Land Girls
With the bond of such a secret between them, Diana and Loveday cemented
a firm friendship. To be sure, Loveday's conscience, which was of a very
exacting and inquisitorial description, sometimes gave her unpleasant
twinges like a species of moral toothache; but then the other self which
also talked inside her would plead that it was only sporting to screen a
schoolfellow, and that no one but a sneak could have done otherwise. She
sincerely hoped that Diana had escaped notice both going and returning,
and that no busybody from the village would bring a report to Miss Todd.
If the matter were to leak out, both girls would get into serious
trouble--Diana for running away, and her room-mate for aiding and
abetting her escapade. That she was really in some danger on her account
gave Loveday an added interest in Diana. She began to be very fond of
her. The little American had a most lovable side for certain people, on
whom she bestowed the warmth of her affection, though she could be a
pixie to those who did not happen to please her. With the seniors in
general she was no favourite. She had more than one skirmish with the
prefects, and was commonly regarded as a firebrand, ready at any moment
to set alight the flame of insurrection among turbulent intermediates
and juniors.
"Diana's at the bottom of any mischief that's going!" proclaimed
Geraldine one day, after a battle royal over an absurd dispute about the
tennis-court.
"And the worst of it is, she makes Wendy just as bad!" agreed Hilary
warmly.
"Wendy wasn't exactly a saint before Diana came," put in Loveday.
"Oh, you always stand up for Diana! I can't think what you see in her--a
cheeky little monkey, I call her!" Geraldine was still ruffled.
"She has her points, though."
"She'll get jolly well sat upon, if she doesn't take care," muttered
Geraldine, who held exalted notions as to the dignity of prefects.
It was at the beginning of the second week in October that Miss Todd, in
whose brain ambitious projects of education for the production of the
"super-girl" had been fermenting, announced the first of her radical
changes. She had not undertaken it without much consultation with
parents, and many letters had passed backwards and forwards on the
subject. Most, however, had agreed with her views, and it had been
decided that at any rate the experiment was to be tried. Pendlemere,
which so far had concentrated entirely on the Senior Oxford Curriculum
and accomplishments, was to add an agricultural side to its course.
There was to be a lady teacher, fresh from the Birchgate Horticultural
College, who would start poultry-keeping and bee-keeping on the latest
scientific principles, and would plant the garden with crops of
vegetables. She could have a few land workers to assist her, and the
girls, in relays, could study her methods. Miss Todd, who in choosing a
career had hesitated between teaching and horticulture, snatched at the
opportunity of combining the two. She was bubbling over with enthusiasm.
In imagination she saw Pendlemere a flourishing Garden Colony, setting
an educational example to the rest of the scholastic world. Her girls,
trained in both the scientific and practical side of agriculture in
addition to their ordinary curriculum, would be turned out equipped for
all contingencies, either of emigration, or a better Britain. She
considered their health would profit largely. She explained her views to
them in detail, painting rose-coloured pictures of the delights in store
for them in the spring and summer. The girls, very much thrilled at the
prospect, dispersed to talk it over.
"Is Pendlemere to be a sort of farm, then?" asked Wendy.
"Looks like it, if we're to keep hens and bees, and grow all our own
vegetables! Bags me help with the chickens. I love them when they're all
yellow, like canaries. Toddlekins hinted something about launching out
into a horse if things prospered."
"A horse! Goody, what fun!" exulted Diana. "I just _adore_ horses! Bags
me help with stable-work, then. I'd groom it instead of learning my
geography or practising scales. I say, I call this a ripping idea!"
"Don't congratulate yourself too soon," qualified Magsie. "You'll
probably find the geography and the scales are tucked in somehow. All
the same, I think it sounds rather sporty."
"It will be a change, at any rate, and we'll feel we're marching with
the times."
"When does the 'back-to-the-land' teacher come?"
"On Friday, I believe."
Miss Chadwick, the graduate of Birchgate Horticultural College, who was
to run the new experiment, arrived at the end of the week, and brought
two students as her assistants. They were a fresh, jolly-looking trio,
with faces rosy from open-air work, and serviceable hands which caused a
considerable flutter among those of the school who went in for manicure.
