Apple-Blossom Alley emerged from them with high marks, and then satchels
were packed and away they went to their homes for the holidays.
The “Jolly Pirates” were at the station to meet the train when it pulled
into Sunnyside, and after much laughter and joyous greetings, the
several sleighs in waiting bore the girls away to their homes and
devoted families.
A round of gay times had been planned to entertain them, and almost
before they realized that it was possible, they were back in Linden Hall
and again at their studies.
“Girls!” Adele cried one day as she skipped into Apple-Blossom Alley, “I
am possessed of a sudden and soaring ambition. I have decided to compete
for the French essay medal which is awarded by Madame Vandeheuton every
year on the first day of February.”
“Oh, Della, you’d have to study terribly hard to win that. Marie Le
Clerc is also trying for it, and she is of French descent,” Betty Burd
declared.
“‘Nothing venture, nothing have,’” Doris Drexel chanted.
“‘Work, work, and then work some more,’ was a certain author’s rule for
gaining success,” Bertha Angel told them. “Your ambition is a laudable
one, my dear friend Adele, and I will lend you my assistance by hearing
you recite your verbs.”
“‘It is better to fail than never to try,’” Carol laughingly added.
“Doesn’t some one else know a suitable adage?”
“‘Failures are stepping-stones to success,’” Evelyn Dartmoor chimed in,
and the cheerful expression in her beautiful face would have delighted
her grandfather could he have seen it, but he knew from her letters that
she was finding happiness in the companionship of Carol.
But when the contest took place, it was won, as Betty had prophesied, by
Marie Le Clerc. Adele sincerely congratulated the winner and greatly
admired the medal, which had come from France, and secretly determined
to try again next year if she chanced to be at Linden Hall. Her own
essay won second place and honorable mention in the school archives.
The next exciting event was the birthday of Gladys Merle Jones, who
received a goodly check from her adoring father, and that maiden,
wishing to share it with the others, obtained Madame Deriby’s permission
to have a theater-party in Buffalo, to which she invited all the pupils
and the faculty.
The request was granted, and the girls spent a wonderful afternoon in
one of the most beautiful of theaters and returned bearing with them
refreshments for an evening spread.
March came in wild and blustering, and with it a new pupil arrived at
Linden Hall. She was of so unusual a type that she greatly interested
the girls from Sunnyside.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE OLD-FASHIONED PUPIL
“Girls, did any of you see the new pupil?” Carol Lorens asked when the
dwellers of Apple-Blossom Alley had gathered in Adele’s room one wild
March afternoon.
“I haven’t seen her,” Doris Drexel replied, as she curled up on the rug
in front of the fireplace where a log was snapping merrily. “What does
she look like and where has she come from?”
“I can answer one of those questions,” Peggy Pierce declared, “for I
just this moment saw her in the lower hall standing near Madame Deriby’s
door as though she were waiting to be admitted, and truly, she is the
queerest-looking girl that I have ever seen outside of a picture-book.
She had on a plaid shawl and a beaver cap and, think of it, girls, she
was wearing thick woolen mittens and her skirt was skimpy and much too
short, for she is almost as tall as Gertrude. She must be a new pupil,
though, for an old battered suit-case was on the floor beside her. I
suppose that I stared at her rather curiously and she actually looked
frightened. I guess that she isn’t used to seeing other girls, for
surely there is nothing scary about me, is there?”
“Of course not, Peggy,” Rosamond Wright replied indignantly. “I
certainly can’t see why such a countrified girl is coming to Linden Hall
Seminary, which is supposed to be a select school for the daughters of
the gentry.”
“Well, don’t let’s decide about this girl until we know her,” Adele had
just said, when there came a tap on the door followed by the appearance
of Gertrude Willis, who was gladly welcomed by all. Peggy Pierce sprang
up from the easiest chair and offered it to the newcomer.
“Oh, Peg, do keep your comfortable seat,” the older girl urged with her
winning smile.
“Truly I feel much more at home on the floor,” the other maiden replied
as she sat down tailor-fashion by her chum Doris.
“I can’t stay but a moment,” Gertrude said. “Madame Deriby wishes me to
come to her office at four-thirty. We have a new pupil, it seems, who is
unused to the ways of girls, and Madame Deriby wishes me to meet her and
take her under my wing, so to speak.”
