CHAPTER III.
GRESHAM
Gresham at last after a very pleasant trip! We had picked up blue-coated girls all along the road, and by the time we reached the little town on the outskirts of which our school was situated, the train seemed to be running over with girls.
"There must be a million of them," I thought; but as Gresham could only accommodate one hundred and twenty-five, I was wrong. Some of them had mothers or fathers with them, and some of them big brothers or sisters. Most of them had some one; at least, most of the new girls.
The old pupils hugged and kissed one another and all seemed to be glad to get back to school. The new girls looked sad and miserable, even the ones who had their mothers with them. And a few lonesome ones who had brought themselves, like "Orphan Annie" (there, I slipped again and called Annie Pore by that obnoxious name!) or me, looked like scared rabbits. I wasn't scared a bit, and when I saw the old girls hugging and loving one another, flaunting their intimacies, as it were, I said:
"Don't you mind, Page Allison. You are going to know all of those girls and like a lot of them, and a lot of them are going to like you; and they are just a few of the million friends you are going to make."
In the crowded confusion at the little station, I was separated from the Tuckers and noticed that poor Annie was put in a bus filled with Seniors, who looked at her rather askance. Her ungainly telescope was piled up with the natty suitcases by the driver's seat, and I saw him point at it and wink at the driver of the bus where I had found a seat.
The girls in the bus with me were very kind and friendly. There were several mothers along and they looked at me cordially, and in a few minutes I knew the names of all the passengers and they knew mine. By the time the straining horses had pulled the heavy bus through the crooked streets of the quaint little town, up and down the many hills and finally up the last long hill to Gresham School, the whole load of girls and mothers had been jolted into an enforced intimacy.
Bracken, my home, was situated in what persons from the mountains call a flat country but which we call rolling, as it is when compared to the tidewater counties. So the hills of Gresham seemed wonderfully steep to me, and as we pulled to the top and stopped in front of the school, and I realized we could actually see the mountains, I gave voice to a long-drawn "O – h!" of delight.
We piled out of the bus, and for a moment I stood looking at the wonderful view before I even noticed the school building.
"I am so glad you like it," said a soft voice at my side. It belonged to a quiet-looking girl who had come up with us. She looked a little older than the rest of the girls and certainly was much more dignified. "I find if a new pupil notices the mountains first, she is pretty apt not to kick because they have dessert only twice a week. One can't have everything in this world, and a mountain view is more filling in the big end than dessert."
"It is splendid! You have been here a long time?" I asked.
"Yes, many years; and now I am a pupil teacher. This place seems more like home than any other in the world to me," and she took me by the arm. "Come on with me, Page. I am going to call you Page and I do wish you could call me Margaret, but now that I am a near teacher I have to be called Miss Sayre. I am going to introduce you to Miss Peyton, the principal."
"Oh, you are kind to me and I am so much obliged!"
"Give the bus driver your trunk check and in his good time he will deliver your trunk. Come on, so you can get into the office before the rush of Seniors."
Just then the vehicle with Annie Pore in it, looking too forlorn for words, came rattling up. Her hat was knocked over one eye and she had lost all of the cheerfulness that she had gained on the train with the delightful Tuckers. No one had paid any attention to her on the ride, except to look her up and down and make whispered jokes at her expense. I have found out that girls can be the most cruel creatures in the world, just from pure thoughtlessness and lack of imagination. They don't know how to "Put yourself in his place." They don't mean to hurt, but they do hurt all the same. I found during the ensuing year that that same busload of Seniors included many a fine character, but not one of them seemed to have imagination enough to know what Annie Pore was suffering.
"Miss Sayre," I said impulsively, "please take this girl with you. I met her on the train and she seems so forlorn."
"We'll miss our chance to reach Miss Peyton ahead of the others, unless we hurry," she said, looking a little impatient at my request.
"I'm sorry. I think I ought to wait for her, but don't let me detain you," and I went forward to meet poor Annie.
Of course, Miss Sayre came, too. "I might have known that a girl who noticed the mountains first thing would have character enough to do what she thought was right," she whispered as she followed me.
