THE BEACH DOG
"You would certainly smile if you could see the school I am going to,"
Frances wrote to her chum, Marjorie Benton, "but when I think of you
and the other girls back at the dear old Boston Latin, I feel more like
crying.
"First I must tell you about Edith Pearce, the girl in the house where
we are staying. She has long flaxen hair which hangs over her shoulders
in the most childish way, though she's our age. Her eyes are gray with
dark lashes and when she looks at you they are like surprised stars.
And she has the most beautiful complexion in the world, just pink and
white. She is lovely to look at and I feel like a tanned, homely gipsy
beside her. She's sweet too, but very easily shocked and I'm afraid
she's not only good but pious. She can never take your place so don't
worry, only, as I have to be here, I might as well have some fun with
her.
"I go to school with Edith and it is as unlike the Latin School as the
North Pole and Boston Common. There are about thirty boarders, some of
them little bits of things--Edith calls them 'tinies'--who have been
sent home from India where their parents couldn't keep them any longer.
About fifty day-scholars attend, from kindergarten age up.
"I'm the only American and I can tell you I was well stared at. At
first the girls couldn't believe it, insisted that I must be Scotch or
at least Canadian, so now I wear a little United States flag pin all
the time. Gracious, but things are different, especially clothes! Mine
are the prettiest in school, if I do say it, and Edith thinks so too.
She says my 'frocks' are 'chic.'
"Most of the girls, even the big ones almost eighteen, wear their hair
hanging and have _such_ dresses,--frocks, I mean. They fit like meal
bags, and being combinations of many colors, look perfectly dreadful.
And yet the girls are very nice, some of them from really important
families.
"To cap the climax, most of them sport ugly black mohair aprons which
they call 'alpaca pinnies.' Marjorie, can you imagine what they look
like? I told Mother if she wanted me to be English to the extent of
wearing a pinafore, I should lie down and die and I'm thankful to say
that she simply grinned. But many of the girls have wonderful yellow or
red-gold hair and stunning peachy complexions, so they aren't such
frights as you'd think.
"Instead of going around from one class to another as in any sensible
school, the girls stay in one room and teacher after teacher,--I mean
mistress, comes to them. I get so everlastingly tired sitting still.
Never before did I realize what a rest it was to walk from class to
class and get a chat on the way. The only exceptions to this rule are
preparation, when we sit at desks under the eye of a monitress, and
gymnasium work.
"Marjorie, when I first beheld that gymnasium teacher, I nearly
fainted. Her molasses-colored hair was frizzed hard in front and pinned
in a round bun at the back of her head. She had on tight-fitting knee
trousers, not bloomers, believe me. Over these she wore a white sweater
of a very fancy weave. Over this was a weird tunic of alpaca with two
box-plaits in front and three in back. This fell an inch or so below
her knees, and every time she bent over or stretched up, those queer
tight trousers showed. Her shoes were ordinary ones with heels. The
girls wear either their usual frocks or an arrangement like this. I can
tell you my pretty brown gym suit was the event of the day when I
appeared in it.
"Everybody wears slippers at school, puts them on when she first comes
and no wonder, because the English shoes are the worst-looking and
clumsiest things ever invented by man. Edith's feet look twice as big
in her boots as in slippers. You'd think by their appearance that
English feet were a different shape from ours, but they are not; it is
only the shoes. They make them so thick and stout that they last for
years. Edith was plainly shocked when I told her I had a new pair every
few months. She thinks mine suitable only for the house. Well, I will
admit that English girls can out-walk me.
"The other mistresses aren't so queer as the gym teacher but look more
like other people except that they wear too much jewelry. Everybody
wears a great deal and you know what we think at home of ladies who
appear on the street with rings and chains and lockets. Edith and her
sister Estelle don't dress so, but Mother says they are quite
exceptional.
