W
HEN the girls of the Eastshore school reached the seventh grade, they entered the cooking class. The white aprons and caps were much coveted and whatever other study might be neglected, each girl usually put her best into the weekly cooking lesson. There was a small stove for each and every young cook was responsible for the order and cleanliness in which her pots and pans and utensils were kept. Woe betide her, if Miss Parsons, the teacher, found an unwashed pan thrust under the sink in a moment of hurry.
"She's very particular," reported Rosemary, the evening after her first lesson in cooking. "She made Nina Edmonds take off her rings and she scolded Elsie Mears because she put her hands up to her hair just once, to tuck it back under her cap."
"And right she is," announced Winnie from the dining-room where she was setting the tablefor breakfast. "A cook has got no business wearing rings, and I can't abide a girl who is always fussing with her hair when she is handling food."
"Winnie's a member of the sanitary squad," put in Doctor Hugh, smiling behind his newspaper. It was one of the rare times when he had an evening at home.
"Nina Edmonds makes me sick!" said Sarah vehemently. "She screamed when I showed her a darling little spotted snake I found to-day."
Sarah and Shirley had brought out the box of dominoes and were playing in the center of the floor. No amount of persuasion had ever induced them to play on a table.
"Don't talk about snakes, dearie," pleaded Aunt Trudy, shuddering over her knitting. "They are such ugly, horrid squirmy things."
"Oh, no they're not Aunt Trudy," said Sarah earnestly. "That's because you're not used to them. Let me show you the one I've got in my pocket—"
To her aunt's horror,Sarah unbuttoned the pocket of her middy blouse and pulled out a little dangling dark object.
"Hugh!" shrieked Aunt Trudy, knocking over her chair as she rose hastily. "Hugh make herstop! Ow! Rosemary, Winnie, take that awful thing away, quick!"
In spite of her sympathy for Aunt Trudy who was white to the lips with fright, Rosemary wanted to laugh, as Sarah, not realizing that her aunt was really in terror, and intent only on winning understanding for her snake, continued to advance on the unhappy lady, the spotted snake dangling from her hand.
"Sarah!" Doctor Hugh managed to halt the march of his determined small sister. "Sarah, take that snake away at once. At once, do you hear me? Aunt Trudy is afraid of snakes."
"Well, she wouldn't be, if she knew about 'em," insisted Sarah. "I only want to show her."
"You can't show her—lots of people are frightened by the sight of snakes," replied the doctor. "Take your snake out of the room this minute."
Still Sarah lingered.
"It's dead," she offered humbly. "A dead snake won't hurt Aunt Trudy will it?"
Doctor Hugh caught Rosemary's eye, and they went off into peals of laughter while poor Aunt Trudy wept and Shirley implored Rosemary to tell her what was "funny."
"Take your snake away and bury it, Sarah," said the doctor, when he could speak.
"And don't try to educate your relatives and friends to recognize the virtues of the reptile family; a person either likes snakes or can't abide 'em, and you and Aunt Trudy will never agree on that subject."
"I think you ought to forbid her to ever touch one, or carry one around with her," said Aunt Trudy when Sarah had gone out of the room sorrowfully to borrow a match box from Winnie to serve as a snake-coffin. "The idea of having a snake in one's pocket!"
"You can't separate Sarah and animals," returned Sarah's brother with conviction. "No use trying, Aunt Trudy. All this summer she was crazy on the subject of rabbits and cats and now she seems to have switched to snakes. About all we can do is to keep her within reasonable bounds and trust to luck that before the winter is over she will take up canary birds or something equally pleasing."
Aunt Trudy did not know Sarah's teacher, Miss Ames, but if she had they would have found a common bond of sympathy and interest in their horror of snakes and other unpleasant forms of animal life to which Sarah was devoted. Eleanor Ames was a nervous young woman and she found it distinctly trying to beobliged to divide the interests of her class with a shoe-box of baby mice, or to soothe the ruffled feelings of timid little girls who had seen the bright eyes and wriggling slim body of a live snake peeping out of Sarah Willis' coat in the cloak room. Punishment seemed to have no effect on the culprit who stayed after school and cleaned blackboards with disconcerting cheerfulness and Miss Ames was considering the advisability of sending Sarah home with a note asking the co-operation of Doctor Hugh's authority, when something happened that took the matter out of her hands.
Late in October, one frosty morning on her way to school, Sarah made what was to her a great and lucky discovery. Shirley and Rosemary had gone on ahead of her, but Winnie had called her back to pick up the clothes she had strewn about her room with her customary careless abandon. Since the opening of school, Aunt Trudy had patiently made beds and put the rooms in order and she would never mention to her favorite Sarah a little matter like slippers in the middle of the rug, bath-robe flung down on the bed and every separate bureau drawer wide open and yawning. This morning Aunt Trudy was going to the city to shop, and the task of bed-making would devolve upon Winnie who had no intention of having her duty complicated by others' neglect. A hasty glance into the room shared by Sarah and Shirley, and Winnie had summoned the former, in no uncertain voice, to "come up here and put your clothes away this instant." Sarah, complaining that she would certainly be late for school, had obeyed and if she had hurried could easily have reached the school before the assembly bell rang.
But crossing a vacant lot, Sarah came upon that which could make her forget school and time. A faint rustle under the dead leaves caught her quick ear and, stooping down, she uncovered a little snake, languid from the cold. Perhaps he had been on his way to winter quarters and the frost had caught him unaware. Anyway, he was numb and Sarah, murmuring affectionate nothings to him, slipped him into her pocket and then spent a valuable ten minutes poking about among the leaves in the hopes of discovering another, believing implicitly that snakes "always go in pairs." However, if the snake had a companion, diligent search failed to uncover it and Sarah was forced to take her reluctant way to school with only one snake to comfort and love. While she was still some distancefrom the gate she heard the bell ring, and as she reasoned, she was late then, so why should she hurry when it would not save her a tardy mark? Morning exercises were in progress in the auditorium when Sarah entered the building, and she had her class room to herself. She hung up her hat and coat and took another peep at the snake. He seemed to be feeling better, but some fresh wave of sympathy led her to regret the necessity for leaving him to spend a lonely morning in the cloak room. With Sarah to think was to act, and she popped the snake into the pocket of her middy blouse, pinning it with a safety pin in lieu of a button and button hole. When the class returned from the auditorium, she was sitting sedately in her seat and appeared only mildly interested in the lecture on tardiness which followed.
"We'll have the papers distributed on which you worked during the last drawing lesson," announced Miss Ames unexpectedly. "The drawing supervisor will be around next week and we are a lesson or two late, here in our room. Instead of spelling this morning, I'll have you paint the leaves you drew. George Wright, you distribute the papers and Sarah Willis, you know where the paint boxes are."
