The night seemed short; for the girls, tired by their journey, slept
like dormice. About seven o'clock, Katy was roused by the click of a
blind, and, opening her eyes, saw Clover standing in the window, and
peeping out through the half-opened shutters. When she heard Katy
move, she cried out,--
"Oh, do come! It's so interesting! I can see the colleges and the
church, and, I guess, the Nunnery; only I am not quite sure, because
the houses are all so much alike."
Katy jumped up and hurried to the window. The hotel stood on one side
of a green common, planted with trees. The common had a lead-colored
fence, and gravel paths, which ran across it from corner to corner.
Opposite the hotel was a long row of red buildings, broken by one or
two brown ones, with cupolas. These were evidently the colleges, and
a large gray building with a spire was as evidently the church; but
which one of the many white, green-blinded house which filled the
other sides of the common, was the Nunnery, the girls could not tell.
Clover thought it was one with a garden at the side; but Katy thought
not, because Lilly had said nothing of a garden. They discussed the
point so long that the breakfast bell took them by surprise, and they
were forced to rush through their dressing as fast as possible, so as
not to keep papa waiting.
When breakfast was over, Dr. Carr told them to put on their hats, and
get ready to walk with him to the school. Clover took one arm, and
Katy the other, and the three passed between some lead-colored posts,
and took one of the diagonal paths which led across the common.
"That's the house," said Dr. Carr, pointing.
"It isn't the one you picked out, Clover," said Katy.
"No," replied Clover, a little disappointed. The house papa indicated
was by no means so pleasant as the one she had chosen.
It was a tall, narrow building, with dormer windows in the roof, and a
square porch supported by whitewashed pillars. A pile of trunks stood
in the porch. From above came sounds of voices. Girls' heads were
popped out of upper widows at the swinging of the gate, and, as the
door opened, more heads appeared looking over the balusters from the
hall above.
The parlor into which they were taken was full of heavy, old-fashioned
furniture, stiffly arranged. The sofa and chairs were covered with
black haircloth, and stood closely against the wall. Some books lay
upon the table, arranged two by two; each upper book being exactly at
a right angle with each lower book. A bunch of dried grasses stood
in the fire-place. There were no pictures, except one portrait in
oils, of a forbidding old gentleman in a wig and glasses, sitting with
his finger majestically inserted in a half-open Bible. Altogether, it
was not a cheerful room, nor one calculated to raise the spirits of
new-comers; and Katy, whose long seclusion had made her sensitive on
the subject of rooms, shrank instinctively nearer papa as they went in.
Two ladies rose to receive them. One, a tall dignified person, was
Mrs. Florence. The other she introduced as "my assistant principal,
Mrs. Nipson." Mrs. Nipson was not tall. She had a round face,
pinched lips, and half-shut gray eyes.
"This lady is fully associated with me in the management of the school,"
explained Mrs. Florence. "When I go, she will assume entire control."
"Is that likely to be soon?" inquired Dr. Carr, surprised, and not
well pleased that the teacher of whom he had heard, and with whom he
had proposed to leave his children, was planning to yield her place
to a stranger.
"The time is not yet determined," replied Mrs. Florence. Then she
changed the subject, gracefully, but so decidedly that Dr. Carr had
no chance for further question. She spoke of classes, and discussed
what Katy and Clover were to study. Finally, she proposed to take
them upstairs to see their room. Papa might come too, she said.
"I dare say that Lilly Page, who tells me that she is a cousin of
yours, has described the arrangements of the house," she remarked
to Katy. "The room I have assigned to you is in the back building.
'Quaker Row,' the girls call it." She smiled as she spoke; and Katy,
meeting her eyes for the fist time, felt that there was something in
what Lilly had said. Mrs. Florence _was_ a sort of queen.
They went upstairs. Some girls who were peeping over the baluster
hurried away at their approach. Mrs. Florence shook her head at them.
"The first day is always one of license," she said, leading the way
along an uncarpeted entry to a door at the end, from which, by a
couple of steps, they went down into a square room; round three sides
of which, ran a shelf, on which stood rows of wash-bowls and pitchers.
Above were hooks for towels. Katy perceived that this was the much-
dreaded wash-room.
"Our lavatory," remarked Mrs. Florence blandly.
Opening from the wash-room was a very long hall, lighted at each end
by a window. The doors on either side were numbered "one, two, three,"
and so on. Some of them were half open; as they went by, Katy and
Clover caught glimpses of girls and trunks, and beds strewed with
things. At No. 6 Mrs. Florence paused.
