CHAPTER XIX THE GOLD STAR

But in the hearts of Camp Fire Girls, for all time, there would burn the gold star of memory for those who would not return!

In the home of another member of the Morning-Glory Group smiles had untowardly turned to shrieks that day.

It was the small boys’ hour when they dominated, because of the embryo manhood in them, in the name of their fathers or brothers over there.

They were not slow to avail themselves of the temporary license. Ten-year-olds, in squads of eight, linked tandem-fashion, one behind the other, butted those of middle-age, fat or fussy business men, without rebuke, meeting naught but the indulgent smile of an eye that looked humidly across the water.

And little Kendal Ayres, aged seven, climbing ambitiously to wave Old Glory from a tin roof, fell to a graveled walk and broke his arm.

“Mother!” he said, striving heroically to endure the pain of a compound fracture until the doctor came. “Mother! let me have ‘Shepherd’s’ picture by me; that will help me to--bear--it--better.”

It was his sister Betty who brought it--who reverently brought it--the picture of an Army Chaplain in uniform, with the Croix de Guerre upon his breast.

“I have a gold star for a Godfather now, haven’t I?” murmured little Kendal, through clenched teeth, as he had often whispered before since “Shepherd” had given his life, while succoring the wounded, in France.

“You have, Kennie,” said white-lipped Betty, whose loyalty was evergreen, but her courage easily frost-nipped. “And--and you’ll have to live up to it! So will I!”

She did. Putting her delicate, half-fainting mother out of the room, she waited upon the doctor while he was administering the ether, even lay on the bed beside Kennie, holding his hands--getting some of the fumes herself--until oblivion set in and Kendal lay passive beneath his gold star--in the hallowed presence of “Shepherd.”

It was the sacred memory of “Shepherd” and many others which consecrated the Peace Ceremonial which the Group held in its own club-room, two weeks after the Armistice was declared--a room so furnished and decorated by the hand-craft of its occupants that, like their dresses, stenciled and embroidered, it was a history in itself of talent, achievement, individual and collective.

And the memory of that Ceremonial would go down in history, not alone in the Camp Fire “count,” but wondrously wrought into the tapestried life-stories--into thought, word and deed--of the members present.

It matters not who recited, in a voice that rocked unsteadily once or twice upon the raft of a sob, “Flanders Fields.”

Her personality was lost in the:
“If ye break faith with us who die!”

Ah! no. There must be no breaking of faith. The life of every American boy and girl alive on that fair November, the eleventh, when the sun shone as if knowing that it marked a New Epoch, mocking the brown leaves upon the ground--while Peace Europa cooed in her blanket--must be nobler for all time--a fair and loving monument to those who would not come back.

But--but the note of pathos melted into melody when it came to considering the new: to standing upon the threshold of that better World, bought with a price, brushed by the feet of youth and of hopeful young nations--weary old ones--to-day.

Not three candles alone, as on that white beach, where aviators landed by the Council Fire, were lit to-night, but one for each country of the Allies, to typify joy rekindled well-nigh all over the war-scarred earth.

And when little Flamina, Nébis, the Green Leaf upon a later branch of America’s great tree--whose leaves must be truly now for the healing of the nations--stepped forward, with flashing eye, to light the green candle of Italy, there was a long-drawn breath between a song and a sob in the breast of each maiden present.
“Va fuora d’ltalia, ta fuora ch’e l’orro,
Va fuora d’ltalia, va fuora o stranier!”

caroled Flamina--the big, dilating pupils of her eyes as black stars in a sepia-brown sky--while she chanted Italy’s hymn of liberty--the national hymn.

“Doesn’t she make just the dearest little Camp Fire Sister, with--with the grace of her, the green leaf in her head-band and embroidered upon the front of her ceremonial dress!” murmured one and another of the Group who had adopted her, working for patriotic honors along lines of Americanization--building up the new American womanhood, to the broader ideals and understanding won by the Great War.

Flamina was a full-fledged Wood Gatherer now. The brightest silver spark in the night of her eye, beneath those curly lashes, was a reflection of the fagot-ring upon her finger.

The ceremony of her initiation, interrupted by the witch-stenciled war-plane, by the knights of the sky, with their clipped anecdotes of airdom adventures--their wingèd slang--had been gone through later upon the white beach, while:
“Drowsy wavelets come and go,
To weave a dream-spell ’round Wohelo!”

She was getting into her heart of hearts the Wohelo magic now; the triple ideals of Work, Health, Love--the cord that bound her to her Camp Fire Sisters, those daughters of the Sun, who, as she increasingly understood, wedded old and new, the poetry of the past--of races that went before them upon American soil--with the reaching-out progress of the present.

And “there is that giveth and yet increaseth,” so the Bible says: every hour spent in truly naturalizing the little foreign-born sister, cultivating the freshly grafted shoot, with its transplanted green leaf, had been one of richness for the instructors, too; from Olive, who had improved her English, to Sara and Betty, who had helped to fashion her ceremonial dress, and Sybil who had wrought a leaf upon its bosom.

The music of her caressing song, whether it dwelt in childish passion, wild and tender, upon the country and sea she loved, recalling her own blue bay of Naples, or matched the mischief of her dancing footsteps, gay as the most elusive little leaf, in a
“Cip i tè ciop!
(Chippety chop!)”

warmed their blood to a more sparkling fire.

But, sweetest of all at this Peace Celebration--never to be forgotten--it added a new and soaring note to the song, fairest in Columbia’s ears: “America the beautiful!”
“And crown they good with brotherhood,
From sea to shining sea.”

Ah! well might the hearts of Columbia’s daughters swell--those of the Morning-Glory Group rejoice--for by the glow of the Council Fire on lonely beaches, by the encircling ring around symbolic candles, by welding ritual, poetry and song, in this the morning-glory hour of the World’s rebirth, after a night of pain, God had crowned America’s good with sisterhood:
“From Sea to shining Sea.”