GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE PICTURE GIRL
"Welcome to Sanford," whispered the girl, "and to the freshman class. I
was sure when I saw you the other day you couldn't be anything other
than a freshman."
Marjorie flushed, then smiled faintly. "I didn't think any of the girls
would remember me," she confessed.
"Oh, I remember you perfectly. You were across the street from school on
three different days, weren't you?"
Marjorie nodded. "I just had to come down and get acquainted with the
outside of the school. I was awfully curious about it."
"Miss Harding," a cold voice at their elbows caused both girls to start.
So intent had they been on their conversation that they had not noticed
Miss Merton's approach, "you may answer any questions Miss Dean wishes
to ask regarding our course of study here as set forth in our
curriculum." She laid a closely printed sheet of paper before Marjorie.
"This does not mean, however, the personal conversation in which, I am
sorry to say, you appeared to be engrossed when I approached. Remember,
Miss Dean, that personal conversation will neither be excused nor
tolerated in the study hall. I trust I shall not have to remind you of
this again."
Marjorie watched with unseeing eyes the angular form of the teacher as
she retreated to her platform. If Miss Merton had dealt her a blow on
her upturned face, it could have hurt no more severely than had this
unlooked-for reprimand. She was filled with a choking sense of shame
that threatened to end in a burst of angry sobs. The deep blush that had
risen to her face receded, leaving her very white. Those students
sitting in her immediate vicinity had, of course, heard Miss Merton. She
glanced quickly about to encounter two pairs of eyes. One pair was blue
and, it seemed to the embarrassed newcomer, sympathetic. Their owner was
the "Mary" girl, who sat two seats behind her in the next aisle. The
other pair was cruelly mocking, and they belonged to the girl that
Marjorie had mentally styled the Evil Genius. Something in their
taunting depths stirred an hitherto unawakened chord in gentle Marjorie
Dean. She returned the insolent gaze with one so full of steady strength
and defiance that the girl's eyes dropped before it and she devoted
herself assiduously to the open book which she held in her hand.
"Don't mind Miss Merton," whispered Muriel, comfortingly. "She is the
worst crank I ever saw. No one likes her. I don't believe even Miss
Archer does. She's been here for ages, so the Board of Education thinks
that Sanford High can't run without her, I guess."
"I'm so mortified and ashamed," murmured Marjorie. "On my first day,
too."
"Don't think about it," soothed Muriel. "What studies are you going to
take? I hope you will recite in some of my classes. Wait a moment. I'll
come back there and sit with you; then we'll make less noise. Miss
Merton told me to help you, you know," she reminded, with a soft
chuckle.
The fair head and the dark one bent earnestly over the printed sheet.
Marjorie whispered her list of subjects to her new friend, who jotted
them down on the margin of the program.
"How about 9.15 English Comp?" she asked. "That's my section."
Marjorie nodded her approval.
"Then you can recite algebra with me at 10.05, and there's a first-year
French class at 11.10. That brings three subjects in the morning. Now,
let me see about your history. If you can make your history and
physiology come the first two periods in the afternoon, you will be
through by three o'clock and can have that last half hour for study or
gym, or whatever you like. I am carrying only four subjects, so I have
nothing but physical geography in the afternoon. I am through reciting
every day by 2 o'clock, so I learn most of my lessons in school and
hardly ever take my books home. If I were you, I'd drop one
subject--American History, for instance. You can study it later. The
freshman class is planning a lot of good times for this winter, and, of
course, you want to be in them, too, don't you?"
"I should say so," beamed Marjorie. "Still," her face sobering, "I think
I won't drop history. It's easy, and I love it."
"Well, I don't," emphasized Muriel. "By the way, do you play
basketball?"
"I played left guard on our team last year, and I had just been chosen
for center on the freshman team, at Franklin High, when I left there,"
was the whispered reply.
"That's encouraging," declared Muriel. "We haven't chosen our team yet.
We are to have a tryout at four o'clock on Friday afternoon in the
gymnasium. You can go to the meeting with me, although you will have met
most of the freshman class before Friday. Oh, yes, did Miss Archer tell
you that we report in the study hall at half-past eight o'clock on
Monday and Friday mornings? We have chapel exercises, and woe be unto
you if you are late. It's an unforgivable offense in Miss Merton's eyes
to walk into chapel after the service has begun. If you are late, you
take particular pains to linger around the corridor until the line
comes out of chapel, then you slide into your section and march into the
study hall as boldly as though you'd never been late in your life,"
ended Muriel with a giggle, which she promptly smothered.
"But what if Miss Merton sees one?"
