Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains Page 2

  CHAPTER II.

  THE BOY SCOUTS' INVASION.

  That was a grand surprise that the Boy Scouts of Spring Lake academy"put over" on the Camp Fire Girls of Hiawatha Institute. They had beenplanning it for several weeks, or since they first receivedinformation of the Grand Council Fire as a closing event of the firstsemester of the girls' school. The two institutions were located inmunicipalities only fifteen miles apart, connected by both steamrailroad and electric interurban lines.

  Spring Lake academy, located on a lake of the same name at thesouthern outskirt of Kingston, was originally a boys' military school,and it still retained that primal distinction. But the success ofHiawatha Institute as a Camp Fire Girls' school set the imaginativeminds of some of the leaders of the boys at Spring Lake to work alongsimilar lines, with the result that the faculty's cooperation waspetitioned for the organization of the student body into a troop ofBoy Scout patrols. The scheme was successful, and as it served toinject new life into the academy, the business end of the institutionhad no ground for complaint.

  This innovation at Spring Lake was due largely to the activities ofClifford Long, one of the students. He was a cousin of MarionStanlock, and naturally this relationship served to direct hispersonal interest toward Hiawatha Institute. Not a few other studentsin these two schools were similarly related, some of them beingbrothers and sisters.

  And so it is not to be wondered at if these two places of learningbecame, as it were, twin schools, with much of interest in common andmany of their activities interassociated. They had rival debatingteams between which were held more or less periodic contests, and inthe numerous social events there were frequently exchanges ofinvitational courtesies.

  The boys plotted their big surprise on the girls in true scoutfashion. There was no real secret in the fact that the Camp Fire Girlsof Hiawatha Institute were planning a big event, but girl-like theyaffected secrecy to stimulate interest. The result was more than couldhave been expected, although the girls did not realize this untilafter it was all over. The curiosity of the Spring Lake boys wasthoroughly alive as soon as they learned of a mysterious "somethingbig" going on at the institute. True to the character of real scoutsthey delegated emissaries, commonly denominated spies, to visit thestronghold of the Camp Fire Girls, get all the details of their plansdiscoverable and report back to headquarters. Greater success thanthat which rewarded their efforts could hardly have been wished for.Half a dozen boys went and returned and then put their heads and theirreports together with the result that the Scouts of the school hadall the information they needed.

  They mapped out their plans and scheduled their prospective movementsby the calendar and the clock. They chartered an interurban train forthe run to and from the Institute. The arrival on the scene of theGrand Council Fire was, as we have seen, a complete surprise to thegirls. The Scouts well knew that their presence would not be regardedas an intrusion, for a Grand Council Fire, according to the handbook,"is for friends and the public."

  The interruption of the program by the marching of the Boy Scoutswithin the circle of the Camp Fire Girls was permitted to continue forten or fifteen minutes, while a number of short speeches were made bysome of the boy leaders, in which they gloried over the way they had"put one over on the girls."

  "And we're not through yet," announced Harry Gilbert prophetically."Some of us are going to put over another surprise just about asthrilling as this, and we want to challenge you to find out what itis."

  Of course this statement produced the very result the boys desired.Naturally they wished the girls to think they were pretty brightfellows. They got just what they were looking for as a result of their"surprise," namely, volumes of praise. To be sure, this did not comein the form of undisguised admiration. That isn't the way a clevergirl signifies her approval of this sort of thing. It just burst intoevidence through such mock jeers as, "You boys think you are sosmart," or "It's a wonder you wouldn't have gone to enough pains tobuild a railroad or sink a submarine."

  To which, on one occasion in the course of the evening, Earl Hamiltonreplied:

  "Thank you, ladies; we always do things thorough."

  "-_ly_!" screamed Katherine Crane. Yes, it was really a scream, anexplosion, too, if the indelicacy may be excused. But the opportunityfor a come-back struck her so keenly, so swiftly, that she just couldnot contain her eagerness to beat somebody else to it.

  Well, the laugh that followed also was of the nature of an explosion.And it was on poor Katherine quite as much as on Earl, who had trippedup on an adjective in place of an adverb. The girl's eagerness was soevident that it struck everybody as funnier than the boy's mistake ingrammar. Anyway, she recovered quite smartly and followed up herattack with this pert addendum as the laughter subsided:

  "You evidently don't do your lessons thorough-_ly_." The emphasis onthe "-ly" was so pronounced, almost spasmodic, as to bring forthanother laughing applause.

  This exchange of repartee took place in the large school auditorium,to which all repaired as soon as the outdoor exercises had beenfinished.

  The program of the evening was punctuated by interruptions of thiskind every now and then. Of course, the fun-makers waited forsuitable opportunities to spring their "quips and cranks," so that nomerited interest in the doing could be lost. And none of it was lost.The presence of the bold invaders seemed to add zest to the mostroutine of the Camp Fire performances, and when all was over everybodywas agreed that there had not been a dull minute during the wholeevening.

  At the close of the Camp Fire Girls' program the 150 Boy Scouts aroseand, with heroic unison of voices peculiar to much practice in thedelivery of school yells, they chanted a clever parody of Wo-he-loCheer, a Boy Scout's compliment to the Camp Fire Girls, and thenmarched out of the auditorium and away toward the interurban line,where their chartered train was waiting for them, and all the whilethey continued the chant with variations of the words, the rhythmicdrive of their voices pulsing back to the Institute, but becomingfainter and more faint until at last the sound was lost with thespeeding away of the trolley train in the distance.

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