<h2 id="c17"><br/>CHAPTER XVII <br/><span class="sc">General News</span></h2>
<p>The final winter months passed peacefully
and fairly uneventfully at
the Sunrise cabin, with the girls
following a regular routine of school and
Camp Fire work and receiving new honors
at each monthly meeting of their Council
Fire. So far Esther Clark, Mollie O’Neill
and, strangely enough, Nan Graham, had
earned the greatest number of honor beads,
for since Nan’s unpleasant day at home a
new incentive seemed to have been added
to her first ambition to make herself an
attractive and capable woman. What
this incentive was she confided only to
her two most admired friends, Rose Dyer
and Polly, but by a Polly channel the news
also reached Betty Ashton’s ears. Nan’s
former good-for-nothing brother, Anthony,
had disappeared, but had written his sister
two letters declaring that he was hard
at work, keeping straight, and, though
he did not wish anyone to know where
he was, some day when he could feel that
Nan might be proud instead of ashamed
of him, meant to come home. In the
meantime he urged Nan to stick close
to her Camp Fire friends and to work.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_191">[191]</div>
<p>Therefore there was only one Wood
Gatherer now within the Sunrise club
circle and this the small Abbie, whom
Dr. Barton and Sylvia had introduced with
such an amazing lack of tact on Christmas
eve. For several weeks after her arrival
the girls had simply permitted her to live
on at the cabin enjoying their outdoor
life, their healthy diet and watching the
faint roses bloom in her cheeks but without
the faintest idea of ever asking her to
become a member of the Sunrise club.
In the first place the child was too impossibly
young, a bare thirteen, when most
of the other girls were now approaching
seventeen and grown-up-ness, and it was
an unwritten Camp Fire law that the girls
in a single group should be as nearly as
possible of the same age. If Abbie had only
been as old as her years, but she was not
even that, and yet somehow this very
babyishness and oddity finally won her
admittance to the magic circle paradoxical
as it may seem.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_192">[192]</div>
<p>Perchance the club may have needed a
baby now that “Little Brother” had returned,
to live in his own home, anyhow,
Abbie, almost before any one was aware of it,
was occupying this position. Before her arrival
Sylvia Wharton had been the youngest
member of the Sunrise club, but there
had never been anything particularly youthful
or clinging about Sylvia; indeed, she
had been about the most independent and
self-reliant of the girls and therefore she
found it very difficult to understand her
own special protégé.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_193">[193]</div>
<p>Abbie’s name wasn’t Abbie at all, but
Abigail Faith Abbott, and once the romantic
Polly made this discovery, Faith the little
girl became to the entire club. Faith
had lived a curiously solitary life apart
from all other children. It was true her
mother kept boarders in a downtown
house in old Boston that had once belonged
to her great-grandfather, but Faith had
been kept away from them as much as
possible and because of her ill health had
never been allowed to go to school. It was
because of her many illnesses that young
Dr. Barton took an interest in the child.
Her father was dead and her mother too
busy with many cares to see much of her,
so most of the young girl’s life had been
spent in a small room at the top of an old
house, which had an ever-closed window
through which she could look out upon
miles of chimney tops with every now and
then a more aspiring steeple. So was it
much of a wonder that the little lonely
girl lived with fancies instead of realities
and that as a result of all these things she
now looked as though a harsh New Hampshire
wind might easily blow her away?
The children Faith had played with had
never been real children at all, but two
little spirit sisters whom she had imaged
in her own mind for so long now that she
could not remember when first she had
thought of them. Nevertheless, it was
with them that she constantly played and,
if left alone, occasionally she spoke to
them aloud. Of course Faith was old
enough now to understand the absurdity
of this and had made up her mind never
to betray herself at the cabin. Yet within
a short time after her arrival and because
of her dreadful homesickness, Miss Dyer
made the discovery. Unfortunately Sylvia,
who had taken the little visitor’s physical
training sternly in hand, also found out
the fancy.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_194">[194]</div>
<p>Faith did not go into town to school
with the other girls, for by the doctor’s
and Sylvia’s advice she was to spend all
her time outdoors on the cabin front porch
wrapped up in rugs. It was rather cold
and dull with only the Sunrise Hill before
her, the now frozen lake, where the girls
skated in the late afternoons, and the
long, dark avenue of pines. However,
in the beginning of her experience Faith
confessed to herself that she liked the
loneliness far better than so many and
such amazingly enterprising girls. With
an almost desperate shyness she clung to
Rose Dyer as the one grown-up person
who faintly suggested her own mother
and to Sylvia’s ministrations she yielded
herself without protesting, but for some
weeks she never spoke one word to any
of the older girls except in answering a
question addressed to her. Indeed, when
evening came and the others gathered
about their log fire to talk, the little stranger
used to slip away to be cuddled like a baby
in old Mammy’s arms until Sylvia, who
wished her to retire an hour before any
one else and have a special late supper of
milk and eggs, would come and bear her
off to be put to bed.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_195">[195]</div>
<p>One morning Rose had been feeling
worried at having been compelled to leave
Faith so long outdoors alone without even
going to the door to speak to her. The
guardian’s hands had been unusually full
that morning with Mammy, who ordinarily
helped a little with the work while the
girls were away, laid up with rheumatism.
Also Rose knew that Max, the big St.