“Oh,” moaned Doris Drexel, “I know what that will mean. You will have to
spend all your free time coaching her, and we won’t see anything of you,
and if it’s that gawky country girl Peggy has just been telling us
about, you won’t find much pleasure in her company, I’m sure of that.”
“Well, girls,” Gertrude said brightly as she arose, “you remember that
one of the mottoes that we chose for our Sunnyside Club was, ‘The only
creed of which we have need is the art of being kind.’”
“You are right!” Adele exclaimed. “I am afraid that we do forget
sometimes. Bring the new pupil back with you and we will all help to
make her feel at home.”
Then, when Gertrude was gone, the girls took out their mending, and
tongues and needles flew, while they wondered what the new girl would be
like.
Half an hour later there came a tap on the door and Adele sprang up to
open it. Gertrude smilingly entered, leading by the hand a young
stranger whose dress was too short in skirt and sleeve, as though she
had long since outgrown it. Her face was tanned by sun and wind and her
dark hair was tightly braided, and, as Peggy had said, there was an
almost startled look in the big brown eyes that were unusually beautiful
and expressive.
The girls about the fireplace arose to greet the newcomer.
“This is Matilda Perkins,” Gertrude said kindly. “She has come to be one
of our Linden Hall family.” Then, turning to the stranger, she added in
her friendliest manner, “Matilda, I am not going to tell you the names
of these eight maidens just at first, but you will quickly learn them.
Suppose you and I occupy the window-seat. Oh, girls,” she chatted on, “I
do believe that I smell pop-corn. Did you pop some while I was away and
eat it all up?”
“We did pop it while you were away,” Betty Burd agreed, “but we saved
every kernel of it to share with you and Matilda.” Then, opening the
closet door, she brought forth a big Chinese bowl brimming over with
fluffy white kernels.
“Cup your two hands, everybody!” Betty then sang out. “You may each have
all that they will hold.” Sewing had to be abandoned for a time and the
girls purposely chatted together that the newcomer might become used to
them and their ways. Glancing at her a few moments later, Adele was glad
to see that the startled expression had vanished from those wonderful
brown eyes and that instead they were twinkling with amusement.
[Illustration: “This is Matilda Perkins.”]
The girls, although they said little to Matilda directly, included her
in a general way as they talked about exams only a week ahead, and at
last, when Marie, the maid, rapped and told them that Madame Deriby was
now ready to receive the new pupil in her office, that girl arose and
said without a trace of her former shyness, “Thank you all for the
pleasant time,” and then she was gone.
As soon as they were sure that Matilda was out of hearing, Peggy Pierce
tiptoed over to the door and locked it. Then she said, “Now, Gertrude,
do tell us all you know about her. She certainly is a new type of girl
to me.”
“Well,” Gertrude began, “even Madame Deriby does not as yet know much
about Matilda. She told me that about two weeks ago she received a
letter from an old friend of hers, Bishop Wesley. His sister went to
school with Madame Deriby in France, and they are still devoted friends.
Now and then the good Bishop has sent a pupil to Linden Hall, but it has
always been a girl from a home of wealth and refinement, and so when the
Bishop wrote that he would like to send another little friend of his,
Madame Deriby replied that she would gladly receive Matilda even though
the rooms are really all taken. Of course she was expecting a pupil of
the type that the Bishop usually sent, but when she saw this countrified
girl, Madame Deriby, who is kindness personified, said that for a moment
she was puzzled to know what to do, for the only bed unoccupied is in
the room of that English girl who came at Christmas, the one who
considers herself too good to associate with any of us.”
The others gasped and Rosamond asked, “Gertrude, do you mean that this
backwoodsy girl with that awful name, Matilda Perkins, is to room with
the snobbish Lady Stuckup?”
Trudy nodded, and Peggy, whose bump of mischief and merriment seemed
sometimes to be more prominent than her bump of sympathy, laughingly
declared, “Girls, it would be as good as a circus to see them when they
first meet.”
“Oh, Peggy, how can you speak that way?” Adele remonstrated. “I just
know that it is going to be ever so hard for both of them.”
“I’m sure that I don’t care how uncomfortable that English girl is
made,” Doris Drexel remarked. “Carol overheard her saying that she
thinks it is dreadful because there are no class distinctions in
America. She was telling Miss Merritt that there isn’t one pupil
attending Linden Hall who would be in her class in England.”
