CATHALINA’S FIRST RECITATION
A terrible sound wakened Cathalina and she sprang out of bed.
“Brr-rr-rr-ting-a-ling-a-ting-ting-ting!” She found herself shaking
behind her bed and realized that the alarm clock, not far from Hilary’s
head, was the source of the racket.
“For pity’s sake!—Hilary!” cried Cathalina.
Hilary turned and threw her arms out over the spread.
“Hilary! Wake up! I don’t know how to stop the old thing!”
One eye opened. Hilary slowly sat up and looked in dazed fashion at
Cathalina who was back in bed, laughing with her fingers in her ears.
“Please stop it, Hilary.”
“It’s the intermittent kind,” said Hilary sleepily, and as if to prove
her words the noise stopped for a moment, only to resume operations with
renewed vigor. Hilary reached for the clock and turned off the alarm.
“And you never even wakened!”
A little later, two new fountain pens were busily scratching away at the
first letters home. This was Hilary’s:
Dearest Mother and Father:
Just a few lines before breakfast to tell you that I arrived
safe and sound and am pretty well settled. Miss Randolph has
put me in a lovely suite looking on the lake, with a sweet
roommate, too, (Gordon will groan at that pun, I
suppose),—Cathalina Van Buskirk, from New York. I suppose
she belongs to one of those old Dutch families. I heard her
mention “Aunt Knickerbocker” and Somebody Van Ness. I think
she is about my age, perhaps a little younger. She has blue
eyes, and light brown hair and is very pretty. You would
call her very much of a lady and I’m sure we shall get
along. She has never been to school before and dreads to
recite with the other girls.
My trip did not have any startling happenings. I felt so
fine in my new suit and with that elegant traveling bag
Father gave me, and I did enjoy the cooler air as we came
near the lake. It is perfectly great here! I wish you all
could come too. I shall write more later and may send a note
to Aunt Hilary today.
Recitations begin today. I will tell you about them and send
you my schedule, so you can pin it up, as you said, and know
what I am doing almost every hour.
Thank you all so much for everything. Give my love to June,
Gordon and Tommy, and hug my little Mary for her old Hilary!
Tell June that I’ll write her very soon. The breakfast
bells—gong—will ring in a minute, so goodbye for this time.
Your loving and grateful,
Hilary.
P. S. We met a lot of girls and roamed all over the place
yesterday. Miss Randolph is not what I imagined a
preceptress, or dean would be, tall, stately and commanding.
I rather guess she could be commanding, though. She is nice
to everybody now and has a beautiful voice and quite an
“air” about her, if she isn’t very tall.
H.
Cathalina’s letter ran thus:
My dear Mother:
As I told my roommate (Hilary Lancaster), last night, it
seems a week since Father said goodbye yesterday morning.
But I have not spent the time in tears as I know he was
afraid I would. Tell him that his military salute had the
effect. And really from the first I’ve been too busy to cry
or be very homesick. I unpacked and then the girls kept
coming from the trains, and Miss Randolph handed over to me
such a nice roommate, and there were so many things to do
and see that nobody could help getting interested. Hilary is
the daughter of a minister and so smart, can do anything, I
guess. I believe Miss Randolph did take pains to select my
roommate. She said “Hilary is a fine girl”. I am sure she
had never met her before, so how could she tell?
We have met ever so many girls of all sorts. Wait till I
have time to write you a decent letter and tell about the
Pink Kimono and the fudge, the fat little girl that I met by
the lake and the homesick one that thought I was an “old
girl” and wept on my shoulders. She little knew how much I
felt like joining with those that weep! I am still scared at
the thought of reciting with the rest tomorrow, but I’ll
hope for the best, as Ann Maria says when she hasn’t looked
at her lesson!
Don’t worry about me a moment. I remember those last dear
days at home (here Cathalina had to stop and swallow a lump
in her throat), and how you all tried to get me used to the
idea of coming away. I’ll do my best to grow strong and keep
busy, and I think now that it’s going to be “great fun”, as
Phil says. I feel better and sort of stirred up already.
There is the gong for breakfast and I’m actually hungry. We
got up early and looked up our school things. Love to you
all.
Your very loving daughter,
Cathalina.
When Cathalina’s letter was received it was eagerly opened. With what
relief did Mr. and Mrs. Van Buskirk catch the new note in Cathalina’s
message. Sylvia, to whom the house had been a lonely place without her
little girl, finally dissolved into tears and sobbed a little on
Philip’s shoulder; while he, who hated tears as men do, nevertheless
comforted her and let her have it out.
