Blue Bonnet and Annabel drifted on toward their rooms.
"What sort of a girl is Mary Boyd?" Blue Bonnet asked. "She's rooming with a little friend of mine. Carita and I come from near the same place in Texas."
"Mary? Oh, Mary is a dear. A little spoiled, I reckon. She's an only child, I believe, and has a perfectly doting father. She's always just as you see her—smiling or laughing. Did you ever see such teeth in your life? The girls call her 'Sozie.' You know that picture, don't you? Sozodont! Girl all smiles and teeth."
"What do we do now?" Blue Bonnet asked, pausing at her own door.
"Now we exercise—walk. Generally we go over to the Fenway. In the spring and fall we play tennis."
"Do we all go? I mean all the girls together?"
"Yes, all of us—à la chain gang. The animals march out two by two."
"Alone?"
"Hardly. It's like the Charge of the Light Brigade—teacher to the right of us—teacher to the left of us—teacher in front ofus—"
"Really?"
"No, not really. Only to the back and front of us—usually. You'll have fifteen minutes to get into a walking suit if you care to; if you don't, just put on a big coat. It's raw out to-day."
Blue Bonnet preferred to freshen up. She brushed the tumbled hair, bathed her face in cold water, and put on a very smart-looking little grey suit with a Norfolk jacket and tam-o'-shanter to match.
She thought of Carita as she came out of her room, and started up-stairs after her. A teacher stopped her.
"The young ladies meet for their walk in the reception-room down-stairs," she said. "There is no visiting back and forth in the rooms except between four and five o'clock."
Blue Bonnet found the girls, Carita among the rest.
"We will walk together, Carita," she said.
"All right, I have so much to tell you, Blue Bonnet."
A teacher overheard the remark.
"The younger girls usually walk together," she said, turning to Blue Bonnet. "Have you no partner?"
"No. I only entered yesterday."
Mrs. White cast her eye over the waiting group. Each girl seemed supplied with a companion.
"So many of the girls are not back yet. Perhaps you would walk with me," she said.
"Thank you," Blue Bonnet answered politely.
They took their places at the rear of the line, and the brisk walk began. During that brief half hour, Blue Bonnet laid the foundation of a friendship that was to prove invaluable to her throughout her school year.
Mrs. Alicia White was a vocal teacher—thevocal teacher of the school it might be said, for there were several. She was in charge of the department and most efficient.
There was just enough mystery surrounding Mrs. White to make her an object of interest to the girls, and she had her full share of popularity among them. An army officer's widow, she had been thrown upon her own resources early in life, andhaving had exceptional musical advantages, as well as a good voice, had taken up teaching as a means of earning a livelihood.
She was a slight, fair woman, rather plain of features, but her face had a way of lighting into something closely akin to beauty when she became animated, and there was charm in her manner.
It had leaked out—probably without the slightest foundation—that Mrs. White had been deserted by her army husband, and around this bare incident all sorts of fantastic stories had been woven. At the hands of the girls the poor man suffered all kinds of indignities. Sometimes he was lured from the path of duty by a fascinating woman—at others drink, or his terrible temper caused the separation; but whatever his sins, they all redounded to the glory of Mrs. White, and deluged her with sympathy.
To the gossip of the school Mrs. White was apparently oblivious—if not oblivious, impervious. Her interest in the girls was rather indifferent, except for a chosen few, upon whom she bestowed a good deal of attention. Annabel Jackson was one of her special favorites.
Blue Bonnet found before the walk ended that Mrs. White had charge of the floor upon which she roomed, and a number of other things incident to school life and discipline.
Blue Bonnet had barely laid aside her things after returning from the walk when a knock at the door startled her. She opened it, admitting Annabel, Ruth, and Sue Hemphill.
"We came over to help you unpack," Annabel announced. "Three of us can do it quickly, and then perhaps you will come over to my room for a cup of tea. We have a whole hour to ourselves now."
Blue Bonnet was grateful, but a little embarrassed. She didn't especially care to open her trunk and bare its contents to utter strangers; but Sue was already tugging at the straps, and Ruth opening bureau drawers preparatory to putting things away.
Blue Bonnet took the key from her purse and unlocked the trunk.
As the gowns and underwear, hats and shoes, tumbled forth, there were exclamations of delight and approval.
"Oh, what a love of a hat! Do get out of the way, Ruth, so I can try it on;" this from Annabel.
"And, oh, what a sweet organdy! Where did you get that white wool Peter Thompson? I've searched the town for one."
Blue Bonnet turned from unwrapping something very dear to her to answer Sue.
Annabel leaned over her shoulder, watching with interest the small package in her hands.
"What is it?" she asked.
Blue Bonnet took off the last wrapping and disclosed to view a small miniature.
The girls crowded round her.
"Oh, how lovely!" they exclaimed in a breath. "Who is it?"
Blue Bonnet hesitated a brief second, gazing lovingly at the picture.
"My mother," she answered softly.
