98CHAPTER XVI.STORIED WEST ROCK.
When Marion Parke went back to her room the night after Miss Ashton’s entertainment, she was in a great deal of perturbation. The title of Susan Downer’s story, on its announcement, had filled her with surprise, for since her coming to the school she had never before heard West Rock mentioned. When she had asked about it, no one seemed even to have known of it, and that Susan should not only have heard, but been so interested as to choose it for the subject of her story, was a puzzle! But when the story was read, and she found it, in all its details, so exactly like her father’s, her surprise changed to a miserable suspicion, of which she was heartily ashamed, but from which she could not escape. Sentence after sentence, event after event, were so familiar to her, nothing was changed but the names of the women who figured in the story.
The first thing she did after coming to her room was to take the magazine from under the Bible, and open to the story. There was an ink-blot on the first page, which some one had evidently been trying to remove with the edge of a knife. It must have99been done hastily, for the leaf was jagged, and most of the ink left on.
This Marion was sure was not there the last time she had opened the magazine; some one had dropped it recently. Who was it?
She hastily re-read the story. Yes, she had not been mistaken, Susan Downer’s story was the same!
Was it possible that two people, her father and Susan, who had never been in New Haven, but might have known about Goff and Whalley from her study of English history, though not about West Rock as her father had seen and described it, could have happened upon the same story? How very, very strange!
Marion dropped the magazine as if it was accountable for her perplexity; then she sat and stared at it, until she heard the door opening, when she snatched it up, and hid it away at the bottom of her trunk.
It was Dorothy who came into the room; and Marion’s first impulse was to go to her and tell her all about it, ask her what she should do, for do something she felt sure she must.
Dorothy saw her, and called,—
“Marion! isn’t it splendid that Sue wrote such a fine piece? I feel that she is a real honor to our class and to Rock Cove! Her brother Jerry will be so happy when he hears of it.”
“Why, Marion!” catching sight of Marion’s pale100face, “what is the matter with you? You look as pale as a ghost. Are you sick?”
“No-o,” said Marion slowly. “O Dody! Dody!”
“Marion! there is something the matter with you. Sit down in this chair. No, lie down on the lounge. No, on your bed. You’d better undress while I go for the matron. I’ll be very quick.”
“Don’t go, Dody! Don’t go,” and Marion caught tight hold of Dorothy’s arm, holding her fast. “I’m not sick; I’m frightened.”
But in spite of her words, indeed more alarmed by them, Dorothy broke away and rushed down to the matron’s room, who, fortunately, was out. Then she went for Miss Ashton, but she also had not returned. So Dorothy, unwilling to leave Marion alone any longer, went back to her.
While she was gone, Marion had time to resolve what she would do, at least for the present; she would leave Susan in her own time and way to make a full confession, which she tried to persuade herself after a little that she would certainly do. So when Dorothy came back she met her with a smile, told her not to be troubled, that it was the first time in her life such a thing had ever happened, and she hoped it never would again.
“But you said you were frightened,” insisted Dorothy, “and you looked so pale; what frightened you?”
Marion hesitated; to tell any one, even Dorothy, would be to accuse Susan of such a mean deception.101No; her resolve so suddenly made was the proper one: she would keep her knowledge of the thing until Susan herself confessed, or assurance was made doubly sure; for suppose, after all, Susan had written the story, how could she have known about it in that magazine? She had never lent it to her; she had never read it to any of her room-mates, or to any one in the school, proud of it as she was. Indeed, the more she thought of it, the more sure she was that she ought to be ashamed of herself for such a suspicion, and, strange as it may seem, the more sure she also was, that almost word by word Susan had stolen the story.
“I was frightened at a thought I had, a dreadful thought; I wouldn’t have any one know it. Don’t ask me, Dody, please don’t; let us talk about something else,” she said.
Then she began to talk rapidly over the events of the evening, not, as Dorothy noticed, mentioning Susan or her success. Dorothy wondered over it, and an unpleasant thought came into her mind.
“Can it be that Marion is jealous of Sue, and disappointed and vexed that her piece wasn’t taken any more notice of? I’m sure it was an excellent story, ‘How Ben Fought a Prairie Fire.’” Marion had read it to her before handing it in, and she had been much interested in it, but it didn’t compare with Susan’s, and it wasn’t like Marion to feel so. She never had shown such a spirit before.
Neither Susan nor Gladys came to their room until102the last moment allowed for remaining away. Susan was overwhelmed with congratulations on her success. The teacher of rhetoric told her she felt repaid for all the hours she had spent in teaching her, by the skill she had shown in this composition, and if she continued to improve, she saw nothing to prevent her taking her place, by and by, among the best writers in the land. Kate Underwood pretended to be vexed, “having her laurels taken away from her,” she said “was not to be borne;” and Delia Williams, the rival of Kate in the estimation of the school, made even more fun than Kate over her own disappointment. Some of the girls made a crown of bright papers and would have put it on Susan’s head, but she testily pushed it away.
