But the still life beauties were not more attractive than the joyous, happy, romping girls, who capered along from the more noisy town streets, into the highways and byways of the long green stretch of country leading to the river brink, and to the woods on its border.
"I'm going to do something really great," declared Grace. "I don't care just what it is, but I want to have a real record, when I am called up to take my degree test. I am not afraid of anything in daylight, so beware! I may do something very desperate and rash this afternoon."
"Spare us," pleaded Madaline. "I have seen some of our courage worked out in the woods before. Remember the time you nearly set fire to the river? Well, don't, please, go try anything like that today."
"No, it must be something for which I should receive a badge of courage, if I were in the first class. I want to blush with fitting modesty when Captain Clark invests me with the next degree, and I shall only blush when reminded of my noble deed this afternoon."
"Since you are not particular about what deed shall be the noble one, won't you just give me a hand, and help me save this heel of mine from a blistering shoe? The shoe was all right in school, but just now it has picked up a snag, somehow, and between the shoe and the snag, my life is not worth living."
"Poor Madie," soothed her chum. "Let us sit right down here and diagnose the case. I'm first rate at diagnosing anything but why my bureau can't stay fixed. It has chronic upsettedness, and all my operations are of no avail. There go the girls down into the hazel nut gully. Let's sit on this lovely mossy couch, and look after the heel. Doesn't moss grow beautifully smooth under the cedars? I wonder how it ever gets so velvety?"
At the twined and natural woven seat, wrought from the uncovered roots of a great hemlock, the girls caressed and patted the velvet moss that formed a veritable carpet—no—it was softer than carpet, a silken velvet throw, over a natural cedar divan. Even the suffering heel was forgotten, in the joy of nature study, in green, with the darker green canopy of cedars, and the music of a running river at the foot of the sloping hill. Here the scent of watercress vied with the hemlock and cedar, for its place as nature's perfume, and only such mingling of wild ferns, trailing arbutus, budding bush, and leafing vine, could produce the aroma of incense that just then permeated the woody glen.
"Don't let the girls get too far away from us," cautioned Madeline. "I wouldn't like to get really lost, even for the joke of having you find me, Gracie."
"But you would do a little thing like that to help me out on my personal bravery stunt?" teased her companion. "I wonder why only the first class girls are permitted to do all those wonderful things and get all the really high honors?"
"Because they have gone through all the necessary trials and examinations," replied Madaline sagely. "You and I can get credit for our deeds, but we must show our full records to get the highest B. C. That's fair. You can't make a major out of a private. He has got to go up by degrees."