GETTING INTO HARNESS
Two weeks had elapsed since the arrival of the three ranch girls at
boarding school and so many changes appeared to have taken place in
their lives that already the weeks seemed as many months. One of the
changes they themselves did not realize, but nevertheless it was a
serious one, for Jean, Frieda and Olive were no longer so intimate as
they had been in the old days at Rainbow Lodge. Each girl was going her
own way, keeping her own confidence, forming new friendships and
apparently forgetting the importance of past ties.
And of the three girls it was Frieda who had become the most
emancipated. Having conceived a tremendous devotion for Mollie Johnson,
the two girls were rarely apart. Lucy Johnson was a good deal older than
Frieda, but Mollie was a year younger than the youngest Miss Ralston and
looked up to her as the most wonderful person in the world, insisting
that the stories Frieda told of her life on the ranch made her appear
like a heroine in a book. Now Frieda was tired of being treated like a
baby by her family, and besides, as no one had ever told her before that
she was in the least like a heroine, she found the idea distinctly
pleasant. The two Johnson sisters were from Richmond, Virginia, and had
vivacious manners and soft southern voices. Mollie was small and dark
and fluttered about like a little brown bird, such a complete contrast
to Frieda’s fairness and slow movements that it was small wonder the two
girls were drawn together by their very unlikeness and that already
their schoolmates were calling them the Siamese twins, because they went
everywhere together with their arms locked about one another, wore one
another’s clothes when their different sizes permitted, and were never
without true lover’s knots of blue ribbon tied in their buttonholes,
knots made from a sacrificial division of all Frieda’s best hair
ribbons. Not that hair ribbons interested their owner any further, for
the fifth day after Frieda’s arrival at boarding school, and in spite of
Jean’s and Olive’s objections, her long braids had disappeared and in
their place a Pysche knot of huge proportions could be seen at the back
of her head. The Psyche knot was not becoming, because its wearer did
not have a Greek face, but it was grown up and the latest fashion and of
course nothing else really matters. As Frieda’s school work was not the
same as Jean’s and Olive’s, on account of her age and the fact that she
never had cared much about books, the division of her time was different
from theirs, so perhaps it was but natural that in the excitement of her
first independence and without Jack’s influence, she should be for the
first time in her life “ganging her own gait.”
But with Jean Bruce the change was even more subtle and more
unconscious. Why, Jean and Olive had actually laughed together over
Frieda’s desertion of them and all the while they were laughing, though
she had said nothing, Olive was wondering if Jean did not know that she
saw almost as little of her as she did of Frieda these days. Without
realizing it or having made any special effort, Jean Bruce, two weeks
after her arrival at Primrose Hall, was one of the most popular girls in
the school. As a proof of it she had already been invited to join both
the two sororities and had not made up her mind which one she should
choose. The fact that Winifred Graham belonged to the “Kappa” sorority
certainly influenced Jean in the direction of the “Theta,” for from the
hour of Geraldine Ferrows’ revelation of Winifred’s character there had
been open war between Winifred and Jean. Of course, Winifred’s rudeness
to Olive was the first cause of Jean’s offense, but now Olive was almost
forgotten and overlooked in their personal rivalry. It was an open
discussion that the choice for Junior class president, which must be
made before the Christmas holidays, would lie between these two girls.
For though Jean had continued her masquerade of poverty, the best girls
in the school had not been influenced by it. Indeed, Jean’s closest
friend, Margaret Belknap, belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest
families in New York City, people who looked down upon the Four Hundred
as belonging to the dreadful “new rich.”
But while school life was apparently moving so pleasantly for Jean and
Frieda, Olive, for some unexplained reason, was making no friends.
Though it was customary to invite the new girls at Primrose Hall into
one or the other of the secret societies almost immediately upon their
arrival at school, Olive had not yet been chosen for either sorority.
Too shy and sensitive to mention it even to her best friends, she did
not dream that Jean was unaware of the slights put upon her. Only in
secret Olive suffered tortures, wondering if her blood showed itself so
plainly that her classmates disliked her for that reason or if she were
more unattractive than all other girls. Still her beloved Jack, who was
finer and more beautiful than anybody in the world, had cared for her
and if only the doctors would say that Jack was strong enough to join
them at Primrose Hall, nothing else would make any difference! Letters
from Ruth Drew and now and then one from Peter Drummond had assured the
girls that Jack was doing as well as could be expected, but as yet there
had been no definite report from the surgeon?
However, if Olive Ralston had so far made no friends among her
classmates, there were other persons in the school interested in her,
who were more important. Among them was Jessica Hunt, the young teacher
whom Olive had met on the morning of her unfortunate walk. There was
something in the strange girl’s shyness and gentle dignity that made a
strong appeal to Jessica, and though she had so far no opportunity to
reveal her friendliness, she had noticed the slights put upon Olive and
was trying her best to discover their cause. Some secret story might
possibly be in circulation about the newcomer, but so far Jessica had
not been able to find it out.