At tea-time they talked gaily of onion-beds, intensive culture,
irrigation, proteids, white Wyandottes, trap-nests, insecticides,
sugar-beets, and bacteria. Miss Todd, keenly interested, joined in the
conversation with the zeal of a neophyte; Miss Beverley, the
nature-study side of whose education had been neglected, and who
scarcely knew a caterpillar from an earthworm, followed with the uneasy
air of one who is out of her depth; the school, eating their
bread-and-butter and blackberry jam, sat and listened to the talk at the
top end of the table.
"It sounds rather brainy," commented Diana in a whisper.
"Yes," replied Wendy, also in a subdued tone. "Poor old Bunty's
floundering hopelessly. Did you hear her ask if they were going to
cultivate cucumbers in the open? I nearly exploded! I believe she thinks
pineapples grow on pine-trees. She's trying _so_ hard to look as if she
knows all about it. I'll be sorry for the infant cabbages if she has the
care of them."
"It wouldn't be her job, surely."
"I'd agitate for a 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Vegetables'
if it were. I believe I'm going to adore Miss Chadwick! She looks so
sporty. She wrinkles up her nose when she laughs, just like a baby
does."
"The little dark student with the freckles is my fancy."
"Oh! I like the other, with the bobbed hair."
Miss Chadwick, with her assistants Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod, brought a
new and decidedly breezy element into the school. They spent Saturday in
reviewing the premises, and on Monday they set to work. The girls, who
as yet were only in the position of onlookers, watched the operations,
much thrilled. All sorts of interesting things began to arrive: portable
hen-houses packed in sections, chicken-coops, rolls of galvanized wire
netting, iron stakes, the framework of a greenhouse, and a whole cargo
of tools. The three enterprising ladies seemed to have some knowledge of
carpentry, and at once began to fit parts together and erect sheds.
Their sensible land costumes excited admiration and envy.
"It's what I mean to do when I grow up," resolved Magsie. "Did you see
the way Miss Carr ran up that ladder? And she's begun to thatch the roof
so neatly. She does it far better than that old man from the village who
potters about. I'm just yearning to try my hand at thatching. I wish
Miss Carr would let me!"
While they were busy getting the place in order, Miss Chadwick and her
assistants declined all offers of inexperienced help, assuring the girls
that they would have their "jobs" given them later on, when there was
time to teach them. This did not at all content the enthusiastic spirits
who were burning to throw lessons to the winds and spend their days in
mixing putty, lime-washing hen-houses, and fixing up wire netting. They
hung about disconsolately, snatching at such opportunities of assistance
as holding ladders or handing nails.
"You _might_ let me tar the roof of the chicken-coop," begged Wendy.
"I'd just love to let it all squelch on, and I adore the smell!"
But Miss Carr, who the day before had rashly allowed Diana the use of
the lime-wash pail, was firm in her refusal.
"I haven't time to show you how, and I don't want things spoilt. Put
down that tar-brush, Wendy! If you get smears on your skirt, you'll
never get them off again."
"I don't see where _we_ come in!" groused Wendy. "I thought we were to
learn agriculture."
"You won't learn it by dabbing tar on the end of your nose," laughed
Miss Carr.
In the course of a few weeks, however, the preliminary stages were over.
Some fowl-houses and runs were finished, and their feathered occupants
arrived and took possession. A consignment of spades, rakes, and hoes
was delivered by the carrier, and arranged by the students in the new
tool-shed. Miss Carr announced herself ready to begin her course of
instruction. To the girls the crowning-point of the preparations was the
opening of several large boxes posted from a London shop. They contained
twenty land costumes in assorted sizes. The excitement of trying them on
was immense. Twenty little figures in smocks and gaiters went capering
about the school, wild with the fun of the new experiment, and feeling
themselves enthusiastic "daughters of the soil".
"It was A1 of Toddlekins to let us have a 'land uniform'."
"Couldn't do any decent work without, I should say."
"I believe Miss Carr insisted on it."
"Sensible woman!"
"It feels so delightfully business-like."
"Shall we win green armlets?"
"I'm just dying to start and dig!"
"And I want to climb a tree!"
