BOYS.
After the football game, some of the more self-assured boys came over to
the visitors from Gresham and singled out their friends to conduct them
to the tables on the lawn where the matron was serving ice cream.
All the boys spoke to Miss Cox and seemed on the most friendly terms
with her. I remembered then that she went over to Hill-Top twice a week
for the purpose of training a chorus. She knew them all by name and
chatted with them very freely, much more freely than she did with any of
the girls, except Dum and Dee and me.
"Evidently, Miss Cox understands boys better than she does girls and
they understand her," thought I. Her manner with them was frank and
natural, exactly as it had been with Mr. Tucker.
A tall, good-looking boy was holding a laughing conversation with her
about the game. He it was who had saved the day for the Seniors when it
had looked as though the younger class would certainly win, owing to the
strategic movements of the popular Shorty.
"Didn't the kid make a fine play, though, Miss Cox? It seemed a pity to
take the game from them; but I tell you, if the Sophomores won from the
Seniors there would be no living with them. They're rather a cocky lot
as it is, bless 'em."
"Yes, they are fine boys and I wish they might have won just this once.
They worked so hard and you Seniors were playing so lazily you almost
let the game slip through your fingers. It would have been a good lesson
for your team if they had lost."
"That's just what I tell them, Miss Cox. I hate lazy playing, even if
you are up against something easy. I believe in playing the game to the
best of your ability, if it's nothing but push-pins."
I certainly liked the way that boy talked and agreed with him. I
unconsciously drew nearer to where he and Miss Cox were standing, not
with any idea of being introduced but because I was interested in what
they were saying.
"No, you don't, Miss Buttinsky," was whispered in my ear, "Seniors first
when there is a good thing in sight," and Mabel Binks crowded in front
of me and deliberately joined the group around Miss Cox. An introduction
to the handsome football player naturally followed. I drew back abashed.
One of the most hateful things about Mabel Binks was that she usually
attributed her motives to other persons. She was determined to meet this
boy and she took for granted it was what I was after, too.
I felt like employing Dum's method and praying not to "biff Mabel
Binks," but I was anxious to see what the outcome would be and if the
handsome youth, whose name I had learned was Harvie Price, would be
attracted by the charms of the stylish Mabel. Mabel was not a
bad-looking girl, rather handsome, in fact, but a trifle too vivid for
my taste. Her eyes were as black and shiny as new patent-leather shoes;
her abundant hair, coarse and curly; her lips too full and red; her
figure handsome but rather too well developed for a girl of seventeen.
She was always richly dressed and in the latest style.
The idea of the directors of Gresham in having the pupils dress in blue
suits and black hats was to do away with the custom of overdressing
common to many boarding schools. They seemed to think that a blue suit
was a blue suit. They were vastly mistaken, however, as anyone with half
an eye could see by comparing Mabel Binks with Annie Pore. Annie Pore's
appearance I have described. Mabel's suit was a costly affair of
handsome cloth combined with velvet and trimmed with fur. The skirt was
slit, showing a cerise petticoat; a cerise crepe de Chine tie gave color
to her very V-necked blouse; and around her velvet sailor she had pinned
several large, fine ostrich plumes. The latest style of high-heeled
pumps with cut steel buckles were on her feet, making them a little too
prominent, considering their size and shape. Spotless white gloves
finished her costume; unless one might consider the strong odor of musk
perfume the finishing touch. She did look handsome and her clothes were
pretty and fine, but a little too fine for a football match.
"Oh, Mr. Price," she gushed, "your playing was just grand. All of us
were just wild about it. I said 'it,' not 'you,' you understand," and
she giggled affectedly. "I think it was real noble of you to let the
kids get any points at all."
"Yes, mighty noble," said Harvie Price, looking at his dashing admirer
rather quizzically, "so noble they came mighty near winning the whole
shooting match."
"Isn't that ice cream they are serving over there?" she hinted. "I think
ice cream is simply grand."
