THE GIRLS OF RIVERCLIFF SCHOOL
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
_By_ AMY BELL MARLOWE
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Price per volume, 60 cents, postpaid
THE OLDEST OF FOUR
Or Natalie’s Way Out
THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM
Or the Secret of the Rocks
A LITTLE MISS NOBODY
Or With the Girls of Pinewood Hall
THE GIRL FROM SUNSET RANCH
Or Alone in a Great City
WYN’S CAMPING DAYS
Or The Outing of Go-Ahead Club
FRANCES OF THE RANGES
Or The Old Ranchman’s Treasure
THE GIRLS OF RIVERCLIFF SCHOOL
Or Beth Baldwin’s Resolve
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
[Illustration: MABEL POURED FROM A WASTE-BASKET A VERITABLE SHOWER OF
SMALL PARCELS]
[Illustration: “SHAME! SHAME!” CRIED A DOZEN VOICES.
Frontispiece (Page 150)]
THE GIRLS OF
RIVERCLIFF
SCHOOL
OR
BETH BALDWIN’S RESOLVE
BY
AMY BELL MARLOWE
AUTHOR OF
A LITTLE MISS NOBODY, THE GIRLS OF
HILLCREST FARM, ETC.
Illustrated
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
_The Girls of Rivercliff School_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. “THE GRAPES THAT HANG HIGH” 1
II. LARRY’S “COMING OUT” PARTY 11
III. GREAT-GRANDMOTHER LOMIS’ CORALS 23
IV. THE SACRIFICE 32
V. THE “WATER WAGTAIL” 40
VI. AN ADVENTURE IN MIDSTREAM 48
VII. CYNTHIA FOGG 61
VIII. QUEER TALK 68
IX. RIVERCLIFF LANDING 74
X. A NEW WORLD 91
XI. “THE GLASS OF FASHION” 102
XII. FINDING HER PLACE 111
XIII. THE SUNNY SIDE 123
XIV. A GREAT DEAL TO LEARN 133
XV. THE RED MASQUE 142
XVI. NO MARTYR’S CROWN 152
XVII. FLINT AND STEEL 162
XVIII. ANOTHER BARRIER 171
XIX. MR. DENNIS MONTAGUE 181
XX. SOMETHING UNEXPECTED 191
XXI. THE BURIAL OF FRIENDSHIP 204
XXII. A RENEWED RESOLVE 211
XXIII. SUSPICION HOVERS 225
XXIV. THE TRAITOR’S BLOW 235
XXV. BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT 242
XXVI. ROUNDING OUT ANOTHER YEAR 249
XXVII. THE ICE CARNIVAL 258
XXVIII. MISS FREYLINGHAUSEN 274
XXIX. THE “PERFECT NUMBER” IN AUNTS 283
XXX. VOCATIONAL 301
THE GIRLS OF RIVERCLIFF SCHOOL
CHAPTER I
“THE GRAPES THAT HANG HIGH”
“Beth! Beth Baldwin! Oh, B. B.! Do, for pity’s sake, stop! Do you
expect me to chase you all over town such a hot day as this? It’s
cruelty to animals to make me run in this awful sun,” and Mary Devine
finally reached Elizabeth Baldwin’s side, and clung to her school
friend’s arm, panting.
“Cruelty to how many animals, Mary?” asked Beth, laughing. “Are you
a whole menagerie? You remind me of our Marcus when he was a little
fellow. There was a ‘cat concert’ in our back yard one night, and
Marcus put his head out of the door to see the participants.
“‘Oh, Mamma!’ he called, ‘there’s a million cats out here,’ and when
mamma reproved him for exaggerating, he defended himself by saying:
‘Well, anyway, there’s our old cat and another one!’”
Mary had regained her breath now, and giggled over Beth’s little
story, but was not to be sidetracked. She had something to tell. News
was Mary Devine’s over-mastering passion. To know what went on all
over Hudsonvale, and to distribute her information generously, “free,
gratis, for nothing,” was the height of her enjoyment.
Mr. Baldwin said one evening, after Mary had been calling on Beth:
“They did think some of starting a local paper here in Hudsonvale; but
they heard of that Devine girl and gave it up. No need of a newspaper
with her in town.”
Now Mary gasped to her friend:
“Oh, Beth! I’ve got something to tell you. You’d never guess!”
“That’s good of you, dear,” Beth said, her black eyes dancing. “I hate
conundrums. Tell me.”
“Larry Haven has hired an office in the Hudsonvale block.”