Susan’s love of prominence was well known in the school, and even this small rejection of popular applause they wondered over.
And when the girls began to cluster around her, and to ask if she had ever been to that West Rock, if there was really such a place, and if all those things she wrote of so beautifully had ever happened? she was silent and sulky; and in the end, crowned with her new honors, at the point in her life she had always longed for, and never before reached, she looked more like a girl who was ashamed of herself, than like one whose vanity and love of praise had for the first time been fully gratified.
She dreaded going to her room; she was afraid something to mar her success was waiting for her103there. She wished Marion Parke had never come from the West, that Gladys had never been weak enough to take her in for a room-mate. In short, Susan was more unhappy than she had ever been before. Gladys, full of frolic with a large clique of girls in another part of the room, had not given her a thought.
To have Susan write so good a story had been the same surprise to her that it was to every one; but the reading was no sooner over, than she had forgotten it, and if the teacher had not told her it was time she went to her room, she would also have forgotten there was any room to go to.
When she saw Susan she said, “Come on if you don’t want to get reported. I say, Sue, haven’t we had a real jolly time?” but much to Susan’s relief not a word about “Storied West Rock.”
Dorothy had been waiting for Susan, and when the gas was out and they were all in bed, she whispered to her,—
“O Sue! I’m so glad for you.” Dorothy thought a moment after she heard a sound like a smothered sob, but Susan not answering or moving, she concluded she had fallen quickly asleep, and that was a half snore; so she went to sleep herself, but not without some troubled thoughts about Marion and her unusual behavior.
When Marion and Susan met the next morning, Marion noticed that Susan avoided her, never even looked at her; and when Dorothy and Gladys went104away to a recitation, leaving them alone, Susan hastily gathered up her books, and going into her bedroom, shut the door.
Marion thought this over. To her it looked as if Susan felt guilty and was afraid; but she had determined not to watch her, not even to seem to suspect her. “How should she know that I remember the story?” she thought, “or, indeed, that I have ever so much as read it? I will put it off my mind; I will! Iwill!”
But, in spite of her resolutions, Marion could not; and as days went on she took to wondering whether by thus concealing what she knew, she was not making herself a partner in the deception.
Susan, not being at once accused by Marion, came slowly but comfortably to the conclusion that she had not even the vaguest suspicion that anything was wrong; still, she sedulously avoided her, and when Dorothy noticed and asked her about it, answered crossly, “She never had liked that girl, and she never should to the longest day of her life.”
“And Marion certainly does not approve of Susan. How unfortunate!” thought this kind Dorothy.
105CHAPTER XVII.NOVEMBER SNOWSTORM.
When November had fairly begun, the grove was leafless; the boats taken out of the little lake and stored carefully away, to await the return of birds and leaves; the days grown short, dark, and cold; the “constitutionals” matters of dire necessity, but not in the least of pleasure; study assumed new interest, and the worried teachers, relieved for a time of their anxieties over half-learned lessons, began to enjoy their arduous work, finding it really pleasant to teach such bright girls.
The girl who made the best recitation was the heroine of the hour, rules were observed more faithfully, a tender spirit went with them into the morning and evening devotions, Faculty meetings became cheerful. This seemed to Miss Ashton one of the most prosperous and successful fall terms she had ever known; she congratulated herself constantly on its benign influences, and often said, “I have fewer black sheep in my flock than I have ever gathered together before.”
There was one reason for this prosperity which she fully realized. Thanksgiving was not far distant,106and on that happy New England festival, the school had a holiday of three or four days.
It was a practice to send then to the parents or guardians of the pupils an account of their progress in their studies. The system of marking had not been abandoned in the school; and many a lazy scholar, whom neither intreaties nor scolding seemed to touch, was alarmed at the record which she was to carry home. Such a thing had been known as girls refusing to leave the academy even for Thanksgiving, rather than to face what they knew awaited them with their disappointed parents.
But from whatever cause the change had come, it was destined to have a severe shock before the festival day came.
Montrose Academy had been purposely built within a few miles of the old and famous school for boys in Atherton. The reasons for this were, the ease with which the best lecturers could be obtained from there in many departments (a competent man finding plenty of time to lecture in both academies), and the general literary atmosphere which a social acquaintance engendered.
Of course this social acquaintance was not without its drawbacks, and it had been found necessary for both principals to require written permits for the visits which the boys were inclined to make upon the girls at Montrose.
So far, during this term, the boys had been fully occupied by their athletic games; but as the ground107became one series of frozen humps, hands grew numb, and feet cold, the interest in them subsided; and yet the love of misrule, so much stronger in a boys’ than in a girls’ school, grew more active and troublesome.
