A BUSY APRIL
The month of April was a busy one in Vine Haven Seminary.
“Virg, what have you done to Sally MacLean?” Betsy inquired one Saturday
morning. “I just now asked her to go for a hike with me and hunt for
wild flowers. It’s such a perfectly scrumptious day, so shiny and blue,
but no, she just wouldn’t budge. And of all the stupid things that I
left her doing, you never could guess.”
“Oh yes, I could,” the older girl replied, smiling at the piquant-faced
little maid in a cherry colored sport coat and tam, who stood in her
open door. “I am almost certain that Sally is translating Latin, because
we are going to review the entire term’s work on the Saturday mornings
in April. Better join us.”
“Me?” Betsy pretended to groan. “May the saints help the two of you.
What in the world is old Sal trying to do? Get her name on the Honor
Roll?”
“I hope so.”
“Well, it’s a lost hope. She never could do it.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Megsy, who sat by an open window with her
mending, smiled across at the speaker, “I did it and so did Babs.”
“Well, it’s me as isn’t even trying for it. Good! There’s Dicky Taylor.”
With a farewell wave of her hand, Betsy skipped down the corridor
calling, “I say, Dick, Virg hasn’t hoodooed you into trying for the
Honor Roll, has she? Put on your hiking togs and come out with me.”
The other girl hesitated. “I don’t suppose I could make the grade,” she
confessed, “but I’d heaps like to try. Our president said that nothing
would please her more than to have the names of every member of our
little study club on the Honor Roll before the closing exercises. I hate
to acknowledge that I haven’t the brains or the perseverance that even
Sentimental Sally possesses.”
Betsy entered “The Sign of the Tea Kettle,” and sat on the arm of a
chair as she watched Dicky get out her books, pad and pencil.
“Are you going to dig into geometry on a spiffy Saturday morning like
this?” she inquired.
“That’s my plan, old dear.” Dicky’s words were merry, but it was plain
that her intentions were serious.
“If confessions are good for the soul, I’ll confide to you, belovedest.
That one subject is my Waterloo. My name might decorate the blackboard
in the lower corridor, if I could make head or tail out of geometry, but
I can’t! I’m nutty when it comes to that subject.”
Dicky Taylor’s face brightened. “I was just that way about it at first.
I didn’t think I ever could understand it, but when I knew I had to, or
fail, I asked Miss King if I might stay after class and ask her a few
questions, and, what do you think, it came to me all in a flash, sort
of, and I believe I could make it clear to you, Betsy, if you have time
to spare.”
The cherry colored tam was tossed on a chair and the sport coat was
removed. Then Betsy locked the door. “I don’t want any of the bunch to
catch me studying when I’ve kidded them all for doing it, but mind you,
Dicky, even if I do dig in a while this morning, I’m not trying for the
Honor Roll.”
Half an hour later there came a tap on the closed door. Betsy motioned
Dicky to keep quiet. Then a voice outside said, “Dick and Bets went for
a hike I think.” It was Sally who was speaking. Dora Crowell replied, “I
wanted her to play singles with me. You come, will you Sal?” but that
little maid shook her head and continued on her way to the room of Virg.
When the gong bidding the girls prepare for lunch rang, Betsy sprang up.
“Dick,” she pleaded, “don’t you tell a soul that I studied geom all this
morning. They’d think I was getting dippy, or that I was trying for the
Honor Roll. Stuff and nonsense! I wouldn’t have my name seen on it. No
siree! ’Tisn’t sour grapes,” she retorted when her companion began to
tease.
She opened the door to go to Sweet Pickle Alley and prepare for the noon
meal, but she had lingered too long. A swarm of girls appeared without.
“Oh, no,” Babs shouted. “Here’s Betsy back from her hike.”
“Did you find any wild flowers?”
“You’ve been up to mischief. You look as though we’d caught you in the
act of stealing sheep.”
Betsy broke through the group of tormentors and ran to her room. Hastily
she tidied her hair, then joined the procession of girls who, two by
two, under the surveillance of Miss King, were descending the wide
stairway to the basement dining room.
As they passed the blackboard in the lower hall near the door of the
principal’s office, Betsy whispered, “Look at Babs admiring her own
name.”
“That’s something you’ll never be able to do.” The speaker was Ethel
Cummins, a girl whom Betsy especially disliked. Instantly she flared.
“Indeed, is that so? Well, I’ll have you know that my name is to be on
that board before the closing exercises.”
“Silence, young ladies, if you please!” Miss King was peering over her
glasses as she looked back along the line to try to discover the
offender but Betsy was at that moment passing with her head held high
and a new determination plainly discernable on her usually laughing
face.
How pleased her old dad would be if she could make the grade, she was
thinking. “Erase the ‘if’” she told herself as she recalled how her
father had often said, “Perseverance spells success, little daughter,
just remember that. Choose a goal! Go straight toward it and count every
failure as a spur to greater endeavor.”
But before that month was up, Betsy had many a moment of doubt.