COLUMBIA HEIGHTS SCHOOL
As Captain Stewart asked the question which ended the last chapter the
W. B. & A. electric car came to a standstill in the heart of Washington
and as he assisted his charges to descend the steps, Polly was the last.
As she placed her hand in his she looked straight into his kind eyes and
said:
"I'm just ready to fly all to bits. I love Peggy and want to be with
her; I love Aunt Janet and old Crabtown and everything connected with
it; I've always kept neck-and-neck with Ralph in his work and I hate the
thought of dropping out of it, but, oh, I do want to be with Peggy."
"Come along out to the school and see what you think of it before you
decide one way or the other; then talk it all over with your aunt and
you won't go far amiss if you follow _her_ advice, little girl."
"I'll do it," answered Polly, with an emphatic wag of her head, and
Peggy who overheard her words nearly pranced with joy.
Hailing a taxicab Captain Stewart directed the chauffeur to drive them
to an address in the outskirts of the city and away they sped. It was
only a short run in that whirring machine over Washington's beautiful
streets and when the school was reached both Peggy and Polly exclaimed
over the beauty of its situation, for Columbia Heights School was in the
midst of spacious grounds, the buildings were substantial and
attractive, giving the impression of ample space, all the fresh air
needed by vigorous, rapidly developing bodies, and the sunshine upon
which they thrive. Beautiful walks and drives led in every direction and
not far off lovely Stony Brook Park lay in all the beauty of its golden
October glow.
Mrs. Harold and Captain Stewart were graciously welcomed by its charming
principal who promptly led the way to her study, a great room giving
upon a broad piazza, where green wicker furniture, potted plants and
palms suggesting a tropical garden. When Polly's eyes fell upon it she
forgot all else, and cried impulsively:
"Oh, how lovely! Can't we go right out there?" And then colored crimson.
Mrs. Vincent smiled as she slipped an arm across Polly's shoulder and
asked:
"Are you to be my newest girl? If so, I think we would find something
in common."
Polly raised her big eyes to the sweet, strong face smiling upon her and
answered:
"I hadn't even thought of coming until an hour ago. It was all planned
for Peggy, but, oh, dear, if I _only_ could be twins! How am I ever to
be a co-ed in Annapolis and a pupil here at the same time? Yet I want
dreadfully to be both, I'm so fond of Peggy."
"I fear we cannot solve that problem even in Columbia Heights School,
though we try pretty hard to solve a good many knotty ones. Suppose I
talk it over with the grown-ups and meantime arrange for your
entertainment by two or three of the girls. We think they are rather
nice girls too," and Mrs. Vincent pressed an electric button which
promptly brought a neat maid to the door.
"Hilda, ask Miss Natalie and Miss Marjorie to step to my study."
Within a few moments two girls appeared in the doorway, the taller one
asking:
"Did you wish to see us, Mother?"
Introductions followed, whereupon the Principal said:
"Natalie, please take Miss Stewart and Miss Howland for a walk through
the grounds. It is recreation period and they will like to meet the
other girls and see the buildings also, I think. And remember, you are
to picture everything in such glowing colors, and be so entertaining
that they will think there is no other place in all the land half so
lovely, for I have fully decided that we must have sweet P's in our posy
bed. We have a Rose, a Violet, a Lily, Myrtle, Hazel, Marguerites,--oh,
a whole flower garden already--but thus far no sweet-peas."
"We will, Mrs. Vincent. Please come with us," said Marjorie cheerily, no
trace of self-consciousness or the indefinable restraint so much oftener
the rule than the exception between teacher and pupil. Mrs. Harold had
been observing every word and action as it was a part of her nature to
observe--yes, intuitively _feel_--every word and action of the young
people with whom she came in touch, and the older ones who were likely
to bring any influence to bear upon their lives, and this little scene
did more to confirm her in the belief that she had not been amiss when
she selected Columbia Heights School for Peggy than anything else could
have done. Next to her husband, her sister and her nieces, Peggy was the
dearest thing in the world to her, and the past year had shown her what
tremendous possibilities the future held for the young girl if wisely
shaped for her. The two ensuing hours were pleasant and profitable for
all concerned and when they ended and Captain Stewart and his party
re-entered the taxicab to return to their hotel in Washington, it was
decided that Peggy should come to Columbia Heights School on October
fifteenth, but Polly's decision was still in abeyance. She wished to
have one of her long, quiet talks with her aunt before "shifting her
holding ground," she said, and that could only be up in Middie's Haven,
cuddled upon a hassock beside Mrs. Harold's easy chair, with the logs
lazily flickering upon the brass andirons. So the ensuing two days in
Washington were given over to sightseeing and "a general blow-out," as
Captain Stewart termed it, insisting that he could not have another for
months and meant to make this one "an A-1 affair." Then back they went
to Severndale where Mrs. Stewart, to their surprise, had returned the
previous day, having failed to find her friend in Baltimore. As she had
already overstayed the length of time for which her invitation to
Severndale had been extended, she had no possible excuse for prolonging
it, and deciding that her schemes had met with defeat largely owing to
her own impolitic precipitation in forcing the situation, she did not
mean to make an ignominious retreat. So, with well assumed suavity she
told her brother-in-law that some urgent business matters claimed her
attention in New York, and asked if he could complete his arrangements
for Peggy's departure without her aid, as she really ought to go North
without delay.
