“Will there be time before your Council Fire?”
“Yes, if we hurry—wait one minute.” Anne called to the nearest girl, gave her a brief message, and turned again to her friend. “Come on, we’ve no time to lose, but I know how you can make a canoe fly,” she said, and hand-in-hand the two went scurrying through the grove and down to the landing. Then while the canoe swept swiftly over the water, Anne Wentworth answered the eager questions of her friend.
“It’s a new organisation—the Camp Fire Girls,” she explained. “It is something like the Boy Scouts only, I think, planned on broader lines and with higher and finer ideals—at any rate it is better suited for girls. It aims to help them to be healthy, useful, trustworthy, and happy. Health—work—love—as shown in service—these are the ideals on which we try to build. We have three grades. First a girl becomes a Wood Gatherer; then after passing certain tests, a Fire Maker, then a Torch Bearer.”
“And which are you?” Laura asked.
“I’m a Guardian—that is, I am the head of one of our city Camp Fires. Mrs. Royall is our Chief Guardian.” She went on to explain about the work and play, the tests and rewards, ending with, “But you’ll understand it all so much better after our Council Fire to-night.”
Laura nodded. “What kind of girls is it for—poor girls—working girls?” she asked.
“It is for any kind of girls—just girls, you know. Of course we can’t admit any bad ones, nothing else matters. Dorothy Groves is one of my twelve, and I’ve two dear little High School girls; all the rest are working girls. They can stay here at the camp only two weeks—some of them only ten days—the working girls, I mean, and it would make your heart ache to see how much those ten days mean to them, and how intensely they enjoy even the commonest pleasures of camping out.”
“Who pays for them?” Laura demanded.
“They pay for themselves. It’s no charity, and the charges are very low. They wouldn’t come if it were charity.”
Laura shook her head half impatiently. “It’s so hard to get a chance really to help the ones who need help most,” she said.