Muriel made a little resigned gesture. "Try it some day and see. There's
the 9.15 bell. Come along. If we hurry we'll have a minute with the
girls before class begins. All of my chums recite English this first
hour. You needn't stop at Miss Merton's desk. It'll be all right."
Marjorie walked down the aisle behind Muriel, looking rather worried.
Then she touched Muriel's arm. "I think I'd rather stop and speak to
Miss Merton," she said with soft decision.
"All right," the response came indifferently as Muriel, a bored look on
her youthful face, walked on ahead.
Marjorie walked bravely up to the teacher. "Miss Merton, I have arranged
my studies and recitation hours. Miss Harding is going to show me the
way to the English composition class."
Miss Merton stared coldly at the girl's vivid, colorless face, framed in
its soft brown curls. Her own youth had been prim and narrow, and she
felt that she almost hated this girl whose expressive features gave
promise of remarkable personality and abundant joy of living.
"Very well." The disagreeable note of dismissal in the teacher's voice
angered Marjorie.
"I'll never again speak to her unless it's positively necessary," she
resolved resentfully. "I wish I'd taken Miss Harding's advice."
"Well, did she snap your head off?" inquired Muriel as Marjorie joined
her.
"No," was the brief answer.
"It's a wonder. There goes the third bell. It's on to English comp for
us. I won't have time to introduce you to the girls. We'll have to wait
until noon. Miss Flint teaches English. She's a dear, and everyone likes
her."
Muriel's voice dropped on her last speech, for they were now entering
the classroom. At the first flat-topped desk in one corner of the room
sat a small, fair woman with a sweet, sunshiny face that quite won
Marjorie to her.
"Miss Flint, this is Miss Dean," began Muriel, as they stopped before
the desk. "She is a freshman and has just been registered in the study
hall by Miss Merton."
A long, earnest glance passed between teacher and pupil, then Marjorie
felt her hand taken between two small, warm palms. "I am sure Miss Dean
and I are going to be friends," said a sweet, reassuring voice that
amply made up for Miss Merton's stiffness. "Are you a stranger in
Sanford, my dear? I am sure I have never seen you before."
"We have lived here a week," smiled Marjorie. "We moved here from
B----."
"How interesting. Were you a student of Franklin High School? I have a
dear friend who teaches English there."
"Oh!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes sparkling, "do you mean Miss
Fielding?"
"Yes," returned Miss Flint. "We were best friends during our college
days, too. Hampton College is our alma mater."
"That is where I hope to go when I finish high school. Miss Fielding has
told me so many nice things about Hampton," was Marjorie's eager reply.
Then she added impetuously, "I'm going to like Sanford, too. I'm quite
sure of it."
"That is the right spirit in which to begin your work here," was the
instant response. "I will assign you to that last seat in the third row.
We do not change seats. Each girl is given her own place for the year."
Marjorie thanked Miss Flint, and made her way to the seat indicated. The
sound of footsteps in the corridor had ceased. A tall girl in the front
row of desks slipped from her seat and closed the door. Miss Flint rose,
faced her class, and the recitation began.
After the class was dismissed Miss Flint detained Marjorie for a moment
to ask a few questions regarding her text and note books. Muriel waited
in the corridor. Her face wore an expression of extreme satisfaction.
It looked as though the new freshman might be a distinct addition to the
critical little company of girls who had set themselves as rulers and
arbiters of the freshman class. She was pretty, wore lovely clothes,
lived in a big house in a select neighborhood, had played center on a
city basketball team, and was the friend of Miss Flint's friend. To be
sure, Mignon La Salle might raise some objection to the newcomer. Mignon
was so unreasonably jealous. But for all her money, Mignon must not be
allowed always to have her own way. Muriel was sure the rest of the
girls would be quite in favor of adding Marjorie Dean to their number.
They needed one more girl to complete their sextette. To Marjorie should
fall the honor.
"I'll introduce her to the girls this noon, and let them look her over.
Then I'll have a talk with them to-night and see what they think,"
planned Muriel as she went back to the study hall at Marjorie's side.
There was a hurried exchange of books, then Marjorie was rushed off to
her algebra recitation. Here she found herself at least two weeks ahead
of the others, and was able to solve a problem at the blackboard that
had puzzled several members of the class, thereby winning a reputation
for herself as a mathematician to which it afterward proved anything but
easy to live up to.
