“Yes, it was a leaf hike,” said Grace. “We all have our own note-books; and make impressions from the leaves; that is, we print them in our books, and then write the date of the hike, the name of the leaf, and any other data we have gathered.”
“I should think it would be very interesting,” remarked her listener, as she thought of the outings she and her schoolmates used to take on Saturday mornings when they visited Bronx Park, and studied “cooped-up nature” as one of the girls used to call it, when they eyed some fierce monarch of the forest in his iron cage, or exclaimed over the beauties of some hot-house flower.
“We are going to have a wild-flower hike soon,” volunteered the Tike, smiling at Nathalie in a most friendly manner. “The Sport says there are a lot of beautiful flowers in the woods near Edgemere, didn’t you, Sport?”
“But I wish you would tell me something about your tests—is that what you call them?” Nathalie asked. “I should think they would be no end of fun if they mean making one do stunts, or anything in the hazing line?”
“Oh, we do not haze, or anything of that sort, for that would not be kind, and kindness is one of the laws of the Girl Pioneer,” explained Grace. “By tests we mean trying to see what a girl can do that is useful, and if she can’t do it, we teach her. We have to sew, cook, and know all the emergency things.”
“You mean the First Aid to the Injured methods,” corrected Helen; “knowing what to do to revive a person when almost drowned, how to put out a fire—”
“How to bathe and bandage a sprained foot—”
“You needn’t tell me you know that,” cried Nathalie with sparkling eyes, “for I know by experience,” and then she told the girls what the doctor had said about Helen’s skillful way of binding her foot—in spite of that young lady’s blushes at this open praise—and how clever her mother thought the girls were for the ready way in which they had made the stretcher from their khaki skirts.
“Then we have to know how to restore a person who has fainted,” some one volunteered.
“And learn the Fireman’s Lift,” added another girl.