The Camp Fire Girls on the Field of Honor

“Come with me, Peggy, I think I can persuade the two old people to realize we only wish to be helpful. You see, my own people were Russian peasants and there ought to be a bond of sympathy between us. It is true the French earned their liberty over a century ago, while our liberty yet hangs in the balance, now that German autocracy is trying to replace the Russian. I believe I am a better carpenter than these old people; if they are friendly I intend to ask them to allow me to return to assist them with their work tomorrow.”

Afterwards for ten or fifteen minutes the two girls remained talking happily with their new acquaintances.

Like many other Americans, both Vera and Peggy had firm faith in their knowledge of the French language until their arrival in France. Assuredly they could understand each other perfectly as well as other Americans and English friends who spoke French slowly and deliberately. But unfortunately the French folk apparently speak with greater rapidity than any other nation on the face of the earth and with a wealth of idioms and unexpected intonations, leaving the foreigner who has never lived in France floundering hopelessly in pursuit of their meaning.

In contrast with their other new French acquaintances the two American girls now found the old peasant and his wife a real satisfaction. Their vocabularies were not large and they spoke in a halting, simple fashion not difficult to translate.

Their story was not unlike the story of thousands of other families in the stricken regions of France. During the period of victory the Germans had been quartered in the nearby village, but as the village was not large and the soldiers were numerous, a few of them had been sent to live with the small peasant farmers not far from the town. They were ordered not only to live upon them, but also to secure whatever livestock they owned, or whatever food of value.

Père and Mère Michét had possessed a daughter and a son-in-law. The son they thought still alive and fighting for France. Their daughter, Marguerite Michét, had disappeared.

“La petite Marguerite, she has never been herself since her mother was taken,” Mère Michét explained. “I tell her always la bonne mère will return, but she is afraid of strangers; you will pardon her?”

When at last the girls had been permitted to leave their small offerings and had started toward their new home, Vera had agreed to return next day to render what assistance she could toward the restoration of the little house. Peggy was to come back in order to persuade the little French girl to make friends and perhaps pay them a visit at the farm.

After walking on for a short added distance, both girls finally reached their own French farm house.

It was now late afternoon and the old battered building appeared homely and forbidding. Once upon a time, with the French love of color, the farm house had been painted a bright pink, but now the color had been washed off, as if tears had rolled down the face of some poor old painted lady, smearing her faded cheeks. A fire had evidently been started when the Germans began their retreat, which for some freakish reason had died down after destroying only the rear portion of the building.

After the arrival of the Camp Fire unit in France the entire party had gone straight to Paris as they planned, where their credentials had been presented to the proper authorities, as well as a brief outline of the work which they hoped to be allowed to undertake. Their idea was at once so simple and so practical that no objection was raised.

The Camp Fire unit looked forward to establishing a community farm in one of the ruined districts of France. So after a short stay in Paris, following the advice of the American Committee, Mrs. Burton and Aunt Patricia set out to find a home for their unit. Later the Camp Fire girls joined them at the old farm house on the Aisne.

Only a little time had passed, nevertheless the farm already suggested home.

As Peggy and Vera entered the open space where a gate had once stood, they discovered the entire Camp Fire community outside in the yard.

As usual, Aunt Patricia was giving orders to everybody in sight, while Mrs. Burton in her effort to be of assistance as she urged the others not to attempt too much, was fluttering about, as often as not in the way.

As a matter of fact, the Camp Fire girls were paying but little attention either to her or to Aunt Patricia. Mary Gilchrist, a few moments before, having driven her motor into the farm yard, the girls were at present helping her to unload.

After crossing to France with the Sunrise Camp Fire Unit, Mary had become so much one of them that she had concluded to remain with them for a time, certainly until she could find more useful work. Therefore her motor and her services were temporarily at their disposal.

It is amazing what women and girls are accomplishing these days without masculine aid, and whether or not this is a fortunate state of affairs, the war has left no choice.