Sarah was monitor for the drawing materials and she went up and down the aisles, giving each pupil a small paint box and two brushes, while George Wright gave out the papers on which the pencil sketches of autumn leaves had been drawn.
The warmth of the pocket evidently revived the chilled snake and, as Sarah was bending over the desk of Annabel Warde, a dainty little girl about her own age, a lithe green body shot from out Sarah's blouse, wriggled across the desk and dropped to the floor. The safety pin had left too large a loop-hole.
"A snake!" screamed Annabel, flinging her box of paints in one direction and the brushes Sarah had just given her, in the other. "I saw it! I saw it! Miss Ames, I saw a snake, and it's right here in this room. It'll bite us, I know it will and we'll die! Catch it, somebody, Oh, please hurry!"
Jumping up and down and shrieking, Annabel was beside herself with fright. Several other little girls began to scream, too, and the boys rushed around the room shouting that they would catch it and kill it, whatever "it" might be. None of them thought that Annabel had really seen a snake.
"Don't hurt it!" warned Sarah, down on herhands and knees and hunting under the desks for her lost pet. "This kind of snake won't bite any one, and you mustn't hurt it. I want to keep it all winter and watch it grow."
Miss Ames was trying to calm Annabel who persisted in sitting on top of her desk with her feet curled under her, apparently under the delusion that a snake always attacks the ankles first, when George Wright whooped triumphantly.
"I see it—gee, it really is a snake!" he shouted. "Look out, Peter, let me shy this paper-weight at him—there, I'll bet that mashed him into jelly!"
There was a crash as the heavy paper-weight struck the floor and then a small whirlwind landed on the astonished George.
"How dare you try to kill my snake!" panted Sarah, crying with rage. "He never did anything to you! You're a great, cruel, cowardly boy, that's what you are!"
She was pummeling George unmercifully and he retaliated with interest, forgetting in the excitement and confusion that his antagonist was a girl. But while snakes might temporarily cow Miss Ames, a fight in her room was a situation she knew how to deal with.
"George! Sarah!" she descended upon the combatants and pulled them apart with no gentle hand. "I'm ashamed of you! What can you be thinking of! George, you must know better than to strike a girl, and Sarah, what would your mother say if she knew you were fighting with a boy? Why I never heard of such a thing—never!" and Miss Ames looked as though she never had.
Sarah darted over to the space behind the atlas table where George had thrown the paper weight. She lifted the glass cube and picked up the little mashed object under it.
"He's killed it!" she sobbed. "He went and killed my little snake!"
Miss Ames lost her patience which is not to be wondered at, considering the trying half hour she had endured.
"Sarah Willis you march down to the principal's office," she said severely. "And throw that disgusting object in the trash can on your way down. Don't you ever bring another snake, alive or dead, into this room as long as I am the teacher. I want you to tell Mr. Oliver exactly what has occurred here this morning and be sure you explain to him that you fought George simply because he killed that wretched reptile."
Sarah's heart beat uncomfortably fast as she walked down the broad stone steps to the first floor where the principal's office was. Her class room was on the third floor. On the second floor she stopped and wrapped the dead snake in her handkerchief—for a wonder she had one—and when she reached the first floor she studied the pictures hung in the corridor with minutest care. For once in her short life Sarah was anxious to have time to stand still. Usually exasperatingly indifferent to rebuke or reproval, Miss Ames had hit upon the one punishment that Sarah could be fairly said to dread—an interview with the principal.
She approached the glass door marked "office" slowly. The door was closed. All the stories she had ever heard of the boys who had been "sent to the office," flashed through her mind. Few girls were ever thus punished and it was a fourth grade tradition that a girl bad enough to need an interview with the principal was always expelled. Sarah wondered what her brother would say if she came home and said she was expelled. Rosemary would feel the disgrace keenly—no one in the Willis family had even been expelled from school, Sarah was quite sure.
Did you knock, or did you go right in? Wasthe principal always there? Perhaps he might be away for the day—Sarah devoutly hoped he would be. She shut her eyes tightly, took a firmer grip on the handkerchief containing the dead snake, and knocked on the glass panel.
"Come in," called a pleasant voice, a woman's voice.
Sarah opened the door and stepped in. She saw a large, sunny room with a desk in the center, and a smaller desk over by the window where a young woman was typing busily.
"Mr. Oliver isn't in, is he?" said Sarah speaking at a gallop. A swift glance had shown her that the young woman was the only person in the room.
"Just go right into the next office, and you'll find him," said Mr. Oliver's secretary, smiling.
T
HE door into the next office stood open. Sarah walked in, that is, she stepped just inside the doorway and stood there as though glued to the floor. The thin, gray-haired man who was stooping over the flat-topped desk, looking at a card file, glanced up at her and smiled. This was the principal, Mr. Oliver.
"Good morning," he said. "Did you wish to see me?"
"No-o," stammered Sarah, "I didn't. But Miss Ames sent me."
Mr. Oliver sat down and pointed to a chair drawn up beside the desk.
"Suppose you come and sit down and tell me all about it," he suggested.
His secretary in the next room stepped over and closed the connecting door noiselessly as Sarah seated herself on the edge of the chair and stared unhappily at the floor.
"If you're in Miss Ames' room, you are afourth grader," said Mr. Oliver pleasantly. "What is your name?"
"Sarah," the small girl whispered, "Sarah Willis."
"Oh, yes—then you're a sister of Doctor Willis," said the principal. "And I know Rosemary, too. Isn't there another sister—a little light-haired girl in one of the grades?"
"That's Shirley," answered Sarah, forgetting her errand for an instant and looking Mr. Oliver in the face for the first time. "She's in the first grade."
"Well, Sarah, what have you to tell me?" said the principal quietly. "Why did Miss Ames send you to me?"
"I don't know where to begin," complained Sarah forlornly.
"Don't be afraid—there is nothing to be afraid of," said Mr. Oliver. "Just tell me everything that has happened and I promise to listen to you and believe you."
Sarah, as Doctor Hugh had discovered, was morally not very brave. She was afraid of people and though the Willis will was as strong in her as in any of the others, she would not come out openly and demand her way. Rather Sarah would do as she pleased and shirk the consequences wherever possible. The doctor had had several little talks with her on this subject of fear and he was gradually teaching her to acknowledge her mistakes and wrong doings and patiently explaining at every opportunity the rules of fair play.
"It is both cowardly and contemptible to let someone else be blamed for what you have done," he said once to her. "I understand that you are not really a coward, Sarah—you have to fight an extra enemy called Fear. So when you do wrong and see a chance to escape blame and punishment and refuse to wriggle out, you are really braver than the girl who isn't afraid to say she did it. And every time you conquer Fear, Sarah, you've made the next conquest easier. You'll find that is so."
