Betty Gordon at Boarding School - Alice Emerson
No reference was ever made by any one to Ada's speech, but she never
appeared at another rehearsal. After two weeks' diligent practice, the
players were pronounced perfect and a night was set for the performance
of "The Violet Patchwork."
"Why don't we go to the woods and get some leaves to trim the assembly
hall?" suggested Betty two days before the time for the play. "Mrs.
Eustice's sister is coming to see her, and some other guests, and we want
it to look nice. We might get some nuts, too. Aunt Nancy promised us nut
cake with ice cream if we'll get her enough."
"All right, I like to go nutting," agreed Bobby. "But, for goodness'
sake, if we're going to walk a hundred miles this time, let's have
something to eat with us. Sandwiches and a regular spread. How many have
boxes from home?"
A canvass showed that a round dozen of the girls had been favored that
week, and, at Bobby's suggestion, they donated their goodies to "the
common cause."
"Not all the girls will want to go," said Betty. "Some are such poor
walkers, they'll decline at the first hint of a hike. Every one in the
V.P. will want to go, I think, and that's eleven. Then, counting the
girls with boxes and the others who have asked to come, we'll have
twenty. Twenty of us ought to manage to bring home enough leaves to trim
the hall respectably."
"We might ask for a holiday!" Bobby's face beamed at the thought. "We
haven't had a day off in weeks, and Mrs. Eustice said a long time ago she
thought we'd earned one. Will you do the asking, Betty?"
Betty was accustomed to "doing the asking," and she said she would once
more if Norma Guerin would go with her. Wherever possible, Betty drew
Norma into every school activity, and she persistently refused to allow
her friend to talk as though the Christmas holidays would end their days
at Shadyside. Alice worried less than Norma, but both girls grieved at
the thought of the sacrifice those at home were making for them and felt
that they could not accept it much longer without vigorous protest.
Betty and Bobby, on the other hand, were determined to see to it that
the sisters spent their holidays in Washington, and while Bobby
cherished wild plans of filling a trunk with new dresses and hats and
forcing it in some manner upon her chums, Betty concentrated her
attention on the subject of cash. She intended to consult her uncle, in
person if possible, and if that proved impossible, by letter, and Bob as
to the feasibility of persuading Norma and Alice to borrow a sum
sufficient to see them through to graduation day at Shadyside. Betty was
sure her uncle and Bob, in both of whom she had infinite faith, could
manage this difficult task satisfactorily, though the Guerin pride was a
formidable obstacle.
Acting immediately on the decision to ask for a holiday, Betty and Norma
went down to the office and preferred their request, which was cordially
granted after an explanation of its purpose.
"All day to-morrow off!" shouted Betty, bursting in upon the six girls
assembled to hear the result.
"We may go after breakfast and needn't come back till four o'clock when
Miss Anderson has called a dress rehearsal," chimed in Norma.
Libbie and Louise were dispatched to notify the other girls and to
give strict instructions to those who had boxes not to eat any more of
the contents.
"Elsie Taylor had already eaten six eclairs when I requisitioned her box
for the picnic," said Constance Howard. "It's lucky we're going tomorrow,
or there wouldn't be much left to eat."
Betty and Bobby each had a box from Mrs. Littell, who sent packages of
sensible goodies regularly to her girls in turn.
"I hope the sandwiches will keep fresh enough," worried Betty.
But she might have saved her worry.
Just as she and Bobby were going to bed that night Norma and Alice came
in, wrapped in their kimonos, each carrying a large box under her arm.
"What do you suppose?" asked Norma. "Good old Aunt Nancy heard we were
going after nuts for her cake and leaves for the hall, and she's made us
dozens of sandwiches. She said she did it because Mrs. Eustice reserved
one of the best seats for her at the play. Anyway, we'll be glad to have
them, shan't we? And, oh yes, Aunt Nancy says she'll make us a cake as
big as 'a black walnut tree' and two kinds of ice cream!"
"And she brought the sandwiches up to Norma and Alice because she
was determined they should have something for the picnic," thought
Betty after the girls had gone. "Talk about tact! Aunt Nancy has the
real thing."
The girls were all up early the next morning, and soon after breakfast
they were on their way to the woods. Many of those who were not of the
nutting party went to Edentown, some took canoes and went paddling,
others "puttered" around the school grounds, enjoying the beautiful
autumn weather and the luxury of a holiday.
Ada Nansen and her friends had elected to go to Edentown, and passed the
nutting party on the way. Betty took one glance into the bus and then
looked at Bobby. That young person promptly giggled.