Since they were both strong and energetic, Vera and Peggy were glad to have reached home at so critical a moment. However, the other girls were getting on quite comfortably without their aid. Bettina and Alice Ashton, having placed a plank at the end of the car, managed so that the large boxes and packing cases could slide onto the ground without being lifted. Nearly every box of any size bore the name of “Miss Patricia Lord.”

Finally, “Gill,” for the Camp Fire girls were by this time calling Mary Gilchrist by her diminutive title, as she seemed to prefer it, standing up on the seat of her motor, began signaling for attention.

“Be quiet for a moment everybody, please, and listen as diligently as you can. I am not a magician, nor yet a ventriloquist, yet if you will be perfectly silent you will think I am one or both.”

The next instant and Mary’s audience became aware of an extraordinary combination of familiar noises proceeding from the depths of her motor. One felt like a guest at a “mad tea-party,” although of a different nature from Alice’s. The noises were a mingled collection of squawks and cackles and crowing, and pitched in a considerably lower key, a rich but unmistakable grunt.

Alone Aunt Patricia appeared gratified, almost exultant.

Stepping over toward the car with her long, militant stride, she gave her commands briefly.

“Here, Vera, you have more brains than the other girls, help me to move these crates. Polly Burton considered it possible to run a community farm without a farm animal within twenty miles. But then she was not brought up on a small place in Ireland where we kept the pig in the parlor!” And here Miss Patricia’s rich Irish brogue betrayed her cheerfulness for she only gave sway to her Irish pronunciation in moments of excitement.

The next moment, not only with Vera’s but also with Peggy’s and Alice Ashton’s aid, the four women dragged forward a large wooden box with open slats containing a noble collection of fowls, then another of geese and ducks. Finally with extreme caution they engineered the landing of a crate which had been the temporary home of a comfortable American hog and her eugenic family.

“Good gracious, Aunt Patricia, how did you ever manage to acquire such valuable possessions?” Mrs. Burton demanded.

“By ordering them shipped from my own farm in Massachusetts a month or more before we sailed for France and then by forwarding my address to the proper persons after we landed here,” Miss Patricia answered calmly. Ignoring any further assistance, she began opening a box which was filled with grain.

“I presume other things have arrived for me as well, Mary Gilchrist?” Miss Patricia questioned.

Mary nodded and laughed. She looked very fetching in her motor driver’s costume of khaki with the short skirt and trousers and the Norfolk jacket belted in military fashion. On her hair, which had ruddy red brown lights in it, she wore a small military hat deeply dented in the center.

“Goodness gracious, Aunt Patricia, dozens of things!” she replied. “You must have chartered an entire steamer to bring over your gifts to the French nation. Best of all, there are two beautiful cows waiting for you in Soissons at this moment. I could not bring them in the motor, nor did I dare invite them to amble along behind my car. But I have arranged with an old man in the town to escort the cows out to our place tomorrow, or as soon as possible.”

No one did anything but stare at Miss Patricia for the next few seconds.

Whether or not this condition of affairs made her unusually self-conscious, or whatever the reason, finally she rested from her labor of opening boxes to gaze first at Mrs. Burton and then slowly from one girl’s face to the other’s.

“I don’t mean to add to your burdens by asking any one of you to assist me in running my farm,” she began in a tone which might have been considered apologetic had it emanated from any one than Aunt Patricia. “I intend to find an old man to help and to do the rest myself.”

Then a peculiar expression crossed the rugged old face.