"This is Annie Pore, Miss Sayre," I said, as I helped the cramped girl out of her uncomfortably small quarters. Miss Sayre shook her hand cordially and I hoped Annie did not hear the titter as one of the Seniors nudged another and said in an audible whisper: "Annie Pore, poor Orphan Annie." I hated myself for having had the same thought.
"Where is your trunk check, Annie? Give it to the bus driver," said Miss Sayre, kindly.
"I haven't a trunk," said Annie faintly, "just a telescope."
"By their luggage ye shall know them," said a stylish girl who was clambering out of the vehicle. She spoke in a rasping tone with a nasal touch.
Annie Pore made a ten strike right then and there with me and with all of the girls who heard what she said, and those girls who did not hear it soon heard about it. She drew herself up, no longer timid but with what Dum Tucker afterwards called "Annie's stage presence," and in her singularly clear, full voice, that voice that we were all to be so proud of, said:
"Not by their luggage ye shall know them, but by their voices." And with a dignity that a sagging skirt and crooked-seamed jacket could not lessen, Annie Pore walked to the front of the carry-all and demanded from the grinning driver her bursting telescope.
A shout went up from the Seniors. "Annie, Annie, 'rah, 'rah, 'rah!"
"So, Mabel Binks, she got your goat that time," laughed a bright-looking, auburn-haired Senior.
"I don't know what you mean, Sally Coles. Orphan Annie's remark seemed to me to be without point," and Mabel Binks haughtily demanded a very swell new alligator bag from the front seat.
"Well, if you don't know that your voice needs greasing, it is not for me to break it to you, Mabel." Mabel flounced off, and all her stylish clothes, beautifully-hanging skirt, well-cut jacket, and jaunty velvet sailor hat, did not give dignity to her.
Pandemonium reigned as we entered the spacious hall of the main building. Girls, girls, girls! Little and big; fat and thin; pretty and plain; laughing and crying; alone and attended, they swarmed over everything.
"We have lost our chance to get first at the principal, but I wouldn't have missed seeing Annie Pore take down that common, purse-proud Mabel Binks for a million, as poor as I am," whispered Miss Sayre. "You girls sit here and wait for me, and as soon as there is an opening we'll slip in."
"Oh, how could I ever have made up my mind to leave my Father and come here?" wailed Annie, crumpling up into an ignominious heap, all her dignity gone.
"Now look here, Annie Pore," I scolded, "anyone who could jaw back at a Senior as you did just a moment ago has got backbone, and you have just got to get a brace on you and cheer up."
"Oh, but you are different. You make friends so readily. I am so easily embarrassed," and the poor thing wept anew.
"I don't make friends a bit more easily than you do. I just want to make them, that's the difference. Haven't you made friends with me?"
"Oh, have I really?"
"Of course you have. Would I be ragging you this way if I didn't consider myself your friend? Haven't you made friends with all three of the Tuckers, and now with Miss Sayre?"
Annie was somewhat consoled and tried to take a more cheerful view of life. We had completely lost sight of our traveling companions. They had evidently been admitted among the first to the principal's office. All of the girls who were accompanied by their parents or guardians were given preference in having their rooms assigned them, so that their loved ones could see where the daughters were to be placed and then take their departure on the outgoing trains.
We were so hidden by the swarming girls, we despaired of ever being found again by Miss Sayre; but I persuaded Annie that we would certainly be placed by bedtime as both of us had been registered during the summer; and in the meantime, it was rather fun to watch the girls and try to guess where they came from and if any of them were to be in our classes.
Mabel Binks backed up against us, talking to an overdressed girl of about nineteen. Both were dressed in the latest style. I knew what those styles were from the fashion books that Cousin Sue Lee had bought when we were planning my modest wardrobe.
"I am thankful to say this is my last year at Gresham," said Mabel. "The place has lost tone so. We came up in the bus with a most remarkable-looking person. I am sure Mamma would not permit me to remain if she knew Miss Peyton was allowing such ordinary girls to come here."
