BACK TO SCHOOL AGAIN
"That's the strangest thing I ever heard," Jennie Bruce said, the first
to break the silence. "Do you really suppose he was crying, Scorch--or
was he laughing?"
"Say!" returned the red-haired youth, "Old Gordon never laughed in his
life!"
"But why should he cry?" asked Nancy, much disturbed.
"Ask me an easier one," answered Scorch. "It struck me all of a heap. I
backed out and waited for him to show up. When he went out to lunch he
looked no different from other times."
"And I don't see that what you've told us is a bit of good!" exclaimed
Jennie, suddenly. "We don't know who the gray man is."
"You ain't never seen him, Miss Nancy?" asked the boy, anxiously.
"Not that I know of," replied the girl.
"Well! I tried to find out who he was, and nobody around the office
seemed to know. He'd never been there before. But if he comes again I'm
goin' to get on his trail," declared Scorch, nodding emphatically.
"How'll you do that?" asked Jennie, quickly.
"I don't know. But I'll follow him out if I have to," said Scorch. "And
he'll have to be pretty smart to lose _me_."
"Don't you do anything, Scorch, to get yourself into trouble,"
admonished Nancy.
"Shucks!" ejaculated Scorch. "I won't get into trouble. Don't you fear.
But that gray man won't get away from me again."
The girls remained a while longer, getting better acquainted with Norah,
and with the brood of younger O'Briens. There was the livestock in the
back yard to look over, too; and Norah made tea and cut a cake, doing
the honors of the house because Mrs. O'Brien was not at home.
"She does her scrubbin' at the offices Saturday afternoon instead of at
night. Then we have her home Saturday evenings," said Norah, proudly.
"And Patrick Sarsfield does not go to school Saturday evenings."
"Oh, say!" ejaculated the red-haired boy. "Call me 'Scorch.' 'Patrick
Sarsfield' makes me feel top-heavy. I'd soon get round-shouldered
carrying that around."
John Bruce met the girls at the station, to which Scorch escorted them
in time for the afternoon train. Nancy shook hands with her champion
warmly before they separated.
"You be a good boy and keep out of trouble," she advised him. "Maybe Mr.
Gordon isn't as bad as--as you think. He never refuses me anything, and
I feel ashamed to doubt him so."
"Say! what did he ever give you but money?" demanded Scorch.
"But that, you once told me," said Nancy, laughing, "was about the best
thing in the world."
"It's good to have, just the same," quoth Scorch. "But perhaps havin'
folks is better. And if Old Gordon has hidden you away from your folks,
Miss Nancy, he'd oughter be made to give you up to them."
"That's a _new_ idea, Scorch," returned Nancy, reflectively. "Do you
suppose that I might have been stolen from my people for some reason?"
"Maybe you were stolen by Gypsies!" cried Jennie.
"Old Gordon doesn't look like a Gypsy," said Scorch, slowly, "nor yet
the gray man I was telling you about."
"Come on and get aboard," said John Bruce, smiling. "I wouldn't worry my
head about such things, if I were you, Nancy. We all like you quite as
well as we should if you had a family as big as the Bruces'."
That was not the only time the girls saw Scorch O'Brien that summer;
and on one occasion the entire O'Brien family--from the fat, ruddy-faced
Mother O'Brien, down to Aloysius Adolphus O'Brien, the baby--came clear
out to Hollyburg on the train, where they were met by the Bruces' man,
and Nancy and Jennie, with a two-horse beach-wagon and transported to
the lake for a picnic.
But Scorch--greatly to his disappointment--had nothing of moment to
communicate to Nancy on that occasion, or on any other that summer. The
"gray man" did not again appear at the offices and all he could say was
that Mr. Gordon went on in his usual way.
"He lives in an old-fashioned hotel over on the West Side," said Scorch,
"and I've been in his rooms two or three times. But it don't look to me
as though he could hide the papers there anywhere."
"Hide what papers?" demanded Nancy.
"Why, there's always papers hidden away that would tell the heiress all
she wants to know--if she could get at 'em," declared Scorch, nodding.
"You ridiculous boy! You've got your head full of paper-covered story
books!" exclaimed Nancy. "Did you ever hear his like, Jennie?"
"Maybe he's right, just the same," observed her chum, slowly. "Mr.
