whip, and off went Chico like the wind. Joanne clenched her teeth and sat steadily, the boys staring after her.

At the cross roads Dr. Selden had paused to examine the ground which might show the impress of Chico’s hoofs and so indicate the way Joanne had gone. But before he had completed his examination down the road came horse and rider, Joanne’s hair flying, her eyes sparkling, her face tense.

“Oh, Grad! Grad!” she cried at sight of him. “How did you know? How did you know?”

“Know what?” inquired Dr. Selden frowningly.

“About me and those horrid boys.”

“So there were horrid boys,” he returned accusingly. “What do you mean, miss, by dashing off this way by yourself? Who gave you permission?”

“Well, nobody,” returned Joanne hanging her head, but looking up from under her lashes with a queer little smile which suggested that tears were very near. “Nobody did because I didn’t ask any one. Oh, Grad, I can ride, I can, I can. Did you see how I came flying down the road like the wind? I stayed on and Chico behaved like the darling he is. I adore him. No one can ever say again that I don’t know how to ride, for I do.”

“That much is granted,” admitted her grandfather, “but there is this to be said: never, never do you go off alone. Remember. Under no circumstances must you. I forbid it absolutely. If you do so again, I shall have to sell Chico. Now tell me about the boys.”

Joanne, now subdued by the threat to sell Chico, told her story in as few words as possible, then lapsed into silence while her grandfather added a postscript to his lecture.

In a few minutes they came across Mr. Pattison, who had met some one who saw Joanne come out the gate and ride in the direction Dr. Selden had taken. Then the story had to be told a second time and a second warning given which reduced Joanne to tears and so worked upon the feelings of her two cavaliers that they began to cheer her up and she arrived at the farm in quite a serene, though still humble, frame of mind.

On her way from the stables she took possession of her grandfather’s hand and laid her cheek against it. “Grad, dear,” she said, “I didn’t really mean to do wrong; I just didn’t think of anything but what fun it would be to go cantering off all alone. I felt so free, like a bird. Please don’t say anything to Gradda about those boys; she’d be scared to death in the first place and in the second she’d never want me to ride Chico again. After all, the boys were only teasing; they didn’t do anything to hurt me.”

“It isn’t a matter to make light of,” replied Dr. Selden, “but perhaps we’d better not tell your grandmother, for, as you say, she’d be frightened out of her wits and wouldn’t sleep nights for thinking of what might have happened to you.”

“But she needn’t be afraid any more that Chico would throw me or run away with me. You might tell her that I really can ride, just to satisfy her.”

Her grandfather smiled, but he promised.

It was a temptation to Joanne to tell the girls at school of her adventure, but partly because she was rather ashamed of it she did not tell, notwithstanding that she did confide to Winnie that she could ride like the wind.

But Winnie was more interested in learning whether there was a possibility of making the trip to the farm with the Sunflower Troop of Girl Scouts. “Did you find out from your cousin anything about it?” she asked eagerly.

“Oh, yes, it was one of the first things I asked him. He says we might be able to go by way of the canal; he is going to find out. There is a grain boat that comes down to Georgetown; he knows the man who runs it, and he’ll ask him. The boat is loaded going down but there is plenty of room going back. Cousin Ned says we can stay at the bungalow and welcome, for we couldn’t make the trip there and back in a day unless we went by automobile, then we could.”

“Oh, but it would be simply gorgeous to stay all night, such a weird experience. I’d adore it; so would the other girls. How many could we stow away?”

“Let me see,” Joanne considered, “there are two rooms up-stairs with double beds; that would accommodate four, and there is a sleeping porch down-stairs where two cots are, and there are some extra cots, I believe, for Cousin Ned sometimes has quite a house party. I should think eight of us could be quite comfortable.”

“Good! Miss Dodge will go with us, of course.”

“Of course. We might get in nine by a tight squeeze, but I don’t believe we’d better say we can care for any more.”

“It is the most ravishing plan,” exclaimed Winnie, giving Joanne a hug, “and I think it is perfectly dear of your cousin to let us come.”

“I almost learned to make griddle cakes,” Joanne told her, “but I couldn’t get Unc’ Aaron to give me any sort of recipe.”

“Oh dear,” sighed Winnie, “you make me just wild to go to that place of your cousin’s. It is simply adorable to think of that dear old timey darkey and that fascinating Spanish boy. Do you believe we might venture to tell the girls about it this afternoon? About the possibility of our going up there, I mean.”

“I don’t see why not,” answered Joanne, “for we are bound to go sometime or other, if not in one way in another.”

Joanne enjoyed the gymnasium at all times, but particularly when the troop of Girl Scouts met there with their captain, Miss Dodge, or her lieutenant, Miss Chesney. There were informal meetings, too, when Claudia Price, their Patrol leader, read them severe lectures at which some of the girls snickered, for they did not take Claudia seriously, and when she called them down for not paying their dues or for being behindhand in some of the duties imposed upon them, they were more often ready with excuses than with apologies.

A good many of the girls had arrived when Winnie and Joanne entered the room on this special afternoon. Some were sitting on the floor talking. Miriam Overton was “skinning the cat,” Betty Streeter was worming her way along through a series of square spaces at the end of the room. Esther Rhodes was busy with some lessons for the next day. Miss Dodge had not yet come, but presently she was there and the order came to: “Fall in!” The girls scrambled to their feet, gave the salute to their captain, and the pledge to the flag, and the meeting went on.

Joanne loved the military part of it, the marching, the signalling and so on. She had begun to take special exercises and was most ambitious to make a good showing on her measurement card. Already there was more color in her cheeks.

The business part of the meeting over and the regular drills, Winnie and Joanne waited their chance to broach the subject so near to their hearts. This came at last when the question of the next hike came up.

“Oh, Miss Dodge,” said Winnie eagerly, “Joanne and I have the most heavenly plan.”

“That sounds encouraging,” said Miss Dodge. “Suppose you divulge it. I can guarantee that the girls will listen.”

So Winnie divulged, turning to Joanne once in a while for information. Of course there was a great buzzing and exclaiming when she paused to take breath, and questions came thick and fast.

“Wait, wait, girls,” said Miss Dodge. “Let’s get to the practical part of this before we begin to talk of taking things to eat and all that. We cannot be at all sure that it would be feasible to go by canal. In the first place we shall have to find out how long it would take, and on what day this grain boat will make the trip. We should have to go on Friday afternoon and get back on Saturday, of course. If the boat did not arrive before the middle of the night I should not want to go on it.”

Winnie and Joanne looked at each other. “We never thought of that,” murmured Winnie.

“But if it does go on Friday afternoon, and we are sure that it would get there before dark we could go, couldn’t we?” spoke up Joanne.

“Oh, Miss Dodge, please say yes,” coaxed Miriam.

“I can’t, right off like that,” Miss Dodge answered, smiling. “I shall have to investigate further. It sounds delightful, I admit, and I hope we can make the trip, but don’t set your hearts on it.”

“How soon can we know?” asked Esther. “We ought to fix on as early a date as possible, while the weather is mild, don’t you think so?”

“Next Friday! Next Friday!” clamored several voices.

“I’ll do my best,” promised Miss Dodge. “If I can arrange it for next Friday I will.” And with this the girls were obliged to be satisfied, and went off chattering excitedly.

Within a few days Miss Dodge found out that the plan would be feasible and there was wild rejoicing. Joanne, the originator of the scheme, was the most popular girl for the moment, and was constantly being interviewed, having to answer more questions than she had ever had asked her in all her life, and Cousin Ned, in his turn, was turned to till it was a wonder that he did not regret his offer of hospitality to such a bothersome party of girls. However, he declared himself to be greatly interested in the undertaking and promised all sorts of assistance, so that the girls told Joanne that he was adorable, and she quite endorsed this opinion.

“It is the luckiest thing that the boat goes up on Friday,” she said to Winnie, “though I suppose some other boat might take us.”

“Oh, but Mr. Pattison knows this man so well, and besides, we might not be able to get any one else to consent to take passengers.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” acknowledged Joanne, “and some of the other boatmen are very rough and I don’t believe Gradda would be willing I should go with any but this Dawson man.”

“I can scarcely wait till Friday,” declared Winnie.

“I think I should die of despair if anything happened to upset our plan,” responded Joanne.

Winnie laughed. “You are always so tragic, Jo. You wouldn’t die. I wouldn’t either, though of course I’d be awfully disappointed, just as all of us would be.”

This was on Wednesday. On Thursday the girls scanned the skies anxiously. “I don’t like the look of those clouds,” remarked Claudia as she joined Winnie and Joanne on their way home from school.

“Oh, but I don’t believe they amount to anything,” replied Winnie cheerfully; “they are only wind clouds, I reckon.”

“Let us hope so,” returned Claudia oracularly.

But, alas! alas! the next morning it was raining in torrents. Winnie, rain-coated and overshoed, was about ready to start for school when she was called to the telephone.

“Is that you, Win?” came a doleful voice.

“Guessed it the first time,” came the cheerful response. “Do I address Miss Joanne Selden?”

“Yes, it’s Jo speaking. Oh, Win, isn’t it awful? I was never so disappointed in all my life.”

“Judging from the teary quality of your speech I should say you were.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Of course I am, but I’m not going to cry about it. There will be other Saturdays and I reckon the bungalow won’t burn down meanwhile; if it does we can camp out.”

“I don’t see how you can be so cheerful about it; to me it is simply tragic.”

“Why, no, it isn’t. It is a disappointment but it isn’t a grief nor a disgrace. Better hurry up and come along to school where you can bury your woes in a stiff mathematical problem.”

“But I’m not to go to school. Gradda says it is raining too hard and that she can’t think of allowing me to go out,” this plaintively.

“Oh well,” Winnie didn’t quite know what to say to this, for a Girl Scout to stay in for an ordinary rain was a situation she didn’t know how to deal with. “Chirk up, honey,” she said finally. “Practise some of your stunts for the next rally. I’ll come in this afternoon. Sorry you aren’t coming out. I shall miss you. Got to go off now. Good-bye.” And she hung up the receiver.

Winnie’s suggestion was a good one, for Joanne got out her manual and sat down by a window overlooking the rain-drenched street. As she watched schoolgirls hurrying by with books and umbrellas she heaved a deep sigh, then opened her little blue volume. The very first words that caught her eye were “A Girl Scout is Cheerful under all circumstances. Scouts never grumble at hardships, nor whine at each other, nor frown when put out.” The color rose to Joanne’s cheeks and she turned over the pages rapidly till she came to the one which set forth the qualifications for a Second Class Scout. These she considered carefully, then she threw down the book and went down-stairs humming a little tune and saying to herself: “A Scout goes about with a smile and singing.”

She found her grandmother in the library with her fancy work. “Gradda,” said Joanne, “how do you hem?”

“Why, my child, what do you mean?” returned Mrs. Selden looking up.

“Well, you see, Gradda, I’ve always hated sewing, haven’t I? and have said I would never take a needle in my hand if I could help it, and now that I want to be a Second Class Scout in a hurry, that is one of the things I have got to learn. I must know how to make a buttonhole, or knit or crochet, sew a seam or hem a garment. The hemming sounded sort of easy, and I thought I’d begin on that. Will you show me how?”

“Indeed I will,” replied Mrs. Selden with a gratified air; “sewing is a very ladylike accomplishment and I am delighted that you want to learn. You have always been so opposed to it that I have not insisted, as perhaps I should have done.”

“I suppose it will bore me to extinction,” responded Joanne, “but I mean to do it or die. When it gets to the point that I can’t stand it any longer I can fly at something else like the Morse alphabet or the semaphore one.”

So instead of spending the morning in a state of doleful dumps Joanne busied herself with a needle, and, though she did throw her work on the floor in a rage several times, at last she came to the point of being quite satisfied with her really presentable hem and decided that it was enough for one day.

CHAPTER V
“THE END OF A PERFECT DAY”

IN the afternoon Winnie appeared rosy and smiling under her dripping umbrella. “Well, old weepy wapory wiper,” was her greeting as Joanne rushed to meet her, “how goes it?”

“Fine,” responded Joanne with as sunny a smile as Winnie’s own.

“All over your doldrums? You great big baby, to cry at a little thing like that,” continued Winnie closing her umbrella.

“How do you know I was crying?”

“Couldn’t mistake that teary voice; the drops actually oozed through the telephone and ran along the wires till one fell on my nose.”

“You ridiculous girl! Come in.”

“I will for a few minutes, but I can’t stay long, though I hope to take you back with me.”

“Oh, dear, I’d love to go, but Gradda would never consent. If I couldn’t go to school I couldn’t go pleasuring. You see I left my rubbers up in the country——”

“Careless child.”

“Of course; I know that. Moreover I forgot to tell Gradda, so when this morning came I did remember and there was no time to get others, so here was I miserable.”

“You weren’t a good Scout, you know, to go all to pieces like that just for a mere disappointment. You should have bucked up and have turned your distressfulness into opportunity.”

“Just what I did,” replied Joanne triumphantly. “I learned to hem.”

“Good! so much the more must you come with me. The car will be here in a few minutes. Mother is going to stop for us on her way from down-town. So, you see, my child, you will not get those little tootsie-wootsies wet. Run along and tell your grandmother. I’m sure she won’t be left a leg to stand on in the way of an excuse.”