"As for lessons, we have to study. They expect a lot of grammar and
parsing, and dates in history and solid facts in geography and all
that. Mother approves; she thinks the English system much less faddy
than at home. We have Bible instruction in regular lessons. I'll admit
that these English girls know more than I do about things in books, but
they haven't any idea what's going on in the present world. They didn't
know much about the Panama canal and the tolls. Win howled when I said
I explained it to them and vowed he'd give a dollar to have heard me.
And several didn't know who was president of the United States. Imagine
that, when we're the most important republic in the world! I knew their
old king.
"We begin school at half-past eight and have prayers and a Bible
exercise. Different classes follow until eleven when a gong rings and
everybody rushes into the garden, a lovely place with box-edged beds
and a sun dial and gravel walks. There are myrtles and geraniums, great
big bushes of them, and japonicas and heavenly wall-flowers and _trees_
of lemon verbena and fuchsias up to the eaves. This is solid truth, and
in November, too.
"In the garden we find a table with jugs of milk,--notice my English,
please--and biscuit, that is, crackers, and we gobble and faith, we
have reason! Studying so hard makes one famished. Then recreation
follows for half an hour and we play ball or tennis. Some of the girls
are splendid players. School again until two, when we day-scholars
leave.
"Three afternoons a week, we have to go back for gym work and English
composition, which is beastly. On Wednesday there is no school.
"Do you want to know what I've learned in one week of school in Jersey?
"Well, I can speak three sentences in French. I'll write you in French
next time.
"I know that Amos and Hosea and Isaiah were all prophets and said that
Israel was a very bad place.
"I know that Paleolithic man was probably the first inhabitant of Great
Britain.
"I know how few people like to join mission study classes.
"And I know that I love you."
Fran finished her letter, directed and sealed the envelope, affixed a
stamp, sniffing slightly at the head of King George instead of George
Washington, and ran down-stairs.
"Do you know where Edith is?" she asked of Nurse.
"She is out in front, Miss Frances," replied Nurse. "Are you going for
a walk?"
"Just to the beach. We'll be back for tea."
Edith stood at the gate and the two ran down to the shore. The tide,
half-way out, left bare a tremendous expanse of wet sand, iridescent
under the sun's rays. The water showed wonderful shades of blue, green
and turquoise, and in the edge of the retreating waves walked hundreds
of gulls, searching for food.
The girls started up the beach toward St. Helier's, chatting happily as
they watched the water and the birds. Little sandpipers appeared and
some huge gray cormorants.
Presently a handsome collie ran up to them, dropped a stone before
Frances and stood looking at her, his head cocked on one side, all but
speaking.
"You darling," said Frances, picking up the pebble. "Does he want to be
played with? Well, he shall."
She threw the stone down the beach and the collie shot after it at full
speed, his beautiful tawny coat shining in the sunlight.
"Twice before," said Edith, "when I've been on the sands, he has begged
me to throw stones for him to chase. He's a thorough-bred. Such fine
markings! He looks like one of the Westmoreland sheep dogs. You've
heard of them, haven't you? They are so intelligent about taking care
of sheep and they understand everything their masters want. We saw one
once that separated and brought to his master three sheep out of a big
flock and the man didn't say one word, only motioned to him. He wants
you to throw it again."
"I can't throw stones for you all night," said Fran at last. "You take
a turn, Edith."
Edith threw a pebble picked up at random. The collie raced for it and
after a sniff, returned without it.
"He wants his own stone and no other," laughed Frances. "See, he's
hunting all about. There, he's found it!"
For a good mile down the beach the collie accompanied them, till both
were tired of play. Convinced that they would throw his stone no
longer, the dog reluctantly left them. Looking back, they saw him
accosting a young man, who promptly yielded to the mute coaxing.
"I wonder whose dog he is," said Edith. "He didn't seem to belong to
any one we passed. I fancy he's here on his own."
"We really ought to go over to Castle Elizabeth soon," observed
Frances. "Doesn't it look like a huge monster stranded out there in the
harbor?"
"Sister is afraid of the tides," replied Edith. "A soldier was drowned
there the other day, trying to cross the causeway after the tide had
turned. Look, Fran, I believe that must be his funeral up on the road
now. It is a military one at any rate."