Jerry Downer, a brother of Susan Downer, was a member of this famous school; and it soon became known among a class of boys who studied the Montrose catalogue more faithfully than they did their Livy, that he had a sister there, that she was a lively girl, not too strict in obeying rules, fond of fun, “up to everything,” as they described her; so it not infrequently happened that Jerry was invited by a set, with whom at other times he had little to do, to ride over with them to Montrose, he calling on his sister and cousins, while they apparently were waiting for him.
In this way Jerry had been quite frequently there, no objection being made by Miss Ashton, as a note from her to the principal of Atherton Academy brought back a flattering account of Jerry as a scholar, and as a boy to be fully trusted.
Jerry had improved in every respect since he went to Atherton. He was now a tall, broad-shouldered, active, well-dressed young man, who rang the doorbell of the majestic porch at the Montrose Academy with that unconsciousness which is the perfection of good manners, and which came to him from his simplicity, and went in among the crowd of girls, neither seeing nor thinking of any but those he had come to visit.108
Susan, in her own selfish way, was proud of him, so he was always sure of a reception that sent him back to his studies ambitiously happy.
On the fifteenth of November there fell upon Massachusetts such a snowstorm as the rugged old State never had known before. It piled itself a foot deep on the level ground, heaped up on fence and wall, covered the trees with ermine, until even the tenderest twig had its soft garment; bent telegraph poles as ruthlessly as if communication was the last thing to be cared for, blotted telephoning out of existence, delayed trains all over the north, turned electric and horse cars into nuisances, filled the streets and the railroad stations with impatient grumblers, had only one single redeeming thing, the beauty of its scenery, and a certain weird, uncanny feeling it brought of being suddenly taken out of a familiar world and dropped into one the like of which was never even imagined before.
There was one part of the community, however, that looked upon it with great favor.
“Now for the jolliest of sleigh-rides!” said a clique of Atherton boys. “Hurra for old Jerry Downer! We’ll make him turn out this time!”
The roads between the two places were soon well worn, and not two days after the astonished world had waked to its surprise, Samuel Ray’s best sleigh was hired, four extra sets of bells promised for the four horses, and a thoroughly organized “spree” was decided upon.109
It was no use to ask Jerry to help them in any thing contrary to the rules; but through him they might convey to certain girls there the knowledge of their coming, and their plans for the evening. They would give Jerry a note to his sister; she would hand it to Mamie Smythe; and, once in her possession, the whole thing would take care of itself.
The bells were taken off from the horses and put carefully away in the bottom of the sleigh before it left the stable; the boys did not have it driven to the dormitories, as it did when they had a licensed ride, but met it at Wilbur’s Corner.
They had a ready reason for this, and for the absence of the bells when Jerry noticed and inquired about them. It would not do to give him the least occasion to suspect them.
It was a beautiful night, with a bright moon making the cold landscape clearer and colder. There wasn’t a young heart in either of these two educational towns that would not have leaped with joy over the pleasure of a sleigh-ride then and there.
A very merry ride the boys had as soon as they had cleared the thickly settled part of the town, breaking out into college songs, glees, snatches of wild music that the buoyant air caught up and carried on over the long reaches of the ghost-like road before them.
Jerry had a fine baritone voice, and he loved music. How he led tune after tune was a marvel and a delight. As they passed solitary farmhouses,110where only a light shone from a back kitchen window, the quiet people there would drop their work and listen as the sleigh dashed by.
When the party reached Montrose, Jerry was told that “while he was making his visit they would drive on, and if they were not back in time he had better go home by the train, as they knew he would not like to be out late.”
“And by the way,” said Tom Lucas, taking a ticket out of his pocket, “here is a railroad ticket I bought the other day; you’d better use it, old fellow. I shall never want it—that is, if we are not back in time for you.”
The boys knew Jerry worked hard for every cent he had, and Tom would have felt mean if he had let a ride to which he had invited him be an expense.
The first thing he did when Susan came into the room was to give her the note intrusted to him; and Susan, understanding only too well what it meant, delivered it without any delay to Mamie Smythe.
Jerry’s call was always a treat to his friends; and to-night, Marion coming with them, he had an evening the pleasure of which, in spite of what followed, he did not soon forget.
When it came time for him to leave, he saw with surprise that he could only by running catch his train, and, as the boys had not come back for him, he hurried away.
He found when he reached Atherton that the study hour had already passed, and, going to his room, he was met with,—111
“I say, Jerry; Uncle John don’t expectyouto go stealing off on sleigh-rides without leave. Give an account of yourself.”
“The party had leave, and when that is given, Uncle John don’t trouble himself to single out every boy, and call him up to ask if he had his permission to go. It’s all right.”
But, in spite of this assertion, Jerry began to have suspicions that, as the boys had failed to come for him to return with them, it might, after all, be not quite in order; and with these doubts he did not find committing his lesson an easy task.
112CHAPTER XVIII.THE SLEIGH-RIDE.