Bernard dog who had arrived almost at
the same time with Faith, spent most of
his time with the little girl, and so she let
the whole matter slip her mind until it was
time to carry out her midday lunch. Then
she smiled a little ruefully as she paused
for a moment before opening the front
door, wondering if Dr. Barton could guess
just how much this child had added to her
responsibilities and whether he would care
seriously if he did. With his own devotion
to looking after the sick (really he seemed
totally indifferent to people who were well)
doubtless he would take everything as a
matter of course. In his visits to the cabin
since Christmas certainly nothing more
had been said on the subject. Rose
laughed and then sighed, pausing with
the door to the porch half open and listening.
Faith was evidently not alone, for she
could distinctly hear her talking to some
one although unable to catch any answers.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_196">[196]</div>
<p>“I think perhaps I can keep on bearing
it, Anastasia,” Faith said in a voice that
was only fairly brave, “if only you will
stay with me and not let all those strange
girls drive you and Gloria away. When
they talk so much it seems as though I
can’t remember you and it makes me want
to go <i>home</i>.”</p>
<p>Her voice broke and Rose peering out
was deeply mystified. The little half-sick
girl was plainly alone and plainly dreadfully
homesick, but with whom could she
be talking?</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_197">[197]</div>
<p>“I don’t mind the Rose one so much,
Gloria,” she continued, “but Dr. Ned
said she was as nice as my mother, even
nicer I believe he thought her. Yet he
does not even look at her and hardly speaks
to her when he comes to visit me.” And
here Faith dropped her pale face into her
small gloved hands and began to cry just as
Rose appeared with her lunch.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_198">[198]</div>
<p>Nevertheless, by the exercise of as much
tact and patience as Miss Dyer had ever
used in her society days to charm the
coldest and most obdurate of her critics,
finally she managed to persuade Faith to
explain to her with whom she had been
talking and just who were the mysterious
persons Gloria and Anastasia. Of course,
with many blushes Faith made her confession,
understanding that she was now
far too old for any such fanciful nonsense.
Yet she did tell Rose with a good deal
of pleasure toward the last that the two
names represented two older sisters with
whom she had been pretending to play
ever since she was a baby and who were
really dearer to her and more actual than
real people. Naturally the new Camp
Fire guardian was puzzled over this wholly
new problem, with a so much younger
girl, and after thinking it over for a long
time made up her mind to consult with
Dr. Barton. For if ever the little girl were
to recover her normal health under their
Camp Fire rules she must certainly put
away her morbid fancies. But the consultation
gave the new guardian no satisfaction,
appearing to estrange her more than
ever from the young physician. For he
and Rose disagreed about the method of
Faith’s cure completely and it was ever
the young man’s obstinacy that Rose had
found it hardest to forgive. Actually
Dr. Barton had the stupidity to lecture
Faith about her cherished secret and even
to betray her to Sylvia, who tried reasoning
with her every night while putting her
to bed. Fortunately, however, Rose Dyer
had not had a colored Mammy for nothing,
having grown up on splendid fairy and
folk-lore stories, so that by degrees she
managed to interest little Faith in the
things outside her own mind, in real Camp
Fire games and work, and finally in the
girls themselves, until, growing less afraid,
Faith found Mollie, Polly and Betty better
substitutes than the sisters of her dreams.
And by and by through their guardian’s
advice the little girl was permitted to enter
the Sunrise club as a Wood Gatherer.
There she grew to be more and more faithful
to its rules and ideals, until after a
while her too vivid imagination seemed to be
fairly well under her control. If later
in life, however, her fancy was to lead
her into strange experiences, soon no one
would have guessed it, for March found
Faith stronger than ever before in her
life and utterly attached to Rose Dyer.
Still looking like our little golden haired
Christmas angel, Polly once remarked,
but like the angel after she had eaten the
Christmas dinner.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_199">[199]</div>
<p>Nevertheless, though Sylvia fully understood
that all Faith’s devotion was now
bestowed on their Camp Fire guardian,
now and then she used to wonder why
Faith did not show any liking for her.
Certainly she had given her the tenderest
physical care, making her follow faithfully
every Camp Fire health rule, live outdoors,
sleep and eat all she should.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_200">[200]</div>
<p>It was also puzzling to Sylvia, just as it
has often been to older persons, why after
a few weeks every girl in the Sunrise camp
seemed to feel a special affection for little
Faith. She never appeared to do anything to
try to deserve it, except to be pretty and have
curly light hair, big gentle, blue eyes and
a timid and appealing manner, while Sylvia,
who spent most of her time making herself
as useful as possible to her friends, was not
particularly loved, not even by Polly. And
for Polly O’Neill, Sylvia Wharton’s devotion
has never for a single instant wavered and
never will, even when the future puts it to
many difficult tests. For faithfulness to an
idea, a conviction or a person will ever be
Sylvia’s predominant trait of character,
and while it may not make her appear
on the surface as loving or lovable as some
of her companions, it would be well if she
could now know that it will be to her the
other girls will always turn in after years
when they stand in need of sensible advice
or even of real practical assistance. And
this was to be particularly true of Polly
O’Neill in her not very peaceful life, so it
was unfortunate that poor Sylvia had now
to fight down many pangs of foolish jealousy
through seeing that Polly as well as the
other girls made a special pet and plaything
of the newest comer.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_201">[201]</div>
<p>But if Faith had unconsciously made
Sylvia suffer now and then, she also accomplished
another result. Just at first Betty
Ashton had imagined that there might
be some unknown bond of interest between
Rose Dyer and young Dr. Barton, cemented
before Rose’s entrance into their club as
guardian. But now she gave up the impression,
believing thoroughly that Rose found
the cold, puritanical young man actually
distasteful in spite of his many acts of
kindness to the Sunrise Camp Fire girls.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_202">[202]</div>
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