<h2 id="c3"><br/>CHAPTER III <br/>“<span class="sc">A Rose of the World</span>”</h2>
<p>However much of a fairy Princess
Betty Ashton’s friends may have
considered her, Sunrise cabin had
not arisen like “Aladdin’s Wonderful
Palace” in a single night, although six
months would seem a short enough time
in which to see one’s dream come true.
Particularly a dream which in the beginning
had appeared to have no chance of ever
becoming a reality.</p>
<p>For in the first place “The Lady of the
Hills,” Miss McMurtry, on that very afternoon
when coming across the fields to the
Camp Fire she had there been told of the
plan for keeping the Sunrise Camp Fire
club together for the winter, had not
approved the idea. The country would
certainly be too cold and too lonely for the
girls and the getting back and forth from
the cabin to school too difficult. Fathers
and mothers could never be persuaded to
approve and, moreover, there would be no
guardian, since Miss McMurtry could not
attend to her work at the High School and
also look after a permanent winter camp
fire.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_39">[39]</div>
<p>In a measure of course even the greatest
enthusiasts for the new idea had known
that there might be just these same difficulties
to be overcome. Yet in conference
they had decided to meet the obstacles
one by one and in turn by following the
old axiom of not climbing fences before
coming to them. So as the money for
building the cabin was a first necessity
Betty Ashton had written at once to her
brother Dick. Sylvia Wharton had seen
her father, who had in September returned
to Woodford, and Polly and Mollie had
sent off appealing letters to Ireland asking
for their mother’s approval and whatever
small sum of money they might be allowed
to contribute. Indeed each Sunrise Camp
girl had met the demands of the situation
in the best way she knew how. But really,
although help and interest developed in
various directions, once the business of
building the cabin had been fairly started,
it was from Richard Ashton that the first
real aid and encouragement came. For
Dick was a student in the modern school
of medical science which believes in fresh
air, exercise and congenial work as a cure
for most ills instead of the old-time methods
of pills and poultices, and having seen the
benefit of a summer camp upon twelve
girls he had faith enough for the winter experiment.
Besides this plan had appeared
to him as a solution for certain personal
problems which had been worrying him
for a number of weeks. His father and
mother were not returning to America
this fall as they had expected, since Mr.
Ashton’s health required a milder climate
than New Hampshire. It had seemed
almost impossible for Dick to give up the
graduating year of his study of medicine
in Dartmouth in order to come home to
Woodford to look after his sister and her
friend, Esther Clark, who rather, through
force of circumstances, appeared now to
be Betty’s permanent companion.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_40">[40]</div>
<p>So an offering from Dick Ashton with
Betty’s fifty dollars, which had been returned
to her by Polly O’Neill, had actually
laid the foundation of Sunrise Cabin,
although every single member of the club
gave something big or little so that the house
might belong alike to them all. As Esther
and Nan Graham had no money of their
own and Edith Norton very little and
no parents able to help, the three girls
added their portions by doing work for
their friends in the village which they
had learned in their summer camp fire.
At last they were able to stock the new
kitchen with almost a complete set of new
kitchen utensils, the summer ones having
suffered from continuous outdoor use.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_41">[41]</div>
<p>Of course all the summer club members
could not share the winter housekeeping
scheme, but that did not affect their interest
nor desire to help. Meg and “Little
Brother” to everybody’s despair had to
return home, since with John leaving for
college, that same fall, their professor father
could not live or keep house without them.
But then they were to be allowed to come
out to the cabin each Friday for week ends,
and Edith Norton, whose work in the
millinery store made living in town imperative,
was to take her Sunday rests in
camp. Of the summer Sunrise Camp
Fire girls, only Juliet and Beatrice Field
had really to say serious farewells when
returning to their school in Philadelphia,
but they departed with at least the consoling
thought that they were to come back
to the cabin for their Christmas holidays.
So that there remained only seven of the
original girls pledged to give this experiment
of winter housekeeping as a Camp
Fire club a real test. And as they worked,
pleaded and waited, one by one each
difficulty had been overcome until now
there remained but one—the necessity for
finding a new guardian able to give all of
her time to living at Sunrise cabin and to
working with the girls.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_42">[42]</div>
<p>One evening toward the early part of
November after the cabin had been completed,
Betty Ashton had called a meeting
at her home for the final discussion of this
serious problem. As there were no outsiders
present, before mentioning the subject
the girls had arranged themselves
in their accustomed Camp Fire attitudes,
in a kind of semi-circle about the great
drawing room fire, in order to talk more
freely. For the past week each girl had
been asked to search diligently for a suitable
guardian. Yet when Betty looked
hopefully about at the faces of her friends
without speaking she sighed, shading her
gray eyes with her hand. Only by an
effort of will could she keep her tears from
falling—not a line of success showed in a
single countenance.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_43">[43]</div>
<p>Mollie O’Neill, understanding equally
well, made no such effort at self-control.
Placing her head on her sister’s shoulder
she frankly gave way to tears, while Polly
stared moodily into the fire with Sylvia
Wharton’s square hand clutching hers despairingly.
Esther and Eleanor frowned.