If Neil Stewart was amused by this sudden change in the lady's tactics,
to his credit be it said that he did not betray any sign of it. He
thanked her for her kind interest in Peggy and his home, for all she had
done for them, and left nothing lacking for her comfort upon her
homeward journey, even shipping to the apartment in New York enough
fruit, game and various other good things from Severndale to keep her
larder well supplied for weeks, and supplementing all these with a gift
which would be the envy of all her friends. But when he returned to
Severndale after bidding the lady farewell at the station, he breathed
one mighty sigh of relief. He had escaped a situation of which the
outcome was a good deal more than problematical for everyone concerned,
and most vital for Peggy.
Then came busy days of preparation for Peggy and Polly, for the outcome
of that fireside powwow had been a decision in favor of Columbia Heights
School for Polly also, for that winter at least, and when the fifteenth
dawned bright and frosty, Mrs. Harold accompanied the girls to
Washington, Captain Stewart's leave having meantime expired. But he had
gone back to his ship in a very different frame of mind from that in
which he had returned to it in July, and with a comforting sense of
security in the outcome of his present plans for Peggy. The longer he
knew Mrs. Harold the greater became his confidence in her judgment, and
she had assured him that Peggy should be her charge that winter exactly
as Polly was. Moreover, Mrs. Harold had persuaded Mrs. Howland to close
her house in Montgentian for the winter and come to Annapolis, bringing
Gail with her, for Constance had decided to follow the _Rhode Island_
whenever it was possible for her to do so, and this decision left Mrs.
Howland and Gail alone in their home. So to Wilmot Hall came Polly's
mother and pretty sister, the former to spend a delightfully restful
winter with her sister and the latter to take her first taste of the
good times possible for a girl of twenty-one at the Naval Academy.
The first breaking away from Severndale was harder for Peggy than anyone
but Mrs. Harold guessed. Somehow intuition supplied to her what actual
words could never have conveyed, even had they been spoken, but Peggy,
once her resolution had been taken to go away to school, was not a girl
to bewail her decision. And now she was a duly registered pupil at
Columbia Heights with Polly for her room-mate in number 67, her
next-door neighbor Natalie Vincent, Mrs. Vincent's daughter, a jolly,
honest, happy-go-lucky girl, who looked exactly as her mother must have
looked at fifteen. A long line of rooms extended up and down, both sides
of the corridor, the end one, No. 70, with its pretty bay-window
overlooking the lawn and Stony Brook beyond, was occupied by Stella
Drummond, a tall, striking brunette of eighteen. To the hundred-fifty
girls in Columbia Heights School this story can only allude in a brief
way but of those who figure most prominently in Polly's and Peggy's new
world we'll let Polly give the general "sizing-up." These girls were all
about the same age, and, excepting Stella, juniors, as were Peggy and
Polly, whose previous work under tutors and in high school had qualified
them to enter that grade at Columbia Heights.
It was their first night at the school, and "lights-out" bell had rung
at ten o'clock, but a glorious October moon flooded the room with a
silvery light, almost as bright as day. Peggy in one pretty little white
bed and Polly in the one beside it were carrying on a lively whispered
conversation.
"Well, we're _here_," was Polly's undisputable statement as she snuggled
down under her bed-covers, "and now that we are what do you think of
it?"
"I'm glad we've come. It will seem a lot different, and rather queer to
do everything by rules and on time, but, after all, we had to do almost
everything by rule up home."
"Yes, but they were nearly always our _own_ rules; yours, anyway. Why,
Peggy, I don't believe there is a girl in this school who ever had
things as much her own way as you have had them."
"Maybe that's the reason I didn't get along with Aunt Katherine,"
answered Peggy whimsically.