“Well, then, why doesn’t she go back to her native land?” Peggy
inquired. “No one is begging her to stay here that I know of.”
“Her father is traveling in the West, Madame Deriby told me,” Evelyn
replied. “He will soon come after her, and then she will leave our
plebeian shores forever.”
“Girls!” Adele suddenly exclaimed with enthusiasm, “Matilda Perkins may
be countrified, but there is something about those wonderful eyes of
hers that makes me feel sure that she can hold her own even with Peggy’s
Lady Stuckup, but, Gertrude, you haven’t told us where Matilda came
from. Have you heard as yet?”
“She hails from the Dakota prairies,” the older girl replied. “Her
mother was a well-educated woman who married a ranchman and she taught
her little girl and her two boys as best she could, but, when Matilda
was twelve, she and her brothers became orphans, and since that time she
has kept house for them and helped on the farm, but, Adele, if you want
to see Matilda’s eyes glow, you must hear her tell about her prairie
home. I will bring her up here this evening, if Madame Deriby will
excuse us from the recreation hour in the hall.”
Then she added, springing up, “There’s the get-ready-for-supper bell. I
must hunt up Matilda this very minute or she will be losing herself in
the maze of corridors.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE PRAIRIE HOME
That evening at seven, as Gertrude had suggested, the dwellers of
Apple-Blossom Alley gathered in Adele’s room and Matilda Perkins was
with them. Her skirt and sleeves were still skimpy and short but the
frightened expression had vanished from her beautiful brown eyes which
seemed to mirror her every thought.
“Let’s sit in a circle on the floor,” Adele said as she threw fresh wood
on the fire. “It’s heaps cosier, and Bettykins, turn the light low, for
the blaze is bright enough.”
“Matilda, you sit in the middle,” Doris Drexel suggested, “because you
are to be the story-teller to-night. That is if you will be,” she added,
smiling at the new pupil. “You see, we are very eager to hear about your
Dakota home.”
For a moment a soft, dreamy expression appeared in the eyes that held
such a fascination for Adele. “I love my prairie home,” Matilda said
almost wistfully, “but I did want to leave it, for it was my mother’s
wish that I should come East and have a good education.”
“What is a prairie like?” Peggy asked as Matilda paused.
“Oh, it’s wonderful,” the strange girl replied, turning toward the
speaker eyes that fairly glowed. “There’s a wide stretch as far as you
can see of waving wheat and corn, golden in the sunlight, with here and
there clumps of bright-colored flowers. Blackbirds, with shining,
purple-black coats, spring up in a flock when you walk in the corn, and,
too, there are meadow-larks and orioles, but that is only in the summer.
In the winter there are blizzards that drive fiercely across the plain
and the snow piles so high that often I do not leave the house for
weeks, except now and then to go to the sod buildings where the chickens
and cattle are kept. As soon as they can, the boys dig tunnel-like paths
to each outhouse and then they shovel the snow away from the windows so
that I can have daylight for my work. It was during those snowed-in
weeks that I did most of my studying. I had a queer library of my own,
perhaps you will think. It contained very few books, and they were the
Bible, ‘Ivanhoe,’ ‘Nicholas Nickleby,’ ‘Cranford,’ ‘Little Women,’
‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,’ ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ and
the almanac, besides the text-books that were used in the country
school. I read them over and over on my long shut-in days and evenings,
and then sometimes when the boys were away, I would curl up by the fire
and listen to the wind that shook the house and wonder if there would
ever be anything different. Then, last winter we had a very exciting
adventure in a blizzard, and it brought me great good fortune.”
“Oh, do tell us about it, please!” Adele implored.
Matilda Perkins had often told stories aloud when she was a little girl
on the prairie. Sometimes her audience had been only her dog, Shep, or
again a row of cornstalks that she pretended were children, but
to-night, for the first time in her fifteen years, she was called upon
to tell a story to real girls of about her own age. The eager interest
plainly seen in the nine pairs of eyes turned toward her swept away the
last vestige of her shyness and she told the story as simply and as
dramatically as she would have done had she been telling it to Shep or
to the cornstalks.
“Winter was half spent,” she said, “and we were beginning to think that
perhaps there would not be a long, severe blizzard that year, when one
afternoon Brother Basil came in from the sod-house where we kept the
smoked meat with a heavy ham over his shoulders.