"Isn't she beautiful! Is she in Texas?" Ruth inquired.
"No. She's—dead."
There was a hush for a moment.
"Where's your father—have you one of him?" It was Annabel this time.
Blue Bonnet made another dive in the trunk and brought forth a package. From it she drew a photograph which she handed to Annabel.
"Is he in Texas—on the ranch you were telling us about?"
"No. He's dead—too."
There was a longer silence this time, and then it was Sue who put her arm through Blue Bonnet's shyly.
"I know what it means," she said. "I have lost my mother, too. I still have my father, though, thank Heaven, and Billy. You must know Billy—he's my brother at Harvard—the bestever—why—"
Annabel lifted her hands in protest.
"Now, Sue's going to take the pulpit," she said, "and we'll get a discourse on Billy! Billy the great! Billy the supreme—Billy—"
Ruth gave Annabel a push.
"You're jealous," she said, "because you haven't got such a brother yourself. Billy's all right. He's everything Sue says he is."
In the midst of the banter that followed, the door opened, and Joy Cross entered.
She put her suitcase down by the bed, and nodded to the girls indifferently. They nodded back and went on with the inspection of Blue Bonnet's wardrobe.
Blue Bonnet put the miniature carefully away in the bureau drawer, and, with that instinct of politeness which is inborn, went over to Joy and extended her hand.
Joy took it listlessly. The girls scarcely turned round.
When the clothes had all been put away, Annabel renewed her invitation to tea. She did not include Joy, and Blue Bonnet felt rather indignant. It seemed so rude.
"You girls certainly have it in for my room-mate," she said, as she closed the door, and a wave of sympathy went back to Joy.
Ruth Biddle shrugged her shoulders and made a grimace.
"She isn't in our crowd," she said, as if that excluded her from the right to exist—almost.
Annabel's room was a good deal like Annabel. It inclined to frills. It was furnished charmingly in cretonnes—pink, with roses and trailing vines. Pennants from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, and many other colleges adorned the walls. Everything in view—and there was much—expressed Annabel. Ruth's personality—if she had any—was entirely missing.
Annabel shook up a cushion and tucked it behind Blue Bonnet comfortably. She had a hospitable manner that fitted pleasantly with the cosiness of the room. Blue Bonnet looked about admiringly.
"I didn't know they allowed you to have so much in your room," she said, surprised.
"They don't—ordinarily. I've been here a long time, and things accumulate. Anyway, I told Miss North that if I couldn't have things the way I wanted them this year, I'd go somewhere else. They'll do a good deal to keep you after they once get you. You'll soon find that out."
"Oh, I don't know," Ruth said from her end of the room, where she was operating a chafing dish, "they send you away fast enough if you don't keep the rules. You remember that Fanny Price, last year."
"Oh, well,—that, of course. Fanny Pricehadn't any business here in the first place." Annabel began to arrange the tea cups.
"Will you have lemon in your tea?" she asked. "Do you mind if we call you Blue Bonnet? It's something of a mouthful, but I like it."
"Please do. I should love it. I take lemon, thank you."
"It's a good thing you do. Cream is an unknown quantity in this room. We did have some Eagle Brand, but Ruth spread the last of it on her crackers yesterday."
"On crackers?"
"Yes. Ever try it?"
Blue Bonnet made a face.
"Oh, it's not so bad. You'll come to it—some day when you're starving."
"Starving? Don't you get enough to eat here?"
"Yes—but it's not the Copley Plaza—exactly. We manage to get fat, anyway. That reminds me—where's Wee? Go get her, Sue, and ask her to bring over some Nabiscos, if she happens to have any handy. Wee's a regular life-saving station, usually."
Sue dashed out of the room and came back in a minute with a very large, stout girl, whom she introduced as her room-mate, Deborah Watts—better known as "Wee."
Good nature, affability—all the essentials of comradeship—fairly oozed from Deborah Watts.She took Blue Bonnet's hand in a grip that hurt, but Blue Bonnet felt its sincerity and squeezed back.
A bright girl in the school had once compared Deborah Watts to a family horse. Not a pretty comparison, but apt, when one knew Deborah.
The girl said that Deborah was safe, gentle, and reliable. Safe enough to be trusted with old people; gentle enough for children; and that she could, at times, get up enough ginger to give the young people a fair run. The comparison went even farther. The girl declared that sometimes—oh, very occasionally, under pressure and high living—Deborah could kick up her heels and light out with the best, and that when she did, people held up their hands in horror and said: "What ever in the world has got into Deborah Watts!"
Her room-mate and friends had beheld her in this enviable state a number of times, and had pronounced her—in boarding-school vernacular—a perfect circus.
"Can you cook things in your room?" Blue Bonnet inquired of Ruth, gazing at the chafing dish with the water steaming in it.