“Why, Mary! that certainly is news,” Beth cried. “I never would have
guessed that. Has he hung out his shingle?”
“He’s going to,” declared Mary, who knew all about it, for her father
was janitor of Hudsonvale’s one brick office building. “He’s taken the
room next to Dr. Coldfoot’s, the dentist’s, suite. Larry told father
that the screams of the dentist’s patients would not bother him, for he
expected his clients would scream quite as loud when he separated them
from their money,” and Mary giggled again. “And oh, Beth! he’s just as
handsome!”
“Who is--Dr. Coldfoot?” asked her friend, innocently.
“Goodness no! You are well aware, Beth Baldwin, that I meant the
village pride, Mr. Lawrence Haven, just returned from the law school
with his sheepskin.”
Beth laughed again. “I do hope he’ll be successful,” she said. “His
father was a prominent lawyer, you know.”
“Goodness! _I_ hope he can dance,” responded Mary. “There’s a great
dearth of good dancers among the boys here in Hudsonvale. You know,
Beth, at graduation last month we girls had to dance together at our
party. Oh dear! I wish we were going to have it over again! What fun!”
“Larry Haven is no longer a boy,” Beth said slowly.
Mary laughed. “Of course not. He’s an old man,” she said saucily. “He’s
twenty-two.”
“That is seven years our senior,” said Beth, reflectively.
“_Six_, in my case, if you please,” said Mary, smartly. “And what’s six
years in a boy? He could be a lawyer forty times over and _I_ wouldn’t
be afraid of him.”
“You have more assurance than most, Mary,” said Beth, smiling. “I don’t
know that I shall dare even speak to Larry now.”
“Humph! you and he used to be as ‘sticky’ on each other as two molasses
cocoanut balls--you know you used. He was the white-headed little boy
who used to pull you to school on his sled,” said Mary, airily.
“But that was a long time ago,” said Beth, with laughter. “I haven’t
seen Larry since last winter’s holidays--and then scarcely more than to
wave my hand to him. He’s grown quite away from us Hudsonvale girls and
boys since his sophomore year at college.”
“My! how he _did_ puff himself and walk turkey his first two years at
college,” said the slangy Mary. “The only boy from Hudsonvale who ever
went to a real, big school, I guess.”
“But Larry wasn’t spoiled,” Beth hastened to say. “He’s so
sweet-tempered.”
“Oh! _you_ know how sweet he is if anybody does,” chuckled Mary. “Well!
I must turn off here. Where are you going, Beth?”
“Just across town on an errand,” her friend said evasively; for it was
the gossipy girl’s nature to repeat to the next person she talked with
anything she had learned from her previous companion, no matter how
trivial.
“Not that I would mind if the whole town knew I was going to old Mrs.
Crummit’s for a dozen fresh eggs,” thought Beth, with inward laughter.
“But I _do_ wish Mary Devine was not such a ‘Babbling Bess.’”
The girl’s mind, however, was filled with thoughts springing from
the bit of news her school friend had told her. She and Mary had but
recently graduated from the high school. And Larry Haven, the only son
of the widowed Mrs. Euphemia Haven, had recently returned to his home
with his diploma as a lawyer. Beth knew he had already been admitted to
the county bar.
Beth’s mother and Euphemia Griswold had been bosom friends in girlhood.
At first, after Euphemia Griswold had married Mr. Haven, the leading
lawyer of the county and a scion of one of the oldest, if not one of
the wealthiest, families in the State, she and Priscilla Baldwin, who
had married a foreman in the Locomotive Works, remained very good
friends.
The Haven baby carriage was often pushed along the pleasantly shaded
walks of Hudsonvale side by side with the more plebian carriage
containing the Baldwins’ first little one, who later had died. The two
young women remained inseparable friends for some years.
Then had come the death of her first child, and for a long period of
time after this Mrs. Baldwin mingled but little with her friends. This
was followed by a long illness. But, after a few years, Beth, now the
oldest of her brood, came to give the foreman’s wife a new and better
interest in life.
Meanwhile, her old-time chum had grown away from her. Mr. Haven had
become a corporation lawyer and was fast growing rich. He and his
family had always had entrance into the most exclusive society of the
State. Had he not died suddenly when Larry was ten years old, he might
have been a national figure in politics.
