Read Ebook: The Girl Scout Pioneers; Or Winning the First B. C. by Garis Lilian

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Ebook has 1173 lines and 46123 words, and 24 pages

That was all Tessie wanted. She waited, and when again they took up tangled threads of their adventure it was scarcely possible either would allow any further interruptions to delay them.

And Dagmar clutched in her tightly clasped hand the lost scout badge.

WOODLAND THRILLS

It was Margaret Slowden who lost the Badge of Merit. The pretty gilt wreath, with its clover leaf center on a dainty white ribbon hanger, had been presented to Margaret on such an auspicious occasion, that the emblem meant much more to the girl scout than its official value of rank indicated.

The True Tred Troop of Flosston had been organized one month when Margaret won the medal. Shortly after the holidays, an event of unusual importance occurred in the mill town, when its small company of service boys returned from "Over There." They were royally welcomed by the entire town folks, together with the many officials of the silk industries, from whose ranks the boys had marched away.

With the lads returned was Margaret's brother Tom. He was handsome and a Marine, and well might Mrs. Slowden and Margaret take pride in the honor their soldier brought them. On the night of the Great Welcome Home, the scout girls, then newly organized, assisted with ushering and attending to the platform needs of the speakers and honored heroes, each of the latter receiving a special small, gold military cross, the gift of the silk mill magnates. This insignia was presented by the most famous authorities of army and navy available, and Tom Slowden was given the special honor of a real military presentation of the D. S. C., he being the only member of Flosston recruits to receive such a notable tribute.

As might have been expected this gave real distinction to the Welcome Home, and Margaret was suffused with pardonable pride. But when she took her place in the check room, to attend to the coats and other belongings of the distinguished visitors--she was forgotten by her troop, and she remained there all during Tom's presentation. She never heard a word of major's wonderful speech, when the people fairly roared for Tom's glory. There she was, downstairs in the dark, lonely cloak room.

"Oh, my dear!" deplored Captain Clark. "I never meant that you should stay down here at this time."

"But it was my task," returned the melancholy Margaret.

"I would not have had you miss your brother's presentation for the world! Such a thing can never come again. Why did you not call some of the girls to relieve you?"

"If Tom did anything like that he could never have received the D. S. C., and I am a Scout and pledged to honor commands," returned Margaret nobly.

For that sacrifice she received from the same platform, one week later, her own badge of merit, and the occasion was a real rally, with officials from headquarters, and all the neighboring troops participating.

Was it strange then that Margaret should lament her loss?

No other badge could actually take the place of that one, and while Captain Clark would immediately advise headquarters of the loss, and order a new one, the brave little scout girl would still feel she had lost that one vested with the special presentation honors.

On the morning following the loss, the girls of True Tred were seen out on the road so early, the station master, old Pete, hurried to his window, and got ready for business, surmising an excursion or at least a local convention imminent.

But no such occurrence was probable, it was only the troop out looking for the badge, and inevitably they did not find it. Signs made by Captain Clark were posted in the station, the post-office, and at prominent corners, but Margaret was disconsolate. She had called her badge the "D. S. C." because of its connection with Tom's insignia, and though the big brother had promised the scout sister all sorts of valuable substitutes, offering her the little hand carved box he had brought for "another girl," and which Margaret had openly coveted, even this did not seem adequate compensation.

All day at school the girls of True Tred planned and contrived little favors for their unhappy sister, and it was noticeable those of the classes who usually scoffed at the scouts and their activities, could not well conceal their admiration for the spirit of kindliness displayed.

The True Treds had members in the seventh and eighth grammar grades, and the girls' ages ranged from thirteen to fifteen years. Margaret Slowden was fifteen, Cleo Harris fourteen and Grace Philow and Madaline Mower were thirteen. This group was most active in the scout girls' movement, and although the organization was only three months old in Flosston, few there were in the town who had not seen and admired the smart little troopers, in their neat uniforms, always ready to assist in the home or in public at any task consigned to them. It was to be expected they would meet opposition in the way of criticism from such girls as are always indifferent to team play, and the best interests of the largest numbers, but the scouts knew how much they enjoyed their troop, and realized how beneficial was the attractive training they were receiving from its rules and regulations.

