CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
After the usual formalities of a meeting, Captain Hooker desired the girls’ full attention. She held a formidable sheaf of notes in her hand, and it looked to the Scouts as though there was going to be a good deal of work parcelled out to them.
“In the first place,” said their Captain, “I have asked the approval of the National Headquarters, and you are at liberty to send a Thanks badge to Doctor Branshaw. Now you have not yet sent him any formal thanks for what he did for Gwenny and I wonder if any of you have an idea of some attractive way of expressing your gratitude.”
“I thought of something, Captain,” said Lucy Breen, “but perhaps it wouldn’t do.”
“Let us hear it,” said the Captain.
“How would it be to write him, each of us, a short letter of thanks, just a few words, and at the top of each letter paste a snapshot of the girl who has written it? Then bind them all in a sort of cover or folder with our motto and a print of our flower on the outside.”
“I think that is simply a splendid idea,” cried the Captain. “Don’t you think so, girls?”
Of course everyone did, and it was settled that Rosanna should go and buy the paper for the lettersso they should all be alike. As for the cover, Miss Hooker, who was an artist of more than ordinary talent and skill, offered to illuminate the cover with the cornflower as the motif; and she decided to illuminate it on parchment, with the deep blue of the flowers and dull gold lettering. The girls who had no snapshot of themselves promised to have one taken at once. Before they finished, the “Thanks Book” as they called it, promised to become a beautiful and very attractive affair. Miss Hooker warned them all to write natural and simple letters.
“How many of you have been over to see Gwenny in her new home?” asked the Captain. “After the holidays, I think it would be a very kind thing for you to each give up an afternoon once in so often (you can decide how often you can spare the time), and go spend the afternoon with Gwenny. Her mother feels that she should do a little work now and that faithful little Mary is taking care of a couple of children over here on Third Street every afternoon, to earn her share of the household expenses. So Gwenny is left very much alone.”
“My mother has been in the Norton Infirmary for a month,” said one of the girls, “and she said the nurse told her that it would mean a great deal to some of these patients if we girls would only come in once in awhile, and talk to some of the patients who get so lonely. Mother said there was a boy there with a broken hip, and he was alwaysgoing to be lame, and he grieved so about it all the time that it kept him from getting well. And there was another patient, a girl about my age, with something wrong with her back. She is in a plaster cast, and her only relative is a father who travels, and he is in California.”
“Now there is an idea for you all,” said Miss Hooker. “I want to talk all these things over today, because if I am away at any time I want to feel that I know just about what you are doing. I should think that it would do a lot of good to visit those poor young people. There is just one thing to remember if you want to be popular with the nurses and helpful to the patients: always stay just a littleshortertime than you are expected to. Then the nurses feel that you are wise enough to be trusted without tiring the patients, and the patients are left with the desire to see you soon again.”
“That is just what my mother said,” said the girl who had spoken. “She says so many people come who just stay and stay and if the nurse does not get around in time to send them home, why, they have the patient in a fever.”
“Perfectly true,” said Miss Hooker. “Make your visits short—and often. Next,” said the Captain, “I want to tell you that Lucy Breen has passed the examinations successfully in two subjects. She is now entitled to wear the merit badge for Horsemanship and Clerk.”
All the girls clapped.
“Bon bon, dear Lucee!” whispered Elise.
Lucy smiled back at the dear girl who had befriended her at a moment when she needed a friend so badly.
“I want to ask how many of you girls are taking regular exercises every morning?” asked Captain Hooker. “It does not seem as though you had as good color as you should have. I want my girls to be the finest looking troop at the great meeting in the spring. It is to be in Washington; did I tell you? And I want every one of you to go. Now, there is an incentive to work. The rally is in June just after school is over, and I want you to earn the money for your railroad tickets. Of course we will all get special rates, and it will not cost us anything after we arrive there, as we will be the guests of the Washington Scouts, or some of the women’s organizations. But you should all of you be able to earn ten dollars before that time. It will take that much, but no more. If any of you girls belong to families who could send you, you are at liberty to help some other girl who is less fortunate, but you must each one of you earn the sum I have mentioned.”
“What if we earn more?” asked Lucy Breen.
“I am sure you will be glad to have a little spending money when you get to Washington,” said Miss Hooker.
“Some of us will earn more and some less,” saidHelen. “After we earn the ten dollars, why couldn’t we put everything else we earn in your hands, and then it could be evenly divided at the end, and we would each have the same amount to spend, and when we come home we can each tell what we spent it for.”
“Splendid!” exclaimed Miss Hooker. “What do you girls think of that? I think it would be quite a test of your ability to get a good deal of pleasure or profit out of a stated amount.”
Again everybody clapped, and with a little more discussion the subject was left settled.
One of the Webster girls raised a hand.