When Susan hurried away from her brother to find Mamie Smythe and give her the note, she knew full well what it probably contained. Jerry had told her he had come over with a party of boys, and had the very best sleigh-ride he had ever had in his life; and when she asked the names of his companions, she recognized some, who, for reasons best known to herself, Miss Ashton had forbidden to be received as visitors to the academy. Mamie Smythe read the note with a heightening color. This was it,—
“Sleigh waiting corner of Bond and Centre Streets. Supper at Bascoms’ Hall engaged for a dance. Bring six lively girls! 8P.M. sharp.
Sub Rosa.“
For a moment Mamie looked doubtingly into Susan’s face. She would not have chosen her for one of the “lively girls;” but, now, as Susan knew something was going on, perhaps it would be best to ask her, if—Mamie had conscience enough to dally with thisiffor a moment; perhaps she might have longer, if there had been time, but as it was now half-past113seven, and the time was “eight sharp,” and the girls were to be chosen and notified, there was not a moment for parleying, even with so respectable a thing as her conscience, so she showed Susan the note.
“Oh, dear! that’s too bad!” said Susan, as she finished reading it. “Jerry is here, and he won’t go away before eight. What can I do? it would be just splendid!” And the tears actually came into her eyes.
“That’s a pity!” and Mamie, more relieved than sorry, tried to look regretful. “But don’t you tell. Promise me, Susan Downer, let come what may, you won’t tell.”
“I’m no tell-tale, Mamie Smythe, and I’ll thank you not even to hint at such a thing. You’ll all get expelled, as like as not, and, come to think of it, I’m real glad I’m not to go with you.”
Before her sentence was finished, Mamie had flown out of the room, and wild with delight over the “fun” before her, she rapidly made her choice among the girls, not giving them time for consideration, but hurrying them with all speed into their best clothes. They crept out, one by one, through different ways. Myra Peters jumped from a window when she heard Miss Palmer’s door open, sure that otherwise she would be found.
That her dress caught, that for a moment she hung between the moonlit sky and a deep snow-bank, seemed to her of no consequence, so she could escape.114She left a bit of her best dress hanging on a hook, but this she did not know until afterwards.
The girls met in the street, near the large front gate, where a tall Norway spruce hid them entirely from the front windows of the academy. Certainly they were not a merry group when they came together. All they had to say to each other was in hushed and frightened tones the peril of their escape.
When they reached the corner of Bond and Centre Streets there stood the sleigh! How tempting it looked with its warm fur robes, its four gayly caparisoned horses, its driver, slapping his hands together to keep them warm, and the boys coming to meet them with such a merry welcome!
Did they forget there was such a thing as consequences? Who can tell?
We would not if we could describe any further the occurrences of the evening. It was past twelve when the six girls, tired, frightened, locked out of the house by every door, found themselves—sleigh, horses, bells, boys, all gone—shivering under the back balcony, as forlorn a set of beings as the calm moon shone upon.
It was not for some time that Myra Peters remembered the window out of which she had clambered. If that were unlocked here might be an entrance that at this time of night would be wholly unobserved.
“But if it is?” asked the most frightened of the girls.115
“Julia Abbey, you are always croaking,” scolded shaking Mamie Smythe. “The next time I ask you to go anywhere, I shall know it!”
“I—I hope you never will; it—it don’t pay,” sobbed Julia.
One of the girls had tried the window, found it still unlocked, and had partly raised it. Now the question was, who would be the first one to go in? It was Mamie Smythe who felt the responsibility of the ride, and therefore the necessity of putting on a brave face, and taking whatever consequences followed.
“I’ll go, girls,” she said. “Some of you lift me.”
Mamie was small and light; it was not a difficult thing to do, as she clung to the window-sill, and in a moment she had disappeared. Then her head came out of the window.
“All right, girls,” she said in a whisper. “Come quickly, and as soon as you are in go softly right to your rooms. It’s still as a mouse here.”
Now there was a pushing among the girls, not who should venture as before, but who might go. They were too cold and alarmed not to be selfish, and their struggle for precedence delayed them, until Mamie impatiently called the one to come by name.
In this way, one after another safely entered, crept to their rooms unheard and unseen, leaving the tell-tale bit of dress hanging on the hook, and forgetting to fasten the window behind them.
If they had been all together in one corridor, their116pale faces and poor recitations might, at least, have excited the teachers’ suspicion that something was wrong; but, as it was, it only seemed to be an event of not very uncommon occurrence that some one should come into the class poorly prepared.
It now wanted ten days of Thanksgiving. Only a few of the pupils,—those who had come from Mexico, Texas, Oregon, San Francisco, and other distant places,—but had all their plans made for spending the festival at home; and these, with one exception, were invited away. The school was on the tiptoe of expectation, when, one morning after prayers, Miss Ashton sent for Susan Downer to come to her room.
This was the first time such a thing had happened to Susan, and if she had been an innocent girl she would have been elated by it; but, alas, we well know that she was not, so it was with much trepidation that she answered the summons.
