FERNS AND FRIENDS
True to her promise, Jenny Warner went to the seminary on Monday, after
her lessons were over, to see if she could be of assistance to Miss
O’Hara.
The kindly Irish woman saw the girl coming and met her at the open
kitchen door with so beaming a face that the newcomer was convinced that
something of a pleasant nature had occurred, nor was she wrong.
“Colleen, it’s true blue you are, keepin’ your word so handsome, but
there’s no need for you to be stayin’. Another of them orphans blew in
along about noon-time, and it did me heart good to set eyes on the bright
face of her. She went to work with a will, not wishin’ to rest even. Her
name’s Nora O’Flynn, and her forebears came from the same part of old
Ireland which gave birth to mesilf. ’Twon’t be hard to be makin’ the
kitchen homelike for _this_ orphan,” she concluded.
Jenny went away joyfully. Things had turned out wonderfully for them all.
Miss O’Hara could never have been happy with Etta Heldt, who was of a
race she could not understand, but now that she was to have with her one
of her own people, her long days of drudgery would be lightened and
brightened.
As Jenny tripped down the box-bordered path leading from the seminary to
a canyon trail that would be a short-cut to the farm, she passed the
tennis courts, where several games were in progress. She glanced at the
players, wondering if any of them might be the haughty sister of Harold
P-J. But tennis was altogether too strenuous a pastime for the ever
indolent Gwynette.
The back trail led along the Sycamore Canyon creek, where ferns of many
varieties were growing; some were as tall as the girl who was passing
them, while, among the moss-covered rocks, close to the brook, were the
more feathery and delicate maiden hair ferns. It had been very warm in
the sun, but there was a most welcome damp coolness in the canyon. For a
moment Jenny stood still at the top of the trail gazing down, listening
to the quietness, broken only by the constant gurgling rush of the water.
Then she started walking slowly along the trail, picking her way
carefully, as it was rough and rocky, and at places very narrow. It
amused her to note the different sounds of the brook. At one spot there
was a whirling little eddy, then a sudden fall over a steep rock, then a
hurried rushing till a broad pool-like place was reached. There the
waters were deeper and quieter, as though pausing for a moment’s rest
before taking a plunge of many feet to the lower part of the canyon. Just
above the Maiden-hair Falls, a rustic bridge crossed from one great
boulder to another, and, as Jenny came in sight of it, she stopped,
amazed, for there, sitting on one end of the bridge and leaning against
the bending trunk of a great old sycamore tree, was a girl of her own
age. Who could she be? Jenny had not heard of anyone new moving into the
neighborhood. In fact, there were no houses in the canyon except the one
occupied by the Pascoli family.
A small stone, disturbed by Jenny’s foot, rattled noisily down the trail,
struck the bridge and bounded away into the lower canyon.
The stranger glanced up with an expression that was almost startled and
Jenny saw that it was the girl in brown whom she had twice noticed: once
in the yard of the seminary, when she had been left so alone, and again
in the dining hall when she had passed a dish, almost shyly, to the grand
appearing Clare Tasselwood. Jenny remembered that this girl had said
“Thank you,” and had smiled pleasantly when her cup had been filled with
chocolate. She was smiling again, a bright welcoming smile, which assured
Jenny that the stranger wished to speak to her, nor was she wrong, for,
as soon as the bridge was reached, the girl in brown exclaimed: “Isn’t
this a wonderful place that I’ve found? It’s the first time since I came
to this school that I haven’t been depressingly lonesome.”
Jenny’s heart rejoiced. This girl must also love nature if she could feel
real companionship in an almost silent canyon. Impulsively, she said,
“Shall you mind if I sit here with you for a time?”
“Mind?” The other girl’s brown eyes gladdened. “I was hoping that you
would.”
Jenny seated herself on the rustic bridge directly over the rushing
falls. “Oh, hadn’t you better move over near this end?” her companion
asked anxiously. “Won’t the hurrying whirl of the water underneath make
you dizzy?”
Jenny shook her head. “We’re old friends,” she explained. “I am
acquainted with Sycamore Canyon brook from its very beginning way up in
the foothills, and it flows into the sea not far from the farm where I
live.”