"Aunt Katherine!" Polly's whisper suggested italics. "Do you know Miss
Sturgis, the math. teacher, makes me think of her a little. Miss Sturgis
is strong-minded, I'll bet a cookie. Did you hear what she said when she
was giving out our books on sociology--doesn't it seem funny, Peggy, for
us to take up sociology?--'She hoped we would become good American
citizens and realize woman's true position in the world.' Somehow I've
thought Tanta has always had a pretty clear idea of 'woman's position in
the world.' At any rate she seems to have plenty to do in her own quiet
way and I've an idea that if anyone ever hinted that she ought to go to
the polls and vote she'd feel inclined to spell it pole and use it to
'beat 'em up' with, as Ralph and the boys would say. Oh, dear, how we
are going to miss 'the bunch,' Peggy."
"We certainly are," was Peggy's sympathetic reply, and for a moment
there was silence in the moonlit room as the girls' thoughts flew back
to Annapolis. Then Peggy asked: "What do you think of the girls? You've
been to school all your life, but it is all new to me."
Polly laughed a low, little laugh, then replied:
"They are about like most school-girls, I reckon. Let's see, which have
we had most to do with since we came here twenty-four hours ago? There's
Rosalie Breeze. She's named all right, sure enough, and if she doesn't
turn out a hurricane we'll be lucky. We had one just like her up at
High. And Lily Pearl Montgomery. My gracious, what a name to give a
girl! She needs stirring up. She's just like a big, fat, spoiled baby. I
feel like saying 'Goo-goo' to her."
"Don't you think Juno Gibson is handsome?" asked Peggy.
"Just as handsome as she can be, but I wish she didn't look so
discontented all the time. Why, she hasn't smiled once since we came."
"I wonder why not?" commented Peggy.
"Maybe we'll find out after we've been here a while. But I tell you one
thing, I like her better without any smiles than that silly Helen
Gwendolyn Doolittle with her everlasting affected giggling at nothing.
She is the kind to do some silly thing and make us all ashamed of her."
"How about Stella Drummond?"
"She is a puzzle to me. Doesn't she seem an awful lot older than the
rest of us? Rosalie says she is eighteen and that's not so much older,
but she seems about twenty-five. I wonder why?"
"Maybe she has lived in cities all her life and gone out a lot. You know
most of the girls we met up at New London seemed so much older too, yet
they really were not. They looked upon us as children, though the Little
Mother said we were years older in common sense while they were years
older in worldly experience,--I wonder what she meant?"
"Tanta meant that we had stayed young girls and could enjoy fun and
frolic as much as ever, but those girls were not satisfied with anything
but dances and theatres and all sorts of grown-up things. We have our
fun with our horses, dogs and the nonsense with the boys up home. We
want our skirts short and our hair flying and to romp when we feel like
it."
"Picture Helen or Lily Pearl romping," and Peggy dove under the covers
to smother her laughter at the thought of the fat, pudgy Lily Pearl
attempting anything of the sort. Polly snickered in sympathy and then
said in her emphatic way:
"I tell you, Peggy, which girls I _do_ like and I think they will like
us: Marjorie Terry and Natalie Vincent. Marjorie is awfully sober and
quiet, I know, but _I_ believe she's sort of lonely, or homesick or
something. Natalie seems more like our own kind than any girl in the
school and I'll wager my tennis racquet she'll be lots of fun if she is
the Principal's daughter. But we'd better go to sleep this minute. We've
made a sort of hash of seven girls, and if we try to size up the whole
school this way it will be broad daylight before we finish. Good-night.
It's sort of nice to be here after all, and nicer still to have you for
a room-mate, old Peggoty."
An appreciative little laugh was the only answer to this and five
minutes later the moon was looking in upon a picture hard to duplicate
in this great world: Two sweet, unspoiled, beautiful girls in the first
flush of untroubled slumber.
The following morning being Saturday and Peggy's and Polly's belongings
having arrived, the girls set about arranging their room, half a dozen
others having volunteered assistance. For convenience in reaching "up
aloft" Peggy and Polly had slipped off their waists and were arrayed in
kimonos which aroused the envy of their companions. Captain Stewart had
given them to his "twins" as he now called the girls. Peggy's was the
richest shade of crimson embroidered in all manner of golden gods and
dragons; Polly's pale blue with silver chrysanthemums.
"Oh, _where_ did they come from?" cried Natalie.
"Daddy Neil brought them to us," answered Peggy, as she stepped toward
the door to take an armful of pictures and pillows from old Jess who had
followed his young mistress to Washington to care for Shashai and Silver
Star, the horses having been sent on also, for Columbia Heights School
had large stables for the accommodation of riding or driving horses for
the use of its pupils, or they could bring their own if they preferred.