Gordon isn't likely to tell you anything himself. If you ever find out
about your folks it will be in some such way as Scorch says."
Bye and bye it was time to go back to Pinewood Hall again. Nancy had
remained the whole summer with the Bruces, and she had enjoyed every day
of that time. Yet she was glad, too, to go back to her studies.
"And so would _I_ be, if I had a chance of standing anywhere near you in
classes," agreed Jennie. "But I'm always falling down just when I think
I'm perfect in a recitation."
But there was much more dignity in the bearing of both Nancy and Jennie
when they approached Pinewood Hall on this occasion. They were
full-fledged sophomores, and they could not help looking down with
amused tolerance on the "greenies" who were timidly coming to the school
for the first time.
It was "great," as Jennie confessed, to be able to tell "those children"
where to go, and what to do, and to order them about, as was the soph.
privilege.
But when Nancy found that certain of her class were hazing the
new-comers in a serious way, she took the class to task for it. She
called a meeting and reminded them that it would displease both the new
captains of the school--Mary Miggs on the West Side and Polly Hyams on
the East--as well as Madame Schakael herself, if hazing of the new girls
continued.
"Let's do unto others as we would have been glad to have others do to us
when we came a year ago," said Nancy.
"Well, the sophs. drilled us, all right!" cried Jennie, who was a bit
obstreperous on this point, for she liked to play practical jokes on the
younger girls.
"And so," said Nancy, gravely, "we know how mean it was of them. This
class wants to have a better record than the class above it--eh?"
"Talk for yourself, Miss Nancy!" snapped Cora Rathmore. "You're taking
too much upon yourself."
"As usual, too," agreed Grace Montgomery, with scorn. "Just because you
happen to be class president----"
"And quite by a fluke," interjected Cora.
"You needn't suppose that you can boss us in every single particular. If
I want to make one of these greenies 'fag' for me, I'm going to do it."
"We have always agreed to be governed by the majority, you know,"
observed Nancy, softly. "Let us put it to vote. If the bulk of the
class believe it better and kinder to help these younger girls instead
of making them miserable for the first few weeks they are at Pinewood,
let us all agree to be governed accordingly."
"Well, that's fair," said Jennie Bruce.
"Oh, she knows she's got the majority with her," snapped Cora, shrugging
her shoulders. "The minority have no rights at all in this class."
"I am glad--or would be so--if I believed I was so popular," Nancy said,
with some warmth. "But I believe with the majority of us girls my
suggestion is popular. It isn't _I_."
Then she put the question and the Montgomeryites were in a very small
minority.
Nevertheless, outside of class matters, Grace Montgomery was still
something of a leader. She and Cora paid more attention to dress than
other girls in the school. They spent more money on "orgies," too, and
had hampers arrive from home more frequently. They were even more
popular among the juniors than they were in their own class.
And soon a certain number of the new girls at Pinewood Hall began to ape
the manners and quote the sayings of Grace Montgomery. The present class
of seniors paid little attention to Grace and her growing clique; but
Nancy and Jennie often spoke of the possibility of her having a large
following before she was through her senior year.
"Unless she does something for which to be shown up before them all, the
time will come when Grace Montgomery will divide the school. She'll
never have much influence in her own class," said Jennie; "but in the
school as a whole she will be a power if she can."
In athletics that fall, however, neither Grace nor Cora cut much of a
figure. Cora tried hard for the school crew, but Miss Etching turned her
back to the second boat for another year.
To make Cora all the angrier, Nancy "made" Number 6 in the eight-oared
shell. It was something for the sophomore class as a whole to be proud
of; for it was seldom that one of their number got into the "varsity"
crew.
But Cora did all she could to belittle Nancy's triumph. She stood on the
landing and sneered at the work of the crew, and especially at "Number
6" until one evening Jennie Bruce came up behind her, caught her by both
elbows, and thrust her suddenly toward the edge of the float.
"Ouch! Don't! You mean little thing!" cried Cora.
"Mean?" said Jennie, sharply. "If I was as mean as you are, Cora
Rathmore, I'd be afraid to go to sleep without a light in the room.
Just think of being left alone in the dark with anybody as mean as _you_
are!"
"Think you're smart! Ouch! Let go of me!"
"You quit ragging Nance Nelson, or I'll pitch you right into the
river--now you see if I don't!" threatened Jennie.
