PLENTY OF TIME.
“What time is it, Hilary,—please?” Isabel peeped through a few inches of
space as she held the door knob. Girls were not supposed to visit during
study hours.
“Well,” said Hilary, laying down her pencil and looking over at the
clock, “by the world’s regulator it is eight-thirty.”
“Why, no, Hilary,” protested Isabel, who had decided to enter and was
now looking at the clock herself. “It’s eight-forty-five; can’t you
count time?”
“That is where you are mistaken, Miss Hunt. We have a very remarkable
clock. Subtract fifteen minutes and you have the time. What day is this,
Lilian?”
“Wednesday.”
“I thought so. I always set it right on Sunday night, Isabel. It gains
five minutes a day. Compute the time till Wednesday night. Q. E. D.”
“Quod erat demonstrandum,” filled in Isabel. “I’m taking geometry myself
this year. You girls ought to have heard Dr. Norris call me down in
class the other day. I was not sure of the demonstration at all but I
went through with it and wound up grinning with ‘which was to be
proved,’ and Dr. Norris just smiled and said, ‘and which _remains_ to be
proved, Miss Hunt!’”
“Quod erat demonstrandum,” quoted Betty in appreciation and looking off
into space, she traced angles and circles with both hands and feet.
“Think what a teacher Betty will make,” laughed Lilian.
“Do let me fix the clock for you,” said Isabel, “Who has the exact
time?”
“Cathalina’s wrist watch is at the jeweler’s, Betty left hers on
Juliet’s chiffonier and Lilian lost hers last summer. She is promised
one for Christmas. But anyhow, we’d forget it was fixed and be all mixed
up!”
“I kept mine on one day when I went in swimming, and when I finally took
it to the jeweler, he said I’d have to have new works. If I’d put some
oil in it or something, or dried it right away, he said, it might have
been all right. It seems that works rust. They aren’t just gold or
silver or jewels as I thought!”
“Your pretty little watch!” sighed Hilary.
“Yes,” said Isabel, bravely, “I’ve had a weep or two over it, and of
course I shan’t break the news to Father till I go home at Christmas, if
I do, I’m going to get an alarm clock, too, the first time I go in to
Greycliff. Didn’t you ever think of having your clock regulated,
Hilary?”
“O, yes. But I find that it will be about as expensive as buying a new
clock and I’m hoping that it will take a notion some day to run as it
should. You see I’m attached to that clock!”
“So am I,” declared Cathalina. “It’s the very first alarm clock I ever
got up by.”
“If you _will cling_ to this timepiece, then, as it is,” said Isabel,
“why not make out a schedule and hang it up, so any of us who happen to
be here, or who dash madly in, in the course of our wild careers, will
not be misled?”
“Very good, Miss Hunt. I like your idea. Cathalina, you are the artist,
will you make out the schedule?”
“I’ll put one up tomorrow some time and illuminate in color if you
like.”
“Just put at the top ‘Procrastination is the thief of time,’ please, for
me,” said Betty.
“By the way, Betty,” said Isabel, whose conscience seemed to have
stopped hurting at visiting during study hours. “It looks as if our trip
with the girls to the cave will have to be put off indefinitely, doesn’t
it? Did you notice what Miss Randolph said this morning?”
Betty and Cathalina both nodded. Hilary and Lilian had evidently not
applied Miss Randolph’s remarks as interesting them particularly. Isabel
struck an attitude and with ridiculous gestures of which Miss Randolph
could never have been guilty, repeated nearly word for word what the
principal had announced:
“‘I understand that one or two beach parties have been held beyond
permitted limits and it occurs to me that some of you may not be
familiar with our rules on that point. Greycliff grounds proper, which
include the grove only as far as the ‘high hill,’ are the limits, with
the exception of the beach as far as the breakwater on the side toward
the Village of Greycliff and the river on the other side. The beach in
recreation hours is always guarded during the season. In winter,
however, special permission may be obtained for _any kind_ of an
excursion. There will be the regular winter sports which will occupy all
the time you have to spare from your studies. It will always be
announced when the ice on the river is safe for skating. No girl is to
attempt it otherwise.’”
“How do you remember like that, Isabel? That is almost exactly what she
said.”
“From early youth, Cathalina, I have been committing the words of the
wise and great! You should have seen the shows that Billy and I used to
get up when we were little. Shall I give a little tragedy now?”