"Ah, Miss Binks, you praise my feeble game and ice cream with the same
words. Fortunately, ice cream is more easily taken in than I am. Hey,
you Shorty, come here," he called to the jolly-looking little Sophomore
who was trotting by. "I want to introduce you to Miss Binks. Mr. Thomas
Hawkins, Miss Binks. Shorty, she's dying for some ice cream."
"Your humble servitor, madam," and Thomas Hawkins made a low bow. "Shall
I bring it to you or take you to it?"
"Bring it here," said Mabel shortly. Just then Harvie Price saw Annie
Pore talking to Mary Flannigan and Dee.
"Tell me who that girl is over there, the one with the thick yellow
plait," he asked Mabel.
"Oh, that's 'Orphan Annie.' Isn't she a mess?"
"Is her name Annie Pore?"
"I believe it is or poor Annie, if you prefer."
"Well, by Jove! Who would have thought it!" and Harvie Price without any
apology left the dashing Mabel and going up to Annie took her by both
hands. He shook them warmly and exclaimed: "Little Annie Pore, where on
earth did you come from? I am glad to see you." And Annie, without the
least embarrassment, was equally delighted to see him.
"Oh, Harvie, I did not dream you were here. You've grown so I didn't
know you."
"Grown! And what have you been doing? Certainly not standing still. And
how is everyone at the Landing? Geewhilikins, I'd like to spend another
summer there! Just think, it is five years since I have been there."
"Everything is about the same. Your grandfather is rather more feeble
but as handsome as ever."
"Yes, I know, poor old Grandad," said Harvie soberly. Annie told me
afterward that a family row had separated old General Price from his
son, Harvie's father, and for that reason the boy had not been allowed
to come to his ancestral home at Price's Landing.
"And how is your father? As British as ever and still invisibly clothed
in blue paint?"
"Yes, about the same," blushed Annie.
"You know I like your father, Annie, and didn't mean anything," and the
boy looked very sorry that he had embarrassed his little friend.
"That's all right, Harvie, but you know----"
"Yes, I know," he said sympathetically. "Now come on and let's have some
ice cream. Who are your special friends? Introduce me and I'll take them
all."
Dum and Dee and Mary Flannigan and I were of course the chosen few, and
as soon as Shorty had arranged so Mabel Binks could "take in" the ice
cream, he joined us and a very merry time we had. We met many boys and
liked most of them. They were a healthy, wholesome lot and almost as
much fun as girls. Miss Cox joined us and let herself go with as much
abandon as she had in the Lobster Quadrille.
I have never seen anyone so happy as Annie Pore. She and Harvie Price
had been friends from the time they could walk. The boy had spent a
great deal of his time with his grandfather at Price's Landing and the
little English maid, whose father kept the country store, was the one
white child in the neighborhood whom the proud old aristocratic General
Price considered suitable to associate with his grandson.
"You ought to see Mr. Pore," Harvie confided to me. "I tell you he is a
rare one. He is about the best educated man I ever met. Grandad says he
can think in Latin. Be that as it may, he can certainly teach it. I had
some lessons from him during one summer and have been grateful to him
ever since. He is awfully English and just as strict with Annie as can
be. Mrs. Pore was a beautiful woman and it seemed strangely incongruous
to see her in the country store measuring calico and what not. Grandad
used to say she looked like a Duchess at a Charity Bazaar. Nobody at
Price's Landing ever has known what brought Mr. Pore to keeping a
country store in a little Virginia village."
"Maybe thinking in Latin wasn't nourishing," I suggested.
"I fancy that was it," he laughed, "but why should an Oxford graduate
keep a country store for a livelihood? There must have been other
avenues open to him."
"Perhaps his beautiful wife discovered she had a genius for selling at
Charity Bazaars, and when the time came to choose a profession, she
chose what she had shown talent for as an amateur," I hazarded.
"Well, I see Miss Page Allison has some imagination and if she ever has
to choose a profession it should be novel writing."
