Betty Gordon at Boarding School - Alice Emerson
Norma and Alice fairly glowed as they went back to their rooms with the
other girls. Ada Nansen had heard, and she was regarding them with
evident respect.
Norma and Alice might have been uneasy had they heard Ada's comment when
she and Ruth were once more in their own rooms.
"They must have money," argued Ada, "though I never saw such ordinary
clothes. Giving balls and parties in the lavish Southern style costs,
let me tell you. Probably they have some fine family jewels in that
shabby trunk."
"I'll tell you what I think," said Ruth Gladys wisely. "I think the money
is all used up. Probably they're here as charity pupils for old
friendship's sake."
This speculation was duly stored up in Ada Nansen's mind to be brought
out when needed.
After dinner Miss Anderson played for them to dance in the broad hall,
but every one was tired from train journeys, and at nine o'clock they
voluntarily sought their rooms.
"Get into a kimono and brush your hair in here," hospitably suggested
Betty, and Bobby seconded her by flinging the suitcases under the beds.
All of the rooms were fitted with pretty day-beds so that a cover quickly
transformed them into couches and the bedrooms into sitting rooms.
Four gay-colored kimono-wrapped figures came pattering in presently and
curled up comfortably on the beds. Norma and Alice were the last to
arrive, and when they did come they mystified their friends by prancing
in silently and waltzing gaily about the room.
"Oh, girls!" they chortled when they had tired of this performance, "what
do you think?"
"We couldn't help hearing," said Norma deprecatingly.
"Laura Bennett called us in," declared Alice.
"Don't sing a duet," commanded Bobby sternly. "What are you talking
about? One at a time. You tell, Norma."
"Laura Bennett called us into her room," obediently recited Norma. "Miss
Lacey was talking to Ada and Ruth. You could hear every word without
listening--that is without eavesdropping--you know what I mean. Mrs.
Eustice must have spoken to Miss Lacey, because she told the girls they
would have to send all the trunks home except one apiece. Ada must put
all her jewelry in the school safe and at the Christmas holidays she is
to take it home and leave it there. Both of them have to wear their hair
down or in a knot--you know they have it waved now and done up just like
my mother's. And Miss Lacey is to go over their clothes to-morrow and
tell 'em what they can keep!"
"I'm glad some one has some sense!" was Bobby's terse comment.
Something in Norma's face told Betty that she would like to speak to her
alone, so half an hour later when the girls had dispersed for the night,
she made a bent nail file an excuse to go to the Guerins' room.
"I was hoping you'd come, Betty," said Norma gratefully. "We have to put
out the lights at ten, don't we? I'll try to talk fast. You see, Alice
and I want to tell you something."
A fleecy old-fashioned shawl lay across the bed and Norma flung this
about Betty's shoulders.
"Alice's kimono is flannel and so is mine," she explained in answer to
the protest. "You never met Grandma Macklin, did you, Betty?"
"No-o, I'm sure I never did," responded Betty thoughtfully. "Does she
live with you?"
"Yes. But while you were at the Peabodys she was visiting her half-sister
in Georgia," explained Norma. "She is mother's mother, you know."
"What was it Mrs. Eustice said about her?" questioned Betty with
interest. "Did she live near here? Was that when your mother went to
this school?"
"It was a day school then, you know," put in the laconic Alice.
"Yes, and grandma lived in a perfectly wonderful big house," said Norma.
"It must be fully five miles from here. Uncle Goliath, an old colored
man, used to drive her over every day and call for her in the afternoon.
Mother has always been determined Alice and I should graduate from
Shadyside."
"Well then, it's lovely she is to have her wish," commented Betty
brightly.
"Oh, goodness, I don't see that we're ever going to have four years,"
confessed Norma. "If you knew what they've given up at home to send us
for this term! And though we wouldn't say anything, mother and grandma
worked so hard to get us ready, Alice and I are positively ashamed of our
clothes. You see, Betty, I think when you're poor, you ought to go where
you'll meet other poor girls. Alice and I ought to have entered the
Glenside high school, I think. But when I said something like that to dad
he said it would break mother's heart. But if she knew how hard it was to
be poor and to have to rub elbows with girls who have everything--"
"I don't think you ought to feel that way," urged Betty. "You have
something that no amount of money could buy for you, and no lack can take
away--birth and breeding. And the training your mother wants you to have
is worth sacrificing other things for. Ever since I heard Mrs. Eustice
talk I feel that I know what makes her school really successful."