"Here is the room which I propose to give you," she said.
Katy and Clover looked eagerly about. It was a small room, but the
sun shone in cheerfully at the window. There was a maple bedstead
and table, a couple of chairs, and a row of hooks; that was all,
except that in the wall was set a case of black-handled drawers,
with cupboard-doors above them.
"These take the place of a bureau, and hold your clothes," explained
Mrs. Florence, pulling out one of the drawers. "I hope, when once
you are settled, you will find yourselves comfortable. The rooms
are small; but young people do not require so much space as older
ones. Though, indeed, your elder daughter, Dr. Carr, looks more
advanced and grown-up that I was prepared to find her. What did
you say was her age?"
"She is past sixteen; but she has been so long confined to her room by
the illness of which I wrote, that you may probably find her behind
in some respects, which reminds me" (this was very adroit of papa!)
"I am anxious that she should keep up the system to which she has
been accustomed at home,--among other things, sponge-baths of cold
water every morning; and, as I see that the bedrooms are not furnished
with wash-stands, I will ask your permission to provide one for the
use of my little girls. Perhaps you will kindly tell me where I would
look for it?"
Mrs. Florence was not pleased, but she could not object; so she
mentioned a shop. Katy's heart gave a bound of relief. She thought
No. 6, with a wash-stand, might be very comfortable. Its bareness
and simplicity had the charm of novelty. Then there was something
very interesting to her in the idea of a whole house full of girls.
They did not stay long, after seeing the room, but went off on a
shopping excursion. Shops were few and far between at Hillsover; but
they found a neat little maple wash-stand and rocking-chair, and papa
also bought a comfortable low chair, with a slatted back and a cushion.
This was for Katy.
"Never study till your back aches," he told her: "when you are tired,
lie flat on the bed for half an hour, and tell Mrs. Florence that it
was by my direction."
"Or Mrs. Nipson," said Katy, laughing rather ruefully. She had taken
no fancy to Mrs. Nipson, and did not enjoy the idea of a divided
authority.
A hurried lunch at the hotel followed, and then it was time for Dr.
Carr to go away. They all walked to the school together, and said
good-by upon the steps. The girls would not cry, but they clung very
tightly to papa, and put as much feeling into their last kisses as
would have furnished forth half a dozen fits of tears. Lilly might
have thought them cold-hearted, but papa did not; he knew better.
"That's my brave girls!" he said. Then he kissed them once more, and
hurried away. Perhaps he did not wish them to see that his eyes too
were a little misty.
As the door closed behind them, Katy and Clover realized that they
were alone among strangers. The sensation was not pleasant; and they
felt forlorn, as they went upstairs, and down Quaker Row, toward No. 6.
"Aha! so you're going to be next door," said a gay voice, as they
passed No. 5, and Rose Red popped her head into the hall. "Well,
I'm glad," she went on, shaking hands cordially; "I sort of thought
you would, and yet I didn't know; and there are some awful stiffies
among the new girls. How do you both do?"
"Oh! are we next door to you?" cried Clover, brightening.
"Yes. It's rather good of me not to hate you; for I wanted the end
room myself, and Mrs. Florence wouldn't give it to me. Come in, and
let me introduce you to my room-mate. It's against the rules, but
that's no matter: nobody pretends to keep rules the first day."
They went in. No.5 was precisely like No. 6, in shape, size and
furniture; but Rose had unpacked her trunk, and decorated the room
with odds and ends of all sorts. The table was covered with books
and boxes; colored lithographs were pinned on the walls; a huge blue
rosette ornamented the head-board of the bed; the blinds were tied
together with pink ribbon; over the top of the window was a festoon
of hemlock boughs, fresh and spicy. The effect was fantastic, but
cheery; and Katy and Clover exclaimed, with one voice, "How pretty!"
The room-mate was a pale, shy girl, with a half-scared look in her
eyes, and small hands which twisted uneasily together when she moved
and spoke. Her name was Mary Silver. She and Rose were so utterly
unlike, that Katy thought it odd they should have chosen to be
together. Afterward she understood it better. Rose liked to protect,
and Mary to be protected; Rose to talk, and Mary to listen. Mary
evidently considered Rose the most entertaining creature in the
world; she giggled violently at all her jokes, and then stopped
short and covered her mouth with her fingers, in a frightened way,
as if giggling were wrong.
