CONDITIONS
“Two of the girls shut up in the little dressing-room? And the key
missing? Suppose there should be a fire, Miss Olaine?”
Mrs. Pangborn had just arrived. She had not even removed her bonnet,
only untied its strings. And she sat with her feet on the fender of the
open fire place where the gaslog burned in the office. It was a half
hour after midnight and Glenwood Hall was supposed to be as silent as
the tomb at that time.
“I thought of that. It is a trick,” said the dark teacher, hastily, and
wringing her hands together in the peculiar way she had. It showed that
Miss Olaine was a very nervous person.
“How do you mean--a trick?” asked the principal, quietly.
“Some person in league with the two girls removed the key, of course.
I am sure it was done so as to keep me out while they ate forbidden
food.”
“But did they not have their supper?”
“Bread and milk; quite enough for them.”
“And for luncheon? You say they were shut into the room in the
forenoon.”
“I--I thought it would bring them to terms quicker. A little fast
surely would not hurt them,” said Miss Olaine, hesitatingly.
“Perhaps not,” agreed Mrs. Pangborn, after a moment of silence, but
looking at her new assistant in rather a curious way. “However, I do
not approve of corporal punishment----”
“Corporal punishment!”
“Yes. Underfeeding must come under that head,” said Mrs. Pangborn, but
with a laugh. “And you think they somehow tricked you and got more
supper than you intended?”
“I am positive. I have been to the pantry. That door should be
locked----”
“Oh, no!” cried the principal. “I never lock things away from my girls.”
“A mistake, Mrs. Pangborn,” declared the assistant, with growing
confidence. “Youth is naturally treacherous.”
“Oh, my dear Miss Olaine!” exclaimed the principal of Glenwood. “I am
sorry your experience has led to that belief. Mine has not--and it has
the advantage of yours in extent of time,” and she smiled again.
“I am sure, Miss Olaine, you and I are going to get on beautifully;
but you do not understand my girls.”
“I understand both of these I have shut up----”
“Thank goodness there is a master-key to all the doors right here on my
ring,” interrupted Mrs. Pangborn, shaking the jingling bunch of keys.
“In a moment--as soon as my feet are warm--we will go and let those
poor girls out and send them to bed.”
“Mrs. Pangborn! you evidently do not consider the serious nature of the
offense,” cried Miss Olaine, again wringing her bony hands, her eyes
flashing.
“No. True. I did not ask you. What happened?”
Miss Olaine told her story--all about the pigs, and her fright, and
Dorothy being disobedient, and defying her, as Miss Olaine said. But
she neglected to call either culprit by name.
“I did not expect insurrection to begin so quickly, Miss Olaine,” said
the principal, gravely. “And I gather from your statement that two of
my girls---- They belong to the upper class, you say?”
“Yes, Mrs. Pangborn. Young ladies old enough----”
“And their names?”
“Misses Travers and Dale.”
“Tavia Travers!” gasped the older lady. “Of course! Who else would have
invented such a perfectly ridiculous thing as introducing pigs into the
school room?”
“I knew you would be amazed, madam.”
“Not at all,” the principal hastened to say. “Nothing Tavia ever does
surprises me. But the other--not Dorothy Dale?”
“Yes, Miss Dale.”
“Oh, Miss Olaine! there must be some mistake there. I know Dorothy so
well,” said Mrs. Pangborn, gravely. “The two are always together; but
I am sure that whatever Dorothy told you was true. And Tavia, too, for
that matter.”
“I am positive they were endeavoring to mislead me. And they would not
tell who had helped them, or who else was in the plot to put those pigs
in this house----”
“Miss Olaine!” gasped Mrs. Pangborn, suddenly. “That is something I
forgot to speak of when I went away in such a hurry the day after you
came to Glenwood.”
“What is that?” asked the surprised assistant.
“I never ask one of my girls to tell on another. They are all on honor,
here. I do not expect any girl to play the spy. Indeed, I punish
severely only those who show such a tendency. You were wrong to expect
either of those girls to give any information which might lead to
trouble for their schoolmates. Whereas, if they say nobody else was
aware of the prank----”
“Miss Travers refuses to admit that she had any help at all.”
“If she says it is her own performance, you may believe it is so.”
“Oh, I do not believe in giving such latitude to mere school girls,”
declared Miss Olaine, and now she was quite heated again.
Mrs. Pangborn looked at her seriously. “You have much to learn yet, I
fear, Miss Olaine,” she said, quietly. “Reports of your erudition and
management of studies in a great public school urged me to engage you
as my assistant; but you must be guided by me in the management of my
girls--that is sure.