A soft tap fell on the door.
"Lights go off in ten minutes, girls," said Miss Lacey pleasantly.
"Do you know, Betty," confessed Norma hurriedly, "dad has lost quite a
lot of money lately. He's such a dear he never can bear to press
payment of a bill and half the county owes him. And a friend got him to
invest what he did have in some silly stock that never amounted to a
hill of beans, as the farmers say. So it's no wonder the Macklin
fortune worries mother whenever she thinks of it; a family like ours
could use money so easily."
"Most families are like that," said Betty, with a flash of Uncle Dick's
humor. "I didn't like to ask, Norma, but your grandmother must have
been wealthy."
"She was," confirmed Norma. "Not fabulously so, of course. But even in
those days when lavish hospitality was common Grandma Macklin was famous
for the way she ran the estate. She was left a widow when a very young
woman, and mother was her only child. Her husband didn't believe women
knew very much about money, and he left his fortune mostly in bonds and
jewels--the most magnificent diamonds in three counties, grandma says
hers were. And she had a rope of emeralds and two strings of exquisitely
matched pearls. Besides, there were rose topazes and lovely cameos and
oh, goodness, I couldn't repeat the list; Alice and I have been brought
up on the story.
"Well, about the time mother had finished school, Grandma Macklin came to
the end of her bank account. Several mortgages had been paid her in gold,
and she kept this money with the jewelry and a lot of solid silver in a
little safe in her room. Foolish, of course, but she says others did it
in those days, too. She meant to take the gold and some of the diamonds
to her lawyer and get a check which would take her and mother around the
world on a luxurious cruise. And the day before she had the appointment
with Mr. Davies--"
A soft blackness settled down over the girls like a blanket. The
electric lights had gone out!
"Move closer, and I'll finish," whispered Norma.
Betty snuggled up between the two, and shivered a little with excitement.
"The day before she was to drive to Edentown," repeated Norma, "a band of
Indians from the reservation in the next state came through on their
annual tramping trip and walked in on poor little grandma as she sat at
her mahogany secretary turning over her jewels and counting her beautiful
shining gold. Every darkey on the place fled in terror, and those
rascally Indians simply scooped up everything in sight and locked grandma
and mother in the room!"
"Couldn't any one stop them?" demanded Betty eagerly. "Surely a band of
Indians could have been easily traced. Didn't any one try?"
"Oh, they tried," admitted Norma. "That's the maddening part. Suppose I
told you, Betty, that I know where grandma's inheritance is this minute?"
CHAPTER XIII
THE MYSTERIOUS FOUR
"Well, for mercy's sake!" said Betty in exasperation, "if you know
where the property is, why don't you claim it? Why doesn't your mother?
Where is it?"
"At the bottom of Indian Chasm," declared Norma calmly.
"Where's that?"
"I don't know exactly," admitted Norma. "It's around here somewhere. You
see the Indians streaked for the woods, and mother got out by way of a
window and ran to the next estate. The men and boys there armed
themselves and took horses and chased the Redskins, and when they were
almost up with them the robbers tossed everything down this great canyon
in the earth. There was no way to get into it, and though they tried
lowering men with ropes, they couldn't find a solitary gold piece. As far
as any one knows it is all at the bottom of the chasm now."
"And grandma had to mortgage the house and they couldn't pay the interest
and it was sold and all the lovely mahogany furniture," mourned Alice.
"And grandma and mother moved to New York and mother taught school and
met dad, who was a medical student. And they were married when he
graduated, and grandma came to live with 'em."
Betty crept away to her own bed when the story was finished. Bobby was
asleep, for which her chum was thankful. Betty wanted to think. Surely
there must be a way to recover the Macklin fortune, if it was still down
in the big chasm.
"I'll tell Bob and we'll go and find that place. Perhaps he can think of
a plan," was Betty's last thought before she went to sleep.
The next few days were very busy ones for every pupil. Ada and Ruth, in
tears, submitted to having their wardrobes censored, and thereafter
appeared in clothes that were not too striking.
The appointments with Mrs. Eustice materialized, and Betty, after her
interview, was conscious of a sincere affection for the woman who seemed
to understand girls so thoroughly.