So this morning, in the principal's office, Sarah remembered what Doctor Hugh had said. She wanted dreadfully to retreat into one of her obstinate, sulky silences, and refuse to answer questions. She was afraid—afraid of a severe scolding and the disgrace of a public expulsion. Her knees were wobbling, but she slipped to her feet and stood facing Mr. Oliver bravely.
"If you're going to expel me," she said clearly,"tell Hilda French I wanted her to have my pencil box."
And then the tears came.
She cried and cried and as she wept she told the story and though drawings of leaves and paint boxes and middy blouse pockets and snakes and paper weights seemed to be hopelessly mixed in her sobbing conversation, Mr. Oliver, in some miraculous fashion, pieced together the disconnected bits and declared that he understood perfectly. He loaned Sarah his extra clean handkerchief on which to dry her eyes, her own handkerchief being obviously employed, for she had laid the pathetic remains of the dead snake on his desk, and when she was more quiet he told her kindly that there was no question of expulsion.
"I don't know where you ever got such an idea," he said, smiling a little, and he looked so friendly and not at all angry, that Sarah even managed a faint, watery smile in response. "Boys and girls are never expelled from school except for very serious reasons. You've made a little mistake, that's all and I'll show you where you were wrong in just a minute. Sometimes we want our own way so much, we can't see how we can be wrong."
Sarah blushed a little, but nodded honestly.
"Well, you see, as soon as you found out that Miss Ames didn't like snakes in her class room, you should have stopped right there," said Mr. Oliver decidedly. "You disobeyed Miss Ames and all this trouble came from that. If she said her class room was no place for snakes and mice—you brought mice one day, didn't you?—that should have settled the question for you."
"But how will the children ever learn about snakes?" asked Sarah earnestly.
"They'll learn, if they are interested," answered Mr. Oliver. "You can't force anyone to adopt your likes and dislikes, you know, Sarah. Rosemary may like to sew and you may say you 'hate' to touch a needle, but do you make yourself into an ardent needlewoman, simply because Rosemary enjoys sewing? Don't you see? I'm afraid you'll have to give Miss Ames and me your promise that you will not bring any more snakes, alive or dead, or any other animal to school."
Sarah promised slowly, her eyes on the dead snake.
"He was such a lovely specimen," she mourned. "I s'pose maybe he was valuable."
"I tell you what to do, Sarah," said Mr. Oliver quickly. "You don't know Mr. Martin, do you? He teaches biology in the high schooland I must take you up to his room some day and let you see the 'specimens' he has. He has a menagerie that fills one side of a large room. Whenever you find something you can't resist, you bring it here to me in the office and I'll turn it over to Mr. Martin. In that way your class room won't be upset and Mr. Martin will likely gain some valuable additions to his collection. Don't you think that is a good plan?"
Sarah said she thought it was, and then, as the noon bell rang throughout the building, Mr. Oliver shook hands with her and told her that if she ever needed advice or help to come directly to him. He promised, too, to speak to Miss Ames and tell her that no more snakes or other lively "specimens" would be brought into her room by Sarah. He opened the door for her and she was free.
She sped along the corridors, her snake in her hand again, but it was a far happier Sarah than the little girl who had walked slowly through them an hour and a half ago. Up to the lunch room dashed this Sarah, and startled Rosemary who was opening the lunch box at their corner table by her demand, "I have to bury a snake—will you come help me?"
Of course she had to tell what had happenedthat morning, and Rosemary and Shirley agreed that Mr. Oliver was "just as nice as nice could be."
"Though I do hope, Sarah, this will teach you to let snakes alone," said Rosemary in the elder-sister tone she rarely used. "You frightened Aunt Trudy into fits and now you've upset a whole class. No, don't show me that ugly little snake—I'm sorry he is dead because you are, but I don't want to see him; I couldn't eat a bit of lunch. Come on, and eat your sandwiches and then we will go down and bury him somewhere on the play-ground."
That night at dinner Rosemary had an announcement to make. Her eyes shining like stars and her face glowing, she declared that she had been appointed to plan and serve the dinner to be given by the grammar school teachers for the Institute visitors.
"Institute is the second week in November," bubbled Rosemary, "and there will be about ten visiting teachers from the towns within twenty-five miles. Miss Parsons says I'm the best cook in the class though Bessie Kent is older than I am and Fannie Mears had cooking last year."
"But can you cook a dinner?" asked Doctor Hugh. "Seems to me that's a pretty large orderfor a class of young girls and with visitors expected, too."
"Oh, we know just what to do," said Rosemary confidently. "I have to make out the menu and submit it to Miss Parsons by Friday of this week. And then I have to choose the girls I want to help me cook, and those to set and wait on the tables—this year we're going to have small tables instead of one large one. And we girls are to do every bit of the work ourselves!"
Aunt Trudy and Winnie beamed on Rosemary, sure that she would do well whatever she undertook, while Sarah demanded to know who the waitresses were to be.
"Well, Nina Edmonds for one," said Rosemary and the doctor frowned involuntarily. Although Nina seldom came to the house and he knew that Rosemary saw little of her outside of school, he could not help but see that her influence continued to be remarkably strong.
"Nina's an awful chump," declared Sarah who cordially disliked her and was in turn, disliked by Nina.
"She is not!" flared Rosemary. "And, Aunt Trudy she has the loveliest blue velvet dress. She says she can wear it under her apron andthen, after dinner when we take our aprons off, she will look all right. Couldn't I wear my new brown velvet that night?"
"Why I don't know," replied Aunt Trudy uncertainly. "I don't think it would be very suitable, dear. What do you think, Hugh?"
"Don't know anything about clothes," he said shortly.
"You only want to wear it because Nina Edmonds is going to wear a velvet dress," commented Sarah shrewdly.
"It will be awfully hot," said Shirley with unexpected wisdom.
"Well, I'm going to wear it, if Aunt Trudy doesn't say not to," announced Rosemary, her chin in the air. "Though I'd give anything if I had some high heeled pumps to make me look taller. Honestly, Hugh, I'm about the only girl in our class who doesn't wear 'em."
He smiled at her pleasantly, but there was no yielding in his voice.
"When you're sixteen, if you still want them, I'll have nothing to say," he said. "Mother has said you are not to wear them until then, you know, and if I had my way no woman, sixteen or sixty, should teeter about in silly anguish. I can't help it if the girls are skipping five years,Rosemary; as I've often reminded you, the calendar says you are still a little girl."