The busy pastor of Glenwood, with his wife, quite as eagerly read the
brief letter from their daughter, the first of their flock to leave home
for any length of time. And at family prayers that night a strong
petition went up for the “dear child among strangers and the sweet girl
with her” ... “Keep them, O Lord, and give Thy angels charge over them,
and may Thy truth be their shield and buckler!”
Meanwhile, the two girls, in their neat school dresses, made ready for
their first class. Hilary, capable and serious, took notebook and
pencil. Cathalina, who hardly knew how to prepare, followed her example.
“I’m a great hand,” said Hilary, “to jot everything down and then I know
just what to do.” They had consulted the schedule of hours and rooms the
night before and had made out their lists with the name of each teacher.
“Number seventeen, Randolph,” mused Cathalina, “for Latin, and number
fifteen for algebra. How shall I ever find out about everything. I envy
the old girls. They needn’t waste so much time asking questions and
wandering around.”
“O, we’ll be old girls next year,” said Hilary. “Let’s take the elevator
down. It’s on the side next Randolph and near the covered way.”
Cathalina soon found herself, with about twenty other girls, entering a
pleasant recitation room, at whose desk sat an intellectual looking
woman of early middle age.
“My, she looks awful,” thought Cathalina, and glanced at her schedule
again. “Prof. Emmeline Carver, M.A., Ph.D!”
In hushed silence the class sat waiting, most of them new, first year
girls, scared and awed. To everybody’s relief, Dr. Carver spoke
pleasantly, if a bit stiffly, gave the name of the text book and
directed the class to the front hall where a supply of the books was on
sale. With the assignment of a lesson and a few general remarks on the
importance of their Latin course, she then dismissed them.
As the girls escaped, for that seemed to be the general feeling, one of
them near Cathalina drew a long breath and said, “_Doctor_ Carver. I
don’t like her looks. I bet she carves _us_ up, all rightee. They say
what she doesn’t know about Latin and Greek and German isn’t worth
knowing, but O my! Let me get my book and get to work!”
“Nonsense!” thought Cathalina. “I don’t believe she is so bad. She looks
intelligent and interesting, as Mother would say. If she is too awful
I’ll talk it over with Miss Randolph. She wont let me be actually
slaughtered!” Cathalina almost giggled aloud at the application of Dr.
Carver’s name. “‘Old Carver,’ Diane called her this morning, and I
thought her so disrespectful and not at all refined. I wonder what
Hilary will think of her in Cicero.”
At the algebra class Cathalina met Professor Goodman and liked him at
once. He was a scholarly, kind-looking man, with a keen eye and a brisk
manner. With his family he lived at Greycliff Heights.
“No real recitations today,” reported Cathalina to Hilary.
“Same here. Pretty nice place so far, isn’t it?”
Cathalina laughed. “Yes, but I feel the sword hanging over me.”
“Nonsense! Honestly you won’t mind it.”
With such speeches from Hilary, Cathalina kept up her courage until the
hour arrived and she walked in to the class in beginning Latin, feeling
much as the old martyrs must have felt when they were led to the stake.
Both girls had put every spare minute on their lessons, bravely refusing
all invitations to visit lake or campus, or to explore the many as yet
unknown delights of Greycliff. Experienced Hilary had said, “There’s a
good deal in the way you begin, whether it’s a game or a lesson.” So
Cathalina puzzled over the rather uninteresting introductions of her
text books. Latin promised well, since she had already studied other
tongues than English, but she had a terrible time committing the rules
of quantity. Algebra, as she told Hilary, looked like a Chinese puzzle.
“Thank fortune, the V’s are toward the end of the alphabet!” she
thought, as she was assigned a seat in the back row. “I won’t have the
rest of the class staring at me when I recite.”
“Miss Van Buskirk, you may explain what we mean by quantity in Latin and
give the rules.” Miss Carver looked up from the roll from which she was
calling upon the as yet unknown quantities of her class.
Cathalina was frightened, but rose mechanically, and to her own
amazement, her mind cleared, she met calmly the fierce glare of Miss
Carver’s spectacles and words began to come.
“Louder, please, this is not a drawing room conversation,” came the
sarcastic tones as Dr. Carver’s lips curved into an unpleasant smile.
Cathalina’s voice rose, and her repressed ire gave her just enough
self-possession to sail through the rules without a break, after which
she sat down, quivering but triumphant.