Joanne responded with a rapturous hug and flew off, returning very soon ready for the trip.

“Did you bring your sewing?” inquired Winnie.

“Why no. You didn’t say to bring it.”

“Didn’t I? I meant to. The Sunflowers are coming over and we are all going to do sewing tests. The more proficient ones will direct the inferiors, and so we’ll get along famously. I shall essay to make my first buttonhole.”

“Oh, dear, I’m afraid I am a long way off from that, but I mean to get there. I’ll go for my sewing bag. I never had any use for it before.”

Off she went again, returning with the bag which she held up in triumph. “Now, ’fess up, Win. Weren’t you really awfully disappointed when you saw the rain this morning, and weren’t the other girls?”

“Naturellement, ma chère, but I can safely say that I believe you were the only tear manufacturer in the lot.”

“What did you do?” inquired Joanne remembering her red eyes and untasted breakfast.

“Oh, I said Bother! in a very large way, then I stamped around the room for a few minutes, threw things about a little, went to the window to be sure it was rain and not Moses out with the hose, then I said, Well, Winifred Merryman, it’s up to you to be cheerful, I suppose. You must track up the puddles in your own back yard and smile, smile, smile. It’s a long rain that has no turning.”

Joanne threw herself into an armchair shouting with laughter. “I do think you are the dearest, craziest girl I ever saw! If it were not for you I suppose I should still be in a state of woe and would probably have to go to bed with a headache, but when you suggested that I should work up some test for the next rally it gave me something to live for, and when I picked up my manual what was the first thing that met my eye but that ‘be cheerful’ law, and naturally—well, naturally, I just was obliged and compelled to bid farewell to every fear and wipe my weeping eyes. Do you know that part of being a Scout never sank in very deep before? I’ve been thinking all along of the tests and how soon I could earn badges and all that sort of thing. I forgot the character part, at least I knew it was important, but it didn’t come home to me with a slam till to-day.”

Winnie nodded. “It’s about the biggest part.”

“Yes, I know. I quite prided myself upon being honorable and loyal and all that, but I sort of sneaked out of giving much thought to the other laws. Now, I’ll have you to know, Miss Merryman, that I mean to wrastle with them all. No more cry baby about me, if you please.”

“That’s the way to talk!” cried Winnie. “Miss Dodge says it often takes more courage to do little things like being cheerful and obeying orders or resisting the temptation to do some little mean thing, than it does to face big dangers, for, when the big dangers come you seem suddenly inspired with courage. One is moral courage; the other physical, and the moral is inside of you where nobody can see its workings.”

“Dear me, I’m learning a lot,” confessed Joanne with a long sigh. “I’ve never thought much about such things, but I see I shall have to if I am to be a good Scout and that is what I want to be.”

“You will be, give you time,” Winnie assured her with a loving pat. Then the car arrived and the two set off in high spirits in spite of the heavily falling rain.

Two or three girls had already arrived with their sewing bags when Joanne and Winnie entered the bright sitting-room of the Merryman home, and others soon followed. The last to enter was Virgie Ambler who carried in her arms a well-bundled up baby about one year old.

“For pity’s sake, Virgie, where did you get that?” cried Winnie as Virgie deposited her burden on the lounge.

“Borrowed it, at least not exactly, and it’s a him not an it. You see Mrs. Clary, who lives back of us, had to go out on an important errand and was at her wit’s ends to know what to do with Master Guy, sweet name, Guy, so I offered to take care of him. I thought it would be fun to bring him here and we could all take turns in looking after him. It would enliven the party, you perceive, and give us all a chance of putting in some good Scout work. He is a friendly young person and not given to howling more than the law allows.”

The girls all made a rush to divest Master Guy of his bundlings up, and questions came thick and fast with exclamations and compliments thrown in. “Isn’t he a darling? How old is he? Can he walk? Can he talk? What a dear little head! What lovely long lashes! Um! Um! wouldn’t I love to have such a complexion! Come to me, ducky darling. No, I’m going to take him first,” and so on.

The youngster appeared to be quite undisturbed by all this fuss, but scanned each face in turn and finally put out his arms to Winnie, who snatched him up and hugged him, dancing him up and down in her strong young arms till he gurgled with delight.

“You mustn’t hold him all the time; you will spoil him,” cautioned Virgie.

“Then what shall I do with him? Put him on the floor?” questioned Winnie.

“Oh, he might take cold,” Claudia spoke up.

“I’ll get a quilt or something,” said Winnie, dumping the baby upon Claudia’s lap and rushing off up-stairs. Presently she reappeared with a comfortable which she spread out on the floor. “There!” she exclaimed, “he will be all right. Put him down, Claudia.”

But no sooner was young master deposited than he set up a howl which rent the skies, and began hitching himself toward Virgie who perforce must pick him up in order to pacify him. “Now what’s to be done?” she said looking around. “We shall spoil him if we hold him all the time and if we don’t he yells like fury.”

“Maybe he’s hungry,” suggested Winnie.

“No,” Virgie shook her head, “he mustn’t be fed out of hours, and even if he consents to stay on the floor he will hitch himself all over the place; that’s his way of getting around. At home he has one of those pens that his mother can put him in.”

“Well, why not build him a pen out of chairs?” was Joanne’s suggestion which was immediately adopted, and inside of this barricade the baby was placed, only to repeat his loud protests.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Virgie, “I’d no idea babies were so much trouble. Much satisfaction we shall have trying to sew if he keeps that up. I’m sure I don’t know what to do.”

“Put him down again and let us take turns in trying to amuse him,” Joanne made a second suggestion.

“Fine!” cried Virgie. “Of course we couldn’t expect the poor little tacker to be content without toys or some sort of entertainment. Get in, Joanne, and try your powers. We’ll take half hour shifts and see how it works, then no one will get exhausted, although,” she added, “perhaps I’d better take him home and work out the problem by myself without drawing you all into it.”

“Oh, no, no,” cried the rest, “let this be team work. Don’t think of such a thing, Virgie.”

So over the barrier Joanne climbed and in a few minutes gurgles of delight showed how successful she was in making baby Guy forget his woes, then each girl took her turn and at last their charge was in such a good humor that when some one proposed that he should be supplied with some things to play with, he was so well satisfied with a string of spools, a tin pan and a spoon, that he was left to his own devices.

“I don’t think that performance of his on the tin pan is particularly edifying,” remarked Claudia.

“Then let’s call it an accompaniment,” said Winnie; “we’ll all sing. No doubt he will like the added noise.”

“Excellent scheme,” returned Claudia. “What shall we sing, girls?”

“Oh, do let’s sing a lullaby,” said Betty Streeter, “‘Sweet and Low,’ for instance, then maybe he’ll go to sleep.”

They all laughed, but some one started up the song. However, this only encouraged the baby to beat harder upon his pan, so very soon laughter stopped this song, for, said Winnie, the accompaniment was anything but sweet and low.

The shadows were falling and pretty soon one girl and another gathered up her sewing and prepared to leave. Winnie displayed a fairly good buttonhole, Joanne viewed the last half of her hem with more satisfaction than she did the first, and decided that after all sewing was less of a bugbear than she had supposed, so she made up her mind to attempt a more ambitious piece of work which she could use as a test for her grade of Second Class Scout.

It had stopped raining, but Winnie insisted upon lending her a pair of rubbers, for Joanne declared she wanted to walk home since she had not taken outdoor exercise that day. Virgie bore away the baby who was persuaded to show off enough to shake a chubby hand in farewell, and the day which had begun so unpromisingly, ended in a gorgeous sunset.

Joanne walked home with Claudia Price who lived in her neighborhood. “Why weren’t you at school this morning?” inquired Claudia.

Joanne explained, adding, “I didn’t dream when I got up this morning that I should have really a busy, happy day. A few months ago I would be in bed with a headache after such a disappointment.”

Claudia laughed. “Is that your way of doing usually? What spared you this time?”

“The Girl Scouts,” replied Joanne gravely, “at least it was Winnie who set me on the right road. She called me a cry baby, which I was, and said I’d better work at some of my tests, a thing I hadn’t thought of doing, and when I looked into my handbook I came face to face with the law which says a Girl Scout must be cheerful, so there you are. Win was so funny, too, that I realized how silly I was to take a disappointment so to heart. Of course it was a disappointment.”

“It certainly was to all of us, but by this time our fun would be partly over, and now we have all of it still to look forward to.”

“So we have; I never thought of that, but there are lots of things I haven’t thought of. You see I have lived with grown-ups mostly and I am afraid I get to thinking about myself too much. It has never occurred to me till lately that I should think of what is best for other people. My grandmother humored me because I was delicate, and if my governess tried to make me do things I didn’t want to do I had only to cry and work myself into a headache and my grandmother would give in at once. I am just beginning to see what a mean, nasty way it was to act.”

“Well, there is one thing,” said Claudia cheerfully, “if you think it was a mean, nasty way,—I agree with you that it was,—you won’t want to keep it up, will you?”

“No-o,” returned Joanne a little doubtfully, “but I don’t suppose I will turn into a lion of courage at once.”

“But I suppose the attacks will become less and less severe,” responded Claudia with a little laugh. “If you just take a dose of Girl Scout law when you find them coming on they will soon cease to be chronic. If you find the condition persists, just call up Miss Dodge; she will give you a prescription.”

Joanne laughed. “You’d think with a doctor grandfather I wouldn’t need one. He isn’t quite as indulgent as Gradda, and really can be quite severe at times, though I can usually coax him into doing what I want.”

Claudia shook her head. “Bad child; that’s taking a mean advantage, and you mustn’t do it.”

“Oh, dear, no, I suppose I mustn’t. It seems to me that being a Girl Scout means a lot more than just getting badges.”

“Of course it does. It means character building.”

“And health building. I seem a long way off from being even a Second Class Scout.”

“Don’t you believe it. It is a question of will. Make up your mind and then go to it. Why, my child, if you did but know it you are on the high road already.”

“Why, Claudia, after this morning?”

“Don’t say ‘after this morning,’ say after to-day. Honestly now, would you have looked at things last evening at this time as you are doing this evening? All things being equal, if the trip to your cousin’s were planned for to-morrow instead of to-day would you dissolve into a weepy mess of tears when you found we couldn’t go?”

“Well, no, I hope not. I’d try mighty hard to chirk up outside no matter how I felt inside.”

“There! What did I tell you? I think you’ve made a big jump from babyhood into—what shall we say?—Girl Scouthood? Allow me as patrol leader as well as sister Scout to say that you need not be discouraged; we’ll have you a Golden Eaglet yet if all goes well.”

“Oh, Claudia!”

“Sure thing. Chirk up; you’ll get there. I turn off here. Good-bye, and don’t forget my parting words.”

Joanne waved a farewell and went on with high hopes. “What darlings they are; even Claudia, that I was half afraid of and was sure I shouldn’t ever be real friends with, is a perfect love. It’s been a wonderful day. I believe, after all, that I am glad our trip to the country is ahead of us instead of being half over.”

She went into the house humming: “The End of a Perfect Day,” and found her grandmother looking for her.

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Selden, “I thought it was high time you were here. You didn’t walk home without your rubbers, did you?”

“No, Gradda, Winnie lent me a pair of hers. Claudia and I saw the sunset from the bridge; it was gorgeous and the cathedral loomed up so grandly as we looked up Rock Creek. We went out of our way so as to see it all. I like Claudia.”

“Did you have a good time, and have you had any return of your headache?”

“We had a great old time with a baby, and I have forgotten that I ever thought of having a headache. I don’t mean to have any more.”

“Oh, my dear, don’t say that. I am afraid you will not outgrow them at once.”

“Well, I don’t mean to cry myself into them; that’s what I mean. I should want to go back to bibs and feeding spoons if I did. I’m getting to be a perfect Pollyanna, Gradda.” She gave her grandmother a hug and kiss, then went up-stairs continuing her song of “The End of a Perfect Day.”

CHAPTER VI
EASTER EGGS

“ONE rainy Saturday is liable to be followed by another,” said Winnie to Joanne as she was waiting for the latter to get ready for a meeting of the Sunflower Troop, “so I don’t think we’d better count on that trip to the country yet a while. Moreover, next Sunday will be Easter and we must do something for the good of humanity between whiles.”

“What are we supposed to do?” inquired Joanne, pausing in the act of adjusting her hat.

“Something orphanly, I imagine. We generally take them on at such times. I hope you’re not going to weep this week because the country trip is deferred.”

“You hush!” Joanne pounded Winnie with a pretense of wrath. “Of course I shall not. My point of view has moved several inches in the past few days, so I have leaped far beyond the weepy stage, I hope. The next thing I have to look out for is pertness. I can be awfully sassy, Winnie.”

“I don’t doubt it,” returned Winnie with a grin, “but don’t you hate a pert miss?”

“Oh, dear, do you suppose any one ever called me that?”

“Very likely,” replied Winnie jauntily; she was nothing if not candid.

“Oh, dear,” sighed Joanne again. “The war is over but the reconstruction stage isn’t and I see where I’ve got to keep up the fight. I certainly do hate pertness, but also do I despise milk-and-wateriness.”

“One doesn’t have to be insipid and cringing to be perfectly respectful and courteous,” responded Winnie. “For example, do you consider Claudia a meechin person?”