Rosemary pouted a little, but she did not dare argue, the subject of high heeled shoes having been long one of her secret sorrows. She knew from experience that her brother would never consent to the purchase of a pair and though she mentioned them from time to time, it was without hope of converting him to her opinion.
She was in her room that night, collecting her cooking notes and recipes, in preparation for making out the important menu, when Winnie peeped in. The brown velvet dress lay on Rosemary's bed where she had spread it, the better to admire its charms. It was a new frock and so far she had worn it only twice. Simply made, with a square neck and a touch of ivory colored lace in the form of a vestee and at the bottom of the sleeves, it was the most becoming dress Rosemary had ever had. She knew it, too.
"There's just one thing I want to say to you, Rosemary," announced Winnie earnestly, "and that's this: you have got to make up your mind which is the more important—this dinner or your dress. Because cooking a good dinner takes all the brains a cook has—I ought to know. You can't be thinking about whether you're going toget a spot on your frock or whether the last hook is caught or left open. And if you're too warm, as you will be in a velvet dress in that hot kitchen and you all excited anyway, or if your feet hurt you, you're not going to be able to give your attention to what you are cooking. And I may not know much about teachers, but I imagine they're like anybody else—when they're hungry, a brown velvet dress won't make up to them for soggy potatoes and underdone meat. Miss Parsons is banking on you—likely as not she's told the teachers you're the best cook in the class, and if you serve up a poor dinner, do you suppose looking at your velvet dress is going to make her glad she trusted you? Of course you can suit yourself, and I'm not trying to influence you, because you're old enough to—"
Rosemary rushed at her and hugged her warmly.
"You're a dear, darling Winnie!" she cried affectionately. "I'll stop thinking about what I'm going to wear this minute, and go to work on what I'm going to cook. Miss Parsons hates fussy clothes, anyway, and I'll wear my white linen under my apron and be comfortable. Hugh thinks I'm silly to wear the velvet, I know he does."
"The velvet will keep," said Winnie tersely, "and I'll do up your white linen for you so that it will look like new."
But, left alone, Rosemary could not resist trying on the brown frock. She pinned her hair high, pushing it into a tower-effect with the aid of combs, and added a long string of red beads that almost touched the floor.
"I look so nice this way," she told the reflection in the glass, naïvely. "Why isn't it ever sensible to wear your best clothes when you expect to be busy?"
And that is a question older folk than Rosemary have asked, but, unlike her, they have learned the answer.
R
OSEMARY early encountered the usual difficulties that beset the leader of any enterprise. The girls she selected to act as cooks wept because they were not appointed waitresses and those tolled off to serve at the tables were affronted because they had not been elected to cook.
"You're the general, Rosemary," said Miss Parsons, when rumors of dissatisfaction reached her. "Give your orders and see that they are obeyed. You are in absolute charge of this dinner and no one is to be allowed to dictate to you."
The Willis will and the Willis chin were good possessions to have in this crisis and gradually Rosemary managed to achieve something approaching harmony among her staff. Only Fannie Mears resolutely refused to be won over.
"I'm just as good a cook as you are," she said to Rosemary one afternoon, "and anyway, if I'm not, cooking isn't the most important thing inschool." (Fannie, you see, wasn't exactly logical.) "I'll serve as a waitress," she went on "because I have a good deal of class feeling and I don't want the other grades to say we made a failure of our dinner. But I want you to know that I don't like it one single bit and I think you are anything but fair."
Despite such small troubles, Rosemary enjoyed her responsibility and as she was free from nervousness and had faith in her skill and ability, the prospective dinner, under her planning, took shape nicely and gave every evidence of being a success. Nina Edmonds was in charge of the tables and waitresses and as she really knew how to lay the service correctly and had clever ideas for decorating, Rosemary was sure the dining room would present an attractive appearance.
She went home early the day the dinner was to be given, to dress, and found everything carefully arranged on her bed by Winnie who had devoted half a day to the laundering of the white frock and cleaning the white shoes. There was no school Institute Day, but Rosemary, of course, had been busy all day, preparing for the dinner to follow the close of the meetings.
"You look like my girl," said Doctor Hugh, kissing her when she came down to the hall andfound him waiting. "I thought I'd run you over to the school—you don't want to get tired out before the evening has begun, you know. And what time do you think the fireworks will be over? Do you have to stay after dinner is safely eaten?"
"No, Miss Parsons has three women who are coming in to clear up for us," answered Rosemary. "Usually we have to wash our own dishes, that is, after every cooking lesson; but Miss Parsons said as soon as the dining room was cleared, we might go, unless we want to attend the reception in the gym. Jack said he might come and if he does he'll bring me home."
"There'll be no if about it," announced the doctor decidedly. "I'll drop in around half-past nine and bring you home in the car. If I'm a bit later, you wait for me in the gym and then I'll know where to find you."
Aunt Trudy and Winnie and Shirley and Sarah crowded to the door to watch Rosemary off, in the dear way of loving families who would send those they love off on always successful expeditions, and as the doctor helped her into the roadster, Jack Welles came up, still in football togs, for he had been practising.
"To-night's the big night, isn't it?" he asked,smiling. "You're going to stay for the reception, aren't you, Rosemary? And we can walk home together."
"Hugh's coming for me in the car," said Rosemary. "I wasn't sure you were going, Jack."
"Well I told you I was," retorted Jack. "I thought, living next door to you, I could save Hugh an extra trip."
"You come home with us, and we'll save you a walk," suggested the doctor, touching the starter, and Jack shouted after them that he would.
"What made you say that?" demanded Rosemary, flushing with vexation.
"Why not?" countered her brother. "Jack's a good friend, Rosemary, isn't he?"
"Of course he is," said Rosemary warmly, "But, oh, well, you wouldn't understand, because you're not a girl. He did say he was going to the reception, but I would much rather ride home with you; and now he'll know I know he said he was going, and if you hadn't asked him he might think I wasn't sure he had said so."
"You may know what you are talking about, but I don't," declared her bewildered brother. "However, as you wisely observe, I am not a girl and perhaps that accounts for my dullness. Here we are at the school, and whatever you do,Rosemary, don't fail to give them enough. Anything but a sliver of chicken and a cube of potato for a hungry man, remember."
Rosemary laughed, and ran up the path to the lighted door. The corridors were deserted, though the sound of music came from the auditorium, where the teachers were meeting. Upstairs the kitchen and the lunch room, which was to serve as dining room, were ablaze with light and girls in white caps and aprons were rushing about, giggling excitedly and getting in each other's way.
"Oh, Rosemary!" Nina Edmonds pounced upon her at once. "Come and see if the tables don't look pretty. Did you wear your brown velvet?" she added in a lower tone.
Rosemary shook her head.
