the Camp Fire girls chose for their school
room for the French children in the neighborhood.

The better furniture of the farmhouse had been hacked into bits of wood
by the German soldiers and was fit only for burning. The simple things
had not been so destroyed. Fortunately their camping life out of doors
had accustomed this particular group of American girls to exercising
ingenuity, so that the problem of furnishing and making attractive their
school room with so little to go upon rather added to their interest.

Two long planks raised upon clothes-horses discovered in the barn formed
a serviceable table. Stools and odd chairs were brought down from the
attic. On the floor were two Indian rugs Mrs. Burton had induced the
Indian woman near the Painted Desert in Arizona to weave for her with
the special Camp Fire design, the wood-gatherer's, the fire-maker's and
the torch-bearer's insignia, inserted in the chosen shades of brown,
flame color, yellow and white.

On the walls hung a few Camp Fire panels and the coverings of sofa
cushions and some outdoor photographs of the Sunrise Camp during former
camping experiences which the girls had brought over with them.

Besides these larger articles, they had managed to store away in their
trunks the materials necessary for the regulation Camp Fire work, honor
beads and the jewelry indicating the various orders in the Camp Fire. If
they were to interest French girls in the movement, they must have the
required paraphernalia.

But the school at the farm house was not primarily a place where the
French girls of the neighborhood were only to be interested in Camp Fire
ideas. It was also a practical school.

During the past year Marta Clark had been studying kindergarten.

She, with Yvonne to help her, had charge of the tiny French children
whom they were able to persuade to come daily to the big farm house.
They were such starved, pathetic children, some of them almost babies!
Yet they had been through so much suffering, their eyes had looked upon
such hideous sights, that many of them were either nervous wrecks or
else stupefied.

Surely there could be no better service to France than this effort to
bring back to her children a measure of their natural happiness!

Yvonne and Marta devised wonderful games in one end of the big school
room. At midday Vera and Peggy always appeared with a special luncheon
for their small guests and for the older ones as well. Bettina Graham