"You can have a chafing dish, if that's what you mean; that is, you can if you happen to be a Senior. Annabel and I graduate in June. Our menu is limited, however. We seldom roast fowl, or boil coffee"—she winked at Sue—"or try entrées,except—"
All three girls went off into peals of laughter. All but Wee Watts, who remained as sober as a judge.
"Do we, Wee?"
"Wee do!" giggled Annabel.
No one offered to explain the joke and Blue Bonnet looked mystified.
"First year?" Deborah inquired of Blue Bonnet.
"First," Blue Bonnet said. "I have answered that question fifty times to-day. I believe I'll have a placard printed and hang it round my neck."
"It might save breath during the next few days," Sue remarked. "Everybody you meet will ask you that. It sort of breaks the ice."
Blue Bonnet put down her tea cup and rose.
"It was awfully good of you girls to be so nice to me to-day. I appreciate it ever so much. I think I must go now. Carita will be looking for me. Come and see me, won't you? I'm in number ten"—she nodded toward Deborah Watts. "Not being a Senior I can't make you tea, but I might manage to have some crackers and Eagle milk. Good-by."
Back to contents
Blue Bonnetfound Carita up in her room, the centre of an admiring group. Refreshments, here, as in the corridor below, seemed to be in order.
Mary rose from a shoe-box which she was occupying, and offered it to Blue Bonnet. Several other girls rose also and offered their chairs.
Blue Bonnet took the shoe-box and acknowledged the introductions. The girls were all about Carita's own age—between fifteen and sixteen.
Carita reached over and touched the girl nearest her.
"Here's a girl as far away from home as we are, Blue Bonnet. She's from California—Los Angeles."
Blue Bonnet turned her attention for a moment to the girl—Isabel Brooks.
Isabel's eyes were red and swollen. She dropped her head as Blue Bonnet looked at her, and her breast heaved.
"Now, now!" Mary Boyd said, springing up from the bed on which she had perched. "Don't you cry any more. You'll be sick if you do, andthey'll put you in the Infirmary. Here, eat some more candy."
Isabel refused the candy and continued her sobbing. One or two others around the room, moved by Isabel's weeping, commenced to cry also.
Mary seemed helpless.
"Oh, dear," she said, and her own lip began to quiver, "they always do it—these new girls! They get us every last one started."
Blue Bonnet looked at Carita. Tears were in her eyes, and, even as Blue Bonnet looked, her head went down in her hands and she, too, began to sob.
Blue Bonnet rose to the occasion instantly. It was like a call to arms—the sight of those lonely children.
She looked at her watch.
"We have twenty minutes yet, to visit. Let's play a game. I know a fine one. Come on, everybody."
There was not the slightest response.
Mary Boyd took hold of Isabel and dragged her to her feet. Then she roused the others.
"Come on," she said. "You've got to play, whether you want to or not. How do you do it—Miss—"
"Call me Blue Bonnet."
The girls stood up listlessly—a sorry looking group.
"You can sit down," Blue Bonnet announced. "You don't have to stand—just keep your eyes on me. You are each of you a musical instrument."
She went round and whispered something in the ear of each girl.
"Now, I'm the drum. I stand here and beat. Rub-a-dub-dub! Rub-a-dub-dub—like that. Everybody must try to represent her instrument. Carita, you're a fiddle. Pretend to handle a bow. Isabel, you're a piano. Run your hands up and down as if you were playing a scale.
"Watch me. I beat the drum. When I stop beating and imitate one of your instruments—suppose it is the fiddle—then you stop playing the fiddle, Carita, and begin to beat the drum. If you don't stop instantly, and begin to beat the drum before I call out fiddle, you have to stand up here and take my place. See?"
Before five minutes had passed there was such hilarity in the room that it took several knocks at the door to bring a response.
A thin angular form stood in the doorway, and a stern voice said:
"Young ladies, I haf you to report to Miss North if not this noise stop instantly.Instantly.You understand? I speak not again!"
"Oh, isn't she too exasperating," remarked Peggy Austin, one of the older girls, as Maryclosed the door—a little quicker than might have been thought compatible with good manners.
"I perfectly abominate her," Mary answered. "I am going to ask Miss North if Fraulein can't be removed from this hall. I don't think it's one bit fair for us to have her all the time. She's just too interfering."
"It wouldn't do a particle of good to ask, Sozie," Peggy said. "Miss North caters to Fraulein, herself. She says she is the finest German teacher she ever saw. She imported her from Berlin at great expense and personal sacrifice to the Empire. The nation's been in mourning ever since she left!"
Mary giggled, and the new girls looked interested. Peggy's solemn face carried conviction.
"Goodness me," Carita exclaimed, "couldn't the Germans afford to keep her?"
Peggy shook her head.
"No," she declared, pretending to weep in her handkerchief, "it makes me cry to think of their disappointment—the poor things!"
A gong sounded, but the girls lingered.
"I want to see you after dinner, Carita," Blue Bonnet said as she left the room.
"We go down to the gymnasium and dance a while, after dinner," Mary called out.
"All right. I engage the first three dances then, Carita. Don't forget."