Annie Pore's face was crimson and she looked ready to burst into tears, but the overdressed girl, whose name, I afterwards learned, was Josephine Barr, and who was a thoroughly kindly person, remarked:
"Oh, yes, I heard about that girl. Sally Coles tells me she is wonderfully pretty and quite a lady, also that she got a yell from the Seniors for her quickness in responding to a sally from you."
I pinched Annie's arm and whispered: "What did I tell you? Two more new friends, Sally Coles and this big girl who has just punctured Mabel Binks' conceit."
"Come along, girls," and Miss Sayre pushed her way to our retreat. "I think we can get into the office now. How do you do, Josephine? I am glad to see you back," and she shook the big girl's hand cordially. "I want to introduce you to two new girls and ask you to see that they meet the crowd."
"All right, Margaret, what you say goes. I was a freshy myself once and know how it feels." She gave us a cordial grip and assured us we must call on her if we needed anything, friendly counsel or protection or even soothing syrup.
"Jo is a fine old girl," said Miss Sayre, as she hooked one arm in mine and the other in Annie Pore's and drew us into the office. (I noticed that she had completely ignored Mabel Binks.) "She would fight to the finish for her friends. Her clothes are impossible, but we mustn't judge the poor thing by her clothes. They've got so much money, they don't know what to do with it. I'm real sorry for her."
It seemed a queer cause for pity to Annie and me, but Miss Sayre was introducing us to Miss Peyton and we could not ask her why riches were to be pitied. I liked Miss Peyton from the minute I saw her and I believe she liked me. Her countenance was a noble one, her manner frank, and her voice sounded like music.
"I am going to put you into the room with some sisters, Page. I hope you will get along well together. If everything is not pleasant, come directly to me. You are No. 117 in Carter Hall. I will see all the girls to-morrow and classify them. Miss Sayre, will you please get someone to show Page her room? Now I will talk to Annie Pore and assign her her roommate." And Miss Peyton went on quietly with what might have been a confusing task, but which she managed as calmly as a Napoleon marshaling his troops.
I found my way to 117 Carter Hall with the help of an old girl. I was naturally quite interested to know what the sisters were to be like who were to be my roommates for the year. The door to 117 was open and I heard sobbing.
CHAPTER IV.
MY ROOMMATES
"Heavens, I'm tired of tears!" I thought as my conductor left me with a significant smile. "I'm actually damp from all of the weeping going on around me."
A stormy voice was raised in the room that I was about to enter, and I stopped in the hall, not knowing just what to do.
"Now what did I tell you?" said the stormy, sobbing voice. "Didn't I tell you all along I was going to make myself just as disagreeable as I could if you would put someone in with us? Aren't we going to be miserable enough without you, without having some old stick-in-the-mud hoisted on us from the country, to sleep in the room with us; and just as like as not want the window shut at night; and rub her chapped face all over with mutton-suet? Paugh, I can smell it now, the horrid stuff."
"Now, Dum, cut it out. You don't even know that your roommate gets chapped," said a whimsical voice.
"The Tuckers!" I exclaimed, but naturally had a delicacy in entering, after what I had heard Dum say about a roommate from the country. "Could she know that I am the one?" I asked myself.
"Well, how are Dee and I to fight it out the way you have brought us up to do if we have got some old mutt in here with us? We might just as well have left our boxing gloves at home."
"Oh, Dum, you are making it hard for me," said poor Mr. Tucker.
"That's good, I want to make it hard," sobbed the wretched Dum.
"I have told you over and over that I think it best for you and Dee to have to control yourselves more, and the only way to do it is to realize how your tantrums affect other people. You are the best old Tweedles in the world, but you have no self-control. I am surely sorry for your roommate, whoever she may be."
"Well," broke in Dee, "I think it all depends on who she is. I must say it is some lottery. Roommates ought to be carefully chosen; one should not just trust to this grab-bag method."
"Well, how do you know Miss Peyton has not chosen someone she feels will be suitable? I wish it would turn out to be somebody like the little girl on the train. Don't you, Tweedles?"