“You see, I was raised on a tiny farm in Ireland and used sometimes to know what it meant to be hungry until my brother came over to the United States and made a fortune in ways I am more or less ashamed to remember. I have been telling Polly Burton that I crossed over to France because I wished to look after her and also to help her care for you girls. But that was not the whole truth. I think I came largely because I could not sleep in my bed of nights knowing how many old people and babies there were in this devil-ridden portion of France who were hungry. Oh, there are many people as well as the governments interested in keeping the soldiers well fed! Maybe it’s a crime these days for the old and for babies to require food! Yet they do need it. So if you don’t mind, Polly, I want the people in our neighborhood to feel that they can come to our farm for milk and eggs, or whatever we have to give them. I left word with the manager of my farm near Boston to ship livestock to me in France whenever the chance offers. I am hoping after a little, when these old people get back on their farms that we may be able to give each family sufficient stock to keep them going until their young men and women return home. But remember, I don’t wish to interfere with what you children are doing, nursing the sick and opening schools and starting play centers. Heaven only knows what you are not undertaking! As I said before, I’ll just look after my farm.”

Here Miss Patricia attempted to return to her usual belligerent manner, but found it difficult because Mrs. Burton had placed her arm about her. Try as Aunt Patricia might to conceal her adoration of Mrs. Burton, it was nearly always an impossible feat.

Besides Mrs. Burton was exclaiming with a little catch in her voice:

“You dear, splendid, old Irish gentlewoman! Is there anybody in the world in the least like you? Of course you were right when you announced that I never would think of the really practical things we should require for our work over here. But, although I spent as much money as I could possibly afford, I have realized every day since our arrival, that if I had expended every cent I ever hope to possess, it would have amounted to nothing. Yet I never once thought of the shipping of stock for the little farms in our neighborhood, Aunt Patricia. I am sure you will make life more worth while for every man and woman in this part of the French country before many months.”

Instead of appearing gratified by these compliments, Miss Patricia was heard to murmur something or other about Polly Burton’s fashion of exaggeration. Then, perhaps partly to conceal embarrassment, she began tearing the slats from the side of one of her crates. Afterwards, driving her travel-worn flock of chickens toward the chicken house, which she herself had made ready, and shooing them with her black skirt, Miss Patricia temporarily disappeared.

Through tears Mrs. Burton laughed at the picture.

Vera followed Miss Patricia, whom she had learned to like and admire since the afternoon of their extraordinary introduction.

“I hope to be allowed to help with the farm work, Aunt Patricia,” she urged. “You know I too was brought up on Mr. Webster’s farm in New Hampshire, besides, all my people in Russia were peasant farmers.”

Miss Patricia did not cease for an instant to continue to care for her brood. However, she did answer with unusual condescension:

“You are a sensible girl, Vera. I observed the fact on the afternoon I met you in New York City when you made no effort to argue with me in connection with the escape of that ridiculous burglar.”

CHAPTER VII

BECOMING ADJUSTED

It was not a simple matter for the Sunrise Camp Fire unit to become accustomed to their new life in the devastated French country. The conditions were primitive and difficult. More than once in the first few weeks Mrs. Burton wondered if in bringing the Camp Fire girls with her to work in France hers had not been the courage of folly?

Tet they started out with excellent military discipline. Life at the farm house was modeled upon the precepts of the “Waacs,” the Womans’ Army Auxiliary Corps of the British army in France. These girls, many thousands in number, are performing every possible service behind the British armies in the field.

Unexpectedly it was Sally Ashton who first demanded that a proper routine of life and work be laid down and obeyed. Also the household work must be equitably divided, each girl choosing her portion according to her tastes and talents.

Each day’s calendar, written by Mrs. Burton upon her typewriter, was hung in a conspicuous place in the front hall at the French farm.

The domestic schedule read:

“Breakfast 8 o’clock, bedrooms cleaned immediately after.

Dinner 1 P. M.

Supper 6.30 P. M.

No work after 8.30 P. M.

Bedtime 10 o’clock.”

In the proper observance of the hours for meals Sally Ashton was particularly interested, as she had volunteered to undertake the direction of the housekeeping, which consisted of deciding upon the menu of the simple meals and assisting in their preparation. It was not possible that Sally alone should do all the cooking for so large a family without wearing herself out and leaving no time for other things.

