"Yes."
"Well, you needn't worry any more, then. Why, one of the first things she did in the city, when she started this Camp Fire, was to get us all to work to get better milk for the babies in the poor parts, where the tenement houses are. We all helped, but she did most of it. And now all the milk is good and pure, and the babies don't die any more in the hot weather in summer."
"That's fine. I'd like to be a Camp Fire Girl."
"Why shouldn't you be one, then?"
"But—"
Bessie hesitated.
After all, why not? Maw Hoover would never have let her do anything like that—but Maw Hoover couldn't stop her from doing anything she liked now. Wanaka had told her what Zara had always said, that Maw Hoover couldn't make her stay, couldn't make her keep on working hard every day for nothing but her board. She had read about girls who had gone to the city and earned money, lots of money, without working any harder than she had always done. Perhaps could do that, too.
"You talk to Wanaka about that when she comes back," said Minnehaha, who guessed what Bessie was thinking. "You see her. She'll explain it to you. And you're going to be happy, Bessie. I'm sure of that. When people do right, and still aren't happy for a while, it's always made up to them some way. And usually when they do wrong they have to pay for it, some way or another. That's one of the things we learn in the Camp Fire."
"Here comes Wanaka now," said one of the other girls. "There's someone with her."
Bessie looked frightened.