As Captain Horton finished, the girls all laughed and clapped their hands.
"Is it really true?" "Did you see her?" "Was she cunning?" "Tell us more about it!" were some of the clamored questions.
"Yes, it is quite true, although it does sound like a fairy story. And I not only saw but heard her. Girls, I wish you could have heard that darling baby voice reciting our promise! She was so sweetly solemn about it. 'On my honor I will twy,' she said, and all the rest of it. Mrs. Pain says she does everything as nearly right as she can, because she is so proud of being a Girl Scout. And cunning? Indeed she was! Just imagine a funny, dimply, blonde Kewpie dressed in Scout uniform, and there you will have little Mabel Pain. I wish some of you could have seen her salute; it would have been a lesson to you.
"I can't help thinking, girls, that the case of little Mabel is just an instance of the far-reaching effects of a kindly act. I don't know which girl first thought of that circulating baby, but that doesn't matter. Little Mabel, just one of dozens of tiny tots in the asylum, was destined to grow up merely one of many in the cold white dormitories, tended by faithful attendants and nurses too busy and full of care to love or mother their charges. Now, through the action of the Scouts, she has a tender mother and a proud and loving father, and will no doubt grow up to be a fine woman.
"I wish we could all do something as fine to help carry on. I want you to be on the look-out every day of your lives for a chance. And when an opportunity presents itself to you, seize it as a positive gift from heaven. A gift not to the person whom you are about to benefit, but a gift to you."
"Well, shall we have a circulating baby?" asked Jane.
"Not necessarily," laughed the Captain. "There are countless ways in which you can help the old world on."
"But a baby must be such fun!"
There was a groan from two or three girls as they heard Jane speak, and one black-eyed gypsy remarked bitterly that she had a baby sister that they could circulate at any time, as far as she cared. Jane laughed.
"That is the way she talks, Captain," she said, "but when that baby was sick last winter Letty nearly went crazy."