earn that if they're patient enough, and it's not really very
important. I'm glad we won, because I think boys sometimes get the
idea that girls can't do anything, and it's just as well for them to
find out that we can."

"You're getting on, Bessie. When you first came from Hedgeville you
wouldn't have believed that, or, if you had, you wouldn't have said it."

"Oh, I think I would have, Dolly. You know about the only boy I had
much to do with in those days was Jake Hoover, and you saw him when he
tried to help get me back where I'd be bound over to that Farmer Weeks
until I was grown up."

"That's so, Bessie. You wouldn't have much use for boys if you thought
they were all like him, would you?"

"I know they're not, though, Dolly. So I never got any such foolish
ideas."

"What sort of things will we do in this field day, Bessie? Do you
know?"

"Not exactly. Miss Mercer hasn't arranged everything yet with their
Scoutmaster, Mr. Hastings. You know the reason we're going to have it
is that Mr. Hastings used to tease Miss Mercer about the Camp Fire
Girls."

"That's what I thought. He said we really couldn't manage by
ourselves, didn't he, if we were caught out in the woods without a man
to do a lot of things for us?"

"I think he did. They say a lot of the Boy Scouts think the Camp Fire
Girls are just imitating them, and that isn't so at all, because I got
Miss Eleanor to tell me all about it. The Camp Fire Girls are more
serious. They want to prepare girls to make good homes, and look after
them properly, and to help them to make things better in their own
homes.

"The Boy Scouts were organized partly to give boys something to do, and
to keep them out in the open air as much as possible, to make the boys
stronger, and healthier, and keep them from being idle and getting into
mischief."

"Well, that's what we're for, too, isn't it?"

"Yes, but not so much. Girls don't get into just the same sort of
mischief that boys do, so it's a different thing altogether. But,
anyhow, Miss Eleanor says it's silly for one to laugh and jeer at the
other; that all the Camp Fire people, the ones who are at the head of
the movement, approve of the Boy Scouts and think it's a fine thing,
and that most of the men who started the Boy Scout movement are
interested in the Camp Fire, too."

"Then she's going to try to prove that we really can manage by
ourselves?"

"Yes. And I think the idea is for their troop of