BEGINNINGS.
The next day was full of all sorts of things. With the same general
program, it is astonishing how different the school years are. There are
new teachers, a new angle from which everything is viewed. There is a
new course to be adjusted and there are the new books with their fresh
covers and crisp pages of knowledge not yet understood. Lilian was
stacking hers on a corner of the table. She was still full of that
tensity and suppressed excitement which the busy day and many interests,
with the companionship of other girls, had giver her.
“All that and more inside my brain this year, girls. And, O, my violin
teacher is so funny. He looks as if he were just caught. He _is_
imported, I guess.”
“Why, Lilian, this from you?” said Hilary.
“Never mind, he thinks I’m just as funny. He has a real mop of black
hair, and closes his eyes and sways when he plays himself,—and glares
fiercely when your bow scrapes or you get ever so little off the tone.
He tried me out this morning. I played scales for him. I know how to
torture him if he gets too cross,—just miss getting it right. Really,
though, I’m just dying to go in for nothing but music, but Father won’t
hear to it. I want voice and piano, violin, harmony, counterpoint,
everything. They are going to let me take one stingy little lesson a
week in voice and one in violin.”
“Mercy, child, how could you do more with your other work?”
“I suppose it is a sensible thing, but you know I’m a little ahead on
the regular course, and wouldn’t have the full number of hours.”
“Where do you practice your violin?” asked Helen soberly, but as Lilian
flashed her an understanding smile she laughed, and the other girls
leaned forward in pretended anxiety.
“Over in the ‘annex,’ Dixie; don’t worry, no squeaks and squawks around
here.”
“Have you seen Dr. Norris?” asked Cathalina.
“Who is he?” asked Lilian and Betty together.
“He is Patty’s lover! But keep it a dead secret. I don’t believe the
faculty knows it. Perhaps they wouldn’t have let him come.”
“Maybe they do know it. How did you find it out?”
“By looking at them.”
“Everybody else will know it that way, then.”
“No, I don’t mean that they acted like lovers, but I could see that they
are well acquainted, and I remember several things that happened last
year. Don’t you remember, Betty, that time when we were with her and she
had a letter ‘from a dear friend,’ she said, and was blushing over it?
And she spoke of a ‘Mr. Norris’ who was in school with her and was
getting his doctor’s degree. Then I’m sure that it was this man’s face
in the photograph that she had out on her bureau and wouldn’t tell when
we teased her to tell. I wondered why his face seemed so familiar, and
then it came to me that it was the man of the photograph. He looks
older, though. Probably that was the picture he gave her when they were
in college.”
“She wears a ring this fall, did you notice it?” asked Betty.
“Yes; I noticed it at dinner last night. It sparkled very prettily and I
thought that Patty was a little—well—conscious that she had it on.
Several of the girls called each other’s attention to it, I saw. But
suppose we say nothing about it.”
“Patty will manage it. I suppose he has to get money enough to get
married on. Do they pay good salaries here?”
“I don’t know, Helen,” answered Hilary, “but he has to get experience
somewhere first.”
“He’ll get it here, all right,” said Juliet.
“Why, Juliet, this is a fine school!” exclaimed Cathalina.
“Nobody knows that better than I, but I wouldn’t teach anybody
chemistry, physics and the things he has, let alone a lot of girls in a
girls’ school. Won’t it be a disappointment to the collegiates when they
find that he is ‘taken’?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Cathalina. “Do you suppose any of them
will fall in love with him?”
“Don’t worry, Cathalina. It won’t be our fault if they do. It’s up to
Patty to look out for that.”
“I suppose you are all happy to find that Dr. Carver’s back,” and Betty
executed a little toe dance in celebration.
“Yes we are—_not_!” declared Isabel, who had been sitting on the couch
in unusual silence. “Patty is to have the beginning Latin classes, but
of course, I’m all through with that!”
“Won’t Patty have _any_ other Latin?”
“One Caesar section, but I could not get into that.”
“I am lucky, Isabel, but I’m sorry you did not get into it too. However,
I’m doubling on my Latin to catch up, and have the dear Doctor, too, in
Cicero. It will be a fight. She will try to catch me up, and I shall try
not to be caught. I expect to spend most of my time, girls, with the old
Romans. But I will have to acknowledge that when she talks she can make
it interesting.”
