Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer Part 32

"A f.a.got party?" exclaimed Nita with interested eyes. "Oh, do tell all about it; it sounds, well it sounds f.a.goty. What do you do?"

"Why, we use small f.a.gots tied into bundles," explained Helen, "that is, after we have started a good blazing fire. Each girl has her f.a.got bundle and as soon as one burns up she throws hers on-"

"Oh, but you haven't told the best part," broke in Grace. "While each girl's f.a.got bundle is burning she tells a story, which has to be ended by the time her f.a.gots are burned."

"Does she have to stop on the very second?" questioned Nita.

"Yes, she begins as soon as she throws her bundle on the blaze, and keeps on talking until it is all burned up and falls to a shower of fiery sparks. But of course she has to keep a sharp look out on the burning f.a.gots, so as to end her tale with a good climax as the f.a.gots fall," explained Helen.

"Where are you going to have it?" questioned Nita, a shade of disappointment on her face as she thought how she would like to see this f.a.got party.

"We haven't found a place yet," answered Grace, who was one of the committee, "but we are working hard to have it down in Deacon Ditmas's lot, near the cross-roads."

"Why can't you have it on our lawn?" exclaimed Nita timidly, turning appealing eyes towards her mother. "Oh, Mother, do say they can have it here, and then I can see it."

The girls were so amazed at this sudden and unexpected proposition that they all remained silent, Nathalie in a spasm of dread for fear that Mrs. Van Vorst would think that the Pioneers were a great nuisance being thrust upon her hospitality in this abrupt manner. But she was quickly undeceived as the lady rejoined hastily, "Why, I should be most pleased to let the Pioneers have the lawn for the f.a.got party. It would give Nita great pleasure, I am sure."

"That will be just lovely!" cried her daughter, clapping her hands delightedly. "And you will take it, won't you?" she coaxed pleadingly, suddenly stopping her demonstrations as if realizing that her plan might not be pleasing to the girls.

"I think it would be dandy," answered Grace. "What do you girls think?"

turning towards them as she spoke.

"Why, I think it would be fine," added Helen, "and-"

"But oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, it will destroy the gra.s.s on the lawn," spoke up Nathalie doubtfully, "for our cheer fires always leave a blackened burnt place on the ground."

"That will not make any difference," was the prompt rejoinder from that lady. "Peter can rake it off and if necessary he can resod it. I shall only be delighted if you young girls can use it, and the favor will all be on my side-" her voice trembled slightly-"for it will give my little daughter so much pleasure."

"Oh, Nita! you are walking, you will fall and hurt yourself!" exclaimed Nathalie excitedly, as she entered that young lady's room the Monday after the Flag Drill, and found her walking about with a coolness and ease that she had never before seen her display.

Nita broke into merry laughter at the look of dismay on her friend's face. "Of course I'm walking, the doctor says I can, so there!" There was a triumphant toss of her head at Nathalie.

"But you have never walked, that is not much since I have known you!"

cried the puzzled girl.

"And you thought I never could," replied the little lady independently.

"Well, you are wrong. I used to walk when I felt able, sometimes quite a little. Then a crank of a doctor frightened Mamma to death by telling her I should always lie on my back or side, and for years I have been nailed like a mast to a s.h.i.+p on that couch. But Dr. Morrow says if I have the strength I should walk, and that my strength will come gradually. Oh, who knows what I can do? Walk off this old hump, I hope!"

"Oh, you dear thing!" cried Nathalie, rus.h.i.+ng to her friend and giving her a squeeze. "Isn't that just the loveliest thing? What nice times we can have after a while if you can walk, and Dr. Morrow, I always knew he was a dear!"

"There, don't squeeze me to bits, but tell me all the things that have happened since the Flag Drill, and oh, Nathalie, your friends are dears.

The one you call Grace is sweet, and the other one, why, she isn't so pretty, but she looks a good sort."

"She is something more than a 'good sort,'" answered Nathalie swiftly, "she is a gem, she is so clever and sensible, and, oh, what a friend she has proved to me! She has a wonderful way of helping you over the hard places. But there, I will tell you what Grace said about you, she said you were a sweet little cherub-and-"

"Just arrived from angel land I suppose, with wings all sprouting,"

ventured Nita sarcastically. "Well, she ought to see me when I'm mad.

Cherub indeed! What did the other one say?"

Nathalie hesitated; her face flushed, "Oh-why, she thought you were a dear, but said you were a bit spoiled."

Nita looked surprised for a minute; then her eyes flashed as she cried with a defiant lift of her head. "Well, I guess if Miss Sensible had a hump to carry about that could never be taken off, no matter how it hurt, and had to be shut up behind walls with nothing to see or any one to talk to, she'd be spoiled, too!" There was a quiver of the chin as the red lips closed tightly in the effort not to cry.

"Oh, you poor little thing, I should not have told you that, for really, Helen thought you were lovely!" Nathalie regretted with all her heart the impulse that had prompted her to tell the truth to Nita. It seemed unkind but it was really spoken in the hope of doing her little friend good.

But Nita pushed her away, "Oh, don't pet me!" as Nathalie attempted to caress her, "I was only teasing. Yes, I know I'm spoiled, but there, do tell me the news, for your face shows that you are just dying to tell me something worth the hearing."

