A RUMPUS
“Now, I must tell you girls,” began Dorothy, an afternoon later, when
the “committee” on initiation was in session, “you will have to be
gentle with Miette. She has only lately lost her mother, and she is
really in deep grief. Mrs. Pangborn asked me to tell you all this, so
when it comes Miette’s turn we will just ask her to do a few simple
things, and then let her enjoy watching the others.”
“Hum!” sniffed Nita, “I suppose she’s going to be the pet now.”
“No danger of her cutting you out any--with a few, at least,” retorted
Edna, who never had patience with Nita Brandt.
“It’s a great thing to be pretty,” fired back Nita.
“But very small to be jealous,” flung in Rose-Mary.
“Girls!” exclaimed Dorothy, “I am quite sure I never intended to make
this row. There is no need to quarrel. Mrs. Pangborn just asked me
to--”
“Snoop,” growled Nita, who was plainly looking for trouble.
“Not exactly,” replied Dorothy, the color mounting to her cheeks.
“Now, see here, Nita Brandt,” said Tavia sharply, “I won’t stand for
another word along that line. We all know perfectly well that Dorothy
Dale is no ‘snoop.’ She’s been here long enough to have her reputation
for squareness firmly established.”
“Three cheers for Dorothy!” called Cologne, and this was taken up by
most of the other girls.
But with Nita Brandt, Lena Berg took sides, as well as Amy Brooks. This
trio always “went together,” and could be depended upon to “stick to
each other” in all school “rows.”
The present agitation, however, really mattered little to Dorothy, but
the antagonism it was creating against Miette was what worried her.
Several times later in the session she attempted to appease Nita, but
the effort was met with prompt defiance. Certainly it was early in the
term for quarrels, but when a girl has her pride hurt, as Nita did, she
is apt to seek revenge.
“Poor little Miette,” thought Dorothy. “It will be hard to make her
happy if those girls try to make her unhappy. I wish Mrs. Pangborn had
given her to some one else.”
“Suppose we give up the initiation,” proposed Tavia to Dorothy, when
they sat talking the affair over alone that evening.
“I don’t think that would mend matters,” replied Dorothy, “for they
would keep up the trouble anyway, and perhaps do worse if they thought
we were afraid of them.”
“Then why don’t you just tell Mrs. Pangborn? She told you to,” went on
Tavia.
“But I do hate to tattle. Besides, they haven’t really done anything
wrong.”
“But just wait. That Nita is getting more lispy, and more sneaky every
day. I hate her.”
“Tavia!” exclaimed Dorothy. “Surely you don’t really hate anybody!”
“Then I _perfectly_ hate her, Doro. If you knew how she even tried to
make trouble for you last year, you wouldn’t take her part so quickly.”
“I’m not taking her part at all,” replied Dorothy. “I’m only trying to
take yours. You should not say you hate any one.”
“All right. I’ll just think it after this. But, all the same, I’d like
to initiate Nita Brandt over again. I think I would manage to get the
old pump in working order for the occasion.”
“Lucky for Nita she came early,” said Dorothy pleasantly. “But, now
don’t you think we had better turn out the light? We seem to have the
record for getting caught after dark, and you know about Miss Bylow.”
“Why not keep up our record?” teased Tavia. “Not such a bad thing to
come out unscratched as we have done through all past battles.”
“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I would rather withdraw. I’ve got
about all the rows on hand I feel capable of manipulating,” and at this
she touched the light button and left the room in darkness.
“S’long!” called Tavia out of the depths of her pillows. “I’m rather
surprised that your nerve should go back on you. If you need me in the
faction row, I am at your service,” and she, too, prepared to take the
sleep of the young and healthful.
But just across the hall in a very small room, eighteen by number,
little Miette lay with eyes wide open in the darkness. She was
beginning to feel that the wonderful joys of school girl life might
have their accompanying sorrows. Never, since her own dear mother had
last kissed her good-night, had Miette felt that life held any further
blessings for her, until she came to Glenwood. Then it seemed that the
happy young girls and their unlimited resources for fun-making, would
be something after all.
But now those other girls did not like her. She could see that plainly,
and feel it keenly, in spite of what might be said and done by those
who were kind and thoughtful.
“And what must I have done to so anger them?” she kept asking herself.
“Certainly I said not a word, nor did I do anything--They must be
strange, perhaps they know I--”
A shudder ran through the form that hid itself in the coverlets. “No,
how could they know that? No one knew it, not even the kind, gentle
Mrs. Pangborn!”
“And I might be so happy to forget it, too,” went on the girl’s
thoughts. “If only it would never come back, and I might stay at this
lovely place, even the rude girls would not worry me.”
Then she turned her eyes straight up in the darkness.
“Oh, Mother!” she breathed. “Hear Miette! Watch your Miette, and save
her!”
But the dreaded specter of her past experiences would come up and
haunt the child. She prayed and prayed, but somehow those girls in
their nonsense brought back to her a taunt--the wound was not new, it
was only deepened.
“But I must never tell,” she sighed, “not even dear, sweet Dorothy
Dale!”