Bobby was "crazy," to quote her own expression, about the gymnasium
classes, and Miss Anderson beamed approvingly upon her. Betty, too, was
often to be found in the gymnasium after school hours, but Libbie had to
be driven to regular exercise. She liked to dance, but unless some one
was made responsible for her, she was prone to cut her regular gymnasium
period and devote the time to some thrilling novel. When the other girls
discovered this they good-naturedly made up a schedule for the week,
assigning a different day to every girl whose duty it should be to "seal,
sign and deliver" the reluctant Libbie at the gymnasium door at the
appointed time.
Mrs. Eustice, rather peculiarly some people thought--Ada Nansen's mother
among them--held the theory that school girls should spend a fair
proportion of their time in study. She had small patience with the
faddist type of school that abhorred "night work" and whose students
specialized on "manners" to the neglect of spelling.
"I dislike the term 'finishing school,'" she had once said. "I try
to teach my girls that what they learn in school fits them for
beginning life."
So from seven to half-past eight every night, except Friday, the pupils
at Shadyside were busy with their books. They might study in their rooms,
provided their marks for the preceding week were satisfactory, but those
who fell below a certain percentage were sentenced to prepare their
lessons in the study hall under the eye of a teacher.
The second Friday night of the term the new students were warned by
little pink cocked notes to remain in their rooms after dinner until they
had been inspected by the "Mysterious Four."
"It's a secret society," Bobby announced the moment she had read her
note. "Well, let's go upstairs and prepare to be inspected."
The eight gathered in Betty and Bobby's room, and though they were
expecting it, the knock, when it finally did come, made them all jump.
"Come--come in," stammered Betty and Bobby together.
Four veiled figures entered, each carrying something in her hand. They
spoke in disguised voices, though as they were upper classmen they were
fairly safe from recognition; the new girls were hardly acquainted among
themselves and knew few of the older students by name.
"Freshmen," said the tallest figure, "when we enter, rise."
The eight leaped to their feet at a bound.
"Do you wish to become members of the Mysterious Four?" demanded the
second figure.
"Oh, yes," chorused the willing victims.
"It is well," chanted the third figure.
"It is well," echoed the fourth.
"I don't," said Libbie calmly.
"Don't what?" questioned the tallest figure, evidently appointed chief
spokesman.
"Want to be a member of the Mysterious Four," announced Libbie, who had
an obstinate streak in her make-up.
"Unfortunately," the spokesman informed her, "you haven't any choice in
the matter; you're elected one already."
While Libbie was thinking up an answer, which considering the finality
of that statement, was not an easy matter, the tall draped figure went
on to explain to the interested girls that there were two degrees to
be undergone before one could be a full fledged member of the
Mysterious Four.
"You must take the first degree to-night," they were told. "The second
will be several weeks later."
"Are we allowed to ask a question?" asked Betty respectfully.
"Oh, yes. But we may not answer it," was the cheering response.
"Why is the society called the 'Mysterious Four'?" asked Betty "All the
freshman class received notes, so the membership must be large; where
does the four enter?"
"You'll learn that at the close of your first degree," said the spokesman
with firm kindness. "Now you're to remain here for five minutes, and then
go down to the study hall. Five minutes, remember."
They departed majestically, and the girls were left to spend their five
minutes in discussion of the visit.
"I don't see why I have to belong," grumbled Libbie.
"It will do you good," said Bobby severely. "When I promised Aunt
Elizabeth to look after you, I didn't know that meant I would have to
risk my head by sleeping under 'Lady Gwendolyn' in two volumes--and fat
ones at that"
Libbie had the grace to blush. Bobby, who was fond of books but whose
taste ran to "Rules for Basketball" and "How to Gain Health Through
Exercise," had put up a small shelf directly over her bed to hold her
literary treasures. Libbie, exhausting the space in her tiny corner
bookcase had thoughtlessly placed the two heavy volumes of the story
Bobby mentioned on top of her cousin's books with the awful result that
the shelf broke in the night and spilled the books on the wrathful Bobby.
"Let's go down to the study hall," suggested peace-loving Louise. "The
five minutes are up."
Down they trooped, to find a number of girls already there, for the most
part looking rather frightened.
At five minute intervals other groups entered, until all the freshman
class was assembled.
"I don't care anything about this society," whispered Ada Nansen to
Ruth Royal. "I wouldn't give fifty cents for an organization where no
discrimination is shown in choosing the members. However, this is
Mrs. Eustice's pet scheme, they tell me, and I want to stand well
with her. Next year I'm going to get elected to the White Scroll,
you see if I don't."
The Mysterious Four came in as the last group of girls were seated and
slowly mounted the platform.
