GOSSIP AND HONORS.
Although Sidney Thorne would like to have done so, she could not very
well dismiss Shirley and all her works. Shirley was too bright in
her lessons and making too much of an impression upon both girls and
teachers. Shirley was a little more reserved than was quite natural to
her because of these unusual circumstances, but she tried not to notice
some of the little things that happened. Then that little fighting
reserve, that is in most of us, came to the rescue, not to push her
way, but to resist any influence that would quietly relegate her to
the rear, so far as lessons or ordinary activities were concerned. She
possessed the same qualities of leadership that Sidney had, though
whether they were exercised among her classmates or not did not matter
to her. Indeed, Shirley scarcely knew that she possessed it.
Other activities followed the picnic launch ride. Shirley played
tennis, outdoor basketball and other active games, taking care not to
join a group or team in which Sidney might be playing. But there were
other girls, some of whom in the excitement of the games would call
her Sidney and perhaps not know till the game was over that they had
been playing with Shirley. Several times, when Shirley thought that
some girl was speaking more freely of something than she would have
done except before Sidney, Shirley smilingly reminded her with, “I am
Shirley, remember.”
All this and the keen, though unobtrusive, interest which Shirley
showed in everything connected with the school’s activities made the
girls like her and trust to her sense of honor. She was fair in the
games, though she tried to win, and she had the advantage over some
of the girls in having come from a school where a spirit of real
sportsmanship was fostered. Shirley knew that and it made her less
ready to resent any lack of it in the girls with whom she played.
But volley ball and all the other kinds of ball in the courts were
played less as it grew colder and the fun of Hallowe’en drew near.
“Is the Double Three going to repeat the stunt of last year, Sidney?”
asked Caroline Scott, the room-mate of the girl who thought that she
and Caroline ought to make the Double Three into a Double Four.
Caroline and Sidney had never known each other very well in Chicago,
though their fathers were associated somewhat in a business way and
their mothers were in certain club work or church activities together.
They had become better acquainted, though not intimately so, since they
came to the same school.
“The Double Three never repeats,” laughed Sidney. “It’s the rest of you
girls that’s made a club of us anyhow. We don’t acknowledge that the
Double Three exists.”
“I see,” said Caroline, not believing that Sidney was at all in
earnest. “Then you are going to get up your costumes each one on her
own, I suppose.”
“I suppose so. I’ve sent to Mother for ideas, but the dean says that
she’ll not allow any expensive costumes to be sent in and if we have
any, we’ll have to make them, or use something we have. I’m very much
provoked about it.”
“Couldn’t you have something simple made in Chicago, Sidney?”
“Perhaps so but I’m too cross with the dean to ask about it.”
“She has not made any announcement yet.”
“No, but she will. I was waiting to see her, and she was telling
all this to one of the teachers who is going to have charge of the
Hallowe’en performance.” Sidney made a gesture as if the whole thing
were not very interesting to her.
“Do you mind telling who the teacher is?”
“Not in the least. You might know it is Miss Gibson.”
“That is why you are so disgusted, then, I suppose. Poor Gibby has a
hard time winning you over to her side.”
“She certainly need not try; but I am very respectful, don’t you think?”
“In class, at least, Sidney, looking out for your grades.” This was
Fleta, who was laughing as she said this. But Sidney shrugged her
shoulders. “I am never impolite to her anywhere, for my own sake,” she
said.
The girls were gathering in the beautiful chapel of the school before
morning worship. Hope, Fleta, Dulcie, Caroline and Madge were standing
in the aisle before passing to their regular seats. None of the
teachers had come in yet. Shirley was in her seat, but concealed from
Sidney’s view by the other girls who were in the way. Sidney continued
speaking.
“Miss Gibson has a loyal adherent now in Shirley Harcourt, and that
must console her for the rest of us. Shirley drinks in everything Miss
Gibson says with open mouth. Madge, didn’t you say that her father is a
teacher?”
“Yes.”
Shirley, who had been writing up her notes from the class before the
chapel exercises, had been dimly conscious of this conversation, but on
hearing her name, she paused in the movement of her pencil and looked
toward Madge’s back. Well, let them talk. She was tired of reminding
people!
“She is probably from some little country town and this is the biggest
place she ever saw,” continued Sidney. “I suppose her father is some
village school teacher that teaches Latin. Didn’t you say that he made
her get ahead on her Virgil?”
“Yes,” again said Madge, wavering between her loyalty to Shirley and
her customary admiration for Sidney, attractive, influential girl, that
she was. “I don’t know anything about her family. She reads her letters
and puts them away, but she gets some from abroad.”
“Somebody must have sold a farm,” lightly said Sidney, whose speech
indicated no spiteful feelings in intonation, but surely did not spring
from any sympathy of heart.