Miss Chadwick and her students set to work methodically. They gave
classroom lectures on the principles of agriculture, and practical
demonstrations in the garden. The girls learnt the constituents of
soils, and also how to trench; the theory of scientific poultry-raising,
and the actual mixing of the food. They prepared plots that would be
sown in the spring, cleared and rolled paths, planted bulbs, and divided
roots of perennials; they sawed wood, lifted rhubarb, and helped to
prepare a mushroom bed. It was all new and exciting, and there was a
spice of patriotism mixed up with it. They felt that they were training
to be of some service to the community.
"It's fearfully weird," said Wendy, writing her essay on _Insect Pests_,
"to have to find out whether your insect has a biting or a sucking
mouth, so as to know whether you must spray the beastie direct, or apply
poison to the plant. I'd feel rather like a dentist examining their
jaws."
"I heard of an editor in America," laughed Magsie, "who got his 'answers
to correspondents' mixed up, and in reply to 'how to kill a plague of
crickets' put 'rub their gums gently with a thimble, and if feverish,
administer Perry's Teething Powders'; while to 'Anxious Mother of
Twins', he gave the advice: 'Burn tobacco on a hot shovel, and the
little pests will hop about and die as dead as door-nails'."
"You always fix these yarns on America," pouted Diana. "It sounds a
great deal more like one of your British editors."
To some of the girls the greatest event of all was the arrival of the
horse and trap which Miss Todd had decided to add to her establishment.
Pendlemere was some distance from the station and from Glenbury, the
nearest town, and she thought it would be a great convenience to be
independent of carriers and able to fetch supplies for themselves.
Diana, keenly interested, was allowed by Miss Ormrod to make the
acquaintance of "Baron", the pretty chestnut cob, and even to help in
his toilet. Diana loved horses, and used the curry-comb with enthusiasm,
talking to Baron in what she called "horse language"--a string of
endearing terms that on the whole he seemed to appreciate.
"I'd just adore to drive him!" she sometimes hinted; but Miss Ormrod
always ignored the hint, and, instead of offering her the reins, never
even invited her into the cart. Diana would stand watching wistfully
when Baron was harnessed, and the governess car would start out on a
pilgrimage to the town. She considered that a practical part of her
education was being obviously neglected.
"If we could each keep a pony and go for rides on the hills, it would be
ripping!" she sighed.
"Goody! What a circus we'd look!" said Vi, who did not take so kindly to
horsemanship, and preferred a car.
Early in November, Miss Todd, having some urgent business to transact,
went up to London for a few days, leaving Pendlemere in the hands of
Miss Beverley. The school jogged along without any mishaps during her
absence. She was expected home upon the Thursday. On Wednesday
afternoon, which was a holiday, Miss Chadwick, Miss Carr, Miss Ormrod,
and Miss Hampson mounted bicycles, and rode away with a party of seniors
to Glenbury. The juniors, by special invitation from Mrs. Fleming, went
to tea at the Vicarage. Two intermediates were in bed with a mild form
of "flu", and the remainder amused themselves as they liked best. Peggy
sat indoors, doing pen-painting; Vi brought stones for a rockery; Sadie
and Magsie played a set of tennis on the cinder court; Diana and Wendy,
who had asked to join the cycle party, and had in consequence received a
severe snub from Geraldine, wandered about the garden like unquiet
spirits.
"It's the limit to be an intermediate!" groused Wendy gloomily. "Seniors
and juniors get all the fun! Did you ever hear of _our_ form being taken
to do anything special while the others stopped at school? Of course you
didn't, because we never are! The seniors get first innings, and we only
have the crumbs that are left, and those juniors are treated like babies
though they're nearly as tall as we are. I'm fed up with it!"
"We'd better have a demonstration--parade the corridor with a placard:
'Fair play for Intermediates! Equal treats for all!'" suggested Diana,
who was always ready with ideas.
"Much good it would do us! We should only get sat upon by everybody.
Hullo! Here's Peggy wandering down. What's the matter with you, chucky?
You look disturbed."