However, soon after their arrival Mrs. Burton had secured the services of an old French woman whom she had discovered wandering about the country homeless, her little hut having been entirely destroyed by the Germans. Not knowing what else to do, Mrs. Burton originally invited her to live with them at the farm temporarily. But she had proved such a help in getting settled and the girls had become so fond of her that no one of them willingly would have allowed Mère Antoinette to depart.

After the wonderful fashion of French cooks, Mère Antoinette could make nourishing and savory dishes out of almost nothing, so she and Sally had principal charge of the kitchen. Notwithstanding, two of the Camp Fire Girls were to prepare supper each evening, so that they should not forget their accomplishments and in order to relieve the others.

Marie, Mrs. Burton’s maid, had accompanied her to France, although none too willingly. It was not that she did not adore her afflicted country, but because she feared the dangers of the crossing and the hardships she might be forced to endure.

Marie, alas! was a patriot of a kind each country produces, a patriot of the lips, not of the heart or hand.

It must be confessed that she had wandered far from her chosen work as maid to a celebrated American actress. Would any one have dreamed in those early days when Marie had first entered her service that Mrs. Burton would have followed so eccentric a career as she had wilfully chosen in the past few years? First to wander about the United States, living outdoors in Camp Fire fashion with a group of young girls, then with the same group of girls and two additional ones to undertake the present reclamation work in France!

Having accomplished the journey across the sea in safety, Marie would cheerfully, yes, enthusiastically have remained in Paris, even if it were a Paris unlike the gay city she remembered. She would have enjoyed accompanying her “Madame” to the homes of distinguished persons, caring in the meantime for her wardrobe and urging her to return to her rightful place upon the stage. But since Mrs. Burton for the present would do none of these things and since Marie had refused positively to be separated, once more she had to make the best of a bad bargain.

So voluntarily Marie offered to take charge of the greater part of the housework and to devote the rest of her time to sewing for the French children in their vicinity, whose clothes were nothing but an odd assortment of rags.

Marie had her consolations. It was good to be out of a country which produced men of the type of Mr. Jefferson Simpson, who having once proposed marriage and been declined, had not the courtesy to renew his suit. Also it was good to speak one’s own tongue again, and although at present there were but few men to be seen in the neighborhood under sixty, there were military hospitals in the nearby villages. Moreover, there was always the prospect of the return of some gallant French poilu for his holiday from the trenches. So Marie was unable to feel entirely wretched even while undergoing the hardships of an existence within a half-demolished farm house on the Aisne.

As a matter of fact, the old farm house was not in so unfortunate a condition as the larger number of French homes, which had been wrecked by the enemy before he began his “strategic retreat.”

Only a portion of the left wing of the house had been demolished.

This had comprised a large kitchen, a pantry and the dining room. However, a sufficiently large amount of space remained for the uses of the Camp Fire unit.

In the center the house was divided by a long hall. On one side were two comfortably large rooms. The back one was chosen for the dining room and the front for the living room. The pantry was restored so that it could serve for the kitchen; as the old stove had been destroyed, a new one was ordered from Paris. This developed into a piece of good fortune, as it required far less fuel than the old, and fuel was one of the greatest material problems in France, coal selling at this time for $120 a ton.

A single long room occupied the other side of the hall; this room had a high old-fashioned ceiling and was paneled in old French oak as beautiful as if it had adorned a French palace.

Mère Antoinette explained that the farm house had been the property of Madame de Mauprais, a wealthy French woman who had lived in the château not far away. It had been occupied by her son, who had chosen to experiment in scientific farming for the benefit of the small peasant farmers in the neighborhood.

The war had banished Monsieur de Mauprais and whatever family he may have possessed, so that Mrs. Burton had been able to rent his farm for a small sum through an agent who lived in the nearest village.

It is possible that the farm house had been spared in a measure by the German soldiers because of their greater pleasure in the destruction of the old château which was only about half a mile away. At the present time the château appeared only as a mass of fallen stone.