“‘Thought I’d better lay in a good supply,’ he explained. ‘Looks pretty
threatening over toward the west. Shouldn’t wonder if we had a blizzard
before night.’
“‘I think you’re a good weather-prophet,’ Brother Cedric said as he
threw more twisted straw on the fire. We don’t use wood on the prairie,
you know, because there isn’t any wood to use. In the late fall, when
there is little farm work to be done, we spend hours twisting straw into
hard knots, and this we store away for winter use.
“‘Well,’ I said as cheerfully as I could, ‘if the blizzard is coming,
we’ll have to let it. We’ll be snug enough in here. I have heaps of
potatoes back of the stove and there’s plenty of twisted straw.’
“Then I asked Cedric to light the lanterns that were hanging from the
rafters overhead. Basil sliced the meat and soon I had supper cooking.
It was growing colder every minute, and before we had finished, we heard
a mournful sound in the distance, which made me shudder, though the room
was warm.
“In another moment a blast of wind shook the house, and though it was
still late afternoon, it suddenly grew very dark. We heard the cattle
bellowing with fright above the shrieking of the oncoming storm. For
hours it raged and though we could not see it, we knew that the snow was
falling heavily.
“‘Hang a lantern in the window,’ I said to Basil. ‘If any one happens to
be out in this storm, he may be able to find his way to our house.’
“Cedric shook his head. ‘If there’s any one out in this blizzard,’ he
said, ‘heaven help him, for mere man could not.’
“Now, it was right at this moment that I was sure that I heard a voice
calling. ‘What was that?’ I asked, listening intently.
“‘Nothing but the wind,’ Basil replied. There was indeed something
almost human about the shrieking of the wind, but I was not satisfied.
“I put my ear to the crack of the door and listened. Then I beckoned to
Basil and said, ‘I am sure that I hear some one calling for help.’
“My younger brother was convinced that he, too, heard, and without
saying a word, he put on his greatcoat and started for the door.
“Cedric tried to hold him back. ‘This is foolishness!’ he cried. ‘You
couldn’t help any one who might be out in this blizzard. Why risk your
own life?’
“‘If I were the one out there, I’d want somebody to try to save me,’ was
all that my brave brother said. Then he opened the door and went out.
Our dog Shep bounded after him. The cutting sleet and wind blew in our
faces and we had to push with all our strength to close the door again.
“For a moment Cedric, my older brother, paced up and down the room, and
then, with a face sternly set, he whirled about and exclaimed, ‘Sister,
I can’t stand by and let Basil risk his life alone. I’m the oldest and
the one who should have gone. Dad told me that I was to take his place
when he died, so I must go and bring Basil back.’ While he was talking,
he put on his slicker and beaver cap, and again the door opened and
closed, and I was left alone. I took the other lantern down from the
rafters and hung it in the south window. Then I threw more twisted straw
on the fire and filled the kettle that there might be plenty of boiling
water when the boys came back. Suddenly I was terrorized, for the
thought had come to me that perhaps they would never come back.
“Then I happened to glance at our mother’s picture standing on the
mantel beside the Bible that she had given to me, and somehow I felt
comforted, and I thought:
“‘Surely God will not let my brothers perish when they have gone on an
errand of mercy.’
“It seemed hours to me, but it really had not been long, when above the
shrieking of the storm I heard the barking of Shep. I ran to the door
and opened it wide, caring nothing for the wind and sleet that swept
into the room.
“I peered out into the darkness, hoping, fearing. Was the faithful dog
coming home alone? No, for I saw a figure, two of them, and they were
carrying a third. In another moment they were inside, the seemingly
lifeless form had been placed on the lounge and Basil helped me close
the door.
“The stranger whom they carried was rather elderly, with iron-grey hair.
His eyes were closed and he looked so white that I thought he must be
dead, but Cedric and Basil were convinced that this was not so.
“They rubbed his hands and face with snow and I prepared a hot drink to
give him as soon as he recovered. At last he opened his eyes and smiled.
Such a kindly face he had.
“The boys helped him to Father’s armchair, which always stood near the
fire, and I wrapped him in a blanket and gave him the drink.
“When this was finished, he said, ‘Well, little daughter and big sons,
you have saved my life and risked your own, than which a man can do
nothing nobler.’ Then he told us that he was a bishop and that he had
been visiting on the Sioux reservation. He had heard that there was
discontent among the tribe and he knew that he could do much toward
restoring peace.