“Susan,” said Miss Ashton kindly, “I am in a good deal of trouble; I thought you might help me. How long is it since your brother came to see you?”
What a relief to Susan! Miss Ashton had often inquired about Jerry, and once came into the room to see him, so she answered glibly,—
“Week before last, on Wednesday.”
“He came in the evening, I believe.”
“Yes, ma’am: it was a beautiful moonlight night, and a party of boys that were taking a sleigh-ride brought him over.”117
“Did he go back with them?”
“I suppose so,” said Susan unhesitatingly. Jerry had not told her of his possible return in the cars.
“Does your brother know many of the young ladies here?”
“He knows his cousins, of course, and Marion Parke, and some of the girls that happened to come into the parlor when he was here, to whom I introduced him.”
“Can you tell me the names of the girls?”
Susan hesitated a moment. What could Miss Ashton want to know for? What could Jerry have done to make her suspect him?
All at once the thought of the sleigh-ride flashed upon her, and she colored violently. He had brought the note for Mamie Smythe. The girls had gone on the sleigh-ride. She had heard the whole story from them on their return.
Miss Ashton watched the color come and go; then she said quietly,—
“The names of the girls to whom you have introduced him, please.”
Now, it so happened that these girls were not among the sleighing-party, and after a moment’s hesitation Susan named them.
“Thank you,” Miss Ashton said pleasantly. “That is all now.”
“All now,now,” repeated Susan to herself, as she went back to her room. “Is there anything more to come by and by I wonder?”118
Miss Drake, Susan’s teacher in logic, found her a very absent-minded pupil during the next recitation, and gave her the lowest mark for the poorest lesson of the term.
In truth, the more Susan thought the matter over, the more troubled she became. Miss Ashton never would have asked those questions without a particular purpose. That she had no suspicions about “Storied West Rock” was plain, for not a question tended that way, but all toward the sleigh-ride; for the first time since it had taken place Susan felt glad that she had not gone.
She attached little importance to the giving of the note to Mamie Smythe. How was she to know its contents? She was not in the habit of opening other people’s notes. To be sure, her conscience told her, she did know them, and, besides, that troublesome old adage would keep coming back to her, “The partaker is as bad as the thief.”
Should Miss Ashton put the question point-blank to her, “Susan Downer, did, or did you not, know of the sleigh-ride?” What should she answer? To say she did, would be to bring not only herself, but all the other girls into trouble, perhaps to be the means of their being expelled.
To say she knew nothing about it would be to tell alie. Susan dealt plainly enough with herself now, not even to cover it with the more respectable name of falsehood, and it was so hard to escape Miss Ashton if she were once on the track; shewouldfind119out, and if she did not expel her too, she would never respect her again.
It must be acknowledged, Susan’s was a hard place; but she is not the first, and will by no means be the last, to learn that the way of the transgressor is often very, very hard.
“I don’t care,” was Susan’s conclusion, after some hours of painful thought. “Thanksgiving is most here, and she’ll forget it before we come back.”
120CHAPTER XIX.DETECTIVES AT WORK.
Miss Ashton’s forgetfulness was not of a kind to be depended upon. Mr. Stanton, the janitor, had come to her a few days after the sleigh-ride to tell her that he had found a back window unlocked; that he was sure he had locked it carefully before going to bed, and that under the window was the print of footsteps.
He “kind o’ hated,” he said, “to be a-telling on the gals, but then, agin, he hadn’t been there nigh eighteen years without learning that gals were gals, as well as boys were boys, and weren’t allers—not zactly allers—doin’ jist right; perhaps it was best to let Miss Ashton know, and then—there now—he hated to do it awfully. If the gals found it out it might set ’em agin him.”
“Mr. Stanton,” said Miss Ashton gravely, “if you had made this discovery and kept it to yourself, you would have lost your place in twenty-four hours. Please show me the window.”
The snow, for a wonder, remained as it was on the night of the ride, and looking from the window Miss Ashton saw the distinct marks of a number of feet around the bank into which Myra Peters had fallen.121She also saw, and took off, the piece torn from her dress. This would surely give her a clew to one of the girls; but, before using it, she would make herself acquainted as far as possible with the time and circumstances when it had occurred.
Mr. Stanton could fix the morning when he found the window unlocked, and Miss Ashton remembered that on the previous evening Susan Downer’s brother had been there to call.
This put a really serious aspect upon the matter. She immediately connected it with the boys from the Atherton Academy. She called a Faculty meeting, hoping some of the teachers had heard the girls go and come, or the sleigh, if indeed it had been a sleigh-ride that tempted them.
But none of them had heard the least noise after bedtime, nor even unusual sleigh-bells. If it had not been for the open window, the footprints, and the torn bit of dress, Miss Palmer, who prided herself upon, and made herself unpopular by, her vigilance, would have said it could not have happened; as it was, there was no denying it, and no question that something must be done.
