CHAPTER VI
A NOVEL JAIL
Thus it was that the girl scouts of Flosston and Lieutenant Molly
Cosgrove of Franklin stumbled over the same case of a sister in need.
Returning from the big rally at the County Headquarters on that eventful evening, Molly Cosgrove found more than her usual hot cup of tea awaiting her. There was the strange young girl with the wonderful blue eyes, around which a telltale pink rim outlined the long silky lashes.
Molly thought she had never seen a prettier girl, while in turn Dagmar decided Molly Cosgrove was the very biggest, dearest, noblest girl she had ever seen. Formalities over, talk of the rally quickly put the stranger at ease.
"We had a wonderful rally," Molly enthused, "and at a business meeting held before the open session, it was decided to start obtaining recruits from the mills."
"Oh, that will be splendid!" exclaimed Dagmar, who now felt quite at home with the Cosgroves. "We have always wanted to know about those girl scouts."
"Well, you will soon have an opportunity," continued the girl, whose cheeks still glowed with rally excitement, "and I am a member of the committee appointed to visit the mills."
"That is just the thing," declared Mrs. Cosgrove, "for your boss always lets you follow the Troop orders, and by going into Flosston you may fix it for this scared little girl to stay here for a while."
"There, Mother, I always said you should be on the pay-roll. Isn't she the loveliest cop?" Molly asked Dagmar. "No wonder the Town Council thanked Mrs. Jim Cosgrove for her work among the women and girls! Why, Mom, you are a born welfare worker, and could easily have my position in the Mill. You see, I am what they call a welfare worker," again Molly addressed Dagmar directly.
"Oh, yes, I know. We have one in the Fluffdown Mill. Her name is Miss
Mathews but she hardly ever comes in our room," offered Dagmar.
"Well, now Molly," said Mrs. Cosgrove very decidedly, "I just mentioned we might see that the girl got work in new surroundings, with you and me to keep an eye on her, so she could cut away from that crowd. What I have been able to find out is not much to its credit and there's reasons (with a look that pointed at Dagmar's beauty) why a girl like this should not run wild. It seems to me," smoothing out her big apron, by way of punctuation, "that it has all happened for the best. We can fix it so Pop won't make it an arrest after all, then you can get leave to go to Flosston first thing in the morning, can't you?"
"Oh, yes, the welfare work of all the big mills is co-related," replied the daughter, while the mother put her feet on the little velvet hassock, and seemed glad of the chance to draw her breath after the long speech.
Dagmar was sitting in one of the narrow arm chairs of the old-fashioned parlor suite. Her long, rather shapely hands traced the lines and cross-bars in her plaid skirt, and the sudden shifting of her gaze, from one speaker to the other, betrayed the nervousness she was laboring under.
"All right then, that's one more thing settled. And do you think the girl—say, girl, I don't like that name you have, what else can we call you?" she broke off suddenly with this question to Dagmar.
"My name is Dagmar Bosika, and I like Bosika best," replied the little stranger.
"All right, that's number three settled. You will be Bose. I can say that, but I never could think of the other queer foreign name."
"And we will have to change your last name, too, I guess," put in Molly, "as some one from Flosston might recognize it. We can just leave off the first syllable and have it Rose Dix or Dixon. I think Dixon would sound best."
"We are settling quite a few points," laughed Mrs. Cosgrove, "if some one doesn't upset them. I have no fears from Pop—"
"Oh, Pop is putty in our hands," went on the resourceful Molly, "no danger from his end. But how about your folks, Rose?"
Dagmar smiled before she replied. The new name struck on her ear a little oddly, but it pleased her, she had never liked Dagmar, and utterly despised the mill girls' nickname "Daggie."
"Mother and father have always said they would let me do what I thought would be best for me," she said at length. "I never did anything they told me I should not, and we often talked of my getting in a store or something like that. Mother works in the mill in another room, and she was always worried about me being away from her."
