“No, Ellen Grandis is her Guardian, but Ellen is to be married next month and will live in New York, so that Camp Fire will have to have a new Guardian.”
“What about the other girls in it?”
“All but three are working girls—salesgirls in stores, I think, most of them.”
“How did Olga happen to join the Camp Fire?”
“I don’t know. I’ve wondered about that myself. She doesn’t make friends with any of the girls, nor join in any of the games; but work—she has a perfect passion for work, and it seems as if she can do anything. She has won twice as many honours as any other girl since she came, but she cares nothing for them—except to win them.”
“She must be a strange character, but she interests me,” Laura said thoughtfully. “Anne, maybe I can take Miss Grandis’ place when she leaves.”
Anne gave her friend a searching look. “Are you sure you would like it? Wouldn’t you rather have a different class of girls?” she asked.
Laura answered gravely, “I want the girls I can help most—those that need me most—and from what you say, I should think Olga needed—some one—as much as any girl could.”
“As much perhaps, but hardly more than some of the others. There’s that little Annie Pearson who thinks of nothing but her pretty face and ‘good times,’ and Myra Karr who is afraid of her own shadow and always clinging to the person she happens to be with. The Camp Fire is a splendid organisation, Laura, and it will do a deal for the girls, but still almost every one of them is some sort of ‘problem’ that we have to study and watch and labour over with heart and head and hands if we hope really to accomplish any permanent good. But come, we must go back or we shall be late for breakfast.”
“Then let’s hurry, for this air has given me a famous appetite,” Laura replied. But she did not find it easy to keep up with her friend’s steady stride.