One Friday afternoon Olive had been alone in their sitting room for
several hours. Always books had been her consolation for loneliness
since the days when her only white friend had been the teacher in the
Indian school in her village, yet nevertheless, hearing an unexpected
knock at the door, her face brightened. “Jean is sending for me to join
her somewhere perhaps,” she thought happily, but on opening the door her
eyes had widened with surprise.
“Please, may I come in? I’m not a teacher this afternoon: I am a
visitor,” Jessica Hunt had said at once. “I have been looking for you
everywhere in the garden and at the sorority houses and on the verandas.
To quote Mr. Kipling, ‘over the world and under the world and back at
the last to you,’ here in your sitting room. Why aren’t you with the
other girls?” Knowing what she did, perhaps Jessica’s question to Olive
may seem cruel, yet she asked it hoping that Olive might confide in her
the unfriendliness of her classmates. Then they might talk the matter
over sensibly together and she might be able to help. But alas for
Olive! Though Ruth had warned her to try to overcome her reserve that
day of the flower fortunes in Yellowstone Park, she was yet unable to
give her confidence to any one but Jack! So now she only answered Miss
Hunt quietly: “It is because I am stupider than the other girls that I
have to stay in my room to study more. But I am through with my work now
and awfully glad to see you,” and Olive’s rather misty smile of welcome
revealed more of her real feeling than any number of words.
Once inside the ranch girls’ sitting room, Jessica Hunt gave a little
cry of admiration and surprise. “Why, no wonder you don’t wish to be
outdoors,” she exclaimed, “for this is the most charming girls’ room at
Primrose Hall! It makes me think of that same poem of Kipling’s which I
was misquoting a minute ago, ‘The Gypsy Trail.’ You must read it some
day when you’re older, for you look like a Romany maid yourself. And
surely in this room at least ‘the east and the west are one.’”
Truly the ranch girls’ sitting room was indeed what they had dreamed of
making it in the last days at home, a bit of the Rainbow Lodge in
miniature, their own beloved ranch house living room reproduced many
miles across the continent. By Ruth’s request Miss Winthrop had allotted
to the three ranch girls a large and almost empty room, containing only
a divan, a few chairs and low bookshelves. Now the floor was covered
with half a dozen gayly colored Indian rugs, bright shawls were thrown
over the divan, piled with sofa cushions of leather and silk, and on the
walls were prints of Indian heads, one of them a picture of a young girl
looking singularly like Olive, and several Remington drawings of cowboys
on lonely western plains. Over the open fireplace, about one-fourth the
size of the one at The Lodge, was the head of an elk shot by Jim Colter
himself on the border of their own ranch, and on the mantel the very
brass candlesticks that belonged on the mantelpiece at home, besides
several pieces of Indian crockery, the ancient ornaments discovered by
Frieda in the Indian cave on the day when Olive had made her first
appearance in the ranch girls’ lives.
But when Jessica had seen the beauties of the sitting room she began at
once to look more closely at the few photographs which the ranch girls
had placed on top of their bookshelves, knowing that there is no quicker
way to learn to understand and enter the heart of a school girl than by
taking an interest in her photographs. Of course, these must represent
the persons nearest and dearest, their families and closest friends.
The ranch girls had not a very large collection of pictures, only an
absurd one of Jim, taken at Laramie as a farewell present to them, but
as he wore a stiff collar and shirt and his Sunday clothes, it was not
in the least like their big, splendidly handsome friend. Next Jim’s was
one of Ruth and alongside that one of Frank Kent, but almost
instinctively Jessica’s hand reached forth to pick up a photograph of a
girl on horseback and at the same instant she touched Olive’s heart.
“Who is this beautiful girl?” she asked quickly. “She is just the type
of girl I admire the most, so graceful and vigorous and with such a lot
of character. Oh, I hope I haven’t said anything I shouldn’t,” she ended
suddenly, seeing that Olive’s eyes had filled with tears.
Olive shook her head. “No, it’s all right, only Jack isn’t vigorous any
more.” And then, to her own surprise and relief, Olive poured forth the
whole story of Jack’s accident and their reasons for coming east.
Strange, and yet no stranger than the same kind of thing that takes
place every day, but just as Olive was on the point of telling Miss Hunt
that she expected each day to hear more definite news of Jack, a message
was sent upstairs to her from the office. A visitor was in the reception
room desiring to see the Misses Ralston and Miss Bruce at once. Would
Olive find the other girls and come to the reception room immediately?
With but one thought in her mind, that it must be Ruth Drew who had come
to tell them that Jack was better, Olive, with a hurried apology to
Jessica, begging her to wait until her return, fled out, of her room
down through the lower part of the house and then out into the school
grounds to search for Jean and Frieda, for much as she yearned to run at
once to Ruth, it would be too selfish not to let the other girls hear
the good news with her.
And Jessica Hunt was glad enough to be left alone in the ranch girls’
room for a few minutes longer, for standing near the photograph of
Jacqueline Ralston was another photograph whose presence in the room
puzzled her greatly. She did not feel that she had the right to ask
curious questions and yet she must look at this picture more closely,
for the exact, copy of it was at this moment lying in her own bureau
drawer between folds of lavender-scented silk.