THE VIGILANTES’ LAST MEETING
“It’s absolutely unbelievable!” cried Priscilla.
“It’s a fairy-tale!” said Vivian.
“I’ll just count the minutes till August!” declared Virginia.
“Mine is a reward for getting all _A’s_,” said Priscilla. “My! but I’m
glad I worked!”
“I’m thankful papa came for Commencement,” said Vivian. “Mamma would
never have said ‘Yes.’ She still thinks I’m going to be killed. Are
you sure you have room for us all, Virginia? Is a ranch large?”
“Of course we have room. Besides, I sleep in a tent summers.”
“Oh, may we, too?”
“Why, yes, if you like. Mary wants to. It’s lovely out-of-doors.”
“Aren’t there any rattle-snakes around?”
“Only on the hills, and in rocky and sandy places. Oh, Dorothy, we’re
selfish talking like this when you can’t come!”
“No, you’re not. I dote on hearing about it. I wish I could come, but
I’m glad I’m going to be with father. It makes me frightfully proud to
think he wants me to keep house for him; and we’re going to have a
heavenly little bungalow right by the ocean. It will be lovely, I
think; and we haven’t been together for so long, it will be like
getting acquainted over again.”
“I think it’s splendid, Dorothy,” said Priscilla, “and I’m so proud of
you! Mother is too—she said so. And being all Vigilantes, we’ll be
together in thought, anyway. Oh, Virginia, I think your father was
perfectly lovely to give us our pins!”
“Wonderful!” cried Dorothy.
“They’re the sweetest things!” said Vivian.
“Wasn’t that your secret when we held our first meeting in May?” asked
Dorothy.
“Yes, that was it. When you mentioned the hepatica, I thought how
lovely it would be to have little hepatica pins. I wrote father all
about it, and he said he’d love to have them made for us as a gift
from him. They are sweet! I love them!”
She lifted hers from her blouse and examined it, while the other
Vigilantes did the same. They were little hepaticas in dull gold. In
the heart of each glowed three small pearls; and in a circle around
the pearls were engraved in tiny letters the words, “Ever Vigilant.”
“They’ll be such a help to us this summer, I think,” said Dorothy. “I
know mine will. It will help me remember—lots of things.”
They were sitting on their rock back of the Retreat. It was afternoon
of the day following the pageant, and this was their last Vigilante
meeting.
“Doesn’t it seem as though everything had come out just right?” asked
Priscilla after a little pause. “This morning in chapel when Miss King
announced that we’d won the cup, I could have screamed, I was so glad!
And that’s due to you, Dorothy, more than to any one else. Just think
of your Latin examination! Miss Baxter has put it in the exhibit of
class work. I’m so glad!”
“I can’t help feeling glad, too. But then it isn’t any more than I
ought to have done toward my share of winning the cup. I helped toward
losing it the first of the year.”
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about that part—ever again!” cried the founder
of the Vigilantes. “It’s never going to happen any more, and that’s
what makes me so happy, because now we understand each other, and next
year we’ll all be working for the same thing! Oh, I get happier every
minute!”
“Won’t it be lovely to have the Blackmores in The Hermitage?”
“Has Miss King really said they could come?”
“Yes, Jess told me this morning after chapel. At least, she’s going to
try them for three months.”
“They’re going to Germany this summer. I wonder what they’ll learn to
do over there!”
“You can depend upon it they’ll learn something! You’ll have enough to
do to keep them straight, Priscilla.”
“Oh, dear,” said Priscilla. “Why did you ever choose me monitor? I’ll
probably get into more scrapes than any one else, especially with the
Blackmores around. I’ll try to be like Mary, but I know I can’t.”
“Oh, won’t we miss Mary and Anne?”
“Anne’s going abroad, too, with her mother; and then she’s going to
college in the fall with Mary.”
“College seems so far away, and so big some way. I’m glad we’re going
to be at St. Helen’s.”
A bell sounded across the campus.
“It’s time for the Senior song,” said Priscilla. “We must go in a
minute. I’m going to take a piece of pine for my Memory Book to
remember the last meeting.”
They all followed her example. Then, standing on the big rock with
their arms around one another’s shoulders, they repeated earnestly
their Vigilante principles:
“We stand for fair play and true friendship.”
“And for taking care of our roots,” added Virginia, as a postscript.
Then they scrambled down from the rock, and ran through the wood path
to the campus, where the lower classes were gathering for the annual
Senior song, which was held the last day of Commencement. From the
woods north of the campus came the twenty Seniors in white dresses.
They marched two by two between long lines of crimson ribbon, which
they held. As they drew near the campus where the other classes
awaited them, they sang their Senior song.
“We’re the St. Helen’s Seniors,
The crimson and the white,
We stand for fun and friendship,
For loyalty and right,
We’ll ever praise St. Helen’s,
Her wisdom and her fame,
The only school in all this land
Our loyalty can claim.”
Cheers from Juniors, Sophomores, and Freshmen greeted them. They
marched to all the buildings, before each one singing farewell songs,
written by Senior poets; and then back again to the gathering-place of
the admiring lower classes, who, as they approached, rose, and with
greater volume, but no greater feeling, saluted them with a song, also
written expressly for the occasion.
“Farewell to the Seniors,
We’ll surely miss you sore
When we come back again next fall,
And find you here no more.
We’ll try to follow in your steps,
Of loyalty and right,
And never, never will forget
The crimson and the white.”