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CAPS AND CAPERS
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[Illustration: _Frontispiece--Caps and Capers_.
"NOW, GIRLS, COME ON! LET'S EAT OUR CREAM." See p. 92.]
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CAPS and CAPERS
A Story of Boarding-School Life
by
GABRIELLE E. JACKSON
Author of "Pretty Polly Perkins,"
"Denise and Ned Toodles," "By Love's
Sweet Rule," "The Colburn Prize,"
etc., etc.
With illustrations
by C. M. Relyea
PHILADELPHIA
HENRY ALTEMUS COMPANY
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Copyright, 1901, by Henry Altemus
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To
the dear girls of "Dwight School,"
who, by their sweet friendship, have unconsciously helped to make
this winter one of the happiest she has ever known, this little
story is most affectionately inscribed by the AUTHOR.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Which Shall It Be? 13
II. "A Touch Can Make or a Touch Can Mar" 21
III. "A Feeling of Sadness and Longing" 29
IV. New Experiences 41
V. Two Sides of a Question 53
VI. Dull and Prosy 63
VII. The P. U. L. 71
VIII. Caps and Capers 81
IX. A Modern Diogenes 89
X. "They Could Never Deceive Me" 97
XI. "La Somnambula" 107
XII. "Have You Not Been Deceived This Time?" 119
XIII. English as She is Spelled 127
XIV. "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells" 135
XV. "Pride Goeth Before a Fall" 143
XVI. Letters 153
XVII. "Haf Anybody Seen My Umbrel?" 161
XVIII. The Little Hinge 169
XIX. "Fatal or Fated are Moments" 179
XX. "Now Tread We a Measure." 187
XXI. Conspirators 197
XXII. "We've Got 'em! We've Got 'em!" 205
XXIII. A Camera's Capers. 213
XXIV. Whispers 225
XXV. "What Are You Doing Up this Time of Night?" 233
XXVI. "Love (and Schoolgirls) Laugh at Locksmiths" 243
XXVII. Ariadne's Clue 253
XXVIII. "When Buds And Blossoms Burst" 261
XXIX. Commencement 271
XXX. "O Fortunate, O Happy Day" 279
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ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"Now, girls, come on! let's eat our cream." Frontispiece
"You could have popped me over from ambush." 37
"Do you wish to join the P. U. L.?" 71
"Go, tell Mrs. Stone she isn't up to snuff." 109
"Sthick to yer horses, Moik." 141
"Let us begin a brand new leaf to-day." 165
"I feel so sort of grown up and grand." 181
"An' have ye been in there all this time?" 207
"Away went Marie, vanishing bit by bit." 231
"Her hand resting lightly on the arm of her friend." 267
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CHAPTER I
WHICH SHALL IT BE?
"And now that I have them, how am I to decide? That is the question?"
The speaker was a fine-looking man about thirty-five years of age, seated
before a large writing-table in a handsomely appointed library. It was
littered with catalogues, pamphlets, letters and papers sent from dozens
of schools, and from the quantity of them one would fancy that every
school in the country was represented. This was the result of an
advertisement in the "Times" for a school in which young children are
received, carefully trained, thoroughly taught, and which can furnish
unquestionable references regarding its social standing and other
qualifications.
It was a handsome, but seriously perplexed, face which bent over the
letters, and more than once the shapely hand was raised to the puckered
forehead and the fingers thrust impatiently through the golden brown hair,
setting it on end and causing its owner to look more distracted than
ever.
"Poor, wee lassie, you little realize what a problem you are to me. Would
to God the one best qualified to solve it could have been spared to you,"
and the handsome head fell forward upon the hands, as tears of bitter
anguish flooded the brown eyes.
Can anything be more pathetic than a strong man's tears? And Clayton
Reeve's were wrung from an almost despairing heart.
For ten years his life had been a dream of happiness. At twenty-five he
had married a beautiful, talented girl, who made his home as nearly
perfect as a home can be made, and when, three years later, a little
daughter, her mother's living image, came to live with them, he felt that
he had no more to ask for. Seven years slipped away, as only years of
perfect happiness can slip, and then came the end. The beautiful wife and
mother went to sleep forever, leaving the dear husband and lovely little
daughter alone. For six months Mr. Reeve strove to fill the mother's
place, but until she was taken from him he had never realized how
perfectly and completely his almost idolized wife had filled his home,
conducting all so quietly and gracefully that even those nearest and
dearest never suspected how much thought she had given to their comfort
until her firm, yet gentle, rule was missed.
Happily, Toinette was too young to fully appreciate her loss, and although
she grieved in her childish way for the sweet, smiling mother who had so
loved her, it was a child's blessed evanescent grief, which could find
consolation in her pets and dollies, and--blessed boon--forget.
But Clayton Reeve never forgot, not for one moment; and though the six
months had in a measure softened his grief, his sense of loss and
loneliness increased each day, until at last he could no longer endure the
sight of the home which they together had planned and beautified.
Unfortunately, neither he nor his wife had near relatives. She had been an
only child whose parents had died shortly after her marriage, and such
distant relatives as remained to him were far away in England, his native
land. His greatest problem was the little daughter. Nursemaids and
nursery-governesses were to be had by the score, but nursemaids and
nursery-governesses were one thing with a mistress at the head of the
household and quite another without one, as, during the past six months,
Mr. Reeve had learned to his sorrow, and the poor man had more than once
been driven to the verge of insanity by their want of thought, or even
worse.
At last he determined to close his house, place Toinette in some "ideal"
school, and travel for six months, or even longer, little dreaming that
the six months would lengthen into as many years ere he again saw her. The
trip begun for diversion was soon merged into one for business interests,
as the prominent law firm of which he was a member had matters of
importance to be looked after upon the other side of the water, and were
only too glad to have so efficient a person to do it.
So, before he realized it, half the globe divided him from the
sunny-haired little daughter whom he had placed in the supposed ideal
school, chosen after deliberate consideration from those he had
corresponded with.
But this anticipates a trifle.
As he sits in the library of his big house, a house which seems so like
some beautiful instrument lacking the touch of the master hand to draw
forth its sweetest and best, the sound of little dancing feet can be heard
through the half-open door, and a sweet little voice calls out:
"Papa, Papa Clayton. Where is my precious Daddy?" and a golden-haired
child running into the room throws herself into his arms, clasps her own
about his neck and nestles her head upon his shoulder.
He held her close as he asked:
"Well, little Heart's-Ease, what can the old Daddy do for you?"
The child raised her head, and, looking at him with her big brown eyes,
eyes so like his own, said, reproachfully: "You are _not_ an old Daddy;
Stanton (the butler) is old, you are just my own, own Papa Clayton, and
mamma used to say that you _couldn't_ grow old 'cause she and I loved you
so hard."
Mr. Reeve quivered slightly at the child's words, and with a surprised
look she asked:
"Are you cold, dear Daddy? It isn't cold here, is it?"
"No, not in the room, Heart's-Ease, but right here," laying his hand upon
his heart.
The child regarded him questioningly with her big, earnest eyes, and
said:
"Did it grow cold because mamma went so sound asleep?"
"I'm afraid so; but now let us talk about something else: I've some news
for you, but do not know how you will like it; sit still while I tell it
to you," and he began to unfold his plan regarding the school.