"Well, yes, I have _some_ news-that's slang, but O dear, it does mean so much sometimes," laughed Nathalie as she and Nita seated themselves on the couch. "Sat.u.r.day we had a Pioneer Rally. Judge Benson, a friend of Dr. Morrow's from the city, gave us a talk on self-government. He explained the difference between natural, spiritual, and civic law. He also explained the meaning of an ordinance, told us how justice was administered in the different courts, and how self-government, or the reform system is having its try-out in some of the prisons to-day. He says it bids fair to make criminals-men hardened in sin and crime-respectable members of a community."

"Self-government?" queried mystified Nita, "why, the Pioneers are not citizens or criminals; you don't have to be governed!"

"Yes, we do," a.s.serted Nathalie stoutly, "and so does everybody. Civic, natural, and spiritual laws are all right, but back of those laws is the law of self-government, that is the something within each one of us that makes us what we want to be, that makes us control ourselves even when we are babies, when we get slapped for being naughty. If there was no self-government in the world-for it is the government of self when we make ourselves obey the laws of G.o.d and man, when we cease evil and do the right-why, if there was no self-government we would all be savages without law and order.

"Judge Benson told us how self-government came to be used in the schools and prisons. Of course, as I said, we all have to govern ourselves in a measure, but it is the applying of this self-government in a new way that has done so much good.

"A very good man, he said, took some waifs from the poor settlements in New York to the country and tried to better them physically and morally by teaching them to be good. But of course, they would do wicked things and have to be punished, and he became very much discouraged because the punishments didn't seem to do them any permanent good. So he thought for a long time and then he formed a Junior Republic, made all the boys and girls citizens, and then told them to appoint their own officials, that is, their own lawyers, judges, officers, and so on. Then when any of them did wrong they were haled into court and tried by their own comrades. Of course, they all became so interested in this new system of punis.h.i.+ng-for you see, they all had a part in it-that they became wonderfully good. You see, the boys and girls had to learn to control themselves, for of course, they not only wanted to stand high in the court and be lawyers and judges themselves, but they did not like to be corrected and called down-that's what the judge said-by their own comrades. This venture at making boys and girls learn to control themselves not only taught them self-denial, self-repression, self-development, and the difference between right and wrong, and their duty to themselves as well as to their companions, but it was the means of introducing the same system into the public schools, and in time into the prisons."

"Yes, but I don't understand how it interests you girls."

"Why, Mrs. Morrow read so much about self-government and the good it did that she introduced it into the Pioneer organization, and it has worked wonderfully well there, Mrs. Morrow claims. Instead of a court we have a senate, which is composed of two girls from each bird group, elected by the girls. The Pioneers also elected a president, that's Helen, and a vice-president, she's an Oriole girl and quite clever, too. Jessie Ford is the secretary, and Mrs. Morrow is the Advisory Judge and has the power to veto any ruling of the president, but she never has as yet.

"So you see what it does for the Pioneers, for if any member of the organization breaks a law or does anything wrong she is brought before the Senate. Every Pioneer served with an indictment to appear before the Senate has, of course, the right to choose one of the girls as a counsel, and when there are two girls implicated they both choose counsel. Then after the witnesses are all heard the lawyers sum up, and the case goes to the Senate, who act as a jury and vote by ballot. The case can be appealed to the Advisory Judge; or an offender, by asking or showing contrition, can have her sentence lightened. You don't know what fun it is, and then it helps to make us govern ourselves and teaches us law, too, in a small way, of course."

"Well, I wish they'd try to punish that hateful Sport for using your idea, and to think she got all the credit for it! Why-"

"No, she didn't," laughed Nathalie with an odd little gleam in her eye, "for she was tried before the Senate Sat.u.r.day."

"Oh, Nathalie, you don't mean it! Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Nita clapping her hands delightedly. "I do hope she got her deserts, the deceitful thing!"

"Well, I am afraid she got all that was coming to her, as d.i.c.k said."

Nathalie's bright face sobered. "Nita, I was awfully sorry for her. It was so humiliating to have to face that Senate, oh, the girls just hate to be brought before it. I had to tell as a witness, about losing the Stunt, the librarian told of helping me get data and then helping me to look for it, and then how she saw Edith pick it up as it fell from under a book on the table."

"Do tell me what they did to her!" Nita bent forward in curious excitement as she spoke.

"Poor thing! she had all her stars and badges of merit taken from her.

Just think, she will have to begin all over again to win them! At first it was voted that she would have to go back and be a third-cla.s.s Pioneer again, but I was so sorry that I pleaded for clemency, and so the sentence was lightened.

"You see, there is an awful lot of good in Edith, and I am never again going to say anything against her, she has been punished enough. And oh, Nita, Dorothy at the Rally received her third-cla.s.s badge, and I received my badge for a second-cla.s.s Pioneer. I'm going to work awfully hard while at camp, so as to qualify as a first-cla.s.s Pioneer. But there, it is getting late and we shall have to stop talking and take up our reading on the 'Pioneer Women of America.'"

Nita nodded, and in a few moments the two girls were busily engaged; Nita listening with the keenest attention while Nathalie read about the Dutch women who came from Holland and settled New York, little dreaming as she read that this lesson was to culminate in an event of the utmost importance to the Girl Pioneers of Westport.

CHAPTER XIX-THE f.a.gOT PARTY

"Oh, Mother, isn't it just beautiful?" exclaimed the princess the night of the f.a.got party, as she watched the flames leap and dance down on the lawn.