"White linen," she stated briefly. "I can't bother about clothes to-night, Nina. I want to put the soup on to re-heat right away."
Nina insisted that she must see the tables first and they did look pretty, with a vase of yellow "button" chrysanthemums in the center of each and yellow ribbons running from the bouquet to the place cards.
"Rosemary," Miss Parsons beckoned to her, "I just tasted the soup and it is delicious, but Ithink a grain more of salt will improve it. Just a dash, dear, and if you're afraid of getting too much in, don't touch it. Everything going all right?"
"All right," nodded Rosemary, forbearing to mention that Fannie Mears refused to speak to her and was evidently cherishing a smoldering resentment that might burst into flame at an awkward moment. Two of the girls were limping about in high heeled shoes and these must be shielded from the critical eye and caustic tongue of the cooking teacher, lest they become temperamental and refuse to "wait" at all. Assuredly Rosemary had her hands full.
She went into the kitchen, tasted the soup and salted it carefully. It was rich and smooth and Rosemary felt that when the time came to ladle it into the cups she would have every right to be proud of her ability, for she alone had made the soup, the other girls fearing the mysterious "curdling" that sometimes spoiled their product.
Just before serving time, Miss Parsons called her for a whispered consultation as to the seating of a special guest and when Rosemary returned to the kitchen, she found the trays of soup cups ready on the table. While she and two other girls filled them, the teachers were coming intothe dining room and finding their places by means of the prettily lettered cards. By the time all were seated, seven young waitresses were filing into the room, bearing in their hands the trays of steaming soup.
They made a pretty picture and the guests smiled graciously as the cups of thick cream soup, each with four delicately browned croutons swimming on the top, were placed before them. The girls returned to the kitchen as soon as all were served, for Miss Parsons had instructed Rosemary to have them help her with the dishes for the next course instead of waiting around the room for the guests to finish.
Rosemary had decided to have a simple, hearty dinner, since the weather was cold and many of the teachers would have a long ride to reach their homes that night. So individual chicken pies, baked potatoes and a corn pudding were to follow the soup, the young cook having wisely determined to omit any extra frills that would add to the difficulties of serving.
"Nobody's touched the soup!" reported Nina Edmonds, who was the first to return with her tray, when the buzzer under Miss Parson's chair sounded the signal in the kitchen that it was time to remove the first course.
"Nobody touched it!" echoed Rosemary in alarm. "Let me see!"
She hurried around the table to inspect Nina's tray. Sure enough, six little cups, still filled with soup, were there.
"Say, something's the matter with the soup," said Bessie Kent in a shrill whisper as she came in with her tray. "They didn't eat it—see, all the cups are full."
"Did Miss Parsons say anything?" asked Rosemary, staring at the trays which now surrounded her. "How does she look?"
"Kind of queer," answered Fannie Mears, breaking her silence. "She must feel funny, with all those folks sitting and looking at their soup and not eating it."
"You hush up!" said Bessie Kent rudely. "There's the buzzer. Come on, girls, we'd better hustle."
In a daze Rosemary saw to it that the trays were filled again, but she took no pride in the beautifully browned pies, the fragrant corn pudding or the glistening potatoes wrapped in snowy napkins. Her dinner, she was sure, was ruined. She wanted to run home and cry where no one would see her, but instead she saw to it that each girl had what she needed on her tray.Then, when her two assistants were arranging the forks and plates for the salads, Rosemary slipped over to the table where she had put the soup kettle and tasted the contents.
Salt! The soup was so thick with salt that she choked. Rich and thick and smooth, what did it matter the texture or flavor, since only one overpowering taste was present—that of salt.
"How could it get like that!" puzzled Rosemary as she drank a glass of water. "I tasted it just before we served it and it was fine. What on earth must Miss Parsons be thinking of me!"
Empty plates were carried back to the kitchen next time, and word reached the young cooks that the pies were "wonderful" or "simply great"—this last the expressed opinion of Mr. Oliver—and the fruit salad met with an equally hearty reception. But not even the evident enthusiastic approval which greeted the delicious ice-cream and cake and perfect coffee which concluded the dinner, could compensate Rosemary for her earlier mortification. When the meal was over and the guests had gone down to the gymnasium for the reception and the other girls had shed their aprons and followed, Nina too eager to display the blue velvet frock to wait for Rosemarywho insisted there were several things she had to attend to, then she felt she might cry a little for the first time in that long evening.
"Rosemary, my dear child, what is the matter?" Miss Parsons bustled in, followed by the three elderly women who were to wash the dishes. "Are you tired out? Was the dinner too much work?"
"The soup!" choked Rosemary. "Nobody could eat it. And I took such pains with it."
"Well, I was sorry afterward that I told you to salt it again," said Miss Parsons regretfully. "I suppose you were nervous and added too much. But don't let that grieve you dear. The rest of the dinner was perfectly delicious and you should hear what people are saying about you. I want you to come down to the gymnasium now and meet some of the teachers."
"Miss Parsons, I didn't over-salt the soup," protested Rosemary earnestly. "I tasted it before and added just a dash as you told me; and then I tasted it again, and it was all right. IknowI didn't put in too much salt."
"Oh, nonsense, Rosemary, you were excited, that's all," said Miss Parsons briskly. "Any one is likely to make a mistake when she has a good deal on her mind. Don't give it anotherthought, and if you do, just remember it is a warning against the next time. I like to think that every mistake we make keeps us from running into danger some other time when the results might be more serious."
Rosemary followed her teacher down to the gymnasium, but she only half heard the introductions that followed and the kind comments on her skill in cooking. She was wondering how she could convince Miss Parsons that she had never put all that salt into her soup.
"Why it tasted as though a whole box of salt had just been thrown into it," said Rosemary to herself, standing near a window to watch for Doctor Hugh and the car. "I don't care how much any one has on her mind, no one puts a whole box of salt into a soup kettle!"
And the voices of a group of girls, going home early, floated up to her.
"She says she didn't do it," said one of them, and Rosemary could not identify the speaker though the tone sounded familiar. "But if it had been good I'll bet she would have taken all the credit. They say it was fairly briny, it was so salty!"
Rosemary flushed scarlet. It wasn't fair!
"For I didn't, I didn't, I know I didn't!" shedeclared, sitting between Doctor Hugh and Jack that night as they sped home in the car. "I'm just as sure as I can be that I didn't make a mistake—why I tasted it afterward and it was delicious."
"Well, if you didn't over-salt it, who did?" asked Jack practically.
"I don't know," admitted Rosemary. "I could cry when I think of it."
"I wouldn't do that," said her brother, turning in at their driveway. "How about making us a chicken pie for Sunday dinner, Rosemary, and asking Jack over to sample it?"
