The three girls exchanged smiling glances, and Elsie admitted reluctantly, “I think there is—a Boy Scout reason—isn’t there, Mary?” and as Mary Hastings nodded, Elsie went on, “You know my brother Jack is the most loyal of Scouts, and before he was old enough to be one, he had learned all the things that a boy has to know to join—and to describe the flag is one of those things. He discovered one day that I didn’t know how many stars there are on it and how they are arranged, and he was so dreadfully distressed and mortified at my ignorance that I had to take a flag lesson from him on the spot—and it was a thorough one.”
“Uh huh!” Jim triumphed under his breath, but the girls heard and there was a shout of laughter. Over the boy’s head Laura’s laughing eyes swept the group.
“Jim,” she said, “will you ask Miss Anne to lend us her flag for a few minutes?”
“Won’t ours do? Jo’n’ I’ve got one,” Jim cried instantly, and as Miss Laura nodded, he scampered off.
“I think Jim has won, girls,” she said, and then the laughter dying out of her eyes, added gravely, “Really I quite agree with him. I think we—I mean our own Camp Fire—have not given as much thought to patriotism as we ought. There have been so many things for us to talk about and work for! But we’ll learn the flag to-day, and when we go home, it may be well for us to arrange a sort of ‘course’ in patriotism for the coming year. Of all girls in America, those who live in Washington ought to be the most interested in their own country. We will all be more patriotic—better Americans—a year from now.”
Jim came running back with a small silk flag. He held it up proudly for the inspection of the girls, and it was safe to say that they would all remember that brief object lesson. It was Lena whose eyes lingered longest on the boy’s eager face as he looked at the flag.
“He does—he really loves it,” she said wonderingly to Elsie standing beside her. “He’s right. We girls don’t care for it that way—honest we don’t.”
“Maybe not just for the flag,” Elsie admitted, “but we care just as much as boys do for our country. Don’t you think we do, Miss Laura?”
“I’m not sure, Elsie. You see many boys look forward to a soldier’s life, and most of them feel that they may some time have to fight for their flag—their country—and so perhaps they think more about it than girls do. And patriotism is made prominent among the Scouts.”
“They always salute the flag wherever they see it,” Mary said.