"Candidates," announced the leader, "you are summoned here to take your
first degree. It is simple, but no shirking is to be permitted. You are
to do the one thing that you do best. As your names are called, you will
mount the platform and comply. Four minutes is allowed for decision--on
the platform."
There was a gasp from the audience, and one could almost see the mental
cog wheels of sixty girls going furiously to work.
"Betty," whispered the desperate Bobby, "what can you do best?"
"Ride, I guess," said Betty, recollections of Clover coming to mind.
There was a crashing chord from the piano. One of the veiled figures had
seated herself at the instrument and now proceeded to play "appropriate
selections" as the candidates performed their turns.
As the clever leader had foreseen, no one relished spending her allotted
four minutes for reflection on the platform in full view of the audience,
and the majority of the victims made up their minds with a rush.
After they had entered into the spirit of the thing, it was fun, and
their shrieks of laughter aroused sympathetic smiles in other rooms. No
teachers and no member of the other classes were permitted to enter, but
Aunt Nancy, the fat cook, and half a dozen young waitresses peeped in at
the door and enjoyed the spectacle hugely.
Betty Gordon obligingly cantered across the platform on a chair and won
applause by her realistic interpretation of western riding. Bobby
convulsed the room with her imaginary efforts to cut and fit a dress, her
mistakes being glaring ones, for Bobby never touched a needle if she
could help it. Clever Constance Howard had gone for her ukulele and
played it charmingly. Libbie insisted on giving the "balcony scene" from
Romeo and Juliet, in which she was supported by the unwilling Frances,
who was certainly the stiffest Romeo who ever walked the stage.
"Ada Nansen," called the leader, when the eight chums had made their
individual contributions to the program.
CHAPTER XIV
A SATURDAY RACE
Ada had been watching the others with a contempt she made little attempt
to conceal. When her name was called she walked to the platform and faced
the leader defiantly.
"What can you do best, Ada?" came the familiar question.
Ada smiled patronizingly.
"Spend money," she said briefly.
"Do that," said the young leader calmly.
"How can I spend money here?" demanded Ada angrily. "There's nothing to
buy. I call that silly."
"Then you admit you can't spend money?"
"No such thing!" Ada stamped her foot, furious at such stupidity. "I say
I can't spend it here where there is nothing to buy. You let me go to
Edentown, and I'll show you whether I can spend money or not."
"The order of the first degree of the Mysterious Four is that the
candidate must do what she can do best," repeated the veiled figure
insistently. "What can you do best?"
"Sing," said Ada sullenly.
"Then do that."
And now the watching girls had what Bobby later admitted was "the
surprise of their lives."
The girl at the piano fingered a chord tentatively, then struck into a
popular song, an appealing little melody, the words a lyric set to music
by a composer with a spark of genius.
"I picked a rose in my garden fair--" sang Ada.
She sang without affectation. Her voice was a charming contralto,
evidently partially trained, and promising with coming years to be worth
consideration.
"But it withered in a day--" went on the lovely voice.
The girls were absolutely mute. When she had finished the song, and she
gave it all, they burst into a spontaneous storm of applause.
Ada barely acknowledged the hand-clapping. Her face had instantly slipped
back into the old sullen lines.
"When she can sing like that, shouldn't you think she would be perfectly
happy?" sighed Betty. "I'd give anything if I had a voice!"
As a matter of fact Betty had a clear little contralto of her own and she
sang as naturally as a bird. But there was no denying that Ada's voice
was exceptional.
After the last girl had had her turn the veiled leader mounted the
platform and threw back her swathing net.
"She's the president of the senior class, Mabel Waters," whispered a girl
near Betty.
"I have the honor to welcome you all as members in good standing of the
novice class, first-degree, Mysterious For," announced Miss Waters.
"That's all there is to the name, girls--when we decided to form a new
society here in school some one asked 'What's it for?' So our
organization became the Mysterious F-O-R, and you'll find out as time
goes on what the answer is. I might say, though, that happiness and good
fellowship and a little spice of sisterliness are what we try to
incorporate in the unwritten bylaws. And now I think Aunt Nancy has some
cake and ice-cream for us."
Saturday was a busy day for the one hundred and sixty odd girls who were
enrolled at Shadyside. Penance and pleasure had a way of marking off the
hours. Those who were good were allowed to go twice a month to Edentown,
chaperoned by a teacher, for shopping, moving picture treats, and such
other simple pleasures as the small city afforded. There were always a
number of girls sentenced to "within bounds," which were the spacious
school grounds, for minor sins of omission and commission. Bobby Littell
was usually among these. She was impulsive and heedless, and got herself
into hot water with amazing regularity.
