The in the Woods Part 3 (1/2)
”That must have been a volcano, Zara.”
”Yes, that's what he used to call it.”
”Why did you come over here?”
”Because my father was always afraid over there. There were some bad men who hated him, and he said that if he stayed there they would hurt him. And he heard that over here everyone was welcome, and one man was as good as another. But he wasn't, or they never seemed to think so, if he was.”
Bessie looked very thoughtful.
”This is the finest country in the world, Zara,” she said. ”I've heard that, and I've read it in books, too. But I guess that things go wrong here sometimes. You see, it's this way. Just think of Jake Hoover.”
”But I don't want to think about him! I want to forget him!”
”Well, Jake Hoover explains what I'm thinking about. He's an American, but that isn't the reason he was so mean to us. He'd be mean anywhere, no matter whether he was an American or what. He just can't help it. And I think he'll get over it, anyhow.”
”There you go, Bessie! He's made all this trouble for you, and you're standing up for him already.”
”No, I'm not. But what trouble has he made for me, Zara? I'm going to be happier than I ever was back there in Hedgeville -- and if it hadn't been for him I'd still be there, and I'd be chopping wood or something right now.”
”But he didn't mean to make you happier, Bessie. He thought he could get you punished for something he'd done.”
”Well, I wasn't, so why should I be angry at him, Zara? Even if he did mean to be nasty, he wasn't.”
”But suppose he'd hurt you some way, without meaning to at all? Would you be angry at him then for hurting you, when he didn't mean to do it?”
”Of course not -- just because he didn't mean to.”
”Well, then,” said Zara, triumphantly, ”you ought to be angry now, if it's what one means to do, and not what one does that counts. I would be.”
Bessie laughed. For once Zara seemed to have trapped her and beaten her in an argument.
”But I don't like to be angry, and to feel revengeful,” she said. ”It hurts me more than it does the other person. When anything happens that isn't nice it only bothers you as long as you keep on thinking about it, Zara. Suppose someone threw a stone at you, and hit you?”
”It would hurt me -- and I'd want to throw it back.”
”But then suppose the stone was thrown, and it didn't hit you, and you didn't even know it had been thrown, you wouldn't be angry then, would you?”
”Why, how could I be, Bessie, if I didn't know anything about it?”
”Well, don't you see how it worked out, Zara? If you refuse to notice the mean things people do when they don't succeed in hurting you, it's just as if you didn't know anything about it, isn't it? And if the stone was thrown, and you saw it, and knew who'd thrown it, you'd be angry -- but you could get over it by just making up your mind to forget it, and acting as if they'd never done it at all.”
Zara didn't answer for a minute. She was thinking that over.
”I guess you're right, Bessie,” she said, finally. ”That is the best way to do. When I get angry I get all hot inside, and I feel dreadful. I'm going to try not to lose my temper any more.”
”You'll be a lot happier if you do that,” said Bessie. ”Now, let's get back to the fire. I've got this water, and they must be waiting for it.”
So Zara, happy again, and laughing now, helped Bessie with the pail of water, and they went back to the fire together. Everyone was busy, each with some appointed task. Two of the girls were spreading knives and forks, and laying out cups and dishes in a great circle near the water, since all the meals were eaten Indian fas.h.i.+on, sitting on the ground. Others, who had been fis.h.i.+ng, were displaying their catch, and cleaning the gleaming trout, soon to be cooked with crisp bacon, and to form the chief dish of the evening meal.
Wanaka smiled at them as the two girls appeared with the water.
”You're making a good start as Camp Fire Girls,” she told them. ”We all try to help. Later on, if you like, I'll give you a lesson in cooking.”
Bessie smiled, but said nothing. And presently she called to Zara and disappeared with her in the woods.
”I want to give them a surprise, Zara” she said. ”There's quite a long time yet before supper. And I saw an apple tree when I was walking through the woods. Let's go and get some of them.”
Zara was quite willing, and in half an hour or less the two girls were back in camp with a good load of apples. Then Bessie spoke to Wanaka when the Guardian was alone for the moment.
”May I have some flour and sugar?” she said.
Wanaka looked at her curiously, but gave her what she wanted. And Bessie, finding a smooth white board, was soon busy rolling pastry. Then when she had made a great deep dish pie, and filled it with the apples, which Zara, meanwhile, had pared and cut, Bessie set to work on what was the most difficult part of her task. First she dug out a hole in the ground and made a fire, small, but very hot, and, in a short time, with the aid of two flat stones, she had constructed a practicable outdoor oven, in which the heat of the embers and cinders was retained by shutting out the air with earth. Then the pie was put in and covered at once, so that no heat could escape, and Bessie, saying nothing about what she had done, went back to help the others.