“Far be it from me to say so.”

“Did you ever know her to be anything but courteous and gracious?”

“Well, no-o,” Joanne admitted.

“Then, take back the pertness thou gavest, what is its smartness to me?” Winnie sang.

“Oh, Win!”

“I win, you win, we both win. Come on if you’re ready.” And off they went, arriving a little late but just in time for squad formation.

Miss Dodge had gone off on an Easter holiday, so her lieutenant, Miss Chesney, was in charge. She was a dark-eyed, alert little person, active and cheery, and the girls all liked her. When the meeting had arrived at the point of discussing Easter gifts she made the announcement: “We talked it over at the last Court of Honor and we think that eggs for our special orphans will be the best thing we can decide upon. Can each of you contribute two eggs?”

“Sugar, colored or just plain raw?” inquired Winnie.

“Plain raw, I think. Why can’t we have a coloring party? You might bring the eggs to my house and we’ll dye them there. Can you do that?”

“Yes, indeed,” came in a chorus.

“Saturday morning, then.”

This was agreed upon and then the girls fell to discussing the subjects most interesting to them and finally played games till it was time to separate and go home.

“If we could only get eggs direct from the country maybe we could get them cheaper and could bring more than two apiece,” said Claudia. “Counting the two patrols we’d have less than forty eggs and we should have about fifty, four dozen, we’ll say.”

“But who would know where to go for them?” said Virgie. “I don’t believe any of the country people we could reach would sell them any cheaper than we could get them in town, and there would be all the bother of going after them.”

“Oh,” spoke up Joanne, “I wonder if we couldn’t get them from Mrs. Clover. She has lots and lots of hens and she is so far out of town that I don’t believe she sends her eggs all the way in, and I doubt if they give her city prices at the country store. Besides she is the kindest thing and if she knew they were for the orphans she wouldn’t stick on the highest price, and you all know what the highest price is these days.”

“Good scheme, Jo,” cried Winnie. “Can you find out all about it, how much they’d be and how we can get them?”

“I think so. Perhaps they could be sent down on a canal boat. I’ll talk to Cousin Ned about it. I’ll write him a note and leave it at his apartment on my way home, then he’s sure to get it when he comes in. I never know just when to catch him, so I’ll tell him to call me up.”

With this plan in view she went into the big schoolroom, where at her desk she wrote her note which ran this way:

“Dear and blessed Cousin Ned,

“I want to talk to you about eggs just as soon as possible. Will you please call me up at the very first oportunity you have after you get home and oblige

“your devoted Cousin Joanne.”

She showed the note to Winnie into whose eyes came a little twinkle of amusement. “Now what’s the matter?” asked Joanne in a resigned tone.

“You don’t spell opportunity with one p but with two, and Jo, dear, you do write the scan’lousest fist, so childish, as if you’d just passed beyond pot-hooks and loops.”

“Well,” began Joanne protestingly, “he’ll know what I mean and that’s the main thing, besides I don’t care. I have just begun, really, for I hate to write, and never have done more than I could help. My governesses never insisted upon my writing out things as they do here at school. Then, too, lots of clever people write atrociously.”

“That’s not the point, you blessed little goose. I’ll tell you something, make a confession, as it were. I used to feel just as you do till I had to write Miss Dodge a note, and when she saw how fearfully I muddled it she asked me what was the idea, and I answered much as you have done. Then she asked, ‘Don’t you want to write like a perfect lady?’ or words to that effect. That gave me a jog and I began to open my eyes. ‘You see,’ she said, ‘when you are older if you were obliged to write to a stranger and he or she were to see such writing and such spelling you would be set down as a perfect ignoramus.’ Well, so you see that wasn’t exactly my ambition and I went to it with a vim and now, if I do say it, I am rather proud of my secretarial powers.”

Joanne shook her head dubiously. “I’ll never come to that pass, I know.”

“Maybe not, but you can at least improve on a mess like this.” Winnie gave a contemptuous flip to the note on Joanne’s desk.

“Oh, dear, Winnie, you are so brutally frank.”

“Am I? I’m afraid I do go too far sometimes, but, Jo, my beloved little ducky dear, if you did but know how anxious I am that you should stand above criticism it wouldn’t worry you in the least when I jump on you in this way.”

“Am I criticized?” asked Joanne anxiously.

“Of course you are, all of us are. Did you ever know a set of girls who didn’t criticize?”

“I don’t know many girls, at least not so very well, just those I have happened to meet in travelling about, and I know scarcely any boys. Gradda never liked me to play with boys, though there was one on the steamer when we came up from Bermuda, and she let me make friends with him; he was so nice, a Boy Scout, and we had fine talks. It was his mother who told us about the Everleigh school and the Girl Scouts. She is the most adorable person I ever met, the queen of my dreams. I took some snap shots of her and one I have had enlarged; I will show it to you some day if I think of it.”

Winnie looked at her a little compassionately. “You haven’t had much real home life, have you?” she said gently.

“Not so very much. Sometimes we have had a furnished cottage in the summer, but generally we have stayed at boarding houses and hotels in summer and winter. There seemed no use in having a settled home with Grad away most of the time, and with the need of going south in winter and north in summer. But now, we do have a home, a real one, and it is such a joy to all of us, especially to Grad and me. I think Gradda cares less for it on account of the servant question. She feels so helpless when the cooks leave.”

“That’s where little Girl Scout Jo should come in.”

“I don’t see how I am ever to learn housewifely things when Gradda doesn’t like me to go in the kitchen.”

“Your chance will come,” Winnie assured her. Then some of the other girls joined them and their talk was over.

It was that evening that Joanne was called to the ’phone by her Cousin Ned. “What’s this about eggs?” he said. “My name isn’t Hennery.”

Of course Joanne giggled, then she explained.

“Fine scheme,” declared Mr. Pattison. “We could use some fresh eggs ourselves. What’s the matter with going up after them to-morrow afternoon?”

“Oh, Cousin Ned, do you mean me?” inquired Joanne joyously.

“Who else? Your Cousin Sue has other fish to fry, I know. Can you?”

“Just hold the wire a minute till I ask Gradda.” It was scarcely more than a minute before she was back again and saying: “I can go. At first Gradda was inclined to say no, but Grad backed me up and so it is all right. What time shall I be ready?”

“About two o’clock. I think we can easily make it and get back before dark. If we don’t there will be no great harm done; there’s a good road.” He hung up and Joanne returned to the library to find that her grandmother had gone up to her room to write a letter and that her grandfather was alone reading the evening paper.

Presently the paper was flung aside and Dr. Selden looked over to where Joanne was toiling over the intricacies of a piece of crocheting. He watched her for a few minutes before he said: “Well, Pickings, how goes it?”

Joanne laid down her work. “It’s very puzzlesome,” she declared. “I can’t make the rows come out even; they’re either too long or too short, and yet I try to count the stitches. I’m afraid I’ll never be an expert at fancy work. I think I’ll make you a garment, Grad. What would you like?”

“A breakfast jacket or a Tuxedo wouldn’t be bad,” he replied with a quizzical look in his eyes. “Everything in the way of clothing is so high-priced now that I would be very grateful for any little help in the way of a coat of some sort.”

“Now, Grad, you know I couldn’t make a coat.”

“You said a garment and isn’t a coat a garment?”

“Yes, but it would be a funny looking coat if I made it, that is if I sewed it. When I learn to knit I might make you a sweater. Would you like that? You could wear it when you go up to Cousin Ned’s to fish.”

“I’d be delighted to have it. When do you think you will get it done?”

“Oh, dear, I don’t know. I haven’t even begun to learn knitting. Win said crochet was easier, but I don’t believe it is, at least not for me. Grad, how did you learn to spell and write as well as you do?”

“Oho! I thought you didn’t think those accomplishments necessary. You’ve always maintained that you would use a typewriter, and that spelling didn’t matter so long as one understood what was written.”

“Yes, I know, but I have changed my mind. You see a lot of my school work has to be written and I get fearful marks sometimes just because I make so many mistakes and write so horribly. How did you learn? I love the way you write.”

“Well, let me see. I shall have to go back fifty years or more when it was considered a part of every one’s education to write a good hand. We had a special teacher at school and I remember laboring painstakingly to make my copybook the best in my class. As for spelling, it was a great thing when one could jump from the foot to the head of the class when a particularly hard word was given out. We used to stand in a row against the wall. Sometimes the whole school would be in the spelling match, and the last one left standing had outspelled the others, for as each one missed a word down he must sit.”

“How exciting! I wish they would do that way now. It was like a play, wasn’t it? Were you ever the last one left standing?”

“Yes, I was several times, as I remember it, but if I happened to be the first to miss a word how disgraced I did feel. I was very ambitious about my writing and practised penmanship in the evenings after I had studied my lessons. My father, who was an exceedingly good penman, would set me a copy on my slate.”

“I’m going to do that,” declared Joanne, throwing down her crocheting. “I haven’t a slate, to be sure, but I can use paper. Will you set me a copy, Grad? I’d love to write like you.” She fumbled among the papers on his desk and finally brought forth a large sheet upon which her grandfather amusedly set her a copy at which she labored till bedtime.

“That is a most ambitious child,” said Dr. Selden as his wife entered the room after seeing Joanne tucked in.

“I am afraid she is too ambitious,” replied Mrs. Selden. “I am afraid all these new interests are too exciting for her.”

“Has she complained of headache lately?”

“No,” returned Mrs. Selden after considering the question, “come to think of it, she has not for a long time.”

“She tells me she is almost up to her normal weight and measurements.”

“How in the world does she know?”

“She keeps a strict account on a card she had given her by her Girl Scout captain. Fine idea that Girl Scout plan.”

“Yes, in some directions, but she wants to do such queer things like laundry work and cooking and such things. I never learned them and up to the present have never had to cook a meal and I have always been able to find a laundress.”

“Then you are very lucky if one may believe the tales one hears. Let her learn; it won’t hurt her a bit.”

Mrs. Selden lifted her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders but made no reply. Being of a conventional make up, and unaccustomed to alter the standards of her youth, she could see no reason for allowing Joanne to do the things which she had never been called upon to do, and rather resented the fact that her husband approved of the modern point of view.

Dr. Selden picked up his paper again, but laid it down to say: “What do you think Joanne proposes to do?”

“I’m sure I don’t know; something absurd, I suppose.”

“First she proposed to make me a garment. I suggested a coat, but it came down at last to a sweater, and I firmly believe she will make it. Then she has a suddenly acquired passion for learning to spell and write well, and has been practising on a copy I set her. Where is it?” He picked up the paper Joanne had left on the table. “There, shows improvement already. Get that child headed the right way and there’s no telling where she will bring up. We are mighty fortunate in having sent her to the right school.”

“I hope it may prove so in the end,” said Mrs. Selden. “I have not been altogether pleased with some things Joanne has reported.”

“What, for example?”

“Oh, this laundry work idea and the cooking, for one thing.”

“Don’t you worry over that. The day may come when you will be thankful she has those accomplishments.”

“Oh, Gregory, how you talk. Those are not accomplishments.”

“No, not in the same category as painting on satin and playing the Maiden’s Prayer, I admit,” then feeling that he had made himself disagreeable he changed the subject.

The quest for eggs was made speedily and successfully. There was but one halt on the way and that was when Joanne suddenly said: “Oh, Cousin Ned, do you mind stopping at that candy store we’re coming to? I want to get an egg.”

Mr. Pattison slowed down though he said: “I thought we were going to get the eggs in the country.”

“Of course, but I thought it would be nice to take a chocolate egg to Pablo; he sees plenty of the other kind, but I don’t believe any one will think to give him a fancy one.”

“Excellent idea. Here you are. Don’t be too particular in making a selection; we’re in a hurry, you know.”

Joanne wasted no time in making her purchase, and came out presently with a little paper bag in her hand. “I got two,” she said as she climbed into the tonneau. “One is for Unc’ Aaron.”

Her cousin chuckled. “I doubt if the old fellow ever saw such a thing.”

“But don’t you think he’ll like it?”

“He’ll be tickled to death.”

And indeed it would be hard to say which was the more pleased, the old man or the boy. Unc’ Aaron showed every one of his remaining teeth as he took the egg gingerly in his wrinkled brown hand. “Jes’ erzackly matches mah complexion,” he said with a grin, “an’ all dese yer little white crinkly-cranklies on it sutt’nly is pretty. I keeps it on mah mankelpiece, Miss Jo.”

“Oh, no, you mustn’t,” returned Joanne in alarm; “it will all melt. You must eat it.”

Unc’ Aaron scratched his old gray head and looked around helplessly at Pablo.

“It’s all creamy and sugary inside,” explained Joanne.

Unc’ Aaron pawed at Pablo with a funny sidewise movement as he spluttered with laughter. “Laws, honey,” he exclaimed, “I a-thinkin’ all de time it one o’ dese yer mak believes, jes’ fur a pretty, an’ not fur no mastification. Yas, miss, I eats it ef yuh says so.” He was still doubtful of its fitness for food, but rather than disappoint the young lady he was ready to swallow it whole if she demanded it.

As for Pablo, his English was unequal to the occasion and he poured forth his thanks in appreciative Spanish winding up with the assertion that he kissed her hand and placed himself at her feet.