“Two classes to Dr. Carver! I pity you, Cathalina, from the bottom of my
heart.”
“No, Isabel, only one to her, the other to Patty. I read ahead with Phil
or Father this summer, and studied vocabulary, too. If I get beyond my
depth I’ll come to some of you girls that have the senior Latin.”
“I could not read a line of Cicero now,” declared Helen. “I had hopes
that Miss Randolph wouldn’t keep her when she saw how the girls disliked
her.”
“She knows that Dr. Carver isn’t popular,” said Cathalina, “but I don’t
believe that anybody ever complained to Miss Randolph. I certainly would
hate to do it and make a teacher lose a position. And then, anyway, I’m
not so sure that Miss Randolph cares about a teacher’s being popular.”
“But if Patty had it, wouldn’t we all love Latin?”
“I like it in spite of Dr. Carver,” said Cathalina, “and it helps me
with all the other things.”
“I’ll get you to write an article on the ‘classics’ for our next
contribution to the Greycliff _Star_. Did you know, girls, of my late
honor?”
“I am to represent the senior academy on the staff of the world’s
greatest newspaper, the _Star_. Please all of you help me. We can’t have
much space, but want it filled with the most wonderful productions that
a senior academy class ever offered!”
“‘Ah!’ quoth the correspondent!” said Isabel through her teeth.
“Where are you going, Helen?” asked Betty, as Helen left the row of
girls on the couch and started toward the door.
“I must get back to the suite. I’ve so much to do. We are not settled
yet.”
“I should say we aren’t,” was Juliet’s comment, as she, too, rose to
follow Helen.
“When can we _all_ have a real meeting together?” asked Hilary. “I have
several important things to talk over with the whole crowd.”
“So have I,” said Cathalina.
“We’ll have study hours tonight, and real lessons for tomorrow,”
reminded Betty.
“Then the only time will be between dinner and study bell,” said Hilary.
“Tell the other girls, Helen, please. Where shall we meet?”
“O, down on the beach. Let’s go around to the cliffs.”’
“All right, Betty,” said Helen. “Adieu, ladies, for the present.”
Tap-tap-tap.
“Come in,” said Lilian, starting to open the door. But Alma Huntley had
already let herself in.
“Good to see you all back,” she said hurriedly. Alma was always in a
hurry, having many hours on duty for Miss Randolph, and studies of her
own besides. “Miss Randolph would like to see you, Cathalina, in her
room as soon as possible.”
“I can go at once.” Cathalina rose.
“Come along, then,” invited Alma, and the two disappeared. Avalon and
Isabel departed and soon no visitors were left. Hilary, Betty and Lilian
flew around putting a few last touches on the room and tucking away this
or that in box or drawer.
“Haven’t we done well with our unpacking this time?” said Lilian. “We’ll
not have a thing but lessons tonight. Anything else can be left till
Saturday. Don’t you hope they’ll drive us in to Greycliff?”
“Yes,” said Hilary. “I want a can-opener and some plates at the ten cent
store, and a cup and saucer. Mother said I might just as well get the
dishes here as to bother with packing any. I like to have enough at
feasts, don’t you?”
Dressing, writing a letter or two home, and fixing schedules of study
occupied the rest of the time before dinner.
The lake shore at Greycliff was both beautiful and interesting. There
were the tall, grey stone cliffs which had given the village and the
school their name, and beneath the cliffs a rocky shore with great
boulders, around which the waters tossed and foamed. Then there was a
long, wide stretch of sand, under bluffs of a different formation. To
bathe and swim, the girls naturally frequented the sandy beach and its
rolling waves, but the rocks made attractive seats, and on top of the
“Cliffs” there was soil, with trees and bushes. Only a part of this
belonged to the school.
The appointed meeting could as well have taken place in one of the
suites, but none of the girls wanted to miss the time, between dinner
and the evening study bell, which was usually devoted to pleasant
strolls or outdoor fun of some sort.
Climbing over the rocks, Cathalina, Hilary, Betty and the rest found a
suitable place, where a shelf jutted out from the cliff side and
irregular rocks and boulders offered seats. There they settled,
arranging their light dresses like a flock of sea birds alighting and
preening their plumage. Knowing well, however, the strength of the lake
winds, they had been wise enough to bring their sweaters or jackets.
