BETSY’S SECRET GOAL
“Girls! News! News! Great news!” It was Margaret Selover who skipped
into the corner room occupied by Virg and Eleanor Burgess.
“Mrs. Martin just told me that Eleanor Pettes’ college closes a few days
before Vine Haven and she has written that she will come for our final
exercises. She’s ever so eager to see our last Manuscript Magazine of
the year.”
“Well, it’s to be a spiffy one all right. My name is going to be in it.”
“Oh, Betsy, I don’t believe it! Virg, she’s storying, isn’t she? You
never would print one of her doggerels, would you?”
The editor of the magazine laughed and actually winked at Betsy. With a
chuckle that little maid asked: “Won’t Margaret be the most surprised
person in this school when she does see the reason for my name being in
the bang-up last edition?”
“Maybe Virg is starting a joke column and is permitting Betsy to conduct
it.” This from Babs who had followed Margaret into the room.
“Me? I’m no joker. I’m the most serious-minded pusson at Vine Haven.”
Then tantalizingly, “If you tried till doomsday, you couldn’t guess why
my name is to be featured in the biggest and best Manuscript Magazine of
the year, so you might as well devote your thoughts to something
easier.”
“Very well.” Megsy looked inquiringly at Virginia. “Have you heard from
Winona? Is she coming here to be ready to go West with us?”
The girl addressed shook her head. “No, I’m sorry to say. Winona writes
that the practical nursing courses will not be completed until the last
of June and of course we cannot wait for her three weeks after our
school closes. But Winona is quite capable of crossing the country
alone. Anyone of us is now, I feel sure.”
“Virg,” Babs exclaimed, “what wonders you’ve worked with Sentimental
Sally! She even looks different someway. Yesterday, just to tease, one
of the girls who has a brother over at Drexel told her that Donald
Dearing has returned to that Military Academy and that she had invited
him to come to our closing party. A few months ago Sally would have
acted silly, giggled or simpered or something, but instead she merely
smiled indifferently and went right back on with her reference work. I
was in the library at the same table and that’s how I happened to hear
it.”
“There’s a lot to Sally. Her mother cares only for society and her chief
desire it would seem is to have her daughter learn how to be idle
gracefully. I don’t know what she will think when she finds that Sally
has actually chosen a goal toward which she is working. She plays
beautifully on the harp and since she will not need to earn money, she
is going to plan to devote part of her time to giving harp concerts in
hospitals, old folks’ homes and places where her music will bring the
most happiness.” Virginia was proud of and pleased with her protege, it
was quite evident.
“Betsy, you are our incorrigible member,” Megsy said to tease. “Virginia
has failed to influence you for good. You’re the only one in the study
club who hasn’t been inspired to choose a goal or try for the Honor
Roll.”
“Me? Goodness no. I don’t want to sprout wings yet. But if you’ll
produce a deep-dyed mystery of some kind, I’ll show you what I can do.”
Barbara laughed. “You remind me of the tramp who offered to shovel snow
in the summer to pay for a meal.” Then catching hold of Margaret’s arm,
she added, “Two bells. Time for you and me to go to French.
Fare-thee-well till lunch.”
When Virginia and Betsy were alone, the latter maid grinned her delight,
but suddenly there was an anxious cloud on her piquant face. “Virg,” she
said, “do you think I can make it? This Latin translation is powerfully
hard.” She had taken a book from her blouse where it had been hidden
while her tormentors had been in the room.
“I’m sure of it!” Virginia’s voice expressed her confidence. “I have a
free hour now and we’ll go over it together.”
The weeks that followed were indeed busy ones. Each of the older girls
in Madame La Fleur’s sewing class was to make her own dainty white dress
for the closing party, and, at almost any free hour groups of merry
maids could be seen gathered first in one room and then in another
hemming, basting and ruffling, for those little “French gowns,” as Babs
called them, were to be made every stitch of them by hand.
“This would have been jolly fun,” Betsy declared, “if it wasn’t for the
fact that final exams are hanging so heavily over our heads.”
Virg, of course, solved this problem by suggesting that one girl read
history while the others sewed. This they did and at the end of each
chapter the book was passed to someone else that the former reader might
not lose too much time from the making of her gown.
“I’m glad it’s the history of France,” Sally remarked during a pause in
which the book was being passed from one to another. “That seems sort of
appropriate since we are making French dresses. Madame La Fleur even had
the material sent from her brother’s shop in Paris.”
“It doesn’t look like mere muslin does it?” Babs held up a shimmering
length to let the sun shine through it. “It’s heaps more like gossamer,
but Dicky, do go on with the reading.”
“Very well. This chapter is called ‘Reaction and New Discontent.’ ‘It
was said of the Bourbons that they never forgot anything and never
learned anything.’”
“This is rather paradoxical, isn’t it?” Margaret began, when Betsy
teasingly interrupted. “Whizzle, Megsy! What a word! You certainly have
learned something and didn’t forget it either. Why if I could say such a
long one as that right off easy, I’d think I was ready to graduate.”
“Hush, Bets. Just because you aren’t trying for the Honor Roll is no
reason why the rest of us don’t want to study.” Sally spoke her thoughts
these days as independently as did the others.
Betsy flashed. “Just for that I’m going to finish the paragraph.” Which
she did, rattling off information about Louis eighteenth in a manner to
make several of the girls present open their eyes in amazement, but
before they could declare that they believed Betsy had a book hidden in
her sewing and was reading it, a gong called them to another task.
Later that day when Virginia and Betsy were having one of their secret
sessions at translating Latin, the younger girl chuckled. “That was a
close call. I almost gave away the fact that I have actually been
studying. That never would do, if it’s to be a grand
sweep-’em-off-their-feet surprise.”
Virginia laughed. “Betsy, you are as refreshing as one of our desert
winds, after a sultry day, when it blows down from the snowy-topped
mountains. Often I go up on the mesa, when it begins to blow, and take
gloriously deep breaths. They make one feel like a new being.”
Betsy had closed her book and was sitting with an almost pensive
expression on her usually merry face. “It must be wonderful to have a
real home,” she said. “Dad and I haven’t had one for years, not since
mother left. We live in hotels, you know, wherever Dad is sent.
Sometimes it’s in one big city and sometimes another. At first I thought
it was great, but after the novelty wore off I was desperately lonesome.
Then Dad sent me here to boarding school. Of course I love it, with all
of the girls for make-believe family, but, when vacation time comes and
you are all talking of going home, I do wish that Dad and I had one,
somewhere. This summer, though, will be better than most, for I have a
very nice aunt who has invited me to visit her and her two small boys at
their summer home on the sound.”
Then springing up, the impulsive girl gave her companion an unexpected
hug. “Virg, you’re a dear,” she exclaimed. “I don’t in the least like
the thought that after the closing party I shall never, never see you
again.”
The older girl was touched, for there were actually tears in the eyes
that were usually laughing. “I’ll play prophet,” she said gaily. “I will
prophecy that you will visit us all out on the desert some day. Perhaps
next year or the year after.”
“Virg,” the eyes now were glowing, “if such a thing could happen, I just
know that I would live happily ever after.”
As we know, strange things do happen.