Grace and Madaline were still in the tenderfoot class, and wore the little brooch at the neck of their blouses. Margaret and Cleo were already in the first class, and permitted to wear the left sleeve badge, while others showed their rank in the Tenderfoot, the first and third class, three patrols of eight members each making up Flosston troop.

The real work of the scouts is so interesting in character that the writer has no idea of detracting from it, by relating the detail, feeling the charm and significance is best expressed in a real story of the live girls as they live their characteristic scout life. Nevertheless, it may not be amiss to call attention here to the value of such training given almost in play, and without question in such attractive forms as to make character building through its influence an ideal pastime, a valuable investment, and a complete program, for growing girls, who may emerge from the "bundle of habits" as strong members of society, progressive business women, or nicely trained little helpers for the home, or for the more sheltering conditions in whatever path of life they may be selected to tread.

That schools or even homes cannot compete with such training is evident, when one considers that a girl is creative, and should have ample chance to develop her character without force or rigid self defacing, instead of self creating rules; also it must be apparent that guidance is only successful when imposed gently, and with that subtle persuasion, ever aiming to show the result of correct training, and thus affording the principles of freedom for selection, with a knowledge of what that selection will result in.

What sensible girl will deliberately choose to go her own careless way, when she realizes that nothing satisfactory can be expected from such a choice, and that the very freedom coveted makes her a slave to the most cruel limits of prospects or attainments?

But we will not sermonize; even at this distance we may hold out the strong arm of influence, assuring our readers that the highest aims of writers and publishers are for the advancement of the younger girls, whose minds, for the moment, are entrusted to our keeping.

Coming back to our group of Girl Scouts, now holding conclave in the school yard of Flosston grammar grades, we find Grace and Madeline forming themselves into a committee of two, with the avowed intention of getting lip a hiking party for their own special benefit. These younger girls must soon undergo the test necessary for their qualification as second class scouts, and a hike on this lovely spring afternoon would aid them greatly in acquiring the outdoor knowledge necessary.

Margaret was rather inclined to dissent when the jaunt was proposed, she did not feel quite as hiky as usual, and she promptly remembered she had promised her mother some assistance in the little kitchen garden both were developing.

"Oh, come on," pleaded Grace. "If you say you want to go, I am sure Captain Clark will agree. I know where we can get the loveliest watercress."

This lure won Margaret, who had now fully recovered her scout cheer, and was trying bravely to forget the loss of her cherished badge".

"Mother loves watercress," she conceded, "and I would go, if we are sure to be back by five. I have to go call for the mail before dark."

"Oh, goody-good!" sang out Grace. "Now I can surely get my nature work all nicely covered. I'll tell Madaline. She is over there coaxing Cleo," and with a risky flourish of her red tie, a hop, skip and a jump, the Tenderfoot pranced across the big green schoolyard, in a fashion that belied her limitations on the tenderfoot basis.

"Yes, I'll go," Cleo was agreeing, "but I am afraid we can't get Captain Clark. I know she is going out to Kingsley to form a troop. Maybe we can get Lieutenant Lindsley. She is free from Normal at four. They have a lecture after two-thirty almost every day."

"Oh, Lieutenant Lindsley would be lots of fun. She knows everything in hill and dale, and is not afraid of snakes or cows. But do you think we should notify the other girls? It is rather hard to get in touch with them in time," Grace ranted on.

The afternoon school session received scant attention from the prospective hikers, the Tenderfoots especially being absorbed in the prospects of a spring afternoon in the woods.

So interested were Grace and Madaline they exchanged preparatory notes in the five minute rest period, although that time was set aside for real relaxation, and no one was supposed to use eyes or fingers during the short rest.

