Certainly their present daily life bore but a faint resemblance to their former outdoor summer encampments in various picturesque places in the United States. Nevertheless the Camp Fire girls always had considered that they were doing useful work merely by following the rules of their camp fire and by gaining the honors necessary to the growth of their organization and their own official rank.
Now they realized that all their efforts had been but a preparation for the service they were at present undertaking. There was no detail of their past experience which was not of service, their Health Craft, Camp Craft, Home Craft, Business and Patriotism. Why, their very watch cry, “Wohelo”–work, health and love–embodied the three gifts they were trying to restore to the poverty-stricken French people in this particular neighborhood upon “the field of honor!”
On this afternoon, in spite of the cold, the girls had arranged to hold their first out-of-doors Camp Fire meeting since their arrival in France.
For weeks they had been working among the young French girls in the villages and the country near at hand, persuading them to spend whatever leisure they had in studying the Camp Fire ideas and activities.
Bettina Graham and Alice Ashton had introduced as much Camp Fire study as possible into the regular routine of the school which they held daily in the big schoolroom at the farm. Even with the younger children there were like suggestions of play and of service which Marta Clark and Yvonne were able to give.
But until this afternoon there had been no actual organization of the first group of Camp Fire girls in France. Strange that with Camp Fires in England, Australia, Africa, Japan, China and other foreign places, there should have been none in France! But Yvonne Fleury could have explained that, unlike American girls, French girls were not accustomed to intimate association with one another, their lives up to the time of their marriage being spent in seclusion among the members of their own family.
Indeed, upon this same afternoon Yvonne was thinking of this as she dressed slowly before going outdoors to join the other girls. The house was empty save that Mère ’Toinette was working downstairs.
Marta Clark and Peggy had been kind enough to make her a simple Camp Fire costume, the khaki skirt and blouse, which formed their ordinary service costume. Notwithstanding she had been studying the Camp Fire manual and trying to acquire the necessary honors, this was the first time Yvonne had worn the costume.
How utterly unlike anything she had ever dreamed were these past weeks in her life! From the moment of her confession of weakness and the telling of her story to Mrs. Burton, Yvonne had deliberately chosen to remain with her rather than continue with the canteen work which she had originally planned to do in returning to her own country.
For one reason she had fallen under the spell of Mrs. Burton’s sympathy and charm; moreover, the girls in the Camp Fire work were nearer her own age and were to undertake a character of occupation in which she felt herself able to be useful. They were also going to live in the neighborhood of her old home before the outbreak of the war.