The Camp Fire Girls on the Edge of the Desert

The Camp Fire Girls on the Edge of the Desert

The Camp Fire Girls on the Edge of the Desert follows Bettina Graham, a shy, dreamy sixteen-year-old and daughter of Senator Anthony Graham and Betty Graham, who is sent to the Webster farm in New Hampshire to recover her health. There she and her friend Peggy Webster (called Polly in the family) learn of a scheme from Peggy's famous aunt, the actress Polly O'Neill Burton, known as Tante. Mrs. Burton, ordered to rest for a year, proposes that a new Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club camp with her near the Painted Desert in Arizona. Over the objections of the families, she persuades Bettina's and Peggy's parents. Peggy's younger brother Billy, an odd and secretive boy, takes ten dollars from his aunt's purse to help the family of his Russian friend Vera Lageloff. Mr. Webster forbids the boys to go, but Vera is invited to join the club. The party travels west with Mrs. Burton and her French maid Marie. It includes Peggy, Bettina, Vera, the Boston sisters Alice and Sally Ashton, the plain-spoken Ellen Deal, and the pretty, flattering Gerry Williams, whose history Mrs. Burton keeps private. On the train Bettina talks alone with a young Hopi student from Yale who gives his name as John Mase. His Hopi name is Se-kyal-ets-tewa, shortened to Tewa. Her absence frightens Mrs. Burton. At the Gardener ranch the party finds that the promised guide has failed them, so a young cowboy, Terry Benton, leads them to a mesa beside Cottonwood Creek. Mr. Jefferson Simpson, a ruined mining man, later joins them as guide. Bettina falls into a ravine while out riding and is rescued by Tewa. He carries her to the pottery maker and medicine woman Nampu, whose fair-haired Albino daughter Dawapa secretly hopes to marry him. Vera also saves Peggy from a rattlesnake. Ralph Marshall, a pleasant but frivolous young man whom Bettina dislikes, comes to a camp dance with Terry and friends. He sings the poem Bettina once wrote and burned. A sandstorm strikes the camp that night. Afterward Tewa kneels before Bettina and calls her by her Camp Fire name, Anacoana. Mrs. Burton is angry and forbids Bettina to speak with him again. Gerry, who dislikes Bettina, had earlier hinted at an improper attachment, and she and Dawapa watch Bettina. In August the camp moves near the Hopi villages for the snake ceremonies. In Tewa's home at Oraibi, Bettina tells him she may not listen to him any more. Gerry then latches the door on her out of malice. Bettina is found later walking with Tewa. Mrs. Burton, who had to leave the Snake Kiva faint and ill, takes this for deliberate disobedience. She questions Bettina coldly, and Bettina, too proud to explain further, asks to be sent home.

By Margaret Vandercook · First published 1917 · Genre: Juvenile fiction, Girls' series fiction, Camp fiction · 20 chapters · 53,427 words

First lines

The last flames of the camp fire were slowly dying. But, as the sun was sinking, the little space in the woods surrounding the fire was lit with the color of flame.

A girl sat there alone in her ceremonial camp fire dress. A band of bright gold braid bound her head. One could learn from the insignia on her costume that she was already a torch bearer. Above the orange and red of the flame was the touch of white in her emblem, portraying the ascending smoke. She was like a guardian spirit of the fire.

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Camp Fire Girls · Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club · girls' adventure fiction · young adult fiction · coming of age · early twentieth century America · New Hampshire · Painted Desert, Arizona · Hopi culture · Hopi snake ceremony · desert expedition · camping in the wilderness

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The Camp Fire Girls on the Edge of the Desert is listed on Textopian as a novel by Margaret Vandercook, dated 1917 CE.

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More by Margaret Vandercook