“You might have known that shutting a girl like Tavia Travers into that
little room would be no real punishment. She would merely put on her
thinking cap and endeavor to bring about something that would make you
look the more ridiculous.”
“Mrs. Pangborn!”
“Yes. And she has succeeded in doing so; hasn’t she?”
“How would you have had me punish her?” demanded Miss Olaine, reddening
under the principal’s rather stern eye.
“Oh, that is another matter!” and the older woman laughed. “A
punishment to fit the crime is rather difficult to invent in Tavia’s
case. I believe I should have demanded from her an exhaustive
composition upon swine, from the earliest mention of the beast in
history, down through all the ages to and including the packing-house
age. I would have made Tavia industrious, and perhaps taught her
something.
“As for Dorothy---- Well, you have quite mistaken her character, Miss
Olaine. She is the soul of truth, and while she may have been loyal to
her friend, that should not be considered a crime; should it?
“Let us go now and interview the culprits. And, if you agree, I think
they have both had punishment enough. Suppose you tell them to go to
their room and that they will not be expected to appear at prayers or
breakfast to-morrow morning. I do not approve of my girls losing their
beauty sleep.”
And _that_ is why Dorothy and Tavia got out of their difficulty so
easily. They didn’t understand it--just then. But Dorothy suspected
and she knew that Mrs. Pangborn was far too wise to give them an
opportunity to openly face Miss Olaine and have judgment rendered
accordingly.
“But I dislike her just the same,” whispered Dorothy.
“Of course we do! And she’ll try to catch us again----”
“Then behave, Tavia. The whole trouble started with your trying to
plague her,” declared her friend.
“Well! I--like--that,” murmured Tavia in a tone that showed she did
_not_ like it, at all. “Just you wait, Doro. We haven’t heard the last
of this. Old Olaine will just be waiting for half a chance to pounce on
us again.”
Dorothy did not get at what she was looking for in the directory
until the afternoon of the next day. Then she was very careful to ask
permission to go to the office for reference.
She found the name and address of the secretary of the bridge builders’
union, and she wrote that afternoon asking about Tom Moran. She
explained just why she wanted to learn about him, and his whereabouts,
and tried to put before the person she wrote to the pitiful history of
Celia Moran in a way that might engage his interest.
Dorothy had told nobody about Celia--not even Tavia. Of course her chum
would have been interested in the child from the “Findling” and her
lost brother. But just now--at the beginning of the term--there really
was so much going on at Glenwood that aside from the hours that they
spent in their imprisonment, the two friends had very little time to
talk together.
This last half-year at Glenwood was bound to be a very busy one. Some
studies in which Dorothy was proficient Tavia did not stand so well in,
and _vice versa_. They had to study very hard, and when Tavia “broke
out” as she was bound to do every little while, it seemed absolutely
necessary that she “let off steam.”
Mrs. Pangborn understood, and so did the older teachers. But Miss
Olaine was naturally a martinet, and she was very nervous and irritable
in the bargain. She could not overlook the least exuberance of
schoolgirl enthusiasm.
So, inside of a week, Tavia was “conditioned.” Each black mark that she
had against her in deportment had to be “worked off” before the end of
the half, or she could not graduate.
And in seeking to shield her chum again from the consequences of her
folly, Dorothy found herself conditioned, too. Mrs. Pangborn demanded
her presence in the office, and for almost the first time in her career
at Glenwood, Dorothy Dale found herself at odds with the kind principal
of the school.
“I am sure I have been here long enough for you to know me quite well,
Mrs. Pangborn,” she said, with some heat, to the good lady who loved
her. “Have I changed so much, do you think? Nobody else reports me but
Miss Olaine----”
“You are changing every day, my dear. We all are,” said the principal,
firmly. “But I do not believe your _heart_ has changed, Dorothy Dale.
Unfortunately Miss Olaine’s manner made all you older girls dislike
her at the start. But have you stopped to think that perhaps there is
something in her life--some trouble, perhaps--that makes her nervous
and excitable?”
“Well--but--we----”
“You have never before been uncharitable,” smiled Mrs. Pangborn. “Try
and bear patiently with Miss Olaine. If you knew all about her you
would pity her condition, I am sure. No! I cannot tell you. It is not
my secret, my dear. But try to understand her better--and do, Dorothy,
keep Tavia within bounds!”
The principal knew that this line of pleading would win over Dorothy
Dale every time!