Shirley set her lips together and began to write slowly again. She
was angry for the first time. Before she left this school the
girls should know who her father was and that even country school
teachers--supposing he had been one--and the people on the farms that
raised everything foolish Sidney had to eat--but Shirley made her
resentful thoughts stop racing on. How silly she was! People who had
those ideas would probably keep them. What difference did it make?
“Well, Sid,” Fleta was saying, “you’d better be careful how you make
fun of your double. She may be related to you, you know.”
“Not a chance of it,” said Sidney. “It’s just one of those freaks of
nature by which we happen to look alike now. We’ll probably change in
a few years, except for our coloring, and I think that my hair is a
little lighter than hers.”
“Yes, and you are not quite so tall as Shirley, Sid,” said Fleta. “I
noticed it first when you both stood up together from the same table in
Kenosha.”
“It would be funny if you went to the same university, wouldn’t it?
Shirley is going to college, she says.”
“I am not sure that I shall go to college at all,” said Sidney. “It
would be fun, I suppose, but Mother wants me to be with her and it
would only mean living at home and going to the university in Chicago.”
“I thought you were keen on your studies, Sidney,” said Caroline, in
surprise.
“I am, some of them,” replied Sidney, “but I can have lessons on what I
like, read French and other literature at home and all that. You see, I
shall be eighteen before long, and Mother will bring me out in society
then. Why, Caroline, you and Hope will be doing the same thing!”
“Perhaps,” said Hope. “I am thinking of going to the university, and I
can’t do both.”
More girls had come in by this time. The dean had mounted the platform
and the teachers were in their places. The group around Sidney broke
up and Madge turned, to see Shirley busily writing in her notebook.
“Gracious!” exclaimed Madge. “Do you suppose, Caroline, that she was
there all the time?”
“Not likely,” replied Caroline. “I’d be so mad I couldn’t write if I
had heard Sidney talking like that about me. But Shirley is writing
away as cool as a cucumber. Shall you ask her?”
“My, no! If she has heard and says anything about it, I’ll tell you,
but I’ll not start any trouble for Sidney, and I would hate to have
Shirley know that Sidney would speak of her in just that way. Some
way--I like Sidney--but it didn’t seem just as kind as a girl ought to
be that has everything, like Sidney.”
“No,--it did _not_. But Sidney is proud, and Shirley Harcourt is making
too much of a success at everything to suit Sidney.”
“I wonder,” said Madge.
Shirley could scarcely keep her mind upon the Scripture lesson that
morning, beautiful and helpful as she had always found the passage
selected by the dean. But Shirley would scarcely have been human if
she had not been disturbed. ‘Open-mouthed,’ was she? And this was
the biggest place that she had ever seen! But she could fancy her
large-minded father laughing at it all. What would it matter to him?
Just nothing at all. Nevertheless Shirley seethed a little. Sidney
was a proud, empty-headed little minx! No, she wasn’t either; she was
smart, and Shirley _could_ have liked her so _much_!
That last week before Hallowe’en everybody regretted having any lessons
to learn. Little groups that were getting up “stunts” had important
conferences, marked by laughter and secrecy, for mystery made the
Hallowe’en surprises all the more entertaining. Although Miss Gibson
had charge and girls were supposed to ask her about the propriety of
what they proposed to do, this was not one of the English teacher’s
frequent duties, presenting a play or a program. She appointed a
committee, however, to help her and for its chairman chose Shirley,
to that young lady’s surprise. She had intended to wear a costume for
the occasion, and the little black mask which she had worn in similar
affairs at home reposed in her box. She reported at the first meeting
of the committee without much idea of what would be required of her.
Miss Gibson very well knew that in her enthusiasm that first year
she had made some mistakes with the girls and had antagonized some
of them unnecessarily by her manner of pushing perfectly reasonable
requirements in a dictatorial way. In Shirley she knew that she had a
girl who was thoroughly enjoying the course under her teaching and one
who was not affected by any criticism that she might hear. Naturally a
teacher chooses her most loyal supporters to help her.
The meeting was at the close of recitation hours. Not one of the
influential Double Three was present! Caroline Scott and Betty Terhune
were the other seniors. One from each of the other classes filled
out the large committee of six. But they were supposed to assist
in decorating the immense reception room which would be used for
the celebration and in locating and suggesting the setting for the
different features.
“Miss Harcourt,” said Miss Gibson at the beginning of the meeting, “you
are the chairman of the senior committee. You, Caroline and Betty are
to help with the senior stunt and also to have such oversight as may
be necessary over those of the other classes. It may scarcely do to
remind you that you are to keep any secrets entrusted to you, in case
of surprises. The general decorations are put into the hands of all of
you, and Shirley Harcourt may preside when I can not be present at your
meetings. I am too busy to plan the details, but they are all to be
submitted to me. That is clear, I believe. Now I will hear such ideas
as you may already have.”
Nobody seemed to have any. Miss Gibson looked from one to another of
the committee and smiled. Then Shirley rather timidly asked if there
were any decorations that were kept from year to year. “There are
certain things that one always has for Hallowe’en, Miss Gibson, and it
would save time.”
