Girl Scouts at Dandelion Camp

by Lillian Elizabeth Roy

“No,” laughed Mrs. Vernon, while the other girls sighed in relief.

While the four girls are trudging homeward, you may like to hear how they came to be weeding Vernon’s lawn, and why they were so keen about starting a Girls’ Scout Patrol.

Julie and Betty were about thirteen years old, and were very popular with their friends. Their sister, May, who was about seventeen, kept house for the family, as the mother had been dead for several years. Besides May, there were Daddy Lee, John, the brother, who was twelve, and Eliza, the maid-of-all-work, who had been a fixture in the household since May was a baby.

Ruth Bentley was about fourteen, but she was an only child. Every whim was law to her doting mother and father, so it was small wonder that the girl was spoiled in many ways. But not past salvation, as you shall see. She had a lovely home quite near the Vernons’ place, with servants to do the work and wait upon her; thus indolence became one of her evil tendencies. When Ruth heard the Lee girls propose the forming of a Scout Patrol, she, too, yearned to become a member. Hence she had to weed dandelions for a test the same as the other girls did, but not without complaints and rebellion on her part. Mrs. Vernon paid no attention to her fault-finding, for she knew that if the girl persevered there would be less danger of her failing in other tests when the Patrol began on more interesting but more difficult tasks.

Joan Allison was also thirteen years of age, and a more sensible little person you would have difficulty in finding. She had three brothers younger than herself, but her parents could not afford a maid, so Joan helped with the house-work, while the boys did the chores about the place.

The Vernons’ house, on the outskirts of the town, was the handsomest place in the township. There were acres of woodland and meadows at the back, and a velvety lawn that sloped from the front of the house down to the stream that was the boundary line of the estate.

The Vernons had had a son who enlisted in the Aviation Service at the beginning of the War in Europe, but he had met death soon after his initial flight on the battle lines. Mr. and Mrs. Vernon had always taken an interest in the children living in their neighborhood, but after Myles’ death they tried to forget their loss by closer companionship with the young people in the small town.

Mrs. Vernon had heard of and seen the splendid work done by Girl Scouts, and she decided to train a group to join the Organization. Thus it came about that the four girls who were anxious, also, to become Scouts, were the first members in the Dandelion Patrol to be started by Mrs. Vernon.

To try out their patience and powers of endurance, as well as to have them earn money for their simple camp-equipment, Mrs. Vernon suggested that they weed dandelions at a rate of twenty cents a hundred. This test taught the girls to appreciate the value expressed in a dime—for it meant just that much service rendered.

School would soon close for the summer, and the girls hoped by that time to have enough money earned and saved to buy the second-hand tent and camp-outfit a friend of May’s had offered for sale. Every dollar added to the camp-fund gave the girls dreams of the mountains where canoeing, hiking, fishing and living in the open would constitute one long season of delight.