"I hate coming out in a wind," said Peggy, holding her hands over her
rumpled hair. "I say, did you, or did you not see Miss Chadwick, Miss
Ormrod, _and_ Miss Carr bike off to Glenbury? Are they all three gone?"
"Of course they're gone!"
"You saw them with your own eyes?"
"Helped to blow up their tyres, which we thought was really saintly,
when we weren't asked to go with them," said the still injured Wendy.
"Well, it's a pretty go they're all off! Bunty's just had a telegram
from Toddlekins. She's coming back this afternoon, and wants the trap to
meet the four-thirty train."
"She should! She's in a precious hurry to leave her beloved London.
Whence this thusness?"
"I don't know. She's coming, at any rate," said Peggy, rather crossly.
"Bunty sent me to find out if everybody had really gone. Toddlekins will
have to get a taxi, that's all. Whew! I'm being blown to bits! I want to
get back to my pen-painting. I'm making a birthday present for my
cousin. Ta-ta!"
Diana stood watching Peggy's retreating figure as the latter raced up
the garden and into the house.
"Toddlekins will be rather savage not to be met," she commented.
"Yes; she's so keen on the trap, and the amount it saves in taxis and
carriers."
"It does seem rough on her, especially when she's sent a telegram. Look
here, old thing, let's take it to meet her ourselves!"
"What? You and me?"
"Why not? I can drive, and I know how to harness Baron. I have helped to
put him in the trap heaps of times. Bunty? Best not tell her anything
about it; she's always such a scared rabbit, and she'd only have fits!"
Wendy's eyes shone like stars.
"It _would_ be a stunt! Fancy driving in state to the station and
fetching Toddlekins! She'd be pleased to save a taxi."
"Bless her, she shall! We'll show her that her girls have some spirit
and self-reliance at a crisis. It's only making a practical
demonstration of our new agricultural course! What's the use of learning
if you can't apply it at the right moment? Run and fetch our coats and
hats and gloves, that's a cherub, while I go and tell Baron all about
it."
Wendy, much thrilled, and fired with the excellence of Diana's notion,
went indoors, and, taking elaborate precautions not to meet anybody,
secured outdoor garments worthy of the occasion. She rolled them in a
Union Jack for camouflage, and bore them off to the stable.
"I've brought 'bests'," she said. "Toddlekins wouldn't thank to be met
by two Cinderellas!"
Diana was standing with her arms thrown round Baron's neck, whispering
sweet nothings into his twitching ear. If he did not understand the
substance of her remarks, he realized the force of her affection, and
kept rubbing his nose against her shoulder in a sort of caress, very
gently catching her jersey with his lips and pulling it.
"I've told him, and he's delighted to go," declared Diana. "He's just
pining for a run. It's so dull for him standing here with no one to talk
to. It takes away his appetite. He'll enjoy his supper twice as much
when he comes back. Won't you, dear old man?"
"We mustn't be all day about starting. If you've finished making love to
him, let's get out the trap."
"Right you are!"
Diana was perfectly capable of accomplishing what she had undertaken.
She took down the harness, led Baron out into the yard, and proceeded to
put him into the shafts in quite a professional fashion. She looked over
all the straps, fetched the whip, donned the garments which Wendy had
brought, and proclaimed herself ready.
"We'll go out quietly by the back way," she chuckled. "Open the gate;
that's a mascot!"
There was nobody to say them nay, so in a few minutes they were trotting
briskly along the Glenbury Road. Diana was a capital little Jehu, and
held the reins with a practised hand. Baron, perfectly conscious of who
was driving him, behaved admirably. The girls felt their spirits at
high-water mark. They had certainly scored over the rest of the school,
and secured a superior jaunt to anybody. Moreover, it was a pleasant
afternoon to be out. The weather, which for some days had been damp, had
changed to windy. Long, dappled mare's-tail clouds stretched across the
pale November sky, and every now and then the sun shone out between
them. The glory of the autumn tints had been blown away, but the
infinitely intertwined, almost leafless boughs of the woodlands had a
beauty apart from foliage. Bushes covered with crimson masses of hips or
haws foretold a hard winter; birds twittered restlessly in the
hedgerows; and the withered leaves came whirling along the road with a
scurrying, rustling sound as of the little footsteps of innumerable
fairies. A seed-vessel of the sycamore, flying like a miniature
aeroplane, struck Diana full in the face. She picked it up as it fell on
her coat, and put it in her pocket.