"Bobby," announced Betty, one Saturday morning not long after the
initiation into the Mysterious For, "don't you think you could manage to
have a good record this coming week? We want to go nutting a week from
to-day, and if you have to stay in bounds it will spoil all the fun."
"I'll try my best," promised Bobby solemnly. "I never mean to do a
thing, Betty. Trouble is, I think afterward. I did want to go to
Edentown to-day, too, but Libbie and Frances have promised to get the
wool for my sweater. Want to come down to the gym? I'm going to drill my
squad this morning."
In the gymnasium they found Ada Nansen, also in charge of a squad.
"She flunked twice in French and was impudent to Madame," whispered
Bobby, who knew all the school gossip. "Mrs. Eustice canceled her
Edentown permit."
Ada frankly scowled at the newcomers. She had found the Littell girls
slow to overtures of friendship, and they persisted in displaying an
annoying fancy for the society of Betty and the Guerin girls, who, for
all Ada knew, might be what she described to her mother as "perfect
nobodies." So Ada and Ruth Royal gradually formed a circle of their own
to which gravitated the more snobbish girls, those who fought, openly or
covertly, the rule for simple dressing, and those who found in Ada's
characteristics of petty meanness, worship of money, and social
aspirations a response to similar urgings of their own natures.
"Well, Bobby, I'm glad to see you and your 'men,'" said Miss Anderson
briskly. "I was just saying to Ada that to-day is too beautiful to waste
indoors. I want you all to come out on the campus and we'll have a race."
Bobby's squad included Betty--who had refused to leave her chum--the
Guerin girls (who refused to go to Edentown because it was almost
impossible to avoid spending money for little luxuries and for
treats), Constance Howard and Dora Estabrooke, a fat girl who was
good-nature itself.
"We'll have to use elimination," said the teacher when she had her pupils
out on the green level that was back of the gymnasium and walled in by
tall Lombardy poplars planted closely. "Let's see, twelve of you" (for
Ada's squad numbered the same). "I think we'll number off first."
The odd numbers in each squad fell out and were matched, and the even
numbers were paired similarly. Betty's rival was a near-sighted girl who
delayed the next step because Miss Anderson discovered that she was
wearing high-heeled shoes.
"I don't care for those flat things," volunteered Violet Canby, as she
departed lockerward at Miss Anderson's stern insistence. "I have a very
high instep, and they hurt me."
Nevertheless, she had to wear them, and the physical instructor put the
others through a rigid inspection, but bloomers and sneakers were all
properly donned.
"Now," said Miss Anderson when Violet had returned minus her pumps, "try
to remember that it's just like a spelling match, girls; gradually we'll
narrow down to the two best runners."
The trial "heats" resulted in leaving Betty, Bobby and Norma of the one
squad, and Ada, Ruth and a girl named Edith Harrison, of the other.
Norma was paired with Ruth Royal, and at the signal they got away nicely.
Norma was an excellent runner, and she reached the tape fully three yards
ahead of Ruth. Something in her glowing, happy face, prompted Ruth to
resentment.
"Oh, well," she remarked disdainfully, taking care that her words should
carry clearly, "I suppose a farmer's daughter does a good deal of running
after cows--they ought to be in training."
Norma flushed scarlet.
"My father is a doctor," she said hotly. "I'm not a farmer's daughter,
but I know splendid girls who are--girls too well-bred to say a thing
like that."
Ruth walked away--she was out of the finals now--and Norma went back to
the starting place. She had not recovered her poise when the time came
for her to race Bobby, and that young person won easily only to be
outdistanced by Betty.
Rather to the latter's regret, she found herself the opponent of Ada for
the deciding race.
"Go it, Betty--beat her!" whispered Bobby, proud of her chum. "She and
Ruth Royal have dispositions like vinegar barrels!"
Betty had often raced with Bob, and she ran like a boy herself--head
down, elbows held in. She was running that way, against Ada, when
something suddenly shunted her off sideways. She fell, landing in a
little heap. High and sharp rose the shrill whistle of the starter.
"Are you hurt, Betty?" demanded Miss Anderson, running up to the dazed
girl and lifting her to her feet. "Ada Nansen that was absolutely the
most unsportsmanlike trick I ever saw. You've lost the race on a foul.
Betty was clearly winning when you tripped her."