"Yes, yes!" tweedled Tweedles. "But no such luck."
This reassured me and I knocked on the open door. There was perfect silence, broken only by the sound of Dum's blowing her nose and Mr. Tucker's clearing his throat; and then a faint little "Come in," from both girls.
"Oh, it's you! How good of you to come look us up!" exclaimed Mr. Tucker. "We were afraid it was the hated roommate. Tweedles are treating me so terribly because I insist on their having a roommate so they can broaden out a bit and learn to control themselves some, which they will never do so long as they stay together all the time. I'll leave it to you, Miss Page, don't you think it will be best?"
"Well, I have a delicacy in saying," laughed I. "You see, I am that poor unfortunate, despised roommate. This is 117 Carter Hall, isn't it?"
Then all the weeping was turned to laughter and the irrepressible Tuckers, father and all, grabbed hands and danced around me singing, "Gayly cheer the bride." They made such a racket that a sad, crooked face was poked into the door, evidently feeling a duty to admonish, but Zebedee in his most Zebedeeish humor, sang out in a friendly voice:
"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?"
Then the strangest thing happened to that long, sad, crooked face. The plain features were illuminated by a smile, the person who owned the face came impulsively into the room, and after she had carefully shut the door, she caught hold of hands with the crazy trio and the dance went on; and all of us sang:
"'Will you walk a little faster!' said a whiting to a snail,
'There's a porpoise close behind us and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle – will you come and join the dance?'"
Then the chorus: "Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?"
I refused to play "frog in the middle" any longer and broke into the dance, soon dropping into the unfamiliar tune but very familiar words of the Lobster Quadrille. We sang all four of the verses from that immortal nonsense.
"'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied,
'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The farther off from England, the nearer is to France.
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.'"
The owner of the long, sad, crooked face was also owner of a singularly clear, true, well-trained voice, and Mr. Tucker's fresh baritone fitted in finely, while Dum and Dee and I did the best we could with what Nature had seen fit to endow us in the way of voices. Finally we girls sank exhausted on the bare, uncovered beds, but Mr. Tucker and the mysterious visitor stood clasping hands.
"Jeff Tucker, what in Heaven's name are you doing at a young ladies' boarding school?"
"Entering my girls: Tweedles. And you, Jinny Cox, what are you doing here?" And Mr. Tucker kept on shaking her hand.
"I teach singing here. Have been here for years. And to think of your girls being old enough to go to boarding school! It seems only yesterday that you and dear little Virginia were leading the germans at the University. I haven't seen you since you married. I meant to write you when Virginia died, but somehow I just couldn't."
"That was all right, Jinny. I knew how you felt without hearing from you. She only lived a year, you know. Tweedles were just a few weeks old when she died." And the dear man who a moment before had been so cheerily singing the Lobster Quadrille, now wiped his eyes and seemed given over to melancholy.
"I want you to know our girls. This is Virginia," indicating Dum, "and this, Caroline," meaning Dee. I was rather amused at the fact that earlier in the day he could not remember their official names, as he called them. "I named this one Virginia, thinking she was going to have her mother's eyes, but the little monkey changed them on me and in a twinkling turned herself into a hazel-eyed monster," and poor Zebedee forgot to cry any more and began to laugh. "This is the much dreaded roommate, Miss Page Allison, of Milton, Virginia. The wild orgy which you so tactfully joined was in honor of the discovery that this young lady was the roommate."
"Well, girls, I am glad to see all of you and hope we can be great friends. My name is Jane Cox. I can't remember any one having the hardihood to call me Jinny for some sixteen or seventeen years. I haven't danced for at least ten years. I don't know what the management or the girls would think or say if they knew I had cut up this way. I don't know what made me do it. I came to the door to stop the racket and when I saw Jeff Tucker whirling around with three girls singing, 'Will you, won't you, won't you, will you, will you join the dance?' my discretion flew to the four winds. I just did have sense enough left to shut the door. I forgot I was an old maid, teaching singing in a boarding school."