Nan Graham, who had more at stake than
the other girls, not trusting herself, jumped
up and running across to a far corner of
the big room flung herself face downward
on a sofa. So there was a most unusual
silence in the Sunrise Camp Fire circle
and yet when a light knock sounded on the
door no one said “Come in.” An instant
later, however, the knock was repeated, but
this time, not waiting for an answer, the
door opened and a figure walked slowly
toward the center of the floor. It was
a lovely figure, nevertheless, there was
scarcely a person in Woodford whom the
girls at this moment desired less to see.
Certainly there was no one who had been
more bitterly opposed to the whole Camp
Fire idea and particularly to Betty Ashton’s
having a part in it.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_44">[44]</div>
<p>“I don’t know whether you allow an
outsider to come into one of your meetings,”
the intruder began, dropping into a near-by
chair.</p>
<p>From her place on the sofa Nan Graham
lifted her head. She alone of the little company
did not know their visitor’s name.
She saw a young woman of about twenty-six
or seven with light golden brown hair
and eyes with the same yellow lights in
them, dressed in a lovely crepe evening
gown with a bunch of roses at her belt
and a scarf thrown over her shoulders.
Nan’s eyes glowed with a momentary
forgetfulness, having long cherished just
such an ideal and never before seen it
realized.</p>
<p>But Betty only shook her head, answering
with little enthusiasm:</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_45">[45]</div>
<p>“Oh, it doesn’t matter this evening,
Rose, you may stay if you like, though we
don’t generally have strangers at our meetings.”
And then, though she usually had
good manners, Betty fell to studying the
dancing lights in the fire without making
any further effort at conversation. She
had no desire to be rude, but it was trying
to have Rose Dyer, her mother’s intimate
friend, the one older girl, held up as a model
for her to follow, who had done her best
to prejudice Mrs. Ashton against the Camp
Fire plan the summer before, come into
their midst at an hour when their very
existence as a club seemed to be in peril.</p>
<p>For a few moments Miss Dyer waited
without trying to speak again. Although
Polly and Esther were both endeavoring to
make themselves agreeable, the atmosphere
of the drawing room continued distinctly
unfriendly.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_46">[46]</div>
<p>“I—I am afraid I am in the way although
you were kind enough not to say so,”
Rose suggested, finding it difficult to explain
what had inspired her visit with
so many faces turned away from hers.
“I think I had best go; I only came to
ask you a great favor and now——” She
was getting up quietly, when Betty with
a sudden realization of her duties as a
hostess made a little rush toward her and
taking both the older girl’s hands drew
her into the center of their circle.</p>
<p>“Please forgive our bad manners and do
stay, Rose,” she pleaded. “We really have
no business to attend to to-night and perhaps
company may cheer us up.”</p>
<p>But although Rose, without the least
regard for her lovely gown, had immediately
dropped down on the floor in regular Camp
Fire fashion, apparently she had not heard
what Betty had suggested, for straightway
her expression became quite as serious as
any one else’s.</p>
<p>“You may not care for what I am going
to say and you must promise to be truthful
if you don’t,” Rose began, as timidly
as though she were not ten years older
than any other girl in the room, “but I
have been hearing for the past two months
that you were looking for a Camp Fire
guardian to spend the winter with you and
I have been wondering——” Here pulling
the flowers from her belt she let her gaze
rest upon them. “I have been wondering
if you would care to have me?”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_47">[47]</div>
<p>The silence was then more conspicuous
than before and Rose flushed hotly.</p>
<p>“I am sure you are very kind,” Polly
began in a perfectly unfamiliar tone of
voice and manner since she too had known
Rose all her life.</p>
<p>“We appreciate your kindness very
much,” Eleanor added, fearing that Polly
was about to break down.</p>
<p>But Betty Ashton dropped her chin into
her hands in her familiar fashion and stared
directly at their visitor. “My dear Rose,
whatever has happened to you?” she demanded.
“Why it’s too absurd! You
know you don’t care for anything but
parties and dancing and having a good time.
You simply haven’t any idea of what it
means to be a Camp Fire guardian; why
it is difficult enough when you have only
to preside at weekly Camp Fire meetings
and to watch over the girls in between,
but when it comes to living with us and
teaching us as Miss McMurtry did last
summer——” Betty bit her lips. She
did not wish to be discourteous and yet the
vision of the fashionably dressed girl before
her fulfilling the requirements of their life
together in the woods was too much for
her sense of humor.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_48">[48]</div>
<p>Then suddenly, to Betty’s embarrassment
and the surprise of everyone else,
Miss Dyer’s eyes filled with tears.</p>
<p>“Please don’t, Betty,” she said a little
huskily. “You know, dear, one can get
rather tired of hearing one’s self described
as an absolute good-for-nothing. Oh, I
know I was opposed to your Camp Fire
club last summer, but I have watched you
more carefully than you dream and have
entirely changed my mind. I am not
asking you to let me come into your club
to help you. I am afraid I am selfish,
I can’t explain it to you now, but I want
to help myself. Of course I am not wise
enough to be your guardian, but I have
been talking to Miss McMurtry and she
has promised to help me and it is only
because you don’t seem able to find anyone
else that I dare offer myself.”</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_49">[49]</div>
<p>At this moment Nan Graham, whom
Rose had not seen before, tumbled unexpectedly
off her sofa. It was because
of her eagerness to reach the other girls.
They, at a quick signal from one to the
other, had arisen, and now, forming a circle,
danced slowly about their new guardian
chanting the sacred law of the Camp Fire.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_50">[50]</div>
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