"Only think, Mary," began Rose, after introducing Katy and Clover,
"these young ladies have got the end room. What do you suppose was
the reason that Mrs. Florence did not give it to us? It's very
peculiar."
Mary laughed her uneasy laugh. She looked as if she could tell the
reason, but did not dare.
"Never mind," continued Rose. "Trials are good for one, they say.
It's something to have nice people in the room, if we can't be there
ourselves. You are nice, aren't you?" turning to Clover.
"Very," replied Clover, laughing.
"I thought so. I can almost always tell without asking; still, it is
something to have it on the best authority. We'll be good neighbors,
won't we? Look here!" and she pulled one of the black-handled drawers
completely out and laid it on the bed. "Do you see? your drawers are
exactly behind ours. At any time in silent study hour, if I have
something I want to say, I'll rap and pop a note into your drawer,
and you can do the same to me. Isn't it fun?"
Clover said, "Yes;" but Katy, though she laughed, shook her head.
"Don't entice us into mischief," she said.
"Oh, gracious!" exclaimed Rose. "Now, are you going to be good,--
you two? If you are, just break the news at once, and have it over.
I can bear it." She fanned herself in such a comical way that no one
could help laughing. Mary Silver joined, but stopped pretty soon in
her sudden manner.
"There's Mary, now," went on Rose: "she's a Paragon. But, if any more
are coming into the entry, just give me fair notice, and I pack and
move up among the sinners in Attic Row. Somehow, you don't look like
Paragons either,--you especially," nodding to Clover. "Your eyes are
like violets; but so are Sylvia's--that's my sister,--and she's the
greatest witch in Massachusetts. Eyes are dreadfully deceitful things.
As for you,"--to Katy,--"you're so tall that I can't take you in all
at once; but the piece I see doesn't look dreadful a bit."
Rose was sitting in the window as she made these remarks; and, leaning
forward suddenly, she gave a pretty, blushing nod to some one below.
Katy glanced down, and saw a handsome young man replacing the cap he
had lifted from his head.
"That's Berry Searles," said Rose. "He's the president's son, you
know. He always comes through the side yard to get to his room.
That's it,--the one with the red curtain. It's exactly opposite
your window: don't you see?"
"So it is!" exclaimed Katy, remembering what Lilly had said. "Oh!
was that the reason?"--she stopped, afraid of being rude.
"The reason we wanted the room?" inquired Rose, coolly. "Well, I
don't know. It hadn't occurred to me to look at it in that light.
Mary!" with sudden severity, "is it possible that you had Berry
Searles in your mind when you were so pertinacious about that room?"
"Rose! How can you? You know I never thought of such a thing,"
protested poor Mary.
"I hope not; otherwise I should feel it my duty to consult with Mrs.
Florence on the subject," went on Rose, with an air of dignified
admonition. "I consider myself responsible for you and your morals,
Mary. Let us change this painful subject." She looked gravely at
the three girls for a moment; then her lips began to twitch, the
irresistible dimples appeared in her cheeks, and, throwing herself
back in her chair, she burst into a fit of laughter.
"O Mary, you blessed goose! Some day or other you'll be the death of
me! Dear, dear! how I am behaving! It's perfectly horrid of me. And
I didn't mean it. I'm going to be real good this term; I promised
mother. Please forget it, and don't take a dislike to me, and never
come again," she added, coaxingly, as Katy and Clover rose to go.
"Indeed we won't," replied Katy. As for sensible Clover, she was
already desperately in love with Rose, on that very first day!
After a couple of hours of hard work, No. 6 was in order, and looked
like a different place. Fringed towels were laid over the wash-stand
and the table. Dr. Carr's photograph and some pretty chromos
ornamented the walls; the rocking-chair and the study-chair stood by
the window; the trunks were hidden by chintz covers, made for the
purpose by old Mary. On the window-sill stood Cousin Helen's vase,
which Katy had brought carefully packed among her clothes.
"Now," she said, tying the blinds together with a knot of ribbon in
imitation of Rose Red's, "when we get a bunch of wild flowers for my
vase, we shall be all right."
A tap at the door. Rose entered.
"Are you done?" she asked; "may I come in and see?"
"Oh, this is pretty!" she exclaimed, looking about: "how you can tell
in one minute what sort of a girl one is, just by looking at her room!
