Miss Victoria Fenton having learned the purpose and the influence of the Scouts, the old Fenton house was at any time at their disposal. Mrs. Peters, Joan’s mother, had urged the girls to come at any time to their old-fashioned cottage, wide and empty, which sat some distance back from the street, offering a fine, open space for the outdoor drill and signalings.
Sheila Mason, the Troop Captain, was an only daughter, and her parents among the wealthiest families in Westhaven. If for no other reason than the miracle Mrs. Mason insisted had been wrought in her daughter’s life by her work among the Girl Scouts, she would have freely given up her home to their use at a moment’s notice. Months before Sheila Mason seemed to have lost all interest in life, when her lover, to whom she had been engaged, was killed at the battle of Château-Thierry. Persuaded by the first Patrol of Girl Scouts in Westhaven to become their Captain, so engrossed had she grown in her work and in the girls themselves that oftentimes her former happy nature reappeared.
Members of their Council, made up of the most prominent and interesting people in Westhaven, were glad to be of service at any time.
Nevertheless, when a choice had to be made of a place for their Christmas entertainment there was not one dissenting voice: Memory Frean’s little House in the Woods! Here was an intimacy and an atmosphere they found nowhere else.
Moreover, as the character of the entertainment was to be a secret from all outsiders, it was much simpler to manage at a distance from town. Memory Frean was well again and as interested in their idea as the girls themselves.
Certainly the living-room at the House in the Woods was so transformed on the afternoon of Christmas Eve that one would never have recognized it. The walls were massed with pine and cedar and holly.
Raised upon a dais was an arm chair covered with a piece of tapestry worked in gold dragons.
Below, and filling the entire center of the room, was a circular table.
Extending around the walls of the room were eight banners of silver cloth, bearing no inscriptions save an embroidered design of an eagle’s wing.
Crossed over the mantel were the American flag and the flag of the Girl Scout Troop.