"I'll make it," agreed Rosemary, "but just the same I want to know who salted my soup."
T
HE chicken pie was a wonderful success, so Doctor Hugh and Jack assured Rosemary at the Sunday dinner, but the mystery of the over-salted soup seemed destined to remain unsolved. Miss Parsons never mentioned it again and Rosemary herself might have forgotten it more readily except for several ill-natured references by Fannie Mears whenever the Institute dinner was spoken of. Fannie and Rosemary did not get along very well together and this was, in one way, odd, because Fannie and Nina Edmonds were apparently most congenial. They usually ate their lunches together, but Rosemary chose to be with Sarah and Shirley and their corner table was usually crowded with younger girls who adored Rosemary openly.
The brief Thanksgiving holidays—with no school from Thursday to Monday—brought the Willis family a more sincere appreciation of their blessings than ever before. A short note fromthe little mother lay beside each plate on Thanksgiving Day morning, and Winnie kept one hand on hers tucked in her apron pocket even when she served the golden brown waffles. When Aunt Trudy asked who would go to church with her, Doctor Hugh answered for them all.
"We'll please Mother," he said simply, and after the service he packed the three girls into the little roadster and carried them off for a long cold ride that gave them famous appetites for Winnie's dinner.
Doctor Hugh's practice was growing to include a wide radius of countryside and the "young doctor" was gaining a name as one never "too busy" to answer a country call. Doctor Jordan had prolonged his vacation till late in October and then had returned to Eastshore just long enough to sell his practice, office and instruments to his young colleague and set off on a leisurely trip to California, a luxury well earned after years of sacrificing service. Doctor Hugh still retained the Jordan office, while seeing an increasing number of patients at his home within fixed hours.
His office had a great attraction for Shirley, and Rosemary had discovered her one afternoon standing on a chair and calmly smelling the rowsof bottles that stood on the cabinet shelf, one after the other. The shining instruments, in their glass racks, had a fascination all their own for the small girl and she declared that she intended to be a doctor when she grew up.
"All right, and I'll take you into practice with me," Doctor Hugh promised, having surprised her in a hurried investigation of his medicine case. "But leave all these things alone, until you are ready to study medicine. Don't come in the office when I'm not here, Shirley; you'll hurt yourself some day, if you are not careful."
But Shirley was possessed with the idea that she would like to be a doctor. She begged and carefully treasured all the empty bottles and pill boxes she could gather; she demanded a knife for "operations" and was highly indignant when Winnie gave her a pair of blunt scissors and told her they would have to do; usually tender-hearted, she drew the wrath of Sarah by declaring that she would like to cut off a rabbit's leg, "just like a doctor."
"I think you're a cruel, cold-blooded girl!" stormed Sarah. "Cut off a rabbit's foot indeed! Why don't you cut off your own foot and see how it feels?"
"Oh, Shirley just says that," Rosemary triedto soothe her outraged sister. "She wouldn't hurt a rabbit any more than you would, Sarah. You know that. But you've gone without dessert twice for meddling with Hugh's things, Shirley, and you did promise to remember after the last time, you know."
Shirley, deprived of pudding and charlotte, was grieved and penitent, but her memory was resilient and the day after Thanksgiving temptation assailed her again. Winnie had gone to carry a pie to an old neighbor several blocks away, Sarah was out playing with a school chum and Rosemary and Aunt Trudy were deep in the discussion of new curtains for the former's room. Shirley was left to amuse herself and her small feet carried her to the empty office.
"Jennie needs an operation," whispered Shirley, her dancing eyes roving toward the desk.
As luck would have it, a curved scalpel lay there in plain view. Ordinarily it would have been locked up safely, but Doctor Hugh, hurriedly selecting his choice of instruments that morning, had not bothered to replace it in the rack. Shirley went over to the desk, picked up the shining silver thing and carefully put it down.
"I'll go get Jennie," she said to herself."She's very, very bad this morning, and I ought to 'tend to her right away."
Upstairs she trotted, past Aunt Trudy's room and on to her room and Sarah's where she rescued Jennie from under the bed.
"What are you doing, honey?" called Rosemary, as Shirley passed the door again on her way down stairs.
"Playing with Jennie," was the wholly satisfactory answer.
"I think she plays better by herself than with Sarah," announced Aunt Trudy. "Sarah is so apt to lead her into mischief. Would you rather have a hem-stitched hem or ruffles, Rosemary?"
Back in the office, Shirley wasted no time in planning what to do. She knew exactly how to proceed. Jennie was placed on the desk and Shirley climbed into the swivel chair and grasped the scalpel. The "operation" was to be performed on Jennie's arm, she, as a celluloid doll, possessing an odd ridge in her anatomy that had always puzzled Shirley. What made the ridge and what the inside of Jennie looked like, were two questions that young doctor was determined to have settled.
Jennie proved unexpectedly difficult to cut. Shirley stuck out her tongue in her anxiety andbreathed hard as she tried to drive the scalpel in. It slipped suddenly, the chair tilted and the curved shining blade cut a cruel gash in the little hand holding it so tightly.
Pain, fright and a guilty conscience were blended in Shirley's scream. Rosemary came rushing down, followed by Aunt Trudy who added her cries to the child's when she saw her doubled up on the floor, rocking back and forth and calling for Rosemary.
"Are you hurt, darling? What's the matter? Tell Auntie," begged Aunt Trudy bending over the little girl.
"I cut my hand!" Shirley straightened up and Aunt Trudy caught a glimpse of the bleeding hand and the front of the child's blouse all stained where she had held it.
The sight of blood always unnerved Aunt Trudy. She shrieked now and covered her eyes with her hands.
"I can't look at it—I'll faint, I know I shall!" she cried. "Shirley will bleed to death, Rosemary. She has an awful cut. What shall we do! What shall we do!"
The terrified Shirley began to scream more loudly and Aunt Trudy walked up and down the floor moaning that it was awful!
"I'll get Hugh!" Rosemary flew to the desk 'phone.
She had heard him say where he meant to make a call and she hoped desperately that he might be at that house or that she might be able to leave a message for him if he had not yet arrived. But the doctor had "come and gone" Mrs. Jackson said. He was going to stop at the Winters, he said. Yes, they had a telephone.
Three more numbers Rosemary called, before she gained a ray of comfort. At the fourth farmhouse the farmer's wife said that the doctor was expected back in twenty minutes with a new brace he had wanted them to try for their son's foot. He had offered to bring it to them from the post-office because her husband was sick himself with a cold—
Rosemary managed to check the good woman's flow of conversation and to ask her to tell Doctor Hugh that he was wanted at home, when he came. Shirley, tell him, had cut her hand.