In dying, he had left Mrs. Euphemia Haven and her only child fairly
well-to-do. The property had to be conserved with some shrewdness,
perhaps; but the widow lived in one of the finest old houses in
Hudsonvale, entertained well, and seemed to have everything her heart
desired. Larry was given an excellent education; and it was understood
that he was to follow in his father’s footsteps, for he must earn his
own living now that he was of age, his mother having full rights in the
property as long as she lived.
Mrs. Haven was not a snob. Although now the acknowledged leader of
such society as there was in Hudsonvale (which was really a sprawling
river-town surrounding the Locomotive Works and coal-tar Dye Factory),
she had often come to see her old friend, Mrs. Baldwin, while Larry
was still small. So it was that the soft-spoken, gentle boy, with the
watchful gray eyes and firm mouth, came to be a companion of Beth
Baldwin’s while she was little.
He took her to school on her first day; and sat beside her and held
her plump little hand for an hour, too, because she was afraid. He had
drawn Beth to school on his sled, as Mary Devine said. Larry was as
much at home in the Baldwin house when a child as he was in his own.
Perhaps more at home, for there was more gaiety in the little cottage
on Bemis Street, which soon began to be crowded with young life after
Beth was born.
There was Marcus, two years Beth’s junior; Ella, now a flyaway child of
eleven; Prissy--named after her mother--as sweet and loving as a child
could be; and Fred and Ferd, the twins, six years old. They had all
looked on Larry Haven as almost an elder brother.
For two years, however, as Beth had intimated to Mary Devine, Larry had
not been much at the Baldwin home. Indeed, he had been in Hudsonvale
but seldom. His summers had been spent in preparing for the law school,
for he was very desirous to get ahead. His exceeding industry had
brought results. He was a very young man, indeed, to have succeeded in
securing his diploma and entering upon public life as he now had.
As Beth Baldwin went her way, these thoughts weaved through her mind.
And, too, she compared her own lot to that of her whilom playmate
and confidant. When Beth learned that Larry was to go to college and
finally enter the law school, she had expressed her intention of
getting the maximum amount of education to be secured by a girl--and
Larry had encouraged her to try for it.
Beth had stood well in her classes all through her high-school course.
She had graduated among the first ten pupils in the class. She
possessed a deep longing to continue her course. But----
“There’s about as much chance of my going to Rivercliff as there is of
my getting an aeroplane and soaring in it to the Heights of Parnassus,”
Beth told herself, with a little laugh and a little sigh. She was not
of a melancholy disposition, and even the seriousness of her desire to
learn and to achieve, in her way, as much as Larry had achieved in his,
could not make her gloomy.
Mr. Baldwin earned three dollars and seventy-five cents a day as
foreman of the erecting shop in the Hudsonvale Locomotive Works. The
family had often “figured and refigured” that sum; but they could not
make it come to more than twenty-two dollars and fifty cents a week.
Marcus, although but thirteen, was already talking bravely about going
to work. In another half year he could get his certificate and become
an aid in the family’s support.
“While I,” thought Beth, shaking her head, “am desirous of adding to
its burdens for three years to come. But then--if I only _could_--I
know I could pay them all back,” she sighed.
It was Beth’s desire to take a normal and teacher’s course in a very
thorough boarding school up the river. Having a diploma from Rivercliff
would enable her to obtain a certificate to teach in the State schools.
That was her aim--to be self-supporting, as well as to obtain an
education the equal of that Larry Haven had secured.
She had surreptitiously dipped into Larry’s college textbooks when he
was at home during his freshman and sophomore years, and she was sure
that such studies were not beyond her comprehension.
“Dear me,” thought Beth, “the grapes that hang highest are always the
sweetest. How am I ever going to get admission to Rivercliff School;
or, once admitted, how am I to remain there the necessary three years?
Dear me! if Larry----”
Just then she looked up before crossing the street and gazed directly
into the calm, rather proud face of Larry’s mother who, in her little
electric runabout, was just drawing in to the opposite curb.
Mrs. Euphemia Haven was tall, of good figure, with beautiful hair,
beginning to be touched with gray, that her maid dressed more
becomingly than was any other woman’s hair in Hudsonvale. She had a
good complexion, with a tinge of natural pink in the cheeks and lips.
Her teeth were even and white, without the defects of gold showing the
handiwork of the dentist. She dressed exquisitely, Beth thought.
Mrs. Haven drove her runabout with the assurance of a boy. She had
steady nerves, a cordial laugh, a smile that was charming, and knew
always how to put one at his ease. She beckoned now to Beth as the
latter crossed the street, crying:
“Elizabeth! Beth! Come here, please! You are just the person I must
see.”