Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer

by Rena I. Halsey

Suddenly Nita, who had been unusually silent for some time, drew Ellen’s head down to hers, and began to whisper softly in her ear.

“Oh, Ellen, will you?” she coaxed pleadingly, as she finished her whispering of something that had brought a protest from the good woman. Ellen looked dubious for a minute or so, and then the persuasive pleader had her way, for Ellen had given her assent and Nita was clapping her hands happily, as she thought of the fun in store for her later in the evening.

Meanwhile, the girls on the lawn with tense expectancy kept their eyes on Nathalie, who arose, walked towards the flaming pyre, and with a quick toss landed another bundle of fagots on the leaping flames.

“Oh, Nathalie, you will have to hurry,” called Grace excitedly, as her friend scurried back to her seat. “One of your fagots is already ablaze.”

Nathalie needed no warning for she had already plunged into her tale, and in short, concise sentences—she had practiced with Helen—was describing in graphic tone a colonial wedding, the going away of the bridal pair, the building of a log hut in the wilderness, the departure of the young husband, and the loneliness of the young bride. She paused a moment and drew a long breath as if to gather her forces for the coming ordeal.

Then with her eyes fastened in a rigid stare on the twirling glare from the flames—so as to bring her story to a proper climax when the fiery fagots fell apart—she went on and told of the face of a redskin suddenly being thrust into a window of the little cabin, of a shriek of terror, of cruel, fiendish laughter, of the fair bride being carried on the back of a tall savage, and of the final arrival at an Indian encampment, where a paint-bedaubed warrior with flaunting head-gear tried to induce the wailing bride to become his squaw.

Nathalie’s eyes, big in the flaming redness of the firelight, were riveted on the seething flames as if she saw in the twist and curl of their darting tongues the enactment of the story she was telling. The girls all bent forward eagerly, for the fagots were getting ready to burst apart as she told of the imprisonment of the bride, the making of a big bonfire, the tying of the bride to the stake, the lighting of the underbrush at her feet, and the whirling flames as they leaped up and greedily licked the terror-stricken face.

But Nathalie, like a photo-play screen, had transported her listeners to a sun-baked plain, where a white man was galloping in mad speed. A fagot had leaped from its fellows. “Oh, Nathalie, hurry!” whispered Grace, wringing her hands nervously. Ah, but Nathalie was on time, and as the fagots gave a loud snap and fell into a shower of twinkling lights the horseman came galloping into the street of the Indian encampment with a troop of soldiers close at his heels, and leaped into the fiery embers and cut—There was a loud clapping followed by cries of applause, for there was no need to tell what happened after that leap into the fire, every one knew.

“Now, Lillie, it is your turn!” shouted several voices as Nathalie, exhausted by her strenuous race between words and flames, sank back somewhat exhausted against her friend’s shoulder.

Lillie Bell, in response to her name, seized a bundle of fagots, and with a few flourishes, which she declared to be an incantation for success, threw it on the blazing pile. In a moment she was back in her seat and had started her tale of romance.