Olive had stars in the dreamy black of her eyes, now; they were gazing far away.
“What on earth do you mean: not that you’re thinking of becoming a Camp Fire Girl—joining our Morning-Glory Camp Fire? Oh, you know how I’ve wanted you to do that, Olive!” A little lightning-spurt of excitement flashed through Jessica’s tears. “Oh, Sugarloaf and sugarloons!” she gasped, shaky laughter beginning to patter like crystal hail through the rain-drops, the end of the shower. “Why, ’twould just be sugar through and through that camping trip if Sybil and you should come with us.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Olive shook her head sagely. “If I were to try my hand at the camp cooking, I’m afraid the effects would be bitter, not sweet,” with a grimace. “You know Father says that my cookery ought to be tried first on the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals before any member of the animal kingdom should be allowed to partake of it!” Here, even the satiny ringlet curling down Olive’s white neck on to the shoulder of her white dress laughed—she clung to that black curl since she put her hair up, for good, six months before.
“I suppose that if Mother had lived I’d have learned to do a great many things that I don’t know much about now,” she went on softly. “Cook never wanted us in the kitchen; so we stayed out of it. Cousin Anne says that I’m not a bit ‘domestic.’ But sometimes”—the dark eyes shone wistfully—“something just swells up so big in me that I feel as if I shall simply burst if I don’t get it out of my system!” becoming, in turn, tragically confidential. “I’ve tried working it off in the rhymes that Sybil laughs at; I persuaded Father to let me take painting lessons outside of school-hours, but I don’t believe I’ll ever paint anything that a cow would care to look at,” laughing ruefully, “whatever you may do! Cook (you know she cooked for Father and Mother before I was born and she’s Irish) saw one of my pictures and I heard her say to herself: ‘Tear an’ ages! looks as if that old guinea-hen had got some paint on her claws and scratched on the paper.’ Truth and honor! that’s what she did say!”
Jessica was now laughing spasmodically, the bright drops upon her eyelashes winking at the other girl’s gropings after self-expression.
“All I can do, it seems to me, is, as I heard Captain Andy singing to himself last night during part of the Council Fire program, to:
“‘Laugh a little and sing a little,
And work a little and play a little,
And fiddle a little and foot it a little,
As bravely as I can!’”