"Did you see what I saw?" she asked.
"Poor Ada!" said Betty. "She does have troubles of her own!"
For of all the teachers, Miss Prettyman alone had been available as
chaperone, and to go to town under Miss Prettyman's eagle eye was
anything but an exciting experience. She was usually bent on "improving"
the minds of her charges, and she improved them with serene disregard of
the victims' tastes and interests. Betty and Bobby had seen her sitting
bolt upright in the bus, reading a thin volume of essays while Ada
scowled at the happy crowd tramping in the road.
The woods reached, they separated, some to gather branches of leaves and
others intent on filling their sacks with nuts. The boxes of lunch were
neatly piled under a tree, and sweaters were left with them, for it was
comfortably warm even in the shadiest spots.
"I don't believe we will have many more days like this," remarked Frances
Martin, her nearsighted eyes peering into a hollow tree stump. "Girls,
what have I found--a squirrel?"
"Plain owl," laughed Betty. "Isn't he cunning?"
They crowded around to admire the funny little creature, and then,
admonished by Bobby, whom Constance declared would make a good drill
sergeant, set busily to work again. Nuts were not plentiful, but they
filled half a sack, and then, a large pile of flaming branches having
been gathered, they decided to drag their spoils back to the tree and to
have lunch.
"Girls, girls, girls!" shrieked Libbie, who was in the lead, "our lunch
is gone--every crumb of it!"
Sure enough, the sweaters were all tossed about in confusion and the
boxes had disappeared.
"Who took it?" demanded Bobby wrathfully. "You needn't tell me that
lunch walked off!"
High and clear and shrill, a familiar whistle sounded back of them.
"That's Bob!" Betty's face brightened. "Listen!"
She gave an answering whistle, and Bob's sounded again.
There was a scrambling among the bushes, and a group of cadets burst
through. Bob and the Tucker twins were first, and after them came Gilbert
Lane and Timothy Derby and Winifred Marion Brown.
"Hello, anything the matter?" was Bob's greeting. "You look rather glum."
"So would you," Betty informed him, "if you were starving after a
morning's work and your lunch was stolen."
"Gee, that is tough!" exclaimed Bob sympathetically. "Who stole it?"
"We don't know," volunteered Bobby. "But all those boxes couldn't take
wings and fly away."
"You go back and get the fellows," Bob commanded Tommy Tucker. "We were
having a potato roast down by the lake, and while the potatoes were
baking some of us came up for more wood," he explained to the girls. "We
thought we heard voices, and so I whistled."
Tommy Tucker was flying down to the lake before half of this explanation
was given.
"Have you a holiday, too?" Betty asked. "We're out to get decorations for
the play."
"It's the colonel's birthday," explained Bob, "and the old boy gave us
the day off. Here come the fellows."
Half a dozen more cadets joined them, all boys the girls had met at the
games. They were loud in their expressions of sympathy for the
disappointed picnickers and promptly offered their potatoes as
refreshments when they should be done.
"Oh, we're going to get that lunch back," announced Bob Henderson
confidently. "Look here!"
He pointed to some footprints in a bit of muddy ground.
"Cadet shoes!" cried Tommy Tucker. "Jimminy Crickets, I'll bet it's that
Marshall Morgan and his crowd!"
"But this is a girl's shoe," protested Betty, pointing to another print.
"See the narrow toe?"
"Ada Nansen or Ruth Royal!" guessed Bobby quickly. "They're the only ones
who won't wear a sensible shoe."
CHAPTER XXIII
JUST DESERTS
"Who," demanded Betty, "is Marshall Morgan?"
"He's a pest," said Tommy, with characteristic frankness. "He has one
mission in life, and that is to plague those unfortunates who have to be
under the same roof with him. He never does anything on a large scale,
but then a mosquito can drive you crazy, you know."
"Dear me, he ought to know Ada," rejoined Bobby. "Perhaps he does. She is
a pestess, if there is such a word."
"There isn't," Betty assured her. "Anyway, this won't get our lunch back.
What are you going to do, Bob?"
"A little Indian work," was Bob's reply. "We'll send out scouts to locate
the thieves and then we'll surround them and let the consequences fall."
"I'll be a consequence," declared Bobby vindictively. "I'll fall on Ada
with such force she'll think an avalanche has struck her."
Bob sent some of the boys to trace the steps, and while they were gone
outlined his plans to the others. Once they knew where the marauders
were, they were to spread out fan-shape and swoop down upon the enemy.
