CHAPTER IV "The Reason o' It"
"Rose," Betty Ashton called at about ten o'clock the next morning. Bettywas sitting alone before the living room fire, the other girls havinggone into town to school several hours before. Books and papers andwriting materials were piled on a table before her and evidently she hadbeen working on some abstruse problem in mathematics, for several sheetsof legal cap paper were covered with figures.
"Rose," she called again, and so plaintively this second time that thenew guardian of the Sunrise Camp Fire girls hurried in from the kitchen.A gingham apron covered her from head to foot, a large mixing spoon wasin one hand and a becoming splash of flour on one cheek.
"What is it, dear?" she inquired anxiously. "Does your foot hurt worsethan it did? I ought to have come in to you right away, but Mammy and Ihave been making enough loaves of bread to feed a regiment and I havebeen turning some odds and ends of the dough into Camp Fire emblems tohave for tea--rings and bracelets and crossed logs. I am afraid I amstill dreadfully frivolous!" And Rose flushed, for in spite of Betty'sown problem she was smiling at her. This the Rose who had come to herfirst Camp Fire Council only a month before in a Paris frock, probablynever having cooked a meal for any one in her life!
However, Betty answered loyally. "You are quite wonderful, Rose, and onlythe other day Donna said you were giving to our Camp Fire life what withall her knowledge she had somehow failed to give it--the real intimatefamily feeling. I suppose I oughtn't to have interrupted you. No, itisn't my foot, it is only that I have gotten myself into a new difficultyand I want to ask you what you think I had best do?"
And with a worried frown Betty again studied the closely written figureswhich must have represented some still unsolved problem, for shecontinued staring at them, turning the sheets over and over. Finally,before speaking, she drew an open letter from her pocket, carefullyre-reading several lines.
"I suppose it isn't worth while my mentioning, Rose, that none of us doanything at present but think, dream and plan for our Camp Fire Christmasentertainment," she said with a half sigh and smile, "and you knowpackages have been coming to me until the attic is most full of them. Ihave just been charging things as I bought them and until to-day Ihaven't paid much attention to what they cost. But yesterday I receivedsuch a strange letter from mother. She writes that father is a littlebetter and I am not to worry and she hopes we may have a happy Christmas.However, she can't send me any more money for the holidays beyond myusual allowance. Father has had some business losses lately, and notbeing able to look after things himself, they are not going quite right.Isn't it odd, for you see I have already explained to her that we weregoing to have unusually heavy expenses this Christmas and please to letme have money instead of a present? Yet she says she can't send me_anything_. Poor mother, she apologizes humbly instead of telling me thatI am an extravagant wretch, but just the same it is the first time in mylife I haven't had all the money I needed to spend at Christmas and now Idon't see how I am ever going to pay for all the things I have bought. Idon't think I have any right to be a Camp Fire girl if I am in debt, andI am--miles!"
Instead of answering immediately Rose turned away her face to conceal alook of concern at Betty's news which she did not wish the young girl tosee. Other persons in Woodford were beginning to speculate upon apossible change in the Ashton fortune. Certain enterprises in which Mr.Ashton had been concerned had been known to fail, but then no oneunderstood to what extent he had been interested.
"Can't you give up some of the things, dear," Rose suggested gently,knowing that Betty had never been called upon to do any such thing beforein her life, but to her surprise she now saw that her companion'sexpression had entirely changed.
"What a goose I am!" Betty laughed cheerfully. "Of course I can write toold Dick for the money. I don't usually like to ask him, for he is such aconscientious person, so unlike reckless me, and will probably scold, butthen he will give me the money just the same. I wonder if anything everhappened to make Dick more serious than other young men? He isn't a bitlike Frank Wharton or other wealthy fellows who do nothing but spendmoney and have a good time. He seems just devoted to studying medicine,and sometimes he has said such strange things to mother as though theremight be some special reason why he wanted so much to help people." Andfeeling that her own dilemma was now comfortably settled, Betty fell topuzzling over the older problem which she had always kept more or less atthe back of her mind.
But, curiously enough, Rose Dyer shook her head discouragingly. "Iwouldn't try that method of getting the money, Betty, if I were you," shereplied thoughtfully. "I suppose it hasn't occurred to you that if yourmother and father are not able to give you extra money, and you know Dickalways makes them put you first, why he is probably not having any extramoney either. And since his whole heart is set on going to Germany nextyear to continue his work why he is probably saving all that he can nowso as not to be an additional expense."