Then there was a brief visit to Chico when Joanne had scarce more than time to kiss his dark head and give him a lump of sugar she had brought him, before Mrs. Clover called to her to come and see her baby chicks and yellow ducklings, then Cousin Ned was ready to go and off they started with a big basket of eggs, two bottles of cream, and other country products.

The evening sun spread a soft light upon the land, picking out sparkles in the river and touching to a vivid green the young leaves on the most adventurous of the trees. In the distance old Sugarloaf loomed up faintly blue, while from a scraggy sycamore a cardinal bird showed his splendor against a background of pines. Once in a while the plaintive note of a peewee or the cheerier whistle of a robin greeted them as they sped along, and once from out a depth of dense forest sounded the liquid song of a wood-thrush.

For a long time Joanne sat in silence. Her cousin, too, seemed lost in thought. After a while, however, he asked: “What are you thinking about, Jo?”

“I’m not thinking; I’m just enjoying,” she made answer. “It is all so lovely that I want it to soak in. One thing I did think about a little while ago was that I mean to study the birds. It seems to me I never shall have a better chance.”

“You couldn’t find a better locality,” her cousin assured her. Then they lapsed into silence again and soon were threading their way through the city’s streets, reaching home with not an egg broken.

CHAPTER VII
DYE AWAY

BEARING a basket of eggs between them Joanne and Winnie arrived at Miss Chesney’s house the next morning. As the door opened a great chattering was heard.

“Oh,” exclaimed Winnie, “some of the Boy Scouts must be here.”

Joanne drew back almost loosing her hold upon the basket.

“What’s the matter?” queried Winnie.

“Boys,” responded Joanne. “I—I’m kind of afraid of boys. I don’t know how to talk to them.”

“Nonsense,” returned Winnie. “You talk to them just as you do to girls. Come along and don’t be silly.”

So Joanne followed Winnie’s bold entrance and soon found herself in the midst of a merry group of girls and boys.

“Here they are!” cried Virgie. “Did you bring the eggs? Good! How many?”

“Four dozen and a half,” answered Joanne; “we thought we’d better allow for breakage.”

“Yum-yum, what lovely fresh eggs!” exclaimed Virgie as she peeped into the basket. “Did they come from that place in the country?”

“Yes. Cousin Ned and I went out there yesterday afternoon and got them, so I can guarantee that they are strictly fresh. It was perfectly lovely out there, and will be even lovelier when we all go.”

“I am just crazy about going,” returned Virgie. “Come out into the kitchen, Jo; the boys are out there. They are dyeing eggs for the wounded soldiers at the hospital. We’re letting them get through first and then they will help us do ours.”

Joanne followed Virgie rather timidly. Winnie was already in the midst of the company. “Here’s Jo, girls and boys,” announced Virgie. “It’s Jo Selden, boys, and she has brought all these lovely eggs from that spot in the country we have been telling you about.”

“It must be a corking place,” remarked the boy nearest Joanne. “Tell us about it, Jo. Gee whiz! but you’re lucky to have a cousin like that.”

“Yes, tell us, Jo,” spoke up two or three others. “We want to hear all about it, for we’re looking for a place to camp, and we thought maybe we Boy Scouts could find favor in your cousin’s sight so he’d let us in on the ground floor, as it were.”

“It surely would be ground floor,” returned Joanne, and before she knew it she was chattering away to half a dozen at once, waxing eloquent on the subject of the lodge, the river and all the rest of it.

“Ye gods and little fishes!” exclaimed Chet Lacey, “I never heard of such attractions all in one spot. It makes me fairly squirm with envy. I say, boys, we’ve just got to see it, if we do no more than wriggle inside the first fence. We’ve all got to be awfully nice to Joanne so she will tell Mr. Pattison what a fine lot we are. Miss Selden, won’t you allow me to escort you to a chair? Do you feel too warm? Shall I fan you? Are you chilly? Do permit me to get you a shawl or something.”

Of course Joanne had to dimple and laugh at this nonsense, but it made her feel perfectly at home with these unaffected boys, so that before long she was as merry as the rest.

“Where’s Claudia?” she asked as she realized that their patrol leader was not present.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” Virgie told her. “She is writing a song for the occasion. Watch those blue eggs, Jo; they mustn’t get too dark.”

So Joanne turned her attention to the pan of eggs while the boys carefully ladled out those already done. There were four boys in the party, Chesney Lacey, Miss Chesney’s nephew, better known as Chet, Milton Seymour, Peter Lowe and Hal Fosdick. A great deal of chaffing went on, but the business of dyeing the eggs was not allowed to suffer.

Presently Claudia came in waving a paper. “I did it!” she exclaimed, “with my little hatchet.”

“Did you hatch it?” inquired Pete. At which the other boys fell upon him.

“Here, here,” cried Miss Chesney, “no scrapping, boys.”

“We couldn’t stand it,” answered Chet, “really, Aunt Nan, we couldn’t.”

“If you can hatch a plot I don’t see why you couldn’t hatch a song,” said Pete as he smoothed down his rumpled hair.

“Don’t let’s argue that,” remarked Miss Chesney; “let’s have Claudia’s song. Out with it, Claudia.”

“You won’t have to listen long,” said Claudia, “for it is very short. It goes to a little boat song that I reckon you all know; that song ‘Lightly Row,’ you know. Any one who doesn’t know it can soon catch on. Here goes:

“Dye away! Dye away,

This is less of work than play.

Make them bright, dark or light,

Then they’ll be just right.

Eggs of red and eggs of blue,

Yellow, green and purple hue;

Dye away! Dye away!

Make the colors gay.

Sing and work! Work and sing!

Mix a song with everything.

Children dear, eggs are here

For your Easter cheer.

Eggs of red and eggs of blue

We are dyeing now for you.

Dye away! Dye away!

Make the colors gay.”

“Fine, Claudia,” cried her audience. “Let’s go to it.” And in a few minutes the room resounded with the song.

Joanne knew the old melody very well, for it was one her grandmother had sung to her when she was only a baby, so her voice rang out sweet and clear. The words, scribbled in large letters on a big sheet of paper hung on the wall, were easily read by every one. Over and over they were sung while the eggs were stirred in the dye, and it was only when the last eggs were transferred to a big bowl that the song ceased.

“We’ve requisitioned two automobiles,” said Hal Fosdick. “Who wants to go along with us? We are going to the hospital, but can drop you girls at the Home if you say so.”

Then there was a discussion as to who should go and who should not. Some of the girls had luncheon engagements, so finally the number dwindled down to six, and it was decided that these should accept the boys’ invitation, and should carry the eggs to the Orphan’s Home. Joanne and Winnie were among the six and found themselves in the car with Miss Chesney, Chet Lacey and Hal Fosdick. It was a matter of but a few minutes to reach the Home and to deliver the eggs, then what Winnie called the “Dye away party” broke up and Joanne was at home again.

She was hardly indoors before her grandmother called her to say: “Your Cousin Neds wants you to call him up at his office as soon as you can.”

Joanne needed no second summons but was at the ’phone in a minute and soon heard her Cousin Ned’s voice. “This is Joanne, Cousin Ned,” she responded to his “Hello!”

“Good!” came the response. “What do you think of leading your Girl Scouts up to the lodge next Tuesday? Don’t you have holiday next week? What’s the good of waiting till Saturday?”

“Of course we needn’t wait, that is if the girls can go; some of them can I know. Miss Dodge is away, but Miss Chesney is here. Tell me how you happened to think of our going on Tuesday.”

“I saw Dawson this morning; he drove down with Tim Clover, and said he was coming down again with the boat on Monday, expects to start back on Tuesday, and says he can take you all along if you want to go. You’d better hustle around and get your girls together so as to let me know by Monday.”

“I’ll do it. Are you going up with us, Cousin Ned?”

“Afraid I can’t this time, but you’ll be all right with Unc’ Aaron and Mrs. Clover to look after you.”

“Of course we shall. I’ll go to see Miss Chesney at once and then we’ll get hold of the girls. I’m so excited I can hardly talk.”

“Then don’t. Good-bye.” And Joanne found herself cut off.

It was a busy afternoon for her. First came the consultation with Miss Chesney who expressed herself as not only willing but eager to head the expedition, if, by chance, Miss Dodge had not returned.

“She has gone no farther than Baltimore,” said Miss Chesney. “It will be easy to get her on the ’phone, and, unless she has made engagements she cannot break or cancel in some way, it is my opinion that she will come back.”

“But you’ll go anyhow, won’t you?” inquired Joanne who was a little speck fonder of her lieutenant than of her captain.

“Oh, my yes; wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Then for an hour they were busy in calling up different girls, and finally the matter was settled. Six girls would be ready to join the expedition. Some had made engagements they could not break; some had tickets for the Wednesday matinées; two or three were going to be out of town.

“I’d rather go to the country than to any old matinée,” remarked Joanne. “There are always chances to go to matinées but a chance like this is rare.”

“I agree with you perfectly, my child,” said Miss Chesney. “Well, it is all settled and all there is to find out is when and where we meet. I suppose we start from Georgetown; that’s where the canal ends, or begins, whichever way you put it.”

It was joyous company which met on the bank of the old canal. Each girl was equipped for such an outing, Joanne, for the first time, wearing her outfit, and very proud of it. At the last minute Miss Dodge dashed up, having cut short her visit in order to be with her troop. There were many delays, Mr. Dawson being a deliberate sort of person, who every little while forgot something he intended to get at the store near by, and must go back for it, but at last they were off.

Every girl was in a state of giggling excitement as the boat began to slip through the quiet waters. It was all such a novelty, the flat canal boat, the patient mule walking the tow-path, his ramshackle, dusky driver, the first lock where the boat rose slowly up, up when the gates were shut and finally swung out upon a higher level, the shores growing wilder and wilder till soon it seemed as if they must be miles and miles beyond civilization, the rush of the rapids at Little Falls, and then the quiet flow of the blue Potomac.

“Such a leisurely way of going, but it is never monotonous,” remarked Miss Dodge when the girls had quieted down and were making few attempts at conversation.

“I could go this way forever,” said Miss Chesney as she lay back lazily watching the light and shade upon the water.

“Willows whiten, aspens quiver

Little breezes dusk and shiver

Through the wave that runs forever

By the island in the river,”

she quoted dreamily.

“I’ve heard the ‘Tirra lirra by the river,’ but it wasn’t Sir Lancelot,” Joanne responded; “it was the canal boatman sounding his horn at night for the lock to be opened, but it was very weird and romantic for all that, and I love to hear it.”

The boat continued on its slow way. At the Great Falls the girls would fain have halted, but Mr. Dawson shook his head. “Ain’t no time to stop if we want to get in before nightfall. Never can tell how many boats there are ahead of us nor how long we may be held up at the locks.”

The girls huddled back to their places. “Oh, dear,” sighed Joanne, “I did want so much to see the Falls.”

“They’re well worth seeing,” said Miss Dodge. “If they were in Europe or in some more enterprising locality they would be advertised far and wide and people would flock to see them. As it is half the people who come to Washington never have heard of them. Never mind, Joanne, we’ll take a lunch and come up on a picnic some day, then we’ll have more time. You will want more than a glimpse.”

This pleasant prospect more than satisfied Joanne, and she gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment. Lunch was eaten, songs were sung, shadows began to lengthen. It was sometimes tedious waiting at the locks, but finally Mr. Dawson announced that they had gone through the last. They were passing towering crags by this time, and could hear the roar of rapids further on. Great holes in the jutting rocks suggested the lairs of wild creatures. From the depths of the woods and from the copses near by birds were singing. Presently a turn in the canal brought to view the little lodge snuggled down at the foot of a rock-strewn hill.

Joanne sprang to her feet. “There it is! There it is!” she cried, and every girl gazed in the direction she indicated. “We go right by to the lock,” she continued, “and will have to walk back, but it isn’t far.”

“We shall be glad of the walk,” declared Miss Dodge, “for we have been sitting still so long.”

The girls were now all excitement which was redoubled when Joanne again cried out: “There’s Unc’ Aaron and Pablo; they have come to meet us.”

Sure enough when the boat stopped there stood the pair with eager hands ready to take the girls’ packs, and in spite of protests, loaded themselves down and went on to the lodge. “We can’t have that, you know,” said Claudia to Winnie. “We’ve got to do things for ourselves, or we shall lose half the joy, besides missing our chances of earning merit badges.”

Joanne looked distressed. “I know, but you see Unc’ Aaron is accustomed to doing things for Cousin Ned and his friends when they come up, and he won’t understand that he isn’t expected to do them for us, the more so that he considers us young ladies who must be waited on.”

“I see. Well, we’ll put it up to Miss Dodge and let her grapple with the situation.”

This they did and their captain promised that she would deal as delicately with the old darkey as she could, but that her girls must not be deprived of their experiences. They found the fires laid and Unc’ Aaron prepared to make his famous griddle cakes for supper.

“Oh, dear,” exclaimed Claudia, “we can’t let him do that, can we, Miss Dodge?”

“He’ll be so disappointed,” Joanne put in. “I don’t see why he can’t make them this once. Somebody might watch him, some one who is cleverer than I and who could write out the recipe afterward.”

Miss Dodge laughed. “For the sake of that I think we shall have to give in this time. I wonder, by the way, how he knew we were coming.”