"I figure they'll get a safe distance away and then stop to eat the
lunch," said Bob. "It is hardly likely that they will take the stuff back
to school with them."
"But Ada went to Edentown," protested Libbie. "We saw her in the bus,
didn't we, girls? And Ruth, too."
"They could easily come back in the same bus," said Betty. "Indeed, I'm
willing to wager that is just what they did. Miss Prettyman as a
chaperone probably killed any desire Ada had to go shopping."
The scouts came back after fifteen or twenty minutes to report that they
had discovered the invaders camped under a large oak tree and preparing
to open the boxes.
"They were laughing and saying how they'd put one over on you," said
Gilbert Lane.
"Well, they won't laugh long," retorted Bob grimly. "How many are there?"
"Marshall Morgan, Jim Cronk, the Royce boys, all three of 'em, Hilbert
Mitchell and George Timmins," named Gilbert, using his fingers as an
adding machine. "Then there are nine girls."
"Has one of them a brown velvet hat with a pink rose at the front and
brown gaiters and mink furs and a perfectly lovely velvet handbag?" asked
Betty. "And did you see a girl with black pumps and white silk stockings
and a blue tricotine dress embroidered with crystal beads?"
The boys looked bewildered.
"Don't believe we did," admitted Gilbert regretfully. "But one of 'em
called a skinny girl 'Ada' and somebody is named 'Gladys.'"
"Never mind the clothes," Bobby told him gratefully. "We knew those two
were mixed up in this."
They started cautiously, mindful of Bob's instructions not to make a
noise, and succeeded, after ten or fifteen minutes creeping, in getting
within hearing distance of the despoilers.
"You girls will have to tend to your friends," grinned Bob. "You can't
expect us to discipline them. But we'll give the boys something to
remember!"
The party spread out, and at his signal whistle they sprang forward,
shouting like wild Indians. Straight for the oak tree they charged and
closed in on the group beneath it. Those seated there rose to their feet
in genuine alarm.
"Rush 'em!" shouted Bob.
Pushing and scrambling, those in the attacking party began to force the
others down the narrow path. The boys were struggling desperately and
the girls were resisting as best they could and some were crying.
"Let us out!" wept Ada. "Ow! You're stepping on me! Let us out!"
She kicked blindly, and fought with her hands. The first person she
grasped was Ruth, who was nearly choked before she could jerk her fur
collar free.
"I will get out!" panted Ada. "Push, girls!"
The circle opened for them, and following Ada they dashed through
straight into a tangle of blackberry bushes. Half mad with rage and blind
from excitement they ploughed their way through, fighting the bushes as
though they were flesh and blood arms held out to stop them. When they
were clear of the thicket their clothes were in tatters and their faces
and hands scratched and bleeding cruelly.
There was nothing for them to do but to go back to the school and try to
invent a plausible story for their condition. All the cold cream in the
handsome glass jars on Ada's dressing table could not heal her smarting
face and thoughts that night.
Bob and his friends continued on their resolute way, pushing the luckless
cadets before them. Once out of the woods, they seized them by the jacket
collars and rushed them down to the lake and into the icy waters. They
generously allowed them to come out after a few minutes immersion, and
the sorry, dripping crew began the long run that would bring them to dry
clothes and, it is to be hoped, mended ways.
"Now the potatoes are done," Bob reported, after examining the oven
hollowed out and lined with stones. "Why not combine forces and eat?"
Every one was famished, and they found plenty of good things left in the
boxes. The uninvited guests could not have had those packages open long
before they were overtaken.
After a hearty picnic meal the boys helped the girls gather up their
branches and walked with them to the point where their boats were tied.
They had rowed over because of the attraction of the woods--Salsette
being located on the flat side of the lake--and now they must go back for
the afternoon drill that was never omitted even for such an important
occasion as the colonel's birthday.
Ada and her chums did not come down to dinner that night, and so did not
help with the decorating of the hall. That was pronounced an unqualified
success, as was the performance of "The Violet Patchwork" the following
night and the nut cake and the chocolate and the pistache ice-cream that
was served at the close.
Both audience and players were treated to two surprises in the course of
the evening. Bobby was responsible for one and, much to the astonishment
of the school, Ada Nansen and Constance Howard for the other.
True to her promise, the dauntless Bobby had accepted the humble role of
stage hand rather than have no part in the play, and she trundled scenery
with right good will and acted as Miss Anderson's right hand in a mood of
unfailing good humor. There was not an atom of envy in Bobby's character,
and she thought Betty the most wonderful actress she had ever seen.
