Even at home, she praised the maid to her face and then denounced her to her mother. Had she dared she might have carried out the same hypocrisy between her mother and father, but Mr. Wilbur was the one being for whom she had any fear or respect, so she never misrepresented things to him.
It was not the real Eleanor that scoffed at Woodcraft and gossiped injuriously about it, but the weak mortal self that was the wretched counterfeit of the real and true Eleanor. The girl had not yet discovered this duality in her nature, but she had felt a growing dissatisfaction with herself and her environment since entering High School, and this unhappy state of mind aggravated her desire to belittle others or their efforts to climb to a higher plane of living.
Had Eleanor stopped to diagnose her feelings and actions she would have realised that the “misunderstandings” (as she termed the quarrels and trouble resulting from her poisoned darts of gossip) could be easily traced to the vindictive and malicious desires she entertained, while the sweet and pure and altogether attractive qualities that had been paramount in her early childhood years were becoming weaker and weaker through lack of expression. So at fourteen, at the character-forming time when a girl needs to be on guard that all undesirable tendencies are carefully eliminated to keep them from taking root for all future years, Eleanor, and those she associated with, were in a constant state of confusion and irritation created by her stubborn and selfish wilfulness.
During the week following the first Council meeting of the new members, the Band bought materials and began work on the forest scenery and wooden upright stands. Elena, Nita, and May Randall were given the roll of white duck to paint, while the other girls measured and sawed and hammered the 2 x 4 timbers to make the uprights necessary to hold the scenic walls of the woodland camp.
All that week Eleanor had been one of the first of the Woodcrafters to be on hand, but the moment the actual carpentry began, she would sigh, and scoff, and belittle the efforts of the others, or wonder why anyone spent good time on such foolish ideas!
Miss Miller had heard rumours of Eleanor’s gossip and she overheard several disturbing criticisms made during the work on the carpentry, but she said nothing at the time.
Of all the people who knew Eleanor well, Miss Miller was about the only one who studied the girl and understood the chemicalisation, so to speak, of the processes going on within the girl’s consciousness. The evil desires were fermenting and souring her nature while the sweetness and purifying elements were gradually being spoiled so that presently, a Judas-natured individual would claim the victory over the true, and the battle would be lost for the side of the divine and eternal self.
It was with a thrill of gratitude then, that the Guide recalled her deep perplexities over the waywardness of Nita, that same Summer on the Farm. How she had studied every phase of the problem and finally won out to the ever-growing betterment of the girl.
“If I can only win the slightest hold on this girl’s innate goodness and learn how to appeal to her higher self, I feel sure I can weed out the ‘tares’ even if it takes a long time. It is well worth the fight for the ‘wheat’ waiting to be garnered,” murmured Miss Miller as she reached the Gymnasium door. Which goes to show what the Guide really thought of Woodcraft and the privileges given her whereby to improve the morals and manners of the girls entrusted to her care.
“Everybody waiting for me to-day?” cheerily called the Guide as she hurried in where the girls were waiting to hold a Saturday afternoon Council.
“Yes, we’re crazy to pass judgment on the scenery. Elena makes such a secret of it that not one of us has seen it since she had it sketched out with charcoal. It’s back there in that huge roll. The boys brought it in the car a few minutes ago,” explained Zan.
“And did you finish the uprights so we can hang the duck?” asked Miss Miller.
“Everything is back in the corner where we decided to have our forest,” replied Jane.
“Then we can go right to work and place our trees and seats, and some of you can build the log fire-place in the centre for a Council,” said the energetic Guide.
A hubbub of instructions and calls and running to and fro continued after this for some time. Miss Miller tried to superintend the raising of the “huge forest timbers.”
“Say! Won’t one of you girls with nothing to do help me hook up this side of the trees?” called Elena, anxiously, as she found the weight of the duck too heavy to manage alone.
“You’ve got the trees upside-down!” laughed Jane.
“No I haven’t! That’s the way Nita painted this piece,” retorted Elena.
“Why it looks more like an early settler’s log stockade than the beautiful woodland hillside back of the Bluff,” replied surprised Jane, eyeing the painting with her head on one side.
“S-sh! Nita’ll hear you! She is so proud of it! She says it is a much better line of trees than my forest!” whispered Elena, proudly displaying her art work.
Zan came over to assist in hanging the duck and smiled behind the painting as she heard Elena explain the various “scenes” depicted on the great stretch of cotton.
“This is the flat rock where we sat telling bedtime stories; here is the swimming pool, and up there is Fiji’s cave. I tried to get in Bill’s cottage below the Bluff but my paint gave out,” explained Elena, as the three girls lifted and stretched the canvas and hung the hooks over the taut wire.
“But the way you measured and cut the scenery, we’ll have to unhook the cave and Bluff every time we need one side open. You made the other three sides all stockade, you see,” commented Zan.
“That’s so! I never thought of that. We will have to omit one whole side at times, won’t we?” responded Elena,
“Still, I think it will be easier to fold down or hang up a Bluff than to hew through a great row of giant tree-trunks, Zan,” laughed Jane.
Finding Elena too serious over her painting to laugh or enjoy a joke about it, the other two girls called that all was ready for the admiring audience.
As the group stood about the Council circle looking over the woodland scene, some smiled, some sniffed, and some looked delighted at the result. Miss Miller saw the disappointment on Nita’s face and remarked: “We joyfully accept this attempt to paint the cherished mental picture of Wickeecheokee Camp – a scene that defies all words or arts to describe.”
“But Miss Miller, you must admit that this scenery is misleading to new Woodcrafters. We have ranted of stars, and streams, and the breath of balsam pines; but where, oh where, is there any such ‘atmosphere’ to be found in this painting!” Zan cried dramatically, as she posed and threw out both arms towards the canvas.
“Atmosphere! Good gracious, Zan, can you ask for more!” laughed Jane, in response to Zan’s call. “Did you ever smell such an odour of the turpentine that comes from pine?”
The girls all laughed but Nita complained pathetically:
“If you girls knew the job it was to smear all that paint on the old stuff, you wouldn’t poke fun at the trees. Why, the duck soaked up my paint as fast as I put it on, so of course I had to use gallons of turp to make it spread at all. Even then, it dried before I could shade any bark on my trees.”
“You all say I am too matter-of-fact a cook to be an artist, but I bet I could take a handful of the superfluous paint on those trees and knead it into something resembling ‘tall timbers’,” now commented Hilda.
“No one could! Why we had to hang the duck along the wall of our attic and stand on an old library table while we painted the tops of the trees! Just try to make bark or leaves on a tree that has to be painted with a heavy kalsomine brush. Our arms got so lame before we painted an hour that we fairly cried with the ache in the bones,” said Elena, defiantly.
“Yes, and Elena’s attic is so bespattered with raw umber and ivory black that Mrs. Marsh says she will have to stain the entire floor now to make it look decent again,” added Nita.
“Well girls, we are all genuine Woodcrafters, so we hail with