“‘My pilgrimage had been a successful one,’ the Bishop ended, ‘but not
being familiar with the signs of your sky, I ventured away unwisely.’
“The next day the storm had passed and the prairie was covered with
glistening snow.
“When the good Bishop learned that the boys were working hard and saving
so that they might send me East to school, the kind man said, ‘Lads, I
want to do something to prove my gratitude. Let me do this.’
“And that is why I am here at Linden Hall,” Matilda ended simply.
The girls had been listening with breathless attention. “What an
interesting story that was!” Doris Drexel declared. “I am as glad as I
can be that you have come to our school.”
The new pupil, knowing that the speaker was sincere, smiled, and there
was a happy light in her beautiful brown eyes as she said:
“I want to thank you all for welcoming me so kindly. I know that I must
look queer,” she added, glancing down at her old-fashioned dress, “but
you see we do not have dressmakers out on the prairie, and I had no
mother to help me.”
Adele sprang to her feet as she exclaimed: “Stand up, Matilda. I want to
see how tall you are.”
Wonderingly the girl arose and stood by Adele, who said brightly,
“Trudie, aren’t we very near of a size?”
“Yes, Della, I think that you are,” her friend replied.
“Good!” the other exclaimed. Then darting to her closet, she brought out
her best uniform. “I won’t need to wear this until Sunday, and, let me
see, this is Wednesday; Miss Perring, who makes our uniforms, can finish
yours by that time. I am going to loan you this, Matilda, and I want you
to put it on this very minute before you meet your new roommate, the
haughty Geraldine Barrington. She won’t be nice to you, however you
look, but at least she cannot say that your dress is not up-to-date, for
this is the very newest uniform in the school.”
Matilda was almost overcome with her gratitude, but before she could
speak, Adele had dragged her behind a screen and was helping her with
the buttons.
A few moments later the other girls were amazed at the transformation
that had been wrought, for Adele had also loosened the pretty hair which
had been braided so tightly. She stood off and gazed at the new pupil
with admiration.
“There now!” she said. “You look just like the rest of us, all except
your eyes, and honestly, Matilda, though I don’t want to make you vain,
I’ve never met such eyes before in my travels, and I’ve been all the way
to Arizona and back. I’ve one thing more to say and that is, that your
name does not fit you any better than your dress did. Should you mind if
I call you something different?”
Matilda laughed. The shyness of a few hours ago was entirely gone and
she laughed as freely and musically as she had done out on her wide
prairie, when, with her dog Shep, she had raced through the cornfields.
“Call me whatever you like!” she said.
“Then I am going to name you Starr and spell it with a double-r.”
When the retiring bell rang, Gertrude sprang up, saying, “Come, Starr, I
will now introduce you to your roommate.”
“I surely do pity you if you are to room with that Lady Stuckup,” Doris
Drexel declared.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Starr replied brightly, “since you girls are kind to
me, I shall not care how unkind she may be.”
A truly unpleasant experience awaited this girl from the Dakota prairie.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LADY STUCKUP
When Gertrude Willis rapped on a closed door in the east wing, there was
no response and so she turned the knob and entered the room which was
unoccupied. Trudie then told the new pupil which was to be her side and
bade her good-night.
When she was alone, Matilda stood looking out of the window into the
darkness. For a moment a rush of loneliness swept over her heart. The
stars seemed so faint and far away, while over the prairie they had
seemed so near and brilliant. Then she smiled as she thought bravely, “I
mustn’t be homesick, for wonderful things are going to happen to me, and
every one has been so kind.”
Humming a little tune, the new pupil unpacked her old-fashioned and
much-battered suit-case, and a few moments thereafter she climbed into
her bed.
Then the door opened and a tall, flaxen-haired girl entered. She might
have been pretty had it not been for a haughty, disagreeable expression.
She gave a disdainful glance toward the occupied bed and retired behind
her sheltering screen.
Only that evening had she heard who was to be her roommate and she had
been waiting until this late hour to see Madame Deriby, who had at last
sent word that she could not see Geraldine until the morning. Long after
Matilda, truly weary from her long journey, was peacefully sleeping, the
haughty English girl lay awake planning what she would say to the
matron. She, a Barrington, to be asked to share her room with a farmer’s
daughter. Such a slight was unbearable! If Madame Deriby did not know of
her father’s position in England, then his daughter would inform her at
the very first opportunity.