“Watch the clouds, girls,” said Lilian, “we ought not to think of such
things as lessons and school with all this to look at.”
“See the colors under that golden angel’s wing across the sky!”
exclaimed Cathalina, pointing. “Father said I could paint this year if I
wanted to. I wish I could mix colors like those! But come to order,
ladies,—who shall be chairman? This is a real meeting, you know.”
“I nominate Cathalina Van Buskirk,” said Hilary.
“I nominate Hilary Lancaster,” said Cathalina.
“No, I want to _talk_, Cathalina.”
“So do I, Hilary!”
The other girls laughed. “All I hope is—,” said Isabel, whose perch upon
a round rock was rather precarious, “that no one will call for a rising
vote!”
“Eloise! Eloise!” cried Juliet, and the others took it up. Hilary put it
to vote, and Eloise was unanimously elected chairman.
“What am I chairman of, girls?” asked Eloise.
“The meeting of the No Name Society, I guess,” said Pauline. “Girls, we
_must_ have a real society and a name!”
“That is one of the objects of this meeting,” said Cathalina. “Madame
chairman, may I have the floor?”
“There isn’t any,” inserted Isabel.
“I am speaking figuratively, Miss Hunt.”
“O, excuse me.”
“You may have whatever you want,” generously offered the chairman. “I
think Isabel’s suggestion very good, considering our location. You need
not rise, ladies and gentlemen. Just raise your hand, and voice, if
necessary, and I will recognize you. Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen, I
appreciate the honor which is mine. What on earth are you doing,
Isabel?” For Isabel had jumped down from her lofty seat and was creeping
stealthily around a steep rock.
“Looking for the ‘gentlemen.’”
“There are _some_ people who always take everything literally, Dr.
Carver says. Miss Van Buskirk has the floor.”
“Some of you know Miss Randolph sent for me today, and I thought that
you would like to hear about some of the things she said. For one thing,
I asked her if she had any objection to our having a little society and
she said no, she wouldn’t unless we were planning to have too many
‘social affairs’ and ‘nonsense.’ I told her ‘no more than usual.’ They
do not allow regular secret societies here, she said, but there have
been lots of girls’ clubs. We knew of some last year, you know. She
asked me if we had any object, and I couldn’t say that we had.”
“That Fudge Club last year was so silly,” said Isabel.
Eloise shook her finger at Isabel: “No interruptions.”
“It was a letter from Aunt Katherine and some private matters that she
wanted to see me about, but while I knew she was so busy I did get in a
question or two about this club, and I asked her, too, about what Hilary
wanted to know,—whether a literary society would be a good thing. Hilary
will tell you about that, but I want to tell you one lovely thing that
Miss Randolph said about us. I can remember her words. She said,
‘Cathalina, your little group of friends seems to stand for the best
that there is in Greycliff, and I hope that you all will take hold of
things in the academy classes this year and use your influence.’”
The girls all looked pleased. “Miss Randolph is an old peach,” declared
Isabel.
“That is all, Madame Chairman.”
“Won’t you tell us what your idea of this society is?”
“O, don’t believe I have any more than the rest. Only it seems as if we
might have a little informal club just as well as not, since we are
always getting together anyway, and whenever there is anything important
on hand we always call a ‘solemn conclave’ anyhow. I think it would be
lovely to belong to something together and have a pin or a ring and a
name, and perhaps keep a ‘round robin’ going after we are away from dear
old Greycliff.”
“O, yes, let’s!” exclaimed Avalon. Turning to Isabel, she added, “Aren’t
you glad that they asked us to come? When I first heard them saying
something about it yesterday, I was afraid that the older girls wouldn’t
let us be in it.”
“Shall we hear from Hilary now?” asked Eloise.
“Hear, hear! Hilary!”
Hilary then began: “I am very much in favor of having this little
society of ours, for, as Cathalina says, you know how often there are
important things to talk over, like our athletics. It is funny how
several of us have been thinking of it, and yesterday when something was
said it brought it all about. I can not think of a name to suggest, but
that can come later. Now about the literary society. I thought last year
that an academy literary society would be a good thing and was talking
about it in our suite. Miss Randolph told Cathalina that no effort had
ever been made to start one, though one to have the collegiate societies
include academy girls failed. The work in the English classes and in the
oratory department has been considered enough for the poor ‘prep’! Miss
Randolph thought that it would be an ‘excellent movement’ to start an
academy society and have regular meetings, every week, or every two
weeks, and if we did start it, we might have the south parlor in the old
part of Greycliff Hall, that ducky little room with two or three good
pictures and a piano!”
