NEW ACQUAINTANCES
The French teacher, Madame Celeste Bolande, was easily the most
interesting of all the teachers. She afforded the girls a vast deal of
amusement as well as much annoyance. As a topic of conversation she was
inexhaustible. She was truly wonderful to look at but the snapshots that
the Miller girls took of her failed to do her justice.
“Doctor Rhodes must have ordered her by mail,” said Cora Doyle, after
her first French lesson with the new teacher. “Phew! I’m glad to get
outdoors. She was fairly drenched with perfume.”
“Yes,” agreed Debbie Clark. “Doctor Rhodes couldn’t have seen her first
or he never would have taken her. What’s that stuff about a pig in a
poke? Well, that’s how he got her. I’m sure _she_ isn’t a relative, even
by marriage.”
Madame Bolande was really amazing to look at and if the girls spoke of
her disrespectfully it was not surprising. No properly brought up little
girl _could_ have respected that astonishing lady. Nature had been kind
to her; she might have been entirely pleasing to the eye, but for
several reasons she was not. She had quantities of black hair,
apparently all her own, but it was always greasy and untidy as if it
were never washed or brushed or combed. It hung about her face in oily
loops that had a way of breaking loose at odd moments, at which times
Madame would pin them carelessly in place and go on with the lesson.
Sometimes she wore so-called laced shoes, sometimes buttoned ones.
However, most of the time they were neither laced nor buttoned. Whether
she wore black stockings with large holes in them or soiled white ones,
they were constantly coming down. It was a perpetual joy to the girls to
see her reach down, casually, to haul the slipping stocking back into
place. As Madame sat at a small table in the center of the class room,
with the girls on a long bench against the wall, this amusing operation,
though it took place beneath the table, was always plainly visible.
Buttons were missing from her tight-fitting black frock, showing many
hued undergarments not supposed to be seen. Bits of ragged petticoats
always dangled below the bottom of her skirt. Her neck, her ears and her
finger nails were visibly dirty.
Madame’s face, however, was quite a different matter. Her shapely
countenance, from ear to ear, from brow to chin, was carefully plastered
with powder, her cheeks and lips were rouged and a dab of blue decorated
each eyelid. But, with the exception of her rather handsome face, her
whole person was woefully neglected.
As a horrible example, Madame proved decidedly useful. No girl _could_
look upon that lady and fail to bathe. No girl _could_ note that lady’s
dangling petticoats of green or cerise silk or soiled white cotton with
torn lace and fail to fasten her own neat underskirt securely into
place. Even Mabel, it was noticed, began at once to take pains to braid
her own troublesome locks more tidily.
“It isn’t because she’s _poor_,” said Henrietta. “I’ve seen lots of poor
people right in France and most of them are just as neat as wax; and so
clever about making the most of what they have. And it isn’t because she
doesn’t have _time_ to mend her clothes or to bathe or wash her hair.
She has all her afternoons and evenings, except when she has papers to
correct—_that_ doesn’t take so very much of her time.”
“She’s just naturally that way,” said Anne Blodgett, sagely.
“She bathes in perfume,” explained Sallie.
“It’s the one thing she does bathe in,” breathed Anne.
“Well,” laughed Sallie, “she has enough to fill a _small_ bathtub. There
are ten bottles on her dresser and you know how horribly she smells of
the stuff. Isn’t she just awful! She never makes her bed or hangs up her
clothes and she smokes cigarettes—they’re all over the place. She
doesn’t even do that like a lady.”
“Oh, she _isn’t_ a lady,” said Henrietta. “Was she here last year?”
“No,” returned Sallie, “she’s as new as you are.”
Henrietta and the French teacher were enemies from the beginning.
Henrietta, having lived in France and having had an excellent French
governess for a number of years, could chatter in French like a little
magpie. Madame chattered too and Henrietta made a discovery. Madame’s
French was ungrammatical. Madame was distinctly uneducated and decidedly
lower class—no fit instructor for a girls’ school. Yet at first Madame
behaved circumspectly; although she told fascinating tales of life in
Paris, there was much that she did not tell. She barely hinted at
romantic incidents in her own life. Her husband had been a milliner.