“You are not through, Miss Van Buskirk. That was a good exhibition of
memory, but have you any idea of the meaning of the rules?”
Cathalina rose again. “I was hoping that you would explain,” she said
meekly. “I understand a little.”
That was a better shot than Cathalina knew, for Dr. Carver was not
particularly clear or helpful in explanation, but wonderfully pompous in
making demands upon the class. By the time the class was dismissed its
members were in various stages of nervous prostration, as one of the
girls told it, but strange to say, Cathalina’s fear was gone.
When Hilary came into the suite before lunch, Cathalina was curled up on
the bed working on algebra. “How did Cicero go?” she asked demurely.
“My! the dear doctor slaughtered ’em right and left. She’s a new
variety, as the vegetable catalogues say. There’ll be great fun. I see
you’re still alive.”
“Fun! I don’t like to be made angry. It keeps me from learning. I wish
there were another class to somebody else! My other teachers are
fine,—human!”
“Isn’t it funny that Miss Randolph has anybody like that? It’s hard
enough to be a lady anyhow, without an example like that in the school
room!”
“If the girls were disrespectful or anything there’d be some excuse. I
never _heard_ anybody talk like that.”
“Rap-rap-rap.”
“Come in,” called Hilary, running out to the sitting-room door. Half a
dozen girls came in.
“Welcome, merry sunshine!” said Hilary with her best bow. “You look like
a church committee. What does this mean?”
“Council of war,” answered Eloise, her eyes flashing. “Do you want to
join?”
“Mercy!” said Cathalina appearing in the door. “What side are you on,
Germany or the Allies?”
“No need to ask, under this flag,” and Eloise struck an attitude,
pointing to Old Glory floating from the flag pole on the front of the
campus. “But whatever we are we are on the war path! Little children are
safe, however, so don’t worry.” (These were the days of the first shocks
and surprises of the World War.)
“How are you getting along, Cathalina,” asked Lilian, who knew how
Cathalina felt about going to recitation.
“Fine,” answered Cathalina. “After my first recitation, which I came
through whole, in spite of Dr. Carver, I haven’t minded anything.”
“That is right to the point,” said Grace. “It has occurred to us that we
might do something to improve her state of mind a little, as it were.”
“Humph!” Diane exclaimed. “I’m clear mad through and through! Just her
air is enough, before she gets off any of that brilliant sarcasm! I
declare war here and now!”
Hilary looked distressed. “I’m afraid it isn’t right, girls, to feel
that way, though I will admit she’s the worst I ever saw. What _is_ the
matter? Has she been here long?”
“No indeed! This is her first year and I hope her last. You ought to
have heard her in Virgil today. What did you think of the way she talked
to me, Eloise?”
“I was mad for you; I just wanted to go right up and slap that woman!”
“Look out, Eloise, your eyes will light the gas!”
Eloise laughed but kept on. “Diane had a good lesson. All of us had been
working our heads off. Any Latin is bad enough, but poetry! You couldn’t
find a subject _to_ some of the sentences, you know. Well, I guess Dr.
Carver wanted to show off how much she knew instead of helping us, so
she picked out something—I’ve forgotten what it was,—and made so much to
do about it, and ridiculed Diane and told her it was a pity she hadn’t
learned that in first year Latin, as if we can remember every old gender
or form!”
“I know I’m going to like Latin,” said Cathalina, “but how I’m going to
like _her_ even a little bit is more than I can see. But I suppose you
don’t absolutely have to like all your teachers, do you?”
“It makes it much nicer,” said Hilary, “and I suppose teachers do have a
hard life!” The girls laughed at Hilary’s serious tone.
“Never mind, Hilary,—you’re a preacher’s daughter, so we won’t ask you
to do anything. We aren’t going to do much ourselves, only stir her up a
little and have some fun. Promise, now, girls, that you won’t tell, or
be surprised at anything, or give anybody a hint?”
“Never!” promised both Hilary and Cathalina, smiling broadly.
“Then watch and wait for developments!” and the six girls filed out.
“What do you suppose they’ll do, Hilary?” Cathalina looked excited and
interested.
“Haven’t the least idea. Maybe it will all fall through. Girls are like
that sometimes.”
“Not these girls. They have been here, you know, and can think of
things. Ann Maria is like that, into all the fun going on.”
“Who is Ann Maria,—cute name.”
“She is my cousin, about my brother’s age and has been to boarding
school for several years, in the East. You ought to hear her and my
brother tell about their schools! Well, we shall see—”
“What we shall see!” finished Hilary.