ates in the far west, across the
Mississippi, give women the right to vote as soon as women show that
they want it. They are more ready to do that than the states in the
east."

"Why is that, Wanaka?" asked Margery Burton, one of the Fire-Makers of
the Camp Fire.

"In the west," said Eleanor, answering the question, "men and women
both find it easier to remember the old days of the pioneers, when the
women did so much to make the building of our new country possible.
They faced the hardships with the men. They did their share of the
work. They travelled across the desert with them, and, often, when the
Indians made attacks, the women used guns with the men."

"But there isn't any chance for women to do that sort of thing now,"
said Dolly Ransom, or Kiama, as she was known in the ceremonial
meetings. "The Indians don't fight, and the pioneer days are all over."

"They'll never be over until this country is a perfect place to live
in, Dolly, and it isn't--not yet. Some people are rich, and some are
poor, and I'm afraid it will always be that way, because it has always
been so. But everyone ought to have a chance to rise, no matter how
poor his or her parents are. That was the idea this country was built
on. You know the words of the Declaration of Independence, don't you?
That all men are created free and equal? This was the first country to
proclaim that."

"But what is there to do about that?"

"Ever so many things, Dolly. Some men who have money use it to get
power they shouldn't have, to make people work without proper
conditions, and for too little money. Oh, there are all sorts of
things to be made right! And one reason that some of them have gone
wrong is that women who have plenty of comforts, and people to look
after them, have forgotten about the others. There is as much work for
women to do now as there ever was in the pioneer days--more, I think."

"The Camp Fire Girls are going to try to make things better, aren't
they, Wanaka?" asked Margery Burton. For once she wasn't laughing, so
that her ceremonial name of Minnehaha might not have seemed
appropriate. But as a rule she was always happy and smiling, and the
name was really the best she could have chosen for herself.

"Yes, indeed," said Eleanor. "So far we've been pretty busy thinking
about ourselves, and doing things for ourselves, but there has been a
reason for that."

"What reason, Miss Eleanor?" asked Dolly.

"Well, it's ha