Susan Downer’s examination had proved so far satisfactory to Miss Ashton, that it had shown her there had been a sleigh-ride given by the Atherton boys; and she said reluctantly to herself, “I am afraid the reliable-looking young man, Jerry Downer, had a hand in it. How strange it is that we can trust young people so little!”122
Then Miss Ashton felt ashamed of this feeling; for in her long experience she had known a great many true as gold, who had gone out from her training to be burning and shining lights in the world.
The quickest way to get at the bottom of the whole, she thought after much deliberation, would be to take the bit of torn dress into the hall, and ask to which young lady it belonged.
Accordingly, after morning prayers, she asked the school to stop a few moments, held the piece of cloth up in her hand, and simply said,—
“The owner of it might need it for repairing her dress, and if she would remain after the others left, it would be at her disposal.”
The majority of the school laughed and chatted merrily about it. Some few came up to see if it could have by any luck belonged to the torn dresses of which not a few hung in their closets.
But no one claimed it! Here, then, was a dilemma! It would not be possible to go to every room, and examine the wardrobe of every scholar; besides, now it was known that the bit had been found, and might easily be made to lead to a discovery of the guilty ones, what more natural than that the dress should be hidden away, or sent from the academy building to prevent the possibility of detection!
Miss Ashton was disappointed over this failure. She was not much of a detective, and had less reason for being so than falls to the lot of many teachers.123
She wrote to the principal of the Atherton Academy, inquiring whether he had given leave to a party of his boys to take a sleigh-ride on the night of the twentieth of November. She knew Jerry Downer had been one of them, as he had called on his sister, who was one of her pupils, on that night.
She received an immediate answer, saying, “He had not given leave for any sleigh-ride on that night, and was both surprised and sorry that a boy he had always considered so reliable as Jerry Downer should have been among them. He would inquire into the matter at once.”
And he lost no time; sending for Jerry, he put the question point-blank, his usual straightforward way of dealing with his boys,—
“Did you go on a sleigh-ride the evening of the twentieth of November?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jerry unhesitatingly.
“Did I give you leave to go?”
“No, sir; but I supposed the party had asked you, or they would not have gone.”
“Your supposition was entirely erroneous. My leave had never been asked. Who besides yourself made up the party?”
Now Jerry hesitated: he could take the blame of his own going, but it would be mean in him to tell the names of his companions.
“Mr.—Uncle John (the principal smiled grimly as he heard this familiar name), I mean Dr. Arkwright,” said Jerry, the color browning, instead of reddening124his sea-tanned face, “I am very sorry, sir; I thought they had leave; I would not have gone.”
“Don’tthinkagain;know, Jerry Downer: that is the only way for a boy that wants to do right. You will tell me, if you please, the names of your companions.”
“Would that be honorable in me, sir?” asked Jerry, now looking the doctor straight in the eye.
A look of doubt passed over the principal’s face before he answered, then he said with less austerity,—
“I must find out in some way who among my boys have broken my rules; you can help me more directly than any one else.”
“Would it be honorable in me?” repeated Jerry.
“You are not here to ask questions, but to answer them. Are you going to refuse to help me by giving me the names of the boys?”
“I cannot, indeed I cannot; it would be so mean in me. You must punish me any way I deserve, sir; I am willing to bear it; but I cannot tell on the boys.”
“Very well, Jerry Downer; you are dismissed,” and he waved Jerry out of the room.
But after Jerry had gone, he went to the window and stood watching him.
“That is a generous boy!” he said; “but he has made a mistake. He will see it when he is older and wiser. He will learn that true manhood helps law and order, not even the idea of honor coming before it, noble as it is.”125
Still the difficulty of unravelling the matter remained with him in as much doubt as it did with Miss Ashton; but with both of these excellent principals there was no question but that it must be sifted to the bottom, the delinquents discovered and punished.
The time for doing this was short; and should it be necessary to expel a pupil, the coming vacation offered a suitable occasion.
Soon after, Miss Ashton, going through the corridor one evening, found two girls in close and excited conversation,—Myra Peters and Julia Dorr.
They did not see her at first, so she was quite near enough to them to catch a few words.
“You may say what you please,” said Julia Dorr. “I’m as sure of it as sure can be; I’ve sat close by you time and again when you had it on, and if I had been you I would have owned it.”
“Owned it!” snarled Myra Peters, “will you be kind enough to mind your own business, and let other people’s alone, Miss Interferer?”
“Well, interferer or not, I’ve half a mind to go and tell Miss Ashton.”
“Tell Miss Ashton what?” asked a voice close beside them.
The girls turned, to find Miss Ashton there.
“Tell Miss Ashton what?” she asked again pleasantly; “I always like to hear good news. What is this about?”