Miss Gibson did not know, but Caroline told Shirley that the
celebration last year was in the chapel and consisted of the one-act
play and some pantomimes given on the platform, with curtains and
home-made scenery. “Then we went to the parlors in our costumes and had
our social time.”
“You will have to talk it over first, girls,” said Miss Gibson. “Have a
meeting by yourselves and think up everything that you know, about what
to do on Hallowe’en. I think that the dean does not want the chapel
used this year.”
With this, Miss Gibson left the committee to its own devices and joined
another teacher, who was waiting for her just outside the door of her
classroom.
“Well, what do you think of that!” Betty Terhune exclaimed. “The girls
last year said that Miss Gibson always wanted to do everything herself
and now look at her!”
Shirley laughed. “Probably she has heard that criticism.”
“Yes,” said the junior, Marie Petersen, “but she ought to have picked
out the girls that were so smart and _wanted_ to do it themselves.”
“Let me say something, Marie,” said the sophomore, Laura Jones.
“Speak up, if you are but a young thing,” laughed the junior.
“Miss Gibson has confidence in us, or she wouldn’t have turned it over
to us. Let’s get up the best ever!”
“Hear, hear!” said the freshman, a “very young child,” according to
Caroline. She was letting a boyish bob grow out and had two wisps
on either side of her head now, each tied with a piece of pink baby
ribbon. These wisps were supposed to be braids.
Shirley looked at her freshman assistant and nearly laughed out.
“Good!” she cried. “That’s the spirit. I’m afraid, Pansy, that you
can’t be Bluebeard’s wife _this_ year.”
“Why not?” stoutly inquired Pansy Layne. “Couldn’t I wear a wig?”
“Yes, you could, Pansy,” laughed Shirley. “Why, do you know how to do a
Bluebeard stunt?”
“No; but Bluebeard’s wives were hung up by their hair.”
“Smart girl! Now let’s put our thinking caps on. I have seen plenty of
Hallowe’en parties, but I never had to get up anything like this, and
it seems scarcely fair to expect me to be chairman here, the first year
that I am in the school.”
“I can tell you what they have had lately,” said Caroline. “You just
go along and be chairman and we’ll help. But remember that each class
is supposed to think up its own particular stunt, so we aren’t so
responsible as you would suppose. Only it makes it worse about helping
them if they are too late deciding what they’ll do. Madam Chairman, I
move that we go ahead first on decorations for the parlors and halls,
and meanwhile think up what else we can.”
“There are limitations, too,” said Betty. “Hallowe’en has certain
emblems. Caroline, you write and ask your folks what they can get in
the way of pumpkin lanterns and other suitable Hallowe’en things for
decoration; and we ought to have some black, and red, and white paper
to cut cats and things out of, and perhaps some draperies, cheesecloth,
I suppose, in the same colors. We have some money from the classes for
this, Shirley, if we need it.”
“It is a relief to hear that, Betty. Caroline, will you send for those
things?”
“Yes. I’ll telegraph and they’ll be sent right out from Chicago. What
with our costumes, we won’t have much time for cutting out ‘cats and
things,’ Betty.”
“Luckily I have my costume,” said Shirley, “and if it will give you any
ideas for anything that we could get up, I’ll show it to you. My aunt
helped Mother make it for something that we had at home. It’s hanging
now in my closet to get the wrinkles out. I’ll have to press it, too,
perhaps.”
The girls trooped to Shirley’s room for the inspiration which looking
at a real costume might give them. Madge was there and admitted to
their councils, while Shirley brought out her costume for inspection.
“Now that is a real one and different. Who painted that cat’s head is
an artist!”
“It was Auntie that did that,” laughed Shirley, “but I can copy it for
anybody that wants one.”
“We’ll keep you painting, then,” said Pansy. “I’ll perish if I can’t be
a witch or a cat.”
“They say that girls are ‘catty,’” said Marie, “so I don’t know about
being a cat.”
“But Shirley ought to be a witch with that tall hat and have a sort of
Cat Brigade to drill.”
“How would the freshmen like to be kitty-cats, then?” asked Shirley.
“It would be funny, Pansy, if they would do it, and we could have a
drill and a song,----”
“Oh, yes, with a chorus of growls and meows,” Pansy added. “If the
girls don’t want to do it for their class stunt, let’s have it extra.”
“Everything must be submitted to Miss Gibson, you know,” said Shirley.
Other suggestions followed. It would not be so bad to be on the
committee, the girls concluded. Meetings of the classes were to be
held at once. There was to be no putting off if their appearance
was assured for Hallowe’en, and no class wanted to be omitted on
the program of fun. When forced to it by the exigencies of time
and occasion, there is little that girls can not think up, for the
amusement of each other and usually to the entertainment of everybody
concerned.