They had come to the States where after two years death had descended
upon her so noble Alphonse, and it had become necessary for Madame to
teach “in some pig of a school” in order to earn money so that she might
in time return to her so beautiful France.
Madame Bolande knew that Henrietta was aware of all her shortcomings as
a teacher; for Henrietta frequently pointed out Madame’s sometimes
laughable errors. Naturally, the Frenchwoman both hated and feared “That
so bad Mees Henrietta,” and that young person was quite unable to
respect her teacher; so there were lively sessions in class when mocking
Henrietta goaded Madame so nearly to frenzy that Madame fairly shrieked
with rage. All this resulted in exceedingly bad marks for Henrietta, who
really deserved good ones for her French and very bad ones for her
conduct; but Madame did not discriminate. She gave her the very blackest
marks she could fish from the depths of her ink bottle.
Miss Woodruff, on the other hand, bathed frequently in real water, wore
her smooth hair in the neatest of knobs and was undoubtedly a well
educated woman; and, in some ways, an excellent teacher. She taught
English and mathematics, for instance, in a way to inspire respect for
her deep knowledge; but her manner of doing it was frequently
unpleasant. The girls frankly hated her at times because she heaped
ridicule upon them when they failed. She was often cold and cuttingly
sarcastic when a little sympathy would perhaps have accomplished more.
Day after day, Bettie, who was stupid anyway in mathematics, quailed
under the large lady’s biting sarcasm and grew more and more confused as
to numbers; until, as she put it afterwards, she didn’t know whether she
was shingling a ceiling or plastering a roof with nineteen quarts of ice
cream picked from twenty-seven apple trees, at three cents a yard.
Maude Wilder, who liked Bettie, and who had suffered considerably on her
own account, eyed Miss Woodruff balefully and plotted revenge.
The girls loved Maude. She wasn’t a pretty girl, but her pale brown eyes
with amber lights in them twinkled delightfully and the corners of her
mouth crinkled easily into whimsical smiles. Almost anything amused
Maude and she was quite apt to become amused at the wrong moment. Also
she was able to amuse other persons.
The pupils at Highland Hall were supposed to respond to roll call each
morning with a French phrase—a different one each day. Miss Woodruff
stood at her desk on the platform, listening intently; while all the
pupils sat demurely at _their_ desks, also listening.
Maude had one phrase—and _only_ one. She made it do the work of a great
many. With a twinkle in her eye, day after day, Maude folded her hands
demurely and responded blandly: “_Nous avons des raisins blancs et noirs
mais pas de cerises._” (We have white and black grapes but no cherries.)
“But, Maude,” Miss Woodruff would say, “that is very good but I shall
expect a different phrase tomorrow. You’ve used that one long enough.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Maude would reply, meekly.
But the next morning, to the unfailing delight of all the pupils, this
incorrigible young imp would respond seriously and even more blandly
with the same timeworn and utterly foolish phrase.
If Maude ever learned another word of French no one ever discovered it.
Indeed, Maude was so busy being funny that she had little time for
study.
It was Maude, too, who daily stole a pie from the pantry window sill
under the front porch. Maude having discovered a hole in the lattice
work near the steps, crawled in one day to investigate. She found
numerous pies cooling on the broad sill. She ate one hurriedly and it
made her ill. One pie, a large pie at that, was plainly too much for one
girl. After that she always took a companion under the porch with her
and generously divided the stolen pie. Sometimes the companion was
Henrietta; sometimes it was Marjory, once it was Bettie—but Bettie’s
conscience troubled her and she wouldn’t go again. Unhappily, the only
time that one could be sure of capturing a pie was during the morning
recess, a matter of only fifteen minutes. As the pies were always red
hot at that time it required courage to bolt them. The mince pies were
especially trying, for there is nothing much hotter than a hot raisin.
Maude never was discovered; but long afterwards the girls wondered if
she hadn’t made some secret arrangement with the cook. She was quite
capable of it for Maude was nothing if not resourceful. And the cook was
a good natured person.