Obeying the unwritten rule of the Camp Fire, which allows the girls to work out their ideas unaided if they possibly can, so as to encourage self-reliance and independence, Wanaka did not ask her what she had done. But when the meal was over Bessie slipped away, while Wanaka was serving out some preserves, and returned in a moment, bearing her pie -- n.o.bly browned, with crisp, flaky crust.
”I've only made one pie like this before and I never used that sort of an oven,” she said, shyly. ”So I don't know if it's very good. But I thought I would try it.”
Bessie, however, need not have worried about the quality of that pie. The rapidity with which it disappeared was the best possible evidence of its goodness, and Wanaka commended her before all the girls, who were willing enough to join the leader in singing Bessie's praises.
”My, but that was good!” said Minnehaha. ”I wish I could make a pie like that! My pastry is always heavy. Will you show me how when we get home, Bessie?”
”Indeed I will!” promised Bessie.
And that night, after a spell of singing and story telling about the great fire on the beach, Bessie and Zara went to bed with thoughts very different from those they had had the night before.
”Aren't they good to us, Zara?” said Bessie.
”They're simply wonderful,” said Zara, with s.h.i.+ning eyes. ”And Wanaka talked to me about my father. She says she has a friend in the city who's a lawyer, and that as soon as we get back she'll speak to him, and get him to see that he is fairly treated. I feel ever so much better.”
The voices of the girls all about them, laughing and singing as they made ready for the night, and the kindly words of Wanaka, made a great contrast to their loneliness of the night before. Then everything had seemed black and dismal. They hadn't known what they were going to do, or what was to happen to them; they had been hungry and tired, and with no prospect of breakfast when they got up. But now they had more friends, gained in one wonderful day, than they had made before in all their lives, and Wanaka had promised to see that in the future there should always be someone to guide them and see that no one abused them any more. No wonder that they looked on the bright camp fire, symbol of all the happiness that had come to them, with happy eyes. And they listened in delight as the girls gathered, just before they went to bed, and sang the good-night song: ”Lay me to sleep in sheltering flame, Oh, Master of the Hidden Fire.
Wash pure my heart and cleanse for me My soul's desire.
In flame or sunrise bathe my mind, Oh, Master of the Hidden Fire, That when I wake, clear-eyed may be My soul's desire.”
And so, with the flames' light flickering before them, Bessie and Zara went to sleep sure of happiness and companions.h.i.+p when they awoke in the morning, with the first rays of the rising sun s.h.i.+ning into the tents.
But Bessie was to awake before that. She lay near the door of one of the tents, which she shared with Zara, Minnehaha, and two other girls, and she awoke suddenly, coming at once to full consciousness, as anyone who had been brought up with Maw Hoover to wake her every morning was pretty certain to do at any unusual sound. For a moment, so deep was the silence, she thought that she had been deceived. In the distance an owl called; much nearer, there was an answer. A light wind rustled in the trees, stirring the leaves gently as it moved. Looking out, she saw that a faint, silvery sheen still bathed the ground outside, showing that the moon, which had risen late, was not yet set.
And then the sound that had awakened her came again -- a curious, hoa.r.s.e call, given in imitation of a whip-poor-will, but badly done. No bird had uttered that cry, and Bessie, country bred, listening intently, knew it. Silently she rose and slipped on moccasins that belonged to Minnehaha, and a dress. And then, making no more noise than a cat would have done, she crept to the opening in the front of the tent and peeped out. For Bessie had recognized the author of that imitation of the bird's call, and she knew that there was mischief afoot.
Still intent on keeping the alarm she felt from the others, until she knew whether there was a real cause for it, Bessie slipped out of the tent and into the shadow of the trees. The camp fire still burned, flickering in the darkness, and making great, weird shadows, as the light fell upon the trees. It had been built up and banked before the camp went to sleep, and in the morning it would still be burning, although faintly, ready for the first careful attentions of the appointed Wood-Gatherers, whose duty it was to see that the fire did not die.
Bessie, fearing that she might be spied upon, had to keep in the darkness, and she twisted and turned from the trunk of one tree to the next, bending over close to the ground when she had to cross an open s.p.a.ce where firelight or moonbeams might reveal her to watching eyes.
And now and again, crudely given, as crudely answered, from further down the lake, the call of the mock whip-poor-will guided her in her quest. And Bessie, plucking up all the courage she could muster, still trembled slightly, more from nervousness than from actual fear, for she knew whose voice it was that was imitating the plaintive bird -- Jake Hoover's!