Blue Bonnet went down to her room thoughtfully; a vision of those homesick children before her eyes. She wondered what people meant by sending such infants away from home. Why, there was one who seemed scarcely old enough to comb her own hair. All of a sudden she felt old—grown up; responsibility weighed on her—the responsibility of Carita.
On her own hall she passed Mrs. White.
"What a serious face," the teacher said. "I hope it is not homesickness."
Blue Bonnet smiled brightly.
"No, I think I've fought that all out."
"That's good! Youth is not the time for tears."
"But I have just come from a regular downpour."
"It sounded like a downfall. I was in Madame de Cartier's room, just underneath. We thought the ceiling was coming through."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. I am afraid it was my fault. Those children were so horribly homesick that I suggested a game."
"That was very thoughtful, I am sure. Some of those young girls really suffer terribly. Sometimes it makes them quite ill."
Blue Bonnet wondered why Fraulein could not have been so reasonable.Shecertainly was disagreeable. She wished Carita might be under Mrs. White's wing. What a dear Mrs. White was, anyway.
Blue Bonnet opened her bedroom door, still lost in thought. The early winter twilight filled the room, almost obscuring her room-mate who sat near a window straining her eyes over a book.
Blue Bonnet snapped on the light.
"You'll ruin your eyes," she said pleasantly. "That's what my aunt always says to me when I read in the twilight."
Joy forced a half smile and continued reading.
"I suppose we get dressed for dinner now?" Blue Bonnet, ventured, beginning to unfasten her waist.
"Yes."
"Is dinner just at six?"
"Yes."
"What do we do in the meantime?"
"Study—or practise; or read, if you wish."
Blue Bonnet went into the bathroom and made as much of her toilet as was possible. When she came out, Joy was still poring over her book.
"That must be a hard lesson you are getting," Blue Bonnet remarked.
"It's a book I'm reading."
"Oh!"
There was an interval of silence during which Blue Bonnet put the finishing touches to her toilet. When she was quite dressed she stood hesitatingly by one of the windows, gazing out overthe brightly lighted city. Suddenly she turned and flew down the hall, knocking softly at number fifteen.
The door opened slightly and Annabel peered out.
"May I come in—please? I'm threatened with a terrible attack of—the blues, I reckon."
Annabel pulled her in quickly.
"Surely," she said, "only hurry. This isn't strictly according to Hoyle."
"You mean it's against the rules?"
Annabel nodded, her mouth full of pins.
"Then I'd better go."
"Nonsense, stay where you are! I was dying for some one to hook me up. Ruth's in the tub—been there an hour. If you hear any one coming, step in the closet."
"I shouldn't have come only I knew I was going to be homesick,and—"
"And Joy wasn't a very good antidote, was she?"
"Hardly. She won't talk."
Annabel laughed.
"You'll have to do what Sue did last year. That awful silence got on her nerves. Not that she was so anxious to hear Joy talk, but she got tired of putting forth all the effort. Well, she got somebody to make out a list of subjects on a typewriter. She gave it to Joy. 'Now,' she said, 'for goodness sake,talk. Choose, in any order you like, buttalk!'"
Blue Bonnet laughed merrily.
"Ssh!" Annabel warned. "You mustn't do anything more than breathe during this hour."
Blue Bonnet got up again.
Annabel pushed her back in the chair.
"Sit still," she said.
"What would they do if they found me?"
"That depends upon who found you. If it were the German ladyabove—"
"Fraulein?"
"Yes."
"Has she anything to do with this floor?"
"There isn't anything in the school that she hasn't something to do with."
"And if it were Mrs. White?"
"Mrs. White would do her duty. She would send you to your room—and you'd go—a heap quicker than you would for Fraulein."
"I think I'll go anyway. Oh, there's a knock!"
Annabel opened the door a crack.
"May I come in, Annabel?"
It was Mrs. White's voice, and Annabel was obliged to open the door.
Mrs. White looked at Blue Bonnet.
"I think I'll have to escort Miss Ashe to her room and show her the rules," she said, smiling.
"I'm ready. I was just going."
"Very well. We'll 'kill two birds with one stone.' I was going to your room to talk over your music."
Arm in arm they went down the corridor.
Mrs. White turned Blue Bonnet round after they had entered the room, and drew her attention to a white placard on the wall near the door.
"There," she said, "you will find all the rules."
She ran her finger along the printed column until she came to the one she wanted. Then she read aloud:
"'Visiting among students is forbidden except between the hours of four and five in the afternoon, and two and six on Saturdays.'
"Didn't you see these rules, Miss Ashe?"
"Oh, yes, I saw them," Blue Bonnet answered with unconcern that amazed Mrs. White. "I didn't read them. I hate rules!"
"But I am afraid you will have to read these—and obey them!"
"I suppose so."
