We’re Camp Fire Girls; we grow by working, not by whacking.”
“Whoo! Whoo! Hulla-baloo! Peppercorns and fire-sticks! Have I put my foot in it again, as I did on the playground, mixing up medicine and dancing?” roared the rueful mariner. “There! even that old caged bird is hissing me, as if he had a goose-head, not an owl’s, upon his swivel shoulders.”
So, fanned by laughter, fostered with song, the Council Fire grew until it threw a far reflection on the lake waters and lit up many a nook known to Indian maidens of yore, at the foot of the historic hill.
“Now comes the most important part of the Council Fire program, the initiation of one girl into the rank of Fire Maker, higher than that of Wood Gatherer, which she has borne since her first initiation!”
So spoke the artist after certain preliminary ceremonies had taken place, such as the awarding of new honor-beads, two red honors to Sesooā for feats of horseback riding and for feeding, petting, and combing a horse from mane to tail during a period of thirty days—a prancing routine dignified as Health Craft!
Other honors, flame-colored mostly, were chiefly for homely duties such as girls had always performed, often with a shrug that labeled them humdrum, seeing no glamor about them until they were painted rose-color forever by an honor-bead strung upon a leather thong, by the light of the magically kindled Council Fire.
“Who’s the lucky girl that gains higher rank?” yawned Captain Andy whose masculine interest flagged a little. “If you don’t stop hissing, I’ll wring your swivel neck!” this to the owl. “I tried freeing that bird this evening when the old naturalist’s back was turned—couldn’t warm to the idea of his enduring a prison life-sentence—and, will you believe it, he couldn’t fly two yards, had lost his wing-power, as well as his hoot, through not using it. I had to hustle him back into his cage, with a bitten finger, to prevent the camp dogs from getting him. Ha! so that’s the candidate for rank, eh”—looking toward the Council Fire again—“the Morning-Glory girl that dances like a leaf in a gust, or a foam-chicken—or anything else that’s lighter’n a puff?”
Welatáwesit was giving a demonstration of another kind now, vaunting her skill at first aid by bandaging Betty. Then something white, larger than a bandage, fluttered in the flame-stabled twilight; it might have been a child’s frock.
Softly through the dusk came the voice of the deaf-and-dumb child’s partner, consecrating her girlish powers to the fire of humankind:
“For I will tend,