"Perhaps it will be," I said, "but I'd rather keep a country store than
do anything. You can see so many people that way, 'specially if you
have the postoffice in it."
"You like people, then?" inquired the boy.
"Like people? I should say I do. I just adore people; and I mean to know
just as many people as I can."
"Well, that is the requisite for successful novel writing, so our
professor in English tells us: 'Know people and sympathize with them,
all kinds and conditions.' But tell me something, Miss Page, does Annie
sing? Mrs. Pore's voice brought old sinners to church that had not been
for many a year. She sang in the choir at the little old Episcopal
church at Price's Landing and although I was nothing but a kid,--you see
I have not been there for five years,--I used to thrill all over when
she chanted the _Te Deum Laudamus_."
"Oh, yes, Annie's voice is splendid. Miss Cox is teaching her and I
believe she expects great things of her. We are to have a concert at
Gresham before long and then you can hear her."
I looked over at a group of girls and boys where Dum and Annie were
talking very gayly with Tom Hawkins, alias Shorty, and smiled to think
of Annie's hesitancy in coming that day because she was so afraid of
boys, and then I laughed outright when I considered how little Shorty
resembled Dum's hero, Prosper le Gai.
The ice cream that Shorty brought to Mabel Binks must have been as
bitter as gall, judging from the faces that young lady made while
devouring it, nor did it "set easy on her innards," as Mammy Susan would
put it. Could it be that she had literally turned green from jealousy
and the ice cream was innocent, after all? It must have been a bitter
pill to have the despised "Orphan Annie," with her kid friends, carry
off the most desirable young man at Hill-Top.
"Aren't you feeling well, Mabel?" said the good-natured Josephine Barr,
as Harvie Price and I passed near her on our way to join the group where
my special friends were.
"Yes, I'm just disgusted. Did you ever see such a beau grabber in your
life as that countrified Page Allison? And there's 'Orphan Annie'
actually posing as a belle! They make me sick."
I did not hear what Jo answered, but I felt that Annie and I were safe
in her hands. My cheeks were burning as though Mabel had given me a real
slap.
"Don't you mind, Miss Page. If girls only knew how fellows detest that
kind of thing! It must be awful to be a girl and not fight things out.
If a boy had insulted me as that girl did you just now, I'd either beat
him or get beaten in short order."
"Well," I said, pulling myself together as I realized that after all
Mabel Binks was not much of a lady, "you see, I have already beaten her,
although I did not know at the time I was doing it. Annie and I have got
the 'beaux,' that is, if she means you and Shorty."
"Bully for you! That's the way to talk. I see Miss Binks will not pull
off anything over you. Can Annie defend herself, too?"
So I told him of the first day at Gresham and the cheer the Seniors gave
Annie because of her come-back at Mabel Binks.
"Poor little Annie! I don't see how anyone could try to hurt her," and
the big boy looked very tenderly at his one-time playmate. "I am
certainly glad she has found such good friends at Gresham as you and
those wonderful twins, and also that nice little square Irish girl who
looks like a match for our Shorty."
That night before lights out bell rang, we had a little chat in our
room. Mary and Annie had scurried across the hall in their kimonos. Dum
was in bed and Dee and I had unearthed some slight refreshment in the
way of crackers and sweet chocolate, which we passed around.
"I bet Prosper le Gai would have played a dandy game of football," said
Dum, getting her sheets all crumby with crackers. "He always smiled in
battle. I noticed Harvie Price did, too."
"Do you know, I think Harvie Price looked a little like Laurie in
'Little Women,'" said Dee.
"I always did think so," exclaimed Annie. "When you were talking about
Laurie this morning I thought of Harvie. I never dreamed of seeing him.
I'm so glad you girls liked him."
"I tell you he's all right," said Mary, "but I wouldn't be at all
astonished if Charles O'Malley wasn't just such another boy as Shorty
when he was a kid."