“Was I cruel? Perhaps I was, but I wanted you to see the other side of the question and how else was I to do it? We all love you very dearly, darling child, so please don’t think we are down on you. Don’t take this too seriously, for maybe there will be a way out. What is that about always being cheerful and going about with a smile? It seems to me that I saw something of the sort in your Girl Scout handbook, didn’t I?”
Joanne lifted her wet eyes. “Yes, Cousin Sue, I know, but there are times when one can’t be cheerful, when the tragedies of life crush one utterly.”
Mrs. Pattison repressed a smile. “You poor little dear, I suppose it does look like a tragedy to you, but it strikes me this is a time to turn your clouds inside out. Chirk up, dear. It isn’t July, and won’t be for over two months. No one can tell what will happen by then. Come now, finish your lunch and let’s talk of something cheerful. I’ll call up your grandmother and tell her you will be with me this afternoon, so she won’t be uneasy.”
Joanne rose to her feet and went back to her scarcely tasted luncheon. “Just one thing, Cousin Sue,” she said, “before we leave this subject. Won’t you use your influence with Gradda and try to make her see that it will be for my good to spend that month with my troop? I’m afraid she thinks I don’t profit by being a Girl Scout.”
“Why?”
“Because I did fly out and say raging things to her.”
“Then you might, for your soul’s good, offer her an apology.”
“Oh, Cousin Sue, I couldn’t. I never did such a thing in my life.”
“High time you began. Don’t you see, you blind little mole, that if you do now, she will think it is the yeast of scouting working in you? Don’t you owe it to yourself as a Girl Scout to do something that will show you are making progress in character?”
“You talk as if you were a captain of a troop yourself.”