“If I recall how meetings are conducted,” said Eloise, “we are supposed
to have motions and then discuss them. Somebody make a motion.”
“I move, Madam Chairman,” said Cathalina, “that we form first a society
or club with those present for charter members.”
“I second the motion,” said Lilian.
Eloise put the motion, which was unanimously carried.
“But we won’t have to have formal meetings, will we?” protested Isabel.
“O, no,” exclaimed several.
“Only when we want them so,” said Cathalina. “But we’d better have a
president and secretary, no, just treasurer, for our money. Shall we
have pins or rings or what?”
“Let’s think it over and wait,” suggested Pauline. “Appoint a meeting
and we can elect our officers, select a name, and see if we want to have
an ‘object’ and what it shall be, and decide if we want to add any other
members now.”
The girls all thought that a sensible suggestion.
“But I think we’d better go right to work at the literary society, don’t
you?” queried Hilary.
“Yes,” said Isabel with promptness. “If we don’t, some other society of
the collegiates will grab that room.”
“Not if Miss Randolph has promised it to us,” said Cathalina.
“Why not have a committee appointed now,” said Juliet, “to write a
little constitution and some ‘by-laws’? I move that the chairman appoint
such a committee.”
This was duly done, Hilary, Helen and Juliet consenting to be the
committee.
“One other thing, girls,” said Hilary. “We shall have to have a senior
academy meeting to organize right away. Don’t you think we ought to
speak to some of the girls about it and have a notice of a meeting read
in chapel or in the dining room tomorrow?”
“Yes,” answered several. “You write the notice, Hilary, or see some of
the old officers, and we’ll all speak to the other girls,” Eloise
suggested. “When shall our meeting for the club and the literary society
take place?”
“Saturday evening?”
“That night, the first Saturday, is always sacred to the Y. W. C. A.
reception.”
“Friday evening, then. The other societies will be starting and we do
not have to keep study hours.”
“All right. I guess a motion is not necessary, is it?” said Eloise.
“No, nor a motion to adjourn,” said Isabel. “The study bell will do that
for us. I wish I’d worn my bathing suit. I’d like one little dip.”
“O, no, Isabel,” said Avalon. “We better start up now. My watch says
five minutes to the bell.”
As the girls climbed back and started up the patch to the campus Hilary
exclaimed, “O, Lilian, one thing we didn’t speak of at all.”
“What is that?”
“Whether we ought to organize our literary society first or invite in
the whole academy and organize together.”
“How were the other literary societies formed?”
“They are exclusive affairs, that is, you have to be elected by the
members. But I don’t like anything that is snobbish or has ‘special
privileges,’ as Father and Mother call it.”
“I suppose all ought to have a chance at improvement, but would the
society be as good, and would the girls care for it as much?”
“There is something in that, too.”
“What was Miss Randolph’s idea, if she had any, Cathalina!”
Cathalina, who was walking ahead with Betty and Eloise, waited. Hilary
explained and asked what Cathalina thought Miss Randolph would approve.
“She did not say anything about what sort of a society it ought to be,
but I just took it for granted that it would be like the others, and you
know what she said about our ‘influence.’”
“Still,” demurred Hilary, “that doesn’t mean starting a pleasant society
and leaving folks out.”
“Do you think we ought to have everybody in the other?”
“That is different. Not having girls that like to be together would
spoil the whole idea of our little club.”
“O, we’d never come to the end of that argument!” exclaimed Eloise. “I’m
for starting a small literary society, seeing how it works, taking in a
number of good students and the stronger girls to begin with and adding
girls that will work later, as seems best. It will start off twice as
well with somebody like Hilary for president, a good program committee
and a few meetings to see how we ought to do, before we get in so many,
or without taking in a lot of girls to ball it all up or elect officers
from some kind that haven’t brains.”
“Sensible girl!” quoth Cathalina. “Elo’ always goes to the point.”
“You girls will all have to help us get up the constitution. I don’t
know what a constitution is like,” said Hilary.
“Borrow one from one of the societies, or ask Patty. She’ll know.”