I should know you had been neat and dainty and housekeepery all your
days. And you would see in a minute that I'm a Madge Wildfire, and
that Ellen Gray is a saint, and Sally Satterlee a scatterbrain, and
Lilly Page an affected little hum-- oh, I forgot, she is your cousin,
isn't she? How dreadfully rude of me!" dimpling at Clover, who
couldn't help dimpling back again.
"Oh, my!" she went on, "a wash-stand, I declare! Where did you get it?"
"Papa bought it," explained Katy: "he asked Mrs. Florence's permission."
"How bright of him! I shall just write to my father to ask for
permission too." Which she did; and the result was that it set the
fashion of wash-stands, and so many papas wrote to "ask permission,"
that Mrs. Florence found it necessary to give up the lavatory system,
and provide wash-stands for the whole house. Katy's request had been
the opening wedge. I do not think this fact made her more popular
with the principals.
"By the way, where is Lilly?" asked Katy; "I haven't seen her to-day."
"Do you want to know? I can tell you. She's sitting on the edge of
one chair, with her feet on the rung of another chair, and her head
on the shoulder of her room-mate (who is dying to get away and arrange
her drawers); and she's crying"--
"How do you know? Have you been up to see her?"
"Oh! I haven't seen her. It isn't necessary. I saw her last term,
and the term before. She always spends the first day at school in
that way. I'll take you up, if you'd like to examine for yourselves."
Katy and Clover, much amused, followed as she led the way upstairs.
Sure enough, Lilly was sitting exactly as Rose had predicted. Her
face was swollen from crying. When she saw the girls, her sobs
redoubled.
"Oh! isn't it dreadful?" she demanded. "I shall die, I know I shall.
Oh! why did pa make me come?"
"Now, Lilly, don't be an idiot," said the unsympathizing Rose. Then
she sat down and proceeded to make a series of the most grotesque
faces, winking her eyes and twinkling her fingers round the head of
"Niobe," as she called Lilly, till the other girls were in fits of
laughter, and Niobe, though she shrugged her shoulders pettishly and
said, "Don't be so ridiculous, Rose Red," was forced to give way.
First she smiled, then a laugh was heard; afterward she announced
that she felt better.
"That's right, Niobe," said Rose. "Wash your face now, and get ready
for tea, for the bell is just going to ring. As for you, Annie, you
might as well put your drawers in order," with a wicked wink. Annie
hurried away with a laugh, which she tried in vain to hide.
"You heartless creature!" cried the exasperated Lilly. "I believe
you're made of marble; you haven't one bit of feeling. Nor you
either, Katy. You haven't cried a drop."
"Given this problem," said the provoking Rose: "when the nose without
is as red as a lobster, what must be the temperature of the heart
within, and _vice versa?_"
The tea-bell rang just in time to avert a fresh flood of tears from
Lilly. She brushed her hair in angry haste, and they all hurried
down by a side staircase which, as Rose explained, the school-girls
were expected to use. The dining-room was not large; only part of
the girls could be seated at a time; so they took turns at dining
at the first table, half one week and half the next.
Mrs. Nipson sat at the tea-tray, with Mrs. Florence beside her. At
the other end of the long board sat a severe-looking person, whom
Lilly announced in a whisper as "that horrid Miss Jane." The meal
was very simple,--tea, bread and butter, and dried beef:--it was
eaten in silence; the girls were not allowed to speak, except to
ask for what they wanted. Rose Red indeed, who sat next to Mrs.
Florence, talked to her, and even ventured once or twice on daring
little jokes, which caused Clover to regard her with admiring
astonishment. No one else said any thing, except "Butter, please,"
or "Pass the bread." As they filed upstairs after this cheerless
meal, they were met by rows of hungry girls, who were waiting to go
down, and who whispered, "How long you have been! What's for tea?"
The evening passed in making up classes and arranging for recitation-
rooms and study-hours. Katy was glad when bed-time came. The day,
with all its new impressions and strange faces, seemed to her like a
confused dream. She and Clover undressed very quietly. Among the
printed rules, which hung on the bedroom door, they read: "All
communication between room-mates, after the retiring bell has rung,
is strictly prohibited." Just then it did not seem difficult to keep
this rule. It was only after the candle was blown out, that Clover
ventured to whisper,--very low indeed, for who knew but Miss Jane
was listening outside the door?--"Do you think you're going to like
it?" and Katy, in the same cautious whisper, responded, "I'm not
quite sure." And so ended the first day at the nunnery.