"A store would be no good for you," objected Mrs. Cosgrove, again including the girl's beauty in her scrutiny. "You would be best off within the reach of a welfare worker like Molly. But look at the time! Martin will be in from the club, and even Dad will be comin' around for his midnight coffee, before we call this meetin' to a halt. I say, Molly, we are runnin' an opposition scout meetin' it seems to me," and she got up with that finality, which plainly puts the period to all conversation.
A few moments later Rose had washed face and hands, brushed her hair, as Molly kindly hinted she should, and taking her shabby, washed, but unironed, night dress from the famous "telescope," she said her prayers and was ready for bed. How comfortable the room seemed! How strange she should be in it? And where was the unfortunate, headstrong Tessie?
A prayer for the safety of the wandering one sprung from the heart of this other girl, now away from home the very first night in her young life. That her mother would believe her at a girl's home, according to the little note left stuck in her looking glass, Rose was quite certain, so there was no need to worry concerning distress from the home circle, at least not yet, and tomorrow morning young Miss Cosgrove would go to the mill and very quietly arrange everything with her mother.
"The girl scouts are better than the police," she decided, not quite understanding how both could work so intimately, along different lines, yet each reaching the same result to assist wayward girls.
This was, surely, a queer sort of arrest, a lovely kind of cell, and a most friendly pair of jailers, the little runaway had fallen among, and that she dreamed wonderful dreams, glowing with roses and fragrant with perfume, was not to be wondered at, for Mrs. Cosgrove's linen was sweet enough to induce even more delicious fancies.
But what of poor, lost, erring, headstrong Tessie Warlitz? Rose imagined her in all sorts of wild predicaments, but with that kindness so marked in girls who have themselves suffered cruel misunderstandings, Rose determined not to betray her chum, but rather to do her utmost to find her, and win her back to good standing among girls—somehow. Thus really began in so subtle a manner her own interest in the principles of the Girl Scouts.
"To help an erring sister" is a fundamental of the cause, but Rose little knew what that silent consecration would cost her. When all was quiet, late that night, young Martin Cosgrove sauntered along home and giving the familiar "three dots and a dash" whistle notified his mother of his approach. The light in the sitting-room window had in its turn told Martin his mother awaited him.
"S-s-sh!" whispered the mother, opening the door very softly. "Don't make any noise."
"What's up or who's sick?" asked the good-looking young man, pinching his mother's plump arm.
"There's a little girl asleep in the spare room. Don't wake her," cautioned the mother, who, to prevent even a hat falling, had secured Martin's things and was putting them on the rack.
"Friend of Molly's? Some new girl scout?" he asked, when they reached the seclusion of the kitchen.
"Well, no, not just that, but a poor child Dad found lost," she compromised.
"Lost, eh! And Chief of Police Mrs. Cosgrove rescued the lost chee-il-dd—as usual! Mom, you're a great cop, and I hear Molly is following in your fair footsteps!"
"Stop your nonsense, Marty, and be off to bed. It's awful late! There's your fresh shirt for the morning. Take it along with you."
"Thanks, Mom, and you have the Chink beat in his line, too," giving the freshly ironed cambric shirt an approving pat. "Tell Molly to go easy out at Flosston. Those True Tred Girl Scouts are a pretty lively little bunch from what I hear."
"What do you mean?" asked the mother. "What did you hear about
Flosston?"
"Oh, just heard the boys talking. Nothing very much, but some girls ran away, not scouts, mill girls, mill detectives on their trail, and the Girl Scouts went on a hike and lassoed some poor guy by mistake. Oh, you know a lot of stuff like that, everybody hears and no one knows the real sense of. Only I thought Molly, just taking up with the Flosston work, ought to keep both eyes open, and wear good sensible shoes. Night, Mom!" and he kissed her very fondly. Mrs. Cosgrove indulged in two special brands of real pride—her boy and her girl!