Now, nothing had really been farther from Julia’s126intention than to tell on Myra. She was one of those who had gone up to the desk when Miss Ashton showed the piece of cloth, and had recognized it as like a dress she had seen Myra wear. That there was anything of more importance attached to it than the ability to mend the dress neatly, she did not think, so she answered readily,—
“Why, Miss Ashton, that piece of cloth you showed us was exactly like Myra’s dress. I’ve seen it a hundred times; but she declares she never had a dress like it, and we were quarrelling about it. I wish you would show it to her close up, and see if she don’t have to give in.”
“I will; come to my room, Myra!” and she led the way there, Myra following with a frightened, sullen face.
Then she found the piece, and laid it on the table.
“Myra,” she said, after looking at the girl kindly for a moment, “is this like your dress? Tell me truly; it is much the best thing for you to do.”
Myra gazed at the cloth for a moment, then burst into a flood of tears.
“So you were one of the sleighing-party?” said Miss Ashton quietly. “Will you tell me who were with you?”
If Myra had not been taken so entirely by surprise, she might, probably would, have refused to answer, for honor is as dear to girls as to boys; but she sobbed out one name after another, until the six stood confessed.127
“Thank you,” was all Miss Ashton said, then she handed Myra the tell-tale cloth, and added, “You had better put it neatly in the place from which it was torn.”
She opened her door, and Myra, wiping her eyes, went quickly out and back to her room.
Hardly conscious what she was doing, with an impatient desire to get away, she began to pack her trunk.
“I will go home, home, home!” she kept repeating to herself. “I never will see one of those girls again. Oh, dear, dear! If I only hadn’t gone on that sleigh-ride; that abominable Mamie Smythe is always getting the girls in trouble: I perfectly detest her. What will my father say?”
128CHAPTER XX.REPENTANCE.
It is a common error that to send a girl into a boarding-school to finish her education is to bring her out a model, not only in learning, but in accomplishments and character.
Here were two hundred girls, coming from nearly two hundred different families, each one brought up, until she was in her teens, in different ways. Looking over the population of a small village, the most careless observer must see how unlike the homes are; how every grade of morals and manners is represented, and with what telling effect they show themselves in the characters of the young trained under their roofs.
It happened often that Montrose Academy was looked upon by anxious parents—who were just discovering, in wilfulness, disobedience, perhaps in matters more serious even than these, the mistakes they had made in the education of their daughters—as a sort of reformatory school, where Miss Ashton took in the erring, and after one or more years sent them out perfect in every good work and way.
While Miss Ashton made all inquiries in her power129to prevent any undesirable girls from joining her school, she was often imposed upon, sometimes by concealments, and not unseldom by positive falsehoods, but oftener by the parental fondness which could see nothing but good in a spoilt, darling child.
It often happened that with just such characters Miss Ashton was very successful, not seldom receiving a girl of a really fine nature which had been distorted by home influences, and sending her away, after years of patient work, with this nature so fully developed and improved that her whole family rose to her standard.
Instances of this kind made Miss Ashton careful in her discipline. She well understood that a girl once expelled from a school, no matter how lightly her friends might appear to regard the occurrence, was under a ban, which time and circumstances might remove, but might not.
In the case of this sleigh-ride, the disobedience to known and strictly enforced rules made her more anxiety than any case of a similar kind had given her for years.
She knew now the names of the girls concerned: they had given her trouble before. Mamie Smythe she had often been on the point of sending home, but she was one of those characters with fine traits, capable of being very good or very bad in her life’s work. The mother was a wealthy widow, Mamie her only child. Spoiled by weak and foolish fondness she had been; but her brightness, her lovableness, her cheery, witty, sunshiny ways remained.130
Evidently, here she was the accountable one; she should be expelled as a lesson to the school, but to expel her meant,what?
She had wealth, she had position, she would in a few years be able to wield an influence that, in the right direction, would outweigh that of almost any other girl in school.
To be sent home, back to that weak mother, with a life of frivolous pleasures before her, what, under these circumstances, was it the wisest and best thing to do?
Favoritism for the rich or the poor was not one of Miss Ashton’s faults. By this time the whole school knew of the ride, of its discovery, and was holding its breath over the probable consequences.
The girls said, “Miss Ashton grew thin and pale from the worry.” The feeling of the school, most of whom were tenderly attached to her, was decidedly against those who had troubled her; and if she could have known the true state of the case, when she was neither eating nor sleeping, in her anxiety to do what was right, she would have found that the good for order, discipline, and propriety, which was growing from this evil done, was to exceed any influence she could hope to exert, even from the severest act of just discipline.
She was to be helped in a most unexpected way.
Two days after her interview with Myra Peters, there was a soft tap on her door, and opening it, there stood Mamie Smythe!131
Her face, usually covered with smiles, was grave and even sad.