"You look lovely in that dress," she said, as Betty stood awaiting her
cue at the opening of the second act.
Betty smiled, took her cue and walked on the stage.
A ripple of laughter that grew to hilarity greeted her after the first
puzzled moment.
"Oh, oh!" cried Madame hysterically, in the wings. "See, that Bobby! Some
one call her! She is walking with the tree!"
The rather primitive arrangements of the background provided for the play
called for a girl to stand behind each tree in the formal garden scene as
support. In her admiration of Betty, Bobby had unconsciously edged after
her to keep her in sight, and the startled audience saw the heroine being
persistently pursued by a pretty boxwood tree. Bobby was recalled to
herself, the tree became rooted in its place, and "The Violet Patchwork"
proceeded smoothly.
Between the third and fourth acts, the lights went out at a signal and
to the general surprise--for the players had known nothing of what was
to come--a velvety voice rolled out in the darkness singing the words
of "A Maid in a Garden Green," a song a great singer had made popular
that season.
"It's Ada," whispered the school with a rustle of delight. "No one else
can sing like that."
They encored her heartily, and she responded. Then the lights flared up
and died down again for the last act.
"Constance got her to do it," whispered Betty to Bobby. "I heard Miss
Anderson telling Miss Sharpe. Ada's face is so scratched she couldn't, or
rather wouldn't, show herself, and Constance said why not sing in the
dark the way they do at the movies? That tickled Ada--who'd like to be a
movie actress, Connie says--and she said she would."
"Constance Howard has a way with her," remarked Bobby sagely. "Any one
that can persuade Ada Nansen to do anything nice is qualified to take a
diplomatic post in Thibet."
Soon after the play the weather turned colder and skating and coasting
became popular topics of conversation. There was not much ice-skating,
as a rule, in that section of the country, but snow was to be expected,
and more than one girl had secret aspirations to go from the top of the
hill back of the school as far as good fortune would take her.
"Coasting?" Ada Nansen had sniffed when the subject was mentioned to her.
"Why, that's for children! Girls of our ages don't go coasting. Now at
home, my brother has an ice-boat--that's real sport."
"Well, Ada, I suppose you think I'm old enough to be your grandmother,"
said Miss Anderson, laughing. "I wonder what you'll say when I tell you
that I still enjoy a good coast? If you girls who think you are too old
to play in the snow would only get outdoors more you wouldn't complain of
so many headaches."
But Ada refused to be mollified, and she remained indifferent to the
shrieks of delight that greeted the first powdering of snow. Thanksgiving
morning saw the first flakes.
The holiday was happily celebrated at Shadyside, very few of the girls
going home. Mrs. Eustice preferred to add the time to the Christmas
vacation, and the girls had found that this plan added to their
enjoyment. Aunt Nancy and her assistants fairly outdid themselves on the
dinner, and that alone would have made the day memorable for those with
good appetites, and where is the school girl who does not like to eat?
The Dramatic Club gave another play to which the Salsette boys were
invited as a special treat, and a little dance followed the play.
"You're a great little actress, Betty," Bob told her when he came to
claim the first dance. "I'm almost willing to let you steer the new
bobsled the first time it snows."
The bobsled, built by Bob and his chums, was an object of admiration to
half of Salsette Academy. It was large and roomy and promised plenty of
speed. The boys, of course, were wild to try it, and Betty and Bobby, who
had been promised one of the first rides, joined them in earnestly
wishing for snow. Betty had a sled of her own, too, a graceful, light
affair her uncle had sent her.
The desired snow did not come for several days. Instead the weather grew
still and cold and the girls were glad to stay indoors and work on their
lessons or on things they were making for Christmas gifts.
"You may not have much money to spend, Norma," remarked Bobby one
afternoon, "but then you don't need it. Just look at the things you can
do with a crochet hook and a knitting needle."
Norma, bent over a pretty lace pattern, flushed a little.
"I'd like to be able to give grandma the things she needs far more than a
lace collar," she said quietly.
Betty knew that Mrs. Macklin was still in the Philadelphia hospital.
Every letter from Glenside now meant "a spell of the blues" for Norma,
who was beginning to have dark circles under her eyes. She looked as
though she might lie awake at night and plan.
When the girls put away their books and their sewing to go down to
dinner, a few uncertain feathery flakes were softly sifting down and late
that night it began to snow in earnest, promising perfect coasting.