"I'll tell Miss Etching on you!" threatened Cora, still struggling.
"Go ahead. And I'll tell her the things you've said down here every time
the school crew is out. You have a funny kind of loyalty; haven't you,
Cora? Pah!"
"Mind your own business!" snapped Cora, but rubbing her elbows where
Jennie had held them like a vise.
She was a little afraid of Jennie's muscles, as well as of her sharp
tongue. Jennie was not a heavy girl, but she was wiry and strong.
This fall rowing was a particular fad of the Pinewood Hall girls. In the
long evenings after dinner all but the freshman class were allowed to go
out on the river until Mr. Pease blew the big horn at the boathouse to
call the stragglers in.
Some of the girls owned their own boats, too, for of course they could
not use the racing boats except in practice hours. Others, who did not
own boats, hired them of a boatman below the estate, near the railroad
bridge.
Jennie and Nancy pooled their pocket money and bought a light skiff--a
flat-bottomed affair which was just the thing for them to paddle about
in shallow water, and was "seaworthy." No ordinary amount of rocking
could turn the skiff over.
They often pulled into the still pools, or meadow ponds, opening into
the river, and plucked water-lilies. Nancy never did this without
remembering her adventures before she came to Pinewood Hall--the
occasion when she had helped save Bob Endress from drowning.
Bob was now a lordly senior at Dr. Dudley's Academy. Nancy had only seen
him flashing past the girls' boathouse in the Academy eight. Bob was
stroke of his school's first crew. Nancy often wondered if he had
learned to swim yet.
One evening when the two chums from Number 30, West Side (they had held
their old room for another term, as sophs often did at Pinewood Hall),
arrived at the little dock where the private boats were kept, they saw
that their own skiff was in the water.
"Hullo!" exclaimed Jennie. "Some of the girls have been using the
_Beauty_. What do you know about that?"
They began to run. One girl popped up out of the boat, saw them, and
immediately climbed out upon the dock. It was Grace Montgomery.
"Well, will you look who's here!" ejaculated Jennie. "Who invited _you_
to play in our yard, Miss?"
"Oh, never mind, Jennie!" begged Nancy, pulling at her chum's sweater.
"I'm not going to have anybody take our boat without permission. Who is
that other one? Why, it's Cora, of course! Get out of that!" commanded
Jennie, much more harshly than Nancy had ever heard her speak before.
"Dear me! I didn't know it was _your_ boat, Jennie," said Grace, airily.
"Nor I," chimed in Cora. "You can be sure I wouldn't have got into the
sloppy old thing, if I had."
"Go 'long, chile!" spoke Jennie, scornfully. "It wouldn't matter to you
whose boat it was. Your appreciation of personal property is warped."
"Nasty thing!" snapped Cora.
"Just so," returned Jennie. "Come on, Nance. We'll get a padlock for our
boat-chain to-morrow."
When they had pushed off and were out of hearing of the girls on the
dock, Nancy said, admonishingly:
"Why say things to stir them up? It does no good."
"Oh, fudge! What does it matter? Do you suppose that I care if Grace or
Cora 'have a mad on' at me? Much!" and Jennie snapped her fingers.
They were pulling out into the river. The sun was already below the
hills; but the light was lingering long in the sky and on the water. The
chums had an objective point in a little cove across the river, where
splendid lilies grew.
The evening boat from Clintondale down the river came in sight and the
girls rested on their oars to let it pass. The little waves the small
steamer threw off rocked their skiff gently.
"Goodness!" exclaimed Jennie, suddenly. "This skiff is all wet. My feet
are soaked."
"Why, what's the matter?" asked Nancy. "The water is over _my_ shoes,
too."
"I bet those girls slopped some into the boat when they launched her,"
declared Jennie, angrily.
"Wish we had a bailer. Why, Jennie! the boat's leaking!"
But Jennie had already found that out. And she found _where_ it was
leaking.
"The plug's been pulled, Nance!" she exclaimed. "See that bunch of rags
floating? That's what Cora Rathmore stuffed into the hole when she
pulled out the plug. She knew the water would soon work them out."
"But where's the plug?" asked Nancy.
"They took it away with them. It's a mean trick!" gasped her chum. "Why,
Nancy! The water is gaining fast. Here we are in the middle of the river
and the skiff will sink under us before we can row to shore!"