“I’m acquainted with the braids,” Laura answered, flinging them carelessly over her shoulders, “but this beautiful bead headband I’ve never worn before. Is it on right?”
“All right,” Anne replied. “The Busy Corner girls will be proud of their Guardian to-night.”
Laura scarcely heard, her thoughts were so full of her girls—the girls she had already learned to love. She turned eagerly as the bugle notes of the Council call rang out in silvery sweetness. “O, come. Don’t let them start without us,” she urged.
“No danger—they will want their Guardians to lead the procession.”
In a moment Mrs. Royall appeared, and quickly the girls fell into line behind her. First, the four Guardians; then two Torch Bearers, each holding aloft in her right hand a lighted lantern. Flaming torches would have been more picturesque, but also more dangerous in the woods, and all risk of fire must be avoided. After the Torch Bearers came the Fire Makers, and last of all the Wood Gatherers, with Katie the cook wearing a gorgeous robe that some of the girls had embroidered for her. Katie’s unfailing good nature had made her a general favourite in camp.
As the procession wound through the irregular woods-path Laura gave a little cry of delight.
“O, do look back, Anne—it is so pretty,” she said. “If it wasn’t that I want to be a part of it, I’d run ahead so I could see it all better.”
Mrs. Royall began to sing and the girls instantly caught up the strain, and in and out among the trees the procession wound to the music of the young voices, the lanterns throwing flashes of light on either side, while the shadows seemed to slip out of the woods and follow “like a procession of black-robed nuns,” Laura said to herself.
The Council chamber was a high open space, surrounded on every side but one by tall pines. The open side faced the bay, and across the water glimmered a tiny golden pathway from the moon in the western sky, where a golden glow from the sunset yet lingered.
The girls formed the semicircle, with the Guardians in the open space. Wood had been gathered earlier in the day, and now the Wood Gatherers, each taking a stick, laid it where the fire was to be. As the last stick was brought, the Fire Makers moved forward and swiftly and skilfully set the wood ready for lighting. On this occasion, to save time, the rubbing sticks were dispensed with, and Mrs. Royall signed to Laura to light the fire with a match.