“Don’t—don’t be an ‘ill-dashed’ prophet, Andrew! If she does, we’ll help her out,” pledged Pemrose.
“An’—an’ when it comes to sleepin’ out, the night—in the dark o’ the wee ’oor, when—when restly ghosts walk that have to be shot through with a silver sixpence?” The old chauffeur winked. “An’, if a’ tales be true, that’s no lie!”
“They aren’t loyal to Uncle Sam if they wouldn’t compromise on a dime,” declared Pemrose. “Eh! Copper-nob?”
Gayly she flung one arm around a fifteen-year-old girl, in Minute Girl hiking costume, whose hair, bronze as the cat-whisker in the radio ring, held warm lights, now, as if the flame from her heart nested there.
“This is our Camp Fire sister, Lura Lovell, whose name by the Council Fire is O-te-go, meaning ‘Fire There’!” Pem ruffled the wavy “copper-nob.” “And here’s Tan-pa—‘White Bird’—Dorothy Bush. And our ‘Beam of Light’, La-tow—in everyday life Frances Goddard. Oh! yes, and more than a dozen others of the Victory Group of Camp Fire Girls.”
Pemrose pointed towards the red, white and blue Minute Girls, a score in all, including Guardian and Assistant Guardian, now on their toes, for departure.
“Fegs! ‘sonsie’ it sounds an’ bonnie ye all are, red-cheekit an’ red-lippit, ‘like the smith o’ Dunkelly’s wife’,” chuckled Andrew half to himself—though his lingering glance made an exception of Una. “And—maybe—ye won’t flinch before the fiery stick?”
“Eh! What’s that—fiery stick? What does it mean, anyhow?” The fire in Lura challenged the “stick.” “Hard luck! Hardship! Reality—eh?” She twinkled.
“Summat like it,” murmured the chauffeur.
“Oh! you can’t scare us with that.” Pemrose flung her arms round two of her “sisters”, rubbing a cheek, on either side, against theirs. “True ‘comerading’ can face any kind of camp luck; can’t it, my ‘hearties’?”