Shirley's cries, subdued while Rosemary talked over the 'phone, burst out again as the receiver clicked in place.
"Oh, dearest, hush!" implored Rosemary. "Itdoesn't hurt you so very much, does it? Can't you be quiet till Hugh comes and makes you all well?"
"It bleeds and bleeds," screamed Shirley, and Aunt Trudy groaned that the child would bleed to death before their eyes.
"I'll wash it and bind it up myself," declared Rosemary, distracted by the noise and confusion. "I don't know anything about such things, but I think I can make it stop bleeding."
"I can't help you," said Aunt Trudy hastily. "I faint the minute I see blood. My knees are weak now. Don't ask me to hold her, will you, Rosemary?"
"I won't," promised Rosemary, biting her lower lip to keep it from trembling. "I can take care of her, I know I can. Hugh keeps bandages in this lower drawer and Winnie always has hot water in the tea-kettle."
Aunt Trudy frankly ran from the room when Rosemary returned from the kitchen with a basin of warm water and arranged a package of gauze and the scissors on the glass topped table between the windows.
"I can't stay—I simply can not stay," she stammered and ran upstairs to lie on her bed with her fingers in her ears.
Her going was rather a relief to Rosemary who was sure she would be less nervous and shaky herself with her aunt out of the room. But before she had finished with Shirley she was ready to admit that the mere presence of a third person would have been some comfort, however cold.
For Shirley shrieked protestingly when Rosemary approached her to carry her over to the table. She fought off all attempts to look at her hand. And when Rosemary forced her to yield and gently plunged the poor little hand into the basin of water which was promptly stained deep scarlet, Shirley, sure she was bleeding to death, pulled away and ran for the door.
"Oh, darling, don't act this way," begged Rosemary, catching her and holding her close. "Be a brave little girl and let sister wrap the hand for you; it isn't such a bad cut, dear, and after we have washed off the blood, there'll be nothing to be afraid of."
But Shirley continued to sob and squirm all the while Rosemary cut and wound the gauze about her hand. As nearly as the inexperienced Rosemary could tell, the cut was not serious though it was ugly to see. Just as she fastened the tiny safety pin in place and was ready topronounce her bandaging done, the familiar two honks of the car sounded outside.
"Oh, Hugh, I never was so glad to see you in my life!" exclaimed Rosemary, as the doctor appeared in the doorway. "Shirley cut her hand and she screamed and screamed and Aunt Trudy cried and it was awful."
"Must have been," said Doctor Hugh briefly. "Let's see the cut."
Shirley, exhausted from crying and struggling, made a feeble attempt to put her hand behind her, but the doctor held her firmly between his knees and inspected the bandage.
"Pretty neat job," he said approvingly.
Shirley began to cry again as he unwound the gauze and when he asked Rosemary to hand him a certain bottle and pour some of its contents on the cut, the little girl's shrieks of pain were heart-rending. Rosemary watched in amazement as her brother calmly dressed the cut with fresh gauze and then, when he had finished, gathered Shirley up in his arms to soothe her gently.
"She'll go to sleep in a minute," he said quietly. "She's worn out with crying. How did it happen?"
Shirley heard him and half raised herself in his arms.
"I was going to operate on Jennie," she sobbed. "And the nasty knife cut me. But I won't ever touch anything again, Hugh. Honest, I won't."
In a few minutes she was sound asleep, and the doctor placed her on the couch in one corner of the room and covered her with a light blanket.
"Had a tough time, didn't you, Rosemary?" he said understandingly, glancing from the basin on the table to Rosemary's tired face. "Nobody home to help you and Aunt Trudy screaming louder than Shirley I'll bet. I remember Aunt Trudy in hysterics when I came home from school with a black eye one day."
"Well, I felt like screaming, too," admitted Rosemary, "the blood did make me a little sick. But then there would have been no one to look after Shirley. I did the best I could, but I'm a poor nurse, Hugh."
"You never lose your head and that's the first rule for a good nurse," said her brother. "Many a girl would never have thought of trying to follow me up on the 'phone. And that was a mighty neat bandage you did, child. You ought to learn first-aid, Rosemary. Every girl should know what to do in an emergency or accident. I'll teach you, if you like."
Rosemary was wise enough to accept his offer and her first-aid lessons began that week, for Doctor Hugh did not believe in postponement. He was determined, though he did not say to his sister, to "make hysterics difficult" under any circumstances and especially in a household emergency.
E
ARLY December brought cold weather in its train and unusually heavy snows. Householders were kept busy shoveling walks clean and the boys and girls reveled in plenty of coasting. Sarah was invariably late for supper these days and no amount of scolding from Winnie, or pleading from Aunt Trudy, could induce her to desert the hill as long as a single coaster remained to keep her company. Finally Doctor Hugh devised a plan of going around that way before he came home and, if Sarah were there, picking her and the sled up bodily and bestowing them in the car.
"I'll bet I know something you don't," said Fannie Mears one noon, coming over with Nina Edmonds to sit at the corner table with Rosemary in bland indifference to scowls from Sarah and sighs from Shirley.
Fannie Mears and Rosemary were not close friends at all, and the latter was surprised at theoverture. But she hospitably swept part of the lunch aside to make room for the visitors and offered them a couple of Winnie's delicious egg sandwiches.
"Thanks, we have enough," said Fannie. "Have you heard what the boys are going to do?"
"Boys" with Fannie, meant the high school lads as Rosemary immediately understood. The boys in the seventh grade failed to interest either Fannie or Nina.
"No, what?" answered Sarah bluntly, in blissful ignorance that she was not supposed to be included in the conversation.
"The Common Council has asked 'em to clean off the streets," announced Fannie, addressing herself to Rosemary, "and Jack Welles is going to make himself awfully unpopular, if he isn't careful."
"Clean off the streets?" repeated Rosemary. "Why what do you mean?"
"There's been so many storms, they haven't been able to keep some of the streets clear of snow," explained Nina, biting into a cup cake, for Nina lunched almost exclusively on cake. "They've had gangs of men working, but before they get one snow carted away, another falls. And now the Common Council has decided toask the high school boys to work after school. My father is a Councilman, and he told us all about the last meeting. They'll pay the boys and it will be a regular lark."
"Yes, if Jack Welles doesn't go and spoil everything," said Fannie darkly.
"How can he spoil everything?" Rosemary demanded.
She had not seen Jack so often once the school year was well under way. Football practice had absorbed him during the early fall and later came basketball. Other school and class activities, too, claimed his attention, for Jack was popular and a good student as well. He was president of his class, the Sophomores, and had that year been appointed Student Advisor to the grammar school boys.
"How can Jack spoil things?" repeated Rosemary.
Fannie leaned across the table—she dearly loved to be important and now she had something to tell.
