“Since I have been at camp Miss Mason has allowed me to come here an hour each morning to practice. May I show you the dance I have been trying to compose. I don’t mind if you laugh at the dance or at me, I do it so badly. I shall learn some day. I like to call it ‘The Dance of the Young Beeches’.”
Without waiting for Kara’s or Tory’s agreement, Evan was up and away. Slowly she again circled around the beautiful dancing ground, her arms and body waving with gentle, fanciful undulations.
Now and then she seemed to be swept by light winds; again a storm pressed upon her and she bowed and swayed as if resisting with all her strength. Afterwards, wishing to suggest that the storm had passed and the sun was shining and the birds singing, she tiptoed about, her arms gently undulating, her face looking upward.
The dancing was crude and yet would have been attractive to eyes more accustomed to trained dancing than Tory’s or Kara’s.
Tory’s first sensation was one of pure, artistic pleasure. Then glancing at Kara she felt a deeper joy. A moment Kara appeared to have forgotten her own misfortune. She looked more interested, more entertained than in many days.
“Don’t you think, Evan, that if your mother is well she might be persuaded to come to your camp and teach us dancing?” Kara demanded, as if she too could be included in the lessons. “I know when we first decided to have our camp in Beechwood Forest one of the things we talked of doing was learning outdoor dancing. We hoped Miss Mason would be able to teach us. She only knows ordinary dances, and insists she does not even know the newest of these. She has not gone into society since the death of the young officer to whom she was engaged,” Kara confided. “Sometimes I wonder if being Captain of our Girl Scout Troop has not helped her almost as much as the rest of us?”
She stopped abruptly.
Farther off in the woods the three girls heard a strange sound.
It was as if some one were calling. Yet the noise was not the Girl Scout signal.
Ten minutes later, on the way back to camp, unexpectedly the three girls beheld Teresa Peterson hurrying on alone. She looked surprised, even a little frightened, by their appearance.