A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods   By: Jane L. Stewart

A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire

By JANE L. STEWART

CAMPFIRE GIRLS SERIES

VOLUME I

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK

Made in U. S. A.

COPYRIGHT, MCMXIV

BY

THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING CO.

THE CAMPFIRE GIRLS SERIES

[Illustration]

A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S FIRST COUNCIL FIRE A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S CHUM A CAMPFIRE GIRL IN SUMMER CAMP A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S ADVENTURE A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S TEST OF FRIENDSHIP A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S HAPPINESS

[Illustration: "We'll take you over to camp and you can have dinner with us."]

The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods

CHAPTER I

THE ESCAPE

"Now then, you, Bessie, quit your loafin' and get them dishes washed! An' then you can go out and chop me some wood for the kitchen fire!"

The voice was that of a slatternly woman of middle age, thin and complaining. She had come suddenly into the kitchen of the Hoover farmhouse and surprised Bessie King as the girl sat resting for a moment and reading.

Bessie jumped up alertly at the sound of the voice she knew so well, and started nervously toward the sink.

"Yes, ma'am," she said. "I was awful tired an' I wanted to rest for a few minutes."

"Tired!" scolded the woman. "Land knows you ain't got nothin' to carry on so about! Ain't you got a good home? Don't we board you and give you a good bed to sleep in? Didn't Paw Hoover give you a nickel for yourself only last week?"

"Yes an' you took it away from me soon's you found it out," Bessie flashed back. There were tears in her eyes, but she went at her dishes, and Mrs. Hoover, after a minute in which she glared at Bessie, turned and left the kitchen, muttering something about ingratitude as she went.

As she worked, Bessie wondered why it was that she must always do the work about the house when other girls were at school or free to play. But it had been that way for a long time, and she could think of no way of escaping to happier conditions. Mrs. Hoover was no relation to her at all. Bessie had a father and mother, but they had left her with Mrs. Hoover a long time before, and she could scarcely remember them, but she heard about them, her father especially, whenever she did something that Mrs. Hoover didn't like.

"Take after your paw that's what you do, good for nothin' little hussy!" the farmer's wife would say. "Leavin' you here on our hands when he went away an' promisin' to send board money for you. Did, too, for 'bout a year an' since then never a cent! I've a mind to send you to the county farm, that I have!"

"Now, maw," Paw Hoover, a kindly, toil hardened farmer, would say when he happened to overhear one of these outbursts, "Bessie's a good girl, an' I reckon she earns her keep, don't she, helpin' you like, round the place?"

"Earn her keep?" Mrs. Hoover would shrill. "She's so lazy she'd never do anythin' at all if I didn't stand over her. All she's good fer is to eat an' sleep an' to hide off som'ere's so's she can read them trashy books when she ought to be reddin' up or doin' her chores!"

And Paw Hoover would sigh and retire, beaten in the argument. He knew his wife too well to argue with her. But he liked Bessie, and he did his best to comfort her when he had the chance, and thought there was no danger of starting a dispute with his wife.