“Spare us!” exclaimed Lilian, with pretended anguish.
“I remember what my opponents say in debate, too, that I may answer
their arguments. Honestly, though, girls, I don’t always get the words
just right. I must have tried to remember this morning. We’ll have to
coax Patty to go with us some time. Miss Randolph did say
‘unchaperoned,’ I forgot that; we could go with some chaperone outside
of limits.”
“It’s my opinion that we’d better leave that cave alone,” said Betty,
while Isabel and Cathalina looked at her in some surprise, for was not
Betty the one who suggested that the last trip should not be talked
about?
“Sit down, Isabel,” said Betty, “I think I’d like to tell the girls
about our experience. We thought at first we wouldn’t just yet, girls,
but it’s rather interesting and some of you might better know about it.”
“There goes the bell, Betty,” said Isabel. “Wait till I get Pauline and
the rest who were with us on the first trip to come over.”
In a few minutes the girls of the other suite, with Avalon, too, were in
Lakeview, listening to the tale which Betty and Isabel had to relate of
their visit and what they had seen. The story did not lose anything in
Isabel’s vivid description, and nothing was omitted except Betty’s
recognition of the chief actor, of which no one except Cathalina knew.
The next day was a busy one. “It is dreadful the way things seem to pile
up toward the end of the week,” sighed Betty.
“Yes, all the things I get ahead in get almost ahead of me, by Friday
anyway. I have to study every spare minute today. We wasted a good half
hour last night. I’ll not get any schedule made. That is rather silly
anyway. It is ridiculous to let the clock get so much ahead. You ought
to fix it in the middle of the week anyway, Hilary.”
“Of course I ought,” acknowledged Hilary, “but we have the school clocks
and the bells and don’t use it much. I’ll fix it tonight.”
The girls hurried down to breakfast and then were plunged into the
vortex of classes and lessons. In the middle of the morning, Juliet
brought over Betty’s watch and not finding any one in the suite left it
in plain view on the table.
Lunch over, Hilary, Lilian and Betty who were to recite in senior Latin
the first hour in the afternoon, hurried upstairs to go over it
together, while Cathalina, whose class in Cicero came later, strolled
off to the library with her Cicero text.
“Of course we’d have to have a longer lesson than usual in this hard
place,” growled Betty. “O, here’s my watch. Somebody brought it over.
It’s stopped, of course. Did you change the clock, Hilary?”
“No, and I won’t bother to fix it till night. Allow about three minutes
for the gain so far today.”
Betty set her watch, remarking that she would look at the clock in the
recitation room and get it just right. They had just decided upon the
rendering of a hard passage when a knock came at the door and Dorothy
Appleton with two more senior girls came in to see how the girls’
translation accorded with theirs. And while they were all listening to
Hilary as she read the disputed lines, a delegation of five others came
in, Julia Merton in the lead. “Good,” said she, “we’re just in time, I
see. There’s one line that doesn’t make any sense to me at all. How do
you read it, Hilary?”
“Read the whole lesson, Hilary,” said Dorothy. “It’s so hard and has so
many new words that I can’t remember them.”
“Mercy, no, child,” warned Julia. “Look at the clock. It’s time to go
now, but—”
“No it isn’t,” said Hilary. “Our clock is twenty minutes fast, or nearly
that. There’s plenty of time!”
“I thought I heard the bell as I came in.”
“It must have been for gym or something. I didn’t hear it,” said Lilian,
“but then we don’t always hear it when our windows are down. Are you
_sure_ you didn’t fix the clock?”
“Perfectly sure,” said Hilary with decision. Betty was already showing
two or three girls the why and how of her reading. Then Hilary began,
while the girls listened, took notes and stopped her occasionally to ask
a question or two. “The notes do not say one word about that,” Dorothy
remarked.
“No, of course, the very thing you want is never mentioned!” replied
Julia, quite unfairly to the very learned gentleman who edited the text.
Promptly at a few minutes of the time for class to begin, the senior
girls trooped down the stairs and over to the library building where Dr.
Carver’s recitation room was located. There was no one in the halls, and
the murmurs of voices came from one or two recitation rooms as they
passed.
“We must be late after all,” said Hilary. “Perhaps the old clock decided
to keep time.”
The door to Dr. Carver’s recitation room was closed. “They’ve begun,”
said Lilian. “Do you remember the fun last year when Isabel put up the
notice that there would be no Cicero?”
“_Do_ I?” replied Betty.