From all quarters of the campus the girls of Greycliff were moving
toward the entrances of Greycliff Hall. Some were hurrying, but most of
them moved with lingering steps, last bits of conversation and laughter.
They were loath to leave the delightful September outdoors.
“How I hate to get at it!” groaned Isabel. “With all these beauties of
nature,” she added, in her most oratorical style, with exaggerated
gesture.
“Are you going to take ‘expression’ again this year, Izzy?” asked Avalon
of her roommate.
“O, yes, and I’m going to be in the debate club and the dramatic club.”
“You’ll be ‘clubbed’ to death, with our two new clubs, too.”
“They’ll overlap. What I do in oratory and debate will come in for the
literary society. If the program committee gives me other things, I
can’t do ’em, that’s all.”
“It won’t do to be too independent, Izzy.”
“No, but don’t you think that debates would be good practice? The other
club doesn’t count, for we always get together when we have a chance
anyway.”
They had reached their room, and saw Hilary and Lilian just closing the
door into their suite.
“I’m glad we’re not far from the girls. Wait till I see if Margaret is
all right.” Kindly Isabel rapped on the door next to theirs and was
greeted by a bright face as Margaret Hope threw it open. At different
times through the day Isabel had helped Margaret with her schedule of
work and shown her to the class rooms.
“Thank you, Isabel, I’m just starting in on lessons, and was reading
over this letter from Father. I think I’ll have to tell you,—he had good
luck in selling some stock and sent me a nice big check to buy some
clothes. I guess he saw that my things were not right. O, Isabel, will
you help me buy some? I hate to look so different.”
“Of course I will, though my taste is not like Cathalina’s or Lilian’s
or some of the rest. Maybe you’d better ask Lilian. You know her best,
don’t you?”
“Yes; but I’m afraid to.”
“Afraid of _Lilian_?”
“Why yes; she’s a regular angel, and I’d hate to have her feel like
laughing at me.”
“Angels don’t laugh at folks, and neither would Lilian. You needn’t be
afraid to ask her about anything, and she won’t talk about it, either,
if you don’t want her to. Say, Margaret, if you’d let your hair down, or
let it be a little looser in front it would be more becoming. We’ll talk
clothes and things Saturday, and maybe go to town. So long, I’ve got to
write a letter to Dad and the boys tonight. They brought me up, you
know. I haven’t any mother.”
“Neither have I, Isabel.” The two girls gave each other an understanding
look, but Isabel hurried off before any feeling should be displayed.
Isabel always declared that she “hated waterworks.” But she had no
sooner closed the door than she opened it again.
“I thought I’d tell you, Margaret, that whether the girls like you or
not doesn’t depend on your clothes at Greycliff. It’s what you are. Of
course we all like pretty clothes, and there is one silly set here that
doesn’t think of much else. You can tell ’em by their grades. And you
wouldn’t want to belong to that crowd, would you?”
“No, indeed.”
Cathalina was deftly fashioning a placard as Hilary and Lilian entered,
and Betty was sitting in a rocking chair by the table, a green shade
over her eyes, her elbows on her knees, fists on both sides of her head,
and a text book on her lap.
“We stopped a minute to talk to the ‘Y’ president about Saturday night,”
said Lilian. “Look at Betty! She has already begun her year’s labors.”
“It’s time,” said Betty without looking up.
“How does this look?” inquired Cathalina, holding up the completed
placard.
“Fine,” replied Hilary, reading it aloud. “‘Lakeview. Busy.’ Don’t waste
a moment, Cathie, but get it up. Where’s my good old kimono, friend of
study hours? Can we keep from talking?”
“Got to,” Betty offered.
“Driving it in with your fists, Betty?” Lilian brazenly looked over
Betty’s shoulders, discovered that Betty was studying history, and
tiptoed away with pretense of great effort to tread lightly.
Betty, looking out of the corner of her eyes, saw Lilian’s painful limp
and giggled.
Cathalina came in from putting up the placard. “I have a suggestion.
We’ll all pitch in with all our might till the bell, and then gabble as
fast as possible till lights out.”
“Remarkable thought,” said Hilary. “Cathalina proposes that we really
study during study hours. All in favor say ‘ay.’ Unanimous.”
Silence descended upon the “inmates,” as they called themselves, of
Lakeview Suite on Lakeview Corridor.