Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This edition had a cover and title page entitled _A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire_. The title on the first page of the story and the remainder of the book, however, is _The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods_. A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire By JANE L. STEWART CAMPFIRE GIRLS SERIES VOLUME I THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK Made in U. S. A. COPYRIGHT, MCMXIV BY THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING CO. THE CAMPFIRE GIRLS SERIES [Illustration] A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S FIRST COUNCIL FIRE A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S CHUM A CAMPFIRE GIRL IN SUMMER CAMP A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S ADVENTURE A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S TEST OF FRIENDSHIP A CAMPFIRE GIRL'S HAPPINESS [Illustration: "We'll take you over to camp and you can have dinner with us."] The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods CHAPTER I THE ESCAPE "Now then, you, Bessie, quit your loafin' and get them dishes washed! An' then you can go out and chop me some wood for the kitchen fire!" The voice was that of a slatternly woman of middle age, thin and complaining. She had come suddenly into the kitchen of the Hoover farmhouse and surprised Bessie King as the girl sat resting for a moment and reading. Bessie jumped up alertly at the sound of the voice she knew so well, and started nervously toward the sink. "Yes, ma'am," she said. "I was awful tired--an' I wanted to rest for a few minutes." "Tired!" scolded the woman. "Land knows _you_ ain't got nothin' to carry on so about! Ain't you got a good home? Don't we board you and give you a good bed to sleep in? Didn't Paw Hoover give you a nickel for yourself only last week?" "Yes--an' you took it away from me soon's you found it out," Bessie flashed back. There were tears in her eyes, but she went at her dishes, and Mrs. Hoover, after a minute in which she glared at Bessie, turned and left the kitchen, muttering something about ingratitude as she went. As she worked, Bessie wondered why it was that she must always do the work about the house when other girls were at school or free to play. But it had been that way for a long time, and she could think of no way of escaping to happier conditions. Mrs. Hoover was no relation to her at all. Bessie had a father and mother, but they had left her with Mrs. Hoover a long time before, and she could scarcely remember them, but she heard about them, her father especially, whenever she did something that Mrs. Hoover didn't like. "Take after your paw--that's what you do, good-for-nothin' little hussy!" the farmer's wife would say. "Leavin' you here on our hands when he went away--an' promisin' to send board money for you. Did, too, for 'bout a year--an' since then never a cent! I've a mind to send you to the county farm, that I have!"