The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm Or, Bessie King's New Chum

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

IN THE CITY

"I never dreamed of such a lovely room, Zara, did you?"

Bessie King, her eyes open with admiration and wonder, asked her chum the question in a room in the home of Eleanor Mercer, Guardian of the Manasquan Camp Fire, of the Camp Fire Girls. Both the girls were new members of the organization, and Bessie, who had lived all her life in the country, and had known nothing of the luxuries and comforts that girls in the city, or the luckier ones of them, at least, take almost as a matter of course, had found something new to astonish her in almost every hour since they had come to the city.

"I've dreamed of it—yes," said Zara. "You see I've been in the city before, Bessie; and I've seen houses like this, and I've guessed that the rooms inside must be something like this, though I never lived in one. It's beautiful."

"I almost wish we were going to stay here, Zara. But I suppose it will be nice when we go to the farm."

Eleanor Mercer, who had been standing for a moment in the doorway, came in then, laughing merrily. She had overheard the remark, and Bessie was greatly distressed when she discovered it.

"Oh, Miss Eleanor!" she exclaimed. "Please, please don't think I'm ungrateful. I want to do whatever you think is right—"

"I know that, Bessie, and I know just what you were thinking, too. Well, you're going to have a surprise—I can promise you that. This farm isn't a bit like the farm you know about. I guess you know too much about one sort of farm to want ever to see another, don't you?"

"Maybe there are different sorts of farms," admitted Bessie. "I don't like Paw Hoover's kind."

Eleanor laughed again. She was a fresh, bright-cheeked girl, not so many years older than Bessie herself. One might guess, indeed, that she, as Guardian of her Camp Fire, didn't much more than manage to fulfill the requirement that Guardians, like Scoutmasters among the Boy Scouts, must be over twenty-one years of age.

"Indeed there are different sorts of farms from that one, Bessie," she said. "You'll see a farm where everything is done the way it should be, and, while I think Paw Hoover's a mighty nice man, I've got an idea that on his farm everything is done just about opposite to the proper fashion."

"When are we going, Miss Eleanor?"

Zara asked that question. In the last few days a hunted look had left Zara's eyes, for with relief from certain worries she had begun to be happier, and she was always asking questions now.

"I don't know exactly, Zara, but not right away. We want all the girls to go out together. We're going to have our next Council Fire at the farm. And some of them can't get away just now. But it will be fairly soon, I can promise you that. You like the country, don't you, Zara?"

"Indeed I do, Miss Eleanor! Until they took my father away I was ever so happy there."

"And just think, you're going to see him tomorrow, Zara! He's well, and as soon as he heard that you were here and safe, he stopped worrying. That was his chief trouble—he seemed to think more about what would happen to you than that he was in trouble himself."

"I knew he'd be thinking about me," said Zara, "He always did, even when he had most to bother him."

"I was sure he was a good father, Zara, when I heard you talk about him—and I've been surer of it than ever since I've had a chance to find out about him....