American Fudge
THE events narrated in the last chapter had made an epoch in Briarcroft
history. Henceforward the Lower School meant to manage its own affairs,
and it set to work at once to settle things upon a firm basis. Needless
to say, Gipsy was the heroine of the hour. Except for a half-dozen who
envied her popularity, the girls recognized that the revolution was
entirely owed to her suggestion, and they were ready to acknowledge her
as their leader. She took her honours modestly. Having accomplished what
she had aimed at, she was quite ready to retire from the position of
dictator until some other good cause needed a champion. After several
meetings and much discussion, the Juniors decided that instead of
founding a number of separate societies for photography, athletics,
acting, &c., they would institute one united Guild, which should include
all the various forms of school activity, to be covered by one
subscription, payable each term.
"It will be far better than dividing things up," said Hetty Hancock,
"because sometimes we want to spend more on one thing than on another,
and it's awkward to have to vote the funds of the Photographic Society
over to the Dramatic, or vice versa. I think we should manage all right
this way. We must elect a Committee, of course, and officers. For
President, I beg to nominate Gipsy Latimer. She deserves it."
"Yes! Gipsy! Gipsy!" agreed the girls.
But Gipsy shook her head, and like Oliver Cromwell waved away the
tempting offer of a crown.
"No," she said firmly; "I've only been a fortnight in the school, and I
don't feel up to the post. Better choose someone as President who
understands Briarcroft ways better than I do. I suggest Dilys Fenton.
She's the oldest girl in the Upper Fourth, and from what I hear she's
been here one of the longest. I'll serve on the Committee, if you like,
and be of any use I can, but you want an old-established Briarcroft-ite
as President. I don't know any of your arrangements yet about cricket or
tennis, and I should always be making mistakes."
The wisdom of Gipsy's remarks appealed to the girls. It was certainly
more suitable to choose as President somebody who understood the school
ways. They appreciated the motive of her refusal, however; and her
generosity in thus standing aside made her, if anything, more popular
than before. They insisted upon electing her to the post of Secretary.
"You can keep the accounts, and read aloud the minutes of the meetings,
and all those sorts of business things better than anybody," declared
Hetty.
"If I don't happen to forget which country I'm in, and add things up as
cents and dollars, instead of pence and shillings!" laughed Gipsy.
"We'll soon pull you up if you do, never fear!"
Now that her crusade was successfully accomplished, Gipsy settled down
to enjoy life at Briarcroft as well as the limited circumstances
permitted. She had already made several warm friends among both the
boarders and the day girls. Meg Gordon in particular was inclined to
accord her that species of hero worship often indulged in by
schoolgirls. She brought offerings of late roses or autumn violets from
home, and followed her idol about the school like a love-sick swain. She
would sit gazing at Gipsy during classes in deepest admiration, and was
ready to accept her every idea as gospel. Meg was rather a curious,
abrupt girl in many ways, and though she had been a year at Briarcroft,
had hitherto kept very much to herself. Her sudden and violent devotion
to the newcomer caused no little amusement in the Form. She was promptly
nicknamed "Gipsy's disciple", and subjected to a certain amount of
teasing on the score of her attachment.
"You agree with every single thing Gipsy says," laughed Norah Bell. "I
believe if she declared the trees were pink and the houses green, you'd
uphold her!"
"Do you wear her portrait over your heart?" enquired Daisy Scatcherd
facetiously.
"It was a very bad snapshot you got of her," remarked Ethel Newton.
"It certainly didn't do her justice," returned Meg, taking the matter
quite seriously. "I'm going to have a new camera for my birthday, then
I'll try again. But no snapshot could make Gipsy look as sweet as she
really does."
"Not to your love-lorn eyes!" giggled the girls.
"Meg's a perfect joke at present," said Ethel Newton to Daisy Scatcherd.
"She copies Gipsy slavishly, even to doing her hair the same, and those
two big bows of ribbon don't suit her in the least, however nice they
look on Gipsy."
"And yet she's rather like Gipsy, just like enough to be a kind of pale
copy--an understudy, in fact."
"You've hit it! Understudy's the very word. She's absolutely forming
herself on Gipsy."
Curiously enough, Meg Gordon really bore rather a marked physical
resemblance to the object of her worship. She was slim, and dark, and
about the same height, and though she lacked Gipsy's vivacity of
expression, a stranger might quite possibly have mistaken the one girl
for the other. It was perhaps just as well that Gipsy had one such
devoted ally, for there were a few malcontents in the Form who were not
at all ready to accept her with enthusiasm. Maude Helm had taken a
dislike to her from the first, and had allowed her prejudice not only to
blind her to Gipsy's good points, but to cause her to try to influence
others in her disfavour. It is rarely that anybody succeeds in doing a
public service without making any enemies, and Gipsy was no exception to
the rule. According to Maude's code, she had violated every tradition of
school etiquette by pushing herself, a newcomer, into a position of
prominence; and that she had conferred a real benefit upon the Lower
School by her championship went for nothing.