Blue Bonnet sighed. "You see," she explained, "I've been brought up rather differently from most girls—that is, up to a year and a half ago. I lived on a big ranch in Texas with my uncle. Everything there was as free as the air and water. We didn't have any restrictions. Boston seems to be made up of 'em."
"We do have a good many conventions, that's true—especially here. It would be chaos without them. You can see that, can't you?"
"Oh, yes."
"And you will try to keep the rules?"
"Of course I'll try. I shouldn't like to displeaseyou."
The compliment was so naïvely given, and so evidently sincere, that Mrs. White looked pleased.
"I appreciate that very much," she said, "but you must keep on equally good terms with yourownconscience—have its approval, always."
The building in which Miss North conducted her school for girls had originally been a private mansion. It was interesting and attractive, with many odd nooks and mysterious passages that lent charm and romance to its young occupants. In recent years property adjoining had been added for recitation and school purposes; two houses welded into one.
The entire basement of the annex had been remodeled into a well-equipped gymnasium, and at the rear of the lot a swimming pool had been erected.
It was the custom of the girls to repair to the gymnasium after dinner for a half hour's frolic. Usually they danced.
Blue Bonnet and Carita followed the other girlsdown-stairs and through the narrow passage that connected the two buildings, a passage known as the subway—or sub.
"Mercy, isn't this spooky?" Carita said, taking a better hold on Blue Bonnet's arm.
"Oh, this isn't anything? Wait a minute."
Mary Boyd drew the girls over to a door at one side of the gymnasium and flung it wide.
"That's a part of the furnace room," she said. "You can go through here and follow another little dark hall—oh, much worse than this—and it takes you to the kitchen and pantries. We went down one night lastyear—"
"One night?"
Carita shuddered.
"Yes, it was loads of fun. There were five or six of us. We ate enough apple sauce and fresh bread to kill us."
At the piano in the gymnasium a girl was playing a two-step.
"Let's sit here and talk," Blue Bonnet said to Carita, drawing her to a secluded corner. "I feel as if I had hardly seen you."
Sue Hemphill passed, and, seeing Blue Bonnet, dropped into a seat beside her.
"Well," she said, "how do you girls like it by this time?"
"The school, you mean?" Blue Bonnet asked.
"Yes."
"It's been rather strenuous to-day. I'm beginning to look forward to bedtime. I'm tired."
"It is tiresome—getting adjusted."
"What do we do after this half hour? It's a regular merry-go-round, isn't it? A continuous performance."
Sue laughed.
"We study the next hour. Sometimes—twice a week—we have a short lecture on general culture. You'll be taught how to enter a room properly, and how to leaveit—"
"I know that already."
"Of course, but it has to be impressed."
"Then what?"
"Then we go to our rooms. Sometimes we settle down, and sometimes we don't. It depends. Once in a while we have a feast. We'll invite you next time."
Blue Bonnet looked interested.
"Where do you have it?"
"Oh, in our rooms sometimes—but it's risky. The sky parlor is the best place. That's up in the attic—under the eaves. It's fine! There's no teacher to bother. It's a little cold just now. They don't heat it, but you can put on your bath-robe and be comfy. We're waiting now for Wee Watts to get her clean clothes back from home. You see, she only lives an hour or two out of the city, and she sends her things home to be washed. Whenthey come back, her mother always fills up the suitcase with cakes and cookies and jam—well, not jam, any more. The last jar she sent, broke, and spilled all over a new silk waist she was sending Wee for a party. It was quite tragic."
"The loss of the jam—or the waist?"
"Both. It was hard on Wee, losing the waist. You see, she's so stout she can't borrow much from the rest of us."
Annabel came up at that moment and asked Sue to dance, so Carita and Blue Bonnet visited until the gong sounded.
On the way up to the study hall, Miss North stopped Blue Bonnet.
"Will you come to my office a moment after study hour?" she said. "I want to go over your program with you. The room is just beyond the reception hall on the first floor."
Blue Bonnet found Miss North waiting when she entered the room an hour later.
"You found your classes this morning, all right?" she began.
"Yes, thank you, Miss North."
"And decided upon your course?"
"Yes. Professor Howe thought I could enter the Junior class without any trouble. I'm taking college preparatory. I don't know yet whether I'llgo to college or not, but my aunt wanted me to prepare."
There was a few moments' conversation relative to the work, and Miss North rose.
"Good night," she said, holding out her hand. "I hope you are going to be happy with us. You found the girls pleasant? Annabel Jackson is about your age."
"I'm not seventeen yet," Blue Bonnet said. "I reckon my clothes make me look older. I begged Aunt Lucinda to let me have them a little longer than I've been wearing. Yes, I like the girls very much. Good night."
In her own bed, under cover of darkness, Blue Bonnet had much to think about that night. Opposite her, as still as the dead, Joy Cross slumbered. Blue Bonnet's mind went back over the day. How full it had been—and strange! She almost felt as if she had been transported to another world. In the stress and excitement of the new surroundings her old life faded like a dream. Even the We Are Sevens seemed remote and indistinct in her tired brain.
