CHAPTER X
A HEROINE
So Nora Casey became the heroine of the Camp. An account of her bravery was in all the papers and the entire Camp was written up. The once neglected and disliked girl was now in a fair way to be spoiled. But Nora could not be spoiled. She was too sensible.
"I say, Miss Nora," exclaimed Harvey the next day, "I don't think I'd dare marry a woman with your strength. You'd put me to shame."
Nora laughed good naturedly.
"Quit yere blarney," she said.
As for Ethel, she couldn't bear to let Nora out of her sight, and Nora whose heart was tender and whose nature was forgiving devoted herself to the girl, reading aloud, relating funny stories of her father, and when tired of talking Patty, Mattie, she and Ethel would play bridge.
The men considered that Ethel had had a narrow escape. Uncle John consulted with Judge Sands as to what was best to do about the kidnapers. A few days later two suspicious looking creatures were arrested. They had escaped from Joliet jail and admitted having been for days in the woods. Ethel rode to the trial and identified their voices but she had not seen their faces. They were returned to jail in Joliet and before they left they confessed that they had contemplated finding the girl and holding her for a ransom. They were intending to sell the horse but they had not tied him securely and he had broken loose. They were ugly looking customers.
The next week before the breaking up of camp, when Mr. Casey came to take Nora home, everyone flocked around him telling of his daughter's brave act. He took Ethel by the hand and remarked simply:
"It was like Honora to do that. There's none more brave than she—God bless her."
From that day Nora had no better friend than Ethel. She felt that the girl had saved her life and her gratitude was boundless.
"Tell me," asked; Nora, "why did you dislike me so?"
"I was wicked, Nora," replied Ethel, "I am ashamed of it now."
"But," persisted the girl, "did you think me vulgar?"
"No," replied Ethel. "I thought you had a loud voice, and there's something about a loud voice that I dislike. But even so I should have overlooked that, had I been a good girl. You are so far above me, Nora, that I am ashamed to even acknowledge it."
"Miss Ethel—" said Nora.
"Call me Ethel in future," said the girl—"please do."
"Well—Ethel—you are not the first one who has criticised my voice. My teachers have always done so, and even my mother used to say, 'Not so loud, Nora dear. Speak more gentle like.'"
"Did she?" asked Ethel.
"Yes, my mother had her faults, Ethel, but at heart she was a lady. So your dislike of me was not so strange after all."
"But," interrupted Ethel, "Nora, perhaps I wasn't thankful to hear your loud voice when I lay there wounded and helpless, and I'm ashamed to even have told you."
"I wish you to help me," broke in Nora. "I wish to make myself different—more of a lady. Will you tell me when I talk too loud? It will be a favor if you will."
Ethel assented and kissed Nora affectionately.
Nannie Bigelow arrived and the girl became a general favorite. She at once fell in love with Nora.
"Why, she's a heroine," she said. "She'd give her life for another. I think she's splendid."
Nannie had much to say of their New York Camp Fire, and of the girls who belonged.
"You know some of them are quite unlike us, but Miss Westcott says they'll improve—that being with us will make them more gentle. And you have no idea how they are improving. And as for Dorothy's nursery, it's just booming. There is a waiting list a mile long," and she chatted on, entertaining the girls with her talk.
At the next and last Council Meeting, the girls received honors for having slept three months out of doors, for learning to swim, and rowing twenty miles on the Muskingum River, and for sailing a boat without help for fifty miles. They also received extra honors for cooking, and for learning and making a mattress out of the twigs of trees; for long walks, and for washing and ironing, which the girls did well.
Whenever she looked at Nora, Ethel's conscience troubled her. She seemed to feel her own unworthiness. Mrs. Hollister suggested to Mr. Casey that Nora should visit them for a couple of months in the city.
"I'll gladly let her go to ye next winter, Ma'am, but not to visit. I would like her to be wid a grand lady like yourself, and if you'll let me pay her board I'll consider it a great favor. And if she might go to some fine school, Ma'am, where she could learn how to be a lady and stay at your house I would pay any price."
At first Mrs. Hollister objected to the money part, but Mr. Casey begged so hard that, realizing what Nora had done for Ethel, she felt she should be willing to do anything to benefit her. So she consented.
"You can put me anywhere," said Nora, "I will be like one of your family."
Mrs. Hollister put her arm around the girl.
"My dear," she said, "the best I have ought not to be good enough for you. It's little enough for me to take you, and I should like to do so without having your father pay me a penny."
So it was all arranged. In November, Nora was to become an inmate of the
Hollister household.
Ethel had made up her mind to give the girl her room, she taking one on the top floor.
"I would gladly sleep on bare boards for her," she said to her mother,—"the brave girl to whom I have been so unjust. I'm glad she's coming. I'll devote all my extra time to her happiness."