The Girl Scout Pioneers Part 5

"Maybe so. But here in Franklin we have a curfew law, and we don't allow little girls out alone so late."

"No?" sneered Tessie. "Lovely town. We expect to take the rest cure here."

"Now, my young lady," in severe tones, "I'll show you where we give that self same cure. Come--along--with--me!"

Quick as a wink Tessie grabbed her bag, and started to run. The officer was so surprised he required a moment to realize she was running away. When he did he sounded his whistle.

And there stood Dagmar, alone, and as the "movies" say, "Forsaken!"

"Oh, Tessie," she called weakly. "Come back. You have my pocketbook!"

But the fleeing girl did not stop to listen to Dagmar's cry or to the shrill whistle the officer again sent out into the night. She was making tracks so successfully, the minion of the law knew very well his whistle would never summon help--the only other officer in town being "out of town" to his personal knowledge. So Tessie went, and with her Dagmar's pocketbook and the Girl Scout Badge!

CHAPTER V

A FRIENDLY ENEMY

"Now, don't you worry, little girl. You are not like that one running away. I can see that by your manner," said the officer kindly, as Dagmar pressed her handkerchief to her wet eyes. "I don't have to take you to the calaboose, unless I set fit, and I don't."

He touched her arm kindly. Jim Cosgrove hated to see anyone cry, and his kind heart never seemed to interfere with the fulfillment of his duty. When he was kind he had reason to be, and never yet had the higher officials questioned his wisdom.

"Oh, thank you," said Dagmar, when she could find the words. "We haven't done anything wrong."

"Well, it isn't exactly right for young girls to run away from home, and I don't have to wait for all the particulars to decide that is what you are both aiming to do. However, let us go along.

My wife doesn't mind takin' a girl in now and then, to save her name from the records."

Dagmar breathed easier. She might even find a place to sleep! Why hadn't Tessie waited?

In spite of the rather unpleasant situation, there was comfort in the thought she would not have to go to some dreadful hotel, or boarding house, and perhaps undergo all the hards.h.i.+ps dealt out to runaways in the "pictures." So Dagmar walked along with the officer, unmindful of the sharp looks of the few pa.s.sersby who happened to be out in that section of the rather quiet town.

"Of course you will go straight back home in the morning?" asked and answered the officer.

"Oh, I did so want to try something else," almost pleaded the girl. "You see, mister, it is awful in the mill end of Flosston."

"Not very good, I'll admit," replied he, "but it will be my duty to send you back."

They walked along in silence after that brief conversation. Dagmar was thinking how difficult it would be to go back home on the morrow, and in the company of an officer! As if the man divined her thoughts, he said presently:

"We will see how we make out when we get to my house. My old woman is as good a help to me as the other man on the post, and better.

She helps me a lot with the girls, and I often say she should have had a uniform. Maybe we can fix it so she will take you back home."

"Oh, that would be better," replied Dagmar. "I would hate to go with a man."

"Course you would and I don't blame you. But I must hurry and put you up with Mary. If I don't find your pal I will have to give the word to the next town. Can't have a girl like that running around loose all night."

"I wish she had stayed. Tessie is--not really wild, but she has so much freedom at home. All her folks seem to care for about her is her money."

"Lots of folks are foolish as that, then they have to spend a good lot to make up for getting a little. And the funny part of it is, the girls, who seem so wise, are the easiest fooled. Now, she acted like a real grown-up, but I'll bet my badge she would go along with the first person who offered her a hot pancake for breakfast. They have so much nerve it dries up all their common sense."

"I do wish she had not run away. She is always making fun of me and calling me a baby. But I think, as you say, mister, it is better not to have too much nerve."

"You're right, girl. But here we are. Don't you be the least bit afraid of my wife. She is big and bl.u.s.tery, but has a heart of gold."

The rugged outside of this man evidently hid a heart of his own not far from pure gold, and Dagmar could not help thinking he was the nicest policeman she had ever heard of, and that she had encountered him seemed nothing short of wonderfully good luck.

Turning in at the gate, which even in the night could be seen to form a little arch in vines and bushes, Officer Cosgrove tapped lightly on the door, which was opened before the echo of his last tap had died away.

"Here we are, Mary," he announced to the woman standing in the portal. "I just brought you a little girl--who--is lost. Take care of her while I go after the--other. She didn't take so kindly to Jim as this one did," and with a friendly little push, he ushered Dagmar into the narrow hall, and turned out into the roadway, from whence his light footfall could immediately be heard hurrying over the cinder-covered path.

"Come in, girl," ordered Mrs. Cosgrove. "What happened to you?"

Dagmar was bewildered. What had happened to her? What should she answer!

"I am--away--from home," she managed to reply. "The officer said I could go back tomorrow."

The inadequacy of her reply sounded foolish even to Dagmar, but she was constrained to feel her way. She could never blurt out the fact that she had actually run away from home!

"Oh, I see," said Mrs. Cosgrove with a tone of uncertainty. "Run away, eh?"

"Yes'm," said Dagmar defencelessly.

"Too bad. Didn't your folks treat you right?"

"Oh, yes," hurried Dagmar to correct any such impression as that question conveyed. "But I wanted to help them--all, and I thought I--could!"

Tears were running over now, and Dagmar's courage was at lowest ebb. The motherly woman took the ever-present "telescope," and setting it down in a corner of the pleasant room, directed Dagmar to a chair near the little stove, in which a small light glowed, quite suitably opposed to the chill of early spring.

"Just sit down and I'll get you a bite. Of course you are hungry."

"Not very," gulped the girl, who had not tasted food since she snapped the cover on her lunch box that eventful noon day, when the girl, having agreed with Tessie to leave Milltown, had eaten the dark bread and bologna, for what she supposed would be the last time. So Dagmar was hungry, although her emotion for the time was choking her, and hiding the pangs of actual hunger.

"All the same tea tastes good when we use up nerves," insisted the woman, leaving the room, and presently clicking dishes and utensils in the kitchen. Left alone for a moment Dagmar recovered her composure and glanced about the room. It seemed almost fragrant in its clean freshness. She had never occupied such a room, with that peculiar, bracing atmosphere. The small mantel with its prim vases looked a veritable home shrine, and the center table with the sprigs of budding lilacs, seemed to the forlorn girl something to reverence. The rag rugs under her feet were so spotless, the curtains so white--it suddenly occurred to the girl these things could not exist in the smoke and grim of a mill town.

It was the mill--always the mill found to blame for her misery.

"Come on, girl--what is your name?" came a voice from the kitchen.

Dagmar responded and took her place at the table with its white oilcloth cover, and a snowy napkin neatly smoothed under the one plate set for her.

"Molly has gone to Flosston to a Girl Scout meeting," announced Mrs. Cosgrove, helping Dagmar to a dish of home-made pork and beans. "She loves the Scout affairs, and wouldn't miss a rally, even if she has to come home a little late. Martin, that's my boy, will meet her at the jitney."

"Gone to Flosston?" repeated Dagmar. "That's where I came from-- that is the corner we call Milltown, it is out where the factories are."

"Oh, I know the town well. Not too nice in spots. But start right in. Drink your tea and eat up your bread and jelly. I'll finish what I was at, and be back by the time you have cleaned your plate."