“‘Love is the joy of service so deep that self is forgotten,’” she quoted. “Anne, I believe that that spirit is in the Poor Thing—deep down in the starved little heart of her—while Olga—with Olga it is the other. She ‘glorifies work’ because ‘through work she is free.’ She works ‘to win, to conquer, to be master.’ She works ‘for the joy of the working.’ That’s the difference.”
Anne nodded gravely. “I am sure you are right about Olga. It has always seemed to me that to her ‘Wohelo means work’ and only that.”
“And to Elizabeth it means—or will mean—service and that means, underneath—love,” said Laura, her voice full of deep feeling. “O Anne, I so long to help that poor child to get some of the beauty and joy of life into her little neglected soul!”
“If she has love, she has the best thing in life already,” Anne reminded. “The rest will come—in time.”
A day or two later Laura found another excuse for asking Elizabeth’s help, and as before, the response was quick, and again Olga’s busy fingers paused as she looked after the two, and quite unconsciously her dark brows came together in a frown. Elizabeth had gone with scarcely a glance at her. A week—two weeks earlier, she would have hung back and refused. Olga shook her head impatiently as she resumed her work, and wondered why she was dissatisfied with Elizabeth for going so willingly. Of course she must do what her Guardian asked. Nevertheless——Olga left it there.
It was an hour before Elizabeth came back, and this time there was in her face something half shy, half exultant, and she did not say a word about what Miss Laura had wanted her for. Olga made a mental note of that, but she was far too proud to make any inquiries.
The next morning after breakfast Elizabeth disappeared again, and this time too it was fully an hour before she returned, and as before she came back with a shining something in her eyes—a something that changed slowly to troubled brooding when Olga did not look at her or speak to her all the rest of the morning.
When the third day it was the same, Olga faced the situation in stony silence. She would not ask why Elizabeth went or where, but she silently resented her going, and Elizabeth, sensitively conscious of her resentment, after that, slipped away each time with a wistful backward glance; and when she returned, there was no shining radiance in her eyes, but only that wistful pleading which Olga coldly ignored. So it went on day after day. Olga always knew where Elizabeth was except for that one hour in the morning, which was never mentioned between them. The other times she was always helping some one—darning stockings for Louise Johnson—Elizabeth knew how to darn stockings—or helping little Bessie Carroll hunt for some of her belongings, which she was always losing, or helping Katie the cook, who declared that nobody in camp could pare potatoes and apples, or peel tomatoes or pick over berries so fast as the Poor Thing. There was not a day now that some one did not call on Elizabeth for something like this, for the girls had found out that she was always willing. She seemed to take it quite as a matter of course that she should be at the service of everybody. But Laura noted the fact that she never asked anybody to help her.
Then came a night when Mrs. Royall detained the girls for a moment after supper in the dining-room.
“I think we are going to have a heavy storm,” she said, “and we must be prepared for it. Put all your belongings under cover where they will be secure from wind and rain. I should advise you to sleep in your gymnasium suits—you will be none too warm in this northeast wind—and have your rubber blankets and overshoes handy. Guardians will examine all tent-pins and ropes and see that everything is secure. No tent-sides up to-night, of course. I shall have a fire here, and lanterns burning all night; so if anything is needed you can come right here. Now remember, girls, there is nothing to be afraid of—and Camp Fire Girls, of course, are never afraid. That is all, but attend to these things at once, and as it is too chilly to stay out, we will all spend the evening here.”