FANNY
Sundays, that is to say, Boarding School Sundays, are apt to be longer
than any of the other days in the week.
Certainly it was so of Seddon Hall. Mrs. Baird thought the girls needed
"time off to think," as she expressed it, so that, after the morning
service in the little village church, the rest of the day was free.
It had always proved a good idea, for after a week spent in obedience to
bells, a whole day to do as you please in, has an exhilarating effect.
But this particular first Sunday looked as if it were going to disprove
the efficiency of the plan.
It was the day after the Welcome Dance to the new girls, and it was
raining. Not a nice, heavy pouring rain, but a dreary persistent
drizzle. The girls wandered aimlessly about the corridors in the most
woe-begone fashion, for there was no chance of getting out of doors for
a walk.
The dance the night before had proved a great success. Instead of each
old girl taking a new girl, as had formerly been the custom, Polly's
versatile brain had decided on a far better plan.
The new girls arrived in a body in Assembly Hall and were received by
their class and formally introduced to one another. Then a daisy chain
started and was so arranged that before it was over, every one had met
and spoken to every one else in the school. By the time the refreshments
arrived, all the girls were in a gale and not a tear was shed.
Sunday, however, was a different matter. Everybody felt damp and cold in
church, and the sermon had been very long. Even Betty was out of sorts.
"Do you know," she said, crossly--she and Angela were in Polly's and
Lois' room the early part of the afternoon. "I'm tired of us. We are all
so afraid of letting anybody else into our select company that we are
growing positively stuck up. Deny it, if you can," she persisted, as
Polly looked up in surprise. "Here we sit like graven images, when we
ought to be in Assembly Hall. Come on."
"Oh, Bet, you're so energetic," Angela drawled, "and we're so comfy."
"Assembly Hall won't be any fun," Polly protested. "I'm crazy to do
something too, but--"
"Let's go get Fanny," Lois suggested. "She's bound to make us laugh. I
was talking to her before church this morning. She was fussing about
having to carry so many subjects; when she got to geometry she waxed
eloquent. 'I declare there's no use my wasting my time on arithmetic,'
she said, and when I told her there was a slight difference between the
two, she wouldn't have it. 'It's all the same thing; maybe one's a tiny
bit more elaborate than the other, but what's the use of proving all
those angles equal. I don't reckon I'll ever be a carpenter; so there's
just no sense in it.' I had to laugh at her," Lois finished.
"Oh, Fanny's rare," Betty agreed. "Let's go see if she's in her room
instead of asking her down here. I'm tired of Senior Alley."
Polly and Lois agreed with alacrity, but Angela insisted she had letters
to write and they left her knowing quite well there would be no jam left
when they returned.
Fanny was in her room, but instead of opening the door to Polly's knock,
she called out:
"Who all's there?"
"We are," Lois answered for them. "May we come in?"
The annoyed tone vanished from Fanny's voice.
"Oh, you all," she called; "come in, of course;"--and as they
entered--"I thought maybe it was some of those impertinent young
Freshmen coming to give me advice, and I just couldn't be bothered with
them. That's why I didn't sound too cordial."
She was sitting on the floor in the middle of her room, surrounded by
letters and bands of every color ribbon.
"I hope we're not disturbing you?" Polly said, rather taken aback at the
sight of her. She couldn't quite understand all the letters, but she had
her suspicions.
Betty found a place to sit, or rather perch, on the bed.
"Playing postoffice?" she asked with a grin.
But Fanny refused to be teased. She continued to sort out her letters,
while she explained their presence.
"You see," she began dreamily, "these here notes are all from my boy
friends; some of them are three years old."
"The friends?" queried Lois.
"No, stupid, the letters," Betty said hastily in an aside. "Yes, go on,"
she encouraged Fanny.
"And every now and then I like to read them over; some of them are
awfully sweet, especially Jack's."
"Who's Jack?" her listeners demanded in chorus.
"Oh, Jack's my favorite admirer," she admitted, rather than stated.
"He's crazy about me, or so he says. I reckon I'll just have to marry
him one of these days. He's so handsome--" She paused, a sentimental
smile of remembrance wreathing her face.
"How thrilling! do tell us," Betty begged. She was gurgling with joy
inside, and like Polly and Lois, she was highly amused. They were all
laughing at Fanny, rather than with her, which was unkind and
inexcusable, as they had encouraged the recital, but her sentimental
attitude was beyond their understanding.
Boys figured largely in all their thoughts, it's true, but in a totally
different way. Polly, for instance, quite frankly admired Bob Farwell.
She endowed him with every virtue. He was tremendously clever. He was
the most wonderful athlete, and he loved dogs--especially Polly's
dogs--in fact he was altogether perfect in her eyes--but she couldn't
imagine tying up his letters in baby blue ribbons and keeping them in
her top drawer.
And Lois, who was quite extravagantly fond of Frank Preston, would have
repudiated and emphatically denied any suggestion of his being a suitor.
As for Betty--the idea of liking a boy just because he was handsome, was
too foolish to even consider. The fact that Dick Saxon--supposedly her
arch enemy, but really her best friend--had flaming red hair and was
undeniably homely--may, of course, had something to do with her disgust
for good looks. Like lots of other girls, The Three judged boys by their
ability to do; while the road to Fanny's heart was by way of graceful
and charming compliments.
"You were saying--" Polly interrupted Fanny's dream.
"Why, let me see--about Jack? He's really stunning in his uniform--he
goes to military school--I have a lot of buttons off his coat."
At this point, Lois, much to the disgust of Polly and Betty, instead of
waiting for more of Jack, inquired:
"Why have you all these colored ribbons to tie up your letters? I
thought all love letters had to be tied in blue?"
