ELECTION DAY
The day for the election of the president of the Junior Class had
arrived at last. Lessons were over at noon and from three o’clock until
six in the afternoon Jessica Hunt and Miss Sterne would remain in the
library at Primrose Hall watching over the ballot box. Immediately after
six the box would be opened, the ballots counted and the choice of the
Juniors announced.
For December had come with her white frosts and cold, brilliant days and
the fields about Primrose Hall were sere and brown. Now and then in the
past few weeks a light snow had fallen and the shore waters of the
Hudson River would then be trimmed with a fine fringe of ice. Once the
election was over the Primrose Hall students would be making plans for
the Christmas holidays, but until then nothing else, not even home and
family, appeared of so great importance.
Do not think because Gerry’s appeal to Olive to save Jean had gone
astray that she had given up the fight for her friend’s cause. Indeed,
like many another brave campaigner, she had only worked the harder,
rallying Jean’s friends closer around her, exhorting her enemies and
trying to persuade the girls on the fence that there was no real point
in their antagonism toward Olive. And in all the efforts Gerry had made
she had had an able lieutenant in Margaret Belknap, Jean’s other devoted
friend.
For herself Jean could do little electioneering, realizing that unless
her classmates desired her to represent them by reason of the character
she had already established among them, nothing she could do or say at
this late day should influence them. And Jean had also never wavered
from the attitude she had taken in regard to Olive on the afternoon of
their final discussion of the subject. She had not needed that her
resolution be strengthened, but if she had, letters from Ruth Drew and
Jack Ralston would certainly have accomplished it. For Olive, true to
her threat, had written them the entire situation, begging that Jean be
persuaded from the error of her ways. Instead of the reply she hoped
for, Ruth and Jack had both emphatically declared Jean’s position the
only possible one.
All the morning in the hours just before the election Jean had been
conscious that Olive’s eyes were fixed on her whenever their presence in
one of the class rooms made it possible. Her expression was so wistful
and apologetic that Jean began to care more for her own success on
Olive’s account than her own. So as soon as luncheon was over and three
o’clock had come around, slipping her arm through her adopted sister’s,
she drew her along the hall toward the library door.
“Come on, Olive, child, and cast your vote for me and then let us go
upstairs and stay hidden away until the election is over. Then Gerry and
Margaret will let us know the result. If I were a really high-minded
person I suppose I should now vote for my rival, Miss Graham, but as I
can’t bring myself up to that point, I’ll just slip in a piece of paper
for old Gerry.”
Ten minutes after this conversation Jean and Olive were in their own
sitting room for the entire afternoon, having placed a sign outside
announcing that no one could be admitted. Of course both ranch girls
were excited and nervous, but of the two Olive was plainly the more
affected, for while Jean talked and laughed in a perfectly natural
fashion, she was pale and silent and oftentimes on the verge of tears.
The day was cold and lovely and outside the sun shone on the bare
upturned branches of the trees and on the broad bosom of the earth.
“Silly child,” Jean began, arranging her paper and ink on the writing
table before one of their windows, “why should you behave as though the
question of my election was the only important thing in the world. On a
day like this I only feel desperately homesick for Jack and the old
ranch. What wouldn’t I give if we were all there to-day and just
starting out on a long, hard ride? Sometimes I am so desperate about
never seeing Jack that I don’t know what to do. I think I will write to
Jim and to Ralph Merrit this afternoon, for it will help to make the
time pass faster than anything else. I am afraid I have treated Ralph
rather badly, as I promised to write him often and have only written
twice. Then I want to ask Jim if he is really coming east to see how
Jack is getting on. I wonder if he will hate to see Ruth again or like
it? One never can tell about a person in love.”
Perhaps Jean’s thought of her old friends and affairs at the Rainbow
Ranch may have had a cheering influence upon her, for no sooner had she
put her pen to the paper than apparently all worry and suspense left her
and she scratched away rapidly and clearly for several hours.
But poor Olive found no such distraction or solace; indeed, she kept up
such a restless and unnecessary moving about the room that at any other
time Jean most certainly would Lave scolded. First she tried studying
her Shakespeare, since she was making a special effort to succeed in the
Shakespeare class, and before coming east to school had read only a few
plays with Ruth and the ranch girls in the big living room at the Lodge.
But not the most thrilling historic drama nor the most delightful comedy
by William Shakespeare could to-day take her mind from the one idea that
engrossed it. After half an hour of merely pretending to read, she flung
her book down on the floor, saying petulantly: “Tiresome stuff! I wonder
what ever made me think for an instant I could stand any chance of
getting the Shakespeare prize?”