“Oh, good!” Again the bright upward glance. “I’m so glad you live on a
farm, for I do also, when I’m at home in Dakota. My father is a farmer. I
haven’t told it before, fearing the seminary girls might snub me if they
knew. Not that I would care much. All I ask of them is to let me alone,
and they certainly do that.” Then in a burst of confidence, “I really
don’t know what to say to girls, nor how to act with them. I have lived
so many years on an isolated farm and, would you believe it, I never,
actually never, had a flesh and blood girl friend. I’ve had steens and
steens of book-character friends, and I honestly believe, on the whole, I
like them best.” Then with a shy side glance, “Do you think I am queer?
Tell me so truly if you do.”
Jenny moved closer to the girl in brown as she exclaimed, “Yes, I do
think you are queer, if queer means different from those other girls.”
Then she laughingly confessed, “The truth is I never had a girl friend
either, not one, but I have lots of make-believe friends, so, you see, I
also am queer.”
The girl in brown beamed, “O, I am so glad, for maybe, do you think
possibly you and I might become friends, being both queer and all that?”
Jenny nodded joyfully. “Why, of course we can be friends if you wish.
That is, if Miss Granger would want you to be friendly with any but the
gentry. Perhaps she doesn’t allow the pupils of her school to make
acquaintances on the outside.”
This thought was not at all troubling to the strange girl. “You see,” she
began seriously, “I am not subject to the rules governing the other
pupils.”
Then, noting the puzzled expression in the listener’s eyes, she leaned
back against the tree as she laughingly continued: “Suppose I begin at
the beginning and then you will understand about me once for all.”
“We don’t even know each other’s names,” Jenny put in. “Mine is Jeanette
Warner. I have always lived with my grandparents on Rocky Point farm,
which belongs to the estate of the Poindexter-Jones family.” A shadow
passed over the speaker’s face, which, a moment before, had been so
bright. “I want to be real honest before we begin a friendship. We are
not farmers in our own right. We are hired to run a farm, therefore we
are servants in the employ of the mother of one of your classmates. At
least that is what Gwynette Poindexter-Jones calls us.”
The observant listener saw the flush mounting to her new friend’s cheeks,
and, impulsively, she reached out a hand and placed it on the one near
her. “What does _that_ matter? I mean so far as our friendship is
concerned,” she asked.
Jenny was relieved. “Doesn’t it really? Well, then I’m glad. Now please
tell me all about yourself from the very beginning.”
Jenny noticed that her companion looked frail and so she was not
surprised to hear her say that she had been very ill. “Lenora Gale is my
name,” she began, “and my family consists of an unequalled father, and of
a brother who is just as nice only younger. My dearest mother died of
lung trouble years ago, and every time since then when I have caught
cold, it has taken my vitality to an alarming extent, and last fall, when
the bitter winter weather set in, and oh, how cold our northern winters
are, father wanted me sent to California, but he could not come himself.
Brother Charles wished to attend an agricultural college near Berkeley
and so I was put in a boarding school up there, just as a place to stay
and be well cared for. I was not to attend classes unless I desired. But
the rainy season continued for so long that Brother thought best to bring
me farther south, and that is why I am now in the Granger Place
Seminary.”
Jenny rose and held out a hand. “Lenora Gale,” she said seriously, “the
damp coolness of this canyon will not do at all for you. I’m going to
walk back with you to the top of the trail. I can see quite plainly that
you need a friend to look after you.” And evidently Jenny was right, for
the rough upward climb was hard for the girl who had not been well, and
she scarcely spoke until they said good-bye at the side door of the
seminary. Then she turned and clung to the hand of her new friend as she
said imploringly, “You won’t just disappear and forget me, will you? I do
so want to see you again.”
“Indeed not,” Jenny assured her. “I’ll come up and get you tomorrow, if I
may have Dobbin, and take you home to supper. I want you to meet Grandma
Sue and Grandpa Si.”
Lenora’s pale face brightened. “Oh, how wonderful that will be. I wish
today were tomorrow.”
Again Jenny descended the Sycamore Canyon brook trail, but this time she
skipped along that she need not be late to help get supper. At the
bridge, though, she stopped for one moment as at a shrine. “Here,” she
said aloud, “is where I met my first girl friend.” A lizard on a stone
near lifted its gray head and looked at her with bright black eyes, but
Jenny, with a song of gladness, passed on down the trail, for once
without noticing the wild life about her.