"It was simply splendid of you to come in and help us out," exclaimed Dee. Dee was usually the one who knew what to say and when to say it. Some persons call it tact, but I have always thought it was just a kind heart that made her know what people wanted her to say. Cousin Sue Lee was the same kind of natural-born social wonder. "I think your voice is beautiful, and how on earth did you happen to know our tune?"
"Why, child, your father and I made up that tune on a picnic once years before you were born. Do you remember, Jeff, when we went to Monticello, and how it rained? We composed the tune and improvised a Lobster Quadrille to cheer up the bedraggled crowd. How Virginia did laugh! I haven't thought of that tune for ages. Perhaps it is because I have not been with the kind of people who would enjoy 'Alice in Wonderland.'"
"Zebedee has put us to sleep with it ever since we were born," said Dum. "I mean the tune."
"And I have been reading Alice in Wonderland ever since I was born," I ventured.
"Well, I'm certainly glad to meet some kindred spirits at Gresham," said Miss Cox, "and now, girls, I'm going to ask a great favor of the three of you. I want you to keep to yourselves that I broke loose as I did. I have hard enough work as it is keeping order during study hour when that task falls to me, and if the girls ever found out that I was capable of such high-jinks, I'd lose all control of them." We promised, but I, for one, thought that the more human you find your pastors and masters to be, the more apt you are to want to make things easy for them. Miss Jane Cox was much older than I, but she had yet to learn that wisdom.
"We'll all promise," we declared in unison.
"But please break loose again, sometimes, Jinny," begged Mr. Tucker. "The idea of your calling yourself an old maid! I bet you are not thirty-five yet. I'm only thirty-six myself, and, goodness knows, I am nothing but a kid!"
"Teaching is a very aging occupation," sighed Miss Cox. "I don't mind the singing, but it's teaching mathematics to the backward pupils that adds ten years a season to my already full years. Do your girls sing, Jeffry?"
"Not so's you can notice it. Dum, here, is going to be a great sculptor; and Dee is uncertain whether she wants to be a trained nurse or a veterinary surgeon."
"Vet'rinary surgeon? Surely you wouldn't let her go into such a profession?" exclaimed Miss Cox with her twisted smile.
"Why not? I'll let my girls go into any profession that appeals to them. Dum loves to make mud pies and Dee loves to nurse sick puppies. Both of them rather dirty arts, but 'Every man to his taste.'"
Miss Cox had to leave us and go to attend to various duties, but before going she assured Mr. Tucker that she would take especial care of all three of his girls. You can fancy what it meant to me to be included. I almost called him Zebedee, but I was afraid it might make him feel like the father of triplets, so I refrained.
It was almost time for the train which Mr. Tucker was to catch, as he intended to take a sleeper back to Richmond that night. I felt the tactful thing for me to do would be to leave the girls alone with their father, so I told him good-by and went off to see how Annie Pore was faring.
I found her sitting in a forlorn heap in one of the neighboring rooms, her hat and jacket still on; her disreputable telescope in the middle of the room; and the expression on her face suited to the tragic muse.
"Who's your cellmate, Annie?" said I, bursting in on her.
"I don't know, but I know she will hate me."
"Hate you, indeed! No one could hate you. Why don't you unpack and get your things in order? I am going to stay with you until Mr. Tucker leaves, so Tweedles can get a chance to be alone with him for a while. I am rooming with them, you know. Our room is quite near you and we can all be real chummy."
The rooms were all perfectly bare and bleak-looking: white walls, white iron beds, curtainless windows and carpetless floors. The pupils were supposed to decorate their own rooms if they wanted them decorated. Annie Pore had been put into a two-girl room a bit smaller than the one assigned to the Tuckers and me, but otherwise exactly like it.
"I am dreading a roommate," sighed the girl. "I have never slept in the room with any one in my life."
"Neither have I, but I am crazy about it. Just think what fun it will be to have some one to talk to and giggle with."
I could not fancy giggling with Annie Pore in her present melancholy frame of mind, but I was sure that was a phase that would pass and she would end by being as girlish as the next. She had too keen a sense of humor to be lost in gloom forever.