“What would you suggest that we could do to earn money?” she said. “All we can do is dance, and mamma won’t let us dance in public until we are grown up. We don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Marian, I get awfully cross with you sometimes,” laughed Miss Hooker. “What are those two merit badges on your sleeve?”
“Oh,those!” said Marian in a helpless voice. “The gridiron for Cooking and the palm leaf for Invalid Cooking. But I can’t go out and cook.”
“What can you make best?” asked Miss Hooker.
Another girl spoke up. “She makes the loveliest jellies you ever tasted and they always stand right up, never slump over at all.”
“And you, Evelyn Webster, what is that on your sleeve?”
“The palette,” said Evelyn.
“There you are!” said Miss Hooker. “What is the good of earning these badges if you are never going to make use of the things they stand for?” She picked up the Girl Scouts Hand Book that was lying on her lap, and turning over the pages said, “Listen to this:
“Employment.
“‘Stick to it,’ the thrush sings. One of the worst weaknesses of many people is that they do not have the perseverance to stick to what they have to do. They are always wanting to change. Whatever you do, take up with all your might and stick to it. Besides the professions of nursing, teaching, stenography and typewriting and clerking, there are many less crowded employments, such as hairdressing, making flowers, coloring photographs, and assisting dentists, and gardening. There are many occupations for women, but before any new employment can be taken up, one must begin while young to make plans and begin collecting information. ‘Luck is like a street car, the only way to get it, is to look out for every chance and seize it—run at it, and jump on; don’t sit down and wait for it to pass. Opportunity is a street car which has few stopping places.’
“Now there you are, Marian and Evelyn, with your jelly and your beautiful lettering. Make some of that jelly, and put it in the prettiest glasses you can find, and tie the tops on with a little ribbonfrom the five-and-ten-cent store, and illuminate some sample cards for window displays, and take them down to the Women’s Exchange. You, Evelyn, take your cards to the manager of one of the big stores, and ask him if he could use such work. He will probably want a thousand of them. I am glad this came up. If you are all as helpless as Evelyn and Marian when it comes to using your knowledge, why, there is really not much use in earning merit badges.
“I think we will talk this over for ten minutes informally, and then we will call the roll, and see what each one thinks she can do.”
The Captain turned to the Lieutenant and commenced to talk to her in a low tone, and for ten minutes the room buzzed. Then at the sharp command of the Lieutenant’s whistle silence fell, and the roll was called, and each girl’s chosen task was jotted down beside her name. The outlook was rather black for some of the girls who had chosen to try for merits in unusual rather than in available subjects. For instance, one girl wore badges for proficiency in Swimming, Signaling, Pioneer, Pathfinder, and Marksmanship.
None of these seemed to offer an opening for moneymaking, especially during the winter months. But she was plucky, and merely said that she would find a way to earn the money. And she did it by going to the Y. W. C. A. and assisting the swimming mistress for a couple of hours everyafternoon. So well did she do that when the money was turned in, she had twenty-five dollars to put in the general fund for spending money.
Another girl had a merit badge for Aviation, but she went to work in her workshop and built box kites that no boy could resist, and sold them by the dozen.
As Miss Hooker told them, the trick was to make use of what they had learned. Of course a good deal of this worked itself out later, but when they had finished their discussion, and Miss Hooker had urged them to get to work as soon as they possibly could, she changed the subject by saying, with just a little hesitation:
“I wonder how many of you know that I am to be married?”
Every hand rose and a voice said, “But we don’t know when.”
“That is what I want to talk to you about,” smiled Miss Hooker. “We are going to be married on the fifteenth of February, and I shall not have bridesmaids and all that girls usually have; I want my own Scout girls as attendants—all of you. Will you all come?”
There was a series of exclamations of “Oh, Miss Hooker!” and “Indeed we will!”
“Thank you!” said Miss Hooker, quite as though she was asking a favor instead of conferring one. “Then I will depend on all of you, and a little later I will tell you the plan I have for the wedding.Of course you are to arrange to attend the reception afterwards, and we will have automobiles to take you all home.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” chorused the girls.
Miss Hooker found that after her invitation it was impossible to interest the girls in anything in the nature of routine work, so she soon dismissed the meeting, and the girls as usual piling into the automobiles belonging to Rosanna and Elise and Lucy and one or two others, were driven home in a great state of excitement.
A Girl Scout wedding! That was what it amounted to. Miss Hooker,—their dear Captain, thought so much of them that she had chosen them to attend her rather than her own friends. It was thrilling in the extreme.
It struck about twenty of them about the same time later, that there had been nothing said about clothes. This was an awful thought. Rosanna seemed likely to know more than any of the others, on account of the distinction of having Miss Hooker marry her uncle, so the twenty anxious maidens rushed to as many telephones and gave central a very bad time for about an hour, saying “Line’s busy,” while Rosanna talked to each one as she secured a clear line, and assured her that she knew nothing at all about it.