And what was the new Torch Bearer, who had been initiated as a Fire Maker a little over six months before, thinking of as she, too, gazed into the velvety red of blazing hickory and birch logs, topped by a blue crest of rippling flame, a delicate fluorescence?
Chiefly she, Morning-Glory, was dwelling on that old, saving deed of her great-grandfather’s which had arisen out of the past to bless her (to justify the feeling of her lonely hours that, somehow, in some way, he lived to companion her), to enable her to follow in her father’s footsteps, by and by, as a designer of stained-glass glories, this bringing her in feeling nearer to him, too.
Already Jessica, or Welatáwesit, wore upon her fringed sleeve a Shuta National honor (Shuta meaning to create) awarded her by the highest council of the Camp Fire Girls for her design—crudely imperfect as yet—for a beautiful stained-glass window, representing the figure and ideals of a Camp Fire Girl. A window which, at some future golden date, might filter and glorify the daylight as it streamed into a National Temple dedicated to American girlhood, to its desire to preserve a romantic savor of its predecessor upon this soil, the Indian girlhood, whose poetic folk-lore, dress and customs seemed in danger of vanishing until the Camp Fire Girl stepped upon the scene to unite in her captivating person the poetry of the past, the progress of the present!
From the honor emblem upon her khaki sleeve Jessica’s young gaze wandered back to her beaded leather necklace and to the large silver coin, stamped with a sunburst which she still, upon certain occasions, wore round her neck, the ancient sun-dollar with her monogram minutely engraved beneath the radiating rays, which had been so instrumental in linking her with her ancestor’s life-saving deed.
“Won’t it go beautifully with your Torch Bearer’s pin which has a rising sun as part of the design on it?” suggested Penelope who, to-night, as she dreamed by the Council Fire in ceremonial dress which had a “poetizing” effect on her, as Sally said, looked transformed from the Penelope of the restless gate, creating a tingling atmosphere about her that, according to Betty, could be felt a mile off.
“Yes, I feel like a true child of the Sun, wearing both of them! And isn’t it a strange coincidence that the old coin found by a Camp Fire Girl—or first spied by her—should be stamped with a sunburst?” Morning-Glory fingered the sun-dollar, silver-gilt in the firelight. “I have been reading up about Peruvian coinage,” she went on reflectively, “and I find that the sunburst stamp with those funny little black dots representing a grotesque sun-face in the center is a relic of the sun-worship of the old Incas, former inhabitants of Peru, who carved the sun’s face on everything.”
“I’ll never forget that lawyer’s expression when it dawned on him that the date of this year and a girl’s initials on the sun-dollar, which at first he regarded as an insult to its stately inscription and ancient stamp, were actually proving a clue for him to find an heir to one of the old legacies for which he was looking up claimants.” This amused remark came from Gheezies, Guardian of the Fire, who sat on the right of the blazing logs. “I’m sure that Morning-Glory will go down to history in that part of the country as the heroine in the case of the most remarkable legacy that ever a girl fell heir to!”
“Yes, and think of the wild excitement of the Twin-Light Tribe over having such a dramatic scene take place at their party!” gasped Ruth Marley, whose Camp Fire name signified Music and who had the G clef in her head-band. “Why! their Christmas letter to us was full of it. I’d like to hear that sisterly epistle again.”
“So would I! And I! And I! Also the letter from Captain Andy—our ‘Standing Tall’—in which he speaks of the present he’s sending us!” came in tones of laughter from one and another of the fourteen beaded maidens seated round the Council Fire, while the four Bluebirds, nestling near, played happily with their dolls, which Morning-Glory, in her one afternoon a week spent with them in the room of a Children’s Friend Society, had taught them how to dress.
“Oh! Captain Andy used to feel badly because we had no bows and arrows last summer (we’ll have to practice archery before we ever camp out with him again) to go with our Indian dress and not even a harpoon, as he used to say jokingly, in case ‘a school of blackfish came in,’” laughed Sesooā. “And so he’s sending us a spear, the sword of a swordfish which he killed himself and polished up—I mean he polished the sword and polished off the poor fish. He says we can harpoon hearts with it!”