“I think Mr. Dawson must have told him, for he knew when he started yesterday that he was to bring us back with him.”

“Of course; that explains it. I think I’ll go into the kitchen and take a hand in things. Probably he will respect my authority more than that of any of you younger ones.”

Claudia and Joanne went off to find the other girls bustling about making ready the rooms for the night. “There’s not such an awful lot to do,” complained Winnie. “To be sure the place isn’t so powerful clean, but the beds are made. We’ll give the whole house a thorough going over and leave it spick and span for Mr. Pattison.”

“It will take us nearly the whole day to do that,” said Esther Rhodes looking around, “and we do want to be in the open as much as we can. I am perfectly wild to explore this heavenly place.”

“Oh, no, it won’t take us a whole day,” declared Claudia; “besides we have more than one day.”

“Not more than to-morrow,” returned Esther.

“Why, yes we have, if we choose to stay. Didn’t you hear Joanne say that Mr. Pattison sent word we were to stay till the end of the week if we wished? He is coming up with some friends on Saturday evening but we shall not need to start off till Saturday morning.”

“Oh, joy, joy!” cried Esther. “No, I didn’t hear that at all. I shall have to get word to my mother in some way, for I told her we were to be here till Thursday.”

“That’s easy,” Joanne told her; “all you have to do is to telephone from the lock.”

“All this and a telephone thrown in!” exclaimed Esther. “Don’t let us waste another minute indoors, girls.”

So out they trooped to see glorious lights upon the river, to hear birds singing all around them, to feel a soft, sweet breeze blowing fresh from the water and to smell ravishing odors, which, though these were now mingled with the smoke from Unc’ Aaron’s griddle, were not vitiated in the opinion of the hungry girls.

“Do look at that precious little island up there,” cried Winnie as she turned her eyes from nearer objects to the curving line of river beyond. “I wonder if we could get to it.”

“Certainly,” Joanne answered. “Cousin Ned often goes there when he is out fishing with his friends. They build a fire and cook the fish over the coals.”

“Dear me,” sighed Winnie, “there are so many lovely things to do one doesn’t know where to begin, and we’ll never get them all done.”

“Of course not,” returned Joanne, “not in one trip, but we mean there shall be more than one.”

“I devoutly hope so. Me, oh me! Joanne, but I am glad you joined our troop.”

Joanne laughed, then came the summons to supper and the girls trooped into the dining-room to be regaled upon the famous griddle cakes and honey.

It was only when it was too dark to see that they were ready to come indoors after supper, then they gathered around a crackling fire in the big stone fireplace to tell stories, sing songs and have a good time generally till an old-fashioned clock on the mantel told them it was bedtime.

It was perhaps an hour later that Joanne, turning on her pillow, waked sufficiently to hear a boatman’s horn. She touched Winnie who was sleeping peacefully by her side. “Tirra lirra by the river,” whispered Joanne, but Winnie slept on and Joanne snuggled down again on her pillow.

CHAPTER VIII
“SMILE, SMILE, SMILE”

IT was incredible what a variety of activities the girls were able to get into their three days’ stay. They went canoeing down the canal, they rode, they went for long hikes, they studied the birds; they gathered wild flowers, they cleaned house, they cooked, washed and ironed, and started off on Saturday morning, feeling that there was still much of which they had not availed themselves.

But they did not, as Winnie remarked, “mourn as those without hope,” for before they started for the station who should appear upon the scene but Mr. Pattison, who announced that he had come up ahead of his friends in order to see if there was anything left for them to come to.

“With a lot of scatter-brained girls on hand,” he said, “I didn’t know but I should find the house burned down.”

“You horrid mean thing!” cried Joanne, “you know you didn’t expect anything of the kind. I’ll leave it to anybody if you ever saw the place in such apple-pie order. Just come and see.” She led him from spot to spot till he was obliged to confess she spoke truly.

“I give in,” he exclaimed. “You are fairies or brownies or anything you choose, and I take off my hat to the Girl Scouts. Of course I didn’t think you would do any harm deliberately, but I didn’t know but you would be more or less careless. Where’s Miss Dodge?”

Joanne hunted her up and a long conference followed between the captain and Mr. Pattison. The girls, all ready to go, stood around impatiently. “I wonder what they are talking about,” said Joanne.

“Miss Dodge looks mightily pleased,” returned Winnie.

“Probably he is complimenting her upon being at the head of such a fine troop,” remarked Claudia.

“Oh, Claudia, what a conceited remark,” exclaimed Esther.

Claudia laughed. “How literal you always are, Ess,” she said.

“All the same,” remarked Winnie serenely, “we are a fine troop; no one can deny.”

“Oh, Win,” Esther began but stopped short as she saw that the conference had broken up and that the two were coming toward them.

“It is evident that Miss Dodge’s smile is the kind that won’t come off,” whispered Winnie to Joanne; “it is getting broader and broader.”

Miss Dodge was not long in giving them the reason for her pleased expression. “Girls,” she began, “I want you to give three cheers for Mr. Pattison; he has offered this place to us for the month of July so we can have our summer camp here.”

It is needless to say that the cheers were given with a will, then the girls crowded around with a dozen questions and with vociferous thanks. Finally they started off on their eight mile hike to the station singing “We feel just as happy as big Sunflowers,” a song which Miss Dodge had resurrected from an old book, and which they had taken over as particularly fitting for a Sunflower troop.

Joanne reached home tired but very happy. She flung down her pack and bounced into the room where her grandparents were sitting. “We’ve had just the gloriousest time,” she exclaimed, “and just think of it, I have walked eight miles this morning.”

“Oh, Joanne,” cried her grandmother, “you must be quite exhausted. You’d better go right up-stairs and go to bed. I will send your lunch up.”

Joanne made a funny little grimace at her grandfather. “But, Gradda, I don’t want to go to bed, and I am as hungry as a hunter. I have grown such an appetite you wouldn’t recognize it. I shouldn’t like to tell you how many cakes I ate for supper last night. Miss Dodge has learned to make just as good griddle cakes as Unc’ Aaron’s, and we all have tried, too. Mine aren’t quite so good yet, but they weren’t so bad.” She turned to her grandfather. “Please, Grad, say I don’t have to go up and even lie down. I feel fine as silk.”

He took her by the shoulders and looked her over critically. “I must say I never saw you looking so well,” he declared. “I don’t think she need go to her room, my dear,” he said to his wife.

“But I am sure she will have a headache if she eats when she is exhausted,” returned Mrs. Selden.

“But I don’t feel exhausted or even tired,” persisted Joanne. “We came home on the cars and that rested me. Why, Gradda, I have been going like a steam engine ever since I left.”

“How many headaches have you had?”

“Not one. Isn’t this fine? We are going to spend July up at that heavenly place, all our troop.”

“Oh, Joanne, but we shall be at Jamestown by July,” her grandmother spoke. “I heard from Mrs. Abercrombie only this morning. The Admiral will spend the summer there, and they are counting on our coming.”

“Oh, but Gradda, I don’t want to go to any of those stupid watering places and I don’t see why I have to.”

“My dear, of course you have to. Do you suppose I would think of leaving you behind? The idea is preposterous. I shouldn’t spend a peaceful moment.”

“But why, Gradda, why?” The old fretful whine came into Joanne’s voice.

“For excellent reasons. A delicate child like you exposed to, I don’t know what dangers, far from your home, your family, your doctor. No, no, put that notion out of your head at once and think no more about it.”

Joanne stood still for a moment with clenched hands and frowning brows, then she burst out with, “I think it’s horrid mean to deprive me of my only pleasures. I’ll run away; I’ll hide, but I won’t go up to that stupid place, I won’t, I won’t.”

“Joanne!” her grandfather’s voice came sternly.

“If this is what you learn from your Girl Scouts, to be impertinent and rebellious,” said her grandmother stiffly, “I think you’d better resign from the troop.”

Joanne burst into tears and rushed up to her room, angry, ashamed, distressed. Where were her high hopes, her promises? She threw herself across her bed in a fit of passionate weeping. It was too hard, too hard; it was more than she could bear to have her beautiful dreams shattered. To think that the girls would be there at the lodge without her, at the place they would never have heard of but for her! They would be riding Chico—no, they should not. He was her pony; she would give orders that no one should use him but Pablo. They would be rowing up to that dear little island in her cousin’s boat; they would be partaking of her cousin’s hospitality. They would be laughing and playing while she was miserable. She wished she might go into a decline, and then her grandparents would see what it meant to be cruel to her. She already felt a headache coming on. She hoped they would realize that it was they who made her suffer. Even her grandfather, on whose support she always counted, even he had not taken her part. She fell to sobbing again spasmodically.

Suddenly she sat up. She heard the maid coming along the hall, then a tap at the door. “Well, what is it?” asked Joanne.

“Mrs. Selden wants to know if you aren’t coming to lunch, Miss Joanne,” came the answer.

“Tell her I don’t want any. I have a splitting headache.”

The maid went away. Joanne sat on the side of the bed, her feet dangling over, her eyes red, her hair disordered, altogether a forlorn little figure. They didn’t love her. They didn’t understand her. There was nobody to sympathize with her. To whom could she go for comfort? She thought of Winnie, but decided that Winnie was too candid and outspoken to deal with the situation. She wanted sympathy, not advice. There was Miss Dodge, or Claudia, but a little feeling of embarrassment came over her as she considered any of these. She was not sure that she could present her case so as to win entire commiseration. “I’ll go to Cousin Sue,” she said after a few minutes’ thought. “She will understand, for she knows Gradda so well and she is fond of me. They’ll be at lunch and they won’t miss me. I don’t care if they do; let them.”

She bathed her face, straightened her dress, brushed her hair and then stole softly down the back stairs and out a side door. The fresh air felt grateful; the little park through which she walked was green, and lively with laughing children. By the time she reached Mrs. Pattison’s apartment the world did not appear such a dreary place.

“Come right out and have lunch with me,” said Mrs. Pattison when Joanne appeared. “I’m all alone, for Ned has gone up to the country, as perhaps you know, and I’m delighted to have company. They’re having a stag party up at the lodge, you know, and so, of course I am out of it, though just as well pleased. Did you have a good time? Come in and tell me all about it.”

Joanne entered the pleasant dining-room and took a place at the table. “We had a perfectly gorgeous time,” she said, “and the girls are so enthusiastic about the place, as well they may be.”

Mrs. Pattison looked at her rather critically. “Now I come to see you at close range it appears to me that you look rather done up by your trip.”

Joanne colored up and bit her lip. “It wasn’t the trip that did me up, but what has occurred since.”

“My dear! I hope there is nothing serious with aunt or uncle. Didn’t you find them well?”

“Oh, yes, it’s all to do with me.”

“You? Why, I thought things were going beautifully with you. I am sure we have all been remarking on how well you look.”

Joanne drew a long sigh and looked down into her plate. “I shall not be looking well if I have to be bored to death all summer.”

“That doesn’t sound cheerful. What’s the idea? as Ned would say.”

“Gradda wants to drag me off with her to one of those horrid, stupid watering places she likes to go to, where they do nothing but dress up and do fancy work. I loathe them, more than ever now since I know what really good times are. I never knew why I was so discontented at one of those fashionable resorts, but now I know.”

Mrs. Pattison smiled. “What special one rouses your ire on this occasion?”

“Oh, that Jamestown near Newport.”

“Why, that’s rather a nice place.”

“For some,” returned Joanne plaintively. “Did you know, Cousin Sue,” she went on impressively, “that Cousin Ned has offered the lodge to our troop for the month of July, and that the girls are simply wild about it?”

“Has he? The dear fellow, it’s just like him. You see we are going down to Virginia, to my sister’s, for July, and shall not be using the lodge.”

“But don’t you see,” Joanne laid down her fork, “don’t you see, Cousin Sue, that if Gradda insists upon dragging me off with her I shall miss all those heavenly times.”

“Of course. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“And—and,” continued Joanne with a little gasp, “the reason I look done up is because I cried myself nearly sick about it. I told Gradda what I thought and then I went up-stairs and cried and cried till I hadn’t a tear left, then I slipped off and came here. I was so perfectly wretched and I wanted some one to comfort me. Please sympathize with me.”

“I do sympathize with you, certainly I do, but Joanne, dear, doesn’t your grandmother know where you are?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Probably she thinks I am still in my room. She isn’t concerning herself about my misery; she is thinking only of depriving me of my pleasures.”

“Dear, dear, that’s a harsh way to talk. Of course she hasn’t any such motive. It is because of her deep concern in you that she wants you always with her. There are always two sides to a question, my dear, and I think half the trouble in the world comes from our not putting ourselves in the other fellow’s place.”

“Then please put yourself in my place.”

Mrs. Pattison smiled. “All right. I am Joanne Selden, a fatherless, motherless girl, cared for and watched over by her grandmother ever since she was a baby, who cared for and nursed her delicate young mother, and who is now so fearfully afraid that something will happen to the beloved child of her adored son that she cannot endure the thought of being parted from her.”

Joanne’s head drooped and her lips trembled, but she said nothing.

“I am Joanne Selden, who is not always a source of unadulterated joy, being a rather spoiled little somebody, but who wants to be the best ever and who truly loves her grandparents, and is pouty and saucy only when she can’t have her own way.”

