THE WRECK OF THE GREYCLIFF.
Betty and Cathalina strolled away together from the senior-freshman
party, and Betty asked if Cathalina thought it possible to have a short
meeting after dinner to consider whether they wanted to be a “Psyche
Club” or not.
“I have to study like everything tonight,” said Cathalina. “Just
think,—I didn’t do a thing last night on account of the Shakespeare
Society, and I spent lots of time that I couldn’t spare on the
invitations. I’m not ahead on anything, not even French, and I have to
keep ahead to get along!”
“‘Keep ahead’ to ‘get along’? Our little Chinese girl would wonder what
that meant, I guess.”
“Very likely. Isn’t she a dear? We must take her into the literary
society. It will help her to get the English. Well, as I was saying,—O,
yes I did get out a Latin lesson with one of the girls in Patty’s Caesar
class, right after class Friday afternoon. So much has happened that I
had forgotten it. It wasn’t very long and we had part of the first book
in the back of the beginning Latin book last year. I looked up the words
we didn’t know, in the vocabulary, and she kept the place in the notes,
and we finished it in a little while, read it through twice. I _love_ to
work for Patty!”
“What do you think, then? Can you spare a little time before study
hours? You oughtn’t to go right to work after dinner. It’s bad for your
digestion anyhow, and so lovely out of doors!” So Betty enticed her
chum. “Let’s go ’way up in the grove, all by our ’lonies.”
“All right. You tell the other girls, and I’ll get my French book after
dinner and read over the lesson in between times out in the grove.”
“I’ll bet you don’t look at it,” said Betty, as she scampered off to
speak to a few of the girls before dinner and tell them to pass the word
around. No time was lost, and soon after the girls came pouring out of
the dining room, the ten girls who were forming the little society or
circle were back among the whispering pines, birches, oaks and elms of
Greycliff’s woods.
They all liked Betty’s idea of the “soul, love, faith, effort”
foundation, and the “nothing less than Olympus” or “nothing below
Olympus” or something of the sort for a motto. “Cathalina, since you are
to see to the pins, suppose you consult Patty or Dr. Norris and get
something short either in English or Latin that could be engraved on our
pins.”
Cathalina came back with a start, having wandered away into her French
story while Betty was telling the girls the details which she had
explained to Cathalina when the idea first struck her. Eloise repeated
her suggestion and Cathalina consented to be a committee on pin, name,
and motto. “‘Psyche Club’ is all right,” continued Eloise, “but we might
think of some other way to put it.”
“The girls will be sure,” said Lilian, “to make remarks about our
‘beauty club,’ because Psyche was so beautiful, you know, that even
Venus was jealous of her.”
“We needn’t care,” said Isabel, “what I’m so crazy about is the
butterfly pin!”
“The motto can go on the back of it, can’t it?” asked Avalon.
“O, yes,” said Cathalina, “with the name and date. I think we ought to
have ‘Greycliff,’ too.”
“You can’t have all that on a pin unless you get a big one.”
“Maybe not. Which would you rather leave off?”
“The motto. We ought to have our names and ‘Greycliff,’ whatever else we
leave off.”
“All right. I’ll get designs from New York, and if they don’t suit us
we’ll make our own design. Lilian, you call the meeting to order. We
have a reason, Eloise.” This was to explain why Eloise was not called
upon as before. Lilian took the chair, figuratively speaking, for she
sat on her bright sweater which was spread over a carpet of pine
needles, Eloise was made president, “by acclamation”; Juliet,
vice-president; Pauline, secretary. Cathalina, because of the pin
proposition, was elected treasurer.
“Besides,” said Isabel, who nominated Cathalina, “it wouldn’t do to have
all the officers in the same suite. They might abscond with the whole
society.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Helen. “Of course, it is a blow to have all my
suite-mates officers, but I’ll try to stand it.”
As all the girls were in the same predicament as regards lessons, the
meeting was a short one, and long before the study bell rang they
started back to the Hall. Isabel and Avalon had hurried away first.
Eloise and Helen had just disappeared within the big doors at the side
entrance. Juliet and Pauline were strolling in advance of the other
girls when suddenly Juliet turned and waved. “Bright idea!” she
exclaimed.
The other girls hurried up. “Pauline and I were just thinking that all
this lovely September weather ought not to be wasted in little tramps or
beach parties. Why not have a regular Greycliff picnic to the Island?”
“Sure enough!” assented Hilary. “Why not, indeed? When would you have
it?”
“Next Saturday. School began earlier than usual this year. It goes that
way sometimes, you know, and it isn’t likely to get cold, not until next
month anyhow.”
“O, we’ll have picnic days in October,” said Cathalina.
“I’m not so sure about the lake, though,” suggested Betty.
“Let’s hurry up a picnic, then,—a class picnic?” queried Hilary.
“Yes, that would be best, I think,” said Juliet. “If you go outside the
class it gets mixed up. We might have a literary society picnic,
though,—what do you think?”
“O, let’s have a senior academy picnic,” said Pauline. “We are used to
working up class picnics together. Let’s ask right away for the
Greycliff for next Saturday, and get Patty and Dr. Norris to chaperone
us.”
“How painful that would be for them,” laughed Betty. “Miss Randolph
might think they needed chaperoning themselves, though.”
“Our crowd would be chaperones enough for them. He scarcely looks at
Patty before the girls, and she has the most polite manner you ever
saw.”