When school was finally dismissed the girls arranged to pass the homes of most of the group, as many of them lived on the same Oakley Avenue, and thus notify parents of their scout plans for the hike, and when Lieutenant Lindsley was eventually picked up from the practicing department of the Normal School, the ranks were filled, and the hike moved off towards the River Road.

It was a glorious afternoon, in late April. The peach blossoms were just breaking into pink puff balls, and the pear trees were burdened with a crop of spring "snow," fragrant in their whitest of dainty blossoms.

But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the joyous, happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more noisy town streets, into the highways and byways of the long green stretch of country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on its border.

"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't care just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am called up to take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in daylight, so beware! I may do something very desperate and rash this afternoon."

"Spare us," pleaded Madaline. "I have seen some of our courage worked out in the woods before. Remember the time you nearly set fire to the river? Well, don't, please, go try anything like that today."

"No, it must be something for which I should receive a badge of courage, if I were in the first class. I want to blush with fitting modesty when Captain Clark invests me with the next degree, and I shall only blush when reminded of my noble deed this afternoon."

"Since you are not particular about what deed shall be the noble one, won't you just give me a hand, and help me save this heel of mine from a blistering shoe? The shoe was all right in school, but just now it has picked up a snag, somehow, and between the shoe and the snag, my life is not worth living."

"Poor Madie," soothed her chum. "Let us sit right down here and diagnose the case. I'm first rate at diagnosing anything but why my bureau can't stay fixed. It has chronic upsettedness, and all my operations are of no avail. There go the girls down into the hazel nut gully. Let's sit on this lovely mossy couch, and look after the heel. Doesn't moss grow beautifully smooth under the cedars? I wonder how it ever gets so velvety?"

At the twined and natural woven seat, wrought from the uncovered roots of a great hemlock, the girls caressed and patted the velvet moss that formed a veritable carpet--no--it was softer than carpet, a silken velvet throw, over a natural cedar divan. Even the suffering heel was forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in green, with the darker green canopy of cedars, and the music of a running river at the foot of the sloping hill. Here the scent of watercress vied with the hemlock and cedar, for its place as nature's perfume, and only such mingling of wild ferns, trailing arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could produce the aroma of incense that just then permeated the woody glen.

"Don't let the girls get too far away from us," cautioned Madeline. "I wouldn't like to get really lost, even for the joke of having you find me, Gracie."

"But you would do a little thing like that to help me out on my personal bravery stunt?" teased her companion. "I wonder why only the first class girls are permitted to do all those wonderful things and get all the really high honors?"

"Because they have gone through all the necessary trials and examinations," replied Madaline sagely. "You and I can get credit for our deeds, but we must show our full records to get the highest B. C. That's fair. You can't make a major out of a private. He has got to go up by degrees."

"Well, maybe it is fair, but I just love the glory of presentations. I am so sorry for Margaret. I would have dug up the town today to find that Merit Badge she lost last night."

"I like the way she braved it out, though," added Madaline. "She felt badly enough, and it did mean so much to her," finished the sympathetic scout.

"Oh, yes, I suppose so," rather reluctantly agreed the ambitious Grace. "But I shouldn't relish the feeling that some grimy mill girl was wearing the badge in a smoky factory."

"Oh, Grace, shame! That's not scouty. You must not speak so of the mill girls. We hope to take some of them in our troop before long. We would have no right to public support if we did not do something definite for others, and the mill girls have so few chances. So don't, Gracie dear, ever speak like that again."

"I won't if you say so, also if it isn't scouty. I am out to win the goal, and I don't mind what I may have to do to get my scout good conduct ball into the official basket. Now, how's the heel? Did the little pad of soft leaves help to keep the pressure off?"

"Yes, that was a fine idea, and I shall see to it that some day, when original work is called for, you get credit for the nature-aid heel pad. Rather a clumsy title, but when we explain how easy it is to get soft leaves to make pads for suffering feet, I am sure it will be welcome news to many an ambitious hiker."

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