"Oh, do you think so?" they whispered in awed voices.
"Peggy!" cried Keineth, imploringly.
"I'm not going to say another word," Peggy answered, perhaps a little frightened at what she had done.
The girls waited breathlessly for Miss Grimball to take some action in the matter. Each felt that the disgrace must be wiped from the happy camp life.
At noon Ricky's whistle sounded. The girls assembled on the gymnasium ground. Their captain stood before them, dear-eyed, smiling at them all with her usual confidence. Stella, with Keineth, had joined the others and stood in the background.
"I think you all know what has happened. I am disturbed, but I will not suspect one of my girls. All I want to say is this--so great is my trust in your loyalty, in your honor, and in your sense of what is square--if one of you, through an unfortunate yielding to temptation, has taken these things that have been lost, they will be returned, because you are girls of honor. So I am not worrying. Now, please do not talk of the matter among yourselves."
The routine of the day went on. The girls avoided Stella; only Keineth kept close to her side. Keineth longed to pour out to Stella her confidence in her innocence and her indignation at Peggy, but a certain pride in Stella's manner forbade it; she could not find the right words, so she simply occasionally squeezed Stella's hand!
In this way two unhappy days passed. Then on the third morning Peggy, crossing the path leading to the kitchen, saw Jim Crow scurrying toward the wood with a spoon in his mouth! On tip-toe she followed him. Turning off from the trail near the edge of the woodland, he stood for a moment as though listening, then dropped his treasure into the hollow trunk of a dead tree!
And there Peggy, following the rascal, found the oranges, the ring, and Ricky's silver purse!
In that moment when Peggy stood alone among the trees, the stolen things in her hands, she learned a lesson that she could never forget! She walked slowly back to Miss Grimball's office and told her the story of Jim and of her own unjust accusation of Stella.