“She is always polite to everybody.”
“Well, distant or formal, then.”
“It’s a fine idea, Pauline,” said Lilian, “will you see Miss Randolph
about the boat and the chaperones? We’ll call a class meeting for Monday
and appoint a committee for the eats, pardon me, the food, banquet,
viands and victuals!”
After a Sabbath of much needed rest from lessons and parties, the week
fairly flew. It seemed no time till Saturday and the picnic were at
hand. There were clouds, but it was warm and the sun peeped through
occasionally as the girls brought various articles for the lunch and
Mickey packed in the usual equipment for picnics. “Feels like rain to
me,” said he, “everybody got a raincoat?” Everybody had, and the
Greycliff started with its happy, singing load of senior girls.
Helen, whom the girls sometimes called “Dixie,” had arranged a Greycliff
song to that famous Southern tune and the girls started that as a
beginning:
“O, Greycliff seniors strong are we,
A giddy, happy company,
Come away,
Come away,
Come away, Greycliff Girls!
Where the surf beats high we swim and dive,
We keep the other schools alive,
Come away,
Come away,
Come away, Greycliff Girls!
O, we love to be at Greycliff,
Hooray!
Hooray!
At Greycliff School
The seniors rule
And work and root for Greycliff!
Away!
Away!
Away to school at Greycliff!”
Next came a song that they used at the competitive games. “Come on,
girls,” cried Dorothy Appleton, waving an imaginary baton, “let’s have
‘Greycliff has captured the score’!” In this the words named the tune.
“O, dear, what can the matter be?
Dear, dear, what can the matter be?
O, dear, what can the matter be?
Greycliff has captured the score!
It’s no use to try, for you know you can’t beat us,
No matter how hard you may work to defeat us,
Come on when you will, we invite you to meet us,
And Greycliff will capture the score!”
In the midst of so much fun and singing the girls had scarcely noticed
how dark it was getting, nor had they seen the worried looks of Dr.
Norris, Mickey and his new assistant, a wiry young fellow known as Jack.
Patricia West was very quiet, not joining in the songs. “I don’t like
the looks of that sky, Mr. Norris,” said Jack. “It looks squally to me.”
The wind began to come up and the lake grew rough at once. Spray began
to sprinkle the girls who sat in the prow.
“We’re not far from the Island, girls,” called Dr. Norris, smiling to
encourage the girls, and talking through the little megaphone till he
had the attention of all. “And we may make it before the storm, but if
it gets pretty rough, keep your heads, and I am going to hand around the
life preservers now. Then we shall feel safe.”
Mickey and Jack were beginning to have their hands full in steering and
watching the engine. Some of the girls looked a little frightened, but
accepted their life preservers and put them on, throwing off their
sweaters first, then tying them on outside and drawing their raincoats
around them to protect them from the rain which by his time was pouring
and beating down. Up and down tossed the boat. The waves were growing
bigger and bigger. A few girls in front were thoroughly drenched by two
or three curving waves which came over them when Mickey tacked to get on
the leeward side of the Island, where they might land more easily, he
hoped. There the approach was more shallow, the sand extended farther
out, though the dock was not so large as the one at which they more
often landed.
The rain was coming in such sheets that the girls could scarcely see
each other. Occasionally some wave pounded upon the Greycliff with such
force that it threatened to engulf her at once. A few girls would shriek
a little, but Dr. Norris continued to talk encouragingly, telling them
to keep their seats, to take off their shoes, ready to swim and to try
to reach the rope if Jack were successful in getting it to the dock.
Jack was standing with the rope in his hands ready to jump to the dock
as soon as they reached it. They had already felt a slight diminution in
the force of the wind as they drew near the hoped for side of the
Island, yet the waves were a dangerous foe.
Then it happened, all in a moment it seemed. The engine, which had
worked so hard for them against the wind and waves that beat upon the
Greycliff till it quivered, broke. At the same time the steering wheel
turned, useless, with connections torn apart. Mickey jumped up in
despair. Jack lost the rope as the little Greycliff was whirled around,
but as it fell and Jack was tossed out of the boat, Juliet, who had
risen, with her arm around one of the supports, caught it and with her
practiced hand, threw it through wind and rain to the dock where
providentially it caught around a tall post, the one at which Juliet,
half blinded by the spray, had aimed it. Not for nothing had Juliet been
Polly’s shadow and learned to throw a lariat. But little did the rope
avail to hold the Greycliff. The girls found themselves in the water,
held up by the life preservers, it is true, but tossed and beaten upon
by the heavy waves, scarcely able to get a breath, and only dimly
sensing in which direction lay the shore.
As Dr. Norris felt the boat whirl, he had called to the girls to jump,
and a few heard him. Now, as he held firmly to Patty, whom he had caught
up as he jumped, he groaned as he thought some of the girls might have
been caught in the boat as she went over. The Greycliff, however, at
first went over on her side, straining at the rope, to which immediately
a number of the girls were clinging. Dr. Norris in a few moments felt
the sand under his feet, struggled with Patty to the land, and while she
was still choking and clearing her throat and lungs of the lake water,
he told her to get up out of the reach of the waves and count the girls
as he and Mickey brought them in. “And pray, Patty, that we may find
every one!”
Jack was nowhere to be seen, but Mickey was already helping some of the
girls who were trying to reach the rope, as Dr. Norris threw himself
into the water where he saw some bobbing heads drifting out instead of
in.