So Shashai and Silver Star had been ridden down by Jess, taking the
journey in short, easy stages, and arriving the previous evening.
Tzaritza, to her astonishment had not been allowed to accompany them,
and Roy was inconsolable for days. Peggy's departure from Severndale had
left many a grieving heart behind.
"What I gwine do wid all dis hyer truck, Missie-honey?" asked Jess,
coming in from the corridor with a second armful: riding-crops, silver
bits, a fox's brush, books and what not.
"Just plump it down anywhere, Jess. We'll get round to it all in due
time," laughed Peggy from her perch upon a small step-ladder where she
was fastening up some hat-bands of the _Rhode Island_, _New Hampshire_,
_Olympia_ and the ships which had comprised the summer practice
squadron, the girls all gathered about her asking forty questions to the
minute and wild with curiosity and excitement. Never before had two
"really, truly Navy girls" been inmates of Columbia Heights and it sent
a wild flutter through many hearts. What possibilities might lie at the
Annapolis end of the W. B. & A. Railroad!
Jess's white woolly head was bent down over the armful of books he was
placing upon the floor; Peggy had returned to her decorating; Polly had
draped her flag upon the wall and was standing her beloved bugle and a
long row of photographs upon book-shelves beneath it, several girls
following her with little squeals of rapture, when a pandemonium of
shrieks and screams arose down the corridor and the next second a huge
creature bounded into the room, tipping Jess and his burden heels over
head, and flinging itself upon Peggy. Down came ladder, Peggy, and the
white mass in a heap, the girls scattering in a shrieking panic to
whatever shelter seemed to offer, confident that nothing less than a
wolf had invaded the fold.
But Tzaritza was no wolf even if her beautiful snowy coat was
mud-bedraggled and stuck full of burrs, nor was Peggy being "devoured
alive," as Lily Pearl, who had actually _run_ for once in her life, was
hysterically sobbing into Mrs. Vincent's arms.
No, Peggy, rather promiscuous as to ladder, hammer, hat-bands and
general paraphernalia, was lying flat upon her back, her arms around
Tzaritza, half-sobbing, half-laughing her joy into the beautiful
creature's silky neck, while Tzaritza whimpered and whined for joy and
licked and dabbed her mistress with a moist tongue.
"It is a wolf! A wolf!" shrieked Lily Pearl, who had returned to the
scene, "and he is killing her."
"It is a horrid, dirty dog! Why doesn't that man drive him out?"
demanded Miss Sturgis, who had followed Tzaritza hot foot, having been
in the main hall when the great hound went tearing through and up the
stairs, nose and ears having given her the clue to her mistress'
whereabouts.
"No, it's only a wolf_hound_!" laughed Polly, dropping her pictures to
fly across the room and fall upon Tzaritza.
Then explanations followed. Tzaritza had been left in Shelby's care, but
finding it impossible to restrain her when Jess was about to leave with
the horses, he had tied her in the barn. The rope was bitten through as
clean as a thread and Tzaritza's coat told of the long journey on the
horses' trail.
After her wild demonstrations of joy had calmed down, Tzaritza stood
panting in the middle of the wreck which her cyclonic entrance had
brought about, her great eyes pleading eloquently for restored favor.
Polly still clasped her arms about the big shaggy neck, while Miss
Sturgis alternately protested and commanded Jess to "remove that dirty
creature at once." Happily, Mrs. Vincent entered the room at this
juncture and it must have been the god of animals, of which Kipling
tells us, which inspired Tzaritza's act at that moment. Or was it
something in the fine, strong face which children and animals in common
all trust with subtle intuition? At all events, Tzaritza looked at Mrs.
Vincent just one moment and then greeted her exactly as at home she
would have greeted Dr. Llewellyn or Captain Stewart; by rising upon her
hind legs, placing her forepaws upon Mrs. Vincent's shoulders and
nestling her magnificent head into the amazed woman's neck as
confidingly as a child would have done. A less self-contained woman
would have been frightened half to death. Miss Sturgis came near
swooning but Mrs. Vincent just gathered the great dog into her arms as
she would have gathered one of her girls and said:
"Without the power of human speech you plead your cause most eloquently,
you beautiful creature. Peggy, has she ever been separated from you
before, dear?"
"Never, Mrs. Vincent. She has slept at my door since she was a wee
puppy."
"She shall be appointed guardian of the West Wing of Columbia Heights,
and may turn out a guardian for us all. Now, Jess, take her to the
stables and make her presentable to polite society. Poor Tzaritza, your
journey must have been a long, hard, dusty one, for your silken fringes
have collected many souvenirs of it."