Janet: A Stock-Farm Scout
9781465668028
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The local train from Grand Central station, bound for Four Corners, a flag station on the Harlem Division of the New York Central, carried a very busy young passenger one Saturday morning in June. The passenger was Janet Wardell and her work consisted of studying the first few written pages of a brand new diary. Although her eyes would often gaze with interest at the lovely country scenery to be seen from the car windows, Janet found an irresistible attraction in the writing before her. Finally, however, Janet sighed and opened her suitcase to slip the diary into it, but read once more what she had inscribed. “Last Night. Helene gave me this lovely diary last night and told me to be sure and jot down everything that might happen at Green Hill Farm this summer. It’s too bad Helene could not join us in our new Scout work, but Mother said we five girls would be quite enough trouble for poor Jimmy to chaperone; besides, Mother thinks Helene is too young to join a Scout Troop, but she will see about starting her with the Scout Brownies at once. “Helene said, last night, that next to being one of our party on the farm, the story of all we do this summer, faithfully recorded by me in this book, will be best. So I solemnly agreed to keep tabs on the least thing we did—this is why I am writing now. “Not only will Helene enjoy reading the diary after I go home, this fall, but we girls will have many a merry evening as we sit together reviewing our weeks on the farm. I just know there will be lots of excitement for us, and bushels of fun, every day. “I suppose I really ought to begin the regular entries in the diary by dating them as I go along—but the dates ready-made are too limited to say all I will have to tell, so I’d better make my own. So now I’ll begin with to-day. “Saturday. I had a dreadful time this morning trying to get away from the house in time to catch this train, because Frances Lowden, Belle Barlow and Norma Evaston talked and talked over the telephone until I had to tell them right out, that I would hang up if they didn’t say good bye. Belle laughed and said something I did not hear because I was handing the receiver to Mother to end the good byes for me. “When we got to Grand Central station, what do you think? There were those girls waiting for me, laughing and rushing for me, and keeping me from getting my ticket. Thank goodness, the guard at the gate refused to pass them through to see me off, so they had to stand at one side and watch me go down the platform. I wasn’t any too soon for the train, either, for I had no sooner found a seat than the guard gave the signal and we started. “I am looking at the country we are passing through and I think it is very pretty, indeed, but not as lovely as the country around Green Hill Farm.” Janet dropped the diary inside the suitcase and was about to close the case when she remembered an item she wished to inscribe. The diary was removed again and the fountain-pen cap was unscrewed. “I wish to say that I haven’t the slightest idea of doing a thing all summer but just sleep, and read, and lounge about in the hammock Mother is sending out to the farm. Natalie wrote me all about her vegetable venture, but she needn’t think I’m going to help. Not much! I’m too tired after the exams at school, and I’m going in for the rest cure!” This time, Janet closed the suitcase upon the tempting diary and gave her entire attention to the views of the country. She had not much time to spend in this way before the guard on the train called out “Four Corners!” Janet hurriedly gathered her baggage and left the car to find Natalie and Mrs. James eagerly awaiting her. While the two girls are engrossed with telling each other all that had happened since last they had seen each other, let us introduce Natalie to any reader who has not read about her in the first book of the Girl Scout Country Life Series.
