Part 32 (2/2)
Cherub indeed! What did the other one say?”
Nathalie hesitated; her face flushed, ”Oh-why, she thought you were a dear, but said you were a bit spoiled.”
Nita looked surprised for a minute; then her eyes flashed as she cried with a defiant lift of her head. ”Well, I guess if Miss Sensible had a hump to carry about that could never be taken off, no matter how it hurt, and had to be shut up behind walls with nothing to see or any one to talk to, she'd be spoiled, too!” There was a quiver of the chin as the red lips closed tightly in the effort not to cry.
”Oh, you poor little thing, I should not have told you that, for really, Helen thought you were lovely!” Nathalie regretted with all her heart the impulse that had prompted her to tell the truth to Nita. It seemed unkind but it was really spoken in the hope of doing her little friend good.
But Nita pushed her away, ”Oh, don't pet me!” as Nathalie attempted to caress her, ”I was only teasing. Yes, I know I'm spoiled, but there, do tell me the news, for your face shows that you are just dying to tell me something worth the hearing.”
”Well, yes, I have _some_ news-that's slang, but O dear, it does mean so much sometimes,” laughed Nathalie as she and Nita seated themselves on the couch. ”Sat.u.r.day we had a Pioneer Rally. Judge Benson, a friend of Dr. Morrow's from the city, gave us a talk on self-government. He explained the difference between natural, spiritual, and civic law. He also explained the meaning of an ordinance, told us how justice was administered in the different courts, and how self-government, or the reform system is having its try-out in some of the prisons to-day. He says it bids fair to make criminals-men hardened in sin and crime-respectable members of a community.”
”Self-government?” queried mystified Nita, ”why, the Pioneers are not citizens or criminals; you don't have to be governed!”
”Yes, we do,” a.s.serted Nathalie stoutly, ”and so does everybody. Civic, natural, and spiritual laws are all right, but back of those laws is the law of self-government, that is the something within each one of us that makes us what we want to be, that makes us control ourselves even when we are babies, when we get slapped for being naughty. If there was no self-government in the world-for it is the government of self when we make ourselves obey the laws of G.o.d and man, when we cease evil and do the right-why, if there was no self-government we would all be savages without law and order.
”Judge Benson told us how self-government came to be used in the schools and prisons. Of course, as I said, we all have to govern ourselves in a measure, but it is the applying of this self-government in a new way that has done so much good.
”A very good man, he said, took some waifs from the poor settlements in New York to the country and tried to better them physically and morally by teaching them to be good. But of course, they would do wicked things and have to be punished, and he became very much discouraged because the punishments didn't seem to do them any permanent good. So he thought for a long time and then he formed a Junior Republic, made all the boys and girls citizens, and then told them to appoint their own officials, that is, their own lawyers, judges, officers, and so on. Then when any of them did wrong they were haled into court and tried by their own comrades. Of course, they all became so interested in this new system of punis.h.i.+ng-for you see, they all had a part in it-that they became wonderfully good. You see, the boys and girls had to learn to control themselves, for of course, they not only wanted to stand high in the court and be lawyers and judges themselves, but they did not like to be corrected and called down-that's what the judge said-by their own comrades. This venture at making boys and girls learn to control themselves not only taught them self-denial, self-repression, self-development, and the difference between right and wrong, and their duty to themselves as well as to their companions, but it was the means of introducing the same system into the public schools, and in time into the prisons.”
”Yes, but I don't understand how it interests you girls.”
”Why, Mrs. Morrow read so much about self-government and the good it did that she introduced it into the Pioneer organization, and it has worked wonderfully well there, Mrs. Morrow claims. Instead of a court we have a senate, which is composed of two girls from each bird group, elected by the girls. The Pioneers also elected a president, that's Helen, and a vice-president, she's an Oriole girl and quite clever, too. Jessie Ford is the secretary, and Mrs. Morrow is the Advisory Judge and has the power to veto any ruling of the president, but she never has as yet.
”So you see what it does for the Pioneers, for if any member of the organization breaks a law or does anything wrong she is brought before the Senate. Every Pioneer served with an indictment to appear before the Senate has, of course, the right to choose one of the girls as a counsel, and when there are two girls implicated they both choose counsel. Then after the witnesses are all heard the lawyers sum up, and the case goes to the Senate, who act as a jury and vote by ballot. The case can be appealed to the Advisory Judge; or an offender, by asking or showing contrition, can have her sentence lightened. You don't know what fun it is, and then it helps to make us govern ourselves and teaches us law, too, in a small way, of course.”
”Well, I wish they'd try to punish that hateful Sport for using your idea, and to think she got all the credit for it! Why-”
”No, she didn't,” laughed Nathalie with an odd little gleam in her eye, ”for she was tried before the Senate Sat.u.r.day.”
”Oh, Nathalie, you don't mean it! Oh, I'm so glad!” cried Nita clapping her hands delightedly. ”I do hope she got her deserts, the deceitful thing!”
”Well, I am afraid she got all that was coming to her, as d.i.c.k said.”
Nathalie's bright face sobered. ”Nita, I was awfully sorry for her. It was so humiliating to have to face that Senate, oh, the girls just hate to be brought before it. I had to tell as a witness, about losing the Stunt, the librarian told of helping me get data and then helping me to look for it, and then how she saw Edith pick it up as it fell from under a book on the table.”
”Do tell me what they did to her!” Nita bent forward in curious excitement as she spoke.
”Poor thing! she had all her stars and badges of merit taken from her.
Just think, she will have to begin all over again to win them! At first it was voted that she would have to go back and be a third-cla.s.s Pioneer again, but I was so sorry that I pleaded for clemency, and so the sentence was lightened.
”You see, there is an awful lot of good in Edith, and I am never again going to say anything against her, she has been punished enough. And oh, Nita, Dorothy at the Rally received her third-cla.s.s badge, and I received my badge for a second-cla.s.s Pioneer. I'm going to work awfully hard while at camp, so as to qualify as a first-cla.s.s Pioneer. But there, it is getting late and we shall have to stop talking and take up our reading on the 'Pioneer Women of America.'”
Nita nodded, and in a few moments the two girls were busily engaged; Nita listening with the keenest attention while Nathalie read about the Dutch women who came from Holland and settled New York, little dreaming as she read that this lesson was to culminate in an event of the utmost importance to the Girl Pioneers of Westport.
CHAPTER XIX-THE f.a.gOT PARTY
”Oh, Mother, isn't it just beautiful?” exclaimed the princess the night of the f.a.got party, as she watched the flames leap and dance down on the lawn.
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