And as Winona stood up again (she had sat down hastily after her first objection) Mrs. Bryan repeated the honors she had won, and that her mother and Florence had kept track of so faithfully. She had expected the honor for story-telling, but the one for marketing—and the one for folk-songs—and—why, that Alice Brown pantomime had meant an honor bead! So had bringing in and arranging her mother’s invalid-tray, and the Porch Club and the story-hour had given her a double right to the Torch-bearer rank, which requires leadership of a group. Then, of course, the wood-craft honors she had won before she went home—she had known about those. But to think that everything, even that hilarious ten-course dinner she and Louise had planned, had been good for a bead! Winona had far more than the fifteen required honors for the highest rank of the Camp Fire.
“Repeat the Torch-bearer’s Desire, Winona,” said Mrs. Bryan, and Winona, half in a dream, said,
The light which has been given me I desire to pass undimmed to others.
Mrs. Bryan stepped forward, and threw a string of beads over her head. She had not been in Camp till now, and so the beads had not come one by one as they generally did. She fastened the pin on Winona’s breast, and stepped back, while the girls sang a tempestuous cheer.
Winona sat down on the grass, still bewildered.
“Well, how does it feel to be a Torch-bearer—the only one in Camp?” asked Helen late that night, as the girls were undressing together.
“Wonderful—only I don’t believe it, yet!” said Winona. “Think of all those honors that I never even dreamed I was getting—and to think I was having such fun getting them, too! It seems as if I ought to have worked so hard it was uncomfortable, somehow, to deserve them.”
“It was dreadfully hard to keep the surprise a secret, sometimes,” said Helen. “When your letters were a wee little bit lonesome, sometimes, we had hard work keeping Louise from telling. Oh, Winona, all the girls are so glad!”
“I’m glad, too,” said Winona soberly. “And oh, Helen, I _am_ going to keep on carrying the torch, too—as high as ever I can!”
End of Project Gutenberg's Winona of the Camp Fire, by Margaret Widdemer