Fanny picked up the various bands, looked at them while she went over
in her mind whether or not she would tell them her special system. It
was a clever idea, so she decided she would.
"Blue is for love letters," she told Lois, "because blue is true. I tie
all Jack's letters in blue. Yellow means fickle--" She paused. "Well,
there is a boy," she proceeded reluctantly, "down home, who used to like
me until he met a cousin of mine, and she just naturally cut me out; so
I tie his letters with yellow ribbon. This here green," she took up two
letters tied with a narrow piece of baby ribbon, "is for hope."
"Hope?" Lois stifled a laugh. "Do you mean you hope for more?"
Fanny had heard the giggle and looked up in surprise. A little hurt look
stole across her face.
"I reckon you all think I'm silly," she said, slowly, "but you see, down
home, there's not much to do between holidays, when the boys come,
except write letters and wait for mail, and all the girls I--"
She stopped; a big lump rose in her throat, and her eyes filled with
tears.
The Three felt properly ashamed of themselves. Polly finally broke the
embarrassed silence.
"We don't think you're silly at all," she fibbed consolingly. "If you
want to keep your letters, why shouldn't you tie them up in appropriate
colored ribbons?"
"But you wouldn't keep yours," Fanny replied with more insight than they
had given her credit for.
"Well, no; I wouldn't, that is, I don't," Polly answered, lamely. And
Betty seized the first opportunity to change the subject.
"What did you say about the Freshmen bothering?" she asked, when Fanny
was in smiles again.
"They most certainly did, two of them, Jane and Phylis. They came in and
wanted to know if I was homesick." Fanny looked indignant. "I told them
no. Then they looked at all the pictures on my bureau, and Jane, the
sassy little thing, told me if I wanted to get along at Seddon Hall, I'd
have to stop being boy crazy. I just told them to go on about their
business, right quick, and they went," she finished triumphantly.
"Jemima! the little--" Betty stopped from sheer astonishment. Polly and
Lois exchanged understanding glances.
The next day all the girls assembled in the gym, a round building about
a hundred feet from the school. A basket ball court took up most of the
floor space. A balcony for spectators ran around three sides of the
room. Every possible device hung from the ceiling, rings, ladders,
trapezes and horizontal bars, but for the most part, these were dusty
and disused.
Seddon Hall centered all its faculty on basket ball. Twice a year, in
February and June, the team played outside schools and almost always
came out victorious.
To-day, because it was raining still, most of the girls entered for the
first try out. The Seniors sat in the balcony and watched, while every
girl had a chance to pass the basket ball and try for a basket.
"Not a very likely crowd," Polly mused, "hardly a decent play."
"It's too early to tell, in all this mob," Lois answered.
"I'm dizzy watching them. I see that little imp of a Jane with Phylis
Guile over in the corner. Let's go and thank them for the flowers?" she
suggested.
Polly groaned--"All right, come on; you know we've got to put our
foot--I mean feet down now hard, and I suppose we should talk to them
about being so rude to Fanny. What do you suppose they really said?"
Jane and Phylis were sitting in front of the lockers. They saw the two
Seniors coming towards them, but, because they were very much
embarrassed, they pretended they didn't.
Lois started the conversation, rather abruptly. She was afraid to let
Polly say much. Polly was a little bit too frank in her opinion, and
Lois dreaded hurt feelings above all things.
"We found your flowers in our room Saturday night," she said, smiling.
"They were very pretty, and we want to thank you for them."
"But you mustn't send any more," Polly put in, quite gently for her. "We
really appreciate the thought, but-- Well, you both know how easy it is
for all the rest of the girls to cry-- Crush-- Crush."
"Oh, but we didn't, haven't," Jane and Phylis blurted out, "really,
Polly."
"Of course you haven't a crush," Lois said, soothingly. "We know that
you don't believe in them, or you would never have lectured Fanny so
about sentimentality, yesterday."
Polly gasped; was Lois really sarcastic--personally--she preferred the
direct attack.
"You know," she began firmly, "you had no right to talk that way to a
Junior--it was disrespectful, and Fanny had a right to be angry."
Jane and Phylis hung their heads.
"I know it; we didn't really mean to be fresh," Jane said,
apologetically. "We just thought maybe Fanny was homesick, and we'd
cheer her up."
"We were going in to advise her who to vote for as captain, really,"
Phylis took up the tale, "but she wouldn't give us a chance. After we
hinted that she shouldn't be boy crazy she sent us out. It doesn't
really matter; she'll vote for you--" Phylis stopped. Tears of
mortification came to her eyes. "Anyway," she finished, hastily, "we
won't send you any more flowers, if you don't want us to, and, honestly,
we won't have a crush."
Polly laughed good naturedly and put her arm around Phylis' shoulder.
"That's all right; we don't want you to; but, I'll tell you something.
If you would really like to do something we would like--learn to play a
good game of basket ball. You might be needed some day."
"Poll, what made you hold out hopes to those children?" Lois asked
later, as they waited for their tubs to fill. They had played basket
ball with some of the old girls after they had left Jane and Phylis.
"Because I thought they needed something to think about besides hurt
feelings; I don't think they'll get their hopes up for the team."
"Well, you may have been right," Lois agreed slowly. "Anyway our little
lecture did them good. Fanny stopped me after practice and told me they
had apologized."
Polly said: "Oh, did they?" indifferently, and went to her tub to turn
off the water.
Her head was in a whirl, and, suddenly, tempting hopes ran riot. She
stood looking at the water a minute and shivered in anticipation of the
plunge.
"Captain of the basket ball team," she whispered. "I wonder--"