Rose was several years older than Dick, but they had known one anotherever since she came as a young girl to New Hampshire from her home inGeorgia, bringing her colored mammy with her. For Rose's parents had diedand she had lived with an old uncle until a few years before when he hadgone, leaving her his heiress. Now Rose's pretty home in Woodford wasclosed for the winter and her chaperon living in Florida while she spenther time trying to learn to be a worthy guardian for the Camp Fire girls.Perhaps she really had heard more of Dick Ashton's early life than hissister Betty and had a special reason for her interest in him, howevershe said nothing of it.
"I wonder if I couldn't lend you the money. I am not rich as you are, butperhaps I have----"
And here Betty shook her head decisively. "I couldn't borrow the money ofanybody, one way of owing it would be as bad as another. I simply havegot to find a way." She stopped suddenly because the sound of some onedriving up to the cabin surprised her, and then, to her greater surprise,her guardian, after a hurried glance out of the window, dropped hermixing-spoon with a clatter and positively ran out of the room.
Betty stared. She could only see rather a shabby, old-fashioned buggystanding near the Totem pole in front of their cabin, and a young manhitching his horse to it.
Almost forgetting her bandaged ankle, the girl hobbled over to the door,but when she had opened it gave an involuntary cry of pain and the nextinstant found herself being lifted and carried back to her chair.
"You must not try to walk until you are sure things are all right withyou," a strange voice said severely. Then, in answer to Betty's look ofamazement, he took off his hat and bowed gravely. She found herselfstaring at a tall, slender man of about thirty, in carefully brushedclothes, which nevertheless had an old-fashioned, country appearance, andwith a face at once so handsome and so stern that he looked as if hemight have stepped out of an old frame which had held the portrait of oneof the early Puritan fathers.
"I am the doctor Sylvia Wharton is studying with, Miss Ashton," heexplained. "You don't know me but I know very well who you are. I haveonly been living in this part of the country for the past two years,trying to build up a practice among the farming people, so that whenSylvia stopped by and asked me to come and see you I telephoned at onceto your physician in town, but finding him out I thought it might bebest----"
The young man hesitated and flushed. He was morbidly sensitive andconscientious, and knowing Mr. Ashton's prominence would not for theworld have made an effort to gain Betty as a patient. However, Betty wasby this time suffering so much that she gave a little cry of relief.
"Sylvia has much more sense than any of us," she returned gratefully. "Iassured everybody I wasn't suffering in the least this morning andnow--well, I suppose I shouldn't have walked over to the door."
The young doctor had knelt on the floor and was gently removing thebandage from the swollen ankle. "Sylvia has done very well," he declared."The first aid idea is one of the best things I know about you Camp Firegirls, and Sylvia is tryin
g to make me a convert, but surely you are nothere alone. Miss Dyer is your chaperon or guardian, I am not entirelysure what you call her."
"Why, yes, Rose is here. I can't understand why she does not come in,"Betty returned, feeling rather aggrieved and surprised at Rose's neglectof her. But at this instant, hearing the bedroom door open, both the girland the young man turned and Betty just managed to control a quickexclamation.
For, to her amazement, for the first time since coming to the cabin, Rosehad discarded her Camp Fire costume and was again fashionably dressed ina soft brown silk entirely inappropriate to her work and to the cabin.
If Betty had thought young Dr. Barton's face stern on first seeing him itwas as nothing to his expression now. He bowed formally, but as hismanner showed he had known Rose before, Betty closed her eyes. The painin her foot was increasing each instant now that Sylvia's dressing hadbeen removed. When she opened them again she found Rose kneeling on thefloor by Dr. Barton, entirely forgetful of her gown and listening quietlyto his curt orders. Then during the next fifteen minutes Rose Dyer hadher first experience as a trained nurse, wondering all the time she wasat work how she could possibly be so stupid and so awkward. For shesplashed hot water on her gown and hand, tripped over her long skirt, andwas so nervous when Betty showed any signs of pain that the tears blindedher brown eyes and her hands trembled. She might have broken down exceptthat Dr. Barton so plainly expected her to do what she was told, andbecause of a wrathful figure that stood immovable in the doorway. It was"Mammy," dressed in a stiff purple calico gown with a white handkerchieftied about her head. Mammy was past seventy and no longer able to do muchwork, but she had never left her "little Rose" in the twenty-seven yearof her life and never would so long as she lived. Not able to help agreat deal, she was still able to give the Sunrise Camp Fire club a greatdeal of advice, and then she was also a kind of additional guardian sinceRose could not have been left alone at the cabin all morning with thegirls in town at school.
"I ain't never had much use for Yankee gentlemen," she mumbled toherself, plainly expecting the little audience to hear. "Whar I cum fromthe gentlemen was always waitin' on the ladies, not askin' them to toteand fetch, same as if they was poo' white trash."