Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer

by Rena I. Halsey

A fifty-yard dash won by Edith now followed, while one of the Bob Whites broke the tape at a twenty-five yard dash. In a Ring the Bell competition the girls were divided into teams, the team having the greatest number of girls who threw a bean bag through a barrel-hoop with a bell hung in its center without touching the bell were the jubilant ones.

Lillie and Edith now gave an exhibition of wigwagging, using the Myers code, in which nearly all the girls were proficient. Lillie, to her delight, showed the most proficiency, although Edith had generally been considered the greatest expert in this science. An Indian-club drill, and a nail-driving contest not only showed the scouts what their sisters could accomplish in the way of strength, and manual labor, but brought the sports for the day to a close.

By this time pangs of hunger began to assail the jolly campers, and Nita, with a strenuous toot of her horn, made known that a Grub Contest—a hike for supper packages hidden in the woods, among the rocks on the shore, or around the tents—would now take place. With much laughter and jesting the girls lined up opposite the boys, and at three blasts of the bugle they were off, flying in all directions, each one bent on searching some one particular locality that he or she had in mind. The fortunate ones were soon shouting hilariously; in fact even the slow ones were keener than usual in this supper hike, and soon bagged their game and cheered lustily as they returned to camp.

Every one now gathered around the dining-room table—appropriately decorated for the occasion—and was soon dulling appetite with the choice bits found in the packages that had been done up by the Pioneers but hidden by Mrs. Morrow and Mrs. Van Vorst.

As they frolicked over the supper it was voted that every one present contribute to the moment’s pleasure by telling a story, singing a song, asking a conundrum, and so on. A ball was passed to Helen who immediately told a funny story, and ended by tossing the ball to Nathalie, the rule being that the reciter was to throw the ball to any one he or she chose, which resulted in its being thrown to the more timid or lazy ones, thus causing surprise and laughter.

Nathalie made a rhyme impromptu, then tossed the ball to one of the boys, and so it kept going the rounds, not only bracing the timid or nervous ones, but revealing latent talent that had never been suspected.

Teddy Hart, who had played the knight to the announcer of the day, Miss Anita, spied her laughing at his antics when he was called to the front and mischievously tossed the ball to her. The smile died on the girl’s face and she gasped with a start of terror, but in a moment, with a defiant toss of her head, she started in and recited some funny verses so comically that she received an ovation of cheers and claps.

When Nathalie perceived this unexpected turn in the festivity, her heart went pit-a-pat in sympathy with Nita’s unexpected ordeal, but when she saw the upward toss of her head and the flash in her eyes, she knew the girl would prove game. Indeed, she had been proving game for the last ten days or more, for Helen’s plan of helping her to know the girls had succeeded so well that Nita had lost much of her supersensitiveness in regard to her deformity, by being made to forget it and by the kindliness and deference shown her by both girls and boys.

The intimacy that had come from tenting with the different Pioneers had not only shown her the need of correcting many of her own faults, but had revealed the good points of her associates. Many of the girls she had secretly vowed to Nathalie she would never care for, she had accepted as the best of friends.

From being deemed an aristocrat of whom the girls stood slightly in awe, thinking her proud and exclusive, she had proved to be most democratic, entirely devoid of the many airs and graces they feared. In fact she had become, as Nathalie said, a favorite with every one, and had nearly as many adorers as Miss Camphelia, who at that moment was having a most beautiful time eating bread and milk in the lap of Ellen, gurgling and winking with baby joy at the gay colors and lights that held her eye.