“Oh, Cousin Sue,” Joanne began tremblingly, then she left her place and went around to her cousin, dropping on her knees and burying her face on her cousin’s shoulder. “I didn’t think you would be cruel, too,” she sobbed.

“Was I cruel? Perhaps I was, but I wanted you to see the other side of the question and how else was I to do it? We all love you very dearly, darling child, so please don’t think we are down on you. Don’t take this too seriously, for maybe there will be a way out. What is that about always being cheerful and going about with a smile? It seems to me that I saw something of the sort in your Girl Scout handbook, didn’t I?”

Joanne lifted her wet eyes. “Yes, Cousin Sue, I know, but there are times when one can’t be cheerful, when the tragedies of life crush one utterly.”

Mrs. Pattison repressed a smile. “You poor little dear, I suppose it does look like a tragedy to you, but it strikes me this is a time to turn your clouds inside out. Chirk up, dear. It isn’t July, and won’t be for over two months. No one can tell what will happen by then. Come now, finish your lunch and let’s talk of something cheerful. I’ll call up your grandmother and tell her you will be with me this afternoon, so she won’t be uneasy.”

Joanne rose to her feet and went back to her scarcely tasted luncheon. “Just one thing, Cousin Sue,” she said, “before we leave this subject. Won’t you use your influence with Gradda and try to make her see that it will be for my good to spend that month with my troop? I’m afraid she thinks I don’t profit by being a Girl Scout.”

“Why?”

“Because I did fly out and say raging things to her.”

“Then you might, for your soul’s good, offer her an apology.”

“Oh, Cousin Sue, I couldn’t. I never did such a thing in my life.”

“High time you began. Don’t you see, you blind little mole, that if you do now, she will think it is the yeast of scouting working in you? Don’t you owe it to yourself as a Girl Scout to do something that will show you are making progress in character?”

“You talk as if you were a captain of a troop yourself.”

“I’m not, but I have friends who are and I know that good times are not all you girls must look for. The big thing is the training of yourselves into such women as the country can be proud of. There’s an old Sunday school text which was the motto of our class when I was a little girl of your age: ‘Be not weary of well doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.’ I remember that our teacher told us the essence of the thing lay in that ‘if ye faint not’; in other words: Don’t fall down on your job. If you are going to be a Girl Scout, be a first-rate one.”

Joanne finished her meal in silence. She was thinking too hard to talk. It came over her that she had not realized what a serious person this pretty young wife of her Cousin Ned could be. She had always appeared full of fun, rather fond of pretty things, of social affairs, and here suddenly she was preaching. Then all at once she understood why Cousin Sue was popular. Underneath the laughter and gay spirits lay sterling character, and she realized that to be a Girl Scout one mustn’t think only of fun and badges, but of the intangible things that lasted forever.

As they left the room, Cousin Sue cuddled up to her little guest “I was awfully preachy, wasn’t I? But it was just because I love you so hard. Let’s go to a movie; that will cheer us up.”

The play they saw happened to be just the one to raise Joanne’s spirits, and she went home a much more cheerful person than the one who left it. All the way up to her room she was trying to make up her mind to offer that apology. It was the hardest task ever set her. She did not see how in the world she could do it, but she must. “I’ve just got to do it, somehow,” she told herself. Then all of a sudden the happy thought came to her that she could write it. Her grandmother was out. She would write her a little note and leave it on the dressing table in her grandmother’s room. No sooner planned than done. The note ran:

“Dearest Gradda:

“I was a babyish pig to speak to you as I did. Please forgive me.

“Your very loving
“Joanne.”

Having done this she felt a great load lifted, and went about getting ready for dinner, singing softly to herself: “Smile, smile, smile.”

After a while the front door shut. Her grandparents came up-stairs. Joanne heard the murmur of their voices, then in the hall her grandmother’s footsteps. She turned toward her door. Her grandmother came in swiftly holding out her arms. “Dear child, dear child,” she murmured as Joanne went to her.

Her grandfather smiled down at her as they all went down-stairs together. “Well, Pickings,” he said, “are the skies clear?”

Joanne smiled back at him. “It has cleared off beautifully,” she answered.

Not a word was said about Jamestown either at table or during the evening. Joanne told of the amusing play she had seen. She played cribbage with her grandmother, and in answer to one or two anxious looks she smiled. “No, Gradda, not a sign of headache,” she said.

When she went to kiss her grandfather good-night he drew her close and whispered: “Congratulations on the victory.” And Joanne understood. She went to her room smiling.

CHAPTER IX
BABY OR SOLDIER—WHICH?

NOT a word did Joanne say to her girl friends about her summer plans. Cousin Sue’s advice had not fallen upon stony ground. Why should one dwell upon an unpleasant subject when there was no immediate need to? Why cross a bridge till you came to it? Meantime there were many things to occupy a schoolgirl’s thoughts, with examinations coming on, and quite as many things to interest a Girl Scout outside the matter of winning badges. Sunflower Troop took weekly hikes, sometimes no farther than to Potomac Park to see the Japanese cheery trees in blossom, sometimes as far as Arlington. There was a Saturday picnic to the Great Falls, another to Alexandria and Mt. Vernon. An afternoon at the Zoo gave an opportunity to those girls who were studying birds and animals. An afternoon in the Maryland woods permitted more than one to complete her list of wild flowers. So the weeks went by till June when Joanne was whirled away to Annapolis where her grandparents must go to join in the excitement of June week at the Naval Academy.

One might give chapters to the doings of that gay occasion, but while Joanne did participate in some of them her grandmother declared that she was still too young to go to the dances except as a looker on, therefore that sober pleasure was all that was hers.

However, she had plenty to report to an interested audience, when she returned, but that done she felt that she was nearing that dreaded time when she must disclose the fact that she would not be able to join her troop at the camp in July.

It was but a few days before the closing of school that she was walking home with Winnie and Claudia, and the subject came up.

“Just think,” said Winnie, “July will be here before we know it, and then, ho for the woods and dales of Maryland! Aren’t you excited about it, Jo? Now that those old exams. are over and you have come off with flying colors you can just rest your mind and dream of the lodge and the river.”

Joanne looked very grave. “Perhaps I should have told you before,” she answered, “but I simply couldn’t, for I have been hoping I wouldn’t have to. Girls, I’m not going.”

“Not going?” The other two girls stood still and looked at each other, then Claudia gave Joanne a little shake. “Of course you’re going. You needn’t think we’re going to be taken in by such an obvious joke.”

“Really and truly,” avowed Joanne. “Gradda is going to Jamestown, Rhode Island, and refuses to leave me behind.”

“Are you still jollying us, or is that a fact?” queried Winnie.

“I wish it were a joke, but it is only too solemn a fact,” responded Joanne with so grave a face that the others no longer doubted.

“Oh, well, then that will break up the party,” asserted Winnie. “I, for one, wouldn’t think of going if you are to be left out. It would be too mean for words when you were the means of getting us the invitation. Don’t you think so, Clausie?”

“I certainly do, unless Joanne really likes going with her grandmother.”

“If you had seen me when she announced her intention,” said Joanne, with a little whimsical smile, “you wouldn’t have thought I was carried away with enthusiasm.”

“Oh, Jo, what did you do?” inquired Winnie with a little laugh.

“I shrieked protests; I stamped; I defied; I sassed; I flounced out of the room and went up-stairs and howled.”

“Well, for once I think you were excusable, for all, perhaps, except for the sassing. What did your grandmother do?”

“She hadn’t a chance to do anything much, for after I had got my bearings I rushed madly to Cousin Sue Pattison and she straightened me out so that I wrote a note of apology and my bark sailed on serenely.”

“Good girl!” Claudia patted her on the back approvingly. “I’ll bet it took courage to eat that piece of humble pie.”

“I’ll say it did,” returned Joanne with a little laugh at her bit of slang, “but it was soon over and I don’t mean to let myself go so rambunctiously again; it doesn’t pay, I find. You girls should know Cousin Sue; she is the dearest thing. I don’t know what I should do without her. We have been such friends ever since that horrid time.”

“If she is anything like Mr. Pattison she must be a peach,” declared Winnie.

“She is just as much of a peach but a different variety,” replied Joanne. “Well, girls, I want to say this, that you are not to consider me at all in the going to the lodge. You are to go and have the very best sort of time. It will make me very unhappy if you back out. I want you to use Chico all that is good for him and I want you to be nice to Pablo. As long as confessions are in the air, I may as well tell you that at first I was so mad that I vowed no one should ride Chico if I couldn’t, and I was ready to fight any one who dared to suggest riding him.”

“But now you have come down from your high horse,” said Winnie.

“Not my high horse; my little pony,” retorted Joanne brightly.

“Well, if you can joke about it, I should say you had recovered entirely from your mad,” said Claudia. “Listen, girls, I don’t think we’d better say anything about Jo’s not going, at least not yet. It will stir up such a rumpus, and the girls will jabber over the pros and cons till they are blue in the face. We won’t spring it on them till the very last. I must say, Jo, that I think you’re tremendously generous. If it were my cousin’s place and my pony, I’d rebel, I’m sure.”

Joanne looked at her with a queer little smile. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said, “at least, not for long, because you are a Girl Scout.”

Claudia gave her a hug, then and there, in spite of the fact that they were by no means without observers. “You dear, sweet little thing,” she cried; “you’ll sail in ahead of all of us, if we don’t look out.”

Then the three parted, and Joanne walked on thoughtfully, beneath the arching, leafy trees. There were roses, roses everywhere; the air was sweet with them and with the pendant blooms of wistaria. Joanne felt very happy even when she thought of the coming of July, which would separate her from her companions. “I have nearly a whole month yet,” she said to herself as she mounted the steps leading to her home.

She found her grandmother and Cousin Sue in close conversation. “Cousin Sue!” she exclaimed, “I certainly am glad to find you here. You are going to stay to lunch, of course.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Selden assured her.

“How goes school?” asked Mrs. Pattison.

“Fine as silk. I’m through all my exams. and I passed every one. I even got a pretty good mark in math., which was the fiercest one of all for a poor body like me. As for my writing and spelling, I’m afraid I had a call down on them. Even Grad can’t say I haven’t improved in other things; I have worked hard enough.”

“You don’t feel the worse for it?” said her grandmother anxiously.

“Dear me, no, I am as fit as a fiddle. You should see the stunts I can do in the gym. Gradda, do you think there will be any chance for me to row and swim, this summer? I can swim a little but I want to be a Jim dandy at it. There should be lots of chances at a place like Jamestown.”

Mrs. Selden glanced at Mrs. Pattison and smiled. “What would you say if I told you we were not going to Jamestown?”

“Oh, Gradda!” Joanne clasped her hands ecstatically.

“No, we are not going for several reasons. In the first place I have had a letter from Mrs. Abercrombie who says the Admiral has to go to the Pacific coast and she is going with him, so I don’t care to undertake the upkeep of the cottage we had planned to share. Then, your grandfather is interested in some matters here which will keep him occupied until August at the earliest. Sue and I were talking over the situation when you came in.”

Joanne gave her cousin an appealing look.

“I’ve been trying to persuade your grandmother to come to Virginia with me,” said Mrs. Pattison, giving Joanne an understanding look. “My sister has a great big house, and would be perfectly delighted if I were to bring Aunt Alice with me, for she adores to have company. Of course it will not be as cool as at the seashore, but it is in the mountains and ever and ever so many persons go no farther in summer. Besides, it is within easy distance of the city, so Uncle Greg could run into town whenever he found it necessary. I think it would be an ideal arrangement. It is really lovely at Kate’s and the nights are cool.”

“And——” Joanne paused to give her cousin another appealing look.

“You wouldn’t have to bother about the housekeeping,” Mrs. Pattison went on, turning to Mrs. Selden. “Kate has an old mammy sort of cook who has been with her for years and years, and I will guarantee you will have good things to eat.”

“Oh, my dear,” murmured Mrs. Selden protestingly, “as if I would take that into consideration.”

“I would, then,” said Mrs. Pattison with a laugh; “it would make a tremendous difference to me. Come, Aunt Alice, be a sport, and say you will go, then you can bundle Jo off to Ned’s place and be as free as air.”

Joanne gave a little start and waited breathlessly for her grandmother’s answer.

“If I could be sure it would be the best thing for her,” returned Mrs. Selden meditatively.

“Of course it will be. You couldn’t have her at a better place, with Miss Dodge and Miss Chesney to look after her, not to mention that nice Mrs. Clover, and old Unc’ Aaron, who is a host in himself. Why, she couldn’t be any better off in a sanitarium.” Mrs. Pattison glanced at Joanne with mischief in her eyes as she ended her remark.

“Well,” said Mrs. Selden with a sigh, “it all sounds very attractive, and you are very good to want to help me out. I declare when I had Mrs. Abercrombie’s letter this morning I was completely upset. Of course I shall have to talk it over with Gregory, but I haven’t a doubt but he will consider it a very happy idea, all things taken into consideration.”

“Come, Jo, don’t you want to take me up-stairs to wash my hands?” said Mrs. Pattison, feeling it wise to leave the subject at this point.

Joanne was only too glad to get her cousin off to herself, and when they had reached the next floor she fell upon her with a mighty hug. “Oh, you precious darling,” she cried, “I could squeeze you to pieces.”

