The Torch Bearer: A Camp Fire Girls' StoryThurston, I. T. (Ida Treadwell)
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The Torch Bearer: A Camp Fire Girls' Story
Thurston, I. T. (Ida Treadwell)
Camp Fire Girls -- Juvenile fiction
"A bunny--_another_ bunny," she said under her breath, "and just as
scared as I am--at nothing. I won't be a bunny any longer! I won't be
the camp coward--I won't, won't, _won't_!" she cried aloud, and turning,
went on again swiftly with her head lifted. A bit of colour drifted back
to her white cheeks, and her heart stopped its heavy thumping as she
drew a long deep breath. She would not let herself think of Slabtown.
She counted the trees she passed, named the birds that wheeled and
circled about her, even repeated the multiplication table--anything to
keep Slabtown out of her thoughts; but all the while the black dread of
it was there in the back of her mind. When she caught sight of the
sawmill where the Slabtown men earned their bread, her feet began to
drag again.
"I can't--O, I can't!" she sobbed out, two big tears rolling down her
cheeks. Then across her mind flashed a vision of the little cottontail
streaking madly across the road before her, and again some strange new
power within urged her on. She went on slowly, reluctantly, with
dragging feet, but still she went on. There were no men about the place
at this hour--they were at work--but untidy women sat on their doorsteps
or rocked at the windows, and a horde of ragged barefooted children
catching sight of the girl swarmed out into the road to stare at her.
Some begged for pennies, and getting none, yelled after her and threw
stones till she took to her heels and ran "just like the other bunny!"
she told herself in miserable scorn, when once she was safely past the
settlement. Well, there was no other such place to pass, but--she
shivered as she remembered that she must pass this one again on the way
back.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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