CHAPTER XXIV
BETTY GOES COASTING
It did seem a shame that lessons should be as exacting as ever when
outside the trees bent beneath their white burden and eager eyes were
fixed longingly on the hill back of the school.
"You can't coast through the woods, anyway, Betty," Libbie whispered in
the French period. "You may be a wonder, but how can you go through the
tree stumps?"
"Don't intend to," whispered back Betty. "There's a cleared space in
there--I'll show you."
"Young ladies, if you please--" suggested Madame politely, and the girls
jerked their thoughts back to translation.
The moment lessons were over that afternoon, they dashed for their sleds.
The eight who chummed together had four sleds between them which was
enough for the enjoyment of all. Constance Howard had seen so little snow
in her life spent in California that she was very much excited about it
and had bought her sled in August to be ready for the first fall. Bobby
had been to Edentown and bought a little toy affair, the best she could
get there, and Frances Martin had sent home for her big, comfortable
Vermont-made sled that made up in dependability what it lacked in varnish
and polish. Counting Betty's, this gave them four sleds.
There was a conventional hill half a mile away from the school, toward
which most of the girls turned their steps. On the first afternoon it was
crowded. The Salsette cadets had come coasting, too, for on their side of
the lake there was not so much as a mound of earth, and whoever would
coast must perforce cross the lake.
"We'll go up to the woods," announced Betty. "There will be more room,
and it's much more exciting to go down a steep hill."
So it proved. The cleared space to which Betty had referred demanded
careful steering, and Frances Martin at the first glance relinquished the
control of her sled.
"I can't judge distances," she explained, touching her glasses, "and
I'd be sure to steer straight for a tree. Libbie, you'll have to be
the skipper."
So Libbie took Frances, Betty took Bobby, Constance took Norma on her
sled, and Alice steered for Louise, using Bobby's sled.
Such shrieks of laughter, such wild spills! If Ada Nansen had been there
to see she would certainly have been confirmed in her statement that
coasting was "for children." They were coming down for the sixth time
when Bob Henderson, the Tucker twins and Timothy Derby appeared.
"We thought we'd find you here!" was Bob's greeting. "Trust Betty to pick
out a mystic maze for her coasting. It's a wonder some of you girls
haven't shot down into Indian Chasm!"
"Well, I like a steep coast," said Betty defensively. "I wouldn't give a
cent a hundred for a little short coast down a gentle slope. Want me to
take you down on my sled, Bob?"
"I don't believe I do, thank you just the same," returned Bob politely.
"Six of you can pile on the bob, though, and I'll give you a thrilling
ride, safety guaranteed. Who wants to come?"
It ended by all taking turns, and by that time it was half-past four and
they must start back to school.
"I'm coming to-morrow," declared Betty. "I think winter is the nicest
time of the whole year."
"You say that of every season," criticised Bobby. "Besides, I think it
will rain to-morrow; it is much warmer than when we came out."
Bobby proved a good weather prophet for the next day was warmer and
cloudy, and when lessons for the day were over at half-past two, a fine
drizzle had begun to fall.
"Just the same I'm going," persisted Betty, pulling on her rubbers and
struggling into a heavier sweater. "The snow hasn't all melted, and
there will be enough for a good coast. I think you're a lazy bunch to
want to stay cooped up in here and knit. A little fresh air would be good
for you, Norma."
"I've a cold," said Norma, in explanation of her red eyes. "Anyway, I
don't feel like playing around outdoors. And Alice has gone to bed with a
headache and I'd rather not leave her."
Some had studying to do and others refused to be moved from their fancy
work, so Betty and her sled finally set off alone. She knew, of course,
that Norma's red eyes were the result of crying, as was Alice's headache.
They had definitely decided the night before that they would not return
to Shadyside after the Christmas holidays.
"I think this is a funny world," scolded Betty to herself, as she reached
her favorite hill and put her sled in position. "Here are Norma and
Alice, the kind of girls Mrs. Eustice is proud to have represent the
school, and they can't afford to take a full course and graduate. And Ada
Nansen, who is everything the ideals of Shadyside try to combat, has
oceans of money and every prospect of staying. She'll probably take a
P.G. course!"
A wild ride through the slushy snow made Betty feel better, and when, as
she dragged the sled up again, Bob's whistle sounded, the last trace of
her resentment vanished.
"Something told me you'd be out hunting a sore throat to-day," declared
Bob, in mock-disapproval. "The fellows all said there wouldn't be enough
snow to hold up a sparrow."