“Please don’t,” returned Mrs. Pattison, “for I really want to take some of me to Kate’s. Wasn’t it fun, Jo?”

Joanne giggled. “It was simply great. I could scarcely keep my face straight when you said that about the sanitarium.”

“I believe that really did the business. You’ll have to get Miss Dodge here and have her talk a great deal about First Aid and Health rules and all that.”

“I’ll do that very thing. Gradda doesn’t take us seriously at all. You’d think the Girl Scouts nothing but some sort of club where the girls did nothing but amuse themselves.”

“She’ll realize the practical part in time. She doesn’t absorb a new idea very quickly; she isn’t built that way,” said Mrs. Pattison as she lathered her hands. “What team work is your troop doing just now?”

“We’re trying to raise the money to buy canteens for a troop of girls that are too poor to raise it for themselves; working girls, they are, most of them.”

“A good cause. I’ll give a quarter toward that. Just wait till I dry my hands.”

“How lovely of you! But there’s no hurry.”

“No time like the present; I might forget it.” She presently produced the quarter and the two went down-stairs together.

Joanne was not doomed to wait long before she learned her grandparent’s decision. Nothing was said at the dinner table about the summer plans, and Joanne was discreet enough not to bring up the subject, knowing that her grandmother was not one to be hurried, and that any show of impatience on her own part would only defer the matter. Immediately after dinner Dr. Selden went out and had not returned when Joanne went up to her room, supposedly to go to bed. She had fidgeted about all evening, finding it hard to settle down to any one thing.

“I declare, Joanne, you make me nervous,” said her grandmother. “What a restless child you are. Can’t you sit down quietly at something? Do find something to do or else go up-stairs to bed; it is high time you went anyway.”

“I thought I might wait till Grad came in,” replied Joanne.

“There’s no telling when that will be. He was going to meet some old friends at the club and they may talk till midnight. I advise you to go right to bed this minute and see if you can’t sleep off some of that restlessness.”

Joanne felt that argument would not help her cause, so up-stairs she went, and not very long after heard her grandfather come in. “Oh dear,” she sighed, “why didn’t I wait a wee bit longer? However, I don’t suppose it would have done any good, for I doubt if Gradda would talk about me or make any plans for me before my face. I wish I knew what they are talking about.” She sat on the side of her bed swinging her bare feet and listening to the murmur of voices in the room below. After standing it as long as she could she slipped her toes into her bedroom slippers and went to the head of the stairs, straining her ears to hear what was being said. Her grandmother seemed to be holding the floor; she could hear her soft voice going on and on, but could not hear what she was talking about.

Presently the soft voice ceased and Joanne heard Dr. Selden’s deeper one answering: “It seems to me an excellent idea, Alice,” she could hear this clearly. “I don’t see why you hesitate a moment.”

More soft murmuring, then: “But, my dear, it is high time the child was taught self-reliance. Suppose anything were to happen to us, it would be a pitiful situation for her. She has been carried around on a silver tray, as it were, all her life. If she were to be suddenly thrust out into the world alone it would be very hard for her. It isn’t fair to deprive her of her proper development.”

Again the soft murmuring; this time a little louder.

“All very true,” the deep voice came in again, “but we are living in a different age, and you cannot expect things to go on in the way they did when you were young. Conditions have altered; standards are not the same. As long as she is healthy and happy why not let her do as the other girls do?”

This time Joanne heard: “But, Gregory, I don’t see how I can allow her to be separated from me an entire month.”

“Nonsense!” again Dr. Selden spoke. “You may as well get used to it. Suppose she marries some day and goes to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

Joanne started back, suddenly realizing that she was eavesdropping. What right had she to listen to a conversation not intended for her ears? The color flamed up into her face, and she clapped her hands over her offending members. “How mean of me! How mean!” she whispered as she ran back to her room. “I wouldn’t have believed I could be so contemptible. Poor, dear Gradda; how anxious she is about me. I am an ungrateful wretch.”

She scrambled into bed, and, warm June night though it was, drew the sheet over her head as if to shut out the conversation taking place below. She could not shut out, however, the memory of what she had heard. Suppose anything were to happen to those two; the thought had never occurred to her before; she had taken them as a matter of course. Terror seized her. She jumped up, hurried into her slippers and wrapper and flew down-stairs.

Her grandmother looked up to see her standing in the doorway pale with emotion. “Why, Joanne, my child, what is the matter?” she asked. “Are you ill?”

“No,” quavered Joanne, not having control of herself to say more.

“Then what has frightened you?”

“I love you both so much and I don’t want any—anything to happen to—to happen to you.” She rushed to her grandmother and flung her arms around the puzzled lady’s neck, then she burst into a torrent of tears.

“There, there,” said Mrs. Selden soothingly. “Of course we know you love us. She must have had a bad dream,” she said to her husband.

He nodded assent. “We’re all right, Joanne,” he said soothingly. “The bears won’t get us this time,” he added as if to a small child.

Joanne lifted her head and turned in her position on her grandmother’s lap. “It—it wasn’t a dream,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “I am a mean, sneaking varmint, for I went to the head of the stairs and leaned over the baluster to listen, and I heard what you said about suppose something were to happen to you what would I do, then it came over me what a deceiving, eavesdropping sinner I was, and I just couldn’t stand it, I had to come down and tell you that I love you harder than I ever did in my life.”

“You poor, dear, excitable little child,” said her grandmother, patting her shoulder. “I don’t know what is to become of you if you keep on like this.”

“But I don’t intend to keep on like this,” returned Joanne straightening up and wiping her eyes. “I don’t mean to keep on thinking so much of myself and what I like. Every now and then I come to a place where something opens, like a path, and I see farther. I suppose that is the way one grows up. You go on for a while as complacent as a pussy cat that has just had a saucer of cream, then suddenly something comes over you and you see yourself in quite a different light. It isn’t pleasant,” she shook her head mournfully.

“No, the truth isn’t always pleasant,” her grandfather agreed, “but I wouldn’t take myself too seriously. Suppose a soldier were suddenly to come face to face with an enemy whom he didn’t at first recognize as an enemy, but suppose in the fight that followed the soldier came off victor, would he throw himself on the ground and weep because he failed to recognize the enemy at the offset?”

Joanne smiled. “He would be an idiot if he did that.”

“Then don’t do that. Go to the fight with a smile and a cheer. Down the enemy but do it like a man. You’ll have battles to the end of your days, but don’t let any one see you go all to pieces when you are entering the fight.”

Joanne looked up with a sort of awed expression. “Goodness!” she exclaimed, “you make me feel more of an idiot than ever, Grad.”

“I don’t think you are an idiot, by any means, but I do think you are still rather babyish.”

Joanne sat thoughtfully lapping the fingers of her grandmother’s hand one over the other. Presently she looked up brightly. “All right, Grad,” she said. “An eavesdropping, weepy baby is almost worse than a woebegone soldier; I don’t intend to be either.”

“Then trot off to bed and don’t let’s have any more of these heroics.”

Joanne obeyed, but as she was mounting the stairs she heard her grandmother say: “Don’t you think you were a little hard on her, Gregory?”

Her grandfather’s reply was: “Not a bit of it; what the child needs is stimulant, not sentimental sympathy.”

That was the end of that bout, but Joanne never forgot it, and buckled on her armor more firmly than ever in order to meet the next fray in a more soldierly spirit.

CHAPTER X
UP THE RIVER

THE first of July saw Sunflower Troop packed up and ready for the month up the river. This time they did not go by way of the canal, and it was too warm to think of a long hike, so fourteen girls were piled into two motor cars, a third taking Miss Dodge and Miss Chesney with some of the supplies. It was a very merry company, the only regret being that two of the troop were not able to come, as they had gone the month before to Maine. Although Unc’ Aaron was on hand he had been given to understand that the girls must be left to their own devices, though it must be said that he obeyed these instructions with great reluctance.

The sun was still high when they arrived, for the automobiles must return to the city. There were little flickering shadows upon the grassy plot in front of the lodge, and sparkling gleams upon the river. The season of bird song was over, but the wind whispering in the trees, the murmur of the river as it tumbled over stony shallows, the hum of bees in the clover broke the absolute quiet.

For a while there was much scurrying around. Eight of the party had been told off to occupy the bungalow; for the rest a couple of tents were set up. Joanne begged to be one of the tent-holders. “I’ve always longed to sleep in a tent,” she averred, “do, please let me.” So she, with Claudia, Winnie and Esther Rhodes, was permitted to set up her belongings in one of the tents, ranging the photographs of her parents, her grandparents, Mrs. Marriott and Chico side by side as decorations, and stowing away the articles in her kit as best she could.

Then the routine of the camp began. Miss Dodge issued her orders. No one was to go out of bounds without permission. The farm was big enough and the woods extensive enough to allow of all the room for rambling that might be required. The bugle calls would tell them when to get up, when meals were ready, and so on. Each morning the girls for the various duties of the day were appointed. No one was to speak after lights were out at night. At first Joanne found these rules rather difficult to obey, but she soon fell into line with the rest of the girls, and at last had no desire to chatter after taps had sounded, for, tired out by the day’s activities, she was ready to drop off as soon as her head touched the pillow, and could scarcely have distinguished the notes of the bugle from the hooting of an owl or the murmur of the river.

Every morning Pablo appeared with Chico saddled and bridled so that whoso would could take a ride. Every morning, too, appeared Unc’ Aaron to ask if “de ladies had any requirements.” They seldom had, but once in a while they humored him by pretending to want his services.

“Dey sutt’nly is de mos’ ondependent an’ onres’less young ladies uvver I see,” he confided to Joanne. “Don’t ’pear to me lak dey still a minute, dey at it mo’nin’ an’ night. Dey runs aroun’ lak little mices, fus’ hyar den dere. Is dey do dat way in de city, Miss Jo? Is dey cook an’ wash an’ i’on? Don’t none o’ dey mas keep nobody to do de wuk?”

The old man was so distinctly puzzled that Joanne had to laugh. “They don’t have to do it unless they want to,” she told him, “but they like to know how.”

The climax was reached so far as Unc’ Aaron’s opinion was concerned when the girls bore off the lock-keeper’s baby and kept it most of a day while its mother did her wash. “Das a huckleberry ’bove my ’simmon,” he said, shaking his head. “I gives up. Dey is sholy nice, kind young ladies, but, honey, uh uh, dey pintedly does quare things.”

The girls, however, considered the baby a great find. “He is an awfully nice little thing,” said Betty Streeter, who was his discoverer, “and he is so ragged and dirty that it gives us a lovely chance to bathe him and patch him up. I told his mother, who bears the sweet name of Violet Scraggs, that we could keep him all day, if she didn’t mind, and we can take turns in looking after him.”

“He doesn’t look scraggy,” remarked Winnie, which speech brought forth a groan from the rest. “What do they give him to eat?”

“I asked Mrs. Scraggs and she said: ‘He eats pretty much what we do.’”

“Mercy me!” exclaimed Claudia. “How awful! I suppose they feed him on bacon and cabbage or any old thing. It is a wonder he lives.”

“He was eating a nice large chunk of cake,” Betty told her, “but I managed to get it away from him without his realizing it. It was pretty rich-looking cake, too.”

“How old is he?” inquired Joanne.

“A year and a half.”

“He might be a right pretty child if he were clean and had on decent clothes,” continued Joanne. “I wonder why his mother doesn’t keep him looking better.”

“Oh, my dear, she has a raft of children, and a whole lot of the canal people to cook for; she doesn’t get the time.”

“What is the name of our young hero?” inquired Winnie.

Betty giggled. “He rejoices in the cognomen of Claude Lafayette. He is so sleepy, poor little tot, that he must have a nap, then when he wakes up we will give him a bath. If I thought his clothes would dry I would wash them out while he is asleep.”

“There is no knowing how long he may sleep; it may be for only a few minutes,” said Esther, who had more knowledge of babies than the rest.

“In this hot sun they should dry in a few minutes,” put in Winnie.

“I think I’ll risk it,” said Betty. “Where had I better lay him down?”

“Oh, please, not on my bed,” came a chorus; “he is so dirty.”

Betty stood still looking helplessly from the sleeping child to the group of girls. “I can’t stand and hold him all day,” she said plaintively; “he will have to go somewhere.”

“I know,” cried Joanne. “Just wait a minute, Betty.” She rushed off to a cupboard where a pile of quilts had been thrown; these she folded and heaped them upon a table which she had overturned so that the legs stood in the air. “There,” she exclaimed, “that makes a fine four-poster for him, and he can’t possibly fall out.”

“I call that a pure stroke of genius,” declared Winnie. “Who but you would have thought of it, Jo?”

Claude Lafayette was laid upon his improvised bed while Betty went off to wash out his clothes, leaving two girls as watchers.

“I don’t see,” said Joanne as she and Winnie followed Betty, “why we can’t make him some clothes; it will give us a good chance to do what is necessary for a needlework badge.”

“But where can we get materials?”

“There is a little store, or rather quite a good-sized country store in the village. They sell all sorts of things. We’ll ask Miss Dodge to let us go there; she’ll give us permission when she knows why we want to go.”

“Brilliant idea. Let’s go and ask her now before any one else gets ahead of us, not that any number of garments wouldn’t be acceptable, but Miss Dodge doesn’t like too many of us to go out of bounds at once. We’ll ask Clausie to go, too. She’ll like the walk, and she is off duty in the kitchen this afternoon.”