Jean smiled. “Oh, I suppose, Olive, because Ruth and all of us thought
you had a lot of talent for reciting and acting and you dearly love to
read and study at most times. But why don’t you go out for a walk, you
can find Frieda somewhere around downstairs and make her go with you. I
don’t want to.”
“And I don’t want to either and won’t,” Olive answered with a good deal
more temper than usual with her, and flying into her own room, she
banged the door behind her. Rummaging about for some occupation, she
came across a piece of sewing which she had once started at the Lodge,
some white silk cut in the shape of a round cap to be covered over with
small white pearl beads.
Slipping back once more into the sitting room, Olive found a low stool
by the fire and there tried to see whether sewing would have a more
soothing influence upon her than reading for the two more hours that had
somehow to be disposed of. Yes, sewing on this occasion was more
distracting than reading, for very soon Olive’s fingers worked
automatically while her brain began to concern itself with interesting
and puzzling ideas. The many hours which she had spent alone at Primrose
Hall had not been wholly unprofitable—lonely hours need never be unless
we choose to make them so—but Olive perhaps had more to think of and to
ponder over than most girls of her age who have not led such eventful
lives.
After her afternoon call at “The Towers” and her conversation later with
Miss Winthrop, Olive had been reading all the books in the school
library that she could find, which might help her explain the curious
experience—confided to no one—through which she had passed that
afternoon. But it was not just this one experience that had puzzled and
worried Olive, for many strange fancies, impressions, memories, she knew
not what to call them, had been drifting into her mind since her first
sight of that white house on the hill on the morning after her arrival
at Tarry dale. The ideas had no special connection with anything that
was definite, but Olive was lately beginning to believe that she could
recall dim ideas and events having no connection with the years she had
spent in the Indian tent with old Laska. But why had these far-off
memories not assailed her in the two years at the Rainbow Ranch? Perhaps
then the recollection of Laska, of her son Josef, who had treated her
with such an odd mixture of respect and cruelty, of the Indian people
about her whom she had so disliked, had been too close, too omnipresent
in her mind. Had she needed to come far away from the West and its
associations to feel that she had come home? No, it was impossible, for
Olive felt sure that she had never been east before in her life.
Finally the clock struck five and then half-past and at last six.
Jean, some moments before, had ceased writing and now sat calmly folding
up her pile of letters, placing them in their respective envelopes. She
looked tired and perhaps a trifle pale but composed. At last she got up
from her chair and crossing the floor knelt down in front of Olive,
taking the piece of sewing from her cold fingers.
“Olive dear,” she said unexpectedly, “you are looking positively ill
from thinking of something or other and worrying over me. For both our
sakes I wish that Jack could be with us this afternoon just for the next
hour. I know I have not been elected the Junior president. I never have
really expected to be, but just as I sat there writing about half an
hour ago I knew I had not been. Now see here, Olive, I have been
thinking that I have been defeated for more than thirty minutes and yet
look at me! Do I look heartbroken or as if I were very deeply
disappointed?” And Jean smiled quietly and serenely at her companion.
“Promise me that when the girls come in in a few minutes to tell me I
have not been elected, that you will take things sensibly and not think
that you have had anything to do with my failure.”
Olive shook her head. “How can I promise such a thing, Jean, when I know
perfectly well it isn’t true,” she answered, vainly attempting to hide
the fact that she was trembling with excitement and that her ears were
strained forward to catch the first noise of footsteps coming toward
their door.
Sighing, Jean continued, “Oh, you silly child, what shall I say or do
with you? Don’t you know if the girls had really wanted me for president
nothing and no one could have stood in my way?”
The shove which Olive gave her, slight though it was, nearly made Jean
tumble backwards. “Why do you talk as though you knew positively you had
not been elected, Jean Bruce, when you really know absolutely nothing
about it. I am sorry I pushed you, but I thought I heard some one coming
down the hall.”
As Olive had gotten to her feet, Jean now arose also. No one had
appeared to interrupt them.
“I know by this time that I have not been elected,” Jean said, “because
it must now be some little time after six o’clock and Miss Sterne and
Jessica could never have taken so long a time as this to count the few
ballots of the Junior class.”
However, there was no doubt at this instant of noises out in the hall
approaching nearer and nearer the ranch girls’ sitting room.
It was Olive who rushed to the door and fairly tore it open, while Jean
waited calmly in the center of the room.
Outside were Gerry and Margaret Belknap, Frieda and Lucy and Mollie
Johnson, and one look at the five faces told the waiting girls the
truth. Coming in, Margaret flung her arms about Jean and Gerry took a
farm clasp of Olive’s hand.
“I never would have believed it in the world!” she exclaimed.