With some hesitation and not a little trepidation, Dorothy Appleton, who
was in the lead, opened the door. The girls all started in and stopped
in surprise and embarrassment as with one accord they glanced first at
the clock on the wall opposite and then at the astonished portion of the
senior class which faced them. Dr. Carver spoke in much annoyance as one
or two of the girls started toward her as if to explain.
“We are in the midst of the recitation, young ladies. Take your seats.
You may explain this inexcusable tardiness later.” Hastily, and in much
confusion of mind and spirit, the “young ladies” sought their own seats
and the lesson proceeded.
“What on earth kept you girls?” wrote Juliet on a piece of paper and
passed it to Hilary.
“Something wrong with my clock,” wrote Hilary on the back, returning the
paper to Juliet. Hilary was not given to writing notes in class, but
this whole situation was irregular.
Reading Hilary’s reply, Juliet at first smiled and looking at Hilary
formed with her lips the words “poor Hilary,” for she quite feared for
the girls’ grades in Dr. Carver’s hands, and wondered if they would be
permitted to make up the work, or if they would be counted absent, with
a zero to their credit. No one could tell what Dr. Carver would do with
her ideas of strict discipline. Then a disagreeable thought came to
Juliet. There was a pang of memory, with a sinking of the heart! “O,
Hilary!” she wrote, “I set your clock right, when I came in to leave
Betty’s watch. Was that it?”
Hilary read, looked up at Juliet, across the two girls who sat between,
and at the look on Juliet’s face she could scarcely control her own. She
coughed, put her face in her handkerchief, and moved a little in order
that she might be screened from Miss Carver’s view. She felt that eagle
eye flashed in her direction. It was dangerous to lose the place in any
class, but particularly in Dr. Carver’s. That fact soon sobered Hilary,
and she prepared to be called on, rather hoping, indeed, that she would
have a chance to make a grade. Fortunately, she caught the last phrase
in the translation of the girl who was reciting and in the discussion
which followed on the syntax of a word managed to find where the class
was reading. It was just in time, for “Miss Lancaster” was the next
call.
At the close of the recitation hour a group of amazed girls gathered.
“For pit-tee’s sake,” said Pauline, “we wondered why you didn’t come and
didn’t come, and Dr. Carver looked so mad at having about half the class
gone. She asked us what was the matter and nobody knew,—what _was_ the
trouble?”
“My old clock,” replied Hilary. Just then the penitent Juliet joined
Hilary. “Come on, Hilary, let’s go up to Dr. Carver and explain. I came
in to bring Betty’s watch and noticed that your clock was all wrong, so
I set it back right by my watch. Betty’s had stopped, but I didn’t wind
it, afraid to fuss with it. I never thought—”
“Of course you didn’t. It was all my fault for letting the clock go that
way.”
The other girls filed out into the hall, while Hilary and Juliet went up
to Dr. Carver’s desk to explain. Cathalina, coming in for her Cicero
lesson, was hailed by the crowd and asked why she was on time. She
looked blankly at them, while laughter ran round the circle. “I just
came from the library,” said she.
“O, you weren’t in your room, then; it is explained!”
Still wondering, Cathalina went on into the class room, leaving the
buzzing crowd of girls who moved on and out of the building.
“How did it happen,” asked Hilary, “that none of the rest of you girls
had the time?”
“I did,” said Julia, “but by the ‘irony of fate’ I never looked at my
watch and swallowed everything you said,—after hearing the bell, too!”
“I am touched at your confidence,” laughed Hilary.
“I had my watch on, too,” acknowledged Dorothy, “but I was just thinking
about those puzzling lines in the lesson.”
“We all were,” said one of the other girls, “and when Hilary insisted
that there was ‘plenty of time,’ of course we believed her.”
“Don’t blame Hilary,” said Juliet. “It was all my fault. I thought I was
doing a kindness instead of upsetting the whole schedule and making half
the senior class late! I expected Dr. Carver to be horrid, especially if
she remembered last year, but she was real fair and said we could make
up the work if we wanted to and she would consult Miss Randolph about
the tardiness.”
“After this,” said Hilary, “I fix my clock every day or get a new one.”
“Don’t worry, Hilary, we all think it a big joke, and shall never forget
you as you sat—all of us in blissful ignorance that class was in
session—reading the whole hard lesson to the crowd!” Thus spoke Dorothy,
president of the senior academy class.