She dozed off, finally, to dream of marching to gongs. Gongs that urged and threatened; and of a certain German individual who lived in a garret, and who growled like a savage beast if she made the slightest sound as she passed her door.
The next two weeks fairly flew along, and Blue Bonnet was too busy to be homesick. There were good long letters from home often; from the faithful We Are Sevens, full of news and cheer; and from Uncle Cliff, in far-off Texas.
Blue Bonnet found the course she had selected a hard one, with a good deal of outside reading in English. Then there was her music, vocal and instrumental. Practising took up a great deal of time.
The teacher of piano—Fraulein Schirmer—was very nice, Blue Bonnet thought, and she was glad to tell her aunt that she liked her, since she and Fraulein had been such good friends in Munich.
Because of Miss Clyde, Fraulein took much interest in Blue Bonnet, discovering a good deal of musical ability, she wrote Miss Clyde.
Mrs. White still continued to be the joy she promised, and Blue Bonnet looked forward to her vocal lessons with the keenest pleasure.
"Will I ever sing really well?" she asked Mrs. White one morning, and Mrs. White had answered:
"That depends upon yourself, and how much you want to sing. You have a good voice, plenty of excellent timbre in it. You have even more—the greatest essential of all—temperament. You live—you feel—you have the sympathetic quality that spells success—with work!"
Blue Bonnet went from her lesson feeling that she had the world almost in her grasp.
Her English teacher, too, Professor Howe—- Blue Bonnet could not understand why a woman should be called Professor—was delightful. A storehouse of knowledge, she made the class work so interesting that the forty-five minutes of recitation usually passed all too quickly.
Professor Howe was an unusually able woman, much looked up to by the Faculty and pupils. She was middle-aged—past the fortieth milestone, at any rate—and somewhat austere in manner. Those who knew her best declared that her stern demeanor was a professional veneer, put on in the classroom for the sake of discipline, and that underneath she was intensely human and feminine. She had charge of the study hall and acted as associate principal.
Professor Howe interested Blue Bonnet. She didn't mind the austere manner at all. There was something behind it—a quick flash of the eye, a sudden smile, limited usually to a brief second; an intense, keen expression that acted like an electric battery to Blue Bonnet. It stimulated her to effort. No matter what else had to be neglected, English was invariably prepared.
And, as admiration usually begets admiration, Professor Howe was attracted to Blue Bonnet.
"Miss Elizabeth Ashe," she said to Miss Northat the end of the second week, "promises to be a bright pupil. She has an unusually clear mind, and good judgment. She's going to be quite a stimulus to the class."
Miss North seemed a little surprised.
"That's rather odd," she said. "Miss Root told me only a half hour ago that Miss Ashe was very indifferent in her mathematics—absolutely inattentive."
Professor Howe raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, but she made no comment.
Blue Bonnet could have explained. If not to Miss North's satisfaction, to her own, entirely. She hated Miss Root, and she hated mathematics, which added fuel to fire.
At the end of the third week of school Blue Bonnet was summoned to Miss North's office.
Miss North looked serious as she motioned Blue Bonnet to a seat and opened the conversation.
"I am very sorry to find that you are not doing well in your mathematics, Miss Ashe. What is the trouble?"
"I hate mathematics and I dislike Miss Root," Blue Bonnet replied with a frankness that quite took Miss North's breath away.
"That is very disrespectful, Miss Ashe; I cannot have you speak of one of your teachers in that way."
"But I don't like her, Miss North, not a bit!"
"That is not to the point. Why are you inattentive?"
"I'm not. I am only stupid!"
Miss North was obliged to smile.
"I can hardly think that," she said. "I have excellent reports from other teachers regarding your work."
Blue Bonnet let the compliment pass without any show of pride or pleasure.
"I meant stupid in mathematics. I always have been."
"Perhaps you haven't got hold of them properly. The difficulty often begins in the primary grades."
"Perhaps that is it. I always had a tutor or a governess on the ranch. I hated arithmetic, so we didn't bother much with it. When I entered school in Woodford I just managed to slide through my mathematics. I never got more than a passing grade."
Miss North looked at Blue Bonnet as if she were some new species of girl with whom she was unfamiliar. Such honesty was quite without precedent.
"And Miss Root? Why do you dislike her?"
"Miss Root is too sarcastic. When I make a mistake she calls the attention of the class to it."
Miss North looked stern.
"You may be excused, now, Miss Ashe," she said. "I will investigate this matter."
A day or two later there seemed to be a change of atmosphere in Miss Root's classroom. Miss Root was very nice to Blue Bonnet—even trying to unravel hard knots, and Blue Bonnet gave strict attention. She stopped Blue Bonnet one day at the end of a period.
"You see what you can do when you try, Miss Ashe," she said.
Blue Bonnet flushed a warm red.
"I tried all the time, Miss Root—but—I reckon—maybe we didn't just understand each other."