Frances looked with interest. First marched a guard of soldiers, two by
two, then a band with muffled drums, playing the Dead March. After the
band came a gun-carriage drawn by four horses and bearing the coffin,
over which was draped the English flag. Several barouches followed with
officers in uniform, and then the rest of the regiment, walking very
slowly, their guns reversed.
As the procession approached, every man on the route uncovered and did
not replace his hat until it had passed, a mark of respect which struck
Frances forcibly. "They have better manners than we have," she
acknowledged half to herself.
Edith looked surprised. "Men always uncover on meeting a funeral," she
remarked. "This was a private, but if he had been an officer, his
helmet and sword would be on the flag, and directly behind the
gun-carriage, his orderly would lead his riderless horse. A military
wedding is so pretty, Frances. I saw one once in Bath Abbey. The
officers were all in full uniform and after the ceremony they formed in
the aisle, two lines going way down out of the church and at a signal,
drew their swords and crossed them with a clash above their heads and
the bride and groom came down this path through the glittering swords.
I was just a tiny then, but I decided I'd marry a soldier so I could
have the arch of swords."
"It must have been very pretty," Frances agreed. "Why, what are those?
See, like immense horseshoes in the water."
"The bathing pools," explained Edith. "They show only when the tide is
very low. They keep back water for bathing."
"And a good job, too, when you have a tide that goes out of sight,"
commented Frances approvingly, as she looked at the two huge masonry
walls near St. Helier's, set in the expanse of wet sand. "Look at the
boys sailing boats."
"Sometimes there are real races with little model yachts," said Edith.
"There's a club of the young officers and some of the townspeople and
they have the prettiest little miniature boats with keels about a metre
long, rigged exactly like real racing yachts. It's great sport to see
them. But ought we not to go back?"
The girls turned for they were already far from home. To their surprise
they were presently greeted again by the collie who tore up to hail
them rapturously.
"Still chewing your stone?" Frances inquired. "Come along. I suppose
we'll have to take you part way back."
The collie flew for the pebble as though for the first time of the
afternoon. Before they had gone more than a quarter of a mile, a pretty
young lady came up.
"I'm afraid my bad Tylo has been bothering you," she said
apologetically. "He is forever coming on the sands and badgering people
into playing with him."
"Oh, we liked to play," said Frances, smiling. "I think he's a brick.
What did you call him?"
"Tylo," replied the young lady. "After the dog in the 'Blue Bird,' you
know."
Edith also smiled. Their new acquaintance was looking from one to
another, a charming and rather mischievous expression lighting a sweet
face.
"You're a little sister compatriot," she said to Edith; "but I fancy
this little lady comes from across the ocean."
"Yes, I do," said Frances, "but how did you know?"
The young lady laughed merrily. "Oh, I've knocked about a good bit. And
I happen to have known one American boy very well. Indeed, we really
grew up together in Italy and England. 'Brick' is rather an American
word, isn't it? I've surely heard my friend use it. Americans seldom
find their way to Jersey. Are you stopping long?"
"Perhaps all winter," replied Frances.
"There are many delightful excursions to make in the island," said the
young lady. "Come along, Tylo. We must go home to tea. Oh," she added
to the girls, "when you go on picnics, don't forget to look for caves."
With another smile and a charming little nod, she left them.
"I wonder who she is," said Frances, frankly looking after her. The
erect lithe figure was crowned by a finely poised head and a wealth of
beautiful fair hair, prettily arranged. Something in her face suggested
possibilities of good comradeship, and her dress, while simplicity
itself, betrayed a French origin.
"She looks nice enough and ladylike enough to be an American," thought
Frances approvingly and with a sudden stab of homesickness.
"I wish she'd told us her name," she went on aloud, "and who the
American boy was. Perhaps we might know him."
"He can scarcely be a boy now if they grew up together," observed
Edith. "Wasn't she sweet? I hope we'll see her again."
"And what did she mean by caves?" Frances continued, pursuing her train
of thought. "That sounded very interesting and mysterious."