"I shall keep it as my mascot," she said. "It was evidently meant for
me, so it will bring me luck. Do you believe in luck?"
"Very much, sometimes, but I don't often have any."
"We've got it to-day, though. Baron's going splendidly. I think the wind
excites him. You wouldn't believe he'd been out every day this week.
He's as fresh as a daisy. What's the time? I can't get to my watch."
"Quarter past four."
"Gee whiz! We must hurry ourselves. We've to be waiting at the station
by half-past. Baron, can you put on a spurt?"
They were bowling along a good macadam road and down hill, so that Baron
did not object to the extra strain put upon his legs. The spire of
Glenbury Church loomed ahead; in a few more minutes they began to see
the roofs of the houses. They crossed the bridge over the river, turned
the corner by the King's Arms Inn, and were trotting at a good pace
along Castle Street, when suddenly Wendy's side of the trap dipped down.
There was a horrible jarring and grinding, and horse and governess car
seemed to be trying to practise sliding. With great presence of mind,
and also strength of arm, Diana pulled Baron up.
"We've lost our wheel!" she gasped.
A crowd immediately collected round the little carriage, which stood
lop-sided in the gutter. One passer-by held the horse, another helped
Diana and Wendy out; a boy came running up with the wheel that had
danced across the street. People stood at shop doors and stared.
Sympathetic voices asked if the girls were hurt. Several connoisseurs
were feeling Baron's legs. In that most critical and agitating
situation, who should be seen riding up from the town but a group of ten
cyclists, led by Miss Chadwick, and displaying the familiar hatbands of
Pendlemere School. Diana and Wendy turned the colour of boiled beetroot.
The cyclists dismounted in a body, and Miss Chadwick, staggered at the
amazing spectacle of the wreck before her, took over instant possession.
She tilted her bicycle against a lamp-post, sent a boy for a blacksmith,
and began to unharness Baron. When he was clear of the shafts, and being
led away by a friendly ostler, she demanded explanations. Diana supplied
them briefly. Miss Chadwick looked at her keenly, but forbore to comment
before the crowd.
"Miss Ormrod and I will stay in town and come back with Miss Todd," she
said, with compressed lips. "You and Wendy can ride our bicycles. Miss
Carr, will you please go as quickly as you can to the station and
explain to Miss Todd what has happened. The train must be in by now. I
think, Miss Hampson, you'd better take the girls on."
It was ignominious to be thus dismissed, and to be forced to mount
machines and cycle back to school, instead of having the proud
distinction of driving the head mistress. Diana and Wendy felt their
feathers fall considerably, especially when they contemplated the fuller
explanations which must inevitably follow.
It was quite dark before Miss Todd arrived in the mended cart. She and
Miss Chadwick and Miss Ormrod had tea together in the drawing-room.
Later in the evening Diana and Wendy received orders to report
themselves in the study. They entered with sober faces. Outside, a band
of thrilled intermediates, who had listened with bated breath to the
account of the adventure, hung about and discussed possible punishments.
Miss Todd was not a mistress to be trifled with, and the trap was her
latest toy. It was nearly half an hour before the door opened, and two
very subdued and crushed specimens of girlhood issued, mopping their
eyes.
"She says Miss Chadwick knew the wheel wasn't safe, and had gone to get
a fresh pin for it," volunteered Wendy with a gulp. "But how could _we_
know that? She doesn't believe in practical demonstrations of our
lessons, or in self-reliance; she says we've just to do what we are
told. She got quite raggy when Diana mentioned it. We mayn't go near the
stable for a week, and we've each to learn ten pages of poetry by
heart."
"Ten pages! What an atrocious shame!" sympathized Vi. "It'll take all
your recreation time this week."
"I know it will, and I wanted to do some sewing."
"She never said _what_ poetry," put in Diana, her moist eyes suddenly
twinkling. "I'll learn something out of the _Comic Reciter_--the very
maddest and craziest one I can manage to find."