"It's like this," she began. "My brother told me. The Student Council had a letter from the Eastshore Common Council, saying they wanted volunteer snow workers among the high school boys. And the S. C. called the presidents ofthe four classes together and told them to go ahead and get the workers, twelve from each class."
Fannie stopped and looked at Rosemary expectantly. Sarah's mouth was wide open and she was listening eagerly. Shirley had wandered away to play.
"Well?" said Rosemary sharply.
"Well," echoed Fannie disagreeably. "The boys made out their lists and when Jack read his he had asked the two Gordon boys, Jerry and Fred, and Eustice Gray and Norman Cox and Ben Kelsey. And Will says the president of the Student Council was simply furious."
Rosemary began to fold up the napkins and put them back in the box. Will Mears was Fannie's brother and the other boys she knew only by sight.
"Why was Frank Fenton furious?" asked Sarah, delighting in the sound of the three F's, though quite unconscious she had used them.
"Oh, do be still!" Fannie tried to squelch the younger girl. "Frank was mad, of course, because the S. C. counted on having all the snow money for the dramatic fund. They want to put on a play this spring and Will says they haven't a cent in the treasury. And now JackWelles goes and spoils a perfectly splendid chance to earn a lot of money."
"That's the third or fourth time you've said that about Jack," cried Rosemary, stung into speech at last. "What has he done to spoil anything? I don't see."
"Why I should think you would," said Fannie, while Nina nodded sagely. "The Gordon boys and Eustice and Norman and Ben are as poor as can be; they want the money for themselves, and Will says they jumped at the chance to earn it. Don't you see, it will keep that much out of the dramatic fund, and Jack could just as well have appointed boys who could have been glad to turn over the money to the school. Will calls it a disgusting lack of class spirit."
Rosemary's blue eyes snapped and fire burned in her cheeks.
"There's nothing the matter with Jack Welles' class spirit, Fannie Mears!" she cried. "I should think you would be ashamed to repeat anything like that, I don't care who said it."
"Well I'm not the only one who said it, or Will, either," declared Fannie, rising as the warning bell sounded. "The president of the Student Council told him what he thought of him, all right."
Inwardly seething, Rosemary managed to get away to her class room without further argument. She had never liked Fannie Mears, she told herself and now she almost hated her. As for Will Mears, president of the High School Juniors, well he wasn't a bit better. What a disagreeable family the Mears must be!
It was cooking class day, and Rosemary stayed almost an hour after school that night, "puttering" as Miss Parsons called it, about the school kitchen. Sarah and Shirley went home without her, and she was walking briskly along alone, tramping hardily through the snow late that afternoon, when Jack Welles overtook her.
"How's the soup?" he asked cheerfully, that being a stock question of his ever since the fateful Institute dinner.
"How's the Student Council?" asked Rosemary.
Jack's open face changed.
"What do you know about the Student Council?" he said gruffly.
"Oh, I heard—something," replied Rosemary. "Was Frank Fenton unfair, Jack?"
"Well, he doesn't think so," said Jack, "I suppose you girls have been gossiping and you might as well get the story straight," he added.
Rosemary nodded eagerly.
"I hope the Gray boys and the others will shovel snow," she cried impulsively. "I don't give a fig for the old dramatic fund, Jack."
"I do," said Jack. "It's all right to turn the snow money into the fund and I've nothing to say against that. But when the Student Council kicks because five boys out of forty-eight want to keep what they earn, and they know they are putting themselves through school, I think it shows a contemptible, small spirit and I told Frank so to-night. You see, Rosemary," he went on a little more calmly, "there aren't a whole lot of ways a boy can earn money and go to school in a small town like this—nearly everyone tends to his own fires and sweeps off his own walks and runs his own errands. If we hadn't had one snow storm after another, there wouldn't have been this chance. And I purposely appointed these five boys because I know what they are up against. And by gum," he said forcibly if inelegantly, "on my squad they stay!"
"But can't the Student Council make you back down and appoint others?" asked Rosemary, glowing with excitement. "I thought the S. C. could do anything in high school, Jack."
"They are pretty powerful," her companionadmitted, "but they don't dare carry this to the faculty, because they'll look so small and Eustice Gray is in the direct line for one of the college scholarships. Every teacher on the faculty staff will stand by the boys—they're all fine students and making a stiff fight to get through school. You don't suppose Mr. Hamlin is going to think the dramatic fund is more important than shoes for Norman Cox, do you?"
Mr. Hamlin was the principal of the high school.
"But it can't be very pleasant for the boys," urged Rosemary, troubled.
"You've said it," confessed Jack gloomily. "I had a second fight there, for after the fellows heard the Student Council was raising a rumpus, they said they would get off my team and let others take their places. Norman said he guessed they could get independent jobs shoveling snow after school hours."
"Could they?" asked Rosemary.
"I suppose they could, but they won't if I have anything to say about it," declared Jack with what Doctor Hugh called his "bull-dog" expression. "I was told to appoint a snow cleaning team and I've done it, and by gum my nominations stand. If the Student Council doesn'tlike 'em, they can appeal to the faculty—and they'll get what's coming to them! The town Council doesn't give a hoot where the money goes, all they want is to have the snow cleaned away. I told the fellows if they walked out, they made me just five short, for I wouldn't appoint anyone in their places. If they want to see the Sophomore class fall down on the job, all right. You watch my twelve names go through!"
Rosemary watched. So did all the high and half the grammar school, for word of the dispute, variously colored to suit different informants, had been noised around and the only persons in actual ignorance of the state of affairs were the high school faculty. The Student Council was desperately anxious that they should remain in that state, for there had been one or two previous clashes over the relative importance of the dramatic fund, and the members of the council had no wish to be accused of "forcing" any unfair demands. So, as Jack had foreseen, his nominations were allowed to stand and the next afternoon, forty-eight laughing, shouting boys reported to Bill McCormack, bluff and kindly member of the Eastshore Common Council who would, in a larger municipality, have been called "Streets and Highways Commissioner" or by similar sonorous title.
But before the boys met "Bill" in front of the town hall, the president of the Student Council, Frank Fenton, and Will Mears, president of the Junior class, had held a conference with Mr. Edmonds, the most influential member, some said, next to the president, Cameron Jordan, a cousin of the old and respected physician. The result of this conference was that Bill McCormack held in his fat, red hands a sheaf of papers which allotted the streets to the four classes and took the decision quite away from him.
"I was told to give these papers to the heads of the gangs," said Mr. McCormack, smiling expansively. "Here ye are—Senior, Junior, Sophomore, Freshman—them's your working papers, me lads, and now off with ye; the shovels ye'll be finding in the basement of the hall."