They did not delay in making their request, then, after receiving consent, they went to relieve the watchers of the baby’s slumbers.

Joanne had not wasted her opportunities of improving her Spanish, and every day had a half hour’s conversation with Pablo, who, if he did not speak pure Castilian, had at least a full vocabulary, and knew the idioms so that Joanne was becoming quite voluble in the language while Pablo made great progress in his English. He was a quiet, grave little fellow, so serious, in fact, that Joanne wondered if he were happy, and if he did not long to return to his own people. She asked him one day.

“Are you happy, Pablo? Do you ever get homesick?”

He looked a little puzzled over the last word, then his face cleared. “I have the mal del pais? Si, señorita, some days I have thees, but it is not good that I return, better is that I remain where comes to me a future. No? It give me a very sad no to hear my language, but I shall accustom, yes, I shall accustom. When no longer I can endure no to hear the Spanish, then I speak to Chico, my little brother Chico, and I think he understand.”

“I think you are very brave,” said Joanne sympathetically, “and I wish you had neighbors to whom you could speak your own language. If Unc’ Aaron were not so old you could teach him, and then you two could talk together.”

Pablo’s grave face broke into a smile at this idea. “Thees Onc’ Aaron he have learn a few words, but he speak them very fonny. I wish if you hear him.”

Joanne laughed. She could imagine the bungle Unc’ Aaron would make of a foreign language. “I’d like to hear him,” she said, “but while I am here, Pablo, you have some one to talk to.”

“This is true, but it when you go that I have the homesick.”

Joanne corrected this speech and then, since the half hour was up, went off to join her comrades. She thought a good deal about the situation, however, and wished that she might transplant some Spanish family to the neighborhood, but this would be an undertaking beyond her powers, therefore Pablo would have to get used to being lonely. Having decided this she thought no more about it, having, indeed, plenty of other things to think about.

Just now it was Claude Lafayette and his wardrobe which interested her, and she set off with Winnie and Claudia to the country store where they meant to lay in a supply of materials. It was a walk of about three miles, along a country road, a short cut through a piece of woods, then the highway to the village.

“We might have had Chico,” said Joanne when they were turning off into the woods. “We could have taken turns in riding him.”

“Pooh!” exclaimed Winnie. “Who wants to ride? It is a great deal better for us to walk. It will be only six miles all told, three miles there and three miles back; that is nothing, and we don’t have to go at a rush. It is warm here in the woods, to be sure, but that doesn’t matter. We’ll get the breeze from the river when we are out on the road again, though it won’t be so shady there.”

They loitered along through the sweet smelling woods, stopping once in a while to take note of a bed of moss or a new species of fern. It was so still that only the distant sound of rushing waters or the rustle of leaves in the tree-tops reached their ears, though once in a while the voices of men working in the fields came uncertainly.

It was when they had almost reached the point where trees ended and road began that Joanne stopped short. “Hark!” she said.

The other girls came to a halt. “What is it?” Winnie was the first to ask.

“I thought I heard something like some one crying,” replied Joanne.

“Probably some child at one of the houses farther on,” Claudia decided.

“It sounded quite near,” protested Joanne. “There it is again.”

The three stood still to listen.

“There! I hear it,” Claudia exclaimed, “over in that direction. Let’s go see what it is.”

“I hope it isn’t a wildcat,” said Winnie.

“More likely to be a tame cat,” returned Claudia scoffingly, “though I must say it doesn’t sound to me like any kind. There may be a negro cabin over that way; very likely there is, but we may as well go and investigate.”

They turned off from the path and worked their way through the underbrush toward the direction from which the sounds came. In a few minutes they came upon a couple of cows which had evidently strayed from their pasture and were cropping the bushes near by. They lifted their heads and stared at the girls, then moved a little farther on.

“It couldn’t have been the cows,” remarked Winnie with a little laugh. “There! I see something moving. Maybe it is a calf.”

“A calf wouldn’t make a noise like that,” declared Claudia. “Calves don’t cry; they baa. Let’s get down to facts. Just look at the blackberries. We must come here and get some.”

They forced their way through a thicket of brambles beyond which they caught sight of a little girl standing forlornly, with torn frock and tear-stained face.

“What is the matter, little girl?” inquired Claudia coming up, but the only response she received was a shake of the head.

“Can’t you tell us, little girl?” Joanne was the next to question, but no answer came except another shake of the head.

“Do you suppose she is deaf?” Winnie ventured. She put her face close to the child’s and said in a loud voice: “Can’t you hear us?”

This had the effect of making the child shrink away terror stricken.

“She hears all right,” Claudia concluded. “Either she doesn’t want to speak or she doesn’t understand. She thinks you are scolding her.”

Joanne had been observing the child closely. “She looks like a foreigner,” she decided.

“Parlez vous Français?” said Claudia.

Still the puzzled look.

“Sprachen sie Deutsch?” this from Winnie, who made the other girls giggle, but brought only a hurt, wondering expression to the little girl’s face.

“Habla usted Espanol?” inquired Joanne.

The child’s look of perplexity cleared; “Si, si, señorita,” she replied joyfully.

“What is the matter? Why were you crying?” inquired Joanne in Spanish.

The child poured forth an excited recital to which Joanne gave an understanding attention. When the tale was told she turned to the others. “It seems that she came out to pick blackberries. Suddenly the cows came. She thought they were after her, and ran into the thicket pell-mell to escape them. When she got over her fright she found herself so confused that she didn’t know which way to turn and wandered around getting more and more mixed up. She lives somewhere around here but hasn’t an idea in which direction. Her name is Mariquita Carriles.”

“We’d better take her along with us to the village,” decided Claudia; “they will know at the post-office all about her. You tell her to come with us and we’ll see that she gets home.”

Joanne turned to the little Mariquita who willingly joined the group, evidently glad to have their protection against the fearsome cows, sidling up very close to Joanne as they passed the creatures, and answering her questions unhesitatingly, if not very intelligently.

It was not more than half a mile to the village and they were soon there making their inquiries of the genial storekeeper, who was also postmaster. Oh, yes, he knew all about Carriles. He was working on Joel Sykes’s place, a very good man, from Cuba or some of those parts. He had been working for Joel all spring and had just brought his family up; they were living in the tenant house, reckoned they would stay all winter. Hard to get labor nowadays, and Joel thought himself very lucky, for this Carriles had a couple of big boys who weren’t above working.

“Is it far to Mr. Sykes’s?” asked Joanne.

“About half a mile beyond the cross roads,” answered the storekeeper.

Joanne consulted the other girls who were busy at the counter discussing the merits of various pieces of white goods.

“It will be ever so much out of our way,” said Claudia. She turned to the storekeeper. “Will any one from here be going by the Sykes place this afternoon?” she asked.

“Pretty sure to be,” was the answer. “If there isn’t some one can come from Sykeses and get her. I’ll call ’em up and tell ’em she’s here.”

This was declared a perfectly satisfactory plan, and after having made their purchases the girls started back saying good-bye to Mariquita, who was assured by Joanne that she needn’t be afraid, for some one would come for her and take her home.

“It’s lucky we came around that way,” said Winnie as they started off. “That poor little thing might have wandered farther and farther into the woods and there is no knowing when they would have found her. Such a pretty little thing she is, too, with those big dark eyes and that smooth olive skin. There’s another thing, too, Jo; this should get you your Interpreter’s badge. You’ll be plastered all over with badges by this time next year, if you keep on.”

“I’m not thinking of badges just now,” returned Joanne, “but I am thinking of what this will mean to Pablo. It will be a great thing for him to have neighbors to whom he can speak in his own language; he gets very homesick sometimes.”

“Nice little Pablo,” said Claudia; “he is always so polite and ready to do things for us; I surely am glad he will have companions, but to return to the question of badges. How many do you expect to earn this summer, Jo?”

“Oh, dear, I don’t know; all I can, of course. Now that I have qualified as Second Class Scout, I am working for the First Class, but my goal is the Golden Eaglet.”

“So say we all of us,” Winnie put in. “Jo is nothing if not ambitious, Clausie.”

“Why shouldn’t she be? Mark my words she will reach her goal as soon as we do. How many badges have you earned already, Jo, I mean of those required for the Golden Eaglet?”

“Let me see,” Joanne began checking them off on her fingers. “I have the one for Athletics, for Bird Hunter and Needlewoman. I am studying up on First Aid. Oh, yes, and I have my Pioneer’s badge and the one for Personal Health. That’s how many? Five, I believe, and I mean to add at least three more before we leave these diggings, which will make eight.”

“You certainly are a whole team and the little dog under the wagon,” said Winnie.

Joanne looked sober. “If only I don’t fall down on the behavior part I shall come out on top, I hope, but it is so hard to keep from flying all to pieces on occasions. I do think, though, that I am learning a little self-control. I can’t always control my lachrymal glands but I don’t howl.”

“That is a lot gained,” returned Claudia encouragingly. “You’ll get there, Jo, never fear.”

“You are such a dear old chirker up,” responded Joanne gratefully. “Win administers bad tasting doses like castor oil or liver medicine, but you give me stimulating cordials. It’s all right, Win; I need the castor oil sometimes, and you are a corking good doctor when you hold my nose and pour it down my throat. I class you with Cousin Sue, who doesn’t spare me.”

“Oh, but Jo,” said Winnie in a distressed tone, “I don’t mean to be horrid. If I didn’t love you so much I wouldn’t call you down when I see you need it.”

“Just so; you are a friend in need, and I want you to know I value my friend, Miss Merryman, very, very highly.”

“There’s Pablo,” said Claudia as they approached the river farm. “Let’s tell him about Mariquita, such a pretty name it is.”

“It is the diminutive of Maria, or as we would say, of Mary,” Joanne told her, “just as Juana is the Spanish for Joanne.”

Here they came up to Pablo. He was sitting by the roadside, having tethered Chico near by. “I am thinking perhap you are fatigue,” he said, “so I come with the leetel ’orse.” Pablo, like Unc’ Aaron, could never get used to the idea that the girls, generally, would rather walk than ride at such times as these.

So to spare his feelings, Winnie, at Joanne’s urging, mounted the little pony, and galloped off, leaving the others to follow on foot, and to tell Pablo about the Carriles family.

CHAPTER XI
HAWAIIAN PINEAPPLE

THE girls had all gone off blackberrying. The report of a spot where they grew “as big as your thumb” inspired an ambition to fill the buckets, to can, to make pies, puddings, flummery, or anything else suggested. So silence reigned in the little camp. The canal boats passed up or down once in a while, the tramp of the mules and the cries of the drivers announcing their coming. The Virginia shores showed misty green under the July skies; the river shone silver bright, or displayed dancing flecks where it dashed over the rocky portions. Just above the rapids it took a twist and was navigable for small boats quite a distance, running either side of two small islands.

From the nearer of these islands a column of smoke curled slowly up, and any one watching would see a canoe presently dart from the shore and come speeding down the river, turning off into a little creek which emptied itself into the stream just above the lock. Somewhat later two boys came down the road and stopped before the lodge, looking it up and down, then they mounted the steps to the rustic porch and knocked at the door. No answer to the knock. Then they called: “Heigho, girls!” No sound except the splashing of an approaching canal boat as it slipped through the water.

“They can’t all be asleep,” decided one of the boys at last.

“Gone on a hike, probably,” said the other. “Shall we wait?”

“We might take it easy for a few minutes. I say, Hal, this is a dandy place.”

“No better than our island. Give me old Longshanks every time. Of course this has more conveniences and is all right for girls, but the island for mine.”

“View’s better,” protested his companion, Chesney Lacey; “it must be something magnificent from the top of those cliffs.”

“Let’s go up and see. We can leave a message for the girls. If they are off on a hike they may not get back the whole afternoon.”

“Very true. Here goes, then. Got a bit of paper?”

Hal pulled a pad from his pocket and Chet, supplying a pencil, wrote:

“To the Girl Scouts of Sunflower Troop—greeting! You are invited to supper on Longshanks Island to-morrow afternoon. Boats will meet you at five o’clock at the wharf by the mill on Stony Creek.

Signed:
Hal Fosdick,
Chet Lacey.”

Hal read the note which Chet handed him. “You don’t say it is the troop that invites them,” he criticized.

“No, it makes it more mysterious not to say that. Girls love mysteries; they won’t know whether just you and I are camping up there or whether it is the whole outfit; we’ll just leave ’em in doubt till they get up there.”

Hal nodded approval, and after pinning the note to one of the rough cedar posts of the porch they went off to mount the hill behind the lodge.

Joanne’s sharp eyes were the first to discover the note when the girls returned with berry-stained fingers but with brimming buckets. “Look! look!” she cried. “See what I’ve found.”

Miss Dodge took the note which Joanne handed to her, and, after glancing over the contents, read it aloud.

Immediately she was overwhelmed by questions: “Oh, Miss Dodge, you will let us go, won’t you? Did you know the boys were there? Is it the whole troop of Boy Scouts or just those two? Did you know about their inviting us? When did they come?”

“Stop, stop, girls, and take breath,” said Miss Dodge. “I don’t know any more about it than you do, but perhaps Miss Chesney does; do you, Nan?”