"It's sickening, the way everybody truckles to her," declared Maude to a
few of her particular chums. "I vote we stick out, at any rate, and
don't let her have everything her own way. We don't want the school
Americanized to suit her fancy."
"No; Miss Yankee will have to find out we're not all ready to lick her
boots!" grumbled Alice O'Connor.
"Glad she wasn't chosen President of the Guild, at any rate," remarked
Gladys Merriman. "If she puts up for anything else I shall oppose her.
There are other people in this Form quite as capable of taking the lead
as she is, if they only got the chance."
"Yourself not excepted, I suppose!" snapped Mary Parsons, who happened
to overhear. "You forget Gipsy refused the Presidency voluntarily."
"Clever enough to see it would pay her best!" sneered Gladys. "She
evidently knows how to get round the Form."
"Gladys! How mean you are! Well, you can't do Gipsy much harm by your
nastiness, that's one comfort."
"It only makes me like her all the more," broke out Joyce Adamson, who
had strolled up to take Mary's arm.
"All the same," said Mary to Joyce, as they walked away, "I believe
those three would do Gipsy a bad turn if they got the chance."
"But could they?"
"Easy enough. Gipsy's anything but a favourite with the monitresses
after this Guild business, and they'd be only too delighted to drop on
her if they found a reasonable excuse."
"So they would, and Gipsy's hardly what you call a bread-and-butter
Miss!"
"I should rather think not! She's ready for any amount of fun. She's
bound to come into collision with Helen Roper sooner or later. I shall
give her a hint that she'd better look out."
Gipsy was getting along famously in the Upper Fourth. Though some of the
work was rather different from what she had been accustomed to in her
former schools, she was a bright girl, and managed to fill up her
deficiencies with tolerable ease. In one or two subjects she was
actually ahead of her Form, and in all practical matters she had a mine
of past experience to draw upon. She approved of her Form mistress, Miss
White, adored the Swedish drill mistress, tolerated the German
governess, and detested the French master. For Miss Edith she was
disposed to reserve a very warm place in her heart, but she frankly
disliked Miss Poppleton.
"There are headmistresses and headmistresses," she said. "Of course one
expects them to stand on a pillar above the common herd, but some of
them condescend to peep down below. Now Poppie doesn't. I'd as soon
think of going to the man in the moon, and telling him I felt homesick
or headachy or worried about anything, as I should to her. Much she'd
care! She'd tell me not to report myself till I was sent for! Now at
Dorcas City Miss Judkins was just a dear! We all went and told her our
woes, and she comforted us up like a mother. We might go errands, too,
if we asked leave first, and we made Fudge on the play-room stove about
three times a week."
"You're always talking about Fudge!" giggled the boarders in whom these
confidences were reposed.
"So'd you be if you'd once tasted it, I guess. It was real mean of
Poppie not to let me buy that pan. We used to have good times candy
making when I was out West," said Gipsy, relapsing into Americanisms at
the remembrance of past delights in the States.
"Wish you could make some here, Yankee Doodle! I haven't had even a
chocolate drop for three days," declared Lennie Chapman.
"Poppie never said I mightn't borrow a pan," returned Gipsy
reflectively. "It would be a pity for you not to see Fudge made. I call
it neglect of your education. I believe it's my solemn duty to try and
teach you," and her eyes twinkled.
"A duty's a duty," urged Lennie with a disinterested air.
"It's a cruel rule that we may only buy sweets once a week," remarked
Dilys Fenton.
"More honoured in the breach than in the observance," added Hetty
Hancock.
"I'm not going to break any rules," said Gipsy. "There's no law against
borrowing, at least none that I've heard of. It's a good motto to do
what you want until you're told not to. Ta ta! I'm off on a foraging
expedition. Expect me back when you see me. I'm going to put my powers
of persuasion to the test."
"You mad thing! Don't get into too big a scrape; Poppie can make herself
nasty!" called Hetty.
"Don't worry yourself! I'll keep carefully out of Poppie's clutches,"
returned Gipsy, as she banged the door of the Juniors' sitting-room.
"She'll get into a row with Poppie yet, though," said Dilys; "she's far
too free and easy for this school. Did you see how Poppie glared at her
this morning in maths.?"
"Yes, but Gipsy didn't mind. She takes Poppie very lightly."
"She'll go too far some day," returned Dilys.
How Gipsy managed to wheedle the cook nobody ever discovered, but she
returned in a short time triumphantly carrying a tray.
"Got all I wanted!" she announced. "A pan, and milk, and sugar, and even
a bottle of vanilla. Can't you clear a place on the table? The thing's
heavy."
A number of willing hands swept away books, needlework, and other
impedimenta. It was evening recreation hour, so nearly all the Junior
boarders were collected in the room. They viewed the interesting
preparations with pleased anticipation.