The girl's sweet smile was more appealing than her words. Such spontaneity was infectious. A faint pink crept into the teacher's withered cheek, and for a moment the dull grey of her humdrum existence changed to a startling blue. She held out her hand.
"I daresay that was just the trouble. You are very young to have so much philosophy. If you are puzzled again, come to my room. I want you to like mathematics—they are great mental gymnastics. You must learn to get fun out of them."
Back to contents
Itwas Monday morning—the beginning of Blue Bonnet's fourth week at Miss North's school. Prayers were just over and Blue Bonnet had come up to her room to make her bed. She was drawing up the counterpane when there was a rap at the door and Mary Boyd entered.
"Oh, Blue Bonnet," she said, her eyes wide with excitement; "Carita's sick—real sick! Mrs. Goodwin just came to our room and took her to the Infirmary."
Blue Bonnet looked at Mary in amazement.
"Sick?" she repeated. "Sick? Why, she was all right yesterday."
Mary shook her head.
"No, she wasn't. She hasn't been well for several days; but she begged me so not to tell anybody that I didn't. I wish now I had. I'm awfully frightened about her. She's had headache for a week. Goodness knows what she's got! That's the way typhoid fever and a lot of things come. You ache allover—"
"Mary," Blue Bonnet said sternly, "it was very wrong of you not to tell me. I am responsible for Carita. If anything should happen to her here—" she paused; the thought was too dreadful to contemplate.
Blue Bonnet started out the door.
Mary caught, and held her tightly.
"Where are you going, Blue Bonnet?"
"To the Infirmary, of course. Let me go."
"No, no, you can't! It's strictly against the rules. Carita's quarantined. They've sent for the doctor."
The word quarantined sent a fresh chill to Blue Bonnet's heart.
"Rules or no rules, I'm going to Carita."
But Mary held her fast.
"Oh, no, Blue Bonnet, please, please don't! It will get you in trouble. Go find Mrs. Goodwin. She's awfully nice, really she is. She'll tell you all about it."
But Mrs. Goodwin was nowhere to be found.
"That settles it," Blue Bonnet said. "I shall go to the Infirmary." And to the Infirmary she went.
The door was closed. Blue Bonnet opened it boldly.
Carita lay on one of the little hospital cots, her eyes closed, her face almost as white as the sheet that was drawn up close about her.
"Carita—Carita, dear," Blue Bonnet said softly, kneeling down beside her. "What's the matter? Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"
The closed eyelids fluttered for a second, then opened wide with terror.
"Oh, Blue Bonnet, go out of here, quick! They don't know what I've got. You might catch something!"
For answer Blue Bonnet smoothed the black hair from the white brow and looked into the face eagerly.
"Please—please go, Blue Bonnet. I'm all right. Really I am! Please go away; anyway until the doctor comes."
A little red spot began to glow in each of the white cheeks and Carita tried to sit up in bed. She fell back limply.
Blue Bonnet was terror stricken.
"What do they mean by leaving you alone?" she said, clasping and unclasping her hands. "It's outrageous!"
"I've only been alone a few minutes. Mrs. Goodwin just stepped out a minute."
As Carita spoke the door opened and Mrs. Goodwin herself entered, followed by a very professional looking man carrying a satchel.
Mrs. Goodwin looked at Blue Bonnet in surprise, and as the doctor went over to Carita's bed, she took her to one side.
"You must go out of here at once, Miss Ashe; this is quite against the rules."
Blue Bonnet caught Mrs. Goodwin by the arm impatiently.
"What is the matter with Carita? Is it anything very dreadful—a disease like typhoid or anything?"
"We don't know yet," Mrs. Goodwin replied, opening the door and showing Blue Bonnet out.
"Will you please let me know as soon—as soon as you know yourself, Mrs. Goodwin?"
The alarm in the girl's face appealed to the kind house-mother and she promised willingly: reiterating that Blue Bonnet must not come again to the Infirmary without permission.
Blue Bonnet passed out of the room slowly, casting a lingering glance toward Carita. The doctor had her hand, was feeling her pulse.
"I will come to your room, Mrs. Goodwin, after my English period, at nine forty-five. May I? Perhaps you will know more then. May I, please?"
"Yes, Miss Ashe. And say nothing about this to any of the girls."
Blue Bonnet promised and went to her class reluctantly.
At nine forty-five she left the classroom and went straight to Mrs. Goodwin's room, but Mrs. Goodwin was not in. She went on to the Infirmary.
This time she knocked and stepped back well from the door.
Mrs. Goodwin came out, closing the door behind her. Her face looked serious, though she tried to speak lightly.
"The doctor cannot tell for another forty-eight hours just what is the matter with Miss Judson. He hopes it is nothing serious."
"Is it anything contagious—like a fever?"
"We don't know."
"May I see Carita a minute?"
"Not to-day."
"Will some one stay with her all the time? I should like her to have a nurse."