This single spacious room the Camp Fire girls chose for their school room for the French children in the neighborhood.

The better furniture of the farmhouse had been hacked into bits of wood by the German soldiers and was fit only for burning. The simple things had not been so destroyed. Fortunately their camping life out of doors had accustomed this particular group of American girls to exercising ingenuity, so that the problem of furnishing and making attractive their school room with so little to go upon rather added to their interest.

Two long planks raised upon clothes-horses discovered in the barn formed a serviceable table. Stools and odd chairs were brought down from the attic. On the floor were two Indian rugs Mrs. Burton had induced the Indian woman near the Painted Desert in Arizona to weave for her with the special Camp Fire design, the wood-gatherer’s, the fire-maker’s and the torch-bearer’s insignia, inserted in the chosen shades of brown, flame color, yellow and white.

On the walls hung a few Camp Fire panels and the coverings of sofa cushions and some outdoor photographs of the Sunrise Camp during former camping experiences which the girls had brought over with them.

Besides these larger articles, they had managed to store away in their trunks the materials necessary for the regulation Camp Fire work, honor beads and the jewelry indicating the various orders in the Camp Fire. If they were to interest French girls in the movement, they must have the required paraphernalia.

But the school at the farm house was not primarily a place where the French girls of the neighborhood were only to be interested in Camp Fire ideas. It was also a practical school.

During the past year Marta Clark had been studying kindergarten.

She, with Yvonne to help her, had charge of the tiny French children whom they were able to persuade to come daily to the big farm house. They were such starved, pathetic children, some of them almost babies! Yet they had been through so much suffering, their eyes had looked upon such hideous sights, that many of them were either nervous wrecks or else stupefied.

Surely there could be no better service to France than this effort to bring back to her children a measure of their natural happiness!

Yvonne and Marta devised wonderful games in one end of the big school room. At midday Vera and Peggy always appeared with a special luncheon for their small guests and for the older ones as well. Bettina Graham and Alice Ashton took charge of the older pupils, and in teaching it appeared that Alice at last had found her metier.

Vera and Peggy also worked at the farming out of doors.

More important than any other of Miss Patricia Lord’s gifts to the community farm and the surrounding country was a motor tractor, which one day had rolled unconcernedly into the farm house yard, an ugly giant, proving of as much future value to the poor farmers in the neighborhood as any good giant of the ancient fairy tales.

Fortunately Mary Gilchrist was able to explain its use to the French peasants who had never seen the like before, and to show them how speedily their devastated land might again be turned into plowed fields.

Vera and Peggy made frequent trips to the nearby villages, gaining the friendship of the country people, inviting the younger ones to their farm and helping in whatever ways they could. Now and then Sally Ashton went with them and sometimes Sally played with the smallest of the children, but nearly always her interests were domestic.

In contrast, Mary Gilchrist never remained in the house an hour if it were possible to be away. Besides engineering the tractor and being a general express delivery for the entire neighborhood, she had formed the habit of motoring into Soissons, which was one of the large towns nearby, and offering her services and the use of her car to the hospitals. Occasionally she spent days at a time driving invalided soldiers either from one hospital to another, or else in taking them out on drives for the fresh air and entertainment.

It would therefore appear as if each member of the Sunrise Camp Fire unit had arranged her life with the idea of being useful in the highest degree, except the Camp Fire guardian.

As a matter of fact, Mrs. Burton often used to say that she found no especial reason for her presence at the farm now that Aunt Patricia had become the really important and authoritative guardian. Nevertheless, with that rare quality of personality which as a girl Polly O’Neill had infused into every interest of her life, there was nothing which took place at the farm or in the neighboring country which she did not in a measure inspire.

Once their household had been adjusted, it was true Mrs. Burton did not do a great deal of the actual work. Instead, and oftentimes alone, she wandered from one end of the French countryside to the other, occasionally returning so late to the farm that Aunt Patricia would be found waiting for her at the front door in a state of fear and indignation.