"There!" said Gipsy, putting her burden down with a slam. "I reckon if
any of you care to learn how to make American Fudge, now's your chance!
Positively the last opportunity! By the by, 'reckon' is one of the words
Poppie said I'd got to avoid, but it slipped out. I'll be more careful
next time."
"Does Poppie know you've got these things?" squeaked Aggie Jones, a
ten-year-old from the First Form.
"She's a trump if she let you!" echoed Pamela Harvey, of the Lower
Second.
"You kids mind your own business!" said Hetty Hancock hastily.
"Poppie never said I mightn't have them, which amounts to the same
thing," replied Gipsy calmly. "She hasn't given me a list of school
rules, so I can't break them till I know what they are, can I? There's a
law in most countries that a dog's allowed a first bite free. Well, this
is going to be my first bite. Do you want to join this cookery
demonstration, or not?"
"Rather!" said Lennie Chapman, "if you'll take the responsibility."
"And let us taste some of it afterwards!" added Daisy Scatcherd.
"I'd never be so mean as to eat it all myself. I'll share it round
evenly to the last crumb. Now, if you want to help, you may measure out
three cupfuls of sugar, and three-quarters of a cupful of milk. Now this
tablespoonful of butter. Yes, that's all, thanks. Somebody pull that
fender away, please; I want to get to the fire."
Stolen waters are sweet, and schoolgirl nature is the same the whole
world over. The Junior boarders all had more than a suspicion that
Gipsy's cookery was unauthorized, but who could resist the attractions
of toffee making?
"I hope it's a sort that goes cold quickly, and won't take till next
morning to harden," said Dilys Fenton. "Last 5th of November I think we
didn't boil ours quite long enough, and we really couldn't wait, so we
ate it soft."
"You boil this till it threads from the spoon, and then you beat it with
a fork till it creams," murmured Gipsy, with her head over the pan.
"Let me stir!" begged Pamela Harvey.
"You mustn't stir it. That's the secret of good Fudge-making, not to
stir at all while it's boiling. It makes it coarse-grained if you do."
"Won't it burn, though?"
"It doesn't out in U.S.A. But then we make it on stoves, you see. I
can't guarantee it on an open fire. By good rights it ought to have
pieces of hickory nut in it, but it won't taste bad without."
"I'd call that fire fierce for ordinary toffee," commented Lennie
Chapman.
"I'm sure I smell something," sniffed Dilys Fenton.
"Oh, it's burning!"
"Gipsy! Stir it!"
"It's boiling over!"
"Take it off, quick!"
Half a dozen eager hands snatched at the pan, but it was too late; the
sugary compound rose like a volcano and overflowed into the fire. A wail
of lament came from the disappointed girls.
"I knew it would!" protested Lennie.
"Oh, it's made an awful smell! Open the window, somebody!" shrieked
Gipsy. "If we don't mind, Poppie'll nose it out, and come poking up.
Oh! Good gracious!"
Gipsy might well exclaim, for there, just behind them, stood Miss
Poppleton herself. She had been walking along the passage, and attracted
by the smell of burning, she had opened the door quietly to ascertain
the cause. There was a moment of awful silence. Eleven sinners felt
themselves most horribly caught.
"Who brought these things here?" demanded Miss Poppleton, eyeing the
tray and its paraphernalia.
"I did. I got them from the kitchen," answered Gipsy. "We always made
Fudge in the schoolroom in Dorcas City," she added, with a spice of
defiance in her voice.
"You won't here!" returned Miss Poppleton grimly. "Take those things
back to the kitchen at once. You will stay in from hockey to-morrow, and
learn a page of French poetry. Each of you others" (glaring at the
crestfallen circle) "will copy fifty lines of _Paradise Lost_, and bring
them to me before Thursday. If you can't be trusted, I shall have to
send one of the Seniors to sit with you in the evenings."
With this awful threat she departed, having first seen the exit of Gipsy
with the tray.
"I knew Gipsy was bound to get into a scrape sooner or later," groaned
Dilys.
"And we're in too, worse luck!" wailed Daisy Scatcherd. "Fifty lines is
no joke!"
"It's ironical of her to choose _Paradise Lost_ when the Fudge had just
boiled over!" said Hetty. "She doesn't like Gipsy, it's easy enough to
see that."
"Here's Gipsy back. Well, my child, what do you think of your 'first
bite', as you call it? Poppie didn't see your privileges! You'll have
the pleasure of learning a whole page of French poetry to improve your
mind, instead of playing hockey to-morrow!"
"I don't care!" said Gipsy, with an obstinate set to her mouth. "She may
give me anything she likes, to learn. When folks are nice to me, I'll
keep any number of rules; but when they begin to bully me, I just feel
inclined to go and do something outrageous. I'm afraid there's not much
love lost between Poppie and me."