"I will not leave Miss Judson, Miss Ashe. She will have every care. Please do not come up on this floor again. I will keep you advised as to her condition. Do not make yourself unhappy about it. I know that you are very anxious."
"Oh, I am, Mrs. Goodwin. Awfully—awfully anxious! You see—" she hesitated—"I am responsible for Carita's being here, and if there's anything very much the matter, I ought to send for my aunt."
"That will all be attended to, Miss Ashe, at the proper time."
"But what did the doctor say?"
"He thinks Miss Judson may be getting acclimated. She has lived a very free life in the opencountry, and this confinement, for a while, may tell upon her. I really think it is nothing more than that."
Blue Bonnet decided to skip her French, and went to her own room to think a little while. She had barely closed the door when there was a knock.
Fraulein stood just outside the door, an inquisitive, disagreeable expression on her face.
"Are you ill, Miss Ashe?" she said.
"No, Fraulein, I am not ill."
"Then why are you in your room at this hour? Have you not some class? French?"
"Yes, I have French at this hour."
"And you go not to the lesson?"
There was surprise and indignation in Fraulein's expression.
"I shall haf to report you to Miss North."
Blue Bonnet picked up her French books and pushed past Fraulein.
"I will save you the trouble," she said. "I am going to Miss North now, myself."
Fraulein stared after the flying figure.
"She is one impertinent young person," she said to herself, and followed Blue Bonnet down the first flight of stairs to make sure that she really went to Miss North's office.
Miss North was at her desk, busy with some papers.
"May I speak with you, Miss North?" Blue Bonnet said.
"What is it, Miss Ashe?"
"You know about Carita, Miss North?"
"Mrs. Goodwin has reported her illness."
"I think that my aunt should be notified at once."
Blue Bonnet did not realize in her excitement that her tone was a bit dictatorial.
"We are responsible for Carita,and—"
"Miss Judson will have every attention, Miss Ashe. She is in no immediate danger. I shall notify Miss Clyde as soon as I think it necessary."
"You mean that you will not notify her to-day?"
"Hardly—to-day."
"Then I shall, Miss North! I want to report to you that I didn't go to my French class this morning. You will probably hear of it from Fraulein Herrmann, though I should have told you anyway."
She was out of the room and half way down the hall when Miss North called her.
Blue Bonnet came back and took the chair to which Miss North pointed, wonderingly.
"Why did you not go to your French class, Miss Ashe?"
"Because I was so worried about Carita. I knew I couldn't make any kind of a recitation."
"That does not excuse you from going. You may report now to Madam de Cartier. In regardto Miss Judson—" Miss North paused, as trying to think of the best way to impress her authority upon the very determined young girl before her.
"You will leave Miss Judson to the care of Mrs. Goodwin and Doctor Giles for the present. As soon as there is the slightest cause for alarm your aunt will be notified. You may go now."
In the hall Blue Bonnet met Mary Boyd.
"How's Carita?" Mary asked. "Have they found out what's the matter with her?"
"No. The doctor can't tell yet."
"What doctor?"
"I think his name is Giles."
"Doctor Giles! Oh, mercy, they always get him, and he's slower than molasses at Christmas. That's just the way he did when I was sick. First he said it was cold—then it was grippe; then it looked like something else. By the time they got my mother here I was so sick I didn't know her."
"Mary," Blue Bonnet said, actually frightened, "is that really true? Aren't you exaggerating?"
"No. You ask Peggy Austin. She'll tell you!"
But Blue Bonnet's mind was made up. She would take no chances. If she had been a little older, a little more experienced, she would have taken Mary's opinion of Doctor Giles for exactly what it was worth—the prejudice of a spoiled child. But Blue Bonnet was very young herself, and very much excited.
She went directly to Professor Howe's room, but Professor Howe was teaching. So was Madam de Cartier. Blue Bonnet's next period was vacant, so she went to the study hall and slipped into her seat quietly.
Fraulein Herrmann was in charge of the room. She looked at Blue Bonnet suspiciously, and watched her as she got out her books.
Blue Bonnet opened her Latin, but the words danced before her eyes. Study was out of the question. Her mind and heart centred upon Carita. Poor little Carita, white and forlorn, miles and miles away from her father, her mother, shut up in a room with a woman she scarcely knew, the thought was intolerable.
For a few minutes she sat thinking. How could she get word to Aunt Lucinda? There was the long distance telephone, but she hardly knew how to manage that; there might be complications, and then any one could hear, the telephone was so publicly placed.
Suddenly it flashed over her that she could get a letter—a special delivery—to Woodford that afternoon. One of the day pupils would mail it.
Unmindful of Fraulein's watchful eye, she leaned over and spoke to her seat-mate, Ethel Merrill.
"Would you do me a favor, Ethel?" she asked.
"Surely," Ethel replied.
Blue Bonnet explained—a bit indefinitely. Itwas a letter—a very important one—that must be mailed at noon.
Ethel promised to take it without fail.
Blue Bonnet got out some paper and began writing hastily.