“Miss Ashton,” she said, without waiting to close the door, “please don’t be hard on the other girls. It was all my fault; I was the Eve that tempted them. I know it was wrong; I know it wasdreadfulwrong! I was worse than Eve; I was the serpent that tempted Eve! They wouldn’t a single one of them have gone if it hadn’t been for me! Do, please, Miss Ashton, punish me, and not them! They never, never,neverwould have gone if I hadn’t tempted them. Please, please, Miss Ashton! I’ll do anything; I’ll get extra lessons for a year! I won’t have a single spread; I’ll be good; you won’t know me, Miss Ashton, I’ll be so good; and I’ll bear any punishment. You may ferule me, as they do in district schools,” and she held out a little diamond-ringed hand toward Miss Ashton; “I’ll be shut up for a week in a dark closet, and live on bread and water. You may do anything you please with me, only spare them,” and she looked so earnestly and imploringly up in Miss Ashton’s face, that her heart, in spite of her better judgment, was touched; all she said was,—
“Tell me about it, Mamie.”
“When Susan gave me the note,” began Mamie. Miss Ashton started. “Susan who?” she asked, for Susan Downer had not confessed to any note; indeed, had virtually denied connection with the ride.
“Susan Downer, of course; she gave me the note.132Her brother brought it to her, and I was wild with joy to have a sleigh-ride. It was such a bright moon, and the sleighing looked so fine, I wanted all day to ask you to let me have a big sleigh, and take the girls out, but I knew you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I should have,” interrupted Miss Ashton.
“That’s just awful,” said Mamie, after a moment’s reflection; “and if I’d been brave enough to ask you, nothing of this would have happened.
“I hadn’t time to think only of the girls—you know them all, Miss Ashton!”
“And who were the boys?” asked Miss Ashton, thinking perhaps she might aid the other troubled principal.
“The boys! oh, the boys!” and Mamie’s face looked truly distressed now. “Please don’t ask me, Miss Ashton. I’d cut my tongue out before I’d tell you!”
“Very well, go on with your ride.”
Then Mamie repeated fully and truly all that a girl in the flush of excitement caused by a stolen sleigh-ride could be expected to remember, not palliating one thing, from the supper to the dance, and the clamber in at midnight through the open window.
If at some points a little laugh gurgled up from her fun-loving soul, as she told her tale, Miss Ashton understood, and forgave it.
“I thank you, Mamie,” said she at last; and she stroked the little hand given to her so loyally for the sacrificial feruling, but she turned her eyes away.133What Mamie might have read there, she dared not trust to the girl’s quick sight; indeed, she hardly dared to trust the feeling that prompted it in herself.
There was no use to have another Faculty meeting, and depend upon it for help; she must settle the trouble alone.
It was Susan Downer who was next called to the principal’s room.
She went tremblingly. What was to happen to her now? Miss Ashton knew the girls’ names who went on the sleigh-ride, and as yet no one had been punished. Could it be about “Storied West Rock”? How Susan by this time hated its very name, and how much she would have given if she had never known it, she could best have told.
“Susan,” said Miss Ashton, as with a pale face and downcast eyes the girl stood before her, “when I asked you about your brother’s visit to you on the night of the sleigh-ride, you did not tell me of the note he gave you, and you gave to Mamie Smythe. If you had, you would have saved me many troubled hours.”
“You did not ask me,” said Susan promptly.
“True. Did you know the contents of the note?”
“Mamie asked me to go with them, but I refused. I was afraid you wouldn’t like it, and I’d much rather lose a ride any time than displease you;” and Susan, as she said this, looked bravely in Miss Ashton’s face.134
“That’s all,” the principal said gravely, and Susan, with a lighter heart than that with which she had entered, left the room; but Miss Ashton thought, as she watched the forced smile on the girl’s face, “There’s one that can’t be trusted; what a pity, for she is not without ability!” Then she remembered the story she had read and praised, and wondered over it.
Two days before the time for the term to close, Miss Ashton received this note:—
Our dear Miss Ashton,—We, the undersigned, do regret in sackcloth and ashes our serious misconduct in going away at an improper time, and in an improper manner, on a sleigh-ride, without your consent and approval.
We promise, if you will forgive us, and restore us to your trust and affection, that we will never, NEVER be guilty of such a misdemeanor again. That we will try our best faithfully to observe the rules of the school, and endeavor to be good and faithful scholars.
Pray forgive and test us!
Mamie Smythe, Helen Norris,Jane Somers, Julia Abbey,Myra Peters, Etta Spring.
Miss Ashton smiled as she read the note. Repentance by the wholesale she had never found very reliable; and in this instance she would have had much more confidence if the girls had come to her, and made a full confession, without waiting to be found out.
It was not until after two sleepless nights that she came to the conclusion to give them further trial; and when she called them to her room, one by one, and had a long and faithful talk with them, sending them from her tenderly penitent, she felt sure her course had been a right one.135
Then she made a short speech to the school, went over briefly what had happened, not in the least sparing the impropriety of the stolen ride, but, on account of the repentance and promises from the girls concerned, she had decided not to expel them now, but to give them a chance to redeem the character they had lost. The school clapped her enthusiastically as she closed.