While in both her English and algebra classes Marjorie had searched the
room with alert eyes for the girl who looked like Mary. She felt vaguely
disappointed. She had hoped to come into closer contact with her. She
liked Muriel, she decided, but she did not altogether understand her
half-cordial, half-joking manner. She was rather glad that she was to go
to her French class alone. She had told Muriel not to bother. She could
find the classroom by herself.
As she clicked down the short, left-hand, third floor corridor, she saw
just ahead of her a little blue-clad figure passing through the very
doorway for which she was making. An instant and she too had entered the
room. She stared about her, then walked to a seat directly opposite to
the one now occupied by the girl that looked like Mary. For a brief
moment the girl eyed Marjorie indifferently, then something in the
scrutiny of the other girl evidently annoyed her. She drew her straight
dark brows together in a displeased frown, and deliberately turned her
face away.
By this time perhaps a dozen girls had entered, and, as the clang of the
third bell echoed through the school, an alert little man with a thin,
sensitive face and timid brown eyes, bustled into the room and carefully
closed the door. Hardly had he taken his hand from the knob when the
door was flung open, this time to admit a sharp-featured girl with
bright, dark eyes and a cruel, thin-lipped mouth. Smiling maliciously,
she swung the door shut with an echoing bang. The meek little professor
looked reproachfully at the offender, who did not even appear to see
him.
"The Evil Genius," recognized Marjorie. Her eyes strayed furtively
toward the Mary girl, who had not paid the slightest attention to this
late arrival. "What a hateful person that black-eyed girl is," ran on
Marjorie's thoughts. "I know it was she who made that nice girl cry the
other day. I wish she wasn't quite so distant. The nice girl, I mean.
Oh, dear. I forgot to go up to the professor's desk and register. That's
his fault. He came in late. He'll see me in a minute and ask who I am."
To her extreme surprise, the little man paid no particular attention to
her, but, opening his grammar, began the giving out of the next day's
lesson. This he explained volubly and with many gestures. Marjorie's
lips curved into a half smile as she compared this rather noisy
instructor with Professor Rousseau, of Franklin. Later, when he called
upon his pupils to recite, however, he was a different being. His
politely sarcastic arraignment of those who floundered through the
lessons, accompanied by certain ominous marks he placed after their
names in a fat black book that lay on his desk, plainly showed that,
despite his mild appearance, he was a force yet to be reckoned with.
"I hope he doesn't notice me until class is over," fidgeted Marjorie.
"It surely must be time for that bell to ring." She began nervously to
count those who were due to recite before her turn came. It would be so
embarrassing to do her explaining before this group of strange girls,
particularly before the Evil Genius. Ah, she had begun to read! And how
beautifully she read French! The critical professor was listening to the
smooth flow of words that tripped from her tongue with approbation
written on every feature. "She must have studied French before,"
speculated Marjorie, as the professor directed the next girl to go on
with the exercise; "or else she is French. I believe she is. Oh, dear,
only two more girls."
Clang! sounded the bell.
"Thank goodness," breathed the relieved freshman.
There was a general closing of books. "To-morrow I shall geev you a
wreetten test," warned Professor Fontaine. Then the second bell rang,
and the class filed out of the room.
"Eet ees not strange that I haf overlooked you, Mademoiselle," explained
Professor Fontaine five minutes later, after listening to Marjorie's
apology for not presenting herself to him before class. "The freshmen
like to make so many alterations in their programs. They haf soch good
excuses for changeeng classes, but, sometimes, too, they do not tell
me. Eet maks exasperation." He waved his hands comprehensively. "I am
pleased," he added, with true French courtesy, "to haf another pupil.
Ees eet that you like the French, Mademoiselle Dean?"
"It is a beautiful language, Professor Fontaine," Marjorie assured him.
"I have only begun learning it, but I like it so much."
"C'est vrai," murmured the delighted professor. "La Francais est une
belle langue. If, then, you like it, you weel study your lessons, n'est
pas?"
"I'll try very hard to make good recitations. I will bring my books
to-morrow. We used the same grammar at Franklin High School."
Marjorie hastened back to the study hall to find it empty. The clock on
the north wall pointed significant hands to ten minutes past twelve. The
Picture Girl had said that she wished Marjorie to meet her friends, but
she was not waiting. It was disappointing, but her own fault, thought
the lonely freshman as she left the study hall and went slowly
downstairs to the locker room. She gave an impatient sigh as she pinned
on her hat. Exploring new territory wasn't half so interesting as she
could wish. Then a light footstep sounded at her side. A dignified
little voice said, stiffly, "Will you please allow me to get my hat?"
Marjorie whirled about in amazement. Could she believe her eyes? The
voice belonged to the Mary girl; they were to share the same locker.